It’s now official: Tamyra Mensah-Stock is a WWE Superstar.
WWE.com confirmed ESPN’s announcement of the signing. Mensah-Stock gained national fame for being the first black woman to win a Gold Medal at the Tokyo Olympics in Freestyle Wrestling. During an interview with NBC Sports, she revealed she wants to be a WWE Superstar. She would later join fellow Black Olympic Gold Medalist and NIL WWE signee Gable Steveson in the ring at Summer Slam 2021 where the two were publicly acknowledged for their accomplishments at the Olympics.
Speaking of Steveson. He’s set to make his RAW debut any time. It’s just a matter of timing at this point in regards to him. There’s been a lot going on in WWE in recent months plus he’s been focused on other things since he signed with the company almost two full years ago. His younger brother is a trainee in the WWE Performance Center as well. As he explained in recent interviews, right now it’s about WWE booking his main roster debut. He does plan to train to compete in the 2024 Olympics in Paris but obviously would like to make his main roster debut before then.
I planned to talk about something related to this when news on Sonya Deville’s stalking case broke on Wednesday. The man charged with attempting kidnapping has been sentanced to 15 years in prison plus 15 years probation. I’m not saying his name but a few years ago, a deranged stalker followed DeVille home. When he was arrested, rope and other implements were found in the suspect’s car meaning he was planning to kidnap her and possibly her fiance as well.
The news of this conviction comes about two months after video footage of scalpers stalking Rey Mysterio and Rhea Ripley at airports for autographs hit social media. Even worse is they tried to frame Rey Mysterio as “refusing to autograph for fans” when he finally put his foot down in the footage uploaded to social media. People like that are not “fans”, they’re profiteers. WWE, AEW, ROH, Impact and NJPW all need to crack down on the practice to put a stop to that.
That aside. Most REAL wrestling fans–more so now–understand and respect the fact aside from being public figures, wrestlers/superstars are not that different from everyone else at the end of the day. That includes being entitled to some privacy when they’re not on the clock. Especially when they’re out somewhere with their family.
I think of that Table for 3 episode from about 5 years ago featuring the wives of Randy Orton (Kim Orton), Matt Hardy (Reby Hardy) and Kurt Angle (Giovanna Angle). One of the things their wives touched on was navigating family time in public places. While they understand their husbands are public figures all too well, there is a time and a place for everything. They put it on not just the fans but to an extent their husbands to set boundaries when they’re with their families in a public place. That’s pretty fair and more so since they’re on the road most of the time already. The only time they usually spend time with family is when they’re sidelined with an injury.
I live in Boston. It’s not uncommon to see a pro athlete, politician or actor in public places every now and then. The only time you see a crowd is when there’s a movie shoot going on, a politician is at an event or a public figure is at an advertised public event. Aside from that, people mind their business up here. Most of us have something called RESPECT.
I’m sure many have heard the news by now but as of last week, Trinity Fatu FKA Naomi in WWE is now on Impact Wrestling.
She recently broke her silence about what went down on that day she and Mercedes Vernado FKA Sasha Banks walked out on WWE last year. Most online publications as well as myself were VERY careful with speculation regarding her and Mercedes’ reasons for walking out of WWE. Mercendes shared her perspective immediately after it happened but when WWE Officials saw radio silence from Trinity, they set to work setting the narrative the whole thing was Mercedes’ doing and she pulled Trinity into it.
Trinity has now revealed she was basically close to quitting when everything went down and it was only because of fan support she didn’t outright quit the business. Obviously not anytime soon but I do think we will see Trinity return to WWE at some point in the future personally. Her husband being Jimmy Uso certainly helps with that. She has a path back into WWE when she’s ready. Mercedes revealed a few months back she would be open to returning to WWE if the opportunity presented itself at some point in the future too.
As I speculated in the previous article, The Way may in fact be getting back together =O
The May 2 episode of NXT ended with Indy Hartwell vacating the NXT Women’s Championship. She won the title in a fatal 5-way ladder match at NXT Stand & Deliver during Wrestlemania weekend and defended it in a triple threat match last week with Roxanne Perez and Tiffany Stratton. During her title defense, she suffered a high ankle sprain on her right ankle and left the match for a while, temporarily making it a 1 on 1 match.
