would he really be one of the best of all time as many in the industry or even fans said?

I forgot which show/podcast it was.... probably Bruce or Cornette or even both, but I remember people saying if Pillman didn't die, he would be a big deal. Even fans say the same thing. Do you agree?

Or is it just one of those things people say when someone dies? They basically said the same thing about Guererro, Benoit, Owen, Kanyon, Viscera... if they didn't die, would have been one of the GOATs, etc.

Also, if he didn't got into that accident, you think he would really sign with WWE? Or will he honor his deal with Bischoff/WCW, that if I remember, would have given him more money but reasses him every few months.

Another thing, his son signed with AEW. Many fans at /SquaredCircle said he is great, but that was over a year ago. I don't watch AEW, how is he doing now? He really doing good?

Battle of the drawing giants.

I voted for The Rock, not only did he have massive drawing power, but he wrestled in some very memorable matches...perhaps little better then Hulk Hogan...

I voted for The Undertaker....the gimmick, his WM matches from 2007-2013....memorable stuff...

Only just heard about this now.
I dont watch AEW.
FFS, those 'reporters', every single one of them, make me want to knock them out based just on their voices alone.

After a year+ of being a face. I guess they wanna see which works for him better when he is eventually called to the main roster. Maybe during the draft?

Pretty good PPV, would give it a solid 3.5 outta 5.

Suicide (X division champ) vs. consequences creed (xavier woods) vs. Kiyoshi vs. Jay lethan vs. sheik abdul bashir (divari) in a Xscape for the x division title. Suicide dives off cage to win, cool match

Motor city machine guns vs. LAX vs. No limit in a cage- ok match

“The Blueprint” “The DNA of TNA” Matt Morgan vs. “The Monster” Abyss in a Doomsday Chamber of Blood match (not a first blood match- to win you must make your opponent bleed before pinfall or submission) Morgan busts open Abyss when Abyss goes for chair shot but Morgan counters with big boot to the chair/face. Morgan tries to smash Abyss face into a pile of broken glass, Abyss busts Morgan open by smashing a piece of broken glass into his face. Dr Stevie Richards intefers and distracts Abyss. Abyss lays out thumbtacks, Richards distracts him again for Morgan to lowblow and slam Abyss into the thumbtacks and pin him. Alright match and good concept.

Team 3D vs. Beer Money in a Philly street fight for the TNA and IWGP tag titles. Team3D when they put Roode through the table with 3D. Decent match

Team Jarrett (Jeff Jarret, AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels and Samoa Joe) vs. Team Angle/Mania Event Mafia (Kurt Angle, Scott Steiner, Booker T and “Big Sexy” Kevin Nash) in a Lethal Lockdown Match.
Daniels has Angle in a submission and Booker enters but looks funny cause he is taking his time to the ring instead of rushing to help Angle lol whereas when AJ Styles comes out he runs to the ring. Steiner and Joe enter next. Then The Big Sexy Tour 2009 Kevin Nash comes out tries to enter he gets the cage door kicked into his face lol. Jeff Jarrett enters last and they drop the top of the cage down. Angle and Styles slip onto the top of the cage to battle. Styles drops from the top back into the ring on top of the Main Event Mafia. Jarrett gets a guitar and fakes like he will hit AJ Styles and turn heel but he hits Booker and AJ pins him for the victory. After the match Team Jarrett is celebrating when the lights go out and Bobby Lashley (The Almighty in WWE) makes his TNA debut, Angle seems happy like they are teasing Lashley in the Main Event Mafia. Good match.

Sting (champion) vs. Mick Foley for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship in a Six Sides of Steel Cage Match. Ok match, both busted open, Foley uses the barbed wire bat. Finish is they both are handing on the side of the cage but Foley drops like 5 seconds before Sting does.

He botched at least 3 moves and booked to a double count out with the All Mighty on RAW? The guy is greener than Omos, but his big fat belly has potential for the LOLs. Chad could be just what he needs to get whipped into shape. He's too fat to be taken seriously and be booked as a monster. Its just not believable. A tag team with Otis might be entertaining, but to think he could be matched toe to toe with the All Mighty is ridiculous. Try again WWE bookers.

hell yea


gonna be an episode about janetty, one about sunny and candido, magnum ta, abdullah

should be cool. wish they got someone besides jericho to narrate though

I don't give a fkn shiiiiiit

It's done, it's over with, is this 2022 still? Why is this **** still going on?

