WWE Diva Layla underwent surgery this past week. Online reports claimed the surgery was for an “unknown injury,” however the WWE Diva is denying those claims, pointing out that the surgery was “personal.”
Layla wrote the following about the rumors on her official Instagram page.
“I am Not Injured … I had a personal Surgery. I am Healthy & I am 100% Gonna be Back at Work soon!!!! #DontAlwaysBelieveEverythingYouRead Miss You All ….. Love Love”
The following are highlights of a new Main Event Madness Radio interview with TNA star Gunner:
On his start into pro wrestling and being in the military: “I did 4 years in the Marine Corp from 2002-2006, I was a Machine Gunner, I was on top of the truck with the ring mount, with the .50 cal or whatever weapon I had and I did my time. I actually started wrestling in 2001 after I got out of high school and went into the Marine Corps in 2002 and I wrestled the whole time I was in the military unless I was deployed. I was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and would travel 13-15 hours round trip, sometimes more every weekend, to do local independent shows in South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina, kinda all over, something I did while I was in the military.”
On his TNA debut: “You know, I started with them we did the security thing, me and Murphy with Immortal and backstage it was really cool, and I know that certain individuals, we all had the belief that when TNA started it was all about the younger talent, I know I’ve talked to fans and you get people’s input here and there, but they really wanted to see TNA flourish and thrive on that young talent. You had AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian, James Storm, Bobby Roode, all these guys who started in Impact Wrestling were all the younger talent and they helped build the company into what it is now and I think it was one of those things where the younger talent was put on the backburner a little bit so to say, but now it’s picking back up a lot more. I do think there was a little animosity there, for me I looked at it as an opportunity, I was getting to work alongside Hogan and Flair and for me, it was a learning experience.”
On his biggest influences on his character: “A lot of the times and a lot of the things I do and wrestling’s about, I don’t wanna say stealing, but rehashing certain things and I’m a huge Macho Man fan, he’s always one of those guys I still watch, still study and to me, he was way ahead of his time, his aggression his promos and even as a babyface, he never changed his intensity. A lot of his stuff and growing up I watched Triple H, which was one of my favorites and I loved to watch him sell, whether it be in a match or in a promo and his reaction because he always got people really invested and I could sit here and name names all day of guys I really loved, but Macho Man was one I still really enjoy and love to watch and learn from.”
– Randy Savage’s brother, Lanny Poffo, is the guest on the latest edition of Chris Jericho’s “Talk Is Jericho” podcast. The official description for the show reads as follows.
TIJ – EP111 – Randy Savage Remembered by his brother Lanny Poffo
“Macho Man Randy Savage’s brother, Lanny Poffo, has agreed that it’s time for Macho Man to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, so that’s what’s happening this year! Why did Lanny change his mind? And what would his brother and father think about it? Lanny explains his decision… and shares some amazing stories about his brother’s as well as his own wrestling career as The Genius who only spoke in poetry and rhyme! He recites a few of his more famous & memorable poems & tells stories from his own in-ring career working with Hulk Hogan and Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig. “
– Eric Bischoff was the guest on the latest edition of Bill Apter’s video chat, which you can see below. Bischoff talks to Apter about the Monday Night Wars, Randy Savage being inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame this year, his debate with Bruce Prichard and more.
WWE legend The Rock got the Internet buzzing last night when he tweeted a photo of himself in Philadelphia, the site of tonight’s WWE Royal Rumble pay-per-view.
Reports then came out that The Rock was staying at the same hotel as the WWE crew, sparking more speculation that the People’s Champion will be appearing at the Royal Rumble. According to f4wonline.com, The Rock will in fact be appearing at tonight’s show.
It’s unknown at this time what he’ll be doing, but it will be very interesting to see how he gets involved and if his appearance leads to a match at WrestleMania 31.
WWE will be running another #FreeFreeFree promotion for the WWE Network in February, according to a report by Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio.
WWE offered a free month of the WWE Network to new subscribers back in November in hopes of converting those fans into paying customers. We’ll find out the results of that promotion until WWE reports the next subscriber count in early February.
The fact that WWE is giving away another free month before WrestleMania is a sign that a lot of people who tried out the Network for free in November stuck around as paying customers.
NXT star Enzo Amore was recently interviewed by Chad Dukes of CBS Radio Washington DC 106.7 The Fan and ChadDukesWrestling.com. Here are some highlights of what he said about:
Developing At NXT:
“I never was in a wrestling ring before I stepped foot into a WWE ring, so I am a product of NXT. I trained under Bill DeMott. I did a lot of my promo work with Dusty Rhodes. Those two guys were so instrumental in my career, I feel like I never could just completely take that step out of NXT. I owe it to the fans, I owe it to the people around me, the trainers, the coaches. That’s what you see in our product, you see people who are hungry and those people who are coming back, pulling double duty, they’re hungry, they wanna compete. The NXT environment is so competitive.”
Triple H Giving Him Opportunity:
“He had started training with my strength coach. From the age of 14 I had been training with Joe DeFranco from DeFranco’s Training Systems out of New Jersey, they do a lot of combine training. I had played college football, I had always lifted and was a huge fan of the sports entertainmentbusiness, more particularly the WWE. Huge fan of DX- Shawn Michaels and Triple H. One day I was working out at DeFranco’s gym and Joe came up to me and said, ‘I got a phone call from a guy named Paul Levesque, who wants me to train him.’ My jaw just hit the ground.”
“After about a year of him training with Hunter, I made a YouTube video… I was always training so basically I gave Joe a link to a YouTube page that had a compilation of me lifting, running, boxing, and then I cut a promo at the end of it on the Hudson River around the time the Jersey Shore was popular. Came at the Jersey Shore people’s necks, a little disrespect, hit ‘em with a little 1-2 combo, the haymaker pancaker and badaboom, the realest guy in the room was born.”
“He showed it to Hunter and Hunter just gave me a tryout. He’s our boss and he’s very approachable out here at NXT. He gave me my first opportunity and I’ll never forget the words that he said to me when I met him, he simply said, ‘don’t screw this up.’ He probably wouldn’t remember it, but for me I hung onto those words, because that’s all he said.”
With over 4,000 votes cast, the readers of SEScoops.com picked Roman Reigns as the most likely competitor to win tonight’s 2015 Royal Rumble match.
Reigns earned 38% of the vote, with Daniel Bryan coming in second place with 33%.
In just a matter of hours, we’ll find out who wins the Royal Rumble to earn a WWE Championship match in the main event WrestleMania. Join us here tonight for our Live Coverage results of the show.
There is a major snowstorm forecasted to hit the northeast late Monday through Wednesday. There is a chance that the storm could affect Monday’s Raw but Smackdown may be a bigger issue. There’s 12 to 24 inches of snow forecasted in Boston for Tuesday, the site of the Smackdown tapings. This puts WWE in a tough spot because they don’t have much time to reschedule Smackdown for later in the week considering that the show needs to be on the air on Wednesday night in Canada.
The Washington Post is calling this snowstorm a blockbuster event. Meteorologists are concerned about the potential snow and strong winds. The other issue is that there is also a pool of cold air that is coming down from Canada prior to the storm and these colder than usual temperatures would ensure a forecast for more snow than rain and drive up the snow-to-liquid ratio which would lead to higher snow totals and paralyze travel.
For whatever reason, with under 24 hours to go before the WWE Royal Rumble pay-per-view, WWE has pulled Justin Gabriel and Los Matadores from the advertised lineup for the 30-man over-the-top battle royal match. As noted late Saturday night, Gabriel has quit WWE. Why Los Matadores were pulled from the match at the last minute remains to be seen.
Speaking of the Royal Rumble, which takes place on Sunday night, January 25th at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, WWE legend The Rock tweeted a photo of himself in Philadelphia late Saturday night.
UPDATE: WWE has now confirmed the release of Justin Gabriel. Read their official statement by clicking here.
Although we don’t have a lot of details at this point, Justin Gabriel quit WWE this weekend.
Gabriel, real name Paul Lloyd, Jr., signed a developmental deal with the promotion in 2008, where he was asigned to the Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) promotion, WWE’s developmental territory at the time.
In February of 2010, Gabriel competed in the first season of NXT, finishing third in the competition, before being called up to the main roster in June of 2010, joining “The Nexus” faction. Gabriel is a former three-time WWE Tag-Team Champion.
We will update you as soon as more information becomes available on this story.
– Havok’s appearance Friday night at SHINE Wrestling’s SHINE 24 internet pay-per-view led to speculation that she could be gone from TNA Wrestling since talent are typically prohibited from appearing on iPPV or televised pay-per-view events for other promotions. On Saturday, TNA Wrestling executive Bob Ryder squashed rumors of Havok being gone from the company.
In response to a fan question on Twitter asking to clarify her status, Ryder wrote, “Not sure why this continues to be an issue. She will be at our February tapings.”
