
An update on Keith Lee likely joining AEW, the real reason Jeff Hardy rejected the WWE Hall of Fame, Ronda Rousey reprimanded by WWE, and more.
It’s Tuesday morning, and it’s time for a round-up of all the latest wrestling news. I’m Liam for WrestleTalk.com, and this is our audio news bulletin for February 8, 2022.
Listen to this morning’s round-up here:
Keith Lee To AEW Update
We’re now just a day away from finding out who AEW’s latest big signing is, and there have been a few names speculated, but none more so than Keith Lee and Jeff Hardy.
Lee became a free agent a few days ago after his non-compete clause expired, so he would legally be able to sign now. And according to reports, he either has already, or is very close to doing.

Keith Lee and Mia Yim got married this past weekend
On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said:
“I know they’ve been talking to Keith Lee, I know that they were pretty close with Keith Lee if it’s not already a done deal. It probably is a done deal. I don’t know that ‘officially’, but that’s kind of been the word going around.”
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Further to that, a Fightful Select report stated that people in AEW who don’t know who the surprise is, are expecting it to be Keith Lee.
In Jeff Hardy’s case, speculation on him ramped up following a tweet from Isiah Kassidy that seemed to hint it was going to be Jeff.

The new signing will be facing Isiah Kassidy in a Face of the Revolution ladder match qualifier
However, Jeff’s brother Matt has since clarified that Jeff’s non-compete does run until March 9, so he is ruled out for Wednesday, but it definitely seems like he’ll be joining AEW when that non-compete ends.
Knowing AEW, he wouldn’t have been teased so heavily if it wasn’t going to happen eventually.
Why Jeff Hardy Rejected WWE Hall Of Fame
On the topic of Jeff Hardy, Matt also revealed why Jeff rejected a spot in this year’s WWE Hall of Fame.
WWE fired Jeff near the end of last year, but then when they realised they had been premature in their assumption he would fail a drug test, which he didn’t, they tried to re-sign him.

Jeff Hardy had formed an on-screen alliance with Drew McIntyre before being released
As part of the offer to get him to return, he was offered a spot in the Hall of Fame.
Matt has since revealed that Jeff enquired as to whether WWE would be able to induct the Hardy Boyz together. When he was told no because of Matt’s ties to AEW, that’s when he told WWE no and rejected the offer.
Ronda Rousey ‘Spoken To’ By WWE
Ronda Rousey returned to WWE to win the Royal Rumble two Saturdays ago, and has since been positioned as a babyface ahead of a match with heel SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania.
However, if you watched Rousey’s promo on the post-Rumble episode of Raw last week, you might have thought she was a heel, because she looked rather grumpy and frankly didn’t seem like she could be bothered.

Ronda Rousey looked far from enthusiastic on Raw last week
If you then watched SmackDown this past Friday, you’d have noticed a big change in her attitude, as she was all smiles and high-fiving the crowd, and just doing general babyface things.
Well there’s a reason for the sudden change. According to Meltzer, Rousey was “spoken to” backstage and was basically told to get her act together and stop being bitter towards the fans for turning on her years ago.
Dave said:
“I believe that people were talking to her about Monday. She was very very bitter coming back, and I think that that was not a good attitude to have, especially since she’s being portrayed as a babyface.
“People, when they saw her, go, ‘Oh my God, she’s being a heel’, and it’s like, ‘No, that’s just Ronda’, and then they had to talk her out of… basically going, ‘These people are cheering you, you have to acknowledge them, you don’t mean-mug them’.
“I know people who talked to her about certain things. It was explained that you have to let that go (the fans turning on her), because if you’re gonna be bitter about that, you’re not gonna be a very good babyface.”
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Other Stuff
In other little bits of news…
The updated Elimination Chamber card for Saudi Arabia on February 19 now includes a women’s Elimination Chamber match to determine who will challenge for the Raw Women’s Championship at WrestleMania. Announced for the match are Bianca Belair, Liv Morgan, Rhea Ripley, Nikki ASH, Doudrop, and a mystery participant.
Bayley teased a return by posting an emoji replying to that announcement, but that’s probably just Bayley being Bayley rather than anything more.

Bayley has been out of action since tearing her ACL last July
Last week’s Raw on February 1 saw WWE Champion Bobby Lashley, Brock Lesnar and Seth Rollins announced for the Elimination Chamber, while Austin Theory beat Kevin Owens to qualify, AJ Styles beat Rey Mysterio to qualify, and Riddle beat Otis to qualify. Fightful Select is reporting that the original plan was for Lashley and Lesnar to be in automatically, and for the other four slots to be contested in a five-way match, where the person pinned wouldn’t qualify, but everyone else would. So it’s a good job they changed that, because why would anyone even bother trying to win that match?
After their exchange last week, Bron Breakker has now taken to Twitter to tell Dolph Ziggler he can have the next shot at the NXT Championship after Santos Escobar.
On the topic of NXT, AJ Styles spoke about his recent brief feud with Grayson Waller, saying that Waller wasn’t an opponent he chose himself, but he was happy with the decision and working with Waller was great.
And as an injury update on Riho, who suffered a broken collarbone in her match with Britt Baker last month, it’s believed she’s going to be out for three months according to Dave Meltzer.
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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