AEW today announced that it is donating $100,000 to Safe Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing hope and healing for domestic violence and sexual assault survivors to coincide with their Fight For The Fallen Dynamite on Wednesday.
In addition to the $100,000 donation, the company will also donate a percentage of proceeds from the limited-edition Fight for the Fallen t-shirts to Safe Alliance. AEW is encouraging its fans to donate what they can to Safe Alliance at AEWFightfortheFallen.com.
“Safe Alliance is thrilled to partner with All Elite Wrestling and their annual Fight for the Fallen event,” said Tenille Alexander-Banner, Safe Alliance Director of Corporate and Community Engagement. “Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault survivors have to ‘fight’ each day to heal from the trauma and abuse they’ve endured. Without support from the community, our work would not be possible. We appreciate AEW’s generous gift and thank them for providing hope to survivors in the greater Charlotte area.”
AEW’s Tony Khan added, “Giving back to the community and helping make a difference in people’s lives is an ongoing goal for AEW, especially with our annual Fight for the Fallen event. We’re proud to share this donation with Safe Alliance, and through this initiative, we hope we can come together with fans to further Safe Alliance’s important mission.”
The son of former WWE tag team wrestler B. Brian Blair of the Killer Bees was murdered this past Friday in Florida.
News of the tragic development was announced by Steve “Skinner” Keirn, a big friend of the Blair family, during a fan festival in Charlotte, North Carolina on Friday night.
29-year-old Brett had some run-ins with the law in the past but motive behind his murder has not been revealed yet. His lifeless body was found at a construction site and details about the case have not been made public yet. Brett was arrested as recently as April of this year in Hillsborough County and charged with possession of cocaine among others. It was not the first time that Brett was arrested for drugs and had problems dating back to when he was 17 years old.
Brian Blair, who is the current President of the Cauliflower Alley Club, is currently recuperating at home after he underwent back surgery just 10 days ago.
The rumors of CM Punk’s arrival in All Elite Wrestling continued to intensify over the weekend, added by the fact that one of Shahid Khan’s private planes was in Chicago over the weekend.
Khan’s Learjet with registration code N816FG flew into Chicago Midway on July 24 and left the next day on July 25, with the website Bodyslam.net reporting that Tony Khan and other AEW EVPs were onboard and rumors are that they went to film material at the United Center.
The United Center is Chicago’s largest arena and with the company trademarking the term The First Dance – a take on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls The Last Dance documentary – it seems to indicate that something big is coming to the Windy City. Recently, Punk also posted a clip from The Alan Parsons Project song Sirius, a song used by the Bulls.
The United Center seats just over 20,000 in a basketball setting and if Punk were to debut for the promotion, it might not be enough to hold everyone!
Blumhouse Television is partnering with WWE to develop a limited series based on Vince McMahon’s steroid trial from the mid-90s titled The United States of America vs. Vince McMahon.
“We have a dramatic, riveting saga — one that’s crazier than fiction — that will appeal to the cross-section of Blumhouse and WWE fans,” said Blumhouse TV president Chris McCumber. “To say I’m thrilled about collaborating again with WWE is an understatement.”
Back in the 90s, a series of stories published by the New York Post alleged that the WWE Chairman was giving steroids to his Superstars. The stories ultimately resulted in the FBI and New York prosecutors to indict McMahon on several drug-related charges.
The press release states, “With his liberty at stake, two school-aged children at home and with WWE on the brink of bankruptcy, McMahon refused to take a plea deal. Ultimately, McMahon stood trial and was acquitted unanimously by a jury of his peers and went on to build a multi-billion-dollar global sports entertainment empire.”
“Jason, Chris and their team at Blumhouse create amazing work and we look forward to delivering an inside look into one of the most pivotal moments in our company’s history,” said WWE’s Kevin Dunn.
Vince will be one of the executive producers of the series along with Kevin Dunn. Chris McCumber, Jason Blum and Jeremy Gold will serve as EPs from Blumhouse’s side.
John Cena’s participation in non-televised live events is not simply showing up and cutting a promo but the former 16-time world champion is actually getting in the ring as well.
Cena, probably a little bit rusty and needing some practice before the SummerSlam pay-per-view, is teaming up with the Rey and Dominik Mysterio as they take on The Bloodline, the team of Roman Reigns and The Usos in six-man tag team matches.
Being in six-man tag matches will protect Cena a little bit more when it comes to potential injuries and will leave that one-on-one match finally for SummerSlam.
Cena is doing pretty much a full schedule till August although will be appearing more on Smackdown than on Raw due to his program with Reigns. He is also advertised for tonight’s Raw at the T-Mobile Center from Kansas City, Missouri.
