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Wrestling With Wregret is a Video Review Show on YouTube that is hosted by former independent wrestler and current independent manager Brian Schiedel, a.k.a. Brian Zane. Zane takes a look at some of the strangest, silliest, and stupidest things in Professional Wrestling, and explains in depth why certain angles, gimmicks, and moments were terrible, while adding plenty of jokes to keep the reviews entertaining. He's also covered wrestling themed movies, such as Ready to Rumble, No Holds Barred, Sting: Moment of Truth, and Body Slam.

He also does shorter, vlog reviews on documentaries and pay-per-views on the channels, as well as vlogs giving his thoughts on recent wrestling news. Zane has also produced three spinoff series; Kayfabe Kitchen, offering recipes given by wrestlers; Getting Into the BiZ, where he gives advice to aspiring wrestlers; and Who War It Better, where he compares and contrasts each week's episode of Raw and SmackDown and determines which one was the better show. Who War It Better was largely retooled in October 2019 to cover the weekly episodes of WWE's third brand NXT and All Elite Wrestling's own TV series Dynamite called Wednesday Warfare, before the Warfare branding was eventually dropped altogether when NXT moved to Tuesdays. Reviews for episodes of Raw and SmackDown still went on in separate videos, sometimes by Zane and sometimes by a contributor, until Zane announced in 2022 that Raw and SmackDown reviews would go on indefinite hiatus due to the workload involved.

You can find him here.


Wrestling With Wregret contains examples of:

  • Accentuate the Negative: Played with. While most of Zane's focus is on the negative aspects of the topic at hand, he won't hesitate to give credit where credit is due. This is averted, however, in the episode where he reviews Just Another Romantic Wrestling Comedy, as he doesn't have anything positive to say about the film.
  • Actually Pretty Funny:
    • While he dislikes D-Generation X's 2006 run for the most part, Zane really enjoys the "I just kicked Stan!" bit.
    • Zane says the line "A diamond upside down is a pussy!" in Ready to Rumble is the first funny line in the whole movie... and it's about 90 minutes into the movie.
  • Affectionate Parody:
    • Zane has parodied The Ultimate Warrior doing a car commercial in his signature, utterly insane and incomprehensible style after seeing a younger Warrior (when he was known as "Dingo Warrior" in Texas) do a car commercial in an uncharacteristically calm and soft-spoken manner.
    • In a parody of the weird advertisements wrestlers take part in, Bray Wyatt's Jump Scare appears on screen. When the screen comes back up, you see Wyatt leading a group of people in a commercial for his own fitness video, "Braysanity".
    • Captain Lou Albano has been spoofed a few times due to his general craziness.
    • Zane discussed the fact that Curtis Axel was at his most successful when he was doing the Hulk Hogan gimmick.
  • Anachronism Stew: Discussed; Zane points this out when movies suffer from this problem. Sting: Moment of Truth and The Jesse Ventura Story are prime examples of this:
    • Moment of Truth is about Sting in the 1990s, yet he is shown wrestling in a TNA ring and instead of any of WCW's ring announcers, the movie uses TNA's ring announcer Jeremy Borash.note 
    • The Jesse Ventura Story covers Jesse Ventura's career, but for whatever reason has him wrestling in the 1999 WCW Monday Nitro arena in the 1980s and has him performing commentary with Gorilla Monsoon, which did happen in the 1980s, when they were still in the World Wrestling Federation.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In Grandmasters of Wrestling, when he sees that the last DVD ends with yet another main event headlined by the Mighty Maccabee, he leaves to do more entertaining things like bashing his head against a door, pulling out one of his teeth with a pair of pliers, sitting in a bathtub full of water while dropping a toaster inside of it, chopping onions, renegotiating his cable bill, and sitting through a marathon of Gilmore Girls.
  • Atrocious Alias: His opinion on Curtis Axel's earlier ring name "Michael McGillicutty."
  • Berserk Button:
    • The InVasion Angle. While the show usually doesn't use the F-word for the titles of the videos (censored or uncensored), the video about it is titled "The F*&%ing Invasion."
