Tag Archives: Pro Wrestling

WWE Unreal Season 3

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I binged the third season of the WWE Unreal program on Netflix today. Five episodes that follow the WWE storylines behind the scenes, providing the viewer with a different look at their favorite WWE superstars.

The third season started off with the John Cena retirement tour, where Cena had announced he would have so many more dates with the WWE and then he would be retired, over the entire calendar year of 2025. It looked at many of the matches that Cena had during this run, specifically his match with CM Punk, AJ Styles and Logan Paul.

The five episodes featured several of the main wrestlers in background detail and stories that led them to where they were. The main superstars, besides John Cena, that had time allotted to them were CM Punk & AJ Lee, Liv Morgan, Oba Femi, Trick Williams, Seth Rollins, Bron Breakker, and Stephanie Vaquer.

There were other WWE stars appearing, but these are the ones that stood out as characters they were following. One exception was when they went to Chelsea Green’s fully build house, which they had shown in process of being build in season two. We got to see Matt Cardona (her husband) and his toy collection.

There are a lot of good moments that the docuseries provided. Probably the most impactful was the relationship with CM Punk and his wife AJ Lee (aka April), and the dog Larry that was their longtime pet. Larry passed away during this time frame and the pain and grief were so apparent on CM Punk’s face and in his words that it was truly the deepest and most emotional moment of the entire five episodes.

I do think that there are things that could have been covered more that were either brushed over or ignored. John Cena’s heel turn was addressed, but I do not think that they went into a lot of specifics about how it did not work. They touched on it, but it was otherwise ignored.

Another one was Brock Lesnar’s retirement after the Wrestlemania match with Oba Femi. That was something that was not even mentioned, and I would have liked to have seen how the backstage reaction was to that. I understand that Lesnar was not one of the focused characters for the series, but I can’t believe that that incredible moment was not covered.

There was a fascinating section dealing with injuries and how they can blow up creative plans. Seth Rollins, Bron Breakker, and Bronson Reed were all injured within a short time span of each other and seeing how that caused creative to flip around was interesting. My favorite moments were still going inside the writers’ room, and I would have like more of that.

The whole Pat McAfee controversy with the Cody Rhodes-Randy Orton title match at Wrestlemania was skirted around and it sure seemed like everyone involved was happy about it, but that clearly was not the case. There should have been a deep dive into this.

Still, I enjoyed the docuseries quite a bit, and every time the show focused on CM Punk, the show really soared.

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #72

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Hulk Hogan: Real American

“Hulk vs. Terry”

The final episode of the docu-series on Hulk Hogan was today’s Sunday Morning Sidewalk entry, which was an episode that featured the controversial life of Terry Bollea, after the Wrestlemania classic with the Rock until his funeral in 2025.

I have been talking about the negative points of Hulk Hogan during these Sunday Morning Sidewalk write-ups and how the documentary has brushed over some of them, giving the surface treatment for it. This episode did bring up and look at a lot more of the negativity of Hogan than some of the other ones. However, the biggest thing that they brushed over was the racism tag that followed Hogan over the last few years of his life.

They mention the sex tape, and they do mention the racist slurs that Hogan was recorded saying during the sex tape, but they do not go into great detail about how those words and his overall opinions shaped the thoughts of a lot of wrestling fans. They treat it like a mistake and one that he regretted.

They showed the infamous Netflix debut where Hogan go booed out of the building in LA, and they linked it heavily to the political connection to Donald Trump. While that certainly played a role in that incident, the truth is Hogan’s brand had been more damaged by the racist remarks than his support of Trump. The Undertaker is a well-known Trump supporter, but he has never received the treatment Hogan did from the fans.

They covered the Hogan Knows Best reality show and dealt with Hogan’s marriage falling apart and his cheating on Linda. They do not mention the accident that Nick Hogan was involved with that injured his friend.

They spent a lot of time on how Hogan’s body was breaking down and mentioning his multiple back surgeries, which was a horrific amount. Some of the images they showed of Hogan was tough with the scars on his back from the operations.

Many of the actual one-on-one interviews with Hogan for this doc were well done and reflective of his time and his mistakes. The doc may have left out some important bits, but I thought the four episodes were fairly well done on the whole.

