There was a ton of conjecture over the past week regarding the careers of two of the best wrestlers of our generation and what, if any, plans there are for Ric Flair, who hasn’t been wrestling, and Shawn Michaels, who is out with a knee injury.
Flair who was doing a guest appearance on 9/22 at an auto race at the Dover International Speedway and was the hit of the media there. He told reporters that everything was fine with him and WWE and the stories that were being reported about him giving notice weren’t true. The reality was, by the weekend, they were even more true.
He said he never gave notice to WWE. What was funny was in the publicity for his appearance, he was being advertised as the recently retired pro wrestler Ric Flair. Flair said the Internet stories about him were false and he said he was coming back, denied his storyline had anything to do with it and basically said when you work for WWE, nobody is bigger than the organization and you do what they want you to do.
Dave Meltzer delves into the recent maneuvers and cryptic messaging coming out of the Mexican wrestling scene as AAA and CMLL navigate their new reality.
Dave also looks back at the incredible scene at All Star Grand Queendom 2025 between Saya Kamitani and Tam Nakano in a loser must retire match.
All that, the news of the week in WWE, AEW and other promotions, and tons more in this week’s issue lie ahead.
ESPN.com had a lengthy story interviewing Lex Luger, in specific talking about his drug usage, and blaming himself for the death of Elizabeth, saying her body couldn’t hold up to his level of partying. Now born again, Luger has said he is confessing all his drug usage, saying he came close to dying many times from overdoses. He is currently in line for hip replacement surgery.
He said he started doing steroids to gain weight quickly for Canadian Football, and was taught in sports that you do whatever it takes to win. “And that leads to guys wanting to take shortcuts, and then, cheat until you get caught, and then lie.” He said he started using Dianabol in 1979, when he was 20 years old. He said he never did steroids 52 weeks a year in pro wrestling, and would be on for 12 weeks, then off for 12 weeks, using testosterone and decadurabolin, saying they weren’t illegal (usage wasn’t illegal until 1991). Luger said while in WWE, wrestlers had little trouble getting around the WWE drug testing (1992-96).
The revelations a few weeks ago that Chris Benoit had significant brain damage, Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) from multiple concussions suffered as a pro wrestler was no more of a surprise than his name coming up in steroid investigations.
A normal person doesn’t do the crimes Benoit apparently did. In fact, a brain damaged person who drinks heavily, does massive quantities or drugs, both of the painkilling, anti-anxiety, anti-depression and anabolic nature also doesn’t do what he does.
All of those things likely are part of an explanation, but in the end, none of those things are an explanation. The guy brutally murdered his wife and son. And while he had damage to his brain in some ways similar to an 85-year-old Alzheimer’s patient, that categorization of him is also ridiculous.
Benoit was a functioning person through all his depression over the last 19 months of his life. Yeah, he was paranoid, which could have come from any of the aforementioned issues and probably had something to do with a combination of all of them.
AEW Dynasty on 4/6 had an interesting reaction to what seemed to be generally considered a very strong show that went too long.
There was considerable online negativity toward the main event finish, which saw Jon Moxley retain the AEW title over Swerve Strickland in a match that saw involvement from Marina Shafir, Prince Nana, Adam Page, Pac, Wheeler Yuta, Claudio Castagnoli, Samoa Joe, Katsuyori Shibata and the return of the Young Bucks.
Just writing that alone makes it feel like they went overboard, especially for a match that went 31:28. If people were mad because they went overboard I can see it. If they were mad Strickland didn’t win, I can understand that because in theory, when a heel wins by cheating the fans are supposed to be mad. Of course, making fans mad at times leads to bigger business, and at times it doesn’t. I think the idea was to give fans a happening, the return of the Young Bucks, that they would be mad at, but see as news. The show ending felt like the start of the build for Young Bucks vs. Page & Strickland, although that’s likely long down the line like at All In. From television, it looks like either an Anarchy in the Arena or Blood and Guts match with Young Bucks & Death Riders against a babyface team that would include Kenny Omega & Strickland, and possibly Adam Page (but that can’t be made clear until or unless he’s eliminated from the Owen Hart tournament if this is a PPV direction since the Owen Hart Cup finals are on Double or Nothing on 5/25.
