Here's your News for August 13th 2020 WWE Fans Backfire On Velveteen Dream! AEW Funny Botch! Chaotic Situation At AEW Backstage! WWE News!
And your headlines for today include
Scary Moment Causes Match To Be Stopped During Next Week’s WWE NXT TV Taping!
Major Fan Backlash After Former NXT Champions Return!
Karrion Kross Uses Fire To Attack Keith Lee, NXT Champion Rushed To Hospital!
Chaotic Situation Backstage At AEW Dynamite With Heat On Sammy Guevara!
Former WWE Referee Mike Chioda Debuts On AEW Dynamite!
Fans Call Out Big Botch On AEW Dark This Week!
Paul Heyman’s First Stint After Being Fired AS RAW Director!
Finally and We Mean Finally, Venue For SummerSlam Is Decided ! Major Issues For PayBack And More!
We're kicking off with news from NXT, as the taping for next week's episode didn't go as planned.
Post Wrestling is reporting that a Johnny Gargano Vs. Ridge Holland match had an unexpected break,
after the former NXT Champion took a bad bump to the head.
Both Triple H and Shawn Michaels rushed to the Gargano, though after he said he was okay to continue,
the match was restarted. This is clearly a scary incident that no-one wanted to see happen,
and it'll be interesting to see if WWE airs this stoppage as part of the match, when its shown to the fans
next week. Speaking of NXT, this week's show also marked the return of Velveteen ,
Dream, who showed a much darker side.
Before the show, it was promised that a mystery opponent would join Kushida and Cameron Grimes in thier
North American title ladder match qualifier, and that turned out to be Dream, though it was Grimes
who got the win and the spot in the TakeOver 30 ladder match.
Dream's absence, given that he hasn't been seen since TakeOver: In Your House, was explained as
as him taking time to bounce back from his loss to then-NXT Champion Adam Cole, though it in fact was due
to being in a car accident, which came shortly after he faced claims of inappropriate conduct with .
With Dream returnign this week, it seems any investigation into his behaviour by WWE is finished, and
he's now been brought back in a high-profile position.
Attacking Kushida post-match, seemingly turning heel, Dream clearly wasnt happy about the result,
and probably wasn't happy about the fan backlash his return faced.
Online, a large proportion of fans don't want to see Dream at all, as there's plenty of evidence against
him in these claims of inappropriate conduct, whilst other fans questioned why WWE hadn't fired him already.
Despite this, the Bizzarre Superstar is back, with a newfound mean streak, and with Dream set to face
Finn Balor next week, he's returned to a very favourable position on the card.
This week's show also saw an appearance by Karrion Kross, who wasn't finished after defeating
Danny Burch. Post-match, NXT Champion Keith Lee walked out for his contract
signing with Kross, though when Scarlett delivered the paperwork, a fireball lit up and burned Lee
in the face. Trainers quickly swarmed the ring to tend to the burned NXT Champion,
who was in extreme pain as he was helped to the back, but that didn't stop him from making threats to
Kross and Scarlett. Later in the night, Mia Yim gave an update on Lee, saying that he'd been
taken to a local hospital and hadn't suffered any serious injury, though this has certainly added more intensity
to the feud between lee and Kross.
Lee set to defend his title at TakeOver 30 against Kross, it seems the challenger now has the
upper ground, and we'll have to wait and see what condition the NXT Champion is in next week.
Over to AEW now, and there’s been an update on the company’s reaction backstage to Sammy
Guevara’s recent actions. On last week’s Dynamite, an unplanned chair-throw by the
Spanish God left Matt Hardy as a bloody mess, and it’s now being reported that things weren’t any
less tense once the match ended. According to Fightful, the usually mild-mannered Hardy was heated
after the segment, and also felt lucky that his situation wasn’t worse, and though no-one thought Guevara
hurting Matt was intentional, many thought it was reckless.
On this week’s edition of AEW Dynamite, Guevara had a lucky escape when Matt promised to
end him, and though the Broken One assaulted someone he thought to be the Spanish God, it was just a referee.
It’s also been noted that despite Guevara apologising backstage, there was plenty of heat on him
backstage, and given that he only recently returned from sensitivity training for his past remarks about
Sasha Banks, it’ll be interesting to see where the company goes from here regarding the 27-year-old prospect.
Speaking of AEW, this week's show kinda saw a new title revealed, as the completed version of the TNT
Championship was unveiled. The updated look has a gold finish on the plates, and was hoisted high by
new AEW and former WWE official Mike Chioda, who was released by WWE earlier this year.
