EC3 is scheduled to make his debut for Ring of Honor this week.
EC3, who is currently back with Impact Wrestling, is at the ROH TV tapings in Baltimore and will be working this week’s TV tapings, according to PWInsider. It remains to be seen exactly what he will be doing, and if this is a one-time gig.
This week’s ROH TV tapings will be their first since they were forced to change their schedule in February due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tapings will include the ROH Pure Title tournament.
It was recently reported on Wrestling Observer Live that ROH has big plans for these tapings. Bryan Alvarez noted that the tapings will be unlike anything fans have seen in pro wrestling. He also said “hardcore” fans, meaning dedicated fans of the sport, will be pleased with what ROH has to offer, especially if they feel like they’ve been missing something from their pro wrestling as of late.
EC3 was released from his WWE contract in April as the company made dozens of cuts due to the negative impact of COVID-19. He returned to Impact in July and is currently feuding with Moose for the TNA World Heavyweight Title.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35ix1EZLL3k
Stay tuned for spoilers from the ROH TV tapings and more on EC3’s future.
Bully Ray and Velvet Sky both felt that Shawn Michaels should have sold more for Randy Orton’s punt on RAW this Monday. This week’s show concluded with Orton punting yet another legend, much like he did to Ric Flair the week prior.
Bully took to Twitter to express his opinion on HBK’s RAW performance from Monday:
An RKO and a punt to the head from Randy FUCKING Orton and Shawn is on his feet??????????????????#WWERaw@BustedOpenRadio
Bully’s partner, Velvet Sky, also expressed her opinion of Michaels performance on Twitter:
So Shawn takes Orton’s RKO PLUS punt to the head & sits himself up in the corner & tries to get up like nothing happened.Basically no selling both moves.Way to bury Randy.Then Drew takes RKO alone & stays down selling like ur supposed to. Complete disrespect to Orton by Shawn.?????
“When u take someone’s finish, it’s more than just your face u sell. Imagine for instance, me taking Kong’s implant buster & trying to get up or crawl away, and only selling with my facial expressions. Ya just don’t do that. Its very disrespectful to the person executing the move,” a follow-up Tweet from Velvet Sky reads.
An Owen Hart fan account noted that perhaps Michaels was trying to make up for his over-selling from his SummerSlam 2005 match against Hulk Hogan:
Maybe he was trying to balance out over selling in Hulk Hogan match at Summerslam 2005
Orton has punted several people in recent months. Edge, Christian, Big Show, Ric Flair, and now Shawn Michaels have taken the move. At SummerSlam on Sunday, Orton will challenge Drew McIntyre for the WWE Championship.
AEW has released new rankings for 8/19. There was a fair amount of movement in the tag team division but the men’s and women’s divisions saw no changes.
AEW Men’s Singles Division
AEW World Champion: Jon Moxley (15-0) TNT Champion: Cody (18-1)
MJF (8-0)
Lance Archer (11-1)
Brian Cage (6-1)
Brodie Lee (5-1)
Scorpio Sky (7-2)
There was no movement in the men’s singles rankings this week. #5 Scorpio Sky was defeated by TNT Champion Cody on the last episode of Dynamite. Cody will look to defend his title on Saturday against #4 Brodie Lee.
AEW Women’s Division
AEW Women’s Champion: Hikaru Shida (16-1)
Nyla Rose (7-2)
Big Swole (6-3)
Penelope Ford (6-4)
Abadon (3-1)
Dr. Britt Baker (4-4)
There was no movement in the women’s singles division this week either. Champion Hikaru Shida picked up a victory in a non-title match over Heather Monroe last week on Dynamite.
On Saturday’s Dynamite, there is one women’s match scheduled. The finals of the Women’s Tag Team Cup will take place. The finals pits Ivelisse & Diamante against the Nightmare Sisters Allie and Brandi Rhodes.
AEW Tag Team Division
AEW Tag Team Champions: Kenny Omega & “Hangman” Page (12-0)
FTR (5-0)
Best Friends (13-4)
Young Bucks (6-2) (+1)
The Natural Nightmares (6-1) (previously unranked)
Dark Order (8-2) (-2)
Champions Kenny Omega & Hangman Page successfully defended their titles against the Jurassic Express on Dynamite last week. The loss booted Luchasaurus and Jungle Boy out of the #5 ranked spot.
#3 The Young Bucks moved up one spot in the rankings after defeating #5 The Dark Order on Dynamite. The match result sees the Dark Order drop two spots but remain in the rankings.
#4 The Natural Nightmares are back in the rankings. The team had been out of action for a while as QT Marshall was out with COVID-19.
