Here's your News for August 15th 2020 WWE Targeted Tony Khan During Smackdown Live! Shawn Michaels Returning! Randy Orton On AEW! WWE News 2 00:00:03,336 --> 00:00:05,472 And your headlines for today include
Three Time WWE Champion Returning To RAW ; Reason For The Return Revealed!
WWE Intelligently Takes A Jab AT Tony Khan During Smackdown Live !
HUGE Match Announced For SmackDown Live Next Week!
Asuka Is Now In TWO Title Matches At WWE SummerSlam; First Match Announced For WWE Payback!
Randy Orton Picks Up An AEW Star; Trade Shots Over Instagram!
WWE is Serious Trouble, Cancels Smackdown Tapings This Week!
Reason For Recent AEW Releases Revealed; Status of Excalibur Revealed!
Conflicting Reports On Validity Of Recently Released AEW Dynamite Spoilers!
WWE Releases A Statement On Rey Mysterio And More!
We’re kicking off today with news from NXT, as this week’s show saw Velveteen Dream return to the
gold brand. According to Fightful Select, the return of the former North American
Champion was a closely-guarded secret backstage, as most NXT Superstars only knew minutes before
the show started. Not only is their heat for Dream’s reported actions
with others, but the former Tough Enough star is receiving significant heat for what’s being perceived as
quote “preferential treatment in multiple situations.”
It seems that many people backstage believe that someone other than Dream would’ve been fired after
these claims and the evidence given, and whilst there’s been no details about any disciplinary action by WWE,
it seems like the story behind the scenes is far more interesting than the Superstar’s actions in the ring.
One person who isn’t happy to see Dream back is Josh Fuller, one of his accusers, who took to Twitter
to describe how he’s feeling. Back in June, Dream faced claims of conduct with others,
with some people receiving photos of the Superstar, and though Dream admitted the picture was him,
he’d claimed to have been hacked. Fuller said how he feels he can’t say everything he wants to ,
out of fears over it damaging his own budding wrestling career, and added:
The only things really pissing me off from social media are the people claiming that it was clearly investigated
when there’s no proof or statement that ever was the case. Myself or anyone else involved weren’t
contacted by anybody to my knowledge. And also the people trying to make
this like an AEW vs NXT thing look real dumb lmao miss me with that sh*t. Bad stuff is still bad, stop
comparing situations to each other. Fuller also added that it was ridiculous of some fans
to think he was only claiming for clout, as he pointed out that he’s nothing to gain and everything to lose
from making any kind of claim against the NXT Superstar. Though Dream has denied all claims
of wrongdoing, those making claims did receive photos of him, as well as an audio message that
sounds like the NXT Superstar asking what school they went to, as it seems this story is far from over,
despite his return.
Over to RAW now, as next week’s show will see the return of Shawn Michaels.
The former WWE Champion will return to the red brand to confront Randy Orton, following the Viper’s
attack on Ric Flair last week, which culminated in a punt to the Hall of Famer’s skull.
It’s also been teased that Rey Mysterio may return to avenge his son Domnik, who was beat down by
Seth Rollins this week, ahead of Dominik’s debut match against the Monday Night Messiah at
Summerslam. It’s entirely possible that next week’s RAW could be the final episode to
take place in the Performance Center, and if so, the WWE is certainly leaving their training
ground with a stacked three-hour show.
From RAW to SmackDown next as this week saw a TNA reunion, as AJ Styles shared the ring with Joseph
Park, the alter-ego of Abyss. Whilst this was a big news story in itself, it’s what Styles and Park did
in the ring that got fans talking, as many accused the two of making fun of AEW.
During their segment, Styles brought up a whole ranking system, which seems pretty similar to the ranking
system AEW has for it’s roster, and it seemed that Park was portraying a parody of Tony Khan.
The segment wasn’t without it’s flaws though, as Jeff Hardy used a marker hand-picked by Park that
turned out to be permanent, and on Twitter, Park apologised to Styles for what’s being described as
‘marker-gate’. This segment culminated in Hardy positioning himself as the number
one contender for Styles’ title, and this Championship match will take place on next week’s edition of
SmackDown which will reportedly air from Orlando’s Amway Center.
It’s no secret that AEW have taken multiple shots at WWE since they started, including Cody destroying
a Triple-H-esque throne and Brodie Lee’s entire character being a parody of Vince McMahon, and given
that next week’s Dynamite won’t be on Wednesday, fans will have to wait and see what the company
says about this alleged parody. We’ve got more news from SmackDown next, as this
week’s show saw a triple-brand battle royal to determine Bayley’s next challenger, with an unusual
winner. With women from all three brands competing, it was ultimately RAW’s
Asuka who reigned supreme, which means that she’ll challenge Bayley for her title at the Pay Per View,
as well as Sasha Banks for the RAW Women’s Championship on the same night.
