Here's your wrestling news for July 25th, 2022.
And we're kicking off with SmackDown as last Friday, mere hours after
Vince McMohan announced his retirement Brock Lesnar walked out of the
show shortly before the event was meant to go live by the end of the
show, Lester returned in time to destroy theory with his own money in
the bank briefcase, but only after a lot of work behind the scenes.
While speaking on wrestling, observer radio, Dave Meltzer discussed
Lesnar's walkout and the lenths WWE went to bring him back.
It was imperative that they got Lesnar back.
The basic gist was the most famous guy on the roster,
who was the main guy advertised for the show on Boston.
All of a sudden he walks out that's the worst that could happen.
They made sure he came back.
I was not told what the deal was to get him back.
The worst thing they could have is that
all of a sudden Vince left and it's Anarcy.
Brock leaving and summer slam changing.
Would've been an absolute disaster at this time.
So they made sure that it did not happen.
WWE reportedly had plans for Goldberg to take Lesnar's
place at summer slam if he didn't return, but there
was no way he would've made it to SmackDown on time.
Fortunately, for WWE Lesnar return to the arena in
time for the main event as the last thing the company
needed was for their top star to start no showing events.
McMohan retirement has left a power vacuum in WWE as,
until this week, he had remained in charge of creative.
Now that spot needs to be filled.
And while fans had hoped that triple H would be taking the reins,
given that he is now the executive vice president of talent relations.
This role hasn't gone to the game.
A tenured member of creative told ringside news that
Bruce Pritchard is in theory by title head of creative.
After previously serving as the
executive director over RAW & smack down.
Pritchard is more recently served as interim
head of talent relations until triple H took the
role filling the spot left by John Laurinaitis.
Laurinaitis has been put on an indefinite leave due to
his alleged participation in the alleged McMohan scandal.
And the future does not look good for Johnny ACE.
Vince McMaohn is retired, but his vision will live on.
And for the time being one of his most
loyal employees will be running creative.
Now AEW has developed a massive fan base over the past
three years with audiences around the world, loving the all
elite promotion, but the show isn't to everyone's taste.
Jim Cornett has never shied away from criticizing the
booking and in ring work of AEW especially Kenny omega.
Many people feel that Cornett is just being unfair, but during
the ring of honor death before dishonor post show media scrum,
Tony Khan said that a lot of what Cornett says is very fair.
Khan didn't give an example of some of cornett fair criticisms
of AEW nor did he explain what he's done is doing or will
do to change the controversial wrestling personalities mind?
Perhaps there will be a day when cornet is won over by AEW but with
recent comments that Kenny omega has made wrestling something to be
laughed at, it may be a long time before that change of heart happens.
At ring of honors death before dishonor, Jonathan
Gresham lost the Roh world title to Claudio Castagnoli
marking the Swiss wrestler's first world championship.
Not long after Gresham deactivated, his Twitter
account, and now wants nothing to do with ring of honor.
That's according to fitghtful, who report that Gresham has asked
for his release from Roh, but only after cussing out Tony Khan.
Gresham has said to be annoyed by the lack of communication
between himself and Khan especially as he was the promotions
top star, when the AEW founder bought ROH earlier this year,
Gresham has also said to be furious about the death before
dishonor match as at 11 minutes and 30 seconds, the title
change opener was the second shortest match on the main card.
His cussing out of con happened before death, before dishonor
got started, but he still felt it was only professional to do the
match as planned, despite his frustrations with and its owner.
At this time, Tony Khan hasn't publicly commented
on the reports, but it appears, we've seen the
last of Jonathan Gresham in either ROH or AEW.
Gresham has asked for his release from his AEW R O H contract,
but something is also going on with his wrestling promotion.
On Twitter, Terminus, the promotion run by Gresham
has deleted its account with no explanation
to its followers as to why this has happened.
Those close to Gresham have claimed that he is
done with wrestling for the foreseeable future.
And that likely explains the decision
to end Terminus is Twitter account.
