Tonight’s WWE SmackDown Live will take place from the Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky as the road to Clash of Champions continues.
* Randy Orton battles Kevin Owens
* AJ Styles faces The Singh Brothers in a Handicap Match
* The New Day square off with Shelton Benjamin & Chad Gable
* The Fashion Files returns with a question: “Do you want to play a game?”
* Liv Morgan, Ruby Riot and Sarah Logan vs. Natalya, Naomi and SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair
Matt Hardy’s losing streak continued on tonight’s RAW with a loss to Bray Wyatt but it looks like they are moving forward with the WWE debut of his “Broken” gimmick. As seen below, Hardy snapped with a “delete!” chant after the match and later commented on Twitter about his “dormant condishtion” being “woken” up:
Source: WrestlingINC
WWE posted this backstage photo of Hardy:
Pro Wrestling Sheet has confirmed the injury Drew McIntyre suffered at TakeOver is as serious as believed and the former NXT Champion will be out of action for months.
Sources tell The Sheet that Drew’s test results showed he tore his bicep — we’re told it happened during a mistimed move near the end of the match — and he’s hoping to return in time for WrestleMania weekend.
As we previously reported, McIntyre was injured while wrestling Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas.
Drew tweeted this morning saying, “Unfortunately I did suffer an injury during my title defense at TakeOver. I’ve dealt with setbacks before. The reality is, I always come back better…There’s a scary thought for whomever is NXT champion come 2018… #TickTock.”
Source: Pro Wrestling Sheet
The Young Bucks and Cody Rhodes are planning something big for 2018. Pro Wrestling Sheet has learned the Bullet Club members are in talks with multiple venues to put on a 10,000 seat event.
As you may recall,The Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer tweeted earlier this year saying ROHwouldn’t sell out a 10K seat show “any time soon” and Cody responded saying he’d “take that bet.”
Sources tell The Sheet that Cody has been dedicated to making it happen since, so the trio recently decided to take things into their own hands by self-financing the event — which is tentatively being called “All In” — and things have been rapidly progressing the past few weeks towards an official announcement.
Cody tweeted a photo last weekend showing the group on a scouting mission with Marty Scurll.
The Sheet reports that the current front-runner locations for the show are Chicago, London, San Francisco and Ontario, California (where Bullet Club’s WWE invasion took place).
The Sheet’s sources say Matt Jackson, Nick Jackson and Rhodes are looking to partner with ROH, who they have exclusive domestic contracts with, but it’s unclear if an official deal has been worked out yet.
Source: Pro Wrestling Sheet
Tonight’s WWE RAW will take place from the Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tennessee.
* Will Roman Reigns institute an open challenge for his Intercontinental Championship?
* Can Seth Rollins & Dean Ambrose reclaim the Raw Tag Team Titles?
* Will Paige, Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville’s rampage continue?
* How will Braun Strowman attain retribution against Kane?
* Who can derail “The Zo Train”?
NJPW announced they have opened an English NJPW YouTube channel that will feature backstage comments and event promos with English subtitles. They already have some videos up, which you can check out by clicking here.
Source: WrestlingINC
WWE recently made the call to bring five women from NXT to the main roster and their reasoning for doing so is pretty simple.
Sources tell us Vince McMahon made the decision to call up multiple women from NXT shortly after the Mae Young Classic took place because he felt like the women’s divisions had been getting stale.
Mandy Rose was the first name mentioned, since creative had pitched ideas for her debut in the past.
In case you missed it, Mandy and Sonya Deville debuted on Raw with Paige during her return. Liv Morgan, Sarah Logan and Ruby Riot debuted on SmackDown Live the following night.
With so many debuts at once, rumors began to swirl about a possible women’s Royal Rumble match this year — for what it’s worth though, Pro Wrestling Sheet‘s sources haven’t heard anything about that being in the works. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not a possibility.
Source: Pro Wrestling Sheet
The return of Paige and several NXT female stars being called up this week led to speculation that WWE will be holding a Women’s Royal Rumble at The Royal Rumble pay-per-view in January. For what it’s worth, The Sun in the U.K. is reporting that WWE will in fact be announcing a Women’s Rumble match for the show. The Sun reported:
“But now the event is set to be confirmed, although the details remain scarce and it is possible it may not have entrants as in the male equivalent. A number of women on the roster have already spoken on the possibility of a women’s Rumble.”
It should be noted that Dave Meltzer reported on the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE is currently not planning to have a women’s Rumble match at the event.
As of this writing, following the NXT call-ups this week, WWE has 11 active female talents on the RAW roster and 10 on SmackDown. During an interview with The Montgomery Advertiser’s“Piledriver” podcast in January, Bayley said she was open to the idea if WWE brought in more talent.
“I kind of honestly think we need a few more girls to do something like that because the guys have 30 men,” Bayley said. “We don’t have many girls. Even if it was Raw and Smackdown combined, I don’t think it would make it 20. If we had more girls brought in, maybe like NXT girls, that would be really cool and I think it would be a lot of fun.”
Source: WrestlingINC
* UK Championship: (C) Pete Dunne vs. Johnny Gargano
* Ruby Riot vs. Sonya Deville
* Will a shock to the system at WarGames change the future of NXT?
It was confirmed on last night’s WWE 205 Live episode that the next call-up from WWE NXT will see Hideo Itami join the cruiserweight division.
Itami’s NXT run has been plagued by injuries. He’s lost a handful of singles matches since returning to the ring back in March of this year. His last big match came at NXT “Takeover: Brooklyn III” in August, a loss to Aleister Black.
Below is the graphic teasing his upcoming arrival and Twitter comments from Itami:
Source: WrestlingINC
WWE is currently planning 14 pay-per-view events for 2018 – 5 RAW brand events, 4 SmackDown brand events and 5 co-branded events, according to PWInsider. Money In the Bank will now be a co-branded event.
Below is the current pay-per-view schedule for 2018:
* January 28th, Philadelphia: Royal Rumble
* February 25th, Las Vegas: Elimination Chamber (RAW)
* March 11th, Columbus, OH: Fast Lane (SmackDown)
* April 8th, New Orleans: WrestleMania 34
* May 6th, Newark, NJ: Backlash (RAW)
* May 27th, Baltimore: Payback (SmackDown)
* June 17th, Chicago: Money In the Bank
* July 15th, Pittsburgh: Battleground (RAW)
* August 19th, Brooklyn: SummerSlam
* September 16th, San Antonio: Extreme Rules (RAW)
* September 30th, Nashville: Hell In a Cell (SmackDown)
* October 21st, Boston: TLC (RAW)
* November 18th, Los Angeles: Survivor Series
* December 16th, San Jose: Clash of Champions (SmackDown)
Source: WrestlingINC
