Bianca Belair is on the road to recovery after undergoing surgery to fix her broken knuckle this week, 10 months after suffering the injury during a triple threat match at WrestleMania 41.
An injury which was supposed to last just a couple of months is heading towards a full year as complications derailed the former champion’s comeback.
“10 months post injury, 8 months of rehab, 5 Dr’s Later…And we are FINALLY here,” Belair wrote in a post on Instagram, adding some graphic photos of her finger. “Now I can finally start to put this behind me. Thank you so much Dr. Desai for hearing me and fixing me!”
Belair also posted two videos receiving rehabilitation, almost crying from pain as her finger is stretched.
“Fingers and JOINTS are complicated, frustrating, confusing, essential… if you don’t get it… consider yourself lucky and I hope you never have to find out,” she continued. “Maybe one day I’ll go into detail but it’s a lot. Thank you to those who have sent so much love my way and continue to.”
Former WWE Diva Eva Marie sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Orange County, California to discuss how she was fast-tracked to the main roster after signing her contract and the resulting backlash, being on Total Divas and how much of the resentment was real, her signature red hair, why her 2 runs with WWE came to an end, helping others battling with addiction, and more!
So how long after you started training did you have your first match?
“No one will ever walk into WWE the way that I did, I can almost guarantee it, because it’s insane, in a good way, though, for me. Because it’s like I’m so blessed that I was able to have that opportunity. Because if I didn’t, I don’t know what I would be doing. So that’s why I’m so thankful. So after those four weeks, I get my developmental contract. Me and JoJo actually got it together. They told us together. I was so excited. I was like, Oh my gosh. And they’re like, Okay, well, you guys have a couple months to get your things together, because you’re gonna have to move to Tampa. No problem. I ain’t got sh*t out here, I was sharing a bed with a girlfriend of mine, because I had too much pride to move back in with mommy and daddy. So I was just like sharing a bit with her, because that’s how bad my life was, or my decisions, I guess you could say had put me. But then I get a call because I was in LA and they go, ‘How do you feel about going in for this audition? We can’t really tell you much about it. We don’t know about this project if we were gonna green light it, or whatever it is, but they want to see you.’ I was like, Yeah, sure, no problem. I don’t care. So I sit down, green screen, shout out to Russell, the producer of the reality show Total Divas. I had no idea that’s what the casting was for. But cameras kind of like this, and you’re sitting in front of a camera, he’s drilling you a million questions, just like who you are, where you’re from, family, this, that and the other. Three hours later, interview is done, and he goes, ‘Just so you know, this project is moving really, really fast, and if you do get it, your life will be changing pretty quickly.’ So it’s only happened to me probably twice in my life, this being one of them. When I walked out of that interview, I was like, I motherf*cking murdered that! I just had that feeling of wow, I think I just killed it, for sure. So I ended up leaving that interview and drove back up to the Bay Area. It was a Friday night. Drove up to where I’m from, was with my parents, got a call on Saturday. It’s Russell saying, congratulations, you got the job, and they mentioned something about my hair. Totally go deaf, because I don’t care, because now I’m like, you have to think I’m a chick that had all these hopes and dreams of being a soccer player, then that kind of shattered. Got heavy into my addiction, went to rehab, just got out maybe five weeks or so ago, and now I’m getting a call saying that I just got this opportunity to not only be in the WWE, but now I’m going to be on this reality show that showcases what that looks like on the road. So I get the call Saturday. So that’s 24 hours after my interview, saying that, ‘Congratulations, you got the job. First day on the job is going to be New York WrestleMania. You’ll be on a flight on Monday morning.’ So my life changed within 48 hours, just like that.”
So how long were you on Total Divas before you actually worked a match?
“So my first match? Not long at all. That’s why I was f*cking terrible, which played in my favor character-wise. But it was so horrifying because I hadn’t had a real match in practice or anything. I barely even knew how to take kind of a back bump. So I think, what happened, because things were happening so quickly that Total Divas started to air, and then immediately they were like, Oh my gosh, we need to put these girls on and kind of coincide with them on Monday Night Raw. But you have to remember too, when Total Divas started airing, women did not have the time they have now on WWE TV. So it was even more difficult to kind of paint a picture and paint a story. Because, I mean, the first year or first season, you get to watch the disappointment and then you have to think The [Bella] Twins and the Funkadactyls, they were just valets for the guys at the time for WrestleMania, and they got cut. Their match got cut during that first season. But that’s kind of how it was for women at that time too.”
