New Japan Pro-Wrestling honored Hulk Hogan before night six of their G1 Climax 35 event yesterday.
Both NJPW President Hiroshi Tanahashi and former referee Tiger Hattori stood in the middle of the ring as the rest of the roster came out to surround the ring area. Hattori held a framed photo of Hogan from his Japan days and everyone in the arena stood up for a 10-bell salute.
The WWE Hall of Famer wrestled for New Japan many times throughout the early 80s and then had sporadic appearances in the 90s as well. He wrestled his last match for NJPW in 2003.
Hogan is a former IWGP Heavyweight champion and held the belt for 378 days.
In a post on X yesterday, WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque announced that the upcoming AAA Triplemania XXXIII event will stream for the first time live on YouTube.
Prior events were not available to stream legally for fans around the world unless you lived in Mexico.
The show takes place on Saturday, August 16 from Mexico City. The event is headlined by a four-way match for the AAA Mega championship featuring champion Vikingo vs El Grande Americano, Dragon Lee, and Dominik Mysterio.
“@luchalibreaaa is on fire. Last night in Mexico City…Wall-to-wall action from every match, a sing-along with El Grande Americano, and proof that no matter where he is…@DomMysterio35 is a STAR,” Triple H posted on X after the Friday TV tapings.
The WWE/AAA Worlds Collide event in June also streamed on YouTube for fans around the world.
TNA Wrestling announced a new cinematic experience titled Slammiversary: Fade to Black, which will premiere on TNA+ for annual VIP members tomorrow, Monday, July 28.
This will be a behind-the-scenes documentary which focuses on the men and women who made Slammiversary possible.
“There’s a moment right after the final bell rings when the noise dies and the silence sets in. No entrance music, just the truth, your heartbeat, your regrets, and the weight of what you gave and what you lost. On July 20th at UBS Arena in New York, a statement was made, and when a statement’s made in this city, the world listens,” the promo video for the show says.
TNA President Carlos Silva added that they were going to show fans the emotion and spectacle of professional wrestling like never before and put over the TNA team.
The show set a new attendance record for TNA Wrestling in North America with over 7,600 in attendance.
BREAKING: TNA Wrestling presents Slammiversary: Fade to Black, a first-of-its-kind, cinematic experience that fuses the rawness of live sports with the emotion and spectacle of professional wrestling.
AEW paid tribute to Hulk Hogan last night on Collision after a few days of silence and not acknowledging his death anywhere.
It was Tony Schiavone, who worked with Hogan a lot in WCW, who honored him during a short break from regular programming.
With the camera focused solely on him, Schiavone spoke to the AEW audience watching on television.
“It was quite a week for all of us who have been in professional wrestling for a long time with the unexpected death of Hulk Hogan,” Schiavone said. “Hulk Hogan was the man who brought professional wrestling into the mainstream of the 80s and in the 90s right here on this network, right here on TNT almost 30 years ago. Hulk Hogan lit the fire that began the Monday night wars and he also put WCW on the cable TV map right here on TNT.”
He continued, “You know, sometimes we take a look at these stars that are bigger than life, and we forget that they are just like us… humans. And we forget they have families that care about them. Our condolences go out to Hulk’s family, children Brooke and Nick, his wife Sky, and if you’ve never lost a member of family you have no idea what the pain they are going through right now…and believe me, it is intense.”
Schiavone ended his tribute with condolences from all of them at All Elite Wrestling.
The full bracket for the AEW Tag Team title #1 contenders eliminator tournament was published by AEW yesterday during Collision.
The left side of the bracket has FTR vs JetSpeed which already took place and FTR won, and Bang Bang Gang vs Big Bill and Bryan Keith which happened yesterday on Collision and Bang Bang Gang advanced.
The right side of the bracket has The Outrunners vs The Young Bucks and Gates of Agony vs Bandido and Brody King.
While this tournament finale is for the Forbidden Door pay-per-view, only AEW teams are part of it. The winners take on The Hurt Syndicate on the show.
