Ronda Rousey Expected To Depart WWE “Relatively Soon”; Wrestling News August 4th 2023

New insight into Bray Wyatt’s current WWE absence has been uncovered, suggesting that the former world champion won’t be back for SummerSlam or any time soon whatsoever!

A new report from PWInsider’s Mike Johnson has revealed a number of details regarding Wyatt’s status and why he’s been off WWE programming. Firstly, Johnson states that there is no internal indication within WWE that Wyatt is returning at SummerSlam.

Johnson goes on to reiterate what previous reports on Wyatt have stated, that he is off programming due to a health issue and has not been cleared to return. He also denied that Vince McMahon’s return to power had anything to do with Wyatt’s disappearance and claimed to have been “adamantly told” so by numerous sources.

The company is said to be being “very, very careful” with Wyatt’s health for the time being and this is partly the reason why he has yet to return to the company. No details were given regarding what specific health issue Wyatt is/was suffering from.

Wyatt last competed at the 2023 Royal Rumble where he defeated LA Knight with help from Uncle Howdy. The former Fiend was seemingly headed into a feud with Bobby Lashley at WrestleMania but disappeared from TV in February and has been absent since.

The 2023 edition of SummerSlam will emanate from Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan and will see four high-profile championship matches take place!

Matches and segments announced for the show include:

• Slim Jim SummerSlam Battle Royal
• Ricochet vs Logan Paul
• Cody Rhodes vs Brock Lesnar
• Ronda Rousey vs Shayna Baszler – MMA Rules
• Gunther (c) vs Drew McIntyre for the Intercontinental Championship
• Asuka (c) vs Charlotte Flair vs Bianca Belair for the WWE Women’s Championship
• Seth Rollins (c) vs Finn Balor for the World Heavyweight Championship
• Roman Reigns (c) vs Jey Uso – Tribal Combat match for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship and recognition as Tribal Chief

What are you most excited to see on SummerSlam tomorrow night? Let us know by sharing your thoughts on Facebook or Twitter down below!

Bryan Danielson’s ongoing injury will seemingly cause him to miss AEW All In as well as two more major upcoming shows on the AEW calendar.

The American Dragon has been out of action since AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door back in June when he broke his arm in the closing minutes of his main event bout with Kazuchika Okada. Danielson was expected to be out of action for some time, putting his presence at Wembley Stadium in jeopardy.

Now, Dave Meltzer has provided a fresh update on Danielson’s recovery in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter and unfortunately, it isn’t good news for UK fans…

Meltzer wrote that the former Daniel Bryan is not expected to return for at least three months, meaning he will miss both All In in London and All Out in Chicago. The news also puts an appearance at AEW Grand Slam from Arthur Ashe Stadium into question, though it isn’t “impossible” that Danielson could return in time for the event.

“Bryan Danielson got his surgery for his broken arm on 7/3 and that the time was told three months before he could return, although it’s possible he could beat that by a week or two. All In and All Out are out, AEW Grand Slam doesn’t look good but I don’t want to say impossible, but he should be back in October.”

LA Knight’s success is translating just as well in merchandise sales as it is on WWE programming with the SmackDown star beating out several WWE legends to set an impressive record!

WWE fans have become enraptured by the former Eli Drake in recent months and whilst he hasn’t experienced championship success just yet, Knight is certainly seeing plenty on WWEShop.com!

According to Wrestlenomics (via Dave Meltzer in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter), Knight was the WWE’s #1 merchandise seller for the month of July and beat out legendary names like Steve Austin, John Cena and even the nWo!

“Wrestlenomics listed this as the July merch numbers. Top sellers were Knight, Rhodes, Usos, Reigns, Steve Austin, NWO, SummerSlam, Ripley, Cena and Rollins. Top two items were Knight T-shirts, followed by T-shirts from Ripley, Rhodes, Usos, another Knight shirt, Reigns, another Usos, Austin and NWO.”

The achievement is even more impressive than the statistics suggest as Knight has far fewer merchandise items than every other star on the list, with 15 LA Knight items currently on sale versus hundreds for other stars like Cena and Austin.

WWE seemingly had big plans for Kenny Omega if he had signed with them as the company purportedly saw The Cleaner on the same level as its biggest stars!

As Kenny Omega’s AEW deal drew closer to expiring in recent months, WWE reportedly held a huge amount of interest in the former IWGP Heavyweight Champion. Unfortunately for them, Omega chose AEW alongside his partners in The Elite earlier this week.

But what could have been, in a world where Omega followed in Cody Rhodes’ footsteps and joined Vince McMahon’s empire? Dave Meltzer has now given a look into what that alternate reality might have looked like….

In the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Meltzer detailed WWE’s perception of Omega and claimed he would have competed on an equal level to the top stars in the promotion – like Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar and Omega’s former AEW EVP partner Cody Rhodes.

However, the company ultimately felt that Omega couldn’t be portrayed as their greatest in-ring competitor. Due to doubts about his durability in the long-term, WWE would have stayed course with Seth Rollins in that regard.

“One person with knowledge of WWE’s interest has noted to us that while Omega was top talent who would have been used as a top guy, in the mix with the likes of Roman Reigns, Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins and Brock Lesnar level guys, that because of long-term physical durability that they believed Rollins as the role of the best in-ring wrestler in the company had more time in that role than Omega would have.”

Click here to read more about this story.

