Seth Rollins will be returning to Friday Night Smackdown live tonight on FOX, two months after he made his last appearance.
Rollins took time off to spend time with his new baby along with his fiancee Becky Lynch and was a surprise entrant at the Royal Rumble. Rollins entered #29 and lasted nearly nine minutes but was eliminated by the eventual winner Edge. He eliminated Daniel Bryan, Riddle, and Christian, before he was sent flying over the top rope himself.
Prior to the Rumble, Rollins was last seen at the Survivor Series where he was part of Team Smackdown. He sacrificed himself for a Brogue Kick and was the first one eliminated in a matter of seconds. Rollins was locked in a feud with the Mysterio family and Murphy before he disappeared from television and lost clean to both Rey and Murphy in back-to-back episodes of Smackdown before the Survivor Series.
Rollins was advertised to return on the January 1 episode of Smackdown but all marketing related to that were taken down before the show.
When talking about wrestling most people probably associate this sport with WWE, blood, anger, and injuries. Even if we know that WWE is scripted, wrestling can indeed look dangerous. Most of the wrestlers dedicate their whole lives to the sport, leaving them little space for risks. This is why some of the wrestlers are often associated with casinos.
Years and years of training, multiple hours at gyms and arenas, and all to improve their performance. Regardless of the fact that these professionals are focused on their goals, they are still human. They too need some occasional relaxation, side hobby, or simply an activity that will help them unwind. There are tons of wrestlers out there who visit casinos and love the glitz and glamour that comes with it. Poker, blackjack, slots or craps, you name it – every casino game will find its secret celebrity admirer.
John Cena
Initially popular as one of the greatest WWE wrestlers, John Cena is invested more in his acting career nowadays. Some people might know him from his roles of Peacemaker in the Suicide Squad, but also the Peacemaker TV series aired on HBO. However, John Cena has had some interesting hobbies in his past, one of them is playing poker. During his active years in WWE, Cena was known as an avid Texas Hold’em player. Moreover, John Cena admitted that he got hooked on playing one of the greatest casino games ever – poker. During his interview with Bluff Magazine, Cena admitted that he was lured into playing by watching the World Series of Poker on TV.
As a matter of fact, the interview occurred in 2006 when online gambling and online poker sites you can now find at https://casinosters.com/3-pounds-minimum-deposit-casinos/ became popular. Some call this period a golden era of Texas Hold’em poker, while it was also the start of the online gambling frenzy. Poker, as well as, blackjack, slots, craps and other casino games become available to amateur players or anyone who wants to try their luck. In addition, the whole online gambling trend was fueled by Chris Moneymaker’s winning of the Main Event at WSOP. Chris Moneymaker was a poker-playing amateur who also got the WSOP gold bracelet in 2003.
Dana White
If you love and follow UFC, you probably know who Dana Frederick White Jr is. Apart from being the president of the UFC, White is also a casino enthusiast and a quite successful player for that matter. Dana loves playing one game in particular – blackjack, and his stakes are known to go way up. With big stakes, luck and knowledge come big money. And when talking about Dana White’s wagers, he is known to place bets as high as $25000. While this might sound like an insanely big amount of money, this is probably nothing for a businessman of his calibre.
The fun part of this story is not over. Dana White was actually popular as being a very good blackjack player. In order to be a great online blackjack player you don’t need to “trick” the video game, you definitely need to be good at math, know all the catches and be a great strategist. As a matter of fact, Palm Casino where White played occasionally had to ban him from playing blackjack. First, they started by creating special rules for Dana then, they had to ban him from playing fame. The main reason for this was big winnings – some of them went as high as $5 million. Thus, it is no wonder that the president of the UFC had a “special” treatment in that venue.
APA Hosting a Poker Game
The Acolytes Protection Agency (APA) led by John Charles Layfield better known as Bradshaw and Ronald Simmons is known as Faarooq was a professional wrestling tag team. The team wrestled for the World Wrestling Federation for seven years from 1998 and March 2004. In essence, the idea started with the duo initially known as The Acolytes wanting to be a part of the Ministry of Darkness – a professional wrestling stable in the WWF, which was led by The Undertaker.
