Here's more wrestling news for October 5th 2021
And your headlines for Afternoon include
WWE wanted to split massively popular tag-team during 2021 draft
Backstage reaction to Edge referencing AEW on WWE SmackDown
Which Superstar is the favourite to win the Queen’s Crown Tournament?
Tessa Blanchard’s return to wrestling announced And more
We’re starting off today with the 2021 WWE draft, which has seen plenty of teams split up.
Not only have the New Day been sent to different brands, but so have Mace and T-Bar, and while Jinder Mahal and Shanky are heading
to SmackDown, Veer will stay on RAW. Former Women’s Tag Champions Natalya and Tamina have also been split, as have Shotzi
Blackheart and Tegan Nox, but WWE had considered even more tag-team breakups. PW Insider reports that there was an idea
floating around for the Street Profits to be split, but they ended up going against that idea, and sent both to RAW alongside Bianca Belair
This wasn’t the only change of plans, as originally, Bobby Lashley was going to be the first draft pick for RAW on Night 1, but after
the cliff-hanger between Drew McIntyre and Big E on the final RAW before the draft, the decision was made for RAW to draft the WWE Champion first.
It makes sense that RAW would pick the WWE Champion, who has multiple wins over Lashley, as their first draft pick instead of the Almighty
and it goes to show how even WWE’s booking of the draft was subject to change.
On June 25th this year, Fandango was cut from his WWE contract, bringing his 15-year tenure with the company to an end.
Fandango hasn’t wrestled since his release, but this week, Game Changer Wrestling announced the debut of the former NXT Tag Team
Champion, who’s now going by ‘Dirty Dango.’ Promoting Dirty Dango for an upcoming show, it’s still unclear what event the ex-Superstar
will debut at, but we know his first match post- release will be for GCW. Interestingly, GCW has become a hotbed for
former Superstars, as Jon Moxley and Matt Cardona have both competed for the promotion recently, and both have been World Champion.
GCW will have their upcoming Fight Club event on October 9th, and The Aftermath the day after, meaning fans won’t be long to see the former
Fandango in a GCW ring.
Bronson Reed was also released this year, in a huge loss to the NXT roster.
Before his release, WWE had been working on a main-roster call-up for the former North American Champion, but obviously that didn’t happen
on-screen. Speaking to Inside Kradle, Reed explained how he was one of the few Superstars to know his
long-term plans in NXT, and it was Triple H who explained what the original idea was for the Australian Superstar:
I was going to be North American Champion, be that strong North American Champion that defends his belt all the way to the end of the year
and then eventually face off with the NXT Champion. That was the story that was going to happen, but then obviously with WWE,
things change on a week-to-week basis. WWE had initially planned for a lengthy title reign, but he instead held the gold for just 41 days,
as the company’s plan shifted towards a main-roster call-up. That didn’t happen either, as WWE released
the 33-year-old wrestler, and despite not having his lengthy reign, or main-roster call-up, Reed is confident that he’ll show WWE they made a
a mistake in letting him go.
Over to SmackDown, as Edge was on last night’s show, and watched on in horror as his nemesis Seth Rollins invaded his family home.
There was no way Edge would get back home in time, and in a frantic phone call to his wife Beth Phoenix, the Rated-R Superstar promised that
their friends David and Daniel would be there soon. These names were in reference to David Harwood
and Daniel Wheeler, the real names of AEW’s FTR, who are real-life good friends with the eleven-time World Champion
Given that WWE avoids referencing the competition, the exact opposite strategy to WWE, it’s odd that Edge would make this reference,
but it wasn’t a problem backstage. When Ringside News asked, they were told that nobody backstage cared about Edge referencing
the former Revival, and that includes Vince McMahon, Bruce Prichard, Kevin Dunn and John Laurinaitis.
The source from creative added that Edge played right to the internet with his line, and there’s no heat on him for mentioning them.
Had Edge said that AEW’s Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood were on their way, there probably would’ve been heat, but his reference was far
too slick for WWE’s top decision-makers to care about.
More release news, as WWE released Lana from her lucrative multi-million-dollar contract earlier this year, and she’s yet to appear for another company.
Since her release, she’s been going by her real- name CJ Perry, and although her husband Miro has teased that the Ravishing Russian will join
him in AEW, that hasn’t happened yet. We’ll have to see if Perry does eventually join AEW, but if she does, she may still get to use
the Lana name, as she explained during an East Coat Autograph Auctions virtual signing: “I own that. Owning ‘Lana’ is like owning the
name ‘Mike.’ You can’t. In my contract, they own Rusev because it’s so specific, but they don’t own Lana because you can’t
“I would rather come out as Lana because at the end of the day, I would rather just not come out with my real name.”
WWE loves to trademark the name of it’s Superstars, but the Lana name was too common in the world of entertainment for the
company to own, meaning it may indeed be Lana, not CJ Perry, who joins AEW when the time is right.
Lana won’t be in the first ever Queen’s Crown Tournament, which will air this month alongside the King of the Ring.
The tournaments will begin on this week’s SmackDown, and there’s no word on who’s involved, but one Superstar in particular has a
ton of support. When WWE asked fans on Twitter who should win, a large proportion said Liv Morgan should
be the inaugural Queen’s Crown winner, and a photoshopped image of her with the crown, created by a fan, was re-tweeted by Morgan
herself. Former SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley even liked the picture, and Morgan thanked the
Role Model for her support. Prior to Money in the Bank, Morgan was seemingly destined for a massive push,
which never transpired, and whether WWE capitalises on her popularity this time or not, the young Superstar has the fans on her side.
And we’re ending today with Tessa Blanchard, who was released by Impact last year, after a lengthy hiatus from the company.
Over to NXT 2.0, as Joe Gacy has been one of the more controversial characters on the rebranded show, satarising left-wing politics
as a ‘conflict resolution specialist.’ On this week’s show, Gacy said he wasn’t ‘ cancelled’ despite his character segments
being pulled from social media, and this may have all been part of WWE’s plan. In the Wrestling Observer Newseltter, it’s reported
that WWE have been very pleased with the character, especially as the gimmick earned NXT 2.0 some mainstream media attention of FOX News.
With the U.S extremely divided when it comes to politics, WWE will have to tread very carefully with this new character, but with this mainstream
potential, neither they, nor Joe Gacy are giving up on this character.
And we’re ending today with Tessa Blanchard, who was released by Impact last year, after a lengthy hiatus from the company.
Since her departure, the former World Champion has had just one match, competing for Warrior Wrestling in September 2020, and hasn’t signed
with WWE or AEW as fans have expected. Blanchard, who faced accusations of racism and bullying just a day prior to her Impact world
title win in January 2020, is considered ‘nuclear’ by both promotions, so she likely won’t show up in either company, but her next company has been r
reported. According to Fightful, Blanchard will return to WOW: Women of Wrestling, the all-female
promotion owned by LA Lakers owner Jeanie Buss. WOW hasn’t aired in some time, as their last
episode released in November 2019, and the report adds that the show’s relaunch won’t occur immediately
Blanchard is currently the only major talent associated with the brand’s relaunch, as when Fightful reached out to nearly a dozen
former WOW wrestlers, none of them were aware of the plans to relaunch the show. It’ll be interesting to see how many stars return
to WOW to work with Blanchard, and what new names the company signs, but after over a year away, the former Impact world
Champion may finally be getting back on TV.