It's believed that Chioda was let go because his veteran status in WWE meant he was getting a hefty
paycheck, and with AEW facing claims of poor officiating, having the veteran enforce the rules is a big
win for the company. Over to AEW Dark now, and the show got fans talking this week for
all the wrong reasons. During the Fenix vs Lee Johnson match, Fenix had his opponent in
ropes, with the idea being that he'd
lay in some strikes, though the camera angle used was less than favourable.
Instead of any contact being shown, the camera revealed that Fenix was clearly hitting himself, and this botch
has been shared online by plenty of fans since it happened. Granted this isn't quite as bad as that
one Dark Order member who threw some of the worst fake punches we've ever seen, but for a company
that has gotten so much right over the past year, incidents like these stand out in a big way.
Back to WWE now and we're entering the video game world next as Paul Heyman has appeared in
a commercial for WWE 2K Battlegrounds.
Unsurprisngly, the former Executive Director was on top form with his verbiage, as he highlighted the
game's online multiplayer mode, and added that if you can pre-order now, you can brawl without limits.
Though heyman didn't say it in his commercial, fans who preorder before the September 18th release
date will also get Edge, as well as three versions of Ronda Rousey, 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin and The
Rock, as well as 1100 Golden Bucks, whatever that means.
WWE 2K Battlegrounds is shaping up to be a very untraditional game for the company, which makes sense
given that this has been an untraditional year, and fans will be able to get their hands on the
which is replacing WWE 2K21, next month.
We're looking ahead to Summerslam next, as it's been confirmed that the show won't be taking place in
Atlantic City. Despite reports that Vince McMahon wanted to desparately get the show
show out of the Performance Center and Florida, PW Insider is now reporting that the show will indeed
take place in the PC. WWE will be hosting two tapings tomorrow, which will cover this
week's SmackDown and next week's RAW, and the company will go live every week after Summerslam.
This is a huge blow to WWE, who have been wanting to get out of their training venue for a while, and despite
rumours of a boat or a beach hosting the Biggest Party of the Summer, it looks like fans will have
to get used to the Performance Center for the time being.
Just one week after Summerslam though, the WWE will host Payback, which is also having it's
own problems.
With the show set for just one week after Summerslam, that doesn't give the WWE much time to book
the show, and according to Ringside News, plans for te August 30th Pay Per View are all over the place.
This may be why the company hans't even acknowledge their second August Pay Per View
and as one member of WWE's creative team said:
"who the f*ck knows what’s up for Payback, it changes three times a day.”
Clearly, WWE are struggling to organise this Pay Per View, and this is just the latest in a stream of
stories about how chaotic things are in Vince McMahon's company this year.
Back to AEW now, as Chris Jericho has once again bragged about the company's success in demographics.
The self-appointed DemoGod took to Twitter to brag about last week's episode of Dynamite being RAW
in the coveted 18--34 demographic, with Dynamite scoring a .29, whilst RAW hit a .22.
Whilst things seem to be chaotic in WWE, AEW seems to be rising to the occasion each time they host a
show, and it'll be interesting to see if the Tony Khan promotion can't keep going with its success in the
coming years. Back to NXT now, and the WWE has let fans know what to expect for
next week's stacked show.
Not one but two second-chance matches for a spot in the TakeOver ladder match will happen, as Johnny
Gargano will face Ridge Holland in the match that we mentioned earlier, whilst Finn Balor will face
Velveteen Dream. The winners of these two matches will join Bronson Reed, Damian
Priest, and Cameron Grimes in the North American title Ladder match on the night before Summerslam.
The stable Legado del Fantasma, which comprises of NXT Cruiserwegiht Champion Santos
Escobar, Raul Mendoza and Joaquin Wilde next week to face Isiah 'Swerve' Scott and Breezango, after
Scott saved Breezango from a beatdown following this week's match that saw Escobar defeat Tyler Breeze.
Next week's show will also see a face to face segment between Adam Cole and Pat McAfee, ahead
their TakeOver 30 match, and with their feud becoming even more personal after Cole was KO'd last
week, expect fists to fly when these two meet in the ring.
And finally today we're ending with news from Matt Riddle, as it wasn’t too long ago that the
SmackDown Superstar was an MMA fighter.
Speaking on the Bump this week, the King of Bros spoke about his transition from MMA to Pro
Wrestling, and said that it was WrestleMania 30 that ultimately convinced him to give wrestling a go.
said:
"I just remember being in my house and just watching it and seeing Daniel Bryan win, seeing Brock
Lesnar - another MMA fighter - beat the Undertaker's streak and just seeing where I thought sports
entertainment was transitioning too."
WrestleMania 30 was certainly a historic night for WWE, as it also saw Cesaro win the first Andre the
Giant Battle Royal and John Cena defeat Bray Wyatt in their first WrestleMania collision, and now the
2014 show can also be known as the event that inspired Matt Riddle to become a WWE Superstar.