WWE’s upcoming Saturday Night’s Main Event from Fort Wayne on May 23 has distributed 9,212 tickets so far, according to WrestleTix.
The event is part of WWE’s ongoing touring schedule for its Saturday night specials.
Stay tuned to BodySlam for more updates on matches and appearances to be announced.
AEW’s upcoming Double or Nothing pay-per-view has now distributed 13,736 tickets, according to updated data from WrestleTix.
This years show will take place live from Queens, NY – Louis Armstrong Stadium on Sunday May 24.
The event is one of AEW’s biggest annual shows and continues to show strong momentum at the box office as the pay-per-view draws closer. Ticket sales are expected to continue increasing in the final days leading up to the event. We are officially on sell out alert.
Double or Nothing has served as a cornerstone event for AEW since the company’s launch in 2019 and regularly features major championship matches.
Stay tuned to BodySlam for a complete card update soon.
Per WrestleTix, TNA Wrestling’s upcoming Slammiversary event has distributed 1,076 tickets ahead of the company’s June 28 show in Boston, Massachusetts.
The annual pay-per-view is one of TNA’s marquee events and is expected to feature several of the promotion’s top stars. The event will take place in the Boston market as the company continues its recent touring schedule across the United States.
Stay tuned to BodySlam for more updates on matches and appearances.
Jacob Fatu is the most compelling story in professional wrestling today. Not because of his bloodline, not because of his athleticism, or aggression, but because of where he started and what it took to get here. All Gas, No Brakes!
Not every wrestling story begins in a gym, or state of the art performance center. Jacob Fatu’s began in a jail cell at a young age.
At just 18 years old, Fatu was arrested for armed robbery and locked up in the Sacramento County Jail. Before you start to assume this is an attack against him via article, just know that he has never shied away from that fact, owning it in interviews the same way he owns everything else, directly and without excuse. He’s a man of his word, and doesn’t try to run from his past. Good family, good parents, bad decisions. The streets had him, and eventually the streets caught up with him.
The turning point came not from a counselor, a fellow cell mate or community program, but from a television set mounted on a dorm wall. There’s not much to do in that environment, so while flipping through channels one day, he stopped on a WWE broadcast and watched his cousins Jimmy and Jey Uso ( The Usos ) working a match. In that moment, something clicked. He has said that was the moment his mind was made up. But what truly broke him open was simpler and more painful than any epiphany he had. It was seeing his mother show up to that jail and put up her van to get him out. That image stuck with him in a way that no charge or sentence ever could.
He walked out with a decision already made. No more bullshit.
Rikishi, his uncle and a WWE Hall of Famer, took him in and started him from scratch in 2012. What followed was paying dues for years to come, with no fan acknowledgment. It’s just part of the business. Stuff you hear from all independent talent: The fatigue, small venues, long drives, shady promoters, and checks that barely covered gas. These roadblocks are common on the independent scene. The grind didn’t stop. Eventually, Fatu would pick up the APW Universal Heavyweight Championship in 2016, but the real education was just the repetition of showing up night after night and getting better.
Major League Wrestling changed that trajectory. He signed with MLW in 2019, aligned with manager Josef Samael, and built something genuinely menacing in the faction Contra Unit. On July 6 of that year he took the MLW World Heavyweight Championship from Tom Lawlor and held it for 819 days, a record in the promotion that still stands to this day. Fatu was a fighting champion. He defended it everywhere, against everyone, and by the end of that run there was no serious argument left about whether he belonged at the top level.
He had gone, as he put it himself, from looking out a jail cell window to looking out an airplane window. Fatu had wrestled for many promotions on the Independents. DEFY Wrestling, GCW, HOG and PCW Ultra just to name a few. He’s done them all.
WWE had looked at Fatu before. A tryout in 2016 went nowhere, and his criminal record kept the door closed for years after that. But he didn’t stop. When Triple H’s regime took over, the calculation changed. Fatu signed in April 2024 and word out of the locker room was immediate and consistent: respectful, professional, no issues whatsoever. He was really starting to show those in charge that he was not the man of his youth.
He debuted June 21, 2024, on SmackDown and wasted no time making an impression. Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton and Kevin Owens were all laid out before the segment was over. Solo Sikoa stood beside him. The Bloodline had a new and arguably most terrifying member. The vibes of a complete killer.
The in-ring debut came at Money in the Bank, a six-man tag alongside Sikoa and Tama Tonga. Then on Aug. 2, he and Tonga took the WWE Tag Team Championship off DIY, the team of Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa. He eventually gave up his half of the titles to serve full time as Sikoa’s enforcer, which was its own kind of statement about just how dominant he was expected to be.
What nobody fully anticipated was the crowd. He was written as a villain. The bad guy! The fans decided otherwise. His combination of size, athleticism and realness translated through the screen in a way that cannot be manufactured. The thing that brings people into liking Fatu is his authenticity. There’s nothing phony about him. Photo ops at fan events sell out. Interviews are instant hits, and his reactions in the stands and online are as good as it gets. The audience has effectively overruled the script.
After working through a physical feud with Braun Strowman that ended with a Last Man Standing victory, Fatu earned a United States Championship match against LA Knight at WrestleMania 41. On April 19, 2025, inside Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, he won it. First WrestleMania match, and he walks out with gold. This was his first singles title in WWE. The kind of night that reframes everything that came before it.
The reign ran 70 days before Solo Sikoa, with plenty of help, took it back at Night of Champions. Fatu responded by attacking Sikoa at Money in the Bank, walking away from The Bloodline altogether, and completing a babyface turn the audience had been quietly demanding for months. He was his own man. He then went to WrestleMania 42 and dismantled Drew McIntyre in an Unsanctioned Match. So far, Fatu is 2-0 at WrestleMania. Each chapter more serious than the last.
What is unfolding now between Fatu and Roman Reigns is the kind of program that does not need much decoration. The history writes itself.
Fatu has clarified publicly that the cousin label really undersells it. Reigns’ father Sika and Fatu’s grandmother are siblings, which technically makes Reigns his uncle. Big Unc Roman?! They are close enough in age that cousin became the shorthand, but the roots go deeper. This rivalry has a foundation most storylines spend years trying to manufacture.
Their first meeting, the main event of Backlash 2026 in Tampa, matched the weight of that background. Reigns found no clean answer for Fatu the entire match. The finish required exposing a turnbuckle, a desperate redirect and a spear to finally put him down. When it was over, Reigns looked into the camera and told Fatu he did not belong in the company and that the night was his last.
Nobody in that building believed him.
His wife was there during the worst of it, and now at the best. They have seven kids together now, and he has been consistent in crediting her as the reason the household functions at all while he is on the road.
The gratitude he carries is not limited to his family at home. He talks about the generations before him the way someone talks about a debt they genuinely want to repay. He has nothing but respect for those that came before him. Afa. High Chief Peter Maivia. The Tonga Kid. Rikishi. Yokozuna. The Usos. Roman Reigns. Each one put in years of road miles, blood, sweat and time away from their families so that the name meant something by the time Jacob Fatu got here. He has said plainly that none of this is about him. It is about the lineage.
That perspective is what makes his story land better than a standard redemption narrative. He is not just a man who turned his life around. He is a man who understands exactly why it mattered that he did, and who he owed it to. That last name is something that should be taken serious, and held to a high standard, and Jacob sure is doing so.
Roman Reigns may have left Tampa with the title. But Jacob Fatu left with something harder to take away: momentum, credibility, and the quiet understanding shared by everyone in that arena, and at home, that the World Heavyweight Championship has a larger and bright red target on it. A man who once watched his family on a jail cell television, who worked overnight shifts at Walmart, who was told by email that he did not have what it takes, is now the most dangerous person in the biggest wrestling company on the planet. The next chapter has not been written yet, but if the first 33 years of Jacob Fatu’s life have proven anything, it is that he tends to write it himself.
There’s a reason people who “don’t even watch wrestling” know who Stone Cold Steve Austin is. Or why a match from 1987 still gets referenced in think pieces today. The best feuds in pro wrestling aren’t just about two guys fighting — they’re about conflict, identity, and the kind of storytelling that gets under your skin whether you want it to or not.
These are the ten rivalries that did exactly that.
WWF, 1986-1987
Before anyone had figured out what a truly great wrestling match could look like, Randy Savage and Ricky Steamboat sat down and essentially invented it. The setup was simple and vicious: Savage drove Steamboat’s throat into the guardrail, then dropped a ring bell onto his larynx from the top rope, putting him out of action. From that moment on, the crowd wanted revenge in the worst way.
What they got at WrestleMania III — in front of 93,173 fans packed into the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan — was 14 minutes and 35 seconds of pure, breathless wrestling, complete with 22 pin attempts and almost no wasted movement. Steamboat won the Intercontinental title and stole the show from a card headlined by Hogan and Andre the Giant. Savage himself later said that everywhere he went, fans brought up this match above all others. Thirty-plus years later, they still do.
Independent Circuit / NXT / WWE, 2002–Present
Most feuds have a beginning and an end. This one just keeps finding new chapters.
Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens first fought each other in 2002 in IWS, a small Canadian indie promotion, and went on to tear apart PWG, Ring of Honor, NXT, and WWE across the next two decades. What makes it work is that it’s never just about the belt or the spot on the card — it’s about two people who genuinely know each other too well. The betrayals hit harder because the friendship was real. The reunions feel earned because you’ve watched them earn it.
By the time they stumbled into an unlikely tag team championship run together — partly as a result of Zayn’s absurd infiltration of The Bloodline — the whole thing had taken on a dimension no writer could have planned. No modern feud has more history or more heart.
WWE, 2006–2009
Edge and Cena didn’t like each other, and it showed. Edge was the guy who would cash in a Money in the Bank briefcase at 2 in the morning on a wounded champion — which he literally did — while Cena was the company’s straight-laced golden boy who couldn’t be bought or bent. The contrast was perfect.
What elevated this beyond a standard good-vs.-evil feud was that Edge was genuinely compelling as the villain, not just cartoonishly evil. He was smart, petty, and opportunistic in ways that felt real. Their TLC matches were some of the most brutal and athletic spectacles of the era, and the feud had enough twists and title changes to sustain multiple years without feeling tired. It’s a rivalry that holds up much better than people give it credit for.
EVERYWHERE – NEVER ENDED REALLY
Before WWE dominated everything, American wrestling was a patchwork of regional territories — and the NWA produced some of the most sustained, genuinely emotional feuds the business has ever seen. The crown jewel of that era was Ric Flair against Dusty Rhodes.
The contrast couldn’t have been sharper. Flair was all private jets, designer robes, and championship gold — a man born to make you despise him. Dusty was the “American Dream,” a heavyset guy from the Carolinas who talked and fought for everyday working people. It was class warfare turned into pro wrestling, and arenas sold out for it night after night for over a decade. This feud is the reason the NWA still means something to people who weren’t even alive to see it.
WWE, 2011–2013
On June 27, 2011, CM Punk sat cross-legged at the top of the entrance ramp and delivered what became known as “the Pipe Bomb” — a promo that blurred the line between scripted television and genuine grievance so completely that even some media outlets weren’t sure what they’d just watched. Nothing in the promo was scripted by WWE writers. Punk was saying what he actually thought, with permission to say it on live TV, and it showed.
Their match at Money in the Bank 2011 in Chicago — Punk’s hometown — was a five-star classic according to Dave Meltzer, the first WWE match to receive that rating since 1997. The atmosphere was unlike anything seen in years: 15,000 fans treating Cena like the villain and Punk like a returning hero. Punk won the title, walked out of the arena, and posed for photos on the street with his friends. For a moment, it felt like anything could happen in WWE. That feeling is rarer than it should be.
WWF/WWE, 1997–2010
This one hits home. I was at the age where I still thought wrestling was real. No feud in WWE history has a better origin story. For months in 1997, Paul Bearer — Undertaker’s long-time manager — hinted at a dark secret: that Undertaker had started a fire as a child that killed his parents and his younger brother Kane. Then, during the very first Hell in a Cell match at Badd Blood: In Your House in October 1997, the lights went out, the arena turned red, and out walked a 7-foot masked monster in red and black. Kane ripped the cell door clean off its hinges, stood face-to-face with his brother, and Tombstoned him — costing Undertaker the match.
What followed was one of the most gothic, emotionally rich storylines WWE has ever produced. Undertaker initially refused to fight his own brother no matter what Kane did to provoke him — and Kane did plenty, including burning a casket with Undertaker inside it at the 1998 Royal Rumble. When they finally met at WrestleMania XIV, it took Undertaker three Tombstone Piledrivers to put Kane away. Their first Inferno match followed shortly after. Then a brief, uneasy alliance. Then betrayal again.
The feud never truly ended — it just kept finding new reasons to restart, spanning more than a decade of feuds, tag title runs, Buried Alive matches, and Hell in a Cell rematches. The in-ring quality was inconsistent, but as a piece of long-form storytelling driven by two iconic characters and one of wrestling’s greatest managers in Paul Bearer, it has no equal. Kane’s debut alone is considered by many the greatest character introduction in wrestling history.
WWF, 1992–1997
The real heat between these two made everything better and everything more volatile. Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels genuinely could not stand each other — their professional jealousy, their clashing personalities, their competing visions of what wrestling should be — and all of it ended up on screen whether it was meant to or not.
What they produced together was extraordinary. Their 61 minute Iron Man Match at WrestleMania XII is still talked about today. And then came Montreal in November 1997, where Vince McMahon had the referee ring the bell while Bret was still locked in the Sharpshooter, costing him the title on his last night in WWE. It wasn’t a storyline. It actually happened. Bret didn’t know it was coming. The look on his face when he realized it was real is one of the most haunting images in wrestling history. No rivalry has ever ended quite so messily, or been quite so impossible to look away from
WWF, 1997–2003
They headlined WrestleMania together three times — at XV, XVII, and XIX — and each match felt like the biggest possible version of itself. The Rock and Steve Austin had the kind of chemistry that makes everything look effortless: the timing, the crowd manipulation, the ability to take a moment and stretch it until the whole building was vibrating.
Austin was the blue-collar brawler from Texas. The Rock was the arrogant, preening Hollywood star who happened to be one of the greatest talkers the business has ever produced. Together they carried the Attitude Era to its highest peaks and gave WWF the ammunition it needed to finally pull ahead of WCW in the ratings. Austin’s last match for 19 years was against The Rock at WrestleMania XIX in 2003. They could have phoned it in. They didn’t.
NJPW / AEW, 2017–Present
This feud didn’t just produce great matches — it changed the wrestling business.
Kenny Omega had just become the first foreigner to win New Japan’s prestigious G1 Climax tournament when he challenged Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship at Wrestle Kingdom 11 in January 2017. What followed earned a record-breaking six-star rating from Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer, who called it one of the greatest matches in the history of professional wrestling. Across four bouts in NJPW — accumulating more than 200 minutes of combined match time — the two men established a standard for in-ring work that genuinely had not existed before. New Japan’s subscriber numbers spiked after Wrestle Kingdom 11 alone. The buzz from this rivalry drew new audiences to wrestling worldwide and helped lay the creative groundwork for AEW’s founding. Their rematch at Dominion 6.9 in 2018 received seven stars from Meltzer — a number that felt impossible until it wasn’t.
In terms of pure in-ring achievement, nothing in the 21st century comes close.
WWF, 1997–2003
It started on September 22, 1997, when Austin hit McMahon with a Stunner on Raw — a moment described as “previously unthinkable” because McMahon had simply been the voice of the company until that point. Nobody expected the owner to become a character. Nobody expected the character to work this well.
The genius of Austin vs. McMahon is that it didn’t require any suspension of disbelief. Every working person in America already knew what it felt like to have a boss who made their life a misery for no good reason. McMahon was that boss — pompous, vindictive, and desperate to control something he couldn’t quite break. Austin was the guy who refused to be broken, who showed up every week and did exactly what McMahon told him not to, and drank a beer over his boss’s limp body while the crowd lost its mind.
This feud helped WWE survive the Monday Night Wars. It made Austin arguably the most popular professional wrestler who ever lived. It produced television so compelling that even people who’d never watched wrestling were tuning in to see what happened next. Some feuds are great wrestling. Some feuds are great entertainment. Every once in a while, you get one that’s genuinely great storytelling — and this is the best example the business has ever produced.
The best wrestling feuds work because they tap into something universal — jealousy, betrayal, the need to prove yourself, the desire to see the underdog finally win. These ten rivalries did all of that and then some.
ALL OPINIONS ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR
NXT has served as WWE’s proving ground since 2012, transforming from a simple developmental territory into one of the most critically acclaimed brands in professional wrestling history. What began as a place to polish raw talent evolved into a full-fledged promotion capable of stealing the show from Raw and SmackDown on any given night. The black and gold brand produced some of the most compelling characters, feuds and in-ring performances the industry has seen in the past two decades. These are the 10 wrestlers who defined it.
Bayley joined NXT in 2013 with a lovable fangirl persona and quickly became the emotional center of the brand’s women’s division. Her underdog story resonated with audiences in a way few babyface runs ever have, and her TakeOver: Brooklyn match against Banks is still regarded as a landmark moment for women’s wrestling in WWE.
The Queen of Spades was the dominant heel champion of the 2017–2019 era, becoming a two-time NXT Women’s Champion with a combined 549 days holding the title. Baszler’s MMA credibility gave her character an authenticity that made every title defense feel genuinely dangerous, and her 416-day second reign was the longest single women’s title reign in brand history.
Nakamura was a serious threat for NXT when he arrived in 2016, one of the biggest stars in the world not working in WWE at the time. His roughly 15 months on the brand produced two NXT Championship reigns and wrestling clinics with Samoa Joe and Bobby Roode. His debut match against Sami Zayn remains one of the greatest in NXT history.
Zayn became the ultimate babyface for NXT, pouring his heart into everything with his unmatched selling ability and delivering incredible feuds against Kevin Owens and Tyler Breeze. His NXT Title win over Neville — after vowing to leave NXT if he lost — stands as one of the most memorable moments in brand history.
Banks was the sharpest of the Four Horsewomen from the start, possessing the most defined character and delivering memorable matches that brought a new level of attention to NXT’s women’s division. Her 2015 rivalry with Bayley over the NXT Women’s Championship is still cited as one of the greatest feuds in brand history. She later returned for a celebrated tag team run that only added to her legacy.
Balor holds the longest combined NXT Championship reign in history at 504 days, and his Demon King persona gave NXT a supernatural, big-match identity it had never had before. He defended the title against the likes of Samoa Joe and Shinsuke Nakamura, cementing his status as one of the all-time greats on the brand.
Ciampa rose from an undercard wrestler to become the face of the brand, working in one of the best tag teams in NXT history before delivering what many consider the greatest heel turn the show has ever seen. He held both the NXT Championship and the NXT Tag Team Championship and picked up three Year-End Awards throughout his career.
The Empress of Tomorrow reigned supreme over the NXT Women’s division, becoming the longest-reigning champion in brand history with a 510-day title reign. She went her entire NXT career without losing a single match and took home three NXT Year-End Awards. No women’s wrestler in NXT history dominated her division as thoroughly or as long.
Cole is the longest single-reigning NXT Champion at 403 days and led the Undisputed Era, widely regarded as the greatest faction in NXT history. From his earth-shattering debut at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn III, he delivered countless classics against the likes of Gargano, Ciampa and Pete Dunne. He was the inaugural North American Champion and the second-ever Triple Crown champion in NXT.
Often called the heart and soul of NXT, Gargano became the first Triple Crown champion in brand history, holding the NXT, North American and Tag Team titles. His years long feud with Tommaso Ciampa, from beloved tag partners to bitter rivals, produced some of the greatest matches in NXT history. He also earned five NXT Year-End Awards over the course of his career. Johnny Wrestling makes the top of a very stacked list.
Agree or disagree? Let me know!
ALL OPINIONS ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR
She stumbled into professional wrestling at a punk-rock show in Vienna when she was 19 years old. Now, at 33, Thekla is the AEW Women’s World Champion.
There is a version of this story where Thekla Kaischauri never makes it. Where the girl from Vienna with the punk band and the fine arts degree stays on that side of the world, making paintings and playing guitar, and professional wrestling remains just a strange thing she once stumbled into at a show.
That version does not exist. It never really had a chance.
Born April 30, 1993, in Vienna, Austria, Thekla holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She describes herself as a creative kid who tried everything — comics, guitar, painting — before finding her true calling in the most unexpected of venues.
She stumbled into her first taste of wrestling at a local punk-rock show at age 19 and swiftly became obsessed with the bizarre nature of what she witnessed. That obsession would reshape the rest of her life.
She began her wrestling journey in 2017 in Vienna’s underground scene — a world of pub basements, no ropes and loosely enforced rules that bore little resemblance to mainstream professional wrestling. Her first match in a traditional ring did not come until April 2018, when she competed for Independent Pro Wrestling Germany in Lübeck. Her unconventional entry into the business turned out to be an asset. Having not grown up immersed in wrestling history, she developed a style and character drawn from a far wider range of influences — art, music, punk culture — giving her a creative freedom that more traditionally trained wrestlers rarely possess.
If Vienna gave Thekla a foundation, Japan built the house.
She considers herself Japan-bred, having worked within the wrestling-obsessed country as early as late 2017. Being the only foreigner in promotions stacked with elite talent forced rapid development. She did not speak the language at first, and the culture surrounding professional wrestling was unlike anything she had encountered in Europe. The crucible made her.
In late 2021, Thekla made the leap to World Wonder Ring Stardom, where she worked alongside bigger names such as Giulia and Mina Shirakawa. She competed there through 2025, becoming one of the few high-profile gaijin — foreign wrestlers — to establish herself meaningfully in Japanese women’s wrestling.
Her time in Japan was not limited to the ring. During her years in Tokyo, Thekla exhibited her artwork in three solo exhibitions, including one at the Austrian Embassy in Tokyo — a reminder that the artist and the athlete were never far apart.
Thekla officially completed her contractual obligations with Stardom following the promotion’s All-Star Grand Queendom event on April 27, 2025. Her departure was marked by a storyline firing angle after her match, providing a definitive end to her successful run there.
The American wrestling market came calling quickly. Reports indicated that WWE had its eye on her and that All Elite Wrestling had developed significant interest toward the end of 2024. She chose AEW, making her on-screen debut May 28, 2025, on Dynamite.
What separates Thekla from the rest of the AEW women’s roster is not just her background — it is how all of that background manifests the moment she steps through the curtain.
She carries herself with the effortless menace of someone who has nothing left to prove and everything left to take. Her in-ring style is chaotic and precise in equal measure — limb-targeting submissions wound around spider-like movement, sudden bursts of violence punctuated by a cold, unhurried composure that makes her more unsettling than any screaming heel on the roster. She does not chase the crowd’s reaction. She makes the crowd chase her.
The nickname fits. The Toxic Spider does not brawl. She traps.
The payoff came on Feb. 11, 2026, when Thekla defeated Kris Statlander in a strap match on Dynamite to capture the AEW Women’s World Championship. She is now the reigning champion and a member of the Triangle of Madness stable alongside Julia Hart and Skye Blue.
The stable also represented AEW in the CMLL Grand Prix de Amazonas at Arena Mexico in October 2025, marking Thekla’s lucha libre debut and underscoring the global footprint she has built across three continents.
For fans who are only now discovering her, the career arc speaks for itself — from a punk show in Vienna, to the dojos of Tokyo, to the top of one of America’s premier wrestling promotions. She did not take the expected road. She did not take any road at all. She carved through the wilderness on her own terms, and now she stands at the summit holding a championship that looks like it was made for her. Maybe it was.
A finishing move can end a match. A great promo can end a career — or launch one into the stratosphere. These 10 wrestlers understood something most never fully grasp: in professional wrestling, the microphone is the most dangerous weapon in the building.
AEW • 2019–PRESENT
Maxwell Jacob Friedman is the best heel talker of his generation and the strongest argument that elite mic work is not a relic of a previous era. MJF is clearly a student of the game. His promos are technically constructed with the precision of a trained writer — knowing exactly when to go personal, when to break kayfabe and when to let the crowd’s hatred fuel the next sentence. Just recent turning 30, MJF has already produced promo work that belongs in the same conversation as the legends above him on this list. You can see bits and pieces from the rest of the field in his work
WCW / WWE • 1989–2003
Stone Cold Steve Austin’s mic work was deceptively simple — short sentences, blue collar attitude and a consistent philosophical code about beer, stubbornness and not taking orders. That simplicity was pure genius, because every word Austin said felt like something a real person in the audience would actually think or want to say themselves. His promos didn’t just over deliver on crowd reaction; they created a cultural identity that resonated far beyond wrestling fans. Add in the raspy Texas accent and 99% of the time you could feel his words.
WWE • 2000–2025
John Cena’s mic work is one of the most underrated in wrestling history, largely because his babyface run drew so much heat that fans overlooked how technically accomplished he was at promos. His rap-influenced early character gave him a comedic edge and quick wittedness that few main event stars of his era could match. When Cena went serious — particularly in feuds with CM Punk and The Rock — he consistently delivered the kind of composed, layered promo work that belongs in any legitimate conversation about the best talkers of his generation.
ECW / WCW / WWE • 1987–PRESENT
Paul Heyman is the closest thing to a pure orator professional wrestling has ever produced — a man who could take the most absurd premise and present it with the conviction of a closing argument before a jury. As both a performer and an advocate for Brock Lesnar, he demonstrated that great mic work is fundamentally about persuasion, not volume. His promos don’t just sell matches; they reframe the entire narrative around his client as inevitable and undeniable.
NWA / WCW / WWE • 1975–2011
Roddy Piper was the original unpredictable — a man who could shift from hilarious to genuinely unnerving in a single sentence, and frequently did. His Piper’s Pit segments set the template for the wrestling talk show format precisely because he could not be scripted into a corner; he found the live wire in every exchange and grabbed it with both hands. Piper’s gift was making everyone around him seem like they were improvising just to keep up.
WWE / WCW / INDIES • 1974–2018
Where most wrestlers screamed to get their point across, Jake Roberts whispered — and arenas went dead silent. His mic work was psychological rather than theatrical, built on menace, metaphor and the unsettling calm of a man who had already decided what he was going to do to you. Roberts proved that restraint could be more terrifying than anything a louder wrestler could offer.
WWE • 1996–PRESENT
The Rock turned catchphrases into cultural currency and crowd work into an art form, operating on a comedic timing and rhythm that most stand-up comedians would envy. His genius was making the audience feel like participants rather than spectators — his call-and-response style gave arenas of 20,000 people the illusion they were having a private conversation with him. No wrestler before or since has crossed over into mainstream entertainment on the strength of mic work alone quite like Dwayne Johnson did.
ROH / WWE / AEW • 2002–PRESENT
CM Punk’s 2011 “pipe bomb” promo remains the most electrifying unscripted moment in modern wrestling, but it was no accident — it was the product of a career built on sharp, specific and brutally honest mic work. Punk spoke with the controlled rage of someone who actually meant every single word, which made him uniquely credible in an era of polished corporate promos. Even his detractors concede that when the microphone was in his hand, you could not change the channel.
NWA / WCW / WWE • 1974–2010
The American Dream spoke directly to working-class audiences in a way no other wrestler in history has managed to replicate. His promos were loose, rambling and deeply emotional — yet somehow always landed exactly where they needed to. Dusty turned vulnerability into a superpower, and crowds didn’t just cheer for him; they believed him.
NWA / WCW / WWE • 1972–2011
No one in wrestling history combined volume, charisma and pure spectacle the way Ric Flair did every time he grabbed a microphone. His promos were operatic performances — part carnival barker, part Shakespearean villain — delivered with a conviction that made every word feel like gospel. Whether he was bragging about limousine rides and jet plane flights or begging for mercy on his knees, Flair was incapable of giving a dull moment. I’m sure if you asked all men ranked behind him, they would agree he would be #1.
ALL OPINIONS ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR
As WWE continues to grow into a global powerhouse, the conversation around how its talent is classified and treated is becoming harder to ignore. Record gates, but then talent asked to take larger than life pay cuts—really? The company is thriving financially, driven by media rights deals, premium live events and international expansion. Yet the structure surrounding its performers has remained largely unchanged for decades.
WWE talent are labeled as independent contractors, but their day-to-day reality tells a different story. Wrestlers operate on company schedules, follow creative direction and often face restrictions on outside opportunities. WWE is in control. That level of control more closely resembles traditional employment, but without the same protections. It is a contradiction that has lingered over the industry for years, and one that feels increasingly outdated in a modern corporate landscape.
Under TKO Group Holdings, WWE has become even more aligned with big business practices. The company is now part of a larger publicly traded entity with clear financial expectations. That shift has brought stability and growth, but it has also highlighted the imbalance between ownership and talent. In most major industries, that kind of imbalance is addressed through collective bargaining. In wrestling, it still is not.
The physical demands of the profession make the issue much more urgent. Professional wrestlers combine athletic performance with live entertainment, often working through injuries while maintaining a relentless travel schedule. The work load has lessened up, sure, but the risk is still there. Unlike athletes in the NFL or NBA, WWE performers do not have a union to negotiate standardized healthcare, pensions or long-term support. Each contract is handled individually, which limits leverage and creates inconsistency across the roster.