Next week, the Sunday Morning Sidewalk stays with Netflix as I start the Duffer Brothers’ new show, The Boroughs.

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #70

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Hulk Hogan: Real American

Episode 2: Hulkamania

The second episode of the Netflix documentary Hulk Hogan: Real American featured the time frame from when Hogan returned to the, at the time, WWF through his winning of the championship all the way to reclaiming the title from Sgt. Slaughter at Wrestlemania 7.

There was so much covered during this hour episode. In his career, it looked at Wrestlemania I, Wrestlemania III, Wrestlemania VI and VII. In his family, it looked at his marriage to Linda and the birth of his two children Brooke and Nick. All with Hogan doing voice overs and narration.

We got an interview from President Donald Trump speaking about what a great guy Hulk Hogan was.

Much like last week, the negative things about Hogan during these years (Richard Beltzer, Road Schedule, drug use) were addressed but just surface. There was interesting part about Hogan’s brother showing up, asking for money, only to wind up overdosing. There were some real emotions coming from Hogan in this section of the doc, but he did not want to go into depth on it either. It clearly still affected him even after this many years.

The doc seemed to go back to the time when everyone would bash the Ultimate Warrior. There was a time when the Warrior was back in the good graces of the WWE but the section on the Warrior and Wrestlemania VI felt more like the Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior, a WWE produced doc that bad mouthed Warrior the whole time.

Next week’s Sunday Morning Sidewalk sounded as if it was progressing into the negative time of the steroid trial. I am interested to see how this doc, which has been very heavily positive toward Hogan (even long time critics such as Jess Ventura and Bret Hart were recorded saying positive things about him), deals with this time of Hogan’s life.

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #69

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Hulk Hogan: Real American

“The Rise”

This week, I start the next Sunday Morning Sidewalk show on Netflix, the documentary featuring the professional wrestler Hulk Hogan.

Hulk Hogan: Real American started off with images from Hulk Hogan’s funeral. Imagine working on your documentary, with plenty of access to Hulk Hogan himself, and have the subject die. It certainly gives the documentary series a beginning and an end.

The first episode was about the rise of Hulk Hogan, from a kid growing up in Tampa, Florida to the arrival of the biggest star the industry of Pro Wrestling ever saw.

There were plenty of interviews during the doc from not only Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan’s real name), but also people he met and dealt with during the time such as Jerry Lawler, Bret Hart, Jimmy Hart, Brian Blair, and even Jesse Ventura.

The thing is that there was not much negative mentioned. They did not hear the negatives that you usually hear from Hart or Ventura about Hogan. They talked about him being green in the ring, which he clearly was. They mentioned Verna Gagne, but had no video of his opinion of Hogan.

The only negative was the time Vince McMahon Sr. fired Hogan for going to shoot Rocky III. The rest of this episode was basically the typical story of a wrestler making his way through the Indies to make it big.

They did make some references to some controversies surrounding Hogan, so I am interested to see exactly how they deal with the second part of his life. The early days are easy to show him as a “superhero” as his persona, but later on, things got tougher. Will they just touch on this or will this be a major aspect of the doc? I have my suspicions.

This was an intriguing start, but I want to see more in depth from this doc over the next three weeks.

WWE Wrestlemania 42 Weekend: Saturday Night

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Well, night one of WrestleMania 42 is in the books. It was a fine night, with some mixed responses online (but isn’t that always the case?). Here are my thoughts.

Bets Match of the night: Seth Rollins vs. Gunther. Hard hitting. Tense battle. Saw the return of Braun Breakker. Seth and Gunther proved that they could bring it even with a limited time for build.

Worst Match of the Night: Liv Morgan vs. Stephanie Vaquer. It was just too short. They needed another ten minutes of action to really sell this, and the ending with the Judgment Day and their “numbers advantage” is an old fallback to use in this big of a stage.

Best Moment: Return of Paige. Her return had been spoiled, but it did not damage the impact or the pop for the returning Diva.

Worst Moment: Too many commercials. Is this going to be the pay off for being on ESPN? Matches were too short and there were too many ads.

Best entrance: Cody Rhodes: Memories of the Past. His series of outfits led beautifully into the all gold one he came down to the ring in. Special shout out to Seth Rollins literal smoking jacket.

