As we’ve been reporting, WWE is very high on Renee Young. There has even been recent talk of Young anchoring the RAW broadcast booth someday, which shows just how impressed WWE brass is with her progression.
One of Young’s biggest supporters in the company is Stephanie McMahon, who is encouraging more women to have vital roles within the male dominated organization.
Thanks to Jeremy King for the following spoilers from Sunday night’s TNA international TV tapings in Fayetteville, North Carolina:
* The majority of the matches were for British Bootcamp 2 and Xplosion.
* Samoa Joe defeated Dave Mastiff in a great match.
* Eric Young defeated James Storm and Gunner in a Triple Threat.
* Bram defeated Rampage Brown.
* Taryn Terrell defeated Angelina Love and Madison Rayne in a Triple Threat.
* DJ Zema Ion defeated Mark Andrews in another great match.
* Austin Aries defeated Noam Dar in a solid showing.
* Mr. Anderson defeated Rockstar Spud. This was a throw-away match with comedy attempts, including some by Earl Hebner.
* Gail Kim defeated Kay Lee Ray in a better than usual Knockouts match.
* Ethan Carter III defeated Grado. Lots of useless comedy here also.
* Bobby Roode defeated Magnus.
* Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy defeated Kenny King and MVP. Jeff left at one point after taking a fall outside of the ring. Willow then came out and helped Matt, before going to the back. Jeff came back out to finish the match.
Credit: Marc Middleton
We noted a few weeks ago, via The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, that WWE’s VP of Venue Merchandising & Operations Alan Rebhun was let go after WrestleMania XXX due to major concessions problems at the event in New Orleans, including a large sum of money that went missing at the end of the weekend.
New details were provided to me last week and apparently what happened during WrestleMania XXX weekend was just a small part of WWE’s concessions problems while Rebhun was working for the company.
The company Rebhun hired to do concessions at WrestleMania XXX was Alan Fey’s Gameday. Fey was previously responsible for the bankruptcy of another similar company named XP Events back in 2010. We noted that the concessions contract was signed off on by “WWE officials higher than Rebhun” but he kept the Fey connection a secret beforehand. When WWE executive Rich Hering and WWE’s legal team found out about this, they looked for the signed concessions contract and found that Rebhun had written & signed a contract with Fey without WWE’s knowledge or without the contract being written by WWE legal, which is against company protocol.
It was reported by The Observer that the concessions company contracted for WrestleMania had licenses for several NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB teams. Most of those team licenses were carryovers from XP Events after they were told, “if you want to get the money owed to you from our bankruptcy, you’ll need to sign Gameday.” The company was recently dropped by the Phoenix Suns, the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Coyotes, Dallas Stars and the Arizona Diamondbacks after all complained of poorly managed merchandise sales. Their reputation was known through the concessions industry and by Rebhun, but kept from WWE officials higher than Rebhun. Also, when people in WWE under Rebhun ran credit checks on Gameday, the results of those checks were squashed until WWE’s legal team ran their own checks.
Regarding a deposit being short $5,000, Hering demanded that all money earned at each WrestleMania XXX week event be immediately collected by company officials, namely Rebhun. This demand came after a heated argument between Rebhun and Hering. Usually trusted vending companies pay WWE within 21 days of an event but because of the situation, Hering wanted it collected immediately. Rebhun skipped the first night that he was supposed to collect the money and left the task to an inexperienced office accounting employee. When Fey gave the accounting employee the money, the accountant gave Fey a receipt for said amount of cash. However, when the money was officially counted it was $5,000 less than what Fey said was there. Because Fey had a receipt for what was “supposed” to be there, he claimed he knew nothing about being short $5,000.
Rebhun also hired a company that was a branch of a company called Countrywide. They were the company that took photos of fans in front of green screens and made it appear that they were posing with a WWE Superstar. This company owed WWE around $85,000 before WrestleMania XXX and were roughly 6 months late on payments. This was all covered up by Rebhun. WWE’s legal team investigated this matter and found that once again Rebhun wrote a contract without their knowledge. The main problem with that contract was the time period of when payment was due was written as “in a timely manner” instead of giving a specific deadline. Countrywide claimed that 6 months late on payment was a timely manner to them. WWE’s legal team ran credit checks on Countrywide and found that they did not fit into the levels of acceptance set by WWE.
We will have more details on Rebhun’s actions during WrestleMania XXX weekend later this week.
AAA’s Lucha Underground taped their second episode in Los Angeles on Sunday night. These spoilers will air on the El Rey Network on October 15th.
