During the SummerSlam broadcast, WWE announced some new shows for the WWE Network that will air this Fall.
WWE Breaking Ground will be a show similar to HBO’s Hard Knocks, taking a look at what it takes to be a WWE Superstar or Diva. The show will be produced by the people behind Bar Rescue.
The Stone Cold Podcast returns with two guests, one of the most popular and successful WWE tag team champions in history, Edge and Christian.
The WWE 24 series returns as well with a special look at NXT. WWE 24 cameras were filming during the NXT Takeover: Brooklyn event so that could be the focus of the show.
And finally the Madison Square Garden house show on October 3 will be broadcasting live on the WWE Network in an event similar to the Tokyo show on July 4. Brock Lesnar will be wrestling on the broadcast in a rare house show appearance.
The WWE Network is experiencing some issues for users throughout the world with playback being blocked due to “blackout.”
Users from Denmark, the United Kingdom, and even the United States reported the error on different devices including web, iOS, Xbox, and Playstation. The error displayed is “WWE Network video content is currently not available for viewing at this location.”
Viewers complained on several forums as well as on Twitter directly to the @WWENetwork.
Resetting devices seemed to do the trick for many users so if you are experiencing the same issue, restart your device and try again.
The Undertaker is the favorite to take the main event at SummerSlam tonight according to betting odds with Taker at 4/7 and Lesnar at 5/4. In the other main event, Seth Rollins is the favorite at 4/11 to retain the WWE World Heavyweight title while Cena, who is one title away from Ric Flair’s legendary 16-time world title reign is at 2/1.
The Divas match, which has a tough act to follow after last night’s NXT Women’s title match, has PCB as the favorites with 4/7 while Team Bella is at 2/1 and Team B.A.D. at 5/1. The New Day are favorites to regain the WWE Tag Team titles with odds at 1/3. PTP are 4/1 to retain while Lucha Dragons and Los Matadors are way behind at 7/1 and 12/1 respectively.
In the other matches, the favorites for a victory are Kevin Owens, Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns, Ryback, Stephen Amell and Neville, Rusev, and Sheamus.
There are other three bets – Sting, Kane, and The Rock making an appearance during the show – with Sting at 11/5, Kane at 4/6, and The Rock at 4/11.
Odds are most likely to change as the show gets closer to bell time after smart money starts comes in.
“Finally Jonathan Coachman has come back to SummerSlam!” That’s how the ESPN SportsCenter anchor passed the ball to The Coach who was standing outside the Barclays Center to start his live coverage of SummerSlam this morning.
Joining him first at 11:30AM was United States champion John Cena who talked with Coach about topics such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation, his 500 wishes, branching out into movies, Deflategate, and of course SummerSlam.
The Coach returned on the air at 12:30PM with Randy Orton. Orton said this gets better and better every year especially for the fans and it never gets old. He said that ESPN’s coverage today validates how main steam WWE is right now. The Coach asked about all the Vine videos of RKOs and Orton said they’re a blast to watch and it’s an honor that fans are doing them. He singled out the Superman vs Batman trailer that someone did with Orton RKOing everyone in it. When quizzed about who he wants to RKO next, he said maybe Donald Trump before saying he wants to RKO Vince McMahon…and Donald Trump together. Coach wondered how did he take it when Dusty and Piper passed away and said that it’s hard to put it into words because his father is up there with them in terms of age so it really hit home. He mentioned that he’s good friends with Cody and it’s hard to come up with words on what you can tell someone who just went through that.
We will update this more as more Superstars and Divas find their way on ESPN SportsCenter throughout the day.
Live tonight from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, WWE presents the biggest event of the Summer, SummerSlam on pay-per-view and the WWE Network. The full card is as follows:
John Cena vs Seth Rollins for the WWE United States and World Heavyweight titles; Ryback vs Big Show vs The Miz in a triple threat for the Intercontinental title; The PrimeTime Players vs The Lucha Dragons vs Los Matadores vs The New Day in a fatal 4 way for the Tag Team titles; The Undertaker vs Brock Lesnar; Randy Orton vs Sheamus; Dolph Ziggler vs Rusev; Kevin Owens vs Cesaro; Stephen Amell and Neville vs Stardust and King Barrett; Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper vs Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose; The Bella Twins and Alicia Fox vs Naomi, Sasha Banks, and Tamina vs Paige, Charlotte, and Becky Lynch in a three team elimination match.
