I was reading a review I did for AEW’s All Out show from last year. I complained that there was too much on TV and I joked that I needed to, like, see the sun. My, what a distant fucking memory. Like unearthing a time capsule you buried in middle school in a wooded area.

            Sure, there’s stuff on TV…but nothing like a plethora of great sporting events. What is on TV is a ton of Netflix shows and TV shows that, somehow, were made before the pandemic hit in March (why on Earth have so many shows been made and ready to air but sat on a shelf until they’re release date?). I just finished watching The Boys season 1 on Amazon Prime and saw that season 2 is being released in September. Okay…so they finished filming that in February? Presumably. I suppose they had to finish doing special f/x and things and they could do that during the pandemic…but why finish shooting that in February if it’s not supposed to be released until September?

            So Netflix shows and TV shows are still being released so if you want to watch those then life is grand. But I had complained about Labor Day weekend. College football started on Saturday, AEW had a PPV, NXT UK had a Takeover show, New Japan had a show from London, and the U.S. Open tennis tournament was going on. So, yeah…I had too much to watch. And I fucking complained. Who’s the idiot now? The pandemic has taken live sporting events and massacred them and what was left was a smoking husk. And while most sports like baseball, the NBA, and the NHL have just resumed this week, wrestling surprisingly never stopped. Shocking, really, considering the world was being ravaged by the first worldwide pandemic in a hundred years. Anything sport without fans sucks, so I haven’t been reviewing any wrestling shows since March (when the ultra-bad WWE Elimination Chamber was held in Philly). I have been watching everything…mostly (I can’t bother myself watching RAW, which has hit its lowest ratings in history these last few weeks, or Smackdown). And Japan has just recently brought fans back into arenas, which is fucking great. So here’s a rundown of what’s been going on lately. It doesn’t look like the wrestling world will get back to normal anytime soon (maybe by next Spring? Fingers crossed?), so we’re stuck with what we’ve got.

WWE: When Wrestlemania was announced as being a show without fans in Orlando, I thought it was a terrible idea. Even though it was a terrible idea, in hindsight it looks like it was the right move considering all of those big matches could have only happened in a big, fan packed arena sometime maybe in 2021. The one thing that some of the companies have been doing is movie-style matches like the AJ Styles vs. Undertaker “Boneyard Match” from Wrestlemania. It was as fucking stupid as it sounds…but still light years better than the awful, no-fan shows. The big outcome at Wrestlemania, which ended up being split into 2 nights and shockingly priced as a regular PPV, was that Drew McIntyre won the title from Brock Lesnar. Lesnar hasn’t been seen since, probably because he doesn’t want to get infected, which a dozen or more WWE employees have been since working in Florida, a state that’s been ravaged by the disease (Renee Young and Apollo Crews are the 2 employees that got the Corona virus that are known…the others have never been made public…and for what it’s worth, the WWE refuses to mention the disease or pandemic on the air). The WWE followed that “Boneyard Match” up with a “Money in the Bank” match that started in the lobby of the WWE headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut and ended on the roof. Two of the wrestlers in that match were tossed off the roof and supposedly died but I’m pretty sure they’re back on TV. They also had a match in a swamp with Braun Strowman and The Fiend which everyone hated. Eventually they started having the other wrestlers at ringside which helped the shows somewhat, but I have barely watched any WWE since March (and before March I’m not sure why I watched it anyway). On NXT, Keith Lee beat Adam Cole for the NXT title. I’m not sure if that was planned or if it was because of the Black Lives Matter protests that engulfed the country in June. Either way, Keith Lee is a hell of a lot more entertaining than Drew McIntyre, who’s about as entertaining as a lump of coal. Summerslam, which was scheduled to be in Boston this month, will now just be held in Orlando without fans. One of the big matches is Seth Rollins versus Dominic, Rey Mysterio’s son. The reason? Seth Rollins won the “Eye for an Eye Match” against Mysterio when Mysterio lost an eye. Fuck. Don’t even ask.

 NJPW: New Japan was one of the few promotions that didn’t do anything for awhile. Finally they bit the bullet and held the New Japan Cup and did a bunch of no-fan shows in July. The finals of the Cup and Dominion were held with fans on back to back nights. They only allowed 20 percent capacity in the buildings and the fans were only allowed to clap, not cheer or boo or yell. Evil beat Okada to win the Cup and then shockingly beat Naito at Dominion to win the title then successfully defended it against Hiromu Takahashi. If you didn’t think a worldwide pandemic was bad, wait until you witness Evil as the IWGP champion. I’ve never liked Evil, nor, as far as I can tell, has anyone. So why, you might ask, is he the champion? And why did he beat Naito, who just won the title this year after a decades long quest? I suppose the answer is quite simple: New Japan doesn’t have any of their foreigners around thanks to travel restrictions. So their great idea was to create a new storyline and a new chase for Naito to give fans something to be interested in. So Evil turned on Naito and joined Bullet Club. And now New Japan is having a big, outside show at a baseball stadium at the end of August where Naito will have his rematch. I’m assuming Naito will win and this idiocy with Evil will end and hopefully be forgotten. It’s kind of sad that legendary wrestlers like Ibushi and Ishii have never been champ but boring, dull Evil has.

ROH: Ring of Honor was set to have a PPV in March and the day before it was cancelled and they haven’t had a show since. God knows what’s going to happen with this company, but Marty Scurll, who just signed a big contract with them and started being a booker/writer was just in the news during the huge wrestling me-too movement that scoured the internet. A bunch of women blasted wrestlers for rape or sexual inappropriateness and a bunch of wrestlers lost their jobs (none of the big names, although the WWE did fire Jack Gallagher). Scurll had gotten a blowjob from a 16 year old female wrestler a decade ago and the girl said she was taken advantage of. Sex with a 16 year old in England is legal, so Scurll won’t get arrested or anything, but it still makes him look bad. Kind of awkward that the headliner of a wrestling group with “Honor” in it’s title has taken advantage of young teenage girls.

AEW: I have watched most of the AEW shows, as they’ve been fairly entertaining. They’ve gotten a ton of new talent since the pandemic started. Matt Hardy, FTR, Brodie Lee, are just a few of the new guys they’ve signed. They went on with their PPV in May and ended up doing a match in the Jacksonville Jaguars football stadium that was pretty fun. A lot of what they do doesn’t work without crowds (like anything involving Orange Cassidy), but that’s kind a moot point: every time I see a good match or a good angle I just sigh and think to myself: man, this would’ve been awesome with a crowd. Right before the pandemic they had a big show in New Jersey set up that was going to be a War Games match. I’m still dreaming of that match…still thinking about how fucking awesome that would’ve, could’ve been. It just makes me sad.