WWE NXT Ring Announcer Called Up To SmackDown
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WWE NXT’s Samantha Irvin has been called up to the main roster.
Last night’s SmackDown from Omaha saw Irvin make her official blue brand debut. WWE has had Mike Rome working RAW and SmackDown since Greg Hamilton was released back in November, but now Irvin has been brought up as a permanent member of the team.
As seen in the video below, Megan Morant interviewed Irvin before SmackDown and welcomed her to the team.
“Megan, it’s a dream come true,” Irvin said of the opportunity. “Literally, it is a dream come true. I’m over the moon, I can’t believe it.”
Morant noted how Irvin is now a member of the SmackDown team along with Michael Cole, Pat McAfee, Kayla Braxton and herself. She asked if any of these people have given Irvin any pointers or advice.
“Michael Cole has been so supportive,” Irvin said. “Everyone’s been supportive, and they’ve made me feel like this is where I belong, and just to be myself, and to have fun, and do what I’ve always wanted to do, which is to announce here at the WWE for Friday Night SmackDown.”
WWE hired Irvin (real name Samantha Johnson) back in April 2021, and since then she has worked NXT and WWE 205 Live shows. Before coming to WWE she was a semi-finalist on America’s Got Talent, and also appeared on FOX’s I Can See Your Voice.
Irvin is in a relationship with SmackDown Superstar Ricochet.
Stay tuned for more. You can see video and photos from last night’s debut below:
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Johnny Gargano Calls WWE NXT 2.0 Star “A Diamond”
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Johnny Gargano admits WWE’s NXT brand “definitely needed a little bit of a kick” before it underwent a dramatic reboot. WWE relaunched the brand as NXT 2.0 last September, with a new on-air look and a younger, less-experienced roster.
“Like anything in wrestling, things change all the time,” Gargano told ComicBook.com. “Things constantly evolve.”
Johnny Gargano is currently a free agent with his WWE contract expiring late last year. Now watching from outside the company, Gargano thinks NXT is moving in a positive direction.
“I feel like they’re incredibly happy with how things are going,” Gargano explained. “And you have to be happy with how some of those guys have already developed on, in front of your very own eyes.”
Johnny Gargano says he’s been impressed by the new NXT Champion Bron Breakker. Breakker won the title from Tommaso Ciampa earlier this month in the main event of NXT’s New Year’s Evil special.
“Bron Breakker’s a guy that I think I mention all the time,” Gargano said. “You can pay people to learn how to wrestle, right? You can pay people to do this, but you can’t pay someone to genuinely love it or you can’t pay people to want to be better at it. There’s one thing to say, ‘Okay, teach me how to do a wrist lock’ and you’re going to pay me to do that and I’m going to learn the wrist lock and that’s all I’m going to do.
“It’s another thing to genuinely want to be better and when you find someone who has both those qualities where they want to be better and they are getting better, that’s a diamond. I feel like Bron Breakker is a diamond. There’s so many people I can name that I feel like are really taking advantage of the opportunities they’re given right now but Bron is definitely one of them that I believe in.”
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Backstage News On Changes To WWE NXT’s Creative Team
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WWE has reportedly made changes to the creative team setup in regards to NXT 2.0. According to PWInsider.com, things will be getting switched around internally with the third brand continuing to evolve. These alterations come following the recent releases.
WWE cut several long-term employees during the latest batch of cuts. The focus was more behind the scenes than in-ring talent, although Samoa Joe was released as well. The company let go of Gabe Sapolsky, William Regal, and Road Dogg during the re-shuffle.
Moving forward, the WWE NXT creative team will not operate independently, as it has done in the past. Previously, Paul Levesque oversaw things with his own team, which was separate from everything else in WWE. However, that is no longer the case.
Instead, the team will now work under Bruce Prichard and Christine Lubrano. Decisions will be reported to them, with WWE looking to streamline the operation to be consistent with how the Raw and SmackDown creative departments work.
Johnny Russo (no relation to Vince Russo) will be heading up WWE NXT’s writing team, working under Prichard and Lubrano. He originally joined WWE in the fall of 2011, and has been involved with the main roster from 2015-2018. However, he does also have experience with NXT, working within the creative department for the black and gold brand since August 2019.
Russo has also been working as the lead writer for the show since July 2020 and therefore knows how things work. Elsewhere on the creative team, Dewey Foley, who is the son of Hall Of Famer, Mick Foley, will remain on the team. He has been working on the 205 Live product as well.
Meanwhile, Anthony Golden Jr. will also still be on the NXT creative team. He joined WWE in March 2020 and has a background in theatre, while he also boasts a Master’s in Film and Television production.
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First team qualifies for men’s WWE NXT Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic
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The first team has been announced for the 2022 men’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic.
Malik Blade and Edris Enofe defeated Joe Gacy and Harland on tonight’s episode of WWE NXT to qualify for the tournament.
