Ludwig Kaiser was arrested in Florida.

It was noted on the Orange County Mugshots 2.0 Facebook page and on Recently Booked that WWE talent Ludwig Kaiser, real name Marcel Barthel, was arrested in Florida on a battery charge.

Court documents state that the alledged victim, whose name has been redacted in this article, “entered the elevator and was followed by an unknown white male and an unknown white female. [Victim] stated that as the elevator ascended, the male and female began acting in an “uncontrollably intimate” manner, which he described as aggressively kissing.

“[Victim] stated that once the elevator reached the 12th floor, he exited the elevator and told the couple to “please have some manners.” [Victim] advised that immediately after making the statement, the unknown male began attacking him. [Victim] described the attack as the male punching him multiple times and pushing him to the ground. [Victim] further stated the male made threats of additional violence toward him.”

The incident occurred on April 23.

Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp has reached out to WWE for comment.

Barthel was booked on May 20th at 2:37 PM. His bond was $1,000.

Kaiser also plays the role of El Grande Americano. He is scheduled to headline AAA’s Noches de Los Grandes event on May 31st in a Mask versus Mask match against Original El Grande Americano.

He was picked up on a battery charge after an altercation with another male. He has posted a thousand dollar bond and has been released.

Also a story on PWInsider, says same as link to the Fightful article basically.

Tonight’s Dynamite and Collision come to us from the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland, ME!

Tonight’s card includes:

AEW Women’s World Tag Team Title Five Minute Challenge Eliminator Match Divine Dominion (Lena Kross & Megan Bayne) vs. ??? & ???

Six Man Tag Team Match Jericho & The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) vs. Don Callis Family (Andrade El Idolo & Mark Davis) & Ricochet

Eight Man Tag Team Match Athena & Triangle Of Madness (Julia Hart, Skye Blue & Thekla) vs. Alex Windsor, Jamie Hayter, Mina Shirakawa & Thunder Rosa

Singles Match Katsuyori Shibata vs. Will Ospreay

Anything Goes Match Mark Briscoe vs. Tommaso Ciampa

AEW Continental Title Eliminator Match Jon Moxley vs. Kyle O’Reilly

AEW World Tag Team Title Match FTR (Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood) (c) vs. The Conglomeration (Orange Cassidy & Roderick Strong)

AEW World Title Match Darby Allin (c) vs. Mike Bailey

And more?

Enjoy the show and have fun!

@luchablog.bsky.social

WWE talents are partaking in the UFC Fan Fest event.

On June 14th, the UFC will be presenting the UFC Freedom 250 event that is scheduled to take place on the lawn of the White House in Washington, DC.

The event is to commemorate 250 years since the Declaration of Independence was established in the United States of America. On the week of the show, there is going to be Fan Fest from June 13th through the 14th.

It was announced that WWE talents would be participating in the Fan Fest and doing meet-and-greets.

The following names are advertised:

Charlotte Flair

The Miz

Chelsea Green

Trick Williams

The Usos (Jimmy Uso & Jey Uso)

Bron Breakker

Tiffany Stratton

Welcome to SquaredCircle’s ‘Meme Monday’!

Have you seen a great wrestling meme this week that just made you crack up? Did you watch a silly moment in a show and just need to craft a meme out of it? Well post ‘em below!

The highest voted meme shall win and be showcased in next week’s thread!

Both of last week’s winner’s attached!

EVIL and IYO SKY are officially married, with the WWE couple disclosing the relationship on Sunday’s episode of the Japanese documentary series Jounetsu Tairiku.

Sky, now married to the former EVIL who debuted in WWE this month under the new name Naraku, posted images of the two together to social media after the Sunday airing with the caption “Mr & Mrs.” The two attached a formal joint statement in Japanese to the post.

Translated via Google:

“To everyone who always gives us such warm support, This is a private matter, but we would like to report that NARAKU (formerly EVIL), who belongs to WWE, and IYO SKY (formerly Io Shirai), also of WWE, are husband and wife. We each began walking the path of professional wrestling in Japan, and although we have seen different scenery and different ‘skies,’ from this early summer onward, we are deeply grateful and happy to be colleagues and comrades challenging ourselves on the same stage of WWE across the sea. From now on, as husband and wife, we will support each other in our daily lives. And as WWE ‘superstars,’ while sharing both lonely ‘darkness’ and glory, we will continue to improve one another and devote ourselves so that each of us can shine even brighter. We will not forget our gratitude to all the fans who have supported and guided us up to now, and to everyone involved, and together we will keep pushing forward toward even greater heights. We are still immature as a couple, but we sincerely ask for your continued guidance and support. May 17, 2026. NARAKU (EVIL), IYO SKY (Io Shirai).”

