The Shield is back, but only one of the three members is a titleholder at the moment. Roman Reigns defeated The Miz to win the Intercontinental Championship a few weeks ago, but Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose are eager to also carry gold soon as well. It was revealed on last week’s show that Cesaro and Sheamus will defend the Raw Tag Team Championships against Ambrose and Rollins on tonight’s show. Cageside Seats reports that the plan is to have Rollins and Ambrose win back the titles from The Bar tonight. This would allow all three members of The Shield to become champions. Rollins and Ambrose lost the titles to The Bar on Raw two weeks before Survivor Series.
It was reported recently that there could be another departure from Impact Wrestling on the way soon. Laurel Van Ness reportedly asked for her release during the latest set of Impact tapings, and the company will likely be granting it soon. Those reports have since been confirmed by numerous sources and performers within the wrestling industry. Dave Meltzer elaborated on the story more on Wrestling Observer Radio. Laurel Van Ness has apparently been looking at leaving the company for a while. One of the reasons why she has reportedly asked for her release is because WWE has shown interest in signing her to a deal for themselves.
Matt Hardy’s “Broken” gimmick seemed like it would never arrive in WWE, but then again, he knew it’d come. Impact Wrestling revealed that they are no longer in pursuit of owning the character, and WWE teased the arrival of the character on last week’s Raw and on this week’s live events. Cageside Seats has now backed up previous reports of the character being renamed to “Woken” Matt Hardy. The company is reportedly doing this because they want to own all aspects of the character since Matt has filed a trademark for the original “Broken” gimmick. Expect to see the character continue to develop on tonight’s edition of Raw.