NEWS

This is the XFL! The Coronavirus pandemic has caused a great deal of uncertainty and unrest in 2020, in both the professional and personal lives of many people around the world. One of the major economic downfalls was the bankruptcy of the XFL, which happened in April of this year.
However, in July, former WWE superstar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson announced that he had purchased the XFL. Earlier today, he sent out a tweet letting us know when we can expect the return of the league:
XFL returns SPRING 2022
As owners, we’re proud to champion our XFL players, coaches, cities and fans into an electrifying 2022 season! It’s an uphill battle – but we’re hungry, humble and no one will outwork us. A league of culture, passion & purpose. #XFL
#Spring2022
XFL returns SPRING 2022 ?
As owners, we’re proud to champion our XFL players, coaches, cities and fans into an electrifying 2022 season!
It’s an uphill battle – but we’re hungry, humble and no one will outwork us.
A league of culture, p..

Mark your calendars. Just under a year ago, SmackDown officially moved to FOX on Friday nights. This is one of the biggest moves that the company has ever seen as they are now on broadcast television once a week in prime time. That is not the kind of thing that you get to see very often and WWE is making the most of it. However, they will not be able to do that at some point later this month.
Getting to move to FOX is quite the accomplishment for WWE as it allows them to be associated with a variety of other mainstream sports. FOX offers coverage of college football, the NFL and Major League Baseball, which puts WWE in some very elite company. With the positives come some negatives though and that will be the case on at least one night in October.
According to MLB.com, game 3 of the World Series will be airing on Friday October 23, meaning that SmackDown will be moved, possibly to Fox Sports 1. This was also done during the 2019 World Series. The October 23 show is the final edition ..

The Hollywood sign. As hard as it might be to believe, we are now living in a mostly post-John Cena WWE. After being one of the biggest stars of all time, Cena has mostly left WWE to become a player in Hollywood. It is not the most surprising thing in the world as Cena has accomplished almost everything there is to do in WWE so it is time to move onto something new. Now he is getting to do something else in a different field.
One of the more interesting things that you can see a wrestler do is branch off into other fields. You don’t get to see that very often, but every now and then you see someone find something that works out rather well for them. That is the case with Cena, but it is not the kind of thing that you probably would have expected him to be doing once, let alone three times.
This may surprise you. Check out Cena’s newest project:

Cena was a guest on the Daily Show Wednesday night to promote his new children’s book, Elbow Grease: Fast Friends. The book is the third in..

She really is a big deal. Women have come a very long way in WWE over the last few years. The Women’s Revolution has changed the way the wrestling world works and that is not likely to be changing back anytime soon, if ever. One of the bigger running discussions is about who started the whole thing, and while that is up for debate, there is one woman in WWE who is more powerful than all of the others.
Despite not being the most popular name among some fans, there is no denying that Stephanie McMahon is one of the most important people in all of wrestling. She has been an on-screen WWE persona for over twenty years and has held a variety of backstage roles over the years. That includes some major high profile jobs as well, one of which has gotten her some recognition.
Forbes has released its annual list of the most influential Chief Marketing Officers for 2020, with McMahon making the list at #2, with only Phil Schiller of Apple placing higher. She placed ahead of officers from compan..

205 Live
Date: September 25, 2020
Location: Amway Center, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Byron Saxton, Nigel McGuinness
Last week saw 205 Live turn into the Ariya Daivari Show and I’m not sure why anyone thought that was going to be their best idea. Thankfully this show has a tendency to change things up almost weekly so there is a good chance that it will be something different this week. Let’s get to it.
Opening sequence.
Mansoor vs. Ashante Adonis Adonis takes him down in a hurry to start and throws in an early taunt. That earns Adonis an armbar and you can see the frustration/surprise setting in. Adonis fights up and spins out so Mansoor takes him down with a reverse DDT. Back up and Adonis snaps Mansoor’s throat across the top to put him outside and a neckbreaker gets two. We hit the chinlock for a bit, followed by a flapjack to give Adams two more.
Mansoor jawbreaks his way to freedom from another chinlock and something close to a Vader Bomb gives him a breather. The middle r..

It’s the most important opinion. Vince McMahon is the most powerful person in all of professional wrestling and has been for a very long time now. There have been a lot of people who have tried to come after him over the years and it hasn’t really done much damage. McMahon is still the ultimate authority in the industry, even if he might not seem to remember what he is doing at times.
With so many people on the WWE roster, both currently and all time, there are going to be some people you just forget are around. It might be due to them not being the most memorable wrestlers or maybe because they are not around very often, but it can cause some issues from time to time. What can make matters worse is when McMahon himself doesn’t seem to notice that a wrestler is around. It happens more often than you may think.
James Yun, formerly known as Jimmy Wang Yang, was a guest on Tommy Dreamer’s House of Hardcore podcast and told a story about the day he was signed to WWE for the third time. Y..

