Austin Theory hasn’t wrestled for WWE since June. He is reportedly under an unannounced suspension and it is not clear when he will return to the company. Shortly before his unannounced absence began, Theory had joined Seth Rollins’ stable on RAW. Rollins’ small faction has included Buddy Murphy and the AOP in recent months as well.
Rollins spoke about Austin Theory’s absence recently during an interview with the Sporting News. According to Rollins’ comments, Theory had some personal issues to work through but they are looking forward to his return.
“He had some personal issues that came up so he took some time off to sort through them for the past month or two. It’s hard right now but we hope everything’s good for him so we hope to have him back sooner than later,” Rollins said during the interview.
Rollins’ faction is also missing the AOP at the moment. Rezar suffered a torn bicep in March that is expected to keep him out at least 6 months.
Theory was also briefly aligned with Zelina Vega’s faction of Andrade and Angel Garza. He was kicked out of the group shortly before aligning with Rollins, however. The 23-year-old is a former EVOLVE champion and was ranked 80th in last year’s PWI Top-500 rankings.
WWE will welcome everyone to the Thunderdome tonight for Smackdown. Ahead of tonight’s card from Orlando’s Amway Center, the company posted a teaser video with a sneak peek of what the new set will look like.
WWE has described its new Thunderdome set-up as a “state-of-the-art viewing experience featuring video boards, pyrotechnics, lasers, cutting-edge graphics, and drone cameras. “
“This structure will enable us to deliver an immersive atmosphere and generate more excitement amongst the millions of fans watching our programming around the world,” said Kevin Dunn in a press release to promote the new set.
A preview of what the Thunderdome will look like can be found in the below-posted video from WWE:
Tonight’s episode of Smackdown will feature Vince McMahon kicking off the show to introduce fans to the new visual experience. Two title matches have also been booked for tonight’s show. AJ Styles will defend the Intercontinental Championship against Jeff Hardy. Shinsuke Nakamura & Cesaro will also defend their belts against The Lucha House Party. Additionally, Big E’s singles run continues tonight as he goes one-on-one with Sheamus.
TakeOver XXX tomorrow night will not air from the Amway Center. Rather, that show will still take place from Full Sail University. WWE will be back in the Thunderdome on Monday for RAW.
The recent break-in at Sonya Deville’s residence has shaken up some on the WWE roster. According to a report from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the incident has led to multiple WWE Superstars applying for gun licenses and/or purchasing home security systems.
“Several women performers were shaken up by the story noting obsessive fans that have gotten their home addresses,” wrote Dave Meltzer.
“A number of talents, understandably so, have been shaken up by the incident,” he continued. “There have been some talents who applied for gun licenses on 8/17 after the incident with Berenato and others tho are installing or testing out home security devices.”
Several wrestlers have complained about fans finding out their home address. Impact’s Jordynne Grace has publicly complained about this happening to her.
The report continues to suggest some steps wrestlers can take to keep their home addresses private. For instance, a wrestler could form an LLC that they use to purchase the home. This would make it more difficult for someone to find out where they live.
Deville testified in court at a hearing yesterday. She also filed for a restraining order against him in civil court. Following the court hearing, the suspect was denied bail and will remain in prison for the time being.
Renee Young is said to be finishing up with WWE this weekend. Her departure from the company has many wrestling fans wondering if she could end up joining her husband, AEW World Champion Jon Moxley, in All Elite Wrestling.
According to an update from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, however, AEW was unaware that Young was leaving WWE until news broke recently, meaning the two sides likely have not had any conversations about her possibly taking up a role with the company. Not as of yet, anyway.
“We were told AEW was unaware she was leaving WWE until after the news broke,” wrote Dave Meltzer. He continued to say, however, that sources within AEW believe it is inevitable that she will end up doing something with the company at some point but no conversations have taken place.
Additionally, Young’s contract with WWE contains a non-compete clause that would prevent her from going to AEW anytime soon.
“It probably won’t be soon since her WWE announcing deal does have a serious non compete clause,” Meltzer continued. ESPN and Fox have both shown interest in Renee Young’s broadcasting talents.
It’s worth noting that she also has a background in comedy, having trained at Second City in Toronto as well.
Young began working for TheScore in Canada in 2009. At the time, theScore aired RAW and Smackdown. It has since been bought out by Sportsnet and is now known as Sportsnet 360. Young, along with Mauro Ranallo, hosted post-event shows on the network talking about WWE. She was then hired by WWE in 2012.
Sonya Deville testified in court yesterday at a hearing for Phillip Thomas II, the suspect charged with her attempted kidnapping and breaking into her home. Following the hearing, Thomas was ruled a threat to society and denied bail. He will remain in prison until his trial.
“I saw a man standing there and he had black clothes on and a black mask and he was just standing there staring at me,” Deville said on the stand. The incident occurred early Sunday morning after Deville had gone to bed after watching the UFC 252 PPV. Mandy Rose was staying in a guest room at her home that evening.
