Hot on the heels of a swathe of releases of main roster WWE talent, this week brought
us a cleaning out of the closet over at NXT.
Oli mentioned in yesterday’s news that Jake Clemons, Alexander Wolfe, Skyler Story, Ezra
Judge, Jessamyn Duke, Vanessa Borne and Kavita Devi had all been released from the company,
as well as man who was as orange as his backstage heat levels, referee Drake Wuertz.
Housemate Simon and I always used to call him intense ref, and hoo boy he did not disappoint.
It was noted by PWInsider that these releases had been planned for three weeks ago, but
it was decided to delay the call to future endeavor the group until this week.
The raspberry beret on top of that list of releases was the news that embattled Prince
rip-off The Velveteen Dream, real name Patrick Clark has also been released by the company.
PWInsider reported that multiple sources had told them that Clark had been released on
Thursday.
Dream’s push on NXT had ground to a halt in the wake of allegations of inappropriate
conduct with underage fans on social media and in light of screenshots of some of those
conversations being posted online - though they have never been verified or handed over
to police.
That said Dream was used only sporadically throughout 2020, with Triple H attributing
his absence to injuries suffered in a car accident
Triple H also noted that internally the company: “did do an investigation, didn’t find
anything there in the matter of what we were looking for and we moved on”.
Regardless, Dream was mostly dropped from NXT TV and has not made an appearance in 2021,
his last televised match taking place on the Very Gargano Christmas NXT Special against
Adam Cole.
Though before news of Dream’s release broke Fightful Select are reporting that there were
‘concerns’ backstage that he was going to be given a coaching role.
According to Fightful, Clark had been attending open ring sessions and there was growing concern
backstage that he was being set up to help coach classes.
This obviously did not come to fruition.
Dream had also reportedly been backstage at Raw earlier this month but there were apparently
no plans to feature him on screen.
News of Velveteen’s release also brought to light some backstage opinions on Clark
and his conduct, veteran WWE artist Rob Schamberger took to Twitter to let loose his thoughts:
Saying: “Without saying anything further: He was the single most unprofessional person
I’ve encountered in this business.
I hope this is the wake up call he needs to start doing the emotional work to become a
better person.
All told.”
Dream is reportedly set to have a 30 day non-compete clause.
Which in light of everything that has gone in might not be necessary.
So it was announced this week that AEW Dynamite will be making the leap from TNT to TBS in
January 2022, while a brand new show AEW: Rampage will debut on Friday August 13th on
TNT but also jump ship with Dynamite come January.
Brett Weitz, General Manager at TBS, TNT and truTV said the move definitely had something
to do with the NBA and NHL, which have been known to shunt Dynamite around the schedule,
TBS should provide a more fixed home for the show.
Definitely also something to do with it was the reported eight figure fee increase to
move the package: Dynamite and Rampage over.
Dave Melzter noted in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that: “It is believed the new
deal for the complete package was not extended from the original deal” which was extended
to 2023 last year.
It was also announced that four new annual special events will air on TNT, Dave Meltzer
in the Newsletter updated that they would be “formatted similar to WCW’s old Clash
of the Champions or Saturday Night’s Main Events when it was a big deal in the 80s.
Since WWE owns the Clash of the Champions name, the live specials will give the company
four new destination dates per year, will have another name.”
This is obviously good for AEW as it gives them more big events to build to with a few
more peaks and troughs in their previously slimline event calendar.
Meltzer also had updates on Rampage and how it will be filmed adding:
“Rampage will generally be taped on Wednesday nights but there will be special Friday night
live tapings on PPV weeks.
It appears they will run in the city they are doing the PPV in.”
“Right now the plan is a mix of all tapings for Dynamite, Rampage, Dark Elevation and
Dark some weeks being on Wednesdays, and some weeks splitting up tapings on Wednesdays and
Fridays.”
This adds to Tony Khan revealing that he had turned down the offer of extending Dynamite
to a three hour show - he told Busted Open Radio:
“They asked at one point if I wanted to do three hours of Dynamite when it came up
about doing a third hour.
I said I really believe in doing it on another night.”
No doubt the looming spectre of Raw’s three hour filler fiasco and fan fatigue tipped
the scales for this decision.
But it’s interesting that mostly Rampage will just be filmed at Dynamite tapings and
aired later.
Obviously the biggest bit of drama with the move is what is going to happen to the TNT
Championship, because yaknow, it’s name…
Well Khan said the “plan is to keep that TNT title but I have a different Turner idea
I think is cool.”
