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WWE Studios teams up with British firm for two new movies

By
Colin Vassallo
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WWE Studios and British production-financing company Richwater Films have teamed up to co-produce and co-finance two movies – Eliminators and Rampage – according to Variety.

Eliminators will be directed by James Nunn and star Scott Adkins and WWE’s Wade Barrett. The story follows a former U.S. federal agent who must abandon the witness protection program and come out of hiding after his London home is mistakenly invaded — leading to him finding himself on the run from Europe’s most dangerous assassin to get his daughter to safety. Eliminators will start shooting in London in the late spring.

Rampage, currently in development, follows an American counter terrorism operative who must work with an English MI5 agent to take down a dangerous terrorist in London. WWE and Richwater plan for the film to go into production later this year.

“Having watched WWE programming since the 1991 Royal Rumble and regarding Vince McMahon as the ultimate entrepreneurial pioneer, I am thrilled to be in business with WWE Studios,” said Jonathan Sothcott, CEO and founder of Richwater Films.

WWE grants NXT’s CJ Parker his release

By
Colin Vassallo
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XT talent CJ Parker has been released from his WWE contract effective today after Parker requested it.

“WWE has come to terms on the release of NXT Superstar CJ Parker, as of today, April 3, 2015. WWE wishes CJ Parker the best in all his future endeavors,” said a short statement on the WWE.COM website.

Parker was at WrestleMania weekend and participated in the NXT-related events, his last ones for the company. On April 1, he thanked all the coaches, staff, and fans in a message on Twitter and then wrote, “Best of luck in all YOUR future endeavors!”

He was signed to a WWE deal in 2011 and has been stuck in developmental ever since, something which probably weighed heavy on his decision to move on.

Brock Lesnar expected back in time for SummerSlam

By
Colin Vassallo
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Brock Lesnar is expected to be off WWE television up until the build to SummerSlam, which makes that around 4 months.

The sheriff of Suplex City, Bitch, was “suspended indefinitely” on Raw after he destroyed the Raw announce team of Michael Cole, JBL, and Booker T, flipping the broadcast booth on JBL and Booker and then F5’ing Michael Cole out of his shoe. He then F5’ed the cameraman as an exclamation point. Stephanie McMahon suspended Brock and then announced she was fining him as well.

The suspension is obviously a storyline to explain Lesnar’s time away from WWE television due to the way his contract is drawn up. Lesnar only has a set of dates to work per year and is brought in for the big and important events.

Ric Flair announces the Wooooo Nation podcast on Play.It

By
Colin Vassallo
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Two-time WWE Hall of Famer and 16 time World champion Ric Flair announced the creation of his new podcast yesterday when appearing as a guest on Taz’ Human Podcast Machine show.

Titled Wooooo Nation, the podcast will be part of CBS and their Play.it podcast network. Flair is the second wrestling personality, after Taz, to join CBS with a wrestling show. It’s not exactly known when Flair’s show will debut but the Nature Boy signed the deal with CBS almost two months ago.

The show will not only feature professional wrestling but also other topics. He said that former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee will be one of his first guests on the new podcast.

Justin Roberts slams WWE over skewing the Warrior Award and Connor Michalek’s story

By
Colin Vassallo
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Former WWE ring announcer Justin Roberts launched an attack on WWE and their way of skewing certain stories to make the company look good, with the most recent one being the Warrior Award and the induction of his good friend Connor Michalek at the Hall of Fame.

Roberts noted how at the Hall of Fame last year, Warrior suggested that the company should honor those hardworking people behind the scenes and now WWE edited the speech to make it sound like WWE should honor those outside the company, “because that might make for a better story – and for better publicity.”

Roberts added that he came up with the whole idea of having Connor coming down the aisle and beat Big E for the “InterConnornental” title after Stephanie McMahon asked Roberts what they can give to little Connor when he visited Raw in D.C. The whole plan was changed and Triple H inserted himself in and got “knocked out” by Connor instead and Roberts, who wanted to introduce Connor in the ring, was not allowed to do so.

