NXT In Your House tonight
The next edition of NXT’s TakeOver series takes place tonight when it presents In Your House on Peacock.
Karrion Kross will defend the NXT championship in the main event in a fatal five-way match. The four challengers are Adam Cole, Kyle O’Reilly, Johnny Gargano and Pete Dunne.
Look for the match to be fast paced with plenty of big moves.
Raquel Gonzalez defends her NXT women’s title against Ember Moon and this match could steal the show.
In a winner’s take all match, the NXT tag titles and the North American title will be up for grabs as MSK (tag champs) and Bronson Reed (North American champ) face Legado del Fantasma in a six-man tag match.
Cameron Grimes faces LA Knight in a ladder match for the Million Dollar championship. Seeing Ted DiBiase get involved has been fun and the reintroduction of his title has been a trip down Memory Lane for long-time fans.
In another announced match, Mercedes Martinez faces Xia Li.
The main show begins at 8 p.m. on Peacock while the preshow starts 30 minutes prior.
Best of TakeOver
There will be TakeOver-themed shows all day on Peacock, with the highlight being a Best of NXT TakeOver show from 1-6:30 p.m.
The sheer volume of legendary matches from the TakeOver events is impressive, and it will be interesting to see what all WWE shows.
The next TakeOver will take place…
Internally, word going around NXT is that the next TakeOver event will take place on Sunday, Aug. 22.
If the date holds, this will be the first time an NXT event will take place the day after a WWE PPV as it is usually TakeOver that airs a day before the WWE PPV.
WWE is airing SummerSlam on Saturday, Aug. 21.
Speaking of SummerSlam…
SummerSlam hiccup
While WWE still has two PPV events before SummerSlam, the company is said to be putting together a massive card for the event.
It is going to have to be a big event to sell a lot of tickets to Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
The venue can hold over 70,000 fans for football games, so it should be able to hold over 80,000 fans for a wrestling event considering the configuration and setup.
However, WWE has a few things to worry about.
The first issue is that boxing legend Manny Pacquiao faces Errol Spence Jr. on a card the same night on PPV.
That isn’t the only issue pertaining to the fight. Want to guess where it is taking place?
Yep, Las Vegas.
Why WWE would book a PPV in the same city the same night as a boxing PPV is beyond me.
WWE is banking on the fact that SummerSlam will start at 5 p.m. PST while the fight the boxing card won’t start until 8 p.m. PST.
There have also been WWE representatives state that it will have SummerSlam over early enough for fans of both entities to be able to watch both.
So now WWE is going from SummerSlam running over four hours to less than three? Interesting.
Thunderdome robbed
Last Saturday, the University of South Florida Police Department released a crime alert about an incident on May 22 where someone stole WWE property from The Thunderdome.
There is photo and video footage from the heist and authorities are looking for help in apprehending the culprit.
Andrade big get for AEW
On the June 4th episode of Dynamite, former WWE talent Andrade made his first appearance for AEW.
He will be known as Andrade El Idolo.
Local legend’s health issues
On Friday, www.pwinsiderelite.com reported that Bill Eadie, a Brownsville graduate, is dealing with a heart issue.
A legend in the pro wrestling business, Eadie’s biggest fame came as Ax, one-half of the three-time WWF tag team champions, Demolition.
During his lengthy career, which ended in 2017, Eadie was known by several characters in different territories. Among his personas, The Masked Superstar was the most well-known other than Ax. Eadie performed under that moniker in Georgia.
Eadie was also known as Bolo Mongol in Big Time Wrestling out of Detroit and his first WWF character was as one of The Machines. The storyline was that Andre the Giant was suspended but wrestled as The Giant Machine under a mask.
Bobby Heenan pleaded to WWF officials that it was Andre, but the legendary Giant never got caught.
Chyna special airing Thursday
There will be a two-hour piece on Chyna on Vice Thursday night.
The show, which airs from 9-11 p.m., will look at what happened to her after she left WWE up until her death.
There may be pictures, videos or discussions that are not suitable for children.
This Day in History
In 1990, Mark Callous defeated Brian Pillman on WCW’s Clash of the Champions XI card.
It would be one of the last WCW appearances for Callous before going to WWE where he would debut later that year at Survivor Series as The Undertaker.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
In 1993, WWE airs its first televised King of the Ring PPV event.
On the card, Yokozuna pinned Hulk Hogan to win the WWF championship and Bret Hart won the King of the Ring tournament.
In 2004, Triple H defeated Shawn Michaels in the longest Hell in a Cell match to date. It lasted over 47 minutes.
In 2006, ECW on SciFi debuted and was a resounding dud as it is best remembered for having a zombie appear. Everyone knew WWE’s version of ECW was doomed from this moment forward.
This week’s question
Moxley, Jack Swagger, Christian, Rusev, Matt Hardy, Big Show, others and now Mark Henry. All of these performers have left WWE for AEW. What is going on? Ryan from Carmichaels.
Moxley left WWE for AEW because he was tired of how he was being booked. Others let their contract run out to make the move.
With Christian, Hardy, Paul Wight (Big Show) and Henry, they are all well past their primes and I only see Wight and Henry working a handful of matches.
Some of the talent had their WWE contracts run out and decided to take AEW up on the respective offers they were provided.
If Vince McMahon really wanted to keep Christian, Hardy, Wight or Henry, he would have offered them more money.
With Moxley (Dean Ambrose in WWE) and a few others, they were offered pay raises to stay with WWE but were tired with how WWE was booking them.
So in the end, it was about money for some and respect for others.
Email questions/comments to powerhousehughes@gmail.com or tweet them to @BillHughes_III.