The issue also looks at the WWE WrestleMania 41 card changes due to Kevin Owens’ serious neck injury, the latest development with Linda McMahon and the ring boys lawsuit, the Charlotte Flair/Tiffany Stratton promo, and plenty more.
UFC 75, a night where the MMA judging system came under fire, and where the Pride and UFC championship was unified in the marquee light heavyweight division, ended up as the single most widely viewed MMA television show ever in the United States.
Quinton Jackson unified the UFC and Pride heavyweight titles winning a five-round competitive decision over Pride champion Dan Henderson on 9/8 in London, England at the 02 Arena. It was the first unification match of the two biggest MMA organizations in the world, although for all real purposes, Pride no longer exists. While billed as a first, in a sense, similar matches happened twice before in UFC history, when after Extreme Fighting Championships went down. In 1997, UFC promoted the last EFC heavyweight champion, Maurice Smith, beating the then UFC heavyweight champion, Mark Coleman, in a gigantic upset at the time with Smith taking a decision.
The lead story regards what Dave Meltzer is calling the latest popularity test for AEW in this Sunday’s Dynasty pay-per-view coming off a well-received Revolution PPV in March.
He also looks at the build to WrestleMania 41 and the latest developments, the discussion around reported AEW on Max viewership, and plenty more.
One of the craziest weeks for bloodletting in WWE history finished with a scorecard of ten wrestlers suspended, three fired, one front office employee fired and two major stars quitting. In the vast majority of the cases, drugs were involved in the decision making.
For the first time in perhaps modern history, the television shows taped on 9/1 in Cincinnati and 9/2 in Columbus, OH, for Smackdown, ECW and Raw, were designed more to write characters out temporarily and make necessary changes in championships due to suspensions, then continue previously crafted storylines and build an already scheduled series of matches on PPV.
The dust hasn’t fully settled at press time, but when it does, a lot of questions have to be asked. The key is, What was the true intent of the Wellness policy? From the appearance of things, based on the loopholes and even the wrestlers who were found in the Signature Pharmacy investigation getting Nandrolone (Decadurabolin), something athletes in a drug testing sport theoretically would avoid like the plague, things are even more fishy than even the most skeptical would have believed.
The lead story is how the lineups for next month’s WWE WrestleMania 41 and AEW Dynasty are finally taking shape.
He also looks at the controversial firings within TNA Wrestling which included the very popular Gail Kim.
Dave Meltzer also looks at the newsworthy NCAA men’s wrestling tournament and Gable Steveson, former UFC champion and former WWE wrestler Cain Velasquez getting his jail sentence, boxer George Foreman dying and more.
John Cena is set to take his final walk down the aisle at WrestleMania this year to face Cody Rhodes. The match for the Undisputed WWE Championship is undoubtedly the biggest of as-of-yet not fully fleshed-out two nights, and the recent heel turn of Cena is adding even more intrigue to his final bow at WWE WrestleMania 41.
Dave Meltzer has of course seen and rated every single match from the WrestleMania career of the 16-time World Champion, and we’ll be going through the star ratings he issued to Cena’s matches at the ‘Showcase of the Immortals’ here.
Dave Meltzer John Cena Star Ratings at WrestleMania
Dave Meltzer’s star ratings are issued to matches on major PPV/Premium Live Event cards every Friday following the event in that week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Here are the ratings that were given to all of the matches from Cena’s WWE career starting at his first match at WrestleMania XX:
WrestleMania 20: John Cena vs. Big Show
Rating: *1/4
WrestleMania 21: John Cena vs. John “Bradshaw” Layfield (JBL)
Rating: *1/4
WrestleMania 22: John Cena vs. Triple H
Rating: ***3/4 stars
WrestleMania 23: John Cena vs. Shawn Michaels
Rating: ****
WrestleMania 24: John Cena vs. Randy Orton vs. Triple H (Triple Threat Match)
Rating: ***1/2
WrestleMania 25: John Cena vs. Edge vs. Big Show (Triple Threat Match)
Rating: ***1/4 stars .
