WWE Superstar Logan Paul and NFL legend Tom Brady got physical last night at Fanatics Fest, with Brady slapping Paul while the two were arguing face-to-face.
Brady had earlier suggested to Cody Rhodes during a taping of his What Do You Want To Talk About? podcast that he wants to get in the ring and just waiting on WWE President Nick Khan to make it happen.
The two had a soft pull-apart after the smack upside the head, mainly because Paul is still recovering from a torn triceps surgery.
Brady and Paul have been “rivals” throughout the year stemming from a flag football match they were both involved with earlier this year. The match was also part of a Fanatics event.
There were rumors that Brady would be involved at WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas but those rumors never materialized. Brady is a part owner of the Las Vegas Raiders NFL team.
A new stipulation was added to tonight’s Saturday Night’s Main Event tag team match.
WWE champion CM Punk and Cody Rhodes will be teaming up together to take on Gunther and Sami Zayn but now if Gunther and Zayn manage to win the match at Madison Square Garden, they get added to the WWE championship match at SummerSlam and the advertised one-on-one match gets turned into a fatal four-way.
The tag match is part of a four-match card, arguably the weakest effort ever put in for a Madison Square Garden show where so far, over 12,000 tickets have been sold.
Those who pay their Club WWE membership prior to the July 31 “founding member” preview will get an “exclusive kit” shipped to them in addition to the other perks part of the membership.
Those who subscribe now will receive a match-used ring canvas in an acrylic box, a Club WWE founder lanyard, a founder pin, and a personal letter from John Cena.
The $99-a-year subscription will give members exclusive merchandise, pre-sale access to WWE live events, bonus digital content, a points rewards system, and other stuff still to be announced.
A dissertation chapter can look almost finished while its reference list still feels risky. Before supervisor review, the hard part is not simply asking whether every source is “safe”; it is deciding where to spend your limited checking time, which is why a Citation Checker is most useful when it turns a long bibliography into a queue of decisions.
For a master’s student, that distinction matters. A bibliography copied from draft chapters, older notes, reference managers, and AI-assisted research sessions rarely fails in one obvious way. Some entries may be complete, some may have small metadata mismatches, and some may need a careful human read before they should stay in the chapter.
Why A Bibliography Needs A Review Queue
The most practical way to approach citation checking is to stop treating the reference list as a single pass-or-fail object. A long list needs sorting first. Once the obvious matches, questionable records, and missing records are separated, the real work becomes more manageable.
CiteTrue is positioned around that sorting job. It accepts multiple citations at once, including numbered lists, bullet lists, plain-text references separated by lines or paragraphs, in-text author-year citations, and BibTeX. That makes it a better fit for bibliography audit work than for one-off citation generation.
The useful outcome is not a blanket claim that a chapter is correct. It is a practical route through the references: which citations look matched, which need a closer look, and which should be checked manually before they reach a supervisor.
The Four-Part Queue Framework For Dissertation Checking
The cleanest first-use framework is Intake, Fast pass, Attention queue, and Human confirmation. Each stage has a different job, and keeping those jobs separate helps avoid overreading an automated status.
1. Intake Turns Loose References Into Checkable Material
Intake begins with the messy material you already have: references copied from a paper draft, a Word document, or a reference manager. CiteTrue’s documented input flow allows one or more citations to be pasted into the text box, then separates multiple citations automatically.
For a dissertation chapter, that is important because your first task is not polishing citation style. It is getting enough of the bibliography into one place so the obvious checks can begin. If the list includes a mix of complete references and shorter entries, the intake stage should preserve that difference rather than hide it.
Keep Intake Separate From Academic Judgment
At this point, a pasted citation is only a record to check. It does not prove that the source supports the paragraph where it appears. That judgment stays with the student, because bibliographic existence and argument support are different questions.
2. Fast Pass Separates Clear Matches From Friction
Fast Verify is CiteTrue’s default first pass. It parses fields such as title, authors, year, DOI, and URL, then uses baseline academic databases and exact metadata matching. The research notes identify Google Scholar, CrossRef, and Semantic Scholar among the databases it searches.
