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USA Network renews Straight Up Steve Austin for season two

On January 8, USA Network announced that it has renewed Straight Up Steve Austin for a second season, the TV show hosted by WWE Hall of Famer Stone Cold Steve Austin which features celebrity interviews, adventures, and good, old-fashioned fun.

The first season saw Austin cross the country to swap stories with a wide range of notable celebrities, including singer and actor Trace Adkins, NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr., comedian Gabriel Iglesias, WWE Superstar Becky Lynch, NFL Quarterback Baker Mayfield, actor and retired United States Marine Corps Reserve officer Rob Riggle, and star of Impractical Jokers, Sal Vulcano.

Season 2 will consist of eight half-hour episodes, with guests still to be announced. It will be produced by Line by Line Media, with Steve Austin and Dave Barsky (Dirty Jobs) as executive producers.

Matt Hardy expected to leave WWE in March

Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer is reporting that Matt Hardy is expected to leave WWE once his contract is up this March.

The former multi-time tag team champion has pitched to return with his Broken character but it looks like WWE creative shot down the idea. Hardy has started creating new videos lately on his social media and Meltzer says that he is the leading candidate according to speculations to be the leader of the Dark Order, the faction in All Elite Wrestling. The Dark Order angle is said to be climaxing with the reveal of a leader.

Hardy has not been used much ever since his brother Jeff suffered a leg injury last year and had to undergo surgery. He recently started popping up on TV but has been used in almost squash matches, losing on every occasion.

Matt has often said on Twitter that he had to return to WWE to finish the proper way and the Hardy Boyz return at WrestleMania 33 remains one of the most memorable moments in WWE history.

John Morrison on Miz TV tonight live on Smackdown

The recently re-signed John Morrison will be the special guest on Miz TV tonight on Smackdown on FOX, following last week’s surprise appearance on the show.

Last week, Morrison opened the door when Cathy Kelley went knocking on The Miz’s locker room and told her that Miz had nothing else to say for the night. This came after Miz attacked Kofi Kingston.

Miz and Morrison are former tag team partners and title holders but their careers went separate ways in 2011, with Morrison departing the promotion. He wrestled mostly on the indies and then went to Lucha Underground and Impact Wrestling.

This will be Morrison’s first time in a WWE ring on television since his departure in 2011.

NXT rating 01/08/2020

Despite getting a nice bump from last week’s Best Of episode, NXT finished second in the ratings, getting only 721,000 viewers, up 173,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. The show however finished 55th in the all-important 18-49 demographic in the cable chart with only a 0.19 rating. The difference between the two shows was a total of 226,000 viewers, a big gap considering what numbers NXT was pulling lately. This was the least-watched episode of NXT – apart from last week’s Best Of episode – since October 30. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)

Dynamite rating for 01/08/2020

All Elite Wrestling enjoyed a big win in the Wednesday night war, drawing a total of 947,000 viewers, down 20,000 viewers from last week’s show. Dynamite placed #6 in the top 50 cable chart among the 18-49 demographic with a 0.36 rating, the same as last week. Apart from last week’s episode, it was the most watched since the November 13 broadcast. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)

WWE Backstage rating for 01/07/2020

WWE Backstage this week did 124,000 viewers, up from the 97,000 viewers the show did on New Year’s Eve. This week’s guest was The Miz, with Young, Booker, Christian, and Paige back together on the panel. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)

Battle royal to determine the number one contender for the NXT Women’s title set

A number one contender for the NXT Women’s title will be decided next week in a big battle royal featuring some of NXT’s best females on the roster.

The battle royal so far includes, in alphabetical order, Bianca Belair, Candice LeRae, Chelsea Green, Dakota Kai, Io Shirai, Kayden Carter, Mia Yim, Santana Garrett, Shotzi Blackheart, Vanessa Borne, and Xia Li.

The winner of this battle royal will then go ahead to challenge Rhea Ripley at the upcoming NXT Takeover: Portland for the title on Sunday, February 16.

Chelsea Green and Robert Stone make their NXT TV debut

A pair of former Impact Wrestling stars made their NXT debut last night on USA Network.

Chelsea Green, formerly known as Laurel Van Ness, showed up on the broadcast and beat up Mia Yim and Lacey Lane. She had already wrestled on Raw and Main Event but looks to be placed in NXT for the time being.

Joining her was Robert Stone, the man formerly known as Robbie E. Stone came out after Green disposed of the other two and said that Chelsea is the first talent signed to his stable.

Stone signed a WWE deal in March 2019 and was appearing at non-televised live events as a manager of different NXT talent. He came from Impact Wrestling where he spent seven years with the promotion.

You can see their debut below.

Alex Shelley reuniting with Kushida to reform The Time Splitters in NXT

Kushida’s mystery partner for the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament was revealed to be Alex Shelley.

