WWE has reportedly dropped the ban on the word “belt”, according to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio. It’s not known if the ban was lifted due to Becky Lynch referring to herself as “Becky 2 Belts”, but WWE is now using the term in advertising for products involving championship belts.
“Belt” is one of many terms that has been banned from the company. A leaked document from 2008 revealed that there were nearly two dozen banned terms, including belt, strap, title changing hands, the title is on the line, backstage, feud, fans, pro wrestling, pro wrestler and war.
During an episode of Talk Is Jericho earlier this year, Chris Jericho discussed Vince McMahon banning certain terms.
“‘Hey Vince, I don’t know if I should lose the belt.’ [Imitating McMahon] ‘The what?’ ‘Sorry, the title,'” Jericho said. “You couldn’t say ‘belt’ because a belt is what you use to hold up your pants.
“You couldn’t say ‘fans’ because it’s the ‘WWE Universe’,” Jericho added. “And never say ‘marks’ because [imitating McMahon] ‘they’re not marks – they’re our fans!'”
Back in February, Kota Ibushi announced he had signed a new deal with New Japan Pro Wrestling, keeping him with the promotion until 2021. The current IWGP Intercontinental Champion had previously worked more as a freelance wrestler in recent years until that deal.
In a press conference, Ibushi announced he had a new contract with NJPW and would stay “until the day I die.” Obviously, the two sides decided it would be best to keep him for a longer period of time than originally announced.
“To me, this is the last place I’ll be,” Ibushi said. “Until the day I die. Until the end. That’s my contract period. ”
Aside from his current title reign, Ibushi is also a three-time IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion, one-time NEVER Openweight Champion, and one-time IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champion.
In a February interview with ShuPro, Ibushi commented on why he decided to chose NJPW over AEW.
“The second I went, that would be the end of my wrestling career, I thought,” Ibushi began. “What I realized [talking to AEW] was I really don’t care about money. … AEW said they just want me in their ring in some form. The ideal for them was for me to move to America and be there full-time. I turned them down just after Wrestle Kingdom. … If I went it would be the end of my career. There wouldn’t be anywhere else to go after that. No step up, nothing left to do. That would be the last step to make, and after that things would just go down. Great money, but I want to keep developing.”
WWE Tag Team Champion Jeff Hardy suffered an injury at Saturday’s night’s SmackDown live event in Madison, Wisconsin, according to Dave Meltzer on the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Radio. The Hardyz had teamed up at that event to defeat The Usos.
Meltzer reported that Hardy appeared to have suffered some sort of leg injury. At Sunday’s SmackDown live event in Rochester, Minnesota, Jeff was in Matt’s corner and was said to be “limping significantly.” At the show, Matt defeated Jimmy Uso.
At Monday’s live event in Sioux City, Iowa, Matt Hardy teamed with R-Truth to defeat Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows.
The Hardy Boyz had just defeated The Usos to win the SmackDown Tag Team Championship on the April 9th edition of SmackDown Live. They are the first team to win the WWE World Tag Team Championship, the RAW Tag Team Championship and the SmackDown Tag Team Championship.
MKE founder Silas Young appeared on Busted Open Radio today. During the interview, Young discussed MKE’s event last Friday at the Knights of Columbus in West Allis, Wisconsin, which featured a masked man doing a run in to help Ace Steele defeat Daryck St Holmes.
Wrestling Inc. confirmed that it was in fact CM Punk who did the run in at the show. Punk and Dave Prazak, who was involved with the show, were both trained by Steele and Prazak managed Punk early in his career.
Young discussed Punk’s appearance during the interview. While he wouldn’t 100% state that it was Punk, he discussed why Punk might have made the appearance. He noted that Punk wrestled in the building, which is being torn down early next month, during the start of his career.
“That’s the building where [Punk] kinda got his start at,” Young said. “Shortly before that match happened, my wife came up to me because she was one of the managers in the match. She was like, ‘I heard Punk’s going to do a run in.
“It made sense with the match being with Ace Steele and having Dave Prazak involved, those guys are longtime friends and they broke in the business [together]. Punk had maybe his first match in that building. That building has had wrestling for years, a lot of guys got their start there. Unfortunately it’s going to be torn down early next month so we were the last event there. I think it’s just one of those things where he wanted to pay a little respect or a little homage to it.”
As we exclusively reported on Sunday, Punk was never backstage at the show. He had waited in his car outside of the venue before doing the run in and then left immediately afterwards.
“[Punk] was never at the building beforehand, he wasn’t at the building after,” Young said. “He came, did the run-in in a mask and then left in a mask. I can’t even 100% say it was CM Punk, but from what I was told [it was], and I don’t know why anyone would lie to me.
“That’s what I was told and I’d like to believe it, if for nothing more than the publicity it got MKE Wrestling.”
Former RAW Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey posted the video below on her YouTube channel discussing her WWE future following WrestleMania.
As we previously reported, Rousey was injured during the WrestleMania 35 main event where she lost the RAW Women’s Championship to Becky Lynch in a triple threat match also involving Charlotte Flair. Rousey noted that she recently underwent surgery on her right pinky. She said that she had two pins inserted into her hand and that she will be wearing a cast for four weeks. After that, she will be going on a vacation with husband Travis Browne around the world. She said that they will be enjoying themselves until they “are with child.”
Rousey revealed that she suffered the injury during the WrestleMania 35 main event when she threw over the table and “came in a little hot.”
