Various: Jon Moxley vs. EVIL Lumberjack Deathmatch Set for NJPW Dominion 2024, Backstage TNA Update on Jordynne Grace NXT Appearance, Indies

Jun 1, 2024

NJPW Announces Jon Moxley vs. EVIL Lumberjack Deathmatch for Dominion 2024

New Japan Pro Wrestling announced one new updated match for the card of their Dominion 2024 event, which takes place on June 9th at the Osaka-Jo Hall in Osaka, Japan.

This newly updated match announced was an IWGP World Heavyweight Championship Lumberjack Deathmatch of EVIL vs. Jon Moxley (c).

OFFICIAL

EVIL's demand for the stipulation was accepted, and his challenge to Jon Moxley's IWGP World Heavyweight title will be in a Lumberjack Match!https://t.co/xpRrCioUSU #njpw #njdominion pic.twitter.com/jd2KvrHfCv
— NJPW Global (@njpwglobal) June 1, 2024

Current card for NJPW Dominion 2024:

Best of the Super Juniors 2024 Tournament Finals – TBA vs. TBA
IWGP World Heavyweight Championship Lumberjack Deathmatch – EVIL vs. Jon Moxley (c)
NEVER Openweight Championship – HENARE vs. Shingo Tagaki (c)
Provisional King of Pro Wrestling 2024 Championship – Great-O-Khan vs. Yuya Uemura (c)
NiPW World Television Championship – Tomohiro Ishii vs. Jeff Cobb (c)
IWGP Tag Team Championships & NJPW Strong Openweight Tag Team Championships Tornado Tag match – TMDK (Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholls) vs. Bishamon (YOHSI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto) vs. Guerillas of Destiny (El Phantasmo & Hikuleo) (NJPW Strong) vs. Bullet Club (Chase Owens & KENTA) (IWGP)

Backstage TNA Update on Jordynne Grace’s WWE NXT Appearance

As noted before, current TNA Knockouts World Champion Jordynne Grace made a surprise appearance at this past Tuesday’s NXT show.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that WWE’s deal with TNA to use Grace for their NXT show came together three weeks ago.

Those spoken to stated that TNA’s deal for Grace’s appearance was kept “extremely confidential” within the company that around 99% of the staff were not aware of the deal’s existence. Johnson speculated that the only people within TNA who knew beforehand of this deal likely were just TNA President Anthony Cicione and TNA Executive Producer Ariel Shnerer while TNA’s creative team were kept completely in the dark. Shnerer reportedly was the key person on TNA’s end who helped put together the deal.

Johsnon reported that those spoken to stated that this past Thursday’s Impact episode had to be adjusted late in the editing process to include a recap video of Grace’s appearance in NXT.

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Lucha Blog reported that Lucha Libre AAA recently made a change to the card of their Triplemania XXXII: Tijuana event on June 15th in Tijuana, Mexico. It was reported that Blake Christian was pulled from the card and Willie Mack will be replacing Christian for CIMA & Nick Wayne’s team for their Three-way Trios match against Komander, Laredo Kid, & Octagón Jr. and D Luxe, Destiny, & Noisy Boy at the event.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that the reason why Blake Christian was pulled from AAA’s upcoming Triplemania XXXII: Tijuana event was due to issues involving CMLL and NJPW. Meltzer reported that the current belief was that Christian’s booking for AAA was not going to last and he would drop out once NJPW and CMLL officials would become aware of it due to them not wanting Christian to work an event for CMLL’s rival.

ACTION Wrestling recently announced that former AEW talent Marko Stunt will be making an appearance for the company at their A Love Letter To Professional Wrestling event on September 14th in Sugar Land, Texas. This will be Stunt’s first wrestling match since January of 2023.

TNA Wrestling recently announced that they will be holding a new set of Impact! television tapings on August 2-3 at the Florida State Ground in Tampa, Florida. It was also announced that tickets for this upcoming set of events will officially go on sale starting on June 8th.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that Jon Moxley and Josh Barnett were among those in attendance at this past Thursday’s event for Sukeban in Los Angeles, California.

VICE TV recently released a video featuring the first 15 minutes of the debut episode of their new Who Killed WCW? docuseries, which will premiere on the network on June 4th.

ESPN’s Adam Schefler reported that Olympic gold medalist and former WWE talent Gable Steveson recently signed a contract with the NFL’s Buffalo Bills. Schefler reported that Steveson’s deal was the standard rookie three-year deal for new players in the NFL.

In a recent interview with the Busted Open Radio podcast, Jordynne Grace stated that she will be holding an Open Challenge match for TNA Knockouts World Championship at TNA’s Against All Odds 2024 event on June 14th in Chicago, Illinois.

Black Label Pro Wrestling recently announced that they have pulled Jordynne Grace from their upcoming Family Reunion event on June 7th in Chicago, Illinois for undisclosed reasons. Following BLP’s announcement, Grace responded on Twitter apologizing for having to cancel her scheduled booking due to “contractual commitments.” Grace stated “I apologize, guys! Contractual obligations happened. We’ll work on finding another date that works!” The reason likely is due to WWE likely not wanting to risk Grace suffering a potential injury prior to her scheduled match at their NXT Battleground 2024 event on June 16th.

As noted before, Matt Cardona has been out of action for TNA Wrestling and the indies since this past April due to a torn pectoral injury and surgery. In a recent interview with Fightful’s In The Weeds podcast, Cardona provided an update on his recovery from his torn pectoral injury. Cardona stated “I’m feeling great, all things considered. It’s been a month and a half post-injury. I just came back from Cancun, Mexico. I got 400 million stem cells throughout my entire body. I guess you can call me the Stem Cell King. I’m taking this recovery very, very seriously. I’m not trying to rush to get back, but I’m also rushing to get back, if that makes sense. I need to get back out there. Luckily for me, I’ve built up, because of my work ethic and everything I’ve done; June is the busiest month I might have had in the past four years. Obviously, I’m not wrestling, but it’s all appearances. It’s wrestling shows, GCW, NWA, autograph signings, and conventions. Luckily, I had that to fall back on. This isn’t a vacation. This isn’t a six to eight month vacation while I’m injured. I’m going to do whatever I can to keep my name out there.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

NJPW recently announced one new match for the card of their co-promoted United Japan Pro Wrestling’s All Together Sapporo event on June 15th in Sapporo, Japan: