Here's your wrestling news for June 28th 2021
And your headlines for today include
Major Update On When WWE Is Planning To Have Roman Reigns Vs. Seth Rollins!
WWE Came Out Of The Way For A Released WWE Superstar!
Bella Twins Receives MAJOR Slack For Mocking Chyna!
Bobby Lashley's WWE Supershow Opponents Announced
WWE RAW To Witness A Stunning Betrayal!
Former WWE Champion To Return To RAW Tonight!
Former WWE Champion Urges Promoters To Book Two Released WWE Superstars!
Vince McMahon Attends Dave Chappelle Comedy Show And more!
We’re starting today with Money In the Bank where Edge will face Roman Reigns with the Universal title on the line.
That’s bad news for Seth Rollins, who lashed out at WWE on Talking Smack, claiming that he was promised the title
match at Money in the Bank, and that Edge has done nothing to deserve this opportunity. To his credit, Rollins makes some fair points,
and we now know when the Architect will get his Universal title opportunity. On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer
explained that the plan is for Reigns Vs. John Cena and Edge Vs. Rollins at Summerslam, with Reigns feuding with Rollins after the
August Pay-Per-View. This would imply that not only will Reigns retain at Money in the Bank, possibly thanks to Rollins
interference, but he’ll also retain against Cena at Summerslam. Reigns has certainly been a dominant
champion who’s dispatched every opponent in his way, and time will tell whether his former Shield brother is the one to take the Tribal
Chief down
As Tribal Chief, Roman Reigns has been SmackDown’s most dominant star, and now has another huge accolade to his collection.
Yesterday, Reigns passed 300 days as Universal Champion in his current run, an impressive accolade for the Head of the table.
This reign is the second-longest in history, only behind Brock Lesnar’s 503 day stranglehold of the title between WrestleMania
33 and Summerslam 2018, but with the Tribal Chief showing no signs of slowing down, Reigns very much could beat the Beast’s
record.
Now, over the past few months, WWE has been releasing a lot of Superstars, but not everyone has had to deal with a non-compete
clause. When he was released in March, Andrade was let go by WWE without a non-compete
clause, which allowed him to sign with AEW not long after his departure, and he’s not the only exception to WWE’s rule.
Fightful Select reports that “at least one” released Superstar has been able to get out of their non-compete clause early, and it’s
also noted that the WWE and John Lauriniatis have been very easy to deal with. Earlier this month, we reported how some
Superstars were willing to forego their WWE release pay to get out of their non-compete clauses, presumably due to AEW and Imapct
hosting major events very soon. There’s no word on who is the lucky Superstar to get out of the clause,
but fans may be seeing at least one recently-released Superstar sooner than anyone expected.
During the Attitude Era, Chyna was a true trail-blazer of women’s wrestling, and her 2019 induction into the WWE Hall of Fame
was long overdue. It’s no secret that Chyna’s real life story was a tragic one, where she never got the chance
to return to WWE after her 2001 departure, and now footage has emerged of two WWE staples having some very crass things to say.
On old video has resurfaced of the Bella Twins appearing on the July 26th, 2013 edition of E! Network’s Fashion Police
and when presented with a picture of Chyna, Nikki Bella said that they couldn’t tell if Chyna was a man or a woman.
This was followed by another crass comment from comedian Joan Rivers, who claimed that the iconic Superstar had both male and female
genitalia, to the delight of the crowd. This episode was filmed during a dark time in Chyna’s life, and what makes this clip even
more shocking is that these comments were made after the pair had been rehired in March that year
Sadly, Chyna is no longer with us, but her legacy lives on, as do these comments by the Bellas which has had fans outraged recently.
Last week, both Samir and Sunil Singh were released by WWE, as part of WWE President Nick Khan’s demand for more people to be let
go. One person who’s looking forward to seeing the pair wrestle again is Mick Foley, and in a
Tweet, the Hardcore Legend urged promoters to book them, saying their shows need a team like the Bollywood
In response, the former WWE Superstars said that Mick’s words mean the world to them, which led to Foley once again praising them,
saying they were awesome in WWE and worked their butts off. Despite being on 205 Live, the pair had
main-roster contracts, presumably due to their run from 2017-2018 with Jinder Mahal, meaning they’ll have to wait out a 90-day
non-compete clause, and an endorsement by Mick Foley can only help the pair get bookings when the time is right
Next month, WWE will return to the road, with RAW and SmackDown TV tapings, as well as live-events which are being called Supershows.
