PWInsider.com is reporting that up to 15 WWE employees were given the pink slip on Friday, including former ring announcer Tony Chimel.
Chimel had been working for WWE since 1989, doing ring announcing and also helping out in various departments, including merchandising and ring setup. He is best known for his long stint as a Smackdown ring announcer, doing also the first show in 1999. After he stopped ring announcing, Chimel worked behind the scenes for the company as a production manager and helped the ring crew. His departure brings down the curtain on a 31-year career with WWE.
PWInsider adds that most of the employees let go all had duties at the WWE HQ in Stamford, Connecticut. The company recently introduced a policy where any office employee who wants to can telework due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Sports in one of the biggest industries in the whole world. While there are different sports activities, and all of them have their own public and audience, it is not the first time when two activities have collided and come to the crossroad. Perhaps this is why sports are beloved, you never know what to expect and you never know what direction is the wind blowing.
WWE and football are two of perhaps the most uncompromising sports. Both of them have their own charism and flavor. Just like some other players and sportsmen, former German goalkeeper, Tim Wiese decided to combine his experience and try himself in both fronts going sports. The reason for that was the exciting and very attractive feature of WWE and his personal characteristics, that he was usually criticized for during his football career.
The former footballer was always honest in the interviews, and never hesitated to express his mind the way he wanted. Thus, he is famous for the very extravagant character, which did not always cause positive feedback from the fans and teammates. According to his own interviews, he says that WWE participation is a great alternative for sitting on the couch and not doing anything. Tim retired from football at a very young age, when he was only 32 and when his career success was supposed to be on the peak. His recent interviews are a bit confusing as you can not really say whether it is a former goalkeeper or the active WWE fighter talking to you.
The hated success
Back in 2010, Tim Wiese played for Werder Bremen during the 2010 World Cup, Champions League, which was very short before he made his mind about moving to the WWE. It was something not many would expect to form him, as he had great success in his footballing career. Although Tim was always criticized for his anger management problems and a very different approach to popularity, his gameplay was always something very outstanding and professional. One way or another, while some individual characteristics might have been on the second stage for Wiese, his professionalism and techniques were never under the question mark.
Back at the time, when Tim Wiese was a footballer, his normal weight would rarely exceed 90kg, while it has changed drastically since his retirement from football. He quickly gained 40 kilos and at the very highest point weightier over 130KG. Though, right before the match in March in Munich in 2016, he weighed 120kg. Tim himself said that women love the muscles and curves and thus he became way more attractive for the feminine line of his fans. Although to have the perfect shape, he was ready to cut his daily consuming calories and lose some more.
As a footballer, Wiese could never be described as calm and fluffy, more explosive and aggressive. To be honest, he was uncompromising weeper-keeper, never afraid to charge out of his area, once mistiming a tackle and drop-kicking Hamburg’s Ivica Olic in the throat, for which he received a yellow card – and could often be seen berating opponents, officials, and even members of his own side. In his favor, Tim mentioned that his childhood and adulthood hero was always Oliver Kahn, because of the similarities in the style. Now, just imagine what the uncompromising footballer could do in the ring? Could be terrifying as well.
There always were some very polarized opinions about Tim and his gameplay manner. He was never afraid of that. Actually, he has not once mentioned that he loves when people hate him and made everything during his football career in order to make people hate him. Why? Because people can never be happy for others’ success, at least not in Germany, he said. Thus, he always knew that the hatred and discussion he received from his Germann fans would mean his career success. This never changed in wrestling. There are always people who either love him or hate him and well, now you guess which is favored by Tim?
Fans might differ according to the origin, at least this is what everything seems like now. While his German fans would mostly hate him or disliked him, Scandinavian and especially Nordic fans would love him. This has not changed even after his transition from football to wrestling. The assumptions have a valid background from the betting companies in Scandinavia as they provide the results and the statistics from the placed bets. According to them, Tim is one of the favorite players to watch for Scandinavian fans, perhaps because of his Vikingi-sh characteristics.
The Pressure
Wiese has never been resistant to the trash-talks and the similar stuff, so he was often unbalanced towards his fans and their attitude. The long-term success of a career in wrestling is built on a foundation of trash-talking and bravado, and it is blindingly obvious Wiese – both the man and the character – no longer wants to be seen as physically or mentally weak. When asked whether he has sustained any injuries in the ring, Wiese says: “That’s a stupid question, of course, I haven’t had any injuries, because I dole out the punishment, I don’t receive it. Next question.”
