In an interview with Chris van Vliet of WSVN-TV in Los Angeles, 16-time champion John Cena discussed several topics such as his upcoming movie Bumblebee, Roman Reigns, the jokes about his hair, returning to the ring and more.
Cena said that he is now a part-timer in WWE and said that he understands why people would never understand why he’s doing movies and spending more time in Hollywood than in a WWE ring. But the difference between making movies and wrestling is huge and that’s why now that he has a month off he’s getting back in the ring, and not just for TV, but doing several non-televised live events as well.
Cena seemed fascinated about how fans have reacted to his new hairstyle. He said that it’s not something that he originally wanted but John Cena the actor needs to have his hair and when he’s back in the ring this month…he will still have it.
Asked about Roman Reigns, Cena said that he contacted him on the day of the announcement and let him know that if he needs anything, he’s there to help. Cena mentioned that Joe is “one tough SOB” and doesn’t expect a text message to come his way, but if it does, he’ll be there.
He also addressed how he spoke out of ignorance when he attacked The Rock for not wrestling when he was making movies, now realizing what goes on and how he cannot get hurt and halts a movie half-way through.
“I owe a lot of what I’ve done in WWE and in cinema to Dwayne Johnson. He’s always been genuine, he always shot straight…off TV and on TV,” Cena said, adding that he told him he’s sorry for what he said in the past.
Bumblebee is released nationwide on December 21. You can watch the full interview below.
Former WWE Superstar Big Cass suffered a seizure during last night’s House of Hardcore show which took place at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The incident took place during intermission backstage next to the merchandise tables and according to an eye witness, Cass just dropped on the floor and started shaking. Fans surrounded the area as they called for medical help. One individual held Cass down as he asked for water and towels. EMTs quickly arrived on the scene and took Cass to a hospital with an ambulance.
Tommy Dreamer, who owns House of Hardcore, then addressed the situation in the arena and told everyone what happened, saying that it was not a drug-related issue.
Matt Hardy just wrapped up his four-day tour in Mumbai, India, on behalf of the WWE.
Hardy had a busy few days doing media appearances, meeting fans, and participating in a lot of Indian traditions. The former Tag Team champion also taped an appearance for Indian Idol which airs today on Sony TV in the country.
“Thank you for your INCREDIBLE generosity & hospitality, India. You are all BEAUTIFUL people that fed me your KIND energy. I bid farewell for now, but look forward to returning in the future. Adios,” Hardy wrote on Twitter. This was his first trip to Mumbai.
WWE will be ramping up their activity in the country over the next few months as their television deal, one of their biggest along with the U.S. and the United Kingdom, is up for renewal and the company is expecting to make more than double of what they’re doing right now.
During a media scrum with reporters ahead of tonight’s UFC 231, UFC President Dana White said that he was told Brock Lesnar “has signed a bunch of new WWE deals” and has no idea if the current Universal champion now wants to come back.
White said that he has not talked to Brock in a while and if he wants to he will just pick up the phone and call him but with Daniel Cormier injured, it doesn’t really matter as the fight Brock wants is against Cormier for the UFC Heavyweight title.
Back in July, Lesnar stormed the Octagon at UFC 226 and confronted Cormier, calling him a “motherfu**er” and shoved him. After the fight, Dana White said that Lesnar would be getting the title shot once his suspension is over.
That suspension ends in the beginning of January 2019 and Lesnar is still in the USADA drug testing pool. He has been tested six times so far since July.
Lesnar is expected to defend the Universal title at the Royal Rumble and will also be part of WrestleMania 35 although it remains to be seen if he’s still champion by that time.
WWE announced a partnership with the Special Olympics World Games Abu Dhabi 2019, the biennial global sporting event featuring thousands of athletes with intellectual disabilities, which will be held in the United Arab Emirates from March 14 to March 21, 2019. WWE Superstar Sasha Banks announced the partnership alongside Special Olympics athletes and senior Special Olympics executives during a three-day tour of Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
In support of the partnership, WWE will utilize its global platforms including WWE Network, TV and pay-per-view broadcasts, live events, and digital and social media to generate awareness and support of the World Games. WWE Superstars and executives will participate in various Special Olympics events around the world, including in the Middle East, China, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Canada and the United States. Additionally, WWE will develop and produce promotional content, which will air during WWE live events, on WWE Network and WWE TV broadcasts as well as on Special Olympics digital and social media channels.
“A longstanding supporter of Special Olympics, WWE is an important voice in the inclusion movement,” said Khalfan Al Mazrouei, Managing Director of Special Olympics World Games Abu Dhabi 2019. “Through this partnership, we will promote our shared vision of an inclusive and unified society for all as we look ahead to the World Games in Abu Dhabi in 2019.
