WWE will have a one hour live pre-show for the Raw 25 episode which will air on the WWE Network, WWE.COM, the WWE app, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
The show will be hosted by Renee Young along with Peter Rosenberg, Sam Roberts, and David Otunga and will broadcast from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn with live cut-ins from Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler at the Manhattan Center in New York.
In total there will be over four hours of live television to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Monday Night Raw. It’s a busy week for the company with NXT Takeover: Philadelphia and the Royal Rumble in the weekend as well.
TMZ.COM is reporting that Roman Reigns, along with Hollywood movie stars Mark Wahlberg and Josh Duhamel, will not be probed by the DEA for their alleged ties to Richard Rodriguez, the man who ran the Wellness Fitness Nutrition.
Rodriguez revealed the name of the three celebrities last week in an interview, saying they were clients of his business using aliases to cover their real identity. A few days after the interview, Roman Reigns issued a statement saying he has never heard of the name Richard Rodriguez and denied all allegations.
TMZ said that the DEA will only target the kingpin, manufacturers and distributors and not the alleged buyers.
WWE has uploaded the opening video for tomorrow’s Raw 25th anniversary episode, featuring some of the greatest moments from Monday Night Raw history.
At three and a half minutes long and set to Fall Out Boy’s “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)” song, the video editors at WWE managed to cram in countless Raw moments that made fans pop, featuring the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Vince McMahon, The Ultimate Warrior, Daniel Bryan, Edge, John Cena, The Undertaker, Goldberg, nWo, Sting, Eric Bischoff, The Shield, Dolph Ziggler, Shawn Michaels, Jeff Hardy, Trish Stratus, Lita, Paige, and many, many others.
You can check out the intro below.
You don't have to wait until tomorrow to watch the OFFICIAL OPENING to #RAW25, because it's RIGHT HERE!!! Don't miss the historic #RAW25 telecast, airing tomorrow night at 8/7c on @USA_Network! pic.twitter.com/UIGWJpvp5k
Jumanji has retained its #1 spot in the box office charts for the third week in a row and the Dwayne Johnson-led movie is now Sony’s fifth most successful movie ever behind the Spider-Man movies.
With this weekend’s tally, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, surpassed Skyfall and sits behind Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3, and Spider-Man: Homecoming on Sony’s list. It also moved in #61 in the all-time box office domestic chart in terms of revenue.
Jumanji is expected to bring in an estimated $20 million for the weekend, sending its domestic total to $316,985,000. It has $450,000,000 in foreign box office revenue, for a total of $767,785,000 worldwide according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.
While Jumanji is Johnson’s second most successful movie that he’s been a part of, it needs $37 million more domestically to surpass Furious 7.
Speaking to Rolling Stone in anticipation of tomorrow’s historic 25th anniversary episode of Monday Night Raw, Triple H described the logistical problems that the company is facing to present a successful three-plus hour program on television.
Triple H said their biggest issue is how to allocate time to so many talent that are coming specifically for this show – 35 as of today – and how to split the simulcast between the two locations.
“You can’t get everybody, and you’re going to get a lot of people who go, ‘I can’t believe they didn’t do this and talk about that.’ It’s 25 years. You just can’t do it all. I can tell you what it will be: It will be one hell of a celebration,” Triple H commented.
The former WWE champion called their fans the “secret sauce for 25 years” and this special show will be for them.
“I can’t tell you – it’s the biggest honor of what you do – how many people come up to you on a daily basis from our generation and go, ‘Hey man, thank you for making my childhood so cool’ or something like that,” he explained.
Dana White is giving former WWE champion CM Punk one more go in the UFC, making a U-turn on his previous comments that Punk should go fight somewhere else.
In comments given to the Associated Press, White said that he will give Punk another chance and while he has no date or opponent in mind, he’s working on making Punk’s second fight in the UFC.
“I like that guy. He’s a good dude,” White said. “He wants one more. He wants to get another shot. I’m going to give it to him.”
CM Punk lost his debut fight against Mickey Gall in September 2016, tapping out in 2:14.
Meanwhile, turning his attention to Brock Lesnar, the UFC President thinks that his former Heavyweight champion will return to the UFC one day or another.
“I think he’ll give it one more run. I just think Brock loves to fight,” White said. The current WWE Universal champion last fought in the UFC at UFC 200 and defeated Mark Hunt via a unanimous decision. The result was changed to a no contest after Lesnar failed two USADA drug tests.
Lesnar was suspended for a year and since he has retired from the UFC six months into the suspension, he would still have to wait six more months before he steps back in the cage if he decides to return.
