According to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, it appears that Chris Jericho’s recent WWE return was a one shot surprise in order to pop the crowd and was used as a way for Styles to get back the U.S. title without Owens losing on TV. At this time, Jericho is not being advertised for anything going forward. His latest book, “No is a Four Letter Word,” is coming out in a few weeks and he’ll be starting a publicity tour for the book at that time.
Source: 411Mania
According to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, MMA fighter Jessamyn Duke started wrestling training last weekend. She was working out in a class run by Rocky Romero at the Santino Brothers pro wrestling school in Southern California. Duke is friends with Shayna Baszler, who is in the Mae Young Classic. Along with Ronda Rousey and Marina Shafir, the four were known as MMA’s four horsewomen.
Source: 411Mania
Matt Hardy has been continuing to post about being “Woken” on Twitter. Hardy has been pushing the “Woken” references this week following GFW President Ed Nordholm recently stating that he was done negotiating with the Hardys over the rights to the “Broken” intellectual property.
Hardy also provided some “Woken” wisdom, stating that “there is a lesson to be learned within every failure,” as seen below:
Source: WrestlingINC
WWE has announced that Bayley suffered a right shoulder injury during Monday night’s RAW match with Nia Jax. Her status for the match with RAW Women’s Champion Alexa Bliss at the August 20th WWE SummerSlam pay-per-view is currently up in the air.
Below is WWE’s full announcement:
Bayley suffers a shoulder injury Monday night on RawDuring her match with Nia Jax on the July 31 edition of Raw, Bayley suffered an injury to her right shoulder.
The former Raw Women’s Champion was evaluated by medical personnel, but the official diagnosis was inconclusive due to the amount of swelling involved. Bayley has been told to rest the shoulder until next week, at which point doctors are hopeful that the swelling will have sufficiently gone down so that she may be reevaluated and a firm verdict can be reached.
“Everything just tensed up around it,” Bayley told WWE.com shortly after her match on Monday night. “I’ve never had an injury like this before, so I can’t really know what it is. I guess we’re gonna see.”
Dr. Chris Amann told WWE.com, “We’ve determined the injury is shoulder-related, and she will be going under further diagnostic testing later this week to determine the extent of the injury and also establish a timetable for recovery.”
Check back with WWE.com for more details on Bayley’s injury as they become available.
Sports Illustrated has an interview with Reby Hardy regarding the ongoing dispute between the Hardys and Anthem Sports over the “Broken” intellectual property. Below are a couple of highlights:
Are the Hardys willing to go to court to pursue the IP? Are you optimistic of a judge or jury ruling in your favor?
“Going to the court is not like going to the grocery store. There is a lot of money involved in a legal case, which is another reason why Anthem is dragging this out as long as they can. Jeff Jarrett said, “Just keep dragging it out, they’ll get tired of spending money.” We would rather settle this like civil human beings, which is what we have tried to do for months and months.
“There are so many things that, if we choose to go to court, we can also add into the case. Senor Benjamin, who is my father, never signed a release to have his image be marketed. Technically, they should not have been able to air his footage. They do not have a release for my son, Maxel, who had no written documents saying he could be on set at Universal Studios, which could jeopardize their relationship with the place where they film on a monthly basis. There is also the fact that I created—shot, directed, and edited—so much footage that I never gave them a release to use, either.”
Anthem also denies that it ever asked for a significant percent of Hardy merchandise, including Jeff Hardy’s art work and music, as well as stated that the contracts offered to Matt and Jeff were almost close to equal in terms of pay. Is the company being truthful, and where do we go from here?
“We literally have those documents in email form from Ed Nordholm.
“In one of the contracts, Anthem snuck in a percentage the company would be owed from any income from ShopMattHardy.com and JeffHardyBrand.com. The fact that they would feel entitled to that is a joke. Jeff Hardy’s site is literally his paintings and music; it has nothing to do with wrestling and is an artistic venture. Why are they entitled to any of that? To slide that into the contract was a real shady move, and we have the documents to prove it.
