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Undertaker and Shawn Michaels to appear on Raw tonight from New Orleans

By
Colin Vassallo
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Monday Night Raw tonight will get some added ammunition in the form of The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels, who will both appear live from New Orleans. While HBK will be there – among other things – to promote his new movie The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, it’s still not known what The Undertaker will be there for.

When Taker last appeared on WWE television on November 15, he declared Smackdown his home. Will the “Dead Man” announce that he’s entering the Royal Rumble?

The only match announced for Raw tonight so far is a United States title match between Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho in a 2-on-1 handicap match. Whoever pins the champion between Jericho and Owens will become the new United States champ while Reigns will have to wait until the Rumble to get his shot at the Universal title.

9-year-old Elijah “Drax Shadow” Mainville passes away from cancer

By
Colin Vassallo
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Elijah Mainville, the 9 year old boy who WWE “signed” to a contract in 2015 during commercials on Raw along with Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, and his favorite superstar Cody “Stardust” Rhodes, passed away yesterday after a six-year battle with stage-four cancer.

He was suffering from neuroblastoma, a cancer that is commonly found in the adrenal glands and that effects mostly those of age five or younger.

Mainville created his own character, called Drax Shadow, and got a bit of the Connor Michalek treatment by WWE over the past two years. The 9-year-old originally submitted an audition video for Tough Enough and that was enough to catch WWE’s eyes.

“WWE extends its deepest condolences to the family of Elijah Mainville, aka Drax Shadow,” read a tweet by WWE earlier today along with a photo of Stephanie and Triple H with the little boy on Raw.

Stephanie McMahon also tweeted about Elijah’s passing. “Your light illuminated us all and will shine even brighter in Heaven.”

Stardust, who along with Stephen Amell of Arrow donated their Slammy Award statue to raise money for Elijah, said that the little boy thought him bravery. “I know there’s a certain cowboy waiting for you in the sky,” he added, referring to his father.

You can see the video that WWE produced for him below.

Is Kenny Omega on the way to WWE?

By
Colin Vassallo
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The most sought-after wrestler in the business today is not employed by WWE or TNA, and this weekend, he declared himself a free agent after a terrific main event at NJPW’s Wrestle Kingdom 11.

Kenny Omega, the leader of The Elite, announced on Twitter that he will be leaving Japan. “I will be stepping away from Japan to reassess my future. The path of my journey may change, but my goals will not,” he wrote.

Fresh off his main event match against Kazuchika Okada which went almost 50 minutes, Omega’s stock in the wrestling business couldn’t be any higher. But in the beginning of January, Omega told Sports Illustrated, “I would rather be the legend that never stepped foot in WWE but was better than every single one of them and did something that none of those guys could do in their prime or could ever do if they left WWE and tried.”

Omega also had tough words for the current crop of WWE Superstars, who he thinks are not rising up to the occasion. “They just want to be a normal motherf*cker in wrestling, being a wrestler, collecting a paycheck, then telling their friends, ‘I’m a WWE Superstar.’ For Omega, “that’s the worst sh*t ever!”

It’s no secret that WWE wants Omega. Previous offers were turned down by the man himself, however with the Royal Rumble fast approaching, there are big rumors that Omega might be on his way to WWE.

Omega’s reluctance to join WWE was applauded by many, including by Matt Hardy, who commented that Omega, “Understands the threat of MeekMahan’s monopoly to the industry, he sees the LIGHT that exists outside.” However with the big money that comes along with a WWE move, it will be hard to turn down a big offer from the biggest wrestling company in the world.

The 33-year-old Canadian is pretty much a legend on the independent scene, wrestling several match of the year candidates at Ring of Honor, DDT Pro Wrestling, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, and New Japan.

If Omega does indeed go to WWE, this would be his second stint with the company, although he never was part of the main roster the first time around. Omega was signed to a WWE developmental deal in 2005 and was assigned to Deep South Wrestling where he spent around 10 months before asking for his release.

Brooke Adams returns to TNA during Impact Wrestling television tapings

By
Colin Vassallo
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Brooke Adams, known better as Brooke Tessmacher in TNA, returned to the company during this week’s television tapings almost 14 months after her departure.

She left the company in November 2015 and later announced that she was pregnant with her first child, a baby she gave birth to in September of last year. Her first stint with TNA lasted five years and during those five years she won the TNA Knockouts title three times and the Tag Team titles once.

Her return on Impact Wrestling will air on the January 19 episode on POP TV.

Gabi ‘Raquel’ Castrovinci no longer with TNA

By
Colin Vassallo
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Gabi Castrovinci, who wrestled in TNA as Raquel, revealed on Twitter yesterday that she is no longer with the company.

Gabi is a former Tough Enough contestant and appeared in the sixth season of the show finishing in tenth place. After her removal from the show, she wrestled a bit on the indie circuit before she was signed to a deal with TNA.

