Here's your wrestling news for September 20th, 2022.
And we're kicking off today with raw, which was promoted
with an exciting United States championship match between
Bobby Lashley and Seth Rollins with the latter, hoping
to win his first title in WWE in over three years.
Unfortunately, that wasn't meant to be as Matt riddle appeared
towards the end to distract Rollins a decision that has annoyed fans.
On social media fans expressed their displeasure for the finish,
calling it predictable and arguing that Rollins should have won.
One fan said it made Rollins look weak as the WWE veteran
lost over a distraction and also made Lashley look weak as
he only won because of a distraction, despite being a heel,
it's impossible to ignore the massive fan base Rollins has,
and many fans are ready to move on from his feud with Riddle
hopefully their fight pit match at extreme rules will
be the last we see of these two, giving the visionary
some much needed time to actually win a title.
Now for the past few days, WWE has had some
bizarre segments involving the song white rabbit.
The Jefferson airplane song has been playing during commercial
breaks and before live events and has been accompanied by red
lighting with many suspecting that this is related to Bray Wyatt.
While these incidents have played out at UN televised events.
Now fans watching around the world have had their first
taste of the white rabbit during raw Austin theory
was seen warming up for his match against Kevin Owens.
And viewers noticed the QR code during the segment scanning
the code, brought fans to a little animation of a white rabbit
playing hangman with the question asked, who destroyed the world.
And the answer was you did.
The video also says 9 23, which is September 23rd,
which is the date of this Friday's SmackDown.
Meaning Bray Wyatt could be returning to WWE.
As soon as this week, a lot has been made about the
white rabbit teases and the video fans found on raw.
And one fan thinks they've discovered the answer to this mystery.
On Reddit, a user named bang bang noted.
How on July 4th, Wyatt tweeted asking fans.
If they know anything about self Arkansas, which has a place
called the devil's hole, a search of the devil's hole in
self Arkansas brought our Intrepid Reddit user to a 2004
forum in which a lot of crazy stuff is shared about the area.
It's not the content though.
That's worth Noting, but the moderator of the
thread who goes by the moniker white rabbit.
If WWE are using an online forum from 18 years ago to tease the
return of bray Wyatt, then that is some serious long term booking.
It's worth noting that Karrion Kross who worked in Lucha
underground as white rabbit has also responded to the
bizarre segments we've been seeing, saying he's flattered
to be remembered for that, but told fans to assume nothing.
Whatever the white rabbit is it has fans hooked to find out more.
And for Bray Wyatt, his long awaited return
to WWE could be a handful of days away.
Fans saw the latest tease featuring the song during this week's raw.
And now bray Wyatt's concept.
Artist has dropped a tease of his own.
Kyle Scarborough, the man who designed the original concept art
for the feends mask and props took to Twitter and uploaded an
image of a white rabbit fueling speculation about Wyatt’s return.
In a later message.
Scarborough said that he's drawn carrying cross in the past as
well as many believe that the former NXT champion could be the
white rabbit, a name he used years ago in Lucha underground.
If Wyatt does make his return to WWE it'll be another huge
win for triple H's, work, his head of talent relations, and we
will hopefully get some answers on this Friday'S smack down.
This week's raw Austin theory had a fantastic match with Kevin Owens.
And while it seemed like theory was
going to get the win that didn't happen.
Instead Owen's longtime friend, Johnny Gargano appeared
carrying theory's money in the bank briefcase, distracting
the youngster long enough for Owens to get the win.
Well Owens and Gargano teased a team up to
face the alpha academy in the near future.
The direction for extreme rules seems to be theory
versus Gargano possibly with a stipulation in mind.
In 2020, Zach Ryder was cut from WWE after 15 years with the company
and has since rebranded himself under real name, Matt Cardona.
After years as little more than a jober in WWE
Cardona has become a major star outside WWE,
but is now making his return sort of on Twitter.
The former NWA world's heavyweight champion said he's returning to the
WWE network after recently making his debut for progress wrestling.
Progress is streamed on the WWE network and Cardona said
how he even defended his internet championship marking.
The first time the title will have been
defended in a match on the network.
Cardona has become a king of the indie
scene, and it's not hard to see why.
And while he may not be interested in a fully fledged WWE return, his
fans will get to see new content featuring the former broski soon.
This November WWE will host its annual survivor series
event at the TD garden in Boston, Massachusetts.
This will be the 36th annual survivor series event, but this
year we'll also mark a first time ever for the show as first
reported by the ringer and later confirmed by WWE themselves.
This year's survivor series will be headlined by two war
games matches one for the men and the other for the women.
It was also confirmed that this year's event will ditch
the raw versus SmackDown battle for brand supremacy that
we've seen since 2016, as triple H told the ringer we'll
have a men's war games match and a women's war game match.
The tradition of the survivor series is ebbed
and flowed and changed slightly over time.
But this will be similar to that.
This will not be raw versus SmackDown.
It'll be much more storyline driven.
I still look at it as a traditional component to survivor
series in there because it's large teams of people competing.
We just upped the ante a little bit with war games and made it evolve.
War games was once a staple of WC w and
has been used in NXT in recent years.
And it's now time for WWE's main roster
to step inside the iconic double cages.
Since his rise to power is WWE's head
of creative and talent relations.