“Special Olympics athletes inspire WWE Superstars and people all over the world to be the best that they can be,” said Stephanie McMahon, Chief Brand Officer, WWE. “The passion and commitment Special Olympics athletes show to their sport, and their teammates, showcase the best traits of the human spirit. We are proud to support Special Olympics athletes as they compete on the world stage.”
Impact Wrestling did 116,000 viewers this week, down 6,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. The show has been struggling big time ever since it moved to the 10PM time slot on POP and has lost around 40% of its regular viewership. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
FOX promoted Smackdown coming to its network last night during the Thursday Night Football NFL game between the Titans and the Jaguars.
Jeff Jarrett was also in the stadium and was the ceremonial 12th Titan, planting the sword in the middle of the field prior to the game. Jarrett was acknowledged as a WWE Hall of Famer and the broadcast team then said that Smackdown Live is coming to Fox on October 4, 2019. During the plug, a video of Jarrett holding a Smackdown Live shirt was shown.
WWE officially announced the deal with FOX on June 27, a five-year deal which is worth over $1 billion. Smackdown will be moving to Friday nights once it moves to FOX.
NXT Takeover: New York is nearly sold out with Ticketmaster.com only listing 66 tickets left for sale.
All the 66 remaining tickets are classified as Official Platinum tickets which means that prices are dynamically priced up and down based on demand.
There’s not much left tickets for the post-WrestleMania Raw either, with around 200 tickets remaining. All tickets are also classified as Official Platinum ones with the cheapest at $285. Over 1,000 tickets are available for Smackdown the day after and since the demand is not as high as NXT and Raw, standard tickets are still being sold starting at $31.
Around 400 tickets remain for a 4-day combo including tickets for NXT, Hall of Fame, Raw, and Smackdown. These start at $224 each and are only available in the nosebleed section. Hall of Fame tickets on their own haven’t gone for sale yet to the general public.
Larry “The Axe” Hennig, the father of the late Curt “Mr. Perfect” Hennig and grandfather of WWE Superstar Curtis Axel, passed away today at the age of 82. The news was announced by The Post and Courier’s Mike Mooneyham.
Hennig made his professional wrestling debut in 1956 and worked for the American Wrestling Association starting from the early 1960s. He is best known for his tag team work with Harley Race, a tag team that won the AWA World Tag Team titles on multiple occasions.
Larry also teamed with his son Curt and before his retirement in 1985, the father-and-son duo won the NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team championship.
Hennig was married to Irene and the two had five children together.
In an emotional post on Facebook, WWE Hall of Famer Bret “Hit Man” Hart wrote a tribute to “The Dynamite Kid” Tom Billington, who passed away yesterday at the age of 60. The two tag teamed back in the day before Hart moved with Jim Neidhart and then Billington teamed up with Davey Boy Smith.
“There are people in life that have a ripple effect both professionally and personally. Tom ‘Dynamite Kid’ Billington was one of those people,” Bret wrote. “The second professional wrestling match of my career was against Dynamite. I benefited from his greatness and through our matches in Stampede, WWE, and everywhere in-between, I became a better wrestler because of him.”
Bret labeled Billington as the best pound-for-pound wrestler ever and said the two were very close. “In many ways I felt like one of the few people who truly knew him, both the good and the bad. I saw Tom one final time this past June in England and I can only hope he is finally at peace.”
WWE has selected Man Jit Singh, former President of Home Entertainment at Sony Pictures Entertainment and Alan Wexler, CEO of Publicis.Sapient to join its Board of Directors.
“The appointments of Man Jit and Alan to WWE’s Board of Directors will add tremendous value as we continue to reimagine our business,” said Vince McMahon, WWE Chairman and CEO. “Our Board of Directors and senior management team are well-positioned to drive our company’s long-term growth.”
Man Jit Singh is a seasoned media executive with global experience across product innovation, growth strategy and business development. Singh was with Sony Pictures Entertainment from 2007 until March 2018 where he was most recently President, Home Entertainment.
Alan Wexler, CEO of Publicis.Sapient, has been working at the intersection of creative, digital and technology for more than 30 years. As CEO, Wexler runs the company’s offices globally, leads a team of 17,000, cultivates key agency relationships with a roster of blue-chip brands and advises senior clients on the impact of digital on their businesses.
Throughout this season of Total Divas, we have seen the Divas go through many ups and downs. However, this season’s finale ended with possibly the biggest down of all. Before we get to that however, let’s discuss what else happened in season eight’s final episode.
