The Divas will be getting a chance at WrestleMania as WWE announced – to no surprise – a tag team match featuring AJ Lee and Paige taking on Brie and Nikki Bella as the newest match on the card.
The inclusion of Nikki in the match means that the WWE Divas title will not be defended on the show unlike last year when AJ defended her title in the Vickie Guerrero Invitational match. There was no Divas match at WrestleMania 29 in New Jersey.
This was the 5th match of the card so far, joining Lesnar vs Reigns, Sting vs Triple H, the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal, and the Intercontinental title ladder match.
Former Raw and Smackdown on-screen General Manager John Laurinaitis will be inducting Luke and Butch, the Bushwhackers, into the WWE Hall of Fame come March 28.
Laurinaitis, who started his wrestling career 1986 as Johnny Ace in Florida Championship Wrestling, was the flag bearer for Luke and Butch who at the time were known as The Sheepherders. Ace eventually then moved to the NWA teaming up with Shane Douglas as The Dynamic Dudes.
John Laurinaitis is so far the second confirmed presenter at the Hall of Fame, with the only other one confirmed being Hulk Hogan doing the honors for Macho Man Randy Savage.
Hoping to raise more money for the Superstars For Hope fund raising campaign, WWE added a few new perks for those who can afford the four or five figure donations.
A $2,000 donation now gets you an opportunity to serve as a guest ring announcer during a non-televised live WWE event as well as four premium tickets to the show; $5,000 will land you a WWE World Heavyweight title replica signed by Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock; $6,000 will get you lunch with the cast of Total Divas backstage at a live WWE event as well as a backstage tour, photo shoot, and four premium tickets to the event; $7,500 donation will get you a backstage tour at a live WWE event by Bray Wyatt and four premium tickets to the show; Another $7,500 will also get you the same tour and tickets but with Seth Rollins; For $8,000 you will receive lunch and a backstage tour at Raw or Smackdown in your town with a WWE Superstar or Diva and you will also get interviewed by Renee Young for the WWE app plus a photo in the ring and two premium seats for the show.
The five figure donations include a $10,000 package where you will get two premium tickets to SummerSlam, Royal Rumble, Survivor Series, and WrestleMania 32, as well as backstage tours and two official event chairs; And another 10 grand gets you the opportunity to escort Daniel Bryan to the ring during a live event and a backstage tour plus four premium tickets to the event.
WWE fans have so far raised $124,817 in donations, $50,000 of which were matched by WWE and the San Francisco 49ers.
Monday Night Raw emanates from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, tonight with a special guest host in town, American rapper Wiz Khalifa.
WWE Heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar is advertised to appear on the show and WWE is promoting his appearance on the WWE.COM website. Lesnar was supposed to appear two weeks ago but walked out after an argument with Vince McMahon so it will be interesting to see if today Lesnar does indeed keep his commitment and advance his WrestleMania storyline with Roman Reigns.
Bray Wyatt will also keep calling out The Undertaker with the former leader of the Wyatt Family now in possession of Taker’s urn, which he will bring to the show.
The Superstars For Hope campaign started to pick up steam as WWE and the San Francisco 49ers are matching the donated funds for up to $50,000. $46,285 in matched funds so far have raised a total $102,427, just over the 50% goal of $200,000 that the company hopes to raise by March 31.
Among the big donations, WWE have sold the WrestleMania 31 Ultra Package for $8,000, $12,000 for a lunch with Triple H and tour of the Performance Center, and $15,000 for the WrestleMania 32 Dream Package. All these funds were matched by WWE and the 49ers as well.
The $50 donation seems to be the most popular so far with those donating $50 getting a WrestleMania 31 t-shirt and an 8×10 photo of a WWE Superstar or Diva.
Former WWE champion and now AAA’s Rey Mysterio made a surprise appearance yesterday at the House Of Hardcore event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, helping Tommy Dreamer.
Dreamer fought in a street fight against Eric Young and eventually lost the match but then TNA’s EC3 appeared and the two ganged up on Dreamer before Mysterio came from the back to even the odds and deliver a double 619 to the heels.
After the chaos settled, Mysterio grabbed a microphone and thanked the fans. “I would have been one pissed off little Mexican if you hadn’t invited me here tonight,” Mysterio told Dreamer in the ring. Mysterio put over Philly and the ECW Arena as well ECW and started a “muchas gracias” chant with the crowd.
Hulk Hogan is getting ripped on Twitter after he was trolled by one particular user who had a not-so-funny joke and his message was retweeted by Hogan himself to his 1.2 million followers.
