Eric Young returned to Impact Wrestling last night and was part of the main event for the vacant Impact World title but fell short of winning the match and the gold.
Young was one of the many who was released from WWE back in April due to the coronavirus pandemic cost-cutting measures and returned to the company he worked for 12 years.
The 40-year-old worked for TNA between 2004 and 2016, winning numerous titles along the way including the World, X Division, and Tag Team titles but in 2016 he decided to change scenery and landed in NXT where he led SAnitY. While in NXT the group was successful, their run on the main roster was anything but and the company ended up splitting the group, drafting them to different brands.
Here are the results from last night’s Slammiversary 2020 pay-per-view which took place from the Skyway Studios in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Motor City Machine Guns defeated The Rascalz; Moose defeated Tommy Dreamer to retain the TNA World title; Kylie Rae defeated Alisha Edwards, Havok, Kiera Hogan, Kimber Lee, Nevaeh, Madison Rayne, Rosemary, Susie, Tasha Steelz, and Taya Valkyrie in a gauntlet match to become the new #1 contender for the Knockouts title; Chris Bey defeated Willie Mack to become the new X Division champion; The North defeated Ken Shamrock and Sami Callahan to retain the Impact Tag Team titles; Deonna Purrazzo defeated Jordynne Grace to become the new Knockouts champion; Eddie Edwards defeated Ace Austin, Trey, Rich Swan and Eric Young in a fatal five-way to become the new Impact World champion.
It’s pay-per-view weekend for WWE again with Extreme Rules taking place tomorrow night live from the Performance Center in Orlando, Florida.
Today we will take a look at the odds of the top three matches of the card and tomorrow we’ll take a closer look at all the odds of all the matches. You can also visit wrestling.bet for more news and wrestling betting.
In the WWE title match, Drew McIntyre is the super-duper overwhelming favorite with his odds at 1/20 while Dolph Ziggler, despite the nod from The Rock, is way behind at 7/1.
In the Wyatt Swamp match, Bray Wyatt looks like he’s the favorite with odds of 11/20 while the Universal champion Braun Strowman is at 5/4. Strowman already beat Wyatt at Money In The Bank. This match is not for Strowman’s title.
And in probably the most anticipated match of the card, Seth Rollins will take on Rey Mysterio in an eye for an eye match. Rollins is currently the favorite with 2/5 odds while Rey Mysterio looks like he’s walking out with a (digitally) severed eye popping out of his socket with odds of 7/4.
The bad news when it comes to viewership this week for WWE continued with Smackdown, with the show getting 1,893,000 viewers, the second least-watched episode of Smackdown on FOX. That is down 12,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast.
The first hour had 1,919,000 viewers and the second hour did 1,867,000 viewers. Smackdown had a 0.45 in the 18-49 demo chart and 0.2 in the 18-34 demo. As it is mostly the case, FOX was last in total viewership among all networks. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
Speaking in a two-hour broadcast on Talk’N Shop Live, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson spilled the beans over what happened and what led to their departure from WWE and they held nothing back.
The former Raw Tag Team champions pretty much blamed Paul Heyman for getting released back in April and sent AJ Styles on a mission to find out the truth. Styles apparently confronted Heyman after there were some talk that it was Heyman who pushed for their firing. Heyman told Styles that he did not know they were getting released and swore that if he knew, he would have “gone to bat for them.”
Not believing Heyman, Styles then confronted the boss, Vince McMahon, and asked him to tell him the truth. “They weren’t on my list, but yes, it was a Heyman thing,” Vince replied to Styles.
The relationship between Styles and Heyman is now well-documented and Styles moved to Smackdown and Heyman eventually got fired from his Executive Director role.
Meanwhile, Anderson also discussed how when they were dealing for a new contract, Triple H told him to look at his kids and think about what if AEW doesn’t last. “I can promise you one thing, WWE will always be here,” Triple H told Anderson.
“We stopped being boss and employee at that point and we were, obviously not friends, but two humans talking. I’m not saying that Triple H could have stopped anything or even cared, but hearing that from your boss and then having it happen, it’s like damn, they don’t give a f*ck,” he said.
Live tonight on pay-per-view, Impact Wrestling presents Slammiversary 2020 from the Skyway Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. The full card is as follows:
Ace Austin vs Eddie Edwards vs Trey vs mystery opponent in a fatal four-way match for the Impact World title; Jordynne Grace vs Deonna Purrazzo for the Knockouts title; Willie Mack vs Chris Bey for the X Division title; The North vs Ken Shamrock and Sami Callihan for the Impact Tag Team titles; Moose vs Tommy Dreamer in an old school rules match for the TNA World title; The Rascalz in a tag team open challenge; and Alisha Edwards vs Havok vs Kiera Hogan vs Kimber Lee vs Kylie Rae vs Nevaeh vs Madison Rayne vs Rosemary vs Susie vs Tasha Steelz vs Taya Valkyrie in a gauntlet for the gold match to determine the #1 contender for the Knockouts title.
