One of the main narratives within professional wrestling of 2024 is how the evolving dynamics of the industry have created unique opportunities and circumstances, proving once again why competition and options are important to the overall benefit of the business. Perhaps more than anything else, the free agent market might’ve been the biggest story of this year, and more specifically, the domino effect it had, both positively and negatively.
We saw Will Ospreay, arguably the top performer in the top performer in New Japan at the time, opt to sign a full-time deal with All Elite Wrestling in March, undoubtedly giving the Khan-owned organization a potential top guy to build around, but at the same time, being another blow to New Japan’s depth, which was considerably picked over during the past few years as both of the major leagues in America looked to secure more talent. At the same time, Mercedes Mone also signed a big money contract with AEW around the same time, yielding sluggish results that prompted criticism of her work outside of the WWE bubble. Kazuchika Okada, the longstanding top star of New Japan, also left his native country to work for Tony Khan. The fact that it looks like Okada is content to coast on his reputation in the majority of his All Elite bouts is another discussion for another time.
On the WWE front, CM Punk shockingly arrived last November, and despite a lengthy absence from in-ring action because of a triceps injury that required surgery, Punk is one of the main reasons the WWE had a level of sizzle throughout 2024. I’ve said it many times, Punk is about Punk and he’s a jerk, but he’s a talented jerk that can draw money. The real-life Phil Brooks and WWE brass are smart enough to know that they don’t have to exchange Christmas gifts and break bread at Thanksgiving to work together. Drawing money is the entire point of the business, and it’s ironic that even those that had animosity previously can work together when seven figures can be made for everyone involved. If only the All Elite EVP understood that concept.
We also saw the NXT/TNA working agreement, which as discussed in prior articles, is a win-win situation. Especially after the TKO merger, the office knows that TNA is no threat to the publicly-traded corporation, and a smaller platform for talent to be discovered can eventually be used as a way to bring talent to the bigger star of WWE. At the same time, if a veteran WWE talent doesn’t have a specific role at a particular point in time, they could be sent to TNA to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. It’s always better to attempt to maximize a competitor’s skills than to have a talented performer stuck on the sidelines if there isn’t a spot for them on a main roster.
There were rumblings in the past few months, but I was still surprised to see The Motor City Machine Guns, Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley, make their WWE debut on Smackdown last week. To be clear, this wasn’t a part of the previously mentioned NXT/TNA crossover, the veteran tag team was signed to their own WWE contracts. The reason for being surprise had more to do with the fact that if they were going to surface in the WWE, I thought it would’ve been five or six years ago, nothing about their skills.
In some ways, you could summarize the careers of Shelley and Sabin, both individually and collectively, as victims of circumstance.
They both landed in a fledgling NWA-TNA in its early years when they were barely 20 years old through their association with Scott D’Amore’s Boarder City Wrestling, the independent league that provided a pipeline for Detroit-based talent to the Nashville-based upstart league in the early-2000s. With only a few years experience, Sabin and Shelley worked on television, and while they were definitely working a style you’d expect from young, energetic athletes that still had something to learn through that valuable experience, they didn’t look out of place either.
Of course, the argument could be made that both of them deserved much more of an opportunity than they were given, but that was more or less the summary of much of the Dixie Carter era of TNA. Keep in mind, The Motor City Machine Guns were alongside a young Okada, as guys that were used as secondary talent at a time when TNA pleated with Vince Russo scripts. Shelley was known as a well-versed technician, but someone that could still work as a heel, despite such a smooth style, Sabin was an energetic high-flyer that didn’t have much depth to his character in his early years, but a solid skill set that made him an asset. To be fair, from a character perspective, neither Shelley or Sabin were given much of a chance to evolve their presentation until they were paired as a tag team for TNA in 2007.
Throughout the four or five years they worked as a team, The “Motor City Machine Guns were always known as a solid aspect to the product, in a similar fashion that the X-Division as a whole was used as a foundation during the peaks and valleys of the company during the Dixie regime. They were definitely a time when The Motor City Machine Guns were one of the best tag teams anywhere in the business.
The reasons for why they were ultimately underutilized in TNA could be its own discussion for a different time, but possibly the biggest fumble of their careers was actually after Shelley originally left the company. Sabin had suffered two serious knee injuries that required surgery, but made a comeback in 2013 for a story that more or less wrote itself. Sabin beat Bully Ray to win the TNA world championship, but dropped it just a month later and was regulated back to X-Division status.
Maybe that’s the biggest takeaway as to why The Machine Guns didn’t have a bigger run in the prime of their careers, they were typecast earlier on as “just X-Division workers” so they were labeled as just high spot wrestlers, not stars. There were very few guys that started in the X-Division that were ever truly given a chance to work their way up the card, with AJ Styles and Samoa Joe being two of the only examples that had a push beyond the division.
For the most part, Sabin stayed the course in TNA, only recently leaving the company after his deal expired. Shelley bounced around the independent scene, working a few different stints in Ring Of Honor after his intitial TNA run, and in later years, he worked with Kushida as a tag team in New Japan. If Shelley was going to ink a WWE deal, I thought it was going to be when he was briefly brought into NXT in 2020 for a Time Splitters reunion.
In some respects, what someone “deserves” as a talent in pro wrestling is moot because much of that is subjective, and technically the most objective way to determine that would be what draws money. As we know, the behind-the-scenes dealings often dictate the direction of the on-screen product. For whatever reason, particular after Shelley suffered an injury while working the physical style of New Japan, he stepped away from the sport to pursue a career outside of wrestling in physical therapy in 2018. As I wrote at the time, it was disappointing that someone as talented as Alex Shelley didn’t have an offer to work full-time for one of the national companies in the United States. Because of that, it’s good to Shelley and Sabin get the chance to have a main roster run in the WWE, as the argument could be made that they were more than talent enough for the biggest stage in the business throughout most of their career, but didn’t get the opportunity.
That being said, even with their successful debut to advance to a number one contender’s match and presumably an eventual run as the tag team champions, it’s doubtful that The Machine Guns will spark a resonance in the tag division. Granted, tag teams have more of a chance to be featured under Triple H than Vince McMahon, but it’s important to keep in mind that the WWE hasn’t made the tag division a truly focal point of the company since the TLC era almost 25 years ago. I’d expect the Machine Guns to have a solid run and be valuable veterans to work within the tag division, but will still be a secondary aspect of WWE programming. Keep in mind, the WWE is getting Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin in the 40s after more than two decades of wrestling so it’s not exactly the prime years of their career. Still, this is a solid addition to the WWE roster, and as mentioned, it’s good to see them finally get a chance to have a WWE run.
What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
E mail [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
