How I Would Book… The 2003 Triple H vs. Kevin Nash Feud

Friends can be huge assets in the world of professional wrestling. If you’re friends with the wrestlers that you’re working with, that can create a positive work environment where everyone is willing to co-operate. With that much trust in one another, it allows a lot more freedom when working together especially with someone that you get along with. There’s no other group that demonstrates this than the group known as the Kliq.

Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon gave us a legendary ladder match at WrestleMania X. Kevin Nash and Scott Hall gave us the Outsiders. Triple H and Shawn Michaels gave us fond memories as D-Generation X and as bitter enemies. These folks have gotten along very well and the work they’ve done together demonstrated this… most of the time.

Sometimes it just doesn’t… kliq. We’ll be looking at once of those examples, when former Kliq buddies feuded in a storyline best forgotten. We’ll see if we can turn the 2003 feud between The Game and Big Daddy Cool into something that’s too sweet…

…here’s How I Would Book… Triple H vs. Kevin Nash in 2003.

Now that I have gotten my obligatory kliq/click pun out of the way, it’s time to tackle the first feud in WWE between Triple H and Kevin Nash. They had a rivalry in 2003 that led to a Hell in a Cell match and they had another rivalry in 2011 that led to a sledgehammer ladder match… yes, that was a thing.

For this “How I Would Book…”, we’ll only focus on their 2003 rivalry. I may consider doing the 2011 program too but, if we’re being honest, the whole storyline between Triple H, Kevin Nash and CM Punk was just a massive mess to begin with that you’d need to do a lot with in order to untangle. It probably would be better off if we did a “Summer of Punk” redo and even something like that would be a tall order with a lot of work involved.

However, the 2003 program between Nash and Triple H was interesting given that the timing couldn’t have lined up any better. Nash returned after Triple H started a huge feud with Shawn Michaels and had just retained the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania XIX. It seemed like a great time to slide Nash into the world title picture against one of his real-life best friends.

Unfortunately, what had the potential of a great storyline involving three best friends turned into just another predictable world title program for 2003 Triple H. It really was ALL ABOUT THE GAME in 2003.

Let’s break down what happened and see how we could re-write the storyline better than WWE did…

Kevin Nash had been out of action since around June/July 2002 when he went down with an injury. At the time, Nash was a part of the New World Order stable along with Shawn and was trying to recruit Triple H to join the group (or at least it was teased, I think). However, Nash’s injury and a whole bunch of different factors led to the New World Order stable being scrapped all together. In fact, we actually did do a “How I Would Book…” for the 2002 nWo storyline many years ago. The links to that series are available at the bottom of this post.

By the time Nash returned on the night after WrestleMania XIX, things were hugely different. Since Nash had been away, Triple H and Shawn Michaels began a heated feud with each other which led Nash to breaking up a scuffle between the pair on an episode of RAW. Nash did not want to attack either of his friends but saved Shawn from a beat-down from Triple H’s posse at the time.

Nash try to get the friends to reconcile but neither Triple H nor Shawn were having it. They confirmed that their rivalry would never be over and Triple H made it clear that Nash had to pick a side. Triple H said Nash would need to take orders from Triple H but at least he was honest about it. Triple H brought up Shawn’s history of backstabbing people and told Nash that Shawn would turn his back on him too.

Nash still refused to take sides in the feud which led Triple H making the decision for him. Triple H low-blowed Kevin Nash about a week or two later, which led to Nash and Triple H becoming enemies. This led to a six man tag team match at Backlash with Triple H, Ric Flair and Chris Jericho facing Booker T, Nash and Shawn*, which Triple H’s team won as he pinned Nash.

NOTE: Ironically, Booker, Shawn and Nash were all members of the nWo together at one point during the 2002 WWE run!

The feud had problems in the next few months, with Nash himself not particularly being beloved as a babyface. For example, Nash was getting booed on an episode of RAW in Canada that led to a huge brawl between Nash and Triple H in the arena. The segment was actually one of the highlights of the feud with the brawl actually looking really good.

Nash ended up becoming somewhat of a side-character in the build up to their Bad Blood match as well, with the emphasis being put on the special referee Mick Foley.

Nash challenged for the World Heavyweight title three times on pay-per-view. Kevin Nash challenged Triple H for the title at Judgement Day, which led to a disqualification and Kevin Nash power=bombing Triple H through the announce table. They had another match at the Insurrextion UK pay-per-view which Triple H won. They had a final match at Bad Blood inside the Hell in a Cell, where Triple H beat Nash with Mick Foley as the special guest referee.

Nash was still in the company for a few months afterwards, feuding with Chris Jericho, being shaved bald and then losing in the Elimination Chamber match at SummerSlam 2003.

As I mentioned before, this storyline had great potential with a simple set-up. A best friend comes back after a long time away to see that everything has changed and his friends are fighting each other. Heck, Triple H turned on Shawn about a month or so after Nash’s injury so you can already tell the storyline of how the whole thing went to hell without Nash being there. Now he’s back and something’s got to give.

However, WWE really was at fault with this storyline for a few reasons:

1. They had Triple H turn on Kevin Nash SO DAMN FAST. It was about two weeks into the storyline when Triple H “made the decision” for Nash by attacking him, which depleted weeks’ worth of storyline potential where you can tease Nash either siding with Shawn or siding with Triple H. What was the point in throwing that all away in the space of a few weeks? You had a six man tag team match already booked for Backlash where Nash was teaming with Shawn against Triple H. You could have promoted the match by teasing whether Nash would go with Shawn or Triple H. I mean… IT WAS RIGHT THERE.

2. Triple H came off as a massive idiot for attacking Nash BEFORE Backlash. Nash was already hesitant to wrestle Triple H before Backlash, which Triple H could use to his advantage. Either he could lead Nash into a false sense of security and then turn on him or he could try to cause friction within Nash’s team by having him turn on Shawn. Triple H betrayed one of his best friends RIGHT BEFORE a big match against him, which would no doubt piss off the seven-foot giant.

3. Nash lost almost every match he had on pay-per-view. Sure, he “defeated” Triple H at Judgement Day but it was via disqualification. He still never won the championship and he even took the pin in a six man tag team match against Backlash. That type of booking was ludicrous, given that Nash was set to start a world title program with Triple H for the next pay-per-view. Why didn’t Nash’s team just win the six man tag match and pin either Ric Flair or Chris Jericho?

4. Nash was just not particularly over as a babyface at this time. One factor was his lack of success in big matches, which I went over in point 3. However, there wasn’t much reason for the fans to get behind Nash after Backlash. Other than him being a giant that could destroy Triple H, there wasn’t much reason to get invested in his story after Triple H turned on him. He became just another challenger to Triple H and the babyface run was such a disaster, that Mick Foley had to be brought in as the special referee for the Hell in a Cell match. Nash became the third wheel in a one-on-one Hell in a Cell match!

5. After the Hell in a Cell match, there was little else for Nash to do in WWE. Goldberg was put in the World title picture and was basically the babyface monster that RAW needed, while Nash was reduced to getting his head shaved by Jericho. His momentum died out very quickly.

I feel I could go on and on but the major crooks was the lack of development in the Nash/Triple H/Shawn love triangle of sorts! I, at least, want to dabble in this just a little bit as part of this “How I Would Book…” post. So without further ado, let’s get into it…

Nash’s return stays in tact. They did it absolutely fine and there was immediate buzz in Nash as well as investment into the story, with him literally standing in the middle of the Shawn Michaels/Triple H rivalry. Perfect foundation for a storyline.

We’re also going to keep in the segment from the next week’s RAW, where Triple H spelled things out for Nash. Triple H tells Nash to make a choice. Does he stand behind Triple H and work FOR him or does he work WITH a Shawn Michaels who could possibly betray him?

The six man tag team match for Backlash still happens and still promoted but we do not have Triple H attacking Nash before the match. That was just too fast and we need to drag this out a little bit more. The tension between Nash, Booker T and Shawn is a pivotal part of the build to the match, with Triple H stirring the pot. This leads to the six man tag match. The match spills out omto a big brawl, where Shawn inadvertently Super Kicks Nash over the top rope. If you’ll recall, Shawn eliminated Big Daddy Cool Diesel from the 1996 Royal Rumble match in the exact same way. It’s inadvertent déjà vu for Nash, who gets mad. He gets so mad that he powerbombs Shawn in retaliation and walks out in frustration. Triple H pins Shawn and has gained from the situation.

We build towards Judgement Day, where Nash is booked to face Shawn Micheals in a number one contendership match for the World Heavyweight Championship. Nash and Shawn squabble heading into the pay-per-view, with Shawn pleading that the super kick was just an accident. After weeks of Nash blowing him off, Shawn has enough and super kicks Nash intentionally on the RAW before Judgement Day. They have the match, which results in Ric Flair running down and low-blowing Shawn Michaels. Nash takes advantage, without knowing Ric helped him, and hits Shawn with the Jackknife Powerbomb to win the match. This finish sets up Nash vs. Triple H for the World title and Shawn Michaels vs. Ric Flair… both matches that happened in real life at the Bad Blood 2003 pay-per-view.

While Nash is pleased to be number one contender, he gets mad at Triple H for Ric getting involved. Nash mentions that the issues between Shawn and Nash were between them and not Triple H at this point. Nash said that he wanted to settle it with Shawn in the ring and wants Triple H to settle things with Shawn too. Triple H insists that Ric Flair did not do it with his knowledge and wants to “deal” with Ric for getting involved. He won’t settle things with Shawn but he’ll wrestle Ric Flair for Nash. This leads to the famous Triple H vs. Ric Flair match on RAW, where Ric challenged Triple H for the title in North Carolina. It was a really cool match and I just wanted to keep it in as part of this storyline.

They do a contract signing with Nash and Triple H and Triple H promises that the world title match at Bad Blood will be a pure match. No one will get involved and it will just be a match to see who is the better man. The match is made and Nash takes most of the match, beating up Triple H and dominating. The referee gets knocked down and Triple H goes to get a sledgehammer. However, he promised Nash that the match would be pure. He drops the hammer in the ring but Nash gets back into the match. He goes for the Jackknife Powerbomb but Triple H “accidentally” low blows Nash. Triple H acts shocked and stumbles back into the sledgehammer. Triple H stops, smiles, picks up the hammer and smashes Nash in the head with it. Triple H pins Nash and retains the World Heavyweight Championship.

NOTE: In case anyone is wondering, I didn’t think to book something for Insurrextion. The Insurrextion pay-per-view honestly seemed like a glorified house show and I didn’t feel like putting a match together as part of the storyline. The match between Nash and HHH didn’t really add a lot to the story in real life anyway and I don’t think it’d add a lot to the story here. If you want, just put a tag team match here or something.

Nash is understandably extremely mad as Triple H betrayed Nash’s trust. Triple H promised a pure match but took the low road to win the match. Triple H told Nash that he’d shoot with him straight in their first promo together and then lied straight to his face as part of the Bad Blood build-up. Nash seriously wants revenge. Nash spends the next few months running through Triple H and his friends. Nash beats Ric Flair, Nash beats Randy Orton and this leads to a tag team match on RAW with Kevin Nash and Shawn Michaels against Triple H and Ric Flair. If Nash and Shawn win, Nash and Shawn both get world title shots at SummerSlam 2003. It’d be a triple threat match.

Nash and Shawn are still on uneasy terms after their Judgement Day match but they work together fine as a unit in the RAW match and Nash pins Triple H at last. Therefore, it’s Triple H defending the World title against Shawn Michaels and Kevin Nash. Triple H retains the title against all odds at SummerSlam by hitting the Pedigree on Kevin Nash and retaining the world title.

That wraps up this storyline. It feels weird to omit the Hell in a Cell match from this storyline and end it in a triple threat. However, Shawn should be very prominent in this storyline between best friends given that he’s also a main reason for the conflict. All three former best friends settling it in a triple threat match seems like a fitting way to close the book on the Kevin Nash storyline. Heck, if Nash gets pinned, then it protects Shawn for future matches with Triple H.

That sums up this “How I Would Book…”. I’d like to think by stretching out the Triple H/Nash tension, it’d make for far more compelling story. I considered doing a storyline where Nash joins Evolution somehow but then turns on Triple H, heading into a Hell in a Cell match. However, I wanted Nash to stand out as a character and I think him playing a tweener role adds a great dynamic to the Shawn/Triple H rivalry as well. It really is the Good, the Bad and the Ugly…

Thank you for reading this post and please let me know how you would have tackled this story yourself. Until then, no matter what happens…. STICK THE WINNER FOR ME.

How I Would Book series

#1 – How I Would Book… Rey Mysterio vs AJ Styles

#2 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar (Part One and Part Two)

#3 – How I Would Book… Wrestlemania 29 (Part One, Part Two, Part Threeand Part Four)

#4 – How I Would Book… Eddie Guerrero’s Road To Wrestlemania 22 (Part Oneand Part Two)

#5 – How I Would Book… The nWo 19th Anniversary Special (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Final Part)

#6 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker

#7 – How I Would Book… The End Of The Streak (Part One, Part Two (John Cena), Part Three (CM Punk), Part Four (Randy Orton), Part Five (Bray Wyatt), Final Part)

#8 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs The Rock

#9 – How I Would Book… Kurt Angle’s Return To WWE

#10 – How I Would Book… John Cena vs The Rock III

#11 – How I Would Book… Kevin Owens as Intercontinental Champion

#12 – How I Would Book… Christian’s World Title Run In 2011

#13 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs John Cena

#14 – How I Would Book… Dean Ambrose Winning The WWE Championship

#15 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar vs Undertaker

#16 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker (Wrestlemania 32)

#17 – How I Would Book… AJ Styles’ Road to WrestleMania 32

#18 – How I Would Book… CM Punk As Nexus Leader (Part One and Part Two)

#19 – How I Would Book… WrestleMania 32

#20 – How I Would Book… Who Ran Over Stone Cold?

#21 – How I Would Book… Rusev in WWE (Part One, Part Two and Part Three)

#22 – How I Would Book… Wade Barrett in WWE (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five)

#23 – How I Would Book… The 2018 Bayley vs. Sasha Banks Feud

#24 – How I Would Book… Samoa Joe in WWE (Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four)

#25 – How I Would Book… Scott Steiner in WWE

How I Would Book… Scott Steiner in WWE (2003)

You know they say all men are created equal. But when you look at yourself and you look at Scott Steiner, you can see that statement is not true. See normally if you go one on one with another wrestler, you’ve got a 50/50 chance of winning. But Scott’s a genetic freak and he’s not normal, so you’ve got a 25% chance at best at beating him. And then you add good booking to the mix… your chances of winning drastically go down.

Unfortunately, WWE did not add good booking to the mix when booking Scott Steiner’s return to the company in 2002. Despite being one of the big free agents available after leaving WCW, Scott’s return just didn’t hit the heights of his run in the dying days of WCW and even some of the highlights of his TNA run. Scott as a star in WWE seemed to not be on the cards.

However, was there a chance to redeem Big Poppa Pump in the post-WCW WWE? Well I think, if handled right, Scott could have been a valuable asset to the company. In fact, I’m going to try to turn his run in WWE into something actually respectable enough where Scott Steiner could potentially become a star again rather than a joke. Here’s How I Would Book… Scott Steiner in WWE.

