NEWS

Smackdown
Date: April 29, 2022
Location: MVP Arena, Albany, New York
Commentators: Pat McAfee, Michael Cole
We have a rare taped show from Smackdown this week as the roster is currently over in Europe. WrestleMania Backlash is in just over two weeks and the card could use some spicing up, which we might get this week. If nothing else, things should be interesting as we have our second contract signing in two shows (third if you count this week’s NXT UK). Let’s get to it.
Sami Zayn vs. Drew McIntyre Inside a cage after Zayn has run away from McIntyre twice in a row. Drew Gulak, auditioning to be timekeeper, rings the bell so Sami goes for the early escape. That goes as well as expected and McIntyre sends him straight into the cage. It works well enough that McIntyre does it again but Zayn grabs a sunset bomb to send us to a break.
Back with Zayn rubbing McIntyre’s face against the cage and then kicking said face into said cage. McIntyre gets in a ram into the cage of his own but Sami..

Rampage
Date: April 29, 2022
Location: Liacouras Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Commentators: Excalibur, Taz, Ricky Starks, Chris Jericho
We’re still in the most serious wrestling city in the country and that should play into AEW’s hands rather well. Rampage is the show that is going to focus on the in-ring action more than anything else and hopefully that makes for a good night. Throw in Danhausen calling out Hook and….I’m really not sure what that is going to mean. Let’s get to it.
Opening sequence.
Owen Hart Foundation Tournament Qualifying Match: Swerve Strickland vs. Darby Allin Sting is in Allin’s corner as they start with a wrestle off. Neither can get very far until Allin takes him down by the arm. Make that a chinlock for a bit before Allin knocks him to the floor. The suicide dive is cut off by a jumping knee as commentary talks about how well these two know each other.
We take a break and come back with Allin working on the knee but Strickland fights up. Swerve knock..

NXT UK
Date: April 28, 2022
Location: BT Sports Studios, London, England
Commentators: Nigel McGuinness, Andy Shepherd
We’re in a bit of a weird place here as there is no major match this week. Last week saw Moustache Mountain cheat to retain the Tag Team Titles and in two weeks, Ilja Dragunov defends the United Kingdom Title against Jordan Devlin. I’m not sure what that leaves us with this week but maybe they have something in mind. Let’s get to it.
Opening sequence.
Symbiosis vs. Wild Boar/Mark Andrews Eddie Dennis is here with Symbiosis and it’s a big brawl on the floor before the bell. Andrews avoids a kick in the knee and hits a 619 on T-Bone’s leg, setting up a dropkick to the same knee. Boar comes in for a slam on Primate and then drops Andrews onto him for two. It’s back to T-Bone (still favoring the knee) for a forearm to the back and a belly to back suplex for two. Primate hits an elbow to the face as the villains keep taking turns beating on Andrews.
T-Bone makes the mis..

Impact Wrestling
Date: April 28, 2022
Location: Majed J. Nesheiwat Convention Center, Poughkeepsie, New York
Commentators: Tom Hannifan, Matthew Rehwoldt
We’re done with Rebellion and the big story is that Josh Alexander got the World Title back from Moose in a heck of a main event. Other than that, we are less than two weeks away from Under Siege and need to get a card together pretty fast. Odds are we’ll be seeing a bunch of rematches so let’s get to it.
The opening recap looks at Rebellion in rapid fashion.
Opening sequence.
Here is Violent By Design for a chat. Eric Young talks about desiring power and control, and that is exactly what they went and got. Now they have defeated seven teams and are the permanent Tag Team Champions. If you are being honest, their success shouldn’t surprise you and there is no team anywhere that can take them down.
Cue Heath and Rhino to say they want the Tag Team Titles but here are the Briscoes to interrupt. Jay says Dem Boys are in the house an..

Here we go again. WWE has shaken up its roster like never before in recent years, letting well over a hundred names go from the company. It can make for some very tense moments as you do not know how long it might be before someone else is let go. That time seems to have come again, as WWE has released multiple people from the company on Friday afternoon.
According to Sean Ross Sapp, WWE has released ten people from their contracts today. All of the names are from NXT and include wrestlers who have been on TV recently, a manager, a referee, and some names who have who not appeared on television frequently. The released names include:
Dakota Kai
Harland
Malcolm Bivens
Persia Pirotta
Blair Baldwin (referee)
Sanjana George
Draco Anthony
Mila Milani
Raelyn Divine
Dexter Lumis
There is no word on if any more releases are expected soon, though this is reportedly all that will be let go today.
Fightful has learned Dakota Kai has been released by WWE.
— Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@Se..

That’s going to be a no. One of the biggest stories from WWE over the last few years has been the amount of releases the company has made. The company has let go well over 100 wrestlers, which has left its roster in a very different state. There is still a lot of talent left, but now a group of the remaining wrestlers are unhappy with something WWE set up and did not accept it.
Earlier this week, former WWE star Ember Moon revealed that WWE set up meetings for its women’s division on how to dress in a sexier way. According to Wrestlingnews.co, a fashion consultant named Melanie Pace was brought in to NXT in October 2021, as posted on her Instagram page.
According to Fightful Select, several members of the roster blame John Laurinaitis for the meetings, but it is not clear if they were his idea or connected to him at all. In addition, while the term “dress sexier” or something similar was never used, it was said to be implied, with wrestlers being given pamphlets suggesting how to dre..

