The Wrestling Underground

10 Pro Wrestling Things You Need to Know from Last Week

Bullet Club Breaks Up

The big story from this past weekend was the fracturing of the Bullet Club.  The one group, is made up of leader Kenny Omega, Cody Rhodes, the Young Bucks, Chase Owens, Hangman Page, Yuijiro Takahashi, Marty Scurll and presumably Taiji Ishimori.

The second group is thought to be Tama Tonga, Tonga Loa, their brother Hikuleo, and their father King Haku.  Hikuleo is still out with a knee injury for the moment.  The other Samoan, Bad Luck Fale, was not at the event, and therefore did not pick a side.

The split continues the Bullet Club civil war storyline which was centered around Cody Rhodes and Kenny Omega, but after their IWGP Heavyweight bout, the two seemingly ended their feud, which prompted the Tongan’s to step in.  The trio of Tama, Loa and Haku picked apart the injured and banged up bullet club three at a time, never losing the numbers advantage.  While Hikuleo is still out with an injury, he’s expected to side with his family in the splinter group Bullet Club: Firing Squad.

 

 

Cody and Kenny Make Up

As mentioned above, one of the big storylines out of the G1 Special from San Francisco is that Cody Rhodes and Kenny Omega have ended their near year-long feud against one another.  In the match, Omega threw Cody onto a table that didn’t break and appeared to injure Cody’s head.  Another spot saw Cody suplex Omega off a ladder nearly 15+ feet in the air.  Eventually the two brought the match to a close in amazing fashion and Cody magnanimously raised Omega’s hand after he beat Cody.  Cody also came down to make the save for Bullet Club and Kenny wen the Tongans attacked.  All of this is setting up for a two month sabbatical from Cody apparently, as he’s taking time off to rest, heal and film a new project outside of wrestling.

 

 

 

Josh Barnett Setting up in Ring Return?

During the United States Title match that saw Juice Robinson become the first U.S. born wrestler to win the IWGP United States Championship, there was a spot where Jay White suplexed Juice into the barricade next to the announcer’s table. The spot pushed the rail into the table, which knocked down 66-year-old icon Jim Ross, who was handling playby-play for the evening. After seeing Ross bite it, Josh Barnett rose from his chair after telling White “…You just fucked up.”. Barnett went to go confront White but he bailed and kept his distance from the former UFC and IMAPCT star. Barnett, who made his pro wrestling debut in the main event at the January 4th Dome Show against Yuji Nagata has a long history with pro wrestling in Japan, and the “incident” seems to set up a return to the ring for Barnett.

 

 

 

Juice Robinson Steps Up

Juice Robinson not only is known for his impressive promos, as seen above.  He’s also turning people’s heads in NJPW for his match quality, and fan reaction.  A former NXT dropout, who actually was about to retire before going to NJPW, Juice has remade his image, remade his career and remade his legacy.  Juice is now the most charismatic talker in NJPW, and is on par with Cody Rhodes in regards to the best promo every time he takes the mic.  His feud with Jay White actually made the rather boring Jay White rather interesting and his matches just somehow keep getting better and better.

 

 

 

Dragon Lee Breaks Hiromu’s Neck

In rather depressing news from the G1 Special, it appears as though Dragon Lee may of broken the neck of Hiromu Takahashi.  Near the end of the IWGP Light-Heavyweight title match, Dragon Lee picked up Hiromu in a powerbomb type clench and brought him over his head.  Normally the person takes the move on their shoulders and rolls through, but for whatever reason Hiromu was not able to roll through and instead landed right on the top of his head.  The two were able to string together a finish but Hiromu allegedly collapsed backstage after the bout . He was taken to the hospital immediately after the match and an official word is still forth coming.

 

 

 

RISE Stumbles in Major Debut

In what many had hoped would help RISE overcome some of their hardships as of late, the IMPACT/RISE Twitch stream was met with one obstacle after another that seemed to plague the event.  After the owner Kevin Harvey announced on their website that the company might be closing its doors due to a low turnout for their seminars, which finance most of the company, many looked to this weekends event as a make or break night for Rise.  Unfortunately, the main evented that was co-promoted by IMPACT between Shotzi Blackheart and Phoenix of Rise Champion Delilah Doom had to be cancelled due to both women suffering broken ankles.  The match, which was a 30 minute Iron Woman match was then replaced by Indy Icon Mercedes Martinez and IMPACT top Knockout, Tessa Blanchard.  The match was awesome, with Tessa winning at the bell two falls to one.

However 1/4 of the two-hour show never made it to air, as Rise had streaming issues that caused many on IMPACT’s Twitch channel to become frustrated.  This was compounded by the fact that NJPW was airing live at the moment and the WWE was running a huge house show at Madison Square Garden.  Essentially fans were hoping for a major night of pro wrestling from IMPACT to add it to the weekends festivities but Rise fumbled the ball.

The show was also marred by terrible color commentary from IMPACT Executive Sonjay Dutt, who himself may soon be in hot water for referring to Taeler Hendrix as “Batshit Crazy”, after she accused his best friend Jay Lethal of Sexual Misconduct.

 

 

Saraya Hangs Su Yung

The show as a whole was not a huge let down, as the aforementioned main event was pretty impressive, but the most talked about moment of the night had to be the spot where Saraya Knight (mother of WWE Star Paige), took the IMPACT Knockouts Champion Su Yung to the top of a wall, and literally hung her.  The spot was quick, with Saraya letting Yung drop to the awaiting arms of the crew below, but the visual of her momentarily dangling off the ledge like that left many in stunned awe.  The whole execution of it was perfect and should be on anyone’s year-end Spot of the Year list.

 

 

OG LAX Returns

Revealed on this past weeks episode of IMPACT Wrestling was the return of Hernandez to the company, and the turning of Homicide on Konnan and LAX.  The spot, which was filmed a few weeks ago (before the Bullet Club Split), sets up King’s (Eddie Kingston) O.G. crew taking on Konnan’s LAX group.  Konnan is managing Oritz and Santana, relative newcomers to the LAX brand, while King is handling the vets.

For me, I would have loved to seen Santana and Ortiz side with King, and Konnan call Homicide and Hernandez in for revenge against the young guns, but either way I’m excited for this developing storyline because it’s going to be intense.  The feud has already got social media talking about it.

 

Brock Returns to the UFC

After Daniel Cormier knocked out former champion Stipe Miocic for the UFC Heavyweight Championship, Cormier called out Brock Lesnar.  Lesnar, the current WWE Universal Heavyweight Champion, replied by getting in the octagon and pushing Cormier.  The two were separated before Lesnar went on a torrid rant, ripping into the UFC Heavyweight Division, Cormier and Miocic.

After calling Cormier a mother fucker, its safe to say the UFC fully intends on booking Lesnar against him for the Heavyweight belt.  The fight is expected to be in early 2019, which also is the expected return date of UFC bad-boy, Conor McGregor

 

 

 

Ronda Rousey tee’s off on Nia Jax

In the final bit of roundup, WWE star Ronda Rousey made waves this weekend over an incredible outing against Nia Jax that saw her it an impressive combo, followed up leaping strike that Rousey used Jax’s own body to do.  Rousey isn’t wrestling as much as some would prefer, but seeing her evolution as a competitor in such a short time has many people impressed with her.  Making news at a MSG house show, on the same show that The Undertaker is on, during one of the most talked about dates of the wrestling calendar, is just impressive.