They have themselves a plan. NXT has a lot of very talented people and that should not be the biggest surprise. WWE brings almost every signing they make to NXT, turning it into some kind of independents all star team, which means there are a lot of stars vying for only a few spots. Some of those spots are taken by a rather talented group of people but that group might be going in a different direction.
Starting back in August 2017, the Undisputed Era became one of the most dominant factions in the history of NXT. The team started off as a trio before adding Roderick Strong to become the four man group that they are to this day. At one point the team held all of the men’s gold in NXT, though they have since lost all of their championships. That would seem to suggest the end of the team, and that may actually be the case.
According to PWInsider.com, both Kyle O’Reilly and Adam Cole are being shifted into face roles after spending their runs with the Undisputed Era as heels. At the mom..

The card keeps growing. Titles are what makes most wrestling storylines go around. While a wrestler can get by on star power, it is pretty rare that it works without having won something to get you to the next level. Sometimes that can be based off of one big run as champion or several combined, but at some point a title win is almost required to be seen as a bigger deal. Two new stars will get a chance at some titles later this month.
Back at Slammiversary, the Good Brothers debuted for Impact Wrestling, giving them two of the biggest free agent names in wrestling. The Good Brothers had been released from WWE a few months prior and it was clear that someone was going to get a very nice signing out of the whole situation. Impact Wrestling was the company that made it happen and now they are going somewhere with the team.
On Wednesday, NXT has announced that the Good Brothers will be challenging for the Impact Wrestling Tag Team Titles at Bound For Glory in a four way tag match. The G..

Welcome to KB’s Old School (and New School) Reviews. I’ve been reviewing wrestling shows for over ten years now and have reviewed over 5,000 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?
Dynamite
Date: October 2, 2019
Location: Capitol One Arena, Washington DC
Commentators: Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone, Excalibur
We’re finally here. It almost feels weird to imagine that it’s actually happening but here we are. This is the debut episode of the much ballyhooed weekly series from AEW and the hype seems to be real. The show is going head to head live with NXT as the Wednesday Night Wars begin. I’m actually excited for this so let’s get to it.
Opening sequence.
The announcers welcome us to the show.
We get..

It’s not over for Hardy yet. While wrestlers are stars when they are on camera, they are still humans like the people who watch them on TV. That is something that can often be forgotten when you are watching them every week and it can often play into what they do in the ring. The wrestlers have families and lives off screen and one of them is dealing with some issues that are rather serious.
It is no secret that Jeff Hardy has had his share of legal and substance abuse issues. There are all kinds of stories of Hardy having one problem after another and that has been the case for many years. Hardy had several issues of his own last year and the situation is still not entirely over. Hardy does seem to be doing a little bit better, but he still has something else to take care of before it is over.
According to PWInsider.com, Hardy’s court appearance over an October 2019 Driving While Impaired arrest has been pushed back until October 22. Several North Carolina courts have been closed ov..

Who ya got? Tournaments are one of the simplest concepts in all of wrestling. Take a bunch of people, put them into a bracket of some form and have the last person win. It makes sense, anyone can figure it out in a hurry, and you get someone with a prize of some kind. They have worked for years and it should come as not surprise that AEW is running one of their own.
Like so many promotions in wrestling, AEW is mainly built around its World Title. It is the one thing that you can always build a promotion around as it represents the top price in the company. Despite its short history, AEW has managed to put together a World Title that means something for both the wrestler and the promotion. That is easier said that done, but now we are going to be getting a fresh challenger for the title.
This week on Dynamite, AEW announced a #1 contenders tournament with the winner earning a future shot at Jon Moxley’s World Title. The tournament will include eight participants, including Rey Fenix, ..

Welcome back. There are a lot of wrestlers in WWE and there are only so many hours of television to pick from over the course of a week. With only so many spots available, WWE is only able to put so many wrestlers on television at once. It is a hard trick to pull off most of the time and then then it can become even more complicated when someone comes back from time away. That was the case this week.
NXT is in a weird place in the WWE system as it exists as its own television show but also has to act as the developmental program for the main roster. The point of being in NXT is to make it up to the main roster, meaning some people do not stick around as long as others. Sometimes you need to stay there though, like when you are coming back from an injury, which is what has happened again.
This week on NXT, Dexter Lumis made his return to the show after a two month absence. Lumis appeared in a backstage segment with Cameron Grimes running into him, suggesting that something will be sta..