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hellopopculture · 2 years

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Top 20 Female/Joshi Wrestlers of 2021 (Part 5)

20. Liv Morgan-In a women's division that seems completely dominated by four women an unlikely hero would emerge; someone who may have watched Pro Wrestling growing up, and even became a fan, but never thought being a WWE Superstar herself was possible. She had a rocky start between being overlooked in developmental, having gimmicks too similar to her peers, being undersized and nothing special in the ring and being the weakest link of a stable that the company put no real momentum behind. There was a point where I wasn't even certain she was still on the roster. To this day I'm not sure that the fans or even WWE staff is clear on why Riott Squad was even formed.

Around the time that the fans started to notice the overbooking of Charlotte Flair, Liv began asserting herself on WWE television against "The Queen" and her status as the company's favorite, the same way Becky Lynch had before her. Fast forward to 2021 and now Liv has turned that same fire and passion against Becky herself as she returns from having a child to kill the momentum of budding star, Bianca Belair and hold the Raw Women's Championship once again.

Wrestling fans love a good underdog story and I think none holds as much weight as Liv Morgan's. WWE is big on placating their favorites and gifting them opportunities while the roster around them starves, which makes someone as hungry as Liv and the idea that she could topple the status quo irresistible. The company has been pushing her ever so slightly for a while and her momentum has been building with the audience and what I think is most intriguing about Liv is that she didn't take the Carmella or the Mandy Rose approach to the perception of her. She doesn't blame the fans for not getting the "credit she deserves" nor does she think she's owed any for the work she put in, she just worked harder and got better. At WWE Day 1, the rivalry between Liv Morgan and Becky Lynch came to a close as Becky defeated her and retained her title but the fans wanted it for her, they wanted her to finally get her moment and she has herself to thank for making them believe in her. 19. Rok-C-Ring of Honor's first attempt at making their presence felt during the "Women's Revolution" didn't go too well. They debuted their first women's title on April, 7th 2018 after Sumie Sakai won the inaugural Women of Honor Tournament. Sakai failed to really generate any buzz for the title and even with the access to some of STARDOM’s roster they couldn't really validate their champions and enter them into the conversation around women's wrestling. Ultimately the title was discontinued and the champ at the time (Kelly Klein) was released after she blasted them on twitter for not paying her a living wage and not allowing her time to heal from an injury.

They decided to give this another go in October of 2021 and a new face would emerge victorious as the inaugural champ...Rok-C. Young Carla Gonzalez was trained in Booker T's Reality of Wrestling system at the age of 16. She debuted in 2018 and finally made her way to Ring of Honor the same year she won the tournament. With her as the Champion, ROH made a good run at having a legitimate women's division, but that run was short-lived as ROH announced that they would be going on hiatus until April of 2022.

Rok-C lost her title to Deonna Purrazzo on an episode of Impact, and she later made her way to WWE where she currently resides. However bright her future is, it’s now up to WWE to make something of her. They did it with talent such as Mercedes KV & Davina Rose so who knows what we can expect for them to do with Rok-C , now Roxanne Perez.

#Top 20 Female/Joshi Wrestlers of 2021 #Female Wrestlers #Women's Wrestling #Rok-C #Liv Morgan #Gionna Daddio #Roxanne Perez #Wrestling #Pro Wrestling #WWE #AEW #Ring of Honor #ROH #Stardom

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hellopopculture · 2 years

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Top 20 Female/Joshi Wrestlers of 2021 (Part 4)

Description: We're a long way away from the "Women's Revolution" and in some ways the treatment of female wrestling talent in the West has reverted back to the "Diva Era". In contrast, Joshi Wrestling at companies like STARDOM, has not only been able to stay afloat but grow during the pandemic. Not to be outdone though; the women's divisions of WWE, AEW, Impact & ROH still put up and good fight and overall made it a competitive year for women in Pro Wrestling. 18. Jade Cargill-Jade hasn't done a lot since coming in to AEW. Outside of the tag team match with Shaq against Cody & Brandi Rhodes, you'd be hard pressed to really remember anything she's done previous to last Summer. She had a short feud with Red Velvet and Leyla Hirsch, but her biggest wins came in the tournament for the TBS Championship, scoring victories on Thunder Rosa & Ruby Soho. AEW seems to have a lot of faith in Cargill and if you've ever seen her, you know she has some attributes that are very attractive in the Pro Wrestling business. She's tall, she's muscular, she's strong as hell, she's gorgeous, she's sexy, she can cut a promo and she just exudes confidence and charisma. Since she’s won the title, she’s been kind of running through the bottom of the division but only time will tell what the ultimate goal for this reign is.

17. Hikaru Shida-While Shida hasn’t won any titles last year, she did make history by getting her 50th win and being the fastest woman to that many victories in AEW. She was disappointed in her championship reign, feeling that she could have done more but even after it ended, she stayed in the mix. Riho was their first Joshi champion and the first champion of the women's division overall, but you can tell AEW really wants Shida to be their first success from Japan. Riho is kind of a part-timer, but Shida moved to the United States, and you can see in how they use her in their marketing and their promotional material that they put a lot of stock into her progress.

16. Nikki A.S.H.-Nikki Cross' transition into Nikki A.S.H. was kind of disaster but if it's not a lie and Nicola Glencross herself came up with the idea than I have to give her kudos for that. Although it didn't work, Vince McMahon rarely listens to pitches for other people's ideas but the fact he not only allowed her to give him an idea, but it led to her winning Money in the Bank, her first Championship and then the tag titles with Rhea is nothing short of amazing.

15. Raquel González/Rodriguez-Raquel was transitioned to the top of the women's division in NXT fairly slowly and I think that's because originally, she just wasn't polished, she wasn't as good when she was first signed. When I saw her in the Mae Young Classic for the first time, she looked kind of clumsy and uncomfortable working with smaller girls at her size. Being from Texas she also had a generic cowgirl gimmick too, which probably wasn't going to work in the long run. Over time she became a spoiler, a destroyer; she was walking through her competition, and the NXT fanbase became drawn to her. The “take no prisoner's” attitude, the muscular build, her stiff and brutal work style became something to look forward to.

On April 7th, 2021 at Stand & Deliver, she would defeat Io Shirai to win her first championship in the company, in one of her best matches since she debuted. Her title reign started off great; scoring victories over women like Ember Moon and her former bestie, Dakota Kai, but this was during the time where NXT began to shift into NXT 2.0 and at Halloween Havoc, she would drop the belt to Mandy Rose.

14. Io Shirai-The former "Ace of Stardom" didn't have as smooth of a run in NXT as her former stablemate in Triple Tails, Kana (Asuka in WWE)...or her one-time rival, Kairi Hojo (Kairi Sane in WWE). Between the dominance of Shayna Baszler over the NXT Women's Championship and then the return of Charlotte Flair to the brand, she was kind of being utilized below her talent level and her status as someone you could really build a division around. Although she defeated Charlotte and became the champion and she had the biggest match of her career against Sasha Banks @ The Great American Bash in 2020, it seemed like they didn't realize how valuable she was until it was too late.

In 2021, she defeated the likes of Toni Storm, Mercedes Martinez, Rhea Ripley & Candice LaRae in retention of her title; some of the best female wrestlers in the world, but after losing her championship to Raquel Gonzalez her last "hurrah" as a member of NXT's roster would come in the form of her tag title win with Zoey Stark.

If her career in WWE never goes any further, she still accomplished a lot. Even though she wasn't treated like the asset she is, and the company still hasn't figured out how to present Joshi talent, if she has to return home to Japan..she will do it with some decoration and some new accolades to her name.

13. Becky Lynch-Although she was the WWE Raw Women's Champion in 2021, Becky isn't closer to the top of this list because she wasn't available for most of the year, she was raising her newborn baby girl, Roux. While she was at home working on motherhood, she still remained one of the most over people in the company and a thorn in the side of Charlotte Flair. As Charlotte took her place at the head of Raw's women's division and tried to actually put their young prospects from NXT over for a change, her feuds fell flat and failed put any momentum behind those women. The more and more it looked like we could have Becky back; at any moment, Charlotte's matches began getting drowned out by the background noise of "We want Becky" chants. At Summerslam 2021, Becky finally showed her face. Bianca Belair's opponent, Sasha Banks was unavailable, so Becky took her place in the Smackdown Women's Title match, that she won in a squash after sucker punching the unprepared Belair.

The then SmackDown Women's Champion traded titles with the then Raw Women's Champion, Charlotte Flair after she was drafted to Raw with SmackDown's title still around her waist. The two would clash at Survivor Series that year in a match that Becky won, and she continues her dominance to this day. "Big Time Becks" as she's now called hasn't had any major rivalries yet, but I think the Royal Rumble will be the gateway to some big matches.

#Becky Lynch #Io Shirai #Raquel González #Raquel Rodriguez #Nikki A.S.H.#Hikaru Shida #Jade Cargill #Top 20 Female/Joshi Wrestlers of 2021 #Women's Wrestling #Joshi #Joshi Wrestling #STARDOM #World Wonder Ring Stardom #WWE #Wrestling #Pro Wrestling #AEW #All Elite Wrestling

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hellopopculture · 2 years

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Top 20 Female/Joshi Wrestlers of 2021 (Part 3)

12. Jordynne Grace-The Inaugural Digital Media Champion remains maybe the only female presence in Impact that not only generated a buzz in a deeper talent pool before women like Tessa Blanchard & Taya Valkyrie left but continues to keep all eyes on her as her popularity and interest from fans reaches outside of the company limits.

Thicc Momma Pump was having kind of a pedestrian year at the start of 2021 pursuing the tag titles with Rachael Ellering, but she made history when she became the first Digital Media Champion and the First Triple Crown Women's Champion in Impact. The championship is open weight and intergender, so she had to defeat women and men of all shapes and sizes to not only become champion but retain her title.

11. Meiko Satomura-Because STARDOM is the most recognizable all-Joshi promotion to the States, Satormura often gets overlooked, being the creator and owner of Sendai Girls. She's kind of like the "Mother of Pro Wrestling" in this era. She trained a lot of women including Joshi sensation, Chihiro Hashimoto and retired STARDOM bad girl, Kagetsu...she also re-trained Sasha Banks when she was on hiatus from WWE.

Today she's not only a wrestler/coach for NXT UK and a trainer in the London Performance Center but she's the current NXT UK Women's Champion. Joshi breeds a different level of female athletes and apparently WWE wanted to bring that to their company. Natalya Neidhart had a similar role for their main roster. She helped train a lot of her peers, but she also helps them polish up in the ring, working with them on the show.

