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  • AEW and WWE in 2026 – The Good and Bad of WCW

    AEW and WWE in 2026 – The Good and Bad of WCW

    With two major national wrestling promotions again, it can’t help but conjure up old memories of WCW and WWF in the mid- to late 90s. AEW and WWE don’t go head-to-head on weekly TV anymore, but it has not made the perceived rivalry any less tense for fans and leadership in both companies. It all echoes WWF and WCW going back-and-forth with each other on Monday nights for fans’ viewership and money.

    That may be the state of the larger industry, but what about AEW and WWE, specifically?

    As March 2026 begins, the two national promotions continue to echo the 1990s, but more specifically the good and bad of WCW. The late-promotion had a wild lifecycle in the 90s, with some of the highest-highs possible intertwined with some of the worst moments in wrestling history.

    DISCLAIMER

    I want to be clear, though, this is a subjective argument from me and me, alone. I am primarily an AEW viewer, while only following along with WWE via reviews, clips, and news, as opposed to the weekly shows. However, I would argue that the points I make in this piece are reflective of the issues that drove me away from WWE to begin with.

    That said, I want to be clear my goal is not to “yuck anyone’s yum” as it were. This is merely my opinion on the state of the two major national companies in the first two months of 2026 and mine alone.

    The Good

    First is the good, which has been seen more-so in AEW to kick off 2026.

    As WCW entered 1995, a young executive by the name of Eric Bischoff found himself at the head of WCW and kickstarting the Monday Night Wars with the debut of Monday Nitro on TNT, opposite Monday Night Raw on USA. He had names, but he and the other top brass in WCW realized they needed more than just Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, and several other aging stars.

    The following year would see WCW star bringing in a whole swath of young names and foreign stars to freshen the rest of the card. It was best incapsulated by the WCW Cruiserweight Championship, which saw names such as Rey Mysterio Jr., Eddie Guerrero, Syxx, Dean Malenko, and many other talented in-ring performers steal the show on a regular basis with faster, more athletic matches.

    WCW’s main event scene would also explode with the nWo’s formation in July 1996. The heel faction founded by Hollywood Hogan, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash would become the biggest thing in professional wrestling. The group would bring in 90’s megastars like Dennis Rodman and Jay Leno to work with WCW for short periods, showing how far the group’s popularity reached.

    The reinvention of Sting as “Crow Sting” would only add fuel to the fire.

    All this would coalesce into a show that, for a time, was some of the best wrestling TV. The best episodes of WCW Monday Nitro offered something for everyone, but not at the cost of WCW’s identity. An opening cruiserweight match between Psicosis and Chris Jericho could be immediately followed by “Big Poppa Pump” Scott Steiner cutting some of the best and most entertaining, albeit somewhat incoherent, promos imaginable.

    On top of that, every segment on the show served a purpose. A match or promo wasn’t there just for the sake of killing time. Every segment on Nitro would feed into some ongoing story or rivalry and felt important.

    If a fan tunes in to Dynamite or Collision, they will not have their time wasted. The shows are delivering some of the best in-ring product in the world, with a true mix of everything from lucha libre to puroresu and everything in-between. The importance is there, too, as each promo or match feeds into something either on the same show or planned for one of the next two shows.

    The array of talent dotting the rest of the card is also a who’s-who of international names, rising stars, and rugged veterans delivering that incredible in-ring work.

    Even Ring of Honor, which is far from perfect, appears to have hit a stride heading into 2026.

    It isn’t to say AEW is above criticism, as there is still improvements that could be made. While the women’s division has made massive improvements, airtime continues to be something of a touch-and-go battle. One example would be getting at least two women’s matches consistently on Dynamite, even if one is a squash match. That said, Thekla has still broken out as one of the more “must watch” names across the whole show on her rise to the AEW Women’s World Championship.

    But as said above, a viewer won’t feel like their time wasted.

    And while the main event scene doesn’t have a nWo, it does have one of the best mixes of top talent in recent memory gunning for the AEW Men’s World Champion, Maxwell Jacob Friedman. This has resulted in Andrade becoming a real main event player seemingly overnight following his return, Brody King and Bandido springboarding from tag team champions to the top of the card, and Swerve Strickland delivering a vicious beating to Kenny Omega and putting the ‘Best Bout Machine’ through the announce table with a vertebreaker.

    Go watch an episode of WCW Monday Nitro from July 1996 to August 1998 and the similarities will stand out almost immediately.

    Even a “throwaway” taped episode of Collision echoes the fun, weirder side of WCW. And if you don’t believe me, look up an episode of early- to mid-90s WCW Saturday Night and tell me a taped Collision isn’t just the modern version of Saturday Night.

    The Bad

    Unfortunately, it appears the bad of WCW in the 90s is much more visible from WWE through February 2026.

    Circling back to WCW’s main event scene, as hot as it got thanks to the nWo, it didn’t resolve the obvious issue that most of the promotion’s top names were getting up there in age. Hogan, Flair, and Randy Savage were already around their mid-to-late 40s when the nWo blew up, while Sting, Lex Luger, Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall were not young names, either. Add to that the apparent death grip many of these names had on the top of the card, and suddenly a hard ceiling existed on the main event that the rest of the card struggled to get around.

    It would lead to the departure of names like Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, and Big Show, who was known as The Giant in WCW. All four of these names would become far bigger names in WWF/E, all winning world titles at various points and three who got to main event a WrestleMania.

    Plenty of talented names remained in WCW until the end, including Rey Mysterio, but never found themselves much higher on the card than where they had been when they debuted. If they weren’t somehow related to a top name or “boys” with them, you had no chance of even sniffing a real main event spot.

    WWE is running into a similar problem as the top of the card is aging out. Seth Rollins, at 39-years-old, remains one of the younger consistent names at the top, while most are anywhere between 40 and 50-years-old.

    Bron Breakker, the son of Rick Steiner and nephew of Scott Steiner, appeared to be the one young name that was being groomed for a main event push before suffering a severe, aggravated hernia and underwent emergency surgery.

    As of March 1, 2026, he is out indefinitely and could potentially miss WrestleMania 42.

    WWE isn’t lacking in talented, younger names, though. Dragon Lee, Carmelo Hayes, Ilja Dragunov, Solo Sikoa, and Pete Dunne are just a few of the names in their late-20s to early-30s that feel like they could, and maybe should, be further up the card than they are in early 2026.

    Even the women’s division, where some of WWE’s biggest names are currently found, feels as if it has cooled off significantly. The injury to Bianca Belair has certainly been a blow to the division, but the creative efforts put into the division and stars like Rhea Ripley, Becky Lynch, Liv Morgan, Iyo Sky, and Raquel Rodriguez, among others.

    The bombardment of ads and sponsorships, smaller match cards, and longer downtime between those matches has all worked against WWE amid what fans and critics feel is a larger creative downturn.

    It echoes of WCW across 1999 and 2000 as a sharp creative downturn took place, only made worse by multiple attempts to shake up WCW’s creative team. Eric Bischoff, Kevin Sullivan, Kevin Nash, and Vince Russo were just a few of the names rotated in-and-out as head of creative over those two years. It resulted in cards that, ironically, the opposite of modern WWE shows.

    Nitro would start having more matches, but those matches would average 2 to 5 minutes while angles and promos are given no room to breath. The creative, itself, would also be lambasted for everything from lack of direction to being in extremely poor taste.

    One added wrinkle to WWE that WCW did not deal with, though, are the moral-driven reasons wrestling fans have continued to hammer WWE, and have only gotten louder due to WWE’s creative downturn.

    WWE’s deal with Saudi Arabia continues to be a consistent point of criticism given the human rights violations committed by Saudi Arabia and its leadership. It has been made worse with the announcement that WrestleMania 43 will be in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2027.

    There is also the Janel Grant lawsuit against Vince McMahon and WWE which remains ongoing. Grant made her first public appearance on February 20, 2026, to the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence. She primarily spoke about the NDA she signed with McMahon and the last few years of her life dealing with her lawsuit and cooperation in federal investigations against McMahon and WWE.

    It isn’t to say everything in WWE is experiencing a downturn, though. Since AAA found a home on TV in Mexico and on YouTube in the U.S., it has become an extremely popular show with more hardcore fans thanks to a strong in-ring product and variety of stars between established luchadors and names in WWE’s developmental system. Evolve is also becoming an underground sensation with some fans thanks to names like Sean Legacy, Kendal Grey, and many of the WWE ID and PC talent.

    WCW’s Legacy

    The states of WWE and AEW in early 2026 is just another example of the impact WCW left on the professional wrestling industry despite dying roughly 25 years ago.

    The immediate impact of WCW, especially in the late 90s, was obvious at the time, but hindsight is always 20/20 and this has only added to WCW’s legacy. An obvious example is the formatting of most modern TV wrestling, including WWE’s, is modeled in some form on Nitro that helped propel WCW to its most successful period.

    Many of the stars who gained their first national exposure, most notably Chris Jericho and Rey Mysterio, are still working today as active wrestlers while others such as Shane Helms and Dean Malenko are serving as backstage producers in WWE and AEW.

    Several of them have even had their kids take the jump into professional wrestling, with Dominik Mysterio becoming a prominent part of WWE TV while his sister Aalyah has started her in-ring training according to Rey Mysterio. Malenko’s daughter, Marie Malenko, was also confirmed to be one of the many names at a major February 2026 WWE tryout.

    Given how much time has only added to WCW’s legacy, this will likely continue for as long as professional wrestling exists and there are two national TV promotions to build on that legacy.

  • Flagrant Flashback – Taz vs. Masato Tanaka vs. Mike Awesome at ECW Anarchy Rulz 1999

    Flagrant Flashback – Taz vs. Masato Tanaka vs. Mike Awesome at ECW Anarchy Rulz 1999

    The year 1999 was an interesting year for the professional wrestling industry.

    At the national level, WWF and WCW were still doing huge business, though that wasn’t to say there were very obvious cracks. WWF would spend roughly half of the year with Vince Russo being the lead voice in creative under Vince McMahon, with WrestleMania 15 cited as one of the worst WrestleMania’s in the show’s history.

    WCW, meanwhile, was starting to take a very clear creative nosedive. The year kicked off with the infamous “Finger Poke of Doom” on the January 4 Monday Nitro, which saw WCW World Heavyweight Champion Kevin Nash lay down for the returning Hulk Hogan in a title match. Things would only get worse as the year went on with multiple, drastic changes made on WCW’s creative team between the removal of Eric Bischoff, Kevin Sullivan’s short tenure, and the arrival of Vince Russo. WCW would also post a loss in the reported range of $9 to $11 million for 1999, a sharp fall off from the reported $33 to $50 million in profits for 1998.

    ECW was experience struggles of its own. The company could never seem to find its footing, financially, with 1999 being another year of bounced checks and broken promises for many wrestlers there. The promotion would also be raided for more talent over the course of the year, purging it of many stars, even with Raven and The Sandman returning in the second half of the year.