    • The McMahon family, especially their role in the above angle.
    • Triple H's "Reign of Terror" (the near-untouchable dominance of Triple H during his period of various reigns as World Heavyweight Champion between 2002 and 2005) is a touchy subject for him. The video's thumbnail showing Triple H photoshopped as a turkey (with a lot of stuffing) speaks for itself.
    • Zane got very riled up while discussing Paul Burchill's pirate gimmick from 2006, and has mentioned it several times in his other videos.
    • "Trashbaggers," a.k.a. wannabes who do not wear proper wrestling gear since, according to Zane, wrestling in street clothes is a big fat no unless you're either in a street fight or are an established star that has earned that right.
    • People who pretend to be wrestlers. He refers to them as BFFs.note 
    • Intentionally disregarding kayfabe. One notable (and hilarious) moment of his NWF Kids Pro Wrestling review was his exasperated reaction to a clip of the promoter of NWF telling two of the wrestlers what's going to happen in an upcoming match while being filmed by a local news station. This is also implied to be the reason why he doesn't like Paul Burchill's pirate gimmick mentioned above; Zane always notes that when the gimmick debuted, Burchill outright stated that he didn't think of himself as a real pirate, but was doing so as a homage to his pirate ancestors (as opposed to Wrestling Doesn't Pay).
    • During the "WWE Unathorized" episode, Zane goes on a rant about how the documentary misidentifies The Pegasus Kid (Chris Benoit) for The Blue Blazer (Owen Hart).
    • During the "American Wrestling Federation" episode, Zane goes on a rant about how pointless it is when promotions say that they want to "bring wrestling back to its roots". His reason being is that wrestling constantly evolves. He puts as an example that Karl Gotch thought lowly of Harley Race (to put it in perspective, a wrestler whose heyday predates Ric Flair's), basically considering him the equivalent of what in later years would be called a "flippy wrestler" (mostly because Race innovated the diving headbutt).
    • Invoked throughout the show's history by a "Rage-o-Meter", which fills during moments such as:
      • His review of the made-for-TV film The Jesse Ventura Story, where the meter slowly fills throughout the film, as Zane takes note of pretty much every inaccuracy. He reaches his limit when the film depicts Ventura as commentator during the Montreal Screwjob, which according to the film, involved then-WCW star Raven versus an unnamed wrestler. He storms out of his house, repeatedly saying "No" as he gets in his car, boards a space shuttle and flies directly into the sun.
      • His review of the 2000 film Backyard Dogs has him immediately breaking his "Rage-o-Meter" after one of the main characters claims to a wrestling executive that Mick Foley was the first backyard wrestler to get signed to a major promotion after his famous "roof jump" in the 1980s, which is barely true. Foley did work for the WWF after the video being made, but he was not a backyard wrestler, and Foley's work was not only as a jobber, but he was not under contract. And cue the space shuttle flying into the sun.
  • Brain Bleach: The sight of Big Dick Johnson dancing during his Top 8 Worst Dancing Wrestlers video made him rub sandpaper over his eyes. He mentioned having to go to the hospital in a minute:
    Zane: [Rubbing sandpaper on his left eye] Oh GOD IT'S SO WORTH THE PAAAIIN!
  • Broke the Rating Scale:
    • During his pay-per-view reviews, he gives each match in the PPV a rating between 0 and 5 stars (originally 4), and mentions how he doesn't like giving out negative stars, with 0 being the lowest he likes to go. However, on rare occasions there is a match so terrible that he goes into the negative stars, with the first being during the WCW Halloween Havoc 1991 PPV with Doug Somers vs. Van Hammer.Reasoning
    • Even him giving 0 stars began as this. Originally the lowest rating he would give was ½ a star, but he found the Daffney vs. Ms. Hancock Wedding Gown match at the WCW Bash at the Beach 2000 PPV so bad that it became the first one to receive 0 stars. The second, coincidentally, was on the same show: The infamous Hulk Hogan vs. Jeff Jarrett match where Jarrett laid down for Hogan under Vince Russo's orders.
