Sting’s retirement match was proof he understood wrestling better than 99.9 percent of his peers.
Sting is one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time. Not just because he was an icon, but because he was never afraid to change.
The WCW, TNA and AEW icon wrestled the last match of his storied, five decade career at AEW’s Revolution pay-per-view event. It was pure spectacle, a main event befitting a legend from the moment the 64-year-old wrestler walked onto the ramp to the guitar riff of his first entrance song; Metallica’s Seek and Destroy.
What followed was a match replete with Sting tributes — including from his sons decked out in different eras of Sting fear, wrestling legends like Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat and a litany of broken glass and shattered tables.
The match was unrecognizable from the ones Sting put on in the 80s or 90s. It was unfathomable to dream up when he appeared to be winding down his career in the 2000s. But there he was, in his 60s, crashing through pressed wood and panes of glass.
— Public Enemies Podcast (@TheEnemiesPE3) March 4, 2024
This wasn’t a man who coasted to his finish. He kept his foot on the gas, evolving with the game and leaving as one of the most compelling figures in the sport. In the end, Sting and Darby Allin retained their world tag team championship over the Young Bucks, surviving some truly absurd bumps on Allin’s part and an extended two-on-one beatdown from the AEW executive vice presidents on the sextagenarian opposite them.
A scorpion deathlock iced the deal, but the crowd watching at home was treated to one last touching throwback. In true WCW fashion, the pay-per-view broadcast cut off exactly at midnight ET as Sting was still winding down his retirement speech. For the former face of the company that mastered the “folks, we’re out of time” finish on Monday Nitro and who once had to re-air a pay-per-view headliner on cable TV the next day after running long, it was a fitting inconvenience.
Fortunately for us, one fan at ringside captured his full monologue:
Full after #AEWRevolution segment with Sting Darby Allin and Tony Khan thanking the crowd.
Sting can always return on Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite for a proper goodbye alongside a Darby Allin who, at least theoretically, will have fewer open wounds. But if he doesn’t, fans took to Twitter to express their appreciate for a man who spent nearly 40 years in the ring before going out on top.
Funk died Wednesday at age 79. Pro wrestling is better because he was part of it.
For roughly five decades, if you were a wrestling fan you understood there was a reasonable chance Terry Funk was going to show up at some point. There was no set home for the legacy wrestler who spent his life between ages 21 and 74 inside (and often brawling outside) the squared circle.
In Japan he was a feared gaijin. In America’s regional promotions he was the foil to bigger names like Jerry “the King” Lawler and Ric Flair. And mid-1990s, liftoff-of-hardcore Paul Heyman’s ECW? There he was in striped tights, giving and receiving chair shots and trading on the fact this big, bruising Texan could look invincable one minute and vulnerable the next.
Hell, he even got to brawl with Patrick Swayze in Road House. Road House.
Funk, who passed away Wednesday, took every path his art allowed over the course of his 79 years. And if you take exception to me calling pro wrestling an art, here’s a clip of Funk threatening a horse that will either change your mind or ensure that you are, in fact, cold and empty inside.
Funk was 100 percent the man shown in the clip above. A fearless Texan perpetually willing to stretch his body beyond its physical limits for the sake of the show. The son of Dory Funk, a legendary wrestler in his own right, Funk began his career as a bruising brawler in a cowboy hat. In the decades that followed, he became a mat technician, a high flyer (sort of), a hardcore legend, a tuxedo-clad interviewer, chainsaw-wielding maniac and Screen Actors Guild member.
In that stretch he painted himself as one of the toughest S.O.B.s in a business filled with them. He constantly wrestled through injury in the name of a good show. He left multiple matches for medical attention only to return, taped up and ready to brawl once more. His promos bordered on, and occasionally ventured into, lunacy. Even so, you never once doubted that Funk didn’t fully believe every damn thing he was saying through gritted teeth.
Looks inside Funk’s actual life were few and far between. Barry Blaustein’s 1999 documentary Beyond the Mat suggested the veteran wrestler was more or less exactly who he portrayed in the ring. He was a 55-year-old man with knees so shot doctors couldn’t figure out how he was able to walk without howling in pain. He wrestled for more than a decade after that diagnosis, busting out a signature moonsault that looked equal parts ugly and devastating.
Funk’s appeal was widespread. He appeared on Monday Night Raw and Monday Nitro. He wrestled in All Japan Pro Wrestling and the NWA. He worked for Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla and Juggalo Championship Wrestling. He retired and unretired with a regularity that Brett Favre would find excessive. The siren call of the ring lured him back, and the fans always wanted more.