Triple H has made a lot of changes to the company from
bringing back release superstars, to ending NXT UK and
announcing NXT Europe a lot has changed over the past few
months, but some things will always stay the same with Vince
McMohan gone and raw reportedly considering a TV 14 rating.
Many fans are hoping to see blood be regular occurrence again,
but as triple H explained to the ringer, that won't be the case.
The world has changed.
The world has evolved.
I don't think it's necessary.
If we have talent that gets cut open, usually you'll see them roll
out and they'll get looked at to make sure there's nothing dangerous.
I'm just of the opinion right now, given
the state of the world and the pandemic.
And at the end of the day, what we do is dangerous
enough without intentionally making it more dangerous.
Yes, we did feature bleeding for a long period of time, but
we've changed that practice and it's irresponsible to go back.
WWE isn't fully against blood, but it is used very sparingly,
which makes the time that fans do see it even more special.
AEW is no stranger to blood with weekly dynamites.
Sometimes seeing someone be busted open, but while WWE will still
have plenty of hard hitting matches, don't expect a crimson and mask.
Back to raw, which saw a segment between damage
control, Bianca Belair Alexa, bliss, and Oscar.
And despite the talent of all six women, this was disappointing.
The only highlight of the segment was that Bailey accused
bliss of being a BITER to which she replied that both
she and Lily bite, which some have taken as a nod to a
steel biting, Kenny omega during the AEW all out fight.
As for the rest of the segment, there was little
of worth with it all setting up a match between
bliss and Bailey, which was also not up to snuff.
The bliss Bailey match.
The main event of the show.
Didn't feel like a headliner, despite both women having star power
and many accolades each the bout saw Bailey dispatch of bliss.
And it's clear that WWE is setting up the role model as
the next challenger for Belair's raw women's championship.
Perhaps if this hadn't been the main event, the match wouldn't
have been viewed so harshly, but putting this bout as the final
match of the night was the wrong move for everyone involved.
Now, cm punk has been a source of controversy in AEW as of
late, as he has believed to have instigated the backstage
fight during the all out media scrum punk also had some
explosive comments during the post all out press conference.
And there's now a new controversy for the former world champion.
In 2011 Tamilian Vineesh made a handful of appearances
for AEW and has accused punk of being a racist during a
stream Vineesh made the accusation while also claiming
that he experienced discrimination while appearing for AEW.
Cm punk is one of the biggest fucking racist
pieces of shit I've ever met in my life.
He's one of the worst guys I have ever met from
AEW I did have an experience with cm, punk.
I believe he acted the way he acted, maybe because of the color of my
skin, maybe the nationality, the heritage I represent, I don't know.
But at the same time, I've experienced
discrimination in AEW absolutely 100%.
This is a very serious accusation for Vineesh to make, though.
It's unclear when exactly they crossed paths as his most recent
match for AEW was in June 20, 21 months before punks debut,
perhaps Vineesh was backstage after punks debut, but wasn't used
and neither AEW nor punk have made a public comment at this time.
Right now cm punk is suspended for his role in the
AEW all out fight and could lose his job in due time.
So this explosive accusation is the last thing.
The former world champion needs before his return to AEW TV at all
out MJF hadn't competed since double or nothing in late may, but
there was a time when it seemed like he wasn't going to appear.
After no showing a fan Fest event, it was reported that
MJF has booked a flight to go home, were seeing fans who
wanted to see him face Wardlow in the end, MJF showed up
and did the job for his former bodyguard, but was coy.
When speaking to Ariel Helwani this week about what happened,
I cannot confirm or deny there being a plane ticket.
I'm a businessman.
I do what I have to do in order to ensure
that whatever needs to be done, it gets done.
When I went home, I made it clear to Tony
Khan I said, pay up or daddy won't show.
I took my fiance to Greece in Italy.
I then went home and stayed home for three solitary months
because the fans don't deserve to see me unless they pay money.
AEW has big plans for MJF at full gear as he has
it guaranteed shot at the AEW world championship.
And we imagine Tony Khan will try and make
sure that what happened at double or nothing.
Isn't repeated.
Back to RAW Finn baller and Damien priest took on the unusual team of
Matt riddle and Ray Mysterio this week in the continuation of their
feud with Ray last week, Finn boller offered Matt riddle a spot on his
team, but the original bro declined the offer causing riddle to become
the groups next target while riddle and Ray had the upper hand for
a little while Dominic Mysterio and Rhea Ripley would get involved.
And by the end of the match, Seth Rollins would take out Riddle.
Dominic then got in front of his father kneeled down and asked Ray to
hit him with the chair, but the veteran refused to hit his own son,
paying the price for this by being hit with a ballor, sling blade and
a coup-de-grace for the win post-match Rollins and riddle confirmed
that they will compete in the fight pit At extreme rules, but it
remains to be seen what's next for judgment days, war on Ray Mysterio.
And we're ending with Adam Cole, who hasn't competed for AEW
in some time as he's been out with a concussion for months.
Cole hasn't been seen on AEW programming, but he has been
seen with Tony Khan as the AEW president shared a photo of
himself and Cole at a recent Jacksonville Jaguar's game.
A recent report from Dave Meltzer suggested that his
in ring return may not happen at the full gear Pay per
view, which is scheduled to take place in November.
But while Cole's wrestling, future is uncertain, he
seems to be having fun with the boss outside of the ring.