Brian Damage
It’s Saturday and today we have ’This Week in Wrestling’, the 1st entry of 2022. Today Brian looks at the very busy first week of wrestling in the New Year and shares all the best wrestling content from this week.
New Year…Out With The Old (Well…Sorta)
As we ring in the new year, the wrestling world has certainly been busy the first week of 2022. Some of it good, some bad and some to be determined at a future date. Let’s take a look what this week gave us as far as newsworthy items. First of all, WWE held their inaugural ‘Day 1’ pay per view which is apparently no longer considered a pay per view but rather “Live Event.” Roman Reigns got Covid and the main event was changed at the last minute allowing Brock Lesnar to recapture the WWE title in a Fatal Five Way match.
The next night on Raw, Paul Heyman realigned with Lesnar and now will face Bobby Lashley in a sorta dream match at the Royal Rumble. Love him or hate him, Brock Lesnar is a draw in WWE, something that is sorely lacking lately within the company. The upcoming match with Lashley at the Royal Rumble might stink to the high heavens, but is definitely a match some fans have wanted to see for years.
Over on NXT 2.0, the brand continues to evolve as Bron Breakker defeated Ciampa for the NXT title on the brand’s New Year’s Evil show. Further signaling an end to the old black and gold brand that was led by Triple H. A nice touch had ‘The Dog Faced Gremlin’ Rick Steiner come to the ring to congratulate his son on winning the NXT title. The show was solid with Carmelo Hayes beating Roderick Strong to unify the NXT North American and Cruiserweight titles in what was in my opinion, the match of the evening.
Of course, the very next day…WWE continued their purge of releasing employees with the most notable being the Road Dog Brian James, Samoa Joe and William Regal. Look, I understand that firings are a part of big businesses like WWE. Firing Regal especially is a certifiable loss for the developmental brand. The man has a wealth of experience as both a wrestler and entertainer. The young talent they have can truly benefit from his years of wisdom. No doubt, AEW just might snatch him up as a trainer or backstage agent or even as an in ring talent of some sort.
Big news came out of New Japan Pro Wrestling who had their version of Wrestlemania called Wrestle Kingdom which was a three night event. ‘The Rainmaker’ Kazuchika Okada won the IWGP World title from Shingo Takagi and then retained the very next night against Will Ospreay. Okada is perhaps New Japan’s biggest star currently and should have his rightful place as the face of New Japan. Especially, as this year is the 50th anniversary of the promotion’s existence. On a side note, this was the least talked about Wrestle Kingdom in my memory. The excitement just wasn’t there this years as in previous go arounds. Hopefully that changes by next year.
To help get New Japan back on track…the big news was announced at Wrestle Kingdom that New Japan Pro Wrestling is returning to televisions across the United States starting on March 3rd. They are going back to AXS TV which is owned by Anthem Sports…the owners of Impact Wrestling. Don’t be surprised if we see more and more crossovers between the two companies this year.
The other good news is that Billy Corgan’s NWA Powerrr is returning to YouTube. The NWA has been a very unique, cool little studio type show that harkens back to the old days of professional wrestling. When the pandemic hit and the NWA was placed on hiatus….it was removed from YouTube. When it finally returned it went to the streaming service FITE TV. Having NWA Powerrr back on YouTube isn’t the greatest option. That of course would be a TV deal, but I think it is much better than what they currently have in my humble opinion.
That brings us to All Elite Wrestling, who debuted on their new channel of TBS. It brings back great memories to see wrestling back on the Superstation. It may not be WCW Saturday Night at 6:05 pm, but it is still wonderful. Give credit to Tony Khan for signing some of the biggest names in pro wrestling and putting together some solid wrestling. Hangman Adam Page and Bryan Danielson put on a wrestling clinic. Sure, AEW has a lot to work out as a promotion, but they have a strong, passionate fan base. Here’s hoping for continued success for all this new year of 2022.
Photo Gallery
Indeed he is.
Happy 2022!
Remember when Alberto Del Rio was wrestling’s hottest free agent?
Bam Bam Bigelow has an IPA named after him. I want the can!
Someone took the time to make this incredible picture of every single wrestler that competed in the WWWF/WWF/WWE!
Take a look at this rare ticket of the very first Memphis TV show run by Jerry Jarrett. The artwork on the ticket done by Lawler himself.
Awesome pic of Rikishi and his sons.
The greatest photo I saw all week. ‘Exotic’ Adrian Street and Miss Linda casually walking through an airport fully gimmicked.