Speaking to UK-based Mirror Sport, WWE’s Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon recounted how she got goosebumps “from head to toe” after WWE fans started the “Yes!” chant following her announcement of the first-ever Women’s Royal Rumble on Raw several weeks ago.
McMahon explained that none of the women in the ring knew what was going to happen and all they were aware of was that she would be coming down to close the show and everyone would be in the ring.
Their instructions were simple: act naturally. McMahon told them that whatever the announcement will be, don’t feel the need to stay in character and react and interact how you want.
“We were chastised by some fans because we broke character and I told the women earlier in the day – they knew I was coming out but they didn’t know what I was going to say – I told them react naturally, don’t feel like you have to be in character, it’s okay for you to react however you want to react, to whatever I’m going to say. We all broke character that night,” McMahon said.
The women certainly obeyed and started hugging each other after the historic announcement, providing some genuine feel-good factor to the usual all-scripted show.
If you are watching the AFC Championship game tomorrow night on CBS, you will see a very familiar face doing the introduction.
The hardest working man in all of sports and entertainment, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, was selected by the NFL and CBS to film the intro leading to the game between the New England Patriots and the Jacksonville Jaguars.
“Always a blood pumper to step back on the gridiron. Something about that damn grass gets me every time. Two teams enter. One goes on and one goes home,” Johnson wrote in a post on Instagram.
Last year, Johnson was selected to do the voice over for the Mayweather/McGregor boxing fight.
Whether he’s in front of a camera, behind the camera, in the ring, or just doing voice overs, the whole world can smell what The Rock is cooking!
On this episode of Total Divas, everything had began to calm down for the Divas following SummerSlam. The second biggest WWE show of the year culminated with Natalya finally becoming WWE Smackdown Women’s champion after nearly 15 years in the wrestling industry. However, simply because the show ended, it doesn’t mean that the drama stopped for our favorite Divas.
For example, Lana and her husband, WWE Superstar, Rusev, spent their anniversary looking for a second home in Rusev’s native country of Bulgaria. The only problem was that city-loving Diva, Lana, wanted their new home to be a mid-city mansion; while her more traditional husband wanted a small house in a little Bulgarian village. In order to choose their new home, Rusev made a bet with Lana that she couldn’t perform the traditional duties of the village women. These duties included, cow milking, wood chopping and sheep herding. If Lana could perform all three tasks then the family could move into Lana’s mansion, however, if she failed, they would go with Rusev’s choice of a small village home.
First of all, I personally didn’t see this bet as being very fair. If Lana couldn’t complete the tasks necessary to be a female resident of this Bulgarian village; why would Rusev then make her move into the village where she would then be humiliated by not being able to perform the same tasks whenever she visited her Bulgarian home? Second of all, if the Bulgarian house was supposed to be a vacation home why would Rusev then want to make his wife do extra work by raising farm animals on the property? That doesn’t seem like a fun vacation to me. Apparently, the couple enjoys making bets though, because Lana accepted Rusev’s challenge.
First on Lana’s farm task list was sheep herding, and I think she deserved extra points for being possibly the only Bulgarian sheepherder who has ever herded sheep wearing blue Jean shorts and a bikini top. I think the sheep may have simply followed her out of curiosity!
Next on the to do list was chopping wood which Lana proceeded to do while wearing only her bikini. At this point, Lana, Rusev, and the entire Total Divas camera crew invaded some poor couple’s backyard so that Lana could chop their wood. I mean, I’m sure the couple was paid handsomely for the inconvenience, but I don’t think that I would want a female wrestler with her own camera crew chopping wood in my backyard while wearing a bikini. Lana could have at least had the decency to wear regular clothes.
I do have to say however, that the elderly female homeowner chopped wood faster than Lana did. However, Lana did manage to chop the wood thereby winning challenge number two.
Finally, Lana had to milk the cow to complete all of the challenges. Lana collected a little bit of milk and declared herself finished. The real surprise came when she asked Rusev who was supposedly well-versed in these Bulgarian village traditions to milk the cow as well. It turns out that Rusev had never milked a cow before. Shame on you Rusev! That was rude of him to expect Lana to complete tasks that he hadn’t completed himself.
All that really mattered, however, was that Lana won the challenge and got to pick the type of house that the couple would buy Bulgaria. However later in the weekend, after participating in some traditions common to the little village that Rusev wanted to move to, Lana decided that she wanted to live in the village too. So, Rusev pleased his wife and got to live in the house he wanted.