Prior to his return, Cena’s last “match” was a cinematic one against The Fiend Bray Wyatt at WrestleMania 36.
WWE Superstar Jeff Hardy has tested positive for COVID-19 and will be not be appearing on TV or at any events for the next couple of weeks.
The news was announced on the recordBar Facebook page, a music venue based in Kansas City which was scheduled to host a Jeff Hardy meet and greet tomorrow.
“Jeff Hardy just tested positive for Covid this morning, and will have to quarantine for the next two weeks,” the venue said. Those who have tickets for the meet and greet can keep them for a rescheduled date or ask for a refund.
The former WWE champion beat Karrion Kross last week on Raw.
This week’s Impact Wrestling on AXS TV had a total of 104,000 viewers, down 5,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. This was the second least-watched episode of Impact of 2021. The show did a 0.04 rating in the 18-49, up 0.02 from last week. (Ratings credit: Wrestlenomics)
Emi Sakura, the 44-year-old Japanese pro wrestler who had a couple of matches in AEW, has revealed in a social media post that she is moving to the United States with a one-way ticket to be part of the AEW women’s division moving forward.
Her most recent appearance for AEW came during the Women’s title number one contender’s tournament where she was part of the Japanese bracket. She was eliminated in the semi final by Yuka Sakazaki.
Sakura had an AEW Women’s title match at Full Gear in 2019 but was unsuccessful in beating Riho who was the champion back then.
Impact Wrestling’s Matt Cardona became the new GCW champion last night at the Homecoming pay-per-view which took place at the Showboat Atlantic City in New Jersey.
It was a bloody night for Cardona, although it was expected considering he was taking on the king of hardcore wrestling Nick Gage. Cardona had some assistance from former champ Ricky Shane Page who turned on Gage and helped Cardona win the title with the Radio Silence.
While the match was bloody thanks the several objects used including the popular light tubes, things got even worse after the match.
To say the crowd was not happy with what went down was an understatement and while Cardona was in the ring celebrating, he was showered with drinks and garbage and pretty much all of the projectiles thrown hit Cardona.
The new champion did soldier on though by making the crowd even more pissed by continuing to celebrate despite the absolute mess thrown at him.
Gage is a super favorite among the hardcore crowd and has been champion since April. He will be wrestling on Dynamite next week against Chris Jericho in a no disqualification match.
With the start of the Olympics, Smackdown went back to its usual numbers, getting an average of 2,007,000 viewers in the overnights, down 172,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. Last week’s show ended with 2,310,000 viewers when the final numbers came out on Monday.
The first hour started with 1,992,000 viewers, and then increased to 2,023,000 viewers for the second hour. The show did a 0.5 in the 18-49, behind the three Olympic broadcasts on NBC.
The Olympics on NBC drew 10.9 million viewers and 10.6 million viewers in head-to-head with Smackdown with a 2.3 rating in 18-49. (Ratings credit: SpoilerTV.com)
WWE will be holding its first non-televised live event since March 7, 2020 with a Supershow featuring both Raw and Smackdown Superstars in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
According to tickets tracked by @WrestleTix, the arena is 90% full for this setting with just over 7,000 tickets sold. The arena is modified to fit 8,000 fans for this event, which is less than half of its original capacity of nearly 20,000.
The last house show before the pandemic started was at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania with a turnout of 4,700 fans for a show headlined by Drew McIntyre vs Randy Orton.
WWE has announced a full schedule through the month of September so far as the company returns to normality with multiple live events throughout the country.
With the rumors of Bryan Danielson making his AEW debut on the September 22 Dynamite in Queens, New York, AEW has opened more sections for sale in the stadium.
The Arthur Ashe Stadium is now configured to hold almost 19,000 people, with more potential seats being opened up depending on how tickets sell. AEW has managed to move nearly 16,500 tickets so far, which is very impressive and something that WWE has not even managed to do for a Raw or Smackdown yet since the fans’ return.
The week before that, AEW will run at the Prudential Center in New Jersey and over 10,000 seats have been sold for that show too so September will be a very exciting month for the promotion, with a sold out All Out pay-per-view earlier in the month too.
The addition of Bryan Danielson and CM Punk have come at the right time and as Jim Ross says, business is about to pick up!
Valorant by Riot is one of the most widely played first-person shooter games. It is increasing in its popularity in the Esports arena as well. Valorant has always been compared to and has been competing with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Although both of them are certainly in the top 5 most popular online multiplayer games, here are a few reasons why Valorant is the better game:
Valorant is Much Easier to Play
There is no doubt that CS: GO is one of the most enjoyable and realistic tactical shooters there is. However, it can get quite serious and repetitive. On the other hand, Valorant is not only realistic but is willing to go down a bold route with its gameplay by introducing fascinating player abilities.