Worst entrance: Liv Morgan. Without a doubt the biggest, most cringe-worth moment was her lip synch of the new song she recorded. The dance moves were okay, but hard to listen to.

Match Order for me

  1. Gunther defeats Seth Rollins
  2. Cody Rhodes defeats Randy Orton- gets punted for his troubles
  3. Jacob Fatu defeats Drew McIntyre
  4. Paige and Brie Bella win Women’s Tag Team Championship
  5. Becky Lynch defeats AJ Lee
  6. The Usos and LA Knight defeats the Vision with iShow Speed.
  7. Liv Morgan defeats Stephanie Vaquer

Other standout moments

  • iShow Speed and his face turn, splashing Logan Paul through the announce table from the top of the post.
  • Randy Orton RKOs Pat McAfee after a failed pin attempt. Why didn’t Pat deliver a fast count?
  • Jelly Roll gave Pat an elbow drop through the announce table before main event gets started.
  • The Hall of Fame class is introduced. Sid Vicious’s kid is there despite the scathing post he put on X
  • Seth’s black contact lenses. They were cool.
  • Bianca Belair returned to announce that she was pregnant! Congrats to Bianca and Montez.
  • John Cena was solid in his two moments. Need Cena and Danhousen before Wrestlemania 42 is over.
  • The Danhousen blimp flying around Allegiant Stadium.

Other bad moments

  • Wonder Years performing Becky Lynch’s theme. Lip synch?
  • Too many commericals.
  • Matches too short
  • Crowd in Las Vegas was not great. They had their moments, but they were not consistently strong.

The second night card always looked stronger and I do think it will deliver at a higher level than night one. WWE really needs to drop the commercials and give their talent more time to shine.

Overall grade for Night one: B

WWE Unreal S2

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Last year’s Documentary of the Year at the EYG Year in Review was the first season of WWE Unreal on Netflix. Unreal season two just dropped the other day on the streaming service and it continues to be a fascinating show to watch.

One of the things that is most intriguing is how several of the big individuals featured on this show has specifically spoken out about how tough it is for them to deal with the idea of Unreal. Seth Rollins, CM Punk, Paul Heyman, Cody Rhodes have all spoken on how “old school” they were and how difficult it was for them as performers to accept the idea of Unreal. After years of protecting the secrets of the business, it comes as a hard thing for them to show so much from behind the curtain.

Yet, they were all right there, front and center during this five episode series.

The path from Wrestlemania to SummerSlam was winding, and that was the period of time this show followed. There was a major event that happened during that time… Seth Rollins blew out his knee on Saturday Night’s Main Event. Or did he?

Watching how this secret was worked behind the scenes, with few people actually being “smartened” up about it was amazing. The lengths that they went to in order to fool the world was tremendous. The long term storytelling of the work was next level and to hear the actual moment when it was brainstormed in a creative meeting was something that I did not expect to hear.

The words of Seth and his wife, Becky Lynch, punctuated the storyline. Becky telling how much she hated having to lie to everyone for months, and even confronting Triple H in the ring at one point, chastising him for making her lie, was so fabulous.

Becky Lynch was a definite star of this series. Her moments were engaging, entertaining and emotional. When she was telling the story about returning to the arena where he father had seen her before he died was very powerful.

I especially enjoy hearing the agents such as Michael Hayes, Chris Park, Shane Helms, Jason Jordan etc. and how they work a match backstage. This is one of the best parts of this series.

They also showed moments where the action in the ring did not go the way it was supposed to and we saw the aftermath: from LA Knight not executing the closing sequence in the Money in the Bank ladder match as it was planned to Lara Valkyria’s flubs during the no holds barred match with Becky at SummerSlam. It is a peak behind the curtain which can explain some questions. You may not have noticed anything wring with the ending of the MitB match, but you now can see perhaps why it has taken LA Knight a long time to reach the level the fans want him at.

The stories of Jelly Roll and his path to his first match, R-Truth and his subsequent release and return, Chelsea Green and her rise and fall of a US Champion, Naomi’s new character as a heel, Rhea Ripley and Iyo Sky, the arrival of Penta, among other stories that were highlighted here made this quite the variety.

