At WWE’s house show in Hershey, Pennsylvania, it appeared that Randy Orton was legitimately injured during a match. Videos went around social media, and many fans feared the worst. Due to being informed it was storyline Web Is Jericho did not cover the injury on our website but did mention it was an angle on Facebook and Twitter. On Monday’s Raw, the angle played out with Orton making a speech about the injury, but it ended up being just so he could fool AJ Styles and would hit him with an RKO confirming he was not injured. What was interesting though was while Orton was addressing his storyline injury, he mentioned Edge.

“I’ve seen champions that have surrendered their title because of injuries. I don’t respect many people, but one man I do respect Edge, he had to surrender his entire friggin career because of an injury, nobody wants to see that happen.”

[AdSense-B] Apart from needing to fill 3-hours of television each week, we’ve been told the reason for the angle was so WWE could remind the fans about Edge’s injury situation, and somewhat foretell his return. As we reported in December, Edge has signed a new WWE contract and is expected to return to the ring after a 9-year layoff.

New Japan’s version of WrestleMania, Wrestle Kingdom 15, is taking place on January 4th and 5th and is being billed as “the largest professional wrestling show in the world outside of the United States.” Thanks to FITE, fans don’t need to be at the Toyko Dome to watch Tetsuya Naito vs. Kota Ibushi, and Kazuchika Okada vs. Will Ospreay, because each night can be streamed for $19.99. Alternatively, the two-day bundle is just $29.99, however, one lucky reader won’t need to pay any money as at all, as we have a code to watch both nights available to win.

So, for your chance to obtain the code, just answer the following question:

Who did Chris Jericho wrestle at Wrestle Kingdom 14?

A) Hiroshi Tanahashi
B) Kazuchika Okada

[contact-form to=”james@webisjericho.com” subject=”Wrestle Kingdom 15″][contact-field label=”Name” type=”name” required=”1″][contact-field label=”Email” type=”email” required=”1″][contact-field label=”Answer” type=”text” required=”1″ options=”Hiroshi Tanahashi,Kazuchika Okada”][/contact-form]

Please note only one entry per email address/person. Entries close on Sunday 3rd January, at 2 PM ET, and the winner will be sent the FITE code via email by 3 PM ET. By submitting your entry, you will also be subscribing to the WIJ Newsletter, which you can unsubscribe from with one-click.

The launch of WWE 2K20 was a total disaster, with #FixWWE2K20 trending on Twitter on release. The bugs included entrance music sometimes playing for the entire match, referees not counting pins, custom created wrestlers having no faces, and winning ladder matches without grabbing anything.

The game’s problems seem to have come from it no longer being developed by Yuke’s, the company that has made WWE’s games for the past 20 years, and instead being picked up by Visual Concepts who are 2K’s in-house developers.

It had appeared things had improved with patches coming out to limit the issues, but then we entered 2020, and the game totally broke, as you can see from the video below.

It seems the game can’t handle the new date when playing online, and the only workaround fans have found is to change the year in the settings to 2019. That though doesn’t work on Xbox One.

2K is aware of the problem and posted the below tweet earlier today.

Hopefully, for fans who were duped into buying this dumpster fire of a game, the fix is forthcoming.

As we’ve previously reported, Jim Cornette is suing deathmatch wrestler Brandon “G-Raver” Graver, The Indy Connection, and Shopify over their “Fuck Jim Cornette” t-shirt.

They are now poking the bear and have begun selling a new Jim Cornette inspired t-shirt through the URL clownette.com. The shirt which you can see below is already sold out, but more stock is due.

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We now wait to see what Cornette and his lawyer Stephen P. New do next. The fact the shirt doesn’t mention Jim Cornette by name, unlike the”Fuck Jim Cornette” shirt, might be the legal loophole G-Raver, and The Indy Connection feels legally protects them. That or they just don’t care about the repercussions.

In May 2019, it came out that Lars Sullivan had previously posted racist, sexist, homophobic, and other offensive posts on Bodybuildig.com. WWE found out, and he was fined $100,000 and required him to complete sensitivity training even though it happened well before he joined the company.

Now though in a twist that nobody saw coming, it turns out that Lars Sullivan has previously made gay porn movies under the name Mitch Bennett.

While we are not going to post the images or videos fans are sharing, due to not wanting to fall foul of any content filters, it is him. A tattoo of his initials “DM” which stands for his real name Dylan Miley is clearly visible, and likely why he had the tattoo covered up.

We will now need to wait and see if this revelation impacts his WWE career. He is currently recovering from a knee injury and is due to return to the ring in June 2020.

New Japan was not happy that AEW launched. They had planned to base international expansion and become a player in the USA based on the Elite, and especially Kenny Omega. So the creation of AEW hit them hard. Add the fact New Japan are partners with CMLL, and AEW are partners with their rival AAA things become very political.

Taking that into account, it seemed impossible that a full-time New Japan wrestler could wrestle for the AEW Championship, but following the below video from Chris Jericho, it has become a real possibility.

