Another Released WWE Star ‘Likely’ Returning, Drew McIntyre Injured, WWE Draft Date – News Bulletin – August 15, 2022

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Another released WWE star is “likely” to make a return, Drew McIntyre is injured, some news on the WWE Draft date, and more.

It’s Monday morning and what better way to start the week than getting caught up on all the latest wrestling news – I’m Liam Winnard for WrestleTalk.com, and this is our news bulletin for August 15, 2022.

Another Released WWE Star ‘Likely’ To Return

Ashante ‘Thee’ Adonis, Top Dolla and B-Fab of Hit Row were the latest released WWE stars to be rehired by Triple H as they made their return this past Friday on SmackDown, adding them to the list that so far also includes Dakota Kai, Karrion Kross & Scarlett, and Dexter Lumis.

Don’t expect it to stop there though, because Fightful Select recently reported the returns won’t be stopping “any time soon”.

One of the names that has always come up about potentially returning is Bray Wyatt, but there was a lot of skepticism about that from many people at first.

However, it really does seem like there may be some fuel to the fire, because following Fightful’s report about people in WWE believing a Wyatt return is more likely now that Vince is gone, Wade Keller of PWTorch provided an update of his own.

Keller said that Wyatt will “likely” be back in WWE, which if you couple that with Fightful’s report that the returns aren’t going to be slowing down, certainly does suggest it may be on the cards.

Drew McIntyre Injured

The main event of Clash at the Castle in Cardiff, Wales on September 3 is set to be Drew McIntyre challenging Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, but McIntyre looks to have suffered a setback.

PWInsider reported that McIntyre has been pulled from WWE house shows to rest up a back issue. This may sound familiar as McIntyre was dealing with a back issue earlier in the year and it was reported he was planned to get some time off, but it never really seemed like that actually happened.

Well, it looks like now is the time, as McIntyre wasn’t on house shows this past weekend. The house show main events have been McIntyre teaming with the Street Profits against Sheamus and the Usos, but with McIntyre out, his spot was filled by Madcap Moss.

The good news is that McIntyre is still expected to make Clash at the Castle, and honestly, I think he would make sure he wrestled on this show even if all of his limbs fell off.

As a side note, McIntyre teased on Twitter that he could bring back his Broken Dreams entrance music for Clash at the Castle too.

Potential WWE Draft Date

An update has emerged on possible dates for the 2022 edition of the WWE Draft.

Fightful Select reported that there are several Raw stars scheduled to be at the September 9 episode of SmackDown, and there are several SmackDown stars scheduled to be at the September 5 and 12 episodes of WWE Raw.

While it isn’t officially confirmed that these are the draft dates, WWE talent aware of the schedule have been speculating that this is the case and that’s what the interbrand mingling will lead to.

The report also added that there are “other things” that have led talent to believe the draft will be shortly after Clash at the Castle, which is of course September 3.

So basically, talent haven’t been made aware of the draft dates or anything like that, but they’ve pieced some clues together and they believe it’ll be shortly after Clash at the Castle.

Other Stuff

In other little bits of news…

The story that perhaps got the most outrage from the weekend, WrestleVotes reported that Vince McMahon wanted to bury Gunther due to something that happened on the Fourth of July episode of Raw where Gunther had a match with R-Truth. In a huge contrast to that, Gunther was involved in a very highly praised Intercontinental Title match with Shinsuke Nakamura in the main event of SmackDown this past Friday.

In updates on AEW contracts, Dave Meltzer noted in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the Young Bucks and Adam Page’s deals come up at the end of 2023. MJF’s contract “in theory” is the same, but everyone has been quiet about his status. And Kenny Omega’s would be up in February 2024, but it’s possible that he’ll have the time he’s been out injured added to the end of it.

Meltzer also reported that there have been “no complications” so far in Cody Rhodes’ road to recovery from a torn pec. Also, WWE is currently working on documentaries for both Cody Rhodes and Dusty Rhodes.

After Angel of Los Lotharios teased on Twitter that he could soon be Angel Garza again, Meltzer reported in the WON that Humberto is also expected to get his surname back and be Humberto Carrillo.

The WON also mentioned that there is “uneasiness” backstage in NXT UK as the last set of tapings was cancelled because BT Sport Studios was being used for football (soccer) instead. PWInsider later added that there are currently no tapings scheduled on the calendar.

According to the WON, more than 10,000 combo tickets for both nights and about 1,000 individual tickets for each night were sold during the WrestleMania 39 pre-sale. The individual tickets were said to be a “ridiculous” price.

Speaking on Talk Is Jericho, Goldberg’s latest comment about Bret Hart was that he’s “done” apologizing. He’s apologized “a million times” and Hart has never accepted the apology, so Goldberg says he’s moved on now.

On the After The Bell podcast, Zoey Stark said that she did some work as a producer in NXT while she was injured. This isn’t exactly a rare thing for injured NXT talents to do and many have done it in the past while injured, just as an opportunity to keep developing even while they can’t physically wrestle, and learn other sides of the business.

Doudrop said in an interview that she’s had talks with Triple H about potentially changing her name again, but she said she doesn’t mind either way –  it just depends on how different Triple H’s vision is to Vince’s vision. As silly as the name Doudrop is and it was when it started, I think you can definitely make the argument she’s made it work, which is really a testament to how great she is.

Even though he doesn’t currently have a match announced, Finn Balor said that he is scheduled to be at Clash at the Castle, so it definitely seems like he’ll have a match added to the card – which will likely be some form of Judgment Day vs Edge/the Mysterios.

After he picked up a win on Friday’s AEW Rampage, Parker Boudreaux was officially announced as “All Elite”. Fightful Select later reported that Ari Daivari is also under a full-time deal with AEW. Anthony Henry is also signed with AEW, but it’s not known whether it’s full-time or a tiered deal. And despite having been on both ROH shows under Tony Khan, Cheeseburger actually isn’t under contract.

Speaking with NBC Sports, Rob Van Dam said that he would be interested in making a return to WWE if the company wanted him to do something.

After months of great matches in AEW, Konosuke Takeshita announced that he’s leaving the United States and heading back to Japan. Chris Jericho responded by labeling Takeshita as a future world champion.

And set for tonight’s Raw are the return of Riddle, Bobby Lashley defending the US Title against AJ Styles, and Nikki ASH & Doudrop vs Alexa Bliss & Asuka in the Women’s Tag Title tournament.

Be sure to stay tuned to WrestleTalk.com throughout the day to keep up with all the news from the world of pro-wrestling, and I’ll see you Monday morning for another round-up.

If you’re in the UK but didn’t manage to get tickets to Clash at the Castle on September 3, WrestleTalk is hosting a watch party at The Joiner on Worship in Shoreditch, London, and we’d love for you to join us! Click here for more details.

• audio news bulletin
• WWE Draft
• Bray Wyatt
• Drew McIntyre

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