    • On the other end of the scale, he gave 6 stars to the Stadium Stampede Match at AEW Double or Nothing 2020.
  • The Cameo: Has James Mitchell cameo in the Heroes of Wrestling episode as "The Devil Himself" and the reason for the infamous event coming into existence.
  • Catchphrase: "BILLY BILLY BILLY!", whenever he parodies Captain Lou Albano.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: There's a Running Gag in Zane's videos where Triple H (in reference to his kayfabe tenure as WWE's COO in the early 2010s) is furious with Zane's constant badmouthing of the WWE, and attempts to break his spirit by forcing him to review the company's worst angles (usually done in season finale videos, with the resulting video being the season premiere). It never works. By the time Triple H drives by Zane's house and tosses him a VHS copy of Brawl for All, Zane can only roll his eyes and say chidingly, "Wow, what a dick." This culminates with Triple H forcing Zane to fully review The Authority angle which his portrayal is based off of.
  • Creator Backlash: invoked
    • In the review for Nacho Libre, Zane instantly regretted coming up with Donny Base, refusing to bother with the banter and demanded him to Get Out!. Donny's appearance in The Masked Saint merely involved him being told to get out before he even said a line ("DUDE, FUCK RIGHT OFF!"), and in the "Side Character Rap" at the end of the WrestleRock Rumble video, Donny Base doesn't even get to finish his line before it jump cuts to Big Hoss McGraw.
    • Implied, but similar to Donny Base, is how Zane reacts with regards of the "It's the Magic of Rape! *ding*" jingle from the "Top 8 Worst Kane Storylines" when it reappears on the "Top 8 Worst Babyface Turns", where it only gets as far as "It's the magic of—" before Zane shoos it off.
    • Even though he made just his second appearance in eight years, the Annihilator is pushed aside by Zane in his review of Ultimate Death Match 3, who considered The Annihilator "boring". The kicker here is that the Annihilator lamented that Donny Base made more appearances despite the fact Zane regretted coming up with him, which is compounded with Donny getting a cameo appearance.
  • Crossover:
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: When judging who's the better WWE Champion between John "Bradshaw" Layfield and Jinder Mahal, although Zane consistently attempts to defend the latter's title reign, he concedes that the former was better. JBL wins the matchup 4-0.
  • Dude, Not Funny!: invoked He wasn't too fond of a Sprite commercial where Sting delivers a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to a terminally ill child.note 
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The original intro for the series didn't debut until the third episode. Zane's voice also sounded different early on due to using lower-quality equipment to record his videos.
  • Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Zane does this in the "$1,000,000 Tough Enough" episode. After bemoaning how much of a colossal waste of time the in-ring segments were, he mentions how many of the "losers", such as Ryan Reeves and Mike Mizanin, went on to have good careers. After mentioning The Miz's WWE Championship win, he realizes that The Miz is the only Tough Enough alum to win the title, making it the most successful season by default.
  • Expy:
    • Zane mentioned in his Getting Into the BiZ series that he has trouble getting bookings because of his resemblance to Jim Cornette,note  even though it really isn't his fault. They both just happen to be pale white guys with brown hair and glasses. Cornette himself jokingly said that Zane was his illegitimate son.
    • He might remind one of The Nostalgia Critic in pro wrestling form. The shows are very similar in style and delivery. Zane even admitted that The Nostalgia Critic was one of his influences, so it may be somewhat intentional.
    • He might remind people of a couple of James Rolfe's characters. He can be very harsh and sometimes foul mouthed like Rolfe's most famous character, The Angry Video Game Nerd, but is generally more laid back like Rolfe's other character, Board James. Zane has mentioned that The Angry Video Game Nerd, like the above example, was one of his influences. They have a similar appearance as well.
  • Face–Heel Turn: Discussed in his Top 8 Worst Heel Turns.
  • The Faceless: We never see Triple H's face whenever he appears on screen. His presence on camera begins at his shoulders and ends at his waist.