The two have been together for years. Tokyo Sports reported the engagement in 2015, and the couple worked through long stretches apart while pursuing separate wrestling paths. Sky left Japan in 2018 to sign with WWE, where she rose through NXT before becoming a multi-time WWE Women’s Champion on the main roster. EVIL, real name Takaaki Watanabe, ended his 15-year run with NJPW in January 2026 to sign with WWE. He is 39.

Naraku made his WWE in-ring debut on the May 12 episode of NXT, defeating Lince Dorado in a one-sided showing. He wrestled twice more on this weekend’s NXT house show tour, losing an NXT Championship match to Tony D’Angelo on Friday in Buffalo and a tag bout with Grayson Waller against D’Angelo and Shiloh Hill on Saturday.

Sky comes off a win over Sol Ruca on the May 11 Raw and a win over Asuka at WWE Backlash on May 9. She dropped her previous match before that, an Intercontinental Championship match against Becky Lynch on the April 27 Raw.

Major League Wrestling and World Wonder Ring STARDOM have announced a strategic working partnership.

MLW issued a press release on Sunday outlining the new collaboration. The agreement will focus heavily on talent exchanges and creative crossover between the two organizations.

This arrangement allows athletes from both rosters to compete on each other’s platforms and in front of audiences in Japan and the United States.

The Japanese women’s promotion aims to expand its presence in North America by utilizing MLW’s broadcast distribution networks.

MLW CEO Court Bauer expressed his gratitude to STARDOM officials and commented on the new agreement:

STARDOM has built a roster and presentation that set the standard for excellence in women’s wrestling. I have tremendous respect and admiration for the level of competition and the athletes who define STARDOM.

We’re grateful to Mr. Okada and everyone at World Wonder Ring STARDOM for their partnership. This alliance is about creating fresh matchups, new experiences, and meaningful opportunities for athletes and fans alike.

STARDOM CEO Taro Okada noted MLW’s established position in the United States and its existing relationships with New Japan Pro Wrestling and CMLL.

Through cooperation with MLW, STARDOM will further convey the charm of women’s professional wrestling culture from Japan to the United States as well as to various regions where MLW’s broadcasting and distribution networks are expanding.

In addition, we intend to promote the improvement of the competition and further development on the world-class stage of both organizations by strengthening player exchanges and creating new opportunities to participate in the competition.

The companies stated that additional details regarding the alliance will be announced in the coming weeks.

Marty Jannetty has had his foot amputated.

Jannett’s longtime friend Eddy Mansfield spoke on the Monte & The Pharaoh show, revealing the news.

“One of my dearest friends ever on the face of this earth, and was a great wrestler, had his foot amputated, his name is the Rocker Marty Jannetty,” he said.

Mansfield said he stood up years ago for the guys to be taken care of and called out the WWE to help Jannetty.

“You can’t help him when he is in the biggest need of his life and fighting for his life,” questioned Mansfield.

In January 2024, Jannetty took to Facebook to reveal that he was told that the doctors want to amputate his leg. Jannetty has been dealing with ankle issues throughout his wrestling career and underwent surgery in 2020. He said in June 2021 that he was “all fixed up.”

Tonight's Collision comes to us from Wicomico Youth And Civic Center in [city], [state]!

Tonight's card includes:

AEW World Trios Title Eliminator Match: Shane Taylor Promotions (Carlie Bravo, Lee Moriarty & Shawn Dean) vs. The Conglomeration (Kyle O'Reilly, Mark Briscoe & Orange Cassidy)

Tag Team Match: The Opps (Anthony Bowens & Samoa Joe) vs. The Lethal Twist (Jay Lethal & Lee Johnson)

AEW TBS Title Match: Willow Nightingale (c) vs. Red Velvet

AEW Women's World Tag Team Title Eliminator Match: Divine Dominion (Lena Kross & Megan Bayne) vs. ??? & ???

AEW World Title Match: Darby Allin (c) vs. Sammy Guevara

And more!

Enjoy the show and have fun!

