WWE trio Bianca Belair, Jade Cargill, and Naomi paid tribute to multi-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles yesterday on Friday Night Smackdown, wearing three different outfits similar to what Biles wore at the Olympics.
Belair wore a white outfit with red stripes and stars, Cargill had all-red gear, while Naomi sported a blue/silver outfit with stars on it.
The three took on WWE Women’s Tag Team champions Alba Fyre and Isla Dawn who were joined by Blair Davenport in a six-woman tag the match, a match which the faces won. Belair and Cargill will wrestle for the tag team titles at Bash In Berlin next week.
Biles won four Olympic medals at the Paris 2024 Olympics, with three gold and one silver. Her 11 Olympic medals and 30 World Championship medals make her the most decorated gymnast in history.
Ahead of tomorrow’s All In pay-per-view in London, TBS and NJWP Strong Women’s champion Mercedes Mone wrote an article for The Independent newspaper.
Titled “How I helped women’s wrestling get the respect it deserves,” Mone discusses her wrestling heroes, how she started, quitting WWE, and coming over to AEW.
Mone described the difference between WWE and AEW as “night and day” and says she loves it so much to be part of this company.
“In WWE you have no idea what you’ll be doing week to week, but here I have space to be heard. Along with Tony Khan and with my friend and personal writer Jennifer Pepperman, there’s time to sit down and really plan out the kinds of stories we want to tell,” Mone wrote. “I’m treated with genuine respect, and I really feel seen in a way I sometimes haven’t before. I love it so much here.”
Mone promised that she’s going to make sure that women’s wrestling keeps growing and she was here to tell everyone that they cannot be ignored, nor be denied.
“I’ve helped make room not only for myself, but for every great woman who steps into that ring – and this Sunday at All In, we’re going to show them that we’re here to stay,” she continued.
The bracket for the women’s tournament to crown the Women’s Speed champion was published yesterday.
Eight women will compete in the quick matches which will air exclusively on X and the winner of the mini tournament will receive the WWE Women’s Speed title.
The matches will consist of Iyo Sky vs Lyra Valkyria, Naomi vs Blair Davenport, Elektra Lopez vs Kairi Sane, and Candice LeRae vs Piper Niven. The second round will have the winners of the first two matches against each other and the winners of the third and fourth matches against each other.
The tournament will kick off on Wednesday, September 4 at Noon ET on X.
Andrade is currently the WWE Speed title holder for the men.
Smackdown tonight is live from the nation’s capital in Washington, DC with two title matches announced for the broadcast.
The show will be headlined by a match for the WWE Tag Team titles as The Bloodline – Tama Tonga and Jacob Fatu – defend their gold against the number one contenders, The Street Profits. Plus, United States champion LA Knight takes on Santos Escobar with the title on the line, and Bianca Belair, Jade Cargill, and Naomi team up against Alba Fyre, Isla Dawn, and Blair Davenport in a six-woman tag team match.
Plus, The Grayson Waller Effect returns with WWE champion Cody Rhodes as the special guest.
The Ultimate X match at next week’s Emergence TNA+ event is now complete with all six competitors qualified.
Last night on Impact, Hammerstone and Laredo Kid advanced to the match after their respective qualifying match. Hammerstone beat Kushida and Frankie Kazarian and Laredo Kid beat Jai Vidal and Bhupinder Gujjar.
The two now join Mike Bailey, Jason Hotch, Zachary Wentz, and NXT’s Riley Osborne in the match, with the X Division title on the line currently held by Bailey.
Emergence will take place next Friday live from the Old Forester’s Paristown Hall in Louisville, Kentucky.
Bloomberg announced that former WWE Undisputed champion Roman Reigns and his Wiseman, Paul Heyman, will be joining the Power Players event in New York next month.
Reigns and Heyman will take the stage at the Bloomberg World HQ “to share the future for sports entertainment’s most electrifying double act” as part of The Business Behind Sports panel.
This event is mainly targeted to sports executives, with registration to attend currently priced at $875 for the whole day.
The two have not been seen on WWE television together since night two of WrestleMania XL when Roman Reigns lost the title to Cody Rhodes. Reigns recently returned to the company at SummerSlam but Heyman is still out selling the powerbomb by Solo Sikoa’s Bloodline.
Tickets for the 2024 TNA Bound For Glory pay-per-view went on sale this morning at etix.com.
The show will take place on Saturday, October 26 live from the Wayne State University Fieldhouse in Detroit, Michigan.
TNA is selling BFG tickets along with the Impact TV tapings the next days as a combo, with general admission tickets at $50, reserved seating at $80, and then two special combo tickets going for $499 and $599 respectively.