However, Lana and Rusev weren’t the only couple making a move on this week’s episode.
New Diva Carmella and her boyfriend, WWE Superstar Big Cass were busy making the move from Orlando to Tampa. Carmella was nervous that she wouldn’t be able to work for the WWE, furnish their new house, and take care of Cass who was sidelined with a knee injury.
After seeing how stressed his girlfriend was, Cass took matters into his own hands and invited Carmella’s father and sister to help with the move. While the thought was sweet on Cass’s part, it ended up causing Carmella added anxiety. Upon seeing Cass and Carmella’s father chatting amiably across the room, Carmella’s sister suggested that possibly Cass was asking for their father’s permission to marry Carmella.
While Carmella was excited at the prospect of marrying Cass eventually she wasn’t prepared to think about marriage on top of everything else. I think that it was a tad presumptuous on Carmella’s sisters part to assume that simply because her father and Cass seemed to be getting along that Cass was asking for Carmella’s hand. There are many reasons that two men could be engaged in friendly conversation other than discussing the possibility of marriage even if the man is a father talking to his daughter’s boyfriend.
In the end, Carmella asked for advice from the new women’s champion, Natalya. Natalya quite rightly advised Carmella to enjoy the exciting things that were happening for her at the moment instead of jumping ahead to worry about the next thing. Natalya should have been taking her own advice because mere weeks after winning the women’s championship she was already concerned about the possibility of losing it. Luckily, they both calm down and toasted to living in the moment.
Exciting moments were happening throughout the women’s locker room this week because the Bella Twins, Brie and Nikki were busy receiving good news of their own, both their line of intimate apparel, Birdie Bee, and their new wine, Bella Ridichi launched in the same week.
In addition, Nikki received a call to be on ABC’s popular dancing show, Dancing with the Stars. While Brie was excited for her sister she was also concerned that Nikki would be so focused on dancing that she would leave the responsibility of both of their new businesses entirely to Brie. While Brie was right be concerned she also should have realized that being on the show was a dream of Nikki’s and that she should be more supportive.
Eventually, Brie decided that she could handle both businesses while Nicole lived her dancing dreams. This means that viewers will start to see dancing as well as drama on the remaining episodes of this season of Total Divas.
The city of Edmonton will be reversing its decision to ban professional wrestling in the city after a total ban on all combat sports was voted for last month.
The ban came on the heels of the death of former UFC fighter Tim Hague, who passed away in June after a boxing match which was held at the Shaw Conference Centre. The ban is expected to last through 2018.
Next week on Tuesday, a modified version of the ban will be presented to the council which includes the reintroduction of professional wrestling. After the ban was announced last month, WWE canceled its planned non-televised live event for Friday, February 9 at Rogers Place.
WWE will most likely reschedule the event for a later date.
Impact this week did 309,000 viewers, an increase of 33,000 viewers over last week and an identical audience as the January 4 episode. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
Four more individuals have been added to the already-packed 25th anniversary episode of Monday Night Raw.
MVP, NXT’s William Regal, former manager Harvey Wippleman and WWE’s first employee, Howard Finkel, will all be appearing on the show on Monday night. They join an ever-growing list of over 30 WWE Legends who will be appearing on the historic night.
A few Superstars from Smackdown will also be on the show including the WWE champion AJ Styles, the Smackdown Women’s champion Charlotte Flair, the Smackdown Tag Team champions The Usos, The New Day, along with SD Commissioner Shane McMahon and General Manager Daniel Bryan.
WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross tweeted yesterday that the 17-year-old who killed his wife last year was let off the hook.
“This morning, Norman Judge Steven Stice felt compelled to dismiss vehicular homicide charge against the 17-year-old in my wife Jan’s death. The state objected to no avail,” Ross tweeted, adding that the driver never even lost his license.
The judge sentenced him to community service and counseling and remarked that it’s all the legal system would allow in this case.
“Sad world in which we live, folks,” added JR, clearly disappointed in the outcome.
Jan Ross passed away on March 22, 2017 after succumbing to injuries she suffered after her Vespa was hit from behind by a car. The impact resulted in a catastrophic brain injury and multiple skull fractures. Jan was not wearing a helmet and was just seconds away from her home.
Triple H, Stephanie McMcMahon, and The New Day battled it out on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in a hilarious Lip Sync Battle last night.
The popular segment saw The New Day team up with host Fallon to sign Boyz II Men’s Motownphilly while Triple H and Stephanie McMaMahon sang How Far I’ll Go from Disney’s Moana. Triple H chose Seek and Destroy from Metallica but Moana’s song was selected much to his dismay.