– After helping Robbie E capture a Feast or Fired briefcase, Robbie offered ownership of the case to Velvet Sky. Friday night on Impact Wrestling, Velvet opened the case to learn that she had retrieved the fired briefcase. Effective immediately, Velvet Sky has been released from TNA Wrestling. Angelina Love, Velvet’s longtime tag team partner, reacted to her partner’s termination via Twitter with the following: “OMG. @VelVelHoller got fired?! ???? wait…..is this real life? #TBP.”
– Knux of The Menagerie is now on Twitter at bookmikeknox and seeking independent bookings.
Roman Reigns spoke to IGN.com this week to hype Sunday’s Royal Rumble match.
After a breakout performance at last year that saw Reigns eliminate a record 12 competitors, the former Shield member looks to make history once again and earn his first WrestleMania main event. He said:
“I don’t think anyone thought I was going to do what I did last year when I had 12 eliminations and took the record off of Kane, and then be among the final two guys in the ring. Everybody was thinking about Bryan last year because he never came out, and they were thinking about Batista too, and not really thinking about me.”
With Reigns and Daniel Bryan the two odds-on favorites to be the last man standing, IGN asked reigns what he thinks about Bryan’s involvement. Based on his comments, it doesn’t appear that Reigns views Bryan as much of a threat.
“It doesn’t change anything for me. He’s considerably smaller than I am and this match isn’t about submissions or pinfalls, it’s about throwing a guy over the top rope. So I clearly have a weight advantage. I’m far more explosive. I think, if anything, I have the upper hand in a Royal Rumble match.”
Head on over to IGN.com to read the full interview.
– There are some reports that claim Finn Balor suffered an injury during a triple-threat match with Hideo Itami and Adrian Neville at the NXT live event in Cocoa Beach on Friday night. After the match was over, Balor left to the back in a hurry and was apparently noticably limping. We will keep you posted.
– WWE Hall Of Famer Hulk Hogan posted the following tweet this weekend, predicting Daniel Bryan to win this Sunday’s Royal Rumble match.
The following are highlights of a new interview with Seth Rollins from The Independent in the U.K.:
On facing John Cena and WWE World Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar on Sunday: “It is certainly in my plan to walk out as the WWE World Heavyweight Champion by hook or by crook. Things don’t always go according to plan, but I’ve been pretty successful in putting my plans into action over the course of the last few months, so yes I’m extremely excited for this opportunity.
If you look at the list of guys who have had matches with Brock Lesnar since his return it’s pretty small to say the least, so to be in that company is quite rewarding personally and professionally. To be on the marquee with Cena and Lesnar in such a high profile PPV is pretty awesome for me as well, and another feather in my cap for what has already been an incredible run over the last year.”
On Daniel Bryan possibly winning the 30-man main event: “For this year, it’s an interesting situation, as there are so many possibilities. I wouldn’t mind Daniel Bryan winning the Royal Rumble and going on to face me for the WWE Championship at Wrestlemania, because if you look at what Daniel Bryan did last year, what a tremendous story and if he does it again this year, I’d like to be the guy who stomps out his dream. I think that’s a great story, so it would be very interesting for me to be in that situation in the Wrestlemania main event with Daniel Bryan, considering we’ve had matches in much smaller venues in front of much less people.”
On NXT: “I watched the last Takeover special, R-Evolution, and I thought it was pretty awesome. It’s really cool to see guys I’m familiar with, my friends being shown as the stars that they are. Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Finn Balor and Hideo Itami, these guys are people that I’ve worked with in different parts of the world or that I’ve watched and respected for years, so it’s great to see them get to enjoy that atmosphere that is NXT, and get to really capitalise on what NXT has to offer. I’m looking forward to seeing those guys on the main roster with me headlining PPVs, it’s a really cool time to be a part of our crew.”
The following are highlights of a new Talk Sport interview with Daniel Bryan:
On if he feels pressure headed into the Royal Rumble and if the fans will be as hot for him as last year: “To be honest, I don’t feel any pressure like that. I’m pretty confident to go out there and do what I’ve got to do. What’s interesting to me to see if the crowd stays as hot for me as last year, that was pretty intense. I’m hoping that they do.”
On how he feels physically in the ring since returning: “To be honest, I had my first two matches last week and when I got home my body felt horrible. Your body adapts to pretty much anything but when you’re not used to wrestling it’s very physically tough, not to mention the travel. Last week I did three live events, then Raw and then SmackDown so when I got home on Wednesday my body was feeling pretty beat up. Yesterday it was back to being good, I’m back to feeling mobile and my neck feels really strong – yeah, it feels good!”
– The Thursday, January 22nd, WWE Royal Rumble “go-home” edition of SmackDown averaged 2.814 million viewers. The number was up from the previous week’s show, which drew 2.675 million viewers. SmackDown was the number one rated show on cable for Thursday night.
