Here's your wrestling news for July 6th 2021
And your headlines for today include
Canceled 2020 Feud Gets Teased On RAW!
Identity Of Superstar Behind WWE NXT ‘Charging’ Vignettes Is Revealed!
Dark Match Before WWE Raw Witnessed A Surprised WWE Wrestler’s In-Ring Return!
Where Is WWE Going With Charlotte Flair & Rhea Ripley’s Feud ?
WWE Wrestler Presented As One Of RAW's Most Important Babyfaces!
Why Jeff Hardy Competed Before WWE RAW This Week?
The Undertaker Sends An Incredible Gift To WWE Wrestler!
Zelina Vega Fires Heated Reply To Dave Meltzer Calling Him Out For Degrading Women!
Tay Conti Says Current WWE Superstar Screamed In Her Face During WWE Tryout & more!
We’re kicking off today with Monday Night RAW, as this week’s show saw a battle of the bandmates when 3MB Alum Jinder
Mahal faced Drew McIntyre. A couple of weeks ago, Jinder, alongside Jeff Hardy, Cedric Alexander and Sheamus
were complaining to Adam Pearce about not receiving a qualifying match for the Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder match,
and this was referenced once again by Mahal this week. Facing McIntyre this week, the Scotsman
was in control, until Veer and Shanky struck, causing the disqualification and protecting Mahal in the process.
This was done to protect Mahal, and possibly set up a major feud post-Money- in-the Bank, which hopefully means
McIntyre won’t be walking away with the Briefcase on July 18th. In 2020, it was rumoured that McIntyre
was set to have a WWE Championship feud with Mahal, but that was cancelled because of the Modern-Day Maharaja’s
long-term injury. This week’s match wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Pay-Per-View card,
but given that this was the penultimate RAW before Money in the Bank, and second-to-last Thunderdome
RAW before WWE brings back live fans, WWE wanted to clearly establish McIntyre as the face in this feud before
fans have the chance to turn on him. Hopefully, this feud finally culminates, albeit a year late with a match at
Summerslam, as McIntyre is long-overdue for a feud away from the WWE Championship.
Over to NXT, and for the past few weeks, some interesting vignettes have been airing on NXT, featuring a cell phone
battery charging. These short clips have got fans talking, and now we know who they’re for,
so if you don’t wanna be spoiled, we recommend skipping the next minute of the video.
PW Insider reports that these vignettes are a vehicle to bring back Tegan Nox, and her return is expected soon,
given the battery is up to 80% as of last week’s NXT. Nox has been out of action with a knee
injury since August 2020, but returned to the ring before RAW, where she competed in a dark match against
Toni Storm. It’s interesting that she competed in a dark match before RAW, given that her return
is being hyped for NXT, and time will tell what the Welsh Superstar does when she returns to WWE TV.
More from RAW next, as the ongoing feud between RAW Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley and Charlotte Flair hasn’t exactly
set the WWE Universe on fire, with many believing that Charlotte has been handed an undeserved title opportunity, and fans
have seen plenty of their matches already. After their controversial title match finish at Hell in a Cell, Sonya Deville booked a
a rematch for Money in the Bank, and what WWE had hoped would be a roar from the crowd was actually a collective groan
from the fans. If fans weren’t tired of this feud before last night’s RAW, they certainly are now,
as last week Rhea Ripley attacked Charlotte Flair’s legs, and the queen appeared on the show last night in a crutch.
Exaggerating her injury, Flair said she may not be able to compete at Money in the Bank, and sarcastically praised Ripley
got getting out of their Pay-Per-View RAW Women’s title match. This comment brought out the champion,
who also appeared in a crutch, and stomped hard on the ramp to mock the Queen. In the ring, the pair had a stare down, and as
if to ensure that fans know wrestling isn’t real, kicked each other’s crutch from under their leg in perfect unison.
We’re not sure what the point of this segment was, or if anyone was more interested in their title match at Money in the Ban k, but we
hope that Flair is out of the title picture after this month’s Pay Per View.
The RAW Women’s title picture wasn’t the only women’s-division-issue though, as Nikki Cross, aka Nikki ASH got a new,
unintentional name last night. Last night, Jimmy Smith referred to her as Nikki Jax, though this wasn’t the worst
commentary botch recently, as that honor goes to JR and WWE Dynamite, Although many fans defended JR because
of his age, fans weren’t as forgiving with Smith, who lacks JR’s legacy in wrestling, and we’re wondering why Nikki Cross/Ash
Jax had to take the pin this week. Until this week, Nikki had been enjoying a winning-streak, and was considered a
dark-horse favourite to win Money in the Bank, which makes this week’s booking all-the-more bizarre.
RAW also saw Riddle continue his way up the red-brand’s totem pole, as he continues to be used more-and-more as of late.
Once again, this week’s show saw Riddle in an important role, as he was the highlight of the opening segment, where he joined
Miz TV alongside the likes Drew McIntyre, John Morrison, Ricochet and AJ Styles. Facing Styles later in the show in a singles
match, Riddle got a huge win over the former WWE Champion, albeit with some assistant from the Viking Raiders, as the RAW Tag Title
number-one contenders took out Omos mid-match, distracting Styles long enough for Riddle to get the pin.
