The FTW title, which was reintroduced by Taz last week on night two of Fyter Fest, will be defended on this coming Tuesday’s AEW Dark.
The hand-picked champion, Brian Cage, will put up the title on the line against Brian Pillman Jr., who will be having his second singles match in AEW.
Pillman Jr., is under contract with Major League Wrestling but is being allowed to wrestle for AEW, so far making appearances on the YouTube-only show. There are rumors that Pillman asked for his release from MLW but the request was denied.
Slots are by far the most popular casino games in online casinos around the world. This is because slots involve a certain degree of risk and mystery, and they offer exciting gameplay that many players love.
When online casino operators started offering mobile slot games, they quickly became extremely successful for various reasons. One of the reasons is that they offered everything that players needed to get the ultimate gambling experience.
As with many other things, technology has played an important role in the success of mobile slots. In this article, we’ll take a look at how technology has changed the mobile slots industry.
The rise of online casinos and mobile slots
Mobile phones have had games on them since 1997 when Nokia first introduced its prototype with the infamous Snakes game. This was the only type of mobile game available for the next eight years until the first mobile slot was introduced in 2005 – Pub Fruity by Java. This was a classic slot of 3×3 grid and featured one payline. Besides this slot, there were mini-games, like jackpots, available.
At that time, the screens of mobile devices were so small that extremely basic black and white pixels were all that could be used in these games. But they were played a bit, even for real money, and that showed that many people wanted to play even if the graphics and features of these games weren’t that great.
Flash enters the scene
The Java games didn’t become quite popular, but they showed that there was a demand for such games that could be met if the hardware and software caught up. This is the reason why flashed-based mobile slot games really took off in the mid-2000s.
Flash was meant to create apps in a web browser, but it was also used to run apps on mobile phones. Slots providers realized the potential of the Flash platform and decided to provide players with the opportunity to download and play Flash-based real money on their mobile devices.
Unlike Java, the use of Flash allowed developers to offer much more complex graphics. And when they added it to larger phone sizes, developers could actually start to have proper video slots with five reels while on the go.
The usage of Flash allowed developers to:
Offer much more intricate graphics and animation.
Create mobile versions of actually existing five-reels slots.
Provide options for managing your account, such as making deposits and withdrawals and handling bonuses using a mobile device.
The advent of HTML5
Once Flash-based slot games built their solid presence, developers started exploring the idea that one version of a game could be played both on mobile devices and PCs. This would reduce the development time and allow for more titles to be released over the long run.
At the same time, HTML5 started creating waves of disruption in mobile gaming technology. While HTML5 games were larger than Flash-based titles, they had the advantage that they could do a lot more with less memory and processing power.
NXT Superstar Tegan Nox posted a photo with her partner at Universal Studios yesterday on social media, coming out as gay.
“Life is good,” Nox wrote, along with several heart emojis in rainbow colors. Her partner, Sierra St. Pierre, posted the same photo and wrote, “It’s hard being the famous one in the relationship,” along with the rainbow emoji.
The Welsh WWE Superstar became the second female openly-gay wrestler on the roster following Sonya Deville.
Her Instagram post received a ton of support from fellow wrestlers including Nikki Cross, Chelsea Green, Sarah Logan, Renee Young, Simone Johnson, Mia Yim, Isiah “Swerve” Scott, Killian Dain, Santana Garrett, and Jake Atlas, who himself is open about being gay.
Nox will be taking on Io Shirai on Wednesday’s NXT for the Women’s title in the main event.
In a post on Instagram, former NXT champion Tommaso Ciampa vented his frustration at not currently being used on NXT. Ciampa has not been seen since Takeover: In Your House where he lost decisively to Karrion Kross.
“I miss 2018 Ciampa. The wrestling business, like life, is full of waves. Highs and lows. One moment you feel untouchable, the next you come crashing down,” Ciampa wrote, listing giving up the NXT title as one of his biggest career lows.
“To be honest, damn near everything that’s happened in my career since has been a disappointment,” he continued, mentioning only his face off with Adam Cole after he returned and WarGames as only the couple of glimpses of highs since then.
Ciampa said that he’s healthy and this year, after several weeks of being left off television, he finds himself with a new false dialogue. “Creative has nothing for you,” Ciampa explained. “Whether or not this is true really doesn’t matter. Because in my head, it’s true.”
