10 Times Wrestling Feuds Crossed Over Promotions
Colouring outside of the battle lines.
WWE was once entirely resistant to acknowledging the wider wrestling world they had so comprehensively dominated.
An internal policy shaped by arrogance and keen business acumen, what worked then does not work now for the core, in-the-know audience. WWE's no-selling of that WCW you used to read about in PWI - or, years later, that Independent scene it gleefully buried - framed the company is this insurmountable pinnacle of greatness and influence. Now there are no borders, and WWE refers to the wider industry only vaguely, the company undermines itself with its trademark weird-speak, the likes of which makes it impossible to buy anything. 'Sports Entertainer X made their name all over the world' for example is WWE weird-speak for 'Our developmental system isn't all that, really, which is why you'll never see Arturo Ruas on NXT TV'.
'AJ Styles enjoyed great success in Japan' is weird-speak for 'We're not saying where exactly because then you'd learn how this sh*t should actually be done'.
Times have changed.
WWE in its own canon has opened itself up somewhat to the shared universe of professional wrestling - to mixed success...
10. Mike Tyson Vs. Chris Jericho
AEW has enriched itself by reviving classic wrestling standards lost to sports entertainment's monopolised abandonment of them: the Flair Vs. Steamboat judging system, to lend a Championship match sporting gravitas; the deft intricacies of peak Mid-South booking; the...
...seminal Guest Host Era of WWE Monday Night RAW?
In 2010, riffing on a 1998 bit as a cute callback and ratings ploy, Mike Tyson knocked out Chris Jericho. It was a moment booked to generate short-term publicity - virtually the opposite of how Jericho has weirdly folded it into AEW canon.
While it is beyond irritating that WWE is perceived as this untouchable entity that can only acknowledge itself - sorry, independent contractors in your mid-30s, it's the convention circuit for you! - this Jericho Vs. Tyson deal is still contrived and desperate. Le Champion didn't call him out randomly - Tyson happened to be there - but the use of an ageing celebrity to whom the company is in thrall is a very, literally WWE move.
Again, they don't own celebrity involvement, but the press release for the TNT partnership took WWE's approach and pummelled it like Michael Spinks. It's all a bit rich.
None of this tedious discourse on proprietary would matter, if the angle where white hot, but it isn't. Jericho can get anything over, and if he gets the Guest Host Era of RAW over, somebody needs to etch him into Mount Rushmore - the one with the f*ckin' Presidents on it.