Justin Roberts goes over the whole back story of his friendship with Connor and how WWE manipulated everything so them, as a company, can look better rather than doing it just for Connor.

Roberts also included a tweet from McMahon, who retweeted the Twitter co-founder quote at the WWE Business Partners meeting last week which said “Philanthropy is the future of marketing, it’s the way brands are going to win.”

You can read the interesting blog at http://bit.ly/1bSC4Jb.

Dwayne Johnson on series premiere of Lip Sync Battle tonight on Spike

By
Colin Vassallo
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Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will be on Spike TV tonight as he appears on the series premiere episode of Lip Sync Battle.

The show, hosted by LL Cool J, will feature celebrities going head to head against each other as they…well, lip sync battle each other to songs of their choice. There will be costumes, choreography, backup dancers, and for the winner, a championship belt of course.

Tonight’s episode features the former WWE champion taking on Jimmy Fallon, who actually came up with the original idea and who has a similar segment on The Tonight Show which he now hosts.

The Rock will lip sync to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” and Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive.” It starts at 10PM EST.

Reigns went in to WrestleMania believing he was going to be the champ but…

By
Colin Vassallo
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PWInsider.com is reporting that the decision to give Rollins the WWE title was made mid-WrestleMania week after Lesnar announced that he signed a new WWE deal.

The interesting part of the story was that those involved in the match were not told of plan until WrestleMania was already on the air and only a few people knew the scenario, probably to avoid any leaks.

The plan going into the show for Lesnar and Reigns was that Reigns was going to win the title and Rollins wasn’t aware that he was about to get the biggest moment of his career by the time the pay-per-view goes off the air.

As noted at the Hall of Fame, a ton of members of the Anoa’i family were in attendance to witness one of their own winning the WWE World Heavyweight title, something which eventually didn’t pan out.

This also maybe explains why Rollins told Reigns, “Thank you so much,” when covering him for the final pinfall.

Paige lands her first WWE Studios movie with The Miz

By
Colin Vassallo
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Paige has landed her first WWE Studios movie along with a WWE Studios veteran, The Miz!

The duo will star in the holiday comedy Santa’s Little Helper which will be released in time for the holidays later this year.

The synopsis of the movie reads, “After getting fired from his job, a slick, fast-talking businessman (Dax) is given an opportunity of a lifetime to become Santa Claus’ second-in-command. However, getting the job won’t be that easy: Dax must go head-to-head against an elf that feels she’s more deserving of the title. As the competition heats up, Dax learns the true meaning of Christmas… but ultimately who will become “Santa’s Little Helper?”

Paige said she was excited to get her first gig in a movie while The Miz said he’s just the “gift that keeps on giving!”

E! renews Total Divas for fourth season

By
Colin Vassallo
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E! announced that Total Divas is returning for a fourth season following a very successful season three.

The press release announced that The Bella Twins, Natalya, Naomi, Alicia Fox, Paige, and Eva Marie as the cast which means Cameron and Rosa Mendes are out of the cast and Naomi returns after she was left out of the second half of season three. The cast has not been confirmed by WWE so their omission might simply be a mistake.

Total Divas is produced by WWE and Bunim/Murray Productions. Jonathan Murray, Gil Goldschein, Jeff Jenkins and Russell Jay are Executive Producers for Bunim/Murray Productions. Kevin Dunn is Executive Producer for WWE.

The show returns in Summer 2015, with the last date announced being July 7.

Rousey’s agent says no other WWE dates in her future for now

By
Colin Vassallo
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Ronda Rousey’s agent Brad Slater told Ariel Helwani on UFC Tonight that the UFC Women’s Bantamweight champion has no other dates with WWE planned, at least for now.

