During the 2026 Midterm Elections, WWE Chief Creative Officer Triple H was seen as one of the celebrity guests at polling stations on behalf of Turning Point Action, an affiliate of Turning Point USA which was the late Charlie Kirk’s group now overseen by his wife. HHH joined their group in Goffstown, NH and afterward, the online reaction was immediate with WWE fans claiming they’ll “never support the WWE again after this” or “never support the WWE as long as Triple H is there”. Wow…

So let me get this straight…

You kept watching for ALL OF THESE YEARS despite these events:

– Vince McMahon’s Rita Chatterton allegations
– Ring boys scandal
– Steroid allegations and then 1994 trial
– Stephanie McMahon comparing 9/11 terrorists to the U.S. justice department trying to indict her father
– Many wrestlers dying of enlarged hearts or mixing alcohol & prescriptions
– WWE clearly not having a drug testing policy during the 2000s, only strengthened it after Benoit’s killings and the online pharmacy bust
– Vince McMahon supporting Linda McMahon twice for Republican senate seats
– Chris Benoit killings, and proof that WWE lacked any concussion protocols in addition to weak drug testing policies
– Vince partnering with Saudi Arabia for events
– Vince selling to TKO, who actively price gouges fans on everyone and doesn’t care about sending wrestlers in harm’s way
– TKO supporting Trump, held UFC event on his lawn and paid millions of their corporate profits to do so
– Vince McMahon’s many NDA payouts for inappropriate relationships or harassment with women, while also committing financial fraud on WWE’s financial statements to do it.

But Triple H attending a small event outside of a polling place, which he’s allowed to do under the 1st Amendment… That was your last straw?

The fact is that Triple H has been to White House REPEATEDLY and was in REPEAT photo ops with President Donald Trump, but HHH appearing at 1 polling place is where you draw the line?

Give me a break.

How many of you have Smartphones? Congrats, because both Apple and Google donated MILLIONS to the Ballroom. Like watching cable on Comcast or using a computer with Microsoft Windows? Both donated to that cause as well. So, because of their financial contributions, are you going to stop using those products?

At the 2025 inauguration, the heads of Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple were ALL THERE and FRONT & CENTER while Trump made his first speech as president. Are you going to stop using their products, too?

Do you see how STUPID you sound online?

If you’re going to boycott something, just do it… We don’t need your ONLINE DRAMA about you saying that you’re doing something, but then we know where your loyalties are. You cannot stop watching wrasslin’ on Monday Nights and you love watching the PLE events. We’re all creatures of habit. WWE and AEW have received LESS of my money for subscriptions or buying Pay Per Views for the past 2 years. If I didn’t write this column, you wouldn’t have known about it. What implements change is when a company sees its numbers decline, but they have no reason why. Then, they start listening.

Look, I don’t support this Trump regime and never have. Before he even ran, I didn’t see the appeal. I believe he saw what Sarah Palin did during the 2008 election and that was to stir up the right-wing conspiracy believers and saw an opportunity. Hence the whole Obama “birth certificate” allegations. As businessman, he filed for 6 separate bankruptcies and several of those were casinos which one would have to really mess up to lose money. On top of that, he just wasn’t a nice guy as he bragged about his wealth and talked down to people, getting into petty fights with anyone who gave feedback or mocked him. Sadly, Democrats disregarding the middle class who built them, gave him many opportunities to win elections and try this gameshow host as a president.

Thus, I’m not on Triple H’s side politically to say something like this. I’m thinking wrestling fans are being a little petty and dramatic for 1 appearance at a polling place that didn’t matter in the long-run.

If you don’t like HHH openly celebrating one political side, then stop watching WWE all together and burn all of your merchandise. Quit being dramatic online and do something about it. Otherwise, you’ll keep watching on Mondays, Fridays, and on the weekends with PLEs.

Why would Triple H even do this? Why make an appearance with the Turning Point folks or do so many photo ops with Donald Trump?

Because eventually, Triple H is running for office.

And I think he’d win pretty easily and become an effective politician.

Why?

Because Triple H has been a politician his entire life.

Joins WWE during 1995 and immediately befriends the “cool kids” of the promotion, the Clique with Shawn Michaels, Diesel, Razor, and 1-2-3 Kid. And think about this… Triple H does NOT party like those other 4 guys did, yet he’s willing to chaperone them and be their designated driver without flinching. Think about that! Even when Nash and Hall left for WCW, along with Waltman later, HHH was loyal to Shawn Michaels. Michaels was an absolute mess, but it was HHH was helped HBK undress, get into showers, and literally stay alive during 1997-1998 because that was a meal ticket to HHH.

Meanwhile, HHH was getting closer and closer to Vince. By 2000, he was regularly attending WWE Production Meetings which not only talked about how he was used, but how other wrestlers were used. Then, he began dating Stephanie McMahon and by 2003, they were married. HHH was into the family. Now, I think that their relationship is real and they really do love each other, but he seized on an opportunity to do a storyline with Stephanie during late 1999. The whole “marriage” angle was HHH’s idea and that was the in. Since then, HHH has been obtaining different levels of management positions in the WWE and now remains a major figure in TKO’s version.

It’s only natural that if HHH wants to do more than just WWE, he has to rub shoulders with those in power. Hence why he’s getting in good with Republicans and also why he’s working with Turning Point USA who arguably was a big third-party service that helped Trump win in 2024.

You may go ahead and make that argument by supporting Trump, HHH is “enabling” things like ICE being too aggressive, tariffs, Iran war, high gas prices, harming your healthcare insurance, etc. At the end of the day, he didn’t make those decisions, as Trump and the Congress who just got their arses kicked did. What Triple H wants is lower taxes for himself and TKO as a corporation, while also keeping the independent contractor status for wrestlers in place along with other regulations away from WWE. Politics creates strange bedfellows, but you do have to lay in the bed that you’ve made.

