It’s time for another News Update as CM Punk shoots on WWE on AEW Dynamite. New champions have been crowned in All Elite Wrestling. And we look at who was supposed to become the new WWE Champion before Brock Lesnar was added to the Day One main event. And if you haven’t already, make sure you subscribe to the channel. And click that notification bell, so you don’t miss any future videos. We have some news regarding an absent WWE superstar who has now being cleared to return. wwe.com have confirmed that Universal Champion, Roman Reigns is set to return to television tomorrow night on SmackDown. This following a positive virus test last week. The test would keep the Tribal Chief out of the WWE: Day One main event, where he was scheduled to defend his title against Brock Lesnar before being pulled from the show on January 1st. This past Monday on Raw,
Lesnar would warn Reigns that he was heading to SmackDown this week. Which means we will now see a confrontation between the two as they head towards their inevitable showdown at WrestleMania in April. The healthy return of Reigns is great news considering fans’ worries as of late with him known to have issues related to his immune system. And his swift return will come as a relief to many. Another wrestling absence has seen AEW’s Jon Moxley off our screens, whilst he deals with issues related to alcohol addiction with him having undergone an inpatient rehabilitation program. Moxley hasn’t been seen since late October. Although according to bodyslam.net, he could be back on our screens within a matter of days. The report states that Jon Moxley’s return to AEW television is imminent, and could happen as soon as this week. The report was released before AEW Dynamite and the taping of Rampage last night. Although there was no Moxley to be seen. With that said, AEW will be holding the Battle of the Belts TNT special this Saturday, which could be the home of his return. Moxley is the current GCW World champion. And as we discussed in a recent news video, a new number one contender for the belt has been crowned with the title match set for late January, in the Hammerstein Ballroom, Although Moxley hasn’t yet been named in the match.
It is believed that once Moxley returns to AEW television, his upcoming GCW World Championship defense Against Homicide will be made official for the New York show. It’s likely AEW want to reserve his official wrestling return for one of their shows, before allowing Game Changer Wrestling to make the announcement. WWE releases have been common places as of late in both 2020, and 2021. And it’s taken the company just five days into 2022 to make 11 more cuts. Several employees and wrestlers have been let go, including some very surprising names. So let’s run through the list of wrestlers and backstage staff that are no longer with WWE. First up is Road Dogg, who works with talent on their promos and character development in NXT, as well as playing a role in producing matches on the brand, has been let go. Road Dogg’s brother Scott Armstrong is also on the list who is a former referee and producer. Dave Kapoor who is perhaps best known for his role as Great Khali’s manager as Ranjin Singh, and had worked behind the scenes since 2011 as part of the creative team. ACE Steel who signed with WWE as a coach in 2019. Having previously trained the likes of CM Punk and Colt Cabana, has also been cut. George Carroll and Ryan Katz who were both members of the NXT creative team, have also been let go. Allison Danger, Danny Burch, Timothy Thatcher and Hideki Suzuki, all who have recently played a role in coaching at Performance Center have also been let go. Burch and Thatcher have also recently been active members of the NXT roster with Suzuki having played a non-wrestling role in the Diamond Mine faction. and last but not least, long time WWE employee William Regal has also been let go who played a huge part backstage for NXT as Triple H’s right-hand man. As well as this, Regal was the on-screen NXT general manager, a role that he played since 2014, up until last year. The releases were accompanied by a statement from WWE to the media which read: There are several names on the list that will surprise many, with William Regal perhaps being the most shocking due to his long time association with the company backstage and on screen. As well as him being considered one of the brightest minds in the business. According to Fightful,
it’s been stated by talent and staff familiar with the Performance Center and NXT that today’s releases were done directly to remove numerous triple H hires from the company. With the releases being part of a huge overhaul as the final nail in the coffin to the triple H era of the former black and gold brand. And speaking of wrestling departures, we now have some news coming out of Impact Wrestling that two names have left the company. It was confirmed earlier this week the former X Division Champion, Rohit Raju is now a free agent. With him taking to Twitter to ask his fans where they’d like to see him next. His last match with Impact was on December 18th at the Throwback Throwdown II special, where he lost to Josh Mathews. Rohit has been with the company since 2017. Holding the X Division title for 120 days in 2020. The second departure is Impact announcer, Matt Striker who has now left the company. With him taking to Twitter in a now deleted tweet to say: Although the tweet is no longer available, PWInsider have confirmed Striker has left the company. Although the circumstances around his exit are unknown. Striker has been part of the Impact commentary team since January 2021 alongside D’Lo Brown, with his partner set to remain on the desk. Now let’s go to last night’s TBS debut of AEW Dynamite where