Former ROH Tag Team Champions and NJPW’s IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions “War Machine” Hanson and Raymond Rowe are currently going through medical testing to be signed by WWE, according to Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio.
No word yet on when Hanson and Rowe may debut for WWE but word is that they will be working the WWE NXT brand, setting up another potential showdown with Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish.
Meltzer noted that War Machine finished up with Ring of Honor this past weekend but they are still scheduled to work New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Wrestle Kingdom 12 event from the Tokyo Dome on January 4th, 2018. If all goes well with the WWE medical tests, we could see the former IWGP Tag Team Champions in NXT before WrestleMania 34 Season gets going.
Special Attraction Match: Matt Taven vs. Will Ospreay – Winner: Matt Taven
Grudge Match: The Addiction (Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian vs. War Machine (Ray Rowe & Hanson) – Winners: War Machine
Dream Match – Non-Title: IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion Marty Scurll vs. Jay Lethal – Winner: Jay Lethal
ROH World Tag Team Championship: (C) The Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelly and Chris Sabin) vs. Best Friends (Beretta and Chuckie T.) – Winners: The Motor City Machine Guns
ROH World Television Championship – Four Corners Elimination: (C) Kenny King vs. Punishment Martinez vs. Shane Taylor vs. Silas Young – Winner and new ROH World TV Champion: Silas Young
New York Street Fight: The Briscoes vs. Bully Ray & Tommy Dreamer – Winners: The Briscoes
ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship: (C) Adam Page & The Young Bucks vs. Dragon Lee, Flip Gordon & Titán – Winners: The Young Bucks & Adam Page
ROH World Championship: (C) Cody vs. Dalton Castle – Winner and new ROH World Champion: Dalton Castle
We noted before how Bobby Lashley and Ethan Carter III could be leaving Impact Wrestling when their contracts expire soon. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that former World Heavyweight Champion Eddie Edwards may be joining EC3 and Lashley as his contract expires in February 2018.
Regarding contracts moving forward, word is that the company will only be offering the new per-day contracts instead of significant guaranteed money deals, which Lashley, EC3 and Edwards are currently signed to. There’s a good chance these three veterans may be leaving because of this, just like James Storm. Storm recently left the company as he was signed to a high-paying contract that the company did not want to renew as they are looking to stop losing money.
No word yet on Eddie’s future plans but the belief right now is that WWE and ROH do have interest in signing him. WWE’s interest is for the WWE NXT brand, according to The Observer.
AXS TV has announced they will air Wrestle Kingdom 12 on January 6, 2018 at 8:00 p.m. ET (7:00 CT) for a special three hour re-airing of the PPV that takes place on January 4.
The show has gained a considerable amount of buzz in the United States for the addition of WWE star Chris Jericho vs. Kenny Omega of The Bullet Club.
You can check out the official press release below including a promo video clip.
AXS TV PREMIERES NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING’S BIGGEST SHOW OF THE YEAR—WRESTLE KINGDOM 12—ON SATURDAY, JAN. 6, 2018 AT 8pE IN A THREE-HOUR SPECIAL EVENT
Championship Battles Between Kenny Omega & Chris Jericho, Kazuchika Okada & Tetsuya Naito, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Jay White Air Saturday Night
Additional Coverage of Wrestle Kingdom 12 Will Premiere as Part of AXS TV’s Weekly Series Friday Nights at 8pE Beginning Jan. 12
Los Angeles, CA (Dec. 3, 2017) – As the exclusive U.S. television home for New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), AXS TV will premiere the promotion’s biggest show of the year, Wrestle Kingdom 12, in a three-hour special Saturday, Jan. 6 at 8pE/5pP. AXS TV FIGHTS CEO Andrew Simon made the announcement that the Wrestle Kingdom 12 national television broadcast marks the fastest turnaround time for the spectacular airing just two days after the event takes place at the Tokyo Dome. AXS TV’s Wrestle Kingdom 12 special will showcase the event’s three headlining championship matches: IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Champion Kenny Omega vs. Chris Jericho, IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada vs. G1 CLIMAX 27 Tournament Champion Tetsuya Naito, and IWGP Intercontinental Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Jay White.
“While NJPW has delivered some of the greatest matches in wrestling history over the past year, we’ve seen viewership growth on AXS TV thanks to New Japan’s expansion in the U.S. and our commitment to air matches closer to when they take place,” said Simon. “With Wrestle Kingdom as their marquee annual event, we thank NJPW and TV Asahi for their support and are proud to kick off 2018 with this historic primetime Saturday night special featuring the dream match-up of Kenny Omega vs. Chris Jericho.”
