There are a lot of rumors flying around that pro wrestling company EVOLVE is being sold to WWE, a transaction which would also include the video library.
WWE and EVOLVE has shared a working relationship for the past five years and its owner, Gabe Sapolsky, is even a consultant for WWE in the NXT brand. WWE sends over their talent most of the time when EVOLVE has a show and EVOLVE has also provided a lot of its talent to the NXT brand.
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer adds to the story that EVOLVE has a lot of financial problems and not running shows during WrestleMania 36 week were the final nail in the coffin so to speak as that week was a big factor in the company surviving financially.
Getting ownership of EVOLVE’s video library would be a major plus for the WWE Network as EVOLVE has 144 events. The last show the company held was in January of this year, a show which included NXT’s Dexter Lumis in the main event.
WWE Network streamed EVOLVE’s 10th Year Anniversary Celebration special last year which included a special appearance from Paul Heyman and two NXT matches featuring Riddle vs Gulak and Cole vs Tozawa.
Kofi Kingston and Big E of The New Day took a knee in the middle of the ring last night after making their entrance in a show of support for Black Lives Matter.
In addition, E was wearing an armband to honor 12-year-old Somali refugee Shukri Abdi who was often bullied and drowned in the UK last year while Kingston wore armbands to remember Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American EMT who was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police Department officers in March, and Tamla Horsford, a 42-year-old African American who died at a party in 2018 but whose death is being re-investigated by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Last Sunday, Keith Lee had the words Black Lives Matter on his wrestling trunks for his match against Johnny Gargano but none of the announcers mentioned it.
Get ready to hear a lot of “bro” on Smackdown starting from next week as former NXT Tag Team titleholder Matt Riddle will debut on the next episode of Smackdown on FOX.
Riddle spent nearly three years in NXT, first showing up at NXT Takeover: Brooklyn IV and then making his debut in late October. He was one of the biggest fan favorites in NXT throughout his stint there and won the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic and the NXT Tag Team titles with Pete Dunn.
He wrestled his last match for NXT a few weeks ago in a fight pit against Timothy Thatcher and did the time-honored tradition of losing in his last match for the brand.
WWE offered the opportunity to Kurt Angle to manage Riddle on Smackdown but Angle turned down the job.
The season five finale of Total Bellas, episode 11 titled Babies On Board, did a total of 693,000 viewers, up a whooping 251,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. This was the most-watched episode of the season and the most watched since episode two of season one! The show had a healthy 0.29 rating in the 18-49 duo and placed #8 in the chart. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
There is a new WWE Intercontinental champion in town after last night as the final match of the tournament was held on Smackdown on FOX.
It was AJ Styles who came out on top in his match against Daniel Bryan, winning the title after delivering Styles Clash and Phenomenal Forearm combo for the pinfall.
This is Styles’ first run with the Intercontinental title and his first title since dropping the WWE title after a year-long run.
Styles beat Shinsuke Nakamura to advance to the final as he had a bye in the semi while Bryan had to go through Drew Gulak and Sheamus to get to the final.
The tournament was held because Sami Zayn took WWE’s option not to work during the pandemic and could not defend the Intercontinental title.
E! today announced that Total Bellas has been renewed for a sixth season which will premiere later this fall.
The current fifth season of Total Bellas is averaging nearly 1 million total viewers, 604,000 P18-49 and 443,000 W18-49, up 10%, 7% and 14%, respectively, from the prior season. This marks the highest-rated season among all key demos in two years. On Thursdays, the series consistently ranked among the Top 10 programs in primetime across ad-supported cable networks among W18-49, P18-34, and W18-34.
The upcoming season will highlight the expansion of their families with the birth of their babies as Nikki navigates the joys of parenthood for the first time and Brie continues her journey of motherhood, now as a mom of two.