10. Rhea Ripley-Rhea had her final match in NXT at New Years Evil in a last woman standing match against Raquel González. Those two found a chemistry in their similarities that was perhaps unmatched in that era of NXT, at least for the women's division. When she debuted on WWE Raw in February of 2021 she immediately challenged Asuka for her title at WrestleMania XXXVIII which Asuka accepted. Rhea didn't win the Royal Rumble but she didn't have to, we already expected her to be a top contender on whatever brand she was on, and she made her presence felt on day one. Rhea won the title at Mania to secure her spot as the parallel to the actual Royal Rumble winner, Bianca Belair on SmackDown.

She has been glued to the hip with Charlotte since she was in the Mae Young Classic because of their similar height, hair color and muscular build and even when she transitioned into "The Nightmare", WWE didn't let up on a rivalry between them. Only problem is they don't really know how to handle any feud with Charlotte Flair where she doesn't completely dominate her opponent so even when Charlotte was losing, it somehow felt like nothing was being accomplished. There's no real magic between these two and although they had some good matches, Rhea's momentum was kind of dragged down by Charlotte's interjection into her journey.

She did have a tag team title reign with Nikki A.S.H. before the new year but that also didn't really work as the idea seemed half baked. Rhea has a lot of potential to be a staple in this women's division but luckily for her she's young. She was only 24 in this position so imagine how much WWE can accomplish by the time she's 30 if they keep working on her.

9. Tam Nakano-The former J-Pop Idol, Yuria Tauchi debuted for Wonder Ring STARDOM in 2017 and made a big splash almost immediately. Entering into the world of Pro Wrestling, the insanely cute Tam Nakano put it all on the line working deathmatches for Atsushi Onita; showing that for someone so petite and adorable, she's not afraid of anything and has a rougher side to her. She worked her first match in July of 2016 and by that same time the following year she would have ambitions to enter STARDOM's 5★Grand Prix which is maybe the toughest women's tournament in the world. Women come from every continent to try and earn their stripes there. Tam bombed in the Grand Prix but during that time she was being groomed to become a prominent member of the antagonist stable, Oedo Tai.

As a member of Oedo Tai, Tam began exhibiting qualities that would make her the valuable component of the company she is today. She's very lovable and charismatic which probably comes from her time as an Idol but she's also a very skilled in-ring performer and commands attention even when she's not having a match. As a casualty of Oedo Tai's war with Queen's Quest, Tam was separated from the stable and without a home she was welcomed to Mayu Iwatani's Stardom Army. From her early days, the factions in the company would play tug of war with the possibility of making Tam one of them because her potential was attractive.

As Tam would win championships and tournaments her ego would grow, and she would start to come into her own as a prominent figure on STARDOM's roster. While under the leadership of Mayu Iwatani she had become incredibly loyal not just to her but her stablemates, but she still took her opportunities to branch out on her own create some of the greatest rivalries of her generation.

Tam won her first major title in 2021 defeating reigning STARDOM MVP, Giulia in a hair vs. hair match. Seeing Guilia as an obvious future flagbearer for the company, Tam went to war with her over the Wonder of Stardom Championship also known as "The White Belt", putting her on notice that, there is a tough road ahead of her. She also created her own stable with Mina Shirakawa and Unagi Sayaka, called The Cosmic Angels solidifying herself as a leader for the first time.

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hellopopculture · 2 years

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Top 20 Female/Joshi Wrestlers of 2021 (Part 2)

Description: We’re a long way away from the “Women’s Revolution” and in some ways the treatment of female wrestling talent in the West has reverted back to the “Diva Era”. In contrast, Joshi Wrestling at companies like STARDOM, has not only been able to stay afloat but grow during the pandemic. Not to be outdone though; the women’s divisions of WWE, AEW, Impact & ROH still put up and good fight and overall made it a competitive year for women in Pro Wrestling.

8. Thunder Rosa-Rosa came in to AEW as a champion in 2020, holding the NWA Women's Title. She challenged a few of the top talents in the company eventually making her way to Dr. Britt Baker. Britt would cost Rosa the NWA Women's Championship in a rematch with Serena Deeb on November 18th, 2020, as their feud would grow more and more heated. AEW's women's division was struggling at this point. Before Britt had beaten Shida and taken the title off of her she had suffered some injuries and even though she was making her presence felt as a heel after her turn, the division wasn't faring well under Shida. She had kind of exhausted a lot of the best opponents that the company had to offer so when Rosa came in and Britt finally beat Shida, that was seemingly the turning point for the division. While it's still struggling, the Unsanctioned Lights Out Match in March of 2021 @ St. Patrick's Day Slam showed us all the possibilities for what this division could produce. I don't think it's even debatable..this was the greatest women's match in company history. For this company it will probably be like Sasha Vs. Bayley @ Takeover: Brooklyn where all the best matches following it will be compared to it.

7. Deonna Purrazzo-After being released by WWE in 2020 without really being given a chance to show what she could do on the main roster, Deonna has been plenty busy. She signed with Impact in 2020 and kind of became the focal point of The Knockout's Division. Deonna prides herself on her technical wrestling ability and which just wasn't going to work out in "Sports Entertainment". The Virtuosa made her in-ring debut in Impact on June 9th of 2020 attacking Jordynne Grace. By Slammiversary in July of that year she had taken the Knockouts Championship off of Jordynne, winning her first title in the company.

Deonna dominated the Summer of 2020, and by 2021 she still remained the "woman to beat". While knocking down all the competition Impact could throw at her, she set out to extend the limits of her reign as one of the most commanding women in the sport by winning the AAA Reina de Reinas title from Faby Apache @ TripleMania XXIX making her a double champion.

Her reign in Impact came to an end when she was defeated by Mickie James @ Bound for Glory, but she became a Double Champion again by beating Rok-C for the Ring of Honor Women's Championship. At 27, we still haven't seen the upper limits of Deonna's potential but 2022 is a new year and i'm sure she has more to show us.

6. Charlotte Flair-In terms of accolades 2021 was a great year for Charlotte. With Sasha Banks passing the torch to Bianca Belair @ WrestleMania and taking a backseat to her, Bayley & Asuka getting injured and Becky Lynch being at home with her baby, Charlotte had plenty of room to shine. She didn't really do that great of a job of it with many of her opponents not being elevated and falling by the wayside, but she was still dominant at least. When she exchanged titles with Becky Lynch that made her a 6-Time Raw Women's Champion and an overall 13-time Women's Champion on the main roster.

5. Utami Hayashishita-Judo Black Belt, Utami Hayashishita only began training to be a Joshi wrestler in 2018. She was already getting high marks for her wrestling ability and won the tag league as well as the Goddess of Stardom Championship with Momo Watanabe in her first year. In 2019 she won 4 championships, The Pro Wrestling: EVE International Championship, The Future of Stardom Championship, The SWA World Championship & The Artist of Stardom Championship with her Queen's Quest stablemates which she held all at once. She won the 5★Star Grand Prix in 2020 and then the World of Stardom Championship. By 2021 in only a short time in the business, Utami had established herself as one of the top women in the company having main evented almost every STARDOM event that year. Her rivalry with Syuri had been building up to The big Dream Queendom show at the end of the year where her reign would come to an end but not before she had the first 5★Star match in Stardom history.

Utami is nothing short of amazing. Out of the 12 women that held the World of Stardom Championship, she has had the 4th longest reign behind decorated veteran Mayu Iwatani, Seadlinnng Founder Nanae Takahashi & The former Ace, Io Shirai. Although she's not the top Champion anymore, STARDOM’s future looks bright with her.

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hellopopculture · 2 years

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Top 20 Female/Joshi Wrestlers of 2021 (Part 1)

4. Britt Baker D.M.D.-When AEW first started and Britt Baker was their first female signee, I was underwhelmed. I just didn't see it in her. I hadn't seen many of her matches, she seemed kind of pedestrian as a performer. She had a strong showing at what would be sort of a test show for AEW called, All In but as a babyface she didn't seem to connect all too well. When she adopted her heel persona, we started to see the better, Britt Baker. Although the women's division in AEW was in pretty bad shape when she started her rise to the top, she was able to make the most out of her rivalries with everyone including Big Swole who was relegated to AEW Dark before leaving the company. It's interesting that Britt admits that she studied Sasha Banks when she was training because they have a similar approach to their feuds and finding their chemistry with their peers.

In May of 2021, Britt Baker won the AEW Women's Championship. She scored major victories over Nyla Rose, Kris Statlander & Ruby Soho and also built a stable around herself with Jamie Hayter & Rebel. While she definitely stepped up in terms of in-ring performance and pretty much controls the momentum behind women's wrestling in AEW...I don't think we've seen the peak of this run she's on.

3. Syuri-Syuri is a relatively new name to STARDOM but not to Joshi Wrestling or Women's Martial Arts in Japan. Her name has held a lot of weight on that front for years. I was first introduced to her in SMASH Wrestling during her rivalry with Kana (WWE's Asuka). She only has one win in the UFC against Chan-Mi Jeon but boasts an impressive Kickboxing record of 13-1.

If you're a Western Wrestling fan, you probably saw her name or heard it the most after she was awarded a 5.5 out of 5 stars by Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter for her match against Utami Hayashishita in June of 2021. This would be the first in STARDOM company history but also the first Joshi match awarded 5 stars or more since 1995 which was awarded to a match between Joshi GOATs Manami Toyota and Akira Hokuto.

With Syuri's extensive rap sheet and list of accolades you would think she's not only close to veteran status or already there, but you would expect her to be nearing the end of her career but actually she's only 32. To put it in perspective, she's the same age as Bayley, Bianca Belair & Nikki Cross. She has so much more career, to go, so much she can do.

Syuri was trained by "The Japanese Buzzsaw", Yoshihiro Tajiri and with her background in combat sports became a notable figure for in Joshi Wrestling right away. Feeling that she had been overlooked and not receiving the credit she deserved for what she had done in the wrestling business or, Syuri kept working and eventually made her way to STARDOM where she joined Giulia's Donna Del Mondo faction.

Syuri had an incredible 2021 by winning the 5★Star GP, and winning the World of Stardom Championship at the end of the year. I think she's more than proven her value to Joshi Wrestling.

