Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson keeps his name at the top of the movies chart this week as his movie Jumanji clinched its second week in a row in the #1 spot with an estimated $27 million in box office revenue according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.
The movie has done really well domestically, with $283,170,909 in box office receipts. It has also moved in the top 100 biggest movies of all time, pushing the popular movie Jaws out of the chart. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle also did an additional $383,000,000 in international sales, sending its worldwide total to a whooping $666,170,909.
Jumanji is now Johnson’s second best-performing movie behind Furious 7. In Furious 7, he was not the leading actor but part of an ensemble cast so technically, Jumanji is his best one where he is in the leading role.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle opened in all major markets internationally except for Japan, where it is set to open in the beginning of April.
Jazzy Gabert, the female indie star who revealed that she will not be able to join WWE unless she undergoes surgery to repair three herniated discs, will be doing the procedure tomorrow.
Gabert, who was part of the Mae Young Classic tournament and impressed everyone backstage, received a WWE offer but failed the medical. Repairing her herniated discs followed by a lengthy rehab will clear the path to a WWE deal.
A GoFundMe campaign was set-up for Gabert, reaching half the $4,000 goal. Gabert thanked everyone who donated to the campaign, writing, “I will work so hard and will never forget how generous you been! Tomorrow is the surgery. The road of recovery starts soon!”
The German star, also known as the Alpha Female, was not supposed to go under the knife this early but noted on Twitter that someone got sick and canceled their surgery, opening a spot for her.
Impact Wrestling will be debuting a new pay-per-view in April titled Impact Redemption. The show was announced during the latest round of Impact television tapings at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida last night.
The date will be April 22 and this will replace the planned Lockdown pay-per-view which was going to make its return after the company skipped on the all-cage concept last year. Three years ago TNA made the decision to take Lockdown off the PPV calendar and make it a special themed episode of Impact.
No location has been announced for Redemption yet but the main event was made official last night. To avoid spoilers, we will not be revealing the headline match until it airs on television.
WWE used the name Redemption for the fifth and final season of the old NXT format back in 2011.
Ethan Carter III participated in his last set of Impact television tapings last night and was written out of television completely as he has opted not to renew his Impact deal.
By the time Impact tapes another set of tapings, EC3’s contract would have run out so there was no other option but to write him out during these tapings of Impact.
What’s interesting is that EC3 posted a photo on his Twitter wearing an Adidas trousers, capitalizing each letter of the word that reads “All Day I Dream About Sportsentertainment.” It’s been reported before that EC3 is on his way back to WWE or NXT and his sports entertainment remark was very obvious to what he was referring to.
Before joining TNA, the 34-year-old spent a total of 10 years in WWE’s developmental system and NXT. He wrestled under the name of Derrick Bateman before he was released in 2013.
His time at Impact Wrestling was effective, and he went from being just a developmental guy in WWE to one of the main eventers of the company. He is a former TNA champion, a title he won twice, and Impact Grand champion.
Former MLB pitcher Rinku Singh has signed a WWE developmental deal and will report to the WWE Performance Center full-time this coming Tuesday.
Singh, who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, is from India and in 2008 he won the Indian reality TV series “The Million Dollar Arm.” His life story inspired the Disney movie “Million Dollar Arm” in 2014. Last April, Singh had a tryout in Dubai along with many other hopefuls and was chosen to start his full-time training in hopes of one day becoming a WWE Superstar.
“Take a look at where I came from,” he told WWE.com. “When I started [playing baseball], there was nothing. Now we have 23 states [in India] playing baseball and softball. As I go through my journey at the Performance Center and WWE, it will continue to make things easier, and I’ll have millions of people in my corner. It’s going to be a fun journey.”
The 6’3″, 256lbs athlete is ready to give it his all at the Performance Center even though this will be a totally different training program for him. “As long I stay focused and stay strong, just as I have over the past 10 years with baseball or track and field … it will lead me in the right direction.” he said.
