WWE Evolution Update – Apparently Alexa Bliss and Mickie James teaming up to take on Lita and Trish Stratus was always the plan. Now, this was something we reported on earlier, but the reason is a bit more intriguing. Dave Meltzer is reporting that the reason behind this was an attempt to goose the ticket sales by falsely reporting a dream match between Trish Stratus and Alexa Bliss. The WWE never allegedly intended on going through with this match. Ticket sales are still very poor, with about 4,600 being bought by fans, and another 2,400 going to scalpers; in about a 10,000 seat venue.
Austin Aries Provides More Details to his 2007 Firing – Austin Aries has left IMPACT Wrestling three times, two of which were because he was fired. In 2005 he was fired because he refused to report on time, while in 2007 he was suspended and ultimately let go due to not wanting to work on his day off. While talking to Chris Jericho on The Talk is Jericho Podcast, Aries expanded on the day in question. It happened after Lockdown 2007, where Aries claims that the company didn’t even bring the cage, instead building the awful looking thing that we all saw at the arena that weekend. After the show ended on Sunday, the group had a travel day and then t.v. tapings on Tuesday. Aries goes on to describe what happened next, saying;
The story is, we’re at the tail end of this pay-per-view, which is leaving a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouth. The next day is a travel day, which happened to be my birthday weekend. Travel day Monday, television on Tuesday. At this point, the company informed us around the holidays that they would no longer provide hotel rooms or transportation. With it being my birthday, I cashed in some favors and instead of cramming into a hotel room, I got this nice time share. We were gonna have a nice birthday bash on my day off. Vince Russo walks in and says, ‘Hey Austin, hey Alex (Shelley). We might need you to do some vignettes tomorrow bros so stay by your phone, okay?’ I’m thinking I’m gonna be nowhere near my phone tomorrow. Long story short, they asked me to come do some vignettes on the off-day. I asked too many questions. ‘How long is it gonna take? Is there any reason why we can’t do them tomorrow when I’m there for eight hours? Am I gonna be paid?’ Which was no. So, I’m paying all my expenses today, but you want me to work, but you don’t want to pay me, how does that work? Basically, I had a bad attitude. Instead of saying, ‘Yes sir.’ I said, ‘Why sir?’ And ‘Why sirs?’ are dubbed as having a bad attitude and are sent home as punishment and suspended and force their way out of the promotion.
Two Top Female Stars Banged Up – Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch couldn’t of found a worse time to both be hurt. Banks is finally in stride with teammate Bayley and Lynch is currently the SmackDown’s Women’s Championship. According to Ryan Satin, Banks is dealing with a nasty back injury that has kept her on the shelf since the start of September. Lynch on the other hand is dealing with a cracked jaw according to Dave Meltzer.
Quick Hits – Despite allegedly winning the belt earlier in the year, Abyss won a tournament to crown a new OVW Heavyweight Champion lastly beating Justin Smooth. This was apart of OVW’s 1000th, episode celebration that included former owner Danny Davis, current owner Al Snow, Mick Foley, Mr. Anderson, Victoria, ODB, Shane Helms and others. Dave Meltzer is reporting that Kevin Owens will miss 4-8 months due to knee surgery. IMPACT Wrestling has brought in Kings Highway Media, LLC to expand IMPACT’s content distribution.