For a student trying to prepare a chapter efficiently, this first pass is the triage layer. Result cards may show statuses such as Authentic, Authentic with Notice, Unsure, and Inauthentic, along with matched-source details, confidence, and discrepancies. That gives the bibliography a visible structure instead of leaving every reference equally suspicious.
3. Attention Queue Highlights What Deserves Human Time
The most useful queue is not made only from red flags. A citation marked Authentic with Notice may deserve attention if the year, author list, title, volume, DOI, or URL differs from the draft. An Unsure result may mean the citation is incomplete, ambiguous, recent, poorly indexed, or possibly fabricated.
This is where an AI Citation Checker can be framed as a reviewer’s sorting assistant, not as a substitute supervisor. Deep Verify is available as an optional second pass for uncertain, incomplete, ambiguous, likely hallucinated, or especially important citations. It uses a broader AI-agent workflow and costs roughly five times the credits of Fast Verify, so it makes sense as a targeted follow-up rather than the default action for every entry.
4. Human Confirmation Decides What Stays In Chapter
Human confirmation is the final stage because citation software can verify metadata more readily than it can decide whether a source belongs in your argument. If Deep Verify still returns Not Found, CiteTrue can make Suggested Citation Replacement available and show up to three related candidate papers.
Those candidates are not automatic substitutions. A student still needs to read the paper and decide whether it supports the claim in the chapter. In a supervisor-review context, that boundary is useful: the tool helps prioritize review, while the student keeps responsibility for scholarly judgment.
How CiteTrue Works During First Pass Review
1. Paste References From Your Current Dissertation Draft
Start by pasting one or more citations from the chapter draft, a Word file, or a reference manager into CiteTrue’s text box. The documented flow supports multiple citations, so the first pass can cover a meaningful portion of a bibliography instead of one reference at a time.
Use The Batch As A Working Segment
For a long chapter, a reasonable segment might be one section’s references or one supervisor-review batch. Keeping the batch tied to a real writing unit makes the resulting queue easier to act on.
2. Run Verify To Build The Initial Queue
Click Verify to cross-reference each citation against academic databases. Fast Verify is the default first pass and costs one credit per citation, which supports the idea of using it broadly before deciding where deeper checks are worth spending.
The aim is to identify the first layer of status signals. Green, yellow, and red-style states can help you separate citations that appear matched from those that need review or cannot be found, but the color is only the start of the decision.
3. Open Results Before Editing The Bibliography
After verification, open individual results and look at the matched-source details and confidence information. This is where the queue becomes practical: a small title discrepancy may call for a citation correction, while a Not Found result may call for Deep Verify or manual database checking.
Do not delete or replace a citation only because it lands in an uncertain state. Not Found is not conclusive, since possible causes include fabrication, spelling errors, lack of database indexing, or a very recent publication.
How CiteTrue Compares With Nearby Alternatives
Product
Input fit
First-pass mode
Result detail
CiteTrue
Multiple pasted citations, lists, paragraphs, in-text citations, and BibTeX
Fast Verify parses metadata and checks academic databases
Status cards can show confidence, matched-source details, and discrepancies
CiteSure
Citation verification for students and researchers
Checks citations against academic databases
Flags citations that appear fake or AI-hallucinated
Citely
Citation Checker for references and Source Finder for claims or questions
Verifies references and also supports source discovery workflows
Supports common citation styles and verification reports according to its materials
Sourcely
Pasted citations plus broader research-suite workflows
Verifier checks bibliographic fields against academic databases
Returns real, fake, or unverified-style verdicts with reasons
CiteProve
Reference checks including academic and legal materials
Resolves identifiers and checks metadata against named databases
Reports not-found or partial matches with field-level differences
This comparison points to a practical distinction. CiteTrue is strongest in this article’s scenario when the student already has a bibliography and needs an ordered review queue before sharing the chapter. Other tools may fit better when source discovery, legal citation checking, or broader research-assistant workflows are the central job.
