NEWS

You might miss him. There are a lot of wrestlers on the WWE roster and some of them are pretty noteworthy. Those wrestlers have often been around for so long that they are going to make an impact just by being on television. They are often such big stars that you are going to notice them missing, which is going to be the case for the time being with one of the bigger stars WWE has to offer.
Randy Orton was absent from this week’s Monday Night Raw with no explanation or reference to his whereabouts. According to Wrestling Observer Live, Orton will be gone from WWE “for a little while”. There is no word on why Orton will be gone and there is nothing to suggest that he has any health issues. Orton participated in the men’s Royal Rumble match on Saturday, making it to the final five before being eliminated by Brock Lesnar, the match’s winner.
Opinion: I’m curious why Orton will be out of action, but this could be as simple as him having a vacation built into his contract. It isn’t like O..

That was almost different. WWE is the biggest wrestling promotion in the world and that means they are going to be able to have some rather large events. That was the case last weekend with the Royal Rumble, which featured a series of some of the bigger matches of the year. This included some important title matches, one of which almost went in a rather different direction.
The Universal Title match at the Royal Rumble saw Seth Rollins defeat champion Roman Reigns via DQ when Reigns would not release a guillotine choke when Rollins reached the rope. The original idea for the match called for Reigns to defeat Rollins and attack him with a chair after, but Vince McMahon decided that it would have been too much for Rollins to take. What mattered was keeping Reigns strong though, as the focal point of the show was to build to Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 38.
Opinion: This isn’t exactly a surprise, but it is nice to see that Rollins was somewhat protected. Ultimately he was rea..

What could have been. We are about two months away from WrestleMania 38 and that means the card is going to start to take shape in the near future. Depending on your taste, that could be very good or very bad news, as WWE’s choices for the matches could be all over the place. There are some names you can almost guarantee seeing though, and now we know what WWE was thinking at one point.
Last weekend, WWE presented the 2022 Royal Rumble, which featured the return of Shane McMahon in the show’s main event. According to Wrestling Observer Radio, McMahon was originally scheduled to be part of the upcoming Elimination Chamber event in Saudi Arabia, which would have set up a WrestleMania match with Seth Rollins. While neither are set to be involved in the Elimination Chamber match at the moment, there is still a chance that the Rollins match could take place.
Opinion: I don’t know if this match is going to take place, but given that Rollins had been rumored for a spot in the WWE Title matc..

NXT
Date: February 1, 2022
Location: Capitol Wrestling Center, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Vic Joseph, Wade Barrett
It’s time for a big tag match as NXT Champion Bron Breakker and Tommaso Ciampa are teaming up against Legado del Fantasma. That is part of the way to build things up for Santos Escobar’s upcoming title match, but for now we get what should be a good tag match. Let’s get to it.
Imperium vs. Diamond Mine The fans chant WALTER during Imperium’s entrance. Gunther isn’t having any of the posing to start and kicks Roderick Strong in the head before the bell. Brutus Creed suplexes Aichner to start but Aicnher manages a Regal Roll in quite the power display. It’s off to Barthel for an armbar and the WALTER chants start up again. Brutus fights up and hands it off to Julius for some knees to the ribs.
That’s broken up in a hurry as Barthel hits a middle rope elbow to the face and it’s off to Gunther to kick Julius in the head. We take a break and come back with Brutus coming ..

It might be a bit. There are all kinds of ways for a wrestler to be taken out of the ring for either a short or a long time. Most of those things tend to be due to something negative, mainly including injuries. Unfortunately those situations can put someone on the shelf for a good while and that seems to be the case again, as an injury seems to be a bit worse than it initially seemed.
Earlier this month, Riho was injured in a match against Britt Baker at AEW Battle of the Belts. According to Wrestling Observer Radio, Riho suffered a broken collarbone during her match and will be out of action for about three months. The injury occurred early in the match and Riho finished the match as planned without once complaining about the injury. Riho has returned to Japan, where she will be recovering.
Opinion: It is impressive enough that Riho finished the match but the fact that she did not complain about it is all the more impressive. That is the kind of thing that you almost never hear take..

It certainly was unique. There have been all kinds of wrestlers leaving WWE over the last year and a half, though move of them have not gone voluntarily. The vast majority of them have been released from the company, though there have been some who have walked away on their own. That was the case with a high profile exit late last year, and now things have gotten more interesting.
Back in December 2021, Jeff Hardy literally walked out of a match at a live event and was released from WWE a few days later. Jeff’s brother Matt Hardy discussed the release on his latest Twitch stream where he attributed Jeff deciding to leave WWE due to being under stress. He also spoke about the drug test that Jeff was forced to take before being sent home, which came back completely clean with no evidence of drugs in Jeff’s system. Finally, while Jeff was fighting to get the results of his drug test, WWE actually offered him a spot in the 2022 Hall of Fame class, which Jeff declined.
Here are some highl..