They announced that Unreal will be coming back in the summer to do a set of episodes dealing with the last few months of John Cena’s career. Sounds great.

WWE Evolution (2025)

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It has been well known that the WWE has some of the greatest women wrestlers in the world today. I have sat watching RAW or Smackdown thinking about the sheer number of awesome female performers the company could put out.

They only solidified that by having their all-female PLE Evolution on Sunday night. They had done an all-women PPV (at the time) in 2018 and it was a fun night, but this was at such a level that some are claiming that it is the best show of 2025 so far for the WWE.

There were complaints about the build to the show as the WWE only had two weeks of build and nothing of real note had happened. The WWE was also building to Saturday Night’s Main Event, The Great American Bash and SummerSlam during this stretch so the time was limited.

It just goes to show how remarkable the women of the WWE truly are that they can put on arguably the best event of the year with little background.

Lots of credit goes to the Atlanta crowd because they were hot all night long and that is a key to having a great event.

Show kicked off with a triple threat match for the Intercontinental Championship with champion Becky Lynch defending against Bayley and Lyra Valkyria. It was the match that had the best story behind it and I had even heard some people say that this should main event the show. The three wrestlers had amazing chemistry with each other and it was a spectacular match. All three of them delivered and the first match on the card threatened to steal the night. Becky did this amazingly smooth roll-up finish that I had never seen before. It was so good.

NXT has claimed that they have the best Women’s division in all of wrestling, and they got a chance to show it with NXT Champion Jacy Jayne defending against Jordynn Grace. They had a banger of a match that ended with a heel turn from the newly arrived Blake Monroe. I saw that one coming from the pre-show, by the way. I smelled the heel turn.

The four way tag team title match saw the Judgement Day retain their titles against the Kabuki Warriors, Charlotte Flair & Alexa Bliss and Sol Ruca & Zaria. This was a lot of fun too. The Atlanta crowd was hot for Charlotte, even chanting “We Want Charlotte” at one point. That was amazing considering how hated Charlotte Flair had been since her return. It was a wonderful moment for sure.

This tag match also had one of my favorite sequences of the night as Sol was holding Alexa so Zaria could spear her only to wind up getting speared herself when Charlotte pulled Alexa away at the last moment. The timing on that was impeccable and it looked so great. I also loved how Charlotte held Alexa in the corner and mouthed “I got you” to Alexa even though their gimmick has been that they were not friends. The Charlotte and Alexa pairing has been sensational so far and has helped get Charlotte cheered.

Tiffany Stratton defended her WWE Women’s Championship against the Hall of Famer Trish Stratus in a solid match. Tris is almost 50 years old and she looks amazing. She still has it to as these two put on a really entertaining title match.

Anything went in the next match between Jade Cargill and Naomi. This feud had been going for months and this felt like a blow off. There were a bunch of cool spots in this match including the ending sequence of Jade putting Naomi through a table from a top rope Jaded. It looked great.

Battle Royal followed this and it was fine. The best part was the win by Stephanie Vaquer, who now gets a title match at Clash in Paris. Vaquer is one of the newer stars in WWE, but she is known worldwide and she is one of the best going.

Then, what has a chance to be the Match of the Year. Iyo Sky defended her WWE World Championship against Rhea Ripley. We have seen this match several times, but, honestly, it never gets old and this match was brilliant. These two have such chemistry together and are so special in the ring that they stole the entire weekend that had been loaded with wrestling.

Then, after a beautiful Spanish fly maneuver, the big shock happened. Naomi, fresh off of getting beaten up badly in the match with Jade, came down with her Money in the Bank contract and cashed in, making the match a triple threat. Iyo and Rhea had killed each other so much that they were easy picking for Naomi and she became the new Women’s World Champion.

An unbelievable moment with a shocking cash in. I, like many, figured Naomi was cashing in on Tiffany or Jade after their match at SummerSlam, but instead, she cashed in on Iyo and made a historic moment.

There should be no doubt that the WWE women could put on a show like this. Their amount of riches they currently have is an embarrassment of riches. This was even without the currently injured Liv Morgan, who is one of the best of the division.

