It was not a happy Christmas for former Raw ring announcer Lilian Garcia as she announced that her father, Eduardo, passed away after a bout with cancer.
Her dad is a retired U.S. Army Lt Colonel and Garcia said that he was a true soldier to the very end. “I’ve been questioning why my dad had to go on Christmas day but this morning, I realized what a truly special gift it was. My father loved Christ, so to go on Christ’s birthday is the biggest blessing ever,” she wrote.
Garcia left her WWE job to spend more time with her father and recently returned to sing the national anthem for the Tribute to the Troops special.
“Thank you dad for the honor and privilege of being your daughter and for the endless love you gave me. I already miss you so much but know that you will forever be in my heart,” she added in a message on her Instagram.
WWE touring resumes today with the final Raw of 2016 as the push for the Royal Rumble continues.
No matches have been announced yet for tonight’s broadcast from Chicago. The WWE.COM preview suggests that the storylines involving Braun Strowman, Bayley/Charlotte, Jericho’s fear of heights, Neville’s heel turn, and Enzo’s recovery from last week’s brutal beatdown will all be covered on the show.
Smackdown tomorrow will also be held in Chicago at the Allstate Arena, a rare double-header for a
WWE returns to Madison Square Garden today for a non-televised live event headlined by the return of John Cena. Cena has been out since October as he was filming the American Grit television series for FOX and will be making his TV return tomorrow on the Smackdown Live broadcast.
The main event is a No Mercy rematch with AJ Styles defending the WWE title against Dean Ambrose and Cena in a triple threat match. Other matches on the card include a steel cage match between The Miz and Dolph Ziggler, tag team turmoil match for the Smackdown Tag Team titles between The Wyatt Family, American Alpha, Breezango, The Ascension, The Usos, and Rhyno and Heath Slater, Becky Lynch vs Alexa Bliss for the Smackdown Women’s title, and more.
WWE has moved away from holding televised events at Madison Square Garden due to the many regulations and expensive costs imposed by the workers’ union at MSG. The company only holds one or two house shows per year at The Garden and now prefers running televised shows at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn instead.
On December 27, Sky Sports in the United Kingdom will have a full day filled with WWE specials airing on Sky Sports Mix beginning at 8AM and ending at Midnight.
Kicking off the day will be The Destruction of The Shield, followed by Sting: Into the Light at 9AM. At 10AM the Warrior special Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe will air. The Jerry Lawler Story airs at 11AM and another replay of The Shield documentary follows at Noon.
At 1PM, Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes! Yes! Yes! hits the screen. From 2PM to 4PM, there will be the Owen: Hart of Gold documentary and at 4PM The John Cena Experience. The Road Is Jericho plays at 5PM and the third replay of The Destruction of The Shield airs at 6PM.
Another replay of Daniel Bryan’s doc airs at 7PM, followed by Once In a Lifetime: The Rock vs John Cena at 8PM. The second showing of the Jericho documentary airs at 9PM. Monday Night Wars: Shots Fired starts at 10PM and finally, closing this full day of WWE special will be The Kliq Rules at 11PM.
The WWE.COM website is asking fans to take a poll on who should main event WrestleMania 33 which takes place in just 99 days.
14 Superstars are listed – Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, The Undertaker, John Cena, Kevin Owens, Dean Ambrose, Brock Lesnar, Goldberg, AJ Styles, Bray Wyatt, Finn Balor, The Miz, Charlotte Flair, and Sasha Banks.
WWE champion AJ Styles is currently leading the popular vote by a good margin, getting 35% of the votes at time of this writing. In a distant second it’s The Undertaker at 12%, and Finn Balor at 10%. Interesting enough is that Goldberg is fourth with 9% of the votes so far while John Cena is at 6%.
The rest are under the 5%, with Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and Sasha Banks all getting 4%, Dean Ambrose and Bray Wyatt with 3%, Kevin Owens, The Miz, and Brock Lesnar with 2%, and Charlotte with 1%. Another 4% went in the “Other” category.
