NEWS

Maybe next year. WrestleMania is the most important wrestling event of the year and WWE knows what they have with it. The company goes out of its way to turn the event into a grand spectacle and that means bringing in everyone they can to add to the show’s star power. Some of these moves work better than others, but there are times where someone just is not available. That will be the case again this year.
This year’s Royal Rumble featured a surprise appearance by music superstar Bad Bunny, who entered the men’s Royal Rumble match. Bunny went on to eliminate two wrestlers before being tossed out by Brock Lesnar. According to PWInsider.com, this is not leading to a WrestleMania appearance, as Bunny will be performing in Miami, Florida during both nights of WrestleMania.
Bunny is a lifelong wrestling fan and performed his song about WWE Hall of Famer Booker T. last year at the 2021 Royal Rumble. The appearance led to an angle between Bunny and Damian Priest against Miz and John Morriso..

That would explain it. One of the more surprising absences from the 2022 Royal Rumble was Finn Balor, who did not appear on the show at all. What was the reason for this?
According to a report from WrestleVotes, Balor is not injured in any way, he is still out of the country. WWE expects him back to action in plenty of time for WrestleMania.
Confirmed with a source that Finn Balor is not injured in anyway, he is out of the country however. WWE expects him back in plenty of time for WrestleMania.
— WrestleVotes (@WrestleVotes) January 30, 2022
Balor’s most recent major Feud was with Roman Reigns in September 2021, where he challenged The Head of the Table for the Universal Championship at the Extreme Rules premium live event. Even as his alter ego, ‘The Demon’, Balor still came up on the losing end.
“The Prince” has not been seen on WWE programming since December 20 of last year. It is unknown what his plans for this year’s WrestleMania are.
Editor’s Opinion:
The longer that I se..

It’s that time of year again. WWE has posted a new video to their YouTube channel in which they show the Top 10 Royal Rumble winners who challenged champions. By winning the Rumble, a competitor gets to challenge for the title of their choosing at WrestleMania.
You can see the video in its entirety below:
[This post contains video, click to play]

The entries are as follows:
10) Drew McIntyre chooses Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship (2020)
9) Bianca Belair chooses Sasha Banks for the Smackdown Women’s Championship (2021)
8) Seth Rollins chooses Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship (2019)
7) Edge chooses Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship (2021)
6) John Cena chooses Randy Orton for the WWE Championship (2008)
5) Shinsuke Nakamura chooses AJ Styles for the WWE Championship (2018)
4) Charlotte Flair chooses Rhea Ripley for the NXT Women’s Championship (2020)
3) The Undertaker chooses Batista for the World Heavyweight Championship (2007)
2) Becky Lynch chooses Rond..

They have a plan for that. We are less than two months away from WrestleMania 38 and now that the Royal Rumble is in the books, there is a much clearer picture about where the show might be headed. At the bare minimum, we know who will be challenging for two of the top titles at the show, and in one case we already know which champion she will be facing.
This weekend at the Royal Rumble, Ronda Rousey made her return to WWE after a nearly three year hiatus and won the women’s Royal Rumble. The win allows her to challenge for either of the Women’s Titles at WrestleMania 38 and according to F4WOnline.com, Rousey will be facing SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte at the show. This was written before the Royal Rumble took place, where Charlotte last eliminated Rousey to win the match.
Opinion: This is a bit of a surprise, as even though Rousey’s return was announced in advance, her facing Charlotte is a bit of a twist. Rousey has a much deeper history with Becky Lynch, but for some reaso..

Nice to see you. The Royal Rumble is one of the most unique events on the WWE calendar, as the company is able to put dozens of wrestlers into a pair of matches and set up some of their biggest shows of the year in Wrestlemania. Putting together two groups of thirty wrestlers can be quite the task though, and now we know everyone WWE had to bring in to help make things better.
This weekend’s WWE Royal Rumble event featured the usual men’s and women’s Royal Rumble matches. Most of the matches’ participants were announced in advance, with a few names being revealed during the matches themselves. Here are the unannounced names from both the men’s and women’s matches:
Women
Melina
Cameron
Ivory
Alicia Fox
Sarah Logan
Molly Holly
Ronda Rousey (Winner)
Rousey was making her first appearance since WrestleMania 35 when she lost the Raw Women’s Title to Becky Lynch. Logan was released by WWE in 2020 and has not wrestled anywhere since.
Men
Ridge Holland
Drew McIntyre
Bad Bunny
Shane McMahon..

That might not have been so bright. With so many people on the WWE roster, it can be easy for some of them to fall through the cracks. At the same time, there are some who are going to feel important no matter what they do because they have become such important pieces to the show. That is the case with a certain WWE name, and now he is doing something different yet familiar.
This weekend’s Royal Rumble featured a WWE Championship match between Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley. During the match, Universal Champion Roman Reigns interfered and attacked Lesnar, with the help of Lesnar’s advocate Paul Heyman. This marked a change, as Heyman turned on Lesnar for Reigns. Heyman had switched from Lesnar to Reigns earlier this month as Reigns fired Heyman, who joined Lesnar again.
Opinion: Heyman’s ongoing changes are some of the most interesting things going in WWE and now he has me wondering where this is heading. Odds are it goes on to WrestleMania 38, where Lesnar will challenge Reigns for..

