Here's your wrestling news for January 28th 2022
And your headlines for today include
Two Massive Names Leaked For The Men’s Rumble Match & Hall Of Famer Rumoured To Return !
Controversial Former Superstar Signs With Bare Knuckle Fighting Promotion !
Former NXT Champion Responds To Having His Name Chanted During Dynamite !
WWE Making Huge Plans To Combat Winter Olympics Next Month !
New Rule Given To NXT Commentators. What Are They Now Banned From Saying?
Disney+ Signs Deal With WWE For Distribution Rights !
Losses For Peacock Streaming Service Could Mean Bad News For WWE !
WWE Name Leaves Company After Near-12 Year Tenure ! And More !
We’re kicking off today with the Men’s Royal Rumble match, as 22 entrants have been announced for one of the biggest matches of the year.
We won’t know everyone in the Rumble match until it happens, but we do know two surprise entrant, so if you don’t want to get spoiled, you should skip
the next minute and a half of this video. Ringside News has learned that Shane McMahon will compete in the Men’s Royal Rumble match, as
as verified with a tenured member of WWE’s creative team. There’s no word on if this will be a one-off
appearance by Shane, but given that he usually has some sort of showing at WrestleMania, this could set-up a short-term programme for
the Prodigal Son that’ll culminate this April. Shane’s last match came at WrestleMania 37, where he fell to Braun Strowman inside a Steel Cage,
and we expect some sort of death-defying move from Shane O’Mac in the Rumble match. Shane won’t be the only surprising name in the
Men’s Rumble match however, as the same source told Ringside News that Bad Bunny will also be an entrant tomorrow night.
Like Shane, there’s no word on whether this will be a one-off, but for what it’s worth, the Hip Hop star isn’t expect at WrestleMania 38, as he’s got
his own three-night tour in Miami from April 1st to April 3rd. After initially being met with hostility by the fans,
Bad Bunny earned everyone’s respect with how well he wrestled at last year’s WrestleMania, and now he’s getting back in the ring very soon.
In addition to these two, there’s still plenty of rumours on who could be entered in the Men’s Rumble match, and after nearly 3 years since his retirement
match, Kurt Angle could be making his return. According to Fightful, the Olympic Gold Medalist is in St Louis right now for the Royal Rumble, and
this isn’t just a coincidence, as he’s reportedly going to take part in various WWE media activities over the weekend.
After his release in 2020, Angle has focussed on his own podcast and nutrition line, but his appearances in St Louis are strictly to conduct
WWE business, and we’ll just have to see if the former WWE World Champion is a Royal Rumble entrant tomorrow night.
In June 2020, Jack Gallagher was quietly released from WWE, the same day that he was accused of sexual misconduct against a woman at a party
6 years prior. In a statement later that year, Gallagher said he did not recall the "isolated incident", but apologised
for any wrongdoing, and has now found a new profession outside pro-wrestling. In a statement on Facebook, Bare Knuckle Fighting
Championship, a fight promotion based in the UK, has announced that Gallagher has signed with them, and will be making his debut later this year.
Before becoming a wrestler, Gallagher was an amateur MMA fighter, and is undefeated with two submission victories to his name, and will be
looking to keep that streak alive when he gets back in the cage.
AEW news now, as this week's Beach Bash edition of Dynamite aired from Cleveland, Ohio, and while Danhausen made his debut this week, there was
someone else the Cleveland audience wanted to see. Throughout the show, there were loud chants of ' Johnny Wrestling' referring to Johnny Gargano
who left WWE NXT last month, reportedly with no non-compete clause to his name. These chants were hard to ignore, and on Twitter,
Gargano responded, saying it means a lot to him that fans want to see him back, and promised to make it up to those fans who miss him ASAP.
Gargano, a Cleveland native, has said that he's waiting until the birth of his child next month before he appears for any other company, but after this
week's Dynamite, it's clear that the AEW faithful want to see him on Dynamite.
Back to WWE, as next month, the company will be forced to reshuffle NXT 2.0, thanks to the upcoming Winter Olympics that’ll run from February 4th to
February 20th. With NXT’s Vengeance Day scheduled for the 15th, this means a lot of huge matches will happen on
SyFy, which has a much smaller viewership and reach than the USA Network, but this is something WWE is well aware of
On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said how despite a smaller reach, WWE is pushing some huge matches for during their run on SyFy, in order
to combat the number of viewers they’ll lose to the Olympics. Meltzer did say that when he first saw Vengeance
Day be announced, he questioned why WWE wouldn’t wait a week until after the Olympics, but the company wants to give something big for fans
to tune in to SyFy to see. So far, the only matches we know will happen is Carmelo Hays vs Cameron Grimes for the North
American title, and the finals of the Men’s Dusty Tag Team Classic, but expect plenty more big matches to be announced in WWE’s war with the Olympics.
NXT 2.0 may have plenty of plans, but they also have to conform to the rules of Vince McMahon, who controls what is said, and not said on his programming.
This week’s show saw Solo Sikoa in action, the brother of the Usos, who paid tribute to his uncle the late Umaga with his facepaint.
Unsurprisingly, fans took to chanting Uso at Sikoa, which wasn’t acknowledge by commentary, and on his show, Meltzer said that NXT Commentators are
banned from acknowledging any family heritage. Meltzer questioned why WWE won’t allow the heritage of the likes of Solo Sikoa and Bron Breakker
to be acknowledged, arguing that everyone knows who they’re related to, especially the fans.
Ever since he joined NXT 2.0, there’s been speculation on whether Solo Sikoa will join his brothers in the Bloodline, and while that may
happen one day, for now, he can’t even acknowledge who hisf family is on TV.
Ever since WWE signed their deal with Peacock as the home of their content in North America, the company has been looking for similar deals with
international markets.
Now, WWE is partnering with one of the biggest distributors there is, as the WWE Network, at least in Indonesia, will now be available on Disney+.
In a report from the Sports Business Journal, WWE’s content will move to Disney+ Holstar, starting with this weekend’s Royal Rumble
Premium Live Event. Closer to home, there’s been talks in the UK for the Network to be made available through BT Sport,
who already cover WWE’s weekly programming, with the idea that it’ll be less expensive for WWE, rather than having to maintain their own streaming
service. As to what this means for Network users who don’t have access to BT Sports, it’s hard to say
at this moment, but after the success of the Peacock deal, WWE is once again branching out overseas.
WWE’s deal with Peacock has been massively successful for WWE, who have been paid over a billion dollars by NBC-Universal for the rights to the
company’s content, but things aren’t so great for Peacock themselves.
In a report from ComCast, it’s reported that the streaming service lost $1.7 billion in revenue for 2021, in a major blow for Peacock.
This is a huge jump from the $663 million lost in Peacock’s first year in 2020, and with executives at NBC-Universal giving the service 2024 to
break-even, WWE’s future with Peacock may be coming to an end sooner than expected.
And we’re ending today with WWE’s corporate side, as another name has left the company.
PW Insider notes that Amandda Tustain, who had been working as WWE’s Director of Over The Top Content Operations left WWE earlier this year,
but we don’t know what caused her departure. Joining WWE in February 2010, Tustain had many roles within WWE, and at one point was
responsible for talent scouting, both for the Performance Center and other roles within WWE, but she’ll now have to find work outside of
Vince McMahon’s wrestling empire.