Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson spent his weekend in New York mingling with UFC stars as he was part of the UFC 244: Masvidal vs Diaz show live from Madison Square Garden.
Johnson was given the task of presenting the brand-new BMF belt to the winner of the Masvidal/Diaz fight, a fight which was won by Jorge Masvidal after the doctor stopped the fight in round three.
The Rock came out to a massive pop from the MSG crowd complete with his iconic WWE theme song and the BMF belt on his shoulder. He high-fived fans along the way and hugged UFC President Dana White before he took his cageside seat.
Johnson also announced on Friday that his Seven Bucks Productions company will produce a movie on UFC legend Mark Kerr and that he would be playing the role of Kerr. Johnson said in a press conference that Kerr is onboard for the project and gave his blessing.
AEW World champion Chris Jericho is returning to New Japan Pro Wrestling for a match at Wrestle Kingdom 14 on January 5, 2020.
Jericho, in his Painmaker makeup and attire, showed up via video at the Power Struggle show after a match between Tanahashi and Ibushi vs Okada and Yoshi-Hashi and challenged Tanahashi to a match at WK 14, telling him that this would be Tanahashi’s last match. The challenge was immediately accepted by Tanahashi.
Despite being an AEW employee, Jericho has a clause in the contract where he could do dates for New Japan Pro Wrestling. He last wrestled for NJPW in June of this year at the Dominion show where he lost to Okada.
Wrestle Kingdom 14 will take place on January 4 and January 5, 2020 at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan.
In an interview with Cathy Kelley backstage after Smackdown went off the air, Renee Young and Pat McAfee discussed the chaotic situation they were thrown in just hours before the show started.
Renee said she was contacted on Thursday night saying that she might be needed on commentary or doing backstage interviews depending on how things turned out but she didn’t know for sure she would be calling the show until a few hours before. She said that it was great because there was no time to stress and you had to go out there and do what you do and everything turned out great…apart from getting kicked in the face by Sonya Deville!
McAfee said he got a text message from Triple H at 1:42PM on Friday and asked him if he could make it to Buffalo. He had just been to Waco, Texas, and then to Indianapolis, Indiana and said that Jim Irsay, the owner of the Indianapolis Colts, let him use his private jet to fly to Buffalo where he arrived an hour and a half before Smackdown started. McAfee then flew to Memphis, Tennessee to make it to CBS College Game Day! McAfee added that this was a dream come true for him and one from the bucket list.
Wrestling veteran Lance Storm announced that he is rejoining WWE as a producer once his wrestling school Storm Wrestling Academy officially closes.
“I’m really looking forward to working with such a high level of talent again,” Storm wrote in a message on Twitter.
Students from all over the world have traveled to SWA to learn the trade from the former ECW, WCW, and WWE Superstar and SWA alumni include Tyler Breeze, Emma, Peyton Royce, Oney Lorcan, Taya Valkyrie, Chelsea Green, Rachael Ellering, and many others.
Storm announced that he would be closing SWA in August of this year but said that he is not done with the wrestling industry just yet.
The 50-year-old Canadian has also worked for Impact Wrestling this year as a producer.
Over 150 WWE Superstars, production crew, and employees landed at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York at 12:21PM ET, bringing an end to an over 40-hour saga that saw the majority of those who participated in Crown Jewel getting stuck in Riyadh. The flight took 23 minutes taxiing in the middle of the night at the King Khalid International Airport and the 3:52AM planned departure was delayed a further one hour and six minutes to add some more nerves to everyone on board.
The whole ordeal started when Atlas Air flight 8185 was ready to taxi to bring everyone home following Crown Jewel but the plane was not given permission for take-off, with WWE claiming mechanical failure. Around 20 individuals from the plane then booked a different charter to try to make it to Smackdown on time as the crew had already spent six hours sitting in a plane that wasn’t moving.
Those 20 individuals, including 12 talent, managed to leave Saudi later but their flight did not land in time for Smackdown either. Vince McMahon and his executive staff got outta dodge before everyone while Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman departed on their private jet and Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair used a different private jet headed to Tampa.