The duo first split in 2002 and had multiple attempts at reuniting. Bradshaw dedicated his career to hardcore wrestling and the team split for good in 2004. However, a fun game of poker got them together one more time, in a non-competing environment along with other Hall of Famers. On January 22, 2018, when online casinos were already immensely popular, the Acolytes Protection Agency appeared during WWE Raw 25 Years event. The APA hosted a poker game backstage during the event, together with Jeff Hardy, The Usos, and Ted DiBiase, and many others.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jeremy Raynolds is the Content Lead of the site and he is also the author behind some of the blogs you can find at the site’s blog section. He has been writing since high school, and he also uses all of his free time for creating casino-related content. Jeremy loves writing about eSports, casino games as well as sportsbook betting.
Triple H revealed yesterday that Royal Rumble winner Edge had been talking to him for a year about coming to work in NXT, doing both microphone work and in-ring matches.
The Rated-R Superstar went as far as sending a list to Triple H of the talent he wanted to work with in the black and gold brand.
Edge made his NXT debut last week when he addressed both Finn Balor and Pete Dunn, telling them that he’s watching them before making a decision on which title he will go after at WrestleMania. During the same segment, Edge credited NXT for making him work hard for a return, saying the brand puts the second “W” in WWE above anything else.
Edge’s wife Beth Phoenix is also associated with the brand where she serves as a color commentator every week.
TBS announced that the revived-version of the competition show Wipeout with John Cena as host will premiere on Thursday, April 1 at 9PM ET. Cena will be flanked by Nicole Byer and Camille Kostek.
“Wipeout is the show that quarantine has been begging for…it has something for everyone in the family,” said Corie Henson, EVP/Head of Unscripted Development, TNT, TBS, truTV. “John and Nicole are the best pairing of 2021 and together with Camille, they bring the perfect balance of wit and cheerleading. We’ve created an edgier version of the original that fuses extreme athleticism with laugh-out-loud moments that fans of the show will be talking about long after the episode airs.”
Last year, when Cena was announced as the host, he said he couldn’t be more excited for what’s in store for this “radically absurd show that has its own fair share of legendary faceplants.”
The trailer which TBS put out yesterday includes some new legendary faceplants and “holy sh!t” moments. You can check it out at
Peacock, the NBCUniversal streaming service which will take over the WWE Network next month, is looking for a manager to handle the WWE Network on their platform.
“Now, we need fearless leaders and pop-culture fiends to help build out our WWE user experience – so if you can name all of Mick Foley’s characters or know why Charlotte Flair claims to be ‘Born to Conquer,’ then you should come smell what the Peacock is cooking,” the job responsibilities reads.
The prospective applicant will be joining a team to help publishing live streams, curating collections and playlists and identifying high performance highlights from the WWE’s vast and growing library.
Candidate will create and maintain the WWE homepage, schedule VOD promotions in-sync with the entire WWE linear programming slate, assist in the creation of collections, copy, and metadata for WWE assets, be a subject matter expert in all aspects of the WWE universe, ensure that key metadata is present on all WWE content, identify curation opportunities to expand visibility of long form and short form content, coordinate asset delivery with internal and external teams to ensure timely promotion, analyze data to make educated decisions on curation tactics, and project manage live streams of key events throughout the year.
If you’re interested, you can check out the job application BrassRing.com.
WWE Superstars Mia Yim and Keith Lee announced their engagement yesterday, becoming the latest soon-to-be husband and wife wrestlers on the ever-growing WWE roster.
“I said yes. Mr. & Mrs. Lee,” Yim wrote in a tweet, attaching a photo of the two together along with the important engagement ring!
The two have been dating since their NXT days and now both of them find themselves on the red brand. Yim, who is part of Retribution, now wrestles as Reckoning, but has been off television for a while after she revealed she had contracted coronavirus the day before the Royal Rumble.
