Daily Update: Cardi B, Countdown to Double or Nothing, Hikaru Shida

DAILY UPDATE

Latest News:

Moose vs. Sami Callihan set for Impact Wrestling
AEW Spanish language announcer fired after mocking Asian accent
WWE SmackDown video highlights: The Usos return to tag team action
NJPW announces two title matches for Road to Dominion tour
NJPW Strong results: Tom Lawlor vs. Chris Dickinson
NJPW to crown new IWGP World Heavyweight Champion at Dominion
The Miz returning to WWE Raw to host Miz TV segment
Two title matches set for next week’s WWE SmackDown

Latest Audio:

WOR: WWE and New Japan, IWGP Title, AEW and Smackdown recaps, more!
Speak Now: Tony Khan promo, SmackDown and AEW recaps
F4D: Lance Storm on how WWE/NJPW could work, NXT thoughts, tons more!


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WON NEWSLETTER: May 31, 2021 Observer Newsletter: WWE returning to live crowds, WarnerMedia-Discovery merger

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Dave Meltzer reports on WWE returning to live crowds, the proposed WarnerMedia-Discovery merger, Nick Khan has been in talks with New Japan Pro Wrestling about WWE becoming NJPW’s exclusive American partner. 

Also in this issue: 

Updating WWE going on tour and what early ticket sales show
Double or Nothing preview and ticket sales for all upcoming AEW events and what it says about the brand right now
Full UFC coverage from last week
A look at both Warrior documentaries and separating fact from fiction
Collision in Korea and going through fact vs. fiction as well
Most detailed look at television viewership over the past week
Amazing training notes about an 80s star about to return to the ring
AEW TV schedule notes for June

And much more.


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SATURDAY NEWS UPDATE

WWE
Andrew Zarian of the Mat Men podcast tweeted that he was told that rapper Cardi B will be the host of this year’s SummerSlam. Cardi B’s song “Up” was featured in a SummerSlam commercial that aired during SmackDown last night.
On HBO’s The Shop, Bad Bunny spoke with LeBron James, Maverick Carter, Jay-Z, and more about his experience wrestling at WrestleMania. When asked if wrestling is real, Bad Bunny said: “It’s real. It’s 100 percent real. No, it’s insane. The work — when I was learning the first days and they were teaching me how to fall, the bumps, I said, ‘How can these people do this for 20-30 years?’ Guys like The Undertaker, Triple H. So many years…receiving that pain. It’s crazy, but I love it.” Bad Bunny said WrestleMania was the best moment of his life and he moved to Orlando for three months to train for the event.
The Undertaker and Triple H both posted tweets responding to Bad Bunny. Triple H tweeted: “[Bad Bunny] dedicated the time, effort, and passion necessary for a world tour into his performance at #WrestleMania. He’s not only a lifelong fan of our business but a member of our @WWE family who earned all of our respect along the way!!!!!”
The Undertaker wrote: “Well said, [Bad Bunny]. You did us ALL proud at #WrestleMania.”
Fightful reported that Josiah Williams was released as part of this week’s WWE cuts. Williams joined WWE as an on-air digital talent based out of the Performance Center in 2019. He’s made appearances on NXT, along with recently making Cameron Grimes’ theme music.
Giancarlo Dittamo was also let go by WWE in this week’s cuts. Dittamo did production work for Game Changer Wrestling prior to joining WWE.
WWE has filed trademarks for the names “Carmelo Hayes” and “Trey Baxter.” It hasn’t been revealed who will be using those names.
On Renee Paquette’s Oral Sessions podcast, Natalya and Tamina spoke about how important Tyson Kidd’s work as a producer is to the women’s division. Tamina said:

Eleven years ago when we first went up against them, I remember just the littlest things, TJ was already in that mind frame. He was wanting to make the matches mean something and blow them out of the water. I remember doing the first matches on the show. On the house show, the first match is going to build and blow everybody up. They would blow it out of the water. Or if they were the main event they’d blow it out of the water. That’s just TJ’s mind frame. You fast forward to him becoming a producer and doing all these things. You can’t even imagine. He gets a million text messages a day because we’re all picking his brain.

This man is a mastermind behind everything we all do, and he gets every single girl. That’s what the difference is. He knows everyone’s moves, he knows how to protect, he knows how to make everything great and amazing. I really don’t know what we’d do without TJ. That’s the whole point to this whole thing. He is that mastermind behind it all and he executes everything and he gives us that confidence to come through with whatever it is we put together. That’s him and he’s like that. He is a strong ass man. He is a real man in that sense, but he loves and gives everything to us. Everything.

