Tag: PAC

Opening Bell: DX reunion on Raw’s season premiere, Dynamite goes North

Get set for the week in WWE and AEW with Opening Bell: quick previews of Raw, SmackDown, Dynamite and Rampage.

Welcome to the Opening Bell, where we round up what’s been announced for WWE (Raw and SmackDown) and AEW (Dynamite and Rampage) programming for the week we’ve just begun.

WWE Raw preview – Monday, October 10, Barclays Center, Brooklyn

Where Brooklyn at? Probably at Barclays Center for the season premiere of Raw. WWE is going hard on the nostalgia front for this one, promoting a DX 25th anniversary reunion that’ll have everyone you know and love except for one blonde guy you may remember who works for another company. But more on Daddy Ass in a bit.

(Also, it’s been 25 years since D-Generation X first hit the scene? Wow.)

Roman Reigns and the Bloodline will also be on hand, because you can’t have a season premiere without your top star. Or you shouldn’t, anyway. With Extreme Rules in the rear view mirror, where Reigns wasn’t booked anyway, he can turn his full attention to Logan Paul, who he’ll face at Crown Jewel in just a few weeks.

Also on the schedule for Raw from Brooklyn:

AEW Dynamite preview – Wednesday, October 12, Coca-Cola Coliseum, Toronto

There are few guarantees in pro wrestling or life in general, but for something that is as close to a sure thing as possible, consider the AEW Dynamite debut in Toronto this week and how hot the crowd will be. While numerous people have suggested AEW has perhaps run some eastern and midwest U.S. markets too often, this should be a very live show considering how fans have clamored for the company to do a Canadian swing.

We know a bit about what is planned for Dynamite too. Chris Jericho will put his status as “The Ocho” on the line by defending his ROH World Championship against Bryan Danielson. Jericho will get home country love, but the American Dragon is over everywhere, so this should be a very fun encounter particularly in Toronto.

Billy Gunn, the one DX member who is not invited to the Raw reunion, will have his hands full anyway as he takes on Swerve Strickland. Considering Swerve won’t stay out of the tag team champs’ business, you can bet The Acclaimed will probably arrive for this one as well.

And a former friendship turned sour will be showcased when “Jungle Boy” Jack Perry faces Luchasaurus. The one-time tag team champions were bound to collide when the dinosaur man sided with Christian Cage, making this match as inevitable as Thanos.

Wait, that’s not all (said in infomercial voice)! Orange Cassidy still hasn’t won AEW gold, but he’ll get another chance when he faces Pac again for the All-Atlantic Championship. So this is definitely a worthy debut show all told.

WWE SmackDown preview – Friday, October 14, Smoothie King Center, New Orleans

As is normal when we’re at the beginning of a week, we only have a small snippet of what will happen this Friday on SmackDown in NOLA. Sami Zayn, the Honorary Uce, will take on Kofi Kingston in a match that spun out of things that went down on last week’s show. Can he prove to Jey Uso that he has things under control when left to his own devices?

Also, LA Knight is back! In the latest example of trying to kill something you’ve created. In this case, he’ll be attempting to put his Max Dupri persona behind him when he battles Mansoor of the Maximum Male Models.

Oh yeah, and maybe that Bray Wyatt fellow everyone seems to be talking about will make an appearance on SmackDown …

AEW Rampage preview – Friday, October 14, Coca-Cola Coliseum, Toronto (taped on October 13)

This week’s Rampage is an unusual one: It’s not live, but it’s also not being recorded after Dynamite on Wednesday night. Instead, it will be taped during a separate show in Toronto on Thursday evening.

We’re not sure of any matches definitively set for Rampage, but as is typically the case, we should know at least two by the end of Dynamite.

AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door — Everything you need to know

Get ready for AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door with our preview, including predictions for each match, start time, how to watch and more.

Considering AEW is only three years old, the company still enjoys a fair amount of firsts. Not many, however, are as significant as AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door, a pay-per-view being held in conjunction with Japan’s top pro wrestling promotion. Once only a dream in the minds of most wrestling fans, it’s about to become a reality in Chicago’s United Center.