For a character so many people consider goofy’ Riddle’s big babyface push is impossible to deny, and regardless of who
wins the inevitable title match between the Raiders and Styles and Omos, we expect RK-Bro to be in the title picture by Summerslam.
It certainly seems that WWE is setting Riddle up for something big, perhaps due to the lack of top-tier babyfaces on RAW, and
getting wins over the likes of Styles and getting more screentime than his partner Randy Orton speaks volumes about
Riddle’s career right now.
One man who wishes he had that kind of spotlight is Jeff Hardy, who was once again relegated to working a match on
Main Event this week. Jeff hasn’t been used in a major storyline in a while now, and while plenty of fans
would’ve loved to see him in Money in the Bank, that won’t be happening either.
Hardy’s downward spiral continued this week, as he once against lost on Main Event, this time to one of Jinder Mahal’s
henchmen, Veer. Mahal and Shanky were at ringside to watch Veer’s big win, and it looks like
WWE is putting some steam behind Veer, because he beat a former World Champion.
This week’s Main Event taping saw Angel Garza defeat Shelton Benjamin and NXT Champion Karrion Kross topple Drew Gulak.
As for Jeff, it may be quite some time before WWE has a storyline for him, despite how popular the former World
Champion remains with the fans.
As a veteran of wrestling with 30 years in the WWE alone, The Undertaker is one of the greatest of all time, and his contributions
will never be forgotten. After an incredible career, the Deadman’s last match was at WrestleMania 36, where
he defeated AJ Styles in the Boneyard match, and during an interive with Ryan Satin’s Out of Character podcast, Styles
revealed the touching gesture he gave after the match. He said: “I called his wife [former WWE Superstar
Michelle McCool] and I was like, ‘Hey, what does he want? Because I need to get him something. She was just like, ‘Hey, well,
give him your gloves. That would mean a lot to him if you signed a glove.’ I was like, ‘Alright.’ Michelle hooked me up
Hopefully that was a gift that he enjoyed. He actually sent his gloves to me with a very nice thank you letter, which meant
the world to me The Undertaker’s retired from in-ring competition at last year’s Survivor Series
and has been enjoying his much-deserved retirement, and it’s cool that the last gloves he ever wore now reside with his final
ever opponent.
Now, last week, Zelina Vega returned to WWE and she’s not holding back, either in the ring or on social media.
On Twitter, Vega posted a gif which she said was footage of dirt-sheet writers trying to think of the next lie to write
about her, which got quite the response from Dave Meltzer. On Wrestling Observer Radio said he
has no respect for Vega for lashing out at all dirt-sheet writers for not specifying who she’s speaking about, and said it’d
be unfair of him to call all wrestlers drug-addicts, because of the actions of a select few.
Calling Vega quote “f***ing stupid” twice, these comments made their way to the SmackDown Superstar, who pointed
out that she never said ALL dirt-sheet writers, making his argument invalid. Vega said that Meltzer can keep his
respect for her, as she lost her respect for him, when he started tearing down women for no reason.
Meltzer is no stranger to conflict with women, as Peyton Royce called him out in August 2018 for insisting she was “a l
lot lighter” and “far more attractive” during her NXT days, comments he’d never make of a male Superstar, and earlier this year
claimed Charlotte Flair’s hiatus was to have a complete makeover done, saying the Queen was self-conscious about
her looks. Concluding, Vega said that she wasn’t referring to him, but it’s on Meltzer if he
thinks her tweet was aimed at him, and he replied saying that she should point out specific people who lied rather than
a blanket statement, grouping people into one category. It’s not 100% clear what lie Vega was
talking about, or who she believes has lied about her, but she’s obviously not happy with something someone’s
written about her.
And we’re ending today with AEW, and before she made it to the All-Elie promotion, Tay Conti worked in WWE, despite not
having much idea about what pro-wrestling was before joining. Speaking on Oral Sessions recently, Conti
discussed her WWE tryout, and how a certain SmackDown Superstar had a very unique way of trying to motivate her.
She said: “I remember more like Bayley because she was screaming at me all the time. Yes …
That was crazy because honestly, I had no idea what I was doing. I’ll be 100% honest, no idea.”
Conti said that she considered trying out for WWE as being like a competition, but didn’t even know what she’d win by doing so,
and had to attend the tryout without being able to speak English. She added: “I didn’t know how to say ‘Hi’ back then,
right? And I had to watch it first, and then try to do it. And I’m like ‘Oh my god, I have no idea what I’m doing.’”
Despite not having any idea what was going on, Conti started liking the experience, which she attributes to WWE’s Role Model:
I remember Bayley like, every time I was doing this stance, she was like ‘AHH,’ screaming in my face. She was motivating
me and I was like ‘Hell yeah! I like this.’” Conti’s time in WWE proves the Performance Center isn’t for everyone, and although WWE
underused her, AEW has given her a much better chance to show what she can do. It’s possible that Bayley will yell in Conti’s
face again someday, but it will be in a much different situation, for sure.