On this week’s episode of Raw, that saw WWE announce Bobby Lashley vs Drew McIntyre
for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania, Lashley vs Sheamus, the New Day become 11-time
tag champs and Riddle retain his United States Championship over Mustafa Ali, Asuka also
returned to beat the hell out of Shayna Baszler - nearly stomping her teeth out on an exposed
turnbuckle before referees and officials stopped her.
Asuka had been out for a few weeks thanks to a wayward Shayna Baszler kick leading to
teeth being forcibly removed from her face.
Ow.
Reports also indicated that Asuka was dealing with a concussion from the kick, which is
altogether unsurprising because again, Asuka had teeth kicked out of her face.
Reports even as recently as this past weekend suggested that with recovery times for concussions
being so fluid, it could be a while before Asuka was back in the ring, even potentially
missing out on WrestleMania 37.
Fortunately though, she returned on Raw and seemed to be in perfect condition.
However, this isn’t quite true.
Speaking on the Japanese social networking platform NowVoice, Asuka revealed some more
details about her injury, explaining that the teeth she has in place now are temporary,
and that the injuries she picked up from Baszler will actually take six months to heal.
After the six month period, she’ll need to have implants to replace the missing teeth.
But Asuka isn’t the only wrestler working through an injury, as the unsuccessful challenger
to the US title from this week’s show, Mustafa Ali, has also revealed he’s got an injury
too.
In a recent interview with Comicbook.com, Ali revealed has a torn PCL, which stands
for Posterior Cruciate Ligament, which is found in your knee.
See Mum, I told you my Sports Degree would come in handy one day!
Unfortunately for inherently flippy boy Ali, you kind of need your knees to do flips and
and high flying stuff, so he’s had to work around the injury and change up his style:
“When most people think of Mustafa Ali, they think of the high flyer.
Not even as a heel, I’m still kind of known as this athletic performer.
I’m not really known as a submission specialist.
I’m not really known as a striker.
I’m not really know as a guy that could take to the ground.
Knowing full well that I have these tools, I never really highlight them because I’ve
got these tools.
So this PCL injury has kind of reminded me of like, “Well, yeah, I can’t do that,
but I’m still capable of all of this.”
As two of Raw’s best wrestlers, fingers crossed both Ali and Asuka can recover soon.
And speaking of people who have recovered from injuries...
At AEW Revolution a couple of weeks ago, Christian Cage was unveiled as AEW’s new big signing
that was teased as the Hall of Fame worthy talent.
This came after Christian returned in the Royal Rumble earlier this year, reuniting
in a heartwarming embrace with his long time friend and tag team partner, Edge.
Though, actually now you think back on it, that wasn’t so much a welcome back, that
was more of a goodbye, wasn’t it?
Reports from around the time indicated that Christian had held talks with WWE regarding
a part-time deal, however those talks had fallen through, which is why he ended up jumping
ship to AEW.
Now Christian himself has revealed that those talks did indeed take place, though perhaps
not quite as in depth as some people had been speculating.
Speaking to Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated, he said:
“There were some cordial talks, and I can’t really elaborate beyond that.
I’m not sure where their heads were at creatively.”
He can’t elaborate beyond that?
Why?
Because he’s still got some WWE plans in place?
Christian Cage is a WWE spy sent to AEW confirmed?
I’ve cracked it lads.
Got it all figured out.
Are you happy Christian is in AEW?
Or would you rather he stayed in WWE?
Let me know in the comments because I’ll be replying to people FROM OUTTA NOWHERE.
And speaking of people who may or may not be talking to WWE...flawless segue.
While Roman Reigns’ WrestleMania opponent is seemingly decided in the form of Edge,
if he can retain his championship against Daniel Bryan at Fastlane that is, there’s
still time to for you to be right, Mr. Good Money Louis Dangoor, for a long time it was
speculated that with the direction of Roman’s character arc and storylines, it could all
be leading to a WrestleMania match between himself and The Rock.
While it seems that match is off the cards at WrestleMania, it could still happen, as
Paul Heyman revealed in an interview with GiveMeSport that The Rock is among several
names who have contacted Heyman regarding a match against The Tribal Chief.
“Crossover celebrities in their prime would love to step into a WrestleMania ring with
Roman Reigns.
It’s not just Dwayne Johnson.
The Rock is just one of many.”
Crossover celebrities?
In their prime?
Bad Bunny vs Roman Reigns confirmed.
