Let the rumours start and the speculation fly. Early this afternoon, indie wrestling star Jeff Cobb posted a photo of himself with a backstage pass for WWE Smackdown Live, which was held last night in Bakersfield, California, stating “Hmmmm, I wonder what I did last night?”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfL2rPGle6C/?hl=en&taken-by=jeffcobb
While on a national level, Jeff Cobb is best known as the masked monster Matanza Cueto on Lucha Underground, under his real name he has become one of the top indie stars on the independent circuit. In 2004, he wrestled in the Athens Summer Olympics for Guam, before transitioning to professional wrestling in 2009 in his home state of Hawaii. He toiled for years on the smallest indie circuits until his exposure on Lucha Underground in 2015 and has since exploded into one of the most booked performers on the circuits, working for PWG, EVOLVE, Glory Pro, AAW, AIW and many more in the US, Smash Wrestling in Canada, and UK promotions like PROGRESS, RevPro, OTT, and PCW. A 3x Heavyweight Champion in his home Action Zone Wrestling (AZW) in Honolulu, he’s also a former Lucha Underground Champion as Matanza and is currently one half of the PWG World Tag Team Champions alongside Matt Riddle in The Chosen Bros. He made his NJPW debut at the end of last year, taking part in the World Tag League in a team with Michael Elgin.
It’s been long speculated that he may not have as much involvement in Lucha Underground’s upcoming Season 4, as reports have suggested he’s been trying to get out of his current deal. With huge cost cutting going on for Season 4 – and with his Lucha Underground “brother” Dario Cueto seemingly killed at the end of Season 3 – some suggest that he could possibly come back to close the story and get written out early in the tapings (Germany’s wXw announced Cobb had to pull out of the 16 Carat Gold tournament due to Lucha Underground commitments for the weekend of March 9-11). In early January, in an interview with WrestlingInc.‘s Raj Giri, Cobb had this to say about returning for a fourth season.
“I haven’t heard much about it and I’m still kind of negotiating season four – you know kind of the long break hasn’t been helpful to anybody and its soured a lot of people that are involved with it,” he said. “In a perfect world, I would love to come back but there’s a couple of things that need to be ironed out. Not just with me but with everybody so we just need to figure something out and everybody needs to get on the same page.”
A few weeks back, Dave Meltzer reported in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Impact Wrestling were seemingly closing in on Jeff Cobb, after having signed several other Lucha Underground stars, such as Johnny Mundo, Sami Callihan, Taya Valkyrie, El Hijo del Fantasma (Lucha Underground’s King Cuerno) and the incoming Brian Cage. With Impact’s alliance with AAA, one of the minority owners in Lucha Underground, LU stars were permitted to sign with Impact.
Jeff Cobb is no stranger to the WWE either. He had a tryout in 2014, prior to signing with Lucha Underground, and while the WWE didn’t sign him, they offered him a spot in the sixth season of Tough Enough in 2015, which he turned down.
In all likelihood, Cobb was just visiting friends backstage and checking the vibes, but it probably won’t stop fans salivating at the thought of Jeff Cobb stepping into a WWE or NXT ring and suplexing some new bodies all around.
Where would you like to see Jeff Cobb end up? Let us know in the comments below!
