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Vince McMahon Taking Extra Interest In NXT

June 19, 2020 • Admin

He had to get there eventually. There are a lot of different layers to the WWE structure and some of them receive a lot more attention than others. Not only are there the main WWE shows, but the developmental program is alive and well, with NXT growing from little more than filler programming to an actual third show. However, that third show might be about to change. While WWE is the biggest and most powerful wrestling company in the world and has been for a long time now, there are certain things about it that a lot of fans do not care for. A lot of this starts at the top with Vince McMahon, whose booking style has not been the most popular for a lot of fans. There are certain tropes that you will see from him and they might be making their way to NXT. According to Wrestling Observer Radio, McMahon has taken more of an interest in NXT as of late. This was evidenced by this week’s show, which included Robert Stone vomiting in the ring and the announcement of a Winner Take All match f..

Kevin Owens Skips Monday Night Raw Taping Over Coronavirus

June 19, 2020 • Admin

He’ll be back later. The spread of the Coronavirus has changed the way the world works. Over the last few months, people have become a lot more cautious when it comes to potentially getting infected with the virus and for good reason. There are certain things that can be done to lower the risk of infection and that is the kind of thing that some wrestlers are doing in a big way. One of the bigger wrestling stories related to the Coronavirus has been the absence of various wrestlers from WWE’s television tapings. Some of them have not felt safe coming to the shows and that is rather understandable. This has included both Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn, the latter of whom was forced to vacate the Intercontinental Title as a result. Now another name is taking time off, but it might not be as long this time. According to Wrestling Observer Radio, Kevin Owens left this week’s WWE television tapings after news broke about an NXT wrestler testing positive for Coronavirus. This comes after Owens..

Why Bianca Belair Disappeared From Monday Night Raw

June 18, 2020 • Admin

Where did you go? Callups from NXT can be a tricky thing. You never know how someone is going to do after making the jump to the next level as WWE has a tendency to not know what to do with someone. Just because something works in NXT does not mean it will be used on the main roster. That might be the case this time around, but there may be another explanation. Every now and then you come across a wrestler who is nothing short of an athletic marvel. They can be nothing short of amazing to watch in everything they do and that can make for some entertaining moments. That is certainly the case with Bianca Belair, who was a track and field star in college before moving on to professional wrestling. She was called up to Monday Night Raw just after WrestleMania but has not been seen in over a month. So what happened? According to Dave Meltzer on the Wrestling Observer Message Board, WWE has not had Belair working with the Street Profits because they decided to go with the comedy segments i..

VIDEO: Star Making Return To NXT

June 18, 2020 • Admin

Nice to meet you. There is a structured system in WWE, with names going from NXT up to the main roster on a fairly regular basis. That makes for some interesting developments and it can be fun to see when someone goes up to the main roster. At the same time though, that leaves holes in the NXT lineup. Someone has to replace them, and now we know someone who will be doing just that. The Mae Young Classic was an interesting idea for WWE and it helped boost up the NXT roster for a long time to come. There are all kinds of names who made their debuts in the tournament and then went on to become big stars in NXT, NXT UK and even WWE. It was a great way to replenish the division and it is not even done yet, with one more name making it up to NXT. During this week’s NXT, a vignette aired showing Mercedes Martinez was returning to NXT. Martinez has had two runs with the promotion, including her current time, which began with a return at the Royal Rumble and a win on the February 5 edition of..

NXT Results – June 17, 2020

June 18, 2020 • Admin

NXT Date: June 17, 2020 Location: Full Sail University, Winter Park, Florida Commentators: Tom Phillips, Beth Phoenix, Mauro Ranallo After everything that happened last week, we could be in for a big night. Well actually we could be in for some big nights on July 1 and 8, as AEW’s Fyter Fest probably need some competition. That could be set up tonight, but we also have some guest stars with Bayley and Sasha Banks. Let’s get to it. Opening recap. Opening sequence. Tag Team Titles: Imperium vs. Breezango Breezango is challenging and do their own version of the Imperium (or Emporium, under the names of Marsupial and Fabio). As you might guess, Imperium doesn’t like this and Aichner takes Breeze down with an armbar to start. Breeze is sent outside and into the Plexiglas as a WE WANT FABIO chant starts up. The chinlock doesn’t last long as Breeze fights up and sends Barthel to the floor. The hot tag brings in Fandango and the big dive to the floor takes out the champs as we go to a brea..

