Live tonight from the Cicero Stadium in Cicero, Illinois, Impact Wrestling presents Bound For Glory 2023 on pay-per-view. The full card is as follows:
Alex Shelley vs Josh Alexander for the Impact World title; Trinity vs Mickie James for the Impact Knockouts title; Trey Miguel and Zachary Wentz vs Ace Austin and Chris Bey for the Impact World Tag Team titles; Chris Sabin vs Kenta for the Impact X Division title; Killer Kelly and Masha Slamovich vs Deonna Purrazzo and Tasha Steelz for the Impact Knockouts World Tag Team titles; PCO vs Rhino vs Steve Maclin vs Moose in a Monster’s Ball match; Will Ospreay vs Mike Bailey; and the 20-person intergender Call Your Shot gauntlet where the winner receives a trophy and a contract they can cash in anytime within one year for a championship match of their choosing.
Plus, Mike Tenay, Don West, and Traci Brooks get inducted into the Impact Wrestling Hall of Fame on the Countdown to Bound For Glory pre-show starting at 7:30PM ET. The Countdown to Bound For Glory will air on Impact’s YouTube channel.
The Undertaker has launched his own podcast and Patreon account titled Six Feet Under with Mark Calaway.
The WWE Hall of Famer will be sharing weekly stories that you probably have never heard before and taking fans down memory lane with some of his most epic matches that we all loved.
There are three tiers for the Patreon account – Old School, Old School Early Access, and The Streak.
All three tiers will have access to the podcast, with the Old School subs getting their episode on Wednesday. The Early Access subs get the episode on Monday, two days before, while The Streak will also allow subscribers to ask questions to be answered by The Undertaker himself on the podcast.
The prices are $5, $6, and $10 per month respectively and you can subscribe at Pateron.com.
Impact Wrestling drew 71,000 viewers this week for the Bound For Glory go-home episode, down 49,000 viewers from last week’s show. This was the least-watched episode of Impact of 2023 so far. The show drew the same 0.01 rating in 18-49 of the previous two weeks. (Ratings credit: Wrestlenomics)
Brock Anderson, the son of WWE Hall of Famer Arn Anderson, has been removed from the AEW rosters page and is seemingly gone from AEW.
The 26-year-old started working for AEW in 2021 and was being trained by QT Marshall and former WCW star Glacier at the Nightmare Factory training facility. His first match came in June of that year, teaming up with Cody Rhodes to take on his trainer QT Marshall and Aaron Solow.
He last appeared for AEW on the August 12 episode of Collision where he lost a TNT title match against Luchasaurus. Prior to that, he last wrestled at a non-televised live event in May where he teamed up with Brian Pillman Jr.
Battle of the Belts VIII will have the typical three-match card tonight live on TNT, with the broadcast starting immediately following the conclusion of Collision.
The third and final match was announced last night on Rampage after John Silver of The Dark Order won a number one contender’s match Kip Sabian and Brother Zay in a triple threat to earn an AEW International title shot against Orange Cassidy.
The other two matches are Kris Statlander vs Willow Nightingale for the TBS title and The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn vs Matt Menard, Angelo Parker, and Daniel Garcia in an AEW World Trios title match.
Tonight’s Collision and Battle of the Belts double taping at the FedEx Forum in Memphis, Tennessee is tracking to be one of the least-attended AEW events in their history.
As of this week, there have only been just over 2,300 tickets distributed for the show according to ticket tracking service @WrestleTix. It’s just over the 2,245 tickets distributed two weeks ago in Salt Lake City although it will probably beat the Collision in Regina held in July which only had 2,474.
The massive FedEx Forum, which holds 19,000 seats and around 14,000 for a wrestling setting, only has 15 sections opened, just eight in the 100 section and floor seats.
Tickets are available for $34 including taxes and fees from Ticketmaster.com.
Logan Paul is getting a United States title shot against Rey Mysterio at Crown Jewel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia early next month.
Paul returned on WWE TV last night on Smackdown and said that the last time he wrestled Rey Mysterio, Roman Reigns actually showed up for work, LA Knight didn’t have a job, and Dominik was still Rey’s son!
