SEScoops

Author: Mike Chin

  • Ranking Every WWE Royal Rumble Entrant Ever, Part 2: #275-374

    The first post in this series discussed the importance of the Royal Rumble to WWE history, established the metrics by which these countdown wrestlers were evaluated for this countdown, and discussed the bottom place—wrestlers who, based on the criteria in play, only scored one point. In this second installment, the list carries forward with those talents who tallied between 2 and 7 cumulative points.

    374. Alex Riley, Bull Buchanan, Robert Roode, Simon Dean, and Tyson Kidd (tie)

    The men tied for 375rd place can\’t exactly claim Royal Rumble greatness, but there is a reasonable degree of distinction between them and the performers tied for 380th. Last place finishers are largely defined by talents who didn\’t last long at all in WWE, never got a push, or were novelty entrants as broadcasters, visitors to the company, or flavors of the week.

    The next up from the bottom each appeared in two separate Rumbles. Roode and Kidd deserve some merit for the quality of in ring skills they brought to the table, while Bull Buchanan was an athletic big man who hung around WWE for six years (before visiting appearances to follow), but never quite found his niche with the company. Two Rumble berths bespeak the range of ways WWE tried to use him as he appeared as part of Right To Censor in 2001 and as John Cena\’s heater, B-Squared in 2003.

    Even Simon Dean and Alex Riley had memorable Rumble moments. Dean rode his segway to the ring and got a little comedy in before being dispatched of by the two other men in the ring, Rey Mysterio and Triple H. Riley took part in a fun mini-angle of The Miz being haunted by a series of past tag team allies he\’d burned to kick off Royal Rumble 2012, after having infamously suffered a botched, early elimination that undermined plans for the 2011 Rumble.

    336. Alba Fyre, B. Brian Blair, Big Cass, Brutus Beefcake, Bushwhacker Luke, Damien Demento, Danny Davis, Droz, Emma, Ernest Miller, Eugene, Flash Funk, Harley Race, Ivar, Jaida Parker, Jillian Hall, Kacy Catanzaro, Kalisto, Karl Anderson, Lance Storm, Mantaur, Mark Jindrak, Merces Martinez, Mojo Rawley, Neville, Paul Roma, Pete Dunne, Raven, Rosey, Sabu, Sam Houston, Samu, Scotty 2 Hotty, Skinner, Tom Prichard, Trevor Murdoch, Victoria (tie)

    Like 374th place, the 336th spot features a few names that could or perhaps are even likely to climb the list with future appearances, including Jaida Parker, Alba Fyre, Ivar, and Pete Dunne.

    Outside of talents who just haven\’t yet had time for their Rumble careers to play out, this spot includes some all-time great workers, like Harley Race from the twilight of his in-ring career, Lance Storm in his all-too-brief and under-featured WWE run, and Neville, who had so much going for him but clashed with the powers that be in WWE and seems unlikely to return, despite still presumably having years of high-level in-ring performance left in him. There was also a special star mainstream promoters never seemed to get in Raven.

    Memorable performances from the 335th spot include Kacy Catanzaro showcasing her athleticism to narrowly avoid elimination and both Ernest Miller and Scott 2 Hotty being part of memorable mid-Rumble dance breaks. Overall, this spot is distinguished by performers who made up to three Rumble appearances or who had ten-minute-plus Rumble appearance, making for a respectable pedigree in the match.

    316. Adam Bomb, Angelo Dawkins, B-Fab, Boogeyman, Col Mustafa, Duke Droese, Fandango, Grandmaster Sexay, Hunico, Indi Hartwell, Jerry Sags, Jonathan Coachman, Justin Gabriel, Ludwig Kaiser, Montez Ford, Perry Saturn, Super Crazy, Tajiri, Tugboat, Yoshi Tatsu, and Zack Ryder (tie)

    While 316th place isn\’t exactly auspicious, at four points earned, it does connote wrestlers who had an impact. Zack Ryder, is an outlier in this portion of the list—the only one with four appearances in Royal Rumble matches, despite never lasting more than five minutes in a single one. Otherwise, this spot on the list is dominated by performers with two Rumbles under their belts and around ten cumulative minutes in the ring.

    305. Aliyah, Bart Gunn, Jeff Jarrett, JTG, Kelly Kelly, Lash Legend, Lyra Valkyria, Stephanie Vaquer, Terry Taylor, The Honky Tonk Man, Tommy Dreamer, and William Regal (tie)

    This is a mixed bag spot on the list. The majority were mid-card guys who had each worked three Royal Rumble matches. Meanwhile, Stephanie Vaquer, Lash Legend, Lyra Valkyria and a perhaps forgotten Aaliyah each made their Rumble debuts with single performances that lasted about twenty minutes on their own.

    283. Chainz, Crash Holly, Curt Hawkins, Darren Young, Drew Carey, Irwin R. Schyster, IShowSpeed, Jeff Jarrett, Jimmy Del Ray, King Kong Bundy, Madcap Moss, Marc Mero, Mo, Mosh, Orlando Jordan, Pat McAfee, Ricardo Rodriguez, Rick Boogs, Sin Cara, The Brian Kendrick, The Great Kabuki, The Warlord (tie)

    154 of the wrestlers to enter the Royal Rumble never made a single elimination. So, it\’s noteworthy this is the point of the list at which men and women who had that kind of impact start appearing on the list alongside talents whose combination of multiple Rumble appearances and/or impressive longevity in a match got them to six points.

    Drew Carey and IShowSpeed are, interestingly enough, celebrity guest entrants who had some impact, each credited with an elimination. Though Carey eliminated himself, it was a memorable enough spot to see him momentarily own the ring as the only man inside, then briefly square off with Kane to earn him some recognition (not to mention that this performance all but singlehandedly garnered him an induction into the Celebrity Wing of the WWE Hall of Fame). For his part, IShowSpeed helped Bron Breakker oust Otis from the ring before falling victim to The Unpredictable Badass himself in memorable fashion. This is also a spot for some Rumble underachievers like King Kong Bundy and The Warlord—the kind of big bodies one would\’ve thought racked up more than one appearance in the match and more than one elimination throughout his or her WWE tenures.

    Jeff Jarrett\’s also worthy of a shoutout here for, despite never lasting more than four minutes in a Rumble and appearing four times, the last of which was two decades past his prime in a memorable surprise entrance in the early stages of the 2019 match.

    275. Apollo Crews, Damien Sandow, Junkyard Dog, Mike Knox, Ronnie Garvin, Santos Escobar, Shane Douglas, and Thrasher (tie)

    Interestingly enough, not a single performer at this position on the list scored a single elimination. Crews, Sandow, and Escobar have three Rumbles a piece on their resume, while the remaining performers have half-hour-ish runs in their only Rumble appearances to solidify their spots well-removed from the bottom of the list.

  • John Cena Retires: 3 Things WWE Got Right, and 3 Things They Got Wrong

    The final Saturday Night’s Main Event of 2025 has passed and with it, one of WWE’s most memorable angles of recent years—the John Cena farewell tour—has officially closed. It was a momentous year that certainly saw Cena get his flowers, accomplish a great deal, and move along from sports entertainment with interest in him as a character and performer near its peak.

    The retirement year wasn’t entirely smooth, though. With the past twelve months to look back on, there’s plenty to celebrate, but also a number of points worthy of critique.

    WWE Got Right: The Heel Turn

    \"John

    When fans look back at John Cena’s farewell tour years into the future, the part they may well remember most will be his heel turn. Cena had been a steady babyface since late 2003, weathering a lot of boos, fans calling for him to turn heel, creative that even pointed in that direction a couple times, and no shortage of booking theories that would have adjusted his attitude over the years.

    No one really saw a Cena heel turn coming in 2025, when it seemed too late for his character to make an impact that way, besides which even a large portion of his detractors were ready to cheer him on, knowing they only had one year left to do so.

    The moment of the heel turn, while arguably imperfect for the largely nonsensical involvement of The Rock and Travis Scott (made worse in hindsight when both men faded from view), nonetheless had the audience buzzing. It was a big enough swerve to grab the attention of lapsed and casual fans. While Cena’s farewell tour would grab headlines no matter what—especially after he won Elimination Chamber and punched his ticket for a WrestleMania world title shot—this bold creative choice absolutely maximized the electricity around The Never Seen Seventeen.

    WWE Got Wrong: The WrestleMania Main Event Execution

    The final match of WrestleMania 41 was, by most metrics, underwhelming. John Cena worked a plodding style, which he has since spoken to in interviews, articulating that his slow, less-fan-friendly approach was by design to sell his new heel persona who vowed to “ruin wrestling.” From there, an underwhelming mid-match entrance from Travis Scott didn’t really satisfy anyone, en route to Cena anticlimactically hitting Cody Rhodes with a single belt shot to steal the title.

    Whether it was Cena’s consciously boring style, or him still getting the ring rust off, working only his third match of the year and his first one-on-one bout in over a year, the match felt boring—beneath the talent involved, the storyline, and especially the WrestleMania main event spots.

    WWE Got Right:  Winning Titles

    One of the biggest questions going into John Cena’s farewell tour was whether he’d make history, breaking his tie with Ric Flair as the only men to win sixteen (WWE-recognized) world titles and become the sole record-holder at seventeen. More quietly, wrestling nerds were quick to point out Cena also had unfinished business in never having won the Intercontinental Championship—the only main roster title he was eligible for during his entire WWE run but had never captured and the key to unlocking Grand Slam Champion status.

    As much the as the final match of WrestleMania 41 didn’t exactly send fans home happy, it is fitting that Cena won his last world title in the main event of his last ‘Mania, twenty years after he won his first one from JBL and The Showcase of the Immortals. Moreover, while winning the Intercontinental Championship off Dominik Mysterio was less historically noteworthy, it was fun to see Cena complete one last goal besides doing so in his penultimate Raw appearance and his final time wrestling in Boston.

    It’s also worth noting how Cena’s two 2025 title reigns came to an end, in each case dropping the title back to the man he won it from. While one might argue Cena derailed the momentum of the younger champs, each man getting the rub of pinning Cena on a Big Four PLE to get the title back may well have been the bigger story in pushing them to new heights.

    WWE Got Wrong: The Brock Lesnar Match

    The concept of John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar at WrestlePalooza drew mixed reactions from wrestling fans. Yes, there was a certain nostalgia factor to Cena locking up with one of his biggest rivals one last time, and the two have had memorable outings together, like their bloody masterpiece at Extreme Rules 2012 and their iconic squash at SummerSlam 2014.

    Cena and Lesnar had also assembled lackluster outings together, though, in 2025 there wasn’t exactly much reason for hope they’d put together a classic. These issues were exacerbated by Lesnar’s legitimate heat for allegations about real life issues connected to Vince McMahon.

    The hope had to be that the last Cena vs. Lesnar showdown would not only be a good match but provide Cena with some closure as he picked up arguably his first truly decisive win over The Beast after years of Lesnar largely having his number. Unfortunately, WWE wouldn’t deliver on either of these outcomes. The match was dull and uneventful save for Lesnar winning in brutal fashion to ensure Cena fans—and particularly kids rooting for him after his face turn—felt defeated with time running out and Cena working his third-to-last ever PLE match.

    WWE Got Right: John Cena’s Last Match

    John Cena’s last match was a success on a variety of levels. Declaring a tournament to crown his final opponent helped build to the event even on Raw and SmackDown episodes when Cena wasn’t around. The tournament and culminating Saturday Night’s Main Event also lent an extra sense of focus to what can feel like a throwaway portion of WWE’s year with out a proper PLE, before the build to WrestleMania season.

    WWE demonstrated real marketing savvy in promoting this event well and milking the nostalgia for all it was worth to create an event with a must-see feel. Moreover, the match delivered. There was a case for Cena winning to provide a happy ending (particularly for the benefit of young fans), and opinions vary on whether him tapping out was the right call. Regardless, the match itself was the embodiment of a defining part of The Last Real Champion’s legacy: holding up his end and playing up to a superior dance partner’s abilities to deliver an excellent bout.

    WWE Got Wrong:  Time Squandered On Logan Paul

    When wrestling historians look back on John Cena’s farewell tour, they’ll note eighteen in-ring performances. Four of those matches—more than twenty percent—heavily featured Logan Paul.

    To be fair, that figure includes the Royal Rumble and Elimination Chamber performances early in the year. No one can reasonably be offended at Cena sharing ring time with The Maverick in the thirty-man Rumble, and it’s not really fair to bash them being in the same Chamber. The two forming a main event tag team for Money in the Bank is, however, underwhelming at best. And though the two had a very good match at Clash at Paris, it’s still hard to accept there weren’t better options on the table for Cena. He had noteworthy rivals he didn’t revisit like Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, The Miz, Sheamus, or Rusev. He had first-time opponents with lowkey dream matches left unseen against the likes of Drew McIntyre, Bron Breakker, or Oba Femi.

    Paul is a very good in-ring performer for how inexperienced he is, and he may well arrive as a world champ and full-fledged, unequivocal main event guy in the years ahead. The fact remains, though, that the singles and all the more so the tag match carried absolutely no stakes, not to mention little drama as to who would win. Add on that the jury remains out in perpetuity as to whether Paul will settle in as a main roster mainstay or finally land on the wrong side of the line and get canceled for good. History will probably look back on Paul’s heavy hand in Cena’s last year as, at best, neutral, and more likely a sign of missed opportunities.

    In the end, it will probably take some hindsight for fans to properly asses John Cena’s final year as an in-ring performer. It had its ups and downs, but much like the rest of his year, it undoubtedly got fans talking. Cena will never be forgotten in WWE lore, and he added a noteworthy final chapter his part of the story.

  • John Cena Must Win His Last Match

    The table is set for John Cena’s last professional wrestling match. After winning The Last Time Is Now Tournament, Gunther will assume one of the most villainous roles of his heel career as he vows to make man who never gives up—well—give up.

    The table is set for a fun evening as some of NXT’s brightest stars mix it up with main roster mainstays at Saturday Night’s Main Event. But how should this showdown itself play out?

    John Cena should win.

    John Cena Winning Bucks Conventional Wisdom

    Conventional pro wrestling wisdom would have an aging superstar wind down his time in the limelight by counting the arena lights, putting over a younger talent who can carry the business forward for years to come.

    Gunther certainly fits the bill as a decorated and well-respected talent who is still relatively fresh to WWE fans. But is The Ring General choking out Cena—much like he did to Goldberg in his final match at a Saturday Night’s Main Event earlier this year—really the way to go?

    It’s exciting to imagine Cena and WWE bucking tradition here and doing less what’s conventionally right for business than what’s right for the moment at hand. Cena winning carries with it the prospect of sending fans home happy in a way that a Gunther victory simply does not.

    Gunther Can Weather This Loss

    One argument against John Cena winning his farewell match is that it would hurt his opponent. While there’s nothing left to protect or push in terms of Cena as an in-ring attraction, Gunther likely has years ahead of him as a main event-level star.

    Gunther is also a successful enough wrestler to weather this loss, though. The longest reigning NXT UK Champion of all time, longest reigning Intercontinental Champion of all time, and the man who has held the World Heavyweight Championship for a cumulative 311 days in the last year and a half needs no protecting.

    Gunther weathered dropping the Intercontinental Championship to Sami Zayn at WrestleMania 40 by winning King of the Ring and then World Heavyweight Championship at the following SummerSlam. He weathered tapping out to Jey Uso at WrestleMania by putting the Yeeting Superstar to sleep on Raw to take his world title back less than two months later.

    Whereas a new main roster face like Oba Femi or even a guy looking to graduate to the top of the card like LA Knight might be meaningfully damaged by this high-profile loss, Gunther can keep moving on.

    Yes, defeating John Cena would be a nice feather in the Ring General’s cap. There’s also the reality, though, that he can be just fine having won the tournament to get this last match, worked it as a bully heel in front of what’s sure to be a huge audience tuning in for Cena’s last dance, and carry on with a successful career to follow, maybe even taking on a little extra fire over his kayfabe embarrassment at the loss.