All this season, Naomi and her husband Jimmy Uso have been experiencing marital discord. Their discord seemed to only intensify as the season progressed. This week however, it seemed as though the couple would be headed to divorce court for sure. Recently, Naomi’s car was broken into and her wedding ring, which she left inside, was stolen. The fact that Naomi doesn’t often wear her ring, but Jimmy always keeps his on has long been a source of tension for the couple. This time, though, on top of everything else that the couple has been through this season; it appeared as though the loss of Naomi’s ring was the final straw for Jimmy. At first, Naomi thought that the simple solution would be to merely replace her ring. The couple even visited a jewelry store in order to find a replacement. However, when the sales clerk asked Jimmy if he would be selecting a new ring as well he seemed to snap.
“Oh, no thank you, I have mine I wear mine, unlike some people,” he said. This pointed reference to Naomi’s decision not to wear her ring caused Naomi to leave the jewelry store in a huff. On the ride home, she chastised Jimmy for embarrassing her, and asked him what was wrong. She couldn’t seem to understand that Jimmy was concerned more about the symbolism behind Naomi’s ring, rather than the ring itself. Perhaps, he thought that if Naomi could so easily disregard the symbol of their marriage she could disregard their marriage as well. While I agree with Jimmy as to the ring’s being an important symbol of the marriage I found what he said next to be a little unnecessary
“That’s okay, because when we get home I’ll have those papers on the counter for your ass to sign and dot,”, he said. Because of the couple’s lack of communication, Jimmy was unaware that Naomi’s worst fear is getting a divorce, or maybe he knew of her fear and was trying to get back in her for forgetting her ring. Either way, I find his statement extremely cold.
However, Naomi must have realized how important her lack of ring was to Jimmy because she came up with a permanent solution. She decided to have her and Jimmy’s initials permanently tattooed on her ring finger, so that, even if she wasn’t wearing her ring, she would still be representing them as a couple. She even convinced Jimmy to get the same initials tattooed on his ring finger. The gesture was even more impressive considering that Naomi is afraid of needles. I still believe that replacing the ring and promising to always wear it would have been simpler, and less painful, but it wasn’t my choice. Meanwhile, another Diva was preparing for an extremely important event.
It is no secret that Lana has been wanting to make her way back to TV as a wrestler. She has devised all sorts of plans for getting the attention of the talent relations people at WWE, even changing her appearance drastically by dying her hair pink. Lana’s constant badgering finally accomplished something, because she was given a spot in the second annual Women’s Money in the Bank ladder match, and while she didn’t win, being on a major pay-per-view is certainly a far cry from being completely absent from TV. Perhaps, next season Lana will be even more active on WWE’s televised events.
While Lana was making a long-awaited return to TV, two more prominent Divas were conspicuously absent, the Bella Twins. However, as we all know, their absence didn’t last long. Shortly after the Money in the Bank pay-per-view, both twins returned to TV. Therefore, by this time we have our next Money in the Bank pay-per-view maybe Brie’s daughter, Birdie, will be able to see both her mom and her aunt wrestle. Birdie certainly seemed riveted while watching her father Daniel Bryan wrestle on this episode.
Meanwhile, while everyone else recuperated from Money in the Bank; WWE Superstar, Natalya, and her family suffered a devastating loss. Natalya’s father, Jim Neidhart suffered a seizure because of his Alzheimer’s disease, and passed away suddenly. In the days following the news of his tragic death outpourings of love came in for the family from both past and present members of the WWE roster. I thought that Natalya held up surprisingly well during the funeral even when she had to give the eulogy. Furthermore, she even rebounded enough to appear at the WWE event SummerSlam. While I’m sure her father’s death was devastating I feel that Natalya probably honored her father in the best way that she knew how by competing in the sport that they both loved. My condolences to the Hart family as they continue to grieve.
Hopefully, the next season Of Total Divas will open on a more positive note.
The main event for NXT Takeover: Phoenix was set last night during the latest episode of NXT TV on the WWE Network.
NXT champion Tommaso Ciampa will be defending the title against former champion Aleister Black. This will be a rematch from the July 25 episode of NXT where Ciampa defeated Black following interference from Johnny Gargano. Gargano and Black will be wrestling in a steel cage match in two weeks time on NXT and with the show well over a month away it would not be a surprise if Gargano is added to the main event.
Ciampa vs Gargano vs Black was the original main event for NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn 4 but Black got injured and it was played out in an angle where somebody took out Black outside Full Sail University. That somebody ended up being Gargano.
This week’s Smackdown pulled in just 1,948,000 viewers, down 280,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast.
This was the second-lowest Smackdown show since moving live on Tuesday, although the lowest-rated episode went up against the 2016 U.S. election coverage and this week the show had no real competition.
Smackdown was #3 in the 18-49 demographic in the top 50 cable chart and #14 in overall viewership for the night. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
Impact Wrestling will be returning to Mexico City next month to film another round of television tapings.
