– It looks like the upcoming WWE Clash of Champions pay-per-view may see WWE United States Champion Baron Corbin defend against Bobby Roode. Tonight’s WWE SmackDown saw Roode issue a challenge to Corbin but Corbin turned him down. Below is video from that segment:
– Tonight’s SmackDown also saw WWE Champion AJ Styles defeat The Singh Brothers in a 2-on-1 Handicap Match, despite a pre-match attack from Jinder Mahal. Styles tweeted the following after the match and commented on his upcoming match with Jinder at WWE Clash of Champions:
Tried beating me 3 on 1… Couldn’t do it 2 on 1…. …And at #WWEClash you will NEVER beat me 1 on 1. #Phenomenal#SDLive
– Ruby Riot revealed on tonight’s SmackDown that her stable with Sarah Logan and Liv Morgan will be called The Riott Squad. The trio later defeated Naomi and SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair after Natalya walked out on her partners. As seen below, Naomi was stretchered out after being double teamed by Liv and Logan.
– Below is video of WWE United States Champion Baron Corbin arriving for his match with WWE Intercontinental Champion The Miz at tonight’s Survivor Series pay-per-view. Corbin says Miz is a professional talker but he also believes every dumb thing he says. Corbin says unfortunately for Miz, the bell will ring tonight and everyone will find out what Maryse already knows – Miz is all talk.
– The recent WWE NXT Women’s Title vacancy was the longest vacancy in company history since WWE began recognizing their own champions in 1963. As noted, Ember Moon defeated Kairi Sane, Peyton Royce and Nikki Cross to win the vacant title at NXT “Takeover: WarGames” last night.
– As noted, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn will be working the Survivor Series Kickoff pre-show tonight in a match against Breezango. Owens tweeted the following reaction to the announcement, plugging his WWE 365 episode that airs after the pay-per-view:
– Below is a new preview for tonight’s WWE 365 premiere on the WWE Network after Survivor Series goes off the air. As noted, the premiere episode will focus on Kevin Owens.
– WWE United States Champion Baron Corbin and WWE Intercontinental Champion The Miz took to Twitter and wrote the following on their big champion vs. champion match at Survivor Series:
Every accolade is a trophy. Every title is a paycheck.
Next month at Survivor Series, Intercontinental Champion The Miz will face United States Champion Baron Corbin as part of the event’s RAW vs. SmackDown theme.
The two champions have been exchanging trash talking promos on social media, with Miz getting the upper hand (to put it mildly) in the first round.
On Tuesday afternoon, Corbin fired back with more comments about Miz’s pregnant wife Maryse. Corbin says Miz had to bring Maryse out of retirement to make himself relevant and after Survivor Series, Miz will be left battered and beaten and will the one calling him “daddy.”
Miz, your move.
WWE Survivor Series takes place on Sunday, November 19th from Houston, TX.
Next month at Survivor Series, Intercontinental Champion The Miz will face United States Champion Baron Corbin as part of the event’s RAW vs. SmackDown theme.
After last week’s #UnderSiege SmackDown invasion of RAW, Baron Corbin posted a video on Twitter bragging about their surprise attack on the RAW roster. He also made reference to his “little wife” Maryse, which was not a great idea in hindsight.
Later today, WWE COO Triple H is returning to action at the SmackDown brand’s live event from Santiago, Chile. He’s filling in for AJ Styles and Kevin Owens, who both left WWE’s tour of South America early. Styles will be competing tonight against Finn Balor at the RAW brand’s TLC pay-per-view while Owens returned home for personal reasons.
WWE United States Champion Baron Corbin has commented on the news of Triple H lacing up his boots for the first time since WrestleMania 33.
Pick a fight you can win! Just a hint though, I would stay away from the United States champion.
– Per a report from Solo Wrestling, AJ Styles missed WWE’s live event in Argentina due to a stomach illness. He is, however, expected to wrestle at tonight’s (Fri. October 20, 2017) live event in Buenos Aires.