I’m not going to lie… I have a soft spot in my heart for Scott Steiner. This is a wrestler that was an incredible athlete during his peak WCW days with such charisma in every promo he ever cut. It’s no surprise that he stood out as a star during the later years of WCW as its champion and how he’s garnered this legendary status as a wrestler.

And yes… his wrestling promos have made me laugh over and over again so you can’t help but want more for the Genetic Freak. After all, throughout his career, he’s wrestled a lot of countries…

However, Scott’s career never saw him become a major star in WWE. Scott had world title programs, he won the WWF Tag Team Championship during the early 90s and is fondly remembered. However, even when he was given a major program as a top babyface, Scott seemed to fall flat and was never able to be picked back up again until his release from the company in 2004. Despite the charisma, talent and look Steiner had, it just didn’t work.

Let’s go into his career and see where things didn’t work out for Freakzilla…

Scott Steiner debuted in Madison Square Garden at Survivor Series 2002, where he attacked Chris Nowinski and Matt Hardy to a huge reaction in New York. He was pushed as the biggest free agent that General Managers Stephanie McMahon and Eric Bischoff both wanted to sign for SmackDown! and RAW respectively. Stephanie seemingly had Scott secured for her brand, with a promise of a “signing bonus” if Scott had signed with her. Because Scott was not willing to wait for quality time with Stephanie, the deal fell apart and Scott signed with Bischoff instead. He really was the wrestling version of Johnny Bravo… at least in his mind!

Scott showed up on RAW and challenged new World Heavyweight Champion Triple H for a guaranteed title shot. Triple H and Scott proceeded to have multiple contests to determine who was best between the two of them including push-up contests, pose-offs and arm wrestling contests… yes, this is all true. This led to one of the worst world title matches in WWE history at the 2003 Royal Rumble which ended in a disqualification. To make matters worse, the fans booed babyface Steiner throughout the match and cheered for heel Triple H. Yikes.

WWE inexplicably attempted a rematch between Steiner and Triple H which led to the formation of Triple H’s Evolution stable. Triple H retained the title at No Way Out to end the feud which was never brought up again.

Scott didn’t even appear at WrestleMania XIX and such highlights on RAW included a debate between himself and Nowinski about the Iraq War, with Steiner delivering such a debate points like comparing France to Hell. Yes, that is true. Go look it up.

Scott started a program with Test and his manager Stacy Keibler, with the two forming a tag team. The team didn’t last long as Test turned on Steiner and started mistreating Stacy. Scott and Test fought over Stacy’s managerial services. Scott won her services in a hilarious match at Bad Blood (which we did cover on the Armbar Express many year ago (link available here)) before losing the services back to Test in August. Oh, and Stacy did a lap dance for Steiner on the stage during this storyline. Again, this was a bizarre time for wrestling and Scott Steiner.

Test won Steiner’s services at Unforgiven, with Steiner himself become a servant to Test too. Scott eventually got sick of this and attacked Stacy, as he turned heel and became better friends with Test. They both started mistreating Stacy and I believe it was implied that they were planning to use Stacy as a sex slave. Remember… this was shortly after the whole Katie Vick storyline so anything appeared to be on the table.

Mick Foley eventually fired Steiner and Test, ending the storyline and freeing Stacy from her servitude. Scott was an entrant in the 2004 Royal Rumble match before he was released from his contract.

What a hot mess this was.

When you look at everything I just recapped about Scott Steiner’s WWE run, it’s easy to crap all over the writers for just pure lackluster and disgusting storytelling. Even before the storyline with Stacy, they had Steiner doing push-ups, posing contests and debates which were all just recipes for disaster.

However, Scott was also extremely sloppy with his in-ring work during a lot of his big matches with the company. His match with Triple H at Royal Rumble 2003 was voted the “Worst Worked Match” in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards and if you’ve ever watched the match, it’s understandable as to why. Scott in particular just had a horrendous night.

Therefore, it’s not like you can push him as a great wrestler where he just destroys people and have him wrestle in the main-event each night. To be honest, he simply wasn’t good enough and was just limited in the ring at the time.

However, that doesn’t give the writers a pass with the storytelling either. Even if Scott was limited, he was still wrestling at this time and still demonstrated great charisma when he had the chance. He just needed simple direction that didn’t involve misogyny and stupid competitions.

Here’s where I’ll come in and attempt to re-book Steiner’s WWE career myself. When it comes to booking better than WWE, I’ve got a 141 and 2/3 chance of doing it better!

Scott Steiner’s debut at Survivor Series 2002 stays as it is. It was a really cool moment and you don’t really need to change it. The fans ate up Steiner that night so you keep that segment in tact.

Scott Steiner is still a free agent at this point, who GMs Eric Bischoff and Stephanie McMahon are trying to sign. Steiner initially rejects both RAW and SmackDown! and quits WWE all together. He doesn’t appear again until the 2003 Royal Rumble. The World Heavyweight Championship match is defending champion Triple H wrestling Booker T. Booker seemingly has the match won when Scott Steiner blindsides Booker T and helps Triple H win. Scott Steiner appears on RAW and announces that he’s signed with RAW for a guaranteed title shot. This was the same storyline like in real life so we’re just tweaking the timeline just a little. Triple H has promised Steiner a title shot at WrestleMania XIX by helping him take out Booker T.

Scott feuded with Booker in tag teams and in singles action during their time in WCW so there’s that history there to use as well. Booker responds by challenging Triple H and Steiner to a tag team match. Let’s say it’s Booker and Shawn Michaels against Triple H and Steiner at No Way Out. If Booker wins, it’s a triple threat match for the title at Mania between HHH, Steiner and Booker. If Booker’s team loses, Booker will not be at WrestleMania at all. The match is agreed and Booker’s team win by Booker pinning Triple H. With this finish, you protect Steiner as he didn’t get beat. You put over Booker T heading into WrestleMania XIX by having him pin the champion and it builds a great dynamic. Not only does Triple H have to defend the title in a triple threat, but he’s against a man who has pinned him in a tag team match and a man in Scott Steiner that he’d never wrestled before.

The match is set for WrestleMania XIX – Triple H defending the World Heavyweight Championship against Booker T and Scott Steiner. No, we will not be including the original racial storyline as part of this build-up. Booker T as the underdog against Steiner and Triple H is enough. Booker T wins the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania XIX, as he should have done in real life and all is right with the world up to this point!

After WrestleMania, Booker and Triple H can continue to feud over the title. Meanwhile, Scott Steiner is disturbed by the debut on another ex-WCW wrestler on RAW… Goldberg. Scott can cut these promos for months about how he beat up Goldberg in WCW and decides to create his own streak which is just as good as Goldberg’s was in WCW. Yes, I am copying the angle that WCW did where Sid tried to emulate Goldberg’s streak. However, I am convinced Scott Steiner would be able to make it entertaining in his own right!

This goes on until Bad Blood, where Steiner finally has his match with Goldberg for the first time since WCW. Goldberg beats Steiner and we continue to build Goldberg up ahead of his first World Heavyweight Championship reign in the Autumn. They ended up doing Goldberg vs. Scott Steiner anyway on an episode of RAW. Why not build a program going into Bad Blood and actually try to make some money out of it?

I guess we should finally address the elephant in the room… Scott Steiner’s feud with Test about Stacy Keibler. I am going to try and re-write this but I’m going to try and tell somewhat of a compelling romance story. So here goes….

Test was being managed by Stacy Keibler at this time and was somewhat of a tweener. I think Test was technically a babyface but the fans mostly liked him because of Stacy. They LOVED Stacy at this time. Therefore, we can still initially treat Test as a babyface at first. Test gets interrupted by the new World Tag Team Champions in La Resistance. La Resistance try to recruit the Canadian Test to their cause, with Rob Conway being a Canadian that was a French Sympathiser too. They try to get him on their side as Test was part of the Un-Americans stable in the past. Test says no but he gets attacked by the stable. Scott Steiner makes the save for Test against La Resistance. Stacy is elated by Scott teaming up with Test while Test is initially suspicious. Scott’s still a heel (following on from the WrestleMania and Goldberg storylines), Test is a tweener and Stacy is a babyface which sets up a very interesting dynamic.

This leads to a World Tag Team Championship match at SummerSlam, where Scott Steiner and Test defeat La Resistance to win the tag titles. Stacy hugs Steiner after the match and leaps into his arms, with Test watching on and taking issue with this.

The team defends the titles in a rematch against La Resistance, where Scott is presumably getting cheered more and more and Stacy is being more happy with him than Test. They defend the titles against the Dudley Boyz on RAW, where Test shows some heel tendencies by actually cheating to help their team win the match. This grabs the attention of Eric Bischoff, who recruits Test and Steiner into his team for a Survivor Series match in 2003. It was Team Bischoff vs. Team Stone Cold, with Stone Cold’s career being on the line. Test agrees to join the team but Scott and Stacy are reluctant. The match sees the team start to implode, with Test getting himself disqualified. Scott gets pissed off at Test and Test pushes Scott back into a Sweet Chin Music from Shawn Michaels, leading to Scott getting pinned.

The problems with the team continue going into Armageddon, where they lose the tag team titles to Evolution members Batista and Ric Flair. Test starts blaming Scott Steiner and accusing him of going after his woman in Stacey Keibler. This leads to a grudge match between the former partners to take place at the 2004 Royal Rumble. Scott Steiner wins the grudge match, which leads to Scott, Test and Stacy all going their separate ways.

That about wraps things up for this How I Would Book. It feels a bit of a premature end but Scott did get released after the 2004 Royal Rumble. If I’m being honest, I probably would have continued the feud into WrestleMania if he was still in the company by that point. However, I think we’ve actually created interesting stories with Steiner which were more appealing that goofy debates, love triangles and athletic competitions. Scott Steiner is seen more as a star and even gets a Tag Team title reign out of it.

I honestly can’t imagine a scenario where he could win the championship and it would have made sense to put the title on him. Guys like Booker T, Goldberg, Shawn Michaels and Rob Van Dam were just far more over than him and most of those guys were just better workers at this time. However, I still think a World Heavyweight title match at WrestleMania was easily do-able and it certainly beats having Scott not being at WrestleMania at all

See WWE… the booking doesn’t lie and spells disaster for you.

Next week, we’ll be looking into another storyline from the Ruthless Aggression era of WWE. We’ll be looking at Triple H’s feud with Kevin Nash from 2003 and seeing if we can do a better job in telling the story between two Kliq members fighting for the World Heavyweight Championship.

That post will be going up on the 18th of May 2024 at 2PM UK time. See you there and remember…

…HOLLA. IF YA HEAR ME.

How I Would Book series

#1 – How I Would Book… Rey Mysterio vs AJ Styles

#2 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar (Part One and Part Two)

#3 – How I Would Book… Wrestlemania 29 (Part One, Part Two, Part Threeand Part Four)

#4 – How I Would Book… Eddie Guerrero’s Road To Wrestlemania 22 (Part Oneand Part Two)

#5 – How I Would Book… The nWo 19th Anniversary Special (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Final Part)

#6 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker

#7 – How I Would Book… The End Of The Streak (Part One, Part Two (John Cena), Part Three (CM Punk), Part Four (Randy Orton), Part Five (Bray Wyatt), Final Part)

#8 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs The Rock

#9 – How I Would Book… Kurt Angle’s Return To WWE

#10 – How I Would Book… John Cena vs The Rock III

#11 – How I Would Book… Kevin Owens as Intercontinental Champion

#12 – How I Would Book… Christian’s World Title Run In 2011

#13 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs John Cena

#14 – How I Would Book… Dean Ambrose Winning The WWE Championship

#15 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar vs Undertaker

#16 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker (Wrestlemania 32)

#17 – How I Would Book… AJ Styles’ Road to WrestleMania 32

#18 – How I Would Book… CM Punk As Nexus Leader (Part One and Part Two)

#19 – How I Would Book… WrestleMania 32

#20 – How I Would Book… Who Ran Over Stone Cold?

#21 – How I Would Book… Rusev in WWE (Part One, Part Two and Part Three)

#22 – How I Would Book… Wade Barrett in WWE (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five)

#23 – How I Would Book… The 2018 Bayley vs. Sasha Banks Feud

#24 – How I Would Book… Samoa Joe in WWE (Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four)

How I Would Book… Samoa Joe in WWE (Final Part)

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

We’ve finally come to the most turbulent time in Samoa Joe’s WWE career. In 2019, things seemed to fall apart when it came to Samoa Joe’s in-ring WWE career. Injury after injury led to multiple problems when it came to booking the man. Was the end of Samoa Joe’s WWE career salvageable? Well I’m going to give it a try and at least see if I can work with the bad hands dealt when it comes to Joe. Here’s How I Would Book… Samoa Joe in WWE – PART FOUR.

This part will cover a huge period of time from the night after WrestleMania 35 in 2019 to April 2022 when Samoa Joe was released for good. However, there’s not really a large length of time from this period when Joe was an active wrestler. Joe was still wrestling up until September 2019 before he was moved to commentary and he was an enforcer in NXT for about six months or so in 2021. However, the rest of his time was spent either injured, released, suspended or on commentary. We don’t really have a lot of active time to work with, so we’ll condense it all into one part.

We’re also not going to pretend that Samoa Joe was healthy throughout this time. If WWE had to manage all of this, so do we.

Now granted, it was damn sure WWE’s fault that Samoa Joe was initially RELEASED in April 2021! However, we’ll just assume the role of the booker for the purpose of this story! We’re not going to pretend that he was never released in the first place. He was released among with many others at the time, so we’ll just deal with it.

We’ll start off this part picking up where we left off in Part Three. Samoa Joe had just lost the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 35 (again, please read Part Three in order to be caught up!), so we’ll start with giving Samoa Joe his rematch for the WWE Championship. Joe ended up getting a WWE Championship match against Kofi in real life anyway so we may as well incorporate it into this storyline too. Kofi wins the rematch at Money In The Bank.

At around this time, the WWE United States Championship becomes vacated on SmackDown! brand. In real life, Rey Mysterio defeated Joe for the title at Money In The Bank but was forced to vacate the title due to injury and relinquished the title back to Samoa Joe. We’ll go ahead and assume that the injury still happened so instead of giving anyone the title, we’ll do a good old fashioned tournament for the WWE United States Championship. This is the perfect opportunity for Joe, who wins the tournament final at Stomping Grounds by defeating Ricochet.

Samoa Joe is determined to bring honour to his newly won championship by taking on all comers, except Ricochet. At the time, Joe had plenty of great wrestlers he could work with. Joe can wrestle the likes of Cesaro, Shinsuke Nakamura, Kevin Owens, Drew McIntyre and the list goes on. It’s actually incredible, when you look back, just how strong the SmackDown! roster was in 2019. Instead of hot-shotting the championship though, let’s have Joe take on and beat all of these stars, while building up the championship too.

This culminates in August, where Samoa Joe declares himself to be the King of the WWE and he’s determined to prove it. He announces a King of the Ring tournament and declares that the winner will challenge him for the WWE United States Championship. He wants to beat the very best, so the tournament is open to wrestlers from RAW and SmackDown! to compete in (and heck, throw in NXT wrestlers if you’d like). Joe wants the best of the best and then he wants to beat them and embarrass them.

