Hulk Hogan Biography:

Birth Name: Terry Bollea

Age: 70 (August 11th, 1970) 

Height: 6’7

Weight: 302 pounds 

Debut: 1977

Place of Birth: Augusta, Georgia, USA

Accolades: 6 x WWE Champion, 1 x WWE Tag Team Champion, 2 x Royal Rumble winner (1990, 1991), WWE Hall of Famer, 6 x WCW World Heavyweight Champion, 1 x IWGP Heavyweight Champion, 3 x PWI Wrestler of the Year (1987, 1991, and 1994), #1 on the PWI Top 500 in 1991 and 2003,  

On May 13th, 2002, Hulk Hogan defeated Ric Flair on Raw in a No Disqualification match for the WWE Title. Incredibly, this was the only televised match between these two legends during their time in WWE. On the 22nd anniversary of this match, Hogan is today’s Wrestler of the Day. 

Inspired by stars such as Superstar Billy Graham, Hogan trained to become a wrestler after meeting some wrestlers in his native Florida. After wrestling for a couple of smaller promotions, Hogan signed with the World Wrestling Federation under Vince J. McMahon (AKA Vince Sr). After having several high-profile matches as a heel, Hogan was released from the WWF after he defied Vince Sr’s order not to appear in the film Rocky III. 

Hulk Hogan spent the next several years wrestling for Verne Gagne’s American Wrestling Association and Antonio Inokis’s New Japan Pro Wrestling. Eventually, Hogan returned to the WWF in 1983, now under the leadership of Vincent K. McMahon (AKA Vince Jr). Shortly after, Hulkamania broke out, turning Hogan into one of the biggest stars in the history of the business. 

Hogan’s decades-long career continued into the 1990s with the New World Order but was on the decline by the 2000s. After a brief run with TNA, Hogan retired from wrestling in 2012. While opinions differ about the Hulkster, he without question changed the business by becoming one of the biggest wrestling stars ever. 

Photo Credit: WWE

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Matt Cardona Biography:

Birth Name: Matthew Brett Cardona

Age: 38 (May 14th, 1985) 

Height: 6’2

Weight: 224 pounds 

Debut: 2004

Place of Birth: Merrick, New York, USA

Accolades: 1 x GCW World Champion, 1 x Impact Digital Media Champion, 1 x NWA World Heavyweight Champion, 1 x WWE Intercontinental Champion, 1 x WWE United States Champion, 3 x WWE Tag Team Champion, 2 x PWI Indie Wrestler of the Year (2022, 2023), #13 on the PWI 500 in 2022

This weekend on AEW Collision, Adam Copeland continued the Cope Open with his TNT Championship on the line. In a surprising move, this challenge was answered by independent wrestler Matt Cardona. Cardona is today’s Wrestler of the Day in honor of this surprise appearance. 

Matt Cardona started wrestling on the independent scene in the early 2000s and signed with WWE in 2005 under the ring name of Zack Ryder. While achieving success partnering with Curt Hawkins in tag team matches, he built a following on social media, leading to a push resulting from massive fan support. Despite a decade-and-a-half run with WWE that saw him win multiple championships, WWE released Cardona and Hawkins due to COVID-19 budget cuts. 

To fight the idea that a wrestler needs a large company to make a living, he has emphasized the indies. Since leaving WWE, Cardona has appeared on Impact, GCW, DDT, MLW, and many others. While winning countless titles, our Wrestler of the Day has adopted a “belt collector” gimmick while earning nicknames such as “the Indy God” and “the Deathmatch King. Whatever his next move, he has proven a wrestler can make a name on the indies. 

Photo Credit: AEW

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The idea of a forbidden door is meant to excite fans about a product, but it is just a ploy created to bring more eyes to a promotion. Rarely, do promotions work together, so observing how AEW has worked with TNA, and AAA, and seems to have a healthy relationship with New Japan has proven successful, with great matches taking place. WWE has been showing hints of having some agreement with Japan by allowing Nakamura to compete.

The problem is that the idea of a forbidden door was created by promotions; there was no need for this to exist because those in the industry benefit from having the opportunity to work with different promotions. If talents are “independent contractors,” they should be able to compete in dream matches without promotions interfering.