    Despite these issues, ECW was still able to put on some of the best shows in the U.S. at that time due, ironically, to their more limited national exposure. Fans would be treated to some of the most wild hardcore matches and athletic, high-flying, or technical showcases in professional wrestling at the time and manage to bring in names from all over the world.

    ECW Anarchy Rulz 1999 is no exception thanks to matchups like Jerry Lynn vs. Lance Storm as the opener and a three-way dance between Yoshihiro Tajiri, Super Crazy, and Little Guido.

    It was the ECW World Heavyweight Title match, though, that would leave its imprint on fans minds for the match, itself, and everything surrounding the match.

    The Background

    Originally announced as a singles bout, the ECW World Title match was announced as the champion, Taz, defending against the challenger, FMW Independent Heavyweight Champion Masato Tanaka. Tanaka had become a popular wrestler in ECW following his debut in 1998 thanks to his intense, physical matches and almost super-human resilience.

    It became clear as 1999 went on, Tanaka would likely find himself standing across from Taz, who won the ECW World Heavyweight Title at Guilty as Charged on January 10, 1999. When the match was announced for Anarchy Rulz in September of 1999, ECW would use footage of Tanaka defeating his longtime FMW rival Mike Awesome, who was known as The Gladiator in Japan, to build excitement for the match.

    This would not go unnoticed by Mike Awesome and his manager, Judge Jeff Jones, in storyline.

    And then there were the backstage tensions between Taz and ECW owner and booker Paul Heyman, which started reaching a boiling point in 1999.

    The longtime ECW stalwart and defending world champion was contacted that year by WCW and WWF about signing him after his ECW deal was up. Taz hadn’t signed a new deal with ECW yet, and, years later, would explain he was wary of ECW’s financial issues that were only becoming more frequent. These concerns, on top of his wife giving birth to their son Tyler, better known as Hook in AEW, that May, would lead Taz to signing with WWF.

    News got out and ECW fans were not happy, booing and cursing out Taz in his final shows including Anarchy Rulz. Heyman wasn’t happy, either, as Taz had been one of ECW’s first true “homegrown stars” after Heyman took over as booker from Eddie Gilbert in 1993.

    Real-life and storyline would ultimately coalesce into a world title match that, while it didn’t close Anarchy Rulz, remains the match fans best remember.

    The Match

    Cut to Anarchy Rulz 1999.

    The world title match between Taz and Tanaka was set to go on third to last for what would be Taz’s second-to-last pay-per-view match as a contracted ECW wrestler.

    After making their entrances and being covered in streamers thrown by fans, both the wrestlers and the crowd would be distracted by a disturbance at ringside. It would be none other than Mike Awesome and Judge Jeff Jones, who commentators Joey Styles and Cyrus suggests “stooged” to Awesome about ECW using the footage of Tanaka beating him in ECW to help build excitement for Tanaka vs. Taz.

    Heyman would come out to join security trying to keep Awesome from jumping the rail, only for Taz to grab a mic and tell Heyman to let Awesome go. Styles made note of how Taz was talking to Heyman and hinted at the “real heat” between the two at the time. Heyman ultimately gave in to Taz’s wish, making the match a three-way dance, which meant the match wouldn’t end until two of the three challengers were eliminated by pinfall or submission.

    Awesome started off bee-lining for Tanaka, playing on the pair’s history in ECW and over in Japan at FMW, while Taz stood in the opposite corner and let the pair beat on each other. Awesome and Tanaka quickly realized what Taz was doing and decided to focus all their attention on Taz. The pair would manage to land a couple of blows on Taz before the human-suplex machine lived up to his name, deliver some devastating Taz-plexes, as Styles called them, to Tanaka and Awesome.

    The two would manage to find an opening, though, and lay in their offense on the defending champion. After another brief back-and-forth, Tanaka would hit his devastating Roaring Elbow on Taz followed by a frog splash by Awesome to eliminate Taz in roughly three to four minutes.

    With a new champion guaranteed, Taz would leave for the locker room in shock while the crowd jeered him off.

    Tanaka and Awesome, meanwhile, kicked things into second gear in the ring and began throwing haymakers at each other for the remaining ten or so minutes of the 13 minute 48 second match. Awesome, in particular, got the jeering crowd to focus back on the match with a massive dive from the ring to the floor, an impressive feat for a six-foot-eight wrestler who weighed anywhere between 280 and 320 lbs during his career, to say the least.

    The remainder of the match would see Tanaka and Awesome go back and forth with big moves, with plenty of chairs and tables getting utilized.

    Tanaka would introduce chairs to the match, hitting Awesome with a few shots to the gut before running the length of the entrance ramp to crack Awesome in the head with it. Tanaka made liberal use of chairs between hitting Awesome with multiple tornado-DDTs onto a chair and laying a chair on Awesome face to hit with another chair off a top-rope dive.

    Awesome wouldn’t take this lying down, hitting Tanaka with an Awesome Bomb from the ring through a table Awesome set up on the floor earlier. The massive Awesome didn’t take it easy on Tanaka, hitting him with plenty of big moves as payback for earlier, especially when Awesome got his hands on a chair.

    Despite all this and multiple nasty chair shots to the head, Tanaka was able to fire back and attempted another Roaring Elbow. Awesome was able to avoid it and the two went back and forth briefly before Awesome got the upper hand with a big release German suplex followed by a spear.

    Judge Jeff Jones would finally get involved somewhat, sliding a table into the ring for Awesome to use to try and put Tanaka away. The two would end up trading punches on top of one of the corner turnbuckles before Awesome got the advantage, putting Tanaka through the table with a super-powerbomb to win the match and become the new ECW World Heavyweight Champion.

    Taz would return from the locker room to personally hand the ECW World title to Awesome, himself, and raise his hand, giving the new champion his personal endorsement.

    Aftermath

    Taz

    While Taz would still be around ECW for another couple of months, he was effectively on his farewell tour before officially joining the WWF. His final pay-per-view match as a signed ECW star would be against Rob Van Dam for the ECW World Television Championship at November to Remember 1999. He would then debut for the WWF at the 2000 Royal Rumble, defeating Kurt Angle and ending the Olympian’s winning streak in grand fashion.

    However, years of injuries and hard matches would start catching up with Taz at this time and was reflected in some of his ring work. Questionable booking, at the best of times, didn’t help things either as it felt at time the WWF was going out of its way to make Taz look like a fool.

    By June 2002, Taz had fully retired from in-ring competition and became the full-time color commentator for the now-WWE’s Thursday show SmackDown. He would serve as a color commentator in WWE until 2009, departing the company after almost a decade.

    Taz would sign with TNA shortly after this, joining the Main Event Mafia to serve as Samoa Joe’s manager before ending up back on commentary alongside Mike Tenay. The two would serve as TNA’s lead commentary team until he departed in 2015.

    While Taz would appear on a WWE Network special looking back at ECW, he would remain out of professional wrestling until 2019. He would land his own nationally-syndicated morning radio show Taz and The Moose with co-host Marc ‘The Moose’ Malusis.

    Taz returning to professional wrestling in October 2019 as a guest commentator for an episode of AEW Dark before officially signing with All Elite Wrestling in January 2020. He would initially split time as a manager and color commentator, leading Team Taz which included his son Hook, Brian Cage, Powerhouse Hobbs, and Ricky Starks. The group officially disbanded in August 2022 while Taz continues to serve as a full-time color commentator for AEW.

    Masato Tanaka

    Tanaka would continue to appear in ECW until returning to Japan around mid-2000, where he continued working for FMW through February 2001. He would begin working as a freelancer in Japan, regularly appearing for promotions such as New Japan Pro-Wrestling, Zero1, and Pro-Wrestling Noah over the next 25 years.

    His travels would bring him a slew of titles, as well, from being the inaugural Never Openweight Champion in New Japan to winning the KO-D Openweight Championship, the most prestigious title in DDT Pro-Wrestling.

    While he wouldn’t tie himself down anywhere, he would regularly make one company his focus for a year or so before taking opening his schedule back up for more bookings at other promotions. The most recent of these runs has been in Zero1, where Tanaka has appeared regularly since March 2025.

    He would continue coming back to the U.S. over that time, as well, typically for bigger independent events and smaller “national” promotions such as Ring of Honor. However, he hasn’t taken an extended excursion from Japan for years, typically now only leaving the countries for a handful of shows a year.

    His last appearance in the U.S. was for DEADLOCK Pro-Wrestling at DPW Forever 2025 on March 16, 2025. Tanaka would team with Colby Corino, son of former-ECW World Heavyweight Champion Steve Corino, to defeat the team of Calvin Tankman and Trevor Lee.

    Tanaka would work one match for WWE in 2005, taking part in ECW One Night Stand to battle his longtime rival one more time in the Hammerstein Ballroom.

    Mike Awesome

    While Awesome was effectively crowned as the “new face” of ECW at Anarchy Rulz, he would ultimately leave in 2000 after signing out of the blue with WCW. Awesome was still the ECW World Heavyweight Champion when he debuted on WCW Monday Nitro, though he did not have the physical belt with him in order for WCW to avoid any legal battles with ECW.

    A deal would then be worked out for Awesome, a contracted WCW wrestler, to drop the title in a surprise title match at an ECW event in Indianapolis, Indiana, in April 2000, to none other than Taz, who was a contracted WWF wrestler.

    Lance Storm, a close friend of Awesome, would reveal years later that Awesome left ECW as suddenly as he did because his contract was up and refused to sign a new deal until Heyman paid him overdue wages.

    Awesome’s WCW tenure would have plenty of ups and downs, initially debuting as part of The New Blood on the April 10, 2000, edition of Nitro. He quickly found himself in programs with many of WCW top names such as Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, and Diamond Dallas Page. However, the rest of 2000 would not be kind to Awesome thanks to Vince Russo ideas such as “The Fat Chick Thriller” and “That 70’s Guy.” By January 2001, Awesome would get back to his more serious self after joining Team Canada as the “Canadian Career Killer” and was part of the group until WCW’s purchase by the WWF in March 2001.

    Awesome would briefly join the WWF as part of the Invasion storyline and would appear sporadically over the next year before being released in September 2002.

    He continued working on the independent scene in the U.S. while returning to Japan on occasion, though he did appear briefly for TNA in 2003.

    His final, high-profile match would be in 2005 against his longtime rival Tanaka for ECW One Night Stand, where Awesome was greeted by some jeers during his entrance for the manner he departed ECW. By the end of the match, though, the two received a standing ovation.

    Awesome retired from wrestling in 2006, becoming a real estate agent in New Tampa, Florida. Unfortunately, Awesome would be found dead by several fans after hanging himself in his Tampa home.

    Final Thoughts

    In spite of the problems that were becoming more and more prevalent in ECW as 1999 went on, this match highlighted what ECW could do better than anyone at the time. It managed to blur reality and kayfabe together in a way that didn’t feel forced and made a highly anticipated match even better.

    It was a reminder that, in hindsight, ECW was truly the first “super-indie” to make it on something of a national stage in professional wrestling. It wouldn’t be enough to keep the promotion going, as it would shut its doors in 2001, but it did set the foundation for independent promotions such as PWG, GCW, and DPW that would become a “super-indie” for a time.

