Tag: featured

Featured NEWS Other ROH TNA UFC WWE

Looking at the Best Possible Outcomes for Battleground

Battleground is nearly upon us. After Sunday, plans will be set into motion. Summerslam depends entirely on what happens at Battleground. Will Baron Corbin be the next to fall to Shinsuke Nakamura? Will the New Day finally become Tag Team Champions? Who will be Naomi’s opponent at Summerslam?

With that in mind, who needs to win this Sunday? Which victories would be ideal? Who will affect Summerslam in the best possible way? We’re going to find out.

Rusev v. John Cena

First off, allow me to say this. This feud is so backwards and unnecessary that it’s almost funny. Do Smackdown really want two of their top stars to fight some anti-American foreigners? Apparently so.

Rusev is capable of so much more than just “I hate America, you fatties.” Cena can cut better promos when he’s not talking about “the flag represents all of us!” I don’t care that they’re fighting again. It’s just that the feud is straight out of the ’80s. All it needs are some prayers and vitamins and the Hulkster could do it. Not good.

I firmly believe that if anyone is to walk away from this victorious, it should be Rusev. Cena’s established; feeding everyone to someone for 10 years straight will do that. Cena can lose. Rusev’s coming back from an injury.

It’s not even a standard match; Cena doesn’t need to eat a pin. Have Rusev back over him with a truck or handcuff him to the ropes or something. Just let Rusev win. If Rusev loses, where does he go from there? Nowhere. A victory will give him a little nudge up the card.

Kevin Owens v. AJ Styles

At Battleground, AJ Styles and Kevin Owens will once again lock horns over the United States Championship. Owens lost the title at a live event in Madison Square Garden, and he hopes to reclaim it. Styles hopes to hold onto the championship for some time.

While many are clamoring for Styles to move back into the WWE title picture, I would like to see him have a meaningful run with the US title. He plans on hosting an Open Challenge, and it would be interesting to see less-utilized guys have a chance to wrestle with him. Styles can make anyone look good, so this Open Challenge should be a great idea.

As for Owens, I’m not quite sure where he would go from here, but he always makes his way back. He lost his first ever feud on the main roster. As Universal Champion, he was a complete joke. But he recovered. He always does. Him losing to Styles will not be the end of his career.

Randy Orton v. Jinder Mahal

While many view the result of this match as a “rock and hard place” scenario, I don’t think it is. There is only one preferable outcome to the Punjabi Prison match. Orton needs to regain his championship.

The Jinder experiment has run its course. Mahal’s been cutting the same weaksauce promos for 8 weeks now. People have stopped caring about the WWE Championship. That’s not good.

While another Orton reign is not something anyone is looking forward to, it would be a lot better. For one, Orton can cut a promo without sounding like a teen currently going through puberty while smoking two packs a day. Mahal’s voice cracks more one promo than there are days in his title reign.

Lastly, Mahal wrestles a fairly pedestrian style that doesn’t exactly light the world on fire. If Orton were to regain the championship, he could actually have good matches. If he were to defend the WWE title against Nakamura, Corbin, or Owens at Summerslam, that could be great. It sounds better than Mahal v. Cena or something.

Featured NEWS ROH TNA UFC WWE

WWE Had to Shorten the Women’s Championship to Fit Alexa Bliss

RAW Women’s Champion Alexa Bliss recently spoke with Great Day Houston. Here are some highlights from the interview:

Why she chose to get into professional wrestling: “It’s such an amazing sport, I watched it growing up and it was never really something I knew I could get into, but once I got the opportunity I knew I had to get on it and I knew I had to try for it. I told my mom, I said, ‘Mom I’m going to try out for WWE.’ Her response was, ‘The heck you are!’ She was like ‘You’re are not doing that!’ So I had to try out without her knowing but know she’s like the biggest supporter and so proud of me.”

