7 Most Insane Things Happening In Wrestling Right Now (March 31)
SPECIAL TRIPLE H EDITION!
WWE recently posted a new 24 special on the Network, centred around the RAW after WrestleMania.
It was bizarre. Michael Cole and JBL cheerfully buried Byron Saxton for his absolute inability to anchor the 2015 show on his lonesome, as graphics of Twitter burials aimed at Saxton littered the screen. Footage was played of The Rock overthrowing Farooq as the "Ruler" of the Nation Of Domination in 1998, as if the raucous post-'Mania RAW was always a "thing" - something the company has carefully cultivated for years, and not a widespread rejection of much of the current product. Fans didn't boo Sheamus and Randy Orton out of the building in 2013 (just) because they are contrarian seals. They booed them out of the building because they were uninspired in the extreme.
JBL trotted out his usual Vince McMahon-fed line - "They boo who they usually cheer, and they cheer who they usually boo!" - as if Roman Reigns receives Steve Austin-sized face pops the other 364 days of the year.
This "we're in on the joke!" angle was also expected - mundane, even. WWE attempted to spin it as some kind of shared celebration, which to be far it partly is, and not a magnified response to the deep-rooted issues at the core of the product .
JBL, though, was not the only man talking out of his a*se this week...
7. Shane McMahon ISN'T Going To Jump Off A Rollercoaster
RAW was devoid of much insanity this week, with the exception of WWE creative actually booking one of their Champions to take the unusual step of winning a wrestling match on television. Bayley scored a pinfall over Charlotte on Monday, funnily enough, but that just means she's probably going to lose the title on Sunday.
On Tuesday's edition of SmackDown, though, WWE took the surprising step of promising that WrestleMania 33's AJ Styles Vs. Shane McMahon will be a "traditional" match in which if one of man is outside of the ring for ten seconds, they will lose. If they use weapons, they will be disqualified.
That presumably means Shane McMahon will add "Technical Wizard" to his curriculum vitae, right underneath "Hardest Man Alive Who For Some Reason Doesn't Wrestle All The Time Even Though He's Very Good At It". It's equally likely that a ref bump will excuse Shane's trademark stuntman schtick, but really, Shane attempting to go move for move with Styles isn't that inconceivable a possibility. This is a man who worked a pseudo-MMA match with the Undertaker last year.
He might try to do a Canadian Destroyer. God help us.