Here's more wrestling news for April 28th 2022
And your headlines for Afternoon include
WWE Superstar calls cop an a**hole in footage from 2021 DUI arrest
WWE to roll out new plan for Premium Live Events by the order of Nick Khan
Impact Wrestling’s The IInspiration, formerly The IIconics announce they’re leaving pro wrestling
Top New Japan star calls out Kenny Omega for a match at June’s Forbidden Door Supershow
Former WWE writer reveals how Triple H ended a wrestler’s career with just one joke
Injured NXT Superstar says he could have worked smarter to avoid getting hurt
Kenny Omega teases that something big is coming soon related to AEW: Fight Forever game
Cody Rhodes keeps promise of AEW tickets to fan, scores him with WWE tickets too!
AEW team references WWE on latest episode of Dynamite
Jeff Hardy to make singles match debut for AEW next week in Owen Hart Foundation Tournament Qualifier And more!
We’re kicking off today with SmackDown Tag Team Champion Jimmy Uso has had several run ins with the law, with his most recent arrest coming in July 2021.
Instead of being fired like many Superstars would be, Jimmy remained on WWE TV, and would capture the Smackdown Tag Team Titles that same month, a reign that continues to this day.
Now, more has emerged from Jimmy's arrest last year, as the Body Cam footage from the arrest has been shared online.
After being pulled over for speeding and forced to take a sobriety test, one officer wished Uso good luck, which set the Tag Team Champion off, as he responded:
"You’re an assh*le. You’re the one that’s worse. You had a remark. You made a remark you shouldn’t have did.”
After the officer apologised for the remark, Uso cooperated with the test, which he'd ultimately fail and be attested.
Had it not been for his relationship to Roman Reigns and the Bloodline storyline, Jimmy may have been released last year, and we can only hope he's able to keep on the straight and narrow
as he's done so for the past 9 months.
In recent years, WWE has been using stadiums to host events which give shows a much bigger feel, and a bigger attendance.
In 2022 alone, the WWE will have a total eight stadium shows, including the Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, Money In the Bank, Summerslam as well as the September event in Cardiff Wales,
but the company isn’t stopping there. According to Andrew Zarian of the Mat Men Pro Wrestling podcast, WWE’s goal is to make stadium
shows the new norm, and this idea has reportedly come from company President Nick Khan himself. Khan’s reasoning is that big stadiums not only lead to more fans
filling seats, which means more revenue, but that the overall excitement of a show will be higher, which will lead to more fans wanting to experience a WWE Stadium event.
WWE only had 3 stadium shows in 2021, but that was partly due to the C-19 situation, as for much of the year, the company had to go without any live fans.
For 2023, we already know of two Stadium events, those being WrestleMania 39 Night One and Night Two, but they’ll be plenty more if Nick Khan gets his way.
Over to Impact Wrestling, as the Inspiration joined the promotion last year, mere months after being released by WWE.
Formerly known as The IIconics, the pair made a huge impression, winning the Knockouts Tag Team Championships in their debut match, but the Australian are now leaving pro wrestling.
In identical statements posted on social media, Jessie McKay and Cassie Lee confirmed that they will be indefinitely stepping away from wrestling, and thanked Impact and the Executive Vice President
Scott D'Amore for all their support.
Neither woman confirmed why they are leaving wrestling or what they plan on doing next, but only revealed that they are looking forward to the next chapter of their lives.
The only tag team to hold both the WWE Women's Tag Team Titles and the Impact Knockouts Tag Team Titles, the Inspiration have had an impressive career, but for now, they won't be stepping back in
between those ropes.
Later this year, AEW and New Japan will team up to host a massive supershow, but it's likely that Forbidden Door 2022 will go ahead without Kenny Omega.
Omega has been away since November after dropping the World Title to Adam Page at the Full Gear pay-per-view, and has spent his hiatus recovering from injuries and issues he suffered in both promotions.
There's still no word on when the Cleaner will wrestle again, but if he can make it to Forbidden Door in June, Will Ospreay will be waiting for him.
When Ospreay tweeted that he'll be paying tribute to a very influential wrestler in his upcoming match against Hiroshi Tanahashi, Omega sarcastically thanked him, and Ospreay fired back, asking if he'll be
able to wrestle in June. The two have previously exchanged words on social media, and this would certainly be a main event match for Forbidden
door, but with Omega still recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery that he had in March, the window of opportunity for such a high profile bout is getting smaller and smaller for both promotions.
For decades, The Undertaker dominated WWE, but much of the character’s history was shrouded in mystery.
Other than his half-brother Kane and the fact that their parents died in a fire, nothing else was known about The Undertaker’s family, but that could’ve been much different.
