WWE: Bianca Belair Reportedly Taking Break, Brian Pillman WWE Update, More News

Bianca Belair Reportedly Taking Months Long Break from WWE

Bianca Belair reportedly is currently taking a vacation break from WWE, according to Fightful Select.

It was reported that their sources stated that this was the reason why WWE officials gave Belair a storyline knee injury at their SummerSlam 2023 event earlier this month and Damage CTRL’s attack on her “injured” knee at the August 18th SmackDown show as a way to write her off WWE programming for the time being.

It was reported that Belair had been scheduled to take a break for some time and the length of her break is currently not known with a range given from a few weeks to three months based on those spoken to.

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Brian Pillman Jr. NXT Status Update

As noted before, Brian Pillman Jr.’s contract with AEW expired this past July and is believed to have been recently signed by WWE following a tryout at their Performance Center.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that Pillman Jr. officially started for WWE’s NXT developmental brand this week.

Johnson reported that WWE officials currently are not in any rush to debut Pillman Jr. on NXT television and instead their current plan is to get Pillman Jr. into their developmental system and allow him to get his feet under him first.

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WWE News & Notes

Bayley recently announced that she will be auctioning off some of her old gear with all proceeds going towards a Hawaii community fund to help financially support those affected by the recent devastating Maui wildfires.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that the United States Court of Appeals issued a ruling on Tuesday upholding the current legal sanctions against attorney Konstantine Kyros based on recent court records. Kyros had been sanctioned over litigation misconduct issues regarding his WWE concussion-related lawsuits that were dismissed last year.

Tuesday’s NXT show featured SmackDown brand talents The Street Profits making a surprise appearance on the show. The Street Profits appeared in a backstage segment with Tony D’Angelo, Stacks, and Carmelo Hayes that was interrupted by a women’s brawl erupting out of nowhere.

Roman Reigns reached the milestone of three straight years for his current Undisputed WWE Universal Championship reign as of today.

This past Monday’s WWE RAW show in Memphis, Tennessee featured a tag team match between The New Day and Viking Raiders. Xavier Woods recently announced on Twitter that he is not medically cleared to wrestle at next week’s RAW show due to him suffering whiplash over a spot involving Drew McIntyre tossing a chair that hit him in the head.

This past Monday’s RAW show in Memphis also featured Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch paying tribute to the late Bray Wyatt. Rollins paid tribute with his line of “Yowie wowie” and had new sideplates on his WWE World title featuring The Fiend’s face while Lynch paid tribute in a post-show speech to the live crowd.

This past Monday’s RAW show in Memphis also featured WWE airing a tribute video to the late Bob Barker, who was the guest host of an episode of RAW in 2009. In response to a fan on Twitter, Chris Jericho agreed that WWE leaving out his moment with Baker from their tribe video was just pettiness on their end because he works in AEW. This fan stated “typical WWE pettiness” and Jericho responded back stating “yeup.“

This past Monday’s RAW show in Memphis also featured WWE Hall of Famer and famous Memphis Wrestling wrestler Jerry “The King” Lawler making a surprise appearance in front of the live crowd. This moment took place while WWE was in a commercial break for RAW.

WWE recently announced that the official theme song for their upcoming NXT No Mercy event next month is “Heavyweight” by Ryan Oakes & Loveless.