Week 12 of the WWE block on A&E had a Macho Man-themed episode of Most Wanted Treasures and episode three of Stone Cold Takes on America.
Most Wanted Treasures did the best number this season so far with 394,000 viewers, up 11,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. A 0.14 rating in the 18-49 demo placed the show #23 on the chart and that was up 0.03 from last week.
Stone Cold Takes on America was less popular, with 277,000 viewers tuning in, down 5,000 viewers from episode two. The show did a 0.07 rating in the 18-49 demo, down 0.02, and was #52 on the chart. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
Rampage on TNT last Saturday drew just 284,000 viewers, down 10,000 viewers from the prior week. The show aired on a Saturday night due to other sports in its usual Friday time slot. The show did a 0.07 in the 18-49 demo, down 0.02 from the prior show and placed #46 on the top 50 cable chart. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
A Twitter user has posted a photo and a video of Seth Rollins on the set of Captain America: New World Order in Atlanta.
The fourth installment of the popular Marvel series is being filmed in the city and is expected to be released in theaters nationwide in May 2024.
Rollins was not at Raw last night and instead a pre-taped sit-down interview with Corey Graves aired. Another part of the interview will air next week as Rollins will probably still be on-location filming.
Neither did WWE nor Marvel have announced anything official about Rollins joining the MCU franchise although MCU fans have commented that Rollins looks like he’s part of the Serpent Society in the movie.
Rollins will meet AJ Styles for the WWE World Heavyweight title in Saudi Arabia on May 27.
Speaking on Busted Open Radio, 16-time world champion John Cena talked about his WrestleMania 39 match against Austin Theory.
“I’m at a point where everything I have in comparison to the bar that’s been set, boy, what I have is what you saw at WrestleMania 39,” Cena said, addressing some online commentary that he “didn’t turn up” for the show.
Cena said that what we saw is what he feels confident that he can deliver and that’s okay for an appearance here and there, but not good enough for every day in WWE. He said his body cannot do it anymore and he doesn’t want to give fans a bad product.
“That’s not every day in sports entertainment. Sports entertainment has raised the bar and I’m humble enough to say that’s awesome because you’re supposed to leave it better than you found it,” Cena said.
Cena also spoke about his entrance with the Make-A-Wish Foundation kids and how awesome it was to give the kids the perspective of the ramp, looking out at a stadium filled to the rafters.
“It’s mythical having that WrestleMania entrance being able to do that for a group of people, like take as many as you can. I don’t care how thin my slice of the stage is. Let’s give that perspective to people who enjoy it and yeah, probably could use a little joy in their life,” Cena continued.
Cena also discussed Roman Reigns, who he described as the face of the franchise and the greatest of all time.
“I love that Roman Reigns did it his own way. He’s made himself exclusive and in doing so he’s brought like eight people with him,” Cena added. “He’s allowed the whole Bloodline to get over. With me, I could only help the person I was working with, when I was working with them.”
A seemingly fully-healed Ronda Rousey and her tag team partner Shayna Baszler returned on Raw last night, attacking Raquel Rodriguez.
Rodriguez was set to defend the WWE Women’s Tag Team titles with Liv Morgan against Chelsea Green and Sonya Deville but Morgan was injured and not cleared to compete. Instead, Rodriguez took on Green in a one-on-one match, which she won.
As Rodriguez celebrated at the top of the stage, Rousey came in flying, followed by Baszler. The pair beat down the champion and told her that they would continue their beatings every week until they get their title match, with or without her partner.
Rousey had a fractured arm and was very limited in her appearances for the past few months. She did participate at WrestleMania in the fatal four-way tag team match and submitted Shotzi with an armbar, the only thing she did in the match.
Smackdown last Friday on FOX drew 2,149,000 viewers, up 90,000 viewers from the previous broadcast. This was the second least-watched Smackdown of 2023 going up against the popular NBA and NHL playoffs. The show drew a 0.56 rating and still topped the chart among the 18-49 demo on network television. In the overnight numbers, Smackdown did 2,088,000 viewers in the first hour and 2,048,000 viewers in the second. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
Becky Lynch will be taking on Trish Stratus and we don’t have to wait long for the match to happen as WWE announced that it will take place at Night of Champions in Jeddah.