No matter where he landed, he constantly popped crowds. He was a sigil for hardcore enthusiasts and casuals alike, a spectacle running head first toward an never-ending explosion all the while understanding only pain lay ahead. That he got to 79 years at all suggests there are supernatural forces at play in this world, and they like wrestling.
Rest in peace, Terry Funk. Pro wrestling is better because you were a part of it.
Hossein Kozrow Ali Vazir, better known as former WWE Champion the Iron Sheik, died at age 81.
Who Hossein Kozrow Ali Vaziri was largely depends on when you were born. If you’re an Iranian born in the 1940s or someone heavily into the Greco-Roman wrestling scene in the 1960s and early 1970s, you may recognize him as a standout on the mat for his home country or coach for the U.S.
The majority of those who recognize him, however, know him as the Iron Sheik. For those who grew up in the 80s, that meant he was the exaggerated, comic book antagonist to Hulk Hogan, leaning into his roots as an expatriate and providing an avatar for a hated enemy. For kids who grew up two decades later, he was Sheiky Baby, prolific internet garbage poster who lived every breath in ALL CAPS, beloved despite unfiltered and occasionally problematic posts that ventured into mysogyny, racism and homophobia.
Vaziri — “Khosrow,” as friends called him — was each of those men to varying degrees. Their braid through his life came to an end June 7 after 81 years, as he died recently, his Twitter account announced Wednesday.
This all led to legendary midwestern pro wrestling promoter Verne Gagne and a decades-long affair with the squared circle that threatened to build and destroy a legend in equal parts. Vaziri was built like a whiskey cask with arms, capable of pulling off genuinely astonishing feats of strength.
But he wasn’t just brute force. He was a trusted worker in the ring. More importantly, he had the charisma to not only overcome the hurdle of speaking English as a second language in a business ruled by talkers, but also to make it a distinct advantage. The Iron Sheik wasn’t just an invader fit into a wrestling stereotype; he became the mold for everyone that followed for years. For better or (mostly) worse, he was the standard by which so many other horrible gimmicks would be measured.
None of this would have been possible if he wasn’t willing to jump at an opportunity, no matter how slim the outcome of success might be. Within a decade he was headlining shows at Madison Square Garden. He was the ninth-ever WWE Champion. He was the launching pad that allowed Hulkamania to take off.
He also leaned into the excess behind the scenes in professional wrestling. He was arrested in 1987 after New Jersey State Police pulled a car driven by quintessential America-loving good guy “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan over and cited each with drug violations. Sheik was subsequently fired from the then-WWF — not because he’d been caught with cocaine, but because traveling with the wrestler who was supposed to be his mortal enemy threatened to expose the business.
Sheik never truly recovered from that incident and, in his 40s, settled into the vagabond lifestyle that traps so many pro wrestlers. He appeared in various promotions to play the hits to dwindling effect. Afterward, he’d nurse a body ravaged by the bumps he took in the ring, the lifestyle of being on the road and, perhaps most notably, the drug addiction that threatened to take everything.
By the 2000s, he was selling autographed photos, unsolicited, in the lobby of an Atlanta airport-adjacent hotel to purchase crack. Things worsened after the murder of his daughter in 2003. His spiral was real and threatened to make him another entry in an encyclopedia of tragic endings in the pro wrestling industry.
But an ultimatum from his wife — whom he married in 1975 — pushed him into recovery in 2007. Around the same time, he connected with the children of old family friends, who offered to take over his social media presence. Soon enough, he was Sheiky Baby, doling out all-caps insults on Twitter and dropping F-bombs with seemingly indiscrimate aim (except for Hulk Hogan, who deservedly got the bulk of his hatred).
This reinvention, like the ones before, traded on the problematic. Sheik’s posts and interviews were sometimes violent, homophobic or racist. But when they weren’t, he blended the gimmick he lived with a lifetime of observations, delivered in quickly digested all-caps tweets. Once again he was a sensation, racking up more than half a million followers even if his account was being carefully managed by a pair of brothers 50 years younger than him.
Sometimes he’d emerge as an unlikely ally for the downtrodden. Other times, well, there’s nothing saying poetry has to be a certain length.
That’s one of Vaziri’s final tweets, and while it may not have been written by him, it’s something we’ve heard so many times it’s impossible not to hear it in his gruff, barking voice. Long after his ring career was over he was still playing a heel. This time, a culture versed in anti-heroes was ready to cheer for him.
The Iron Sheik, one of the greatest villains in professional wrestling history, found a way to die a babyface, even while leaning into his gimmick. None of this would have happened if he weren’t willing to grab a silver of opportunity and tear it into a tunnel with his massive hands and barrel chest. He embraced everything that came his way — a route out of suspected danger in Iran, a window to try professional wrestling, the chance to get clean and even the stereotypical heel work that turned him into a caricature and left him fearing for his own safety every night he left the arena.
