WWE Megathread

While Karl Anderson is slated to return to New Japan Pro Wrestling this Wednesday 12/14 to defend the NEVER Openweight Championship against Hikuelo, that is not intended to be his final appearance for the promotion.

PWInsider.com has learned from multiple sources that WWE and New Japan have come to terms on an agreement for Anderson to wrestle on the 1/4/23 Wrestle Kingdom event at the Tokyo Dome, making him the first-ever contracted WWE talent to work NJPW's biggest event of the year.

PWInsider.com is told that Anderson had long figured into NJPW's plans for the event even before The Good Brothers returned to WWE and that the two sides were able to come to terms to keep NJPW's creative plans in place. We are told that Anderson will have a "strong role" at the Dome show in a singles bout.

he 12/12 episode of Monday Night Raw brought in 1,472,000 overnight viewers on the USA Network. That was down from last week's episode, which did 1,536,000 overnight viewers. It was Raw's lowest viewership on USA since July of 2021.

Let me get this straight now:  Karl Anderson started this angle in New Japan, carried it through TNA when him and Gallows were crapping on Tama Tonga during the visit to the Briscoe Ranch, signed with WWE, “no-showed” that NJPW show where Rocky Romero was shitting on him via Twitter…and now he’s going back to finishing the angle with a minimum of two trips to Japan?  That’s awesome long term booking, and Anderson right now is the closest thing to a Unicorn.  The last time a WWFE wrestler did a tour of Japan was in the days of Hogan, Andre, Murdoch, and Snuka.  Meaning, at least 37 years ago.  How long before Billy Corgan gives him the NWA Title to tour with???

Reports everywhere today that inside sources say HHH is “severely underwhelmed” by the performances and attitudes of some of the released stars he’s brought back. He didn’t mention names but the easy targets are Hit Row and Braun Strowman, and the booking certainly seems to be a message loud and clear that they’re in trouble.

I think Vince had a better eye for talent, even in 2022, than people give him credit for. There are definitely people who would have gotten a bigger push if they were bigger, but rarely released people with genuine talent. I'm repeating myself here, but Miro and Malakai Black have proved Vince right. On the other hand, Vince kept Ricochet and used him in the perfect position: a guy who will never be a main eventer, but can have exciting matches whenever you need him to.

I think Bray Wyatt is proving all his doubters right. The idea of Bray is much more of a draw than Bray himself. All that Q-code bullshit and rabbits in the background gave WWE huge ratings, but now he's there and doing the same old crazy shit as before and it leads to nothing in the ring, the ratings are tanking. (Not that I'm tying Bray to WWE's ratings, but it's a symptom.) And when fat Bray actually has to squeeze into his wrestling boots? I'm not expecting anything close to good.

I'm still shocked that Rock didn't use WWE to promote Black Adam when he needed to promote the shit out of the movie.  He's also playing along, because somebody in the media mentioned Roman Reigns and then asked him who the head of the table was and he said you are looking at him.

Reigns and Wyatt are both incapable of getting their opponents over, so this should be something.