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LAX members Santana and Ortiz end their Impact journey with final run in Mexico City

By
Colin Vassallo
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Former Impact Tag Team champions LAX – the tag team of Santana and Ortiz – wrestled their final two matches with the company during the Mexico City Impact tapings over Thursday and Friday.

The two wrestled the new Impact Tag champs The North on Thursday’s tapings and then took on Rich Swann and Willie Mack for their final match on Friday’s tapings.

“Last night we wrestled our final match with @impactwrestling. Our appreciation and gratitude for every single person there who had a hand in helping us get to this point, is absolutely endless,” Santana wrote on Twitter afterward. “THANK YOU for the opportunity to show the world our passion and commitment to this business. And most of all, for the opportunity to represent our people and culture on a big stage. We are forever grateful. #ThankYouIMPACT”

News came out after Slammiversary that LAX were done with the company along with Johnny Impact. The former four-time Tag Team champions are free agents at the moment with both WWE and AEW hot on their heels.

NXT announcement and move to USA Network expected soon

By
Colin Vassallo
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The NXT to FS1 saga had a huge turn this week as multiple industry insiders including The Wrestling Observer and PWInsider are now reporting that the rights for the show have been “poached” by USA Network with an announcement coming very, very soon.

WWE and FOX were in negotiations to bring the yellow brand to FS1 starting in October on Wednesday nights at 8PM, a time slot which goes head-to-head with AEW’s new weekly show on TNT. But with FS1 contractually obligated to air certain sports shows on that day during the same time on some weeks during the year, it now looks like USA Network will be the new home of NXT. USA Network is also in more homes than FS1 which gives the brand a bigger reach so to speak.

PWInsider is also reporting that there are rumors that the show might get a start date of September 11, giving WWE a head start on the new Wednesday night “war” with AEW which kicks off their show on October 2. Moving NXT from the Network to cable and in direct competition with AEW means that the show will have to go live every week and expand to two hours rather than the one hour time slot they currently have.

PWInsider adds that NXT staff were made aware of the changes that are coming and told to start preparing for a longer show. Mike Johnson, who wrote the report, said that there are people in the company who say that the deal is pretty much done while others are more cautious about it.

USA Network paid $1.325 billion to keep Monday Night Raw on the network last year in a new five-year deal. If NXT does indeed move to USA, the company will obviously be paying more money for two hours of original content every week.

Teal Piper signs for WOW-Women of Wrestling

By
Colin Vassallo
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WOW-Women of Wrestling today announced that Teal Piper, the daughter of the late WWE Hall of Famer Rowdy Roddy Piper has signed with the promotion and will make her debut during their September 18 and 19 live events in Los Angeles at the Belasco Theater.

Piper is now doing wrestling training at the WOW training center in Long Beach, California, under the guidance of Selina Majors, the former professional wrestler who used to be known as Bambi.

“Wrestling has always been a part of me, and while no one can ever replace my dad, I hope to make sure no one ever forgets him,” Teal Piper said in the press release.

“WOW is proud to welcome Teal on board as the newest member of our family of Superheroes,” Buss said. “Her father, Roddy, left an indelible mark not only on wrestling, but on countless fans across the world. His spirit is alive and well within her, and the drive she has shown during her training sessions has been truly incredible to watch. WOW is honored to join Teal on her journey, as she pays tribute to Roddy’s legacy while blazing a new trail that is entirely her own.”

WOW returns for its second season on a new night and time, premiering Saturday, September 7 at 8PM on AXS TV.

Teal Piper will be part of the Casino Battle Royale at the upcoming AEW All Out pay-per-view on August 31 where she will have a shot at becoming one of the contenders for the vacant AEW Women’s title.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson gets his second wax statue at Madame Tussauds

By
Colin Vassallo
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Dwayne Johnson has new, life-like wax statues installed at two Madame Tussauds locations – permanently in London, England and one traveling around the world starting with Beijing, China.

Several years ago, multiple Madame Tussauds locations had his wax statues bearing the WWE-version of The Rock but these new ones reflect more the Hollywood action movie star Dwayne Johnson.

“A very cool honor to have multiple Dwayne Johnsons have a presence at the world renowned Madame Tussauds London. One sexy DJ will have full time residency in London, while the other sexy DJ will travel Asia and the world, starting at Madame Tussauds Beijing,” Johnson wrote in a post on Instagram.

“So I invite you all to come hang out with me, take some fun selfies, raise a glass and toast to hard work, gratitude and the words I NEVER hear when people meet me for the first time, I thought you’d be bigger, Rock!? Thanks again, Madame Tussauds. Cool honor.”

