Here's more wrestling news for April 21st 2022
And your headlines for today include
Real reason why AEW hasn’t signed Bray Wyatt revealed
Who were the mystery attackers during latest NXT 2.0?
Huge update over KUSHDA leaving WWE! Unhappy backstage, future plans and more!
Cody Rhodes denies rumours over his return to WWE
WWE has abolished long standing punishment after decades of wrestlers campaigning
Former WWE Superstar says pitched name was rejected for being too similar to a bigger star
WWE Hall of Famer explains why his induction nearly didn’t happen due to Vince McMahon
Alexa Bliss confirms name change on social media. And more
We’re starting off with Bray Wyatt, who was released from WWE in July last year, in a shocking move by the company.
Wyatt, who was one of WWE’s most popular acts in the last two years before his release, hasn’t competed for any other promotion since being cut, making WrestleMania 37 his latest
in-ring appearance. Taking to Twitter this week, Dave Meltzer shared an interesting tidbit of information about
the former Universal Champion when a fan asked if AEW was interested in signing him, or if WWE were considering trying to bring him back
In response, Meltzer said that Wyatt’s asking price is “very high,” but gave no specific figure of how much the former Fiend is asking for.
In a recent social media post, Wyatt said that he will wrestle again, but gave no indication as to where or when that will be, and if his figure is as high as Meltzer has reported, fans may
kept waiting for Wyatt’s next match for a long time to come.
On this week’s NXT 2.0, Santos Escobar lost to Carmelo Hayes, but this was just the start of a bad night for the former Cruiserweight Champion.
After the match, Escobar was confronted by two men, and after being distracted by one, was attacked by the other.
The commentary team made it clear that they had never seen these men before, but we now have the identities of both men.
As fans online were able to deduce, it appears that the two men are Troy Donovan and Channing Lauren, both of whom only joined WWE last month.
Both men debuted on TV during the April 8th edition of N XT Level Up, and have previously worked as enhancement talents on AEW Dark last year.
Sent seemingly on the request of Tony D’Angelo, who has claimed to not know the two ‘goombas’ as he described them, this is an incredibly fast turn around from signing with WWE
to being on NXT TV, and we’ll have to see if this becomes a regular role for Troy Donovan and Channing Lauren
Now, last week, KUSHIDA officially left WWE after his contract expired and a new deal wasn't reached.
It's currently unclear whether KUSHIDA rejected a new offer by WWE, or if the company didn't offer him one in the first place, but we now know more about his last few months as a Superstar.
According to Joe Lanza of The Flagship Wrestling Podcast, Kushida had stayed in touch with several New Japan wrestlers after leaving the company for WWE in 2019, and was openly
unhappy with his booking in NXT 2.0. Specifically citing the maligned Jacket Time comedy act with Ikemen Jiro as something he
didn't enjoy, KUSHIDA reportedly believed that the shift from NXT to NXT 2.0 in September 2021 had greatly hurt him, and that the new creative team wasn't as behind him as the last one.
The report adds that upon joining WWE three years ago, KUSHIDA didn't fancy his chances of becoming a big star,. But wanted to try and make it working for Vince McMahon.
As for New Japan, many within the promotion are considering his return as guaranteed, and WWE themselves believe KUSHIDA will return to the promotion this June.
Due to his contract expiring, KUSHIDA isn't bound to any non compete clause, and after being unhappy in WWE, a return to New Japan could be exactly what he needs.
At Wrestlemania 38, after weeks of speculation, Cody Rhodes returned to WWE in one of the biggest moments of the two night event.
While fans were confident of Rhodes' return following his departure from AEW, there were questions as to when it would be.
At one point, it was believed that Rhodes would be returning on the March 14th Raw from Jacksonville, Florida, but on the Out of Character podcast, Rhodes refuted these claims:
"The plan was always WrestleMania,” Rhodes said. “Nothing was ever considered. At one point, I saw people talking about [debuting in] Jacksonville [on Monday Night RAW] and that
was a no. Again, it’s not about leaving, it was about returning and the place to do it was at the Showcase of the Immortals." Sure enough, Rhodes returned at Wrestlemania 38 and not a
day sooner, and while fans were obviously eager to see him back, there was never a better time for his return other than WWE's biggest show of the year.
Like any other sport’s company, WWE has a strict policy over what substances their talent can and can’t use, but it now appears that one substance is now A-Okay.
For years, WWE fined Superstars for using marijuana, with talent having to pay out $2,500 if they got caught with weed.
Given that no other punishment was ever handed out other than the fine, the policy became known as the Weed Tax, but it appears this is now over.
Yesterday, in celebration of 4/20, an anonymous Superstar told Fightful Select that WWE doesn’t punish wrestlers anymore for weed, and that nobody has faced a punishment in years.
The source added that Randy Oton was an integral figure in influencing the change of policy on the main roster, and that his tag partner Riddle had also called for weed to be allowed,
as did Kona Reeves before his release last August. The topic of marijuana in wrestling has been subject to debate for decades, with Bret Hart saying
in the 1990s that weed is far safer for wrestlers on the road than alcohol or painkillers and it now appears that his comments, as well as RK-Bro’s comments, have paid off.
When AJ Francis joined WWE in January 2020, he wouldn’t debut on TV until May the next year, where he was given the name Top Dolla.
Dolla’s time on TV was short lived, as he’d be released in November 2021, just six months after his on-screen debut, and we now know more about his choice of name.
Speaking to Sportskeeda, Francis explained that he hated the name Top Dolla, and that a different name had once been pitched, but that was rejected by WWE’s higher ups.
I told them how about Big Dolla, and they were like, 'Well, we already got Big E, and at the back of my mind, I'm like, well, you had Big Show and Big E when you had Big Cass,
but whatever, you know what I'm saying? They were like, ' We don't want any more 'Bigs.” 2021 was certainly a big year for Big E, who would hold the
Intercontinental title, Money in the Bank and the WWE Championship, and it seems like there was only room for one Big in WWE at the time.
One wrestler who has certainly made his name is Rob Van Dam, who thanks to his work in ECW, WWE and TNA is now a known name across the world.
After an impressive career, RVD was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2021, but that nearly didn’t happen thanks to Vince McMahon.
Speaking on Busted Open Radio, RVD said that he was told from Michael Hayes about a meeting within WWE, when they were trying to decide who should be inducted.
During the meeting, McMahon said it was a shame that Van Dam had already been inducted, saying he would be a good candidate, and Hayes had to point out that at that time,
RVD wasn’t a Hall of Famer. A former WWE Champion, ECW Champion, TNA World Champion and with various other titles
and accolades to his name, RVD is certainly a worthy candidate of the Hall of Fame, so we can’t exactly blame the Chairman for thinking the Whole F’n Show had been
inducted long before he actually received the nod in 2021.
And we’re ending today with Alexa Bliss, who has confirmed her new name on social media.
On Twitter, the former Raw and SmackDown Women’s Champion revealed that she’ll be now going by her married name, and will be known as Lexi
Kaufman-Cabrera when not appearing as Alexa Bliss. Bliss married her husband Ryan Cabrera last week, and it remains to be seen when she’ll
return to WWE TV, but we’ll have to see if it’s Alexa Bliss-Cabrera when she gets back in the ring.