Orton, Punk, Lamar, Shida, Hauser, WCW, EFFY, Ospreay, NJPW, ROH, Impact, Isaacs, Sacrifice, Fish, Ramirez, CMLL, Ivar, LFG – Thursday’s News

Orton

Randy Orton has been announced for three European dates: March 14 (Barcelona, Spain), March 21 (Bologna, Italy) and March 28 (London, England). (WWE)

WWE is no longer listing Punk for the upcoming WWE Raw in Glasgow, Scotland at the OVO Hydro on March 24. (WWE)

Following word that Drake attended the Elimination Chamber in Toronto, a number of AEW wrestlers and personnel suggested that Tony Khan bring in his rival and 22 time Grammy Award winning rapper Kendrick Lamar for an AEW event. Given his asking price after performing the most watched halftime show in Super Bowl history though even sources at AEW say it would be “difficult to pull off.” (FF)

Even though she hasn’t been seen on TV for months, Hikaru Shida’s status as a wrestler on the current AEW roster has just been confirmed. (FF)

In this interview Paul Walter Hauser says he’s given acting advice to pro wrestlers: “I can sure hit up somebody like Becky Lynch, or I can hit up Marina Shafir and be like, if you want advice on acting, or you want me to watch anything, I can do that to be reciprocal in my help. I always try to offer that. No, not recently. Just like little little advice (I’ve given). Things like sending a DM or a text. And you know, Sami Zayn is a guy I got to know a little bit through Johnny Knoxville. And if I have a question about wrestling or he has a question about acting, we’ll go to each other.”

WWE has launched an official WCW channel to upload full shows.

In this interview EFFY praises the WWE ID program: “You want to get crazy on the push of positivity? I’m rounding this one out with some more later. Here’s another push of positivity, this is gonna sound nuts. But here’s my white flag, okay. As a world champion, as Effy, as someone who is looked to in wrestling, I’ve had a lot of people asking me who are part of the program or not part of the program, who were in their own space about what WWE is doing with the WWE ID program, and I think they’re surprised because they’re coming to ‘Hot Take’ Effy, that I think it’s the greatest idea ever. I’ll say this, Zilla Fatu, I sat behind a building with him in Chicago, and I said if I was NXT right now, I would be paying guys like you, who are out here really learning the craft on the indies, because I could sit here all day, there are so many things you learn in adaptability and performance and the way that you work when you have such a variety of promotions, experiences, places, opponents that you can work with here. There’s no better way to get good at wrestling than to be wrestling and not always wrestling in the conditions that are clinical or sterile or in a training method, than getting the real reps. I said if I was NXT, I would be paying you guys under the table to make sure you didn’t leave the indies right now because it is tough. It is so tough if you’re not the cream of the crop, to be making money doing this, to say, ‘We think you’re alright. We’re gonna give you a little backup money here and a contract and a little spotlight. We want you to keep working, and we think it’ll pay off.’ It’s a great way. We can talk about the logistics of risk assessment and not having them under house and not this, but really, it’s them saying, ‘Hey, it’s not easy to be an indie wrestler. We think this is good. We don’t have anything right now, and we think you should grow a little bit. Let’s see what you do with this bonus. Let’s see what you do with a little bit of money.’ I could say all day, you can have a hundred people signing up to it at what they’re offering, which is great, life-changing, career-altering money in the sense that you’re still working and still being a person, to just continue doing what you’re doing with a better spotlight. It’s a low amount of money that they’re actually investing, but they’re asking you, ‘Can you do it? Can you pull it off with a little bit of help, with a little bit of a slide?’ That’s so sick to see that they’re going, the health of the indies, if these guys are good at independent wrestling, the guys who are really good are leaving to go anywhere else or not wrestle anymore because it gets so hard out there. This program is awesome.”

There’s a new Chris Van Vliet interview with Will Ospreay but sadly if you want to watch it you’ll have to click on the link as the video is age restricted.

NJPW 53rd Anniversary show results are below. (FF)

  • NJPW World TV Championship: El Phantasmo (c) def. Master Wato
  • BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens) def. TMDK (Hartley Jackson & Ryohei Oiwa)
  • BULLET CLUB War Dogs (Gedo, SANADA & Taiji Ishimori) def. Just 4 Guys (Taichi, TAKA Michinoku & Yuya Uemura)
  • House Of Torture (Ren Narita & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) vs. BULLET CLUB War Dogs (Drilla Moloney & Gabe Kidd) ended via count-out
  • Los Ingobernables de Japon (Hiromu Takahashi, Shingo Takagi, Tetsuya Naito & Yota Tsuji) def. House Of Torture (Dick Togo, EVIL, SHO & Yujiro Takahashi)
  • IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: El Desperado (c) def. Francesco Akira
  • IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Hirooki Goto (c) def. Hiroshi Tanahashi. After the match, Goto accepted the challenge of Yuji Nagata for later this month.

