Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer is reporting that Andrade does not have any 90-day no-compete clause which means that he can show up anywhere, anytime.
Usually all WWE releases carry the usual three-month clause which does not allow those released to jump to the competition immediately. But Andrade’s release, granted yesterday, does not carry such a thing.
Andrade wrote in a tweet that he’s not sad, but rather super happy that he finally got his wish.
He requested his release two weeks ago backstage at Raw but his request was swiftly shot down at the time. Andrade was not at Raw last week and received the happy news during the weekend.
Speaking during one of the latest episodes of his podcast 83 Weeks, soon-to-be WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff was asked who he would like to induct him into the Hall of Fame next month.
He said that there’s no “obvious answer” to him regarding that question, but noted that Hulk Hogan is one of his best friends and the two share a long history together.
“We’ve been friends outside of wrestling as long as we’ve been friends inside, maybe longer than we were friends inside of wrestling,” Bischoff said. “Certainly, if I have to sit down and think about that, that’s probably going to be where I’m going to go to first.”
Hogan is set to be inducted in the Hall of Fame again with the nWo so he might be unavailable for that.
Bischoff also said that Bill Shaw would be a good choice as well, crediting Shaw for giving him the real opportunity to run WCW. Shaw was the former WCW President and the Vice President of TBS and made way for Bischoff to take on the WCW President role in 1995.
“There’s a lot of people that come to my mind that make sense, but I’ve thought about it more just now than I have all day,” Bischoff added.
20-year-old Gable Steveson, who just won the NCAA championship this past weekend, “waved” at Vince McMahon on Twitter in one of his first tweets after his win.
Steveson finished the season with 17 wins and zero losses, stretching his undefeated streak to 34 wins and became the first Gophers wrestler to win an NCAA title since 2013.
The 260lbs, 6’1″ wrestler is a two-time Big Ten Conference champion and a two–time All-American out of the University of Minnesota.
Steveson already has an influential follower on Twitter, someone by the name of Paul Heyman.
Last year, Steveson told The Minnesota Daily that his ultimate goal is to make it to the WWE. “That’s my main goal, and that’s my end goal. As years go on it becomes more realistic, and I can set it happening right when I’m done with college,” he said. “It’s just a matter of me performing and making sure I get to that point.”
Gophers head coach Brandon Eggum also told the same newspaper that Steveson loves being a showman. “Anytime the WWE has something to build off of, like credential-wise, any of those things that are real like Gable has been able to do…they can really run with.”
The Fiend made his return at Fastlane last night, his first appearance since he was set on fire at the TLC pay-per-view last December.
The burnt version of The Fiend looked even more scarier than the original one and he made his entrance through a hole in the ring during the Alexa Bliss vs Randy Orton “match.” Bliss played mind games with Orton throughout the short encounter and Orton never laid his hands on the former women’s champion.
The Fiend shocked Orton with his return and then quickly hit the Sister Abigail finishing move and Bliss covered Orton for the pin. The two then posed over a fallen Orton to end the segment.
Orton and The Fiend are scheduled for some kind of gimmick match at WrestleMania, their second encounter on the biggest stage of them all. Orton and Wyatt wrestled at WrestleMania 33 for the WWE title in a very underwhelming match which Orton won.
Here are the results from last night’s Fastlane pay-per-view which took place from the WWE ThunderDome inside the Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Riddle defeated Mustafa Ali to retain the United States title in the Kickoff match; Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler defeated Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair to retain the WWE Women’s Tag Team titles; Big E defeated Apollo Crews to retain the Intercontinental title; Braun Strowman defeated Elias; Seth Rollins defeated Shinsuke Nakamura; Drew McIntyre defeated Sheamus in a no holds barred match; Alexa Bliss defeated Randy Orton; Roman Reigns defeated Daniel Bryan to retain the Universal title.
Andrade has finally got his wish as WWE confirmed that the former NXT champion has been granted his release, two weeks after requesting it.
