Weekend Roundup: Alexa Bliss, Shane McMahon, WWE Royal Rumble Notes, HOOK, Peter Avalon, Ratings, Nia Jax, Indies

WWE

• Following a lengthy break away from WWE programming, Alexa Bliss made her return at the January 10th episode of RAW. Bliss’ has been involved in a series of therapy segments as part of her on-going “Alexa Bliss’ Journey to RAW” storyline. Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that WWE had filmed nine therapy segments for Bliss’ current storyline but it is currently not known if all of the segments will all air on television nor if they will be combined together nor if more than one segment will air per week to progress her storyline. It was also reported that WWE officials never had any real plans for Bliss’ to compete in this past weekend’s Women’s Royal Rumble match.
• As noted before, WWE released Shane McMahon following backstage issues over his involvement with the production of this year’s Men’s Royal Rumble match. Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that one notable backstage incident involved McMahon pitching the idea for him to be highlighted in a big spot in the Men’s Rumbe match, going as far as suggesting to be the first entrant of the match. Vince McMahon reportedly shot down this idea and all of Shane’s other ideas for the match. It was also reported that one humorous backstage incident involved McMahon and Randy Orton’s entry numbers being swapped, which resulted in McMahon’s surprised and hastily reaction when he heard his own music being played and Orton informing him that he was not going to be entering out to McMahon’s music.
• In regards to WWE’s original plans for Shane McMahon following his return, Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that WWE officials had plans at one point for McMahon to be involved in a WrestleMania feud against Seth Rollins. This feud reportedly would have kicked off during WWE’s upcoming Elimination Chamber event. McMahon reportedly was also originally planned to defeat Kevin Owens at this past Monday’s episode of RAW to qualify for his spot in the upcoming Men’s Elimination Chamber match, which eventually went to Austin Theory instead.
• WWE officials reportedly had considered plans for NXT talent Bron Breakker to be a potential competitor in this year’s Men’s Royal Rumble match, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that one idea pitched involved a spot in the match between Breakker and Dolph Ziggler as a way to build up more interest for NXT. Meltzer reported that these plans were dropped due to Vince McMahon making the decision that no NXT talent would be included in either of the Royal Rumble matches at the event.
• Brock Lesnar and Charlotte Flair reportedly set several new all-time Royal Rumble records at this past weekend’s Royal Rumble 2022 event, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that Lesnar set the record for least amount of in-ring time spent for a Men’s Royal Rumble winner at 2 minutes and 32 seconds and the longest gap in between Rumble wins at nineteen years (2003 & 2022). Flair reportedly set the record for most second place finishes in Women’s Royal Rumble history at two (2019 & 2022), most cumulative time spent in the Women’s Royal Rumble at 2:22:30, and most all-time Women’s Royal Rumble eliminations at fifteen.
• WWE reportedly currently has plans for both Bayley and Asuka to make their returns from injury within the next few months, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that both are currently being targeted to be medically cleared in time to compete in this April’s WrestleMania 38 event in Dallas, Texas.
• Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that WWE officials currently have plans for Drew McIntyre to feud with Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship at some point in the future. WWE officials reportedly had originally planned for this feud to take place during the early part of this year to lead into Reigns’ WrestleMania 38 program with Brock Lesnar but those plans were dropped following McIntyre’s neck injury. Meltzer reported that this was the reason why Lesnar was not booked to completely dominate McIntyre in the Men’s Royal Rumble match unlike with the other people left in the match.
• WWE reportedly generated an attendance of 39,417 for their Royal Rumble 2022 event on January 29th in St. Louis, Missouri, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that the breakdown was over 35,000 paid and the rest as comp tickets. Meltzer also reported that this year’s event generated the second highest ever live gate and broke the record for highest ever live merchandise sales in Royal Rumble history. In regards to viewership on NBC’s Peacock, this year’s event was the highest ever viewed WWE event on the service.
