Stipulation Added to WWE Title Match?

Local media for WWE Axxess is reporting that the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match between Champion Triple H and Roman Reigns is a no disqualification match. This could be an attempt to spice up a match that fans have been so opposed to since the beginning as both Reigns and Triple H have been involved in backstage brawls and at ringside so this could be to facilitate that. However, the stipulation could be to allow interference from other wrestlers, so many big names have been announced as appearing at Wrestlemania and it is not unheard of for someone to make a surprise appearance. Whatever the reason the speculation will run wild with fans until Sunday, as they wonder does this new stipulation confirm Reigns’ win, a heel or double turn in the match, or a last minute swerve like last year?

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First Names Announced for WWE Global Cruiserweight Tournament

One of the most hotly anticipated WWE Network shows is the Global Cruiserweight Tournament. Information has been leaking gradually such as the date of July 13 as its beginning and that several Independents will be holding qualifier for the event in the US and UK. However, in today’s media conference fro NXT Takeover: Dallas Triple H announced the first participants. These wrestlers are, Rich Swann, Zack Sabre Jr, Tommaso Ciampa, Noam Dar, Johnny Gargano, Hoho Lund and Akira Tozawa.

Some of these names will be familiar to regular watchers of NXT, especially Gargano and Ciampa who have had some wins on NXT with Gargano already having a following with the fans and ending Elias Sampson’s recent winning streak a couple of weeks ago, Swann also had a recent match with NXT Champion Finn Balor. The plan for the tournament is for it to take place in Full Sail where NXT is taped. These names already promise the tournament to be an interesting one and will help fuel hopes of many for a returning cruiserweight division and title.

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WWE Hall of Fame to Include Legacy Award?

Reports of  a t-shirt for this year’s WWE Hall of Fame seem to indicate another award at the ceremony. Alongside the list of inductee’s is a Legacy award which lists the recipients as Ed ‘Strangler’ Lewis, Frank Gotch, George Hackenschmidt, Lou Thesz, Mildred Burke, Pat O’Connor and ‘Sailor’ Art Thomas. Many of these names such as Thesz and Burke have been controversial omissions form the Hall in the past. The reason that they have not bee inducted before is that they were active before television such as Lewis, or more associated with other companies such as Thesz.

All these names have been ignored for many years despite old school fans outcries at their omission. If these reports are true this would be a way of inducting other wrestlers that ether pre-date or are not involved in WWE history or wrestling on television as a whole. This way many names that have been omitted will finally get their recognition, hopefully this is not a one year deal and each legacy recipient will have some representation.

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Major Shake-Up in Divas Division

Reports are circulating that the WWE are planning a major revamp for the Divas Division and Divas belt. The plan is to begin on the RAW after Wrestlemania, which seems to indicate that the Divas Title match on Sunday will be an even bigger game changer than expected. The division is to return to the much missed women’s division and title after the last few years of the controversial term diva which is considered an outdated term from the attitude era .

Fans have been campaigning for a long time for the change in name which have been fuelled by the much praised women’s division and title in NXT. The name change campaign was fuelled also by current Divas championship Charlotte who in a recent interview said she also felt the name change was a good idea. The move could also be an attempt attract more women wrestlers to the WWE and NXT who did not fancy the idea at one point being referred to as a Diva. Questions could also arise of what will become of Total Divas with this planned revamp as the Divas Division has been used to promote the show in the past as recently as this Sunday where one of the teams is called The Total Divas consisting of cast members of the show.

The other major question that arises is is the winner of the Championship match at Wrestlemania the next Women’s Champion or is there a new bekt and will it continue the lineage of the previous women’s title? As more details become apparent of this revamped division and the tying up of loose ends.

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Upload Update: As ECW Ends RAW Uploads Begin

This week saw the end of the marathon ECW uploads that have been going on since the start of February, and in its place we have what was expected after last week which is the start of the Monday Night RAW uploads. These uploads so far are focusing on the remainder of 2002 which already was substantially filled and has moved into 2003 which had nothing before the start of uploads. This upload will probably finish 2002 and 2003 as the episodes are longer than ECW’s however, considering they gave so much in the last upload it is certainly possible that they move into 2004 which has five episodes already.

Sadly still no sign of the remainder of 2000-2002 of Smackdown though. This could mean that they are finishing off RAW, which hopefully seems unlikely as it would take a few more uploads to catch up completely. However, what makes it seem like a possible idea is that it seems that is their plan with Nitro and Thunder as even though we are in the Thunder era of Nitro uploads we are still yet to get Thunder Although having said that we got both ECW shows at the same time so hopefully we will know more on Monday, which seems to be having uploads again as ECW was finished last Monday.

There was more Network related news this week as the website got a revamp and the final episode of ECW Wrestling of 1999 and of RAW of 2001 were added to the menu as before they had to be searched hopefully that problem is fixed and won’t occur with future uploads.

While these uploads have only just begun the question as always is what’s next? This is a tricky one as technically the last RAW upload was from last year even though it ended in January, in the past we have got a Nitro upload with the last couple of uploads from RAW. However, with Wrestlemania and the Hall of Fame being so Texas themed the possibility is very strong of some Texas themed uploads probably Freebirds era WCCW which has been expected for a long time although we may get some Stan Hansen uploads from any of his various territory runs. As mentioned we are long overdue for some Smackdown uploads as we have had none since the rise of Brock Lesnar upload from 2002 and 2003, which weirdly completed 2003 and left more episodes of 2002 than there are of 2000-2001 combined. An outside possibility due to amount of episodes dedicated to it on the Network is World Championship Wrestling. These would show the early years of Sting and could take us through his Clash of the Champions fight with Ric Flair to just short of him winning the World Title, with so many stories of Sting’s retirement and his induction this would be a welcome addition to the Network.

The question now is where will these Raw uploads end? They go until at least October 2003 so they may reach 2004 or end at 2003 for a quicker upload than usual? These questions will hopefully be answered by next week in the next Upload Update.

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WWE Sign The Mighty Don’t Kneel

The WWE have confirmed today the signing of top tag-team The Mighty Don’t Kneel.The duo of Mikey Nicholls and Shane Haste are known to fans from promotions such as Ring of Honour and especially fans of Pro Wrestling NOAH. The duo are known for their team manoeuvres and will be a welcome addition for many to NXT and the Australian team are also considered the most famous non-Japanese wrestlers in the country since Stan Hansen and Vader.

The interesting thing about their announcement by the WWE is the promise of an upcoming class of NXT indicating that their are more possibly major signings coming to NXT and WWE. Considering who we have seen arrive in NXT and WWE in the past few months this class could be anyone. Stay tuned to the WWE Examiner for more updates on any more signings.

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WWE Network Makes Changes

Today the WWE has launched a new layout for the Network. This layout has removed the large menu at the top of the screen as well as the most recent upload for shows at the top as well. This could be a sign that large uploads of shows old and new in the coming months would lead to a cluttering of the menus and this will make it easier to find things.

The other major change with the menu is the addition of the alternate commentary in foreign languages to their own section of the pay-per-view section to remove clutter from the main WWE pay-per-view section. While this seems like a minor addition it allows for further possibilities, if the Network is willing to add further sections to the pay-per-view tab it may mean that we get supercards at some point on their own allowing territory era and ECW supercards to have their own section. Whether these would be put into the now busier pay-per-view tab or under collections would be interesting but the WWE, by giving us these changes will lead to much speculation and rumours of what further changes and additions will be made to the Network in the coming months.

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Stan Hansen for WWE Hall of Fame

Stan Hansen is confirmed as being the latest inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame. Hansen is one of the top Texan stars from the territory days and well deserving of his spot in the Hall. Hansen is most known to Old School WWE fans for breaking hero of the WWWF Bruno Sammartino’s neck in a match, which was credited with his famous lariat but in reality a bodyslam. However, you can’t keep a good story down and the lariat is now one of the things most associated with Hamsen. Hansen is also a former World Heavyweight Champion in the AWA where he infamously ran over the belt after walking out the promotion due to disagreements with management. Hansen is also recognised as a former US Champion by WWE due to holding the belt in WCW by beating Lex Luger to end his near 2 year reign with the belt. Hansen is also one of the most successful American wrestlers to go to Japan wrestling for both New Japan and All Japan.

Hansen was rumoured due to a WWE magazine article to be included in the Hall of Fame and due to his native state being Texas it is not surprising to see him finally gain his place in the Hall that many have called for for a long time.

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Roode and Young for WWE?

Long time TNA wrestlers Bobby Roode and Eric Young have asked for their release from the company. While in the past this would mean a move to another independent or Japan with the success of stars like AJ Styles in WWE the door is now open more than ever. Even in NXT we have seen former stars like James Storm receive an excellent reception from fans and Samoa Joe become one of NXT’s biggest draws.  Both former heavyweight champions have been staples of TNA for over a decade and would be welcome additions to WWE if they choose to go. It is safe to say that while the doors to WWE were once closed to stars like Roode and Young with the amount of positive feed back other former TNA stars have received they are now well and truly open. If any ore developments of a deal with the WWE come to light the WWE Examiner will keep you posted.

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Upload Update: ECW Uploads and More

This has been one of the most intense upload weeks and not just for ECW. So much happened this week with uploads it is best to start on Monday and go day by day.

On Monday besides scheduled uploads like the RAW pre-show there were no uploads. This sadly is nothing new as there have not been Monday uploads the past few Mondays even amid the large scale upload that this ECW batch has been. Tuesday is where things get interesting. On Tuesday ECW uploads were quite major with about 10 so there was a decent dent but that was not all. As well as ECW we got some 2002 RAW uploads, there are two possibilities to these uploads. First of all as at least some of them have Jacqueline included in them seem to point to Hall of Fame uploads being imminent, meaning we could finally get the promised Freebird era WCCW uploads listed in the survey from a while ago. The other possibility is that ECW are way behind and the RAW 2002 uploads were scheduled to start on that day and were uploaded accidentally and kept rather than admit error. Both theories have their merits but with both it will be next week at the earliest before we know any thing. While this was a crazy start to the week it got better.

On Wednesday uploads started very early (about 3pm Irish Time) and continued for the rest of the day by the time uploads were finished for the day we had 38 episodes of ECW Hardcore TV and ECW Wrestling. It was amazing obviously the Network now want these uploads finished fast and gave us the intensive day we have been expecting for awhile. This was followed by a day of 15 uploads on Thursday before things calmed down on Friday with fewer but still a respectable number of uploads. As things stand uploads for the week look like this.

ECW Hardcore TV Remaining Episodes

1998=1

1999=3 

2000= Complete

ECW Wrestling Remaining Episodes

1999= Complete

2000=3

RAW Remaining Episodes

2002= 25

That’s right 2000, the year that was so horrendously behind finished first in that strange random order of uploads that the Network seems to adhere to. Overall for this batch of ECW uploads we are more than likely to finish early next week, meaning we might see the start of a new upload dump before the end of the month.

With the end of original ECW uploads it raises the question of what is next. Possibilities are ether the early episodes of ECW missing from 1993 and 1994 or the non pay-per-view super-cards ECW did and that so many are lacking from the Network. There is a question mark over these possibilities as there are questions over ownership with answers we are not privy two as there are so many theories  answers and claims over the internet. More likely is the beginning of the WWEECW show, which will be able to carry on for a couple of chunks at different times.

The question is what, yes it looks likely that we will get 2002 RAW it seems likely it will be packaged with something else considering how much we have of it already. The possibilities for that are 2003 RAW which has no episodes, or another ambitious dump where they fill in the gaps in Smackdown up to the end of 2002 which would be a very welcome addition to the Network which has been neglected outside of the rise of Brock Lesnar themed upload late last year. While a Hall of Fame themed upload is wanted by many due to the rich possibilities this year, it has to be remembered that the Hall of Fame announcements are not finished yet with Stan Hansen and Snoop Dog rumoured to be also on the list. April will possibly see the uploads for the Hall of Fame to also coincide with the induction ceremony.

With such a major week it looks to be exciting times ahead with maybe a new lot of uploads beginning next week if it has not already started. Sadly we will probably have to wait until Tuesday to see further uploads due to the lack of uploads on previous Monday’s. Ether way next week will finally see the end of ECW uploads for a while.

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