Slater said with certainty that for this year there is nothing planned and there is no guarantee of anything beyond what happened at WrestleMania 31 with The Rock, Triple H, and Stephanie McMahon.

Anything involving Rousey, who is under a UFC contract, has to be signed off by UFC President Dana White and White might not be so keen about having his star fighter wrestle for the competition.

A few days ago, Rousey wrote on Twitter that her and the WWE Universe are “just getting started.”

All three Raw announcers back to work on Monday!

By
Colin Vassallo
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The injury angle from the Raw after Mania where all three announcers were destroyed by Brock Lesnar will be over by next week’s show as it was announced on WWE.COM that all three will be returning behind the broadcast booth on Monday.

To play up the angle, the story said that Michael Cole was diagnosed with a bulging disc and severe neck, back, and shoulder pain. JBL had an abdominal wall tear and Booker T has contusions and soreness. All three, in reality, were fine and the only real damage was to Byron Saxton who didn’t fare well on commentary on his own.

Meanwhile, someone very funny updated Michael Cole’s Wikipedia entry, adding a “death” section. First, the cause of death was written as “ground shaking F5” and Lesnar had “yet to be charged in the court of law” but he was “suspended for his actions.” Then the Wikipedia entry was altered saying that he died of “anal bleeding!” Whoops!

WrestleMania 31 breaks some more records for WWE

By
Colin Vassallo
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WWE issued a press release announcing more records for WrestleMania, which broke records for viewership, attendance, social and digital media engagement and merchandise sales.

The company is marketing WrestleMania 31 as the most-watched WrestleMania in history with 1.3 million Network subscribers plus additional traditional pay-per-view data still to be counted. As noted elsewhere here, Raw after Mania did nearly 5.4 million viewers making the show the most-watched program on all of cable television for the 11th week in a row.

As reported before, the attendance was 76,976 with fans from all 50 states and 40 countries. The previous record at the new stadium was 70,799. The show grossed $12.6 million.

When it comes to social media, WrestleMania 31 was the most social event in WWE history with a record 142 worldwide Twitter trends, including 10 number one worldwide trends, which was more than any broadcast or cable show that night. WWE-related content saw more than 60 million video views across all platforms on the day of WrestleMania. WrestleMania 31 garnered a record 165 million impressions on Facebook and 92 million impressions on Twitter, an increase of 62 percent and 23 percent year-over-year, respectively. During WrestleMania, the WWE flagship App saw its most usage since launch in 2012, while reaching nearly 18 million downloads during WrestleMania. The WrestleMania 31 App had four times as many downloads as last year’s WrestleMania 30 App although no exact figures on that one were released.

In merchandise, WWE generated an additional $3.3 million in WrestleMania merchandise revenue, eclipsing the previous record of $2.7 million from WrestleMania 29.

Top two matches for Extreme Rules 2015 set

By
Colin Vassallo
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The top two matches for the upcoming Extreme Rules pay-per-view which will take place on April 26 at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois were announced during the Smackdown television tapings.

The WWE World Heavyweight title will be on the line as Seth Rollins will defend the gold against the number one contender Rany Orton. Also, John Cena will be defending the United States title against Rusev, making that two WrestleMania rematches on the same card so far.

The poster of the show features John Cena with the American flag painted on his face and the Extreme Rules logo across his face.

NXT live specials on Network to remain quarterly

By
Colin Vassallo
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The NXT Takeover specials that the recent WWE press release indicated that will be airing monthly has been changed as common sense prevailed and the decision was changed to leave them as quarterly events.

The decision to go monthly raised some eyebrows as the quarterly live specials are super popular with fans and changing it to monthly specials would have somewhat decreased the importance.

The press release circulated online still has monthly specials listed but the WWE.COM story now has “Airs quarterly on Wednesdays.”

Undertaker and Sting photographed together at airport

By
Colin Vassallo
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The Undertaker and Sting shared the same American Airlines AA1231 flight from San Jose, California, to Dallas, Texas, on Tuesday morning and were photographed together at the airport.