SummerSlam this year is a four hour event and will be starting at 7PM EST with the pre-show at 6PM EST airing on the WWE Network, WWE.com, the WWE App, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest and Pheed.
During last night’s NXT Takeover: Brooklyn broadcast, a vignette aired hyping up the arrival of NXT’s newest Diva-in-training, Nia Jax.
Jax is Savelina Fanene, a member of the world famous Anoa’i wrestling family and cousin of former WWE champion The Rock. She has been signed to a WWE developmental deal since 2014 and wrestled on non-televised NXT live events as Zada and then as Lina before finally getting her Nia Jax ring name.
Almost a year ago she was involved in car accident with her aunt, Ata Johnson, the mother of The Rock, when a drunk driver hit them head-on in Florida and both were hospitalized.
Before NXT Takeover: Brooklyn went live, Triple H explained to the fans inside the Brooklyn Center how the opening was going to be worked out and asked for everyone’s participation, especially the part where everyone had to be silent.
“I am going to ask you to go silent,” Triple H said, adding that the lights will be off except one spotlight on him and he’s going to explain to the world that the fans are the reason for the big success of NXT. He then said that when he puts his hands up and the lights go up, everyone can scream their lungs out again.
The opening sort of worked although the crowd wasn’t dead silent as people still screamed when they were not supposed to. Some eye witness reports from the r/SquaredCircle community commented that someone was yelling “Chris Benoit” when the crowd lowered their voice and Triple H told him to be quiet and it wasn’t funny at all.
You can see the opening of NXT Takeover: Brooklyn and the opening from the fans perspective below.
Jonathan Coachman was back with WWE yesterday covering the show for ESPN.COM and ESPN SportsCenter, a move he fought for on Twitter for a couple of months thanks to the support of fans.
Coach sat down with WWE World Heavyweight champion Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, the WWE Tag Team champions PrimeTime Players, and the Divas champion Nikki Bella and her sister Brie to talk about a variety of subjects.
The PrimeTimePlayers also gave the Coach a quick tutorial on how to do the “millions of dollars dance” with Coach saying it’s been a while since he’s done any dancing! Needless to say he did the dance but the PTP left him hanging alone after he was messing up the rhythm.
John Cena will also be on SportsCenter starting at 11:30AM EST.
NXT General Manager William Regal announced the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament yesterday during the NXT Takeover: Brooklyn show.
The Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic will feature the best of NXT’s past, present and future, with the finals taking place at the next NXT Takeover, live on WWE Network on Wednesday, October 7.
Dusty was an integral part of NXT and helped mentor several NXT Superstars and Divas up until his untimely death this past June.
Here are the results from the NXT Takeover: Brooklyn live event which took place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, and aired live on the WWE Network.
Triple H opened the show with the arena in the dark as he stood in the middle of the ring thanking fans. The NXT crowd then came alive right on cue with NXT chants taking over.
Jushin “Thunder Liger defeated Tyler Breeze in the opening match with a Liger Bomb in a rather quick match.
The NXT Tag Team titles were on the line next and the Vaudevillains brought backup with them in the form of Blue Pants. The Brooklyn crowd chanted “Blue Pants City” and “this is awesome” after Blue Pants was introduced. The Vaudevillains became the new NXT Tag Team champions after defeating Blake and Murphy with Blue Pants and Alexis Bliss interfering also interfering during the match.
Apollo Crews, the man formerly known as Uhaa Nation, made his WWE in-ring debut against Tye Dillinger. Dillinger might have the perfect 10 but Crews got the perfect 3 count after a press slam and a standing moonsault.
William Regal announced from backstage the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament starting on the September 2 NXT television show. The tournament final will be at the next NXT Takeover show. The Tough Enough final four then were showed sitting, or standing, at ringside.
Samoa Joe and Baron Corbin was next. Some fans chanted “Joe is gonna kill you” but the chant never really took off. This was Corbin’s longest match ever however it did not end well for him as Samoa Joe put him to sleep with the Kokina Clutch.
Sgt Slaughter, Ric Flair, and Japanese woman wrestler Kana were shown at ringside. Stephanie McMahon came out to introduce the NXT Women’s title match which she billed as the first main event of the night.
Bayley came out with a polka dot headband and wristbands in memory of the American Dream Dusty Rhodes. The NXT Women’s champion Sasha Banks had her intro in a Escalade and was accompanied by 4 huge bodyguards. Fans were split chanting “Let’s go Bayley” and “Let’s go Sasha.” The crowd was really into this match and the match ended with the Bayley-to-belly and a new NXT Women’s champion was crowned. After the match Charlotte and Becky Lynch came out to congratulate Bayley and then Sasha Banks joined in and hugged everyone as the four of them flashed the 4 hand sign.