For more than 80 years, those opportunities were his escape. Now he’s left for good. The memories each reinvention created aren’t just ether in the minds of professional wrestling fans. They’re a map to an icon who never stayed in one place for long.
These 12 events aren’t even half the weekend’s lineup — but they’re jam-packed with rising stars and banger matches.
Wrestlemania weekend is an iconic event for the WWE. But the confluence of thousands of wrestling fans into the same city creates a massive opportunity for other promotions as well.
Some of the biggest names on the independent wrestling scene will be in action in the Los Angeles area this week, many working multiple shows in hopes of boosting their profiles to new heights in front of rabid crowds. Thanks to the proliferation of streaming services, many those matches will be broadcast online through platforms like Fite.tv and Highspots. Even if you’re not in southern California, you can watch roughly 40 hours of live wrestling this weekend which is … a lot.
In that spirit, I’ve sorted through the dozen events with the biggest names worth checking out if two nights of Wrestlemania isn’t enough for you. Behold: all the wonders of Wrestlemania weekend’s independent scene.
The 25-year-old Mexican wrestler had an absolute star-making AEW debut against the great Kenny Omega.
As a primetime competitor to WWE, Tony Khan’s All Elite Wrestling promotion was always going to bring easy comparisons to Ted Turner’s WCW. Another thing AEW does to carry that banner into the 2020s is shine a bright spotlight on high flying, lesser known wrestlers from international backgrounds.
On Wednesday night, El Hijo del Vikingo had his Rey Mysterio Jr. moment.
The 25-year-old Mexican wrestler is a big deal in his home country’s Lucha Libre AAA promotion. As the reigning Mega Champion, he’s the company’s top star. He backed up this billing on AEW Dynamite against one of the greatest, most accomplished grapplers in the world, Kenny Omega.
Every move Vikingo did felt like one difficult maneuver wrapped inside an even more ridiculous one. He didn’t want to hit Omega with a regular hurricanrana, he needed to turn it into an implosion with a front flip first. That move above, by the way? That came less than a minute into the actual match.
Time for a reverse hurricanrana? Better bounce backward from the top rope first.
Then there’s … actually, you know what? Just watch it. I can’t really explain it with words.
Hijo Del Vikingo just hit Kenny Omega with a Inside Rope Springboard 630 through the table to the OUTSIDE at tonight’s AEW Dynamite (03.22.2023)pic.twitter.com/q53f370vs4
In a vacuum, this may have seemed excessive. None of it was. El Hijo del Vikingo wasn’t just playing to the largest American crowd of his career, but he was coming in as the underdog. He’s the guy billed at 5-foot-6 and 161 pounds going up a multiple time world champion who clocks in at 6-feet and 220. He needed to throw the kitchen sink at him.
Good god, did he ever.
Omega, as he typically does, proved the perfect foil. He was a sturdy, sure-footed base for all Vikingo’s attacks. He flew across the mat with a perfect understanding of video game physics with each one. He carried multiple moments where it looked certain someone got very, very hurt — just to carry on the match as planned like a true damned pro.
Almost three decades ago, Mysterio and a handful of luchadores made their names in WCW by putting on masterclasses in the lucha libre style. They opened up American wrestling, then mostly ruled by lumbering, muscled-out goons, to a whole new landscape of moves. Mysterio stole the show from the undercard with matches against fellow overlooked studs like Psychosis, Dean Malenko and a pre-WWE Eddie Guerrero. He forced wrestling fans to pay attention because looking away for even a moment meant missing something incredible.
That’s the feeling I got Wednesday night.
A great wrestling match tells a story. Vikingo and Omega accomplished that across 20-ish minutes while making me audibly say “what the [expletive]” in my own dang living room multiple times. Omega has been reliably must-watch TV for about a decade now. Now Vikingo joins him on that tier.
Even if you’re only a casual wrestling fan — even if you’re a WWE or New Japan loyalist — do yourself a favor and watch this whole match. You know what to expect. Trust me, you’ll still wind up surprised be it.
Sajak busted out the cross face chicken wing to celebrate a $75k win.
Fred Fletcher-Jackson absolutely dominated his turn on Wheel of Fortune. To help him celebrate, a 76-year-old Pat Sajak dominated him.
Fletcher-Jackson is a drama teacher, pub quiz host and occasional pro wrestler by trade. He’s also one hell of a Wheel savant. His appearance on the long-running game show saw him sweep all seven of the game’s puzzles before solving the bonus round in three guesses.