2. Sasha Banks-Looking at other "Best of 2021" lists it seems that everyone has kind of forgotten what type of year she had. While she wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders for the entire year the way she did in 2020, she still main evented Night 1 of WrestleMania against a rookie, they became the first two black people to not only main event a PPV together but also the biggest one of the year. They also won an ESPY for that moment. I don't care what anyone does for the rest of the year, nobody in 2021 aside from Bianca put up that level of accolades. Most of the women on this list will chase those accomplishments for the rest of their career and not hit those marks, let alone in just 1 year.

1. Bianca Belair-The EST of WWE had clear star potential from the start. Before she had a televised match in NXT, I saw footage of her that people had taken of her with their phones from dark matches. You could tell she was a natural for Pro Wrestling despite not growing up a fan. She was one of the first people WWE picked up that made their developmental process seem like it was actually for a professional sport and not a TV show. The moment the world fell in love with her is during her feud with Shayna Baszler for the NXT Women's Championship in 2019. She never won a title during her time in NXT but until the time she was called up to the main roster, she was kept in the mix as one of the top women on the brand.

When Bianca graduated to the WWE Raw, she had a pretty pedestrian first year. She didn't really do much. She didn't have any big rivalries, no memorable matches. It wasn't until she was moved to the SmackDown brand in the draft that she started to pick up steam. At the start of 2021 she began her ascent toward superstardom. She won the Royal Rumble and chose to challenge Sasha Banks instead of Asuka. She won the SmackDown Women's Championship at WrestleMania as the main event of Night 1, which is maybe the biggest leap in accomplishments for a wrestler so new to the big stage. She and Sasha Banks won the ESPY for Best WWE Moment and then she moved on to have high profile feuds with Bayley & Carmella before she met Becky Lynch at Summerslam. The rest of the year for Bianca was kind of a bust. Becky beating her killed her momentum cold, but she had accomplished so much by that point that she's in the mix now. She's a top woman in this company. They can't deny her.

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hellopopculture · 2 years

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Top 20 Wrestlers of 2021 (Part 5)

Description: 2021 was one of the strangest years in recent memory as far as Pro Wrestling is concerned. The pandemic era in general has seen a lot of changes and to a certain degree the business and the products produced in it have not completely gotten back to normal. If you had told me in 2019 we would have Bryan Danielson & CM Punk at the same company and a heel Roman Reigns would be one of the most over guys in the WWE, I would've argued it down, I wouldn't have been able to fathom it but here we are.

20. Edge-WWE has seen a lot of great careers cut short because of neck injuries. It's heartbreaking when you see an athlete who still has so much more to give and that loves to business enough to keep going but he's unable to be medically cleared to compete. Spinal injuries and head trauma are taken very seriously in sports because they aren't exactly easy to rehabilitate once the damage has been done and there has also been all types of lawsuits and legal action taken against companies because of them. On April 11, 2011, Edge bid the WWE Universe farewell in the middle of the ring, leaving us only with thoughts about the possibilities and what could have been.

In 2020 we saw the return of Edge in the Royal Rumble match. He was eliminated by Roman Reigns who would later become one of his targets but not before taking out Randy Orton. He entered into a feud with Orton where his endurance would tested. He would be pushed to his physical limits. Their first match at WrestleMania 36 was a brutal "Last Man Standing" match which was panned by some critics for being too threatening to Edge's health considering what he just returned from, for being way too long, and for a spot that could be seen as drawing inspiration from the Chris Benoit tragedy. He would meet Edge again @ Backlash in a match that went a whopping 44 minutes and 45 seconds and cost him a torn tricep.

Edge returned to Raw from his injury firing on all cylinders in January of 2021. He declared himself for the Royal Rumble which he won, making that his 2nd Royal Rumble in his career. After finally ending his feud with Randy on Raw, Edge set his sights on Roman Reigns and the Universal Championship. Although he would make the main event of WrestleMania, he along with Daniel Bryan were toppled by Reigns to retain his championship. Due to interference from Seth Rollins in their feud, Edge would turn his attention to him in a feud he would come out victorious in.

Since Edge's return, his feuds haven't really had the impact that they should have, considering the level of star he is and what he brings to the table as a talent, most recently he had tension with The Miz & Maryse as his wife Beth Phoenix returned to be a member of the Raw roster, but thankfully I don't think we've seen the height of what WWE wants to accomplish with Edge. Maybe the 11x World Champion will reach those heights once again. Hell, maybe Beth will beat Becky and she and Edge will be champions at the same time.

19. Randy Orton-After returning to WWE Raw in 2020, Randy Orton has kind of been the focal point of the show. Regardless of who the champ is, the most important stories seem to revolve around him. Whether it's The Fiend, Drew McIntyre, The Hurt Business, Retribution, Edge or now his partnership with Matt Riddle as RK-Bro, it's very clear where the energy on the show is radiating from.

There has been 5 different WWE Championship Reigns in the pandemic era that began when McIntyre defeated Lesnar @ WrestleMania 36, Randy himself won the title for a short time before it went back to Drew who later had the title taken off of him by The Miz who used the MITB contract, Bobby Lashley and Big E would succeed him in 2021 before the new year. Through all that time, it has still been Randy that stands out.

Today RK-Bro may be the most over thing on Raw. I think the hype around Becky has died because she's "killing" all of her opponents. They are kind of all buckling under the weight of her star power. Randy is the closest thing to the "Gatekeeper" position that WWE can get. They don't even humiliate the guy or act as if he's lost a step because of his age. He has been a solid veteran figure for them, helping to put over younger talent that may have struggled without him. He did that for FTR before they left and went to AEW, before that he did it for Bray Wyatt which propelled him into the World Champion/Main Event spot, he even put over Jinder Mahal multiple times despite the fact he really had no chance of becoming a viable star in India. I'd imagine Indian fans don't want to see a jobber as the WWE Champion any more than we did here in the States. Now he's giving Matt Riddle "the rub". We don't know where it's going but I bet it will pay dividends for Riddle when they get there.

18. Christian Cage-To a lot of people, "Captain Charisma" is the better half of The Brood stable or the Edge & Christian duo. Physically he wasn't in as bad of shape as Edge so there was always a possibility that he could come back when he retired from WWE in 2014. Like Bryan Danielson, he had issues with concussions and after what happened with Chris Benoit, and being sued by various different wrestlers over concussions, WWE is a lot more cautious about head injuries.

He was reunited with Edge during his feud with Randy Orton and was an entrant in the Royal Rumble match before leaving WWE for AEW. He showed up in AEW to mixed reactions. Newly acquired commentator Paul Wight (The Big Show) announced to the world that AEW had a signed a huge star that would show his face at the "Revolution" pay-per-view. When it turned out to be Christian, it didn't really have the desired Impact the way it did for Punk or Danielson.

Not to be outdone though, Cage showed up with a "Out Work Everyone" attitude and that's exactly what he intended to do. He was signed during the time Kenny Omega was on a tear, winning 3 Championships in 3 major companies (AEW, Impact & AAA). Not only was he the company's champion but he was dominating everywhere else he could. While Cage failed to beat Omega for the AEW Championship, he did manage to take the Impact World title off of him, and at 48 years of age, returning to the business after 7 years, i'd say he had a hell of a year.

Currently he's working with Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus as a manager. I'm not sure how he got roped into working with that tag team exactly but AEW's mission statement from the beginning has been to build their future and get their young talent over and if anyone can help with that it's Christian Cage.

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hellopopculture · 2 years

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Top 20 Wrestlers of 2021 (Part 4)

17. Bryan Danielson-While Bryan hasn't won any major titles in the pandemic era; he has been a notable main eventer since his return to the ring in 2018. Bryan is another guy on this same list that we didn't think we would see again in an in-ring capacity but after years of training and testing he would finally be medically cleared. He was still under contract when he went on his "either I'm going to wrestle for WWE again or I'll wrestle somewhere else" campaign; he was an on-screen general manager..so the timing of his comeback is a little suspicious, but I digress.

In 2021 Bryan made his run at the Universal Championship which was held hostage by Roman Reigns at the time. Bryan would give hints that this may be the road to his last WrestleMania and apparently it wasn't a work. He won the Elimination Chamber match but the stipulation this time wasn't that he gets a title shot on SmackDown or at the next pay-per-view or at WrestleMania but that he gets his shot immediately following the match. Bryan put up a good fight but ultimately Roman was victorious. WrestleMania 37 would in fact be his last WrestleMania. He would leave the company after putting his career on the line against Roman and he was banished from SmackDown in defeat.

Onward to AEW, Bryan made his presence felt immediately going after the AEW Champion, Kenny Omega and then his successor Hangman Page. The trio would have some of the best matches in company history. Bryan, win or lose seems to be "living his best life". It appears that at this stage in his career, he just want to chase his dream matches and get in the ring with guys he respects, even if it's just to put them over and make them look good.

16. Adam Cole-Adam had kind of a rocky 2021 but that's probably because he has such a monster 2019-2020 during his NXT Championship reign. He defeated NXT's golden boy, Johnny Wrestling at NXT: Takeover XXV and that opened up his path to becoming the face of the brand. The Undisputed Era had been pretty dominant since the team first formed so it was only a matter of time that the leader and head of the stable would become the top guy. After Cole was done consistently tearing the house down with Gargano, he moved on to his best friend, Tommaso Ciampa. Those three, may be the greatest champions the Gold belt has ever seen.

After Ciampa almost killed him at WarGames, he went on to Survivor Series (the first time NXT was a part of that event) to have a brutal singles match against The Bruiserweight, Pete Dunne. In September, Roddy Strong had defeated Velveteen Dream for the North American Championship and Fish & O'Reilly were already the Tag Team Champions so by the time the World's Collide event rolled around, Undisputed Era held all the male titles on the brand. That feeling would be short lived as Fish & O'Reilly would lose their tag titles to Imperium at World's Collide and Keith Lee would get his first title reign at Roddy's expense on an episode of NXT. Adam collided with Lee at the Great American Bash in the Summer of 2020 where he would also lose his title, ending historic reign at 403 days and making Lee the first double champion on the brand.

When 2021 came around it felt like Undisputed Era had overstayed their welcome in NXT. While they were still over with the fans as a unit, they kind of began to drift apart but it also started feeling like it was time to move on from the brand. NXT is developmental, after all. After a feud with Pat McAfee & The Kings of NXT, Cole would turn on Kyle O'Reilly which would result in the last days of The Undisputed Era. As Cole remained "The man to beat" on the brand, the Triple H era of the brand was coming to a close and the Adam's future became uncertain. He entered a tug of war between WWE and AEW that AEW ultimately won.