The Suplex Combo deal for $499 includes second row seats in the floor area and a commemorative chair while the Powerslam Combo deal offers front row seats in the floor area and the commemorative chair as well.
All ticket-buyers of the Powerslam and Suplex Combo deals will receive numerous perks in addition to the take-home chair. The highlight is a Fab Five Photo before Bound For Glory. All 100 ticket-buyers will get their photo taken during a private reception with Nic Nemeth, Jordynne Grace, Joe Hendry, Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy. In addition, the deal includes ringside photo-op after BF, photo-op with the champions on Sunday prior to the Impact tapings, a BFG/TNA Swag Bag, and first entry into the building on both nights.
Going head-to-head with night three of the Democratic National Convention, Dynamite drew 698,000 viewers this week, down slightly by 5,000 viewers from the prior episode. The show did go up in the 18-49 demo, doing a 0.24, up 0.01 from the previous week and was #8 in the top 50 cable chart for the night. (Ratings credit: Wrestlenomics)
Former WWE and UFC Women’s champion Ronda Rousey apologized for sharing a Sandy Hook conspiracy video 11 years later.
Rousey retweeted a conspiracy video of the horrific attack on Twitter back then, but deleted it later. But the internet never forgets and Rousey, who was supposed to participate in an Ask Me Anything on r/squaredcircle on Reddit yesterday, ended up not doing anything after the post was flooded with Sandy Hook-related questions, calling her out for her past actions.
Later, Rousey issued a long, heart-felt apology, owning up to her mistake, admitting she was wrong.
The former champion said she redrafted her apology many times over the past 11 years and it was supposed to be part of her biography book until her publisher convinced her it would do more harm than good.
She called retweeting the video “the single most regrettable decision” of her life and quickly realized her mistake when she posted it.
“But honestly I deserve to be hated, labeled, detested, resented and worse for it. I deserve to lose out on every opportunity, I should have been canceled, I would have deserved it,” Rousey wrote. “I still do. I apologize that this came 11 years too late, but to those affected by the Sandy Hook massacre, from the bottom of my heart and depth of my soul I am so so sorry for the hurt I caused.”
Rousey had a very important message for those who have “fallen down the black hole of bull shit,” saying that amplifying such conspiracies will only make you feel powerless, afraid, miserable, and isolated.
“You’re doing nothing but hurting others and yourself. Regardless of how many bridges you’ve burned over it, stop digging yourself a deeper hole, don’t get wrapped up in the sunk cost fallacy, no matter how long you’ve gone down the wrong road, you should still turn back,” Rousey wrote.
Ronda also said that she is thoroughly remorseful and ashamed of herself for contributing to the pain she caused by sharing the video.
“I’ve regretted it every day of my life since and will continue to do so until the day I die,” she added.
Digital advertising outside Wembley Stadium in London are advertising the next Forbidden Door pay-per-view for the city in 2025.
A photo by X user @CiaranRH93 shows the AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door logo as well London 2025, confirming that the event is replacing next year’s All In as a London event.
All In will be taking place in Arlington, Texas in 2025 but the show is returning to Wembley Stadium in 2026, with advertising around the stadium also showing “See you in 2026.”
While no location for Forbidden Door has been officially announced, it’s more than likely that it will be held at The O2 Arena, unless AEW decides to go bold and pick another stadium in the city.
At the recent press conference, AEW President Tony Khan said that the company still has big plans for London next year and it looks like somebody jumped the gun and started the advertising before AEW announced anything.
Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful is reporting that Ricochet has signed a multi-year deal with AEW and will be in London this weekend to officially start with the company.
The former WWE Intercontinental champion left WWE in late June of this year after a six-year stint, opting not to sign a new deal. He was written off television after he was brutally attacked by Bron Breakker.
His signing with AEW comes as no surprise as he was expected to land there once he decided to part ways with WWE.
Once a big favorite of Paul “Triple H” Levesque in NXT, the 35-year-old never found proper footing on the main roster and was not utilized to the best of his abilities ever since he got called up in 2019.
The final spot in the AEW Trios ladder match at All In will be decided this coming Saturday on Collision.
Top Flight will team up with Lio Rush to take on Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta, and PAC in a trios match with the winning team advancing to the ladder match which already has The Patriarchy, Bang Bang Gang, and House of Black.
Penta El Zero Miedo and Fenix were supposed to be in the match along with PAC but their removal from the show and PAC teaming up with Blackpool Combat Club all but confirms that the two brothers are on their way out of AEW.
Both Penta and Fenix are rumored to be going to WWE once their contracts expire, with Penta up first and Fenix finishing up a few weeks after.
Mandy Sacs will be at the Black Label Pro Crowning Glory event next month and is participating in the DraftKings Wrestling Combine.
