WWE: Undisputed WWE Title Match Announced as Main Event Match for Wrestlepalooza, CM Punk on Vince McMahon Hated Paying for Licensed Music & Why He Won’t Bring Back “This Fire Burns” Theme Song, More News

Undisputed WWE Title Match Announced To Be Main Event Match for Wrestlepalooza

Friday’s WWE SmackDown show in Toledo, Ohio featured WWE officially announcing that the Undisputed WWE Championship match of Drew McIntyre vs. Cody Rhodes (c) will be the main event match for Saturday’s Wrestlepalooza event in Indianapolis, Indiana.

This announcement was made by SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis during the Undisputed WWE Championship match contract signing segment.

Current card for WWE Wrestlepalooza:

• Undisputed WWE Championship – Drew McIntyre vs. Cody Rhodes (c)
• Vacant WWE Women’s World Championship – Stephanie Vaquer vs. IYO SKY
• The Usos (Jimmy & Jey Uso) vs. “Big” Bronson Reed & Bron Breakker
• Mixed Tag Team match – Becky Lynch & Seth Rollins vs. AJ Lee & CM Punk
• John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar

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CM Punk Comments on Vince McMahon Hated Paying for Licensed Music & Why He Won’t Bring Back “This Fire Burns” Theme Song

A recent episode of the GQ Actually Me show featured CM Punk as the guest. One of the topics discussed included CM Punk’s thoughts about former WWE Executive Chairman Vince McMahon hated paying for licensed music for WWE Superstars entrance theme songs and why he won’t bring back his old “This Fire Burns” theme song for his current run in WWE.

“No I can’t and I’m gonna tell you why. Cult Of Personality is iconic. This Fire Burns, also iconic but c’mon, we’re talking about Living Colour. Vernon Reed. That song has been with me since 1989 when it came out and I was on a little league team, The Indians. I knew it was time to make Cult Of Personality my official theme song in WWE when I renegotiating my contract and I knew how much Vince McMahon hated to pay for licensed music. I said, ‘Guess what, pal? The only way I’m re-signing is if I get this song.’ I thought he was going to say no and I was going to peace out and go on vacation. He said yes and now here I am.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

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WWE News & Notes

WWE reportedly has sold and distributed around 13,260 tickets for tonight’s Wrestlepalooza event at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana as of Friday night, according to WrestleTix.

As noted before, WWE held a press event on September 12th in Las Vegas, Nevada to officially announce that WrestleMania 43 would be taking place in Saudi Arabia. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that WWE’s parent company TKO Group made the decision to not allow members of the press nor fans to attend the event. Meltzer reported that TKO officials did not want the possibility of fans booing the announcement nor the press in town for the boxing match to stop by and ask real questions about it.

The Western Mass News reported that WWE had generated around $1.1 million in total economic impact in one day for the MassMutal Center and city of Springfield, Massachusetts for their September 15th WWE RAW show in the city.

This past Tuesday’s WWE NXT Homecoming show featured a show long storyline revolving around many TNA talents being upset on social media over not getting invited to the show and NXT GM Ava giving NXT Champion Oba Femi a shot at the TNA World Championship next week in a title vs. title match. This quickly led to online speculation of a TNA invasion angle taking place on next week’s show, which was something WWE also teased at happening at the end of their NXT Homecoming show. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources within NXT confirmed that the current plans are for several TNA wrestlers to appear on next week’s show for an invasion style storyline. Johnson reported that at least 2-4 TNA talents are currently expected to appear at next week’s NXT show.

As noted before, a man named Shawn Chan was arrested this past June outside of WWE’s Performance Center in Orlando, Florida over charges of him being an alleged stalker of Liv Morgan. Chan was issued federal charges related to a stalking incident at Morgan’s home, which Morgan was away from at the time. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that Chan filed a new motion on September 17th before The United States District Court of Florida, Middle Division of Florida, Tampa Division to have the court order keeping him detained in jail before the trial to be revoked. In his filing, Chan argued “The Government failed to show that Mr. Chan is a serious risk of flight or that no combination of conditions of release could “reasonably assure” his appearance as required, and the magistrate judge erred in considering the danger to the safety of the victim posed by his release.”

In a recent interview with the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast, WWE SVP of NXT & Talent Relations Shawn Michaels gave his thoughts about the two attributes he looks for the most when identifying potential top-tier professional wrestlers. Michaels stated “I think when we talk about feel, and timing. Timing and feel are probably, in my opinion, the two most important things in this business. You can get by with so much more if you have those two aspects. You can be a little short in athleticism, you can be a little short in psychology, you can be a little short in, I don’t know, overall knowledge of the game, so to speak. If you have timing and a real feel, because those are things that, I guess charisma plays a part in that. But if you have timing and feel, I feel like the charisma and all the other is going to sort of match that timing and feel, if that makes sense. I know sometimes when I talk about this, I know I don’t always make sense to a lot of people, but that’s the level that I’m at.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with the Cheap Heat podcast, Drew McIntyre gave his thoughts about his agreement that John Cena’s recent heel run was a wasted opportunity in WWE. McIntyre stated ““Yeah. Call it selfish all you want. I just know and I talked so much trash during the time because I know what he’s capable of, and it’s so much more and we’re seeing it right now. I don’t think it’s deliberate. I know it wasn’t deliberate… For Cena, a Cena two, three is a lot of people’s nine, 10. But, I just know how good he is, what he’s capable of and I ran my mouth, I talked trash because it was just quite frankly pissing me off watching it because I know how good he is. Now we’re seeing how good he is but what’s pissing me off now is it’s at the finish line and I might not get that opportunity so I need that title. I need to dangle that carrot or something in front of him that’s gonna make him pay attention and go, alright, maybe I go over here, and I’ll show Drew what’s up. I’ll tear him to shreds and I want him to because I want to be able to prove to the world I can stand on my own two feet with everybody just like I did with (CM) Punk, when he was gonna tear me to shreds on the mic, and absolutely eviscerated him to the point he was begging for his other tricep to get torn so he could get more time off so I would stop shredding him on the microphone…” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with ESPN, CM Punk gave his thoughts about what led to his wife AJ Lee’s recent return to WWE. Punk stated “The ball was always going to be in her court, it just needed to be a conversation. Timing was super important. Timing, in this business, is everything. And she’s so busy with everything else, that’s one of the bigger reasons why I just assumed, okay, ten years, it’s long gone. She has so many irons in so many different fires with production companies, so many different scripts, re-writes, and doing her own acting when it comes down the pipe. I just figured she’s too busy and it would never happen. I guess timing was everything in this instance.” (Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com)