Blade and Enofe won their match via disqualification, as Harland was disqualified for failing to yield to the referee’s five count as he hit Blade with strikes in the corner. As a result, Blade and Enofe became the first teams to enter the 2022 Dusty Classic field.
This year’s men’s and women’s Dusty Classic tournaments were announced on last week’s episode of NXT. The men’s tournament begins next week, while the women’s tournament will begin in February.
Matches from the 2021 men’s and women’s Dusty Classics were held both on NXT and on 205 Live, with both sets of winners crowned on the NXT TakeOver: Vengeance Day pay-per-view. MSK captured the men’s Dusty Cup, while Raquel Gonzalez and Dakota Kai won the inaugural women’s edition of the tournament.
John Cena Talks Heel Turn; WWE Rumors on Royal Rumble Surprises and NXT 2.0 Creative
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Source: WWE.com
Bleacher Report catches you up on the latest news from the WWE Universe.
WWE Discussed Cena Heel Turn in 2012
One of the biggest matches in WWE history nearly resulted in what would have been one of the most crucial decisions of John Cena’s career.
Appearing on The Pat McAfee Show (h/t Marc Middleton of Wrestling Inc.), Cena recalled a discussion he had with Vince McMahon leading up to WrestleMania XXVIII in 2012 about possibly turning heel for his first one-on-one match with The Rock:
I remember Vince toying with the idea of possibly turning me heel for The Rock, The Rock I in Miami, and I told him, like, ‘Hey, no problem, 100% I’ll do it, but just remember that this is so… we’re so deep in at this point, we can’t do it and then jump back because we’ll be sunk at both ends, so if we do it, I have to be the opposite of virtue, I have to be pure evil and we have to go all in.’
Cena noted that McMahon decided against the heel turn, and “at that point, he was like, ‘Listen, I don’t think we’re ever gonna do it.'”
WWE did try to make Cena more of a shades-of-gray character instead of the pure babyface he had been for so many years during the build to the natch.
It ultimately paid off, with WWE.com announcing after the event that WrestleMania XXVIII generated 1.3 million pay-per-view buys.
Per Wrestlenomics.com, the only WWE pay-per-view that has done more buys worldwide was WrestleMania 23.
Fans speculated for years about a possible Cena heel turn, but it never came to be. While fans often booed him at shows, there was never a good time to turn him when WWE never had another top babyface to take over that spot.
Latest Rumors on Possible Royal Rumble Surprises
WWE has already announced most of the competitors in both the men’s and women’s Royal Rumble, but there are still a few open spots in both matches.
Per PWInsider.com (h/t Middleton), WWE is planning on using former superstars Melina and Cameron in the women’s Royal Rumble.
There are 19 confirmed participants in the women’s Rumble match. Charlotte Flair, Rhea Ripley, Nikki A.S.H, Nikki Bella, Brie Bella, Natalya, Michelle McCool, Dana Brooke, Carmella, Queen Zelina Vega, Mickie James, Tamina Snuka, Kelly Kelly, Aliyah, Summer Rae, Naomi, Shayna Baszler and Lita have been announced by WWE.
Melina and Cameron would bring the total up to 21, leaving nine vacant spots.
Melina is currently working for Impact Wrestling. She had a seven-year stint in WWE from 2004 to 2011, winning the divas championship twice and women’s title three times.
Cameron, who worked for WWE from 2011 to 2016, had a one-off match in AEW last year in the women’s tag team cup tournament. She was paired with Nyla Rose, but they were eliminated in the first round by Anna Jay and Tay Conti.
It’s interesting to see how many non-full-time WWE Superstars are being used in the women’s Royal Rumble. Some of it is due to injuries, with Bayley and Sasha Banks unable to compete right now.
But it also speaks to how little effort WWE has been putting into its women’s division. Outside of Flair and Becky Lynch, there isn’t anyone who is being pushed.
Bianca Belair is the most likely candidate to challenge Lynch at WrestleMania given how she dropped the title at SummerSlam. The EST of WWE has not yet been announced for the match, but she would seem like the favorite right now if she participates.
WWE Making Changes to NXT 2.0 Creative
Following last week’s announcement that several key members of NXT 2.0’s creative team have been released by WWE, the short- and long-term creative direction of the brand are still being figured out.
Per PWInsider.com (h/t Matthew Wilkinson of Wrestling, Inc.), the current NXT 2.0 creative team will now report to WWE senior vice president Bruce Prichard and senior vice president of creative writing operations Christine Lubrano.
NXT previously operated as its own creative group, with Paul “Triple H” Levesque in charge of the show.
Triple H has been away from his role in creative since September after undergoing heart surgery.
Per an official statement from WWE.com, Triple H had surgery “following a cardiac event.”
WWE rebranded the show into NXT 2.0 on Sept. 14. It became a true developmental brand with most of the wrestlers being very young, but they do work with several veteran holdovers like Tommaso Ciampa, Roderick Strong and Pete Dunne.
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