Chris Adonis, the man formerly known as Chris Masters in WWE, has left Impact Wrestling. He announced his departure in a post on Twitter.
“I have to announce my departure from Impact Wrestling,” he wrote, also thanking Sonjay Dutt, Scott D’Amore, and Ed Nordholm. It’s not known if he was released or he asked to be let go.
This was his second stint with Impact Wrestling, having previously made his debut for the promotion in 2015. He returned in April of last year under the Adonis name.
Prior to joining Impact Wrestling, he wrestled for WWE between 2003 and 2007 and then between 2009 and 2011.
Over the past few days, the rumors of WWE entertaining the idea of moving to FOX has come up, largely thanks to an extensive report written in the Wrestling Observer newsletter.
WWE will be seeking to lock in either a renewal with NBCUniversal or else find a new home by a target date of May of this year even though the potential move cannot happen until the last quarter of 2019. Last time WWE negotiated a deal with NBCUniversal, they got much less money than they hoped for and it drove the company’s stock down big time.
FOX is currently locked in a contract with the UFC, a contract which cost them big, big money. That deal is about to expire and UFC will be doing what WWE is doing right now: shopping around. If FOX loses UFC, the company might go all out to replace UFC programming with WWE and could pay a premium to fill the many hours which would be left void by the departure of the UFC. This, of course, would be great news for WWE and its shareholders.
The WON report even considers the possibility of FOX buying out WWE completely. With FOX selling many of its assets to Disney, FOX is now cash rich and might want to invest that money again. Getting Vince McMahon to agree to a deal where he sells the family business will be a hard task to accomplish but at the end of the day, it’s all about money. The UFC was sold for $4.3 billion and if WWE can get remotely close to that sum, it would be very hard to turn down the offer.
If WWE ends up on FOX in the future, chances are that the flagship show Monday Night Raw would move to the main FOX station, making the jump from cable to network for the first time in its 25-year history. FOX, unlike USA Network, is a free-to-air station and can be reached by anyone with a home antenna. The downside of moving Raw to FOX on network would be the 3-hour format. The majority of FOX affiliates have news at 10PM so that would mean Raw has to end by then with no overruns.
FOX also has a number of channels that can accommodate WWE programming, including Fox Sports 1 and 2, FX, FXX, and many others.
In late November, The Business Journals reported that WWE met with FOX execs in Los Angeles to pitch their programming power to them. Chief Financial and Strategy officer George Barrios and EVP of Talent, Live Events, and Creative Paul “Triple H” Levesque were present for the meeting with FOX. Company officials also met with CBS and Disney along with Amazon and YouTube to discuss potential partnerships.
Sasha Banks is currently the subject of a lot of hate messages from Paige fans after it was revealed yesterday that Paige will not be allowed to wrestle anymore due to her neck injury.
It was Sasha Banks’ mistimed kicked that led to Paige going down last December at a non-televised live event in Long Island. The match was immediately stopped as Paige was helped by WWE’s ringside physician and the referee. Banks, clearly distraught, was consoled by Mickie James and Bayley who were her tag team partners on the night.
Fans of Paige have flooded Banks’ social media accounts, notably Twitter and Instagram, blaming her for ending Paige’s WWE career. Accidents, unfortunately, are part of the wrestling business and this is not the first case where someone’s mistake has caused someone else’s career. Think D’Lo Brown with Drozdov. Goldberg with Bret Hart. Seth Rollins with Sting. And not to mention countless other accidents that led to surgeries and long layoffs, even though Paige filed a claim with the Car Accident Lawyers West Palm Beach FL and got compensation, you will never get her career back.
Interesting enough, in a recent podcast episode of Chasing Glory with Lilian Garcia, Paige admitted that the doctor who performed the surgery on her neck, Dr. Uribe, told her that she should not step back in the ring at all. Dr. Uribe is the same individual who operated on Nikki Bella.
