Cody Rhodes noted on Twitter that he has given permission to WWE to use his father’s name for the upcoming Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament which will air on NXT.
“I literally just gave them rights to use my dad’s name for their tag tournie,” Rhodes wrote in a reply to someone on Twitter. Cody applied for the “Dusty Rhodes” trademark in March of this year which means that any time WWE wants to use his name or sell any merchandise bearing the name, they have to either pay to license the rights or else come to some sort of an agreement.
Rhodes secured the trademark as an individual so any time he decides to “loan” it to someone else, he does not need the permission of All Elite Wrestling.
WWE announced this week that the Dusty Tag Team Classic will be returning in 2020 and more information, including participants, will be given on the January 1 episode of NXT on USA Network. This will be the fifth annual.
While we wait for Yahoo! Groups to hand over the data and master list of the Wrestling-Online Newsletter, we are excited to announce that we are moving to Groups.io.
If you want to add yourself to the new master list please send an e-mail to wrestling-online+subscribe@groups.io or else visit groups.ioor simply input your e-mail address below and hit subscribe.
Once Yahoo! Groups sends over our data, we will invite the old subscribers back to the list. Double entries will be automatically rejected.
No start date has been decided yet as to when the Wrestling-Online Newsletter will resume sending. We will keep you all updated of the process.
For the first time since John Cena has started working for the WWE main roster in 2002, the multi-time champion has failed to wrestle on a single pay-per-view this year.
Cena has taken a larger role in Hollywood, following the footsteps of fellow WWE Superstar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and has put his WWE career firmly on hold. He did a couple of appearances this year for the company, mainly in early January and was scheduled to be part of the Royal Rumble match but movie commitments prevented him from participating.
The former 16-time champ then appeared at WrestleMania 35, reprising his old gimmick of Dr. of Thuganomics and had a rap-off with Elias, ending the segment by giving Elias the F-U. He returned for the special Raw Reunion show in July for another rap battle with The Usos but has remained absent ever since. Cena did not even appear on the FOX debut of Smackdown in October.
In 2018, he had a few matches including a very short WrestleMania match against The Undertaker, a match against Triple H at The Greatest Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia, and a tag team match with Bobby Lashley against Kevin Owens and Elias at Super Show-Down in Australia.
WWE Superstar Dana Brooke announced that she has signed a new five-year deal with WWE, joining the growing-list of Superstars who are re-upping their deals with the company.
The news was revealed in an interview with Sports Illustrated where Brooke said part of her goal now is to build her own personal brand. “And women empowerment is a key in the success of my career and a key for WWE. We can do what the male wrestlers have done over the years, and now women are finally being given that chance. That also means that I get the chance to show what I can do, and I really believe that 2020 is going to be the year that people see a different side of me.”
The 31-year-old whose real name is Ashley Sebera signed with WWE in 2013 and was immediately assigned to the NXT brand. She spent almost three years in NXT before she got called up to the main roster in 2016. She still has not won any major title in WWE so far.
Americans love sports. They love American football, wrestling, powerlifting, boxing, basketball, and all other types of sports that can come to your mind.
Sports is so well-rooted into American culture that if you are good enough, it can be your ticket to higher education and other benefits.
There is no surprise that studying in colleges and universities is expensive in the US. Not everyone can afford it, so aspiring young people are left to hope for a student loan or scholarship. Luckily, collegiate wrestling can be one of the reasons why a talented sportsman can get a chance to enroll in a higher educational institution.
Provided that many talented sportsmen often lack time to study at high school, turning to various help with your essay services is a common thing. Such learners spend every free minute they have to show the best results and compete for a scholarship.
Even though they spend much more time in the gym rather than in a library, the motivation to study is much stronger than it seems.
Why Wrestling?
Despite all variety of sports, wrestling is the number one choice for many high schoolers. Many people find it strange why wrestling gets so much attention, but, in fact, it is a very difficult sport.
The majority of high school students do not have the power and strength to complete one wrestling season.
Moreover, wrestling usually requires soft and hard skills that demonstrate a person’s professional traits best. For example, wrestlers are required to work hard to reach their goals while staying humble when getting rewards. Every following season is harder than the previous one, so it requires motivation and continuous improvement to meet the next goal.
Professional wrestlers claim that wrestling is not a traditional sport. It is an art or a way of living. They say that it requires great dedication and persistence because sportsmen need to focus on technique and master it. Thus, a good wrestler should be okay with repetition because only then the technique becomes muscle memory.
Wrestling is an individual sport, but it requires teamwork skills. Even though you compete alone, you usually travel to competitions with a wrestling team.