The popular Superstar said that now he has a new vision and he’s hungrier than ever. “It’s time to evolve. It’s time to catch that next wave and reach that next high,” he wrote.
Friday Night Smackdown on FOX did 1,904,000 viewers this week, up 128,000 viewers from last week but apart from the holiday Smackdown of last week, it was the least-watched episode on FOX. Hour one did 1,930,000 viewers and then did 1,879,000 viewers in the second hour. The show topped all network competition in the 18-49 demo with a 0.5 rating and tied second in 18-34. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
Enzo Amore, the former WWE Superstar who now goes by the name of nZo, uploaded a video on Twitter and said that he will be taking the WWE Cruiserweight title on tour with him.
Amore will be hitting the independent circuit for the first time in his career and will carry the purple strap with him. He was the Cruiserweight champion when he was fired after sexual assault allegations that ended up being dropped later. A cease and desist letter from WWE might soon be coming his way as well.
The former champ teamed up with Brian Pillman Jr to take on Ricky Morton and his son Kerry last night at an independent event in Sevierville, Tennessee yesterday for a promotion titled KFW Wrestling.
Instead of putting the Intercontinental title match on the Extreme Rules card, WWE has decided to hold AJ Styles defending his title against Matt Riddle on next week’s episode of Smackdown on FOX.
The match was officially announced during yesterday’s broadcast and will be a rematch from a couple of weeks ago when Riddle beat Styles in a non-title match on the show during his first day as a full-time member of the Smackdown roster.
Riddle is currently going through some tough time with allegations leveled against him by indie pro wrestler Candy Cartwright and eventually admitting that he cheated on his wife with her. Riddle denied the sexual abuse allegations brought forward by Cartwright.
In an interview that will be released tomorrow as part of the talkWRESTLING show on TalkSport in the United Kingdom, WWE champion Drew McIntyre recounted how he pushed to have Heath Slater appear on Raw this past Monday and the hurdles he had to overcome…from Slater himself.
McIntyre said that the whole segment was very special to him and he was pushing a lot to make it happen. But he found opposition from Slater as he was against showing up on Raw after he was fired this past April.
“Heath was a little bit against it and I spoke to my wife right before the phone call I made to Heath to try and convince him to come onto the show for the segment,” Drew said. “She reminded me how I felt at the time when I was released and sure enough, he felt the same. He appreciated the opportunity with WWE, it was where he had made his name, but mentally he has moved on.”
McIntyre said Slater is ready for the next move in his career and didn’t want to go backwards so to speak. It took a little bit of convincing from the champ’s part and ultimately, Slater trusted him with the plan.
“We finally got him on board and got him on the show, he absolutely killed it, like I knew he would,” Drew said.
“The first thing I did outside of WWE was ICW and I showed my real personality and it caused a buzz and went viral on the underground, but if you get the chance to show your real personality on RAW that’s going to set you on the right course,” McIntyre continued, adding that Slater has been working out really hard and he’s glad people got to see what he looks now and in the process, advanced his storyline with Ziggler so everybody won.
All Elite Wrestling today announced two charity-driven initiatives to help support northeast Florida’s response to COVID-19 as part of the build-up to Fight For The Fallen.
Funds from both AEW programs will be distributed to Florida’s First Coast Relief Fund and Feeding Northeast Florida, with fans urged to donate what they can at AEWFightForTheFallen.com.
As part of the overall effort, AEW has designed a limited-edition shirt depicting powerful Fight For The Fallen imagery with a COVID-19 protective mask at the center of the artwork. 100% of the proceeds from sales of the shirt will also go to Florida’s First Coast Relief Fund and Feeding Northeast Florida. The shirt is available at ShopAEW.com.
“The efforts of the Florida’s First Coast Relief Fund and Feeding Northeast Florida over the past four months have been truly amazing, but unfortunately the battle against this pandemic continues and that means their work is far from over,” said AEW President Tony Khan. “On behalf of everyone at AEW, and our fans, I thank both groups for their commitment to our home community in Jacksonville and North Florida and hope we can all come together to do what we can to support their mission.”
Fight For The Fallen takes place next Wednesday on TNT at 8PM ET.
