McGuire’s Monthlies: WWE Unreal ruined WWE, Danhausen’s arrival in WWE begs the question of what happened in AEW, high hopes for Brodie Lee Jr., five predictions

By Colin McGuire, ProWrestling.net Staffer

The most antiquated thing you can do in pro wrestling media in 2026 is write about pro wrestling once a month. The landscape changes by the tweet (or … um … X post). Everyone and their best friend’s best friend’s aunt’s nephew has a podcast ready to dissect the latest rumor, angle, program, television show, and passive-aggressive social media post that just happened 30 seconds from now. Offering something up at the beginning of each month is an exercise in idiocy, a lesson in pointlessness, and an assurance that your *thoughts* will quickly be forgotten.

So, all right. Let’s write about pro wrestling once a month.

WWE IS BAD, AND IT’S UNREAL’S FAULT

Is there anyone else out there who staunchly believes that one of WWE’s key problems in today’s wrestling world is the idea that they’ve outsmarted themselves? After watching the first season (and first two episodes of the second season) of the company’s Netflix non-reality show “Unreal,” it’s just so hard not to believe that the braintrust in Stamford thinks it’s doing the pro wrestling business a favor by taking its work (and I mean that in the very traditional sense of pro wrestling parlance) to a new level.

The interesting thing is … maybe they are?

But maybe they aren’t. Consider everything surrounding next month’s WrestleMania. The only thing anyone wants to read about is how the company’s plans for the biggest event of the year are in flux. Not just in flux; in disarray. Not just in flux and disarray; in complete chaos. “They still don’t have the matches lined up.” “There isn’t a concrete plan for one of the main events.” “What’s Brock Lesnar going to do, because it can’t just be this open challenge, right?”

Is it out of the realm of possibility that perhaps the masterminds (a term I love to use very loosely, mind you) that run the machinations of WWE booking are using this supposed uncertainty as an opportunity to film what they believe is a compelling upcoming season of “Unreal” all while knowing they actually do have a plan and everything actually is under control? Let the rumors swirl, they decided. Fuel them. Add to the drama. Let’s work the people whom everyone perceives could never be worked and in turn, those people will work the rest of the people. Before you know it, wah-lah: We have your attention.

Maybe that’s too conspiratorial for you to stomach, but even if it is, the idea that this is a thought process at all is a large part of the problem. WWE – or, perhaps, more accurately, Paul Levesque – has become too cute by half. The decision-makers have seemingly become so focused on feeling like they are both staying ahead of the curve and feeling smarter than you that it kind of feels like they lost the plot. What, exactly, did LA Knight do to piss off someone very important? His crowd reactions are among the best in that company right now. Still. After all this time. But he’s never seriously figured into any title pictures.

Did I miss something, and Jey Uso cooled off so significantly that they were hell-bent on making sure he wasn’t going to be in the Elimination Chamber match, even though he lucked into that win last week? Maybe I did. Either way, the decision-makers either couldn’t stomach him being in the Chamber match or were too lazy to come up with any remedy for Bronson Reed’s injury other than “just insert Logan Paul.”

The point here is two-sided. One, WWE’s leaders have booked themselves into a corner because they never planned for any type of future beyond finishing Cody’s story, and now they look to believe they can compensate for that by (maybe) attempting a new level of “work” that is unprecedented in the pro wrestling industry. Two … well, maybe the pro wrestling industry does need a new level of “work” to survive into the many generations of wrestlers and wrestling fans that lie ahead.

Think about it: Not only has the business changed, but society has changed. Adapt or die, they say. This is The Information Age, so much of the magic and most of the shine is off what, at one point, made pro wrestling so magical. This isn’t to say all the fans are smart, but it is to say the days of the 94-year-old grandmother sitting front row and slapping a red-hot heel across the face in the Sportatorium one night in 1981 are probably gone for good. As a result, WWE thinks it can advance the notion of working its fans to a new stratosphere.

Enter “Unreal.” Because of it, I read the reports and listen to the rumors and think … well, maybe, but maybe not. And while some might argue that’s a good thing because that’s what the company wants, it actually turns me off. I’m fine enough being outsmarted in everyday life, thank you very much. I don’t need to feel like you’re doing what you can to outsmart me … only to outsmart me again … only to charm me back into believing you aren’t outsmarting me … only to attempt to outsmart me again. There’s manipulation. And then there’s f— off.