    WWE Owes One To John Cena Fans And The Kids

    No, WWE doesn’t technically owe its fans anything. But John Cena’s most ardent fans tend to fall into one of two buckets. They are loyalists who’ve followed the product since Cena’s heyday over a decade back. Alternatively, they’re children who don’t know a WWE universe without Cena as a defining star.

    These fans have had a tough year. They’ve watched their hero and the defining babyface of a generation turn heel. When WWE launched its PLEs on ESPN, they watched Cena get obliterated by Brock Lesnar in an ugly defeat that fans are still scratching their heads over.

    Yes, Cena won Elimination Chamber, won a WrestleMania main event and 17th world title, and finally won an Intercontinental Championship. But for a career that’s been all about pleasing young fans and fans who reject irony and coolness in favor of unabashedly cheering the babyfaces and booing the heels, isn’t the fitting legacy to deliver on a happy ending? Indeed, fans who love Cena but feel turned off by his last match may see this as the point to move on from wrestling. By contrast, there’s a chance for WWE to send fans home happy and prepared for the next chapter of the company’s history.

    In the end, WWE will do what feels right for itself and it’s hard to imagine all the considerations and future directions for anyone outside the heads of Triple H and his inner circle.  Just the same, when it comes to serving the audience and ending 2025 on a feel-good note, the answer is clear. John Cena’s time is up… and his time is now.

  • Ranking Every WWE Royal Rumble Entrant Ever, Part 1: Background, The Scoring System, And The Bottom 65

    The Royal Rumble is a beloved tradition among WWE fans. The matches themselves are fundamentally entertaining, with Pat Patterson\’s concept of a \”reverse battle royal\” in which the ring keeps filling as opposed to only emptying out has proven out as an engaging spectacle time and again. Indeed, even bad Rumbles tend to be at least OK—more defined by disappointing booking than poor action. Moreover, since the event took on direct world title and WrestleMania implications dating back to 1992, it has become a rite of passage for top stars in the business, and a ceremonial way of launching WrestleMania season.

    Since its inception, the Royal Rumble has featured 446 different wrestlers across 38 major events, 46 Royal Rumble matches (given the addition of a women\’s version of the match in 2018). Not every participant has contributed equally to the history of this match, though. There have been Rumble winners, \”iron men\” who\’ve lasted for remarkable stretches in the match, and elimination machines who have tallied the highest body count of victims thrown over the top rope. In contrast, while part of the fun of watching back Rumbles is seeing a catalog of who was in WWE in a given year, there are those talents who quietly participated—working just one Rumble and for less than five minutes with no eliminations or memorable spots, mere cannon fodder for bigger names to plow through.

    So, it is time to parse through the list of participants from major stars to names anyone but the most hardcore fans have long forgotten. This is a ranking of every Royal Rumble participant.

    Notes:

    This list does not include early house show versions of the Royal Rumble, The Greatest Royal Rumble held in Saudi Arabia in 2018, nor Raw or SmackDown free TV versions staged periodically for different prizes. The decision is ultimately arbitrary, but sticking to only the universally recognized lineage of January (or most recently February) PPV or PLE events (plus the original free TV special) felt like the cleanest manner of assembling this list.

    Criteria:

    https://media.sescoops.com/uploads/2025/01/\"Kane
    Image Copyright: WWE

    In the interest of instating a reasonable degree of objectivity, the following point system was implemented to evaluate each Royal Rumble performer.

    Royal Rumble Victories: 50 Points

    Winning the Royal Rumble may not bespeak quality of performance, but it does connote importance to the history of the match. As such, it was the most heavily weighted factor in evaluating each wrestler, with 50 points awarded per Royal Rumble win.

    Eliminations: 5 Points

    One way of separating the meaningful contributors to Royal Rumble history from the also-rans came down to how productive they were in terms of eliminating other performers. While 1-2 eliminations may not amount to anything more than a throwaway creative choice or even a joke, it nonetheless suggested having a meaningful spot in the match. Racking up double digit eliminations over the years only applied to legitimate \”players.\”

    Time Spent: 2 Points Per 10-Minute Interval

    This was one of the trickier pieces of Royal Rumble history to pick apart, but both for significance of performance and ease of tabulation, earning two points for every cumulative ten minutes spent in the Royal Rumble felt like a fair way of recognizing those talents who had a substantial presence in a match.

    For ease of tabulation, and because it didn\’t, for example, feel fair to dismiss the efforts of someone who lasted nine minutes but not ten, intervals of more than five minutes were rounded up to ten. So, for example, a talent who lasted six minutes earned two points for that performance; a performer who lasted twenty seven minutes earned six points (credit for three 10-minute intervals, at 2 points per interval).

    Number Of Royal Rumble Performances: 1 Point Per Appearance

    Everyone who has set foot in a Royal Rumble got some credit for doing so with a minimum of one point. From there, performers who stayed relevant enough to hang around for multiple years—or were noteworthy enough to justify a surprise, nostalgia entry—also collected extra points in this vein.

    Other Milestones/Superlatives/Intangibles: 10 Points

    In planning this list, there were certain factors not represented that were harder to put into numbers because they were unique to a specific performer. For example, though he was never a Royal Rumble winner, a proper iron man, or elimination machine, didn\’t Kofi Kingston deserve special consideration for his athletic, dramatic escapes from elimination that became an annual highlight of Rumbles for a period of years? Or what of back-to-back Rumble winners? Or people who truly ran the distance, entering at one or two, and winning the whole match? This category topped out at 10 points per special consideration and no one earned more than twenty points total in this area. (Interestingly enough, these two wrestlers were finished as the list\’s top two and, out of fairness, they would have been the top two even without \”bonus points\” attached.)

    A Note On Human Error And Arbitrary Choices

    https://media.sescoops.com/uploads/2025/05/\"Kofi
    Image credit: Adrian Hernandez, Unlikely

    Despite the choice to base these rankings on reasonably well-defined, specific, measurable metrics, lists like this are nonetheless inherently arbitrary. After all, the math here would suggest all eliminations and all Royal Rumble victories are created equally or that ten eliminations is the equivalent of having won a Rumble. These calls are totally up for debate.

    There were also certain factors that felt too \”fuzzy\” or difficult to tabulate alongside other data collection—the main one being the choice not to award extra points for final four or runner-up status. Roman Reigns and especially winless Chris Jericho stood out as talents who probably would have moved up the list appreciably, depending on how heavily such factors may have been weighed.

    Finally, I gathered the data and completed the tabulations for this project on my own. In the process of double- and triple-checking certain factors, I was caught off guard by how many times I spotted a significant error. While I\’d like to think I caught everything, this process taught me there were more likely than not other errors \”hiding in the weeds.\” I apologize for an inevitable mistake here and there and hope there was nothing too dramatic.

    On to the list.

    379. Adam Rose, Aidan English, Barry Horowitz, Bill DeMott, Boogeyman, Boris Zhukov, Brodus Clay, Butch Reed, Cameron, Chris Nowinski, Cybernetico, Dan Severn, Dory Funk Jr., Doug Gilbert, Elijah Burke, Enzo Amore, Epico, Evan Bourne, Gillberg, Grayson Waller, Hakushi, Ivory, Jack Gallagher, Jacob Blu, Jacqueline, James Ellsworth, JD McDonagh, Joe Hendry, Johnny Knoxville, Keith Lee, Kenny Dykstra, Iron Sheik, Kenzo Suzuki, Latin Lover, Luke Gallows, Max Moon, Melina, Michael Cole, Muhammad Hassan, No Way Jose, Nunzio, Paul London, Primo, Psicosis, Rick Steiner, Rico, Saba Simba, Sandman, Santana Garrett, Sgt. Slaughter, Skull, Squat Team #1, Squat Team #2, Steven Dunn, Summer Rae, Sylvan, Takao Omori, Tazz, The Fake Razor Ramon, Tiger Ali Singh, Timothy Well, Tom Brandi, Tye Dillinger, Tyler Breeze, Tyler Reks, and Vickie Guerrero (tie)

    https://media.sescoops.com/uploads/2025/01/\"Joe

    The inauspicious 379th spot is reserved for 65 talents who only made one Royal Rumble appearance each, didn\’t win, lasted less than five minutes, didn\’t score a single elimination, and didn\’t do something noteworthy enough to score any of the ten \”superlative points\” available.

    To be fair, there is some room for distinction based on quality of performance, and all the more so memorable spots some of these performers were involved in. Muhammad Hassan is a prime example, for coming out on the short end of an iconic (if arguably problematic) moment in the 2005 Rumble, when the entire field of men in the ring stopped what they were doing and teamed up to immediately eliminate him from the fray.

    There\’s also a case like Michael Cole, a non-wrestler who entered from the announce booth and was memorable in his minute-and-a-half of participation.

    Then there\’s Keith Lee, who notably stood up to Brock Lesnar in the 2020 Rumble while The Beast dominated the field. Lee temporarily derailed Lesnar\’s momentum and was the first of twelve challengers to last more than three minutes with The Beast in that contest.

    There are also those wrestlers who may well move up the ranking via future Royal Rumble participants. Grayson Waller, in particular, stands out here. He has only worked one Rumble to date but there\’s every reason to believe he\’ll have future berths in the match and, as such, gain additional points regardless of how well he fares.

    Finally, this portion of the list includes an oddball entrant like The Iron Sheik, who actually only appeared as Col. Mustafa, well past his heyday in 1992, but nonetheless is a worthy footnote as a forgotten player who had a three-minute stint amidst arguably the most star-studded Rumble field of all time.

  • Men’s 2025 WarGames Match Highlighted WWE’s Main Event Problems

    WWE Survivor Series 2025 has come and gone, and with it the WWE’s PLE calendar has come to a close for this year. The show drew mixed responses, with the main event in particular generally considered a disappointment given the caliber of star power involved and the WarGames gimmick attached. The match, in and of itself, wasn’t necessarily a dud but it did highlight a number of issues facing the main event picture in WWE.

    There’s A Time And Place For Yeeting

    Jey Uso’s Yeet entrance is fun and infectious with live crowds. It was a big part of getting Uso over as someone who would win the World Heavyweight Championship, and his run of winning the Rumble and taking that title off Gunther at WrestleMania only added to the gimmick. “Running it back”—cuing the team in the back to play the song again and get the crowd dancing a second time-is fun but went a beat too far when it started happening after matches were already underway.

    This all came to a head at Survivor Series when Uso ran it back not only during a match, but during WarGames—a gimmick match WWE has successfully gotten over as one of the most violent and dangerous in the company’s lexicon. Choosing to Yeet mid-WarGames undermined the gravity of the situation. Worse yet, Uso’s team celebrated when there was only one  opponent still to enter: Brock Lesnar. That choice was pure silliness when the babyface team should have been doing everything they could to fully incapacitate everyone from the heel team and to gather weapons to weather the storm of the match’s most imposing entrant.

    Defenders of this spot will probably argue that the contrast between feel-good Yeeting into Lesnar’s music playing was the effect WWE was after, and that did work to a degree. The moment also sold Uso, his brother, and the two reigning men’s world champions as fools for playing along, though.

    A Mystery Attacker Made The Difference In A Star-Studded Ten Man Match With A Steel Cage Around It

    Pro wrestling has largely abandoned the mystique of the steel cage as a device to credibly keep interference out of a high-stakes match with decades of loopholes and workarounds deteriorating the credibility of that gimmick. Just the same, WarGames had maintained a sense of aura—despite not being an especially high cage, when ten competitors are involved, what point is there in anyone else getting inside?

    Still, it was a masked mystery man scaling the cage, delivering Seth Rollins-inspired offense to CM Punk, and leaving that made all the difference, all but handing the heels the victory. While WWE did generate some buzz, hooded heels more or less wore out their welcome in the OG Bloodline era, and there’s the uncomfortable reality that no matter who wore the mask, he wasn’t a bigger star than Brock Lesnar, Roman Reigns, Cody Rhodes, or CM Punk, and probably not a bigger one than Drew McIntyre or Jey Uso while he was at it.

    The prevailing theory is that it was, well, Austin Theory working that spot and it is good that the young talent will get a new direction and a push. Maybe WWE will string along the gimmick, with the masked man assisting Paul Heyman guys in another scenarios, up to and including helping Bron Breakker take the World Heavyweight Championship on the January 5 Raw. Just the same, the final PLE main event of the year, and a WarGames match no less, hinging on an unsolved mystery with a likely less-than-thrilling resolution understandably leaves a lot of fans disillusioned.

    Bron Breakker Only Sort Of Gets A Big Push

    On paper, the idea of Bron Breakker going the distance from starting WarGames to pinning the World Heavyweight Champion to win for his team forty minutes later is quite promising. In practice, though, The Unpredictable Badass didn’t exactly come across as a world beater.

    On the heel team, Brock Lesnar wrecked everyone upon arrival. Bronson Reed unleashed a dominant wave of Tsunamis. Even Logan Paul had his moment to shine, KOing anything that moved with a pair of brass knuckles. While Breakker performed well, he had hardly felt like the best featured member of his team.

    That all might have changed on the finish—Breakker spearing and pinning CM Punk. The masked man interference completely stole the thunder of that moment, though, in shifting the momentum of the match and more memorably setting  the stage for the champ to eat the pin. The choice protected Punk and the babyface team, but also made the push for young Breakker feel half-hearted.

    WarGames Felt Like A Placeholder

    WrestleMania is the undisputed top show on the WWE calendar, and Triple H has done well in honoring tradition to keep ‘Mania special, and arguably bolser SummerSlam’s position as the number two show. Indeed, it’s telling that in 2025, WrestleMania and SummerSlam were the only PLEs at which men’s world titles changed hands.

    There’s an awkward truth, though, that for so much of its history, Survivor Series has felt like a placeholder. While the Royal Rumble is routinely great and directly sets up ‘Mania, the best years for Survivor Series have tended to focus on team matches with meaningful stakes, like settling the WWE vs. Alliance feud in 2001 or determining authority figures in 2003 and 2014. It’s telling that so many years were reduced to silly brand supremacy angles that sometimes led to good matches but never felt as though they had meaningful stakes.

    WWE apologists can say WWE set Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns for WrestleMania in motion (maybe involving CM Punk in a Triple Threat), positioned Bron Breakker as a world title contender and maybe a new champion as soon as January, and got its masked mystery man angle going. Those are all legitimate points. They don’t change that an underwhelming WarGames match wound up an early chapter in ‘Mania storytelling and a setup for a big a Raw much more than a can’t-miss moment in WWE lore on its own merits.

    WWE will keep chugging along, John Cena’s retirement match, Bron Breakker’s big moment, and a return to Vegas for WrestleMania all mapped out. Survivor Series 2025 drew a spotlight to glaring issues at the top of the card, though, that one has to hope Triple H and company will work on in 2026.

  • Ranking The Top 5 Most Important Main Events In WWE Survivor Series History

    Turkey Day is just a week away and with it, WWE\’s Thanksgiving tradition, Survivor Series is coming up. While often maligned in comparison to its other more consistently vaunted Big Four PLE peers—WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and the Royal Rumble—Survivor Series has been a major platform for pro wrestling history.

    Which main events from this show were the most important to WWE history, though? Questions like this are always subjective, but there were five particular selections that stood out from the rest in shaping what was to come.

    It\’s a testament to the historical importance of the Survivor Series PLE brand in general that it, in choosing a top five, so many huge and memorable main events fall into only honorable mention consideration. That list includes Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar that marked the return of Goldberg and early steps in normalizing the potential for a main-event squash, The Rock returning to the ring and tag teaming with John Cena against The Miz and R-Truth, a Brock Lesnar vs. Daniel Bryan instant classic, Roman Reigns winning his first world title over Dean Ambrose, a Survivor Series all-timer in Team Cena vs. Team Authority, and the original Elimination Chamber match in which Shawn Michaels won his final world title.

    5. The Original Main Event

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    In 1987, WWE grasped for a new concept in order to add a second annual pay-per-view event to its calendar. Such a move capitalized on the overwhelming popularity of the brand and success of WrestleMania, in addition to going on the offensive against Jim Crockett Promotions in directly competing with their flagship annual spectacular, Starrcade.