NXT officials reportedly planned to have Stratton win the title but Hartwell was cleared to rejoin the match. If you pay attention when she returns you can see her talking to the ref during some brief downtime in the action. The ref then walks over to Stratton and Perez presumably to let them know the revised plan for the finish. Hartwell pins Perez to retain after Stratton is dumped out of the ring.
The next day, Hartwell would share a picture of herself on social media wearing a walking boot on her right leg. She would then be drafted to RAW. Vacating the NXT Women’s Championship this week makes sense for those two reasons as well as the fact the NXT Women’s Tag Team Champions were drafted to Smackdown. Even though she’ll likely be sidelined due to her injury for a little while, we could still see her used in backstage promos or prerecorded skits with Dexter Lumis and the Garganos who were all also drafted to RAW.
Ah, the WWE PC/Thunder Dome Era. Still hard to believe it lasted for 18 months, yes?
As everyone knows, WWE’s Thunder Dome concept is based on what the NBA did for the 2019-20 NBA Playoffs: House everything in one or two centralized locations. WWE basically lived in Florida for 18 months. When WWE was not able to travel around North America due to the Pandemic, RAW and Smackdown were moved into the WWE Performance Center in Olrlando.
After seeing what the NBA did in Disney World, WWE adapted and expanded the concept to create the Thunder Dome. The Amway Center in Orlando hosted the Thunder Dome during the NBA’s offseason while Tropicana Field hosted the Thunder Dome during MLB’s offseason. There were a few scheduling conflicts but the NBA and MLB worked with WWE to make things work.
The WWEPC/Thunder Dome Era will unfortunately mostly be remembered by wrestling fans for the dozens of on-air talent who were released within the first 8 months. Despite the circumstances, some of the best storylines in the history of the business took place during what some fans refer to as The Pandemic Era.
Here’s a few:
- Roman Reigns returns as a Heel, begins 3+ year reign as Universal Champion
- The Undertaker retires
- Main Event Jey Uso
- Dark Alexa is born
- Rated RKO Feud
- Bayley and Sasha Banks become Double Champions as Women’s Tag Team Champions
- Asuka becomes a Double Champion (RAW and Women’s Tag Team Champion)
- Banks and Bayley Feud, ending in Hell in a Cell
- The Hurt Business Dominates RAW
- Big E emerges on Smackdown and establishes himself as a Singles Competator
- Braun Strowman and Bray Wyatt Feud
- Samoa Joe transitions to commentary work
- Keith Lee becomes NXT’s first Double Champion with both singles titles
- The Street Profits, Bianca Belair and Rhea Ripley make impacts on RAW
- Matt Riddle makes a splash on Smackdown
- Carmella redebuts with Reginald (AKA Reggie FKA SCRYPTS)
- Dominik Mysterio debuts as a WWE Superstar against Seth Rollins
- The Mysterios become the first Father-Son Team to become Tag Team Champions
- The Miz becomes WWE Champion
- Bobby Lashley becomes WWE Champion
- Iyo Sky (FKA Io Shirai) becomes NXT Women’s Champion
- Braun Strowman becomes Universal Champion
- Randy Orton sets The Fiend on Fire in third-ever Inferno Match
- RAW Underground
- The Retribution stable
That’s just off the top of my head. A lot happened to say the least. Some like Ninja Omos are obviously forgettable. Everything Iisted above and more certainly is not. One of the nuances of perfoming with no fans present is talent could actually get through promos uninterrupted by the crowd’s reactions.
If you ever wondered why promos last a bit longer and have a bit more depth compared to pre-Pandemic, that’s why. Superstars also had to get SUPER creative to maximize airtime and more so since there was no live crowd to lean on. Wrestling legends of the past have told current talent one after another although they don’t think they would have been able to adapt, they’ve been impressed with how well current talent in not just WWE but AEW and other promotions performed under the circumstances.
I know that even though to an extent even WWE doesn’t really talk about stuff that happened during the Pandemic Era, it happened. I’d stop short of saying WWE is trying to forget that era ever happened but as I noted above, a LOT of big stuff happened during that time and helped set things up for WWE’s return to traveling again and performing in front of live crowds again after Summer Slam 2021. Wrestlemania 37 (2021) was held in front of a live audience but they returned to The Thunder Dome format until after Summer Slam to allow time for shows in front of the public to be scheduled and booked in advance.