I can't stand it any more lol, I feel like I'm going ****ing crazy.

Only seen night one-but already easily the best one since WM 19 in 2003.

Kinda crazy if that happens for real but still possible..but making this thread for fun...

My card:

Night 1:

Damian Priest (c) vs. LA Knight vs. Johnny Gargano- US title match
Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair
Ricochet (c) vs. Dominik Mysterio- IC Title match
Asuka vs. Charlotte Flair
Ludwig Kaiser/Geovanni Vinci(c) vs. Erik/Ivar- Undisputed tag team titles match
Finn Balor vs. Sami Zayn
John Cena vs. Cody Rhodes

Night 2:

Solo Sikoa vs. Kevin Owens
Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kofi Kingston
The Miz/Omos vs. Braun Strowman/Mustafa Ali
Sheamus vs. Ridge Holland vs. Butch
Iyo Sky(c) vs. Dakota Kai- Raw women's world title match
AJ Styles vs. Bobby Lashley
Seth Rollins vs. Austin Theory- World title match

Night 3:

Rhea Ripley (c) vs. Bayley vs. Shayna Baszler vs. Natalya- Smackdown women's world title match
Madcap Moss vs. Elias
Otis vs. Bronson Reed
Jey Uso/Jimmy Uso vs. Angelo Dawkins/Montez Ford- No holds barred match
Karrion Kross vs. Chad Gable
Roman Reigns vs. Randy Orton- Hell in a Cell match
Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Gunther- Universal title match

WWE has always been scripted since inception by Vince K 's dad Vince J in 1963, since Buddy Rogers won the WWWF Championship in a supposed tournament that never really happened and later due to a heart attack was booked to lose it to Bruno Sammartino who retained it for 7 years before losing it in 1971. Even the 75 time limit classic draw between Bruno Sammartino and Pedro Morales at Showdown at Shea; the WretsleMania before WrestleMania were scripted qas were the Golden Hulkamania era, WretsleMania 3 in 1987 Hulk Hogan slamming Andre The Giant in the most important wrestling match in history in front of 93000+ people, and their rematch in The Main Event in 1988 drawing a record 33 million viewers on NBC the highest in wrestling history, the Attitude Era of the late 1990s and early 2000s headed by The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin, John Cena carrying WWE on his back 2005-2014, and Brock Lesnar who was huge in WWE 2002-2004, including beating The Rock at SummerSLam 2002, later became a huge draw in UFC MMA beating John Cena at SummerSlam 2014 and over throwing Cena from his place as the face of WWE and the most dominant wrestler in WWE.

Now heres the thing while Lesnar was away 2005-2011 he made it huge in UFC and his contribution in MMA made him stay strong and relevant and he was pushed back to the top upon returning in 2012. WWE knows that after Attitude Era, they lost most of their fanbase to UFC as they didn't like WWE's direction and if they can't get the bloodbaths like Rock vs Foley I Quit match in 1999 in WWF anymore, they might as well resort to watching real combat sport than watching WWE's fake wrestling, ratings were still li8ke 6 in Raw in 2002 by 2012 it fell below 1, 2012 alone they lost like 3 million fans to UFC. After the fall of WCW no wrestling promotion came close to beating WWE, but UFC stole its fanbase.

They brought Lesnar and made him more dominant than ever before for his MMA contribution and brought Ronda Rousey who was top of UFC women's division to dominate WWE's own women's division. And now that they have been totally brought by Endeavor, the parent company of UFC, Endeavor if they want can merge WWE and UFC into the single entity "TKO" and totally make it MMA oriented, or they can keep their MMA and wrestling divisions seperate and keep UFC and WWE seperate.

But what migh happen either ways is WWE going from the scripted predetermined result style of wrestling it featured since inception to actual unscripted wrestling, like the free style wrestling in the Olympics. WWE had Kurt Angle and with his Olympic background became one of the most dominant wrestler in the company and he brought elements from free style wrestling to WWE (as did Bret Hart in the early1990s), and it resulted in perfections like Angle vs Benoit at Royal Rumble 2003, in TNA Angles and Styles had did it at Slammiversary 2008 and it was gold. But again results were pre determined. The closest WWF came to doing actual shoot wrestling was Brawl for All in 1998, I recall Bart Gunn winning but it got him nowhere and fans didn't like the concept, and personally it was meh for me back then too, I started watching in 1996 and didn't care about it much, my all time favorite was Mankind and would cheer whenever he was on. But now I actually appreciate MMA and real sport and am sick of stuff like Alexa Bliss and Bray Wyatt throwing fireballs, that horrible swamp fight between Bray Wyatt and Braun Strowman in 2020, it was a disgrace, ending with Wyatt dragging Strowman into swamp water, I hate the soap opera, but its nothing new I remember Kane shooting laser beams in the ring as back as 1998, and they ruined a legitimate tough athlete like Braun Strowman for a fat slob like Bray Wyatt who can barely move and is nothing without his gimmick. Wrestling has been a soap opera for the longest time (even 1980s Jake Roberts bring snakes to the ring) and its time to make it serious again.

