Tag: WWE

The Viking Raiders Reportedly Taken Off TV Due To Injury

WWE has been heavily pushing The Viking Raiders in recent months, but the former “Raw” and “NXT” Tag Team Champions haven’t been seen in recent weeks on “WWE SmackDown.” Unfortunately, that is due to an injury, as the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that the Raiders have been sidelined for an indefinite period of time due to Erik suffering a foot problem.

The exact details on Erik’s injury, when he suffered it, and how long he is going to be on the shelf, remain unclear at this point, but his tag team partner, Ivar, remains healthy. However, as happens often in the tag team division, it appears that WWE is going to be keeping Ivar off television until his tag team partner is fit to compete, and they can be presented as a team once again. 

Recently, The Viking Raiders have been feuding with The New Day, spending several weeks attacking Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods, a storyline that came after several victories against Shanky and Jinder Mahal. Their rivalry culminated in the first-ever “Viking Rules” match, which saw lots of themed weapons, and part of a Viking boat set up around the ring. Ivar and Erik won that match on the August 26th episode of “SmackDown,” but since then have not appeared on television or at live events, suggesting it may have been that match in which Erik injured his foot.

Their absence was notable in the main event of “SmackDown” last week, where The New Day faced The Brawling Brutes, Imperium, and Hit Row in a number one contender’s match for the Undisputed Tag Team Championships. Despite the fact that the Raiders have been dominating Kingston and Woods, it was The New Day who got to be part of the match, while the Raiders went unmentioned in the broadcast.

Source: Wrestling Inc.

WWE SmackDown Preview 9/23/2022, Bray Wyatt?

Tonight’s WWE SmackDown live from Salt Lake City, Utah airing on FOX.

Could Bray Wyatt be making his long-awaited WWE return on tonight’s “WWE SmackDown?” The cryptic hints continue to pile up. Some time last night, Wyatt liked an April 2019 tweet from the late Brodie Lee that reads “Tomorrow there will be more of us.”

In addition to this, a QR code could be seen in the background of a backstage segment on “WWE Raw” this week. The code led to an animation of a rabbit playing the game Hangman. The puzzle’s clue was “Who Killed the World?” and the animation revealed the correct answer to be “You did.” Once the puzzle was solved, the text would change to say “9.23” in “SmackDown” colors, which just so happens to be today’s date.

Speculation began ramping up in recent days as WWE mysteriously began playing the Jefferson Airplane song “White Rabbit” during live events and commercial breaks for television tapings starting last week. While there is nothing confirming that the teases have to do with Wyatt, there’s no denying the song suits his character and style from throughout his WWE run, and the strange hints are certainly on-brand for Wyatt.

Fans also spotted several possible easter eggs on the poster for the upcoming “Extreme Rules” premium live event that seem like references to Wyatt. Paul “Triple H” Levesque even teased the possibility of Wyatt’s return in his recent interview with Ariel Helwani.

Wyatt was released by WWE in July of 2021 after an extended period of time off TV. Since that time, Wyatt has stayed relatively quiet, though rumors have swirled concerning his return since Vince McMahon stepped down as head of the company.

AEW Dynamite ‘Grand Slam’ Preview 9/21/2022

AEW has announced the lineup for tonight’s AEW Dynamite ‘Grand Slam’ episode live from Arthur Ashe Stadium at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City.

Vacant AEW World Championship Match: Jon Moxley vs. Bryan Danielson

Interim AEW Women’s World Championship Fatal 4-Way Match: Toni Storm (c) vs. Britt Baker vs. Serena Deeb vs. Athena

AEW World Tag Team Titles Match: Swerve In Our Glory (Swerve Strickland & Keith Lee) (c) vs. The Acclaimed (Max Caster & Anthony Bowens)

AEW All-Atlantic Championship Match: PAC (c) vs. Orange Cassidy

Ring of Honor World Championship Match: Claudio Castagnoli (c) vs. Chris Jericho

Shawn Michaels Rules Title Match Result From 9/13 WWE NXT ‘Can Not Stand’

During Tuesday night’s episode of “NXT,” Shawn Michaels made an announcement regarding the “NXT” North American Championship.

