By Nick Perkins, ProWrestling.net Staffer (@WesternRebel)
Hello friends, neighbors, readers and ex-girlfriends who refuse to return my calls but still stalk my social media. My name is Nick Perkins and I am your flag-bearer, your Paul Bearer, your Ring Bearer in the world of professional wrestling. Take my hand and follow me as I lead you through the week that was. We’re delving into the highs, lows, mediums and ‘mehs’ of pro wrestling and there is nowhere I would rather be than right here, right now, with you.
Whether you’re an old fan, a new fan, or you land somewhere in the middle and just hate-watch these shows out of habit, I am proud to be the bearer of good news, bad news, and the downright ugly news from WWE, AEW, ROH, Impact, and more. With that being said, let’s step through the ropes and into the proverbial ring, as ProWrestling.net presents Ring Bearer: Exploring the Week that Was in Professional Wrestling.
-Of course, the biggest news coming from this week is the fact that AEW is going ‘All Out’ with their next pay-per-view. This will be their second (technically third) big show and if it’s anything like the previous two, it promises to deliver awe-inspiring, classic matches…with little to no backstory.
Yes, I realize that the AEW boys tell the majority of their stories via their YouTube shows. This is, actually, a pretty remarkable way to move stories forward without actual TV time. It’s just that, aside from maybe the top two matches (used to be top three, til Jon Moxley had to bow out due to injury), none of the matches on the card have much of a story to invest in.
That being said, I fully expect All Out to be a kick-ass show, one that will undoubtedly blow anything WWE has offered lately out of the water. The time for change really is now and I, for one, am excited to be a wrestling fan again.
-I recently moved to the New York area, so I will be attending my first-ever ‘Watch Party’ at Jack Dempsey’s Restaurant & Pub in New York. It’s being put on by ‘I Like Wrestling,’ which is good. It’d be weird to put on a watch party if you didn’t like wrestling. I like wrestling too and I will be there for most of the NXT UK Show and all of ‘All Out,’ providing my thoughts on the show, as well as highlights of the watch party itself. Ron Simmons is scheduled to be there and Little Boy Nick, who always wanted to drink a beer (or, more likely, several beers) with the APA, is planning on doing just that tomorrow night.
-Oh, yes! NXT UK Takeover: Cardiff. I’d like to comment on the show but, full disclosure, I haven’t watched a single episode of it since its inception. It’s not that I don’t think the brand lacks talent. There’s just so friggin’ much wrestling to watch during the week, NXT UK has been relegated to the very bottom of the list. But before Haydn Gleed or any of our British readers cry afoul, I also don’t watch, ahem: 205 Live, WWE Main Event, Superstars, Shotgun Saturday Night, Sunday Night Heat or WCW Worldwide. So don’t @ me. Actually, do. My Twitter follower count is laughably small. So please. Please @ me. @WesternRebel.
I do know that Walter will be taking on Tyler Bate and I do fully intend on watching that proverbial David vs Goliath match.
-What’s getting harder and harder to watch is Raw and/or Smackdown. It seems like each week, the shows get more and more boring. It’s not even that they’re that bad (they are). They’re just boring. Sure, we have good matches like Ali vs Buddy Murphy, Ricochet vs Drew McIntyre and Chad Gable vs Shelton Benjamin. But in order to get to those, we have to watch Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode team up for no reason (other then, ahem, creative having nothing for them), Roman Reigns looking like the world’s biggest dumbass, The Miz doing whatever The Miz does, and Baron Corbin.
Ohhhh Baron Corbin. The bane of my existence. I cannot understate how much I loath Baron Corbin.
I don’t like him as a person (from what little I know/saw from him during the Network show Breaking Ground). I don’t like him as a character. I don’t even acknowledge him as a wrestler. I’ve actually started a little bet with myself to see how many times I can skip entire Baron Corbin segments on a show and not feel like I missed anything important. I’m winning the bet.
If he becomes King of the Ring, I am going to burn my 1993 VHS copy of King of the Ring, simply out of spite.
Mable was a f—ing better king than Baron Corbin would be. Mable.
Whew, that was a tangent. In other news, nothing else really happened on Raw or Smackdown.
Kofi Kingston is stupid.
That’s it – that’s the story.
-In addition to ‘All Out” and NXT UK Takeover, New Japan Pro Wrestling is also presenting a pay-per-view this weekend, because evidently these companies don’t think fans have anything else better to do on a Saturday then sit around and watch hours upon hours of wrestling.
But yeah, I’ll be watching all of them.
Kazuchika Okada vs. Minoru Suzuki for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship will be a hell of a match. In fact, there are bound to be at least 5-7 matches this weekend that one might consider to be matches of the year.
-Finally, Raw and Smackdown are both running Madison Square Garden in a couple weeks. Though it has always been my dream to attend a wrestling show at MSG, I really wasn’t planning on going to these shows, just based on the quality of shows previous. Then, WWE announced that Steve Austin would be appearing on Raw and The Undertaker would be appearing on Smackdown, and I finally resigned myself to buy a couple tickets. Who knows how many more times we’ll be able to hear those iconic theme songs (unless, of course, we live in Saudi Arabia).
But isn’t that a problem? I was willing to shell out a pretty penny to see these two legends, but I was pretty apathetic about seeing people like Seth Rollins, Daniel Bryan, Kevin Owens, Becky Lynch, and more. Just based on their name alone, I should have wanted to see them in action. But WWE has effectively sucked the enjoyment out of watching any of these guys perform.
I’m not trying to sound negative in this article, but it’s not me; it’s them. I think it’s time to start seeing other people.
-That’s it for this week, friends. Thanks for reading and please feel free to give your opinions below. Just like, be smart about it. Don’t be a troll. This is a safe space. Any offensive comment will either be deleted or, more likely, completely torn apart by me. But we certainly want to hear your opinions, so share them below.
1 If you are not watching 205 Live, you are usually missing the Match Of The Week in addition to simple, effective long-term storytelling and character development (for the most part). Someday you should start watching from the show after Enzo got fired onward.
2 Ron Simmons is a recovering alcoholic, please don’t drink with him