This Week in Wrestling

Craig Wilson & Jamie Lithgow.

(Image courtesy of http://www.giantbomb.com)

As everyone reading this will know, Fred Rosser – known to many as Darren Young of the Prime Time Players – this week came out and became the only openly gay WWE superstar on the roster. Unsurprisingly, this created an incredible amount of buzz – exemplified by the number of views this blog has had in the last few days.

WWE Superstar Darren Young Comes Out — I’m Gay
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Brian eloquently discussed the topic yesterday on the blog, particularly in the relation to the erroneous way that some outlets were describing him as the only openly gay WWE superstar. My take will be different. What I’m curious to see is what happens next.

Should Vince McMahon come out and make a statement on the issue? No, that’s not necessary. Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, John Cena and various others have tweeted their congratulations to Young on the announcement. Vince doesn’t need to, after all, his closest confident in wrestling Pat Patterson is openly gay.

What I do expect is some sort of interview with Darren Young on WWE.com in the next few days or so. That’s absolutely fine. After all, the announcement generated an incredible amount of interest and with Young’s involvement in anti-bullying campaigns it makes sense for him to be front and centre after this announcement. After all, being an openly gay WWE performer speaking to kids about bullying will have a great deal of authority.

There is one thing I definitely don’t want to see happen and that is WWE taking storyline advantage of his announcement. This would be exploitive and would rightly cause a negative reaction towards the company. If the WWE want Young to be a prominent part of their programme it should be because of his in-ring skill and not his sexuality.

Young’s coming out sends a positive message and many will be inspired by him. The best thing that the WWE can do is continue to use him the way that they have whilst having him act as an ambassador for the company and speaking about being an openly gay wrestler.

What Wrestling Taught Us This Week

• Darren Young has earned a truck load of respect. Let’s just hope that’s all (as well as some good heel heat) he receives from the WWE Universe.
• The Beast is the best, is the best….. I think.
• Christian must be dying or something. The video package on Raw made me feel like Captain Charisma was preparing for his last match.
• John Cena is an idiot. He tried to argue Daniel Bryan’s point but ended up proving it instead. Bryan stated that he wants to be WWE Champion for himself, as a wrestling goal. He argued that Cena is all about the adulation and fame. So how did Cena counter this? By stating that he does what he does for “them”. “Them” being the fans that afford him such fame and adulation. What a muppet.
• It’s not just us fans, the referees struggle to pay attention when two Divas are wrestling too.
• Brad Maddox should have taken the hit, it would have given him a reason to remove Bryan from the Summerslam main event.
• Dean Ambrose is scared of ghosts, well, giant ones anyway.
• From his jacket, to his trousers, to his shirt, to his tie; not one item of Vince McMahon’s outfit on Raw matched another.
• A really good Miz TV segment was ruined by interruptions, something I fear will be the case during the Summerslam main event.
• The Shield are psychic. How else can you explain them cutting a promo that was clearly directed at Mark Henry, The Big Show and RVD before they learned who would challenge them at Summerslam?!
• Triple H can defy gravity with his pedigree. It was a obviously a quirk in the camera work but he and Maddox got some serious hang time on Raw.
• This isn’t something I’ve learned this week, rather a general wondering. Does The Miz still wrestle? He appears to be more of a personality rather than an actual wrestler these days.

This week I have been mostly watching

Jamie

This week I have mostly watching – The most illegal move in wrestling history!

I can imagine that many people reading this have seen this video and know exactly what it is about, if not then I wholeheartedly recommend that you click on the link, sit back, and enjoy. What you will see is a clip from a match between The Osirian Portal and The Runaways from Combat Zone Wrestling. Needless to say The Osirian Portal (Ophidian & Amasis) are the ancient Egyptian themed tandem and are the perpetrators of the dastardly act. I’ve seen this many many times, but it makes me smile every single time. Disqualify them Papageorgio!

Craig

This week I have mostly watching – The greatest match in SummerSlam history!

With SummerSlam this Sunday – and boy am I really looking forward to it – what better way to get myself even more in the mood for the show than watching arguably the best match in the event’s history. That’s right, the Intercontinental Title main event from SummerSlam 1992. 80,000 fans packed into Wembley Stadium in London England to see one of their own defeat Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart to win the IC title. What a match it is. Sure, it’s widely considered that Hart carried the match owing to the condition Bulldog was in but it showed the world, and more importantly Vince McMahon, that Bret could be the man to lead the company. The rest is, as they say, history. Enjoy this, it’s difficult not to.

On the Blog this Week

On Monday Craig reviewed the Raw is War from 11 August 1997 headlined by Shawn Michaels facing Mankind, on Tuesday Jamie reviewed SummerSlam 1989, on Wednesday Brian looked at guys seen as the next big thing that didn’t work out, on Thursday the team listed their Top Five favourite finishers and on Friday Brian wrote about the portrayal of Darren Young as the first openly gay WWE performer.

All previous ‘This Week in Wrestling’ columns can be found here.