NEWS

NXT UK
Date: August 5, 2021
Location: BT Studios, London, England
Commentators: Nigel McGuinness, Andy Shepherd
We’ve got a big one this week as it’s Jordan Devlin vs. A-Kid in a thirty minute Iron Man match. Devlin injured A-Kid’s knee in a previous match to set this up so let’s have a good one. That alone should be enough to carry the show but you know there is going to be at least a little bit more. Let’s get to it.
Shawn Michaels narrates a video about the history of the Iron Man match and what it means. Devlin is ready to win however and A-Kid says this is wrestling instead of a way to hurt people, as Devlin likes to do.
Opening sequence.
Xia Brookside vs. Blair Davenport Brookside goes after the arm to start and takes Davenport down twice in a row. Back up and Davenport cranks on the arm as well until Brookside is back with a dropkick. Davenport takes her down and a baseball slide puts Brookside on the floor. Back in and Davenport is back on the arm until a headscissors gets ..

AEW broke one million viewers for the fourth week in a row with the August 4 edition of Dynamite. According to TPPW, The show drew over a 1.10 rating. This run began four weeks ago with a 1.02, followed by 1.14 and a 1.10. It certainly seems that Tony Khan’s company has been growing in popularity over the past month and much of that growth is due to the return of live crowds.
Those crowds came back after spending the bulk of 2020 watching from home, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdowns in the United States prevented AEW from running events in front of fans and the same was true for WWE. Now that the pandemic is beginning to heat up once again, it could be that states will shut down as they did before. If that happens, will AEW’s momentum suffer as a result?
Empty Arena Matches The idea of a professional wrestling show without a live audience was nothing but a novelty in years past. Empty arena matches were extremely rare and hardly ever happened. Perhaps the most famous one featur..

I’d call it deserved. It is pretty rare to have someone be practically universally revered in wrestling. There are very few people who have almost nothing held against them and when you find someone who fits the description,, you know that they are something special. The wrestling world lost someone like that this week and now the world wants to say goodbye to him.
Beautiful Bobby Eaton passed away earlier this week at the age of 62. Eaton was most famous as a tag team wrestler, mainly for his time as part of the Midnight Express with Stan Lane and Dennis Condrey with Jim Cornette as their manager. He was also known as one of the kindest wrestlers in history as well as incredibly skilled in the ring. The wrestling world has since begun to pay tribute, including a statement by WWE.
The National Wrestling Alliance is Saddened to hear about the passing of the legendary 'Beautiful' Bobby Eaton.
We send our love to his friends and family.
His impact & legacy will always be r..

Maybe it could be better this time? There are a lot of well known names in the history of wrestling, but not all of them are the most fondly remembered. For as many great names there are in wrestling lore, there are also several which are not exactly revered. This could be the case for one reason or another, but now one of the more infamous names has popped up again.
Former Impact Wrestling executive Dixie Carter made an appearance on this week’s Ring of Honor Women Of Honor Wednesday show. Carter opened the show in a video from her home, welcoming the fans to the Women’s Title tournament and wishing the participants good luck. This was Carter’s first on camera appearance since 2017 when she appeared in a documentary on Kurt Angle for the WWE Network.
If you were wondering just how crazy the Forbidden Door can get, I present to you Dixie Carter on an ROH show. pic.twitter.com/siwuXOnDWp
— Garrett Kidney (@garrettkidney) August 4, 2021
Carter was certainly a player in wrestling. Che..

Not another one. The wrestling landscape has been changing quite a bit as of late and a lot of that has been due to all of the names moving around from one promotion to the other. While WWE is still the biggest promotion in the world, it is not the be all and end all destination for every wrestler these days. Now it seems that another WWE wrestler might be up for grabs sooner rather than later.
According to Fightful Select, former NXT United Kingdom Champion Pete Dunne’s contract is expiring rather soon. While not confirmed, one source said that it could be as soon as Summerslam weekend later this month. This would be similar to the time scale for Adam Cole’s contract, though it is not clear if Dunne signed a short term extension to reach this point like Cole did. There is no word on what Dunne’s plans are, including nothing to suggest that he is wanting to leave WWE.
Dunne, 27 years old, debuted for WWE in 2017 and made it to the finals of the United Kingdom Championship Tournament ..

