NEWS

It’s another career. One of the more common issues with wrestlers is finding something to do once they leave the ring. Not everyone has something to fall back on once they retire and it can be kind of a mess when their career is over. Some wrestlers do have more of a plan though and that is the case with a mostly retired wrestler, as you will get to see later this month.
Former WWE star Lio Rush has announced that he will be releasing a full album, called Not Found, on September 28. Rush has worked in music throughout his career as well as after he announced his retirement. Rush, 26, began releasing music in 2019 and has released two albums. He announced his retirement from wrestling in June of this year, but is still fulfilling contractual obligations for New Japan.
Rush is multi-talented. Check out his hype video for the album, one of his songs and one of his matches:
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Switch it up. We are just over two weeks away from WWE Extreme Rules and the card is mostly set. The biggest matches are already set up and now it would seem that the most important thing left is to add something that is actually extreme. That was the case earlier this week though, as one of the biggest matches has been switched from one show to another.
During this week’s SmackDown, an advertisement aired, saying that WWE Champion Bobby Lashley will be defending his title against Randy Orton next week on Monday Night Raw. This is a change from the original plan, as Orton was originally scheduled to challenge Lashley for the title at Extreme Rules. There is no word on what will replace the pay per view match or why the change was made.
They have had a road getting here. Check out how the match was set up:
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Opinion: I’m curious to see how this match is go..

What could have been. There are a lot of different characters in wrestling and some of them are a good bit more memorable than others. That can make for some interesting situations, as you can find some gems with the right story. It can also be interesting to see where some things could have gone had there been a change. Now we know what one current star almost did.
SmackDown’s Rick Boogs was a guest on a recent edition of After The Bell with Corey Graves and spoke about a character he pitched to WWE. Boogs’ idea would have seen him under the name of Art Von Boogs, a painter wearing a French beret. The character would have drawn everything, including his promos, where he would have drawn his opponents as half men and half chickens. Boogs loved the character but felt that it did not work due to being too out there. Ultimately, Boogs debuted on SmackDown as Shinsuke Nakamura’s personal guitar player.
This would have been something. Check out how Boogs has done on SmackDown so far:
[Th..

Can you blame them? The wrestling world has been undergoing a lot of changes in recent months and those are likely to continue for a long time to come. AEW has made some great strides forward and WWE has not exactly been moving forward in many ways. That has gone noticed by some wrestling legends, though WWE is not exactly happy with one of them.
Earlier this week, WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley posted a video to Facebook where he talked about how WWE needed to be worried about AEW. The video went viral and WWE seems to have taken notice of what Foley said. According to Andrew Zarian of the Mat Men Podcast, WWE is unhappy with what Foley said as there is an unspoken rule stating that WWE Legends are not to speak negatively about the company. Foley is currently under a WWE Legends contract and there is nothing to suggest that his status will change.
Foley might know a thing or two about this. Check out his time in WWE:
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It was a busy show. This week’s edition of SmackDown was a special show as the event took place at Madison Square Garden in New York City. While that is a big deal on its own, the fact that it was taking place twenty years minus one day after the September 11 attacks made things feel even bigger. WWE was going to bring out the big names for this one and they did that during the show. It turns out that they did it before and after the show as well.
WWE held a dark match both before and after this week’s SmackDown aired live, along with a segment after the show went off the air. Before the show aired, Raw Women’s Champion Charlotte faced Rhea Ripley. There is nothing to suggest that the Monday Night Raw roster will begin touring with the SmackDown roster as this was likely a special event only for the big show.
Immediately after the show went off the air, Happy Corbin appeared to confront the Demon, who had been in the ring to end SmackDown. The Demon attacked Balor on the floor and la..

I’d call it an accomplishment. AEW has hit the ground running despite not even being around for three years yet. That is the kind of thing that you almost never see in the wrestling industry but AEW has made it work very well. What makes it all the more interesting is seeing where they are going to go next, and now they have a new accomplishment worth bragging about.
Last Sunday, AEW presented its All Out 2021 pay per view, which featured multiple title matches, the in-ring return of CM Punk and the debuts of Ruby Soho, Adam Cole and Bryan Danielson. On Monday, AEW President Tony Khan said that the show was the most viewed AEW pay per view of all time. Now, Busted Open Radio has released a clip of Khan speaking about the show, where he reveals that All Out received over two hundred thousand pay per view buys. The previous AEW record was Revolution 2021, drawing about 125,000 buys.
Thank you to everyone who’s ordered #AEWAllOut & made it the most watched @AEW PPV ever! Thank you every..