Logan said that he wants the United States title and even though he already beat Rey Mysterio at WrestleMania (in a tag match), he now wants to face him again as he is carrying that title.
Mysterio accepted the challenge after he told Paul that he reminds him of his son and while he hesitated to beat some sense into Dominik, he will have no problem doing that to him.
The two shook hands to end the segment.
Paul’s last match came at SummerSlam where he defeated Ricochet in the opening match of the show.
PWInsider.com is reporting that Ace Steel is in Chicago where he is working for Impact Wrestling and will be getting a tryout as a producer tonight at the Bound For Glory pay-per-view.
Steel was fired from his AEW job after his close friend CM Punk was also fired. Punk and Steel share a long friendship and Punk was instrumental in getting Steel hired. Unfortunately, Steel was one of those involved in the All Out brawl and was terminated for his actions, only to be rehired in his original job.
When Punk returned, the deal was to bring Steel back as well but Steel was only allowed to work remotely and not be part of the show backstage.
PWInsider adds that Impact wanted to work with Steel after he was fired the first time from AEW but then he chose to return to the company.
Bianca Belair has returned to WWE television after an absence of two months.
The former multi-time women’s champion closed the show by coming out to save Charlotte Flair from a beatdown from Damage CTRL after IYO SKY successfully defended her title against Flair, albeit with interference from her team mates.
Belair and Flair ended Friday Night Smackdown on FOX standing tall in the ring.
Bianca has not appeared on WWE television since the August 18 episode of Smackdown and was last seen getting attacked by Damage CTRL. This was Belair’s first time off from WWE although she did sporadically appear at WWE events, including the TKO launch on the New York Stock Exchange.
Belair is advertised for the Crown Jewel premium live event.
Paul Heyman is in the ring. He brought up Jimmy Uso causing Cody Rhodes and Jey Uso to lose the tag team championships Monday. He then announces Roman Reigns will defend the Universal Championship at Crown Jewel against LA Knight. Paul says Reigns is going to beat LA Knight at Crown Jewel.
LA Knight comes out and tells Heyman to take a walk and bring out Roman Reigns. As Heyman goes to leave, Knight stopped him and started talking to Heyman. Paul tries to do the “Yeah” when Knight was talking and Knight says “Your pathetic, shut up,” then tells Paul while he is on the phone with Reigns, he better tell Reigns whose game this is, and he is not going to stop till he has the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship.
The Street Profits and Lashley in the back getting ready for a match and Lashley is giving them a pep talk.
Montez Ford VS. Santos Escobar
Great match until the action spilled outside and Ford went back in the ring and as Santos rolled back, Ford rolled him up and pinned him while holding Santos’ tights.
Winner: Montez Ford
After the match the attack on Santos continued until Carlito came running out with a chair in hand.
In the back Damage Control is shown getting Iyo Sky ready for her championship match against Charlotte Flair tonight.
L.W.O. are in the back talking and Rey said they are family and Rey is going to get ready but will go out and confront Logan Paul alone. Santos shook his hand but had an upset look on his face.
A video package of Pretty Deadly is shown. They are sitting in a spa and say they will never have to see the Brawling Brutes again after last week. Just then The Brawling Brutes attacked them.
Jimmy Uso walks in the locker room and gloats about what happened Monday with Solo Sikoa and Paul Heyman.
John Cena is out next. The crowd chanted “Cena” and John thanked them and says unfortunately he got hit with some hard truths today. Cena talked about Reigns’ title reign and Cena says it’s been 2,002 days since he won a televised match, and his last win was in 2018. So, he has been talking a whole lot about retirement and it’s time for everyone to face the facts. As a “you still got it” chant started, Cena says he believes in them and himself and the beauty of all this madness and he believes he can still go so the time is now to turn the math around. He says it’s going to be a bad night for the next idiot that is brave enough to walk through the curtain because they are going to get smoked.
Solo Sikoa came out, but Jimmy Uso came out and attacked Cena. A masked man came in to save Cena and it’s Jey Uso attacking his brother Jimmy. As the Usos fight is broken up by officials, Solo attempts to give Cena a Samoan Spike but Cena ducks and hits an AA.
A video package of the Unholy Union is shown, and they are coming for the Women’s Tag Team Championships.
