The latest WWE and AEW News and Results
The Bryan & Vinny Show is back and it’s a big one with nearly 90 minutes of discussion on both NXT Deadline that had an awesome Iron Survivor Challenge men’s match, and AEW Collision with two Continental Classic tournament matches and more.
A fun show as always so check it out~!
Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer is back with tons to talk about including full results from the NXT PPV on Saturday, Charlotte’s injury, more on the departure of Kevin Sullivan, ratings, pro-wrestling demographics, the Collision report and tons more. A fun show as always so check it out~!
Timestamps:
Start: World Tag League update
3:34: WWE NXT Deadline report
35:43: Charlotte Flair injured
38:19: Injury rates in AEW and WWE
43:00: Fallout from Kevin Sullivan (production) being fired by AEW
47:00: Wednesday ratings, Iron Claw movie
1:00:34: Pro wrestling demographics
1:11:30: AEW Collision recap
Trick Williams and Blair Davenport are the NXT Iron Survivor Challenge 2023 winners.
At Saturday’s NXT Deadline event, Williams and Davenport emerged victorious in the Iron Survivor Challenge matches. With those victories, Williams has earned an NXT Championship shot and Davenport has earned an NXT Women’s Championship shot. They’re both getting their title matches at NXT New Year’s Evil on Tuesday, January 2.
The Iron Survivor Challenge is a 25-minute match where the wrestler who has scored the most falls by the time runs out is declared the winner. The match debuted in 2022 with Grayson Waller and Roxanne Perez becoming the first Iron Survivors.
Williams defeated Bron Breakker, Tyler Bate, Dijak, and Josh Briggs to win the men’s Iron Survivor Challenge. Williams only had one fall entering the final minute, but he went on a flurry where he pinned Dijak, Bate, and Breakker to end the match on top with four falls.
In the women’s Iron Survivor Challenge match, Davenport won with three falls. She defeated Lash Legend, Tiffany Stratton, Fallon Henley, and Kelani Jordan.
Davenport took the lead with a late fall over Henley. Davenport then ran away from Legend so that Legend had no chance to even things up.
Following the match, Davenport had a staredown with NXT Women’s Champion Lyra Valkyria. Cora Jade then made her NXT return by ambushing Valkyria and posing with the NXT Women’s Championship belt.
New Year’s Evil is the first NXT episode of 2024. It’s currently set to feature the following title matches:
Cora Jade has returned to NXT with her sights set on becoming Women’s Champion.
Jade made her return by ambushing NXT Women’s Champion Lyra Valkyria at Deadline on Saturday night. It marked Jade’s first appearance in NXT since July.
At Deadline, Blair Davenport won the women’s Iron Survivor Challenge match to earn an NXT Women’s Championship shot against Valkyria. Davenport got on the microphone after the match and declared that the clock is ticking on Valkyria’s title reign.
Valkyria then came out to the stage and stared down Davenport. But as the staredown was happening, Jade attacked Valkyria from behind. Jade posed with the NXT Women’s Championship belt before throwing it back down on Valkyria.
Business just picked up 🤯@CoraJadeWWE is back!!!#NXTDeadline pic.twitter.com/Kj0fd95GG5
— WWE (@WWE) December 10, 2023
In a backstage interview, Jade said she’s here to take the NXT women’s division to a whole new level.
.@CoraJadeWWE is back and ready to take over… đź‘€#NXTDeadline pic.twitter.com/7kA7SgPAdA
— WWE (@WWE) December 10, 2023
A QR code had been shown on NXT this past Tuesday teasing that Jade would be returning at Deadline. Her most recent appearance was a loss to Dana Brooke in a kendo stick match on the July 25 edition of NXT. There was a backstage segment where Jade stormed out after her loss and said she was sick of this place.
Davenport is getting her NXT Women’s Championship match against Valkyria at NXT New Year’s Evil on Tuesday, January 2. It’s a special episode of NXT television.
NXT has a new North American Champion.
At Deadline on Saturday night, Dragon Lee defeated Dominik Mysterio to win the North American title. Dragon Lee was a late replacement in the match after Wes Lee, who was originally supposed to challenge Dominik, had to be pulled from the show due to a back injury.
