Here's your wrestling news for April 16th 2022
And your headlines for today include
WWE is doing great with recent face turn on SmackDown
Butch gets some much needed character development this week
John Cena’s return leaked! When is he coming back home?
Title Unification match confirmed for WrestleMania-Backlash
Update on reports of Brock Lesnar being removed from WrestleMania-Backlash card
WWE introduces new policy when it comes to naming talent
WWE Superstars are on edge over possible future releases
WWE could be setting up huge purchase of GCW
Tony Khan tells fans to “buy this ratio” in response to criticism over AEW Dynamite
NXT 2.0 Superstar makes dark-segment debut at SmackDown in non-wrestling role And more!
We’re kicking off today with SmackDown, as the show saw the continued rise of Madcap Moss.
The newest babyface on SmackDown, Moss still came out in his ridiculous suspenders, but ditched his old persona in favour of a new more motivated character.
Not only did he beat Humberto this week, but he essentially bulldozed his way through the young star, establishing himself as a powerhouse on the blue brand.
Ditching Happy Corbin, WWE has done a great job with Moss’ face turn, and now it’s on them to maintain the momentum of the 2022 Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal winner.
Smackdown also saw some character development from utch, who was able to show his chops outside the ring for some backstage segments.
During the show, Butch went missing, before it was seen that he had assaulted Xavier Woods, the man who had beat him in his in-ring debut on SmackDown.
Fans may not still be fully on board with the wild, frantic Butch, in stark contrast to the methodical and violent Pete Dunne, but both Butch and WWE are doing all they can to make it work.
There was a hiccup to all this though, as during the show, Pat McAfee referred to Butch as the Rabid Wolverine, a name used by Chris Benoit during his career.
This clearly error of judgement is a rare mistake by McAfee, and hopefully WWE won’t hold it against him, and asides from that, this week’s SmackDown proved to be an important night in establishing
Butch
For a decade, John Cena was the unquestionable top star of WWE, but as his career in movies and TV has taken off, the 16-time World Champion has spent less time in the ring.
Now, WWE is lucky if they can get just a handful of matches from Cena each year, and his most recent televised bout was all the way back at Summerslam 2021.
Cena wasn’t a part of this year’s WrestleMania, but fans won’t be waiting long until they next see Big Match John on WWE TV.
That’s according to Brad Shepard, who said on his Unleashed patreon that Cena is expected to make his WWE return in late June, but no other details were given regarding his return.
Cena returning in late June would give him weeks to build to a programme at Summerslam, which will air in July this year, the first time the show hasn’t taken place in August.
After losing to Roman Reigns last year, it’s hard to say who Cena will face at this year’s biggest party of the Summer, but expect the WWE megastar turned Hollywood blockbuster staple to be back
in the coming months.
Ever since Roman Reigns unified the WWE and Universal Championships at WrestleMania, there’s been talks of other titles being unified, and now more titles will become one.
During SmackDown, the challenge was laid out by SmackDown Tag Champions The Usos against their RAW counterparts RK-Bro, and Randy Orton accepted the title unification challenge.
This match will happen at WrestleMania-Backlash, but it is interesting that the tag titles are being unified so quickly after the World titles.
Perhaps this will mark the end of the brand split, though there’s been no reports on that so far, but the tag titles could be the next in more championships to be unified in the near future.
Now, Brock Lesnar hasn't been seen in WWE since Wrestlemania 38, where he lost the WWE Championship to Undisputed Champion Roman Reigns.
It had been reported that despite this loss, Lesnar had been booked for both WrestleMania Backlash and Money in the Bank, but this week, the Beast Incarnate was removed from all
advertising for next month's event. It turns out that Lesnar hasn't been removed from Wrestlemania Backlash exactly, as according to
the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the former WWE Champion was never scheduled to make an appearance
Dave Meltzer explained that there was never any discussions within WWE for Lesnar to compete at Backlash, despite him being prominently featured on the advertisements.
For now, Lesnar is still booked to appear at Money in the Bank, which will take place in Allegiant Stadium, the same arena Brock returned to WWE in at Summerslam 2021, but don't
expect any appearance at Backlash, despite the company's promotional materials.
