– While they did not appear in the ring during tonight’s RAW from Minneapolis, Rusev and WWE US Champion Roman Reigns worked the post-show dark main event. Reigns won the match. The two will face off at Sunday’s Hell In a Cell PPV inside the Cell.
Two dark main events took place after tonight’s RAW in Denver – Rusev vs. WWE United States Champion Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins vs. WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens.
Reigns won his match with a spear and Superman punch while Rollins won his match via DQ when Chris Jericho interfered. Rollins closed the show with a Pedigree on Owens and celebrated with fans to close the show. Rollins vs. Owens went more than 15 minutes.
After RAW, Owens and Rollins fought for the title, Jericho came down for the DQ and Owens put Y2J's scarf on before this finish pic.twitter.com/cbUAxXVTn1
Roman Reigns will defend his United States Championship against Rusev inside Hell in a Cell later this month. The match was made on RAW after Lana issued the challenge to Reigns on behalf of her husband. Reigns told Lana to have Rusev issue the challenge to his face, which brought out the Bulgarian Brute. The two men brawled, with Rusev ultimately getting the upper hand. Rusev took possession of the United States championship and held it high on the stage, but Reigns snuck up from behind and laid him out with a Superman punch. Reigns accepted the challenge of Lana and Rusev, but said the match will take place inside the demonic structure in less than 4 weeks.
The RAW brand’s Hell in a Cell pay-per-view takes place on Sunday, October 30th from Boston, MA.
Roman Reigns became the new WWE United States Champion at tonight’s WWE Clash of Champions PPV. He defeated Rusev, who won the title back at Extreme Rules.
.@LanaWWE pulls the referee out of the ring to stop a pinfall, he sends her back to the locker room instead of a DQ! #WWEClashpic.twitter.com/moHU6HBaqj
Lana recently spoke with CraveOnline to promote WWE Studios’ “Interrogation” movie with Hall of Famer Edge and expressed interest in getting back in the ring. After wrestling her first match earlier this year at WrestleMania 32, Lana says she’d love to wrestle again – when the time is right.
“It was always a dream for me to do my debut match at WrestleMania and people would laugh at me. People would laugh at me all the time for my crazy ideas. Reach for the stars and at the very least, you will get the moon and so I would say my first match is going to be at WrestleMania and people would laugh at me and sure enough it happened. So right now I’ve been filming a lot of things for Total Divas and focusing on my weddings so when all of that passes, I’m sure you will see a lot more of me in the ring.”
She also commented on her experience joining the cast of Total Divas. “You can expect ratings to go through the roof with Lana on TV,” she joked. “We’re manifesting to be the highest rated season yet. I have had an incredible experience. It has been so fun being on Total Divas. I have got a lot closer to the girls. I guess it’s the Russian side of me that takes me a long time to get close to people. It took about two and a half years for me to finally make friends with some of these girls.”
Lana said it’s going to be a unique opportunity for WWE fans to see what she and Rusev are like outside of WWE. “You’ll see his humor, you’ll see my in-ring debut, and the challenges I faced with ‘Do I valet or do I wrestle?’ You’ll see a lot of stuff of us preparing for the wedding and you will learn a lot more about what has defined me. Lana is an extension of myself.”
Roman Reigns vs. WWE United States Champion Rusev was just made official for 9/25 WWE Clash of Champions PPV from Indianapolis. Here’s the updated card for Sunday:
WWE Universal Championship Match: Kevin Owens (c) vs. Seth Rollins
RAW Women’s Championship Match: Charlotte (c) vs. Sasha Banks
RAW Tag Team Championship Match: The New Day (c) vs. Gallows & Anderson
WWE US Championship Match: Rusev (c) vs. Roman Reigns
Lana recently spoke with the WWE website to discuss her and Rusev’s traditional Bulgarian wedding ceremony. For those following the story, you know Rusev and Lana were first married on a beach in Malibu, California before heading to Rusev’s native country for the traditional ceremony. Lana says the two weddings were completely different.
