Table of contents for June 2020 in Pro Wrestling Illustrated

FAR BE IT from me to tell Vince McMahon how to run his business. He’s a billionaire; I’m a thousandaire. But I have something VMac will never have: a column in Pro Wrestling Illustrated. And I get to do with it as I please. I don’t like the message McMahon sent during the first-quarter conference call with investors, not even a little bit. Vince put forth the notion that WWE would very seriously consider accepting bids from outside parties to stream WWE’s top annual events (which are still referred to as pay-per-views for lack of a more accurate word). There are, he insists, several major companies willing to pony up to get their hands on WWE’s valuable content, and he is duty-bound as the Chairman of the Board to investigate…

WORD IS THAT WWE unsuccessfully tried to secure an Emmy nomination last year in the category of “Outstanding Structured Reality Program.” Maybe it was barking up the wrong tree altogether, and should have tried for an Academy Award instead. After all, if a seven-hour long WrestleMania doesn’t qualify as a “sweeping epic,” nothing does. For your consideration, it’s the annual Oscar-inspired edition of “Quick Count.” THE IRISHMAN For weeks, WWE hyped the return of Sheamus with videos in which he vowed to “ravage everything and everyone” in his way. And so, surely, big things were in store for “The Celtic Warrior” when he returned from an eight-month hiatus, right? Think again, fella. Rather than jump right into the main event mix on Smackdown, Sheamus targeted the talented, but underutilized, Shorty…

HOW DOES A person deal with pressure? Not just any kind of pressure, but the pressure that comes with carrying the legacy of a name synonymous with greatness. The kind of pressure that comes with fulfilling the destiny that the man that raised you never got a chance to. The kind of pressure that comes when, at 24 years old, you find yourself as the face of not just an organization, but an entire movement. To know this kind of pressure is to know Tessa Blanchard. The sun sinks below the Las Vegas skyline, and for the first time all day, the young woman with the dark hair and focused eyes can take a deep breath. The media scrum that has followed her since defeating Sami Callihan at Hard…

TEN YEARS AGO, we were talking about Twilight, BlackBerries, and Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” Now that the year 2020 is here, we’ll take one final look at the decade that brought us Marvel Comics movies, Pokémon Go, and Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy.” What did the decade mean to professional wrestling? We entered another boon period by the end of the 2010s, thanks to online streaming giving fans access to wrestling from around the globe at low cost. Fans became familiar with the WWE Network, ROH Honor Club, Impact Wrestling on Twitch, and NWA Powerrr on YouTube. Instagram and Twitter were dominant, with wrestlers reaching out directly to their fans and stating exactly what was on their minds at any time. Sometimes that worked out, sometimes it didn’t. Enterprising wrestlers discovered…

FANS HAVE ARRIVED at a consensus about Brock Lesnar: They respect him as an athlete, but hate him as a champion. And unfortunately for the WWE Universe, Lesnar has been a champion for most of the past half-decade. PWI recognized this phenomenon as early as 2014 when Lesnar graced the cover with this headline: “How To Win Wrestler Of The Year In 61:49.” But we were still embracing the “less is more” philosophy, commending Lesnar for securing the Wrestler of the Year Award with only four matches: steamrolling The Big Show at The Royal Rumble, ending The Undertaker’s streak at WrestleMania 30, humiliating John Cena with 15 consecutive suplexes en route to winning the WWE title at SummerSlam, and retaining against Cena at Night of Champions. Consider Lesnar’s record-setting…

CHARLOTTE FLAIR WAS already on the path to greatness in 2014 when she captured the PWI Rookie of the Year Award—39 years after her father, Ric Flair, received the same honor. While not shying away from her rich family heritage, Charlotte opted not to use her father’s famous surname when she began training at the WWE Performance Center in her mid-20s. Her background as a championship volleyball player and personal trainer didn’t guarantee success as a pro wrestler. Charlotte hit her stride in 2016 when she was in the midst of a 16-event undefeated streak on pay-per-view. In that year alone, she reigned as WWE Women’s champion for over 300 days, was ranked number one in the “PWI Female 50,” and ran away with the PWI Woman of the…

UNDER THE BLACK HAT For a guy who has spent tens of thousands of hours talking into microphones, Jim Ross still has a lot to say. That’s good news for wrestling fans because when it comes to spinning yarns and shooting straight, Good Ol’ J.R. is in a class all by himself. In 2017, the storied announcer published Slobberknocker: My Life In Wrestling, which covered his humblest of beginnings and early exploits in the wrestling business. His new book, Under The Black Hat: My Life In The WWE And Beyond, shares the subsequent steps of J.R.’s journey, from the Monday Night War to his present work in AEW. Especially heartfelt and poignant are J.R.’s accounts of his longtime friendship with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, a relationship that endured the rigors of…

