This week’s NXT television taping featured a number of newsworthy happenings. In addition to this noteworthy item, there was a big heel turn that took place during this week’s taping.
A match that featured NXT Champion Finn Balor defending his title against Apollo Crews took place at the NXT television taping on Thursday night in Winter Park, Florida, and featured a big heel turn from none other than Samoa Joe.
The Balor-Crews match ended in a disqualification as Baron Corbin hit the ring and attacked both Crews and Balor. This led to Samoa Joe coming out. Joe took out Corbin and then shocked everyone by attacking Balor. This was described by fans in attendance as a “real heel turn” with lots of heat from the crowd directed towards Joe.
The Balor-Crews title match and post-match Samoa Joe heel turn is scheduled to air as part of the November 4th episode of NXT TV.
Below are some photos of Samoa Joe’s post-match heel turn.
Thursday’s NXT television taping was a newsworthy event, to say the least. In addition to this noteworthy item taking place during the taping, there was also a title change.
In tag-team action during the taping at Full Sail University on Thursday night, The Mechanics — Dash and Dawson — defeated The Vaudevillains to become the new NXT Tag-Team Champions.
This is the first ever NXT title reign for The Mechanics. The match that featured the title change is scheduled to air on the November 11th edition of the show.
Below are some spoiler photos of The Mechanics winning the NXT Tag-Team titles at Thursday’s taping.
– The NXT television tapings scheduled for November 19th sold out in less than one hour. There were reports that claimed the show sold out in just two minutes, however WWE said that it actually sold out in just under an hour. The building at Full Sail University is set up to hold 400 people.
– The following matches were taped on Tuesday night in Austin, Texas for tonight’s edition of WWE SmackDown:
* Seth Rollins vs. Cesaro
* Miz TV with Dolph Ziggler & Summer Rae
* Nikki Bella vs. Paige
* Sheamus & Wade Barrett vs. The Lucha Dragons
* Ryback vs. Bo Dallas
* Roman Reigns & Dean Ambrose vs. The New Day
As noted and announced officially by WWE despite the fact that it was on a taped show, NXT star Tyler Breeze made his official main roster debut at the SmackDown television tapings on Tuesday night in Austin, Texas.
Breeze had been paired with Summer Rae on a couple of live events in the past and according to one source, he was put with Summer coming out of the gate on the main roster to test out how the two fit together as a pair in the main roster storylines.
According to F4WOnline.com, WWE is already working on marketing “selfie sticks” as merchandise for Breeze, which has led to speculation that Breeze’s push will be taken more seriously than some may have expected. He has already started out strong, as he attacked Dolph Ziggler during a Miz TV segment on his debut appearance.
Below is some of the promotion WWE has given Breeze’s debut on various social media accounts.
– On this week’s edition of NXT TV it was announced that on next Wednesday’s show on the WWE Network, Samoa Joe and Tyler Breeze will compete against each other in one-on-one competition.
– WWE Divas Champion Charlotte was recently given a Rolex watch to match the pair of watches that both Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels have. Charlotte wrote the following about receiving the watch on Instagram, along with the photo below.
“Family Tradition: When Shawn Michaels wrestled my Dad at WrestleMania 24 he surprised him after with a matching Rolex….. It was his “Retirement” match & Hall of Fame Induction weekend. My Dad says this match was a highlight & one of the most special moments in his career…. HBK said he grew up idolizing him…. Last night, I was given a matching one ?? to carry on the tradition. By no means is my career ending anytime soon but to carry on the tradition in our family for my first WWE Divas Championship!”
As seen on Wednesday night’s edition of NXT TV, former TNA World Champion James Storm made his official debut, defeating Danny Burch with the 8-Second Ride. It was mentioned on commentary that Storm has been “working the indies for the past 15 years.”
In the following video, Storm talks to Tom Phillips after making his debut. He says that the fans chanting that he belongs in NXT reminded him of his mom giving him support. He closes with his catchphrase, saying he’s in NXT now and if nobody likes it, “he’s sorry about their damn luck!”
WWE United States Champion John Cena appeared on Tuesday night’s ESPN SportsCenter and spoke to a familiar face to WWE fans, former WWE broadcast team member Jonathan Coachman.
During the show, Coachman gave the top one-liner award for Monday’s RAW in Austin, Texas to The New Day for their dig at the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys. Cesaro was given the top move award for his running uppercut train on Sheamus. Finally, the top post-match award went to the kendo stick attack Dean Ambrose delivered to Braun Strowman where Braun retaliated by slamming Dean on the floor, leading to a big Roman Reigns dive spot.
