editor PWInsider has confirmed speculation that WWE is planning on bringing back the Punjabi Prison match for the upcoming WWE Battleground pay-per-view event.
PWI claims that their sources have informed them that the match will indeed taking place on the card. The match is expected to see Jinder Mahal defend his WWE Title against Randy Orton. This will be the 3rd Punjabi Prison match in WWE history.
Russo was avoiding this discussion and he had no intention of talking about this on his show, but after multiple false reports from wrestling ‘journalists’, he thought he had to clear the air and get the true story out there once and for all.
Speaking about the wrestling ‘journalists’, he points out that not one of them reached out to him to get the actual story after this news broke. Instead, they all took the news and gave their own biased spin on it, which is the polar opposite of respectable journalism. This proved the point that he’s been saying for years, that if you’re paying for the opinions of these guys, you’re wasting your money.
Getting into the heart of the situation, Russo says that he has been ridiculed by Jim Cornette for over two decades. It has been a constant battle between him and Cornette, but in the past couple of weeks Cornette took things to an entirely new level by threatening violence on him and his family.
He says that he only lives roughly two hours from Cornette now, and his wife is often home alone. She was quite upset after Cornette’s recent rant, and Russo felt it was necessary to take matters into his own hands by getting this Order of Protection. Hopefully this allows his wife to relax, and keeps Cornette out of their business for the foreseeable future.
As seen on Monday’s episode of RAW during the Miz TV segment, Lavar’s son LaMelo Ball dropped the phrase “”beat that n*ggas ass” during a confrontation between Lavar & The Miz. Houston Mitchell of The Los Angeles Times reached out to WWE, who released the following statement regarding the incident:
“The inappropriate language used by a guest during the ‘Miz TV’ segment was not scripted nor reflects WWE’s values “.
You can hear the slurs used in the video embedded below:
WWE heads to the Valley View Casion Center in San Diego, CA for tonight’s episode of SmackDown Live. The following is confirmed for the show:
Baron Corbin vs. Sami Zayn
The Usos vs. The Hype Bros (If The Hype Bros Win They Get a Tag Title Shot)
Smackdown Women’s Title Match: Champion Naomi vs. Lana
Smackdown Women’s MITB Match: Carmella vs. Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Tamina vs. Natalya
Check back here at 8PM ET for our live play-by-play coverage of the event.
Dave Meltzer mentioned on today’s installment of Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE will be writing Sheamus off television in the near future.
The story is that Sheamus has a role in the upcoming “Buddy Games” film and shooting for the movie takes place sometime in August. It’s believed that Sheamus will be written off television around that time. Meltzer indicated that Sheamus could be off of television for around six weeks or however long the shooting for the film is.
We will keep you updated if we hear anymore details.
It was revealed in a 30-minute preview video for Sunday’s Slammiversary event that Bellator’s Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal will be in Lashley’s corner at the event. As noted, Lashley will take on Alberto El Patron for the unified World Championship on the show.
Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane, Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno), and Konnan.
Russo opens today’s show by discussing the rise in viewership for Smackdown Live this past week. The blue brand’s viewership increased by 500,000 last week and he believes that was a direct result of the booking from Sunday’s Money in the Bank PPV, specifically the Women’s Money in the Bank ladder match.
Konnan agrees and although he thinks the finish could have been done better, it accomplished its goal of drawing attention to the brand. Russo points out that when you tell stories and leave viewers wondering, they will tune into the next show to see what happens.
Gilbertti says that the fan backlash over that finish was silly to begin with. He says the problem with the wrestling industry right now is that there are too few experts, and the actual experts are criticized and ridiculed by people who consider themselves experts simply because they’ve watched a lot of wrestling.
A listener calls into the show and asks Taz if he thinks WWE would throw us all a curve ball and have one of the Money in the Bank winners emerge on RAW to cash in their briefcase against Alexa Bliss or Brock Lesnar. Taz admits that would be a very shocking and surprising turn of events, and would make for a very memorable moment.
However, he doesn’t think cashing in on RAW (especially the day after the PPV) is a good idea. He has always been a fan of the Money in the Bank creative, and more often than not the goal is to get as much longevity out of that angle as possible each year. The briefcase holders can use that contract to boost themselves up throughout the year, and the constant threat of cashing in adds intrigue to the product throughout the year as well.
