Neville Injured on RAW

According to reports former NXT Champion Neville was injured in his match with Chris Jericho on RAW last night. Neville  made a mistake on a move and has seemingly broken his ankle and shin bone. Shouts can be heard in the match of ‘He’s injured’ and the match was finished by disqualification by Jericho.

Neville was of the the catalysts for NXT’s early success on the WWE Network with his exciting matches as the longest reigning NXT Champion and a previous two reigns as NXT Tag-Team Champion make him the most decorated NXT star in history. Despite the WWE not giving Neville a major push in recent months he has still remained a fan favourite and a highlight of RAW and Smackdown, even winning the Slammy of breakout star of the year.

As more news comes in the WWE Examiner will keep you posted.

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Jacqueline Latest Hall of Fame Inductee

It has been reported that former WWE Women’s champion Jacqueline Moore is to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Jacqueline started her career as Miss Texas and had her early success in the USWA where she was a 14 time women’s champion, as well as having great success as the valet of Eric Embry and Tom Prichard. She also held the distinction of being included on the PWI 500 list long before there was a women’s list. Jacqueline also had success in WCW as Harlem Heat’s valet, where she wrestled Disco Inferno in an inter-gender match. After WCW Jacqueline moved on to WWE where she joined Marc Mero in his feud with Sable. During this time she became the first African American to hold the Women’s title, which she held on two separate occasions. Near the end of her time in WWE Jacqueline became the third woman to hold the WWE Cruiserweight  title.

Jacqueline was rumours some months ago as a possible inductee and continues the theme of Texas themed Hall of Fame Inductees this year.

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Title Match and Big Names for Post-RoadBlock RAW

Earlier today the WWE announced a Tag-Team Title Match between The New Day and remaining League of Nations members Rusev and Alberto Del Rio. The New Day have had a feud of sorts with the League since Fastlane and defeated King Barrett and Sheamus at Roadblock. Is this just a way of giving New Day more action or is there a chance that Del Rio and Rusev who in particular has been floundering are getting their first tag team titles?

Other reports are of several big names being involved on Monday’s Raw, names who are relevant to Wrestlemania include Undertaker, Shane McMahon and Brock Lesnar. Also in a surprise inclusion is Mick Foley who is expected to be involved in Wrestlemania itself. A possibility could be to involve him in the McMahon feud considering the last time the McMahons feuded at Wrestlemania Foley was referee this theory is strengthened more considering Shane’s match with the Undertaker is a Hell in a Cell, a match Foley helped gain severe notoriety especially in his 1998 match with the Undertaker. Another though less likely scenario is to involve him with Dean Ambrose’s ongoing feud with Lesnar as Ambrose is often compared favourably to the Hardcore Legend.

Another Hall of Fame inductee could be announced especially with rumours of Stan Hansen and Jacqueline being rumoured due to a WWE magazine article as well as more details on Network shows during Wrestlemania week. JBL announced earlier his much praised Legends show will have a new episode during the week but did not announce the guest, who maybe announced this Monday. None of this is concrete and as Monday goes on more will be revealed especially in relation to the Hall of Fame.

The WWE Examiner will live tweet Raw as usual and will keep you posted on any news that happens before and after.

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The Week That Was in WWE 6-13 March

This week saw the build up for the WWE Roadblock event on Saturday. However, as the week progressed it became clear that Roadblock was not the only interesting thing that was happening in the week. From Raw to Roadblock the week was a very interesting one starting with Raw.

Raw opened with Shane McMahon and Vince McMahon, it was a good opener that involved Vince smashing a photo of him and Shane as a child before sicking security on Shane who destroyed them, literally. Obviously this segment was meant to show that Shane is a worthy adversary for Undertaker and if his brief attack on security as anything to go by he is more than ready.

In Singles action the night started off with Kevin Owens and Neville, since their NXT days these two have put on excellent matches and this was nor exception and came with a twist. As Owens attacked Neville post match Sami Zayn appeared making the save. While this would seem to point toward a Zayn/Owens match at Wrestlemania, I cannot help but hope for a triple threat between Neviile, Zayn and Owens considering they are three of NXT’s most iconic stars in the promotions history. Before Raw there was some rumoured controversy involving Dolph Ziggler possibly being asked to remove a tweet insulting the Authority, however it came to nothing but a plot device to put Zigller in a three on one handicap match against The League of Nation minus Del Rio.  The only member eliminated was Barrett so who could blame him wanting to leave. Kalisto fought Tyler Breeze in a very entertaining match which shows Breeze deserves to be more than a named jobber. Speaking of Breeze there are rumours of unease in the NXT roster over Breeze’s treatment on the main roster and stars apparently wondering should they mover up or stay big draws on NXT for life. This is coming on the heels of Vince McMahon apparently viewing NXT wrestlers as not draws and more of a touring company, again it could be internet hearsay but it seems like a pro-big wrestler Vince McMahon thing to say for a promotion that has a lot of low 200 pound wrestlers as top stars. Kalisto also was in a backstage piece with Ryback seeming to hint at Ryback being his opponent at Wrestlemania. Ryback is a wrestler that has certainly improved and deserved a continued push following his Intercontinental Title Reign last year. Ryback also had a match with Curtis Axel, the entire Social Outcasts need a title, eve the J.O.B Squad had a title. The main event was Dean Ambrose and Bray Wyatt which ended after a run in from Triple H who Ambrose layed out.

In Divas action Summer Rae defeated Brie Bella, after which Lana attacked Brie in what is a weird feud that hopefully will not make it to Wrestlemania. The interesting thing about this match is it marks the second defeat of a former Divas Champion by Summer Rae in a couple of months, could it be possible that she is on the verge of a push? The other Divas match was Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks against Tamina and Naomi, these four have prove that a Diva’s tag title at this stage is an excellent idea and would allow more Diva’s a chance in the spotlight at the same time.

One Tag-Team match for the Tag-Titles held by New Day against Jericho and Styles wrestling as Y2AJ. The match was excellent definitely the highlight of Raw. The ending was perfect where after defeat Jericho turned on Styles which will probably see a match at Wrestlemania.

On NXT only one match and it was a humdinger. Sami Zayn against Samoa Joe in a 2 out of 3 Falls match. The match was everything that is right with NXT from beginning to end and a strong contender for match of the year and it is only March. Joe won so will face Finn Balor at Takeover and it was also announced that Austin Aries will face Baron Corbin at Takeover, all the matches are already known but these are the first two to be officially confirmed.

Smackdown opened with a confrontation between Owens and Zayn on Miz TV leading to Neville saving Zayn from a beatdown from Miz and Owens. This led to a tag-team match between the two groups.

It was a very tag-team heavy card as besides this great match where Zayn and Neville proved that they would make a formidable tag-team and Owens left Miz alone costing them the match. There was also a League of Nations win over the Lucha Dragons obviously to hype them as contenders for New Day ahead of Roadblock. The Main Event was Ambrose Ziggler and the Usos against the Wyatts who lost, after such a big build  in their feud against the Dudleys it is weird to see them lose nearly every week now.

Only other match was Brie Bella beating Summer Rae which seems to imply Summer’s involvement in the Lana and Brie feudas Lana attacked Brie again after the match.

Smackdown also had an excellent promo from Chris Jericho who burnt a Y2AJ shirt and was definitely the highlight of the night.

Roadblock like the last Network specials was interesting as it is essentially a house shiw but televised but this one felt special. In singles we had a Anti-Canada Chris Jericho face Jack Swagger so a confused Canadian crowd opted to cheer for the absent AJ Styles instead. Brock Lesnar took on Harper and Bray which was a very interesting match, not a hand was lain on Bray and Harper put up a hell of a fight. It was made clear that they are saving Bray for something big, maybe interfering in Brock’s Wrestlemania match with Dean Ambrose? Zayn faced Stardust in a weird pairing that worked so well the match was pitch perfect, Zayn is seemingly headed for a push but Stardust certainly proved he deserves one. The Main Event was a great match Triple H beat Ambrose but not after a close call where it seemed Ambrose won and the crowd went wild. It was predictable ending but it was a great match.

There was an excellent Diva’s match between Charlotte and Natalya, again the match proved just how much of a push Natalya deserves if she can put on a match like she did with Charlotte. It hearkened back to one of their matches at one of the first NXT Takeovers which is already considered a classic before it is not even two years old.

Two Tag Title matches one with the New Day and The League of Nations, no surprise for New Day getting the win. With their lengthy reign Kofi Kingston now almost has the most number of combined days as champion for that belt for a random fact. The other match is the match to watch the show for The Revival vs Enzo and Big Cass. The match was a classic from beginning to end and was a great showcase of the high calibre of tag-teams that NXT has to offer.

In other news Big Boss Man is going into the Hall of Fame, an interesting choice as he was not expected and was not among the rumoured and another one that has emerged as a possibility this year is Stan Hansen and Jacqueline also after a WWE Magazine that was published listing them.

With all the developments this week it seems that the final few weeks before Wrestlemania will certainly be interesting ones and will keep everyone guessing.

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Upload Update: Extreme Headway made on ECW Uploads

The last few weeks have been frustrating ones for the recent spates of uploads we ether did not get any uploads or only get one or two, it seemed at times too ambitious a project to do at once due to music and commentary issues. These problems seem to be subsiding as we saw this week. While the start of the week was disappointing by Friday we had had a couple of days of major uploads.

This weeks uploads saw a focus on the very bare year of 2000. 2000 went from having less than 20 episodes of Hardcore TV and less than 10 of the TNN show, to bursting forward to the point that Hardcore TV for 2000 is now over half way to completion. While 1998 still remains incomplete with 4 episodes, there were some inroads made with 1999 as the Hardcore TV year only needs 13 episodes and the TNN show needs only 6. The only section that needs major work still at this point is the 2000  episodes of the TNN show.

There are about 76 episodes left of this run of uploads so even with another week of intense uploads we are looking at another week at least before completion. This means we will most likely see the next lot of uploads by the last week of March at the earliest. Possibly these uploads due to the size of the project count for both February and March. That will only become clear however, when we see how many uploads we get next week.

In terms of what is next it still seems likely to be a Hall of Fame themed upload, the question being who? With the news of the Big Boss Man’s induction, an inclusion that was not expected questions have to be asked of what the upload could be. A firm favourite has been a Fabulous Freebirds era WCCW upload, but as the WWE Examiner said last week on the upload update a selection of Freebirds territory work would be a welcome addition. This fits into Big Boss Man who was Big Bubba in the UWF. This would fit in with the Freebirds and allow a collection of work that interlocks with other inductees, they could even have some Jimmy Garvin era episodes from WCW to allow the inclusion of Sting. However, it is Big Boss Man that is being inducted not Big Bubba. At the moment what is overdue is a Smackdown upload and a 80s upload would also be a welcome addition for many fans.

No new collections this week and it seems that they will come in the first week of the month with maybe one other addition during the month as happened with Daniel Bryan’s collection. However, this may have been a one time thing due to Bryan’s retirement. If there is going to be another collection it will possibly be an Irish themed one for St.Patrick’s day showcasing hopefully Irish wrestlers in the various companies over the years and not the awkward St Patrick’s day celebrations the WWE have had over the years.

With such headway made into the uploads this week the future looks bright hopefully by this time next week we will have seen our first year completed. Until then we can only watch and see what happens.

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Big Boss Man Latest Hall of Fame Inductee

The WWE Examiner has learnt that The Big Boss Man (Ray Traylor) is the latest inductee to the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2016. Traylor’s place is a surprise as he is fondly remembered by fans of 90s WWE, and was not  one of the rumoured inductees earlier this year.

Traylor got his first major push in the 1980s as Big Bubba, the bodyguard of Jim Cornette, manager of The Midnight Express in Jim Crockett Promotions. He had a match at Starrcade 1986 against Ronnie Garvin in a Lousiville Street Fight which he won with Cornette’s help. Traylor was also in the UWF, where he held the Heavyweight title beating the One Man Gang. After this Traylor became the Big Boss Man in the then WWF, under the Doctor of Style Slick Traylor entered a major feud with former WWF Champion Hulk Hogan. As Big Boss Man Traylor would later turn face before leaving the WWF eventually returning to WCW in late 1993 after a few stints in other companies. After several gimmicks in WCW Traylor returned to the Big Bubba gimmick but never was given a seriously major push instead being placed in factions like the Dungeon of Doom and NWO before returning to the WWE in 1998.

Sadly Traylor died in 2004 after spending the last several years in WWE. As Big Boss Man Traylor was 4 time Hardcore Champion and former tag-team champion. A big man who never got the recognition he deserved and Traylor’s place in the Hall is well deserved.

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The Week That Was in WWE: 28 February-5 March 2016

This week saw a build to both Wrestlemania and WWE Roadblock across Raw, Smackdown and NXT. These developments have given hopes for major matches at both events. Build up for other yet unannounced matches were made starting with Raw.

Raw started with an exchange between Triple H and Dean Ambrose. Ambrose has become the top face despite the WWE’s attempts at placing Roman Reigns in this position. The confrontation which lead to Ambrose being beaten down at the end of the show and a match between the two was announced for WWE Roadblock. This match is probably an excuse for Reigns to make a heroic return after Ambrose gets beaten down by Triple H and The League of Nations but there will be many of us that hope that it is a way of injecting Ambrose and by extension Brock Lesnar into the title picture at Wrestlemania.

Tag-Team highlights were the Usos and the Dudleys, this seems to be pointing toward a match at Wrestlemania hopefully a table match as the way this story is being told feels like a PG version of Cactus Jack’s famous feud with Tommy Dreamer in ECW in the 90s. Also Jericho and Styles are now a tag-team called Y2AJ. This seems to indicate that Styles will have a tag-team role at Wrestlemania as he and Jericho are facing The New Day for the titles on Raw this Monday. Of course Y2AJ could win the belts at lose them back to New Day at Roadblock but its a case of not knowing more until Monday at the earliest. If Y2AJ win it puts a snuff on the rumoured Styles-Owens match at Mania, as it is unlikely that Styles would have two titles.

The main Divas focus was an excellent match between Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks which ended in a draw which led to a rematch on Smackdown for the Title Shot. More on that later. In more executive women’s news Stephanie McMahon gave a killer promo that was a treat to watch and hints at her involvement with the Undertaker-Shane McMahon match.

In Singles Ryback was starting to act more heelish and Ziggler lost to Miz in less tahn five minutes which is hopefully leading somewhere.. fast. Also Undertaker showed up and warned Vince of what he unleashed before Vince had a he is out of the will moment about Shane.

NXT saw in singles Elias Samson continue his winning streak against Steve Cutler. Samson has an old school fakir to him that works well a more serious version of the Honkey Tonk Man in some ways but far less cheesy. The main event was Finn Balor and Neville these two had excellent matches throughout 2015 before Neville was called up to WWE, I even got to see one live in Dublin which was spectacular. Neville showed off some new moves including a submission move, hopefully a more varied move set will make the WWE give him a bigger push or send him down to NXT more regularly to try and ‘reinvent’ him as others have.

Tag-Team saw the Vaudevillains take on Hugo Knox and Tucker Knight, they were never going to win. Though it was Knox’s début on camera so hopefully these two get a bigger chance beyond enhancement soon. The presence of the Vaudevillains and Blake and Murphy in NXT after being champions is weird as all other teams have had at least one member move up once they won the gold. Maybe they have something planned for the Vaudevillains as they have gotten a lot of video packages the last few weeks and Blake and Murphy could be on hold until Alexa Bliss is ready to move up, which seems to be the case for Enzo and Cass with Carmella.

In women’s action Emma faced former TNA star Brittany, now known as Santana Garrett. Garrett put on a good showing and hopefully impressed the right people as she is without a NXT contract. Emma was good as usual and even with an Injury Scare this week the future seems to be bright for the Australian star.

Two notable things that came from NXT were the announcement of a match between Dash and Dawson now know as The Revival and Enzo and Big Cass. The question who will win as WWE might feel that Enzo and Cass are a bigger draw as chasers rather than chased, the same way Dusty Rhodes was with the NWA and their World Title. Austin Aries made his début and was attacked by Baron Corbin as part of an ongoing beef with William Regal, it would be interesting to see if this beef sees Regal take a manager role for Aries and other Corbin opponents to bring him down. Also a 2 out of 3 falls match was announced for next week between Sami Zayn and Samoa Joe which will be amazing going by their past two matches.

On Smackdown Dean Ambrose opened the show addressing what would happen if he beat Triple H. After that Kevin Owens came down which ended in a brawl after some excellent back and forth by two of the company’s best talkers.

One tag-team match between the Usos and The League of Nations. After the Usos lost to the League who is suddenly getting a push, The Dudleys hinted at a Tables match at some point hopefully Wrestlemania as it would be a great addition to the card and prove you can have a tag-team feud not involving a title.

One Divas match, the rematch between Sasha and Becky which ended in a double disqualification after Charlotte attacked both. This led to the announcement we have all been waiting for, at Wrestlemania the three face for the Divas Title.

In singles Dolph Ziggler got a win over the Miz so maybe they will have a rubber match and not both lose matches two each other in quick succession for nothing, both deserve better than that. AJ Styles beat Kofi Kingston ahead of their respective teams title matches, more on that match next week. Ambrose beat Owens in an excellent match as always for both, before their match at the Rumble the WWE Examiner reported on the possibility of a career defining feud between the two.

In other news Wyatt and Lesnar are set to face each other at Roadblock so the card already looks promising, as does Wrestlemania. By next week we will hopefully no more matches and if there has been a title change. Until then so.

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Update on Emma’s Possible Injury

Update

The reason for the stoppage was for the safety of Emma rather than a major concer. Emma is reportedly fine after Asuka’s kick.

Original Story

NXT star Emma is being reported as suffering an injury at a NXT Live Event in a match with Asuka. The match was stopped by the referee after a kick to the head by Asuka. The stoppage was a precaution due to WWE’ stance on head injuries and hopefully Emma was stunned badly rather than totally knocked out. The last 18 months has seen a large number of injuries in NXT and WWE.

Emma is considered one of the women who launched the Diva’s Revolution made famous by members of the Four Horsewomen, after  some time on the main roster Emma returned to NXT, where her new attitude and partnership with Nia Jax has made her one of the top female talents on the NXT roster. The WWE Examiner hopes that Emma’s injuries are not serious and a speedy recovery.

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Upload Update: ECW Uploads Still A Ways off From Completion

This week was another slow one for the ECW uploads that have been going on since early February. This is more than likely due to WWE editing out music, which may mean that Joey Styles will have to re-record commentary etc. It is painful watching such a slow process happening before our eyes especially when we only get one upload a day or in some cases none at all.

At this stage for 1998 Hardcore TV is 4 off from completion, hopefully this will be finished this week and the amount less will look less daunting when a year is complete. For 1999 there are 8 episodes left of the TNN show (renamed ECW Wrestling) and less than 20 episodes of Hardcore TV one of those should hopefully finish this coming week, hopefully both. Still causing a major headache completion wise is 2000, not even half way through ether Hardcore TV or ECW Wrestling the year makes up over at least half of what is left to upload. It’s not even a case of a point of 2000 being a cut off point as one of the last ECW episodes is up from the end of 2000. Looking at the slow rate and the numerous potential problems that could be causing it, it would have probably been an idea to split the uploads into two pieces as was first thought. This could have been 1998 and 1999 up to the start of ECW Wrestling and then the remainder at a later date, surely the problems that they are encountering were known before they started this upload. At this rate it will be all of march as well as February before completion.

In more fruitful upload news as reported earlier this week new collections have arrived  including the Shane McMahon collection promised on RAW, a WWE in Canada collection (also including WCW pay-per-views), a Wrestlemania show stealers collection and a Four Horsewomen of NXT collection. In less good news Black History Month has been removed, as well as any hope of early 80s WWE programming being uploaded as well as early 90s WCW as both matches from those shows are now gone. It is unknown whether there will be any more uploads of collections this month as only 24 hours notice was given for only one upload on RAW the night before.

With Hall of Fame season now firmly in place it seems the next upload will definitely be a Hall of Famer. A firm favourite seems to be a Fabulous Freebirds upload. While it seems more than likely that that upload will focus on WCCW and their legendary feud with the Von Erichs. However, the Network could use a Freebirds upload as a way to beef up the entire territories vault on the Network. The Freebirds wrestled in multiple territories and had many iconic feuds. It could be treated like the last lot with WCCW being the main focus as World Championship Wrestling was last time, with smaller Freebirds themed uploads from other territories.

This week will hopefully finally see the back broken of the current uploads and the moving on to the next lot in quick succession. However, only time will tell but it will probably be at least two weeks before we see an end to the current uploads.

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Update on Charlotte’s Potential Injury

UPDATE

Charlotte has tweeted about what happened saying the following

“Hey guys!!! Everything is all good and looking forward to#WWECedarRapids tonight!! & gonna #DoitwithFlair “

Thankfully it was nothing serious and the champion will not become another titleholder who has to vacate like Rollins and Bryan.

Original Story

At a Friday WWE Live event WWE Diva’s Champion suffered what seemed to be a serious injury in her match with Becky Lynch. The match had only lasted two minutes when it was stopped due to Charlotte bleeding seriously from the head from a knee delivered by Lynch. The WWE has a strict policy on head injuries and most likely feared further injuries to Charlotte’s brain.

There is no news on how this will affect Charlotte’s upcoming title defence with Lynch and Sasha Banks at Wrestlemania in April. However, earlier this year NXT Champion Finn Balor suffered an ankle injury at a live event and is returned after a seemingly short recovery. However, WWE are more than likely to take a head injury much more seriously.

Charlotte is  a former NXT Women’s Champion and is currently the seventh longest reigning Divas Champion of all time. The WWE Examiner wishes Charlotte a speedy recovery.

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