How long do you think it took you to really start to figure out the moves in the ring, to really start to feel confident with putting together a match?
“I don’t think until I decided when I went to Vince and asked him to go back down to NXT. I was probably already on the road for like a year and a half or two before I went. I made a rocky decision by going and asking him. No one steps down, but we were on the road so much, and we were filming so much that I didn’t really have the time to put energy into training because our time was really limited at that moment. Then you can work on the road at house shows and stuff, but it’s really a big ask to ask some of the other Superstars to kind of get to the arena early and try to roll around with you, and it’s not the same either, and they have a show that night. Trust me, there was a ton that wanted to, Nattie was great, Fit was also awesome, because he would always get there early. But usually people are getting there early to try things, and they already know how to wrestle. They already know how to put together a very basic match. So it’s a little bit different than what I really needed.”
When you were filming Total Divas, was there legit beef?
“Oh, that sh*t was real. I mean, we’re all good now, but that’s why I can laugh and talk about it, because that sh*t was [real].”
Was it the idea that you don’t belong here, you’re an outsider coming into our world?
“For sure, and I totally get it. ‘Pay your dues. Who is this b*tch? We’ve been going hard for the last X amount of years…’ You have to think too. Not only were there two-minute matches, there is one storyline for the girls, so it’s a dog-eat-dog world. When you’re on TV, that’s also how you get paid, and also how you get known, how you get [fans], which the WWE has the best fans in the world, and when you’re on TV, you get the love or the hate from the Universe. So you want to be on television, and that’s the whole point of being in the WWE and on a show, so that you can go perform. So now all of a sudden, they have two new girls stepping into the locker room. They know that they don’t know how to wrestle. So there’s one ping against us is that they’ve been putting in their blood, sweat and tears for years to get up on the main roster now that they think they have the opportunity for their time to shine. Now we have these two new girls that know nothing about the business. Don’t even barely know how to do a back bump or a suplex or run the ropes, and you expect us to, one, help them, and two, ‘I’ll be damned if they think they’re going to take my spotlight.’ So you already had that, which I completely understand, that like, how could you not? But at the same time, when opportunity knocks, you better be ready to f*cking take it, because nobody else is going to do it.”
Why did your first run with WWE come to an end?
“It was actually odd. I still don’t know exactly. The timing of it was, I mean, I got my first movie, so that’s also kind of what happened, is I stepped away to do that. Inconceivable, you can still watch it on Netflix. Had an amazing time on that film. So when I left for that, I kind of still have a feeling of if I didn’t leave for that movie, maybe I would still be in the company, because I think that probably was as much as they gave me their blessing, I’m sure it hurt me internally in some capacity.”
What led you to go back to WWE in 2021?
“I love the business. I love it. There’s nothing like it. I owe everything to WWE. I’ve learned so much. I’ve grown as an individual. I feel like I have a love-hate relationship too, because I feel like I never really got a solid shot, a solid storyline. I never did. I never even had a title run. I went for the NXT title. But when you really look at the grand scheme of things, of storylines, and me on the main roster.”
So why did the most recent run with WWE come to an end?
“That one is actually f*cking a little bit odd, because it was supposed to be longer than that, and it wasn’t. But I think there is going to be changing of hands in management, and that’s kind of what happened with my contract. So it kind of got messed up within kind of that communication.”
The Grand Slam: Australia episode which aired instead of Collision on Saturday night drew a great number for AEW, with a total of 561,000 viewers, up 173,000 viewers from the previous Collision episode in the same time slot. The show had a 0.10 rating in 18-49, an increase of 0.03 from the previous week and was #5 on the top 50 cable chart for the night. (Ratings credit: Programming Insider)
The WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event with John Cena’s final match generated a staggering $6,553,883 in ticket sales according to latest documentation by Pollstar as revealed by POSTWrestling.com.
The show had a total of 17,121 tickets sold and dividing that number to the gate revenue, it showed an average ticket price of $382.79 which is super high even for a premium live event.