“I looked up, I saw him, I was terrified, I started screaming. I don’t even know what I said,” she continued. Deville has also filed for a restraining order against Thomas in civil court.
The judge ruled that Thomas provides a threat to the community even if monitored by GPS while on bail.
“I don’t see any way we can protect our community in Hillsborough County if we give him bail,” the judge ruled. “A GPS on him gives me no peace of mind. A GPS monitor does nothing for me.”
The NXT show originally scheduled for Wednesday, September 2nd will now air on Thursday, September 3rd on the USA Network. The show is being moved to accommodate the NHL Playoffs broadcast schedule. This means that AEW Dynamite that week will run unopposed.
It is currently unknown if further episodes of NXT could be rescheduled as well. The NHL Playoffs are currently finishing up the Conference Quarter-Finals. The Stanley Cup finals are set to conclude no earlier than October 4th, 2020.
September 2nd will mark 3 straight weeks that AEW and NXT haven’t gone head-to-head. NXT ran unopposed last night, Dynamite will air on Thursday next week and NXT will be pushed back by a day the week after.
The September 2nd edition of AEW Dynamite will also be the go-home show for the All Out PPV on September 5th. Additionally, the September 16th episode of Dynamite will only be 1-hour but a 2-hour version will air the following night.
AEW has just announced that a limited number of fans will be permitted to attend beginning on Thursday, August 27th, 2020. Dynamite will air on Thursday next week due to the NBA Playoffs.
Former NXT head writer Joe Belcastro has left WWE. Triple H addressed Belcastro’s departure recently on a media call to promote TakeOver XXX on Saturday.
Trile was asked about a possible replacement for Belcastro, but according to Triple H – it will be ‘business as usual’ on the NXT creative team.
“As far as the writing of NXT goes, we shift around a little bit as things happen. I won’t necessarily comment on people that aren’t necessarily talent for us but we have a team that works with NXT that includes Shawn Michaels, Brian James, myself. So, it’s a group and the ideas all go through that. It’s really business as usual for us,” Triple H said.
Triple H also spoke about what he has learned from doing live television with NXT since October.
“There’s a dramatic difference between doing taped television, doing live television, doing 1-hour live television vs 2-hours,” Triple H continued.
“I think the biggest difficulty for us has been in this time frame is just the shifting of everything,” he said. “COVID has really made doing all of this, in a way, exponentially harder.”
WWE currently has a job ad up on LinkedIn looking for a new lead writer for Smackdown but nothing on NXT. Johnny Russo recently updated his LinkedIn to say he started as NXT’s lead writer in July after having been working as a producer for the last year.
Please join me in wishing a Happy Birthday ??? to my colleague and friend @AgentJRusso I hope you have a great day today Johnny! #CMON#RT#OUDK
Arn Anderson worked backstage as a producer in WWE during the main roster runs of Enzo and Big Cass. On a recent episode of the Arn Show, Anderson addressed a question on what went wrong for the tag-team after they were called up from NXT.
“(Enzo and Cass) came up to the main roster, they had a match or two, and the people were getting with the promos and getting with all the things but the second they put Cass in the program with Big Show, he quit listening. I know because I was the producer of that match,” Anderson said on the show. “And here’s the Giant willing to put this guy over and he was fighting us every step of the way.”
Arn Anderson On Enzo Amore In 205 Live
Anderson then spoke about Enzo’s time on 205 Live.
“I had (Enzo) in some 205 matches, on house shows, and he was just doing every stupid thing you could do to make a babyface look foolish. And it was some of the Lucha guys that he was working with, and they didn’t know the difference until I started pointing it out to them. And I think that the fact you don’t take the guidance from the people, the producers there that are there to help you and know a little bit better than you do what’s going to get over and what’s not.”
Double-A continued to say that Enzo and Cass then began making mistakes both inside the ring and in the locker room.
“They made some mistakes and it didn’t take very, very long before they had heat in the locker room, and then they started to fall apart out in the ring as far as production. Then they started to get heat in the office and that’s what happened, they self-destructed.”
Arn also addressed what went wrong for Enzo on the main roster during a previous episode of his show.
“You can’t be too hardheaded about that because there are people trying to help you. If you don’t listen to those people and you fail, it’s on you. If you do listen to those people and do everything you can possibly do to pull off what they are telling you to pull off, then you got a shot at it. I just think Enzo might have been a little too headstrong about how he felt things should go.”
You can listen to the full episode in the player embedded below. Arn Anderson’s comments about Enzo & Big Cass come in around the 1 hour 7-minute mark.
According to comments made by Triple H on a recent media call to promote TakeOver XXX, Triple H isn’t interested in fielding any more questions relating to the Velveteen Dream controversy. Triple H was asked about comments made online by Dream’s accusers on the call but Triple H said he’s ready to move on to other topics.
“Obviously, we take all of these things very seriously. Allegations, misconduct, of any nature, we take very seriously,” Triple H said.
“I’ll stand by what I said to CBS, we looked into it, didn’t find anything there in the manner of what we were looking for and we moved on. It doesn’t change the fact that we take it seriously. If there is something else there we’ll look into it.”