Does Triple H’s political views make him a bad guy? No. Makes you possibly question if he’s really that good at creative, but HHH has never broken a law other than maybe how he obtained performance enhancers (but we don’t fully know about that). HHH donates regularly to charity and with his wife, they created the Connor’s Cure foundation that raised millions for cancer research. I would argue that as creative chief since June 2022, he has given more opportunities to wrestlers to succeed versus how Vince was just top heavy on a few wrestlers getting pushed. HHH seems like a good father and a devoted husband.

That’s where we need to go, moving forward, with the United States. STOP LETTING YOUR POLITICS DEFINE YOU OR YOUR VIEWS OF OTHERS. If someone is constantly preaching about politics instead of talking about literally anything else, like their personal life, then ignore them or state that yelling about your own politics is turning people off from you. I’m not about to cease 1st amendment rights, but when politics becomes like a religion to you and not only do you endlessly preach it, but you attempt to recruit people to your cause and shame people who won’t join you… THAT is the problem. For the past 10 years, if you’re in the middle which is where I’ve been, you’ll hear personal attacks from MAGAs for not joining their cause and personal attacks from those who dislike Trump for ever associating or talking to anyone who might support MAGA.

We’re the UNITED States, not the “Divided States of America”. People didn’t get into fights, disown friends and family, or fully shame others about their politics. You knew where someone stood and you moved on. Then the 1980s and 1990s made both parties very tribal, as you had to have these specific list of political views to be on his team or you were out! Heaven forbid wanting to be a fiscal conservative but being as gung-ho on social causes. Now, if you support the other team, you’re the “enemy” or accused of supporting someone who is the “next Hitler”. Huh?

Meanwhile, you have ZERO idea how great you have it in the United States. Tourists from the past World Cup were AMAZED at how well we had it here, as all kinds of great food was readily available and we had so many freedoms here that were taken for granted. The U.S. has the best system, as it can make much needed repairs after each election cycle. Democrats took unions for granted, so that caused Trump to win in 2016. Trump botched the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, so Joe Biden was elected. While Biden corrected the pandemic, he had a long fight to correct the inflation that both he and Trump’s borrowing and money printing caused during 2020-2021 and while doing that, he kept his eye off the gates on the southern border with immigration. That caused Trump to win again during 2024. Then, Trump failed to lower prices thanks to his tariffs and Iran war, but we also have many foreign policy issues thanks to that Iran war. Because of that, Democrats dominated the 2026 midterms.

And now Triple H has to think about what he just supported and how will he possibly course correct if he wants to eventually become a politician himself.

I believe that Triple H and Stephanie McMahon are going to run for office in the near future and that’s why HHH is risking his own public image. BUT, TKO’s CEO Ari Emanuel is a big Democrat and has supported that party for years. However when it comes to President Trump, it’s “just business”. Emanuel was Trump’s agent in the past and Ari knows that he needs certain things from Washington to keep his Endeavor, UFC, and WWE businesses afloat.

In other words, Triple H and Ari Emanuel know how to play the game…

Whether you know how to play your own game is up to you… Do you talk, or do you walk? Running to social media to complain is one thing, but cutting off the WWE fully is another and resisting temptation to return is also an issue.

But again, many things that you consume were provided by people or corporations with different political views than yours. Unless you’re willing to live in a cave somewhere and avoid all human contact, you’ll need to either get along or move your time/money to somewhere else.

The only “wrestling” thing that I’ve bought during 2026 has been ESPN+ for only the month of January, but that was primarily to see the NCAA Football title game rather than the Rumble itself. That’s it… Just $29.99 for the entire 2026, and that includes AEW receiving nothing. I don’t have Cable/Satellite, so they get nothing from that. Used to watch YouTube clips, but was getting bored of even that.

The only thing connecting me to wrestling is this very column…

Mr. Tito Column Archive @ NoDQ

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I looked into this a little bit and realized that there are a few different reasons why I’m not into these matches anymore, starting with the first one.

1. The setup

When I’m talking about the setup, I’m referring to how the match is announced and the reasoning behind using it. When you look at those early WarGames matches, from the beginning in the late 1980s up until 1997, the match wasn’t just used as a throwaway attraction because it was that time of the year. It was meant to be the culmination of a long-running feud. They used WarGames as a way to end the feud, which made the match more enjoyable because you knew the babyfaces would get their revenge on the heels. That’s normally what happened, as outside of 1997, when the NWO defeated the Horsemen, the babyfaces always won.

Nowadays, it feels like there’s no real reason for a WarGames match to happen outside of it simply being that time of the year. Just look at this year’s crop of matches. Both Blood and Guts matches might have been violent and everything, but what was the point of the matches outside of being held because it was that time of the year? Everybody involved in those matches will continue feuding afterward, so the matches really meant nothing beyond being violent matches for the sake of being violent.

The same goes for the WWE version. Does having The Bloodline face Royce Keys’ group in a WarGames match end the feud between the two factions? No, as I’m sure they will continue that feud past Survivor Series. The same goes for the women’s match, which seemed to be set up for Charlotte, Alexa, Tatum, Bayley, and probably one or two other people to face Fatal Influence, Jade, Michin, and B-Fab.

I would love for both companies to use the match only when they have a feud that needs to be settled with that type of stipulation, rather than using it simply because it’s that time of the year.