WWE’s Peacock deal is set to expire in 2025 and a few months after new sister company UFC’s ESPN+ deal is set to expire. WWE President Nick Khan revealed in a recent press conference regarding WWE’s Q1 2023 earnings although the company is locked in with Peacock for a few more years, nothing is set in stone after that.
There’s been a bit of speculation since UFC’s parent company bought WWE during Wrestlemania weekend WWE may be open to reverting to a PPV model after the Peacock deal expires. As things are now, WWE’s PLEs (Premium Live Events) like ‘Mania, Backlash and Money in the Bank are free with Peacock (and WWE Network outside the U.S.).
Given monthly Peacock subscriptions are as low as $10 and annual subscriptions are $100, the company has seen a rise in viewership mostly for that reason. I plan to renew my annual subscription in September but this time not just for WWE-related content. I’ve been watching Bel Air since last year and this July, a TV adaptation of the Playstation video game series Twisted Metal is going to premeire on Peacock (!).
Before I forget. Peacock is owned by NBC Universal, which is USA Network’s parent company. NBC Universal started moving Olympics coverage to Peacock when it comes around and in recent years. Peacock has started streaming select movies before their home releases. Violent Night, M3gan and Cocaine Bear are three such movies currently available on NBC’s flagship streaming platform.
No question WWE programming is Peacock’s strongest asset. As a reminder, WWE shut down their own streaming service in the U.S. when the Peacock deal was first announced back in 2020. In exchange, WWE migrated all of their programming to Peacock. One sticking point NBC Universal hopefully pushes for is more original content.
WWE has been making content for A&E, Bravo and other cable networks for some time now but Peacock hasn’t gotten any new original noteworthy content since the Ric Flair documentary. I am being mindful talent have been busy with all kinds of stuff over the last 12 months. There’s also the McMahon situation and now Endeavor buying the company during Wrestlemania weekend. They haven’t really had much time to make original content but that needs to change ASAP.
The new World Heavyweight Championship belt will be awared at Night of Champions. It was rumored for months WWE was considering introducing a new belt but this was not what wrestling fans either expected or wanted in hindsight. There’s also the fact Triple H admitted during the reveal they’re bringing the title back so RAW can have its own top champion again.
According to some new reports that broke this week, Roman Reigns could remain the Undisputed Universal Champion until September 2024. WWE worked itself in a corner putting both the Universal Championship and the WWE Championship on one guy with no offramp in mind. I don’t have a problem with Reigns breaking the all-time record held by Bruno Sammartino–Reigns would need to hold the Universal Championship for at least 7 more years–but the thing is right now WWE has the RAW and Smackdown brands with their own sets of titles. I do think the RAW and Smackdown tag titles will be split up again sooner than later on that note.
One title wrestling fans as well as some women’s wrestlers have been clamoring for ever since the 24/7 Championship was discontinued last year is a midcard women’s title. I mean an Intercontinental Championship or U.S. Championship for the Women’s Division. It would likely have to be a cross-brand title like the current Women’s Tag Team titles are but it would be helpful and more so given Bianca Belair has held the RAW Women’s Championship for over a year herself now. She first won it from Becky Lynch at Wrestlemania 38 and retained it when she faced Asuka at Wrestlemania 39 last month. She has more than earned the long reign but it could end when she faces Iyo Sky this coming weekend. Both of them were drafted to Smackdown so either way there will be a title swap with Rhea Ripley, who holds the Smackdown Women’s Championship or her Backlash challenger Zelina Vega if the title changes hands. We’ll see.
At this point, it’s probably fair to say Benito aka Bad Bunny is the biggest celebrity ever to cross into WWE on several fronts. He is not only the biggest artist in the entertainment world right now but is a bonafide WWE superstar. Randy Orton gave rare praise in a press conference after Wrestlemania 37 for Bad Bunny, calling him a bonafide WWE Superstar.
Honestly, I would not be surprised at all if Bad Bunny is given another title run at some point. As a reminder, he held the 24/7 Championship for a few weeks in 2021. I could see him becoming a tag team champion or winning either the Intercontinental Championship or the U.S. Championship. That’s how good he is.
One thing I couldn’t help but enjoy during the build to Backlash was WWE letting Bad Bunny, Rey Mysterio, Santos Escobar, Dominik Mysterio and Damian Priest cut their promos in Spanish with no English translation. I’m not just saying that because Backlash is taking place in Puerto Rico either.
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