I was going to have the tournament itself be for the United States Championship, where Joe would defend the title during each round. However, it does make the title feel more prestigious if you have to go through 15 other wrestlers just to get a SHOT at the title. Joe, in our story, went through a tournament to win the title himself. Because he’s a heel, he’s going to make someone else go through a tournament and then face the winner himself as the final boss. That seems far more appealing to me.

Also, I really like the idea of the King of the Ring tournament being for more than just pride. If 16 people are fighting just for a shot at the championship, it makes the championship and the tournament mean more important. As crazy as it sounds, WWE have only had the King of the Ring tournament be contested for a shot at a championship once. In 2002, Brock Lesnar won the King of the Ring tournament and won a shot at the Undisputed WWE Championship. Even if it’s for the United States Championship, why not do the same thing here?

Ricochet qualifies for the King of the Ring and ultimately wins the whole thing to get a shot at Samoa Joe. I much prefer the idea of King Ricochet rather than King Corbin. Baron Corbin didn’t really get anything out of becoming the King of the Ring at the time where as someone like Ricochet may actually get elevated by winning such a renowned tournament. To me, I think the fans would be interested in seeing someone like Ricochet getting such a big win.

So the United States Championship match is set. Samoa Joe, who won the United States title in a tournament, takes on the King of the Ring winner. In a rematch from their final in the original United States title tournament, Ricochet beats Joe and wins the title. Ricochet avenges his original loss and wins his first ever United States Championship.

Samoa Joe then gets injured and is moved to the RAW commentary team until the end of the year, where he returned from injury. The same thing plays out here but the storyline is different. Samoa Joe is happily on the RAW commentary team and United States Champion Ricochet also happens to be on RAW too. He gets moved to RAW and takes the title with him. So as Joe is recovering from his injury, he has to watch Ricochet defend the title on RAW from the commentary booth. Eventually, things get too much for Joe who attacks Ricochet at the end of 2019.

This sets up a third match between Ricochet and Samoa Joe at the 2020 Royal Rumble. In the third and final match, Ricochet defeats Samoa Joe and ends the feud once and for all. Then, shortly afterwards, Samoa Joe is moved to the commentary team permanently…

Finally, let’s quickly tackle Samoa Joe’s brief return to the ring as part of NXT in 2021. I don’t really have much to really comment on with how this went down. Joe being the enforcer for William Regal was a good role for him, especially if he was feeling limited in the ring. It’s a way for him to get physical without over-exerting himself. Even his feud with Karrion Kross also was a natural progression with that story. Of course, Samoa Joe would want to challenge Kross to a match for the title. However, I don’t think Samoa Joe should have beaten Kross for the title at all.

If Samoa Joe was to be pushed as an “authority figure” who rarely wrestles, him beating the reigning NXT Champion devalues the title and those in NXT at the same time. If Joe comes along after nearly 18 months away from action and beats the best NXT has the offer in his first match back, then what does that say about the rest of NXT? It really does make them all look third-rate compared to the main roster. Therefore, Kross should have beaten Samoa Joe…

With Samoa Joe getting released for good in April 2022, that puts an end to this “How I Would Book…” series. I thought I was going to struggle with this portion of his career but the wrestlers and elements were there for WWE to still do more with Samoa Joe at this stage in his career. Heck, his AEW run is already proving that Samoa Joe has a lot left in the tank in his wrestling career. As of me writing this (03/04/2024), Samoa Joe is still the AEW World Heavyweight Champion and AEW have done a great job in building him as a true main-event star for that promotion.

Really, the blueprints on how to use Samoa Joe was already created by ROH and TNA. AEW pretty much copied the same blueprints but WWE, for some reason, struggled to do this. However, I’d like to think my four part series has shown just how much you can do with Samoa Joe despite the bad luck that fell upon him. He’s a Samoan Submission Machine and should be pushed like one…

Please let me know if you have your own ideas on how to book Samoa Joe in the comments. I’ve seen a lot of ideas from wrestling YouTubers on how Joe should have been booked on the WWE main roster and I’ve really enjoyed watching those stories. I’m very curious to see what the readers of this post think and if you have any other ideas for “How I Would Book…” content.

Thank you for reading!

How I Would Book series

#1 – How I Would Book… Rey Mysterio vs AJ Styles

#2 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar (Part One and Part Two)

#3 – How I Would Book… Wrestlemania 29 (Part One, Part Two, Part Threeand Part Four)

#4 – How I Would Book… Eddie Guerrero’s Road To Wrestlemania 22 (Part Oneand Part Two)

#5 – How I Would Book… The nWo 19th Anniversary Special (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Final Part)

#6 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker

#7 – How I Would Book… The End Of The Streak (Part One, Part Two (John Cena), Part Three (CM Punk), Part Four (Randy Orton), Part Five (Bray Wyatt), Final Part)

#8 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs The Rock

#9 – How I Would Book… Kurt Angle’s Return To WWE

#10 – How I Would Book… John Cena vs The Rock III

#11 – How I Would Book… Kevin Owens as Intercontinental Champion

#12 – How I Would Book… Christian’s World Title Run In 2011

#13 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs John Cena

#14 – How I Would Book… Dean Ambrose Winning The WWE Championship

#15 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar vs Undertaker

#16 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker (Wrestlemania 32)

#17 – How I Would Book… AJ Styles’ Road to WrestleMania 32

#18 – How I Would Book… CM Punk As Nexus Leader (Part One and Part Two)

#19 – How I Would Book… WrestleMania 32

#20 – How I Would Book… Who Ran Over Stone Cold?

#21 – How I Would Book… Rusev in WWE (Part One, Part Two and Part Three)

#22 – How I Would Book… Wade Barrett in WWE (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five)

#23 – How I Would Book… The 2018 Bayley vs. Sasha Banks Feud

#24 – How I Would Book… Samoa Joe in WWE (Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four)

How I Would Book… Samoa Joe in WWE (Part Three)

Part One

Part Two

Ah, Samoa Joe on the SmackDown! brand. Away from the packed RAW roster in 2018, Samoa Joe had a chance to flourish as a true main-eventer in WWE. He was in the main-event scene very briefly on RAW but now he was on another brand in SmackDown! Live, during a time where it was heralded as a hot wrestling show. However, while Joe did get opportunities, he ended WrestleMania 35 stuck in a forgettable mid-card feud which must have been frustrating for Samoa Joe fans. Can we elevate Joe to greater heights? Well, I think I can and we’re going to continue to re-book the career of Samoa Joe in WWE. Here’s How I Would Book… Samoa Joe in WWE – PART THREE.

I’ll be honest, I absolutely hated Samoa Joe’s run on SmackDown! Live. He was featured in main-event title programs and had plenty of people to work with, but he was just not utilised to the level that he should have been. His most memorable moments on that brand included taking personal shots at the likes of AJ Styles and Jeff Hardy, with the serious aspect of his character dissipating. It was like we were watching a different Samoa Joe to what was working on RAW, with the emphasis being on him being a jerk rather than him being a badass. It’s one thing if you have smaller guys like Daniel Bryan acting like jerks, because they could be viewed as more “slimey” than the good guys. However, it’s not a role that fit Samoa Joe at all.

Don’t get me wrong, Samoa Joe absolutely did his best with whatever he was given. However, he could have only went so far without WWE taking more liberties with pushing the man as a proper threat to the top babyfaces. Without many major victories to his name, he was just unable to be elevated further. Really, there was no reason as to why he couldn’t win the WWE Championship from AJ Styles during their storyline to at least garner interest in the rivalry.

In this part, I have a pretty ambitious plan for Samoa Joe to thrive as a main-event heel and push him in a way which more than one person can benefit from such a run. So let’s get to it…

Samoa Joe returned on the RAW after WrestleMania 34 to begin a feud with Roman Reigns. I’ll be completely honest, I absolutely hated this feud too. The timing of the program was just not great, with Roman Reigns also feuding with Brock Lesnar at the same time. Joe also ended up just being another victim to Roman Reigns so Roman could recover from losing to Brock at Mania. It was just a waste of a feud for both men and their match in the main event of Backlash ended up being extremely anti-climatic.

To spice up the Brock vs. Roman formula slightly, I’d take their singles match set for The Greatest Royal Rumble show and add Samoa Joe to the mix to make it a triple threat match. It is essential the SummerSlam 2017 main-event but just without Braun Strowman, with Brock defending the Universal Championship against Roman and Joe. Brock retains the championship which leads to Joe and Roman still feuding into WWE Backlash 2018.

The Backlash match was extremely disappointing in real life so you’d need to give it a gimmick to entice the fans a lot more. I’d suggest having a steel cage match for the Backlash match between Joe and Roman to at least spice it up a little bit. You can still have Roman win by escaping the cage and you can also protect Samoa Joe in defeat. Roman continues to stay on RAW while Samoa Joe is drafted to SmackDown!…

Samoa Joe was drafted to SmackDown! as part of the 2018 draft and we’ll stick to this. Samoa Joe likely would have been lost in the shuffle on RAW, given how large they made that roster in 2018. On SmackDown!, he was in the upper-midcard/main-event positions for most his run on that brand. It worked out for him, given he was put in the WWE title picture for a number of months. Therefore, this seemed like a good fit with a lot of fresh faces for him to feud with on a new brand.

His days on SmackDown! are pretty similar to what they were in real life. Samoa Joe wins a lot of matches and gets big wins over the likes of Daniel Bryan to get him ready for his feud with AJ Styles for the WWE Championship. The Samoa Joe/AJ Styles match at SummerSlam 2018 still happens but it is not centered around AJ’s family. A personal storyline like this is fine when executed well but it really wasn’t when it came to AJ and Joe. AJ wasn’t particularly presented as a strong babyface when compared to Samoa Joe, who was talking about his family every week. To be perfectly honest, it’s a strange dynamic for the monster heel to be pulling the personal cheap attacks against a much smaller babyface champion. Samoa Joe really shouldn’t need to resort to such tactics.

This is just a feud about how much both men have changed since their days in TNA and ROH, with it coming to a head at SummerSlam where they’ll both wrestle each other for the WWE title. Two TNA “originals” who feuded for the TNA X-Division title would now be fighting for the main title in professional wrestling in WWE. That’s a simple story right there.

Samoa Joe DEFEATS AJ Styles and wins the WWE Championship. Joe not winning the title at this time was really perplexing to me. The AJ Styles title reign was going OK I guess but he was also coming off a really long feud with Shinsuke Nakamura. With Joe winning the title, this would at least add new life to the WWE Championship picture. The AJ Styles title reign was about 9 months long at this point so a change of pace would have certainly helped.

Joe wins the title and then defends the title successfully against AJ in a rematch. There’s plenty of challengers for Samoa Joe to defend the title against for the rest of 2018 and into 2019. He can defend the title against the likes of Jeff Hardy, where Joe can cut the same promos on Jeff that he did in real life and gain some heat. He can defend the title against Daniel Bryan, a man who was never beaten for the WWE Championship when he was forced to vacate the title in 2014. He can even wrestle Brock again at Survivor Series 2018, a rematch from the year before as part of the SmackDown! vs. RAW show. There’s a lot of possibilities.

We’re going to take Samoa Joe all the way to WRESTLEMANIA 35 as the champion, where he’ll be the defending champion against Kofi Kingston and KofiMania. I know a lot of people really enjoyed the Daniel Bryan heel turn going up against Kofi Kingston. That ended up being a clever bit of dramatic ironic with Daniel Bryan calling Kofi the “B+ Player” that didn’t belong in the main-event.

However, I think Samoa Joe could have worked really well in this role too against Kofi Kingston. The whole storyline with Kofi was that Mr McMahon and WWE didn’t see him as championship material. Joe would represent the big man that WWE would usually go for as their ideal champion while Kofi would have to overcome the odds. It actually makes it more of a daunting task for Kofi to beat Joe, especially if you push Joe as he’s usually pushed as an unbeatable monster. It really drives home the David vs. Goliath narrative.

Kofi beats Samoa Joe to end his WWE Championship reign at WrestleMania 35 and KofiMania is alive and well, having overcome all the odds at the biggest stage in sports entertainment…

That wraps up Part Three of this series. The WWE Championship reign of Samoa Joe was something I always had planned since coming up with the idea of this “How I Would Book..” series. The biggest sticking point was replacing Daniel Bryan, who was excellent in the role as the Eco Champion, with Samoa Joe as the man to go up against Kofi Kingston at WrestleMania. However, I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to put the WWE Championship on Samoa Joe. Of all the wrestlers that have been in WWE that have never been world champion, Samoa Joe is very high on the list of wrestlers that SHOULD have been world champion at least ocnce. In Part Three, we’ve been able to accomplish this fantasy booking!

Join us in part four where we wrap up Samoa Joe’s WWE career with hopefully more of a bang than with a whimper…

How I Would Book series

#1 – How I Would Book… Rey Mysterio vs AJ Styles

#2 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar (Part One and Part Two)

#3 – How I Would Book… Wrestlemania 29 (Part One, Part Two, Part Threeand Part Four)

#4 – How I Would Book… Eddie Guerrero’s Road To Wrestlemania 22 (Part Oneand Part Two)

#5 – How I Would Book… The nWo 19th Anniversary Special (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Final Part)

#6 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker

#7 – How I Would Book… The End Of The Streak (Part One, Part Two (John Cena), Part Three (CM Punk), Part Four (Randy Orton), Part Five (Bray Wyatt), Final Part)

#8 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs The Rock

#9 – How I Would Book… Kurt Angle’s Return To WWE

#10 – How I Would Book… John Cena vs The Rock III

#11 – How I Would Book… Kevin Owens as Intercontinental Champion

#12 – How I Would Book… Christian’s World Title Run In 2011

#13 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs John Cena

#14 – How I Would Book… Dean Ambrose Winning The WWE Championship

#15 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar vs Undertaker

#16 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker (Wrestlemania 32)

#17 – How I Would Book… AJ Styles’ Road to WrestleMania 32

#18 – How I Would Book… CM Punk As Nexus Leader (Part One and Part Two)

#19 – How I Would Book… WrestleMania 32

#20 – How I Would Book… Who Ran Over Stone Cold?

#21 – How I Would Book… Rusev in WWE (Part One, Part Two and Part Three)

#22 – How I Would Book… Wade Barrett in WWE (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five)

#23 – How I Would Book… The 2018 Bayley vs. Sasha Banks Feud

#24 – How I Would Book… Samoa Joe in WWE (Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four)

How I Would Book… Samoa Joe in WWE (Part Two)

For about 18 months, Samoa Joe was pushed as one of the top guys in NXT. He reigned as NXT Champion, he main-evented multiple NXT TakeOver shows and had compelling feuds befitting his reputation. The time had arrived for Joe to be presented on the main roster. The real question is… how would you pull it off? Could Joe be the hired gun for the authority figure Triple H or could he become the next “Paul Heyman guy”? Does he need be aligned with anyone at all? Well, I’m going try to push Joe to the level that I think he could have reasonably climbed to in WWE. He’s got the proven background in TNA, ROH and NXT; let’s try to build on this for the Samoan Submission Machine. Here’s How I Would Book… Samoa Joe in WWE.