Impact Wrestling Results – June 9, 2020

June 11, 2020 • Admin

Impact Wrestling Date: June 9, 2020 Location: Skyway Studios, Nashville, Tennessee Commentators: Madison Rayne, Josh Matthews It’s a big night as we get to find out the future of the World Title. Last week Ace Austin won the #1 contenders tournament, which was rather odd as he beat someone who wasn’t even entered. Never let it be said that things go as you might expect around here, though that’s not necessarily a good thing. Let’s get to it. Opening recap. Opening sequence. Don Callis and Scott D’Amore aren’t sure what to do about the World Title situation. Ken Shamrock vs. Michael Elgin vs. Sami Callihan Shamrock and Elgin start brawling before Sami shows up, meaning the lights go out so Sami can show up. Sami sends the other two outside but gets pulled out of the air and driven into the apron. Shamrock is back up with a dive onto both of them but Elgin hits a middle rope dropkick back inside. Elgin sends Shamrock into the post and suplexes Callihan down for two. A hard whip int..

Shawn Michaels Gets In Backstage Argument At Takeover

June 11, 2020 • Admin

Fight for the rights of every man. The biggest story in the United States today, if not the world, is the advancement of the Black Lives Matter movement. Spurred on by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a series of protests have sprung up with the hopes of bring about racial equality. That is something that has struck a chord with a lot of people, including a certain wrestling legend. There are very few wrestlers who have had the kind of career that Shawn Michaels has had. He was one of the biggest stars of the 1990s and certainly one of the most talented, but he was not exactly well received during that time. However, after coming back to the ring in 2002, Michaels seemed to be a changed man with a completely different philosophy. It was no longer all about him, and that was on display over the weekend. According to Fightful Select by way of 411mania.com, Michaels got into a debate backstage with an unnamed WWE producer at this weekend’s NXT Takeover: In Your House over syste..

VIDEO: Major Reveal And Angle On NXT

June 11, 2020 • Admin

So that’s who it is. Masks are a unique aspect of wrestling and can offer a lot of different ways to go. While they occasionally appear in American wrestling, they play a much bigger role in Mexico, where they are often a wrestler’s entire identity. Some wrestlers bring their masks with them to America, but one of the more prominent in WWE took his off in a surprise. Last week on NXT, El Hijo del Fantasma won the NXT Cruiserweight Title by defeating Drake Maverick in a tournament final. It was quite the surprise win for Fantasma as he made his in-ring debut for the company during the tournament. Winning the title so soon into his NXT career was rather impressive, but it turns out that he had a major move to make in his first week as champion. This was a cool reveal. Check out the big segment: During this week’s NXT, Maverick congratulated Fantasma on his win and asked for a rematch. Before anything else could happen, two masked men who had been attempting to abduct Fantasma in rece..

Shayna Baszler Rips Becky Lynch For “Irresponsible” Pregnancy

June 11, 2020 • Admin

That’s getting a little serious. One of the biggest moments of the year saw Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch announce that she was pregnant, meaning that she would be vacating the title. This changed everything around for the Raw Women’s division and a lot of WWE as a whole. It was a very cool moment for a lot of people, but that wasn’t the case for everyone. There are very few people who came to the main roster with such a reputation as Shayna Baszler. She had held the NXT Women’s Title for more combined days than anyone in history and had seemed ready to be heading to the main roster for a long time. Baszler unsuccessfully challenged Lynch for the Raw Women’s Title at WrestleMania 36, which put her in a bit of a bad mood. She let that be known this week. Baszler was a guest on this week’s edition of the Bump and discussed her thoughts on Lynch’s pregnancy. During the interview, Baszler called Lynch irresponsible and her pregnancy garbage, saying Lynch should take care of her respon..

Bianca Belair’s Hidden Talent Impacting WWE Segments

June 11, 2020 • Admin

Belair can do other things. Every now and then you get a surprise callup to the main roster. That can make for some nice moments as a lot of wrestlers might not have much of an indication that they are making the move from NXT to either Monday Night Raw or SmackDown. We got one of those earlier this year, but it turns out that someone who was called up is doing more than wrestling. Bianca Belair made her official full time debut on Monday Night Raw earlier this year on April 6. It was the night after WrestleMania 36 and Belair joined forces with the Street Profits in a fairly natural fit since Belair is married to Montez Ford. You can’t get much more appropriate of a fit than that, but it turns out that Belair is doing more for the team than just appearing with them on television. During this week’s episode of the Bump, Ford revealed that Belair actually made the Street Profits’ attire for their recent bowling and golfing gear for their segments with the Viking Raiders. Belair did no..

