Wrestle Review by Andy Sullivan: End of an Era

Ever since I started watching WWE in the late ’80’s, way back when it was WWF, Vince McMahon was always the owner and CEO. That changed Friday in a shocker. Vince McMahon announced his retirement. The 76-year-old has stepped down as chairman of the WWE. Stephanie McMahon and Nick Khan will take over as co-CEOs. Also, Triple H is back in his corporate role within WWE. Vince has already outlived his father (Vincent J. McMahon passed away at age 69). He probably figured it was time to let something go, especially given all the recent allegations against him. His most recent appearance on Smackdown felt like a goodbye speech. Turns out that’s exactly what it was. Thank you, Vince!

Elsewhere in the wrestling world, we saw another crazy barbed wire death match in AEW-this time on Dynamite between Chris Jericho and Eddie Kingston. It was a foregone conclusion that Chris would win. The only question was how. With the JAS suspended in a shark cage (because shark week), Anna Jay of all people came down and freed them. This allowed Chris’ goon squad to beat the stuffing out of Kingston, and we also saw the return of Sammy Guevara, giving Jericho the win. Does this mean Anna Jay has joined the JAS? Not necessarily. Although, with Anna and Tay back together and Tay a member of the JAS, you can see how many will draw that conclusion. I do think she eventually joins.

There was another bit of news coming out of Smackdown that turned out to be a pretty good swerve (and I’m not talking AEW tag champion Swerve Scott). Soon after I read reports of Vince stepping down, I read report of Brock Lesnar walking off Smackdown, ticked off that the man who keeps bringing him back would no longer be in charge. That turned out to be a nice little storyline that even Michael Cole and Pat McAfee played along for the audience with a “Oh my God! I thought he left” type response when he came out to F-5 Theory. If Seph being in charge means we get swerves like back in the day, such as the thing with Lesnar, sign me up!

The question now is: what will SummerSlam look like with Steph and Khan in charge? That and going TV-14, that last man standing match is going to be a bloodbath worse than Jericho-Kingston.

Don’t forget to check out my podcast, Blendertainment, at

https://open.spotify.com/show/61yTPt9wXdz37DZTbPUs16?si=Uecgn9fvQ8-PM1anUpfQzA
and

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blendertainment/id1541097172 and wherever else you get your podcasts. I’ll see you right back here next weekend for my SummerSlam preview!