Here's your wrestling news for March 31st 2022
And your headlines for today include
Seth Rollins Teases Multiple Mystery Opponents For WrestleMania 38!
Seth Rollins Says AEW Name-Dropping WWE Is “Very Tacky” And “Reeks Of Desperation”!
Long-Overdue Return & Unexpected Interference Planed During Charlotte Flair Vs Ronda Rousey At WWE WestleMania 38
Toni Storm Debuts On AEW Dynamite!
Xavier Woods Opens Up About WWE Changing His Name!
Why AEW Won’t Renew Marko Stunt’s Contract?
What Happened With MIRO? Real Reason Behind His Long ABSENCE!
What's going on with this Adam Cole storyline?
WWE 2K22 Fixes Issues With Another Patch Update!
AEW Star Out Of Action With Injury!
Brian Cage Provides An Update On His AEW Contract Status! And More!
We’re kicking off today with WrestleMania 38, where Seth Rollinswill have a high-profile match against an opponent of Vince McMahon’s choosing.
While it’s widely believed that Rollins will face Cody Rhodes in the latter’s return to WWE, that hasn’t been publicly confirmed, something that Seth knows all too well.
On social media, the former Universal Champion has been teasing some other names he could be facing this weekend, and tweeted gifs of several possible opponents.
John Cena, Rob Van Dam, Shane McMahon, Scott Steiner and Veer Mahaan are some of the names Rollins teased could be stepping in the ring with him this weekend at WrestleMania.
For what it’s worth, there’s been no reports that WWE has any plans for Rollins’ opponent to be anyone other than Cody Rhodes, as the former TNT Champion will certainly
make an impact this weekend, despite Seth’s attempts to misdirect the fans.
Since the company was formed three years ago, AEW has never shied away from mentioning WWE, despite claiming to not be interested in what their competition does.
From Brodie Lee’s parody of Vince McMahon to Chris Jericho calling Jake Hager’s ‘Real American’ gimmick a “stupid idea from bad creative,” there’s a reason why some
fans have said AEW stands for Always Explaining WWE. This week, Seth Rollins spoke on the Sports Media podcast and spoke about his own references
saying that his reference to Jon Moxley in January this year was justified due to their time in the Shield.
Rollins referenced the former Dean Ambrose during a feud with Roman Reigns, saying that it makes sense to bring up Moxley given their history together.
Comparing this to AEW stars bringing up WWE for little to no reason, Rollins said:
“They can do whatever they want, I find it very tacky and very low-brow, personally. I think it looks and reeks of desperation and I just don’t think it’s anything on our television
show that we need to go there and talk down about those guys. They’re doing their thing, they’re doing it very well, we’re very happy for them, I am, at least
personally. Are they on our level? No.” WWE may have referenced AEW on the past, but nowhere near amount the times that AEW
references WWE, but given the reaction this gets from fans, it’s unlikely to stop, no matter how desparate it may seem.
At WrestleMania: Saturday, SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair will face Ronda Rousey in what could be the main event of the April 2nd show.
Given that this will be Rousey’s first title match since returning and she’s one of WWE’s biggest mainstream stars, many are expecting her to win, but WWE still hasn’t
decided what to do with this huge match.
According to sources, one option being floated around by creative is for Alexa Bliss to make her return as part of WrestleMania, as she has history with both women.
It was Rousey who ended Bliss’ last singles championship reign at Summerslam 2018, while fans haven’t forgotten that Flair destroyed Lilly last September, a traumatic experience
that Bliss would take a lengthy hiatus to recover from. Right now, the idea is that Bliss would attack Flair, though it’s
unclear if the ref would see this, causing a DQ and a title retention, or if this will be a sneak attack, giving Rousey the win
All we can say is that Bliss is being considered a likely opponent for Charlotte’s next feud after WrestleMania, but whether that feud will be for the SmackDown
Women’s Championship or not remains to be seen.
More from AEW now as prior to last night’s Dynamite, Tony Khan had teased a big name to face The Bunny in a qualif ying match for the Owen Hart Foundation Women’s Tournament.
There had been plenty of rumours as to who The Bunny’s opponent would be, but it was former WWE Superstar Toni Storm who answered the call, making her
debut for the promotion.
Storm made quick work of The Bunny to qualify for the tournament, and after the match, the official AEW Twitter account confirmed has signed with AEW.
Storm requested her release from WWE last December and didn’t wait long to join AEW, as her debut on Dynamite comes just one day after her non-compete clause expires.
This month has also seen Storm launch her Only Fans account, and has made a killing on the platform so far, and while that’s something she never would’ve been able to do
in WWE, the New Zealand star is now All Elite.
Yesterday, we reported on WWE’s latest name change, as King Woods has lost his title and is now being referred to as Xavier Woods once more.
In the match card for the New Day’s match with Sheamus and Ridge Holland at WrestleMania, Woods isn’t described as a King and there’s also no regal attire in the render for the image.
On Twitter, Woods explained that he’s not too mad about the name change, saying:
Call me King Woods, Call me Xavier Woods, Call me Austin Creed. May as well call me King Midas since everything I touch turns to gold 😉 and I look great in that picture
almost as good as in real life Last year, Woods campaigned tirelessly for WWE to bring back the King of the Ring tournament
and while he may no longer be known as a King, the SmackDown Superstar will always have that accolade as part of his resume
Now, we previously reported that Marko Stunt was rumoured to be leaving the company, as his role as the hype-man for Jurrasic Express has been filled by Christian Cage.
