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NXT
Date: March 21, 2018
Location: Full Sail University, Winter Park, Florida
Commentators: Mauro Ranallo, Nigel McGuinness, Percy Watson
We’re in the home stretch towards Takeover: New Orleans and you can guess most of the card. NXT knows how to set up things down the last few weeks and I have no doubt that they’ll pull it off again. We also have more from the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, which could be a lot of fun by the end. Let’s get to it.
Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.
Opening sequence.
Here’s Tommaso Ciampa, still without music, to open the show. The fans have their Johnny Gargano signs to annoy him even more, which are a great touch. Ciampa has a mic and again the fans won’t let him get a word out. After being cut off over and over, Ciampa finally shouts that HE’S GONE. Gargano isn’t walking down the aisle because he’s gone. Ciampa drops the mic and heads to the floor to glare at the fans, eventually ripping up the Johnny signs. He pulls away one fr..

Vince McMahon only recently revealed the revival of the XFL but it seems that alongside the pre-existing NFL, McMahon may have new competition and he is very familiar with the man responsible for it. The name behind this competition is Charlie Ebersol, someone very familiar to McMahon. Ebersol’s father Dick was a longtime NBC executive and actually helped McMahon launch the original XFL years ago, with Ebersol himself directing the recent ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on the failed launch of the original XFL.
Today, Ebersol has announced the formation of the Alliance of American Football.
According to WrestlingInc, Ebersol plans to launch the AAF on CBS on February 9, 2019 which is set to follow the NFL’s Super Bowl. This is much sooner than the XFL, which is set to begin in early 2020.
Dick will serve on a board of directors alongside former NFL stars Hines Ward, Justin Tuck, and Jared Allen. Their goals are similar to that of the XFL, with good seats supposedly costing around $35.
E..

The power of the beard. Yesterday, the wrestling world was turned upside down when Daniel Bryan was cleared for in-ring competition. Bryan has been out of the ring for over two years now, cutting short one of the hottest careers in wrestling history. Now that he’s back though, the question is how well would the fans react.
Miss last night’s show? Here are some quick highlights:
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According to 411mania.com, last night’s episode of “Smackdown Live” drew a .99 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 2.888 million viewers. These numbers are up 9% and 4% respectively over last week’s .91 demographic rating and 2.771 million viewers. Both are the highest since April 11, 2017. The show was bookended by Bryan appearances, starting on his own and finishing with an attack at the hands of Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens. You can see last night’s results here.
Opinion: It’s hard to imagine that these numbers are due to much other than Bryan’s return. That stor..

So I had a big article planned about the improvements that Ring of Honor has been making of late, and then the wrestling world was turned upside down. Yesterday, in one of the biggest surprises I ever could have imagined, Daniel Bryan was cleared to return to the ring after over two years of retirement. Bryan had tried to get his medical clearance for well over a year and while several doctors had cleared him, it wasn’t until recently that he received the clearance that matters. Bryan’s clearance comes at the perfect time as we’re less than three weeks to go before “Wrestlemania XXXIV” (I’m sure there’s no coincidence to the timing) and you know what that means: we get to speculate about matches! While it’s pretty clear that Bryan is going to team with Shane McMahon against Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens, that’s not going to be his last match.
Here’s how he went about the return announcement.
Today we’re going to look at the potential matchups that Bryan could be having in his latest WWE ..

YES! YES! YES! The prayers of the WWE Universe have been answered, and the rumors are true; Daniel Bryan will be back in the ring at some point in the near future.
WWE.com has released a new report today, saying that the “Smackdown Live” General Manager has been medically cleared to return to the squared circle.
It was thought that his days in the ring were over, following his retirement announcement on the February 8, 2016 episode of “Raw.” You can see a clip of that below:
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However, the following report indicates that he may be back sooner than we think:
Following more than two years of extensive evaluations, four-time World Champion Daniel Bryan has been medically cleared to return to in-ring competition by leading neurosurgeons, neurologists and concussion experts, including Dr. Robert Cantu, Dr. Javier Cárdenas and Dr. Jeffrey Kutcher.
Bryan underwent a full review of his medical history and received comprehensive neurological and ph..

Smackdown
Date: March 20, 2018
Location: American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas
Commentators: Tom Phillips, Corey Graves, Byron Saxton
And then, Daniel Bryan was cleared to medically return to the ring. I’m really not sure what else there is to say here as now we wait to see what this means for Bryan at Wrestlemania. There’s a good chance that he gets the spot in a tag match with Shane McMahon against Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn but maybe it’s something else. Let’s get to it.
Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.
We open with a look at Daniel Bryan’s retirement in February 2016 in an emotional moment. Then news broke today that Bryan was cleared to return to the ring after FINALLY being medically cleared. I think we have a theme for tonight.
Here’s Bryan to open things up. He needs to address the actions of Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens from last week….but they’re not here yet so we need to talk about something else. Bryan talks about being grateful for everything he has,..