That’s a big turn. WWE has a lot of wrestlers under its banner, to the point where many of them wrestle on different unique brands. It keeps things from getting a bit too hectic, but sometimes changes do need to be made. Wrestlers do occasionally move to and from a roster and now we might be getting ready to see that again, as a new stipulation has been set for a big match.
This week on NXT UK, a contract signing took place for the May 12 United Kingdom Title match between champion Ilja Dragunov and challenger Jordan Devlin. During the signing, a new stipulation was announced, saying that the loser of the match would lose NXT UK. There is no word on what will happen to the loser or where they will be heading next, either in or out of WWE.
Opinion: That is quite the change of pace and I’m not sure how this is going to go. While I can’t imagine Dragunov losing the title, I can’t imagine either of them leaving NXT UK. What worries me is that one of them would head over to regular NXT, w..

Welcome back. Wrestlers have a weird situation when it comes to retiring from the ring. It is rare to see someone completely walk away from the business as there is always the chance that they could wrestle one more match somewhere down the road. It can be a lot of fun to see someone get back in the ring and now a star is making it clear that he is not done yet.
Former WWE star Bo Dallas appeared at the For The Love Of Wrestling convention and confirmed that he will be returning to the ring “really, really soon”. Dallas said that some ventures outside of wrestling have kept him out of the ring but some of those things have wrapped up, allowing him to return to the ring. While he did not say where he would be wrestling, he said that it would be within the next two to three months. Dallas has not wrestled November 13, 2019.
He would know best. Check out what Dallas had to say:
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Opinion: This is always nice to hear as there is a lot of talent ..

That won’t go over well. Women’s wrestling in WWE has come a long, long way in recent years. After being treated as little more than a sideshow, women’s wrestling has become a featured part of WWE television and has even headlined WrestleMania. That is a very long way off from the days of eye candy, but it seems that WWE wanted things back to their old ways, at least somewhat, again.
Former WWE star Ember Moon recently spoke to Chris Van Vliet and talked about her final few months in WWE before being released in November 2021. Moon said that her the time stated going badly when Shotzi was called up to the main roster, ending their team in NXT. Despite being told that there was something planned for her, nothing actually took place. She blamed the team being split up on backstage politics, as you have to know how to appeal to the right people, some of whom might not know the team was together in the first place. Moon was also told that she would be turning heel multiple times not nothi..

Please, not again. After two plus years, the Coronavirus seems to be starting to coming to an end, or at least slowing down a lot. The wrestling world was shaken up in all kinds of ways and now things are mostly back to normal. Things are still not completely better though and that seems to be the case again as the Coronavirus seems to be taking its toll on WWE.
According to Wrestling Observer Radio, “a few” WWE people were out of action over the last few weeks due to the Coronavirus, though no specific names were listed. It is not clear how many changes these cases caused or if the cases involved wrestlers or backstage workers. WWE does not mention when a wrestler misses time with the Coronavirus and does not test wrestlers for the virus.
Opinion: I’m not sure who has had issues with the virus again, but hopefully everyone is already back to full health and there isn’t another full on locker room outbreak. The virus has already taken enough of a toll on everyone and nobody wants to ..

The original plan. The Coronavirus has changed the way the world works and that includes the wrestling industry. Things seem to have turned around a good bit and gotten that much better, but there are still some issues to avoid. That was the case this week as a major name was forced to miss a show. Now we know what he was originally supposed to do and it was going to be a big deal.
AEW World Champion Hangman Page was forced to miss this week’s edition of Dynamite after being diagnosed with the Coronavirus. According to Wrestling Observer Radio, the original plan for the show called for a major angle between Page and CM Punk to set up their title match at Double Or Nothing. Instead, Punk announced the match on his own, with the segment between the two expected next week, assuming Page is able to appear.
Opinion: This seems like it could have been a lot worse as the main story seems to have been covered. The title match is all set up now and the angle can take place next week if it sti..

That could have been a lot worse. There are so many things that need to go right to make a wrestling match work. In addition to the story and the action itself, wrestlers have to know their way around a ring without having anything go wrong. Sometimes something will go wrong that is completely out of their control though and that was the case this week in a pretty dangerous way.
Bobby Lashley and Drew McIntyre were facing off in a match this week at a WWE live event in Newcastle, England. During the match, Lashley was whipped into the ropes and the top rope broke, sending Lashley crashing out to the floor. The match continued after Lashley was checked out by the WWE medical team and the rope was replaced after the match was over.
That’s quite the visual. Check out the accident at the show:
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Opinion: What matters here is that Lashley seems to be ok as that looked horrible. Lashley is a big man and having him fall down like that with no warnin..