Tag: WWE

Liv Morgan Reportedly Suffering From Legitimate Injury

Monday’s episode of “WWE Raw” saw WWE Women’s World Champion Rhea Ripley viciously attack Liv Morgan before their advertised singles bout. Morgan recently returned from being sidelined with a shoulder injury, and now it seems she is dealing with yet another one.

During the latest “Wrestling Observer Radio,” Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer discussed how the injury angle was done because Morgan is legitimately hurt again.

“Liv Morgan does have a shoulder injury, and this was an angle to put her out of action for a while and maybe a long while. I guess that is to be determined,” Alvarez said (h/t to WrestlingNews.co).

Meltzer responded, “It was pretty clear. I mean, they don’t do an angle like that. I mean, they did that. That was a real hardcore angle. And obviously, it’s, you know, she’s had the shoulder injury.”

Alvarez added, “My understanding is it’s the other shoulder. Okay. So this is the left one’s the one that they hurt? They injured the left one in the storyline, but whichever one she hurt last time, I think she hurt the other one this time.”

Morgan initially hurt her shoulder during a WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship match on the May 12 “WWE SmackDown.” Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez retained against Dakota Kai and Bayley, but both Morgan and Kai walked out of the bout injured. Morgan vacated the tag team titles as a result, which led to Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler winning the gold.

Morgan then returned at the end of June to reunite with Rodriguez. The duo ended up defeating Rousey and Baszler to regain the tag titles at WWE Money in the Bank. Their second reign together didn’t last long as Chelsea Green and Sonya Deville dethroned them on July 17.

Source: Wrestling Inc.

Kevin Owens Reportedly Dealing With Legitimate Injury

The hard knocks for Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champion Kevin Owens during Monday night’s “Raw” are reportedly more than just a storyline.

Owens was in the corner of his tag team partner Sami Zayn as Zayn challenged Dominik Mysterio for the “NXT” North American Championship. Various shenanigans eventually led to Owens being ejected from ringside by the referee. Moments later, Mysterio’s Judgment Day cohorts Rhea Ripley and Damian Priest were also ordered backstage. However, all three reappeared at the end of the match as Owens was taken out by Ripley and Priest on the entrance stage. That was the distraction that led to Mysterio’s pinfall victory over Zayn.

Later in the show, Owens was seen backstage being tended to by medical personnel. It appeared to be nothing more than another chapter in the story leading to a future tag title defense for Owens and Zayn against some combination of The Judgment Day. However, there’s reportedly more at play.

Later in the night, Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp reported that Owens is legitimately injured. Sapp added that he did not have any details on the severity of the injury or when Owens will be able to return to action.

Owen’s most recent match took place on the July 17 episode of “Raw,” where he and Zayn retained the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship against The Judgment Day’s Priest and Mysterio. 

UPDATE:

Dave Meltzer provided further details about the setback while speaking on the “Wrestling Observer Radio” show. 

“It’s a fractured rib,” Meltzer said. “So the story, he’s actually been working on it for a while and it was just one of those things where they were waiting for a time to finish up with everything he’d finish up….He’s gonna get rest. I don’t know how long, and I don’t know what the status of the Tag Team Titles are. I’m sure that that will probably all be addressed in the next couple of days, but it was legit, he’s been working on a legit injury. So that’s the basic gist of the story there.”

Source: Wrestling Inc.

WWE RAW Preview 7/24/2023

Tonight’s episode of WWE Raw airs live on the USA Network from the Amalie Arena Tampa, Florida.

  • Becky Lynch vs. Zoey Stark. If Becky wins she will then get her rematch with Trish Stratus
  • Drew McIntyre and WWE Intercontinental Champion Gunther are set to go face-to-face
  • Logan Paul will make his return to respond to Ricochet
  • Cody Rhodes will respond to Brock Lesnar
  • Tommaso Ciampa vs. Bronson Reed
  • Seth Rollins and Finn Balor will sign the contract for their WWE World Heavyweight Title Match at SummerSlam

Cody Rhodes – ‘I Was Adamant My Peacock Documentary Covered All In’

The Cody Rhodes documentary that is airing on the Peacock network features some footage of The American Nightmare’s involvement in All In. Of course, that show led to the debut of All Elite Wrestling.

Speaking to Denise Salcedo of “Instinct Culture,” Rhodes revealed that he pushed hard for All In to be featured. He said,

“I had really minimal requests. Here’s why I had minimal requests. I’ve done enough reality TV where you think, ‘Oh, you’re a producer. Please, ask for this and you’ll get it.’ Then you’ll find out they’re not interested in what you have to say. They’re gonna run their show and that’s their job. So now my expectations are really low.”

He continued, “So I have, ‘Hey, these are two things I’d like to see in there.’ They were really small. I wanted to see if they found any footage of me wrestling when I was in high school or younger. Found it. I was adamant that All In be covered. You cannot tell the story unless you cover All In, and All In is not mine, it’s someone else’s. That’s a troublesome but also beautiful thing, in the spirit of it. So for it to be covered here, I was really happy, and for WWE to allow it to be covered kind of goes along with how WWE has treated me since I’ve come back. The song says, ‘Wrestling has more than one royal family.’ It doesn’t say sports entertainment has more than one royal family. There hasn’t been a revision to me. Kevin Dunn and Vince (McMahon) and Bruce (Prichard) and Stephanie (McMahon) and Hunter [Triple H] have just tried to make me bigger, and I thank them greatly for doing that because they haven’t changed me in the process.”