On Dynamite this week, #4 The Natural Nightmares will team with Jurassic Express and take on the Lucha Bros and Butcher and the Blade in 8-man tag action. #1 FTR will also clash with Private Party on the show. #3 The Young Bucks will team with Kenny Omega to take on Alex Reynolds, Five & John Silver from the Dark Order.
Dominik Mysterio will take on Seth Rollins this Sunday in his first official pro-wrestling match. The 23-year-old has trained with some of the best including Lance Storm, Jay Lethal, and his own father, Rey Mysterio. Dominik and his father recently spoke with ESPN and expressed that one day they hope Dominik will wear a mask and carry on his family’s legacy as a luchador.
Rey Mysterio has already trademark the name “Prince Mysterio” for when the time is right.
“I’ve always wanted to wear a mask mainly because of tradition. It’s important to keep that tradition going,” Dominik said to ESPN. “Now with my face being out there, I think it would just have to be introduced a little bit differently so people understand. I definitely want to wear one, but it has to be introduced properly.”
“We actually talked about it. He definitely has to continue with the Mysterio dynasty. It’s in his genes,” said Rey Mysterio. “I think we’re going to incorporate that eventually and create a good story so the fans can understand the rich history behind lucha libre and the masks.”
Dominik made his first WWE appearance in 2005 as part of an angle between Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero. It was actually revealed in storyline that Dominik is the biological son of Eddie Guerrero. At SummerSlam 2005, the custody of Dominik was on the line in a ladder match between Mysterio and Guerrero. Now 15 years later, Dominik is getting in the ring himself.
Mysterio also spoke about how quickly Dominik’s skills have been developing.
“I spotted right away that he was picking it up pretty fast,” Rey said. “Not only myself, but Konnan as well. He would tell me pretty much every other third roll or third bump, ‘Man, he’s a natural, bro. He’s picking it up really fast.'”
Longtime WWE broadcaster Renee Young has given notice that she is leaving the company.
Young, real name Renee Good, has been with the company since 2012. She is married to Jonathan Good, better known as AEW World Champion Jon Moxley.
News of Young’s departure from WWE was first reported by Outkick. PWInsider reports that she informed WWE of the decision last week. We have since independently verified the story.
Renee Young is expected to work this weekend’s WWE SummerSlam pay-per-view. It is unclear when she will wrap up her duties with the company.
Young has been a very popular figure during her time as an on-air talent. She has worked as a backstage interviewer, commentator and host of various programs including WWE’s kickoff shows, WWE Backstage and the beloved Talking Smack SmackDown post-show. She made history in August 2018 when she became the first woman to serve as a full-time announcer for WWE Raw.
Triple H was asked about Renee Young leaving WWE during Wednesday’s NXT media call to promote this weekend’s Takeover XXX event. He would not confirm or deny that she is leaving, instead saying that it is up to Renee to address the situation herself. Triple H then praised Renee Young as an important part of the WWE family. He said she’d done an amazing job with everything and he’s enjoyed working with her.
WWE Superstar Naomi recently appeared on WWE’s The New Day: Feel The Power podcast. The tenured Superstar discussed a number of topics from her career with the company, from FCW, to Team B.A.D and her current run with her ‘Glow’ gimmick.
When discussing her run with Team B.A.D, Naomi would say how it was the perfect point in hers, Tamina Snuka’s and Sasha Banks’ career to team up. “I just think at that time? We were just in a point in our careers with Sasha and Tamina where we just wanted more and wanting to grow and get better.”
Naomi on Sasha Banks
Naomi elaborated further, saying “there was so much changing and happening in the [Women’s] division. And just knowing what a superstar Sasha was and what she was going to be? Without a doubt, it was as always a pleasure to work with her to have insight from her for me.”
The WWE Superstar would then have huge praise for her former partner, saying “to me, Sasha is like the best we have in WWE, in my opinion. I got to work with Sasha in NXT, way before she became The Boss and really kicked off. I just thought she was always like an amazing person, and really admired her.”
Do you agree with Naomi about Sasha Banks? Let us know in the comments
Triple H appeared on the Bill Simmons podcast recently. He spoke about WWE’s handling of the global pandemic, the Thunderdome viewing experience, and SummerSlam. During the show, Simmons mentioned it has been hard for him to get into empty-arena wrestling and Triple H responded.
“The stand-up comic with no one in the building, right? He’s hitting his jokes and making himself pop,” Triple H compared empty-arena wrestling with. “It was surreal and for me, my hats off to our performers, anybody doing this.”