The rest of the crew checked back in a hotel, some voicing their frustrations on social media, with plenty of food going around to try and elevate the obviously low morale around camp.
The same flight that was supposed to take everyone to Buffalo was then changed to land at JFK since there was no point in going to Buffalo for Smackdown. JFK, being a much larger airport, gave everyone a better opportunity to connect to other flights to go home, although many will now remain in New York for Raw on Monday as the show is from Uniondale.
The non-stop flight aboard the Boeing 747-400 took 14 hours and 23 minutes and traveled 6,875 miles.
A very different Smackdown on FOX, led by NXT, pulled in 2,543,000 viewers which is way more than the 888,000 the show did last week on FS1. Taking last week’s show away, Smackdown did 102,000 viewers more than the October 18 episode.
The show started with 2,605,000 viewers in hour one as curiosity certainly drove more eyeballs to the show while the second hour did 2,481,000 viewers.
Smackdown was #1 in the 18-34 and 18-49 demographic for the night but only beat The CW in total viewership among the five networks. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
Tensions ran high on this episode of Total Divas as newcomer Ronda Rousey insulted every member of the WWE locker room by committing the ultimate sin in wrestling, calling it fake!
Understandably, Rousey angered all of the Divas. This was especially true because Ronda’s anti-wrestling tirades were broadcast all over the internet. I also think that the other women in the locker room felt slighted because they have done everything possible to make sure that Ronda was accepted by fans, and to have her insult them was seen as the ultimate betrayal.
However, Rousey claimed that her rudeness was only used as a means of turning herself into a bad guy. So, Ronda’s husband, Travis, said that she should invite her fellow Divas over to their house for a party in order to get to know the real Ronda. We will have to wait until next week to see how it goes.
Meanwhile, WWE Superstar Carmella was going through some drama of her own. Lately, Carmella has been teaming with WWE Superstar R-Truth to create a comedic act which centers around his winning and losing the 24/7 Championship. Truth is also well known for his rapping, and thought that Carmella should add her own beats to his rap. So, she enlisted the help of her friend Naomi to provide a recording studio for her to record in, and moral support for her while she recorded.
However, it quickly became clear that Naomi was a much more confident performer than Carmella, so Truth asked Naomi if she could perform instead. When Carmella heard this she was upset and stormed out of the studio. Naomi talked her into coming back and she ended up being great.
Meanwhile, Sonya Deville continues to have drama with her girlfriend Arianna. Ever since the two got back together there has been increased pressure on them to move in together. The only problem is that Arianna wants to live in Tampa while Sonya doesn’t want to move. Sonya even looked at homes in Tampa with Arianna and her mom. Sonya was all set to move but a conversation with her friend Liv Morgan had her reconsidering everything. I personally think that Liv should have minded her own business, but I guess the point is moot.
All of this, plus Nia Jax’s knee injury should add spice to next week’s episode of Total Divas.
NXT Superstars saved the day last night on Smackdown with many of them appearing throughout the broadcast to fill the void left by the Superstars who were stuck in Saudi Arabia while the show was on the air.
The NXT crew got the call hours before to pack their bags and head to the airport for a chartered flight to Buffalo, New York, when it was obvious that no one, not even those who left early on a different flight from Riyadh, were going to make it in time.
John Pollock of POST Wrestling reported that the flight carrying the NXT crew did not land in Buffalo until 7:55PM, five minutes before Smackdown went live and the KeyBank Center is 12 miles away from the airport, around a 20 minute drive. Pollock added that the NXT crew had a police escort all the way to the building to avoid getting stuck in traffic and even with the police leading the way, they arrived inside the arena just barely before Shayna Baszler had to hit her cue to attack Banks, Cross, and Bayley.
Those who appeared were Keith Lee, Matt Riddle, NXT Women’s champion Shayna Baszler, Tommaso Ciampa, Bianca Belair, Tegan Nox, Rhea Ripley, Dakota Kai, NXT Cruiserweight Champion Lio Rush, NXT North American champion Roderick Strong, Isaiah “Swerve” Scott, Raul Mendoza, and NXT champion Adam Cole.
