Various: Stu Grayson Confirms AEW Departure, Maria Kanellis on WWA Plans, Tessa Blanchard, Indies

AEW

May 7, 2022

Stu Grayson Confirms His Departure from AEW

As noted before, Stu Grayson’s contract with AEW expired at the end of this past April and he was removed from the company’s official roster page.

Grayson recently confirmed the rumors and reports of his contract with AEW had expired and praised AEW’s production team, medical team, and locker room.

Update
On April 30th my contract with AEW expired. Best of luck to everyone working for AEW, our great production and medical team and of course every man and women who steps into the ring.
And to my Dark Order family, I hope the world will soon see what you are truly capable of.
— Stu Grayson (@stu_dos) May 6, 2022

Maria Kanellis Comments on Her Plans for Her Women’s Wrestling Army Promotion

A recent episode of the Two Man Power Trip podcast had Maria Kanellis as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Kanellis revealing that she is currently planning to hold the next event for her Women’s Wrestling Army promotion this June.

“June, this will be very scary, June is looking terrifying. June will be our next one and it will be in Chicago. It’s scary. We have a date in mind, it’ll probably in Chicago. It’s going to be a similar set-up and kind of place. We have a 12-month deal with another streaming service. They are coming in on production for us with that. We’re going to be doing this, probably every six to eight weeks, and be filming over the course of a few days. This is going to be a big project over the next year.”

Kanellis also stated that one person she had tried to book but was unable to get a deal done in time for Women’s Wrestling Army’s debut show earlier this month was Mia Yim.

“There are so many talented women. The only part that is stessful is not being able to book them all. There are people I wanted to get on the show that I just couldn’t. That part is stressful. We picked a lot of women that were in Ring of Honor before. That was done intentionally. A lot of women we worked with before, they know our style and how we work, that was important to us and to give those girls some place to work again. There was that part. There was people like Mia Yim, that I would like to have on the show, but she wasn’t able to do this one. That gets stressful because you want those people but can’t necessarily have them. Once you get to know people’s spirit and style, it’s a lot easier to book them. What’s difficult is when you haven’t booked them before and you don’t know how they work so you’re in these feeling out phase.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

As noted before, Women of Wrestling announced in October of 2021 that they are currently planning to resume their WOW TV series starting this September. Fightful Select reported that several WOW talents recently spoken to stated that Tessa Blanchard had a recent falling out with the company. One talent spoken to stated that Blanchard was involved in an incident during a acting class this past April “tearing apart” wrestler Samantha Sage, which led to many trainees speaking up and classes being cancelled for the foreseeable future. Another talent spoken to stated that Blanchard had also been removed as the lead trainer for talent and was replaced by Selina Majors. Another talent spoken to speculated that Blanchard was released from the company although Fightful stated they have yet to confirm that rumor.

AEW recently announced that they will be holding a set of AEW Dynamite and AEW Rampage shows on June 13th at the Enmarket Arena in Savannah, Georgia. Tickets for this upcoming set of shows was announced to officially go on sale starting on May 13th.

Pro Wrestling NOAH announced that they recently signed indie wrestler Ninja Mack to an official one year contract with the company. It was also announced that Ninja Mack will be making his return to the company this July.

Former WWE tag team The Authors of Pain, Akam & Rezar, reportedly are currently planning to resume their wrestling career this June, according to Fightful Select. It was reported that Akam (real name Sunny Dhinsa) and Rezar (real name Gzim Selmani) recently contacted other indies wrestlers regarding their plans to host an event this June in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. AoP last wrestled in March of 2022 in WWE.

Impact Wrestling talent Josh Alexander stated on Twitter that he was involved in a serious car accident with his family on Friday and himself and his family was safe and unharmed.

Impact Wrestling announced a new match for the card of their Under Siege 2022 event later tonight in Newport, Kentucky:

Pre-show: Rich Swann vs. Laredo Kid