Unsurprisingly, the Golden Role Models weren’t pleased with this result, and things didn’t get any better
when they were told that she and Bayley would be defending their Women’s tag team titles at Payback.
We weren’t told who will be challenging for the tag gold at the August 30th Pay Per View, but
between this match and the Asuka Summerslam matches, it’s possible that the Golden role models could
lose all 4 championship belts in the coming weeks.
One person who’ll be at Summerslam is Randy Orton, as he’ll compete against WWE
Champion Drew Mcntyre, but this week, the Viper picked a different opponent.
When Matt Jackson shared a clip of the Elite’s match with the Dark Order this week, saying he stuck
a perfect landing, Randy agreed, though said Jackson didn’t hit anyone.
Orton also asked Jackson to say hi to some of the many former WWE Superstars in AEW, and used their
former names, referring to stars like Goldust, Luke Harper, Zack Ryder, Jack Swagger and Dean Ambrose.
Jackson fired back, asking whether he could use this exchange for their 50+ segment on Being the
Elite, a running joke that AEW hasn’t been too popular with the 50+ age group, something that the young
company seemingly isn’t too worried about. This was an interesting, albeit brief
exchange between the two, and though it’s practically guaranteed we’ll never see Orton and Matt
meet in the ring, this made for some entertaining drama online.
Back to SmackDown now, as last week, the company only taped one of it’s two planned shows, and now
we know why. Though it was originally believed that changing plans were to blame,
during PW Insider Elite Audio, Mike Johnson explained that positive tests caused the change, saying:
“They were supposed to tape two SmackDown episodes last week, and I’ve been told by 3 different
sources that the second SmackDown taping got canceled at the last second because they had
more positives. If people don’t show up and they are not on the show again this week, they might have
gone to Epcot for a little vacation” Sadly, this is a risk that WWE will continue to take, and given that
they’ll soon be running live shows from the Amway Center, things may be getting worse for WWE’s cases
before they get better. Over to AEW now, and this week saw Jimmy Havoc, Bea Priestly and
Sadie Gibbs all be let go, and now more details have come to light.
In the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, it was reported that the claims of indecent behaviour at Havoc
were a factor in his release, though Priestly and Gibbs were let go because they can’t make it to the U.S.
Gibbs in particular has only had three AEW matches, and none since October of last year, and whilst it’s not
their fault they can’t make it to shows, as PAC is also stuck in the UK for the time being, the company clearly felt
these cuts were necessary.
Speaking of AEW stars, Excalibur hasn’t been seen on Dynamite since old promos where he used
the N-Word surfaced, and the company has been radio-silent on his status.
Now though, the Observer Newsletter is noting that Excalibur is set to return on the August 26th episode of
Dynamite, and we’ll have to see if AEW makes any reference to his absence, and what kind of reception
We’ve got some huge news next from All Elite Wrestling, as another former WWE Superstar is reportedly
set to debut on next week’s show which has already been taped. Whilst this reported debut obviously
can’t be confirmed yet, we’d recommend skipping the next 30-45 seconds of this video to avoid spoilers.
According to Reddit user WeirdWarthog, Erick Rowan will be on next week’s show, and will be
joining under his real name Joseph Rudd to help Brodie Lee win the TNT title in what’s been described
as an overbooked, but entertaining match, whilst Thunder Rosa will also reportedly be debuting.
Whilst this seems like huge news, reports have since come out that these leaked spoilers aren’t legit,
with Dave Meltzer and Ryan Satin pointing out inconsistencies.
There’s no shortage of stories floating around the Internet Wrestling Community, and although Reddit
users have come out with some legit AEW spoilers, we’ll have to wait until next week’s show to see if these
debuts happen, and if a new champion is crowned.
Moving on WWE, as the company is reportedly planning on using Orlando’s Amway Center for
future shows, with some very unique additions. It’s now being reported by PW Insider
that the company is considering the use of virtual fans for Summerslam, which is rumoured to be taking place
at Amway, as this is something that FOX has done for recent MLB broadcasts.
These virtual fans will appear at live events via LED boards, and this interactive experience will
reportedly be hosted by WWE Superstars and Legends. This news comes after reports that
the company plans to not only use the Amway Center for Summerslam, but also for live events including
RAW and SmackDown With over 2,500 square foot of LED boards in the Amway Center,
the company will certainly have plenty of room to put fans who can’t be there physically, but with
Summerslam set to take place next Sunday, the company will have to make an announcement about the
Pay Per View very soon. And Finally we are ending today’s NEWS about Rey Mysterio. WWE
is teasing the TV return of Rey Mysterio based on the rumors that are reportedly running rampant.
The company released an article on WWE.com in which they provided an update on Rey Mysterio's status
while also hinting at his return.
The article did, however, note that the report of Rey Mysterio's return is unconfirmed at this point.
That being said, with Dominick Mysterio in WWE now , it only makes sense that Rey will sign with
WWE and come to the aid of Dominick storyline wise too.