Claudio Castagnoli AEW Details & WWE Stars React, AEW Contracts Expire, Cody Rhodes Video Game News – Audio News Bulletin – June 27, 2022

AEW

Claudio Castagnoli is All Elite and there are now more details on his contract and debut – and some WWE stars have reacted to the news – several AEW deals have reportedly expired, some very interesting Cody Rhodes video game news has emerged, and more.

Forbidden Door is now in the rear view mirror so let’s go through all the big news right now – I’m Liam Winnard for WrestleTalk.com, and this is our audio news bulletin for June 27, 2022.

Listen to this morning’s round-up here:

Claudio Castagnoli AEW Details

When it comes to big news coming out of Forbidden Door, by far the biggest news is the debut of Claudio Castagnoli, formerly known as Cesaro, who was Bryan Danielson’s replacement and picked up the win over Zack Sabre Jr.

Castagnoli also came out as part of the big end-of-show brawl between the Jericho Appreciation Society and the Blackpool Combat Club teams that will face off at Blood & Guts this coming Wednesday.

Following his debut, Fightful Select has reported some more details on Castagnoli’s AEW deal, saying that he has signed a “long-term” contract, although there wasn’t anything more specific than the phrase “long-term”. But it does confirm that it’s not just a short-term agreement purely based on being Danielson’s replacement.

Speaking of which, Fightful also reports that this was not the original plan for Castagnoli’s debut – which would suggest he would still have come into AEW, but in a different way, if it wasn’t for Danielson’s injury issues. Again, we don’t yet know what the original plans specifically were, just that they weren’t this.

As expected, there’s been no shortage of excitement when it comes to Castagnoli in AEW, but that isn’t restricted to just the fans because, in fact, some very big stars in WWE chimed in too.

The most notable is Becky Lynch who, along with her husband Seth Rollins, is very close friends with Castagnoli.

Lynch simply tweeted Yesssss with a million s’s and a million exclamation marks and tagged Castagnoli, and then in a separate tweet, actually posted a screenshot of his entrance.

She wasn’t the only one, because Xavier Woods, who is close with Castagnoli mainly from his UpUpDownDown YouTube channel, tweeted Let’s Gooooo in all capitals and with a million o’s.

Also notable was Eddie Kingston’s reaction. When Castagnoli left WWE back in February, Kingston, who has no shortage of animosity with Castagnoli, tweeted “All I am going to say is, he doesn’t have the balls to come to AEW.”

Well, he’s since followed up that up a with quote tweet after the debut, saying “Well look who has grown a pair!”. Kingston also stayed well away from Castagnoli during the end-of-show brawl even though they’re supposed to be on the same team in Blood & Guts.

Interesting developments at the conclusion of this main event here at the #ForbiddenDoor PPV; we'll see you all at #BloodAndGuts next Wednesday in Detroit!#AEWxNJPW pic.twitter.com/UqfjSUg3jy

— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) June 27, 2022

Before we move on, in other notable news from Forbidden Door –

• Jon Moxley is the Interim AEW World Champion via a win over Hiroshi Tanahashi
• Pac is the inaugural AEW All-Atlantic Champion, winning a four-way against Miro, Malakai Black and Clark Connors
• The Jericho Appreciation Society will have the man advantage in the Blood & Guts match thanks to Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara and Minoru Suzuki beating Eddie Kingston, Wheeler Yuta and Shota Umino
• FTR won the winner take all three-way tag team match so they retained the ROH Tag Team Title and are the new IWGP Tag Team Champions
• Jay White retained the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship over Adam Cole, who seemed to get injured during the match, Adam Page, and Kazuchika Okada in a four-way
• Katsuyori Shibata appeared to save Orange Cassidy and Roppongi Vice from a beatdown at the hands of the United Empire after Will Ospreay had beaten Cassidy

AEW Contracts Expire

In recent months, along with all the incomings to AEW, there have been some outgoings as well, notably Joey Janela, Marko Stunt and Stu Grayson, but it sounds like there are more that we haven’t heard about yet.

According to Fightful Select, several “per-appearance” deals that have gone “under the radar” have expired, although no-one was actually named in the report.

Per-appearance deals are more likely to have been used by talents that mostly wrestled on Dark rather than any of the really big names that were signed full-time.

Of course stay tuned to WrestleTalk.com as we will provide updates with any more details that come to light.

Cody Rhodes Video Game News

The most notable AEW contract that has ever expired is that of Cody Rhodes, who ended up leaving the company and returning to WWE.

However, a very interesting piece of video game news came out regarding Cody via Kenny Omega, who has been heading up the AEW console game project.

Omega told Sports Illustrated in an interview that Rhodes will still be in the the AEW video game.

Omega said that he’s trying to keep the video game true to the roots and beginnings of AEW, and obviously Rhodes was there and very prominent at the beginning, so Omega felt like he wanted to include him, despite him now being one of WWE’s top stars.

Other Bits

In other little bits of news…

Tony Khan announced in the post-Forbidden Door press conference that the ROH pay-per-view Death Before Dishonor is set for July 23 from Lowell, Massachusetts.

The AEW Grand Slam will be returning to Arthur Ashe Stadium on September 21.

This one wasn’t officially announced, but there were posters up at the arena last night, that this year’s All Out is set for September 4, which is the day after WWE Clash at the Castle.

Tony Khan said ahead of Forbidden Door that a second Forbidden Door is likely, and Dave Meltzer reported it was talked about for next year but depends on the success of the first.

AEW’s injury list seems to be growing constantly as Fightful has reported there are even more names on said list than we know about. If you go to the stats area of WrestleTalk.com you’ll be able to find an injury list with all the people we know so far and any details that we know as far as what the injury is and how long people will be out for.

 

Ivy Nile won a four-way at an NXT house show in Venice, Florida against Elektra Lopez, Tatum Paxley and Kiana James which has actually earned her a shot at Mandy Rose’s NXT Women’s Championship.

Logan Paul posted images of him training along with Shane Helms so it seems like he’ll be returning to WWE soon, likely for a match at SummerSlam. Even though Paul and Miz beat the Mysterios at WrestleMania, it ended with Miz attacking Paul and we haven’t seen Paul since then, so if you were to guess a match, it would probably be that.

And tonight’s episode of Raw will see John Cena make his return to WWE, with all signs pointing to him setting up a match with United States Champion Theory, which you’d think would also be likely to take place at SummerSlam.

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 tomorrow morning for another round-up.

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• Claudio Castagnoli
• audio news bulletin
• Cody Rhodes
• AEW

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