On March 31st Major League Wrestling ran their Intimidation Games show in Dallas as one of the multiple companies capitalizing on WrestleMania weekend. However, the big angle on the show, which was meant to build LA Park vs. Jaco Fatu, went awry when LA Park, LA Park Jr., and El Hijo de LA Park would legitimately beat up both Jacob Fatu and Alex Hammerstone as part of a run in. This left the duo needing medical assistance after the show.

Now the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Newsletter has reported all three members of the LA Park family were fired, and future plans, including those for the following day’s MLW Azteca Underground show, had to be changed. As of writing, it isn’t known why the incident occurred, although the family has been called out previously for going off script when in 2019, they brutally whipped an unsuspecting referee at a Defy Wrestling show in Seattle.

Given this latest incident and the fact that the trio charges five figures to wrestle, it is very likely they will struggle to get bookings in the United States going forward. Nevertheless, with LA Park being such a massive star in Mexico, promoters there will likely overlook this bad behavior, and given his tough-guy reputation, few of his opponents will ever fight back.

This time last year, Braun Strowman was still a WWE Superstar, and it looked like he’d be a fixture of the company for many years to come. Nevertheless, his high-earning contract resulted in WWE releasing him when they decided to make budget cuts, so he now finds himself working in front of a crowd of just 150 fans for Control Your Narrative and arguing with fans on social media.

However, this past weekend, he embarrassed himself on Twitter after a fan complimented CYN by calling them “based,” which means being yourself and not caring what others think. Seemingly not understanding what this meant, Strowman would fire back at the fan by making an inappropriate comment about their mother.

For those unaware, Control Your Narrative is anti-establishment promotion created by EC3 and clearly styled after Fight Club. And while many believed it was a place for Strowman to work before resuming his career in a significant promotion again, he has apparently priced himself out of joining Impact Wrestling, and a recent tweet mocking AEW indicates they have no interest in him. Therefore CYN is his be-all and end-all unless WWE decides to give him another run, presumably with a much-reduced contract.

On Sunday, news broke that Shinjiro Otani was injured after taking a German suplex from Takashi Sugiura into the turnbuckle during the main event of Zero1’s anniversary show. Reports say he was left unable to move his arms or legs and is currently hospitalized with little more known. Since then, social media has been full of wrestlers paying tribute to the legendary Japanese competitor. However, Taz, who is known for being a suplex master, has taken the opportunity to condemn the practice of taking suplex’s into the turnbuckles, calling them “insanely dangerous.”

While mainly known for his lengthy career in Japan, Otani also wrestled in the US, most famously defeating Eddie Guerrero at WCW’s Starrcade event in 1995, and later became the company’s inaugural Cruiserweight Champion. He’d also wrestle in 2002 for Ring of Honor and for Game Changer Wrestling in 2019. And while things certainly don’t look promising right now for Otani, hopefully, the 49-year old will be able to recover, and perhaps his injury will result in other wrestlers changing their approach when it comes to both giving and receiving this move.

This Sunday saw Game Changer Wrestling run their Devil In A New Dress event in San Francisco. Yet, unfortunately for fans in attendance, numerous wrestlers booked for the show weren’t in attendance, with Jacob Fatu, Biff Busick, Gringo Loco all not attending due to reported travel issues. And while that is disappointing for the wrestlers and the fans, it is understandable.

However, far more serious was the fact that former Ring of Honor champion Bandido just no-showed without making anyone in GCW management aware. This prompted CGW’s owner to criticize the luchador in a now-deleted post citing the cost of the flight. Thankfully though, Bandido is OK, and he would later tweet that he was sorry and acknowledged it was his fault.

Bandido is meant to be working GCW’s next show, The Old Me, on April 24th in Michigan, and it will now be interesting to see whether he attends. It very likely will depend on the circumstances surrounding his no-show. Nevertheless, in pro wrestling, doing this is highly frowned upon and can result in promoters not wanting to risk booking that individual regardless of how talented they are.

The wrestling world is still mourning the tragic passing of 63-year-old Scott Hall after his life support was discontinued on March 14. The two-time WWE Hall of Famer had fallen at his home and lay unable to summon help for three days with a broken hip. Tragically after he was found and underwent hip replacement surgery, he’d suffer three heart attacks due to complications that eventually caused his death. Now, his son and fellow wrestler Cody Hall have informed fans that his legendary father’s funeral was on Friday in an emotional Instagram post where he called him his “best friend.”

Based on the photo shared, the service was attended by fellow Kliq members Kevin Nash, Sean Waltman, Shawn Michaels, and Triple H. Also in attendance was Diamond Dallas Page, who was the person that found him following his fall and the man credited in initially help him turn his life around following years use of drug and alcohol abuse. Hopefully, now that Hall has been laid to rest, his family and friends can begin to process their grief, as, despite his well-publicized issues, Hall was undoubtedly loved.

Last Wednesday, Nash Carter was released by WWE after his estranged wife Kimber Lee shared a photo of him impersonating Adolf Hitler. While she had previously made domestic assault allegations against him, it appears WWE wasn’t concerned about them. Still, the Sieg Heil salute was too much for them, and they’d cut ties with him despite being an NXT tag team champion. Nevertheless, many fans on social media believe the former NXT star has been too harshly treated, and the hashtag #JusticeForNashCarter would briefly trend. Now it seems Lee has become tired of the criticism directed towards her, as she has deleted her Twitter account.

27-year-old Carter has yet to comment since the abuse allegations were made, with his last tweet being on March 28th, which showed him training with Logan Paul ahead of his Wrestlemania match. Where Nash’s career goes from here remains to be seen, as any promotion booking him will likely receive backlash. However, the same can also be said for Kimber Lee, who is signed with Impact Wrestling but hasn’t worked for them since October 25th, 2021.