NXT had another horrible night on Wednesday with just 558,000 viewers tuning in to see the show. That is down 52,000 viewers from last week and the second least-watched episode of NXT this year so far. With a low 0.12 rating in the 18-49 demographic, NXT placed #62 on the chart. The difference between NXT and Dynamite this week was of 183,000 viewers. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
With news broadcasts taking over Wednesday night with the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, Dynamite dropped to #21 on the top 50 cable chart among the 18-49 demographic with a 0.29 rating but still managed a good 741,000 viewership, easily beating NXT on the night. The show dropped 103,000 viewers from the Beach Break episode of Dynamite of last week. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
After returning at the Royal Rumble, Braun Strowman was off television again and now the former Universal champion has revealed why he has been gone again.
“I got really sick over the weekend,” Strowman said in a video on Instagram. “I got an infection that got into my blood system and had to be put on antibiotics for that…it was awful.”
Braun said that he lost 15 pounds in a matter of five days but now he’s feeling better as the antibiotics are finally working. He said he could not eat but now is looking forward to “nip this thing in the butt” and get back to training to get the mass back.
Strowman got in the Rumble at #30 and spent had 7:24 on the clock in the ring before he was eliminated by Edge. Strowman had three eliminations to his name in the match, getting rid of AJ Styles, Sheamus, and Cesaro.
During a media conference call today, Paul “Triple H” Levesque has hinted that Bronson Rechsteiner, the son of former WWE and WCW Superstar Rick Steiner has agreed to join WWE.
Triple H said that they’re excited about the future with Parker Boudreaux and others such as Bronson Rechsteiner arriving at the PC. “We have a lot of people coming in the door,” Triple H told reporters.
Rechsteiner, a full back for Kennesaw State, signed as an undrafted free agent with the Baltimore Ravens in April of last year but was released a few months later. In August, he made his pro wrestling debut at an indie show with his uncle Scott by his side and then had a WWE tryout late last year.
HHH noted that when he says the future is bright, he also refers to those who have been with them for a while, saying COVID has slowed things down, “but they’re right there.”
AEW has announced that the Japanese side of their AEW Women’s Title Eliminator tournament will air on YouTube this coming Monday starting at 7PM ET.
All four matches – Yuka Sakazaki vs Mei Suruga, Veny vs Emi Sakura, Maki Itoh vs Ryo Mizunami, and Aja Kong vs Rin Kadokura – will be taking place in the same broadcast. This will not be live and the matches are taped in Saitama, Japan.
Matches on the U.S. side of the bracket will air on Dynamite and the first match took place last night with Thunder Rosa defeating Leyla Hirsch to advance to the next round. The second match will air next week with Riho taking on Serena Deeb.
AEW has not announced when the final will take place although the Revolution pay-per-view on March 7 sounds like a good place to have it. The winner of this tournament receives an AEW Women’s title shot against Hikaru Shida.
The two final matches of the 2021 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament were set yesterday on NXT and both will take place this coming Sunday at NXT Takeover: Vengeance Day streaming live exclusively on the WWE Network.
The new team of MSK – formerly known as The Rascalz in Impact Wrestling – became the first finalists after they beat Legado Del Fantasma in the first semi final and then The Grizzled Young Veterans beat the tag team of Timothy Thatcher and Tommaso Ciampa to clinch the second final spot.
On the road to the final, MSK beat Isaiah “Swerve” Scott and Jake Atlas and then Drake Maverick and Killian Dain. The Grizzled Young Veterans beat Ever-Rise and Leon Ruff and Kushida to advance.
Over at the women’s tournament, Shotzi Blackheart and Ember Moon became the second finalists after they beat Candice LaRae and Indi Hartwell last night. Prior to this match, they beat Marina Shafir and Zoey Stark to advance.
Blackheart and Moon will take on Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzalez in the final match of the tournament. Kai and Gonzalez beat Aliyah and Kisse Kamea and then Kacy Catanzaro and Kayden Carter.
The women’s tournament featured eight tag teams whereas the men’s tournament had 16.
All the finalists of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic will be revealed tonight on NXT as the tournament enters in its final week.