2. The use of weapons

This has been one of my biggest problems with modern WarGames matches. I don’t understand why you need to bring in weapons when you already have the ultimate weapon at your disposal: the steel cage.

Again, go back and look at those classic WarGames matches, especially the early ones involving Dusty and the Horsemen. They found ways to make the matches look incredibly violent just by using the steel cage as a weapon. Guys were bleeding, and some even got injured because of the cage. That’s why we still remember those matches as great ones.

Nowadays, they have to use a lot of shortcuts to create the same amount of violence. AEW’s versions go overboard with weapons and blood just to generate shock value. Heck, you can almost always guarantee that in the men’s match, somebody will take a bump on the roof or get thrown off the roof of the cage for no reason. It never makes sense and looks cheesy.

The WWE version isn’t much better. Because of the company’s no-blood rule, it’s just guys beating the heck out of each other while trying to be as safe as possible, which makes the match look horrible. Most of the time, the biggest culprits are the women’s matches, as you normally have a group of women who don’t really know how to make the match look violent without using weapons as crutches. Heck, you’re almost guaranteed to see Iyo Sky do that damn garbage bin spot every year, which is becoming a joke the more she does it.

Again, if this match is supposed to be about beating your opponents senseless and making it believable, why do wrestlers these days seem unable to do that without beating each other with weapons and going through tables? It’s sad, and it takes away from the rawness that the match used to have.

3. The pacing

My biggest problem with modern WarGames matches has always been the pacing. Back in the day, when they finally got to the WarGames portion of the match, that’s where the action really picked up. It normally wouldn’t take long before we got to the finish, which made sense because those guys had been beating each other senseless for half an hour. They didn’t have much strength left to continue taking that type of beating.

These days, by the time we get to the WarGames portion, it’s like the first 25 to 30 minutes never happened. We’re starting back at square one and have to continue watching them beat each other up for another 15 to 20 minutes, if not longer. Again, that makes no sense considering how much of a beating they already took. WWE is the biggest culprit of this, as they tend to overbook these WarGames matches just for the sake of it, which makes them awful and boring to watch.

So again, stop trying to reinvent the wheel and go back to what made WarGames so special. The match itself was separated into two parts. The first act was always a way to set up the final five minutes, which served as the climax. That’s where all the drama was, and it had to be as quick as possible so that the ending would have a major impact on the audience.

Conclusion

Modern wrestling really needs to go back to what made the WarGames concept so impactful in the first place and stop using it as a placeholder match simply because it’s that time of the year or because they need a ratings boost.

Also, stop making the matches look fake. Go back to making them believable by actually stopping the use of shortcuts to create violence and pacing the matches better instead of having a 30-minute final act.

If they learn lessons from the past, I think they can make this type of match mean something again. For now, though, it’s just another throwaway gimmick match that they use once a year because it’s that time of the year, and that makes the match less special.

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The most annoying thing about Crown Jewel was the Saudi’s announcing that they were moving the event…to a smaller arena. At first the WWE was all “hey, that’s news to us” since they only found out after seeing a social media post stating the event was being moved. There are so many screwy things going on with this show. The least of which is it being a potential target for a terrorist attack. I really hope when the Saudi deal is up in 2027 (at least I think is in 2027) and I hope the WWE takes it as a learning opportunity and never does it again.

I often wonder what Triple H is thinking with some of his recent decisions. Yeah, I know he’s only a cog in that machine. He has suits above him in TKO that make decisions for him and he has to go along with them. Like keeping the title on Roman is probably not a Triple H decision. But everything else we see sure as hell is. Like the Money in the Bank winners. Penta won…which was good. He’s the hottest guy on the roster so it makes sense for him to win. But when it came to the Women’s MITB winner, Tiffany Stratton winning made no sense to me. Now she’s got the briefcase and for what? Just so she can eventually turn on Chelsea Green in her eventual Mean Girl’s moment to win the title?

What’s really annoying me is The Judgment Day. I really hate the direction they are in right now. The other day while watching them once again interfere in a Liv Morgan match…I came to the conclusion that the group as a whole are the new Impact Players from ECW. Liv Morgan is Justin Credible. I’m not sure who would be the Lance Storm of the group. But Dominik Mysterio is without a doubt the new Jason. Either way I can not STAND them. Every match with them is the same. Liv is about to lose only for everyone in the group to run in and cause a distraction leading to her getting a sneaky win. It’s the same thing with them every week and it just gets annoying to watch. I mean from a heel standpoint they’re fine. But it’s just the same old thing over and over.

As I said in the last column, I thought Roxy should have won the Women’s MITB. The specter of her possibly cashing in on Liv every week would have made for some fun television. At least over on Smackdown, Chelsea Green is killing it at WWE Women’s Champion. It’s a good thing they struck when the iron was hot with her. I hope she wins the convoluted Women’s Crown Jewel championship. If anyone deserves that thing it’s her.

As for the men’s Crown Jewel. As much as I love Sami Zayn and everything he’s done this year…if anyone thinks he has snowball’s chance in hell of winning against Roman Reigns, you could not be more hopelessly wrong. I mean it would be a great moment if Sami won. But it’s just not going to happen. Of course stranger things have happened so who knows at this point.

The other matches on the show are throwaway’s to be honest. Orton vs. Rhodes as a Last Man Standing match should be interesting, but nothing I’d go out of my way to see. They could have thrown it on a random Smackdown for all I cared. The other announced match is The Vision defending the tag titles against Penta and Je’Von Evans which makes no sense…but so does the tag team division over on RAW. Honestly there should just be one set of tag team champions for both shows. It works for the Women’s division and even less thought is put into those matches than the men’s tag teams. I don’t see Penta and Je’Von winning so I wouldn’t put much thought into caring about this match. What will be interesting is will Penta cash in on the Roman/Sami match? I assume there will be a chaotic ending to the match that would set up for a perfect cash in opportunity. Sami is more likely to be cashed in on than Roman.

