Ronda Rousey WrestleMania Plans, NXT Star Leaving WWE, LA Knight Main Roster – Audio News Bulletin – January 25, 2022

WWE appears to have WrestleMania plans for Ronda Rousey, an NXT star could be leaving the company, LA Knight already seems to have his first main roster feud, and more.

It’s Tuesday morning and it’s time to get caught up on all the latest wrestling news, I’m Liam Winnard for WrestleTalk.com, and this is our audio news bulletin for January 25, 2022.

Listen to this morning’s round-up here:

Ronda Rousey WrestleMania Plans

Ronda Rousey has been away from WWE since WrestleMania 35 in April 2019, but it sounds like she could be back at the biggest show of the year three years later, and she could be back on our screens even sooner than that.

Fightful Select reported that it’s a “poorly kept secret” that WWE has been discussing a Rousey return and her name has been tossed around as a potential entrant in the Royal Rumble this coming Saturday, or at least to be involved at the show in some fashion.

Rousey gave birth in September and has been training recently, and people in WWE believe it’s a matter of “when, not if” she returns.

Dave Meltzer then followed this up by reporting that Rousey is “on the books” for WrestleMania and there are plans confirmed for when she returns.

Roderick Strong Leaving WWE?

Ronda Rousey might be coming back to WWE, but there’s someone that could be going the opposite the direction, and that someone is the husband of Rousey’s Four Horsewomen teammate Marina Shafir – Roderick Strong.

Strong worked a dark match before this past Friday’s SmackDown which he lost to LA Knight, but more alarmingly, he lost a match against T-BAR taped before last night’s Raw for Main Event.

T-BAR has lost matches to Pete Dunne and Tommaso Ciampa on Main Event the past two weeks, and LA Knight beat Cedric Alexander this week, which would imply that WWE management thinks less of Strong than they do of the other three.

Further fuel to this fire is that Strong and Shafir have launched a PWTees page called “The Strongs”, which currently has a shirt available that features an image of both of them, along with their son and their dog.

Strong’s individual PWTees store was also relaunched briefly a few days ago, although it has since been taken back down.

In terms of his contract, Strong did actually sign a multi-year deal last June, so it isn’t coming up, but WWE could of course release him whenever they feel like it.

LA Knight Main Roster Feud

As we just mentioned, LA Knight is another NXT name who has been getting a look from main roster management recently, but it seems WWE has more prominent plans for him than they do for Strong.

In a video uploaded to WWE’s Twitter after last night’s Raw had gone off the air, Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode were being interviewed backstage. Strong appeared in the video briefly just walking through the shot, but LA Knight actually confronted Ziggler and Roode and had a decent bit of mic time.

It seems the idea was to potentially set up a match with Knight against Roode or Ziggler – probably Ziggler – but it actually sounded like it could be a match that takes place on NXT rather than Raw.

We’ve seen a couple of Raw stars crossover with NXT in recent weeks, with Riddle teaming with MSK to beat Imperium, and AJ Styles feuding with and defeating Grayson Waller.

So what remains to be seen is whether Knight is being called up and Ziggler and/or Roode will be his first match or feud, or whether this is another crossover happening and there’ll be a match on NXT with maybe some segments on Raw to build up to it and hopefully increase viewership, which was the idea with Styles and Waller.

Other Stuff

In other little bits of news…

Despite AEW’s Anthony Ogogo making his PROGRESS debut this past weekend, the promotion is still affiliated with WWE, and the show will air on the WWE Network.

WWE announced that WrestleMania weekend in Dallas will include a Hall of Fame ceremony, as well as NXT Stand & Deliver.

WWE could end up changing the planned date for Money in the Bank, which is currently set for July 2 in Las Vegas, because there’s also a UFC show in Vegas that same day.

Omos, Riddle, Randy Orton, Chad Gable, Otis, Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode were officially announced as entrants in the Royal Rumble match, which means there are now 22 entrants announced for the men and 21 for the women.

There is a new green-and-yellow-with-a-hint-of-purple logo for Elimination Chamber with the show taking place in Saudi Arabia next month, and the WWE website currently lists Roman Reigns, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Mansoor, Seth ‘Freakin’ Rollins and Bobby Lashley as advertised for the show.

Amanda Huber, the wife of Brodie Lee, tweeted in reference to Mustafa Ali: “I keep seeing #FreeAli is trending. I know what it’s like watching someone ask for their release and get stuck. I promise the future is ready for the amazing things @AliWWE is going to do. It’s sucks it’s delayed but know we are rooting for you”. Sasha Banks actually liked that tweet as well.

After Jon Moxley’s return to AEW Dynamite last week, Bully Ray suggested that he would have liked Moxley to apologise to fans for leaving, which didn’t go down very well. Renee Paquette, Moxley’s wife, has clarified that this is not part of an angle and there’s no payoff – it was just a “trash take”.

This past weekend’s IMPACT tapings had to have “a lot of pivots and rewrites” according to PWInsider because of Covid.

And currently announced for tonight’s episode of NXT 2.0 is Toxic Attraction vs Kay Lee Ray, Indi Hartwell and Persia Pirotta in a six-woman tag, Solo Sikoa vs Boa in a Falls Count Anywhere match, Cameron Grimes vs Tony D’Angelo with the winner going on to challenge Carmelo Hayes for the North American Championship, two Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic quarter-finals with MSK taking on Jacket Time, and the Grizzled Young Veterans against Andre Chase & Bodhi Hayward, and a live musical performance from OllieJayy.

• audio news bulletin
• Roderick Strong
• LA Knight
• Ronda Rousey

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