Castronvinci appeared on the January 9, 2016 tapings of Impact and revealed her new ring name. Her in-ring debut came at the Knockouts Knockdown pay-per-view which was taped in March, but aired a month later. She was defeated by Barbi Hayden on the show, failing to advance to the Knockouts Gauntlet match.

She currently wrestles for Shine Wrestling where she is the tag team champion with Santana Garrett, another former TNA Knockout who used the name Brittany.

Kassius Ohno back on the road for NXT events

By
Colin Vassallo
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One day after appearing at the NXT television tapings at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida, Kassius Ohno wrestled his first non-televised match for NXT in over three years at yesterday’s show in Largo.

Wrestling the second match from the top, the man previously known as Chris Hero wrestled Andrade “Cien” Almas and he won the match with his Ohno Blade finishing move. Ohno was wearing his green Hero wrestling gear, something that will obviously change in the future.

The 37-year-old will be in San Antonio for the Royal Rumble weekend however he will be wrestling somewhere else, his final indie matches at EVOLVE 76 and EVOLVE 77 at the Woodlawn Lake Park Gym. He will wrestle Zack Sabre Jr. on his final EVOLVE show on January 28.

Anthem unveils new logo for Impact Wrestling

By
Colin Vassallo
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TNA debuted its newest logo yesterday, which includes the bird from the Anthem Sports & Entertainment logo as well as Anthem’s name.

The blue bird spreads its wings from the A of Impact which has a blue and white gradient color. The word Wrestling is written in smaller font underneath and Anthem’s name appears at the bottom in white.

This will now replace the silver and blue shaded logo with a silver and blue outlined hexagon in the background representing the six sided ring that Dixie Carter unveiled in December 2014.

You can see the new logo below.

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Downloadable content and offline viewing are coming to the WWE Network

By
Colin Vassallo
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Downloadable content and offline viewing are on the to-do list for the WWE Network according to WWE Chief Marketing and Revenue Officer Michelle Wilson.

Wilson, who was at the Variety Entertainment Summit at CES in Las Vegas, told Todd Spangler in an interview that the features would be included sometime this year however there’s no specific time frame when the service will be launched. Wilson did not reveal if the whole catalogue of videos will be available for download or just specifically marked videos. The story about offline viewing was originally covered by StreamingObserver.com.

Recently, Netflix introduced the same service which allows subscribers to download videos over Internet and then allows them to watch the videos when they have no Internet connection.

Impact rating for 01/05/2017

By
Colin Vassallo
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The first Impact of 2017 under the new regime pulled in a disappointing 290,000 viewers. While it’s up from the past two weeks which were not first-run episodes, it’s down from 329,000 that the show did in its final episode on December 15. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)

WWE unveils final list of competitors for the UK Championship tournament

By
Colin Vassallo
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WWE today unveiled the list of competitors who will be participating in the WWE United Kingdom Championship tournament.

Danny Burch, Trent Seven, H.C. Dyer, Pete Dunne, Wolfgang, Jordan Devlin, Sam Gradwell, Tyler Bate, James Drake, Tucker, Tyson T-Bone, Joseph Conners, Dan Moloney, Roy Johnson, and Mark Andrews are 15 of the 16 competitors who are in the tournament. Another name, Tucker, was part of the list but then was removed for unknown reasons so that leaves one empty spot in the tournament unless he’s added back in.

The tournament will take place on January 14 and January 15 at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool, England and it will air live and exclusively on the WWE Network.

Four matches already set for next week’s Raw and Smackdown

By
Colin Vassallo
-

A handicap match for the United States title was announced on WWE.COM and will take place on this Monday’s Raw. Roman Reigns will be putting the title on the line against both Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho, with Owens getting a chance to add the US title to his Universal title.

Meanwhile over at Smackdown, three matches are already on the card. Baron Corbin will take on John Cena for his first match on TV since No Mercy, The American Alpha defend their Tag Team titles against The Wyatt Family, and Nikki Bella will take on her former friend Natalya.

Total Divas S6 E7 episode recap: A Win-Wine Situation

By
W-O Staff
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On this episode of Total Divas, Brie Bella and her sister Nikki decided to have some rest and relaxation in Napa Valley, California. However, one Bella sister still had her mind on business. Nikki wanted to take the opportunity of being in California wine country to discuss the possibility of making a Bella brand of wine. While it makes sense that Nikki would want to expand the Bella brand to include sister’s favorite libation, I can not blame Brie for wanting a little time away from her busy schedule. However, I think that it was wrong of her to blame Nikki’s boyfriend, John Cena for her sudden interest in winemaking.

Brie claimed that Nikki was lonely, and therefore was simply trying to make herself as busy as her superstar boyfriend. Perhaps, Nikki is only trying to make sure that when her wrestling career is over, she will have plenty of options for second careers. Further, I felt that it was unfair of Brie to tell Nikki that she was incapable of learning how to make her own wine.