Source: eWn

Eric Young On WWE Exit: ‘I Can’t Take Instruction And Work For A Person Like That’

It was recently reported that Eric Young left WWE in April because he didn’t want to work with Vince McMahon. The longtime wrestling promoter returned to the Stamford-based promotion as executive chairman earlier this year after retiring last summer due to allegations of sexual misconduct. Young, who returned to Impact Wrestling at the promotion’s Slammiversary event this past weekend, addressed his WWE exit in a recent interview with Denise Salcedo. 

“I can say that I signed up for one thing and then was presented with a completely different thing,” Young said. “Personally, professionally, and for me, more importantly, morally, I can’t take instruction and work for a person like that. 

“And if you would have said that nine months ago, six months ago, I would probably would have said, ‘No. I wouldn’t be back at Impact.’ Fates got a funny way of doing things.

“Like I said, I didn’t really wanna leave [Impact] in the first place, but business is business, and an opportunity had presented itself that I just couldn’t say no to. I made the move, and I don’t regret it at all. Nine-month vacation, there’s worse things that can happen to a person, for sure.”

Young went on to say that he was “very lucky” to be in a position where he had a choice to leave WWE, acknowledging that not many people within the promotion would have that same ability. The former Impact World Champion believes it was the right option for him to walk away from a “massive opportunity” and “life-changing money.” Young said that he doesn’t regret the decision he made. 

Source: Wrestling Inc.

WWE SmackDown Preview 7/21/2023

WWE SmackDown will air live tonight on FS1, due to FOX’s coverage the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, which will be the Unites States vs. Vietnam. Tonight’s SmackDown takes place from the Amalie Arena in Orlando, FL.

  • Rules of Engagement with Roman Reigns and Jey Uso. Jey has challenge Reigns to an Universal Championship Match at SummerSlam.
  • United States Championship Invitational Fatal 4-Way Tournament with Rey Mysterio, Sheamus, Cameron Grimes and LA Knight

Nick Aldis Is Interested In Both WWE And AEW

Nick Aldis departed from Impact Wrestling after the Slammiversary 2023 pay-per-view event, where he lost to World Champion Alex Shelley in the evening’s main event. He is now once again a free agent.

Before his Impact return at its April 16th Rebellion pay-per-view event, where he was on a short-term contract with the promotion, he had interest from WWE but wasn’t brought in. 

As previously reported, WWE has expressed interest in signing Aldis again and Aldis’ name has been discussed internally among WWE management as a potential producer for the company.

Dave Meltzer reported in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Aldis has yet to sign with anything.

“Aldis has no new deal in place and is said to be interested in both AEW and WWE. Aldis did clean jobs on the way out to Alex Shelley in the title match and Eric Young on TV. Aldis is a free agent right now and had agreed to work here through this week,” Meltzer wrote.

Source: eWn

WWE World Heavyweight Champ Seth Rollins Says He Should Probably Have Surgery

Professional wrestlers are often working through injuries on a daily basis and fans have no idea. Such is the case with current WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins who revealed on “Impaulsive” that he should probably have surgery on his back.

“I try to change my training up based on how I feel. There are constant injuries,” Rollins said. “My knee has been bugging me since before WrestleMania, I was having an issue with that. My neck acting up. My lower back has been at me since 2019, probably should get some surgery on that, but trying to just do whatever I can to make sure I don’t need it because I have a couple of stress fractures back there.”

Rollins added, “I tried some stem cells, I’ve done a couple of stem cell treatments. I found that they were temporarily helpful. I wasn’t taking time off. I wasn’t just idling while I was on the stem cells, I was still working pretty much a full-time schedule with WWE. I found it temporarily helpful, but long-term it kind of faded off a little bit. I got maybe four or five months of ‘Ooh, okay.'”

The 37-year-old hasn’t missed considerable time due to surgery since 2015 when a torn ACL, MCL, and medial meniscus cut his first WWE Championship reign short. He missed nearly seven months of action before returning in May 2016. His current world title reign marks his first since 2019 when he claims his lower back began troubling him. As of this writing, Rollins is set to be in a marquee match at WWE SummerSlam on August 5 when he defends against Finn Balor.

Source: Wrestling Inc.

Dominik Mysterio Wins North American Title On WWE NXT

Dominik Mysterio is your new NXT North American Champion, which marks his first singles championship in WWE.

On this week’s episode of WWE NXT, Dominik Mysterio faced off against Wes Lee in the main event to capture the title. The finish came when Finn Balor and Damian Priest, who came out through the crowd, distracted Lee. This allowed Rhea Ripley to hit Lee with her WWE Women’s World Championship while the referees back was turned. Mysterio then pinned Lee to get the 1, 2, 3.

For what it’s worth, Wes Lee was set to defend the North American Championship against Mustafa Ali at the upcoming WWE NXT: Great American Bash pay-per-view event. Now, it appears we’ll see see Dominik Mysterio vs. Ali taking place at the show.

WWE NXT Preview 7/18/2023

Tonight’s WWE NXT in Orlando, Florida at the Capitol Wrestling Center on the USA Network: 

  • Tony D’Angelo’s homecoming
  • NXT North American Championship: Wes Lee (c) vs. Dominik Mysterio
  • Thea Hail vs. Elektra Lopez
  • Dragon Lee & Nathan Frazer vs. Los Lotharios
  • Gigi Dolin vs. Kiana James
  • Scrypts & Axiom vs. Lucien Price & Bronco Nima