Not quite WONDERFUL! We’re firmly on the Road to Wrestlemania and that means each show is getting more and more important. Things are starting to get set up for the show and that means everything needs to be handled with care. That included last night’s “Monday Night Raw”, which featured the Ultimate Deletion. It was very different, but how many people were interested?
Miss last night’s show? Here are some quick highlights:
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According to 411mania.com, this week’s episode of “Monday Night Raw” drew a 1.16 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 3.324 million viewers. The rating is the same as last week’s and down less than one percent from last week’s 3.352 million viewers. Aside from the Ultimate Deletion, the other major story was an update on John Cena challenging the Undertaker. Here are last night’s results.
Opinion: All in all, this isn’t bad. The Ultimate Deletion was a big draw and it’s nice to see that it was almost the same level of..

There’s always room for one more. The United States Title has changed course quite a bit in recent months. After Dolph Ziggler vacated the title, Bobby Roode won it in a tournament. Then it was Randy Orton taking the title from him, leaving us with a rematch at “Wrestlemania XXXIV”. Things have changed again.
Tensions seem to be rather high.
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This week on “Smackdown Live”, it was announced that the match was now a triple threat match with Jinder Mahal also involved. Mahal has attacked both Orton and Roode in recent weeks and was added to the match before this week’s show went on the air. Mahal has never been United States Champion. You can read this week’s results here.
Opinion: Why do we need to do this? Mahal adds very little to the match and is seemingly there just to get him on the show. I wasn’t impressed with Mahal during his title reign and I really don’t need to see him in this match. The match being a regular rematch for the tit..

And then there were two. For the last two months, “205 Live” has been holding a tournament to crown a new Cruiserweight Champion. The tournament had been narrowed down to three people leading into this week and now we know the final two. Who advanced on this week’s show?
One of them has been on a roll of late.
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This week on “205 Live”, Mustafa Ali defeated Drew Gulak in the semifinals of the tournament to advance to the “Wrestlemania” title match. Ali will be facing Cedric Alexander for the vacant title. The tournament became necessary when Enzo Amore was stripped of the title and released from the company upon the announcement of a rape investigation.
Here’s how Alexander got here.
Opinion: I’m perfectly fine with this as Ali has stepped up his game to an amazing degree as of late. His matches have been very good and his promo work has been the best of his career so far. This match could go either way and that’s how you want a title match..

Andre would be proud. With “Wrestlemania XXXIV” less than three weeks away, it’s time to start filling in the final spots on the card. This includes adding names to the men’s and women’s battle royals, the former of which was only confirmed this week. Several names were added this week on “Smackdown Live”.
They’ve fought before and they’ll fight again in New Orleans.
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This week, Baron Corbin and Tye Dillinger were both added to the men’s battle royal. In addition, Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan, Sarah Logan, Naomi and Becky Lynch were all confirmed for the Women’s Wrestlemania Battle Royal. These are the first women to be confirmed for the match. How did these names get in? Find out here.
Opinion: It’s too early to say who is going to win these matches but at the same time there aren’t many chances left to fill in the lineups. There are two weeks left of each show and there are less than ten names announced each. With so many names left to be ad..

Hopefully he doesn’t fade away. Last year at “Wrestlemania XXXIII”, the Hardys made their return to WWE for the first time in several years. The most asked question was what would be happening with the Broken Universe. After a long delay, the characters debuted a few months back, and tonight it was the grand culmination with the Ultimate Deletion. So who was deleted?
And so it begins.
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In the match tonight, Matt Hardy defeated Bray Wyatt with a Twist of Fate after a distraction from Jeff Hardy, who made a very brief cameo. After the match, Wyatt was shoved into the Lake of Reincarnation but disappeared. With no body to be found, Matt declared that Wyatt had been deleted. You can read tonight’s full results right here.
Opinion: This went about as well as you could have asked it to. The wrestling wasn’t the point as everything was about the violence and insanity. It wasn’t quite as over the top as the Impact Wrestling versions but that has..

This totally reeks of awesomeness. Earlier this year, the Dudley Boyz were announced as part of the 2018 WWE Hall of Fame class. The induction itself is long overdue but it also brought up the question of who would be inducting them. That question was answered today with a surprise announcement.
The team deserves this.
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On today’s episode of “Busted Open Radio”, host Bubba Ray Dudley offered the honor of inducting he and D-Von Dudley to Edge and Christian. During the show, Edge called in and accepted the honor. The two teams feuded for several years in WWE with each winning the World Tag Team Titles from the other. EXCLUSIVE: @EdgeRatedR & @Christian4Peeps will induct @bullyray5150 & @TestifyDVon into the #WWEHOF …will we see the third team from #TLC join them on stage? @MATTHARDYBRAND @JEFFHARDYBRAND #WrestleMania #WrestleMania34 #RAW #SDLive pic.twitter.com/Hxj8Tb55Mi
— SiriusXM Busted Open (@BustedOpenRadio) March 19, 2018
This is lo..