    And then there is Mike Awesome who, of the three wrestlers, feels the most ahead of his time.

    Taz was ahead of his time, as well, but with names like Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, and Dean Malenko, among others, gaining national exposure, the industry was catching up to what Taz had been doing at the ECW Arena for years as the ‘Human Suplex Machine.’

    Tanaka was in-line with what was happening in Japan, especially with the popularity of All Japan, All Japan Women’s and New Japan. All Japan treated fans to longer matches that showcased a more physical, technical style dubbed the “King’s Road” style while New Japan had “Strong Style,” a more MMA-focused in-ring style mixed with faster matches and a surging Junior Heavyweight division led by Jushin Thunder Liger. Tanaka fit right in with this, especially in FMW where hardcore matches were also a big draw that helped the promotion stand out, much like ECW in the U.S.

    Awesome, by comparison, feels like a wrestler over 20 years too early for the U.S. scene. At that time, most “big men” in wrestling worked a slower, more methodical style that could save their body and make them look like monsters against the rest of the roster.

    Awesome was regularly doing tope dives and springboards into the crowd, among other things, which was mind-blowing to U.S. fans at the time given Awesome’s size. Combined with a variety of power moves almost designed to showcase his athleticism made Awesome stand out at a time when wrestling was white hot in the U.S.

    Unfortunately, the two companies didn’t appear to know how to showcase this at the time between bad gimmicks or just not having him on TV at all. He wouldn’t survive to see the industry evolve into what it is today, where athletic “big men” like Awesome are sought after by WWE, AEW, TNA, MLW, New Japan, and most other major promotions. Awesome would have fit right in working wrestlers such as Keith Lee, Donovan Dijak, Toa Liona, and Damian Priest, trading power moves and high-flying spots on shows to rousing audience reactions.

  • Other Anime Ripe for a Live Action Adaptation After One Piece

    Other Anime Ripe for a Live Action Adaptation After One Piece

    With season two of Netflix’s live-action One Piece series right around the corner, fans have not even tried to hide their excitement at seeing the live action Straw Hats finally cross into the Grand Line.

    Season two already promises to hit the ground running with locales including Loguetown, Whiskey Peak, and Drum Island as the Straw Hats have their first run-ins with Baroque Works. Ms. All Sunday, Ms. Wednesday, Mr. 3, and Mr. 5 are just a few of the assassins Monkey D. Luffy will have to contend with, along with new threats from the Navy such as Captain Smoker, and old adversaries like Buggy the Clown.

    Its success also begs the question – what anime could be the next to make a successful jump to live-action?

    As of 2026, One Piece remains more the exception and not the rule when it comes to the quality of live action adaptations. More often than not, they just aren’t very good. Quality has slowly been trending upward, though, but One Piece still vastly outpaced most other adaptations.

    It doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of anime that are ripe for live-action and may even benefit from jumping to that medium.

    Cowboy Bebop

    Alright, let’s get the obvious out of the way. Yes, Netflix already took a crack at adapting the beloved space western anime to live action in 2021 and it didn’t work out. The show had some bright spots, especially when it came to the core trio of Spike Spiegel, Jet Black, and Faye Valentine, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the rest of the show’s shortcomings.

    It doesn’t mean the world of Cowboy Bebop isn’t worth taking another crack at.

    Despite being a space western, Cowboy Bebop has a somewhat grounded aesthetic that does lend itself to live action. The world is a blend of futuristic sci-fi, modern industrial, and old west styles that allows the world to feel fantastical while still feeling believable.

    The action is also more grounded compared to other anime out there. Most fights are resolved in either gun fights or intense martial arts duels which are easy enough to translate, and even the more over-the-top sequences don’t feel so out of place in live action.

    Its now just a question of who is willing to take that second crack at Spike and the crew of the Bebop?

    Berserk

    In the realm of fantasy anime and manga, one of the longest-running and most recognized names in the genre is Berserk.

    The dark fantasy series follows the journey of Guts, a mercenary raised to fight from childhood, who fought as part of a legendary mercenary group named the Band of the Falcon. Tragedy befalls the group, though, setting Guts on a path of revenge against the demonic God’s Hand and its numerous apostles.

    This short description doesn’t do justice to how dark Berserk can truly get, regularly putting central characters such as Guts, his lover Casca, the tiny elf Puck, and several others through the physical and emotional ringers regularly. It isn’t shy about giving you reasons to hate the villains at the heart of Berserk’s story, especially the newest member of the God’s Hand, Femto.

    A big reason a Berserk adaptation is even a possibility is because studios have been on the look out for the next “Game of Thrones” and getting it on their respective platform. As of February 2026, the closest anyone has gotten is HBO with simply more Game of Thrones-related content in House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Other series such as Amazon Prime’s Rings of Power and Netflix’s The Witcher have done well enough, but haven’t been able to command audiences’ attention the way Game of Thrones did.

    Berserk, being a dark fantasy series with a style very much in-line with traditional Western dark fantasy, could easily throw its hat into the ring to take that Game of Thrones’ crown. It is violent, sexy, emotional, and everything in between that audiences look for in dark fantasy shows and films.

    Gundam

    Next is the proverbial-king of mecha, Gundam. It is among one of anime’s biggest and most successful franchises, in and out of the mecha genre, as it nears its 50th anniversary in 2029.

    Gundam began life with the original anime Mobile Suit Gundam in 1979, set in what would become known as the Universal Century timeline. The series follows what becomes known as the One Year War, a massive conflict between the Principality of Zion and Earth Federation. The war is fought using towering mech suits, or Mobile Suits, resulting in devastating levels of destruction on Earth and across the various colonies involved in the war.

    As Gundam grew, the franchise would expand with various spin-off series and timelines, though the Universal Century timeline would be the one the franchise would revisit most often.

    The point is that this, alone, gives anyone trying to bring Gundam to live action plenty to pull from for a film or a show. They could dive headfirst into bringing the Universal Century to the screen or adapt any of its one-offs such as Gundam Wing or Mobile Fighter G Gundam to “test the waters” for more Gundam.

    Aesthetically, as well, it is another universe that may be easier to translate to the screen.

    Mecha of various forms are not new to modern film and TV screens between things like Pacific Rim and Power Rangers. There’s an argument that, compared to those examples, many of Gundam’s series are even more grounded in its designs than some Western mech properties.

    Where Gundam gets significantly darker, though, is the franchise’s thematic choices. Many of the series focus on the cost of war, child soldiers, and loss of innocence via the conflict on screen. The lead character in most Gundam series is, more of than not, teens who haven’t even seen their 16th birthday. Audiences are given a view of the conflict through their eyes and see just how these destructive battles take their toll on them.

    Given the state of the world in 2026, sending such a poignant message via a colorful, bombastic mecha anime live action adaptation may not be a bad idea.

    Hellsing

    The last one on the docket today is vampire-centric series, Hellsing.

    Like Western entertainment, Japan loves to offer its takes on vampires and Dracula via anime, manga, and video games. One obvious example of this is the Castlevania franchise, which began as a massively successful video game franchise from Konami that has since been adapted into an anime series for Netflix.

    And then there is something like Hellsing, which takes any sense of subtlety and throws it right out the window.

    Set primarily in the United Kingdom, Hellsing follows the exploits of the Hellsing Organization, England’s top secret and premiere monster hunting group. It is led by Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, the descendant of Abraham Van Helsing, and commands the power of the organization’s most dangerous weapon and hunter, Alucard.

    Formerly known as Count Dracula, he is the original and most powerful vampire in existence. He was defeated by Abraham Van Helsing and swore loyalty to his family, becoming their loyal hunter.

    The two are also joined by the Sir Integra’s loyal retainer Walter C. Dornez and Seras Victoria, a policewoman who was turned into a vampire by Alucard after being attacked and mortally wounded by another vampire Alucard was hunting.

    The original series follows Alucard and Hellsing as it investigates an uptick in vampire attacks across England and its neighbors, putting them at odds with the Vatican’s own secret monster hunting organization, Section XIII. Pulling the strings behind the scenes is the mysterious group Millennium, a dangerous force comprised of Nazis who survived World War 2 and are dead set on seeing Hitler’s vision of a “thousand year Reich” to fruition. Most of the organization’s soldiers have been transformed into vampires as part of this effort, led by a man known only as The Major.

    As mentioned, Hellsing throws subtlety right out the window from the start. The action and dialogue is extremely straight to the point and over the top, especially when Alucard is standing across from his greatest rival in the series, Father Alexander Anderson of Section XIII.

    Despite this, Hellsing’s visual design remains fairly grounded in Western modern and gothic designs befitting of European vampire lore.

    The dialogue, if anything, may have to be reined in somewhat just to better fit live action mediums, otherwise Hellsing could easily find its way to film or television.

  • Wrestling Needs a New PWG

    Wrestling Needs a New PWG

    Let’s turn the calendars back.

    It’s 2016 at the American Legion Post #308 in Reseda, California. There are between 300 and 400 people packed shoulder-to-shoulder in this cramped, hot legion hall with little-to-no air conditioning at the end of the summer to witness one of the biggest annual tournaments on the independent wrestling scene – Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s Battle of Los Angeles.

    Some of the names taking part in the three-day tournament include the Lucha Bros, Will Ospreay, Zack Sabre Jr., Adam Cole, The Young Bucks, Cody Rhodes, Pete Dunne, Tommaso Ciampa, Ricochet, and even the legendary Jushin Thunder Liger

    Over the next three days, fans in attendance get to witness some of the best professional wrestling in the world featuring some of the hottest names available. This will range from high-flying showcases to technician battles, striking wars, and even some comedy to help close out the weekend.

    While the Battle of Los Angeles historically involved many big independent and international names in the wrestling industry, the 2010s in particular saw every show put on monthly from the Southern California indie promotion featured talent that are still active today and among the top talents in the world still active in 2026.

    The biggest North American promotions anyone booked at PWG worked for during this period was either TNA or Ring of Honor, while managing to book major names from Europe, Mexico, and Japan on occassion.

    PWG became such a hotspot, even Hollywood celebrities made their way to Reseda to see what all the ruckus was about. Joe Manganiello, Sofia Vergara, Danielle Fishel, and Ronda Rousey are among a few of the names spotted in attendance at PWG shows across the 2010s as the independent promotion was at its peak.

    It also became a key promotion WWE sent talent scouts to, especially during the height of the NXT Black and Gold Era. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn have spoken multiple times about meeting William Regal, who began working as a talent scout for WWE after stepping away from in-ring competition, whenever he stopped by PWG shows to see who was on it and if anyone caught his eye.

    In spite of its popularity, PWG was one of many independent promotions hit hard by the COVID-19 shutdown. It wasn’t able to put on shows for well over a year before it was able to start back up, this time at the Globe Theater in Los Angeles, California, due to ticket demand surpassing the Legion hall’s capacity. While it was able to continue putting on the kind of shows fans had come to expect, the start of AEW and multiple talent raids by multiple companies had drained the independent scene at the time, even if several of those promotions allowed talent to continue taking indie bookings.

