AJ Lee is now widely expected to return at Wrestlepalooza for a match with Becky Lynch and may in fact be back “imminently” to build to that — possibly as soon as SmackDown this week. (FF)
In this interview Ric Flair gives his opinion of Triple H as the CCO of WWE: “Well, I think Triple H is doing a fabulous job. I think the hardest thing for Triple H right now is trying to validate that fortune they spent on the NXT because they got so many people coming over that, and here’s the deal. When you’re on live TV, you get one shot. You better do something to catch somebody’s eye or you won’t be there next week. They gotta have something. Even if it’s just one thing. Unless they got some big plan, elaborate scheme, the video and all that. But you make all these videos then and you walk back out in a live audience after all these weeks of videos, you better be damn good.”
Last week’s Raw did 2.6 million viewers, down from 2.8 million the week before. (Netflix)
Mr. T’s daughter Erica Clark tells a WrestleMania story about her dad. I’d like to note she is also a stand-up comedian so I think she’s exaggerating some parts for the humor value, though I don’t at all doubt her when she says other children were skeptical about her famous father: “This one weekend, I went to this WrestleMania event with my dad and he was partners with Hulk Hogan. It was my first time I was seeing wrestling live. My dad is like, ‘Don’t worry about it, it’s fake.’ He’s in this wrestling match with a guy named Rowdy Roddy Piper. My dad gets into the ring and immediately Roddy Piper flips my dad in a way, and he cracks my dad’s ribs. My dad has to go to the emergency room. Me and my sister are crying, they take my dad to the ER. He comes back to the hotel room all bandaged up. Hulk Hogan is in our hotel room and Hulk Hogan is doing lines of cocaine. He still has the yellow shorts on. He’s like, ‘T, I’m gonna fuck em up when I see em. I swear to God I’m gonna fuck them up.’ My dad is like, ‘Oh God, my ribs hurt so badly.’ There is a knock at the door and it was Roddy Piper. He goes, ‘Hey T, I’m real sorry about what happened.’ Hulk Hogan is like, ‘Fuck that,’ and grabs Roddy Piper, brings him into the hotel room, throws him against the wall, smashes the mirror. He’s beating him, my dad is trying to break it up. Hulk Hogan’s wife Linda is there and she’s like, ‘Terry, stop.’ I’m like, ‘Wow, I didn’t know that was his name.’ My mom is trying to make my dad stop. All this stuff is flipped over and shit. Me and sister are crying. We get on a plane, we come back to Chicago, we’re sitting in first class, we’re sitting in the sharing circle and the teacher says, ‘What did you do this weekend?’ I was like, ‘Not a fucking thing.'”
In this interview Oba Femi talks about the inspirations for his character: “Let’s look at what the Oba Femi character is. Oba Femi, a good guy or bad guy, functions as an obstacle. Even when I’m being cheered by the crowd, I’m still functionally am a heel. When it comes to the Nigerian aspect of the character, I think I don’t have to go too far to pull inspiration – I had my father, I had a couple of friends who were pretty big Nigerian characters and embodied everything about the Nigerian culture and how they spoke and stuff like that. The biggest inspiration I had was of course Thanos from Infinity War because he was just such a memorable character with so many quotable lines.”
AEW is bringing Dynamite back to Boston on Wednesday, November 19th.
From MLW: “Major League Wrestling today announced a blockbuster trios match: Atlantis, Diego, and Blue Panther will battle El Galeón Fantasma (Zandokan Jr., Barboza, and Difunto) at MLW FIGHTLAND, taking place Saturday, September 13at the NYTEX Sports Centre in North Richland Hills, TX. This match will be filmed during the 7PM TV taping and air at a later date as part of MLW’s weekly programming.”
If I was her I’d be a little unsure about Drake saying Rhea Ripley is his muse — and even he seems to know it. “My FYP page is just all Rhea Ripley. She’s a wrestler. She’s like my muse but… I’m the opposite of probably everything that she likes.”
Bandido talks about his recovery from injury: “Well, well, you know, that was very hard for me. I thought… it will be like just six months. After my first surgery, they say, ‘Hey, your wrist is not good. We need to restart everything.’ So I feel very bad about it. But now I know that everything has a purpose, you know? That feels unbelievable. You know, it’s amazing. It’s crazy for me and for Brody too; we are very happy. We have eight years, nine years now, we know each other. So when somebody say, ‘Hey, you’re gonna be with Brody,’ I told him, ‘Hey, this is our opportunity to show all the people how our relation is together.’ It’s crazy. It’s amazing!'”
Nick Hogan is suing Bubba the Love Sponge to block the release of a documentary called “Video Killed the Radio Star: The Untold Story of the Hulk Hogan Sex Tape Scandal.” The lawsuit says that the documentary infringes on various copyrights and trademarks owned by Nick’s late father.
Filthy Tom Lawlor talks about how he’s doing after hip surgery: “Almost immediately, I could stand up straight, I could lay down on my back flat which I haven’t been able to do for over a year. So, I was happy with that. Recovery seems to be going well, it’s just really slow and boring to be honest. I feel like I could do so much more but I guess that’s part of the battle is doing the recovery properly instead of at my own pace.”
Bozilla talks about being part of Forbidden Door: “Taro Okada came up to me and said, ‘You Forbidden Door?’ I said, ‘Yeah, maybe.’ I actually just wanted to go as a spectator; Will Ospreay had invited me. Then Okada said, ‘You match?’ I said, ‘What?’ Okada said, ‘You match at Forbidden Door.’ I said, ‘Okay!’ I thought it was the pre-show, but in the end, I was on the main card in the title match. Unbelievable. Extremely. 19,000 fans, millions watching on TV – the entire wrestling world is watching. I prayed I wouldn’t mess up. In the gorilla position, I did my routine, listened to my music – thanks to Arch Enemy for the song ‘In the Eye of the Storm’ – took a deep breath, focused, and off I went.”
WWE alum Brad Maddox has been pulled from WrestleCade for reasons “beyond Brad’s control” which are conveniently unstated.
Here’s the current card for NXT next week. (WWE)
- Flag Match: Ethan Page vs. Tavion Heights
- WWE Women’s Tag Team Title #1 Contenders Elimination Match: Fatal Influence vs. The Culling vs. Sol Ruca & Zaria
- Speed Tournament Match: Faby Apache vs. Lainey Reid
- Je’Von Evans vs. Josh Briggs