I would love to see Penta over on Smackdown. The potential for so many good matches is over there. He seems to have run his course over on RAW in my view. Smackdown has the better world title picture…so he would fit right in. RAW is at the behest of Roman and his schedule. Sure he’ll show up for a promo, but he’s not actually wrestling and defending the title. Funny how the Men’s and Women’s World Championship over on RAW have the same problem. Champions who don’t defend their titles.

I hope Crown Jewel goes off without a hitch. There’s a lot of outside factors that could happen and I really hope they don’t.

In other news, AEW had Blood and Guts on Wednesday night and do yourself a favor. Go watch the Women’s Blood and Guts match. It was absolutely insane. The MVP of the match was Megan Bayne who tapped a 0.9 on the Mutoh Scale. The ring was covered in her blood and it looked like a murder scene in spots.

The Men’s Blood and Guts match was more psychological than gorey. Still the women blew them away like I think they did last year. Those AEW Women are crazy. But the men’s match I thought did set up nicely for the Will Ospreay vs. Kyle Fletcher AEW World title match on November 14th at Full Gear. It also set up for a potential Ospreay vs. Adam Copeland match. Cope has said this coming year is his last wrestling so I’d love to see him get that final World Title. Will it be at the expense of Will Ospreay…I don’t know. It’s just a potential match I see in the near future.

I guess on that note I am done for this week. As usual if you want to leave me any feedback you can do so down below, over on Twitter or e-mail me at phantomlordnyc@gmail.com

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Look at this WCW card… It’s seriously stacked:

Chris Jericho vs. Raven
Wrath vs. Meng
Disco Inferno vs. Juventud Guerrera
Alex Wright vs. Fit Finlay
Saturn vs. Lodi
Billy Kidman vs. Disco Inferno
Scott Steiner and The Giant vs. Rick Steiner and Buff Bagwell
Rick Steiner vs. Scott Steiner
Scott Hall vs. Kevin Nash
Bret Hart vs. Sting
Hollywood Hogan vs. The Warrior
Goldberg vs. Diamond Dallas Page

Look at those LAST 4 matches…

The Outsiders, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, going head to head. Just 2 years ago, they formed the NWO and made WCW become the #1 company.

Bret Hart vs. Sting would have been a DREAM MATCH the year before, yet it’s freakin’ third from the top on this card. By October 1998, both the Bret Hart and Sting brands diminished and it’s no secret that what happened at Starrcade 1997 caused that.

And then you have the Wrestlemania 6 rematch between ”Hollywood” Hulk Hogan and Warrior, which should have had more hype but Warrior’s first promo on WCW Nitro instantly killed any interest in that match. Great to have Warrior back, but he rambled for like 15-20 minutes of total nonsense. Oh, and this match totally sucked and exposed the fact that Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan actually rehearsed their match in 1990 for months.

The main event was Bill Goldberg vs. Diamond Dallas Page, a match which most didn’t get to see on Pay Per View because Halloween Havoc 1998 ran too long and went beyond the cable company’s Pay Per View fixed timeframe. On Nitro the following match, WCW actually gave this match away for FREE because of this error.

A show with those 4 matches shouldn’t suck, but it did… Goes to show you that even with some all-time great talent, if you’re creative sucks OR if you let the talent control everything, your company will have issues.

Sad part for me, though, is that 28 years later, several wrestlers are no longer with us. Scott Hall, Ultimate Warrior, and Hulk Hogan are each gone and all 3 guys were major stars for this business. Then, you look at Bret Hart. He was struggling in WCW, but in just over 1 year, his career would be over following Starrcade 1999 and continuing to wrestle for weeks after sustaining a concussion.

DDP, in just a few years, would have a disappointing WWE run but then he’d become wrestling’s angel by helping guys like Jake “The Snake” Roberts, Scott Hall, Buff Bagwell, and many others recover from addictions that ailed them to continue performing, showing up for fans, or being available for their families. I personally thought that Kevin Nash, Sting, and Bill Goldberg did well deep into their careers and Sting/Goldberg had nice retirement endings.

As you look back at WCW during 1998, what was happening? What caused this promotion to literally die in less than 3 years after this show?

(1) Eric Bischoff

Eric was like that NFL general manager who burned up his salary cap and made massive trades to WIN NOW even if it meant years of “salary cap hell” in the long-run. He leaned on veterans like Hogan, Macho Man, Hall, and Nash to put more eyeballs on the product but in just 2 years, WCW began to fall apart. However, Bischoff expanded production and signed many wrestlers to long-term guaranteed contracts that it screwed WCW financially for years.

Worse for Bischoff, he became a MARK after he turned heel and joined the NWO during November 1996. Eric, with time, began to care too much about what his on-air character was doing versus actually managing the WCW company. Because he was a member of the NWO and there was no turning back, he did things to purposely keep the NWO and notably, keep Hulk Hogan strong. See Starrcade 1997 and the first Nitro of 1999. Further, Eric was hanging out with the boys as he was now performer just like them rather than being their manager. He got bored with the management side and do stupid things like placing Kevin Nash as lead booker during late 1998.

(2) Time Warner, then AOL/Time Warner

Ted Turner merged his properties with Time Warner and through early 1998, they saw the profits that WCW was making and seized upon it. They came up with this idea that they could make even MORE money if Time Warner executives could convince WCW to become more family friendly. WCW lost its edge during 1998 just as WWE was gaining theirs with hungry male audiences. Then, the became much worse once the AOL Ponzi scheme merger happened.