Rey Mysterio was on commentary for the match and rooting for Dragon Lee to defeat his son. Near the finish, there was a moment where Dominik went for a 619 but took too much time taunting his father. That led to Dragon Lee being able to avoid the move. Lee followed up with a sit-out powerbomb and an Asai DDT to get the victory.
This is Dragon Lee’s first title reign in WWE. He and Rey Mysterio hugged as Dragon Lee celebrated his victory after the match.
What a moment for @dragonlee95 đź‘Źđź‘Źđź‘Ź#NXTDeadline pic.twitter.com/noabRZYHex
— WWE (@WWE) December 10, 2023
Dominik didn’t have Rhea Ripley or any other Judgment Day members in his corner at Deadline.
The champ is here!
But it looks like @DomMysterio35 is doing things solo tonight… đź‘€#NXTDeadline pic.twitter.com/2EWFOYVsdf
— WWE (@WWE) December 10, 2023
Dragon Lee was called up to the WWE SmackDown roster this October. On SmackDown, he’s been feuding against Santos Escobar.
AEW wrestler Rush posted a tweet congratulating his brother Dragon Lee on the title win:
congratulations brother,
you deserve it,
the fruit and reward of work
and discipline,I am very proud of you,
I love you
HERMANO #MuñozDynasty#HermanosMuñoz pic.twitter.com/Nv0sNo5KDr— RUSH OFICIAL (@rushtoroblanco) December 10, 2023
It was announced on NXT this past Tuesday that Dragon Lee would be taking Wes Lee’s place at Deadline. Wes Lee is undergoing back surgery and is expected to be out of action for 8-12 months.
It looks like CM Punk will be in the building for WWE NXT Deadline tonight.
In a post to his Instagram stories on Saturday afternoon, Punk revealed that he’s in Connecticut ahead of NXT Deadline. The premium live event is taking place from Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport tonight.
Punk shared a photo of himself outside of WWE headquarters and wrote: “Missed my flight today. Woke up in Bridgeport. Anything to do here?”
Will there be a @CMPunk sighting at #NXTDeadline? đź‘€ pic.twitter.com/iQzXnL9s7R
— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) December 9, 2023
Punk tagged NXT’s Instagram account in the post.
In storyline, Punk is currently a free agent after making his return to WWE at Survivor Series. He’ll reveal which brand he’s signing with on this coming Monday’s episode of Raw.
Punk returned to SmackDown last night for the first time in nearly a decade. During his promo, Punk stated that he had a phone call with Shawn Michaels scheduled for this weekend. Punk said he would be talking with Michaels about NXT.
Michaels responded to Punk on Saturday: “@CMPunk Since you’re in Bridgeport and have some time, let’s forgo the phone call and talk in person.”
Punk said in his SmackDown promo that he’s back in WWE to finish what he started. He’s here to finish his own story of headlining WrestleMania.
Deadline is going head-to-head with AEW Collision tonight.
Deadline streams live on Peacock/WWE Network starting at 8 p.m. Eastern time. There will be a one-hour pre-show before the event.
Here’s the full Deadline lineup:
Kelani Jordan is one of the five participants headed to tonight’s NXT Deadline to compete in the women’s Iron Survivor Challenge, competing against Tiffany Stratton, Lash Legend, Blair Davenport and Fallon Henley for a future NXT Women’s title shot.
She earned her spot with a late-November win over Kiana James.
Ahead of the biggest matchup of her young career, I talked with the former gymnast about her time thus far in wrestling and tonight’s big opportunity.
Her fast rise
Given that WWE NXT is a developmental brand, fans have seen a lot of talents grow on the weekly program with Jordan as one of them. While she had primarily had been working on NXT Level Up and the NXT house show loops for the better portion of 2023, she wasn’t on NXT TV until June when she took part in a battle royal.
Fast forward to October, Jordan was named as one of the eight women taking part in the 2023 women’s Breakout Tournament. After wins over Izzi Dame and Arianna Grace to advance to the finals, she got some good crowd reactions and showcased her athletic ability in an eventual defeat to Lola Vice.
Now, she finds herself on the doorstop of a big opportunity.
“It’s so rewarding. It’s amazing because, like you said, about six to seven months ago, I had my first debut match on Level Up. And so now to see how far I’ve come to be on a major PLE, in the Iron Survivor Challenge, the second one ever, it’s so rewarding. I’m just so happy because I never would have thought so. I’m like, ‘Well, if I can do this in six months, imagine the next six months how far I’ll be.'”
