New Vince McMahon Backstage Rule, Ronda Rousey Injury, The Fiend Scrapped Plans – Audio News Bulletin – March 23, 2022

WWE

Vince McMahon has introduced a new rule backstage in WWE, Ronda Rousey has suffered a minor injury, scrapped plans for The Fiend have come to light, and more.

It’s Wednesday and we’re getting closer and closer to WrestleMania, so what better way to start the day 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 March 23, 2022.

Listen to this morning’s round-up here:

Vince McMahon New Backstage Rule

Petey Williams joined WWE as a backstage producer earlier this year after leaving IMPACT Wrestling, and it sounds like things are going quite well.

Fightful Select reported that WWE talent and higher-ups, including Vince McMahon himself, have been praising Williams’ work.

McMahon has also introduced a new rule backstage, which is that people are only allowed to call him Pete or Peter, not Petey.

Williams and Michael Hayes both produced the Seth Rollins & AJ Styles promo segment and match on this past Monday’s episode of Raw.

Ronda Rousey Minor Injury

Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair got physical on SmackDown this past Friday and had quite the brawl ringside, and it sounds like Rousey didn’t come out of it unscathed.

Speaking on her latest gaming stream, Rousey revealed that she suffered a torn labial frenulum, which is the tissue in your mouth that connects your lip to your gums.

A torn labial frenulum usually heals within a few days, but there are rare cases where it can pick up an infection or other complications. Thankfully, that doesn’t seem to be the case for Rousey.

Rousey didn’t confirm that the injury was sustained during the brawl with Charlotte Flair but it would seem likely considering the physical nature of it.

She did say: “SmackDown was a very physical day. I’m sore, I’m sick, I’m tired”.

Rousey also talked about Cody Rhodes potentially coming into WWE, saying she’s excited about being able to see him wrestle live because he left the company before she debuted.

The Fiend Scrapped Plans

Some scrapped plans involving ‘The Fiend’ Bray Wyatt have emerged, and the man himself has provided some clarification.

There was a story going around on social media that Dana Brooke was set to align with The Fiend after he would split from Alexa Bliss, so Brooke would basically take over the role of the female Fiend.

Now this story is true to an extent – it was the plan for a storyline in the WWE 2K22 video game, not real life.

Reddit user Pepsiguy2, who mods WWE games, unearthed some scrapped content which included the script for Wyatt introducing Brooke in the MyRise storyline, where she was given the new name ‘The Shiend’, because the She Fiend, I guess.

There would also have been a Hell in a Cell match between Bliss and The Shiend, as well as an Elimination Chamber of Horrors.

When someone on Twitter had posted news about the scrapped storyline as if it was real, Wyatt replied, clarifiying that it was only for the video game.

Wyatt was evidently one of the many names who had to be cut from the game, and therefore have their MyRise storyline scrapped, after being released by WWE.

Other Stuff

In other little bits of news…

PWInsider has confirmed that Bianca Belair’s injury is 100% storyline and the only reason she missed Raw this week was to sell it, there’s no hidden story there.

Logan Paul revealed concept art for his WrestleMania attire and he’s going for black and yellow tights with yellow knee pads and boots. It may end up being gold instead of yellow, but it looked yellow in the sketch he posted. A lot of people drew the comparison between his gear and Seth Rollins’ old gear.

The WrestleMania Saturday pre-show will air on the USA Network, seemingly as well as all the other platforms that the pre-shows are usually on. Interestingly, there’s been no word on whether it’s the same for the WrestleMania Sunday pre-show.

WWE announced DJ Valentino Khan will perform live at WrestleMania. He also performed at SummerSlam last year.

Big E said his doctor told him that he narrowly escaped paralysis and death when he suffered a broken neck just under two weeks ago.

AOP said that WWE promised them something “really big”, but then Rezar got injured and whatever those plans were, were dropped, so they went home because they felt WWE hadn’t kept its word.

Killer Kross and Scarlett Bordeaux were originally going to be involved with ROH Supercard of Honor according to Fightful, but with Tony Khan having taken over, that no longer looks to be the case.

Fightful also noted that ‘Delirious’ Hunter Johnston will be finishing up with ROH after Supercard of Honor. Delirious had been with ROH since 2004 and head booker since 2010, but obviously Tony Khan is now taking over that role.

B-Fab said that she’d be open to making a WWE return at some point in the future, recognising that “business is business” so she has no hard feelings.

At last night’s NXT Level Up tapings, Kayla Inlay debuted the new name Kiana James before losing to Ivy Nile.

On last night’s NXT 2.0, Solo Sikoa and Grayson Waller both qualified for the Stand & Deliver North American Title match with wins over Roderick Strong and A-Kid respectively. Next week, Strong, A-Kid and Cameron Grimes, who lost a qualifier to Santos Escobar last week, will have a last chance three-way to determine the final ladder match participant.

Also newly added to Stand & Deliver after last night’s NXT is LA Knight vs Gunther.

The women’s Dusty Rhodes Classic was won by Io Shirai and Kay Lee Ray, who beat Wendy Choo and Dakota Kai, but instead of getting a Women’s Tag Title shot, they’ve both instead been added to the Women’s Title match at Stand & Deliver, so it’ll be Mandy Rose defending against Cora Jade, Shirai and Kay Lee Ray in a four-way.

Taz critised the opening segment on Raw which had Kevin Owens impersonating Steve Austin on the basis that Don Callis did the same when he came out to Kenny Omega’s music on the AEW Revolution pre-show.

AEW stars the Young Bucks, Sammy Guevara, Tay Conti, Penta Oscuro, Rey Fenix and Andrade El Idolo have all been announced for AAA TripleMania XXX.

And set for tonight’s AEW Dynamite is CM Punk’s return; the Varsity Blonds vs Jon Moxley & Bryan Danielson; Jay Lethal vs Adam Cole; MJF speaks after costing Wardlow the TNT Title; Chris Jericho & Daniel Garcia vs Alex Reynolds & John Silver; Darby Allin, Sting & the Hardys vs Private Party, the Butcher & the Blade in a tornado eight-man tag, and Leyla Hirsch vs Red Velvet with Kris Statlander banned from ringside.

• audio news bulletin
• Ronda Rousey
• The Fiend
• Vince McMahon

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