The Combine will have four men and four women who will go head-to-head in a series of contests to see who is the best athlete.
Sacs will join Ash by Elegance, Jordynne Grace, and Xia Zhao, the artist formerly known as Xia Li in WWE in the women’s group while the men will have Mike Rallis, better known as Riddick Moss, Parker Boudreaux, and Moose.
The event will take place on Wednesday, September 4 at the Logan Square Auditorium in Chicago, Illinois.
Jerry “The King” Lawler, Mustafa Ali, and Raj Dhesi will also be part of the event. For more information go to blacklabelpro.com.
All In has surpassed 50,000 tickets according to ticket tracking service @WrestleTix, with a few more days to go for the show.
More tickets are expected to be sold in the following days with the cheapest priced tickets in the 500 level now at just £27.25. The most expensive tickets are on the floor and are going for £1,562.75. But available floor tickets are scattered and the most available seats are in the 200 and 500 levels at this point.
The stadium has a different configuration than last year’s show and it’s currently capped for 53,832 seats although that can easily expand if there’s more demand.
AEW claimed to have sold over 81,000 tickets for last year’s show although just over 72,000 fans were in Wembley that day.
A familiar wrestling voice will be heading up the commentary team for Scott D’Amore’s new promotion Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling as Mauro Ranallo is getting back behind the mic after a long sabbatical.
Ranallo, who previously did commentary for NXT, Smackdown, and New Japan Pro Wrestling, has not done mic work for a wrestling company since 2021 when he called the Kenny Omega vs Rich Swann match for Impact Wrestling.
MLPW will have its first two shows on October 19 and 20 which will also air live on Triller TV. The promotion ran from the 1930s to the 1980s so this is basically a revival for the brand.
D’Amore was fired from his post as TNA President in February of this year and has not been involved in anything since then.
NXT this week drew 639,000 viewers, up 22,000 viewers from the prior week against the second night of the Democratic National Convention. That was their best number since July 9. The show had a 0.16 rating in 18-49, down 0.01 from the prior week. (Ratings credit: Wrestlenomics)
Brandon Thurston for POST Wrestling is reporting that TNA star Rich Swann was arrested on June 8 in Florida and charged with disorderly public intoxication and causing a disturbance.
The arrest came after Swann attempted to forcefully enter an apartment just before 10PM. A report by the Altamonte Springs PD says that when the resident of the apartment told him to leave and that he had a gun, Swann yelled, “This is my house.” The person in the apartment then opened the door and flashed his weapon and Swann left.
Later, a woman also made a phone call to the police saying someone was following her. Swann was following the woman but she managed to escape by locking herself inside her house before Swann reached to get in.
Police officers arrived and found the former TNA champion and arrested him, with the report saying that Swann was intoxicated.
He was later released the next day after a $250 bond was posted.
TNA was unaware of the arrest until POST Wrestling flagged the story. The company suspended Swann and said that he was entering a substance abuse rehab program.
“TNA Wrestling takes any and all charges against its performers seriously,” TNA told POST Wrestling in a statement. “Rich Swann is responsible for his own personal actions.”
“He has informed TNA Wrestling that he is voluntarily entering into a substance abuse rehabilitation program. TNA Wrestling has suspended Rich pending the completion of its investigation into the incidents,” the statement continued.
This is not the first time that Swann had issues with the police and was arrested multiple times before.
A few more individuals threw their hat in for the Casino Gauntlet match at All In this Sunday live from Wembley Stadium in London.
Former AEW World champion Hangman Adam Page, ROH champion Mark Briscoe, Kyle O’Reilly, and The Dark Order’s Evil Uno were all added to the match last night on Dynamite, joining the already-announced Orange Cassidy who will be the first one in the match.
The Casino Gauntlet match features 21 AEW stars, with two wrestlers beginning the match and other entrants coming in every few minutes. The match is won via pinfall or submission in the ring and it can end even before everyone has made it out.
The winner of the match will receive a future AEW World title shot.
Four matches, two of which are for a title, will be part of tonight’s historic Dynamite, the first show outside North America and just days before the All In pay-per-view.
Cardiff in Wales will play host to tonight’s show which will have Toni Storm defending the AEW Women’s title against Saraya, Kazuchika Okada vs Claudio Castagnoli for the AEW Continental title, Hook vs Big Bill, Darby Allin and FTR vs The Elite in a trios match, and Chris Jericho vs Tommy Billington.
Plus, MJF and Will Ospreay come face-to-face ahead of their AEW American title match and AEW World champion Swerve Strickland and Bryan Danielson will have the final showdown moderated by Nigel McGuinness.
