Here's your wrestling news for May 9th 2021
And your headlines for today include
Why WWE’s Key Backstage Players Missed Throwback SmackDown?
WWE Cuts A Hilarious Segment From Throwback SmackDown Right After Filming It!
Real Reason Behind Aleister Black's Absence From Last Night's WWE Smackdown Is Revealed!
Next Guest Revealed For Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions!
John Cena Teases WWE Return With A Cryptic Post!
Paul Heyman Went Off-Script On SmackDown!
AEW Is Going Hard At Content Creators !
"My kids cried"- WWE Legend Reveals Real Reactions After Being Attacked By The Fiend! And More!
We’re starting today with last Friday’s Throwback SmackDown, which ran smoothly, despite some notable absences backstage.
Ringside News reports that Executive Director Bruce Prichard was on vacation during SmackDown, and that Ed Koskey,
his second in command was quote “handling something else.” Their source also said that two other crucial
writers were not on hand, causing the SmackDown team to bring Dave Kapoor up from NXT to help produce.
Despite these absences, SmackDown ran smoothly with some major story progression made on the road to WrestleMania-Backlash,
and given how much fans enjoyed this week’s presentation, we’ll have to see how different things are next week when Prichard
returns.
Despite these absences, Friday’s show had a lot of throwbacks to WWE history, but one segment was cut for obvious reasons.
It turns out WWE filmed an intro with Pat McAfeee parodying a young Vince McMahon, which included the Chairman’s throwback hair
and iconic strut. Arriving in a fancy car and sanitising his hands immediately after shaking hands,
McAfee did a pretty accurate impression of the Chairman, welcoming the fans to Throwback SmackDown.
On Twitter, McAfee said the segment was cut immediately after it was filmed, saying he shaved his face for the first time in his life to
imitate the WWE CEO. McAfee also joked that he was ready to have no voice for weeks thanks to imitating the
Chairman’s signature voice, and it wouldn’t be surprising if McMahon him was the reason behind the segment being cut.
WWE has their own reasons for putting everything on TV, and they have their reasons for cutting things, and whilst McAfee’s Vince
jacket did make it on air, his impression of the Chairman was too hot for TV.
McAfee wasn’t the only one who lost out on Friday, as Aleister Black was conspicuous by his absence.
After months away, Black recently returned in backstage vignettes, acting as some sort of storyteller, but he wasn’t around on last Friday’s
show, and now we know why. PW Insider reports that WWE initially expected the latest video featuring Black to air this week,
but it was pulled last-minute as some early SmackDown segments ran long. Hopefully, this update will allow Black's fans to
rest their minds over his notable absence last night. Plans to push his return haven't been canceled; WWE simply ran out of time. That's live
television for you, folks. On his Broken Skull Sessions, Steve Austin has hosted some of wrestling’s biggest names and
now we know who’s next.
According to PW Insider, WWE recently filmed an episode with the Godfather Charles Wright, though it’s unclear when it’ll air.
Portraying the Godfather, Papa Shango and Kama Mustafa in his WWE career, Wright definitely has some stories from his lengthy
tenure, and fans will get to hear all about it soon enough.
One man who’ll probably be interviewed by Austin one day is John Cena, who was the name and face of WWE for a decade before
he transitioned into a part-time role. Whilst fans have seen less of Cena in the ring, the 16-time WWE World Champion is
active on social media, and on his Instagram, Cena is known for sharing random photos without any explanation.
This week, Cena’s latest post got fans talking, as he shared an image of WWE’s logo without a caption, supposedly teasing a return.
This could all be Cena messing with fans, but the fact that the official WWE on FOX Twitter account addressed this post makes it all the
more interesting. Recently, NXT Champion Karrion Kross has said he’s ready to be the man who ends
John Cena’s career in the ring, saying Cena is the reason he, and many current-generation Superstars are wrestling today.
Whether that match happens or not remains to be seen, but Cena’s latest post certainly hints that some kind of return is in the works.
Back to SmackDown, and recently, Mia Yim was quietly moved to the blue brand but she hasn’t appeared yet, either as herself,
nor as Reckoning. We reported earlier this week that Yim’s name is coming up in creative, and according to
Ringside News, the former Retribution member was ready to make her SmackDown debut. Yim was supposed to appear on this week’s
show, but the source noted “it got pushed to another week,” though it’s unclear when that’ll be. Since Retribution’s split on the Fastlane
kick-off show, Yim has been completely missing from TV, but she got very close to being back on-screen last Friday.