Former Smackdown commentator Tom Phillips led the broadcast booth accompanied by Renee Young and Aiden English before English was replaced by Pat McAfee.
Triple H and Shawn Michaels, who did not go to Saudi Arabia, appeared on camera as well and Triple H led the NXT-heavy show backstage with Vince McMahon, who also managed to get out before everyone else, basically running the show as usual.
Smackdown ended with Triple H cutting a promo in the middle of the ring with the NXT Superstars surrounding him, promoting the Survivor Series pay-per-view saying that with this invasion, NXT has fired the first shot. “This is our army, this is our fight, this is our ring, we are NXT,” Triple H concluded.
Last night, before the Atlas Air 8185 departed Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for JFK Airport in New York, the charter company contracted to take WWE Superstars to and from Saudi, Atlas Air, issued a statement regarding the delay that kept the crew in Saudi for way more hours than they would have liked.
“A chartered WWE passenger flight operated by Atlas Air is currently delayed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia due to a mechanical issue. The flight was scheduled to depart at 0300 local time on November 1. Our top priority is always to ensure our passengers arrive safely and on time at their destination,” the statement read. “The aircraft is being repaired and will be inspected and certified before returning to service to transport our passengers to their final destination. We regret that operational disruptions delayed the flight and apologize to our passengers who were inconvenienced.”
The mechanical issues are said to be not the real reason why everyone is delayed and a much more bigger issue, a disagreement between the Saudi government and WWE, is the reason for all the delays.
Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman were the only ones who appeared at both Crown Jewel and Smackdown on FOX last night after they managed to get out of the country on Lesnar’s private jet before anyone, thus avoiding all the problems that cropped up.
The duo kicked off Smackdown with Heyman replaying the whole Brock vs Cain match from Crown Jewel and the attack by Rey Mysterio following the ending of the match. Heyman said that just how they served Cain as the “sacrificial piñata,” Lesnar now wants Rey Mysterio sacrificed.
Heyman said that he was told that Brock cannot come to Raw to hunt for his prey because Smackdown Superstars are contracted to FOX and Raw Superstars are contracted by USA Network. But this was Brock Lesnar, the WWE champion, and he will do whatever he wants because no one will be able to do anything about it.
Heyman then announced that as of now, Lesnar quits Friday Night Smackdown and on Monday, he will be appearing on Monday Night Raw to go after Rey Mysterio.
The situation is that both the WWE and Universal championships are currently owned by Smackdown Superstars so one of them will be heading back to Raw. At this point it looks like Lesnar will be the one switching, taking the WWE title with him while The Fiend Bray Wyatt remains on Smackdown with the Universal title.
The over 150 WWE Superstars, production crew, and employees are safely out of Saudi Arabian airspace and flying over Europe at time of this writing.
The chartered Atlas Air 8185 from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia left for John F. Kennedy Airport in New York at 4:58AM local time, an hour and six minutes late than its scheduled time of departure. It is now expected that the flight will land at 9:54AM ET.
This is a non-stop flight and according to FlightAware it’s going to take 11 hours and 57 minutes with the WWE crew now able to relax having the massive Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet all to themselves.
This has been one hell of a few days for everyone involved in Crown Jewel with certain WWE Superstars even publicly complaining on social media about their long delay.
Brock Lesnar, who left Saudi Arabia yesterday in time in his private jet, will be appearing on Smackdown tonight on FOX as WWE scrambles to compile a two-hour broadcast with the majority of its stars stranded.
Lesnar successfully defeated Cain Velasquez last night at Crown Jewel in the opening match of the night and is one of the few who managed to make it out of Saudi. Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair shared the same private jet and also landed in Tampa already while Vince McMahon and some of his staff used another private jet to depart Saudi.
Meanwhile, the remaining Superstars, crew, and employees, amounting to over 150, are still in the Kingdom and their chartered flight is set to leave Saudi at 3:52AM local time with an estimated time of arrival of 9:40AM ET tomorrow.