You know, it makes me wonder… Are there any wrestling promotions who are becoming increasingly corporate?

Oh yeah, WWE under TKO’s ownership, who is owned by Endeavor which is owned by Silver Lake. Many shareholders and now executives making $20 million to $70 million each year are now telling Triple H and his entire creative staff what to do and who to push. From Chief Operating Officer of TKO Mark Shapiro’s own lips: “TKO has complete creative control and responsibility over the WWE”.

Wrestling historians will look back at Wrestlemania 39, back during 2023, as the PEAK of the WWE’s 2020s boom period. As many promoters have often said, if you have a great year, you have at least 1 good year following that riding on its fumes. I know that Eric Bischoff, himself, buys into this principle as WCW had great 1996 and 1997 years, but what followed was 1998 and 1999 with 1999 seeing him exit the company due to declining performance. WWE got by for 1 year, following Wrestlemania 39, and then juiced some excitement with Wrestlemania 40 by having the Rock come back. What has happened since? Rest of 2024 sucked, 2025 suckiness was masked by John Cena’s retirement tour, and 2026 has mostly been a letdown with the Bloodline retread and nobody new blossoming as the next generation of top superstars.

And in return, just as Time Warner began meddling through early 1998, TKO’s meddling has impacted WWE’s creative and has caused nothing but price gouging on all products and services. Ticket prices to attend WWE events are WAY UP. TKO lets Fanatics price gouge WWE on merchandise. Instead of watching RAW and Smackdown on either the Cable/Satellite that you’re already paying for or broadcast television, you now have to watch RAW behind the Netflix payway. We had it SO GOOD with the original WWE Network at $9.99 and then had it reasonably good with Peacock with reasonable pricing plans ranging from $5 to $15. Now, they screw you with a $30 price tag with ESPN+. Disney carries over $46 billion in debt, folks. Yeah, that ESPN+ price is going to skyrocket, soon.

Then, you have All Elite Wrestling (AEW)…

I’m totally LAUGHING right now at how AEW fans are actually complaining after Will Ospreay became AEW Champion. For a few years now, each of you were eating Dave Meltzer’s table scraps and believing Ospreay was “the guy” for AEW. Those 5, 6, or 7 star matches, his connections to New Japan Pro Wrestling, and getting to work matches with the SAME people he worked with in New Japan… And yet here you are, complaining about either his opponents, the creative he’s received, or attention he should be seeing as AEW Champ.

Or maybe, just maybe… Will Ospreay was a better title chaser than a title carrier.

To be a main eventer for a wrestling promotion, you MUST be “larger than life”. That’s a fact. Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Macho Man Randy Savage, The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Brock Lesnar, John Cena, and now Roman Reigns. Any doubt about those guys? Never has been… You knew that during their prime years, those guys could pack arenas and put eyeballs on any television screen. Why? Because they were characters that you didn’t see in regular life that fascinated you and were people that you wish that you knew.

I look at Will Ospreay and WWE’s Sami Zayn as World Champions right now of their companies. They look like regular guys to me that I could meet around town or know. Now, I’m not here to bash their in-ring abilities… NOT WHAT I’M SAYING… It’s that magnetic energy from things that you cannot teach, such as look, acting abilities, speaking ability, charisma, and confidence that both men are lacking or only have a slight percentage of these. For me, the confidence is a huge factor. When you’re World Champion, ACT LIKE IT. Be like a damn peacock and show those feathers! Be that alpha male that looks down the entire roster and DARES anyone to challenge him, but when they do, the probability isn’t there for them to lose the title.

If you ever listen to people making predictions, they always say “never bet against Cena” or “never bet against Roman”. It’s not just that they are favored by Creative, but that both men carry themselves as unstoppable forces. And in all honesty with Roman Reigns, he didn’t have this before 2020. Then, he gained more experience and listened to experienced minds, and boom, Roman drew incredible numbers from 2021-2023 and is directly attributed, and rightly so, for WWE’s boom period through Wrestlemania 39 as I cited above.

You want to know why you’re REALLY frustrated with Will Ospreay’s AEW Title run so far? Because there is DOUBT… You don’t believe in him. Unfortunately, you bought into the 5, 6, 7 star hype of Dave Meltzer and his minions about what a “great worker” Ospreay was and why AEW should push him to the moon. Great story, bro, as the creative allowed Ospreay to beat everybody in the company on the way up to the top. Well, who is to wrestle afterward?

Let’s go back to that 1998 year… At Wrestlemania 14, Steve Austin vanquished Shawn Michaels to win the WWE Title. After that show, who was Austin’s next Pay Per View opponent?

Mick Foley.

Now, I love Foley, but this was Foley through the Spring of 1998 and he was just disposed of by the New Age Outlaws through Wrestlemania 14 along with his buddy Chainsaw Charlie. Total midcarder at best at this point… So why would he become Austin’s opponent immediately after becoming WWE Champion?

BECAUSE IT DIDN’T MATTER WHO AUSTIN’S OPPONENTS WERE!

Austin as WWE Champion = GREATNESS

Because Austin was so confident as WWE Champion that he could MAKE HIS OPPONENT SEEM GREAT!!!!!!!!!

Austin carried himself incredibly well as WWE Champion, as he was fully confident and had a big swagger to him. Austin drew major money with any of the goons that the Corporation fed him. And that includes The Rock. Folks, Rock was still very green through 1997-1998… Yet, he had a highly confident top star who believed in him and worked with him to make the fans believe that he was an experienced performer. Austin turned this young kid in to a mega superstar and these guys would go on to wrestle 3 times at Wrestlemania, twice as headliners.