Michaels brought in both Carmelo Hayes and Solo Sikoa to talk about the way the North American Title match ended during last Tuesday’s episode of “NXT.” As noted, per the results of a fan vote, Hayes was supposed to defend the “NXT” North American Title against Wes Lee. However, Hayes and Trick Williams attacked Lee backstage. Before the show ended, Sikoa made his surprise return to “NXT” and defeated Hayes to become the new champion.

“I brought you both here because of the way the match ended last week,” Michaels said. “Solo, I admire you stepping up to the plate, but you competed in a match that you weren’t sanctioned to be in. You weren’t even a candidate for the fans to vote on. Therefore the results of that match can not stand. We need you to hand over the North American Championship. Sorry.”

Michaels also revealed that Hayes will be competing in a Five-Way Ladder match for the vacant “NXT” North American Title at the upcoming Halloween Havoc event. Before losing the title last week, Hayes had been the North American Champion since June 4, when he defeated Cameron Crimes at “NXT” In Your House.

Sikoa is currently part of the “SmackDown” roster and is the newest member of The Bloodline stable. He made his main roster debut on September 3 at the Clash at the Castle event.

Halloween Havoc is set for Saturday, October 22.

Source: Wrestling Inc.

‘White Rabbit’ Easter Egg During WWE Raw Leads To Tantalizing Clues Online

Recently, “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane has been played at WWE events. Whether it is during commercial breaks during episodes of “Raw” and “SmackDown” or during breaks in the action at non-televised live events, Grace Slick’s voice has been heard ringing out across arenas where WWE is present. The song is accompanied by an ominous red light, which has led to speculation that this is all signaling that “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt is making his return to WWE soon.

Well, Jefferson Airplane and red lights returned to WWE once again during Monday’s “Raw,” as “White Rabbit” was played over the speakers again and it was joined by the signature red lights. WWE also added something special for the fans watching on TV. During a backstage segment involving the youngest Mr. Money in the Bank in WWE history, Austin Theory, a QR code could be seen in the background. Scanning this QR code takes you to a video on WWE.com featuring a white rabbit.

“Feed Your Head” is seen in the animation, joined by the rabbit. “Feed Your Head” is also the ending lyrics in the song “White Rabbit.”

The rabbit then jumps into a hole and into a game of hangman, with a clue for the game reading, “Who killed the world?” The rabbit jumps across the letters until it successfully solves the puzzle by guessing the letters that spell out the answer: “You did.”

There’s more. The first five letters that the rabbit guesses are D, followed by E, then M, and O and N. This, of course, spells out “demon.” D and O were the only successfully guessed letters by the rabbit before it jumped to X, I, U, and Y, to finally reveal the answer to the game.

The font used to write the words, “You did” matches the same font used on one of Wyatt’s old t-shirts.

There’s more to the animation after the puzzle is solved. It apparently teases that something, or someone, is coming to “SmackDown” Friday night. The rabbit flashed around text that switched from “9.23” and “9:23.” The numerals also flashed white and blue, the same colors as the famous “SmackDown” logo.

https://twitter.com/WrestlingNewsCo/status/1572027833102520321
https://twitter.com/WrestlingNewsCo/status/1572035077311270913

Source: Wrestling Inc. and WrestlingNews.co

WWE RAW Preview 9/19/2022

Tonight’s WWE RAW live from the SAP Center in San Jose, California – airing on USA Network at 8/7C.

Trish Stratus Had Emergency Appendix Surgery

WWE Hall of Famer Trish Stratus is recovering after undergoing emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix.

Stratus recently took to Instagram to share the news, saying that she drove herself to the emergency room after dealing with pains in her abdomen during a ten-hour travel day. She wrote,

“A reminder that if you ever have a nagging pain in your lower right quadrant – do go to emergency…

After a crampy 10 hour travel day on Monday I was working through the pain on Tuesday prepping for an announcement (which I will post tomorrow). I have a pretty high pain tolerance so when what I thought was 💩 cramps but ended up getting pretty intense I drove myself to emergency and turns out my appendix was getting ready to burst – which can be really bad if it happens and like cause death and stuff so I’m really glad I went to check it out, you know to avoid the whole dying thing.

Some takeaways – listen to your body. Dr. Google told me appendicitis was pain in the lower right abdomen, so that’s why it took me a while to think it was that because at first the pain was all across my belly. But after getting another Dr. Google’s opinion (reading another article) I found out it will start as pain across your stomach (also was tender to touch) but as the appendix gets more inflamed the pain will migrate to the right side and continue to to get worse. And boy did it. Turns out it’s an organ that serves no function so good riddance old pal.

