Grapple City Rewind

Send us a text or voicemail It’s spooky season at Grapple City Rewind, so we’re heading into the Temple for one of Lucha Underground’s most brutal matches: Mil Muertes vs. Fénix in the first-ever Grave Consequences match. The Man of a Thousand Deaths meets the Man of a Thousand Lives in a bloody, chaotic fight involving a coffin, concrete stairs, torn masks, busted-open faces, and one of the wilde...

Send us a text or voicemail It’s 1996, WCW is beating the WWF in the ratings, the NWO is taking over, and somehow there are TWO Stings. Bradley Palermo and Aaron Fink rewind WCW Fall Brawl 1996, featuring WarGames, the real Sting vs. Fake Sting confusion, Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Lex Luger, Ric Flair and Arn Anderson, plus one of the most ridiculous finishes we’ve seen yet. Luger never...

Send us a text or voicemail Grapple City Rewind throws out the rulebook for a bonus episode and jumps to October 29, 2020 for one of the most brutal matches of the pandemic era: WALTER vs. Ilja Dragunov for the NXT UK Championship. With zero fans in the building, every chop, kick, slap and scream echoes through the room as Dragunov tries to survive a champion already 573 days into his historic rei...

Send us a text or voicemail The boys head to Chicago’s Comiskey Park for AWA SuperClash ’85, a massive, chaotic attempt to answer WrestleMania with 25,000 fans, 13 matches, approximately 900 championships and more nationalism than anyone asked for. Brad and Aaron break down Ric Flair vs. Magnum T.A., the Road Warriors vs. the Fabulous Freebirds, Kerry Von Erich at full rock-star status, a complete...

Send us a text or voicemail Bradley and Aaron rewind to WWF SummerSlam 1999 , a show where Jesse Ventura is governor and special guest referee, Shane McMahon somehow has one of the best matches on the card, and Jerry Lawler spends an alarming amount of time talking about asses. Chris Jericho makes his first WWF pay-per-view appearance, Al Snow and Big Boss Man brawl out of the arena and into a bar...

Send us a text or voicemail Brad and Aaron head back to Hamilton, Ontario for WWF Breakdown: In Your House 1998 , a show caught right in the middle of the Attitude Era getting completely out of control. Christian makes his first WWF appearance, Vader heads for the exit, The Rock looks more and more like the next megastar, and Gangrel leaves Brad wondering if he’s a little too chunky for the vampir...

Send us a text or voicemail Follow That, Motherfuckers — WWE SummerSlam 2002 On this episode of Grapple City Rewind , Brad and Aaron head back to WWE SummerSlam 2002 , a show many fans call one of the greatest SummerSlams ever. We break down the stacked card from top to bottom, including Kurt Angle vs. Rey Mysterio , Eddie Guerrero vs. Edge , The Rock vs. Brock Lesnar , and the night’s true show-s...

Send us a text or voicemail Grapple City Rewind returns from bonus season and heads straight into the strange, colorful chaos of WWF SummerSlam 1994 . Bradley and Aaron revisit the event from Chicago’s brand-new United Center, where Leslie Nielsen searches for The Undertaker, Lex Luger faces accusations of selling out, and Bret Hart battles Owen Hart inside a classic blue steel cage. Along the way...

For our final summer bonus episode, Grapple City Rewind heads to NXT TakeOver: Toronto (2016) for one of the most celebrated tag team matches in WWE history: DIY vs. The Revival in a two-out-of-three-falls match for the NXT Tag Team Championship. Bradley and Aaron break down the chemistry, the heel brilliance of The Revival, the rise of Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa, and why this match still h...

This week on Grapple City Rewind , Bradley and Aaron head back to Money in the Bank 2011 for one of the most electric WWE matches of the modern era: CM Punk vs. John Cena for the WWE Championship . With Punk’s contract set to expire at midnight, Chicago fully behind him, and Vince McMahon desperate to stop him from leaving with the title, this match becomes more than just Cena vs. Punk — it become...

Bayley finally gets her moment. In this bonus episode of Grapple City Rewind , Bradley and Aaron revisit one of the most important women's matches in wrestling history: Bayley vs. Sasha Banks for the NXT Women's Championship from NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn (August 22, 2015) . The guys break down the story of Bayley, the last of the Four Horsewomen to reach the top of NXT, fighting to prove s...

For our first June bonus episode, we're revisiting one of the wildest WWE main events of the modern era: Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar in a Last Man Standing Match from SummerSlam 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee. This was billed as the final chapter in the legendary Brock vs Roman rivalry, and WWE pulled out all the stops. Brock arrives in a tractor wearing a cowboy hat, Roman enters with the ful...

Bradley and Aaron rewind to WrestleMania 1 (1985) —the show that launched a billion-dollar empire—and break down all the chaos: nine matches, celebrity overload, bear hugs for days, and barely any actual wrestling. From Liberace and Muhammad Ali to King Kong Bundy’s 9-second squash, this is less a wrestling show and more a bizarre cultural time capsule. Plus, we kick things off with thoughts on th...