Cole debuted for AEW at the All Out pay-per-view that year and although The Elite "killed him off" and sent him on his way to WWE in the first place, he reunited with The Young Bucks to reform "SuperKliq". When Adam was a member of Bullet Club, SuperKliq was their trio drawing inspiration from their admiration for Shawn Michaels. The Kliq was kind of a secret alliance between Shawn Michaels, Sean Waltman, Kevin Nash & Scott Hall. When their contracts were up, Fish & O'Reilly joined Adam in AEW which marked the beginning of the tension between SuperKliq and what used to be known as Undisputed Era.

We don't know what 2022 holds for Adam but Tony Khan made it very clear when he came in, how valuable he is and how much him signing meant to the company. He's been a mainstay at the top since he showed up so I can imagine big stories and championships are in his future.

15. MJF-Maxwell Jacob Friedman-Max epitomizes the concept of a wrestler that does not need a title to validate him. In his early 20's he's already main evented PPVs and solidified himself as not just a consistent ratings draw but one of the most talented heels in the professional wrestling business. In 2021 he formed his own stable known as "The Pinnacle" with FTR, Shawn Spears and his right hand, Wardlow, with Tully Blanchard as their manager and continued his reign of terror over the company that he started by himself.

The Pinnacle came as a surprise as Max was trying to force his way into Chris Jericho's Inner Circle at the time. When it was revealed that Sammy Guevara was right all along and that he was trying to destroy the group from the inside, that's when his new villains club emerged.

MJF makes his presence felt by picking the biggest babyface in the company and claiming his head. In some instances, those babyfaces are never the same after. Jericho & Cody being the most notable at this point in his career. He was almost successful at destroying the Inner Circle and even as we speak Jericho is still trying to keep the pieces of his family together. He cost Cody his ability to challenge for the AEW Championship as a member of the Nightmare Family by throwing in the towel, then proceeded to humiliate Cody night after night.

Toward the end of 2021, he didn't pick the biggest babyface in the company, the biggest babyface in the company chose him. CM Punk set his sights on Max after his feud with Darby Allin. Punk would have his undefeated streak ended by MJF in his hometown of Chicago in 2022 which shows that even if he doesn’t win every battle, he usually wins the war.

AEW has something special with him. He understands his role in the company and his role in his feuds. No one has gotten people to rally around babyfaces the way he has. When he starts winning championships and accomplishing more, he will be an even bigger asset. Ric Flair wasn't a 16x World Champion for nothing. Beating him had to mean something for the babyfaces, it had to be a big deal and nothing says "I've arrived", more than knocking down the biggest bully on the playground.

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Top 20 Wrestlers of 2021 (Part 3)

14. Sammy Guevara-In 2021, Sammy became the 2nd of the 4 pillars to win a championship. The same TNT Championship that Darby Allin (another of the 4 pillars) won from Cody Rhodes. That also made him the only member of the Inner Circle to win a championship beside Jericho himself. He's had some amazing bouts with the likes of Bobby Fish & Jay Lethal but ultimately his reign was cut short by Cody Rhodes at the close of the year. Sammy is one of the best high flyers in the company. For people who like that style of wrestling but don't like "spots for the sake of spots" or the lack of ring psychology that some times comes with it, Sammy is one of those that can be acrobatic but not waste any movement. Everything he does in the context of the match is for a reason. He's been putting on great matches since AEW started and it’s fitting that he would clash with Cody again because they had the first match in Dynamite history but with TNT kind of being a "Television Title", I think he's perfect to carry it because he's a "must-see" performer. As we speak he won his title back from Cody and later dropped it to Scorpio Sky, but I think the moment he beat Miro for it initially put him right where he needed to be. The young boy from The Inner Circle was spreading his wings.

13. Darby Allin-With Each passing year, Darby Allin continues to get more and more over as a babyface. His size and his disregard for his own well-being in the context of the match makes him a natural underdog. He may not be in the same class physically as many of his opponents but he's willing to go places his opponents aren't willing to, to win the match. I think that's what endears him to the AEW audience. He has always seemed to be the exact anti-thesis to MJF who is more of a "only fight if I have to; i'm the most important thing here" type of character. CM Punk saw that in Darby when he arrived in AEW and so did Sting, who would become his manager.

Darby had a busy 2021 as it started with him as TNT Champion which carried over from 2020. He scored some notable defeats over the likes of Brian Cage, Scorpio Sky, John Silver, Preston Vance & Jungle Boy but his reign would be cut off by Miro in the Spring at Double or Nothing.

CM Punk came back to Pro Wrestling on Rampage in August and picked Darby as his opponent for All Out. Punk seems to have taken interest in him because of their similarities and allied with him after their match. Out of the 4 pillars, he and MJF seem to have grown the most over a short period of time and had the most success, and I imagine 2022 is going to be a bigger year.

12. Jonathan Gresham-"The Octopus", since making Ring of Honor his home in 2017, has become part of the "Best in the World" conversation. He's not at the very head of it but he's definitely on the radar. He was kind of the face of the "ROH Pure Tournament" in 2020 so nobody was surprised when he won it. He was already a holding the tag team titles with Jay Lethal so winning the Pure title made him a double champion. Gresham, along with Rhett Titus, Tracy Williams, and of course, Jay Lethal formed a faction called "The Foundation", but as Ring of Honor got ready to close it's doors, he would find himself across from Lethal challenging for the Ring of Honor World Championship.

Gresham is the current ROH World Champion and he continues to defend that title in promotions like Impact & GCW. He also has his own promotion called Terminus where alot of his co-workers from ROH perform while the company is on hiatus. Ring of Honor has a lot of work to do when they return but I think they are safe with him taking over for Lethal as the face of the company. Jay Lethal moved on and signed with AEW.

11. WALTER/Gunther-WALTER should actually be higher on this list but he's built most of his career at WWE on a brand that pretty much nobody watches. Even WWE's diehard fans, for the most part completely ignore it unless it's for their bigger matches and their rare Takeover events. WALTER was one of only four NXT UK Champions. He held the title for a whopping 870 days, which is unheard of for a reign in this era of Pro Wrestling and especially at WWE. He had incredible matches with the likes of Ilja Dragonov, A-Kid, Tommaso Ciampa, and Rampage Brown but he just hasn't been able to garner the attention that other dominant champions receive.

He was moved to NXT 2.0 and had his name changed after almost his entire Imperium stable was released from the company and he would later turn up on Smackdown in 2022. For now what they can't take away from him was his historic reign as NXT UK Champion and throwing that brand on his back. While he may not have been mentioned in the same circles as some of the bigger stars in the company, he is one of the few things that people who didn't watch NXT UK would tune in from time to time for.

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Top 20 Wrestlers of 2021 (Part 2)

10. Cody Rhodes-As an Executive Vice President of AEW and also a wrestler, Cody Rhodes was always going to be a prominently featured member of the roster. He was already one of the biggest stars in the business before Dynamite launched though so that spot was earned, not given. Now in his mid-30's he's in the veteran position and can lend some of his credibility and knowledge to the up-and-comers in the business. The stories he's involved in would have you believe that he's a selfish, egotistical, gloryhog, bordering on a complete heel turn but I believe Cody has found a way to bring "kayfabe" back from the dead and help others in the process. Cody was the one who said "there are no heels or babyfaces in AEW". He seems to want there to be blurred lines between what are usually considered good actions and what actions are traditionally considered bad in Pro Wrestling. With each match he became more and more unglued, some times cheating, some times taking his anger out on the wrong people, but he maintains that he is the good guy and that he won't turn heel because of the fans. They cheered him when he began creating this alternative for them and for wrestlers alike and now they hate him because they think he wants all the credit or that he yearns for validation.

Cody's 2021 started off with a big tag team match with his wife against Shaquille O'Neal and Jade Cargill. Jade was new to the company, and nobody had really seen her work yet and Shaq was...well, Shaq. Although the match turned out better than anyone expected it to be and was the definite talk of that episode of Dynamite, it was the build-up to that show prior that the fans started to turn on the Rhodes couple. Cody's Nightmare Family stable at one time consisted of his real wrestling family (Himself, Dustin & Brandi), QT Marshall (his friend and Co-trainer in the Nightmare Factory) and his students (Aaron Solo, Nick Comoroto, Anthony Ogogo, Red Velvet, Brock Anderson & Big Shotty Lee). As fans started to feel that Cody was an over-the-top, Superman babyface that buries his opponents and needs to be the center of attention, he entered a feud with QT who had, had enough of it. When he defeated QT, the Nightmare Family split into two factions, the other being "The Factory". Shotty, Velvet and Brock stuck by Cody while Solo, Comoroto and Ogogo left with QT. Cody would go on to face off with Anthony Ogogo at Double or Nothing and I think this is where the tides turned completely. Cody would struggle to get positive reaction following this, because many fans felt he buried his opponent by beating him in his first ever match.

The high point of the year would come in the form of reclaiming the TNT Championship from newly crowned champion, Sammy Guevara after he used his power as an EVP to have Tony Khan make the match before anyone else could challenge for it. It was short lived though, because he ended up catching COVID-19 and being out for a week.

At this point, a lot of fans have become so exhausted with Cody that the idea that their feelings are being manipulated doesn't seem possible in their minds, but that's what made his role in all of these stories and angles great. Different people are going to get something different out of it. On one hand QT could be right about Cody and on another he could just be bitter that he's not as big a star or that the spotlight isn't on him. On one hand Cody could be burying Ogogo by beating him in his first match and on another he could be giving a guy he helped train the biggest match of his career. It's all left up to our perspective. Today, we know that Cody made his way back to WWE so we will never know where his AEW stories were going and while that may not have been fun for Cody to have to fight the crowd in every arena I was anxious to see how he would come out of it. I guess the solution was returning home.

9. Big E-The Muscle of the New Day; like WALTER, should probably be higher on this list considering the year he had but as his reign came to a close I think we already realized that WWE was never fully invested in him as a World Champion. It more seems that he was a transitional champ or that they gave it to him as a "Thanks for staying loyal and holding it down", type of thing but they never intended to make him the face of any of their brands. Despite that, he still had one hell of a year considering that he's mainly spent the better part of his career in a tag team.

To start he was the Intercontinental Champion feuding with the likes of Apollo Crews & Sami Zayn after he was split up from the New Day in the draft. Until he won the WWE Championship, that was his biggest accomplishment as a singles competitor. He would drop the IC title to Crews @ WrestleMania 37 due to interference from Commander Azeez but in June he would defeat Crews to qualify for the Money in the Bank match, that he would go on to win. Securing the MITB contract would make him the first Black competitor in WWE history to achieve that honor. He briefly lost the briefcase to Baron Corbin but won it back at SummerSlam. By September, Big E would switch brands as he cashed in his contract to face Bobby Lashley for his WWE Championship.