• WWE reportedly generated an attendance of 5,400 (4,500 paid) for their January 28th SmackDown show in Kansas City, MO and 5,562 (4,800 paid) for their January 31st RAW show in Cincinnati, OH, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• WWE reportedly has sold around 4,817 tickets for their Feb. 7th RAW show in Denver, CO, around 5,066 tickets for their Feb. 11th SmackDown show in New Orleans, LA, around 3,557 tickets for their Feb. 14th RAW show in Indianapolis, IN, around 3,992 tickets for their Feb. 21st RAW show in Columbia, SC, around 6,023 tickets for their Feb. 25th SmackDown show in Hershey, PA, around 2,525 tickets for their Feb. 26th hosue show event in Youngstown, OH, around 2,249 tickets for their Feb. 27th house shoe event in Rochester, NY, around 4,748 for their Feb. 28th RAW show in Columbus, OH, around 3,483 tickets for their March 4th SmackDown show in Miami, FL, around 3,796 tickets for their March 5th house show event at Madison Square Garden in New York City, NY, around 6,885 tickets for their March 6th house show event in Laval, Canada, around 1,718 tickets for their March 6th house show event in Allentown, PA, and around 5,234 tickets for their March 11th SmackDown show in Birmingham, AL as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• As noted before, WWE recently released their 2021 fiscal fourth quarter and fiscal year reports. In regards to WWE television ratings for WWE’s 2021 fiscal fourth quarter, Friday Night SmackDown averaged around 1,932,000 viewers for their shows, which was down 8.2% compared to the same fiscal quarter last year’s viewership of 2,105,000. In regards to FOX, they were up 9.9% in overall viewership compared to the same fiscal quarter last year. WWE Raw averaged around 1,631,000 viewers for their shows, which was down 5.8% compared to the same fiscal quarter last year’s viewership of 1,731,000. In regards to USA Network, they were down 18.3% in overall viewership compared to the same fiscal quarter last year.
• WWE reportedly invited NXT talents Io Shirai, Raquel Gonzalez, Pete Dunne, and Tommaso Ciampa for dark match tryouts prior to the start of this past Friday’s SmackDown show in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, according to Fightful. Shirai reportedly faced off in a singles match against Gonzalez, which was won by Gonzalez while Dunne faced off in a singles match against Ciampa, which was won by Ciampa.
• 2K Games recently released a new gameplay trailer for their upcoming WWE 2K22 video game, which is scheduled to be released on March 8th for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X & S, Xbox One, and PC.

AEW

• During a recent House Hardy stream on Twitch, Matt Hardy revealed the origin for the “office” of his Hardy Family Office segments being a random stairwell during AEW shows. Hardy stated “We had a location, we’d shoot, and we were all there. We’re all set, and we’re going to shoot this pre-tape, right? 90 seconds, whatever, two minutes for TV. Then we get there and we’re starting to shoot and all these people from the building said, ‘No, no. No cameras are allowed here! You can’t shoot in this area. This is off-limits, you can’t shoot.’ So we had to change this whole — it wasn’t anything like, it wasn’t like we’re by some key information, confidential information by the War Room, or area 51, or like the sports team’s locker room or anything, it wasn’t any location like that. But for some reason, this one was off-limits. So they pretty much used all the other locations they’d kind of scouted out for us. So then, the show had started and we’re pushing it to do this [shoot]. We’re running late and the place where we had the least amount of noise, and the most privacy, was in a staircase, and we’re saying, of course, This looks absurd. We’re doing this business meeting in a staircase. Jess Palombo, who does a ton of the pre-tapes at AEW, she actually said the responses she got to that, after the pre-tape being in the stairwell, were just entertaining the hell out of her, and she’s like, ‘We should just do them all in a stairwell.’ I was like, ‘Fine. That’s great.’ So now, that’s our new thing. That’s where the AHFO does business, in the stairwell.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• Danielle Kamela, former Vanessa Borne in NXT, reportedly made her official debut in AEW during today’s set of AEW Dark tapings at the Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, according to the Wrestling Observer.