“The physicality hurts a lot more when there is nobody there making noice and you don’t have that adrenaline,” he continued.
Triple H also spoke about how having no crowd reactions hurts their ability to determine what is working and what isn’t.
“100%, you base almost all the reactions that we have as a company are based on how crowds are reacting,” he said.
“Crowd reaction, ticket sales, merchandise all those things factor into how you are utilizing talent and the direction you are headed with them, short term and long term, and now all that all of a sudden goes away. Because now you have merch sales but it’s different, it’s based on online sales, not in arena or whatever. You don’t have ticket sales anymore, you don’t have crowd reaction or noise.”
Triple H also continued to say using social media to judge a wrestlers popularity is tricky.
“Social media is very tricky because it can skew heavily depending on the platform, negative algorithms on some platforms are much stronger than others. So something bad happens, it trends immediately. Something good happens, it doesn’t even get out there because of how the algorithms works.”
Triple H also talked about how D-X would have done in the no-fans era, how Bray Wyatt is thriving in it, and more.
David Finlay is scheduled to face KENTA in the finals of the New Japan Cup USA 2020. He defeated Chase Owens in the quarter-finals and pulled off the upset over Tama Tonga in the semi-finals.
The 27-year-old spoke with Fightful Select recently about his career thus far. Finlay said that he knows he could have gotten his father, Fit Finlay, to get him into WWE when he first started training but he didn’t want to go that route. Instead, Finlay wanted to earn things on his own merit. Finlay began training at the New Japan Dojo in 2015 as a 22-year-old.
Finlay also said that he believes his father could still wrestle. According to David, Fit Finlay still trains daily and is in good enough shape to go.
Finlay vs KENTA will take place on August 21st, 2020.
David Finlay On Explaining Relationship To Hornswoggle
When David Finlay was in middle school, WWE ran an angle where Hornswoggle was revealed as Fit’s son. Evidently, this led to David having to go along with the angle at school. He spoke to the WINCLY podcast about the experience.
“I was in middle school about 7th or 8th grade. (His mother) sat me down, and she was like, ‘David, this is what they’re gonna do on TV tonight, which means tomorrow when you go to school, all of your friends are going to be asking if this is your brother? You have to tell them yes.’”
“But then of course, that’s not good enough for my friends, so they’re asking all these follow-up questions like, ‘how come he doesn’t live with you?’ So I’m having to like BS on my friend on the spot because my mom told me I have to tell them that that’s my brother. Wrestling family man.”
Impact Wrestling presented the first night of its 2-week branded event, Emergence, last night on AXS TV and Twitch. The card featured the Motor City Machine Guns defending the tag belts against the North in the main event.
Impact Results 8/18:
X-Division Championship Rohit Raju defeated TJP & Chris Bey (c) – New Champion
TNA World Championship (Unofficial) Moose (c) defeated Trey Miguel
The Good Brothers (Karl Anderson & Doc Gallows) defeated Ace Austin & Madman Fulton
Wrestle House Kylie Rae defeated Taya Valkyrie
Impact Tag Team Championships Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin) (c) defeated The North (Josh Alexander & Ethan Page)
Here are 8 takeaways from Impact 8/18:
New X-Division Champion Crowned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAnAgTdl2JQ
Rohit Raju had been attempting to convince Chris Bey that he would make a good run-in buddy for him. Raju even said he was only in this triple threat match to ensure Bey walked away from it still the champion. It may have been all a ploy, however, as Raju would be the one to leave with the belt here.
TJP had Bey locked in a submission but Raju grabbed Bey’s arm to stop him from tapping. Shortly after, Bey was looking to land a move on TJP from the top turnbuckle when Raju tossed TJP off the buckle and Bey landed in a tree of woe position. Raju then hit a double foot stomp on Bey and pinned him to win the championship.
I don't like to retweet comments, but this says it all!! The respect from my peers means a lot!! ??? https://t.co/3n6OssTw4O
Raju is the 46th wrestler to win the X-Division title and begins the 93rd reign in the title’s lineage. Bey’s reign ends at 31 days.
Motor City Machine Guns Retain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9dI-v34Ajc
The main event of Emergence Night 1 saw the North cash in their rematch clause against the Motor City Machine Guns. Ethan Page and Josh Alexander had said leading up to this match that they were worn down after a year of defending the belts and that is the only reason why MCMG were able to take the titles off of them.
The North would control much of the match, forcing the MCMGs into two hot tag situations. Ultimately, however, it was the tandem moves by the innovative Sabin and Shelley that would help them prevail. They finished off Page with a combination neck-breaker splash for the win.