    By 2023, though, PWG co-founder, co-owner, and independent wrestling legend Super Dragon announced the promotion was going on “indefinite hiatus” due to his girlfriend’s battle with cancer. It has remained on “hiatus” since as of January 2026, which has since seen the Globe Theater close its doors and no update provided on the status of Super Dragon’s girlfriend’s health.

    Since then, the independent scene has missed that one “all-star” promotion that brought in the hottest names available to let them show what they could do.

    Deadlock Pro-Wrestling appeared to be on its way to filling that void, with the North Carolina-based indie featuring a mix of prominent talent working along the U.S. East Coast. Unfortunately, the promotion’s founders and content creators James Darnell, John Blud, and Anthony Douglas announced DPW would be going on an “indefinite hiatus” as well amid rising show costs and multiple other promotions such as Prestige Wrestling also going on hiatus or closing their doors completely.

    All this is to say that PWG has left a massive void on the indies that has yet to be filled.

    Some fans could argue Game Changer Wrestling more than fills that void between showcasing talent local to whichever country or area of the U.S. they were running a show along with a core group of talent seen fairly regularly at GCW shows. However, it could also be argued between GCW’s branding and focus on deathmatches that it has more in common with ECW and CZW than PWG.

    Anyone who was anyone in wrestling not already signed to WWE or to an exclusive deal with another promotion worked in PWG. WWE, AEW, TNA, and New Japan are four of the many promotions packed with talent who wrestled in PWG between 2010 and 2023.

    As mentioned previously, the 2016 Battle of Los Angeles lineup was just one example of how loaded the monthly PWG shows had become during the 2010s. One month, fans in attendance could see Kevin Steen and El Generico have one of their rivalry’s most legendary ladder matches, the next, a chaotic, hilarious ten-man tag that involved slow-motion and thumbs being shoved into posteriors.

    It truly was wrestling’s equivalent of underground punk rock and the three years without PWG has definitely been noticeable.

    This isn’t because of a lack of talent. If anything, it is the opposite in January 2026. It took several years for the indies to recover from the formation of AEW in 2019 and the scene being gutted of most of its high-profile talent. While it hurt in the short run, it opened the door for new names to emerge and emerge they have.

    Some of the names that could easily be featured on a modern PWG-style show include 1 Called Manders, Gringo Loco, Titus Alexander, Labron Kozone, Sinner and Saint, Violence is Forever, Cara Noir, and Man Like DeReiss. It is just as deep on the women’s side of things, as well, with Shotzi Blackheart, Priscilla Kelly, Brooke Havok, Brittnie Brooks, VertVixen, Millie McKenzie, and Hyper Active.

    The real question is what promotion could capture similar lightning in a bottle PWG was able to on its way to becoming what it did on the indies.

    Part of what worked in PWG’s favor was that there really wasn’t any other independent promotion quite like it out there. Getting booked on one of these shows was a pseudo-endorsement of a talent’s ability, especially if they were brought back. The crowd felt just as important to making the show, whether it was quietly focusing on two technicians trading holds or losing their minds, chanting until their voice is horsed and slamming their hands on the edge of the ring since the crowd was packed together so closely.

    While that sort of environment can be difficult to replicate, it can be done and one promotion will, in all likelihood, be able to recapture that magic one day. As for what promotion is able to fill that void, or if PWG is able to make a triumphant return in the future, professional wrestling will be better for it when that promotion finally emerges.

  • The Curious Case of Andrade el Idolo

    The Curious Case of Andrade el Idolo

    Coming out of April 2018, the then-Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas dropped the NXT Title to Aleister Black to close out a very strong in-ring reign and was main roster bound in WWE. He would be moved to SmackDown, have his name shortened to just Andrade, and remained fairly stagnant in WWE’s midcard.

    The following years saw Andrade go thru a variety of professional and personal ups and downs from being released by WWE, signed by AEW, depart AEW for WWE after a drama-filled first tenure, rejoining his then-wife Charlotte Flair only to end up in the same spot he was before and the couple divorcing.

    Andrade was ultimately fired by WWE, again, in September 2025 reportedly for “numerous WWE Wellness violations” during his second tenure.

    He returned to AEW a few weeks later in October by attacking Kenny Omega and joining the Don Callis Family, only to have that temporarily halted after WWE accused Andrade of violating his non-compete clause. The alleged clause could have kept Andrade out of the ring, at the very least on TV, for a year.

    The situation was resolved by December and Andrade was free to get back to work. He started by ringing in 2026 with New Japan on Wrestle Kingdom 20 on January 4 and New Year’s Dash on January 5 as United Empire’s new financial backer. He then returned to AEW TV, still part of the Don Callis Family, and to say he has hit the ground running would be an understatement.

    In one month, Andrade appears to have made believers out of most wrestling fans that he could, should, and would be right at the top the card vying for world titles.

    One Fateful Night

    The evening before this was written, Andrade got to share the ring with Kenny Omega for the first time since a match in AAA for the AAA Mega Championship in August 2021.

    Omega was in the midst of his Belt Collector run and Andrade had only been released from WWE a short time before this. It was a very good match, but was nothing that stood out among the rest of either wrestler’s career. Omega was also working through several injuries at the time, injuries that would keep Omega off AEW television for almost a year.

    Additionally, Andrade is lacking the confidence he has exuded in his first month back with AEW. He is still good, but it appears as though the state of his career is getting to him.

    The Omega and Andrade that met in the ring the evening of Wednesday February 4, 2026, are most certainly not the wrestlers they were when they met in the early 2010s. These are two men who have seen their share of injuries and professional struggles in that time, along with plenty of success and growth as professional wrestlers.

    These were not the two who met while neither was at one-hundred percent physically or psychologically. Omega and Andrade were like a pair of seasoned, well-tuned muscle cars that may not be as fast as the supercars, but they’ll still out run 90% of what’s out there on top of having the size and strength to throw its weight around.

    Omega and Andrade are every bit of the grizzled veterans they are and proved it on AEW Dynamite.

    And in a situation where the winner of a number one contender’s match at AEW Grand Slam Australia punches their ticket to the main event of AEW Revolution, some fans expected to see Omega win to face ‘Hangman’ Adam Page in Australia to challenge the champion, who the week before many presumed would be Maxwell Jacob Friedman.

    But in this one night, that may have changed.

    Andrade would end up winning the match against Omega thanks to Swerve Strickland intervening to stop Andrade from hitting Omega with a screwdriver. Strickland distracted the referee as a result, allowing Andrade to hit a low blow on Omega followed by the DM to win.

    Andrade is scheduled to face ‘Hangman’ Page in Australia at AEW Grand Slam on February 14, 2026.

    Later in the night, Brody King faced MJF in Dynamite’s main event in an eliminator match where if King wins, he gets an AEW Men’s World Championship match in Australia. King has had a slow but steady rise in AEW with fans gravitating to his physical, hard-hitting style, his look, and his use of AEW to platform to promote LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights.

    The latter of these four appears to have resonated the most with AEW’s audience and was on full display on this Dynamite with a very loud “F*ck ICE” chant as King and MJF met in the main event.

    After the referee rings the bell, Page comes out on the stage to distract MJF. This leaves the AEW Men’s World Champion open to a hanging sleeper hold from King over the edge of the outside apron. King then drags MJF back in the ring and throws him in a corner to hit MJF with a running cannonball senton. King pulls MJF up and closes the match out with a Gonzo Bomb in the center of the ring, earning an AEW Men’s World Title match at Grand Slam Australia.

    In one night, AEW set up the genuine possibility of Brody King going to AEW Revolution in King’s hometown of Los Angeles, California, at the Crypto.com Arena as AEW Men’s World Champion. Andrade could find himself standing across the ring as King’s opponent in the show’s likely main event.

    Eight Years an Overnight Sensation

    In King’s case, the end of the evening felt like a culmination of a long build for the 38-year-old, ten-year veteran. It felt as if he had been earmarked by AEW for a long time as a potential main event player, in spite of any bumps in the road he experienced in his near-four years with AEW.

    Andrade’s rise up the AEW card in such a short period cannot be overstated. Saying it has been meteoric doesn’t do justice to how quickly Andrade rose up the card and started knocking on AEW’s main event scene. He has beaten Swerve Strickland and Kenny Omega in back to back weeks and doesn’t feel out of place at all.

    To steal a phrase, he waited eight years to become an overnight sensation.

    Watching Andrade in the ring the last several weeks, it is as if he has rediscovered what made him NXT Champion to lose out 2017 and ring in 2018 for the then-Black and Gold brand. He is carrying himself with a clear and present confidence that has been missing for the last several years. Andrade remembered who he is and what he can do and is showing that on TV every week.

    The skeptic would say this is likely due to Andrade knowing this is probably his last shot at a major, televised wrestling promotion and is on his best behavior in and out of the ring. Even if that is the truth, it is paying off for Andrade. Between his ring work looking the best it has in years and the confidence written all over his face, Andrade is proving how natural he fits right in at the top of the card.

    Just The Start?

    All this could just be first of many big moments to come for Andrade on this second outing with AEW.

    As mentioned earlier, King vs. Andrade is a genuine possibility to main event AEW Revolution for the AEW Men’s World Championship. It would be the ideal situation for any promotion to find itself in as either wrestler leaving with the world title if a good direction. There are plenty of opponents lined up that can be put up against King or Andrade and either one works. An Andrade may have slightly more longevity since he is a heel so it may be easier to build up fresh opponents, but its a win-win all around.

    Then there is Andrade’s involvement with the Don Callis Family, which is experiencing some internal issues at the moment due to friction between Konosuke Takeshita and Kazuchika Okada. Depending on how things shake out, it could leave an opening at the top of the Don Callis Family and Andrade would be in the perfect position to claim that spot for himself.

    And this isn’t to mention what his involvement in New Japan and United Empire could be beyond just the odd appearance with the faction for bigger shows. He could also find his way back to CMLL, this time as Andrade el Idolo and not La Sombra.

    The sky looks to be the limit for Andrade this time around, and at the rate he’s going, he could very well surpass that in record time.

  • Flagrant Flashback – Steve Austin vs. Bret Hart at WrestleMania 13

    Flagrant Flashback – Steve Austin vs. Bret Hart at WrestleMania 13

    To say WrestleMania 13 isn’t particularly memorable, on the whole, is a pretty fair statement. It is not on the lows of WreslteMania 9, 11, or 27, but there isn’t much that stands out either. This is due to WrestleMania 13 being smack in the middle of the WWF’s most important transitional periods as WrestleMania 14 the next year would cement the Attitude Era’s arrival.

    The irony is that this same, largely unmemorable WrestleMania delivers, arguably, the greatest match in WrestleMania history. It would be the second one-on-one pay-per-view meeting between ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin and Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart, this time in a No Disqualification Submission match. Former-UFC Superfight Champion Ken Shamrock would serve as the special guest referee ahead of making his in-ring debut for the WWF.

    All this would coalesce into a match still considered the gold standard for double-turns in professional wrestling, along with simply being a great, chaotic, story-driven match.

    How did they get there?