That absurd performance saw him take home $75,800 in prizes for being good at words. It was the kind of occasion you celebrate — and after a brief moment, Sajak knew just what to do. He borrowed Bob Backlund’s famed finisher and threw the hirsute occasional wrestler into a cross-face chicken wing:
Fletcher-Jackson, to his credit, wasn’t fazed by the act of playful violence from a famous septuagenarian. As a man who fully understands his craft, he sold the move with aplomb.
This guy won $75 grand AND got put to sleep by the most famous non-Alex Trebek game show host in the country. That’s a win-win situation. Next up for Sajak will be putting Ken Jennings in the figure four while telling him he’s a nerd.
Rudd’s character Andy in Wet Hot American Summer is a legend. And one scene inspired an AEW champion’s whole persona.
All Elite Wrestling, for all its flaws, gets a lot right about pro wrestling. One of those tenets is that the squared circle isn’t solely the property of uber-serious meatheads. There’s room for nuance, characters and comedy within the framework of choreographed fighting.
That’s the nurturing soil from which Orange Cassidy has blossomed into the star. The longtime independent wrestling scene staple — he was Fire Ant in Chikara’s long-running stable The Colony — has emerged as one of AEW’s brightest talents behind a low-effort, too-cool-to-care persona. Cassidy wears denim on denim and aviator sunglasses and generally seems above everything going on around him.
Exactly like Paul Rudd’s character Andy in the seminal American film classic Wet Hot American Summer. And now, thanks to Esquire’s William Mullally, Rudd is finally aware of the pro wrestler modeled after one iconic scene from a cult movie that has persisted in the hearts and souls of a certain brand of nerd for two decades.
“That’s amazing,” Rudd said in the most Paul Rudd way possible after being shown a picture of Cassidy. “How did I not know this? Thank you for telling me.”
“You need to know this,” replied Mullally.
“I do!”
Here’s the scene in question.
Cassidy’s tribute goes beyond the jean jacket and sunglasses. His entrance music on the independent scene was Jefferson Starship’s Jane — the same song that soundtracks the opening sequence and titles of director David Wain’s opus. After flirting with other themes in AEW, namely The Pixies’ Where is My Mind?, AEW president Tony Khan was able to license Jane for weekly broadcasts and gave Cassidy his sprawling rock anthem back.
The current All-Atlantic champion is more than just a gimmick, however. Cassidy’s character wouldn’t work if he wasn’t able to go in the ring. When he flips the switch from “Andy” to “actually caring” you get the full array of dynamic moves and innovative offense you’d expected from a wrestler with nearly two decades of experience.
In short, Orange Cassidy is awesome. So is Paul Rudd. And now that the latter knows about the former, the possibility of double Andys in the wrestling ring is finally in play. Especially when the owner of the company comes from “buy the Jacksonville Jaguars” type money.
Ric Flair went out stylin’ and profilin’ as only he could in his final match
Wrestling legend Ric Flair went out with one last match — again — Sunday in Nashville. The Nature Boy was bloody but unbowed as he put his patented figure-four leglock on Jeff Jarrett to end his career triumphantly. A look at Flair’s wild and crazy run through the decades of professional wrestling and sports entertainment.
Scott Hall’s legend goes beyond his work in the squared circle.
In a wrestling landscape filled with outsized personalities, Scott Hall was the coolest guy in the room.
Hall, who made his presence known in the then-WWF as Razor Ramon and then under his given name as a founding member of WCW’s nWo, passed away Monday at the age of 63. He leaves behind a complicated legacy of success, addiction, and redemption — and an indelible image as one of the most memorable and complex characters in a world once ruled by simple tropes.
Hall made his first major impact in Vince McMahon’s promotion as Ramon, an Intercontinental Champion who began as a dead-on ripoff of Al Pacino’s Scarface but grew into something more. That breakthrough came after eight years in the business, slogging through the NWA and regional territories as “Big” Scott Hall, “Magnum” Scott Hall, Scott “Gator” Hall, and Starship Coyote. His mainstream breakthrough should have been a tired, one-note spectacle with a limited shelf life. Instead, he turned it into one of wrestling’s most memorable characters.
Full disclaimer: this whole gimmick — a white guy from Maryland putting on a Cuban accent to cosplay as a Miami kinda/sorta drug dealer was problematic as hell. But Hall also took a heel character and made him fun to root for. He straddled an extremely difficult line to walk in a still-cartoonish WWF. He could also absolutely GO in the ring; his Intercontinental Championship ladder match with Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania X is still regarded as one of the best examples of what’s become a staple match type across the globe.
