The story of WWE's 90's Australian "Superstar"

If you've seen one of my videos before, you'll know I like to go down a rabbit hole or two, and thats easily done when you find an obscure story in an old Wrestling Observer. While I was reading for my recent Australia video I came across an interesting note by Dave Meltzer from August 5th 2002, relating to an Australian rugby player called Colin Scotts.

Earlier that year Scotts released his autobiography, with the brilliant title All Balls: They said an Aussie couldn't make it. According to Dave, Colin's book goes into detail about his time in American wrestling, and by detail, Dave makes it sound like the "Hulk Hogan was nearly in Metallica" kind of detail. That's to say there doesn't appear to be a lot of fact in there. Remember this for later. Dave writes that in the book Colin claims to have been a WWF star in 1996, where he had a match with Jerry Lawler in Madison Square Garden which turned into a shoot. He also claimed that in this time he became friends with Hulk Hogan. He then says that he wrestled in Memphis, but hated the South and getting injured, and so called it quits.

I want to be very clear about this, the now sixty year old Colin Scotts, number 69, nice, for the St. Louis Cardinals, clearly had a successful career in Rugby, or Football if you want to be American about it. This video isn't meant to bash him as for all we know he's a decent bloke. I'm only interested in his claims about his pro wrestling career based on what was reported when his book came out. The details of his own career online are sketchy, with his official website claiming he has three years as a pro in the NFL, while the site Celebrity Speakers.AU where he promotes himself as a motivational speaker, claims five. His Wikipedia page claims he played for the St. Louis Cardinals in '87, and the Houston Oilers in '88, which implies two years. I'm very much open to corrections about any of this by the way in the comments as I'm not pretending to know anything about the NFL.

My original plan for this video was to take Dave wrote and look for any evidence to back up his claims. He noted that Colin's book quote "had wrestling fans chuckling," implying that this was a known thing at the time. Being a book that was released in 2002, seemingly out of print, with no e-book version existing, you'd have to be some kind of pedant to go as far as to get a copy of the book shipped from Australia at the lowest price one could find. Yes, I am that pedant. It's a signed copy too, not to me but still...

You've seen how Dave rather negatively reported it, now let's look at what Colin actually says in his book. Colin states that his entry into wrestling started in January 1996, and Dave dismissed the idea that he could have been friends with Hulk Hogan based on Hulk being with WCW at the time. Clearly it didn't occur to Dave that they could have met outside wrestling. Colin actually does say in his book that post the NFL he lived for a while in California, specifically Venice Beach, where Hogan was famously billed from for many years. Around this time Hogan was acting in movies and TV, so he might well have also been in California around the same time Colin was. Quote, "There's no more entertaining place than Venice Beach in the Summer, It's fun to just sit and watch the amazing sideshows put on by the crazy mix of Hippies, freaks, stars, footballers and wrestlers". At the end of his chapter about wrestling Colin also notes that he later lived in Florida, even implying that Hogan was the cause of this. Speaking of Hogan Colin states "He's very big in Florida, and he got me interested in the place". From this point it became clear to me that Dave never actually read a word of the book himself...

When writing about Venice Beach Colin says that he met Wrestlers there, but the only one he names is Sargent Slaugter. Colin says "we became friends and he began to talk me into giving the game a try. At first I dismissed the idea but as time went on (and I found out how much money was in it) I started to think, as I always did, why not?" From here he claims that having sent a tape in, he met with Vince McMahon in Stanford Connecticut. He says "'There's no point wasting everyones time ' he (Vince) said, 'we just have to see if you have what it takes,' he said. 'So I want you to come with me and do a gig at Madison Square Garden.' Just like that." I have a feeling Colin is paraphrasing a bit there...

Dave in his newsletter claimed that Colin said he got into a match that became a shoot in MSG, and that's not quite how Colin put it. In the book Colin says of Lawler that "he took to the ring and gave about fifteen minutes of abuse about Australia, and even though in the back of my mind I knew it was all just a show, I found myself getting more and more angry, so much so that by the time I came on I was really ready to deck him." What Colin describes after this more resembles him working stiff with Lawler than a full on shoot fight. "Poor old Jerry, between the thumpings he was saying 'the business doesn't work like this!'" (254) which sounds like a lot to say between punches. Colin then claims he was quote "declared the winner" which doesn't make clear if this was an actual match or not.

Try as I have, I couldn't find a single bit of evidence beyond what Colin says about the Jerry Lawler altercation. While Jerry was an active WWE wrestler around this time, the only match I could find in Madison Square Garden was at Survivor Series 1996, where he would be on the losing end of an eight man elimination match that also included the WWE debut of Rocky Miavia. I did find a MSG show in January 1996 that might have aligned with Colins claims, but there's no mention of he or Lawler. I also looked at every other January that Lawler was active in WWE too, and still found nothing.

Next Colin writes about being sent by Vince to wrestle in Tennessee, where he notes that he would regularly lose his matches. This is as we know how most wrestlers start out. To be fair to Colin, he implies that he didn't like losing or even selling, and even calls it an "ego adjustment", but implies that he went along with it. Colin also mentions that he used the moniker "Thunder from Down Under" and walked out to the ring to the tune of AC/DC's Thunderstruck. In a different section he notes that "my nationality was pretty much chosen for me as my gimmick", something many a foreign wrestler can attest to. Looking at you former WWE superstar Shane Thorne, who appeared once as what was described at the time as a Crocodile Dundee inspired gimmick. Not even his worst WWE gimmick by the way as he was Slapjack too.

Colin ends his wrestling chapter by noting that he suffered several injuries including "a broken arm and some fingers", and also a broken back "cracking a vertebrae after a big flip went wrong, I'd had enough... ...My back had given out and the pressure to learn more moves was getting to me. My hat goes off to the guys who stay in the game year after year."

Honestly based on what Dave wrote I was ready to be entirely dismissive of Colin, but I'm glad I went to the trouble of reading his own words, as he throws enough in to show that he knows what he's talking about. There are a few holes that I can't quite piece together though. One thing Colin claims that I did find evidence for was that he wrestled in Tennessee, and given this fact he likely would have at least met Jerry Lawler. Dave Meltzer claimed that Colin was in Memphis for a week, which is a slight understatement and that comment made me actually want to buy the guys book to verify what Colin actually claimed. The dates don't match up though, as Colin says his wrestling days started in January 1996 in his book, but I found evidence of four matches between August and September of 1993 for USWA.

