The latest WWE and AEW News and Results
This is a very busy episode of Speak Now Pro Wrestling hosted by Denise Salcedo.
There was a lot that occurred on AEW Dynamite which unfortunately included Hangman Adam Page being stretchered out, a great promo exchange between MJF and William Regal, and a lot more.
Plus on the NXT side of things, we had a very entertaining go-home show leading into WWE NXT Halloween Havoc. Tune into the show for a good time!
Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Mike Sempervive is back with tons to talk about including AEW Dynamite from Wednesday night, the hiring of Renee Paquette and what she can bring to the company, NXT does great numbers on Wednesday, and tons more. A fun show as always so check it out~!
Renee Paquette has opened up about her decision to sign with AEW.
The newest member of the AEW broadcast team released an episode of The Sessions on Thursday. The podcast was recorded in the days leading up to her debut on Dynamite. During the discussion, Paquette commented on what led to her returning to the wrestling business.
“Obviously, we watch so much wrestling in this house, we talk so much wrestling in this house and it was always an odd, displaced sort of feeling anytime I went to shows with Jon because I’m always used to being at the shows but working and being useful and contributing,” Paquette said. “So, being there for the duration of Jon being at AEW and not doing that and just being there, being like Jon’s wife, I’m just hanging out, I’ll pop through catering and grab a bite. It’s just a different feeling going there as a guest as opposed to now being, oh my god yeah cool, I go here now.”
Paquette also spoke about her departure from WWE and noted that she is grateful for her time in the company.
“I just felt like I had done everything there that I could possibly do. Looking back at my time in WWE, I just would like to reiterate as well because I feel like it can get very muddy in these conversations because people become very territorial about WWE vs. AEW and all that. I want nothing to do with any of that. I love so many people at both companies. WWE was so great to me for years, of course, yeah I can have my gripes about things but who couldn’t about any job? They gave me such a great platform and I really did have a great time there and obviously, this opportunity now with AEW would not be afforded to me had I not had the reputation and career that I was able to have in WWE.”
Paquette was asked about how her deal with AEW came together.
“It’s kind of funny because, as much as I had been around a lot, I really never really talked to Tony [Khan] about coming into AEW. A lot of it was – this is probably going to sound bad, and I’m sure people are going to take this out of context – but honestly a lot of it was talking to Jon, of being, like ‘Man, I want to be back in the wrestling world, I miss being around it, I miss doing stuff.'”
“Most of our conversations were internally between Jon and I about figuring out, like ‘Yeah, I want to do something, I want to come back, I don’t know what that conversation is, how are we going to go about that?'”
“Him and Tony are obviously very close. They spend tons of time talking about things. I think it was more so them talking about it because I think a lot of people just thought that I was sort of done with wrestling to a degree and maybe they didn’t want to ask me to do something they thought that I didn’t want to do, or they didn’t want to step on Jon’s toes, and those are all very real things that could have been.”
Paquette would continue to say that the deal to bring her into AEW all came together quickly.
“It all happened really fast, it literally happened so fast where all of a sudden Jon and I had been talking about it and then it felt like the next day my manager is calling me going, ‘Oh yeah, they are reaching out, the contract is coming through’ I was like, ‘Wow, that was a quick turnaround.'”
“During all of this, I’ve not even talked to Tony all that much about it just because there’s not really been much that we’ve needed to talk about until now I’m there.”
“He knows my skillset, he knows what I’m bringing to the table so I think it’s more of a let’s get you in here, let’s just start working, and I’ll think we’ll figure it out as we go. He knows what I bring to the table in terms of my years of working in this world and all of that, to the stuff that I’ve been able to do outside of wrestling.”
Paquette said she has no plans to work on commentary with AEW but would if the opportunity made sense. She did tease another announcement is upcoming, but she’s not able to talk about it just yet.
“I still have one more announcement, but I can’t announce it yet, so everybody just let your buttholes keep puckering and we’ll drop it soon.”
AEW made their Canadian debut!
