Here's your News for August 8th 2020 Parody Of WWE Raw Underground! WWE Is Going Live Soon! WWE And AEW In A Bidding War! Wrestling News!
And your headlines for today
Vince McMahon Names Three Of His Favorite WWE Stars During Company Meeting!
What Is The Status Of WWE 205 Live After Destruction From Retribution’s Invasion ?
Braun Strowman Seemingly Turns Heel & Books WWE SummerSlam Match!
Big News On WWE’s Return To Live Television!
AEW & WWE are in a bidding war For Former World Heavyweight Champion!
WWE RAW Underground Parody Planned For Talk ‘N Shop A Mania 2!
Major Setback For Furloughed WWE Employees!
Major Update On WWE – Saudi Arabia Lawsuit! Lawsuit Filed Against Shane McMahon!
Judge Gives His Verdict On Rock’s Purchase On XFL!
Another Former WWE Superstar In AEW And More!
We’re kicking off today with news from WWE, as a lot’s been said on the company’s latest tapings.
In recent weeks, tapings for both RAW and SmackDown have been described as chaotic, with Vince
McMahon recently rejecting almost every idea pitched to him for this week’s tapings.
With that in mind though, there are some Superstars have have been able to thaw
the Boss’ icy demeanour.
In the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer noted that it was a meeting on July 30th that
saw Vince approve nothing, but the next day, another meeting lasted four hours, with the Boss
speaking in length about his love of Bayley’s heel persona.
The reigning SmackDown Women’s and WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion wasn’t the only one
the Boss praised, as he also had good things to say about Bianca Belair and Peyton Royce, who he
both sees as singles star.
The fact that Royce’s name was mentioned as a singles star does leave us wondering what the future
holds for the IIconics, and Billie Kay, and it’s interesting to see that anything is making the Boss
happy during these unprecedented times.
Over to SmackDown now, and this week’s show ended with Retribution spreading their brand of
anarchy, including destoying the set and painting the ring and plexiglass, though their graffiti didn’t
last long.
When 205 Live started, the commentators made a brief mention of the group, but despite
the group also cutting through the ring ropes, there was no damage at all when the Purple show aired.
Obviously, WWE filmed Smackdown and 205 Live out of order, and though the chaos of Retribution
was mentioned, nobody on 205 Live explained their sudden clean-up efforts.
Back to SmackDown now, and a huge battle royal has been set for next week’s show.
On the latest episode of the Blue brand, Stephanie McMahon appeared via video link, and
announced a triple-brand battle royal, with the winner getting a shot at SmackDown Women’s
Champion Bayley.
The Role Model herself will have a busy week, as she’s set to face Asuka on RAW, and it’s believed
that the Empress will defeat Bayley to earn herself a RAW Women’s title matcha against Sasha Banks
at Summerslam.
Stephanie didn’t confirm how many women will be in next week’s Battle Royal, but it’ll be
interesting who from RAW, SmackDown and NXT make it to the show.
From one Champion to another now, as Universal Champion Braun Strowman seemingly turned heel
on this week’s SmackDown.
After The Fiend attacked Alexa Bliss last week, it looked like we were going to see the same this
week until Bliss stopped him, and then Strowman appeared on the big screen, claiming he doesn’t
care what Wyatt does with the former Women’s Champion.
Describing himself as “the most evil son on earth, this apparent heel turn was a
transformation that Wyatt seemingly put Strowman through during their Wyatt Swamp Fight at the
Horror Show at Extreme Rules.
The Monster Among Men also confirmed that he and The Fiend will meet at Summerslam,
presumably for the Universal title, and it’ll be interesting to see how this new side to Strowman fares
against The Fiend.
Once again, this week saw WWE tape some shows in advance, but it now looks like this trend will
become a thing of the past.
PW Insider is reporting that WWE will once again be airing live programming starting on August 21st,
which will be a live episode of Friday Night SmackDown, and the post-Summerslam RAW will also
be live.
There’s no word on whether NXT will also be going live, though it’s been previously reported that
the August 12th tapings will include shows for the 12th and the 19th, and it seems that going live is the
company’s next attempted remedy for their ongoing ratings issues.
One person who is always popular with the crowds is Rey Mysterio, and fans shouldn’t expect the
former World Champion to leave WWE anytime soon.
In the Wrestling Observer, Dave Meltzer noted that AEW made an offer to Rey that matched WWE’s
number of matches, but WWE’s offer was higher because it included more detes.
It’s currently not known how long Rey’s new contract will be, but it’s expected to be longer than his
last 18-month deal, but not as long as the 5-year deal many Superstars have.
Rey’s son Dominik, who is set to make his in-ring debut at Summerslam, has also been a big
deciding factor, as Rey can obviously help his son out more if he stays in WWE, and with Rey out of
action due to the storyline eyeball injury the Monday Night Messiah gave him, it may be just a matter of
time before Rey returns to TV to get his revenge.