    On one hand, the answer was obvious—Hulk Hogan battling Andre the Giant had proven perhaps the most successful draw in company history as the main event of WrestleMania 3. Rebooking this singles bout would have diminishing returns, though, given Hogan was never known as an in-ring virtuoso and especially given Andre\’s progressively weakening physical health and resulting diminished capacity to put on a passable match. So, the best solution emerged: to position the men as captains of teams in which their partners could shoulder the majority of the work.

    The resulting match was deceptively good with clever booking that protected Hogan with a mid-match DQ elimination, pushed Bam Bam Bigelow as he stood up well to one-on-three odds, collecting pins over One Man Gang and King Kong Bundy before succumbing to Andre the Giant. For his part, Andre emerging the sole survivor kept him well positioned as the top heel and a credible WWE Championship challenger as the calendar rolled into 1988. Finally, the match put over the elimination tag-team format in general as a fun novelty, capping the first Survivor Series with an entertaining match that had a genuinely surprising outcome.

    4. The First Main Roster War Games

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    After five years of contrived brand warfare offering a seriously mixed bag of Survivor Series events, 2022 saw WWE make a radical turn with the very first main roster War Games match, pitting a peak Bloodline lineup of Roman Reigns, Solo Sikoa, Sami Zayn, and The Usos against Drew McIntyre, Kevin Owens, and The Brawling Brutes crew of Sheamus, Butch, and Ridge Holland.

    It was long rumored that Triple H championed the idea of WWE WarGames bouts while Vince McMahon was resistant to the idea—part of why the gimmick appeared on NXT years before launching on the main roster. With The Game at the creative helm by November 2022 and The Bloodline a perfect fit as a faction to follow in the tradition of WarGames matches centered on The Four Horsemen, Dangerous Alliance, nWo, and The Undisputed Era, the table was set.

    The resulting match was very good. While fans will endlessly debate the relative quality of different WarGames outings, there\’s little questioning the draw this style of match proved to be and the fact that the main event delivered contributed mightily to launching a new annual tradition.

    3. Team WWE Vs. Team Alliance 2001

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    In 2001, WWE infamously wrestled defeat from the jaws of victory as the dream scenario of booking a WWE vs. WCW war (not to mention with the ECW brand and talents in the mix) became a reality. There are so many reasons the Invasion angle failed, with some of it coming down creative, some of it talent relations as many of WCW\’s marquee names chose not to come over in 2001. Nonetheless what started as the most promising of angles limped into fall 2001.

    To the credit of the powers that be, who opted to bring the Invasion to a conclusion at Survivor Series, taking advantage of the well-established tag team elimination format to pose Team WWE vs. Team Alliance for one last showdown. Against the odds, the final match of the angle proved quite arguably the best of the bunch, as the action delivered in a dramatic, fun main event that conclusively ended the high-profile storyline and set WWE on a path for its future.

    Team Alliance going up against WWE with a lineup that included Steve Austin, who\’d become a star in WWE after WCW fired him, Kurt Angle who\’d only ever wrestled for WWE, and Shane McMahon is borderline laughable in hindsight. Nonetheless, that lineup actually does bespeak a lot about how WWE booked The Alliance, not to mention that the talents chosen delivered in spades.

    2. The Rock Vs. Mankind

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    When it comes to ranking the most objectively famous professional wrestlers in WWE history, including casual fans and non-fans, Mick Foley is in the conversation for a top ten-ish spot. Meanwhile, The Rock is in the next echelon of names with a legitimate case to be called the most famous wrestler who ever lived.

    Going into Survivor Series 1998, both of these men were fringe main event acts—perhaps more earnestly, upper mid-carders when they reached the finals of a tournament to crown a new WWE Champion. So it was that this Survivor Series main event not only helped elevate both burgeoning stars, but cemented Rock\’s status as a star second-only to Stone Cold Steve Austin in that heated moment of the Attitude Era.

    In addition to pushing the right guys and the clever booking in pulling a big swerve with Rock\’s surprise heel turn to become Mr. McMahon\’s hand-picked Corporate Champion, there was the matter of poeticism. WWE had already bounced back from a rocky time the year before with massive creative and commercial success in 1998. This Survivor Series main event put an exclamation point at the end of the sentence as WWE riffed off the infamous Montreal Screwjob to fully own the infamous moment and nod to fledgling Internet and \”smart\” fans, while marching forward to even greater heights of the Attitude Era.

    1. Bret Hart Vs. Shawn Michaels, 1997

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    The 1998 Survivor Series main event finish of Mr. McMahon calling for the bell while The Rock had Mankind locked in a Sharpshooter wouldn\’t have been nearly as potent or even sensical were it not for the Montreal Screwjob going down one year earlier.

    A heated on-air and behind-the-scenes rivalry between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels came to a head with the two defining New Generation stars battling it out one last time for the WWE Championship. So much has already been written and discussed about the scheme to get the belt off The Hitman on his way out the door to WCW, including calling for his submission loss without the performer himself consenting to that finish.

    This main event was important enough to remain a topic of conversation and debate as we approach the three-decade anniversary in just a couple short years. Hart recently reflected on the Montreal Screwjob at an Inside The Ropes event, revealing he wishes he\’d knocked out Triple H in addition to giving Vince McMahon a black eye. Combining legitimate shoot with worked shoot elements, this moment in wrestling history marked seismic shifts across the board, including a decade-long rift between Hart and WWE and Michaels being cemented as the guy who would ultimately pass the torch to Stone Cold Steve Austin at WrestleMania months later.

    WWE itself would forever change, and despite the poor look of screwing over such a well-respected veteran as Hart, it\’s hard to deny this moment didn\’t serve the company in the long term as it launched the Mr. McMahon character and charted a course for the Attitude Era.

  • He Did It For The Rock: Rikishi’s Heel Turn Is Still Misunderstood 25 Years Later

    Survivor Series 1999 featured one of the most infamous moments in WWE history. The show was set to be headlined by a Triple Threat Match between quite arguably The Attitude Era’s three most defining stars: The Rock Vs. Triple H Vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin. The complexion of the match, the event, and arguably the entire company changed when Austin was run down in the parking garage and unable to compete (a storyline excuse to put Austin out of action for nearly a year while he dealt with neck issues).

    When Austin came back, it was time to pay off one of the more intriguing mystery angles in wrestling history and WWE ran with Rikishi in this spot, immediately transforming a popular upper mid-card babyface into a main event level heel.

    The conventional wisdom is that WWE botched this one, from the bait-and-switch of advertising a Rock-Helmsley-Austin Triple Threat they’d never deliver on (The Big Show joining and winning had its merits, but it was hardly the attraction fans had paid for), to a choice of Stone Cold’s assailant that both didn’t electrify the audience and led to a lukewarm heel run for the big man at hand.

    With the benefit of 25 years of hindsight, critics still blast these creative choices, but it’s not entirely fair. Indeed, while not everything panned out, WWE made reasonable enough decisions surrounding this situation.

    The Angle Made Sense Enough At The Time

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    Image credit: WWE

    The ungenerous reflection on the angle of Stone Cold Steve Austin getting run down in a parking garage suggests that Rikishi was a random, if not downright nonsensical character to plug into the assailant spot. It’s important to remember the context of The Attitude Era and broader Monday Night War, though.

    This was a crash TV era in wrestling in which swerves were par for the course. So, more so than Rikishi being a random fit, one might instead think of him as a mid-card veteran getting his big break.

    To WWE’s credit, Rikishi’s turning was shocking. The company had even gone so far as to plant a seed that the driver had blond hair, leading to perhaps the least expected blonde wrestler possible being revealed and with it both a push for Rikishi and a set up for fresh matchups as he collided with not only Austin, but top babyfaces like The Rock and The Undertaker in the months to follow.

    Sometimes, WWE Has To Take A Swing On Reinventing A Talent

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    There’s a classic piece of pro wrestling booking wisdom that no one knows if someone can make it as a top guy until he has the chance. Pushing Rikishi as a new top heel was a quintessential example of precisely this dynamic.

    Let’s consider two analogous examples from the decade to follow. There was JBL—the arrogant, multimillionaire heel who reigned as WWE Champion for the better part of the year. Plugging babyface Bradshaw into this role—particularly after he’d been reinvented so many times and found his best success as a tag team guy with The APA—was an enormous gamble. Set up the new persona, put the title on him, and perhaps most importantly put a mic in his hand, and he became a highly credible new character and a particularly important figure as WWE cemented a new crop of main event stars in John Cena, Batista, and Randy Orton.

    Counter to the JBL example, there’s the case of Lord Tensai. Matt Bloom was a respected big man veteran as Albert and A-Train in WWE, before he tried his luck in Japan and enjoyed massive success as a monster heel in that environment. So, when WWE brought him back, they rolled the dice on his Lord Tensai gimmick. Call the character itself too cartoonish or outdated. Blame timing, as the new monster heel didn’t really have a chance to take off before Brock Lesnar re-signed and shifted the picture of what counted as a legit monster heel in the main event picture. One might blame it on Bloom himself, not pulling off the character. Whatever the case, the Tensai gimmick peaked not as a threat to John Cena and other top babyfaces of the day, but rather as half of a comedic tag team with Brodus Clay.

    In the end, it’s difficult to predict which ideas in pro wrestling will ultimately pan out and which will fizzle. Rikishi had a solid tag team run as a Headshrinker, stumbled through his Sultan and Make a Difference Personas, before peaking as a dancing super heavyweight. Pivoting his character into a serious heel was a worthwhile experiment a skilled performer who demanded reinvention if he was ever going to breakthrough to a main event spot. The experiment fell short, but that doesn’t mean it was the wrong call to try.

    The Heel Turn Did More For Rikishi’s Legacy Than Fans Might Think

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    It’s tempting to say that Rikishi’s heel turn flopped and that him spending the rest of his time on the WWE main roster in tag teams or in the mid-card reinforced that point. There is a case to the contrary, though.

    When it comes to the top things Rikishi’s legacy is remembered for, the fun-loving big man gimmick probably takes the cake. But well ahead of any other persona comes his main event heel character—a dangerous big man who held his own with Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. Much more than a punchline, when one reflects on Rikishi saying “I did it for The Rock,” the sentiment is one of him staking his claim as an act alongside The Rock and Austin—memorable, talented, and credible, on however fleeting a basis, as a top guy.

    After 25 years, Rikishi may not show up in the same heights of Attitude Era legends like Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, The Undertaker, Kane, The Big Show, Kurt Angle, or Mick Foley. He does demand attention at the next tier down, though, as quite arguably the biggest Attitude Era star to have never won a world title. It’s a noteworthy spot, and one he likely as not wouldn’t have claim to without his historic heel turn.

  • The Enduring Legacy Of Eddie Guerrero

    On November 13, 2005, Eddie Guerrero was found dead in his hotel room. At just 38 years of age, Guerrero was around the top of his game, less than two years removed from winning the WWE Championship and still very much part of the WWE main event scene in an angle with reigning World Heavyweight Championship Batista.

    More important than wrestling storylines or titles, Guerrero was both a beloved figure to fans and to colleagues behind the scenes. His passing was a legitimate shock to all levels of the pro wrestling community.

    It’s hard to believe that we’re looking at the 20th anniversary of Guerrero’s passing, but as such, there’s no better time to consider his enduring legacy.

    Eddie Guerrero Remains An Influence

    It’s no secret that wrestlers are influenced by other wrestlers, but it’s telling that in the modern era so many talents pay homage to Eddie Guerrero. Indeed, the list of major names who cite Latino Heat as someone who inspired them, whom they’ve sought to emulate, or whom they’ve directly imitated is staggering. It ranges from Seth Rollins to Finn Balor to Mercedes Mone to Sammy Guevara to Athena. That’s not to mention Dominik Mysterio directly borrowing from his kayfabe papi’s look and mannerisms.

    All that’s not to mention now-veteran performers who only briefly crossed paths with Guerrero but have spoken of learning a lot from the late legend, including John Cena, CM Punk, AJ Styles, and The Hardy Boyz. On top of that, talents like Rey Mysterio and Chris Jericho, in the twilight of their careers, still speak of their old friend and colleague in reverential terms.

    Cynics might attach some of the outpouring of love to the tragic circumstances of Guerrero’s death, far sooner than anyone was prepared to say goodbye to him. Nonetheless, there are very few wrestlers whose legacies have remained as potent as long after their passing as Guerrero’s.

    Eddie Guerrero’s Style Has Lived On

    When discussing Eddie Guerrero’s style as a professional wrestler, a unique combination of factors comes into focus. He was a high-flyer and a skilled technician. He showed real fire as a babyface and a wonderful sense of both humor and swagger as a heel. The combination of these dynamics allowed him to ultimately arrive at the best version of himself late in life as an irascible rogue character whom it was hard not to love. Indeed, his “I lie, I cheat, I steal” mantra became emblematic of a uniquely endearing heelish manner. This complex character shone through both in the ring and on the mic alike.

    So it is that Latino Heat lives on every time a crafty character gets an opponent disqualified by pretending to have been attacked with a foreign object, just as it does in signature spots like the Three Amigos suplexes and the Frog Splash.

    Guerrero embodied both a work ethic and a sense of personality that fans and promoters alike could not resist. While he was neither the first, nor the smallest wrestler to break through WWE standards and arrive in the main event picture despite relatively diminutive size, he nonetheless stands the test of time as a performer who defied norms and was simply too great to be denied a top spot.

    Eddie Guerrero’s Work Holds Up Remarkably Well

    One of the uncomfortable truths that wrestling fans are particularly prone to facing in the modern era of extensive archival footage available to stream at all times is that much of what they think of as “old school” wrestling does not hold up to the test of time. Indeed, as much as someone can respect stars of the 1970s and earlier, the style is so much slower and less high-spot-oriented than today’s product that it’s hard to bridge that gap. From there, more purely personality-driven acts like Hulk Hogan and Sid Vicious can be fun to revisit for pure nostalgia, but it’s also hard to defend most of their matches as being objectively any good.

    Eddie Guerrero’s body of work holds up remarkably well. As a staple cruiserweight, mid-card, and tag team wrestler in WCW, his work was well ahead of its time. From there, in WWE, he really put the pieces together when he had more of an opportunity to shine on the mic, besides building muscle mass to better suit the look of a WWE Superstar. So it was that he delivered classic action with fellow in-ring greats fans would expect like Rey Mysterio and Kurt Angle, but also gave performers like JBL, young Batista, and John Cena some of their best bouts.

    Eddie Guerrero was under-featured in his time. In hindsight, it feels like a travesty he never made it to the main event in WCW and only captured one world title in WWE. Just the same, there is some solace in the fact he’s still so well remembered two decades after his passing. Indeed, though it wasn’t a popular sentiment when Guerrero was at his actual peak, looking back, there’s every argument that he belongs in the conversation of the greatest professional wrestlers who ever lived.

  • Please Triple H, Survivor Series Can Have Both WarGames And Elimination Tag Team Matches

    In 2017, something truly exciting happened when the first-ever WWE-branded WarGames match occurred. The gimmick match had been an NWA and then WCW staple, but even under that branding had fallen apart over time with modified rules that undermined the concept in the 1998 and 2000 editions.

    WWE brought fresh talent to the traditional concept and NXT was a gothe formula could grow tiresome with only so many compelling stories to tell within that framework, and fatigue following from too much of the same. the bouts featured some of the best workers in the world, backed by an old-school sensibility to the booking.

    The next step in the gimmick’s evolution came in 2022, when WarGames emerged as a new Survivor Series tradition. Indeed, the last three editions of the event each featured two WarGames outings—one featuring women, the other men—and factions like The Bloodline, Judgment Day, and Damage CTRL anchoring the matches—harkened back to yesteryear when The Four Horsemen, The Dangerous Alliance, and finally the New World Order largely defined these bouts.

    Along the way, though, traditional elimination tag team matches fell by the wayside for Survivor Series. The early days of the PLE featured nothing but this style of match, and while the focus wavered over time, four-on-four or five-on-five bouts of this style were still at the bedrock of the annual event.

    With Survivor Series 2025 around the corner and, at press time, no matches officially announced, all we know is that WWE does plan to have at least one WarGames battle. Could they feature an elimination tag team contest too?

