NEWS

NXT
Date: June 17, 2020
Location: Full Sail University, Winter Park, Florida
Commentators: Tom Phillips, Beth Phoenix, Mauro Ranallo
After everything that happened last week, we could be in for a big night. Well actually we could be in for some big nights on July 1 and 8, as AEW’s Fyter Fest probably need some competition. That could be set up tonight, but we also have some guest stars with Bayley and Sasha Banks. Let’s get to it.
Opening recap.
Opening sequence.
Tag Team Titles: Imperium vs. Breezango Breezango is challenging and do their own version of the Imperium (or Emporium, under the names of Marsupial and Fabio). As you might guess, Imperium doesn’t like this and Aichner takes Breeze down with an armbar to start. Breeze is sent outside and into the Plexiglas as a WE WANT FABIO chant starts up. The chinlock doesn’t last long as Breeze fights up and sends Barthel to the floor. The hot tag brings in Fandango and the big dive to the floor takes out the champs as we go to a brea..

Impact Wrestling
Date: June 9, 2020
Location: Skyway Studios, Nashville, Tennessee
Commentators: Madison Rayne, Josh Matthews
It’s a big night as we get to find out the future of the World Title. Last week Ace Austin won the #1 contenders tournament, which was rather odd as he beat someone who wasn’t even entered. Never let it be said that things go as you might expect around here, though that’s not necessarily a good thing. Let’s get to it.
Opening recap.
Opening sequence.
Don Callis and Scott D’Amore aren’t sure what to do about the World Title situation.
Ken Shamrock vs. Michael Elgin vs. Sami Callihan Shamrock and Elgin start brawling before Sami shows up, meaning the lights go out so Sami can show up. Sami sends the other two outside but gets pulled out of the air and driven into the apron. Shamrock is back up with a dive onto both of them but Elgin hits a middle rope dropkick back inside.
Elgin sends Shamrock into the post and suplexes Callihan down for two. A hard whip int..

Fight for the rights of every man. The biggest story in the United States today, if not the world, is the advancement of the Black Lives Matter movement. Spurred on by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a series of protests have sprung up with the hopes of bring about racial equality. That is something that has struck a chord with a lot of people, including a certain wrestling legend.
There are very few wrestlers who have had the kind of career that Shawn Michaels has had. He was one of the biggest stars of the 1990s and certainly one of the most talented, but he was not exactly well received during that time. However, after coming back to the ring in 2002, Michaels seemed to be a changed man with a completely different philosophy. It was no longer all about him, and that was on display over the weekend.
According to Fightful Select by way of 411mania.com, Michaels got into a debate backstage with an unnamed WWE producer at this weekend’s NXT Takeover: In Your House over syste..

So that’s who it is. Masks are a unique aspect of wrestling and can offer a lot of different ways to go. While they occasionally appear in American wrestling, they play a much bigger role in Mexico, where they are often a wrestler’s entire identity. Some wrestlers bring their masks with them to America, but one of the more prominent in WWE took his off in a surprise.
Last week on NXT, El Hijo del Fantasma won the NXT Cruiserweight Title by defeating Drake Maverick in a tournament final. It was quite the surprise win for Fantasma as he made his in-ring debut for the company during the tournament. Winning the title so soon into his NXT career was rather impressive, but it turns out that he had a major move to make in his first week as champion.
This was a cool reveal. Check out the big segment:

During this week’s NXT, Maverick congratulated Fantasma on his win and asked for a rematch. Before anything else could happen, two masked men who had been attempting to abduct Fantasma in rece..

That’s getting a little serious. One of the biggest moments of the year saw Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch announce that she was pregnant, meaning that she would be vacating the title. This changed everything around for the Raw Women’s division and a lot of WWE as a whole. It was a very cool moment for a lot of people, but that wasn’t the case for everyone.
There are very few people who came to the main roster with such a reputation as Shayna Baszler. She had held the NXT Women’s Title for more combined days than anyone in history and had seemed ready to be heading to the main roster for a long time. Baszler unsuccessfully challenged Lynch for the Raw Women’s Title at WrestleMania 36, which put her in a bit of a bad mood. She let that be known this week.
Baszler was a guest on this week’s edition of the Bump and discussed her thoughts on Lynch’s pregnancy. During the interview, Baszler called Lynch irresponsible and her pregnancy garbage, saying Lynch should take care of her respon..

Belair can do other things. Every now and then you get a surprise callup to the main roster. That can make for some nice moments as a lot of wrestlers might not have much of an indication that they are making the move from NXT to either Monday Night Raw or SmackDown. We got one of those earlier this year, but it turns out that someone who was called up is doing more than wrestling.
Bianca Belair made her official full time debut on Monday Night Raw earlier this year on April 6. It was the night after WrestleMania 36 and Belair joined forces with the Street Profits in a fairly natural fit since Belair is married to Montez Ford. You can’t get much more appropriate of a fit than that, but it turns out that Belair is doing more for the team than just appearing with them on television.
During this week’s episode of the Bump, Ford revealed that Belair actually made the Street Profits’ attire for their recent bowling and golfing gear for their segments with the Viking Raiders. Belair did no..

