Welcome to the McCarthy Report! Where I, talkSPORT’s wrestling guy and Inside The Ropes special contributor Alex McCarthy walk you through the big stories in wrestling every week on Tuesdays and Saturdays!
Angel Garza injury
As you will have seen, Angel Garza suffered a potentially serious injury during the RAW Tag Team title match at Clash of Champions on Sunday.
The match was cut short after Garza went for a raised knee strike and collapsed on his landing. The referee threw up the ‘X’ sign and then finished the match at the next pinfall. The ref hadn’t alerted Angelo Dawkins or Andrade to his executive decision, though, as Andrade very clearly kicked out at two and Dawkins could not hide his fury at the ref’s call.
I reached out to a source after the event and learned that Angel Garza was having an MRI on Monday. I was told he was optimistic it wasn’t as bad as first feared. Garza wasn’t on this week’s RAW, but he believes will be back sooner rather than later after the MRI revealed nothing serious.
James Storm in WWE
After having a brief flirt with WWE in 2015, it seems as though the company had plans to bring in James Storm this year.
The TNA legend and now NWA star opted to re-sign with TNA back in 2015 instead of expanding upon the few NXT appearances he had, but in an interview with ProWrestlingSheet, Storm revealed that WWE pitched to bring him in after WrestleMania this year.
By the time the wheels got turning, the shows got cancelled and WWE moved back to the Performance Center. With that went Storm’s grand debut and possible Beer Money Inc reunion with Bobby Roode, which Storm speculates was the plan.
Covid-19 seems to be the only reason this didn’t happen, but from what I understand, there’s no agreement waiting for Storm when the crowds return to WWE, although it’s possible they’ll talk again. Storm is a free agent after his NWA contract expired in mid-September, but Heyman orchestrated his WWE opportunity and Heyman is no longer making those calls on RAW.
Interestingly, Roode returned to RAW this week and challenged Drew McIntyre for the WWE title, seemingly realigning with Dolph Ziggler. Let’s hope they do work something out – would be cool!
Roman Reigns’ return
The Tribal Chief recently opened up to Corey Graves about his return to WWE and said it was a combination of being able to turn heel and working with Paul Heyman that tempted him back, along with improved care around coronavirus at tapings.
The plans for Reigns happened pretty fast. I was told two weeks ahead of SummerSlam that Reigns would be turning heel and he would be aligning with Heyman. Full transparency – I didn’t believe it! I believe I said ‘f*** off!’
Alas, the source was right and it seems WWE was pitching to have Reigns return long before he did. There’s no doubt that the creative is what made him hungry to return and looking at how things have gone since everyone can agree it’s been great business.
See you on the next McCarthy Report!