Speculation begun after NJPW legend Hiroshi Tanahashi told the below to Toyko Sports, which we have translated from Japanese:

We now need to see what happens at Wrestle Kingdom 14, with the match taking place on January 5th. If Tanahashi does win we now officially know he will get an opportunity at the AEW Championship.

An Oklahoma firefighters pension fund, who owns stocks in WWE have filed a lawsuit on December 26th against WWE to see the documentation relating to WWE and the XFL. This is because they believe that Vince McMahon and WWE have breached their duties to investors by starting the XFL and that WWE executives and resources will be used for the league.

The XFL is being funded by Vince McMahon personally through Alpha Entertainment. Still, there is the likelihood that McMahon will be distracted by the launch taking away from his WWE work.

Another potential issue that could come up is the fact the Alliance of American Football offered WWE $50 million for the XFL name and trademarks, and instead, WWE gave them to Alpha Entertainment for free. This could come back to bite McMahon.

AEW pulled off somewhat of a coup signing Kris Statlander, she was very close to signing a contract with WWE, but the offer of immediate TV time and a push got her to join AEW instead.

Since appearing for the company, she has been on fire and was due to challenge Riho for the AEW Women’s World Championship on New Year Day’s Dynamite episode after she won #1 contenders match against Dr. Britt Baker. Unfortunately it seems due to an oversight she will be unable to compete for AEW in Jacksonville as she is scheduled to be in Los Angeles for Bar Wrestling as you can see below.

When the clash became apparent, AEW announced the match would be postponed, with Tony Khan taking the time to comment himself directly on Twitter.

So Statlander will now challenge for the title on January 8th, and we’ll have to wait and see if there are any consequences for her for not making the booking clash known before AEW booked her in a title match form the same day.

Madison Square Garden is regarded as WWE’s home area, and Vince McMahon likes to give the fans the best show possible at the venue.

Tonight he decided to make the evening memorable for those in attendance because Andrade defeated Rey Mysterio to become the new United States Champion. You can watch some fan-filmed footage of the finish below.

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REY MYSTERIO JUST LOST THE US TITLE TO ANDRADE!! #WWEMSG pic.twitter.com/JeWYsOYz5p

— ᴼⁿᵉᵀʷᵉⁿᵗⁱⁱˢᵉᵛᵉⁿ ⁿ (@c_xx_vii) December 27, 2019

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Andrade becomes the new United States champion by defeating Rey Mysterio at Madison Square Garden #WWEMSG #andnew pic.twitter.com/wtwkigzmdE

— Justin Barrasso (@JustinBarrasso) December 27, 2019

This is not the first time the US title has changed hands at an MSG house show. Back in July 2017, AJ Styles beat Kevin Owens for the championship.

Back in September, we reported that Jim Cornette had threatened legal action against Brandon “G-Raver” Graver over his selling of a “Fuck Jim Cornette” t-shirt. The pair had fallen out over Twitter after Cornette heard about G-Raver getting injured in a deathmatch, and saying he should have been allowed to bleed to death.

Neither G-Raver nor The Indy Connection, who sold shirt, seemed to take Jim Cornette’s threat seriously. They continued to sell the shirt privately and now are being sued, along with Shopify, who provide the software to sell the shirt. Journalist David Bixenspan has obtained a copy of the legal complain which you can view here.

G-Raver would comment on the upcoming legal action with the below tweet.

We will now need to see how this plays out. G-Raver had to use GoFundMe to pay for his medical bills following his injury, so its unlikely Cornette will be able to get much compensation from him. The Indy Connection and Shopify may, though, have deeper pockets.

Interestingly Cornette is selling the offensive t-shirt himself on his website, with $5 going to charity for every shirt sold.

Last week Raw had a non-holiday record-low 2.05 million viewers. This week which would be considered a holiday episode, was 1.78 million viewers.

It actually just beat last year’s equivalent episode but was well down from 2017, as you can see below.

24th December 2018 – 1,775,000 viewers.

25th December 2017 – 2,706,000 viewers.

26th December 2016 – 2,855,000 viewers.

It was against the Vikings vs. Packers game, which did 13.57 million viewers, but that number is not that unusual for an NFL match.

The show itself was taped 16th December, which would not have helped, and featured The US title main event saw Rey Mysterio defeat Seth Rollins via DQ after AOP attacked Rey Mysterio. Samoa Joe was then laid out by AOP at the end of the show.

The sooner we get to WrestleMania season, the better for WWE and USA Network.

Exact details are not yet known, but it has been confirmed that Mr. Niebla, whose real name is not known to the public, has passed away at the age of 46. He had recently been hospitalized with a blood infection for a couple of weeks before being released in November.

Alcoholism has plagued him for many years, and that could have played a part in his death. In 2015 he was found unconscious in the locker room while working for New Japan. CMLL had to pay his hospital costs and would fire him. He did return and wrestle for CMLL again, but went to the ring in 2018 while intoxicated and fell out the ring. This resulted in his wrestling license being suspended, meaning he could no longer wrestle for CMLL.

For his wrestling career, his legacy will be that he was CMLL Heavyweight Champion for 543 days, plus one half of the CMLL World Tag Team Champions with Shocker.