Matty Breisch Articles - Page 156

If you spent your Sunday night watching Ric Flair’s Last Match, you certainly heard the term “celebrities” thrown around by Tony Schiavone, David Crockett, and company about a dozen times, and for good reason – people really love Ric Flair. The show, booked by Conrad Thompson and assisted by seemingly every major indie promotor in […]

When Paul “Triple H” Levesque officially took over creative control of the WWE from his father-in-law Vince McMahon following the latter’s retirement, it changed the history of wrestling forever. In less than a week, the WWE Universe watched the amount of time budgeted to actually wrestling in the ring jump from under 30 minutes to […]

In case you haven’t heard, 73-year-old Ric Flair having one final wrestling match before he calls it a career, and, in a fun twist of fate, he’s throwing a massive party in Nashville featuring many of the best wrestlers, new and old, the independent scene has to offer. From a Bunkhouse Brawl that rapidly turned […]

When Saraya, the performer formerly known in the WWE Universe as Paige, fired off the following quote Tweet about a month ago, it set the wrestling world, from AEW down to her family’s World Association of Wrestling, ablaze. https://twitter.com/RealPaigeWWE/status/1486032672044593152?s=20&t=EWz67uZcBUaILYz6SyYsEA Yeah, there’s no way that would be misconstrued by the *checks notes* 4.6 thousand people who […]

In VM Era of the WWE Universe – aka the Vince McMahon Era – there wasn’t a hotter name that Theory. The prized pupil of Mr. McMahon who rose to prominence as a butt-kissing heel gimmick that was meant to – and ultimately succeeded in – drive fans crazy, Theory became the youngest WWE Superstar […]

The WWE are certainly no strangers to name changes when it comes to their expansive roster. Sure, sometimes a name change is necessary in repackaging a wrestler to get them over with a new crowd – just ask X-Pac if he still wanted to be known as The 1-2-3 Kid when he returned from WCW […]

Some matches are just supposed to mean something. Sure, occasionally, a match will rise above the rest and become a sleeper hit or even steal the show in a major way that changes a promotion’s booking indefinitely – think Daniel Bryan in the WWE – but as a general rule, companies typically want the main […]

Booking a big-time performer to lose a match is hard. Make them look too weak, and they’ll lose their mystique, book them too well, and it can make the WWE Universe lose confidence in the match’s winner; for a producer to make it work, they need to ride that fine line and perfectly split the […]

In this writer’s humble opinion, the WWE Undisputed Tag Team Championship match at Money in the Bank between the Street Profits and The Usos was the match of the night. Sure, there were fun matches elsewhere on the card, like both involving Liv Morgan and both MitB Ladder Matches, but no one put on a […]

When news broke via a SmackDown vignette that Max Dupri wasn’t being replaced by his sister in the Maximum Male Models, it left many a conflicted fan in the WWE Universe. On one hand, folks were happy to see the man formerly known as LA Knight still being employed by the WWE Universe, as keeping […]

When a certain vignette started airing on WWE television, first at Money in the Bank and then on basically every single media channel the Billion Dollar Brand has at their disposal, it felt like only a matter of time before Edge made his way back into the ring. Though the video didn’t explicitly announce the […]

Logan Paul is a relic of a bygone era of the WWE Universe. Now granted, that era was about 10 days ago, as Vince McMahon just retired due to his infidelities one Friday before last but still, Triple H has turned the promotion’s gaze into the future, with NXT stars new and old like Io […]

Folks, after over a year away, Bayley is officially back in the WWE Universe, and it looks like she’s brought some friends. Yup, you read that correctly; after suffering a torn ACL in the leadup to Money in the Bank 2021, Bayley has returned to the WWE Universe with a new, all-white outfit – including […]

Bianca Belair has been champion of the WWE Universe for roughly four months. She rose through the ranks of NXT, wrestled on both the RAW and SmackDown brands, and after a successful title reign on the latter brand back in 2021, she finally became an undisputed champion with a win over Becky Lynch at WrestleMania […]

SummerSlam is here; the WWE Universe has descended onto Nashville for a night of grudge matches, tests of strength, and a test to see who will be the Last Man Standing. Surely the eyes of the WWE Universe are on the Premium Live Event, but one person has very different eyes on the prize: NXT’s […]

Did you happen to notice that WWE’s Friday night edition of SmackDown looked sort of… different? Not worse necessarily; it was actually quite good if we’re being honest, just… different? Well, there’s a reason for that: There was a lot more wrestling on the show (read more about that here). Yes, you didn’t just imagine […]

After months of buildup, card changes, and… oh yeah, the retirement of Vince McMahon after four decades on top of Titan Towers, SummerSlam is officially here. Fans will get to see who is the Last Man Standing, see if Judgement gets passed, and finally find out who will be the focal point of the RAW […]

It’s always weird to see wrestlers from the WWE, AEW, or another promotion appear on “normal” sports media. Sure, outside athletes will occasionally make their way into the squared circle, with Shaq wrestling for AEW in an ill-fated angle that berthed the streak of Jade Cargill, Ennis Kanter winning the 24/7 Championship in the WWE, […]

When asked about who was the “most consequential figure in pro wrestling over the past 40 years” following Vince McMahon’s retirement from the WWE, Dave Meltzer gave a surprisingly detailed response with multiple candidates; he pointed to Hulk Hogan, Antonio Peña, Rey Mysterio, Antonio Inoki, and even Ronda Rousey as folks worthy of being in […]

It’s officially been a week since Vince McMahon retired from the WWE, and frankly, not much has changed. Sure, Madusa returned to NXT to help out Roxanne Perez, Brock Lesnar maybe almost quit, and Goldberg was reportedly called to almost take his place, but since then, other than the absence of the 24/7 Championship and […]