Wrestling is at its best when there are no restrictions due to hard feelings between those working backstage, and the industry has changed to the point where everyone can co-exist and enjoy demonstrating their talent to the countless fans that want to watch good wrestling. Average viewers do not care if talent comes from a specific place because they want to enjoy themselves. If promotions stagnate, they ignore those who enjoy their product, thus losing fans in the process.

WWE has made many positive changes as of late, and I hope that they open themselves at least to the point where talent can be independent with who they want to be, as the flexibility has shown to be of great success. As I stated, the idea of the forbidden door masks what wrestling is, so if promotions want to evolve, they first need to acknowledge that they are not the only place where wrestling exists.

I am excited to see where wrestling goes. I hope the industry continues to mature and demonstrate that it is a place of growth and that those behind the scenes bring the best product.

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King Kong Bundy Biography:

Name: King Kong Bundy 

Age: 63 (November 7th, 1955 – March 5th, 2019)

Height: 6’4

Weight: 458 lbs 

Debut: March 16th, 1985

Place of Birth: Atlantic City, New Jersey 

Accolades: 2x NWA American Heavyweight Champion, 1x NWA New York Heavyweight Champion, 1x NWA National Tag Team Champion, 2x NWA American Tag Time Champion, #147 on PWI’s Top 500 in the year 1995.  

Because he was born on this day in 1955, we are honoring King Kong Bundy as the wrestler of the day on November 7th. While he never won a championship with the WWE (then known as WWF) Bundy had several notable feuds.

King Kong Bundy made his debut in 1985 for the WWF. He was quickly put under the management of “The Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart. Bundy was so dominant, that he demanded referees counted to five, rather than three, as a testament to the way he dominated opponents. In fact, Bundy needed just nine seconds to defeat his opponent at Wrestlemania I. 

Although he never won a title with a major promotion, Bundy was involved in some notable feuds in his brief time in the 1980s and 90s. He challenged Hulk Hogan for the WWE Championship at Wrestlemania II. However, the power of Hulkamania proved to be too much for the “walking condominium.” 

King Kong Bundy retired briefly at the end of the 1980s but made his return in 1994, joining Ted DiBiase’s Million Dollar Corporation. Bundy’s last hurrah in WWE was taking on the Undertaker at Wrestlemania XI. Unfortunately for Bundy, he would become the fourth name in the Dead Man’s legendary winning streak at Wrestlemania.  

Photo Credit: WWE

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Between the two of them, Flair and Hogan have held world championships at least 28 times, the number may actually be higher because there is some dispute on some of Flair’s and Hogan’s reigns whether they count or not but at the minimum they have almost 30 officially recognized reigns between the NWA/WCW & WWE. 

They are arguably the two biggest wrestling stars of the 80s and two of the biggest names in the history of the business. They are two of the rare performers, that have crossed over to pop culture that are known all over the world by wrestling fans and non-fans as well.

Long before there was the WWE vs AEW fanbases that argued with each other about Sports Entertainment vs Professional Wrestling, there was the arguments from the WWF and NWA fan bases about the same thing. As the WWF began to rise up as a pop culture phenomenon in the mid to late 80s using Hulk Hogan as the face of the company and Vince McMahon brought in the best performers from his competitors as he pursued to expand the reach of the WWF throughout the rest of the country and eventually the world. There was a contingent of fans that were opposed to this as they saw what the WWF was presenting wasn’t “real professional wrestling” in their opinion. These fans rallied behind the NWA and its champion, “Nature Boy” Ric Flair.

It was the dream match that fans all over the world wanted to see, Hogan vs Flair. It wasn’t just about these two men; it was about what they each represented, the clashing of the wrestling fandoms and cultures. This Us vs Them, sadly still exists to this day and I’ve written about this before, you don’t have to choose sides, you can watch both or just watch one, it doesn’t matter it is just opinion based and personal preference. Anyway, despite the fans wanting the match, the WWF and Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) were never going to agree to holding a joint event to have this match at a joint event and neither wrestler was posed to jump ship to make this match happen either at that point. The WWF did make a number of attempts to get Flair to jump but he was loyal to the NWA.

