Fightful Wrestling Weekly 8/3: Pentagon, Matt Riddle, Raw & SD Notes

Pentagon

Impact, Lucha Underground and Major League Wrestling star Pentagon told Fightful’s Carlos Toro that he has never been contacted by WWE, and wouldn’t commit to whether or not he has any interest in joining them. He was, however, leaving things open for the future, but stated that he was really happy with the amount of work he’s getting as of now. 

As for his work with Impact Wrestling, he said that the growth he’s witnessed has been impressive, and credits that to the company having “professionals” running things now — specifically Konnan, Scott D’Amore, and Sonjay Dutt. He said he’ll stick around in Impact Wrestling as long as fans want him there.

Madison Rayne

Another female talent all over the place these days is Madison Rayne. Still only 32 years old, Rayne has re-emerged to appear in Ring of Honor, is working All In, is confirmed for the Mae Young Classic, and just finished up her fifth run with Impact, which is par for the course for former members of The Beautiful People. She told me recently that she thinks her ability to block out the negatives that may go around about her or Impact Wrestling as a whole have helped her be able to maintain a good relationship, regardless of who is in charge at the time, and opens up the ability to bring her back so often. 

Trevor Lee

Condolences for the untimely passing of Trevor Lee’s father, Tracy. It was unexpected, and left his family in a bind. Ethan Carter III, Rockstar Spud, Moose, Pro Wrestling Tees, Trent Beretta, Nick Jackson, Bob Ryder, Shane Helms, Stokely Hathaway, Sean Waltman and Jax Dane all made sizable contributions towards funeral costs.

Eddie Edwards

Edwards told me that he tries to take an approach of being around for new talent in Impact for opinions if they choose, but he doesn’t seek it out. As far as his feelings on the regime changes, he’s happy about the moves because of the demanding schedule of 7-10 days loops that Impact used to run. The more frequent scheduled helps keep him motivated.

Edwards keeps in touch with Davey Richards, who stepped away from pro wrestling a year ago. Edwards says that the hiatus is just for the time being while Richards goes back to school so he could heal his body and avoid burnout. Edwards hopes to see a Wolves reunion somewhere down the line, as well. He spoke highly of his WWE tryout from 2013, and how he was treated there.

The former TNA World Champion pointed to matches with Nakajima, Kaeano and Marufuji as some of the matches that he’s proudest of that most people hasn’t seen. We spoke about him teaming with 2 Cold Scorpio, who he says helped him out a lot while he was in Japan. 

Dan Lambert

Dan Lambert of American Top Team MMA emerged on the scene in Impact Wrestling last year as one of the pleasant surprises in pro wrestling. His work and the angle on the show ended up being one of the highlights of the program. James Lynch talked to him for Fightful last weekend, and he said he wouldn’t be opposed to returning to pro wrestling in the future. It was kind of odd, because it’s no secret he’s a pro wrestling fan — he runs shows at American Top Team sometimes — but he said that he “begrudgingly” still watches and enjoys Seth Rollins, Finn Balor and Bray Wyatt.

Lambert is also the manager of WWE’s Bobby Lashley and UFC’s Colby Covington.

Colby Covington

Speaking of UFC Champion Colby Covington, he told Fightful.com that he was planning on going to the episode of WWE Raw that took place in Miami this past Monday. Even beyond that, he said that he wanted to meet with Vince McMahon that night, which his Manager Lambert said is the type of thing Colby can make happen simply by visualizing it and making the effort.

Matt Riddle

On an update on Matt Riddle, shortly after the Fightful Wrestling Weekly dropped last Friday, Combat Zone Wrestling ran a graphic on their website saying it was “one of Riddle’s last appearances before leaving for WWE.” Riddle had no idea that the graphic was up on the site (but omitted from social media), until I passed along a message about it hours later. I was told that he requested they take it down, as neither he nor WWE have made any type of announcement about his signing.

This type of situation puts Matt in a weird place, as he’s never been shy about interacting with fans and has developed a positive reputation for it, but considering the the odd nature of WWE’s resistance to sign him before now, you never know what could muddy the waters. Those who I spoke to in WWE said there is no heat on Riddle for the image and that it was “a CZW kind of thing to do.”

Raw & Smackdown Live

The title of this week’s episode of WWE Monday Night Raw was “Between a Brock and a Hard Place” in reference to the angle where Lesnar was refusing to come to the ring. Smackdown Live was given a title of “Cry Baby Cry,” which was a nod to the Daniel Bryan promo that led to The Miz appearing on screen and saying that Bryan cried like a baby.

Announcers and talent were instructed to refer to the WWE Evolution announcement as “Stephanie McMahon’s historic announcement.” This was also the case during last week, as if you couldn’t tell based on how often it was said on each broadcast. 

Despite having the team name “Deleter of Worlds,” Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy are always listed individually, and not by that team name for Raw run sheets

Contrary to (really bad) reports, there was no dilemma or issue with WWE running graphics for both Brian Lawler and Nikolai Volkoff. WWE did put together a Volkoff video, which they ran on their Youtube page.