Tag: WWE

WWE’s Plane Ride From Hell On Dark Side Of The Ring, Sneak Peek With Chris Jericho

Vice TV’s Dark Side of The Ring will return with the second half of the third season this Thursday.

Thursday’s episode will look at WWE’s infamous “Plane Ride from Hell” that happened on May 5, 2002. The episode will feature interviews with one of the flight attendants, WWE Hall of Famers Rob Van Dam and Jim Ross, Tommy Dreamer, Justin Credible, and others.

Below is the official synopsis for the episode:

“A private 757 flight descended into a nightmare as intoxicated wrestlers clashed with their flight crew, erupting into one of wrestling’s most infamous scandals.”

For those who missed it, Vice released this video of DSOTR creators Evan Husney and Jason Eisener talking with show narrator Chris Jericho to break down the first half of season three and provide an inside look at the episodes to come this season:

Source: Wrestling Inc.

Samoa Joe Vacates WWE NXT Title

Samoa Joe has vacated the WWE NXT Championship due to injuries.

Joe released a video on Twitter Sunday evening, announcing he was relinquishing the NXT title after WWE medical informed him that due to “certain injuries” he will have to step away from the ring for a brief amount of time. Below is his full statement:

Recently WWE medical has informed me that due to certain injuries, they’d like to have me step away from the ring for a brief, but indeterminate amount of time. I realize this week we are on the cusp of a new NXT, we are on the brink of a new era in our history, and that era deserves a fighting champion. That’s why it makes a difficult decision very easy to make. Effective immediately, I relinquish the NXT championship. Best of luck to those who will vie for it. My sincerest condolences to whoever wins, because I will be along shortly to recollect what is mine.

Samoa Joe had won the title at NXT TakeOver 36 after he defeated Karrion Kross.

Source: Wrestling Inc.

WWE Reportedly Makes A Round Of Cuts To NXT Production

WWE made another round of production related cuts to NXT this week, according to Cassidy Haynes of Bodyslam.net.

NXT is apparently down to “a skeleton crew” as far as production goes as they gear up for a new look, starting this Tuesday. This comes after numerous NXT wrestlers were let go over the past year.

WWE has billed it as “NXT 2.0” while the company moves away from the darker look at the Capitol Wrestling Center. There have been plenty of backstage changes for NXT (full report here) with Vince McMahon, Bruce Prichard, and other higher-ups getting more involved in the big picture NXT items.

It’s currently unknown who will be running the NXT shows with WWE Executive Vice President of Global Talent Strategy & Development Triple H being sidelined while he recovers from his recent heart surgery. Previously, it was said day-to-day operations would still be handled by Triple H, Shawn Michaels, William Regal, and Matt Bloom.

Last month it was reported WWE was changing up what it’s looking for in development as a focus on younger, bigger talent would be the direction going forward. Although they wouldn’t be ignored completely, indie wrestlers weren’t necessarily going to brought in as frequently.

https://twitter.com/WWENXT/status/1434184557767667715

Source: Wrestling Inc.

Finn Balor’s Demon Alter Ego Returns To WWE And Confronted WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns

Finn Balor revived his Demon King alter ego and confronted WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns in Madison Square Garden on SmackDown.

The devilishly demonic alter ego of WWE Superstar Finn Balor made its long-awaited return on this week’s edition of SmackDown when it confronted Univeral Champion Roman Reigns as the show went off the air.

It all went down inside New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Friday, September 10. Roman’s cousins and Bloodline stablemates The Usos were defending their WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship against The Street Profits in the show’s main event when Roman decided to interfere.

To prevent his cousins from losing their titles, Reigns by locking Montez Ford in the Guillotine and initiating a disqualification in the process. The Usos lost the match but kept the championship, much to the chagrin of the New York City crowd. But despite being disappointed with the result of the main event, the crowd would go home happy because “The Demon” Finn Balor emerged and confronted Roman Reigns as SmackDown drew to a close.

As you might recall, The Demon’s return was teased during last week’s SmackDown.

The last time Balor wore his Demon King body paint was for a match with Andrade at Super ShowDown back in July of 2019. Since then, the Irishman has admitted that he believed the character had been overexposed and that he wanted to retire it for a while.

“The ‘Demon’ was designed as something special,” Balor said in a 2020 interview with ViBe & Wrestling. “It was one of those things that should have been saved for breathtaking occasions, but it ended up being advertised in the media and that was one of the main reasons why it didn’t work. The surprise factor was completely gone and the ‘Demon’ became Finn Balor’s savior, which was also to my detriment because I could not develop my own character separate from the ‘Demon’. I think it hurt both of us – Finn Balor and the ‘Demon’.”

