My Monday column for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is a mailbag of fan questions from Twitter. Here’s an excerpt:
@MikeBeanX: What will Kevin Owens’ role be at WrestleMania?
Kevin Owens will be going into WrestleMania as the Intercontinental Champion, and I have no doubt he’s going to make a serious run to steal the show. Obviously, he’ll be contending with a star-powered, gimmick-heavy trio of main event matches with higher stakes in the storyline. Those matches, based on having guys like Undertaker and Brock Lesnar, and the Hell in a Cell match, are going to have high expectations by all. This being the first WrestleMania capping off a great rookie year on RAW for Owens, I’d put my money on him being the “undercard” match of the night that goes all out.
As for the opponent he steals the show with, I think it’s very possible we see Sami Zayn. These two had an emotionally charged rivalry on NXT television that left room to be continued. WWE lost time with Zayn after he suffered a shoulder injury when he made his first appearance on RAW last spring against John Cena. What better way to pick back up after lost time than rekindling a rivalry that fueled NXT success and present it on the bigger stage of WrestleMania?
In my mind, Zayn is the closest performer on the roster who can resemble the attributes and rally fans similar to Daniel Bryan. We saw Zayn return to WWE television at Royal Rumble where he and Owens got a piece of each other. I think this Saturday on the WWE Network special could be the right time to get the spark going again and have three weeks of television to build up to their WrestleMania match.
@holtz_william: How did blading originate? Is one old timer credited for this technique?
I’ve never heard of one specific person being credited as the first one who did it. I always felt the reason was that, for a lot of years, it wasn’t something the public was ever aware of. It was one of the many tricks inside professional wrestling that was protected. Therefore, between protection of the secret, and the fact blood sometimes came into a match unplanned by a wrestler getting busted open the hard way, it’s hard to pinpoint one moment as the origin.
The 1950s seems to be the period when blood and the potential of blading is commonly first remembered in North American professional wrestling. That’s also the same time when television started coming into every home in America. I don’t know if the “secret” of blading dates to earlier carnival times, but it became more memorable and documented as media platforms increased. I do know Abdullah “The Butcher” and “Classy” Freddie Blassie are two famous names who debuted in the 1950s and were well known for their use of blood.
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