E's Championship run didn't start off so bad. He was appearing on popular black outlets like "The Breakfast Club" which is rare for a Pro Wrestler. He appeared in promotional material for the Deontay Wilder & Tyson Fury where he announced both fighters and he and his New Day Brother's appeared in a Netflix interactive film called "Escape the Undertaker" with the WWE Legend.

When it was time to build E's rivalries and make something of his reign, that's where he kind of stagnated. He didn't have a single heated feud the entire time he was champion. Outside of Dolph Ziggler, he didn't really have any chemistry or history with many of his opponents. It all felt like WWE had no plan for what this title run would be.

What they can't take away from E though is the fact that he is one of two World Champions in the New Day. How many 3-man tag teams or trios have ever had that. They may have done this individually when they broke up or turned on each other but New Day has had so much success and they're still together. E lost his title to Brock who was actually supposed to face Roman Reigns at Day 1 so maybe this reign would have been a little longer, but who knows. All we know is when it's all said in done New Day will arguably be the greatest tag team WWE ever produced. 8. Tetsuya Naito-Although Los Ingobernables de Japón is a heel stable, Tetsuya Naito started becoming this beloved underdog in the late 2010's. Unable to best the previous Ace (Hiroshi Tanahashi) and discarded by the fanbase years ago, Tetsuya Naito returned to Japan from Mexico to try and claim everything he was denied in his first run but he continuously came up short. The rise of Young Lions like Kazuchika Okada & Kota Ibushi just added insult to injury as they were and continue to be a constant reminder of what the “Stardust Genius” could not achieve. By 2018 things were falling into place for Naito. He was scoring major victories; he had won over the fanbase in both Japan and in the West and his LIJ stable was getting more and more over with the fans. The main event of Wrestle Kingdom 12 was bittersweet for him because he was supposed to main event against Okada in 2014 @ Wrestle Kingdom 8 but the fans actually voted him out and the match was replaced with the IWGP Intercontinental Title Match between New Japan Musketeer, Shinsuke Nakamura and Hiroshi Tanahashi who were more popular at the time. Closing in on 40 yrs old, it was time for Tetsuya Naito to cement his legacy in New Japan Pro Wrestling and he started by defeating Switchblade, Jay White at Night 1 of Wrestle Kingdom 14 & then Okada the following night, making him the first person to hold both the IWGP Heavyweight & Intercontinental Championships at the same time. Those titles are very difficult to win alone, sometimes you have to win a whole tournament to even get a chance to challenge for the title and the champions are usually so dominant that most challengers go home empty handed for long periods of time. Being able to capture the two top titles in the company at the same event isn’t just history but it’s a feat that really belongs to only Naito. While he would go on to lose both titles to EVIL, I think he at this point in his career has embedded himself in the identity of NJPW

in this era. His 2021 wasn’t as eventful as his 2020 but he remained in the mix in deepest talent pool in Pro Wrestling today.

7. Hangman Adam Page-It was clear from the time AEW launched that they had big plans for Hangman Page. He was the first challenger for the Heavyweight Championship and he was one of the few talents to win gold early on, becoming tag champion with Kenny Omega. As a member of The Elite and one half of the tag team champions Hangman began to make it clear that he wanted to go out on his own, teams and stables weren't for him. He wanted to accomplish bigger and better things and he didn't need any help doing it but early in 2021 after the passing of their leader, Brodie Lee...the Dark Order became enamored with Hangman Page. By this time Kenny Omega had moved on from the tag division and on to the Heavyweight Championship and would also conquer AAA and Impact for their top titles.

Hangman would work with the Dark Order for a while, but he would also embark on a downward spiral which involved excessive drinking. He began to lose confidence that he could win the big one and that was made even worse when he lost his ability to challenge Kenny for the title again as a stipulation of their match at AEW Homecoming. He would take paternity leave at this time and in his absence, there was influx of talent including main eventers like CM Punk, Adam Cole & Bryan Danielson which led many to believe this was the last we had seen of Hangman's chase of the main title.

Since Hangman couldn't challenge for the title upon his return, he won the Casino Battle Royal at Dynamite's 2nd Anniversary show which gifted him a shot at Omega once more. At Full Gear he defeated him to become the 4th AEW Heavyweight Champion. Proceeding his victory, he would take on one of the major AEW signings that fans claimed would prevent him from becoming the champion (Bryan Danielson) and actually defeated him, proving that Tony Khan's faith in him as maybe the ace of the company hadn't subsided.

6. Kazuchika Okada-Following the departure of his biggest rival, Kenny Omega and the decline of his stable Bullet Club, the new Ace of NJPW has struggled to maintain his buzz outside of Japan and he's taken a backseat; in terms of interest, to guys like Shingo Takagi, Kota Ibushi & his former right hand, Will Ospreay as they have begun to ascend to the top within the company. When the brand new IWGP World Heavyweight Championship was relinquished by Will Ospreay due to a neck injury, it would be Shingo to claim the top spot by besting Okada @ Dominion. Okada wouldn't return to prominence again until 2022 @ Wrestle Kingdom where he got his win back from Shingo but before then he would dominate the G1 Climax tournament winning for the third time and instead of carrying the briefcase he carried the original IWGP Heavyweight Title one last time; a title that for many NJPW fans of this era has become something you associate with Okada on sight. Whenever I picture that title, I picture it around his waist much like I used to with the Intercontinental Championship and Shinsuke Nakamura. This may not have been the best year for Okada but he's still firmly holding on to his spot as the ace. He's still the man the others will have to surpass to be viewed as the one carrying the flag for the company.

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Top 20 Wrestlers of 2021 (Part 1)

5. Shingo Takagi-After dominating Dragon Gate as the top heel for a long stretch, Shingo Takagi showed up in New Japan Pro Wrestling as a much needed addition to LIJ in 2018. EVIL split in 2020 becoming a member of Bullet Club and although he got some championships and a pretty good singles run out of it, I don't think his turn made the impact that was expected. Bullet Club has struggled to find it's footing after losing The Elite (Kenny & The Bucks) and other high profile members like Marty Scurll, Adam Cole & Cody Rhodes but I think LIJ has had the same struggles. EVIL & SANADA's time in the tag division didn't make that big of a splash and Hiromu suffered a significant neck injury that took him out of action for quite some time. Bushi has always kind of been a role player and hasn't been able to stand out amongst the members of the stable and of course Naito is still Naito but they really haven't had another legitimate main event presence until Shingo showed up. Before he and Will Ospreay would become official heavyweights and leave the Junior division, they would began one of the greatest and most exciting rivalries of the era. Their match in the Best of the Super Juniors Tournament in 2019 was the spark that lit the fuse. I think that was the moment the fans began to realize we had something here. They would meet again in other high profile matches the G1 Climax of 2020 and then again in the New Japan Cup of 2021 where he would fall to Ospreay in the finals. Ospreay would appear to have the lead in their rivalry but Shingo kept himself in the conversation when he won the World Heavyweight Championship by besting Okada in Osaka. For now, Shingo appears to have solidified himself as a top contender and while he's not exactly young, longevity is common in New Japan. At 39 years old, he could feasibly be a main stay in the rivalry for the ace spot for years to come. 4. Will Ospreay-I first discovered Will Ospreay working for WCPW which later became Defiant Wrestling and is now defunct. The first time I saw him work, I knew he was something special. Guys like him get a lot of flak for their more acrobatic style and Puroresu snobs don't like "flippy shit" in their wrestling but I think the majority of wrestling fans can enjoy his style for what is, and they can agree that he's a skilled worker.

He started bulking up in 2018 as he made his way to NJPW's heavyweight division. He toned his style down a little because he's not going to be young forever. All of those flips and acrobatic moves and throwing caution to the wind could cost him his health, so while he's still a highflyer...he puts more of his core strength into his work. He's been a championship collector all over the world since his early 20's and in 2021 at 27-28 years old, he didn't show any signs of slowing down.

Coming off of a big 2020 where he had finally captured the RevPro British Heavyweight Championship for the first time, which he still holds currently and his United Empire stable was formed in New Japan after he transitioned from under Kazuchika Okada as a member of Chaos, Will Ospreay set his sights on the IWGP World Championship and became one of it's 4 title holders since it's unification after he defeated Kota Ibushi in Tokyo at the NJPW 49th Anniversary Show.

Ospreay had a chance to leave NJPW and maybe seek bigger money and more recognition at WWE or maybe even AEW. Contracts aren't forever, but he has made it clear that NJPW is his home and he's built a legacy for himself in both the Junior Heavyweight Division and now in the Heavyweight Division after he's won the big one. The best part is with Ospreay being under 30 and people who work in Japan having so much longer of a life span in the sport because they work less dates and don't put a lot of wear and tear on their bodies, they can get so much more use out of him in years to come.

3. Kota Ibushi-Ibushi like Ospreay spent a lot of time as a Junior in NJPW but he also wouldn't commit to them fully. In 2019 he made it clear that he was at the company to stay, and they began working on his ascent to the top of the mountain. He didn't follow his long-time friend, Kenny Omega to AEW even after they reunited as "The Golden Lovers" and New Japan rewarded him heavily for it.

In 2019 he became the first wrestler in the history of the company to win the G1 Climax, the Best of the Super Juniors and The New Japan Cup. In 2020 he won the G1 Climax again and then in 2021 @ Wrestle Kingdom 15, he defeated Tetsuya Naito for the IWGP Intercontinental & Heavyweight Championship, making him a double champion. Those titles were unified in March, also making him the inaugural World Heavyweight Champion but he would lose that new title to Will Ospreay after he won the New Japan Cup.

After the departure of Kenny Omega and The Elite, New Japan has had to scramble and make new stars because they lost the new Ace's biggest rival and their strongest Gaijin heel stable was gutted. Ibushi choosing to stay in Japan and make his mark on NJPW was great for them because he's one of the best performers this company has ever seen, and he has history with a lot of their bigger names which will make for some great rivalries moving forward.