After rebounding last week with over 300,000 viewers, Impact dropped to 276,000 viewers this week, losing 33,000 viewers from last week’s show. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
PWInsider.com is reporting the unfortunate news that Paige has been told that she will not be allowed to wrestle again in WWE due to her neck, a news that was broken to her this week at the Raw television tapings.
The former NXT and Divas champion suffered another injury at a non-televised live event late last month while wrestling in a six-woman tag match. She had just come back from a 17-month layoff which also included a lengthy recovery follow neck surgery. Further tests following the injury confirmed that WWE will not allow Paige to wrestle anymore for her own good to prevent further damage.
The 25-year-old Brit was supposed to be part of the Royal Rumble match as well so now she has to be written out of the match in some way, shape, or form. WWE will most likely address the situation of her not being able to wrestle to explain to fans why the decision was taken. Superstars such as Edge and Daniel Bryan had to go through the same forced retirement path in the past.
Paige is expected to remain part of WWE one way or another but it remains to be seen on what the future holds for her. She and her family are subject to an upcoming WWE Studios/Seven Bucks Productions movie titled Fighting With My Family.
On this episode of Total Divas, the drama continued at the biggest party of the summer, WWE’s SummerSlam.
Naomi and Natalya in a play disagreement in front of fans, debated as to which one of them was better at wrestling, even asking the fans for their opinion. Apparently these particular fans were on Natalya’s side. They even quoted the Hart family’s famous line, “The best there is the best there was, and the best there ever will be.”
While I agree that Natalya certainly has more experience, Naomi and the other members of the women’s locker room can certainly be said to have given Natalya a run for her money. I don’t know if Natalya can still proclaim that with any confidence.
One relatively new Diva who is looking to challenge Natalya’s claim is Nia Jax. However, wrestling fame isn’t all that Nia has been seeking for the past few episodes. On the insistence of her fellow Divas, Nia attended a fireman’s mixer where eligible bachelors dressed as firemen in order to attract women. At the party, Nia met a man she liked named Jonathan. After some encouragement from her friends, the Bella Twins, Nia invited Jonathan to the Sex in the City party that the Divas threw to celebrate SummerSlam.
The twins’ encouragement seemed to have worked on Nia in other ways as well, because she surprised all of her friends by having a plus size women’s fashion show and was final model on the catwalk. However, just when Nia’s confidence had reached its peak with her great date with Jonathan, and her successful fashion show, her friends brought her back down to earth with a crash.
At lunch on the day following the party, the Bellas suggested that Nia Google for a new friend to see if he had any skeletons hidden in his closet. Turns out he had a big one hidden away. The Google search turned up links to several pornography sites. Oh no! Looks like Nia needs to screen her dates more carefully next time.
The winners of the Mixed Match Challenge will receive $100,000…but it’s not for them! Each team will be wrestling for a charity and all the money will go to those in need. Apart from the $100,000 prize, each of the 12 charities will receive a $10,000 donation from WWE.
“Giving back is in WWE’s DNA and part of our long history, so we are thrilled that each Mixed Match Challenge team will compete to win the grand prize of $100,000 to support organizations that are truly important to them,” said Michelle Wilson, WWE Chief Revenue & Marketing Officer. “This unique and exciting content partnership with Facebook allows us to raise awareness and funds for important initiatives and supports our mission of putting smiles on people’s faces around the world.”
The 12 charities are Americares (Elias/Bayley); Boys & Girls Clubs of America (Jimmy Uso/Naomi); Connor’s Cure (Braun Strowman/Alexa Bliss); Girl Up (Bobby Roode/Charlotte Flair); Global Citizen (Rusev/Lana); Hire Heroes USA (Goldust/Alicia Fox); KaBOOM! (Big E/Carmella); Make-A-Wish (Shinsuke Nakamura/Natalya); Rescue Dogs Rock (The Miz/Asuka); UNICEF (Sami Zayn/Becky Lynch); Special Olympics (Finn Balor/Sasha Banks); and Susan G. Komen (Apollo Crews/Nia Jax).