Tommaso Ciampa and Timothy Thatcher will take on the Grizzled Young Veterans and MSK will face Legado del Fantasma in the two semi final matches. The winners of each match will meet this Sunday at Takeover: Vengeance Day. Also, the women’s final will be set as Ember Moon and Shotzi Blackheart wrestle Candice LaRae and Indie Hartwell with the winners taking on Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzalez in the final match on Sunday as well.
Apart from those three matches, one more match was announced between Austin Theory and Kushida while Cameron Grimes will be returning as well following an injury.
John Cena told Forbes that appearing at WrestleMania would be “super, super, super selfish” of him, forcing a mandatory two-week shutdown of production on the Peacemaker set in Vancouver where he is currently residing right now.
Cena said that every other year before 2021, appearing at WrestleMania was completely within his realm, but this year, it’s out of his hands due to the pandemic.
“If this were normal times, I would 100% be there. I’d find a way to contribute somehow. I’ve sat in the crowd as a fan. I’ll do whatever the event asks me to because it means that much to me, and WWE means that much to me, but I’m in Vancouver shooting Peacemaker for HBO Max,” Cena said.
The 16-time world champion’s only hope of appearing on the show if travel restrictions between the two countries are lifted and then, “Sure, I’m in.” But Cena said that as things stand, it’s logistically impossible for him to be in Tampa for WrestleMania and he cannot do that to Warner Brothers, cannot do that to DC, cannot do that to James Gunn, and cannot do it to the Suicide Squad franchise. “It’s just not fair,” Cena continued.
“It’s an unbelievable opportunity, James Gunn has written the whole thing, he’s directing a bunch of the episodes. This is something that I’m inspired to do,” he explained. “Because of the quarantine law, if I were to fly to the states for Sunday on WrestleMania — which is totally possible — the complications arrive when I come back to Canada. Because then I would have to quarantine for 14 days and that puts production back more than two weeks, which costs a boatload of money, and that would be super, super, super selfish of me.”
Tonight’s Dynamite on TNT will be headlined by a tag team match featuring the in-ring debut of NJPW’s KENTA.
A total of six matches have been announced for the post-Beach Break Dynamite including Cody Rhodes and Lee Johnson vs Peter Avalon and Cezar Bononi, Ryan Nemeth vs PAC, The Acclaimed vs Chris Jericho and MJF, Leyla Hirsch vs Thunder Rosa in the AEW Women’s Title Eliminator tournament, Darby Allin vs Joey Janela for the TNT title, and a falls count anywhere match with Kenny Omega teaming up with KENTA to take on Jon Moxley and Lance Archer.
AEW is also promoting an appearance from Sting, which seems to be a weekly recurring thing now in their marketing.
In the latest annual report filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, WWE has said that it plans to start moving to its new corporate headquarters in downtown Stamford in late 2022.
The company was scheduled to start its move sometime in 2021 but last year halted all works due to the coronavirus pandemic, delaying the move. With the move delayed, WWE revised their plans and changed the scope of the project, and building of the space will now involve a substantial capital expenditure which will take longer and cost more than expected.
As it is, WWE currently has its main headquarters, television production, and warehouse in the three different locations and once they move, the new building will house their corporate headquarters and media production facilities as well.
The new location, at 677 Washington Boulevard, will feature a total of 415,000 square feet of space in a building which previously housed the North American headquarters of UBS. WWE will share the three-building complex with KPMG and Perkins Eastman.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson appears on the cover of the latest Cigar Aficionado magazine and is featured in an interview by editor Marvin R. Shanken to discuss his Young Rock NBC show, tequila, the XFL, and more.
Johnson will be back on television screens starting February 16 on NBC with Young Rock, a show which will focus on his early years. “We go back and we illuminate timelines in my life, living a very on-the-go lifestyle. In the world of pro wrestling, there was such an intersection of worlds that I had, meeting professional athletes, from Muhammad Ali—my dad would spar with Ali, my dad was also a boxer, he would spar with George Foreman,” Rock said about his new show. “You can imagine what my dinners were like, with Andre the Giant and these wrestling stars…It begins at about 10 years old, then 15 years old, and then 18 years old.”
