Fightful Wrestling Weekly 6/14/21: Samoa Joe, More

Moose/Omega

IMPACT Wrestling’s Against All Odds was this weekend, but the main event match from Daily’s Place in Jacksonville was actually filmed over a week before. Fightful learned that the match was taped last weekend around the AEW Dynamite tapings.There were several IMPACT Wrestling talent that didn’t even know when the title match was filmed.

Samoa Joe

Fightful spoke to numerous NXT talent and staff on Friday who noted that they heard NXT (not any specific figurehead) was interested in bringing in Samoa Joe. Joe was released in April as a part of significant cuts to the roster, but there have been several wrestlers that people in the company have pushed to bring back. Over a half dozen talent in the company and another outside have heard that the interest on NXT’s side is for a wrestling role if he can get cleared, and a producer role if he can’t get cleared.

In an update on this story, officials in NXT have confirmed that Samoa Joe was briefly at the WWE Performance Center this week. We were not told why he was there. We did get confirmation there have been pitches within NXT to use Samoa Joe as of that point.

Triple H was a major proponent of Joe coming back to NXT, and wanted him almost immediately upon hearing of his initial release. Joe was at the Performance Center last Tuesday speaking with officials, Triple H among them. There were numerous releases over the past 14 months that NXT had discussed trying to bring in, but didn’t end up happening, and actually at least one of the recently released stars pitched for a return to NXT but were shot down.

We’re told there’s a plan in order already for what Joe will do in NXT, but that role is open to expansion if all parties agree.

Kona Reeves

We’ve had a lot of inquiries for an update on Kona Reeves, who has been out of action for over 15 months following a surgery. We’re told he’s been back at the Performance Center for quite some time and is more than good to go, and has been making creative pitches for a significant character change based on what we’ve seen of him in the past. Reeves was briefly given a push in 2018 before being pushed back down the card, but we’ve had numerous guest coaches specifically point him out as someone they’ve enjoyed working with when they came in for spots at the Performance Center.

EVER Rise

Ever Rise, the team of Chase Parker and Matt Martel recently signed new WWE contracts, we’ve learned. When the two began appearing more on NXT television, Fightful inquired about their status and if anything had changed, and were told that WWE had offered them new WWE contracts months ago. We’ve heard from the WWE side that they wanted to get Ever Rise’s contracts to “match up” in length, but we’re not sure if that actually ended up happening. The WWE side of things have told us that Ever Rise did agree on the new deals, but a timetable of when they were agreed upon, nor the length were revealed.

Jody Threat

Jody Threat was a name that was quickly emerging on the Canadian independent scene in 2019, to the point that she got a WWE tryout in Toronto Summerslam weekend that year. She was told about four weeks ahead of time, and I spoke with her about that, and she said she got good feedback from it. She’d spent some time in the weeks prior to that training with Trish Stratus, as Stratus was preparing for her in-ring return.

Threat said that she has expressed her interest in working with IMPACT Wrestling and Scott D’Amore knows who she is, but she hasn’t heard back about possibly appearing there. She’s been granted a lot of interest from promoters, but due to the lack of a visa, hasn’t been able to consistently work in the United States until now.

Cardona/Gage

Matt Cardona’s attack on Nick Gage blew up with hype being built for an eventual match between the two. The finish saw Matt Cardona dressed as a druid, emulating Jon Moxley’s mannerisms, before doing a Paradigm Shift and revealing his identity to the crowd. Fightful has learned that Cardona was actually in full gimmick backstage to prevent word from getting out, and the spot was only known by a select few people. We’re told some of the security at Matt Cardona’s show later in the week actually weren’t clued in on the Nick Gage spot

Kyle O’Reilly

Notes from our talk with O’Reilly:

– He’s fine with Adam Cole weaseling his way into the main event of Takeover.

– He’s “curious and excited” about possibly facing Kushida in the future and bringing that match to a new audience.

– He was told a couple of days before Regal’s initial War Games announcement that they’d be in the match.

– O’Reilly said he wanted to emulate Sean Waltman in WCW, bumping heavy in the WarGames match

NWA Women’s PPV

NWA is fresh off of their most recent PPV effort, and we’re told they’re coming back soon with a unique show. Fightful broke news that National Wrestling Alliance was announcing an all-women’s PPV for August 28.

AOP

We’ve had a lot of people asking about what happened with the Authors of Pain. Fightful said there were inquiries by wrestlers themselves about bringing them into particular companies last year, but that no movement was on the horizon. We’re told they were brought up to AEW management last year, who weren’t sure if they were a good fit at the time, but left the door open. They were also brought up to New Japan Pro Wrestling management, who weren’t bringing over new talent at the time, and the budget for such a move was said to have not been near what was required. We’re told that as of now, both members were working regular jobs.

In the hour since we ran this story, another promoter reached out to Fightful and indicated when their people reached out to AOP, they were informed that both men had “retired.” Rezar is 26, while Akam just turned 28. We aren’t sure if this was representatives for AOP or the men themselves, and are working to find out more information.

Since the story, AOP have seemingly had a change of heart and have said “we’re not done, bitches.”