A spot during the Texas Deathmatch for the AEW World Heavyweight Championship between ‘Hangman’ Page and Adam Cole has stirred up some controversy on social media.
Some legends of the pro wrestling business reacted to a tweet sent out by Fightful‘s Sean Ross Sapp where he posted a video of the spot in question. With the show airing live on the Christian holiday, Good Friday, some eyebrows were raised when ‘Hangman’ Page placed a crown of barbed wire on the head of Adam Cole at the conclusion of the bout.
For those unfamiliar, Good Friday is the Friday before Easter Sunday, on which Jesus Christ was tortured, had a crown of thorns placed upon his head, and was then Crucified to a cross. There were obviously parallels between the crown of thorns and the barbed wire crown, and viewers noticed.
Sapp’s tweet accompanied the clip with the caption, “Lmaoooooo Hangman Page put a crown of barbed wire on Adam Cole’s head on Good Friday.” Finding humor in the situation was something Eric Bischoff seemingly did not, as he wrote back, “You find this funny?”
Another veteran, Brian “Road Dogg” James also chimed into a debate on the topic, asking, “Would it be ok if they mocked ANY other religion?”
The fan perception was varied in their response, with one fan going as far as to vow they will quit watching AEW altogether because of the “unacceptable” part of the match. Others pointed to the various times religion was poked fun at in WWE — the Austin 3:16 idea being a spin-off of John 3:16, Vince McMahon’s infamous angle with Shawn Michaels and God, etc.
Page ultimately emerged victoriously and retained the AEW World Championship yesterday, following up the barbed wire crown of thorns with a Deadeye through a table for the 1-2-3. You can see full results from last night’s show at this link.
You can see the spot from AEW Rampage below, as well as various tweets:
That’s where I draw the line. I’ve been supporting AEW up until this point. No one cares about my opinion and that’s fine. I’m just saying it was totally unnecessary unacceptable and I’ll no longer be watching
ROH World Champion & PROGRESS Unified World Champion Jonathan Gresham has reportedly signed with AEW.
After weeks of speculation, a new report from Fightful Select confirms that Gresham has signed an AEW contract that will also see him perform for ROH.
Gresham will make his AEW TV debut at Battle of The Belts II this Saturday night on TNT as he defends the Ring of Honor strap against ROH veteran Dalton Castle.
AEW has also signed “Gates of Agony” Kaun and Toa Liona to similar contracts, as reported earlier this week. Word is that there are other talents who are signed to these AEW/ROH contracts, and names should be confirmed soon.
Gresham became the Undisputed ROH World Champion by defeating Bandido in the main event of ROH Supercard of Honor on April 1, which was the first show booked by new ROH owner Tony Khan.
Gresham has worked for Impact Wrestling in recent months, and will face Eddie Edwards in a non-title match at the Rebellion pay-per-view on April 23. There’s no word yet on if this will be his final date for Impact.
Gresham has also worked several indie dates in recent months, but there’s no word on if this new AEW/ROH contract will allow him to continue taking those bookings. Gresham captured the PROGRESS Wrestling Unified World Title on March 20 at Chapter 130 by defeating Cara Noir. Since then he has retained over Malik and Warren Banks, but there’s no word on how the AEW/ROH contract will impact his PROGRESS run.
Tonight’s AEW Rampage on TNT will be a live episode that takes place at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas.
Rampage is airing live at a special start time of 7pm ET instead of 10pm, due to NBA coverage on TNT.
* Gunn Club (Billy, Austin, and Colten Gunn) vs. Blackpool Combat Club (ROH Pure Champion Wheeler Yuta, Jon Moxley, and Bryan Danielson with William Regal)
* Owen Hart Foundation Tournament Qualifier Ruby Soho vs. Robyn Renegade
* Texas Deathmatch for the AEW World Heavyweight Championship Adam Cole vs. ‘Hangman’ Adam Page (c)
The Good Brothers (Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson) joined SiriusXM’s Busted Open Radio for an hour-long discussion.
Karl Anderson reflected on the night they were the headline dark match at Madison Square Garden with WWE in September 2019. After the bout, there was an in-ring segment involving “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and AJ Styles, which resulted in Styles asking Anderson if he should drink the beer handed to him.
“When we got to do The Garden and the dark main event — this is a good story,” Anderson said. “We’re in there with ‘Stone Cold; Steve Austin, me, Gallows, and AJ [Styles]. ‘Stone Cold’ hands AJ a beer. AJ doesn’t drink, and AJ looks at us and AJ goes, ‘shall I drink this?’ and I go, ‘yeah, just have a sip.’ He takes the sip, he takes the Stunner, and people react. We get to the back and he looks at us and he goes, ‘you guys lied to me. That is the worst thing I’ve ever tasted in my life! How do y’all drink those things?’”