Part One tackled his NXT run and I went into great detail about how Joe was originally booked in real life. We didn’t change too much of his NXT run but his main roster run will be where you’ll see a lot more radical changes for Samoa Joe. We’ll abide by and keep whatever injuries and absences Joe had in WWE but even with that, Joe was definitely capable of much more than he was originally given. Let’s get into it…

Samoa Joe’s debut night in WWE is kept in tact. Seth is attacked by Samoa Joe at the behest of Triple H on the RAW after the Royal Rumble 2017. I contemplated changing this but I really liked the idea of Samoa Joe working with Triple H. Triple H being with an ass-kicker like Samoa Joe is a different dynamic to what Triple H had with the likes of Randy Orton and Seth Rollins in the years before this. Triple H described Joe as his “destroyer,” which is a far different role than the other heels Triple H had been previously aligned with. Those guys needed a lot of shenanigans and cheating in order to win matches. Joe isn’t like that… he’s a hired gun who was hired to take out Seth Rollins and he did it.

I really like that dynamic, so we’re going to at least get a WrestleMania program out of it! Triple H and Samoa Joe are wanting to destroy Seth Rollins with Seth being defiant against his former mentor Triple H. If I recall, Seth Rollins was struggling with an injury at this time so you’re somewhat limited with what you can do with him. However, we can still get Samoa Joe over in the mean time. Joe beats Sami Zayn at WWE Fast Lane and this sets up an announced tag team match for WrestleMania 33. It’s announced that Triple H and Samoa Joe will wrestle Seth Rollins and Sami Zayn at Mania. However, Zayn is taken out before the pay-per-view. Therefore, it’s up in the air as to whether Sami there or if Seth will have to go at it alone in a handicap match.

At WrestleMania 33, Seth is prepared to go at it alone but someone does step up to team up with him at the last minute. It’s none other than the “Lunatic Fringe” Dean Ambrose! While Dean Ambrose was on SmackDown! at this time, he steps up to team with his former Shield brother on this night against Triple H and Samoa Joe. In the match, Seth pins Triple H to win the match for his team. Seth goes to shake Dean’s hand afterwards but Dean walks away and leaves Seth hanging. This somewhat lays the groundwork for the eventual Dean/Seth reunion at SummerSlam and wraps up Seth’s lengthy feud with Triple H as well.

But what about Samoa Joe? Well, there’s a reason why Triple H took the pin at WrestleMania 33 in my tag team match. We want to keep Joe strong by having him not getting beaten himself. This sets up a singles match between Joe and Seth at WWE Payback 2017 (which did happen in real life) which Seth inexplicably won in real life. In our version, Joe wins clean. Seth had no business winning that match right after getting a big win at WrestleMania. Joe was the one who ended up become number one contender for the Universal Championship anyway, so Joe may as well beat Seth en route to his title shot.

So Joe beats Seth at Payback and then wins a fatal five way at Extreme Rules to become number one contender for the Universal Championship. That sets things up nicely for WWE Great Balls of Fire… where Samoa Joe will challenge Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship. For this match at Great Balls of Fire, I went back and forth as to what the finish would be. Having taken a lot into account… I think Samoa Joe should have won the Universal Championship at Great Balls of Fire. This is for a few reasons:

1. Samoa Joe was white hot at the time and the fans were hugely behind Joe at the time.
2. The stuff between himself and Brock should not have been limited to one match, so him winning the title gives Brock more of a reason to come back for a rematch.
3. Joe beating Brock gives him HUGE CREDIBILITY going forward as a top guy, by simply beating Brock in a match. Brock rarely lost so this would give Joe a lot going forward, even if the title reign isn’t a long one.
4. Joe really should have been a world champion at some point in WWE so this would be a great time to do it!

Either Joe wins through shenanigans or Joe beats Brock clean as a sheet. Take your pick as it doesn’t really matter to me how Joe wins. One way or another, it sets up a future match between Brock and Joe. That takes place at SummerSlam 2017, where we get a fatal four way match between Joe, Brock, Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman. Joe winning at Great Balls of Fire does justify this match a lot better in my eyes:

1. Brock Lesnar is owed a rematch for the WWE Universal Championship so he’d get it here.
2. Roman Reigns was originally announced as the number one contender for SummerSlam 2017 BEFORE GREAT BALLS OF FIRE anyway, so he’d get that match too.
3. Braun Strowman beat Roman Reigns at Great Balls of Fire too so really, he should have been in the conversation for the Universal Title shot as well.

The fatal four way match is set up and Brock wins the title back. The reason for this is that Samoa Joe is then away from television for a few months after SummerSlam and it’ll set up his return in time for Survivor Series. In this story, we’ll say that Samoa Joe comes back and gets a one-on-one rematch with Brock Lesnar at the WWE Survivor Series pay-per-view. Joe is owed a rematch and this is probably the only chance we’d have to do it before Joe is away from television again with another injury. Brock beats Joe once again at Survivor Series to close the book on their story and Joe’s WWE run in 2017….

That wraps up Part Two. This was a far shorter post than I was expecting it to be but I’m sort of happy with what we’ve done here. I feel Joe comes out of this as a bigger deal than he did in real life and it only needed a few tweaks. I honestly feel that WWE were making a lot of good decisions with Samoa Joe at the time but were just hugely hesitant when it came to the booking. Him getting matches at WrestleMania and winning the Universal Championship at Great Balls of Fire would have paid off a lot of good work leading up to those moments, giving you more of a reason to care when Joe would return to television.

Part Three will be going up next Saturday on the 27th of April 2024 at 2pm UK TIME, where we’ll be going into Joe’s SmackDown! run from 2018-2019. If you’ve enjoyed this series so far, I’d like to think you’ll enjoy Part Three too as he challenges AJ Styles for the WWE Championship on SmackDown!

How I Would Book series

#1 – How I Would Book… Rey Mysterio vs AJ Styles

#2 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar (Part One and Part Two)

#3 – How I Would Book… Wrestlemania 29 (Part One, Part Two, Part Threeand Part Four)

#4 – How I Would Book… Eddie Guerrero’s Road To Wrestlemania 22 (Part Oneand Part Two)

#5 – How I Would Book… The nWo 19th Anniversary Special (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Final Part)

#6 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker

#7 – How I Would Book… The End Of The Streak (Part One, Part Two (John Cena), Part Three (CM Punk), Part Four (Randy Orton), Part Five (Bray Wyatt), Final Part)

#8 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs The Rock

#9 – How I Would Book… Kurt Angle’s Return To WWE

#10 – How I Would Book… John Cena vs The Rock III

#11 – How I Would Book… Kevin Owens as Intercontinental Champion

#12 – How I Would Book… Christian’s World Title Run In 2011

#13 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs John Cena

#14 – How I Would Book… Dean Ambrose Winning The WWE Championship

#15 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar vs Undertaker

#16 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker (Wrestlemania 32)

#17 – How I Would Book… AJ Styles’ Road to WrestleMania 32

#18 – How I Would Book… CM Punk As Nexus Leader (Part One and Part Two)

#19 – How I Would Book… WrestleMania 32

#20 – How I Would Book… Who Ran Over Stone Cold?

#21 – How I Would Book… Rusev in WWE (Part One, Part Two and Part Three)

#22 – How I Would Book… Wade Barrett in WWE (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five)

#23 – How I Would Book… The 2018 Bayley vs. Sasha Banks Feud

#24 – How I Would Book… Samoa Joe in WWE (Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four)

NOTE: Yes, there will be four parts to this story!

How I Would Book… Samoa Joe in WWE (Part One)

As of me writing this, Samoa Joe currently reigns as AEW World Heavyweight Champion. Given the incredible talent in the world of professional wrestling at the moment, being a world champion seems a far greater accomplishment now than it’s been in years. It’s a testament to how well Joe has navigated the wrestling waters since his early days in the UWF, ROH and Total Nonstop Action (TNA) Wrestling.

Yet somehow, the Samoan Submission Machine did not have such success when he finally arrived in WWE. The idea of TNA mainstays like Samoa Joe ending up in WWE seemed like a fantasy to many but it became reality in 2015 after his TNA contract expired. However, the reality wasn’t so great for Samoa Joe and his fans as he was unable to be elevated to the levels that he was more than capable of in WWE. While there were factors out of WWE’s control that also hampered the Samoan, was it possible to get more out of Samoa Joe during his time in WWE?

Well I think this was extremely possible. Given the promo skills, work-rate and realism of Samoa Joe being a badass, WWE had the tools to transform him into a permanent WWE main-eventer. It was possible for the former TNA World Heavyweight Champion and AEW World Champion to become a world champion again in WWE. This is How I Would Book… Samoa Joe in WWE.

Similar to my “How I Would Book… Wade Barrett in WWE” series, there was a lot of misfortunate that fell upon Samoa Joe during his WWE career. Injuries would strike the man down at times where WWE were utilising him in prominent positions which would hurt Joe’s momentum. Therefore, to put the blame solely on WWE’s shoulders isn’t necessarily fair when discussing Samoa Joe’s WWE run.

However, what can certainly be put on WWE’s shoulders is just an unwillingness to push Joe like the monster he was. This was certainly a far-cry from the Samoa Joe that went 18 months undefeated in TNA. He was “pushed” in WWE but he never really had many major victories that would showcase him as a legitimate threat to major babyfaces in WWE. Joe seemed to be booked more on a 50/50 basis when it came to wins and losses in WWE and it was almost like WWE were afraid to really “pull the trigger” in having Joe win important matches.

Look at his feud with AJ Styles for example, where Joe would either lose or win via disqualification against him. Surely that feud would have been elevated to greater heights if Joe had shockingly won the title from AJ Styles, for example, which would lead to a rematch? However, Joe being the world champion just never seemed to be on the cards.

Really, the times when he was booked as a major champion were when he was in NXT. He won the NXT Championship in 2016 and 2021 but neither of these title reigns lasted a particularly long time. His feud with Shinsuke Nakamura was a perfect example of the 50/50 booking that Joe would suffer from.

Before we get into re-booking the WWE career of Samoa Joe, let’s break it down to see where things went right and wrong.

Samoa Joe debuted in NXT at NXT TakeOver: Unstoppable in May, confronting then-NXT Champion Kevin Owens at the end of the show. They had a match on NXT and… it ended in a no-contest. The feud ended when Owens lost the title to Finn Balor and was promoted to the main roster. In NXT, Samoa Joe would team with new NXT Champion Balor to win the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament. Joe turned on Finn Balor afterwards, beginning a 6 month feud for the NXT title. After losing to Finn at TakeOver: London and TakeOver: Dallas, Joe finally won the championship at a house show in April 2016. Joe won the feud once and for all by defeating “Demon” Finn Balor in a steel cage match at NXT TakeOver: The End.

This wasn’t the end for Joe in NXT, as he would begin a feud with Shinsuke Nakamura afterwards. Nakamura defeated Joe for the title in August, Joe would regain the title in November before losing the title against 14 days later to Nakamura in Osaka, Japan. The feud would end for good in a steel cage match in Australia, where Nakamura retained the title once more and Joe’s NXT run ended… for now.

Joe debuted on the main roster in January 2017 by attacking Seth Rollins to help out Triple H. This storyline didn’t really go anywhere and Joe ended up not even appearing at WrestleMania 33 itself. Joe would stay in the RAW mid-card for a few months until he won a fatal five way match in the main-event Extreme Rules 2017. He defeated Bray Wyatt, Balor, Rollins and Roman Reigns to become number one contender for the Universal Championship. This led to a feud between Brock Lesnar and Samoa Joe, which was the undisputed highlight of Joe’s run in WWE. The segments and brawls involving these two were excellent, with Joe being presented as a legitimate threat to Brock. However, Joe was unsuccessful in winning the title after a short but great match at WWE Great Balls of Fire.

Joe would have another crack at the Universal Championship in a fatal four way match between himself, Brock, Roman and Braun Strowman at SummerSlam 2017. Again, the segments leading up to the match were great but Joe was unsuccessful in winning the title. I would highly recommend watching that fatal four way match if you’ve never seen it before. It’s a fantastic battle.

It’s around this period where Joe started to get plagued with injuries. He was injured shortly after SummerSlam before returning a few months later to take part in the SmackDown! vs RAW Survivor Series match. He started feuding with the Shield until he injured his right foot at the start of 2018. He returned after WrestleMania 34 to feud with Roman Reigns and lost to Roman at Backlash 2018.

He was then moved to the SmackDown! in 2018 and begun an infamous feud with WWE Champion AJ Styles. The feud saw Samoa Joe take things personally with AJ’s family, making comments towards his children and AJ’s wife Wendy. This led to four title matches on pay-per-view; a match at SummerSlam which ended in a disqualification, a match at Hell in a Cell which ended with AJ tapping out while pinning Joe and matches at Super Show-Down and Crown Jewel where AJ retained the title.

In 2019, Samoa Joe finally won gold on the WWE main roster when he won the WWE United States Championship. The most memorable part of this title reign was Joe defeating Rey Mysterio at WrestleMania 35 in a match that lasted less than a minute. Rey regained the title and then relinquished the title back to Samoa Joe. Joe lost the title to Ricochet shortly afterwards. Joe tried to challenge for the WWE title again at Extreme Rules 2019 but was unsuccessful again.

Joe was moved to a commentary position at the end of 2019 on RAW after breaking his thumb. He returned to action to feud with Seth Rollins and his stable in 2020. He appeared in the Royal Rumble match but then injured his head shortly afterwards. Joe was then suspended for violating the WWE wellness policy and returned to commentary after WrestleMania 36. He stayed at the booth until 2021, when he was released by WWE in 2021.

Yes… WWE released Samoa Joe.

…until he returned in June 2021. He was made an enforcer of NXT upon his return and he somehow won the NXT Championship from Karrion Kross at NXT TakeOver 36. This would be the only match Joe had upon his return as he relinquished the title in September 2021 due to testing positive for Covid-19. This man could not catch a break at this point.

Joe was released once more by WWE in January 2022.

Yes… WWE released Samoa Joe…. Twice.

For those new to the “How I Would Book…” series, I’ll go over one of the main rules when it comes to re-writing a wrestling angle or, in this case, a wrestling career. If a wrestler gets injured, we must abide by this and take it into account when we book. We cannot pretend that Samoa Joe was perfectly healthy during a time when he wasn’t. Otherwise, it’d be really unfair to compare our booking of him to WWE if we’re not limited in the same way as them.

This also applies for other disappearances Joe had due to Covid-19, wellness policy failures or him being released. These things happened and we’ve got to take them into account too.

With that being said, it’s very apparent when looking back at his WWE career (when he was available) that WWE did want to do things with Samoa Joe. It’s not like that they signed Joe and simply didn’t do anything with him. Even when he was hurt or wasn’t wrestling, they’d put him in positions where he could cut promos or do commentary. Heck, they gave him the opportunity to cut some tremendous promos during his WWE run. Who can forget when he roasted Jeff Hardy during his own 20 year celebration?

However, the issue with Joe in WWE (and even in NXT) was the actual way WWE were booking wrestlers at the time. Except for a select few, there weren’t many wrestlers that were being booked to always win in WWE at this time. Even Roman Reigns would lose far more matches than he should have been at this time.

While booking 50/50 isn’t always a bad thing, Samoa Joe isn’t a wrestler that should receive this sort of treatment with his booking. In TNA, Samoa Joe never lost a singles match in 18 months. He was booked as a dominant TNA X-Division Champion and then continued his winning streak in the heavyweight roster before he ended up losing to TNA’s biggest star at the time. They took the time to make you see Joe as a dominant threat that could and would beat everyone. In WWE, they took a lot more liberties with beating the man. Even when he won championships in WWE, those title reigns usually didn’t last very long. Heck, his 2^nd NXT title reign lasted 14 days.