AXS TV will continue its coverage of Wrestle Kingdom 12 following the special over five episodes Friday nights starting Jan. 12 at 8pE/5pP on the network’s award-winning weekly series, including the IWGP Jr. Tag Team Championship match between RPG 3K (Sho & Yoh) vs. The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson), the four-way IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship bout featuring Marty Scurll vs. Will Ospreay vs. KUSHIDA vs. Hiromu Takahashi, and the ROH World Title Match between Cody and Kota Ibushi. The championship matches featuring Tanahashi vs. White, Omega vs. Jericho and Okada vs. Naito will also have an encore airing during this time.
Leading up to the Wrestle Kingdom 12 special on Jan. 6, AXS TV will air an eight-hour marathon of NJPW starting at 12pE/9aP. Episodes in the marathon will feature matches that set up the main card at Wrestle Kingdom, including Omega winning the IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Title versus Tomohiro Ishii at the G1 Special in USA; Omega vs. Naito in the G1 CLIMAX 27 Tournament Finals; Omega’s first U.S. Heavyweight Title defense at Destruction in Kobe; an encore of the three-hour King of Pro-Wrestling special headlined by Okada vs. EVIL; and two episodes from Power Struggle headlined by Omega vs. Beretta featuring a special appearance by Jericho.
AXS TV produces the English language version of “New Japan Pro Wrestling” in association with TV ASAHI CORPORATION, the distributor of NJPW.
The 10,000 seat event Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks are planning to self-finance in 2018 has now been confirmed by all parties and the ROH champ has an ideal main event in mind.
Cody appeared on Sirius XM‘s Busted Open today and revealed that his dream opponent for the main event is Daniel Bryan, whose WWE contract will expire next summer.
Rhodes said he can’t reveal too much until the location is locked down, but reiterated that they are “swinging for the damn fences.”
As we previously reported, the trio are in talks with multiple venues to put on a 10K seat event with Chicago, London, San Francisco and Ontario (CA) being the location front-runners.
When host Bully Ray asked why they’re doing this, Cody said it’s because they want to leave the wrestling business better than when they found it.
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.
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.
The executive producer of Lucha Underground has acknowledged it wasn’t fair to keep talent off TV for up to a year between seasons, so he claims their exclusivity going forward will be “relaxed.”
Eric Van Wagenen told the Masks, Mats & Mayhem show that they’ll be easing up on where people will be allowed to work because no one on their team expected LU to have a hiatus that lasted over one year and it isn’t beneficial for either sides if a wrestler is kept off TV for that long.
“The Lucha Underground LLC partners are going to do a talent exchange with Impact, with Ring of Honor, with NOAH in Japan, Stardom.” Wagenen continued, “This is all under Dorian’s control, but we’re definitely gonna start letting our guys branch out. We’re gonna try to help negotiate relationships with other promotions so that our guys can get more TV exposure.”
He also noted that they were initially territorial … but due to the relationship with Impact Wrestling, they’ve now realized it only helps their company.
In regards to unhappy talent though, the Lucha EP says they’ve had release requests and they’ll be happy to grant them once the characters can be written out of storylines.
As for Rey Fenix and Pentagon Dark, Eric says he believes they’ll be back for Season 4.
Ring of Honor is getting into the streaming game, as COO Joe Koff announced on Thursday that the company will be launching their own over the top network in early 2018.
Koff told a local CBS affiliate that the company has an app coming out in the first quarter of 2018 and explained, “It really became developmentally the right time to do it.”
“We saw an opportunity. We had a long discussion about it. We looked at the business model and how it impacts our business. We just felt that this was the time to create our own Ring of Honor stream.”
Joe says he’d like to see ROH migrate to streaming full time, instead of the PPV model, but things seem to currently be up in the air.
As for what fans can expect from the service, Koff said: “You’re going to see an enhanced Honor Club. We tested it during the Global Wars Tour of streaming house shows to ringside members. You’re going to see a lot more content available, not only to everybody, but certainly in that Honor Club.”
As noted, Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega will meet at NJPW’s Wrestle Kingdom 12 in January after Chris Jericho challenged the IWGP United States Champion at Power Struggle, earlier today. According to Pro Wrestling Sheet, Chris Jericho has been in talks with NJPW since August to appear at Wrestle Kingdom 12. The article also mentioned how during an appearance on the Killing the Town podcast, Jericho said he is personally paying for his Rock ‘n Wrestling Rager at Sea and hoped to get a partnership together with WWE by bringing some NXT talent on board. WWE decided not to get involved and Jericho moved forward by working out a deal with Ring of Honor to put together a Sea of Honor tournament. The Young Bucks and Marty Scurll have already been announced to be on the cruise. On Twitter, Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer noted that Jericho’s WWE contact expired, and he is currently a free agent.
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