-- Despite removing all references to WWE from his Twitter account as well as reportedly unfollowing a number of WWE personalities, Mauro Ranallo remains under contract to WWE until August 12, according to Dave Meltzer at f4wonline.com. His status is completely up in the air and there has been a growing belief since last month that he may not be back and this certainly fuels that rumor.
-- As we noted in a previous post, JBL took to Twitter to attempt to shoot down growing reports of him bullying other WWE employees. Specifically, JBL acknowledged the Justin Roberts missing passport incident, saying he did not do it. However, a recent article on Deadspin has quotes from former WWE wrestler John Morrison (aka current Lucha Undergroundchampion Johnny Mundo) which clearly implicates him. Morrison was with WWE at that time competing as one of the tag team MNM.
“JBL asked me and my partner to steal [Justin’s] passport, and we didn’t. JBL was one of the main event guys at the time and I don’t remember exactly what Justin Roberts did to become the target for the hazing of this specific oversea trip, but JBL asked me and Joey to snag Justin’s passport.”
“I remember it ‘being a thing,’ you know? We were looking at Justin, he was a few rows ahead of us on this plane, sleeping. We were like, ‘What do we do?’” MNM had become a target of Layfield’s, as well, and they realized that if they went along with the abuse, which JBL presented to them as being a great prank, there was at least a decent chance that they would be left alone. Some of the abuse they endured included having the sleeves being cut off their ring robes—not only doing property damage, but getting them in trouble for not having the robes. “It’s enticing,” he said of going along with the plan.
“Ultimately, we considered the options, and wound up deciding to not do it. This is a weird thing for a wrestler to say, especially in that era, but I usually went by the golden rule. I wouldn’t have appreciated someone doing that to me, especially someone I considered a peer.”
-- Chris Jericho is being advertised for this Monday's Raw so he is still with WWE and not gone on tour just yet. Brock Lesnar is not advertised and of course, Bill Goldberg is gone for the forseeable future. Over on Smackdown Live, everyone except John Cena (and Nikki Bella) are scheduled.
