As we reported on Sunday night, a fan jumped the guard rail and hit the ring while Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose were staring down The Wyatt Family, prior to Chris Jericho being introduced as their mystery partner.
The fan ended up being taken down and out of the ring by security, Jericho came out as planned, and the match went on — as did the remainder of the show — without any additional interference from the fan, or other fans.
As this is the second time in recent weeks that WWE has had a fan jump the rail, coincidentally enough during Ambrose matches in both cases, WWE issued the following statement:
“WWE takes the safety of our performers very seriously and any fan entering the ring area will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
For those who missed it, you can view a photo of the fan hitting the ring at Night Of Champions by clicking here.
At the WWE Night Of Champions pay-per-view on Sunday night, a fan hit the ring while viewers waited to find out who the mystery partner would be for Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose.
The fan stood next to Reigns and Ambrose in the ring before being tackled and taken out by security. This was, oddly enough, the second time in the past few weeks that Ambrose in particular has been involved at a WWE event where a fan jumped the guard rail.
You can view a grainy screen shot photo of the fan in the ring during the match below.
UPDATE: WWE has issued a statement regarding the fan hitting the ring during WWE Night Of Champions on Sunday night. Read what WWE had to say by clicking here.
For those wondering, the mystery partner for Reigns and Ambrose ended up being Chris Jericho, who acted like a bit of a heel after the trio lost to The Wyatt Family when Jericho was submitted by Braun Strowman.
You can view Jericho’s post-match heel antics below.
Chris Jericho returned at Sunday’s WWE Night of Champions pay-per-view and was revealed to the mystery partner of Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns. He was spotted in Houston, Texas earlier in the day.
Jericho is scheduled to compete at the upcoming WWE MSG live special that will air on the WWE Network on Saturday, October 3rd.
– You can add WWE Hall Of Famer Scott Hall and decorated tag-team The Young Bucks to the list of guests who were backstage at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas on Sunday night for WWE’s “Night Of Champions” pay-per-view event. As previously reported, Chris Jericho, Kane, MVP and Stevie Ray were also backstage at the event.
– In the opening match of WWE Night Of Champions on Sunday night, former NXT Champion Kevin Owens won his first main roster title, as he defeated Ryback to become the new WWE Intercontinental Champion.
– Here’s the WWE Night Of Champions “Kickoff Show” pre-show featured Stardust & The Ascension vs. Neville & The Lucha Dragons in six man tag-team action:
https://youtu.be/guYuwZ3AaCY
– The following is a video preview of the new WWE Network show “Breaking Ground,” which premieres on the WWE Network on Monday, October 26th.
Well, it looks like Kane and Chris Jericho aren’t the only guests backstage at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, the site of tonight’s WWE Night Of Champions pay-per-view event.
According to PWInsider.com, former TNA star MVP is backstage at the venue in Houston, where he lives. Additionally, Stevie Ray, former Harlem Heat tag-team partner of Booker T, who also lives in the Houston area, is backstage as well.
As noted earlier this evening, Jericho is rumored to be the mystery partner for Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose in their six-man tag-team match against The Wyatt Family, however that is strictly a rumor at this point.
As reported earlier today, Kane is currently backstage at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, the site of tonight’s WWE Night Of Champions pay-per-view, however he isn’t the only surprise name backstage at the show.
According to multiple sources, part-time WWE performer Chris Jericho is also backstage at the Toyota Center this evening.
There is no word yet as to what Jericho is doing backstage at the show, however there is some speculation that he could end up being the mystery partner for Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose in their six-man tag-team match tonight against The Wyatt Family.
– It is now confirmed that WWE has signed Zamariah “ZZ” Loupe and Amanda Saccomanno to deals. ZZ is currently working out at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, while Amanda is filming for Total Divas.
– The WWE Network has added episodes of ECW TV from 1996. You can watch them on demand at any time.
– The latest edition of Chris Jericho’s “Talk Is Jericho” podcast, which is now available, features an interview with The Ultimate Warrior’s widow, Dana Warrior. You can download the show at PodcastOne.com.
WWE is pulling out a lot more stops than usual for their upcoming tour of Mexico, which has shows on October 16th in Merida, October 17th at Arena Ciudad in Mexico City and October 19th at Arena Monterrey.
WWE is building the tour around the fact that The Undertaker is working all three events, billing it as Undertaker’s return to Mexico after five years.
Additionally, WWE Hall Of Famer Ric Flair will be working the shows as the guest General Manager, and part-time WWE performer Chris Jericho is scheduled as well.