While not necessarily a scientific poll on who’s popular or not, the poll represents a good picture on who fans think is most deserving at this point. Styles leading shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the phenomenal year he had. It’s also interesting to see Sasha Banks getting more votes than stars such as Kevin Owens and Brock Lesnar even though she keeps getting the Raw Women’s title taken away from her every time she wins it.
WWE Superstars and crew have been off for the past few days enjoying the holidays however it’s back to business quickly on the day after Christmas with a week full of televised and non-televised live events.
Everyone is back on the road on Monday, December 26 with two shows, a live Raw at the Allstate Arena in Chicago and a non-televised live event at Madison Square Garden in New York with John Cena’s first time in the ring back since October.
Smackdown holds its live broadcast on Tuesday also at the Allstate Arena in Chicago while the Raw brand performs an unusual Tuesday non-televised event in St. Louis at the Scottrade Center.
The Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday shows are non-televised, with the Raw and Smackdown brands traveling to Brooklyn, Nashville, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, and Los Angeles to wrap up their holiday tour.
The touring resumes normal scheduling on Monday, January 2 with the first live Raw of 2017 from Tampa, Florida.
16-time world champion Ric Flair was sworn in as an honorary deputy at the Clayton County Sheriff department in Clayton County, Georgia. Sheriff Victor Hill did the honors for the Nature Boy and the photo of the two together shaking hands with the Sheriff badge hanging on Flair’s neck was posted on social media.
“Honored to be sworn in today as an Honorary Deputy by Sheriff Victor Hill,” Deputy Naitch wrote on his Twitter. The Sheriff, posting on his Facebook page, added, “Based on his vast experience in Vice related matters, ‘The Wheeling, Dealing, Girlfriend Stealing, Limousine Riding, and Private Jet Flying’ Ric Flair was sworn in today as an Honorary Deputy assigned to The Vice Squad by ‘THE CRIME FIGHTER’! WOOO!”
Flair is not the first celebrity to get the honor as earlier this month former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal also got the nod.
You can see photos of Flair and the Sheriff from his Facebook page below.
Next week’s NXT show on the WWE Network will be a 2-hour special that was taped at the Edion Arena in Osaka, Japan, a couple of weeks ago.
Only one match was screened from that show – when Nakamura regained the title from Samoa Joe – but the rest will now make it on television after Triple H made the announcement on Twitter.
Five matches that took place will be airing, including a replay of Nakamura vs Joe, Asuka vs Nia Jax, DIY vs Tajiri and Akira Tozawa, Liv Morgan and Aliyah vs Billie Kay and Peyton Royce, and Oney Lorcan vs Andrade “Cien” Almas.
Apart from this Osaka show, the WWE Network will air the NXT even from Melbourne, Australia on January 4 as well. That show featured a cage match between Shinsuke Nakamura and Samoa Joe.
This week’s Impact, which was a greatest hits of 2016 special, drew 209,000 viewers on POP. The show was down from last week as expected, with 120,000 less viewers tuning in. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
This week on Total Divas, WWE Superstar Naomi was excited to make her very first movie, The Marine 5, but she was also very nervous. In order to calm her nerves, Naomi sought the advice of her fellow Diva and friend Maryse who has been in several films with her husband, WWE Superstar The Miz.
However, Maryse’s idea of a pep talk was to take her friend to a trapeze school. The idea was that if Naomi was able to conquer her fear of heights by using the trapeze then she could conquer her jitters. While the method was extreme, it seemed to work. After the trapeze lesson Naomi went on to perform well in her first film.
Meanwhile, another Diva was battling something much stronger than nerves. WWE Superstar Natalia is always trying to encourage the other Divas in the locker room to do their best. Apparently she tries to be an encouragement to her family as well. Natalia’s sister Jenny has just moved from Canada to Natalia’s home in Florida. So, Jenny has been trying to settle into a new house and find a job all while struggling with anxiety disorder.
