A fan on Twitter asked Zack Ryder about the recovery time for his recent knee injury, which occurred on last week’s SmackDown Live. Ryder said he was told 4-6 months and also 6-9 months to return from the injury. Ryder added time will tell.
Category: WWE
WWE Roadblock: End Of The Line (RAW) Results 12/18/16
(Kickoff) Rusev w/Lana vs Big Cass w/Enzo Amore – Winner: Rusev by count out
RAW Tag Team Championship: (C) The New Day vs Sheamus & Cesaro – Winner and new RAW Tag Team Champions Sheamus & Cesaro – After the match, Cesaro gives the former champs a hug in a sign of sportsmanship. Sheamus rips the titles away and celebrates with both titles. Cesaro goes to the Cesaro Section to celebrate with the fans.
Backstage a interviewer asks Kevin Owens about his friendship with Chris Jericho and he says he and Jericho are best friends unconditionally. He leaves the interview and goes over to Jericho. Owens has gotten Y2J a gift, a holiday scarf, but Jericho rejects the gift and throws back at Owens and walked away.
(10-Minute Challenge) Sami Zayn vs Braun Strowman – During the match Mick Foley came out wanting to throw the towel in for Zayn, but Zayn wouldn’t let him and tossed the towel into the crowd – Winner: Zami Zayn by lasting 10-minutes
Seth Rollins vs Chris Jericho – Kevin Owens came out to aid Jericho after Rollins hit a frog splash, Jericho rolled Rollins up but official was occupied with Owens, which cost Jericho a pinfall, Jericho yells at Owens, sending him to the back, Rollins blocks a Code Breaker, Rollins hits the Pedigree – Winner: Seth Rollins
Austin Aries joins the announce team for the Cruiserweight Title Triple Threat Match
WWE Cruiserweight Championship – Triple Threat: (C) Rich Swann vs TJ Perkins vs Brian Kendrick – Winner: Rich Swann – after the match, Neville appeared, came down to the ring and attacked Swann and then Perkins who tried to help Swann, Neville wiped out both Swann and Perkins – What a shocking heel turn by Neville
Backstage- Kevin Owens is outside of Chris Jericho’s door, Owens apologized, but got no answer from Jericho, Owens tried to open the door but it was lock, Owens said I guess we aren’t best friends anymore.
WWE RAW Women’s Championship 30-Minute Iron Man Match: (C) Sasha Banks vs Charlotte – at end of 30 minutes it was tied 2 falls a piece, Sasha had a 2-1 lead but tapped out with only a few seconds left – ref ruled that the match to go to sudden death overtime – Sasha got her nose or mouth bloodied while hitting the Bank Statement – Winner and new RAW Women’s Champion Charlotte
WWE Universal Championship: (C) Kevin Owens vs United States Champion Roman Reigns – Chris Jericho came out and hit Owens with a Code Breaker causing a DQ – Winner: Kevin Owens by DQ – after the match, Jericho and Owens celebrated – Seth Rollins came down – Reigns takes out Owens with a spear, Rollins hits Jericho with a Pedigree – Rollins & Reigns powerbomb Jericho through a announce table at ringside – Rollins & Reigns chase Owens up the ramp and powerbomb Owens through the announce table
Mick Foley Undergoing Surgery – Taking Time Off
Dave Meltzer reported on last night’s episode of Wrestling Observer Radio that RAW General Manager will be undergoing hip replacement surgery. He noted that Foley stayed last week to do the Sami Zayn angle on RAW and give Sami the rub. He said that Foley may be back on the January 2nd episode of RAW, but will be gone again regardless to recover from the surgery.
Update:
Meltzer added on last night’s episode that Foley was originally supposed to have this weekend off, but was called to do the appearance at WWE Roadblock last night. Foley was said to be “in tremendous pain” and will be getting the hip replacement surgery relatively soon. He requested time off because it is difficult for him to do all the traveling with the pain that he’s in.
Source: WrestlingINC
WWE Roadblock: End Of The Line (RAW) 12/18/16
WWE Universal Championship: (C) Kevin Owens vs United States Champion Roman Reigns
WWE RAW Women’s Championship 30-Minute Iron Man Match: (C) Sasha Banks vs Charlotte
Seth Rollins vs Chris Jericho
RAW Tag Team Championship: (C) The New Day vs Sheamus & Cesaro
WWE Cruiserweight Championship – Triple Threat: (C) Rich Swann vs TJ Perkins vs Brian Kendrick
10-Minute Time Limit: Sami Zayn vs Braun Strowman
(Kickoff) Rusev w/Lana vs Big Cass w/Enzo Amore
Tajiri WWE Return Update
Former WWE Cruiserweight Champion Tajiri will be coming to WWE 205 Live soon. We noted before that Tajiri recently announced on Twitter that he will be returning to the company full-time in early 2017.
