On November 22nd, 24-year old Elisah Spencer jumped Seth Rollins during an episode of Raw at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The clearly irrational Spencer had been catfished by someone pretending to be Rollins in 2019 and was scammed out of money and was out for what he believed was revenge. While he was arrested, charged, and assumedly banned by WWE from all future shows, he has shockingly revealed on Instagram that he was in attendance at WWE’s Boxing Day show at Madison Square Garden.
Precisely what action WWE and the police will take remains to be seen. Obviously, Spencer requires some type of psychological help, and it is frightening he could attend such a high-profile show in the same state. Thankfully there were no incidents reported this time, and perhaps that is down to Rollins, who advertised as wrestling on the show not attending due to a positive test result. Clearly, though, something needs to be done about Spencer before someone gets seriously hurt.
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Game Changer Wrestling, the promotion known for featuring the likes of Jon Moxley, Matt Cardona, and Nick Gage, has shared the sad news that one of their initial talents, Markus Crane, has passed away. Crane, who had wrestled since 2009, was just 33 of age and last competed back in April after making a comeback from brain surgery. No cause of death has officially been shared; however, PWInsider.com has reported he passed away in his sleep after complaining of headaches and had been suffering seizures.
Crane was trained by Chris Hero and Matt Tremont and was predominantly known for his deathmatches. Unfortunately, he has been dealing with substance abuse issues and has deactivated his social media accounts recently due to a combination of relationship issues and wanting to focus on his sobriety. The belief is that he was clean at the time of his death and had just received his 30-day coin from Narcotics Anonymous.
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Rumors would start last month that Charlotte Flair and Andrade’s relationship may have encountered problems after eagle-eyed fans spotted Andrade had unfollowed Charlotte on social media. Subsequently, Bodyslam.net would investigate this and report that the couple had, in fact, split. According to their account, Charlotte ended the power couples engagement, but no additional details were uncovered. Now though, it appears the news was either inaccurate, or the partners have rekindled their romance as Charlotte has shared photos on Instagram with them, looking very happy together.
Charlotte and Andrade went public with their relationship in 2019, and they kicked off 2020 on a high note by announcing on their social media accounts that they were engaged. At that time, both of their careers were on a high, with Andrade having just defeated Rey Mysterio for the United States Championship and Charlotte being less than a month away from winning the women’s Royal Rumble match. Since then, Andrade departed WWE and is now signed with AEW, while Charlotte remains a vital part of WWE.
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Two weeks ago, Kyle O’Reilly and Johnny Gargano spent time in front of the live crowd with NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa when NXT went off-air. At the time, it was seen as them saying farewell with it known both men’s contracts were expiring, and subsequently, both have departed the company. While O’Reilly has already signed with AEW and realigned with his Undisputed Era stablemates, Gargano’s future remains uncertain.
However, during the latest episode of the Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer would reveal that Gargano is heavily considering signing with Tony Khan’s promotion. He would also speculate the January 26th episode of Dynamite in Clevland to be when he debuts.
As more time goes on, I have this feeling that Gargano will debut in Cleveland. That would be the right night to do it, right? It’s, I think, maybe late January, maybe 26th. I don’t know 100% that he’s going, but he’s talking about wanting to wrestle Kenny Omega. It’s things he’s said both publicly and privately. I know he’s heavily considering it.
Dave MeltzerFor those unaware, Gargano was born and raised in a suburb of Clevland, Ohio, called Lakewood, and initially trained at Cleveland All-Pro Training Center under J.T. Lightning and Josh Prohibition. Therefore if he does debut at the Wolstein Center on January 26th, he will undoubtedly receive a tremendous reaction. Additionally, with his wife Candice LeRae set to give birth in February, it would certainly make sense for him to have a full-time contract, and AEW would only require him to work once a week with Dynamite and Rampage typically taped on the same day.
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Chelsea Green is currently proving there is life after WWE, with her diary full of bookings. At present, she is working with Impact Wrestling, Game Changer Wrestling, and Billy Corgan’s NWA simultaneously. Outside of that, she is still hustling with a podcast, has a 2022 calendar, and just launched an Only Fans account. Additionally, she recently appeared on the front cover of Fitness Gurls magazine, which describes itself as a publication that “covers fitness, nutrition & showcases the most beautiful women in the world of sport & fitness.” Obviously, this has attracted many admirers, and one fan took the extreme step to have her cover photo tattooed on his arm.