NXT Results – June 10, 2020

June 11, 2020 • Admin

NXT Date: June 10, 2020 Location: WWE Performance Center, Orlando, Florida Commentators: Tom Phillips, Mauro Ranallo, Beth Phoenix We’re done with Takeover: In Your House and the only major change was Io Shirai winning the Women’s Title. Other than that, Adam Cole is still NXT Champion and needs a new challenger. Tonight he faces Dexter Lumis in a match that has me worried. Finn Balor and Keith Lee would seem to be the next big challengers so let’s get to it. Takeover recap. Here’s the Undisputed Era for a chat. Adam Cole talks about how he’s still champion because while Velveteen Dream is a great challenger, but he’s not Adam Cole bay-bay. As for what’s next, what difference does it make? The rest of the team yells about Lumis being weird and stuffing them in a trunk (Strong: “YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I HATE BEING STUFFED IN TRUNKS!”). Strong keeps thinking he seems Lumis in the crowd and Cole is tired of hearing about it. Cole has this tonight, so don’t worry about Lumis. As the team is ..

REVIEW: Rev Pro: New Orleans: From The Other Side

June 11, 2020 • Admin

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, starting today. 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? Rev Pro: New Orleans Date: April 6, 2018 Location: Sugar Mill, New Orleans, Louisiana Attendance: 1,200 Commentators: Andy Quildan, Joe Dombrowski This is another show I got to attend during Wrestlemania weekend after doing the same the previous year. Rev Pro is a British organization which brings in a lot of foreigners for their shows and puts on a heck of a product from what I’ve seen. The show was a lot of fun in person and it should be interesting to see how it holds up. Let’s get to it. The intr..

Coronavirus May Have Canceled Major Wrestling Tournament

June 11, 2020 • Admin

What could have been. The spread of the Coronavirus has changed all kinds of things about the wrestling world and that may be the case for the time being. WWE, AEW and the rest of the wrestling industry have been forced to take several months off from running live events in front of fans, which can cause a lot of problems for everyone involved. Now we know one more thing that might have been wiped out. Tournaments are one of the easiest ways in the world to fill in a few weeks of wrestling programming. There is a reason that since the pandemic began, WWE, AEW, NXT and Impact Wrestling have all presented a tournament in one form or another. They make a lot of sense both in this kind of crisis, plus in regular time. That was almost on display before everything went haywire. According to Wrestling Observer Live, WWE might have been bringing back the Mae Young Classic for a third year had the pandemic not spread. The tournament has been held at Full Sail University in 2017 and 2018. A 20..

Three Title Matches Set For Next Wednesday

June 11, 2020 • Admin

Thrice as nice. The competition between NXT and AEW Dynamite has been rather entertaining more often than not as the two shows competing against each other has given us some rather entertaining moments on both shows. That has been the case for eight months now and given what was advertised this week, we are in for another big week next time. One of the more common ways to compare two wrestling companies is by lining up their champions against each other. It’s an idea that makes sense as champions are viewed as the people a promotion wants to showcase as the top of the line. It helps when a champion has a counterpart on the other show. That is the case with NXT and AEW, and now bot of them are putting champions on display. During this week’s NXT and AEW Dynamite, three Tag Team Title matches were announced for the June 17 editions of the shows. Dynamite will feature the AEW World Tag Team Champions Hangman Page/Kenny Omega defending against the Natural Nightmares. On NXT, the NXT Tag ..

Why Sami Zayn Has Issues With WWE Management

June 11, 2020 • Admin

You can only do it so often. One of the most frustrating things in all of wrestling is seeing someone who clearly has a ton of talent not being able to get along with the higher ups in a top level promotion. For whatever reason (some of which may be completely valid), they don’t get along with their bosses and things go badly in a hurry. That is the case with a current star and it is sad to see. Several WWE wrestlers have decided not to show up for the company’s events during the Coronavirus, which has caused a lot of issues. While Roman Reigns is the biggest name of them all, another prominent name on the list is Sami Zayn, who was forced to forfeit the Intercontinental Title due to inactivity. This did not seem to sit well with WWE, and it isn’t the first time the two sides have clashed. On the latest edition of his Arn Podcast, Arn Anderson talked about Zayn’s issues with being too impatient with the smaller details of wrestling and only wanting to have a good match. Zayn is said ..

