Jeff Hardy Joining AEW, WWE Backstage ‘Upset’ About Big E, Kurt Angle Return Update – Audio News Bulletin – February 7, 2022

Jeff Hardy could already be heading to AEW, WWE stars are upset about the treatment of Big E, an update on Kurt Angle’s return, 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 audio news bulletin for February 7, 2022.

You can listen to this morning’s round-up here:

Jeff Hardy Joining AEW

Tony Khan announced after Friday’s episode of AEW Rampage that there will be a big debut this coming Wednesday, with said debutant taking on Isiah Kassidy in a qualifying match for the Face of the Revolution ladder match.

Naturally, there has been a lot of talk about who this might be, and one of the frontrunners right now, is Jeff Hardy.

This is largely thanks to a tweet posted by Kassidy himself, in which he said he “hopes it isn’t who he thinks it is” and played up dissension within the AHFO and Matt Hardy potentially splitting away from the group for what would be a reunion with Jeff.

If Jeff is under a traditional 90-day non-compete clause, said clause would only end in March, but because of the nature of how the release happened, it’s not impossible that that isn’t the case.

And even if it is, this could be a case of AEW teasing Jeff Hardy as the debut, it being someone else, but then delivering on the Hardy teases in a month, thus not really letting the fans down, just making them wait a little longer.

The Young Bucks have also teased facing the Hardy Boyz through their Twitter bio, so him joining the company at least at some point, looks to be almost a certainty.

Another favorite to be Wednesday’s debutant would have to be Keith Lee, as Dave Meltzer reported in the latest Observer that Lee has been talked about for joining AEW if he hasn’t already signed.

Backstage Reaction To Dropped Big E Push

If you were feeling a bit miffed about WWE’s recent treatment of Big E, you’re certainly not alone, because it sounds like the locker room is in agreement with you.

Just a month after losing the WWE Championship, E was silently moved from Raw to SmackDown and unceremoniously plonked right back into the tag team division.

While it’s great seeing New Day back together, most fans, and most humans with brains, would have preferred E to continue a singles run and not just fall back into obscurity – especially not this soon.

Wade Keller of PWTorch shared the locker room’s reaction to what’s happened with Big E, saying he’s heard from a lot of people who are “really upset”, and don’t think there’s a particular reason or issue that led to this happening.

Big E had been very passionate in interviews about saying he wanted to maintain a top level status even without the title, and, well, that endeavour isn’t off to the best of starts.

Kurt Angle WWE Return Update

Kurt Angle revealed last week after he attended the Royal Rumble that he had been in talks with WWE about returning to TV for a few weeks in the buildup to WrestleMania.

Angle didn’t know what the plans were for him, but said he was excited to be back on TV and help out at the biggest time of the year.

Well, he has since revealed that it would have been a three-week deal, but plans got cancelled and it’ll no longer be happening.

He made it clear that he isn’t under contract with WWE, nor was he going to be for the three-week run anyway.

Ringside News actually reports that Angle might be getting a bit ahead of himself, and the three-week plan he was talking about is actually just an idea that was pitched, not something that was ever given the official go-ahead in the first place.

Other Notes

In other little bits of news…

Dave Meltzer reported that there were plans for Bron Breakker to enter the Royal Rumble and do a spot with Dolph Ziggler to set up a future match. Breakker and Ziggler have teased a match on social media since then.

Anthony Bowens has revealed that his recent match against Bryan Danielson is something that Danielson himself requested.

AEW held its latest Dark tapings this past weekend, with the most notable news being the debut of Danielle Kamela, who was known as Vanessa Borne in WWE. She lost to Marina Shafir.

There was a lot of interest in the Royal Rumble – it achieved the second-highest gate for a Rumble ever, the highest merch sales for a Rumble ever, the most viewed WWE event on Peacock even beating last year’s WrestleMania, and had the most Google searches of any WWE event since WrestleMania of 2019.

And the latest belief is that Vince McMahon is leaning towards making Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar a title vs title match at WrestleMania, which is something that Lesnar and Paul Heyman have been pushing for. This would mean Lesnar winning the Elimination Chamber and winning back the WWE Championship.

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• Kurt Angle
• Jeff Hardy
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