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.
AN ODE TO DARBY ALLIN’S AEW WORLD TITLE REIGN
Perhaps the most celebrated professional wrestling mainstream moment in the modern era came at WrestleMania III, when Hulk Hogan slammed Andre The Giant. On no level whatsoever was that story hard to follow. Andre was a giant. Hogan couldn’t lift Andre until he could. Then he did. Then he body-slammed him. One, two, three. Hogan slayed the beast. Tens of thousands of people at the Pontiac Silverdome lost their minds. History was made.
Anymore, I am of the belief that pro wrestling is at its best when it’s at its simplest. With all the websites, podcasts, and social media accounts pontificating every fourth second about every fourth thing that happens both in front of and behind the cameras, it’s almost become uninteresting to watch pro wrestling Try Hard whenever it decides to Try Hard. I don’t care about who’s talking to whom in the background of an interview segment on Smackdown. The shine of a move set sequence first performed ten years ago taking shape again ten years later in an AEW ring has worn off. I get it. The smarter pro wrestling thinks it is, the smarter pro wrestling’s fans will think they are as well. We’re all manipulated by everyone and everything around us.
Great.
Me? I’ve given up on searching for the meta within the irony within the meta irony. And as such, I really enjoyed Darby Allin’s AEW world title reign that came to an end at last month’s Double Or Nothing. Predictable? Of course. Already done? Yep. A little melodramatic at times? Sure (but, hell, Darby Allin wouldn’t be Darby Allin if his work didn’t come with that). Who cares? As far as I’m concerned, it was the perfect simple story to tell for a pro wrestler whose story is … well, fairly simple, right? He’s crazy. He does crazy things. Let’s see how far that can go.
Above all else, it fit perfectly into the Darby Allin tableau. As one of only two of the four pillars that still matter in AEW (what a dumb idea that was), Allin was destined to hold that belt someday. If it wasn’t the Sting of it all, it would have definitely been the wild underdog image that he portrays so well. But how did you expect that to look when it would inevitably happen? Allin defending the belt once a month at a pay-per-view while cutting promos every other week on TVs? No. Darby winning The Big One only to go away for six weeks entirely before starting up a program for a title defense three months later? Not a chance.
My point is that Darby Allin was never meant to hold a world title for longer than he held it this time around. On top of that, he was always meant to be the type of champion he portrayed himself to be – a fighter who was happy to accept when the wheels fell off. Those things in mind – plus a tip of the hat from Max, who you have to think was happy to lie down for him – and you can’t find a better scenario for that guy to somehow become a world champion in AEW.
It lasted only 39 days, but it felt like half a year, and that’s not a knock. His consistent world title defenses made AEW’s weekly TVs interesting and, most importantly, they helped those shows carry weight. Out with the 12-man tag matches; in with a compelling singles bout that had the company’s highest stakes on the line. Yeah, none of us thought Allin would lose until MJF got his rematch, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a treat to see the world title defended so frequently on television when neither AEW or WWE had been doing something like that so consistently for quite a long time.
What happens to Darby Allin now? Who knows. It feels like some time off is justified. If I remember correctly (I often don’t), he’s said in interviews that he doesn’t want to wrestle forever and that his time in the business will be somewhat limited if all goes according to his plan. If that’s the case, perhaps this will be his only world title reign, and if the future proves that to be true, it’s hard to think Darby Allin would have it any other way than the way he just had it with that run as champion.
It might not pack the same punch as Hogan and Andre in the mainstream, but in the stream Darby Allin travels, it worked out just right.
ESPN & WWE: A MATCH MADE IN PURGATORY
All right. That’s it. I’ve about had it with all these WWE crossovers onto ESPN platforms. I really, really don’t need to see Cody Rhodes pop into another First Take or Get Up segment. I’m outrageously happy for Danhausen and how much success he’s finding after such a flat debut, but nobody needs him on SportsCenter. And let’s not even get started on all the ESPN-adjacent podcasts on which superstars pop up these days.
