Here's your wrestling news for April 9th 2022
And your headlines for today include
Former Royal Rumble Winner Shinsuke Nakamura Confronts Roman Reigns As Unexpected First 0 Challenger Post-WrestleMania 38!
Roman Reigns To Appear On Both WWE RAW & SmackDown For Now!
Tony Khan Claims AEW Haters Are Paid Trolls & Bots; Makes It Clear He Commissioned Independent Studies To Prove It!
Fans Drag Tony Khan For Claiming AEW Haters Are Paid Trolls & Bots ; Joey Janela, Becky Lynch , Braun Strowman And Others Respond!
The Ronda Rousey-Charlotte Flair Feud Continues
Cody Rhodes Set To Wrestle First Match On WWE RAW In Six Years!
Several Smackdown Stars Booked For WWE RAW Next Week!
Curtis Axel And Ariya Daivari Possibly Returning To Work For WWE! And More!
We’re kicking off today with SmackDown, which saw an appe arance from the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns, fulfilling his promise made on this week’s Raw.
Speaking about the future plans for the Bloodline, Reigns spoke about the Usos possibly unifying the SmackDown Tag Titles with their Raw counterparts, currently held by RK-Bro,
but the Tribal Chief was interrupted by an unlikely name. During the segment, Shinsuke Nakamura appeared to confront Reigns, and looks to be the first
in line to get a title shot against the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion. A title match likely to take place at WrestleMania Backlash,
this likely wouldn’t have happened for Nakamura had his tag partner Rick Boogs not got injured, but the King of Strong
Style looks to be the one to take the Bloodline down.
After dispatching of Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania, Reigns is unquestionably the top name in WWE today, and that’s something both FOX and the USA Network recognise.
According to Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Reigns is expected to appear on both RAW and SmackDown moving forward, until a new World Championship
created for either brand. Meltzer also noted that with Reigns and Lesnar having dispatched of much of the
competition, there’s very few viable candidates to challenge the Tribal Chief, which could mean his reign isn’t ending anytime soon.
It’s even been noted by Bet Online that Reigns is the favourite to end 2022 as a World Champion in WWE, and until a title change happens or some new gold is introduced,
expect to see plenty more of the Head of the Table.
Over to AEW next, as Tony Khan has done a lot in a few years, but the company does have its share of critics.
Like any promotion, AEW is open to fans who may prefer a different style of wrestling, but according to the man himself, there’s no legitimate reasons for hating AEW.
On Twitter the AEW President claimed that an independent study conducted has shown that those online who bash AEW are mostly paid trolls and bots, as opposed to real individuals.
Khan question who would pay for such a wildly expensive thing, insinuating that only WWE has the revenue to target their rival promotion In this way.
Khan didn’t provide any specific data for this alleged study, nor did he give fans information on how this information was collected, or by who.
Fans were quick to question the bold claim without any evidence and if this study even happened, many said that Khan paid for it, making it far from independent.
In response, Khan said that he isn’t using his company or his influence to skew the results, and that he hired an independent person to review the independent study.
Similar with the study, Khan didn’t reveal the identity of this ‘ independent’ individual, but joked that he’d have to dock Bryan Alverez’ pay by $200,000, implying that the Wrestling
Observer Radio presenter works for him. Clarifying his comments in a statement to Wrestling Inc, Khan said that accounts are making
posts, and then using bots to manipulate the social channel algorithm to make them seem more popular, which makes social media feature this post for longer.
Khan gave an example of how this works, saying if he uses 18 bots to boost a claim that a person eats rotten bananas, then anyone who looks up that person’s name will see this fake post.
Unsurprisingly, wrestling fans didn’t appreciate being told that their opinions are either the result of bots or that they’re being paid to have that opinion, and many said that this only
proves that the AEW President cannot take criticism. Others bashed Khan for taking yet another shot at WWE rather than focus on his own product,
as despite what TK has said in the past, WWE has clearly gotten in his head. Time will tell whether Khan reveals any actual proof
of his claims, but for now, the AEW President is sticking to his story, and if you don’t like what he’s doing, he’ll probably called you a paid troll or a bot.
It’s not just the fans who have reacted to Khan’s comments, as many from the wrestling industry have weighed in on his claim about bots.
Parodying Vince McMahon’s reveal as the Higher Power in 1999, Joey Janela said that he is the one responsible for these alleged bots, while Becky Lynch quoted Khan’s
tweets but said that Bots and paid trolls were sharing anti Becky sentiment online.