DANA BROOKE WILL never forget August 21, 2017—the last time she would speak to her boyfriend, famed bodybuilder Dallas McCarver, who would pass away only a couple of hours later in their Florida home. It was the night after SummerSlam, and Brooke was away at Monday Night Raw at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. “We made a point to talk every Monday night,” recalled Brooke. “I’d ask, ‘How did I look on TV?’ And he’d say, ‘You’re beautiful.’ In our last conversation, he said he’d pick me up from the airport on Tuesday morning and that he’d call me before going to bed. And as usual, he said, ‘I love you.’ “The lesson I’ve taken from this is simple: Tomorrow is never promised.” Once upon a time,…

DANIEL BRYAN’S THIRD attempt at WWE stardom occurred at SummerSlam 2010 when he was announced as a last-minute member of Team WWE in an elimination match against Team Nexus. By year’s end, he had defeated arch-rival The Miz for his first title in WWE, the U.S. championship. The World heavyweight and WWE tag team titles were to follow. By 2013, however, it was obvious there were no long-term plans for Bryan. Yet a groundswell of support from the WWE Universe wouldn’t be denied. WWE was besieged by complaints on social media and the vocal support for Bryan at live events was deafening. Then-WWE champ John Cena made the save, handpicking Bryan as his opponent at that year’s SummerSlam, where Bryan defeated Cena for his first WWE title. It didn’t…

IN HIS FOURTH reign as IWGP champion, and as the undisputed star of New Japan, Kazuchika Okada was displeased with his mixed record at the 2016 G1 Climax tournament. Kenny Omega, the hot-rising gaijin, was the breakout story at the G1 Climax. Omega’s victory earned him a shot at the IWGP belt at Wrestle Kingdom 11. Only four days into 2017, we already had our Match of the Year. Wrestling Observer editor Dave Meltzer scored the encounter an unprecedented six stars, going beyond his usual five-star scale. The heavy striking, the incredible speed, the amazing endurance, and crisp execution of both athletes—against the backdrop of the Tokyo Dome—over the course of 46 minutes are what made this bout perhaps the greatest of all-time. That is, until the rematch on…

BIG E, KOFI Kingston, and Xavier Woods were saddled with a gimmick that came straight out of the early-1990s, a gospel-inspired group that preached the power of positivity. Could such a concept work in the snide, clever-quip culture of the 2010s? It didn’t. Fans reacted with mockery or indifference. With Creative tweaking their act to make it almost self-parody (channeling the America-loving Rougeaus of the mid-1980s), The New Day performed gimmick jujitsu, with the WWE Universe clamoring for more. The New Day cashed in this goodwill for championship gold. They defeated The Prime Time Players for the WWE tag team title in April 2015, but lost it back only one month later. When The New Day regained the belts at that year’s SummerSlam, they didn’t look back. Utilizing the…

ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS For those of you complaining that Adam Cole, and not Chris Jericho, was named PWI Wrestler of the Year (April 2020), we ask you: Did you vote? This was the closest WOTY voting in 10 years. A few more votes for the AEW World champion would have put him over the top. “Chris Jericho didn’t wrestle a ton of matches, but what he accomplished for AEW helped change the entire business,” wrote Sandy Meyers. “Adam Cole was truly outstanding toward the end of the year,” wrote Brian Mazer, “while Seth Rollins had a much better overall year. I wish the voters would have taken the whole year into account.” “It’s obvious by most of the award-winners that PWI readers are WWE-centric,” wrote Lanny Stoller, “so that makes Cody…

AJ STYLES WENT into 2010 as a world champion and, pound-for-pound, one of the very best wrestlers in the world. And, although the scenery changed a few times, he wore those distinctions throughout much of the next 10 years. And so it was no surprise when Pro Wrestling Illustrated readers chose “The Phenomenal One” as the Wrestler of the Decade. It capped off a long list of accolades accumulated by Styles over the past 10 years, including: a number-one ranking in the “ PWI 500,” a PWI Match of the Year award, two Wrestler of the Year awards, and a combined five world/heavyweight title reigns in three major promotions: TNA, New Japan, and WWE. But simply tallying Styles’ world title reigns doesn’t do justice to what he accomplished throughout the 2010s. Randomly pick out a photo…

