TNA interviewed Chelsea Green, their newest signing. I'm glad TNA's adding new faces to the Knockouts division; hopefully Green makes the most of her experience in the company.
Alberto Del Rio returned to action for Smackdown, so it appears all is well after MITB. Perros will be back to being put on notice shortly.
Daniel Bryan will join Mauro Ranallo in calling the CWC. That's an impressive combination.
A CWC preview show focusing on the tournament bracket will air July 6. That's a clever way to get people interested for the main series.
TNA has announced tapings in Orlando for July 12 through July 14. The July 12 show will be a live-ish Destination X special. The storyline going into the show is the possibility of the X-Division Champion forfeiting that title to challenge the World Champion. So, the opportunity is there to shake up the title picture considerably.
- TNA is planning additional tapings from August 11 through August 14 in Orlando, but those dates aren't official yet.
Rockstar Spud and Trevor Lee have signed new contracts with TNA. These deals are structured to where TNA controls their other bookings. That makes things easier on TNA's end as far as having all their talent available when the company needs them for bookings.
ROH TV will be available on the FITE app beginning June 27. So, if you don't see the show on a local station during the weekend, you can either watch it there on Mondays or on Comet late Wednesday/early Thursday.
Impact's audience this week was 304,000. Not a stellar number, but I imagine some of that could be due to last week's technical fiasco.
In the wake of Roman Reigns' suspension and the crowning of a new WWE Champion, the top three matches set for WWE in Madison Square Garden on July 16 are:
- Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins for the WWE Championship
- John Cena vs. AJ Styles
- Chris Jericho vs. Neville in a NYC street fight.
- Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins for the WWE Championship
- John Cena vs. AJ Styles
- Chris Jericho vs. Neville in a NYC street fight.
-- Charlotte, Ric Flair, and Zack Ryder (!) are no longer advertised for the MSG show. That's a real shame for Ryder. Mark Henry is set for the show in what is likely one of his final WWE matches.
Roderick Strong has announced he'll be finishing up with ROH following Saturday's TV taping. He's one of the most tenured and decorated performers in the company's history, hence the "Mr. ROH" moniker.
- Naturally there's speculation on what he does next. There's been no word of interest from WWE, but he tried out for them in 2014. I imagine some ROH alums who've joined the roster in the past few years would vouch for him. TNA is also a possibility, of course, but there's been no word of an offer from them, either. I expect we'll know more after he works his final announced ROH dates.
Moose's ROH contract has officially expired. However, he is expected to continue to work with ROH through late July or late August. In the meantime, he's able to negotiate with WWE. If all goes well with medical testing, he could join the performance center in September.
Rey Mysterio is under a pretty lengthy deal with LU, and is being approached about signing on even longer. Even if he doesn't sign a new deal, it's likely he'd be unable to return to WWE until late 2017 at the earliest. WWE should probably focus their resources elsewhere if he's locked up that long.
ROH has opened a working relationship with CMLL, and will have a CMLL talent working their July 16 show in Philadelphia. The ROH scene will be pretty interesting with so many NJPW/CMLL crossovers. Having international talent to bolster their roster makes sense as a strategy. The trick is not making their own talent/promotion look minor league in comparison to those guests.
Katsuyori Shibata is expected to debut for ROH at Death Before Dishonor on August 19. A big NJPW presence is expected at that event.
Kevin Sullivan is expected to be part of BITW and the following TV taping. I'm curious to see what the future is for himself, Steve Corino, and BJ Whitmer.
Sasha Banks is on the cover of the latest Muscle & Fitness Hers. That's what happens when you're the BOSS.
For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. It'd take a real "come to Jesus" meeting for the two sides to work together again. If Punk really wants a big Mania main event and Vince is willing to give it to him, it's possible they talk again after Punk's UFC run finishes up. Unless Punk really needs the money or really wants "closure" for his wrestling career, I don't think he'd be willing to come back to that environment. Even then, I expect HHH and Vince would have to eat some serious crow.
1. It'd take a real "come to Jesus" meeting for the two sides to work together again. If Punk really wants a big Mania main event and Vince is willing to give it to him, it's possible they talk again after Punk's UFC run finishes up. Unless Punk really needs the money or really wants "closure" for his wrestling career, I don't think he'd be willing to come back to that environment. Even then, I expect HHH and Vince would have to eat some serious crow.
2. I definitely see him more as a cocky, smug heel than a cowardly one. Either way, it's tough for someone to be a babyface against Cena. Remember, just because "we" know and appreciate who AJ is, there's a big audience who had never seen him before the Royal Rumble. There are a lot of fans who've spent more than a decade cheering Cena and are hesitant to support the "outsider" coming in to challenge him.
3. I expect Byron will end up exclusive to one show or the other (as he should). So, Smackdown might need to fill his spot and Lawler's. I don't see Vince being comfortable having Mauro and Graves there without a veteran WWE-style commentator. So, if Lawler is out, we could see Booker or someone step in to complete the announce teams. I do expect each show to keep a three-person team.
4. No idea what he was thinking. I hope he had a conversation with management at MITB or Raw about what to do to prevent this from happening again, because this is a big blow to all the work they've done in building him up all this time.
5. I think it's supposed to be their U.S./IC Title for Eli Drake to defend against all the dummies people who aren't at the main event level right now. The problem is the roster isn't big enough to support that many championships.
More wrestling coming up.
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