AEW Dynamite Live Coverage And Results – June 10, 2020

June 11, 2020 • Admin

Dynamite Date: June 10, 2020 Location: Daily’s Place, Jacksonville, Florida Commentators: Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone, Excalibur, Chris Jericho We’re still in Jacksonville and this time around we’re going to be seeing the TNT Title on the line again, as Cody defends against Marq Quen. Other than that the countdown is on until Fyter Fest with the big showdown between Jon Moxley and Brian cage for the World Title. That has gone well so far so hopefully it does again. Let’s get to it. Chris Jericho joins commentary. FTR vs. Butcher and the Blade It’s FTR’s (the Revival) debut and Dax Harwood (Scott Dawson) takes Blade into the corner to start. A headlock on the mat has Blade in trouble and Harwood small packages him for two. The headlock takeover puts Blade down again and it’s off to Cash Wheeler (Dash Wilder) to work on the arm. Hardwood’s northern lights suplex gets two and it’s a four way standoff. The fans get behind FTR and we settle down to Wheeler vs. Butcher. Wheeler bangs his sh..

RUMOR: WWE Planning For Live Events W/Fans

May 27, 2020 • Admin

You have to plan for the future. The wrestling world has been in a very weird place over the last few months and that is likely to be the case for a long time to come. There is no way of knowing when the situation will be back to normal, but that does not mean wrestling companies can sit back and wait it out. They need to have things ready for when they have a chance and that is what the biggest wrestling company is doing. One of the biggest things missing from the current wrestling product is untelevised wrestling. With no fans in the arena to watch the shows, there is no point in running them in the first place. However, things are slowly starting to change with various opening up, albeit on a somewhat delayed schedule. That could suggest fans being allowed in arenas in the future and WWE is getting ready for that reality. According to the WrestleVotes Twitter account, WWE is making plans for the return of live events with fans in attendance, possibly starting in July. The next liv..

RUMOR: Vince McMahon Changed Mind On WWE Star

May 27, 2020 • Admin

Plans can change. There are a lot of wrestlers in WWE and only some of them can reach a high level of success. At the end of the day, there are only so many places for high level wrestlers in WWE. Vince McMahon has a big say in what happens to all of his wrestlers, which can be either good or bad. This time around though it’s good, and that was on display this week. Debuting on Monday Night Raw back in April 2016, Apollo Crews is a case of someone who has all of the natural skills in the world but just wasn’t making it up to the next level. Maybe it was due to issues with charisma or not being able to speak well enough, but it wasn’t clicking for Crews. That was the case until Monday when he became United States Champion, and McMahon had something to do with the change. According to Wrestling Observer Radio, McMahon has given Crews another chance after giving up on him at some point during his main roster run. Crews was called up the night after WrestleMania 32 and while he was given..

AEW Dark Results – May 26, 2020

May 27, 2020 • Admin

If you would like to watch this show for free, you can see it in full right here: Dark Date: May 26, 2020 Location: Daily’s Place, Jacksonville, Florida Commentators: Excalibur, Taz It’s the first show after the very good Double Or Nothing and you know what that calls for: nearly an hour and a half of overly competitive jobber matches! I’m not sure if this is the new permanent norm or if they’re just burning off a bunch of material they taped on the off chance that they wouldn’t be able to tape for a good while. Either way, it’s hardly must see material. Let’s get to it. Tazz makes it clear that he will not be getting into any details about his relationship with Brian Cage. Dark Order vs. Natural Nightmares Jon Silver/Alex Reynolds here. The Nightmares snap off an early double Russian legsweep on Reynolds to start and Dustin adds the running knee lift. Cue Allie of all people, with Marshal’’s apple. Marshall certainly seems interested and Silver uses the distraction to get in a ch..

Vince McMahon Addresses XFL Rumors

May 27, 2020 • Admin

Third strike is out? Vince McMahon has had an amazing amount of success in the world of wrestling but that is not always the case outside of the industry. McMahon is known to have not had the best success away from wrestling but that does not mean he has given up the efforts. One such effort came and went over the course of this year, but now we have written off the next step as well. Back in February, the second edition of the XFL was launched, with the first few weeks of the season being fairly well received. Then came the Coronavirus pandemic, which shut everything down in a hurry. The league declared bankruptcy, meaning that someone could buy the rights and possibly make another go of it. There was a possibility that McMahon himself would do so and possibly find a way to keep going at a much cheaper rate, but that seems to have been shot down. According to ESPN.com, McMahon appeared in bankruptcy court on Tuesday where he made it clear that he was not planning on buying the XFL i..