Various: Leila Grey, Deonna Purrazzo, & Taya Valkyrie Declare for ROH Women’s Pure Title Tournament, 5/1 TNA Impact! Show to Air Live at 10PM EST, Joe Hendry on Criticisms of Him Being “Buried” at WrestleMania 41, Indies/Misc.

Apr 25, 2025

Leila Grey, Deonna Purrazzo, & Taya Valkyrie Officially Declare for ROH Women’s Pure Title Tournament

Thursday’s episode of ROH TV featured Leila Grey, Deonna Purrazzo, and Tayal Valkyrie officially declaring themselves for Ring of Honor’s upcoming ROH Women’s Pure Championship to crown the inaugural champion.

The ROH Women's Pure Championship Tournament is heating up as @Miss_LeilaGrey, @thetayavalkyrie & former ROH Women's World Champion @DeonnaPurrazzo enter the tournament!

📺 Watch ROH TV on #HonorClub at https://t.co/8dcdtxqvDf pic.twitter.com/x2ntMV5qCO
— ROH – Ring of Honor Wrestling (@ringofhonor) April 24, 2025

Current field for inaugural ROH Women’s Pure Champion tournament:

Leila Grey
Deonna Purrazzo
Taya Valkyrie

Next Week’s TNA Impact! Show Announced to Air Live at 10PM EST

Thursday’s episode of TNA Impact! featured the official announcement of next week’s show on May 1st will be airing live at the Bren Events Center in Irvine, California.

It was also announced that this upcoming show will be airing at a later than usual start time of 10PM EST on AXS TV and Sportsnet 360.

NEXT WEEK, #TNAiMPACT goes LIVE from Irvine,CA with a special start time of 10PM ET!

WATCH #TNAiMPACT on TNA+: https://t.co/ZTlWqchalq pic.twitter.com/xs1ZJnZAT4
— TNA Wrestling (@ThisIsTNA) April 25, 2025

Joe Hendry Comments on Criticisms Him Being “Buried” at WrestleMania 41

As noted before, this past Sunday’s WWE WrestleMania 41 Night 2 event in Las Vegas, Nevada featured current TNA World Champion Joe Hendry making a surprise appearance as the mystery opponent for Randy Orton’s Open Challenge match.

Hendry recently reflected on Twitter thanking TNA and WWE for the opportunity for him being able to compete at WrestleMania 41.

“I want to say a huge thank you to both TNA Wrestling and WWE for collaborating on this appearance and allowing such a cool moment for you, the fans. The fans put me in this position. You kept saying my name, you kept it going, and the support that you’ve given me has been more than I could ever ask for. So thank you so much for all of the support, and I’m excited just like you to see what’s next.”

In a recent interview with The Ariel Helwani Show, Hendry gave his thoughts about the online criticisms from fans over how his match with Randy Orton played out and their feelings that the TNA Champion was “buried” as a result.

“If this is being buried, keep it coming. We understood the assignment at WrestleMania, we were the fun and the surprise. You saw Randy’s promo after the match had taken place; that’s what he talked about: the match being fun. This is Randy Orton’s 20th WrestleMania. This was a featured match. As Triple H put it in the post-event press conference, this was about giving Randy a fun moment for his 20th WrestleMania appearance. For me to do that, I remember being 15 years old, walking back from high school, talking to my friend about Randy Orton, and ‘could he win the world title?’ I remember having these conversations. For me to be part of his 20th WrestleMania…this is what people don’t understand, when I was at the Performance Center, William Regal gathered everyone around and said, ‘Listen, if you want to work with Roman Reigns and Randy Orton, you need to show that you can be professional and be relied upon, that you can do the job.’ This year, I wrestled Roman Reigns in the Rumble and Randy Orton at WrestleMania. That doesn’t just happen. That’s a huge responsibility, and I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre announced that they have pulled Taya Valkyrie from Friday’s Arena Mexico 69th Anniversary Event at the Arena Mexico in Mexico City, Mexico due to her recently suffering an injury. It was announced that Billie Starkz will be replacing Valkyrie for her scheduled tag team match with Lady Frost against Dark Silueta & Zeuxis at the event.