In recent weeks, several WWE Superstars have undergone name changes, either by losing part of, or the entire name they once went by.
Austin Theory is now just Theory and Raquel Gonzalez will now go by Raquel Rodriguez following her Smackdown debut last week.
Now, fans may have to prepare themselves for even more name changes, as Dave Meltzer reports that WWE has a new policy going forward.
That policy is that wrestlers will no longer go by their real name, which is why Walter was changed, and why Raquel, who's real name is Victoria Gonzalez had her last name changed.
The new rule is the latest naming rule, as WWE also insists on changing the names of indie wrestlers who established themselves before coming to WWE.
The report adds that there will be some exceptions to this rule, such as Gable Steveson, and Cody Rhodes has been allowed to use the name he used both during and after his first run in WWE
that ended in 2016.
Rhodes and Steveson may be special exceptions, but for the rest of WWE’s roster, don’t expect any real names to be used, at least for the time being.
Now, April 15th will always be a day of infamy for fans and wrestlers connected to WWE due to the massive wave of cuts that have happened on that day.
It was on April 15th 2020 that WWE had a mass release, their first in a very long time, and April 15th 2021 also saw a similar mass exodus of talent.
This trend was broken in 2022, as everyone in WWE was able to keep their job yesterday, but the Superstars are still on edge.
According to Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful, talent were worried all day yesterday that a release was coming, and that at least one higher up in the company admitted that they don’t know when
the next cull of talent will be.
The fact that there was no release yesterday hasn’t exactly calmed the Superstars, as they’re now just waiting for the next massive wave of releases after it didn’t happen last year.
Ultimately, only Vince McMahon and Nick Khan can decide when the next mass wave of cuts will be, and while it didn’t take place yesterday as expected, the Superstars are still fearing for their jobs.
It’s safe to say that WWE is the biggest wrestling promotion in the world, and while they’ve often been against working with other companies, that isn’t always the case.
Over WrestleMania weekend, Brett Lauderdale said how WWE has shown major interest in his company, GCW, and even spoke with Stephanie McMahon earlier this month, and that is certainly
the case. In the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, it’s reported that WWE is interested in working with
GCW, or acquiring the company as a whole. Dave Meltzer pointed out that the two companies are very different when it comes to violence and
the use of blood, but said that he could see WWE wanting the library of content GCW has and putting it on Peacock for something different for fans to watch.
WWE treated Brett Lauderdale very well during WrestleMania week, and he was even gifted a private suite to watch WrestleMania: Sunday, and this may have all been a tactic
to sweeten a possible deal between GCW and WWE.
AEW news now, as Satnam Singh’s debut this week didn’t exactly thrill fans, which fans have claimed took away from what was otherwise an excellent show.
Tony Khan has even gone on to say that he wishes things had gone differently, and he’s now responding personally to the unhappy AEW fanbase.
On Twitter, a fan noted that they have just as much booking experience, namely zero, as Khan did when he started AEW, and in his response, Khan agreed, and said that incidents such
as this week’s debut show that fans know what they are talking about. When that fan responded that what this week’s debut actually
shows is that Khan needs to hire an actual booker with experience, the AEW President wasn’t as civil with his response, saying that the fan needs to “hire this ratio.”
While Khan did get some messages of support, many criticized the owner of the company for this childish response when faced with a suggestion to better his product.
AEW has earned a lot of good karma with fans, but some of Khan’s actions has proven to be detrimental to the company’s image, so we’ll have to see what suggestions, if any, he takes on board
after this week’s awkward deut.
And we’re ending with LA Knight, who has proven himself to be an impressive talker in NXT, and he’s now had a taste of the main roster.
Prior to last night’s SmackDown, the former Impact World Champion worked a dark segment, but he didn’t wrestle, and instead appeared as the manager of MACE.
Knight cut a promo on behalf of his client stating that he was creating a stable called the Knight Model Management, and is looking out for more recruits.
Knight’s last feud in NXT 2.0 saw him lose to Gunther at NXT Stand and Deliver, and we’ll have to see if being a manager is the next break out role for LA Knight after this tryout before SmackDown.