The tapings will be held on January 11 and 12 at the Gran Casino Fronton Mexico. The location holds around 4,000 fans but obviously only a portion of that will be used for the tapings. Impact already has one date of tapings set for Nashville on the night after the Homecoming pay-per-view so these tapings combined will cover approximately six weeks of television.
More tapings are set in February in Las Vegas and in March in Ontario, Canada.
NXT Takeover: New York and post-WrestleMania Raw and Smackdown shows will go on pre-sale today at 10AM EST on Ticketmaster.com.
Out of all the WrestleMania weekend shows, usually NXT Takeover and Monday Night Raw are the quickest to sell out. Both are notorious for having rowdy crowds.
The code to use on Ticketmaster.com today for all shows is WWENY. NXTLIVE also works for NXT Takeover. The pre-sale ends tomorrow with one minute to Midnight EST. Tickets go on sale to general public on Friday at 10AM EST.
During the latest episode of Busted Open Radio on SiriusXM, WWE Hall of Famer Mark Henry confirmed that Alexa Bliss has been finally cleared to return to the ring.
The former Raw and Smackdown Women’s champion has been sidelined since October, missing the all-important Evolution pay-per-view due to several concussions. She had suffered another concussion just a week before the show when she landed on her head after a hip-toss by Ronda Rousey.
“She came back too soon and was in a bad place, but she’s fine and has been cleared,” Henry said during the show. He also discussed the nightmares Bliss went through after both of them sat down for around 20 minutes to discuss her condition.
Henry recounted how Bliss told him she couldn’t remember what city she was in and when they were on the European tour she couldn’t figure out what flight she had to board and where she had to go. Apart from that, she couldn’t stand up straight due to vertigo. Bliss told him she had to rely on her coworkers to make it through.
There’s no fixed date set for her return but the former champion has been training at the WWE Performance Center under the careful eyes of WWE’s medical personnel. Perhaps, the women’s Royal Rumble in late January would be the perfect opportunity to return after a three-month hiatus.
Tom Billington, better known to wrestling fans as The Dynamite Kid, has passed away on his birthday today at the age of 60. The news was broken by English professional wrestler and Squared Circle Academy trainer Marty Jones.
“It’s with great sadness I have to inform you all that The Dynamite Kid Tommy Billington on his birthday has passed away. A true British ambassador for wrestling worldwide,” he wrote in a tweet.
The former WWE Tag Team champion and one half of the British Bulldogs had health issues for the past two decades, issues that came due to his in-ring style. He had a paralyzed left leg, tons of back and neck problems, was confined to a wheelchair and needed care by relatives. Billington also had heart issues and five years ago he suffered a stroke.
The Brit made his wrestling debut in 1975, first wrestling in England and then moving to Canada to wrestle for Stampede Wrestling. In 1984, WWE came calling and he teamed up with Davey Boy Smith as the British Bulldogs. The two had big feuds with several tag teams in the company but none bigger than with The Hart Foundation. Both eventually wrestled their last WWE match together at the 1988 Survivor Series.
After leaving the WWE, Billington returned to Stampede Wrestling and traveled to Japan as well for a tour. His last match was in October 1996, teaming up with Dos Caras and Kuniaki Kobayashi to take on The Great Sasuke, Mil Mascaras, and Tiger Mask.
Billington leaves behind three children, Marek, Bronwyne and Amaris, all of who came from his first marriage to Michelle, who was the sister of Bret Hart’s first wife Julie. He then married his second wife Dot, who was the primary carer for him.
Last night on Mixed Match Challenge, the two semi final matches were set for next week as the tournament is inching to a close at the TLC pay-per-view.
In the first match of the night, last year’s winners The Miz and Asuka defeated the husband-and-wife team of Jimmy Uso and Naomi while the surprise of the tournament this year, R-Truth and Carmella, overcame Jeff Hardy and Charlotte Flair in the second match.
The semi final matches will see Finn Balor and Bayley taking on Alicia Fox and Jinder Mahal and The Miz and Asuka taking on R-Truth and Carmella.
Truth and Carmella were expected to go over last night because Flair will not be pulling double duty at the pay-per-view considering she is part in one of the most important matches of the card. If no other Superstar will do double duty at TLC, Balor and Bayley and The Miz and Asuka look like they will be eliminated from the show next week.
Monday Night Raw this week set another record, and not the good one, as it posted the lowest number in modern-day history…twice. The show pulled in an average of 2,285,000 viewers off three very lower hours which includes the worst number for a first hour ever.
Hour one pulled in a disastrous 2,262,000 viewers, followed by an increase to 2,399,000 viewers in the second hour, before dropping to 2,196,000 viewers in the third and final hour.
Raw was #4, #6, and #7 in the top 50 cable chart among the 18-49 demographic and #9 in overall viewership for the night on cable. The NFL game won the night on ESPN with 11.2 million viewers. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
