North American Championship Revealed, Lesnar Update, Ospreay
It was officially announced on last week’s edition of NXT that the developmental brand will officially be adding a brand new championship to the show. A ladder match between Adam Cole, Killian Dain, The Velveteen Dream, Ricochet, EC3, and Lars Sullivan will officially determine the first-ever North American Champion this Saturday night during NXT Takeover: New Orleans. The design of the title had remained a mystery up until today. Triple H took to social media earlier today to unveil the North American Championship to the world for the first time ever. The brand new title and the first ever titleholder will finally be revealed during the ladder match this weekend.
Paul Heyman stated during last night’s edition of Raw that the show would likely mark Brock Lesnar’s final appearance on the show if he did not retain the Universal Championship at WrestleMania this Sunday night. Increased speculation on Brock Lesnar’s WWE status has been running rampant recently, and The Wrap has just reported that Brock Lesnar is now almost certainly leaving WWE for good in favor of making a return to UFC at some point after WrestleMania is over. As for Paul Heyman’s status in the company, the report claims that he could still be sticking around in order to manage a new WWE Superstar such as Ronda Rousey or even Roman Reigns.
Will Ospreay is easily one of the most dynamic and energetic wrestlers on the entire planet today, but it appeared that he injured his neck during a recent New Japan Pro Wrestling event. Ospreay later stated on social media that he could be forced to miss all of his upcoming bookings during WrestleMania weekend in New Orleans due to the injury. Fortunately, PROGRESS Wrestling recently posted a message on Twitter confirming that Ospreay will be going down to New Orleans this weekend and has been cleared by his doctors to compete. Ospreay himself also seemed to indicate that he will be wrestling this weekend in Louisiana by simply posting “I will fight.”
I will fight. #NOLA pic.twitter.com/JzerrdatSe
— ???·????? (@WillOspreay) April 3, 2018
Will is cleared to compete and will be in New Orleans. His matches for us remain as advertised. https://t.co/qMEWG2boF2
— PROGRESS Wrestling (@ThisIs_Progress) April 3, 2018