That’s not to say the road to get here has been easy. The logistical hurdles in building a show between companies half a world apart have been apparent at times, with a good chunk of the card coming together only in the final week. Injuries haven’t been kind; in a perfect world, CM Punk, Bryan Danielson and Kenny Omega would all be on this show.

Despite that, there are some tantalizing matchups of the kind many probably never dared imagine prior to this year. They begin with the interim AEW World Championship being contested between Jon Moxley and Hiroshi Tanahashi. With Punk out, one of them will carry the banner for AEW for the next few months, and even the possibility that it will be NJPW’s Ace is enough to be intriguing.

NJPW’s top title will be up for grabs as well. Jay White, who only recently secured the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship from Kazuchika Okada, now needs to defend it against not only the Rainmaker, but his friend Adam Cole and former AEW world champ Hangman Adam Page. Four-way matches are definitely not every fan’s cup of tea, but four performers of this caliber figure to make it compelling.

As the match count has made it to double digits, including a pre-show bout, the card figures to be close to final now. Keep reading for everything you need to know about AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door.

AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door

  • When: Sunday, June 26
  • Where: United Center, Chicago
  • Start time: 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT/5 p.m. PT
  • How to watch: On PPV through Bleacher Report, or InDemand through cable or satellite providers, as well as in select movie theaters in the U.S. On Sky Deutschland in Germany, and on FITE TV internationally. In Japan, Forbidden Door will be available exclusively via NJPW World, with Japanese commentary.
  • Matches announced: 10 (including one on pre-show)

Here’s the updated AEWxNJPW: Forbidden Door card after the June 15 Dynamite

Get the latest match card for the AEW and NJPW Forbidden Door event coming to Chicago on June 26.

With less than two weeks to go until AEW and NJPW collide at Forbidden Door at Chicago, this week’s AEW Dynamite figured to be a busy one for making more matches official. That’s exactly what happened, with several new bouts announced during the show.

Some emerged from actions that took place during the broadcast, like Orange Cassidy returning from injury to help stand against Will Ospreay and United Empire. Others were simply revealed, though it’s fair to say just about everything has at least some ties to what’s been going on in both companies.

Here’s where the Forbidden Door card stands as of the night of June 15:

  • Jon Moxley vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi – Interim AEW World Championship Match

This was set up by the tournament that’s gone down over the past few weeks, with the winner of the interim championship expected to face CM Punk for the actual championship when he returns from injury.

  • Pac vs. Miro vs. Malakai Black or Penta Oscuro vs. Tomoaki Honma or Clark Connors or Tomohiro Ishii or Yoshinobu Kanemaru – AEW All-Atlantic Championship Match

Pac won his way into this four-way bout last week, and Miro did the same on Wednesday by defeating Ethan Page. Black and Penta will wrestle next week, and the Honma-Connors and Ishii-Kanemaru matches will take place during New Japan Road on June 20.

  • Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara and Minoru Suzuki vs. Wheeler Yuta, Shota Umino and Eddie Kingston

This match was announced by Jericho during Dynamite, right after he and the Jericho Appreciation Society attacked Moxley and Tanahashi.

  • Will Ospreay (champion) vs. Orange Cassidy – IWGP United States Championship Match

Ospreay and United Empire attempted another attack after Ospreay’s match with Dax Harwood, but Cassidy returned from injury in time to help fend them off.

  • Thunder Rosa (champion) vs. Toni Storm – AEW Women’s World Championship Match

Rosa helped even the odds during Storm’s victory over Dr. Britt Baker on Dynamite, taking care of Jamie Hayter. She then returned to the stage and pointed at Storm, insinuating that she’d get the title shot.

One match that did not get booked on Wednesday was new IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Jay White against anyone, as he turned down both Hangman Adam Page and Adam Cole for a bout at Forbidden Door.

All three men figure to be involved in some way, and other matches, like Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Bryan Danielson, have been teased as well. We’ll update things again as June 26 gets closer.

Who’s in the running for the new AEW All-Atlantic Championship?

See who is in contention to be the first ever winner of the AEW All-Atlantic Championship when its awarded at Forbidden Door.

When AEW announced it was revealing a new title during the June 8 episode of Dynamite, most fans expected it was going to be a trios championship, as the promotion has put more of an emphasis on three-person teams than most. Instead, it introduced the AEW All-Atlantic Championship, a new title for its men’s division.