MCMG are in their 2nd reign with these belts. Their combined 212 days plus (as of this writing) puts them 5th all-time. They are just ahead of the Hardys (at 205 combined days as champs). They trail the North (383 days) for 4th on the all-time list.
EC3 Steals The TNA World Title
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35ix1EZLL3k
Moose defeated Trey Miguel in an unofficial TNA World title match this week. Trey fought valiantly against his much bigger opponent but in the end, Moose would pick up the win with a Lights Out spear.
After the match, EC3 came out of nowhere and attacked Moose. He delivered a reverse DDT to him before grabbing the TNA World title and leaving.
Previously, EC3 has said he wants to destroy his past, which includes the TNA World title. Impact is advertising we will hear more about EC3’s reasons for stealing the belt next week.
Wrestle House Craziness Continues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1He-pirn1ns
Quite a bit happened on Wrestle House this week.
Larry D of Team XXXL had a spell put on him by Rosemary to make him fall in love with her. He told his partner Acey Romero this week that he is wearing the new cologne “Ring Rust” made from real ring rust. A rather dapper dressed “Lawrence D” now has a date set up with Rosemary for next week. Rosemary is just trying to make John E Bravo jealous, however.
Somebody stole The Deaners’ beer. Cody and Jake accused several people but as of yet have not gotten to the bottom of the mystery. Jake and Susie are a little awkward around each other as well after their bad date.
The big match of the week pitted Kylie Rae versus Taya Valkyrie with Rosemary as the special referee. Taya has been rather cruel to Kylie throughout their time at Wrestle House. Kylie has been hoping to get back to the ring soon since she is the #1 contender to the Knockouts title but Taya wants everyone to stay and watch highlights of her matches. Kylie would pick up the win with a superkick as Rosemary begrudgingly counted the 3.
The Good Brothers Get Revenge On Ace Austin & Madman Fulton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHPyCBEbIeY
After weeks of sneak attacks, ambushes, and even having the cops called on them, the Good Brothers picked up a measure of revenge on Ace Austin and Madman Fulton this week.
The finish of the match came when Fulton missed a kick on the outside and got his foot stuck in the guardrail. Gallows then tossed him to the other side of the guardrail, taking him out of the match. This allowed Anderson and Gallows to hit the Magic Killer on Austin for the win.
Willie Mack was being interviewed by Jimmy Jacobs in the back about Eric Young’s recent attacks on his friend Rich Swann. Brian Myers came out of nowhere, hijacked the interview and forced Jacobs to interview him instead.
Myers said he spent years “being a good hand” and not rocking the boat but it only got him fired. He said he was sick of decisions about this business being made by a 70-year-old man. Mack then came back into the picture and the segment ended with the two brawling on the floor. A match between Myers and Mack has been scheduled for next week.
Heath has been purchasing advertising spots on Impact Wrestling as of late. He is hoping fans will use the hashtag “Heath4Impact” to get it trending and encourage Impact to sign him. He noted this week that had he been hired by now, he could have helped Rhino last week when he was beaten up by Reno Scum. Heath also noted that he still has kids.
We have heard rumours of AEW’s interest in Goldberg a number of times. It has been said that AEW President Tony Khan is interested in bringing the WCW veteran to the company but Vice President Cody Rhodes is denying these claims.
One such claim was recently made by Jim Cornette who said on his podcast that Khan wanted the former Universal Champion to re-enact his legendary undefeated streak in AEW.
However, the current TNT champion responded to these claims from the wrestling veteran on Twitter and he claimed that his company has had no contact with Goldberg:
Even if AEW had interest in bringing the WCW veteran to the company, it wouldn’t be possible to sign him right now because Goldberg himself recently revealed that he is still under WWE contract.
The former World Champion revealed that he signed a three year deal with the company to stay with the promotion till 2022 and wrestle two matches each year.
Goldberg has already wrestled a couple of matches for the company this year so it’s not very likely that we will see him on WWE programming anytime soon but he should return to WWE TV down the line.
The Shield is considered to be one of the most impactful factions in the wrestling history and one of the main reasons for their success is believed to be the real-life friendship between the trio of Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose.
However, there have been speculation about the relationship between these three since Mox decided to leave WWE to join rival promotion AEW and The Architect made some interesting comments on his departure.
During a recent interview with Bleacher Report, Rollins addressed the status of his relationship with the current AEW Champion and Seth revealed that they are still on speaking terms:
“We still talk from time to time; I would love to see what he’s doing or how he’s doing or whatever. When his wife got sick, obviously I checked in on him to make sure he was doing OK and the dogs were good and all that good stuff.”