WrestleMania 26: John Cena vs. Batista
Rating: ***1/2 stars
WrestleMania 27: John Cena vs. The Miz
Rating: *1/4 stars
WrestleMania 28: John Cena vs. The Rock
Rating: ***3/4 stars
WrestleMania 29: John Cena vs. The Rock
Rating: ***1/2 stars
WrestleMania 30: John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt
Rating: ***1/2 stars
WrestleMania 31: John Cena vs. Rusev
Rating: ***1/2 stars
WrestleMania 33: John Cena & Nikki Bella vs. The Miz & Maryse (Mixed Tag Team Match)
Rating: **1/4 stars
WrestleMania 34: John Cena vs. The Undertaker
Rating: *1/4
WrestleMania 36: John Cena vs. “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt (Firefly Fun House Match)
What is the worst rating Dave Meltzer has given John Cena at WrestleMania?
To date, the worst rating that has been given to a John Cena match in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter is split four ways: vs Big Show at WrestleMania XX, vs JBL at WrestleMania 21, vs The Miz at WrestleMania 27 and vs The Undertaker at WrestleMania 34.
Arguably, The Miz vs John Cena in the main event of WrestleMania 27 is classed as the ‘worst’ rated due to the bout being the headline card of the show and grossly underperforming to an expected match of that stature.
What is the best rating Dave Meltzer has given John Cena at WrestleMania?
As of writing, John Cena’s WrestleMania 23 match against Shawn Michaels is the best rated by Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, which he gave 4 out of 5 stars.
Has Dave Meltzer ever given John Cena a 5 Star Rating for a match at WrestleMania?
To date, John Cena has not received a 5 star rating for any match that he has been part of at WWE’s WrestleMania PPV/PLE.
Cena has received a 5-star rating from the WON for his 2011 match at Money in the Bank against CM Punk for the WWE Championship.
There are a lot of questions that need to be asked right now as WWE got the worst news possible this week with a government investigation uncovering the names of numerous wrestlers who were getting steroids and other drugs through the Internet in the ongoing investigation of the Jupiter, FL, based Signature Pharmacy.
Sports Illustrated listed ten current WWE wrestlers who received Signature Pharmacy packages after February 2006 as Chavo Guerrero, Gregory Shane Helms, Randy Orton, John Hennigan (John Morrison), Ken Anderson (Mr. Kennedy), Shoichi Funaki, Charlie Haas, Edward Fatu (Umaga), Darren Matthews (William Regal) and Adam Copeland (Edge).
Worse, probably the most outspoken wrestler of late in the company on the subject, Ken Holmes aka Anderson aka Kennedy was found to be receiving shipments as late as February. Anderson did numerous media interviews, including claiming the company no longer had a steroid problem.
Dave Meltzer leads off with his thoughts on John Cena’s first heel promo and appearance after the big turn at WWE Elimination Chamber.
He recaps the New Japan Cup finals that saw David Finlay take home the top prize, WBD’s public comments about interest in the UFC and what that could mean for AEW, and lots more.
The theme of the 20th annual SummerSlam show on 8/26 from East Rutherford, NJ, is it had a few surprises, but more in the uneventful way.
John Cena pinned Randy Orton to retain his WWE title in a strong main event, said by many to be an almost identical match to those done at many of the house shows in recent weeks. The result was a surprise, if only because HHH had stated months back he felt Cena would got hotter in the position of chasing the title after such a long reign and Orton was his choice to do it. That was the direction they were working toward, although no actual final decision was made to the finish, other than a rematch was penciled in for Unforgiven. If Cena retains his title on that show and the week beyond, he will be the longest reigning WWE champion since Hulk Hogan’s 1984-88 run.
The new issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter is live.
The lead story focuses on last Sunday’s AEW Revolution which saw several high-level matches in front of a big crowd in Los Angeles. Dave Meltzer recaps the shows and gives his ratings for all the action.
Dave also reviews the new Queen of the Ring film and adds some additional retrospective to the career of Mildred Burke with the help of an old friend.
Dave also looks at the latest in Grant vs. McMahon, a new top match in the works for WrestleMania, news of the week, and more.