Apart from that, dedication is required to keep newbies motivated. Since it is a difficult sport, many people give up doing it. Thus, it also demonstrates a strength of character and resilience to the pain.
Moreover, wrestling is universally understood. This is a kind of sport which is practiced in many countries, so everyone gets it, but not everyone can do it.
Regardless of your height, size, weight and other parameters, you can wrestle. The only criterion that will keep you in this sport for long is your self-motivation.
How Does Wrestling Benefit You?
Wrestling is not only your ticket to college but also a path to a strong character and healthy habits. This sport is not only about winning the title.
It is about developing a strong physical base, emotional and psychological endurance that can benefit young people later in life.
Healthy Eating
Wrestlers are different from other sportspeople. Their diet should include only healthy meals in small portions that are enough to conserve energy for six-minute matches.
They eat well-balanced food containing enough fats, carbs and proteins at the right time and in the right portion. There is no place for junk food for professionals in the field.
Stronger Character
There is a list of traits that wrestling grows in one. Wrestlers should be disciplined to get up for early morning runs, motivated to reach the desired weight.
They need to be target-oriented to compete and win through difficulties, sacrifices and pain. Wrestling also grows your self-confidence because you can rely only on yourself and see progress.
Psychological Strength
When you do sports, not only physical but mental health also improves. You become tougher, acquire greater motivation and discipline regarding sports. Both wins and losses should be tolerated in a proper way and without any mental breakdowns. Wrestling is the right kind of sports to teach you that.
Healthy Competition
Any sport that is played fair teaches people how to compete decently and with respect. It is really helpful later in everyday life because it helps to find the right balance between healthy desire to win and outperform others compared to envy and jealousy that signals for wrong and unhealthy competition.
Physical Endurance and Self-Protection
Wrestlers are somewhat dangerous people when it comes to a physical altercation. They know how to protect themselves in any situation because they learn techniques on body positioning, controlling opponents, defending against several attackers, etc.
They have enough strength and endurance to withstand any threat.
Why You Need to Wrestle in High School or College?
Obviously, the choice depends on you. If you do not feel that you are up for it after reading this article, do not even try. However, if you still want to try and develop the best of your features, wrestling is exactly what you need to do.
You do not have to be worried that sports will take all of your time. Wrestling is about balancing education and sport. However, do not expect that ‘take it easy’ approach will be just fine for you. It won’t.
If you lack motivation but want to obtain a new source of it, wrestling is exactly what you need, we recommend looking up to people that have already been there, someone like brett favre agent can help you get all the motivation you neeb. By getting into this kind of sports, you will most definitely run far from boredom, depression, and questionable life decisions. You will be occupied and busy working on a result.
Engaging in wrestling will not necessarily make you a good sportsman who gets the scholarship. You will have to work hard to prove that you are the best.
However, being in the wrestling team will definitely positively reflect on your character, making you a better version of yourself.
Final Words
Wrestling is one of the best sports one can go for in high school and college. First of all, it is universally understood. Secondly, it is the right path to scholarship and higher education if you set this as your goal.
Thirdly, even if you do not make it through all wrestling seasons that are getting harder one by one, you are likely to develop a character of a warrior and an achiever.
You will become a self-motivated and target-oriented person whose physical and mental health are in full control. You will learn how to compete and defend yourself.
In what is great news for All Elite Wrestling, their upcoming February pay-per-view Revolution in Chicago has sold out.
The event, taking place from Chicago’s WinTrust Arena, will be part of the C2E2 event, which is the largest pop culture convention in the Midwest. Tickets went on pre-sale yesterday where majority of them were sold and the rest were put on sale this morning.
AEW has been having trouble filling out arenas for their weekly Dynamite shows and while it started hot, pictures of half-empty venues are posted on social media showing large sections tarped off similar to what Raw and Smackdown usually have.
Revolution will be the company’s first pay-per-view of 2020. No matches are announced yet.
Only two matches have been announced for tonight’s Smackdown on FOX so far.
The Smackdown Tag Team champions The New Day will be taking on the team of Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura in a non-title match while the Smackdown Women’s champion Bayley will go one-on-one against Dana Brooke in another non-title match.
Perhaps the most anticipated part of the show will be the return of the new-look Daniel Bryan, who last week at TLC attacked Bray Wyatt after his match against The Miz. Bryan reverted to his American Dragon look, getting rid of his long hair and beard.
PWInsider.com is reporting that WWE Hall of Famer Edge has signed a new WWE deal “that has a pretty nice upside” to it, fueling more speculations that he will be returning to the ring in the near future.
