In March, the XFL suspended the league for the rest of the regular season due to the coronavirus pandemic. Now it’s been confirmed that following an internal call with COO Jeffery Pollock, employees were told the league was suspending operations, and they were all being laid off. It isn’t known if this is the end of the league for good, but ESPN says sources have told them there are no plans to return in 2021. The league was doing decent ratings within expectations initially, but they were decreasing week on week, and it’s believed economic uncertainties have resulted in Vince McMahon making this decision. McMahon himself sold approximately $300 million in WWE stock to fund the league.

Paige hosted a Zoom call that she streamed live with a Nia Jax, Peyton Royce, Billie Kay, Renee Young, and Natalya, where Nia Jax revealed she went to WWE management to tell them that Alexa Bliss was getting hurt while working with an unnamed wrestler. Still, Bliss didn’t want to say anything as she wanted to be a team player.

Nia Jax said she told management:

While we can’t be 100% sure, it is strongly believed Jax was talking about Ronda Rousey because Alexa Bliss has previously confirmed on her episode of WWE 365 on the WWE Network that Rousey had given her a concussion.

The hypocrisy though of Nia Jax complaining about someone injuring another wrestler is off the charts. She has caused numerous injuries during her WWE career, including famously breaking Becky Lynch’s nose and giving her a concussion during the hottest period of her career, and as you can see below, she didn’t always take care of Alexa Bliss herself.

Dynamite has been comfortably beating NXT in the Wednesday Night Wars, and some weeks NXT seemingly hasn’t even been in the fight. Dynamite is currently on a 14-week winning streak and holds a 22-3-1 record. Triple H though is not concerned about this as he told Sports Illustrated he is interested in the long-term. He also insinuates that All Elite Wrestling won’t be able to maintain their run and will lose their pizzazz, as you can read below.

From the sound of that, it appears WWE doesn’t plan in throwing in the towel anytime soon and is up for the fight, which is excellent news for us fans who are the real winners every Wednesday night.

Most of us have heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Still, perhaps Vince McMahon hasn’t, because he contemplated having a second Brawl For All tournament.

With WWE’s disastrous Brawl for All 1998 tournament back in the limelight following the excellent Vice Dark Side of the Ring documentary series (narrated by our own Chris Jericho), it’s been revealed by former WWE creative team member John Piermarini that Vince McMahon wanted to do another Brawl For All with NXT talent. You can read his tweet below.

@jasoneisener @evanhusney incredible job with both seasons of @DarkSideOfRing. Funny story – while on creative in either 2009 or 2010 Vince wanted to do another Brawl For All with the guys competing on NXT (in its original format). He had to be talked out of it.

— John Piermarini (@JohnAsHimself) April 8, 2020

The first season of NXT included physical challenges, so it’s likely this is where Brawl For All would have come into play, and was contested between Wade Barrett, David Otunga, Justin Gabriel, Heath Slater, Darren Young, Ryback (as Skip Sheffield), Daniel Bryan, and Michael Tarver. Although these wrestlers could have been changed to better play into the Brawl For All concept. If the original roster had competed, Wade Barrett would have been a firm favorite as he claims to have been a bare-knuckle boxer before getting into wrestling.

Thankfully Vince McMahon was talked out of the idea as the Brawl For All damaged reputations, caused severe injuries, and even forced Brakkus to retire. It did, though, have pretty awesome theme music.

Interim titles have been part of boxing and MMA for some time, and now they are about to become part of WWE, as NXT General Manager William Regal announced an interim Cruiserweight Championship tournament during today’s episode of The Bump.

An interim title is used when the champion is temporarily unable to defend their championship due to reasons outside of their control, and that is the case with WWE’s Cruiserweight Championship held by Jordan Devlin, who is currently unable to travel to the US for upcoming tapings. NXT will now crown their first-ever interim champion during a tournament, who if WWE follows the standards in boxing and MMA, will be the mandatory challenger for Devlin when he can travel.

It will now be interesting to see what happens with the NXT Tag Team Championship as one-half of the champions Pete Dunne is currently in the United Kingdom, so in the same position as Devlin being unable to defend.

Earlier today, we shared the news first reported by PWInsider.com that Rhea Ripley had to return to Australia to renew her work visa. This was considered as a contributing factor for losing her NXT Championship to Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania 36 as she’d be unavailable indefinitely.

Ripley seemingly denies this report as she posted the below video on her social media earlier today.

It isn’t known, therefore, if she does need to renew or work visa or not, but she isn’t in Australia.

Many fans were unhappy following Charlotte Flair’s NXT Championship victory over Rhea Ripley at WrestleMania. Some people were claiming that Charlotte was using her influence to “bury” Ripley or speculating that WWE had made her a full-time NXT talent in their ratings battle against AEW. It appears though the truth is much simpler, as Ripley had to drop the title because she is going to be unavailable for the foreseeable future.

