The former Evan Bourne is set for a live YouShoot interview. I'd love to hear his side of the two suspensions and not returning from them.
NXT Champion Adrian Neville and top star Sami Zayn are working WWE's events in Japan. I wonder how soon KENTA will be working WWE events (and under what name). I think it might be a LITTLE soon for Zayn to be a surprise entrant winning the IC Title at Battleground, but that would be a hell of a debut. Neville's still got some time before I'd recommend bringing him up. I think he'd be lost in the Justin Gabriel/Tyson Kidd spot.
Naomi and Cameron have officially split as a team. I think they might surprise us with their matches.
Everything else from yesterday is after the break.
Santino Marella was backstage at both Raw and Smackdown, and did charity events for WWE Monday and Tuesday. I think they'll keep using him in some fashion while he's still under contract.
Jerry Lawler is in the process of assembling what's left of footage from the classic era of Memphis. Memphis was a real hotbed of wrestling. I wish Lawler the best with this, because that's some very important historical content. The fans who just know Lawler as the perverted commentator need to see this.
WWE is also trying to get the rights for Puerto Rican footage from Carlos Colon. Puerto Rico was another important place for wrestling that's overlooked by people mostly familiar with the Attitude Era and later. Memphis and Puerto Rico in their heyday were places where heat was legitimate in a way few acts come close to today.
Here are live notes from the Smackdown taping. I vaguely remember Tyson Dux working in TNA years back. I'd be curious to see how he'd do in WWE. Or TNA or GFW or whatever else is a major promotion come 2015.
Raw's audience on Monday was 4.38 million, up a bit from the previous week. That's a good sign with Bryan gone.
A judge dismissed a bizarre lawsuit against Natalya.
Chris Jericho is currently booked through the Raw after the Night of Champions PPV. There will be a number of dates where he'll be working Fozzy shows during his run; and after that Raw, he'll be touring with Fozzy full-time. I'm glad WWE's got him for a few months! Jericho vs. Wyatt and Jericho vs. Rollins for the briefcase should be great. I don't know for sure they'll do the latter, but it would make sense and they have history.
Kurt Angle's TNA contract expires on September 21. He has been offered a new deal, but is considering his options. He expects to be cleared to wrestle in October. TNA would be losing a lot of name value with him gone, but they need to be moving forward with a new era headlined by new names. Angle helping guys like Gunner to the next level's a great move, but I think Angle wants to do something else with his life. He's been used to put people over in TNA for years now.
Angle also addressed a story of him supposedly being passed out on a plane recently, saying he's been sober for a year. I hope for his sake that's true.
Shannon Moore has more or less announced his retirement from in-ring competition to pursue other endeavors. He had runs in a number of major companies and it wasn't looking like he was going to get another anytime soon, so he probably made the right move. He's been wrestling for a pretty good while. I wish him the best in what he does next.
WWE posted a video of AJ Styles wrestling for them before he worked in TNA. That's not a huge shock, but it's still cool to see. Of course I knew Bagwell was in WWE. That match was the first time the WCW Championship was defended in WWE. As for what this means for AJ going to WWE, it's almost certainly not happening. Styles has a steady gig working for NJPW in Japan.
For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. MITB was a newsworthy PPV with a new top champion and Rollins winning the briefcase. I'm sure some of it was Cena specifically being on top again, but it was an important show all around. I think the important thing to take away here is Cena can be a positive factor in business as a top guy, but WWE needs to have other top guys as well. There's certainly fan backlash to Cena's 15th World Title win.
2. I wonder what the odds are of Tunney going into the Hall of Fame some day. There was bad blood there, but he's been dead for years and was a pretty important name in his era.
3. I laughed, but then I felt guilty for laughing. It's concerning WWE hasn't addressed this yet and so many hardworking wrestlers could be making less money as a result of all this. Hopefully once the Network becomes profitable, PPV bonuses will come back in some form.
4. Sometimes a talent will seem like they have a lot of potential, but it won't work out for whatever reason. It isn't always WWE's fault.
5. How safe a wrestler is is definitely put into consideration, but it's only part of the story.
More wrestling tomorrow.
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