THAT is a superstar and real drawing champion.

I look at Ospreay and I don’t see that confidence. I look at Zayn and I believe that 10-15 wrestlers could easily defeat him in a straight-up one-on-one match-up. Hell, I once saw Johnny Knoxville and his Jackass buddies dispatch of Zayn on Wrestlemania 38.

I just LAUGH at the AEW fans immediately losing confidence in Will Ospreay, just as I LAUGH at the stuttering WWE fans who are trying to suggest who should be the next WWE World Champion or main eventer.

NONE OF YOU have a F’N clue on how to assess the next big wrestler, and that’s why AEW or WWE aren’t banging on your door to employ you.

And I’m sure many of you will reply “what about you? Why doesn’t the WWE or AEW want you?”. Because I don’t want it… I’m not the one proclaiming that I’m such an expert that I can be the next kingmaker for either company. I just study what has happened previously in the wrestling business, thanks to 28 years now as an online columnist or almost 40 years as a fan, and just give my opinion of what could or won’t happen. I’m a big believer in George Santayana’s quote of “those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it”, and I’ve seen Zayn and Ospreay’s stories before in other wrestlers. WWE has tried to make many midcarders become champions, like the Miz, Jack Swagger, Alberto Del Rio, Jinder Mahal, Damian Priest, and others and thus, the roadmap is there for (a) wrestlers who shouldn’t be world champion, (b) wrestlers who were just chasers, or (c) wrestlers pumped up by groups of fans, as Jey Uso and Daniel Bryan fit that mold.

To see all of you arguing online, non-stop, is disgusting. BEST move that I ever did was to go private on X/Twitter. Complete waste of time yelling at people with your thumbs or your fingers.

And then you have complete jokes like Dave Meltzer getting into fights, all day, on social media. What are you doing, Dave? You used to be the most respected news and from that, we all respected your opinion. Yeah, we knew about your New Japan love, but we accepted that because you brought us the news. Now, however, because you’re so infatuated with AEW thanks to that promotion listening to you and employing all of your California Indy and New Japan buddies, you’re impaired. That includes your match rating system, but also your refusal to break any AEW stories. Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp is LAUGHING at how Meltzer gave him the “top news anchor” mantle simply by Dave morphing into a complete jerk.

Facts are facts about Meltzer… From 1998 to 2010, Dave awarded NO 5-star matches to the WWE. That is a complete indictment on Dave’s anti-WWE bias. Forget not awarding anything to Kurt Angle, why not look at everything else he refused to give 5-stars that involved Rock, Austin, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Rey Mysterio, Edge, Undertaker, and many others who packed WWE shows with great matches, especially between 2000 and 2005 when the WWE roster was loaded with incredible workers. Meltzer is the same guy who during the late 1990s, he was whining about WCW and WWE booming during the Monday Night Wars because he has always hated WWE’s style and he was mad at Bischoff for raiding his favorite Mexico or Japan promotions. The NWO storyline was amazing, but Dave hated it and took shots at WCW any time he could because it wasn’t “perfection” like New Japan.

Meltzer aside, all wrestling fans have become difficult. All they do is waste time, ALL DAY LONG, complaining about wrestling YET they keep watching it. “RAW sucks”, so why are you spending 2-3 hours watching it every Monday? It’s a damn infomercial for PLEs, anyway, so why are you watching? Go out on Friday nights instead of watching the Smackdown PLE infomercial for 2-3 hours. If AEW saves its best for Pay Per Views, then save time by skipping their own versions of infomercials on Wednesdays and Saturdays and just watch the PPVs. Time is so precious, yet many of you waste it watching wrestling television shows that you claim to hate and then complain about it ALL DAY LONG on your social media account or when you appear on YouTube shows.

Further in this online battles for “wrestling opinion” supremacy, how on earth could ANY wrestling fan have an ego? Seriously, you’re spending your own personal time to (a) watch all of these shows and then (b) spend even more hours illustrating your opinions about the shows you just watch. For many online, they develop their own little character who represents their opinion and they cannot have their precious little ego devalued in any way, shape, or form. WHO CARES! It’s damn fictional performances on-screen. This is literally the same whining we see about people complaining about movies, especially Star Wars, Marvel, or DC.

I’m going to take the Larry David response to all of you egomaniacs who think that your opinions are better than others… ”Why don’t you invent something better?”

If you have such great ideas about wrestling, why don’t YOU start your own promotion and CONVINCE adult wrestlers to go along with your brilliant ideas? Let’s see how well that goes…

Apply to AEW, for a job, if you believe that YOU could book Will Ospreay better as champion. All you have to do is acknowledge that Tony Khan, the Young Bucks, and Dave Meltzer are “brilliant” and you’ve got the job!

As I look back at that Halloween Havoc 1998 card, it’s top to bottom with WELL TRAINED wrestlers with the exception of Bill Goldberg BUT a well trained wrestler in DDP walked him through the match to make it appear sensational. You don’t have that today… Wrestlers, these days, are self-trained going from the backyard to an unsanctioned independent promotion. That, or they’ll go to the WWE’s developmental system which trains you to be a character versus teaching you how to actually work any type of match. Matt Bloom is a TERRIBLE trainer for the WWE, and naturally gifted Shawn Michaels doesn’t know how to teach younger wrestlers why he was so great. Contrast that with OVW and FCW who had excellent teachers and their students are still carrying WWE’s water to this day. They can work any style at any time. Today’s WWE wants look and then we’ll train you for what creative specifically wants, not what could be sold to creative to be great.

