Bianca Belair Set For Potentially Lengthy WWE Absence; Wrestling News August 30th 2023

Adam Cole has revealed that his ring gear at AEW All In: London was inspired by, in his opinion, the greatest video game villain of all time.

Cole has never been afraid to hide his love for video games, most notably running his own Twitch channel named TheCHUGS where he streams a variety of games. Most recently, Cole has played games from iconic franchises like Resident Evil, Final Fantasy and The Witcher on his channel.

His passion for games has even extended to his wrestling persona at times, making its most notable appearance to date during the biggest match of the former NXT Champion’s career at Wembley Stadium this past weekend. Cole unveiled special ring gear for the event, the design of which paid tribute to one of his favorite gaming characters.

Taking to X following the event, Cole shared photos of his attire and revealed that the design was based on Handsome Jack, the infamous villain of 2012’s Borderlands 2.

On the biggest night of my career in front of 81k people at #AEWAllIn, I had to pay tribute to the greatest Video Game villain of all time. The “God Damn Hero.” #HandsomeJack @Borderlands pic.twitter.com/8aoAVNUw2B

— Adam Cole (@AdamColePro) August 29, 2023

Jeff Jarrett has opened up about Grado’s appearance at AEW All In: London, claiming that a singles match between himself and the Scottish star was never considered for the event.

Jarrett and Grado have plenty of history stemming back to their feud in Scotland’s ICW and the two seemingly reignited their rivalry on a TalkSPORT appearance last month, which ended with him smashing a guitar over Grado’s head.

Fast forward to the historic Wembley Stadium event and Grado got his revenge, smashing a guitar over Jarrett’s head on The Buy-In whilst helping Paul Wight and Anthony Ogogo chase off Jarrett’s goons.

During the latest episode of his My World podcast, Jarrett shot down rumors that a singles bout between himself and Grado was considered for the event but Grado being part of a multi-man match was considered. He went on to reveal that Grado’s appearance ultimately happened because of a social media movement speared by Cultaholic’s Tom Campbell.

“The promotional stunt that took place, there was no master plan of where this was going to go or where that was going to. I have to give Tom Campbell of Cultaholic, he got word that Jarrett-Grado….

I can assure listeners this, a Jarrett-Grado singles match, I don’t believe was ever discussed. He is not on the AEW roster. He may have been in the corner, maybe a six-man, at one time there was an eight-man, at one time there was a ten-man discussion, all kinds of different things.

At the end of the day, a lot of chatter that went on with it. Ol’ Tom led the charge, and he went heavy with it. The amount of social media buzz that took place the seven days beforehand, my gosh. When Grado’s video wall popped up, what a roar. It was a big pop. Great moment.”

h/t to Fightful

WWE once had plans to reform SAnitY following their lackluster main roster run and have them feud with Imperium in NXT!

Alexander Wolfe, a former member of the group, spoke on the Developmentally Speaking podcast recently and revealed that WWE almost reunited SAnitY as well as have them capture the NXT Tag Team Championship once again. Unfortunately, the plans were scrapped due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There was actually a plan to re-form SAnitY. […] The plan later was they would separate me from Imperium, because I would be the weak link. […] Then in that time also, they would re-form SAnitY with Killian Dain and Eric Young, and they would win the NXT tag team gold. […] In that case, they would go on to feud with Imperium, and I would join SAnitY. […] We would have a feud against Imperium, and then we would go back to U.S. NXT.”

SAnitY were an active stable from 2016 through to 2019, winning the NXT Tag Team Championship from The Authors of Pain in August 2017 before losing them to The Undisputed ERA that December. The group made their main roster debut in April 2018 but were disbanded a year later after Eric Young was drafted to RAW, Wolfe to NXT UK and Dain back to NXT.

Brody King not only walked out of AEW All In: London without the World Trios Championship but also with an injury!

In the semi-main event of All In, The House of Black defended their AEW World Trios titles against The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn. Despite their best efforts, the champions were dethroned by their challengers and suffered their first Trios loss in almost a year – last losing to Sting, Miro and Darby Allin at All Out 2022.

The group didn’t walk out unscathed either as PWInsider reports that House of Black member Brody King came out of the match with a broken hand. It’s currently unknown the injury will sideline King from in-ring action nor how long it will take for him to recover from it.

King has competed almost exclusively in singles matches since joining AEW in in January 2022. In the seven televised singles bouts he’s competed in within AEW, King holds a 3-4 win/loss record – most notably challenging Jon Moxley for the Interim AEW World Championship on the July 6th 2022 edition of AEW Dynamite.

In the wake of Bray Wyatt’s tragic passing at just 36 years old, WWE has released a new compilation video featuring the best moments of his career.

Moments featured include his debut in NXT, his WrestleMania 32 match against The Undertaker, the debut of The Fiend, his return to the company last year and more!

Check out the video above and let us know your favorite Bray Wyatt moment or match by sharing on Facebook or Twitter down below!

UK fans: If you missed out on seeing AEW All In: London this past weekend then you can watch the full show on free TV later this week!

Eagle-eyed fans on social media have discovered that AEW’s landmark Wembley Stadium event will be broadcast in its entirety on ITV4 on Thursday, August 31st. The pay-per-view is set to air from 9pm BST until 1:55am on Friday, September 1st, and will seemingly show the entire main show – excluding the matches and segments on The Buy-In.

