WWE: Drew McIntyre WWE Contract Status Update, Cody Rhodes on Seth Rollins’ Shoulder Injury at Crown Jewel Perth, & WWE’s Current Approach to Injuries, More News

Drew McIntyre WWE Contract Status Update

As noted before, Drew McIntyre signed a new multi-year contract extension with WWE this past April.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that McIntyre’s current contract with WWE runs into 2028.

Those spoken to reportedly stated that McIntyre is currently expected to remain with WWE until at least WrestleMania 44 in 2028.

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Cody Rhodes Comments on Seth Rollins’ Shoulder Injury at Crown Jewel Perth, & WWE’s Current Approach to Injuries

A recent episode of the All The Smoke podcast featured Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Rhodes’ thoughts about him competing with a torn pectoral injury for his Hell in a Cell match against Seth Rollins in 2022 and how he took very little pain medication for it.

“WWE is very adamant about there is no substance abuse in this company anymore. None. The 80s are over. We’ve got to be healthy, we’ve got to be clean. So people ask all the time, if I had any pain medication or anything of that nature. I had four baby Aspirin because they didn’t even have regular Advil.

I remember at the time being told, ‘Hey, if you’re in pain we are going to stop it. There is nothing to prove here.’

I’m walking this tight rope the whole match not sure if they are just going to ring the bell. But Seth was the perfect person to be in there with me. And the crazy thing about this photo is Seth Rollins and I recently wrestled at Crown Jewel and Seth finally beat me.”

Rhodes also gave his thoughts about Seth Rollins suffering a shoulder injury during their Men’s Crown Jewel Championship match at this past October’s Crown Jewel Perth event.

“I want to say he tore his rotator cuff. We don’t have an actual answer on what’s with Seth. I know he’s gone under the knife and got surgery so at this point real, not real, however you look at the industry, him and I aren’t good for each other.

We don’t need to wrestle ever again. He’s lost his shoulder. That was the first major injury I ever had. But I was glad to be in the ring with him that night. It was special.”

Rhodes also gave his thoughts about WWE’s current approach to injuries.

“We don’t power through anymore. That might have been the very last example of ‘Hey, let’s power through.’

You just have more athlete-conscious people today.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com

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WWE News & Notes

WWE held two dark matches prior to the start of Tuesday’s WWE NXT show at the Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. One of the matches was Mike Derudder, former Mike D Vecchio in the indies, making his official WWE in-ring debut in a singles match against Drake Morreuax, which was won by Morreaux.

WWE filed a new trademark for “Skylar Raye” on November 3rd for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes to the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This was revealed to be the new ring name for WWE LFG Season Two winner Dani Sekelsky going forward in the company.

As noted before, Naomi has been out of action for WWE since this past August due to her being on maternity leave for her current pregnancy. Naomi provided an update on Tuesday on Twitter showing off the current size of her baby bump.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that two “major” WWE names have recently joined the cast for the upcoming new Zootopia 2 animated film for Disney. Johnson reported that the identifies of these two WWE talents will not be revealed until next week’s world premiere of the animated film in Hollywood. Johnson reported that these two WWE talents voice two zebras characters in the film.

European indies wrestler and WWE developmental signee Nathan Cranton recently revealed on Twitter that he will be going by the new ring name of Nathan Angel in WWE going forward.

2K Games recently released a first look video at the playable Jesse Ventura character for the upcoming Saturday Night’s Main Event DLC pack for their WWE 2K25 video game. This final DLC pack for the game is currently scheduled to be released on November 12th.

WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque recently announced that all profits generated from the Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest’s version of “War Pigs” will be donated to The Glenn Tipton Parkinson’s Foundation and Cure Parkinson’s in honor of the late Osbourne. “War Pigs” is the official theme song for this year’s Survivor Series WarGames event.

WWE recently released one new video to their WCW Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was the full July 27, 1998 episode of WCW Nitro.

WWE also recently released five new videos to their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. The first new video was a “Classic John Cena Full Match Marathon | Cena vs. Orton, Batista, Undertaker and more!” The second new video was a WWE Championship Triple Threat match of Shawn Michaels vs. Kurt Angle vs. John Cena (c) from WWE Taboo Tuesday 2005. The third new video was the full November 6, 1983 Omni event for Georgia Championship Wrestling. The fourth new video was a WWE Championship 60-Minute Anything Goes Iron Man match of John Cena vs. Randy Orton (c) from WWE Bragging Rights 2009. The fifth new video was a “John Cena’s non-World Title Championship wins | Team-ups with Batista, HBK, Otunga and MORE!”

In a recent interview with the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast, Grayson Waller gave his thoughts about the advice John Cena gave to him in 2023 that stuck with him and changed his perspective a lot for his wrestling career. Waller stated “I think the WWE roster right now is the most stacked it’s ever been. I’m on Raw. You got Punk, you got The Usos, you got LA Knight, now you got Bron and Bronson. You got Roman when he comes around. That’s not even taking into account, AJ, Dom Mysterio, Penta’s here now. It’s so stacked. So the guys you’re competing with now are the top of the top. So they’re the kind of guys that I’m trying to take on. So obviously, right now, I’m doing some stuff with The New Day, which is super fun, best tag team of all time, but I know I’m just going to get in the best shape I can. Every time I get an opportunity, I’m going to show out. I’m going to do whatever it takes when the opportunity is there, I’m going to steal it, I’m going to take it, I’m going to run with it, but I just got to wait for that chance and it’s coming. It’s all about patience. Sometimes you get in your head and you’re like, maybe I wasn’t on Raw today. Oh man, they don’t like me, I suck, whatever it is, and that’s not what it is. It’s just like, it’s not your chance tonight, dude. Your chance is coming and you just got to wait. I think some people fumble the bag stressing about that time period where you kind of sit and wait. But the end of the day, we get paid to travel well and do these cool things. I think my perspective has changed a lot. There was actually, would you like me to put over John Cena for a moment? I hate saying nice things about John. Maybe two years ago, where I was kind of freshly on SmackDown, he did a locker room thing. We had a little meeting. We had to talk about some stuff. He got up and he said something that really stuck with me, where he talked about, ‘You don’t have to do the Netflix break promo. You don’t have to wrestle before the show, you don’t have to do the dark match, you get to.’ It’s like, you get three minutes to say whatever you want on Netflix. You get to wrestle before the show when they’re the hottest, when they’re the most excited, and you get to wrestle another great Superstar. And when he said that, it changed my perspective a little bit. Who are we to complain about it? I have mates at home who would literally give everything in their life to wrestle before Raw. Who am I to go, oh man, I gotta wrestle, I hated that I even possibly thought those things. So once he said that, that changed everything for me. And I look at everything as anything you give me, you give me 30 seconds backstage, I’m stealing that. I’m going to make sure people online are going to re-share the 30 seconds that I have. I’m going to make sure whatever moment I have is going to be something. That’s the mindset I think you have to have.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)