Honest Limitations When Records Stay Unclear
The main limitation is that automated verification cannot remove the need for manual review. CiteTrue itself distinguishes between a citation that is not found and a citation that is definitely fabricated, because database coverage, spelling, indexing delays, and incomplete metadata can all affect the result.
That limitation is not a reason to avoid the workflow. It is the reason to use the statuses carefully. A dissertation chapter benefits when uncertain records are surfaced early, marked for human attention, and resolved before a supervisor has to spend time finding basic reference problems.
Where CiteTrue Fits Before Supervisor Review
CiteTrue fits best at the moment when a chapter is coherent enough to share but the bibliography still feels too large to check line by line. Used as a queue builder, it helps a master’s student move from vague anxiety to specific actions: correct matched records with notices, escalate ambiguous entries, manually inspect Not Found items, and read any suggested replacements before using them.
That makes CiteTrue less like a final stamp and more like a pre-review organizer. The strongest use is disciplined and modest: let the software structure the bibliography audit, then make the academic decisions yourself before the chapter reaches your supervisor.
Gangrel sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Nashville, Tennessee to discuss being a trainer at Rusev’s KECH Pro Wrestling Academy, still wrestling today and how much longer he wants to keep going for, why he hasn’t worn a white shirt in over 20 years, why the Attitude Era was so incredible, the rumor about why he was fired from WWE, not being a part of WrestleMania 39, his AEW appearance, spiking CVV with an Impaler DDT, and more!
You’re 57 years old, and you’re still doing this. You are on the indie grind every single weekend. Do you still love it?
“Absolutely, 100%. I don’t know about the traveling as much, but I still love wrestling, so I tell people it’s a lot like a musician. You’ll hear them say, ‘I get paid to travel, not play music.’ I get paid to travel, not wrestle. I would wrestle for free anyway. I love wrestling. When they asked you, what’s your fee, I go, what are we talking about? I look at it, and my fee is addressed to where that travel is. I’ve wrestled in every state, been to a lot of countries and stuff like that, so I know exactly what’s involved in that travel, and that the travel is what adjusts my fee. It’s not necessarily the wrestling part of it. I still love wrestling; it’s the travel of it.”
Are you at the point now when you’re taking bookings and you’re like, I only want to take a certain amount of bumps, or you want to just go out there and have a great match?
“No, no, no. The hardest part about wrestling is getting your boots on. Once the boots are on, I’m fine. I can rewind this back. I do take only certain bumps now, I’ve eliminated certain top rope things that are just not necessary for a 57-year-old man with a new knee and a new hip and stuff like that. I don’t want to push the envelope too much. Once I get in my gear and I’m rolling, I want to go. You’re either all in or you’re all out, 24/7. Can’t stop, won’t stop, fanging and banging. The hardest part about it’s getting dressed. Once you’re dressed, you traveled, you went through that, you got there, then just getting dressed. You’re like, ah, then the boots are on, then it’s all gold. Then after that, you know it’s all good.”
Does your rate change based on what you’re wearing to the ring? Are you always going to wear a white shirt? You’re always going to split blood.
“I haven’t worn a white shirt in 20 years.”
You haven’t worn the pirate shirt?
“’I don’t want to be a pirate!’ I love Seinfeld. No, I haven’t worn a puffy shirt. If somebody wants a puffy shirt, if they request it, I say, ‘Sure, you buy it. Make sure you get one. I’ll sign it and leave it with you, but I won’t go hunt them down.’ They don’t make them the same. They’re cheesier, and to custom-make them cost way more than what you could buy, it gets out of control. So if they want it, I’m not against wearing it, but it’s just working, you just go through them, you get one show out of them, they’re either torn or that you can’t get the stains out, not the blood stains, the blood comes out, but I spray the blood every night. I still get out my wallet for the blood. You got to have the blood and the Impaler DDT.”
There’s a rumor you got fired from WWE because you didn’t tuck your shirt in.
“I never tucked my shirt in.”
Would you like to clear this up?
