Taya Valkyrie, who held the record for the longest Impact Knockouts Championship reign at 377 days, failed to recapture the title at Impact Wrestling’s January pay-per-view. It would later come out that her contract had expired, and she was leaving the promotion. Impact wrote her off television by revealing she was behind the long-running angle on who shot John E. Bravo in a segment played for comedy. Tommy Dreamer would say in the skit when discussing Valkyrie’s arrest that if she’s lucky, she’ll go to Jacksonville State Prison in reference to AEW. If she is unlucky, she’ll go to Stamford Maximum Penitentiary, alluding to WWE.
Today it’s been revealed that Valkyrie is WWE bound and will be joining her husband, John Morrison working for Vince McMahon. While not yet confirmed, it is expected she’ll be part of NXT shortly. Valkyrie is a graduate of Lance Storm’s Wrestling Academy, and just two years into her career, she moved from Canada to Mexico to wrestle for AAA. She’d appear in Lucha Underground and then Impact Wrestling and returned to AAA as an Impact representative in 2018.
Valkyrie is currently AAA’s Reina de Reinas Champion but didn’t return to Mexico in 2020 to defend the title. Her lone title defense in 2020 would take place in the UK on an independent show. Given she is now signed with WWE, it’s best to consider the title relinquished.
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Dolph Ziggler’s younger brother Ryan Nemeth hadn’t wrestled since 2018 but recently resumed his career in AEW. He has competed five times for the company, including two high-profile appearances on Dynamite, losing to Adam Page and Pac Now Ryan has spoken to Chris Van Vliet and spoken about the constant comparisons he gets to his brother.
There are similarities. We are brothers, we are related, we were both trained by the exact same people in wrestling. We grew up wrestling for the same school together. But I will say I’ve spent my entire wrestling career looking and dressing the exact opposite of him. He had blond hair, I dyed mine black. He wore pants, I wore shorts. No matter what I do, for a decade, any time I’m in a match, the Internet says I’m a carbon copy of him. But we’ve had pretty different lives. He was a college wrestler, I focused more on acting and writing. In the past few years, to do so many of these things together is awesome. I never felt like we were competing for anything though. Ryan Nemeth
Ryan’s wrestling career began a decade ago when he started wrestling for OVW. This led to him signing with WWE in 2011 and wrestling for their developmental territory FCW. During this time, he competed under the name Briley Pierce and won their tag team championships with Brad Maddox. However, less than a year after FCW merged with NXT, he was released by WWE in 2013. He’d initially take a break from wrestling following his release but began working the Californian indie scene in 2016. During his time away from wrestling go to waste, he got into acting and writing, most notably making appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live, playing multiple characters such as Cowboy Andy and Karate Kidney Bean. He currently has a short film in post-production called Heel, which he wrote and stars in, and includes his brother.
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During the now-infamous Colt Cabana podcast with CM Punk, the self-proclaimed Voice of The Voiceless revealed he had proposed Chris Hero be part of a new group with Seth Rollins and Jon Moxley, which went on to be called The Shield. WWE obviously went with the choice of Roman Reigns instead of Hero, who was then known as Kassius Ohno. Over the years, there have been numerous fan debates about how the stable and WWE as a whole would be different had Hero been included. Hero has now explained in an interview that talk of him being in The Shield annoys him, and in fact, when his name was suggested, the group wasn’t even The Shield yet.
A little thing that annoys me about this is that people heard the podcast with Punk, and then they put that information out there, and it just kind of took a life of its own. When Punk pitched the trio of myself, Ambrose, and Rollins, there was no “Shield” concept. It was just, “Hey, let’s pair these three guys with me.” Right? So, technically, I was never supposed to be a member of The Shield because The Shield didn’t exist when this was pitched.
That’s a thing that I see on Twitter pretty much every other day. It gets a little annoying because it’s deviated so far from the original source of it. I found out just when everybody else found out by listening to CM Punk on The Art of Wrestling podcast. I’d never had a conversation with him about this.Chris Hero
Hero was part of the mass releases WWE made in April 2020 and hasn’t wrestled since. However, that isn’t due to a shortage of offers. At present, he is focusing on his new podcast titled Can Chris Hero Save Wrestling?, which is part of the AdFreeShows.com Patreon page.
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In 2019, Former WWE Superstar and multi-time World Champion CM Punk confirmed he was planning on getting a Harley Race tattoo. It’s now been confirmed by tattoo artist Nick Colella that Punk has gotten the tattoo as he posted a photo on Instagram captioned “Stoked to do this memorial for pro wrestler Harley Race on his friend @cmpunk thanks for the trust.” You can view the kickass tattoo in all its glory below.
While talking to Sportsnet.ca in October 2019, Punk explained that Race was an influential part of his pre-WWE career and felt the eight-time NWA World Championship, who sadly passed away in 2019, deserves to be memorialized.