Transitioning from gymnastics
Like a lot of the new crop of developmental students at the Performance Center, Jordan excelled at a different sport before pursuing wrestling. Jordan’s athletic background stems from gymnastics.
While she was attending Michigan State in 2022, she was finishing her fifth year in gymnastics when she received a direct message on Instagram from the WWE recruiting account, asking her if she was interested in attending their tryout at SummerSlam.
Jordan says that when she received the message, she was surprised WWE reached out to her. She ended up taking a chance and ended up getting selected by Paul “Triple H” Levesque to further her training at the Performance Center.
“At first, I’m like, ‘Is this real?’ There’s no way that WWE is contacting me and I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to go for it.’ So I went down to Nashville, I did the tryout, and thankfully I was blessed with the opportunity for Triple H himself to offer me to come to the Performance Center and start training.
“And that’s how I got into pro wrestling. I never would have thought in a million years that I would be a WWE superstar so being here is so surreal.”
Once she began training, she said that learning how to be safe and rolling in the ring was the easiest part for her to learn, revealing that the most “painful” thing was learning how to hit the ropes.
“So learning how to just control your body with safety, like rolling and stuff, that was the easy part. But hitting the ropes the first time was so painful and just learning how to bump and stuff. That was probably the most painful thing, the most difficult thing ever. Hitting the ropes was the most difficult.”
Given how quickly she has taken to wrestling, Jordan explained to me how her background in gymnastics has attributed to her learning this new sport so quickly.
“I will say it’s very, very different. It’s foreign to me. But then again, the physicality of it helps me a lot because I’m able to catch on to the small details easier, I would say just because in gymnastics, everything is based on perfection. So I have to make sure I know all the details to make sure the margin of error is very small.”
She emphasized that her background in gymnastics has helped her a lot with body control and what she calls “air awareness.”
“I believe that helps me in the ring with like body control and details. Just making sure I’m aware, I have air awareness. So, I believe gymnastics helped me. But then again, it’s so different because I’m not used to having someone hit me or being in the ring with someone else. In gymnastics, it’s just me by myself.”
Key influences
Given that Jordan is so new to the world of professional wrestling, I asked her who are some of the performers she studies. Three very different wrestlers were her answer: Rob Van Dam, Bryan Danielson and Bianca Belair.
“Starting with in-ring wise, I would say RVD is someone whose style I absolutely love. I love also how authentic he is, how unapologetically himself he is. And that’s something that I want to strive to be. I want people to be able to relate to me.
“And then also Bianca Belair: someone because she’s so elegant, but she’s also so powerful and even she has this sass to her where she doesn’t let anyone walk over her.
“And then for promo wise, I love hearing (Bryan Danielson) cut his promos. He’s very energetic and it’s cool to see his evolution of how he started promos to where he was doing promos.”
Trick Williams is headed to Saturday’s WWE NXT Deadline to compete in the men’s Iron Survivor Challenge in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and perhaps earn a future NXT Championship match in the future.
He joins Dijak, Josh Briggs, Bron Breakker and Tyler Bate after qualifying with a mid-November win over Joe Coffey.
The former football player signed with WWE in February 2021, making his NXT debut that October. For the majority of his time with NXT, he was seen more as the sidekick to rising star Carmelo Hayes. It wasn’t until August of this year where Williams told Hayes that he was ready to be on his own, saying, “This is no breakup, but I gotta be my own man.”
Since then, we have seen him win several singles matches against the likes of Breakker, Dijak, Drew Gulak, Joe Gacy, Damon Kemp and even Dominik Mysterio at No Mercy. That win saw Williams capture gold for the very first time, winning the NXT North American Championship.
However, it didn’t last very long because the following week saw him lose the title back to Mysterio, aided by Rhea Ripley. Since then, Williams has been trying to recapture gold, leading to this Saturday.
Here’s some highlights from our recent conversation that you can watch on YouTube above:
From football to wrestling
Williams had been previously been pursuing a career in football. However, in the spring of 2018, he was cut by the Philadelphia Eagles. His backup plan was to go to the XFL, but was contacted by WWE to attend a tryout.