Now, this is definitely a person with perhaps one of the biggest confidence in himself, but it was not always like that. While we might not bend, we might be broken every once in a while. In 2012, Wiese refused the offer for Real Madrid and instead took a turn as a captain of the Hoffenheim, simply because he felt closer and wanted to maintain his career in Germany. This was the time when the pressure was too much even for his unbent character and charisma. The fans were very massively passive-aggressive or expressional aggressive towards him, which was why the protests near the clubs and offices became something very casual. The pressure was inhuman, something that the former footballer does not wish anyone to experience.
The continuous pressure and the very difficult moral situation, became the reason why he decided to finally retire. Although he was not a bad Capitan and did not have any major fails, still, he would blame himself for every single fail and would question his skills and professionalism. He was not able to play freely, as would feel guilty every single time. Not long after, back in 2014 Hoffenheim and Wiese mutually terminated the contract, though it seems like his contract only ended after four full years in January of 2016. Which can explain his long time no see on the ring. It took him two years to prepare and to do some basics.
Wiese Debut
When finally Wiese showed off on the ring, it was a very different sculpted musculus man, facing every shining star of wrestling and not fearing any of the opponents. The blue blood is something that can be used to describe his attitude as a look. Shining Stars on the rings were dreams that came true at that point. “My game plan against the Shining Stars will basically be to go full throttle, beat them down out of the ring, and seeing as they weigh 30-40lbs less than I do, I will grab them, one with the left hand, one with the right, and end them. I’ll drop-kick Bo Dallas and throw him off the stage.” – mentioned Tim Wiese in one of his interviews.
Whatever we think about the WWE, it features quite a decent show, with a bunch of violent fights, which is something Wiese was aiming at. He achieved quite a few furious fights and just like his football career, his professional and aggressive approach made him a way through the extremely populous sports industry. While his choice of a football career was not his life meaning desire, but rather a decent way of earning money, his wrestling career was something he wanted to try himself in. Tim Wiese, former goalkeeper and then WWE fearless wrestler, dropped out of school because he understood that with the knowledge you get in school there was no big chance of earning good money unless you become the businessmen in the top rows. Thus, he decided to become a footballer and multimillionaire simultaneously. He never cares about the opinion of others and now he is quite enjoying his spare time and ability to try himself in different shades.
Former WWE Superstar Savio Vega will be part of this year’s Survivor Series and participating in the Final Farewell to The Undertaker.
Vega’s appearance was announced by IWA Puerto Rico in a tweet who said that Vega will be there during the retirement of his big friend, The Undertaker.
The 56-year-old Puerto Rican wrestled for the WWF between 1994 and 1999, first as Kwang, and then joining the Nation of Domination and Los Boricuas. He was part of Taker’s inner circle, back then known as the BSK – Bone Street Crew.
The BSK members involved Taker, Yokozuna, Rikishi, Vega, Brian Adams, The Godfather, Mideon, and Henry Godwinn.
With WWE regaining control of the Bash at the Beach name, AEW will not be able to use it for a themed Dynamite like they did in January of this year.
But the plan is still to use a similar name for a show in January 2021 according to AEW President Tony Khan, with the name changed to Beach Break.
Held over two nights on January 15 and 22, Bash at the Beach took place from the Watsco Center and then moved to the Chris Jericho Rock ‘N’ Wrestling Rager at Sea in the Bahamas for the second night. AEW did not have rights for the show, but Cody Rhodes did. Both nights were a hit with fans with Dynamite pulling 940,000 viewers for night one and 871,000 viewers for night two.
Khan also said that there will be some themed episodes of Dynamite in December, saying the shows over the next couple of months will be some of the biggest shows the company has ever produced, especially the ones in January.
It looks like AEW fans will get more than they wished for when it comes to video games for the promotion as AEW President Tony Khan confirmed that more than one game is on the way.
Ahead of tomorrow’s games event, Khan said that they will be catering to different games and interests as well as platforms.
“I think we’ll put a title out, a console game that’s best in class for a console game….we are really excited about it,” Khan said on Saturday after Full Gear.
Khan also hinted that one of the games planned will allow fans to run the promotion or be the booker. Back in September, AEW filed for two new trademarks titled All Elite Wrestling: General Manager and Elite GM which might suggest the name that AEW will use for this particular game.
