THIS SmackDown Segment Drew Highest Wrestling Audience In Months

It got the attention. The Women’s Revolution has been going for over five years on WWE television but it really started years before. Down in NXT, the Four Horsewomen became the cornerstones of the movement and they took those talents up to the main roster. The four of them have feuded with each other in various combinations for years and now one of them has gotten some serious attention. Last week on SmackDown, Bayley and Sasha Banks lost their rematch for the Women’s Tag Team Titles. Banks was injured during the match which ultimately cost them their title shot. After the match was over, Bayley attacked Banks and went after her already injured knee, followed by Pillmanizing Banks’ neck. This was a long time in the making and the fans were rather interested. According to Wrestling Observer Radio, the 9:00 – 9:30 time slot from last week’s SmackDown, which featured the title match and the post match attack on Banks, drew 2.32 million viewers. That number is the highest rated segment ..

Surprising Name Seen As A Top Babyface On Monday Night Raw

He’s starting fast. There are a lot of people on the main WWE roster at the moment and that is something that offers a variety of options. At the same time though, the top of the roster is rather heel heavy at the moment. For as much of the talent that they have, they do not have many good guys. That means the company needs some new stars, and one of the names the company sees as a top face on Monday Night Raw may surprise you. Back in 2006, Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio had one of the most unique feuds in history as they fought over the custody of Rey’s son Dominick. The feud saw a ladder match for Dominick with Rey winning and Dominick mostly left WWE TV. He is now back though and a full time wrestler, which has included being put into a pretty big spot on Monday Night Raw. It turns out that he is a little bigger of a star than previously thought. According to PWInsider Elite, Dominick is now considered one of the top faces on Monday Night Raw. Dominick is seen as one of the thre..

WWE Releases Three More Names

There they go too. Things have been changing in WWE in a big way this year and one of the biggest changes has been the releases that took place back in April. Several wrestlers were suddenly let go and sent into the free agent market, which shook things up throughout the wrestling world. There were other people affected by the changes than just the wrestlers though, as several backstage workers were furloughed. Things got even worse today. There are so many people who are helpful to making a wrestling show work besides just the wrestlers themselves. It can help to have someone involved to serve as something like a coach for the match and to help lay things out for the wrestlers involved. That is where a veteran presence and mind can help, but some of the better backstage WWE minds are now gone. Three backstage WWE names were released on Thursday, with two producers and a scout being released. Producers Mike Rotunda and Sarah Stock were both released, according to PWInsider and Fightf..

WATCH: Couple Use AEW In Wedding Vows

You don’t hear that every day. AEW has not been around all that long in the wrestling world but have still made quite an impact. They have mostly dominated the Wednesday Night Wars against NXT and that is the kind of thing that was quite the surprise in some ways. The company certainly has a lot of fans and their numbers have been going up, but one of them might have topped the rest. Wrestling tends to exist in its own little world. The people involved in wrestling do not exactly seem like people who would exist outside of a wrestling show and it can be interesting to see what happens when they go outside of that bubble. Some of the best promos and segments involve the real world and the wrestling world clashing. That happened again, and it wasn’t in a wrestling angle. This is just great. Check out something you don’t see very often: https://media.wrestlingrumors.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/11012124/Dynamite-Wedding-Vows.mp4 A video posted to Twitter shows a couple getting marrie..

VIDEO: John Cena Announces New Weekly Series

The rise of Cena continues. Every now and then, a wrestler will break through into the world of mainstream entertainment and get out of the professional wrestling bubble. Not too many of them are able to do this but you can certainly tell when things click. Some of the bigger names in wrestling history have pulled it off and now one of the top WWE names of all time is expanding his Hollywood footprint. Some people might not like him as much as others but John Cena is one of the biggest stars that WWE has ever had. While he has since left the wrestling world for the most part, you will still see him pop up every now and then. Most of his time is spent in the mainstream entertainment world though and now he is going to be on television a lot more than he has been before. TBS has announced, via Deadline.com, that Cena will be co-hosting and executive produce a revival of the obstacle course series Wipeout. Cena released a video of himself announcing the series and the show’s trailer on ..

