On October 8th, Hell will be upon Smackdown. Yes, everyone’s favorite bastardized gimmick match is returning. Hell in a Cell is nearly here. Of course, not all the matches will be contested inside the Cell, but there will be other matches.

Among these other matches are at least three championship matches. While the US title match hasn’t been announced yet, it’d be stupid to leave it off the card. For the purpose of this article, I’m assuming there will be a match.

Who will emerge victorious on October? Who will lose their coveted gold? Here are some guesses.

Baron Corbin

I think it’s safe to assume that at Hell in a Cell, the United States Championship will be defended in a triple threat match. AJ Styles is likely defending it against both Tye Dillinger and Baron Corbin. While many are no doubt pulling for Dillinger to pick up a win, I think that WWE must pull the trigger on the Lone Wolf if he is to ever be taken seriously as a competitor. WWE have done a great job with Corbin post Money in the Bank, what with him losing his cash-in and him losing to a smiling John Cena in 8 minutes. Needless to say, a loss for Corbin would be disastrous.

It would be easy to make Dillinger eat the pin, thus extending the program between Styles and Corbin. The feud can extend to whatever’s in December (also a great PPV name), where Corbin goes over. This frees up Styles for another feud, and hopefully they can put him back in the main title picture.

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Austin Aries Release

As we reported Friday, Austin Aries is no longer employed by WWE. Conflicting stories are now surfacing about the situation, with some saying Aries requested his release and others saying that that’s not the case. It’s now being reported that Aries signed a three-year deal last year, and though he did not ask to be released from that contract, he was thrilled when he was.

Aries is said to have had some heat backstage with the powers that be. He was not happy with the fact that his WrestleMania 33 preshow match with Neville was not included on the DVD (meaning that neither man received royalties). It’s also being rumored that the writing team for RAW and 205 Live didn’t like dealing with him.

Aries is under the standard 90-day no compete, so he won’t be free to work elsewhere without WWE’s express permission until October.

SmackDown Live Rap Battle

If you watched SmackDown Live on Tuesday, then you saw the Rap Battle between New Day and The Usos. You also heard the not-so-veiled reference that was made to the Xavier Woods/Paige scandal from earlier this year. From what we are finding out now, neither Woods nor New Day were aware that was going to happen beforehand.

Rapper Mega Ran, who was part of New Day’s entourage Tuesday night, had the following to say about the line and who knew what.

“Although the producers of the segment requested both teams send in their rhymes for the script, only The New Day obliged. The Usos showed theirs to one producer, but made a point to not let The New Day see their bars, which referenced a salacious story involving Woods.”

As we now know, WWE has since edited that line from the segment.

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WWE edited and removed verses from the SmackDown Live “Rap Battle,” including the reference about Xavier Woods’ appearance in a leaked private video. During the July 4th episode of SmackDown Live, rapper Wale hosted a rap battle between The New Day and WWE SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos. The battle surprisingly exceeded expectations and included references about Total Divas, the Usos’ father Rikishi, Roman Reigns, and the leaked video featuring Paige and Woods.

In response to Big E’s battle verses, Jimmy and Jey Uso tag-teamed their response that included the following quip about Woods:

“Hey, Big E, let’s just keep it PG. You know what’s good. Just don’t get all Rated R like your boy, Xavier Woods.”

The Usos’ reference did not fall on deaf ears and triggered a pop among the Phoenix crowd. The verse, however, was removed once the WWE uploaded the rap battle on their YouTube page.

Due to The Usos getting hostile against New Day, Wale disqualified the SmackDown Tag Team Champions and victory went to New Day.

Despite the loss, The Usos had just one word following the rap battle.

SAVAGES

— The Usos (@WWEUsos) July 5, 2017

The Usos will defend the SmackDown Tag Team Championship against The New Day at WWE Battleground on Sunday, July 23.

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Booker T candidly spoke about the racial slur and New Day segment that aired respectively last week on RAW and SmackDown Live.

On the June 26th edition of RAW, the MizTV segment featured guests LaVar, Lonzo, and LaMelo Ball. Live on television, LaMelo said a racial slur. The comment was enough for WWE to issue an official statement:

“The inappropriate language used by a guest during the ‘Miz TV’ segment was not scripted nor reflects WWE’s values.”

The following night on SmackDown Live, during an in-ring segment between SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos and The New Day, Big E quoted Booker T’s infamous promo that ended with, “We coming for you n—-.” On SmackDown Live, Big E, however, was purposely interrupted by Xavier Woods before finishing the quote.

Booker T, in numerous interviews, expressed regret with his old promo, and he commented on LaMelo and New Day during the July 2nd podcast of Heated Conversations.

Regarding the Bell family issue on RAW, Booker had the following to say:

“I don’t want to put the Ball family on trial or anything like that. Definitely it was a bad situation all and all. It’s such a catch-22 situation because I hear on certain radio stations, you know, they have to bleep it out every two seconds on the radio. You know and we as a people if we can’t stop saying it, who are we to say when and where someone can say it? Me personally I think the word should be eradicated.

“You know, we as a people, we got to know how to change our levels. We got to know when to speak this way and when to speak that way. It is cultural. It is something we grew up with, it is something that we have seen throughout our lives being black. It’s no secret or anything like that, so let’s not sugar coat it or anything like that.”

Later in the podcast, Booker acknowledged he knew about The New Day segment, but he refused to listen and watch it. Big E’s quote was played for Booker.

“I just want to make it publicly known that I don’t condone that at all, especially after coming off Monday night. We as a people have to know when it’s time to, you know time to speak up and when it’s time to shut up, my mother taught me that a long time ago. You know, and if you don’t know it’ll come back to haunt you. Me saying that, it’s haunted me for this many years still.

“I wish that WWE would never do something like that ever again and let something like that happen…I don’t appreciate it. I don’t know if they (WWE) knew the parody was going to go down because I know those guys (New Day) write, do a lot of their own stuff. But I just don’t think that you know, we as a company, need to go that route. I think that parody should not have ever been shown on television, because it wasn’t a great moment for us as black people. For us as black people, it was one of our worst moments.”

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It looks like New Day will be back on our television screens this week. It’s being reported that the trio will make their debut on this week’s episode of SmackDown Live. The team was “swapped” to the blue brand during the Superstar Shakeup, but due to an injury that Kofi Kingston suffered, they have been kept off television until he was healed up and ready to return to in-ring action.

The last time we saw the trio in action was on the RAW after WrestleMania 33. During a match with The Revival, who were making their main roster debut, Kofi Kingston was “injured”, giving him time away from the ring to have minor surgery on his ankle that was needed. While Kofi has been rehabbing, Big E and Xavier Woods have traveled to India to promote the company, and Woods has focused some of his time on his UpUpDownDown YouTube channel. But, now, Kofi has been cleared to return, and New Day is apparently ready to liven up the blue brand’s tag team scene.

Their return will also coincide with a WWE Network special, The New Day’s Fantastic Ride. The special will provide fans a behind-the-scenes look at the team’s hosting of WrestleMania 33, and it will be available on The Network’s VOC platform on Tuesday.

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