Oddly enough, before Vincent K. McMahon, took over the promotion from his father and began invading other promoters’ territories, WWF vs NWA champion matches had taken place, but the matches would never have a definitive winner, because they would end in a double count out or some other type of draw scenario. 

The post Honestly: The Sad and Forgotten Hulkamania Tour In Australia appeared first on Wrestling Republic.

Samoa Joe addressed his in-ring future.  

Samoa Joe is one of the best and most charismatic wrestlers of this generation, winning championships in every promotion he has been part of. 

But the last two years have been a roller coaster for him, Joe hasn’t been a full-time in-ring performer in over two years due to concussion issues, layoffs, and re-hires. 

The last match he had was last year where he beat Karrion Kross to win the NXT Title at NXT TakeOver 36, but he after vacated the title, the reason was unknown, but now we know that it was because he tested positive for COVID-19. 

After that, he worked as a scout and coach in NXT before he was released by WWE in January. 

During an appearance on Busted Open Radio, Joe addressed his future in wrestling.

He said the following: “Since my departure from WWE, I’ve been consumed with outside work, outside of the wrestling industry. A lot of cool voice over work, been busy with that. As far as my future (in wrestling), I kind of started my road back to the ring in NXT. That road never really stopped, I just kept training. Being in the PC at the time with a lot of young talent, working with guys who are now…I want to put over some NXT talent.”

He pointed out some young wrestlers as The Creed Brothers, Solo Sikoa, and the currently NXT Champion Bron Breakker, highlighting that he was wishing on working with Breakker. 

Related to his in-ring future he added “We’re training. We’re ready. I’m not on paper with anybody, anywhere, we haven’t signed anything. We’re just kind of exploring our options.”  He continued “I’m not really engaged with anybody or exploring that. I’ve been consumed with my other work, which has been nice, we’re now getting back to pro wrestling and seeing where we go from here.”

Samoa stated that for now, he is taking some personal time but the possibility of him returning to the ring is on the table, and he also does not rule out the idea of reaching AEW or another great promotion. 

H/T to Fightful for the transcription

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Announced through a press release by ROH, they had announced that CM Punk will be joining the inaugural class of the ROH Hall of Fame, joining Samoa Joe, The Briscoes and Bryan Danielson.

CM Punk joined ROH back in 2002 and rose through the company through his use of his spectacular mic-skills and wrestling ability. Punk would feud with many others in ROH from Bryan Danielson to Raven in a destructive dog collar match. Punk would win the ROH Tag Team Tiles as the “Second City Saints” with Colt Cabana and eventually win the ROH World Championship, eventually leading into the notorious “Summer of Punk” storyline in ROH before Punk would depart to head to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

After his departure from wrestling back in 2014, Punk returned in All Elite Wrestling and in his return, promo would mention his time in ROH and look back on it with positive highlight. As well, Punk would appear in a video package at last year’s ROH: Final Battle, to highlight the old days of the company.

ROH will be releasing a highlight video of Punk’s career in ROH in the next few days before the hall of fame.

The post CM Punk Announced For ROH: Hall Of Fame appeared first on Wrestling Republic.

Former NXT Superstar: Karrion Kross has discussed about the hottest wrestler in the world……Hook.

Kross appeared on Highspots Sign It Live with fiancée Scarlett Bordeaux, in which he discussed many topics covering his time in NXT and the stars within AEW.

Kross first discussed wanting to drop the NXT title to Kyle O’Reilly:

“No, I don’t think Kyle O’Reilly is underrated, we were always talking about like it’s not up to us, but if like, if ideally, we wanted to lose the belt to anyone, we were actually hoping it was going to be Kyle O’Reilly because it would’ve complimented his story arc. He was supposed to be the one that kind of broke out of Undisputed. We were building in that direction. We just would have been cool. Like they had me undefeated for, you know, like over a year and for me to put him over clean to pass off all the momentum, I think that would have been the best-case scenario in our opinion.”