Total Bellas is produced by WWE and Bunim/Murray Productions with Gil Goldschein, Andrea Metz and Farnaz Farjam Chazan serving as Executive Producers for Bunim/Murray Productions and Kevin Dunn and Chris Kaiser serving as Executive Producers for WWE. Nikki Bella and Brie Bella also serve as Executive Producers.
In another major change in the process of creative writing, WWE announced that Bruce Prichard is taking over both the writing for Raw and Smackdown, eliminating the Executive Directors job that they introduced last year.
Paul Heyman, who was serving as the Executive Director of Monday Night Raw will return solely as an on-screen character.
“In an effort to streamline our creative writing process for television, we have consolidated both teams from Raw and SmackDown into one group, led by Bruce Prichard. Paul Heyman will concentrate on his role as an in-ring performer,” a statement from WWE read.
Back in July 2019, WWE announced that they created two Executive Director roles, one for each brand. Heyman led Raw and Eric Bischoff led Smackdown. However, Bischoff’s time in that role was quickly terminated as he was fired – again – in October after moving to Stamford for the job he had started less than four months before.
Bischoff was replaced by Bruce Prichard, who had been hired earlier in 2019.
NXT came close but still missed out on beating Dynamite this week despite coming off a Takeover show. NXT did 673,000 viewers, down 42,000 viewers from last week. It had a 0.16 rating in the 18-49 demographic and was #35 on the chart. The difference between the two shows this week was of just 3,000 viewers, down from the 15,000 of last week. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
AEW won this week’s ratings against NXT by the slimmest of margins as both shows saw a hefty decrease in viewership. Dynamite pulled in 677,000 viewers, down 53,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. The show did a 0.23 in the 18-49 demo and was placed #14 in the top 50 cable chart. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
The team of Shotzi Blackheart and Tegan Nox will have a crack at the WWE Women’s Tag Team titles on next week’s episode of NXT on USA Network.
Blackheart and Nox will face which ever team comes out as champions from this Sunday’s Backlash as the current champs, Bayley and Sasha Banks take on The IIconcis and Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross in a triple threat tag team match.
This will be the second time that the WWE Women’s Tag Team titles will be defended on NXT. Back in October of last year, the then champions The Kabuki Warriors returned to NXT to defend the titles against the team of Tegan Nox and Dakota Kai.
All three teams wrestling this Sunday all got their start to their WWE career in NXT so whoever wins will get to go back “home” for one night.
The second match for Fyter Fest was made official last night on AEW’s Dynamite and this will be a title defense from Cody.
The inaugural TNT champion will be taking on former World Heavyweight champion and mixed martial artist Jake Hager of The Inner Circle for the TNT championship. Hager made his intentions known yesterday on Dynamite after he attacked Arn Anderson who was in Cody’s corner for the TNT title match against Marq Quen.
The other match announced so far is AEW champion Jon Moxley vs Brian Cage for the title.
Fyter Fest will be a two-night affair and will air during Dynamite on July 1 and 8 on TNT. The event was supposed to be held in London, England but everything changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year the show aired on B/R Live.
The thirtieth anniversary of WrestleMania presented several high-profile events, but on the timeline, most likely, the end of the Undertaker’s streak, in the end, will be the most high-profile event of this evening.
Speaking in an interview with CBS Sports, Undertaker told how the process of making this decision went. According to him, Vince McMahon changed the outcome of the match several times, and the final decision was made several hours before the start of the broadcast. The Undertaker told about his reaction to the change of plans and about his conversation with him about stopping the streak. He believed that someone like Roman Reigns could benefit more from ending his streak in WrestleMania, although he admits that Lesnar was the most logical choice specifically for that period of time.
Obviously, from Vince’s point of view, if it’s not Brock, then who? Undertaker declared that his biggest concern was that he just wanted to make sure McMahon was confident in his decision, and that was what he wanted to do.
Undertaker admits that the streak has become one of the main parts of his incredible legacy, but does not hold a grudge against Vince McMahon for the decision to interrupt this streak.
