WWE: Giulia on Her NXT Women’s Title Victory, WWE Reportedly Will Not Demand CM Punk to Work WWE Saudi Events If He Chooses Not To, More News

Giulia Comments on Her NXT Women’s Title Victory

Tuesday’s WWE NXT New Year’s Evil 2025 show at the Shrine Expo Hall in Los Angeles, California featured Giulia defeating Roxanne Perez to become the new NXT Women’s Champion.

Following the show, Giulia reflected on Twitter about her NXT Women’s Championship victory.

This championship is just the beginning.

I am the NXT Women’s Champion!#WWENXT pic.twitter.com/YQlp8TcP7G

— GIULIA ＝ ジュリア (@giulia0221g) January 8, 2025

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WWE Reportedly Will Not Demand CM Punk to Work WWE Saudi Events If He Chooses Not To

As noted before, WWE recently confirmed that the 2026 Royal Rumble will be taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Fightful Select’s Sean Ross Sapp reported in a recent Q&A article that WWE officials will not force CM Punk to work at their upcoming Saudi events if he does not wish to do so. Sapp reported that Punk could always chose to compete at these events but if he were not to, then WWE officials would possibly write him off of WWE programming for the builds of those events.

Punk had been written off of WWE programming following a storyline attack by Drew McIntyre as a cover for him not working at WWE’s Crown Jewel 2024 event this past November.

Prior to his return to WWE, Punk had been very critical online of WWE’s deal with Saudi Arabia going as far as telling The Miz in 2020 to “go s*** a blood money covered d*** in Saudi Arabia.”

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WWE News & Notes

WWE announced that they will be airing a recent WWE Showcase match on their official Twitter account on Wednesday starting at 7:30PM EST.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that Tuesday’s NXT New Year’s Evil 2025 show on The CW for their Los Angeles market was preempted to Wednesday, 8PM EST instead due to KTLA’s on-gong news coverage of the fires in the Pacific Palisades area. Tuesday’s show aired at its normal timeslot on The CW’s other stations elsewhere.

CM Punk reportedly was in attendance backstage at Tuesday’s WWE NXT show at the Shrine Expo Hall in Los Angeles, California, according to PWInsider.

Take Two recently released a new screenshot featuring Bayley’s in-game model for their upcoming WWE 2K25 video game.

WWE recently released two new videos to their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. The first new video was the full February 6, 1989 episode of WWF Prime Time Wrestling. The second new video was a WWE World Heavyweight Championship match of Mark Henry vs. Kurt Angle (c) from WWE Royal Rumble 2006.

As noted before, this past Monday’s WWE RAW premiere show on Netflix at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California was notable for WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan being loudly booed by the live crowd during his whole promo segment. Tuesday’s episode of The Pat McAfee Show podcast featured a skit poking fun at Hogan getting booed.

This past Monday’s WWE RAW premiere show on Netflix also featured WWE Hall of Famer Nikki Bella being among those shown in the crowd during the show. In a red carpet show held prior to the start of RAW, Bella was interviewed by the Associated Press and gave her thoughts about her making a potential in-ring return in the future. Bella stated “Ohhh, will we ever see the Bella Twins back? Good question. You know, I just may be here looking at my competition soon. So — stay tuned.” (Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com)

In a recent interview with Instinct Culture’s Denise Salcedo, Tiffany Stratton gave her thoughts about her winning the WWE Women’s Championship at this past Friday’s WWE SmackDown show. Stratton stated “I felt like, through the process, I felt like I was just on autopilot. Then when I hit my moonsault, finally, I really could relish in that moment, and I felt like that’s when everything hit me, all my hard work in the past three years. Standing on that table and holding the title, it felt so amazing, and then Vanessa Hudgens was three feet in front of me, and that felt even more amazing.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with the Nightcap podcast, CM Punk gave his thoughts about his plans for his post-in-ring wrestling career and if he would be interesting in running his own wrestling promotion. Punk stated “Oh no. If I start my own promotion, I want you to find me wherever I am and just kick my ass. That’s about the worst idea. No, I do think there’s an avenue for me to continue to be in the business, behind the scenes, helping. But I think if you’re worth your weight, you’re doing that now. I think on a football team, on a hockey team, on a baseball team, there’s the veterans that help bring in the new talent, the young guys, and they help move things along. But, three parts to a career, right? You start, and to me, that’s where you learn. There’s the middle part. That’s where you earn, and the third part is return. Now, you give back. So I would definitely look forward to that third act and giving back to the business — to me — has given me so much.” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)