Your Daily Source to Wrestling News
PWInsider reports that David Otunga will be making his return during the Extreme Rules Kickoff panel on Sunday, June 4th, alongside Renee Young and Peter Rosenberg.
For those who forgot, Otunga has been kept off weekly WWE programming for the last six weeks because he’s out filming a movie.
Brie Bella posted a video on our YouTube channel talking about her plans to make a WWE comeback. She mentions that her C-section delivery has pushed her timetable back a bit, but that we should see her “Soon, maybe not ‘very’ soon, but definitely soon.”
WWE released the following photos of their website that reveal Lana’s in-ring gear for when she returns to WWE television on the SmackDown Live brand:
Several websites posted photos last month that displayed Lana wearing a dress and claimed that it would be her ring gear when she returns to WWE television. We knew at the time that she would not be wrestling in that because… well, who wrestles in a dress?
Baron Corbin got into it today on Twitter with CZW wrestler Geoffrey Bravo. It all went down with Bravo ripped Corbin for his appearance. Here is the exchange:
I don’t get Baron Corbin’s sex appeal that women love…. Y’all likevthe balding, kinda in shape, lost look in the eyes look? Lmao
— Geoffrey Bravo (@GeoffBravo5_aka) May 25, 2017
@GeoffBravo5_aka I don’t get how you call your self a pro wrestler. Wrestling for chips and maybe 5 bucks just makes you a pretend wrestler. Big difference
— Baron Corbin (@BaronCorbinWWE) May 26, 2017
@BaronCorbinWWE I’m apparently enough of a somebody to elicit a response…. and I didn’t even tag you. Have a great day, brother!
— Geoffrey Bravo (@GeoffBravo5_aka) May 26, 2017
PWInsider reports that Matt Hardy’s trademark application for the “BROKEN Matt Hardy” has been refused by the U.S. Patent & Trademark office. Matt has six months to respond to the application before it’s abandoned. The refusal reads:
“Registration is refused because the applied-for mark, as used on the specimen of record, identifies only the name of a particular character/personal name; it does not function as a service mark to identify and distinguish applicant’s services from those of others and to indicate the source of applicant’s services.”
As we are all no doubt very aware, Jinder Mahal is the WWE Champion. He’s bested the likes of Sami Zayn and Randy Orton, and is now seated comfortably at the top of the mountain. It is still unclear just how long he’s going to stay there, but things have changed. He is not going back down to where he was. WWE is clearly all in on the Maharaja Express. Once this is all done and there’s a new WWE Champion, don’t expect Mahal to fade away. From the looks of things, he is going to be around for a while.
Think about it. The last three champions, for some crazy reason, have all been transitional champions. I can’t believe it. If you add the total amount of days that John Cena, Bray Wyatt, and Randy Orton held the title this year, it’s less than the length of AJ Styles’s reign. The championship went nowhere.
Cena won it off AJ so he could get his 16 title reigns and lose it to Bray Wyatt two weeks later. Two weeks. What is this, the 70’s? Next up is Bray Wyatt. His reign started out alright. He won in the Elimination Chamber and retained against Cena and Styles in a triple threat. Cool. Randy Orton burned his house down and killed Sister Abigail to death. It was an awesome moment, but that was when the feud jumped the shark.
The bad blood between Wyatt and Orton devolved into a dick measuring contest. They argued over who had the superior magic powers, with Bray claiming he was born again and Randy just kinda stabbing the ground with a stake. Then they put on a garbage match at Wrestlemania that was certifiably spooky.
Randy won and then fought Wyatt in an even spookier House of Horrors match that he lost. He then lost his in his first title defense.
The very first thing that Jinder Mahal did on Smackdown was come out of a damn limousine like he was hot stuff. The Singh brothers weren’t even riding in the same car as him. They rolled out a carpet for him to step on. Then he had a Punjabi celebration that was actually really cool and colorful. Dancers and music were there in the stadium. It was quite nice.
They are clearly trying to present Mahal as a big deal, and he does seem like one now. This shows a surprising amount of effort. If they were just doing this for kicks and giggles, then they wouldn’t hire a whole crew of Indians to sing and dance. They wouldn’t hire a limousine. WWE is seemingly going the whole nine yards for Mr. Mahal.