Apart from traditional pay-per-view, Slammiversary is also available on FITE.TV for $19.99.
The 90-day no-compete clause that many of the released WWE Superstars had after they got let go in April has expired and most – if not all – are eligible to freely appear on any other promotion starting from today.
Superstars such as Rusev, Aiden English, Zack Ryder, Curt Hawkins, Mike Kanellis, Rowan, EC3, Primo, Epico, Lio Rush, Eric Young, No Way Jose, Heath Slater, Maria Kanellis, and others can start working for other promotions.
Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson have already announced that they have signed with Impact Wrestling while EC3 is also expected to be at the Slammiversary pay-per-view tonight. Heath Slater posted a photo on a plane with rumors of him rejoining his former tag team partner Rhino at Impact.
AEW is also expected to pick up a couple of released stars but with all promotions not making money right now due to canceled live events, times are tough when it comes to try and offering a lucrative deals considering there’s no end in sight with this pandemic.
The WWE Instagram account uploaded a photo of Dolph Ziggler with the WWE title on his shoulder, wondering if this could be what the future holds for Ziggler.
One of the surprise comments came from none other than former WWE champion himself Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. “I’d co-sign this decision 100%,” The Rock wrote. “Talented dude and always has a spark in his presentations.”
While obviously that doesn’t mean Ziggler is getting the title tomorrow, an endorsement from The Rock like that surely is something to be proud of.
Drew McIntyre, the WWE champion and Ziggler’s opponent for tomorrow, saw the comment from The Rock but was not impressed at all. “It doesn’t matter what you think,” McIntyre replied to The Rock, using the popular catchphrase against him!
Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson confirmed their signing with Impact Wrestling and noted in a video that they will be at tonight’s Slammiversary pay-per-view.
“We’ve both been tested and we’re ready to rock. It’s been three long months and everybody is wondering what the Good Brothers are doing,” Anderson said.
With Gallows taking over, he said the internet rumors were true as they are shown standing inside an Impact Wrestling ring for the big reveal. “We have officially signed with Impact Wrestling and we’re going to be live tonight on pay-per-view for Slammiversary,” Gallows said.
Gallows and Anderson were future endeavored this past April after WWE did mass layoffs due to COVID-19. They had just signed new five-year deals with the company a few months earlier.
This new Impact Wrestling deal will allow them also to wrestle for New Japan Pro Wrestling.
The main event match between Jon Moxley and Brian Cage for the AEW World title pulled in 844,000 viewers, quite the change from the main events of Fyter Fest where both nights were crushed by NXT. The numbers were originally released by the Wrestling Observer.
The 844,000 viewers was the highest for both AEW and NXT on Wednesday night and that match pulled 407,000 viewers in 18-49. AEW’s main event competition on Wednesday was Io Shirai vs Tegan Nox for the NXT Women’s title which on its own did 652,000 viewers and 186,000 in the 18-49 demo. Last week, the winner-take-all match on NXT did 922,000 viewers.
The Moxley vs Cage match has been heavily pushed for the past several weeks and actually had to be moved a week due to COVID-19 precaution from Moxley’s part. The marketing for the match paid off big time for the promotion and despite competition from NASCAR and UFC, still managed to attract a fairly large audience.
After tweeting several times about the ratings when AEW lost to NXT in viewers but won in the 18-49 demographic, Chris Jericho looks like he found his latest nickname – Demo God – continuing his impressive run of finding new ways to adapt, avoiding his character getting stale in the process.
The former AEW champion continued to play off the ratings war about how AEW smashed NXT this week and Le Champion seems like he will be known with his new Demo God name now.
Jericho even has a new t-shirt on ShopAEW.com sporting the nick name as the story goes that Jericho has never lost to NXT in any of his segments in the 18-49 demo.
Ironically enough, come November 9, Y2J will turn 50!
A bonus episode of Undertaker: The Last Ride will air on the WWE Network this Sunday.
Titled Tales From The Deadman, this bonus episode will take a look at “some incredible behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the man himself, as Undertaker recalls stories about the origins of his character, his experience on an infamous plane ride, and even that time he fought The Godfather over a hat, all accompanied by never-before-seen animation.”
This episode is narrated by Emmy-nominated actor and producer Timothy Olyphant.
Tales From The Deadman will air immediately following the conclusion of the Extreme Rules pay-per-view but will be available on demand during the day.