A contract signing is set for next week’s Raw to make the match official, so far the only women’s match announced for the Saudi Arabia show. At least two more women matches should be taking place, with the Raw and Smackdown Women’s titles being defended.
Lynch has already made previous trips to Saudi in 2021 and 2022. This will be Trish Stratus’ first trip to the region. Lynch defeated Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair at Crown Jewel in 2021 and then beat Lita at Elimination Chamber 2022, retaining her titles on both occasions.
Mustafa Ali was the winner of the battle royal last night on Raw and became the #1 contender for Gunther’s Intercontinental title.
Ali will now get his shot at the upcoming Night of Champions premium live event live from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on May 27.
The former leader of Retribution was in the final four with Riddle, Ricochet, and Bronson Reed. Riddle was taken out by Imperium from the outside while Ali then eliminated both Ricochet and Reed with a missile dropkick while Ricochet was on Reed’s shoulders.
It was definitely a surprise win but the crowd reacted positively for the result as fireworks went off in celebration.
Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn are out first and are excited to be facing Solo Sikoa and Roman Reigns at the Night of Champions.
The Judgement Day came out Kevin was ready to fight them before they even said anything. They said good luck against the Bloodline and if you win there will be a whole line of Superstars waiting for you and the line starts here.
A short fight started after a sucker punch to both Sami and Kevin until Sami comes back in the ring with a chair and clears the ring.
Shinsuke Nakamura VS. The Miz
After the Miz poked Nakamura in the eye and hit a Skull Crushing Finale’, Nakamura gets his foot on the rope and eventually landed the Kinshasa Kick for the win.
Winner: Shinsuke Nakamura
Adam Pearce is in his office rubbing his head as Chelsea Green and Sonya Deville are yelling and Raquel Rodriguez is also arguing with them. It was reported that Liv Morgan was injured on Smackdown, and they cannot defend the tag team titles tonight.
Corey Graves interviews Seth “Freakin” Rollins, they talked about Seth first winning the NXT championship to the night he turned on the Shield.
Gunther is out and announces a Battle Royal to determine who faces him at the Night of Champions for the Intercontinental Championship.
Battle royal for #1 contendership for the Intercontinental title
Ricochet was the first one out for the battle royal. Apollo Crews, Matt Riddle, Bronson Reed, Otis, The Viking Raiders, Elias, Tozawa who was eliminated first, Baron Corbin who was eliminated second, Mansoor, Mace, Chad Gable, Dexter Lumis, Mustafa Ali, Johnny Gargano, JD McDonaugh, Dolph Ziggler, Von Wagner, Humberto, Cedric Alexander, Xion Quinn, Shelton Benjamin, Riddick Moss
After Wagner eliminated Ziggler and McDonaugh who was just eliminated by Ziggler, McDonaugh attacked Ziggler.
Ali and Ricochet teamed up to get Reed over the top rope, but he never fell to the floor, Ricochet tried a few dropkicks, but Reed held on. Ricochet goes for another maneuver off the second rope, but Reed catches him and puts Ricochet on his shoulders at which time Ali recovers and flies with a dropkick and knocks both off the apron and gets the win.
Winner and will face Gunther for the Intercontinental Championship at Night of Champions: Mustafa Ali
The Man Becky Lynch is out next. Becky thanked Trish for giving evil a name and face and she is going to take her out at Night of Champions.
Rhea Ripley is interviewed, and Natalya comes out and Rhea said if you ever interrupt me again, I will not boost your career, I will end it.