Seth Rollins also discussed the status of Roman Reigns saying that the Big Dog is a busy man and gave his praise to Reigns for taking care of five kids at once.
The comments from Rollins that made people wonder if there was animosity between the two friends came only days after Jon Moxley made his AEW debut. Seth was talking about Jon Moxley’s decision to leave WWE and the former Universal Champion had said that Ambrose ‘took his balls and went home’:
“Ambrose gave everything he had to the company for the entire time he was here. He put his heart and soul into the travel and the schedule and the injuries and the work in the ring and all that stuff, but at the end of the day, he took his ball and he went home or he went elsewhere, at least.”
Though in other interviews, the Monday Night Messiah has also stated that he feels that we have not seen the last of the Shield and fans of the faction remain hopeful that we will see the trio together once again somewhere down the line.
However, AEW also recently let go not one but three stars and these releases made many wonder what the former AEW Champion thinks about this decision from the company.
Jericho talked about the recent firings on his Saturday Night Special stream. Y2J said that he hates to see anyone lose their job but he also gave credit to Tony Khan for keeping many people from Europe on their roster;
“I mean, I give Tony Khan credit for continuing to keep as many people on the roster from Europe as he did. There’s a lot of people from Europe that he’s still paying, and unfortunately, Bea and Sadie were let go.”
Chris Jericho continued to explain how it’s hard for the company to keep paying the wrestlers who they can’t use for shows and he hoped that both Bea Priestley and Sadie Gibbs will be back in AEW when things go back to normal:
“You’re paying someone for 6 months who goes from making $100 a year, and you’re paying them $100 and you can’t even use them if you wanted to. I love them both. They’re both great people and hopefully, they will be back in AEW soon.”
For those who don’t know, AEW quietly released three stars from their roster last week and the names included Jimmy Havoc, Bea Priestley and Sadie Gibbs.
Out of the three, Jimmy Havoc was released after his name came up in the #SpeakingOut movement earlier this year while both Priestley and Gibbs were primarily released because they couldn’t travel to US for AEW shows.
There have been some rumours recently about AJ Styles being unhappy with his position in WWE and it appears that these talks have reached the ears of the Phenomenal One as well.
The current Intercontinental Champion talked about a number of things during his Twitch Stream and also addressed the speculation of him not being happy in the company.
AJ mentioned that he did have issues with the former Raw Executive Director Paul Heyman but he said that what’s done is done and Styles suggested that he is not unhappy anymore;
“I’m unhappy being Intercontinental Champion, I’m unhappy what? What do I have to be unhappy about?
We all understood what happened [with Paul Heyman]. The problem with everything that happened is that the lie happened, the blatant lie. I don’t really want to harp on anyone anymore. What’s done is done.”
For those who don’t know, AJ Styles had asked Paul Heyman if Gallows and Anderson were on the list of people WWE intended to release during the coronavirus budget cuts and the ECW founder had replied negatively.
However, the Good Brothers ended up being released by the company later on which angered the former World Champion and reports suggest that Styles chose to move to SmackDown due to his frustrations with Heyman.
WWE revived Raw Talk earlier this year and now latest reports suggest that the company is planning to bring back its SmackDown counterpart, Talking Smack very soon as well.
According to reports from PWinsider, WWE officials are considering to bring back the SmackDown aftershow and it could return to WWE programming as soon as later this month.
This is not the first time we are hearing about the possible revival of Talking Smack as there had been talks of the show being brought back in June when the company launched the free tier of the WWE Network.
While WWE only brought back the Raw aftershow at the time, the report reveals that the talks of bringing back Talking Smack go as far back as January this year and the officials have not pulled the trigger on it yet.
Both Talking Smack and Raw Talk were originally introduced when WWE brought back the Brand Extension in 2016 and separated the rosters for Raw and SmackDown.
Out of the two shows, the SmackDown aftershow made more headlines due to its unscripted nature. It allowed the stars to show more personality and the Network exclusive had many iconic moments.
The SmackDown episode after SummerSlam will be an ideal time to bring back the show and it would be interesting to see if the company makes the announcement for the same anytime soon.
WWE has made the strange decision to hold this year’s Payback PPV on August 30, just a week after their second-biggest PPV of the year in SummerSlam, leaving fans wondering about the reason behind this call.
Dave Meltzer talked about this schedule recently and the wrestling journalist mentioned that it’s “just an experiment to see how it works.”
Meltzer speculates that the officials have an idea for a major angle coming out of the SummerSlam PPV which will require an immediate follow up with the Payback event.
