They often say that not all superheroes wear capes. Those on the frontlines battling the coronavirus pandemic certainly do not wear a cape and there’s one WWE guy who even during the pandemic, puts on his wrestling gear and makes wishes come true. The only difference this time, he had a face mask and gloves on!
John Cena, the former 16-time world champion, continued his legendary Make-A-Wish granter status by yesterday going to a house of a 7-year-old boy in Odessa, Florida. The boy, David, is battling a life-threatening illness called Wilms tumor, and received John Cena in person as an early birthday present.
The boy’s mom, Tammy, said that Cena brought along with him tons of WWE merchandise for her son, including two WWE title belt replicas. Describing the encounter, Tammy said that her son was filled with excitement and had tears of joy when he saw Cena.
Cena has granted over 650 wishes thanks to Make-A-Wish Foundation and is the most sought after celebrity in the world for wishes.
News Channel 8 in Florida reported that the surprise visit was made possible by officials with Pasco County Fire Rescue.
Heart-warming photos from the encounter can be seen at WFLA.COM.
Over the past couple of weeks, WWE’s broadcast partner in the United Kingdom, BT Sport, ran a very successful WWE Theme Songs World Cup on their @BTSportWWE Twitter account where thousands of fans voted from 32 pre-selected themes that even got WWE Superstars interacting.
The 32 themes were split in groups of four with the top two from each group advancing to the round of 16.
The theme songs which reached the round of 16 were ‘Sexy Boy’ of Shawn Michaels, ‘Slow Chemical’ of Kane, ‘Are You Ready?’ of DX, ‘Real American’ of Hulk Hogan, ‘RIP’ of The Undertaker, ‘I Walk Alone’ of Batista, ‘No Chance In Hell’ of Vince McMahon, ‘Burn In My Light’ of Randy Orton, ‘Broken Dreams’ of Drew McIntyre, ‘Electrifying’ of The Rock, ‘Cult of Personality’ of CM Punk, ‘Sky’s The Limit’ of Sasha Banks, ‘Shock The System’ of The Undisputed Era, ‘The Rising Sun’ of Shinsuke Nakamura, ‘I Won’t Do What You Told Me’ of Stone Cold Steve Austin, and ‘Metalingus’ of Edge.
Reaching the quarter finals were Shawn Michaels vs DX, Batista vs Randy Orton, Drew McIntyre vs CM Punk, and Shinsuke Nakamura vs Edge. The semi finals featured Shawn Michaels vs Batista and CM Punk vs Edge.
After Edge’s ‘Metalingus’ made it to the final, the other poll between Shawn Michaels’ ‘Sexy Boy’ and Batista’s ‘I Walk Alone’ ended in a tie, with both themes getting 50% of the fans’ votes. And in typical wrestling fashion, we had a triple threat final.
Following 24 hours of voting and nearly 24,000 votes, Edge’s ‘Metalingus’ by Alter Bridge was crowned the winner with 51% of the votes, with Shawn Michaels’ ‘Sexy Boy’ coming in second with 34% and Batista’s ‘I Walk Alone’ performed by Saliva getting 15% of the votes.
Other theme songs which were part of this World Cup included Mark Henry’s ‘Some Bodies Gunna Get It,’ Eric Bischoff’s ‘I’m Back,’ ‘LoveFuryPassionEnergy’ from Lita, ‘All The Things She Said’ from Victoria, ‘Rockhouse’ from nWo, ‘My Time’ from Triple H, ‘Real Man’s Man’ from William Regal, ‘Word Life’ from John Cena, ‘Just Close Your Eyes’ from Edge, ‘Lie Cheat Steal’ from Eddie Guerrero, ‘Medal’ from Kurt Angle, ‘Glorious’ from Bobby Roode, ‘Here Comes The Money’ from Shane McMahon, ‘Blood’ from The Brood, ‘619’ from Rey Mysterio, and ‘Line In The Sand’ from Evolution.
Perhaps the biggest surprises were the elimination of the nWo, Bobby Roode, and Evolution theme songs which failed to get enough votes to go through the next round.
“Motherf*ckers, just let me in!” And that’s how Becky Lynch marks her first appearance on Billions, the popular Showtime series which will have its fifth season premiere tonight.
“I give you the champion of the world. The Man, Becky Lynch,” Maggie Siff, who plays the role of Wendy Rhoades, tells the rest of the office as she introduces Lynch, who plays herself, after a fight.
It turns out that there’s no character for Lynch and just like the many special guests who came before her, she plays her WWE persona although she is credited as Rebecca Quinn, her real name, on the show. Her appearance will last around 3 minutes.