Valorant even feels like a casual and laid-back version of CS: GO, and although it can get very intense and immersive, it is not as overwhelming as CS: GO. There have been many games like CS: GO in the past, but no game has come close to recreating the experience that Valorant has. Not only is it free-to-play, but you can also easily play it on a low-end computer or laptop by lowering your graphics.
Fun Characters
While CS: GO has the usual two teams called terrorists and counter-terrorists, Valorant has four unique characters that you can play, i.e., you can play the Duelist, the Initiator, the Sentinel and the Controller. Every Valorant player has his favorite agent choice and sticks to it. Hence, there is a greater connection to the playable characters, unlike CS: GO, where mostly, all the characters belonging to a particular team tend to look alike.
Also, the agents tend to have their respective strengths and weaknesses, which levels the playing field. The gameplay is more satisfying, and if you happen to switch to another agent, you will notice the game feels much different. You can have a great time mastering all these agents, and this is what makes Valorant so interesting.
More Visually Appealing
Valorant is undoubtedly one of the most well-made and artistic games out there. There are several premium weapon skins and cosmetics that you can purchase. The game has a fun cartoony vibe, and you can feel the vibrancy of the maps while playing them.
It Receives More Updates than CS: GO
The developers of Valorant are always listening to the reviews and feedback of their players and really strive to bring forth continual refinement in the way the game is experienced. There are several new additions of maps, agents and weapons that gamers can look forward to. The developers also make sure that the players don’t experience the problem of low tick rate servers.
More Entertaining and Dynamic
The teams in Valorant can coordinate to combine and make the best of each other’s abilities in interesting ways. If you happen to watch a video of a Valorant tournament, you will be surprised that the game can even be played this way. This is not something you will see in the CS: GO matches.
The healers, the cyphers, the killjoys and various other characters bring unique diversity and colorfulness to the game. There is a lot more to master in Valorant than there is in CS: GO. You will have to learn how each agent works, along with learning the various spray patterns of guns.
You will also have to work on mastering the map and knowing all the important locations so that you can move faster and have the edge over others. Gun skill is necessary but not everything. The game requires immense strategy and team effort. You will have to practice regularly to get better.
Unique Maps
The maps in Valorant are not the usual and boring triplane maps you see. They are actually quite interactable and well designed. For instance, gamers love to use ziplines and unidirectional teleporters to make their way across the map. The popular maps are Icebox, Bind, Haven and Ascent. We don’t see this level of sophistication in CS: GO.
Cheating in Valorant is Not Easy
Valve has not done as much about the cheating issue in CS: GO. In fact, cheating got so worse that even many professional CS: GO gamers like Mixwell, ScreaM, Hiko and Tenz made the switch to Valorant and found it so much more enjoyable.
If you want to use a valorant hack to gain an advantage over other players, you will have to be careful as Riot is very serious and stern about cheating in Valorant. Many player accounts have been banned along with their hardware.
In Conclusion
If you become a professional player in Valorant, you have the chance of making lots of money by participating in competitions or live streaming your gameplay. This is all the more reason for you to get started.
Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com is reporting that Canyon Ceman, who served as WWE’s Senior Vice President of Talent Development, has been fired from the company.
Ceman, who joined WWE in 2012, was rumored to have been let go weeks ago but there was some confusion to the story with WWE denying the reports. PWInsider says that Ceman was officially fired yesterday.
In his nine and a half years with the promotion, Ceman rose through the ranks first starting as Senior Director of Talent Development, then Vice President of Talent Development, and ultimately as Senior Vice President of Talent Development.
Prior to joining WWE, he served as the Strategic CFO of the Association of Volleyball Professionals and was a highly successful professional volleyball player for 14 years.
During his time in WWE, Ceman oversaw the scouting and recruiting system for WWE and had his fair share of enemies as well.
AEW Women’s champion Britt Baker is suffering from a broken wrist, an injury which took place during her successful title defense against Nyla Rose on Fyter Fest night two this past Wednesday.
Baker uploaded a photo on her Twitter backstage with former UFC star Paige VanZant writing, “And oh yeah, I retained the title on Wednesday night at #aewdynamite with a broken wrist. Not taking any time off either.”
Baker, who is turning out to be one of the most popular stars of the company among viewers, has been champion since Double or Nothing this past May.
WWE Superstars will be ringing in the new year with a live pay-per-view on Saturday, January 1, 2022 from the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia.
