Hello SquaredCircle! Welcome to our Weekly Discussion Thread! ---------------

What have you watched lately? Seen any great matches? Have suggestions for things to watch? Anything not getting covered in other threads that ya wanna fill people in about? Questions about promotions, wrestlers, 'the business' or more?

Feel free to post below!

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(Reminder, this thread can and will contain spoilers for possibly any show. Spoiler tags are not required in here, but if the show just happened try and keep spoiler talk it to its respective discussion thread for the first day).

Press Conference

Tonight, NJPW is stateside and brings us Windy City Riot LIVE from Chicago, Illinois! The card includes:

Singles Match Minoru Suzuki vs. Ren Narita

NJPW STRONG Women's Title Match Stephanie Vaquer (c) vs. AZM

NJPW STRONG Openweight Tag Team Title Four Corner Match Guerrillas Of Destiny (El Phantasmo & Hikuleo) (c) vs. Fred Rosser & Tom Lawlor vs. TMDK (Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste) vs. The West Coast Wrecking Crew (Jorel Nelson & Royce Isaacs)

Singles Match Jack Perry vs. Shota Umino

Singles Match Mustafa Ali vs. Hiromu Takahashi

Riot Rules Match ???, ???, ??? & Eddie Kingston vs. ???, ???, ??? & Gabe Kidd

NJPW World Television Title Match Matt Riddle (c) vs. Zack Sabre Jr.

Non Title Match Tomohiro Ishii vs. Nic Nemeth

IWGP World Heavyweight Title Match Tetsuya Naito (c) vs. Jon Moxley

And more!

The pre-show starts 7:00pm (CT), 5:00pm (PT), 8:00pm (ET), live on NJPW World.

Tonight, WWE Smackdown comes to us from Detroit, Michigan! The lineup is:

Cody Rhodes returns to SmackDown for the first time as WWE Champion

Bayley makes her first appearance since winning the WWE Women’s Championship at WrestleMania XL

And more!

Show starts LIVE at 8pm EST | 5pm PST on FOX. Check your local listings for more information.

Tonight, AEW Rampage comes to us from Charleston, West Virginia! Your card will be:

Singles Match Orange Cassidy vs. Alex Reynolds (w/John Silver)

AEW TBS Title Open House Match Julia Hart (c) vs. Leyla Hirsch

Singles Match Angelo Parker vs. Zak Knight (w/Harley Cameron & Saraya)

Singles Match Matt Sydal vs. Jay White (w/Austin Gunn & Colten Gunn)

And more!

Show starts at 10pm EST | 7pm PST | 9pm CST | 3am BST

AEW can be found on: TNT in the US, TSN+ in Canada, ViX in Latin America, ESPN in Australia, and FITETV/DAZN in the UK, EU, and elsewhere.

Tonight, ROH on Honor Club comes to us from...somewhere! The card includes:

ROH World TV Championship Proving Ground Match Rhett Titus vs Kyle Fletcher

Singles Match Christopher Daniels vs Cole Karter

Singles Match Isiah Kassidy vs Action Andretti

We'll Also see Anna Jay, Nyla Rose, Zak Knight, The Rightous and Shane Taylor Promotions in action, And more!

ROH starts at 7pm ET/6pm CT only on Honor Club!

Tonight, TNA Impact comes to us from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania! The card includes:

TNA Digital Media Title Match Crazzy Steve (c) vs. Laredo Kid

Tag Team Match ABC (Ace Austin & Chris Bey) vs. First Class (AJ Francis & Rich Swann)

Monster's Ball Match PCO vs. Kon

Non Title Match Trent Seven vs. Moose

And more!

TNA Impact! starts at 8pm EST | 5pm PST on AXStv, Fight Network, YouTube Insiders, TNA+, and DAZN. Check your local listings for more information.