Can you blame him? The wrestling world is changing in a huge way as of late and that has made for some very interesting new realities. While WWE is still the biggest and most powerful promotion in the world, they are far from invincible and that has made things all the more different. It turns out that one of their own has noticed a few differences in the company as well.
In an interview with USA Today to promote The Suicide Squad, John Cena talked about how he wished there was a way he could be younger and a full time contributor to WWE. Cena said that the longer WWE bets on an aging prospect, the less stable their future becomes. He also mentioned formerly chastising people for not working as efficiently as WWE, but admits that he did not do so either. Cena is currently scheduled to challenge Roman Reigns for the Universal Title at Summerslam on August 21.
Cena has a point. Check out some of the recently returned legends:
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It worked before. When you break it down to its purest form, wrestling is not complicated. Ultimately, a match is usually won by holding someone down or making them submit in a hold. It is one of the most basic forms of athletics that you are going to find and it has been around for a very long time. There have been some high level people involved in it, and now WWE might be going after another one.
This week in Tokyo, Tamyra Mensah-Stock won a Gold Medal in the 68kg division in freestyle wrestling. Following her win, she was asked if she would ever consider signing with WWE, replying that she had always wanted to. WWE tweeted out a video of the response. There is no word on any possible negotiations between the two sides or if she is planning to continue amateur wrestling.
WWE has a history with Olympians, with the most famous example being Kurt Angle, a former Gold Medal winner in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Other Olympians have tried their hand in WWE, including Ronda Rou..

Welcome home? There are a lot of people on the WWE roster and it can be hard to find a place for all of them. The good thing is that WWE has enough rosters going at once to make things work out a little bit better. If someone is running out of things to do on one roster, they could move over or up to another roster and have a fresh start. There is a chance that is happening again.
According to PWInsider.com, former NXT UK Women’s Champion Kay Lee Ray was seen at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. There is currently no word on if she will be appearing on regular NXT television in the near future. Ray won the NXT UK Women’s Title on August 31, 2019 and went on to hold it for a record 649 days, ultimately losing it on
June 10, 2021.
Ray could be a heck of an addition to the show. Check out what NXT might be getting:
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Opinion: This could be a sm..

They need someone new. Tournaments are an easy concept in wrestling as anyone can get what you are going for with them. You have a bunch of people in a bracket of some kind and whoever is the most successful or the last wrestler standing gets a prize. That could be just about anything, and now we know what WWE is going to put on the line in its next tournament.
This week on NXT UK, a new tournament was announced to crown a #1 contender for the Heritage Cup Title, currently held by Tyler Bate. The eight man tournament will begin next week with the initial first round match, though there is no word on when the finals will be held. The Heritage Cup uses a rounds based system with multiple falls or a knockout being needed to win a match. Here are the brackets:
Mark Andrews
Noam Dar
Kenny Williams
Oliver Carter
Wolfgang
Sam Gradwell
Teoman
Nathan Frazier
The Heritage Cup is rather cool. Check out what they’re fighting:
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Add it to the list. We are less than three weeks away from Summerslam and WWE has some of the card figured out. The problem is that there is a lot more work to be done and the company has a long way to go. The good thing is that there are so many options on their main roster at the moment. Now some of those spots have been filled and titles will be on the line.
WWE has announced that Rey Mysterio and Dominik Mysterio will challenge the Usos for the SmackDown Tag Team Titles at Summerslam. This will be the Mysterios’ first title defense after losing the titles to the Usos at Money In The Bank. The teams have continued feuding after the title change, including the Mysterios teaming with John Cena to face Roman Reigns and the Usos in live event main events.
It took some time to get here. Check out the path they took:
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Opinion: This is the kind of match that..

Cody Rhodes’ Possible Retirement: What It Means For AEW
Cody Rhodes shocked the pro wrestling world on the August 4 edition of AEW Dynamite when he teased a possible retirement from the ring. The tease came after Rhodes lost his main event match against the debuting Malakai Black. Black recently signed with the company after spending nearly five years with WWE, where he performed as Aleister Black.
Black won the match against Cody in convincing fashion, establishing himself as a top player in AEW. After the pinfall, Rhodes took the mic and made a short tearful speech, after which he began to remove his boots. But before he could complete the act, Black reentered the ring and attacked him from behind. So what does all of this mean for AEW?
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The Founder & The Face As the co-founder of All Elite Wrestling, Cody has been doing his part as the face of the brand since the company’s beginning in 2019. He’s been a top star and regularly featured as..

We have some sad news to report today as “The Assassin” Joey Hamilton has passed away at the age of 82.
From WWE.com:
Following in the footsteps of his brother Larry “The Missouri Mauler,” Hamilton transitioned from amateur boxing and broke into the world of wrestling in the 1950s. By 1958, The Hamilton Brothers had risen up the ranks of the New York based Capitol Wrestling and battled Antonino Rocca and Miguel Pérez in the main event at Madison Square Garden. Just 19 years old at the time, Jody became the youngest grappler to ever co-main event at The World’s Most Famous Arena.
Hamilton would go on to team with Tom Renesto to form the masked duo The Assassins and drew sellout crowds throughout the southeastern United States. The tandem became a force in Georgia Championship Wrestling and held the NWA Georgia Tag Team Titles a record-breaking 12 times.
After Renesto’s retirement, Hamilton would carry on the torch of The Assassins with Ernie Ladd and then “Hercules” Hernandez and cl..