“My dad, who is also a minister, led the [beach] ceremony, but it was not a traditional ceremony versus the Bulgarian one, which was in an Orthodox church and everything was very traditional,” she said. “I also learned very quickly that Rusev doesn’t know all his traditions; it’s really his mother that knows all the traditions. So I quickly had to learn them if we wanted to carry them on.”
Lana and Rusev honeymooned in Sychelles and Dubai, which she called fantastic.
WWE Superstars Naomi and Natalya were on hand for the Bulgarian wedding, serving as Lana’s bridesmaids. Footage will air on the upcoming season of Total Divas. “I was really excited to have them there and you actually see how Natalya has been such a big mentor to me,” Lana said.
“You’ll see throughout the entire season how she helps me plan my wedding. I’m so glad she was there in Bulgaria, because some of the traditions were hard for me to accept and go through, but she helped me [learn] to let things go and not worry. That was really cool for me, because I’ve become really close friends with them. I’m really glad they got to be there and witness all these crazy Bulgarian traditions. I’m really excited for the WWE Universe to see it.”
She gushed that Rusev is “such a special person” and loves the Bulgarian traditions.
– Luke Harper is back at the WWE Performance Center this week as he tries to get cleared to return to the ring. Harper spent all of last week at the Performance Center doing rehab work.
– WWE United States Champion Rusev and wife Lana are scheduled to return to WWE action at the 9/24 house show in Chicago. They are then scheduled for the 9/25 Clash of Champions pay-per-view in Chicago but we have not heard confirmation on Rusev defending. Rusev was not joking when he tweeted about having a 20+ day honeymoon. Here’s the latest from their honeymoon:
– WWE recently applied to register the trademark “Skull King” for performance use. The company applied for trademarks of the same name back in 2014 but only for merchandise use.
– It looks like Lana and WWE US Champion Rusev may be off RAW for even longer than originally expected. After their traditional wedding ceremony in Bulgaria over the weekend, the happy couple flew to Dubai for their honeymoon. Based on the following tweet from Rusev, they’ll be enjoying their honeymoon for the next 3 weeks.
– Below are recent episodes of “Rock The Promo” from The Rock’s YouTube channel, featuring guest judges Tommy Dreamer, Christian, Shane Helms and Rey Mysterio. Kurt Angle and Vickie Guerrero previously appeared as judges.
WWE Superstars Rusev and Lana were married once again on Friday in Bulgaria, native country of the United States champion.
Rusev and Lana’s first wedding was in July on a beach in Malibu, California. Like the first wedding, Total Divas were on hand for today’s traditional Bulgarian ceremony. Footage will air this fall when Total Divas returns for its sixth season.
As a result of the travel associated with the Bulgarian wedding, Rusev and Lana missed Monday’s RAW from Houston, Texas. They’ll also be taking off next week’s overseas tour, which includes stops in London, England, Manila, Philippines and Shanghai, China.
Check out these photos and video from Rusev and Lana’s Bulgarian wedding:
– Rusev and Lana are heading to Bulgaria next week for their second wedding ceremony, so they won’t be at RAW. The first wedding took place on a beach in Malibu, California back in July. Footage from the wedding will be shown on the upcoming season of Total Divas.
This private ceremony will be for their friends and family. Additionally, Rusev and Lana will not be part of the RAW brand’s overseas tour next week, which will include stops in London, Manila and Shanghai.
– SmackDown General Manager Daniel Bryan will be Jonathan Coachman’s guest tonight on ESPN SportsCenter.
– Insane Championship Wrestling has announced Noam Dar will be making his final appearance for the promotion on Sunday, September 11th from Glasgow, Scotland. Dar is expected to be part of the RAW brand’s new Cruiserweight Division, which launches the following week (9/19).
– In addition to Mark Henry, WWE Hall of Famer Gerald Brisco was also in Rio for the Olympics representing WWE this summer. Brisco was there to scout wrestlers for WWE.
