WWE Backlash PLE, Saturday May 4th – from the LDLC Arena in Lyon-Decines, France
CARD
UNDISPUTED WWE CHAMPIONSHIP
Cody Rhodes (c) vs. AJ Styles
WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
Damian Priest (c) vs. Jey Uso
WWE WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP
Bayley (c) vs. Naomi vs. Tiffany Stratton
WWE WOMEN’S TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP
The Kabuki Warriors (Asuka and Kairi Sane) (c) vs. Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill
Kevin Owens and Randy Orton vs. The Bloodline (Solo Sikoa and Tama Tonga)
WWE SmackDown will air tonight on FOX from the LDLC Arena in Lyon-Decines, France.
Dominik Mysterio is recovering from an elbow injury. Despite initial concerns about the possibility of Tommy John surgery, a procedure typically associated with baseball pitchers, the WWE star has confirmed that surgery will not be required.
As mentioned before, Mysterio has chosen to undergo physical therapy instead of undergoing surgery. The injury is believed to have occurred during a match with Andrade on April 15th and has been described as a freak accident.
Dave Meltzer reported the following in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter:
Dominik Mysterio, who was at first expected to need surgery for his elbow injury, will instead be avoiding surgery and going with personal therapy. He expects to be back in six to eight weeks. As noted last week, the injury was viewed as a freak accident in his 4/15 match on TV with Andrade
Source: eWn
Ethan Page and AEW appear to have parted ways.
On Thursday, Page’s profile was removed from the roster on AEW’s official website. While AEW doesn’t publicly announce their departures, a removal from the roster page usually indicates that a talent has been released from the company.
Page joined AEW in 2021, signing with the company in March of that year.
Page was last seen on an episode of AEW Collision on December 9, 2023. At that show, he lost to Kenny Omega.
It’s worth noting that Page did wrestle on the February 14th episode of ROH TV on HonorClub, picking up a win over Anthony Henry.
Page had also been working more independent shows as of late and has been promoting his Alpha-1 Wrestling company again.
Finally, Fightful is reporting that “the word within the industry was that Ethan Page was looking to finish up with AEW/ROH a few months ago.”
Source: eWn
Ronda Rousey has been in the news a lot over the past few weeks, as she’s had a number of things to say about her time in both WWE and UFC. Rousey’s comments come following the release of a new book in which she reveals the toxic culture backstage in WWE, her disdain for former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon, and multiple concussion-related issues that she hid from people in order to keep fighting and wrestling. Now, former WWE commentator Jimmy Smith has fired back.
Speaking on SiriusXM’s “Unlocking the Cage” on Wednesday, Smith said Rousey is the type of person who wants all of the credit for her successes and none of the blame for her failures, and took issue with the logic of her claim that she chose WWE over UFC because of her issues with concussions. Smith then launched into a profanity-laden rant about how Rousey is perceived by her co-workers.
“Ronda, if you are listening,” Smith began. “The people behind the scenes, camera people, audio people, the people you can push around, the people you can bully, and the people you can talk down to can’t stand your f*ing a. Everybody behind the scenes that had to put a mic on Ronda Rousey couldn’t stand her.”
Rousey’s first WWE run was already over by the time Smith signed there in 2021; she returned in January 2022, however, and the two were concurrently active until Smith was dismissed from WWE in October 2022. Similarly, Smith’s brief stint as a UFC commentator didn’t begin until 2018, well after Rousey’s heyday as a fighter, something he readily admitted during the show. Nonetheless, Smith had ample opportunity to speak to various UFC crew members who he claimed were only too happy to witness Rousey’s 2015-26 fall from grace in the MMA world.
“They were cheering when she got knocked out,” Smith said. “Because those are the people you can be mean to and rude to, and they can’t fight back. Those people couldn’t stand Ronda Rousey … She didn’t have one defender. She didn’t have one person who went ‘She was alright.’ Everyone was like ‘She was horrible, we were thrilled when she got crushed.'”
Source: Wrestling Inc. with credit to SiriusXM’s “Unlocking the Cage”
TNA Under Siege – Friday May 3, 2024 – from the Washington Ave. Armory in Albany, NY.
It’s the final stop before Under Siege on an all-new episode of TNA iMPACT! Tonight at 8/7c on AXS TV and at 8:30 pm ET on YouTube for Insiders.
ROH will air a new episode of its weekly television show tonight at 7 pm ET on HonorClub.
You can sign up for the streaming service here. Below is the lineup for the show:
In his first appearance on “AEW Dynamite” since December of 2023, Winnipeg’s hometown hero Kenny Omega detailed his struggles with diverticulitis, up to and including doctors telling him that he was staring down the barrel of a colostomy bag at best, and way too close for comfort to flat out dying at worst when he was diagnosed at the time. And while “The Cleaner” stated that he’d love to mix it up right now if it were up to him, he admitted that doctors told him that any blunt force trauma to his abdomen could be catastrophic. Enter: The Elite, who clearly cared not about their former comrade.
The familiar sound of coins hitting the floor hit first, with longtime Omega nemesis Kazuchika Okada entering the ring and inciting a staredown for the ages with Omega asking for “a few months” so they could run back their legendary New Japan Pro-Wrestling feud under the AEW umbrella just as soon as possible. But Okada hesitated and walked away, leading to an assault from Jack Perry and The Young Bucks that culminated in an EVP Trigger. As the beatdown ensued, FTR hit the ring to prevent any further damage, but eventually, once Omega was wheeled to the back on a gurney, about to be loaded into an ambulance, The Elite struck again, tossing Omega from the gurney and onto the cement floor as a distraught Dax Harwood looked on.
Omega, who admitted to being nervous about tonight’s appearance, hasn’t wrestled since defeating Ethan Page on “AEW Collision” in early December and hasn’t been seen at all since announcing via X that he would be out indefinitely due to his diagnosis.
Source: Wrestling Inc.
WWE star Bray Wyatt’s passing hit the wrestling world hard, especially since he was reportedly close to being medically cleared, and fans have theorized that Wyatt’s brother, Bo Dallas (who played the mysterious “Uncle Howdy” during Wyatt’s final run) could continue Wyatt’s stories. This speculation only grew louder after the WWE documentary based on Wyatt’s life, “Becoming Immortal,” seemed to tease a continuation of his story, and now, a report from PWInsider Elite suggests WWE has re-signed original Wyatt Family member Erick Rowan. The move is not completely unexpected, having been foreshadowed by Rowan pulling out of an independent show due to “contractual obligations” two weeks ago.
Rowan is best known for his lengthy tenure in the Wyatt Family alongside the late Brodie Lee (Luke Harper) and Braun Strowman, who came in later. Rowan and Lee won tag team championships both in “WWE NXT” and on the main roster, but Lee was released back December 2019, and after a brief storyline (and second tag title run) with Bryan Danielson (aka Daniel Bryan) Rowan followed Lee out the door in April 2020.
Interestingly, Braun Strowman recently returned from injury just in time for the Draft, where he came to the aid of Jey Uso and got in the face of NFL star Patrick Mahomes. Fans have speculated that WWE could use Wyatt-centric supporting characters like Rowan and Strowman to make form a new faction led by Dallas. If this is the case, such a faction could also be a vehicle for re-introducing Alexa Bliss after she returns from maternity leave, and free agent Matt Hardy has also expressed interest. Meanwhile, WWE has been reusing flashing QR codes again, much like they did when they teased Wyatt’s 2022 return in the notorious “White Rabbit” storyline; these codes are reportedly indicative of Dallas’ return, with or without the Uncle Howdy costume.
Source: Wrestling Inc.
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