Matt Riddle and Randy Orton are currently teaming on Raw as RKBro after Orton requested to work with the former MMA fighter. The odd-couple tag team has been one of the highlights of Raw in recent weeks, and it seems just a match of time until they challenge AJ Styles and Omos for the Raw Tag Team Championship. However, Orton has admitted on Kurt Angle’s podcast that he actually didn’t like Riddle when they first met. The reason being that Riddle didn’t introduce himself when they first shared a locker room.

In addition to Orton, during his short WWE career, Riddle has gotten on the wrong side of Goldberg, Brock Lesnar, and Seth Rollins. At one point, Vince McMahon even addressed it with Riddle in a meeting between the pair. Thankfully though, for Riddle, McMahon is apparently a big fan of his character, and at the end of the day, his opinion is what matters in WWE.

Ricky Starks took a scary-looking neck bump following a German Suplex on the April 21 episode of Dynamite when facing Adam Page. Starks would finish the match and later tweet, “I’m good! Thank you @DDPYoga for my flexibility,” seemingly indicating everything was well. Starks teamed with Will Hobbs the following day for an AEW Dark taping match, however, he never tagged in, and Hobbs beat their opponents single handly. Now, it’s been made public via Voices of Wrestling that Starks actually fractured a bone in his neck and is out for three months. Thankfully surgery isn’t needed, and Starks is expected to remain a television character.

Starks signed with AEW following the June 17, 2020 episode of Dynamite after taking part in Cody Rhodes’ open challenge for the AEW TNT Championship. The match doubled as his tryout, and he wowed the decision-makers and earned a contract. Before this, Starks wrestled on the independents for eight years, including working squash matches for WWE on Raw, SmackDown, and NXT over that time. His big break would come in Billy Corgan’s NWA, where he was NWA Television Champion after beating Trevor Murdoch in a tournament final at their Hard Times PPV.

On last night’s Raw’s the match between Sheamus and Humberto Carrillo came to an abrupt end when a spot went wrong. Carrillo attempted to sunset flip Sheamus off the apron and perhaps trying to protect Sheamus’ neck, who has previously been diagnosed with spinal stenosis he landed awkwardly. He clearly was struggling to move his legs fully, and with both men outside the ring, the referee had to prematurely end the match and awarded the contest to the current United States Champion Sheamus. You can watch this for yourself below.

Overnight there was a lot of concern amongst fans, but multiple sources have since reported that after being medically evaluated backstage, Carrillo will be fine. The belief is he will not need to miss anytime, although as it took place on television, WWE may turn it into an angle.

This is obviously great news for Carrillo, who moved down the card once Paul Heyman lost his creative position on June 11, 2020. Since then, he has spent most of the previous 12 months on Main Event wrestling other neglected talents like Angel Garza, Drew Gulak, and Ricochet. Under the ECW head honcho’s watch, Carrillo wrestled AJ Styles and Seth Rollins upon his 2019 main roster call-up and feuded with Andrade for the United States Championship. Seemingly, WWE has plans again for him as on the April 19th episode of Raw, he began a program with Sheamus.

Former WWE star Gangrel shared the happy news on Instagram that he after proposing to his girlfriend Susan Nelson, and she had said yes. Gangrel, whose real name is David Heath, will be hoping this will be his final engagement, as he has previously been married three times. His first marriage was between 1988 to 1991, his second and most well-known was with the late Luna Vachon between 1994 to 2006 and then to Monique Martin from 2008 to 2013, who wrestled as Krazy Kiara Dillon mainly in California.

Gangrel is best known to wrestling fans for his time in WWE between 1998 and 2001, where following years of working enhancement matches was hired full-time due to Bruce Prichard and Vince Russo seeing potential in a vampire character. As the leader of The Brood, he received a significant push, but after WWE had him turn on his stablemates Edge and Christian and side with Matt and Jeff Hardy, he would soon find himself becoming a regular on Jakked, a show for lower card wrestlers.

He returned to WWE in 2005, teaming with Viscera losing to The Undertaker in a two-on-one handicap match. Still, despite getting re-signed, he made no further appearances. Then in 2006, he was signed again to be on WWE’s ECW brand alongside Kevin Thorn and Ariel but plans changed, and he was again released. His final WWE match came during the 15th Anniversary of Raw in 2007, where he participated in a battle royal.

Nowadays, Gangrel’s priority is his wrestling school in Dania Beach, Florida. Although he does still perform and made a cameo appearance for AEW during the Elite Deletion match between Matt Hardy and Sammy Guevara at last November’s Full Gear pay-per-view. Additionally, he still wrestles on the independents, and just last month, he wrestled Big Cass on a show in Texas.