WWE Superstar Chelsea Green revealed on X that she has been receiving death threats and a constant flow of name calling online after she put over Hulk Hogan’s contributions to wrestling during a televised interview.
Green was doing promo work for the company’s upcoming WWE: Unreal show on Netflix when she was asked about Hulk Hogan just hours after he passed away.
The former Women’s United States champion first apologized to those fans who were offended, saying that her stance on racism is unwavering and does not condone it.
“I tried to acknowledge a death respectfully, even when the legacy is complicated. I am learning one day at a time and will continue to learn,” she wrote, adding that a significant part of her role at WWE is engaging in media interviews and engage with the public.
“If my response (or tweet) seemed dismissive of real concerns, I sincerely apologize. That was never my intention,” Green added.
But the death threats from those who feel that Hulk Hogan should not even be acknowledged were overwhelming her and said this hit harder than expected.
“The name calling, the death threats, the faceless accounts. Social media was supposed to be a fun place and it hasn’t been for a while,” she wrote today. “It’s been overwhelming and I need to step away for a little bit.”
Adam Copeland paid tribute to his former WWE tag team partner and champion Hulk Hogan in a post on Instagram.
Copeland, as Edge, and Hogan held the WWE Tag Team titles for 19 days, winning them from Billy and Chuck on an episode of Smackdown in July 2002, but lost them at the Vengeance pay-per-view to Christian and Lance Storm later that month.
“As a kid he made me believe I could catch my dreams. What a gift. Then he helped me catch some of them,” Copeland wrote. “He was the inspiration that made me believe I could be a wrestler, forever changing the course of my life. He was the hero I needed at a pivotal time in my development. Thanks Terry. I’ll miss you and our talks. Love ya Brother.”
Copeland is one of the few AEW stars who acknowledged Hogan’s death along with Chris Jericho, Sting, Taz, Tony Schiavone, and The Young Bucks.
The company as a whole has opted not to honor Hogan after AEW President Tony Khan wrote years ago that Hogan would be forever banned from AEW.
Shane McMahon addressed Hulk Hogan’s death yesterday in a post on X, re-posting his father’s tribute and adding some thoughts of his own.
“My dad could not have been more eloquent about what he wrote about the Hulkster,” Shane said. “What a deep loss for us all.”
Hogan was like family to the McMahons, having worked for Vince Sr. and Vince Jr. since the late 1970s.
“Hulk’s legacy is truly immortal. Thank you Terry for everything that you did for both the McMahon and WWE family. We will all miss you. God speed Brother,” McMahon continued.
Stephanie is the only one which did not issue a statement but has opted to re-post her husband’s and WWE’s posts on his passing.
Bubba “The Love Sponge,” Hogan’s former friend who at the end of the day was proven right when he said that Hogan was on his deathbed a few weeks ago, said that Hulk’s people really made a mistake by trying to cover up his situation.
Bubba said that had they come forward and said that Hogan had complications and needs to rest and needs everyone’s prayers, the backlash now wouldn’t have been as bad.
Hogan’s close personal friends including Jimmy Hart, Eric Bischoff, and even his wife Sky, all denied the rumors that Hogan was in a coma and couldn’t speak after Bubba dropped the news a few weeks ago.
Bubba also wondered what the autopsy will show because he thinks that the cardiac arrest was a series of events dating back to the complications he had with the cervical and back surgery when they moved his esophagus.
“They nicked it or did something to it and that was kinda his downward spiral from that point forward,” he said.
Hogan spent the last few weeks of his life at home but in a hospital bed, intubated and showing no signs of recovery after complications from back and neck surgery in May.
Bubba also lamented the fact that Hogan went gas down promoting his businesses in multiple cities every week when he should have been advised to rest.
Hogan and Bubba went from best friends to mortal enemies after Hogan slept with Bubba’s wife Heather and it was filmed. Someone eventually leaked the tape to the site Gawker and it was published online, sparking a massive lawsuit.