Now that WWE will work side by side with UFC, while UFC features real MMA, WWE should do real wrestling, fire fake athletes like fatty Bray Wyatt and skinny Alexa Bliss (yeah she is cute but we ain't simps, and we are here to see combat, we can watch hot chicks else where) and focus on real talented men and women like Braun Strowman and Shayna Baszler for their mens and womens division. They should ahve actual unscripted shoot fight or even free style wrestling matches like the Olympics between legitimate strong men like Braun Strowman and Cesaro and get rid of the whole face, hell and gimmick non senses. Heck even those crazy Jeff Hardy ladder dives are so pathetic, they are more likely to hurt you than your opponent, and fake moves like Rock Bottom which doesn't even hurt but Rock used in guys like Big Show who pretended to be lifted and jumped down face up are so fake and should be got rid of as with Orton's RKO in which he is using one arm to throw and other to protect, the protecting arm should not be used, it would legitimately break their teeth. Unrealistic stuff like ladder mathes (who goes all the trouble of diving when its more likely to hurt you than your opponent) or hitting people with barbed wire bats , crazy inferno matches setting opponents on fire all these won't exist if WWE starts to do real shoots and acknowledge them as real no sponosrs, tv deals, or anything will legitimize these gimmick matches and WWE would be given instant ban and even have several legal penalty. Anyway ofc after buying WWE for 9 billion Endeavor will never go for such c we see in fake pro wrestling.

What should happen is the return of Brawl for All and also the feature of standard free style wrestling we see in the Olympics, and occasionally they can do stuff like steel cage matches (but not crazy barbed wire steel cage matches like JBL vs Big Show in 2005, if that were real both would have lost their eyes and even bled to death). Kurt Angle, Brock Lesnar and Ronda Rousey can be tariners and train the real athletic men and women to keep up with shoot wrestling while firing fake fighters like fatty Bray Wyatt and Otis (as if we can even take his caterpillar move seriously, its such a joke) and have real strong guys like Braun Strowman and Cesaro in legitimate shoot wrestling matches. In this way Endeavor's two divisions UFC can continue its MMA while WWE can do Brawl for All style legitimate shoot wrestling and even have UFC guys challenging their wrestlers in wrestler vs mma fighter matches (like the famous Ali vs Inoki boxer vs wrestler match in 1976), WWE should bring back Tyson Fury and Cain Velasquez like they did in 2019 and have them in shoot wrestling matches with their guys. No more 50+ year old part timers like Goldberg and Lesnar hogging the spotlight (they were great in their primes even tho even then Goldberg rarely wrestled 5+ minutes matches, but now could work as trainer) but have perfectly fit and healthy prime athletes in 20s-30s competing in actual sghoot wrestling matches.

You can still have the fake wrestling in AEW, ROH, TNA, Japan and all. But under Endeavor we should get two types of product, real MMA under UFC division and real shoot wrestling in WWE division and that would make wrestling serious again, and while the nitch soap opera fans might leave, fans of real wrestling who mostly get to watch it once in 4 years only during Olympics can now have weakly free style wrestling featuring stuff like Cesaro vs Strowman in World Wrestling Entertainment now finally showing real unscripted wrestling in 2023...

They are making this dude front and center, but they trust him less with the mic than they trust Asuka. lol

Does he not speak English, or is he just too dumb to memorize a promo?

Last match of the knockout round.....

Steve Austin wins this by a fair margin.

Two matches over WrestleMania weekend have been given the prestigious accolade of being awarded 5* by Dave Meltzer. As reported in the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the first 5 star rating would come in the main event of night one, as Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens would defeat The Usos to become the new Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions. The second 5* match would come on night two, where Gunther would defeat Sheamus and Drew McIntyre in a triple threat match to retain the Intercontinental Championship.


