The 5 News Week Look-Back: Batista's Match With Triple H At Wrestlemania 35 Supposed To Be A Hell In A Cell!?, A Look Back At Eric Bischoff's Role As Executive Director.
But Rather, all throughout December, I'm going to look back at some of the news that came out in 2019. The start of a new decade is going to be upon us in the coming days and that can be exciting especially for the future of the wrestling business as a whole. I hope you guys celebrate the new year's day and of course, drink responsibly.
Fans Frustration Over The Booking Of The Main Roster Women's Division.
I wrote an article earlier this year about why women's wrestling in world wrestling entertainment of the year 2018 was great (which you can click here to read the whole thing).
However, it seems like the year after (2019) was the exact opposite. Now, they did rebound the quality of storytelling in the women's division later in the year but that summer period was a great example of how felt like they had nothing for these women to do. Summer of 2019 was also the time that the fans tweeted a hashtag regarding the women's evolution as Bell To Belles describes:
"The fans took notice and updated a familiar hashtag to express their frustrations. #GiveWWEWomenAChance was a trending topic throughout the night and most of the next day. The creation of the original hashtag was only four years ago and the first main event featuring women was just four months ago. Nevertheless, wrestling Twitter still has to take to social media to attempt to get the company’s attention on the matter."
I talked about this on the July 28th edition of The 5 News Week and I mentioned the fact that the total runtime dedicated to women's wrestling from July 1st to July 23rd was 18:07 for Smackdown while RAW was 31:28.
Speaking of Bell To Belles, the co-owner of that site Kristan Ashley published a report on Fightful.com back in August about the amount of airtime the women had in WWE. Here are the snippets:
"Since Oct. 28, there have been 42 episodes of Raw. The total length of all matches aired on national television in those 42 episodes is 35 hours, 36 minutes and 39 seconds. Of that total match airtime, women accounted for eight hours, 51 minutes and 11 seconds; a rough 21.4 percent of total match airtime."
"SmackDown also has had 42 episodes air, since Evolution. The blue brand aired 26 hours and 33 seconds worth of wrestling matches, since last October. Of that time, women's matches accounted for five hours, three minutes, and 28 seconds; the even worse stat of 19.4 percent. It's shocking that SmackDown hasn't had more even match airtimes between men and women, because of their upcoming move to FOX."
The question is, what's WWE going to bring for the women's division in 2020 and beyond? Will have to wait and see.
Batista's Match With Triple H At Wrestlemania 35 Supposed To Be A Hell In A Cell!?
Dave Batista's final pro wrestling against the game was okay, to say the least, but apparently, he wanted a much more brutal stipulation than a no DQ match aka a no holds barred match in an interview with Le Champion himself on Talk Is Jericho (shout out to Wrestling-edge.com):
“Originally, we wanted a have a Hell In A Cell, but Vince, because of the pay-per-view, he didn’t want to have a Hell In A Cell, and we really wanted Hell In A Cell. They’re just great matches, they’re violent. We needed bells and whistles.
We’re two older guys, we hadn’t wrestled in a long time and we needed the drama. We’ve already got the history, so we just needed the violence.”
I don't know if that match would've been better if Vince went on board with that idea but it is interesting to think about. I personally think that McMahon made the right call here which is something Vince rarely does.
Dolph Ziggler's Hand Shake Deal With The Old Man? Will He Continue Working With WWE Through 2020?
Ziggler's 2019 run was unexpected given the news reported that his contract will end this past January and he was also surprisingly utilized throughout that year.
To summarize this whole thing, basically according to bodyslam.net and Cassidy Haynes, Ziggler's last contracted day with WWE was on Mid August but Vince wouldn't end Dolph Ziggler's contract.
Bodyslam.net is not the most reliable source out there so you should take this piece of news with concern but given that he's on TV frequently on the blue brand, I wouldn't be surprised if this was true.
Let's say that it is true, if AEW wasn't established as a company, will Vince still keep the guy or not? I guess will find out the answer at the next Chris Van Vliet interview.
The Usos. Why Are They Still Not On TV?
The Samoan brothers took part in one of the worst storylines of 2019 with The Revival which is a shame considering that it was a dream match to some fans.
Their last match with the company was the July 29th episode of Monday Night RAW in a triple threat tag team match for the RAW tag team championship that included The Good Bros and The Revival in a losing effort. Now, why are they still not on TV?
I couldn't find a concrete answer but they're probably going through something personal as Jimmy Usos' wife Naomi mentioned on an Instagram post back in late September about her in-ring return or maybe they needed some time off?
Who knows but I hope The Usos are ready to go for 2020. If I was WWE, I'll have them come back in the Royal Rumble match but that's just me. Speaking of their return, apparently, the higher folks up there are working on a return for The Usos according to WrestleVotes so there's that.
A Look Back At Eric Bischoff's Role As Executive Director.
Eric Bischoff's run with WWE behind the scenes was so quick, Quicksilver in Avengers: Age Of Ultron had more screen time (and yes, this was a comic book reference).
Bischoff didn't do much creatively according to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter but The Wrap's exclusive story says otherwise and he brought in a writer named Stevie Long who wrote for FX's Sons Of Anarchy and Long slept in the writing room in his first day. Bischoff and his creative team also….
"have also come under scrutiny for this summer’s Erick Rowan doppelgänger storyline, in which an unknown attacker drop heavy backstage scaffolding on top of Roman Reigns, “injuring” the company’s No. 1 star."
He has since been let go from that role and was replaced by Bruce Prichard, citing in a tweet that...
"He’s going to be working with a great team of the most dedicated and hard-working people I have had the pleasure of working with and getting to know.”.
Eric did talk about his time with the company creatively in an episode of his own podcast "83 Weeks" last month (from SEscoops):
"The role, as it was originally defined to me, was to oversee the process and oversee the SmackDown brand, not to necessarily be involved in creative other than to oversee the management of it.
Also to essentially oversee all of the other elements of the business that had anything to do with SmackDown. So it was a very broad description. Keep in mind it was a new job. It wasn’t a position that had previously existed in WWE. I’m sure a lot of thought went into it, but I think the position is most likely still evolving and being defined.”
2019 was the year that WWE did a soft reboot within their creative team and how they approach storylines (or at least I hope that's the case).
A robot with a leather jacket once said, "I'll be back". More specifically, The 5 News Week will return with some news that will grab your attention in the world of professional wrestling on January 19th. See you then my guys.