Mia Yim’s main roster call-up was a flop with her only wrestling a total of two matches on Raw after being put in Retribution, a group hellbent on destroying WWE. In the storyline, the members were unhappy with how they’d been treated in the WWE system and were out for revenge. It wasn’t a terrible idea on paper, but fans mocked the group after WWE botched the execution and gave the members awful outfits and bizarre names. Yim was known as Reckoning, and despite doing her best to make the best of it along with the other members, the faction remained a laughingstock, and WWE pulled the plug during the Fastlane pre-show with members T-Bar (Dominik Dijakovic) and (Dio Maddin) double chokeslamming the group’s leader Ali.

While Ali has now returned to the singles competition, and T-Bar and Mace remain together now without their masks, neither Slapjack (Shane Thorne) or Yim have been seen since, and internally the pair are currently listed as part of the SmackDown roster. While Thorne’s future remains up in the air, multiple sources have reported that Yim was set to debut on SmackDown this past Friday. However, due to the show running long, her appearance was cut. The belief is that she will now appear on his week’s upcoming episode and feuding with Carmella.

Yim began training over a decade ago and has wrestled for multiple promotions, including ROH and TNA. She made appearances for WWE as one of Adam Rose’s Rosebuds In 2014 and 2015 and wrestled a 50-second enhancement match against Charlotte Flair on NXT before earning a contract in 2018 following the Mae Young Classic. During her time on the NXT roster, she would wrestle over 100 times which included another match against Flair, which this time lasted a more respectable seven minutes.

MJF is one of the breakout stars of AEW, and at 25 years of age, has achieved more than some wrestlers do in their entire careers. Not long after debuting for the promotion, Tony Khan sensibly locked him into a multi-year contract, which expires in 2024, and it’s undoubtedly for far more than the $250 he was earning per match for MLW. However, when his AEW contract expires, it’s hard to imagine WWE not making a play for him, and MJF was asked about this in a recent interview with Steel Chair Magazine.

The interview was done very much in character, so that has to be taken into account. However, it’s only common sense that a performer would be open to proposals from another promotion if more money was on the table. Right now, speculating on MJF’s future is unproductive as the wrestling landscape could look vastly different in three years than it does today. Although if MJFs stays injury-free and continues to be pushed as a star, it’s likely he’ll be looking at some huge numbers on future contract offers.

Vince Russo worked for WWE between 1992–1999 and went from being a freelance writer for WWF Magazine to being their head writer for television. While his ideas are often criticized, it isn’t a coincidence that his rise within WWE led to Raw overtaking Nitro in the ratings. During this time, Russo worked with some of the biggest names in wrestling, including The Rock, The Undertaker, Mick Foley, Steve Austin, and Triple H. Now, in an interview with YouTube channel SmarkBusters, he has spoken about his time in WWE and revealed that he started looking at Triple H differently after he refused to put over D-Lo Brown.

Triple H had a reputation during his prime years for refusing to put wrestlers over with Scott Steiner, Booker T, RVD, and Kurt Angle, all coming to mind as people whose careers were held back due to him. It should be noted that Brown did achieve a singles victory over Triple H when he defeated him for the European Championships in 1998. However, it did involve The Rock hitting Triple H with the Rock Bottom before Brown got the pin and was done to build up a match between the pair.

Often in wrestling, it’s about being in the right place at the right time and taking advantage of openings that present themselves to you, even if it, unfortunately, comes at the expense of someone else. An example of this was Kevin Owens’ Universal Championship reign which came about because Finn Bálor had to vacate the title due to injuring his shoulder during the match he won the title.

As champion, Owens found himself as a significant part of Raw, and the legendary “Festival of Friendship” segment with Chris Jericho looked set to propel the duo to the main event of WrestleMania 33. However, plans changed, and instead, Owens was beaten by Goldberg in 22 seconds after a distraction by Jericho, and his run as champion ended at 188 days.

Now, in an interview with TalkSport, Owens has opened up about his time as Universal Champion, revealing that he doesn’t care that his reign ended in a squash. Although he does regret that he didn’t take the time to enjoy his run as champion, and he’d love to take the title from Reigns to make things right for himself.

Right now, Cesaro is the man feuding with Reigns for the Universal Championship, and given that Owens recently worked a program with Reigns, it seems unlikely he’ll be challenging for the title again soon. Although, as his previous world title run shows, an injury or a change of plans can result in a title switch, and it sounds Owens is ready to grab that opportunity if it arises.

