Here's more wrestling news for May 7th 2022
And your headlines for Afternoon include
Stu Grayson Addresses His AEW Exit
Willie Mack Announces His Departure From Impact Wrestling
Why Vince McMahon Blasted Dana White?
Ember Moon Dragged For Bringing Up Personal Business With WWE
Major Update On Cain Velasquez
WWE Falsely Advertised Brock Lesnar For WrestleMania Backlash
Tammy Sytch Arrested And Facing Nine Charges In Connection To March 2022 Car Accident
Drew McIntyre Wants To Be A Paul Heyman Guy
WWE 2k22 Has Racked Up An Incredible Number Of Hours On Twitch Since Its Release
Why WWE Raw & Smackdown Crossovers Won’t Last Long?
Young Fan Jumps Barricade To Reach Out To Cody Rhodes! And More
We’re starting with AEW, as last week, it was reported that Stu Grayson’s profile had been removed from the company’s website, implying that his time with AEW had come to an end.
Grayson hasn’t appeared on AEW programming since his profile was removed, and now we can confirm that he’s gone.
In a Tweet, the now former Dark Order member confirmed that his deal with AEW expired on April 30th, and he chose not to re-sign, and that he’s officially a free agent.
Grayson took the time to thank everyone working for AEW, both on and off-screen and said he hopes the world will soon see what the Dark Order is capable of.
Joining in 2019, Grayson primarily worked as a tag-team wrestler and leaves AEW without holding any championships, and we’ll just have to see where the ex-Dark Order member calls home next.
Grayson could perhaps join Impact Wrestling, as the company has had to say goodbye to Willie Mack.
On social media, Mack confirmed that his contract expired after this week’s Impact, and he declined the offer presented to him, and after his success with the promotion, it’ll be interesting to see where he goes next.
Now, when the COVID-19 situation really started getting bad in the U.S. in 2020, then President Donald Trump had a meeting with leaders from sports and entertainment, including WWE’s Vince
McMahon and UFC’s Dana White.
Alongside other leaders from entertainment, the group tried to figure out the best way to keep their industries going despite the pandemic, but this meeting had its own share of problems.
While speaking on the Pivot Podcast, White revealed that he didn’t speak up at all during the meetings, but for a very specific reason:
“At the time, President Trump put me and a bunch of the other guys in sports on a panel and we would get on a call every week with the President and walk through how we would do this and I
God, I don’t even know if I should talk about this publicly but… I’ve never talked about this before. “Vince McMahon starts texting me and basically berating me after
the call like, ‘Why didn’t you talk? Why didn’t you back up what I was saying? And we gotta go through this’ and all this other sh*t and
I was like, ‘Because I think everybody’s full of sh*t, that’s why, except for you. You’re definitely not full of sh*t Vince,’ you know? Vince is a f*cking killer.”
McMahon and White have had an interesting relationship over the years, with many UFC stars coming to WWE over the years, but things were never more tense between the two than at the start of 2020.
Earlier this month, Athena, aka Ember Moon spoke about her time in WWE, and some of the unique methods the company has.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Athena recalled a women exclusive meeting, where the wrestlers were told to dress more sexily, and the WWE gave Mandy Rose as a perfect example.
Since her comments, many fans have called out WWE for what they perceive to be a sexist approach, given that the instruction to be sexier was only given to the women, but Booker T isn’t pleased
with Athena herself.
Speaking about his old student on his Hall of Fame podcast, Booker said it was wrong of Athena to bring up WWE this way, and said that you never know what the future brings.
Discussing the Mandy Rose situation, Booker added that everybody has a role to play, and that this is the role Rose and WWE have chosen for her.
Booker insinuated that Athena may have hurt herself in the long run, implying that WWE will be less likely to bring her back now she’s revealing their inner workings, and the former NXT Women’s
Champion may have to permanently find work outside WWE.
One name WWE certainly isn’t bringing back is Cain Velasquez, who will have to wait a little longer before having his day in court.
Velasquez is charged with attempted murder after shooting the wrong person while trying to hunt down a man who allegedly was sexually inappropriate with a member of his family.