This event is now the highest-grossing WWE arena event in history, eclipsing the Raw on Netflix premiere episode on January 2025 which had $4,898,365 in gate revenue.
Saturday Night’s Main Event was held on December 13 live from the Capital One Arena in Washington, DC and aired exclusively on Peacock in the United States and on YouTube everywhere else.
The wrestling world paid tribute to Kerwin Silfies, the former WWE television director who passed away at the age of 75 yesterday.
“Today, the @WWE family lost one of our beloved members. Kerwin Silfies was a huge part of the company’s programming since the mid-1980s. Over his 35+ year tenure with WWE production, he directed countless episodes of Raw and Smackdown, PLEs, and of course WrestleMania,” wrote WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque. “With a dry wit and an unmatched passion for his work and his coworkers, Kerwin affected hundreds of employees and millions of fans. Our thoughts are with his loved ones at this time.”
Raw General Manager Adam Pearce also recounted working with Silfies with 2015 when he started with WWE.
“I learned to see what we do through your director’s eye, to understand camera placement in a way I hadn’t before, and I always wondered how you always stood so calm under intense fire,” Pearce wrote. “Thank you for letting a punk kid sit under your learning tree. And though I’m no connoisseur, the next time I have a taste of the vino it’ll be in a toast to you.”
“The @WWE family lost a very special part of our team,” wrote Shawn Michaels. “Kerwin Silfies was our Director during my entire career. If you were there, you know how important that role was. He helped shape the sound, the feel, and the rhythm of what fans watched every week. Raw, SmackDown, WrestleMania… he was in the chair, leading the way. Kerwin loved the work. He loved the crew. And he took pride in getting it right. I’m grateful I got to work alongside him. My thoughts are with his family and everyone who called him a friend.”
Even AEW paid tribute to Silfies, dedicated a few seconds from their Dynamite broadcast with Tony Schavione and Bryan Danielson speaking to the camera.
“He was a great man. He was an even better director,” Schiavone said, saying that Silfies was always calm under pressure, which is astonishing in this business.
His broadcast partner, Bryan Danielson, was emotional talking about Silfies, adding that he was very kind and very patient.
“I didn’t know anything about TV production when I got to WWE. Kerwin was so kind and helpful,” Danielson added, before saying his condolences to his family and that he loved him.
Other wrestlers who worked with Silfies throughout their careers also took to X to pay homage to their former colleague.
Thunder Rosa made her return to AEW television last night on Dynamite after a seven-month absence.
The former AEW Women’s champion appeared in a backstage segment with Kris Statlander and told Renee Paquette that she was officially cleared to return to the ring. Rosa aired her frustration over what happened to Statlander and challenged the new AEW Women’s champion Thekla to a match.
While she didn’t get that match, Rosa will return to action on next week’s episode against Julia Hart.
Rosa has not wrestled since All In: Texas where she was part of the Casino Gauntlet match.
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Smackdown this past Friday, which aired on SyFy instead of USA Network due to the Olympics coverage, drew 1,042,000 viewers, down 417,000 viewers from the prior week. The show had a 0.26 rating in 18-49, down 0.09 from the previous episode and was #3 on the top 50 cable chart for the night as well as #3 in all of TV. The Olympics coverage in place of Smackdown on USA had 2,492,000 viewers and a 0.55 rating. (Ratings credit: Programming Insider)
Two title matches were announced for next month’s Revolution pay-per-view.
AEW Tag Team champions FTR will defend their titles against number one contenders The Young Bucks in what will be their fifth encounter in AEW. The Bucks got their shot after winning a three-way tag match last week on Dynamite, beating the returning Private Party and The Rascalz.
Also, in a rematch from Grand Slam: Australia, Jon Moxley will put his AEW Continental title on the line against Konosouke Takeshita. The match in Sydney went to a time-limit draw, but this time, there will be no time limit.
After a successful Grand Slam in Australia, AEW is back Stateside with Dynamite live from Sacramento, California as the build towards Revolution continues.
One of the most anticipated matches will take place on this show as Kenny Omega battles Swerve Strickland. The only other match announced so far is a four-way for the TBS title with Willow Nightingale defending Megan Bayne, Marina Shafir, and Mina Shirakawa.
Plus, AEW World champion MJF comes face to face with his Revolution challenger “Hangman” Adam Page and The Brawling Birds – the team of Jamie Hayter and Alex Windsor – make their tag team debut.