    Too Much Of The Same Gimmick Match Has Diminishing Returns

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    It made sense when WWE transitioned away from Survivor Series cards that were all or even mostly elimination tag team matches. The formula could grow tiresome with only so many compelling stories to tell within that framework and fatigue following from too much of the same.

    There’s a case to be made that WWE has been overdoing it on WarGames as well in the modern era. While WWE’s WarGames matches themselves have by and large been excellent, consistently featuring two on the same card each year has invited comparison between the two—not to mention a bit of fatigue—as the second match of the same style inevitably doesn’t feel quite as exciting for the repetition.

    Fans Are Nostalgic For Elimination Tag Team Matches

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    The introduction of WarGames to the WWE landscape but it served the nostalgic tastes of older fans who’d followed the NWA or WCW and introduced a new generation of fans to a genuinely different match type that introduced different creative possibilities. Moreover, adjustments like taking the roof off the cages invited fun high spots that have become fodder for WWE highlight reels.

    Still, longtime WWE fans miss their elimination tag team action. Not every match conducted under these rules was a classic—and, indeed, WWE had its share of misses in brand warfare angles that felt forced and booking that got too complicated for its own good. Nonetheless, there are examples like a white-hot blow-off to the Invasion angle in 2001, Team Austin vs. Team Bischoff in 2003 that produced incredible drama, a high-level Raw vs. SmackDown showdown in 2005, or a masterfully constructed Team Cena vs. Team Authority clash in 2014 that set up Sting’s debut.

    All of these examples speak to just how good an elimination tag bout can be, especially with the right story and the gimmick not being overexposed.

    One Elimination Tag Team Match And One WarGames Gives Fans The Best Of Both Worlds

    The answer seems clear. One elimination tag team match. One WarGames. Three or four solid singles or regular tag team bouts to flesh out the Survivor Series card. This structure can allow both team gimmick matches that are now associated with Survivor Series to shine and not suffer from redundancy or comparison.

    There is the unavoidable issue that, presumably, with the gimmick matches breaking along gender lines, one division might come across as lesser. To put a finer point on it, if women got the elimination tag team match, some fans might perceive that as a slight compared to men getting WarGames. There’s no perfect answer there, but alternating which gender gets which match for years to come create some equity there, and allows WWE to craft both stories and book talent to best serve each gimmick.

    Featuring an elimination tag match alongside WarGames also sets up fun possibilities around the two-ring structure. After all, couldn’t the spectacle of a face in peril having to cross to the rings for the hot tag add to the drama and offer a more realistic scenario for why pins aren’t getting broken up?

    Ultimately, a lack of elimination tags in recent years does have the benefit of absence makes fans’ hearts grow fonder. Bringing  that gimmick back alongside WarGames can set up a better diversified, more fun card and scratch a nostalgic itch for fans of all kinds, craving both styles of team matches.

  • The Complicated Trajectory Of WWE World Domination, Part Three: WWE Vs. AEW

    Under TKO ownership, WWE has made some bold moves, including the introduction of the ID and Next In Line Programs, as well as a strategic partnership with TNA and the purchase of AAA as discussed in previous parts of this series. One key element in WWE’s strides forward toward further dominating the wrestling world is the existence of AEW.

    As recently as 2018, it was all but unthinkable another truly national wrestling promotion with household names and a legit major cable TV deal could coexist with WWE. That’s exactly what has emerged though, via Tony Khan’s deep pockets and vision, paired core founding partners Codythe other promotion would have liked to have kept.he Young Bucks launching AEW.

    There are a lot of open questions about how WWE views AEW and the long-term prospects of how the two promotions may war with one another, share the wrestling space, or even collaborate. Fans can readily theorize and read between the lines, but like other aspects of WWE’s continual expansion, this relationship is complicated.

    WWE And AEW: Neither Competitors Nor Allies

    WWE has never publicly, explicitly identified AEW as competition and, indeed, many pundits are quick to point that despite the promotion’s successes and some fans preferring the AEW product, they still don’t really broach Wthe smart money looks to be with WWE and AEW remaining in more or less stasis.

    Moreover, there have been amicable moments between the promotions. AEW allowed Billy Gunn to appear on WWE television for the D-Generation X WWE Hall of Fame induction. WWE also, by all accounts, gave Adam Copeland their blessing to see through his ambitions for the twilight of his career in the environment AEW had to offer.

    WWE has also taken the occasional potshot at AEW, though, and Tony Khan has been more vocal about his understanding of WWE trying to push AEW or around, or even push the much younger promotion out of existence. Indeed, it’s telling that while WWE has brokered more and more deals in sharing talent with TNA, acquiring AAA, and giving indies WWE ID designations, WWE and AEW have pointedly not worked together.

    WWE’s Counter-programming Efforts

    In the early stages of AEW’s run, a Wednesday night war emerged, with WWE running NXT on the same night as AEW Dynamite. It’s hard to say if this was as much a competitive choice on the part of WWE as incidental programming by network TV partners. Regardless, AEW surprised some fans in, by most metrics, winning this war. NXT ultimately moved to Tuesday nights.

    The last year has seen WWE more pointedly go up against AEW, though, announcing its NXT Great American Bash and women’s Evolution events on the same day as AEW All In Texas, NXT Heatwave opposite AEW Forbidden Door and, most recently a major new event in WrestlePalooza against AEW All Out in September.

    One might dismiss any given one of these choices as a coincidence and a sign of WWE not caring about whether it clashes with AEW. The steady pattern, however, suggests that WWE brass is making aggressive competitive choices to undercut AEW’s PPV buys.

    Competing For Talent

    Regardless of whether WWE has been or continues to compete with AEW programming, there remains the matter of talent. There have, predictably, been some talents who’ve bounced between promotions like Andrade, Rusev, and Aleister Black. More notably, though, each promotion has “won out” in acquiring some talents it looks as though the other promotion would have liked to have secured like when Will Ospreay landed with AEW or Stephanie Vaquer chose WWE. There have also been instances in which one promotion secured a talent it seems clear the other would’ve liked to have kept.

    On AEW’s side, Jon Moxley was an original score who helped legitimize the promotion when he opted not to re-sign with WWE and debuted AEW’s inaugural PPV. Bryan Danielson and Adam Copeland stand out as other marquee talents who openly chose AEW over WWE.

    For WWE’s part, Cody Rhodes switching jerseys may have turned out to be the most monumental move in the competition between the promotions, but Pentagon and Rey Fenix also represent big shifts, and fresher talents like Mariah May, Ricky Saints, and Ethan Page have also done nicely in NXT since departing AEW.

    CM Punk may be the most fascinating name to have bounced between WWE and AEW. He became one of the biggest stars in wrestling in WWE, then looked like a gamechanger for AEW before very public backstage issues led to a huge fallout. AEW fired him, but it’s nonetheless noteworthy that Punk has reemerged as one of WWE’s biggest stars since his return there in late 2023.

    The Future Of WWE Vs. AEW

    There are a lot of open questions about the future of AEW. With his considerable resources and devotion to wrestling, Tony Khan stands to keep the promotion going indefinitely. AEW’s outlook is unique though, in that it’s difficult to imagine what might become of the promotion without Khan at the helm.

    There isn’t any reason to think Khan is going anywhere anytime soon, though, and given his explicit animosity toward WWE, AEW may be the one promotion WWE will definitively not open its “forbidden door” to. The rumor mill suggests part of WWE’s vision for its dealings with TNA is to reassert the promotion as the number two wrestling company in the world, over AEW, up to and potentially including trying to spark a ratings war between the companies that leverages WWE resources in TNA’s favor.

    In the meantime, AEW’s success on HBO Max and creatively fulfilling 2025 give reasons for optimism. The smart money looks to be with WWE and AEW remaining in more ore less stasis for years to come as the number one and two wrestling promotions, lowkey competing but unlikely to rekindle the heights of the WWE vs. WCW war of the 1990s.

  • WWE Isn’t Proving Tony Khan Wrong… They’re Proving Him Right

    the closest comparisons might be its secondary titles (and Saints did reign as Tag Team and FTW Champion, besides winning the Owen Hart Cup in AEW) posted by CM Punk with the caption “Look at us” featured not only him wearing his newly won World Heavyweight Championship, but new Women’s Champion Cargill as well as reigning NXT Champion Ricky Saints and WWE Champion Cody Rhodes with their belts, standing arm-in-arm, some of the biggest success stories to depart AEW and thrive in WWE.

    The thing about the critiques of Khan and AEW (which, for the record, Punk and other talents pictured did not explicitly participate in) is that they’re, at best, only partially on point. It could be fairly said WCW fumbled Chris Jericho or Eddie Guerrero in locking them into the mid-card despite his incredible talent and  main event potential, or that WWE did the same with Toni Storm, who has gone on to show what she’s capable of under the AEW banner. This isn’t to say AEW hasn’t squandered some stars or made creative missteps. The picture is much more complicated for the current slate of AEW alumni reigning in WWE, though.

    Tony Khan Pushed Some of His Biggest Name Defectors Hard

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    Not long after CM Punk posted his photo, Blake Monroe replied, calling attention that she too was an AEW alum and now reigns as NXT North American Champion. Interestingly enough, Punk, Monroe, and Jade Cargill specifically represent anything but Tony Khan’s creative missteps.

    In a two-year run with AEW (which encompassed two injuries that put Punk out, cumulatively, for nearly half that time) The Second City Saint won the AEW World Championship twice. If anything, it’s clear that Khan, as a booker, tried very hard to push Punk on top, only for injuries to kill momentum both times. That’s before backstage politics turned as ugly as possible in the infamous Brawl Out incident and before Punk’s altercation behind the scenes at All In 2023 spelled the end of his time with the company. One can debate Khan’s handling  of backstage politics and incidents, but there’s no legitimate claim the AEW President undervalued or under-pushed Punk.

    For her part, Jade Cargill reigned as the original TBS Champion for 508 days and was well-protected in her title loss. That’s at least on part with the push WWE gave Cargill in her first year and a half with the company, and all indications in both cases would suggest the company was helping her come along as an in-ring performer en route to bigger things.

    In some ways, Blake Monroe represents the most decisive case of Khan knowing exactly what he had in a talent. While WWE passed on Monroe when she tried out to wrestle for them, Khan signed her and pushed her into quite arguably the highest profile women’s feud in AEW to date opposite Toni Storm, up to and including a Women’s World Championship reign. Monroe chose not to re-sign when her contract was up, opting to test her luck with WWE. So it is that Khan did his best as long as he had this star, and WWE pushing her too really amounts to a testament of how right Khan was.

    Cody Rhodes Represents A Unique Case

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    Image credit: WWE

    There’s no question that Cody Rhodes has thrived at a much higher level since returning to WWE than he ever did as an on-screen character for AEW. It’s hard to blame Tony Khan for that, though.

    Within the first year of AEW’s history, The American Nightmare challenged for the AEW Championship with the stipulation that if he did not dethrone Chris Jericho, he would never be able to challenge for the world title again. By all indications, Rhodes called his own shot here, at least agreeing to if not responsible for the idea of taking himself out of the main event picture.

    Rhodes has, since, cited that he regretted that choice, realizing that he still had world champion potential and had thrown in the towel on that part of his AEW career too soon. Just the same, in the broad scheme of Rhodes’s career trajectory, one can’t ignore that he left WWE because Vince McMahon fumbled him, then made a name for himself that included playing a major role in launching AEW. That he did an about-face and re-signed with WWE afterward, only to launch the most successful run of his career as a wrestler tells a remarkable comeback story of a wrestler who bet on himself and won. This wasn’t Khan’s mistake but one of the most unique stories in wrestling history unfurling, with AEW a small part of it.

    WWE Has Opportunities To Feature Talents At Different Levels With NXT

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    NXT Champion Ricky Saints. Photo: WWE.com

    Ricky Saints is the NXT Champion and Ethan Page reigns as both NXT North American Champion and AAA Mixed Tag Team Champion. These are fine feathers in the cap of two emerging stars who quite arguably were under-featured in AEW.

    The tricky thing is, though, that if one is comparing AEW success to WWE success, there really is no point of comparison between AEW and NXT. WWE ‘s a large enough organization that its developmental brand carries prestige. Nonetheless, one surely couldn’t say AEW got it wrong by not positioning Saints as World Champion, while WWE has gotten it right by placing him atop NXT. AEW doesn’t have a proper developmental brand, and as such the closest comparisons might be its secondary titles (and Saints did reign as Tag Team and FTW Champion, besides winning the Owen Hart Cup in AEW) or, now, the ROH Championship (a murky point of comparison, but had Saints remained on good terms with AEW, it feels realistic he may have been in contention for that tile).

    Indeed, Page is probably the one current champion in WWE there really is a case that AEW fumbled, as All Ego is now a double-champion and briefly even reigned as NXT Champion upon his arrival to the brand. By contrast, he never enjoyed much measurable success in AEW, occasionally working with top guys or challenging for titles, but he had little to show for it. Nonetheless, the point stands that holding secondary titles in NXT and AAA doesn’t have a very precise analog in AEW—Page still has some ways to go in making it feel as though AEW truly missed a major opportunity with him.

    In the end, so much of how wrestlers are used comes down to timing, context, and what’s happening behind the scenes. AEW’s track record is far from perfect, but suggestions that recent WWE success stories highlight failings on the part of AEW and Tony Khan are largely misguided and actually show AEW used most of these talents more or less correctly.

  • WWE\’s World Domination Part 2: New TNA & AAA Partnership

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    Image credit: AAA

    WWE has, by most metrics, been the undisputed leader in professional wrestling for about forty years. As discussed in part one of this series, the ID Program has taken the company’s ownership of the wrestling sphere to the next level, lending independent promotions and schools WWE branding and a pipeline to funnel best-fit talents straight into WWE’s system.

    Another dimension of WWE’s new approach to world domination has included strategic acquisitions and partnerships. In particular, talent-sharing with TNA and acquiring AAA, though it continues to mostly operate as a sovereign brand, have presented a new set of circumstances.

    WWE Exposure Brings More Eyes To Smaller Promotions

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    One of the surest benefits to both TNA and AAA since entering their dealings with WWE has been bringing more eyeballs to their products. TNA and NXT talent have thoroughly commingled across 2025, including Trick Williams and Jacy Jayne enjoying runs as TNA world champions and talent sharing across major events for both brands.

    Meanwhile, AAA Worlds Collide events have explicitly cast AAA talents opposite WWE Superstars and even the long-running TripleMania featuring Dominik Mysterio, Dragon Lee, and El Grande Americano in the main event. That’s not to mention that the Worlds Collide event formally launching WWE-AAA crossover and TripleMania each streamed via WWE’s YouTube channel, exposing the product to a significant viewership who may not have otherwise tuned in.

    Another clear example of the opportunities these dealings have opened for smaller promotions came at SummerSlam, where, before the TLC tag team bout, WWE cut to Team 3D and The Hardys in the crowd. Each team represented relevant legends who’d pioneered the TLC gimmick in WWE. WWE also singled out that these teams would square off at TNA Bound For Glory this year, lending direct advertising for a match that may legitimately be of interest to WWE viewers and that more casual fans may not have otherwise heard of.

    WWE Gets Access To A Wider Pool Of Prospects

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    Mr. Iguana Photo: WWE.com

    One of the not as explicitly advertised, but nonetheless clear results of WWE’s relationships with TNA and AAA has been access to talents signed to one of these smaller promotions.

    Early rumblings about the TNA partnership included word that WWE brass saw Joe Henry as a ready-made star that they could feature. Similarly, Mr. Iguana made his WWE Raw debut shortly after getting a huge social media reaction at Worlds Collide. Each of these instances point toward opportunities for WWE try out, experiment with, and tap into potential future stars while they hone their craft on other brands.

    There’s The Potential For WWE To Book Special Moments With Guest Talent

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    Photo: WWE.com

    In 2022, it was a big deal when Mickie James appeared in the Royal Rumble with her TNA gear and entrance music, not to mention the Knockouts Championship over her shoulder. Little did fans know that Jordynne Grace would follow in her footsteps, or what Joe Hendry go on to accomplish.