VIDEO: New NXT UK Tournament Starting Next Week With Unique Rules

Bring on the gold. Titles are one of the easiest methods of identifying the top stars in a promotion. Any fan can figure this concept out without much effort: whoever has a big title belt is one of the biggest stars around. That isn’t hard to figure out and has worked forever. Some might say that there are too many titles in WWE today though and that number is about to grow. On Thursday September 17, NXT UK will return after more than five months away due to the Coronavirus. The show had been getting some traction going over the previous few months and that is the kind of thing that you need time to build. With the show coming back after such a long hiatus, they needed something to get them started in a hurry and now they have a new idea. This week on NXT UK, the NXT UK Heritage Cup was announced, with the first matches taking place on next week’s return show. The eight man tournament will be held under the British rounds system, with each match being six three minute rounds and 2/3 ..

Injury Update On Ivar, Situation Worse Than Previously Thought

That’s bad to hear. Injuries can be some of the scariest things in all of wrestling and the neck is one of the worst places that can be damaged. That is the sort of injury that can end a career and they can seemingly come out of nowhere. Like any other injury, it can happen in a flash and that was the case this week on Monday Night Raw. Now we know a bit more about it and the results aren’t great. This week on Monday Night Raw, Ivar of the Viking Raiders dove to the floor during an eight man tag. Upon landing, Ivar immediately made the X sign, signaling that he had been hurt. He was taken away on a stretcher after the match and was later diagnosed with a neck injury. The tentative diagnosis was a stinger but there was no timetable given on his return, though now we have some bad news. According to Wrestling Observer Radio, Ivar’s injury is considered significant though it is currently unknown if he will need surgery. The initial thought of a stinger seems to be incorrect and the inju..

KB’s Review: Unfortunately, They Talk

A little over a month ago, WWE mentioned that there would be a new stable debuting on Monday Night Raw. That got some interests, including my own, up, as that isn’t the kind of thing that WWE tends to announce in advance. WWE had been having issues with their television ratings and audience for a long time and it was clear that they needed something to help boost them up. I was intrigued, and it has pretty much been all downhill from that point on. The group was a bunch of masked people jumping around in the parking lot and blowing up an electric generator. There was no name for the team, no members announced, and nothing inside the Performance Center. It wasn’t exactly clear why the team was announced in advance, but it wound up being a mistake, as the group wasn’t supposed to be advertised. If that didn’t tell you that we were in trouble, I’m not sure what else was going to. We would soon find out that the team was called Retribution and that they wanted to make things right in WWE..

WWE Seemingly Cracking Down On Superstars’ Outside Ventures

That’s a big shot. Wrestlers are given quite a few responsibilities, as they have to go in the ring and wrestle but also market themselves at the same time. One of the best ways to do this is through selling their merchandising. Almost every wrestler has their own t-shirt with some of them having several to choose from. It is a lucrative side business for WWE, which is why they seem to have made a big move. Last week, WWE issued a new rule saying that its wrestlers were no longer allowed to work with third parties to make money. This seemed to include services like Cameo and Twitch, which allowed wrestlers to interact with fans in a much more direct manner. However, wrestlers try to make money in other ways, one of which WWE seems to be taking away from them in a hurry. According to Wrestlinginc.com, Mustafa Ali’s Pro Wrestling Tees page has been taken down. A link on his Twitter page has been replaced with a link to his WWE Shop page. This seems to have been done in the last few day..

WWE Worried That Kurt Angle Would Die In The Ring

That’s a serious problem. Wrestling has been around for a very long time and there are some ideas and stories that are always going to work. Some of these might feel a bit dated at times, but that does not mean they have stopped working. One of the most common has been the American hero against the menacing foreigner, who is often Russian. That was almost the case again a few years back in a big way. There are very few wrestlers in history on the same level as Kurt Angle. After winning a gold medal in the 1996 Summer Olympics, Angle took the WWF by storm and wound up becoming one of its biggest stars ever. He left for Impact Wrestling in 2006 and stayed there for the better part of ten years before coming back to the WWE in 2016 for his Hall of Fame induction. Angle also wrestled a handful of matches before retiring in 2018, but there was one major match that never took place for a good reason. In a chat on Twitch, Miro, formerly known as Rusev in WWE, talked about trying to get WWE ..