– WWE Superstar Baron Corbin was recently interviewed by News 1330 in Abbotsford, BC where they discussed Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Corbin noted that his wife is Puerto Rican and her entire family (except her parents) live on the islands. “The Lone Wolf” revealed that they have flown in her grandmothers and are hoping to fly in the rest of her family soon:
“It took us almost three weeks to get in touch with her grandfather,” Corbin said. “He lives up in the woods so there was no cell service, no power. Her aunt couldn’t drive up there because the roads were all blocked.
“That’s the hard part of this job… sometimes you’re away from home when there’s real things are going on. It’s just a very difficult situation. We flew her grandmothers in on Wednesday — so that was a relief to have them here with us and hopefully we’re getting the rest of her family out of there this week.”
Tuesday’s post-Hell in a Cell edition of SmackDown Live drew 2,467,000 viewers, a healthy increase from 2,323,000 last week.
The show featured new United States Champion Baron Corbin retaining over AJ Styles in the main event, the fallout of Sami Zayn aligning with Kevin Owens and Randy Orton teaming up with Shinsuke Nakamura.
SmackDown was #4 in viewership for this week on cable, behind Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Rachel Maddow. SmackDown was #2 in the 18-49 demographic, behind American Horror Story.
By comparison, Monday’s RAW drew 2.871 million viewers, up from last week’s 2.773 million viewers.
– Former WWE United States Champion AJ Styles wants a rematch. Baron Corbon captured the title at Sunday night’s Hell in a Cell pay-per-view by defeating Styles and Tye Dillinger in a triple threat match.
Styles appeared on Talking Smack after HIAC and gave his pitch that he should be entitled to a rematch since Corbin pinned Tye Dillinger to win the gold, not him.
Meanwhile, Corbin taunted Styles and all the “crybabies out there” after his victory:
– Following last night’s (Sun. October 8, 2017) Hell In A Cell pay-per-view (PPV), The New Day were unsuccessful in defending their SmackDown Live Tag Team Championships against The Usos inside Hell In A Cell.
After the match, Xavier Woods took to Instagram to show off his battle scars from the grizzly match. Check it out here:
Former WWE Superstar Sean “X-Pac” Waltman recently appeared on the WZ Daily podcast and commented on The Bullet Club “invading” last week’s RAW, WWE serving the Young Bucks with a Cease and Desist order and SmackDown Superstar Baron Corbin.
Here are the highlights of what Waltman said about:
Bullet Club’s “Invasion” of RAW drawing a cease & desist letter from WWE:
“I’m not surprised by this and I still think it was worth it. I’ll probably get heat for saying that. The truth is those guys are way more than a hand gesture that they co-opted from someone else. They are just as fine without those things.”
Baron Corbin being the #1 contender to AJ Styles‘ United States Championship:
“I think he has a lot of upside but they just tried to go with him a little too soon, maybe. I’m a fan of his.”
Court Bauer also commented on Corbin, stating that he thinks the Lone Wolf’s character is stale and needs more depth.
“I think he needs to be repackaged. I think he looks a little vanilla. His face and the way he registers things doesn’t really do much for me. Would face paint help? Would a new persona help? I don’t know. Would a manager help? Definitely. Somebody to get you invested in his matches, yes, that could possibly help.”
“Just Baron Corbin as Baron Corbin, what is that? We used to do this thing at WWE, it was an exercise, where if you can’t describe a guy’s persona in one sentence then something is not working here. I’m like, ‘What is that?’”
United States Championship match announced for Hell in a Cell
Baron Corbin faced Tye Dillinger tonight on SmackDown. United States Champion AJ Styles came down and joined commentary for the match. Towards the end of the match, Dillinger connected with a kick that sent Corbin to the floor next to the announce table. Corbin grabbed a cup of water on the announce table and threw it in AJ’s face. Corbin then launched Tye Dillinger into Styles and both Superstars crashed to the floor next to the announce table. Corbin quickly got back into the ring and won the match via count-out.