    Besides feuding with Trick Williams in NXT, Hendry had his moment as a surprise entrant in the Royal Rumble. Even more monumentally, though, he wound up Randy Orton’s mystery opponent at WrestleMania 41. In a win-win situation, Hendry got to work in front of the largest crowd he ever has—as TNA Champion at the time—while WWE got to nod toward hardcore fans in booking a viral Internet darling for a special WrestleMania moment.

    Booking Mid-Card And Developmental Talents Against A Brand’s Top Stars Risks Diminishing Smaller Promotions

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    An uncomfortable reality regarding Joe Hendry’s WrestleMania debut was that Randy Orton defeated him handily in a three-minute, then dropped him with another RKO in the aftermath. By all accounts, Hendry and TNA were perfectly happy with the situation, but this did nonetheless cast TNA’s top guy as beneath The Viper’s level. Maybe there’s no shame in that given Orton’s legendary status, but it’s still an unusual scenario.

    On top of that, Hendry would go on to drop the TNA Championship to Trick Williams. Williams is one of the top guns in NXT, but still, this an instance of a WWE developmental guy getting the best of a promotion’s top star. A similar narrative emerged in Jacy Jayne’s brief Knockouts Championship run. Not so dissimilar, Dominik Mysterio, El Grande Americano, and Dragon Lee have been cast as AAA Mega Championship contenders. While Mysterio is very over as a mid-card heel, and the El Grande Americano gimmick has overachieved, the larger picture is, nonetheless, WWE mid-carders main eventing for the Mexican brand.

    These moves ultimately cast TNA and AAA alike as something more akin to their own WWE developmental territories. That’s in contrast to a situation like AEW’s crossover with TNA in preceding years, where main eventers Kenny Omega and Christian Cage were wrapped up in the TNA Championship picture, and Cage ultimately put over Josh Alexander as the new face of TNA.

    Perhaps most interesting of all, the respective TNA and AAA situations may reflect a template moving forward. Might WWE partner with a major indie promotion like GCW or MLW, or make a play to buy NJPW? It’s hard to know how realistic these possibilities might be without knowing behind the scenes financials and strategies. Nonetheless, the seal is broken and a lot more seems like it could be in the works than one might have guessed even one year ago.

    Ultimately, WWE seems to be reaping noteworthy benefits from having bought AAA and from its working arrangement with TNA. For AAA’s part, falling directly under WWE’s ownership, clearly the financials made sense and the brand now belongs to WWE to do with as they see fit.

    By contrast, the future is less certain for TNA. Perhaps WWE will one day acquire the promotion, and if they do, it would probably be at least as much for their tape library as the current promotion. Assuming TNA remains independent, though, they may enjoy WWE backing that helps them compete with AEW for the number two spot they unofficially conceded years ago. As such, WWE’s adversarial relationship with AEW may well have a disproportionate impact on their dealings with TNA.

  • Pro Wrestling Is Undergoing A Tag Team Renaissance

    Tag team wrestling is a staple of pro wrestling history. This style of match allows promotions to vary a card and open up genuinely different storytelling possibilities among tag team rivalries, including but not limited to teams coming together, breaking up, and reuniting. Moreover, tag teams can offer a keen place for young talents to cultivate experience or for aging talents to lend their credibility on screen and mentorship backstage to up-and-comers while their actual in-ring work tapers off.

    A lot of signs suggest a renewed focus on tag teams across major promotions. This dynamic tends to ebb and flow but, at least in the short term, there\’s a lot of reason for excitement for tag team wrestling fans.

    Major Reunions Have Brought Buzz to Tag Team Wrestling

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    Image credit: AEW

    There\’s a lot to be said for the excitement of seeing a beloved tag team reunite, and pro wrestling has delivered on several such angles in recent months. In AEW, the biggest story is Adam Copeland (\”Cope\”) and Christian Cage finding themselves on the same page again. Longtime fans remember them as one of the very best tag teams in the stacked WWE Attitude Era, where in-ring ability, personality on the mic, and the kind of interpersonal chemistry that can only come with years of real-life friendship made this pair something special.

    The team\’s time together was deceptively short in WWE. The duo paired for less than three years full-time, as Edge in particular got major singles opportunities interspersed with their proper teaming. From there, Edge became a main eventer, while Christian had a respectable singles run of his own while also bouncing between tag teams and factions.

    Extended periods followed with Edge in WWE, Christian going to TNA to get his own main event push, and later heading to AEW years ahead of his best friend. That’s not to mention both men suffering seemingly career-ending injuries that took each out of action for years. Though the two worked one-off tag matches together and enjoyed a reunion angle shortly before Copeland’s first retirement, it makes complete sense that fans are incredibly excited to see the pair teaming up again in 2025 as age dictates both men must be eyeing a more permanent retirement.

    On a smaller scale, AEW also staged a Jurassic Express reunion at All Out. While Jack Perry and Luchasaurus don’t have the decades-long story of Cope and Cage, this does represent both men returning to their roots as a babyface tag team that fans still have a lot of nostalgia for after heel runs that drew mixed reactions (Perry a polarizing big-name heel, Luchasaurus a viable henchman for Cage, but he never really found another gear beyond big man mid-carder and tag team wrestler). This revisitation of the team invokes AEW nostalgia for a pairing that got over in the earliest days of AEW. Three years apart gave fans time to miss them, but also, the sudden reunion without any meaningful foreshadowing delivered a genuinely pleasing surprise for fans.

    Meanwhile, on the WWE side of things, The Usos came back together over the summer with a renewed sense of credibility for Jey’s main event push—including main eventing SummerSlam as a singles star, winning a Royal Rumble, and capturing a world title at WrestleMania—besides Jimmy remaining viable as a mid-card act and factor in main event storylines. The duo had about 13 years as a team for the WWE main roster audience, but after spending most of two years apart (and even feuding against each other), it feels refreshing to see them paired again—even if recent creative has complicated whether they’ll keep teaming or what their face-heel alignment might be for the long haul.

    The Tag Team Ranks Are a Great Place for Nostalgia

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    One clear sign of the success of AEW and WWE tag team reunion angles is that the tag division is a great place for nostalgia, as fans love seeing meaningful alliances revisited.

    TNA has been in on the act too, booking The Hardys vs. Team 3D for Bound For Glory. Alongside Edge and Christian, these two teams represented the foundation of perhaps WWE’s most successful tag team feud of all time, and arguably the company’s most successful period for tag team wrestling overall.

    None of the four men involved in this TNA showdown are young anymore, so TNA is a good spot to highlight a match like this for its smaller stage and its hardcore fanbase that can definitely tap into the nostalgia of an attraction like this.

    WWE had its own spin on this kind of matchup recently on its NXT Homecoming special, with DIY facing Trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes. Each pair felt representative of a distinctive generation of NXT, each with roots as partners and main event level foes. The tag team format—including The Miz interfering—kept everyone reasonably well protected in the process.

    Such is the essence of nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. The stakes are objectively low, but tag team matches can help cover for aging performers’ limitations, keep any single performer from being over-exposed, and allow fans to lose themselves in the rush of a hot tag and reunited pairs “playing the hits.”

    Dream Matches Could Be in the Making

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    With the recent resurgence of tag teams, there are possibilities around dream match scenarios. Cope and Christian Cage have lots of business left to settle with FTR, but after that dream scenario wraps, a showdown with The Young Bucks is appealing as well—not to mention the complicated history Cage has with Jurassic Express that might invite that tag team feud.

    On the WWE side, The Usos represent great foils for just about any pairing, including an array that might emerge from NXT and also acts like The Judgment Day. And though the rivalry may have been overdone in the 2010s, there is something fun about imagining running back a Usos vs. New Day feud in 2025.

    A Little Fantasy Booking

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    Jimmy and Jey \’The Usos\’. Photo: WWE.com

    Part of the fun of multiple major wrestling promotions operating at the same time is imagining dream scenarios pairing the best acts from one company against the best of another, in addition to speculation about what other tag teams might take shape.

    Dream match scenarios start with stalwart talent who’ve stuck with the same promotion and thus haven’t had the opportunity to work with one another. The conversation starts with The Usos and New Day on WWE’s side opposite The Young Bucks in AEW; the Bucks working either of these teams would pay off years of lowkey debate around tag team supremacy.

    An FTR vs. Street Profits showdown also has to be in the conversation. These teams did work some house shows in NXT and a battle royal together at Survivor Series 2019, but it’s a case of FTR being a generation ahead of Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins, who are just starting to come into their own on the WWE main roster after FTR moved on to AEW.

    A hard-hitting heavyweight clash pitting Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin against Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed also has a lot of appeal. This is even before considering reigning tag champs like Brodido, The Wyatt Sicks, and The Judgment Day, or other masters of the tag team form like The Motor City Machine Guns or the inevitable Lucha Bros reunion as Pentagon and Rey Fenix team together for the first time under the WWE banner.

    Finally, while women’s tag teams have in most cases not had as much time to gel or cultivate nostalgia, the pairing of Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair has the name recognition and experience to be entertaining opponents against just about any pairing. Moreover, AJ Lee and Nikki Bella’s returns to WWE, alongside speculation about a comeback tour for Paige, have fans hungry for a WrestleMania 31 rematch of Lee and Paige versus The Bella Twins.

  • The Complicated Trajectory Of WWE World Domination, Part One: Indie Take Over

    In the 1980s, WWE became the dominant force on the pro wrestling landscape when a national expansion saw the company breakdown territorial boundaries by touring across the country and around the world, besides leveraging syndication, cable, and pay-per-view TV models to broadcast into the homes of fans all over.

    The back half of the 1990s were largely defined by the Monday Night War when WWE found itself in its first and arguably only real dog fight as WCW surged and, in the short-term, actually got bigger than WWE by a number of metrics. By 2000, WWE had taken a decisive advantage and 2001 saw the company achieve its most decisive victory of all: buying the competition.

    While roughly two decades to follow saw new talents emerge, new changes to the business model, and new considerations, the truth remained that WWE was on top of the wrestling world and, within the sphere of pro wrestling, there wasn’t really any competition for them.

    Between the rise of AEW, Vince McMahon’s fall from grace, and TKO acquiring WWE, recent years have seen the next evolution of WWE as a business and how it’s approaching the larger wrestling landscape. One consistent thread has been progress toward world domination. WWE is not settling for being the top wrestling promotion in the world, but rather seems intent on owning the business from top to bottom. This multi-part series will consider the new opportunities, growing pains, and nuanced factors that fans are watching play out before their eyes.

    The ID Program Was Established In 2024

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    In October 2024, WWE rolled out its ID program, which saw it flag a select number of indie promotions and schools for resources and direct pathways to eventual careers with WWE.

    The development of this program is too recent to have amounted to much just yet, but, for better or worse, it clearly positioned WWE as more formally associated with the larger world of professional wrestling. Indeed, while casual or non-fans might altogether equate WWE with pro wrestling, the ID program took a step toward that connection proving literally true, as even some objectively small, local wrestling outfits became affiliated with the largest entity in the business.

    The ID Program Looks Like A Win-Win-Win

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    Image credit: WWE

    On paper, the ID Program stood to benefit everyone involved. For many talents, WWE is the ultimate goal. So, constructing a better-defined path to lead from a training program or small-scale promotion benefits talents with a better chance to be seen by WWE.

    The program also benefits the affiliated indies themselves. A WWE ID designation is a mark of credibility to distinguish a little-known company. On top of that, a WWE partnership can help local companies attract the best talents available—ones who may not be ready for WWE just yet, but who really do have the potential to grow into that kind of spot.

    Finally, the ID program benefits WWE. During the national expansion, the company infamously raided top talents from a range of promotions, with names ranging from Hulk Hogan to Roddy Piper to Junkyard Dog to The Texas Tornado less homegrown than poached after proving their top star potential in regional territories.

    The nature of the business in 2025 means that it’s hard for a truly breakout star to emerge in the US outside WWE, AEW, and maybe TNA. Just the same, having a finger on the pulse of top training programs and indies gives WWE a chance to snap up the cream of the crop for their own developmental system, if not the proper main roster, before they think of going abroad or signing with AEW.

    The Raja Jackson Issue Sheds Light On Major Issues

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    Beyond the opportunities outlined above, WWE’s ID Program looks as though it would offer a nice balance of indies maintaining their autonomy while still having some access to WWE resources. On the flip side, WWE wouldn’t necessarily have to expand to manage another promotion, but rather enjoy the benefits of an independent feeder system.

    The incident of Raja Jackson brutally injuring Syko Stu at a Knokx Pro event on August 23 complicated things for the WWE ID Program. Knokx Pro had a WWE ID designation, with WWE legend Rikishi at the indie’s helm. The apparent miscommunication between Jackson and Stu—Stu seemingly thinking he was working an angle with Jackson only for Jackson to give him a disproportionate receipt in the ring—led to an ugly scene. The aftermath and fuller explanations for what happened are still unraveling.

    Before the incident could reflect poorly on WWE, WWE seemed to quietly sever the relationship, removing KnokX Pro from at least their public records. On one hand, this happening demonstrated a real vulnerability for WWE—to have its name associated with a small promotion that may well play host to objectionable activity, whether it’s real violence like this incident entailed, an offensive angle, or other issues.

    On the other hand, it’s also arguably not a great look for WWE that they cut ties the moment things got rough—distancing themselves from a PR problem while also seeming to demonstrate they wouldn’t stand by or support a promotion that found itself in real trouble.

    Assuming the WWE ID Program carries forward into the future, there’s little doubt it will continue to evolve perhaps with a wider reach or perhaps reining in oversight of indies they associate with. Regardless, the first year of the program has highlighted both opportunities and pitfalls as just one aspect of WWE’s march toward further domination of the wrestling world.

  • Why CM Punk And AJ Lee Vs. Seth Rollins And Becky Lynch Should Main Event Wrestlepalooza

    AJ Lee rocked the wrestling world with her return to WWE on the September 5 edition of SmackDown, and it didn’t take long for WWE to confirm the presumptive plans—that she would team up with her husband CM Punk against Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins for a mixed tag team match of epic proportions at Wrestlepalooza.

    With the possible exception of Triple and Stephanie McMahon vs. Kurt Angle and a debuting Ronda Rousey, this would have to be considered the biggest mixed tag team match WWE has ever built to. Between the buzz of Lee’s return, and the three other performers all being well-respected talents at or around the top of their game, anchored by a long, hot feud between Rollins and Punk, this bout has the makings of something special. While the presumptive main event for Wrestlepalooza will be the final match between John Cena and Brock Lesnar, the mixed tag really should close the show.

    AJ Lee’s Surprise Return Outperformed Brock Lesnar’s

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    AJ Lee. Photo: WWE.com

    Brock Lesnar made a splash with a surprise return at the end of SummerSlam and, surely, a lot of the buzz there came down to legitimate surprise as most indications suggested the fall out from the Janel Grant situation and The Beast’s advancing age meant he was done in WWE. WWE touted that over 75 million people watched clips of Lesnar’s return across their social media channels.

    AJ Lee’s return was—by the time it happened—less of a shock, as WWE had planted clear seeds and the rumor mill was working overtime. Nonetheless, the moment tallied nearly three million views in the first hour and was cited to have garnered 130 million views on socials in the first 24 hours.

    There are factors that complicate the statistics, like a widely watched SummerSlam streaming on Peacock versus a SmackDown episode that was not streaming in most markets. Still, there’s also the reality that while Lesnar is at best polarizing both on account of the scandal and arguably feeling played out as a WWE Superstar, Lee is beloved and fans were all to excited to see the trailblazer back in WWE. The pops in the live venues themselves attest to these reactions as well.

    There’s More Buzz Around The Mixed Tag Team Feud Than John Cena Vs. Brock Lesnar

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    Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch. Photo: WWE.com

    Blame it on the controversy surrounding Brock Lesnar, on fans tiring of John Cena’s farewell tour, or on the booking. Whatever the case may be, there’s simply not a lot of buzz around Lesnar vs. Cena at Wrestlepalooza.

    To be fair, the two have established chemistry, including a great match at Extreme Rules 2012 and a very memorable outing at SummerSlam 2014. As such, it’s possible they’ll turn fan perceptions around in the late stages of the build to this match or after the opening bell rings. Still, WWE may be swimming upstream if tries to program this match after what’s sure to be a white hot reaction for the mixed tag.

