– Various cable TV providers are teasing that Sting might answer Triple H’s challenge for a face-to-face meeting at Fast Lane tonight on RAW. It’s unknown whether Sting will accept in person or if they will air a taped statement.
– The next episode of WWE 24 on the WWE Network will debut on Monday, February 23rd after RAW and will focus on WWE Hall of Famer Booker T. The episode is titled, “Sentenced To Greatness.”
– WWE’s latest Canvas 2 Canvas video features artist Rob Schamberger new NXT painting:
– WWE Hall Of Famer Booker T’s second autobiography titled “My Rise to Wrestling Royalty,” a 449-page book, is scheduled to be released in a few weeks.
– Wrestling legend and former WWE Superstar Kamala’s autobiography just began shipping this past week and is available right now through his official website, KamalaSpeaks.com. For more information on the book, check out the official Kickstarter page that helped raised funding for the project at Kickstarter.com.
– As seen in a recent photo gallery that we posted on the website, UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones met Triple H and Stephanie McMahon at the Super Bowl this past Sunday in Arizona. The New England Patriots gave tickets to HHH and Stephanie, and Jones’ brother Chandler plays for the team. Jones is said to be a big Triple H fan to the point that his management tried to broker a deal once to get him to appear at WrestleMania a few years ago. The idea was sold as a way to expose Jones to a new audience, however the negotiations never went anywhere.
The following is the final advertised lineup for tonight’s WWE Royal Rumble pay-per-view, which takes place from the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and airs live on the WWE Network.
WWE Royal Rumble Kickoff Show
– Big E., Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods vs. Cesaro, Tyson Kidd & Adam Rose
– Booker T interviews Shawn Michaels
WWE Royal Rumble Pay-Per-View
– The Bella Twins vs. Paige & Natalya
– The Ascension vs. New Age Outlaws
– The Usos vs. The Miz & Damien Mizdow (WWE Tag-Team Championship)
– 30-man over-the-top Royal Rumble match
– Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena vs. Seth Rollins (WWE World Heavyweight Championship)
Make sure to join us here at the website tonight for the best WWE Royal Rumble live play-by-play results coverage on the web!
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.
– Below is a video of former WWE Diva Sharmell talking to Title Match Wrestling about running Reality of Wrestling with her husband — Booker T — as well as his new gig as one of the announcers for RAW. The interview was taped prior to Jerry Lawler being moved to SmackDown. Sharmell thanked Vince McMahon for giving Booker the opportunity and said WWE has always been good to her family.
– Below is the elaborate Royal Rumble statistics video that aired on this past Monday’s RAW Reunion show.
Although WWE initially announced a 30-minute Royal Rumble Kickoff Show for this Sunday night, the WWE Network is currently advertising a one-hour pre-show.
Speaking of the pre-show, Booker T mentioned on social media that he will conduct a special interview with Shawn Michaels this Sunday before the pay-per-view begins. Also set for the Kickoff Show, as announced on RAW on Monday, is a six-man elimination tag-team match with The New Day vs. Tyson Kidd, Cesaro and Adam Rose.
Finally, the WWE Network is advertising a 15-minute Royal Rumble Fallout post-show, which is listed as beginning at 10:45pm EST. on Sunday. As is the case with most pay-per-views, the Fallout post-show will likely be dropped if the pay-per-view itself runs long.
– On Monday’s edition of WWE RAW, which was both the Royal Rumble “go-home” show and the “RAW Reunion” special, the “expert panel” for this Sunday’s pay-per-view was announced. Hosting the official Royal Rumble “Kickoff Show” this Sunday in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania will be Renee Young, Byron Saxton, Corey Graves and Booker T.
– Below is the video package WWE aired at the beginning of Monday’s RAW to honor the Martin Luther King Jr. day holiday.
– WWE Hall Of Famer Booker T has a new radio show with CBS Houston, which debuted on Saturday night. The show airs on SportsRadio610.com, as well as on radio stations in the local market. The people involved with the show are still working on coming up with a name for the program, which is scheduled to air every Saturday at 7pm local time.
– Ryback is working his “firing” angle on social media, as he posted the following on Friday evening.
As noted recently, WWE switched up their television announce teams, with RAW now featuring Michael Cole, JBL and Booker T, and SmackDown with Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler and Byron Saxton. For those curious, the announce team for WWE pay-per-views, for the time being, will still feature Cole, JBL and Lawler.
The feeling within WWE is that the move of Lawler to SmackDown is the beginning of WWE phasing him out of the picture, as the company is age-conscious when it comes to their on-camera broadcasters, particularly for their key programs.
The idea of phasing Lawler out has been floating around for a while, however when he suffered a heart attack, it was pretty much a lock that they couldn’t make the move just yet.
