Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Charlotte Struggling on Smackdown, Wrestling Needs Gimmicks, Does Enzo Have Heat Backstage? More!

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane, and they will attempt to ‘castrate the marks and their dirt sheets’.

Russo points out that this is all in good fun for him, and he doesn’t hate any of these men. Unfortunately, there seems to be some real hatred on the other side of the fence from guys like Wade Keller, Ryan Satin and Mike Johnson. To show his respect to Dave Meltzer, whose father passed away this week, Russo will not be discussing Meltzer’s comments this week.

The first clip of the day presents Bryan Alvarez ranting about the fact that WWE broke up Enzo and Big Cass. Alvarez says that there’s no wonder WWE’s ratings are declining when they decided to break up one of the more popular acts on their roster due to their constant search for ‘heat’.

Russo says that there’s something political going on in the background. He’s heard rumblings of Amore’s backstage issues stemming back to his time in NXT and that probably carried over to the main roster. Quite frankly, Alvarez is right in this case because Enzo and Cass were over, and the fans loved them. However, Russo’s smart enough to understand that heat draws money, and since Cass turned on Enzo the fans have been chanting Enzo’s name with more passion than ever before.

Spoilers on the Upcoming GFW Destination X Event

GFW’s next set of tapings will be on August 17th, which will be a Destination X themed episode of Impact Wrestling and will be on a “live” taped delay. Here are a couple of spoiler notes for the show:

Alberto El Patron will defend his title against either Bobby Lashley, Matt Sydal or both on the show.
Sonjay Dutt will face Trevor Lee in a Ladder match with the X-Division title that was stolen by Lee.
They are expected to announce the next Hall of Fame inductee to be honored at Bound for Glory.
It’s also being said that they will debut new title belts on this show.

As always, we will be providing live results. Check back here August 17th for our coverage.

Huge Shift In Betting Odds for WWE Great Balls of Fire

Smart Money bets appear to be coming in for Sunday’s WWE Great Balls of Fire event as several matches have seen shifts in the odds.

Roman Reigns, who was a slight favorite against Braun Strowman, is now the underdog in his match at the event. Also, The Hardys are now heavy underdogs against Shesaro after being the favorites. Seth Rollins is now a favorite against Bray Wyatt.

Here is the updated odds courtesy of PaddyPower:

Brock Lesnar 1/25 (favorite)
Samoa Joe 17/2
Braun Strowman 1/8 (favorite)
Roman Reigns 9/2
Seth Rollins 1/7 (favorite)
Bray Wyatt 4/1
Big Cass 1/14 (favorite)
Enzo Amore 11/2
Alexa Bliss 1/18 (favorite)
Sasha Banks 6/1
Cesaro & Sheamus 1/25 (favorite)
Matt & Jeff Hardy 15/2
The Miz 1/14 (favorite)

It’s expected that there will be more changes as we get close to the event.

Another Reality TV Show In the Works for The Bella Twins?

It looks like The Bella Twins may be getting a third reality television show.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s edition of the Wrestling Observer News Letter that The Bella Twins may be doing a non-wrestling show that would include topics such as cooking, fashion, and traveling. This idea for this show apparently came about after the success of their YouTube channel.

Kenny Omega Defending the IWGP US Championship at ROH Event?

As seen this past week, Kenny Omega defeated the likes of Michael Elgin, Jay Lethal and Tomohiro Ishii to become the inaugural IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion. Just days after this momentous victory, it is being reported by Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer that The Cleaner’s first defence might take place at Ring of Honor.

Meltzer also predicted that the first one to challenge the Cleaner for the championship should be none other than the Aerial Assassin, Will Ospreay. The two have had a phenomenal match in the past at a PWG Event.

Would you like to see The Cleaner and The Aerial Assassin go at it for the newly made IWGP USA Championship? Sound off in the comments!

WWE Database Leak Exposes Millions of Users’ Data

Security firm Kromtech Bob Dyachenko revealed to Forbes that he uncovered a huge unprotected WWE database that contains information on more than 3 million users. Dyachenko claimed that it was open to anyone who knew the web address to search.

The breach includes addresses, educational background, earnings and ethnicity as well as customers’ children’s age ranges and genders. This information was reportedly stored on Amazon Web Services S3 server without username or password protection. It’s likely the database was misconfigured by WWE or an IT partner. The same thing happened with other recent leaks on Amazon-hosted infrastructure.

WWE issued the following statement regarding the issue:

“Although no credit card or password information was included, and therefore not at risk, WWE is investigating a potential vulnerability of a database housed on a third party platform.”

“In today’s data-driven world, large companies store information on third party platforms, and unfortunately have been subject to similar vulnerabilities. WWE utilizes leading cybersecurity firms to proactively protect our customer data.””Although no credit card or password information was included, and therefore not at risk, WWE is investigating a potential vulnerability of a database housed on a third party platform.” “In today’s data-driven world, large companies store information on third party platforms, and unfortunately have been subject to similar vulnerabilities. WWE utilizes leading cybersecurity firms to proactively protect our customer data.”

GFW Officials Have Had Enough of Alberto El Patron Ripping on WWE

We previously noted that Alberto El Patron decided to rip WWE after Sunday’s Slammiversary event went off the air but things didn’t go his way Wednesday night when he attempted again.

Our correspondent at this week’s tapings sent word that El Patron tried to do the same during Wendesday’s tapings, but GFW officials have finally had enough and didn’t allow it. When El Patron grabbed the mic for another shoot, he said “it’s that time of the night where I talk about that company in Stamford.”

Patron would go on to mention how his attorney called him and asked him “what the f–k are you thinking” as he recently “lost enough money from his divorce.” This is when GFW decided to cut his microphone and play his music. El Patron attempted to shout over the music saying he “has enough voice to scream.” His music continued to play louder. El Patron tried to continue before giving up.

WWE Bans Another Term from WWE Programming

It appears that WWE has banned yet another word from being used on WWE programming.

Bryan Alvarez mentioned on today’s installment of Wrestling Observer Live that the company is no longer using the term “Money in the Bank Briefcase.” Moving forward announcers and talent will refer to the briefcase as the “Money in the Bank contract.”