Chairshot Wrestling News Shuffle (2/25/2019)

Jason shuffles into your Monday with the Chairshot Wrestling News Shuffle! Today we take a look at news on Bruce Prichard returning to RAW, the releases of Arn Anderson and TJ Perkins, other potential names for the 2019 Hall Of Fame and more!

Bruce Prichard Returning To WWE

PWInsider is reporting that Bruce Prichard will be returning to WWE in a full time creative role. Prichard will begin his role officially for this Monday’s RAW. Prichard’s role is described as “as important as possible” according to a company source. There has no been word as to if this will affect his Something To Wrestle With podcast, or his upcoming scheduled appearance at Starrcast II.

Arn Anderson Released From WWE, Possible Reason As To Why

Arn Anderson was released from his role in WWE on Friday, and many have speculated as to why he was released, due to his long tenure with the company. On his most recent edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer speculated on the reasoning behind the release (Thanks to #WrestlingNews.com for the transcription)

“Everyone is pretty much keeping quiet on what it was but it was an incident with Vince,” Meltzer said. “I know people who were siding with Arn, I know people siding with Vince. I don’t know the whole details of the incident other than it was something at a house show that evidently wasn’t handled well and Arn took the blame for that.”

“Arn and Vince were not really on the best of terms. There had been a lot of situations over the years and one particular one, not too long ago.”

Match Announced For SmackDown

The recent appearances of Ricochet and Aleister Black on RAW and SmackDown looks like it may be long term run for the NXT stars. A match has been announced for this weeks SmackDown live for the two stars as they will team up to take on Rusev and Shinsuke Nakamura.

Other Potential 2019 Hall Of Fame Inductees

WrestleVotes has long been a respected source for correctly breaking wrestling news. According to their Twitter account, Tazz and the Honky Tonk Man may be apart of the Class of 2019.

Hearing that along with DX & The Hart Foundation, this years WWE Hall of Fame class may also include Tazz & Honky Tonk Man.

— WrestleVotes (@WrestleVotes) February 22, 2019

TJ Perkins Released, Reasons Why Revealed?

TJ Perkins was also released from WWE on Friday. On the recent edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted the release was due to disciplinary reasons. Many have speculated it was due to some recent tattoo work Perkins had done, but he shot that down on Twitter.

I mean, the boss thought they were pretty cool last Tuesday when we met 🤷🏻‍♂️…and also when he gave me permission to get them 6 months ago. https://t.co/GmisNHFCph

— 🇺🇸 TEDDY PLAYER ONE 🇵🇭 (@MegaTJP) February 23, 2019

Jason’s Thoughts On Today’s News

I wish there was a list of qualifications needed to get in to the WWE Hall of Fame. It has never really been spelled out as to if its a wrestling hall of fame or if it is based on accomplishments in WWE. Obviously it seems to be a bit of both. Honky Tonk Man was a large part of the late 80’s/early 90’s era of the WWF. He is the longest reigning Intercontinental champion of company history at 454 days. While Tazz had great accomplishments in ECW, I can come up with a list of 25 other wrestlers or more that should be inducted before Tazz. But hey, what do I know? But being this is my article, here is a small sampling of that list:

Rick Rude, Demolition, Bruiser Brody, Ivan Koloff, The British Bulldogs, Vader, Jim Cornette, Lex Luger, King Kong Bundy, The Steiner Brothers, etc etc etc.

WWE must feel ratings are really on the decline and they actually want to do something about it with the hiring of Prichard. We will see how this will affect Starrcast II.