PWI Weekly for April 6, 2026
Two Forces, Dos Champion, TNA Teamwork (And A Little Bit Of Baseball)
HELLO AND WELCOME TO the PWI Weekly. It’s now April, which means we have properly entered baseball season. And whether your team is off to a flying start or you’re like PWI Editor-In-Chief Kevin McElvaney and cheer on the Philadelphia Phillies, hope is always just around the corner.
If you don’t care much for America’s pastime, however, you’ll be glad to know that the baseball chatter stops here. Instead, please enjoy our latest grappling gab.
TAG TEAM OF THE WEEK
Given the recent nature of the company’s tag divisions, one could’ve been forgiven for thinking that Lash Legend & Nia Jax represented just another example of WWE throwing together two singles wrestlers who had nothing else going on. But oh, how premature that assumption would’ve been. After little more than four months together, the duo has become one of the most dominant tandems the WWE women’s tag team division has seen.
Together, The Irresistible Forces offer a blend of size and strength that other pairs have struggled to compete with. Since claiming tag team gold by dethroning RHIYO in February, Legend and Jax have repelled challenges from Alexa Bliss & Charlotte Flair, The Bella Twins, and Bayley & Lyra Valkyria. Not too shabby. Apart from the obvious physical prowess, the Forces have also forged a quick, natural chemistry that has fast become the envy of other duos.
SPOTLIGHT ON …
When Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling Canadian champion Josh Alexander announced he would have to undergo knee surgery, the news left the Ontario-based promotion in a quandary. With a big weekend of shows scheduled for March 27 and 28—including the Global Wars Canada collaboration with Ring of Honor—MLP had little choice but to crown an interim Men’s titleholder.
To the delight of fans, Victoriaville, Quebec’s own Stu Grayson grabbed the gold … and, with it, the top spot in Maple Leaf Pro. A longtime tag team specialist who has become increasingly successful as a solo competitor in his home country, Grayson scored the biggest victory of his career at MLP Uprising in Windsor. In the night’s main event, Grayson won a grueling gauntlet match that also featured Jay Lethal, Jonathan Gresham, Michael Oku, Rich Swann, and Rohan Raja, eliminating Raja and Gresham in succession to take the bout. The former Player Dos now finds himself numero uno north of the border—an accolade that has to taste as sweet as maple syrup for this proud Canadian.
A QUICK WORD ABOUT …
Fans hoping to see a lengthy main-event bout between Mike Santana and Steve Maclin at Sacrifice might have initially felt a little short-changed. The TNA World title tussle barely got going by the time referee Alice Lane called a stop to proceedings. Following a Santana kick that caught Maclin hard in the head, Lane recognized the challenger had seemingly been knocked out. The conscientious official then stepped in and prevented any further damage from being done.
Maclin was later confirmed to have indeed suffered a concussion. While it is unfortunate to see any match end prematurely—much less a highly anticipated marquee bout—TNA Wrestling deserves kudos for the manner in which it put the safety of its athletes first. Lane especially deserves credit. Santana praised the astute ref on social media for showing “elite professionalism and quick thinking,” adding that “we were truly blessed to have had her out there with us.”
MUSINGS, WITH MATT BROCK
Let the record show this: PWI normally approaches me to write about hot-button issues in wrestling, not the other way around. I’m enjoying my (semi) retirement and no longer feel the constant need to share my thoughts. PWI has a crew of great, young writers, and I frankly have no desire to take column inches away from them. Sometimes, though, something irks me enough that I reach out to that McElvaney kid and ask him for space here in the PWI Weekly. This is one of those times.
While watching Smackdown recently, I found myself getting particularly annoyed, not at WWE or a certain wrestler, but by the fans. In the aftermath of Randy Orton’s violent betrayal of Cody Rhodes, I have been dismayed to hear live crowds actually cheering “The Viper” on.
The bloody beatdown Orton inflicted on Rhodes this past Friday the 13th left viewers with a strong, visual reminder of a friendship and a mentorship that was now in tatters. In a bygone era, such a heinous act would have made Orton the most hated man in the sport. In 2026, however, it seems to have transformed him into one of the most popular.
Yes, I understand that fans are “smarter” now, but I fear this actually goes deeper than pro wrestling. The cheers of approval that followed Orton’s unmerited attack on Rhodes—and his subsequent lack of remorse—have legitimately made me question the empathy of other human beings. Have social media and the relentless pace of modern living rendered people so cold toward one another’s anguish that they can’t bring themselves to feel bad for “The American Nightmare” in this situation?
Imagine if Andre had bloodied Hogan in the manner that Orton did to Rhodes. Fans would have been apoplectic with rage, fear, and distress. Or how about this one: Imagine if the crowd in Allentown, Pennsylvania, had started cheering when Larry Zbyszko turned his back on the beloved Bruno Sammartino. Unthinkable.
I know it’s a different era, but this might just come down to a real change in humanity. If you want to root for the villains because you think it makes you look cool, be my guest. However, doing so says more about you than it does Cody Rhodes or Randy Orton. As crotchety as I can be, I still know what’s right and what’s wrong. It seems that some fans no longer do.
TERRITORIAL DISSINGS
Okay, so we lied: There may be some more baseball chatter.
Well, kind of.
Who could forget legendary two-sport athlete Abe “Knuckleball” Schwartz? In this throwback clip, Abe gives his thoughts on the 1994 Major League Baseball labor strike. We aren’t sure what Abe got up to after his all-too-brief stint in the World Wrestling Federation, but rumor had it that he could be found brawling in Brooklyn.