Austin Theory defeated John Cena – **1/4
The Street Profits defeated Alpha Academy, Braun Strowman and Ricochet and The Viking Raiders – ***3/4
Seth Rollins defeated Logan Paul – ***1/2
Trish Stratus, Lita and Becky Lynch defeated Damage CTRL – **3/4
Rey Mysterio defeated Dominik Mysterio – ****
Rhea Ripley defeated Charlotte Flair – ****3/4
Pat McAfee defeated The Miz – *1/2
Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn defeated The Usos – *****


Brock Lesnar defeated Omos – ***
Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler defeated Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez, Sonya Deville and Chelsea Green and Natalya and Shotzi – **1/2
Gunther defeated Sheamus and Drew McIntyre -*****
Bianca Belair defeated Asuka – ***3/4
Shane McMahon/Snoop Dogg defeated The Miz – *
Edge defeated Finn Balor – ***3/4
Roman Reigns defeated Cody Rhodes – ****1/2

Just bear in mind he never gave a Daniel Bryan match five stars until he went to AEW & now he has three of them-all with Dave's buddies & never gave a Kurt Angle match five stars. has he ever handed out two of them to a WWF/WWE PPV? Don't recall it happening. His boyfriend Tony must be fuming.


https://featuresofwrestling.com/2023...-dave-meltzer/

Voted for Shawn Michaels, who is also my favorite WWE wrestler of all time.

Although I really like Chris Jericho's run in WWE, a long career filled with lots of entertaining feuds and matches.

Been hearing six months of "bray has creative control and this proves he's trash".

Now it's absolutely obvious that Vince has been calling shots in creative for months.

-Bray's initial build and return was the best presentation WWE has pulled off in years
-Initial couple of appearances were intriguing
-Setup to be less cartoonish version of actual "Bray" in all the backstage bits

Then out of nowhere:
-plot changes weekly
-multiple "twists" that are forgotten immediately
-Alexa is in, then out, then in... then vanishes
-His first match sells itself to a soda company
-WM match announced, then never canceled, but never happens

On top of that:
-Lashley issued multiple different "whoever wants to wrestle me at WM, I'll be there" challenges
-Lashley still doesn't wrestle (lol)
-Alexa talking about "they know where to find me" after rumors she was on "hiatus"

Seems pretty obvious that Bray had a storyline planned, then Vince came back and did the Vince thing... again.

Back when I was a teen, my friend showed me a VHS show that has Bob Backlund, Foley, Bambam, Sid, Dr Death.

I dont remember which, but I am sure it is not the big 2(WWF or WCW). I even forgot who fought who. And most of the wrestlers were unknown to me.

Going back from the signings or Punk and Bryan Danielson which were pretty huge news at the time, it seems to me like AEW manage to constantly shoot themselves in the foot and sabotage themselves, keeping themselves "small time"

They make the same exact mistakes often that WCW and TNA both made.

WWE has been at various points in the last few years, very vulnerable imo, in that a genuine alternative, well run, well funded, well produced show could really have scored huge with the audience, and become a real competition.

Like I say, when punk and Danielson joined, it was like all AEW had to do was nail the basics, and they could have become huge.

Will they ever get it right?

Although Kurt Angle is my favorite here, I really enjoyed his gimmick, some amazing/memorable feuds and matches, notably against Brock, HBK, Edge, Eddie, Chris Benoit, HHH and The Rock.

But if are discussing the best wrestler here, Bret Hart wins this one slightly....for his memorable 1990's run, notably his work against HBK, Steve Austin and Owen Hart.

It would be interesting to see if Brock Lesnar can surprise any of the entrants in this tournament.

Much of Brock Lesnar blossomed after his part time return in 2012, some really good matches in that....and brilliant drawing ability.

But I would still give this vote to The Undertaker, just slightly ahead....mostly for his gimmick and amazing Wrestlemania matches after 2006.

watch

While I admire Edge for having a long entertaining career with years of memorable feuds and matches, he shined in everything from midcard to tag team, from chairs and ladders to his run in the main-event (notably how good he was in bringing variations to his character), could have been a bigger star if he was not over-shadowed by the top tier during his run....

Anyways John Cena's top tier run from 2005 to 2013 pretty much wins everything in this poll. John Cena gets my vote.

Although Randy Savage had a memorable run as a heel. Hulk Hogan's run in WWE and his drawing power and how he helped WWE become very popular was on a whole different level. Hogan gets my vote here.