WWE has reportedly signed former Impact Wrestling X Division Champion DJZ, according to PWInsider.
DJZ will be coming in to work the WWE NXT brand. WWE reportedly made their offer to him during the last week of February.
DJZ revealed back on December 31 that he was a free agent after parting ways with Impact. His contract had expired there. He debuted for Impact in 2011 and worked there off & on, becoming a two-time X Division Champion and a one-time Tag Team Champion with Andrew Everett.
There’s no word yet on when the 32 year old will report to the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, but it’s believed he will work a few more dates on the indies to finish up there.
As noted, WWE recently signed DJZ’s former “BroMans” partner Robbie E (Robert Strauss) to a deal as well. He’s currently at the Performance Center training.
DJZ was praised for Friday’s match with Sammy Guevara at the Warrior Wrestling IV indie event in Chicago. Below are a few shots from that match, and a few shots from DJZ’s weekend debut for the International Wrestling Cartel (IWC) promotion in Elizabeth, PA:
WWE has announced that longtime company employee Sue Aitchison will receive The Warrior Award at the 2019 WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
Below is WWE’s full announcement on Aitchison, with comments from Dana and Stephanie McMahon:
Longtime WWE employee Sue Aitchison to receive Warrior Award at 2019 WWE Hall of Fame CeremonySue Aitchison, a 30-year veteran of WWE’s corporate office, has been named the recipient of the fifth-annual Warrior Award. Named after WWE Hall of Famer The Ultimate Warrior, the Warrior Award is presented to an individual who has exhibited unwavering strength and perseverance and who lives life with the courage and compassion that embodies the indomitable spirit of The Ultimate Warrior.
The award will be presented to Aitchison by Dana Warrior, WWE Ambassador and widow of The Ultimate Warrior, at the 2019 WWE Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, which will stream live on WWE Network at 7 ET/4 PT on Saturday, April 6 from Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. The news was first reported by The Stamford Advocate.
A WWE employee for more than 30 years, Sue Aitchison is widely credited with spearheading WWE’s community outreach programs. Over the course of her storied career, she built a long-term partnership with Make-A-Wish and helped grant WWE wishes to more than 6,000 children. Aitchison also pioneered WWE’s WrestleMania Reading Challenge, inspiring a love of reading for millions of children around the world. Because of her commitment to giving back, Aitchison has also been the recipient of Make-A-Wish’s Chris Greicius Award.
“Sue has dedicated her entire career to helping Wish kids fulfill their dreams and putting smiles on countless families’ faces. Her heart and character epitomize the essence of the Warrior Award,” said Stephanie McMahon, WWE Chief Brand Officer. “She is an unsung hero who deserves to be recognized and immortalized in the WWE Hall of Fame.”
“It is an incredible privilege to present Sue with this year’s Warrior Award,” Dana Warrior said. “My husband saw Sue’s efforts firsthand throughout his WWE career. She displays the Warrior spirit every single day and is an inspiration to us all.”
“I am humbled to receive this prestigious award,” Sue Aitchison said. “I look forward to continuing WWE’s efforts with Make-A-Wish and other organizations to make a positive impact on children and their families around the world.”
It looks like AJ Styles will be re-signing with WWE when his current contract expires next month, if he hasn’t agreed to terms of a new deal already.
Some people within WWE believe the deal has already been signed, according to PWInsider, but word is that the two sides had agreed on all the major points of the new deal.
Styles is also being advertised for the annual post-WrestleMania tour of Europe now. He is scheduled to face WWE United States Champion Samoa Joe.
There had been obvious interest from AEW, if Styles would have let his WWE deal expire, but all signs point to The Phenomenal One staying with WWE.
Styles will face Randy Orton at WrestleMania 35 next month.
Former WWE Intercontinental Champion Shelton Benjamin had reached out via Instagram to express his personal interest in becoming Kurt Angle’s opponent for his retirement match at WrestleMania 35.