Rousey is not advertised for any WWE shows going forward, although she is signed to a multi-year deal with the company. Rousey revealed that she originally had only planned to stay with WWE until last November and then go off to start a family. She said that plans changed after it became a possibility that WrestleMania would be headlined by a women’s match.
“Originally we approached them, or I approached them, I thought I’d only be able to wrestle from WrestleMania until November because we already wanted to start a family,” Rousey said. “We came to the WWE as, ‘Hey, before we have a baby, I just want to come do this for a couple of months because it’s something I always wanted to do.’ It just kind of snowballed. Instead of being like a small detour in my life, it became my whole life for an entire year and I completely fell in love with it.
“As time went on, we were kind of playing it by ear, I loved it so much and I ended up getting the title. When it became a real possibility that women could be the main event of WrestleMania if I stuck around, I decided to stick around. We decided that after WrestleMania, me and my amazing husband would go off and start trying to start our family.”
Rousey is leaving her WWE future open. She said that she’s not sure if she will return or not once she has a child because she has no idea how she’ll feel until then.
“As for WWE plans in the future, we want to have a baby first,” Rousey said. “I don’t know what it’s like to have a baby. I could look down at this beautiful child and be like, ‘f–k everything, I don’t care about anything else other than this baby’ and you’ll never see me again. Or I could be like my mom, she trained while she was eight months pregnant and then won the US Open six weeks after giving birth, which was unbelievable. I don’t think I’m going to try and aspire to her level. But I’m just saying, you never know
“I don’t want to make any promises about the future when I don’t know how I’m gonna feel in the future. So thank you everyone for your support, I had the most amazing time this year! I am also looking forward to a little bit of a rest and some mommy – daddy time.”
It was finally revealed on tonight’s RAW that is Bray Wyatt behind the bizarre vignettes that WWE was airing the past few week. An altogether different Bray Wyatt appeared in a new vignette and introduced his special friends Mercy The Buzzard and Penny The Witch at the “Firefly Fun House.”
Bray’s “Firefly Fun House” had a Pee Wee’s Playhouse feel to it.
Bray mentioned how he used to be a very bad man but he has been “barbarically punished for his wrongdoings” and the old part of him is dead now. He used a chainsaw to destroy a cardboard cutout of the original Bray Wyatt during the segment.
Booby Roode has underwent a bit of a change. He is now named “Glorious” Robert Roode and has shaved off his beard and is now sporting a mustache.
Roode re-introduced himself backstage at RAW and said he’s ready to dominate the red brand as a singles competitor. Roode also took a shot at former partner Chad Gable by referring to him as 150 pounds of dead weight.
Gable went to SmackDown in the 2019 WWE Superstar Shakeup last week.
When the War Raiders (Hanson and Rowe) was called up from NXT to RAW last week during the WWE Superstar Shake-Up, they were renamed The Viking Experience (Ivar and Erik). Now after a lot of backlash on social media, they have been renamed yet again as The Viking Raiders.
Tonight on RAW they defeated The Lucha House Party.
NJPW wrestler Hiroshi Tanahashi has been discharged from the hospital after undergoing surgery.
New Japan Pro Wrestling confirmed the former IWGP Heavyweight Champion’s release from the hospital on Twitter late last night.
“Tanahashi has been discharged from hospital after receiving treatment on his left elbow. Best wishes for a quick return to action,” they wrote alongside a quote-tweet from the man himself.
“I was hospitalized for a week with left elbow surgery,” said Tanahashi. “Today, I was discharged safely. I will do my best to return!”
Tanahashi has been discharged from hospital after receiving treatment on his left elbow. Best wishes for a quick return to action! #njpwhttps://t.co/SfPPfyRsjK
Tanahashi last wrestled at the G1 Supercard in Madison Square Garden on April 6, where he lost to Zack Sabre Jr. No word on how long he’ll be out of action.
WWE has apparently changed their minds on a few roster moves made during the 2019 Superstar Shakeup last week.
Andrade and Zelina Vega are now listed as SmackDown Superstars on the WWE website. They were moved to RAW in the Shakeup last Monday and Andrade picked up a non-title win over WWE Intercontinental Champion Finn Balor, who was sent to the blue brand the next night. Vega and Andrade had cut several promos on social media and video to warn the red brand that they were the new faces of the show.
It looks like Aleister Black could be going from RAW to SmackDown as well. Black, who is married to Vega, had been floating between shows since his call-up from WWE NXT, but he and partner Ricochet were confirmed for the red brand in the Shakeup last week. Black is now listed on the SmackDown roster on the official WWE website and his name has the SmackDown logo next to it. Ricochet is still listed for the RAW brand, so that tag team is apparently done.
Andrade and Charlotte Flair were one of the real-life WWE couples affected by the Superstar Shakeup, but that appears to have been rectified. Black and Vega were also kept together on the same brand, but the Black and Ricochet tag team appears to be done.
It will be interesting to see if the Andrade, Vega and Black roster changes are addressed on tonight’s RAW episode.
As we’ve noted, it’s believed that WWE United States Champion Samoa Joe will join the red brand on tonight’s show. Joe had been scheduled to bring the title to RAW on last week’s Shakeup edition of RAW but he was very sick, so sick that his segment was pulled from the show. WWE did not quietly announce Joe’s roster change as they did with other Superstars because they were saving it for tonight as they have an angle planned.