• AEW reportedly generated an attendance of 6,100 (5,900 paid) for their Jan. 26th Dynamite Beach Break 2022 show in Cleveland, OH and 5,600 (5,300 paid) for their Feb. 2nd Dynamite show in Chicago, IL, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• AEW reportedly has sold around 4,901 tickets for their Feb. 9th Dynamite show in Atlantic City, NJ, around 3,269 tickets for their Feb. 16th Dynamite show in Nashville, TB, around 4,591 tickets for their Feb. 23rd Dynamite show in Bridgeport, CT, around 1,174 tickets for their March 2nd Dynamite show in Jacksonville, around 2,424 tickets for their March 4th Rampage show in Orlando, around 6,838 tickets for their Revolution 2022 event in Orlando, and 1,621 tickets for their March 9th Dynamite show in Estero, FL as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• During a recent interview with Mashable.com, HOOK gave his thoughts about CM Punk specifically mentioning his name during his promo to Taz on the October 6, 2021 episode of AEW Dynamite. Hook stated “I didn’t know that Punk was going to call me out, I was taken by surprise. It was crazy. It was wild.” Hook also gave his thoughts about the pressure he had leading up to his official in-ring debut in AEW. Hook stated “The external pressure was outrageous…I felt if I can make the most out of each opportunity that I had out there, that I could turn it into something that wasn’t just a joke. It’s weird being the subject of something like that because this is serious to me. This is my career. But at the same time, that internet is what is such a driving force in today’s world.“
• During a recent interview with Denise Salcedo, “Pretty” Peter Avalon stated that reports of his contract recently expiring in AEW are not true. Avalon stated “AEW original Pretty Peter Avalon is still with AEW, so that’s it. I am able to take outside bookings, just opening up my portfolio I guess.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• During a recent interview with The Sessions with Renee Paquette podcast, Sony Kiss gave his thoughts on how to present LGBTQ performers on wrestling television shows. Kiss stated “Just letting them be them. Letting the journey be — letting every individual be themselves. I think that’s honestly the best way to call it because people, you know, as far as storylines, feel like it has to be, you know, feel like it has to push the envelope and I feel like it doesn’t have to. I feel like you can have a storyline with an openly gay male and a cisgender straight male and it’d still be cool. When you look at [Anthony] Bowens on TV, you don’t think of Bowens as, ‘Oh, the gay wrestler.’ He’s just Anthony Bowens. People always look at Leyla [Hirsch] and don’t even identify her really. They don’t go to that immediately and I feel like just kind of letting everybody just be them. Even with me, I pitch storylines all the time that isn’t about my sexuality, isn’t about the way I look. It’s just straight up ideas that will just keep [me] in dialogue with the fans.“
• Kiss also stated in the same interview that he had once pitched the idea to AEW CEO Tony Khan of him working with Top Flight and joining as a member of their tag team. Kiss stated “I like — so like, bring it all to me [different storylines and programs], you know what I mean? I definitely would love to be able to just work with everybody in our company. We have so many awesome, amazing veterans in our company I’d love to work with. But as far as like storylines, I just recently had an idea and I was gonna pitch it to T.K. I wasn’t really sure yet. I was gonna pitch, because you know, there’s Top Flight, they’re an amazing tag team, Dante and Darius [Martin]. Darius, I don’t know when his return is. When he does come back, I was gonna pitch to be like the flight attendant. Like obviously it would just be like, I would still be in my gear but it would be [a] sexy flight attendant. It may have sounded a little cheesy but I was like it’ll be fun.” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)
• This past Wednesday’s episode of AEW Dynamite featured a match between CM Punk and MJF in Punk’s hometown city of Chicago. Fightful reported that Punk’s loss to MJF was his first televised singles loss since the January 6, 2014 episode of WWE RAW, which featured Punk losing to Roman Reigns.
• AEW recently announced that they will be holding a set of Dynamite and Rampage shows on April 6th in Boston, Massachusetts. It was also announced that tickets for this upcoming set of shows will officially go on sale starting on February 11th.