It was impossible for the two Superstars to remain incognito even though Taker was wearing a beanie hat and Sting was wearing a baseball cap, with no makeup of course. With Starbucks in their hands, the two chatted as they waited to board the aircraft back home.

You can see the photo below.

 

Raw rating for 03/30/2015

By
Colin Vassallo
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The Raw after WrestleMania drew huge ratings for WWE, getting an average of 5,364,000 viewers for the three hour broadcast. That is up 1.1 million viewers from the last Raw prior to Mania. This was the best number since the July 23, 2012 edition of Raw, which drew just over 6 million that day.

The first hour started with 5,227,000 viewers, then went up to 5,597,000 for the Brock Lesnar destruction, and then it went down to 5,267,000 for the third and final hour. (Ratings credit: PWInsider.com)

WWE’s Superstars For Hope fundraising campaign ending today

By
Colin Vassallo
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Today is the last day of the Superstars For Hope fundraising campaign on Indiegogo.com and WWE has already raised well over the $200,000 target they initially set when the campaign launched earlier this month.

853 different funders have raised $215,522 and the WWE and the San Francisco 49ers matched $50,000, for a grand total of $265,522 collected so far.

WWE created different perks for funders with some going up to $15,000, some of which were claimed. You can donate by going to superstarsforhope.com.

Mainstream media websites cover Rousey’s WrestleMania appearance

By
Colin Vassallo
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The appearance of Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania gave WWE a lot of free publicity on mainstream media websites that usually don’t cover WWE at all. But thanks to the baddest woman walking on God’s green earth, the media suddenly all jumped on the Rock/Rousey/WrestleMania bandwagon.

Outlets such as CNN, FOX Sports, CBS Sports, Washington Post, E!, and several prominent MMA websites all covered the story. ESPN showed footage of what happened and even covered WrestleMania on SportsCenter, something which very, very rarely happens.

The news also spilled onto anime and Dragon Ball Z websites since the UFC Women’s Bantamweight champion was wearing a Dragon Ball Z t-shirt.

Eve Torres pregnant with first child

By
Colin Vassallo
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Former WWE Diva Eve Torres revealed yesterday that is pregnant with her first child.

“I’m growing love, life, and Renergy in my belly!! @renergracie and I couldn’t feel any happier,” she wrote on Twitter.

The former WWE Divas champion married Rener Gracie of the famous Gracie MMA family in April of last year. The two will welcome their newborn in September.

Torres started working for WWE in May 2007 after winning the 2007 WWE Diva Search contest. She remained with the company December 2012 when she asked to leave. She only made one appearance on WWE television since then, a year later to present the Slammy Award to the Bella Twins.

New WWE 2K mobile video game in development

By
Colin Vassallo
-

A new WWE simulation game from 2K is being developed for iOS and Android devices and will be released this Spring for $7.99 with the title of WWE 2K.

Key features of WWE 2K currently include: playable roster of WWE Superstars, including John Cena, Hulk Hogan, Sting, Triple H, Undertaker, Daniel Bryan, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose and Bray Wyatt; authentic WWE action, including three match types, full WWE Superstar ring entrances and comprehensive move sets; create-a-Superstar; career Mode; live multiplayer matches; and unlockable rewards. Are you absolutely sick and uninterested in your teammates ruining your games? does one want to play, learn and improve at a better bracket? Dota 2 MMR boosters can assist you with this dota boost for all servers regardless of the MMR. Their professional services are 100% Safe, Fast, and Secure.

 “WWE 2K marks a great milestone in 2K’s partnership with WWE, as we bring the first authentic WWE simulation experience to market for mobile devices,” said Greg Thomas, President at Visual Concepts. “WWE gaming enthusiasts will soon experience WWE action and several fan-favorite modes inspired by the WWE 2K flagship console series in an engaging new way.”

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