“I don’t know if that was the rumor. I think the rumor was they said Vince saw my stomach and said, ‘Ah, he’s got to go.’ I think that was the rumor. No, I don’t know. They hired me back, I got burnt. I sat home all that time, and then they let me go. Then they hired me back, told me I was going to be on the Syfy Channel. They said, ‘You’re going to be a big star on ECW. You’re going to come in, you’re going to have a group, Kevin Thorn, Shelly Martinez.’ I said, great. I went home, never heard from them. I was signed back, never heard from him, never did an appearance on TV or anything. So, there’s no shirts, or there’s no nothing. Then I see Kevin Thorn comes on, and then Shelley comes on with him, and I got let go. Then I get a call from Johnny Ace, going, ‘It never really took off, it didn’t work out.’ I said save it, I’m gonna go back to England next week. So it was nothing. They brought me back for SyFy, I never did any TVs, I never did anything.”
When Edge had his Brood entrance at WrestleMania 39, the match against Finn Balor, there were so many rumors that you might be there. Not only were you not there, he didn’t even use the Brood entrance theme, it was so interesting that they used another song.
“I’m not sure, but I think maybe it might have been Hunter. Some people said Vince, but I think it might have been Hunter. Somebody kiboshed it. So when that didn’t go down, he [Edge] left the next year to AEW. Then he wanted to make sure, that he’s a guy that wants to have his way. Don’t tell him no on something, he’s gonna figure it out. So in AEW, he had me come back and come up to the ring and stuff like that.”
Were you close to being part of WrestleMania 39?
“In Edge’s mind? Yes. He was trying hard, but in their minds, no, I don’t think so.”
WrestleMania 15: You’re part of this moment where Undertaker hangs Big Boss Man. You’re the one who’s actually giving Undertaker the noose. What do you remember about the setup of this?
“What I remember is we weren’t on schedule for anything in WrestleMania, and then we all get like a memo saying you have a rehearsal. We’re like, rehearsal for what? So we show up, they go, ‘Oh, you’re gonna come out of the ceiling.’ We’re like, ‘What?’ We’re looking at each other like, ‘Who’s coming out of the ceiling?’ ‘No, you three are gonna come out of the ceiling and come down on top of the cage.’ So, we rehearsed it one time there, and I know none of us were happy about it. We’re all freaking out. So it was terrifying. We did a rehearsal, everything went fine, and we got back up. Then came WrestleMania. Again, it’s not like the entrances. You do a dry rehearsal, it’s one thing, but then there’s live crowd, and in the moment, so we all go off and we go down. I almost missed the cage, like one foot’s over here, but I get back on it. That was scary. Then we go over, and then we’re on that, and all I’m thinking is, don’t fall through the cage, because you think about Mankind. The cage is kind of rigged too, for you to be able to rip it open. So we’re up there, we got the noose, we’re ripping it, please don’t fall through this cage, because I don’t like heights at all. So we get that, we go back up, and then the circuit breakers blew. So we’re all stuck, that’s why you got a picture of Edge hanging right there in his coat. He was hanging the lowest. I was between the sound board and the lighting, and Christian, I think, was just where his hands were on the beam to get back on top. It legit went out. We were stuck, and it felt like forever, but it was probably only a couple minutes, you know. I kept thinking they’re going to come on this sound board and just blow my eardrums out, because I was in between the lighting board and the speakers, and Edge was down low, and he was getting all the pictures, because he was stuck in his coat. That’s why you see that a lot. Yeah, there was just one rehearsal, and then we did it, and there’s a bit of a heavy thing, you know, a hanging is a bit strong, I suppose. You don’t really see them, I don’t think they push that much anymore, and stuff like that. I think if you go look for it, it’s hard to find that, because it was so graphic and kind of strong.”
Fans attending Raw at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa on August 24 will now be sitting in for a double television taping as Smackdown will also be taped immediately following the conclusion of the live Raw broadcast.
Raw on that day will start at 6PM ET live on Netflix due to the double taping.
Meanwhile, another double taping will also be held a few days later on Friday, August 28, with both Raw and Smackdown back-to-back at the Rocket Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.
Judging from past double tapings, the August 24 taping of Smackdown will air on August 28 while the August 28 taping of Smackdown will air on September 4 so the show will not be live for two weeks in a row. The Raw taped on August 28 will then air on August 31.