After the match, Corbin grabbed a microphone and said that he wasn’t taking any more short cuts. He challenged AJ Styles to a match at WWE Hell in a Cell on October 8th. The match was then made official and AJ Styles will defend his United States Championship against Baron Corbin at WWE Hell in a Cell.
Updated WWE Hell in a Cell 2017 Card:
Hell in a Cell Match
Shane McMahon vs. Kevin Owens
WWE Championship
Jinder Mahal (c) vs Shinsuke Nakamura
SmackDown Women’s Championship
Natalya (c) vs Charlotte Flair
United States Championship
AJ Styles (c) vs Baron Corbin
SmackDown Tag Team Championship Hell in a Cell Match
After strong viewership for this week’s “Sin City” edition of SmackDown Live, WWE is looking to keep the momentum going with a big title match just announced for next week.
United States Champion AJ Styles will defend the gold against Baron Corbin next Tuesday night. The announcement was made Thursday afternoon in a video hosted by Cathy Kelley.
Styles and Corbin have been at odds for weeks. On this week’s show, Corbin got involved in Styles’ title defense against Tye Dillinger. The interference was blocked, but after the match, Corbin laid Styles out with End of Days and told the Phenomenal One he’ll be answering the US ‘Open Challenge’ next week. Now, it’s official.
It was reported earlier this month that former “Mr. Money In The Bank” Baron Corbin’s heat backstage with WWE officials stemmed from an argument he got into with Dr. Joseph Maroon during a wrestler’s meeting. Per a report from a recent edition of Wrestling Observer Newsletter, something “The Lone Wolf” said during that argument could have further affected his push within the company.
Corbin is a former National Football League (NFL) player who played offensive line for both the Indianapolis Colts and Arizona Cardinals. He didn’t take too well to Dr. Maroon attempting to downplay the connection between CTE and concussions, which sparked an argument between the two. The exchange was said to be ‘awkward’ and ‘uncomfortable,’ and many walked away from the situation believing that Corbin should have spoken to Maroon about the issue in private rather than in the middle of the meeting.
It’s also said to be likely that WWE officials became even more uncomfortable with the situation when they found out that Corbin was involved in a huge concussion lawsuit against the NFL, something they didn’t become aware of until this month. Prior to all of this, Corbin was on his way to a guaranteed WWE Championship run after winning the Money In The Bank briefcase this past summer. His cash-in attempt on WWE Champion Jinder Mahal was a failure, however, and he later moved on to a match with John Cena at SummerSlam that didn’t really catch fans’ interest.
Corbin has also taken heat for comments he has made on Twitter towards fans and fellow professional wrestlers, including an army veteran who he later apologized to. While he may no longer be in the WWE Title picture, it seems as though a run at the United States Title, currently held by AJ Styles, is next for “The Lone Wolf.”
Much has been said about the reason why WWE officials got upset with Baron Corbin which resulted in the company pulling the plug on his push and making him lose the Money In the Bank contract.
First, it was reported that the way Corbin performed on the mic during his confrontations with John Cena and his twitter battles were the reason why Officials lost their faith in the former NXT Star.
Later, it was said that Cena spoke negatively about Corbin saying that he wasn’t ready, which is why Officials nixed whatever they had previously planned for him.
However, a new report indicates that none of these were the primary reason for Corbin’ heat and it was a backstage incident which made Officials angry.
Dave Meltzer of F4Wonline wrote the following on his message board, indicating that a backstage incident is the reason for Baron’s heat and it was so serious that it could have gotten him fired if it wasn’t for Vince McMahon:
“Only thing I can say is that there was an incident, it wasn’t anything reported, nothing in the ring, not related to Twitter or talent, and they changed booking plans. He’ll be fine. Vince loves him. If not, he’d have been fired.”
While Meltzer didn’t open up about the incident, there is a story going around which involves a backstage meeting involving WWE head Doctor Joseph Maroon.