Now, Fightful Select has learned that Stunt’s contract will not be renewed when it expires this May and it was the company’s head of talent relations Christopher Daniels
who told Stunt the bad news: We’re told that last week, Marko Stunt got the call from AEW talent relations in the form of Christopher
Daniels and was informed that the company would not be renewing his contract. It was claimed that Daniels’ cited budget cuts and a large roster as the reason that
the deal was not renewed. Stunt hasn’t appeared on AEW programming in six months, and Daniels also was said to have
mentioned that plans had changed for Jurassic Express. Stunt sustained a concussion in October, and was not booked or given a reason why, but did make an effort to
reach out to the company to get booked to prove himself for a contract renewal.
We’re told that the split was amicable, and the conversation went well.
It’s certainly interesting that Budget Cuts are being blamed for the release, a line that AEW fans have used to attack Vince McMahon in the past, as Tony Khan is far wealthier
than WWE’s Chairman.
Whatever Stunt does next, it won’t be for AEW, as he follows Joey Janela and Cody Rhodes as stars to depart the All Elite promotion this year.
Like Stunt, fans haven’t seen Miro wrestle for some time, but there’s a good reason why he’s been kept away from the ring.
On Twitter and Instagram, the former Rusev said he’s been living in Brooklyn, New York for a while and working on a TV pilot for a new project which is listed on IMDB as ‘East New York.’
The International Movie Database also says that Miro plays a character called Nikolai Dushkin, which the AEW star confirmed on social media.
Details are still scarce but we can confirm that East New York will be a cop series filmed for CBS and also feature L.A. Law and Star Wars alum Jimmy Smits in an unconfirmed role.
Signing a new deal with AEW earlier this year, Miro will be around until 2026 at the earliest, but with it now being months since his last match, the Bulgarian is looking
for projects outside the squared circle.
Adam Cole is one of AEW’s relatively new stars, having joined the promotion six months ago, but his booking as of late isn’t exactly delivering.
In this ongoing storyline with Cole and reDRagon, the former NXT Champion has come across as an afterthought, despite receiving one of AEW’s biggest pops when he
joined last September. Cole joined AEW the same night as Bryan Danielson, but while the former WWE World
Champion has gone from strength to strength with his booking, AEW’s treatment of Cole has left a lot to be desired. The Panama City Playboy is obviously talented, and
has proven that he can be the headliner for a promotion, as his work in NXT proved, but right now, something isn’t clicking for Cole in AEW.
This month, WWE 2K22 was launched and has proven to be a success with gamers on various platforms.
After the low bar set by WWE 2K20, being a better game wasn’t hard to do, but there have been some small issues with the new game.
Now, one of those issues has been resolved as in an update this week, the new patch provides roster support for added nWO for life superstars and fixes several bugs.
WWE 2K22 has an extensive line up of DLC planned with names from Rob Van Dam and Yokozuna to Logan Paul and Machine Gun Kelly announced, as 2k22 has
proven to be the saving grace between WWE and their current video game developers.
Back to AEW as the stars of the company perform in the ring every single week, but Anthony Bowens is currently on the shelf.
On Busted Open Radio, AEW President and Head of Creative Tony Khan revealed why Bowens hasn’t wrestled since the March 9th Dynamite, saying that the Acclaimed star is
dealing with a knee injury. Han said that he doesn’t think Bowens will be out for much longer, but said that he should’ve
already been cleared by now, stating that Bowens’ in- ring absence has “jammed him up” when it comes to planning creative.
On the March 9th Dynamite, Bowens and Max Caster came up short against AEW World Tag Team Champions Jurrasic Express, and Khan added that initially, doctors believed
Bowens would be out for two weeks, but it’s been nearly a month now. Bowens did appear on last night’s show, as he was in the his
match with CM Punk, but it remains to be seen when the Acclaimed star will be getting back in the ring himself.
For years, DDP has been trying to help people turn their lives around, and recently invited Buff Bagwell into his home to aid the former WCW Tag Team Champion.
Bagwell will be featured on DDP’s upcoming reality series Change or Die,’ and we now know another veteran of the ring will be involved.
On the latest edition of the DDP Snake Pit, Page confirmed that Butterbean, the former IBA World Super Heavyweight Champion will also be appearing on the show.
While he’s best known for his boxing career, Butterbean did have a brief stint in WWE, most notably knocking out Bart Gunn in seconds at WrestleMania, Gunn’s so-called
prize for winning the 1998 Brawl for All tournament. There’s still no word on when Change or Die will air, but Page is hoping to help the lives of
even more people, proving why he’s considered one of the nicest guys in all of pro wrestling
And we’re ending today with Brian Cage, who hasn’t been used by AEW in a very long time, with his last match for the company being back at the Chris Jericho cruise in
October 2021. When Cage’s wife Melissa Santos publicly berated the company for their handling of her
husband, many fans thought this would be the end of his time with AEW, but that isn’t the case.
On the GV Wire podcast, Cage said that not only is he still under contract with AEW, but that he recently had his contract renewed with the company.
At this time, there’s still no word on when Cage will return to TV or what plans the company has for him, but Tony Khan is willing to pay to keep the Machine around.