NXT
Date: June 10, 2020
Location: WWE Performance Center, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Tom Phillips, Mauro Ranallo, Beth Phoenix
We’re done with Takeover: In Your House and the only major change was Io Shirai winning the Women’s Title. Other than that, Adam Cole is still NXT Champion and needs a new challenger. Tonight he faces Dexter Lumis in a match that has me worried. Finn Balor and Keith Lee would seem to be the next big challengers so let’s get to it.
Takeover recap.
Here’s the Undisputed Era for a chat. Adam Cole talks about how he’s still champion because while Velveteen Dream is a great challenger, but he’s not Adam Cole bay-bay. As for what’s next, what difference does it make? The rest of the team yells about Lumis being weird and stuffing them in a trunk (Strong: “YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I HATE BEING STUFFED IN TRUNKS!”). Strong keeps thinking he seems Lumis in the crowd and Cole is tired of hearing about it. Cole has this tonight, so don’t worry about Lumis. As the team is ..

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, starting today. 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?
Rev Pro: New Orleans
Date: April 6, 2018
Location: Sugar Mill, New Orleans, Louisiana
Attendance: 1,200
Commentators: Andy Quildan, Joe Dombrowski
This is another show I got to attend during Wrestlemania weekend after doing the same the previous year. Rev Pro is a British organization which brings in a lot of foreigners for their shows and puts on a heck of a product from what I’ve seen. The show was a lot of fun in person and it should be interesting to see how it holds up. Let’s get to it.
The intr..

What could have been. The spread of the Coronavirus has changed all kinds of things about the wrestling world and that may be the case for the time being. WWE, AEW and the rest of the wrestling industry have been forced to take several months off from running live events in front of fans, which can cause a lot of problems for everyone involved. Now we know one more thing that might have been wiped out.
Tournaments are one of the easiest ways in the world to fill in a few weeks of wrestling programming. There is a reason that since the pandemic began, WWE, AEW, NXT and Impact Wrestling have all presented a tournament in one form or another. They make a lot of sense both in this kind of crisis, plus in regular time. That was almost on display before everything went haywire.
According to Wrestling Observer Live, WWE might have been bringing back the Mae Young Classic for a third year had the pandemic not spread. The tournament has been held at Full Sail University in 2017 and 2018. A 20..

Thrice as nice. The competition between NXT and AEW Dynamite has been rather entertaining more often than not as the two shows competing against each other has given us some rather entertaining moments on both shows. That has been the case for eight months now and given what was advertised this week, we are in for another big week next time.
One of the more common ways to compare two wrestling companies is by lining up their champions against each other. It’s an idea that makes sense as champions are viewed as the people a promotion wants to showcase as the top of the line. It helps when a champion has a counterpart on the other show. That is the case with NXT and AEW, and now bot of them are putting champions on display.
During this week’s NXT and AEW Dynamite, three Tag Team Title matches were announced for the June 17 editions of the shows. Dynamite will feature the AEW World Tag Team Champions Hangman Page/Kenny Omega defending against the Natural Nightmares. On NXT, the NXT Tag ..

You can only do it so often. One of the most frustrating things in all of wrestling is seeing someone who clearly has a ton of talent not being able to get along with the higher ups in a top level promotion. For whatever reason (some of which may be completely valid), they don’t get along with their bosses and things go badly in a hurry. That is the case with a current star and it is sad to see.
Several WWE wrestlers have decided not to show up for the company’s events during the Coronavirus, which has caused a lot of issues. While Roman Reigns is the biggest name of them all, another prominent name on the list is Sami Zayn, who was forced to forfeit the Intercontinental Title due to inactivity. This did not seem to sit well with WWE, and it isn’t the first time the two sides have clashed.
On the latest edition of his Arn Podcast, Arn Anderson talked about Zayn’s issues with being too impatient with the smaller details of wrestling and only wanting to have a good match. Zayn is said ..

Dynamite
Date: June 10, 2020
Location: Daily’s Place, Jacksonville, Florida
Commentators: Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone, Excalibur, Chris Jericho
We’re still in Jacksonville and this time around we’re going to be seeing the TNT Title on the line again, as Cody defends against Marq Quen. Other than that the countdown is on until Fyter Fest with the big showdown between Jon Moxley and Brian cage for the World Title. That has gone well so far so hopefully it does again. Let’s get to it.
Chris Jericho joins commentary.
FTR vs. Butcher and the Blade It’s FTR’s (the Revival) debut and Dax Harwood (Scott Dawson) takes Blade into the corner to start. A headlock on the mat has Blade in trouble and Harwood small packages him for two. The headlock takeover puts Blade down again and it’s off to Cash Wheeler (Dash Wilder) to work on the arm. Hardwood’s northern lights suplex gets two and it’s a four way standoff.
The fans get behind FTR and we settle down to Wheeler vs. Butcher. Wheeler bangs his sh..