    To figure out how Austin and Hart found themselves at WrestleMania 13, we have to jump all the way back a year to WrestleMania 12.

    Hart had lost the WWF Championship to Shawn Michaels in a 60 minute iron man match that wound up going to overtime as neither man could score a fall against the other within the 60 minutes. Michaels would ultimately score the winning pinfall after not even two minutes. Hart would then step away for much of 1996 before announcing his in-ring return would come at Survivor Series in November.

    On the undercard of WrestleMania 12, ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin was making his WrestleMania debut after debuting for the WWF in December of 1995. Austin originally debuted under the moniker ‘The Ringmaster’ and was managed by Ted DiBiase. It quickly became clear, though, that ‘The Ringmaster’ wasn’t clicking and it was ditched for what would ultimately become ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin. Over the next several months, Austin would ditch DiBiase become more involved with more of the WWF’s main event scene.

    As Hart would announce his return, Austin would begin calling out the ‘Hitman’ every chance he could. Hart issued his direct challenge to Austin for Survivor Series, in response, in a match that would also decide the next number one contender for the WWF Championship. Hart would win in a near-30 minute classic still looked at in very high regard.

    It wouldn’t be the end of the pair’s rivalry, though, as they would be tied at the hip for the next year, all the way up to Montreal Screwjob and Hart’s WWF exit. It was the road to WrestleMania 13, though, that would see the peak of this rivalry.

    The two found themselves, along with others including The Undertaker, Sycho Sid, and Vader, chasing the WWF Championship heading into 1997. It was made more chaotic due to Shawn Michaels vacating the WWF Championship due to a reported knee injury, though there has always been speculation it was Michaels’ way of getting out of an allegedly planned WreslteMania rematch with Hart that Michaels would lose.

    Things between Austin and Hart would reach a boiling point in the final weeks before WrestleMania, and the two would be set for a no disqualification submission match.

    The match coincided with Hart beginning to get on fans’ nerves with his complaining which, while justified, was turning fans off because of Hart’s own inaction whenever he got “screwed,” as Hart put it. Austin, meanwhile, was becoming more and more popular because of his loud, in-your-face, unapologetic style and physical matches.

    Add Ken Shamrock, who had just signed with the WWF after a successful tenure in the UFC, as the special guest referee to sell the seriousness of this match, and fans in Chicago would be treated to something truly special.

    The Match

    Austin and Hart would be third-to-last on the show and followed what had largely been an underwhelming show to that point. Nothing had been bad but there was nothing of real note that happened either. It would set the stage perfectly for what was to come.

    Austin would make his entrance first as he would walk over shattered glass on his way to the ring. Hart would follow, joining Shamrock who was already in the ring. Austin wouldn’t waste time and immediately tackle Hart down to the mat after Hart entered the ring. The two would trade blows in and around the ring before Austin would send Hart into the crowd by dropping the ‘Hitman’ on the railing and sending him over with a clothesline.

    The two would continue brawling around the crowd, even working their way up to one of the cement stairways. It was here Austin, who appeared to be setting up a piledriver on the stairs, would suffer a back-body drop from Hart onto the stairs, though the it couldn’t be seen clearly because of the crowd.

    Austin and Hart would work their way back to the ringside area, where things would continue to escalate. The pair start by making use of the stairs, throwing each other into them or picking up a piece of the stairs to slam into the other.

    The match found its way back into the ring and it was here that Hart began doing what he did best. Hart, widely regarded as one of the best technicians in pro wrestling history, began targeting Austin’s left knee. Austin began wearing a knee brace on his left knee due to years of wear-and-tear from college football and professional wrestling.

    Hart was methodical with his work on the knee, but never feels plodding. The ‘Excellence of Execution’ lives up to the name with perfectly timed and executed offense to Austin’s knee in preparation for the Sharpshooter.

    Austin eventually scores and opening and hits a desperation Stone Cold Stunner to create some space between himself and Hart. It would be for naught as Hart would take back control with a kick to the left knee and drag Austin to one of the corners. Hart wrapped Austin’s legs around the post and locked in a figure-four, but Austin refuses to submit.

    After failing to score the win there, Hart would introduce a steel chair to the match and use it to further damage Austin’s knee. It was when Hart goes to the top rope to seemingly “Pillmanize” Austin’s leg in the chair, ‘The Rattlesnake’ slips out of the chair and is able to crack Hart in the back and knock him off the turnbuckle.

    Austin doesn’t waste time as he hits Hart with another chair shot to the back before raining down punches and kicks on the ‘Hitman.’ Eventually, Austin starts applying different submission holds to Hart, allowing Austin to remind everyone that he is talented technical wrestler in his own right. It would change as the years went on and Austin became more of a brawler as he accumulated more injuries, but at WrestleMania 13 he was still in good enough shape that he was considered a “workrate guy.”

    The two found themselves once again on the outside, where Austin attempted to Irish whip Hart into the timekeeper’s area. Hart reversed it and sent Austin flying into the timekeeper’s table and guardrail behind them. When Hart picked Austin up, Austin was bleeding from the head as result of hitting the guardrail. Hart ramped up the viciousness, in response, by slamming Austin’s head into the post and stairs to worsen the wound. Once they were back in the ring, Hart continued using the chair on Austin’s knee but still couldn’t lock in the Sharpshooter.

    Austin is able to get back to his feet in one of the corners and, with no hesitation, delivers a low blow to Hart in order to catch his breath from Hart’s onslaught. Austin then fired up against Hart, hitting him with plenty of kicks and suplexes.

    While all this chaos has been happening, the crowd has been hanging on every move from Hart and Austin as the match went from the ring to the crowd and back. Austin has been getting more and more of a babyface reaction as the match has unfolded and the crowd gets behind him for continuing to fight back. Hart is still being cheered, but there are noticeable boos from the crowd as he shows a more vicious, frustrated side to his offence.

    After getting his licks in, Austin grabs the ring bell and some cabling to try and end the match. He wraps the cabling around Hart, who is sitting on the apron while Austin is inside the ropes, and begins choking the ‘Hitman.’ However, Hart is able to get his hands on the ring bell and hits Austin in the head with it to send him flying backwards into the ring. Hart doesn’t waste time as he gets in the ring and is finally able to apply the Sharpshooter.

    It is here where fans were treated to one of the most iconic shots in pro wrestling history.

    Hart has the Sharpshooter locked in near the center of the ring. Austin is bleeding from his head and screaming in agony, but refuses to quit. After failing to get to the ropes, Austin attempts to push back and brute force his way out of the Sharpshooter. It appears to work momentarily as Hart gets pushed forward and seems to lost his footing. Unfortunately for Austin, Hart is able to keep the hold locked in and Austin cannot escape.

    Eventually, Austin appears to pass out from the pain and forces Shamrock to call for the bell for Austin’s safety. Hart is declared the winner after a physical war but doesn’t appear satisfied with the victory. He continues attacking Austin’s left knee and forces Shamrock to become more involved to break it up. Hart ignores this and tries to lock in the Sharpshooter again, forcing Shamrock to waste-lock the former-WWF Champion and toss him to the side to protect Austin. Hart attempts to walk down Shamrock, but the former-UFC Superfight Champion doesn’t back down. This causes Hart to back off, something that was uncharacteristic if Hart up to that point, and received a smattering of boos from the crowd as he walked to the back.

    Austin finally comes to after a few moments as referee Mike Chioda helped him to his feet. In exchange for helping him, Chioda was hit with a Stunner as Austin refused help from anyone and walked to the back on his own to a round of applause and cheers.

    The Aftermath

    The Raw after WrestleMania 13, Hart’s heel turn was cemented as he came out and berated U.S. fans for turning their back on the ‘Hitman.’ He said he remained grateful to his fans around the world who stood by his side while he was being “screwed” by everyone in the WWF, and that his ire was only aimed at the U.S. fans he felt abandoned him.

    By the end of the show, Hart will have reunited with his younger brother Owen and their brother-in-law Davey Boy Smith, aka the British Bulldog, to form the new Hart Foundation. Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart would return to the WWF shortly after to rejoin his former-tag team partners and Brian Pillman joined over the summer due to his history training in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, at the famed Hart Dungeon and starting his wrestling career at Stampede Wrestling.

    Austin, meanwhile, would acknowledge the cheers he received from fans but reiterated that he didn’t care if he was cheered or booed and that he wasn’t done with Hart by a long shot.

    Hart and Austin found themselves as prominent parts of the Hart Foundation vs. U.S. storyline that dominated the WWF from then until Survivor Series in November, where Hart’s time in WWF came to a chaotic end.

    Austin moved on to win the 1998 Royal Rumble then to WrestleMania 14, where he would defeat Shawn Michaels for the WWF Title. While the Attitude Era was already in affect by this point, Austin’s win here would cement the era as being in full swing.

    After being crowned champion, Austin began his iconic feud with Vince McMahon and became the centerpieces of WWF at the end of the 90s and heading into the 2000s. Austin made McMahon’s life hell on TV and crowds ate it up week after week, excited to see what Austin was going to put his boss through every week.

    Austin’s other major rival during this time would prove to a be a young, third-generation upstart named Dwayne Johnson, better known as The Rock. After shedding his early Rocky Maivia character, The Rock would begin his rise to prominence in The Nation of Domination before taking over the group from Faarooq. Rock eventually broke out on his own as McMahon’s hand-picked champion coming out of Survivor Series 1998. Rock and Austin would then have their first WrestleMania collision at WrestleMania 15 in 1999 and remain in each other’s orbit for the next several years.

    Hart, meanwhile, would go to WCW and debuted as the special guest referee for the much-anticipated Sting vs. Hollywood Hogan match for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at Starrcade 1997. This match would mark the start of a tumultuous run in WCW for Hart as Hogan would allegedly sabotage the finish by telling referee Nick Patrick to do a normal three count when he was meant to do a fast count that Hart would then wave off, paving the way for Sting to win the title and finally defeat the nWo’s leader.

    While Hart would find himself working with most of WCW’s top names, it was clear in hindsight that something about Hart in WCW wasn’t clicking.

    Things came to a screeching halt in December 1999, when Hart was scheduled to defend the WCW World Heavyweight title against Goldberg in the main event of Starrcade. This is the infamous match where Goldberg delivered a thrust kick to Hart’s head, causing him to suffer a severe concussion. Hart was able to finish the match and retain the title, but it quickly became clear that Hart was not well after the match.

    Hart continued to work for a few weeks after Starrcade, turning heel once again and forming the nWo 2000 with Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and Jeff Jarrett. However, Hart vacated the WCW World Heavyweight title a few weeks into 2000 due to the injuries he suffered at Starrcade. He appeared a handful of times on WCW TV after that at various points in 2000 before he was released by WCW via FedEx letter in October and announced his retirement from professional wrestling shortly after.

    Closing Thoughts

    The importance of this match cannot be understated.

    It was this match that set the table for what Austin and Hart would experience over the next few years. Austin would be the figurehead for one of the WWF’s most successful periods while Hart experienced the closing months of WCW’s height before the company began its two and a half year spiral that results in its purchase by WWF for $4.2 million.