In the finest pro wrestling tradition, the inaugural winner is being decided via a tournament — and the first match already took place Wednesday night, with Pac defeating Buddy Matthews. There are still three other qualifying matches yet to take place:

  • Ethan Page vs. Miro – Page hasn’t had much to do as of late except for being part of the mixed trios match at Double or Nothing, while Miro has just returned from injury and already looks like his usual, dominant self. This match will take place on Wednesday, June 15 at Road Rager (a themed episode of Dynamite).
  • Penta Oscuro vs. Malakai Black – This is an offshoot of the continuing issues between Death Triangle and the House of Black, and could also be on the Road Rager card. Now that Matthews is out, the likelihood of Black advancing figures to be even higher.
  • Two yet-to-be-named NJPW wrestlers will meet in the other quarterfinal. New Japan has so far only announced that its entrants will be announced soon. It does have a big event, Dominion 6.12 in Osaka-jo Hall, coming up this weekend, and could put the qualifier on that show.
Image credit: All Elite Wrestling

What’s interesting about the All-Atlantic Championship tournament is that instead of having semifinals and a final, all four first-round winners will meet in one four-way match at Forbidden Door. That spices things up a tad and also makes the tourney easier to pull off from a logistical standpoint given the NJPW involvement.

Speaking of which, could a NJPW star be the inaugural winner? Though several AEW championships are expected to be on the line at Forbidden Door when the card is finalized, the thought of someone who could only make sporadic appearances on AEW shows holding one of them feels far-fetched. But a new title is a whole different ballgame, and fans might be a bit more accepting of someone outside the promotion holding it to start.

We’ll find out which way AEW is leaning when the inaugural All-Atlantic Champion is crowned at Forbidden Door on Sunday, June 26 in Chicago.

AEW Double or Nothing: Everything you need to know

Prepare for AEW Double or Nothing 2022 with the full card, previews and predictions for every match.

Get ready to hear your favorite (or least favorite) gambling analogies or puns plenty of times on Sunday, because AEW Double or Nothing is back in Las Vegas. After a two-year detour to Jacksonville due to the COVID-19 pandemic, AEW’s Memorial Day weekend pay-per-view returns to its spiritual home, this time at the T-Mobile Arena — which also hosts Dynamite and Rampage this week.

Heading up the card is an AEW World Championship match between titleholder Hangman Adam Page and challenger CM Punk. But there are plenty of other championships at stake, as Thunder Rosa, Jade Cargill, and Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus will all put their titles on the line as well. There are even rumors that more titles will make their debuts, because the winners of the Owen Hart Foundation tournaments will also be crowned, and could receive some gold of their own.

We’ll update this article with those two finals once they’re decided as well as the Wardlow vs. MJF match that is all but assured to be finalized. Until then, read on for everything you need to know to prepare yourself for AEW Double or Nothing.

AEW Double or Nothing 2022

  • When: Sunday, May 29
  • Where: T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas
  • Start time: 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT (the Buy-In pre-show begins one hour earlier at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT)
  • Matches announced: 10

Memo to players, caddies: PGA Tour Advisory Council supports altering green-reading books in 2022

A big change is coming to the Tour in 2022.

A big change may be coming to the PGA Tour starting Jan. 1, 2022. And no, this time we’re not talking about a Saudi Arabia-backed rival golf league.

On Monday evening a memo sent to PGA Tour members and caddies circulated around Twitter that highlighted a potential new rule – currently being worked on by the U.S. Golf Association and R&A – that would alter yardage and green-reading books as we know them.

First reported by Golf Digest, players and caddies will only be able to use a “committee approved” yardage book once the rule goes into effect. The memo said the new books would resemble a traditional book with “only general information on slopes and other features.”

The rule will be presented to the PGA Tour advisory board Nov. 8.

Yardage book: Take a closer look at last week’s PGA Tour stop

Books from 2021 and prior will no longer be accepted, as well as “devices, levels or other technology.” However, handwritten notes from previous experiences may be written in the new book.

From the memo: “The purpose of this Local Rule is to return to a position where players and caddies use only their skill, judgment and feel along with any information gained through experience, preparation and practice to read the line of play on the putting green.”

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