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Strange Things In Wrestling This Month for March 2017 with Marc Madison

TJR Wrestling

Welcome to the first edition of Strange Things In Wrestling This Month with Marc Madison. Already, the bi-weekly(ish) version of this column, which tackles things that happened during a given week, cleans up like Kenny Omega! (you know because he’s The Cleaner). It highlights things that people may have missed; maybe because it wasn’t deemed significant enough to make it a focal point of a column. Or maybe we simply missed it! We don’t want those other stories to get lost never to be talked about, even if..someone else WAS talking about it! We want to bring them to the forefront! Highlight their best qualities, or at the very least what makes them newsworthy. Here, we’ll dive into a few occurrences from the month that stood out, since their strange nature is something that should be featured.

You can anticipate something outside normal online wrestling culture when it comes to this (generally) monthly edition, on top of the bi-weekly(ish) edition. We may focus on a tweet from a wrestler, an image, a scenario, a match or even a storyline, and really hope to lighten up your day in the process. This month’s edition includes a broken relationship, a certain WWE female superstar, private photos being leaked, John Cena having fun with the internet, a forgotten backyard wrestling promotion becoming popular once again, and Triple H making a proposal to someone other than Stephanie McMahon. Without further ado, here are Strange Things In Wrestling This Month for March 2017.

John Cena can troll like the best of them

If anyone has followed John Cena on social media, they know that the former sixteen time WWE Champion can have about as much fun as anyone. There is no doubt that when he posts something one a social media platform that fans will generally take notice. Over a year ago, Cena posted a picture on Instagram of AJ Styles. His posting of that photograph prompted speculation that Styles would be joining WWE. For as much as that was downplayed by those in the know, sure enough, Styles made his debut at the Royal Rumble 2016. This past January, a match that caught the attention of wrestling fans at the start of the year. Kazichuka Okada and Kenny Omega tore the house down and people were talking about it long after it was over. Shortly thereafter, Omega stated that he was unsure about his wrestling future. That comment sparked another Instagram post by Cena, who this time put up a picture of Omega. Was this déjà vu all over again? Well at this point nothing has happened.

Cena recently put up a photo of former ROH World Champion Jay Lethal. Does that mean Lethal will appear at Wrestlemania? We aren’t sure, but it definitely had people talking, even if it probably is Cena just having fun. Hey, he has millions of followers, tons of money and a future in acting, who said you couldn’t add trolling to his list of accolades? It probably doesn’t pay as well, but when you have power and money, playing fans is really the only thing left to do.

Triple H making a proposal to fight Rollins in an unsanctioned match

So we are told that it is all about the game and how you play it. Sure enough, fourteen-time World Champion and COO Triple H has seen his share of injuries and has overcome career-threatening injuries to return to action and capture his place at the top of the promotion. Many believed that the day Triple H turned on Seth Rollins, handing Kevin Owens the Universal championship, that he was laying the groundwork for a feud that would culminate in a match against Rollins, possibly for Wrestlemania. We eventually saw Rollins call out Triple H the night of NXT Takeover: Houston, and it was clear that these two were on a collision course. This rivalry led to Samoa Joe’s debut on the Raw roster, but when he beat down Rollins it aggravated an injury on the same knee that Rollins had hurt before. While it wasn’t the same ligaments affected, but it was still the same area. Now it could be that Rollins’ knee isn’t hurt and that this is all set up a match at Wrestlemania. However, what if by chance the Rollins injury isn’t completely storyline and his return is being rushed. Is the match really worth having if long-term Rollins could be seriously hurt? This could be a chance to bring Finn Balor back into the fold; he has returned from injury himself and performed at live events. The unsanctioned match idea proposed by the COO seemed like a silly little idea. What’s the worst that can happen?….*gulp*.

