Bullet Club Throws Joey Ryan A Funeral

In the Being the Elite universe, Joey Ryan is presumed dead. That Ryan has been wrestling regularly on the independent scene is not referenced on the show. The characters on Being the Elite believe Joey Ryan is missing and presumed dead, however. Stephen Amell had been considered a suspect.

Marty Scurll and Hangman Page ran into Joey Ryan’s hot-wife, Laura James, to start off the episode. James noted that Page looks an awful lot like Amell. Scurll and James then talked about how they would beat up Joey’s killer if he was there. This caused Page to storm off from the scene.

James then told Scurll that she is unable to make her late husband’s funeral and Scurll commented on how poorly Ryan’s funeral is going to draw.

Later in the show, it was revealed that actor, Stephen Amell, had been let out of prison due to insufficient evidence.

Matt Jackson confronted Page about having killed Ryan and Page responded by strangling him and storming off. Jackson then told his brother he believes Page is responsible for Ryan’s disappearance.

During the funeral, Flip Gordon noted that since Ryan was presumed dead there is an open spot on All-In.

Hangman Page showed up to the funeral at the very end despite Matt Jackson not inviting him. He said Joey Ryan taught him to never give up and to never quit. Page continued to say he believes Ryan would be proud that he became a famous dick-wrestler just like him. As Page is in the hallway collecting himself a mysterious voice tells him “I know you didn’t kill Joey Ryan, because I did.”

Don Callis On Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho Potentially Going To Impact Wrestling

Don Callis is believed to have played a key role in organizing the Chris Jericho vs Kenny Omega match at the Tokyo Dome this year. All three are from Winnipeg and Callis also has his own podcast through the Chris Jericho podcast network.

At the Slammiversary press conference in Toronto recently, Callis indicated to me he’d love to bring Omega and Jericho to Impact Wrestling. “There’s a young Canadian kid I like, we’d love to sign him, his name is Kenny Omega,” Callis said. “Another is Chris Jericho.”

Callis recently doubled-down on his comments during his appearance on Jim Ross’ podcast.

Callis explained his history with Omega. “I’ve been on this journey with Kenny Omega since he was a 16-year-old kid who I booked,” Callis explained.

“I gave him his first break wrestling for the promotion I had in Winnipeg [Canada]. And his uncle, The Golden Sheik, who was an indie wrestler in Winnipeg helped train me in the [pro wrestling] business in 1989, so my roots with Kenny go back many years. I’ve been on this journey with him, and specifically since I’ve been in New Japan and we have a very close relationship. We talk about ideas, we do things, I helped put together the match between him and Chris [Jericho] for the Tokyo Dome.”

Callis continued to say the chances of Omega and Jericho appearing in an Impact Wrestling ring are less remote than they seemed not too long ago.

“I kind of say, ‘never say ‘never” and I think that one of the things that we’ve been doing under Ed Nordholm here at Impact is breaking some longstanding paradigms of pro wrestling,” Callis said.

“The intellectual property stuff that we’ve talked about before, but also we’ve been working with multiple people now and now recently announced by Chris Jericho and I know [Ross] will be on that cruise, so that’ll be cool, get to have a beer together. It’s going to be Impact and Ring Of Honor on the same cruise ship, so there’s some stuff that’s probably going to happen and I don’t think you can have those talents in a closed environment like that, so we are working, in a sense if you take that, with Ring Of Honor right now.

We’ve got Taiji Ishimori coming in for our pay-per-view and our TV in July. The Bone Soldier just started with New Japan, so we’ll see what happens. How many people would’ve thought that Chris Jericho would’ve headlined the Tokyo Dome with New Japan Pro-Wrestling? I was so sheepish when I pitched it to him because he always told me, ‘I will never work for anyone except Vince McMahon and I have a deep respect for Vince.’ Obviously, he took Vince into consideration. Vince is the first guy he told about it. Nevertheless, it shocked me that Chris was on a New Japan show, so I’ve learned to say, ‘never say ‘never” in this business.”

Jimmy Jacobs On Role With Impact Wrestling, WWE, and Matt Sydal’s Development

Last October, Jimmy Jacobs was fired from the WWE creative team. While multiple reasons have been given for Jacobs’ release, a selfie he took with members of Bullet Club during their “invasion” of Raw is largely believed to have been the catalyst.

Many felt Jacobs would sign with Ring of Honor and begin working with Bullet Club following his WWE release. After all, there was a built-in storyline regarding Jacobs being fired from WWE for his association with the faction.

Instead, Jacobs chose to sign with Impact Wrestling. He’s been working as the manager of Kongo Kong and serving as a producer backstage.