Natalia thought that he could help her sister’s confidence by encouraging her to use her passion for cooking to begin a new career. To that end, she offered her kitchen to Jenny so that she could teach a cooking class in her home. Natalia even invited her fellow WWE Superstars to join the class. She was confronted with a challenge, however, when none of her fellow Superstars were interested in the class. In order to help things go right for her sister, Natalia offered to pay her friends and their families to show up for the cooking class. They all took her up on her offer and join the class. However, she neglected to inform her friends that they were supposed to keep quiet about their extra incentive.
When Jenny found out, she completely lost all the confidence she had built. She claimed that Natalia had destroyed her confidence by making her believe that she was incapable of getting people to attend the class on her own. While Natalia’s heart was in the right place, I agree with Jenny that filling the class full of people who were being paid to be there was probably not the best idea. For now, Natalia should encourage her sister from a distance rather than planning all of her sister’s career moves for her.
There was even more drama having to do with sisters this week. Our favorite sisters, the Bella twins, involved themselves in a competition of their own making. Brie and Nikki decided to take IQ tests to see which twin was smarter. Brie’s husband, WWE Superstar Daniel Bryan, decided to help the women out by scheduling them appointments with a psychiatrist who performed IQ tests. In preparation for the IQ tests the sisters tested each other, and both sisters were determined to do better than each other. After the tests the twins asked each other about the questions.
The answer which mortified me and my husband was Brie’s response to the question, who was president during the Civil War. Brie’s response was Teddy Roosevelt. Brie Bella, you may be a woman WWE Superstar, but you are not smarter than the fifth-grader. I think that the Bella Twins need to stop being so competitive with one another. But then, there wouldn’t be as much drama and fun on this season of Total Divas.
Former Raw Tag Team champions The New Day will be appearing on the CBS game show Let’s Make a Deal today and will be playing the Smash for Cash and a Christmas sound effects game.
“Let’s Make a Deal celebrates the holidays with the power of positivity! Tune in to the hit game show on Dec. 23 when Big E, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods put their hands together and help families win more than $110,000 in cash and prizes,” said a statement from CBS.
The show is hosted by Wayne Brady, who a few years ago appeared on Monday Night Raw as a guest star. The show has already been taped. Check your local listings for the exact time the show will air in your area.
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer is reporting that Mickie James was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania yesterday to undergo her WWE physical tests.
James received a full-time WWE deal offer after her match against Asuka at NXT Takeover: Toronto last month and she accepted the offer a few weeks later.
Assuming that everything is fine with her medical tests, James is expected to join the Smackdown brand in January for some much-needed star power in the Women’s division.
Episode six of season six of Total Divas did the second best number of the season so far, with 705,000 viewers tuning in, an increase of 149,000 viewers from last week. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
TMZ obtained Chyna’s autopsy report which shed light on what led to her death. The former WWE Intercontinental and Women’s champion had traces of different prescription drugs plus alcohol which led to her untimely demise.
Painkillers Oxycodone and Oxymorphone, anti-anxiety drug Valium, the muscle relaxer Nordiazepam and sleeping pill Temazepam along with ethanol were all found in her system at the time of her death. Police officers also found several pills scattered around her bedroom as well as other drug paraphernalia.
Chyna passed away at the age of 46 on April 20 of this year and it is believed that she was dead for a few days before her manager found her in her Redondo Beach apartment lying on the right side of her bed.
Wooooo! The first teaser from the upcoming 30 for 30 special from ESPN on Ric Flair was released yesterday.
Directed by Rory Karpf for ESPN Films, the 30 for 30 Flair special will air sometime in 2017 with production said to be almost complete. All three of Flair’s living children, Sting, Triple H, The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Mick Foley, Ricky Steamboat, Arn Anderson, Jim Ross, Eric Bischoff, as well as Flair’s first wife, Leslie, were all interviewed among many others. In total, over 40 individuals had a sit-down with producers to film footage for this project.
Last month, Karpf said that Shawn Michaels and Triple H had the best stories on Ric in and out of the ring and described his out-of-character interview with The Undertaker as “awesome.” Karpf added that one Superstar has so far eluded him, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
Topics that will be covered will include the plane crash that he was involved in, the 16 championships, his son Reid who passed away, his daughter and current Raw Women’s champion Charlotte, and where he stands today.
