Brody King Revealed As House Of Black Member During AEW Dynamite Debut

Malakai Black’s tag team partner Brody King has finally debuted on AEW after parting ways with Ring Of Honor.

Former Ring Of Honor star Brody King was revealed as a member of Malakai Black’s ‘House Of Black’ during the former’s AEW debut, which occurred on this week’s edition of Dynamite on TBS.

It all went down at the PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina on Wednesday, January 12. Penta El Zero Miedo had just scored a pinfall victory over Matt Hardy when he got on the mic to call out Malakai Black. The lights went out, and when they came back on, Black was standing in the ring. Black attacked both Penta and Penta’s hype man Alex Abrahantes but Varsity Blondes (Griff Garrison, Bryan Pillman Jr., and Julia Hart ) made the save and prevented Black from doing any more damage … for a few seconds at least.

Black laughed in the face of his three assailants, and then the lights went off for a second time. When they came back on, Brody King was standing in the ring. Black and King beat everyone up and stood tall as the segment drew to a close.

https://twitter.com/AEW/status/1481452869626826752

Brody King is a 34-year-old professional wrestler who cut his teeth in the Southern California independent scene while training at the prestigious Santinos Bros Academy in Los Angeles. Something of a late bloomer, King wrestled his very first match in 2015, but his rise to indie stardom was swift. In 2018, he made his Ring Of Honor as a member of Marty Scurll’s heel faction Villain enterprises.

The following year, King and his Villain Enterprises teammate PCO captured the ROH World Tag Team Championship when they defeated The Briscoes (Jay Briscoe & Mark Briscoe) at ROH’s 17th Aniversary Show. The very next evening, King became a double champ when he and PCO teamed up with Scurll to win the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Title from The Kingdom (Matt Taven, TK O’Ryan & Vinny Marseglia).

Earlier this year, King reunited with his old friend Malakai Black when Black made his shocking return to PWG after a five-year absence at the promotion’s Mystery Vortex VII event. Known collectively as The Kings Of The Black Throne, Brody King and Malakai Black defeated Black Taurus & Demonic Flamita PWG Threemendous VI to win the vacant PWG World Tag Team Championship.

Source: TheSportster

AEW Dynamite Preview 1/12/22

Tonight’s AEW Dynamite on TBS will take place from the PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina. This will be the Raleigh debut for the company.

* CM Punk vs. Wardlow

* Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Dante Martin

* Hikaru Shida vs. Serena Deeb

* Interim TNT Champion Sammy Guevara defends against Daniel Garcia

MLW Has Filed An Anti-Trust Lawsuit Against The WWE

Court Bauer’s Major League Wrestling promotion has filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the WWE.

The WWE legal team is working overtime this week … and probably for the next few months.

MLW (Major League Wrestling), the New York-based professional wrestling promotion founded by former WWE writer Court Bauer, has filed an anti-trust lawsuit against World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. MLW is alleging that WWE interfered in some of its business deals and even pressured some third parties to pull the plug on their existing arrangements with MLW.

“WWE’s pattern of predatory and exclusionary conduct has hampered competition in the U.S. wrestling market by deprivingMLW and other competitors of distribution channels, and its conduct has harmed consumers by depriving them of content and keeping prices high,” MLW’s lawsuit states.

MLW claims that WWE sabotaged a “lucrative” agreement between MLW and streaming platform Tubi, which is owned by Fox. According to the lawsuit, a WWE executive contacted Fox and asked Fox to terminate the MLW deal.

As you might recall, WWE and Fox signed a $1 billion broadcast deal in 2018 that facilitated SmackDown’s move from USA Network to Fox. WWE signed another big-money deal with Fox in 2020.

WWE allegedly implied that they would cease doing business with Fox if their demands were not met. Soon thereafter, Fox informed MLW that it had canceled the company’s Tubi contract, which ultimately led to a downturn in MLW’s profits and ticket sales.

MLW also claims that WWE interfered in its deal with VICE TV when WWE senior vice president Susan Levison called VICE to inform the network that Vince McMahon was unhappy that VICE had agreed to air MLW programming As a result, VICE only aired one MLW show.

“WWE has been wrongfully depriving its competitors of critical opportunities for many years, but its latest conduct has been even more unconscionable,” Bauer said in a statement. “I think we speak for the rest of the professional wrestling world when we say that this anti-competitive behavior has to stop.”

In a statement of its own, WWE disputed MLW’s claims.