One of the top rumors about the major angle is that RETRIBUTION will invade the PPV and interfere with a big match, leading to the stars uniting against the faction and getting their payback at the PPV of the same name.
The idea stems from an angle on this week’s episode of Raw which saw the WWE Champion Drew McIntyre trying to unite the locker room against the group in a backstage segment.
There is also a belief that holding two special events in a row is just a way to saturate the PPV market and potentially hurt the buys for AEW’s All Out PPV which will take place just 6 days after Payback on September 5.
Though whether or not any of the speculations turn out to be true will be revealed this Sunday and it will be interesting to see if RETRIBUTION gets involved with the show in any way.
Monday’s edition of WWE RAW averaged 1.643 million viewers with a 0.48 rating in the key 18-49 demographic. This was mixed from last week, which did 1.722 million viewers and a 0.47 demo rating.
Just one year ago, RAW averaged 2.534 million viewers. This was the go-home show for Sunday’s SummerSlam pay-per-view event and the third week of RAW Underground.
Last week’s third hour did 1.601 million and 0.46 in the 18-49 Demo. RAW also went up against the Democratic National Convention that aired on various stations.
Here’s the hourly viewership breakdown for Raw, courtesy of Showbuzzdaily.com:
Hour 1: 1.730 million, 0.52 in the 18-49 Demo
Hour 2: 1.697 million, 0.49 in the 18-49 Demo
Hour 3: 1.502 million, 0.44 in the 18-49 Demo
This week’s RAW featured an appearance by Shawn Michaels in the final segment of the show to be taken out by Randy Orton. Top matches included Asuka & Shayna Baszler vs Bayley & Sasha Banks, MVP, Shelton Benjamin & Lashley vs. Mustafa Ali, Ricochet & Apollo Crews, and Montez Ford vs. Andrade. This was the last show to be taped from the Performance Center.
SmackDown Viewership
Friday’s SmackDown averaged 2.002 million viewers on FOX. This is up from the 1.962million viewers that the show did for the previous week.
SmackDown averaged 1.979 million viewers in the fast nationals, which was up from the 1.956 million viewers a week ago. This number measured the top metered markets.
The first hour drew 1.932 million viewers while the second hour did 2.025 million viewers. For comparison, the first show of last week’s show did 1.924 million viewers while the second hour did 1.880 million viewers.
SmackDown pulled in a 0.50 rating in the 18-49 demos, the same from the 0.50 rating as last week’s show.
Early Sunday morning Sonya Deville was forced to flee her Florida residence after an intruder broke in. Early reports stated Deville fled the premises with a friend before calling 911. According to court documents obtained by the Tampa Bay Times, Mandy Rose was the friend who was at Deville’s home when the intruder broke in.
Deville described the sequence of events in recent court documents.
“What are doing, what do you want?” Deville wrote. “That is when I realized this person was not here to rob me, he was there to hurt me.”
After Deville learned the person’s name from police, she searched her social media history and found countless messages from the suspect, Phillip A. Thomas II.
“The nature of the messages from this account were obsessive, suicidal, idolizing, saying, ‘You are the only person I will ever love,’ ” Deville wrote in court documents.
“Look outside, baby, by your pool. I’m here. I’m gonna kill that little b—- you have inside with you,” Deville said the last message she received from Thomas reads.
Deville also said in court documents that she had not seen his messages as her accounts are filled with thousands of unread messages from people she does not know.
The arrest report for the incident states that Thomas intended to keep Deville hostage until after SummerSlam. Deville is scheduled to face Mandy Rose in a Hair vs Hair match on the show.
“He stated that he intended to keep Mrs. Bernato hostage, preventing her from attending a planned event schedule for the following week, and that he was not going to leave her residence without her answering all of his questions,” the arrest report reads.
WWE Superstar Naomi recently appeared on WWE’s The New Day: Feel The Power podcast. The tenured Superstar discussed a number of topics from her career with the company, from FCW, to Team Bad and her current run with her ‘Glow’ gimmick.
New Day member Kofi Kingston discussed the ‘glow’ styling that Naomi has in her entrance, saying how it is possibly the “best entrance in the company.”
“You embraced the whole ‘feel the glow thing’ and like reinvented yourself in that respect” Kofi Kingston began on the podcast. “And your entrance was/is amazing.”
Kofi would then reveal that the ‘Glow’ gimmick may have actually been his way back in 2010…if he took it. “Funny story about that” Kofi began. “That was, I think back in like 2010? I was with the merch team, they were trying to come up with like different shirts. They have all these terrible designs, and one of them was like this weird, like silhouette of me? There was like this weird body paint.”