The NXT main event of Adam Cole vs Keith Lee managed to attract 922,000 viewers, outperforming the 900,000 viewers that Io Shirai vs Sasha Banks did on night one of The Great American Bash according to figures published by Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer.
The 922,000 number was the most-watched segment of the night for NXT and it’s competition Dynamite.
Cole vs Lee did a quarter of a million viewers more than the AEW main event of Chris Jericho vs Orange Cassidy although Shirai vs Banks did 300,000 more than the AEW World Tag Team title match main event last week.
AEW still had a slight edge in the 18-49 demo number though with Jericho vs Cassidy drawing 7,000 more viewers in that department, with 362,000 versus 355,000.
Dynamite beat NXT in the first hour in terms of total viewers but NXT turned it around in the second hour, greatly helped by the already-spoiled main event.
After last week Chris Jericho spoke on Twitter about how AEW still won the demographics war with NXT despite getting less viewers, this week it was actually AEW President Tony Khan who felt like he needed to justify AEW drawing less overall viewers than NXT.
“A win in the demo is a win in the business, and this is a business,” Khan wrote, adding that he was thrilled with placing #7 in the chart for night two of Fyter Fest. “I know the industry wasn’t talking about the demo as much 20 years ago, but it’s what drives our revenue today.”
Khan then posted a screenshot of the chart released by Showbuzzdaily.com, and explained like a teacher how the leftmost color-coded column is 18-49 demo and the rightmost color-coded column is total viewers. “The chart’s ranked by 18-49 viewers. We love & value all viewers, in or outside that demo, but that’s how we score the game,” Khan continued.
Khan noted that he tweets about the ratings because he’s thrilled with those numbers and so are TNT and it was the third time in four weeks that they have been in the top 10. Khan never tweeted about ratings before when winning both the viewership and demo.
Asked why is he so obsessed about winning the demo, Khan admitted that he is. “Yes, I’m obsessed with winning the demo, but our relative performance in the demo vs. all programming is the most important thing.”
In an interview with Yahoo! Sports, Triple H discussed the #SpeakingOut movement and how it affects people in the locker room and what steps are taken as the company deals with the fallout.
“As we have said in the beginning, this is terrible. You don’t ever want to see somebody be in situations that you have heard about in the #SpeakingOut movement,” Triple H said. “You have to listen to people. We have always been open to listening to everybody’s point of view, everyone’s side of the story.”
The man behind the NXT brand said that individuals are responsible for their own actions but WWE has a zero-tolerance policy for domestic abuse, child abuse, and sexual assault.
“If someone is arrested for that, they are immediately suspended. If they are convicted, they are immediately terminated. There’s no leeway or wiggle room. That is what it is,” the WWE Hall of Famer said.
He added that they also have the ability to fine, suspend or terminate for anything that has evidence of illegal misconduct or what they deem to be enough evidence to have the right to terminate.
“We’re there for our talent, we have an open door, certainly I do, for all talent to be able to come and tell us what is working for them, what is not working for them, if something is wrong and we help to make it right. That’s really what I think in this situation is all you can do, hear people out and then make the appropriate decision from there.”
WWE has fired a couple of people already due to the #SpeakingOut movement, mainly from the NXT UK roster. The United Kingdom wrestling scene was the most hit with accusations although horror stories came in from every corner of the globe.
Dynamite, with night two of Fyter Fest, drew 715,000 viewers, down also 33,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. The show did well in the 18-49 demo, getting a 0.28 and finishing #7 in the top 50 cable chart. The difference between the two shows was of 44,000 viewers, which is exactly the same as last week.
Dynamite has a strong card set for Fight For The Fallen next week and it’s expected that it will do much better than NXT in terms of viewership as well. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
For the first time, NXT has managed to win three weeks in a row against Dynamite in total viewers, however, the highly anticipated broadcast did not yield the best results.
NXT last night, headlined by the title vs title match and the crowning of Keith Lee as the new champion, did 759,000 viewers, down 33,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. That halted a four-week streak of increases. The show did a 0.2 in the 18-49 demographic and placed #24 in the top 50 chart. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
WWE Superstar Lana revealed on Twitter that her mother is in intensive care unit after being diagnosed with coronavirus.