It was quite the epic showdown with Steph and Triple H slaying it! The “stipulation” was that if Triple H and Stephanie win, Jimmy Fallon has to appear on the Raw 25th anniversary episode next Monday. You can see the video below.
Former Raw ring announcer Lilian Garcia has been added to the 25th anniversary episode of Monday Night Raw which will air this coming Monday.
“Excited to announce that I will be coming to @WWE #RAW next Monday for the #Raw25 year anniversary celebration,” Garcia wrote on her Instagram. She said that after being on a total of 581 episodes of WWE’s flagship show, it feels great “to come home.”
Garcia was last seen on WWE television last month when she worked the Tribute to the Troops show. She departed WWE in 2016 to take care of her father who has since passed away.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Coachman also announced that he will be at Raw 25 despite WWE not promoting his name as one of the stars returning. “I guess they didn’t think I was big enough to include in the announcement,” Coach said. He revealed his participation during his Facebook Live and Periscope show this morning. “If you don’t promote yourself no one will!”
The Coach worked for WWE between 1999 and 2008 and he held different on-screen positions on Raw throughout his career there. Coach was recently let go from ESPN duties along with other several reporters and on-screen talent in a cost-cutting measure.
Total Divas episode 10 of season seven titled Shall We Dance? drew a total of 593,000 viewers, up from last week’s 516,000 number. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
Smackdown this week drew 2,602,000 viewers, an identical audience as last week with just 1,000 viewers less. The show was #2 in the top 50 cable chart among the 18-49 demographic and #7 in overall viewership.
The Raw 25 Top Moments that started immediately following Smackdown did 1,877,000 viewers and was #6 in the top 50 chart among the 18-49 demo. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
WWE Hall of Famer Kevin Nash pulled out of the Raw 25th anniversary episode for next week, citing difficulties in air travel following his knee replacement. Nash underwent a knee replacement last month but was still booked to appear on the show until now.
“Was so looking forward to being a part of RAW 25,” Nash wrote on Twitter. “It’s nearly impossible to travel on our down sized airlines healthy. With a total knee replacement it would be self inflicted torture. See ya everyone at Mania.”
Nash was one of the first three WWE Legends to be appearing on Raw 25 along with The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels. Nash’s former tag team partner and fellow Kliq member Scott Hall is still scheduled to appear.
A few days after allegations surfaced that Roman Reigns was a client of the Wellness Fitness Nutrition steroid business that was busted by the DEA, the Intercontinental champion issued a public statement to clear his name.
“I have never heard of Richard Rodriguez or Wellness Fitness Nutrition. I learned from the mistake I made nearly two years ago and paid the penalty for it. Since then, I’ve passed 11 tests as part of WWE’s independent drug testing program. Thanks to myfitnesshub, I was able to learn more about fitness guides in the right way.”
The mistake that Reigns is referring to is his WWE Wellness Program violation in June 2016 where he was suspended by the company for 30 days.
It was the co-owner of Iron Addicts Gym and the man who ran the WFN business, Richard Rodriguez, who dropped Reigns’ name in an interview last week, mentioning him with actors Josh Duhamel and Mark Wahlberg. Rodriguez claims that Reigns was introduced to him by an informant.
“He is a very down-to-earth person. However, a situation involved in which, often times, when you’re brought to trials, which I was not, I decided to take a plea…however, they disclose discovery. Discovery is basically the proof that they have against you. One part of the discovery is what is called tried and true statements, which is basically disclosing everybody whom the investigators or people that were investigating you have spoken to with regards to your company, with regards to you, and with regards to any other co-defendants that are associated with the indictment. So that’s one of the reasons why I disclosed him,” Rodriguez said in the interview.
Rodriguez said that he’s trying to clear his name and let the world know that there are a lot more people who were involved and/or were associated with his business that many don’t know about yet.
With no football as competition, Monday Night Raw drew 3,250,000 viewers this week, a 491,000 jump in viewership over last week’s episode. This was the most-watched Raw since the August 28, 2017 episode.
Hour one started with 3,573,000 viewers, followed by 3,363,000 viewers in the second hour, and then down to 2,814,000 in the third and final hour. What is not good is that over the course of three hours, Raw lost 759,000 viewers, one of the biggest gaps recorded for the show.
Raw was #2, #3, and #4 in the top 50 cable chart among the 18-49 demographic and was only beaten by the NBA. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
