Here's your wrestling news for June 8th 2022
And your headlines for today include
Original SHOCKING plans revealed for The Judgement Day: \Edge refused to do it!
Main roster Superstar has complete gimmick change during surprise appearance on NXT 2.0
NXT 2.0 crowns Women’s Breakout Tournament winner – future opponent for Mandy Rose
Tony Khan discusses relationship with Eric Bischoff – What’d happen if they met face to face
WWE Hall of Famer claims stories are secondary in AEW
Jake the Snake Roberts says recent AEW promo made him sick!
Former WWE Superstar makes HUGE accusation that Cody Rhodes’ injury is fake!
Latest on CM Punk’s injury and surgery
WWE Veteran returns as main-roster producer before last week’s Smackdown
John Cena meets Ukrainian mega fan after fleeing \Russian invasion. And more!
We’re kicking off today with The Judgement Day, who underwent a massive change during this week’s Raw.
On the show, Edge welcomed Finn Balor as the newest member of the group, a decision fans saw coming as it had been rumoured for weeks.
What fans didn’t see coming was Edge being kicked out of the group, and we now know more about which plans didn’t make it to TV.
According to Fightful, original plans for The Judgement Day was for the group to have a more supernatural feel to it, and for at least some members to display supernatural powers.
However, Edge was dead set against the idea, which to be fair, would have been a strange turn considering fans had seen these Superstars for years not use these alleged hidden abilities.
The report adds that WWE had plans for Balor to join the group days before Hell in a Cell, but there was no mention of Edge leaving the group until what unfolded on Raw.
It’ll be interesting to see if The Judgement Day develop the powers Edge was so against, but hidden abilities or not, the stable shows no signs of slowing down.
Over to NXT 2.0 now, as Bron Breakker retained his NXT Cham pionship against Joe Gacy at In Your House, and now has an interesting new challenger from the main roster.
On last night’s episode of NXT 2.0, Breakker asked his next chal lenger to come out, and his call was answered by Apollo Crews, who earned a thunderous ovation from the fans.
Crews appeared without Commander Azeez and has seemingly turned babyface, dropping his Nigerian accent and praised Breakker’s run as Champion.
The former United States and Intercontinental Champion said that he’ll be in NXT for as long as he wants to be, which given his track record on the main roster as of late, may not be a bad idea.
Before coming to the main roster, Crews was considered a possi ble future star in NXT, and had title opportunities not long after his debut in 2015, so time will tell what kind of success the acrobatic
powerhouse has, now he’s in NXT 2.0.
This week’s episode also saw the finals of the first-ever Women’s Breakout Tournament, which saw relative newcomer Roxanne Perez. win the whole thing
Perez, formerly Rok-C, defeated Tiffany Stratton in the finals to win, and celebrated after the match with Cora Jade.
Their celebration was short-lived as they were confronted by Toxic Attraction, but Indi Hartwell emerged to even the odds.
By winning the tournament, Perez has earned herself a shot at the NXT Women’s Championship, which is currently held by Mandy Rose, as this week’s win may be just the first of many for the young
Superstar
Over to AEW as Eric Bischoff has been very critical of the company as of late, claiming that CM Punk hasn’t been the worth the investment Tony Khan has made in him.
Bischoff argued that while Punk popped the ratings when he debuted, the numbers have returned to where they were, and sometimes even worse, than what they looked like prior to his arrival last August.
This has led to some harsh words between Bischoff, Punk and Tony Khan, but it appears the latter is at least able to be civil, if not move on from what’s been said.
Speaking to The Corner podcast, Khan discussed Bischoff, and said that he hasn’t ever said anything bad about him, and that if they met up later that day, they’d probably shake hands.
Addressing Bischoff’s comments about Punk, the AEW President said they were not fair, and said that Easy-E is talking about their ratings and financials without understanding either.
Bischoff’s mantra has always been “controversy creates cash” and his comments about AEW have certainly been controversial, but Tony Khan is positive that the pair would be fine working together
in the future, if the opportunity arose.
Khan may be ready to move on from the issues with Bischoff, but the former WCW magnate still has some comments left to make about AEW.
This week, Bischoff spoke on his strictly business podcast and hit out against AEW, claiming that the stories told by the company are secondary:
“I think with AEW, it’s more of a cultural thing where the decision is being made that it’s all about the quality of the matches and the dream matches and the story has become secondary. That’s being
kind for the most part and I’m talking about a traditional beginning, middle, and end story with a great arc that takes the viewer on a journey and makes you emotionally invested. That element is mostly gone in AEW.”