Dynamite airs at 8PM ET on TBS and also on HBO Max.
Apart from the Clash in Italy PLE and the subsequent Raw in Turin, WWE also announced the 2026 European Summer Tour.
There will be a total of 11 live events, including three live Raw shows, two live Smackdown shows, one premium live event, and five non-televised events.
The tour kicks off on Friday, May 29 in Barcelona, Spain at the Olimpic Arena Badalona with a live Smackdown.
The Inalpi Arena then hosts Clash in Italy and Raw on Sunday, May 31 and Monday, June 1 respectively.
On Tuesday, June 2, it’s off to Strasbourg, France at the Zenith de Strasbourg followed by two more live events on Wednesday, June 3 in Lisbon, Portugal at the MEO Arena and on Thursday, June 4 in Madrid, Spain at the Palacio Vistalegre.
A live Smackdown will be held on Friday, June 5 in Bologna, Italy at the Unipol Arena and the weekend continues with a live event on Saturday, June 6 in Rome, Italy at Palazzo dello Sport and on Sunday, June 7 in Florence, Italy at the Nelson Mandela Forum.
Raw is live on Monday, June 8 from Paris, France at the Accor Arena and another Raw is scheduled for Monday, June 22 at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Wrestling is now reporting that Chris Jericho’s AEW contract has been frozen to compensate for the time off he took early last year and remains under an AEW deal.
Jericho’s contract was originally scheduled to expire on January 1 but the former multi-time champion remained a part of the AEW roster website even after that date.
The Canadian star is rumored to be on the way to WWE one way or another, but with his contract frozen, it could be a while before he shows up unless a deal is worked out for him to leave.
Jericho has not been on AEW television since April, with his last gimmick being part of The Learning Tree with Bryan Keith and Big Bill.
He is currently in the United Kingdom touring with Fozzy until February 21.
The February 9 episode of Raw drew 2,900,000 global views on Netflix, down 200,000 from the post-Royal Rumble fallout.
Raw placed #7 on the Netflix top 10 global chart for the week and had a total of 5,100,000 viewing hours based on an episode edited to 1 hour and 43 minutes.
The show cracked the top 10 chart in 17 different countries, which is one of the highest, placing in Australia, Bahrain, Bolivia, Canada, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Kuwait, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, and United States.
Jaida Parker will be out of action for a while as she is suffering from a neck injury.
Parker was “written off” on last night’s episode of NXT after interim GM Robert Stone said that Parker was suspended for attacking a referee last week, although he did add that she has a neck issue as well.
The injury seems to have happened when Parker had a match against Blake Monroe last week and was on the receiving end of a suplex. Parker did not jump to help with the lift and landed right on her head. Monroe immediately realized something was wrong and went for the cover but Parker kicked out and the whole segment continued as expected.
Parker spent several months out towards the end of 2025 and only recently returned to television.
PWInsider.com is reporting that Kerwin Silfies, a longtime director for WWE television, has passed away. He was 75 years old.
Silfies started working with the company in 1985 and only departed the company a few years ago in 2020 when he was originally furloughed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then never returned.
He was in charge of directing pretty much all live WWE televised broadcasts, from Saturday Night’s Main Event, to Raw, to WrestleMania and everything in between.
Silfies was eventually replaced by Marty Miller, who was a cameraman for the company for many years.
After his departure, Silfies only appeared once on WWE television as he was part of the WrestleMania IX documentary on Peacock.
AEW officially announced that Double or Nothing is coming to the Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens, New York on Sunday, May 24.
The news was announced in a story on the New York Post, marked as exclusive, a week after it leaked by podcaster Andrew Zarian.
Tickets for Double or Nothing go on sale March 9 at 10AM ET, with a pre-sale beginning on March 2 at Ticketmaster.com.
The Louis Armstrong Stadium sits adjacent to the Arthur Ashe Stadium, which AEW has used several times in the past for its Grand Slam episodes of Dynamite. It’s a slightly smaller venue, but still packs 16,000.
Double or Nothing was a Las Vegas mainstay for quite a few years before it was moved from the city last year after WWE held WrestleMania approximately a month before.