Indies & Other Wrestling

• Terminus announced that Jay Lethal, Liiza Hall, Dante Caballero, and Gabriel Kidd will be making an appearance for the company at their Terminus II event on February 24th in Atlanta, Georgia.
• During a recent interview with Sportskeeda, Impact talent Hernandez revealed that he is currently planning on retiring from wrestling within the next two to three years. Hernandez also revealed that he currently has no desire to transition into a backstage job once his active wrestling career is over.
• Jeff Cobb revealed in a recent interview with The Wrstling Podcast that he recently suffered a pulled muscle injury. Cobb stated “Yeah [I’ve been learning Japanese while in Japan]. I’ve been studying and writing. I was supposed to go to some classes soon but, I kind of pulled a muscle so I can’t really — I had to take some time off so, but I’ll be back up and soon and when I have some down time, I’ll be taking more [classes soon] so, I mean as of now, it’s just pretty much a — I have an app that helps me which is great so, and I have friends that teach me so it’s great.” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)
• As noted before, New Japan Pro Wrestling announced that they will be holding an event on April 1st in Dallas, Texas as part of WrestleCon’s series of events in the city that weekend. NJPW recently announced that this upcoming event is officially called Lone Star Shootout and will air live on both New Japan World and FITE TV.
• Game Changer Wrestling recently announced a new match for the card of their Don’t Tell Me What To Do event on February 20th in Atlantic City, New Jersey. This will be a tag team match of Joey Janela & Marko Stunt vs. Second Gear Crew (AJ Gray & Matthew Justice).
• GCW also recently announced a new match for the card of their Astronaut event on March 12th in Atlanta, Georgia. This will be a singles match of Jonathan Gresham vs. Blake Christian.
• This past Saturday’s GCW’s If I Die First event in Houston, Texas featured a show closing segment between Dr. Wagner Jr. and Psycho Clown. Wagner Jr. issued a challenge to Psycho Clown for a hair vs. mask match at a future event in GCW.
• In a recent Twitter post, Lina Fanene, former Nia Jax in WWE, claims that she knows the names of a lot of professional athletes in various professional sports and wrestling who have paid for fake vaccination cards from doctors and have been falsifying their COID-19 vaccination status. Fanene stated “Hahaha! I stand by that too. Honey, if you really think that all your favorites don’t feel the same as I do, you’re sadly mistaken. I know a lot of people in many professional sports that just paid & got a real card from a doctor..sooooo.“
• Pro Wrestling Guerilla reportedly generated a paid attendance of 600 for both nights of their Battle of Los Angeles 2022 tournament on January 29th and 30th in Los Angeles, California, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• A trademark for “Indie Wrestling Hall of Fame” was filed on January 31st by Orange Crush for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
• Variety reported that NBC Universal is currently working together with thirty different advertisers on a new ratings measurement tool for television viewership. It was reported that the reason for the development of this new ratings tool is due to growing frustrations within the industry over the lingering issues with the current ratings system used by Nielsen. It was also reported that NBC will be testing out this new ratings system during their 2022 Winter Olympic Games coverage and next Sunday’s NFL Super Bowl LVI game. It was also reported that Nielsen is also currently developing a new ratings tool called NielsenOne to better measure linear and digital viewership for television shows.
• Ring of Honor commentator Ian Riccaboni announced on Twitter that he had tested positive for COVID-19 late last month but is currently feeling fine and tested negative for the virus in a recent follow up test.
• As noted before, Konnan is currently suffering from kidneys-related issues due to his recent bout with COVID-19. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that Konnan’s current health situation is very serious and he will have to go on dialysis. Meltzer reported that two prospective donors have been recently found for Konann but it will still be some time before it is known if he is a compatible match with either person’s kidneys.
• CBS recently announced that former WWE commentator Mauro Ranallo will be the official host of their upcoming new celebrity reality competition series called Beyond the Edge, which debuts on the network on March 16th.