The main event intros did not start until 10:50PM EST which meant the show was going to overrun its 2 hour slot by a long time. The match had its usual ladder spots and the occasional announce table bump. The crowd remained very vocal during the match even though they had been sitting there for over 4 hours when adding the tapings before the show. Balor retained the title after he hit the Coup De Grâce finisher from the top of the ladder on Owens to take him out and then climbed back to the top of the ladder to grab the NXT title.
The show ended up with a 25 minute overrun but it doesn’t matter since WWE owns its own network.
Triple H announced on Twitter today that the NXT brand will be traveling to the United Kingdom for a tour later this year in December.
“The evolution of @WWENXT continues as we cross the Atlantic for a tour of the UK Dec. 10-16th,” Triple H tweeted.
WWE is not scheduled to be on tour in the UK in December so this will just an NXT tour. The company travels to Europe the month before.
The tour will go to seven different cities across the UK with the Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle on December 10, the SSE Hydro in Glasgow on December 11, the Sheffield Arena in Sheffield on December 12, the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool on December 13, the Capital FM Arena in Nottingham on December 14, the MotorPoint Arena in Cardfiff on December 15, and SSE Arena in London on December 16.
“Coming off NXT’s biggest event in history, NXT Takeover: Brooklyn, we are thrilled to announce our first international tour,” said Paul Levesque, WWE Executive Vice President of Talent, Live Events and Creative. “The tour marks a major milestone in the continued expansion of the NXT brand.”
Tickets for the NXT tour of the United Kingdom will go on sale this Friday, August 28 at 9AM GMT through Ticketmaster.co.uk.
Paddy Power in the United Kingdom seems to be the only place to offer NXT Takeover: Brooklyn online betting, the first time someone is offering bets on an NXT WWE Network live event.
Finn Balor is the favorite in the odds to win and retain the NXT title in the ladder match with odds at 1/10 while Kevin Owens is at 5/1. The NXT Women’s champion Sasha Banks is not fairing well in the betting market with Bayley at 2/5 to win the match and Banks at 7/4. The NXT Tag Team champions Blake and Murphy are also the underdogs at 8/11 while the challengers The Vaudevillians are at 1/1. The bets on Liger vs Breeze are pretty much dead even at 3/10 and 11/5 respectively. There seems to be no bets on Samoa Joe vs Baron Corbin.
ESPN’s coverage of SummerSlam starts today as Jonathan Coachman traveled to Brooklyn from Connecticut to start his two-day work for SportsCenter embedded within the company he worked for a decade.
Coachman is getting a lot of flack on Twitter for his role and told fans to “get over it.” When he asked followers to send in questions they might have for their favorite WWE Superstar or Diva, Coach wrote that they might either send a legitimate question or “if you want to be stupid and ruin it so be it.” Coach will be sitting down with the Bellas, Charlotte, Roman Reigns, PrimeTime Players, and Seth Rollins today with all the interviews to be available on ESPN.COM.
Tomorrow at 11:30AM John Cena will be live on ESPN SportsCenter. “I think someone will say the champ is here. You might want to join us. Just sayin,” Coachman wrote. ESPN will have constant feeds from Brooklyn tomorrow between 10AM and 1PM and then from 6PM to 7PM.
Live tonight on the WWE Network, WWE presents NXT Takeover: Brooklyn from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The full card is as follows:
Finn Balor vs Kevin Owens for the NXT title in a ladder match; Sasha Banks vs Bayley for the NXT Women’s title; Blake and Murphy vs The Vaudevillians for the NXT Tag Team titles; Jushin “Thunder” Liger vs Tyler Breeze; Samoa Joe vs Baron Corbin; and Apollo Crews will make his in-ring debut.
The event will start at 9PM EST while a pre-show will start broadcasting at 8:30PM EST with Renee Young, Corey Graves, Byron Saxton, and Lita. The pre-show will air on WWE Network, WWE.com, the WWE App, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest and Pheed.
Deadspin is reporting that there are 25 WWE registered e-mail address accounts on the Ashley Madison data dump that hackers uploaded on the Internet. Usually only WWE corporate employees have e-mails bearing the wwecorp.com domain.
