Hello there. Don’t you look nice, have you done something with your hair, and speaking of which it’s been a major week for dyed blonde gentlemen.
Not only did Ric Flair received his WWE release but Cody Rhodes was on the receiving end of a one-sided beatdown from Malakai Black and teased an in-ring retirement.
But we’re not here to talk about those, it’s Sunday, which means it’s time for a roundup of all the news stories from the week that didn’t quite make it onto the daily WrestleTalk news, hosted by me the posh guy who likes wrestling, your bestest pal in peroxide.
I’m Adam from WrestleTalk and here are 10 Wrestling News Stories You Might Have Missed This Week.
10. Yet Another WWE Release
The last few months in WWE have been depressing, haven’t they? It seems like every other week some more budget cuts come to light, whether it’s onscreen talent or employees from the corporate side.
One of the more recent releases that had everybody up in arms was Bray Wyatt, but according to PWInsider, Bray Wyatt’s wife Jojo Offerman, who had worked as a ring announcer on the main roster from 2015 to 2018 before taking time away to give birth, was also released from the company “6-8 months” ago.
She and Bray also had a second child in the years since her absence. This brings WWE’s total of released talent this year to: far too many. I don’t want to count them. And speaking of Bray…
9. Bray Wyatt Was Cleared Before Release
The mystery surrounding Wyatt this year alone has been off the charts, with him largely missing in action for over six months.
In December 2020, he was burned alive by Randy Orton before returning at Fastlane looking like a burnt pizza, wrestled one match at WrestleMania 37, lost to Orton, cut a Firefly Funhouse promo on Raw, and … [checks notes] that’s all folks.
Speculation regarding his absence was at an all-time high, with some reports stating that it was due to creative issues, while others claimed it was due to medical issues.
Well, it seems there may have been some credence to the latter, as, following his release, a report from Justin Barrasso from Sports Illustrated said that Wyatt was cleared for a return to WWE from an ‘undisclosed physical ailment’ on July 29. He was released two days later.
8. Word Life. This Is Basic Ideanomics.
The next big thumb, Shane McMahon will be remembered in WWE for many things.
Being an absolute madlad and diving off very tall things, having his testicles electrocuted by Kane, and that silly little dance he does that makes it look like his feet are on fire and he’s trying to put them out by shuffling. Somewhat less memorable are his business ventures outside WWE.
So it made perfect sense when it came out this week that Shane O’ has been appointed Executive Chairman of Ideanomics, a company he founded in 2004, before stepping down as CEO in 2013.
Ideanomics sound like something WWE would call their creative department? Or something they’d sell their investors on a quarterly call – like they’re investing heavily in the Ideanomics of WWE.
Anyway good luck, Shane, sure it’ll be great.
7. Alexa Bliss’ Instagram Is ‘Offensive’
Alexa Bliss – the character – is a spooky goth who occasionally dribbles black ooze and can hypnotize people, before pinning them in a way that upsets their wives.
She also has a puppet who does…something. Alexa Bliss the person really likes Coffee and Disney.
However, according to Instagram, she might like Disney just a little too much, as she revealed in a story post that one of her previous photos of her Disney tattoo was removed from the platform for being ‘offensive’.
Which tattoo even was it? The one which shows the GPS coordinates of Cinderella’s castle in Disneyworld? Was Disney unhappy that she essentially doxxed cinderella? What’s going on?
6. Malakai Black In PWG
With Malakai Black making his AEW in-ring debut against Cody Rhodes this week on Dynamite, you might have missed the spooky goth that isn’t Alexa Bliss making his return to PWG beforehand.
At the very end of PWG’s Mystery Vortex 7, Super Dragon, Demonic Flamita and Black Taurus beat down PWG World Champion Bandido before the lights went out – and this happened.
I fucking love pro wrestling #MysteryVortex7 pic.twitter.com/bnRpvjRMsY
— Tony Deppen (@Tony_Deppen) August 2, 2021
Wrestling is not wrestling without crowds.