LA Knight is one of the most talented talkers in the WWE Universe. Though he’s never pulled an Eddie Kingston and cut a compelling promo on a cookie – at least not on camera – he got himself over in no time on NXT with his LA Knight persona, even if it’s a sort of […]

Anytime a major wrestling promotion, from AEW to WWE, NJPW, Ring of Honor, and Impact, holds a Pay-Per-View – or, as The Fed calls it, a “Premium Live Event” – fans wait eagerly for Dave Meltzer, the proprietor of The Wrestling Observer, to release his star ratings and officially etch the quality of every match […]

On an appearance on the Sports Illustrated Media podcast, Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer gave the following response to a question about whether the retirement of Vince McMahon could inspire the WWE to bring back disgruntled Women’s Tag Team Champions Sasha Banks and Naomi, as dictated by Ian Carey. “It’s kind of up in […]

Dax Harwood and his FTR brother in arms, Cash Wheeler, are on a bit of a role in the greater AEW/Ring of Honor Tony Khan-sian Universe. They won the Lucha Libre AAA belts in an AEW ring, won the IWGP Tag Team titles at AEW x NJPW’s Forbidden Door, and even pulled off the shocking […]

One of the worst parts of AEW founder Tony Khan’s buying Ring of Honor was the decision to take the ROH Pure Championship off of Josh Woods at Supercard of Honor. Now granted, if that’s the lowest light of Khan’s tenure running the promotion, then he is off to a fantastic start, as it makes […]

As if their long and increasingly violent feud couldn’t get any more contentious, Brody King wanted to make his intentions of quite literally putting his fellow AEW wrestler Darby Allin into the ground by permanently etching his intentions forever into his skin via a new, American Traditional style tattoo. That’s right, after beating the brick […]

Mere weeks after Evil Uno and company took to the ring in Brodie Lee’s hometown of Rochester to declare that the Dark Order is, in fact, fine, a turn has been taken that could throw AEW‘s little faction that could into flux. That’s right, after watching founding member Stu Grayson, the Player Dos to Evil’s […]

You have to give it to AEW‘s Ricky Starks, he sure knows how to make an entrance. That’s right, after having his open challenge for the FTW Championship answered by none other than the very nicest, very evilest man on the AEW roster, Danhausen, at Fyter Fest Week 2, Starks preempted his own in-ring entrance […]

When WWE made the decision to release William Regal from his contract due to “budget cuts,” it felt like a mistake. While he hadn’t been an in-ring performer in, oh, almost a decade, being “retired” by his former pupal, Claudio “Don’t-call-him-Cesaro” Castagnoli, Regal was a fixture of NXT as an in-universe authority figure and a […]

Ask, and you shall receive, AEW fans. After keeping track of trios match results since all the way back in 2019, Tony Khan and company have officially announced the arrival of the AEW World Trios Championship, with the belts’ initial winners being decided via a tournament that will culminate at All Out in Chicago. TRIOS […]

With less than a week to go before WWE‘s SummerSlam, Kayla Becker delivered the following bad news about a highly anticipated match via The Bump. “Breaking news, and here it is: After that attack on Riddle by Seth Rollins on Monday, Riddle has suffered a brachial plexus injury, which is a really bad stinger that […]

It’s been a pretty good week for AEW‘s Wheeler Yuta He and his Blackpool Combat Club faction-mate Jon Moxley beat the bricks off of his former friends Chuck Taylor and Trent Beretta, collectively known as the Best Friends, and then doubled-down on his winning ways with a big-time bout against Daniel Garcia at Ring of […]

With an episode of SmackDown, RAW, and NXT now officially in the books, it’s clear the WWE Universe has officially entered into a new era. The 24/7 title was nowhere to be found on any of the shows – which is a welcomed change from the certified spot-fest on the July 18th edition of RAW […]

There’s an old saying in professional wrestling, from WWE, to AEW, ROH, NJPW, and even Impact that goes a little something like this: A wrestler is only as good as their opponent. Sure, a veteran pro can get a fantastic match out of a much less experienced foe, as pretty much any (successful) celebrity-featuring match […]

When The Bloodline, Roman Reigns, and The Usos left the ring after thoroughly taking care of Riddle and The Street Profits in a six-man Main Event on WWE‘s RAW, a very familiar but sort of unexpected song hit the PA system and generated a massive pop among the fans in attendance at Madison Square Garden. […]

When an outside “celebrity” enters a WWE ring, things can go in a variety of different ways. On occasion, it’s a magical thing, like when Bad Bunny and Damian Priest took care of The Miz and John Morrison at WrestleMania 37, or even Sami Zayn’s bout versus Johnny Knoxville and the Jackass crew at WrestleMania […]

After weeks of back and forth tag team bouts with The Mysterios – Rey, and Dominik – on WWE‘s RAW, Judgement Day finally returned to full strength at Madison Square Garden, where, after dropping another match to the first father-son tag team champions in WWE history, none other than Rhea Ripley took to the backstage […]

20 years ago, Rey Mysterio made his debut in the WWE, defeating Chavo Guerrero on an episode of SmackDown. Dropping the Jr. from his moniker but regaining the mask he ditched at the end of his tenure in WCW, Mysterio rapidly became a fan favorite with WWE fans who weren’t typically used to seeing his […]

Does any member of the WWE Universe get a harder time than Theory? Despite being a solid in-ring performer, a dedicated worker who can take a Stone Cold Stunner like a pro, and both the youngest Money in the Bank briefcase winner and the youngest United States Champion of all time, there’s just something about […]