This week, Velsquez was issued continuance, meaning he’ll have to wait longer for his trial, as ESPN MMA insider Marc Raimondi reports:
“Cain Velasquez was issued a continuance in his attempted murder case Friday morning. The new bail hearing has been pushed back to May 16 and a plea hearing has been scheduled for June 10, per his team.
The bail hearing, where a judge will reconsider granting Velasquez bail, was scheduled for Friday morning. But apparently in Santa Clara County, bail motions are only heard on Mondays. So now,
it will be May 16.” The MMA community has come out in support of Cain, with Ronda Rousey saying she would’ve done
even worse in she had been in his shoes, but for now, the former UFC Heavyweight Champion remains focused on his legal strategy.
This Sunday, WWE will host their WrestleMania-Backlash Premium Live Event, but despite a star-studded card including Roman Reigns, Drew McIntyre and Edge, Brock Lesnar isn’t
on the card. It wasn’t too long ago that Lesnar appeared front and center in promotional material for the event,
but according to Dave Meltzer, he wasn’t pulled from the show, but in fact was never meant to appear
In the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Melter said how WWE “falsely advertised” Lesnar for the show, as they didn’t want people to piece together that he was losing at WrestleMania.
Given that the promotional material for Backlash was on WWE’s website before WrestleMania, WWE didn’t want to spoil the result of the Lesnar-Reigns match, and teased that Lesnar could walk
out at AT&T Stadium as the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion. Not only was Lesnar never booked for WrestleMania-Backlash, but he’s also been pulled from the
promotional material for Money in the Bank, and anyone who bought a ticket to see the Beast will be bitterly disappointed.
Lesnar isn’t the only falsely advertised part of WrestleMania- Backlash, as fans WON’T see a huge title unification match this Sunday.
It had been announced that RAW Tag Team Champions RK-Bro were going to face SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos to unify the two sets of titles, but that isn’t happening anymore.
Last week, WWE added Drew McIntyre and Roman Reigns to the match, making it a six-man-tag, but this was the plan all along.
In the Observer, Meltzer reports that while the change seemed to happen last week, WWE had always planned on a six-man-tag, which explains why there were no reports on who Reigns was
going to face in a singles match on the show. WWE did not book a Undisputed WWE Universal Championship match because they new they didn’t
need to, and although the Raw an SmackDown tag gold may be unified one day, it won’t be this Sunday
We’ve got a massive update on the Tammy Sytch case, after the former WWF Diva was involved in a three-vehicle crash that left one man dead.
At the time of the crash in March, police suspected she was under the influence of alcohol, and now, Mike Johnson of PW Insider has confirmed that Sytch was arrested last night in Ormond Beach, Florida.
She is currently facing nine charges, including DUI Manslaughter, Driving with a suspended or revoked license (causing death or serious injury), and seven counts of DUI causing damage to a
person or property, and has been processed in Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach. Police had held off arresting Sytch until the toxicology report came
out, and given that she has now been arrested, it appears that she was under the influence at the time of the crash.
In addition to these charges, a civil lawsuit has been filed against Sytch and her boyfriend James Pente by the family of the man, Julian Lasseter, who was killed in the crash.
If found guilty of the various criminal charges, Sytch could face serious jail time, and we’ll keep following this case for updates.
When Malcolm Bivens was released from WWE last week, reports came out that WWE had plans for him on the main roster, possibly as the manager for Omos.
Obviously, that didn’t happen, as Omos is now with MVP, but according to Bivens, these reports of main-roster call-up are far from accurate.
During a Live at the Stand comedy special, the former WWE personality revealed details of his situation, saying:
“A lot of people want to know, ‘Malcolm, what happened?’ You know what they say, there are three sides to a story. Your side, the truth, and their side. So I gotta be real, I have to…I hate to say I have to
control my narrative….Here’s the truth, there are a lot of rumors, a lot of speculation. Was I offered a contract in February? Yes. Did I say no to said contract? Yes. Was I offered to be with Omos? NO
one said a word to me about managing Omos. Was I told about the main roster? Yes.