In total, WWE will be donating $220,000 to charities for this Mixed Match Challenge tournament.
The tournament bracket of the Mixed Match Challenge that will start this coming Tuesday on Facebook Watch has been published.
Week 1 will see Finn Balor and Sasha Banks taking on Shinsuke Nakamura and Natalya. Week 2 features The Miz and Asuka versus Big E and Carmella. The winners of these two matches will meet in week 7.
Week 3 has Braun Strowman and Alexa Bliss versus Sami Zayn and Becky Lynch. Goldust and Alicia Fox versus Jimmy Uso and Naomi will take place on week 4. The winners of these two matches will meet in week 8.
Elias and Bayley take on Rusev and Lana in week 5 while Apollo Crews and Nia Jax wrestle Bobby Roode and Charlotte Flair in week 6. The winners meet each other in week 9.
Week 10 and week 11 will feature the semi-final matches. The semi-finals will include a special “second chance fan vote” where WWE fans will have the ability to give an eliminated team a second chance in the tournament.
Candice LaRae, the 32-year-old popular indie wrestler, has signed a developmental deal with WWE and will report to NXT in a few weeks.
LaRae, who has been wrestling professionally since 2002, has wrestled for Combat Zone Wrestling, Family Wrestling Entertainment, Women Superstars Uncensored, Shimmer, NWA, TNA, Ring of Honor, and now WWE/NXT.
This will not be her first time in WWE though. LaRae participated in two NXT battle royals last year and in July she was one of the participants of the Mae Young Classic tournament. She defeated Renee Michelle and Nicole Savoy in the first two rounds of the competition before being eliminated by Sahyna Baszler in the quarter finals.
LaRae will now join her husband Johnny Gargano on the NXT roster. The two have been married since September 2016.
All charges against David Otunga brought forward originally by his ex-fiancee Jennifer Hudson have been dropped and police will not charge him for the alleged domestic violence incident according to TMZ.COM.
The whole saga started on November 16 when police were called in to Hudson’s Chicago home and escorted Otunga out of there. A domestic battery charge was filed citing Otunga exhibited “aggressive, threatening and harassing behavior” towards the singer/actress.
A few weeks later though a judge gave Otunga temporary custody of their son after Jennifer Hudson voluntarily dropped the temporary restraining order against the WWE announcer. The restraining order prevented Otunga from having contact with her or their son, David Jr.
Until a permanent custody agreement is drawn up, Otunga will remain the primary custodial parent. The police have now closed the case against Otunga.
Episode nine of season seven of Total Divas titled Three Alarm Fire drew a total of 516,000 viewers, down 168,000 viewers from last week’s show. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
PWInsider.com is reporting that Gabe Sapolsky, the Vice President of Talent Relations, Creative, and Marketing at World Wrestling Network Live, will be signing a WWE deal as a consultant.
Sapolsky has been doing work for WWE with NXT over the past several months but was never officially on the company’s books. This new WWE deal will also see him retain the position at WWNLive and doing booking for EVOLVE.
The 45-year-old started in the business with ECW in 1993. In 2002, he co-founded Ring of Honor and later in 2009 he founded Dragon Gate USA and a year later EVOLVE with Sai Hamaoui.
Sapolsky and Triple H managed to bridge the gap between WWE and EVOLVE over the years and the two now share a working relationship when years ago it was unheard of that WWE would help out the indies.
Former WCW, World, and Universal champion Bill Goldberg is set to headline the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2018 according to strong rumors.
Goldberg, who returned to WWE in 2016 and wrapped up his duties at WrestleMania last year in Orlando, is one of the few big names remaining worthy of headlining such an event. Upon his return to the company, Goldberg beat Brock Lesnar at the Survivor Series, took part in the Royal Rumble match, beat Kevin Owens at Fastlane to become the Universal champion, and then dropped the title to Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 33.