Lana explained that her mother is asthmatic and had to be put on oxygen at the hospital after she was unable to breathe.
“My mom tested positive for covid. She is in the ICU right now. She is asthmatic and is on oxygen. Thank you for all the thoughts & prayer,” Lana tweeted. Several fellow WWE Superstars reached back to offer their support to the 35-year-old.
Her mother, while never appeared on WWE television, did appear in multiple episodes of Total Divas in the past when the show was centered around Lana’s and Rusev’s wedding.
In a later update, Lana wrote that her father also tested positive for coronavirus, writing that it’s “mind blowing” since her parents don’t really go out much.
With two-night Fyter Fest done and dusted, AEW now proceeds to another themed episode of Dynamite next week titled Fight For The Fallen.
Three more matches were added to the card last night, including a title match featuring TNT champion Cody taking on Sonny Kiss. Two tag matches were also announced featuring The Elite with The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega taking on Jurassic Express in a six-man tag team match and FTR versus Lucha Bros.
In addition to the already announced Moxley vs Cage match for the AEW title, one or two more matches are expected to be added to the show.
Deadline.com is reporting that the Bella Twins, Nikki and Brie Bella, have signed a deal with Michael Strahan and Constance Schwartz-Morini’s SMAC Entertainment.
“We’re excited to welcome Brie and Nikki to the SMAC family,” said Michael Strahan and Constance Schwartz-Morini, co-founders of SMAC Entertainment. “They are incredibly talented, versatile and encompass the same work ethic that we pride ourselves on and value most. We look forward to joining forces to help expand on the incredible foundation they’ve already built for their growing empire.”
SMAC Entertainment was founded in 2011 and its roster includes Erin Andrews, Shante Broadus, October Gonzalez, Tony Gonzalez, Michael Griffin, Bryan Hynson, Wiz Khalifa, Curt Menefee, Brian Orakpo and Deion Sanders.
Nikki and Brie will continue to be repped by WME, Leslie Sloane and Jami Kandel at Vision PR, and Ziffren Brittenham LLP.
The major announcement from Taz on Fyter Fest last night was the reintroduction of the FTW championship that was originally used in ECW over two decades ago.
During an in-ring segment, Taz unveiled the FTW title from a black bag and said that while no other promotion has recognized the FTW title, fans know that if you hold it, you’re considered the baddest SOB on the planet. Taz handed the FTW title to Cage, declaring him the champion.
The original FTW title only had two different holders – Taz and Sabu. Sabu won it from Taz in December 1998 after 219 days as champion and then lost it back to Taz at the Living Dangerously pay-per-view in 1999 when both the FTW and ECW World title were unified.
Cage will be meeting AEW World champion Jon Moxley next week on Dynamite which is being billed as Fight For The Fallen. The two were meant to wrestle last night but Moxley remained home as a precaution due to his wife testing positive for COVID-19.
After a total of 403 days as NXT champion, Adam Cole lost his title to Keith Lee last night during the main event of night two of NXT’s Great American Bash.
Cole cemented his place in NXT history as the longest-reigning champion ever of the brand, surpassing Finn Balor to take the top spot in the chart.
In his over 400 days as champion, Cole defended his title eight times, coming out victorious in seven of them. His challengers included Johnny Gargano, Matt Riddle, Daniel Bryan, Pete Dunn, Finn Balor, Tommaso Ciampa, and Velveteen Dream, before hitting a brick wall against Lee.
With his incredible title reign which started in June of last year at NXT Takeover: XXV, Cole is certainly one of the best, if not the best, NXT champion ever. And that, is undisputed bay-bay!
There’s a new sheriff in NXT town, his name is Keith Lee and we should all bask in his glory!
Lee made history last night by becoming the first singles double champ in NXT, adding the NXT title to his title cabinet after beating The Undisputed Era leader Adam Cole. The 35-year-old Superstar also became the second African American to win NXT’s biggest prize after Big E won it in 2012.
The uninterrupted, commercial-free 25-minute match headlined night two of NXT’s Great American Bash on USA Network and the match ended when Lee delivered the spirit bomb and big bang catastrophe to end Cole’s long title reign.
As Lee celebrated in the middle of the ring with pyro and confetti, Karrion Kross and Scarlett watched from a distance.