Tonight’s WWE SmackDown will emanate from the Nutter Center in Dayton, Ohio with just 24 hours to go till ‘The Biggest Party Of The Summer’ – SummerSlam!

Matches and segments announced for the show include:

• Jey Uso stands up as ‘The Real Chief’
• Asuka, Bianca Belair & Charlotte Flair face off ahead of SummerSlam
• Sheamus vs LA Knight

What are you most excited to see on the final SmackDown before SummerSlam? Let us know by sharing your thoughts on Facebook or Twitter down below!

The Young Bucks made monumental history with their recent AEW re-signing, beating out Kevin Nash and Scott Hall to become the highest-paid tag team in professional wrestling history.

Matt and Nick Jackson settled all debate regarding their wrestling futures when it was announced that they, alongside Kenny Omega and ‘Hangman’ Adam Page, had re-signed with AEW with new multi-year deals earlier this week.

But one aspect that wasn’t so heavily publicised was that the two-time AEW World Tag Team Champions accomplished an incredible feat with their re-signing, thanks to their big-name agent.

In the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer revealed that The Young Bucks’ new contract guarantees have made them professional wrestling’s highest-paid tag team of all time.

This was thanks to the duo’s agent, Barry Bloom, who negotiated their deal. Bloom formerly represented WWE CCO Triple H and currently works as an agent for Chris Jericho, Goldberg and other stars alongside the Jackson brothers.

“Bloom had told the Young Bucks that as far as he knew, this was the highest guarantee any tag team in pro wrestling history had ever gotten, and that would include the highest contracts for Kevin Nash & Scott Hall in WCW, although obviously comparing a 2023 dollar figure with late 90s in straight dollars doesn’t mean much given how much inflation has changed the value going that far back.”

WWE Women’s World Champion Rhea Ripley has seemingly expressed her frustration over her current role at SummerSlam this weekend.

Ripley has undoubtedly become one of WWE’s most popular female stars since joining The Judgement Day’s ranks and creating one of the company’s most entertaining pairings in her alliance with Dominik Mysterio.

But ‘The Nightmare’ hasn’t been slacking in the ring either, capturing the SmackDown Women’s Championship from Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania 39 and becoming the promotion’s first-ever Women’s World Champion earlier this year.

Despite all these accolades, however, Ripley doesn’t have a match at SummerSlam at the time of writing and it seems Ripley herself isn’t too happy about that fact…

In a recent post on X (formerly Twitter), Ripley responded to a WWE Public Relations tweet promoting an article spotlighting her “SummerSlam glam” – hitting back that it was actually her “media appearance look” as she doesn’t seem to be appearing on the show.

“*SummerSlam media appearance look* for reasons we all know of.”

*SummerSlam media appearance look* for reasons we all know of. https://t.co/STnRbSrzRs

— RheaRipley_WWE (@RheaRipley_WWE) August 3, 2023

If Ripley defends her Women’s World Championship at SummerSlam at the last minute, who would you like to see challenge her? Let us know by sharing on Facebook or Twitter down below!

It seems the rift between CM Punk and The Elite’s Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks and ‘Hangman’ Adam Page hasn’t been repaired despite the formers’ AEW re-signing…

The issues between CM Punk and The Elite have been well-documented, stemming back to a backstage fight between the two parties following All Out 2022. The so-called Real World Champion’s troubles in the promotion initially began during his AEW World title feud with Adam Page when backstage heat between the two “poisoned everything”, as Punk himself put it.

With AEW recently announcing that Omega, Page and the Bucks had re-signed with new multi-year deals, some fans suspected that the group’s fallout with Punk may finally be over. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like that’s the case.

Dave Meltzer discussed the current relationship between Punk and The Elite in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, stating that their relationship has not improved and that Tony Khan is having to balance appeasing both parties as a result.

“Even with the signing, there do remain significant behind-the-scenes issues that haven’t been settled, between them and C.M. Punk, which keeps Khan having to do a balancing act.”

‘The Baddest Woman On The Planet’ looks to be leaving WWE once again following her SummerSlam MMA Rules battle with former Four Horsewomen ally Shayna Baszler.

Ronda Rousey has had a successful second stint since her return to the company at the 2022 Royal Rumble, becoming WWE’s eighth female Triple Crown champion by capturing both the SmackDown Women’s and Women’s Tag Team championships on top of her previous RAW Women’s title wins.

But now, it looks like the former UFC Bantamweight star will be taking yet another hiatus from pro wrestling just 18 months after her return.

Writing in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer notes that Rousey is expected to be leaving the promotion following SummerSlam and that her MMA Rules bout against Shayna Baszler could be her final WWE match for now.

“Shayna Baszler vs. Ronda Rousey will be an MMA rules match, which I guess is to mean knockout or submission finish and no pins, although that hasn’t been specified. It’s not confirmed whether this is Rousey’s last match in WWE for the time being, but her departure is coming relatively soon since they had to rush the turn angle.”

Morning all!

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 ahead of a massive SummerSlam weekend!

We’ve got some big stories from this morning’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter and elsewhere including:

• Ronda Rousey Expected To Depart WWE “Relatively Soon”
  
• CM Punk And The Elite Still Maintain “Significant” Backstage Issues
• Rhea Ripley Seemingly Frustrated With SummerSlam Role
• The Young Bucks Become Wrestling’s Highest-Paid Tag Team Ever