WWE Rumors on Charlotte, Tiffany and CM Punk Promos, Kevin Owens Explains Injury

Bleacher Report catches you up on the latest news from the WWE Universe.

More Backstage Updates on Tense Charlotte-Tiffany Promo

The segment that has been the talk of the wrestling world since it happened on Friday continues to be a hot topic, with Charlotte Flair reportedly unhappy with how things played out during her promo with Tiffany Stratton on SmackDown.

Per Fightful Select (h/t Steve Carrier of Ringside News), Flair "didn’t appear to be pleased" at the real-life jabs Stratton took at her and people within WWE who watched the segment as it happened believe "it wasn’t supposed to go down that way, including staff and talent."

A couple of weeks after a promo segment featuring the two women in a split-screen interview resulted in fans accusing Charlotte of intentionally burying the WWE women champion, Stratton seemed to fight back on Friday night by referencing her opponent's three divorces.

It certainly seems like WWE didn't want any of the real-life drama getting involved in the segment because Fightful's report noted the YouTube version of the segment had those references edited out after a "specific directive" from upper management.

This isn't the first time a live promo segment with Flair went off the rails. There was an infamous title swap with Becky Lynch in 2021 that reportedly led to backstage issues between the two women.

The anticipation for this Flair-Stratton title match at WrestleMania has been extremely muted thus far. They are doing a good job of getting people talking about their segments with these recent promos, but it doesn't seem to be in a way that's helping the intrigue around their bout on the biggest show of the year.

Producer for CM Punk-Roman Reigns Angle Revealed

CM Punk finally revealed the specifics of the favor he was owed by Paul Heyman dating back to Survivor Series when the Wise Man talked Punk into joining the new Bloodline team in the main-event WarGames match against the original Bloodline.

Per Fightful Select (h/t Felix Upton of Ringside News), the main creative force behind Friday's segment featuring Punk, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins was Michael Kirshenbaum.

Kirshenbaum was credited with writing the segment, with Michael Hayes serving as the producer.

After Heyman revealed on the March 28 episode of Friday Night SmackDown that Punk would finally get his WrestleMania main event this year in his triple-threat match against Reigns and Rollins, the long-awaited favor was dropped on the most recent episode.

Punk said the favor requires Heyman to stand in his corner at WrestleMania, much to the chagrin of Reigns. The OTC then took credit for Punk even being back in WWE, let alone getting a spot to close out the biggest show of the year.

"CM Punk wouldn’t be back here if it wasn’t for me," Reigns said. "CM Punk wouldn’t be in the main event of WrestleMania if it wasn’t for me."

Friday's show closed with Punk hitting a GTS on Reigns, while Rollins leaving the ring before engaging Punk in a fight.

While that is a rather underwhelming payoff to the favor angle, it at least adds intrigue to the WrestleMania match to know if Heyman will stay with Punk, go back to Reigns or potentially betray both of them because he doesn't want to pick one over the other.

Kevin Owens Explains Origin of Neck Injury

In a huge blow to the WrestleMania card, Kevin Owens revealed on Friday night he had to withdraw from his match against Randy Orton due to a neck injury that will require surgery.

Appearing on the My Mom's Basement podcast (h/t Subhojeet Mukherjee of Ringside News), Owens said he had an MRI in December that showed some moderate wear and tear in his neck but nothing too alarming:

"So I know for a fact there’s a specific moment because in December, I did a full body MRI just on my own for curiosity, just to make sure, to see if there’s anything that I should be aware of. At the time, the report came back that my knees were s--t, but I’ve been well aware of that for a long time, so there’s no concern there. And then there’s something about my spine and mild to moderate stenosis, which for what we do, and I showed it to the WWE doctors and like, ‘Yeah, for what you guys do, everyone’s got a level of stenosis. Everyone on Earth walking around has a level of stenosis. But your spine and your neck and everything looks good. Everything looks good. For what you’ve been doing, you’re fine.’ So I was like, ‘great.’ And I felt great."

K.O. then explained during a match he had in January, there were a couple of things happened that "really jarred my neck." He wound up having another MRI last week that revealed he needs surgery:

"But then in January, I had a match, and in the match, two things happened that really jarred my neck. That’s when the issue started. So I knew there was something. And then we ended up doing an MRI this week and found out that, yeah, it’s serious. So I think that match in January is what did it because I had an MRI a month before that and everything looked fine."

It was assumed Owens suffered the injury during his non-sanctioned match with Sami Zayn at Elimination Chamber on March 1 since that was the last time he wrestled, but the timeline suggests that's not the case.

Owens only wrestled twice in January, against Rey Mysterio and Jimmy Uso, on Friday Night SmackDown. He came through them without any obvious issue, though something clearly went wrong with his body along the way.

In the same podcast interview (h/t Carrier), Owens expressed frustration at his injury news being leaked before he had the chance to speak about it on Friday Night SmackDown:

"I told people like, this is gonna leak. They’re like, ‘No, no, we’re keeping it tight knit.’ But then yesterday, obviously some departments had to find out for some reasons. And now someone who shouldn’t know this stuff found out, and it went where it shouldn’t, and now they took away my right to tell people because now everybody knows already, so I know."

PW Nexus was the first to report on Friday afternoon that Owens had an undisclosed injury, leaving his status for WrestleMania in doubt. Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com said around the same time it was a "significant injury" for Owens.

Owens confirmed on SmackDown that he would be unable to compete against Owens at WrestleMania. The match had been set up after Orton returned when Owens was beating up Zayn after defeating him in their match at Elimination Chamber.

This will mark the first time Owens has not competed at WrestleMania since 2019.

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