WWE: Reason For Very Short R-Truth vs. Aleister Black Match at 7/11 WWE SmackDown Show, Backstage Update on NBC Cutting Short Broadcast of Goldberg’s Post-Match Retirement Speech at 7/12 WWE SNME Show, More News

Jul 15, 2025

Backstage Update on Reason For Very Short R-Truth vs. Aleister Black Match at July 11th WWE SmackDown Show

This past Friday’s WWE SmackDown show featured R-Truth defeating Aleister Black in a very short match that went a little over two minutes in length.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that the reason for R-Truth and Black’s very short match was due to their match time being drastically cut due to issues involving the previous segment involving Jelly Roll, Logan Paul, Randy Orton, and Drew McIntyre going much longer than initially planned. WWE officials reportedly made the decision on the fly to cut the time from R-Truth and Black’s match to make up for the show running longer than expected at that point.

One source within WWE described the situation as a “necessary evil” and the short match should not have been seen as a knock on either Truth or Black. Johnson reported that WWE officials original plans were for the match to be more even than the one-sided nature of Truth winning. Johnson also reported that the finish of the match remained the same as originally planned.

Johnson reported that the backstage reaction to the very short match had surprised a lot of people over how strong Truth had been pushed in recent weeks since his return and the planned push for Black. Those spoken to reportedly stated that the very short match was not a sign of either of those things being dropped.

Backstage Update on NBC Cutting Short Broadcast of Goldberg’s Post-Match Retirement Speech at July 12th WWE SNME Show

As noted before, this past Saturday’s WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event show in Atlanta, Georgia was notable for Gunther defeating Goldberg to retain his WWE World Heavyweight Championship for Goldberg’s retirement match. This show was also notable for NBC cutting into the post-match retirement festivities due to them airing an ad and then quickly cutting off Goldberg’s retirement speech due to the show’s hard out time.

Fightful Select reported that their sources confirmed that WWE had a “hard out” for the show’s runtime for the reason why NBC abruptly cut the broadcast to the show for Goldberg’s post-match speech.

Those spoken to reportedly stated that this was not an intentional slight and many people within WWE felt bad about how it transpired.

It was reported that at least high-level WWE official personally apologized to Goldberg for the error. It was also reported that WWE officials quickly made plans to make Goldberg’s full speech available to the public.

WWE News & Notes

Monday’s WWE RAW show in Birmingham, Alabama featured Nikkie Bella defeating Chelsea Green in a singles match. This was Bella’s first televised singles match in WWE since October of 2018.

Monday’s WWE RAW show in Birmingham also featured Roman Reigns making his surprise return. Following his appearance, WWE released new Roman Reigns Tribal Chief Replica WWE Championship belts for sale on their online WWEShop for $599.99 each. WrestleVotes reported that this was the new title belt that was originally planned to be presented to Reigns after his Tribal Combat match against Solo Sikoa at the RAW Netflix premiere show prior to WWE officials dropping those plans this past December.

Monday’s WWE RAW show also featured the announcement of the July 16th episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be featuring musician Jelly Roll as the special guest host and Randy Orton as a special guest. PWInsider’s Dave Scherer reported that his sources within WWE confirmed that a storyline angle will be taking place at this upcoming show for the build of Orton and Jelly Roll’s match against Logan Paul and Drew McIntyre at SummerSlam 2025. Scherer reported that one of the sources spoken to had told him “What do you think dumbass?” when he asked the question.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that Kiana James and former WWE wrestler Cherry were in attendance backstage at this past Sunday’s Evolution 2 event in Atlanta, Georgia.

WWE recently released three new videos for their on-going Top 25 SummerSlam matches of all-time countdown. The #19 spot was the singles match of Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker from SummerSlam 2015. The #18 spot was the WWE World Heavyweight Championship TLC match of CM Punk vs. Jeff Hardy (c) from SummerSlam 2009. The #17 spot was the WWE Championship match of Kurt Angle vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin (c) from SummerSlam 2001.

WWE also recently released one new video to their WCW Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was the full May 5, 1997 episode of WCW Nitro.

WWE also recently released three new videos to their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. The first new video was a “Best of Rick Rude | 3 HOURS of full matches vs. Ultimate Warrior, Sting and more!” The second new video was a tag team match of Stephen Amell & Neville vs. Stardust & King Barrett from WWE SummerSlam 2015. The third new video was the full “DDP: Positively Living” documentary.

In a recent interview with Fightful’s In The Weeds podcast, indies and AEW/ROH talent Blake Christian gave his thoughts about the past rumors of WWE officials had plans for him at one point to be a masked wrestler in the company. Christian stated “I believe we were setting it up for a little while. I had just wrestled Dante Chen and there was a backstage and I was like, ‘Superhero, huh?’ They approached me when I first went and they were like, ‘We want this type of character.’ I’m open-minded for anything. Then, it didn’t happen. When (NXT) 2.0 came around they were like, ‘We’re going to do it now. This is a perfect character for this show.’ I came up with a suit design and a name. It just didn’t happen. Well, it did happen, but it didn’t happen with me.” Christian also gave his thoughts about WWE’s original plans for the Axiom character was for him to be the person under the mask. Christian stated “I was supposed to be, yes. I came up with all the stuff. I think the person they gave it to is great and he’s done a great job, maybe even better than I could have done. I’m happy to see it still alive and doing as well as it’s doing.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with SHAK Wrestling, Raquel Rodriguez recently gave her thoughts about recent comments from WWE Hall of Famer Kevin Nash about his issues with her “working small” and make herself small instead of selling big as a tall wrestler in WWE’s Women’s division. Rodriguez stated “If that’s coming from Kevin Nash, I fully take that to heart. If he thinks I’m working too small, Mr. Nash, sir, with all due respect, I’m gonna start working bigger, and I hope you are able to tune in some more and watch Raquel Rodriguez grow and get a little bit bigger every single time because if anybody knows how to be a cool guy, if anybody knows how to be (a) strong, big guy, it’s Kevin Nash. He set the bar for us.” Rodriguez also gave her thoughts about her being receptive to criticism and critiques about her wrestling work. Rodriguez stated “I think that’s what’s kind of kept me going for so long is seeing the glass half full because no matter what, everybody’s gonna have their opinions, everyone’s gonna have their criticisms. I think it’s great to take criticisms with a grain of salt. Take ‘em for what they are. Be respectful to know that, hey, someone else is watching your craft and they’re taking time of their day to criticize you on what you’re doing. That’s kind of a compliment. Kevin Nash has better things to than watch a Raquel Rodriguez match and tell her that she’s working too small but, for him to do that and to go out of his time, I fully respect that and I will fully take that criticism to heart and it’s definitely something that I know I am personally working on at that moment. There’s some things that have happened that I feel have helped me step out of my shell a little bit more. But it’s definitely on the rise for sure. This attitude, I feel like, yeah, she’s new, she’s fresh but she’s just feeling very confident these days and so, I’m just very excited to share all of my opinions and to get more feedback like that. If everyone, from Kevin Nash to Ric Flair to any of our other history-making WWE Hall of Famers wanna give me critiques, I will happily take it, please, thank you.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)