Tonight's Dynamite comes to us from Harrah's Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina, USA!

Tonight's card includes:

AEW TNT Title Match: Kevin Knight (c) vs. ???

Six (Wo)Man Tag Team Match: Hikaru Shida & The Brawling Birds (Alex Windsor & Jamie Hayter) vs. Triangle Of Madness (Julia Hart, Skye Blue & Thekla)

Ten Man Tag Team Match: Adam Copeland, Christian Cage, Orange Cassidy & The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) vs. FTR (Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood), The Dogs (Clark Connors & David Finlay) & Tommaso Ciampa

Singles Match: Will Ospreay vs. Ace Austin

AEW World Title Match: Darby Allin (c) vs. Konosuke Takeshita

And more?

Enjoy the show and have fun!

Apologies for getting this up late, I've been playing Fallout London all afternoon.

Deeper dive on the lawsuit TrillerTV/Flipps filed against Triller Group Inc.

Among the highlights:

• Multiple emails from TrillerTV's CEO to Triller's CEO went completely unanswered, except in one instance where Triller's CEO replied only to be angry at the inclusion of a member of Triller's board in the email chain and not to address any of the issues.
• Triller redirected most of the revenue from TrillerTV to the parent company, which led to them being unable to pay content providers money owed.
• Triller refused to sign off on or even acknowledge attempts to secure loans to pay AEW, which led to the dissolution of the relationship between TrillerTV and AEW and the lawsuit AEW filed against both companies. AEW alone represented over 60% of TrillerTV's revenue and 24% of Triller's as a whole.
• Multiple buyout offers for TrillerTV, including from FuboTV and Anthem (TNA's parent company), were refused out of hand without any due diligence.
• Even now, Triller refuses to tell TrillerTV execs whether they plan to continue operating the service or to wind down, which is why they're suing to separate from the company and explore sale or bankruptcy options.

Asuka’s WWE absence has been clarified, with PWInsider reporting that the former champion is returning to Japan for an extended period to deal with an undisclosed family matter while remaining under contract with the company.

The update comes after Asuka appeared on Monday’s Raw in Knoxville, where she embraced IYO SKY backstage, told her “See you later,” and then exited the building. The moment, following their Backlash match last Saturday where the two embraced after SKY’s victory, painted a picture of a performer taking her leave in a meaningful way.

According to PWInsider, the word making the rounds within WWE is that Asuka plans to return to Japan for an extended period of time due to an undisclosed family matter. She remains signed with WWE and the absence is said to be unrelated to the recent post-WrestleMania 42 roster releases or the reports of WWE talent being asked to accept pay cuts.

The clarification comes Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Radio report that people were wishing Asuka goodbye backstage at Backlash and that she had been described to him as semi-retired. Asuka’s Backlash match with IYO SKY served as the end to a program that lost a key element when Kairi Sane was released in WWE’s post-WrestleMania 42 roster cuts, despite being an integral part of the storyline.

Sane had been positioned between Asuka and SKY for months before her departure brought the intended payoff to the feud into question. The Backlash match proceeded without her, with SKY winning and the two women sharing an emotional embrace in a touching conclusion.

Asuka has been with WWE since the summer of 2015 and is a four-time main roster women’s champion, a one-time NXT Women’s Champion, a five-time Women’s Tag Team Champion, a 2018 Royal Rumble winner, and a 2020 Money in the Bank winner.

Subhead:

TrillerTV declares insolvency, is suing its parent company for abandonment

Oh, TrillerTV is turbo-fucked.

In case you missed it Lemmyvision is like Eurovision, but on Lemmy, and we submitted a song. They have a nice chart over in their community that has a breakdown of the scores, but we came in dead last. In all our discussion threads everyone seemed to have fun though, so I'll keep an eye out for when it comes around next year.

Our previous threads, for those interested:

Here's the initial thread

The song nomination thread

And the voting thread

F4WOnline’s own Dave Meltzer recently reported that Asuka is “semi-retired” on the post-WWE Backlash edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, saying “the story I heard is that she is semi-retired. I haven’t really gotten an exact meaning of what semi-retired means, but I guess people were wishing her goodbye and things like that backstage. So I don’t know if that means she’s going to Japan and still wrestle. I don’t know if that means she’s going to still do stuff here and there, but I was told semi-retired.”

