Jey Uso Ends Four-Month Streak On WWE Raw; December 19th Live Wrestling News Round-Up

Samoa Joe has revealed that while his in-ring retirement won’t be anytime soon, it is on the horizon.

Speaking to Adrian Hernandez ahead of AEW Worlds End, Joe opened up on the fact that in-ring retirement is on his mind. However, he noted there are still several years until that point and when he does eventually decide to hang up his boots, he wants to go out in style.

“Oh no, I’ll probably stop (wrestling) way before then (his body tells him to stop). I’ve been really, really fortunate.

When I came off the concussion, I took two years off to really get everything back in order and in that time too, just in the recovery process, really changed a lot of my training and changed a lot of things around that have benefited me to a great amount health-wise and I feel good right now.

As far as where the train will end, I’ll let it play out a little bit more but I will say this, I definitely have more than a handful of good years left in me and beyond that, I’m excited to… if we are gonna go out, we’re gonna go out with a bang so, it’ll be interesting to see how these next few years play out.”

h/t to POST Wrestling

Zac Efron has opened up on the possibility of him stepping inside the squared circle for real following his starring role in The Iron Claw.

Speaking On The Masked Man Show, Efron admitted that he’d be interested in a real foray into professional wrestling, particularly with Chavo Guerrero or the Von Erich Family due to his familiarity with them through working on The Iron Claw!

“It’d be fun if we could get in there with some of the guys we worked with, with Chavo or even the Von Erichs coming back with AEW. I’d love to do something with them. If we had some time and prep and, especially if we were all out there together, that would be fun as hell. Who knows. Don’t count it out, that’s for sure.”

h/t to Fightful

WWE Hall of Famer Road Dogg has discussed why he believes the now-defunct 205 Live ultimately failed.

Speaking on his Oh You Didn’t Know podcast, Road Dogg addressed the main issue those behind the scenes were forced to tackle with 205 Live and why that ultimately led to the brand’s downfall.

“We talked about all this. Do we make the third hour of Raw 205 Live? There’s a million conversations, and call it WWE Turbo or something,” he questioned. “I don’t know what we were out to get; it was almost a hidden little gem.

You had to really go in there and find 205 to watch. I think if you go back on there right now and watch it on the archives, there is great, and I mean great, wrestling matches on there.”

h/t to WrestlingInc

Tonight’s WWE NXT will emanate from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. The next major NXT event is NXT Vengeance Day in seven weeks.

Matches and segments announced for the show include:

• Ilja Dragunov reflects on his 2023
• Fallon Henley vs Tiffany Stratton
• Izzi Dame & Kiana James vs Jacy Jane & Thea Hail
• Nikkita Lyons vs Tatum Paxley
• Gallus vs Hank Walker & Tank Ledger
• Lexis King vs Dion Lexxon – Men’s Breakout Tournament First Round match
• Tavion Heights vs Luca Crusifino – Men’s Breakout Tournament First Round match
• Dragon Lee vs Charlie Dempsey – NXT North American Championship match

What are you most excited to see on tonight’s episode of NXT? Let us know your thoughts here!

WWE has released a new compilation video featuring the biggest Rhea Ripley highlights from 2023 including her winning the Women’s Royal Rumble, capturing the SmackDown Women’s Championship at WrestleMania, and more!

Check out the video above and let us know what you think of it using the thumbs down below!

MJF has provided a major update on his current contract status, revealing that he has yet to re-sign with AEW.

Last month, it was reported that WWE internally believe that MJF had quietly re-signed with AEW through 2027. It was also noted that there have been “zero talks” between MJF and WWE recently and that the idea that he would become a free agent in 2024 is a “false narrative.”

However, the AEW World Champion has now refuted those claims. Speaking on SI Media With Jimmy Traina, MJF claimed that he has yet to re-sign with AEW and is still set to become a free agent on January 1st, 2024 – though he would like to remain with AEW.