With this series, I aim to rectify this by booking Joe exactly as he should be booked… an unbeatable badass. Heck, TNA has already given me a strong blueprint to work with in order to build him up to a new audience in WWE. We may as well use it.

And use it I shall….

Let’s start with his NXT run. I initially was going to skip this portion of the “How I Would Book” series for a few reasons. His NXT run was when Joe was booked the strongest during his WWE run and if I’m being perfectly honest, I wouldn’t have put him in NXT at all. If you have someone like Samoa Joe, someone who was a main-eventer in TNA for nearly a decade and already a big wrestler star, you damn sure shouldn’t be considering sending him down to developmental. He was already ready for big feuds in 2015 and really… his NXT run served mostly to get Joe ready to work the “WWE style” of wrestling.

However, after looking at his NXT run, I’m going to re-book his NXT run for a few reasons:

1. Trying to book Samoa Joe on the main roster from 2015 would be extremely hard given that I’d have to write a whole new original story from 2015 based on a lot of assumptions. For the purposes of this series, going from NXT would make things a lot easier for me when writing stories!
2. I honestly think a lot of casual or even hardcore WWE fans likely wouldn’t have known who Samoa Joe was, so putting him on the main roster from the get-go is a massive risk. Sure, it worked for AJ Styles at the 2016 Royal Rumble but I don’t see it having the same affect for Samoa Joe in May 2015. For AJ Styles returning in 2016 and in Florida, it just seemed that the stars were aligned. For Joe, it wasn’t.
3. I actually think I can write his NXT run better than WWE did, so why not?

We begin our story with NXT TakeOver: Unstoppable. I honestly didn’t like the idea of Samoa Joe showing up the way he did in real life. Joe confronting then-NXT Champion Kevin Owens just seemed to come out of nowhere and didn’t really lead to anything substantial. I’d much prefer putting Joe in a match at NXT TakeOver: Unstoppable instead. In fact, I’d put Samoa Joe in the ring with Rhyno (yes, Rhyno was in NXT at the time). Rhyno can do an open challenge which is answered by Samoa Joe, who puts him to sleep in a matter of minutes. A great way to expose Samoa Joe to the NXT roster by haing him come along and squash a WWE veteran in Rhyno.

The next few months for Joe is just him beating people left and right. He does not challenge for the NXT title right away. He instead gets quick and decisive victories on NXT each and every week. Not to mention, these quick matches would put less strain on Samoa Joe’s body as well while also making him look like a major threat.

This might sound crazy but for NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn in August, I’d put Samoa Joe in the ring with a legend… none other than Jushin Thunder Liger! Not only is it a callback to when Joe wrestled Liger in TNA but you make Jushin Thunder Liger’s one and only appearance in a WWE ring be against a viable threat as we’ve presented him so far. I really liked Liger’s match with Tyler Breeze in real life but I’d love to have seen Liger in a more competitive match at Brooklyn. This match is a more of a competitive match for Joe as he tangos with a Japanese legend, but Joe does prevail and earns the legend’s respect.

Regarding the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, his run with Finn Balor pretty much stays the same way it was in real life. I have nothing really to complain about and pairing Joe up with the then-NXT Champion was a great way to set-up a possible match down the road. Have Balor and Joe both pick up victories and win a tag team tournament together before putting them against each other in singles action. It’s simple and effective.

When it comes to Samoa Joe’s feuds with Finn Balor and Shinsuke Nakamura, I’m going tweak these programs slightly as I had issues with the 50/50 booking from the original storylines. The concept of 50/50 isn’t necessarily bad but there needs to be a good reason for it. I’ve also went out of my way to book Samoa Joe as an undefeated threat up until this point, so losses won’t totally devastate him if they’re properly handled.

I start with NXT TakeOver: London, where Samoa Joe challenges Finn Balor for the NXT Championship for the first time. This will be a babyface vs. babyface program for now up until the match but the program is building from their mutual respect coming out of the Dusty Rhodes Classic. They agree that they’ll still be allies after the title match but both want to win the championship. The London match ends with Finn Balor retaining the title like he did in real life. At the end of the night, Finn and Joe go to shake hands but Joe lays out Finn after the handshake. Joe turns heel and this turns from a friendly competition to a full-blown feud…

At NXT TakeOver: Dallas, Joe wins the NXT Championship but does it through shenanigans. Joe tries everything he can to beat Finn fair and square but is unable to put the Irishman away. When the referee is down and Finn is on the top rope, Joe low blows Finn which causes him to drop onto the top rope. Joe hits the Muscle Buster and gets the pinfall victory to win the NXT Championship under controversial circumstances.

With these two matches, we’ve set the stage perfectly for a third match. Finn beat Samoa Joe in London, so Joe had something to prove in Dallas. Joe cheated against Balor in Dallas, so Joe STILL has something to prove in a third match. Joe has to prove it to himself that he can beat Finn Balor clean… and he does it. At NXT TakeOver: The End, Joe beats Balor clean in a steel cage match like he did in real life to put an end to the feud and put his Balor “demons” to rest….

The Nakamura feud that follows is very similar in the sense that you can tell a compelling story with a three match series between Nakamura and Samoa Joe. NXT TakeOver in August starts off the feud by having Samoa Joe retain the title through shenanigans against Nakamura. With this, SHINSUKE NAKAMURA is now the one who needs to prove that he can beat Joe. At NXT TakeOver: Toronto, he beats Joe to win the title from him. The feud concludes in a steel cage match in Osaka, Japan at the end of the year where Nakamura retains the title.

That’s where we’ll leave things for Part One of this series. There was a lot to cover in this part and we’ve only completed the NXT part of his story! However, I do think keeping the losses to a bare minimum works a lot better for Samoa Joe. We’ve given Samoa Joe a lengthy title reign while also putting over his challengers in the process. To me, that is a much stronger way to push him in NXT.

Join us in part two next Saturday, where we’ll tackle Samoa Joe’s run on the main roster in WWE…

How I Would Book series

#1 – How I Would Book… Rey Mysterio vs AJ Styles

#2 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar (Part One and Part Two)

#3 – How I Would Book… Wrestlemania 29 (Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four)

#4 – How I Would Book… Eddie Guerrero’s Road To Wrestlemania 22 (Part One and Part Two)

#5 – How I Would Book… The nWo 19th Anniversary Special (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Final Part)

#6 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker

#7 – How I Would Book… The End Of The Streak (Part One, Part Two (John Cena), Part Three (CM Punk), Part Four (Randy Orton), Part Five (Bray Wyatt), Final Part)

#8 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs The Rock

#9 – How I Would Book… Kurt Angle’s Return To WWE

#10 – How I Would Book… John Cena vs The Rock III

#11 – How I Would Book… Kevin Owens as Intercontinental Champion

#12 – How I Would Book… Christian’s World Title Run In 2011

#13 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs John Cena

#14 – How I Would Book… Dean Ambrose Winning The WWE Championship

#15 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar vs Undertaker

#16 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker (Wrestlemania 32)

#17 – How I Would Book… AJ Styles’ Road to WrestleMania 32

#18 – How I Would Book… CM Punk As Nexus Leader (Part One and Part Two)

#19 – How I Would Book… WrestleMania 32

#20 – How I Would Book… Who Ran Over Stone Cold?

#21 – How I Would Book… Rusev in WWE (Part One, Part Two and Part Three)

#22 – How I Would Book… Wade Barrett in WWE (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five)

#23 – How I Would Book… The 2018 Bayley vs. Sasha Banks Feud

How I Would Book… The 2018 Bayley vs. Sasha Banks Feud

Picking a subject for this one was difficult. I could easily do another dream match booking scenario, as they usually generate a lot of hits for me. Alternatively, I could do a post based on WCW since I’m reviewing the weekly Nitro episodes. However, I’ve decided to go with a storyline which I regard as one of the worst booked storylines in recent WWE memory. Despite the talent of the people involved, they were saddled with such a miserable storyline and I want to do it justice. Here’s How I Would Book… the Sasha Banks vs. Bayley feud from 2018….

This storyline won the category for Worst Feud of the Year in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter in 2018. It was that terrible and honestly, I felt really bad for the individuals involved. The feud was based of a friendship established during one of the greatest rivalries in NXT history which didn’t translate, or was not properly translated, well in the main roster. It took them until 2020 to get it right.

Sasha Banks had a number of title reigns on the RAW roster but was never able to successfully defend the RAW Women’s championships once. Bayley was the RAW Women’s Champion once and was legitimately over with the fans for a period of time but after an embarrassing feud with Alexa Bliss, Bayley’s career started to go downhill. By the time that storyline started officially at the 2018 Royal Rumble, after years of being teased, neither girl was in a prominent position on RAW at all.

Although they weren’t prominent, the storyline was pushed hard from its inception. However, it fizzled to the point where it legitimately felt that WWE changed their minds with every episode of RAW that they did. It was bad and there was no real pay-off, unless you count them winning the Women’s Tag Team titles at Elimination Chamber as the pay-off.

Let’s break down the storyline and see what went wrong:

As I said, tension between Bayley and Sasha had been in the works for years despite no “official” program together. Bayley arrived on the main roster in 2016, where she and Sasha both tried to defeat Charlotte Flair to win the RAW Women’s title. As mentioned, Sasha beat Charlotte multiple times for the title but was unable to successfully defend her championship once. At Roadblock 2016, Charlotte beat Sasha in a match where Sasha would no longer be able to challenge for the title as long as Charlotte was the champion. Enter Bayley…

After unsuccessfully challenging for the title at the Royal Rumble, Bayley won the title on Monday Night RAW thanks to help from Sasha. At Fast Lane 2017, Bayley beat Charlotte again, thanks again to Sasha. This ended Charlotte’s 18 match winning streak on pay-per-views. Bayley defended the title against Charlotte, Sasha and Nia Jax at WrestleMania 33 which led to Sasha stepping up to Bayley for a singles title shot on the RAW after WrestleMania.

This angle led to nothing as Alexa Bliss arrived on RAW to beat Bayley and win the women’s title. Both Sasha and Bayley fought for the title but was mostly dominated by Alexa Bliss heading into 2018. At the 2018 Royal Rumble, Sasha eliminated Bayley from behind in the match which seemingly started the break-up of this friendship.

Although Sasha legally did nothing wrong in the match, Sasha was portrayed as the heel in the feud as she eliminated Bayley as her back was turned and talked trash after she did it. The idea of this storyline was to hint that Sasha was walking all over Bayley in the friendship and she betrayed her again in the Elimination Chamber. Eventually, Bayley started to screw over Sasha. She would pull off antics such as refusing to tag her during a six woman tag match. Even though Sasha was not really in the wrong for the Rumble or the Chamber matches, Bayley was going out of her way to screw her own friend out of matches on RAW.

It became a depressing teenage soap oprea between Sasha and Bayley, mostly with Bayley being stroppy and acting immature and Sasha acting like a bitch to Bayley. Eventually, this broke out into backstage brawls and a fight in the ring after Bayley could take no more of being berated by Sasha. In the women’s battle royal at WrestleMania 34, Bayley eliminated Sasha from behind just like the Royal Rumble. This led to Bayley… not even winning the match as Naomi won instead.

They eventually had a match on RAW but this resulted in a No Contest when the Riott Squad attacked. Both girls continued to have problems for WEEKS where they would both struggle in tag team matches and singles matches against the Riott Squad. General Manager Kurt Angle warned them to make peace or face the consequences. After losing a RAW tag team match, Bayley attacked Sasha which was either a heel move or a huge babyface moment for Bayley. You decide.

Bayley and Sasha were both forced to go to therapy where they would get into lousy segments with Dr Shelby, the anger management therapist that helped out Kane and Daniel Bryan during their problems in 2012. Eventually, the angle was seemingly dropped when Sasha said she loved Bayley and this led to them becoming friends again. That was the end of the storyline.

*Sighs*

The biggest problem with this storyline was it almost felt like the storyline stood still with regards to the direction. Sometimes the storyline would have a big angle where the girls fight to suddenly having them tease dissension or have no dissension at all. Eventually, they just gave up on the angle with no real pay-off and it really did none of the girls any favours. The fans rejected this angle and Bayley and Sasha were more despised because of it. If anything, this became the catalyst to the both of them turning heel in 2019.

When Bayley debuted on the main roster, the fans had high expectations for a massive Bayley vs. Sasha program to follow up from their time on NXT. Bayley beat Sasha twice in NXT and so that’s something to use, as well as their real-life friendship, when building towards a third match in WWE. If anything, people were desperate for Sasha become a heel as she’d become stale as a babyface. What better way to do it than have her turn on everyone’s favourite in Bayley?

So how would I book this? How could I make a storyline that was voted the worst feud of the year, and is considered by some to be one of the worst storylines of all time, and transform it into a memorable and satisfying rivalry? Well, allow me to break down how I would have done this storyline if I was able to turn back the clock….

I’m going to start booking this angle from Roadblock 2016 onwards, when Sasha lost the Iron Woman match to Charlotte and was banned from competing for the RAW women’s title as long as Charlotte was the champion. This plot-point is not a bad place to start when it comes to building this feud up. It gives Sasha a personal interest in seeing Bayley beat Charlotte for the title. If Bayley beats Charlotte, Sasha is back in the title picture.

Bayley beating Charlotte at WrestleMania 33. Breaking Charlotte’s PPV streak and winning the title was literally the best thing they could have done for WrestleMania 33. Having Bayley beat Charlotte on RAW for the title instead and again at Fast Lane brought an premature end to what could have been an excellent WrestleMania pay-off for the Charlotte title reign and Bayley’s pursuit of the championship.

I’d keep Bayley away from Charlotte until WrestleMania. I’d have Bayley win a match at the Royal Rumble to earn a RAW women’s title match at WrestleMania 33. Charlotte dismisses Bayley as a threat but is still concerned enough that she sets Nia Jax on her. Charlotte promises Nia a title shot if Bayley is taken out. Sasha, of course, comes to Bayley’s aid against Charlotte and Nia. Sasha helps Bayley beat Nia Jax, giving Charlotte ammunition to taunt Bayley ahead of their title match at WrestleMania 33. Charlotte can cut promos about how Bayley not being able to do anything without her freind Sasha with Bayley vowing to prove her wrong.

Sasha could do an angle where she turns Dana Brooke against Charlotte to try and rattle the champion. Sasha is looking to give Bayley every advantage going into the WrestleMania 33 match, for her own personal gain. Eventually, Bayley beats Charlotte to end the PPV winning streak at WrestleMania and become RAW Women’s champion. Sasha raises Bayley’s arm but can’t help but glance at Charlotte and then the title…

Now let’s think about this. Bayley did what Sasha never could… she ended Charlotte’s winning streak on PPV. This would play into the psyche of Sasha in the months to come. Sasha can come out on the RAW after WrestleMania and declare that she is next in line for a title shot. However, Charlotte gets the nod as she has a rematch clause which is cashed-in at Payback. Sasha is engaged in a feud with the new RAW superstar Alexa Bliss.

Sasha tries everything to become the number one contender but, because of shenanigans here and there, she is always prevented from facing Bayley. Sasha starts cutting promos, effectively whining about waiting months to fight for the title again because of a stipulation from Roadblock that was unfair. After this, she had to wait more time to win back the title that was always hers. This could come off as whiny and bitchy as the fans would slowly start to turn on Sasha.

