News! News! Get your news! Read all about it right here! Welcome one and all, to your weekly irrelevant round-up of the weeks hottest stories in pro wrestling, Pro Wrestling Post Week In Review 6/9/19. As always, I, “Smart” Mark Blake, have scoured the internet to find the biggest and most interesting stories. And what a week it’s been!
Chris Jericho Gives His Opinions On Headlining Double Or Nothing And Dominion
The Painmaker took part in an NJPW press conference yesterday to promote his main event match against Kazuchika Okada at Dominion earlier today. He spoke in length about the history he will be creating this summer, beginning with snatching the IWGP Heavyweight Championship from Okada:
“Think about how big of a name Chris Jericho is right now, just one week ago I headlined in the very first AEW show and beat Kenny Omega, Okada’s greatest rival, beating him with the Judas elbow. Here I am 10 days later, headlining Dominion with New Japan. Nobody else can do that. Nobody else is a big enough star to headline Las Vegas and Osaka within two weeks. Kenny Omega—I beat him. Okada, I’ll beat you, I’ll be the IWGP Champion and at All Out, I’ll beat Hangman Page and be the AEW champion.”
“I’ll be a double champion just like when I beat The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin both on the same night to become WWE and WCW double champion. That was a lifetime ago now here we are in 2019, Okada versus Jericho: a dream match, one of the biggest matches you could ever have. It could headline the Tokyo Dome, but tomorrow night in Osaka at Dominion in front of a sold-out crowd, it’s going to be one of the biggest matches you’ve ever seen in New Japan. At the end of it, I will win, I will be the IWGP Heavyweight Champion. I have to.”
You gotta admit that Chris has been on top of his game over the past year. Whether it’s in the ring or on his social media, Jericho has made watching him an absolute number one priority. Can you imagine how he’ll react if what he said comes to pass…..
Matt Riddle Explains Criticizing Goldberg, Lesnar, And Others
Over the past few months, NXT’s Matt Riddle has taken to Twitter to criticize and sometimes poke fun at certain wrestlers – Brock Lesnar and Goldberg to name but two.
Riddle took to Twitter to explain why he did so, and at the same time he praised The Undertaker, as you can see below:
I love Pro Wrestling so much and that’s why I get mad at certain people because they’re unsafe, dangerous and a liability to everyone else, I’ve worked hard to get where I am and this is only the beginning!
PS @undertaker is a stallion and is a true legend pic.twitter.com/WotacyNOre— matthew riddle (@SuperKingofBros) June 8, 2019
As you can see, Matt means well, even if some of his barbed comments are close to the wire. Such as this one –
Awesome job bro, you’re already bleeding and the match hasn’t even started #WWESSD pic.twitter.com/Ovzh3t64Tq
— matthew riddle (@SuperKingofBros) June 7, 2019
Riddle certainly seems to be a man that wears his heart on his sleeve. And at the same time, be entertaining on Twitter. Although he has some work to do to beat Big E on Twitter 😉
Impact Wrestling’s Slammiversary To Hold A Company First
At the most recent Impact Wrestling TV tapings held last week, it was announced that the FIRST EVER Women’s Four Way Monsters Ball match will take place.
The match will be contested for Taya Valkyrie’s Knockouts Championship and will feature Taya, Su Yung, Havok, and Rosemary.
The match will favor Rosemary and Su Yung but you can bet your ass that all four women will pull out all the stops to make it memorable.
The card so far looks promising. With more matches to be announced, it looks to be a strong PPV. Here’s the card so far:
Impact World Heavyweight Title Match
Michael Elgin vs Brian Cage (c)
Impact X Division Title Match
Johnny Impact vs Rich Swann (c)
Fatal 4 Way Monster’s Ball for the Impact Knockouts Title
Rosemary vs Su Yung vs Havok vs Taya Valkyrie (c)
Roll on July 7th!
John Cena – “One Top WWE Star Days Are Over”
While promoting his first children’s book, Elbow Grease, John Cena took part in a Q&A session at BookCon 2019. Whilst answering questions about his book, he also answered some questions about his WWE career. One of those questions asked was who in the WWE right now could be the next John Cena. He gave a thought-provoking response:
“I think the dynamic of the program is changing, I think for the longest time, if you consider WWE a band, there’s always been one front person of the band. I think that dynamic is changing because the audience is too diverse. Older males are watching it, younger kids are watching it, females are watching it. With a diverse audience, it’s tough to universally please someone.”
“In the 80s you had a family-oriented program and Hulk Hogan was the frontman. In the 90s you had 18-35 [year old] males and in comes Steve Austin and Dwayne Johnson because they hit right down that wheelhouse. Then there was me and even myself went through a polarizing stage where half the audience likes you and half the audience doesn’t.”
“I don’t think there’s a universal figure that will lead the company forward. I think as the company grows, and especially expands globally, you’re going to have a Super Friends of the WWE which is like people who are essentially fighting for an equal share of popularity. You got to think the band essentially will now have ten lead singers of every different race, creed, age, sex, and ethnicity. So, I believe that I was kind of the last of that. The landscape has changed so much that it’s now of a more group effort rather than an individual effort.”
Being out of the WWE bubble for quite some time now, Cena is primely placed to see things differently. And he has a great point. As WWE looks to cater to as many different demographics as possible, they will hedge their bets to please them. It certainly looks that we’re heading that way. Rollins, Styles, Kofi, Balor….could you really see them carrying the behemoth of a company on their back? It looks like the time of the WWE Super Team (ugh!) to come to the fore and take the strain.
That’s it for today’s Pro Wrestling Post Week In Review for 6/9/19. Some great little nuggets of news if I do say so myself. As always I thank you all for reading not only my work but all the work here at PWP each and every week. It doesn’t go unnoticed.
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