Coming up, Tommy Dreamer apologises for his controversial comments, WWE has spoiled one
of the draft picks and so much more. So subscribe to the channel for your daily dose of wrestling
news! It’s safe to say that Tommy Dreamer has
been having a ‘mare the last few days after comments he made defending alleged actions
of Ric Flair during the infamous Plane Ride From Hell aired on Dark Side of the Ring.
Dreamer chalked the allegations of sexual harassment levelled against Flair by fllight
attendant Heidi Doyle to everyone getting offended by everything these days, the f******
idiot, and got himself indefinitely suspended from Impact wrestling for his troubles.
Dreamer later took to Twitter to apologise for his comments, saying: “Regarding my
comments made on Dark Side of the Ring. It was never my intention to offend, hurt or
victim shame anyone, I understand my comments were insensitive and could trigger emotions
in someone’s own personal past. I do not condone sexual misconduct of any kind. I apologize
to anyone I offended. From the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry.”
Meanwhile after Dark Side of the Ring brought new attention to Flair’s alleged actions
aboard the flight, he’s had an advertising campaign with Car Shield pulled from television
in the US according to PW Insider. A spokesperson for InterMedia who handle advertising
for Car Shield had this to say in a statement: “We take these matters very seriously. As
of right now, we are pausing the campaign and we will do our due diligence.”
Onto lighter topics now, and with the WWE Draft coming up we are in the exciting time
where we get to see talent reshuffled across Raw and Smackdown creating all sorts of new
match possibilities and the mystery of who is going where and who they are going to be
facing… hang on Drew’s going to Smackdown to face Roman.
WWE! Guys, come on! Wrestling News tweeted to say that Roman Reigns
vs Drew McIntyre is being advertised locally in Baltimore for the October 1st edition of
Smackdown. Which is the first night of the draft, so
the rumours of Drew switching brands appear to be true.
The advert also explicitly states that it will be for the Universal Championship - really
taking some of the wind out of the old demons' sails for Extreme Rules this weekend.
Meanwhile, WWE have narrowly avoided another day in court, for now.
A trial arranged for September 2021 over the use of Randy Orton’s tattoos in the WWE
2K games has now been pushed back to January 2022 according to PW Insdier.
In April 2018, tattoo artist Catherine Alexander filed a lawsuit against WWE, Take-Two Interactive
Software Inc, 2K Games Inc, 2K Sports Inc, Visual Concepts Entertainment, Yukes Co Ltd,
and Yukes LA Inc for including her tattoo work on their in-game model of Randy Orton
without her permission. The trial date has already been pushed back
from June 2020, to February 2021 to September and now January.
The question of whether tattoo art in videogames falls under copyright law when licensing the
likeness of a famous person is one which has gone on for some time and one which 2K has
previously fought legal cases against and won over tattoo renders in NBA 2K games.
With WWE letting so many people go this year, it’s kind of crazy to think that there are
still people on the roster who are not being used for whatever reason.
One of those people is Mia Yim, formerly Retribution’s RECKONING, who last wrestled in December 2020
on an episode of Main Event in a match against Nikki Cross.
She hasn’t appeared on any WWE programming since the faction broke up in March.
On Twitter Yim offered up a clarification on her WWE status saying: “I’m not injured”.
So clearly some other reason is keeping her off of TV. My bet is they don’t know what
to do with her. Every pitch meeting probably goes: “we’ll name her redemption and put
her in a mask” “no we did that already,” “ok how about reclamation and some sort
of face covering” “you do know you said the same thing twice in different ways”
Yim’s fiance Kieth Lee also had a lengthy period of absence from WWE programming after
testing positive for COVID-19 and having a difficult road to a full recovery, Mia confirmed
that she tested positive for COVID while taking care of Lee and had to miss the Royal Rumble
match this year because of it. Another WWE star who hasn’t been seen on
TV is Harry Smith, aka Davey Boy Smith Jr, the son of the British Bulldog.
A new report has confirmed that Smith is 100% signed with the company once again, but not
being featured yet, despite having wrestled a dark match before a recent episode of Smackdown.
