Tonight On Impact at 10p.m. ET on PursuitChannel & Twitch:
* oVe (Jake Cris & Madman Fulton) vs. Tessa Blanchard & Daga
* Moose vs. Stephan Bonnar
* Impact Knockouts Championship: (C) Taya Valkyrie vs. Havok
* X-Division Championship Ladder Match Qualifying Match: Eddie Edwards vs. Ace Austin
It looks like the weekly WWE NXT TV show could be hitting the road soon.
There has been a lot of talk about taking the black & yellow brand on the road each Wednesday night, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
WWE officials are reportedly looking at running arenas with around 5,000-seat capacities, similar to what AEW has been doing. They have reached out to some arenas that size to shoot TV on Wednesday nights, which would be for NXT.
The current target for NXT airing from arenas outside of Full Sail Live looks to be January 2020. The talk of going on the road goes back to before the first USA Network ratings came out. The word then was that they were only running Full Sail Live in Winter Park, FL each week because they had no time to set things up with arenas, and that a move to different arenas would take place some time in early 2020.
There has been speculation on WWE eventually taking NXT TV on the road ever since the USA Network move was announced. There had been speculation among some that Vince McMahon would see what AEW was doing weekly with their arena shows, and then would see how the small crowd at Full Sail Live looked in comparison. The move to arenas for NXT is probably pushed by the fact that AEW Dynamite has beat NXT in viewership in week 1 and week 2.
Source: Wrestling Inc.
WWE could be without one of their top female stars for up to a year.
According to the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Ember Moon is suffering from an injury on either her ankle or Achilles. While it is not definite which one, an ankle injury would take months to heal. An Achilles injury would mean that she could be gone for at least a year.
This is not the first time “The War Goddess” has been injured this year. After the Royal Rumble in January, it was revealed that she underwent immediate elbow surgery.
Since then, she wrestled Bayley for the SmackDown Women’s Title at SummerSlam, but hasn’t been used all that much outside of that. Her last match was a losing effort against Lacey Evans on RAW in September.
Source: Wrestling Inc.
This past Sunday at the Hell in a Cell PPV, fans were left disappointed when there was no definitive finish to Seth Rollins v. “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt for the WWE Universal Championship. The referee stopped the bout after thinking about the safety of Bray.
While the idea was to stop the match after a Rollins sledgehammer shot, that wasn’t the original booking decision.
According to the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the original finish to the Hell in a Cell match was for Wyatt to take a gimmicked bump off of the top of the cell. As a result, he would be unable to continue and the match would be stopped. Following the conclusion of the bout, “The Fiend” would pop up like The Undertaker and take Rollins out with the Mandible Claw. As you saw this past Sunday, a version of that was done.
Additionally, Dave Meltzer stated that while Vince McMahon didn’t want Wyatt to be beaten early, he also wanted Rollins, Brock Lesnar, Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair as the champions heading into the WWE Draft.
Source: Wrestling Inc.
WWE has announced the preliminary Draft Pool for the 2019 WWE Draft that kicks off on Friday’s SmackDown from Las Vegas, then wraps on Monday’s RAW in Denver.
WWE earlier announced the rules for the 2019 Draft, including why RAW will receive more picks than SmackDown. They also announced which celebrities will be involved with announcing the picks. You can read that announcement by clicking here.
Regarding the WWE Draft Pools, several top Superstars will be eligible for selection on Friday night and Monday night. Stars like RAW Women’s Champion Becky Lynch, “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt, Roman Reigns, The OC, Sasha Banks, The Street Profits, and others will be eligible on Friday. Stars like WWE Universal Champion Seth Rollins, WWE Champion Brock Lesnar, The New Day, Daniel Bryan, AOP, Aleister Black, and others will be eligible on Monday night.
Preliminary WWE Draft Pools announcedSmackDown and Raw are officially on the clock.
The preliminary WWE Draft Pools have been determined and designate which WWE Superstars are available for selection on each night.