In related news, Kris Tapley of Netflix’s The Call Sheet podcast used Twitter yesterday to drop major news on Lynch: The Man will be appearing in an upcoming Marvel movie.
Speaking to French-Canadian sports network RDS, former Universal champion Kevin Owens said that he has not been at television tapings lately because WWE gave them the option not to travel if they want to, and he preferred to stay at home with his family during the pandemic rather than flying to Orlando for work.
On the post-Mania Raw, Owens cut a promo but that was filmed by his wife while they were at home and he has not been at the WWE Performance Center since WrestleMania was filmed over a month ago.
“The great thing about WWE is that it doesn’t require us to be there if we don’t want to. This is also why in the last two weeks I have not been present, because I preferred to be at home with my family,” Owens said.
Owens also revealed that he believes he is suffering from a sprain or a slight fracture and X-rays will be necessary to determine the extent of his injury. KO said that the injury happened when he jumped from the WrestleMania sign onto Seth Rollins on a table during the pay-per-view.
Multiple industry insiders are reporting that Jimmy Uso is suffering from a knee injury and will require surgery, putting him on the sidelines for up to nine months.
It’s bad timing for the two brothers as they only just returned in January from a six-month absence and the injury will probably mean that Jey Uso will also be unused while his brother recovers.
It’s not known what kind of injury it is but it believed that it happened during the triple threat ladder match at WrestleMania.
The website WWENetworkNews.com is reporting that Undertaker: The Last Ride documentary series will debut on Sunday, May 10.
This “limited event” docuseries will focus on the man with the greatest gimmick in professional wrestling, The Undertaker, and will give never-before-seen access to the man and his family as well as new interviewers with those who shared the ring with him.
The first chapter is titled The Greatest Fear and will take a look at his preparation for his match against Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 33, the second match he lost at WrestleMania. The official synopsis for the episode reads, “Get a rare and revealing look at Mark Calaway, the man behind The Undertaker, as he prepares for the final match of his storied WWE career against Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 33.”
His match against Reigns was meant to be his swan song but obviously things changed and Taker returned to action a couple of times since then.
Speaking to TMZ, Becky Lynch said that both Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and John Cena are mentoring her when it comes to her acting career.
With a degree in theater from her home country of Ireland, the Raw Women’s champion is now trying to sink her teeth into acting as well, with her first appearance in a television show coming up this month. Lynch will have a role in the season five premiere of the popular TV series Billions on Showtime, with the series creators writing a character specifically for her.
But with only one other movie under her belt – The Marine 6 from WWE Studios – Lynch is getting some extra help from two of her peers and two of the most popular WWE Superstars ever.
“The Rock has actually he’s been very helpful in guiding me,” Lynch told TMZ. “He’s just being very giving and I think they all are because they’ve all been there and they’re all ready to look after the next generation.”
And John Cena, who’s also fairly new to acting but already landing some big roles, is helping too. “Cena’s also been so great to me and so generous with his time and his advice, checks up on me on what I’m doing now. I think everybody wants to see the next generation move to where they’ve been, ya know?!”
The Man added that she has some big projects coming up but was not in a position to spill the beans yet. But despite offers, Lynch said that as long as she can wrestle, she will be doing that and has no plans to quit now.
Smackdown failed to crack the 2 million viewer mark for the first time since moving to FOX, getting only 1,918,000 viewers for yesterday’s show and down 96,000 viewers from last week. The first hour did 1,941,000 viewers and the second did 1,896,000. The show had a 0.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic and pretty much was last in everything on the chart. Since moving to empty arena shows, Smackdown lost 25% of its audience which is around 600,000 viewers. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
John Pollock from POSTWrestling.com is reporting that AJ Styles will be returning to Monday Night Raw next week, his first appearance in a month.
Styles was last seen on WWE television at the main event of night one of WrestleMania where he was buried alive by The Undertaker in the boneyard match.
The former WWE champion will be minus his fellow OC members as both Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson were released from their WWE contracts. Styles admitted publicly that he feels responsible for their release because he couldn’t protect his “brothers.”
Pollock also adds that Styles is expected to be part of the Money In The Bank pay-per-view on Sunday.
Next week’s Raw was taped this past Monday as WWE held back-to-back television tapings.