  • Fan Hater: invoked
    • He does an entire video (in the style of Cornette's editorial rants from late 1990s Raw, no less) denouncing pro wrestling fan haters (particularly mixed martial arts fans) after UFC announcer Joe Rogan made some offensive remarks and tweets about pro wrestling and its fans.
    • According to Zane himself, his own parents were less than thrilled about his passion for wrestling and it's been implied that he may have a strained relationship with them (not necessarily because of that, though).
  • Fandom Rivalry: Discussed In-Universe. Zane has no time for this as it applies to pro wrestling, regardless of what form it takes. He placed Wrestling Twitter as #6 on his list of Worst Things in Wrestling in 2019, and opens his videos reviewing NXT and AEW by telling viewers "Like what you like, don't be a dick."
  • Flashback Echo:
    • Happens when Zane realizes the publisher of Rodman Down Under is the same one as Grand Masters of Wrestling.
    • Happens again in the Russell Madness episode. The line "Family is a verb" leads to "Look at the adjective!"
  • Funny Background Event: In his review of Hell in a Cell 2020, the portrait he uses for Slapjack is simply NXT-era Shane Thorne wearing a hockey mask as a way of making fun of his costume.
  • Gag Censor: In the "Slammed!" episode, he censors several topless women using images of his t-shirt designs, along with a link to his webstore.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: The person who sent the Ultimate Death Match DVDs to Zane was the Annihilator, who was frustrated that he hadn't made a second appearance in eight years.
  • Gushing About Shows You Like: His Top 8 Wrestlers list.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: invoked Zane invokes this himself in "Worst Debuts" video when talking about the disaster that was "Fake Diesel" and "Fake Razor Ramon":
    Zane: That guy playing Diesel had some potential, though. Wonder what ever happened to him...
  • In Memoriam: invoked
    • The beginning of part two of his "Top 16 Awesomely Bad Promos" countdown has a small dedication to the recently-deceased Vader.
    • Zane dedicated an entire episode to Brian Danovich following his passing.
  • Jewish and Nerdy: Zane himself is Jewish so he more than qualifies.
  • Last-Name Basis: Most guest stars on the show just referred to him by his last name.
  • Limited Wardrobe: Always wears some form of sweatsuit. For a while, Zane only wore his purple jumpsuit with his own name on it.
  • Mid-Review Sketch Show: Zane will occasionally do this. This is averted entirely during reviews of old and new pay-per-views, as well as Who War It Better, where he is less scripted.
  • Mis-blamed: invoked While he has taken shots at, and parodied, Vince Russo, he is overall more forgiving of the man's indiscretions than most Smart Marks, even stating that 1999-2000 WCW would've been even worse without him.note 
  • Not Me This Time: Zane immediately assumed Triple H was the one who sent him the movie Ultimate Death Match, even though Triple H proclaims that he had nothing to do with the "Ultimate Def Jam Vendetta". There is a brief callback in the cold open to Ultimate Death Match 2, when Triple H immediately denied any involvement over sending the sequels of Ultimate Death Match to Zane.
  • Older Than They Look: Zane looks to be in his mid-twenties. Come his 100,000 Subscriber Q&A, it's revealed that not only was he 31 at the time, he's also married with a child.
  • Overt Operative: Jane Blond, an expy of James Bond, of Women of Wrestling is mocked for this in the video for Women of Wrestling's Unleashed.
  • Parental Obliviousness: Zane repeatedly asks about where the parents were in the "NWF" episode since the kids were able to run an entire wrestling company, at one point in the parents' garage, without their parents ever knowing or doing anything about it.
  • Precision F-Strike: For most of the show's run, Zane rarely used the "F" word, so when he did, it tended to be more impactful. He started using it more as the show went on, however.
  • Pro Wrestling Is Real:
    • His main gripe with Ready to Rumble is that the film itself can't decide whether wrestling is real or not.
    • During his review of All the Marbles, this was Zane major complain, as he said that most of the wrestling movies he reviewed can't decide whether portraying wrestling as real or not (saying that even the 2008 film The Wrestler had this)... except for Body Slam, which he praised for maintaining that trope, that being the only thing he praised about the movie.
