Lacey Evans Indicates WWE Departure; Wrestling News August 16th 2023

Hikaru Shida is excited to defend her title at Wembley Stadium next weekend but she’s equally excited to see another thing in the English capital: The Harry Potter Warner Brothers Studio Tour!

Shida has never been afraid to show off her nerdy side, having previously appeared in ring gear inspired by Final Fantasy VII’s Tifa Lockhart and showed off her various gaming-related cosplays on social media. But now fans can add Harry Potter to the list of Shida’s nerdy obsessions!

Speaking to Denise Salcedo, Shida opened up about how she learned English through watching the Harry Potter films – having watched the movies over 200 times and read the books on several occasions.

However, learning the language this way caused her to run into some difficulties in the US when she struggled to understand American accents as she was so used to hearing English spoken in British accents!

“I learned English from Harry Potter, so first, it’s so hard because the intonation is so different from here so it’s so hard to understand what they say because I hear a lot of the British accent to learn English. So I feel, ‘Oh sh*t, I don’t understand the U.S. English.’”

“Some people asked me, ‘Why do you have a British accent?’ Because I learned from Harry Potter. That’s one of the reasons why I am so excited to go to London.”

Alongside indulging in her Harry Potter fandom, Shida hopes to successfully defend the AEW Women’s World Championship during her time in London. There, she’ll face Saraya, Toni Storm, and either Britt Baker or The Bunny in a four-way bout for the title.

After Lacey Evans seemingly announce her departure from WWE on social media, a new report has confirmed that she has left the company.

Evans dropped various hints over the past few days teasing the news but cleared all doubts when she posted to her Instagram that she would be referred to as ‘Macey Estrella’ “when the clock strikes 12”, indicating that her WWE deal was ending at midnight.

She went on to change her X and Instagram usernames to ‘limitlessmacey’ and added “FKA WWE Superstar Lacey Evans” to her bio on both platforms.

Now, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer has reported that Evans has, in fact, departed WWE. WWE have still yet to publicly comment on, or confirm, the former Slammy Award winner’s exit.

Evans made her final televised appearance on the June 23rd edition of SmackDown, where she lost to Charlotte Flair in just under three minutes.

Where do you want to see the former Lacey Evans next in wrestling? Let us know your thoughts by sharing on Facebook or Twitter down below!

Tonight’s AEW Dynamite will emanate from the Bridge Stone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee with less than two weeks to go till AEW’s historic first event outside of North America – AEW All In!

Matches and segments announced for the show include:

• MJF & Adam Cole discuss the All In main event
• Chris Jericho deliberates joining the Don Callis Family
• Jim Ross sits down with Kenny Omega
• Darby Allin & Nick Wayne vs The Gates of Agony
• The Bunny vs Britt Baker – Qualifier for the AEW All In Women’s World Championship match
• Jeff Jarrett vs Jeff Hardy – Texas Chainsaw Massacre Deathmatch
• Orange Cassidy (c) vs Wheeler Yuta – AEW International Championship match

What are you most excited to see on tonight’s episode of Dynamite? Let us know by sharing your thoughts on Facebook or Twitter down below!

The Bloodline may have lost some key members lately but it looks like some stars from AEW are open to acknowledging The Tribal Chief!

During the latest edition of his vlog, Sammy Guevara was part of a tongue-in-cheek tribute to The Bloodline alongside another now-former members of The Jericho Appreciation Society who departed the group last week.

Daniel Garcia, who led the JAS exodus on the August 9th Dynamite, posed for the camera alongside Guevara and Isiah Kassidy of Private Party whilst backstage at Dynamite.

Garcia held up the one-finger salute in the air and stated it was for “The Bloodline” when Guevara asked what he was doing. Guevara and Kassidy followed suit and the trio were also joined back Jack Perry, who also acknowledged Reigns’ faction with a salute.

MJF has reached out to Logan Paul over a guest appearance on Impaulsive ahead of AEW All In next weekend!

Since joining WWE, Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast has featured several of wresting’s biggest names including Seth Rollins, Edge, Roman Reigns and Triple H. But could Impaulsive be about to step through the Forbidden Door and feature AEW World Champion MJF?

Posting on X (formerly Twitter), MJF reached out to the WWE star over his recent rating in ESPN’s 30 Best Pro Wrestlers Under 30 list where Paul ranked tenth. He was beaten out by the likes of Dominik Mysterio, El Hijo del Vikingo, Rhea Ripley and Friedman himself.

The AEW World Champion went on to pitch him appearing on the podcast as a guest, not only to discuss Paul’s ranking but also to promote AEW’s highly-anticipated event from Wembley Stadium in London, England next weekend.

Paul has yet to respond to Friedman at the time of writing.

Yo @LoganPaul
I’m a big fan and I heard you were very upset with your ranking in the @espn
top 30 under 30.

I couldn’t agree with you more, the list was flawed. What the hell is a Vikingo?!? Would love to come on @impaulsive and talk about the list as well as the fact @aew…

— Maxwell Jacob Friedman™️ (@The_MJF) August 16, 2023

Several AEW talents are said to be upset over the apparent lack of urgency behind the build to Europe’s biggest wrestling event ever.

With less than two weeks to go until AEW All In, only five matches have been announced for the historic show at Wembley Stadium in London. By comparison, AEW Double or Nothing 2023 featured 12 matches and AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2 saw 18 bouts overall.

Now, a new report from SEScoops has suggested those behind the scene are just as anxious about the build as fans are, given it is on track to surpass WrestleMania 32 and featured the highest-paid attendance at a professional wrestling event in history.

“A lot ….. are upset about Wembley. Maybe if it were just Wembley, it would be different. But with everything that’s happened over the last year, it’s becoming the one major issue. People want to know if they’re going to London, what the card is going to be … it’s a show everyone wants to be on. It’s like our WrestleMania 3, or maybe our WrestleMania 1, but there isn’t any urgency. People are scared we aren’t going to live up to this moment.”

Currently announced for All In is Adam Page vs MJF for the AEW world title, FTR vs The Young Bucks for the AEW tag titles,  Hikaru Shida vs Saraya vs Toni Storm vs Britt Baker/The Bunny for the AEW women’s title and Darby Allin teaming with Sting to take on Mogul Embassy in a coffin match.

MJF and Adam Cole will also feature on the pre-show: They’re set to take on Aussie Open in a tag team match for the Ring of Honor tag titles.

Chris Jericho has revealed just how close he was to having an AEW cinematic wrestling match with Mike Tyson during the pandemic!

Over a decade on from their confrontation in WWE, Chris Jericho and Mike Tyson came face-to-face in AEW in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The two got into a major brawl and had to be separated but nothing ever came of the incident.

Speaking on the AEW-some podcast, Jericho revealed that the segment almost led to a cinematic match between himself and Tyson. The match would have taken place in a New York alley, similar to the infamous brawl in They Live, but the plans ultimately fell through.

“Mike Tyson and I almost had a cinematic match. We were this close to doing it, Tyson vs. Jericho in a New York Street Fight, but we couldn’t make it happen. We really were deep in negotiations too. We were going to do it in New York in an alley, like an alley fight, basically. Think ‘They Live’ with Tyson and Jericho, that’s what I had in mind.”

Whilst the match never came to fruition, the two reunited a year later when Tyson saved Jericho from an attack from The Pinnacle. In return, Jericho made Tyson an honorary member of The Inner Circle.

Calling all WWE music aficionados: WWE have released a new video on their YouTube channel testing your entrance theme knowledge!

The video gives you 15 seconds to identify which superstar the entrance theme belongs to before revealing the answer and features 17 different themes.

Check out the video above and let us know how many themes you guessed correctly by sharing on Facebook or Twitter down below!

Mustafa Ali has seemingly revived a gimmick in NXT that was scrapped on the main roster back in 2022.

During last night’s edition of NXT, Ali debuted a new character that seems to be, or is at least inspired by, his reported ‘New America’ gimmick that in the works but was ultimately scrapped by Vince McMahon in early-2022.

Ali appeared to cut a promo in the style of a politician, claiming to be an NXT North American Champion that the people deserve:

“They deserve someone who’s a champion both inside and outside the ring. I am the North American Champion that we need, I will elevate the North American Championship to unparalleled heights — all while inspiring millions across the continent [so] that, they too, can do incredible things the right way.”

Ali’s tensions with WWE last year, which led to him publicly requesting his release from the company, stemmed from his pitch of the ‘New America’ character.

Vince McMahon was responsible for scrapping it and instead pitched something else that was said to be “something Ali would never have done.” This resulted in a heated argument between the two and Ali’s later absence from WWE.

Robert Roode has seemingly transitioned to a backstage WWE role after being out of the ring for over a year due to injury.

A recent Fightful Select report revealed a number of producers for the most recent editions of RAW and Main Event with the former NXT Champion featuring among them, indicating that he has since moved on from in-ring action to become a backstage producer.

Roode shadowed current WWE producer Petey Williams in the production of Chad Gable vs Giovanni Vinci and Otis vs Gunther on RAW whilst taking the solo producing reigns on Ricochet vs Tommaso Ciampa on Main Event.

This marks the second consecutive week Roode has worked in a producing role for the company after working with Jamie Noble to produce backstage segments as well as the Rey Mysterio and Austin Theory’s United States Championship match on SmackDown.

Roode’s last televised match was the 2022 Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal on the SmackDown prior to WrestleMania 38.

He went on to compete in a series of live event matches and last competed on June 25th 2022 against Omos during a live event in Armadillo, Texas before undergoing a procedure on his neck.

Lacey Evans has seemingly confirmed she has left WWE, despite the company offering no confirmation of her departure at this time.

The one-time Slammy Award winner first dropped hints of her departure on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, posting a tongue-in-cheek GIF that was counting down the days until an unknown event occurred.

Evans maintained radio silence on what she was referring to until earlier today when she posted to her Instagram that she would be referred to as ‘Macey Estrella’ “when the clock strikes 12”, indicating that her WWE deal was ending at midnight.

She went on to change her X and Instagram usernames to ‘limitlessmacey’ and added “FKA WWE Superstar Lacey Evans” to her bio. At the time of writing, WWE has not confirmed her exit from the company.

Evans made her main roster debut in the 2019 Women’s Royal Rumble and had varying success over the past 4 years. Her most notable period on the main roster came during her divisive alliance with Ric Flair in early-2021, which was cut short due to her real-life pregnancy.

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A post shared by Macey Estrella (@limitlessmacey)

Morning everyone, hope you’ve had a great week so far!

Welcome back to the TJRWrestling live blog! I’ll be with you from 7am to 1pm EST covering the latest stories & breaking news from WWE, AEW, NJPW and elsewhere across the wrestling world!

We’ve got some big stories headed your way today including:

• Lacey Evans Indicates WWE Departure
• Robert Roode Transitions To Backstage Role Amidst Injury
• Mustafa Ali Revives Previously Scrapped Gimmick