Jacobs recently gave an interview to Vulture Hound in the UK and spoke about how he has been enjoying his time with Impact.

“I really enjoy working with Impact,” Jacobs said. “I feel like with Impact right now, I get all the upside, I get the chance to help create, I get the chance to help out talents. Having the opportunity to have somebody like me for talents, like Tessa Blanchard who has a lot of potentials and is awesome in the ring.”

Jacobs has returned to in-ring work as well since leaving WWE. In fact, he recently defeated Joey Ryan on June 28th, 2018 for Bar Wrestling in Los Angeles.

Jacobs doesn’t believe he’ll step inside the Impact ring, however.  “As far as wrestling with Impact goes,” Jacobs continued. “I don’t see that happening right now, it’s not especially completely off the table but what I do at the shows, producing the shows, honestly it’s a lot.”

Jacobs also mentioned Matt Sydal as someone who he has particularly enjoyed working with recently. On the latest episode of Impact Wrestling, we saw Sydal and Jimmy Jacobs possibly align with each other due to their mutual disdain for Brian Cage.

“Matt Sydal has been one thing his whole career,” Jacobs said. “It’s been great, being a sort of babyface that can have great matches, who doesn’t talk much, being a good wrestler and doing high-flying stuff. That’s been him his whole career and, a few months back, we took a chance on him when we said: “hey I think there’s something more.” We capitalized on what he’s in real life, with him being kind of spiritual and holistic and those sort of things.”

Last month, Jacobs spoke to the Irish Mirror in the UK. The conversation focussed on his time in WWE and his new role with Impact Wrestling

“Going to WWE and working there in the capacity that I did was a blessing,” Jacobs said. “It was great to be there, but that being said it’s great to not be working there anymore.”

“I spent so long on the independent wrestling scene, but sometimes it’s like the cliche goes ‘you don’t know what you have until it’s gone,'” he continued. “I’m very excited to be working in Impact Wrestling and using some of the things I picked up in my last job to help out here.”

Io Shirai Appears At WWE Event In Tokyo

WWE’s newest signee, Io Shirai, was on hand at the WWE live event in Tokyo this morning. She was officially unveiled as the newest addition to the roster. Shirai will be assigned to the NXT brand.

Shirai is a former 2x Wonder of Stardom champion. She has been voted as Tokyo Sports’ Joshi Puroresu Grand Prize winner (the equivalent of woman’s wrestler of the year award) the last 3 years in a row.

Shirai was rumored to be heading to WWE last year but failed medical evaluations prevented this from happening. It was reported in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that neck and heart problems caused WWE to back away from signing her. She continued to compete for Stardom the following year after not signing with WWE.

Pro Wrestling Illustrated ranked Shirai #6 in their female top-50 rankings in 2017.

Shirai confirmed her departure from Stardom back in late May with many speculating she would be headed to WWE.

Parts of Shirai’s blog in late May revealing her departure from Stardom were run through Google Translate.

“I’m going to leave Stardom with me aiming for a further leap of pro-wrestling life in the future.

The Korakuen Hall show on June 17 will be the last for Stardom.”

World of Stardom also Tweeted out the following facts about Shirai’s time with the promotion:

“Io Shirai’s done it all in Stardom.

World of Stardom champion twice, 1014 days.

Wonder of Stardom champion twice, 375 days.

Tag champion 407 days.

High Speed champion.

Artist of Stardom champion 6 times.

SWA champion.

5 Star Grand Prix champion.

Now she will show it to the world.”

Matt Cappotelli

Former Tough Enough winner, Matt Cappotelli, has lost his battle with brain cancer. He was 38.

Matt’s wife, Lindsay, has been keeping fans up-to-date on his well-being through her blogs and Facebook posts. Yesterday, she shared the news with the world.

“Hey Team Capp…I’ve been struggling with what to say and how to say this, and I’ll probably end up rambling, but here goes,” she wrote. “Today my love-my strong, sweet, beautiful love-took his last breath at 3:30 a.m. and went Home to be with Jesus…exactly one year after his brain surgery,” she continued. “You think you can be prepared for this when you know it’s coming, but you just can’t. The only person whose comfort I want right now is the one who can’t give it to me.”

Earlier this year, Lindsay outlined the timeline of Matt’s latest battle with brain cancer.

“Dr. Yao, the brain surgeon, came to our room to discuss things more with us and give us our options,” Lindsey wrote. “He explained that the tumor was of significant size and that he was shocked at how fast it had grown in the 4 months since Matt’s February MRI.”