“WWE believes these claims have no merit and intends to vigorously defend itself against them,” the WWE statement read.

Source: TheSportster

WWE NXT Preview 1/11/22, AJ Styles

Tonight’s WWE NXT episode on the USA Network will feature fallout from last week’s New Year’s Evil special.

John Cena Gives Update On His WWE Future And WrestleMania Status

John Cena says he will likely miss WrestleMania 38 in April.

Cena appeared on The Ellen Show this week to promote The Peacemaker on HBO Max, and was asked about his WWE future, and if he will be at WrestleMania 38 on Saturday, April 2 and Sunday, April 3 in Texas.

“WrestleMania is usually in the cusp of late March, early April. I don’t know if I’m going to make it this year,” Cena said. “And that’s a good conundrum to have because there’s a lot of good opportunity coming up, which I would love to take and if all those things line up, I don’t know if I’ll be able to make WrestleMania.”

John Cena continued and said he is far from done with the squared circle.

“But I will tell you and everybody watching, I’m not done with WWE by a long shot,” he said. “That’s my home, I love it. I was able to go back during the summer for a few months and entertain audiences when they welcomed audiences back to arenas, so I’ve far from had my last performance.”

Cena, who turns 45 on April 23, has not worked a program since losing to WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns at SummerSlam in late August. He returned on September 10 for a dark main event at the SmackDown at Madison Square Garden, teaming with The Mysterios for a six-man win over The Bloodline, but he has been away since then.

You can see footage from his Ellen interview below:

Source: Wrestling Inc.

Backstage News On Changes To WWE NXT’s Creative Team

WWE has reportedly made changes to the creative team setup in regards to NXT 2.0. According to PWInsider.com, things will be getting switched around internally with the third brand continuing to evolve. These alterations come following the recent releases.

WWE cut several long-term employees during the latest batch of cuts. The focus was more behind the scenes than in-ring talent, although Samoa Joe was released as well. The company let go of Gabe Sapolsky, William Regal, and Road Dogg during the re-shuffle.

Moving forward, the WWE NXT creative team will not operate independently, as it has done in the past. Previously, Paul Levesque oversaw things with his own team, which was separate from everything else in WWE. However, that is no longer the case.

Instead, the team will now work under Bruce Prichard and Christine Lubrano. Decisions will be reported to them, with WWE looking to streamline the operation to be consistent with how the Raw and SmackDown creative departments work.

Johnny Russo (no relation to Vince Russo) will be heading up WWE NXT’s writing team, working under Prichard and Lubrano. He originally joined WWE in the fall of 2011, and has been involved with the main roster from 2015-2018. However, he does also have experience with NXT, working within the creative department for the black and gold brand since August 2019.

Russo has also been working as the lead writer for the show since July 2020 and therefore knows how things work. Elsewhere on the creative team, Dewey Foley, who is the son of Hall Of Famer, Mick Foley, will remain on the team. He has been working on the 205 Live product as well.

Meanwhile, Anthony Golden Jr. will also still be on the NT creative team. He joined WWE in March 2020 and has a background in theatre, while he also boasts a Master’s in Film and Television production.

Source: Wrestling Inc.

Hulk Hogan Facing Backlash For COVID-19 Vaccine Comment About Celebrities

WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan is under fire for a now-deleted Facebook comment he made this week.

Comedian Josh Pray posted a Facebook video on the death of actor/comedian Bob Saget this week, and in the comments section one viewer speculated on Saget’s death being related to the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Wellll many directions we can go with this, but I will take jab for $500 Alex,” the user wrote.

Hogan’s official Facebook page then responded to that user, and indicated that he believes the deaths of Saget, actor Sidney Poitier, and actress Betty White were related to the vaccine.

“100% Betty and Sidney were also jabed their dropping like flies but they’ll never say it,” Hogan wrote.

According to NoDQ.com, Hulk Hogan later edited the Facebook post, although the comment could still be seen by clicking the edited link next to the comment. Hogan later deleted the comment altogether.

While the cause of death for both Bob Saget and Sidney Portier are currently unknown, it should be noted that Betty White suffered a stroke six days prior to her death at the age of 99, and no evidence exists that suggests White’s stroke was caused by the COVID-19 vaccine.