This week on Grapple City Rewind , we head to Nashville for one of the strangest and most ambitious events in wrestling history: Starrcade 1995: World Cup of Wrestling . WCW and New Japan Pro Wrestling collide in a seven-match international tournament to determine which country reigns supreme. There's just one problem: nobody seems entirely sure how the tournament works. Along the way we get...

On the very first edition of In Your House, the WWF promised fans one thing above all else: somebody was going to WIN A FREE HOUSE IN FLORIDA. This week on Grapple City Rewind, Bradley and Aaron head back to May 1995 for a bizarre slice of New Generation-era WWF featuring Bret Hart vs. Hakushi, Diesel vs. Psycho Sid, Jerry Lawler’s fake mom, Todd Pettengale’s unholy mullet, screaming fans losing t...

We just got back from WrestleMania in Vegas… and now we’re rewinding to one of the strangest, most uneven WrestleManias of all time. This week on Grapple City Rewind , we dig into WWF WrestleMania X (1994) — a show that somehow opens with an all-time classic… and then spends the rest of the night trying to live up to it. Two Bret Hart matches in one night because one beating isn’t enough. Two Yoko...

WrestleMania season rolls on in Grapple City Rewind, and this week Bradley Palermo and Aaron Fink dive headfirst into WrestleMania XII —a show defined by contrasts, chaos, and one of the most famous main events in wrestling history. From the jump, it’s clear this isn’t your typical Mania: we’ve got a bizarre mix of New Generation weirdness, Attitude Era seeds being planted, and a main event that d...

Collision in Korea 1995 is one of the strangest events in wrestling history. WCW and New Japan brought a massive show to North Korea, drawing over 300,000 people… but something felt completely off. The crowd barely reacted, the atmosphere was eerie, and even solid matches felt lifeless. We break down the weird vibe, standout moments like Flair vs Inoki, and why this is a “watch it so you don’t hav...

Hulk Hogan. The Rock. Sixty-eight thousand screaming fans in Toronto. And somehow… a broomstick gets involved. This week on Grapple City Rewind , Bradley Palermo and Aaron Fink head back to WWF WrestleMania X8 (2002) — the strange transitional moment where the Attitude Era crashes head-first into nostalgia. The nWo has arrived, Limp Bizkit is blasting through the arena, and the WWF is suddenly lea...

Grapple City Rewind heads back to the gritty ECW Arena in February 1996 for CyberSlam 96, Bradley Palermo and Aaron Fink break down the chaotic compilation-style event featuring Taz squashes, a completely unhinged Brian Pillman segment, dancing babyface Bubba Ray Dudley, triple dog collar madness, and the only true wrestling clinic of the night Too Cold Scorpio vs Sabu, we debate whether ECW’s wil...

Grapple City Rewind heads to No Way Out 2000 as Bradley Palermo and Aaron Fink break down Kurt Angle vs Chris Jericho, Dudleys vs New Age Outlaws, the infamous Mae Young pregnancy storyline with Mark Henry, Kane vs X-Pac chaos, Too Cool vs The Radicalz, Big Show vs The Rock controversy, and the brutal Hell in a Cell main event between Triple H and Cactus Jack. Was this Attitude Era PPV a hidden ge...

WWF No Way Out 2001 is where the Attitude Era officially flies off the rails. We’re talking shopping carts, stop signs, barbed wire, blood everywhere, and a level of sleaze and chaos that feels less like wrestling and more like a bad decision made at 3 a.m. This show exists in that weird space between WrestleMania hype and total creative insanity —and somehow manages to be both fascinating and exh...

We rewind to January 20, 2002 at Phillips Arena in Atlanta for Royal Rumble 2002, a stacked card sitting right on the edge of the Attitude Era and Ruthless Aggression. From WWF New York time-capsule chaos to Vince McMahon absolutely loving being evil, we break down every match, every Lawler quip that aged like milk, and every massive star moment. The Rumble itself is loaded with returns, all-time...

This week on Grapple City Rewind, Bradley Palermo and Aaron Fink dive into WCW Souled Out 1998, an NWO-heavy pay-per-view packed with strong undercard wrestling, baffling booking decisions, and peak late-90s WCW chaos. From lucha libre madness and Jericho vs. Rey Mysterio, to Bret Hart’s WCW in-ring debut against Ric Flair, plus the infamous Dusty Rhodes heel turn, we break down what works, what a...

The Attitude Era doesn’t explode overnight — it creaks , leaks , and occasionally catches fire. Royal Rumble 1998 is the moment where everything finally tilts forward. Before the Rumble even starts, Terry Funk and Mick Foley try to kill each other with chairs, chainsaws, and zero regard for OSHA. Stone Cold Steve Austin is a marked man , the NWA briefly wanders onto WWF television to tell everyone...