“I’m saddened that I will never be able to tell him how sorry I am for the way I handled things that created the rift between us,” Bubba told TMZ after Hogan died. “I miss my friend and hope he rests in peace.”
The WWE Late Night featuring Tony Hinchcliffe show during SummerSlam weekend has been canceled.
“Unfortunately, the Event Organizer has had to cancel your event,” read an entry on the event page on Ticketmaster.com. Refunds are being issued automatically to the original method of payment.
The show was set for August 2 at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, New Jersey at 11PM immediately following the conclusion of SummerSlam Saturday.
The event was announced last month and was going to be a continuation of Hinchcliffe’s Roast of WrestleMania from April. That show was never televised and will not see the light of day considering the topics covered.
The AAA Mega championship will be defended at Triplemania XXXIII in a four-way match featuring three WWE Superstars and champion El Hijo Del Vikingo.
Vikingo will defend against Dragon Lee, El Grande Americano, and Dom Mysterio, all of whom were part of last night’s AAA television tapings in Mexico City.
Mysterio received a loud pop from the crowd after he appeared unadvertised under a mask, attacking Dragon Lee and Vikingo. Mysterio clocked Lee with the AAA Mega title while holding the WWE Intercontinental title around his waist and was over like a babyface.
Vikingo tried to go in to grab the title but El Grande Americano came out and took Vikingo out. El Grande Americano wrestled Octagon Jr. earlier in the night for his AAA debut.
Triplemania XXXIII takes place on Saturday, August 16 from Arena CDMX.
The WWE Tag Team titles will be on the line at SummerSlam in a massive six-way TLC match.
The Wyatt Sicks defended the titles against Andrade and Rey Fenix in the main event of Smackdown last night and the match ended in a disqualification after Nikki Cross prevented the referee from doing a three count when Gacy was about to be pinned.
That led to a huge brawl as Erick Rowan, Fraxiom, The Motor City Machine Guns, The Street Profits, and DIY all joining the party in the ring.
Smackdown General Manager Nick Aldis then took the mic and announced that at SummerSlam, the entire division will be involved in a TLC match as all teams continued beating the hell out of each other with the show ending in total chaos.
WWE honored Hulk Hogan last night on Smackdown, opening the show with a 10-bell salute as the whole Smackdown locker room stood on the stage in front of a huge graphic of Hogan which occupied the whole LED entrance wall.
With Triple H front and center, he was flanked by Gerald Brisco, Bruce Pritchard, Jimmy Hart, Ted DiBiase, and Brian Blair on one side and Cody Rhodes, Sgt. Slaughter, and Jim Duggan on the other.
“Ladies and gentlemen, yesterday, we lost one of the biggest and most globally recognized icons in the world,” Triple H said. “A man I grew up watching, was fortunate enough to share the ring with and, like so many of us, were honored to call a friend.”
“The truth is, he captivated millions of people and inspired them around the globe. We would not be standing here right now, all of us together, if it was not for him,” he continued.
Triple H then asked the crowd to help them honor him now, calling Hogan “the one and the only.”
This time around, fans were super respectful with no boos heard and held up signs, and erupted in “Hogan” chants after the 10-bell salute ended.
Jimmy Hart and Brian Blair were visibly emotional, crying throughout the tribute.
A near seven-minute beautiful tribute video, narrated by Triple H, then kicked off the show, covering Hogan’s whole career.
Hulk Hogan’s wife Sky posted a statement on Instagram a day after her husband passed away at the age of 71.
A couple of weeks ago, Sky denied rumors that Hogan was in bad shape and said he was not in a coma as Bubba “The Love Sponge” alluded to and they’re taking it day by day.
“Wasn’t ready for this…and my heart is in pieces,” she wrote. “He had been dealing with some health issues, but I truly believed we would overcome them. I had so much faith in his strength. I thought we still had more time.”
Sky said that the sudden loss is impossible to process and while he was a legend to many people, to her he was just Terry, the man she loved, her partner, and her heart.