“@HulkHogan any chance of an RT for my little niece? She just won the hide and seek competition and loves watching you,” an individual with the Twitter username @CarlRoney wrote, attaching a picture of Madeleine McCann. McCann is the little British girl who was abducted in Portugal in May 2003 and to this day has not been found.
“Uh oh. Hulk hogan rt’d me,” Roney wrote afterward. Some Twitter users took offense at the joke and lambasted Hogan for retweeting while others jumped to his defense asking how would Hogan know who she is.
Hogan’s retweet is still there and it triggered another 2,500 retweets of the picture so far.
UPDATE: The tweet was eventually removed from Hogan’s timeline a few hours later.
Tonight is the season 3 finale of Total Divas with two back-to-back episodes airing starting at 9PM EST.
Episode 19 is titled Indecent Exposure and the storylines featured are Paige taking a male friend with her to a vacation to the Key West with the rest of the Three Amigas, Natty meets Grumpy Cat, and the Bella Twins discover a nude photo of their brother.
Episode 20, the season finale, is titled The New Divas Champion, and the synopsis for the show reads, “In the Season 3 finale, The Bellas contemplate signing on for another three years in the ring. Meanwhile, Paige asks Bradley to move to LA before discovering a skeleton in his closet, and Eva’s husband jeopardizes her relationship with the WWE.”
Ticketmaster is holding a pre-sale for the SummerSlam pay-per-view at The Barclays Center which will run till March 13 at 10PM EST. You can use the password SUMMERSLAM to gain access to the tickets.
Ticket prices are $30.50, $50.50, $75.50, $95.50, $180.50, $305.80, $480.50, and $530.50 excluding other fees. The cheapest ticket carries an $8.20 fee while the highest priced ringside seats carry an additional $80.95 fee.
Tickets go on sale to the general public on Saturday, March 14, at 10AM EST.
Springfield College announced yesterday that John Cena is one of five inductees who will be inducted into the Springfield College Athletic Hall of Fame on Saturday, April 18.
In 1998, Cena was one of three captains on the football team that was 9-2 and advanced to play in the NCAA Division III Championship. At season’s end, the accolades rolled in for the senior, as he was named a Hewlett-Packard Division III First Team All-American, a Football Gazette All-American, an ECAC New England/Northeast Division III All Star, and a New England Football Writers DII/DIII All Star.
It will be interesting to see if Cena will attend the ceremony since he will be on the WWE tour of Europe that day. April 18 is the last day of the tour so he might get the day off to attend.
WWE has pulled Justin Roberts’ video reel from YouTube months after he was let go from the company citing copyright content.
In a post on his Instagram, Roberts said that on that night when they told him they’re not renewing his contract, they said that “the door was always open.” He said he chose not to bash the company and left the negativity in his heart and opted to write a positive goodbye.
Roberts added that WWE sent him footage and he put the video reel up to promote his work. “My reel was out there and maybe I’d go where the wind blew, but today they pulled that reel off of YouTube. Despite countless hours of their copyrighted YouTube footage uploaded by others, my 5 min reel of my work is pulled,” he wrote.
Before signing off, Roberts took one final, timely dig at WWE. “Maybe their legal department isn’t busy enough? #BeAStar.”
Roberts spent 12 years with the company doing live event announcing before getting the promotion to Smackdown and eventually Monday Night Raw.
Bill DeMott’s resignation as head trainer over at the WWE Performance Center was picked up by The Washington Post yesterday, so far the only mainstream media website to have covered it.
While nothing new came out from the Post’s report, so far they were the only ones who managed to get a statement from WWE over the whole ordeal. “We accepted Bill DeMott’s resignation,” the short statement said, with the Post adding that the company chose not to comment on the allegations.
WWE has made no mention of DeMott’s departure on the WWE.COM website and the only mention about him on the social media accounts they hold was a retweet that DeMott wrote announcing his resignation. With his resignation, WWE has appointed Matt Bloom, better known as Tensai, as the head coach at the WWE Performance Center on an interim basis. He has been working as a trainer at NXT since August 2014 and is well liked at the Performance Center.
In an interview conducted earlier this week on Vendetta Pro Radio with Austin Matelson, the former WWE developmental wrestler who used the name Judas Devlin, he said that Bill DeMott had a gun in the office, the same office where DeMott interrogated him following the launch of the WWE ‘investigation’ into the allegations he brought forward.