The event for AEW Games takes place tomorrow, November 10, at 6PM ET on the AEW Games social media channels.
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The website HeelByNature.com is reporting that WWE has filed for six trademarks that are old WCW events, all of which were originally filed by Cody Rhodes.
The filing date is November 2, which coincidentally enough is the same date that WWE dropped the Cody Rhodes trademark, allowing him to take ownership of it.
The new trademarks are Slamboree, The Match Beyond, Bunkhouse Stampede, BattleBowl, SuperBrawl, and Bash At The Beach. Cody had applied to trademark them in the past but were all met with appeals from WWE.
Last year, AEW even used the Bash At The Beach name for one of their Dynamite episodes but the USPTO denied his application because it was too similar to WWE’s.
A few days ago during a conference call with reporters ahead of Full Gear, Cody said that there are no hard feelings from either side and the details on the agreement are not of importance to the public.
Two of the five titles which were on the line yesterday at Full Gear swapped hands, with Darby Allin and The Young Bucks walking out of The Daily’s Place with gold.
The 27-year-old Allin picked up his first taste of gold in All Elite Wrestling after he beat Cody with a cradle for the TNT title. After the match, Cody handed over the championship to Allin, who was visibly emotional. The two had met three times previously, with Cody winning two and the other one being a time-limit draw.
The Young Bucks also beat FTR to get their hands on the AEW World Tag Team titles. Their match had a stipulation that if they didn’t win, they couldn’t wrestle for the titles anymore as long as they’re there. It was a super kick by Matt Jackson on Cash Wheeler which ultimately ended the fantastic match. FTR’s championship reign only lasted two months after they overcame Omega and Page at All Out.
Full Gear also had the AEW Women’s title, NWA Women’s title, and AEW World title on the line but the reigning champs successfully defended those titles.
WWE Superstar Cedric Alexander was backstage at Full Gear yesterday and was shown in a video on Instagram filmed by his wife who wrestles for AEW as Big Swole.
Swole was filming a discussion with Serpentico for her social media when all of a sudden she turned the camera around to show Alexander talking with Will Hobbs and pointed at him.
“Back on me, back on me,” Serpentico joked. “I don’t know who that is, back on me!”
The two have been married since June 2018 and have a daughter together, who was also shown in the video.
Impact Wrestling Executive Vice President Don Callis joined the AEW commentary team for the opening match of last night’s Full Gear at the request of his friend Kenny Omega.
Callis, whose lower third banner did mention Impact Wrestling EVP, said that he’s known Omega since he was 10 years old and that he’s family.
“Happy to be here! We all know the corporate boundaries of pro wrestling, I’m an Impact Wrestling executive but Kenny Omega has been my family since he was 10 years old,” Callis said. “He asked me to be here tonight and what a pleasure to be here with you guys tonight to call this great match.”
Omega went on to win his match against Hangman Page and become the #1 contender for the AEW World title, currently being held by Jon Moxley.
Callis was named Impact Wrestling EVP on December 5, 2017 along with Scott D’Amore.
All Elite Wrestling announced the next time that they will be on pay-per-view again, and that’s February 2021 for Revolution.
A promo for the show aired during last night’s Full Gear pay-per-view with the date of Saturday, February 27. One thing that was not announced was a location.
With coronavirus still around us and no one even daring to guess where the world will be in February, the location probably is still up in the air even for AEW themselves.
Last year, Revolution took place in Chicago and was headlined by Jon Moxley vs Chris Jericho.
Here are the results from last night’s Full Gear 2020 pay-per-view which took place from The Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida.
Serena Deeb defeated Allisyn Kay to retain the NWA Women’s title in The Buy-In show; Kenny Omega defeated Hangman Page to win the AEW World Title Eliminator tournament; Orange Cassidy defeated John Silver; Darby Allin defeated Cody Rhodes to win the TNT title; Hikaru Shida defeated Nyla Rose to retain the AEW Women’s title; The Young Bucks defeated FTR to win the AEW World Tag Team titles; Matt Hardy defeated Sammy Guevara in The Elite Deletion cinematic match; MJF defeated Chris Jericho to earn a spot in The Inner Circle; Jon Moxley defeated Eddie Kingston in an I Quit match to retain the AEW World title.