Being on Total Divas: “It’s a lot of fun I’m just starting to get into it. They filmed us all in Japan which was really cool, we got to dress up in all these really cool character outfits and it was a lot of fun. It’s really cool, except like, I myself am a very private person and I’m not as mean as I appear to be. But its been a lot of fun and its been really cool to see how everything works. I just feel bad cause sometimes they as me ‘What are you doing this week?’ And I’m like ‘I’m sitting at home with my dogs watching Netflix, what are you doing?’”

Her championship title: “This is the RAW Women’s Championship. What’s funny is – this is a little backstage information – the championship had to be shortened for me because it was so big on me, they actually had to take off size to let it fit me. But that’s why I’m ‘Five Feet Of Fury.’”

You can check out footage from the interview embedded below:

Featured NEWS ROH TNA UFC WWE

Matt Sydal Suffers Injury at GFW Impact Tapings

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that Matt Sydal suffered a dislocated shoulder at the most recent set of GFW Impact Wrestling tapings.

While there are no exact details of how the injury occurred, it’s believed that it may have happened during the last mach of the tapings. That match featured Sydal teaming with Sonjay Dutt & Alberto El Patron to take on the team of Trevor Lee, Low Ki and Bobby Lashley.

Sydal worked an indie match last week in Israel but was limited in what he was able to do inside of the ring. He is currently scheduled to face Ricochet at a UK indie show tonight.

Featured NEWS Other ROH TNA UFC WWE

Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Joe Going Off Script Against Lesnar, Cena Putting Over Styles, Samson’s Botched Guitar Shot, More!

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane.

To open today’s show, Lane plays a clip of Dave Meltzer who’s discussing Jason Jordan’s upcoming push. Meltzer says that while having the spotlight on you is good, WWE is a tricky spot to receive a big push because if Vince McMahon decides you don’t get over during your big push, you have a black mark on you for the rest of your career.

Russo says that this can be said about any profession because if you have an opportunity at your workplace and you don’t succeed, you’re going to be taken out of that spot. Meltzer and these other dirt sheet writers mightn’t understand this because they’ve never worked in the real world. He also says that if you don’t want to have the spotlight on you in the biggest promotion in the world, you’re in the wrong business.

A clip of Wade Keller presents him discussing the Brock Lesnar/Samoa Joe angle. Keller says that Joe came off as someone that could kick Lesnar’s ass during the entire program, and we haven’t really seen that before. There were a couple times when Keller thought Joe might get in trouble, specifically when he told Lesnar to ‘look at me when I’m talking to you’, because that wasn’t scripted.

Featured NEWS Other ROH TNA UFC WWE

Why Brock Lesnar Must Become A Free Agent

Rumours have been circulating this week that Brock Lesnar will return to UFC. There is also an accompanying rumour that Lesnar will not resign his contract after Wrestlemania 34. Even if these are simply rumours WWE and Vince McMahon must be scared. Lesnar is sports entertainment’s biggest draw bar none. He is a mega star and a huge asset to the company. However, his career is winding down and there is still infinite value in Lesnar over the next year or two. His value will be used best though if he becomes a free agent and here’s why.

More Dream Matches

Samoa Joe vs Brock Lesnar was a legitimate dream match. WWE capitalised on this feud and booked it perfectly from Extreme Rules all the way to Great Balls of Fire. This feud proved Joe to be a superstar and also that Brock Lesnar dream feuds are a necessity. Dream matches with Brock Lesnar create superstars. They give wrestlers a career defining match as well fans exactly what they are desperate for.

That said, there are not that many dream feuds left for Lesnar on RAW. The only real one is Finn Balor which is as dream worthy as Samoa Joe was. Behind Balor is – at a stretch of the word dream – Bray Wyatt and even Braun Strowman. These feuds must happen in Lesnar’s time left in WWE without a doubt, particularly with Balor. On Smackdown Live however there are more. Three legitimate dream matches face Lesnar on Smackdown Live. Kevin Owens, AJ Styles and of course there is also Shinsuke Nakamura. On a smaller level there is also stars like Corbin and Zayn who would likely be excellent opponents for Lesnar.