Interestingly, Dave noted in his writing that Scotts made an appearance at a WWE TV taping in '93, recording an interview that never made it to air. This was apparently enough for Scotts to keep in his biography to this day that he was a WWF wrestler, but not enough for him to keep up with wrestling for the past twenty two years since the company changed it's name. One thing I can confirm though, is that every bio I've seen of him, even the one on the back of his book and his current website, notes he was a "WWF wrestler", with no details attached. I've yet to find evidence of a single match Colin had in WWE, and I'm even starting to think he's just like that person every one of us as wrestling fans knows, who just calls all of it WWE, the way not every vacuum cleaner is a hoover.

In the late stages of writing this video I found a June 2019 episode of the "talking with TK" podcast, where I could hear Colin Scotts speak for himself. A lot of what he says about wrestling is rather consistent with his book, until he rambles about an instance where he took ten people out with a boomerang... *play clip* He then makes a rather interesting claim about a Stephanie McMahon, who based on Colin's own timeline would have been twenty years old when Colin was around. *play clip*.

To summarise this video that has taken enough of your time, while I ready to treat him with complete skepticism based on what Dave Meltzer wrote, Colin Scotts actually comes across as knowing what he's talking about, but is still quite brief in the details. I wouldn't go as far as to mock him as Dave did, and with some further reading that paragraph in the Observer doesn't make Dave look that good at all. It was however a fun journey looking into this though, and I hope you enjoyed it too. Also Elimination Chamb-

Sources:

http://colinscotts.com.au/about/

http://colinscotts.com.au/book/

http://www.profightdb.com/wrestlers/colin-scotts-6917.html

https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-5-2002-observer-newsletter-major-media-outlets-working-industry

Jan 96 MSG Show http://www.profightdb.com/cards/wwf/msg-show-jan-3996-5151.html

https://www.talkingwithtk.com/single-post/colin-scotts

Global Warning 2002 and a brief history of WWE in Australia

WWE is soon heading to Perth Australia for the Elimination Chamber event, one of many PLE's the company has taken international of late. In recent years they've done them in a lot of countries, and they're soon adding France and Germany to the list. Personally I love these events because when done right they have a special feel to them, like when Raw and Smackdown went to Japan and Italy back in the day. It creates special moments like when Bad Bunny entered Backlash last year and the crowd sang along with Chambea. It's also pretty fun to see US fans having to watch them through the night, like some of us British fans do multiple nights every fucking week, but thats neither here nor there...

In the late 90's to early 2000's, WWE's international shows were very different. They were pretty much exclusive to that market. At this time WWE would produce two pay per view events in England every year that were exclusively aired on Sky Sports in the UK. While these events were essentially televised house shows as rarely did anything consequential happen, occasionally you'd see something actually interesting, like at Rebellion 2001, where the main event was Stone Cold Steve Austin vs The Rock, or at the same event in 2002, where Brock Lesnar defended the WWE title against a Edge, who at the time was a few years away from being a main eventer, in a match that no right to be as good as it was.

Earlier in 2002 WWE had held a similarly local event to this on August 10th in Melbourne Australia, where they would pack over fifty six thousand fans into Colonial Stadium. For some context, That would be a higher attendance than the following years Wrestlemania 19 from Seattle, and three times higher than Summerslam 2002 which took place in the same month.

Before I get to the show itself let's go back to where it began. The event was first announced by WWE in December 2001, where the company laid out all of its international tours for 2002, also including two European tours and one through Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. Before this WWE had only ever gone to Australia twice, touring in 1985 and again in '86. Back in those days WWE would tour an A-team and a B-team depending on the market they were running, and given that the Junkyard Dog was the main name advertised, you can tell which was heading to Oz. If this '86 card that I found is anything to go by, the fans in Australia weren't exactly getting the A team on the second tour either. This tour shirt I found on a Facebook post gives a better idea of the wrestlers involved in the 86 tour. I also found an advertisement for a 1987 tour that was cancelled for reasons I couldn't find.

In the March 4th 2002 Wrestling Observer Dave Meltzer reported that WWE had at one point been planning to expand their pay per view schedule to twenty four events a year, but were now stripping that back to sixteen. He noted that the first month to have two events was planned to be August, with one being Summerslam and the other being the Melbourne show. In early April Jim Ross in his Ross Report column referred to the event as a pay per view so this must have still been the plan then, but this is never mentioned again in any future Observer issues, so I don't know why it wasn't a pay per view in the end. Ross also strongly suggested that it would be a Smackdown branded event, which was very important in 2002, as this was during the time of the first brand split, when the two products actually felt different from each other. Raw was often the edgy brand where ill advised necrophilia angles could happen while Smackdown often focused on it's wrestling.

On April 11th, WWE held a press conference in Melbourne featuring Vince McMahon along with Mark Henry and Stacy Keibler to hype up the event. At this time there hadn't been any specific roster announcements, but Vince heavily implied that the biggest stars of the show would the The Rock, Triple H and Hulk Hogan. It was here that Vince announced that the show wouldn't be on pay per view, but he did say that it might be shown on television in Australia, and later released on home video which it later was. To this day I've never seen a concrete reason for why Global Warning was never on pay per view, but Observer newsletters later in the year have reports about WWE failing to secure broadcasting deals in Australia, so maybe they just couldn't find a provider in the country to carry it? Thats just my guess though.

Everything seemed to go seamless right up until the week of the event, when the Aussie version of the August 5th Raw broadcast included Jim Ross informing them that Hulk Hogan would not be attending, despite him being part of the advertising for the event. This caused a lot of fans to be upset, even going to the point of wanting refunds. Remember it was a different time where Hogan had recently stolen Wrestlemania X8 with the Rock. The reason JR gave was that Hogan had been injured by Brock Lesnar who would replace him on the tour, but in reality he had been battling long standing knee and back problems. He was even asked if he would go to Australia and not wrestle, but Hogan declined fearing how much pain the long flights would put him through. Of the three biggest stars that had been advertised, only The Rock was still good to go, as Triple H was nursing an elbow injury and he was unlikely to make it back in time. Despite this the main event ended up being a bit of an anomaly for a few reasons that I'll get to. In the same newsletter Dave Meltzer noted that ringside seats had sold for seven hundred and fifty dollars. They also held a fan fest for eight thousand attendees, and a black-tie charity event. During the home video release we would get to see highlights from both of these.

Hulk Hogan would eventually make it to Australia in 2009 as the main attraction of the Hulkamania: Let the Battle Begin tour. This consisted of four atrocious looking cards that were main evented each night by Hulk Hogan defeating Ric Flair, who was wrestling his first matches since his Wrestlemania 24 retirement the year before. The shows were mostly filled with ex-WWE talents, and also included the last matches of Umaga, who would sadly pass away a week after the tour.