Hulk Hogan’s comments serve as another setback for the wrestling legend as he looks to rebuild his reputation following a scandal several years ago where he was caught on tape making several racist remarks. Hogan was ostracized from WWE following his comments but ultimately returned to the promotion in 2018. He has made several appearances for WWE since to mixed responses, and Hogan was notably booed while serving as co-host of WrestleMania 37 with Titus O’Neal last year.

You can see Hulk Hogan’s now-deleted comments, as well as several fan tweets reacting to Hogan’s comments, below.

https://twitter.com/Hanzi83/status/1480681089349914626
https://twitter.com/KayfabeNews/status/1480701634116300800
https://twitter.com/Hanzi83/status/1480681089349914626

Source: Wrestling Inc.

Ric Flair Wants An Apology From Becky Lynch, Oh And $20 Million From WWE

A quick tweet and delete, something The Nature Boy is becoming known for nowadays.

Ric Flair had quite the year in 2021. He started it as a WWE Superstar, even making his return to TV and becoming an active part of what was a pretty odd and eventually scrapped angle. His latest stint with WWE came to an end after he was granted his release. While there doesn’t appear to be bad blood between the two parties for the most part, Flair refuses to let one thing go.

That one thing is WWE’s use of the mantra, The Man. Or, more accurately, Becky Lynch’s use of it. Lynch has been calling herself The Man for a while. However, The Nature Boy claims he owns it, at least in the wrestling world. Flair’s claim stems from when he would say “to be the man, you gotta beat the man” during his heyday.

The situation appears to have become even more complicated rather than get resolved. There has been talk since the turn of the year that WWE has abandoned the trademark. There are also conflicting reports that WWE has simply decided to not have Lynch refer to herself as The Man anymore. Either way, Flair seems to believe he is owed an apology, not to mention a hefty chunk of change for his troubles.

Naitch published a tweet demanding apologies from Lynch and WWE, but then quickly deleted it which has become customary for the 16-time World Champion. “I’ll take 2 apologies- one from Big Time Becks & one from WWE,” Flair tweeted, adding that he’ll also take 20 million. Assuming he means dollars there, and also assuming he believes WWE has made $20 million by having Lynch refer to herself as The Man for part of her career.

Whether WWE has admitted the trademark belongs to Flair or not, it’s hard to imagine a world where The Nature Boy receives $20 million for Lynch’s use of it. This appears to be more about a problem he has with Lynch as opposed to WWE referring to her as The Man. This isn’t the first time Naitch has tweeted something about her and then immediately thought better of it. Perhaps the Hall of Famer is still hung up on the title exchange between Lynch and his daughter Charlotte last year.

Source: TheSportster

Taya Valkyrie Wants A Spot In The AEW Owen Hart Tournament 

Former Impact and NXT star Taya Valkyrie (Franky Monet) says she’s interested in working at AEW and thinks she deserves a spot in the Owen Hart tournament.

AEW’s inaugural Owen Hart Cup tournaments are set to kick off in a few months, and some wrestlers are starting to lobby for places … including former Impact and NXT star Taya Valkyrie (Franky Monet).

During a recent East Coast Autograph Auctions appearance, Valkyrie implied that she would jump at the opportunity to join AEW if offered.

“Of course, I would go to AEW. I mean, they are doing something different,” she said. “A lot of my peers and my best friends, my brothers Fenix and Pentagon are over there. So why not? Let’s wait and see what happens,” Taya teased.

La Wera Loca then commented on the possibility of her participating in the Owen Cup, saying that she deserves a spot as she shares a nationality with the man to whom the tournament is dedicated.

“I mean, as a Canadian, I think that I should definitely be in the Owen tournament,” Taya said. “I was trying to think what Canadian girls are part of AEW. I want to say Allie is probably the only one? So I think there needs to be more Canadians in that scenario. So, I would absolutely love to.”

AEW’s partnership with The Owen Hart Foundation was announced last September. Both the men’s and women’s Owen Hart Cup tournaments will be taking place in May 2022 with each final happening at this year’s Double Or Nothing. No competitors have been announced, but we’ll be sure to keep you posted with new developments.

https://twitter.com/AEW/status/1439967601854226434

Taya Valkyrie signed with WWE in February of last year and was soon repackaged as Franky Monet. She and several of her now-former co-workers were released by WWE on Thursday, November 4 allegedly due to budget cuts necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic (although as we reported, WWE generated $256 Million in revenue in that quarter).

Source: TheSportster

WWE RAW Preview 1/10/22

Tonight’s WWE RAW will take place from the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA with more build for the upcoming Royal Rumble event.