#BrokenUniverse vs Impact Wrestling

This message won’t be deleted after you read it. However, the same can not be said about the rather stormy relationship between the Hardys, Impact Wrestling and their new parent company. It could be suggested that it is all hearsay, however, Mrs. Hardy, Reby Sky, has been very active sharing how the proceedings have been perceived on their end. They have reportedly had a cease and desist warning issued to them, and their creative entities have been put on hold as part of this. The rising popularity of the Broken Brilliance that was Broken Matt Hardy and his Brother Nero has faced countless roadblocks since their departure from TNA. Due to the timing of their contracts, their departure from the company came while they were still the TNA tag team champions, and a day before a TV taping where the titles could have been dropped. As it stands, they went on to compete for Ring of Honor, much to the chagrin of Impact, but to the delight of ROH. Unfortunately, the heightened exposure also led Impact Wrestling to threaten legal action against the providers of the ROH pay per view, leading to their 15th Anniversary show being in jeopardy of not being available. Thankfully that wasn’t the case, and the show went on as planned. As it turned out, the Hardys retained the ROH tag team championships, and are in possession of more than one title. All of this only raises their value and increases the belief that they could be the broken characters in the WWE.

Wrestling Personality Phone Hacks

One of the biggest stories to develop in wrestling was the leaking of private photos of current WWE superstar Paige to the public. While we could claim that the invasion of privacy was met with unanimous support for the victim, that unfortunately wasn’t the case. The incident is akin to having someone break into your house and taking your personal possessions. WWE hasn’t commented on the actual situation, but since Paige is, in fact, being kept off of television for other reasons it is probably not something they need to acknowledge. Since Paige already publicly made statements about it, it is understandable why the company wouldn’t need to make a statement. Something similar happened to Seth Rollins a couple of years ago, in an act of retribution by his then fiancé. He was kept off television and apologized publicly for the occurrence. Since the announcement of Paige’s iCloud being hacked, it has been reported that others have apparently had the same thing happen to them. Former WWE wrestlers such as Maria Kanellis and Melina have also been subjected to this. Saying that you shouldn’t take your clothes off and take intimate photos to share with your wife, husband or fiancé isn’t the answer. If fans really wanted to see intimate photos of male or women’s wrestlers, many have voluntarily posed for legitimate magazines, and there is probably some search engine out there that makes them available for you to explore. What is strange in all of this? It has nothing to do with wrestling.

Southpaw Regional Wrestling

What is it? Why is it out there? And who is behind it? While the details as to why it was even created remain a mystery, WWE recently released this 1980s inspired ‘collection’ of tapes featuring some of the most notable men in the promotion. The collections of videos highlight how promos were delivered and how characters came across during that era, to great comedic effect. Stars such as John Cena, Chris Jericho, Karl Anderson, Luke Gallows, TJ Perkins, Fandango, Rusev, and Lana are among the men and women that make an appearance in the videos, which are posted to YouTube and the WWE website. Whether it was one performer’s blatant comb over, or European performer trying to portray a character from the south, Southpaw Regional wrestling was one laugh after another. For anyone that hadn’t seen it, the now injured Rusev played the part of a Hillbilly Jim type character, and in broken English attempted to resemble a beloved southerner that fans would get behind. Gallows and Anderson were ‘feuding’ with one another while sporting Zubaz pants and 1980s hair metal band locks. After inserting the video tape into a now-defunct VHS player that was a wonderful plug for Panasonic, Southpaw Regional Wrestling will remain dormant no longer! If you haven’t had the opportunity to check out these 4 videos, each about 5 minutes in length, please do; you won’t be disappointed. By the way, the drunk commentator portrayed by Fandango may be the least appreciated of those on-screen.

So ends the first edition of Strange Things In Wrestling This Month with Marc Madison. It is said to beware the Ides of March, but we thought we’d take a stab at a column anyway. Who knew that across the wrestling world we would see such stories capture the attention of fans?!? This month featured some odd and unusual suspects, and social media played a major part in many of the stories. We could have talked about other things that caught our attention, like a certain commentator that was caught in a rather awkward online storyline, but who would do that? (link to weekly column). Or we could make reference to an onscreen relationship that just seems really poorly executed, but seriously, that seems like a poor excuse of a story and why waste your time with that? (link to the previous column) We are above that here with our Strange Things In Wrestling series! We hit you with the hard hitting facts!…or at least land in close proximity!

For Strange Things In Wrestling This Month, this is Marc Madison saying, see you at the end of April, or are we just fooling you?

…….Nah, there is a pretty good chance we’ll be back next month.

Check out Jon Curry, Mike Holland, Brandon Lasher and I on TheMemNetwork. We can be heard every Sunday and live after every WWE pay per view from this week moving forward.

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