Matelson claims that both Konnor of The Ascension and Rusev have seen the gun in the office while they were part of NXT and in a different interview someone claimed that even Rusev was somewhat bullied by DeMott during his time down in Florida.
With most of the talent afraid of speaking up, the WWE HR department dropped the case against DeMott and when later there was a meeting with the talent and HR asked if anyone has a problem, only former WWE Divas champion Paige stood up and complained about sexual harassment from the strength and conditioning coach Matt Wichlinski.
Matelson adds that the complete misdiagnosis from WWE medical team over his problems almost put him in early retirement and it was only after he got visited by a separate doctor that his health issues, a herniated disc to be exact, were identified. He said before that, he was paid to live in Los Angeles for two years and away from everything until he recovered from his two hip surgeries and couldn’t talk because he was afraid he’d lose the health benefits.
DeMott, Matelson claims, put a stop to a major angle where he was pitched as a member of the Wyatt Family but the coach said he was “too gay” to be part of the Wyatts. Matelson says that DeMott used homophobic slurs against him continuously.
Meanwhile, another former WWE developmental wrestler Kevin Matthews posted an image of Twitter showing that he got banned from following Bill DeMott’s account. “Why would you block me? What did I ever do to you? You helped get me fired, I helped get you fired. We’re even,” Matthews wrote, adding a smiley at the end.
Today, Bill DeMott, the now former WWE head trainer at the Performance Center, felt the wrath and power of social media. After the two letters from 2013 leaked on Reddit, his name took Twitter by storm and his stories, all of them showing fear and abuse, didn’t went unnoticed this time.
Some of his former students voiced their opinion on Twitter again yesterday and today. “Speaking out was not easy but silence makes losers of us all. Stand up against injustice @WWE #BeAStar and #firebilldemott,” Judas Draven wrote yesterday.
Terra Calaway, a female wrestler who was apparently present at one of the infamous attacks, wrote a long rant on Twitter and ended with, “In wrestling, in life, anywhere… Bullies are not to be tolerated in any form.”
Joey Ryan, another independent wrestler wrote, “It’s important to understand that nobody cost Bill DeMott his position other than himself. Intolerance & discrimination are unacceptable.”
Current TNA wrestler Ethan Carter took a swipe at Chris Jericho yesterday after Chris Jericho defended DeMott in a message of his own. His message was deleted afterward, probably realizing it wasn’t smart to talk about it. Carter, who spent several years under a WWE developmental deal, wrote, “I love/sacrificed for pro wrestling. A Hart can stretch me any day. A know nothing dipshit slapping me when I’m concussed is different.”
Kevin Matthews was one of the men who took charge in trying to get DeMott fired chimed in saying, “If @WWE fired him it would be them admitting all this was true (which they already knew). There was no other option then force him to quit.”
Former WWE wrestler and big friend of CM Punk, Colt Cabana, sent his congratulations. “Congrats to so many. Finally one for the good guys.”
Insight Editions announced the release of WWE: The Ultimate Poster Collection, featuring forty removable posters spanning more than fifty years of WWE performers.
The publication of WWE: The Ultimate Poster Collection is timed to coincide with WrestleMania and the book will be advertised and available at the event, as well as at additional live events throughout the year, including Raw and SummerSlam.
Posters from different WrestleManias, SummerSlams, Royal Rumbles, and featuring Superstars and Divas such as Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, Steve Austin, AJ Lee, and others are featured in this book. It was released two days ago and retails for $24.99. Each poster is 12 x 16 inches.
WWE Performance Center head trainer Bill DeMott has stepped down from his position following more allegations of abusive behavior.
“I deny the recent allegations made about me, however, to avoid any embarrassment or damage to the WWE, I’ve decided to step down from my role effective immediately,” DeMott wrote on his Twitter.
Two letters from former WWE developmental wrestlers, which were written and sent to WWE in 2013, were leaked this week, detailing DeMott’s aggressive and often rude behavior towards several up-and-coming Superstars. Allegations include no regard to the safety of the developmental wrestlers, name calling, verbally abusing the talent, and much more.
Today, another former NXT developmental female wrestler released a story about sexual harassment cover-up by DeMott on the Reddit website. “In developmental, Bill scared us so much that it made us ashamed and scared to speak up about anything. The abusive environment was so hard to operate within, but that fear is very hard to leave behind. The few people who have come forward have alluded to some of what I want to talk about, but understand that this is a harder story to tell,” the anonymous poster going by the name of “DivaJaneDoe” wrote. You can read her full story at http://bit.ly/1wMkUXh.