(H/T – Wrestlinginc.com)

Next, Kross would discuss his thoughts on Hook (Son of wrestling legend: Taz):

“Hook’s a great wrestler, I like Hook. Hook’s bad-ss. Send Hook every week.”

(H/T – Wrestlinginc.com)

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It seems the “Deathmatch King” has challenged a hardcore legend to a deathmatch.

Matt Cardona has had an eventful year from winning the GCW World Championship to appearing in many other promotions, now it seems Cardona is closing out the year with a challenge directed at Mick Foley to a deathmatch.

Matt Cardona would speak to Barstool Sports and talk about heading to Disneyland after winning the GCW title:

“I had all that bloody gear, bloody boots, and then TSA checked my bag and opened up my bag. It looked like I had murdered somebody, I just murdered his career. The next day I went to a nice little hotel in Los Angeles and took a nap. It was the Universal Studios hotel. Believe it or not, GCW doesn’t have a medical team. There was a, and I use the term loosely, a nurse backstage who stitched me up. She told me they were dissolvable. They were not. I ended up getting infected.”

(H/T – Wrestlinginc.com)

Then, Cardona discussed how he feels he had not been given credit for his work in deathmatch wrestling:

“F**k Mick Foley, That’s all I have to say. This guy, you’d think he’d be so proud of me. Fellow Long Islander, fellow death match king, but he’s turned his back on me. I don’t know what his deal is. I don’t know if it’s that I beat up his son-in-law Frank the Clown. I don’t know if he’s hot about that. I think he just needs to stop running his mouth. Right before I got released from WWE, my personal writer was Dewey Foley, Mick’s son. So, if Mick doesn’t shut the F**k up, I’m going to have Dewey Foley book me vs. Mick Foley in a death match, and of course I’m going to win.”

(H/T – Wrestlinginc.com)

Finally, Cardona talked about how the fans dictate how he acts within the squared circle:

“On these indie shows, I just stand there and I let the people dictate. Am I going to be a heel tonight, or am I going to be a babyface? I’m sure my opponent doesn’t like it, not knowing what kind of match we’re going to have, but that’s how I’ve been doing it, Sometimes total heel, sometimes total face, sometimes 50/50. It’s interesting because I haven’t really changed who I am. I’m a white meat babyface in my opinion. I don’t get why the GCW Universe doesn’t like me. I’m just there to help them. NWA? I’m just there to save NWA. When I was a six-year-old kid turning on NWA, I thought it sucked. I thought it was dated and boring. Even now I watch it, and it sucks. It’s old, dated, and boring. I’m there to help them out! That’s it. I want to be the face of the company. I want to help them. If they’re going to boo me, maybe that’ll change my attitude a little bit. Maybe I’ll throw up a middle finger every once in a while, but if they’re going to cheer me, I’ll slap those high fives,” Cardona continued. “It doesn’t change my move-set. It’s the same f**king moves. I’m not there to create f**king gifs. I’m there to create buzz and create dollar signs.”

(H/T – Wrestlinginc.com)

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It seems that there is zero interest from any major wrestling promotion to sign Alberto Del Rio.

Del Rio has had a negative light upon him after his run in WWE and Impact Wrestling as he has had may issues within his personal life. After all these issues, Del Rio has stated he has enough to return back to the squared circle. However, it seems that no major wrestling promotion is willing to take a chance in the former champion.

According to Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful, he spoke about the reaction he has heard from major wrestling promotions about the chance of signing Del Rio:

“I’ve spoken with people from WWE, MLW, Impact who say they either have no interest in bringing Del Rio in or would be shocked if it happens. AEW talent I’ve spoken to say they’ve never heard him mentioned as even possibly coming in.”

(H/T – Sportster.com)

This report comes with a link to a post from Fernando Salazar stating – “In 2022, Alberto is back in one of the three main companies in the United States.” It would also come of the comments made by Del Rio saying in a press conference, “If I go to AEW, I’ll be world champion. If I go to WWE, I’ll be world champion. If I go to IMPACT, I’ll be world champion.”

If Del Rio still has a desire to return to the ring, will be any company willing to welcome him to their roster?

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