Is Mahal going to retain at Money in the Bank? It’s hard to say. Randy Orton is now going after him, and where the hell is Rusev, seriously. Give that man his WWE Championship match. With a new Mr. Money in the Bank about to be crowned soon, we’re about to see some new faces in the main event scene.
Mahal, to his credit, has shown that he can hang with the best. He knows how to wrestle, even if he is a bit plain and uninspiring. The Singh Brothers add depth to his character by giving him unwarranted arrogance. He claims he’s the best, but he’s clearly not. Combine that with his attempts to make us feel racist, and now everyone hates him. It’s great.
A listener calls into the show and asks Taz if The Undertaker ever returns to WWE, will he return as The Undertaker or as Mark Calaway. Taz says that it’s a no brainer that he’ll return as The Undertaker gimmick if he ever returns. He says that there’s no reason for Undertaker to give up that gimmick and return as ‘Mark Calaway’ if he ever comes back.
The caller also asks Taz when he thinks The Undertaker will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Taz says he wouldn’t waste any time, and he’d induct The Undertaker next year. Undertaker is a first ballot Hall of Famer, and it’s only a matter of time before he takes his rightful place in the Hall of Fame.
Another listener calls into the show and asks Taz about the differences between cutting a promo in a small gymnasium versus a large arena. Taz says that no matter the size of the building, everything changes when there’s a camera in front of your face. Regardless of how many people are in the building, there might be millions watching at home so your promo needs to be more generic and more relatable to a larger group of people.
Another caller mentions that he doesn’t think The Miz has been booked as well since moving to Monday Night RAW. Taz says that as long as Miz is getting screen time with the mic, he’ll be okay because he’s a great talker. Taz does admit that Miz’s feud with Dean Ambrose has been dragged out, so after their next Intercontinental Title bout hopefully Miz will move on to a fresh program.
Bischoff is joined on today’s show by his co-host Nick Hausman.
Bischoff opens today’s show by discussing Ed Nordholm’s decision to divulge personal messages between himself and Matt Hardy to the wrestling media. This is a whole new level of small ball in Bischoff’s opinion, and it stinks of desperation. It’s a very amateur move, and by sending out this information Bischoff suggests that Nordholm is basically wearing a sign around his neck that says ‘mark’.
Bischoff believes that the harder IMPACT pushes back against The Hardys in this battle over the ‘Broken Universe, in the court of public opinion they will be found guilty. They’re bringing a lot of bad publicity to their brand by fighting this war, and they’d be much better served to just let it go.
He believes that this whole thing is probably one big running joke within WWE at the moment, because it’s incredibly stupid. The fact that Ed Nordholm and IMPACT tried to ‘sell’ WWE a gimmick is hilarious in Bischoff’s opinion, and there’s no way anyone at WWE’s head offices are taking this serious at all.
While speaking with AP News, Chris Jericho talked about his future with WWE and revealed that it will be a long time before he returns to WWE.
“WWE, it’s the brand name. I’m just a cog. An important part of it, people like it. But this is our band. People are here to see us. That to me, is a little more of a rush. It’s not under the auspices of another name. It’ll be a long time before I go back,” he said. “If I ever do go back, if I never go back, it’s fine. If I never wrestle another match, it wouldn’t bother me.”
It’s very interesting that Jericho questioned if he would be returning to WWE as he is being advertised for the upcoming WWE Live Event on June 30th and July 1st in Tokyo, Japan at the Ryogoku Kokugikan.
Plans for Rusev to return to WWE programming and go after the WWE Title have changed.
As seen on SmackDown Live a couple weeks back, WWE aired footage of Rusev saying he wanted a shot at the WWE Title at the Money in the Bank event. Rusev said he would be returning to SmackDown Live to confront Shane, which never happened and WWE hasn’t played up to that storyline at all on any of their programming.
With WWE announcing Randy Orton’s rematch for the WWE Title at the Money in the Bank event on SmackDown Live this week, it is now evident that plans have changed for Rusev and he will not be going after the Title on that show. We will keep you updated if we hear anything new regarding his return.
