Here's your wrestling news for May 10th 2022
And your headlines for today include
Big Update On Roman Reigns’ Upcoming WWE Contract & Schedule!
How did The Judgment Day Fair On WWE RAW Tonight?
Are WWE Fans Tired Of Seth Rollins Costs Cody Rhodes Feud ?
WWE Busted Using Recycled Crowd Shots During Live Programming!
WWE 2K19 & WWE 2K20 Game Servers Being Shut Down!
Does WWE Truly Intend On Unifying The Tag Team Titles?
The Start Of One Run And The End Of Another! And More!
We’re kicking off today with Judgement Day, who have been rechristened ‘The Judgement Day following the addition of Rhea Ripley.
Appearing on Raw, Ripley’s logic for joining the group was odd as she said she was sick of being "used" by fans who took her autographs and then sold them on eBay.
If Ripley didn’t want her autographs to be sold online, there’s measures she could have taken other than joining Edge and Damian Priest, but that logic aside, The Judgement Day proved to be a highlight of Raw.
Ripley earned a victory over her former tag team partner Liv Morgan last night, and with this new attitude, it’ll be interesting to see how Ripley and Damian Priest get the rub from their association with Edge.
Last weekend, Roman Reigns stunned fans at a Live event in Trenton New Jersey, where he spoke about entering a new phase in his career.
Saying that he doesn't know if he'll ever compete in Trenton again, many took it as Reigns teasing a retirement, and now we have an update on the situation.
Yesterday, we reported that Reigns is still a focus of WWE's long term plans, and now on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer spoke about his new contract, which will be for fewer dates than he
already works. Meltzer explained: He actually doesn’t work a lot of television matches. He is working 20 minute house show matches
with Drew McIntyre all the time. Last week when he went to the UK, they only brought him in for London and Paris. He has also done that before. It was one of those things where he’ll go for a day or
two but he’s not gonna go for two weeks. More power to you, if you can leverage that and still make good money. That’s a good deal.
Meltzer didn't specify how much money Reigns will be making, but we can only imagine that he's one of the company's top earners.
It had been rumoured that the Tribal Chief was looking to sign a new deal, and that's now happened, one that'll allow Reigns more time away from the ring.
As to what this will mean for him in the long-run, as Reigns has said he’d like to do more movies, that is unclear at this time, but for now the Head of the Table has been given a major incentive to
keep WWE as his top priority.
One Reigns match fans did get to see happened last Sunday night, where he and the Usos defeated RK Bro and Drew McIntyre.
With six high-caliber talents in the ring, it makes sense that the match headlined the show, but it may have been a history making encounter for the Bloodline.
In a video shared on Instagram, Reigns spoke about the match, and teased that it could be the last six-man-tag the Bloodline ever compete in.
Reigns didn’t elaborate on this idea, but it’s a bold claim from the Head of the Table, who despite being WWE’s top star, has only had a handful of televised matches this year.
This November, Reigns will celebrate ten years since his WWE main roster debut, jumping the barricade with Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose in 2012, and while Reigns started his WWE career in a
trio, we may have seen the last of him in six-man-tag team action.
More from Raw now, as Cody Rhodes had his first title match since returning to WWE as he took on U.S. Champion Theory.
The U.S. title is one piece of gold that Cody has never won, but he certainly got close last night in a fantastic match that saw Rhodes have great chemistry with the young superstar.
Rhodes was seemingly on track to win the title until interference by Seth Rollins cost him the match, and he would go on to attack Rhodes, hitting the stomp on the announcer’s table.
It's clear that Rollins isn't done with The American Nightmare, and the nature of the attack was a brutal one, suggesting that their feud is going to go to Hell in a Cell.
One of the more personal feuds happening at the moment, it makes sense that there feud will go inside the Cell, in what will likely be the final bout between these two Superstars.
Now, last Sunday was WWE’s WrestleMania Backlash event, in which a capacity crowd filled the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island.
There were plenty of fans who seemed to have a good time at WWE’s Premium Live Event, and they may be back on WWE programming again, whether they want to be or not.