Cena spoke about his work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, noting that those moments mean the world to him. They also touched on WWE’s partnership with the Susan G. Komen Foundation and NXT, with Cena calling NXT the future of WWE. Cena took time to talk about the importance of NXT stars making sure to find themselves before joining the main roster, noting it would make stage fright less likely for the performers.
After telling Coach not to be a stranger, Cena thanked ESPN for their support.
You can check out videos of Cena’s appearance on the show here and here.
At last night’s WWE SmackDown television taping in Austin, Texas, a top NXT star made his official WWE main roster debut.
During the Miz TV segment with The Miz, Dolph Ziggler and Summer Rae, NXT performer Tyler Breeze made his main roster debut as expected. It was reported that Breeze would be paired with Summer Rae on the main roster, and based on last night’s taping, that appears to be the direction things are headed.
Ziggler was talking about how he is no longer into Summer when she revealed she has a new man — Tyler Breeze. Breeze then cut a promo and attacked Ziggler.
You can check out a photo of Breeze’s debut from the taping here.
– ECW original and TNA agent Tommy Dreamer is the guest on the latest edition of Taz’s podcast, “The Taz Show — Bodyslams & Beyond,” which is available now. You can download the show at Play.it.
– World Wrestling Entertainment stock was up 0.92% earlier today, closing at $19.78 per share. The high for today was $19.87, while the low was $19.42.
– After being released due to racist social media posts from her past, former NXT Diva and Seth Rollins’ real-life girlfriend Zahra Schreiber will make her in-ring debut for the Dreamwave Wrestling promotion on November 7th in La Salle, Illinois. Dreamwave tweeted the following announcement:
As we reported over the weekend, NXT star Tyler Breeze is expected to move to the main WWE roster as soon as this week, and most definitely at some point in the next few weeks.
According to a new F4WOnline.com report, WWE already has creative plans for Breeze, including a new ring entrance and a gimmick where Breeze sells “selfie sticks.”
With Breeze set for his new role and Summer Rae expected to get a new role now that she is no longer with Rusev, there are rumors that Breeze and Summer will be put together as a duo. Summer actually served as Breeze’s manager at a WWE live event in Raleigh, North Carolina back in May. Below is a photo of the two.
NXT star Sami Zayn shot an angle during his appearance at the EVOLVE 50 iPPV event in New York City on Sunday evening.
Zayn shot an angle with Ethan Page and EVOLVE Champion Timothy Thatcher. During Page’s match against Matt Cage, which Page lost, he mocked Zayn’s “Ole!” chants and used his “Helluva Kick.”
After the match, Zayn confronted Page in the ring and told him he has all the talent in the world, but a bad attitude. Page simply walked out of the ring as a sign of disrespect to Zayn.
Zayn spoke about watching Friday’s EVOLVE 49 iPPV from backstage and how it made him miss the independent scene. He said he has a hole in his heart from leaving the indies to go to WWE. He gave props to everyone backstage and said they will carry EVOLVE and independent wrestling to the next level. Once again, he teased big things to come for EVOLVE and NXT.
Eventually, this brought out Thatcher, who wasn’t pleased with Zayn saying Johnny Gargano is the best on Friday’s iPPV show. Zayn said he meant that if Thatcher wants to be the man, he has to beat the man — Gargano. Thatcher said he will challenge Gargano when EVOLVE returns to Florida. The two shook hands to end the segment. The segment did not air on the iPPV broadcast.
– As noted, former NXT Champion Sami Zayn made a special appearance at the EVOLVE 49 iPPV event in New York City on Saturday night, addressing the live crowd after the main event. Zayn praised the efforts of Johnny Gargano, who competed in the main event of the evening, and teased big things between NXT and EVOLVE going forward. Zayn’s appearance helped set EVOLVE’s new all-time attendance record, and the NXT star was reportedly having a blast hanging out backstage at the show.
– Speaking of NXT talents, Tyler Breeze is expected to move to the main WWE roster “very soon,” according to a new report at F4WOnline.com. The current talk is that his official main roster debut could happen this week, but it could end up being bumped back one week.
– Former WWE Diva Maryse is currently filming an action-horror movie called “XP-573” with actor Joey Lawrence in Los Angeles, California. The film is another zombies vs. Navy SEALs story made by the creators of the SyFy show “Z Nation.” Maryse’s character in the film is called Mikaela Usylvich. The movie is scheduled for a June 15, 2016 release. Below is a photo of Maryse on the set.
– As noted recently, Colin Cassady was at the NXT meet and greet in Tampa, Florida on crutches on Friday. Cassady was involved in an injury angle on the show that some believe to have been a real injury. Whether or not Cassady was using the crutches to sell the injury angle or because he is legitimately injured remains to be seen. Below is a photo of Cassady on crutches at the meet and greet this past Friday.
