• Open Title Challenge On Tonight’s SmackDown Live
WWE announced the following:
Jeff Hardy issues an Independence Day United States Open Challenge
“After Shinsuke Nakamura was not cleared to compete last week, United States Champion Jeff Hardy decided to issue an open challenge for his star-spangled title. SAnitY’s Eric Young answered the challenge, but a brawl broke out between his cohorts and The Usos, which turned the battle into a Six-Man Tag Team showdown.
On the eve of America’s birthday, The Charismatic Enigma is issuing an Independence Day United States Open Challenge. Who will step up to answer the call?”
• Former WWE Star Recalls Getting Into A Heated Argument On His Last Day With The Company, Says Chris Jericho Showed Him The Finger On His Way Out Of WWE
During a recent appearance on Talk Is Jericho, former WWE Superstar Wade Barrett talked about getting into a heated argument with talent relations on his last day with the company.
Below is what he said:
“I went into the building that day and I knew I was kind of tying up loose ends at this point and there was this one big issue that I’d kind of been banging heads with talent relations about for a long time and it kind of came to a head there that day. So we get there at 2 o’clock or whatever it is, and around about three or four o’clock I’m having this big kind of blow up with talent relations there, which looking back it was all really silly, but we have this blow up, I get really angry, they get really angry.
I’m not on the show anyway, so at that point, I’m like, ‘do you know what? I’m just going to grab my bags and go home. I’m done.’ So this is me basically leaving WWE, so it was obviously a really stressful moment. I was angry, I was mad, this, that, and the other. I grabbed my bags, I went straight to my car, slammed my bags in the car, started the engine up, and started driving up the ramp, and in my head, I’m still angry about the blowup we’d just had. All I’m thinking about is, ‘wow, that’s me done with WWE! I’m finished! That’s it! Here today.’
And it was pretty crazy considering I spent the majority of my life thinking about working there, and how great it was, and stuff. So as I’m heading up the ramp, all I see is the top of the tunnel to the outside and I’m thinking, ‘as soon as I’m over there, that’s freedom!’ And there [are] a bunch of fans there and stuff. So I get to the top of the ramp and just as I’m about to burst out into freedom, and light, and this whole new world that might be ahead of me, a car pulls across in front of me and stops me in my tracks. I’m like, ‘who the f*** is this?’
I look up and it’s you (Jericho) and you’re turning up at the building at four [o’clock]. And I’ve got a face like thunder and I look at you, we lock eyes and you flip me the bird, and you kept driving down the tunnel. That was my big goodbye to the WWE, getting flipped off by the guy who brought me in storyline-wise and sent me off into the sunset. Looking back that actually makes me laugh.”