Edge, now 46 years old, has always denied that he is stepping back in the ring but admitted that his body feels great and while he wouldn’t be able to return full time, he thinks he could have a couple of more good matches if need be. In a post on Twitter today, Edge wrote, “Still not and still not. Period,” to deny the report.
The former multi-time champ was also in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania a few months ago on WWE business. Pittsburgh is the home of Dr. Joseph Maroon, WWE’s chief medical doctor and whose clearance is required if someone like Edge with a long history of neck injuries and surgeries wants to step back in the ring.
Edge was last seen in a WWE ring at SummerSlam this year, interrupting Elias and delivering a spear, his first one since he retired in 2011. Every time he appeared on WWE television before, he was not allowed to do anything physical so just the fact that he was allowed to hit the spear is already a good indication.
The FOX New Year’s Eve special hosted by Steve Harvey in Times Square will feature former WWE and Universal champion Roman Reigns.
Kicking off at 8PM ET, the coverage will also be co-hosted by big WWE fans Maria Menounos and Rob Gronkowski and feature performances by The Chainsmokers, Florida Georgia Line, Backstreet Boys, LL Cool J, and others.
Reigns is being advertised for a match although it’s not known at this point if there will be a wrestling ring erected in Times Square or if it will be a taped match that will air during the broadcast. Numerous WWE Superstars will also be in attendance to ring in the 2020.
WWE’s involvement in this New Year’s Eve activity is thanks to the partnership between the company and FOX.
Over the past week, Yahoo! Groups made several changes to its service as they scaled back what you can and cannot do with it.
The Wrestling-Online Newsletter is a moderated group list, as in messages are approved by the moderator before they get sent to everyone on the list. One of the changes Yahoo! Groups did was to remove the option to approve or disapprove messages sent to a particular list.
In short, any newsletter sent to the Wrestling-Online Yahoo! Groups list right now is stuck in moderation with no way of approving any future messages. There’s also no way of changing the list to unmoderated as the option is gone too.
Simply put, there’s no way send messages to all our subscribers at the moment and unless they do something about it (don’t hold your breath…) the W-O era on Yahoo! Groups is officially over.
We have requested Yahoo! to download all our data including the full list of subscribers. As of now, we do not own the subscribers list so we cannot find another service, import the e-mails, and resume.
Until we have all the data, we can no longer send the Wrestling-Online Newsletter. Our request is in queue and hopefully it will be processed quickly. The several attempts to reach Yahoo! support via e-mail or even Twitter DM has been unsuccessful.
The last newsletter for now was #5810. #5811 was sent but cannot be approved.
In the meantime, if you would like to remain updated via e-mail, we suggest you subscribe to our free Instant News Alert Service where you can choose to receive an e-mail every time we post news or change it to a daily digest where you get all the posts in one e-mail later in the day.
We also use Facebook and Twitter to provide updates with every news item posted and you can follow us there as well.
In the quarter hour viewership numbers released by the Wrestling Observer for this week’s NXT and AEW, it showed that the Adam Cole vs Finn Balor match at the start of NXT smoked everything else on both shows, with the match being watched by nearly one million viewers.
The match did around 977,000 viewers while the opening match for AEW featuring The Lucha Bros vs Kenny Omega and Hangman Page did 689,000 viewers in head-to-head competition.
Out of eight quarter hours, AEW only won the fifth quarter where the Chris Jericho vs Jungle Boy match attracted 780,000 viewers to NXT’s 732,000 viewers which at the time had the ending of the Kushida match and the beginning of the Shirai match.
But everything else on the show beat AEW, including Dain vs Priest which went head-to-head with the popular Cody Rhodes. NXT in that quarter did nearly 800,000 viewers to AEW’s 703,000.
In the main event, the much-anticipated Shayna Baszler vs Rhea Ripley match did 725,000 viewers against AEW’s SCU vs Young Bucks for the AEW Tag Team titles which did 645,000 viewers. The overrun for NXT had an additional 145,000 viewers tuning in to see Ripley win the title.
Dynamite did its second-worse rating on TNT since it started, getting 683,000 viewers for the night and finishing #30 in the top 50 cable chart in the 18-49 demographic, losing for the first time in that category to NXT. The show did 95,000 viewers less than the previous week. While last week the difference between Dynamite and NXT was zero since they drew, this week the gap expanded to 112,000 viewers. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
NXT won the ratings in the Wednesday night war this week both in viewership and for the first time in the 18-49 demo as well. NXT drew 795,000 viewers, up 7,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. The show did 0.27 in the 18-49 demo, good enough for #27 in the top 50 cable chart. The night was dominated by news which occupied the majority of the chart. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
AEW newcomer Kris Statlander became the number one contender for the AEW Women’s title after she defeated Dr. Britt Baker last night on Dynamite.