– WWE added the following video to their official YouTube channel this weekend, which features “unseen footage” of Sting’s arrival, as well as Brock Lesnar’s beatdown from this past Monday’s RAW Reunion show in Dallas, Texas.
As we noted recently, Booker T will be conducting a “special interview” with Shawn Michaels during this Sunday’s WWE Royal Rumble Kickoff Show. HBK is not expected to be at the Rumble in person, however, as the interview with Booker T was taped this past Monday at RAW Reunion in Dallas.
Also taped this past Monday in Dallas is the latest edition of “The JBL Show,” which features an appearance by JBL’s former A.P.A. tag-team partner, Ron Simmons. You can check out the full show below.
– The Resurrection of Jake the Snake, a documentary on WWE Hall of Famer Jake “The Snake” Roberts’ battling his past demons in a struggle to reclaim his life and the family that has given up on him, premiered this weekend at the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The Salt Lake Tribune has published an article on the documentary, which began as an intervention staged by Diamond Dallas Page and director Steve Yu, a longtime fan.
“Dallas and I didn’t go into this thinking, ‘We’re going to help this alcoholic and drug addict,’?” Yu said. “We knew that Jake had kind of lost hope in his life and that he needed some help with his health. It turned into something we didn’t expect it to.”
– A cameraman for TMZ.com caught up with Paige at Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday-Paige was arriving to New Jersey for a live event that evening in Trenton—who asked her what the worst part about being a woman is.
“You don’t have to get periods,” said Paige about what men don’t have to go through. “You don’t have to go for the menstrual cycle monthly, and that makes you want to choke everyone out.”
The Total Divas star was then asked whether this makes it more difficult for her to wrestle.
“No, it just makes you more aggressive,” she said. “It probably helps out a little bit, you a scream a little bit louder.”
As noted recently, Alberto El Patron (aka Alberto Del Rio) made his Lucha Underground debut at the January 17th television taping in Los Angeles, California.
El Patron came out to a big pop from the fans and was announced as the AAA Mega Heavyweight Champion. While holding his title, he cut a promo in the ring and was attacked by former champion El Texano Jr., who was also making his Lucha Underground debut. Chavo Guerrero joined in on the attack, but ultimately, El Patron fought through it and put Guerrero in an armbar.
El Patron’s Lucha Underground debut is expected to air on the February 11th edition of the show on the El Rey Network.
For a photo of Alberto El Patron’s Lucha Underground debut, click here.
– Heath Slater returns on the road with WWE at this weekend’s live events. As noted recently, all charges against Slater stemming from an alleged domestic violence incident at a 2011 WrestleMania after-party have been dropped.
– The latest edition of “WWE Top 10,” which you can view below, looks at the ten most dramatic endings to past Royal Rumble matches.
– Below is a video of Dolph Ziggler and Ryback “returning to work” after being re-hired thanks to Sting and John Cena on this past Monday’s RAW.
The official WWE website has a lengthy interview with Seth Rollins about being the future of WWE. In the interviews, Rollins commented on wanting to be WWE’s top performer.
“I want to be the top guy. I want to be the guy who’s hunted. It’s only going to push me and make me better than I already am. And that’s a scary thing to think about.”
Speaking of Rollins, WWE added the above video to their official YouTube channel, where Rollins talks about not being afraid of Brock Lesnar or John Cena heading into their triple-threat title match at this Sunday’s WWE Royal Rumble pay-per-view.
After more than 33 years, WWE will be holding their final event at the IZOD Center in New Jersey on Saturday night, January 24th.
As reported recently, the IZOD Center arena will be shutting down imminently, forcing WWE to change their scheduled location for the upcoming SummerSlam pay-per-view event in August.
WWE held their first event at the IZOD Center in 1981 in what was originally going to be Bruno Sammartino’s final WWE match (he ended up returning a few years later). WWE would continue to run shows in the building for over 30 years, including sellouts for SummerSlam events in 1989, 1997 and 2007.
The lineup for WWE’s final show in the arena, which takes place tonight, is advertised as follows:
– WWE is now advertising a Roman Reigns vs. Big Show in a “Last Man Standing” match for the upcoming Fast Lane pay-per-view on Sunday, February 22nd from the FedEx Forum in Memphis, Tennesse.
Previously, the advertising listed Roman Reigns and John Cena vs. Big Show and Seth Rollins in a tag-team match.
– The Monday Night War debate between Eric Bischoff and Bruce Prichard, which will be moderated by Chris Jericho, takes place on Sunday at Dave & Buster’s on Columbus Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For more information, visit RFVideo.com.