7 Most Insane Things Happening In Wrestling Right Now (June 30)
Respectability - we comin' for YOU, N-!
Do you know what "gets people talking" about wrestling?
Wrestling. Good wrestling matches, gripping wrestling storylines.
Is it any coincidence that New Japan is slowly expanding in popularity on the back of six star wrestling matches and Okada’s legendary, clean-finish crammed IWGP Heavyweight Title reign - and that WWE TV ratings are plummeting, when the company goes to great lengths to talk about anything during wrestling matches when those wrestling matches are taking place?
It's hard to imagine who the intended audience was for the controversial car wreck that was LaVar Ball's Miz TV appearance on RAW this week. Wrestling fans and wrestlers themselves were totally embarrassed by it. Basketball fans aren’t wrestling fans. Basketball fans aren’t even fans of LaVar Ball.
But WWE attracted publicity!
Publicity stunts rarely, if ever, translate to actual interest. When David Arquette won the WCW Heavyweight Title on Thunder in April 2000, the next edition of Nitro drew a 2.5 rating - down massively from the previous week’s 3.0. Russo's decision - which he still defends, the blithering idiot - lost WCW a sixth of their audience. That WWE is attempting to court the casual audience when its core audience is turning off in their droves is beyond comprehension. Everything has gone completely backwards. Again.
It's been quite a week - so much so that a GIF of Virgil hitting the Canadian Destroyer (or more accurately, being gently lifted over his opponents' shoulders) - doesn't make the cut...
7. Russia Is Weird...
...and if the WhatCulture site is down for a few days after this article is published, you'll know why.
As introduced to the world by those fellas at Heel By Nature, 2X2, Russian carrier of WWE television, runs a particularly odd advertising campaign for RAW and SmackDown, in which it essentially d*cks about with existing footage with totally naff CGI for its own amusement. John Cena hoists AJ Styles atop his shoulders. The Phenomenal One promptly explodes (!) in the face of Cena's immense power. He's buried several guys, sure, but that critical commentary is a bit on the nose.
2X2 also have a delightfully mental insistence on placing CGI party hats on many of the performers, whose chests also burst into a stream of confetti when kicked. When winded, a party whistle pops out of their mouths.
This is odd in the extreme. The only rational explanation for this business is that that the kremlin mandates 2X2 do this in order to prove that Russians didn't electronically interfere in the U.S. election because they are utterly cr*p with computers.