Luke Gallows discussed the Boneyard Match between AJ Styles and The Undertaker at WrestleMania 36. Gallows noted The Deadman cut open his arm when smashing the window of the hearse. It resulted in filming being stopped every few minutes to attend to the wound.
“I remember at the time, I remember us saying – because AJ was our best buddy, like, it’s hard not to be in a stadium with a match like that,” Gallows said. “They wanted that. They deserved 80,000 people and they didn’t have it. So everyone made the best of a rotten situation and the match was cool as sh*t, I thought.
“You talk about an old-school badass dude too at the very beginning of that, because it took all night to shoot it. He punches the window out of the hearse, right? And his arm is bleeding profusely. You can see tendons. A lot of people – Karl would have quit. I mean every fifteen minutes we would stop, ice, towel, hold it on to get the bleeding to stop. Alright, let’s start going. For 8-9 hours just bleeding.”
Source: Wrestling Inc – credit SiriusXM’s Busted Open Radio
The card for next week’s AEW Dynamite was revealed last night and it is filled to the brim with action and announcements. It was promised that Tony Khan, the Founder and President of AEW, will be appearing to reveal a major announcement for All Elite Wrestling.
When it comes to the matches, the ongoing feud between Andrade El Idolo and Darby Allin looks to be coming to a head when they face each other in a coffin match. This will only be the second coffin match ever in AEW and Darby’s second time competing with such a stipulation.
Rising AEW star Hook will also be making his way to Dynamite to compete for the first time. On the show Rampage and on pay-per-view buy-in shows, Hook remains undefeated, so it will be interesting to see if he can keep up the winning streak with a new wave of challengers.
You can see the full card for next week’s AEW Dynamite below:
Wardlow vs. The Butcher
Hook makes AEW Dynamite in-ring debut
* Owen Hart Foundation Tournament Qualifier Britt Baker vs. Danielle Camella
* Owen Hart Foundation Tournament Qualifier Jungle Boy vs. Kyle O’Reilly
Less than two weeks away from Rebellion, buckle up for an all-new IMPACT! tonight at 8/7c on AXS TV and 8:30pm ET on YouTube for IMPACT Insiders!
* Jonah vs. PCO
* Steve Maclin vs. Alex Shelley
* Deonna Purrazzo Champ Champ Challenge
* Jonathan Gresham vs. Rocky Romero
* The action begins Before the IMPACT, streaming this Thursday at 7:30pm ET exclusively on IMPACT Plus, YouTube and Facebook. The struggle for dominance between Knockouts World Tag Team Champions The Influence and The IInspiration rolls on as Madison Rayne battles Jessie McKay in singles action! Plus, Gia Miller, Josh Mathews and George Iceman get you ready for all things IMPACT on the road to Rebellion.
The AEW console video game may be released much earlier than originally expected.
AEW first announced their video game back in, but no timeframe was provided. Now Fightful Select reports that there has been internal talk of the game being released in September, but that is tentative and not official.
It was noted that there is plenty of work to be done on the game, but the plan for some time has been to release this year, and that September is widely regarded as the target timeframe as of this week.
An AEW source stressed that this is a tentative release date, and there’s a publisher involved. It was also said that fans can expect the game fairly soon if all goes well, but a lot of things can change between now and September.
It was revealed back in mid-March that there will be a story mode for the game, and that some of the AEW wrestlers were giving input into the storylines. It was also noted that several members of the Yuke’s team that helped create popular RAW vs. SmackDown video games are also a part of this story mode process.
While Yuke’s is known to be the developer of the AEW video game, no publisher has been announced, but this new report notes that a publisher is working with the AEW video game team. It’s believed that once the publisher is confirmed, there will be more information released, such as a release date and other details.
Kenny Omega is said to be determined for the AEW video game to be a success, and word is that he understands how integral a great showing could be.
The official AEW video game is scheduled to be released on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One.
Tonight’s AEW Dynamite on TBS will air live from the UNO Lakefront Arena in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Tony Khan on Busted Open Radio says TNT/TBS is very happy with AEW ratings and that’s why they are getting an overrun tonight. Tony says he’s not saying they will go “super long” tonight. It could be just an extra couple of minutes.
AEW has announced the following line-up for tonight:
* CM Punk vs. Penta Oscuro
* Marina Shafir makes TV debut vs. Skye Blue
* MJF vs. Shawn Dean
* Santana, Ortiz and Eddie Kingston vs. Chris Jericho, Jake Hager and Daniel Garcia of The Jericho Appreciation Society
* Keith Lee and Swerve Strickland vs. Powerhouse Hobbs and FTW Champion Ricky Starks
* AEW World Tag Team Champions Jurassic Express defend against reDRagon
* ROH World Television Champion Minoru Suzuki defends against Samoa Joe
* Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt have a “big surprise” for Samoa Joe
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