“Jeff Jarrett’s plan was to give Jeff Hardy all the money, and he actually said to pay Matt as little as possible because he believed Matt could not go anywhere without Jeff Hardy. I had reservations about WWE for a long time, but I forgot all of my reservations and our loyalty to the TNA brand after I learned that.
“F— these guys, to put it bluntly. After Matt financed his own shoots and put hours and hours of his own time writing the shows? F— these guys. We didn’t have any scripts. They’re claiming IP, they’re claiming this is their character and development, but we never had one script or one shoot sheet. That was all Matt pouring himself into the character and dedicating himself to it.
“The amount of time and effort he put into this made it his brainchild, which is why this is more of a personal matter than business. It was all our creation, and we can easily prove that it was all us, and it’s nothing but ego on their end. Matt refused to re-sign, they really believed that he could not go anywhere else, and we called them out on their bluff. Ed Nordholm actually told Jeff Hardy’s attorney, “Tell them to go to WWE.” Is that the way you negotiate? To try to get someone to sign a s— contract to work at your s— company for s— money? When it comes down to it, this comes down to their ego versus all of the time, effort, and passion we have put into this project and gimmick.
“This is a personal investment vs. ego. I feel like there will never be an agreement without going to court.”
Reby also discussed Anthem thinking they own the “Broken” gimmick, Anthem saying that Matt asked for an extra $100,000 during contract negotiations and more. You can read the full interview by clicking here.
Source: WrestlingINC
The legendary Terry Funk has not wrestled his last match.
Funk, now 73, is advertised to wrestle on Sept. 23 for Big Time Wrestling in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
For the first time ever, Funk will team with The Rock N’ Roll Express, Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson. Their opponents in a six-man tag team match are Jerry “The King” Lawler, Doug Gilbert and Brian Christopher. Click here for details on the event.
According to PWInsider.com, Funk has not made any wrestling-related appearances since last September when health issues forced him to leave a wrestling show early.
Source: WrestlingINC
Tonight’s WWE 205 Live will take place from the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, OH.
* Who will face WWE Cruiserweight Champion Neville at SummerSlam? – Ariya Daivari vs. Akira Tozawa
* Has The Brian Kendrick pushed Gentleman Jack Gallagher to his limit?
Tonight’s WWE SmackDown Live will take place from the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, OH as the road to SummerSlam continues.
* John Cena and Shinsuke Nakamura to clash in dream match for SummerSlam WWE Title opportunity
* Kevin Owens challenges United States Champion AJ Styles
* Naomi & Becky Lynch join forces for tag team action
* Chad Gable looks to break out against Rusev
* Will The Fashion Police finally crack the case?
* Tyler Breeze posted this video from backstage at Monday’s live event in Ft. Wayne, Indiana:
There are major cutbacks going on all over WWE right now, including the cancellation of WWE Network programs and no longer doing the pyro at shows.
Dave Meltzer stated on the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE “promised everyone” they were going to have bigger profits in 2017 than they had in 2016 and they’re not anywhere close.
“So last year’s profits were about $30 million,” said Meltzer on the August 1, 2017 episode of Wrestling Observer Radio. “And this year we’re about halfway through and — I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me – but it’s like five or six million, which means there’s a lot of catching up to do.”
This is believed to be the reason why there is no longer a pyro at WWE shows and a lot of shows on the WWE Network are getting canceled, in an attempt to lower production costs.
“They’re not in any financial trouble but the Network subscriber number is a genuine disappointment,” explained Meltzer. “The growth coming out of WrestleMania that would have been expected wasn’t there.”
One thing that has not helped the growth of the WWE Network is doing brand specific pay-per-views for RAW and SmackDown but it’s not expected that WWE is going to go back to just one pay-per-view a month.
“The one thing that we have learned is that the two pay-per-views a month, that has not helped,” said Meltzer. “The Network number is not growing the way they expected it to so that’s been a bad situation. But I don’t think they want to drop one of the pay-per-views because I think that would hurt ratings a little bit.”
More cutbacks are expected in WWE and it’s one of the reasons why the company has been slow on the United Kingdom show. Dave Meltzer noted their tournament to crown a WWE United Kingdom Champion earlier this year cost a lot of money and the show will mean spending a lot of money for more tapings every month.
Source: WrestlingINC