This wasn’t the fan in question’s first wrestling tattoo, as his Twitter account showed he had tattoos of both The Fiend and Alexa Bliss inked previously. Unfortunately, while the fan did attract the attention of Green, who replied, “Is this real!?” and “This is amazing actually,” many fans weren’t impressed with him. He would repeatedly be called creepy, and others make fun of him. Subsequently, this resulted in him deleting his Twitter account; however, he at least got the endorsement of Green before he departed.
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News has broken that former paratrooper and pro wrestler Michael Penzel has passed away aged 64 after suffering a heart attack. However, unlike in 2006, when WWE incorrectly reported Penzel had passed away, this has been verified by an official obituary. He is survived by his wife Tina, children Haden, Kyle, Justin, Krystal, and eight grandchildren. The belief is that after retiring from wrestling full-time in 1999 at the age of 42, he was working as a truck driver, although he did wrestle a few further matches up until 2009.
Wrestling fans will best remember Penzel for his time in WWE wrestling as Corporal Kirchner, where he would come in to replace Sgt. Slaughter following a contract dispute. He would go on to wrestle Nikolai Volkoff at WrestleMania 2 before departing the company after failing a drugs test and deciding not to return due to being disgruntled with the schedule. Then after working in Calgary and Portland, he would go to Japan for the first of more than 60 tours.
In Japan, he became a cult icon in W*ING and FMW as Leatherface and Super Leather, a ripoff of the lead character from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise. However, his time in Japan wasn’t without incident, as he would punch a fan so hard that the fan’s face was described as “destroyed,” and he’d serve six months in prison, which resulted in his gimmick being given to someone else.
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During a match between Orange Cassidy and Adam Cole on this week’s episode of Dynamite, former NXT wrestler Kyle O’Reilly would debut for the promotion. He did this by attacking Cassidy, which would lead to Cole getting the victory. Then after the match had ended, The Young Bucks would come out seemingly unhappy to see O’Reilly, and Cole would leave with his Undisputed Era stable matches O’Reilly and Fish instead of the Bucks.
[adthrive-in-post-video-player video-id=”SH7sGkHm” upload-date=”2021-12-23T12:30:49.000Z” name=”Kyle O’Reilly AEW Debut.mp4″ description=”undefined” player-type=”default” override-embed=”default”]Subsequently, Tony Khan informed fans that O’Reilly had officially signed with his promotion on his Twitter and was All Elite. Then later, it was announced that Cole, O’Reilly, and Fish will be wrestling Cassidy, Trent Beretta, and Chuck Taylor on next week’s New Year’s Smash edition of Dynamite.
It was just two weeks ago, O’Reilly, along with Johnny Gargano, received a sendoff from NXT with their contracts about to expire, and it was always assumed that O’Reilly was AEW-bound. WWE had attempted to get O’Reilly to re-sign by offering him what was considered a lucrative contract by NXT standards. Yet, it seems the draw of AEW and reuniting with his former stablemates was too big of an opportunity to pass up.
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On December 26th, 2020, the wrestling world lost a fantastic wrestler and entertainer in Brodie Lee. Still, more tragically, his family lost Jon Huber, a loving husband, and doting father. AEW would put on a moving tribute show, which saw each match feature at least one member of The Dark Order, and his eldest son Brodie Lee Jr. was awarded the TNT Championship belt his father had previously held.
Since then, AEW has continued to support his family and aimed to keep his memory alive. Now having previously shared digital artwork, they have officially revealed on Twitter, Lee’s first physical AEW action figures, with one being a chase variant.
While Lee has multiple Mattel action figures from his time in WWE as Luke Harper, this will be the first produced by Jazwares from his too-short time in AEW. The standard figure has the potential to become a collector’s item, given what the demand will likely be, and the chase variant could set records for an AEW figure. A precise release date isn’t yet known, but pre-orders are expected to be available via Ringside Collectibles shortly.
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Earlier this month, Ring of Honor held their final show titled Final Battle before going on hiatus. While they are set to return next year, the fact that title matches were advertised as crowing the last champions led many to speculate that the show would be the promotion’s end. Overall, the show was very emotional, and part of the reason was the prerecorded videos from multiple ROH alumni. Bryan Danielson, CM Punk, Adam Page, and Eddie Edwards were among them, but notable by their absence were WWE contracted talents.
The lack of WWE names resulted in the promotion getting criticized on social media. However, now speaking on the Podcast Les Anti-Pods de la Lutte, Kevin Owens, who wrestled for ROH over 200 times, would reveal that WWE wasn’t to blame. Instead, it was simply down to ROH not asking anyone associated with WWE to participate.
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The answer is quite simple, Ring of Honor didn’t ask any wrestlers from WWE to do that, nor contacted anyone at WWE. I knew it was going to be their last show, but I didn’t think to send a video so they could play it at the show. I’ve watched it. I was at a WWE show, and I was watching it on my phone, so it was not something I simply ignored. I’ve read some people on the Internet saying that probably WWE didn’t let us do it, but that’s incorrect. It’s just ROH who didn’t ask us, and I bet that if they had, we could have done it, but that wasn’t the case.
Kevin OwensWhy ROH didn’t think to ask WWE when names like Owens, Samoa Joe, Sami Zayn, Cesaro, and Seth Rollins spent considerable time honing their skills in the promotion isn’t known. Although, over the years, WWE has been known to not like working with other companies, so ROH management may simply have felt there was little point in asking. Seemingly though, if Owens is correct, WWE would have let them film something.
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During this week’s Raw, it was announced that AJ Styles would be appearing during this week’s NXT. He is set to confront Grayson Waller, who mocked Styles on social media over the weekend by saying he has the same haircut as his mom and that if Styles were on Tinder, he wouldn’t be getting any matches. He’d end by stealing Styles’ nickname and calling himself the “The Phenomenal Grayson Waller.”
While it seems odd for a member of the main roster in his 40s to be appearing on the newly rebranded young and fresh NXT, Dave Meltzer has provided some reasoning on his Wrestling Observer Radio show. He would theorize that due to NXT going up against two NFL matches, they are trying to avoid getting destroyed in the ratings by featuring Styles.
So they’re going against the NFL on Tuesday for the first time in history. So, they should get destroyed. Dave Meltzer
Seemingly WWE believes that Styles is a big enough name to convince fans of the NFL to still tune into NXT. However, whether they are correct remains to be seen, as NXT has been struggling in the ratings lately, with last week’s edition averaging 561,000 viewers, which was down 4.9% from the prior week. To put this into perspective, the Halloween Havoc-themed edition of NXT averaged 746,000 viewers.
It also isn’t known whether Styles’ appearance will be a one-off or if he will become an NXT regular over the coming weeks. Regardless, he does appear set to remain on Raw, having just started feuding with tag partner Omos after the 7 ft 3 Nigerian refused to tag in during a match with Rey and Dominik Mysterio. This led to the pair coming to blows before Styles was left laying and Omos announcing a match between the former partners.
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WWE released Jeff Hardy after a bizarre incident that saw him walk out mid-way through a match through the crowd mid-match. They would initially ask him to attend rehab, but he declined, and his brother Matt has subsequently stated that Jeff’s drug test results will come back showing he wasn’t using at the time. Whether that is accurate remains to be seen; however, commentator Jim Ross has called it a “no-brainer” that AEW should hire the former WWE talent on a recent episode of his Grilling JR podcast.
I hope someday Hardy is wrestling for AEW. It is a no-brainer. Can you imagine the Young Bucks and The Hardy Boyz? The Hardy’s and the Lucha Bros? The Hardy’s and FTR? The Battle of North Carolina. I’m all for this. That’s a year’s worth of matches right there, easy.
Suppose Jeff is indeed drug and alcohol-free; in that case, it seems inevitable that he will join his brother Matt in AEW when his noncompete clause expires. It would certainly be a risk for Tony Khan, especially as Jeff has yet revealed why he walked out mid-match. Nonetheless, due to his immense popularity and the multiple matches that Jim Ross proposes, his signing may be too good of a prospect for AEW to pass up.
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Over the weekend, Sammy Guevara announced on Twitter that his engagement with long longtime girlfriend Pam had ended. Due to the relationship being public knowledge due to him proposing in the ring before an episode of Dynamite, the pair wanted to let fans know. However, with no specific reason given, fans would begin speculating as to why.
One theory that picked up the momentum was that Tay Conti was involved. Seemingly due to her recently appearing in multiple photos with Guevara and the AEW star would receive so much abuse that after Trending on Twitter, she decided to delete her account. Now though, Guevara has taken to Twitter and provided more information about when his engagement ended and declared that nobody else was involved.
This shouldn’t have to be said… but my relationship with Pam ending had nothing to do with ANYONE else. Pam and I broke up back in October and just now felt was the time to make it publicly known. So please stop pointing fingers and looking for someone to blame.
Sammy GuevaraLately, Twitter has become known as the most toxic social media platform, and while it gives fans unprecedented access to celebrities and their personal lives, a vocal minority has made it unbearable for some. Over the past few years, multiple wrestlers have been forced off the platform. While most do end up returning, not all do, so it will be intriguing to see whether Conti returns now Guevera has issued his latest tweet.
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