Statlander, who signed an AEW deal last week, will now be facing AEW Women’s champion Riho on the New Year’s Day episode of Dynamite which will take place from Daly’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida. Daly’s Place is the same location where AEW held Fight for the Fallen back in July.
Statlander hails from New York and only started wrestling two years ago. She has wrestled for EVOLVE, AAW, Shimmer, and other independent promotions.
Tickets for the AEW Dynamite show in Atlanta, Georgia on February 19, 2020 went on pre-sale today.
For those interested in attending the show and want to get tickets before they officially go on sale to the general public tomorrow can use the code AEWATL on Ticketmaster.com to make your purchase. The pre-sale will end tonight at 9PM ET.
Tickets go on sale to the general public tomorrow, December 20, at 10AM. The show will be held at the State Farm Arena, one of the largest arenas that AEW has performed in.
AEW President Tony Khan got his first piece of in-ring action last night after tapings of AEW Dark finished, delivering the Stunner to Shawn Spears, the former NXT star known as Tye Dillinger.
The fallout came after a match between Joey Janela and Shawn Spears which was being taped for next week’s AEW Dark broadcast. The show, taped from Corpus Christi, will air on Christmas Eve on YouTube.
The comedy spot featured Cody and Dustin Rhodes, Nick Jackson, Joey Janela, referee Aubrey Edwards, and Tony Khan all hitting the Stunner on Spears much to the enjoyment of fans inside the arena as they chanted “AEW! AEW! AEW!” Fans chanted “Thank you Tony” as Khan made his way to the ring to share a beer with the rest of the crew.
Shayna Baszler’s historic 416-day reign as NXT Women’s champion came to a halt last night on USA Network as Rhea Ripley won the title for the first time.
Baszler and Ripley, who had been feuding for the past several weeks, main evented the show and Ripley won after hitting the Riptide from the second rope.
The win was made even more special when the whole NXT locker room came out to the ring to celebrate with her, signaling the changing of the guard as the Queen of Spades was dethroned.
Baszler has been portrayed as the indestructible champion ever since regaining the title from Kairi Sane at Evolution back in October 2018. Her two title reigns combined amount to a whopping 548 days as champion.
Ripley, the 23-year-old Australian, is now on her second title after she won the NXT UK Women’s championship in 2018, winning the tournament to become the inaugural champion.
Jimmy Uso, real name Jonathan Fatu, got off the hook for a DUI arrest from July 2019 after a Florida jury found him not guilty in a jury trial held at the Escambia County courthouse.
ABC affiliate WEAR-TV reported that it only took the jury one hour of deliberation to find him not guilty. He did not speak to the media after the verdict was read but his attorney said, “And that is what the jury system is for. A cop cannot convict you. A cop can arrest you but they cannot convict you and that’s why we took it to the next level and plead not guilty and set out for a case trial.”
When he was arrested back in July, the officer who arrested him noted that the car was swerving from one side to the other and Fatu had a hard time opening the door and was unable to get out of the car. The arresting officer, Deputy Jeremy Meeks, testified in the case.
It’s been several months since The Usos have appeared on WWE television and his wife Naomi was also taken off the road.
This week’s episode of Backstage did only 95,000 viewers, down 32,000 viewers from the previous week on FS1. Apart from the first night when CM Punk appeared, the viewership of Backstage have grossly under-performed mainly due to the terrible 11PM time slot. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
Killer Kross finally got his wish and was released from his Impact Wrestling contract.
“IMPACT Wrestling has come to terms on the release of Kevin Kesar (Killer Kross),” a short statement by Impact said on their official website.
The 34-year-old Las Vegas native had been working for Impact for just a year and made his debut for the promotion in June 2018.
Kross has been in hot water with the company ever since the Slammiversary pay-per-view in July where he refused to blade in his first blood match against Eddie Edwards due to Impact failing to provide a doctor, ambulance, and testing at the show. Fake blood was eventually sourced out and used in the match which Kross lost.
Impact ended up punishing him for it for five months and was left out of all television tapings that came after that show. He asked for his release in May of this year, something which obviously did not help matters either.
His girlfriend Scarlett Bordeaux also asked for her release and it was granted a few months ago. She now is part of NXT.
