Here is your fight size update for Monday, May 3, 2021:
- Speaking with the New York Post, Chris Jericho explained why the Inner Circle turned babyface explaining that he believed they had gone as far as they could as a villainous faction.
"Doing this for as long as I have, you can always tell. Also, I believe in long-term storytelling. Kind of the idea when MJF joined the Inner Circle was eventually to have him start his own group. What I wanted, which has never been done before, is to have the entire Inner Circle turn from heel to babyface."
"There was no reason to end the Inner Circle, but as far as the Inner Circle as heels there wasn’t much more we could do with it. But we knew that because that’s why we started this angle in September, knowing that when we go to February or so it would be time to do the massive switch."
- In other Chris Jericho news, speaking with TV Insider, Chris Jericho openly stated that he doesn't see himself wrestling outside of AEW for the rest of his career.
“One of the reasons I wanted to come to AEW was the challenge of building this organization from scratch. Three months into our television existence we signed a huge extension because of what we had accomplished, which was kind of on my back for the first few months. Now it has been spread to so many other people. All the pressure and spotlight isn’t only on Chris Jericho, which is great. That was always my goal. I’m AEW all-in, all the way at this point. I can’t see myself going anywhere else.”
- Former Ring of Honor broadcaster Lenny Leonard is returning this summer for the Women's Championship tournament.
- Kim Wood, the former NFL strength coach of Brian Pillman senior, recently had some choice words for Vince McMahon during the first half of Brian Pillman’s Dark Side of the Ring special.
“Vince? Yeah, you know what you do with a whore? You fuck ‘em. That's what I thought of Vince. That's all I think of Vince.”
Later, Kim dispelled the rumor that Brian simply wanted out of his WCW contract to go to WWE. Suggesting instead, much like Dave Meltzer on the documentary, that Brian was just trying to get a better, more lucrative guaranteed offer out of WCW.
“No. It's money,” said Wood, when asked if it mattered where Brian ended up. “That's the bottom fucking line, money! These people are in Fantasyland and it's money.”
Parts 1 & 2 of the documentary will air on VICE TV this Thursday, May 6.
(Should you use any of the above quotes from Kim Wood in any future articles, please make sure to link back to this article and credit Fightful for the transcription.)
- WWE and AEW have both donated items to Huntington's Disease Society of America's Athletes VS. HD Online Auction. You can find out more here.
- Speaking with WrestleZone, the NWA World Champion, Nick Aldis said he relishes being the bad guy.
“There’s only much business you can do in being the proud world champion, and ultimately the money is in the people wanting to see you get beat. So in my mind, once we had the pandemic and once we realized that through necessity as much as anything else—I’ve been the champion for a hell of a long time—I figured that it was time to start rubbing that in people’s faces a little bit because one way or another, people love to knock you down a peg or two.”
“So, my feeling on booking or creative is—there’s no point of me swimming upstream. The chances are, and that’s where social media can be very useful,” Aldis noted, “because obviously, you can sort of take a cross-section of sentiment and get a general idea of where people’s heads are at. Then I just sort of take it and lean that way with it and go, ‘OK naturally there’s some resentment starting to emerge, so let’s go with it.’ Let’s embrace it, let’s go into it. It’s business, and look, I like being the guy people love to hate. It’s a good place to be.”
- Check out everything you need to know before Monday Night Raw at this link.
- The critically-acclaimed match between Shawn Michaels and Shelton Benjamin from the May 2, 2005 episode of Monday Night Raw is now available in its entirety on YouTube.
- Other matches available for free right now include John Cena vs JBL at Judgment Day in 2008, a handicap match featuring Vince McMahon at Judgment Day 2007, and the Fatal Four-Way for the WWE Championship at Backlash 2007.
- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced today that he was lifting all COVID-19 restrictions in the state and declared that Florida is no longer in a state of emergency.
For the majority of the pandemic, promotions such as WWE and AEW have been filming content in the state of Florida.
- In a recent interview with TV LINE, Daniel Bryan explains that he's never spoken to Stone Cold Steve Austin or any other retired legends about the current crossroads in his life where he looks to transition away from a full-time wrestling career.
“Honestly, I haven’t. I just talked to my friends and my family about it. We all know the risks of continuing to do this and the return on the risk. My neck injury wasn’t nearly as bad as Steve Austin’s and our generation pays a lot closer attention to taking care of their bodies than the previous generation. That’s the same with every sport. That’s why Tom Brady is able to quarterback the Super Bowl at 43, that’s why LeBron James is still the best basketball player in the NBA at 37. We just have a lot more information and we’re able to take care of our bodies better. When you’re 20 and wrestling, you can go pedal to the metal in every single match. Now I know if my body’s not feeling so great, I’m going to have to ease up a bit. I’m a little more respectful of my body. Even this week, with my neck bothering me, I didn’t lift any weights. I did yoga, I did physical therapy exercises and I did some gymnastics-type stuff as opposed to heavy squatting.”
- WWE has announced this week's Peacock/WWE Network new releases:
This Week’s Schedule
** = available on the Free Version of WWE NetworkMonday, May 3
Raw Talk** – 11:05 p.m. ETTuesday, May 4
The Best of WWE: Best of Braun Strowman**Wednesday, May 5
Monday Night Raw (4/5/21)**
WWE’s The Bump: Kyle O’Reilly** – 10 a.m. ET
WWE NXT (5/4/21)Thursday, May 6
NXT UK
This Week in WWEFriday, May 7
205 Live – 10 p.m. ETSaturday, May 8
WWE Main Event (4/22/21)
Talking Smack**
ICW Fight Club 170
PROGRESS Chapter 110: Skeleton HeadSunday, May 9
Friday Night SmackDown (4/9/21)**
WWE Chronicle: Damian Priest
- Ronda Rousey Unboxes Graphic Novels and Badly Explains Their Plots.
- Shawn Michaels recently spoke to TMZ about the new WWE documentary that explains his relationship in the 90s with Kevin Nash.
- Azteca Underground, the rival promotion forming within MLW, is looking forward to the season finale of FUSION airing on Cinco de Mayo.
- Speaking of Major League Wrestling, per a new video that the promotion shared, Salina de la Renta has been kidnapped.
- WWE has released an exclusive excerpt, the prologue from Drew McIntyre's new autobiography.
- Renee Paquette’s favorite wrestler growing up was Goldust. Arda Ocal provides the proof.
- LA Knight, formerly Eli Drake, explains why he came to NXT in a new video released by WWE.
- Dan Vollmayer, a former host on WWE's The Bump, recently shared his own blog about Mark Carrano and his first day at WWE.
- Today, WWE stock closed at $55.89 per share today. This was an increase of $0.78.
- Big E wants the babies to run free.
- Check out a playlist of Bill Goldberg against 7-foot competitors.
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