TNA Impact last Thursday drew 254,000 viewers, up 14,000 viewers from the prior week and their best number on AMC so far. This is the third week in a row that the show has seen an increase over the prior week. The show had a 0.05 rating in 18-49, the same as the previous show. (Ratings credit: Programming Insider)
WWE today announced its first ever premium live event from Italy, Clash in Italy, taking place on Sunday, May 31 in Turin.
The Inalpi Arena, a 16,000-seater and the largest indoor sporting arena in the country, will be the host of the event.
The news was announced by WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque via video posted on social media.
The same arena will also host Monday Night Raw on Netflix the following night. WWE programming in Italy will be moving to Netflix in the beginning of April and this event will be in support of that move.
A pre-sale will kick off on March 11, with tickets going on sale to the general public on March 13. You can register at https://www.wwe.com/wweliveeurope for pre-sale information.
Rusev sat down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, California to discuss his journey from Bulgaria to WWE, how he was paired with Lana, wrestling John Cena at WrestleMania 31, and making his entrance in a tank, the success of Rusev Day, being in the League of Nations and taking a Stunner from Steve Austin, the Bobby Lashley and Lana romance storyline, his Good Ol’ Fashioned Donnybrook match with Sheamus in Paris, and more!
Rusev Day was so hot. When did you start to realize that Rusev Day was getting over?
“I don’t know. It was never meant to be over. It was never supposed to be anything. It was just supposed to be a celebration and here’s the key from the mayor of Plovdiv, my hometown. And it just worked for some reason, I was a heel, but then I started to relax a little bit, show more of my personality and I guess people started buying that. Then Aiden [English], of course, Aiden is such an essential part of this, with the songs, with introductions, with everything. Without him, probably wouldn’t even be the same. But just the combo work, man, it was just me having fun and doing the backstage with the New Day, and then the first shirt. Oh my God. They did one shirt of Happy Rusev Day, which is the first one. I remember putting it out in a backstage promo and there’s the huge reaction from the crowd. What? It’s just a shirt. It’s not that big of a deal. But then it just starts picking up steam and people love chanting Rusev Day and celebrating Rusev Day. I got that sweet treatment. I have a beach towel, I have sunglasses now that says Rusev Day. I have all these things that say Rusev Day. I was like, what is happening here? I couldn’t believe it. And then, yeah, we’re just getting over little by little. It was a good time, even to this day, Hey, happy Rusev Day.”
Was there ever talk of making you a full babyface?
“I don’t know if there was any direction for it necessarily. I remember I’ve been off TV, and I’ve never been off TV. I remember being off TV for a couple of weeks, and I was like, What is going on? Why are we off TV? Before the shows, these people are chanting Rusev Day, and it’s not like, oh, let me get my sh*t in. I thought it was good for the show. If these people were chanting something, we should give them what they want. That’s why I started fighting for it, hey, let’s do something. Then it was getting a little more traction. But I became a United States Champion.”
Just felt like it could have been so much more.
“A lot of things could be. I went over there, I talked to the boss, and I laid my cards in front of him. Everything I can, I did, but what comes after that is not up to me.”
What brought you back to WWE in 2025?
“I wanted to wrestle. I wanted to mix it up with the best. I know that the roster is stacked. I don’t remember the last time it was this stacked, but I just want to mix it with everybody. I wanted to wrestle more and more, and all these European tours and everything. I love all that, I love the grind. Because when we first started, we were five days on the road, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, you go home Wednesday, you’re out on the road again on Friday. And that’s just how life was, as hard as it was, that’s how you get better, just by putting in the work. Because every day you work different towns, you travel. Now the people can only hear about that and be like, Oh, really, that’s what it was. It was so cool. Wrestling, getting beaten up, getting the rental car driving three hours to the next town, getting the hotel, waking up, working out, doing the same thing, makes you feel like a real professional wrestler. I miss the grind.”
League of Nations, they come up with this idea. So it’s Sheamus, Alberto Del Rio, Wade Barrett and you
“I think they needed somebody for Roman, to be honest. I think that’s how they came up with it. It was not like, oh, we have this great idea for these four guys. I think they needed somebody for Roman to be a babyface, and that’s why they put us together, which was fun. We got a WrestleMania match. I got to eat the stunner from Steve Austin, which was another dream come true.”