Mark William Calaway, known by his stage name Undertaker, is regarded as one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. He is perhaps known for his eccentric nature and 21 straight victories, which he managed to accomplish between 1991 and 2013. He has been on the stage for many years, even going to New Zealand, where he managed to earn love from local citizens. His success and admiration among ordinary citizens quickly earned him the respect of Kiwis.
One of the most surprising facts about The Undertaker and New Zealand is the fact, that even though online casinos rarely even accept bets on the WWE his impact was so high, that Kiwi VIP online casinos decided to include The Undertaker as the “special fighter”, where they offered bonuses on him. This little example shows the influence of athletes even on gambling industries.
Ultimately, this streak turned out to be one of the greatest achievements of his career, and this is what will be synonymous of his heritage. Vince McMahon made the decision to end the streak, and The Undertaker had no complaints about him.
The Undertaker – an amazing wrestler
The Undertaker began his professional career in 1984. Calaway spent 5 years at WCCW, performing under the names Texas Red, The Master of Pain and The Punisher.
In 1990, he joined the World Wrestling Federation (which became World Wrestling Entertainment in 2002) under the name Undertaker.
In April 1997, at In Your House 14: Revenge of the Taker, The Undertaker, launched a fireball in the face of his former manager Paul Bearer, who tried unsuccessfully to help his protégé Mankind in his WWF belt match. After that, Bearer began to make strange promos in which he talked about revenge, which would come from the Undertaker’s childhood.
WWE World Heavyweight Champion (2007—2010)
In 2009, a feud with Shawn Michaels began. The fight at WrestleMania XXV did not resolve the conflict, which lasted another whole year. In 2010, he met at WrestleMania XXVI with Shawn Michaels. At stake was a series of Undertaker victories against Shawn’s career. Michaels lost and left WWE. Sometime after the show Over The Limit, The Undertaker allegedly fell into a coma. But he returned to PPV SummerSlam. At the Night Of Champions show, The Undertaker lost to Kane the fight for the world heavyweight title. At Hell in a Cell, he took revenge from Kane but lost. At Bragging Rights, in the match “Buried Alive”, he lost the fight for the World Heavyweight Champion title to the same Kane after the intervention of the Nexus.
The Undertaker returned to Battleground 2015, where he attacked Brock Lesnar during his match with Seth Rollins.
At SummerSlam 2015, Undertaker surrendered to Brock Lesnar after Kimura Lock, but the ref did not notice this. After that, The Undertaker recorded a painful seizure of Hell’s Gate on Lesnar, due to which Lesnar lost consciousness, and the match was stopped. After the match, replays were shown showing the Undertaker giving up and Paul Hayman declaring Lesnar the winner.
At WrestleMania 32, a match was held between Shane McMahon and The Undertaker, from which the latter emerged the winner.
At the next WrestleMania, Undertaker was defeated by Roman Reigns. This was his second loss in this form of the show after WrestleMania 30. After the match, The Undertaker folded his cloak, gloves and hat in the middle of the ring and slowly walked away. After that, many fans got the impression that The Undertaker had finished his career, but this was not the case.
After some time, The Undertaker took part in Raw 25 Years on Raw dated January 22, 2018.
After a while, The Undertaker reunited with Kane to confront Triple H and Shawn Michaels. At Super Show-Down in Australia, The Undertaker was defeated by Triple H after Michaels intervention. After the match, Kane and The Undertaker attacked Michaels and Triple H, thereby reviving the Brothers of Destruction and D-Generation X teams. At the Crown Jewel of November 2, despite dominating most of the match, the Destruction Brothers lost to DX.
The Undertaker’s fight against Goldberg was announced at Super ShowDown 2019. At the show itself, The Undertaker defeated Goldberg by retention.
Under Extreme Rules, 2019 announced a team battle between The Undertaker and Roman Reigns against Shane McMahon and Drew McIntyre. The Undertaker and Roman Reigns defeated Shane McMan and Drew MacIntyre at the show.