The reason they are building the shows up so strong is partially due to concerns of insinuations of racism against Mexicans related to the departure of Alberto Del Rio, as well as no longer having Rey Mysterio on the roster.
– As noted, Chris Jericho’s match with Kevin Owens at the upcoming WWE Network special from Madison Square Garden on October 3rd will be the 25th anniversary of Jericho’s pro wrestling debut. Jericho mentioned on his “Talk Is Jericho” podcast that he will be bringing Lance Storm, the man he wrestled in his debut 25 years ago, to the show to celebrate with him.
– NXT Diva Peyton Royce looks to have tweaked her knee during the NXT live event on Thursday night in Orlando, Florida. After she and Carmella lost to Nia Jax and Dana Brooke in a Divas tag-team match on the show, Peyton crashed to the floor, clutched her knee and took her knee pad off. She also had to be helped to the back.
– Below are the “Top 10 SmackDown Moments” for this week’s show.
– Regarding Rey Mysterio and Alberto El Patron, their mentality right now is that they are not looking to come back to WWE, and would only entertain the idea if they were to have a reduced schedule as they are doing very well right now working where and when they want.
– At this point, the guest for Steve Austin’s “Stone Cold Podcast” on the WWE Network in the month of October is scheduled to be “The Icon” Sting.
– The October 3rd WWE special from Madison Square Garden will be the 25th anniversary of Chris Jericho’s professional wrestling debut, which was on October 3, 1990 against Lance Storm in Ponoka, Alberta, Canada.
WWE returns to Madison Square Garden on October 3rd for a special event that will be broadcast live on the WWE Network. On Tuesday night, the following matches were confirmed for the show:
– Brock Lesnar vs. Big Show
– Chris Jericho vs. Kevin Owens
Also scheduled:
– Seth Rollins vs. John Cena for the United States Championship
– Randy Orton vs. Sheamus
– Dolph Ziggler vs. Rusev
Plus, the Dudley Boyz will wrestle at MSG for the first time since WrestleMania 20 back in 2004.
– Wrestling journalist Wade Keller of PWTorch.com joins WWE Hall Of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin on the latest edition of the “Steve Austin Show” podcast to review WWE SummerSlam. You can download the show at PodcastOne.com.
– The Prime Time Players, Titus O’Neil and Darren Young, are the guests on the latest edition of Chris Jericho’s “Talk Is Jericho” podcast. You can download that show as well at PodcastOne.com.
– Big Show delivers a Labor Day message in the following video released by WWE on Tuesday.
– The Prime Time Players will be Chris Jericho’s guest this week on his Talk Is Jericho podcast over at PodcastOne.com.
– WWE officials are not happy with Hall of Famer Tammy “Sunny” Sytch, according to f4wonline.com. Sunny has been selling “private Skype sessions with fans” and is dealing with a lot of legal issues at the moment.
– Stardust is asking fans on Twitter to vote on which persona they like bette – Stardust or Cody Rhodes, who mysteriously disappeared back in June 2014 and is rumored to be chained up in a remote cave somewhere off the coast of Parts Unknown.
While this should be taken strictly as rumor for now, and is a clear example of “card is subject to change,” the official Madison Square Garden website is listing the following lineup for the WWE event on October 3rd, which features Brock Lesnar and the live WWE Network special.
– WWE Champion/US Champion Seth Rollins vs. John Cena. (Cena is listed as U.S. Champion.)
– Randy Orton vs. Sheamus
– Dolph Ziggler vs. Rusev
– Kevin Owens vs. Cesaro
– Brock Lesnar with Paul Heyman in his first time in the Garden in over 10 years. No opponent listed.
– Chris Jericho (no opponent listed) and more of “your favorite WWE superstars”
Chris Jericho appeared on HuffPost Post Live on Monday to promote tonight’s season finale of Tough Enough on the USA Network.
Host Marc Lamont Hill asked Jericho about the Hulk Hogan racism controversy and Jericho defended his longtime friend, stating that “Hulk’s not like that.”
“[I’m] surprised, absolutely, because Hulk’s not like that,” Jericho said.”But we all say things in stupid times, in stupid ways. I’m sure you have, I’m sure I have. Whether it be those type of comments or any type of comment that’s not correct, that’s not right. But I think it’s one of those deals where, as a friend, you’ve got to stick by your friends in good times and bad times. I don’t condone it, and I’m surprised, but a friend is a friend.”
Jericho added that he reached out to Hogan shortly after the scandal broke and said Hogan understands the magnitude of what he did.