According to an updated report from Fightful, Asuka signed a long-term WWE deal in the Summer of 2024. Although the exact time frame of that deal is not known, Fightful did note that most were for “five years” at that point. Asuka WWE contract

TKO has recently been trying to restructure deals with WWE talent, due to the fact that there are now less house shows to work, there is supposedly less travel and performers only need to now wrestle a few times a month.

We do not currently know if Asuka is one of the names who was asked to take a change to her contract, but it would align with her potential change of circumstance going from a full-time performer to “semi-retired.”

Welcome to SquaredCircle’s ‘Meme Monday’!

Have you seen a great wrestling meme this week that just made you crack up? Did you watch a silly moment in a show and just need to craft a meme out of it? Well post ‘em below!

The highest voted meme shall win and be showcased in next week’s thread!

Last week’s winner’s attached!

What John Cena teased would be a "history-making" announcement at Backlash 2026 was ultimately the creation of a new event and a new championship.

John Cena appeared before the main event of Backlash and after reflecting upon his final match at the December 13, 2025 episode of Saturday Night's Main Event, Cena noted he was "truly happy" with his final bow because the event ended up featuring then-NXT talents like Oba Femi, Je'Von Evans, and Sol Ruca.

Cena wanted to take that concept further, though, and he announced the creation of the John Cena Classic, which will be an event featuring WWE main roster talents taking on NXT wrestlers in the hopes of being crowned the John Cena Classic Champion. A wrestler can't win that belt in a match, though, and Cena revealed it will be determined by a fan vote, with the wrestler who secures the most votes becoming the champion. This ultimately means a wrestler can become the John Cena Classic Champion without actually winning a professional wrestling match.

Within the promo, John Cena signalled the concept was his idea and thanked WWE for allowing him to create the event. When the show will take place was not revealed.

Tonight's Fairway to Hell comes to us from SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA!

Tonight's card includes:

Non Title Tag Team Match: Divine Dominion (Lena Kross & Megan Bayne) vs. ??? & ???

AEW National Title Match: Jack Perry (c) vs. Mark Davis

AEW World Title Match: Darby Allin (c) vs. PAC

And more?

Enjoy the show and have fun!

It's Meltzer, so feel free to add your own pinch of salt. The main qoutes are:

“While there have been talks of large numbers asked to take pay cuts, those in a position to know have said that the number is less than a half dozen, and they were people who would have been cut had they not accepted it.“

“They were not the high end players and were people that creative had tabbed little interest in going forward and thus the idea is they could remain under contract while their in-ring aspect of their career would be phased down.“

“There were reports, confirmed to us, that at least one major name wrestler agreed to a 50 percent pay cut. There are wrestlers who would not fit in AEW and are making well into seven figures, many in excess of $2 million per year, who simply couldn’t earn anywhere near $1 million elsewhere, so the leverage isn’t there.”

“The New Day, Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods, who were on the list of those without significant future plans, were essentially put in the position where they were going to be cut, but were offered less money to stay, wind down their in-ring careers and finish their current contract doing some in-ring and working in a promotional capacity.”

“They both decided to leave the promotion, given they had signed a five year-contract in 2025 at a certain number and one year in were being asked to have that money cut back while maintaining the rest of the contract.”

“Dark Side of the Ring” season seven is set to premiere on July 7 with a three-part look at TNA Wrestling and Jeff Jarrett.

Other topics for the season include Paul Orndorff, Ray “The Big Boss Man” Traylor, Missy Hyatt, Necro Butcher vs. Samoa Joe, Zach Gowen, and The Renegade.

“’Dark Side of the Ring’ is one of our strongest franchises that speaks to our audience with its gritty exposition of the real emotional and physical costs behind professional wrestling,” said Vice TV president Pete Gaffney while speaking to Variety. “Wrestling is one of America’s most influential pop culture phenomenons, and this series further explores the blurred lines between wrestling’s spectacle and reality, ultimately uncovering the truths behind the stories fans thought they knew.”

The series began in 2019.

“Each season, we try to challenge ourselves to go deeper, and season seven is our most ambitious yet,” said co-creators and executive producers Evan Husney and Jason Eisener. “That’s especially true with our three-part exploration of TNA Wrestling, where Jeff Jarrett’s journey of redemption and resilience gives us a unique lens into the highs, struggles, and lasting impact of the foundational years of the company. It’s a perfect example of how compelling and ultimately human these stories really are.”