During the meeting, Baron Corbin allegedly interrupted him several times in disagreement about Joseph’s opinion on CTE. While this story is not confirmed, the belief is that the Lone Wolf should have talked to Maroon in private instead of disagreeing with him in front of the WWE roster, and it’s allegedly the reason why the company pushed him down on the cards.
– Charlotte Flair will return to SmackDown Live next Tuesday night. She’s been off television for several weeks while her father Ric recovers from surgery and is returning to live events this weekend.
A setback is a setup for a comeback ?? ? Baton Rouge, LA Sat. Monroe, LA Sun. Texarkana, AR Mon. Little Rock, AR #SDLivepic.twitter.com/NlqqHkoE7Y
– Enzo Amore will be ringside for tonight’s big Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor fight from Las Vegas. He posted this video on Instagram showing off his $10,000 ticket:
AJ Styles and Kevin Owens have been feuding with each other over the United States title for a while now, though now it appears that Owens will be moving away from the title picture soon.
According to Wrestling Observer Newsletter, WWE has plans for Baron Corbin to have a rivalry with Styles for the coveted Championship in the upcoming time.
This is said to be one of the reasons why Corbin was made a special guest referee during the United States Championship match at SmackDown Live this week.
Regarding Kevin, Shane McMahon had stated that his match this past Tuesday would be Owens’ last opportunity to capture the United States title as long as AJ is the champion.
So it’s expected that the former Universal Champion will be moving away from the US title picture and he will be entering his rumored feud with Shane McMahon in the upcoming time.
Per Observer, the rivalry between the SmackDown Commissioner and the former Raw star is expected to lead to a Team Owens vs Team Shane match at the Survivor Series PPV.
Though it’s worth mentioning here that due to the repetitive reports of Baron Corbin having backstage heat, it’s hard to believe that Corbin would actually be winning the belt.
Instead, he appears to be a challenger for the former WWE Champion’s title until WWE decides to put the belt on someone else.
Officials were reportedly upset with Corbin due to his twitter battle with people like Dave Meltzer and Mojo Rawley.
He also got involved in a fight with a fan on Twitter who later revealed that he was a military person and the whole incident went against him as well.
It was said that all this and his poor performance on the mic during his interactions with John Cena made officials lose faith in Baron and it resulted in his push coming to an end.
However, now it appears that a long time WWE Superstar’s comments were also one of the reasons why WWE decided to pull the plug on the former NXT Star.
Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated recently appeared on the WrestlingInc Podcast where he revealed that John Cena actually told officials that Corbin wasn’t ready:
“I heard the kiss of death was Cena, [Cena said] that Corbin wasn’t ready. I can’t say any more right now, that’s kind of what I’m trying to work on as we speak.”
While the Wrestling Journalist didn’t open up much about what Cena said, it has previously been reported that the similar thing happened with Dolph Ziggler.
In an interview, former WWE writer Kevin Eck had revealed that John wasn’t impressed with the performance of Ziggler during their initial feud which is a reason why WWE never pushed him to the Main Event level.
Since The Leader Of Cenation is one of the top stars in the company, the reports that WWE halted Baron Corbin’s push due to his negative comments, seem believable.
There has been a lot of speculation as of late that Baron Corbin has some heat backstage with WWE officials.
Corbin cashed in his WWE Money In The Bank contract on SmackDown Live last week in a losing effort, before suffering a loss to John Cena at SummerSlam this past weekend (Sun. August 20, 2017). In the clip below from WWE’s official YouTube channel, Corbin’s entrance was notably left out of the video highlighting he and Cena’s match:
“The Lone Wolf’s” heat reportedly stems from some comments he made on Twitter, which include some he made to a military veteran (which he later apologized for). SmackDown Live producer and former WWE Superstar Road Dogg took to Twitter to comment on Corbin’s loss to Cena, attempting to downplay the defeat and what it means for him going forward:
SmackDown Live star Baron Corbin isn’t shying away from speculation that he’s in the WWE dog house.
