Pro Wrestling Illustrated January 2023

ON SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2022, Japan’s World Wonder Ring Stardom presented an excellent five-hour show, headlined by the final of its 2022 5STAR Grand Prix. The much-discussed event saw Giulia take home the honors as winner of this year’s round robin tourney—battling friend-turned-rival Suzu Suzuki to a time-limit draw to win the “Blue Stars” block, before defeating “Red Stars” winner, Tam Nakano, in the main event. Giulia vs. Suzuki was an emotional bout between two talented athletes who had trained together at the Ice Ribbon promotion and took separate paths, ultimately butting heads again in a Stardom ring. Their encounter was followed by a solemn moment: ten tolls of the ring bell, recognizing the passing of Antonio Inoki at age 79. Inoki, of course, is a figure without parallel in the sport…

FOLLOW THE BUZZARDS Wladek Zbyszko was the reigning American heavyweight champion when the 1918 influenza pandemic surged ’round the world. Amid the backdrop of one of the deadliest plagues in modern history, professional wrestling was still evolving into a pop culture phenomenon. And fans didn’t have dirt sheets, the IWC, or the ThunderDome to help them follow the sport. This time around, intrepid enthusiasts have all that stuff, plus the added benefit of bestselling author Keith Elliott Greenberg, who chronicled how it all went down in his book, Follow the Buzzards: Pro Wrestling in the Age of COVID-19. Greenberg’s narrative opens not in a wrestling ring or a remote locale, but at the effective denouement of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election—a nod to the rampant politicization that added complex new dimensions to the…

NIRVANA COULDN’T LAST. All Elite Wrestling was born out of a shared vision of corporate independence, creative collaboration, and a workplace where politicking would be kept to a minimum. Cody Rhodes, Nick & Matt Jackson, and Kenny Omega became executive vice presidents of a company where they hoped to foster such an environment. In Tony Khan, they found a compassionate financial backer who wanted to put people first. No one could have predicted the implosion that has rocked AEW. It started slowly, then happened suddenly, first with Rhodes accepting a big-money offer to return to WWE amid reports that he had been eased out of the AEW hierarchy. Then came the pipe bomb known as CM Punk, who went on a 20-minute tirade during the post-All Out media scrum on September…

MICKIE JAMES, NAOMI, AND Shotzi (Blackheart) are just a few of the talented women on this year’s “Women’s 150” who have moonlighted as recording artists. While the above names haven’t quite connected with audiences to the same degree as pop music icons such as Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, and Beyonce, I’m thinking none of those ladies could connect with a DDT from the second rope as well as Maki Itoh. This edition of “Quick Count” is dedicated to the women of pop music. It may not be the kind of music I love, but what’s love got to do with it? TOXIC You can be the best in the world at your job, but, if many of your coworkers can’t stand you, maybe that job is simply not a good fit. This just might…

AS MANY OF you may know, I published a little book a few months ago called Blood and Fire: The Unbelievable Real-Life Story of Wrestling’s Original Sheik, a biography of one of wrestling’s all-time greatest characters, and probably its all-time greatest heel. One of the things that made Ed Farhat exactly that was his dedication to preserving his persona above all else. He “lived the gimmick,” as they say. Sheik never broke character once in front of the paying public, or anywhere else that wasn’t behind closed doors, for that matter. For generations of fans, it became impossible to separate the man from the myth, and that helped The Sheik to carve out an unforgettable legacy that stands to this day. Certainly, the erosion of kayfabe over the years has made…

"WHAT TOOK SO long?” I heard that question time and again leading up to WWE’s September 3 event, Clash at the Castle, in Cardiff, Wales. Fans inside Principality Stadium held signs posing the same question. In an interview with India’s Times Now website three full months before Clash at the Castle, Cody Rhodes expressed the same sentiment: “As one of the biggest fans ever of SummerSlam 1992, I am shocked it’s taken this long. Clearly, by the sign-up interest and the pre-sale interest and everything that’s happening, this aims to be the biggest stadium show in the world.” While WWE has traveled across the pond many times since that historic SummerSlam, this was the first major stadium show the company had presented in the U.K. in 30 years. Other U.K.-based WWE pay-per-views,…