The bonus episode follows the highly-acclaimed five-part series that gave an unprecedented look at the man behind The Undertaker character. The series ended with The Undertaker announcing his retirement, saying he has no desire to get in the ring again.
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer is reporting that Brock Lesnar is not scheduled to be part of the SummerSlam pay-per-view this year making it the first SummerSlam Brock will not participate in since he returned to WWE.
The former WWE and Universal champion has main evented the last six SummerSlam shows in a row. He also main evented the 2012 event but not the 2013 one, which means Brock headlined seven out of the eight past SummerSlams.
Meltzer also noted that Paul Heyman has not been at any of the television tapings ever since he was removed from his Executive Director role of the Raw brand.
SummerSlam is scheduled to be taking place from the WWE Performance Center instead of Boston as the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreck havoc in the United States.
The bad news for WWE in the ratings continued this week with NXT sinking to 631,000 viewers, down 128,000 viewers from last week’s show. With a low 0.14 rating in the 18-49 demographic, NXT placed #49 in the top 50 chart.
The difference between the two shows this week was of 157,000 viewers, with AEW turning it around after they lost last week by 44,000 viewers. This was also the least-watched episode of NXT since May 20. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
AEW destroyed NXT in the ratings this week, getting a total of 788,000 viewers for Fight For The Fallen, an increase of 73,000 viewers from last week’s show. Dynamite did 0.29 in the 18-49 demographic and placed #5 in the top 50 cable chart, pretty much beating NXT bad in every category except for one. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
The rumors of Kairi Sane leaving WWE soon continue to heat up as Tokyo Sports is the latest outlet to cover the story, saying that Sane looks like she will be leaving the United States to return to her homeland of Japan by Summer.
Tokyo Sports reports that a clearer picture of what the plan is and an announcement should be made in time for the upcoming SummerSlam pay-per-view, which could be her very last one for the company.
The publication also states that while Sane will indeed leave WWE, the relationship between the two parties will probably continue and rumors are that she will be involved with the work that WWE will do in Japan. There were plans to create NXT Japan and a new Performance Center there but the coronavirus put future WWE ventures on hold.
Sane has been with WWE since 2017 but has made it clear that she wants to return home to spend the rest of her life with her husband. Sane got married earlier this year in Japan.
Over the past three weeks when AEW lost in the ratings in total viewers against NXT, both Chris Jericho and AEW President Tony Khan took it to Twitter to remind fans that they won the important 18-49 demographic so in reality, they didn’t really lose.
It was a move that is rarely seen, if ever, in the business. Vince McMahon or Triple H don’t tweet about ratings when they lose and they certainly don’t see the need to justify any numbers to Internet wrestling fans.
One person from AEW who you won’t find tweeting about numbers is Cody. The AEW EVP appreciates the numbers, but he won’t be tweeting about them anytime soon. “It’s really easy to get caught up in the weeds with like ‘for X amount of weeks we beat WWE in the ratings’ or get into this wild demo discussion – if you ever catch me tweeting about the demos, please just delete my account,” Cody said in an interview with TalkSport in the UK.
Cody is more focused on putting on the best show every week and leaving the numbers to others, although he said he respects everyone that keeps bringing them up. “People spam me and the management core. Showbuzz Daily, they make the top 50. We don’t make the lists. So, if we’re ahead of your favorite or your favorite shows, spam them! [laughs]. I don’t know what to tell you!”
Cody said that at the end of the day, it’s all about making the show better every week and the goal is to have “the absolute best wrestling show we can possibly have with a disciplined and non-hot shot approach.”
The TNT champion praised his fellow wrestlers and staff, who keep rising to the occasion every week and said that his focus is not to get caught up in all the numbers and creatively and as a competitor, all it matters is to put on the best show, a show that people will talk about and creates memories.
“Thursday is the day all that data comes down and you look at everything. Minute-by-minute, did someone tune out here? You have to ask yourself, why did they tune out? Is it an anomaly? Is it a pattern? Again, we have great people flanking us who put this all in black and white on a grid for us so that we can be accountable. if you’re not drawing viewers, you have to at least address the problem,” Cody said.
WWE Hell in a Cell is a pay-per-view event that is scheduled annually in October. As named, the event is based around the famous Hell in a Cell match, which is featured on the card. There are a number of matches that are held in the event, as it usually goes on for a duration of three hours, however the flagship match is only featured on very few occasions to keep fans waiting with anticipation for the main event.
The WWE Hell in a Cell PPV is one of the newest to have been formed on the WWE card, with it having been started in 2009, however the style of match that it has been named after has been around for a lot longer, with the first match having appeared in 1997.
What is the Hell in a Cell match?
