There is an awful lot of News in wrestling. Some of it is useful, a lot of it boils down to noise. Clickbait headlines or unsourced rumours are sadly all too common. Hopefully, this simple round-up of the week’s happenings can help cut through that. This column isn’t infallible obviously but every effort will be made to capture and cover everything, things will be missed but nobody’s perfect! This week, it’s the 31st January / 6th February 2022. Post-Rumble Shenanigans, and some excellent BritWres in the form of Progress in Manchester! (WAHAY!)
31st January / 6th February 2022 | WWE
Raw had a chance to start the road to WrestleMania fresh after a disappointing Royal Rumble but continued the lacklustre run it has been on – Three qualifying matches for the Elimination Chamber were the standouts, AJ Styles besting Rey Mysterio in the pick of the bunch along with Riddle beating Otis and Austin Theory continuing his rise by beating Kevin Owens – Dominik Mysterio lost to The Miz in less than 2 and a half minutes – Alexa Bliss’ transformation back into her ‘normal’ self continued through another therapy segment – Ronda Rousey’s return to Raw wasn’t helped by some horrendous crowd dubbing and a stilted promo – Brock Lesnar somehow bartered his way into entry to the Elimination Chamber match for the WWE title, setting up his presumed Mania clash with Roman Reigns to be title for title – Lita punched her ticket to a match with Becky Lynch in Saudi Arabia with a simple challenge.
NXT 2.0 only featured 3 matches that went beyond the 5-minute mark, and only two that went beyond 10, that should tell you plenty about where the priorities lay for this brand – the standout matches were the bookends, a 6-man featuring Imperium beating the Diamond mine in the opener and Bron Breakker teaming with Tommaso Ciampa to defeat Legado del Fantasma in the main event – it’s the Vengeance Day TV special in a couple of weeks so there was plenty of wheel-spinning until we get there.
Smackdown continued its own sad decline with a filler heavy show that leant on two supposedly major promo segments, neither of which stuck – the longest match was under 9 minutes – Drew McIntyre’s dull feud with comedy duo Madcap Moss and Happy Corbin continued – Ronda Rousey continued to underwhelm on the mic and made an odd choice to use her Rumble victory to challenge Charlotte Flair, whether that sticks will have to wait – Bill Goldberg came back for his yearly tradition of simply asking for a title and getting one, in Saudi Arabia as usual – Raquel Gonzalez, Io Shirai, Tommaso Ciampa and Roderick Strong all worked more dark matches pre-show.
In other news, Shane McMahon lost his job with the family company in the immediate aftermath of a disastrous Royal Rumble that he had apparently interfered with. It’s certainly a big step to release the boss’ son but the younger McMahon hadn’t worked in a true backstage capacity in years and was working under a simple talent contract.
31st January / 6th February 2022 | AEW
Dynamite was almost entirely dominated by one match, and rightly so given the build – Jon Moxley defeated Wheeler Yuta in a bout that was changed last minute (details below) – the Kings of the Black Throne got their biggest win yet as a duo by defeating PAC and Penta El Zero Miedo and Nyla Rose got a measure of revenge over Ruby Soho – the main event between MJF and CM Punk was an epic, nearly 40 minutes after weeks and weeks of incendiary promos and roadblocks from the Pinnacle it was MJF who came out the winner, ending Punk’s unbeaten start to life in AEW and giving him yet another thing to brag about.
Rampage continues to a fun and watchable hour of pro wrestling TV – Adam Cole quickly defeated Evil Uno before turning his attentions to Adam Page and the AEW Title – Sammy Guevara retained the TNT title against Isiah Kassidy before being faced down by former champion Darby Allin – Thunder Rosa won over a returning Mercedes Martinez after Martinez got herself a rare disqualification – the main event featured a statement victory for Ricky Starks as he defeated Jay Lethal to keep hold of the FTW title.
In other news, following on from being granted his release by WWE Brian Kendrick was due to make an immediate AEW debut before past comments caught up with him. The statements made back in 2011 and 2013 included 9/11 conspiracy theories, suggestions that mass shootings such as Sandy Hook were faked, and expressed doubts about the murder of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust. Whilst he has now apologised his comments were abhorrent and it remains to be seen if he gets another chance in mainstream wrestling after this.
31st January / 6th February 2022 | BritWres
There were major changes to the established order in Pro Wrestling: EVE as, coming out their return to action, all three titles now have new holders. Jetta defeated Emersyn Jayne for the EVE Title and Laura Di Matteo defeated Alex Windsor for the vacant International Title. The tag titles also changed hands with the team of Rhia O’Reilly & Skye Smitson defeating Millie McKenzie and Chantal Jordan (acting as a replacement for Charli Evans).
RevPro live in London was a comedown from High Stakes but still featured well-received matches between Michael Oku (fresh off his 5-star Dave Meltzer rating) and Callum Newman and Aussie Open against the New Japan duo of Shota Umino and Yota Tsuji.
PROGRESS returned to the North of England at the Manchester 02 Ritz, with TWM graciously invited to the show in the stalls, and their second show under new ownership and put on a stacked card headlined by four title matches and some surprise returns. Stand out moments included a dive from the balcony during the opening tag match, the sheer viciousness of the match between Spike Trivet and Luke Jacobs, two back-to-back exhibitions of wrestling in both Gresham vs Ridgeway and Cara Noir vs Dean Allmark and the aforementioned surprise returns. After Cara Noir retained his long-held title Ilja Dragunov made a surprise return to hint at a fourth chapter to their trilogy of epic matches in late 2019. And to cap the night off, once Gisele Shaw defeated a game Rhio to retain the Women’s title, she was confronted by a returning Kanji, who has been missing for over 6 months and never lost the title in the ring. PROGRESS is rebuilding well under the new ownership. Alexxis Falcon had a well-spoken interview with former TWM man Adam Cailler in the Daily Star afterwards.
Both NORTH and TNT held their own shows during the week to great receptions from those who were there, putting to bed the always foolish notion that British Wrestling were somehow ‘dead’.
TNT’s show also saw the announcement that a long-delayed collaboration with Game Changer Wrestling is finally happening at some point this year.
Kamikaze Pro also returned to action for the first time this year with a show featuring a Roulette Rumble match, won by Luke Douglas, and Chantal Jordan retaining her Live Title to extend a reign that stretches somewhere north of 900 days.