– WWE Diva Lana and recently released NXT Diva Devin Taylor have been hanging out in Nashville, Tennessee this weekend. Lana lives in the area with her fiancee Rusev and Devin was her former roommate. Below is a photo of Lana and Devin together this weekend.
– The Thursday, October 15th edition of WWE SmackDown scored a final cable rating of 1.55, down from last week’s show, which delivered a 1.57 final rating. Thursday’s SmackDown, which went against the MLB Playoff game between the New York Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers (7.38 million viewers), averaged 2.090 million viewers. By comparison, last week’s SmackDown averaged 2.147 million viewers.
– Below is a clip of Sami Zayn in front of the crowd at the EVOLVE 49 iPPV event in New York City on Saturday evening.
Leva “Blue Pants” Bates was said to likely be done with NXT after backstage heat caught up to her. It was originally alleged that she made comments and acted as if she were above the other talents. It was also speculated that WWE officials continued to use her due to the fact that they knew she would get a big pop as the mystery partner for The Vaudevillians at “Takeover: Brooklyn,” however her run was supposed to end once she was beaten by Alexa Bliss.
An NXT source shared yesterday that Blue Pants didn’t catch heat for the reasons originally noted, but because it was felt within the company that she didn’t appreciate the spot she had. Bates apparently rarely paid attention to what was going on during NXT TV tapings, as she was constantly seen paying more attention to her phone than anything else.
Another noted incident involving Blue Pants is when she became intoxicated in public during SummerSlam weekend in Brooklyn, New York. She was said to be acting highly innappropriate at an outing where she reportedly drank too much after the SummerSlam pay-per-view. Her behavior did not sit well with WWE corporate employees from Stamford that were in attendance for the gathering, and the incident led to her missing her flight back to Florida with the rest of the crew the following morning.
NXT star Sami Zayn appeared at a meet and greet as scheduled prior to the EVOLVE 49 iPPV event in New York City on Saturday night.
The iPPV broadcast actually started late to accommodate the meet and greet before the event. After the show went off the air following Johnny Gargano’s victory over Ethan Page in an “I Quit” match, Zayn came out and appeared before the live crowd.
Zayn thanked the EVOLVE fans for having him, telling them he “misses all this.” He also thanked the fans for supporting EVOLVE and promised that this is only the beginning, and that things are only going to get bigger and better
Currently out of action, WWE NXT Superstar Colin Cassady has what appears to be a broken leg. Cassady worked Friday’s meet and greet in Tampa, FL which also featured Enzo Amore and WWE Tough Enough winner Sara Lee. It’s worth mentioning that Cassady was walking on crutches and did not wrestle.
At last week’s NXT TV taping, the storyline appeared to be an injury angle with Cass and The Mechanics for the 10/28 episode. Cassady’s knee brace was removed and they were working his leg over, leading correspondents in attendance to believe it was just an angle for the show.
@BigCassWWE showing he ain't SAWFT! Bad leg and still here for the WWE Universe here at #NXTTampa
– NXT Diva Jasmin Areebi is now going by the name Aaliyah. She appeared in a segment at the NXT live event on Thursday night in Cocoa Beach. Areebi was in the news this summer after some of her old controversial social media posts resurfaced. WWE and Areebi claimed that the posts were made by someone else.
– Legendary Memphis wrestling announcer Lance Russell and Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s Dan Murphy will be the guests on next week’s “Ross Report” podcast, which drops on Tuesday evening at PodcastOne.com.
– Below is this week’s Top 10 SmackDown Moments video.
– It’s interesting to note that WWE.com is running a feature looking at ‘Divas who won men’s championships’ and former Intercontinental champion Chyna is not mentioned.
– Triple H noted via social media today that he has lost 15 pounds after completing day 15 of his ongoing 21-day cleansing diet. HHH tweeted the following:
A pilot for the NXT Kids show was leaked this past August, which sparked interest in regards to casting for the upcoming television show. There is speculation that a second pilot is set to be shot with different kids due to the fact a new casting call was sent out this past week.
It’s said that the premise of the show is set to be something along the lines of Saturday Morning Slam. For those who may recall that would be one or two matches per episode, and kids conducting interviews with wrestlers during a 30 minute show. The pilot shows a lot of kids in the crowd shots during matches.
According to the latest issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, a source in WWE claims that this may all be a vehicle for the little girl shown during Bayley’s matches named Izzy. The young girl is always shown in the front row during NXT shows, and most recently she is seen in the front row at NXT tapings as well.
The original NXT Kids trailer was pulled after leaking back in August, however to get an idea of what the show may be like, watching a clip of Saturday Morning Slam from a few years ago would give you the best idea.
