Date: 01/05	11:00 PM
Views: 726

Wed. #2 is HERE. To help out the site subscribe to Mistah MegaManFan or support us on Patreon. With the cheap plugs out of the way here's Thursday's latest wrestling news.

A slew of NXT talent, coaches and support staff received the axe on Wednesday. William Regal and Road Dogg (Brian James) will be the most obvious and most egregious to most folks, but they also let Timothy Thatcher, Hideki Suzuki, Danny Burch, Allison Danger, (Cathy Corino), Ace Steel, Ranjin Singh (Dave Kapoor), GQ Money (Ryan Katz) and George Carroll got the axe too. Thatcher and Burch had both been coaching since their last on-air appearances pre-NXT 2.0. Suzuki had also been working as a coach but recently debuted as part of the Diamond Mine as Hachiman. Carroll was brought in as a writer/producer in 2020 after previously working for both MLW and NJPW. Corino was a NXT coach and is the sister of "Old School" Steve Corino. Ace Steel was pulling double duty as a coach and producer. Kapoor was the Senior Vice President of Creative for NXT and had previously been on-air as manager for The Great Khali. Katz worked on character development and promos for talent, and previously wrestled as GQ Money in Wrestling Society X on MTV. Even more names we haven't discussed may be among those cut yesterday. (FF)

Speaking to the New York Post, Ruby Soho talked about her creative freedom in AEW: "I can only speak from my personal perspective. My personal perspective and my experience has showed me with Tony (Khan), Tony giving me a lot of creative freedom to be able to be the exact person that I want to be and to represent myself, the exact way that I want to be represented. That's really all I can speak to, and that's the experience that I have. Having the creative freedom that I was not granted before and to be trusted. I'm grateful for that and that's something as a performer that I do not take for granted by any means."

Coincidentally or not nZo (Enzo Amore) talks about the difference between him and AEW: "Do you know what the difference between me and all the kids that work for Tony Khan is? Want me to tell you what the difference is? I'll tell you the difference between me and all the kids that work for Tony Khan is. Tony Khan says something I don't like, I'll punch him right in his fucking mouth. That's the difference. I'm a real one, and I don't give a damn who you are, I don't work for anybody."

New WWE related videos are available below.

In addition here are new Dynamite and AEW related videos.

In this interview Maria Kanellis talks about her unfulfilled plans for the ROH Women's Division: "I would've liked to have some time to give credit due to more people from the women's division past, especially Sumie (Sakai), because we ran out of time. I think that seeing the third match between Miranda (Alize) and Trish (Adora) would've been awesome because Trish has been on a tear and I feel like there was so much more that we could do with her. Unfortunately, we didn't get to do that."

WWE also released Sarah Cummins today, the Senior Vice President of Consumer Products. (PWI)

In addition it appears commentator Matt Striker has been released by Impact Wrestling. (PWI)

Carmella is reportedly working while injured and her WWE matches are being structured to work around said injury right now. (PWI)

The "cold open" for MLW Azteca Underground is below.

NXT New Year's Evil did a 0.16 18-49 demo, the same as last week, but the audience grew slightly from 662,000 to 685,000 viewers. (Wrestlenomics)

Kevin Owens' wife self-reported testing positive for COVID-19 and said her husband is "starting to have symptoms" too. All the best to their family for a hopefully mild case and full recovery.

Shinsuke Nakamura talks about his partnership with Rick Boogs: "I think it was a big change for Eric Bugenhagen to arrive at his entrance this year. It seems that he had been with NXT for several years. But he was selected in a hurry because he happened to play the guitar. After all, I want to get involved in the highest throne. I have the Intercontinental Championship, but I often team up with Boogs, and I have more tag matches than singles. Come to think of it, everyone is in a duo. Like veterans and young people. Even in NXT, it's like Handsome (Jiro) and KUSHIDA. Is it to increase the chances of appearing on the program together, while raising young talent by forming a combination? Anyway, since I came to WWE, I can achieve the Grand Slam if I get one WWE World Championship, so I would like to aim for that."

Allegedly Seth Rollins was set to win the WWE Title before Roman Reigns missed Day 1 due to COVID-19 and Brock Lesnar was added to the fatal four way (becoming a five way) as a "make good" for Reigns' absence.

Lenny Leonard is VERY unhappy that WWE let Allison Danger go: "Here's a thread about one of my best friends in the entire world..Its a long one.. sorry.. You dedicate 20 years of your life to pro wrestling. Endure physical and mental stress and injury but persevere until you are ultimately offered your dream job. Come on down and coach in Orlando. You sign on the dotted line, pack your entire life into a truck and move from Vegas to Florida, uprooting your family, and your child from their friends and school to chase your dream. 3 months go by, no performance issues to speak of, by all accounts you're fitting in well. You are asked to go in to help as they are shorthanded, and you get exposed to Covid... ruining your Christmas by being a good soldier and are forced to quarantine. You survive and make it through New Year's and your child that you dragged across the country to accompany you is starting their first day at their new school today. You pick them up from the car circle and as they are getting in the car,they hear you are on the phone. It's your boss telling you you're fired, 3 months after you moved across the country for your 'dream job'. Sorry Danger... billion-dollar companies doing record profits restructure divisions and fire people after 3 months all the time... Good luck to you and your family though. The best part will be when they say she was let go due to budget reasons, completely forgetting that the reason they told her it took 3 months for her hiring to be approved in the first place was that they were waiting for BUDGET APPROVAL TO HIRE HER. YOU NEED BETTER ACCOUNTANTS."

Corey Graves says he wants to be in the men's Royal Rumble match this year. Can he even be medically cleared for that? I mean the whole reason he retired from wrestling and switched to announcing was that he had gotten too many concussions.

Alex Kane will defend his MLW National Openweight Title against Calvin Tankman at Blood & Thunder in Dallas on January 21st.

Hangman Page retained his AEW World Title by pinning Bryan Danielson with the buckshot lariat after 29 minutes, Jade Cargill pinned Ruby Soho to become the inaugural TBS Women's Title champion on Dynamite, and Lucha Express beat the Lucha Bros. for the tag titles in a match where Rey Fenix appeared to injure his arm after being chokeslammed through a table. (AEW)

Here's what has been announced for Rampage on Friday. (AEW)

* No DQ, No Holds Barred Match: Eddie Kingston, Santana, & Ortiz vs. Daniel Garcia & Team 2point0
* Britt Baker & Jamie Hayter vs. Riho & Ruby Soho
* Hook vs. Aaron Solo
* Jake Atlas vs. Adam Cole

Here's the current card for next week's Dynamite. (AEW)

* CM Punk vs. Wardlow
* Hikaru Shida vs. Serena Deeb
* Powerhouse Hobbs (w/ Taz) vs. Dante Martin (w/ Lio Rush)