Columnist Rob Pasbani catches you up on all the wrestling news
Raw has become a bit uneventful as of late. The show feels far more skippable than Smackdown does, which is usually a tight two hours with good action and storyline advancement. Raw has to fill three hours with longer matches and it ends up being a much harder watch. But, there were some highlights.
The biggest of which being, as always, The Bloodline. Roman Reigns wasn’t on the show but the rest of his family was, and they wrecked havoc on Elias, Matt Riddle and Kevin Owens. At the end of the night, Solo Siquoa paid tribute to his uncle, Umaga, by using his grenade spike finisher on Riddle, causing Riddle serious (storyline) injury.
The other big show storyline was an ongoing poker tournament held by JBL, which Dexter Lumis won. The Miz revealed he has no liquidity at the moment. JBL eventually got caught cheating.
Bobby Lashley and Rollins continued their feud:
Meanwhile, Austin Theory reignited his rivalry with Dolph Ziggler:
The women have a lot going on. Becky and Bayley exchanged words. Becky and Rhea Ripley had a staredown and Alexa Bliss continued her descent into madness:
WWE NXT is tonight at 8pm on USA leading up to the big show this weekend.
AEW Dynamite is on tomorrow at 8pm on TBS. Here’s the preview:
WWE Smackdown is this Friday at 8pm on Fox and has announced:
AEW Rampage on Friday has one match announced so far:
ROH Death Before Dishonor is this Saturday afternoon on PPV. The current card:
NXT Deadline is also this Saturday, on Peacock with the following card:
WWE RAW has the following matches announced for next week:
Unfortunately, WWE Hall of Famer Barry Windham suffered a massive heart attack last week and has been in intensive care. Windham is the uncle of WWE star Bray Wyatt. Even worse, Windham does not currently have health insurance and the bills are piling up. His family has set up a GoFundMe to help with expenses.
Multiple people have confirmed that William Regal is officially done with AEW. Earlier in the week, EC3 said in an interview that Regal confided in him that he was annoyed early at immaturity in management and that young talent wouldn’t ask him for advice. However, SEScoops reports that multiple AEW sources say the story is completely inaccurate. One source described Regal as always going above and beyond saying “Regal would even sit in the stands with guys to talk about the fans point of view, or the point of view of watching on TV. He would tell you about making sure to know how you are looking to fans as you come to the ring or how you would look on TV. He said to make sure you’re always really nice to the camera guys, they’re the ones who make you look good (laughing).”
Drew McIntyre revealed he is “medically disqualified” from competing this Friday on Smackdown. No word on what exactly his injury was but Dave Meltzer reports he’s only expected to be out a few weeks and back in time for the Christmas shows.
I am sad to report the passing of legendary boxing referee Miles Lane, who made appearances in WWF and WCW.
According to Fightful, AEW does not plan on a yearly release of their video game Fight Forever, but will be pushing updates and download packs digitally for years to come.
NXT’s next big event after this weekend’s Deadline will be Vengeance Day, and it will take place outside of Orlando, at Charlotte, North Carolina’s Spectrum Center on Saturday, February 4th.
A new Ric Flair documentary is coming to Peacock on December 26th. Here’s a preview:
Tony Khan has pushed back on criticism that he features too much Ring of Honor on AEW shows saying that other than the Chris Jericho angles, there hasn’t been much ROH on their Wednesday night shows, Dynamite. He does however feature ROH talent on Rampage telling Battlegrounds podcast “On ‘Rampage,’ we have had a variety of [ROH wrestlers] and it’s new wrestlers [for AEW fans] and I think that’s going to be good for our business, because these pay-per-view shows Ring of Honor has done have been really successful for us. We’ve made good money and the grosses of those shows have been in line for what I paid for the entire business, so I would say it’s been a very successful relaunch.”
Kurt Angle revealed on his podcast that while he was in TNA, he learned that Brock Lesnar wasn’t under contract to WWE. He reached out to Brock and Brock said that if TNA would give Brock the same contract they gave Kurt, Brock would be interested in joining. Angle then went to owner Dixie Carter with the news and she was not interested. Can you imagine?
Jim Ross had some less-than-pleasant things to say about John Laurinaitis, who replaced him as head of WWE talent relations many moons ago. Laurinaitis was recently canned by WWE after being exposed as part of a sex scandal that also involved former CEO Vince McMahon. Ross said “I had a hard time as time went on trusting Laurinaitis. That’s sad to say. I hired him. I gave him a job when he needed it. I don’t think he treated me quite right. He just wanted to show Vince that he was a better manager than JR and all these things. So now his ass is without a job and he deserves the Goddamn misery that he’s living, that I perceive that he’s living, and I didn’t like how he treated me.”
Renee Paquette revealed on the Sports Media podcast that she has two three-year deals with AEW, one as on-air talent and one as a producer.
I have found my new favorite wrestler:
Naomi aka Trinity Fatu ran into Jade Cargill at an Atlanta Hawks game recently and this is a tag team I want now:
Bianca Belair competed in a bodybuilding competition and ended up winning some trophies. Read her full blog on the experience here.
Sign up for the Knotfest Email List for exclusive access to news, tours, interviews, pre-sale codes, giveaways and more.