Edge says he can have one more match if WWE medical clears him

By
Colin Vassallo
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During the latest Edge & Christian Pod of Awesomeness episode, WWE Hall of Famer Edge said that he truly believes he can have one more good match, days after he delivered a spear for the first time in a WWE ring since his 2011 retirement.

Edge explained that he found out that he would be doing the segment with Elias just 15 minutes before the show, keeping the whole thing a secret. While this was his first spear in the ring, the Rated R Superstar said that he does his own stunts in TV shows so he delivered a couple of spears before so he was okay doing it.

“To be perfectly honest, I think I could do a match tomorrow. I might be blown up but I’d be okay,” Edge told Christian and his listeners. But he said he knows that WWE medical staff would never clear him considering his neck issues. “It is what it is, right?”

The former multi-time champion said that he has learned a lot more about his injury, his neck, and what his limitations are and said that hitting a spear isn’t one of the limitations. A doctor also told him that he can have a healthy neck within five years in addition to stem cell treatments. Speaking of injuries, you should check out Sports Technology Labs’ liquid Ostarine which helps individuals and organizations engaged in medical research.

“Just from the stuff I’ve experienced in the last eight years and the things I’ve done physically, it’s like… ‘I could pull off one!’ I’m not saying I can go back and do a year’s worth,” he added, certainly shutting off the door for a full-time return.

King of the Ring 2019 tournament bracket revealed

By
Colin Vassallo
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The bracket for the King of the Ring tournament was revealed by WWE yesterday. The tournament kicks off this coming Monday night on Raw.

The left side of the bracket has Cesaro vs Samoa Joe meeting the winner of Ricochet vs Drew McIntyre and Cedric Alexander vs Sami Zayn meeting the winner of The Miz vs Baron Corbin.

Over at the right side, it’s Kevin Owens vs Elias meeting the winner of Ali vs Buddy Murphy and the winner of Chad Gable vs Shelton Benjamin moving on to take on whoever advances from Apollo Crews vs Andrade.

The semi-finals of the tournament will take place during the September 9 and 10 episodes of Raw and Smackdown at Madison Square Garden while the final match is at the Clash of Champions pay-per-view on September 15.

Goldberg talks about his “perfect storm of crappiness” match against The Undertaker

By
Colin Vassallo
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Appearing on the ESPN 97.5 radio show The Hall of Fame with Booker T and Brad Gilmore, former Universal champion Bill Goldberg discussed the match he had with The Undertaker at Super ShowDown in Saudi Arabia.

Goldberg said he’s not there to make any excuses and the match was the “perfect storm of crappiness” for him. The reason why he took the match in the first place was because he labeled it as the opportunity of a lifetime to wrestle the Undertaker, someone who he never crossed paths with.

He admitted that going into the match, there were two things he could have done…either get in really good shape or try to get as big as possible so he doesn’t look that old. So he chose to get in good shape and lose weight.

Goldberg said that 50% of the time that he did that ring post spot which knocked him out always ended up bad for him. “That’s a spot that a couple of the bookers came up to me and said…well, we called it!”

You can hear the whole story below.

Lucha Libre AAA moves their Madison Square Garden show to the Hulu Theater

By
Colin Vassallo
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AAA’s Invading NY show on September 15 at Madison Square Garden has been moved to the much smaller Hulu Theater. The Hulu Theater is located within Madison Square Garden and it seats up to 5,600 people.

The decision to move the show was simply because of lack of ticket sales. The Garden seats up to 20,000 people and AAA were way behind that number with one month to go. The fact that they moved to a 5,000-seater space pretty much sums up the state of ticket sales.

AAA were looking to become the second non-WWE promotion to hold a wrestling show at Madison Square Garden after ROH/NJPW held their G1 Climax show during WrestleMania 35 weekend. WWE did not hold any shows at MSG that weekend and when the news came out that the Barclays Center was going to be hosting all the four WWE live events during Mania weekend, ROH and NJPW managed to secure MSG after the handshake exclusive agreement between WWE and MSG fell apart. The G1 Climax show on the eve of WrestleMania was sold out.

Lucha Libre AAA also has another show titled Invading LA at The Forum in Inglewood, California on October 13 and that show is also doing very bad in terms of ticket sales.

Boston and Philly AEW on TNT shows sold out

By
Colin Vassallo
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Ticket demand for week two and three of AEW on TNT were just as heavy as week one and pay-per-view shows. Earlier today, tickets for the AEW shows at The Agganis Arena in Boston and The Liacouras Center in Philadelphia went on sale, with thousands of people flocking the two different ticket websites to get tickets.

Ticketmaster, which was handling the Boston show, showed over 2,000 people in queue just a few minutes after tickets officially went on sale and the opportunity to get a crack at tickets came after 51 minutes of wait time. By that time, only five sections were available for purchase and before even clicking on a seat, most of them were gone too. Typical of Ticketmaster, prices were jacked up, with some prices going up to $1,200 due to the popular demand of the show.