When WWE moved SmackDown from Friday’s to Thursday’s, which begins this week on the SyFy Network in North America, it seemed like the perfect excuse to finally pull the trigger and make the transition of having Lawler move from RAW to SmackDown.
– WWE broadcast team member Scott Stanford will be back on the official WWE RAW pre-show on the WWE Network tonight. Stanford will join the regular RAW pre-show hosts Byron Saxton and Alex Riley in place of the usual third member of the team, Booker T.
– Ryback posted the following tweet to follow up on the “firing” storyline from last Monday’s edition of WWE RAW.
WWE Hall Of Famer Booker T announced that he and his former WCW tag-team partner Stevie Ray, who together were known as “Harlem Heat” during their time in the now defunct WCW promotion, will be reuniting for one night only.
The Harlem Heat tag-team will be working a match together for Booker’s “Reality of Wrestling” promotion, as the duo will challenge the new version of another popular tag-team from the past, “The Heavenly Bodies.”
The show that this match will take place will be on Saturday, February 21st at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, California.
Tickets for the event officially go on sale to the general public on Sunday (January 11th) at noon.
You can check out a video promo for the Harlem Heat reunion at the Reality of Wrestling promotion above.
– As noted earlier this week, WWE Hall Of Famer Jerry Lawler was hospitalized with diverticulitis, which is why he was replaced by Booker T on commentary at this past Monday’s RAW. Lawler was reportedly released from the hospital on Monday, January 5th and is said to be doing a lot better right now.
– Also reported recently, Dolph Ziggler was pulled from the WWE live events scheduled for this weekend as a way to continue the “firing” storyline from RAW. Since then, it has been revealed that both Ryback and Erick Rowan, who were also “fired” on Monday, will not be working the live events this weekend as well.
Last night’s Raw was the first of 2015 and the company started the year not with a bang but with a whimper. The show was held in Corpus Christi, TX, and it’s unclear whether the audience was drugged prior to filming, because it was probably the most silent crowd I’ve ever heard at a WWE event. Without further ado, here are the pros and cons from last night’s episode of Monday Night Raw.
Pros
The clear highlight of the night was the Ambulance Match between Dean Ambrose and Bray Wyatt. As always, the two worked pretty well together and delivered a few memorable spots. The ending felt just a bit sloppy, but the rest of the match more than made up for it. In all, it was good to see Wyatt come out on top, as he needed the win more than Ambrose. This program has been one of the only good things going over the past few weeks, so it’s kind of sad to see it come to an end.
Another clear highlight was the Intercontinental Championship match. It was a good way for the Authority to exact revenge against Ziggler, and the 2-out-of-3 falls swerve was decent. It’s also nice to see that the company still has confidence in Bad News Barrett, and this hopefully means that Ziggler will move into the main event picture permanently.
It was nice to see the program actually have an intro and pryo again. This is a minor complaint, but the intro-less format felt really cheap, with it simply going to a lifeless Michael Cole saying, “Welcome to Raw” while panning over the crowd. Unfortunately, the intro and pyro will probably be gone next week due to budget cuts.
Adding Seth Rollins to the main event at the Royal Rumble was brilliant. With Rollins essentially having two chances to win the title in a few weeks, it provides many booking possibilities. My interest level in the main event went from nonexistent to moderately intrigued in a matter of seconds.
Booker T on commentary was a nice change of pace. Hopefully King is well soon, but they really need to shake up the commentary team. I wouldn’t mind seeing Booker become a regular at the table again.
The Kane/Rollins vs. Ryback match was somewhat entertaining but nothing to write home about. The double Curb Stomp was at least a decent finish.
Finally, it was nice to see the company giving guys more time to cut backstage promos. Rusev, Reigns, Ambrose, Wyatt, and possibly a few superstars whom I’m forgetting all received promo time last night. Good to see the company letting the talent speak instead of filling that time with ads or plugs for the Network.
Bad News Barrett took to Twitter soon after defeating Dolph Ziggler for the WWE Intercontinental Championship in the two-out-of-three falls match that opened up the first edition of WWE RAW of 2015.
Barrett paid homage to Booker T, noting that he was a “five time, five time, five time, five time, five time” champion, before quickly turning back heel and rubbing his victory in the faces of Ziggler fans.
As noted earlier today, WWE Hall Of Famer Jerry Lawler, who was recently hospitalized with diverticulitis, will not be appearing on tonight’s edition of WWE RAW.
Booker T, who will be replacing Lawler on commentary for the show, posted the following on his official Twitter account on Monday afternoon.
No #RAW pre or post show for me tonight. Don't worry though, you can get your Booker T fix on RAW! I'm doing commentary! DIG THAT SUCKAS!