Join Denise Salcedo on her weekly Speak Now Pro Wrestling review show where she recaps the events that unfolded. Topics include: the debut of Renee Paquette, the continuation of Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus, the return of Shawn Spears, a heated confrontation between Jon Moxley and Hangman Adam Page, a new All-Atlantic Champion crowned, and so much more. Tune in for a fun review show!
Renee Paquette is All Elite.
Tony Khan announced Wednesday afternoon that Paqutte had signed with the company.
“Welcome to the team! @ReneePaquette is ALL ELITE! See you soon coming up at 8pm ET/7pm ET on @TBSNetwork TONIGHT!” he wrote.
Paquette noted on social media today that she was in Toronto, which is also the home of tonight’s AEW Dynamite.
Fightful reported on October 8 that WWE sources, who had recently made inquiries regarding Paquette, believed that she would soon be working for AEW.
Paquette previously worked for WWE under the name Renee Young, joining the company in 2012. She was a backstage interviewer and also did color commentary for the Raw brand. She left the company in 2020 and has since pivoted to podcasting, hosting The Sessions podcast as well as a radio show on Sirius XM with Meisha Tate. It was recently announced that she would be starting a new Cincinnati Bengals podcast called Renee All Dey.
Dave Meltzer and I are back on Wrestling Observer Radio going over the news in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
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According to Fightful, WWE sources believe that Renee Paquette will soon be working with AEW.
GiveMeSport’s Louis Dangoor also reported he was told WWE had made inquiries to Paquette (Renee Young in WWE) about her interest in returning to their company.
As of yet, we have yet to confirm either report and she, nor the company, have commented publicly.
AEW announced Friday that Paquette’s husband, AEW World Champion Jon Moxley, signed a five-year extension and will increase his role to include mentorship and coaching to other wrestlers.
After nearly eight years in the company, Paquette left WWE in August 2020 and was under an unpaid non-compete for a year. During her time there, she was an on-air host and a color commentator for WWE Raw among other jobs.
Since then, she launched a podcast (The Sessions) that was picked up by The Volume, released a cookbook, launched a SiriusXM show with UFC fighter Miesha Tate, started an online series with the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals, and welcomed her and Jon’s first child to the family.
Dustin Rhodes says he knows his father would be happy with Cody Rhodes’ promo the night after WrestleMania.
Dustin appeared on an episode of The Sessions with Renee Paquette released on Tuesday. During the discussion, Paquette asked Dustin what he thinks Dusty would have thought of Cody’s promo on Raw that night.
“I knew dad always wanted us to be happy. And he would have his suggestions and things like that and try to lead us in the right way but ultimately these are our decisions, right? Money’s money and dad would always say, ‘Take the money.'”
“Cody is very, very passionate about his promos, about every single word that he is going to say which is very important, right? Especially for that first one, which was very important, you’re making a huge impact on a lot of people the first time you’ve been back in years, and he did. And I know dad would be happy. He’s sitting in the rafters, that’s where I pictured him when me and Cody wrestled at Double or Nothing.”
Dustin also addressed getting to wrestle his brother at Double or Nothing 2022.
“Having an opportunity to work with my brother and not knowing what to expect with an AEW audience. I had no idea if I was going to get any reaction at all and just the fact that we went out there and I got a reaction and the match was just, for me and him, perfect.”
“I’ll never do it again, I’ll never wrestle him again. It did a lot to me that night,” he continued to say about wrestling his brother.
Regarding Cody signing with WWE, Dustin is happy for him but does miss him at AEW.
“I was happy for him but I also miss him already and I miss him being there but I know he’s young and, you know, let’s go, go do your thing. So, I’m very happy for him and I’m like, ‘Hey man, more power to you, go get that title and win it all and do your stuff.'”
Dustin was also asked about how he feels a character like the original Goldust would work in modern wrestling.
“It absolutely would not work. The way Goldust was portrayed back in the 90s, he was very androgynous, we would never say the word ‘gay.’ I don’t think it would work because those things back then were like way, way ahead of its time.”
