Cena returning to WWE?
John Cena last performed for WWE at WrestleMania 36, some 14 months ago.
Could the 16-time WWE champion return when WWE starts touring in July?
His movie schedule frees up in July, and he would make the perfect opponent for Roman Reigns to defend the Universal title against at SummerSlam.
WWE headed back to Pittsburgh
Last Friday, WWE released the rest of its 25-city tour and Pittsburgh will host a “Supershow” on Saturday, July 24 at PPG Paints Arena.
Tickets for the event will go on sale June 11.
Two WWE returns
While Cena is a possibility, Edge and Sasha Banks will return to WWE on the July 16 episode of Smackdown, the company’s first show back on the road.
SummerSlam moving to Saturday
The first six SummerSlam shows took place on Mondays before the event was moved to Sundays in 1994.
Last Friday, WWE announced that SummerSlam will take place on a Saturday for the first time.
The location of the show has not been announced, but the belief is that the event will take place at Allegiant Stadium, the home of the Las Vegas Raiders.
If this happens, it will be WWE’s first SummerSlam at a stadium venue in America and it would be the first non-arena SummerSlam since the 1992 event, which took place at Wembley Stadium.
The SummerSlam location will be announced during the Belmont Stakes’ preshow on June 5.
Vegas seems like the logical place, with Los Angeles being another possibility, as WWE will be out west on its tour.
The day before, WWE will be in Phoenix for Smackdown, in Denver for a “Supershow” that Sunday and in San Diego on Monday, August 23 for Raw.
WWE to make fans sign liability waiver
To protect itself, WWE is going to make fans sign a liability waiver if they attend shows when it begins touring again in July.
The move is not surprising, and it will be interesting to see how long fans will have to sign them.
WWE announcers released
In a move that should not surprise anyone, WWE and lead Raw announcer Adnan Virk mutually agreed to part ways last Tuesday.
A baseball expert who is excellent on the MLB Network, Virk was out of place calling WWE matches.
He had replaced Tom Phillips, so the assumption when Virk left was that Phillips would be back as the main voice on Raw.
However, he was released and WWE announced that former America Ninja Warrior announcer Jimmy Smith will take over the Raw duties.
There were several other WWE releases the same day, but they were all of camera positions.
Battman passes away
Tony “Battman” Marino passed away Friday morning at the age of 90.
He was a staple in Pittsburgh during the studio wrestling days in the 1960s.
This week’s question
Will all WWE performers be happy to go back on the road? Tom from Ruffsdale.
There will be mixed feelings for the talent.
On one hand, they will be stoked beyond belief to be back out in front of live crowds. The talent will also see a bump in pay due to merchandise sales at the event.
However, the talent has been getting paid to wrestle once a week for the last 15-plus months and this has helped keep a lot of them healthy. The fact the performers were off the road for so long will extend many of their careers.
Plus, the wrestlers have been home with their families and have had the chance to see their kids every day for the last year. It is going to be hard for several performers, and their respective families, to be apart from each other.
There will also be WWE employees who won’t be comfortable being around so many people.
When WWE announced last week that it was returning to the road, I texted a buddy of mine who works for the company and asked him if he was happy.
While I won’t go into detail with what he said, he is definitely not excited.
Not only are the performers heading back on the road, but WWE also told office workers that they will be heading back to the office to work in July.
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