WWE: Jordynne Grace Reportedly Joins Cast of “Welcome to Paradise” Fantasy Film, More on NXT July 1, 2025 Viewership, More News

Jul 5, 2025

Jordynne Grace Reportedly Joins Cast of “Welcome to Paradise” Film

Variety reported that WWE NXT talent Jordynne Grace recently joined the cast of the upcoming fantasy film Welcome To Paradise.

It was reported that this upcoming indie film is currently in post-production and is written and produced by Richard Summers-Calvert, also known as Charles Crowley in the European indies wrestling scene.

Film synopsis:

Richard Summers-Calvert (“Drive Me to the End”) is writing and directing the indie, which is currently in post-production. The surreal fantasy film blends psychological drama, dark comedy and mythic surrealism, centering on a mysterious carnival where winning may mean survival and losing could trap visitors in an alternate reality forever …
The story follows Lisa, who awakens on a mysterious beach with no memory. After meeting a creature who tells her she’s arrived at “The Carnival,” she discovers a vibrant venue populated by humans and magical beasts. There she meets Harvey, another lost soul, as they attempt to uncover the truth about their pasts and find redemption — though everything comes with a price.

“Some may doubt it could work, but that’s because they’ve never witnessed something like this in the flesh,” the helmer said. “This film has moments that people will have never seen, heard, or even dreamt before — and that’s what excites me most.”

It was also reported that this upcoming film is being produced by Crucible Films and Silent D Pictures and is currently planning a release for later this year.

More on WWE NXT July 1, 2025 Viewership

The July 1st episode of WWE NXT saw NXT suffer a very large decline in overall viewership and a slight decline in key demographic ratings.

NXT drew 627,000 viewers and a 0.15 key demographic rating on The CW.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the main reasons for NXT’s declines this week was due to a combination of the July 4th week holiday and the large declines from their Over 50 demographic viewership and older key demographic viewership groups, which their percentages were not given. This reportedly offset the increase from their younger key demographic viewership group, which was up 20% compared to last week’s show.

In terms of head-to-head competition, the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup game of Borussia Dortmund vs. Monterrey drew 446,000 viewers on TNT and 234,000 viewers on TUDN and the MLB game of Cleveland Guardians vs. Chicago Cubs drew 374,000 viewers on TBS, The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch drew 985,000 viewers on History Channel, The Valley drew 390,000 viewers on BRAVO, and Chopped drew 393,000 viewers on Food Network.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 200,000 viewers. Meltzer reported that NXT’s male/female viewership skew was 70% in favor of males.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was up 15.7% in overall viewership and up 3.1% in key demographic viewership.

WWE News & Notes

Friday’s taped WWE SmackDown show featured Solo Sikoa officially introducing Talla Tonga as the newest member of his group and also revealed that his group is no longer called The Bloodline and instead will be known as MFT (My Family Tree) going forward in WWE.

WWE recently announced that “Tombstone Town (Outlaw Country Remix)” by Lanie Gardner and Slash is the official theme song for their Evolution 2 event on July 13th in Atlanta, Georgia.

As noted before, WWE’s Women’s locker room had a mixed reaction to the announcement of a new all-women’s Evolution 2 event due to their issues with the timing of the announcement and July 13th date chosen. Sean Ross Sapp reported in a recent episode of Fightful’s The Hump podcast that several female talents spoken to stated that they felt that WWE had set up Evolution to fail for their unhappiness with how it has been put together. Those spoken to reportedly brought up the event taking place against AEW’s All In Texas weekend and MLB’s All-Star weekend and also being across the street from a Beyonce concert that night. Those spoken to reportedly felt that WWE hastily produced their plans for this event for the reason why they felt it was “set up” to fail.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported that the June 29th episode of WWE LFG on A&E drew a 0.02 or less rating for the reason why it failed to chart from Nielsen for that night’s cable television shows.

Dave Meltzer also reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that despite WWE officials dropping their plans for a match between Nikki Bella and Liv Morgan for Evolution 2 due to Morgan’s recent dislocated shoulder injury, his sources stated that Bella is still planned to be working at the event. Meltzer reported that prior to Morgan’s injury, Bella had been brought in for the June 23rd RAW show to shoot an angle where she would have likely costed Morgan her match against Kairi Sane to setup their match at Evolution.