Got 3 new scars to add to my body badges and one less organ … recovery hasn’t been too bad so far, definitely manageable. Just wanted to check in! xo

Big thanks to my OR team at @mackenziehealth!!”

Source: EWrestlingNews

Triple H Reveals Survivor Series Will Include Two WarGames Matches

WarGames is finally coming to the main roster.

Triple H has quickly made a number of changes to WWE’s on-air product since being appointed head of creative. From bringing in released stars to giving some who never lost their jobs their names back. Some fans would argue the overall quality of what we see each week on Raw and SmackDown has already been upped considerably too.

The Game is clearly keen to make his mark on what WWE is with him in charge of its creative instead of Vince McMahon as swiftly as possible, and the next way he plans on doing that is via Survivor Series. As first reported by The Ringer, Triple H has revealed there will be two WarGames matches at Survivor Series. One with male Superstars, and another for female Superstars.

https://twitter.com/ringer/status/1571866744599216128

“The tradition of the Survivor Series has ebbed and flowed and changed slightly over time, but this will be similar to that,” Triple H explained. “This will not be Raw versus SmackDown. It will be much more story-line driven. I still look at it as a traditional component to Survivor Series in there because it’s large teams of people competing .”

WarGames lends itself to the Raw vs. SmackDown format, so it’s somewhat surprising WWE won’t be keeping it as simple as a battle for brand supremacy when it brings the two-ring cage to the main roster for the first time. It could be a sign that the battle of the brands at Survivor Series is scrapped entirely despite previous rumors it would remain in place.

Getting rid of the concept altogether would certainly make a lot of sense. Not only does a battle of the brands feel a little redundant when Superstars appear to be able to show up wherever they like, but The Bloodline currently has a lot of the main roster titles. Roman Reigns doesn’t have a World Champion to face on an opposing brand, nor do The Usos have another set of Tag Champions to face. As for WarGames, it’s unclear whether the original format from WCW will return or if Triple H plans on using the tweaked cage without a roof that has been used in NXT.

Source: TheSportster

Backstage News On Triple H Planning More Surprises

Since Paul “Triple H” Levesque became WWE’s head of creative, he has wasted little time putting his imprint on the promotion’s main roster, including bringing back several former WWE Superstars. Dakota Kai, Johnny Gargano, Hit Row, Karrion Kross, and Scarlett Bordeaux have all made their returns to the company since Triple H took control following Vince McMahon’s retirement, but that might not be the end of the surprises. 

While fans have speculated about the likes of Bray Wyatt, Sasha Banks, and Naomi all coming back to WWE television, Levesque is reportedly working on other surprises. According to the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, he has more coming in the future, but they are not the people about whom people are speculating. 

No information was given about who Levesque could be working on bringing to the WWE roster, and whether or not they are former WWE Superstars or talent who have never appeared before, but he is clearly pushing to make big moves to keep the fans engaged.

Braun Strowman’s return to WWE is the latest comback, with the former Universal Champion making his way back on the 9/5 episode of “WWE Raw,” in which he ran through four of WWE’s tag teams. Since then he has appeared on “WWE SmackDown,” taking out both members of the Alpha Academy.

Triple H has also been keeping things fresh on the main roster by bringing talent from “WWE NXT” to the shows, with Dexter Lumis, IYO SKY, and Toxic Attraction getting opportunities to shine.

Source: Wrestling Inc.

Bray Wyatt Has Talked With WWE About A Return

Dave Meltzer reported in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that WWE and Bray Wyatt have had discussions regarding his potential return to the company. 

Meltzer wrote the following regarding the recent talks that have occurred between the two sides. 

“Regarding talk of Wyatt returning, there were definitely talks in that direction. At one point the talks stalled but it was said it was not a dead issue. Talks with him outside WWE had also stalled in the past, as his asking price was well above what other companies were willing to pay.”

While with WWE, the belief was that Wyatt was among the top earners in the company just behind Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar. 

Since Triple H took over as head of creative for WWE, he has brought back several stars including Johnny Gargano, Dakota Kai, Karrion Kross, and Braun Strowman

Source: EWrestlingNews