Evenue handled the Philly show and we managed to get the possibility to buy tickets after 10 minutes of waiting, although only upper level seats were left. Unlike Ticketmaster, the ticket processor did not increase the price based on popularity of the show and they remained the same throughout.

Both shows eventually sold out after an hour or so. It will be interesting to see how many tickets pop up on secondary markets for re-sale as the Washington D.C. show has a lot of them for re-sale.

Roman Reigns signs new multi-year deal with WWE

By
Colin Vassallo
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Former WWE and Universal champion Roman Reigns has penned a new deal which will keep him employed by WWE for the foreseeable future.

His signing was a foregone conclusion as Reigns is one of the faces of WWE and an important part of the company both in terms of television as well as community relations.

“WWE is my home. The @WWEUniverse is family. And I got plentttttty of big fights left,” Reigns wrote in a tweet after WWE announced his new multi-year contract.

Reigns has been employed by WWE since 2010, starting in Florida Championship Wrestling, then moving to NXT, and eventually to the main roster where he won the Heavyweight, Universal, Intercontinental, U.S., and Tag Team titles as well as the Royal Rumble.Roman

Ronda Rousey joins the cast of 9-1-1 for season three on FOX

By
Colin Vassallo
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Deadline.com is reporting that former Raw Women’s champion Ronda Rousey is joining the cast of the third season of 9-1-1, the hit first-responders drama from FOX.

Rousey will be playing the character of Lena Bosko, a stoic and fearless member of the Los Angeles Fire Department Station 136 who leaps into action to save lives when a disaster hits. Season three, which starts on September 23 at 8PM ET, will see Santa Monica beach getting hit by a tsunami.

The article by Deadline says that Rousey is currently signed to WWE although it got it wrong when it wrote that she performs weekly on Monday Night Raw. Rousey is on hiatus from the company and has not been seen since her WrestleMania 35 loss. She has said that her time away from the ring will allow her to try and start a family with her husband.

9-1-1 is created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Tim Minear, and the shows explores the high-pressure experiences of police officers, firefighters, and dispatchers who are thrust into frightening, shocking and heart-stopping situations. Angela Bassett, Peter Krause and Jennifer Love Hewitt star, with Oliver Stark, Aisha Hinds, Kenneth Choi, Rockmond Dunbar and Ryan Guzman in series-regular roles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbSzqOUCn6Q

Miz & Mrs S1 E17 rating

By
Colin Vassallo
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Episode 17 of season one of Miz & Mrs did 1,009,000 viewers on Tuesday, down 48,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)

The Fiend’s theme song climbing up the iTunes charts

By
Colin Vassallo
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It looks like The Fiend’s theme song Let Me In has been a major hit with wrestling fans as the Code Orange-performed song is currently sitting #2 in the Soundtrack chart and #25 in the overall chart on iTunes.

The Pittsburgh-based band Code Orange are behind the vocals of the “remix” of Bray Wyatt’s original song which was performed by Mark Crozer. The band consists of Eric “Shade” Balderose, Reba Meyers, Jami Morgan, Joe Goldman, and Dominic Landolina.

In an interview with Newsweek, the band – all of whom are wrestling fans – discussed how the opportunity came about to record Wyatt’s theme for his new gimmick The Fiend.

“What happened was I saw that Bray had followed us on Twitter, and we’ve been following him since a couple of years ago when our record I Am King came out and that’s around when he kicked off at the same time with his vignettes and vibe,” Jami Morgan said. “And so I just messaged him and said ‘Hey man, I think we should do something together and it makes a lot of sense’ and he hit me back.”

Morgan said that the band had no idea what the new character were going to be and after the vignettes of Firefly Fun House started airing, discussions between the band and Wyatt escalated.

“I loved the old theme and [Bray] thought it would make sense to use the old theme, but we didn’t know. We weren’t sure exactly what was going to happen,” Morgan said. “So we decided to write our own stuff and we decided to do a new version. It’s not meant to be a remix, it’s more about using the vocals, because they are awesome, and the melody and make our own song based off of that.”

The last time that WWE songs made it on iTunes charts were the songs for Shinsuke Nakamura and Bobby Roode.

Steve Austin goes one-on-one against spicy chicken wings on season finale of Hot Ones

By
Colin Vassallo
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WWE Hall of Famer Stone Cold Steve Austin was a guest on the Hot Ones YouTube series, a series by First We Feast where celebrities sit down and eat very spicy chicken wings while they discuss a variety of topics.