The Undertaker returned in 2020 – this happened at Super ShowDown, a show held in Saudi Arabia. Undertaker won the Tuwaiq Mountain Trophy, defeating AJ Styles. From this moment, their joint plot began on the way to WrestleMania 36.
The NXT UK television tapings which were set for late July in Glasgow, Scotland, have been canceled and no longer happening.
“NXT UK Live events scheduled to take place on Friday, July 24 and Saturday, July 25 at Braehead Arena, Glasgow, have been cancelled. Ticketholders will be contacted by their ticket providers shortly,” read a statement from the arena.
With the coronavirus situation in the United Kingdom not as good as other countries, WWE has no plans for now to resume tapings although NXT UK Takeover: Dublin is still set to take place on October 25 after it was moved from April 26.
There have been no NXT UK television tapings since early March and NXT UK is currently running best-of episodes. Empty arena tapings are also not possible as most of the production crew are located in the United States and cannot travel overseas.
This week’s all-women episode of WWE Backstage did 112,000 viewers, down 9,000 viewers from last week’s show. The Evolution pay-per-view which served as the lead-in to Backstage did not chart. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
WWE is popular around the world as it brings a lot of sports entertainment to viewers. In fact, many people love watching wrestling as they play real money casinos slots. With everything that is happening in the world, there have been a lot of changes at WWE. This includes budget cuts, as well as WWE letting go of certain Superstars.
In this post, we focus on some of the biggest Superstars to ever been fired from WWE and the reasons why they were fired. Enjoy!
Daniel Bryan
For those that have been watching the WWE from way back, they do know that Daniel Bryan is one of the biggest Stars to ever been employed by WWE. Daniel Bryan initially retired from WWE due to neck injuries, which prevented him from competing in the ring. Before that, Bryan had held the World Championship, becoming a favorite star amongst the WWE Universe.
However, his stint in the WWE came with some pitfalls. In fact, back in 2010, Daniel Bryan was part of the Nexus and a mistake that he made on his first night got him fired. He was seen attacking a ring announcer with a tie, and that got him fired. However, he managed to come back. Maybe that’s why there’s also online casinos uk slots based on him.
Mickie James
Mickie James has won the Women’s Championship a total of 6 times. In the first year at WWE, she fought some of the biggest WWE Divas such as Lita and Trish Stratus. Mickie James was fired from WWE in 2010 after it was reported that she caused many issues while they were on the European Tour. It is reported that on a number of times, James arrived late for the bus quite a couple of times and did not perform quite well on the tour. That good her fired from WWE but she managed to come back 7 years later.
The new NXT Cruiserweight champion El Hijo del Fantasma unmasked during NXT yesterday and revealed his new name: Santos Escobar.
It was also revealed that the two masked men who have been kidnapping NXT stars in the parking lot over the past two months are associated with the former Fantasma and they also unmasked to reveal they are Joaquin Wilde and Raul Mendoza.
Drake Maverick was the trio’s first victim, who came out to congratulate Fantasma for his win. As a new full-time member of NXT, Maverick asked for another title shot and Fantasma was okay with that. As soon as the match was agreed, the two masked men appeared and just when it was about to be two on two, Fantasma turned on Maverick to reveal his association with the two men.
After the three destroyed Maverick and Wilde and Mendoza unmasked, it was Fantasma’s turn to remove his mask and announce to the world his new name. “I am Santos Escobar, the NXT Cruiserweight champion and no one can touch me,” he said.
This is not the first time that the 35-year-old removed his mask. In 2018, he lost a mask vs mask match against LA Park at AAA’s TripleMania and had to unmask in front of thousands of people in Mexico.
Former NXT star Deonna Purrazzo made her Impact Wrestling debut on Tuesday night during the episode of Impact on AXS TV.
Purrazzo, who was let go due to the COVID-19 measures from WWE, confronted the Impact Women’s champion Jordynne Grace after she defeated Taya Valkyrie and offered to shake her hand. After Grace accepted the handshake, Purrazzo turned the handshake into a Fujiwara armbar and put the women’s division on notice.