We now know the main-event for the Supershows, as for the August 7th event in Fort Myers, Florida, Drew McIntyre and Kofi
Kingston will team to face WWE Champion Bobby Lashley and MVP, and this match will also main event in Gainesville, Florida the
next night. This implies that Lashley will be Champion until at least August, and that his feud with
with Kingston and McIntyre will continue after his title match against the New Day star on July 18th at Money in the Bank.
Over to RAW now, and tonight’s show will see a huge triple threat match, with a spot in the Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder match
on the line. Tonight’s match will feature Randy Orton, Drew McIntyre and AJ Styles, who all
came-up short in last week’s qualifying matches, but fans shouldn’t expect to see Orton win the match.
Instead, fans should expect Riddle, either inadvertently or intentionally, cost Orton the match, as WWE have made it clear in recent
weeks that RK-Bro aren’t on the same page. It was last week that Riddle’s distraction cost Orton his first qualifier against John Morrison,
and after costing him a spot in the ladder match yet again, the Viper would hit the RKO on his partner, bringingtheir team to a
premature end. This is just one of the many plans being discussed by RAW’s writing team, and like
all stories, is awaiting approval by Vince McMahon. A feud between Orton and Riddle would
certainly be popular with fans, especially as both men are on top of their game, and WWE prepares to welcome back crowds next month.
Even off screen, the pair have teased tension in their makeshift tag-team, with Riddle tweeting how Orton has been ghosting him,
not replying to any of his texts. Turning on tonight’s RAW would likely lead to a Pay-Per-View match at Money in the Bank, and
perhaps a rematch at Summerslam, and for as fun as RK-Bro has been a feud between the two could be even better.
All week long, WWE has been promising that either Orton, Styles or McIntyre will qualify but Jinder Mahal could spoil those plans.
After all, the former WWE Champion was pretty upset about being left out of the mix, and with the colossal Veer and Shanky by
his side, Mahal has the muscle to cause mayhem, disrupting the Money in the Bank proceedings. This is another idea WWE’s writing team are
discussing, with the plan being a Mahal-McIntyre feud over the Summer, that the company will use to keep Drew looking strong
With McIntyre having been in the WWE Title picture for so long, the company is aware of fans turning on the Scottish Superstar for
this, and the hope is that having him out of the title picture, feuding with the consistently heel Jinder will help him regain favour with the fans.
It's a great way to get to Drew McIntyre vs. Jinder Mahal on WWE RAW, a feud both men have spoken publicly about in the past
even if its nothing more than a filler feud to kill time before SummerSlam comes along.
Now, last year, Sonya Deville narrowly avoided a kidnapping attempt, when a fan broke into her home with all the tools to kidnap an individual.
Following the incident, Deville was given time off to recover, and was written off TV with a loser-leaves-town match at Summerslam 2020
that she lost to Mandy Rose, before returning in January this year. Since then, Deville has worked as an on-screen
authority figure and during an interview on The Bump, she confirmed that she won’t be getting back in the ring as a Superstar for quite some
time: "I love doing what I do right now. I think it's a natural … I'm content with where I am right now.
At the end of the day, of course I'm a fighter and I really enjoy growing and learning in this role, but I don't see things changing anytime
soon.” A former MMA fighter who’s yet to hold gold in WWE, it would be great to see Deville wrestle in
WWE again, and though that’ll happen one day, fans will have to wait a bit longer before she decides to make her in-ring return.
And we’re ending today with Vince McMahon, who is kept very busy overseeing everything in WWE, but even the Chairman needs a break
from work. Recently, McMahon took such a break as he was photographed at the Dave Chapelle and
Friends comedy show, which took place at Foxwoods Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut.
Last May on WWE’s The Bump, former Superstar JTG said how McMahon is a huge fan of Chapelle’s work, and whilst
the Chairman is being kept busy with WWE’s impending return to the road, it’s good to see he took some time away to
enjoy the comedy stylings of Chapelle and his friends.