2. Kenny Omega-It can be argued that Kenny Omega deserves to be #1 on this list over Roman Reigns. Kenny has never had the massive corporate machine behind him in the sport but he's managed to keep his name relevant and in the midst of that "Best in the World conversation" for quite some time now. At the close of 2020, he defeated Jon Moxley to win the AEW World Championship and he not only became the focal point of that company's business but the focal point of several others as well. In April of 2021, Omega would add a 3rd World Championship to his name after he defeated Rich Swann to become Impact's World Champion. He had already been holding AAA's Mega Championship since 2019. AAA does big business in Mexico, so much so that WWE even being the largest pro wrestling company in the world and having huge international stars can't really compete with them on that front. When Omega vacated the title in November of 2021, he ended his reign as the longest reigning champion in the history of the title.

Indy wrestlers or guys who work promotions outside of the U.S. like Progress and NJPW are no strangers to winning multiple titles at the same time, but I don't think it's ever been done on this scale. Even when Cody Rhodes was both the IWGP United States Champion and NWA Champion, NWA didn't even have a home, their product wouldn't re-launch until 2019 when "NWA Powerrr" started airing on Youtube. Kenny doing all of this as a heel made him attractive opponent for babyfaces looking to make a name for themselves. That babyface would be Hangman Adam Page. It's not talked about often in Pro Wrestling any more what different characters actually gain by working with or against one another or what heels/babyfaces are supposed to contribute to their stories or to their peers in competition with them. Kenny's run doesn't have value because of what it did for him, he's already a legend on his resume alone but it has value for what it did for Page. He put him in the highest position he's ever been in his career.

1. Roman Reigns-If someone keeps giving you the ball, eventually you have to dunk it and that's exactly what Roman Reigns did in 2020 and continued to do in 2021. Roman became Vince McMahon's "golden boy" around late 2014-early 2015. Out of the members of The Shield it was evident that he was the Superstar Vince wanted to be the face of the company in the future. He had the look, he had the Pro Wrestling lineage, he was a solid worker and best of all in Vince's eyes, he was homegrown. He was the one member of that faction that Vince could take credit for. Seth Rollins as Tyler Black and Dean Ambrose as Jon Moxley already had careers in the business before they came to WWE. Roman was also the last member of the group to shed the image and the branding of the stable. While Dean Ambrose went for a more everyman look and Rollins went for a more superhero/vigilante style look as "The Kingslayer" and then later a supervillain look as the "Monday Night Messiah", Roman kept his typical look, the tactical vests and even the Shield theme music for the bulk of his time on the main roster.

Roman floundered as a babyface for years. He didn't get over organically with the fans. Many felt that everything he is was manufactured, he was a corporate created entity. For the boos we gave him, the fans suggested a heel turn but WWE wouldn't pull the trigger on it until Summerslam 2020. After allying himself with Paul Heyman, Roman Reigns set his sights on the Universal Championship, a title he vacated when the pandemic hit. His Leukemia put him at risk for COVID-19. Bray Wyatt had become "The Fiend" at this point and was in a heated feud with his former brother-in-arms, Braun Strowman. At Payback Roman would defeat them both, becoming Universal Champion for the 3rd time in his career. With the top title in the company in his possession he declared himself "The Head of the Table". He would later clash with his cousin Jey Uso while his brother Jimmy was out with a knee injury. This was the biggest moment of Jey's career because without his brother he was free to go out on his own and make a name for himself but Roman asserted his dominance over him even while getting him into main events and pushing him to his limits. Roman didn't want to beat Jey, he just wanted him to "acknowledge him"; to acknowledge him as his "Tribal Chief" and the head of the Anoa'i Family Table. When Jimmy returned to stand up for his brother, that put him in harm’s way and ultimately The Usos as a unit ended up bending to the will of Roman giving him what he wanted. At the close of his feud with Jey, Afa & Sika (Roman's Father & Uncle aka The Wild Samoans) would officially crown Roman the "Tribal Chief" as they placed the Ulafala around his neck.

With his family in his corner, forming the Bloodline, Roman would leave a trail of bodies behind him. The bodies of those who were gunning for the Universal Championship. He laid waste to the biggest stars on the SmackDown brand between 2020 and 2021 and killed the momentum of anyone who thought they were gonna knock him off his square, which included, Kevin Owens, Cesaro, Bray Wyatt, Braun Strowman, Finn Balor, Sami Zayn, John Cena, Montez Ford and even the Raw World Champions, Drew McIntyre and Big E.

Roman is undoubtedly doing the best work of his career. His promos seem more natural even though you know they are scripted; he's embraced the hatred he has received over the course of his career, and he has settled in to his first actual "character" since he's been on the main roster. He's been having stellar matches too. Usually, I would trash this sort of booking because there doesn't seem to be much benefit for anyone else but for the time being it is working. WWE is finally getting their wish. Roman has completely changed the perception of him in the eyes of some fans. He gets more positive reactions as a heel than he did as a babyface. He's maybe the biggest star of his generation and he continues to put eyes on the product and carry the flag for the company. For me, there is more value in the final payoff when he puts someone else over, but I can wait until they get to their destination.

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hellopopculture · 2 years

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Top 10 Best Things About New Japan Pro-Wrestling (Part 2)

Description: NJPW lost some of it's luster with the departure of a few of their more popular Gaijins and with the pandemic limiting their roster and what talent they could bring in and use for their tournaments and bigger events, the pandemic has been somewhat rocky. There are still a lot of positives to enjoy though and I think 2022 and especially now with the working relationship with AEW should be a much better year for New Japan. Here are some of the best attributes that you can look forward to.....

10. Exciting Tournaments-According to many western fans, the G1 Climax fell flat last year, and even according to some people in the company like Tama Tonga, the concept of the G1 and how it's put together has kind of become stale. I think Western fans believe this tournament should be sort of a launching pad for the talent, kind of like WWE's Royal Rumble or Money in the Bank but that's not really how it functions. It's more like the "Playoffs" in other professional sports. They are choosing an opponent for the ace or the current champion here. They have too much respect for the prestige of their titles to just boost someone up via the G1 that isn't ready for that honor. I saw a lot of people saying that Jeff Cobb should have won which doesn't make a whole lot of sense considering he's not really one of the more popular Gaijins and he's under Will Ospreay as a member of United Empire who himself just reached that World Heavyweight Champion level. While Jeff Cobb is an exceptional performer especially for a guy that size, I think this is what makes the tournament exciting and also validates the winner...it's the guys who CAN'T win that make winning mean something. Aside from that they have tournaments like "The Best of the Super Jr's." which is kind of like the G1 except for Jr. Heavyweights or what would be Lightweights or Cruiserweights in the West and they also have the New Japan Cup, the Super J-Cup, World Tag League and now the Super J-Tag Tournaments every year. Some of them, most notably the Jr. Heavyweight Tournaments, use talent from around the world which allows them to keep the match-ups fresh and add some variety to the participation.

9. The Young Lion System-Japanese Pro Wrestling companies have a dojo system, kind of like how WWE has a developmental system with the Performance Center and NXT. This system has produced some of the greatest Pro Wrestlers that Japan and the world has ever seen.

8. Transforming Talent-NJPW's ability to help wrestlers find themselves and mold their own identities is uncanny. If you think about where some of the biggest stars, they've produced were in the early stages of their careers especially when they've worked other places and then look at how they developed with New Japan, it's a massive leap forward for some of them. I mean Kazuchika Okada was a joke in Impact, they gave him a stereotypical Karate/Green Hornet gimmick. He came home and became the ace. He is one of the most talked about and respected Japanese talents of this generation, whose reach extends well beyond his country limits today. Remember Kenny Omega before he was in Bullet Club or even in Bullet Club during the AJ Styles run? He went from just being the Jr. Heavyweight guy, to the leader during maybe the most lucrative and memorable years of the stable's existence. Bullet Club was so popular that The Elite were able to partner with someone to start their own major company. Look at a guy like C.J. Parker, look at his debut as Juice Robinson and even his first Wrestle Kingdom match against Cody Rhodes...he evolved into a completely different person from there; winning championships, starting a stable and bringing his own unique style to the company.

7. Dedicated Veterans-Without weekly television, NJPW's talent doesn't burn out as quickly as they maybe would if they worked for a mainstream company in the States. That means that guys like Minoru Suzuki, Jushin Thunder Liger, Tomohiro Ishii, Yuji Nagata, Hirooki Goto etc. can work well into their late 40's to mid-50's and still be productive and an asset to the company. That's a great thing to have because when you're building a future, you need guys like these to put your young guys over and sort of be gatekeepers for the company. While Kenny Omega as his rival did a lot to push Okada, his rise to the top wouldn't have been possible without guys like Katsuyori Shibata, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tetsuya Naito. One day Okada is going to have to play that position for the Young Lions under him and the cycle just continues that way.

6. Strong Main Event Scene-In the late 90's/Early 2000's, NJPW entered a "Dark Ages". Antonio Inoki saw that the business was shifting, and MMA was rising in popularity. After humiliating his Aces and former stars by feeding them to legit martial artists in shoot fights, guys like Shinsuke Nakamura, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Katsuyori Shibata were able to pull them out of the slump. Building off of those talents, they were able to reach the heights they are at today. Though they lose some talent each year, they have still found a way to mold guys who can help carry the company. Former Jr. Heavyweights, Kota Ibushi & Will Ospreay really stepped up for the company in 2020, Shingo Takagi came into his own, KENTA returned to Japan from WWE, and guys like Hiromu Takahashi, EVIL, Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr. are starting to play bigger roles. The pandemic effected their business the way it has everyone else’s but NJPW is still top heavy, they can still put together rivalries at the top that people want to see.

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hellopopculture · 2 years

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Top 10 Best Things About New Japan Pro-Wrestling (Part 1)

5. The Emergence of the New Ace-If you're not familiar with Japanese wrestling or NJPW specifically than you probably don't know what an "ace" is. The ace is the top star of the promotion. After Shinsuke Nakamura & Katsuyori Shibata left, Hiroshi Tanahashi had that role all to himself and he carried it well; but in 2011, Kazuchika Okada would return from his developmental tour in the States. Okada didn't go overseas and become a star, Impact Wrestling kind of treated him like a joke and back in Japan he didn't have much on his resume yet. He challenged Hiroshi Tanahashi early in his return after beating Yoshi-Hashi and the crowd actually laughed at him. That would be a strange sight today as he has come into his own as the face of the company. Okada is truly NJPW's finest work. They took a guy that the fans didn't believe in and made them believe. Not only is he the man to beat in his home country but even in the West, some of the greatest wrestlers of all-time and some of the best in the world would love the opportunity to stand across from him in the squared circle.