Alpha Academy with Maxine were in the locker room arguing about losing the battle royal and Mustafa Ali came in and told them they needed to start thinking positively for good things to happen. Gunther then told him he was going to go halfway around the world to get the beating of his life and come back with a loss. Mustafa then said he feels bad for him for having to come back embarrassed after he takes his Intercontinental Championship at Night of Champions
Xavier Woods VS. Dominik Mysterio
Rhea Ripley hit Woods while outside and throws him back in the ring and Dominik rolls Woods up for the pin.
Winner: Dominik Mysterio
Indus Sher with Jinder Mahal VS. Drake Thompson and ??
They didn’t spend much time talking about the local talent that was destroyed by Veer and Sanga.
Winners: Indus Sher
Owens and Zayn are in the back talking and Imperium walked up, and Gunther told them he will not put up with the disrespect they showed his men last week and Owens said then we will fight you all next week, we can’t fight you tonight because we already have a match but next week we fight.
The American Nightmare Cody Rhodes is out to the ring next. Cody says Brock Lesnar is better than 99.99% of the wrestlers but at Backlash he wasn’t better than him. Cody says he will beat Brock again because he is no longer the next big thing, he is just in his way.
Zoey Stark was trying to talk to Nikki Cross and Candace LeRae comes in and tells her not to call Cross a freak and challenged her to a match.
Raquel Rodriguez VS. Chelsea Green
Raquel destroys Chelsea with her Chingona Bomb finisher for the win.
Winner: Raquel Rodriguez
While Rodriguez stands triumphant on the stage holding her tag title with one arm, she is kicked in the side by Ronda Rousey and attacked by Rousey and Shayna Baszler. Rousey grabbed her hair and said what are you supposed to do with that title? Defend it. We are tired of waiting and so with or without your partner you will get this same beatdown every week until we get our shot at those tag titles. Shayna then gave her a kick.
We see Imperium and they look at each other then nod their heads in agreement and Gunther shakes a hand from a figure off screen who turns out to be Paul Heyman.
A video of Apollo Crews was shown, and he is happy to be back, and his time is now.
Finn Balor & Damian Priest VS. Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn
During the match, Rhea Ripley and Dominik come to ringside they are only there for a short time before the referee throws them out. As they make their way to the back Dominik is jumped by Xavier Woods who is still upset about the way their match ended tonight. As they fight out of sight, Paul Heyman comes out from the back.
Zayn has been laid out at ringside for several minutes. But finally makes it back to the apron. Zayn hits the Helluva kick on Balor and Imperium is up on the apron at the pin attempt, Owens goes out and shoves Gunther but receives a chokeslam onto the corner of the ring apron from Priest. Zayn flies over the top rope and takes out Priest.
Back in the ring, Zayn sets up Balor for another Helluva Kick but is held by Gunther as the referee was busy trying to get Ludwig Kaiser out of the ring. Balor took advantage with a dropkick into the corner and then hit the coup de grace for the win.
Dave Bautista has booked another movie titled The Killer’s Game, an action comedy flick which Lionsgate has just purchased the worldwide rights for.
Directed by JJ Perry and based on Jay Bonansinga’s book, the movie follows a veteran assassin named Joe Flood, played by Bautista, who is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and authorizes a kill on himself to avoid the pain that is destined to follow. The plot twist is that after he commissions the kill, he finds out that he was misdiagnosed and must then fend off the army of former colleagues trying to kill him.
The former World Heavyweight champion and future Hall of Famer will also be executive producer on the movie along with Jonathan Meisner. Scott Lambert, Jake Katofsky, and Vanessa Humphrey will serve as co-producers. Rand Ravich and Simon Kinberg wrote the film along with James Coyne who did rewrites.
Bautista is currently featured in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 where he plays the character of Drax the Destroyer.
Monday Night Raw tonight continues the build towards the Night of Champions premium live event and is headlined by a battle royal to determine the new number one contender for the Intercontinental title.
Gunther has brought over the IC title with him to Raw during the draft and he will need a challenger in Saudi Arabia. No participants have been announced yet.