If the training of younger wrestlers was so great, then we wouldn’t need so many tables, ladders, or outside brawling in all of these matches. I always like Kevin Nash’s criticism of ECW from a few years ago, in that he said “if I hit you with a weapon, you’re not getting up!”. Bingo. Same can be applied that if I slammed you through a table, there’s no way you should finish a match. All of these 5, 6, 7 star matches that goofball Meltzer rates are full of high risk moves, table spots, weapons, or other things and hitting a million moves per minute that forces wrestlers to SELL NOTHING. Sure, today’s wrestling is more action packed than the past because the older guys actually sold moves like they were in a real fight. One of the Younger Bucks completely no-sells a Canadian Destroyer like nothing happened to him. Shawn Michaels finished you off with a superkick, but now everybody does that as a regular move and everybody instantly gets up from it.

Go ahead and call me “old man yelling at clouds”, but you’re the one burning through more of your personal time to watch today’s product and then obsessing about it online all day, not me. After having ESPN+ to watch the National Championship in NCAA for January, which allowed me to watch the Rumble, I’ve never looked back. ESPN isn’t going to price gouge me monthly. After AEW ditched CM Punk, they stopped receiving my Pay Per View dollars and I’ve never looked back. Just a waste of time because what you’re seeing isn’t actually professional wrestling. It’s corporate wrestling full of celebrity cameos for WWE, while AEW is just a demonstration of pro wrestling moves without the need for psychology.

Despite all of that, I’ve brought quality columns to the scene heading into my 28th year as Mr. Tito. Way back in September, I was the FIRST one to call out WWE for continuing to have WWE Crown Jewel 2026 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia despite the Houthis attacking Saudi Arabia that month. When they attacked the East/West pipeline, I knew that trouble was coming especially with WWE being an American product. Then in early October, the Riyadh Airport was bombed. Took TKO and Saudi Arabia WEEKS to figure out that maybe having an OUTSIDE event wasn’t a great idea… But are we really safe by moving the event indoors? WWE wrestlers and personnel are still flying in, and Crown Jewel will still be a mass gathering of fans.

Some of you goofs on social media tried to call me out for having this opinion, calling me names or making baseless allegations. The usual chickensh*t cop-out when you read an opinion that has you disagreeing. However, you don’t live in the real world where actual WAR is happening and there’s a proxy group of Iran wanting to disrupt things in an American ally country.

For all of you online marks aka jerks reading this… You cannot bash TKO’s greed on one hand, but then defend them keeping an event in Saudi Arabia. Utter hypocrisy.

Part of the reason why we’re in a 2-decade FUNK for pro wrestling is that yes, pro wrestling promotions are poorly managed… BUT, they also have to understand a fanbase who has NO IDEA what they truly want. “Push this guy, push that guy”… “This wrestler really needs this win!” “Creative is terrible!” “This guy is a favorite of management’s and they are shoving him down our throats!”.

Meanwhile, WWE reviews analytics of merchandise sales and social media engagement on a daily basis and sees that all of their numbers are up. That’s right, despite all of your complaints and negativity, you won’t go away. In fact, you’ll spend MORE MONEY on WWE products than ever before. The average amount of $$ per WWE fan has NEVER been higher, as the extremely loyal fanbase keeps feeding the WWE and TKO machine that they CLAIM to hate with more TIME and MONEY.

In my 28 years of pro wrestling, I can conclude that wrestling has significantly deteriorated… We had a brief glimpse of improving times when AEW arrived and kicked the WWE in the arse to awaken again through the early 2020s… But then WWE fell asleep at the wheel again with drunken (with power) TKO executives steering the company off a cliff. Meanwhile, Tony Khan is a dictator of an island of misfit toys. But damn, the fans are more difficult than ever and may have fed into the social media algorithm more than anybody on the planet.

The beauty is that I don’t have to watch this stuff, nor do I have to write about it. I do what I want, when I want and always have as Mr. Tito and as a wrestling fan. Nobody tells me what to watch or write, and I watch or write about whatever I want.

The harder fact is that I forget more about pro wrestling than most of online marks will ever know about pro wrestling.

None of you have the balls to hold these wrestling promotions accountable. You keep watching more hours of their awful content, buy more of their overpriced merchandise, and let them price gouge you without flinching.

Only thing that has kept me around as Mr. Tito is my longtime readers, who I appreciate 100%. That’s the “fix” that keeps me coming back, even when I’m totally bored with pro wrestling.

Peace out, my longtime friends. Thanks for always having my back and supporting whatever I post. In every column that I have written for you, I gave everything that I had and didn’t care about the repercussions. Further, I looked at things analytically versus being a doofus online wrestling mark for a wrestler or for a promotion.

How was that? Was that a 5-star column to cap off the 28th year anniversary as Mr. Tito? Hope that you liked those apples, because wrestling sucks right now.

We had it GOOD during October 1998… I’ll take declining WCW that was recycling the NWO storyline over WWE today recycling the Bloodline storyline. And way better than AEW, for sure.

Mr. Tito Column Archive @ NoDQ

The post Mr. Tito’s 28th Anniversary Celebration Column – Pro Wrestling (WWE & AEW) is Awful Right Now! appeared first on NoDQ.com: WWE and AEW Coverage.

Thank you all for your opinions on War Games in my last column, the War Games and indeed Blood and Guts format are going to be in the spotlight in the next month or so as both companies put on their shows. I guess I’ll do a little review of each right here for you all and we’ll assess what the future holds for the match across both companies.

Elsewhere across the wrestling world everything seems a little quiet which is no bad thing. Crown Jewel has been moved to a different venue in Riyadh and hopefully the middle east conflict with the Houthi Rebels remains stable for now. There’s a Zuffa boxing event this weekend as well, this may hopefully give some more peace of mind over events taking place in the region. I still hold it should be postponed at the very least.

