The Silver Report: January 2019

As has become tradition, January starts the new year with high drama and excitement. Great matches, interesting storylines, and big news all seem to happen within January's 31 days. This January, in particular, has felt even more exciting. Thanks to the introduction of All Elite Wrestling (which I will get to in just a moment), wrestling fans are clamouring for information as rumours fly about wrestlers looking to branch out from WWE and news of major signings become a daily occurrence.

To summarize, it's a great time to be a wrestling fan as promotions jockey for your time and money by putting on the best product they possibly can. It's an even better time to be a fan of the inner workings of this industry as companies fight tooth-and-nail to secure talent and solidify their place in this new wrestling landscape.


No matter what side of pro wrestling you enjoy, we're in an exciting time as the industry stands on the precipice of another boom period.

Going All Elite

In late 2018, rumours surfaced that the Young Bucks and Cody were looking to start a new wrestling promotion off the heels of All In's success. With the financial backing of Tony Khan, co-owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars and long-time wrestling fan, this new promotion would be called All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and had trademarks set for a number of potential shows.

While these rumours were swirling, an interesting storyline was playing out on Being the Elite. One by one the cast found a mysterious timer on their phone; a timer that looked to run out on New Year's Day. Originally believed to be WWE courting the cast members, that possibility was thrown out when the Bucks denied the offer with a superkick to Triple H lookalike.

So when the clock struck midnight on New Year's, a special episode of Being the Elite was uploaded to YouTube. The episode saw the Bucks, Cody, and Hangman Page meet in front of the Tokyo Dome as the timer ran out. Once time expired, the logo for AEW appeared on the Bucks' and Cody's phones while Page revealed a logo for an event called Double or Nothing, which was rumoured to be the follow-up to All In.

Despite the sparse reveal, wrestling fans only had to wait eight days for more information as the company held a press conference in front of TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville. At the conference, Cody, Brandi, and the Bucks gave some insight into their vision for AEW including equal pay for all employees no matter gender and wins/losses having weight. Plus, the likes of Britt Baker, So Cal Uncensored, Joey Janela, PAC, and Chris Jericho were revealed as AEW's first signings.

While there are still a lot of unknowns at this very moment, the introduction of AEW into the current wrestling landscape is incredibly exciting. With the financial backing of the Khan family — who is worth more than the McMahons — AEW looks to be more than willing to spend top money on their talent, production, and marketing. Add in the fact that key parts of the company, such as the booking and talent relations, are being handled by wrestlers that know the business, it truly feels like something special is brewing in All Elite.

Source: WhatCulture

Trouble for New Japan?

When it comes to Wrestle Kingdom, New Japan knows how to deliver an incredible show. From unpredictable results to awe-inspiring matches, this year's offering was four-plus hours of wrestling bliss, bookended by two early match of the year candidates. Every title changed hands, the Elite was completely shut-out — most likely indicating the end of their working relationship with New Japan — four foreign stars got big wins, and Hiroshi Tanahashi completed his comeback by becoming the first G1 winner to successfully cash-in their title shot for heavyweight championship gold.

Despite an incredibly newsworthy Wrestle Kingdom, New Year's Dash was a rather tame show. Unlike previous years, there were no big angles or major shake-ups to the status quo. The only real surprise to speak of was Yoshi-Hashi's return from injury. Although new feuds were set in motion for February's New Beginning tour, everything felt like an extension of what was happening at the end of 2018. In all honesty, that isn't a bad thing as New Japan's booking builds over the months and years — it just felt weird.

Instead of building on the big upswing of momentum that was Wrestle Kingdom 13, New Japan feels like they're in the middle of a transition. With the Elite on their way to AEW, Kota Ibushi currently out with a concussion, Kushida leaving for WWE, and Chris Jericho's future with the company up the air, New Japan's roster has taken a considerable hit. While New Japan might be hurting at the moment, they are building for the future, especially with their foreign talent. Gedo has four men selected to be New Japan's big foreign stars in Jay White, Juice Robinson, Will Ospreay, and Zack Sabre Jr. Considering each of them had huge wins at Wrestle Kingdom and are all set to be permanent fixtures in the upper mid-card and main event scenes for the foreseeable future, they will eventually fill the current void. It will just take time.