Donald Trump losing the presidency of the United States spells bad news for Vince McMahon and WWE, and not just because his wife Linda is now out of a job, but because of the threat that former presidential candidate Andrew Yang dropped on McMahon several weeks ago.
Yang, who is a massive wrestling fan, warned McMahon that if Joe Biden becomes President of the United States, he will work to tackle WWE’s “corrupt labor practices” even if he has no seat in Biden’s cabinet.
The whole thing kicked off in early September when McMahon issued an e-mail to all WWE talent forcing them to stop engaging with third party services such as Cameo, Twitch, and YouTube. Since then, McMahon stayed true to his word and enforced his new unpopular rule late last month.
“If I’m not the Secretary of Labor I’m pretty confident I’ll have his or her number to talk about the ridiculous classification of WWE wrestlers as independent contractors while controlling their name and likeness for years, even for something as benign as Cameo,” Yang wrote on Twitter back then.
“Come on Vince – you’ve already deprived the folks breaking their backs for you of healthcare, security, recovery time, retirement benefits and fair treatment re: licenses and royalties. At least let them make a living off their own names. Many of them need it,” he continued.
Yang said that he grew up a wrestling fan and it was sad to see so many of his childhood heroes pass away early. “I’d feel better knowing that they and their families were being fairly treated – I look forward to doing what I can for the next generation of performers. I know how tough it is,” Yang wrote.
But before ending his thread, Yang fired a final warning to the WWE Chairman and CEO.
“Vince you’d better hope your old friend Donald wins because change is in the air and changes are long overdue where your corrupt labor practices are concerned. It would give me great pleasure. The people know,” he said.
AEW presents its final pay-per-view of the year tonight with Full Gear from The Daily’s Place. We will take a look at all the odds for the full card below but remember, odds are likely to change up until the show starts and even during the pay-per-view.
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The AEW World title is up for grabs in an I Quit match as Jon Moxley defends against Eddie Kingston. Champ Moxley is 1/8 favorite to retain while Kingston is 9/2 for the upset.
Cody’s TNT title is also on the line as he takes on Darby Allin. Cody is 4/6 favorite to keep the TNT title while Allin is 11/10 for his first AEW title.
A rematch from a few months ago for the AEW Women’s title will see Hikaru Shida take on Nyla Rose. Champion Hikaru Shida is 2/5 favorite while Rose, who will be accompanied by Vickie Guerrero, has 7/4 odds.
The AEW World Tag Team title match has an interesting stipulation with The Young Bucks saying that if they don’t win tonight, they’ll never challenge for the titles again. As of right now, both FTR and the Bucks have odds of 5/6, meaning that oddsmakers are still undecided.
MJF has a chance to join The Inner Circle tonight but Chris Jericho stands in his way. But the odds are in MJF’s favor, being the favorite with 4/11 and Jericho at 2/1.
The next number one contender for the AEW World title will also be decided tonight in the final match of the AEW World Title Eliminator tournament. Kenny Omega is favorite with odds of 1/5 while his former tag team partner Adam Page has 10/3 odds.
The Hardy Compound will be revisited tonight for The Elite Deletion. Hardy is 1/2 favorite to end this feud on a high while Sammy Guevara is 6/4 to win.
And finally, Orange Cassidy is 1/10 favorite to win against The Dark Order’s John Silver who has 11/2 odds.
Live from The Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida, AEW presents its final pay-per-view of the year, Full Gear. The full card is as follows:
Jon Moxley vs Eddie Kingston in an I Quit match for the AEW World title; Cody vs Darby Allin for the AEW TNT title; FTR vs The Young Bucks for the AEW World Tag Team titles with Tully Blanchard banned from ringside and if The Young Bucks lose, they will never challenge for the Tag Team titles again; Hikaru Shida vs Nyla Rose for the AEW Women’s title; Kenny Omega vs Adam Page in the final match of the AEW World Title Eliminator tournament; Matt Hardy vs Sammy Guevara in The Elite Deletion match; Chris Jericho vs MJF with the stipulation being that if MJF wins he joins The Inner Circle; Orange Cassidy vs John Silver; and Serena Deeb vs Allysin Kay for the NWA Women’s title in The Buy-In show.
The Buy-In show will start at 7PM ET on AEW’s digital channels as well as free on B/R Live and on FITE. Full Gear will be streaming on B/R Live for $49.99 for those living in the United States and on FITE for $19.99 for International viewers.