“It was just very pushing the envelope as far as you could possibly do it, stepping over that line? Today, trying to do something like that? No.”
Dustin also addressed his match against CM Punk from the AEW Dynamite on April 20.
“He’s always been a dream match of mine to have. He’s one of those bucket list things,” Dustin said of Punk.
“My big thing I told him, I said, “Look, I don’t care about all these moves that we’re going to do, I just want to make the people feel something.’ So, we did that. And he sold an arm and I sold a leg. Babyface vs babyface. You’re selling, he’s selling, it gets a little heated, we start slapping each other. Then it’s not really a he’s a heel or I’m a heel, it’s just two guys slugging it out having a pro-wrestling match.”
“You’re looking around the arena and you start seeing [fans] standing up at certain times. It’s a build, right? It’s all part of a story and I love to tell stories. That night, knowing that I could do that with CM Punk and did it, I knew for a fact that in 2022, you can still go out there and have a pro-wrestling match without doing a whole bunch of bulls**t.”
Renee Paquette has explained the story behind a viral photo of Jon Moxley from Corey Graves and Carmella’s wedding.
A group photo from the April 7 wedding featured Paquette and Moxley with Liv Morgan, Sonya Deville, Bayley, Natalya, Tyson Kidd, Baron Corbin, and more. While everyone else was in formal attire, Moxley drew attention on social media for looking a bit out of place. He wore a Cincinnati Bengals T-shirt, jeans, wrestling boots, a fanny pack, and a leather jacket to the wedding.
On SiriusXM’s Throwing Down with Renee and Miesha, Paquette explained that her husband wasn’t able to arrive to the wedding until Carmella was already walking down the aisle.
"Classic Jon fashion, I will say."@ReneePaquette sheds some light on the outfit her husband, Jon Moxley, wore to a wedding that had him trending on Twitter 😂
FULL convo on the Throwing Down Podcast! @MieshaTate https://t.co/JeBEGW2r4h pic.twitter.com/ijiqsKI5KF
— MMA on SiriusXM (@MMAonSiriusXM) April 14, 2022
Okay, so what happened was I flew into the wedding the day of. I got there Thursday morning. And he was flying in from Boston [where that week’s AEW Dynamite was held] and he had to fly to Miami because there was no other flights to get into where their wedding was. And then he had to take an Uber from the Miami airport to where the wedding was — after flights already being delayed. He was already crunching time. Like, I showed up to the wedding with his suit, with his shoes, I had the whole thing. I had to find one of the bartenders. I’m like, ‘Can I hang this somewhere until my husband gets here?’ And then he’s texting me and he’s like, ‘I’m gonna be there in five minutes.’ I was like, ‘Cool, dude. Well, guess what? The wedding is starting. They’re walking down the aisle, it’s happening.’
As Carmella is walking down the aisle, he’s at like the entrance with his luggage, dressed as so. And as everybody stood to watch the bride walk down the aisle, he was able to sneak in beside me to watch the wedding. So, that picture was right after the wedding actually happened. And, yeah, he was wearing that. He did change afterwards I will say. He didn’t change into what we fully bought, though. He just put on like the black button-down shirt.
Former AEW Tag Team Champion Dax Harwood opened up about his past struggles with both anxiety and bulimia on the latest edition of Renee Paquette’s podcast, also telling a story about how Shawn Michaels made an odd decision at WWE Raw 25 after a heartfelt conversation between the two.
Both he and Cash Wheeler were set to get a beatdown from DX and Balor Club at 2018’s WWE Raw 25 after a match with Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson and that he had some hesitations about how it would make the then-The Revival look. He said he was catching up with Michaels backstage from their days together at the Performance Center, talking about the issues he and Wheeler had recently gone through with recent injuries and that he personally had been in a dark place but that his wife helped pull him through.