    Within the chronicles of WrestleMania matches, it still stands as one of the best of all time as well.

    WrestleMania has seen its share of amazing matches in the years following WrestleMania 13, especially as in-ring styles became more athletic, physical, and flashier. That said, Austin and Hart’s match still holds up because the story told within the match is executed to perfection. The two went to the ring that night knowing they had to make this double-turn work, and as a result, fans were treated to two of the all-time greats showing why they are in the conversation.

    Hart got to showcase his technical skills at their arguable peak, with so much of his offense looking smooth and measured. He was able to show he could get physical, too, with how he brawled and used weapons in the match.

    The same can be said of Austin, though going the other way. He is starting to put together who ‘Stone Cold’ is and how he operates in the ring with his physical and, at times, chaotic brawling. But Austin still in good enough physical shape that he could match Hart at the technical level, reminding fans why he was regarded as one of best in-ring wrestlers in the world during his tenure in WCW as ‘Stunning’ Steve Austin in the early 90s.

    These are two wrestlers who know who they are and what they are about in the ring. They don’t need to do anything to flashy or crazy to hook the crowd since they are already hooked on the pair’s animosity and the more it can look like a wild brawl, the more the crowd bought into the match.

  • Ring of Honor – What would a proper, Tony Khan-led TV show look like?

    Ring of Honor – What would a proper, Tony Khan-led TV show look like?

    Since AEW President Tony Khan acquired Ring of Honor in March 2022, it hasn’t always been clear what RoH means in the All Elite Wrestling ecosystem. It wasn’t known if RoH could get back on TV after struggling in its final few years due to multiple talent raids, shrinking crowds, and COVID-19, all things which could damage a brand in some people’s eyes.

    A weekly show ultimately launched in early 2023 and while it made a little bit of a splash early on, it ultimately evolved into a replacement for AEW Dark and Dark: Elevation after those shows ended. It just felt like a show for having the sake of a show.

    Then, Supercard of Honor 2025 happened and things slowly started to change. It felt as if more effort was being directed into the show with a renewed focused on clearly earmarked talent, scouting and signing notable independent talent, competitive matches, and actual stories and angles. Ring of Honor on HonorClub closed out the year strong which, on top of a spree of signings to kick off 2026, got fans talking about what Tony Khan could be preparing for.

    Additional depth could hint toward a new show, meaning Ring of Honor could potentially be back on TV.

    Now say that is what it ends up being, there is another question to ask – what does a weekly Ring of Honor show back on linear TV look like?

    While all this remains a big WHAT IF, let’s take a crack at what a new weekly Ring of Honor could, and in some cases should, look like.

    A Separate “Showrunner”

    Tony Khan has never been shy about how much time he dedicates to AEW/RoH as it is, on top of his duties for the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham. Adding a third wrestling show to the rotation is a difficult ask, no matter how you cut it. This means that Ring of Honor would best be left in the hands of a “showrunner” of sorts who can oversee the day-to-day operations and creative while working with Khan on RoH’s overall direction.

    It would also give Tony Khan a way to have a “general manager”-type character on a weekly show that wouldn’t directly impede with AEW’s creative direction. They can simply say “due to Tony Khan’s various other duties he is unable to be at the show regularly and in his place is,” and they give you the name of Ring of Honor’s main authority figure.

    And, if I may speak freely for a moment, I believe there is only one person for the spot – Scott D’Amore.

    The former-President of Impact Wrestling has kept a fairly low profile in the professional wrestling space, only popping up when it comes time for his promotion, Maple Leaf Pro, has a show coming up. Before that, he oversaw Impact Wrestling as it began to earn back fans’ trust and made the slow transition back to TNA Wrestling. However, he was ultimately fired in February 2024, less than a month into the name change, and was replaced with Anthony Cicone before Carlos Silva was named President of TNA.

    Despite the manner he was let go in, D’Amore’s experience makes him the perfect candidate to help guide a new Ring of Honor show. He oversaw creative and production for TNA Wrestling for years and would be intimately familiar with the kind of buildings Ring of Honor would likely run for its weekly show as the ones TNA ran while D’Amore was there.

    He is also a trained professional wrestler and familiar with performing on TV, giving Ring of Honor the ideal situation for a largely neutral on-air authority figure who typically doesn’t take sides but can take a bump when they need to.

    A Manageable Taping Schedule

    Next is making sure Ring of Honor has a manageable TV taping schedule for both talent and production. To this end, Tony Khan can once again look at Scott D’Amore and his history for the perfect solution.

    TNA’s filming schedule, for a long time, saw the company host a live special, or one of its four yearly pay-per-views, to kick off a weekend of TV tapings at smaller, easier to fill venue.

    The Friday evening special would serve as the payoff to whatever stories or feuds were built up on TV filmed during the previous taping. The next two days would then be tapings for the next several weeks of TV, building up to another special and TV taping weekend.

    It would likely need to be changed depending on what day of the week the show will air, as it could make it easier or harder to schedule tapings.

    A possible solution could be having the weekly show on Fridays and rolling the live specials into being monthly TV specials. It would allow them to properly plan around the three Ring of Honor pay-per-view shows the brand has as of February 2026 and then simply time out a taping schedule they’re happy with.

    As for the length of the tapings’ themselves, that would likely depend on how long the weekly show is. One weekend could produce eight episodes for a one-hour show or four episodes for a two hour show, which results in either needing fewer or more regular tapings. It isn’t a real issue, more just something to be mindful of for production and talent’s sake. In the latter’s case, it allows them to take more independent bookings if they are only working the Ring of Honor tapings regularly.

    Speaking of talent.

    A Clear Direction and Roster

    The third thing a new Ring of Honor show on linear TV would need is a clearly defined and separate roster from AEW.

    When Tony Khan bought Ring of Honor, he kept the promotion’s belts alive as he tried to figure out what to do with the brand. If this would continue to be the case if Ring of Honor got on linear TV, it would need to have its own dedicated roster who had little-to-no presence on AEW TV.

    This feeds directly into what Ring of Honor should be, which is AEW’s in-house “developmental” show.

    With how AEW has grown in six short years, it having effectively its own version of NXT just seems like a natural step for the company’s growth. A Ring of Honor show could easily fill that role for AEW, while still having a long and storied history to help keep some of that identity alive.

    The roster, in turn, should be mostly comprised of young or newly signed talent that AEW want to see grow over time. Names like the recently signed Zayda Steel, Alec Price, and Jordan Oliver would be ideal for this show, along with plenty more already under contract.

    That’s not to mention the unsigned talent who could quickly find themselves signed and on the show immediately. Adam Priest is one such example as he started appearing on Ring of Honor more regularly, despite not being signed at the time. Many fans believe he has since signed some sort of deal, despite no formal announcement, especially after he faced Kazuchika Okada on the January 31 episode of AEW Collision

    Ring of Honor would also be an ideal place for some talent who may be in need of a refresh to test the waters with some new ideas. Sammy Guevara is a prime example of this over the last year as he appears to have finally shaken the “Jericho stink” off of him after being tied to Chris Jericho pretty much since the start of AEW. He is, at the time of writing, one-half of the RoH World Tag Team Champions alongside Beast Mortos and representing La Faccion Ingobernable while Rush and Dralistico recover from injuries.

    Deonna Purrazzo was another who has been able to regain her footing under the AEW/RoH umbrella in 2025. After a rocky first year with the promotion on top of personal issues she said she had been struggling with, Purrazzo was able to use Ring of Honor and the new Women’s Pure Championship to help refocus on wrestling and since then she has looked like her old self again while reminding fans why she is considered one of the best technical wrestlers in the world, regardless of gender.

    The talent is there, and if given the chance, could really help a potential show to hit the ground running.

    Final Thoughts

    There are more that you could get into when it comes to making a weekly show work, including picking out venues to film the show, these three may be among the most important ideas to help bring a new Ring of Honor show to life.

    Ultimately, a reborn Ring of Honor TV show would pay dividends for Tony Khan as part of his catalogue of shows. The talent is there, along with the creative direction based on the last several months, and could get things off to a hot start.

  • 2026 – A Tag-Team Wrestling Year?

    2026 – A Tag-Team Wrestling Year?

    Barely a month into 2026 and already professional wrestling has delivered some standout highlights. One of the most memorable Wrestle Kingdoms in history headlined by Hiroshi Tanahashi’s retirement, AJ Styles teasing retirement, Bandido and MJF tearing the house down in what will be in discussion for TV match of the year, and so much more.

    And while these were incredible moments and matches, it was all carried on the back of an apparent tag team resurgence.

    AEW closed 2025 by crowning their first AEW Women’s World Tag Team Champions in Willow Nightingale and Harley Cameron, the Babes of Wrath, as the new division hit the ground running. Women’s tags have been fairly common on TV following the title tournament and even landed independent standouts Hyan and Maya World contracts.

    WWE’s women’s tag division experienced a much needed surge to ring in 2026, as well, with many of the division’s top names including Rhea Ripley and Iyo Sky wrestling for the Women’s Tag Titles. Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez, in particular, have been one of the biggest standouts in this period because of the pair’s natural chemistry that echoes Shawn Michaels and Diesel.

    It has been pretty good on the men’s side, as well.

    FTR has been on one of their best in-ring runs of their AEW careers as AEW Men’s World Tag Team Champions while new teams like the Don Callis Family’s Davis and Doyle or new signees Alec Price and Jordan Oliver have helped keep the division fresh. More established teams such as Jurassic Express and The Acclaimed received refreshes that have also gone over well with audiences.

    In New Japan, the Knockout Bros. appear to have single-handedly revitalized the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Titles and larger division since returning from excursion in 2025. Yuto-Ice and OSKAR welcomed 2026 with a lauded titled defense at New Year’s Dash against TMDK’s Zack Sabre Jr. and Ryohei Oiwa. This was followed a few weeks later by another fantastic match, this time between the teams of Shota Umino and Yuya Uemura against Taichi and Tomohiro Ishii.

    It continues down to the indies, as well, with plenty of standout teams for the bigger companies to take a look at. Some of the more notable teams, men’s and women’s, include Hyper Active, Violence is Forever, Cowboy Way, Fresh Air, Waves and Curls, and Medusa Complex, among many others.

    And that isn’t to say anything of the trios, intergender, and multi-person matches have done to kick off the new year. AEW has joined TNA in finding avenues to show intergender wrestling on national TV, typically in a mixed/intergender tag match. Several mixed trios now dot AEW and Ring of Honor’s roster between Cru, the Premier Athletes, and Shane Taylor Promotions.

    Finally there are the number of potential stars being able to use their successful tag team as a springboard.

    Oiwa and Yuto-Ice were many fans’ standouts from the New Year’s Dash tag title match, Ice maybe more-so due to his post-match promo. Kevin Knight, Bandido, and Brody King have also made big splashes on AEW TV as singles stars in 2026 thanks to their ongoing success in the tag team division.

    All this is to day that 2026 looks to be a year tag team wrestling dominates the fans’ attention.

    Tag wrestling has its normal ups-and-downs, as any aspect of professional wrestling can. However, it seems like ever handful of years there is one or two years where tag team wrestling is all the talk among fans.