For many years the only way to watch Global Warning was on the VHS and DVD releases, until 2018 when a two hour version was added to the WWE Network. Upon watching the show you can immediately tell it's a Smackdown branded show, as while Stephanie McMahon welcomes us to the show all I could focus on was the same piped in crowd pops you used to hear on Smackdown back in the day when it was taped on Tuesdays. If you heard an example there it means I got it past the YouTube police.

From a match stand point the show is bookended with bloodline members, as the first match is Rikishi versus Rico in a 'kiss my ass' match. It did make me laugh thinking about the parents who brought kids to the show and heard that for the first time. It likely won't shock you to hear that Rikishi won this fairly quickly, and post match would dance with two of the most 2002 looking kids. That's not a diss by the way, I was one too.

Throughout the show we see video packages of the wrestlers in Australia, starting with Jamie Noble and Nidia learning to surf. Some of these are really fun with the best involving Kurt Angle, Christian and Lance Storm visiting the zoo, with Kurt acting like he was looking at aliens especially when he saw a giraffe. Kurt Angle catching attention for looking bemused? No. It only dawned on me afterwards that it was slightly kayfabe breaking to see your American hero hanging out with Storm and Christian, who were teaming as the Un-Americans at the time, though to be fair Angle did berate them all the way through. Speaking of kayfabe breaking at one point Kurt calls Christian "Jay" and that slipped through the edit.

Another highlight of this show is Edge versus Chris Jericho. As I mentioned earlier, in 2002 Edge was quite a long way from becoming the Rated R Superstar, but he was definitely impressing as a singles star. He would miss most of 2003 due to being sidelined with a neck injury, but before that he was part of the famous Smackdown six who were the ones to watch on the blue brand. As Edge making his entrance with a camcorder filming the crowd, I realised this must have been the third largest crowd Edge had ever performed in front of at this point in his career, behind Wrestlemania 17 and 18.

One match that didn't make it onto any release as best I can tell is Reverend D-Von teaming with Deacon Batista against Mark Henry and a very young in his career Randy Orton, who made his debut in April 2002. Even though only the live crowd saw this match, it's interesting that one of his early WWE matches was in front of over fifty thousand people. Orton and Henry would even defeat D-Von, and his future Evolution team mate.

I mentioned earlier that the main event was a bit of an anomaly, and that's because it was a match of many firsts. Fans who weren't aware of this card might have thought that Brock Lesnar's first shot at the WWE title, and his first and only match with the Rock was at Summerslam 2002. They might also think that his first match with Triple H came a decade later at Summerslam 2012. All of these are incorrect, as the Rock would defend the Undisputed WWE title in a triple threat match against Triple H and Brock Lesnar. Post match after the Rock retained his title, Triple H and Rock would eject Brock from the ring, and would both hit the peoples elbow on Paul Heyman to end the night. Again it's rather weird to see Triple H being a good guy while at this time he was in a bitter and violent feud with Shawn Michaels. Once Triple H left, The Rock would thank the fans for attending, and end the night on the mic.

On August 17th 2002, WWE Confidential would air highlights of their tour of Australia. Apart from B-roll shots of the wrestlers mid travelling, there isn't really anything that wasn't on the network version of the event. For many fans this would be the only footage they would see until the network upload sixteen years later.

Ever since Global Warning, WWE has held at least one event in Australia every single year until 2020, for reasons you might be able to work out. *** You might have noticed an outlier in these listings, that being the 2016 NXT tour. Around this time the black and gold version NXT as a brand was strong enough to have it's own international tours, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan and a few tours of the UK, some linked to the long running music festival Download. NXT even aired a match from the Melbourne event on their weekly WWE network show, where Shinsuke Nakamura retained his NXT title against Samoa Joe in a steel cage match. I know this might divide opinion, but I'm just pointing out that it's been a fair few years since NXT was popular enough to do this, and that's coming from someone who travelled down the country hell bent on attending one of NXT's first UK shows.***

The upcoming PLE will be their first time back in Australia since their 2019 three show tour. According to an article I found from Australian Fox News in December 2017, it seems that there were talks to bring Global Warning back in the following October, only this time to the Melbourne Cricket Ground. This event that they are referring to would eventually be known as Super Showdown, a show main evented by Triple H with Shawn Michaels versus the Undertaker with Kane. This random sounding match was on the way to their much more infamous tag team match at Crown Jewell in the following month. Sorry for reminding you about that one...

Following Super Showdown, WWE announced an attendance of seventy thousand fans, but this was disputed by the Wrestling Observer which claimed a more accurate figure would be sixty two thousand. Whichever number is correct they still toppled Global Warning. Optus stadium in Perth where Elimination Chamber is set to be held has a capacity between sixty and seventy thousand depending on the event, so it'll be interesting to see how many fans are present, but also what the giant cage looks like inside a venue that big.

Sources:

Global Warning: https://network.wwe.com/video/83259

85 TV ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnw189E6GL8

86 TV ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4XFXccM-6w

86 TV ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpS86c6F44w

86 tour FB post: https://www.facebook.com/waprowrestling/posts/2617308168342979/?paipv=0&eav=AfZSFpnVyyHmzY7bVXTineU4XrQc_SFd-Xj0A-FSHtFLK35yrgmzoulZP4NQpca7B2g&_rdr

86 House show https://prowrestling.fandom.com/wiki/WWF_House_Show_(Sep_5,_86%27_no.2)

WWE Press release April 11th 2002 https://corporate.wwe.com/news/company-news/2002/04-11-2002

Potential 2018 PPV https://www.foxsports.com.au/wwe/wwe-holding-discussions-over-wrestling-global-warning-tour-ppv-event-at-mcg-in-2018-report/news-story/507a197a0df2953421e7c6381945fed5

Observer Dec 31st 01 - Show announcement - https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/december-31-2001-observer-newsletter-2001-retrospective-more-97426

Observer March 4th 02 PPC plans - https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/march-4-2002-observer-newsletter-pride-goes-head-head-wwa-97455

Observer April 8th 02 PPV mention - https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/april-8-2002-observer-newsletter-wwf-business-year-review-more-97470

Observer April 22nd 02 - Press conference https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/april-22-2002-observer-newsletter-relationship-between-wrestling-and

Observer Aug 12th 02 - Hogan out https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-12-2002-observer-newsletter-messiah-victim-home-invasion-attack

Observer August 26th 02 Show report - https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-26-2002-observer-newsletter-hall-fame-preview-tons-news-97528

ECW's most unlikely champion: Mikey Whipwreck

In ECW's history there are only three men who held all three main championships, the Television, Tag and World titles. The second and third are names most would likely guess, Sabu and Taz. You could also claim that Rob Van Dam is the fourth, but he won his World title under the WWE branded version, which went very well. This video is about none of these men, rather the first to achieve this honour, and for reasons I'll get to the most unlikely of the four, Mikey Whipwreck. This video was originally going to be about one of Mikey's title wins, but the more I watched of him, the more I wanted to explore how he became ECW's most unlikely success stories.