🎶 It's the most wonderful tiiime of the year! 🎶

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Hello friends, it's that time of year once again. WWE is bringing us another WrestleMania, arguably the biggest event in pro wrestling, and as has become the norm everyone's getting in on it! The week surrounding WrestleMania is loaded with events from numerous pro wrestling companies giving so many sure-to-be amazing matches!

I'll be setting up discussion threads and posting highlights for at least a couple of these shows but given how many there are, please feel free to use this thread as an all purpose discussion thread (should you not want to make any individual threads yourselves!)

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Below is a non-exhaustive list of wrestling events over the coming period (television not included). I will try to highlight most of the bigger shows, but should I leave anything out do feel free to add it in the comments!

(Info below sourced from Cagematch on April 2nd, all cards subject to change.)

Event: Stardom American Dream 2024 In The Keystone State Date: 04.04.2024 Card

Event: DEFY Can't Deny It Date: 04.04.2024 Card

Event: GCW Josh Barnett's Bloodsport X Date: 04.04.2024 Card

Event: DDT Goes Philadelphia Date: 04.04.2024 Card

Event: GCW/JCW Vs. The World 2024 Date: 04.04.2024 Card

Event: WrestleCon Mark Hitchcock Memorial SuperShow 2024 Date: 04.04.2024 Card

Event: PROGRESS Chapter 166: Freedom Walks Again Date: 05.04.2024 Card

Event: TJPW Live In Philly Date: 05.04.2024 Card

Event: GCW Joey Janela's Spring Break 8 Date: 05.04.2024 Card

Event: GCW For The Culture 2024 Date: 05.04.2024 Card

Event: REVOLVER x HOG Date: 05.04.2024 Card

Event: ROH Supercard Of Honor 2024 Date: 05.04.2024 Card

Event: CMLL Super Viernes Date: 05.04.2024 Card

Event: WWE WrestleMania XL - Saturday Date: 06.04.2024 Card

Event: GCW Effy's Big Gay Brunch 9 Date: 06.04.2024 Card

Event: GCW Joey Janela's Spring Break: Clusterfuck Forever Date: 06.04.2024 Card

Event: GCW Vs. TJPW Date: 06.04.2024 Card

Event: NJPW Sakura Genesis 2024 Date: 06.04.2024 Card

Event: WWE WrestleMania XL - Sunday Date: 07.04.2024 Card

Event: RevPro Live In London 84 Date: 07.04.2024 Card

Event: SPARK Trailblaze Date: 07.04.2024 Card

Event: CZW Live! At The Murphy Rec Center: Philly Special Date: 07.04.2024 Card

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Any shows or matches you're really looking forward to? Comment below!

(Reminder, this thread can and will contain spoilers for possibly any show. Spoiler tags are not required in here, but if the show just happened try and keep spoiler talk it to its respective discussion thread for the first day).

It never ends 😂

"I'm hurting something fucking awful. My foot went into business for itself really early in the match. But, there was still work to be done. Thank you @Antnyhenry for having my back always. F the haters! Thank you to the real fans for the support! #Workhorsemen"

(Gatoh Move show from May 30th)

spoiler

Chin. Tits. Shoe.

spoiler

Looks like 'working on my website' also involves getting a bag from MLW!

Tonight, AEW Collision comes to us from Palm Desert, California! The card includes:

Singles Match Claudio Castagnoli vs. Johnny TV (w/Taya Valkyrie)

Six Man Tag Team Match Danny Gee, Danny Rose & KM vs. Cage Of Agony (Bishop Kaun, Brian Cage & Toa Liona)

Singles Match Roderick Strong (w/Matt Taven & Mike Bennett) vs. Lio Rush

AEW International Title Match Will Ospreay (c) vs. Kyle O'Reilly

Tag Team Match Daniel Garcia & Katsuyori Shibata vs. The WorkHorsemen (Anthony Henry & JD Drake)

Singles Match Reina Dorada vs. Thunder Rosa

Tag Team Match The West Coast Wrecking Crew (Jorel Nelson & Royce Isaacs) vs. Shane Taylor Promotions (Lee Moriarty & Shane Taylor)

And more!