WWE’s YouTube channel uploaded Randy Orton vs. Shelton Benjamin for the Intercontinental title from Bad Blood 2004, Batista vs. Kane vs. Mark Henry vs. Finlay from the May 25, 2007 episode of SmackDown, and Seth Rollins vs. Jinder Mahal from the May 28, 2018 episode of Raw.

Other Wrestling

AEW’s YouTube channel uploaded the full Countdown to Double or Nothing special that aired on TNT tonight.
As part of her one-year title reign celebration on last night’s Dynamite, Hikaru Shida was presented with a new AEW Women’s World Championship belt that’s bigger than the previous version. Shida tweeted: “Thank you for watching #AEWDynamite. I will never forget about tonight. With new shiny belt. (That was my first promo in ring!!!)”
During an interview with DAZN, Britt Baker was asked whether turning heel or her unsanctioned match against Thunder Rosa was the bigger game-changing moment in her career: “I think we can go two different ways on that. I mean both in a sense. But I think turning heel is what led me on the right path up the mountain because I feel like I was just lost. I was never actually starting my climb to the top. But I think that Thunder Rosa match is what got me to the top of the mountain per se. I never would have gotten to the top if I wasn’t on the right path to begin with.”
TVInsider also has an interview with Baker.
Baker is getting her first AEW action figure.
Sting told Paste Magazine about how he’s preparing to return to live in-ring action at Double or Nothing: “I’m trying to work a lot on mobility, that’s for sure. I don’t recover as quick as I used to, either, so I have to really watch how I train, so I don’t overtrain because, I’m telling you, you just don’t recover the same. I’m still feeling the effects of the powerbomb that I took from Brian Cage [in February 2021]. There are a few kinks I still have from that one. Otherwise I’m preparing the same. It’s the same kind of stuff, I just have to think about when I do it and what intensity levels and all that. I’m trying to get the heartrate up as much as I possibly can, so the stamina’s there to go with these young guys. Yeah, I’m getting ready — I am ready.” Sting & Darby Allin are facing Scorpio Sky & Ethan Page at tomorrow’s PPV.
Tony Khan previewed Double or Nothing in an interview with Barstool Sports’ Brandon F. Walker.
Cassie Lee and Jessie McKay (formerly known as Peyton Royce and Billie Kay in WWE) released the second episode of their Off Her Chops podcast.
Lee and McKay appeared on Busted Open Radio earlier this week and discussed being shocked by their WWE releases:

McKay: I wish I knew. To be honest, when I say that — it was a total shock. I had no idea. When I got the phone call, I thought it was in regards to something else. I was like, ‘Oh, they need me to do something. I’m needed for something else’ and when I heard those words, ‘We’re going to release you,’ my heart dropped and I was just — I was so shocked and I was just heartbroken and I don’t have any answers and I don’t think I’m ever gonna get answers. So at the moment I’m just trying to have peace with that.

Lee: So it was absolutely a shock because obviously they do the budget cuts once a year but they hadn’t done it in a while and then I thought last year’s was just purely because of the pandemic so, I didn’t see it coming and maybe I should have, especially because I was really doing nothing since they split us up so, I was like laying in the middle of a massage in my bedroom and the husband [Shawn Spears] walks in and says, ‘You should probably check your phone’ and I was like, ‘Um, okay’ and then I checked it and I was like, ‘Yep, I’m done.’ Jumped up off the bed not wearing anything and that’s when I realized what was going down. Complete shock and I feel like we’re still going through waves with it where it’s like one day I’ll feel like so free and so excited for these opportunities that now we can take upon ourselves and then other days I sit there wondering like, ‘Ah, I just don’t understand’ and like Jess, I don’t think we’ll ever understand because I don’t think there’s much of a reason other than cuts had to be made.

Lee and McKay also spoke about AEW and Impact Wrestling as potential options for their next destination:

Lee: I think — it’s tough because for example, AEW, I think we could really help their women’s division. They don’t necessarily have a women’s tag division, I could be wrong, I’m not sure. But I just feel like we have that TV experience that we could bring to the division and help build that up and with IMPACT, they have a women’s tag team division, a well-established — the Knockouts division that I easily feel we could slip into so it’s like, I feel like we have a lot to offer both of them and it’s — I don’t know, I don’t know.

McKay: It’s tough. It’s tough to figure out where you think would be the best fit because we are wrestlers but then we are heavy personalities and characters and we love that so I think it’s just blending the two like we always have and just figuring out which company we think we would be better with, you know? AEW or IMPACT.

Daily Pro Wrestling History: Charlotte Flair wins NXT Women’s title


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