The D'Amore Drop is a weekly guest column on Uncrowned written by Scott D'Amore, the Canadian professional wrestling promoter, executive producer, trainer and former wrestler best known for his long-standing role with TNA/IMPACT Wrestling, where he served as head of creative. D'Amore is the current owner of leading Canadian promotion Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling.
This past weekend I caught some of the Real American Freestyle promotion that Eric Bischoff is behind. It's legit catch wrestling and Olympic wrestling matches but presented in a pro-wrestling style.
For example, they kept former UFC champion Holly Holm's match a secret until Eric -- almost in his EZE character from WCW -- walked out and introduced her and she stormed toward the mat.
Chael Sonnen -- who trained in Eric's WCW Power Plant back in the '90s and used pro-wrestling psychology to turn himself into a massive star in the UFC -- also did a promo with Tito Ortiz for an upcoming match.
They've got something here, and there's always room for something new.
To avoid going head-to-head with WWE's recently announced Wrestlepalooza event, AEW has moved its Sept. 20 All In pay-per-view to a mid-afternoon slot.
WWE counter-programming AEW's pay-per-view is what it is at this point -- it's not going to stop.
That said, speaking as promoter, I sure as hell wouldn't want to follow an AEW pay-per-view. The thought of an instant comparison would keep me up at nights.
Wondering why John Cena is doing other people's finishers in his matches?
Well, he has only a handful of bouts of his retirement tour left.
And so, out of respect to the opponents who want to wrestle him but he literally doesn't have the time left to wrestle them, he's showing his appreciation by doing their big move in his matches.
Speaking of John, his match with Logan Paul at Clash In Paris was another banger. "The Never Seen 17" is leaving everything he has in the ring.
This is what going out on top looks like, guys.
We broached the idea of Becky Lynch joining Seth Rollins' faction back in April -- and, almost immediately, she's already added a lot to the dynamic of The Vision.
Unlike Seth, Bronson Reed, Bron Breakker, or even the manager of the group, Paul Heyman, she can deliver a promo/exposition in ring, to the babyface's face, like she did versus CM Punk on "Raw."
That was a powerful segment, where she berated and assaulted Punk over and over and he didn't want to hit back.
It really added something new to the Punk vs. Rollins feud.
Recently on "AEW Dynamite," Mercedes Moné declared there wasn't a women's championship in the world that was safe from her.
She also said she was coming to take 10 or 11 championships at once. Ultimo Dragon famously held 10 at once back in the day.
I wonder ... the winner of tomorrow's Priscilla Kelly vs. Gisele Shaw champion vs. champion match at Maple Leaf Pro (more on that in a moment) will have two belts. If Moné beats them, she'll then have 11...
Congratulations to Tony Kahn and the AEW team for securing AEW pay-per-views on HBO Max, beginning with All Out on Sept. 20.
It continues to be golden era for wrestling fans. It's literally been 25 years since we had this much world-class wrestling so easily available -- and I'd argue the wrestling we are getting today is better than ever in terms of not only star power, but also in-ring action.
Tomorrow night, Maple Leaf pro-wrestling promotion will present MLP: Sacred Ground at the Six Nations Territory in Ohsweken, Ontario, Canada.
The show was intended to be a "house show" -- wrestling talk for an event that only the people in the venue ("the house") on the night get to see. But, with the help of the Six Nations, we were able to book talent like the Good Brothers, Josh Alexander, TJP, Priscilla Kelly, Bishop Dyer and more -- and we started getting blown up by fans saying "Why isn't this on pay-per-view?" and "Where can I see it?"
Well, you can see it on Maple Leaf Pro's YouTube channel next Thursday. I gotta stress, though, that the production is not going to be our usual "as good as it gets" level. From the moment we began with Maple Leaf, we prided ourselves on putting on shows as good if not better than anything outside of the Big Two.
This will be a step down from that -- because we weren't intending to record or stream it at all until literally yesterday. But, we will have it recorded and uploaded next week.
Here's what you can look forward to:
To be honest, typing that out, what was I thinking not making this available internationally? I'll have the link in my column next week.
We are working on some huge things for Maple Leaf -- I wish they were far enough along that I could talk about them here (free pub and all that) but we aren't there yet.
Hoping to have the kind of news that gets me on "The Ariel Helwani Show" by the end of the year.