The flight, operated by Atlas Air, uses a 747-400 jumbo jet and it is now expected to land at JFK airport in New York. The non-stop flight is set for nearly 13 hours. The original Atlas Air 8185 was scheduled to land in Buffalo in time for Smackdown.
20 other personnel, including several top talent, left on a different chartered flight in hopes of making it to Smackdown tonight but that flight was also delayed and will only land after the show is over.
WWE will be holding a WrestleMania On-Sale Party on Wednesday, November 13 at 5:30PM at Ford Thunder Alley at the Amelie Arena.
The WrestleMania On-Sale Party will feature WWE Superstar appearances, live in-ring matches featuring NXT Superstars, merchandise, games and an exclusive opportunity for fans to purchase their WrestleMania 36 tickets on-site before they become available to the general public on Friday, November 15 at 10AM through Ticketmaster.
The party is free, family-friendly and open to the public. Space is limited, so all guests are required to register online in advance at www.wrestlemaniatampabay.com.
WWE Superstars scheduled to appear include Nia Jax, Ruby Riott, Alicia Fox, WWE Legend The Boogeyman and WWE Hall of Famers Kurt Angle, Mark Henry, Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat and Jimmy Hart.
Gates for the WrestleMania On-Sale Party will open at 4:30PM and the event will run from 5:30PM to 8PM. Parking is available in the surrounding parking garages and is subject to City of Tampa hourly week-night rates. WrestleMania 36 tickets will be available for purchase beginning at 5PM Bags larger than 12x12x12 inches, backpacks or wrapped packages are not permitted.
Perhaps the biggest story out of this whole Saudi Arabia travel problem is that WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon got out of the country leaving all the Superstars, crew, and employees stuck behind.
McMahon left when the problem was already there and left hours before the rest of the nearly 200 crew onboard the 747 had to disembark and head back to a hotel when it became clear that they would not be leaving the country. The talent spent nearly six hours sitting in the plane as they awaited permission for take-off.
It’s not clear on which aircraft McMahon left but the WWE business jet, with tail number N247WE, cannot be tracked online. Brock Lesnar had his own private jet take him to Saudi and back and Hogan also left. Lesnar took Hogan and Flair with him from Iceland after their jet became unusable following a hard landing.
Vince is also rumored to have been part of the original problem, which if true, makes his departure before the rest of the talent look even more messed up.
The official Twitter account of the Saudi General Sports Authority also had no mention whatsoever of Crown Jewel yesterday, an interesting change since for past events it posted photos during the shows and videos from the Superstars’ arrival to the country up until their departure.
With the majority of the WWE roster and production crew stuck in either Saudi Arabia or onboard a plane on the way to Buffalo, Smackdown on FOX tonight will run as usual at 8PM ET and WWE is planning some “additional surprises” with the company saying that the show must go on.
Superstars such as Daniel Bryan, The Miz, and the women’s division didn’t fly to Saudi Arabia so they will certainly be part of tonight’s broadcast but the WWE statement said that they’re planning surprises to fill the two-hour broadcast. The NXT roster did not travel to Saudi so they could be used in the broadcast if needed to fill in the holes.
Three matches were advertised for tonight including The Revival defending the Smackdown Tag Team titles against The New Day, Roman Reigns vs King Corbin, and a six-woman tag team match with Nikki Cross, Carmella, and Dana Brooke versus Bayley, Mandy Rose, and Sonya Deville. The women are all there but it’s not known if that match will go ahead and obviously the other matches will not happen as all four are still stuck in travel hell. A MizTV segment with the new WWE Universal champion Bray Wyatt was also on the card but while Miz is there, Wyatt is not.
This is the third show that will be affected by travel issues, with the first being the Iceland volcano eruption which paralyzed all of Europe from air travel and the snow blizzard in Connecticut that canceled Raw the day after the Royal Rumble in 2015.
WWE issued a statement regarding their travel woes from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, blaming several aircraft problems including mechanical issues.
The statement said that more than 175 Superstars, production crew, and employees boarded the Atlas Air flight 8185 to Buffalo but after the door closed, passengers sat on the tarmac for more than six hours. The real story might not be the one that WWE is promoting as according to industry insiders, there was nothing wrong with the aircraft and it was more of permission for take-off due to a problem that no one seems to be wanting to talk about.