PWinsiderElite.com has reported that Rhea Ripley has had to return to Australia to renew her work visa, as it has now expired, and must be dealt with in-person. When she arrives in Australia, she will be quarantined for 14 days and unable to return to the US until Australia loosens its international restrictions because of COVID-19.

It’s impossible to know when she will return, but she will miss the upcoming scheduled set of NXT tapings and potentially the ones following that. Given this information, WWE’s only sensible option was to put the title on Charlotte Flair.

UPDATE: Rhea Ripley has denied she has returned to Australia.

Having Raw and SmackDown at the Performance Center is one thing, but WrestleMania 36 taking place there just didn’t work for me. WrestleMania is an event built on spectacle, and without the grand entrances, the fireworks, and a wild audience, it felt lifeless to me.

A number of the matches were good, but underwhelming given the real-world circumstances we are all experiencing at the moment, which witnessing an empty venue continually reminded me about. Then you add the fact the Goldberg vs. Strowman was one of the worst WrestleMania matches ever, and the show was ruined for me. Or so I thought because WWE had indeed saved the best for last with the Boneyard match main event of The Undertaker vs. AJ Styles. Not only did it save the show, but it became one of my favorite WrestleMania matches ever.

With the match taking place at an alternative location to the Performace Center automatically made it the best thing on the show. Still, WWE outdid themselves, giving us a real movie production, produced by Michael Hayes.

I found it to be one of the most entertaining matches of all time. It wasn’t perfect, I could have done without the jobber druids, and The Undertaker teleporting out of the grave. But everything else was great, especially AJ’s coffin entrance, The American Badass Metallica entrance, the chokeslam off the roof, the constant trash-talking, and the twist at the end where The Undertaker makes it seem he wouldn’t bury AJ but then giving him a big boot into the open grave, and finally the gravestone reveal. The match probably lives in a world where star ratings don’t apply, but personally, I see it as a five-star match. If you haven’t seen it, I strongly suggest you do. It was obviously heavily inspired by Matt Hardy’s Final Deletion but played seriously.

I can’t imagine The Undertaker will ever have a better match than this again, and given two of his recent outing against Goldberg and DX were duds, this match might be the right way for his career to go out, main eventing WrestleMania with a match of the year contender.

I now wait to see if the Firefly Funhouse match between The Fiend and John Cena can save night 2.

WWE has removed a John Cena promo video from WWE.com and all their social media accounts that were meant to be building interest in his match against The Fiend at WrestleMania. The exact reason is was deleted is unknown, but is likely because he buried The Fiend gimmick, and referenced Bray Wyatt’s previous Husky Harris gimmick with the below comment:

You can watch the full video below thanks to Twitter user @rondarouseyszn, who had the foresight to save it.

John Cena will be facing The Fiend in the first-ever Firefly Funhouse Match on the second night of WrestleMania 36, and hopefully, the match is better than the promo was.

Pro wrestling veteran Tracy Smothers who competed in WCW, WWE, ECW, and Smokey Mountain, was sadly diagnosed with stage III lymphoma last November. In addition, Tracy has also lost 45% of his heart’s function following a suspected heart attack.

Now his close friend and fellow wrestler Kassius Ohno of NXT has started a GoFundMe to help him, writing:

You can donate to the campaign here, or alternatively purchase a Tracy Smothers benefit t-shirt with 100% of profits going to Tracy here.

Since its inception, AEW fans have been clamoring for a secondary title, and today the promotion has announced that it is coming in the form of the TNT Championship. The inaugural champion will be decided through an eight-man tournament commencing on the 8th April Dynamite episode, and concluding at the Double or Nothing PPV on Saturday, May 23.

AEW President Tony Khan said on the new championship.

On Tuesday night’s episode of Dark, the first half of the bracket will be confirmed, with the second half on Wednesday night’s Dynamite.

In pro wrestling, “card subject to change” is a well-known clause, but surely it doesn’t count when the promoter knows for a fact a match did not happen.

So given that WrestleMania was taped at the end of last week, it feels disingenuous for WWE continuing to promote the ladder match between The Miz and John Morrison, The Uso’s, and The New Day which was scheduled for the show but was not taped.

This match did not take place because The Miz turned up at the Performance Center unwell and now has incredible backstage heat on him because him turning up ill resulted in Roman Reigns pulling out of his Universal Championship match against Goldberg. Reigns felt it was too much of a risk to remain in the building as his immune system is compromised stemming from battling leukemia twice.

It’s understood that in place of the advertised match, a singles match between John Morrison and one of The Uso’s occurred.