In the back Nick Aldis and Adam Pearce are in the room with Jey Uso and Aldis says Jey has earned himself a $10,000 fine and Pearce says you think that is fair and Aldis tells security to escort both out of the building. Pearce asked if Aldis was kicking him out of the building and Aldis said yes, I am, and Pearce said let the games begin.
Out next is Logan Paul. He says he is not here for Rey Mysterio because he beat Rey in his first WWE match. Last time he wrestled Rey, Dominik was still his son, Roman actually showed up to wrestle and LA Knight didn’t have a job. He has changed too and is a WWE Superstar. But Rey has something he needs. And last weekend he beat up a dead-beat dad so at Crown Jewel he will have to beat another.
Rey Mysterio comes to the ring to confront Logan. Rey tells Logan he reminds him of Dominik and hesitated to beat sense into Dominik but him, he will have no problem with whooping his ass. Rey accepted Logan’s challenge. Logan offers Rey a handshake, Rey hesitates, and as he reluctantly reaches out his hand, Logan grabbed his hand and shook his hand.
Grayson Waller & Austin Theory VS. Cameron Grimes & Dragon Lee
Theory raked Grimes’ eyes and Lee gets thrown in the timekeeper’s area, Grimes rolls Theory up but Waller comes in and hits him with a move and Theory hits A-Town Down and gets the win.
Winners: Grayson Waller & Austin Theory
Kathy Kelly has a sit-down interview with Kevin Owens and she immediately asked him how he felt being split up from Sami Zayn and he said it didn’t feel great. Because they just lost the tag titles and didn’t get a fair shot at getting them back so that hurts but is ready for the new adventure. He mentions wanting to wrestle Rey Mysterio and Sheamus. Kevin says no matter what happens he wants to send the people home knowing this is the Kevin Owens Show.
Iyo Sky VS. Charlotte Flair for the WWE Women’s Championship
Flair went for the pin after the spear and Bayley puts Iyo’s foot on the ropes and Flair goes after Bayley and sends her over the announce table. As Flair gets back in the ring Iyo hits her with the title and pins Flair.
Winner and Still WWE Women’s Champion: Iyo Sky
After the match Bayley and Iyo Sky continue to beat Flair and its Bianca Belair comes out to save Flair. Bayley saves Iyo from the KOD and rolls Iyo out of the ring only to get a KOD. Bianca then helps Flair to her feet.
Darby Allin, sporting a fractured shoulder, showed up at the Nitro Circus event in Texas to do some crazy stuff…and crash landed pretty bad.
Sitting at the top of the ramp on a tricycle ready to do a big flip, Allin got on the mic and told the fans that he has a fractured shoulder.
“I’m not doing too good, my shoulder I think it’s fractured,” Allin said. “A few weeks ago I messed my elbow pretty bad and last week I had to go train to climb Mount Everest so I haven’t really given it the time to rest.”
But being the adrenaline junkie that he is, he said he couldn’t pass up the opportunity when he heard that Nitro Circus was in town.
Allin then proceeded to drive down the big ramp in hopes to do a backflip on his tricycle but he failed to do a full rotation and crash landed hard on his already fractured elbow.
“Oh if the shoulder sucked before, it sucks even more right now,” screamed the commentator.
Allin suffered his injury when he was wrestling Christian Cage at WrestleDream, with Cage body slamming him from the apron onto the steel steps outside.
Impact Wrestling last week on AXS TV drew 120,000 viewers, up 10,000 viewers from the prior show. It had a 0.01 rating in 18-49, the same number of the previous show as well. (Ratings credit: Wrestlenomics)
Over 13,000 fans are expected at tonight’s Friday Night Smackdown from the sold out Bank Center in San Antonio, Texas.
Headlining the show will be the WWE Women’s title match featuring IYO SKY defending her title against Charlotte Flair as Flair is looking to inch closer to record number of title reigns.
The only other match announced so far is Santos Escobar taking on Montez Ford.
Logan Paul will return on WWE television tonight to confront Rey Mysterio after he called him out last week and LA Knight will surely have some words for Roman Reigns after their match was made official today.