It’s unclear why there are two double tapings especially since WWE will not be overseas during that period, with their South American tour starting on September 9.
All In 2026 at Wembley Stadium has just crossed 30,000 tickets distributed according to ticket tracking service @WrestleTix.
The stadium is configured for just under 40,000 seats and AEW has 45 days left add more tickets to the massive 90,000+ seater venue. Partial sections were opened over the last few days, bumping up the seating availability.
The last All In at Wembley in 2024 drew an advertised 53,922.
This week’s NXT took a hit in viewership, dropping to 531,000, down 160,000 viewers from the prior week as it went head-to-head with the MLB All-Star Game. The show had another big hit in the 18-49 demo, doing just a 0.05, down 0.07 from the previous week. This was the lowest demo ever for NXT since it moved to television. (Ratings credit: Programming Insider)
Several WWE Superstars attended the 2026 ESPY Awards at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City yesterday evening.
Cody Rhodes and his wife Brandi, The Miz, Charlotte Flair, Kiana James, WWE Women’s World champion Liv Morgan, and Titus O’Neil were all looking dapper during their red carpet arrivals.
The annual awards show, produced by ESPN, recognizes individual and team athletic achievement during the calendar year.
WWE star Maxxine Dupri recently appeared on SiriusXM’s The Nikki and Brie Show.
During the interview, Maxxine opened up about kissing Austin Theory on WWE RAW, turning heel and navigating haters. She also reflected on the journey that brought her to WWE and much more.
Maxxine Dupri on turning heel & haters (20:15-21:13)
Maxxine Dupri: I do feel like weight is off my shoulders. I no longer care what these haters have to say. I don’t care what all these normies in the crowd want to tweet about me. I don’t care. I no longer have to impress you guys. Austin is into me, and he’s down with everything I’m doing, so why do I need to worry about anything they’re doing and let’s not forget, Paul Heyman was also very proud.
Nikki Garcia: I mean, and that’s a hard one to make proud.
Brie Garcia: I do agree. You’re lucky, though, girl, that Bianca is pregnant, or you might have her coming after you.
Maxxine Dupri: But I didn’t touch Montez.
Brie Garcia: No, but you made them lose.
Maxxine Dupri: It’s not my fault Dawkins fell over. That’s all you can do.
Nikki Garcia: You know what? 100. Don’t blame the woman, Brie.
Brie Garcia: Well, she’s a very great distraction, if you know what I mean.
Maxxine Dupri: But I’m just a sweet, precious, snatched, skinny little gal and I hit him in the nuts, and that causes him to fall over? Sounds like a personal problem.
Maxxine Dupri on kiss with Austin Theory (23:06-24:26)
Brie Garcia: Is Austin a good kisser?
Maxxine Dupri: I mean, the best. You’re making me blush. It was just like in the moment, you know? You couldn’t have dreamt that up to be better. I showed up for him. I applied the pressure and as Dawkins fell over, he got the pin because he’s brilliant, obviously. Afterwards, it was just like, I think it’s time that we fill everyone in on what’s going on.
Nikki Garcia: We’ve been waiting for it.
Brie Garcia: We have been waiting. My favorite was watching Bron and Logan Paul’s facials because it was really good.
Nikki Garcia: So, did you see online all the comparisons of you guys and Liv and Dom?
Maxxine Dupri: I haven’t seen that much, but I saw something and I was just telling my other interview that they’re using this word called Temu and I had to Google it because I have money, so I don’t shop there. I was like, “It’s crazy that you guys even have that word in your vocabulary,” but I don’t feel that that’s the same at all.
Nikki Garcia: I don’t either.
Brie Garcia: It’s definitely not.
Maxxine Dupri: Did we forget about mommy? It’s not my fault that we were both blonde, but aside from that, first of all, Austin looks nothing like Dirty Dom. Austin showers. Austin has a haircut. He’s a beautiful man.
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.
WWE today announced 14 dates and locations for Raw, Smackdown, and a premium live event spanning from mid-September to early-November.