Impact Wrestling
Date: January 20, 2022
Location: Bomb Factory, Dallas, Texas
Commentators: Tom Hannifan
The march to No Surrender is on and that means it is time to start setting up a card. Impact continues to be doing fairly well, and the question now is what is next for Moose and the World Title. By that, I mean getting to defend against W. Morrissey. For once I’m actually curious to see how things are going here and that is nice to be able to say, at least partially because of the Ring of Honor invasion. Let’s get to it.
Opening recap.
Opening sequence.
Tasha Steelz vs. Chelsea Green Mickie James is on commentary and Savannah Evans is here with Steelz. Green sends her into the corner to start but gets run over, allowing Steelz to hammer away. Some shouting at Mickie doesn’t seem to cause Steelz too many problems but Green blocks the crucifix bomb. A jumping cutter drops Green for two but she’s right back up with a lifting Downward Spiral for her own near fall. Back up and Steel..

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?
Monday Nitro #284
Date: February 26, 2001
Location: Lakefront Arena, New Orleans, Louisiana
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Scott Hudson
We had a pretty good show on Wednesday so maybe we’re in for something a bit better than usual this week. The big story is Diamond Dallas Page as the latest great hope against the Magnificent Seven and at least the big match should be better than the mess of Steiner vs. Nash. Let’s get to it.
We open with Kronik having been laid out in the back and Doug Dillinger accusing Totally ..

Blink and you’ll miss it. There is a lot of WWE content on any given week but some of them are even bigger than others. When the company has a major weekend event, things get even bigger than usual and it can be quite a bit of work. That can mean that they might need a bit of a breather, which was the case this weekend with the Royal Rumble. As a result, WWE kept things short after this week’s first TV show ended.
This week’s edition of Monday Night Raw ended with a showdown between Ronda Rousey and Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch. Once Rousey left, Lita appeared and challenged Lynch to a match at Elimination Chamber, which Lynch accepted to end the show. After the show went off the air, Bianca Belair came to the ring to face Lynch, who tried to run out on the match. Lita forced her back in though and Belair defeated Lynch with the KOD in 12 seconds in a non-title match. This was revenge for Belair after Lynch defeated her for the title in less than a minute at Summerslam 2021.
It w..

It would be sad to see. Tag team wrestling has a weird history in WWE, as the company does not seem to care about it very often. That can make for some weak periods for tag teams, but every now and then you find something that catches the fans’ attention. Unfortunately that can lead to some issues when it comes to splitting teams up, and we might be seeing that again soon.
According to the WrestleVotes Twitter account, WWE had plans for Randy Orton and Riddle of RKBro to face off at WrestleMania 38. The match had been planned for Summerslam 2021 but WWE decided to hold off until WrestleMania instead. Some members of WWE Creative do not want to split the team, but if they do have the match, they would rather it be for the WWE Championship. There is no word on how either of them would win the title or if WWE is still planning to run the match.
WWE had plans since the pairing began last spring for Riddle vs Randy Orton @ SummerSlam, which didn’t happen. Plan was to hold off til Mania. I..

I’d call it a dream match. The WWE Women’s Revolution changed the way the wrestling world worked in a great way. After so many years of women’s wrestling being treated as little more than a joke, it was becoming something a lot more interesting and important, which was certainly a big upgrade. The change would not have happened without the stage being set though, and now those two generations are clashing.
This week’s Monday Night Raw ended with an unscheduled showdown between Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch and Lita. After coming to the ring to confront her, Lita challenged Lynch to a title shot at Elimination Chamber on February 19. After initially backing down, Lynch agreed to the match. This will be Lita’s first WWE singles match since she defeated Heath Slater on the July 23, 2012 Monday Night Raw.
Lita is a four time Women’s Champion and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2014. She and Trish Stratus were the first women to main event an episode of Monday Night Raw, with..

There’s one of the big ones. We are about two months away from WrestleMania 38 and that means it is time to start putting the card together. While there is still a big show left between now and WrestleMania, WWE is already looking past Elimination Chamber, with one of the big WrestleMania matches being set. That match was set this week and it is going to be a special one.
Brock Lesnar won the men’s Royal Rumble match over the weekend, earning the right to challenge for any World Title at WrestleMania 38. This week on Monday Night Raw, Lesnar chose to face Universal Champion Roman Reigns, who cost him the WWE Title at the Royal Rumble. There is no word on if Reigns will defend the title before WrestleMania. Lesnar and Reigns have fought at two WrestleManias before, facing off at WrestleMania 31 and 34, with the first match going to a no contest and Lesnar winning the second.
Opinion: I don’t think there is any surprise that we are getting Reigns vs. Lesnar at WrestleMania as it has se..