Source: New Japan Pro-Wrestling

Must-See Matches of January

1/4/2019
Wrestle Kingdom 13
Kota Ibushi vs. Will Ospreay
Chris Jericho vs. Tetsuya Naito - No DQ Match
Kenny Omega vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

1/5/2019
New Year's Dash
Will Ospreay, Tomohiro Ishii & Hirooki Goto vs. Jeff Cobb, Kushida & Yuji Nagata

1/12/2019
NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool
Mustache Mountain vs. Zack Gibson & James Drake

1/15/2019
Smackdown
Andrade vs. Rey Mysterio

1/23/2019
NXT
Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch vs. Marcel Barthel & Fabian Aichner

1/26/2019
NXT TakeOver: Phoenix
Johnny Gargano vs. Ricochet
Tommaso Ciampa vs. Aleister Black

1/27/2019
Royal Rumble
Women's Royal Rumble Match
Brock Lesnar vs. Finn Balor
Men's Royal Rumble Match

The Silver Report: September 2018

To be honest, I do quite a bit of rambling this report, so I am going to keep this intro short and (too) sweet.

As I will go into more detail briefly, September was a huge month for independent and alternative wrestling. We now live in a world where companies that aren't named WWE can sell out a 10,000+ seat arena, where wrestlers are more concerned with satisfying the fans than lining their pockets, where men and women are quite literally changing the world of wrestling as we speak. In short, we live in a post All In wrestling industry and that is gosh darn exciting.

Going "All In" on Independent Wrestling

Love it or hate it, you have to admit it that All In was special.

Like mentioned above, it quite literally changed the wrestling industry. While independent wrestling may not be on the same level as the WWE (and probably never will be), All In and its success made the mainstream take notice. It introduced the talents and styles of many different wrestling organizations to a larger audience than ever before via streaming services, pay-per-view, and WGN America. Hopefully, this exposure will lead to new and lapsed wrestling fans tuning into their alternative of choice over or in addition to WWE. Believe me, All In's impact will be felt for years to come.

Although All In will definitely be remembered for its impact on the industry, that's not all it will be remembered for. From Zero Hour to the main event — which finished only seconds before the broadcast was cut — it was a celebration of wrestling's past, present, and future. You had Stephen Amell throw himself through a table, an old-school NWA championship match with boxing-style entrances, Hangman Page carried out of the arena by penis druids, Chris Jericho attacked Kenny Omega while dressed as Pentagon Jr., a 30-minute match condensed into a non-stop 12 minutes, just to name a few great moments.

Looking at the show critically, All In was a great show. Some may even say it was one of the best shows of the year. Personally, I say All In is on the lower half of that list due to its rather slow start and some of the angles and gags being a little too hard for those who haven't caught up on Being the Elite to understand. Despite my qualms with the show, things kick into high gear once you hit the Chicago Street Fight and the show doesn't let up for a second.

In summation, huge thumbs up to Cody and the Young Bucks for putting this show together, the talent that put their bodies on the line for our entertainment, and the staff that made the broadcast possible. Without everybody's hard work, this incredible show would never have happened.

Source: Sports Illustrated

Bad Form in the Cell

I went into Hell in a Cell with low expectations. Like most main roster PPVs, the matches looked good on paper, but considering WWE's track record, there's always the chance that they'll find a way to screw it up.

Going into the main event, Hell in a Cell was doing better than the average main roster show these days. There were a couple stinkers in the Raw Women's Title Match and the Mixed Tag Team bout, but there was enough okay to great matches to counteract the bad. And the main event was Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman in a Hell in a Cell match. What could possibly go wrong?

Other than Mick Foley botching a two count, everything was all good until Roman speared Braun through a table. After the proceeding kickout, Roman and Braun would lay in the ring as all hell broke loose around them.

First, Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre ran down to bully their way into the cell, only for Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins to stop them. The two teams would fight outside and on top of the cell for a good eight to 10 minutes before Rollins and Ziggler put each other through the announce tables at ringside. Then a returning Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman stormed the cell. Lesnar kicked down the door while Heyman maced Foley's eyes. Brock would then go on to F5 Roman onto Braun. After Lesnar made his quote-on-quote statement, he and Heyman left as a substitute referee called off the match right before the show cut to black.

It's hard to summarize how angry this debacle of a match made me. WWE quite literally flushed away all the work they did to try to rebuild the Universal Championship and Raw's main event scene. And just to bring back Brock Lesnar of all people! Seriously, WWE needs to move on because this over-reliance on Lesnar is doing serious damage to their product. Not only did Brock Lesnar's return at Hell in a Cell ruin a perfectly good main event, it made a mockery of the Money in the Bank contract (not that they've already done that multiple times in the past month) and made the top face and heel on Raw look like total chumps.

While these shenanigans may make a memorable moment, they'll also get people to take their money elsewhere. Especially in this post All In wrestling industry.

Source: India Today

Chaos in Kobe

Ever since Jay White returned from excursion late last year, the Switchblade has stirred up a whole lot of drama in New Japan, especially for Chaos.

Originally White was brought into the faction following WrestleKingdom by Kazuchika Okada as a challenger for midcard heavyweight titles like the IWGP Intercontinental and U.S. championships. Lately, the silver-tongued fiend has made an effort to challenge Okada's leadership at every turn. From his mind games with Yoshi-Hashi to trying to instill a killer edge in younger members Sho and Yoh, White's anarchist antics went unpunished as the faction concerned itself with the G1 then Okada's opportunity to win Hiroshi Tanahashi's place in the main event of WrestleKingdom.

With Chaos' attention diverted away from the problem child, nobody clued into what would happen next. Following Okada's loss to Tanahashi in the main event of Destruction in Kobe, White made his intentions clear — he won't be apart of a Chaos led by Okada.

White would take care of Tanahashi with a swift Blade Runner before turning his attention to the defeated Okada. As White's attack began, Yoshi-Hashi ran down for the save only to be dispatched by White almost immediately. Following Yoshi-Hashi's run-in was longtime Chaos member and Okada's former manger Gedo. Considering their former partnership, Okada turned his back to a chair-wielding Gedo as he readied to gang up on the mutinous White. Unfortunately for Okada, Gedo would blast the Rainmaker with a chair shot and align himself with the Switchblade to bring an end to Destruction in Kobe.

Although I haven't been a big fan of White's in-ring style since his return from excursion, I have to say that he has tremendous potential as New Japan's trickster, a character that uses his greater intellect to trick others for their own amusement. This manipulative nature has come across perfectly in White's antagonistic tenure in Chaos and his incredible promo work. Add Gedo into the mix and there's a lot of ways the Switchblade can make his ascent to the main event of New Japan.

So, will you breathe with the Switchblade?

Source: New Japan Pro Wrestling

Must-See Matches of September

9/1/2018

All In

Hangman Page vs. Joey Janela - Chicago Street Fight

Kenny Omega vs. Penta El Zero M

Golden Elite vs. Bandido, Fenix & Rey Mysterio

9/5/2018
NXT
Johnny Gargano vs. Velveteen Dream

9/7/2018

Road to Destruction Night 2

Golden Lovers vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Will Ospreay

9/15/2018
Destruction in Hiroshima
Kenny Omega vs. Tomohiro Ishii

9/16/2018
Hell in a Cell
Dolph Ziggler & Drew McIntyre vs. Seth Rollins & Dean Ambrose

9/19/2018
NXT
Pete Dunne vs. Ricochet

9/23/2018
Destruction in Kobe
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada

9/30/2018
Fighting Spirit Unleashed
Will Ospreay vs. Marty Scurll
Golden Lovers vs. Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii