Weekend Roundup: Steve Austin on AEW Being Good for WWE, Bea Priestley, Ivelisse AEW Status, Bushiroad, NJPW, Indies

WWE

• During a recent interview with the Wrestling Inc. Daily podcast, Steve Austin gave his thoughts on why AEW being around is good for WWE. Austin stated “Man, I love it. I think it’s competition by proxy just because they’re wrestling, WWE’s wrestling, but I don’t think they’re directly trying to compete. But in essence, they are and I love it because it gives more people within any of this jobs. It gives more people a chance to work. And it makes WWE, you know, forces them to push the envelope rather than just sit back and push out content. Competition makes everybody better.” (Transcript h/t: WrestlingInc.com)
• WWE Studios reportedly recently signed a deal with television cable network The Game Show Network to produce new game shows for the network, according to CableFax.com.
• PWInsider reported that legendary musician Ozzy Osbourne is currently rumored to be getting inducted as the celebrity member for this year’s WWE Hall of Fame class.
• WWE filed a trademark for “Zayda Ramier” for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes on March 31st to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
• WWE filed a trademark for “KUSHIDA” for similar purposes on March 29th to the USPTO.
• WWE recently released a new WWE Performance Center video on YouTube featuring Brian Kendrick. During the video, Kendrick revealed that he has retired as a wrestler and is currently working as a backstage producer for the company’s NXT brand.
• WWE announced that their next investor’s meeting will be taking place on April 22nd and will be discussing the results from their fiscal first quarter 2021 report.
• Ringside News reported that WWE recently released writer Chris Dunn from the company.
• During a recent episode of his Pro Wrestling 4 Life podcast, Sean Waltman revealed that WWE did not have any inductor speeches for this year’s Hall of Fame ceremony, which was taped last week.
• Fightful Select reported that Bobby Lashley and MVP held a meeting with Vince McMahon last week regarding their displeasure over the Hurt Business being broken up on last week’s episode of RAW. It was reported that McMahon made the decision to split the group and “was set in his choice to fracture the group, even after MVP and Bobby Lashley were vocal about not being in support of the move.”
• Bea Priestley is currently rumored to have recently signed a contract with WWE, according to the Wrestling Observer. Dave Meltzer reported that Priestley had her last match for Stardom earlier today and will be leaving Japan soon.

AEW

• In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight Canada, Christian Cage revealed that he re-watched his AEW debut match with Edge at his house. Cage stated “Yeah, I did, actually. So he’s actually staying at my house. Yeah, because obviously SmackDown and Raw are here in Tampa so we watched it together. He was very happy for me and was very complimentary of it. And of course, we always both kind of nitpick and give each other constructive criticism and those sorts of things. But I think, for the most part, he felt the same way that I did. I don’t think it could have gone better for the first one back.”
• During a separate interview with the Talk Is Jericho podcast, Cage gave his thoughts on his AEW debut match against Frankie Kazarian. Cage stated “I wanted to have a match where it didn’t matter who won or lost, both guys came out looking better. There’s also that trust factor there where he knew I would be extra motivated. I had Frankie forefront in my mind. When I called Tony and we talked about it, ‘I talk about outworking everyone. The work has to start pretty soon.’ We decided we’d do something to set the match up and then we’d do the match. The first person he said was, ‘What do you think about Frankie Kazarian?’ I said I was thinking that too. We batted a couple of names and it came back to Frankie. I let it marinate for a couple of days and I texted him and said, ‘You were right from the start. He’s the guy.’ He sent back a heart. I didn’t even talk to Frankie. Just showed up and it was on.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• Chris Jericho revealed during a recent episode of his Talk Is Jericho podcast that TNT officials were not happy that AEW kept Sting’s debut a big secret from them. Jericho stated “When Sting was a surprise, [TNT] was like ‘don’t do that again.’ That’s why Paul Wight was announced on social media because TNT said, ‘We don’t want surprises, we want to take advantage of the ratings.’ We had a big surprise, a big announcement, and we used the big announcement to announce the next big surprise. I think that’s one of the reasons too, to spread it out a little.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the reason for Ivelisse’s lack of appearances on AEW television in recent weeks is due to recent backstage issues involving her and a few AEW coaches. Meltzer reported that Ivelisse is currently on a per-date type contract with the company.
• Dave Meltzer reported in a recent episode of the Wrestling Observer Radio that TNT will be holding a four week trial of having AEW Dynamite act as a lead-in show for their new weekly MMA show for MMA promotion ONE FC. This trial period reportedly will be starting on April 7th.
• AEW reportedly had sold around 602 tickets for their April 7th episode of AEW Dynamite and 903 tickets for their The House Always Wins event on April 9th as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Other Wrestling

• Josh Barnett announced that Davey Boy Smith Jr. vs. KTB has been added to the card of Game Changer Wrestling’s Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport 6 event on April 8th in Tampa, Florida.
• GCW officials reportedly are currently hoping for an attendance of around 1,000 for this year’s Spring Break event, titled rSpring Break Presented By 44OH!, on April 9th in Tampa, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that ticket sales for GCW’s WrestleMania week events are down compared to last year due to coronavirus pandemic travel-related issues.
• Ring of Honor announced that the main event match for their 500th episode of ROH TV on April 15th will be Jay Briscoe vs. Mark Briscoe.
• Bruce Prichard and Conrad Thompson filed a trademark for “Something Else To Wrestle” under their company STWW Network Inc. for entertainment-related purposes on March 26th to the USPTO.
• Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Tony Deppen, Chris Dickinson, and Homicide are currently not signed with Ring of Honor despite the company having all three be part of a new heel stable that debuted at the end of their 19th Anniversary Show on March 26th.
• New Japan Pro Wrestling and Stardom parent company Bushiroad reportedly generated $13.3 million in revenues from their wrestling business for their fiscal second quarter (November 2020 to January 2021), according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that this was 19.5% lower than last year’s fiscal second quarter. Meltzer also reported that the total paid subscriptions for New Japan World were at 116,000 for the end of the fiscal quarter.
• NJPW reportedly generated a paid attendance of 883 for their March 28th Road to Sakura Genesis 2021 event in Gunma, 388 for their March 29th Road to Sakura Genesis 2021 event in Tokyo, and 345 for their March 30th Road to Sakura Genesis 2021 event in Tokyo, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• During this past Friday’s episode of NJPW Strong, NJPW officially debuted a brand new championship called the Strong Openweight Championship. It was announced that the winner of this year’s New Japan Cup USA tournament will be crowned as the inaugural champion.
• Indie wrestler Faye Jackson recently announced on Twitter that she is retiring from wrestling following a recent elbow injury that has caused her to be pulled from all of her scheduled bookings during WrestleMania week in Tampa, Florida.
• New Texas Pro Wrestling recently announced that Deonna Purrazzo will be making an appearance for the company at their Texas (When I Die) event on April 9th in Tampa, Florida. It was also announced that Purrazzo will be defending her Impact Wrestling Knockouts Championship at the event.
• ROH talent RUSH reportedly is currently planning to start his own wrestling promotion in Mexico this June, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Ohio Valley Wrestling reportedly recently signed a deal with FITE TV to air their weekly television series every Thursdays at 7PM EST on the service, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the rumored revival of Lucha Underground is currently a project being put together by Konnan and MLW owner Court Bauer. Meltzer reported that MLW’s current plans are for Aztec Underground to act as the spiritual successor to the former Lucha Underground promotion.
• The official debut episode of Wipeout with John Cena as co-host on April 1st reportedly drew 1,100,000 overall viewers and 432,000 key demographic viewers on TBS, according to The Wrap.