The Revolt, the tag team formerly known as The Revival, filed for five new trademark applications in January and February while still under a WWE deal that are now being objected by WWE with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The applications, filed under their real names of Daniel Wheeler and David Harwood, include Shatter Machine, Top Guys, Say Yeah, No Flips Just Fists, and #FTRKO. The attorney on file is Michael E. Dockins of Shumaker Loop & Kendrick, the same office that represents Cody Rhodes.
WWE filed for objection on April 30 and the company has been granted until August 26 to present their case.
WWE announced on Smackdown that both the men and women Money In The Bank ladder matches will take place simultaneously, confirming the rumor that we published a few days ago.
This will be a first in WWE history that two different matches will happen at the same time and it’s the reason that ladder match competitors went down from eight to six each. Previous MITB ladder matches had eight participants but it’s a bit easier to manage 12 than 16 at the same time.
WWE filmed this match already at the WWE corporate headquarters, known as Titan Towers, last week and filming took a whole day to complete with several pauses in between to get different angles and shots. This match is said to be shot in a cinematic style, similar to the Gargano/Ciampa match on NXT a few weeks ago.
The matches will start at the ground floor of WWE HQ as everyone works their way up through the seven floors of building where a ring and ladders will welcome the Superstars on the roof. A big tower crane will be holding the two briefcases.
On a related note, The Fiend vs John Cena WrestleMania segment was also filmed at WWE headquarters.
Total Bellas season five episode five, titled BellaVision, drew 600,000 viewers, the highest of the series so far and the best number since episode 12 of season three. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
On 17 May 2008, 19 year old Jonathan Vargas from South Carolina won the $35.3 million botb spot the ball jackpot. His life changed drastically thereafter, as he went on to found Wrestlicious Takedown, an American women’s wrestling TV show. If you’re an ardent fan of female wrestling, read further to find out about what the show entailed, Vargas’s life and how he won, and the role he played in the creation of WrestliciousTakedown.
How Jonathan Vargas Won the Lottery
Jonathan Vargas had decided to buy his first lottery ticket when he ventured to the store for iced tea and gasoline at the Cayce Raceway station. He was a construction worker at the time and was also the first person in South Carolina to win the S.C. Education Lottery Powerball Jackpot. Apparently other residents within his community had purchased the preceding four winning tickets.
Vargas, who had graduated from The Airport High School, had selected to take a lump sum of over $17 million of his winnings. So how did he derive his lucky numbers? Well, he said he had heard the numbers in his head, before writing them down on a serviette, prior to telling his mom to write the numbers down. Vargas purchased the winning ticket that same day.
He used the age of his siblings, along with some birth dates to create his winning combination. He siblings were aged 21, 15, 14, and 12 respectively. For the last number, he chose the age of his mother, then 43 at the time. His lucky Powerball number was 30.
Vargas also revealed to WIS News at the time that he was going to invest his money, donate to church, and start trust funds for his siblings. He also noted that he wanted to buy his parents a new car and that the first thing he was going to do was go home to play video games.
That being said, Vargas confirmed that he would not leave himself out of the equation, and that he’d be buying himself a new vehicle and house too. He also noted that he wanted a career and to further his education at college.
How Wrestlicious Takedown Was Established
Jimmy Hart, along with former wrestling and TV producer, Johnny Cafarella established a partnership with Vargas. They released a trailer in 2009 to promote Wrestlicious, which was eventually aired in March 2010, two years after Vargas had won the Powerball lottery. In 2010, several wrestlers were signed on, with many wrestling matches being aired.
Wrestlicious Takedown was produced by Wrestlicious and was aired on MavTV and Dish Network. It also aired on Canada’s BiteTV. Its initial season comprised 13 episodes.
Jonathan Vargas made appearances in the show too as JV Rich. An extension on Wrestlicious called JV’s Crib was then introduced. It included an introspection into the life of Jonathan Vargas living in JVs mansion. The Wrestlicious female wrestlers visited the mansion too.
Some well-known names in the industry include women with names like Bandita, Amber Lively, Brooke Lynn, Gert, Fran, Kandi Kisses, Cousin Cassie, Emo Leigh, and Juvi Hall.
Other Notable Wrestlicious Facts
Wrestlicious had a championship in 2010 where the wrestler Glory had defeated Felony, to be capped as the inaugural champion. The championship lasted for 176 days and was located in Tampa, Florida.
Leyla Milani starred as a co-host for Wrestlicious, while Sister Ophelia managed the Naughty Girls wrestlers. Wrestlicious also comprised several formidable tag teams. Some of these tag teams were the Bristols, with members Penelope and Beatrice Bristol.