WWE taped tonight’s episode of NXT on October 8th in Winter Park, FL at Full Sail University. Here’s what you’ll see on tonight’s NXT broadcast:
– NXT Women’s Champion Bayley opens the episode with a promo about her match with Sasha Banks at NXT Takeover: Respect. Alexis Bliss hits the ring and they exchange words. Bliss grabbed the title, threw it in Bayley’s face, then walked away.
– The Vaudevillians defeated Sawyer Fulton and Angelo Dawkins in a non-title match.
– Nia Jax defeated Evie in a singles match.
– Apollo Crews won the number contender’s battle royal to secure a future NXT Title Match. The final four were Samoa Joe, Crews, Tyler Breeze, and Baron Corbin.
As noted on Monday evening, former NXT Champion Sami Zaym has been officially announced for this weekend’s EVOLVE internet pay-per-views in New York.
It was made clear today that while Zayn won’t be wrestling at the shows, however he will appear before the live crowds during the events, and will air during the beginning of the internet pay-per-view broadcast.
EVOLVE issued the following today:
“I love what EVOLVE does….I support them.” – Triple H in last week’s NXT conference call
The man backs up what he says. Sami Zayn is coming from NXT to EVOLVE in New York this weekend. We have all the details in this WWN Alerts. Let’s get to it….
October 13th: In an unprecedented move, Sami Zayn will be at EVOLVE 49 this Saturday in Queens, NY and EVOLVE 50 this Sunday in Long Island, NY. Here are the details:
-VIP ticket holders can take part in a meet and greet with Sami Zayn. This includes an autograph opportunity.
-If you have already purchased tickets, you can upgrade it to a VIP ticket at the events.
-Sami Zayn will make an in ring appearance on both events, but this will not be broadcast on live iPPV. It will be a special moment for fans in Queens and Deer Park. What will Zayn do? Who will he end up in the ring with? Be there and find out!
Over the summer, a pilot video surfaced online for a new show titled, “WWE NXT Kids” featuring children interviewing NXT wrestlers and doing commentary over NXT matches with Corey Graves. Now it appears that WWE is moving ahead with the project, as a casting call has been posted at Backstage.com with the following description:
PRODUCTION DESCRIPTION: WWE NXT is casting a pilot for a new wrestling show aimed at kids.REHEARSAL AND PRODUCTION DATES & LOCATIONS: Production will be taking place monthly on Thursday nights at Full Sail University in Orlando, FL.
SEEKING TALENT: Males & Females, ages 7-14, All Ethnicities
ROLE DESCRIPTION: Announcers & Interviewers: (Supporting) with high energy. Must be personable, lively, quick on their feet and a good talker. Kids should have an understanding/familiarity with WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment programming. Kids will be acting as announcers/backstage interviewers/presenters.
NXT star Sami Zayn is confirmed to appear at both the EVOLVE 49 and EVOLVE 50 iPPV shows in New York this coming weekend.
The announcement came courtesy of EVOLVE booker Gabe Sapolsky, who broke the news on social media and then proceeded to publicly credit Triple H for being a man of his word and helping support the independent wrestling scene. Sapolsky and Zayn also shared a brief back-and-forth.
This is said to be part of W#WE’s new working relationship with WWN Live.
Below is the reaction from Sapolsky and Zayn on Twitter.
Cesaro recently spoke with Upvoted.com to promote WWE and NXT. Here are some highlights:
On the “Cesaro Section” trend:
“The first time I saw the Cesaro section was a couple years ago in Nashville and it was very cool. Since then, it has become even stronger. My favorite part about it is that it came organically and was the fans’ initiative in support of me which is very humbling and makes me proud. It is something that connects me with the fans and motivates me to keep doing what I’m doing.
I was not expecting that huge show of support [at the San Jose RAW taping] because it kind of slowed down at one point. After my two matches with John Cena it started to gain momentum again. When I walked out for the MIZ TV segment it was crazy and there were Cesaro Section signs everywhere—which was one of the coolest feelings I have had since joining WWE. After that, it just kept growing with more and more cities picking it up.”
His favorite wrestlers to work with:
“There are a lot of Superstars I love being in the ring with. I tend to have great chemistry with whomever I step in the ring with because of the way I train and came up in this business. If I had to name a few, I would say people like Sheamus, Kevin Owens, and John Cena are all great guys to be in the ring with.”
On NXT’s popularity, and his match with Sami Zayn at Arrival:
I would like to think it had some type of influence [on NXT’s popularity]. It was an honor to be the first match on the first live WWE Network special. That is something nobody can take away from me and it was a huge milestone I was involved in. That is something I am very proud of and is part of my “body of work” as Dream would say. It has helped make me who I am today, and it is definitely one of my favorite matches I have been a part of in WWE.