“I get cut from the Philadelphia Eagles and I worked very hard to get to that position and my football career came to a sudden stop. It’s competitive, it’s tough. But from my agent, he told me it’s all good we’re going to get to another team. Worst case scenario, you know, we get to do the XFL and at the time, the XFL was owned by Vince McMahon.
“So I don’t know what happened in the paperwork or how it crossed over, but somehow or another, the day after my agent tells me that, the next day, WWE reaches out to me and they say, ‘Hey, if you’re interested, we like to bring you in for a tryout.’ Now, I’m be honest with you: I watched wrestling up to, I would say, the Attitude Era. I opened a can of whoop ass at three years old.
“And my mom said, ‘Okay, we need to probably back off the wrestling a little bit.’ But, you know, I wasn’t really up to date with wrestling, if I’m being honest, because I was so heavily involved into football and into what I was doing at the time. But when the opportunity came, I thought to myself…this is actually a great opportunity.
“You know, I’d be a fool to just not go to the tryout and I probably could have done my thing with football and who knows what would happen there but I would try this out. I went to to try out and they say, ‘Yo, like, you athletic, charismatic, you can talk, but you never wrestled. So you need to know how to wrestle if you’re going to be here.’
“So I take the steps to become a superstar. I moved back to South Philly. I was where my uncle and I trained at CZW. Then COVID broke out. Then I end up leaving there and I trained at Knox Pro in L.A. And then from there. I went to my second tryout and I got signed from there.
“It was a journey but like, man, to be honest, that time in between that time of them saying no the first time was exactly what I needed to lock my mind and say, ‘Okay, I’m a superstar. This is what I want to do. I’m gonna commit my life to this, and I’m a train and I’m going to get it.’
“So this is best thing that ever happened to me because I’m much happier in WWE than playing football.”
Going solo
As mentioned above, Williams spent the majority of his early career in NXT alongside Carmelo Hayes until this summer when he finally broke off on his own.
Williams shared what his experience has been like since going solo, how the moments came about, and how he’s handling it.
“Firstly, this is the vision that I have had for myself all along. So, this is this what I wanted for myself. I wanted to be a superstar. I wanted to be the guy. Now, with that being said, I was brought into WWE alongside of Carmelo Hayes, which is one of the best NXT Superstars to ever do it. I’m very fortunate for that. That was my boy. And with me being so close to him, I got to learn a lot. I got to see how you how you conduct business, your mindset going into these big matches. I got to be in the light, even though it was kind of more of his light.
“But I didn’t have the pressure. So now, being at those big stages, this is what it feels like — being able to build connections with the crowd. It was awesome for me and also, I was able to build my hunger because when you see your boy eating, it makes you want to have some success on your own, too.
“So you know, that is what it was to the point where I had to go to Shawn Michaels myself and say, ‘Shawn, I want the ball.’ You know, Denise, I played football before I was wrestling and I played wide receiver. Wide receivers are the guys who catch the ball. And if you don’t catch the ball, you can’t eat. You can’t score touchdowns. The camera’s not on you.
“So, you know, me being able to go to Shawn Michaels with all of this and say ‘I want the ball’ was probably the best thing that I could have ever done because he looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘You know, a lot of people come in my office and they say they want the ball, but they’re not ready for it.’ And, you know, we just go from there and he gave me an opportunity. And thus far, I’ve been making plays with it.’
John LaRocca and I are back with a brand new Fight Game Podcast. We started off the show talking about our newest project which will be on this podcast feed for anyone that is interested.
We then got to our Top 5 which included:
Click Here to Listen (sub needed)
Wes Lee being pulled from NXT Deadline was a last-minute decision.
Lee was scheduled to challenge Dominik Mysterio for the NXT North American Championship at this Saturday’s premium live event. But it was announced on NXT this Tuesday that Lee is injured and won’t be able to compete in the match. Lee needs surgery on his back and is expected to be out of action for 8-12 months.
During a media conference call to promote Deadline, Shawn Michaels opened up about Lee’s injury.
The decision with Wes was pretty darn close to last-minute. Wes has been struggling for quite some time. I certainly didn’t know the depth of it. I knew — obviously we get medical reports. It was a decision that Wes made on his own, as he should. I mean, clearly, he’s a young man that goes out there and just performs like few others. And he had a huge match already going into this premium live event looking for the North American Championship. But just a day or two before, we had a long talk. And he just did not think he could make it through the match with the pain he was in. And so that was the decision certainly that he and our medical team made. It is the best decision for Wes, and that’s the only thing in my mind that’s important right now, So look, all of this was last-minute. Wes, to his credit, was certainly doing everything he could do to get himself ready for this. But it just wasn’t meant to be.