Heyman can simply announce the Beast Incarnate will do what he wants and go where he wants. This opens the door for so many feuds and matches that WWE must capitalise on. Especially now that Lesnar is likely in the very end of his WWE career. With Lesnar fighting only a limited number of times a year, now is the time to do this. If not for the wrestlers opposite Lesnar, then for us the fans.

Featured NEWS Other ROH TNA UFC WWE

Sheamus Talks About His Relationship With Cesaro

On the recent episode of Talk Is Jericho ‘Sheamus And Cesaro’, one-half of the WWE RAW Tag Team Champions Sheamus spoke about his relationship with Cesaro and how they got close after their team of Sheamus and Cesaro came together and how they found great mutual respect for each other:

“We had a lot of respect for each other. I don’t think we were super close or anything, but we’re both Europeans, kind of the same background, and we get here. From wrestling each other enough, we both definitely had a lot of respect. Do you know what I mean? I think there has always been a competition between us and that’s a great thing because you always want to try to one up each other.”

He also talked about how their characters evolved their relationship through time and the ‘odd couple’ kind of fighting their team did:

“It [has] definitely been an evolution from when we started, but even when we were tagging, there was that thing of like the odd couple kind of fighting each other and we wanted to push it. We didn’t get the opportunity to push it as much as we wanted because you have a segment and it’s taken away. Do you know what I mean? And so, like, people were enjoying it. Do you remember the boo/yay stuff? The boo/yay stuff was great!”

You can check the rest of the podcast here.

Featured Independent NEWS ROH TNA UFC WWE

Global Force Wrestling Taking 10 Percent Cut of Talent’s Money

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that most of the talent that has signed with Global Force Wrestling are forced to give the company a ten percent cut of all their independent date money.

Also, talents will not receive a cut from any merchandise sold with their likenesses that is sold directly by Global Force Wrestling.

Featured NEWS ROH TNA UFC WWE

Charlotte Says She Wants To ‘Dethrone’ Asuka

On the Fan Theory podcast, Charlotte Flair talked about how she wanted to ‘dethrone’ the NXT Women’s Champion Asuka and defeat her in a match. “I want to dethrone her,” she said.

Talking about her dream match, she said:

“One of my dream matches would definitely be against Stephanie McMahon,(It would be) queen versus queen.”

Charlotte was there to promote this Saturday’s WWE Live Summerslam Heatwave Tour at the Wildwoods Convention Center in Wildwood.

You can check out the podcast here.

Featured NEWS ROH TNA UFC WWE

Shane McMahon Reacts to Helicopter Crash

As reported earlier today, Shane McMahon survived a crash landing in the ocean off Gilgo Beach this morning. WWE released the following statement on the incident:

Shane McMahon OK following helicopter crash in Atlantic Ocean

A helicopter carrying Shane McMahon made an emergency landing today in the Atlantic Ocean near Gilgo Beach on Long Island, N.Y.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the emergency landing occurred around 10:25 a.m. ET about a half-mile off shore.

The SmackDown LIVE Commissioner spoke with WWE.com after the incident to confirm he and his pilot were fine and escaped injuries from the landing. He explained that he was en route to visiting family on Eastern Long Island when the helicopter troubles started.

“I would like to thank our pilot, Mario, who did a heroic job of landing us safely in the water, the Suffolk County Marine Bureau who were first on the scene, all the lifeguards who came out to assist us and the Fire Island Coast Guard station,”

McMahon reiterated that the WWE Universe shouldn’t worry and that he won’t need to step away from his SmackDown LIVE responsibilities.

“Everyone is safe and sound, I look forward to seeing everyone at WWE Battleground in Philadelphia this Sunday.”

Shane also tweeted the following after the accident:

Featured NEWS Other ROH TNA WWE

NoDQ Video #985: Jordan as Angle’s son, more

Here is the latest edition of my Q&A video series. You can submit questions for future videos on my Twitter page and make sure to use the hashtag #RoadToNoDQ1000.

You can leave a comment or question below and I’ll try to respond to as many people as possible!

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