The Roh world title loss was clearly hard on
Gresham who has deactivated his own Twitter account.
And we'll just have to wait for when, if ever he's back in the ring.
For months, Darby Allen has had problems
with the house of black and their wars.
Haven't been confined to the ring.
It was a couple of weeks ago that Brody king
attacked allen during an autograph signing.
And now the former TNT champion has been ambushed again.
The AEW Twitter account shared a video of Allen
being attacked at a panel during San Diego.
ComicCon being laid out by both king and Malachi black.
We will have to wait and see how Darby Allen's feud with
the house of black will be booked in the coming weeks.
But for the time being their war is further intensifying
with each passing week at double or nothing.
Brian Danielson suffered what is suspected to be a concussion
one that has kept him out of action for nearly two months,
given Danielson's history of concussions, which ultimately
forced him into retirement in 2016, this has been a
worrying time, but there is thankfully some very good news.
During ROH death before dishonor several matches were advertised
for Wednesday nights, fight for the fallen edition of AEW
dynamite, including a rematch between Danielson and Daniel Garcia.
Not only will this match a rematch from February, prove
that Danielson is fully healed, but it will also be an
excellent bout if their previous collision is anything to go.
On wrestling, observer radio, Brian Alvarez
confirmed the news that Danielson has been medically
cleared and will be back in the ring this week.
And it's expected that the match with Zach saber Jr.
That Danielson didn't get it forbidendoor will happen.
Eventually Garcia lost a fellow BCC alum,
Wheeler Yuta at death before dishonor.
And he's likely to lose against Danielson, but no matter the result,
the fact that Brian is back in the ring will be a big win for AEW.
Earlier this month, Cora Jade turned on Roxanne Perez costing her tag
team partner and NXT women's championship match against Mandy rose.
On last week's NXT 2.0 Jade throw her NXT women's tag team
championship in the trash signifying the end of their partnership.
But Jade now has a new ally at an NXT live event.
Jade was seen with commander Azeez, who seems to
be working as her bodyguard and has a brand new.
Azeez hasn't been seen in months and was nowhere to be
seen when Apollo Cruws recently returned to NXT as for
Perez, she's on the hunt for a new tag team partner.
But if she's looking for revenge on Cora Jade,
she'll have to deal with commander Azeez.
First.
Now, Valerie Loureda made headlines when she signed
with WWE in June, after retiring for Bellator
to pursue her dream of being a pro wrestler.
Now the Latina signe has made her debut appearing
at an NXT 2.0 live event in cocoa, Florida.
Loureda cut a promo in the ring, but didn't wrestle and
has been training as of late in WWE's performance center.
The 23 year old fighter boasts a 4-1 record in Bellator
and has said she hopes to work with Charlotte flair one day
and has now taken her latest steps in reaching that goal.
When Vince McMahon announced his retirement, Tony khan didn't
wait long before addressing it goating about being the longest
serving CEO in pro wrestling with three years under his belt,
compared to McMahon's four decades, many found the tweet to
be cringe inducing as Khan took arguably the biggest story in
wrestling ever, and turned it into a ploy to promote rampage.
Speaking on the post death before dishonor media scrum Khan explained
his tweet saying that his tweet was just a factual statement and that
all it was was an attempt to promote rampage Khan never admit it.
But the reason pro wrestling is the industry.
It is today is because of McMohan who made it of
global spectacle through various business decisions,
such as fighting the territories and payper view
mcMahon's retirement is huge.
Nobody can doubt that, but for khan it was much more
important for him to promote last Friday's edition of
rampage on TNT and we're ending today with more from AEW
as another star has left the promotion Tully Blanchard.
Wasn't present with his stable Tully Blanchard
enterprise for the death before dishonor show.
And it was later revealed in the plot
that prince Nana had acquired the company.
Sean Ross Sapp.
Now reports that Blanchard missed the
show due to his prison ministry group.
But talents are being told that he's effectively gone from
the company Blanchard isn't being figured into any plans.
Moving forward, bringing his three
years with the company to an abrupt end.