Mr. Tito’s 28th Anniversary Celebration Column – Pro Wrestling (WWE & AEW) is Awful Right Now!

So, it has been 28 years since I began writing wrestling columns, online, as Mr. Tito and believe it or not, the very first thing that I wrote about was WCW Halloween Havoc 1998. Through October 1998, WWE began pulling away from WCW because the New World Order (NWO) gimmick was expired, especially with the 2 factions, and it seemed very obvious that Bill Goldberg might have peaked as WCW Champion. World Championship Wrestling (WCW) was so desperate to reignite business that they actually brought in Jim Hellwig, who was the Ultimate Warrior in WWE, as “Warrior” as Hellwig legally renamed himself that to workaround WWE’s copyrights.

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.

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