You can see the teaser of 30 for 30: Nature Boy below.
Anthem Sports & Entertainment today officially announced the Total Access TNA Wrestling mobile app for the United Kingdom and Ireland that was reported about last week.
The app will enable fans in the UK and Ireland to watch Impact Wrestling shows as they air in the United States as well as Fight Network’s original weekly recap series Inside Impact, and other TNA footage such as episodes of classic Impact, Xplosion, Greatest Matches, British Boot Camp, Epics, Unfinished Business and Legends, plus the latest live pay-per-view events, classic pay-per-view events, One Night Only specials and more.
The price that John Pollock from Live Audio Wrestling reported of £1.99 per month was off by a few pounds as now the price will be £4.99 per month, the equivalent of just over $6.
The app will be available to download on January 5 from Apple’s App Store or Google Play and will be available on more platforms, including streaming devices and gaming consoles such as Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire and Xbox.
“The IMPACT Wrestling brand has always maintained a strong presence across the U.K. and Ireland and the Total Access TNA Wrestling app will ensure our loyal fans there have the opportunity to watch premiere IMPACT Wrestling episodes and TNA pay-per-views in real time for the first time,” said Anthem Executive Vice President Ed Nordholm. “There are many exciting plans in the works for IMPACT Wrestling in 2017 and the U.K. remains an important focus for us. As we continue our digital expansion, subscribers will have access to more content than ever before, including exclusive shows, series available on-demand, and more content to be rolled out on the app in the coming months.”
NXT Takeover: San Antonio will be a glorious one as the new number one contender for the NXT title was revealed on last night’s NXT television show on the WWE Network.
Bobby Roode will be taking on NXT champion Shinsuke Nakamura on the eve of the Royal Rumble after he successfully defeated Roderick Strong, Tye Dillinger, and Andrade “Cien” Almas in a four-way match to become the number one contender. This will be Roode’s first shot at the NXT title.
NXT Takeover: San Antonio will be held at the Freeman Coliseum on Saturday, January 28.
TNA announced multiple days of television tapings that will take place at Universal Studios in Orlando in the beginning of January.
The first set of tapings will occur on January 5, 6, 7, and 8. The second set of tapings take place on January 10, 11, and 12. The January 5 taping will be a live broadcast of Impact Wrestling on POP.
On January 7 and 8 there will be two set of tapings in the same day, one starting at 1PM and one at 7PM. The January 10-12 tapings start at 6PM.
Entrance to Soundstage 20, TNA’s home at Universal, is free for theme park visitors. TNA is also selling the VIP Experience tickets on their website for these dates which will include priority seating, VIP credential, commemorative poster, and meet and greet autograph session. VIP tickets are $129 each.
Smackdown this week drew 2,637,000 viewers, up 276,000 viewers from last week’s episode. It’s the most watched episode from the past five weeks. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
In an interview with ESPN following the UK Championship tournament announcement in London, Michael Cole had heaps of praise for the newest member of the WWE broadcast team, Nigel McGuinness.
Cole said that he’s been trying to get the former ROH champion to WWE for a long time and this project was the perfect way to launch his new WWE career. The Raw ring announcer leads the WWE broadcast team and helps train the new ones along the way.
“He’s gonna start his career off as part of this tournament, but he’s gonna be with WWE full time going forward,” Cole said, adding that the company has a lot of plans for McGuinness and “there’s not a better person to be able to do this.”
While the Brit had a long career in professional wrestling, this will be his first time with the WWE and Cole said that he will be able to learn a lot from the newcomer, especially calling this tournament since McGuinness has wrestled many of the talent who will be part of this two-day event.
“He has the flavor of wrestling in the United Kingdom; he did it for many years. This is his country, his homeland, he’s very proud to be a part of this, and I’m very proud to have him by my side because I wouldn’t be able to pull this off without him and his knowledge of what goes on here,” Cole said.
Michael Cole also had great things to say about Corey Graves, his broadcast partner on Raw, adding that they knew he was going to e good, but didn’t anticipate that he was going to be this good this quick.