While a group of around 20 WWE Superstars arranged their own charter in order to make it back to the United States in time for the live Smackdown on FOX, that charter flight will also not make it back in time and will only land after the broadcast on FOX ends.
The remainder of WWE Superstars, staff and crew will depart on a charter set to take off Saudi Arabia later tonight. Everyone checked back in a hotel, with some Superstars voicing their frustration on Twitter for getting stuck in Saudi Arabia.
Fightful Wrestling reported yesterday night that the chartered flight that contained the majority of WWE Superstars and crew never left Saudi Arabia following Crown Jewel after several delays on the tarmac.
The reason for the delay was never announced to the talent and there were growing concerns that it was not something which was plane-related. Sean Sapp of Fightful continued saying that there were rumors that Vince McMahon got into some kind of disagreement which was the reason why the plane was never allowed to leave.
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer added that “nobody can say anything” and that the company had a problem in Saudi where only around 20 out of the whole contingent were allowed to leave. Among those who left already are Vince McMahon, Hulk Hogan, and Brock Lesnar, who had their own private jets.
The WWE crew were supposed to arrive in Buffalo, New York for tonight’s Smackdown but at this point it’s unclear if they are even going to make it in time due to the long 12-hour non-stop flight.
According to live flight tracking, there was one plane scheduled from Riyadh airport to Buffalo and it’s Atlas Air 8185, a Boeing 747-400 jet. Atlas is the same charter company that WWE used in the past and it’s still listed as “taxing for takeoff” and is not airborne.
The last time WWE had a travel problem was for Monday Night Raw years ago when the volcano eruption in Iceland created a European-wide problem for air travel and those on the European tour were stuck there.
WWE stocks took one hell of a smackdown yesterday as Wall Street was not impressed at all with the Q3 2019 numbers.
Investors punished WWE during the trading day, driving the stock 15.65% lower, shaving $10.40 off its price to end the day at $56.
While the Q3 2019 financial results contained mainly bad news, one of the major reasons for the downfall was WWE admitting that it’s having trouble closing a new television deal in the Middle East despite a major push in the area. WWE co-President George Barrios said that they were hoping that the deal would be finalized but it wasn’t and he also failed to provide details of the new TV deals in the United Kingdom and Latin America. In the UK, WWE ditched their three-decade partner Sky to move with BT Sports but no financial terms were ever revealed with the deal kicking off in Janury 2020.
Another lucrative television deal in India is also taking longer than expected to be closed although an announcement is said to be coming before the end of 2019.
The latest financial results also had more troubling news in terms of live event attendance which had been diving for the past several quarters as well as the decline in WWE Network numbers.
WWE pulled a major title change at the conclusion of the Crown Jewel pay-per-view as The Fiend Bray Wyatt defeated Seth Rollins in a falls count anywhere match to become the new Universal champion.
This was Wyatt’s second attempt at getting the title after his first one at Hell In A Cell ended in a very controversial fashion, a decision which was universally panned by fans and critics. WWE promised that this time around, there will be a winner as the match cannot be stopped for any reason whatsoever.
Rollins delivered eight or nine Curb Stomps to Wyatt at the top of the stage and then super kicked him off the platform as Wyatt fell down with the area exploding. After Rollins went down the stage to cover Wyatt, another explosion happened which hit Rollins in the face and The Fiend rose from the dead, hit the Mandible Claw and a Sister Abigail and covered Rollins for the win. The whole match took place under the annoying red lights.
It will be interesting to see what happens with Wyatt as he is part of the Smackdown roster and the WWE Universal title was for Monday Night Raw. Wyatt will be a guest of Miz TV tomorrow on Smackdown on FOX.
NXT did a total of 580,000 viewers for last night’s episode on USA Network, down 118,000 viewers from last week’s show. NXT was #32 in the top 50 cable chart among the 18-49 demographic. The gap between the two shows was of 179,000 viewers, down from 265,000 viewers of last week. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