there were three titles on the line. To open the show, Hangman Page would defend his AEW World Championship against Bryan Danielson in a rematch from their recent time-limit draw at Winter Is Coming. The match kicked off 2022 and AEW’s TBS run with a bang, with this being the first wrestling match on the network since WCW Thunder on March 21st, 2001. Which was main-evented by Dustin Rhodes Vs Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner in a handicap match. Although there were three judges in place for the last night’s AEW title bout, those being Paul White, Mark Henry and Jerry Lynn. And not Max Caster. In the end they weren’t needed. Page would managed to keep his belt within the time limit after a devastating Buckshot Lariat. Putting the challenger away with a pinfall. This marks Hangman’s second defense of his title, and his first win doing so. Not only this, but it’s a huge win kayfabe-wise with him defeating a huge name in wrestling. Elevating him to another level as the AEW World Champion. It’ll be interesting to see who’s next in line for the AEW champ, with the roster stacked full of big name potential challenges going into Battle of the Belts this upcoming Saturday, as well as the next pay-per-view AEW Revolution in March. Elsewhere on last night’s show, CM Punk and MJF would once again engage in another war of words, as the latter continued to avoid any physical contact with his foe. MJF was scheduled to take on Shawn Dean in singles action, but as soon as the bell rang, Punk would rush to the ring with MJF retreating of the ramp to keep his distance. Punk would then hit Dean with the Go to Sleep, causing MJF to lose via disqualification. Making his official 2022-record 0 wins and 1 loss. Punk would then vow that he will keep doing the same thing again and again until MJF stepped in the ring with him to fight.
The two would then go back and forth on the mic with MJF once again threatening to jump to WWE. Stating that Punk was never good enough to main-event WrestleMania, which was one of Punk’s frustrations with his time in WWE. And MJF would say: Punk would then tell MJF to go ahead and make the move before referencing WWE’s recent buy 3, get 1 free ticket offer to fans. As well as the company’s recent releases. And he would respond: The segment would conclude with MJF stating that Punk will be stepping into the ring next week on Dynamite, but not with himself but with Heavy Wardlow. As well as the AEW World Championship match that we discussed earlier, last night’s AEW Dynamite would also see two more title matches with both the TBS and tag team championships on the line. First we saw the first ever AEW TBS Champion crowned, when Jade Cargill would defeat Ruby Soho. With the undefeated Cargill coming out on top, making history on the first TBS Dynamite. Mercedes Martinez and Mark Sterling would attempt to aid Cargill throughout the match, although the finish saw her score a clean pinfall after hitting her finisher. Although Ruby would come up short, she would be involved in a backstage confrontation with AEW Women’s World Champion Britt Baker. An indication that their feud could be reignited. The main event of the show would see the Lucha Brothers defend their AEW tag team titles against Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus. A match that saw yet another title change. Jungle Boy would manage to just about score a pinfall on Penta El Zero M after a reversal, with the Jurassic Express winning their first ever belts in All Elite Wrestling. Both men have been with AEW since the company’s first show, and are the sixth tag team champions in history. This ends the Lucha Brothers 123-day reign, which started last September at All Out. With them now holding the third longest reign in the title’s lineage. It should be noted that former champion Rey Phoenix would suffer from a gruesome injury during a spot that saw Luchasaurus chokeslam through a table, which led to Phoenix pointing at his arm to get the attention of medical staff. In an update from PWInsider, they’ve reported that he was taken to hospital, and likely suffered a dislocated elbow. But let’s just hope the injury isn’t as bad as it looked. And finally, let’s go to who was supposed to win the WWE Championship at Day One before plans were changed. As we know, Brock Lesnar was originally scheduled to wrestle Roman Reigns for the WWE Universal Championship in the main event of the show. Reigns was then pulled due to testing positive for the virus before Lesnar was then added to the WWE Championship match, ultimately pinning Big E to win the belt.
According to Dave Meltzer via Sports Illustrated, the original plan for the show was for Big E to lose the championship not to Brock Lesnar, but to Seth Rollins. With that said though, there was a graphic leaked from the WWE on Fox Twitter account that showed an image of Brock as winning the match, although the caption stated that Big E had retained. And it seems that the graphic designer changed the image to Brock, but forgot to alter the text. It may be the case that the graphic artist didn’t have prior knowledge of the result, and simply had filler text in place, which they then forgot to change. Either way, according to Meltzer, it seems that Reigns’ positive test may have caused Seth Rollins to miss out on becoming a 3-time WWE Champion heading into WrestleMania. Instead, new champion Brock Lesnar will defend his title against Bobby Lashley at the Royal Rumble event on January 29th. Appearing on both Raw and SmackDown going forward. Almost certainly leading to a title Vs title match with Universal Champion Roman Reigns at WrestleMania. And before you go, make sure you check out my video where I discussed 12 of the most obscure WWE appearances
