WWE: New Episode of Broken Skull Sessions, New Hiring, RAW Notes, Updated SD Ratings

New Episode of Broken Skull Sessions to Air This Sunday on WWE Network & Peacock

WWE recently announced that a new episode of their Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions series will be airing on August 15th on the WWE Network and NBC’s Peacock service.

It was also announced that this episode will feature Bobby Lashley as the guest.

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WWE Hires New High-Level Executive for Talent Department

Fightful’s Robert DeFelice reported that WWE recently hired Trent D. Wilfinger to be their new Senior Vice President of Talent ID and Development.

DeFelice reported that Wilfinger’s Linkedln profile was recently updated stating that he will be working directly with James Kimball, WWE’s Senior Vice President, Global Localization & Global Talent Strategy, and Paul “Triple H” Levesque.

Next Chapter

In the last few weeks, a massive opportunity came about that I am extremely excited to share. Later this month, I will be joining the WWE as their new Senior Vice President of Talent ID & Development. I look forward to working side by side James Kimball under the leadership of Paul Levesque to help bring to life a game changing vision and strategy.

It’s time to go find, support, and develop the next wave of WWE Superstars. #wwe #nxt

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WWE RAW News & Notes

As noted before, WWE invited several NXT talent backstage at Monday’s television tapings for WWE Main Event and RAW in Orlando, Florida. Besides Aliyah, Dakota Kai, Odyssey Jones, and Austin Theory, PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that Xia Li and other NXT talent were also seen backstage but were not used.

Fightful’s Jeremy Lambert reported that Riddick Moss was also seen backstage during Monday’s episode of RAW. Moss has been out of action for WWE since September of 2020 due to a torn ACL injury.

Spectrum Sports 360’s Jon Alba reported that during Monday’s episode of RAW, WWE ran ad promo videos for those in attendance in the arena that featured Mick Foley and Stone Cole Steve Austin praising “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt. Alba reported that this was just a simple mistake by WWE’s production crew of not updating their ad promo videos from their rotation and is not a sign of Wyatt returning to the company. Alba also reported that these videos also talked about other WWE talent as well and not just Wyatt.

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Updated WWE Friday Night SmackDown Ratings

This past Friday’s episode of WWE Friday Night SmackDown drew a final viewership of 2,169,000 on FOX, according to Wrestlenomics. This was up compared to the initial overnight number of 2,047,000 viewers on the network.