That’s just the way it works now. Tattoos are, to me, it’s like a receipt and a road map to where you’ve been in life. And a lot of them tell stories. So I will get them to memorialize people or events such as the Stanley Cup run in the summer, you know, my summer vacation. I think Harley was a big piece of my career, whether people realize it or not. And he’s just somebody who deserves to be memorialized, I feel. CM Punk
Punk has said he often asked himself during his career, “What would Harley do?” Plus, over the years shared numerous stories about his time with Race but has stated that his favorite is when he has presented a shot at Race’s birthday party. He was being pressured to break his straight-edge lifestyle due to it being for Race, but the man himself would say, ‘That’s Punk, he doesn’t drink.” At that point, Punk says he knew he’d made it because his hero respected him enough not to make him drink.
Curiously Bruce Prichard has told a version of this story on his Something To Wrestle With podcast where Punk drinks the shot. However, as Prichard wasn’t in attendance, he likely isn’t letting the truth get the way of a good story and trying to make it look like Punk would go against his beliefs.
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We previously reported Booker T is suing Activision Publishing, Activision Blizzard, and Major League Gaming Corp. This is due to him believing their character David “Prophet” Wilkes in Call Of Duty: Black Ops is based on his G.I. Bro gimmick. Booker T used that character on Texas independents, WCW, and in a comic book. Activision had attempted to get the case filed in 2019 dismissed, but Judge Robert Schroeder ruled the case can proceed. A court date of 19th April 2021 has now been set.
Unrelated to this lawsuit, Activision was previously sued by AM General, the manufacturer of the Humvee, for trademark infringement, due to including the vehicle in Call of Duty video games. The case ended up getting dismissed because a judge ruled the vehicle’s use was integral to the game wanting to produce a historically accurate and realistic portrayal of warfare.
This isn’t the first lawsuit involving a wrestler and video game. In July 2003, Maxx Payne (Man Mountain Rock in WWF) sued Rockstar Games, 3D Realms, Gathering of Developers, and Remedy Entertainment for taking his name for the video game “Max Pain.” He wanted $10 million but ended up settling out of court.
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58-year-old Keiji Mutoh has defeated Go Shiozaki to become the Global Honored Crown Heavyweight Champion, one of the top titles in Japanese wrestling. The match took place at NOAH’s Destination 2021 show at Budokan Hall, and Mutoh’s victory ended Shiozaki’s 406-day run as champion. You can watch the conclusion to the match below.
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Mutoh, also known as The Great Muta, was one of the first Japanese wrestlers to achieve significant success outside of Japan after wrestling for WCW. He is also considered an all-time great in his home country and has previously held the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship three times and IWGP Heavyweight Championship four times.
While the GHC title is not considered as prestigious as his other world championships, during the early 2000s, the promotion was considered one of the biggest and best in Japan. The wrestling was of the highest quality, and readers of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter voted two of their matches (2003 and 2004) as Match of the Year. Sadly the promotion declined massively in popularity following the loss of their television deal, the death of founder Mitsuharu Misawa’s in the ring, and ties to the Yakuza being revealed. Now though, the company is beginning to thrive again after being acquired by CyberAgent, who also owns DDT Pro Wrestling and wants to make them more prominent than New Japan.
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It’s always best to stay on your boss’s right side, which is especially true in the wrestling business when a promoter can make or break a career. In WWE, if you get on head-honcho Vince McMahon’s wrong side, it can result in getting fired, or arguably worse, getting buried. Now Kurt Angle has revealed on his podcast that Cedric Alexander had to deal with just that. Apparently, he didn’t do something that he was requested to do, and McMahon purposely made him look bad.
You look at what they have been doing with Alexander, the Hurt Business. You know, he got in a little trouble last year. He didn’t do something that Vince wanted him to do, and you know, if you don’t listen to your boss, things could get a little bit, you know, depressing for you, and he didn’t listen the one night, and they scolded him for a good half-year before they started using him again, and rightfully so, he should have listened. That is his job, it’s to listen to Vince and do what Vince tells you to do, and he didn’t do that. So, I thought, “Wow, this kid’s career is over,” you know, when that happened, and Vince eventually gave him another chance. Kurt Angle
There were rumors that Alexander was purposely getting buried back in 2019 when his match against AJ Styles at Clash of Champions was relegated to the pre-show, and he’d lose easily. Then on Raw, he’d take the pin in a six-man tag and was beaten up post-match without making a comeback. However, Alexander would deny he was being buried in an interview, either seemingly wanting to protect his reputation or possibly being unaware it was McMahon’s goal. Thankfully, Alexander’s career is now on an upwards trajectory ever since aligning with The Hurt Business, where he is currently half the Raw Tag team Champions with Shelton Benjamin.
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Mia Yim and Keith Lee have been dating for many years and currently find themselves working together on Raw. Now the loved-up couple has shared some happy news on Twitter, with Yim announcing that Lee has popped the question, and she said yes.
