As noted on Wednesday, Velveteen Dream is officially back in WWE NXT storylines and he is set to wrestle Finn Balor this Wednesday night. The winner of that match will move on to the Five-Way Ladder Match at TakeOver: XXX for the NXT North American Championship.
Dream’s return has a lot of fans and wrestlers wondering why Vince McMahon brought him back. This was discussed today by Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Radio.
Meltzer said, “The thing with Vince is from Vince’s perspective he’s gonna not fire somebody over an accusation. He’s gonna have to find evidence of something before he will do so. So, I would have figured that yeah you’re gonna keep him off [TV], but yeah you’re gonna do an investigation to find out if it’s true. In this one, it’s interesting because it’s like it doesn’t appear that they did that like even look into it which is it is what it is, you know.”
Meltzer is referencing what one of Dream’s accusers said this week. Josh Fuller said that he was never contracted by WWE during their investigation into the allegations. In Fuller’s case, there appears to be evidence to support what he said happened. You can click here to see the evidence brought forward by Fuller. Meltzer pointed out that McMahon has dealt with his own accusations in the past.
In 1992, referee Rita Chatterton claimed that McMahon sexually assaulted her in a limousine. You can click here to read more on that story. In 2006, McMahon was accused of sexual assault in a tanning salon in Boca Raton, Florida. You can click here for more on that story. McMahon, via his attorney, denied the claims made against him in 1992 and 2006.
There is backstage heat on Dream from wrestlers and around the time of his car accident, there were rumors that he was about to get his release. It is clear that there’s a lot of unhappiness right now over WWE’s decision to bring him back. His match with Balor has already been taped so it will be interesting to see if pressure from fans will cause them to change course and pull him from TV or if they will stay the course and continue pushing him on shows. One noticeable change since his return on Wednesday is now he is back to being a heel.
For those of you that missed it, click below to see the clip of Dream’s return to NXT.
h/t to Ringside News for the transcription.