A listener calls into the show and says that he purchased the ROH PPV this past weekend, and this was the first PPV he purchased since 2014. He’s very happy he decided to spend the money on this PPV because it was a great wrestling show. Taz says that he’s a big fan of ROH, and there’s a lot of hard working people who make that company work on a daily basis.
While appearing on Hot 104.1 last week in his hometown of St. Louis, Randy Orton explained why he made his tweets about “dives” on Twitter that got everyone talking. Here is a transcript of what was said:
“I’m putting over AJ [Styles] strong, right? AJ, he has dives. A lot of guys that I work with do dives. I’ve been dived on a lot. I don’t have a problem with dives out of the ring, but when a lot of these guys, who don’t have anything to fall back on, and they’re not making any money doing it, they’re going around town wrestling on these independent shows — which is awesome, by the way. A lot of our guys, like AJ, Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins wouldn’t be here without the indie scene. But they’re smart. A lot of these guys are going to go out there and they’re going to break their neck at 23 years old, doing stuff they shouldn’t be doing.
“It’s a display of athleticism, no doubt, but … I’m not going to watch gymnastics. I want to go watch a story, a fight between a good guy and a bad guy. How many flips they do each, I’m not keeping a tally … But do you know who had my back on it? Guys like AJ. Guys that do dives and know what they’re doing … Kurt Angle texted me after that. He didn’t do dives. If he did, he would put it where it should have went … he wouldn’t have done it just to do it …
“If that’s where our business is going, to where it’s just a preconceived, choreographed match with a bunch of acrobatics — back flips, front flips, gainers off the top rope, shooting star presses, moonsaults to the floor — then I don’t want to be a part of it. But I’ll tell you what: I don’t think that’s where it’s going.”
Here is footage of Orton’s appearance on the show:
WWE announced that Seth Rollins will face Bray Wyatt at the upcoming WWE Great Balls of Fire event. Here is the updated card:
WWE Universal Title Match
Samoa Joe vs. Brock Lesnar
Ambulance Match
Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman
Cruiserweight Title Match
Akira Tozawa vs. Neville
Bray Wyatt vs. Seth Rollins
Great Balls of Fire takes place on July 9th from the American Airlines Center in Dallas. As always, we will have live play-by-play coverage of the event.
Sasha Banks won the gauntlet on tonight’s episode of RAW to earn her a shot at the RAW Women’s Championship against Alexa Bliss at the Great Balls of Fire event. Here is the updated card for the show:
WWE Universal Title Match
Samoa Joe vs. Brock Lesnar
RAW Women’s Championship
Sasha Banks vs. Alexa Bliss
Ambulance Match
Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman
Cruiserweight Title Match
Akira Tozawa vs. Neville
Bray Wyatt vs. Seth Rollins
Great Balls of Fire takes place on July 9th from the American Airlines Center in Dallas. As always, we will have live play-by-play coverage of the event.
Ryback is joined on today’s show by his co-host Pat Buck.
Ryback opens today’s show speaking about the finish of the Women’s Money in the Bank ladder match from last Sunday. There has been plenty of fan backlash since James Ellsworth scaled the ladder and retrieved the briefcase for Carmella, but Ryback believes that means the finish was a success.
He believes that people need to realize that this is a fake scenario, and the events that transpire in the ring are meant to elicit a response from viewers, whether they be positive or negative. With this in mind, WWE succeeded last Sunday because the finish of this match has been a hot topic of discussion ever since.
Buck believes that the Women’s Money in the Bank ladder match should have went on later in the show instead of going first. WWE could have taken advantage of the crowd’s energy early on by having a less impactful match go on first, which would have saved the historic women’s match for later on in the show. Ryback points out that WWE needed to separate those two main event ladder matches, so that’s probably why they started the night with the women’s match and closed the night with the men’s match.
Buck also points out that this finish made James Ellsworth relevant again. It looked to be fairly certain that Ellsworth’s WWE contract wouldn’t be renewed after his one year deal was up, but now WWE creative has some options with Ellsworth moving forward. They might be able to stretch this angle out long enough to secure another contract for Ellsworth.
Quite simply, Ryback calls the finish of that match ‘perfect’.