Various News: Indies, Charlotte Wants Rousey, AJ Styles, Aries Banana

Indie News & Notes

PROGRESS announced next year’s Super Strong Style 16 tournament will be taking place from May 5th to May 7th at the Alexandra Palace in London, England.

PROGRESS also announced WWE UK star Wolfgang will be making his in-ring debut for the company on October 29th. He will be challenging for the Atlas Championship against current champion Walter.

Revolution Pro Wrestling announced two new matches for their Global Wars UK events. The first being NJPW’s Tetsuya Naito facing off against Marty Scurll on their November 9th show at the York Hall in London. The other being NJPW’s Toru Yano facing off against Zack Gibson on their November 10th show in Walthamstow, London.

The Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer reports What Culture Pro Wrestling will be rebranding as Defiant Wrestling starting this December. During Monday’s Refuse to Lose iPPV event, Stu Bennett (Wade Barrett in WWE) was revealed as the company’s new on-screen general manager replacing Adam Blampied who recently left the company. Both decisions are due to last month’s layoffs at WhatCulutre which saw the departure of several key staff members.

Charlotte Flair Wants to Face Ronda Rousey at Wrestlemania 34

During a recent interview with ESPN, Charlotte teased at wanting to face off against Ronda Rousey at next year’s Wrestlemania. She feels the match would be worthy of being the main event for Wrestlemania and would fulfill a dream goal she has for her career.

“I hope that’s the main event of WrestleMania. That’s my dream. I hope we can make it happen. She really opened the doors for a lot of women. Having that opportunity would be huge. I don’t know what her goals are, but it’s just cool that she wants to be a part of our world.”

WWE’s Current Plan to Keep Crowds for 205 Live Shows

While answering a fan question on Twitter, the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer stated the official reason for the recent lack of AJ Styles matches on Smackdown is due to current plans the WWE has for 205 Live. Instead of having Styles wrestle matches on Smackdown, WWE currently feels Styles is a lot more effective as the top draw for Smackdown’s post-show matches with the idea he can keep more of the crowd staying for the following 205 Live shows.

@davemeltzerWON has Aj been wrestling dark matches or house shows? On the board we are concerned he's injured and they aren't telling us

— Kcj1138 (@kcj1138) October 4, 2017

Working every night. Saved for dark matches a lot on Tuesday to make sure crowd doesn't leave during 205 Live. https://t.co/kOnCDL3NZs

— Dave Meltzer (@davemeltzerWON) October 4, 2017

Austin Aries Reveals Origin for Banana in Suit Pocket Running Gag

A recent episode of The Tomorrow Show had Austin Aries as the guest and one of the questions asked involved the origins of Aries having a banana in his suit pocket. Aires stated the first time he did it was during WWE’s Hall of Fame ceremony in 2016 but not as a joke. Instead he realized he was going to be very hungry during the long show and wanted something which could fit in his pocket and be quick to eat as a snack. The reactions he got afterwards made him turn it into a running gag in the WWE.

“I’m just going to say this about the banana. The Hall Of Fame is long, okay? And I saw lots of people dressed to impress that night. Lots of nice suits. Lots of nice dresses. Let me tell you something, about three and a half hours in, I guarantee about 40 percent of that audience wished they had a banana in their pocket instead of a pocket square, because I got famished. I was running low on some energy, and that pocket square wouldn’t do me any good. But I got a nice little shot of some natural sugars and potassium, and then I just used my sleeve to wipe my mouth off. And I didn’t need the pocket square. So sometimes the thing comes in handy in a pinch. You never know.”