Below is the full list of draft-eligible Superstars organized by assigned night:
Friday Night SmackDown – Oct. 11
Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch
Roman Reigns
The O.C. (United States Champion AJ Styles, Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson)
“The Fiend” Bray Wyatt
Drew McIntyre
Randy Orton
Sasha Banks
Ricochet
Braun Strowman
Bobby Lashley
Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross
Lacey Evans
The Viking Raiders (Erik & Ivar)
SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Revival (Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder)
Natalya
The Street Profits (Montez Ford & Angelo Dawkins)
Lucha House Party (Kalisto, Gran Metalik, Lince Dorado)
Cesaro
Kevin Owens
Humberto Carrillo
Akira Tozawa
Sin Cara
Eric Young
EC3
Chad Gable
Heath Slater
Drew Gulak
The B-Team (Bo Dallas & Curtis Axel)
TaminaRaw – Oct. 14
Universal Champion Seth Rollins
WWE Champion Brock Lesnar
SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair
Titus O’Neil
Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura (with Sami Zayn)
Aleister Black
The New Day (Kofi Kingston, Big E & Xavier Woods)
Daniel Bryan
Bayley
Luke Harper
Erick Rowan
The Miz
Ali
King Corbin
Elias
Raw Tag Team Champions Dolph Ziggler & Bobby Roode
Samoa Joe
WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions The Kabuki Warriors (Asuka & Kairi Sane)
Rusev
Cedric Alexander
Rey Mysterio
R-Truth
Carmella
AOP (Akam & Rezar)
Heavy Machinery (Tucker & Otis)
Apollo Crews
Andrade
Liv Morgan
Jinder Mahal
Buddy Murphy
Mojo Rawley
No Way José
Dana Brooke
Shelton Benjamin
Curt Hawkins & Zack Ryder
The IIconics (Billie Kay & Peyton Royce)
Sarah Logan
Fire & Desire (Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville)
Drake MaverickThe WWE Draft begins with the Friday, Oct. 11 episode of SmackDown on FOX at 8/7 C. Catch the final picks on the Monday, Oct. 14 episode of Raw on USA Network at 8/7C.
Comedian and multifaceted talent, Kevin Smith, recently appeared alongside Chris Jericho on The Rich Eisen Show to discuss the new Jay And Silent Bob reboot film that hits theaters next week. Smith and Jericho finally revealed the AEW World Champion’s role in upcoming film: a Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan.
“It’s a road movie, so it’s Jay and Silent Bob across the country. And it’s 2019 so they encounter all sorts of different personalities,” Smith said. “At one point, they encounter the Ku Klux Klan and Chris plays the lead Klansman.”
“Grand Wizard of the selected half of the Ku Klux Klan,” Chris specified.
Smith noted how much of a departure the role actually is for someone like Jericho, however, he still jumped into it with enthusiasm. Jericho attempted to channel the spirit of Henry Gibson from The Blues Brothers when creating his character.
“Now anyone who knows this man knows that this is acting; they should give him an Oscar because he’s so far apart from it. When I asked him, ‘Can you do this?’ He said, ‘There’s nothing else in there?’ I said, ‘No’. He said, ‘Alright, I’ll do it,” Smith said.
“There was no, ‘Oh, nothing else in there’. Are you kidding me? I love that sort of stuff, like the Ku Klux Klan? I’m in! I love it!” Chris said.
“He compared it to – and I was so flattered, and that’s why I was like, ‘Oh man, he is my boy’, he was like, ‘Look, I’m Henry Gibson in the Blues Brothers just make sure you give me an outline.’ And I was like, ‘He gets it, he absolutely gets it.’ So, Chris has my favorite ad-libbed moment in the movie, ad-libbed line which we came up with on the spot because he was like, ‘You’ve got to give me an out. Give me a big line to go out in.’ And we found one, it was great,” Kevin said. “But you can’t ask many people, you know, ‘Put on a white hood and be hated’, and they’ll do it for you. Man, this sweetheart of a guy did it. We couldn’t put him on the poster because he was wearing a hood; we had to change it.”
The obvious controversy surrounding the KKK forced Smith to leave Jericho off of the movie’s trailer and theatrical poster. They went into detail about how they actually filmed the scene with the KKK, noting how surprised they were that there wasn’t more outrage while shooting the scene near downtown New Orleans.
“I was like, ‘Why am I not in the trailer?’ He’s like, ‘Dude, you’re in the KKK. We can’t put that in the trailer.’ I don’t know if we have time for this quickly but when we were filming this in New Orleans and you have fifteen guys, extras with Ku Klux Klan outfits on and there’s a cross that had lights on it that simulated fire,” Chris explained. “So, there’s a Klan rally with a burning cross under an overpass in basically downtown New Orleans. I don’t know how we didn’t get shot or have members join us.”
“On Instagram, we saw one week later of somebody [filming] us from above like as they’re driving by, going, ‘I cannot believe they’re having a Klan rally right in the open like this.’ To be fair, the Klan played as bad in the movie – they’re bad guys. Just in case anyone out there is like, ‘I’m buying a ticket!’ And we’re like, ‘We’re bad guys.’ And they go, ‘Oh, I don’t want a ticket.’ They’re bad guys,” Kevin finished.