WWE Hall of Famer and the 45th President of the United States Donald Trump lost an almost week-long iron man match against Joe Biden and the presidency in the process as over 70 million Americans decided to future endeavor the now one-term President.
This never-ending election had the highest voter turnout in 120 years, breaking records like WrestleMania does every year with attendances…well, apart from this year.
The President was in charge for most of the contest, leading like a typical wrestling heel and even cutting a promo mid-match saying that he won before the bell was rung. But the 77-year-old Biden pulled a comeback that would even make Hulk Hogan jealous and overturned the whole election in the final two days, surging ahead in key battleground states.
Trump demanded that certain states stop the count during the match but he was quickly reminded that this was a no count-out match and all votes had to be counted.
Despite losing the contest, President Trump refuses to accept the result, tweeting that he won…”by a lot”…and is now demanding a rematch in the form of several lawsuits in different states and recounts in certain states that he lost. But the people’s decision will likely be final and it’s highly unlikely that the powers that be, in this case Supreme Court judges, will do anything to alter the outcome.
One of his money managers, former WWE President Linda McMahon who heads up the America First Action SuperPAC, wrote, “We must work diligently to ensure that all voting processes across the country are transparent and legal. Voters must feel confident that their votes will always be counted. State laws by legislatures, not courts govern the process.”
She then urged supporters to stand with President Trump for a “fair count of legal votes” and that they must continue the challenge.
Trump became the President of the United States in 2016, defeating Hillary Clinton and shocking the world with a surprise victory. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013 by WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon inside Madison Square Garden but was loudly booed by the crowd during his speech.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Okay…this was done in fun and to see how many wrestling references I can insert in one article. It’s cheesy as hell, but hopefully it will make you smile (or maybe even angrier) if you’re on the losing side.
Friday Night Smackdown pulled in 2,209,000 viewers in the overnights yesterday, an increase of 76,000 viewers from last week’s overnight. Smackdown last week ended up with 2.28 million viewers when Monday came around.
The first hour of Smackdown pulled in 2,312,000 viewers and then dropped to 2,106,000 viewers for the second hour. The first hour of the show had the most viewers since the first hour of the April 10 episode. Smackdown was first in 18-34, first in 18-49, and first in 25-54 in the ratings, with 0.4, 0.65, and 0.8 respectively. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
After several weeks of hype, Carmella returned to Smackdown last night and crashed the Sasha Banks party, ambushing her from behind after Banks beat Bayley to retain the Smackdown Women’s title.
As Banks posed at the top of the ramp with the title raised above her head, Carmella sneaked up from behind and super kicked Banks as soon as she turned around. Carmella then hit the X Factor on Banks and stood over her as she posed for viewers.
Carmella had brand new, all-red ring gear for her first live televised appearance since Money In The Bank back in May.
Another weekend, another pay-per-view and tonight it’s AEW’s time to shine with Full Gear. This morning we’ll take a look at the bettings odds for the top three matches on the show and then later tonight we’ll publish to full odds for the whole card.
In the AEW World title match, Jon Moxley is the overwhelming favorite to retain the title tonight with odds of 1/8 while his opponent, Eddie Kingston, is 9/2 to win.
The TNT title is also up for grabs with Cody taking on Darby Allin. Cody, who regained the title a few weeks ago after returning on Dynamite, is the favorite with 4/7 odds while Allin is 5/4 for his first AEW title.
And the AEW World Title Eliminator tournament will be decided tonight with the final match taking place between former tag team champions Hangman Page and Kenny Omega. Omega is 1/5 favorite for this one while Page is 10/3 for the upset. The winner of this match will then face whoever the AEW World champion is next.
The Smackdown Survivor Series teams continued to add members after three qualifying matches took place last night on the show.
For the men’s team, Baron Corbin defeated Rey Mysterio to qualify and Seth Rollins defeated Otis to earn a spot on the team. They now join Kevin Owens and Jey Uso with one more spot left to be filled, presumably next week.
The women’s team also had the addition of Ruby Riott, who last night defeated Natalya and Zelina Vega in a triple threat match. She joins Bianca Belair as the only ones announced so far with three spots left on the team.
Speaking of the Survivor Series teams, a second-chance qualifying match will take place on Monday Night Raw with Jeff Hardy, Riddle, and Elias taking on each other in a triple threat match, with the winner earning the final spot on Raw’s team.