The report from PW Insider says: “He signed with WWE but is yet to be officially assigned
to a brand. So, he’s in “hurry up and wait” mode, but he’s 100% with the company.”
Considering the Draft kicks off in early October it should only be a matter of time before
Smith is given a TV show to call home. Now whether much is made of his wrestling
heritage or he goes the way of the new NXT talents like Bron Breakker and gets completely
repackaged remains to be seen: but picture the scene: making his way to the ring and
newly signed to Smackdown: Knucks Tugger. Cause the thing is for all the crap we give
WWE about falling back on their history and relying on legends to come back and pop a
rating all evidence points to it working. And yes that speaks to a wider systemic issue
of having been completely unable to build proper new stars, but it’s undeniable that
things like recently bringing back John Cena for a run into SummerSlam did wonders for
Raw and Smackdown’s ticket sales as people really wanted to see Big Match Movie Star
Cena in person. Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio crunched
the numbers: “If ever there was any argument about John
Cena…I’m not saying throughout his entire career….but John Cena at this stage going
to house shows and being a draw, boy did this year-end it because they were running around
everywhere when he was working and they were selling tickets. And they were doing very
well and now that he’s not there it has gone from great to so-so and maybe in some
cases less than so-so. I mean bad, there are definitely bad ones now.”
Which is a little bit bleak. Speaking of one man everyone wants to see:
CM Punk. Punk’s return to wrestling has been the
biggest wrestling news story of the year: thank you universe, but it’s also been a
ticket seller and ratings popper for AEW who have enjoyed bumped figures on a number of
shows since Punk’s return. They have also managed to move A LOT of merchandise.
The demand for Punk’s latest shirt on ProWrestlingTees has at times been overwhelming for the site,
not only breaking all records for the previous best-selling shirt but also breaking the site
on a couple of occasions. Tony Khan was on Busted Open radio for an
interview this week and detailed just how Punk has been helping out AEW’s business:
“What he’s done for our attendance, record TV ratings, record PPV buys. We set a live
attendance mark in Chicago. We’ve set all new kinds of merchandising records . We sold
over a 100,000 CM Punk shirts. We’ve sold thousands and thousands of ice cream bars
since he started giving those away. You know, he’s absolutely changed our business.”
The amazing thing as well is if you sell enough ice cream bars eventually everyone is going
to need a new t-shirt in a larger size too. It’s a self-fulfilling business prophecy.
Let’s talk Gable Steveson now, the Olympic Gold medallist who recently confirmed that
he has signed with WWE on an ‘exclusive agreement’.
At the time of the announcement Steveson called his signing a “dream come true” but no
speaking with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour Steveson has given some more detail as to
the inspirations that powered his decision. “Besides talking to guys like Lesnar and
Triple H and such, I haven’t actually talked to another collegiate wrestler in WWE….(Brock)
was a good part (of the decision) because the Brock Lesnar path, like we talked about,
he started with WWE and went to the NFL and made it to the final stages of being on the
team, then went to UFC. So, I mean the Brock Lesnar route is helpful
for me, and I want to pave my own way and have my own destiny. He was a big help in
this, and it was cool that he gave me some guidance.”
Brock’s advice was get yourself a ponytail fella.
Before we get outta her let’s quickly talk about Impact who may have made some moves
in order to get new signings. For one the company expressed a bunch of interest
in former NXT UK star Killer Kelly who wrestled for them in late 2020, but struggled to get
back into the US so hasn’t appeared since. Fightful Select are reporting that Kelly is
currently in the US, though she wasn’t at the latest round of Impact tapings, so we’ll
have to see if they’re still keen on her in future.
Fightful have also been reporting on the recent round of tapings ahead of Bound For Glory
and noted that Christopher Daniels, who last wrestled for the company in 2014, was at the
tapings. No confirmation has come through as to whether
Daniels is at Impact to wrestle though. Another face at the tapings was Alex Zayne,
the former Ari Sterling of WWE 205 Live fame who was released on August 6th alongside the
likes of Bronson Reed and Bobby Fish. Fightful Select said Zayne is set to appear
on IMPACT programming in the future. It wasn’t specified whether or not Zayne has officially
signed
a deal with IMPACT though.