Last night, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment hosted the official announcement event for Mortal Kombat 11 which took place in Los Angeles, California and was highlighted by the announcement of WWE Raw Women’s champion Ronda Rousey voicing the part of Sonya Blade in the newest installation of the popular video game series.
The New Day members Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods, along with Zelina Vega also attended the big reveal. All Elite Wrestling’s Cody and Brandi Rhodes were in attendance as well and were photographed playing with the WWE Superstars. Kingston, Woods, and Vega showed up for the event in Mortal Kombat cosplay!
“I’ve been bursting with excitement for months about this and I can finally shout from the rooftops that I’m Sonya Blade!!!” wrote Rousey in a post on Instagram and Twitter.
Whether you’re looking at the latest wrestling news, or you’re browsing through MMA news headlines, you may be confused to see some names crossing over into both. Surely you can’t be both a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter and a pro wrestler? While it’s unlikely to happen at the same time, you will be surprised at how many MMA fighters transitioned into pro wrestling or vice versa.
If you weren’t aware of that being the case, maybe you need to pay more attention to the latest wrestling news from now on. Here are just a few of the many MMA fighters who dabbled or moved entirely over to pro wrestling.
Brock Lesnar
It would make sense to start this list by first mentioning Brock Lesnar. If there’s one man that appeared in the latest wrestling news and MMA news for all the right reasons, it would be Brock Lesnar.
Brock is the only man to have both a WWE and UFC title. He made the transition to and from MMA and pro wrestling many times, with varying degrees of success in both. In 2002 he bet The Rock and was the youngest WWE world champion at the tender age of 25. He last fought in the UFC in 2016, but failed a USADA drug test which turned his win into a ‘no contest.’
CM Punk
Wrestling was in its prime in the 1990s, and CM Punk was one of the many pro wrestlers and MMA fighters who shot to fame during this time. He began his career in the 1990s, fought against big names such as Samoa Joe and Daniel Bryan, and put himself front and center in the latest wrestling news.
He then signed a contract with WWE, won five world titles, bet John Cena two years running, and left WWE in 2014. Following on from his departure, he signed a contract with UFC and lost several fights. He also became a prominent figure in the latest wrestling news for all the injuries he sustained.
Ken Shamrock
If you followed MMA news and the latest wrestling news in the 1990s, you wouldn’t have been able to turn a page without seeing the name Ken Shamrock. Ken was a famous UFC fighter throughout the 1990s and began his MMA career in Japan in 1993. He became a professional wrestler after intense training and fought in Japan and the United States.
In 2000, he steered away from WWF to focus on MMA but became the NWA heavyweight champion during this time. He continued to split his time between both sports throughout the early 2000s, appearing in many MMA news stories alongside the latest wrestling news.
There have been many MMA fighters who have transitioned into pro wrestling, but few as famous as Brock Lesnar, CM Punk, and Ken Shamrock. These three names clogged up the MMA news and latest wrestling news for a number of years, gaining many fans in the process.
The love bug has hit WWE once again as two more WWE Superstars tied the knot.
Killian Dain and Nikki Cross are the latest husband-and-wife team in the company. The two had been dating for the past decade and on Twitter, Dain wrote that it “only took 10 and a half years but when it’s right, it’s right!”
Dain, 35, and Cross, 29, worked together in NXT as part of SAnitY but when the group got called to the main roster, Cross was left behind in NXT. The Scottish star is one of the handful of NXT stars to get called up this month although she still doesn’t have a brand yet.
The Raw Women’s champion Ronda Rousey has got herself a new gig – voicing the character of Sonya Blade in the new Mortal Kombat 11 video game.
The Sonya Blade character made its debut in the original MK game in 1992. In the game, she is portrayed as the commanding officer of the United States Special Forces and later of a specialized U.S. government agency. In the last game, Mortal Kombat X, the character was voiced by actress Tricia Helfer who is now part of the Lucifer television show.
After the announcement, Rousey was immediatley trending on Twitter along with Sonya Blade.
The highly-anticipated Mortal Kombat 11 game will be released in April 2019 for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
NXT star Dakota Kai announced on Twitter that she will be heading into surgery to repair a torn ACL, an injury she suffered on December 7, 2018 at a non-televised live event in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
The match which resulted in the injury involved Kai teaming up with Kairi Sane and Candice LaRae versus NXT Women’s champion Shayna Baszler, Jessamyn Duke, and Marina Shafir. She was eventually taken out of the match before the show continued.