    An easy example would be 2000 and 2001 WWF where the Hardy Boyz, Dudley Boyz, and Edge and Christian were at the peak of their three-way rivalry that saw the teams regularly trade the WWF World Tag Team Titles. Other teams including the APA, Too Cool, and Test and Albert, would find themselves involved to keep the scene fresh and find their own success in this period, as well.

    And looking at the rest of 2026, the pieces are in place for tag team wrestling to have a big year across the globe.

    Let’s take a look at AEW as just one example.

    Between AEW and Ring of Honor, the tag team division has been in the middle of a resurgence that really picked up during Brodido’s tag title reign in mid-to-late 2025. The Young Bucks underwent a much-needed and very entertaining refresh, Jurassic Express reunited, Anthony Bowens and Max Caster have rediscovered the chemistry that birthed The Acclaimed, and GoA emerged as a standout team thanks to forming The Demand alongside Ricochet.

    Younger teams including Price and Oliver, The Swirl, Cru, and Tommy Billington and Adam Priest have helped breath new life into a Ring of Honor weekly product that felt extremely stale heading into the summer of 2025. Since then, the weekly show on Honor Club has vastly improved, though there is still plenty to improve, and part of that has been on the back of these teams.

    And then there is the teases of potential tag team runs involving some of AEW’s top stars. Swerve Strickland and ‘Hangman’ Adam Page have already tagged together since Swerve returned at Full Gear 2025 as fans buzz about the idea of the pair having a tag title run. Kyle Fletcher and Konosuke Takeshita have teased a similar idea amidst teases of them breaking away from the Don Callis Family, with the idea of Fletcher having a tag team run with Kazuchika Okada also teased as part of this story.

    The still fairly new women’s tag division hasn’t slowed down, either. At the time of writing, the Triangle of Madness are going after Kris Statlander, Willow Nightingale, and Harley Cameron as the trio hold the Women’s World, TBS, and Women’s World Tag Team titles. Toni Storm and Mina Shirakawa, the Timeless Love Bombs, have also found themselves embroiled in a fight against Megan Bayne, Penelope Ford, and Marina Shafir.

    AEW has also signed or reportedly signed multiple women in recent months to improve the division’s talent depth with names including Hyan, Maya World, Persephone, Zayda Steel, Lena Kross, Christyan Reed, and Stori Denali.

    Taking a step back and looking at the wider landscape, tag team wrestling looks to be the healthiest it has been in several years. There is no shortage of talent in professional wrestling, especially when it comes to tag teams. WWE, AEW, New Japan, MLW, and other major promotions have a veritable pick of the litter when it comes to teams and talent if they needed to freshen things up.

    It doesn’t mean some promotions will experience it as overtly as others have been, but that’s nothing to say of the wealth of tag talent dotting rosters all over the world ready to go out and steal the show at a moment’s notice.

  • Destiny 2 Crossovers to do After Renegades

    Destiny 2 Crossovers to do After Renegades

    Its been well over a month since the release of Destiny 2: Renegades, and while there is still plenty of work to be done on the overall game, the reaction to Destiny’s first crossover expansion has been largely positive. While some fans had concerns about how overtly Star Wars the expansion would be, most players and critics applauded the balance Bungie hit in style and tone while still feeling like Destiny.

    It then begs the question – what other universes could Destiny 2 explore in future expansions?

    Bungie has already said there are no immediate plans for more crossover expansions, with the next expansions Shattered Cycle and The Alchemist already announced for 2026. It would not be surprising to learn early development has already started on whatever content is planned for Destiny 2 in 2027 and with no guarantees of any crossover content.

    Even so, Renegades’ success may push Bungie to look at what other universes they could find a way to Destiny-fy in future expansions.

    Here are just a couple that could easily find their way to Destiny 2 down the road –

    Warhammer 40,000

    A relatively easy first option, especially with its recent surge in mainstream popularity, is the grimdark universe of Warhammer 40,000.

    Some content creators such as MyNameIsByf have previously pointed out that Destiny, itself, can be considered grimdark given the state of humanity in this universe. They have been reduced to a single safe city on Earth being defended by, effectively, undead demigods imbued with powers by a god-like entity locked in an intergalactic conflict with another god-like entity and its many forces.

    While humanity may be more populace in the 40K universe, it is effectively in a similar state between the xenos and god-like threats bearing down on the Imperium on all sides.

    It is another universe that, narratively, could easily be tweaked to fit in Destiny 2 the way Star Wars was in Renegades. It may be doubly so in 40K’s case as Destiny 2 is currently embroiled in the Fate Saga, the current overarching narrative for the universe centered on the mysterious Nine. Following the reveal the role the Outer Nine, Six especially, have played in setting the Fate Saga in motion with the death of Three in Renegades, Bungie could easily use the four Outer Nine as narrative proxies for the four major Chaos gods in a 40K-inspired narrative.

    There’s no shortage of material to use when creating 40K-inspired gear for players to chase. The Imperium of Man, alone, provides plenty of variety between the Imperial Guard, Space Marines, Sisters of Battle, Adeptus Custodes, Inquisition, and Adeptus Mechanicus. That’s not to mention the various other forces including the Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, Tau, Necrons, and forces of Chaos, among others.

    It isn’t that difficult to imagine a Titan rocking Space Marine-style armor and armed with an exotic clearly inspired by a Bolt Rifle while fighting Scorn that look like Chaos worshippers.

    Lord of the Rings

    Going from the grimdark far future to the mysterious and mystical world of Middle-Earth created by JRR Tolkien.

    While the science fiction inspirations are more obvious, Destiny 2 isn’t shy about sharing its fantasy inspiration across so much of the universe. The Iron Lords serving as an analogy for Arthur and the Knights of Camelot, the powers of Light and Darkness being almost magical in nature, and Guardians actively using swords, glaives, and bows along with the rest of their arsenal.

    A more fantasy-centric expansion is not out of the picture for Destiny 2, and if it were to be a crossover, what better to do it with than Lord of the Rings.

    Tolkien’s Middle-Earth is one of the most easily recognized fantasy worlds in modern media and is another that could easily be translated to the Destiny universe. A narrative could easily center on the Awoken, who serve as almost a stand-in for Elves in this universe, and one of the Outer Nine serving as the narrative’s Sauron.

    Xivu Arath and her Hive could be involved, as well, effectively as the expansion’s stand-in for Orcs.

    Bungie has already shown it can easily draft up gear and ornaments that can let players turn their Guardians into the ultimate expression of space fantasy. From swords that resemble medieval claymores to armor pieces made to look like wizard robes, Destiny 2 oozes fantasy.

    There was also the overt fantasy tones in Destiny: Rise of Iron with its focus on the Iron Lords. This juxtaposed the deep sci-fi visual tone of the Fallen Devil Splicers and SIVA nanotechnology they got their hands on.

    Why not let players channel their inner Fellowship of the Ring in this space fantasy universe?

  • NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 20 – Goodbye to the Ace

    NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 20 – Goodbye to the Ace

    The first days of January brings with it the first major wrestling show of the year, courtesy of New Japan Pro-Wrestling, with Wrestle Kingdom emanating out of the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan.

    2025 marked the twentieth entry in the show’s history, but more importantly it was the final show for New Japan icon and longtime Ace, Hiroshi Tanahashi. The show followed a year-long retirement tour across the world and multiple promotions, including AEW and RevPro in the UK, celebrating his 25-year career with New Japan.

    And the promotion certainly delivered with Wrestle Kingdom 20 in front of a sold out crowd of 46,913 at the Tokyo Dome.

    One thing has to be said before getting into the show, though.

    As good as the show was, it was also another example of why Gedo’s booking in recent years has been failing New Japan. There continues to be a perceived hesitance to push certain names up and down the card, which is only reinforced when certain stars were put in certain matches at Wrestle Kingdom. It is exacerbated by Gedo’s continued reliance on House of Torture as a source of easy heel heat, something which appears to play well with Japanese audiences but not with foreign viewers.

    Three matches, in particular, highlight one or both of these issues in spades and it will be clear which matches they are from the outline of events.

    Now, on with the show.

    NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship Ranbo

    Kicking off the main card for New Japan’s annual January 4 show was the New Japan Ranbo for the NEVER Openweight 6-Man titles. The champions Toru Yano, Master Wato, and Yoh defended the titles in the annual Wrestle Kingdom Royal Rumble-style match where participants were eliminated by pinfall, submission, or being thrown over the top rope and having both feet hit the floor.

    Eight teams, including the champions, participated in the match that, while it has delivered surprises, might be one of the most star-studded Ranbos in recent memory. Participants included former IWGP World Champions Zack Sabre Jr., Hirooki Goto, Satoshi Kojima, and Sanada, along with other big names including Tomohiro Ishii, Taichi, the Knockout Bros., and Boltin Oleg.

    The match, itself, was largely messy due to the sheer number of people in and around the ring at any given time. It ultimately came down to TMDK, represented by Zack Sabre Jr., Ryohei Oiwa, and Hartley Jackson, and the team of Boltin Oleg, Hirooki Goto, and Yoshi-Hashi, with TMDK ultimately coming out the victors.

    RATING – 2.5/5

    Not bad by any means, but the Ranbos are not known for ever producing any real memorable moments. Getting gold back over Sabre Jr.’s shoulder is never a bad thing, either, but the fact so many big names were in this match raises questions about the booking of this show the issue they’ve had with pushing new stars.

    Winner Take All for the Strong Women and IWGP Women’s Championships – Saya Kamitani vs. Syuri

    Things immediately picked up in the show’s second match as World of Stardom and Strong Women’s Champion Saya Kamitani put the Strong title up against Syuri and her IWGP Women’s Championship.

    Kamitani was coming off the biggest year of her career as she celebrated a calendar year as World of Stardom Champion, winning the Strong Women’s title in September 2025, and no shortage of accolades from various outlets and publications for her work in and out of the ring. It was under her tenure as champion that Stardom experienced one of its best years ever and plans to carry this momentum into 2026.

    Syuri, meanwhile, entered the Tokyo Dome as champion after defeating then-IWGP Women’s Champion Sareee at New Japan’s King of Pro-Wrestling in October 2025, avenging Syuri’s loss to Sareee at Stardom The Conversion 2025 in June. It, also, marked the end of what had been an up and down year for Syuri between some of the opponents she traded wins with along with a badly timed injury in July derailing a teased run in AEW and Ring of Honor.

    Going 12 minutes, the match was a proverbial sprint from the second the bell rang. Syuri and Kamitani are two performers known for their in-ring ability and they delivered the kind of fast-paced, impactful action Stardom fans are accustomed to.

    Syuri ultimately emerged victorious after hitting Kamitani with an electric chair into what appeared to be a Death Valley Driver, walking away as the IWGP and Strong Women’s Champion.

    RATING – 4/5

    It isn’t out of turn to say Kamitani and Syuri are among the best women’s wrestlers in the world today, and this title-for-title match was an example as to why. The only real knock on the match was the time, which meant the two were off to the races when the match officially began and didn’t look back. But in all likelihood, it is far from the last match these two will have.