PROGRESS Wrestling recently announced that Michael Oku is the next official competitor for this year’s Super Strong Style 16 tournament on May 4-5 in London, England.

Former ROH and Major League Wrestling talent Julius Smokes announced that his wife passed away this past Sunday. A GoFundMe fundraiser was recently launched by Smokes and his family to help financially assist with the funeral costs.

Masked Republic recently announced that they have cancelled their upcoming MaskedMania events on May 3rd in Atlanta, Georgia and May 4th in Charlotte, North Carolina due to circumstances beyond their control. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that these upcoming events would have been a joint venture between Masked Republic and UTA and were sold to a local promoter or venue to run. Johnson reported that those spoken to stated that the decision to cancel these events were not Masked Republic’s call.

As noted before, KiLynn King has been out of action for TNA Wrestling and the indies since December of 2023 due to a torn ACL injury. King provided an update on Thursday on Instagram stating that she had suffered a second injury this past summer while rehabbing from her knee injury. King stated “Vulnerable post: Last summer I got hit w/ a second injury on top of my knee rehab. At the time, I didn’t have the heart or energy to talk about it.. It set me way back and led to multiple specialists telling me that I had to pull back in my training until I healed and could build my strength back up. Thankfully I’ve been able to stay active and keep my weight stable.. But despite consistently doing what I can at the gym 5 days a week, eating healthy w/ the occasional cheat day, my body has changed a lot and it was a hard pill to swallow. Especially when I was in the best shape of my life beforehand.. I’m not sharing this for pity of any kind, but more so as a public declaration for myself to remind me that IT’S OK! Life happens, but w/ time, patience and CONSISTENCY, I will get back to where I wanna be. I did it before and I WILL do it again.. I’ll be back.“

In a recent interview with the Toronto Sun, Natalya gave her thoughts about her match against Miyu Yamashita at Game Changer Wrestling’s Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport XIII event this past week and getting to compete in a Bloodsport event. Natalya stated “WrestleMania week isn’t just about WWE, it’s about the wrestling community coming together. We saw that at Bloodsport. That was one of the most fun times of my entire career. I said that to TJ [TJ Wilson] when Bloodsport was done, ‘I can’t even remember the last that I had that much fun. I had so much fun.’ This isn’t taking anything away from WrestleMania, I love WrestleMania, I have a world record for being in 11 WrestleMania matches. Being in WWE, this was my 18th WrestleMania that I attended. I love WrestleMania, but Bloodsport was something so different for me because it was a chance for me to create something completely from me. It was all completely my vision of what I wanted to do. Everything down from my music to my outfit to the people walking with me to the ring, they are my students from the Dungeon that I trained from the ground up. I wanted them there, walking to the ring. I hand-picked Miyu because word on the street is she is the most dangerous unsigned woman wrestler in Japan. When you think about these greats like Asuka, IYO [SKY], Kairi [Sane], and Giulia. There are so many incredible women that have signed, WWE scooped them up. She is, to me, the very best that isn’t in WWE. The goal for me is to see Miyu get to WWE because she is that good. I’ve never had anybody bring me to my limits like that. She was unbelievable. The match was so much fun. I loved every second of it. I felt like it was a side I had to show everyone what I could do because I’m so hungry. I love what I do so much and I’m not comfortable with just taking a paycheck with WWE. I know there is something to being patient, but I’m to the point of where I need more, I want more, and creating more opportunities. That’s why Bloodsport was so important to me.“

MLW recently announced one new match for the card of their Azteca Lucha 2025 event on May 10th at the Cicero Stadium in Cicero, Illinois:

Atlantis & Esfinge vs. Hechicero & Guerrero Maya Jr.