HIRAI KAWATO (23) Deep in the heart of Mexico, Kawato is currently fulfilling his excursion duties within the world's oldest wrestling promotion, CMLL. A product of the NJPW Dojo, Kawato was quick to win the CMLL lightweight title, defeating Audaz in a match to win the vacant championship. Unfortunately, Kawato was forced to relinquish the title due to a knee injury, and upon his return would relinquish his hair per the stipulations of a match with Dulce Gardenia. NJPW fans long for his return to Japan. WHEELER YUTA (23) YUTA has been actively paying his dues in many of the top indies. Getting his start with Combat Zone Wrestling, YUTA has also spent time in Game Changer Wrestling, CHIKARA, EVOLVE, and MLW. His current stint in Beyond Wrestling has…

THE 16-TIME WORLD champion didn’t run away with this distinction; in fact, he edged out Daniel Bryan by only a few tenths of a percentage point. But consider this staggering fact: Cena has repeated as Most Popular Wrestler of the Decade, receiving the honor in the 2000s and the 2010s. The most popular star over the past 20 years? Quite an achievement. While the 2000s saw the rise and championship zenith of Cena, the 2010s saw more title reigns and Cena’s gradual rise to legendary status, alongside Bruno Sammartino, Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, and The Rock. One can make the argument that the first part of the 21st century was the era of Cena. Let’s focus on the year 2012: Cena won his fourth Most Popular Wrestler of the…

UNDERTAKER-SHAWN Michaels II will be remembered as the greatest match of the 2010s, according to our readers. That’s quite a testament to the excellence of this bout, considering it took place at the dawn of the decade. The “Heartbreak Kid” had lost Undertaker-Michaels I, which had occurred at WrestleMania 25, but demanded a rematch the following year … and he put up his career to get it. Undertaker and Michaels, the most consistent big-time players ever, could still go. It was a match of move and countermove: Undertaker thwarting Michaels’ Sweet Chin Music with a chokeslam … Michaels turning Undertaker’s Hell’s Gate into a near-fall. Michaels missed as many superkicks as he landed. Undertaker used a Tombstone Piledriver to drop Michaels headfirst on the concrete floor to devastating effect.…

THE PWI STAFF always has its own internal debates: In this case, should the Wrestler of the Decade award go to John Cena, the megastar who largely defined the 2010s, or Brock Lesnar, the perennial champion with UFC credibility? Then there was AJ Styles, the workhorse who was dedicated solely to pro wrestling in the 2010s, dominating TNA, excelling in Ring of Honor and New Japan, and conquering WWE. But it didn’t matter what we thought. PWI readers spoke clearly, as AJ Styles earned 29 percent of the vote, doubling the amount received by the first runner-up. Styles entered the decade as TNA World heavyweight champion, fending off challenges from Sting, Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, Desmond Wolfe, and Travis Tomko, reflecting the formidable TNA roster at the…

IT WAS A shocking scene when Joe Zanolle bought East Coast Championship Wrestling lock, stock, and barrel late last year, handing owner Mike Tartaglia a check in the center of the ring. But fans and fighters alike were encouraged at the notion that Zanolle might yet herald the storied promotion into a bright new future. On January 18, the ECWA held its first event under Zanolle’s tutelage. Greg Spitz and Teddy Fine, known to Pro Wrestling World-1 fans as The Marvelous Ones, defeated Kyle Christopher and Travis Lee to become top contenders for the ECWA tag straps. Former ECWA champ Chris Wylde was also on hand, claiming a victory in singles competition with a tapout win over 300-pounder L.A. Vin. But it was Eric Martin who scored the most impressive…

Top 10 and Tag Team ratings are based on won-lost records for the past month, quality of opposition, and inherent skill of each wrestler or tag team. These ratings are compiled by a committee consisting of Stu Saks, Pat Laprade, Kris Zellner, Brian Yoder, Louie Dee, and STRIGGA (cagematch.net, purolove.com). The numbers in parentheses indicate a wrestler’s position in that category last issue. Agate-sized ratings are supplied to PWI by promoters and can be e-mailed to us at pwiresults@yahoo.com (please put the word “ratings” in the subject line). FOR PERIOD ENDED FEBRUARY 10, 2020 TOP 10 1 BRAY WYATT 286, Brooksville, FL (1) WWE Universal champion 2 TETSUYA NAITO 225, Tokyo, Japan (–) IWGP World/Intercontinental champion 3 CHRIS JERICHO 227, Winnipeg, MB (2) AEW World champion 4 BROCK LESNAR 286,…