Misc. Wrestling News
After finishing up his contracted run with TNA at Slammiversary, Austin Aries has been announced for a return to Ring of Honor on July 17th in Las Vegas. In recent interviews Aries has noted that he believes the landscape of pro wrestling has changed, and is interested in possibly coming back to TNA on a per-appearance basis, which may allow him to continue work their television dates while maintaining his non-exclusive status and being open to promotions like Ring of Honor and Global Force Wrestling.
In the spirit of transparency – which is really the best way to go about things in this day and age, when the internet will take any speculation and turn it into widespread “fact” – MVP came out and said that his contract with TNA ran through early 2016, and that he was available for independent bookings.
Roddy Piper is the best kind of crazy – we all know that by now. This week in the “Rowdy” world of WWE legends, Piper accused Steve Austin of getting him removed from PodcastOne.com after Will Sasso did an impression of the Texas Rattlesnake. Austin fired back confirming he didn’t like some of the material about him on Piper’s podcast, but that he was in no way to blame for the Hall of Famer being removed from the website. It was then noted by Ric Flair (of all people) that Roddy has been released from his WWE Legends deal.
Danny Davis, who is responsible in part for the training of some of today’s biggest WWE stars including Brock Lesnar, John Cena and Randy Orton, has sold Ohio Valley Wrestling after more than two decades running the promotion/developmental facility.
According to Dave Meltzer, TNA is yet again behind on paying their production crew. Apparently they still haven’t received checks for the dates back in May. The strategy since 2014 seems to be to hold off on actually paying their employees for as long as humanly possible, and then distributing checks the day before, or the day of, a television taping to make sure they can actually put on a show.
Barbie Blank (Kelly Kelly) will be in a new E! reality series about wives and girlfriends of rich, famous celebrity athletes. The tagline actually reads something like “the competitive sport of getting and keep their men”, if you can believe that. I don’t understand how something like this still gets to exist in 2015. It’s the E! network so I’m not really shocked, but in a day and age where Ronda Rousey is one of the biggest athletic draws on the planet, and the odds are in favor of a woman President taking office in 2016, this kind of show just feels like an intentional attempt to hold us down as a people.
Kurt Angle underwent a successful surgery on a benign tumor in his neck this week, and is recovering nicely. He shouldn’t miss too much time away, and may even be back in a non-wrestling capacity for the upcoming Impact Wrestling TV tapings.
Serena Deeb – former WWE Diva, Straight Edge Society member, and long-time SHIMMER women’s athlete – has announced her retirement from professional wrestling, and worked her last match in Japan this past week. The best of luck to the always-adorable and hard working Serena, who is the most kind and enjoyable person I’ve ever interviewed.
