The John Report Wrestling Blog

Canton’s Corner: The Wrestling Week in Review – February 4
By John Canton
Follow me on Twitter at @johnreport

Welcome to Canton’s Corner. It was a good week of wrestling on TV this week. I thought Raw was excellent while both Smackdown and TNA Impact Wrestling were above average this week too. I’ll cover all three of those, plus the usual polls, video, Melo Out and other things you’ve come to expect from Canton’s Corner. It’s the Super Bowl on Sunday. If you follow me on Twitter you know I’m a huge NFL fan, even more than I am a wrestling fan. Before I get to the wrestling part of the column, I need to share my pick.

Read more…

 Hello everyone, and welcome to the 5th, 3rd, 80th whatever Smacking Of Smackdown review. In lieu of asking you to leave a comment below after you read these carefully crafted words, I would ask you to send a fruit basket or maybe a flower arraignment instead. If that’s a little to inconvenient for you, then I suppose a comment will do.

Alright, let’s smack your cares away! (Great, I thought I finally found a catchphrase but now I have the “Fraggle Rock” theme song stuck in my head. That’s going to be there all day.)

Read more…

On The Aire: Selective Hearing
By Mike Aires

Last Friday’s column, besides being about awesome and horrible characters, featured my picks for the Royal Rumble pay-per-view.  I was fairly close on my predictions for the entire show, minus a couple of minor things here and there.  Cena and Kane going at it outside of the ring (right by a TJR sign, no less) to a Double Disqualification was fairly predictable.  The World Heavyweight Championship went about as planned, as did the WWE Championship match.  The Rumble, however, was a big freaking curve ball.

Read more…

Friday Headlines: World Peace Achieved! Poverty Eliminated! Cruiserweights Return!

Yes it’s true, ladies and gentlemen. Peace on Earth has finally been achieved…oh… it hasn’t? Crap. Well, that’s too bad, but I have better news than that for the .00283F5% of the world’s people that make up the wrestling smark population. PWInsider is reporting that WWE is currently working on a brand new series for the WWE Network that would be focused solely on cruiserweight wrestlers. I have to say that this must be stopped. This is just the beginning. First it’s cruiserweights, but then along comes Judy Bagwell. After her, Rick Steiner shows up and starts arguing with the Chucky doll. Then Kevin Nash shows up and…well, he just acts like Kevin Nash and before you know it the Mayan prophecies are fulfilled and WCW has returned!

Read more…

The Midweek Breakdown: The 10 Count
By Cody Dodson

Ladies and gentlemen, the funk is on a roll, there are too many limes for lobster heads, and the Deadman is back complete with new curled hair action. This is the Midweek Breakdown, and I am your ever so grateful host, Cody Dodson. I want to thank everybody who read last week’s column and left me feedback on the “10 thoughts” format. The feedback was very positive, and it seemed that most of you would rather hear read me ramble a little bit about a lot of things instead of ramble a lot about one thing. I enjoyed writing the column as well. It was over 500 words longer than my normal writing and I didn’t even notice. I’ve decided to make it a regular feature that I will call “The 10 Count.” I’d like to thank the bossman himself, Big Johnny Canton, for that title. I won’t be doing it every week, but it will definitely appear pretty often on Wednesdays as long as you continue to enjoy it. Without further adieu, let’s get started with this week’s 10 Count!

Read more…

Worst Royal Rumble Ever?
By Matt Seagull

I’ve been watching professional wrestling for more than 20 years now, and my favorite night of the year has always been the Royal Rumble. I look forward to the Rumble like a child looks forward to Christmas, mostly because like Christmas, it only comes once a year. In an age where a Last Man Standing match may be as common as a six man tag, I cherish a match that comes along so rarely. From a writing standpoint, the Rumble kicks off the Road to Wrestlemania, so the main event matches start their build around this time (which has unfortunately been made moot this year with the main event being announced a year in advance). But most of all, I love the Rumble so much because no matter how much I complain about the creative direction of the company, the Rumble is the one show that is impossible to mess up. Or so I thought…

Read more…

Monday Headlines: Shane Douglas is Completely Delusional

By Jacob Lindsey

Shane Douglas recently did an interview where he talked about his Extreme Reunion show on April 28 in Philadelphia, PA. This isn’t just a reunion show, but a revival of the spirit of ECW in a new promotion that will be led by the Target hardlines manager (or whatever) himself. Uuuuuuuggggggggghhhhhhhh. Read more…

WWE Royal Rumble
St. Louis, Missouri
January 29, 2012
By John Canton (Twitter @johnreport)

They aired a video package hyping that the winner of the Royal Rumble gets to go to WrestleMania. Lots of people do, but for now we should only believe the winner does.

Read more…

Hello chumps and chumpettes, and welcome to another edition of The Smacking Of WWE Smackdown. I expected this review to go up a lot earlier, but that was before I hyperextended my knee and everyone started swinging chairs at each other.

So are you ready to get smacked up and then lay around for a while and not really do anything? I know I am! (Oh God, I forgot. That’s heroin abuse. I really wish this thing came with a delete key.)

Read more…

WWE Royal Rumble 2012 Preview
By John Canton, Andrew Johnson & Christian Michael

John Canton: I’ve always loved the Royal Rumble pay per view. I showed that love last year when I recapped every Royal Rumble match. The concept of the match is wonderful. Even if you think you know what might happen, there’s always a very good chance that something crazy will happen. I didn’t think Cena would win in 2008 or Edge in 2010 because they both made surprise returns. Could there be a surprise winner this year? You never know. The sad thing about the Rumble is that the winner doesn’t really get to “main event” WrestleMania anymore (especially this year), but it’s still one of my favorite matches and I know I’m going to enjoy it like I do every year. Right now there are only four announced matches. I’d expect some kind of midcard match to be added as a buffer to some of the big ones on the card, but I’m not going to guess what they will be.

Read more…

Welcome true believers to this week’s sin-tastic review. Smackdown hailed from lovely land of broken dreams Las Vegas last night, so you know what that means; roulette wheel filled with gimmicky matches and lots of “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” comments. Let’s get to it, shall we?

It’s time to SMACK YOU IN YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH. (Wow. Just… I thought that I needed a catchphrase with a little more oomph. That wasn’t oomph, it was just… mean. I’m so sorry guys. That was uncalled for. Friends?)

Read more…

Hello lasses and fellows. Welcome to this week’s smacking of WWE Smackdown. We’ve got a lot to go over this week, so let’s skip the part where I ask you to leave a comment below to express your love/disdain of this column and get right into the meat and potatoes of this thing.

It’s time to smack it around a little bit and see what happens! (This is getting sad. I should have come up with a catchphrase by now that doesn’t allude to some sort of masturbatory phrasing. You’d think I’d be better at this. Surprise, I’m not.)

Read more…