Perhaps Brie’s disparaging of Nikki’s dream only drove Nikki to work even harder to achieve her goal, because when the sisters visited a Napa winery, Nikki wasn’t above doing any of the tasks that the winery owners said were required to make wine. The only problem that I have with Nikki’s dream was that she seemed to think that she couldn’t have her own wine brand without her sister. Maybe Nikki should develop her own brand apart from her sister.

Meanwhile, another Diva was developing a new persona of her own. The WWE decided to turn superstar Natalya into a heel wrestler. At first, the WWE Universe didn’t seem to respond well to the idea of their favorite good girl going bad. But, with a little work on Natalia’s part the fans seemed to accept Natalya’s transformation.

Another Diva made transformations on this episode as well, however, I don’t think that they were for the better. Paige has changed a lot this season developing many bad habits which concern her fellow Divas. The interest that concerns her friends the most is her new relationship with Superstar Alberto del Rio.

Del Rio is known for being a troublemaker in the WWE. Since beginning her relationship with Del Rio, Paige has not been having as much time on the air as usual. As soon as Paige had returned to the ring from a long hiatus, she injured herself. However, rather than being honest with WWE higher ups and informing them of her injury, Paige chose to confide in her new friend, WWE Diva Eve Marie.

Paige swore her new friend to secrecy making her promise not to inform the powers that be at WWE of her new injury. Eve Marie promised not to say anything, but the next day Paige was approached by WWE talent manager, Mark Carrano.

Carano asked Paige how her neck was feeling, and Paige lied telling him that it was just fine. However, Paige should have figured out that Carrano had a reason for asking. It turned out that Carrano already knew about Paige’s injury and was telling her that she needed to leave work until she had seen a doctor and was clear to wrestle again.

Paige instantly blamed Eve for her dismissal even though it turned out to be Natalya who had informed Carrano. Paige became furious with both women and stormed out. I think that Paige was overreacting when her friends were only trying to make sure that she didn’t become even more injured.

However, a feud between Paige and all of her friends will certainly add more drama to this season of Total Divas.

Chris Hero returns to NXT under his old WWE name Kassius Ohno

By
Colin Vassallo
-

The man known as Chris Hero on the independent circuit returned to NXT last night during the television tapings and confronted NXT champion Shinsuke Nakamura in a segment that ended the night.

Hero, who will be using his WWE name Kassius Ohno again, interrupted Nakamura’s celebration and the NXT crowd at Full Sail erupted as soon as he appeared beneath the screen, chanting “welcome back.”

Ohno signaled that he was going to take his jacket off as he stood face to face with Nakamura, but then changed his mind, and tapped on the NXT title which was resting on Nakamura’s shoulder. He then exited the ring and returned backstage.

In early December, Dave Meltzer of the Observer reported that Hero was heading back to WWE for the second time. He had a two year stint in NXT between 2011 and 2013 but then decided to leave the company, taking the indie scene by storm in the years that followed.

Triple H posted a photo on Twitter shaking hands with the 37-year old writing, “Welcome back… #KassiusOhno.”

You can see the video of Ohno’s return below.

Total Divas season 6 episode 7 rating

By
Colin Vassallo
-

Episode seven of season six of Total Divas titled A Win-Wine Situation drew a total of 734,000, the highest of season six so far and up 29,000 viewers from the previous episode. The time change seems to have done good for Total Divas! (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)

TNA star Mark Andrews joins the WWE UK Championship tournament

By
Colin Vassallo
-

Mark Andrews has been added as a competitor in the 16-man tournament to crown the first WWE United Kingdom champion.

The Cardiff, Wales native won the second season of TNA’s British Boot Camp and received a TNA contract, making his debut in January 2015 and wrestling under the name Mandrews. He was last seen on TNA television on the December 1 episode of Impact when he turned heel.

The two-day, 16-man elimination tournament will be held live on January 14 and 15 with Michael Cole and Nigel McGuinness calling the action on the WWE Network.

TNA starts first tapings of 2017 tonight at Universal Studios in Orlando

By
Colin Vassallo
-

TNA starts a run of eight television tapings set over a period of six days tonight with a live – or few hours tape delay – broadcast of Impact on POP.

Apart from tonight, TNA will tape a live One Night Only pay-per-view tomorrow at 8PM and then tapes multiple episodes of Impact on Saturday at 1PM and 7PM and Sunday at 1PM and 7PM as well. Tapings will resume on Tuesday at 6PM and Wednesday at 6PM with Monday reserved for backstage segments and other material that will not be taped in front of fans.

This week-long set of tapings will give TNA enough material to have first-run episodes of Impact all the way through March. The next set of tapings will take place sometime in late March or beginning of April.