After winning a Money in the Bank briefcase back in June, Corbin has been making headlines in recent weeks for his Twitter tirades. At one point, he got into it with Mojo Rawley online, with Rawley getting the final word in that exchange.
Corbin later talked trash to Dave Meltzer for being critical of him, arguing that Meltzer had no right to judge his work since Meltzer never wrestled a match. That argument doesn’t hold a lot of water, but the real damage was done when Corbin was responding to fans who defended Meltzer.
Twitter user @GetUpMike (Mike Gilbert) told Corbin that Dave Meltzer is more respected in wrestling than he’ll ever be. Corbin called the guy a loser, but Gilbert revealed that he’s a 14 year veteran of the US Airforce and served two tours of Afghanistan. Whoops.
Last week, Baron Corbin cashed in his MITB contract only to lose the impromptu title match to Jinder Mahal in one of the shortest matches in WWE history. At SummerSlam, Corbin decisively to John Cena in a match that left a lot of people with the impression that the company is souring on him and he’s being buried.
On the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Radio reviewing SummerSlam, Dave Meltzer made it clear: “He’s definitely being punished.” Losing a match, especially to John Cena, is not by itself an ominous sign. But Cena openly mocked Corbin during the match and it was clear by the booking that Corbin was not being protected. Meltzer speculated that he wouldn’t be surprised to see former NXT Champion Bobby Roode get called up to SmackDown and take Corbin’s spot as one of the top heels on the brand.
Baron Corbin attempted to cash in his Money in the Bank contract on this past Tuesday’s episode of SmackDown. John Cena was facing Jinder Mahal in the main event. Cena had the match won after hitting an Attitude Adjustment off the second rope, but Corbin sprinted to the ring and attacked Cena. Corbin then tried to cash in his MITB contract but got distracted by Cena on the ring apron. Corbin punched Cena off the ring apron, but Mahal rolled him up from behind and retained the WWE Championship.
Tonight, Baron Corbin will face off against John Cena. WWE uploaded a video of Corbin backstage in the Barclays Center. Corbin stated that he wants to hurt and embarrass John Cena tonight at WWE SummerSlam.
Samoa Joe wants to shock the world
Samoa Joe will be competing in a Fatal 4-Way match tonight for the Universal Championship against Brock Lesnar, Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman. WWE uploaded a video of Joe backstage and Joe stated that he is ready to shock the world tonight and become the new Universal Champion.
Big Show says nothing
Big Show will be facing Big Cass at SummerSlam tonight. Enzo Amore will be suspended in a shark cage during the match. On Monday’s RAW, Big Cass slammed the cage door on Big Show’s hand while Gallows and Anderson held him down. Big Show was asked how his injured hand will hurt him in the match tonight and Big Show simply stared at the camera and then walked away.
It’s safe to say that Baron Corbin’s failed Money In The Bank cash in is one the most surprising events we have seen on WWE Programming in a while and there are all sorts of things being said about why it happened.
We noted before how Dave Meltzer indicated that performing poorly on the mic during his verbal battles with Cena caused Officials to lose faith in the former Mr Money In The Bank.
Now a new report has shed some more light on the situation and it reveals that the former NXT Star also has some backstage heat for his recent actions.
Bryan Alvarez discussed this week’s episode of SmackDown Live on the latest instalment of Wrestling Observer Live and revealed that Corbin actually has some heat too due to his actions on twitter.
Baron has been involved in verbal battles with multiple persons on Twitter in the past few weeks. The names he has exchanged words with include Mojo Rawley, Nikki Bella, Dave Meltzer himself and more.
Below you can see some of the recent tweets from the SmackDown Star which may have contributed in the officials’ distress:
During his battle with Meltzer, Corbin also took a shot on a fan over his profile. The fan later revealed he was a military person and Meltzer noted that the whole incident didn’t help Corbin either:
Respected by who. Losers like you with a profile pic in a high school gym Indy show.