Speaking to Bill Apter for Sportskeeda, WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler detailed his rehabilitation process following the stroke he suffered that nearly claimed his life.
Lawler appeared for the crowd at a recent Monday Night Raw in Memphis and the video was later uploaded on social media. He recently was at the Memphis Comic Expo as well with his recovery progressing good.
The King said that his main rehab is his speech, which he goes three times a week.
“When I just started this right after I had the stroke, I could barely talk,” Lawler said. “Well now I go in and I sit down with this rehab lady and we just talk about different things and she had me read stuff.”
He said that all the rehab he’s doing with his voice helps him get his vocabulary better although he’s not completely there yet.
Lawler is still not fully mobile on his right side of his body, with his right arm and leg needing rehab as well.
“It’s not hurting me where I can’t walk around, I can still walk around, but I don’t have really good control of writing my autograph.”
In the interview, Lawler also thanked the fans for showing their concern and for following along his road to recovery.
LA Knight is getting his big moment at Crown Jewel as WWE officially announced that Roman Reigns vs LA Knight for the Undisputed WWE Universal title will be headlining the Saudi show next month.
The breaking news went first to the LA Times and promptly confirmed by WWE.
This is Knight’s first crack at top singles gold in his remarkable meteoric rise in WWE.
The match will get more publicity tonight on Friday Night Smackdown on FOX although Reigns is not scheduled to be in San Antonio.
Tickets for Crown Jewel are on sale now at webook.com.
Dynamite ratings recovered nicely this week, with the show drawing 901,000 viewers, up 292,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast head-to-head with NXT. The show drew a 0.31 rating in 18-49, up 0.05 and placed #3 on the top 50 cable chart for the night. (Ratings credit: SpoilerTV)
CMLL issued a press release thanking AEW President Tony Khan and AEW for the way they treated their General Director, Salvador Lutteroth, during the television tapings on Wednesday.
“We wish to reiterate our firm intention so that the collaboration between CMLL and AEW is fruitful and beneficial for both parties and can be the beginning of a solid alliance,” CMLL wrote.
CMLL and Mexican star Mistico participated in the TV tapings and his match against Rocky Romero will air tonight on Rampage.
“The opportunity to showcase our talent on an international stage like AEW Rampage has been an honor and a privilege for us,” the statement continued, adding that they are extremely grateful for the warm welcome that AEW fans gave Mistico.
Mistico’s addition provided a much-needed boost to ticket sales late last week along with the combination of cheaper tickets.
In an interview with The Messenger, the self-proclaimed Demo God Chris Jericho wasn’t impressed with NXT’s victory over Dynamite last week and warned WWE not to “get too far up it’s own ass.”
Jericho said that there’s only so much time you can bring people like John Cena, The Undertaker, and Cody Rhodes because “nobody wants to work on their secondary show all the time.”
He noted that he suggested to Tony Khan to fire back with the likes of Shaq, Snoop Dogg, and Mike Tyson, but the AEW President didn’t want to do that and they wanted to rely on their own people.
“This would be like a football game where you bring in all of your top stars from years prior and beat the other team 30-26,” Jericho said. “It’s like a video game. Let’s bring in Tom Brady from five years ago and then play him for one game against Chris Jericho. OK, you guys won, but you only won 30-26.”
NXT’s victory over Dynamite stung a little bit more than people originally thought it would and it was made worse by WWE not even mentioning anything about it, yet the likes of Tony Khan and Jericho keep bringing it up.
“So, don’t get too far up your own ass because you didn’t do that good of a job as far as crushing us. And our show was better than theirs, quite frankly,” Jericho added. “So, it doesn’t bother me. It’s competition, man. It’s good for the fans, it’s good for the companies.”
Juice Robinson won the Dynamite Dozen Battle Royale last night, eliminating Max Caster of The Acclaimed to earn his shot at the Dynamite Diamond Ring next week.
MJF, the current AEW World champion, is the current holder of the Dynamite Diamond Ring, and is the only holder ever, having successfully defended it since he won the inaugural one in 2019.
Robinson drew a lot of criticism last week as part of his promo on MJF when he showed a roll of quarters with Friedman written on them. The move with quarters is seen as anti-Jewish and the timing was not great considering the Israel/Hamas war.