We first reported back in March that Jericho was announced as part of the cast for the Jay And Silent Bob reboot film. Although this is the first time Jericho is appearing in a film alongside Jason Mewes (Jay), this is actually the second time that Smith and Jericho have worked on a movie together. Jericho will be a part of the forthcoming horror anthology Killroy Was Here, which was also directed by Kevin Smith and wrapped filming this month.
During this same interview Smith revealed that WWE cancelled a scheduled appearance at last week’s Friday Night SmackDown because of his close ties to AEW and Chris Jericho.
“Me and Jay were lucky enough to be involved, Chris invited us to be involved with the debut match on TNT,” Smith said. “We were supposed to go do WWE, me and Jay, the very next day, which was Friday. Was it Friday? SmackDown. And then the morning after… because we were on the AEW show, it trended, like, there was a lot of coverage and stuff. So, the next morning we were told that WWE was like, you can’t come on anymore, and they canceled us. They kicked me and Jay off the show, but not in a crazy way.”
Source: Wrestling Inc. with credit to The Rich Eisen Show
The company Bubly is capitalizing off Chris Jericho’s viral moment last month by sending “Le Champion” a little bit of the bubbly.
The current AEW World Champion shared photos on Instagram of the free sparkling water they sent him on Thursday along with a banner that says “Chris Jericho’s *a little bit of the bubly* bag.”
“Thanks to [Bubly Water] for sending me #ALittleBitOfTheBubbly…. albeit of a different kind,” he captioned the post on Instagram.
In case you missed it … Jericho uttered the phrase after winning the AEW title in a post-show segment. Since then, he’sformed a faction in AEW named “The Inner Circle” consisting of Jake Hager, Sammy Guevara, Santana and Ortiz.
Source: Pro Wrestling Sheet
WWE has clarified the rules for its upcoming draft beginning tonight on Friday Night SmackDown.
The WWE draft rules are as follows:
WWE also confirmed FOX and NBCUniversal personalities who will Draft make appearances.
This includes FOX personalities like Alex Rodriguez, Troy Aikman, Jim Cramer, Joe Buck, Frank Thomas, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Jimmy Johnson, Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart , Charissa Thompson, Michael Vick, and more. Repping NBCUniversal will be Michael Che and Colin Jost, Christian Slater, Dulé Hill and James Roday from Psych, Marcus Lemonis from The Profit, Margaret Josephs and Melissa Gorga from Real Housewives of New Jersey and more.
The press release also explains that “For the first time, executives from FOX and USA Network have direct influence over the WWE Draft as it will determine the Superstars competing for either Raw or SmackDown.”
The WWE Draft begins tonight at 8pm ET on Friday Night SmackDown, then continues Monday on RAW.
The WWE Draft begins this Friday with SmackDown on FOX. Superstars will be legitimately finding out which brands they will be going to on Friday, and the event will continue on Monday’s Raw.
According to the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, the WWE Draft will be different from previous years as it will be ran similar to the NFL Draft. Representatives from FOX and the USA Network will be announcing the picks.
The idea is to make the WWE Draft as authentic as possible thanks to the companies new TV deals. It was previously reported that various personalities from USA and FOX would be appearing, but WWE didn’t state if celebrities would be included.
Additionally, Dave Meltzer pointed out that WWE does not want authority figures involved in programming for now. It is unknown when WWE will be bringing them back.
It was also noted that all the major decisions regarding which stars will be drafted are complete, however WWE is keeping the moves very quiet.
Source: Wrestling Inc.
Former WWE Champion The Rock took to Twitter to give props to Jim Cornette and everyone else responsible for the new NWA Powerrr show that premiered this week on YouTube, seen below.
The exchange began when Cornette, who is doing commentary for the show, responded to a fan question about how small the ring is.
Cornette responded, “Actually, standard size for all @nwa rings (& most Southern territories) has been 18X18 since the 1960-70’s. Some spot show/small studios used 16X16. Tradition in WWF was 20X20 due to large Northeast rings dating back to boxing rings in the 1950’s, some up to 24X24. #NWAPowerrr”
That’s when The Rock chimed in with props for Cornette and the others behind the new NWA Powerrr show.
Rock wrote, “Congrats Jim, the boys, crew etc. Stumbled across this show last night and enjoyed it. I grew up in territories and started my career at channel 5 in Memphis so I have a lot of love/respect for small scale, crowd tv shows. Cool vintage feel. Keep working hard boys. Rock”
Cornette responded to The Rock and invited him to the next taping. Cornette wrote, “Rocky, thank you so much for taking the time to check it out! I’m sure I speak for @Lagana and @Billy in offering you two tickets ABSOLUTELY FREE to the next taping! If you have more than 2 guests I’ll sneak one in the back for you!”
NWA boss Billy Corgan re-tweeted Rock’s comments, but has not responded.
You can see the full exchange below:
