Sat. Roundup: Emma & Riddick Moss Engaged, AEW DoN, Death Before Dishonor 2023, CageMatch Anti-Troll Changes, Indies

WWE

• Friday’s WWE Friday Night SmackDown drew a preliminary viewership of 2,460,000 viewers on FOX, according to TVSeriesFinale.
• Emma announced on Instagram that she recently got engaged to Riddick Moss. Emma stated “I said yes a million times in my head before you even asked.“
• As noted before, Major League Wrestling’s original antitrust lawsuit against WWE was dismissed this past February and had filed a new amended lawsuit this past March. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that WWE filed a motion on Friday to the U.S. District Court California Northern District, San Jose requesting for the upcoming court hearing for MLW’s lawsuit be pushed back from its currently scheduled date of June 15th based on recent court records. WWE reportedly requested for a new date of July 20th due to them stating that their lawyers would not be available to represent the company in court on June 15th. In their filing, WWE also stated that both sides had agreed to push back this upcoming hearing.
• As noted before, WWE is currently facing a racial discrimination and wrongful termination lawsuit by a former WWE creative writer. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that the defendants listed in this lawsuit are currently required to officially file their response to the case to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York by June 26th based on recent court records.
• WWE recently released a behind-the-scenes video on their official YouTube channel focusing on last week’s Night of Champions 2023 event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
• Drew McIntyre reportedly recently completed the process of becoming a naturalized American citizen, according to PWInsider.
• In regards to the current status of new contract talks between McIntyre and WWE, PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that there has been no new updates beyond both sides still not being close to terms for a potential new deal. McIntyre reportedly was seen in New York City this past week but it is currently not known if the reason for his trip was to have talks with WWE officials for a new potential contract.
• WWE filed a trademark for “#FREETONYD” for wrestling and merchandise-related purposes on May 30th to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
• WWE reportedly officially filed their opposition on May 31st to the trademark “CSRO” that had been filed by current AEW and ROW talent Claudio Castagnoli, according to PWInsider. Paul Jordan reported that Castagnoli has until July 10th to file an official response to WWE’s opposition.
• In a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, Rhea Ripley gave her thoughts about Dominik Mysterio’s growth as a performer in WWE. Ripley stated “Seeing Dom’s growth in the past few months has been incredible. He’s paving his own path. That’s really inspiring to me. I don’t think people give him the credit he deserves.” Ripley also gave her thoughts about her own evolution and growth of her career in WWE. Ripley stated “I’m a very genuine person. When I first started in WWE, I was very timid and scared that I was going to do something wrong. I wanted to please everyone. That’s why you saw the Rhea Ripley you did. I didn’t think people would gravitate toward me. I thought they wanted something else from me. But it’s amazing. I stopped caring. I know myself better than anyone else. I found the confidence within myself to be myself. That’s the Rhea Ripley you see today.”
• In a recent interview with the Mark Andrews: My Love Letter to Wrestling podcast, Gunther gave his thoughts about his face-to-face moment with Brock Lesnar at this past January’s Royal Rumble 2023 event. Gunther stated “That moment with Brock was all I needed. I don’t think we needed to have lots of action going on with him, get into a little scuffle and stuff, just the moment and the crowd reaction for that, it was all I needed. Just see how people…on the internet, you read stuff and people get easily excited, but often, the hype from online doesn’t translate to the venue. When that happened, I was like, compared to the US, especially in England, people understand competition. They tend to look at the match and take it as a competition and then emotionally react to it, rather than expecting the fireworks right away.” Gunther also gave his thoughts on if he is hopeful that Triple H will book a match between him and Lesnar in the United Kingdom. Gunther stated “I hope. The thing is, who knows. We had great success as Clash at the Castle, and now coming back with Money in the Bank, I’m hoping this is something that becomes a tradition where they venture out to Europe for the big events. The response is great and we get the chance more often.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• In a recent interview with The Ringer’s Cheap Heat podcast, Shayna Baszler gave her thoughts about her and Ronda Rousey’s issues with WWE’s Women’s Tag Team division and wanting to bring stability to the Women’s Tag Team Championship. Baszler stated “We didn’t just want these titles. We’re tired of a tag division that’s so temporary all the time, like ‘Oh, we need to do something, let’s throw some girls together.’ We want to make a tag division. It’s very possible to have tag teams that also wrestle for singles, so I think we can build a tag division that doesn’t take away from the singles scene at all, so that’s what we want to do right now.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

AEW & ROH

• This past Sunday’s Double or Nothing 2023 event in Las Vegas, Nevada featured an Anarchy in the Arena match between the Blackpool Combat Club and The Elite. During the match, Matt Jackson performed an exploding superkick to Jon Moxley to breakup up his Single Leg Crab hold on Nick Jackson. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that Matt Jackson came up with the idea for the spot around a month ago and had to get a special license from the Nevada State Fire Performers in order to be legally allowed to perform a fireworks-based spot for the match. Meltzer reported that this is the same type of license that other performers in the state of Nevada get in regards to the usage of pyro for their acts for shows.
• Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that the host venue of this year’s Double or Nothing event, T-Mobile Arena, had issued limitations to AEW on what they would be allowed to do for spots for their Anarchy in the Arena match. Meltzer reported that these limitations resulted in many of the ideas and plans that AEW officials and those performing in the match had to drop as a result. Meltzer also reported that both the performers and AEW’s production team had less time to prepare for this match due to the Las Vegas Golden Knights team had a NHL Playoff game the night before in the arena. This reportedly resulted in AEW’s production crew delaying moving all of their equipment and stuff for the show and the performers not getting to scout out the arena the day before the event to come up with ideas and lay out the match unlike with last year’s event.
• Owen Hart’s son Oje reportedly was in attendance backstage at this past Sunday’s Double or Nothing 2023 event in Las Vegas, according to Fightful Select. It was reported that Oje had visited AEW’s event with his mother Martha Hart, who was involved in the opening ceremony segment for this year’s Owen Hart Foundation Cup tournament.
• PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that the amount of people backstage who were happy over Kris Statlander’s return to the company at this past Sunday’s Double or Nothing 2023 event in Las Vegas was described to be “infinite” due to her being very well liked backstage. Johnson reported that prior to her official in-ring return, Statlander had been helping out with backstage work at recent AEW events.
• As noted before, Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks contracts with AEW are currently set to expire later this year. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that AEW officials have recently become more aggressive in trying to get new contracts with Omega and the Young Bucks to be completed.
• Lucha Libre AAA head booker and former WCW wrestler Konnan reportedly was in attendance backstage at this past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show in San Diego, California, according to PWInsider.
• Lee Moriarty recently reflected on Twitter about his current career in AEW. Moriarty stated “‘21 faced Punk, who was at one point completely gone from wrestling. ‘22 faced Danielson who was retired from wrestling. ‘23 I’ll face Shibata who also was retired from wrestling. 3 matches I never thought possible made possible cause of work ethic, trust and some luck.“
• As noted before, Darby Allin is currently planning to climb Mount Everest at some point next year. In a recent interview with Fightful. Allin stated that he had recently discussed his idea with AEW CEO Tony Khan to climb the famous mountain next year. Allin stated “Oh, no. I told him. I said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this idea. If there’s a way to get more eyes on the company,’ like I had been doing with the Travis Pastrana and Tony Hawk stuff, ‘There’s more eyes to get on the company through extreme stunts. I’ll be the guinea pig for that. What about me climbing Mount Everest? No wrestler’s ever done that before. What if I just plant a big AEW flag on top of Mount Everest?’ I’m thinking of what we could get in return, you know? Interviews with Good Morning America or whatever it may be. I have a team that reached out to me from Discovery. We would document the whole thing. So it’s a way I want to give back to the company, so it’s not like homie going into the mountains and disappearing. There is a method to the madness that I want to give back. He was down at first, then he started thinking, ‘Wait, it’s Mount Everest. You might die.’ I said, ‘Tony, I think I got this.’ I really believe I got this. It’s a big thing to me to do. It’s something like what I’ve said in promos in AEW, ‘I do crazy things to break down mental barriers in my head.’ Growing up I never had the confidence. I used to walk to school with my head looking at the ground because I was too embarrassed to look at the people driving by. The moment I started doing crazy stuff, the more and more it gave me confidence. I felt like being in the main event this Sunday, I’ve never had more confidence in my whole entire life. I’m laser focused. I really think it’s from doing crazy stuff. It breaks down these mental barriers in my head. Climbing Mount Everest, man, I feel like once I summit that mount, I come back, you’re getting the most confident dude ever. I’m looking forward to it. We’ll see how it all plays out.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• This past Sunday’s Buy-In Pre-show for AEW’s Double or Nothing 2023 event featured a Trios match of The Hardys & HOOK vs. The Gunns & Ethan Page. This match was notable for featuring Jeff Hardy trying to perform a Whisper in the Wind spot but slipping off the top rope and crashing hard onto the mat. In a recent episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, co-host Matt Hardy stated that Jeff’s fall was not a botch and instead was something that was actually planned for the match. Hardy stated “Good. Jeff was very nervous. All throughout the day, he said, ‘I just can’t wait. I can’t wait until we get this shit over with.’ He was ready to get through that match. He just wanted to get it done. It’s so funny because Jeff said I know people are going to have low expectations for me, they think I’m not going to be good, they think I’m not going to be crisp. He was in great shape, cardio-wise, everything else, he was in great ring shape as far as that goes. So it was Jeff’s decision, we programmed once specific spot where it looked like he made an error, which he didn’t make an error, and it was specifically just to stop him after he made this big, beautiful comeback. The amount of people that it’s still so easy to get in pro wrestling, it never ceases to amaze me, especially when something is done intentionally. Sometimes there’s things done intentionally for the help of telling a certain story. The original thought [at] the beginning of the night was that I would beat Ethan, and I don’t think I needed to beat Ethan. I did in the Firm Deletion. To me, that was my moment, and doing it in a cinematic match here at the Hardy Compound, that’s as good as it gets, for me getting my comeuppance on Ethan. Then it could have been Jeff or HOOK, and both Jeff and I decided that HOOK should ultimately take the finish. So we were gonna highlight Jeff, let him be a big star, let him go on a kickass comeback, do all his stuff, and to transition to segue to getting HOOK in there for doing the finish, that is why we implemented that Jeff Hardy slips on the Whisper in the Wind spot, to get HOOK get in there and let HOOK ultimately take the finish and get the win and get the rub by winning the match that includes Matt and Jeff Hardy.“
• In the same episode, Hardy stated that Jeff was feeling fine following the spot in response to a question by co-host Jon Alba. Hardy stated “Yeah, he was fine. Full transparency, he wanted to go up and just slip the one leg off, but he got his one leg caught over the top rope a little bit, which is something he didn’t want to do, but the slip is obviously something that had been thought ahead of time. It was okay though. It was hard, and it looked nasty, and everybody thought, ‘Oh my god, that looked so crazy. Was he alright?’ Yeah, he was fine.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• Ring of Honor announced that this year’s Death Before Dishonor event will be taking place on July 21st at the Cure Insurance Arena in Trenton, New Jersey. It was also announced that tickets for this upcoming event will officially go on sale starting on June 9th.
• In a recent interview with the AEW Unrestricted podcast, Toa Liona gave his thoughts about Swerve Strickland recently joining The Embassy and the group being renamed as the Mogul Embassy. Liona stated “I just remember Kaun saying that there were talks that we were gonna be a part of the Mogul Embassy, [that we were] gonna do a merger. I knew who Swerve was, I feel like everyone does. I agree with his statement from the past year too, I feel like he’s one of the best accusations of AEW and I feel like his stock has been on the rise as well. To be partnered up with him, to be put with Swerve? I’m thinking we’re starting to find [ground] again, here we go, like more opportunities, more spotlight, more TV time, more time for us to excel on what we can do, you know what I mean? Especially Me and Kaun, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what we’re capable of doing. Us as a tag team, we’ve only had maybe six or seven matches together within this timeframe. We’re very, very hungry for more, so the fact that we get put with someone like Swerve, someone that’s already established? I feel like it’s a great pairing.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

Indies & Misc. Wrestling

• Ratings charts from ShowBuzz Daily for this past week’s wrestling television shows from WWE, AEW, and Impact Wrestling are currently not known due to on-going ratings delay issues affecting Nielsen.
• PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that former wrestler Stan Lee recently underwent a DNA test that proved he was not the father of controversial Congresswoman Lauren Boebert. In a statement sent by Lee’s lawyer, it was stated that Lee had taken a paternity test in early May of this year and had the results come back on May 11th. Lee stated that him and Boebert both reviewed the results and agreed that the matter between them over the rumor of him being her father was resolved. Lee also stated that Boebert had issued an apology on behalf of herself and her mother over the issues that had been caused to him.
• The Tragos/Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame recently announced that they will be officially inducting Gary Albright into their Hall of Fame as a member of this year’s class. It was also announced that this year’s Hall of Fame ceremony will be taking place on July 20-22 in Waterloo, Iowa.
• The Cauliflower Alley Club recently announced that they have named Killer Karl Kox as the recipient of this year’s Posthumous Award and he will be officially honored at this year’s awards ceremony on August 28-30 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
• Online wrestling database Cagematch.net announced that they have enacted a new restriction when it comes to user reviews of wrestling events going forward on their website. It was announced that these new rules were put in place due to serious “trolling” issues caused by “superfans” of certain promotions purposely giving artificially low scores to rival promotions events. It was also announced that the website had experienced a new low in wrestling tribalism over ratings and comments left on the pages for this past weekend’s WWE Night of Champions 2023 and AEW Double Or Nothing 2023 events. It was also announced that going forward, users will no longer be able to leave comments and scores for wrestling events until the morning following an event. This was stated to be done to help out their moderators who live in Europe and needed to be awake in the very early morning hours to moderate content being posted by users after wrestling events.