Unionization would provide a framework for addressing those concerns. It could establish baseline protections such as injury protocols, legitimate minimum contract standards and clearer guidelines around scheduling. It would also give talent a collective voice when it comes to working conditions and compensation. For an industry built on individual stardom, that kind of unity has always been difficult to achieve, but it may now be necessary.
Past attempts to organize have not succeeded. The most well-known effort came from Jesse Ventura in the 1980s, when he pushed for a union among WWE talent. The idea never gained enough traction, reportedly due to internal resistance and fear of retaliation. Thanks, Hulkster! That moment has become part of wrestling lore, often cited as a missed opportunity for long-term change. Each year that passes feels like the chance of unionization is impossible.
The environment today is different. Wrestlers are more aware of their value, both as performers and as brands. Social media has given them direct access to fans and a platform to speak openly about their experiences. There is also more competition in the industry, with promotions like All Elite Wrestling offering alternative paths for top talent. That competition may not be enough to shift the balance of power on its own, but it does create leverage that did not exist in previous eras. Leverage is key.
Critics of unionization often point to the unique nature of professional wrestling. They argue that adding structure could limit creative flexibility or slow down decision-making. Wrestling thrives on spontaneity, and the ability to adjust storylines quickly is part of its appeal. Those concerns are valid, but they are not unique to wrestling. Other major sports leagues operate under union agreements while still producing compelling, unpredictable content.
The larger issue is sustainability. As WWE continues to expand, the expectations placed on its performers are only increasing. Without a system that provides consistent protections, the gap between the company’s success and the talent’s security will continue to grow. Unionization would not eliminate every challenge, but it would create a foundation for addressing them in a more balanced way. You can’t have futuristic and record breaking numbers, but the treatment of workers is similar to those from the 80’s. It’s outdated.
For now, the idea remains more discussion than reality. Organizing a roster of independent-minded performers is no small task, and the risks are real. Most talent are afraid to speak out, due to fear of being blackballed. Those are real things. But as the industry evolves, so does the conversation. WWE has never been bigger. The question is whether its talent will remain on the outside of that growth, or finally come together to claim a voice within it.
Support Independent Contractors
If the reports about TKO pushing major talent to take 50 percent pay cuts are true, it is hard to see this as anything but a self-inflicted problem.
A recent report circulating online via PWInsider claims that a “pretty major” pushed star was asked to take a 50 percent cut and agreed to it. The name has not been confirmed, but the timing raised eyebrows, coming just before news involving Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods made headlines. Even without full confirmation, the idea alone is enough to send a message.
And it is not a good one.
WWE has spent years presenting itself as a booming global brand. Massive TV deals. The big leagues. Packed arenas. Record-setting revenue. We hear it nearly every single PLE, and especially during WrestleMania. That does not line up with cutting your talents salary in half. You cannot sell growth while quietly asking the roster to take less. Fans notices this immediately. That contradiction is impossible to ignore.
Inside the locker room, a move like that changes everything. Wrestlers are already covering travel, gear, training and often medical costs as independent contractors. Their pay is not just income, it is what keeps the job sustainable. It’s what helps them be presented as the superstars that they are. Slashing their pay that much is not just business. It is personal. Not every wrestler you see on television live the luxurious lives as the top of the card main event talent. There are no private jets, no larger than life tour buses, and no entourage of staff to help with daily necessities.
It also comes at a time when talent actually has options. All Elite Wrestling is established. International promotions are viable. The independent scene is active. This is not an era where WWE can assume everyone will just stay put. Look at Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods for example.
We have seen what happens when leverage shifts. During the Monday Night Wars, competition drove salaries up because talent had choices. If pay cuts like this are real, WWE is handing that leverage right back.
The bigger issue is value. WWE is built on its performers. If those performers start to feel like they are being treated as replaceable, it shows. Morale sinks. Energy drops. Performances suffer. The product feels it. The fans feel it.
Maybe there is more to the story. Maybe nothing this extreme becomes policy. But even the perception of it is damaging. Does TKO care about the outrage on the internet? No. The WWE machine will continue on.
You cannot build a stronger company by telling your talent they are worth less.
The power should be with the talent, and hopefully more of them develop a spine like Kingston and Woods.