  • Rage Breaking Point:
    • The various historical inaccuracies in The Jesse Ventura Story gradually drive up his onscreen rage o' meter... until it bursts following the special's decision to reenact the Montreal Screwjob.
    • In the Women's Extreme Wrestling video, Zane draws the line when Steve the Sound Guy made up with Trinity despite hitting her over the head with an ukelele:
      Zane: Oh, great. They're... they're okay still? You just... you know, cost her the match, you... you hit her in the head and... now you're hugging and... everyone's cool? WHAT? WHY?! WHHHHHYYYYYYYYY?! You know what, that's it! I'm tapping out! I'm done! I can't watch this anymore! I don't care if it gets better by the end of it's run; I AM DONE!
  • Running Gag:
    • invoked In the "NWF" episode, Zane repeatedly calls one of the public access TV executives "Old Man Tronson" and says he's trying to ruin the kids' fun.
    • Captain Lou Albano has interrupted Zane a few times in his usual cloudcuckoolander manner, such as in the "Body Slam" episode.
    • In the "WWECW" episode, the clip of the Zombie from the first episode of ECW on Sci-Fi comes up a lot. It also comes up practically every time WWECW is mentioned in one of his videos.
    • Zane's apparent inability to escape wrestling referee Jesse Hernandez, who has popped up in no less than five videos so far:
      Zane: Seriously...you can't escape this man!
    • "Number of explosions survived by [protagonist]", whenever reviewing The Marine movies.
    • After Brock Lesnar coined his "Suplex City" Catchphrase and began to be used afterwards to describe Lesnar applying several German suplexes in a row to his opponents as them "being sent to Suplex City" afterwards, Zane would appropiate the phrase with a twist, instead describing any wrestler being given a low blow as them "being sent to Dick Kick City."
    • Thanks to Tantric vocalist Hugo Ferreira's over-the-top Yarling of the word "revolution" at the World Wrestling All-Stars event of the same name, Zane has taken to yarling rhyming words (or the same word) in a similar fashion, e.g. the WWE faction RETRIBUTION, or as he says it, "REAAAAAATRIBYOOOUUUSHAAAAAWN!"
    • In his WCW PPV reviews, every time Meng shows up, Zane will call him "the man called Meng", sung to the tune of the Sting Image Song "The Man Called Sting".
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
    • In his review of The Jesse Ventura Story, he bails after they reenact the Montreal Screwjob... despite the fact that Ventura was not part of it in any way (or for that matter, employed by the company that did it), and that the movie is set in the 1980s, when the Montreal Screwjob happened in 1997.note 
    • Zane leaves instead of watching the final match of the second Grand Masters of Wrestling DVD, refusing outright to sit through another awful Mighty Macabee match. It doesn't work as after everything that he did, they only actually started the match as he comes back.
    • Zane does this at the end of the "Donald Trump in WWE" episode when he points out that WWE unpersoned Hulk Hogan, yet Trump was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.note 
  • Self-Deprecation:
    • If Zane mentions his career as a wrestler in a video, expect him to not put his skills in flattering terms. He featured his own first match in the video for "Trashbaggers (Are Out of Style)", called himself a "crappy wrestler" in the video for "The 'Legend' of Supertramp", and, when showing a video of Erik Watts doing a bad dropkick in his "Worst Second and Third-Generation Wrestlers" video, he also showed a video of himself doing a bad dropkick. And then in his celebration of ten years in the wrestling biz, in an actual fed, no clip showed him successfully attacking anyone.
    • He's no nicer to his appearance as an extra (playing a security guard) than to anything else in Ultimate Death Match 3, pointing out that he's not only not actually doing anything to break up the fight, but he's in street clothes instead of a security guard outfit.
  • Sequel Hook: After Puppet's feed disconnects in the Santa With Muscles episode, Zane thinks he's done watching bad Christmas movies starring wrestlers...only for Adam Blampied to show up with a copy of Santa's Slay.