LOL
Dong! Dong!
Congrats to WWE interviewer Sarah Schreiber on her engagement.
Congrats to Chelsea Green and Matt Cardona on their wedding.
The brand new and first ever AEW TBS champion…Jade Cargill
RVD is a playa!
‘The Smoke Show’ Scarlett Bordeaux
Melissa Santos
NSFW!!!
A little Stratusfaction for 2022!
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Impact’s Rachael Ellering
Impact Wrestling’s Lady Frost
Video Gallery
Let’s enjoy a compilation of vicious chops from the brutal “General” of Imperium…WALTER!
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Ring the Damn Bell 
William Regal and Samoa Joe…. I hope they get a better job and treated with more respect with wherever they go. For some of the bad shit that HHH has done in his career and behind the scenes, he doesn’t deserve this. NXT actually had a good thing going but his out-of-touch father-in-law ruined it for him.
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I’m very tempted to say HHH doesn’t deserve ALL of this either, watching on helplessly as everything he built NXT-wise for years gets wiped out in amere matter of months.
On the other hand, I personally feel this is karmic retribution. Remember, for SO long he enjoyed & benefited immensely from hanging around the right kinds of people in power, first the Kliq then the McMahons. For all the wrestlers he buried & careers he screwed over for the sake of staying on top, eventually it was bound to catch up with him. Now he no longer benefits from his relationship with Vince, as Vince is hell bound & determined to punish him for losing to AEW, even though he himself lost to Bitchoff for more than 80 weeks. Let’s also not forget how much damage to ROH he did by poaching Indy talent for his own version of ROH in NXT, as well as the incredible amount of damage to British Wrestling scene in conjunction with the MeToo movement. And they were attempting to the same thing to other countries as well.
All this to say, while I do feel some kind of sympathy for the man, seeing as how he always prided himself on being a “student of the game and how well he played it”, it just seems karmic to finally be on the other end of that.
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I keep going back to that moment in Wrestling with Shadows where Bret’s then-wife Julie scolded HHH backstage at the night of the Screwjob telling him that karma is coming for him. Well, she is right although this isn’t what I expected and I kind of feel bad. As long as he’s married to Steph, he’ll just become another of Meekmahan’s lap dogs.
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I do too to an extent, but hey, karma is karma no matter how or when it comes, it was well-earned regardless of the form it took. I’m pretty sure, and I’m not the only one who thinks this, but it if it WASN’T for the fact that he was married to Steph, he’d have long since been released.
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Exactly. The one thing I’m fearing right now is the idea of Shawn Michaels being released from WWE. What will the Meekmahan-land drones will say about that?
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They’ll happily play along and go with it, making excuse after excuse about why “Well it’s just business and all businesses do things like this.” Something to that effect. Vince can do no wrong in their eyes and it’s sickening.
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I’m guessing that if Meekmahan decides to actually take a shit and put it in a sandwich. They’ll probably eat it as well and say “thank your Mr. McMahon”.
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All the top guys & gals have been doing that for years though. Same for the rest of the crew that depend on him for a paycheck, yeah.
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Going to have to start checking out the NWA. How bad ass were Adrian Street and Miss Linda? Damn!
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Crazy to release Regal & Joe why didn’t they have Regal handle NXT-UK it would have been amazing seeing Regal work alongside Johnny Saint instead of having Sid Scala he is awful. Seeing Regal show up kicking out Scala and unveiling the European title for use in NXT-UK is a no-brainer!
It will probably happen in the future but they should push Solo Sikoa to rival Breakker that would be an incredible feud then take Sikoa up to Smackdown so he can turn on Reigns and end his title run. That would be gold and a quality twist to the ‘family’ we hear from Reigns!
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You guys forgot to mention the new development of the WWE and Impact working together. I guess everything’s all good & forgiven on Mickie’s end now that she’ll get a fat check & exposure for Impact’s women’s division out of this. Personally I thought she was all about principals and self-respect, but I guess that’s easily bought these days for the right price. Goddamn did Impact’s owners really feel that burned by Tony Khan?
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The deal happened after this article was completed and set to be published. A shocking development indeed.
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Very much so, yeah.
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I don’t think there’s going to be much development between Impact and WWE. Both companies get something out of the deal
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Exactly. It’s a one-off because Vince desperately needs the female talent. Nothing more.
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“To whom much is given much is taken..” I don’t consider myself to be judge or jury but I don’t have a care to spare for HHH. I do feel badly for those who have had to lose their jobs because of their affiliation with him.
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