“Hulk loved his fans so much and despite his growing physical discomfort, he did everything he could to show up, sign autographs, take photos, and connect with the people who supported him through it all. You meant everything to him,” she continued. “He was a believer in Christ, and I take comfort knowing his soul is at peace and he’s been welcomed home.”
WWE will pay tribute to Hulk Hogan live tonight on Friday Night Smackdown and a few WWE Legends are being flown in for the episode.
PWInsider.com is reporting that Hogan’s friends Sgt Slaughter, “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase, “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, Jimmy Hart, Gerald Brisco, and Brian Blair all headed to Cleveland to honor the Hall of Famer.
Only two matches have been announced for the show, with The Wyatt Sicks defending the WWE Tag Team titles against Andrade and Rey Fenix, and Alexa Bliss vs Roxanne Perez.
Plus, Cody Rhodes will be in the house to address the upcoming street fight for the WWE championship at SummerSlam and Randy Orton, Jelly Roll, Logan Paul, and Drew McIntyre will also be on the show.
White, who said was a big Hogan fan, said that he grew up in the Hogan era when WWE got massive and Hogan was becoming a big star.
He recalled when he flew in for the Republic National Convention in Milwaukee from a family vacation in Italy, he went straight to a holding room with Kid Rock, but was stopped by Hogan.
“But on the way to my room, Hulk Hogan grabbed me and asked me if he could talk to me privately for a second,” White said. “And he pulled me aside and, you know, I’ll never forget that conversation that we had that night. And, yeah, he…he was a good man. He was special. He loved the president and obviously he loved America.”
White said people like Hulk Hogan, Vince McMahon, Muhammad Ali, and Don King paved the way for people like him to be where he is today.
“All had an impact and a lasting impression in my life. And definitely the way that the UFC is today and the things that I’ve done to build it all have a little piece of all those guys and their businesses,” White concluded.
Eric Bischoff, a close personal friend and business partner of Hulk Hogan, appeared on FOX News Channel’s The Story with Martha MacCallum yesterday to discuss the passing of the WWE Hall of Famer.
“I’m in shock. It still hasn’t really set in,” Bischoff said when asked about Hogan, adding that he learned about Hulk’s passing ironically while watching FOX News.
Bischoff is currently in Las Vegas where he is shooting material for the Real American Freestyle, the wrestling promotion he started with Hulk Hogan.
“I got a text that let me know something was going on. And five minutes later, I was in my room and I’m watching FOX News and got the news. And I have literally been on the phone or responding to texts and e-mails ever since,” Bischoff continued.
Bischoff told MacCallum that the news hasn’t truly sunk in yet and he knew the real Terry Bollea, who was different than Hulk Hogan.
“Terry Bollea, the man, was kind. He was generous to a fault. He was loyal. He just had a big heart,” Bischoff continued. “And until you got to know Terry Bollea, you were overwhelmed with the character Hulk Hogan. And that was his life. But he really was one of the kindest, most generous people that I have ever met.”
A video of Hogan getting baptized surfaced online after he passed and Bischoff said that Hogan struggled with his faith and sometimes got closer to it than others, but it was always there.
“It was always present. It was always a part of who he was. But in the last seven years, six, seven, eight years, in particular, he really got so much closer to his faith,” Bischoff noted. “And he was so proud to go through that baptism and just embrace his faith to a level that he never really had prior. And it brought joy to him. And I’m grateful, very grateful for that.”
Daria Berenato, formerly known as Sonya Deville in WWE, sat down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss her WWE contract not being renewed, whether a return to wrestling is on the cards, the scary home invasion that occurred in 2020, her work as a WWE General Manager and slapping Adam Pearce, why she didn’t enjoy her SummerSlam match with Mandy Rose, being injured while reigning as Women’s Tag Team Champion, her upcoming acting roles and more!
On whether she has retired from wrestling:
“Definitely for now. Never say never. But right now I feel at peace with that. I’m not gonna lie, and I haven’t said this, but it almost is like an open wound, and if I think about wrestling somewhere else, it’s like I was so loyal to the company, it was my only home from 21 years old to 31. I’m a ride or die type of person in general. So it’s weird to even think about doing that, but not there.”
