Here is the news for May 7th 2020
Headlines for today are
Triple H Sells Over $1 Million In WWE Stock
AEW Heavily Fined by the Maryland Athletic Commission
Charlotte Flair Breaks Kayfabe
CM Punk Reacts To Him Being The Smackdown Hacker
WWE’s prejudice toward southern accents
Plans For WWE Superstar Return Cancelled Due To Backstage Pressure And MORE!
We’re starting today with some big news from WWE’s business side, as Triple H
has sold over $1 million worth in stock.
According to an SEC filing made yesterday, the Game sold 23,255 shares of
Common stock, valued at $43.80 each, equating to an approximate 1.018 million dollars.
The Game still owns over 140,000 shares, though he wasn’t the only big name to sell stock.
In a separate filing, it was revealed that WWE senior Vice president sold 4000
shares for a rough total of $176, 200, and he still owns over 12,000 shares.
WWE stock opened yesterday at $44.70, and closed at $43.51, as the market
continues to fluctuate in this ongoing situation.
We’re looking at NXT next, and this week’s show saw the return of Rhea Ripley,
who hadn’t been seen since her NXT Women’s title loss to Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania.
On this week’s show, Flair defended the gold against Io Shirai, and thanks to a
kendo stick, retained her title via disqualification, but attempted a post-match beatdown.
This attack was thwarted by the return Ripley, though Shirai didn’t seem too
pleased about this, as after Ripley kept telling her to shut up, Shirai ended up
brawling with the Australian backstage.
Though Ripley and Shirai clearly aren’t on the same page, they’ve made it clear
that they want to take the gold from the self-professed Queen of all Eras, who
continues to rule over the NXT Women’s roster.
Over to AEW now and fans will remember the incredible Lights Out match
between Jon Moxley and Kenny at Full Gear last November, but this has caused
quite a problem for the company.
Now, the Maryland Athletic Commission has fined AEW $10,000 for the match,
saying that the state “prohibits wrestlers from deliberately **********themselves
or their opponents, or introducing human or animal into the match.”
The statement goes on to that no human or animal ******* was introduced, but
Moxley and Omega still lacerated with the use of a barbed wire spider bed, broken
glass, a mouse trap board, and many more weapons.
The initial complaint was made by former WCW Announcer Chris Cruise, who
commented on Facebook that he understands that 10 grand isn’t much to the
billionaire’s backing the show, but that another incident like this could see a show
being stopped in Maryland.
AEW have yet to comment publicly on the matter, but fans can expect some kind
of statement as the fine must be paid in 30 days.
Back to WWE now, and with the Undertaker’s last Ride documentary starting after
Money in the Bank, fans will soon get a very candid look at the real Phenom, and
now Taker is making another appearance to get the word out.
Its been confirmed that the Deadman will be a gust on an upcoming episode of
the Bump, which will be a Money in the Bank special episode airing this Sunday.
As if having the Undertaker isn’t enough, the show will also include Bray Wyatt
and SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley, and since the Phenom has talked
about everything from his marriage to ******** lately, time will tell what Kayla
Braxton and the Bump crew can get out of him.
Now, we earlier mentioned that Charlotte Flair had no problem beating down Io
Shirai after their match this week, but after being pushed to her limit this week,
the NXT Women’s Champion was ready to break character on Twitter.
Commenting on the match that saw her get intentionally disqualified, Flair said “I
don’t leave many matches thinking ‘wow, I need to keep getting better’. Tonight
was one of those.”
The fact that the 12-time Women’s Champion would praise her opponent like this
certainly speaks highly of the Joshi Judas, and it seems their feud is far from over.
We’re looking ahead to Money in the Bank next, as given that the show could not
take place in Baltimore, the majority of the show was taped at the Performance
Center, with the two marquee ladder matches filmed at WWE HQ in Stamford.
With news about both matches airing at the same time, there has been some
concern about how long they will be together, but now sources have revealed that
the simultaneous ladder matches are “not an hour” in length.