WWE Women’s Division has come a long way from the Bra and Panties matches of the past. They are now the main events and the bangers that were once exclusively the male’s area. Congrats to the WWE Women’s Division on a massively successful show that exceeded expectations.

Nature Boy: 30 on 30 (2017)

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January 11

There have been several documentaries on the professional wrestler known as “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair. This was an ESPN 30 on 30 documentary that had him as a subject, that aired in 2017 called Nature Boy.

This was an interesting doc looking at Flair, but it did feel as if the negative parts of his life were brushed away, outside of the death of his son Reid. They mentioned parts of his life that came along with the persona of the nature Boy, but they did not go into a great deal of explanation on it. The touched on his legendary drinking, but not with a lot of specifics. They touched on his legal troubles with Jim Herd of WCW, but did not go into details. The match between Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair that was intended on being the main event of Wrestlemania VIII was mentioned, but nothing specific was revealed. These moments really form the man who would be Ric Flair and I would have liked more about them all.

They did a pretty decent job with his early days, and gave some solid info on the Verne Gagne training that Ric Flair went through. The infamous plane crash that broke his back got some time, though, again, I think they did not focus much on this seminal moment of the young Flair’s life.

It was kind of scary when the doc talked about how it was amazing that Ric Flair was still alive with the amount of drinking, and I thought it would lead to the time when Flair nearly died from his drinking. However, I believe that happened after this documentary was filmed, so it turned out to be prophetic than anything else.

The details on Reid Flair’s death was some of the most emotional moments of the doc as you can clearly see how his son’s death affected him and it was nice to see him reacting to his daughter Ashley, known in the WWE as Charlotte Flair, and her massive success.

It felt like this doc just scratched the surface of the life and times of The Nature Boy Ric Flair and that they needed way more than 30 on 30 to do it justice.

Mr. McMahon E2

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“Heat”

The second episode of the Netflix docuseries about Vince McMahon, the former head of the WWE, started off fairly minor, discussing Wrestlemania II and then Wrestlemania III. The stories behind these two event were interesting, and I did like hearing about the Hogan-Andre match, but the episode started kicking more when the scandals started coming out.

There were a bunch of scandals mentioned. The ring boy scandal where three executives were sexually abusing teens who were there to set up the ring. This was gross situation. Then there was the steroid scandal, first with the doctor, and then eventually from the federal government against Vince himself. They also touched upon the Jimmy Snuka girlfriend possible murder.

The words of the wrestlers about all these events were fascinating. Tony Atlas making reference to Pat Patterson grabbing his penis was disturbing.

There was also a lot about Hulk Hogan in here, including how he went to WCW and how it hurt Vince. It included how Hogan had to testify against Vince for the government. Hogan is not the best character over the years and he definitely did not look great here. They showed him lying on Arsenio Hall Show too.

The documentary spoke to Phil Mushnick of the NY Post, who has been writing columns about Vince and the WWE for years. Mushnick had plenty of negative words to say about Vince, specifically that he was a dirtbag.

The doc ended abruptly with a major cliffhanger with Vince’s steroid trial.

Overall, this episode was okay, and it really shows what kind of person Vince McMahon is. His clips from the Donahue Show are some obvious evidence of that. And I do not even think we’ve hit the worst part of his life.

Mr. McMahon E1

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“Junior”

The infamous former head of the WWE, Vincent K. McMahon is featured in a new docuseries on Netflix called Mr. McMahon, with interviews from everyone involved, including McMahon himself.

Ironically, before the doc finished filming, Vince McMahon resigned from WWE because of a series of horrendous scandals that were to result in lawsuits. Reportedly, there were some of the most heinous things listed among the lawsuit. The docuseries pushed on.

The first episode of the series addressed McMahon’s rise through his childhood and to the world of sports entertainment. His father, whom Vince said he never met until he was 12, Vincent J McMahon, let his son join his business, at the time named the WWF (World Wrestling Federation) and we learn how “Junior” came up through the organization to eventually purchase the company from his father. After doing that, McMahon crushed the idea that wrestling promotors remained inside their own territories, and he began promoting shows across the country, taking his WWF nationwide.

