Recently at the Full Gear pay per view hosted by All Elite Wrestling, a very interesting guest commentator helped call the Kenny Omega and Hangman Adam Page match in the finals of the World Title Eliminator tournament: Don Callis.
Callis, of course, also serves as a commentator over on Impact Wrestling, as well as being an EVP. He is Canadian and also did work in New Japan Pro Wrestling, where Omega was a long time commodity, so it was logical to bring him in as a sounding board on Omega’s wrestling career.
But the obvious point that sticks out is that Callis is from Impact Wrestling and he’s making an on screen appearance on another wrestling company’s show. Likewise, AEW has been mentioned on air by Impact’s Josh Matthews during commentary, and one of their guys, Moose, was caught talking on his phone to ‘The Demo God’, an allusion to one of Chris Jericho’s monikers.
We’ve also seen New Japan star Hiroshi Tanahashi, as well as Callis, wishing Jericho congratulations for his three decades in wrestling during the 30th anniversary special on AEW Dynamite. Currently, certain wrestlers contracted under the relaunched Major League Wrestling (MLW) have also wrestled on AEW.
The COVID 19 pandemic has nearly consumed every aspect of life in this crappy year of 2020 and wrestling was no exception. But even pandemic or not, the trend of wrestling companies looking to work together more openly has been steadily progressing.
Wrestlers even hold championships for two promotions, such as Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley. Along with being AEW Champion, Mox is also the IWPG United States Champion, while Omega is the current AAA Mega Champion as well as being a former AEW Tag Team Champion.
But for the longest time, and still, WWE seems to be the outlier in the very industry it remains dominant in, is in my opinion. WWE is an outlier because it almost acts like other wrestling promotions don’t exist. Aside from the brief working relationship they had with NJPW through NXT back in 2015 when Jushin Liger was brought in for Takeover Brooklyn, the WWE never mentions other promotions on air.
Sure, they will refer to certain talent having ‘competed all around the world’ but never where exactly, such as AJ Styles and Drew McIntyre. Only recently has WWE, after having either arranged a partnership or bought smaller promotions like Evolve and Progress Wrestling, would they get mentioned by WWE as actually existing.
The obvious mentioning of former competitors WCW and ECW is not a conflict, since WWE bought them in 2001 and owns the material and copyrights. There were a few mentions of ‘TNA’ a few years back on RAW by Kurt Angle and Sami Zayn, but by then that company changed its name to Impact Wrestling…so does that count?
Not that a billion dollar company like WWE would need help from other wrestling promotions to survive in the COVID era, but it just seems like an outlier in the actual world of professional wrestling. Remember that for years, as per Vince McMahon’s instructions, the word ‘wrestling’ was not to be used on air, by talent or commentary. Also, the WWE style of wrestling in the ring is very generic across the board.
At least in AEW and MLW, the talent brings whatever style they use and it gets incorporated into matches which make them more interesting to watch, which is how professional wrestling should function in a normal environment.
It seems in 2020, the WWE is content to exist in a separate universe of ‘sports entertainment’ while the rest of the wrestling industry works together to keep the business and the product thriving for the sake of their fans.
An average professional doing the 9-5 grind who really loves wrestling across all platforms. Here's hoping wrestlers finally get some basic workers rights in 2021.
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