SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
IMPACT Champion Tessa Blanchard reportedly missed this week’s television tapings in Nashville. Blanchard also missed the last set of tapings and has been staying home, reportedly in Mexico, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Blanchard won the title earlier this year and IMPACT is currently holding a tournament to determine a No. 1 contender. Trey Miguel and Ace Austin are in the finals of that tournament, which will end on this week’s IMPACT.
McMahon: It’s an understandable, but difficult situation for Impact without its champion on TV for what will stretch into months. I think that’s part of the reason IMPACT brought back the TNA Championship in storyline with Moose. There’s another wrinkle here … reportedly, Blanchard signed a two-year contract in 2018 and her deal could be coming up this summer, however Mike Johnson at PW Insider reported that officials said her deal was not coming up soon, but they neglected to provide him details on when her contact is up.
WrestlingNews.co is reporting that Kurt Angle will soon be re-signed by WWE. Angle was a special guest referee on NXT last week. Angle was part of the mass layoffs in April.
“If they haven’t signed him already then they will make an offer to him soon. Vince doesn’t want to lose him to AEW,” a WWE source said in the report.
AEW is removing a match that was scheduled to take place this week on Dark. Clutch Adams, a wrestler who has been used as an AEW enhancement talent, was recently revealed to have past social media posts that included racist and homophobic remarks. His account was deleted over this weekend. Adams taped a match against Shawn Spears, which was going to air this Tuesday.
“The best that I can come up with is that I am truly sorry. I am sorrier than I have ever been about anything in my life,” Adams said in a statement to 411mania.com.
One of WWE’s lead SmackDown writers, Chris DeJoseph, was reportedly fired last week after making inappropriate comments in a meeting. Dave Meltzer originally reported that DeJoseph was let go and SEScoops.com reported the reasoning behind DeJoseph’s firings.
DeJoseph was with WWE from 2004-10 and was re-hired by the company late last year.
Clutch Adams gets removed for being a racist but a convicted rapist is still on the show.
Sounds fair to me. Tyson paid for his misdeeds and has every right to be there. Clutch is just now starting to pay.