  • Sick Episode: The episode on Trashbag wrestlers had Zane claiming that the aforementioned wrestlers have made him physically ill. He spends the episode wearing a bathrobe, he's noticeably unkempt, and the episode starts with him puking into a bucket.
  • Similarly Named Works: Invoked in his review of the 1974 movie The Wrestler, which has Zane confused after seeing that the movie he bashed uses footage from the 2008 movie of the same name.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: Zane mentions Marc Mero getting Sable a job in the WWF, which lead to the resurrection of the Women's division just to capitalize on her growing popularity, would lead to female wrestlers gaining much more relevance and spotlight over a decade later. Concluding that Marc Mero was the one who started the Women's Revolution.
  • So Bad, It's Good: invoked Zane finds the theme of Women of Wrestling's Asian Invasion hilarious due to it being incredibly stupid and racist.
  • Song Parody: Has done quite a few of these:
    • Parodied Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" with his song "Wrestling With Wregret", a song about the show.
    • Parodied Meat Loaf's "I'd Do Anything For Love" with "Heel's Lament" (I'd do anything for heat, but I won't do that.)
    • Parodied "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" from ''Frozen (2013) with "Do You Want to Watch Some Wrestling?"
    • Parodied Taylor Swift's "Style" with "Trashbaggers (Are Out of Style)".
    • Parodied Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" with "No Mercy", about the game.
    • Parodied They Might Be Giants' "Particle Man" with "Braun Strowman", about...guess.
    • Parodied "Weird Al" Yankovic's "The Night Santa Went Crazy" as "The Night Daniel Went Crazy" to be about Daniel Bryan.
  • So Bad, It's Good: In his Superbrawl 1991 review, he gives the debut match of Oz (Kevin Nash with a needlessly elaborate The Wizard of Oz gimmick) 4 stars purely for this reason.invoked
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: Zane criticized Abraxas for having slow romantic jazz music during action sequences:
    Zane: Are these two gonna fight or fuck?!
  • Speak Ill of the Dead:
    • Zane brought up the child molestation accusations levied towards Michael Jackson as a way to compare the situation to some fans still liking Chris Benoit despite the double murder-suicide.
    • He does this in his video review of Warrior's time in WCW, reminding that Warrior was no saint when he was alive, even going as far as calling him an asshole.
    • He hasn't spoken highly of The Fabulous Moolah. This includes his opening thoughts in this Who War It Better episode discussing the then-controversy of WWE naming a women's battle royal after her.
  • Spit Take: invoked Zane performs one in the "Women's Extreme Wrestling" episode, after this infamous call:
  • Steven Ulysses Perhero: The XFL episode reveals that the Know-It-All Fan's name is Ian Wesley Campbell.note 
  • Surprisingly Improved Sequel: invoked This is Zane's opinion on Scooby-Doo! and the WWE: Curse of the Speed Demon compared to Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery. Despite its flaws, he admits that he likes it.
  • Symbol Swearing: His video about The InVasion Angle is titled: "The F*&%ing Invasion."
  • Take That!: Zane frequently takes a shot at Backyard Wrestling, "Trash Baggers", the ECW Zombie, the McMahon family, Pirate Paul Burchill, disregarding kayfabe and the Invasion angle.
  • This Is Gonna Suck: A few episodes have begun this way.
  • Very Special Episode: The episode covering the Lunchtime Suicide segments is presented this way, as there is no intro music, no outro music, and a disclaimer at the beginning.
  • Vomit Discretion Shot:
    • Vomits into a trashcan upon hearing about how an old lady's "pie" The Rock ate "had a strange taste of mold" during his review of The Rock's single "Pie".
    • He also vomits into a trashcan at the start of his video on Trashbag wrestlers.
  • Wham Shot: The review of Ultimate Death Match 3 takes a wild turn when Zane himself shows up as an extra in the film.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Rips into Vince McMahon for letting his ego ruin The InVasion Angle and Eddiesplotation, as well as giving wrestlers racist gimmicks.

Zane: Be sure to thumbs up this video, subscribe to Wrestling With Wregret, and as always, buy the T-shirt! I'm Brian Zane and I'll see ya next time!

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