Wrestling Republic Weekly – August 4th, 2017

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Welcome to the Wrestling Republic Weekly! The best free weekly source covering all pro wrestling news, insides, reports and rumours from around the globe! Enjoy it!

Yet again this week we have seen some amazing pro wrestling and not only from NJPW this week.

This week’s Raw show was a very entertaining show which is what is expected with only a few weeks until Summerslam. At the start of the show Paul Heyman announced Lesnar would leave WWE if he loses at Summerslam however it is very much a doubt that Lesnar will leave the company until after Wrestlemania. The strangest part of the show was how the main event actually took place at the end of the second hour instead of the third. According to dirty sheets Raw will now be putting the main event at the end of the 2nd hour because since Mania the 2nd hour has been the most viewed and some are even saying this could be the start of Raw cutting the 3rd hour which is something a lot of people have been wanting for a while because three hours is simply too long for most viewers however at the time there is hardly any evidence to suggest WWE do have plans to cut the 3rd hour of what they consider the ‘A show’ Monday Night Raw. Something else worth noting from the show is now Elias Sampson is going by simply just the name Elias. In the third hour of Raw this week Bayley suffered what could be a very serious right shoulder injury against Nia Jax, this could mean she could miss Summerslam or even possibly require surgery which would put her out for months.

On SDLive this week Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Cena cleanly in the centre of the ring after the two had a great match. A lot of people were very surprised Nakamura not only won but won cleanly and there are two reasons for this. The reason Nakamura won cleanly was because Corbin was actually meant to interrupt and end up costing Cena the match however Cena reportedly wanted Shinsuke to beat him cleanly to put him over. The reason Nakamura actually won the match instead of Cena was that John Cena has just got himself a lead role for a Transformers spinoff movie ‘Bumblebee’, and WWE are reportedly very unhappy that Jinder has basically not impacted the Indian market at all! In fact most people there hate him! I literally said from the start this would not work because the two top stars in India are Cena and Reigns and they are both baby faces and heels are really disliked there, so trying to get a heel to expand the market just didn’t work. This all meant that Cena would be able to face Jinder but he wouldn’t be able to win the title because of the movie and this must make him unavailable for some SDLive dates and this is why Cena is currently advertised for the Raw exclusive PPV No Mercy in September. So this is why Nakamura is facing and unless plans change beat Jinder at Summerslam. Some sources are saying that Corbin will cash in on Shinsuke after he wins the title which would make perfect sense however there is no real evidence behind the cash in but I really wouldn’t be surprised if he did. In my opinion Corbin should cash in and win the title at Summerslam and then he successfully will defend his title at the next PPV (Currently set to be Hell In A Cell but I believe another SDLive PPV is soon to be announced for either 4 weeks before or 4 weeks after Hell In A Cell) before Shinsuke wins it back at the next PPV and this will lead eventually lead up to Styles winning the rumble and facing Nakamura for the title at mania in the dream match wrestling fans around the globe want after AJ and Shinsuke put on that amazing match at WrestleKingdom a couple of years ago. Finally on the note of SDLive is that according to Dave Meltzer Chris Jericho’s SDLive appearance last week was just a one off and his new book will be out in a few weeks which he is now going to start promoting.

Last week I reported the expected Summerslam match card. A lot of the Raw matches are still correct except for The Miz vs Jason Jordan because according to the Wrestling Observer newsletter this week, WWE want to slowly build this up because when the match is happening Jordan will be winning the title. The SDLive matches I said about last week have been changed so instead of talking about them all here is the SDLive Summerslam match card:

Sami Zayn vs Mike Kanellis (maybe)

The New Day vs The Usos (tag team championship)

Baron Corbin vs John Cena

Rusev vs Randy Orton

Styles vs Owens (with guest referee Shane) (US Title)

Jinder Mahal vs Shinsuke Nakamura (WWE Championship)

I just wanted to point out again this week that plans could change and as far as we know Ellsworth could be added to the title match! Ok that’s a bit unrealistic but you all get the point.

The WWE earnings reports came out earlier this week. WWE profits were slightly higher than what they predicted and this was mainly down to all the shows that WWE have been cutting over the last few months. The biggest thing we found out from the reports were that the WWE Network subscriber number has significantly decreased yet the number of free trials had seriously increased! People have been using the free trial then cancelling at the end of the trial. After people did this about a month later WWE offered three months to them for free! Then after the three months people must make a new account and do it all again.

The NXT Takeover Brooklyn III card is starting to take shape and this is the expected full card:

Almas vs Gargano

Itami vs Black

Authors Of Pain vs Sanity (Tag Team Championship)

Asuka vs Ember Moon (Women’s Championship)

Bobby Roode vs Drew McIntyre (NXT Championship)

There could also be something to do with Adam Cole although he might just be the crowd for the show or even might not even be there.

The NJPW Climax continued this week with some great matches taking place. The standard of wrestling is still very high although all the competitors seem to be getting very tired now after travelling and fighting every damn night! Sabre, Tanahashi, Ishii and Naito all lead A Block with 8 points each. Okada leads B Block with 12 points while Omega trails with 10. A lot of people are speculating that Okada will lose to Suzuki so the winner of B Block will come down to the winner of Okada vs Omega on August 12th.

Finally this week we have the news that WWE Superstar Paige revealed on Busted Open Radio on Thursday morning that she is preparing for an in ring return very soon. Alberto El Patron who also appeared on the show with her stated he was also excited to return to GFW after his suspension and said he totally understands why they had to suspend him. The couple also revealed when they were asked about the hate towards El Patron from Paige’s family that they believe they have just been reading false rumours online.

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