Show starts at 8pm EST | 5pm PST, please check your local listings for more information.

Direct url https://www.wwe.com/71enuj

Tonight, AEW Rampage comes to us from Inglewood, California! Your card will be:

AEW TNT Title Eliminator Match Penta El Zero Miedo vs. Konosuke Takeshita

Singles Match Peter Avalon vs. Satnam Singh (w/Sonjay Dutt)

AEW Women's World Title Eliminator Match Toni Storm (w/Luther & Mariah May) vs. Viva Van

Singles Match Kyle O'Reilly vs. Jordan Cruz

Singles Match Rey Fenix (w/Alex Abrahantes) vs. Isiah Kassidy

And more!

Show starts at 10pm EST | 7pm PST, please check your local listings for more information.

Mayu Iwatani on why she wanted to leave STARDOM for Marigold:

"The reason I wanted to leave was because I thought I could leave it to the current STARDOM girls. Even without Mayu, everyone has grown to the point where they can show it in the matches. So, I don't have any worries about whether we'll be okay just because a wrestler leaves in the future. I can say with confidence that everything will be absolutely fine, and I am able to concentrate on the matches. The president is very sincere in his approach. I may have complaints about the president or the company in the future, but I have a sense of trust that we can solve them one by one."

Mayu Iwatani says she had thought about going to Marigold; why she ultimately decided against it:

"I myself even thought about transferring at one point. On top of that, I had many conversations with Ogawa-san and the current president, (Taro) Okada-san. The answer I finally came to was that if Uta (Utami Hayashishita) and Giulia were gone, and Ogawa-san and Mayu Iwatani were gone, STARDOM would no longer be STARDOM. I have to properly repay the favor to the company that has allowed me to work there for 13 years. I also owe a lot to Ogawa-san, but I think I have been able to repay him by working hard up until now. So, from now on, I will properly give back to the company. As long as I am there, STARDOM will remain STARDOM. It was really something I thought on my own, but after talking with Okada-san about it, I decided to stay."

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We'll see what happens as she's still under contract atm so it could just be fluff words, but from the sounds of it, Okada may have talked her out of leaving the same way he did Saya Kamitani.

tl;dr - reviewing the old Exposed! Pro Wrestling's Greatest Secrets special (ya know, with the Stunt Granny!)

>"Adam is hard-headed. Once he has a story or something in his mind, he's going to get it done one way or another. Eventually, it went over to AEW and he got it done. I'm appreciative for it. I'm 55 years old. I didn't know if I could crawl up through the bottom of the ring being under there for a while. My biggest fear was, 'Can I get up and move?' My adrenaline kicked in. I was just blessed to be part of that moment.

>"When I saw him do the interview, I already knew I was coming in. He just wanted to keep it quiet. When he did that interview, I was like, 'He's planting the seeds. He's going to make sure they do remember.' Smart man. They kept it hush-hush. I didn't tell anybody. They had me come in last minute. I stayed in his locker room the whole time. When I went to the ring, (Chris) Jericho was like, 'What are you doing here?' They were able to keep it quiet as best they could and I was surprised by that. It's really hard to do in wrestling nowadays. I didn't get wheelchaired in and covered up or anything like that. Just came in early, went to the locker room and sat there all day. Right before the match, threw a black hoodie on, went out there with the ring crew, climbed under the deal, and that was that."

(Will and Shota were seen doing the dance together on social media, apparently Shooter brought it back home lmao)

Well that's an interesting development.

>"Moose called me and was like, ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me you were doing this?’ I was like, ‘Moose, you have the biggest mouth out of anyone I know." Grace joked while speaking to Fightful for a new interview. "That would have gone out five minutes after I told you.’ He was like, ‘You should tell Shawn Michaels that I want to come over.’ Yeah, I’ll go ahead and do that, Moose."

