Tons Of News – Cody Rhodes, Elon Musk, AJ Mendez, Ricochet, Eric Young, RVD, SummerSlam
During Saturday’s WWE SummerSlam 2023 pay-per-view event, IYO SKY cashed in her Money in the Bank contract on Bianca Belair to win the WWE Women’s Championship.
Fightful Select reports that the title change was not a last-minute booking decision, although it’s unclear exactly how long before the pay-per-view event Sky was informed about her big title win.
In addition, SummerSlam went slightly over time. While most of the matches were scheduled at about 15 minutes, some did go over that limit, although there’s no word of any bout that drastically went over.
In an interview with Fightful, Cody Rhodes explained why he stopped appearing on ‘Being the Elite’ and teased a potential return to the digital series in the future.
Since ‘Being the Elite’ is owned by The Young Bucks, and not AEW, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for Cody to return. He said,
“I don’t even remember. I think the workload for me was a problem. I was really proud of the Exorcism of Cody Rhodes and pretty much everything I had done on there, but I treated that the same way I treated SummerSlam. I was very committed, very all in, and with the job that I had and the other job I had, I think I fell out of the normal cast. Plus, the cast changed. I want to say my last appearance was the drone funeral. I loved that. I thought that was a good way to go out. You never know, that’s a show that’s everywhere. I could make a cameo, I could make a return. There is a lot of fun that was had there, for sure.”
In an interview with “The Wrestling Perspective” Podcast, Eric Young revealed that he doesn’t have a pen-and-paper deal with Impact Wrestling just yet, but instead has a personal agreement with Scott D’Amore. Young expects to sign a deal soon. He said,
“I think it’s something that we could cross that bridge as far as contracts go. I’m under an agreement with Scott right now, and we’re working on it. There’s actually some really cool stuff that will probably come out in October/November. An opportunity I have with Anthem and with Access. So the deal is really complicated, and that’s why it’s kind of taking so long, but I will definitely be there up until the Emergence Pay-Per-View in Toronto and hope to be past that as well. I would be very surprised if we didn’t work something out”
On her Instagram Stories, AJ Mendez (formerly AJ Lee) revealed that her contract with WOW (Women of Wrestling) will expire at the end of the current season.
Mendez originally joined the show as a commentator in 2021. She tweeted,
“As my season-long contract with @WOWSuperheroes winds down, I wanna thank the ladies for welcoming me into their locker room, our hair and makeup talk sessions and constantly inspiring me with their hard work, talent, and genuine camaraderie,” she said. “I’ll try to come back and play sometime in the future! I hope all you fans keep watching next season to support these incredible athletes and stars of tomorrow.”
Silicon Valley billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg were recently engaged in verbal warfare with UFC President Dana White confirming that the two men are “dead serious” about battling each other inside a cage.
While the match hasn’t happened (yet), it seems Musk is still keen on fighting. Taking to Twitter/X, Musk wrote,
“Am going with @WWE as my fighting style.”
Am going with @WWE as my fighting style https://t.co/CggZ7HhrPQ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2023
Last month on AEW Collision, The House of Black defeated The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn, with Daddy Ass leaving his boots in the ring after the match, signaling his retirement.
In an interview with Chrissy Chaos, Anthony Bowens noted that he wasn’t aware that Gunn would retire on that night. He said,
“No, I really didn’t. I don’t think the cameras caught it, but I get very emotional when I’m out there because I get connected to the audience, I don’t think I’ve cried in a wrestling ring. I got teary eyed because he stood up and his face was beat red, and at this point in our careers where Billy has been such a beacon of light for us, he’s been guiding us from the beginning since we joined up with him last year. He guided us to the AEW Tag Team Titles in New York City. He’s been teaching us a ton of stuff every single week. To think about not having him out there with us, it hurts.”
On the “Stay Busy” podcast, Ricochet revealed which wrestler he would like to fight again, noting that has yet to score a definitive win over AJ Styles. Ricochet said,
“For me, there’s nobody better than AJ Styles and I’m still yet to get that definitive win over AJ Styles. So until I can get that definitive win, I can barely even say that, but like it doesn’t get any better than AJ Styles.”
Ricochet and Styles previously fought at WWE Extreme Rules 2019, where Styles won the United States Title from the high-flying athlete.
On the “Under the Ring” podcast, Konnan spoke about Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide’s television deal negotiations in the United States, noting that the promotion will hopefully bag a deal in 2024. He said,
“Hopefully, next year, I can’t get into details, but we’re negotiating to come into the United States in a major way, hopefully with a TV deal, and show people what Mexican Lucha libre is all about. You won’t see what you see in the United States, which is basically Mexican wrestlers within the confines of an American style. You’re gonna see straight Lucha libre like you saw, maybe if you ever saw Lucha Underground.”
On the “1 of a Kind” podcast, Rob Van Dam discussed his AEW debut, explaining how Tony Khan’s company was able to keep it a secret. The information still leaked a few hours before Dynamite went live, and fans began chanting RVD’s name before he appeared.
The WWE Hall of Famer said,
“It was a pretty good reaction from the crowd. I was concerned that the surprise would be blown because it usually is, and it didn’t get too far out. Even a lot of the boys were surprised, and they went through so much trouble to hide me. Even after we pulled into the garage, they put me in a wheelchair and put a black curtain over the top of me and pushed me all the way back to this room and I just had my own room, so I was like, ‘I’m not gonna fuck it up after they went through all that trouble’ and so I just stayed into my room until after my appearance. I was still seeing guys at the end of the night, Jeff Hardy and Matt and Brian Cage and they were still surprised. Everyone kept the lid on it pretty good.”
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