As Bayley is defending her title as a fighting champion, all Sasha does in complain. Eventually, Sasha gets a big opportunity. Sasha wins a gauntlet match on RAW to earn a RAW women’s title match. This sets up Bayley defending the Women’s Championship against Sasha in Brooklyn, calling back to their first match two years before that was also in Brooklyn. The stars were aligned. This is Sasha’s first championship opportunity in 2017, it’s against her alleged friend and it’s someone who I don’t think she’d ever beaten before this point. Please correct me if I’m wrong about that last point…

As for who wins, I’m going to have Sasha regain the Women’s Championship. I’ll be completely honest, I was considering having Bayley beat Sasha every time they wrestled. I was going to take a page out of the Eddie Guerrero/Rey Mysterio feud in 2005, where Eddie could never beat Rey, and apply it to this feud. After all, Eddie was one of Sasha’s favourite wrestlers so her playing the role of Eddie would be kind of cool.

However, I think the timing would be right to have Bayley drop the title. It was around this period where the fans started to boo Bayley anyway. I’m not saying that this would happen in this storyline, as she didn’t get embarrassed by Alexa Bliss beforehand. However, I think you risk having the fans turn on Bayley if she beats Sasha outright again. The fans may want to see Sasha winning the title as a change of pace. So, in this storyline, Sasha wins by reversing a Bank Statement attempt by Bayley, and covering her to get the win. However, Sasha is shown grabbing the ropes for leverage to win the RAW Women’s Championship.

I think this finish would work brilliantly for a few reasons. Firstly, this type of finish in New York would get such heat from a hyped-up crowd as they’d have Sasha cheat to win rather than having her get a clean victory. Secondly, it’s clear that Sasha is influenced by her hero Eddie Guerrero with this finish. It’d actually create a cool dynamic where Sasha cheats just like Eddie, but the fans turn on her while they cheered him. I think that’s a cool hypocrisy she can call out to get heat later on during her run as champion.

Thirdly, I think this finish is ambiguous enough where it’s not a COMPLETE heel turn. If Bayley calls her out the next night, Sasha can try to convince Bayley that it wasn’t personal and it’s what you need to do to win and be competitive. She insists that she is still Bayley’s friend but in this ring, she will do whatever she needs to do to win. I’d say Bayley can forgive her for now as Sasha is her friend but wants her rematch for the RAW Women’s Championship.

She gets it at No Mercy in a fatal five way match. Bayley has somebody like Emma pinned until Sasha steals the pin away from her. Survivor Series 2017 is a very interesting show. It’s RAW vs. SmackDown!, so the RAW Women’s Champion wrestles the SmackDown! Women’s Champion. In this story, it just so happens to be Sasha Banks and Charlotte Flair who are the cha,pions. Sasha has something to prove as Charlotte beat her in their last match. Bayley encourages Sasha and wants her to beat Charlotte fair and square. Sasha does her best but ultimately loses to Charlotte clean. Bayley, who was one of the survivors in the RAW vs. SmackDown! Survivor Series match, tries to comfort Sasha but Sasha is not having it. She snaps at Bayley and attacks her, completing her heel turn for good and laying her out. Bayley is out of action for a couple of months for now as Sasha continues to reign as champion.

Bayley makes her return as the #30 entrant of the first-ever women’s Royal Rumble match. Sasha, who would have been watching the match, comes into the ring to confront Bayley. However, Bayley FINALLY attacks her and sends her packing as she continues to wrestle in the match. Bayley makes it to the final two with Asuka, but is eliminated. Asuka wins the Rumble match to set up Charlotte vs. Asuka for WrestleMania 34 like in real life.

Meanwhile, we set up Sasha vs. Bayley for WrestleMania 34. Bayley wins the first ever women’s Elimination Chamber match to earn a title shot at Mania 34. The two best friends clash one more time at WrestleMania 34 where Bayley regains the title and closes the book on her feud with Sasha for now.

That’s where we’ll end the storyline. I’ll be completely honest, this was a difficult one to write. I started writing this almost four years ago and, as I picked it back up again, I either had to try and remember where I was going to take the storyline or just come up with a new idea all together. I came up with an idea which I think is very faithful to the characters and builds genuine interest in seeing the conflict between Sasha and Bayley. At least I think so anyway!

Do you have a different approach or a different idea for this storyline? Let me know by leaving a comment and I’m open to suggestions for storylines to book in the future. I do have a few ideas in mind but I’m very curious as to what the readers think I should tackle next. Until then, take care of yourselves and I’ll be back with more How I Would Book… content.

How I Would Book series

#1 – How I Would Book… Rey Mysterio vs AJ Styles

#2 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar (Part One and Part Two)

#3 – How I Would Book… Wrestlemania 29 (Part One, Part Two, Part Threeand Part Four)

#4 – How I Would Book… Eddie Guerrero’s Road To Wrestlemania 22 (Part Oneand Part Two)

#5 – How I Would Book… The nWo 19th Anniversary Special (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Final Part)

#6 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker

#7 – How I Would Book… The End Of The Streak (Part One, Part Two (John Cena), Part Three (CM Punk), Part Four (Randy Orton), Part Five (Bray Wyatt), Final Part)

#8 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs The Rock

#9 – How I Would Book… Kurt Angle’s Return To WWE

#10 – How I Would Book… John Cena vs The Rock III

#11 – How I Would Book… Kevin Owens as Intercontinental Champion

#12 – How I Would Book… Christian’s World Title Run In 2011

#13 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs John Cena

#14 – How I Would Book… Dean Ambrose Winning The WWE Championship

#15 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar vs Undertaker

#16 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker (Wrestlemania 32)

#17 – How I Would Book… AJ Styles’ Road to WrestleMania 32

#18 – How I Would Book… CM Punk As Nexus Leader (Part One and Part Two)

#19 – How I Would Book… WrestleMania 32

#20 – How I Would Book… Who Ran Over Stone Cold?

#21 – How I Would Book… Rusev in WWE (Part One, Part Two and Part Three)

#22 – How I Would Book… Wade Barrett in WWE (Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four)

How I Would Book… Wade Barrett in WWE (Final Part)

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

It’s time to wrap up the WWE career of Wade Barrett. We’ve booked him as a singles competitor without the Nexus, we’ve booked him with the villainous William Regal as his manager and we’ve put him in major feuds with the likes of CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler. We’ve even booked him to win the Intercontinental Championship, World Heavyweight Championship and WWE Championship. However, now’s the time to end the story. How should have WWE ended Wade Barrett’s career? Well, that’s what I’m going to attempt to figure out with this final part of this series. Here’s How I Would Book… Wade Barrett in WWE – PART FIVE.

I’ll be completely honest, I’ve really enjoyed this sort of concept when writing THE “How I Would Book” series. Rather than focusing on a specific storyline, it feels good to take a wrestler who I feel was underutilised and try to book them better than WWE. We did it with Rusev and now we’ve done it with Wade Barrett, where we can take their careers down the paths that we think were possible. I’ve really enjoyed booking Wade with William Regal for example, as that’s a fascinating concept to me. I’ve enjoyed turning the Rusev and Lana storyline into a genuine romantic storyline that fans can get invested in. These are fantasy storylines but it’s nice to try and break it down in such detail.

However, now’s the time to wrap up Wade’s story. For those who don’t know the story so far, the links for Parts 1 to 4 are available above. This was probably the hardest part to write but hopefully this serves as a fitting end (albeit bittersweet) to his career in WWE.

This part covers Wade Barrett’s career from WrestleMania 31 to WrestleMania 32, which wasn’t so great for the Barrett Barrage in real life. Yes, he won the King of the Ring tournament. However, this was also a period where Barrett was sucker-punched by football player Wayne Rooney, lost a match to actor Stephen Amell, feuded with R-Truth in a silly feud about kings and was essentially a tag-along to the “League of Nations” stable. Hopefully, we can do better than WWE!

We’ll start off by taking care of some business coming out of WrestleMania 31. In Part Four, we had Dolph Ziggler win the Intercontinental Championship from Wade at WrestleMania in a ladder match. Barrett would be owed a rematch so we can settle that feud by having ONE LAST MATCH at Extreme Rules 2015. In real life, Barrett was scheduled to challenge Daniel Bryan for same title anyway until Bryan was ruled out of action. It seems pretty straight forward to slide Ziggler into the same position for our story. All it does is take Ziggler out of his feud with Sheamus and don’t worry… we’ll come back to Sheamus!

I understand that you don’t necessarily have to have rematch clauses and they were pretty much outlawed in WWE at around 2018. However, I always felt it was strange to see the former champions being frozen out of the title picture once they lose the title. Especially if someone was a champion for a long time, them not being contenders for the same title they just held seemed completely wrong. Also, in part four, Wade Barrett did lose the title in a multi-man ladder match. Therefore, it’s fair game to do a one-on-one rematch for the title. I mean, Barrett had about six different challengers for his title at WrestleMania 31!

Ziggler defeats Barrett in one final match at Extreme Rules to settle the feud once and for all. We’ve done steel cage matches, 2 out of 3 falls matches, last man standing matches and ladder matches at this point so we’ll go ahead and make this one an I Quit match to end the feud for good. After the match, Ziggler is attacked by a returning Sheamus…

While Ziggler feuds with Sheamus for the Intercontinental Championship, Barrett needs to re-group after being embarrassed by quitting against his former rival. Sheamus approaches Barrett about a possible alliance where they both help each as equals. Sheamus will help Barrett win the King of the Ring tournament in exchange for Barrett helping Sheamus win the Intercontinental Championship. Sheamus was a previous King of the Ring winner so he knows how to win that tournament, while Barrett has experience in feuding and beating Dolph Ziggler so he would be able to help Sheamus with strategy. The alliance is made and the plan works perfectly. Sheamus defeats Ziggler at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view to win the title while Barrett wins the King of the Ring tournament on RAW.

After Sheamus and Barrett complete their goals, they’re kept apart for a few months. Barrett can feud with RAW newcomer Neville while Sheamus and Ziggler continue their feud through the Spring and into the Summer. Sheamus does not win the Money in the Bank briefcase at this point and really, it’s not really important for this story to have win the briefcase or the WWE Championship. However, Barrett and Sheamus cross paths again at SummerSlam…

Sheamus is still the Intercontinental Champion but ends up having to defend the title in a fatal four way involving Ziggler, Neville and Barrett. Sheamus and Barrett try to form an alliance during the match which stays in tact up until the very end of the match. Barrett takes control of the match by hitting the Wasteland on Neville and hitting Ziggler with the Bullhammer Elbow. Before he can pin Ziggler, Sheamus throws Barrett out of the ring and steals the pin for himself. Barrett had Ziggler beaten but the victory was stolen from him by a former ally.

Barrett actually ends up away from television for a while after SummerSlam, I think due to VISA issues, so we’ll keep to this and bring him back at around September 2015. Barrett wants to confront Sheamus for what happened at SummerSlam. Sheamus pleads his innocence by saying that he did the same thing that Barrett would have done to him. As they’re about to come to blows, Rusev comes out to play peacemaker. Rusev proposes a stable involving the three men, wanting to dominate the WWE Universe. Barrett is hesitant but agrees to the stable for now.

The alliance does pretty well as they pick up wins in six man tag team matches and Sheamus still reigns as Intercontinental Champion. Barrett wants some gold for himself so challenges John Cena for the United States Championship at Hell in a Cell. However, this match doesn’t happen as WWE “reports” that Barrett had been in a car accident earlier that evening. Therefore, John Cena’s title match is turned into an open challenge. The answer is challenged by the returning Alberto Del Rio, who defeats Cena clean and wins the United States Championship like he did in real life.

Alberto Del Rio joins the new alliance along with Sheamus and Rusev as part of the League of Nations. Barrett shows up on RAW extremely pissed off about his title opportunity being taken, accusing Del Rio of taking him out with one of his own cars. To settle the disputes within this alliance, they all agree to take part in a Survivor Series elimination match. It’ll be Sheamus, Rusev, Alberto Del Rio, Wade Barrett and Tyler Breeze (who isn’t with the League of Nations. I just needed a 5^th member!) going up against Dolph Ziggler, Neville, The Dudley Boyz and Goldust (yes The Dudley Boyz and Goldust were in WWE at this time!).

It comes down to Dolph Ziggler alone against Barrett, Sheamus, Rusev and Del Rio. Ziggler attempts a miraculous comeback akin to his performance in the 2014 Survivor Series match the previous year. He is able to eliminate Barrett following miscommunication where Rusev accidentally kicks Barrett. However, the rest of the League of Nations overwhelms Ziggler and they win the Survivor Series match with Del Rio, Sheamus and Rusev as sole survivors. After the match, the League of Nations finally betray Wade Barrett. They attack him and take him out of action.

This is where things get a little troublesome with Wade Barrett in WWE, as he had issues with injuries again at around the start of 2016. He does come back at around February 2016 but he’s gone from the company after WrestleMania 32. To make it easier for ourselves, we’ll have Barrett be written off up until February 2016 and after the WWE Fast Lane pay-per-view. Barrett comes back to challenge Sheamus for the Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania 32, while Del Rio and Rusev can challenge the New Day for the WWE Tag Team Championship. Sheamus agrees to the Mania match on the condition that Barrett leaves WWE if he loses. The match is agreed and Sheamus finally defeats Barrett clean at WrestleMania to end the career of Wade Barrett once and for all.

It’s a very bittersweet ending to Barrett’s career after being betrayed by the League of Nations but at least he does get one last big match for a championship before he leaves WWE and it does make sense for Barrett to put Sheamus over on the way out. At least with the storyline we’ve told here, Barrett does look like a more formidable member of the League of Nations rather than just an afterthought.

…and we’ve avoided Wade Barrett being the Cosmic King so that is another bonus.

That wraps up this “How I Would Book” series. This was certainly a mammoth task and this final part did end up coming out a few months after I had originally planned for it to come out.  However, I’ve really enjoyed taking a wrestler I always felt was underrated and giving him a truly earned spotlight in this series. I’ve done it with Rusev and Wade Barrett so far and I’d like to do this again in the future for somebody else’s wrestling career.

Please let me know if you have any ideas. The two ideas I’m considering at the moment are “Samoa Joe in WWE” and “Andrade in AEW” but I’m very curious to see what you guys would like me to cover.

Until then, this is the end of the “How I Would Book… Wade Barrett in WWE” series. Thank you for reading this series and take care of yourselves everybody!

How I Would Book series

#1 – How I Would Book… Rey Mysterio vs AJ Styles

#2 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar (Part One and Part Two)

#3 – How I Would Book… Wrestlemania 29 (Part One, Part Two, Part Threeand Part Four)

#4 – How I Would Book… Eddie Guerrero’s Road To Wrestlemania 22 (Part Oneand Part Two)

#5 – How I Would Book… The nWo 19th Anniversary Special (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Final Part)

#6 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker

#7 – How I Would Book… The End Of The Streak (Part One, Part Two (John Cena), Part Three (CM Punk), Part Four (Randy Orton), Part Five (Bray Wyatt), Final Part)

#8 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs The Rock

#9 – How I Would Book… Kurt Angle’s Return To WWE

#10 – How I Would Book… John Cena vs The Rock III

#11 – How I Would Book… Kevin Owens as Intercontinental Champion

#12 – How I Would Book… Christian’s World Title Run In 2011

#13 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs John Cena

#14 – How I Would Book… Dean Ambrose Winning The WWE Championship

#15 – How I Would Book… Batista vs Brock Lesnar vs Undertaker

#16 – How I Would Book… Roman Reigns vs Undertaker (Wrestlemania 32)

#17 – How I Would Book… AJ Styles’ Road to WrestleMania 32

#18 – How I Would Book… CM Punk As Nexus Leader (Part One and Part Two)

#19 – How I Would Book… WrestleMania 32

#20 – How I Would Book… Who Ran Over Stone Cold?