This will certainly come as good news to fans who weren’t pleased with a feature-
length Money in the Bank ladder match, and now they’ll be more time for the
other matches on the card.
We’ve got an update from the SmackDown hacker, as fans have spotted another
major clue in their latest video.
In the latest video, we already reported that the co-ordinates shown the location
for WWE’s Performance Center, but now one fan has pointed out that the
passcode is 051020, which is the date of this Sunday’s Money in the Bank event.
The WWE on FOX Twitter account did some speculating of their own, as they
tweeted the video with the message “Do I have every body’s attention now,”
which as fans will know, is a famous line of CM Punk, and Renee Young even
commented that Punk could be the hacker.
Whilst we’re sure there’s plenty of fans hoping the hacker is Punk, one man who
doesn’t seem convinced is Punk himself, who responded to the WWE on FOX
tweet with a facepalm gif.
Both Punk and WWE have made it clear that as of right now, there’s no plans for
Punk to wrestle again, and given that Punk has DRUG FREE tattooed on his fingers,
and the hacker doesn’t have any hand tats, it certainly doesn’t look like he’s the
mastermind, though the fact that Punk will be on Backstage next week certainly is interesting.
Ringside News is reporting that Punk isn’t the hacker, saying that a source of their
has revealed that someone else is behind this, and addressing the WWE on FOX
tweet, saying “FOX loves to tease.”
Whilst it’s looking unlikely that Punk is the hacker, the WWE could swerve us all by
having him return, and it looks like fans will finally find out who is behind the mask
this Sunday at Money in the Bank.
We’re looking at WWE’s recent releases next, as Epico was one star who was let
go, and spoke to Super Luchas this week about his time in the company.
According to the former Tag Champion, there were plans in place for Carlito to
return, as agreed by Vince McMahon and Michael Hayes, but revealed why the
return never happened, saying:
But in all this process, 3 months happened and, politically, other
people with power within WWE [interfered]. I don’t know if Carly
made this person mad, but when he (HHH?) called Carly, he just
offered him the money on the level of a development contract. Take it or leave it”
“So Carlito said, ‘No. I don’t need the WWE, the WWE needs me’.
“So we understand that there was something interfering between us
and Vince because we have a great relationship with Vince.”
Epico went on to speak about how Mark Carrano claimed that Vince hadn’t given
the OK after all, saying:
“we grabbed him by the arm and we go to Vince’s office. He’s on the
phone and we asked him about Carlito and Carrano asks “What are
we doing with Carlito?” And Vince made this signal Thumbs up
Vince approved the idea, but after several weeks we realized that
Carlito’s return to the company was no longer going to materialize.”
It would have been interesting to see what Carlito could have done in
WWE, and whilst it’s not impossible for Carlito to return, it looks like
some changes will need to be made before that can happen.
We’ve got more news from AEW next, as Tony Khan appeared on the latest AEW
Unrestricted, and had plenty to say about how the company is operating at the moment.
Though both AEW and WWE have been deemed an essential business in Florida,
Khan claimed that he didn’t see a way that his company would remain open, saying:
States were starting to shut down and I never considered us or tried to force us to
be ‘an essential business.’ I never tried to stay open against restrictions. When we
heard Florida and Georgia were going to shut down, we would shut down too and
we needed to tape as much content as we could before the shutdown.
Of course, AEW was deemed an essential business in the Sunshine state, and
whilst Vince McMahon recently released a ton of stars as a cost-cutting measure,
Khan went in a different direction. He said:
Something I put an emphasis on during the shutdown is that we haven’t let anybody
go and we’ve tried to take care of everybody through this. It’s not the right time for
re-organizing or re-structuring for us. I want to take care of everybody and make
sure they’re comfortable.
Last night’s edition of Dynamite saw the company return to live Television, and
it’ll be interesting to see how the upstart promotion goes from here in these unprecedented times.
Two men who may end up in an AEW ring are the Revival, who were
released earlier this year, and had plenty to say this week on Talk is Jericho.