WWE, in my mind, is dangerously close to the latter. And it’s “Unreal’s” fault.

VERY CONFUSED, VERY EVIL

Yeah, let’s all get pissy about Danhausen. Whatever. I’m happy he made it to WWE. It seemed like that’s all he ever wanted to do. I think he’s funny, entertaining … all of the words. He seems kind, but he also seems prickly. He won’t stand down when pushed online, and that’s both commendable for its spirit, but sometimes obnoxious in its execution. I hope he succeeds in WWE. For those who think his debut at the Chamber was a complete failure, they must have forgotten about how The Brilliant Minds always argue that the best thing you can do in pro wrestling is get people talking. So go ahead and make all the Gobbledy Gooker comments you want; if nothing else, people were talking about Danhausen more than anything else coming out of Saturday night, and the difference between the turkey and the vampire is 1990 and 2026.

Here’s the more interesting entry point: What the hell happened between AEW and Danhausen that got us here?

It can’t just be “Friend of CM Punk,” can it? It can’t be the occasional whining about wanting to wrestle on social media, can it? The guy was his entertaining self any time he popped up in AEW, and his AEW debut was actually perfect (cough, in stark contrast to his WWE debut, cough). He’s an acquired taste, but acquired tastes are what excel in AEW. Shoot, that’s what AEW is all about, isn’t it? Why did it seem like he was never given a real shot at succeeding there … and then why did that company hold him hostage for such a long time?

Much like I believe about most things AEW, I just can’t wait until a real, true, honest-to-goodness unsanctioned book about the company comes out. I know, I know. Tony Khan loves his NDAs, so it might be hard, and it might take time, but I’d preorder the hardcover right now, and The Curious Case of Danhausen is one major reason why. The New York Times Magazine profiled him … while he was in AEW! What else should a company owner need?!

As for his future … who knows. Those who aren’t giving him a chance because of the lousy debut are too cynical. Those who say the debut was perfect are too naive. He’s worked really hard for a really long time to figure out how to exist in the pro wrestling space without being a conventional pro wrestling person. Attention must be paid to that. There’s no reason WWE can’t have its own Orange Cassidy in this day and age. Cassidy is perfect for AEW because he still has some wrestling chops; I’m not so sure the WWE equivalent needs to possess the same (and I’m also not sure the WWE equivalent needs to be the next R-Truth, but that’s a different conversation).

I’m rooting for him. Hopefully, you are, too.

THE (NEXT) EXALTED ONE

You know who else I root for? Brodie Lee Jr. The kid popped up this weekend at a GCW event, and it looks like he’s going to wrestle Joey Janela over WrestleMania weekend (or week?). From the looks of it, he held his own on the mic, he took a nice bump, and he’s probably the best young seller in the business. It’s all to say … boy, I hope all of this works out for him.

I can’t imagine how hard it is – the pressure (both self-imposed and externally), the expectation, the hope, the dream, the noise, all of it. Will he be a next-generation kid who comes in, proves himself, and decides he’d rather be a doctor? Fair play to him – I think that’d be fantastic. Or, hear me out, will he be the next Cody Rhodes? A next-generation kid who gets knocked down too many times, but somehow perseveres to the tippy top of the entire industry’s food chain?

I mean. Why not?

Whatever it is, the most important thing in my mind is that he has fun with this while he can, no matter how long he wants to have fun with it. Navigating a spotlight such as that is hard enough as it is; doing it as a teenager feels all but impossible. But he seems to be a special kid, and special kids do special things. Here’s hoping the young fella gets the W that first time he steps through the ropes.

PREDICTIONS ARE LIKE WHAT AGAIN?

– For AEW’s Revolution (and the only matches announced so far), let’s go MJF, Young Bucks, Takeshita, and Andrade.

– For Friday night’s Smackdown, I’ll back Cody over the obvious shenanigans that will lead to a 62-person world title match at WrestleMania.

– The Ring Of Honor/Maple Leaf Pro Global Wars show at the end of the month, while not having any matches listed yet, will be the second-best pro wrestling show of March behind AEW’s Revolution.

– By the time April 1 rolls around, we will have fewer than ten matches announced for both nights of WrestleMania combined.

– Ethan Page gets the call to (finally) join the main roster before the calendar turns to the fourth month of the year.