On the latest Wrestling with Freddie podcast, actor/former WWE writer Freddie Prinze Jr said how there was at one point plans for the Phenom to have a son on TV, which would’ve led to a brief feud between
the parent and his offspring
Several segments even made it to WWE TV, as promos for Hade V ansen were aired in 2008, but Freddie explained why the angle with the Undertaker never happened:
“We’re in the production meeting and everyone’s putting their segments through… All of a sudden out of nowhere, Hunter says ‘ Are we seriously going with this guy?’… He says, ‘Are we really going to
go with this guy?’ Vince goes, ‘What do you mean? What’s the problem?’ He says, ‘He looks like he cuts my grass, man’, and Vince laughed.”
Prinze said that as soon as McMahon laughed, he knew the angle was dead, and still feels awful for Hansen, who never got his big break in WWE.
Who knows what could have happened had Hansen got to work with The Undertaker, and perhaps he could’ve become a huge name just like his kayfabe father, but all it took was one joke from the King of
Kings to derail his career.
Now, in January this year, Odyssey Jones suffered a rupture patellar tendon that has kept him out of the ring for the past four months.
On TV, Jones was attacked by Harland and Joe Gacy as a way to write him off TV and give him time to get surgery, but this could have been prevented.
That’s at least what Jones himself thinks as during an interview with ‘Wrestling the Rap Game’ the NXT 2.0 Superstar says he could have worked smarter to prevent the injury in the first place.
Calling it his “learning curve” Jones added that he know for a fact he’ll do better when he’s able to get back in the ring, and gave an update on his physical condition.
Jones said how it’s been six weeks since the surgery, and he’s already walking without crutches, but has had to keep his knee in a brace to prevent reaggrevating the injury.
WWE had big plans for Jones prior to his injury as the big man was regularly featured on NXT TV, and hopefully he gets to showcase his potential when he makes his return to the paint-splattered brand.
Over to AEW now, as the company has invested a lot of money into their video game AEW: Fight Forever, which will be the first console video game for Tony Khan’s company.
Right now, the game is being worked on by Kenny Omega, who has teased that something big related to Fight Forever could be coming very soon.
Speaking to ‘Put Your Quarters On The Glass,’ the former AEW World Champion said how his entire production team is working hard to get something presentable ASAP, and said that somethingc
will be released really soon.
When asked to clarify his comments, Omega said that something for sure will be released “in the upcoming months,” and described it as an “in-depth look” at the new video game.
It had previously been reported that the game was expected for a 2023 release, but there have been talks about it coming out as soon as this September.
Whenever the game comes out, AEW has invested a lot into Fight Forever, with Tony Khan saying that over $20 million had been pledged to the company’s game’s department, so AEW Fight
Forever will need to be a hit when it eventually is released to the public.
Last week, we reported on Cody Rhodes, who despite leaving AEW, was determined to get a fan tickets to an upcoming episode of Dynamite.
It was in late 2021 that Rhodes made the promise, after a fan by the name of Tyler Williams explained that when his brother passed, he and his nephew were trying to deal with the loss by bonding over
watching AEW Rampage.
This week, Dynamite was in Tyler’s home of Philadelphia, and it turns out that Williams and his nephew did attend last night’s episode of Dynamite, curtesy of the WWE Superstar.
In an interview with ABC 6 in Philadelphia, Rhodes said it was vital to keep promises, and while he’s as happy as he’s ever been now he’s back in WWE, that doesn’t invalidate his experiences with AEW.
Rhodes has also confirmed that he has also got Tyler and his nephew tickets to an upcoming WWE Live event in New Jersey, where they’ll hopefully get to see him live in action.
Wrestling can often be a seedy industry, so it’s great to see Cody keep his promise, and this made for an extra special episode of Dynamite for Williams and his nephew.
It was on this week’s Dynamite that the Jericho Appreciation Society made an appearance and had an interesting term for the AEW fans.
Addressing the audience, Angelo Parker described the fans as the ‘AEW Galaxy’ a dig at WWE’s own vernacular of referring to their fans as the WWE Universe.
This isn’t the first time that JAS has referenced WWE, as they also refer to themselves as Sports Entertainers, WWE’s term for professional wrestlers.
AEW has never shied away from referencing WWE, despite claiming that they don’t focus on Vince McMahon’s product, so we’re sure it’s a matter of time before Chris Jericho and his
and his team have another nod to the opposition.
And we’re ending today with Jeff Hardy, who joined AEW in March, but has so far competed only in tag team wrestling.
Next week though, the Charismatic Enigma will have his singles debut for the company, as he’ll face off against ReDRagon’s Bobby Fish in an Owen Hart Foundation Men's Tournament Qualifier.
At this time, Jeff is undefeated in AEW, boasting a 6-0 record while Fish is 13-8 in the All-Elite promotion, and we’ll have to see who advances next week to the Owen Hart Foundation Men’s Tournament.