“State Farm Arena is a phenomenal venue with a long history of hosting world-class events,” said Scott Zanghellini, WWE Senior Vice President, Revenue Strategy & Development. “We’re excited to deliver this pay-per-view to the people of Atlanta and the many that travel to the city to celebrate New Year’s.”
The announcement was delivered via video by Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks during the Rolling Loud festival in Miami Gardens where a portion of Smackdown was held last night.
This is the first time that WWE will be holding a pay-per-view on New Year’s Day.
Tickets for the yet-to-be-named pay-per-view will go on sale Friday, August 27 at 10AM ET.
WWE will be presenting a unique Smackdown tonight live from two different locations as one part of the show will be held in Cleveland, Ohio, and one part will be live from the Rolling Loud festival at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
One of the two things announced so far for the show is a John Cena appearance in Cleveland as the 16-time champ will be in the house to address Universal champion Roman Reigns. The two will be meeting each other in the main event of SummerSlam next month in Las Vegas.
According to the Rolling Loud schedule, Smackdown will tape from the Ciroc Stage starting at 8PM until 8:45PM. It’s unclear how WWE will handle the simulcast and who will be where and what happens to those inside the arena when the broadcast is live from the Hard Rock Stadium. Both the Smackdown Women’s champion Bianca Belair and Carmella indicated that they will be at Rolling Loud and their title rematch will be taking place there.
Last week’s Smackdown pulled in the best number in many months and WWE will be hoping to add to that with the arrival of John Cena.
Adding more fuel to the fire that he is on the way to All Elite Wrestling, former WWE champion CM Punk has reopened his merchandise store on ProWrestlingTees.com.
Several apparel including t-shirts, jackets, caps, and face masks are now available all sporting new CM Punk designs.
Punk is believed to be a lock for the promotion and if true it would be his first involvement with a wrestling company since he quit WWE in 2014. Punk was briefly an analyst for WWE Backstage on FOX Sports but that contract was directly with FOX as the show was a FOX Sports production and not WWE’s.
Unlike previously where Punk debunked all the rumors of returning, the former champ has been quiet this time around and did not address any of the rumors. Punk and AEW got off to a bad start a couple of years ago as he was believed to be going there in the early days but Punk always said that there was never a concrete offer made to him directly.
WWE will be having a presence at Comic-Con@Home 2021 through its partnership with Mattel Creations as the toy company showcases a packed lineup of panels featuring WWE Superstars and world-class Mattel toy designers.
To bring even more to fans and collectors this week, for the first time ever on Mattel Creations, Mattel and WWE are launching a crowdfund campaign that kicks off Friday, July 23 23 through Sunday, August 22.
The crowdfunding campaign is for the WWE Ultimate Edition New Generation Arena. Product features include the New Generation Entrance Stage: Authentically scaled to Mattel WWE action figures, recreate iconic entrances with this first-ever neon stage includes fabric curtains and a light-up frame with multiple pattern loops; Ultimate Edition Ring: The most authentic-to-scale WWE ring Mattel has ever designed. Constructed like a real WWE ring with an intricate plank base, highly detailed sculpted frame, fabric turnbuckles, and more; Ultimate Edition Diesel Action Figure: First-time Ultimate “Big Daddy Cool” includes a swappable head, replaceable hands, and his signature entrance vest.
The crowdfund will be hosted on Mattel Creations (@mattelcreations), and just 5,000 backers are needed to unlock these three first-ever offerings for $250. Additional tiers will be announced on July 23 during the Mattel and WWE Elite Squad Fan Panel on the Comic-Con YouTube channel, and the crowdfund will be open on Mattel Creations until August 22.
On Friday, July 23, WWE Superstars and the Mattel action figure design team will reveal the most exciting, authentic, upcoming WWE figure releases. Moderated by “The Last Professional Broadcaster” Sam Roberts, the panel features Mattel Elite Squad members Bill Miekina and Steve Ozer, and WWE Superstars Bianca Belair, Johnny Gargano, Dominik Mysterio, and Adam Cole.
The NXT Takeover 36 event next month will have a rematch of one of the best NXT UK title matches from last year with NXT UK champion Walter defending against Ilja Dragunov.
The two were supposed to meet each other on last night’s episode of NXT UK but Walter suffered a legit hand injury which required the match to be postponed to a later date.
William Regal, Shawn Michaels, and Triple H appeared in a pre-recorded video on yesterday’s show with Triple H saying that after discussions with NXT UK General Manager Johnny Saint, they came up with the best possible solution. After Regal described the rivalry between the two as one of the most intense in the business, HBK said that they all felt that their match should be seen by the whole world.
Triple H then gave the news that Walter would defend the title he’s been holding for the past 800+ days against the 27-year-old from Moscow on the WWE Network exclusive event on the night after SummerSlam.