In the 30-minute episode, Stone Cold discussed the origin of his name, using 128 cans of beers with the Dudley Boyz and Stacey Keibler in the ring, causing $10,000 damage to a store to shoot an angle with Booker T, crapping his pants after getting slammed by the late Yokozuna, the respect for The Rock, Jake “The Snake” Roberts’ pre-match routine, working with Mike Tyson and much more.

This, of course, all happens while Austin eats one spicy chicken wing after another while the Scoville scale gets hotter and hotter with every wing he consumes. Did Austin go all the way to the hottest chicken wing? Or did he tap out?

There’s only one way to find out! Check it out in full below.

King of the Ring semi-finals to be held at Madison Square Garden

By
Colin Vassallo
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The semi-finals of the year’s King of the Ring tournament will be taking place at the Madison Square Garden Raw and Smackdown tapings which will be held back-to-back on September 9 and 10.

WWE announced the return of the single-elimination tournament on Monday during Raw with 16 WWE Superstars competing, eight from Raw and eight from Smackdown. Those competing are Baron Corbin, Cedric Alexander, Cesaro, Drew McIntyre, Ricochet, Sami Zayn, Samoa Joe, and The Miz for Raw and Ali, Andrade, Apollo Crews, Buddy Murphy, Chad Gable, Elias, Kevin Owens, and Shelton Benjamin for Smackdown.

The finals are expected to take place at the Clash of Champions pay-per-view next month.

Tickets for both Raw and Smackdown at MSG remain available with WWE not even close of selling out either show just yet. For more ticket information go to http://go.msg.com/WWE2019.

Latest WWE Performance Center class includes EVOVLE champion Austin Theory

By
Colin Vassallo
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WWE published the list of names of the latest WWE Performance Center class that includes current WWN and EVOLVE champion Austin Theory. In total there are nine wrestlers and athletes as part of the class.

The list, apart from Theory, includes Santana Garrett, the former Impact Wrestling star and Mae Young Classic competitor, indie wrestler Tehuti Miles who had two tryouts before, former football player and bodybuilder EJ Ndunka, wrestler Aleksandar Jaksic, hip-hop artist and boxer Briana Brandy, Ju-Jitsu world champion Rita Reis, May Thai Brazilian instructor Marcos Gomes, and Chilean wrestler Catalina Garcia.

WWE also announced the addition of Japanese star Kendo Kashin as the latest full-time trainer at the facility. Kashin worked for both NJPW and AJPW.

Smackdown rating for 08/13/2019

By
Colin Vassallo
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Smackdown this week drew a total of 2,164,000 viewers, up 76,000 viewers from last week’s episode. The show was #1 in the top 50 cable chart among the 18-49 demographic and #7 in overall viewership for the night on cable. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)

First AEW title defense on October 16 episode of AEW on TNT

By
Colin Vassallo
-

Whoever wins the AEW title at All Out on August 30 between Chris Jericho and Hangman Page will be holding on to it at least till October 16 as that is when the first title defense will be held.

All Elite Wrestling today announced that the first defense will take place on the October 16 episode of AEW on TNT which happens to be the third week of the show being held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

AEW has no events planned between All Out and October 2, the premiere episode of AEW on TNT. The show still has no official name as of yet.

Hangman Page won the 21-man Casino Battle Royale during the Buy-In pre-show at Double or Nothing to get the first spot while Jericho advanced to the title match by beating Kenny Omega in the main event of the pay-per-view.

Bound For Glory 2019 almost sold out

By
Colin Vassallo
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Bound For Glory is almost sold out with only a few tickets left for purchase on EventBrite.com.

The location is being configured to accommodate 500 seats plus general admission and so far, only 28 seats remain plus some GA tickets. General admission cost $25, while the Golden Circle tickets are going for $60 and the Titanium first row seats are $300.

The 2019 Bound For Glory event will take place from The Odeum Expo Center in Villa Park, Illinois on October 20. For more ticket info and to purchase go to EventBrite.com.

WWE cancels five non-televised live events for this month

By
Colin Vassallo
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WWE has canceled five non-televised live events for later this month reports PWInsider.com. Two of the live events were the ones that WWE were advertising Kane, appearances which the Mayor’s office denied they were happening probably because they already had the news that these shows were getting canned.

While no official reason was given as to why these events were struck off the calendar, tickets were selling really bad for two of them and probably it’s the reason why everything was canceled.

The shows which are now not taking place anymore are August 23 in Bossier City, Louisiana, August 24 in Lafayette, Louisiana, August 25 in Mobile, Alabama, August 30 in Bangor, Maine, and August 31 in Portland, Maine.

WWE’s biggest problem and decline has been the live event attendance where the company is even having a hard time selling in major markets. Attendance has been steeply declining quarter after quarter with no end in sight.

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