In the WWE's Rise and Fall of ECW documentary, Paul Heyman introduced Mikey as a member of the ring crew who showed some promise. "These kids worked on the ring crew for free as long as they could fly around the ring a little bit and just be noticed." Speaking on how they spotted Mikey in particular Paul said "he would take a bump and he had such sympathy." From here Mikey would be trained and would wrestle his first televised match in January '94, a tag team loss to Kevin Sullivan and the Tazmanic, who would go on to be Taz. Mikey would become a massively popular underdog with Paul noting that "the one key was we never once gave him an offensive manoeuvre."

If you're wondering like I did where the name Mikey Whipwreck comes from, Mikey himself said in an interview with Pro Wrestling Post that Heyman named him after a promoter from Maryland called Dennis Whipwreck. "What Paul was doing in ECW at the time was, he was taking some of the job guys, taking a name and twisting it around a little bit..." "... I guess Paul was taking jabs at local promoters." There is after all a history of enhancement talent being given gimmick names, sometimes even taking shots at others in the business such as famed WCW wrestler Randy Hogan. In the same interview Mikey elaborates on what Heyman said in the WWE documentary. Mikey was training already with a friend who went by the name Stormin' Norman, under WWE enhancement wrestler Sonny Blaze, but he never saw himself getting far in wrestling. "I was 5  foot 8 or 9 inches tall, and maybe 155 pounds. There was no chance in hell of someone my size doing anything in the business. He was charging (sic) me to wrestle if I cleaned the gym and things like that." Mikey goes on so explain that this would end up being his way into professional wrestling. "ECW wanted to rent Sonny's ring, and I was pretty much the guy, so I went and we'd set up."

What's interesting though is that both Mikey and Paul tell similar stories about Whipwreck being allowed to work in the ring once he had set it up, but the two accounts diverge from here. Paul tells the story of noticing a guy who showed that he could sell and draw sympathy even in practice without a crowd, but Mikey tells it very differently. "As soon as the ring was up, he and I (referring to Norman), would do high spots to test the ring that the ropes are good, and there weren't any bumps anywhere or overlapping pads, things like that. I guess Joey Styles and Paul Heyman noticed me and asked me do you want to wrestle?" Mikey is also known for his rather unique ring gear. The biker shorts he claimed were borrowed from other wrestlers, initially at least, while his tennis shoes were all he had at the time. The oversized dragon shirt that would go on to inspire his look he says just happened to be in his bag, noting "It was very much spur of the moment."

Television championship

Mikey would begin his ECW career with a five month losing streak, eventually winning a few matches by DQ. His first real win came on May 17th '94, where he wouldn't just defeat Pitbull #1 Gary Wolfe, but he would beat him for the ECW television title. Late in the match Wolfe hits a powerbomb on Mikey, clearly about to retain his title, when the Tazmaniac hits the apron. Pitbull launches himself at Taz only to get himself tangled in the ropes. From Wolfe's selling he rolls back into the ring having appeared to have low blowed himself on the rope. Commentator Jay Sulli tells us that if a worthy opponent were in there they would be able to take advantage of this. Seconds later Mikey rolls over barely covering Wolfe, and the referee counts three, in what is portrayed as very much an accidental victory for Whipwreck. Regardless the ECW fans went wild as Mikey was awarded the TV championship.

The very next week's episode of ECW would begin with Mikey defending his newly won title against Kevin Sullivan. This fairly short match largely consists of Sullivan beating up Mikey, very quickly throwing him into the crowd and lobbing chairs at him. When the match finally gets in the ring, Kevin hangs Mikey upside down in the corner and repeatedly charged into him with his knees. The third time he tries this, somehow the referee wanders in front and Sullivan knocks him down, causing Mikey to win the match by DQ. In this entire match, Mikey does not land so much as a single punch on the way to his dubious victory.

Over the next several weeks Mikey would continue to just barely hold on to his championship in the unlikeliest of ways. He would beat Pitbull Gary Wolfe again when Wolfe refuses to let go of his full nelson, thus allowing Mikey to win by DQ. Next he would beat the returning Anthony Durante, more famously known as Pitbull #2, who hadn't been in ECW since 1992. Mikey would slap their manager Jason off the apron, enraging Wolfe, who enters the ring and both Pitbulls attack Mikey, leading to another DQ win.

After this Mikey would defeat The Sandman, again by DQ when Tommy Cairo who Sandman was feuding with would attack both men with a cane. The referee sees Cairo hit Mikey first, and so yet again Mikey retains by DQ. If you're keeping count this is the fourth sort of successful title defence of you can call it that, but surely Mikey's luck would run out soon. On the following weeks episode Sandman would get a rematch, This would come to a short end after Mikey on the outside would accidentally bump into Woman, the Sandman's manager, and she would enter the ring and hit him with a cane repeatedly. Several wrestlers would attempt to save Mikey as Sandman goes off with the cane, but they all get floored. Finally Tommy Dreamer would come to the rescue, whose own history with the Sandman and canes is a whole other story.

In his next match Mikey would defeat Stevie Richards, and though this time it looked like Mikey would win by pinfall, Jason Knight would run in and attack him giving Mikey another DQ win. This would lead to Mikey's next defence against Jason at Hardcore Heaven.

Forgive me for making an irrelevant side note, but while watching this match I couldn't help noticing that despite this match taking place in Gilbertsville Pennsylvania, the ring mat displayed the logo of the famous New York night club Studio 54. In Paul Heyman's 2014 WWE documentary he talks about how he had worked as a photographer and promoter there in the 80's, even hosting a wrestling themed event on August 23rd 1985 using the contacts he had made. The event featured the presentation of a 'man of the year' award to Ric Flair, an honor Heyman made up to get him to attend, as well as the pro wrestling debut of one of Paul's future ECW World champions, Bam Bam Bigelow.

At Hardcore Heaven Mikey would finally lose the Television title to Jason Knight, where a stipulation was added that the match couldn't end in disqualification. This quickly becomes Mikey's best effort yet, as he quickly strings together a cross body, an atomic drop, a dropkick, a hip toss, an arm drag, a body slam and ends with a second drop kick while the crowd gets louder and louder. After weeks and weeks of seeing Mikey getting beaten up mercilessly, this felt like an earned moment where the ECW fans show their support for Mikey. While this is certainly a high point, the end of the match would create much confusion. Mikey would swing a chair, missing Jason but clocking the referee, after then hitting Jason Mikey would pin him, and the ref would slowly crawl over and count three. While Mikey is celebrating the Pitbulls attack him, and pull Jason on top, and the referee counts three again, awarding the match and title to Jason. The story they were trying to tell is that the referee was groggy and didn't recall counting the first fall, and didn't call for the bell, but this just looked like a botch of some kind. Regardless, Mikey would move in to a very unlikely chapter in his career in his very next match.