Yes. And people, they think I’m crazy, ‘Malcolm, you threw away millions, potentially, you walked away.’ Yeah. I did because I didn’t want to do it anymore. Unfortunately, I wasn’t happy. At Stand &
Deliver, I had a conversation with the head writer and I told him so. Two weeks ago, I said the same thing, I told him, ‘I don’t think this was for me.’ That’s okay. Your happiness is not dictated by what
people say you should do, happiness is dictated by what you think you should do. There’s a difference right?” NXT’s creative team were blindsided by Bivens’ release, as they
weren’t told ahead of time of anyone who was getting released, and we’ll have to see what the future holds for him and the nine others released last week.
Back to WWE, and in 2017, Drew McIntyre returned to WWE and has had an impressive five years since then.
Having won the NXT Championship, Raw Tag Titles, and becoming a two-time WWE Champion since then, McIntyre has reached the top of WWE’s mountain, but there are still some things he’s left to do.
In an interview on the Superstar Crossover podcast with Josh Martinez, The Scottish Warrior spoke about his feuds with Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar, and pointed out that
Paul Heyman was with both men at the time. He added: “I saw what he's been able to do for them…he's a very, very smart individual. I may have to go with
Paul Heyman and there may be something interesting down the line, you're talking about a bad Drew and a Paul Heyman.”
It’s been years since McIntyre has been a heel in WWE, and while he seems to be the company’s top babyface, or at least second behind Cody Rhodes, we can’t rule out a heel turn and alliance with Heyman.
Even if the two never align on TV, fans can put McIntyre and Heyman together in WWE 2K22 which has proven to be a hit.
After the disastrous release of WWE 2K20, both WWE and 2K studios wanted to get this one right, and the latest installment in the series has been seriously popular on Twitch.
During this week’s quarterly financial reports call to investors, Stephanie McMahon spoke about the game, revealing that a total 5.6 million hours of content from WWE 2K22 has been viewed on Switch.
To put that into perspective, the Deluxe edition of the game was released on March 8th, 60 days ago, meaning that 93,333 hours of content has been watched on average, every single day.
Before 2K22 was released, it was reported that this was a ‘make or break’ game for 2K, who’s deal with WWE is set to expire this year, but with numbers like these, expect plenty more instalments in the
WWE 2K series.
Now, as of late, there’s been a lot of crossovers between Raw and SmackDown, with talent from both shows appearing on both brands.
While it makes sense that WWE’s sole World Champion Roman Reigns would appear on Raw and SmackDown, he’s not the only one doing so, as The Usos, RK-Bro and Drew McIntyre are just
some of the names following his lead. While fans may be enjoying seeing their favourite Superstars more often, WWE’s network partners are not, and that’s especially
true in FOX’s case.
On the latest Wrestling Observer Live, Dave Meltzer discussed the crossovers, and explained why fans should enjoy them while they can:
They don’t want to keep that [crossover between Raw and SmackDown] going for a long time… Both networks kind of want unique rosters. You can do some of that back and forth,
but really, Fox in particular really wants, kind of exclusivity on its guys.” The main-event of this Sunday’s WrestleMania-Backlash event
and SmackDown, but after tomorrow night, expect everyone other than the Tribal Chief to be back to one brand.
And we’re ending with SmackDown, and after last night’s event, Cody Rhodes appeared for a dark match, defeating Seth Rollins mere days before they face off at WrestleMania-Backlash.
Rhodes has certainly proven to be popular with fans since returning to WWE, and after the match, one young fan made it clear how popular the American Nightmare is.
In a clip shared online, the kid can be seen walking to Cody to ask for a photo, clearly having jumped the barricade while security wasn’t paying attention.
Thankfully, the child wasn’t tackled to the ground like others who have jumped the barricade, but Cody spoke to the kid and took the incident in stride.
In a tweet responding to the video, Rhodes said how he enjoyed meeting the kid, who did get his picture after all, as Cody’s relationship with WWE fans have proven to be very different
than being hurled insults at by AEW’s faithful.