WWE Hall Of Famer Jerry Lawler will not be at tonight’s edition of WWE RAW, which emanates from the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Lawler, who was recently hospitalized with diverticulitis, will be replaced by Booker T, who will join Michael Cole and JBL for commentary on the show.
The official WWE website has a new poll up for a future episode of the WWE Network original series, “WWE Countdown.” The poll asks for fans to vote on who they feel the “most royal Superstar in history” is.
The options for the poll are as follows:
– “The King of Harts” Owen Hart
– King Booker (Booker T)
– “Macho King” Randy Savage
– Don Muraco (WWE King of the Ring 1985 Tournament winner)
– Jerry “The King” Lawler
– “The King” Harley Race
– Sheamus (WWE King of the Ring 2010 Tournament winner)
– “The King of Kings” Triple H
– Tito Santana (WWE King of the Ring 1989 tournament winner)
– William Regal
– “The Billion Dollar Princess” Stephanie McMahon
– Bret Hart (King of the Ring 1991 and 1993 Tournament winner)
– “King of Wrestling” Jim Duggan
– Bad News Barrett
– King Mabel
The WWE Network aired a brief TLC “Fallout” post-show after last night’s pay-per-view. The show opened with the panel, which featured Renee Young, Booker T, Alex Riley and Paul Heyman. Heyman spoke about John Cena winning his “Tables Match” tonight, which earned him the right to face WWE World Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar for the title at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view. Heyman praised Cena, saying he’s the best — besides Lesnar.
Dean Ambrose was shown in the ring recovering from the television monitor exploding on him. Ambrose destroyed what was left of the monitor.
On commentary, Michael Cole promoted the Cena vs. Lesnar match and pointed out that it will be the final meeting between the two.
The following are highlights of a new Miami Herald interview with WWE Hall Of Famer Booker T:
Today’s independent wrestling scene: “You have a lot of good talent. Of course, there are not a lot of spots on the WWE roster for all of them at one time. They are essentially going to be out there for a while, which is a good thing in a way. They get a chance to travel around the world and seeing what it’s like out there and get paid to do it at the same time and hone their craft. So when they make it to the WWE roster, they’ll be ready. I watched that kid Adrian Neville before he ever made it to the roster. That kid was awesome. This new kid, formally Prince Devitt, I saw him on the scene doing his thing way before he made it to WWE. He was awesome. Now you have other young guys who are going to have that opportunity to do that same thing.
“With my Reality of Wrestling, it’s about getting these guys prepared for what it’s going to take to make it on the television roster and make it in the locker room. I love what is going on in the independent scene. This is really my first year getting the chance to go around and see what it’s like in other places. I love what I’m seeing out there with Pro Wrestling Syndicate, Northeast Wrestling, Big Time Wrestling and WildKat in New Orleans. There is a lot of good stuff out there.”
Not wanting to do one more run: “Never in a million years would I have thought I would have been able to go where I’ve gone in my career. It’s almost way too soon for me to be in the position I’m in, but I’m loving my position. Being able to give back and teach the game to these young guys, I’ve always wanted to be in this position. I was thinking about retiring when I was like 30 years old. All these wrestlers talk about having one more run in them. I don’t’ think I got one more run. I don’t want one more run. I don’t want it. To do a Rumble, I can do that. One night, where I can go in and it will be over real quick. I’d be happy with that.
“I don’t want to be one of those wrestlers that wishes to put their boots on when I’m 60. I don’t want to look at any of my old outfits then. My wife wants me to keep all my old outfits. I want to sell them all. I want to put them on eBay. You think I’m going to be 70 years old with all these action figures and outfits looking back at Harlem Heat’s glory days. It’s really for my grandkids. It’s been great. I’ve had the greatest life the last almost 25 years than any man could ask for. It’s a dream. I wouldn’t trade it in for the world. I always wanted to do the work and make it to the other side. That’s where I’m at in my life. It’s a great place.”
CM Punk speaking out on Colt Cabana’s podcast: “With me personally, certain business should be between yourself and the person you’re doing business with. You never know where you’ll have to go in the future. I’ve never been about burning bridges. I don’t know if he burned a bridge or not. I don’t know. It’s a personal thing more than anything for him to walk away. He had to have a certain feeling about something. It could be a lot of things, but it’s personal. For me, I can just say I’ve always looked at the business as a job. It’s never been nothing more than me getting a script and me going out there and performing. Of course, I’ve always wanted to make a decent pay like everybody else. You have to realize where I come from and a guy like CM Punk comes from. That may be the difference. Hopefully, Punk finds his way back to WWE. Me, personally, I was one of the guys who noticed his talent when I first saw him. I brought him to a wrestling show down here in Houston when he was a kid and before he was this ‘straight-edge superstar’ and all that stuff. I saw talent in him. Then when he did the whole pipe bomb thing, I saw even more talent in him.