#21 – How I Would Book… Rusev in WWE (Part One, Part Two and Part Three)

#22 – How I Would Book… Wade Barrett in WWE (Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four)

RETRO EXPRESS: WCW NITRO #79 (MARCH 17TH 1997) – SCOTT HALL WAS JUST TOO SWEET

Welcome to the Retro Express. This is where we’re taking a stroll down memory lane at wrestling history. This post is part of an ongoing series where we’re reviewing every episode of WCW Nitro from start to finish. Links to the previous posts are at the bottom of this post. We hope you enjoy.

WCW Uncensored saw the New World Order win the main-event match against Team WCW and Team Piper. By virtue of winning the match, they were able to challenge for any WCW title at any time of their choosing. The stipulation was a little difficult to get your head around but the nWo stood tall over Lex Luger and it seemed that they had conquered WCW for good at the end of the night…

…that was until STING made a surprise appearance at Uncensored. He propelled down to the ring and took the fight to the nWo. After six months of standing in the middle of the WCW vs. nWo conflict, the Stinger had seemingly made his stance clear at the end of Uncensored that he was against the nWo…

It’s been some time since we’ve reviewed a Nitro episode but we’re moving onwards to Spring Stampede, with renewed life implanted into the nWo storyline. With Sting finally siding with WCW, all hope that felt lost after recent nWo shenanigans seemed found again. After months of the heels ruling the roost, the biggest babyface in WCW finally took action against the big bad of the nWo.

That was certainly the angle they were pushing here, especially with the closing segment of Nitro this week. It’s a good thing they had that optimism because without it, this would have been a somewhat bleak show. The segments did a lot of the heavy-lifting when it came to quality for Nitro this week as the wrestling side of it felt extremely weak. When the Steiner Brothers vs. Harlem Heat is the most competitive match of about 10 matches or so, it’s troubling when you’re trying to tell your audience that this is where the big boys play.

80% of the matches were just squash matches on Nitro this week. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a squash matches to build people up. However, you didn’t need so many on this episode of Nitro. You’ve got a huge roster of talent that you’ve got sitting on these big contracts that could be useful to the prodiuct. Surely Diamond Dallas Page, for example, would get more out of beating someone like Lord Steven Regal rather than WCW jobber Maxx. It’s about finding that balance between beating no-one and beating everyone, which I don’t think WCW ever got right.

Date: March 17th, 1997

Brand: WCW

City: Savannah, Georgia

Rating: 3.6 (another increase from last week)

Commentators (First Hour): Tony Schiavone and Larry Zbyszko

Commentators (Second Hour): Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay

They recapped the finish of WCW Uncensored, where the nWo won the main-event. As I mentioned earlier, it was an extraordinarily complicated match with complicated stipulations which I still didn’t understand after the end of Nitro. We’ll get to it, but it felt like they retconned the stipulation again during this show.

They also did not show Sting’s appearance at the end as they teased that there was more to the story, which we’d also see later on.

Psychosis vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.

There isn’t much to say about this match, and that’s very disappointing considering the people involved. These two have had classic matches in the past and were reduced to about two minutes for this episode of Nitro.

They wrestled on the mat for a bit. They showed the Japanese commentary team backstage with Sonny Onoo and Ultimo Dragon, who covered his face. Rey ran wild for a bit, which included a hurricanrana as he jumped from the apron and delivered the move to Psychosis. Psychosis was the bigger man in the match and was able to grab Rey, in the ring, and charge him into the corner.

Rey did a senton dive to the outside and then hit a springboard hurricanara in the ring for the win. The finish looked like it spiked Psychosis big time. There was even a few seconds where Rey looked like he was asking if Psychosis was OK afterwards because it looked like he landed hard on his head.

Some good spots but a dangerous finish to an incredibly pointless match.

Mean Gene Okerlund interviewed Arn Anderson. Arn Anderson had been sidelined with an injury at this time and his future as a wrestler was in doubt internally. Arn said Uncensored was a historic event as Sting had came home. Arn was glad to see it and admitted his own health had been bad. He explained that it was a vertebrate injury that was causing issues with his neck and caused one his hands to have issues too.

He talked about his mother passing away and that the Four Horsemen were part of his family too. He praised the group for working as a well-oiled machine at Uncensored and the Four Horsemen were fine. Arn talked about “Taskmaster” Kevin Sullivan’s relationship with his kid as I guess his son Ben had told him that he wished Kevin was dead. I’m not sure when this happened.

Arn wanted to wipe the slate clean with Taskmaster and vowed to be back. This was a fine promo as Arn just told it as it was. There was truth to it and really, he just laid it all out on the table and put over the Four Horsemen. Good stuff from the Enforcer.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Maxx

Apparently Maxx is a member of the Dungeon of Doom now, as he came out to the Dungeon of Doom theme song. I have no idea if this is true or not, as I’ve never seen Maxx with anyone in that group! Even now, he wasn’t with the Faces of Fear, Taskmaster, Konan or anyone.

Maxx did some dreadful looking elbow drops. With his second one, he didn’t even extend his arm out. Because of this, he didn’t even hit him with his elbow, as you’re supposed to do with an ELBOW drop. He jerked his arm out a little bit, then fell down and just landed on DDP’s face. I can’t imagine that Page was happy with that.

DDP made a comeback with some punches. DDP hit his own top rope elbow drop although the announcers said it was a top rope splash. I insist that it was an elbow drop as DDP actually looked like he came down with the elbow and he was feuding with “Macho Man” Randy Savage.

DDP then hit the Diamond Cutter for the win.

These matches aren’t particularly great but these matches have been also effective in getting DDP over with the Diamond Cutter. It feels weird to give wrestlers like Maxx anything when putting the match together. The fans just wanted to see the Diamond Cutter so just have him hit the move. It’s not like Maxx got anything out of beating up DDP for 30 seconds beforehand.

Mean Gene interviewed DDP about Uncensored. For those unaware, Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth had spraypainted and humiliated DDP’s wife Kimberley on the show. In response during this interview, DDP called Elizabeth a bimbo and said she and Savage stepped into the real world by targeting his wife. DDP said Savage was born to be a chalk outline as he called him a dead man walking. I thought that was a great line, given the intensity of the feud. I love, also, how Savage had basically targeted and embarrassed DDP’s wife, and Mean Gene felt DDP was being a bit strong with this line about wanting to kill Savage!

Listen, there are spouses who would kill if you disrespected their partner in anyway. In this instance, they basically assaulted and degraded her in front of her husband. You damn right DDP sees Savage as a dead man at this point!

Savage appeared with Elizabeth among the crowd. Savage told DDP to take the base out of his voice when talking about him. He called himself a superstar and an icon while DDP was the wrestler with no name (Savage had refused to acknowledge DDP on TV in the past few weeks). Savage talked about a match with DDP, and DDP yelled at him to come down and have the match now. DDP screamed “NOW” and DDP came running through the crowd in pursuit of Savage who bailed. DDP hauled his ass up the steps and went after the Macho Man.

He genuinely chased him like a man wanting to kill someone who put their hands on his wife, which is EXACTLY what the story is. I thought this was a great way for DDP to get some heat back as Savage was the coward running away. I enjoyed the intensity of the feud and both men had done great work with this by this point.

Before the next match could begin, Eric Bischoff interrupted with the Outsiders. They came over to the commentators. It felt like Bischoff took an hour to blurt this out but he basically announced that The Outsiders would be wrestling tonight. I wish Bischoff would have gotten to the point with some of these promos. Just come out for 30 seconds and announce the match, for God’s sake.

Tony Schiavone explained that even though Bischoff had no power in the story (as he was suspended), the nWo could dicate when they could wrestle because the nWo won at Uncensored. I thought the stipulation was that they could wrestle for title matches in the future. I did not take this to mean that they could wrestle whenever they felt like it. Again, I assume this is Bischoff making up the storyline on the fly and the announcers trying to cover for it.

Either way, the stipulation sucked.

Konan and Hugh Morrus w/Jimmy Hart vs. The Renegade and Joe Gomez

What a horrible match this was. Of all the matches that got time on this show, it was one of them… the two Dungeon of Doom lackeys against an Ultimate Warrior knock-off and Joe Gomez! When I mentioned earlier about not getting anything out of the squash matches, surely the Dungeon of Doom were not going to be more over as a group by beating up the likes of Joe Gomez. Even how they did this was so unimpressive, which we’ll get to.

There was some weird stuff was going on with the sound, at least when watching this on the WWE Network. The music got really soft and it worried me, as I wondered if I was losing my hearing! When Eric Bischoff interrupted the show, it seemed that the sound problem was fixed. It was weird. I can’t tell if this was a WWE issue or an original WCW issue, but it was unpleasant for my ears!

The heels worked on the leg of Joe Gomez. Konan stomped on the leg and Hugh followed up with an elbow drop to the leg. They continued to work on the leg with submissions and stomps until Hugh eventually did something else by hitting a clothesline.

Konan did a single leg Boston Crab, then followed it up with a knee bar. The heels CONTINUED to work on the leg for what felt like 20 days. The Renegade finally got a hot tag. He ran wild for 10 seconds and tagged his partner back in!

After this, Konan hit the rolling lariat and Hugh hit the Laughing Matter moonsault for the pinfall victory….

WHAT WAS THE POINT OF WORKING THE LEG FOR 95% OF THE MATCH IF IT DIDN’T EVEN LEAD TO THE FINISH? Not only did you waste everyone’s time with unimpressive “wrestling psychology” by working on the leg but it didn’t even play into the finish.

It’d make sense if they did another leg submission or something to score the victory. Then, the work on the leg would pay off and highlight the error of The Renegade for tagging back out. But NO, they just hit their finishers, which had nothing to do with the leg, and won.

This was such a huge THUMBS DOWN.

Dean Malenko vs. Scotty Riggs in a non-title match

To keep you up to speed with these two after Uncensored, Buff Bagwell won a strap match with Riggs at Uncensored while Dean Malenko had won the United States Heavyweight Championship from Eddie Guerrero. Somehow, this led to Scotty Riggs getting a non-title match with the United States Heavyweight Champion.

Dean slammed Riggs into the steel rail early on. It was pretty competitive for like a minute until Dean suddenly dropped Riggs into the top rope and then did a victory roll for the win.

That’s a very weak finish after about a couple of minutes of wrestling at least. It’s not like Dean was battering him. They were exchanging roll-ups, Riggs did his typical dropkicks and it was competitive until the finish.

Also, as a nit-picky thing, Dean Malenko had done this gimmick for the past month or so of him being more aggressive as a wrestler because he was mad at losing the Cruiserweight title. After the pay-per-view, Dean is now back to his normal self and just rolling dudes up for wins. If anything, shouldn’t the next step be him continuing with this mean streak? This “mean streak” got him the United States Heavyweight Championship. Why not keep it up for possibly a rematch with Eddie Guerrero or Syxx?

It’s a nit-pick but I’d like to think it’ll be addressed shortly… I guess we’ll see.

The Giant and Lex Luger vs. T. Rantula and Knuckles Nelson

Continuing onwards with our squash-fest, we had The Giant and Lex Luger wrestling the mighty team of… KNUCKLES NELSON AND T. RANTULA!

These names for the enhancement talent were so great! Let’s start off with the spider in the room… T. Rantula! Not sure what makes him a tarantula other than him having a web on his trunks! However, this was a large man that was so very un-tarantula-like which was the funniest part about this!

It’d be one thing if you called him something based off a big animal, like a wildebeest or an Ox. No, they give him the name befitting the quick and nimble tarantula! He was certainly not quick and nimble in this match!

No, the “quick and nimble” aspect of the team came in the form of Knuckles Nelson! This man also didn’t strike me as fitting the name. Knuckles Nelson should have been for someone with a bareknuckle gimmick in WCW. Heck, why wasn’t one of Roddy Piper’s guys from a few weeks ago called Knuckles Nelson? Piper had a boxer fight him on Nitro a few weeks ago! He was certainly a man fitting the “Knuckles Nelson” name. Not this guy!

In fact, it would have been better if they just switched the names for this tag team. If they would have swapped the names around for this team, it would have been a huge improvement. The quick and nimble T. Rantula and the big brute Knuckles Nelson!

I’m sure these were probably names both dudes had before WCW but this was vintage WCW in-terms of absurdity with gimmicks!

Before we get into the match, why the Nitro name-plate still had Luger and Giant down as tag team champions baffles me. WE JUST SAW THE OUTSIDERS WITH THE BELTS in a segment before this! I’m not sure why there’s ambiguity as to who the champions are. Luger and The Giant gave the belts back a month ago!

So, The Giant and Luger destroyed both men. T. Rantula and Knuckles tried to double team The Giant but he came back with a double clothesline. Giant chokeslammed Knuckles. He tagged in Luger who did a powerslam and then the Torture Rack for about two seconds on T. Rantula. Rantula was unable to crawl away with the victory on this night.

The staff were rushing to Knuckles. Hopefully things turned out OK for the dude, as they actually showed the chokeslam. He hit his back which could have messed him up big time. The Giant didn’t exactly hold back with chokeslams at this time.

FUN FACT: T. Rantula (or T-Rantula as some websites has it) was actually sworn in as a councilman in Pittsburgh in 2022. Click on this link for more details.

Mean Gene interviewed Luger and Giant. Giant said he was happy to see Sting back. Giant said they’ve been carrying the load and screamed that it’s great someone the caliber of Sting comes back home. Luger said he believes in Santa Claus, the Leprechaun, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. His faith in mankind had been rewarded! Luger put over the fans for backing them. Luger seemed to be all over the place with this promo. Usually he’s a fine promo but he was trying to push through as he was getting everything out. He was stumbling over his words. The Giant did a much better job with about 30 seconds of time than Luger did with about a couple of minutes.

They recapped Mortis vs. Glacier from Uncensored, which I’m kinda upset with myself that I didn’t watch and review. This recap of their “martial arts” match looked like the genesis of the Undertaker/Kane storyline with how they told this! Glacier had basically wrestled this new ninja “Mortis” and then another man came down in grey and a mask to confront Glacier. I do appreciate attempts at supernatural storytelling in wrestling!

Ultimate Dragon w/Sonny Onoo vs. Bobby Eaton

I do wonder what was happening with the Japanese Commentary at this time. The commentators had come down for this match with Bobby Eaton! It was a short match, mind you, but I’d like to think there was just silence for the couple of minutes that Dragon was out here!

They even had massive fireworks for Dragon and even he seemed to be taken back by them!

Dragon hit a Frankensteiner from the top rope for the win.

That’s all I had for this match!

Then came the highlight of the entire show. The nWo came out. They were in full-force, minus the likes of Bubba and Wallstreet who were taken out as well as Dennis Rodman. There were typical nWo promos being cut. Hogan said everyone in the world bowed to the nWo and that they ruled supreme. Savage was back out and wanted the match with DDP. There was no word as to where DDP had disappeared off to after chasing Savage earlier.

Then, The Outsiders cut a promo. Kevin Nash called out the Steiner Brothers for Spring Stampede. This led to an all-time Scott Hall moment. Scott Hall yelled that things were too sweet. Scott posed and you could already tell that his hair was already dosed in water, gel or whatever he had on his hair. He does a pose and some fan, with aim just as great as Hawkeye from the Avengers, hurls a cup of water right at Hall’s head.

This was caught by the hard-cam so everyone could see it in the arena and everyone could see it at home. The nWo dudes started cackling after it happened. So after Hall gets this cup of water thrown at him, he plays it off in the greatest way imaginable. He no-sells it, slicks his hair back and continues to pose! I laughed for like a minute straight!

I saw this posted a few months ago on somewhere like Facebook, and the caption was “You may be cool, but you’ll never be Scott Hall getting hit in the head with a full cup of soda live…”. It’s true. Scott Hall came off as the coolest person on the entire planet after this happened. Even the Fonz would have taking notes from Hall and his swagger. Even Bischoff goes “his hair is still perfect” afterwards. It was such a smooth transition for Hall.

The production staff also don’t take the camera off of Hall for like the rest of the segment. Bare in mind that you had Hogan, Savage, Bischoff and about ten other men in the ring at this time. They were laser-focused on Hall as he just continues to pose toward the hard-cam and taunt the crowd. Scott Hall was never been any cooler and any greater than his was here.

Scott, you were the baddest of guys here. This was amazing!

They announced Savage vs. DDP for Spring Stampede in a no disqualification match.

Scott Norton vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

A rare wrestling match involving Scott Norton of the nWo and what an opponent he got. He got Chavo Guerrero Jr. who was so bad at this time that he made Steve “Mongo” McMichael look like Ric Flair in comparison.

Chavo over-sold to an unbelievable degree here, clearly inspiring the likes of Dolph Ziggler. Norton turned Chavo inside-out with a clothesline. Norton caught a dive to the outside from Chavo and threw him back into the ring.

Chavo tried to fire back with clotheslines which Norton appeared to have no intention of selling. He was not having any of Chavo’s attacks.

Chavo couldn’t even take a bump in the corner. The first time he was Irish-Whipped into the corner, he hit the middle turnbuckle and then turned himself around awkwardly. The second time, he just splatted in the corner at 100 miles an hour and fell down.

He tried a sunset flip and nearly landed on his head.

Norton hit a powerbomb and got the pin. Again, why not just give Scott Norton an opponent like Chris Jericho or another lower-midcard with some level of credibility here? At least Jericho would have had a good match with him. This match felt like Norton beat up a pillow for three minutes.

Hogan did a backstage promo with Dennis Rodman.

The Outsiders w/Syxx vs. Bunkhouse Buck and Mike Enos

As crazy as it sounds, this was NOT a squash match on Nitro. For what felt like the first time in months, a team actually got the heat on the Outsiders for a portion of the match. The only problem was that the team itself was… BUNKHOUSE BUCK AND MIKE ENOS.

Hall worked on the arm of Buck. Mike Enos refused a tag as Nash got the tag. Nash hit elbows and punches in the corner.

Enos was tagged in against his will. Hall hit a Fallaway Slam. Somehow, Enos and Buck got the heat on Scott Hall! I can’t remember how they did it but when I looked up from my notes, Enos was beating up Hall!

Enos powerslammed Hall and worked on him. Enos wore him down with a sleeper hold. Hall got out of it with a back suplex.

Nash got the hot tag and ran wild. Nash hit an awesome looking side walk slam to Enos. Nash hit a Jackknife Powerbomb on Buck. Scott Hall hit an Outsiders Edge on Enos and got the pin.

To be fair, it was nice for a change to see a team get the heat on the Outsiders. The Outsiders did look good here and Enos in particular sold well for them. I think they struggled with the Outsiders Edge but that was about it.

This was fine stuff.

Chris Benoit w/Woman vs. Billy Kidman

Benoit beat up Kidman immediately as soon as the bell rang. In about a minute, Benoit locked on the Crippler Crossface and caused Kidman to tap out. I believe this was the first time Benoit actually used it as a finisher.

Benoit returned at Uncensored after about a couple of weeks away from action, in case you were wondering.

Mean Gene interviewed Benoit and Woman. Before they could begin, Ric Flair strolled down to the ring to a big pop. Benoit believed that Arn would be back. Benoit talked about Taskmaster and that he was pushing everyone important away from him. Benoit said Taskmaster needed to go away and take a look at himself. The irony of Benoit giving personal advice to somebody else is not lost on me. Don’t worry.

Ric talked about Piper calling him out the night before, as I guess Piper asked where he was during his promo at Uncensored. Ric said he was in Savannah with all the girls while Piper was given the power to wrestle with the Horsemen. Ric heard that Piper dropped the ball from the Horsemen. Ric said he couldn’t go home, like Piper wanted to, as he was a Horsemen.

Ric said his point of view was that Piper could either go home with his wife or party with the Horsemen. He started going nuts at the end of the promo. I love how Woman usually is able to maintain a menacing look, but always breaks when Ric is around!

Ric did a great job with the promo. I was genuinely curious as to what would happen next when he was done, which is the point of promo. It should hook you in and Ric had me hooked and he was form here.

Jeff Jarrett and Steve “Mongo” McMichael w/Debra vs. Alex Wright and Mark Starr

The Four Horsemen got involved with the Harlem Heat/Public Enemy match at Uncensored, so this would lead to a tag team match being booked for Spring Stampede between Jarrett, Mongo and the Public Enemy.

This was a much better performance from Mongo and Jeff than usual. This was a squash match but both men were fine here. Jeff locked on the Figure Four Leg Lock for the submission victory.

Public Enemy ran down to attack the Horsemen. Debra hit one of the members with the briefcase and the fight continued as they fought near the announcers.

After the Horsemen whooped their ass, Public Enemy fled. I can’t tell anymore if the Public Enemy are babyfaces or not but they sure weren’t looking like babyfaces here.

Mean Gene interviewed the trio. Debra called the tag team a winning combination. Jeff said he proved that he could talk the talk and walk the walk. Mongo screamed for Public Enemy to bring the buffet as he was going to have some of their tar-tar, or something like that.

I will say that it makes a fresh change to see the Four Horsemen not bitching at each other during their promos in 1997. At least for now, they were all on the same page! That’s FINE with me.

Bruce Buffer was here to announce the WCW Monday Nitro main-event. I’d love to know how much he got paid to come out and do the introductions for this match! This was not a WCW World Heavyweight Championship match or anything like that. It was a regular tag team match with Harlem Heat and The Steiner Brothers that we’d seen a thousand times. There wasn’t even a finish to it either, which we’ll get to!

Harlem Heat w/Sister Sherri vs. The Steiner Brothers

I’ve said this before but Scott Steiner pressing Booker T, a huge man, over his shoulders will never not be impressive. He did it again here.

Harlem Heat worked on Rick Steiner for a while. It was mostly kicks and punches from Harlem Heat.

Scott Steiner hit an awesome belly to belly suplex on Booker. It was high and long with the delivery. Scott was running wild. It spilled out into a brawl with all four men. Rick and Ray fought on the outside.

The nWo ran down and jumped both teams. This included Hollywood Hogan, who was surprisingly present and having his friends’ backs! The camera focused on Rick Steiner on the outside, as the Outsiders were beating him down. Lex Luger and The Giant ran down to even the score as WCW stood tall.

All of a sudden, Sting was propelled down into the ring. The place went nuts for him! He stood with WCW in the ring as Hollywood Hogan was terrified on the outside. Sting pointed the bat at Hogan as WCW had won the day here. Hogan was screaming “HE WAS POINTING AT ME” as we went off the air on a high note.

So yes, if you didn’t get the pay-per-view for Uncensored at the time, WCW were at least courteous enough to basically repeat the angle for free television and the Nitro fans. The crowd were also really into this segment as well.

I guess my assessment was that Nitro started off fine and ended strong, with a whole bunch of squash matches and pointless matches in-between. I didn’t hate this Nitro or anything but I was dying to see some more matches get time. Chris Benoit, Ultimo Dragon, Rey Mysterio and others getting about a minute seemed like such a crime and I’m hoping for a little bit more time with the matches in the coming months. Otherwise, Nitro could get sour really quick.

However, the start and finish to the show were both good and there was only one match that really upset me. Therefore, I’ll go ahead and say this was an OK episode of Nitro.

Please give me some better matches!

…pretty please…

…with a cherry on top!

WCW Nitro Reading Order

• #1 – September 4th 1995
• #2 – September 11th 1995
• WCW Fall Brawl 1995 – September 17th 1995
• #3 – September 18th 1995
• #4 – September 25th 1995
• #5 – October 2nd 1995
• #6 – October 9th 1995
• #7 – October 16th 1995
• #8 – October 23rd 1995
• WCW Halloween Havoc 1995 – October 29th 1995
• #9 – October 30th 1995
• #10 – November 6th 1995
• #11 – November 13th 1995
• #12 – November 20th 1995
• WCW World War III 1995 – November 26th 1995
• #13 – November 27th 1995
• #14 – December 4th 1995
• #15 – December 11th 1995
• #16 – December 18th 1995
• #17 – December 25th 1995
• WCW Starrcade 1995 – December 27th 1995
• #18 – January 1st 1996
• #19 – January 8th 1996
• #20 – January 15th 1996
• #21 – January 22nd 1996
• #22 – January 29th 1996
• #23 – February 5th 1996
• WCW Superbrawl VI – February 11th 1996
• #24 – February 12th 1996
• #25 – February 19th 1996
• #26 – February 26th 1996
• #27 – March 11th 1996
• #28 – March 18th 1996
• WCW Uncensored 1996 – March 24th 1996
• #29 – March 25th 1996
• #30 – April 1st 1996
• #31 – April 15th 1996
• #32 – April 22nd 1996
• #33 – April 29th 1996
• #34 – May 6th 1996 (Nitro)/May 6th 1996 (RAW)
• #35 – May 13th 1996
• WCW Slamboree 1996 – May 19th 1996
• #36 – May 20th 1996
• #37 – May 27th 1996
• #38 – June 3rd 1996
• #39 – June 10th 1996
• WCW The Great American Bash 1996 – June 16th 1996
• #40 – June 17th 1996
• #41 – June 24th 1996
• #42 – July 1st 1996
• WCW Bash At The Beach 1996 – July 7th 1996
• #43 – July 8th 1996
• #44 – July 15th 1996
• #45 – July 22nd 1996
• #46 – July 29th 1996
• #47 – August 5th 1996
• WCW Hog Wild 1996 – August 10th 1996
• #48 – August 12th 1996
• WCW Clash of the Champions #33 – Hulk Hogan vs Ric Flair
• #49 – August 19th 1996
• #50 – August 26th 1996
• #51 – September 2nd 1996
• #52 – September 9th 1996
• WCW Fall Brawl 1996 – September 15th 1996
• #53 – September 16th 1996
• #54 – September 23rd 1996
• #55 – September 30th 1996
• #56 – October 7th 1996
• #57 – October 14th 1996
• #58 – October 21st 1996
• WCW Slim Jim’s Halloween Havoc 1996 – October 27th 1996
• #59 – October 28th 1996
• #60 – November 4th 1996 (Nitro)/November 4th 1996 (RAW)
• #61 – November 11th 1996
• #62 – November 18th 1996
• WCW World War III 1996 – November 24th 1996
• #63 – November 25th 1996
• #64 – December 2nd 1996
• #65 – December 9th 1996
• #66 – December 16th 1996
• #67 – December 23rd 1996
• WCW Starrcade 1996 – December 30th 1996
• #68 – December 30th 1996
• #69 – January 6th 1997
• #70 – January 13th 1997
• #71 – January 20th 1997
• WCW Clash of the Champions #34 – Ultimo Dragon (c) vs Dean Malenko
• nWo Souled Out 1997 – January 27th 1997
• #72 – January 27th 1997
• #73 – February 3rd 1997
• #74 – February 10th 1997
• #75 – February 17th 1997
• WCW Superbrawl VII – February 23rd 1997
• #76 – February 24th 1997 (Nitro)/February 24th 1997 (RAW)
• #77 – March 3rd 1997
• #78 – March 10th 1997
• WCW Uncensored 1997 – March 16th 1997

AN UPDATE ON… RETRO EXPRESS: THE RETURN OF BROCK LESNAR

How’s it going everybody. The Armbar Express is here with a quick update regarding a few things with the blog. I know it’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted something and I’ve mentioned a few blog posts that should have already been posted by now. I’ll address them on this post too but I wanted to address the status of another ongoing Retro Express series on the blog.

In 2022, we returned to the Armbar Express with a new Retro Express series looking at every Brock Lesnar match since his return in 2022. We were posting very regularly with these matches and the goal was to start posting more of these reviews in 2024. We posted one review I think in 2023 but the WCW Nitro series and the How I Would Book series took priority over it.

However, due to recent news and allegations regarding Brock Lesnar, and the ongoing lawsuit involving Vince McMahon and Janel Grant, I have decided to no longer go ahead with publishing any future “The Return of Brock Lesnar” blog posts. As of now, that series is hereby postponed for the time being.

I did consider continuing with the series but ultimately decided against it. As part of the WCW Nitro series. for example, we review matches involving Chris Benoit on a regular basis. Despite everything that man had done prior to his suicide, I tend to separate the wrestling character and the real-life person. Reviewing Brock Lesnar matches themselves would not have been a problem for me as we focus strictly on the wrestling side of our reviews. I do not factor the personal aspects of these wrestlers into my reviews of them and their matches.

However, continuing a series dedicated to Brock Lesnar would be essentially promoting this man and the career he’s had in WWE. Due to the allegations against him, it would be wrong to promote him in such a manner.

If we do wrestling show reviews in the future, and he happens to be in a match that we cover, we’ll cover it as we would with any wrestler such as Chris Benoit. However, you’re not going to be seeing blog posts content specifically designed to push and promote the man.

This is subject to change, of course. If there are developments where Brock is cleared of any wrongdoing for example or the allegations turn out to be fabricated or false, then we’ll review it and consider restarting the series. However, we simply can’t do it at this time.

Regarding the Retro Express series, the Nitro series will still continue. In fact, there will be a post going out this week. I’ve just completed the draft of the 17/03/1997 edition of WCW Monday Nitro, which is set to be released this week.

I’m planning to replace the Brock Lesnar series with something else for the time being. I have a few ideas but I am very much open to suggestions if you read this and have anything you want me to review as part of the Retro Express!

The How I Would Book series involving Wade Barrett will be finished this month, as Part #5 will go out at some point in February. I have started drafting the post but it is a struggle trying to wrap up his story.

We do also have another How I Would Book post waiting in the wings, which will be published once the Wade Barrett series wraps up. I’d post it now but I want to finish the current series before starting anything else.

Those are the updates on the blog for now. I’ve got a lot going on with work at the moment so the output might reduce a little bit in the next few months.

However, the Armbar Express will be continuing on in 2024 and I’ve got a few ideas which I’m very much looking forward to getting published for you all to see.

I hope everyone is doing well and take care of themselves!