All of it is just too much for this viewer – and I don’t even watch those shows! But I hear about them. Read about them. See the clips of them. On one hand, it’s unprecedented publicity for WWE because ESPN has never, ever embraced the product as much as it does these days, and one has to believe that’s a net positive for the business (even if business is booming and everyone is greedy and … yeah, we’ll save all that for a different time). On the other hand …
… Well, all right, that’s enough.
My problem with these things is every time I stumble across three minutes of Stephen A. Smith chopping it up with … somebody … it never feels natural. Are we supposed to be in character? Are we kind of supposed to be in character? Are we just selling ESPN Unlimited subscriptions? Are we previewing the upcoming Big Event? Hard as they try – and for as loud as they try to be when they proclaim it – I haven’t found a single ESPN on-air personality who … you know … really, REALLY likes this stuff. They might know what “Acknowledge me!” means. And they might get a kick out of Paul Heyman going full-on Paul Heyman. But so often, it feels like oil and water when these two worlds combine.
There’s something inauthentic about it – too corporate synergy-y at this point. Go shit on LeBron James again and overanalyze Aaron Rodgers’ retirement plans; just please don’t pretend to know what Yeeting is (and God forbid, please don’t try to do it, especially if you don’t know what it is). I understand why this happens and I also understand that it most likely won’t go away anytime soon.
But for the love of God, we all know Gunther doesn’t care about Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals. So you, ESPN Talking Head, shouldn’t care about how hard his chops hit, either. Let’s all just settle down.
GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK … ER … BUSHIROAD
Twenty-two-and-a-half million dollars. Roughly, at least. That’s how much Bushiroad received for ostensibly selling its controlling shares of New Japan Pro Wrestling to TV Asahi and CyberAgent in May. Am I alone in saying … I couldn’t believe it?
I never expected NJPW to go for billions (or even hundreds of millions), but the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Donovan Mitchell makes two New Japan Pro Wrestlings in one year – and then some. It made me think: Do we, as Americans, actually overvalue Japanese pro wrestling? I understand it’s not always a lucrative business no matter what part of the world you find it in, but I don’t think I’m talking out of turn when I say there’s probably a lot of people on this side of the world that believe NJPW is in the top three promotions in the world, if not top five. And even though it’s been going through a tough transition of late, there are still some fans who I have to believe find NJPW to be the best wrestling in the world.
And landing control of it went for a WWE catering budget? I’m being facetious, of course, but I really thought with the AEW partnership and the constant glazing of the promotion – because, let’s be honest: When people on this side of the world say “go to Japan,” they most often don’t mean NOAH or AJPW or anything other than “New Japan” – that the company was in strong financial shape. Now, it makes me wonder if it even has a future.
It most likely does – it’s not like that company hasn’t faced adversity and pulled itself up by the bootstraps before – but the whole ordeal came as a bit of a surprise to me. Perhaps I’m not alone. Then again, perhaps I am.
PREDICTIONS ARE LIKE WHAT AGAIN?
Last month, we went 8-2 (with a push on my Aleister Black pick because that will obviously take time before we know) for our overall record thus far to stand at 22-15. Onto June:
– Athena will win the women’s Open Hart Cup at Forbidden Door while Will Ospreay will take home the men’s prize.
– This is tough because these brackets just came out yesterday, but let’s take some shots in the dark. Roxanne Perez will win the women’s Queen Of The Ring tournament while Seth Rollins will win the men’s King Of The Ring tournament.
– Mercedes Mone will not make her AEW return in June.
– Jacob Fatu will not acknowledge Roman Reigns and instead side with Solo Sikoa’s version of the Bloodline and immediately take that side over.
– A match between Jessika Carr and Becky Lynch will, at the very least, be set up and booked to happen – even if that match doesn’t happen in the month of June.
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