“I planted my foot awkwardly after a kick and I tore my ACL. I put off posting this because I wanted to focus on being home for the holidays and to be honest, I dreaded having to even mention this as I didn’t want to let any of you down,” Kai wrote.
The 30-year-old New Zealander added that she will be out for a while but she knows she’s surrounded by amazing people, doctors, trainers, and fans.
“It’s going to be a tough ride, mentally and physically. I know that. The last thing I want is any sympathy…but hear me when I say this; within my whole being, I know for sure I will be back stronger than ever. I will hit the ground, running. That’s a promise,” she concluded.
A typical recovery from a torn ACL requires six to nine months of rehabilitation.
18 male and 12 female WWE Superstars have so far been confirmed to be entering their respective Royal Rumble matches next week. A total of 30 other men and women still need to be announced to fill both matches.
When it comes to the men’s Rumble match, the participants so far in alphabetical order are Apollo Crews, Andrade, Baron Corbin, Big E, Bobby Lashley, Dean Ambrose, Drew McIntyre, Elias, Jeff Hardy, Jinder Mahal, John Cena, Kofi Kingston, Mustafa Ali, R-Truth, Rey Mysterio, Samoa Joe, Seth Rollins, and Xavier Woods.
As far as the women go, so far it’s Alicia Fox, Bayley, Carmella, Ember Moon, Liv Morgan, Mandy Rose, Mickie James, Natalya, Ruby Riott, Sarah Logan, Sonya Deville, and Zelina Vega. Former WWE Divas and a few NXT stars will also be part of the match since the women’s roster is not deep enough to support 30 entrants.
R-Truth and Carmella will enter at #30 after they won the Mixed Match Challenge season two last month.
There are unconfirmed rumors that The Revival and Mike and Maria Kanellis have asked for their release from their WWE contracts.
The four individuals haven’t made big waves since joining, although in the case of the husband-and-wife team of Mike and Maria, it wasn’t mainly the fault of the company.
The Revival joined the main roster in April 2017 after spending nearly three years in NXT. As part of NXT, The Revival tore the house down in every match but while they were two of the hottest acts there, their run on the main roster has been largely subdued. They never won the Raw Tag Team titles but are former two-time NXT Tag champs.
Mike and Maria Kanellis also joined in 2017 and made their debut at the Money In The Bank pay-per-view. But drug problems forced Mike to enter rehab and get clean while Maria became pregnant a few months later so she had to get off television.
It’s unclear if WWE will be granting their release as most often than not they are not accepted.
On his latest episode of Talk Is Jericho, former champion Chris Jericho discussed in very detail how he came about to join All Elite Wrestling and how he nearly joined Impact Wrestling before that.
Jericho revealed that in the Fall of last year, Impact Wrestling offered him a good deal to join the company. Jericho met Don Callis and Scott D’Amore in Toronto while he was in town with his band Fozzy and they pitched him a few ideas, including eventual matches with Sami Calihan and Jonny Impact.
But Y2J was persuaded by All Elite Wrestling President Tony Khan to join his brand new promotion a few months later. Jericho claimed that Khan offered him the biggest deal of his career and took some time to finally agree to it. Jericho said that he had met Khan months earlier as he pitched him the idea of a new promotion and actually flew in Khan’s private jet to make it to All In and back to his Fozzy concert in a matter of hours in a different state.
Jericho also added that after he agreed to join All Elite Wrestling late last year, he called Vince McMahon to tell him abut his decision. Vince, Jericho said, was the first one to know that he was going to AEW and said he didn’t want to stab him in the back so he let him know about it. Speaking of Vince McMahon, Jericho revealed that he was also contacted to work the Crown Jewel pay-per-view but they never got back to him with a price tag so he never went. He admitted that he received a big payday for his involvement at the Greatest Royal Rumble but his ideas of having NXT on his Jericho Cruise and a WWE vs NJWP match at SummerSlam between him and Seth Rollins were shot down and Vince never called him back to discuss them.
Wrestling’s favorite twins are back with a vengeance in this the first episode of season four. One main difference from the previous seasons is the absence of Nikki Bella’s longtime boyfriend John Cena.
At the end of season three, the couple’s six-year relationship ended in an extremely public breakup. So, therefore, it would appear that Nikki has some major healing to do. However, it would also appear that Nikki does not feel that the healing could be accomplished in her new home in San Diego. Apparently, there Nikki is surrounded by too many friends who are focused on marriage and family concerns, which is the last thing that the newly single Nikki is in the mood for.