    The Stakes Are Higher If Fans Reject Brock Lesnar In The Main Event

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    Photo: WWE

    It’s entirely possible the live audience and social media alike will turn on Brock Lesnar. Besides the aforementioned reasons for him registering as, at best, polarizing right now, there’s the history of his outing at WrestleMania 20 to reckon with—a showdown with Goldberg that got totally overshadowed by boos and catcalling.

    Yes, Lesnar is playing a heel, so there’s room for him to absorb or even feed off a poor reaction. That’s not to mention that he’s much more experienced than he was in 2004 and will share a ring with John Cena, one of the very best at working an opinionated live crowd.

    Still, WWE is clearly investing a lot in Wrestlepalooza as a stadium show and the launch of a new PLE deal with ESPN. The stakes are high if the crowd really turns on Lesnar, and that goes double if its in the last match of the show.

    AJ Lee And CM Punk Vs. Becky Lynch And Seth Rollins Will Be More Reliably Great In The Ring

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    Image credit: WWE

    Brock Lesnar hasn’t wrestled in two years and John Cena is not the in-ring performer he once was. While Cena’s capable of flashes of greatness—indeed, his last two PLE performances were significantly better than his preceding ones in 2025—and Lesnar is a freakish athlete, it still feels far from certain that the match between the two will deliver in 2025.

    By contrast, Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins are at the top of their game, turning in consistently strong in-ring performances on top of drawing good heat. CM Punk has proven his haters wrong for the most part in this WWE run as well, not only holding up his end of hot feuds but doing his share to deliver in big match scenarios time and again. AJ Lee is the ex-factor, but she was a strong worker, looks to have stayed in incredible shape, and the fan enthusiasm behind her should be more than enough to cover for any ring rust in this first match back.

    The Mixed Tag Team Feud Has More “Juice” Looking Ahead

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    CM Punk and AJ Lee on SmackDown. Photo: WWE

    Even for those fans who are sold on John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar, the reality is that this stands to be their last match with one another. Alternatively, if it is just chapter one of a new story between them, WWE is entering dicey territory as so much of the audience isn’t sold on Lesnar being part of the show anymore and, more so, fans have other opponents they’re more excited to see Cena face as he burns daylight on this retirement tour.

    So, whereas Cena vs. Lesnar is a one-off novelty, AJ Lee and CM Punk vs. Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins has legs. There’s no telling for sure what WWE has planned, but it’s not unrealistic to imagine this being one more installment in a journey that arrives at Rollins and Punk main eventing WrestleMania 42 with the World Heavyweight Championship on the line, while AJ Lee vs. Becky Lynch, perhaps for the Intercontinental Championship climaxes at the same super show. Even if the feuds don’t run that long, Wrestlepalooza all but certainly doesn’t spell the end, and WWE would be well served to spotlight a feud among top stars who are going to keep beefing over a one-and-done encounter.

  • AEW All Out And WWE Wrestlepalooza Are Perfect Embodiments Of Wrestling’s Two Biggest Companies

    This Saturday is shaping up to be a historic day for wrestling as AEW broadcasts All Out and WWE showcases Wrestlepalooza. While the companies have coincided and competed over dates before, including the Wednesday Night War and WWE’s NXT specials running up against AEW offerings, this may well be the combined biggest between the two companies since AEW’s inception in 2019.

    All Out and Wrestlepalooza will not actually run against each other, though given the propensity for AEW shows to run long, it’s quite possible there will be some overlap. Nonetheless, each show feels as though it’s making a statement about the respective companies’ identities and what they offer the modern wrestling fan.

    Featured Tag Team Matches Tell The Tale

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    Image credit: AEW

    For AEW, the tag team match pitting Cope and Christian Cage against FTR has to be the most hotly anticipated affair. The reunite legendary tag team worked Forbidden Door together, but it’s hard not to read that bout as a dry run to shake off the ring rust of the pairing. By contrast, stepping into the ring with FTR—deep personal friends, heated on-screen rivals, and one of the best in-ring tag teams of their generation—has all the makings of an instant classic.

    Meanwhile, in WWE, though John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar has now been announced as the Wrestlepalooza main event, the match with the most buzz is AJ Lee and CM Punk vs. Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins. That interest largely owes to the novelty of seeing Lee in a WWE ring again for the first time in a decade, combined with the other marquee talent and the hot feud at hand.

    In AEW’s case, the tag bout is largely a testament to nostalgia and the legends at hand having some creative freedom, as a testament to both Cope and Cage picking AEW over WWE to presumably wind down their careers. What’s more, the match quality is all but guaranteed to be there for the talents involved and their relationships.

    For WWE, Punk and Lee represent a past generation of top WWE Superstars, and the match itself is a lowkey dream match. This scenario demonstrates Triple H’s patient booking style as well. There’s every possibility this is the first of multiple mixed tag team encounters between these pairings. What’s more, there’s every possibility both Punk vs. Rollins and Lee vs. Lynch have enough juice to carry all the way to WrestleMania.

    Wrestlepalooza Boasts A Quintessential WWE Main Event

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    Image credit: WWE

    Though a vocal portion of the WWE audience would advocate for the mixed tag team match or Cody Rhodes vs. Drew McIntyre main eventing Wrestlepalooza, there is something quintessentially WWE about spotlighting John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar.

    Both of these men are defining faces of the Ruthless Aggression Era. Moreover, when they met again in 2012 and in their 2014-2015 issue, it represented how timeless they are WWE main eventers—guys with superhero physiques, their own brands of charisma, and the ability to work the WWE main event style at the highest level.

    So it is that putting on Cena-Lesnar last, with all the extra trimmings of Cena’s retirement tour and implications this is the last time these two will share a ring embodies a lot of how WWE develops attractions that feel must-see, especially for casual or lapsed fans.

    Women’s Matches Are Representative Of The Respective Divisions

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    Both AEW and WWE are staging one women’s singles match, each for a title, on the main cards of their respective shows. In WWE, it’s Stephanie Vaquer vs. Iyo Sky for the vacant Women’s World Championship. In AEW, Mercedes Mone defends the TBS Championship against Riho.

    On the WWE side of things, the scheduled match feels a lot like a fight for the future as two of the best in-ring talents square off. Sky has been heavily featured all year as her upset title win over Rhea Ripley on the Road to WrestleMania set her up to then successfully defend the Women’s World Championship in a banger at ‘Mania. Meanwhile, Vaquer’s a fresh face who garnered an early springboard promotion from NXT to become a featured player on the main roster. The victor here feels telling who will carry the division forward and ultimately prove the next major rival for Rhea Ripley over the belt—Vaquer is looking like the favorite.

    On AEW’s side, Mone has been a largely dominant champion for over a year now, but faces a fresh challenge in Riho, who was the original AEW Women’s World Champion. This pairing represents a clash of AEW generations in a sense, from its earliest days when many considered their women’s division a relative weak point to the present, when Mone has contributed to elevating the TBS Championship to feeling an awful lot like a second top prize for women to go after, bespeaking a deep division with ample stars to chase each belt.

    Both of these matches are all but assured to be pretty great. It does feel reflective of WWE’s growth that Vaquer will presumably advance to her first world title here, while it also bespeaks AEW’s steady, sustained push for its top female talents that Mone will likely keep rolling along.

    The Macro-Scale Cards Reflect Each Company

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    The card for AEW All Out is largely reflective of the company. There are ten announced matches as of press time, featuring a range that includes a Tables ‘N’ Tacks Match as well as a Coffin Match, each of which all but guarantee hardcore plunder and blood given the gimmicks and talents involved.

    By contrast, at press time Wrestlepalooza has five matches on the docket, sticking to a tighter formula Triple H has grown famous for that allows longer individual match times, the show itself not running to marathon lengths, and leaving plenty of meat on the bone for free TV and to hold off major bouts for other big events down the road. The card composition is also steady with one men’s world title match, one women’s world title match, a tag match, the mixed tag team bout, and a main event showdown between two marquee talents.

    Wrestlepalooza Vs. All Out: Which Show Will Be Better?

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    CM Punk and AJ Lee on SmackDown. Photo: WWE

    In an increasingly tribalistic world of wrestling fandom, the question a lot of fans will boil things down is which show as better: Wrestlepalooza or All Out? Perhaps the biggest demonstration of how well each show shapes up to represent its companies is that earnest cases will come from both sides on the companies respective merits.

    Fans who burn out on long shows and who privilege star power, not to mention the return of AJ Lee will but assuredly come out in favor of WWE and Wrestlepalooza. On the flip side, fans who just can’t get enough wrestling and applaud four-hour-plus shows—and especially those who like a little blood and guts mixed in—will probably enjoy the heck out of All Out. The coexistence of these shows is a very healthy thing for wrestling on the whole as there’s really something for everyone coming this Saturday.

  • Brock Lesnar Vs. John Cena Should Be The Beast’s Farewell Match

    John Cena’s farewell tour has been one of the biggest stories of 2025, highlighted by his heel turn and, more recently, a turning face once again. He may have lost the WWE Championship to Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam, but the surprise return of Brock Lesnar, who promptly dropped Cena with an F5, demonstrated that the now-former champion’s time in the spotlight is far from done.

    John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar lacks some of the appeal of previous Cena matchups this year. While Cena squaring off with Randy Orton, R-Truth, and CM Punk carried some fun novelty of reversing face-heel orientations while revisiting famous rivalries, Cena and Lesnar find themselves in their most familiar roles. Cena is a face again. Lesnar is, by all indications, a monster heel.

    One wrinkle to make this match more intriguing than it otherwise might be is the prospect that it could mark not only Cena’s last match with Lesnar, but Lesnar’s last WWE match ever.

    The Reactions To Brock Lesnar’s Return Show He’s, At Best, Polarizing

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    Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam. Photo: WWE.com

    When Brock Lesnar made his surprise appearance at the end of SummerSlam 2025, he drew one of the biggest pops of the weekend. Indeed, there’s no denying The Beast is a huge name, besides which fans sincerely didn’t know he’d be there. Lesnar hasn’t shown up on WWE television since being implicated in Vince McMahon’s scandal with Janel Grant.

    After the initial shock of seeing Lesnar, the reaction died down and, particularly on social media, things took a turn. While some fans were hyped to see The Beast again after an extended absence, a louder chorus of naysayers were offended at WWE featuring him again despite the allegations, not to mention that there’s a real case Lesnar’s character felt played out by his last major feud with Cody Rhodes in 2023.

    The popular theory circulating right now is that John Cena personally requested to work with Lesnar, which makes sense given the overarching impression is that Cena’s has called most of his own shots along his retirement tour. For the sake of nostalgia and “playing the hits” it does make some sense for Lesnar to be back in the fold in this very specific context. That said, it doesn’t seem as though many fans would be all that disappointed if Lesnar were gone from WWE after one more bout with Cena.

    John Cena Is A Fitting Opponent For Brock Lesnar To Go Out On

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    John Cena after SummerSlam. Photo: WWE

    Like him or not, Brock Lesnar is a unique spectacle of a professional wrestler. He’s huge, he’s a legitimate athlete, and top to bottom he was well-protected throughout his WWE main roster run. As such, The Beast really only makes sense in the ring opposite other top guys. For marquee value, John Cena fits that bill.

    More importantly, Lesnar and Cena have extensive history. When Lesnar won his second world championship at WrestleMania 19, his first as a babyface, the first major challenger to chase him, and his first legitimate rival who wasn’t already an established veteran was fellow OVW Class of 2002 graduate Cena.

    When Cena made his big babyface turn after the mid-card heel run that got him over and prepared him to ascend to the main event—he did so to stand up to Lesnar going into Survivor Series 2003.

    When Lesnar returned to WWE after eight years away and a foray into mixed martial arts, Cena was his first rival back. Then The Beast infamously squashed Cena in the main event of SummerSlam 2014.

    So, with well over a decade of history between them, and as a Mt. Rushmore pair of WWE’s last twenty-five years, it’s hard to think of a better rival for Lesnar to tie up his WWE career against than Cena.

    John Cena Could Achieve A Career First

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    Image credit: WWE

    One of the interesting aspects of John Cena’s farewell tour has been the question of what firsts, records, or other milestones he still might hit. In February, he fell one spot short of tying Stone Cold Steve Austin’s record as a three-time Royal Rumble winner. In March, he shocked the world with the heel turn no one saw coming. In April, Cena became the first ever seventeen-time world champion (at least as far as WWE’s records are concerned).

    There aren’t very many meaningful milestones left for Cena. He didn’t even enter the King of the Ring tournament, so that possibility passed him by. He could still win that elusive Intercontinental Championship, and thus complete his tour of winning every title he’s been eligible for. There are still a handful interesting first-time matches for him opposite the likes of Drew McIntyre or Gunther.

    One achievement well within Cena’s reach would be to finally pick up a decisive victory over Brock Lesnar. Cena has just two one-on-one victories over Lesnar across eighteen documented bouts. Night of Champions 2014 saw Cena win by disqualification. Extreme Rules 2012 saw Cena’s biggest win over Lesnar, but it’s telling that match saw The Beast violently dominate Cena for the overwhelming majority of the match before Cena stole the pin after clocking Lesnar with a chain to turn the tide at the end of the match, before hitting an Attitude Adjustment on the ring steps to pick up the win.

    While some might call that Extreme Rules victory decisive—and it is a subjective point—it was largely erased by how handily Lesnar squashed Cena in their next match, the main event of SummerSlam 2014 for the WWE Championship. What better way could Cena gain redemption than, 11 years later, not just surviving Lesnar, but soundly defeating with a clean pin or perhaps even a tapout victory?

    Many big-name wrestlers gave Brock Lesnar a lot, with stars like The Undertaker and Kurt Angle going out of their way to cement Lesnar as “the guy” in his first WWE run, and who’s who major talents putting him over between 2014 and 2019. John Cena ranks toward the top of that list for the variety of ways in which he put over Lesnar at the highest level.

    Maybe WWE could officially bill their showdown as Lesnar’s last match. Maybe the match could be career vs. career with Cena going home early if he loses and Lesnar leaving forever if he does. Or perhaps the end of Lesnar’s career could go unrecognized as he more quietly rides off into the sunset. Regardless, There’s no more fitting final chapter to their story than The Beast putting over Cena as not only a stop on Cena’s farewell tour, but the end of Lesnar’s own pro wrestling journey.

  • Nobody Likes A Price Hike, But Might The Move To ESPN Light A Fire Under WWE PLEs?

    Effective in September with Wrestlepalooza, WWE’s PLEs are, in the United States, transitioning from Peacock to ESPN. More than a platform change, the move comes with an upcharge. While lots of fans had access to Peacock through different bundles or special extended subscription deals that kept the price well under ten dollars monthly, ESPN’s new platform carries a $30/month price tag that has left a lot of fans cold.

    Some have pointed out that in the traditional pay per view days, WWE charged upwards of $50 for even B-level PPVs, and the new price point still undercuts what AEW offers for its own specials. Indeed, the price is in some ways more consistent with the larger wrestling market and history. Still, it’s a tough pill to swallow for fans who aren’t otherwise invested in what ESPN has to offer to think about paying more than twice as much each month to follow the major shows.

    Nobody wants to pay more for the same product, but is it possible that what WWE has planned will justify the the price hike?

    The Move To ESPN Has Left Some Fans Miffed

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    In 2014, WWE launched the WWE Network. In what, in hindsight, feels like an inflection point between cable TV dominance and the age of streaming, a lot of fans weren’t sure what to make of the move, but the $9.99/month price point was undeniably a solid deal for monthly PLEs and a previously inaccessible library of past events.

    While the general consensus was that Peacock was a poorer service for quality of live streaming, the fact that it came with a larger streaming platform of popular programming like The Office at essentially the same subscription price made the transition painless or even favorable to some fans. The move to ESPN comes with a price hike that may seem beneficial to wrestling fans who also follow other major sports at a serious level. For those who do not, however, the transition feels like more money for less content.

