Your Daily Source to Wrestling News
While appearing on Busted Open Radio, Jim Ross confirmed that he will be doing the play-by-play commentary for the upcoming WWE Women’s tournament which will take place this summer.
.@JRsBBQ confirms on @BustedOpenRadio he will be calling the WWE Women’s Tournament this summer on the WWE Network! pic.twitter.com/316uktvFza
— SiriusXM Busted Open (@BustedOpenRadio) May 19, 2017
This Sunday, Backlash will grace our screens. Many bemoaned the event’s lackluster build-up. Jinder Mahal is challenging for the WWE Championship. The women’s division is caught in a six-man tag team match that doesn’t look too promising. Many would even say that Smackdown has lost its groove. While it may be true, Backlash still looks exciting. Hopefully the event sets in motion a return to action and excellence for the blue brand. Even if it doesn’t, it looks like it will be hard to be disappointed with Backlash.
This doesn’t sound too exciting, I know. Erick Rowan’s wrestling skills are quite pedestrian. It’s hard to imagine him having a match on pay-per-view. Yet here he is. The reason this match has a lot of promise, though, is because of Rowan’s opponent, Luke Harper.
Harper was on a roll on the Road to Wrestlemania. For a while, it seemed like he would be added to the WWE Championship match between Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton. He wasn’t, but fans were behind the big man, and it wasn’t hard to see why. He had an organic face turn in a well-crafted story (that bombed in the end, but it was good for a while), and he is a skilled athlete. He’s tall and heavy, but he can perform frankensteiners and suicide dives as if he was significantly lighter. He was given time to develop his character, and the fans loved it. Combine all of this with Erick Rowan’s unsettling Talking Smack promo, an you have a match with a surprising amount of potential.
Rowan is the potential perfect counterpart for Harper. Harper will shine in this match, which is what many of us want to see. Hopefully their styles can mesh well and they can deliver a good match.
People often talk about Cesaro or Sami Zayn being underutilized. They may be, but at least they appear on TV regularly. Not Breezango, though. Last month, many people even forgot they existed. Fandango has been on the roster for almost a decade. How many Fandango matches can you name?
Both Tyler Breeze and Fandango are criminally underrated performers. Wrestlers like Dolph Ziggler have praised Breeze’s skill. He was part of a 5-star match, for goodness’ sake. As for Fandango, he’s not even bad in the ring. He’s more than capable of having good matches. Together both men work well, and their charisma and charm works well. They’re also quite funny, and it’s nice to see them getting such a high-profile match.
However, standing in their way is the Usos. Many people didn’t like them, but the Usos are quite skilled at this whole “wrestling” thing. Look back at their matches with American Alpha over the Tag Team Championship. Those were TV matches, but by god they felt like PPV quality matches. It’s insane.
The two teams had an exciting contest last year on the Battleground pre-show, so there’s no reason for them not to have another good match.
Eric Bischoff is joined on today’s show by his co-host Nick Hausman.
Bischoff opens today’s show speaking about the tweets sent out by Rip Rogers and Randy Orton last weekend. He says that for the most part, he agrees with the points made by both men. He says that he has always liked Orton and he has a lot of respect for Orton personally and professionally.
On the other hand, for as long as Bischoff can remember, veteran performers have had an issue with the young wave of performers that were making their way into the business.
When he was working in WCW, veteran performers in their late 30s and 40s at that time were complaining about guys like Chirs Jericho and Rey Mysterio Jr., because those guys were bringing a new element to the wrestling business and it was different compared to what the veteran performers were accustomed to. Bischoff says that this cycle appears to repeat itself in 5-7 year cycles.
WWE posted a gallery of unseen photos from various shoots by WWE Superstars. Finn Balor shared the photo below on Twitter teasing a possible Bullet Club reunion with Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson.
Imagine …. @KarlAndersonWWE @LukeGallowsWWE pic.twitter.com/Azl6FEwe4b
— Finn Bálor (@FinnBalor) May 18, 2017
Dave Metlzer discussed Paige’s status with WWE following her suspension and neck injury on today’s installment of Wrestling Observer Radio.
Meltzer mentioned that she is still under contract with the company and is still recovering from her recent neck surgery. He noted that she would not be used again if not for the WWE Studios production, Fighting With My Family.
Meltzer did not indicate exactly when the company plans to bring her back. If we hear anything new, we will keep you updated.
Bray Wyatt revealed in the new book, “NXT: The Future Is Now”, that he once went and did jury duty in full character. Here is a transcript of what Wyatt said:
“Bray began with my real-life lunacy, I’ve always been an against-all-authority kind of child. I was a big fan of Rage Against the Machine, they were a big influence on my life as a child, so when I started working with Dusty Rhodes, I began losing my mind on a very real level. I became obsessed with this character.”
“I was going to jury duty in my hometown, and Dusty made me go to jury duty as Bray. Dusty told me, ‘This is the perfect exercise, become Bray.’ I literally went to jury duty as Bray Wyatt. I was so immersed in the character that I didn’t break once. Obviously, I didn’t get picked for jury duty, but I had the white pants, Hawaiian shirt, the whole nine yards. There were no fragments of Husky Harris, Husky Harris was dead and he was to stay dead. I was Bray Wyatt, we were one.”
While speaking with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated, former WWE Superstar Alberto Del Rio talked about WWE having a monopoly on the wrestling industry. He also claims that several talents that left the indecent promotions have taken pay cuts up to 80 percent and he feels that several top Superstars of the company are being paid nothing.
“It’s horrible for the business, but you cannot blame that company. That company is doing what a company is supposed to do—monopolize, get the best talent from everywhere, and try to destroy the competition. They’re smart, you cannot blame them. The problem is with the talent. Just going there to be there with the promise of being on TV, but not even charging good money for your work, is not good business. We as wrestlers need to remember that this is a business. We started because we love the business and we stay in it because we have a lot of passion for it, but you have to be rewarded for your work. I was there and saw some of the main guys, new top heels, and new top babyfaces, get paid nothing for their matches. The new talent joining NXT is taking pay cuts to work there, sometimes even 80 percent less. You need to be rewarded for your work in a business.”
You can check out the full interview here.
Former WWE Superstar Shelly Martinez announced on YouTube that she will be retiring from professional wrestling after this year.
“I’ve slowed down a lot but I haven’t retired yet but based on me just keep trying to make freaking wrestling work..”
She continued, “The time has definitely come and one of the signs that I know that wrestling is done for me is a couple. I’ve been having a real hard time these last couple of months and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ has been promoted and now is out. For those of you that know that me and Dave Bautista got in a fight backstage, that’s how I got fired – so it’s been interesting for me to drive around town and I see Dave Batista’s face everywhere.”
“There’s a lot of healing that I did through all of that but I was finding myself getting depressed. I would wonder why am I depressed and I would backtrack my day and a lot of times it was triggered by Batista.”
She then said that if she didn’t get fired then she probably wouldn’t live where she lives now and she probably wouldn’t have met her boyfriend if she had stayed with WWE. She said she is thankful for what she has now but she is “tired of the BS and I’m tired of the fake and phoniness” from the wrestling business.
With Eva Marie not returning for the 7th season of Total Divas, WWE is interviewing other active female Superstars for the role on the show.
According to Pro Wrestling Sheet, Charlotte is one of the females have have been interviewed to join the cast of the upcoming season. A handful of other females have been interviewed as well however we are unable to confirm those names at this time.
In regards to Paige appearing on the next season, her status is unknown at this time. Nikki Bella, Brie Bella, Natalya and Naomi are a lock for the upcoming season.
