WWE: Lola Vice & Eddy Thorpe Earns NXT Women’s Title & NXT Title Matches at NXT Live Events, CM Punk, Rhea Ripley, & Gunther Appearances Set for 1/13 WWE RAW Show, More News

Lola Vice Earns Shot for NXT Women’s Title & Eddy Thorpe Earns Shot for NXT Title at NXT House Show Events

This past Friday’s WWE NXT house show event in Dade City, Florida featured Lola Vice emerging victorius in a NXT Women’s Championship #1 Contender Women’s Battle Royal match.

As a result of her victory, Vice will be facing off against Giulia for the NXT Women’s Championship at a future show.

Lola Vice wins the rumble match. Guilia made a surprise appearance after 😱😱😱 #nxtdadecity pic.twitter.com/uWE4MzNbXk

— Michael M (@DarthMikeRises) January 11, 2025

Saturday’s WWE NXT house show event in Jacksonville, Florida featured Eddy Thorpe emerging victorious in a NXT Championship #1 Contender Battle Royal match.

As a result of his victory, Thorpe will be facing off against Oba Femi for the NXT Championship at a future show.

#NXTJacksonville Eddy Thorpe wins the battle Royal pic.twitter.com/zNwg9RbwDy

— Debbie @ Wrestling In 60 Seconds (@DebbieDeans8) January 12, 2025

---

CM Punk, Rhea Ripley, & Gunther Appearances Announced for Monday’s WWE RAW Show

WWE recently announced three new segments for the card of this Monday’s WWE RAW show at the SAP Center in San Jose, California.

All of the new segments announced were CM Punk, WWE Women’s World Champion Rhea Ripley, and WWE World Heavyweight Champion Gunther to make appearances.

🚨🚨🚨#WWERaw General Manager @ScrapDaddyAP gives us a preview of what to expect THIS MONDAY 👀

📺 8/7c on @netflix pic.twitter.com/Q1xmQCkBTB

— WWE (@WWE) January 11, 2025

Current card for January 13th WWE RAW show:

• WWE Women’s Intercontinental Championship Tournament Finals – Dakota Kai vs. Lyra Valkyria
• Street Fight match – Damian Priest vs. Finn Balor
• Sheamus vs. Ludwig Kaiser
• Chad Gable vs. mystery opponent
• CM Punk to appear
• WWE Women’s World Champion Rhea Ripley to appear
• WWE World Heavyweight Champion Gunther to appear

---

WWE News & Notes

As noted before, WWE recently confirmed that next year’s Royal Rumble event will be taking place in Saudi Arabia. Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that WWE officials currently only have one event planned to be taking place in Saudi Arabia in 2025. This event reportedly is currently being targeted for a potential June date and in Jeddah.

WWE filed a new trademark for “Tiffany Stratton” on January 11th for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

WWE recently released three new videos to their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. The first new video was a “Big Show talks rumored Shaq match, Taker’s mentorship: Broken Skull Sessions.” The second new video was a
a WWe Tag Team Championship #1 Contender Royal Rumble match from the June 15, 1998 episode of WWE RAW. The third new video was a “WWE SuperTape Vol. 2 – Piper vs. Rude in a Steel Cage, Savage vs. Duggan and more!”

In a recent interview with Team JVS, Sami Zayn gave his thoughts about WWE’s RAW move to Netflix and wrestling now airing on the streaming service. Zayn stated “I remember growing up watching it with my father. I have special memories there, of course, but the beautiful thing about great art like the Beatles or something like that it’s like depending on when you fall in love with it, if it’s really good it ages with you and what it means to you as a kid when you’re five like you said with your grandfather whatever is not what it means to you now as an adult or what it meant to you as a teenager so I think great art or great connections with artistic, whatever, bands, wrestling, whatever it is… If it’s really good and it really connects with you on that level, it evolves with you. So what it means to you just is perpetually changing and what it means to me right now is obviously changing, you know, because I’m at the center of all of this. It’s crazy. I think it’s beautiful. I think the fact that wrestling means anything to anybody is beautiful.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with the Busted Open Radio podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Scott Steiner gave his thoughts about WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque offered his son Brock Rechsteiner a WWE NIL contract. Steiner stated “I left with a lot of hard feelings, but, at some point, you gotta let it be. You can’t be angry the whole time. You can’t hold a grudge. Plus, some people that you have a grudge against probably don’t even know anyways, and I didn’t want to screw up anything for [Bron], so I just buried the hatchet. Matter of fact, Hunter called me the other day, probably three weeks ago, and offered my boy an NIL Deal.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with Sports Illustrated’s SI Media with Jimmy Traina podcast, WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque gave his thoughts about the talks he had with CM Punk and Bruno Sammartino leading to both of their returns to WWE. Levesque stated “There are people out there where, because of things they did where you just can’t get outside of the scope of ‘that would be a negative. No matter how you cut it, it would be a negative,’ but I would always be open to the conversation, no matter who it was. When Punk and I were having these conversations with Nick and going through this, when we first got on the phone, one of the things I said was, ‘I want to clear the air. I’m not the same guy I was 10-15 years ago. If I was, I wasted 10-15 years of my life. I’ve grown. I’ve changed. I have a different point of view. I would believe you’re not the same person you were 10 years ago and that you have changed. Let’s both assume that and then wipe everything else, bad thoughts, whether real or imagined, let’s get rid of them and say these are two different people that are going to talk about doing business together. How can we approach that in a way that is just, let’s talk about it. If we find that we don’t have a common goal, no worries, that’s just business. If we do, wonderful, let’s do something big together.’ Everybody changes, everybody grows, everybody moves on, whether positive or negative, and things people did in the past or bad blood can be overcome for the right reasons. I believe that now, I believed that years ago when I was talk to Bruno. I believe it when I was talking to Warrior. All these people that, over time, people told me, when I first went to Vince and said, ‘I want to talk to Bruno,’ he said, ‘If you want to waste your time, go ahead. It’s never going to happen.’ It took me two and a half years, but we got there. I believe those conversations can happen and people can change. I will never say never, but we’ll have to see.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast, Seth Rollins gave his thoughts about WWE currently being in a new era for the company. Rollins stated “It’s a great question. I’ve asked myself this many times, especially over the last couple of years. I don’t know. I’m in this weird space where I feel, especially after WrestleMania this past year in Philadelphia. I had this sense of accomplishment, but in a way that I had never experienced before. I felt, ‘Oh, I’m good.’ If I stopped tomorrow, I’m good. Everything that I wanted to do, I’m good. WrestleMania was this moment where we took the business into a different [level]. It was the first WrestleMania that Triple H was really in control over. I felt like a big part of it. I felt like we ushered in a new era of WWE. Business was amazing, WrestleMania in Vegas is going to be even bigger. It just feels like everything is fresh and new in WWE, whereas the previous ten years felt like a real fight to get to that point. After Philadelphia and night two, I felt this release and weight lifted off my shoulders, ‘I don’t have to do everything on my own’ or I don’t have to be the guy that pushes this thing forward and we’re going to be okay. With that said, I’m trying to be healthy, trying to be happy, trying to find more of a balance between my home and work so that I’m not just prioritizing the next goal on the horizon. Obviously, you work every year to main event WrestleMania and be the biggest act in our industry. When I kind of don’t care about that, it might be time to hang it up. Right now, that’s it, but it’s not the obsession that it used to be.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)