Source: TheSportster

WWE Super SmackDown Preview 9/10/21

Tonight’s WWE Super SmackDown on FOX will take place live from Madison Square Garden in New York City.

John Cena is advertised to appear, likely for the dark main event. MSG has Cena and The Street Profits vs. WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns and SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos advertised

RAW Superstars are advertised to appear on the MSG and WWE websites – WWE Champion Bobby Lashley, RAW Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair, RAW Tag Team Champions Randy Orton and Riddle, The New Day, Drew McIntyre

Sami Zayn’s WWE Contract Apparently Up In Fall Of 2021

With word Kevin Owens’ WWE contract ends earlier than expected, talk that Sami Zayn’s deal is up in the Fall of 2021 is logically front-page news.

It was reported on Tuesday that Kevin Owens’ WWE contract ends sooner than originally expected. Believed to be a five-year extension that was signed in 2018, the deal was restructured during the pandemic and ends in January of 2022, as per a report by Fightful Select. It’s also interesting that his extremely close friend in Sami Zayn has a WWE deal that is set to expire soon too. As always, when someone talks about Owens, they tend to also talk about Zayn.

According to a report posted by TVA Sports in April of 2019, Zayn had signed a three-year contract shortly before leaving due to injury. With some sick time added to the length of the contract, they noted he still had about two and a half years left on his current deal. That would put his deal up at the end of this calendar year. While some time might have to be adjusted based on him staying home during the first part of the pandemic, the point here is that two close friends, known as “professional wrestlers” at heart, have deals coming up around the same time.

Obviously, this news has garnered some attention as AEW seems focused on bringing in some of the best in-ring talent that is known for having tremendous matches. Owens may or may not be ready to go and based on his usage on SmackDown of late, it would be hard to blame him. Zayn is a strong heel character on WWE SmackDown, but his booking history has been up and down. It would be interesting to see if these two stars would make career decisions together. From an AEW perspective, it would be big to have both join the promotion together, if possible.

The questions surrounding WWE these days seem to be less about who might leave and more about how few performers might actually stay. WWE is losing a lot of people and their roster appears to be thinning out rather quickly. If Owens and Zayn go, that’s two more wrestlers that are considered among the better workers in the company no longer on the roster.

Source: TheSportster

Kenny Omega Tops 2021’s PWI 500, Top 10 Revealed

Kenny Omega has topped the PWI 500 for the second time in his career, beating Roman Reigns to number one.

Kenny Omega has topped the PWI 500 for only the second time in his career, knocking Jon Moxley off the top spot and all the way down to number six.

Pro Wrestling Illustrated has been ranking the 500 best male wrestlers in the business since 1991. Who deserves to be number one each year is heavily debated, with the likes of Hulk Hogan, Stone Cole, CM Punk, and AJ Styles all having clinched the top spot in the past. This year’s top ten has been revealed, and PWI has declared Kenny Omega 2021’s best male wrestler.

This is actually the second time Omega has topped the PWI 500. The Cleaner was named the publication’s best wrestler in 2018 as well. It was hard to argue with the decision to place him first then, and maybe even more difficult to make a case against him in 2021. During PWI’s assessment period, Omega won World Titles in three different promotions, holding them simultaneously.

The rest of the top ten has been revealed too, with Universal Champion Roman Reigns claiming the number two spot. That’s the highest Reigns has placed since he took the number one spot in 2016, bouncing back from dropping out of the top ten completely in 2020 when he missed a chunk of the year due to the pandemic.

Bobby Lashley, Drew McIntyre, and Finn Balor also make the top ten, as does Will Ospreay. However, the New Japan star appears to be a little miffed with only making it as high as seventh. It’s actually the highest Ospreay has ever placed, only cracking the top ten one time before this in 2019. The British star tweeted that he could beat Omega any night of the week in response to the top ten being posted on Twitter.

SouOmega responded that New Japan has been “ice cold” since he left, to which Ospreay replied by pointing to a sold-out MSG show and the best-selling Tokyo Dome show in the promotion’s history. Ospreay closes by challenging Omega to a match. The forbidden door between AEW and New Japan is wide open right now, so it could happen. Just last night on Dynamite Moxley defeated Minoru Suzuki.

Source: TheSportster

Triple H Undergoes Surgery Following ‘Cardiac Event’

WWE’s COO and Executive Vice President of Global Talent Strategy Development, Triple H, recently suffered a ‘cardiac event’ that required surgery.

WWE stalwart Triple H is recovering from surgery following a ‘cardiac event,’ the company revealed on Wednesday, September 8th.

“Paul Levesque, a.k.a. Triple H, underwent a successful procedure last week at Yale New Haven Hospital following a cardiac event,” WWE said in a statement. “The episode was caused by a genetic heart issue and Paul is expected to make a full recovery.”