The WWE Women’s Tag Team titles will be on the line tonight as well with champions Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez taking on Chelsea Green and Sonya Deville. Plus, Shinsuke Nakamura battles The Miz, and Becky Lynch and Cody Rhodes will both have in-ring segments to address Trish Stratus and Brock Lesnar respectively.
In what could be an interesting tidbit, WWE was not featured during the NBC Universal upfront event held at the Radio City Music Hall in New York today.
The only time WWE was mentioned was in a video hyping the Peacock streaming service according to Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com.
Usually WWE Superstars are featured as part of the upfronts but no one from WWE was there this year.
The upfronts are events that networks use to sell advertising for the upcoming season and this was important because WWE’s deal with NBCUniversal for Raw and NXT expires at the end of this year although the company’s deal with Peacock still have a few more years to go.
NBC Universal, just like FOX, had a one month exclusivity in April to negotiate a new deal with WWE. WWE is looking to get at least 1.5x the amount of money they got last time around for their new round of television rights.
Rainbow Riches is a famous web-based opening game created by Barcrest, a notable game designer in the betting business. The game elements a brilliant Irish subject, with different images and extra highlights that can prompt enormous successes. In this article, we’ll investigate the Rainbow Riches casino reviews and give a definite survey.
Overview of Rainbow Riches Space Game
Rainbow Riches casino is a five-reel, three-column online space game with 20 paylines. The game elements an exemplary Irish subject, with images that incorporate a leprechaun, a treasure, and a rainbow. The Rainbow Riches slots game’s soundtrack incorporates customary Irish music, which adds to the general air.
The game is accessible to play on work area and cell phones, making it open to a great many players. It has a re-visitation of player (RTP) pace of 95%, which is normal for online opening games.
Gameplay and Elements
Rainbow Riches demo elements different extra highlights that can prompt huge successes. Here are a portion of the game’s primary highlights:
Wild Images
The game’s wild image is the gold coin, which can fill in for some other image with the exception of the disperse and extra images.
Dissipate Images
The disperse image is the leprechaun, and landing at least three of these images will set off the game’s Street to Wealth reward highlight.
Street to Wealth Reward at Rainbow Riches casino
In this reward highlight, players turn a wheel to move along a way that prompts a likely award of up to 500x the first wagered.
Wishing Great Reward
This reward highlight is set off via landing at least three wishing great images. Players can choose one of the wells to uncover an award.
Treasures Reward
Landing three treasures images will set off this reward highlight. Players will see a wheel turning with different awards on deal, and whichever prize the wheel lands on is the one that the player wins.
Review of Rainbow Riches slots game
Rainbow Riches is a tomfoolery and connecting with online space game that is famous among players. Here are a portion of the game’s upsides and downsides Masters Rainbow Riches online:
The game elements an exemplary Irish subject, with brilliant images and conventional Irish music that makes a pleasant air.
Rainbow Riches casino has a few extra elements that can prompt enormous successes, including the Way to Wealth reward and the Treasures reward.
The game is accessible to play on both work area and cell phones, making it open to many players.
Rainbow Riches free Cons:
The game’s RTP pace of 95% is normal for online space games, so players shouldn’t anticipate winning enormous each time they play Rainbow Riches slot.
The game’s designs and activitys are to some degree dated contrasted with fresher web-based space games.
The game’s extra elements can be hard to set off, which might be disappointing for certain players.
By and large, Rainbow Riches is a pleasant web-based opening game with an exemplary Irish subject and a few extra highlights that can prompt huge successes. While the game’s designs and livelinesss might be to some degree dated, it stays a famous decision among players.
WWE Hall of Famer “Superstar” Billy Graham is on life support, with his wife Valerie writing on Facebook this morning that doctors wanted to remove him from life support but she did not give them permission to do so.
Last week Graham underwent emergency surgery after an organ failure and infection.
“They did a nuclear test today that showed infection in the left hip and they said if we want to try and save his life they will have to go in and remove all of the old hardware and clean out the bone and surrounding tissue,” Valerie wrote on May 9. “It’s very extensive and you can imagine the risk involved.”