Save money and just squeeze some extra letters onto the belt to make the TurNerT Championship.
Now while AEW set up for their Rampage, WWE is on the hunt for venues for its upcoming
raft of pay per views.
SummerSlam has been touted by WrestleVotes as the “return to touring” for the company
and is one of their most important ppvs of the year.
Though this piece of breaking news might change all of that as the WWE on Fox Twitter account
revealed earlier that the company is returning to live events from July 16th.
Smackdown that night will be held at the Toyota Center in Houston Texas and kick off a 25
city tour that runs through to Labor Day - which is September non-American friends!
The schedule includes Money in the Bank on the 18th emanating from the Dickies Arena
in Fort Worth, and Raw on the 19th from the American Airlines Center in Dallas - tickets
go on sale May 26th.
Back to SummerSlam which falls into this touring bracket.
Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated previously reported that Nevada has been confirmed as
the state where the show is going to take place.
So everyone jumped to the conclusion that unless the show was going to emanate from
Area 51 it had to be coming from Las Vegas.
Well WrestleVotes have seemingly confirmed the speculation by tweeting a gif of the Las
Vegas sign.
Which is a cool location, opens up obvious set-dressing , that is a little bit Double
or Nothing but we can ignore that.
My only reservation is that Army of the Dead is also set in Vegas… so are we gonna get
zombies again.
Hopefully WWE no when to hold ‘em, fold ‘em, no when to walk away, no when to run.
Something they have been running is a commercial for the WWE Network and Peacock that seemingly
has confirmed the revised pay per view order which started when Hell in a Cell jumped to
bloody June this year.
The promo video flashes up the various logos and the order runs: Hell in a Cell, Money
in the Bank, SummerSlam, Clash of Champions, Extreme Rules, Survivor Series (Best of the
Best), TLC, Royal Rumble, Fastlane and WrestleMania 38.
After Daniel Bryan lost to Roman Reigns on SmackDown a couple of weeks ago, he was banished
from the brand entirely, which tied in with his very real contract expiration from WWE.
Which technically means Bryan is free to do as he wishes when it comes to appearing in
other promotions.
And one promotion in particular has teased the potential of him joining them.
Impact Wrestling is no stranger to teasing the signings of recent WWE signees, with last
year’s Slammiversay being built around “who will join the company?”.
It seems the same tactic has been used again this year, with new vignettes showcasing tons
of potential new signees for the promotion, including the aforementioned Daniel Bryan,
as well as The Forgotten Sons, The IIconics, Bullet Club, and more.
While some of the teased talent did end up in Impact last year, not all of them did,
so let’s not jump to conclusions.
Daniel Bryan to Impact Wrestling confirmed.
And speaking of Impact, it seems they may be short an executive.
An angle had been playing out on TV with Impact Executive Vice President Scott D’Amore informing
Kenny Omega’s Invisible Hand, Don Callis, that he had to make a choice whether to continue
being an Impact executive, or be Omega’s manager.
This, according to the Newsletter, was done to blur the lines between fiction and reality,
however someone made a boo boo and we now know that Callis had already left the promotion
as an executive.
"Don Callis was removed as an executive on the web site.
Lots of people in the company had been predicting for some time that Callis would wind up under
contract to AEW as Kenny Omega’s manager..."
“What we were told is that they were doing a story to mirror real life and the impression
was that it would end in TV storyline with Callis being part of AEW, and that at that
point Callis would be no longer an executive on camera in Impact, but somebody changed
the web site long before the story played out."
Whoopsie.
If this is true, then Callis would presumably be moving to an AEW contract before long,
if he hasn’t already.
But it remains to be seen if anyone will fill the role Callis had in Impact, or if Scott
D’Amore will simply take over the responsibilities.
With the recent news that WWE has shut down its Talent Management Group, who were designed
to gather third party sponsorships and deals for their talent, there’s potential for
talent to begin working with said third party platforms once again.
However during this crackdown on outside projects for their wrestlers, Xavier Woods’ UpUpDownDown
YouTube channel has persisted, and now Woods has clarified how, tweeting:
“For those who have asked – @UpUpDwnDwn is owned by WWE and always has been.
Hence why we are allowed to stream on that platform.
Unfortunately, at this point in time, we are not allowed to be on twitch but hopefully
we are given permission at some point.
Hope that clears it up!”
With the potential of third party platforms opening up as options for WWE wrestlers, we’ll
have to wait and see if that also means an expansion of UpUpDownDown’s reach to other
platforms.