Vince McMahon Told A Wrestler To Not Be Funny Or Entertaining

It’s certainly advice. While some people might not be the biggest fans of the man, there is no denying that Vince McMahon has produced a lot of great wrestling ideas. He has managed to succeed in a lot of different areas of wrestling and made a fortune doing so. There are certain things he does though which might not work out so well, and one of those involved a wrestler who looked ready to break through to the main event. Debuting back in 2005, Ken Anderson, then known as Mr. Kennedy, seemed like he was going to be a breakout star. There was something about him that made you want to watch and it was hard to look away from him. An injury caused him to miss the biggest break of his career when he was scheduled to become McMahon’s on-screen son, but nothing ever came of it. McMahon had some interesting thoughts on Anderson, which he let him know right off the bat. Anderson was a guest on SportsKeeda’s UnSKripted where he spoke about advice that McMahon gave him. Upon debuting, Anderson..

REVIEW: Clash Of Champions 2016: One Brand Fits All

Welcome to KB’s Old School (and New School) Reviews. I’ve been reviewing wrestling shows for over ten years now and have reviewed over 5,000 shows. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I’ll be posting a new review here on Wrestlingrumors.net. It could be anything from modern WWE to old school to indies to anything in between. Note that I rate using letters instead of stars and I don’t rate matches under three minutes as really, how good or bad can something that short be? Clash of Champions 2016 Date: September 25, 2016 Location: Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, Indiana Commentators: Michael Cole, Corey Graves, Byron Saxton It’s the first Raw only pay per view and things are starting to get interesting around here. Tonight’s main event is Seth Rollins challenging Kevin Owens for the WWE Universal Championship but the big question is what role HHH will play in the whole thing. Other than that we have Roman Reigns challenging Rusev for the US Title and New Day defending the Raw Ta..

All Elite Wrestling Announces New Signing

AEW has formally signed some other feminine. Last month AEW held the Women’s Tag Team Tournament and one of the most groups used to be Ana Jay and Tay Conti. Ma...

VIDEO: An NXT Stable Got A Lot Smaller After This Week’s Show

It was nice while it lasted. Stables are one of the best ways to get a lot of people on television at once. With so many wrestlers around WWE, you can only get so many people doing something at the same time. Even the most famous stable in history, the Four Horsemen, were created because they were thrown into the same interview due to a time crunch. One such stable seems to have taken a big hit after a bad loss. While it is not the most serious stable in the world, the Robert Stone Brand has been a rather entertaining group over the last few weeks. Stone has been a wonderfully goofy manager and has a few women to fight his battles for him. This includes Aliyah and Mercedes Martinez, the latter of whom has been helping Stone fighting off Rhea Ripley. That may not be the case any longer. It didn’t go well. Check out what happened after NXT: This week on NXT, Ripley defeated Martinez inside a steel cage, during which Stone had been attacked by Ripley. WWE has released a video from aft..

More On Marty Jannetty Claiming He Killed Someone

That’s a relieving explanation. Back in 1991, Shawn Michaels sent Marty Jannetty through the Barber Shop window in the most famous tag team split in WWE history. Michaels went on to become the top star in the company a few years later and became a legend. On the other hand, Jannetty became a running punchline in wrestling, with the accomplishments he has had over the years being completely forgotten. Now something else has been forgotten, which might be for the best. Back in August, Jannetty made a post to Facebook claiming that he killed a man in self defense back when he was a teenager and threw his body in a river. This got a lot of people’s attention, as you might have expected, including the local police department who mentioned that they would be looking into Jannetty’s claims. Somewhere along the lines it went a bit too far though and Jannetty has changed his tune. In a new post to Facebook, Jannetty said that he made the whole thing up as it was the start of a wrestling story..