“I felt he was really going to break out and last a long time in this business. I wouldn’t say a lifer, but a guy who was going to have a long career and give back. To see it abruptly end like that, there are so many fans out there that love CM Punk and want to see him in the middle of that ring. It’s the sad part.”
Check out the complete interview at MiamiHerald.com.
– WWE has added WWE World Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar to the advertising for the February 9th edition of WWE RAW in Columbus, Ohio.
– WWE Hall Of Famer Booker T was scheduled to appear at the Northeast Wrestling event in Danbury, Connecticut this Friday, however WWE reportedly pulled him from the appearance so he could appear at their WrestleMania 31 ticket party at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. Replacing Booker at the independent event will be Bully Ray.
WWE has announced an official WrestleMania 31 On-Sale Party for Friday, November 14th from 6pm until 9pm at the Intel Plaza inside Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, the host of next year’s show. Tickets for WrestleMania 31 go on sale to the public the next morning.
Superstars scheduled to appear at the party include Daniel Bryan, Bad News Barrett, Charlotte, Tyler Breeze, Rosa Mendes, Booker T, Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Hart. The event is scheduled to be hosted by NXT’s Corey Graves and Fan Axxess emcee Christian Litke.
Additionally, a DJ will be playing throughout the night and fans in attendance will have their first opportunity to get official WrestleMania 31 merchandise.
On Monday’s WWE Hell In A Cell “go-home” edition of RAW, two announcements were made regarding the pay-per-view “Kickoff Show.”
Hosting the “expert panel” at Sunday’s Hell In A Cell “Kickoff Show” will be WWE Hall Of Famer Booker T, along with his usual partner Alex Riley and special guest, Paul Heyman.
Additionally, a “Mizdow TV” segment was confirmed, with Damien Mizdow (aka Damien Sandow) and special guest, The Miz.
Make sure to visit us here on the website this Sunday night for the best WWE Hell In A Cell live results coverage on the web!
The following are highlights of a new Boston Herald interview with Booker T:
On going to WWE in 2001: “I remember meeting Linda McMahon more than meeting Vince. When I first met her, she said, ‘Man, we finally got you.’ From that point forward, it was all about proving that I belonged.”
On a conversation he once had with Vince McMahon: “One of the most important talks I ever had was with Vince McMahon right after I’d got to WWE. I had so many different agents telling me I had to go out and work this way and that way, and I knew — if I listened to those guys — I was going to get fired.”
“So I went to Vince and explained, ‘I’ve got this agent telling me this, another telling me that, and I know I’m going to get fired doing it their way. I’d like to go out and do it my way. If you don’t like what you see, just fire me.’ Vince looked straight at me and said, ‘Do your stuff, Book.’ From that point on, I had the green light to just be me. I’ve been accepted in the family. I’m a Hall of Famer. I’m part of the WWE family now, then, and forever.”
On The Rock pretending he didn’t know him, a move Sting claims was due to his fear of signing with WWE from WCW: “I’ve heard Sting make that comment. I was mad I had that confrontation with The Rock because I had to build myself all over again. The WCW guys were supposed to be buried. None of us were supposed to make it, but I’m the only guy who was willing to step up to the plate and go in there and survive. I went to WWE to prove something. I had to go through Steve Austin, the Undertaker, Edge, I had to go through all of those guys to prove myself. I didn’t want to wake up at 50 years old and wonder if I could have competed with those guys, I wanted to know in my own mind I was just as good.”
Booker T’s Reality Of Wrestling promotion issued the following …
Booker T and Reality of Wrestling are bringing the fight to breast cancer this Saturday night when ROW presents live wrestling from the Clear Lake Sports and Recreational Center. All fans in attendance are asked to wear pink to help with ROW’s “Pink Out” Initiative. At the event, donations on behalf of the Susan G. Komen foundation will be accepted. Booker T and his wife, former WWE Diva and Nitro Girl Sharmell, will match all donations received. In addition, special commemorative “Pink Out” Reality of Wrestling T-shirts are already available for purchase with all the proceeds going to the Susan G. Komen foundation. Tickets and merchandise for the show are available at Realityofwrestling,com.
Are you currently undergoing cancer treatment or are you a breast cancer survivor? Reality of Wrestling wants you to be their special guest. To receive a free ticket and special t-shirt for the event please contact Porsche Anderson at 713-927-2830. Representatives from the Memorial Hermann Breast Cancer Center will be in attendance with information about breast cancer awareness, ways for people to get involved and other information.
“Breast cancer is something that affects everyone. Not just the person who is afflicted with the illness. We all know someone who has been affected by this disease. Sharmell and I want to do our part to help get rid of cancer. And that is something we can all dig!” – Booker T
For more information on the upcoming show and ticket information, please visit Realityofwrestling.com.