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Strange Things In Wrestling This Week with Marc Madison for 07/21/2017

By Marc Madison • Published 21st July 2017
TJR Wrestling

Welcome to the newest edition of Strange Things In Wrestling This Week with Marc Madison. For the second consecutive week, STIWTW highlights a number of rather interesting occurrences over the course of the week in wrestling. One story dominated this week to such an extent that to not write about it seemed…illegal, if not illegitimate! Once again, this column won’t push you to watch the Netflix program GLOW or play with your emotions, or toy with the truth just for you to be disappointed. We may, however, share the excitement we have for the upcoming season of Stranger Things 2 (cheap plug!) this fall, and show why that is something you need to look forward to. No, no no that isn’t our job here! What we do is hit fans with different topics and try to understand their value. You can anticipate something outside normal online wrestling culture when it comes to this (generally) bi-weekly column.

This week’s edition includes an admission of past indiscretions…and that’s pretty much it! We’re kidding, it does, in fact, take up 3/5ths of this week’s edition as the trickle down effects of the storyline became so news worthy it was impossible to ignore. We tackle a potentially new nickname for a current WWE champion. We could speculate on how Mike Kanellis has chosen to have ‘M+M Forever,’ on his tights instead of just carving it on a tree outside the arena, but hey, whatever seems to work, go for it. Without further ado, here are Strange Things In Wrestling for the week of July 21st.

Ariya ‘Don’t call me Jinder Mahal’ Daivari

Over the course of the past few weeks, fans have seen Ariya Daivari further develop his Persian persona more. It would be really simple to have him come out with a culturally significant headpiece and suggest that he is the embodiment of Iran. After all, there is nothing wrong with being proud of your ancestry, and sure, the foreigner gimmick seems to be pretty popular right now. Sure, he is of Iranian descent, and sure he was born in Minnesota and was trained by the likes of his brother Shawn and former WWE Intercontinental and tag team champion Shelton Benjamin. Does that make him more American than Iranian?

However, what is uncanny about his behavior is that Daivari’s gimmick focuses on his both being of foreign descent and possessing great wealth and power. Kind of like another WWE superstar….though he doesn’t appear to need the Bollywood Boyz, and anyway they wouldn’t offer much in the way of intimidation or distraction. While this isn’t necessarily tied to what happened this week per se, in the promos he does related to his matches with Akira Tozawa, he comes across as the modern day Daivari—jah? He almost appears as though he is a shrunken version of the WWE champion. While there is quite a bit of difference when it comes to move set, it seems that Daivari is only a harem away from being the same sort of ethnic caricature.

‘My black son’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG1wTg9MFv8

On Monday, July 17th, Kurt Angle made his big announcement. However, while the announcement was not as controversial as fans were led to believe, it certainly was a surprise. For weeks, fans were led to believe that what Angle was hiding wasn’t just a shock, but carried with it scandalous connotations. What exactly was it, and who was implicated in this announcement? Angle told the story of how, in college, he had a relationship with a woman and nine months after they broke up (sounds like they had some serious breakup sex!) she had a child. And thus, he announced he was once again a father, and his son was a current WWE superstar. So with evident pride, he stated that Jason Jordan, one-half of American Alpha, was his son.

It certainly caught fans off guard! Amusingly, someone on the internet managed to take the song from the Family Guy, ‘My black son’ and dubbed it over the image of Angle’s career, both past, and present. The added touch was including Queen Sharmell. (For those unaware during his time, once upon a time Angle had a feud with King Booker T and Sharmell was caught in between them.) It also demonstrated that Angle doesn’t discriminate, and loves everyone. Oh, it’s true, its damn true! The aforementioned fan made a video is amusing, and if you get an opportunity to watch it please do so.