But things turned for the worse for the 79-year-old Graham.
“Please urgent prayers needed for my husband,” Valerie added today. “The doctors wanted to remove him from life support tonight, I refused. He’s a fighter and his will is strong even if his body isn’t. God is our hope.”
Wade Keller of the Pro Wrestling Torch is reporting that the new AEW television deal with Warner Bros. Discovery which will be announced on Wednesday is worth around $240 million per year on a five year deal, giving AEW around $1.2 billion over the course of the deal.
That figure per year will include all of AEW programming, Dynamite, Rampage, and a new Saturday night show titled Collision. The deal will also include all the AEW library to be part of Max, formerly known as HBO Max, when the service launches this month. It’s unknown if AEW pay-per-views will be on Bleacher Report only moving forward at this point or streaming on Max.
If the $240 million figure is indeed correct, that would result in a massive, massive increase over the current TV rights and will allow AEW to be more competitive when it comes to securing talent in the future. Just for comparison reasons, WWE got just over $200 million for the WWE Network on Peacock, around $250 million for Raw from NBCUniversal, and $205 million from FOX for Smackdown per year.
The creation of the Saturday night show will also require AEW to go on the road twice – on Wednesday and Saturday. The plan is for Dynamite and Rampage to tape together and Collision and ROH to tape together. ROH is not part of any of the new television deal and will remain airing on ROH’s HonorClub streaming service.
AEW is bringing back the Fan Fest for the Double or Nothing pay-per-view weekend in Las Vegas.
The Fan Fest will take place on Saturday, May 27 at the MGM Grand Garden Conference Center starting at 10AM ET. No information has been released regarding what will be available but tickets are on sale now for $60 at AXS.COM.
AEW will have Dynamite and Rampage tapings on Wednesday, May 24 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena as well before moving across the road to the T-Mobile Arena for the Double or Nothing pay-per-view on Sunday, May 28.
Tickets for Double or Nothing remain available as only around 6,900 tickets have been sold so far with the arena configured to host less than 10,000 fans. Last year AEW sold out the pay-per-view pretty much on the first day of sales with 14,500 in attendance.
In an interview with Bill Apter for Sportskeeda at the 80’s Wrestling Con, WWE Hall of Famer Bob Orton revealed some not-so-good news about his son Randy.
When Apter asked Orton what’s the status of Randy, he said that doctors have advised him not to return to the ring but nonetheless, Orton is training.
“He’s training, so we’ll see what happens,” Orton said. “I don’t know if he feels like going back. If he feels ready to go back, I think he might.”
He then continued, “Then again, he’s pretty well taken care of. I don’t think he needs to and I think the doctors have told him not to.”
Orton then said that “Randy’s gonna do what Randy wants to do,” and left it at that.
Randy underwent back fusion surgery in late November of last year and has been out of action since May, with his last match being with Riddle against The Usos in a title unification match. The Viper has not appeared on WWE television ever since.
On May 16, 2017, a Twitter user by the handle @TheWWEGuy_ asked Wrestling Observer editor Dave Meltzer if he thinks Ring of Honor can ever sell out an arena with 10,000+ fans.
Cody Rhodes must have been scrolling Twitter at the right place and at the right time because 11 minutes later, Rhodes accepted the challenge.
“I’ll take that bet Dave,” Rhodes wrote. “I already gave them their biggest buyrate…put The Bucks & I on the card & 3-months to promote.”
It took just 17 minutes from the first question to the challenge accepted tweet. It did take a bit longer for the event to take place, but Cody won that bet, and how!
The event went from an ROH-backed show to a self-funded show between Cody Rhodes, The Young Bucks, and Kenny Omega but still with ROH’s blessing and promotion.
On January 10, 2018, the group announced that the show would take place on September 1 and a few months later, the Sears Center, now called the NOW Arena, in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, was chosen as the host of All In. Tickets for the show went on sale in mid-May and within 30 minutes, all tickets were gone.
