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Wednesday, June 19, 2019

More G1-Texas matches, Savio-MLW debut set, Roman cancer charity, Interviews with Tony Khan/Becky/Sam Roberts/Nyla, new ROH PPV matches, Knockout released, Kross-Impact update, Impact looking to replace exec, another Impact joint show, new Fyter Fest match, WWE covered in Harvard class, Daga disputes MLW account, Raw audience, new EVOLVE matches, NXT name no longer wrestling for EVOLVE, Tenille update, SDL dark matches, and Questions on Alexa bumping, Shane's ego, Impact's library, WCW's fall vs. Impact's, and to what extent Impact was a threat to WWE

G1 Climax in Texas has added:
- The Guerrillas of Destiny vs. SHO and YOH
- Jeff Cobb and Ren Narita vs. Tomohiro Ishii and Shota Umino
- Jay White and Chase Owens vs. Hirooki Goto and YOSHI-HASHI
- Jushin "Thunder" Liger, Juice Robinson, and Toru Yano vs. Tetsuya Naito, BUSHI, and Shingo Takagi

Savio Vega will debut in MLW on July 25 at their New York Fusion taping.

Roman Reigns appeared at Children's Hospital Colorado.

AEW's Tony Khan was on Stone Cold's latest podcast, revealing:
- AEW's first tag team champions will be determined in a tournament on TNT

- AEW has plans for a women's tag team championship, which would mean an expansion of the current women's roster.

- Jon Moxley will do a future Stone Cold podcast. Austin expressed regret at how their previous podcast went in WWE, and said he and Moxley have reconnected since then.

- AEW talents might take international dates between AEW live events, as AEW isn't going to have a WWE-style live event schedule.

- Fight for The Fallen will also be free on B/R Live.

Best in the World has added:
- Kelly Klein and Jenny Rose vs. Angelina Love and Mandy Leon of The Allure
- Villain Enterprises vs. PJ Black, Tracy Williams, and Mark Haskins for the ROH Six-Man Tag Team Championship

Scarlett Bordeaux has been released from Impact Wrestling, as was her request. I would expect her to end up under a better-paying deal somewhere else if she's going to continue wrestling.

- Scarlett is currently working as a free agent, rather than immediately jumping to another prominent company.

Impact currently has no plans to release Killer Kross, despite being upset about his recent comments. Damn he's pretty bulletproof, huh?

Impact is looking for a new live event manager following Rafael Morffi moving to AEW full-time. The company has dates locked in through October, so they have some time to get someone.

Impact is working with Santino Marella's Destiny Wrestling for a July 14 event in Ontario.

Fyter Fest's Buy In special will feature Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky vs. The Best Friends vs. Private Party, with the winning team moving into tag team championship contention at All Out. I'm not sure how this fits in with what Khan said about a tournament coming to the TV series, since that will debut in October.

WWE is being covered in a Harvard Business School class. That's pretty awesome, and goes to show how relevant WWE is in the entertainment business world.

Daga is disputing MLW's version of his departure, saying he had cleared not appearing for their June 1 taping through them, and only worked a show in Mexico as a last-minute favor for Rey Fenix, as Daga was in town for Fenix's son's christening. Daga would like to continue working for MLW and get more exposure in the United States. Hopefully things will be smoothed out.

Raw drew 2.24 million viewers Monday night, up a bit from last week.

Becky Lynch is on Brian Koppelman's latest podcast.

Sam Roberts is on Pat McAfee's "Wrasslin' With Sports Entertainment" podcast.

EVOLVE 130 has added Kyle O'Reilly vs. Josh Briggs and Babatunde vs. JD Drake.

Bobby Fish will not wrestle at EVOLVE 129 and EVOLVE 130, but will still do meet-and-greets before each event. I'm not sure what to read into that, since he just wrestled at the June 12 TV taping and a June 14 live event. It's possible WWE is just being cautious.

Nyla Rose was profiled by Sports Illustrated. Interesting journey to AEW.

Tenille Dashwood will return to the ring July 27 in Indiana. She hasn't wrestled since September. I hope there are more bookings coming if she wants to continue wrestling.

Before Smackdown Live, Ali defeated Buddy Murphy. I'd love to see that on air at some point...

After Smackdown Live, Kofi Kingston defeated Dolph Ziggler to successfully defend the WWE Championship.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. Both parties (WWE and Alexa) know what she's getting into in the ring, and take that into account when clearing her. I hope they're making the right call, but they obviously have more knowledge on the situation than I do!

2. Shane is exclusively a talent. I definitely don't think he's pushing for himself to be featured prominently. And, even if he was, it's not his call and I don't anticipate him going into a position to make those decisions.

3. They do, and that was a big part of why they wanted the company. That's a lot of footage to potentially monetize!

4. WCW without a doubt hit much bigger heights. Impact had a few prominent years on Spike, but nothing like where WCW was in its prime.

5. WWE was definitely well aware of Impact when their shows were running against each other. It wouldn't shock me if they were following the company since the first show given the players involved in Impact's founding. At the very least, WWE knew about Impact's existence since late 2004 because WWE filmed a commercial at Universal Studios and Impact stars stopped by with a camera. There was actually a threat of a lawsuit if Impact showed the footage. It's possible Impact kind of fell out of WWE's orbit until the process of moving to Spike when Impact had commercials during Raw, but I fully expect WWE was keeping an eye on them once Spike was in the picture. As for Impact being competition/a threat, there were absolutely times when Impact was offering competitive contracts/opportunities for talents on WWE's radar. Obviously Impact never drew ratings in the same league as WWE, but that doesn't mean they weren't a relevant player in the business.

More wrestling tomorrow.

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