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Paul London is a professional wrestler who was my absolute favorite back in the day. He was signed by the WWE at 22 and then ended up leaving. He’s been bouncing in and out of the indies ever since, but lately he has been back and doing some great work. He’s also, apparently, been working on this project where he is transported to another planet to fight an evil wizard as part of an ancient prophecy. I wrote about it at Ole.

There is a lot going on in the wrestling world right now – Chikara is back, WWE Network, Wrestlemania season, an indies renaissance, Cesaro taking over the world and releasing the greatest shirt in professional wrestling history – but few things have been as exciting and original as PAUL LONDON: HERO OF THE PROPHECY.

It’s my favorite kind of ridiculous and I can’t wait.

I wrote more about Daniel Bryan and WWE’s failed storytelling because I’m obsessed with it and it is ruining my life.

This was a classic “all is lost” moment for a hero. The moment that it seems like it’d be impossible for him to win which creates the need for him to win in the future. They set up a scenario in which the only satisfying ending would be for Daniel Bryan to get his revenge on these bad guys and win back his title. That’s how this HAS to end and we’ve reached a point in fandom where we won’t except anything else.

I bought my tickets to Wrestlemania in like July. I’ve been obsessed with the trip for months and for the last month I have just been dreading it and that is all because of WWE’s storytelling. They are ruining something that could have been a great time and I just don’t know what to do about it. It makes me sad.

I did a guest post at Voices of Wrestling about the Chikara comeback.

The events of National Pro Wrestling Day were probably the most well done thing I’ve seen in wrestling in a long time and are everything that I love about Chikara, but they should only be the groundwork for what is to come. After taking our thing away for so long Chikara needs to come back bigger and better than ever before. I hope they will. I believe they will.

When I was writing it I was saying a lot of things about the business of Chikara that maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I didn’t think about them deep enough or maybe I should’ve just kept them to myself. Chikara isn’t like WWE. It isn’t a corporation and they don’t really print money. If I write something negative about them the odds are that the people I am writing about will read it. (Especially when, in my humble opinion, I’m writing some of the best Chikara stuff on the internet.) It’s weird because I’m not trying to attack them, but it almost is. I mean, that’s why I did a guest post because I didn’t want to put something so critical on my own site. It was dumb. Because Chikara is one guy or it’s a few guys and I’ve met them and they’re cool guys so I feel bad. I want the best for them.

Anyway, since I posted that I’ve shared some emails with someone important in Chikara. They respected my opinions, but challenged me on them and clarified things that I misread. They also added some notes that made me think and now I need to write a whole new post.

In one of the crazier wrestling stories in recent memory CM Punk quit WWE right in the middle of the lead up to Wrestlemania. I covered this at Ole!, but I’ll say it again here: we really should have seen this coming. The guy in the Best in the World documentary and the guy who has been on TV the last few months share very little. The guy we’ve been seeing is nowhere near as cool and world beating as the guy in that documentary, this guy was just broken.

Yet despite his heart being anywhere but there, Punk was entrenched and so the build to Wrestlemania began with him in a big spot. In my opinion he didn’t deserve the story he was getting, Bryan did, but he was entrenched. He was the guy who used to be The Guy and thus he was a big enough star to need a big match on the big show. All this while not giving it his all which sort of made CM Punk into everything he was raging against once upon a time.

It’s easy to see why he quit, but it’s also kind of amazing that he did. He was set for a big Wrestlemania match which is a lot of money to leave on the table. I’m thinking he was telling the truth when he said that it wasn’t about the money. It’s just too bad that WWE couldn’t get out of their own way long enough to save one of the best talents they have.

Of course, with that being said there is a lot of great talent right behind him ready to take his place. Daniel Bryan, the Shield, Cesaro, Sami Zayn, the list goes on. WWE will be fine and the fans will be fine, but there will still be a CM Punk shaped hole in all of our hearts.

The Royal Rumble was tonight and I had a LOT OF THOUGHTS about it.

This is what WWE wanted. They wanted you to think Daniel Bryan would be in the match and then be mad when he wasn’t. The WWE creative team didn’t leave Daniel Bryan out of the Rumble match, “The Authority” did and if “The Authority” did it then whatever happened was part of the story. Did they want you to be mad? Yes. Did they want everyone to hate the Rumble and hate Rey Mysterio and hate Batista? No, at least I hope not, and here is where the problem lies: WWE did too good of a job of pissing you off.

I try really hard not to be Mr. Internet Wrestling Fan, but WWE seriously fucks with my heart when it comes to Daniel Bryan. He’s everything that is right about your company so why do you always have to make me hate your company in order to love him? Just let me love him.

I love Paul London

More talk about Daniel Bryan

Chikara is back

CM Punk has left the building

Royal Rumble Thoughts