Bischoff went on to say that AEW matches are “exhibition for the sake of exhibition,” showing off flashy moves without a reason, but did praise MJF’s recent promo against the company.
AEW has always prided itself on it’s ability to tell long-term stories, especially in comparison to WWE, who seemingly change plans on a weekly basis but according to Bischoff these stories play
second fiddle to flashy spots in the ring.
Bischoff made it clear during his podcast appearance that he is a big fan of MJF’s recent scating promo, and it’s not hard to see why.
Claiming that Tony Khan would treat him better if he was a former WWE Superstar, MJF even went so far as to beg the AEW President to fire him, in a controversial promo that won over the WWE Hall of Famer.
MJF may have earned praise from fans wrestlers and even Bischoff, but one person who didn’t appreciate what he had to say is WWE Hall of Famer and fellow AEW performer Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts.
On the latest episode of his DDP Snake Pit podcast, Jake said the promo “made me sick,” adding that he’d like to see what the locker-room’s reaction were at the time.
MJF’s promo is just the latest controversy associated with the Salt of the Earth, and Roberts added that he couldn’t believe MJF no-showed a meet and greet prior to Double or Nothing.
MJF’s success in AEW is unquestionable, but he clearly feels underappreciated by the company, and while many loved his infam ous promo last week, at least one legend of the ring wasn’t a fan.
At Hell in a Cell 2022, Cody Rhodes proved just how tough he is, fighting Seth Rollins inside the barbaric structure with a torn pectoral muscle.
Rhodes has earned the respect of fans and wrestlers alike for his tenacity and dedication, but there are some who aren’t entirely sold on the American Nightmare.
While speaking to SEScoops, Ariane Andrew, formerly Cameron on WWE, speculated on whether Cody’s injury, including his very nasty is more to do with make-up than muscle tears:
“Him showing up [injured], I don’t know, I started to learn with WWE and wrestling, what is real and what is fake? What’s to get people intrigued? Because, at the end of the day, this is still entertainment.”
It’s worth stressing that there’s absolutely zero evidence to the claim Cody or WWE are faking this injury, and it would make little sense for them to do so.
After all, Cody is WWE’s number one babyface, and we’re not sure why the promotion would deliberately write off one of their most important stars for months.
Cody is expected to take up to 6 months to fully recover from his injury, and fans can expect his huge push to resume, despite what some may believe.
Last week, CM Punk appeared on Rampage to tell fans that he is injured, and will require surgery to sort his foot out, a process that will keep him from the ring.
AEW has made it clear that Punk won’t be stripped of his world Championship, and that an interim champion will be crowned and we now know more about his situation.
A report from PW Insider notes that Punk’s injury is unlikely to heal correctly without an operation, despite some speculation that he would be able to avoid going under the knife like WWE’s Big E.
It was also confirmed that not only has he not had the surgery yet, but no dates has been given for when the AEW World vhampion will have the surgery.
Obviously the longer it takes to have the surgery, the longer it’ll be before Punk can wrestle again, something fans are already hoping to see.
A new interim AEW World Champion will be crowned at Forbidden Door, with the champ facing Punk when the time is right, but for now, the Chicago-Made wrestler has yet to be cut up.
Back to WWE, and Fit Finlay is a veteran of the promotion, but was furloughed in early 2020 due to the situation.
Though he was brought back in November, Finlay has spent the past 18 months as a producer for NXT, but got called up this month.
It turns out that the former U.S. Champion worked as a producer for the June 3rd SmackDown dark match, which saw NXT 2.0’s Sanga defeat Wes Lee.
Finlay has been working as a producer for WWE for years, with several stars including Trish Stratus saying they owe their careers to the Irish wrestler.
With decades of experience, WWE has a resourceful producer in Fit Finlay, and we’ll have to see if last week’s work before SmackDown is a sign of bigger things to come.
And we’re ending today with John Cena, who has always gone above and beyond for his fans, and this week, the former WWE World Champion met with one special member of the WWE Universe.
After Russia’s invasion, Misha Rohozhyn escaped the Ukranian city of Mariupol to find safety in the Netherlands, a task made even more challenging by his Down Syndrome.
A story in the Wall Street Journal has revealed that after Misha’s mother tried to help her son, promising he’d one day meet Cena, Big Match John delivered on that promise, making the journey
to the Netherlands to do just that.
Misha’s mother told the Wall Street Journal that it was the first time she had seen her non-verbal son smile since leaving Ukraine, and the young fan was decked out in John Cena merchandise.
Even now, years after his full-time career has ended, Cena continues to be an inspiration to others, and this week goes to show why he was the face of WWE for so long.