“We’ve already talked about it so I’d rather just move on to other topics,” Triple H concluded.
In light of the dismissive comments made by Triple H during the NXT media call, accuser Matthew Jimenez tweeted this:
Want more? Here’s @DreamWWE turning the conversation sexual immediately after I disclosed my age (17). He tells me I’d be “better off in porn” and that if I was “packing” I’d be better off. We have our evidence @WWE@TripleHpic.twitter.com/MQJ3CtTLVo
During a recent interview with Triple H took part in an interview with CBS Sports, Triple H said WWE investigated the matter internally and decided to simply move on.
“Everything that we have done, we are comfortable with him continuing to do what he does and everything else. But he had a car accident. It stemmed down to people thought we removed him from TV for different reasons. We didn’t. He was in a car accident. Once he was medically cleared to be able to return to the ring from his car accident, we continued forward the way we did. We looked into what was there and we didn’t find anything.”
News broke recently that Renee Young is leaving WWE. According to comments made on Wrestling Observer Radio, Young is finishing up with the company this weekend.
“She gave notice last week, this weekend coming up is her last with the company,” said Dave Meltzer.
“As far as the reason, if you look at the timing I think it’s fairly safe to say the whole COVID thing is a huge part of this,” Meltzer continued. Young confirmed on Twitter in late-June that she had contracted the COVID-19 virus.
Man. What a few days. My show gets cancelled and I get Covid. Wear your masks and wash your hands. Stay safe, everyone ??
“She’s going to have offers, I don’t think there is any question that she is going to land on her feet somewhere. Where that will be, it could be many places,” Meltzer continued to say about Young’s future prospects.
The 34-year-old from Toronto has been with the company since 2012. Prior to signing with WWE, Young was a host on TheScore in Canada and worked with Mauro Ranallo and Jimmy Korderas covering WWE on Aftermath from 2009-12.
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.'”
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.
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.
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.
Rusev recently appeared on Ryback’s podcast and detailed Vince McMahon’s reaction to the “Rusev Day” chants. According to Rusev, Vince McMahon told him that fans were mocking him when they were chanting “Rusev Day.”
“I had a conversation with Vince and he told me that with Rusev Day, they were just mocking me, they didn’t mean it,” Rusev said on the show.
“In my mind, I knew it wasn’t true,” Rusev continued. “They started putting my segments early so the ‘Rusev Day’ chants would go away. I was not even supposed to be on WrestleMania, the year I lost to Jinder.”
Aiden English also recently commented on his reaction to hearing Vince McMahon’s interpretation of the crowd chants.
Maria Kanellis also responded to news about Vince’s reaction to the Rusev Day chants.
This doesn’t surprise me. We were the most watched segments when we were doing the 24/7 storyline and Vince still pulled the rug out from under us. I begged them not to use my personal life, if they were just gonna drop the storyline. But, they did it anyways. https://t.co/pbB15lvQHA
Maria, Aiden English, and Rusev were all released from their WWE contracts in April during an ongoing global pandemic.
Rusev then continued to talk about Vince’s reaction to the Rusev Day shirts selling out. According to Rusev, Vince believed they only sold out because they didn’t make enough.
“When Vince said the second time, ‘they’re fucking with you,’ I said, ‘Vince, we have sold out all of our merchandise.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘The shirt is sold out.’ ‘Well, maybe they didn’t make enough.’ ‘They didn’t make enough shirts, that’s why it’s sold out? Not because we’re doing good? Really?'”
Seth Rollins recently took part in an interview with PEOPLE and discussed his reaction to finding out his fiancé Becky Lynch is pregnant. Rollins said he was thrilled as soon as he found out.
“We got the test back and it said pregnant and she was more shocked and I was just hyped,” Rollins said. “I was so excited, I think, right out of the gate. I wish we had a camera on because I threw my arms up in the air, I was so excited about it.”
Rollins also spent a portion of the interview talking about Lynch’s reaction. He noted how many women are able to continue working during their pregnancy, but certainly not wrestlers. After going hard in WWE for a year, it was an adjustment for her, it seems.
“With this, it was just like, she’s going 100 miles an hour, had the busiest year of her life, and then ‘Bam!’ shut down. Done. You can’t do your work anymore. And ‘Bam!’ Hollywood is shut down. No meetings because of the pandemic, because of COVID. So that’s all out the window, too.”
Lynch vacated the RAW Women’s Championship in epic fashion following the Money in the Bank PPV. She surrendered the belt to Asuka and then announced to the WWE Universe that she was going to be a mother. Even Asuka, a heel at the time, couldn’t help celebrating the news.
“She’s the hardest working person I’ve ever met, so she wants to always be productive,” Rollins continued. “That’s what gives her purpose on a day-to-day basis. So it’s been crazy for her, but she found some cool things that hopefully she’ll be able to share in the future.”
Rollins will face Dominik Mysterio Sunday at SummerSlam. The match was recently made a street fight. WWE is teasing that Rey Mysterio may show up tonight on RAW as well.