Other notable tag team favorites included TNT, which stood for Tina the Trigger and Toni the Top. The Lunch Ladies included wrestlers Gert and Fran, while the Country Cuties consisted of Tyler Texas and Cousin Cassie. The Southern Belle’s tag team comprised Savannah and Charlotte.
The show had an on-air trainer named Taylor Marion, although she got a nickname from the other girls as Bootcamp Bailey. Jimmy hart played the role of a co-host too. He’s also known as James Ray Hart and is currently signed with WWE in a Legend’s deal.
Hart is well known in the world of championship wrestling. Johnny Cafarella was a play-by-play commentator, while Andrew Omega was the ring announcer.
Otis and Carmella qualified for the Money In The Bank ladder matches yesterday on Smackdown, with Otis defeating Dolph Ziggler and Carmella defeating Mandy Rose to advance.
With Carmella’s win, the women’s MITB ladder match is complete and has Nia Jax, Shayna Baszler, Asuka, Lacey Evans, Dana Brooke, and Carmella. The men’s MITB ladder match is still not complete due to Apollo Crews being removed from the match and a last chance gauntlet match takes place on Monday for the final spot. The participants so far for the men’s MITB ladder match include Aleister Black, Rey Mysterio, King Corbin, Daniel Bryan, and Otis.
As previously reported, both matches will take place simultaneously inside Titan Towers, the WWE corporate headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, with the final part of the match being held on the roof.
Aubrey Edwards talking about her approach to refereeing: “It’s focused. It’s assertive. It’s confident. I don’t watch a lot of MMA because I don’t actually like violence or fighting. I like the fake stuff. But, if you watch an MMA referee, they are ready to get in there the moment they have to. So, every little step, even from the initial lockup, you have to be paying attention. I built my persona around that idea of literally this match can be over at any minute so I need to treat it like it can be over at any minute, essentially treating it like it’s a shoot.”
CONVERSATIONS WITH THE BIG GUY RYBACK: TYLER REKS 04/30/20
Tyler Reks talking about post WWE: “I rode the Facebook wave. We were the first to bring the Keto diet to the internet. I was literally the first person to bring and advertise for it and that is when we took off…Every night to quiet my mind, I wrote an e-book which was our Genesis program. That was the first program we ever did. It came out in e-book form. I PDF’d a word document. It was that raw. I put it up on a Facebook page, we came up with a name…I figured let’s find out what the Facebook followers want because we made some motivational videos for fun. We were taking I-phones and we were clipping it with voice overs just for fun and one of them went viral. It was insane, hundreds of thousands of views out of nowhere. We did a preorder and sold 50 of them…Then it was 100, then 200, then 400, then 500 and then a thousand at a time. At the end of the year, we made $6,000. That was cool but I can’t live of $6,000. So, I thought, what if we turned this into a program and we film instructional videos for everything, from start to finish. I hired a programmer…I remember I started selling it and Facebook ads were brand new. It was one of those things where you put $5 in and we send it to everybody. There were no restrictions. I started selling the program for $120 and I thought, let’s see what happens. Nothing. I drop the price down to $100 after a week or two. I sold one here and there and I thought, well that’s interesting. We kept dropping the price. I hit the $60 mark, $59.99 and I had the PayPal alert on my phone. At $59.99, I was doing like $100 in Facebook ads every month. One day, we were in the kitchen and I hear bing, bing, bing. It took off. From that day forward, it was crazy. I thought that was off $100. What if I spent $200? I had a 20 to 1 return on investment, so if I spent $1, I made $20. I was sending $5,000 a day at one point on Facebook. I would net $10-15,000 a day…We made $1.3 million off an e-book. I have nothing to show for it right now. I made so many bad decisions with that money living a flashy lifestyle.
THE PWI PODCAST: RING OF HONOR COO JOE KOFF 04/30/20
Joe Koff on his decision to not run shows: “The decisions that we made, and these go back to early March, we were probably one of the first major promotions that stopped the presses so to speak. It actually happened the week of the Anniversary show, which was on, I think March 13th…I would not have been able to attend the event in Las Vegas because, I was not exposed, but I was in a hotel where somebody tested positively. This was at the beginning of March. Nobody really knew what it was or how to treat it. Everyone was in somewhat of a panic mode. The emergency room wouldn’t even let me come in because I really had no symptoms and had no reason to go in, thank goodness. But, they said don’t travel and don’t go into work. My guys were already in Vegas. This was Wednesday, the show was Friday. I’m beginning to feel a little uneasy with what I’m sensing and what I’m seeing. One of my concerns was getting everybody home and safe and where they wanted to be. We have a lot of international talent…I just needed to be sure in my mind as a responsible person and somebody who is in a community of human beings with empathy and compassion that we can get these people home…We acted pretty quickly but the main concern has always been and will always be the people, not only the fans who are very important to me. I wouldn’t want to put anybody in any kind of compromised situation by coming to a Ring of Honor show if it wasn’t a healthy environment for them to watch it. It wasn’t a hard decision to make. It was the only decision to make and I’m glad we did it.”