Overall it can be said that it wasn’t just one thing but a number of events which resulted in Officials losing faith in Baron Corbin and led to him becoming the third star to cash in the Money In The Bank and lose.
– As seen on SmackDown, Baron Corbin cashed in his Money In the Bank briefcase but was defeated by WWE Champion Jinder Mahal. In this SmackDown Fallout video, Jinder and The Singh Brothers reacting to Corbin’s cash . Jinder says he will go on to SummerSlam to defeat Shinsuke Nakamura, the same way he almost beat John Cena on SmackDown.
Speaking of Corbin, WWE.com is running a poll asking fans if it was a mistake for him to cash in last night. As of this writing, 75% voted, “Yes. Corbin got too anxious. Although Jinder Mahal was vulnerable, there were too many variables in play.” The rest went with, “No. Corbin went with his gut and tried to take advantage of a vulnerable champion, just like every successful Mr. Money in the Bank before him.”
– Ahead of Sunday’s WWE SummerSlam pay-per-view, Sasha Banks trained at Amazing Red’s House of Glory wrestling school in Ridgewood, NY on Tuesday.
WWE posted this video of The Boss visiting with the former TNA X Division Champion:
– Lana made it known on last night’s SmackDown that she plans to use her “ravishing ways” to guide Tamina Snuka to the SmackDown Women’s Championship. Lana tweeted the following and stated that she plans to continue wrestling.
I took @RusevBUL to the top. Now I'll make history by being the 1st woman to manage another woman & take @TaminaSnuka to the top #SDLive
Don't worry, I will never stop training to be a wrestler because I love wrestling but I also want to make other women great that deserve it https://t.co/04NIHx8Q9N
It was a surprising moment for fans when Baron Corbin decided to cash in his Money In The Bank contract just 5 days prior to SummerSlam PPV and almost nobody expected him to lose.
After his unsuccessful cash in, Corbin became the third superstar in WWE History to win the Money In The Bank but fail to win the title after John Cena and Damien Sandow.
This led to a lot of rumours about why WWE rushed the cash in just 5 days before the upcoming PPV and more importantly why they called for Corbin to lose the match in such a quick manner.
Many believed he may be injured or have some backstage heat. Though now Dave Meltzer has revealed a completely different reason behind the surprising decision.
A fan jokingly asked Meltzer on twitter if the heated verbal exchange between him and Corbin was the reason why Baron lost his Championship match, replying to which he revealed that John Cena and Mojo Rawley are the reason behind it:
While Dave didn’t open up much about the issue, another report from Cage Side Seats shed some more light on how the two mentioned stars were responsible for it.
According to it, Officials lost faith in the Money In The Bank winner because he couldn’t stand in the verbal battle against John Cena. His twitter rant with fellow SmackDown roster member Mojo Rawley only contributed to Official’s distress.
While it’s widely believed that Corbin wasn’t ready to hold the WWE title, it’s also true that there were many other ways to take the contract away from him and the quick defeat which added nothing to any of the involving star’s profile could have been avoided.
We expect to receive some more updates on Baron Corbin’s failed cash in, in the next few days and we’ll keep you posted as new details come to light.
WWE Champion Jinder Mahal faced John Cena in the main-event of this week’s episode of SmackDown. During the match, the Singh Brothers got tossed out from ringside as they kept interfering in the match. Cena then dominated the rest of the match and connected with an Attitude Adjustment. Mahal kicked out, but Cena connected with another Attitude Adjustment off the second rope and had the match won.
Baron Corbin attacked Cena during the pinfall and the match was over. Corbin was about to leave but stopped on the entrance ramp. Mahal was still down in the ring after the Attitude Adjustment from Cena. Corbin cashed in his MITB contract and waited as referee Mike Chioda checked on Mahal to see if he was ready for the match to start.
The bell finally rung and Corbin punched Cena who was on the ring apron. Mahal then quickly rolled up Corbin for the victory. You can check out Corbin’s failed attempt at cashing in the MITB contract in the video below.
