10 Fascinating Facts About Famous Wrestling Promos
Correcting the revisionist history of Chris Jericho, Roman Reigns and more...
The pro wrestling promo has made a very welcome and profoundly overdue return in the wake of All Elite Wrestling's emergence on the mainstream stage.
CM Punk is playing the reformed pro wrestling hero to naturalistic perfection, and he still measures the old venom perfectly. Only when really needled will he unearth the scathing pr*ck of his early years. That way, it means something - like he's truly disgusted by Eddie Kingston, or shaken by MJF - and preserves the full extent of his seethe for when he turns heel. Kingston himself is scarily authentic, an actual poet, and MJF is his antithesis: a knowingly polished, performative sociopath. When that programme happens, anything less than an all-timer would somehow be considered a disappointment.
Jon Moxley is an action movie soundbite machine with unreal depth. Chris Jericho, a master, isn't always acclaimed - but like the genius he is, he has grasped that, and is now playing a character all the better for his lamer WWE-style leanings. Jade Cargill is amazing at talking sh*t.
Even when the promo itself isn't masterful, it's almost invariably better for its authenticity. Thunder Rosa doesn't have the smoothest delivery, but she just exudes an earnest babyface quality.
The unscripted promo is back.
Mostly!
10. A Former WWE Creative Writer Got A Joke On AEW Dynamite
Brian Gewirtz was responsible, in part, for some of your favourite wrestling memories.
The Rock's key collaborator began writing for the promotion in 1999, and where Vince Russo provided the wider swerve-driven framework, and Chris Kreski elevated it with intricate overlapping storylines in 2000, Gewirtz provided the comedy. If you've ever wondered why Edge's character is as cold as a Lance Storm obituary these days, it's because Gewirtz crafted some of his best zingers.
AEW doesn't do writers. It is booked like an old-fashioned territory, and its various great talkers express the key narrative beats in their own voice...
...with apparently two exceptions.
Chris Jericho called Gewirtz up in November 2019 when he needed a great joke to put his first verbal segment with MJF all the way over. In a line that feels so much like something the Rock would say with this knowledge, he said MJF was so similar to him that "It's like your parents got horny when they were watching me beat up Juventud Guerrero 20 years ago on WCW Saturday night, and nine months later your little twerp ass popped out."
The Juventud reference was a clue in plain sight.
So yes: technically, a WWE scripted promo just about happened on AEW Dynamite. According to Gewirtz, speaking on the Ringer's Masked Men show, there's another joke of his somewhere on the FITE archives.