Seven Raw, six Smackdown, and one PLE locations were revealed, with the PLE being the WWE/AAA Worlds Collide event on the same day as AEW’s All Out pay-per-view.
Smackdown on September 18 in Corpus Christi, Texas at the Hilliard Center
Raw on September 21 in San Antonio, Texas at the Frost Bank Center
Smackdown on September 25 in Indianapolis, Indiana at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse
Worlds Collide on September 26 in Chicago, Illinois at the Allstate Arena
Raw on September 28 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Fiserv Forum
Smackdown on October 2 in Denver, Colorado at the Ball Arena
Raw on October 5 in St. Louis, Missouri at the Enterprise Center
Smackdown on October 9 in Lafayette, Louisiana at the CAJUNDOME
Raw on October 12 in Bossier City, Louisiana at the Brookshire Grocery Arena
Smackdown on October 16 in Sacramento, California at the Golden 1 Center
Raw on October 19 in San Diego, California at the Pechanga Arena
Raw on October 26 in Fresno, California at the Save Mart Center
Smackdown on October 30 in Charleston, West Virginia at the Charleston Coliseum
Raw on November 2 in Brooklyn, New York at the Barclays Center
Fans can purchase individual event tickets during an exclusive pre-sale starting July 23 on Ticketmaster.com.
Tons of WWE Superstars are in New York City for the 2026 Fanatics Fest, which kicked off today at the Javits Center. The convention will run through Saturday, July 19.
WWE is a big part of the Fanatics family, and one of the highest-grossing of all the sports leagues which Fanatics represents.
Scheduled to appear during this four-day convention are John Cena, Roman Reigns, Rhea Ripley, Cody Rhodes, AJ Styles, Alexa Bliss, Becky Lynch, Brie Bella, Bully Ray, Charlotte Flair, CM Punk, Danhausen, Nikki Bella, Liv Morgan and others.
Most will be doing meet and greets as well as autographs, but some will only be doing appearances like Roman Reigns.
An entrance ticket for the convention is required on top of tickets to meet your favorite WWE Superstars.
WWE has scheduled a Worlds Collide premium live event on Saturday, September 26 live from the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois.
The date is exactly the same as the AEW All Out pay-per-view which also takes place from the neighboring NOW Arena in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. The two arenas are 20 miles apart
Tickets for WWE/AAA Worlds Collide will go on sale Friday, July 24 at 10AM on Ticketmaster.com.
This will be the third Worlds Collide event between the two promotions, with the last one being held on September 12, 2025.
Lawyers for Marcel Barthel, the man known as Ludwig Kaiser and El Grande Americano, have filed a motion to get the battery case against their client dismissed on the basis of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.
Kaiser was involved in an altercation with an individual named Richard Reap on April 23 in Orlando, Florida, at an apartment building both live in.
In the police report filed against Kaiser, Reap says that he was beaten up repeatedly by the WWE Superstar after he told Kaiser and his girlfriend to stop hugging on kissing in an elevator they were all sharing.
In the motion, Kaiser says that Reap allegedly told the couple to have some respect or else he would call ICE “on that bitch.” Kaiser’s girlfriend is AAA broadcaster Andrea Bazarte who is from Mexico.
Kaiser adds in the motion that he did not touch Reap until he aggressively raised his hands and got within touching distance and that’s when Kaiser pushed him away. Reap allegedly came back at Kaiser and even threw a soft drink bottle at him.
Lawyers for Kaiser say that he was justified in using non-deadly force to protect himself and his girlfriend and is asking for the battery charge to be dropped and be granted immunity from the case.