– WWE has announced that their first Chinese acquisition Bin Wang will make his in-ring debut at the 9/10 WWE house show in Shanghai, China. He will be facing Bo Dallas. Below is a photo of the two facing off in NYC this weekend and a hype video from Triple H:
– WWE has really upped the number of mainstream sponsorships as of late. Below is the full KFC segment with Dolph Ziggler and The Miz, Miz in a new ad for Domino’s Pizza and a Sami Zayn “Resilience” vignette for Mercury Insurance:
– WWE’s website reports that Rusev suffered bruised ribs at the hands of Roman Reigns during their brawl at SummerSlam on Sunday, according to the WWE ringside doctors. The WWE United States Champion worked RAW last night but had his ribs taped up.
– WWE taped Jinder Mahal vs. Jack Swagger and Golden Truth vs. Curtis Axel & Bo Dallas on Monday night in Brooklyn for this week’s Superstars episode.
– Following his win over Sami Zayn at last night’s RAW, Seth Rollins cut a promo for the live fans inside the Barclays Center. Video is above. Rollins takes shots at the fans for their rejection of the Universal Championship on Sunday and at the injured Finn Balor. Rollins says Balor may have won the battle but Rollins won the war and will go on to win the championship next week.
WWE United States Champion Rusev and Lana were married on Friday evening on the beach in Malibu, California. Footage of the wedding will be featured on the upcoming Season 6 of Total Divas, when the Ravishing Russian joins the cast.
Many WWE an NXT personalities were on hand for the intimate ceremony, including the Bella Twins, Renee Young, Natalya, Veronica Lane and Devin Taylor. Here are photos from Lana and Rusev’s wedding, congrats to the happy couple!
– Lana and Rusev recently revealed to BCSN in Orlando that their weddings will take place on July 29th (in the US) and September 2nd (in Bulgaria). The first ceremony will feature the celebrities and will be filmed for Total Divas while the second ceremony will be a traditional Bulgarian wedding, but will also be taped for Total Divas.
– Finn Balor was at WWE HQ filming material last week. No word yet on what exactly he was filming but that adds to the speculation that he’s getting called to the main roster soon.
– WWE recently applied to trademark “Intercontinental Champion” for toys & action figures and clothing & merchandise.
– Tyson Kidd, who has been out of action with a neck injury for just over one year, recently confirmed on Twitter that he will not be on the upcoming season of Total Divas:
WWE United States Champion Rusev will defend his title against Zack Ryder on Monday’s RAW from the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. This comes after Rusev retained over Titus O’Neil this week.
On a related note, Ryder is debuting a new theme song on this week’s SmackDown. He revealed the change on Twitter:
– In a correction from earlier, Monday’s WWE US Title Match on the 7/4 RAW will feature Rusev defending against Titus O’Neil, not Cesaro.
– Ric Flair and Eric Bischoff will host a panel on WCW at the Montreal Comic-Con 7/9. Details are below:
Montreal Comiccon is happy to bring wrestling fans Face Off: Bischoff vs Flair and the fall of WCW. For the first time on stage Eric Bischoff and Ric Flair discuss the rise and Fall of WCW. How they brought the fight to WWE? Why did they lose the Monday Night War? What happened between them? What do they think about Vince Russo jumping ship? Be there as the two time hall-of-famer Nature Boy Ric Flair face off with his former boss, the man who brought to life the NWO and most controversial man in wrestling Eric Bischoff. It will be as explosive as WCW Monday Nitro! An event not to be missed, on Saturday, July 9 at 7:00 p.m.!
– Below is behind-the-scenes video from The Bella Twins’ new Latina magazine shoot:
– WWE has announced that Rusev will defend the United States Championship against Cesaro this coming Monday when RAW takes place from Columbus, Ohio. Monday is July 4th and the holiday show could see RAW’s rating finally dip below 2.0.