Of course the interview was primarily in character, but regardless, the continued mentions of
Rock vs Reigns seem to indicate that it may be a direction they head down in the near
future.
And with crowds returning at WrestleMania this year, perhaps more crowds could be used
for future PPVs, or even just the next of the Big 4 shows at SummerSlam in August.
But the crowds may be struggling for WrestleMania too, as it was revealed recently that WrestleMania
tickets - which were due to go on sale yesterday - have been delayed indefinitely while WWE
works on a new date.
Dave Melzter and Bryan Alvarez speculated on Wrestling Observer Radio the reason for
this last minute change, and while WWE originally wanted a crowd of around 45,000 in attendance
for the show, around 75% of Raymond James Stadium’s full capacity, that may no longer
be the plan, as Meltzer explained: “We’ll have to see if Vince is gonna go
for the full stadium.
The plan was 45,000 seats, but that changed obviously because they didn’t put tickets
on sale.”
Whether the plans changed to increase or decrease the planned crowd size, we’ll have to wait
and see, but regardless they may need to put the tickets on sale soon, because if they
want 45,000 people to come in person for each night, they’re going to need to give them
to actually make plans for it.
And speaking of irresponsible crowd gatherings during a pandemic…
As Mr. Davis spoke about in yesterday’s WrestleTalk News, there was a reported outbreak
of Coronavirus at the Performance Center for the third time, with several wrestlers testing
positive and several more being forced to quarantine due to exposure.
In an update on the outbreak, it seems the only roster affected will be NXT according
to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio: “I was told it was only NXT people and enough
that whatever it is, the show’s being re-written and certain things that were planned aren’t
going to be there, but I don’t know what that would be and they’re not going to tell
you.”
Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select also weighed in, saying that “Leon Ruff vs. Swerve Scott
and Imperium vs. Ciampa/Thatcher were both in danger of being pulled from the show.”
It’s somewhat fortunate that this outbreak was contained within NXT, as with previous
outbreaks it had also spread to the Raw and SmackDown rosters.
WWE are yet to publicly comment on this outbreak.
But enough talking about serious stuff, let’s watch Drew McIntyre swear on WWE TV!
Appearing on Raw Talk following Monday’s show ahead of his match with Sheamus at Fastlane,
Drew got a little carried away with his promo against Sheamus, dropping an F-bomb mid-sentence
that had to be censored and covered by R-Truth: Drew doesn’t play by the rules - cursing
on a live show, and the worst offense of all, hitting two Claymores on Raw where he slapped
his leg both times.
That’s a no no Drew, didn’t you get the memo?
But someone who is seemingly looking forward to leg slaps being a thing of the past is
Jordynne Grace, who has been wrestling in Impact’s Knockouts division since 2018.
However she has now expressed her desire to wrestle in WWE, with her current Impact contract
expiring in May.
Speaking on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast, Grace outlined what decisions she may make
in the near future: “Okay, so yes, WWE was, I mean it still
is, it was my childhood dream forever.
But that was the only option back when I was growing up.
Now, it's just like, there are so many doors that you can go through and kind of they're
all like in front of you at the same time.
So I mean it's kind of a handoff.
I love the opportunity that IMPACT has given me but obviously it's going to be a lot less
money than WWE would give me if I were to go there and they would give me a lot less
input on my character.
So it just kind of depends on if I get older and I'm feeling like I need to be stacking
some money for retirement then I think that's a place I would probably go."
Grace has been one of the staples of the Knockouts Division in Impact, as well as wrestling intergender
matches, challenging for the X Division Championship, and is currently on a tag team run with former
WWE star Jazz.
She would be an asset to whichever company she decides to join.
We’ve got a roundup of all the non-WWE and AEW news coming up shortly with Tempest, but
before that Mickie James, Victoria and our best friend SoCalVal as part of their Grown
Ass Women brand are going to be hosting the inaugural DressleMania event - a charity auction
in order to support GirlUp.org where celebrities will auction off dresses and gowns, with proceeds
going to the charity.
You can find out more about it by checking the link in the description.
And now over to Tempest for all the other stuff going on in the wrestling world!
It’s Fastlane on Sunday which means today is Fastlane predictions day!
Press the video on the right to watch those over on the WrestleTalk Podcast channel, don’t
forget
to do your predictions for Fastlane on WrestleLeague, and to find
out more about the latest Covid outbreak in WWE, press the video below that.
Don’t forget to subscribe here for daily wrestling news videos, and always remember,
to Jam That Jam.