Tag Team Championship

Over the years wrestling has seen many a tag team made up of two people you couldn't imagine co-existing in the same room together, let alone the wrestling ring. Some have even become champions, with two famous examples being Team Hell No, or a bit further back Goldust and Booker T. In both of those examples the members would eventually end up a unified team, but what happens when one half seemingly has no control over the situation he finds himself in? 

On August 27th 1994, ECW tag team champions the Public Enemy were scheduled to defend their titles against Cactus Jack and Terry Funk, but Terry apparently didn't make it to the event, with Joey Styles claiming that Funk had had "plane trouble". This left Cactus with a big problem, who would he be able to find as a replacement partner?

It's also worth noting that following this match Shane Douglas in the main event would win the NWA World championship, and throw it to the ground post match. The tag title match would air on television on the following week though, which would be the first official episode of the newly renamed Extreme Championship Wrestling. For more details on this I have video about Shane's actions that night on this channel. Eastern Championship Wrestling before this had been crossing the line for a fair while. For example at Heat wave '94 one month previously, The Public Enemy achieved maybe their biggest victory ever, defeating Terry and Dory Funk, both former NWA World champions, in a barbed wire rope match. This match actually predates the more famous Funk vs Sabu barbed wire match which happened in 1997. Around this time in 94 at Hardcore Heaven was the infamous night where Terry Funk while in a match against Cactus Jack, requested that a fan throw him a chair. He got a lot more than a chair, as the ECW arena fans threw a barrage of chairs into the ring. This became one of the most iconic clips of ECW footage ever.

On the September 6th '94 episode of Hardcore TV where the match aired, we join in progress the Public Enemy beating down Tommy Dreamer, as Joey Styles explains that they are doing this to prevent Dreamer from being the replacement partner. We are told that Cactus, who came out to check on Tommy was challenged by Public Enemy to go and find a replacement for later in the night. As we wait to find out who will walk out through the curtain Joey Styles asks us, "which world class athlete? Which former World champion? Which legend? Which tough guy will Cactus pick as his partner?" As it turns out, Cactus would pick none of these, a very unlikely partner to say the least. Cactus would emerge through the curtain presumably grabbing the first wrestler he saw backstage, a very reluctant Mikey Whipwreck, who is actively resisting Jack pulling him towards ringside. Mikey even almost escapes at one point, making it clear he does not want to fight the Public Enemy, and Cactus has to throw him into 

Getting back to August 27th '94, even as Mikey is introduced by ring announcer Bob Artese, he has a look on his face like he'd rather be anywhere else in the world. Despite this Cactus would insist that Mikey starts the match, but as soon as Rocco Rock approaches him Mikey tries to dive out of the ring, only for Cactus to catch him. He again begs Cactus, who shows some remorse and tags in to start the match, this allows Mikey to make his escape, but Cactus in pursuit of him gets attacked by Public Enemy. Not knowing what is coming you might be forgiven for thinking this serves Foley right for picking the wrong partner, but moments later Mikey returns with a weapon, and the crowd loves him for it. From here the match finally starts, and as you can imagine, it's no technical classic. Cactus would use Mikey as a battering ram, maybe the most offence Mikey was a part of, a sort of part of. What follows next is several minutes of Public Enemy beating down Whipwreck, who kicks out of everything they have, including piledrivers. In the end Cactus would create a distraction by knocking Rocco off the top rope, and Mikey would roll hi up for the shock victory. Not only did Cactus and Whipwreck win the tag titles, but they overcame the odds to do it.

What really made Mikey and Cactus winning the ECW tag titles memorable wasn't the matches themselves, it was the promos that really built the character of Mikey Whipwreck. In the next segment post the two winning the tag titles, Cactus essentially interviews Mikey, who noted that he promised his mother that he wouldn't win another championship because quote, "Cos' she's scared I'm going to end up like you." In response Foley points out that he could have picked anyone as his partner, but he chose Mikey because he saw himself in the young Whipwreck. Quote, "you got into the world of professional wrestling the dirty way, you set up rings and who broke you in a man named Sonny Blaze and I ask you this. Who broke in Sonny Blaze? Cactus Jack did!" I won't recite the whole promo because I'm obviously nowhere near as good as Mick Foley, but he did his best to both gas up and frighten Mikey, and it is clear that this would be a hell of a ride.

Over the next several weeks of ECW television, Cactus would continue to alert Mikey to the fact that the Public Enemy was out for their blood, and Mikey would attempt to run away several more times, making him feel like more of a hostage than an ECW champion. On the September 20th episode Cactus goes into a long rant about how he's faced many wrestlers who were angry at him, listing Sting and Abdullah the Butcher among others, and claims they all left a scar on him that he wears with pride. This is somehow supposed to inspire Mikey, but only further intimidates him. I'll not recap each one week by week, as by the third one it became clear to me that they were all filmed at the same taping and are mostly Cactus rewording the same points. In one particularly famous promo, Cactus would ask Mikey what all of this means, to which Mikey would timidly respond "it means I'm gonna die." Rather than caring for him, the unhinged Cactus Jack would yell at us that "he likes it, Mikey really likes it!" From the look on Mikey's face, he really doesn't like it.

On Mick's podcast, Foley is Pod, he was asked about his dynamic when teaming with Mikey. Foley said "I loved it because he took such great bumps. He had sympathy with the fans and this was generally speaking a pretty unsympathetic group of die hard fans." He then calls their time together a "big brother type of relationship", noting that Mikey would sometimes stay the night on his way home after ECW cards.

Cactus and Mikey's tag title reign would be fairly short lived, only defending the titles once on television against Dean Malenko and Jason Knight. At November to Remember 1994 the duo would lose the belts back to the Public Enemy. This match had a fairly unique stipulation to it, where the baseball bats that Public Enemy carried to the ring weren't legal to use unless a member of the other team had failed to meet a ten count, like a last man standing match, but the winners would be determined by pin. Whether these unusual rules have a purpose or not, another unusual thing was that while Mikey was clearly hesitant, he actually chose to start the match off for his team. Perhaps the words of Cactus Jack had been giving some encouragement after all?

While Cactus and Mikey fair well to start with, the match takes a turn when Cactus gets powder thrown in his eye, leading to him accidentally hitting a DDT on Mikey, that he does not beat the ten count from. By the time Cactus realises what happened he tries to pick Mikey up but it is too late, and now Public Enemy are allowed to use the bats. There's a strange bit of interference from Sabu, who Joey styles explains got offended at Rocco Rock attempting to use a table, pushing him through it off a platform on the grounds that it's Sabu's gimmick. He's nowhere to be seen a few minutes later when Cactus does the same thing to Johnny Grunge though.

Once the action gets back to the ring the baseball bat would come into play again, as Johnny Grunge would use it on Mikey to get the pin, and reclaim the tag team titles. While Mikey and Cactus' reign wasn't the most special from an in ring perspective, it's clear that the Mikey Whipwreck that actively ran away from the Public Enemy just a few months earlier was gone, and he would move on to even bigger things in 1995.

ECW Championship

From here on Mikey Whipwreck's career would only gain more accolades. He would have a second tag title run with Cactus Jack and a very short second TV title reign, but before those on the October 31st 1995 episode of Hardcore TV, Mikey would challenge the Sandman to a ladder match for the ECW World championship.

At the start of this episode Joey Styles makes it clear that this won't be like other ladder matches where the belt is suspended above the ring, rather the match will end by pinfall quote "the way championships should be won". Whether this is a dig at something WWE or WCW had done around this time I'm not sure, but I'm betting it was. Halfway through the episode we see Mikey in the pitch black with his former foes, the Public Enemy. We're told that they are in Central Park but we have no way of knowing that, as Public Enemy try to motivate Mikey ahead of his match with Sandman. As Rocco leaves for supplies this devolves into a comedy sketch, where Johnny Grunge has Mikey dashing up a ladder to retrieve beers for him. I should point out here that this episode in particular has a lot of comedy in it. The show opens with the infamous Steve Austin "Monday Nyquil" skit, where Austin parody's Eric Bischoff and WCW Nitro in general in a rather unhinged and hilarious rant that I'm definitely getting into more detail about in a future video. We also are introduced to a bizarre segment called 'extreme encyclopedia', consisting of the screens you are seeing right now set to classical music.

After this training montage of sorts, we cut to the Sandman making his entrance, with Woman holding on to the ECW gold. Given that the last match I talked about in this video was almost a year ago, it shouldn't be surprising that we see a very different Mikey Whipwreck than the man who against his will teamed with Cactus Jack and seemingly by pure luck held on to the television title. This is a Mikey with a little more confidence about him. The Sandman doesn't care though, flicking his cigarette at him while perched on top of the ladder. Once again Joey Styles notes that the title belt won't be hanging from the ring, and here it dawned on me that it would be a lot harder for Mikey to fluke into a win where he had to climb the ladder and grab the belt, than what actually happens.

Before the match can begin we get an entrance from the extreme superstar, Steve Austin, who climbs the ladder and cuts a scathing promo on all in the ring, and challenges the winner. On his way out of the ECW arena, he carries Woman away, so she can't get involved in the match. Thought Mikey does get to use the ladder as a weapon early on, this match is mostly all Sandman on the attack. He brutally slams Mikey onto the ladder, and later props him up on the ladder and hits a leg drop off it. A fan hands Mikey a chair which allows him to come back. Sandman then does an insane move where he leaps from the ring to the floor catapulting the ladder which is propped over the guard rail into Mikey, who is in the crowd. If you've ever seen the infamous ladder match Sandman had with Sabu, we're reaching those levels of recklessness.

Back in the ring Mikey manages to use the ladder again, twice throwing it right at Sandman's forehead which looked brutal. Mikey hits a splash into the ladder laid on Sandman, and actually gets a three count. Joey Styles asks us "Do you believe in miracles?" as the man who was afraid of his own shadow not that long ago becomes only the third champion since the company became Extreme Championship Wrestling, joining Sandman and Shane Douglas.

In non televised events Mikey would make two defences of the ECW World title, one being a rematch with the Sandman, and the other being against Jason Knight, the man who had taken the TV title off him. At 1995's November to Remember which aired on TV on November 21st but was taped after Mikey following match, Mikey would have the match many probably know him for, but less might have actually seen, as he would defend the ECW World title against Steve Austin.

The match was actually scheduled to be the Sandman getting another rematch against Mikey, but he would be brutally attacked in the entrance way by Austin, causing the match to be changed. As Sandman is taken away by EMT's, Mikey comes out to accept the challenge laid out by Austin. As Mikey walks to the ring Joey Styles lists all of Austin's WCW accomplishments, noting that a world title has so far alluded him, which a weird thing to hear all these years and several WWE championships later. Austin ends his promo on Mikey with a pretty epic line, "My name is Steve Austin, and tonight for a very very short while, your name is Eric Bischoff." Honestly Steve Austin's time in ECW is worthy of it's own deep dive in another video, but for now I'll point out that eight years later Austin would finally get his hands on Eric in the ring at No Way Out 2003, but for now he would have to settle for taking his frustrations out on Mikey Whipwreck.

In what felt like a rerun of Mikey's TV title days, Steve Austin would beat on the champion mercilessly, even at one point mocking one of his targets in WCW Hollywood Hogan, hitting a big boot and leg drop, with Joey Styles noting that stuff doesn't work here. Mikey would try to fight back, but Austin would hit his finisher before the Stunner, known as the stun gun, where he would drop his opponent across the top rope. Mikey would, shockingly, kick out of this move. In my near twenty five years of watching wrestling I don't believe I've ever seen this anywhere else, but Mikey would actually pin Steve Austin with of all moves, a sunset flip. Granted he had was pulling on Austin's tights so much even ECW had to pixilate parts of him, but a win is a win, and Mikey forever has one over the Extreme Superstar. Austin would attack Mikey post match, and the story between then wouldn't end here, but this likely remains the trivia note that most people know about Mikey Whipwreck.

On the following week's Hardcore TV, Mikey would defend his World title again, this time against of all people, Rey Mysterio Jr., who was nearing the end of him time in ECW. Sadly they only presented this match in clip form, but the made it look like a belter of a match, with Mikey getting a fair amount of offence in a match where he uniquely has the size advantage. Mikey would win with a magistral cradle, and the two show respect to each other post match.