It turns out that during the show, WWE spliced in old crowd shots during video packages, in a bizarre move by the company.
The most notable example happened during the video package for the Happy Corbin Vs. Madcap Moss match, as at one point in the promo, you can see the WWE Superfan known as ‘Brock Lesnar
Guy’ in the crowd. This footage was actually from 2012, when John Cena returned to Raw as the Dr of Thuganomics during his feud with The Rock.
This isn’t even the first time WWE has done this, as during the recent WWE Evil episode about Stephanie McMahon, crowd shots from the 2005 Eddie Guerrero tribute show were aired to make it
look like fans were reacting to a Stephanie-Triple H segment from 1999
WWE sweetening their crowd’s chants are nothing new, but adding crowd shots is a new tactic, so even if you only make it to one WWE event this year, you could soon be a regular on TV.
Earlier this year, WWE launched their latest video game, WWE 2K22, which came after the disastrous release of WWE 2K20.
WWE 2K22 has been met with positive responses so far, but soon, it’ll be the only option for wrestling fans to play in the series.
In a tweet, the WWE Games account confirmed that the servers for WWE 2K19 and 2K20 will be shut down on June 30th, meaning fans will no longer be able to play online using these games.
Fans will also not be able to use the Community Creations feature to upload or download custom Superstars, championships or arenas, and it was explained that this decision was taken so that
everyone can focus on WWE 2K22.
While 2K22 has been met with positive reviews, not everyone is a fan of the new game, but they’ll soon not have a choice as to what WWE game they can play with their friends online.
Back to Raw and in the main event of last night’s show, Asuka faced Raw Women’s Champion Bianca Belair in a championship contender’s match.
This was the last match Becky Lynch wanted to see, and the Man even called out the logic gap of having someone beat the champion, to earn a shot at the champion.
Either way, Adam Pearce explained that Asuka’s win in last week’s six-man-tag had earned her a non-title opportunity at Belair, and given the talent of the EST and the Empress of Tomorrow, it
should come as no surprise that this was an excellent match.
Unfortunately, the main event ended in a disappointing no contest as Lynch, who was at ringside, interfered, seemingly teasing a triple threat direction for Hell in a Cell.
Expect Bianca Belair vs. Becky Lynch vs. Asuka to be one of the marquee matches of the show, though we can’t see WWE taking the title off the EST just yet.
Raw opened up with RK-Bro, who despite their loss at WrestleMania Backlash, reaffirmed their intention of wanting to unify the Raw and SmackDown Tag Team titles.
While a title unification was once booked for Backlash, those plans were changed, and it was later reported that WWE never intended to unify the titles in the first place.
If that’s the case, then it makes us dubious to believe RK-Bro’s claims about unifying the tag titles, as we can’t put it past WWE to tease the title unification match again without delivering.
Either way, The Street Profits came out and made a few references to 4/20, signaling WWE's change in mentality when it comes to marijuana, and challenged for the Raw Tag Titles, and came up short again.
It was Riddle who got the win for his team, hitting the RKO to score the pinfall in yet another sign of the Original Bro and the Viper being on the same page.
We're not sure at this point whether WWE truly intends to unify the titles or not, as nothing has been made clear, except for the intentions on RK-Bro's side.
And we’re ending with Sonya Deville, who after over a year, has been removed from her position of power.
Adam Pearce was the one to inform Deville that her contract as an authority figure was terminated following her abuse of power on multiple occasions.
Deville’s night somehow got worse, as she also lost to the returning Alexa Bliss, who defeated her in what felt like seconds.
This wasn’t just a case of phasing Deville out of the Authority figure role, but it also served as a reintroduction of Bliss, who is slowly reverting to her old character.
Using her old theme and showing no supernatural powers, the only remnant of her Fiend character was Lilly, who she carried around with her.
While last night’s events could start a feud between the two, the match felt less about the story and more about ending one run and starting another, in what was a huge shift for WWE’s women’s division.