The motion, explaining Kaiser’s version, states:
“The elevator stopped at the 12th floor where Mr. Reap exited, and as he exited Mr. Reap made loud comments to Mr. Barthel and his girlfriend to the effect of, ‘Have some f***ing respect.’ Apparently, Mr. Reap was offended by Mr. Barthel and his girlfriend hugging while in the elevator. Mr. Barthel leaned out of the elevator to ask Mr. Reap what he said as he was confused by the statement. Mr. Reap then made a statement to the effect of, ‘Have some respect before I call ICE on that bitch’ Mr. Barthel’s girlfriend is of Mexican descent. Mr. Barthel exited the elevator and confronted Mr. Reap verbally telling him his statements were offensive and inappropriate. Mr. Barthel did not threaten or touch Mr. Reap at that point. Mr. Reap then came toward Mr. Barthel aggressively raising his hands and getting very close to him. Mr. Barthel, in fear that Mr. Reap was going to batter him, pushed Mr. Reap away.
Mr. Barthel walked back into the elevator, where his girlfriend was standing. Mr. Reap then approached the elevator in a threatening manner. Mr. Barthel stepped out of the elevator and told Mr. Reap to leave them alone. Mr. Reap walked away briefly and came back toward the elevator again in a threatening manner. Mr. Barthel was concerned that Mr. Reap would physically attack him or his girlfriend, so he pushed him away, and returned to the elevator.
Mr. Reap then threw a soft drink bottle at Mr. Barthel. Mr. Barthel did not retaliate. Rather, he remained in the elevator, pushed the button for his floor and left the area.
In this altercation, Mr. Barthel pushed Mr. Reap only after Mr. Reap had approached Mr. Barthel aggressively and threatened him. Mr. Barthel pushed Mr. Reap to stop his continuing approach and attack. Mr. Barthel then entered the elevator where his girlfriend remained and left the area.”
A pre-trial conference is supposed to take place sometime today.
The AEW world title will be on the line at the upcoming Redemption pay-per-view, with champ Kenny Omega defending the gold against TNT champion Kevin Knight.
Knight asked for the title shot last night on Dynamite, interrupting Omega’s championship celebration. This will be Knight’s third crack at the AEW world title after failing to win it against MJF and Darby Allin.
Meanwhile, another championship match was made official for Redemption last night, with AEW National champ Mark Davis defending the title against Andrade El Idolo.
With 10 days to go for the pay-per-view in Montreal, only three matches have been announced so far, with Thekla vs Willow Nightingale for the AEW Women’s title the other match listed.
Ethan Page sat down with Chris Van Vliet in London, England to discuss being a tag team champion with Cody Rhodes in Alpha-1 Wrestling, MJF hitting on his sister, winning the North American Championship in NXT, getting a custom Canadian Title and hating the Lance Storm comparisons, why his pairing with Chelsea Green worked so well, his NXT segment with The Rock, why he hated his old theme song that fans loved, and more!
How did you pitch the idea of the Canadian version of the North American title?
“Had nothing to do with me. It was presented to me. A fantastic idea, and there was a legitimate reveal to me before the event. I remember we were in Houston, Texas, because I remember it as a top five career day for me, it was like an eight-minute get to stand in the middle of the ring with a microphone; the flags are in there, the podium, I get to reveal the belt, it was awesome. It was a perfect town for it too, just what a dream scenario that was. But before the show, I knew that they were customizing this belt because they had told me. But I had not seen anything, so I actually got like a [sees ttile] whoa! Just personally, just for me. So I got to actually see it. I’m like, this is insane. After the experience, it really kicked in. Wait a second, I have a custom championship in the WWE, specifically for me. I don’t think anyone’s ever going to get that belt again. It’s literally hanging in my house. Don’t take it, WWE, please! I have no clue how it got there. After I lost the championship. I left it at the Performance Center, but somehow it’s hanging up in my house.”
Did you have any conversation with Lance Storm after your belt came out?
“I did not.”
Because there were a lot of comparisons:
“Which offends me!”
How does that offend you?
“He got stickers! I got a legitimate custom championship in the WWE. That guy slapped on magnets. He put some stickers on some championships. I made the WWE bend the knee. That’s a lot different.”
The chair has become your weapon, because you used it with Ricky Saints, that was bad.
