8 Most Insane Things Happening In Wrestling Right Now (Jan 27)
Will Emmalina ever debut?
Wrestling is probably the most insane enterprise there is.
Two men pretend to hurt one another while doing everything possible to protect one another; the very essence of it is a brain-melting paradox. Attempting to explain your love for it is even more difficult to articulate than it is for non-believers to grasp.
It's not as wild as it used to be. Wrestlers no longer inject themselves with monkey hormones and wake up with a desire to kill somebody. Because there's no competition, talents can't just up and leave one promotion and appear on national television for another 24 hours later. Wrestlers nowadays get filmed in two cars on the Network show Ride Along, never acknowledging one another, talking about nothing of particular interest on their uneventful journey to the next town. Back in the 1990s, Sting and the Steiner Brothers would hone in vehicles being driven by their locker room brethren and attempt to pull them out in Mad Max-esque displays of a batsh*t lunacy.
Wrestling might not be as wild - but the essence is so mind-boggling that insanity still pervades it...
8. Goldberg, Brock Lesnar And The Undertaker Sharing The Same Ring
The Royal Rumble has long since acted as the most prominent platform on which to cement the star of tomorrow as the star of today - a young man for whom true superstardom beckoned.
In 1998, Stone Cold Steve Austin firmly established himself as the man by managing to remove the target from his back and ousting 29 other men out of the ring. His subsequent three-year run on top was one of wrestling's most lucrative ever. Batista was made by (eventually) winning the Royal Rumble match in 2005. His prize, a World Heavyweight Title capture at the expense of Triple H, was such a refreshing development that WrestleMania 21 was then the most financially successful in wrestling history.
In 2017, WWE, desperate for full time stars, teased victory for three wrestlers - Goldberg, Undertaker and Brock Lesnar - all of whom will probably wrestle three more matches between them, at best, post-WrestleMania season.
This historic moment built to an electric conclusion in which all three men...sort of awkwardly backed away from one another and exited the ring at polite intervals after the cameras stopped rolling.
Cynicism aside, it was impossible not to do a Matt Striker and mark out, bro - Undertaker squaring off against Goldberg was an absolutely inconceivable prospect, only sixth months ago - even if, at this rate, Dolph Ziggler will probably return on a part-time basis to headline WrestleMania 40 when the Grandaddy Of Them All reverts back to the arena circuit.