After letting go of the hold, Purrazzo then grabbed Grace’s belt and put it in the middle of the squared circle and posed over it.
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN: TONY SCHIAVONE REMEMBER WCW MONDAY NITRO FROM 06/07/97: 06/10/20
Tony Schiavone talking about Bobby Heenan being afraid of the fans: “Bobby The Brain Heenan, me, Mike Tenay and Lee Marshall and Louis Schiavone were in Boston for Nitro. Bobby, Tenay and I would always take our garments, our bags and put them in the back of the rental car before the show started. So when the bell sounded and we were off the air, we would go directly to the car and hop in and leave. This time, to park the car behind the Fleet Center, you have to give your key to the security guy so he can move it in case it needs to be moved. We go running down and we can’t find the security guy. Now, Heenan is panicking out of his mind, almost to where he is in tears. He said, we need to get this car. These people are going to come out of this building at any time now. We need to get this car. We need to get out of here. We finally get the car and Tenay is driving, Heenan is in the front, Louis and I are in the back with Karen Tenay and Lee Marshall. As we finally drive along the alley way, fans come swarming out the doors and they are pounding on the car. Heenan is like a little bitch. He is going crazy. You had to see Heenan shooting one of his hissy fits to see the Bobby Heenan we saw. It’s funny that when I think of this show, that’s what I think of most of all. I don’t think of Sting, Luger, Piper or Flair. I think of Heenan’s hissy fit not getting out in time. It is one of many he pulled on us trying to leave the building when we didn’t leave on time. He was, and I guess this was old time heat, but he was legitimately frightened of fans. He was scared of them. I guess it was from the old days when he was a heel manager and he had legitimate heat. The fans loved Heenan back then. He wasn’t the heel shit manager in WCW like he was in the AWA.”
NXT on USA Network tonight will have the Takeover: In Your House fallout but so far, just two matches have been made public.
The NXT champion Adam Cole continues his one year-plus title reign and following his backlot brawl against Velveteen Dream, he will go up against Dexter Lumis. Lumis has been targeting The Undisputed Era over the past few weeks. Also, in a rematch from a few weeks ago, Finn Balor will get another shot against Cameron Grimes.
The new NXT Women’s champion Io Shirai will also be in the house as she will probably get to know who will be her first challenger.
Now that most sports have been put on hold in this COVID 19 lockdown, you might not be able to get all the wrestling that you want. And, if you cannot get it from online casinos at https://www.americancasinosites.com/ then movies are another fun alternative as well.
Therefore, this article is going to be giving you some of the best movies for wrestling lovers. After all, 2020 is the year for you to catch up on all the wrestling movies that you have never watched.
Fighting with My Family
This movie definitely made headlines upon its release in 2018. Fighting with my family is based on the real life of the female wrestler, Paige. It looks at how she grew up and entered the wrestling industry and how it later went on to influence her relationship with her family.
The movie, produced by Dwayne Johnson, has the most realistic depiction of the WWE. You will definitely love getting a fun way of getting up close to the life of one of the most respected female wrestlers right now.
No Hold Barred
This movie is important because it marks history as the first WWE movies. After all, the best way of getting information is from the source itself. Therefore, you will surely enjoy how realistic this movie can get. Additionally, the starring role is played by Hulk Hogan. What better way is there to get information than from one of the most respected wrestling Legends.
However, the movie is not based on the life of Hulk Hogan. Rather, it is based on Rip Thomas. It focuses on how a rivalry network to WWE decides to snatch the wrestling legend from the network. After failing, they had to come up with different desperate means to impersonate Rip. Did you know there’s also a slot machine (also known as meilleur machine a sous in French) based on WWE?
Andre the Giant
Get to watch this thrilling HBO documentary on one of the rarest legends of all time, Andre the Giant. The documentary will get you the closest to any of the private life of the wrestling legend.