With tickets set to go on sale next week, an announcement confirming Goldberg as the first inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2018 will probably come this coming Monday on Raw. The pre-sale for the HOF kicks off on Wednesday morning while tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday, January 19.
The Hall of Fame ceremony takes place on Friday, April 6 at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. Just like last year, the Hall of Fame will be moving to Friday instead of the usual Saturday, swapping with NXT. The change was due to logistical reasons since putting NXT on Saturday means that they can leave the ring and lighting rigs set up for Raw and Smackdown instead of setting up for NXT on Friday, taking everything down for the Hall of Fame on Saturday, and then building everything back up for Raw and Smackdown.
John Cena’s work outside WWE continues to grow as the 16-time champion announced a couple of new projects with Nickelodeon according to Variety.com which carried the story.
For starters, Cena will be returning as a host of Nickelodeon’s Kids’ Choice Awards, his second time in a row hosting the popular kids event. In addition, Cena is also joining the voice cast of the Nickelodeon’s new animated series Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and executive producing new gameshow Keep it Spotless for the channel.
“He’s just one of those people who kids love, so why wouldn’t we want to be in business with him?” Nickelodeon Group president Cyma Zarghami said of Cena.
“Nickelodeon and I, we share the same looking glass,” said Cena. “We like to make kids laugh and we like kids to have fun. Nickelodeon doesn’t do programming that doesn’t have comedy in it, that doesn’t have smiles in it. I really enjoy putting smiles on faces.”
Zarghami said that it was an easy decision for the network to ask Cena to host the Kids’ Choice once again and the general feeling was that “there was a resounding ‘He’s our guy.’” Zarghami also noted that with Cena as host, there was an uptick in male viewership for Kids’ Choice, up 19% among boys 6-11. “We don’t often have somebody come back two years in a row,” Zarghami said. “But having him come back two years in a row is perfect for us.”
On the new Ninja Turtles cartoon, Cena will voice an original villain named Baron Draxum. “If you were of my age, you know Ninja Turtles, you were a fan of Ninja Turtles,” said Cena. “Being able to recreate ‘Ninja Turtles’ and be involved in the franchise is really special.”
And as far as his production duties for Keep it Spotless, the show will be produced by ITV Entertainment and Cena’s Hard Nocks South Productions, and based on a U.K. format from Possessed. Keep it Spotless features kid contestants vying for cash prizes as they compete to keep clean while navigating obstacles designed to make them messy.
“It’s like the chaos and the slime-ability of Kids’ Choice meets that crazy scene in the original ‘Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory’ where everyone is wearing white suits and the kid gets transported through the TV,” Cena said. “It’s gonna be super special to kids.”
Keep it Spotless and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are set to premiere later this year. The Kids’ Choice Awards telecast is scheduled to air live on Nickelodeon March 24 at 8PM.
In comments given to the Associated Press following his dinner with Ronda Rousey and super agent Brad Slater, WWE’s Paul “Triple H” Levesque said that they have been talking to Ronda Rousey for a while and they have a great relationship but they have nothing to announce at this time.
“We have a lot of things going on. But we have a great relationship with her, a very friendly standpoint for a long period of time now. It was great to catch up with her. We have nothing to announce at this time, but she’s a huge fan of what we do and she’s incredibly interested in what we do and the opportunities that lie there,” Triple H said.
A TMZ paparazzo caught Triple H exiting a restaurant in Los Angeles and four minutes later, Rousey and Slater walked out and were confronted by the paparazzo regarding the meeting. Rousey said she enjoyed the fine dining while Slater said that they were just catching up with Triple H.
“We’re fans of hers and incredibly interested in what those opportunities could be with us. But there’s a lot of things to walk through. We’re talking. We’re having conversations,” HHH added.
With the Royal Rumble around the corner and the first-ever female Royal Rumble match on the card, the big, big rumor is that Rousey will be one of those 30 who will step in the ring for the historic occasion.