On neither Mandy nor Sonya liking their SummerSlam match:
“Yeah, it’s not my favorite match. It pisses me off still, because it’s my favorite storyline I’ve ever been a part of, and I think it’s some of the best work I’ve ever done with promo and character work and even the whole lead-up. But yeah, we were a f*cking mess. Not to make excuses, but the attempted kidnapping happened two nights before SummerSlam. Vince wanted to scrap the match on our behalf. I told him absolutely not, we worked this hard, and this motherf*cker is not gonna ruin our moment. So we scrapped the hair versus hair because I had to go to court and testify the next day and I was like, I’m probably not in the right frame of mind to be bald right now during all this, there was too much to process. He agreed. And he was like, ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ And I was like, I don’t know. I got to think of something equally as high-stakes, another stipulation. So I came up with the loser leaves town. So we get to work that day, and the producers come up to us, and they’re like, ‘Okay, it’s now a loser leaves town match, but Daria is going to go over.’ And it’s weird, because the producer and Mandy felt like that wasn’t the right move, because Mandy was supposed to be the babyface coming out of this. I was obviously the heel, and I had been kind of kicking her ass the whole angle, so I agreed with them. So I actually went to Vince and Bruce and got the ending changed. I said, ‘Sir, I think Mandy should win, because I have a way to get me back from a loser leaves much better than we could get Mandy back. Why don’t I come back as like a schizophrenic the next week? And you’re trying to tell me that I don’t work here anymore, and I lost, but I’m under the impression that I’m somebody else, and we go with this whole angle.’ Vince’s exact words were, ‘I f*cking love it! God damn it. You can be hanging from my chandelier in the office, swinging around.’ And I was like, Okay!
I didn’t see it like that. I didn’t see me hanging from your chandelier, but sure, and so we were on the same page. It was all good. Mandy was gonna get her comeuppance. I was gonna get an amazing character arc out of it, and all was gonna be well. And then the loser leaves happens, and I’m not needed for TVs, like, one week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, a month, two months, like, all this time’s going by, and I’m texting Bruce from texting Vince. I’m like, ‘Hey guys, what’s the deal? I thought I was coming back right after. It’s the only reason I agreed to lose was because we had this cool angle to come back and bring me back.’ They were like, ‘Oh, just, just stay tight. Hang tight.’ Then all of a sudden, finally, Bruce says, ‘You know, after a second thought, when we do a loser leaves, we have to honor the stipulation, so you have to stay gone for a while.’ I was like, ‘Oh, why didn’t you tell me that when we discussed this? I would have much rather have won.’ I don’t have many regrets in life, but booking myself to lose that match is probably my only one. And it was like a running joke when I came back in the writers’ room with the head writers, they kind of busted my chops and were like, ‘Remember that time you booked yourself to lose a match that when we were trying to push you?’ So much you don’t know behind the scenes, because you’re not having these conversations like, ‘Hey, when you win this one, we’re going to push you, and we want Mandy to go in a different direction. You’re going to go in a different direction.’ So it wasn’t that transparent. So I didn’t really know what I was doing to myself at the time. So I ended up sitting home for five months. Then I come back, I go into Vince’s office, I’m like, ‘Hey, sir, what are we doing? Like, what do we do now?’ He’s like, ‘What do you want to do?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know. I have these really cool suits in my hotel room, and I think it’d be cool to have a boss vibe to me.’ He kind of looked at me and was like, ‘Where are the suits?’ And I was like, they’re my hotel room. He’s like, send a runner to go get them. I was like, Okay, what the f*ck is going on? He didn’t tell me anything. He’s like, ‘You’re gonna walk down the hallway in a suit and superstars lined on both sides, and they’re gonna be clapping for you.’ And you just walked down. And I’m like, and then what? ‘That’s it.’ Okay? So I put my suit on, getting hair and makeup, and if you go watch it back, my return was I walked down the hallway in a suit with superstars lined on both sides, and then that slowly evolved into the GM character with Pearce.”