    Triple H Books Well Under Pressure

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    Cody Rhodes and Triple H. Photo: WWE.com

    The general consensus is that Triple H has performed well as the head of creative for WWE. As time marches forward, though, he does have his critics, who point out that weekly television has lost its momentum. Moreover, while fans were initially high on scaling back the marathon PLE format, shows with only five or even four announced matches have started to feel underdeveloped and like there’s too much filler in between the action. The COO has also come under fire for under-featuring black talent, particularly in the men’s singles ranks.

    Some growing pains are to be expected. Triple H went from booking developmental where change was the name of the game with talents getting promoted to the main roster or released, while new names were always on their way in. In 2022, The Game had to pick up from everything Vince McMahon had already set in motion, which presented a mixture of its own advantages and challenges. 2023 saw Helmsley get to more fully pursue his own vision, but two years in some of the novelty has worn off, and new competing factors like TKO ownership and The Rock’s political stroke have added more layers of complication.

    At the highest pressure moments, though, Triple H has tended to deliver. Whether it was sinking or swimming the first time he had his own territory to book in NXT, or elevating The Bloodline to greatness while also finishing Cody Rhodes’s story, The Game has lived up to the biggest moments in his creative thinking and leadership. This move to ESPN feels a lot like another inflection point, when fans hang from a precipice on whether they can justifying paying three times as much to follow WWE PLEs.

    If The PLE Quality Meets The Price Increase, Everyone Might Win

    Whether it’s the low match-count, the quality of the in-ring action, or the overarching creative, WWE has drawn mixed reactions for its PLE output in 2025. It’s hard to deny the product is much better than it was in the final stages of Vince McMahon’s leadership. Just the same, the overarching fanship’s honeymoon period with Triple H has come to a close.

    Monthly PPV and monthly PLE streams have led to their share of lackluster major shows in between bangers. With fans paying thirty dollars a month, though, it stands to reason Triple H and his roster might feel the weight of responsibility to give fans their money’s worth.

    No doubt, some fans will not make the jump to ESPN because the extra money simply isn’t in their budget. Meanwhile, other fans with some combination of the expendable income and diehard commitment to WWE will. As for everyone else in between, WWE can make the price hike worth their while with improved quality, slightly extending the match cards, finding their way to another hot streak of booking and delivering month in and month out.

    How will WWE’s move to ESPN play out in the long run? Only time will tell. But while no one wants to pay more money to follow wrestling, WWE has a unique opportunity to make the investment worthwhile with some of its best output ever.

  • How AEW Has Gotten It Right With Adam Copeland

    Wrestling fans have made a lot of noise about missteps in AEW\’s use of stars. Whether it was not pushing Malakai Black or Miro sufficiently, or exhibits of how up and comers like Penta, Ethan Page and Blake Monroe have arguably been featured much better in the WWE system, there certainly are cases worth critiquing.

    However, AEW’s handling of Adam Copeland has highlighted a number of real strengths. Where as all indications were WWE was happy to feature Edge as a part-time special attraction, Cope seems happy with his time in AEW, and he has been used in diverse and fulfilling ways.

    Cope And Christian Cage Finally Had Their Proper Feud

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    Photo: AEW

    In WWE, Edge and Christian feuded on and off, with their issue most prominently taking centerstage in 2001, during the Invasion angle after their tag team had formally split up. The uncomfortable truth is that while they had a handful of free TV matches and two PPV showdowns, their matches never felt like they realized their potential. An Intercontinental Championship Ladder Match at No Mercy 2001 was probably as close as they got to a banger.

    Both Adam Copeland and Christian Cage have probably been, by any objective measure, past their physical primes for their AEW runs. Nonetheless, their collective experience and wisdom, not to mention enhanced credibility made fans take notice when they clashed in AEW. Across a series of bouts, they elevated the TNT Championship, with their first free TV encounter, the No DQ bout at World’s End 2023 and I Quit Match to blow off their feud all extremely well received and paying off all the potential fans long saw in a feud between them.

    Cope Worked Fresh Opponents

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    Adam Copeland on Dynamite. Photo: AEW

    A highlight of any legend working a run in the twilight of his career is seeing fresh matchups materialize opposite younger talents. Cope’s AEW resume includes bouts with the likes of Malakai Black, Penta, Daniel Garcia, Minoru Suzuki, Claudio Castagnoli, and PAC to name a few.

    While Adam Copeland’s comeback tour in WWE also included new matchups, he also had a tendency to get bogged down working the same opponents like Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and Finn Balor on repeat. Not to take away from the quality of the resulting matches, but it has been refreshing to watch Cope work a range of talents on TV and PPV alike in AEW.

    Cope Worked The Main Event

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    No Adam Copeland run would be complete without him venturing into the main event picture. Cope vs. Jon Moxley was a solid world title feud that lent Mox and The Death Riders a more than credible top face to fend off in the heat of their time on top. While the Revolution 2025 main event under-delivered by most standards, Cope vs. Mox in a Street Fight on Dynamite made up for it.

    Cope did well in the AEW main event scene. Importantly, he also didn’t overstay his welcome. After coming up short against Mox, The Rated R Superstar continued to feud with The Death Riders, but away from the title, before transitioning to his current issue with FTR.

    The Cope And Christian Reunion Is Coming

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    Cope feuding with FTR signaled to a lot of fans that a tag team reunion with Christian Cage may well be on its way. Cage’s own falling out with his Patriarchy allies has edged him toward a babyface turn,  which seems to solidify where this pair is headed.

    A proper Cope and Christian reunion looked like it may have been in the works in 2011 when the two allied against Alberto Del Rio and Brodus Clay, before Cope’s neck issues forced him into retirement. A feel-good story still followed, with Christian finally capturing a world title as his best friend cheered him on, but their tag team reunion came across as one of the many things about Copeland’s pro wrestling career that hadn’t had a proper chance to resolve.

    Cope and Christian may not have a long run as a tag team in AEW given their collective age. But even just seeing them work FTR—not only one of the best tag teams in the world, but close friends to Copeland behind the scenes—has all the makings of something truly special. Any other encounters—against Patriarchy alumni, The Death Riders, The Young Bucks, The Hurt Syndicate could all just be gravy before an all-time great tag team and one of wrestling’s most likeable bromances rides off into the sunset.

    From the feud Cope was meant to finally, properly have, to fresh matchups, to a main event stint, to the reunion everyone wants, Cope’s AEW run has checked every box fans realistically could have hoped for. Not unlike how Sting got a proper sendoff, working fulfilling programs in protected tag team contexts to finish off his in-ring career, Cope is also illustrating how AEW can get things very right in using legends to their full potential.

  • Heel Cena’s Time Is Up, Face Cena’s Time Is Now

    One of the realities of John Cena’s farewell tour is that he wasn’t actually around that much for the first two months of it. Yes, he cut an emotional promo on the Raw premiere on Netflix and he worked the Royal Rumble, including finishing as the match’s top runner up. That’s really all Cena  gave WWE fans to remember from the first sixth of his final year, though.

    At Elimination Chamber, Cena turned heel, completely reinventing his 2025. Going into SummerSlam, this is the version of him fans have seen for five months, with the three and a half months of that stretch spent as reigning WWE Champion.

    Cena’s WWE Championship defense against Cody Rhodes is expected to close out SummerSlam 2025 and that match should mark both the end of Cena’s last title reign and the end of his work as a heel.

    John Cena’s Heel Run Has Run its Course

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    John Cena on SmackDown. Photo: WWE

    Many fans have rejected John Cena’s heel run—citing the matches have been lackluster and the heel alignment falls flat when most of the audience wants to cheer him on his way out of the WWE Universe.

    This creative arc has been better than those fans give it credit for, with the novelty of the heel persona making rematches with classic rivals feel fresh, besides the booking intrigue covering up that the champ has clearly lost a step in the ring. However, he’s running out of iconic feuds to revisit and, after over a quarter of the year, the top title in the business does deserve a better in-ring champion.

    In many ways, WWE rolling out its Unreal series on Netflix has put a bow on Cena’s heel run, showing how the powers that be decided upon this monumental booking decision in ways that lend closure to the meta-story alongside what should be the end of a story on screen.

    A Five-Month Version Of The Babyface Farewell Tour Will Work Better Than The Originally Expected Year

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    Photo credit: WWE

    When John Cena announced that he’d work all of 2025 but that that would be his final year as an in-ring performer, it made fans emotional and created a lot of interest. An uncomfortable truth to go with that narrative, though, was that it was hard to imagine a babyface Cena being featured for twelve months straight and not having the fans turn on him. That point only became clearer as Cena demonstrated he wasn’t as sharp in the ring as he once was.

    The heel run gave a segment of fans permission to boo him and a more jaded demographic a chance to cheer the villainous character a lot of them had been calling for for over a decade and had long given up hope of seeing.

    However fans have felt about the last five months, now that Cena only has five months remaining as a wrestler, it’s much more palatable for fans of all persuasions to fully get on board the nostalgia train and celebrate a final babyface run.

    Another Turn Invites One More Chapter Of The Rock’s Involvement John Cena\’s Story

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    The Rock and John Cena. Photo: WWE.com

    The big loose end WWE left dangling coming out John Cena’s heel turn was The Rock’s involvement in it. After all, Rock was there for the moment itself and, alongside Travis Scott, helped Cena brutalize Cody Rhodes. The Final Boss was conspicuous in his absence from WrestleMania 41, though, and hasn’t been a presence in a WWE arena since.

    Cena renouncing his bad guy ways could invite one last angle with The Rock. Might The Great One feel betrayed by Cena for eschewing what they’d agreed on. Might he pick another proxy to represent him against Cena and Cody Rhodes, or might The Final Boss himself get back in the ring, be it in singles or tag team action? While folks who loved the Rock vs. Cena matches at WrestleMania 28 and 29 are few and far between, there’s still a lot of intrigue around the possibility of a final showdown between The Final Boss and one of the greatest babyfaces in WWE history in 2025.

  • It’s Complicated: The Legacy Of Hulk Hogan

    On July 23, 2025, news broke that Hulk Hogan had passed. At 71 years of age and having been the most famous professional wrestler who ever lived, he unsurprisingly drew an outpouring of tributes on social media and in the press. It was also noteworthy, however, how many critics spoke up too, not bowing to the impulse to lionize and whitewash the history of the recently deceased, but rather pointing out that the man may have worn out his welcome on the mortal plane.

    Such is the legacy of Hulk Hogan, chock full of complicated, contradictory feelings around a major celebrity who helped shape a business and was such an inspiration for generations, while also suffering a profound fall from grace on record over the course of the last decade of his life.

    Hulk Hogan Was The Most Important Star In Pro Wrestling History

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    Photo: WWE

    From the late 1970s to early 1980s, Hulk Hogan was a pro wrestling star, making waves in WWE, the AWA, and for New Japan. Despite representing a different style than promoters tended to push on top at the time, it nonetheless wouldn’t have been shocking, even then, to learn that he’d one day be a world champion.

    When Hogan did win his first world title in January 1984 it marked a shift for not just his career but the wrestling business. Vince McMahon had the vision to take WWE national; Hogan was the primary vehicle to make that happen. A larger than life superhero, Hogan became the business’s defining champion and babyface in a run that launched WrestleMania and took WWE into the stratosphere.

    It’s all the more remarkable that Hogan’s time on top had a second act. In 1994, he became the face of WCW. More importantly, 1996 saw Hogan’s heel turn elevate WCW in very similar ways to how the original Hulkamania run elevated WWE. The New World Order became an enormous draw that allowed WCW to beat WWE in TV ratings for a year and a half and remain competitive for some time to follow.

    Though nothing should have surprised fans by that point, Hogan even had one more trick up his sleeve. When he returned to WWE in 2002, he briefly burned bright one last time as a nostalgia act, capturing the imagination in a run that led to his dream match opposite The Rock at WrestleMania 18 and one last world title run to follow.

    It may well have been this run that fueled WWE leaning into nostalgia with returning legends and such emphasis on its Hall of Fame for decades to come. That’s not to mention Hogan’s own periodic returns to the company and his run with TNA.

    Hulk Hogan Crossed Over To The Mainstream

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    Ask the average person who has never followed pro wrestling to name five wrestlers. If the person at hand can complete the task, the odds are Hulk Hogan’s name made the list.

    Hogan entered pop culture as the face of WWE at its hottest. He appeared on MTV and late night talk shows, main evented seven out of the first eight WrestleManias, and became the subject of an unprecedented volume of toys and merchandise. All of that’s before the nWo  became a pop culture phenomenon in its own right.

    So it is that, for all his baggage, The Hulkster remains one of a very small handful of wrestlers who could die and make the entire world take notice.

    Hulk Hogan’s Backstage Reputation Took A Hit

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    The era of tell-all books, documentaries, and podcasts was not kind to Hulk Hogan\’s public image. He’d been WWE’s top babyface and WCW\’s top heel, and though plenty of “smart” fans may have cooled on him, it was difficult to deny his sheer importance to the wrestling business.

    However, one-by-one, accounts fleshed out an unflattering portrait of Hogan. Bret Hart’s book may have offered the most compelling, well-rounded accounting.

    The Hitman recalled himself and his contemporaries loving Hogan for what a draw he was—the rising tide that lifted all their ships to financial prosperity. However, Hart also recalled a double-talking, politicking Hogan who contributed to a booking mess at the top of the card in WWE in 1993. From there came the version of Hogan who ran roughshod over WCW, holding down talents, abusing creative control, and strategically choosing when to and not to appear on television to take credit for ratings spikes.

    While Hogan has spun his own version of events—looking out for his and his family’s financial well being in a tumultuous business where his body wouldn’t allow him to compete forever—a murkier picture of how and why Hulkamania ran wild so long took shape.

    Hulk Hogan Fell From Grace

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    Image credit: Ariel Helwani Show

    The narrative of Hulk Hogan as egotistical, self-serving, and a backstage politician was just the tip of the iceberg. A sex tape would follow and then, most damning, recordings of him issuing a racist rant in 2015.

    Hogan’s words themselves were bad enough. He compounded them with his failure to take accountability. Rather than issue a meaningful apology, he equivocated around the way people talked when he was growing up and later lecturing the WWE roster about being careful not to get caught saying regrettable things on tape in place of actually apologizing.

    Add on Hogan continually getting caught telling a range of lies like that he was almost a part of Metallica, that Andre the Giant weighed 600-plus pounds when Hogan body slammed him, or that he was offered the grill endorsement deal that George Foreman capitalized on. Add on the polarizing choice for Hogan to appear at the 2024 Republican National Convention and offer a full-throated endorsement of Donald Trump.

    In the end, The Hulkster had alienated a significant portion of his fan base. He went from a largely cherished icon of the 1980s to alternately a punchline or an outright villain depending on one’s perspective.

    The Legacy Of Hulk Hogan

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    Image credit: WWE

    Hulk Hogan has one of the most complicated legacies in wrestling. For devout fans of certain eras of the business, it remains difficult to fully disavow him (and that’s doubly true for those who also aligned with his political views). Nonetheless, the racist sentiments in particular position him among those figures one had to—to put it kindly—parse the art from artist for.

    Unlike Chris Benoit whose final acts and means of death were what condemned his reputation as a wrestler Hulk Hogan’s story had played out before he passed—greatest triumphs, warts, and all. It will be interesting to see if his importance to wrestling history or his public blunders “win” in the end as the lasting memories associated with him. It seems certain, though, for better or worse, Hogan will never be forgotten.

  • Slammiversary Highlighted What TNA Does Best

    Time and again, people have dismissed TNA. From its earliest days with the weekly PPV model, vocal critics saw it as a dressed up indie for talents who couldn’t find a spot with WWE. That stigma, paired with questionable business choices around empowering Vince Russo and later Hulk Hogan and a rollercoaster of both booking and management structure changes made a lot of fans give up on the brand over time. The rise of AEW, in some ways, felt like a final nail in the coffin for TNA, as the longer standing brand was firmly supplanted by a different, better-resourced number two US promotion.

    TNA has momentum, though, in 2025. That includes a Slammiversary show that, in drawing a reported 7,623 live fans marked the largest live attendance the promotion has ever drawn in North America. Moreover, the show delivered. While it wasn’t necessarily an all-time classic PPV, it highlighted a number of things going right for and that uniquely represent TNA today.

