Kylie Rae
As of now, there is no official reason as to why Kylie Rae was not on the IMPACT Bound For Glory show. Those we spoke to in the company simply told us that they thought the match was still going to happen as of Friday, and earlier last week.
Fightful has learned that according to several wrestlers, Kylie drove in (with said wrestlers) to Nashville Friday, and was even inquiring about call times for Saturday to management. However, whenever those call times came, Kylie Rae did not appear. We should specify, members of the roster informed us that Kylie drove in, not IMPACT officially.
Throughout Saturday, the concern from the locker room grew, as nobody had heard from Kylie Rae or even an update on her status throughout the afternoon. The decision to have Su Yung replace Kylie Rae was made that afternoon. Talent has not been made aware of an injury, as rumored. She did withdraw from Black Label Pro at the Collective two weeks ago, citing an injury.
Multiple wrestlers reached out to people close to Kylie out of fear for the worst, and were just told she's alive and well. We've attempted to contact IMPACT Wrestling officially, as well as Kylie Rae on the manner, and will not speculate on the conditions of the absence.
SHORTY G
On Smackdown, Chad Gable says that he "quit" being Shorty G. This was in the plans for several weeks, and WWE had actually filmed a segment weeks ago where he dropped the Shorty G gimmick. However, it ended up being cut due to time and was picked back up this week. The original segment featured Drew Gulak before he was officially moved to the Raw brand.
Lack Of Raw Rewrites
A lot of weeks you hear about heavy WWE Raw rewrites, but it doesn't appear that was the case last week. The majority of the show, from Retribution, The Hurt Business, Ali, Sheamus, New Day, the hacker reveal and more was already set by Sunday afternoon and didn't end up changing by the time that Raw started.
MLW Protocols Get Positive Reviews
As mentioned last week, Major League Wrestling returned to taping, which took place from the weekend through the early part of last week. We got a lot of positive feedback from wrestlers there about the COVID protocols in place. Many wrestled their matches, and went back to the hotels. We were also told MLW had a CDC official present in order to help oversee that things went well.
In addition, we've been told there are some surprising, bigger names that were at the Major League Wrestling tapings that we wouldn't expect, but weren't told who they were.
Lance Storm
I spoke with Lance Storm about his voiceover cameo on an upcoming episode of Corner Gas, and he told me that he'd never really done voiceover work in the past, even for WWE. Instead, the only voiceover work he'd done was for Acclaim's ECW game, where they had him come to the studio to record grunts and taunts.
He wasn't pitched the idea of winning three championships when he came into WCW, it just pretty much happened as things went along. He also had no idea that Elix Skipper was actually older than he and PCO when the angle was going on.
He mentioned something particularly noteworthy -- as far as he's concerned, he's not fully retired yet. He said that he and Chris Jericho have a bit of a pact to have their last matches together, since they had their first match together. He's still down to do that as he feels great, even though he hasn't wrestled a match in public since 2016.
Bret Hart
Bret Hart spoke to me about EL DANDY of all things. He said his promo on El Dandy is one of his favorite things during his WCW career and he goes back and watches it often. He said that Dandy never approached him about the promo, but that he legitimately respected El Dandy and the other Luchadores for working so hard for so many different dates.
Hart recalled an insane pitch that he had in WCW. He wasn't given any direction before a promo and talked about how his cat was his only fan. Eric Bischoff loved it, so Hart pitched the idea of bringing a cat to ringside with him for every match in a carrier. He'd reach out for the cat, and eventually there would be a stuffed cat in the carrier instead, complete with a brick inside of it. Then he'd hit his opponent in the head with it. Yep.
We spoke in promotion of a voiceover role he was doing, and he let me know that originally when he was doing work for the Simpsons, he was supposed to portray a character named "The Mad Viking" accordingly. He wanted to portray himself, but the producers only decided to do it after he was a hit in the Fox offices.
I asked Bret who had the best Sharpshooter besides him, and his answer surprisingly was Sting. He said that Steve Austin, The Rock and Shawn Michaels did pretty terrible ones. The smoothest and easiest people for him to work with were Mr. Perfect, Owen Hart and Randy Savage.
Bret also told me that many of his USA vs. Canada lines -- notably the Pittsburgh enema line -- were fed to him by Vince McMahon. He thinks WWF and Vince McMahon pulled the plug on USA vs. Canada too early, and mentioned that he had so much heat that he had to let the office know that people were following from venues and threatening him.
Paul Heyman-WWE
Sort of fashionably late, but after Paul Heyman's media tour recently and the draft, we actually gained some information and backstage reactions regarding his run there in 2019-2020.
Heyman was integral in crafting the WWE Raw Roster in late 2019, and went above and beyond to get some of the underutilized "catering crew" that ended up on the brand. He even was willing to pass on a lot of established talent, namely Braun Strowman, who was revered but not prioritized a lot of the more polished workers.
Many in the company were shocked that Paul Heyman even put himself in the position to work right under Vince McMahon. Heyman had been the loudest voice in the Raw writer's room even before he was given the lead on on the show.
For those that wondered why Shane McMahon, Triple H or Stephanie weren't put in that role, we're told that Stephanie McMahon didn't want that spot as she was happy in the one she has. Most people on Raw assumed upon Heyman's promotion and Bischoff's hiring that if Triple H wanted the role, he'd have it.
NJPW ROH
Harold Meij's ousting from New Japan Pro Wrestling has many wondering what that means for various partnerships the company has established. We asked about NJPW's working relationship with ROH, as at times -- specifically last year -- it looked like it had ended. While we didn't hear of specific projects, we're told that Ring of Honor and New Japan have an open dialogue and at least tentatively plan on releasing content together. People we spoke to with in ROH are under the impression that New Japan will likely add to their working relationships when available.
Deonna Purrazzo
Last week, Fightful reported that Ring of Honor officials had informed several in and around the company that they'd be looking to "revamp" the product in the coming months. Several of those have already been implemented, but we're told that ROH has also been reaching out to talent about coming in. One of those was IMPACT Knockouts Champion Deonna Purrazzo, who was offered at IMPACT contract around the same time. We've heard that ROH wanted to know more about Purrazzo's contract status.
