Welcome to another edition of Knotfest Wrestling. Tons of news from the weekend to get to today, including the official announcement of a new series from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, the producers of Vice's Dark Side of the Ring, and the latest on Triple H's new signings in WWE.
But first off, did you know that Knotfest Wrestling goes live on Youtube every Monday at 7pm eastern, 4pm pacific with hosts Alicia Atout, Colin Young, and Jordan Olds talking about all the latest wrestling happenings. Last night, they discussed Triple H's recent signings. Take a look:
The Rock Launches New Show on Vice with Creators of Dark Side of the Ring
While we might not be getting new Dark Side of the Ring episodes this year, we will be getting a new series from the creators that looks significantly more fun but still with the same high-quality production we expect from the duo.
Vice TV announced "Tales from the Territories" will premiere on Vice TV at 10 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, October 4. The show is produced by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's Seven Bucks Productions and Dark Side of the Ring's Evan Husney & Jason Eisener. Chavo Guerrero Jr. is involved with the series as a co-executive producer.
“We’re incredibly excited to expand the ‘Dark Side of the Ring’ series with this first-ever exploration of the hidden past of wrestling’s Wild West era, with a dream collaborator in Dwayne Johnson, who has such deep family roots in the history of the business," Husney and Eisener said. “We can’t wait to showcase the fascinating stories of the pioneers who set the stage for wrestling’s worldwide pop culture dominance.”
The trailer makes it seem like the show will be pretty can't miss.
For those not familiar with the old-school wrestling territories, here's a great map from The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling.
What happened on Raw?
The show kicked off revealing the brackets for the Women's Tag Title Tournament. Here are the first-round matches:
- IYO SKY & Dakota Kai vs. Tamina & Dana Brooke
- Alexa Bliss & Asuka vs. Nikki ASH and Doudrop
- Raquel Rodriguez & Aliyah vs. Xia Li & Shotzi
- Nikkita Lyons & Zoey Stark vs. Natalya & Sonya Deville
Based on who is in the tournament, I predict Dakota Kai and Iyo Skye will win.
Elsewhere, Seth Rollins continued to tease an upcoming match with Riddle, after defeating Angelo Dawkins of Street Profits. The Judgement Day continued their feud with Edge, Rey and Dominick Mysterio, with Dominick attacked again by Rhea Ripley and showing some dissent from his father. Dexter Lumis returned to WWE, stalking AJ Styles after his match. There was also an ongoing narrative in all the backstage segments that there was some sort of car crash in the background that might be linked to Lumis.
Also, Kevin Owens stretchered out Ezekiel and seems to be teasing a return to his more brutal previous persona.
AEW Dynamite Preview
Dynamite has a loaded card tomorrow at 8pm on TBS. Don't forget, we'll be going live with a post-show immediately after it's over on the KNOTFEST Instagram page.
Here is the lineup:
- AEW World Championship: Jon Moxley (c) vs. Chris Jericho
- TBS Championship: Jade Cargill (c) vs. Madison Rayne
- Coffin Match: Darby Allin vs. Brody King
- Tornado Tag Match: Lucha Bros vs. Andrade El Idolo & Rush
- Ricky Starks vs. Aaron Solo
- FTR will appear.
The latest news...
WWE Royal Rumble 2023 is expected to be in San Antonio, according to PWInsider.
Karrion Kross, with Scarlett, will be positioned as the #2 heel on Smackdown, behind Roman Reigns, according to PWInsider. There are currently no plans for Scarlett to wrestle, but she is available to do so, should it be needed for storyline purposes.
Video game fans, 2k Games revealed they will be working on WWE2k23 to release by March of next year, according to SEScoops.
There's a reason you haven't seen Malakai Black wrestling lately. He was dealing with an unexplainable back injury that he recently was able to recover from. Black wrote on social media "Till about 3 months ago I was dealing with a back injury. I was convinced was going to force me into retirement but after literally a year of treatment that went from working to complete failure on several occasions we all of a sudden hit the correct vertebrae during a dry needling session and everything released. From there we were able to rehab and strengthen."
There are more rumblings that Johnny Gargano may be returning to WWE. Shawn Michaels has reportedly been in contact with him, according to Fightful Select.
New Japan's Kota Ibushi teased he was interested in visiting AEW and teaming with former Golden Lovers tag team partner Kenny Omega during a recent Twitter response to a fan.
Sammy Guevara and Tay Conti got married during a ceremony this weekend. Tony Khan, Amanda Huber and her family, Shawn Dean, Nikki ASH, were among the wrestlers in attendance. Here is a cute video of the bride and groom posing with their boss, Tony Khan.
Jay White will be missing the next two New Japan G1 shows due to "heat-stroke-like symptoms." He won't be missing any tournament matches during the two shows. His next scheduled match is against Tama Tonga (a big one for storyline reasons) on August 16. Hopefully, White will be recovered by then. His health obviously comes first.
I'll be back later in the week with a weekend wrestling preview and the rest of the news.
You can always follow me @robinjection on Instagram and Twitter and @Squaredcirclpit
