Daily Update: Michael Cole, Dakota Kai, Pride Month

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Wednesday News Update

WWE

• The WWE announcer crew congratulated Michael Cole on 25 years in WWE.
• Drew McIntyre spoke to Sports Illustrated on his involvement with the Special Olympics.
• Fallon Henley vs. Brooklyn Barlow, Tatum Paxley vs. Sloane Jacobs, and Malik Blade & Edris Enofe vs. Dante Chen and Javier Bernal has been taped for Friday’s NXT Level Up.
• Xia Li posted a video of herself training, writing “Either I will find a way, or I will make one.”
• Kayla Braxton responded after a tweet celebrating Pride Month got a negative reaction from some on social media. “It’s sad to see the amount of insecure, hateful and self-loathing people who feel the need to express their disdain for gay pride and the LGBTQ+ community,” she wrote. “Don’t knock it til ya try it, sweeties. Maybe you’ll like it.”
• The company has a new collection out in honor of Pride Month. 100% of the proceeds will go to GLADD.
• Matches added to WWE’s YouTube page today include Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton from Hell in a Cell 2020, Booker T vs. Cody Rhodes from the December 26, 2011 edition of Raw, and John Cena & Bobby Lashley vs. Randy Orton & King Booker from the June 18, 2007 edition of Raw.

AEW/ROH

• AEW released a Control Center video with Tony Schiavone ahead of tonight’s Dynamite at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles.
• Frankie Kazarian spoke to PWInsider about AEW holding tonight’s Dynamite in LA. "Yeah, you know what man, the last week in Vegas is a drive for me as well. And this week in Los Angeles and in Ontario, all drives. So for two weeks out of the 52 week year, I'm not getting on a plane. So I'm very, very grateful for that. That's cool. And yeah, man, like, as a kid that grew up in SoCal, being able to perform at the Forum and the Whisky back to back, that's literally a dream like scenario. You know, I never would have thought I would have been on the stage at the Whiskey. I dreamt it, I never thought I would have been performing in the Forum but those dreams are literally coming true. And it's a little cliche, but it's very cool man and I don't take these for granted and am very psyched to be part of AEW's debut in SoCal, it took long enough. Here we are, and we've got a lot of stuff planned this week and I'm ready to go."
• Bryan Alvarez has a story on Sports Illustrated regarding MJF’s situation over the weekend.
• AEW released a video celebrating Pride Month.

Other Wrestling

• A trial date has not been set for Tammy Sytch, who is in jail for manslaughter and DUI charges. There is a pre-trial meeting set for June 30th at 9:00 am.
• NJPW released a video of Juice Robinson calling out Will Ospreay.
• Gisele Shaw of Impact spoke to the Daily Star about the stigma of professional wrestling. "Go to a show and give it a chance," she told them. "People have this stigma when it comes to professional wrestling and call it a joke, or say that it's fake, but nobody looks at a Marvel film and goes 'oh, it's fake'. Do they really think that Ironman is flying around, or that Thor is out there somewhere? They don't get that same flack as wrestlers do. If you watch a film, you enjoy it and you know it's not real – I'm not saying wrestling is not real, as there is a lot of emotion to it and when you hit the canvas it hurts. There's a lot of broken bones and people break their necks. When people give it a chance and go to a show, they change their minds and realise that it's pretty incredible.”
• Matt Cross and Budd Heavy are the latest to enter MLW's Battle Riot match set for June 23 in New York City.
• The former Dakota Kai on Twitter: “In this very moment, I’m King. Kota.”