Although their relationship has seen many up and downs since it’s inception, Benjamin and Angle first appeared on WWE TV together in the latter part of 2002, when Shelton joined “The World’s Greatest Tag Team” alongside Charlie Haas and their mentor at the time, Kurt. Under Angle’s tutelage, Benjamin & Haas won their first tag team championships just a month after their debut and they would go on to be two-time champions before the team went their separate ways.
Angle has now responded to Benjamin’s challenge with a simple but enthusiastic, “I’m game!”
We will keep you updated in to tomorrow night’s WWE RAW to see if this is the actual direction that WWE creative will take Angle’s retirement storyline.
WWE Hall of Famer “Bullet” Bob Armstrong apparently wrestled the final match of his career Saturday night in Pensacola, FL, according to F4WOnline.com. At 79, this will be Armstrong’s 59th year as a professional wrestler.
Members of Bob’s family were present at the show, including his son and soon-to-be Hall of Famer, Brian “Road Dogg” B.G. James, who introduced him to the ring. One of Armstrong’s great granddaughters was also in attendance to watch the retirement match.
Armstrong, who’s real name is Joseph Melton James, was best known by his ring name, “Bullet” Bob Armstrong. In the span of his near six-decade career, he held championship gold as part of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) over 55 times. Armstrong was also inducted in to the WWE Hall of Fame class in 2011 for his contributions to the company.
Since 2010, Armstrong has worked occasional matches around Florida and Georgia, mainly working for promotions like All Pro Wrestling, Superstars Of Wrestling and Combat Sport Pro. On October 13, 2018, he had also wrestled a match that was billed as his farewell bout, teaming up with Georgia Premier Wrestling’s Ernest Miller and Glacier to win a six-man tag team match.
Despite how it may have sounded to some … Santino Marella says his comments about transgender women in wrestling were about AMATEUR, not professional wrestling.
As we previously reported, Santino recently spoke on an Impact Twitch stream about how he dislikes intergender wrestling. He then shifted the conversation to transgender women and said “There’s cases now in MMA and wrestling where there’s trans girls that were born boys that are beating the sh*t out of females and that’s wrong.”
Marella reached out to Pro Wrestling Sheet to clarify that he was NOT talking about pro wrestling in this moment. “In legitimate combative sports, I don’t want to see women get hurt unnecessarily,” he tells us. “Professional wrestling welcomes everybody”
Adding, “I consider myself an ambassador to professional wrestling and my view has always been that it is welcome to all, I have gay students. I have trans students. I have students from every race and creed, we are all one big happy family.”
The video of his original comments can be found at link below.
Double or Nothing is still a few months away, but The Young Bucks vs. Lucha Bros went down anyway Saturday night and ended with new tag champs in AAA.
Matt and Nick Jackson made a surprise appearance at AAA’s Rey de Reyes following the main event — which saw Pentagon Jr and Fenix capture the tag titles — and an impromptu match began.
In a shocking occurrence, The Young Bucks defeated their the Lucha Bros to become the AAA World Tag Team Champions after hitting the Meltzer Driver.
The Young Bucks has become the first tag team in history who has won the AAA, IWGP, ROH and PWG tag team championships.
The full show (which also includes an appearance from Cody Rhodes) can be FOUND HERE.
Yesterday at a fan signing for Becky Lynch, an individual reportedly had a seizure while waiting in line and had trouble making it up the stairs. Lynch quickly made her way over and held the fan until EMTs arrived.
We are working on getting Jerry Jarrett for an upcoming episode of the Wrestling News Blog Podcast. For those unfamiliar with Jarrett, below is some information on his background history in professional wrestling.
Jerry Jarrett is the father of WWE Hall of Famer Jeff Jarrett and former co-owner of what was known as the Memphis Wrestling territory. Jarrett is a key figure in the history of professional wrestling in the Mid-Southern United States. Described as a “wrestling genius”, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Alliance Hall of Fame in 2009.
