Henry's World

I'm not exactly intending to make these posts daily, but I felt the urge to hop back on again today and get another review up. This time, we've got The Wrestling Classic, featuring a 16-man elimination tournament and the anticipated title match between Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper. Technically, this is the WWF's first foray into the pay-per-view market, as the first WrestleMania, about seven months prior, was only broadcast on closed circuit television. That show lived entirely on high production value(for the time) and bringing in big name celebrities. Vince and co tried to make this show much more focused on in-ring competition, but neither quite lived up to expectations. - There are really two massive problems with The Wrestling Classic. The first is a lack of stakes, as besides a couple vague mentions of money on the line by Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura, that detail never really plays into any of the matches and the wrestlers never talk about any prize for winning in...

Yesterday, I announced the beginning of my quest to cover every single WWF/WWE event ever made, and I'm pretty excited to get going. We begin today with the first wrestling pay-per-view in history, the inaugural WrestleMania. This is generally considered the biggest gamble in wrestling history, as Vinnie Mac attempted to transform his pop's company from a territorial New York promotion into a global superpower. Vince brought in several big names, including A-Team and Rocky III star Mr. T to team with Hulk Hogan in the main event. This was all designed to be a counter to the NWA's first supercard, Starrcade '83, about a year and a half prior, which featured Ric Flair dethroning Harley Race in the main event. Did it pay off? Let's find out. - The show gets off to a great start, as Howard Finkel gives us the classic WrestleMania introduction, before "Mean" Gene Okerlund sings the national anthem. Gene is surprisingly good in this performance, and I loved eve...

This is definitely an update that's been a long time coming. Even though I haven't posted anything here in about two weeks, it's actually been significantly longer for me, as my last couple posts had be written well in advance. I stopped writing after the first couple days of the month, and haven't felt a ton of desire to come back since. A big part of that was the murder of George Floyd, as well as the murders of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, and the subsquent protests and riots that followed. It was very, very difficult to maintain interest in posting about a silly fictional wrestling universe when I mostly just wanted to read the news. Then after that started to slow down a bit, the pro wrestling world got torn apart by the #SpeakingOut movement, and it felt extremely insensitive to post about wrestling while reading through stories of sexual abuse and rape, some of which were about the people portraying characters in my world. So yeah, under all these circumstan...

For Johnny Gargano, Fastlane represents the biggest night of his career. The man known as "Johnny Wrestling" has spent many years chasing the ultimate prize, and tonight, he puts everything on the line, including his career, on the line for one last shot at glory. Opposing Gargano is one of the most dominant men in Universe Mode history, Drew McIntyre. Drew is a former long reigning WWE and tag team champion, and won the 2020 Royal Rumble last month, eliminating former winner Samoa Joe. With everything at stake and everything to lose, it's Johnny Gargano versus Drew McIntyre in tonight's main event, with the winner going to WrestleMania IV. Welcome to Fastlane. Universe Mode Fastlane February 16th, 2020 Location: Kansas City, MO Fastlane 2020 Theme Song- "Untraveled Road"- Thousand Foot Krutch Andrade and Zelina vs Ravishing Rusev Day Andrade and Zelina were certainly the superior wrestlers on this night, and put on a showcase early, taking turns out-wrestli...

It's the final stop for SmackDown on the Road to WrestleMania, as the blue brand hosts Fastlane! Fastlane 2020 Card Andrade and Zelina vs Ravishing Rusev Day We kick things off with the first intergender match in Universe Mode history, and this is a feud that has certainly gotten heated. It began when Andrade "Cien" Almas got help from Zelina Vega to defeat Rusev in a Royal Rumble Qualification match, and that led to the return of Lana. 'The Ravishing Russian" went right after Vega to get revenge for her husband, and the two women would brawl multiple times across weeks of SmackDown. Edge made this tag match to try and calm things down, and also declared that the whichever man was on the victorious side would become the number one contender for the Intercontinental Championship, a belt which they both held recently. Bayley vs Shayna Baszler It was Bayley's interference that led to Shayna losing her Money in the Bank cash-in, and it's Bayl...

It is now time for the 2020 Men's Royal Rumble match! Universe Mode Royal Rumble January 26th, 2020 Location: Phoenix, AZ Royal Rumble 2020 Theme Song- "Gladiator"- Zayde Wolf Entrant #1- Killian Dain Entrant #2- Johnny Gargano You know SmackDown GM Edge had to be very upset at this opening, two of his bigger threats to win drawing the first two spots. Dain was here representing tag champions SAnitY, while Gargano has been a frequent world title contender in the past. "Johnny Wrestling" was certainly at a significant disadvantage here, and it was all he could do to just hold on against the bigger man... Entrant #3- Andrade "Cien" Almas Another entrant from SmackDown, the former Intercontinental Champion Andrade Almas who qualified for this match by defeating Rusev thanks to interference from Zelina Vega. Andrade did his best to help Gargano battle Dain, but "The Beast of Belfast" had none of it, and elimi...

Part 2 of the 2020 Royal Rumble event features no Rumble match, but should be exciting nonetheless. On tap, we have the end of a war, an incredibly personal and likely extremely violent grudge match between Jon Moxley and Roman Reigns. Also, EC3 challenges for the Universal Championship, and CM Punk looks for redemption against Robert Roode, with the WWE title at stake! Universe Mode Royal Rumble January 26th, 2020 Location: Phoenix, AZ Royal Rumble 2020 Theme Song- "Gladiator"- Zayde Wolf Jon Moxley vs Roman Reigns- Extreme Rules Match This match was just as violent and just as vile as anyone could've expected, with these two former friends going all out to mark an end to this war. They revisited a couple big spots from their feud, as Moxley laid out Reigns with a Dirty Deeds on the hood of a car backstage, and Reigns returned the favor with a Spear, not off the stage but through the LED board below the TitanTron. "The Big Dog...