Month: September 2021

Brian Cage And His Wife Suggest He’s Being Misused By AEW

Brian Cage’s wife took to social media to suggest AEW has overlooked him and isn’t treating him like the star that he is. He agreed.

It was only a matter of time before certain members of the AEW started using social media to hint they’re getting frustrated with their roles in AEW. With so many new faces and big-name talent coming into the wrestling promotion, other stars were bound to get pushed aside. Whether fans view Brian Cage as one of those stars being overlooked, and whether or not they agree he’s got the ability to be a top-level guy is up for debate. Still, his wife seems to think so and it appears the wrestler himself tends to agree.

Cage’s wife took to social media on Thursday and flat out said her husband was a star and was being misused by AEW. Melissa Santos used Twitter to vent about how AEW has seemingly cast him aside in favor of other talents. She noted, “Brian Cage is a superstar. Those people who know him from the indies, Impact, Lucha Underground where I met him know that he is a superstar. All you have to do is google him and watch all of his matches. He’s a superstar and he’s being misused right now.”

While spouses have been known in the past to speak out on behalf of their other halves, Cage actually retweeted a post his wife put together and included a meme of Will Smith shrugging his shoulders with the caption, “I mean…” The hint here is that he didn’t think she was wrong in her assessment and that he recognizes AEW should be doing more with him. Specifically, he shared a screenshot of an article suggesting he has gotten lost in the shuffle in AEW.

Cage was brought into the company last year as a surprise entrant in a Casino Battle Royale. Since then he’s been part of Team Taz and then booted from the group, only to wrestle more on Dark shows than on Dynamite or Rampage. He recently lost a match to Powerhouse Hobbs, who AEW seems very keen on pushing.

Cage may not be wrong, but there’s only so much television time to go around in AEW and the company is signing a lot of people on a regular basis. As such, originals and talent who have been in the company for a few weeks are bound to get less time to show their stuff. What’s interesting here is that Cage is actually still being featured in segments and matches and has been a regular on AEW programming. It’s hard to imagine what more he (or his wife) really wants considering he’s part of a company that has a ton of eyeballs and major buzz surrounding it.

Source: Jim Parsons/TheSportster

Impact Wrestling Preview 9/9/21

Just one week out from Victory Road, anything can happen on tonight’s Impact Wrestling on AXSTV.

* Bunkhouse Brawl: Rich Swann vs. Karl Anderson

* Moose vs. Eddie Edwards

* Steve Maclin vs. Petey Williams II

* Chris Bey vs. David Finlay

* Knockouts Tag Team Champion Rosemary vs. Tasha Steelz

* Laredo Kid makes his return to Impact against John Skyler on Before The Impact at 7 PM ET!

AEW Not Offering Huge Money To Woo Newly-Acquired Talent From WWE

AEW has added a number of big names, but it doesn’t sound like they’re handing out big fat contracts to acquire these stars.

Talk in the professional wrestling world has been highly focused on big names jumping from WWE to AEW. With CM Punk, Adam Cole, Bryan Danielson, Christian Cage, Andrade El Idolo, and others potentially already a part of the AEW roster, the question about how many more WWE stars might follow suit is valid. Recent chatter that both Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn have WWE deals that expire soon and would be on AEW’s radar is interesting, while the futures of talent like Braun Strowman and Bray Wyatt are still to be determined.

What seems to be the case, with exception of Punk — who was on Tony Khan’s radar for some time — is that AEW is not actively going after these former WWE stars. In fact, even when these talents become available, the talk is that AEW is not offering big money to convince the talent to join the roster. In some cases, these stars are being offered less and gladly accepting the deals because they are prioritizing the work environment over money.

One of the consistent themes is that AEW has money, but they aren’t eager to throw it away. Their pitch is creative input, a team atmosphere, fewer days, the ability to work outside the promotion, strong in-ring wrestling matchups, healthy relationships with the people in charge, and a family environment where talent wants to work together and there isn’t nearly as much political dissension as there might be in WWE. That’s how AEW is selling coming aboard and for wrestlers who value earning the best money over those things, AEW is happy enough to let wrestlers look at other options. In fact, Danielson said he almost didn’t come over.

In other words, AEW is not doing what WCW did back in the day and offering bigger money to acquire talent.

In some situations, Tony Khan is going after the talents that he wants. He had his eyes on 2.0 after they were released from NXT and he patiently waited for Punk to feel like the timing was right and AEW was the right fit. In other cases, Khan isn’t chasing free agents. Ruby Soho mentioned that she wasn’t sure if there was a spot for her in AEW and reached out to find out there was. If Ric Flair joins, it will likely be because he’s asked to work with Andrade El Idolo. Adam Cole was surprised to learn his contract had expired in AEW and Khan didn’t know anything about it until he was told as much. While the pay is likely fair for everyone, it doesn’t sound like any of these stars have hit a financial home run.