Flame on? We are on the Road To WrestleMania and that road got started with the Royal Rumble. The show is one of the most important of the year as WWE needs to get things going on the way to the biggest event of the year. That means there are a lot of things in store, including a lot of Wrestlemania sign pointing. That is a little bit easier said than done though, and things did not go so well this time.
During the Becky Lynch vs. Doudrop match for the Raw Women’s Title, the WrestleMania 38 sign caught on fire and had to be lowered for repairs. Fans were moved away from the area but were ultimately moved back in later. The sign was then raised up later in the night, only to catch on fire again at the end of the show. Both incidents took place after the pyro around the sign went off following the Royal Rumble matches. There are no reported injuries from the night. Lynch also commented on the situation, saying she was so hot she melted the sign.
Pyro is MELTING the WrestleMania sign. T..

History has been made! There are a lot of titles in WWE, which include some of the top titles in the wrestling world. Some of them have been around for a very long time with a who’s who of names holding them over the years. Someone winning or losing a title can be a game changers for both the wrestlers and the company as a whole which might have been the case again this week.
This weekend’s WWE Royal Rumble featured a WWE Title match between champion Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley. The match saw Roman Reigns interfere and attack Lesnar, including Paul Heyman turning on Lesnar by assisting Reigns. Lashley went on to win the title after Reigns hit Lesnar in the head with the belt. The win gives Lashley his second reign with the championship and ends Lesnar’s reign at 28 days.
Opinion: I don’t know how much of a surprise this was, but I’m glad Lashley has the title back. Lashley losing the title to Big E. via a cash-in wasn’t a great way to go in the first place and now he has the title..

They had a plan for that. We are just over two months away from WrestleMania 38 and the card is going to start taking shape soon. That is just what the fans see though, as WWE likely has had most of the card set for a good while now. As a result, they have had time to get things ready for a long time now. This includes some plans that may have already been changed, one of which sounds interesting.
According to Wrestling Observer Radio, the original plan for WWE Day One called for Seth Rollins to win the WWE Title from Big E. in some fashion. As a result, this would have set up Rollins defending the title at WrestleMania against either Big E. or Bobby Lashley, who was also in the Day One title match. It is not clear if this is still the plan or if WWE has changed their minds on the match.
Opinion: This is a match that has been mentioned a few times now and it does make some sense given where things have been going. There is still a way to get to either of these possibilities, though w..

The Beast doesn’t find it funny. Last night, at a dinner in St. Louis, Brock Lesnar had an encounter with ‘Jackass’ star Wee-Man and body-slammed him through a table. The video has made its way to the Internet, including on TMZ Sports.
You can see one example of the video below:
Brock Lesnar hanging out with The Jackass crew before Royal Rumble 2022 pic.twitter.com/CJ7lkYmyQk
— WWE Hindi Daily (@tmykwoah) January 29, 2022
This appears to be a fun event and encounter, with no malicious intent involved.
The dinner took place in St. Louis, which is the site of the 2022 Royal Rumble. Lesnar is scheduled to defend his WWE Championship against Bobby Lashley, while ‘Jackass Forever’ star Johnny Knoxville is scheduled to be an entrant into the Men’s Royal Rumble match.
Editor’s Opinion:
I love stuff like this. Over the past few months, we have seen a different side of The Beast, as his more comical and laid-back side has started to be a part of his character. From the Cowboy Hat on Raw ..

You think you know me. WWE has posted a new video to its YouTube channel in which they show the full 2021 Men’s Royal Rumble match from the premium live event of the same name.
You can see the match in its entirety below:
[This post contains video, click to play]

From WWE.com:
Intent on settling score with The Viper, Edge walloped Orton with a steel chair during the match’s chaotic opening minutes. The attack left Orton limping and seemingly unable to continue, as referees assisted him to the locker room, where he was tended to by WWE’s medical team.
With The Apex Predator thought to be out of the picture, the carnage continued inside the ring. Surprise entrants included former NXT North American Champion Damian Priest and the most dominant competitor in Royal Rumble Match history, Kane. Perhaps the biggest shocker of all was the arrival of former World Heavyweight Champion Christian at No. 24. Competing in his first true match since 2014, Christian was greeted with a hug by Edge..

We have some sad news to report this morning as Vince McMahon’s mother, Vicky Askew, has passed away at the age of 101. She died peacefully in her sleep at her home in The Woodlands, TX, just outside of Houston.
From her obituary:
Vicki was born on July 11, 1920 in Florence, South Carolina, the only daughter of four children of Orpheus William Hanner and Victoria Kennedy Hanner. The family moved when Vicki was a young girl to Sanford and then to East Sanford, NC where she spent her childhood.
Vicki was blessed with two sons, Rod and Vince, both of whom married their childhood sweethearts. Sadly, Rod passed away one year to the day before his mother.
Vicki’s childhood was tough. She spoke of it in an interview for the North Shore Church in 2018: “My mother had to go to work to support me and my three brothers. She started by selling Avon. During the Great Depression, I remember drawing my foot on pasteboard and putting it in my shoe (the sole had holes and no one could afford new s..