4. Prioritizing Homegrown Talent-While the company has become attractive to foreign talent, they don't put a lot of time in effort into part-time talent or popular Gaijins that don't stick around. For years Kota Ibushi worked for them as a freelancer, he wouldn't fully commit so that limited the heights he could reach. NJPW is good to those who are loyal to them but not to a fault. They seemed to have learned their lesson from the "Dark Ages".

3. The Stable System-For a company that mainly focuses on their wrestling product and tells stories in the ring instead of through promos and segments, the stable system is a perfect creative device for New Japan Pro Wrestling. It connects their talents to each other in ways that Western promotions would have to make angles for. With this system, the angles are pretty much already built in. It also kind of assigns each member of the roster to their own veteran to watch over them and help push them to the next level. They have a few talents that exist outside of stables like Kota Ibushi & Hiroshi Tanahashi and some stables that were taken over by a former Young Lion like CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada), United Empire (Will Ospreay), and Bullet Club (Switchblade, Jay White) but for the most part the rest of the roster is under the guidance of Minoru Suzuki, Tetsuya Naito & Ryusuke Taguchi. Having this system not only allows the members to work off of each other and grow as talents but it also gives everyone a sense of importance. A guy like Chase Owens wouldn't stand out at all on this roster but he's a member of Bullet Club, he has a position. Everybody isn't going to be a star or THE star, but this ensures that everyone is a part of something and has something to do.

2. Protecting Championships-Since Kazuchika Okada's first reign in 2012, NJPW has only had 7 different Heavyweight Champions. It's 8 if you count Hiroshi Tanahashi who had already held the title multiple times before then and 10 if you count Shingo Takagi & Will Ospreay who have both now held the new unified World Heavyweight Title. Some champions have traded the title back and forth and won it again between years, but for the most part there aren't many people who get to touch the main title in the company and the level of competition there being as high as it is, is how those titles remain prestigious. I've heard that word thrown around a lot at different companies in terms of their titles but when you pass them around often to wrestler after wrestler or you have frequent title changes or you bring in people who have some star power but their new to the company and they can just win your titles, it takes away from the prestige the title holds. For years fans complained about Hirooki Goto never being able to win the big one but that's what makes the title look unobtainable. A guy of that caliber not being able to win it says a lot about how good you have to be if you HAVE won it.

1. Distinct Style & Identity-There are wrestling shows in the West that I feel really don't have an identity at this point. They don't have a "thing", they don't have any type of style or "flavor" to their content that is their own and you identify as part of their package; it's kind of all over the place on what the product is supposed to be, but New Japan Pro Wrestling knows exactly who they are. While having wrestlers shoot fight with trained martial artists was a bad idea, working matches that APPEAR to be a shoot proved to work wonders for them. New Japan Pro Wrestling looks and feels like a sporting event. Everything to the way their rings look, to the way their content is shot, to the work style of the performers and the backstage interviews and press conferences...they really do a great job of bringing that real combat sports feel.

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hellopopculture · 2 years

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Top 10 Worst Things About New Japan Pro-Wrestling (Part 2)

10. Destroying Content Creators-AEW got a lot of heat for this a while back where they were striking and taking down videos on Youtube that used their content and especially ones that negatively criticized the product or showed botches from their weekly shows or their pay-per-views. A lot of those people got their channels and videos back but in the case of NJPW that hasn't been the case. The time zone difference with Japan and the fact that the NJPWorld app isn't available on a lot of different platforms makes it hard for me to keep up with the product entirely. There are things I miss, a lot of times I need to be filled in or reminded of certain angles or what's going on in the company and some of my favorite Youtube channels that covered this were completely destroyed. Channels like Octopus Stretch & Showbuckle were extremely useful to me because I didn't always have access to New Japan, and I don't have the same knowledge of their history that I maybe have of WWE or ECW or WCW or even ROH or CZW, so it was nice to have people who did have that knowledge to help me put the pieces together. There are subtle details in the tournaments and even in the storytelling of these matches that may have gone over my head but now I have to try and figure out what they mean or if there is anything I missed from platforms like Reddit and Facebook and it's just not the same. It's not as effective. I think this is does a disservice to the company because these channels were a good resource for Western fans and if you're trying to expand here, there should be some understanding as how these platforms contribute to that. It seems to be a Japanese thing too because Nintendo is also very overzealous about content using their characters or their games on the internet. Even "Let's Players" have had their videos taken down and it's just somebody playing the game, what could that hurt? They purchased it....

9. Late to STARDOM-Around 2016-2017 when the Women's Revolution was on fire a lot of Western fans inquired as to why NJPW didn't have a women's division. The simple answer is that "they don't need one". Joshi Wrestling has stood on it's own for years. The thing is, I think they could have used each other's help in this era and especially with expansion into the West. Bushiroad buying both companies brought them closer together but having STARDOM matches at Wrestle Kingdom is a good idea that should have been implemented years ago. If this is supposed to be their "WrestleMania" or the biggest show in Japan of the year, it only makes sense that you wouldn't leave these women out. Could you imagine the kind of cards they could have put together especially before STARDOM lost women like Io Shirai, Kairi Sane, Kagetsu, Toni Storm etc.?

8. The English Commentary-I'm not a weeb but when I watch NJPW, I prefer the Japanese commentary because they actually sell the match to me even though I CAN'T understand a word they are saying. I know very little Japanese and still I would rather listen to people I get no information from than people I could. The thing some people don't understand about commentary is that being knowledgeable and calling things how you see it isn’t enough, you have to have the right VOICE for it, you have to have the right FLAVOR or STYLE to your delivery. There were some people who hated Mauro Ranallo because of his excessive pop culture references and his over-the-top enthusiasm for the action in the ring but he added a lot to the presentation of NXT or SmackDown when he was there or even the Boxing matches, he's called. Kevin Kelly has a very generic broadcast voice which I think would be good for Baseball or Hockey or even sports radio but for New Japan it just doesn't work. Alex Kosloff is the same thing. His voice kind of just blends in the background and these two were really exposed when the pandemic first hit, and NJPW didn't have any fans. You got to see first-hand how little their commentary contributes to the atmosphere of Pro Wrestling and the intensity in the ring.

7. The IWGP United States Championship-Now that NJPW has a working relationship with AEW, this title makes a little more sense but despite their attempts to expand in the West being somewhat successful, there really wasn't a need for this. They don't really need a title representing the U.S.in Japan. It just doesn't make any sense and now with the IWGP Intercontinental Championship being unified with the former Heavyweight Championship, it's one of their only mid-card titles. When the title debuted, it's inaugural winner was a Canadian and although he was very popular in the States, I thought this belt would kind of be a way for popular Gaijins to move up the ranks but really that hasn't been the case. Aside from Cody, they didn't really seem to have in mind any actual American talent they could sell. I thought because they were in bed with ROH at the time that maybe guys like Jay Lethal or Hangman Page or Dalton Castle would be prime candidates to hold it and defend it in both companies but that wasn't the case. The booking of this title is just kind of all over the place, except for their insistence on keeping it on Jon Moxley who is a huge star here being that he was one of the top guys and highest merch sellers in WWE but there doesn't seem to be any real concept of this title's function most times.

6. The Gaming Market-The fact that NJPW was not only owned by Yuke's but now Bushiroad which are two companies that produce gaming content, and they don't have any games to their name that are particularly that popular is insane. Especially when you consider that Yuke's actually made several successful WWE games. New Japan needs some other ways of promoting their product and a good video game would work wonders. I can't imagine what the problem is.

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hellopopculture · 2 years

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Top 10 Worst Things About New Japan Pro-Wrestling (Part 1)

Description: While New Japan Pro Wrestling is certainly one of the more popular and entertaining products on the market, it does have a few issues that I think are stunting it's growth especially with fans outside of Japan, here are the most notable I can think of.. 5. The EVIL Era of Bullet Club-This was the point in the history of the company where it started to feel like they were just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. The Switchblade Era kind of wasn't working as well as they hoped but considering how young Jay White is and the fact, he was just thrown into that spot abruptly because Omega left to start AEW, I don't think it's his fault. I also didn't think the way to fix it was to keep kind of adding guys who would challenge for his position and boast that this is "their era". While EVIL certainly stepped up in terms of notoriety and became more of a main event presence, he didn't really add much to Bullet Club nor was he a guy that people really anticipated seeing against the top babyfaces in the company.

4. The Decline of Bullet Club-Bullet Club before United Empire was established was NJPW's only Gaijin stable. The other Gaijins were farmed out between Suzuki-Gun, Taguchi Japan & CHAOS. During The time Kenny Omega was at the head and The Young Bucks were dominating the tag division, their buzz in the West grew exponentially and people were a lot more invested in the product. The stable had become so popular they were holding almost all the championships in two companies, they had gotten NJPW merch into Hot Topic, they even had their own Funko Pops which it took some WWE Wrestlers YEARS to get. Their merch was flying off the shelves, and they were Pro Wrestling Tees top sellers for a while and that even continued into AEW. When they left to start AEW, New Japan was in a bad spot because they had spent years building that stable through different leaders and different configurations just to abruptly lose the most important members at their height.

Part of what kept that stable rolling so strong was that the leader was knocking all of his matches out of the park. The forward momentum wasn't just in their dominance but proving that they could go with the best Japanese talent. They weren't just out there getting carried through matches, they proved to be valid rivals for whoever the company could throw at them or whoever they wanted to push. Getting a Skull and Crossguns T-shirt isn't a launching pad anymore. No matter who they add it doesn't have the same feel. It's kind of like when the NWO just started adding whoever to keep the momentum of the stable going and that concept became so stale that people stop caring.

3. Deterioration of the Tag Division-Even before the Young Bucks left NJPW, the Tag Division was slowly declining as popular tag teams from the company kept getting signed elsewhere or leaving. Apollo 55, The Golden Lovers, The Time Splitters, reDragon, Roppongi Vice, Funky Future and now Roppongi 3K were all broke up due to departures or splitting up. The Heavyweight Tag Division suffered the same fate with K.E.S., War Machine, The Good Brothers & The Briscoe Brothers no longer being at their service. Without the talent they've ran out of ways to keep it fresh. They still have the Guerillas of Destiny who have been maybe their most dominant tag team outside of The Bucks but they don't have much new blood to contend with and so the division has fallen off.