Ultimately his success as Ramon helped usher in a new era of wrestling where characters were no longer one-dimensional, take-your-vitamins babyfaces or “I hate [insert tonight’s city here]” heels. Wittingly or not, Hall added depth to the spectacle at a time it was desperately needed.
That’s not the change we all know Hall from, however. That came after he left the WWF and started skulking around the front row of competitor WCW’s Monday Nitro shows. Soon after, Kevin Nash — formerly known as Diesel, a world champion in McMahon’s organization — joined him. Together they became The Outsiders, kicking off a storyline that changed the face of wrestling as we know it.
Hall was the catalyst that turned red-and-yellow, prayers-and-vitamins Hulk Hogan into the dastardly black-and-white, stubble-and-spraypaint Hollywood Hogan. For 82 weeks, WCW ruled the Monday night ratings war over WWF behind the nWo invasion storyline spearheaded by Hall. His machismo — who else could possibly look so cool after getting beaned in the head with a full Pepsi? — was a foundational part of that.
If you weren’t old enough to watch Scott Hall wrestle, just know he was the definition of cool. These survey says promos were always the best. pic.twitter.com/BcDbJ7RA6v
Ultimately, the lifestyle and Hall’s demons caught up to him. He told documentarians he was unable to shake the memories of a 1983 incident that left one man dead and saw him charged with second-degree murder. Hall described the incident as self defense and those charges were later dropped for a lack of evidence, but by his own admission the event was never far from his thoughts.
He also succumbed to the vices for which the wrestling industry had become known by 1992 — painkillers, alcohol, and recreational drugs all had regular roles in his life and eventually curtailed his in-ring career. It wasn’t until he checked into Diamond Dallas Page’s Accountability Crib — Page’s residence that’s become a remarkable halfway home and rehabilitation center for wrestlers and their personal battles — that he finally got his feet back under him, sobered up, and became the kind of reliable presence his friends and family needed him to be.
His life sorted out, he returned to the wrestling ring in ancillary roles. He made sporadic appearances on special episodes of Monday Night Raw. He performed independent shows, putting over young talent in an effort to be the veteran leader he’d always aspired to be. He was inducted to the WWE Hall of Fame twice, reeling off one of the most memorable acceptance speeches in wrestling history in the process.
Survey says: these words from Scott Hall will live on forever
That speech was more confirmation of what we already knew; Hall was still the coolest guy in the room. As news of his deteriorating health spread, the internet was awash with tributes for a troubled but relatable star from a world where workers traditionally had the depth of Looney Tunes characters. Hall’s vulnerability and decision to come to peace with his shortcomings in order to rebuild himself made him an inspiration. His willingness to put his ego aside to build young talent made him a veteran leader in the ring even when his addictions meant he couldn’t be one outside of it.
Hall was ultimately a supporting player, but he had a major role on both sides of the Monday Night Wars. He was a badass doing a second-rate Pacino impression. He was a badass being himself. This is what made him impossible to hate. When he turned around and admitted he wasn’t bad enough to overcome the issues draped around his neck like an albatross — the same issues that should have killed him a decade ago — it made him impossible to root against.
We saw you could be the toughest guy in the room and still need help. We saw it didn’t make you any tougher to die alone. We saw what you think is weakness can actually be strength.
Scott Hall, the man, passed away Monday. Scott Hall the wrestler, however, will live on for generations to come in the character work he put on inside the ring and the humanity he displayed outside it. For now, we say goodnight to “The Bad Guy,” knowing full well that a legend like him doesn’t ever really die.
SCOTT HALL BUBBA. THE RAZOR RAMON. YOU ARE THE REAL OF REAL BUBBA. YOU MAKE IT TO THE HALL OF FAME YOU ARE THE IRON SHEIK CLASS FOREVER. I LOVE YOU BUBBA pic.twitter.com/MtbZaa2Qqk
The XFL has a new owner and this time the league will last…as long as the nation smells what The Rock is cookin’
I think I may have figured out why I’m not a huge fan of movies. I mean, I like some but given the option of watching a movie or going out and doing almost any other recreational activity, I’m passing on the theater.
It’s because reality is so much better.
19 years ago The Rock, before he was known as the movie star Dwayne Johnson, was at the peak of his popularity in professional wrestling. When Vince McMahon started the original XFL he even had The Rock show up at a Los Angeles Enforcers game to cut a promo before kickoff.
Johnson, aka The Rock and business partner Dany Garcia have teamed up with Gerry Cardinale and RedBird Capital Partners to purchase the league’s parent company for roughly $15 million, the private investment firm announced in a news release Monday.
Let’s hope this time around the XFL doesn’t catch a people’s elbow and hit rock bottom.