Big Cass had been suffering from mental health issues and an alcohol addiction following his WWE release in June 2018. However, he returned to wrestling after almost 18 months away in February 2021 on an independent show. Looking to be in great shape and apparently in a good place mentally, Impact Wrestling took a chance with him and signed him to a contract. He’d go on to make his debut at their Rebellion pay-per-view under the name W. Morrissey where he was a surprise replacement for Eric Young in an eight-man tag match.

With his career now is seemingly only back on track, it’s been revealed that he is in a new relationship and is dating Lexy Nair, the stepdaughter of Diamond Dallas Page. Fans learned of this news via an Instagram post where Nair posted a photo of them both looking into each other’s eyes with the caption “Alexa play The Lion King’s ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’ 🤣🦁🥰”

The couple met through DDP, who supported Cass with his recovery, and Nair is herself involved in the wrestling business. She is has been a backstage interviewer for AEW since January 2020 and currently hosts their Outside The Ring interview show.

In May 2020, Alberto Del Rio was accused by his now ex-girlfriend of kidnapping and assaulting her, plus threatening to leave her young child in the street. After being indicted by a grand jury his trial was meant to start on January 25th, 2021 but was postponed until May 3rd, 2021. It’s now been confirmed that the trial has been delayed again and will now take place on August 2nd, 2021. It isn’t known as of writing why it was pushed back yet again.

With the alleged crimes taking place in Texas, Del Rio could be imprisoned for life if found guilty. The case, though, is complicated as Del Rio’s accuser has officially dropped the charges against him. He also claims no assault took place, and her son was not at the house at the time of their argument, which was caused by his infidelity. However, only the state can drop the case only, and clearly, they are progressing.

Del Rio is currently attempting to rebuild his career and recently returned to the wrestling ring and is now taking further bookings. A few days before this new trial date, he is scheduled to face Andrade in a high-profile match, which could be his final time competing for some time if he is sentenced.

Kurt Angle broke his neck five times throughout both his amateur and professional wrestling careers. Famously once during the Olympics, and a further four times in a WWE ring. These, along with a list of other injuries, left Angle in constant pain, and he couldn’t handle a full-time WWE schedule and requested his release in 2006. WWE obliged as there was genuine concern the Olympic hero could die and didn’t want that happening on their watch.

At the time of his WWE release, Angle was taking up to 65 extra-strength Vicodin a day and has revealed on his podcast he was so out of control he would actually leave threatening messages for Vince McMahon. Surprisingly WWE’s head-honcho actually ignored them, and Angle had to go and talk to McMahon.

This talk resulted in McMahon offering to send Angle to rehab and then bring him back in six months. However, Angle would decline this offer and signed with TNA for their lighter schedule. Sadly he didn’t get his life together straight away and had four DUI’s over five years. Thankfully, in 2013, he got clean after checking into rehab and returned to WWE in 2017, speaking to McMahon for the first time in 11 years.

Angle retired from the ring in 2019 at Wrestlemania 35, putting Baron Corbin over in the process, and was released as part of WWE’s mass cuts in April 2020. Since then, the Olympic gold medalist has had stem cell therapy at BioXcellarator in Colombia to help him cope with his constant pain. Doctors have told him he requires another neck surgery, and this one will keep him bedbound for up to six months. It’s sad to think of anyone in constant discomfort, so with luck, it significantly improves his quality of life when he does get further surgery.

Eva Marie returned to WWE television on Raw, having departed the company in 2017. Her return came in the form of a video vignette in which she asks fans, “do I have your attention?” and “this is Eva-Lution.” Since then, it has been revealed that “Eva-Lution” wasn’t just a throwaway line, and it is going to be a part of her gimmick as the company filed a trademark application for the term on Monday.

Marie is expected to receive a big push, and she has been hard at work at the Performance Center working on her in-ring abilities, which is something she was criticized for in the past. Her return attracted a lot of attention on social media, with the name trending on Twitter for a considerable amount of time. Many fans were pleased to see her making her WWE comeback, and she would trend on Twitter well into Tuesday. However, at the same time, many questioned the logic of releasing Chelsea Green, Mickie James, Peyton Royce, and Billie Kay and then having Marie return. It should be noted though Marie had been re-signed with the company since October last year, and the company was waiting for the right time to re-introduce her.

Marie initially joined WWE in 2013, having signed a developmental contract, and quickly got a role on the E! reality show Total Divas. This also led to her being rushed to the main roster. She’d eventually disappear from television to train with Brian Kendrick to improve her in-ring ability. She’d go on to appear on NXT in 2015 and then returned to the main roster in 2016. She’d depart the company due to focusing on other projects, and competed on Celebrity Big Brother, became an ambassador for Monster Energy’s Reign brand, and launched a fashion range with Ryderwear in Australia.