Batson's Blog

I want to spend a moment this week talking about the insane amount of championships in pro wrestling right now (no, I'm not just talking about the ones that belong to Mercedes Mone).  There are dozens of championship belts floating around between the big 3 (4 if you count ROH?) companies alone, and I believe it's bad for business. It's taking away from the importance of feuds, of winning a championship, and of the actual excitement when a wrestler finally achieves that career-defining moment. In addition to the active championships, there were numerous other championships being defended in the past five years, too.  Thankfully, the WWE 24/7 title, FTW title, and the NXT Women's Tag Team Titles were retired. They weren't being defended regularly so what's the point? I'm going to cover WWE (and NXT ... and Evolve), AEW, and TNA this week. We'll start with the undisputed leader of pro wrestling: WWE.  First, let's take a look at the amount of titles WWE...

There hasn't been a day that's gone by in the past couple of weeks that Mandy Rose hasn't made news on the pro wrestling news websites. Ever since she was released, apparently due to the explicit content on her FanTime page, people have been reacting, speculating, weighing in, and taking sides. My thoughts on the matter: I liked Mandy. She was always OK, but was never involved in anything I was excited about. Her feud with Sonya was good, her relationship with Otis was fun, her alliance with Paige was a good way to debut, and the best part of her tag team with Dana Brooke was Asuka naming the duo her, "Sexy Muscle Friends." I think her work with Toxic Attraction is a little overrated, but she did manage to reinvent herself and made names out of Gigi Dolin and Jacy Jayne along the way. While Mandy certainly improved in NXT, I wouldn't say she affects the women's division in NXT, or in WWE, in any significant way. NXT has half a dozen (or more) women there w...

News broke this week that Kassius Ohno (formerly Chris Hero of Ring of Honor fame) was released from his WWE contract . I don't think anyone who's been following the newsboards would be too surprised by this announcement. WWE signed Hero and Claudio Castagnoli in September 2011. While Castagnoli debuted as Antonio Cesaro in April 2012, Hero never appeared on Raw or Smackdown. He was stuck in NXT. Rumors began circulating that WWE management wasn't happy with his efforts. Whether that's true or not, it was put out there. Given that Hero has now been released, there was evidently some truth to WWE management not being happy with his progress. Hero addressed his release on his Facebook page, saying: "I’m leaving WWE on good terms so, if it’s meant to be, I’m sure I will be back. If it’s not meant to be, I can guarantee you that I will still be trotting all over the globe doing what I love (and what I’m damn good at) at the highest level possible." ...