An interesting little tidbit popped up this week from Conrad Thompson stating there had been preliminary talks between Vince Russo and the WWE relating to Vince coming back to the creative team. Now there seems to be a bit of confusion over who it is that initiated these talks. But It does speak to a wider wrestling problem that it seems isn’t just confined to the action in the ring, wrestling overall has a real problem with leaning on past successes. Wrestling should be taking chances on the next Vince Russo’s the next Bruce Prichards, the next Pat Pattersons. But yet we seem to want to be going back to the well each time to see if its run completely dry. I’d be shocked if anything came of the Russo talks, but Wrestling creative teams are screaming out for fresh new voices I just hope the Tony Khans and the HHH’s can find them.

Anyway, let’s roll on to the main portion of this week’s column, it’s a little bit of a different one this week……

Reliving the UK Friday night Wars

It was announced this week that the Simpsons will be leaving the TV channel Sky One in November 2026. This may sound like a pretty small inconsequential piece of news, but for a certain generation this seems like a day that would never come. Sunday 6PM was new Simpsons episode day in the UK for the vast majority of the 1990’s as the satellite company SKY looked to make a dent in the Free to air stranglehold of the BBC, ITV and channel 4 in Britain. Now I know what your thinking, why am I boring you with Simpsons lore on the best pro wrestling news and opinion website NoDQ.com? Well, it’s because as well as the Simpsons, Sky’s major push for subscribers was based on sport, primarily the premier league football. But the other Jewel in the crown for Sky was of course:

WWE

From its launch in the late 80s/early 90’s Sky Television promoted WWE hard and had it over a lot of their marketing and advertisements. Indeed, I don’t believe SummerSlam 1992 has a shot at happening at Wembley with the success it did without Sky television. So off of the back of thinking about the Simpsons end of an era it really struck me how much my wrestling fandom was shaped by WWE on Sky and how the ‘Monday Night Wars’ happened in a very different way in the UK.

In the original offering on TV Sky got Wrestling Challenge and Superstars, these were shown across both the sports channels and the entertainment channel Sky 1 at varying times across the weekend and weekdays. When Raw first started the UK audience had no way to watch, it simply wasn’t carried, you would be at the mercy of watching Challenge, Superstars, All American Wrestling or Mania to piece together the matches shown on that week’s episode of Raw. It’s crazy to think now with Raw fully accessible on Netflix and the money that deal generated that there was a time where you yearned to watch a full episode of Raw. But that’s exactly what it was like to be a UK wrestling fan in 93 and 94.

So, what changed? Why did Raw suddenly get carried on Sky television in 1995? Enter WCW on UK Television. Nitro not only launched on TNT it the USA it also immediately put its flagship Monday show on TNT in the UK. On Friday evening when Cartoon Network shut down at around 6PM. While the narrative around the launch of Nitro is that WWE were not initially concerned, I don’t find it a coincidence that Raw finally found its way to UK screens the exact same month as Nitro launched here as well. Raw also positioned itself on a Friday evening. Initially when Nitro started there was not a clash between the shows, Nitro was only 1 hour and when that finished it bled into Raw, a 90’s wrestling fans dream. However, once Nitro went to two hours it did then have a second hour clash with Raw. Being the loyal lieutenant that I was, it was always a switch over to Raw for me, I just couldn’t get enough Aldo Montoya matches I guess.

It must be said that the ‘war’ in the UK wasn’t nearly as fiercely fought as the one across the pond. WWE kept a strong hold in the UK generally, in a big part that they saturated their content (sound familiar?) across Sky and crucially ensured PPV’s remained free in the UK right up until the 2002 Royal Rumble. WCW’s coverage was cannibalised a little bit in the UK with the introduction of sky digital, this took TNT off of people’s planners whereas it remained on analogue sky offers. As WCW became more and more mismanaged their UK rights did return for a short time on Bravo and Channel 5, but it was poor advertised and the product wasn’t nearly as watchable as it had been. ECW also made its debut on Bravo for their ECW on TNN show. This also aired on Friday nights!

WWE and Sky maintained a great relationship for decades, as the WWE grew more risqué in the late 90’s through the attitude era Sky happily put them on later at night on Friday and even for a short term rebranded the show in the listings as ‘Late night Raw’ to try and emphasise exactly the vibe the show was producing at the time. Sky also sold merchandise for UK fans through its monthly catalogues. Even through these Friday night wars you could see just how much more effort WWE put into everything, their videos were everywhere on store shelves. WCW had a chance to try and at least squeeze out some market share, but you were more likely to find an ECW DVD in 2000 than a WCW one.

These days Netflix is the stronghold of WWE in the UK and ITV through John Williams has shown a lot of support to AEW on being on free to air TV. Wrestling endures on screens all these decades later for people of all ages to watch their favourite performers.

But that Simpsons announcement transported me right back to a time where my Wrestling TV watching was the highlight of my week. Missing an episode meant missing out on the conversation in the playground the next day. I hope you’ve enjoyed this small potted history of the Friday night Wars. Shame that this Friday there will be no Nitro and Raw to watch…. but as the old saying goes it was better to have loved and lost than never loved at all!

What was your wrestling schedule like back in the day? Did any other countries have WCW and WWE on at the same time? What does it look like now for you? Let me know down in the comments below or you can find me on X over at @Wrestle_G or TikTok on @wrestleg

Until Next time,

Cheers,

G

The post The Friday Night Wars – By Wrestle G appeared first on NoDQ.com: WWE and AEW Coverage.