5. Masked Assassin Passes Away
Unfortunately, some sad news for this week as Jody Hamilton, otherwise known as The Masked Assassin, passed away at the age of 82.
His son, former WCW and WWE referee Nick Patrick, made the announcement on Facebook.
Hamilton debuted in the wrestling industry back in 1955, and worked for countless promotions during his tenure, when he retired in 1988 after suffering a broken back.
After that, he continued to work in the industry in a managerial role and re-launched his own promotion, Deep South Wrestling, in 2005, which worked as a WWE feeder and developmental promotion until 2007.
Rest in peace Masked Assassin.
4. Shotzi Black-heat
Remember the Blood and Guts match that ended with Chris Jericho being pushed off the cage onto some crash mats that were very clearly in shot of the camera, which kind of sort of undermined the impact of it a little bit? Yeah me too. But it’s fine. It happens, no need to get upset.
Well after Chris’ big tumble, WWE star Shotzi, who still had her last name at the time, tweeted a gif of someone comfortably falling onto a bed, which is good-natured joshing, right? Right?
Jericho didn’t think so, saying on one of his Saturday night streams that he would “remember” the “chicks in WWE who said some stuff and they should probably not have said that” if they ever came to AEW to look for jobs, also possibly in reference to Shayna tweeting this, which is admittedly a little saltier.
We don’t ACTUALLY want a village to be burned by a dragon in GoT. If they did that, that would be really bad. But if the special effects would have been garbage, it would have sucked also & everyone would have said so.
— Shayna Baszler (@QoSBaszler) May 6, 2021
Shotzi spoke about the heat on talkSPORT recently, where she said she enjoyed Blood and Guts and didn’t mean any offense, but said Jericho should “take a joke, bud!”
“It’s just a GIF. Laugh at it and move on. It’s live TV. Things happen, it’s pro wrestling. Don’t take life too seriously is all I have to say”. Good advice in general.
3. Natalya Injured
Natalya and Tamina are still the Women’s Tag Team Champions. I know, it’s hard to believe. But after Natalya suffered a legit ankle injury on Raw, it seemed their reign may be coming to a premature end.
However, Nattie posted an image of her x-ray on Twitter following surgery, and stated that she’s expected to only miss a couple of weeks of action, so maybe they’re push through?
WWE are still advertising that they will address the future of the belts on this week’s Raw, so maybe they WILL vacate, maybe they won’t, but to be honest, at least one Raw came and went since the injury without clarification so it’s possible that WWE will just forget about the women’s tag titles. They’ve done it before.
2. AEW Beating WWE
Since NXT moved to Tuesday nights, the wrestling community as a whole breathed a sigh of relief that we can stop comparing WWE and AEW ratings and that the Wednesday Night Wars were finally over.
Cool, now let’s compare AEW and WWE.
The viewership for this week’s Homecoming episode of Dynamite was a huge 1.102 million viewers on average, the fourth week in a row it has broken the 1 million average.
Interestingly, Bryan Alvarez shared on Twitter that AEW now pretty regularly beats WWE when it comes to the male 35-49 demographic, which is a sub-sub-section of the most important demo, the 18-49.
And hey, speaking of AEW and WWE!
1. A Reunion Without a Tank
Let’s end this list off with something lovely shall we?
So if you didn’t know, John Cena is in a movie called The Suicide Squad. It’s a pretty big deal. In that movie he plays a character called Peacemaker, who has plans to do something with a whole beach full of dicks, close sources are telling us.
On the red carpet premiere of said movie, Cena showed up in costume as Peacemaker, he is a delightful robot man.
But who else should be there at the premiere but AEW star Miro! Lest we forget the two of them shared a WrestleMania match where Miro, then going by Rusev, made one of the greatest WrestleMania entrances of all time.
Miro and Cena reunited at the Suicide Squad premiere. pic.twitter.com/nymWoSQXEE
— Farbod Esnaashari (@Farbod_E) August 3, 2021
The two shared a hug and a candid conversation, with Cena even introducing Miro to his wife. And isn’t that lovely? And on Rusev Day no less!
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