Since his release from WWE, Sin Cara has been vocal about his tenure, which had plenty of ups and downs.
When the masked wrestler spoke to Fightful, he said how WWE only brought up Catalina in 2019 for a short run, with no plans for them
to be a permanent team, and was only done to put Andrade and Zelina Vega over. Sin Cara also said that Paul Heyman levelled
with him telling him “the Sin Cara character is dead,” and given that he was released from WWE that December, Heyman’s comments
were spot-on. Since leaving WWE, Sin Cara has made some huge accusations against the company,
including claiming Triple H deliberately buried him because the first Sin Cara didn’t work out, and the former NXT Tag Champion looks
to prove everyone wrong now he’s out of WWE.
Though the Sin Cara character is dead, Paul Heyman is doing great on SmackDown, and this week took part in a 10-bell salute, which
is usually reserved for the tragic passing of a wrestler. On SmackDown, Roman Reigns, Paul Heyman
and Jey Uso had a 10-bell salute for the death of Daniel Bryan’s WWE career, in a heel moment made even more evil when you
realise how WWE always uses the 10- bell-salute in a respectful manner.
When Ringside News asked about this, they were told that the bit got everyone talking backstage, and the general consensus was
positive, though it would’ve been better with live fans. It was also confirmed that Heyman’s 10-bell r
salute to the career of Bryan wasn’t part of the script for SmackDown, but it seems Heyman won’t be punished given the positive
response backstage. Traditionally, going off script never goes down well in WWE, but with Heyman’s status in the
company, and the response it’s received, perhaps this could open the door for more performers to flex their creative muscles.
AEW news next and despite claiming to be a company by the fans for the fans, the All- Elite promotion is continuing it’s war with
small-time content creators. Recently, the popular Botchamania YouTube channel was taken down by AEW, who
rescinded their copyright claim when fans got upset, but not every account has a large fan base to protect them.
Ringside News has been contracted by several content-creators targeted by AEW, with one account making fan-made entrance
videos to show how wrestling music has changed over the years. Though the account has just six videos to
with AEW, it now has two copyright strikes by the company, and a third will mean the channel’s deletion without a second chance.
The creator noted:
To be clear, even WWE has never issued takedowns on my videos, they simply block what they don’t want, which I accept and
remove immediately out of mutual respect.” Most of the videos flagged by AEW come under fair-use, buy YouTube’s system is to
to take down a video as soon as a flag is raised, and ask question later. Several content-creators have claimed that
AEW is unfairly using this system to attack content creators, and whilst the bigger channels are safe, mostly for AEW PR reasons,
not everyone is so lucky against the alleged ‘fan-orientated’ company.
And we’re ending today with news from Kurt Angle, who’s had a rollercoaster career in WWE.
Paige news now, as the former SmackDown General Manager has 2.6 million followers on Twitter, despite being pretty irregular with her
posts. This week, Paige explained why she doesn’t post on Twitter often, saying that she
sometimes thinks she needs to post on social media more, before checking the kind of discourse you see on social media.
It’s no secret that Paige was, and continues to be ridiculed on social media over events that happened years ago, so it’s no wonder why
she keeps off sites like Twitter, and the former NXT Women’s Champion is much happier sticking to her Twitch streams.
And we’re ending today with Brock Lesnar, who left WWE after WrestleMania 36, and is expected to return when fans do.
And we’re ending today with news from Kurt Angle, who’s had a rollercoaster career in WWE.
During the August 5th 2019 RAW, Angle was attacked by the recently-debuted Fiend, becoming of the character’s first casulaties,
on route to defeating Finn Balor at that year’s Summerslam. Speaking on his podcast the Kurt Angle Show,
the Olympic Gold Medalist revealed how that attack went down at his home, saying:
“When I got attacked by the Fiend, my kids cried. They were watching on TV that night. My wife called me and said, what the hell is
going on? You know, why did they have The Fiend attack you? You're not wrestling anymore? I told her I'm doing a job; I have to
do it because I'm told to.” That night, Angle was meant to be the guest referee for a match between Drew McIntyre
and Cedric Alexander, but the Fiend put a stop to that, much to the horror of the Angle family.