A short note on WWE.COM said, “WWE has come to terms on the release of Andrade. We wish him all the best in all of his future endeavors.”
Yesterday, Andrade wrote on Twitter that there was “good news” and finished his tweet with #happy.
After a promising NXT run from 2015 to 2018 where he also won the NXT title, Andrade was called to the main roster and things never clicked for him there. He had not been seen on WWE television since October of last year.
His real-life girlfriend, Charlotte Flair, had also pitched a storyline between the two for television but her ideas were shot down by creative.
Andrade then tweeted his thanks to Triple H, Paul Heyman, and William Regal, for all the great support they gave him throughout the years. Andrade also thanked the fans and sent a “big hug” to all the talent and workers who always behaved kindly to him.
It’s the last stop before WrestleMania with Fastlane on the air tonight on pay-per-view and WWE Network…and Peacock!
We take a look below at the full betting odds of the Fastlane card. Please remember that odds might change by the time the show starts so be careful when placing bets with real money.
The Universal champion Roman Reigns remains the clear favorite to walk out of the ThunderDome still champ with his odds at 2/13 while Daniel Bryan is 7/2 to win.
Big E will defend the Intercontinental title against Apollo Crews and E is favorite with 7/10 odds. Crews has 1/1 odds at time of this writing. Riddle, who is the United States champion, is 2/13 favorite to keep his belt while challenger Mustafa Ali is 7/2, the same odds of the Reigns/Bryan match. In the WWE Women’s Tag Team titles match, Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax are favorites to retain with 1/3 odds while their challengers and WrestleMania opponents Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair are 2/1 to win.
In the other three matches, Randy Orton is favorite to beat Alexa Bliss with 4/6 odds against 27/25 odds for Bliss, Drew McIntyre has 1/8 odds and favorite against Sheamus who has 4/1 odds in the no holds barred match, and Seth Rollins is favorite with 1/5 odds versus Shinsuke Nakamura who is 3/1 to win.
The Finn Balor vs Karrion Kross match for the NXT title was made official today for NXT Takeover: Stand & Deliver.
The match, as expected, will headline night two of takeover on the WWE Network and Peacock. The NXT Women’s title between Io Shirai and Raquel Gonzalez will headline night one on USA Network.
This is Karrion Kross’ second title shot. He won on his first attempt against Keith Lee at Takeover: XXX but had to surrender the belt just a few days later due to a shoulder injury he suffered in the same match. Kross returned to action in January at the New Year’s Evil broadcast.
Balor has been champion since September 8, winning the vacant title in a match against Adam Cole at NXT: Super Tuesday II.
Live from the WWE ThunderDome inside Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, WWE presents Fastlane 2021 on pay-per-view and WWE Network. The full card is as follows:
Roman Reigns vs Daniel Bryan for the Universal title with Edge as the special enforcer; Big E vs Apollo Crews for the Intercontinental title; Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler vs Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair for the WWE Women’s Tag Team titles; Riddle vs Mustafa Ali; Drew McIntyre vs Sheamus in a no holds barred match; Shinsuke Nakamura vs Seth Rollins; and Alexa Bliss vs Randy Orton in an intergender match.
Fastlane is the first WWE pay-per-view to air on Peacock and the last one that will air on the U.S. version of the WWE Network.
The Shane McMahon vs Braun Strowman match has been seemingly pulled from tonight’s Fastlane and is no longer showing on the official card on WWE.COM.
The show is being advertised with seven matches and there’s no mention whatsoever of either McMahon or Strowman anywhere on the Fastlane page.
The two were supposed to have a match on Raw but McMahon kept stalling and attacked Strowman with a camera outside the ring. He also did a flying elbow from the top and onto the announce table where Strowman was placed just seconds earlier. McMahon then proceeded to dump buckets of green slime on the former Universal champion.
The match was then advertised for Fastlane but halfway through the week, plans apparently changed. McMahon vs Strowman is now likely to take place at WrestleMania.
WWE has announced the lineup of guests that will accompany the two Fastlane-related shows today which will air on the WWE Network and social media.
