Here's your wrestling news for March 19th 2021
And your headlines for today include
Former Women's Champion To Join The Hurt Business!
Good News For Brock Lesnar’s Fans!
Why WWE Dropped Romantic Angle With RVD & Stephanie McMahon?
Triple H Reportedly Misses WWE TV Shows This Week!
WWE Hits Back At Paul Wight In A Weird Way!
Hikaru Shida Speaks Up About #StopAsianHate
"I'm Not Surprised" - Kurt Angle Reacts To Rumors Of Triple H's Real Issues With An Infamous WWE
Storyline! And More.
Since forming last year, The Hurt Business has been one of WWE’s most dominant forces, capturing the
24/7 Championship, the RAW Tag Titles and most recently the WWE Championship.
With so much success, it’s not hard to see why some stars are interested in joining, and this week, Naomi teased
that she’s willing to join the business. When WWE Champion Bobby Lashley recently posted an inspirational quote
on Instagram, one that says that the real flex is how many people’s lives you can positively impact, Naomi responded,
telling the Almighty to flex her way. Lashley also tagged MVP in the post, so there’s a good chance that The
Hurt Business founder saw what Naomi had to say.
Naomi and Lana recently failed to capture the Women’s Tag Team titles from Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax,
but if the Glow does want to be a champion again, and fast, then a move to the Hurt Business may be the best
decision she ever makes.
It’s been nearly a year since Brock Lesnar was last seen in WWE, as his contract expired following his loss to
to Drew McIntyre at WrestleMania 36. Since then, there’s been an abundance of rumours and speculation as to if and
when he’ll return, and now WWE have given a huge clue that it could be happening very soon.
If you go to the Superstars page on WWE.com, you’ll find Lesnar listed as an active Superstar, hinting that he
may be back very soon. In the past, WWE has been quick to remove stars from their website after
they’ve left the company, so it’s incredibly interesting that the former Universal Champion has returned to
WWE.com, and a sign that he’ll return to the ring very soon.
Throughout her years in WWE, Stephanie McMahon has had plenty of interesting angles, but one angle
fans didn’t get to see included Rob Van Dam. While speaking to the Dropkick
Podcast, RVD revealed that there were plans for a romance angle between the two in 2001, but it was
Van Dam’s real-life girlfriend at the time that led to RVD nixing the plan:
“My evil ex was like the most insecure bitch on the planet and I was like thinking, ‘oh my God, this gonna cost
me so much grief at home.’” Though Stephanie tried to sell the idea to Van Dam, saying he was like
an actor on screen, the angle never made it to TV, and it’s very interesting to know what could’ve been between
the Billion Dollar Princess and the Whole F’n Show.
Back to the present, and Big E is doing big things as Intercontinental Champion, and will defend the gold
this Sunday against Apollo Crews. Big E’s push as of late has even caught the attention of AEW,
as Jim Ross spoke about the former New Day star on his podcast this week, and made a huge prediction for Big E:
Big E is a really good guy, and I like for really good guys to get their break… He will be the Universal Champion or
WWE Champion sooner than later in his career. No doubt in my mind.
The current belief is that Big E’s current reign as Intercontinental Champion is just grooming him for a
future world title push, and it’s telling that the powerhouse is impressing all the right people, even those working
for the opposition company.
For the past year, Vince McMahon has missed more and more shows, leaving these productions with Triple H in charge,
but this week, it was the Game’s turn to go AWOL. On the latest edition of Wrestling
Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that Triple H was absent from this week’s NXT, and also missed Monday’s RAW
from Tropicana Field. There’s no word on if he’ll be back to work behind the scenes for Fastlane
this Sunday, but according to Dave Meltzer, the Game is currently sick.
Though he was missing backstage, this week’s NXT saw plenty of absences on screen too, as the gold brand nixed two
matches. Leon Ruff Vs. Isiah ‘Swerve’ Scott was supposed to happen but didn’t, and
neither did Marcel Barthel and Fabian Aichner Vs. Tommaso Ciampa and Timothy Thatcher.
Instead of appearing live, Johnny Gargano and Candice Le Rae did a segment from their home, whilst Indi
Hartwell wasn’t at ringside for Austin Theory when he faced Dexter Lumis. Imperium’s Alexander Wolfe was
also absent from the show, and it’s entirely possible these many absences is due to a recent outbreak
in NXT. It’s been confirmed that several NXT Superstars tested positive in the
latest outbreak, though others were kept from the venue as a precautionary measure, and this is the last thing WWE
needs just 19 days from their first-ever two-day TakeOver event.
One man worthy of the Hall of Fame is Paul Wight, but he may be waiting a long time for the nod now he’s with AEW.
Debuting with a new ‘No More B.S.’ shirt on Dynamite recently, this is Wight’s first new piece of merchandise
in a very long time, and during Talk is Jericho, the former Big Show said how he’s annoyed that WWE didn’t sell
his merch enough: “[In WWE] I got paid to sell tickets, not sell merch. ‘You’re not a
merchandise guy.’ What does that mean? I’m the one that’s making John Cena look good… can I have a shirt too?
It didn’t take AEW long to create merchandise for Wight after he joined the company, and time will tell
whether more merchandise follows for the former WWE Superstar.
This week, a terrible tragedy in Georgia sparked the hashtag #StopAsianHate, and that’s something
AEW Women’s Champion Hikaru Shida cares deeply about.
In a video, Shida spoke about how she’s lived in the United States for a year and a half, and said she feels
lucky that she’s not been discriminated against, but knows that that isn’t the case for a lot of Asian people.
Shida added that she hopes one day, everyone, regardless of where they’re from, will be able to live a normal equal life.
In a study conducted this year, it was revealed that crimes targeting Asian Americans has increased dramatically
this year, and it’s believed this is down to the ongoing global situation, and the conspiracy theory that China deliberately
manufactured the current situation. Shida also recorded a message in her native Japanese, and this is a topic
that obviously hits close to home for the AEW Women’s Champion.
And we’re ending this video with Kurt Angle, who recently discussed his storyline in 2000 against Triple H.
At the time, the Olympian was trying to woo the Game’s wife, Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley, but after a
No-DQ match at that year’s Unforgiven, the storyline was immediately dropped. The choice to end the storyline
so abruptly was odd, given that Stephanie had shown an interest in Kurt as a performer since January,
and on his Podcast, the Olympian said he feels it could’ve been stretched out longer. He added:
“What happened was Austin was returning. He needed an opponent, and Triple H was available because Vince
wanted me to wrestle The Rock next month. So, I think they had to end the storyline abruptly.”
When Conrad Thompson brought up the rumours that Triple H was frustrated in reality about the Love triangle, and felt
feuding with Austin was bigger than the Olympian, Kurt said he wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.
Ultimately, the angle being dropped worked in Kurt’s favour, as just one month later, he dethroned The Rock to
become the WWF Champion, but the Olympic Gold Medalist felt there was more left to the angle with Stephanie
and The Game that went unused.