Fightful Wrestling Weekly (7/13): Brock Lesnar, Paul Heyman, Raw & SD, More
WWN-WWE
I reached out to Gable Sapolsky in regards to the rumors of WWE being interested in purchasing WWN, and heard back from him, but all he said was “there’s not a lot to say.” He thanked me for reaching out to him.
Bray Wyatt
Regarding Bray Wyatt’s return to WWE action, I was told the Friday night that he came back that the match was a lot of “smoke and mirrors,” and he didn’t really do anything physical. Wyatt was still banged up from the car accident he allegedly caused a week prior. I’ve not yet heard how his subsequent weekend matches went, but he was limited physically on Raw with his interaction with the B Team.
205 Live
As reported on FightfulSelect.com, I’m told that despite the fact that 205 Live wrestlers don’t appear on Monday Night Raw or pay-per-view events, several members of the roster are still flown in to those shows, typically so they can appear on Main Event. It’s not out of the ordinary for members of that roster to only wrestle two or three times a month, as most aren’t on live events, either.
Fightful.com learned on Saturday afternoon that Brock Lesnar would be at the UFC 226 show and had entered into the USADA pool. We were initially told he was “hidden,” but that was in regards to the show in general, not the USADA pool. He entered into the USADA testing pool days before and will be eligible to fight in January, NOT November as widely reported. I’ve been told by a source within the UFC that no waiver will be applied to Brock Lesnar to make him eligible to fight in 2018.
Fightful spoke to consensus top heavyweight contender Curtis Blaydes about Lesnar’s appearance Monday, and needless to say he wasn’t happy about it. He said hes also willing to fight Lesnar, but doesn’t see it as much of a challenge. We had some pro wrestling fans not familiar with Blaydes ask “what was wrong with him.” He’s had a stutter since he was a child and was fresh off of a flight from Vegas.
I spoke to Darren Antola, who had a hand in the “350 Days” documentary that dropped this week. Said that the motivation of the movie was to produce something that had all of these people together, instead of just one person’s journey. They plan on holding off a DVD, Blu-Ray or digital release for “8-9” months because they want to hold theatrical releases throughout several different countries. Domestically, Thursday was a one night release “event” they were doing.
It’s worth noting that Bloodstained Memoirs sort of had this sort of idea ahead of their 2009 release and received much hype as a result. Unfortunately it ended up being a series of short shoot interviews with no real direction or path like this one has. I’ve been told this is categorically different.
Fightful learned that Paul Heyman was at least attributed as a writer in several segments involving Bobby Lashley on this week’s episode of Raw. When we reached out to WWE, they didn’t give us a straight answer on the matter. Heyman also worked on several segments that Bill Goldberg was a part of as he worked and prepared to work with Brock Lesnar, and I’ve been told that this situation could be much of the same. Heyman is not considered a regular member of the writing team, and WWE was very unhappy that this news broke. We’ll have more on that situation when we’re legally able to reveal it.
WCW Nitro Book
Was sent a review copy of the new WCW Nitro book “Nitro: The Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner’s WCW”. It’s a bit of an answer to “The Death of WCW,” and as far as I’ve gotten, it has a lot of interviews with Turner, TNT and WCW employees, which add a unique perspective to the book. We’ll have a full review on it as I finish reading it. If Select subscribers want a video review, I’d be open to that as well.
It should come as no surprise that the consensus match of the night featured Seth Rollins performing and Tyson Kidd producing. Rollins’ chemistry with Kidd seems to have translated to the point to where the latter is nearly always producing his matches that feature an extended period of time. Rollins also happened to have a very willing dance partner in Drew McIntyre.
Dave “Fit” Finlay pulled double duty on Raw. He handled the women’s tag match by himself, while he was listed as working with Scott Armstrong on the Ember Moon vs. Liv Morgan match. That’s interesting to hear, because usually one person produces the singles, with some help being added to tag matches if needed.
Arn Anderson for Mojo Rawley vs. No Way Jose, D-Von Dudley for Bo Dallas vs. Matt Hardy, and Jamie Noble was the producer for Constable Corbin & Elias vs. Bobby Roode and Finn Balor.
It should be worth noting that several familiar names such as Sarah Stock, Mike Rotunda and Michael Hayes weren’t assigned any matches on this episode of Raw.
Raw & SD notes
– The conga line was instructed to be dancing as the show came back on the air for the Rawley/Jose match.
– The James Ellsworth entrance was instructed to have him “smiling ear to ear and happy loving life.”
– Sanity’s team name is always styled as “SAnitY,” even when all other team names are in caps on the run sheet.
– The Smackdown Live entrances were all listed as “quick” entrances, with the exception of The New Day’s.
– The title for tonight’s Smackdown Live was “It’s Gonna Be Miz,” which makes a whole lot more sense now than it did before the show. Raw’s title was “get out of my way.”
– When twitter graphics are shown, they include the actual URL of the tweet to appear on-screen.