On the December 12th episode of Hardcore TV, Mikey's world title reign would come to an end, as he would face Sandman and Steve Austin in what they called a Triangle match. The match starts with Steve and Mikey, with Austin noticeably taking the champion much more seriously. The two have a very sporting wrestling match until Mikey attempts another sunset flip, and the Sandman's music hits. While there are several minutes of Steve Austin and Sandman going at each other in the closest thing they ever had to a singles match, Mikey would also get a lot more in than I've seen in any other match for this video. In ECW three way tradition, Mikey would be eliminated first by Steve Austin following a Stun Gun, guaranteeing a new champion who would end up being the Sandman. Mikey's triple crown would end here, but what a journey we covered from a man who couldn't get a punch in, to an ECW world champion fighting on the same level as future legends of wrestling.

Mikey's career

What of the rest of Mikey Whipwreck's career? Briefly, as I'm aware this video is getting pretty long. In '99 Mikey would join WCW, and have a not that great run, but to be fair not many people did in '99 WCW. He would debut in what fans at the time called one of the better matches of the Uncensored pay per view on March 14th, where he would lose to WCW Cruiserweight champion Billy Kidman. Throughout the year he would wrestle twelve more matches, losing all but two, and they were for lower than B level shows Worldwide and Saturday Night. Wrestling his final WCW match in August, he would be back in ECW by October, where he would stay until the end of the promotion.

Upon his return he would form a tag team with Yoshihiro Tajiri known as the Unholy alliance led by the Sinister Minister, known more today as Father James Mitchell from TNA, and that weird NWA white powder incident. He continued to work the indies after ECW closed, and would later find new footing as a trainer. Some of the wrestlers he has been credited for training include but aren't limited to former Ring Of Honor World champion Jay Lethal, Matt Cardona formerly known as Zack Ryder, and WWE and AEW wrestler Trent Beretta. In a 2018 interview with Wrestling Inc, Mikey noted that he turned down one of the more notable of the many of the ECW tribute shows and reunions, TNA's Hardcore Justice event. He elaborated on how he felt that One Night Stand was authentic because it was held in an ECW building and Paul was there, but TNA's later attempts didn't feel right. He did however work Shane Douglas' initial Hardcore Homecoming event that was created to counter WWE's One Night Stand pay per view, but he didn't wrestle on any of the follow up events.

In that same interview Mikey claims that he also turned down a job as a trainer for NXT around 2018, arguably during their peak years. Mikey notes that he declined he offer because he didn't want to move his family down to Florida for fear of being fired and ending up unemployed in a new home, but he would have accepted guest trainer spots, which NXT also does from time to time. Incidentally this exact situation would happen to Alison Danger, a former wrestler who is the sister of ECW alumni and current WWE employee Steve Corino. On January 5th 2022, having uprooted her family from Las Vegas to move to Florida, WWE released her on the day she was picking up her children for their first day at their new school. In her own words on Rene Paquette's podcast, "I feel like I got brought to Florida and left to die". Still, stand up for WWE, eh?

In 2021, Mikey announced that he would be backing away from making public appearances, citing his family even noting "I've had enough of my kids crying when I pack a bag." He then further explained issues he was having mentally, including quote, crippling social anxiety, hearing loss, confusion, mood swings and problems getting his words out. Mikey goes on to note that he through his career suffered fourteen concussions that he's aware of noting that they may be the cause of these issues, and praises his wife and children.

As of me making this video, Mikey is still a semi-active professional wrestler, with his latest match being for New York Wrestling Connection on January 20th 2024, a promotion he's had history with since 2003. On January 3rd of this year, Mikey on twitter posted a sobering account of his experiences with post concussion syndrome, describing his aliment as "feeling like my brain is underwater. Combined with the near constant headache behind my eyes, it means a day of wishing shit was over on and off all day. Lifetime of post concussion syndrome makes for a lovely existence."

I hope you'll forgive me for changing the tone, but I originally set out to make this video about a fun story in ECW history, but my further research led me to a different ending. It starkly reminded me of the lengths wrestlers go to entertain us, and I feel like we need that reminder from time to time. When Mikey tweeted about his current issues he received a barrage of well wishes from fans which brings some relief. I want to end this video by wishing all the best to Mikey, and I hope you do too.

Sources:

Intro clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SZ0vuNY0Fg

- Rise and fall of ECW - Heyman on Whipwreck origin 19 mins https://network.wwe.com/video/83241

- Mikey Interview https://prowrestlingpost.com/former-ecw-star-mikey-whipwreck-talks-training-preparation-and-life-after-wrestling/

- ECW Hardcore TV May 17th 1994 (Whipwreck wins TV title) https://network.wwe.com/video/73708?seasonId=15447

- ECW Hardcore TV May 24th 1994 (Whipwreck vs Sullivan) https://network.wwe.com/video/73707?seasonId=15447

- ECW Hardcore TV June 21st 1994 (Whipwreck vs Pitbull #1 rematch). https://network.wwe.com/video/73738?seasonId=15447

- ECW Hardcore TV July 5th 1994 (Mikey vs Pitbull #2 https://network.wwe.com/video/73579?seasonId=15447

- ECW Hardcore TV July 12th 1994 (Mikey vs Sandman) https://network.wwe.com/video/73438?seasonId=15447

- ECW Hardcore TV July 19th 1994 (Sandman rematch) https://network.wwe.com/video/73561?seasonId=15447

- ECW Hardcore TV August 2nd 1994 (Mikey vs Steve Richards) https://network.wwe.com/video/73740?seasonId=15447

- Hardcore Heaven 1994 August 13th 1994 (Mikey vs Jason & Funk and the chairs) https://network.wwe.com/video/90167

- Heat Wave 1994 (Funks vs Public Enemy https://network.wwe.com/video/126160

- ECW Hardcore TV Sept 6th 1994 (Public Enemy vs Cactus and Whipwreck) https://network.wwe.com/video/73554?seasonId=15447

- ECW Hardcore TV September 20th 1994 (Cactus 'scars' Promo) https://network.wwe.com/video/73448?seasonId=15447

- November to Remember 1994 (Cactus and Mikey lose) https://network.wwe.com/video/86594

- Foley is Pod comments about Mikey Whipwreck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqAAeM7FPII

- ECW Hardcore TV October 31st 1995 (Mikey vs Sandman World title) https://network.wwe.com/video/73458?seasonId=15448

- ECW November to Remember 1995 (Mikey vs Steve Austin) https://network.wwe.com/video/73459?seasonId=15448 (air date Nov 21st 95)

- ECW Hardcore TV  November 28th 1995 (Mikey vs Rey) https://network.wwe.com/video/73815?seasonId=15448

- ECW Hardcore TV December 12th (Mikey vs Austin vs Sandman)  https://network.wwe.com/video/73770?seasonId=15448

- Wrestling inc 2018 - turning down NXT trainer job https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2018/07/mikey-whipwreck-talks-declining-wwe-nxt-trainer-job-642932/

- Alison Danger interview - https://www.cagesideseats.com/wwe/2022/7/7/23198996/allison-danger-cathy-corino-wwe-release-reaction-nxt-coach-split-family-uprooted-school-fired-cost

- Metro article 2021 https://metro.co.uk/2021/05/27/ecw-mikey-whipwreck-battles-hearing-loss-social-anxiety-weight-gain-14661647/

Jan 2024 tweet about Post concussion syndrome: https://twitter.com/MikeyWhipwreck_/status/1742526313238245412

Cody, The Rock and Roman Reigns. A measured response.