As such, don’t be surprised if stars like Owens and Zayn don’t jump. It will depend on what they value. It could be financial security or it could be the freedom that comes with having the best matches with creative input and joining a “wrestling promotion” over a sports entertainment company.

Source: TheSportster

Sami Zayn’s WWE Contract Apparently Up In Fall Of 2021

With word Kevin Owens’ WWE contract ends earlier than expected, talk that Sami Zayn’s deal is up in the Fall of 2021 is logically front-page news.

It was reported on Tuesday that Kevin Owens’ WWE contract ends sooner than originally expected. Believed to be a five-year extension that was signed in 2018, the deal was restructured during the pandemic and ends in January of 2022, as per a report by Fightful Select. It’s also interesting that his extremely close friend in Sami Zayn has a WWE deal that is set to expire soon too. As always, when someone talks about Owens, they tend to also talk about Zayn.

According to a report posted by TVA Sports in April of 2019, Zayn had signed a three-year contract shortly before leaving due to injury. With some sick time added to the length of the contract, they noted he still had about two and a half years left on his current deal. That would put his deal up at the end of this calendar year. While some time might have to be adjusted based on him staying home during the first part of the pandemic, the point here is that two close friends, known as “professional wrestlers” at heart, have deals coming up around the same time.

Obviously, this news has garnered some attention as AEW seems focused on bringing in some of the best in-ring talent that is known for having tremendous matches. Owens may or may not be ready to go and based on his usage on SmackDown of late, it would be hard to blame him. Zayn is a strong heel character on WWE SmackDown, but his booking history has been up and down. It would be interesting to see if these two stars would make career decisions together. From an AEW perspective, it would be big to have both join the promotion together, if possible.

The questions surrounding WWE these days seem to be less about who might leave and more about how few performers might actually stay. WWE is losing a lot of people and their roster appears to be thinning out rather quickly. If Owens and Zayn go, that’s two more wrestlers that are considered among the better workers in the company no longer on the roster.

Source: TheSportster

Kenny Omega Tops 2021’s PWI 500, Top 10 Revealed

Kenny Omega has topped the PWI 500 for the second time in his career, beating Roman Reigns to number one.

Kenny Omega has topped the PWI 500 for only the second time in his career, knocking Jon Moxley off the top spot and all the way down to number six.

Pro Wrestling Illustrated has been ranking the 500 best male wrestlers in the business since 1991. Who deserves to be number one each year is heavily debated, with the likes of Hulk Hogan, Stone Cole, CM Punk, and AJ Styles all having clinched the top spot in the past. This year’s top ten has been revealed, and PWI has declared Kenny Omega 2021’s best male wrestler.

This is actually the second time Omega has topped the PWI 500. The Cleaner was named the publication’s best wrestler in 2018 as well. It was hard to argue with the decision to place him first then, and maybe even more difficult to make a case against him in 2021. During PWI’s assessment period, Omega won World Titles in three different promotions, holding them simultaneously.

The rest of the top ten has been revealed too, with Universal Champion Roman Reigns claiming the number two spot. That’s the highest Reigns has placed since he took the number one spot in 2016, bouncing back from dropping out of the top ten completely in 2020 when he missed a chunk of the year due to the pandemic.

Bobby Lashley, Drew McIntyre, and Finn Balor also make the top ten, as does Will Ospreay. However, the New Japan star appears to be a little miffed with only making it as high as seventh. It’s actually the highest Ospreay has ever placed, only cracking the top ten one time before this in 2019. The British star tweeted that he could beat Omega any night of the week in response to the top ten being posted on Twitter.

SouOmega responded that New Japan has been “ice cold” since he left, to which Ospreay replied by pointing to a sold-out MSG show and the best-selling Tokyo Dome show in the promotion’s history. Ospreay closes by challenging Omega to a match. The forbidden door between AEW and New Japan is wide open right now, so it could happen. Just last night on Dynamite Moxley defeated Minoru Suzuki.

Source: TheSportster

Triple H Undergoes Surgery Following ‘Cardiac Event’

WWE’s COO and Executive Vice President of Global Talent Strategy Development, Triple H, recently suffered a ‘cardiac event’ that required surgery.

WWE stalwart Triple H is recovering from surgery following a ‘cardiac event,’ the company revealed on Wednesday, September 8th.

“Paul Levesque, a.k.a. Triple H, underwent a successful procedure last week at Yale New Haven Hospital following a cardiac event,” WWE said in a statement. “The episode was caused by a genetic heart issue and Paul is expected to make a full recovery.”

There’s been no word on Triple H’s expected recovery time, but it’s highly unlikely that he will be well enough to oversee the upcoming NXT relaunch, which is set to take place next Wednesday on USA Network.

Triple H is the founder and executive producer of NXT, which began life as WWE’s development system but soon evolved into a third brand. He has served WWE in an executive capacity for over a decade and is currently the company’s COO as well as its Executive Vice President of Global Talent Strategy Development.