Jeff Jarrett returns to TNA

By
Colin Vassallo
-

PWInsider.com is reporting that Jeff Jarrett has agreed to return to TNA after reaching a deal with Anthem Sports & Entertainment. Double J will be at the television tapings which kick off later today with a tape-delayed Impact.

It’s not known what role Jarrett will be taking on yet, however, PWInsider adds that his friend Dutch Mantel – who worked for WWE as Zeb Colter – is in Orlando and will be helping creatively, possibly indicating that Jarrett will once again be doing behind-the-scenes work for the company he founded with his father.

Jarrett resigned from his role in TNA as Executive Vice President in December 2013 but still had a minority share in the company. He sold that share to Dixie Carter in 2015 when he returned for another stint to plug his Global Force Wrestling company which still has not managed to take off yet. As part of the deal he was also inducted in the TNA Hall of Fame.

In mid-December, John Pollock from Live Audio Wrestling revealed that Jarrett was seen meeting officials from Anthem, specifically Ed Nordholm who know heads TNA.

Karen Jarrett, Jeff’s wife and Kurt Angle’s ex, will be joining him at the tapings.

Four new female recruits join the WWE Performance Center

By
Colin Vassallo
-

WWE has signed four new female recruits to developmental deals and will be joining the WWE Performance Center and eventually NXT to beef up the women’s division after it was seriously dented with the departure of the top stars who joined the main roster.

The four individuals are Kimberly Frankele, Dori Prange, MaryKate Duignan Glidewell and Julia Ho.

Frankele is better known to wrestling fans as Kimber Lee while Prange is known as Heidi Lovelace. Glidwell, who is nearly six feet tall, wrestles under the name of Betsy Ruth while Julia Ho is a mixed martial artist.

Kimberly Frankele, 26, has wrestled for Combat Zone Wrestling, Women Superstars Uncensored, Shine Wrestling, Shimmer, and Chikara, and made her debut in 2011. She trained at the Combat Zone Academy under WWE Cruiserweight performer Drew Gulak.

Dori Prange is 25 years old and made her debut in 2010. She was trained at Ohio Valley Wrestling and also wrestled for OVW, Shine Wrestling, Chikara , World Wonder Ring Stardom, and Beyond Wrestling.

The 31-year-old MaryKate Duignan Glidewell has been a pro since 2007 and was trained by Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley. She wrestled in TNA under the name Miss Betsy and later as Rosie Lottalove in 2010. While on the indie circuit, she wrestled for WXW, World Woman Pro-Wrestling Diana in Japan and then retired in 2012 due to injuries. She made her return in 2014 under the name of Andrea and even appeared on the TNA Knockouts Knockdown 3 pay-per-view in February 2015 where she lost to Awesome Kong.

The end of Dixie Carter in TNA comes after 14 years

By
Colin Vassallo
-

Dixie Carter will be resigning from her position as Chairman of Impact Ventures as part of the new deal that sees Anthem Sports & Entertainment take over TNA Wrestling through the new company Anthem Wrestling Exhibitions, LLC.

While Carter will have no say at all creatively or any decisions that are taken within the company, she will be joining the Advisory Board of Fight Media Group, which holds all of the combat sports-related assets of Anthem, where her focus will be on the global growth of the combat sports-related brands owned by Anthem.

The sale to Anthem spells the end for Carter in TNA after her father bought the company in October 2002 and put her in charge of operations. Before she joined TNA following her father’s purchase, Carter actually worked with TNA doing their marketing through her Monterey Peninsula Talent company. She was appointed President of TNA Entertainment in the first few months of 2003, and remained in that position until August 2016 when she gave up the spot to Billy Corgan. Carter eventually bought out TNA from her father’s Panda Energy company and then bought the rest of the shares from Jeff Jarrett in 2015 after he agreed to sell in return of one final run which included a lot of advertising for his Global Force Wrestling company.

A newly created position of Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer was created for her but her role diminished completely in November when Anthem Sports & Entertainment came with enough money to buy her stake, leaving her only with 5% of the company she once owned.

TNA Total Access app for UK fans now available for download

By
Colin Vassallo
-

With UK fans out of luck when it comes to TNA Wrestling on television, Anthem today launched the TNA Total Access app available for iOS and Android devices and it’s ready to download from iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play.

The app requires the in-app purchase subscription of 4.99 GBP a month to access Impact every week which will be available in real time with the United States. Other content available as part of the subscription include the Fight Network’s original weekly recap series Inside Impact, classic episodes of Impact, TNA Xplosion, TNA’s Greatest Matches, British Boot Camp, Epics, Unfinished Business, and Legends, as well as the latest live pay-per-view events, classic PPVs, and One Night Only specials. The app will be available on Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and consoles at a later date.

TNA found themselves without a TV partner in the United Kingdom after Challenge TV decided not to renew their deal.

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