Kofi Kingston as the ‘Black’ Jeff Hardy?
Kingston would elaborate further, saying “and the dude at merch was like pitching me this idea. And he’s like, ‘oh, you could maybe you come out and you have black light body paints on? You can kind of be like the Black version of Jeff Hardy?’ And I said ‘what are you talking about!? Coming out painting myself glowed in the dark!? THAT’S STUPID!? Why would anyone ever do that!?”
Kofi Kingston would then reveal that he might’ve made a mistake when he saw how great Naomi’s entrance actually was. “I’m like ‘this could be the best entrance on the roster’ right? I look back at it now and I think like maybe I should have embraced it! What you (Naomi) are doing is probably what they were talking about.”
“But if they described it to me in a better way than being the ‘black version of Jeff Hardy?’ I might have like got into it!” Kofi would finish.
Last week on WWE RAW, Randy Orton punted Ric Flair to close the show. This week on RAW, Orton did the same to Shawn Michaels. According to a report from Fightful, however, the segment with Orton and Flair was edited for television.
Those in attendance at the tapings say several minutes of content was filmed for the segment but never aired. Evidently, there was much more to Orton’s promo than what was shown on television. Sources within WWE are reportedly saying the segment was cut for time and did not have anything to do with the quality of the segment or the material that wasn’t used.
Since WrestleMania, Orton has punted Edge, Christian, Big Show, Ric Flair, and now Shawn Michaels. This is something of callback to Orton’s run as the Legend Killer earlier in his career.
Orton will challenge Drew McIntyre this Sunday at SummerSlam for the WWE Championship.
Highlights from the segment between Orton and Flair from last week can be viewed in the player below:
Orton is a perfect 6-0 since losing to Edge at WrestleMania. He’s defeated Edge, Christian, R-Truth, Big Show, and Kevin Owens in singles competition. He also teamed with Andrade & Angel Garza in a victory over the Viking Raiders and Big Show.
Impact Wrestling presents the first night of its 2-week branded event, Emergence, tonight on AXS TV and Twitch. The company recently finished taping several weeks of television from Nashville. According to Fightful Select, the company filmed episodes to take them all the way up to October’s Bound For Glory PPV.
News coming out of the tapings says that Sami Callihan is also not expected to play a major role in the company’s storylines leading up to the October PPV. It is unclear why this is, however. Callihan has been a featured performer with the promotion for some time now. At Slammiversary, he teamed with Ken Shamrock in a loss to the North. He has since been involved in an angle with Rob Van Dam and Katie Forbes on recent editions of the weekly show.
Some new faces were also present at the tapings. These are not big names from WWE or ROH, however, but rather independent wrestlers getting another look, possibly on episodes of Xplosion. Alex Shelley recently posted a photo of some of the names Impact is currently looking at:
When I said today was a big day for independent wrestling, I meant it. Thank you, @IMPACTWRESTLING for recognizing hard work, drive, talent, and doing things the right way. Chambers, roll out. pic.twitter.com/Qz1psec0pJ
WWE will present its first show from the “Thunderdome” in Orlando’s Amway Center on Friday. RAW, Smackdown, and PPVs will emanate from the venue for at least the next 2 months. According to Fightful Select, however, episodes of NXT will still continue to air from Full Sail University. This includes Saturday’s TakeOver XXX event.
WWE’s upcoming filming schedule now looks like this:
Friday, August 21 – Friday Night SmackDown, Amway Center, 8 pm ET on FOX
Saturday, August 22 – NXT TakeOver XXX, Full Sail Live, 7 pm ET on WWE Network
Sunday, August 23 – SummerSlam, Amway Center, 7 pm ET on WWE Network
Monday, August 24 – Monday Night Raw, Amway Center, 8 pm ET on USA Network
Wednesday, August 26 – NXT, Full Sail Live, 8 pm ET on USA Network
Friday, August 28 – Friday Night SmackDown, Amway Center, 8 pm ET on FOX
Sunday, August 30 – Payback, Amway Center, 7 pm ET on WWE Network
Monday, August 31 – Monday Night Raw, Amway Center, 8 pm ET on USA Network
Additionally, it is being reported that WWE has created a temporary training facility for its developmental talent. It is not clear if they will be moving back to the Performance Center as WWE’s main roster moves to the Amway Center, however.
Orlando-based reporter Jon Alba has been covering WWE’s agreement with the Amway Center. He is speculating that a possible reason WWE’s deal with the venue runs only through October is due to the possibility of the Orlando Magic returning to the arena in December.