Harwood said Michaels, who had praised the two men at the PC, opened up to him and said he had a similar story with his wife also getting him through his own rough patches. Harwood said it was a real bonding moment and then later when Michaels was with the rest of DX in the back with The Revival, he began making fun of Harwood’s biceps injury and other issues, seemingly out of nowhere.
He said after the segment was done, only one DX member said thanks to the team and was cool with them: Sean “X-Pac” Waltman.
“Everyone else was so cold and treated us like we were sh*t on the bottom of their shoes,” he said, adding that while he will never forget that feeling, he would like to have a conversation with Michaels about it someday.
Harwood also said he isn’t sure when the highly-anticipated FTR match with The Briscoe Brothers will happen and that in real life, he thinks they feel they are better than FTR. He also said he didn’t know why GCW booked the Briscoes open challenge at WRLD on GCW like they did because everyone assumed it was going to be them and they obviously weren’t booked for the show.
He added that promoters have offered the two teams a lot of money to do the match and suggested Paquette ask AEW’s Tony Khan what the story is. He also wanted to know from Khan when they were going to work with the Young Bucks again, joking that Khan “forgot they work there.”
Other notes:
During her SiriusXM “Throwing Down” show with Miesha Tate, Renee Paquette discussed her thoughts on husband Jon Moxley’s return to AEW last Wednesday and expounded on her thoughts regarding Bully Ray’s recent suggestion that Moxley apologize to fans.
She said to see Moxley out there and to get the feedback of how much his promo touched people was “really, really cool” and that to “have that vulnerability, he’s a special guy.”
“He’s got such a way with words. He’s obviously an incredible wrestler, an incredible person, an incredible man. I could not be more proud of him. I could not love this guy anymore so to see him out there doing that was so great,” she said.
Following the promo, Bully Ray suggested on Busted Open Radio that Moxley should have apologized to fans during his promo for taking time off to enter rehab for alcohol addiction.
Paquette said that she was annoyed that she even had to address his comments because it would give them more attention, but that when it comes talking about her family, it becomes personal.
These were Paquette’s first full comments since her initial tweet that it was a bad take.
“You talk sh*t about my husband? You talk sh*t about my family? That becomes personal to me and that bothers me more. It also bothers me because Bully is somebody who I’ve always really enjoyed, I have always really liked Bully. I have said I have had a good relationship with him despite other people not having a good relationship with him or him having burned bridges other places and leaving a bad taste in other people’s mouths,” she said.
Paquette said the former WWE and ECW star has both her and Moxley’s number, but hasn’t called to apologize for his “sh*t take” or discuss it further. She pointed out that both men were at the same Northeast Wrestling event Saturday and that Bully Ray never talked to him.
Tate asked if this was some sort of angle leading to a match. Paquette said it wasn’t and that Moxley didn’t have any idea what Bully Ray said until 10 PM that day.
She is proud of what Moxley did, given the past stigmas about taking time off for addiction issues and mental health.
“It has been a thing that has affected the business for such a long time. It’s a stigma that comes with the business so the fact that Jon is one of those guys in the spot that he’s in and he’s going against the grain and doing the things that he needs to do, I think speaks volumes to not just the fans, but the people inside the business, to the other boys and girls in the back that might be going through a similar thing. This happens to so many people and it’s unfortunately so common, so he went and did what he had to do and no apologies necessary,” she said.
Renee Paquette, wife of Jon Moxley, made a statement on Twitter Wednesday in support of her husband entering an inpatient program for alcohol treatment.
Thanks for this outpouring of support. Jon is every bit of the badass we all know him to be. I couldn’t be more proud of him for getting to proper help he needs, and being given the space to put his health first. Couldn’t possibly love this man more
— Renee Paquette (@ReneePaquette) November 3, 2021
AEW president Tony Khan announced Tuesday night that Moxley was making the move and that the company stands “with him and Renee, and all of his family and friends, as he shifts his focus to recovery. Jon is making a very brave choice to get help, and we’re embracing his choice and supporting him however we can.”