* Hernandez defeated Ricky Mandell in a dark match.
* The Crenshaw Crew (Ezekiel Jackson, Lil Cholo, Ricky Reyes) cut a promo on Prince Puma (Ricochet) and Johnny Mundo (John Morrison). Puma and Mundo attacked them to start a match.
* Prince Puma and Johnny Mundo defeated Lil Cholo and Ricky Reyes.
* Sexy Star and Chavo Guerrero defeated Ivelisse Velez and Lord of Havok.
* Mil Muertes defeated Blue Demon Jr., Muertes attacked Demon after the match but Chavo Guerrero appeared to make the save. Chavo ended up attacking Demon also.
Thanks to Chris of PWPonderings.com for the following Lucha Underground spoilers from last night’s tapings in LA. These will air on the El Rey Network on October 8th.
* Famous B defeated B-Boy in a dark match.
* Mil Muertes with former WWE Diva Maxine defeated Martin Causas from Tough Enough in a dark match.
* Blue Demon Jr. defeated Chavo Guerrero.
* Matt Cross defeated Sexy Star.
* Johnny Mundo (John Morrison) defeated Prince Puma (Ricochet) in the main event. Ezekiel Jackson, Ricky Reyes and Lil Cholo attacked them both after the match.
TNA taped their One Night Only: Rivals pay-per-view on Saturday night in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. No word yet on when it will air. Thanks to Ricky Branch for the following results:
* Rockstar Spud defeated Sonjay Dutt with a low blow.
* James Storm defeated Mr. Anderson with help from Sanada.
* Angelina Love beat Madison Rayne by cheating.
* Kenny King defeated Sanada, DJ Zema Ion and Samoa Joe in an elimination match. King got the win after Sanada sprayed mist in Joe’s eyes.
* Eric Young defeated Abyss in a Monster’s Ball match.
* Bram defeated Gunner.
* A group of heel British Bootcamp 2 contestants, managed by Angelina Love, defeated a group of babyface contestants, led by Al Snow.
* Ethan Carter III defeated Austin Aries with help from Spud. Aries laid out Spud after the match.
* Taryn Terrell defeated Gail Kim in a must see match.
* Bobby Roode defeated MVP by DQ when Kenny King interfered. Eric Young made the save, leading to…
* King and MVP defeated Roode and Young. Great tag match.
* Jeff Hardy defeated Magnus in a very good main event.
Source: F4WOnline
Brie Bella reportedly said in a media interview for Total Divas this past week that her husband Daniel Bryan will not need a second surgery as expected. Doctors made their decision this past week.
Brie added that Bryan is going through rehab and is slowly regaining strength in his right arm. There’s still no word on when he will be back in action but WWE officials are hoping for three months from now.
– Source: F4WOnline
As noted, Jay Briscoe defeated Michael Elgin to become the new ROH Champion this past weekend. Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that the decision to take the title off Elgin was made last minute. Elgin was going to retain the title this weekend and then lose it at Final Battle. Ring of Honor officials were reportedly “furious” over Elgin’s comments in a recent interview about wanting to participate in a tryout for Major League Baseball next year.
Ring of Honor then “lucked out” with the title change as Elgin was stopped at the Canadian border this weekend and is not allowed into the United States for 90 days due to work visa issues. Meltzer adds that the work visa issues had nothing to do with him losing the title.
Elgin tweeted the following this weekend after reports came out:
“I’m going to make something clear. I wasn’t giving up to play baseball. I wanted to prove to myself I could do it. Trying out doesn’t hurt”
“Anything at all, @ringofhonor did not tell me there was an issue with wanted to try something. Wrestle still has my full attention and love”
“I wanted to prove to myself I could do something. There has been issues but oh well. @ringofhonor is being helpful and are great ppl.”
“I love wrestling but wanted to test myself outside of wrestling. Don’t talk unless you know everything.”
“I’m saying is ROH didn’t say there was an issue because there wasn’t. I’m saying @ringofhonor has been great to me and is in this situation”
– Maria Kanellis cut a promo at this Saturday’s ROH All Star Extravaganza VI iPPV and said that “Matt” was coming back to the promotion. The “Matt” she was referring to is Matt Taven. Taven is slated to return at the ROH TV tapings in Wheeling, WV on September 27th and will join the Kingdom with Adam Cole and Mike Bennett.
Taven worked an angle on Twitter last month stating that he would not be re-signing with the promotion. We reported that it was an internet angle, and that he would be retuning in a month. Taven in under a deal until the end of the year.