The 36-year-old Shelley has wrestled for ROH, TNA, and NJPW and together with Kushida, the two won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team titles twice as The Time Splitters. The two formed the tag team in 2012 and wrestled together till 2015, losing their titles to ReDRagon, the team of Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly who are now part of The Undisputed Era.

Shelley is a veteran tag team wrestler having also wrestled with Chris Sabin as The Motor City Machine Guns for over five years while in TNA.

The 2020 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament starts on NXT

The Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament commenced on yesterday’s NXT on USA Network with two matches taking place.

In the first tournament match, Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel of Imperium defeated Steve Cutler and Wesley Blake, the tag team known as The Forgotten Sons to advance to the semi-finals and then Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly of The Undisputed Era defeated Mark Coffey and Wolfgang of Gallus in the second tournament match of the night to book their own spot in the semi-finals.

Next week, Matt Riddle and Pete Dunne will take on Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan Webster in the first match and the Grizzled Young Veterans take on Kushida and Alex Shelley in the second match.

The semi-final matches will take place on the January 22 episode of NXT while there’s no date announced for the finals yet.

Diamond Dallas Page returns on Dynamite, to wrestle next week

WWE Hall of Famer Diamond Dallas Page will be making his AEW in-ring debut next week on Dynamite live from Miami.

Page interrupted MJF’s segment yesterday on the show as MJF waited for Cody to give him the answers he wanted. Page called MJF a “motormouth jackoff” and talked about how long it’s been since he’d been in a ring live on TNT.

As DDP continued, MJF called the Butcher, the Blade, and the Bunny out and vowed to send Page to hospice and then he would get one of his daughters in his bed and…bang.

That was enough for DDP to hear who attacked MJF but the Butcher and the Blade came to the rescue. They were met with Diamond Cutters but MJF hit a low blow. QT Marshall and Dustin Rhodes came out to help Dallas Page as MJF bolted.

AEW then announced that Rhodes, Marshall, and Page would be taking on MJF, the Butcher, and the Blade on next week’s show which has a Bash at the Beach theme.

Page was sporting his WWE Hall of Fame ring during the promo.

Number one contender for NXT’s North American title to be decided tonight on USA Network

NXT is back live on USA Network following a two-week break of live broadcasts from Full Sail University. As expected, AEW enjoyed a big victory over NXT last week but things could be much closer tonight.

The Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament kicks off tonight with two matches scheduled to take place, including The Forgotten Sons vs Imperium and Undisputed Era vs Gallus.

The broadcast will be headlined by a fatal four-way match where the winner will be announced the new number one contender for the North American title currently held by Roderick Strong. Those in the match are Keith Lee, Dominik Dijakovic, Damian Priest, and Cameron Grimes.

CM Punk tells Miz to “go suck a blood money covered dick” after WWE Backstage tweet

CM Punk responded in a not so kind way to The Miz after Miz took a small dig at Punk on Twitter following the conclusion of last night’s WWE Backstage episode on FS1.

In a video posted by the WWEonFOX Twitter account, Miz is seen saying that they just finished filming Backstage and felt like “this was the best WWE Backstage episode ever.” Young then said that Ember Moon’s show from a couple of weeks ago was pretty good too, to which Miz responded, “Oh sorry I didn’t change the culture. My bad.”

The dig was at CM Punk’s first words uttered when he came out as a surprise on the show, with Punk closing the show saying that when they think they have all the answers, he changes the culture.

CM Punk was quick to respond, although now the tweet has been deleted. Punk replied with, “Go suck a blood money covered dick in Saudi Arabia you f*cking dork.” The video from WWEonFOX was also later deleted.

Five matches announced for Dynamite as AEW honors Memphis Wrestling

AEW’s Dynamite returns tonight with a tribute to Memphis Wrestling with a live broadcast from Southaven, Mississippi. Following last week’s big Homecoming success, AEW looks to keep momentum going with five matches already announced.

Scheduled to take place tonight are Riho vs Kris Statlander for the AEW Women’s title, The Lucha Bros vs Cody and Dustin Rhodes, Private Party vs Kenny Omega and Hangman Page, Sammy Guevara vs Christopher Daniels, and Jurassic Express vs Best Friends and Orange Cassidy.

Also tonight, Cody will respond to MJF’s demands from last week while Jon Moxley will give his answer to AEW World champion Chris Jericho regarding the invitation to join the Inner Circle.

20-year in-ring veteran Mercedes Martinez signs with WWE

The website SoCalUncensored.com is reporting that Mercedes Martinez has signed a deal with WWE and will be reporting to the WWE Performance Center this month.

The 39-year-old Connecticut native has been wrestling for the past 20 years and worked for Shimmer, ROH, wXw, Women Superstars Uncensored, and several indies throughout her career. She also appeared at the AEW All Out pay-per-view in August where she was part of the Casino Battle Royale and in November participated in a taping of AEW Dark.