Moxley, who had just released his first book this week, was scheduled to face Orange Cassidy in a World title eliminator tournament semifinal on Wednesday’s Dynamite. AEW hasn’t announced who will replace Moxley in the match as of now.
Renee Paquette is joining SiriusXM for a weekly combat sports and pro wrestling show with UFC fighter Miesha Tate, beginning Monday.
Paquette made the announcement on Twitter on Thursday. The weekly show will air from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time beginning on Monday, September 13.
In addition to the weekly show with Tate, Paquette announced that she will also be joining SiriusXM’s Busted Open show as a special contributor “from time to time” for a segment called “Keeping it Real with Renee.”
Busted Open is hosted by Dave LaGreca, Bully Ray, Mark Henry, Tommy Dreamer and Ryan McKinnell.
Paquette said on Twitter that she will continue to do her Oral Sessions podcast with The Volume Sports in addition to her new roles with SiriusXM.
Paquette said on Twitter that she will continue to do her Oral Sessions podcast with The Volume Sports in addition to her new roles with SiriusXM.
Paquette left WWE where she worked as on-air personality Renee Young in August 2020 after seven-plus years with the company. Paquette was under an employee contract rather than an independent contractor deal and was subject to a lengthy non-compete. Paquette stated in an interview last month that the non-compete with WWE was nearly up.
Her cookbook, Messy In The Kitchen: My Guide to Eating Deliciously, Hosting Fabulously and Sipping Copiously, was published in May 2021. Paquette and husband Jon Moxley welcomed their first child, Nora, in June 2021.
Despite leaving the company nearly a year ago, Renee Paquette said her WWE non-compete clause has still not expired but is close to being up.
In an interview with Wrestling Inc., Paquette revealed her status, adding that she still has a good relationship with WWE and there’s no bad blood with the company.
Dave Meltzer noted in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Paquette had an employee contract where she could leave with two weeks notice. However, because she left on her own, she couldn’t work for a competitor for a full year and that unlike the 90-day non-compete clauses where talents are paid during that time, she wasn’t paid for the year.
As far as what’s next, Paquette said she doesn’t want to separate herself from pro wrestling because she loves it and knows that’s where her fanbase comes from. However, she would like to bridge the gap between that and whatever other projects she works on.
She and husband Jon Moxley have always both done their own thing, but in looking at AEW, there are “endless opportunities of other things I could be doing over there if that was to be something that came up down the line,” adding that she hasn’t put much thought into it.
“That’s interesting to be like, ‘Oh, wait! I can do wrestling things again!’ That’s just been off the table for me for so long,” she said.
Paquette would like to bring her Oral Sessions podcast to TV and mentioned how she loved what David Letterman did with his recent show for Netflix as well as Chelsea Handler’s former talk show. She hopes to create her own shows instead of being plugged into something that already exists if possible.
During her podcast interview with the former Iiconics in WWE, Renee Paquette said that WWE offered to help Jon Moxley after he was injured following the New Japan Pro Wrestling G1 tournament.
Paquette (Moxley’s wife) revealed the news in talking to Cassie Lee and Jessica Mckay about being married to a wrestler in another company. She said sometimes things get blown out of proportion with how WWE views wrestler in other companies, bringing up Miro (Rusev) being able to return and watch his wife (Lana) at WrestleMania. Lee said she was happy WWE let Shawn Spears backstage to watch the team work at WrestleMania.
Paquette said that even after Moxley left, there were times that Paul “HHH” Levesque pulled her aside to see if Moxley needed any help.
“Hunter kept checking in to make sure that Jon was okay. If he needed anything, they would have been able to help him in any kind of capacity,” she said. “It was nice to know that olive branch was still extended and it wasn’t that heat-seeking thing that everybody thinks that it is. We’ve all spent so much time together and nothing bad went down.”
Several months after leaving WWE in 2019, Moxley got MRSA in his elbow that required him to pull out of his initial first meeting with Kenny Omega at that year’s All Out.