Vince McMahon Gets Some “Bad News” About His Financial Status

So that’s where he is now. Vince McMahon has changed the way the wrestling world works and that might not be for the best in everyone’s eyes. The WWE has become the dominant superpower in wrestling and has been the case for decades now. As a result, McMahon has become one of the wealthiest people in the world, but where does he rank exactly? It might not be as high as you would expect. While McMahon is the most successful person ever in wrestling, he has not had the most success outside of the industry. He has had notable failures such as the World Bodybuilding Federation, ICO-PRO and the XFL among various others, all of which have cost him quite a bit of money. Those losses add up, and now we know just how much damage they have done to McMahon’s bank accounts. According to Forbes.com, McMahon has dropped off the list of the Top 400 Americans, mainly due to the losses from WWE’s lack of live events and the XFL, including its launch and bankruptcy. McMahon’s net worth is estimated to ..

WWE Performance Center Undergoing Major Changes

It needed the work. This has certainly been a strange year for WWE, along with everyone else for that matter, as the Coronavirus pandemic has changed a lot of things about everyday life. One of the biggest changes to WWE was the moving of their major television shows to the Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. The building served as a makeshift home for WWE, but it was unable to serve as the company’s training facility. Those days may be over. The Performance Center is a world class training facility but there is only so much that can be done there when it is being used as a television studio as well. As a result, the trainees have moved over to a warehouse to train in the meantime, even as WWE TV has moved over to the Amway Center. Now we know a bit more about why the students have yet to move back. According to Fightful Select, the Performance Center is currently being renovated and remodeled. It is not clear when the students will be allowed to return to the facility or when th..

New NXT Champion Crowned, Joins Exclusive Club

History has been made! The NXT Title has gone from a championship that was really just around for the sake of having something to fight for on an internet show. Over the years though, the title became a big deal as a who’s who of wrestlers became champion. After that much time, the NXT Title is a prestigious championship and that made this Tuesday all the sweeter. Back in August, NXT Champion Karrion Kross was forced to vacate the title a mere four days after winning it due to a shoulder injury. As a result, Johnny Gargano, Tommaso Ciampa, Adam Cole and Finn Balor competed in a four way sixty minute Iron Man match for the vacant NXT Title. The match ended in a draw though as Balor and Cole had two falls apiece. A tiebreaker was needed and that took place this week. During this week’s NXT, Balor defeated Cole in a singles match to become the new NXT Champion. As a result, Balor becomes the third man to hold the NXT Title twice, along with Samoa Joe and Shinsuke Nakamura. The match end..

VIDEO: WWE Wrestler Undergoes Gimmick And Name Change

There’s the change. Sometimes in wrestling, including WWE, you need to change someone up. That could come in a variety of forms and some of them are better than others. One of the best ways might be to just change the wrestler’s name. The old name might not be one with the best reputation so just starting from scratch can help. If it is someone you don’t even recognize, it might be even better. While there is a good chance that you don’t regularly watch the show, 205 Live has been doing some nice things in recent weeks. The show basically started from scratch and is building things back up, which means that there are some spots available for fresh talent. One of them has been getting a little somewhere, and now he has appeared on NXT under a new name. During this week’s NXT, 205 Live wrestler Tehuti Miles appeared under the name Ashante “The” Adonis in a loss to Velveteen Dream. Adonis has been wrestling as Miles on 205 Live and occasionally NXT for most of the year, though he has on..

AEW Dark Results – September 8, 2020

If you would like to see this show in full, you can watch it right here for free: Dark Date: September 8, 2020 Location: Daily’s Place, Jacksonville, Florida Commentators: Excalibur, Taz For reasons I don’t quite fathom, this is the third episode of Dark in eight days because we needed a special one before All Out and then the regular shows as well. At least tonight’s show along with Friday’s were a little shorter than usual, but we’ve got squashification waiting for us so let’s get to it. Taz and Excalibur give us the rapid fire intro. Sean Legacy vs. Will Hobbs Hobbs starts fast with a running shoulder before lifting Legacy up by the wrist for some arm cranking. Legacy’s crossbody is knocked out of the air with ease and a release gordbuster knocks him silly again. An Oklahoma Stampede finishes Legacy at 2:59. Result: Will Hobbs b. Sean Legacy – Oklahoma Stampede (2:59) Tony Donati vs. Brian Cage Non-title. Cage hits a release German suplex in the first five seconds and then do..