Top Stars Not Wanting to Work Saudi Show – According to Robbie Fox, of Barstool Sports, who has not been known for his pro wrestling news reports prior to this report, John Cena and Daniel Bryan are refusing to work the Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia. Roman Reigns is also reportedly injured as well. There was a report last week about wrestlers not wanting to work, and JBL himself even said that if people don’t want to go, they won’t be made to. There are a reported only 19 wrestlers set to run the event.
NWA 70 News and Notes – Last night the National Wrestling Alliance celebrated their 70th anniversary at the Asylum in Nashville, Tennessee. The show was maligned with audio and technical issues all night, which prompted NWA owner and rock legend Billy Corgan to respond via the NWA Instagram account about the issues, saying;
We fell short on providing a televised event up to the standard that I would consider acceptable. Which reminded me greatly as to why people questioned my pursuit of TNA (in terms of wanting to buy the company, and filed a potential lawsuit to do so). Put simply, building up a culture like Smashing Pumpkins or the NWA, takes time, trial and error, and great risk. And throwing $$$ at the problems doesn’t necessarily correct the issues, and in some cases makes it worse. So last night I was painfully reminded of how hard this journey is, and knew by the time the last bell rung we have much work to do before we’d run another such live event.
In other news, in the main event Nick Aldis defeated Cody Rhodes to win back the NWA Worlds Championship. This has lead speculation about Cody Rhodes’ future. More on this later.
Also on the show, Jazz retained her Women’s Championship in a fun fair against Penelope Ford, while Willie Mack defeated Samuel Shaw to win the NWA National Championship. The other big news came from Road Warrior Animal who was being interviewed by Jim Cornette, and Animal announced the return of the Crockett Cup in 2019. The Crockett Cup was a tag team tournament that ran from 1986-1988 that the Road Warriors, Nikita Kolof and Dusty Rhodes, and Sting and Lex Luger won.
Cody’s Future – Cody Rhodes spoke out on his personal Instagram account, putting over the event and the match but also commenting on his future in the industry. He alluded to transitioning into a new role in pro-wrestling. He could be referencing one of two rumors; the first being that he’s headed back to the WWE at the start of the new year, while the other is that the Elite is reading to launch their own promotion with Chris Jericho and Jim Ross. Both are just rumors, and the latter isn’t even a strong rumor (it was reported by a site with no credibility).
Quick Hits – Speaking to the In This Corner Podcast, Dolph Ziggler called out Vince McMahon, Triple H, Road Dogg and other Attitude Era backstage crew for how they handle bookings and creative decisions. Fox wants SmackDown to be less comedy based, and one of those decisions that they hope the WWE makes is hiring Daniel Cormier to be their new color commentary. Cormier is nearing the end of his run with the UFC and has already publicly stated he has a commentary tryout with the WWE after his next fight.