This episode showed us up to the first Wrestlemania, including the infamous John Stossal/David Schultz encounter and the Richard Belzer choke out by Hulk Hogan. While there were some of the scandals mentioned in the first episode, this was more about how McMahon took stars like Hogan and created something more than the industry of professional wrestling had ever seen.

Personally, the biggest shock for me was seeing present day Vince McMahon on screen and being interviewed. He had the obviously dyed eyebrows that were as black as you could imagine. He had dark hair too, but nowhere near as dark as his eyebrows. They made he look downright evil and I could not stop looking at those weird looking brows.

Just as strange was when Vince’s ex-wife Linda McMahon was on screen. She looked nothing like I remembered. It was so odd to hear Linda’s voice coming out of this person who did not resemble her at all.

Then Dave Meltzer weaseled his way into the documentary too. I am not a fan of Meltzer and I wish they could have found a different voice to speak on this topic.

The first episode was interesting, but did not feel like it had much more than other a typical doc you might see on the WWE network. We’ll see how the rest of the six-episode series goes.

NXT Stand and Deliver 2024

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  • Joe Gacy def. Shawn Spears.
  • NXT Tag Team Champions Bron Breakker & Baron Corbin def. Axiom & Nathan Frazer.
  • NXT North American Champion Oba Femi def. Dijak and Josh Briggs 
  • Thea Hail, Fallon Henley & Kelani Jordan def. Jacy Jayne, Kiana James and Izzi Dame
  • Roxanne Perez def. Lyra Valkyria 
  • NXT Champion Ilja Dragunov def. Tony D’Angelo
  • Trick Williams def. Carmelo Hayes

The NXT Tag Team Championship match and the NXT North American Championship matches were massive bangers and kicked off the main show with two amazing matches.

Legitimately, the triple threat North American championship match was a match of the year contender as Oba Femi, Dijak and Josh Briggs put on a show including some of the biggest spots you will see from men the size of them.

I do love Ilja Dragunov. He was never going to lose his NXT Championship to The Don of NXT Tony D’Angelo. It was still a great match.

Roxanne Perez got a definitive victory over Lyra Valkyria for the NXT Women’s Championship. She is one of the best in the division.

Which, by the way, as a special announcement, NXT will be adding a new championship for the Women’s Division. The NXT Women’s North American Championship was announced. Well deserved. The main roster needs a secondary title too.

Trick Williams went over cleanly in his match with Carmelo Hayes. I expect Carmelo to head to the main roster for good.

Great kick off. We will have to see if there is any match on Wrestlemania that can be equal to the Oba Femi, Dijak, Josh Briggs match.

WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony

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Last night, the WWE inducted seven people into the 2024 Class of the WWE Hall of Fame in a broadcast on Peacock. This year’s class included Paul Heyman, Bull Nakano, Barry Windham & Mike Rotunda, Thunderbolt Patterson, Muhammad Ali and Lia Maivia.

The headliner of the class was inducted first. Paul Heyman, whose background in Philadelphia with his revolutionary ECW was well known, came out after a really great induction by Roman Reigns. Paul, one of the best talkers in the history of the business, proceeded to give one of the best HoF speeches of all time. I have seen most, if not all, of the speeches over the years and, while I saw several hyperbolic comments online about this being the greatest HoF speech of all time, I’m not ready to anoint it such, but it is definitely in the argument. Paul Heyman had the audience in the palm of his hand and it was exceptional. Paul took us all on a ride that was funny, emotional, nostalgic, and generally inspiring.

There was a great moment inside the U.S. Express speech when Mike Rotunda mentioned his son Windham Rotunda, aka Bray Wyatt, who passed away this past year. Rotunda got out his cell phone and asked for the crowd to follow along with him displaying the light on the phone. This was the symbol of the Fireflies that were the fans of Bray Wyatt.

There was a really weird moment during the Muhammad Ali induction. Yolanda Ali, Ali’s widow, accepted the honor. What was weird was when Yolanda (Nicknamed Lonnie) presented Dwayne Johnson with a title of People’s Champion. Rock came out and thanked her. It felt fairly awkward.

Most of the other speeches were fine, but did not stand out. Thunderbolt Patterson spoke about his faith in God. Bull Nakano was well spoken despite English being her second language.