— The Manila Standard Today has an article up on Rey Mysterio’s international promotional tour, which you can read at this link. Mysterio will be visiting Manila, Japan, China and Taiwan during the tour. Mysterio stopped in Manila first, where he was part of a meet-and-greet prior to appearing at the finals of the Philippines’s pro basketball league at SMART Araneta Coliseum. While there, Mysterio presented the league’s commissioner with a replica WWE Title belt. WWE Smackdown and Bottom Line airs on AKTV in the Philippines, which is the country’s first free TV channel dedicated to sports. The reason that Mysterio was selected to promote Smackdown programming on this tour was due to his strong international appeal.
– The following matches will air on this week’s WWE Superstars:
* Tyson Kidd and Justin Gabriel vs. Curt Hawkins and Tyler Reks
* Zack Ryder vs. Michael McGillicutty
* Layla vs. Natalya
* Sin Cara vs. Drew McIntyre
– WWE spokesman Brian Flinn recently spoke out on the latest criticism aimed at WWE during Linda McMahon’s Connecticut Senate campaign, claiming that the WWE TV product is violent. Linda’s chief opponent, Chris Shays, has previously stated that McMahon benefited from violence and brutality as CEO of WWE. Here is what Flinn had to say:
“WWE’s 13 million weekly TV viewers and our 100 million social media followers would disagree that WWE’s content is violent. WWE programming is TV-PG and family friendly, with women making up nearly 40 percent of our audience. Contrary to the assertion about our content, WWE is in the business of putting smiles on people’s faces.”