There’s been no word on Triple H’s expected recovery time, but it’s highly unlikely that he will be well enough to oversee the upcoming NXT relaunch, which is set to take place next Wednesday on USA Network.

Triple H is the founder and executive producer of NXT, which began life as WWE’s development system but soon evolved into a third brand. He has served WWE in an executive capacity for over a decade and is currently the company’s COO as well as its Executive Vice President of Global Talent Strategy Development.

The 52-year-old is a fourteen-time world champion with WWE, but he has only worked 8 matches since the start of 2018. His last match was in June of 2019 — over two years ago. In that match, he teamed with Shinsuke Nakamura to take on Bobby Roode and Samoa Joe in a winning effort at a WWE live event in Japan.

Recent reports suggest that Triple H’s real-life father-in-law Vince McMahon and Vince’s right-hand man Bruce Prichard will soon be taking over production duties on NXT. As we previously reported, WWE’s president Nick Khan recently confirmed that revamp of WWE’s developmental system was imminent. “We’re doing a complete revamp on NXT, led by Triple H,” Khan said at the time.

Source: TheSportster

Kevin Owens’ WWE Contract Expiring Sooner Than Expected

According to Fightful Select, the contract of Kevin Owens is actually expiring sooner than expected with WWE. What’s next for Fight Owens Fight?

Previous reports by the likes of Dave Meltzer and other media sources noted that WWE Superstar Kevin Owens had a contract that ran with the company until the Spring of 2023. Apparently that is no longer accurate and a new report by Fightful Select suggests Owens’ deal is up much sooner than that. The rumored five-year contract was changed and Owens could be one of the next big stars headed out of WWE.

According to Fightful, his WWE contract expires in January 2022. That would mean that technically, Owens only has another four months on his active contract before he’s free to look at other options or extend with WWE. Of course, many will speculate that Owens will heavily consider AEW because that promotion has a lot of his former friends employed there and it’s exactly the type of wrestling company that would mesh well with his in-ring style.

Interestingly, Owens also posted a couple of tweets on Tuesday that dropped a tease about his contract situation. He’s since deleted those tweets, but one was the coordinates to Mount Rushmore. The second was a photo of his Mount Rushmore stable that included himself (as Kevin Steen), Adam Cole, Nick Jackson, and Matt Jackson. Kevin Owens has changed his bio location to “almost there.”, which many have assumed means almost at the end of his deal.

Fightful added in their report that WWE restructured several contracts during the pandemic and among them was Owens’ deal which was changed and is now set to expire in January 2022. There is no word on why his deal was shortened or if that was happily agreed to or left a sour taste in Owens’ mouth.

Perhaps it’s far too early to say that Owens and AEW is a given if the new report of his contract expiring in a few months is accurate. He could absolutely re-sign with WWE. But, WWE seems to be moving away from a number of talent who don’t necessarily fit their new “character-heavy” and family-friendly style. Meanwhile, AEW is picking up and targeting wrestlers who were very close from the independent scene and have ties to The Elite, which Owens does.

Source: TheSportster

New Day Set To Star With The Undertaker In Interactive Netflix Horror Film

New Day and The Undertaker are both featured in a new WWE and Netflix interactive film set to debut in October on the streaming platform.

Don’t look now, but the Undertaker is doing more work with WWE… kind of. A new interactive horror film that will be presented on Netflix and feature both The Undertaker and New Day is set to hit the streaming platform on October 5, 2021. In it, viewers will be able to choose what path New Day takes to escape from The Deadman.

Netflix has previously jumped into the interactive film world on their platform and WWE is the latest company to partner with the streaming video service to that end. Essentially, the question of, ‘Can New escape The Undertaker?’ is asked and the entire point of the film is to help direct the WWE trio on their quest to get away and escape his haunted mansion. The house is filled with traps and challenges and you, as the viewer, get to make choices to see what happens. If you’ve ever watched a Bear Grylls show where you choose what he does out in the wild, this is like a wrestling version of that.

WWE signed a deal with Netflix back in February 2019 and at least one of their partnered productions has already aired on the service, such as “The Main Event” the featured Keith Lee, Kingston, Sheamus, The Miz, and Commander Azeez. There are also future projects in the works, such as the Vince McMahon docuseries which is set to premiere on Netflix at a later date.

As far as this New Day and Undertaker film is concerned, as per a report and some photos by Bloody Disgusting, the film is described as “The Undertaker has set a trap for the decorated tag team The New Day at his mansion. What they don’t know: The Undertaker’s mansion is an extreme Haunted House, packed to the brim with supernatural challenges. It’s up to viewers to decide the fate of these three poor souls trying to survive the wrath of The Undertaker.”

Source: The Sportster