WWE recently released one new video to their WCW Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was a singles match of Glacier vs. Wrath from WCW The Great American Bash 1997.

WWE also recently released three new videos to their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. The first new video was the full Yokozuna’s 4th of July Bodyslam Challenge on the USS Intrepid WWE event. The second new video was a “New Generation Superstar vignette BTS | Vader, Goldust, Razor Ramon and more.” The third new video was a Casket match of The Undertaker vs. King Mable from WWE In Your House 5.

In a recent interview with Complex, John Cena gave his thoughts about why he believes Dave Bautista is the greatest wrestler turned actor. Cena stated “I did enjoy No Holds Barred and They Live. So, Roddy Piper, maybe. Hulk Hogan. I’m going to give respect where respect is earned. Dave Bautista. The dude has range. Now has transformed his whole body. So the stuff he’s about to do, look out for Dave Bautista. The stuff he’s already done is incredible. But as far as, like, wrestler turned actor with the range, you know me. I’m just Dick Jones. That’s it. Dave’s got range.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast, AEW official Christopher Daniels gave his thoughts about the longtime rumor that he was meant to be revealed as the Higher Power during The Undertaker’s feud with Stone Cole Steve Austin in 1997. Daniels stated “I didn’t hear this until years later.” Daniels also gave his thoughts about if there was any truth to the rumors of him portraying the role. Daniels stated “Maybe, but it was never anything that they told me, and honestly, it was a terrible idea anyway. Because the idea would have been Undertaker is answering to this higher power, and then I unmask, and it’s me, and it’s like, Who the f*ck is this guy? It’s sort of like what was going on in my first WCW contract as well. When I first signed with WCW, they had an idea, the way they described it to me was, if Vampiro is Darth Vader, you’re the Emperor. And I was like, Okay. But also, at this point, Vampiro was feuding with Sting, and I was an unknown indie guy, so whatever the reveal was gonna be at that point was gonna be a letdown to me. And so I thought, Okay, we’ll do this. I remember going to WCW one day, cutting this promo backstage with Vampiro, I’ve got this hood, and they’re talking to me, like, ‘All right, talk about harvesting souls and things like that.’ I’m like, okay. So I cut this promo. We get it live, and then I’m back in the locker room, and it comes on live Nitro, and we watch it. And as soon as it’s done, Jeff Jarrett, who happens to be there, and I haven’t really even met Jeff at this point, goes, ‘Who the f*ck was that?!’ And I was like, ‘That’s me sir.’ Then that flopped so quickly that they didn’t go forward with that idea. Then I was just under contract with WCW. I was traveling with them for like, four months, and then they let me go. That was the first contract that I had with them that ended like, JJ Dillon called me, is like, hey, you’re not wrestling a whole lot for us. And I was like, Well, you’re not booking me, so that’s why. It’s not like I’m wasting your money on purpose, sir. But they let me go.” Daniels also gave his thoughts about when he first found out about the rumor. Daniels stated “It came out on the internet. I think maybe Bruce Prichard mentioned it? But yeah, everyone was like, ‘Christopher Daniels was almost the higher power.’ I was like, was he though? I don’t think that’s true. I think maybe it was discussed because I had been going to do WWE dark matches as an extra, and Jim Cornette was always sort of high on trying to get me there early on when the light heavyweight thing was a thing, and they knew I was doing the fallen angel. So I think they thought, Oh, well, maybe this is something that we could use him as. But honestly, I think once Vince saw me, and, you know, I’m 5 10 and this is the time when everybody is six feet something, it’s like, we can do better. And I was like, that makes sense.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

WWE announced the current card for next week’s WWE SmackDown show on July 11th in Nashville, Tennessee:

WWE Tag Team Championship – The Wyatt Sicks (Dexter Lumis & Erick Rowan) vs. The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins & Montez Ford) (c)
R-Truth vs. Aleister Black
Jelly Roll to appear