Monday, November 2, 2020

EC3 & Briscoes vs Shane Taylor & SOS (ROH Highlights)

 In his ROH in-ring debut, EC3 joined forces with Ring of Honor legends the Briscoes against the formidable trio of Shane Taylor & SOS! Here are the highlights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGbY-rd4i6E

KYLIE RAE IS NO LONGER A PROFESSIONAL WRESTLER (ACCORDING TO HER)

 In an update posted on her Patreon account on Monday morning, Kylie Rae announced that she's no longer a professional wrestler.

Rae was scheduled to challenge Deonna Purrazzo for the Knockouts Championship at Bound for Glory on October 24. With Rae not appearing at the show, Su Yung instead faced Purrazzo and won the Knockouts title. Dave Meltzer wrote about the situation in last week's edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

Purrazzo was to defend the title against Kylie Rae. In tracing back the story, Kylie Rae (Brianna Sperry, 28) was injured two weeks earlier in a match at The Collective, and missed one of her matches that weekend. But everything seemed fine for the show. She was in Nashville at the hotel on 10/23. And then, on the day of the PPV, she never showed up. She never left word. There was the hope during the show that she would show up. Because of the lack of communications, Impact never said anything.

It got weird on the broadcast. The match was held next to last. Before it started Josh Mathews talked about the match as if it was happening. At no point in the show did they indicate anything was wrong. They played the video package for the Purrazzo vs. Rae title match with all the weeks of angles leading to it. Purrazzo was in the ring and Rae’s music played. She never came out. Purrazzo cut a promo about how she wasn’t surprised by this and issued an open challenge to anyone, man or woman, who wanted to face her for the title.

Eventually Yung came out. Yung had been a babyface, Susie, dressed all in white, as Rae’s best friend. It was always pushed that innocent Susie was the alter ego of vile heel Su Yung. And in recent weeks, it was pushed that Su Yung was starting to invade Susie’s body, and how Rae doesn’t know about Su Yung. It appeared that Rae and Yung were being set up for a program. But with no transition, Su Yung came out, and ended up winning the title.

No mention was made about Rae on the broadcast and they really didn’t know anything at the time.

When she never answered messages from people in the company, the promotion contacted the hotel for a wellness check on her and found that she wasn’t there and had checked out. They also contacted her boyfriend and other friends. Later, I believe after the show was over, they did get word that she was physically okay. It was a very sensitive subject that nobody was allowed to talk about. During the show it evidently wasn’t addressed since at the time they didn’t know the situation and didn’t want to say something that could look bad in hindsight.

It was never said, but the idea they appeared to be pushing was that maybe Susie turned into Su Yung and laid out Rae, but that was never said and only slightly hinted at.

Obviously, Rae had issues in 2019 when she was in AEW and was expected to be one of the top women’s stars in the promotion. AEW was very quiet about the situation. She disappeared in June and was out of wrestling for three months, resurfacing at an independent show in Chicago in September. During that period AEW was quiet, and then in September, before she returned, Tony Khan just said that she had asked to be released from her contract and they granted her a release. When she returned, she never really gave answers but was very emotional on the return.