Charlotte Flair defeated Asuka for the SmackDown Women’s Championship with less than two weeks until WrestleMania 35 where she will compete for the RAW Women’s Championship against Becky Lynch and RAW Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey in the Main Event.
Charlotte is now a 8-time champ.
Back in January, Flip Gordon sustained an MCL sprain at ROH Honor Reigns Supreme. He was initially expected to return to ROH on March 31 at Road to G1 Supercard in Baltimore.
Today, Ring of Honor released a statement that Flip Gordon re-injured his knee after competing in Northern Ireland for Over the Top Wrestling. The next day his knee was “locked up” and there’s concern his injury will keep him out for four to six months.
Below is ROH’s full statement:
Flip Gordon has re-injured his right knee and will not be able to appear at Road to G1 Supercard in Baltimore on March 31.Gordon, who suffered an MCL tear in his knee during a match in January and was medically cleared to return to in-ring action last week, competed in a match in Northern Ireland for Over the Top Wrestling on March 24. When he woke up the following morning, his knee was “locked up.”
He was able to make his flight home and visited his doctor this morning. There is concern that Gordon may have suffered a “bucket handle” meniscus tear, which would require surgery and keep him out of action for four-to-six months. The extent of the injury will not be known until the results of Gordon’s MRI exam are in.
Gordon will still appear at G1 Supercard Festival of Honor on Friday, April 5 at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theater as scheduled. For Full Schedule and Tickets, click here.
Tonight’s WWE SmackDown Live will take place from the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT as the Road to WrestleMania 35 continues.
* Fatal 4-Way Match to determine Asuka’s WrestleMania challenger
* Kurt Angle to have his final match on SmackDown LIVE against AJ Styles
* What does the future hold for The New Day?
* What’s next for Lynch and Flair after an eventful Raw?
Tonight’s WWE 205 Live will take place from the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT as the Road to WrestleMania 35 continues.
* The Lucha House Party vs. Humberto Carrillo, Jack Gallagher and Drew Gulak.
* Tony Nese is heading to WrestleMania
WWE has announced via a press release that Rock N’ Roll icon Joan Jett will be performing at WrestleMania 35. The Hall of Famer will be doing a live rendition of Bad Reputation, a song Ronda Rousey uses as her theme music.
“The Queen of Rock N’ Roll, Joan Jett, is a music legend and icon for powerful women everywhere.” stated SVP and General Manager of WWE Music Group Neil Lawi.”Her performance at this year’s WrestleMania promises to be both exhilarating and inspiring, and we are honored to watch her join a distinct list of extraordinary performers who have lit up the WWE stage.”
Ronda has been using Bad Reputation as her entrance since she started MMA. It became a rallying cry while she became the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion.
Founder of the Runaways, Joan Jett has entertained many for over 40 years with her songs, “I Hate Myself for Loving You” and “I love Rock ‘N Roll”. She is not the first artist to perform a superstar’s entrance. She joins Snoop Dogg, Motorhead, Rev Theory, Limp Bizkit and Mark Crozer among others.
Ronda Rousey is set to defend the Raw Women’s Championship against Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch in the main event of WrestleMania 35. The event takes place April 7th inside MetLife Stadium.
Source: Wrestling Inc.
Back in February it was reported King Cuerno (aka El Hijo del Fantasma) had filed documents in Los Angeles against the El Rey Network and Lucha Underground’s production Baba-G Productions, claiming his contract “illegally restricts” wrestlers from finding work in wrestling.
Along with that individual lawsuit, a class action lawsuit was possibly in the works including other stars, Ivelisse, Joey Ryan, and Thunder Rosa (aka Kobra Moon), who were looking to get out of their contracts with the stalled out promotion. Despite being between production of season four and five, wrestlers were still locked down to the promotion.
In a new report from Lucha Central, the El Rey Network and Baba-G Productions were sent three lawsuits. Two were from El Hijo del Fantasma and Texano Jr., both seeking financial damages. The third was indeed a class action lawsuit from Fantasma, Ivelisse, Ryan, and Rosa.
The report stated Texano Jr. withdrew his lawsuit and a settlement was agreed on for the class action lawsuit, as part of that Fantasma agreed to withdraw his personal lawsuit against the companies. Exact terms are not known, but those involved in the class action lawsuit are now released from their Lucha Underground contracts and are allowed to sign with other promotions.
Still no word yet on a season five taking place, Lucha Underground Co-Executive Producer, Chris DeJoseph, commented last month that he thought the show was “dead.”
Source: Wrestling Inc.
Becky Lynch was reportedly offered a new WWE contract earlier this month.
WWE’s new offer to “The Man” was a multi-year contract that includes a pay raise, according to Pro Wrestling Sheet. Lynch is expected to sign the new contract soon.
It’s no secret that WWE officials have been trying to re-sign talents to new contracts as of late, ahead of their current contracts expiring.
WWE announced yesterday that Lynch will headline WrestleMania 35 in the main event match with Charlotte Flair and RAW Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey.
As noted, Lynch took to Twitter after the WrestleMania 35 announcement and thanked fans for helping to make it happen.
https://twitter.com/BeckyLynchWWE/status/1110206135330631681
Former Impact Wrestling World Champion, Eli Drake, recently sat down with The Wrestling Perspective podcast to talk about his status with the company. After revealing that his contract has nearly expired, Drake mulled over some potential options on where he may be performing next.