DeMott returned to WWE in 2011 to resume his duties as trainer on Tough Enough and then replaced Tom Prichard as the head trainer at FCW a year later. Since then, Kevin Matthews, Mike Bucci, Devon Nicholson, Chad Baxter, Chase Donovan, Judas Devlin, Briley Pierce, Brandon Traven, and Derrick Bateman all came out publicly accusing DeMott of misconduct.
WWE has always denied these allegations and after investigations were launched nothing wrong was found to substantiate the reports.
As reported before, WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon is on the cover of the March edition of the Muscle & Fitness Magazine in the United States.
The magazine dedicated eight pages to McMahon, which also includes a question and answer interview, McMahon’s workout routine, and a couple of impressive photos as well.
McMahon recounted a funny story about how he once trained with Mark Henry and the world’s strongest man could not keep up with him. “Psychologically I pretty much decimated him on that last giant set. I almost felt sorry for him but he challenged me,” McMahon said, adding that Henry did start lifting an hour before him so his “energy and enthusiasm hand waned considerably.”
McMahon also talked about getting in the ring with Bret Hart and Steve Austin, creating the Mr. McMahon character, his fitness and nutrition regimen, the WWE gym, and much more.
When asked about what he thinks his legacy will be, the chairman said, “I don’t look at myself as having a legacy in entertainment, and quite frankly I don’t care. It doesn’t matter what I think, it’s what people perceive. I’m not good at patting myself on the back. I want to be known as a loving father and grandfather. And if I’m lucky, a great-grandfather. And I’m the luckiest man in the world without question, so it might happen.”
McMahon also said that the future of WWE from a corporate standpoint is very strong and Stephanie and Triple H will have big roles going forward. He added that when he retires or dies, “the organization is going to change, and I think for the better, because there’s no one person who can do all that I can do because of my background. There’s no one individual who’s going to take my place.”
You can read the full interview and see all the photos below.
WWE will host its first ever live NXT show outside the state of Florida today with a non-televised live event in Columbus, Ohio.
Tonight’s event at the LC Pavilion is part of The Arnold Classic weekend and the event sold out so fast that WWE decided to hold a second event, tomorrow night at The Agora Theater, in Cleveland, Ohio. Tomorrow’s show is also sold out.
WWE will have a big presence at the Arnold Sports Festival this year with NXT Diva-in-training Dana Brooke participating in the competition, one of the lucky 14 competitors who received an invitation to the event.
Then on Saturday and Sunday, fans at the Festival will be able to take part in the WWE Experience where there will be live matches, Q&A sessions with WWE Legends and NXT autograph signings.
Also on Saturday Night, WWE Executive Vice President, Talent, Live Events & Creative and 13-time World Champion Paul “Triple H” Levesque will be inducted into the 2015 International Sports Hall of Fame.
The Wrestling Observer is reporting that Jane Geddes, who was WWE’s Senior Vice President of Operations, has departed the company with the reason behind her removal still an unknown.
Geddes’ LinkedIn account states that she left WWE in February of this year. She started with the WWE in October 2011 as Vice President of Talent Relations and was then promoted to Senior Vice President of Talent Relations and Development in August 2012. She then join Triple H’s team as Senior Vice President of Operations in October 2013, her third promotion in the company since her arrival.
Before joining WWE she was the Senior Vice President of Tournament Operations and Player Services at the LPGA. She spent 20 years as a professional golfer.
Geddes appeared several times during the first season of Total Divas, dealing with the cast and usually the bearer of bad news. Mark Carrano, now the WWE Senior Director of Talent Relations, took over that role.
ECW Press today announced a new publishing partnership with World Wrestling Entertainment and the release of the first book of the deal, a book titled The Iron Sheik: Listen Jabroni!
Michael Holmes, Senior Editor at ECW Press, arranged the deal. “Our new partnership with WWE is the best possible addition to our longstanding commitment to publishing the finest books about the exciting world of Sports Entertainment. It’s a real pinnacle for ECW Press — a formal relationship with the WWE means we’re working with the undisputed industry leader, which is both an honor and a privilege.”
The Iron Sheik: Listen Jabroni! is peppered with interviews and insights from other WWE personalities as readers are taken on a journey from the Iron Sheik’s teen years as a competitor for his native Iran, to the era when the Iranian hostage crisis transformed him into arguably the most vilified figure in sports entertainment, to his current status as a YouTube and Twitter sensation.
The book is scheduled for an October 2015 release by ECW Press and is co-written by former WWE employee Keith Greenberg.