All weekend following the February 2nd episode of Smackdown, my entire twitter timeline was filled with blocks of text from people raging about the same thing. The final segment of the show, where Cody seemingly gave up his Wrestlemania main event to The Rock. Keyword there, seemingly, as all we have to go off right now is that one segment.

At first, with less of a connection to Roman Reign's reign than most, I found the anger and attempts to retcon the situation quite amusing, but the more I thought about it, the more I related to the sentiments behind these tweets. A few weeks ago when the Rock alluded to the head of the table people seemed to be behind him, but then Cody won the Rumble. I'll get to why timing is important in a bit.

To be fair to all the people involved, the segment didn't exactly help the matter in the way it was produced and presented to us on screen. In a segment which by the way seemed to consist of more entrance time between the Romantaker, Cody and the Rock, than actual dialogue, what we were presented with was not a whole lot of detail. From the looks of things, Cody was on his way to Wrestlemania, actually pointing at Roman upon winning the match, and because he sought council, he is surrendering his shot at Roman. The Rock saying nothing didn't help this. The implication that was created by the Rock was that the sign that you're all pointing at, thats his now.

A lot of people really took against Roman burying Seth Rollins and the World title. The shots at Seth himself I took to be a reaction to all the times Seth has swiped at Roman in promos. I get the sense that those two will continue not to like each other and trade reminders of that in promos until they one day find themselves in the same ring again. His comments about the belt I'll concede were a bit misguided. He was saying the quiet part out loud, the part we all kind of knew but WWE shouldn't admit to, that being that many of the wrestlers who compete for that title have already lost to Roman for his. WWE by allowing these comments to air shot themselves in the foot, because at this point it feels likely that Cody's Wrestlemania match will be against Seth Rollins for that belt. The belt that Roman labelled as inferior.  There's a long standing rule in wrestling when doing a promo for a match, that you shouldn't disrespect your opponent's talent or skill too much, because when you eventually beat them, the perception becomes that you beat someone who was already beneath you, and so it means less. That logic can be applied here, and the World title in the end looks like a consolation prize, rather than an alternate but just as credible path. You could argue that of course Roman would have that opinion, and he would, but maybe it didn't need to be said here.

What really made me care enough to comment on it was when I got to thinking about Cody's journey as a whole. When he first held a microphone upon his WWE return nearly two years ago, he told us that he was back because his Dad had failed to become WWE Champion, and his goal was to win it for his family name. You can actually take this back long before this promo, or even before AEW, as for years Cody has for years kept the mantra "wrestling has more than one royal family." Cody even chased and won the NWA World title, a belt his Dad did win, and so it felt appropriate that his next goal should be to chase the title that elluded Dusty.

A key motivation for Cody as a character has been for years to elevate the Rhodes name so it is undeniably on par with the other famous wrestling families that fans think of first like the Harts, and the Anoai's for example. He considers his heritage to be a 'royal family' of wrestling, and wants everyone else to as well. How fitting it was given this context that Cody would win the 2023 Royal Rumble and earn a shot at not just any WWE champion, but the Anoai family's Tribal chief. As we know though, Cody wouldn't finish the story. There was very much a sense of disappointment following that match. A bitter taste for many who thought it was Cody's time.

Cody even won the Royal Rumble for a second time back to back. He was the the fourth ever person to do this since the late 90's when Stone Cold won the 97 and 98 rumbles. Shawn Michaels won in 95 and 96, and Hogan won in 90 and 91. Thats a special group to be part of which probably further convinced fans that he was finally going to be on the level of WWE's elite. See what I did there... 

All of that led to was fans becoming utterly convinced that Cody would come back and achieve his dream at Wrestlemania 40. WWE has in a sense whether meaning to or not trained it's viewers to think like that. If we wait long enough, the thing we want will always happen in the end. Wrestlemania 30 was such a feel good moment because of all the bumps in the road Daniel Bryan had to go through, dating back two Summerslam's previous where he beat John Cena and was immediately cashed in on. Ultimately, this is like chasing a carrot on the end of a stick.

Let's look at it from the other side though, because it's not like the Rock did this out of nowhere and without a reason of his own. It's important to note that even though it felt like the Rock walked into Smackdown and planted his flag and screw everyone else, that's not quite accurate. From way back in the Thunderdome days, back when the Bloodline story started with Roman and Jey Uso in late 2020, the seed for this was planted. From the very first time Roman called himself the head of the table, people were connecting the dots. Many of us were convinced that one day the Rock would come back to reclaim his spot at that table, I even made a video early last year about how convinced I was of that ahead of Wrestlemania 39, but the longer it took the less likely it felt.

The main defence that fans of the Rock seems to be using most is his immense star power that even stretches outside wrestling itself. That is, frankly hard to deny, and really boils down where the tension really is.  WWE have created a really interesting problem for themselves, where they actively have to choose between two most narratively fulfilling stories, with one serving your active fan base who are there every week and the other having the most mainstream appeal. Essentially, finishing the story or whats best for business. This has also led to fans having debates on which they should care about more. Thats what makes this such a tough problem to solve, and they're inevitably going to piss people off by the way they have done this so far.

As I said at the start, initially I wasn't all that bothered when I saw the Rock appear on Smackdown, but the more I thought about it the more I sided with Cody. Not enough to be angry about it, but enough to want to offer a response. When the Rock hinted at this path we're on now a few weeks ago nobody seemed to be raging against WWE like they are now. The key to that might be that Cody hadn't yet won the Royal Rumble. The problem, is that these two well laid paths are converging at the same time and place. Either one would make a great story well told, but sadly the way things are going, one cancels out the other, at least in the short term. In the end I'd urge people to, and I know people are sick of hearing this, but let it play out.

It's not impossible that WWE might renege on their plans as a response to the backlash, but it is WWE, so not likely. It's also possible that on this weeks Raw, or even the press event later this week or Smackdown, they could even find away to assuage fans. It could also be interesting to see how the fans in the areas react going forwards, as twitter is not always representative of wrestling fandom as a whole, at least I hope not. Where WWE goes next is ultimately up to them, and they're not really ones to back down from their plans.