Now going by the name the Revolt, Cash Wheeler spoke about Braun
Strowman capturing the RAW Tag titles from The Bar at WrestleMania 34
with ten-year-old Nicholas, the son of referee John Cone, saying:
“This is nothing against Braun, but he steamrolled the entire tag team division. And
then a ten-year-old won the titles at WrestleMania. And then no tag teams were
featured at Summerslam, and at the last minute they added the women’s tag titles,
which I’m all for, but it was so last minute that people didn’t know.”
The former RAW, SmackDown and NXT Tag Champions also said that part of the
reason they left was because of how WWE treated tag- teams,and whilst Nicholas
only held the title for one day, before vacating due to school work, he will forever
be a part of the company’s history books.
This wasn’t the only bombshell the pair dropped on the podcast, as Dax Harwood
said that there were told early in their careers that “you’re not gonna get much
promo time because of their Southern Accents,” and when they asked Vince
McMahon about this, he replied “Well I’m from North Carolina.”
Harwood also explained he didn’t want their southerness to be portrayed in a
negative way, and spoke about their final meeting with Vince, saying:
“The last meeting we had with Vince, which was crazy we were talking
to him and telling him our grievances and he said, ‘man you guys are
so well-spoken! We can send you out into the world and you can do
all these meetings and meet & greets!”
Cash Wheeler added that Vince said the pair could do Good Morning America, and
whilst he also stated that any interaction with Vince went well, it clearly wasn’t
enough for them to stay as many upper management figures claimed a Southern
Accent could only go so far.
The pair also confirmed that the recent photos of some terrible attires were 100%
legit, and despite Vince’s pitch for them to be a comedy team, the former
Champions unsurprisingly didn’t want any part of it.
The former Top Guys also spoke about the aftermath of being granted their
release, and said that Bret Hart told them how proud he was that they stood up for themselves.
Dax said that the message from the Hitman made him know beyond a shadow of a
doubt that they had done the right thing, as they were being praised by the man
known for punching Vince McMahon on his way out of the company.
It’ll be interesting to see where Dax and Cash go from here, as whilst fans will be
watching the pair with great interest, odds are Bret Hart will be paying close
attention as well.
Speaking of people who left on their own terms, Cody Rhodes has done big things
since leaving WWE, but perhaps his career in the company could’ve been more if
he’d acted like Tony Stark.
Speaking on the Dan Le Batard show, Cody said there were ideas in place for him
to be more like the affluent Avenger, and he even worked with his dad Dusty
Rhodes before he became Stardust.
“There was one based on Tony Stark as kind of a prince in the
industry, the opposite of the common man which Dusty was.”
The former Intercontinental Champion also spoke about trying out
the Stardust character to his hall of fame father, saying:
“I really wanted to have a hairless cat. So my poor dad, he’s trying to
produce this promo, and I’ve got this hairless cat in there in the
makeup and the glitter. And he’s watching his son just absurd pieces
of business, but he was always really helpful.”
Footage of Cody as his Stark character can be found online, and whilst WWE have
had plenty of interesting ideas, it’s a shame that this one was ultimately nixed.
Back to WWE now and we’ve got news from future Hall of Famer Nikki Bella, who
had to retire due to neck injuries and discovering two brain cysts.
In her and Brie’s new book ‘Incomparable’, the longest- reigning Divas Champion
spoke about how the issues started in 2015, but that the company refused to let
her get tested.
““I asked for an MRI, but they told me that it wouldn’t show anything. They had no
answer when I explained that my legs were going numb and giving out on me in
matches, that I could only lie down in bed for a few hours at a time. Finally I had
an MRI. I was in Austin, Texas, and I was backstage. A doctor came up to me to
say: ‘Just so you know, we’re not going to find anything.’ I would have given
anything for that to be true.”
Nikki went on to question whether WWE would have treated a male Superstar
with neck issues the same way, and said that she was risking paralysis and the
company still didn’t do anything but tell her to sit at home and pray.