Four matches have been announced for tonight’s Smackdown on FOX including two more Money In The Bank ladder qualifying matches.
Otis and Dolph Ziggler will have a WrestleMania rematch tonight with the winner this time around advancing to the men’s MITB ladder match while Mandy Rose will meet Carmella for the final spot in the women’s ladder match.
Daniel Bryan, who has qualified already for the ladder match, will take on King Corbin, who’s also part of the match while The New Day will be facing The Forgotten Sons in a non-title match.
In this episode of Total Bellas, both of the twins seemed to be having trouble with their men. While this is not uncommon for Nikki whose romantic exploits have been well documented in previous seasons, Brie and her husband have always seemed to have a good relationship.
However, lately, there seems to be trouble in paradise. At the start of this season, Brie told her husband that she didn’t want a second child, thus, creating the first rift in their relationship. They only seem to grow further apart as the season wears on. It is well known that Bryan is more of a private person than Brie. He also says that when he and Brie first began dating they had agreed to have a simple life. I’m not sure how Bryan thought he was going to have a simple life, while dating a reality star, and pro wrestler who was on TV every week, while being on TV every week himself! However, he planned on doing it…he had planned on having a normal relationship which they can’t have due to Brie’s multiple jobs. I understand Bryan’s wishes, he may have wanted to express his wish calmly before Brie and her sister had started multiple companies. He also should have known that the Bella twins are definite go getters.
But not everyone is as eager as they are too create new projects, as Nikki found out in this episode.
Nikki’s boyfriend, Artem, used to be a dancer for the TV show Dancing with the Stars, but since being cut from the show, he hasn’t found another job. Further, Artem didn’t even know what he wanted to do next. While most girlfriends would be happy to allow their boyfriends take a small break after nearly a decade of intense physical work on a weekly TV show, Nikki did not.
She insisted on making a vision board for her boyfriend. For those of you who don’t know a vision board is a collection of magazine clippings which are supposed to inspire people to accomplish their goals. The key word being their goals. When Artem refused to make his own vision board, Nikki decided to make one for him. So, basically, Nikki had made a list of the dreams she wanted for Artem, rather than helping him achieve his in his own way. I think Nikki is so used to being in control that she couldn’t stand being out of control this once. She has to learn that you can never control everything.
And until she does, there will be lots of more drama on Total Bellas.
WWE has notified the United States Patent and Trademark Office that they intend to appeal two trademark applications filed by Cody Rhodes to trademark the names The Match Beyond and Slamboree.
Cody filed for those trademarks on November 13 and 19 of last year respectively with The Match Beyond a term used to describe WarGames while Slamboree was a name of an old WCW pay-per-view.
AEW will be using the same concept of WarGames for a match they titled Blood & Guts and while they never mentioned WarGames, the term The Match Beyond was always used by WCW to describe the actual match. WWE now uses WarGames as their November special for NXT Takeover.
Slamboree was a WCW pay-per-view which ran from 1993 to 2000 and while all those are part of the WWE Network, there is no record that WWE held the trademark before on the USPTO website with all the previous entries of the name belonging to WCW and marked as “dead.”
The USPTO has granted WWE till July 22 to present their case on why they are objecting to Cody owning these trademarks.
Two high-ranking WWE officials sold nearly 50,000 shares between them according to documents filed on April 30 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
Kevin Dunn, Executive Vice President of Television Production, sold 33,000 shares at a price of $45.46 per share for a total of $1,500,180. Dunn is still in possession of 125,361 WWE shares which have a value of over just $5.5 million at yesterday’s value.
The other executive is Bradley Blum who is the Executive Vice President of Operations. Blum sold 16,358 shares at a price of $45.32 each for a total of $741,344. Blum remains with 3,103 shares which are worth over $136,000 at yesterday’s value.
NXT pulled in 637,000 viewers this week, down 28,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. The show did 0.16 in the 18-49 demographic, placing #51 and missing the top 50 chart yet again. The difference between the two shows this week was of 56,000 viewers, 10,000 less than the previous week. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
