WWE: Colby Corino on WWE Deal Falling Through, Trish Stratus on State of Women’s Wrestling, More News

May 11, 2023

Colby Corino Comments on Reason for Not Being Signed Under Contract with WWE

As noted before, former National Wrestling Alliance talent Colby Corino was initially believed to have signed a contract with WWE this past February. Corino’s WWE contract was recently discovered to never have been made official and instead he had left the company as a free agent.

In a recent episode of the Wrestling Friends with Matt Koon podcast, Corino gave his thoughts on why he was not signed to an official contract with WWE.

“I’m not sure I’d be able to do this interview if I was.
I got the offer from WWE. Everything was agreed to, verbally. They said, ‘before we send you this contract, we have to do this background check.’ All good, I’ve already been background checked by them before when I did my first tryout a few years ago, nothing new should be of surprise. I didn’t do anything wrong the past couple of years. I have nothing to hide. Everything on there, they already know. After I get my offer, I’m ready to move my family down to Florida, sign a lease at my dad’s apartment complex. My wife was so excited. We were so excited because it felt like the dream come true. It felt like everything was finally paying off. All these times that we drove 12 hours one way, did a three hour show, turned around, went to the next town, did another show 12 hours later, then finally came home and made all those weekends, it felt worth it.
After we do all that and get the offer, a few weeks ago, after I get the paperwork for the background check, starting to get a little anxious because it’s been three or four weeks and no word. Starting to come up on the date where I’m supposed to move to Florida. We were supposed to move on Sunday, and the Monday before, I get a call. I get told there was a problem with my background check and there was something from seven years ago and that I needed to handle that and after that, I’d be good. Now, I’m good to go, and it seems like that’s not the case anymore …
I don’t have all the information that I want about the situation, but I know that, for right now, it’s not a closed door, but it’s a ‘not right now’ thing.”

Corino also stated that he is currently not sure if his lack of an official contract with WWE was related to the company’s hiring freeze earlier this year.

“I’m not sure. I feel they wouldn’t tell me about it if it was. That’s way above my head.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Trish Stratus Comments on State of Women’s Wrestling & Not Wanting Token Women’s WrestleMania Main Event

A recent episode of the Out of Character with Ryan Satin podcast had Trish Stratus as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Stratus’ thoughts on the current state of women’s wrestling.

“I think there’s always room for improvement in any industry, right? There really is. I mean, I think it’s great. I’m very happy to see where the women fit into the grand scheme. I think we are represented well. Honestly, still come to be able to come into this landscape and see how I can adapt to it has been fun, and no, I think it’s gonna be ever-changing. I mean, the thing about wrestling is it’s always changing. It’s an ever-changing business and industry. So you know, we can have this interview again in another five years [and] we’ll notice these things have been different or shifted.”

Stratus also gave his thoughts on being okay with the idea of a women’s match not always needing to be a main event match for a WrestleMania show due to her not wanting it to only be done as a token main event match.

“I always look at it, like I don’t want you to look at it as ‘a women’s match,’ I want you to look at it as like this storyline should culminate to this match, to this WrestleMania moment. I feel like a lot of it is all about our story and our characters and taking our fans on a journey to get them to a certain point. I don’t think it depends on like the, ‘Let’s make sure we get the token women’s match,’ I don’t want to be the token women’s match, I want to be viewed as like, ‘I want my match, regardless of our gender to be the match that because of the storyline, because of the characters, because of the interest, and because they know what the fans want.’ So it is an interesting take on it, right? It’s not guaranteed, but it’s also like, it’s not guaranteed that Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn would be in the main event, but because of their storyline, hard work, and commitment to their story and characters. That’s what brought them to the dance. You know what I mean?”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

WWE News & Notes

Future WWE owner Endeavor recently released their fiscal first quarter 2023 report revealing that they had generated around $1.597 billion in revenue, $36.3 million in net income, and $306.4 million in Adjusted EBITDA for the past fiscal quarter.

As noted before, Robert Roode has been out of action for WWE since this past June due to a neck-related injury and surgery. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that Roode was seen last week in Birmingham, Alabama for his latest medical checkup on his neck as part of his rehab and potential return from injury to WWE.

WWE officials reportedly recently held talks with representatives in Australia to gauge interest for a potential future PLE in the country, according to Fightful Select.

NXT talents Roxanne Perez and Nathan Frazer reportedly were invited by WWE officials for dark matches taped prior to the start of this past Monday’s RAW show for tonight’s Main Event show, according to Fightful Select. Perez defeated Dana Brooke and Frazer defeated Akira Tozawa in singles matches for the show.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that several WWE officials backstage were not fond of the heavily piped in fake crowd reaction for the Brock Lesnar attack and promo to Cody Rhodes segment at this past Monday’s RAW show in Jacksonville, Florida. It was reported that WWE officials felt that this was something that was not needed to have been done for the segment.

Fightful Select also reported that WWE officials made several changes to the original plans for this past Monday’s RAW show. These changes included the match order for the World Heavyweight Championship tournament being swapped around and a planned promo by Becky Lynch following her interruption and attack on Trish Stratus being scrapped.

The New York Post reported that ESPN is currently the frontrunner of becoming the new home for Pat McAfee’s The Pat McAfee Show podcast series. It was reported that McAfee has been considering dropping his current deal with FanDuel in favor of a new deal and potential new home for his series. McAfee’s commentary career and status in WWE is currently not known.

In a recent interview with The Pivot Podcast, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson gave his thoughts on how pro wrestling helped saved his relationship with his daughter Simone, known as Ava in WWE NXT. Johnson stated “I have the privilege and honor of watching my daughter Simone (Johnson) and… I had her when I was young in my 20s and you know, as dudes, we’re still trying to find ourselves in our 20s, in our 30s. If we’re lucky, we reach our fourth level and we find ourselves a little bit (he laughed). We get a little bit more wiser. So when I had Simone, I was flying by the seat of my pants. I was wrestling full-time, I started transitioning into movies full-time. I had so much sh*t going on so I like to say me and Simone grew up together. So we had a relationship where I was always gone but we tried to keep it together. Now, years later, as she becomes a pro wrestler, it’s actually brought us closer together. So in a way, it’s helped save that relationship too so, in many ways, pro wrestling has been my family’s savior.” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)