✨ I said yes. Mr. & Mrs. Lee @RealKeithLee ✨ pic.twitter.com/SH7HIxiVwi
— The HBIC (@MiaYim) February 11, 2021
Lee would lose his final independent match before joining WWE to him Yim at a Beyond Wrestling event in Worcester, Massachusetts. Once Yim joined Lee in NXT, the couple would team up twice on house shows in 2019 and twice on television in 202. At the moment, with Yim wrestling as Reckoning as part of RETRIBUTION, it’s unlikely WWE will acknowledge their engagement on television but have congratulated them on WWE.com.
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WWE initially scheduled Braun Strowman to face Drew McIntyre at TLC, but due to a knee injury he suffered at Survivor Series, WWE had to write him off television instead. They’d do this by having him suspended for attacking Adam Pearce in a storyline on Raw. Strowman would miss the next two months but returned on the January 29th episode of SmackDown just in time for the Royal Rumble. While he wrestled in the Rumble match, he was noticeable by his absence on the next episode of SmackDown, and now we know why.
Strowman has shared via an Instagram story that he has been really sick due to an infection that got into his blood. This caused him to lose 15lbs in five days, and all his joints are inflamed. He’d thankfully confirm he is on getting treatment and going to get back training. You can watch the video for yourself below.
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A bloodstream infection can be very serious, but with the proper treatment, which Strowman is certainly getting, people can recover in a few weeks. However, they usually don’t have to wrestle on national television. While Strowman provided no timescales himself about returning, it seems unlikely he’d miss WrestleMania, especially as WWE have two nights to fill.
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AEW has been building towards a Shaquille O’Neal match for several months, and the former NBA star is set to team with Jade Cargill against Cody Rhodes and Red Velvet on the March 3rd episode of Dynamite. However, there is some concern for the match after it was revealed at the end of Arn Anderson’s Coach’s Corner segment that Rhodes is dealing with a shoulder injury.
The belief is that when Cezar Bononi gave Cody an overhead slam on last night’s Dynamite (taped the week prior) that The American Nightmare landed awkwardly and suffered a slight left rotator cuff tear. A rotator cuff tear for those unaware is a rip to the muscles and tendons that stabilize someone’s shoulder joint.
If Cody could not wrestle, it would be a blow to AEW as the match is expected to do great in the ratings. Shaq is a proven ratings draw, after 1.22 million people tuned in to watch Brandi Rhodes throw water in his face back in December. Hopefully, though with it being described as a slight tear, a mixture of physiotherapy, and wrestlers’ well-known ability to battle through pain, Shaq’s in-ring AEW debut can occur as currently scheduled.
The much-hyped match has already seen two changes since it was initially planned. Firstly, Brandi Rhodes had to step aside as Cody’s partner due to pregnancy. Then the match had to be moved off AEW’s Revolution PPV due to the date being the same as the NBA’s rescheduled All-Star game.
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Late last year Bronson Rechsteiner, the son of Rick Steiner, who previously was signed with the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens as an undrafted rookie, had a WWE tryout. It was a no-brainer for WWE to look at the 6ft 230lb athlete based on his proven sporting ability and who his father and uncle are. It now looks like the 23-year old has either signed or is about to sign with the promotion.
This news came during today’s media conference call ahead of NXT TakeOver: Vengeance Day, where Triple H would discuss numerous topics. Among them were talents coming in, and he’d say he is incredibly excited to have the near 300lb Brock Lesnar lookalike, Parker Boudreaux coming in. He’d then add the name of Rechsteiner, seemingly confirming his recruitment.
Rechsteiner made his in-ring debut on an independent show in Georgia back in late October, where he would be accompanied by his uncle Scott to the ring. He’d win the match with The Steiner Recliner, and you can check out his in-ring skills in the below video.
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Being a second-generation wrestler doesn’t guarantee success, as the careers of David Flair, Scott Putski, Ray Gordy, and Shawn Stasiak prove. That said, none of those wrestlers had the athletic ability to make it to the NFL to begin with. So we’ll have to wait and see what the future holds for Bronson Steiner, as he’ll likely soon be known as.
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It’s well-known that John Cena was on the verge of being released in the early days of his main roster WWE career. At one point, he worked a series of matches teaming with Dawn Marie against Billy Kidman and Torrie Wilson and was continuously on the losing side. Wilson has now joked during an online signing that she’d tease Cena by calling him a jobber.
You know what? It’s so funny. I remember on that tour, that was before John Cena really hit it big. I remember teasing him backstage and calling him a jobber, which is like what we call each other when we lose all the time, and I kind of pride myself on that because it was just way before. Who would ever call him a jobber? No one. Torrie Wilson
It seems strange now to look back to Cena’s early days and seeing names like D-Von Dudley, Chuck Palumbo, and Billy Kidman having victories over him. However, this shows that if you impress the right people, in Cena’s that was Stephane McMahon, it is possible to turn a career around.
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