“Yeah, so it could have been worse. He almost lost his eye. So he ends up injuring his trachea the way the chair fell. Give him a twisted grin, and I’m trying to pull his throat down in between the legs of the chair, so as I’m yanking him down, if you see the footage and you watch the leg closest to the camera, it literally grazes his cheek, and you see his cheek after, there’s a mark, it’s purple. Maybe like an inch to a half an inch, he would have lost his eye. I don’t know why I’m smiling, but yeah. Also that night I became North American Champion, and Mattel enjoyed that so much that they commemorated the moment by giving myself and Ricky Saints a two-pack with the North American Championship from that match.”
Take me through the day when you get the call that you’re going to go up to the main roster.
“Honestly, I wish I could. I was in Vegas for WrestleMania weekend. I had a bunch of appearances, and there was, I guess, half-ass rumors, you might have something there, might be something, but nothing was concrete. I had Shawn Michaels’ panel for his documentary, check it out on Peacock, so they had me out there for that. So that was, I think, on Saturday in the morning, and I still didn’t know what was happening. My hotel ended Saturday night, so my flight was that day. So I finished the interview, and after that they were like, ‘Hey, you’re staying, something’s going on Monday.’ But still nothing. I had no clue, and I had already been to SmackDown before and done backstages at Raw, so for me I was like, oh, okay, they just have me doing something or sitting in the crowd and waving or whatever. So they said something was gonna happen, I said, oh crap. So I called my family and just by luck, my mom was on vacation in Florida at their spot, and I was like, do you mind driving down two hours to my place to watch the kids, so I can fly my wife? I think I’m doing something on Monday Night Raw, and she’s like, yeah, sure. So, last minute, get my wife a flight, fly her to Vegas, and then we end up going out for some crazy dinner, and as soon as I got back from eating 10,000 calories, they were like, ‘Oh yeah you have a match tomorrow.’ But I literally found out either like the morning of or like very late the night before.”
People are very upset that you changed your entrance theme.
“Good! screw them. It sucked. Everyone just wants to take everything and make it their own. Guys, this is professional wrestling. This is not some sing-song happy time. The way wrestling is now, music starts and everyone thinks that they have the right to play along, like it’s for them or something. But every wrestler has some catchy tune, everyone sings, so I come out and everyone was going ‘Ego!’ right away, and then they turned it into ‘asshole.’ Which you’re killing my entrance, especially on CW Network, where NXT is airing the whole time, where people are supposed to be talking about me, the commentators, legendary Booker T. Nobody’s hearing what he’s saying, because the crowd is doing what they want. They are literally cutting the audio. I have full entrances where you can’t hear anything.”
The July 6 episode of Raw rebounded a little bit in viewership, with Netflix registering a total of 2,500,000 global views, up 200,000 from the prior week and their best number since May 25.
Raw was #6 on the Netflix top 10 global chart and had 5,000,000 viewing hours based on an episode edited down to 1 hour and 58 minutes.
The show was in the top 10 in 14 different countries this week, with Australia, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bolivia, Canada, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, and United States all registering on the chart.
AEW star Buddy Matthews, who has been out of action since February 2025, wrote on his Instagram that he has been cleared to return to the ring.
Matthews suffered a freak ankle injury during the AEW Grand Slam: Australia show while making his entrance for his match against Kazuchika Okada.
“The Devil signed the clearance,” Matthews wrote. “Hell stamped its approval. No more barriers. Only timing.”
In May, Matthews made a surprise appearance at the Rise Against event promoted by World Series Wrestling in his home country, hitting Dijak with a chair and then delivering the curb stomp on him.
Nikki and Brie Bella will be hosting a special episode of The Nikki & Brie Show at Fanatics Fest NYC live this Sunday.
The live taping will be held at 12:30PM on July 19 at the Dicks Sporting Goods Podcast Stage inside the Javits Center, where the multi-day convention is being held.
Joining Nikki and Brie on the show will be none other than one half of the WWE Women’s Tag Team champions, Paige, and former WWE Divas and Women’s Intercontinental champion AJ Lee.
For a master’s student, that distinction matters. A bibliography copied from draft chapters, older notes, reference managers, and AI-assisted research sessions rarely fails in one obvious way. Some entries may be complete, some may have small metadata mismatches, and some may need a careful human read before they should stay in the chapter.