    TNA Has A Long History Worth Celebrating

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    Image credit: Sportskeeda

    For all its haters, TNA has a history that dates back to 2002, and has a legitimate claim to have featured talents including Christian Cage Samoa Joe, R-Truth, Bobby Roode, Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley in main event, world champion roles before they attained such success with WWE.

    Indeed, the company has a history worth celebrating and the Slammiversary event, which has occurred each June or July explicitly celebrates the anniversary of the first TNA show and all the history since.

    Slammiversary 2025 fittingly featured AJ Styles, in many ways the face of TNA for its first decade-plus, returning to his old stomping grounds for a feel good moment. Moreover, Bully Ray—a TNA Hall of Famer, World Champion, and tag team icon—also appeared to make some news of his own. All of this served as a testament to the promotion’s longevity and importance to the wrestling business.

    The Hardys Vs. Team 3D Makes Sense In TNA

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    When Bully Ray appeared at Slammiversary, he set the stage for a nostalgic dream match between Team 3D and The Hardys at Bound For Glory, TNA’s biggest annual show.

    This particular match is perfect for TNA. Were WWE to book it in 2025, fans would complain about old-timers taking a spot that could go to younger talents. A similar critique might emerge in AEW, and the fast-paced action fans have come to expect there might not make a collision of these veteran teams really click with the audience.

    TNA fans tend to be loyalists and devoted wrestling fans—exactly the right audience to reprise a twenty-five year old rivalry, particularly when both teams have substantial TNA history (albeit very little history under the TNA banner with each other). Featuring this match highlights some of the upside of being a third-tier brand with a smaller, more specific audience to serve.

    The NXT Crossover Will Continue To Draw A Larger Audience

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    There’s little doubt that some of TNA’s commercial success this year relates to their partnership with NXT, which has included a talent exchange and cross-promotion. Some critics might suggest it’s bad for TNA that Trick Williams and Jacy Jayne—talents under WWE developmental contracts—hold TNA’s respective world titles. That criticism is short-sighted, though.

    Having the TNA World and Knockouts Championships featured on NXT regularly is a big plus for TNA’s exposure. Indeed, there’s a real case to be made that TNA talents like Joe Hendry have seen their star power rocket since his involvement with WWE in general. Assuming Williams and Jayne retain their titles or at least remain in their title pictures through Bound For Glory, TNA could well be building to their most attention-grabbing PPV yet come October. That will be especially rewarding if they can pay off the buzz with homegrown TNA stars taking the titles back in great matches at that major event.

    TNA Is Still Building Its Own Stars

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    Image credit: TNA Wrestling

    While Trick Williams and Jacy Jayne may have claimed the top titles in TNA, Slammiversary also included an important sub-plot of Leon Slater capturing the X-Division Championship. At only twenty years old, Slater is a promising TNA prospect to say the least.

    This title change—with him beating no lesser star than Moose—also highlights TNA does still have an eye on its own future. Only time will tell how the NXT-TNA partnership plays out in the long run, but for now it’s a very good thing that with so many eyes on the product, TNA was also able to produce a passing the torch moment for a top young talent. That came complete with TNA Legend and current WWE Superstar AJ Styles putting over Slater on the mic after the big win.

    No one in wrestling has a crystal ball to tell what a company’s long-term prospects might look like. Nonetheless, TNA has beaten the odds in surviving into 2025, and perhaps least likely of all, thriving at its highest level by a number of metrics. Slammiversary offered just cause for celebration as the company keeps on building momentum.

  • With Seth Rollins Out, It’s Time To Accelerate Bron Breakker’s Push

    There are times in pro wrestling when long-time fans can see a familiar story taking shape. When Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed fell into line as supporting characters in a new Seth Rollins faction with Paul Heyman, it shared some DNA with Evolution, which saw main event heel Triple H take inexperienced Randy Orton and Batista under this wing, while Ric Flair played a mentor and mouthpiece.

    Of course, for every runaway success story like Evolution, there were also groups that tried similar tactics like JBL’s Cabinet which failed to produce new stars in the long run, or Orton’s own Legacy stable. While that latter group arguably helped Cody Rhodes by putting him into such close contact with The Viper behind the scenes, it’s hard to say Legacy really helped anyone but Orton at the time or for the immediate years to follow.

    In any event, Rollins and company were off to a strong start, only for things to come to a screeching halt at Saturday Night’s Main Event, when The Revolutionary suffered an in-ring injury. At press time, it’s not clear how long he’ll be out of action, but the following Raw suggested WWE is already shifting plans. Wherever things land, they should include Bron Breakker getting his biggest push to date.

    Seth Rollins Looked To Be The Centerpiece Of Raw For Months To Come

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    Image credit: WWE

    There’s a strong case to be made that Seth Rollins joining forces with Paul Heyman was the biggest story coming out of WrestleMania 41. The surprise moment capped arguably the best match WWE put on that weekend, in the high-profile spot of the Night One main event. Moreover, it charted a course for Rollins and Heyman to be the top heel act on Raw moving forward.

    Add in Bron Breakker, then Bronson Reed teaming up with The Visionary, plus a Money in the Bank briefcase win, and the writing was on the wall. Rollins was going to be a world champion again soon—probably carrying the World Heavyweight Championship as the face of Raw. The smart money was on him cashing in before the end of the summer and carrying that belt into WrestleMania 42.

    Bron Breakker Had Been In A Holding Pattern As A Seth Rollins Henchman

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    Image credit: WWE

    Though Bron Breakker lost his Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania 41, he gave a show-stealing performance in his Fatal Fourway match. The guy looked like an absolute beast and like none of the three men challenging him would have stood a chance individually. Indeed, Dominik Mysterio winning seemed to underscore this point—for as over and entertaining as Dirty Dom is, it’s the nature of his character that he’s not a super serious threat in the ring.

    Breakker joining forces with Seth Rollins and Paul Heyman presented an interesting situation. On one hand, Breakker was positioned to work with top guys and he has still been pushed as a monster. On the other hand, by virtue of standing alongside a main eventer and the two clearly not being equals, it also felt like this partnership more firmly planted Breakker in the mid-card, losing a little of the momentum he had coming off ‘Mania.

    Triple H May Have Had Slow Burn Plans For Seth Rollins And Bron Breakker

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    Photo: WWE

    There’s every possibility that Triple H had a long term vision when he booked a Bron Breakker to team up with Seth Rollins. In the short-term, Breakker would pose a formidable henchman-type to reinforce Rollins in his heel role, work tag matches, and act as a gatekeeper for rising challengers. In the longer term, though?

    There’s a classic archetype of the student rising up to challenge the teacher. Whether it was Larry Zbyszko turning heel on his mentor Bruno Sammartino or Batista turning babyface against Triple H, this is a classic story. The longer Rollins and Breakker ran together, the more fulfilling it could one day before Breakker to feud against his sensei.

    Bron Breakker Is Ready For The Main Event

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    With Seth Rollins injured, WWE has a top heel void to fill. On SmackDown, John Cena is planted as the top heel, though fans’ reactions may turn him back to his babyface role sooner than planned on his retirement tour. On Raw, Gunther is a more than capable world champion, but his run on top is feeling a stale now that it’s run for essentially a year minus Jey Uso’s 51-day stint with the strap.

    While Rollins hasn’t been a world champion for over a year, the writing was on the wall that a top title was coming back his way. With him out, Bron Breakker should be the man to take his place.

    Breakker is over with fans as a physical specimen, with a look and style similar to his father and uncle, The Steiner Brothers. He’s been well-protected too, and with Paul Heyman in his corner and on the mic for him, he doesn’t feel out of place at least challenging for, if not capturing the World Heavyweight Championship.

    SummerSlam Can Bridge The Credibility Gap

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    Image credit: WWE

    When Roman Reigns made his surprise return on the July 14 episode of Raw, it was telling how readily Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed bumped off his offense. The two younger stars just didn’t look like they were on OTC1’s level. While Jey Uso looks more vulnerable, even he’s nonetheless also clearly established as a main eventer much more so than the newest Paul Heyman guys.

    WWE has a chance to make a statement at SummerSlam. Internet speculation has already booked a tag match pitting Reigns and Uso against Breakker and Reed. Whether that is the bout WWE runs with or not, it seems as though Breakker will be in either singles or tag team action with at least one of the top babyfaces in the company. And what if he wins?

    Breakker has already had statement performances on the main roster and established dominance in the mid-card with wins over guys like Sami Zayn and Penta. The Unpredictable Badass can rise to a whole new level though if he pins Uso or especially Reigns, even if it is in the protected circumstances of a tag match. Assuming Rollins really will be out for a period of months, that’s the right play to position Breakker as a new, bona fide main event player.

  • It’s Time For Cody Rhodes To Finish Another Story

    There’s a case to be made that since the moment Cody Rhodes returned to WWE at WrestleMania 38, he’s been the top babyface in the company. That narrative reached its apex at WrestleMania 40, when he became undeniable in beating Roman Reigns in the main event to become WWE Champion for the first time.

    Indeed, The American Nightmare finishing the story was the feel-good moment of the year, if not an entire decade of WWE programming. However, the year-long reign itself drew mixed reaction before Rhodes dropped his title to a heel John Cena at WrestleMania 41. The rematch goes down at SummerSlam and it feels like time for a slice of history to repeat itself.

    Cody Rhodes Can Get His Redemption

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    Photo: WWE

    Perhaps the most polarizing moment of Cody Rhodes’s first two years back in WWE came when he lost to Roman Reigns in the main event of WrestleMania 39. The naysayers would suggest Reigns’s world title run and The Bloodline angle were already stale by that point and Rhodes going down in defeat to cap such a major show was deflating to WWE fans.

    Proponents of the WrestleMania 39 ending would suggest—especially in hindsight—that that loss gave Rhodes the adversity to overcome such that his WrestleMania 40 triumph was all the sweeter. As such, one could draw a parallel to the current story arc of Rhodes vs. John Cena, Yes, The American Nightmare lost at WrestleMania. But as the saying goes, the comeback will be greater than the setback.

    The WWE Audience Is Ready To Appreciate Cody Rhodes On Top Again

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    Cody Rhodes at MITB post show. Photo: WWE

    A funny, if predictable dynamic emerged when Cody Rhodes finally won the WWE Championship. The moment itself garnered an overwhelmingly positive reaction. Within a few months, though, a vocal segment of the audience had taken shape, suggesting Rhodes was overpushed, his reign was boring, and WWE would be better off with a different champion.

    John Cena’s heel reign has had its pros and cons. One point that’s difficult to deny, though, is that we’re seeing about the least impressive in-ring version of Cena since his initial rise to the top. Moreover, some fans feel the heel persona isn’t working at all or, at the least, that it would be more satisfying to see him wrap up his WWE career as a babyface.

    In short, the old wisdom sung by Joni Mitchell holds up: “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” This Cena run has demonstrated how much fans should have appreciated Rhodes on top while they had him, and a second world title reign for him just might garner the respect it deserves.

    Babyface John Cena Can Stay Away From The World Title Picture

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    Image credit: WWE

    In addition to Cody Rhodes finishing another milestone chapter in his own story, it’s time to close the book on John Cena’s final heel run.

    The initial turn was great, and Cena has made some magic on the mic. The Never Seen Seventeen’s bout with CM Punk at Night of Champoins, chock full of run-ins and callbacks is probably about as a good as a 2025 John Cena world title match could be. It’s time for Cena to get humbled, though, and in doing so, perhaps he’ll see the error in his ways and help stave off a post-match attack from either The Bloodline or Seth Rollins’s crew and return to his babyface ways.

    There are readymade stories for babyface Cena to team up with Rhodes, CM Punk, Randy Orton, or R-Truth as he makes amends for the last few months in featured roles that nonetheless keep him out of singles action and away from either world title. That’s the best spot for fans to truly appreciate the final leg of his farewell tour.

    Cody Rhodes Beating John Cena Is Exactly The Moment The First Two-Night SummerSlam Needs

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    Finishing the stories of Cody Rhodes’s redemption arc and John Cena’s heel run will be a huge moment. As such, it’s precisely fitting as WWE elevates SummerSlam to two-night status.

    Indeed, SummerSlam has an uneven history. It’s typically looked at as WWE’s second biggest show after WrestleMania, but fans are quick to point out that it hasn’t always felt that climactic and the Royal Rumble is actually the event with the bigger implications. As The Biggest Party of the Summer graduates to the next echelon of PLE, Rhodes beating Cena is precisely the right moment to give fans.

  • John Cena’s Heel Run Is Going Better Than People Think

    One of the popular narratives among the IWC in the present moment is that John Cena turning heel has been a failed experiment. There are a number of reasons for that, between disappointing match after disappointing match, the novelty wearing off Cena’s heel promos, and the simple principle that a lot of fans want to cheer Cena as he wraps up a historic career.

    Indeed, there’s a groundswell of organic, nostalgic support beneath Cena in spite of the bad guy persona, which has left some fans feeling less heat than like the current run is just awkward.

    While there’s plenty of room to nitpick, Cena’s heel run is serving more purposes and going much better than a lot of fans might realize.

    Lackluster Matches Land Better For Heel John Cena Than They Would For A Babyface

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    Image credit: WWE

    While “you can’t wrestle” have followed John Cena for much of his time as a main eventer, he has proven capable of holding his own in great matches. No, he was never a “work-rate guy,” but he held up his end in all-time classic matches with the likes of Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, AJ Styles, and others.

    One thing that has become apparent in 2025 is that Father Time and extended time away from the ring have caught up with Cena. He didn’t quite look like himself in his Royal Rumble or Elimination Chamber efforts, and, sure enough, his every singles match performance since that point has proven underwhelming.

    While babyface Cena may have been able to play the hits and gotten by on nostalgic good will, there’s little doubt fans would be questioning him reigning as world champion under those circumstances. As a heel, however, there\’s a wider berth for lackluster ring work to blend in as part of the character’s heat. Indeed, fans who want to see him drop the title can root against him in full-throated fashion both to see a better champion crowned and to see the villain get his comeuppance.

    Bizarro Babyface Challengers Against Heel John Cena Are Fun

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    Image credit: WWE

    When Randy Orton emerged as John Cena’s challenger for Backlash, a lot of the buzz surrounded such long-term, iconic rivals switching face-heel orientations for the first time.

    While the original R-Truth vs. Cena feud wasn’t as historic as The Champ\’s storylines with Orton, it nonetheless carried similar undertones of super hero Cena vanquishing crazed heel Truth back in 2011. As such, it was also a little surreal to see babyface Truth versus heel Cena on the marquee for a Saturday Night\’s Main Event.

    Lo and behold, fans are again intrigued with babyface CM Punk lined up as Cena’s next challenger, and it seems entirely possible face versions of AJ Styles and even The Miz could follow. Were Edge still signed to WWE or were it not for Bray Wyatt’s tragic passing, one would have to imagine fresh versions of these famous feuds would be on the docket as well.

    Sure, there’s a case Cena should be working more young talents or at least first-time opponents on this farewell tour. Nonetheless, when all indications are the matches wouldn’t be great anyway, there’s something to be said for focusing on nostalgia instead and putting a different filter on these feuds fans remember fondly.

    Fans Will Appreciate The Return Of Babyface John Cena 

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    Image credit: SEScoops

    It’s an uncomfortable truth that wrestling fans—and particularly wrestling fans in this era of social media and constant content—tend to be a little fickle and to suffer from short attention spans. As much as fans might think they would’ve wanted a straightforward face retirement tour for Cena, might it have started feeling a little stale by now?

    There’s no knowing for sure how things would’ve gone had Cena never turned. Nonetheless, in the likely case Cena does ultimately turn back to his do-gooder ways at or leading up to the end of his career, it’s all but guaranteed to draw a huge response as fans welcome back their hero. Perhaps Cena puts Logan Paul in place or shows respect to the babyface who can pull the sword from the stone and ensure Cena is not, in fact, \”The Last Real Champion.\” Perhaps things come full circle and he winds up standing up to The Rock. Regardless, it\’ll be a feel good moment when Cena does switch sides again, and that move will set him up to get a pop each time he resurfaces as a visiting legend in the years to come.