Evil Uno of the Dark Order also used the same tweet to address his critics, but in a follow up tweet also promote support for LGBTQ+ people. community.
Adam Scherr also promoted is Control Your Narrative promotion with the same tweet, as Khan’s claim has quickly become a meme in the wrestling Industry
Khan may have wanted to prove a point, but it seems to have backfired on him, though we’re sure he’ll disregard this negative feedback with the same claims he’s already made.
More from SmackDown as Ronda Rousey opened the show to declare that she wants a rematch with SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair following her controversial loss at
WrestleMania. WWE tried to do some damage control to make Rousey seem more likeable, a tall order considering
she got put immediately into the title picture after over two years away, but to WWE’s credit, it worked with last night’s crowd.
Although it’s not official yet, the two will seemingly clash in a rematch at WrestleMania Backlash, and WWE have sowed the seeds for an I-Quit stipulation.
This gives Rousey a prime opportunity to dethrone Flair, who has been champion for 8 months if you include her run as RAW Women’s Champion which ended in October with
a title swap with Becky Lynch. Rousey will likely win the title, though fans have been \ disappointed that there’s still no sign
of Bayley, and we’ll just have to see what the Role Model does when she’s eventually back in the ring.
Over to Raw now where Cody Rhodes will be competing for the foreseeable future and he’ll have his first match back on the red brand next week.
It’s been announced that in his first match on the show in 6 years, Rhodes will face The Miz on this coming show following his return at WrestleMania.
Rhodes did wrestle last Monday, but that was in a dark match win over Kevin Owens, and next week will be his first televised singles match on Raw since facing Apollo Crews on the
April 25th 2016 show.
Rhodes has also been booked for a rematch with Seth Rollins, but fans will have to wait until the May 6th edition of SmackDown in Uniondale, New York.
Next week’s Raw will also see the in-ring debut of Veer Mahaan who will face Rey Mysterio in singles action, as there’ll be plenty to tune in for on the road to WrestleMania Backlash
It’s not just matches that have been announced for next week’s Raw, but the show will have an injection of several blue brand Superstars.
That’s according to a new report from PW Insider who says that at least 3-4 SmackDown Sperstars are scheduled to appear during next week’s three-hour show in Detroit Michigan.
While the current belief is that these individuals will be there to work dark matches, a strategy that WWE is using to help with ticket sales, it’s also possible that someone from SmackDown
will appear on the broadcast. In addition to the matches we mentioned earlier, Raw will also see AJ Styles face Damia
Priest, and Sasha Banks and Naomi face Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan, but only time will tell if any SmackDown uperstars appear during the broadcast.
For the past two years, WWE has cut dozens of Superstars and hundreds of employees in the name of cutting their budget.
Many ex Superstars have since found work elsewhere, with several former names coming to AEW, but now two released stars may be heading back to WWE.
Fightful Select notes that Joe Hennig, who worked with WWE as Michael McGillicutty and Curtis Axel has had a tryout role as a WWE producer and worked last night’s SmackDown.
Hennig worked with Tyson Kidd to produce the women’s division match which saw Liv Morgan defeat Sasha Banks but there’s no word on his performance.
Ariya Daivari, who was released in June 2021 also worked as a producer last night, and worked with Chris Park, aka Abyss in TNA, to produce Drew McIntyre’s countout victory over Sami Zayn.
Daivari’s brother, Shawn Daivari, is currently working as a WWE producer, and in his time away from WWE, Ariya has kept busy working for AEW, New Japan and the NWA.
Like Axel, there’s no word on how his audition for the role went, but with WWE reportedly short-staffed when it comes to producers, these two may soon be back with WWE, albeit in
much different roles out of the ring.
And we’re ending today with even more from Sportskeeda, as the show saw a few debuts across its two hours.
On the show, Butch made his in-ring debut on SmackDown in a loss to Xavier Woods, while two third of Imperium were called up.
GUNTHER, formerly WALTER, made his SmackDown debut as did Marcel Barthel, who is now working as Ludwig Kaiser on the blue brand.
Raquel Gonzalez also appeared, albeit via backstage promo, and is now going by Raquel Rodriguez, though this name change isn’t nearly as bad as the likes of Butch, GUNTHER and Kaiser.
These name changes seem unreasonably bad, and while we know WWE changes the names to trademark them, these news monikers sound more and more ridiculous by the day.