The 52-year-old is a fourteen-time world champion with WWE, but he has only worked 8 matches since the start of 2018. His last match was in June of 2019 — over two years ago. In that match, he teamed with Shinsuke Nakamura to take on Bobby Roode and Samoa Joe in a winning effort at a WWE live event in Japan.

Recent reports suggest that Triple H’s real-life father-in-law Vince McMahon and Vince’s right-hand man Bruce Prichard will soon be taking over production duties on NXT. As we previously reported, WWE’s president Nick Khan recently confirmed that revamp of WWE’s developmental system was imminent. “We’re doing a complete revamp on NXT, led by Triple H,” Khan said at the time.

Source: TheSportster

AEW Dynamite Preview 9/8/21

Tonight’s AEW Dynamite episode airs on TNT at Fifth Third Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio.

* Fallout from All Out

* Jon Moxley vs. Minoru Suzuki

* Ruby Soho vs. Jamie Hayter (with Britt Baker and Rebel)

* Malakai Black vs. Dustin Rhodes

Kevin Owens’ WWE Contract Expiring Sooner Than Expected

According to Fightful Select, the contract of Kevin Owens is actually expiring sooner than expected with WWE. What’s next for Fight Owens Fight?

Previous reports by the likes of Dave Meltzer and other media sources noted that WWE Superstar Kevin Owens had a contract that ran with the company until the Spring of 2023. Apparently that is no longer accurate and a new report by Fightful Select suggests Owens’ deal is up much sooner than that. The rumored five-year contract was changed and Owens could be one of the next big stars headed out of WWE.

According to Fightful, his WWE contract expires in January 2022. That would mean that technically, Owens only has another four months on his active contract before he’s free to look at other options or extend with WWE. Of course, many will speculate that Owens will heavily consider AEW because that promotion has a lot of his former friends employed there and it’s exactly the type of wrestling company that would mesh well with his in-ring style.

Interestingly, Owens also posted a couple of tweets on Tuesday that dropped a tease about his contract situation. He’s since deleted those tweets, but one was the coordinates to Mount Rushmore. The second was a photo of his Mount Rushmore stable that included himself (as Kevin Steen), Adam Cole, Nick Jackson, and Matt Jackson. Kevin Owens has changed his bio location to “almost there.”, which many have assumed means almost at the end of his deal.

Fightful added in their report that WWE restructured several contracts during the pandemic and among them was Owens’ deal which was changed and is now set to expire in January 2022. There is no word on why his deal was shortened or if that was happily agreed to or left a sour taste in Owens’ mouth.

Perhaps it’s far too early to say that Owens and AEW is a given if the new report of his contract expiring in a few months is accurate. He could absolutely re-sign with WWE. But, WWE seems to be moving away from a number of talent who don’t necessarily fit their new “character-heavy” and family-friendly style. Meanwhile, AEW is picking up and targeting wrestlers who were very close from the independent scene and have ties to The Elite, which Owens does.

Source: TheSportster

New Day Set To Star With The Undertaker In Interactive Netflix Horror Film

New Day and The Undertaker are both featured in a new WWE and Netflix interactive film set to debut in October on the streaming platform.

Don’t look now, but the Undertaker is doing more work with WWE… kind of. A new interactive horror film that will be presented on Netflix and feature both The Undertaker and New Day is set to hit the streaming platform on October 5, 2021. In it, viewers will be able to choose what path New Day takes to escape from The Deadman.

Netflix has previously jumped into the interactive film world on their platform and WWE is the latest company to partner with the streaming video service to that end. Essentially, the question of, ‘Can New escape The Undertaker?’ is asked and the entire point of the film is to help direct the WWE trio on their quest to get away and escape his haunted mansion. The house is filled with traps and challenges and you, as the viewer, get to make choices to see what happens. If you’ve ever watched a Bear Grylls show where you choose what he does out in the wild, this is like a wrestling version of that.

WWE signed a deal with Netflix back in February 2019 and at least one of their partnered productions has already aired on the service, such as “The Main Event” the featured Keith Lee, Kingston, Sheamus, The Miz, and Commander Azeez. There are also future projects in the works, such as the Vince McMahon docuseries which is set to premiere on Netflix at a later date.

As far as this New Day and Undertaker film is concerned, as per a report and some photos by Bloody Disgusting, the film is described as “The Undertaker has set a trap for the decorated tag team The New Day at his mansion. What they don’t know: The Undertaker’s mansion is an extreme Haunted House, packed to the brim with supernatural challenges. It’s up to viewers to decide the fate of these three poor souls trying to survive the wrath of The Undertaker.”

Source: The Sportster

WWE NXT Preview 9/7/21

Tonight’s WWE NXT episode on the USA Network will be another taped show, the final before next week’s live show that is set to be a reset for the brand.