• In a press conference held by New Japan Pro Wrestling on Saturday in Japan to promote Sunday’s Dominion 2023 event, Yota Tsuji officially joined Los Ingobernables de Japon. During the official match contract signing portion for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship match between Tsuji and champion SANADA for the event, Tetsuya Naito made a surprise appearance and asked Tsuji is he wanted to join his group. Tsuji responded stating “I will be fighting in Japan from here on, and I want to do it in Los Ingobernables de Japon … but are you ready? Because I plan on bringing LIJ and New Japan Pro Wrestling to new heights.“
• In a recent interview with Post Wrestling, Dark Side of the Ring series co-creator Evan Husney revealed that they had only completed four episodes prior to the debut of their current fourth season on VICE TV and are currently finishing up the work on the remaining episodes.
• In a recent interview with Fightful’s Grapsody podcast, Chris Hero gave his thoughts on becoming the matchmaker for indie promotion West Coast Pro Wrestling. Hero stated “That wasn’t even supposed to happen. I just kind of felt it. Scott and I had been talking, you know, leading up to the show. We had some ideas, and man, the first half of the show was going, I was feeling good and I went and talked to Scott and I was like, ‘Hey, I’m about to run up after the intermission. Should I let the ring announcer know?’ He’s like, ‘No, don’t.” Hero also stated that he has not retired from in-ring wrestling despite not wrestling a match in the past three years. Hero stated “If I was retired there would have been some kind of a celebration, a ceremony, a festival. A week long, month long thing. No, I’m not retired. I’m currently inactive. I just can’t stay away from wrestling in any way. So as I bide my time and wait for the right thing to come back for and start having matches again, I have kept pretty active. I’ve done a bunch of seminars, I’ve done signings, of course. Then I kind of dabbled into the world of producing. It’s funny, we use this term producing, but it’s kind of like directing. Directing is probably a better [term], but I’m not going to start calling myself a director.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• Indie promotion FIGHTT Pro, which is owned by ROH talent Prince Nana, announced that they have recently signed a streaming deal with Independent Wrestling TV (IWTV) to air their upcoming Enter The Fight series on the service starting on June 6th.
• In a recent interview with the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast, Will Ospreay gave his thoughts about Seth Rollins being his choice for an opponent for a true “forbidden door” match in his career. Ospreay stated “It’s probably Seth. After the little Twitter thing, we have to. It would be fun. He’s so over right now. You see the crowd singing his song, he’s mad. Especially from what he was getting, when we had our little thing. That was a mixture of bad booking and everything along those lines at that time. Now, it’s crazy. It’s mad.” In response to a comment made by host Chris Van Vliet about how Ospreay could help bring Rollins up another level in the ring, Ospreay stated “I would hope so. Iron sharpens iron. He’s so sick. Together, we could 100% make some magic.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• In a recent interview with the Ten Count podcast, Kamille gave her thoughts about NWA owner Billy Corgan’s recent comments over people criticizing Tyrus’ work in the NWA are not real wrestling fans. Kamille stated “I think Billy likes being polarizing. It’s something he’s done his entire life and it’s why he’s sold the amount of albums he sold and has the amount of fans that he has, so there’s a reason for that. As far as Tyrus is concerned and politics, I don’t think that politics and wrestling should be intertwined, but you know what? It’s life and people are human beings and feelings are a very strong thing. Feelings are a very real thing and if someone feels strongly one way and it affects this over here, so be it. I don’t agree and I’ll say this completely, I completely disagree that if you aren’t a Tyrus fan, you aren’t a wrestling fan. I completely disagree with that statement. My personal polarizing statement would be if you don’t enjoy the NWA women’s division, then then you might not like wrestling because that is something that I can guarantee that you will have a good time watching, You will enjoy the women’s wrestling in the NWA. I think that we’re hard hitting, we’re feisty, and we tell good stories in there. I don’t want to say this. It’s gonna come off bad, but whatever, I’ll say it. Even if you don’t think someone is a good, quote unquote, like technical wrestler in our division, the matches are still fu**ing so fun to watch.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• Prestige Wrestling recently announced a new match for the card of their All Rise event on July 23rd in Asbury Park, New Jersey. This is a singles match of AKIRA vs. “Speedball” Mike Bailey.
• Game Changer Wrestling recently announced that Nick Wayne will be making an appearance for the company at their Now & Forever event on July 14th in New York City, New York.