Fans didn’t see Rey on this week’s RAW, but they did see the debut of RAW Underground, but it
turns out the company nearly didn’t get that name in time.
It turns out that WWE filed a trademark for RAW Underground on August 3rd, the same day the
segment debuted, and now that the company has filed the trademark, fans can expect to see plenty
of RAW Underground from now on.
One person who was watching RAW Underground closely was John Cena, who spoke to Newsweek
about the shoot-fight style segment.
Encouraging Superstars to embrace the unknown, Cena said the Underground provides a great
opportunity for Superstars who may have been previously overlooked. He said:
“It’s an opportunity, that’s exactly what it is. So, I think it needs a little bit of time to find itself. And in
all things if it lacks creative definition from the top, I really hope performers embrace the unknown
and they define it.”
There’s a lot of possibilities for RAW Underground, though for now, it seems WWE are playing things
by ear in a lot of ways, with their being no current plans for a RAW Underground title, or for women
to appear, something Liv Morgan and more recently Xia Li, wish to do.
This week’s show also saw the RAW ratings improve slightly, something that WWE have been
needing for a while, and whilst we can’t say this was solely due to RAW Underground, the segment
clearly helped.
Whilst Cena clearly enjoyed RAW Underground, not everyone was a fan, and there’s apparently
plans already for a parody of the segment.
Whilst appearing on Wrestling Observer Live, Rocky Romero spoke about Talk-‘N Shop-A-Mania, and
said he felt obligated for a sequel, especially as they were the third-tracked U.S. based event that
night, after UFC and the NBA.
Romero also revealed that this week’s RAW gave Doc Gallows ideas, which presumably means that
Talk-‘N-Shop-A-Mania 2 will see a parody of RAW Underground.
Though a date hasn’t been confirmed for the sequel, the team of Romero, Gallows and Karl
Anderson are already hard at work, and given the impressive response from their first show, fans
can expect plenty of skits for T alk-‘N Shop-A-Mania 2.
Back in WWE now, and WWE Employees are reportedly very unhappy with the company right now.
In the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer explained that this anger is from the company
furloughing so many employees, which he said made sense in April, as Vince McMahon feared what
the profit margins would be. He said:
“By July, that fear was gone… The argument is that by July, they knew they were setting profit
records and then to extend the furloughs twice since then is the thing employees were really upset
about.”
Though WWE has brought back a handful of people, it’s not been many at all, and it’s unclear if
WWE will bring back anyone else, even when things get back to normal.
We’ve got some courtroom news next, as a Judge has denied WWE’s efforts to throw out the lawsuit
against them over Saudi Arabia.
It’s been alleged that the company didn’t disclose vital information to investors that would’ve
changed the company’s value, and this all stems from the 2019 Crown Jewel event where Superstars
had to stay an additional 24 hours.
Though WWE blamed a mechanical fault, issues between Vince McMahon and the Saudis has also
been claimed, and now that the case hasn’t been thrown out, it’s likely that WWE will have to
defend themselves and their actions in court, the last thing the company needs at this time.
Speaking of courtrooms, this week’s episode of RAW marked the return of Shane McMahon to WWE
TV, but the Best in the World may not be around for long.
This is because of a lawsuit against Ideanomics a company that Shane has served as the company
ditrctor in 2010, and has also worked as both the Vice Chairman and CEO during his tenure.
The lawsuit alleges that the company has seen an abuse of control, gross mismanagement, a misuse
of funds, and directly claims that Shane has done little or no work in correcting the alleged false and
misleading claims made by the company.
Whilst the company may not be well known to the public, they have several different divisions,
including commercial electric vehicles and next-generation financial services, though it’s unclear just
how much Shane had to do with these divisions.
Clearly, this is the last thing the Best in the World needs now that he only recently return to Monday
Night RAW, and we’ll have to see what happens next for Shane, as he’ll face challenges both in the
Underground, and in the courtroom.
Even more legal drama next, as recently, The Rock’s attempts to purchase the XFL was blocked by
the league’s creditors.
After the Brahma Bull and his partners attempted to buy the XFL for $15million, creditors said that
this wasn’t an accurate value of the league, but now US District Judge Laurie Silverstein has allowed
the purchase to go through.
Over two dozen groups were interested in buying the XFL, but only the Rock’s group made the only
qualified bid, and once the partners pay off a $9 million debt, it’ll be interesting to see how the Great
One does with his new Football league.
And we’re ending today with news from AEW, as this week’s show was quite a bit louder than usual.
It turns out that the company piped in crowd noise for this week’s show like WWE does, though in
the Wrestling Observer Newsletter it was said that AEW are better at matching the noises with the
in-ring action.
It was also reported that Tony Schavone came in and re-did lines that were later dubbed in, which
explains why he sounded strange at times.
Clearly, the company is trying to make the best of these unprecedented times, and with
next week’s episode of Dark also seeing the AEW debut of former NXT Superstar Rachel Ellering,
the company is going full-steam ahead to their All Out event on September 5th.