Hell in a Cell is known as a ‘demonic structure’ by many in the WWE Universe, as it is an exaggerated take on the Steel Cage that has been used in so many of the matches that generally take place throughout the year. The structure, which is made of metal, stands at around 20ft high and keeps competitors caged inside the ring. These particular matches can take their toll on the professional superstars’ bodies, as there are no disqualifications and no count-outs, leading to victory only being obtained by pinfall or submission.
Both Jim Cornette and Vince Russo have claimed to be the brain behind Hell in a Cell, however, WWE credits the ‘Last Battle of Atlanta’ match between Tommy Rich and Buzz Sawyer to be the source.
When is the 2020 event scheduled to take place?
WWE Hell in a Cell 2020 is expected to be held in the first week of October, although there has been no official word as to how the PPV will operate, in regards to the actual date, the venue that will be used or the timings. When it does happen, though, fans will be able to go to USA sportsbooks and place bets on who they think will win each contest.
Memorable matches to have involved Hell in a Cell?
Another memorable match to have taken place with the Hell in a Cell format being used include the Undertaker’s iconic battle with Mankind at King of the Ring in 1998. The Undertaker threw Mankind off the top of the cage into the announce tables at ringside, before Mankind climbed back up to the top and subsequently through the roof of the structure. It is one of the matches that many will immediately associate with the format.
The style of match is one where the Deadman competes regularly and produces some epic encounters, with the likes of Brock Lesnar, Edge and even Triple H having gone up against the Phenom, with their match at WrestleMania XXVIII (2012) one of the best contests witnessed at the spectacle.
What happened in last year’s Hell in a Cell PPV?
Last year’s PPV saw a number of matches take place, with a number of the WWE’s top prizes all up for grabs; from the Universal Championship to every single Women’s division belt being on the line.
Seth Rollins (champion) vs ‘The Fiend’ Bray Wyatt was perhaps the bout of the night as the two produced a classic match-up in the squared circle, resulting in a no-contest, whilst Charlotte Flair recaptured the SmackDown Women’s Championship from Bayley.
Becky Lynch retained her RAW Women’s Championship title against Sasha Banks in the Hell in a Cell structure in what would become an epic encounter.
AEW is hinting big time at the revival of one of the most popular factions in professional wrestling history: The Four Horsemen.
Over the past several weeks, and more so yesterday than before, there were hints about it on television, hints which included Cody, Shawn Spears, and FTR.
Last night on Fight For The Fallen, Tully Blanchard was seen “scouting” Cody and FTR during their matches and these individuals have been flashing the iconic “4” hand sign lately.
The Four Horsemen group was originally introduced in 1985 with original members Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Ole Anderson, and Tully Blanchard. During the years, the members changed with Flair being the only constant during the several incarnations.
AEW obviously has two original members on their payroll with Blanchard – who was part of the faction from 1985 to 1988 – and Arn Anderson – who was part of the Horsemen from 1985 to 1988, 1989 to 1991, and 1993 to 1999.
Speaking with TalkSport, Cody said that “no one” has planted those seeds although maybe a few “baby seeds” have grown into this speculation. “I don’t think you can ever do the Four Horseman…that’s ambitious, braggadocios and, very likely, you’d have the most uphill battle ever,” Cody said.
“I think in this case, I love flirting with some of the concepts that were out there because my dad and my family was always the antithesis of the Four Horseman,” he said. “Their biggest rival was my father. And now, one of his biggest rivals is genuinely one of my closest confidants and coaches and it’s really a different career than I had envisioned. But I love having Double A there and I know Arn has had some conversations with Tony Khan and FTR and I know Spears has had some conversations with FTR.”
It’s unclear if AEW would be able to use the actual Four Horsemen name although there does not seem to be a trademark application for the name associated with professional wrestling.
In comments given to Newsweek ahead of the NXT main event yesterday against Io Shirai, Tegan Nox explained why she decided to come out, acknowledging that her life has always been a “don’t ask, don’t tell” situation, but now it was the right time.
“I felt like it was the right time, especially when you’ve found the right one you’re in love with. It was the right time to do that,” Nox said.
Nox added that the reaction has been great, although there were some people who didn’t agree, but noted that 99% of the reactions were positive.
“I’ve got texts coming through from so many colleagues and friends. It was nice. It’s great to see that there are so many nice people in the world,” Nox said.
The Welsh WWE Superstar also credited Sonya Deville with helping her. Deville was the first openly-gay female performer in the company.
“She was a big, big help. She gave me her phone number and told me to text her if I needed anything. So we keep in contact quite a lot about it. She’s a massive help with the fans, because my family knew but my fans didn’t. So she helped me bring it out to the public,” Nox concluded.