– The Wyatt Family was scheduled to speak with Jonathan Coachman on last night’s ESPN SportsCenter “Off The Top Rope” segment but the interview has been delayed due to coverage of coaches Buddy Ryan and Pat Summitt passing away. Coachman noted the interview should air next Tuesday.
– WWE posted this video of Tajiri and William Regal reuniting at the Cruiserweight Classic:
– Rusev and Lana are still scheduled to have two weddings this year, according to TMZ. The first will be held on a beach in Malibu this July and will be filmed for Total Divas. Lana’s bridesmaids will include actresses Brittany Snow and Kelley Jakle. The second wedding will be held in September at a 1,000 year old monastery in Bulgaria as Rusev felt it was important to get married in front of family.
– It looks like Enzo Amore is working on new music as he posted the following this past week:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BF17yTKLXsM/
– Xavier Woods’ “UpUpDownDown” YouTube page posted this clip of Tyler Breeze and Byron Saxton playing ping-pong:
– With the WWE brand extension taking place in just over a month, there’s obviously a ton of planning that’s taking place behind the scenes. One thing that appears to be decided on is that SmackDown will run live events Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays during RAW. SmackDown performers will end their weeks on Tuesday nights after the live taping.
– Rusev and Lana’s wedding is currently scheduled for September 2nd. The wedding will likely be filmed for Total Divas, , according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
– Taz was interviewed for Sports Illustrated’s Extra Mustard blog this week to discuss Seth Rollins’ return to WWE, this summer’s brand extension and more. Taz hosts a popular daily radio show (not a podcast!) on CBS Radio and revealed that he had talks with WWE about bringing the show to the WWE Network
“People tell me every week that ‘The Taz Show’ would be great on the WWE Network,” Taz told Sports Illustrated. “They had interest in it and we did have talks with them. The talks didn’t go far, but you have to understand that my bosses [at CBS Radio] are not going to allow my content to be tweaked or tainted with, and the show is not the show with me having a filter. The show is the show because it’s unfiltered. I’m speaking from the heart and giving my true opinion. That doesn’t mean I’m right–I’m just giving my opinion built on three decades of experience in every facet of the wrestling business. My opinion is formed off experience, and I don’t think WWE wants that, at least not to that degree. I criticize their booking a lot, but I also praise their booking a lot. I sometimes promote their brand better than their announcers do.
The WWE Network is an online, video-streaming network, and that is exactly what I am on with CBS. I don’t need to be on WWE’s network. It would be awesome to bring ‘The Taz Show’ there, but I don’t fall in line. I’ve never fell in line, and Vince [McMahon] knows that. I wouldn’t bash their content if I was on their network, but I would critique it. I don’t think they want that, but that’s exactly what their network needs. Someone on their show sometimes takes a shot at the internet hardcore fan, but that’s who is paying for the WWE Network–the internet wrestling fan. So why not give them a real unfiltered show? So it’s one of those things where we talked a couple of times, but it never really took off. Maybe it eventually will.”
Check out the full interview with Taz over at SI.com.
Thursday’s WWE Smackown will see a rematch from Extreme Rules as new WWE US Champion Rusev defends against Kalisto.
Another title match will take place this Thursday as The Miz defends the WWE IC Title against Cesaro, who pinned Miz in a MITB Qualifier on Raw tonight.
Join us here Tuesday night for our live coverage of this week’s SmackDown tapings.
– John Cena’s first match back from injury takes place on the May 30th edition of Raw in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
According to the official website of the Resch Center, Cena will team up with WWE World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose to take on the team of AJ Styles, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson. This will likely be a dark match.
– According to this week’s issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, there is talk within WWE of finding a woman to team with Kalisto to face Rusev and Lana in mixed tag team matches. Lana has been wrestling more frequently at live events in case the idea transpires.
Lana made her NXT in-ring debut at last Friday’s show in Lakeland, Florida. Teaming with Mandy Rose, the blonde bombshells lost to Carmella and Daria Berenato.