“I’ve been saying the same thing (about my contract expiration date). I never lied. January 1st, 2024. When stuff like that gets leaked out, it makes me laugh because I remember something leaked out about Cody (Rhodes) having secretly re-signed and then he showed up (in WWE). Something got leaked out about, you know, CM Punk and Tony Khan or you know…

I think fans leak out things that they want to be true. I love AEW, I wanna stay in AEW. After this pay-per-view (Worlds End), it’s time to assess the situation for a professional setting. So… not yet (I haven’t re-signed).”

h/t to POST Wrestling

MJF has taken to social media to celebrate his induction into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

This past weekend, the AEW World Champion shared news of his impending induction into his first-ever Hall of Fame. Now MJF has taken to X to celebrate the induction itself which took place yesterday.

In one of the photos, Friedman can be seen pointing to his Hall of Fame plaque which features a caption that reads the following:

“Maxwell Jacob Friedman, otherwise known as MJF, is a World Champion Professional Wrestler and Actor. A native of Long Island, New York, MJF is widely regarded as one of the greatest talents in the professional wrestling industry. A Plainview High School graduate, MJF was a standout on the football team, and a member of the school’s acapella group. As of December 2023, MJF was the AEW World Champion with the longest title reign in company history.

MJF is a proud member of the Jewish Community and has long advocated against Anti-Semitism. MJF has spoken regularly about the hardships he faced growing up as a Jewish student, and has reference those situations while in the ring on national television. MJF is a member of the Stand Up To Jewish Hate organisation, and plans to continue using his platform to advocate for and represent the Jewish population.”

I can’t put into words what today meant to me.

With the rampant discrimination and bigotry seen worldwide i proudly say i’m not just a Jew, I'm a human. We should all treat each other as such.

Except me…I deserve special treatment because I’m a hall of fame level human. pic.twitter.com/X5TifpyDUe

— Maxwell Jacob Friedman™️ (@The_MJF) December 19, 2023

Santos Escobar has admitted he went off-script during his match at WWE Survivor Series: WarGames last month!

Speaking on Wrestling With Freddie, Escobar revealed that the moment when he tore Dragon Lee’s mask during their Premium Live Event match was not scripted. This was instead something he decided to do on the fly in order to get across the importance of masks in Lucha culture to WWE audiences.

“That was 100% non-scripted. That was just the heel in me and I think it’s important that our audiences get that feel. Because now we have Dragon Lee, now we have Axiom, now we have Rey [Mysterio], now we have more and more people diving into the Lucha culture, but like really, really doing it.

The mask, the tradition, the respect that’s behind the mask. And so it’s important that our audiences know that for a fact, when someone goes with the mask, goes against the mask, it means something. It ups the stakes.”

h/t to WrestlingInc

Jey Uso broke an unfortunate streak he’s held for over four months on the latest edition of Raw!

Last night, Uso faced off against Imperium’s Ludwig Kaiser in a singles match and picked up the win. While his victory wasn’t overly focused upon on the show itself, it also quietly ended an unfortunate streak that Uso has accidentally picked up over the last few months!

In defeating Kaiser on last night’s Raw, Jey Uso ended his singles losing streak at 136 days. Before last night, Jey had not won a singles match on WWE programming since the August 4th edition of SmackDown, where he got the win over Solo Sikoa.

This also marks Jey’s first singles win and only his second victory overall since moving to the red brand back in September. His first Raw win occurred back on October 9th when he and Cody Rhodes successfully retained the Undisputed WWE Tag Team titles against Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn.

Welcome back to the ITRWrestling live blog! I’ll be with you from 12pm to 6pm BST (7am – 1pm ET) covering all the biggest stories from WWE, AEW, NJPW, IMPACT, and more.

Today’s top stories are:

• Jey Uso Ends Four-Month Streak On WWE Raw
• Santos Escobar Went Off-Script During Recent PLE Match
• MJF Celebrates First-Ever Hall Of Fame Induction