But Johnson likes to keep himself busy, and apart from launching his own tequila brand, he also took over the XFL from Vince McMahon along with his two business partners.
“My dreams of playing in the NFL never happened,” Johnson said in the interview. “Look, Warren Sapp beat me out for my position, I had a lot of injuries, none of those mattered. At the end of the day I wasn’t good enough. What the XFL will provide is an opportunity [for future players] to play. If the XFL was around for me in 1995 and I didn’t get drafted into the NFL, you can believe I would have got on the XFL field.”
Among many other topics, Johnson also discussed his family’s bout with COVID-19. “In a 24-hour period, it had spread so quickly to our nanny, our nanny’s teenage kids, her husband,” he said. “Myself and my two-year-old daughter, we were the last ones standing until the very end, but of course we both tested positive. We were on the fortunate end for something that has been so traumatic to the world. We got through it.”
The February issue of Cigar Aficionado, which also features the top 25 cigars of 2020, becomes available to readers February 16.
WWE President Nick Khan told Forbes that Bad Bunny is sticking around in WWE for now and we’re going to see a lot of him in the weeks to come.
Khan thinks that this collaboration was only possible due to the pandemic and no touring from Bunny. “I don’t believe that would have existed in a world where Bad Bunny was on tour,” Khan said.
Bunny has also been a big success for the WWEShop.com website, with his Royal Rumble merchandise selling out and raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars. WWE released even more shirts and apparel now as they continue to ride the Bunny wave.
The WWE President also expressed his wish to work with Cardi B after the mega superstar interacted with WWE fans a couple of weeks ago. “The bulk of concert money is made in the summertime. It doesn’t appear as if there are going to be big tours during the summer, even we’re all hopeful, so we’ll see what other folks we’re talking to and who you’ll see in the mix!”
Monday Night Raw dropped to levels that it was doing against the NFL this week…and that’s not a good thing considering there was no real competition. The show did an average of 1,715,000 viewers, the least-watched Raw since December 21. That was down 177,000 viewers from last week’s show.
The first hour started with 1,821,000 viewers, the second hour did 1,735,000 viewers, and the third hour dropped big time to 1,589,000 viewers.
Raw was #1, #2, and #4 in the top 50 cable chart with 0.54, 0.48, and 0.44 ratings respectively. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
Nia Jax was trending worldwide following Monday Night Raw and her “My hole!” comment after missing a leg drop on Lana.
Jax wrestled Lana in a tables match and while both were on the apron, Jax tried to drop a leg drop on Lana but Lana moved and Jax started yelling “My butt!!” and then “My hole!!” Jax eventually lost the match after while selling the butt pain, Lana pushed her into a table that was placed in the corner.
Twitter obviously had a ball with Jax’s antics and “My hole” was also trending worldwide. “I’ve been receiving a HOLE lotta love, much obliged,” Jax tweeted, adding the hash tag #myhole.
A bunch of WWE Superstars also joined in on the fun with their #myhole tweets aimed at Nia.
Meanwhile, Miki Agrawal, founder of TUSHY, has reached out to offer his condolences to Nia’s hole! In a hilarious statement, Agrawal offered to send Jax a free TUSHY Spa 3.0 bidet to install in her home.
“I imagine things are a bit tender up there right now, with lots of sensitive nerve endings. Wiping with dry tissue may irritate and damage the area further. With a TUSHY Spa 3.0 you can spray your bum with water. It’ll help it feel cleaner, fresher, and healthier in no time,” Agrawal wrote.
“We can also send you a TUSHY Travel, a portable bidet, perfect for people who poop when they’re out and about to have on hand in case you need it and for as long as your pain persists,” he continued.
Agrawal also offered Jax an opportunity to be a TUSHY brand ambassador and speak to the many features their bidet offers athletes.
WWE bleeped Jax’s hilarious scream from the YouTube clip and the match was not part of the Hulu condensed-version of Raw.