    Ten-Man Tag Match – Bullet Club War Dogs/Unaffiliated vs. United Empire

    Next on Wrestle Kingdom was a ten-man tag match pitting David Finlay, Drilla Moloney, and Gabe Kidd of Bullet Club War Dogs alongside Shingo Takagi and Hiromu Takahashi against United Empire’s Callum Newman, Great-O-Khan, Henare, the group’s new backer Andrade el Idolo, and a mystery partner.

    United Empire’s mystery partner was ultimately revealed to be Jake Lee, who was returning from a year-and-a-half long absence due to an injury to his right foot. He was originally part of the War Dogs when he jumped from Pro-Wrestling Noah to New Japan in 2024 before going down to the injury and being largely forgotten about.

    While the ten-man was similarly chaotic to the opening Ranbo match, it being a ten-man tag gave it more focus and allowed the talent involved to showcase themselves.

    Arguably the biggest spot of the match saw teammates Hiromu Takahashi and David Finlay use the other as weapons against the opposing team by suplexing or powerbombing each other. This was born out of the pair’s chemistry during New Japan’s annual tag team tournament, World Tag League, only a few months earlier.

    After largely clearing the field, Takahashi began running around the ring in celebration before being caught with a big boot from Jake Lee. The former-War Dog quickly tossed Takahashi into the ring and hit him with his running boot to the corner to secure the pinfall for United Empire.

    RATING – 3/5

    The ten-man was a fun, chaotic mess, but the match, itself, was nothing to write home about. Lee’s defection from War Dogs to United Empire does set himself and the group up to go in some potentially interesting directions. Beyond that, though, it is every fun, multi-man tag match seen before in and out of New Japan.

    IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship No. 1 Contender Match – Kosei Fujita vs. Taiji Ishimori vs. El Desperado vs. Sho

    Fourth on the main card was the number one contender’s match for the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight title, with the champion Douki sitting ringside and joined by fellow House of Torture member Yoshinobu Kanemaru.

    The match only went over 7 minutes 30 seconds and after an opening sequence allowing the four participants to show off their abilities until the referee got hit and taken out during a sequence, House of Torture didn’t hesitate to get involved after this, allowing Douki and Kanemaru to aid their stablemate Sho. Fujita, Ishimori, and Desperados tag partners Robbie Eagles, Robbie X, and KUUKAI, respectively came out to even the odds against House of Torture.

    Eventually, Sho appeared to have the match won at Fujita’s expense when Desperado breaks up the pin at the last second. Desperado quickly grabs Sho, quickly hitting a Tiger Driver followed by Pince Loco to win and secure the number one contendership.

    RATING – 2/5

    Easily the worst match of the night, it started off strong with each wrestler getting a moment to shine before the referee was hit and House of Torture got involved. The match quickly went downhill until Desperado finally scored the pin. It highlights the two problems spoken about at the beginning plaguing Gedo’s booking, as fans have been vocal about seeing Fujita at the top of the Jr. Heavyweight division along with House of Torture having to get involved..

    NEVER Openweight Championship – EVIL vs. Aaron Wolf

    The first of Wrestle Kingdom’s three big singles matches, the NEVER Openweight Champion EVIL defended the title against the judoka and 2020 Gold Medal Olympian Aaron Wolf in his debut match for New Japan.

    Wolf was signed by New Japan in June 2025, a move that gained massive media coverage due to Wolf’s fame in Japan following the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. There, it was announced he would be making his in-ring debut at Wrestle Kingdom 20, beginning a roughly-six month promotional period for New Japan as the match was poised to draw major news and media coverage in Japan.

    The judoka quickly found himself standing up against EVIL and House of Torture as they continued running rough shot on New Japan during the middle and late-2025. It led to Wolf challenging EVIL for the NEVER Openweight title, which EVIL accepted.

    Wolf already turned heads at the start of the match when he took off his gi to reveal he’d shaved his head and was wearing the traditional Young Lion garb of black trunks, black pads, and black boots in response to a challenge by EVIL.

    The match ended up being one of the better matches on the show, as EVIL stepped up his ringwork for the big stage while Wolf leaned on his judo background to either heave EVIL across the ring or take down House of Torture’s leader.

    EVIL attempted to hit Everything is Evil when Wolf caught him with a hip toss into an attempted armbar, which EVIL was quick to try and counter. In response, Wolf transitioned and locked in what appeared to be a modified-Triangle choke, causing EVIL to pass out and winning the match and title for Wolf.

    RATING – 4/5

    There had been some concern voiced online about how this match and whether it would be good or not. The quality of EVIL’s ring work along with it being Wolf’s in-ring debut made some fans wary of how good it could actually be, but were relieved when the pair delivered as hard-hitting a match as any on Wrestle Kingdom 20..

    Winner Take All for the IWGP World Heavyweight and Global Heavyweight Championships – Yota Tsuji vs. Konosuke Takeshita

    Next was the second Winner Take All match of the show as the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Konosuke Takeshita and IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion Yota Tsuji facing off with both belts on the line.

    After winning the G1 Climax 35, Takeshita decided to follow in Zack Sabre Jr.’s path by using his title shot at King of Pro-Wrestling with the hope of winning the IWGP World Heavyweight title and walk into the Tokyo Dome as champion. Takeshita did just this as he defeated Sabre Jr. to win the title in the show’s main event.

    Yota Tsuji won the IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship from then-champion Gabe Kidd on the same show. He later challenged Takeshita to a title-for-title match at the Tokyo Dome after Takeshita successfully defended the IWGP World Heavyweight title at November’s Final Homecoming.

    While Tsuji had previously voiced his concerns about AEW and New Japan’s partnership, he ramped it up ahead of Wrestle Kingdom as Takeshita is an AEW-contracted wrestler. He is also a New Japan and DDT contracted talent, all of which Tsuji pointed to as saying why Takeshita wasn’t fit to be World Champion since he didn’t commit the time Tsuji felt the World Champion should to New Japan.

    The following 29 minutes saw the two champions trade haymakers one after another, reminding fans why they are considered two of the top in-ring performers in their respective promotions and the world. It included a sequence that saw Tsuji and Takeshita trade moves, with Tsuji hitting Takeshita with the Power-Drive Knee while Takeshita got his payback with a Gene Blaster to Tsuji.

    Tsuji was finally able to hit the Gene Blaster on Takeshita and quickly transitioned to a deep Boston Crab. Takeshita attempted to get to the ropes, but Tsuji was able to hold his opponent near the center of the ring and ultimately forced Takeshita to tap out, crowning Tsuji as the World and Global Heavyweight Champion.

    RATING – 4.75/5

    It may come as no surprise to some fans that Tsuji and Takeshita had was has largely been considered the best match on Wrestle Kingdom 20. The two wrestlers, known for their explosiveness and heavy-handed striking, went back and forth for almost a half-hour before Tsuji emerged the victor in the biggest win of the star’s career.

    Tsuji’s celebration was short-lived, though, as Jake Lee attacked the new double-champion while he spoke to the crowd, making it clear who Tsuji’s first major opponent would be.

    Retirement Match – Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada

    Closing out the night was the retirement match in a year in the making as ‘The Ace,’ ‘The Once in a Generation Athlete,’ ‘The One in a Hundred Star’ Hiroshi Tanahashi had his final match. Standing across from Tanahashi is one of his greatest rivals and former-IWGP World Champion Kazuchika Okada.

    By the time November rolled around, it still wasn’t known who would face Tanahashi in his final match. Fans had speculated a variety of names including Kenny Omega, Yuya Uemura, EVIL, and even Shinsuke Nakamura.

    It was made clear at the November 8 New Japan Road show in Anjo where, after defeating Yuto-Ice, Tanahashi’s post-match celebration was interrupted by none other than ‘The Rainmaker’ Kazuchika Okada in his return to New Japan after leaving to sign with AEW in March 2024. The following day, it was confirmed Okada would face Tanahashi in the main event of Wrestle Kingdom 20 to close out Tanahashi’s in-ring career.

    Fans were treated to one more epic main event between two of New Japan’s biggest stars in its history, with it specifically being the fourth match the pair have had against each other in the Tokyo Dome.

    As with the many main events matches the two had against each other, the match was a 30+ minute epic that saw Tanahashi leaving everything he had left in the tank out in the ring. Okada, meanwhile, was far more heelish than he had been in his latter years in New Japan due to his time in AEW and affiliation with the Don Callis Family.

    However, Okada would slowly take the match more seriously and seemingly revert back to his New Japan persona by striking ‘The Rainmaker’ pose properly for the first time in well over a year. He would then hit a Rainmaker with more force than he had earlier in the match, keeping Tanahashi’s shoulders’ down to score the pinfall win.

    This meant the two were now tied for Tokyo Dome wins against each other at 2-2.

    RATING – 4.5/5

    However fans may have felt going into Wrestle Kingdom, it was clear as the match progressed that Okada was the perfect final opponent for Tanahashi. The pair have always had incredible chemistry in the ring and delivered incredible main events, no matter their ages or physical condition.

    It was not the end of the show, though, as the next hour was dedicated to celebrating the career of the man known as ‘The Ace.’ Tanahashi would be joined in the ring by former-New Japan stars and current-AEW stars Jay White, Will Ospreay, Kenny Omega, Kota Ibushi, and Katsuyori Shibata.

    Shibata and Tanahashi’s reunion was particularly emotional and entertaining as Shibata took of his shirt and the two traded chops briefly before an emotional embrace.

    Japanese wrestling icons Keiji Mutoh and Tatsumi Fujinami were the next to join in the ring and pay their respects to Tanahashi.

    After the ring cleared out, the crowd was treated with the surprise return of Tetsuya Naito and Bushi, who only days earlier won the GHC Tag Team Championship from Kenoh and Naomichi Marufuji at Noah’s January 1 show, The New Year. Naito spoke cryptically, as he is known to do, hinting that while he may never wrestling in a New Japan ring again, he hopes to find his way back to the promotion one day and reunite with Tanahashi.

    Tanahashi closed out the festivities with his iconic air guitar solos, performing two encores for the crowd. He then got on an elevated cart and was paraded around the Tokyo Dome, waving to the crowd and thanking them for everything, before getting back to the main stage and saying goodbye to the crowd one more time.

    The proverbial cherry on top was a video airing on the stage’s trons showing highlights of Tanahashi’s career, set to his previous and extremely popular entrance music High Energy.

    OVERALL RATING – 4/5

    Wrestle Kingdom 20 certainly lived up to the show’s lineage and was a grand celebration to one of the greatest to ever step foot inside a ring, in Japan and the world. Some of the early matches did suffer from feeling like filler, and some of Gedo’s worst booking practices were on display in at least three of he matches, but the main singles matches all massively delivered. The final two, in particular, may have been the strongest semi-main and main event matches at Wrestle Kingdom since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

    But with the end of the show came the end of Tanahashi’s long and illustrious career in the ring. He will still be in the wrestling industry, serving as New Japan’s president, but ‘The Ace’ has taken his final bow.