WWE: Ethan Page on His Decision to Leave AEW & His NXT Title Run Validating His Success in WWE, Nikkita Lyons Torn ACL Injury Status Update, More News

Sep 25, 2024

Ethan Page Comments on His Decision to Leave AEW & His NXT Title Run Validating His Success in WWE

A recent episode of the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast featured former AEW talent and current WWE NXT talent Ethan Page as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Page’s thoughts about his decision to leave AEW earlier this year and his current NXT Championship run validating his success in WWE.

“It was time. I wasn’t getting what I magically got [in NXT], which is the opportunity to show what I bring to the table. This here, to me, is preparation meets opportunity, and the amount of preparation I got is a lot. 17, 18 years of preparation.”

Page also gave his thoughts about the process that led to his signing with WWE for their NXT brand.

“I took independent dates and I was betting on myself to get some upward momentum back into Ethan Page. I’m very big on following trends and patterns. I could tell I was on a downward tick. There wasn’t anything that was going to change there, so I had to change my environment to change my momentum. Maybe I’m over-exaggerating, but close to 60-70 shows for the remainder of 2024, and I did a great show in Winnipeg. On my layover from Winnipeg to Detroit, I was going to drive to REVOLVER in Dayton, Ohio, I got a phone call from a number that I didn’t have on my phone. ‘Hi, is this Ethan Page?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘This is so and so from the WWE.’ ‘Yeah, sure.’ ‘We’d like to offer you a contract. This long, this amount.’ I’m like, ‘This is not real.’ ‘That sounds fantastic.’ They hung up on me. My phone rings, instantly, ‘Hi, this is so and so with WWE.’ ‘Wait, that phone call was real?’ ‘Yeah, you agreed to everything. We’d like to email it and have it signed.’ I’m calling my wife, ‘I think the WWE just offered me a job.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Nikkita Lyons Torn ACL Injury Status Update

As noted before, NXT talent Nikkita Lyon has been out of action for WWE’s NXT brand since this past January due to torn ACL injury. Prior to her injury, Lyons had made her return from her first torn ACL injury this past December.

Lyons recently provided an update on Twitter on her current recovery from her torn ACL injury in her left knee.

“It’s been a minute 8 months post op on my left ACL. lmao…it’s not over when you fall, it’s over when you don’t get back up and just quit. no one knows all you’ve been through but you. take your power back and protect your peace.”

it’s been a minute 🥊 8 months post op on my left ACL. now im even 🦿😁🦿lmao… it’s not over when you fall, it’s over when you don’t get back up and just quit. no one knows all you’ve been through but you. take your power back and protect your peace. 🦁 pic.twitter.com/K36orlKcob
— Nikkita Lyons (@nikkita_wwe) September 23, 2024

WWE News & Notes

Wednesday’s WWE Speed show on Twitter featured Candice LeRae defeating Piper Niven in a Quarterfinals round match for the inaugural WWE Speed Women’s Championship tournament. Sane will be facing off against Kairi Sane in the Semifinal round.

Fightful’s Jeremy Lambert reported that almost all of WWE’s content on Hulu currently lists an expiration date of September 26th. The content scheduled to be removed from the service includes all episodes of WWE Raw, WWE NXT, WWE NXT Level Up, WWE Main Event, WWE Superstars, “Total Divas,” “Total Bellas,” and “Miz & Mrs.” Lambert reported that the “Love & WWE: Bianca and Montez” reality series will remain on Hulu due to that being a Hulu original while WWE content on A&E will be unaffected.

In regards to the future status of WWE and NXT PLEs, PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that WWE and NXT PLEs will still air on Peacock due to WWE’s contract with the streaming service does not expire until February of 2026.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that there was not much talk backstage at this past Monday’s WWE RAW show about the upcoming Mr. McMahon docuseries. Johnson reported that there was a lot of excitement backstage over the all of the Hollywood executives who had attended the show due to many talents have signed with Paradigm in recent months.

As noted before, this past Monday’s WWE RAW show in Ontario, California featured a Shark Cage stipulation officially announced for the WWE Women’s World Championship match of Rhea Ripley vs. Liv Morgan at next month’s Bad Blood 2024 event. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that the shark cage stipulation for Dominik Mysterio was something that had been planned by WWE officials for several months and was not something done as a late change to their plans for the match.

Reuters reported that their sources stated that an upcoming update for Meta’s AI chatbot will include the option to speak in the voice of John Cena along with several other new celebrity voices to be added to the app.

WWE recently released one new video to their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was a WWE Universal Championship match of Braun Strowman vs. Seth Rollins (c) from WWE Clash of Champions 2019.

WWE reportedly filed a notice on September 19th to the United States Patent and Trademark Office requesting a 90pday extension to oppose Anthem Wrestling Exhibition’s trademark filing for “Santino Marella,” according to PWInsider. Steven Fernandes reported that while the character was originally created by WWE, their trademark for it had lapsed and Anthem filed for the trademark after Marella was hired by TNA Wrestling.

In a recent interview with Good Karma Wrestling, NXT talent Jaida Parker gave her thoughts about the impact of WWE main roster veterans coming down to work in NXT. Parker stated “I have to start with the women that come down from main roster. Michin in general, she’s a wonderful woman. Wonderful woman, even though we butt heads a little bit, but she is a wonderful woman. Natalya, oh my goodness. A legend. A legend. She always has an open mind, open heart. I mean, she’s so genuine. Shayna Baszler, they all come down, Chelsea Green and no matter what it is, they’re so willing to help us. As long as we’re willing to listen, they’re always willing to give us knowledge. Just last night, CM Punk, I know I’ve seen a lot of them come around and they’re just so willing just to sit there and have a conversation with you about getting you better because they’ve done their time. You know, they’re there for a reason. They are legends for a reason. They’re just always open to coaching us. I love that about all the vets that come down here. There’s not been one vet that is like, ‘Eh I ain’t got time for you.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent episode of the Off The Top podcast, WWE Hall of Famer and co-host Rikishi gave his thoughts about WWE’s recent tease of a match between Jacob Fatu and Cody Rhodes for the Undisputed WWE Championship and his belief that WWE is pushing Fatu too fast. Rikishi stated “I’m not surprised. Again, it goes down to where, this is my humble opinion, I think Jacob’s being pushed too fast. When you go to Cody, where do you go from there? Cody is the guy right now. I’ve said this before, let Jacob rampage through the whole roster, give him those enhancement matches to build him. We’ve seen Jacob, however long he’s been on, but is there anything different? You can only do so much on a run-in. This is me, this is what I’m saying. You really want to go with a guy, show his talent. Put him out there, let him have a match match, a squash match, just so he can show his potential of what else this kid can do. So I don’t know. I haven’t watched TV since I was overseas. But I think that they’re booking him and whoever’s putting these matches together, I just feel if it was me, I wouldn’t feed Jacob to Cody. That match is not deserving yet to happen. Where do you go [after that]? Normally when you see a guy being fed to the top guy so fast, we only know one thing was going to happen, it’s an enhancement match for the person, whoever’s on top. I just don’t think that Jacob’s the guy for that right now. It doesn’t do Jacob any good. Cody’s branded, it doesn’t matter who Cody goes with. But if you throw a guy like Jacob there, what does that do for Jacob? Wrestling fans, we’re all smart, and those that are putting this thing together, I think they’d make a mistake [if they] put Jacob in a main event with Cody so fast. So let’s just hope that things change.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)