At 4PM, a special episode of The Bump will air on Peacock and WWE Network, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram Live and Twitch. Host Kayla Braxton and the rest of the crew will be joined by Sheamus, Apollo Crews and actor Skylar Astin to discuss the pay-per-view.
Watch Along will also return for another episode starting at 7PM ET on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Shotzi Blackheart, Ember Moon, Paige, Wade Barrett, Chad Gable, Otis, Kaitlyn, the cast of WWE’s The Bump, Alyssa Marino, RJ City, Kaz, Steve Buchanan of Draftkings and more will be joining throughout the show for live reactions.
WrestleMania is set to start an hour later than usual on both nights with advertising showing an 8PM ET start time.
WWE pay-per-views have all started at 7PM ET in the past several years, with the Kickoff show starting at 6PM ET. WrestleMania typically has a two-hour Kickoff show which starts at 5PM ET but with WrestleMania now a two-night event, it’s likely that there will only be an hour Kick Off on each night.
WrestleMania 36, which was also two nights, started at 7PM ET on both nights with a one-hour Kickoff show. Night one lasted just under three hours while night two went three hours and 20 minutes.
An 8PM ET start time means that the major part of the show will be in the dark, something that stadium Manias suffered from in the past because of the early start and daylight outside. It will also be a bit of a pain for fans across the pond as the show would start at 1AM in the United Kingdom and 2AM for most of Europe.
WWE is back on pay-per-view tomorrow with Fastlane, the first live event under Peacock. The show will still air on the regular WWE Network in the United States and is the last one for the next five years as Peacock gets exclusivity starting April 4.
We will take a look at the early odds from top three matches from the card tonight and tomorrow we will bring you all the odds from the full card.
In the Universal title match, Roman Reigns is the clear favorite with odds of 2/13 while his challenger, Daniel Bryan, has 7/2 odds. Edge will serve as the special enforcer for this match but that is not enough to tip the odds in favor of the challenger.
The number one contender for the WWE title, Drew McIntyre, will take on long-time friend and now rival Sheamus in a no holds barred match. Heading into Mania, McIntyre is a strong favorite with odds of 1/8 while Sheamus is 4/1 to win.
Big E will defend the Intercontinental title against Apollo Crews as Crews continues to impress with his new gimmick. The popular IC champ is 11/20 favorite to retain while Crews is 5/4 to walk out of Fastlane with the gold.
The NXT Women’s title match between Io Shirai and Raquel Gonzalez will main event night one of NXT Takeover: Stand & Deliver on USA Network on April 7. The news was exclusively revealed by Muscle & Fitness.
Gonzalez talked to M&F to describe how she is training for the match, noting that she enlisted the help of Braun Strowman to switch to a traditional bodybuilding training style from a CrossFit-type routine.
Women’s title matches on NXT have always performed great ratings-wise so it is not a surprise that this match was chosen to headline night one. The NXT title match will headline night two on the WWE Network.
Meanwhile, another big match was announced for Takeover with Jordan Devlin taking on Santos Escobar to unify the NXT Cruiserweight titles. Devlin appeared on NXT for the first time in over a year this week and confronted Escobar face-to-face.
Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff haven’t always been best of friends, and let’s face it, they probably don’t send Christmas cards to each other to this day. But during the latest episode of Talking Smack, Heyman showered Bischoff with compliments following the news that he will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
“I presume this will surprise a lot of people. I don’t think the WWE Hall of Fame is complete without Eric Bischoff,” Heyman said. “This is an honor that is long overdue, and it’s well earned. It’s most deserved.”
Heyman noted that it would be hard for anyone to argue that Eric Bischoff did not make any significant impact in the industry and said that he respects WWE for having the intelligence and for understanding just how much Eric Bischoff belongs in the Hall of Fame.
“I congratulate…profoundly congratulate my old rival, Eric Bischoff, for his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame class 2021,” Heyman added.
But before moving to a different topic on Talking Smack, Heyman couldn’t leave until he put in a little dig at both Bischoff and Vince McMahon.
“I would like to add, however, that if you look back in history – and I don’t do that often – that the 90’s in this industry were ruled by Eric Bischoff, Paul Heyman, and Vincent Kennedy McMahon,” Heyman said. “Only one of us is still relevant enough to be on television each and every week. On top. In the main event of WrestleMania with the biggest star in the industry…the champ…Roman Reigns!”
Heyman’s dislike of Bischoff started in the mid 90s when Bischoff, as head of WCW, started raiding wrestlers from Extreme Championship Wrestling. But things got better between the two and they eventually worked together in WWE and later as Executive Directors of Raw and Smackdown…although none of them remain in that post.
Smackdown had one of the lowest overnight numbers of 2021 so far, with the show getting only 1,945,000 viewers. That is down 65,000 viewers from last week’s overnight number. Last week’s show ended with 2,170,000 viewers after the final number came in on Monday.
The show started low with 1,868,000 viewers and then rose to 2,023,000 viewers in the second hour. The first hour is the least-watched since the July 3, 2020 episode. With the NCAA basketball on CBS taking the top spots, Smackdown was #4 in 18-34, #3 in 18-49, and #4 in 25-54 with 0.3, 0.5, and 0.65 ratings respectively. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
Tickets for WrestleMania 37 went on sale this week and after two days on sale, the majority of tickets have been sold but the show is not sold out yet.
Approximately 25,000 tickets for each night are on sale and judging by the seating chart on Ticketmaster, fans purchased tickets for both nights, leaving virtually the same number of empty seats for April 10 and 11. A large section of floor seats remains unsold, but some of those tickets are priced at $5,000 on Ticketmaster, while the others are at the $2,000 and $1,000 price point.
Combo tickets – which allows you to go in both nights staying in the same seat – have only single seats remaining.
If sales continue at this pace, WrestleMania will be sold out on both nights and can be chalked off as a success considering the limitations. International fans usually are the bulk of fans at WrestleManias and this year there will be none of them due to travel bans, quarantine, etc. The initial idea of 45,000 seats for each night would have been a bit of a problem to sell out, and 25,000 each night seems more of a respectable number to obtain.
Edge will be the special enforcer during tomorrow’s Universal title match at Fastlane after the Rated R Superstar won against Jey Uso last night on Smackdown, his first match on the blue brand in a decade.
The role of the special enforcer will be to stay outside the ring and prevent any outside interference. On some occasions, enforcers have also taken the role of the referee after the referee got knocked out in the same matches.
Edge defeated Jey following a spear but his celebrations did not last long as Roman Reigns took him out after the match with another spear. His opponent at Fastlane, Daniel Bryan, was also attacked by Uso and Reigns delivered another spear on Bryan to end the show standing tall.
With just 48 hours to go, the Fastlane card was still being assembled and modified and two more matches were announced along with a stipulation for an already advertised match.
The United States title will be on the line with Riddle defending against Mustafa Ali and Shinsuke Nakamura will be battling Seth Rollins in what could be the match of the night. Meanwhile, the Drew McIntyre vs Sheamus match will now be a no holds barred match.
Eight matches are currently on the card although one of them, Braun Strowman vs Shane McMahon has been removed from all the advertising, suggesting that this will not take place and probably moved to WrestleMania.
Kenny Omega will be returning to Impact Wresting on the March 23 episode of Impact on AXS TV.
The AEW champion was present at the latest set of Impact tapings to continue the build towards the Rebellion pay-per-view where he will be facing Impact champion Rich Swann in a title for title match on April 24. Omega already carries the AAA Mega title apart from the AEW title and winning at Rebellion would give him the Impact title as well.
Omega has not appeared on Impact since the January Hard To Kill pay-per-view when he teamed with The Good Brothers to take on Swann, Moose, and Chris Sabin in a six-man tag match.
AEW President Tony Khan continues to appear on Impact via different “paid” segments.