Jarrett founded the Memphis, Tennessee-based Continental Wrestling Association in 1977. In 1989, Jarrett merged his promotion with the Dallas, Texas-based promotion World Class Championship Wrestling, creating the United States Wrestling Association, which Jarrett sold to Lawler in 1997. He made another foray into promoting in 2002 when he co-founded NWA:TNA with his son Jeff Jarrett, selling his controlling interest to Panda Energy International later that year.
Jerry Jarrett was exposed to the wrestling business at a very early age. His mother worked as a ticket vendor, and Jarrett began selling programs for a promotion owned by Roy Welch and Nick Gulas at the age of seven. After receiving his driving license at fourteen, he became a wrestling promoter, renting buildings, advertising shows, constructing the ring, selling tickets, and stocking refreshments. He worked as a promoter until he left Nashville to attend college. Upon graduating, Jarrett worked for Welch and Gulas as an office assistant and became a referee by default after a referee no-showed. He soon returned to promoting, working his way up from local promotions to regional, then national promotions.
While working as a referee, Jarrett decided to become a wrestler and was trained by his friend and future tag team partner Tojo Yamamoto and veteran wrestler Sailor Moran. He wrestled his first match in Haiti in 1965.
Jarrett became a successful wrestler in the South, particularly in his home state of Tennessee, forming tag teams with Jackie Fargo and Tojo Yamamoto.
After a dispute with Gulas in 1977, Jarrett opted to break away and found his own promotion, the Continental Wrestling Association (CWA). With the support of Buddy Fuller, Jerry Lawler and his mother, Jarrett built the CWA into a successful promotion, staging events each Monday that regularly sold-out the Mid-South Coliseum and airing television shows each Saturday morning on WMC-TV. In 1981, NWA Mid-America folded due to competition from the CWA with Gulas selling his territory to Jarrett.
In 1979, The Freebirds wanted Jarrett to allow them to play Freebird on their entrances. They first tried it in the Mid-South Coliseum along with twirling the house spotlights. So Jerry Jarrett became one of the first promoters to use music and videos to promote his roster of wrestlers.
In 1984, Jarrett entered into a talent exchange with Bill Watts’ Mid-South Wrestling promotion. Jarrett and Lawler advised Watts to bring more young performers into his territory to attract a younger generation of fans; especially females since they bring their boyfriends to the shows.
In 1988, Jarrett entered talks with Verne Gagne, owner of the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based American Wrestling Association, about a potential merger. After the talks were abandoned in 1989, Jarrett instead entered into a merger with the Dallas, Texas-based promotion World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) to create the United States Wrestling Association.
The United States Wrestling Association began promoting shows in Tennessee and Texas in 1989, with Jarrett aspiring to take the promotion national. In 1990, WCCW withdrew from the USWA after a revenue dispute, folding shortly thereafter.
In 1992, the USWA began a talent exchange program with the World Wrestling Federation. By the mid-1990s, attendances at the Mid-South Coliseum had fallen sharply, and in 1995 Jarrett sold his stake in the promotion to Jerry Lawler and Larry Burton.
After stepping back from promoting, Jarrett worked as a consultant for both World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and the WWF.
In 2001, Jarrett put together proposals for acquisition of WCW, calculating that he could return the company to profitability by aggressively cutting costs. The company’s assets were, however, acquired by the WWF after its programming n TBS and TNT was canceled.
After the sale of World Championship Wrestling to the World Wrestling Federation and the bankruptcy of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), the North American professional wrestling industry lacked a viable competitor to the WWF which Jerry and Jeff Jarrett attempted to fill with the formation of NWA:TNA. On May 9, 2002, the Jarretts announced the formation of J Sports and Entertainment (JSE), the parent company of NWA:TNA, a new professional wrestling promotion that began airing weekly pay-per-views on In Demand on June 19, 2002.
In October 2002, JSE sold a 72% controlling interest in NWA:TNA to Panda Energy. Jarrett remained part of the NWA:TNA management team until departing in late-2005 over a dispute about the direction of the company.
Jerry Jarrett now hosts the podcast Booking Memphis along with Sean Reedy.
