WWE Rumors Round-Up: TNA Announcer Slams WWE, Plans For Samoa Joe And Name Change, TNA ‘Impact’ Being Cancelled

There are a lot more than WWE rumors going around lately, but even those dealing with other companies seem to fall over into it. TNA has been in the spotlight lately, but not for many good reasons – Are they cancelled?. Samoa Joe has appeared in NXT under his longtime name, but is he going to have to change it?

TNA announcer oddly slams TNA over Samoa Joe

Former WWE and current TNA announcer Josh Mathews decided to take a social media slam at WWE. Just this past week, Samoa Joe debuted for the company at NXT Takeover: Unstoppable, and then at their TV tapings. Mathews took exception to that.

How did the @WWENXT announcers know who @SamoaJoe was if we are #obscurity in their world? Sick of hypocrisy.

— Josh Mathews (@realjoshmathews) May 22, 2015

Mathews seems to forget that TNA wasn’t the first place that Samoa Joe wrestled as he was in Ring of Honor for years. Many on Twitter were quick to mention that and jump all over Mathews for his comments.

Future plans for Samoa Joe – Will he have to change his name for the WWE main roster?

With Samoa Joe’s debut for NXT this past week, many are wondering where he will go from here. Per WrestleZone, his deal with WWE allows him to take indy bookings for a while, but a full-time deal will likely happen in the future.

Some rumors actually have Samoa Joe appearing at Elimination Chamber on May 31 and interfering in the match between John Cena and Kevin Owens.

Kevin Owens (Kevin Steen), Hideo Itami (KENTA), and Finn Balor (Prince Devitt) all ended up having their names changed by WWE upon their arrival in NXT. Samoa Joe debuted with his name in place and the call to leave it as such was apparently made by Triple H.

Now, Itami did show up as KENTA and changed his name a couple weeks after being in NXT, but it doesn’t look as if that will happen with Samoa Joe.

Is WWE’s Competition gone? Has TNA ‘Impact’ been cancelled?

Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer recently said that not only was TNA “Impact” Wrestling moving to Wednesday nights, but Destination America was cancelling it soon too. TNA issued a statement on those rumors, but new TNA creative team member Billy Corgan touched on them.

@ldangeli It wouldn’t be so bad if the whole truth was being reported and the person reporting wasn’t being worked himself by a sloppy angle

— William Corgan (@Billy) May 21, 2015

This was in response to Sign Guy Dudley tweeting about TNA losing a TV deal. This is interesting as Corgan never confirmed nor denied the report by Meltzer, and Dixie Carter didn’t either. All she did was promote a rerun of Slammiversary 2014 for free on Destination America.

Either way, Samoa Joe has signed a deal (of some sort) with WWE and is in NXT for the time being. He is keeping his name, and TNA appears to be falling completely apart as WWE seems to be building up. Rumors keep things interesting, and more are always around.

[Images via TNA]