Ryback has not wrestled since 2018 following a severe back injury that required over a dozen stem cell procedures. However, over the past two years, he has been regularly teasing making his return to the ring. Now though, he has seemingly ruled himself out of wrestling in the big leagues again, as he has stated on his podcast that he never intends to sign another contract. Therefore, fans hoping to see him compete in AEW, Impact Wrestling, or even make a shock return to WWE will be disappointed.

The belief is since his WWE departure in 2016, there hasn’t been any serious interest from a major promotion, so it’s safe to say Ryback doesn’t need to worry about turning any contracts down anytime soon. Yet considering he does still have a big name thanks to his final few years in WWE, he could potentially make a decent living just wrestling for independent promotions. Especially for those whose business model is filling their shows with cheap local talents and bringing in a couple of former stars to put on the poster and draw the house.

Subscribers eagerly awaited this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter due to Dave Meltzer’s WrestleMania weekend star ratings. However, once published, a rating for Seth Rollins vs. Cody Rhodes was noticeable by its absence. Initially, it was speculated Meltzer had purposely skipped the match because Rollins mocked his rating system and called him “that moron” in an interview. Yet, Meltzer’s associate Bryan Alvarez has since revealed the match scored 4.5 stars.

Dave Meltzer began rating matches in 1981, and over the years, many fans have used them as a guide for what they should watch. The first match he graded 5 stars, which was previously considered the highest rating a match could receive, was Ric Flair vs. Butch Reed from a Championship Wrestling from Florida show in 1982. Since then, more than 200 matches have achieved that rating, with 76 of them coming from New Japan. In comparison, WWE has had 14, and AEW 13, which surprises many. Nevertheless, on occasion, Meltzer does give higher than 5 stars, with Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega from Dominion 6.9 in Osaka-jo Hall receiving a staggering 7 stars, and thus according to Meltzer, is the greatest match ever.

This week’s episode of SmackDown featured Gunther’s main roster call-up up, who was joined by his Imperium stablemate, Marcel Barthel. Although Barthel wouldn’t be going by that name and instead was called Ludwig Kaiser for reason’s only known to WWE. However, just an hour before the show, he was listed internally as Ludwig Klaus, which just happens to be the same name as a Nazi that received multiple awards during World War 2.

Thankfully someone within WWE was made aware of this before the debut, as it would have caused a great deal of embarrassment, especially days after a photograph of Nash Carter imitating Adolf Hitler was shared by his estranged wife. Still, it’s baffling how the name was even picked after the company previously attempted to trademark “Gunther Stark” for Gunther, which was also discovered to be the name of a Nazi. Subsequently, they would cancel the application and had Gunther become his only name.

A significant number of wrestling fans on social media are very tribal, and there seems to be some who believe if you enjoy WWE, you must hate AEW and vice-versa. However, it seems much of the anti-AEW sentiment shared isn’t actually genuine, as Tony Khan has revealed an independent study indicates bots are being used to boost the negativity. Additionally, Khan would suggest someone is paying a high price for this but didn’t name names due to likely not having firm proof.

A social media bot is an account created and run by an automated process for those unaware. And following Khan’s tweets, many of the profiles that spend their days criticizing AEW and their wrestlers have tried to ridicule the notion that they aren’t real. Nevertheless, bots are known to be a real issue, and a check of TwitterAudit.com shows AEW’s following is believed to be 96% authentic, while WWE’s is just 74%. Of course, it should be noted that when it comes to bots, anyone can control them, so even if 26% of WWE’s are considered to be false, it doesn’t mean the company is involved or even knows.

This week’s edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter has caused more commotion than most. That is because in addition to not giving a star rating to Seth Rollins vs. Cody Rhodes after Rollins called him “that moron,” he has now been called out by Simone Johnson for an inaccurate report. In his newsletter, Meltzer would state that the 20-year-old daughter of The Rock was going to undergo yet another knee surgery, which obviously worried her followers. However, the report was mistaken, and she’d reveal she’s had the wrestling journalist blocked for over a year.

Simone Johnson has undergone three prior knee surgeries. Still, the last one was two years ago, and while fans have been concerned about her long-term wrestling career over this, she still has some way to catch up to her legendary father, who has had five. Nevertheless, she has been making tremendous progress at the WWE Performance Center, and it would seem to be only a matter of time before she debuts in NXT. Yet, that will be when the real work starts, as she’ll undoubtedly be compared to her legendary father, and for every Bron Breakker, there is always a David Flair.

Two years ago, Dave Meltzer reported that Seth Rollins gave the WWE locker room a rah-rah speech, prompting the WWE star to issue a denial and call Meltzer “at best a purveyor of misinformation or at worst outright vindictive liar.” Since then, it’s believed there was animosity between the pair, and this past weekend Rollins would mock Meltzer’s star rating system during an interview, calling the journalist a moron. Seemingly this has gotten back to Meltzer, as in the latest issue of his Wrestling Observer Newsletter, he failed to provide a rating for Seth Rollins vs. Cody Rhodes.

Over the past 50 years, Meltzer has built up a significant readership, and nowadays, his devotees now pay $12.99 to read his newsletter and listen to his podcasts. And while it’s known he regularly speaks to Tony Khan, Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega, and Konnan, he also has multiple detractors in the business. So it will now be intriguing to discover whether Meltzer’s omission of a match rating was simply a mistake or he purposely chose to avoid rating Rollins potential his first five-star rating.