NEWS

Who says professional athletes can’t talk? Yesterday at WWE’s tryouts as a part of SummerSlam weekend, NBA star Dwight Howard made an appearance and cut a promo, showing off his skills on the microphone.
You can see the promo below:
View this post on Instagram A post shared by WWE Recruit (@wwerecruit)
In the promo, Howard refers to himself as “Sho’nuff,” referencing the villain from the 1985 film “The Last Dragon.” Arash Markazi who is covering the event, had the following to say:
“Dwight Howard was a surprise participant at the WWE Tryout in Nashville today. He told me he legit wants to join the WWE one day.”
“Dwight Howard spent about five hours at the WWE Tryout in Nashville today. He told me he’s going to be ringside at SummerSlam on Saturday. He said he’s serious about joining the WWE. He was asking coaches and attendees how to properly take a bump in the ring and do other moves.”
Dwight Howard didn’t just cut this one promo and leave. He’s been here for hours. He’s now cut..

He’s good at the talking. While wrestling is built around people getting in the ring and having a match, it means a lot more to be someone the fans care about. Being able to do moves and have a match is one thing, but the wrestlers need some kind of a connection. There is an art to making fans care about you and some potential wrestlers were given a lesson in how to do that.
WWE has been holding tryouts for potential new stars in conjunction with Summerslam. The WWE Recruit Twitter account has released a video of Paul Heyman giving a talk to the potential recruits. Heyman talks about selling your name, because otherwise the recruits are just a number on a list. Heyman told them to sell themselves to their audience and give them something to remember. WWE has reportedly signed several new names out of the tryouts, though there is no word on when they might debut.
There is some knowledge here. Check out what Heyman had to say:
[This post contains video, click to play]
Opinion: This i..

There’s nothing good about that. The Women’s Revolution has brought the WWE women’s division a very long way and that is a good thing. After years of women’s wrestling being little more than a side show in WWE, the women are now treated as stars and have accomplished almost everything imaginable. However, it is still not that easy, and now we have a better idea of some of the obstacles they had to face.
During a recent edition of his Wrestling With Freddie podcast, Freddie Prinze Jr. talked about his time on the WWE creative team. Prinze talked about pitching ideas about women’s wrestling to Kevin Dunn, who would regularly shoot them down because he did not find some of the women involved to be pretty. Dunn would be told how many male stars would not be seen as attractive but he still stopped stories because the WWE Women’s Champion would have to be “pretty”. Dunn is considered gone from WWE following Vince McMahon’s departure.
Opinion: As rather pathetic as this is, it also isn’t sl..

A hope spot? There have been all kinds of changes throughout WWE over the last few months and one of the biggest on-screen changes took place when Naomi and Sasha Banks walked out. The two left the company despite being the reigning Women’s Tag Team Champions, which shook things up in multiple ways. However, the shakeup might be about to be unshook.
According to Dave Meltzer on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast, WWE is working to bring Banks and Naomi back to the company. This comes after Vince McMahon retired earlier this month and the new regime wants to bring them back. There is no word on if Naomi and/or Banks are interested in returning to the company. Banks and Naomi walked out on the May 16 Monday Night Raw.
Opinion: This is something that shouldn’t be a major surprise as Belair and Naomi are both rather talented, but there are going to be some changes needed. I’m not sure if this is actually going to work in the end, but at least there is an effort being made. That being s..

They have a plan. Titles can be a tricky concept in wrestling, as while they are supposed to be held by the top star or stars in a division, there can be some problems with keeping things in order. This might be the case if a title has to be vacated, meaning a new champion never beat the old one. That is the case again in NXT, but it seems they have a plan for it.
Earlier this month, Cora Jade turned on Roxanne Perez before vacating her half of the NXT Women’s Tag Team Titles. Perez forfeited her title the next week, meaning new champions are needed. A four way match for the titles has been announced and according to Wrestling Observer Radio, Ivy Nile and Tatum Paxley are being discussed as possible winners, though this is not set in stone. The other teams involved in the match are Toxic Attraction, Katana Chance/Kayden Carter and Yulisa Leon/Valentina Feroz. The title match is set for August 2.
Opinion: That would be a new way to go and I think I like the idea. Toxic Attraction has ..

WOOOOOOOO! Earlier today, Ric Flair made an appearance at the NFL’s Tennessee Titans training camp as they are preparing to begin the NFL season.
You can see the video of the appearance below, in which dismisses the team after the end of their practice:
.@RicFlairNatrBoy breaks down the @Titans after practice. “Woooooo!” pic.twitter.com/JtmdRKlQnd
— Jim Wyatt (@jwyattsports) July 28, 2022
Flair is in Tennessee in preparation for Starrcast V, which takes place on July 31. The event is being billed as his “last match” and will see him team with Andrade El Idolo to take on the team of Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal.
Other matches on the card include:
Jonathan Gresham and Nick Wayne vs. Alan Angels and Konosuke Takeshita The Bunkhouse Battle Royal Kerry and Rocky Morton vs. Brian Pillman Jr. and Brock Anderson The Wolves (Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards) vs. The Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin) Rey Fenix & Taurus vs. Laredo Kid and Bandido Josh Alexander vs. Jacob F..

There’s a new rule. Over the last few weeks, WWE has been shaken up in ways that it never has been before. The main change has been due to Vince McMahon retiring from the company, which has certainly changed the way the company works. There are going to be ripple effects, and now we know how the departure has directly impacted the company’s employees.
According to Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston and independently confirmed by PWInsider.com, WWE employees are banned from buying or selling shares of stock in the company until further notice. There is no word on why the company decided to make the change. WWE employees occasionally receive stock as part of their compensation, and it is not clear if that practice is suspended as well.
Opinion: That’s a bit of a weird one, but there is always the chance that this is designed to avoid the risk of any sort of insider trading issues. With the company being all over the place at the moment, it might make sense to cut off one potential headach..

There’s a surprise. The wrestling world often sees stars moving from one promotion to the other at a rapid pace. While a good deal of these moves do not mean much, you will occasionally see a move that feels like it is a big deal due to the star power involved. That might have been the case this week, as a surprise named showed up somewhere he probably wasn’t expected.
Former NXT Champion Johnny Gargano made a surprise appearance on this week’s Impact Wrestling. Gargano was one of several wrestlers who appeared in a series of videos praising Alex Shelley, who is challenging Josh Alexander for the World Title next month at Emergence. This was Gargano’s first appearance on a wrestling television show since leaving NXT in December 2021, though there is nothing to suggest that it is is anything more than a one off appearance.
It was nice to see him. Check out the cameo:
[This post contains video, click to play]
Opinion: That’s very cool and it’s nice to see someone pop up like this. Wh..

That could have been worse for AEW. Wrestlers have a weird job when it comes to fans. At the end of the day, wrestlers are tasked with making fans believe that everything they are seeing is real, but at the same time, they have to listen to the fans either supporting or hating them. That can make for some complicated matters, and that seemed to be the case again this week at a television taping.
According to Wrestling Observer Radio, there was an altercation between AEW’s Lee Moriarty and Stokely Hathaway and a fan at this week’s AEW television tapings. It is not clear if this happened during the taping or after the show was over, but it is not expected to make television. There is no word on any kind of injury or issues as a result. Moriarty is scheduled to face Matt Sydal on this week’s show.
Opinion: This is something that happens every now and then and that is not something you want to see. What matters is that everyone is ok, because that could have been quite the disaster in no..

WWE superstar Big E was recently interviewed by Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, discussing his future in the ring. He gave an update on his condition and if he will ever return to the ring again:
“That [whether he thinks he’ll ever wrestle again] I’m unsure of. I’ve also talked to a couple doctors who told me, ‘Hey, if you break this again, it could be even worse. It could be even more catastrophic,’ and these are spine specialists.
“But now at 36, after working through a lot of those things, after being mentally healthier. Man, this job has allowed me to meet so many different people from so many walks of life and have so many different experiences, and now — I don’t know, man. I think of life after 36, and I see so many of the guys I grew up watching in wrestling. I think too of the athletes that I love who participated in MMA, or were boxers and you see them at 50, and you see their body ravaged. And that’s not the life that I want.
“My hope is — I feel great now. And I’m grateful..

So much for that. Stables are one of the most logical ideas in a wrestling company as a promotion might have too many wrestlers to use on their own. That means the best solution might be to put some of them together as a group, which is a common practice in AEW. Now though, one member of one of the stables seems to have left his group in a rather physical manner.
This week on AEW Dynamite, Team Taz’s Ricky Starks lost the FTW Title to Hook in an impromptu title match. Following the match, Starks talked about how he was having a string of setbacks but he was proud of what he did with the FTW Title. As he was speaking, his Team Taz teammate Powerhouse Hobbs attacked him from behind. On commentary, Taz seemed surprised at Hobbs’ actions as Hobbs seemed to leave Team Taz. Hobbs has yet to give an explanation for his actions.
Opinion: I was a bit surprised by the turn, but it could be an interesting way to go for both of them. Hobbs is a monster who could be a heck of a star on his own, w..

Welcome to KB’s Old School (and New School) Reviews. I’ve been reviewing wrestling shows for over twelve years now and have reviewed over 6,000 shows. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I’ll be posting a new review here on Wrestlingrumors.net. It could be anything from modern WWE to old school to indies to anything in between. Note that I rate using letters instead of stars and I don’t rate matches under three minutes as really, how good or bad can something that short be?
Payback 2020
Date: August 30, 2020
Location: Amway Center, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Tom Phillips, Samoa Joe, Byron Saxton, Michael Cole, Corey Graves
We’re back on pay per view less than a week after the last one ended, because that’s a thing that needed to happen. This time around we have the big main event of the Fiend defending the Smackdown World Title against Braun Strowman and a surprisingly heel Roman Reigns, with Paul Heyman in his corner. That sounds like it could have some serious legs so let’s get..