Tonight, ROH on HonorClub comes to us from Vancouver, British Columbia! The card includes:

Singles Match Zak Knight vs. Sebastian Wolfe

Tag Team Match Top Flight (Dante Martin & Darius Martin) (w/Action Andretti) vs. The WorkHorsemen (Anthony Henry & JD Drake)

ROH World Tag Team Title Proving Ground Match Jacoby Watts & Nick Comoroto vs. The Undisputed Kingdom (Matt Taven & Mike Bennett)

Singles Match Brady Roberts vs. Serpentico

Singles Match Kel vs. Red Velvet

Tag Team Match The Bollywood Boyz (Gurv Sihra & Harv Sihra) vs. The Premier Athletes (Ariya Daivari & Tony Nese) (w/Josh Woods & Mark Sterling)

Three Way Match Aaron Solo vs. Lee Johnson vs. Action Andretti

ROH Women's World Title Proving Ground Match Athena vs. Viva Van

And more!

ROH starts at 7pm ET / 6pm CT only on Honor Club!

The semi-finals shall be:

Taiji Ishimori vs TJP

&

El Desperado vs DOUKI

The winners of each match-up wil go on to face each other at Dominion on June 9th

Mika Iwata, the Sendai Girls World Champion showed up at Stardom and has challenged Saori Anou to a match for the Wonder of Stardom title.

He said Dynamite during the show. Which made me laugh.

Archived link due to paywall

>A former employee of World Wrestling Entertainment agreed to pause her lawsuit against former boss Vince McMahon at the request of the US Justice Department as the government conducts its own investigation.

>Janel Grant sued WWE founder McMahon and another executive, John Laurinaitis, in federal court in Connecticut in January. She alleged that the pair sexually abused her while she worked in the wrestling league’s legal department.

>McMahon has denied the claims. He stepped down from his role as chairman of the WWE’s parent company, TKO Group Holdings Inc., after the suit was filed.

>“Ms. Grant has consented to a request by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to stay her case against Mr. McMahon, WWE and Mr. Laurinaitis, pursuant to a pending non-public investigation,” Ann Callis, an attorney for Grant, said in an emailed statement Thursday. “We will cooperate with all appropriate next steps.”

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Oooooh this gonna get spicy.

Tony Khan donating to charity.

Tony Khan wore a neck brace at the NFL Draft, which took place one day after he received the TK Driver from The Young Bucks (Matthew Jackson & Nicholas Jackson) on AEW Dynamite. Khan and Rich Eisen worked out a deal where Khan would auction off the neck brace with the money going to St. Jude on behalf of Run Rich Run.

During an appearance on the Rich Eisen Show, in lieu of auctioning off the neck brace, Khan donated $100,000 to St. Jude so Eisen could keep the neck brace in his studio. The brace now sits on a Deadwood bust.

Page is officially signed with WWE (note: despite him claiming on social media that he isn't --geek) and was at the Performance Center last week. "NXT" officials have been interested in Page since he left AEW earlier this year. Backstage access to "NXT" was completely stripped down to prevent Page's reveal nor the reveal of TNA Knockouts Champion Jordynne Grace from leaking ahead of the show. During rehearsals for the show's closing segment, Shawn Michaels is said to have stood in for Page so that he wouldn't be seen before the show. Vic Joseph's near-mention of "AEW" was part of the program and said to be scripted.

Source: Fightful Select

>Fightful Select has learned that the primary reason for the Adam Cole integration into the MJF promo was because Cole isn't near an in-ring return or a blowoff to their split. AEW wanted to address it and put a bow on that for the time being. More details for subscribers!

Poor Adam, injuries keep having shit-assed timing.

Sources have confirmed to Bodyslam that Jake Hager's contract has expired and he has not resigned, the decision was mutual.

Arn Anderson has also confirmed his contract expires at the end of the month and will not be resigning, no bridges seem to be burnt

"You know how it goes #WWENXT" and a photo of his email, being the content of the tweet.

His last match was against Oba Femi back in March.

Forbidden Door season folks! Expect some surprises on Dynamite.