Millions and millions of stolen personal information – including names, e-mails, addresses, credit card information, and other PII – were compromised when the company behind AshleyMadison.com failed to close the website after it was blackmailed. Ashley Madison is a website where both single and married individuals can post their information to find affairs with the company’s tag line being, “Life is short. Have an affair.”
It’s important to know that the registered accounts might not be of the real people as e-mails are not verified. Deadspin adds that ESPN has 39 accounts registered, NBA has 25, NFL has 18, and both NHL and MLB have 4.
Brock Lesnar described ESPN’s SportsCenter covering SummerSlam as a huge milestone for both companies, adding that ESPN has not covered wrestling since the AWA days.
In a video interview with ESPN, Lesnar said he’s been there before promoting a different brand but now it’s a huge honor for him to do it for the WWE and he was not going to turn down the opportunity when he was asked to do it.
When asked about Jonathan Coachman, Lesnar said that The Coach is smart not to cross the line otherwise he will take him to Suplex City. He said the ESPN SportsCenter highlight will be a photo of the Undertaker with his feet up flying via Brock Lesnar.
“This is an entertainment event and will showcase some of the best athletes in the world,” said Coachman. “We’re not doing this to tell fans who won or lost each match, we want to show the atmosphere and the passion that SummerSlam and WWE have.”
Coach said it means a lot to him to go back to an organization who he worked for for so long and have great memories with and said he is “through the roof” with the decision that ESPN decided to do it.
“You don’t have to love professional wrestling, but this is another opportunity for SportsCenter to be part of a big event and serve fans with something a little different,” Coachman added. “If you have a problem with us covering it, get over it! The world is changing – this isn’t 1985 anymore – and I’m proud to say SportsCenter recognizes that.”
WWE’s super hero John Cena will grant his 500th wish for Make-A-Wish Foundation this coming Monday before Raw after he meets 8 year old buy Rocco from Queens, New York, who is battling leukemia. Since the founding of Make-A-Wish in 1980, no other celebrity has granted as many wishes as Cena.
To acknowledge Cena and his contributions to Make-A-Wish, WWE and Make-A-Wish joined together to host a party yesterday at a Dave & Buster’s in New York City. Attendees included John Cena, Make-A-Wish America President and CEO David Williams, WWE Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon, The Bella Twins, Sheamus, wish kids and their families. At the event, WWE announced a multi-year, million dollar commitment to Make-A-Wish.
“John Cena’s slogan, ‘Never Give Up,’ is a constant source of inspiration for wish kids and serves as a reminder to stay strong and keep pushing through the difficult times,” said David Williams, Make-A-Wish America President and CEO. “The fact that he has had the sustained success required to reach 500 wishes speaks volumes about the type of person John is and the quality of the wish experience he delivers.”
Cena said that there is no more humbling experience than a child who could ask for anything in the world asking to meet him. “I have faced some of the toughest Superstars in WWE history and I’ve never encountered more bravery or toughness than I see in each wish kid that I meet.”
WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross was picked to provide the commentary for the WWE 2K16 2K Showcase mode focused on Stone Cold Steve Austin.
“We’re so excited to have Jim Ross “Good Ol’ JR back on commentary for #WWE2K16’s 2K Showcase mode focused on the career of Stone Cold Steve Austin,” said the short statement from 2K.
The announcement was made today by 2K Sports on the WWE 2K Facebook page. It’s unclear if it was either 2K, WWE, or Steve Austin himself who made the request to get Jim Ross on board for the game but it would not be surprising if it was Austin who pushed for it since the two are big friends.
Former WWE Divas champion AJ Lee has a small role in the Madden NFL 16 commercial, or rather, short film, that was published by EA Sports today.
The five minute hilarious short film features Dave Franco, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Julio Jones, Rob Gronkowski, Colin Kaepernick, Antonio Brown and Buffalo Bills head coach Rex Ryan. AJ plays the kidnapped girlfriend of Dave Franco’s character and he has to get her back by winning a match on the Madden NFL 16 video game. But there is a twist…
Arrow star Stephen Amell will be wearing his Arrow costume for his SummerSlam match this Sunday as he teams up with Neville to take on Stardust and King Barrett.
In a video posted on his Facebook, Amell showed some of the clothes that he will be taking to the SummerSlam weekend and first showed the boots of his costume, saying he hoped they’re good with turnbuckles, and then lifted up the famous Arrow costume.
“You didn’t think I was coming without it, did you? See you Sunday,” Amell said.
The Hollywood star and life-long WWE fan is expected to land in New York today to join the WWE crew for the weekend.
