Indy Minute - Weekly independent wrestling new round up

  Welcome back to the Delco Elbow Drop for the extended Indy Minute – all the great indy wrestling news you heard on the Ring Rust Radio podcast and a whole lot more.

  The signing of KENTA is helping to build the NXT brand in Japan. Reports are that NXT will soon start airing on J Sports, a satellite company in Japan, and it's believed that KENTA will debut in NXT in September.  WWE also just signed a deal to bring NXT, Raw, Smackdown, Main Event, and all PPVs to OSN which serves North Africa and the Middle East.

  Kevin Steen has wrestled his final dates for Ring of Honor. Steen defeated Tomasso Ciampa in Minneapolis, lost to Silas Young in a no DQ match in Cincinnati, and defeated Steve Corino in Dearborn in his final match.

  Several matches have been announced for Ring of Honor’s return to The Armory in Philadelphia on August 9. In addition to the Young Bucks versus Bad Influence (Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian) and Michael Elgin taking on Cedric Alexander for the ROH World title, recently announced matches are:

            Jay Lethal vs ACH for the ROH TV title

            Silas Young vs Brian Kendrick

            Tomasso Ciampa vs Rocky Romero

            War Machine (Hanson and Rowe) vs The Briscoe Brothers

  ROH is teaming up with Preston City Wrestling in England for a 2-day, 3-show event on November 28, 29 entitled “UK Supershow of Honor.” Hit this link for more info.

  Evolve, a promotion closely associated with Dragon Gate USA, is rebooting its product starting with its upcoming events, Evolve 31, 32 and 33 on August 8-10 in Florida. With the reboot, Evolve is returning to its roots and putting more emphasis on win/loss records with regards to how matches are booked and who gets title shots and should be a great jumping off point for fans not familiar with the company.

  Word is that AR Fox suffered a wrist injury and will need surgery and be out for several months. No word on who his replacement in the PWG 2014 Battle of Los Angeles will be, though.

  Rumors that a former UFC star has been training at the WWE Performance Center. Speculation is that it's Rashad Evans, though the former light heavyweight champ has stated he wouldn't consider wrasslin’ until after he's done fighting, which he's put at another 4-5 years.

  To me, the most likely person is Chael Sonnen. Word is the person is "older than a usual WWE potential developmental wrestler" but has all the attributes of a WWE wrestler. Chael has proven to be a master on the mic and with that and his athletic prowess, he would easily be able to make the transition to WWE.

  Shannon Moore announced his retirement from pro wrestling last week. His final appearance will be at WrestleCade in North Carolina on November 29 where he will be reuniting with 3-Count partners Evan Karagias and Shane "Hurricane" Helms. Moore has wrestled for WCW, TNA and WWE in his nearly 20 year career.

 

  FWE in Brooklyn, New York will be hosting events on October 3 and 4. Announced for Night 1 is Young Bucks vs Bad Influence and Drew Galloway vs Trent? and Night 2 will see Tommy Dreamer vs Drew Galloway.

  Steven O'Neill, of Extreme Rising, sent out an odd press release last weekend claiming that Luke Hawx nor the Extreme Rising title would be at the Maryland Championship Wrestling Shamrock Cup show on Saturday July 19 - which was news to everyone involved as O'Neill hadn't contacted anyone mentioned regarding this issue. MCW president Dan McDevitt also issued a statement saying the card would run as advertised and if Hawx wanted to bring the Extreme Rising belt, he was welcome to.
  It was an odd move by O'Neill as this was his first public comments from him since numerous Extreme Rising events were cancelled out of the blue with no refunds issued to fans who had already purchased tickets. Definitely not a the way to build good will if they are planning on ever running another Rising show.

  The MCW show went on as planned and Matt Hardy is still the MCW champion and new Extreme Rising champ after defeating Luke Hawx in a crazy TLC match. Hawx also brought the Extreme Rising belt and claimed its now the "Big F'n Arms" championship since Rising is dead. Afterwards Hardy put over Hawx on the mic and said he deserved to keep the Rising belt forever and gave it back to him, since he took a risk being sued and chased by attorneys for bringing and defending it.
  Also, DROLIX is the Shamrock Cup winner, outlasting Papadon, Shane Strickland, Bolt Brady, Bo Nekoda, and Bu Ku Dao in an elimination match for the Cup. 3 time winner Christian York was there to award the winner.
 

  Apparently IWA-Mid South is promoting shows again. According to the IWA-Mid South Facebook page, they will be hosting the Ted Petty Invitational tournament on September 13 and 14 in New Albany, Indiana.

  The line up so far includes Michael Elgin, Chris Hero, Tomasso Ciampa, BJ Whitmer and two names I don’t recognize – Hy Zaya and Shane Mercer. Keep an eye on their Facebook page for more participants.

  I wasn’t aware that IWA-MS had hosted a TPI in many years – or that IWA-MS was even still an active company. According to a Wikipedia page for the event, they hosted a TPI in 2013 though I don’t remember hearing about it. But before that, the last one they hosted was in 2008, as tournaments for 2009 and 2010 were announced but cancelled.