Lee tweeted last night: “Thank you all for the get well wishes. Warms my heart to see the love from y’all. Truly hurt to have to deliver the message but I promise to also deliver on my claim to return and rep the WesSide proudly. Love y’all”
Dragon Lee is replacing Wes Lee in Saturday’s North American title match. Michaels noted on the conference call that he thought Dragon Lee was the best choice for a replacement. Michaels said there’s already a past story between Dominik and Dragon Lee. And from a selfish standpoint, Dragon Lee is someone who Michaels likes both as a performer and as a human being. Michaels said he enjoyed having Dragon Lee in NXT and would have liked to have him in the brand longer.
Dragon Lee was called up to the WWE SmackDown roster this October.
Rey Mysterio will be in Dragon Lee’s corner at Deadline. Dominik will have Rhea Ripley in his corner.
Wes Lee competed on the November 28 episode of NXT, winning a fatal four-way match to set him up as Dominik’s challenger for Deadline. He defeated Johnny Gargano, Bronson Reed, and Cameron Grimes.
Deadline streams live on Peacock/WWE Network at 8 p.m. Eastern time this Saturday (December 9).
Wes Lee has a shot at earning a North American title match on next week’s NXT.
Tuesday’s show saw Wes Lee come out and ask for another shot at the NXT North American title. Dominik Mysterio came out and said he would have to face three other former North American Champions next week. Mysterio told Lee that if he wins, he gets the title match at NXT Deadline on December 9. But Lee could never challenge for the title again if he lost.
Later, it was announced that Lee would face former champions Johnny Gargano, Bronson Reed, and Cameron Grimes.
The NXT Tag Team titles will be on the line, with Tony D’Angelo and Stacks defending against Angel Garza & Humberto Carrillo. Tony D and Stacks were exiting a restaurant when they were jumped outside by Garza and Carrillo.
It was also announced that Andre Chase will break his silence regarding the investigation of Chase U. Chase & Duke Hudson lost the NXT Tag Team titles last week to Tony D’Angelo and Stacks, with Chase U students walking out of the stands as the match was going on. Andre Chase has remained silent about what allegations Chase U is facing.
Jerry Lawler will be the final WWE Hall of Famer to choose qualifying matches for NXT Deadline’s Iron Survivor Challenge matches.
Here is the lineup for next week’s NXT:
NXT Deadline is making its return for 2023.
WWE has announced that NXT Deadline 2023 will take place from Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport, Connecticut on Saturday, December 9. The show will stream live on Peacock/WWE Network.
In December of last year, the first-ever NXT Deadline took place. The show featured the debut of a new stipulation match: the Iron Survivor Challenge. Grayson Waller and Roxanne Perez won the men’s and women’s Iron Survivor Challenge matches.
The graphic for Deadline 2023 indicates that Iron Survivor Challenge will be returning. Here are the rules for the match type:
Carmelo Hayes, Tiffany Stratton, Ilja Dragunov, Roxanne Perez, Tony D’Angelo & Channing “Stacks” Lorenzo, and Bron Breakker are advertised for Deadline.
Tickets for the show are going on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. Eastern time on Friday, October 6. A pre-sale will begin on Wednesday, October 4.
Deadline will be NXT’s final premium live event of 2023.
Join Denise Salcedo on Speak Now Pro Wrestling as she breaks down the December 13th edition of WWE NXT.
This includes the fallout of NXT Deadline, Mandy Rose vs Roxanne Perez for the NXT Women’s Championship and more!
Filthy Four Daily with Bryan Alvarez and Filthy Tom Lawlor is back with tons to talk about including Smackdown from Friday, FTR vs. Briscoes from Final Battle, NXT Deadline, and, yes, a contest to get a new GEEK OF THE WEEK theme! A fun show as always so check it out~!
Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Mike Sempervive is back with tons to talk about including ROH TV on Honor Club and what it might mean for the future of New Japan in America, NXT Deadline, Ring of Honor Final Battle, Sasha Banks to the Tokyo Dome, and tons more. A fun show as always so check it out~!