Perhaps a reason the City of Orlando has not commented on WWE potentially extending its lease at the arena could be the uncertainty of the next #NBA season. The #Magic are the primary tenants and would get priority.
The #NBA has reportedly targeted beginning next season as early as December. The current #WWE lease at Amway Center for the #ThunderDome runs through October.
Bill Goldberg is under contract with WWE through 2022.
His deal calls for two matches per year and he’s already wrestled twice in 2020.
Bill Goldberg’s last match in WWE came at WrestleMania 36. He dropped the Universal Championship to Braun Strowman on the show. It was his 2nd match in the company for 2020. His 1st was a victory over the Fiend to win the Universal title at Super ShowDown in Saudi Arabia.
According to comments Goldberg made recently on the Pop Culture Show, those two matches were the only he is contracted for in 2020. He is under contract with WWE for 2 matches per year through 2023.
“I am contracted with the WWE for the next two years through 2022/23. I’ve got two matches per year,” Goldberg said on the show. “I’ve exhausted my limit this year quite early on April the 5th with WrestleMania under these really weird circumstances.”
Goldberg also spoke about how his other projects in the entertainment industry are on hold due to the pandemic.
“I’ve got a couple other extremely interesting projects right on the cusp, but as you guys know in the entertainment business right now everything’s on hold unless it’s a production of 10 or under pretty much. We got a lot of cool things that people are going to find out about pretty soon. My WWE commitment is still going strong.”
You can listen to the full podcast episode in the player embedded below or at this link.
Arn Anderson recently spent some time on the Arn Show talking about if there was ever heat within the 4 Horsemen. According to Arn, the faction probably got on each others nerves sometimes but it was never serious.
“Oh I’m sure we all did, I’m sure we all bit each others heads off because we were all together too much of the time. But whatever it was it would have been short-lived, probably didn’t last over a day, probably was about something that didn’t matter. We were pretty close during those days because it was kind of us against the world.”
Anderson continued to talk about how the faction was a tight-knit group that worked together for the good of the company.
“There was some animosity in that locker room, if you could imagine, the way egos are and should be. There was some jealousy and there was all kinds of things going on so we kind of knew that we had to watch each others backs and work together for the good of the company.”
Anderson did say, however, that the group enjoyed ribbing each other.
“If anything that we got into it was more ribbing on the square. I used to rib the guys all the time and they would rib me back. Probably some of it started out good-naturedly.”
In terms of disagreements about how to do business, however, Arn says he can’t recall there ever being a disagreement.
“I don’t think we had very many, if any, business arguments that would have been because we saw things all differently. I don’t recall anything like that.”
During the peak of WCW Nitro in the 1990s, fans would often throw trash in the ring. In particular, NWO members Hollywood Hogan and Eric Bischoff would often get pelted with debris thrown from live crowds. Bischoff addressed the fans tendency to throw stuff in the ring during a recent edition of his 83 Weeks podcast.
“We didn’t encourage it but we loved it,” Bischoff said on the show. “With a small handful of exceptions, there were some people especially when things got really hot. When people started throwing quarters from the cheap seats, you know?”
Bischoff also spoke about how he and others would do their best to not react to the trash being thrown or even hitting them.
“The no-sell, that just made it better, that just encouraged people to do it more cause they wanted to be the ones to get your attention. It was kind of fun, I enjoyed that when that happened. Sounds weird, doesn’t it?”
Bischoff and Conrad then agreed throwing stuff in the ring is not something fans should do now, however.
WWE has released a number of long term employees in recent months due to the coronavirus pandemic and it appears Chris Jericho is not a fan of one such recent firing.
The former AEW Champion talked about a number of things on the latest episode of his Saturday Night Special stream including things like his ongoing feud with Orange Cassidy and more.
Talking about the recent WWE release of long time referee Mike Chioda, Jericho blasted the company asking them what Chioda is supposed to do now.
“I mean, come on, seriously? 35 years the dude has been at your company and you’re going to fire him? Besides the fact that the dude is a great guy and such a talented performer, and can run the whole backstage, but after 35 years, what’s he supposed to do? Go get a job at freaking 7 Eleven?
Like, shame on you WWE.” said Chris Jericho “They did it to Mark Eaton, a famous ringside guy that they still haven’t been able to replace him yet. When I was looking for time cues, Mark was always the guy.”
Mike Chioda showed up at last week’s episode of AEW Dynamite to officiate a couple of matches which included the TNT title match and the match between Y2J and Orange Cassidy.
During the episode, Chris Jericho also revealed that it was him who gave the idea of bringing the WWE veteran for the show and he and Cody convinced Tony Khan that it was the right move.