Here’s the advertised card for Honor Club tonight. (ROH)

  • ROH Women’s Championship: Athena (c) vs. La Catalina
  • Blue Panther, Blue Panther Jr. & Dark Panther vs. Euforia, Valiente, & Gran Guerrero
  • Che Cabrera & Bad Dude Tito vs. Gates of Agony
  • Gravity & Bandido vs. The Infantry
  • Billie Starkz vs. TBA
  • Thunder Rosa vs. TBA
  • The Sons of Texas vs. TBA
  • Beast Mortos vs. TBA
  • Jay Lethal & Satnam Singh vs. TBA

And here’s the card for TNA Impact on AXS TV. (TNA)

  • Elijah vs. Brian Myers
  • The Hardys vs. The Colons
  • The Northern Armory vs. Ace Austin & The Rascalz
  • Mike Santana vs. John Skyler
  • Savannah Evans vs. Xia Brookside
  • Moose and Oba Femi go face-to-face
  • We’ll hear from Masha Slamovich
  • First Class Penthouse returns

Royce Isaacs has been added to Bloodsport XIII.

Here’s a non-spoiler card for Collision on Saturday. (AEW) If you do want them the Collision taping results are here.

  • TNA Championship Match: Daniel Garcia vs. Lee Moriarty
  • Momo Watanabe vs. Serena Deeb
  • Hologram vs. Dralistico
  • Harley Cameron vs. TBA

The updated card for Sacrifice on March 14th is below. (TNA)

  • TNA X Division Championship Ladder Match: Moose vs. Jeff Hardy
  • TNA Knockouts Championship Match: Masha Slamovich vs. Cora Jade
  • Street Fight: Sami Callihan vs. Mance Warner
  • Joe Hendry, Matt Hardy, Elijah, Nic Nemeth & Leon Slater vs. JDC, Brian Myers, Eddie Edwards & The Colons
  • Tessa Blanchard vs. Lei Ying Lee
  • Tyson Dupont, Tyriek Igwe, and Wes Lee vs. Ace Austin and The Rascalz
  • Mike Santana vs. Mustafa Ali
  • Nic Nemeth returns

From MLW: “Major League Wrestling (MLW) today announced Bobby Fish has entered the 40-wrestler Battle RIOT match at MLW Battle RIOT VII on Saturday, April 5 at Commerce Casino & Hotel in Los Angeles, CA and presented live on YouTube. Bobby Fish is no stranger to a fight – and on April 5, the battle gets bigger than ever as the grizzled veteran officially enters MLW’s Battle RIOT!”

Also from MLW: “Major League Wrestling (MLW) today announced Atlantis Jr. has entered the 40-wrestler Battle RIOT match at MLW Battle RIOT VII on Saturday, April 5 at Commerce Casino & Hotel in Los Angeles, CA and presented live on YouTube.”

Speaking of MLW here’s a BRG interview.

This week’s NXT did a 0.15 rating in the 18-49 demo and 698,000 viewers. (PI)

Wrestling veteran and CMLL legend Ciclon Ramirez passed away of a heart attack on Monday at 64 years old. (Record) Our condolences to his family, friends and fans.

Speaking of CMLL here are Martes de Arena Mexico results. (FF)

  • Mercurio & Full Metal def. Pequeño Sky Team
  • Two of Three Falls Match: Robin & Disturbio def. Diamond & Astral (2-1)
  • Two of Three Falls Match: Fury Boy, Vengador & El Vigía def. Troglodita, Bufón & Prince Drago (2-1)
  • Match Relámpago: Zandokan Jr. def. El Valiente by DQ.
  • Match Relámpago: Star Jr. fought Esfinge to a double countout.
  • Two of Three Falls Match: Templario & Sky Team def. Los Depredadores (2-1).

Here’s the updated card for Revolution on March 9th. (AEW)

  • AEW World Championship Match: Jon Moxley (c) vs. Cope
  • AEW International Championship Match: Konosuke Takeshita (c) vs. Kenny Omega
  • Hollywood Ending Match for AEW Women’s World Championship: Toni Storm (c) vs. Mariah May
  • AEW TBS Championship Match: Mercedes Mone (c) vs. Momo Watanabe
  • AEW Continental Championship Match: Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Brody King
  • AEW World Tag Team Championship Match: The Hurt Syndicate (c) vs. The Outrunners
  • #1 Contenders Match for AEW World Title: Swerve Strickland vs. Ricochet
  • Steel Cage Match: Will Ospreay vs. Kyle Fletcher
  • MJF vs. Hangman Page
  • Big Boom! AJ, Orange Cassidy & Mark Briscoe vs. Johnny TV & MxM Collection (Zero Hour)

Ivar advanced in the tournament on the latest episode of WWE Speed.

Both LFG and WWE’s Greatest Moments have been renewed by A&E.