On working with Adam Pearce:
“I had so many crazy pitches for that character. Vince would always say, we’re not booking Adam Pearce vs. Sonya Deville at WrestleMania. Because I always wanted to push the limit with Adam, but there was no payoff for him. He couldn’t get a comeback, so we couldn’t go too far with it, but I did get to slap him that one time. He’s tough. He was, like, lay it in. I was like, Okay, careful what you asked for.”
On not revisiting her partnership with Chelsea Green:
“They just didn’t want to go back to it. They didn’t want to go back to it. I had pitched that it would be a natural angle to go after Piper and be like, ‘What the hell? Bitch, that’s my f*cking championship!’ Very natural angle. But they had this idea for this faction, and so that was where we were gonna go. I will say, while I was out, I did pitch coming back in my MMA gimmick, like a modified version, but I did pitch going back to my roots, and I think Triple H had the same kind of idea. He was like, ‘Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Let’s do this group.’ When he told me the group, I was like, Okay, interesting. I didn’t know how the three of us were going to blend together, me, Zoe and Shayna, in PFC. So I was open minded to it, and of course, whatever he wants. I saw myself more as the mouthpiece in that scenario and I was like, okay, but we couldn’t get our footing. And then we were given the name Pure Fusion Collective, and I thought that was terrible. I don’t think it was ever going to be the thing, but we tried to make it work.”
On yesterday’s episode of SiriusXM’s The Nikki and Brie Show, Nikki Garcia reacts to her scenes being cut from “Happy Gilmore 2” and reveals that happiness is her secret to looking and feeling her best.
Nikki Garcia reacts to her scenes being cut from “Happy Gilmore 2” (11:30-12:36)
Nikki Garcia: The characters that I had to work with, a majority of our funny scenes got taken out, but I get, when I’m watching the whole thing, for 20 minutes to be taken out and to keep the heart of “Happy Gilmore,” it had to happen.
Brie Garcia: So wait, did you find out why you were sitting watching?
Nikki Garcia: Yes.
Brie Garcia: How did it make you feel?
Nikki Garcia: I mean, I’m not gonna lie. Inside, I was really bummed and devastated.
Brie Garcia: Your heart sank.
Nikki Garcia: Yeah, and red face, even though I mean whatever, but you know when you’re like, oh my gosh, it just, like I was sad, you know? I almost wish I knew. Yeah, especially because I did media right before that and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, and this character and Medusa,” like you don’t even end up knowing my name, but it’s okay. Honestly, the movie is so good. The movie is so good. It’s the best movie I’ve seen in years. I’m not even just saying that.
Brie Garcia: I don’t think he makes a bad movie.
Nikki Garcia: I know, but I didn’t realize all the heart in this. From the beginning, oh my gosh. I was like, I mean, there’s a lot of heart in it.
Nikki Garcia says that happiness is her secret to looking & feeling her best (35:39-36:32)
Nikki Garcia: A lot of people lately keep asking me, “What are you doing? You look so good,” all the things and look, I have a personal trainer. I’m eating the cleanest I have in a very long time. I’ve been on the like kind of no drinking thing for a while. I’ve barely, you know me. It’s every now and then, but I haven’t had Botox in a crazy long time. I actually kind of feel like I need a little touch, but I’m saying, yes, I got new hair, but what it truly is is happiness because people have been asking me and everyone’s like, “I want to know your secrets,” and I’m like, “Honestly, my secret is I’m just finally really, really happy and it’s shining through.”
Brie Garcia: And you feel confident with yourself and you love who you are.
Nikki Garcia: Confidence is so huge.
Brie Garcia: It’s huge and you love who you are and that’s like a beautiful place to be in.
The Nikki & Brie Show hosted by Nikki & Brie Garcia is available anytime on the SiriusXM app. New episodes every Monday and Thursday. Listen to the full episode here.