Martinez also has a few WWE matches under her belt. She was part of the 2017 and 2018 Mae Young Classic tournaments, losing in the semi-finals to Shayna Baszler in the first one and then got eliminated in the second round by Meiko Satomura in the 2018 tournament. After the first tournament in 2017, she also had a couple of NXT TV appearances.

Raw rating for 01/06/2020

The first Raw of 2020 did 2,384,000 viewers, down 55,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast which was headlined by the Lana and Lashley wedding.

Hour one did 2,550,000 viewers, followed by 2,409,000 viewers in the second hour, before falling off to 2,195,000 viewers in the third and final hour. Raw lost 355,000 viewers from the first to the third hour.

Raw was #1, #2, and #3 in the top 50 cable chart among the 18-49 demographic and #8 in overall viewership for the night on cable. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)

Oops! Arena security tackle Lashley/Lana’s wedding officiant live on Raw by mistake!

Arena security had a big “oops!” moment yesterday on Raw after they tackled American actor Rick Malone in the ring, not knowing he is part of the show as Lana’s and Lashley’s wedding officiant.

The incident occurred after the match between AJ Styles and Akira Tozawa ended. Malone rushed to the ring under the bottom rope and security followed, tackling him and keeping him on the mat. For some reason, the camera angle switched to the hard cam, showing the “ring invasion” and then switched to the ringside camera which turned away to the crowd as the commentary by Vic Joseph came to an abrupt stop. The show then went to break.

During the break, a WWE employee is seen rushing in a ringside fan video telling security that Malone was part of the show and that’s when they released him.

Sure enough, after the commercial break ended, Malone was there in the ring ready for the Lashley and Lana segment, so all he was trying to do was actually get ready for his cue – albeit early – but someone forgot to alert security.

Malone noted in a post on Facebook that he was trying to get to the ring for the segment but security prevented him so he had “no other choice but to dive into the ring headfirst,” noting that security were “not pleased.” But he looked at the bright side of it and joked about what happened, saying, “It was all just a simple misunderstanding!”

You can see the footage below.

The Big Show returns on Monday Night Raw

Weeeeeeeeeeell, he’s back! Former WWE and WCW champion The Big Show made a surprise return on Monday Night Raw yesterday and was revealed as the third member to team with Kevin Owens and Samoa Joe in their match against Seth Rollins and The Authors of Pain.

Show has been out of action and off WWE television since late November of 2018 and was last seen on Smackdown, knocking out Cesaro backstage after the alliance with The Bar ended. He had a hamstring injury that kept him out for several months and while he was on the shelf with WWE, Show kept busy, especially in Hollywood.

During his time away, Big Show joined the cast of the TV series Van Helsing, got his own Netflix series aptly named The Big Show, and is also the subject of a new reality TV show titled Big Show vs The World: A Giant Abroad.

Show will be on Raw next week as well teaming up with Owens and Joe again to take on Rollins and AOP in a fist fight.

AEW honoring Memphis Wrestling tomorrow on Dynamite

All Elite Wrestling will be paying tribute to the legends of Memphis Wrestling tomorrow during Dynamite at the Landers Center in Southaven, Mississippi.

Those being honored are Angelo Poffo, Randy Savage, Lance Russell, Eddie and Tommy Gilbert, Brian Christopher, Austin Idol, Dave Brown, The Rock & Roll Express, and “Handsome” Jimmy Valiant.

Doug Gilbert, Shane Russell (Lance’s son), Lanny Poffo, The Rock & Roll Express, Austin Idol, Jimmy Valiant, are all scheduled to appear on the live broadcast while Dave Brown will have a guest spot on the commentary table for AEW Dark.

Brock Lesnar enters the Royal Rumble match, WWE title not being defended

The WWE title will not be defended at the Royal Rumble as the current champion, Brock Lesnar, was announced as one of the 30 Superstars who will be part of the Royal Rumble over-the-top rope elimination match.

Lesnar, who appeared on Raw last night for the first time since the Survivor Series, was accompanied as always by Paul Heyman. Heyman said that they’re ready to make history as his client will be entering the Royal Rumble as entrant number one and said that when the match is over, the reigning champion will be crowned the winner of the Royal Rumble.

Usually, winners of the Royal Rumble get to wrestle for the WWE or Universal title at WrestleMania but nothing was discussed about what will happen if Brock wins. Heyman said that Brock would not be defending the title at the Rumble because there’s no one on Raw, Smackdown, or NXT who is worthy enough to challenge for the gold.

Others who have been confirmed for the Rumble match so far are AJ Styles, Roman Reigns, Rey Mysterio, Randy Orton, Ricochet, Drew McIntyre, and Eric Rowan.

On a related note, Brock Lesnar was also announced to be appearing on next week’s Raw.