However, Nikki plans to relocate to Los Angeles where more singles apparently dwell. In making this new life decision, Nikki failed to consider that her sister, Brie and her husband Daniel Bryan just recently relocated San Diego in order to provide family support to Nikki after her breakup. Brie was furious at Nikki’s abrupt decision to move to Los Angeles. Removals London can cover any size house removal. Whether you are moving bedsit, flat or multi-storey town house we would love to be chosen as your partner to move.
While I understand why Brie might feel slighted, I also agree with Nikki that no one made Brie and her family relocate. They simply chose to. Just because the two women are twins, it doesn’t mean that they have to do everything together. The move might even be a growing experience for the two sisters and give them an opportunity to experience some things independently. Furthermore, it isn’t as though Los Angeles is very far from San Diego. It will only be a two hour commute for the two business partners to visit each other. I also thought that it was kind of mean of Brie to try to use her daughter, Birdie, in order to make Nicole feel guilty about her move. It isn’t as though Nicole is abandoning her niece to fend for herself. Birdie will still have two parents residing San Diego, and an aunt who is only a short road trip away.
It was also highly inappropriate to my mind that the sisters engaged in a public shouting match while at dinner with their mom and stepsister. For two women who are trying models for today’s young girls sometimes they don’t act like it. In fact, sometimes it seems as though the twins might need role models themselves. Try to keep it a little classier next time ladies. But, I guess if they did it would make for nearly as good a television series.
Meanwhile, Brie was busy creating even more drama for herself and her husband. Daniel is anxious to add another member to their family, and at first Brie appeared to be onboard. However, after a phone call from her stepfather and WWE producer Johnny Laurenitis announcing the first ever all women’s pay-per-view, Evolution, and expressing how much the powers that be would love to see a Bella twin come back, Brie decided to put plans for a second child on hold in order to participate, much to Daniel’s charging.
While there may not be a baby coming there certainly seems to be a lot of drama ahead on this season of Total Bellas.
Lucha Underground star and former Tough Enough and NXT competitor Ivelisse spilled the beans on social media, claiming that Lucha Underground are holding her from granting her release even though there’s no news of another season of the El Rey series.
Ivelisse wrote that she tried to avoid going this route but the past year-and-a-half battling the powers that be at Lucha Underground got her nowhere. “They convinced me to do S4 under the promise that I’d be released after the season concluded and was still unhappy. They currently are still refusing to do so despite having been told numerous times that they would,” she wrote.
She added that she has no idea what else to do as she is being held – legally – hostage while “pro wrestling is booming.” Lucha Underground stars are forbidden from showing up to work at any other place due to their iron-clad television contract.
“I am at my wits end, so at this point, regardless what happens from here on out, at the very least my story is told,” Ivelisse concluded. She joined Lucha Underground in 2014 after a short stint in TNA.
The Puerto Rican star was one of the 14 contestants of the fifth season of Tough Enough but left the competition due to a leg injury. She was given a developmental deal in 2011 and wrestled for FCW which was later renamed to NXT. She was released from her contract a year later in August 2012.
Ivelisse is one of the first of many to report Bill DeMott’s inappropriate mistreatment at the Performance Center which eventually led to his firing.
The season four premiere of Total Bellas, titled Bellas Are Back in Action, did 505,000 viewers on Sunday night. That is down 13,000 viewers from the season three premiere and down 113,000 viewers from the final episode of season three. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
The WWE Network News website is reporting that classic episodes from the WWF Superstars television show will be arriving on the Network this month.
Over two dozen episodes from 1992 will be uploaded on January 21. While there are a ton more from years before, there are legal issues that are preventing WWE from uploading the episodes due to the old name of Superstars of Wrestling.
The original name of Superstars of Wrestling was trademarked by an indie wrestling promoter which forced WWE to shorten the name of the show to just Superstars.
Superstars was the company’s premier show back in the day, having made its debut in 1986. It moved from syndication to USA Network in 1996 and then to TNN in 2000. The show was canned in 2001.
Monday Night Raw rebounded a bit in the ratings with no football as competition, getting 2,722,000 viewers on average, up 398,000 viewers from last week’s show.
Hour one did 2,775,000 viewers, followed by 2,781,000 viewers in the second hour, and 2,610,000 in the third hour. It was the most-watched Raw since the September 10 episode.
