In this WrestleTalk News, Cody Rhodes return date from injury revealed!
Tony Khan slams WWE calling them ‘the enemy’ and more on the Bray Wyatt wrestling return
following a Twitter rebrand that suggests he may be WWE bound?!
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So Hell in a Cell this year is in the books and while overall a rather unremarkable show
for advancing the WWE landscape, it featured some really darn good wrasslin’, check out
Oli’s review from earlier if you haven't already.
You probably also noted though that things looked bleak for the main event matchup between
Seth Rollins and Cody Rhodes as it was announced ahead of the show that Rhodes had suffered
a torn pectoral tendon while weight training.
Cody both bravely and foolishly stepped into the Cell with Rollins regardless, sporting
a heck of a purple nurple and saying in a post-match promo that he had insisted on competing
and was only allowed to because the most damage had already been done.
Now that the advertised main event is out of the way you would hope that Cody would
go off and get his injury seen to - though he could also be planning to set himself on
fire on tonight’s Raw instead, you never know with Cody.
Surgery and recovery for a torn pectoral will take quite a long time so Cody, quite tragically
with his current momentum, will be out for the foreseeable.
Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio noted that Rhodes could likely be targeting the
Royal Rumble as a potential return date.
Comparing Rhode’s injury to the torn quad suffered by Triple H, :
“Hopefully he gets it taken care of, and hopefully when he comes back that he will
get the same treatment from the company or close to it that Paul Levesque did in similar
circumstances with the quad.
It probably won’t be that way, hopefully, it will be close because he’s a main event
guy.”
“But I hope that Rhodes gets some of that especially because of the way he left.
Hopefully, he gets the surgery, hopefully, he’s ok by Royal Rumble, which I guess would
be about the target date would be right around there.”
Here’s wishing Cody a speedy recovery!
Over in Cody’s old stomping grounds AEW have been enjoying the afterglow of last weekend’s
Double or Nothing and some new additions to their roster… not that the PPV really stops
them doing that, Tony is buying up people left and right.
One new face in the company is Stokely Hathaway, the former Malcolm Bivens from WWE, who Hathaway
with words and has become infamous for fake tweets from celebs promoting wrestling.
Over the weekend he shared a fake tweet from Mariah Carey calling for him to face Kazuchika
Okada at AEW x NJPW Tatsunoko vs Capcom EX Plus Alpha Forbidden Door.
In response AEW President Tony Khan got in on the laugh, saying how much he enjoyed Hathaway’s
Twitter japes: “It really just sunk in for me for the first
time that @Malcolmvelli ’s infamous counterfeit tweets will focus on @AEW from now on.
They’ve gone from something I begrudgingly saw as amazing content from a brilliant manager
working for the enemy into 2022 AEW canon.
This made my day” Bit extreme to go from some friendly competition
for viewers to legit viewing another major wrestling promotion as ‘the enemy’, but
there you go, this town apparently ain’t big enough for the both of them, but US TV
has enough space for 11 different Real Housewives series.
Sticking with AEW who have had a rough week post Double or Nothing as CM Punk has been
forced to step away from the ring for a while to deal with an injury, forcing the company
to crown a new interim AEW Champion at Forbidden Door.
But Punk is not the only top star currently suffering as Bryan Danielson missed a scheduled
appearance on Sunday due to an undisclosed injury he reportedly suffered at Double or
Nothing the week prior.
The injury left Bryan unable to travel by air to the event in in New Bedford, Massachusetts,
according to reporting from both Fightful Select and the Wrestling Observer.
Bryan Alavarez followed up with sources stating that the injury is thought to be nothing serious
and that Bryan will be out of action for one to two weeks.
Elsewhere in the wrestleverse even more major injuries have sprung up - for instance Matt
Cardona turned woo, woo, woo into a boo boo when he suffered a torn bicep during a match
with Black Christian at GCW Downward Spiral.
Cardona appeared last night at the GCW C.O.S event to address the crowd and say he may
be out 3 to 5 months with his current injury.
At the show Cardona offered to lay down for Blake Christian but tried to swerve him and
get help from Chelsea Green though that didn’t pan out.
Cardona is also the current NWA World Heavyweight Champion and set to defend the title against
Nick Aldis at NWA Alwayz Ready - though new plans for that event and for the title itself
have not been announced just yet.
Meanwhile, the former Bray Wyatt, Windham Rotunda did his former workplace a huge solid
on Sunday afternoon when he simply changed his Twitter name.
Rotunda has been teasing that fans will get to see him very soon and changed his Twitter
name to Wyatt 6.
This sparked rumor and speculation that he could be returning to WWE at Hell in a Cell
and led to spike in interest for the show and pushed through a bunch of sales on the
secondary market for tickets.
Whoever said he wasn’t a merchandise mover.
Windham was never really going to show up as he was at a signing on Sunday afternoon
for the Legends of the Ring in New York and again next Saturday in Woodbridge, New Jersey,
so it seems like a WWE return this week would be completely off the cards.
While Wyatt has been rebranding himself, WWE have been advancing their own brand by filing
a trademark for yet another new series with A&E.
The promotion moved to trademark the name “WWE Rivals”, the application states that
it’s a “a show about sports entertainment; entertainment services, namely, the production
and exhibition of a documentary series;” You would likely assume from the title that
the show will be covering famous feuds from WWE history.
One of the weirder things that came out of the blue recently was Stephanie McMahon stepping
away from her role with WWE for a time as she put it to spend more time with her family.
There has been lots of speculation about what caused this sudden move and whether Stephanie
jumped before she was pushed.
McMahon had been operating as WWE’s Chief Brand Officer, working behind the scenes on
deals that would expand the company’s global reach.
However, according to one company insider she may not have been all that effective in
her role, and that could be the reason for the sudden stepping away.
Speaking with Business Insider a source within WWE said:
"Family or not family, we’ve got to get the right people in place.
We weren’t seeing that growth.
When someone is moved out of a company, it’s usually the result of something not working.
We took stronger control of that a few months ago.”
The BI report also states that Claudine Lilien — who was hired a year ago by McMahon as
head of global sales and partnerships — has confirmed she is leaving the company.
While WWE themselves posted a job listing for a Brand and Marketing Director at the
end of May.
This quote from the interview chimes with what Vince Mcmahon himself said on Pat McAfee’s
podcast: “I've probably expected more from my family
members (than other employees).
You have to do the right thing for the business.
If this person isn't working out, they shouldn't be part of the company."
At the time I chalked this up to him talking about Rumble winner, in his heart at least,
Shane McMahon, but maybe it was more that the Stephanie stuff was already in motion
behind the scenes.
Finally, it looks like WWE are going to whack another random name on another random star
as Fightful are reporting that Fabian Aichner could in line for a rebrand.
The former Imperium man could be rejoining the faction under the new moniker Giovanni
Vinci.
According to Wrestling Inc the name was trademarked at the same time as Gio Vinci, perhaps in
case WWE wanted to use the shorter name instead, or they couldn’t decide if they wanted to
go the whole hog and go with Gionardo da Vinci.
While the name change doesn’t confirm that Aichner would be rejoining Imperium both WALTER
and Marcel Barthel received rebrands before being moved to the main roster - with WALTER
becoming Gunther
and Barthel taking the name Ludwig Kaiser.