Daniel Bryan trolls Chad Gable

As mentioned earlier, the biggest story of the week was the Kurt Angle announcement. However, though it was met with a bit of a mixed reaction, the reaction was not solely tied to Raw, Angle and Jordan. The reaction by many of the superstars of WWE was amusing and rather interesting, to say the least. One superstar who reacted with surprise was none other than Jordan’s American Alpha tag team partner, Chad Gable. Clearly, Chad wasn’t ready, willing and Gable for the announcement, based on his tweet that said ‘Um…what?’ Gable did go on to write a rather lengthy thank you to Jason Jordan on his Instagram page, but on Twitter not only did his reaction prompt many retweets and likes, but Smackdown Live General Manager Daniel Bryan also chimed in.

His response was both amusing and strangely familiar, suggesting that he was in fact Gable’s long-lost father. There could be a big reveal next week, apparently! Bryan is one too often have fun with talent, and blur the lines between fantasy and reality. Plus, knowing the story was so hot, it was impossible to ignore. However, unless Bryan was able to produce some incredibly powerful sperm in kindergarten, the likelihood of his being Gable’s dad is low, considering there is only a five-year age gap between them.

Is Styles the new John Cena?

He has, for as long as fans can remember, been known by one name and one name only:AJ Styles. In addition, The Phenomenal One has always been the symbol and nickname of Styles, and his versatility has meant that, regardless of whom he is in the ring with, his work rate is phenomenal. So to hear Styles as referred to as anything other than phenomenal is rather strange. However, during a backstage segment this past week with ‘The Artist (that is such an odd nickname for him, but whatever, that’s for another day) known as ShinsukeNakamura, the two were engaged in a strategy session for their upcoming tag team match later that night against Kevin Owens and Baron Corbin.

And while the segment essentially ended with Nakamura acknowledging Styles’ United States championship, there was something else that managed to catch some fans eyes: Styles wore a red tank top that read ‘The Untouchable One’. We aren’t quite sure why Styles would be reusing the nickname that John Cena used prior to his Hustle, Loyalty and Respect days when he was channelling his inner rapper, nor are we sure if it’s a good idea. However, it appears that this is a nickname that Styles could be referred to by, moving forward. We aren’t willing to create a petition on change.org to stop it, but to say the nickname is strange is a bit of an understatement.

The Revival Enforcer?

https://twitter.com/ScottDawsonWWE/status/887360692952629248

If copycat posts are among the biggest and most newsworthy items of the week, well, here is another one. As part of The Revival, Scott Dawson has generated some of the biggest responses from fans along with his partner Dash Wilder. During their time in NXT, they worked hard to find themselves both in the ring and on the microphone. Their time together as a team has been outstanding, and they are a team that fans have not only come to like, but love! This week, social media was ablaze with meme’s, gifs and other sorts of comical responses to Kurt Angle’s announcement, having fun with the storyline. One example was Wilder.

After the announcement was made, Dawson posted a picture on Twitter with a caption that reads, ‘I need to speak to my mother’. In that picture, Dawson stood side by side with WWE Hall of FamerArn Anderson. To give further context to why Anderson was referenced, for those that aren’t aware The Revival are often considered a throwback to tag teams of the 1980s such as the Four Horsemen, one of whom was Anderson. Given that, I tend to believe Scott Dawson could make a valid claim to have Arn as his illegitimate father.

This ends Strange Things In Wrestling This Week with Marc Madison, for the week of July 21st. We covered everything from why it’s always better to come clean than stay dirty, why some should be phenomenal and remain that way, and how the internet loves to play with a storyline. How Kurt Angle’s admission was both strange and fun, and he had to enjoy some of the reactions fans and talent had. What will develop over the next few weeks will be interesting to see. Will this all be a ploy by Jordan to extort opportunities from Angle? Will he be genuinely happy to be united with his ‘father,’ or could something more evolve from it?

For Strange Things In Wrestling, this is Marc Madison saying, if you catch the strange things in wrestling, be sure to always make fun of them, or claim that you love them. However, not if you’ve hidden the truth for twenty years, that’s a bit sketchy. (Being a week removed from Dar breaking it off with Fox kinda makes me feel like Corey Graves at the moment.)

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