ITV4 is the TV home of AEW in the United Kingdom, broadcasting every episode of Dynamite, Rampage and Collision on the channel a few days after their airing on TBS and TNT in the United States.

All In: London was undoubtedly AEW’s most successful event in company history, drawing over 90,000+ to Wembley Stadium and setting a new record for the highest-paid attendance at a professional wrestling event in history! The event also garnered one of the largest gates ever for a professional wrestling event, generating over $10 million for the promotion.

Roman Reigns has surpassed yet another huge championship milestone, officially hitting three years as WWE Universal Champion.

Three years ago today, on August 30th 2020, Reigns defeated ‘The Fiend’ Bray Wyatt and Braun Strowman in a No Holds Barred triple threat match at Payback to win the Universal Championship. Despite ‘unifying’ both the Universal and WWE Championships into the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship last year, both belts still hold separate lineages.

Since winning the title, Reigns has gone on to defend it 29 times at some of the biggest WWE events of the last few years.  His most title defence opponents include then-WWE Champion Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 38, both Edge and Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 37, Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 39 and Drew McIntyre at Clash At The Castle.

In the same time period, Reigns has only been directly defeated once. At Money In The Bank in London earlier this year, Reigns was pinned by Jey Uso during their their tag match in the main event with Solo Sikoa alongside Reigns and Jimmy Uso alongside Jey respectively.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5PSR6JSHws

Awesome Kong is set to end her retirement from wrestling and return to the ring in IMPACT Wrestling later this year!

Kong, known for her time in TNA, WWE and AEW, announced her retirement at NWA EmPowerrr in August 2021 in a segment alongside long-time ally Gail Kim. She competed in her last match on the January 7th 2020 edition of AEW Dark, beating Skyler Moore in just over three minutes.

However, the 45-year-old is set to return to both IMPACT Wrestling and the wrestling ring in general later this year. IMPACT announced via social media that Kong will compete at IMPACT 1000, celebrating the 1000th television episode the company has produced, on September 9th.

It is currently unknown who Kong will face in her first match in over three years at the event.

All In: London was an undoubtedly successful event from AEW, drawing over 90,000+ to Wembley Stadium and setting a new record for the highest-paid attendance at a professional wrestling event in history!

But what did you think of the show itself? Did it live up to expectations? What was your favorite and least favorite part of the show? Were you watching from home or taking in the atmosphere live at Wembley?

Let us know all your thoughts by sharing on Facebook or Twitter down below!

Dana White has hit out at a recent report suggesting Ronda Rousey is looking to make a return to the UFC!

The Daily Mail reported yesterday that the multi-time WWE Women’s Champion was interested in having one last MMA run and specifically competing at UFC 300 next year, per a close confidant of Rousey. They went on to note that Ronda is also considering TV and movie roles as well as having a second child following the birth of her first in September 2021.

White, who serves as President of UFC, has vehemently disputed that report as reported by TSN Sports’ Aaron Bronsteter, blasting The Daily Mail’s content as “a crock of s**t” and claiming Ronda has since moved on with her life from her MMA roots.

“Stop reading the Daily Mail, everything that they write is a crock of s**t, Ronda’s having kids! Ronda built this whole thing that’s going on with the women here, then her dream was to go to the WWE, she went there and did everything that she did there and achieved, she’s made sh*tloads of money. She’s moved on with her life.”

h/t to Fightful

A new report has clarified what really happened between CM Punk and Miro following the latter’s match at AEW All In: London.

The ‘Real’ AEW World Champion is reportedly suspended from the promotion following a backstage altercation with Jack Perry moments before his match at All In but recent reports have suggested that Punk also got into an argument with Miro after his match.

However, Sean Ross Sapp noted via Fightful Select that the whole incident was, in fact, overblown and was simply a joke between the two men per sources from both sides. Miro is alleged to have asked how he was feeling after his match and Punk responded that he was good, unless Miro wanted to fight him as well in a joking manner.

Miro is said to have accepted Punk’s challenge which led to Punk asking them to go outside. Miro then responded that the two should instead face off in the ring which caused both to laugh and walk off.

Bianca Belair is set to take a potentially extensive absence from WWE programming after being written off TV earlier this month.

Sean Ross Sapp reported via Fightful Select that the knee injury Belair suffered at the hands of Damage CTRL during the August 18th edition of SmackDown is just a storyline injury and was done to write her off programming for the time being.

It’s currently unknown how long exactly Belair will be absent for, but Sapp noted that he’s heard a range of time periods from just under a month to as long as three months.

Belair most recently captured the WWE Women’s Championship from Asuka in a triple threat match with Charlotte Flair at SummerSlam. However, The EST lost the title almost immediately when Iyo Sky cashed in her Money In The Bank briefcase and pinned the new champion to end her reign in less than two minutes, making Belair’s reign the shortest in the belt’s history.

Morning everyone, hope you’re having a good 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!

Today’s top story is:

• Bianca Belair Set For Potentially Lengthy WWE Absence
  
• The Real Story Behind CM Punk & Miro’s All In Incident
• Dana White Blasts “Crock Of S**t” Ronda Rousey UFC 300 Report