Wrestlers For The WWE UK Title Tournament Revealed
Below are full details on the first-ever WWE United Kingdom Title tournament coming to the WWE Network this January:
Competitors for the 16-team tournament include Trent Seven, Pete Dunne, Tyler Bate, Wolfgang, Tyson T-Bone, Tucker, Jordan Devlin, Roy Johnson, Joseph Conners, HC Dyer, Jack Starz, Sam Gradwell, James Drake, Dan Moloney, Chris Tyler, Saxon Huxley, Ringo Ryan and Tiger Ali. Two of the competitors will be alternates.
WWE® to Crown U.K. ChampionLONDON & STAMFORD, Conn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– WWE® (NYSE:WWE) announced today that it will crown the first-ever WWE United Kingdom Champion live on WWE Network during a special, two-night tournament on Saturday, January 14 and Sunday, January 15, 2017 beginning at 8:00 PM GMT. Fans can watch the WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament by signing up at WWENetwork.com.
Tickets for the WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament, emanating from the historic Empress Ballroom in Blackpool,go on sale today at 12:00 PM GMT and can be purchased online at livenation.co.uk.
“Our passionate U.K. fans deserve to have their own Champion,” said WWE Executive Vice President of Talent, Live Events & Creative Paul “Triple H®” Levesque. “The tournament is the next step in our ongoing strategy to create localized content for our global WWE Network, develop another brand that engages our passionate fans, and add a new dimension to our on-going storylines.”
This unprecedented event will feature a single-elimination tournament and showcase competitors from all four Home Nations and Ireland including: charismatic Trent Seven, from Wolverhampton; hard-hitting Pete Dunne, from Birmingham; Tyler Bate, the bright young 19-year-old star from Dudley, West Midlands; big brawler Wolfgang, from Glasgow; tough Tyson T-Bone, from Malvern; the aggressive Northern Irish grappler Tucker; Irish high-flyer Jordan Devlin, who hails from Bray, in County Wicklow, the same home town as WWE Superstar Finn Bálor®; and Londoner Roy Johnson, a former champion powerlifter.
William Regal®, Head Scout, WWE Talent Development, and Robbie Brookside, WWE trainer, participated in the scouting process for the tournament competitors, using their unrivalled knowledge and experience of the UK scene, developed over careers of more than 20 years in the ring.
The WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament on WWE Network will be called by WWE lead announcer Michael Cole, who will be joined by color analyst Nigel McGuinness, a mainstay of the UK independent scene.
Zack Ryder Undergoing Surgery
WWE did not announce the results of Zack Ryder’s MRI on Wednesday but he tweeted the following this morning and indicated that he is having knee surgery in Alabama today. As noted, Ryder suffered the injury at Tuesday’s SmackDown as The Hype Bros won a battle royal to become new #1 contenders to SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Wyatt Family.
Source: WrestlingINC
Update:
Zack Ryder confirmed that he was undergoing surgery in Birmingham, Alabama.
WWE Reportedly Interested In TNA Wrestler
WWE officials are interested in bringing current TNA star Eli Drake (Shaun Ricker) back into the company, according to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Ricker worked WWE dark matches in 2006 and 2008 but was later signed to the WWE Performance Center in May 2013. He made it to WWE NXT as Slate Randall but was released in August 2014.
The obvious issue here would be Ricker’s contract status with TNA. Dixie Carter announced back in May of this year that they had signed Drake to a new deal but the length of that contract was not revealed. Drake first started working with TNA in February 2015 and has held the King of the Mountain Title.
There were high hopes for Ricker coming into WWE back in 2013 after he appeared on TNT’s reality TV show “The Hero,” which was hosted by The Rock. His release came with a handful of other developmental talents, reportedly due to budget cuts, but it was said that his departure was different as it had little to do with the budget. Ricker had the charisma WWE wanted and he was progressing better but there were some issues with his Twitter use and an e-mail he sent while with the company. Exact, confirmed details on that e-mail were never revealed but it was said to have buried him with officials, who also weren’t happy about some of his tweets.
Drake spoke with Pancakes & Powerslams in June 2015 and talked about WWE blacklisting him. He said:
“I was on the black list there for a while. One of the guys who used to work in Talent Relations – I’ll leave him nameless – he got fired around early 2012, apparently not very liked in the back anyway; I guess he was kind of a jerk to a lot of people, for whatever reason, would bury me in the office. So I was kind of just, nobody could touch me; nobody would touch me. So for a lot of years it was frustration and wondering what I’m working toward and why isn’t these guys taking my calls. And I finally started getting some of the details of why this guy was burying me. There was talk of them picking me up in 2011, I was there for SummerSlam, and then and the follow-up Raw and SmackDown, and everything went incredibly well. But all of a sudden it was like radio silence on their end and I hadn’t quite understood why until I spoke to this person, and he was like, “Well, we’re gonna go in a different direction.” I’m like, “OK?” and he’s like, “You can check out Ring of Honor or TNA or whatever.””So I think maybe five months after I had spoken to him on the phone, he’d gotten fired, which was a great day for me. I don’t wanna see anyone lose their job, but if you’ve keeping me out of a job, here’s to ya. So, I was more than happy to see him go. And so this new guy comes in, and the beauty of it is that with the footage I had from (Championship Wrestling from Hollywood), I would take some of this great-looking television footage that was on every week and put it together with a short little paragraph just introducing myself and a resume and some photos. Emailed it to this guy and he immediately responded to me and was interested but then found out that I was on this blacklist or whatever. So for the next few months I had to just wait and keep trying to establish this rapport. Eventually, these tryouts kept getting pushed off. First he offered me a tryout until he found out that I was on the blacklist. Then, a few months later I got offered a tryout but simultaneously, I also was offered a TNA tryout. So, my TNA tryout was on a Thursday and my WWE tryout was actually that following Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I was ecstatic because I have the two biggest companies vying for me and it’s perfect. Thursday I go into Impact and that goes well, then Sunday I get an email and I’m told that I can’t come to the (WWE) tryout. They couldn’t say why, but I’m pretty certain it was because there was a lawsuit going on between TNA and WWE at the time.”
Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter via WrestlingINC
WWE Announces WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament
WWE made the following announcements in the UK:
WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament comes to WWE Network in JanuaryLONDON — At an historic press conference at the O2 Arena in London, Triple H revealed that WWE’s first-ever United Kingdom Champion will be crowned this January.
The WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament is a 16-competitor, two-day throwdown at Blackpool’s Empress Ballroom, airing live and exclusively on the award-winning WWE Network, featuring some of the best talent the U.K. has to offer. The last man standing at the end of the tournament will be crowned champion and awarded a title, which was also revealed at the conference.
Joining Triple H in London were former WWE Universal Champion Finn Bálor, General Manager of NXT William Regal and British wrestling icon Nigel McGuinness, who will be calling the tournament action on WWE Network alongside the voice of Monday Night Raw, Michael Cole. The WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament competitors also took the stage.
Tickets for this historic two-day event at the Empress Ballroom will be available starting today at 12 p.m. GMT at livenation.co.uk.
Stick with WWE.com for more news on this incredible tournament as it becomes available, and don’t miss the WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament, January 14 & 15, live and exclusively on WWE Network!
Nigel McGuinness announced as WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament co-hostLONDON — Plenty of big news came out of today’s press conference at the O2 Arena in London, with one of the most exciting reveals being that famed British grappler Nigel McGuinness will serve as co-host for the WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament, live and exclusively on the award-winning WWE Network this January.
Widely considered to be one of the greatest competitors to never have a major run in WWE, McGuinness was a contemporary of Superstars like Daniel Bryan, Cesaro and Samoa Joe, and shared the same global path through the wrestling world as those men. A swaggering London native with peroxide hair and a Johnny Rotten attitude, McGuinness entered the ring to a blistering Oasis anthem and attacked his opponents with the recklessness of a soccer hooligan after a losing game. His series of bouts against Bryan in the mid-2000s were so unrelentingly physical that you watch them and wonder why the cops didn’t intervene mid-match.
Injuries brought an early end to McGuinness’ career, but his influence is present in WWE today, whether you knew it or not. Seth Rollins cites him as a key opponent in his evolution as a ring performer, and the wild rebound lariat Dean Ambrose throws with abandon on SmackDown LIVE is done in tribute to the great McGuinness.
Outside of his in-ring physicality, McGuinness also possessed great intelligence and ring acumen, which he used to his benefit in retirement as he transitioned to the announce booth. He’ll bring those skills to the WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament on January 14 & 15, 2017, live on WWE Network, and the WWE Universe will finally be introduced to one of England’s — and sports-entertainment’s — greats.
Chyna’s Autopsy Complete – Death Caused By Drugs And Alcohol
Chyna‘s autopsy testing is complete and officials have determined that her death was caused by drugs and alcohol.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner says her death was caused in an accidental manner by the “combined effect of drugs and alcohol.”
As we previously reported, Chyna had been drinking heavily prior to her death — partly due to her relationship with WWE being so bad that she couldn’t get an invite to their Hall of Fame.
Source: Pro Wrestling Sheet
