Author: M. Swift

We’re back at the Wrestling Salvage Yard! This time we look at salvaging the career of Mike Awesome. An impressive heavyweight with a lot of power and surprising agility, Awesome’s career spanned the late 1980s into the late 2000s. Retiring in February 2006 after 23 years, he would take his life the following year at 42.  He was pretty successful in most places he appeared but suffered two stumbling blocks when it came to the big stage.  Mike Awesome and the Big Leagues  There are two promotions where Awesome experienced a lot of success: FMW in Japan and ECW. In that order. In ECW, he managed two World Title reigns and a Tag…

Again, there was no MLW Fusion last week. Instead, Major League Wrestling ran episode three of MLW Anthology, this time focusing on Low Ki. These shows have been great if you’re looking to see a few old school MLW matches. Even then, it really depends on what wrestler will be showcased.   Case in point, episode two of MLW Anthology was about Ol’ Mancer. While a fan favorite, he’s only been in Major League Wrestling roughly a year now. Anything featuring him had already been shown on MLW Fusion. No, what you really want is the stuff from Major League Wrestling’s run. Matches that aired on MLW Underground in the early 2000s.  This episode of MLW Anthology featured one early match from “The Lone Wolf of Brooklyn”. In…

With the events going on following the death of George Floyd, many wrestlers have gone to social media to voice their options on the outcome. Many have been supportive such Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson who took to Instagram to tell U.S President Donald Trump to know his role.  The Rock Believes The U.S Will Experience Change After Hitting Rock Bottom  In the 8-minutes and 25-seconds video, he discusses the need for the country to listen and to heal. Also important from the video was him explaining what the country is supposed to mean and do for its People. All of this…

Canadian wrestler LuFisto is an OG of the indies and of modern women’s wrestling. She started wrestling in the late 90s on the Quebecois indies and expanded elsewhere in Canada rapidly. By 2000, she was in the states and by 2003, she had started appearing in Japan. The 2000s were a hot period for her development as she was doing matches in the big three global wrestling markets. Her work in CZW and SHIMMER bulldozed her name forward in the U.S.  It’s her work with CZW and its women’s promotion WSU in the early 2010s that is an issue now.…

With Rob Gronkowski bouncing on WWE to resume his football career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, we’re taking a look at five pro football players who made big splashes in the business. Names like Goldberg, Roman Reigns, and Ernie Ladd come to mind but what other players made a big splash? Ernie Ladd (Defensive Tackle: San Diego Chargers, Houston Oilers, Kansas City Chiefs)  Ladd began his football career in the AFL in 1961 with the San Diego Chargers. It would be with the Chargers that he experienced most of his success, winning the AFL Championship in 1963. Ernie Ladd also…

AJ Styles was defeated by the Undertaker at WWE WrestleMania 36. This wasn’t any kind of defeat. The two faced off in a Boneyard match—extremely cinematic and one of the well-received matches from the event. This match was basically the Graveyard match between Vampiro and The Demon at WCW Bash at the Beach 2000—only better.  I’m not even sure if that does it justice, just know that the Graveyard match wasn’t good but it was fun depending on how drunk you are. AJ Styles ended up losing to The Undertaker and being buried alive. It was an alright ending to an exciting match.  WWE Superstars or WWE…

In January, Hana Kimura sat down with major publisher Shueisha to discuss here wrestling career and her appearance on Terrace House. Of her career, she mentioned getting into wrestling because dance wasn’t going to pay the bills and upon recommendation from her mother.   She had wrestled twice before in 2005 in comedy matches with her first match being a losing effort against her mother Kyoko Kimura.  Hana Kimura Follows In Her Mother’s Footsteps  When Hana entered the business, it was through training in WRESTLE-1 with joshi veteran Lin Byron—who wrestled as Ray before her death in 2018 at 36—and former New Japan Jr. Heavyweight champion, AKIRA. Hana…

For very new wrestling fans, Triple H might just be that bald guy with the beard in a suit. It would probably seem odd why this executive has the name “Triple H” or why he’s “The Game.” Debuting back in 1992 and trained by Killer Kowalski, Hunter has had many epic battles and gradually evolved from a generic musclebound heavyweight into a top tier WWE-style brawler.  Here are five matches that define Triple H’s wrestling career in WWE. Yes, all five was from the early 2000s and you can probably guess which ones made the list. This was Triple H’s prime. He…

After watching the five-episode Super Series between Major League Wrestling and Lucha Libre AAA, I got to thinking. It’s not totally unusual for a promotion to take in some influences from an international partner. New Japan Pro-Wrestling has had a working relationship with CMLL for years and pretty took up the trios approach with the NEVER 6-Man Tag Title. Ring of Honor did the same.  MLW itself was founded as a battleground where different styles come together in forming the promotion’s Hybrid Wrestling product. However, Major League Wrestling could draw in more international influences.  Major League Wrestling Should Establish A Trios Title  Right now, MLW has…

Impact Wrestling’s 2004 PPV season was light work with few PPVs. Now we’re getting into 2005 with the second PPV of 2005: TNA Against All Odds! Does the main event between Jeff Jarrett and Kevin Nash exceed expectations? Let’s find out!  Lower-Tier  Kazarian and Michael Shane were capable of putting on some nice tag team matches. Their match at TNA Against All Odds 2005 against B.G James and Jeff Hammond obviously one of them. Fortunately, it only ran for about five minutes.  There were moments where I was feeling the tag match between DDP & Monty Brown and Team Canada. I had to watch it more than…