Raw was #1, #2, and #3 in the top 50 cable chart among the 18-49 demographic and #2 in overall viewership for the night. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
Several WWE Superstars participated in React’s “Try Not To Look Back Challenge” which consists of several iconic WWE clips being shown and the video is paused right before the major spot happens, challenging the superstars to not watch the bump that’s about to take place.
Those who did the challenge were Apollo Crews, Big E and Kofi Kingston, Charlotte Flair, Drew McIntyre, Jimmy and Jey Uso, Kalisto, and Sasha Banks.
Among the clips shown were Shane McMahon’s leap from the top of the Hell In A Cell cage at WrestleMania, Edge spearing Jeff Hardy from the top of a ladder at WrestleMania, Charlotte’s moonsault on Becky and Sasha at WrestleMania, Strowman suplexing Big Show with the ring breaking, and much more.
The recently-revived Women’s Tag Team division will have new champions next month at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view.
It was announced during the Alexa Bliss talk show segment A Moment of Bliss that six teams will be participating in the Elimination Chamber match on Sunday, February 17 with the winners crowned the new WWE Women’s Tag Team champions.
There will be three tag teams from Raw and three tag teams from Smackdown who will be wrestling in the second-ever women’s Elimination Chamber match. With 12 WWE Superstars in the ring rather than six, the rules are that two teams will start the match while the remaining four tag teams remain enclosed in pods. At specified intervals, a pod will open at random, enabling a new team to enter the match. This will continue until all six tag teams have joined and then the match officially starts. If one member of a team gets eliminated at any time via pinfall or submission, both members of the team are eliminated.
The Women’s Tag Team titles were introduced originally in the WWE in 1983 and only five tag teams have won the titles before they were retired in February 1989. The Glamour Girls, the team of Leilani Kai and Judy Martin, are the last recognized champions after they defeated the Jumping Bomb Angels in Saitama, Japan, in June 1988 at a non-televised live event.
The brand new titles have a white leather strap with a gold trim and silver plates and look quite good. It’s a completely new design which you can see above.
There is a new Intercontinental champion in town and his name is Bobby Lashley.
Lashley won the title last night on Monday Night Raw, defeating Seth Rollins and the champion Dean Ambrose in a triple threat match that saw Lio Rush also interfere on behalf of Lashley.
This is Lashley’s first run with the title and his first one since coming back on the night after WrestleMania 34. He is a former two-time ECW champion and also had a run with the United States title in his first stint with the company.
Ambrose won the title from Rollins at TLC on December 16.
WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler announced on his Dinner With The King podcast yesterday that he signed a new, two-year deal with WWE.
His usual deal is renewed every year but this time around he was offered two years plus a raise and Lawler agreed.
Lawler also said that he will be calling this year’s men’s Royal Rumble match and it looks like he will be joined by his former commentary partner John “Bradshaw” Layfield. Michael Cole will be leading the commentary booth.
The former Raw and Smackdown commentator lost his place to younger guys over the past few years but is still part of the pay-per-view Kickoff panels.
Two-and-a-half years after surrendering the Universal title one day after winning it, Finn Balor is getting a chance to regain it at the Royal Rumble.
Balor became the new number one contender after Vince McMahon stripped off the match from Braun Strowman following an angle that saw Strowman destroy Vince’s limousine.
Balor wrestled twice, first earning his spot in the fatal 4-way match by defeating Jinder Mahal and then beat John Cena, Drew McIntyre, and Baron Corbin. Balor pinned Cena to win the match, with Cena keeping his promise to use his remaining time in WWE to help elevate the next big WWE Superstar.
After the match, Cena showered Balor with high praise and told him to go get the title at the Rumble.
Balor became the first-ever Universal champion at SummerSlam 2016 after he beat Seth Rollins but he suffered a bad shoulder injury during the match that led him to surrender it the next night on Raw. He never received a title shot since his return from the injury despite never losing the title.
Two big matches have been announced for tonight’s Monday Night Raw which will take place from the FedExForum in Jerry “The King” Lawler’s hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.
The Intercontinental title will be up for grabs as Dean Ambrose will defend the gold in a triple threat match against his former Shield partner Seth Rollins and Bobby Lashley. The second match announced is a tag team match featuring Raw Women’s champion Ronda Rousey teaming up with her Royal Rumble opponent Sasha Banks to take on Nia Jax and Tamina.
And with the Royal Rumble just two weeks away, more Superstars from the Raw roster will be throwing in their names for the big Rumble match.
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