Drake looks back at his past year in Impact Wrestling as one of his more lackluster ones. He believes that one of the sole reasons he’s been kept on TV and relevant is because of his ability to talk on the mic.
“There is a way to keep a talent elevated even while you’re elevating others… I’ll be honest, the exception over the last few months, I’ve been written kind of in to oblivion in the last year,” Drake said. “Fortunately, the fact that I can speak has kept me over – has kept me relevant to some degree. But otherwise, a lot of it stemmed from the fact that it was believed that I was leaving. I even thought that I was going to be leaving. At the last minute, I did an inventory of everything and I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to stay here.'”
Despite challenging for the Impact World Title throughout the Spring of 2018, Eli remembers his place on the card being lowered after signing this most recent contract with the company. In the more recent months with Impact, he’s been more engaged by the stars he’s worked with, like Abyss and Eddie Edwards.
“I was thinking, there’s probably going to be a level of happiness and appreciation and, ‘Oh great, well now we can use him in this great way!’ And then it was like, no, we’ll feed him to Joe Hendry. And I’m like, why?” Drake asked. “And in the last couple months, I’ve enjoyed myself very, very much – the stuff with Abyss, the stuff with Eddie, everything’s been good…[But] if you watched this show between last April and this past December, you’d have no idea I was the World Champion the year before. And that’s where I think there is a giant disconnect, for my character in particular.”
Drake saw recent rumors about WWE’s interest in his talents, and although he’s flattered, he’s confused where the rumors originated from. Eli does indeed have friends within the company, even some of the coaches, but there hasn’t been any formal offers from WWE.
“I looked at [the rumor that WWE was interested in Eli Drake], and I’m like, ‘Well, nobody’s contacted me! So, what’s the source?'” Drake joked. “I mean, I’ve talked to people there that I’m friendly with, or, whatever, certain coaches that I’m friendly with and stuff like that. Definitely people have been like, ‘I think you would do well here’, but nobody has overtly made me an offer. There was nothing like that.”
Even if he was potentially offered a contract by WWE, Drake explained that he wants to weigh all of his options before making a final decision on where to go when his contract with Impact expires. He even mentioned how AEW is an option that he may look in to.
“I know AEW is out there, all of that stuff, so, the fact is, there’s a lot of options at this point,” Drake explained. “This is a time where, truth be told, I run up on May 31 at Impact, so, if that’s the case, it’s time to start thinking about what options I have, things like that.”
You can listen to the full interview at link below.
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-ehjeq-abda29
Sources: The Wrestling Perspective and Wrestling Inc.
SNL Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che have officially been added as competitors in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania.
It all went down on Raw last night when Jost and Che appeared on “A Moment of Bliss” in an attempt to settle their beef with Braun Strowman.
That didn’t work, however, and it ended with Braun challenging Colin to squash their beef by entering the annual Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.
Che attempted to accept on his behalf, but his co-star suggested he join him in the match.
Braun asked WrestleMania host Alexa Bliss to make it official, and she obliged.
Watch how it all ended below.
WWE has dropped the “Mustafa” from Mustafa Ali’s name.
The changes have been made to Ali’s official WWE SmackDown roster page, and his Twitter page. His new Twitter handle is @AliWWE. His Twitter name now includes his real name – “Ali / Adeel Alam.”
Ali has talked about how he was booed because of his name and where he’s from during several recent media interviews. He spoke with Uproxx earlier this month and talked about how people would react when they saw the Mustafa Ali name.
“You know, with that it’s almost difficult to say, because there’s some times, being new, or not being an established character yet on WWE, because I’m still relatively new, you don’t know exactly what the fans’ reaction is going to be. I’ve had nights where it’s very obvious that I’m the good guy but I’m still booed, and you can kind of make a checklist about reasons why they’re booing me, and one of the evident ones is because of my name and where I’m from,” Ali said. “Especially in the earlier years with WWE — because I’ve been with the company for about two and half years now — but people would see the name Mustafa Ali, and they hadn’t even seen me, just the name Mustafa Ali, and it elicited a negative reaction. And to me that was just years of how the media portrayed people of that demographic, it was always as bad guys. So I think people booed, and then they got confused when they saw this really happy babyface guy coming out, slapping hands and kissing babies, and then they still booed, but then they see me wrestle and they think “Oh, this guy can do some pretty spectacular stuff,” and then they see a guy with an immense amount of heart that will lay it all out in the ring each night, and slowly but surely I feel like they’re finally seeing Mustafa Ali for what he is, and who he is.”
Ali took to Twitter last night and issued his first public comments since the name change. Ali said “Mustafa” means “chosen one” and name or not, nothing has changed.
He wrote, “Mustafa means the “chosen one” with an emphasis on being chosen from amongst the people. Name or not, nothing has changed. I fight for the people. I am one of them.”
You can see Ali’s full tweet below:
https://twitter.com/AliWWE/status/1110361241837551617
Ali will likely be on tonight’s SmackDown and is expected to work the 6th annual Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 35.
Source: Wrestling Inc.