With a special guest star. Celebrities have a long history in wrestling and that will always be the case. It makes sense to bring in someone from outside of the wrestling bubble and see what happens when you bring them inside. Athletes are among the most common as it gives them a bit of a natural leg up. That was the case again this week on SmackDown in a fun way.
This week’s SmackDown, which aired from New York City’s Madison Square Garden, featured a ten man tag team match. Sami Zayn appeared in a New York Knicks jersey and brought out a special guest, who knew how to win in the building. That would be Atlanta Hawks player Trae Young, who helped lead his team over the Knicks in the NBA Playoffs. Young got physical in the match by choking Rey Mysterio but was soon ejected. Zayn’s team ultimately lost the match when Zayn was pinned after Big E.’s Big Ending.
It was a cool moment. Check out the appearance plus some other outside athletes in WWE’s world:
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He’s in. Back in August 2020, Roman Reigns made a surprise return to WWE television. Reigns immediately aligned himself with Paul Heyman and won the Universal Title, which he has held for over a year. Since then, Reigns has cleared out the SmackDown main event division and he needs challengers. He got two of them this week, though he didn’t quite see one of them coming.
This week’s SmackDown featured a special appearance by Brock Lesnar to confront Reigns. Lesnar issued a challenge to Reigns for the Universal Title, giving Reigns until the end of the show to decide. By the end of the night, Reigns did accept Lesnar’s challenge, though there was no date given for the match. The only thing Reigns said is that it would be after he got rid of Finn Balor, which is where things got more complicated.
As soon as Reigns made the announcement, Balor came to the ring to confront him, though this time it was as his alter ego, the Demon. This would mean that the Demon will be challenging Reigns f..

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?
Great American Bash 1998
Date: June 14, 1998
Location: Baltimore Arena, Baltimore, Maryland
Attendance: 12,810
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan
We’re at the big summer PPV which originally gave us everything between the first War Games and the worst major PPV of all time, so it’s hard to say what to expect here. There’s a double main event with Sting vs. Giant for control of both tag titles and an actual tag match of Hart/Hogan vs. Piper/Savage with Piper and Savage agreeing to fight each oth..

See you next time. There are certain wrestlers under the WWE umbrella who are not around full time. That is not a bad thing, but sometimes you are not going to get to see them every single week. In a way that is a good thing as it keeps their appearances feeling special, but at the same time, it can make for some difficult departures. That was the case this week.
This week on SmackDown, Edge faced Seth Rollins in a Summerslam rematch. The match saw Rollins working on Edge’s neck and eventually hitting him with a buckle bomb and the Stomp for the win. After the match, Edge was taken out on a stretch and left the arena in an ambulance. Edge was forced to retire for almost nine years due to neck surgery and now wrestles a limited amount of dates per year.
It was a nasty moment. Check out the match plus what Edge has done since returning:
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Opinion: This feel..

Rampage
Date: September 10, 2021
Location: Fifth Third Arena, Cincinnati, Ohio
Commentators: Jim Ross, Mark Henry, Taz, Tony Schiavone
The biggest week in AEW history wraps up here with a pay per view quality match. This week’s feature match will see Pac vs. Andrade El Idolo in a match that was supposed to take place at All Out. Instead it is happening here, along with hometown boy Brian Pillman Jr. facing the rather rude Max Caster. Let’s get to it.
Opening sequence.
Pac vs. Andrade El Idolo
Chavo Guerrero is here with Idolo. They stare each other down to start before going at it in a hurry. Andrade catches him with a basement dropkick and we hit the Tranquilo pose. Some kicks in the ribs just wake Pac up and he hurricanranas Andrade outside for the big running flip dive. Pac whips him hard into the barricade and we hit the chinlock back inside. Andrade snaps off a running boot to the face and a hanging DDT onto the apron sends Pac hard to the floor.
That means Andrade can hit hi..

It was a unique bet. There have been some major changes to the wrestling world in recent months and a lot of them have been very interesting. Several names have moved from one promotion to another, with some surprises coming out of nowhere. That was certainly the case last month and now one of the surprises is turning a table on someone who never saw it coming.
CM Punk returned wrestling in August and announced that he would be getting back in the ring. On Sunday at AEW All Out, Punk defeat Darby Allin in Punk’s first match since January 2014. According to Wrestlinginc.com, Punk posted a since deleted tweet, featuring a screenshot of a fan saying he would eat his shoes if Punk ever returned. Punk said “it is time to address this” and the fan has seemingly replied, tweeting out a photo of his shoes and saying they would be lightly salted and cooked at 450 degrees. Punk has not responded to the other tweet.
Gym Shoes, lightly salted, roasted at 450°. Deal’s a deal, Punk, let’s do this…