John Cena announces return
John Cena, one of the most decorated wrestlers in WWE history, announced on Monday via Twitter that he will be making his return to the company on the Memorial Day edition of Monday Night Raw on May 30.
He has been out of action for almost six months after suffering a shoulder injury.
The early word is that he will face Roman Reigns at SummerSlam for the WWE championship.
WWE cracking down on shared Network accounts
Recently, this column looked at how the WWE could bump its sales with the WWE Network if it would not allow shared accounts.
Looks like someone in Titan Towers in Stamford, Conn., is paying attention to this column as the crackdown has begun!
Any one account can only be viewed on one device at a time.
If someone is watching the network and let’s say a friend logs in with the same username and password at the same time, a message pops up with a threat of legal action.
More on this to come.
WWE Payback tonight
The WWE present Payback tonight on the WWE Network.
The main event features Roman Reigns defending the WWE championship against AJ Styles.
Charlotte defends the Women’s title against Natalya, The Miz defends the Intercontinental title against Cesaro, Sami Zayn faces Kevin Owens, Dean Ambrose takes on Chris Jericho, and in a tag match to determine the number one contenders for the tag titles, Enzo and Big Cass face The Vaudevillians.
Also at the show, Vince McMahon will decide whether his son Shane or The Authority will run Raw.
NXT injury?
Several times in this column I have talked about how NXT wrestler Bayley is the next female star to be called up.
Well, it may take a little longer than expected as she appears to have gotten hurt at an NXT event Thursday.
Ryback comments legit?
Last week, Ryback made vague comments about being upset with his role in the WWE.
Then all of a sudden, he is scheduled in a U.S. title match Sunday during the Payback preview show.
Just before WrestleMania, the word was that Ryback was about to be pushed to the forefront and that made his comments last week confusing.
Is he truly upset or was he just playing along with a storyline?
Global Force Wrestling headed to McKeesport
The GFW, Jeff Jarrett’s promotion, will be running a show at the McKeesport Palisades on June 3.
Many famous wrestlers over the years have performed at the Palisades including Bruno Sammartino, Dominic DeNucci, and Lord Zoltan.
This week’s question
With the huge numbers the WWE did in Dallas, have we seen the last of the WrestleMania’s being held in indoor arenas? I think that it is unfair that Pittsburgh, a city that was a cornerstone for the WWWF/WWF/WWE for decades, never gets any serious consideration for Mania. Bob, Altoona.
Yes, we have seen the last of WrestleMania taking place in 18,000-20,000 seat arenas.
Why would the WWE limit itself to a small venue when it can be held in much bigger venues and make a lot more money?
Pittsburgh could always bid on hosting a WrestleMania, but the odds of it coming to the Steel City are rather slim because of the threat of weather conditions.
The only venue the WWE would consider hosting Mania at in Pittsburgh would be Heinz Field.
Philadelphia put together a bid recently, so if the WWE considered Philly, I guess they would listen to an offer from Pittsburgh too.
Or the WWE could skip both stadiums and take it to Beaver Stadium up at Penn State and seat many more fans.
But with the threat of weather issues, I am just not sure how often Vince McMahon will want to risk it.
And here is a little tidbit that not a lot of people know about in terms of Mania and Pittsburgh.
There had been talk of the WWE hosting Mania 13 at the Civic Arena (later known as the Mellon Arena) on March 23, 1997 but the Penguins had a game the night before and the NHL would not move the game to allow the WWE to set up.
So there would have been a Mania in Pittsburgh, but the NHL kept it from happening!
Or the story goes!