2. Lack of a Strong Heel Presence-Now that Bullet Club has declined and half the stables in the company switch in and out of alignment regularly, NJPW doesn't really have a presence or a big bad heel to push the Ace. They lost Kenny Omega who became Okada's main rival and Tetsuya Naito was Tanahashi's rival whom he kind of won the war against. While Naito is a great character and definitely popular among fans he just doesn't have the time to be their every step of the way with the Ace. Okada was in the last eras overstuffed "Under 30 club" and now he's in his mid-30's, Naito is saying he's thinking of retirement. Your heroes are only as good as their villains and NJPW just doesn't have the "big bad" to wreak enough havoc for them to knock down. Pro Wrestling has always been a heel business, without strong heels to push anyone, it will be difficult to move forward and create more stars as well as get their already made stars to a higher platform.

1. Stagnation-Because of all of these issues, NJPW has been kind of in another "Dark Ages" for the last 3 years. The pandemic also hurt their progress because of the travel bans and the restrictions so it's been rough on them and the rest of the business for that matter. Creatively they just haven't been hitting the mark though. I get that we've kind of seen a lot of these same guys in these same positions before and I think that's why you have to be even more creative at this point. There has to be something else you can do to hook the fans or layers you can add to your rivalries. There are still glimmers of hope and NJPW still being what it was in it's glory days and don't get it twisted, even at their worst the quality of matches is still very high, but they just need a little something extra. I don't know what that is, but I think a lot of fans especially outside of Japan have grown restless with what they produce.

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hellopopculture · 2 years

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Top 5 Best Things About Impact Wrestling

Description: Although Impact has seen massive declines in interest, they do STILL have some strong points that make their product attractive and a viable alternative for Wrestling fans who have grown tired of the other mainstream products.

5. Impact Plus-The birth of Pro Wrestling streaming services is a great thing for the business, I think. It allows fans to have hours of wrestling content in the form of an app that they can take with them anywhere. Impact+ doesn't have as much content as the WWE Network has or maybe they now have on Peacock but if you're an Impact fan, it's definitely worth the 8 bucks a month that you're going to spend on it.

4. Roster Diversity-I think Pro Wrestling was always pretty diverse in the context of people from all around the world and all walks of life having their place in the sport, but I think today more different types of people are being represented at the highest level, it's not just straight white males anymore. Impact over the last few years has had a wide range of different World Champions such as Bobby Lashley, Moose, Tessa Blanchard, Rich Swann, Pentagón Jr., Drew Galloway, & Alberto El Patrón. Impact today is about promoting the most talented on their roster, there's no room for racial or gender bias in that.

3. Unscripted Promos-I don't actually know why this is a thing at WWE. It seems to me they are either afraid that allowing people to speak freely will leave the too much room for the talent to say something that they don't want on TV or that they just want to control every aspect of the product. Whatever the reason it kind of defeats the purpose of a promo, because many times they feel so fake and robotic because people are trying to remember content that someone else wrote. Being able to speak from the heart and from your own perspective allows them to connect with you on a personal level. If you go back and watch Moose's promo after he wins the World Championship for the first time, it hits different because you know he got to say what HE wanted to say.

2. Taking Chances-Although Tessa Blanchard for seemingly no reason flaked and absconded with the world title, making her your top champion was a bold move. She was on fire during that time and some promotions wouldn't admit that a woman is their biggest star or the talent with the most potential to put some eyes on the product, but they did, and they went for it. It's too bad who she is off camera, and her talent level don't match.

1. It's an Alternative-A lot of people counted Impact out and have been pronouncing it dead for years, but it didn't go anywhere. They stayed strong through the worst years, and they are still hanging on. As long as they keep moving as a business, wrestlers have somewhere else to go, somewhere else to be, and wrestling fans have something else to watch.

#Top 5 Best Things About Impact Wrestling #Impact Wrestling #Tessa Blanchard #Roster Divesrity #Alternative #Impact World Championship #Moose #Bobby Lashley #Pentagón Jr.#Rich Swann #Drew Galloway #WWE Network #Peacock #Impact Plus #Impact+

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hellopopculture · 2 years

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Top 10 Worst Things About Impact Wrestling (Part 2)

Description: Impact is a far cry from it's heyday where they were considered legitimate competition for WWE. They rapidly declined since inception until they were no longer even a factor on cable television. They've lost a lot of talent, they lost a lot of different TV deals and at this juncture it's actually hard to understand how the company is remaining afloat. Stuck on a channel that mostly nobody has and failing to attract or build new stars, Impact is hanging on by a thread, here is a detailed breakdown on what exactly the issues are....

10. Working with Other Companies-Impact has worked with other companies for years and allowed their talent to work on their shows but at this point it seems that they do it out of desperation and they kind of allow outsiders to run wild all over their roster. "The Forbidden Door" thing with Kenny Omega & Christian Cage was a prime example of that. I understand that Omega & AEW were kind of supposed to be invaders, they were the heels in Impact, but I think it hurt more than it helped in terms of how people view Impact and how many were going to stick around and continue to watch weekly. Impact is a far cry from it's glory days but that doesn't mean their talent doesn't deserve their respect and that people who use them as a platform shouldn't have to show respect to the company. A working relationship with Impact for AEW could have been great for both companies but the whole angle seemed very selfish and didn't really climax at anything that looked good for Impact.

9. Their Fans-Many would say this should be on the list for AEW, but it's not. The fan war between AEW and WWE is two-sided and because a lot of AEW's fanbase is just disgruntled WWE fans, there is a history there that created the toxicity between them. This is a thing that happens with a lot of fanbases in entertainment and although it sucks, it's somewhat normal. The reason Impact's fanbase is here, is for the same reason that the company's poor reputation is also on the list. For some reason Impact's fans are really aggressive with people who refuse to watch it NOW for mistakes they've made in the past, when in reality it's just not that good. Not being able to attract or build a certain level of talent is why it's still stuck on the hamster wheel and not moving forward. There's no anti-Impact conspiracy, they just don't have the stars to get the viewers.

8. Overrated Women's Division-The Knockouts Division is often called "The Greatest Women's Division in the World" but in reality, it's basically an assortment of middle and bottom tiers. In terms of actual talent level and star power, WWE clearly has women's wrestling sewed up in the West. While the Knockouts are better booked and definitely add to Impact's programming, this isn't some high level of women's wrestling you can only get there. If you want great in-ring performance, I'd recommend a subscription to StardomWorld; and if you're looking for the entire package and a wide variety of different female talent, just watch WWE...at least it's on a channel you actually have.

7. Dying Tag Division-Somewhere between 2015 and 2018, Impact had a solid tag division and a lot of options to choose from as far as who would best represent their company on that front but with The Lucha Bros. leaving and going to MLW and then AEW, LAX breaking up and Santana & Ortiz going to AEW, The Hardy’s going back to WWE, Davey Richards leaving Impact and breaking up The Wolves and so on and so forth, the tag division has lost a lot of steam. Today the Good Brothers are the champs and between their stint in AEW when "The Forbidden Door" was open and their time as champions in Impact, they have failed to revitalize that division and bring some attention to it.

#Impact Wrestling #Knockout's Division #Impact Fans #TNA Impact #TNA #Tag Division #Deonna Purrazzo #Forbidden Door #Christian Cage #Kenny Omega #Impact World Championship #Moose #Top 10 Worst Things About Impact Wrestling

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hellopopculture · 2 years

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Top 10 Worst Things About Impact Wrestling (Part 1)

6. Putting too much Stock in Notoriety Gained Elsewhere-Impact ends up picking up talent from bigger platforms all the time. People get released from their contracts or they don't renew, and they need a new home and that's fine but every talent that has ever worked on a bigger platform isn't that valuable. If you look at the Iiconics who are now the IInspiration ,what do they really bring to the women's tag division? They just made those belts too, not too long ago. They were given the titles pretty much immediately and nobody really cared; now they’ve retired from the wrestling business entirely. When they were the tag champions in WWE, Vince wouldn't even give them TV time because he realized they couldn't wrestle, and their promos got extremely mild reactions. They could barely get people to boo. I think they need to figure out a new creative process for building their talent so that people with name recognition can't just come in and command top spots even if they aren't that talented.

5. No Creative Identity-I don't really understand what Impact is or is supposed to be as a wrestling product. Back when TNA first started, and they had the 6-sided ring and although they had some veterans of the business, they had a lot of talents I had never seen before. That's what gave me a reason to watch the show, it wasn't like anything else. Even with guys from WCW, it didn't feel like WCW, even when they did Hardcore Justice, it didn't feel like ECW...it felt like it's own thing. I'm not sure what Impact wants to be today and with how much talent they lose yearly and their ever-rotating roster, it seems like they would be pressed to even try and create their own identity.

4. Lack of Interesting Characters-Outside of the members of DECAY or guys like Ace Austin or Sami Callihan, IMPACT doesn't have a whole lot of actual characters. They have a lot of wrestlers but not a whole lot of characters. I'm fine with just watching wrestling and enjoying that aspect of it but that's not how Pro Wrestling shows work in the West. You have to cut promos, you have to have segments, you have to have some sort of hook or gimmick to get people interested in you and what you're doing and so many of these guys just don't have it. They are just Professional Wrestlers.

3. Flimsy Main Event Scene-My main issue with IMPACT is that I am a character/wrestler-based viewer. I latch on to the talent. I'm not loyal to promotions because the company isn't taking bumps, they aren't what I tune in for. IMPACT just flat out doesn't have any "must see" talent at the top. They don't have anyone that will keep me watching every week. They put people in their main events that were on the pre-show in WWE and that's not to say that WWE couldn't have been using them incorrectly or not showing them the respect they deserve but Impact isn't exactly transforming this talent and making them feel like more. As much of a hassle as it is to actually watch this every week being that it's on a channel I don't have, i'm not showing up WEEKLY when your world champ is Rich Swann or Eric Young, it's just not gonna happen.

2. Poor Reputation-TNA was mishandled from the start and for years they kept adding more and more blemishes to their history. Everything from underpaying talent, burying young guys in favor of aging talent that isn't over or worth as much anymore, to not being loyal to the talent that stuck with them over the years is on the table. The fact that guys like AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Jay Lethal, James Storm & Bobby Roode..guys that had pretty much become staples in the product are all at other companies, says a lot about how their business is run. Those are literally the guys I think of when I think of this company.

1. No Plan-Impact is at the lowest point they've ever been, and they don't seem to have a solution. Bringing in talent from other places may offer minor improvements in interest but they are still the distant #3 product in the United States and probably like 4th or 5th overall behind NJPW and AAA and it doesn't really matter how well you write the show or book it because they don't have any attractions, they don't have anything to hook the viewers and get them to watch the show. I'm not sure what they are going to do or if there is anything they CAN do at this point, but they have to try something.

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