Two former WWE Superstars are now champions in MLW.
Major League Wrestling taped new episodes of Fusion TV last night at Cicero Stadium in Chicago. Fans in attendance witnessed two title changes that will air at a later date.
According to PWInsider, Shotzi Blackheart defeated Shoko Nakajima to win the MLW Featherweight Championship.
Meanwhile, Austin Aries captured the MLW National Openweight Championship by defeating Blue Panther.
Shotzi Blackheart and Austin Aries aren’t the only former WWE stars to win gold in MLW. The promotion’s title picture is dominated by the likes of Killer Kross, KUSHIDA, Bishop Dyer (fka Baron Corbin), and Donovan Dijak. All of these competitors worked for Vince McMahon and Triple H at some point.
Former WWE star calls today’s wrestling the ‘cosplay era’
Speaking of Austin Aries, the self-proclaimed “Greatest Man That Ever Lived” recently shared his thoughts on today’s wrestling landscape during an exclusive interview with WrestleZone.
Aries said modern professional wrestling is more influenced by superheroes and video games than realism, going on to describe the current era as the “cosplay” era of wrestling.
“It’s a bunch of people dressed up in costumes emulating the moves. But they don’t really feel authentic, like they’re professional wrestlers,” Aries said. “That again, just my opinion. I feel like, as we’ve skewed more towards superheroes and video games, and we’ve tried to say, ‘Well, pro wrestling is just like that.’ And it’s like, well, no. Pro wrestling to me was always rooted in realism. The foundational base of processing is the man across or the woman across the ring from you is trying to hurt you, disable you, and take your money.’
“So if it’s not rooted in that and there’s not some semblance of realism and authenticity to that, at a certain point for me, it leaves what I consider pro wrestling. It morphs into some other entertainment genre,” he continued. “Which is fine because there’s all different flavors of this, but I grew up watching the Crockett era wrestling. That’s what I gravitated towards. Because, whether or not I subconsciously knew it was real or not real, there was an authenticity and there was a suspension of disbelief that had to take place.”
Fans can read his full comments here.
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