Cappotelli had been working as a trainer at Ohio Valley Wrestling since 2013. He had previously won the promotion’s heavyweight championship before being diagnosed with a brain tumor for the first time in 2006. He announced last summer that he’d been diagnosed with a grade IV glioblastoma multiforme cancer. This form of cancer is the most aggressive of its kind.

“Throughout all of this, Matt and I really never discussed death,” Lindsey wrote. “A part of me wishes that we had, but I just never wanted to make him think that I didn’t think he would make it. Because I still had hope, and I didn’t want him to give up hope.”

Twin Sons of Hall Of Famer Receive WWE Tryouts

There are several brother tag-teams performing at a high-level in wrestling today. Last night, the Briscoe Brothers faced Matt and Nick Jackson for Ring of Honor. Jimmy and Jey Uso are one the best teams in the world. The Hardy Boyz have done fairly well for themselves as well throughout their lengthy careers.

While the Dudley Boyz don’t count as a real-life family combination, the 23-year-old twin sons of D-Von Dudley do. They both received tryouts at the WWE Performance Center recently.

The pair has wrestled both under their real names of Terrence and Terrell Hughes, as well as with the surname Dudley.

The Hughes brothers were among the 40 WWE hopefuls at the Performance Center this week. Former Impact Wrestling stars, Robbie E and Chelsea Green were also in attendance.

WWE.com had this to say regarding the brothers:

“Terrell & Terrence Hughes, the 23-year-old twin sons of WWE Hall of Famer D-Von Dudley. Both men played football in high school, and Terrell qualified for regional and state competition in wrestling. Their sports-entertainment training began in 2012 at the Dudleys’ Team 3D Academy, and the Hughes brothers have held tag team titles on the independent circuit under the name TNT.”

The brothers have wrestled 36 professional matches on the independent circuit. They have also won several tag team championships already in their short careers.

Their father, D-Von Dudley, retired from in-ring action in 2016. He continues to work with WWE in a producer role, usually for tag-team matches. D-Von and Bubba Ray have been inducted into both the Impact Wrestling and WWE Hall of Fames. D-Von also has two younger sons as well, born 6 and 13 years after Terrell and Terrence.

NXT Head Trainer, Matt Bloom, and Mark Henry presided over the tryouts.

Enzo Amore Opens Up About WWE Release, Final Days With Company

Former WWE Cruiserweight Champion and current rapper, Enzo Amore, has opened up further about his final days with WWE. Now going by the name @Real1, Enzo was a guest on the most recent episode of Steve Austin’s podcast.

One of the most controversial parts of Enzo’s WWE exit regards whether or not he informed WWE he was being investigated for a crime. Enzo is still claiming he did not know he was being investigated but did relay a story of his friend receiving an odd email from someone claiming to be an investigator.

“I got a buddy of mine who hit me up and said ‘hey man, my girlfriend got an email from a guy saying he was an investigator,” Enzo said. “Saying he was investigating a claim against a wrestler, never mentioned my name.”

Enzo then continued to say he called his lawyer who got in contact with the police department. The police told Enzo’s lawyer he was not being investigated or charged for anything. He then said the next he heard about it was when his accuser began posting on social media. Neither Enzo nor his friend’s girlfriend replied to the investigator’s email.

January 22nd, 2018 was the day the story began to leak. It was also the day of the Raw 25th Anniversary Special. Enzo was sent home that day and fired the next. He admitted he was wearing a t-shirt that said “Today is the Best Day of My Life, I Can’t Wait for Tomorrow” at the time. He also admitted that is kind of funny.

Enzo continued to say that when he left the Barclays Center that day he drove for 5 hours and recorded himself talking the whole time. He plans to release the footage someday.

Enzo said that when Vince McMahon told him to go home and wait to be called, he told Vince “I don’t deserve this, I’m a good person.”

When he was called the next day by WWE lawyers and told he was being fired, Enzo says he told them “It’s your loss, not mine.”

Enzo also spoke about his relationship with Liv Morgan. He said the pair remain friends despite having broken up a year and a half ago. Liv is even still roommates with Enzo’s friend. Previously, the three of them lived together in Orlando.

Evidently, Liv is not a great driver. Enzo relayed a story of how she damaged a car he gave her.

“I was leasing a Dodge Dart so I was broke bro, I didn’t have no damn money,” Enzo said. “So the Dodge Dart I called the Gionna Mobile because I gave it to my ex Liv Morgan, Gionna. She put dents, she didn’t know how to drive so she learned how to drive in that Dodge Dart. So we called it the Gionna Mobile, just chalked it up as an L bro.”