Total tickets and attendance? 11,263.
All In was the preview of what eventually became All Elite Wrestling. Just a few months after All In took place, Cody Rhodes, The Young Bucks, and Kenny Omega along with Tony Khan officially launched All Elite Wrestling, and that’s just after all those involved, plus Hangman Page, turned down deals from WWE.
All In was a name owned by Ring of Honor but the spirit of All In continued as AEW produced All Out, every year during the same weekend in the same location ever since. ROH never used the name again and All In remained that one and only show that was created from a simple tweet.
Rhodes eventually left AEW and Tony Khan bought Ring of Honor and all of its intellectual property rights, and that included the name All In.
It was just a matter of time before All In made its triumphant return.
Now, five years almost to the exact date of the original All In, the event is making its grand return on August 27, 2023. Under the AEW banner, President Tony Khan announced that All In would be held at the world famous Wembley Stadium in London, England, the first event outside North America for All Elite Wrestling.
Wembley Stadium held one other wrestling show before – WWE SummerSlam – 31 years ago at the old Wembley. The announced attendance for that show was 80,355, but just like all WWE attendances, the actual number is questioned since the company always inflates their numbers.
Many fans did question if AEW can fill enough seats in a place such as Wembley Stadium. After all, that stadium holds over 90,000 fans and AEW’s highest-attended event was just over 20,000 and it only happened once and never attempted again.
The original seating chart for All In showed that a quarter of the stadium would be curtained off. But then a few weeks later, all bets were off. The powers that be at AEW opened up pretty much the majority of the stadium, removing the large set and opting for an entrance way instead, freeing up more seats.
The task was now even bigger, especially with no matches announced yet.
On May 2, on the first day of pre-sale, over 36,000 tickets were sold. On May 3, that number went over 43,000 and on May 5, the first day of general sale, it rocketed to over 60,000.
By the time August 27 rolls around, we could be looking at around 75,000 tickets sold, making the show one of the biggest wrestling events in the history of the sport.
One thing is for sure: do not bet against a show that is called All In.
TheWrap.com is reporting that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has returned to the Fast and Furious franchise and makes a cameo appearance in the post-credits scene of the Fast X movie which comes out next week.
Johnson was adamant that he would not be returning to the franchise after several behind-the-scenes issues with leading star Vin Diesel.
In late 2021, Diesel put Johnson on the spot and begged him in a video on Instagram to set aside their differences and return to the franchise to finish the story for Paul Walker. The video did not go over well with Johnson, a video which he called “manipulative” in an interview with CNN.
“Vin’s recent public post was an example of his manipulation. I didn’t like that he brought up his children in the post, as well as Paul Walker’s death. Leave them out of it. We had spoken months ago about this and came to a clear understanding,” Johnson told CNN at the time.
Johnson joined the series as Luke Hobbs in Fast Five and after a few more movies, he launched his spinoff Hobbs & Shaw, but so far only one movie was made.
Fellow former WWE champion John Cena is also part of the franchise and is featured in the latest Fast X installment again following his debut in the previous movie.
Speaking on Busted Open Radio, former AEW Women’s champion Thunder Rosa said that she really cried when she saw Zelina Vega’s entrance at Backlash in Puerto Rico last week.
Born in Tijuana, the 36-year-old said that wrestling has been great in representation lately and it’s wonderful that certain individuals have been able to represent their countries and represent their culture in positive way.
“When Zelina Vega came out I really cried,” Rosa said. “It was such a beautiful moment.”
Rosa also remembered when she first met Vega during a STARDOM run in 2015 and she was struggling, but lat week it was full circle for her with her people in Puerto Rico.
“Even though she didn’t win the title, she won even more than that,” Rosa continued.
The former champ however admitted that while she has wrestled in Mexico many times over the years, she’s doubtful she would ever get the chance for such a powerful moment as Vega had in Puerto Rico.
“Every time I watch it I cry,” Rosa said. “I don’t know if I will ever get to do something as big as that.”