“You do feel a little bit let down. But I know this: Nobody feels more let down than he does,” Jericho said.
“I think he feels very embarrassed and really bad about it.”
– The WWE Tough Enough “Final Four,” Sara Lee, Amanda, Josh and ZZ are all guests on the latest edition of Chris Jericho’s “Talk Is Jericho” podcast, which is now available. The official description for the show reads as follows:
Tough Enough is down to the Final Four – Sara Lee, Amanda, Josh & ZZ… and all four are on TIJ! First up, the Diva hopefuls! Hear what Sara Lee thinks of The Miz saving her, and both women’s journeys to Tough Enough. And if you need a little help deciding who to vote for, both ladies cut one last promo to persuade you! And then – Josh & ZZ join Y2J. You’ll hear about wrestling alligators, the curse of the Nightmare Zone, and their final promos to win your vote! You’ll also get lessons in Yeti and alligator calling!
You can listen to the latest edition of “Talk Is Jericho” at PodcastOne.com.
– Hip-hop star Fabolous is among the celebrities who was in attendance at the WWE 2K16 media event in New York City on Thursday evening. Below is a video of the rapper on the red carpet with the WWE Tag-Team Champions, The Prime Time Players.
Part-time WWE performer Chris Jericho recently spoke with Sports Illustrated’s Extra Mustard blog to promote this Sunday’s WWE SummerSlam pay-per-view. Below are some of the highlights from the interview..
On the reason he’s still around: “I’ve gone far beyond having to do anything for any financial reasons, but it’s a good time to go out there in the ring and it’s very second nature to me. Mentally, it’s still there, and you think about things a little differently after doing this for 25 years. Physically, I feel better than I felt ten years ago. I just started doing yoga five years ago, and it just changed everything around for me, as far as the soreness and the level I had of pain I’d feel during or after a match. But the most important reason I still do this is because I enjoy it. It’s a lot of fun, and I like working with the younger guys–it reinvigorates my desire to continue. Those guys work a lot like the gang of guys from my generation, and that gives me a kick, as well.”
On his current WWE status: “I do as many shows as I can to keep my foot in the WWE door, so I’m not gone for a year at a time. I’ve been off TV for a year, but I’ve worked 50 shows in the interim just doing live events, which, to me, is a lot more fun. I’m also working with all of the younger guys–I worked with Kevin Owens two weeks ago when Cena broke his nose–and that’s fun, too. Anyway I can be involved, I enjoy it. When it comes time for me to be full time, we’ll figure out what I’m going to do and I’ll come back.”
“The invitation is there 365 days a year. It’s not like I’m auditioning for a job with the WWE. It’s the other way around, ‘Give us as many dates as you can. You want to just work weekends? Do it. You want to just work TV? That’s fine, too.’ They leave it up to me, and I like working the schedule I’m on now. I like working the weekends. I don’t have time to commit to doing TV. For example, I don’t work weekends when we have Fozzy shows. I’m working the ones that I’m choosing, but I have the invitation to work 300 days a year with WWE if I wanted.”
On Tough Enough: “We’ve never seen anything like this version of Tough Enough, where it’s half-reality and half-live. When you start something new, there is a little bit of process to see how you’re going to make something work. So, as the weeks have gone by, I’ve increased my presence in the show. I was in the ring helping the competitors work out and book their match [last week], so being involved a little more in the reality portion of it balances out what I’m doing on the live part, as well. It’s been a lot of work, but the show has come into its own. People are always going to complain, ‘I wish it was that way,’ or ‘I wish that guy stayed,’ but it’s a whole new world for us that we’ve created. It kind of reminds me of when the Elimination Chamber happened. We’d never seen one before and there wasn’t anything to look back on, so you had to figure it out as you went along. And that’s what we’ve been doing, and it’s been working out–and it’s a great series so far.”
On the recent Hulk Hogan scandal: “I’m nobody to judge anybody. I’ve had just as many issues as anybody else. But you stand by your friends in good times and bad times, and Hulk’s my friend. That’s all I’m going to say about that.”
On Vince McMahon still being the boss: ?“Until the day he leaves this earth, Vince McMahon is in charge of every aspect of the company. It’s his company and it always will be. He’s giving out more responsibilities but, at the end of the day, anyone who was any responsibilities delegated by Vince still has to get final approval by Vince. He’s still the boss. I work with him very closely on Tough Enough every Tuesday in the direction meetings, and he still has a lot of great ideas. He still has his finger on the pulse of what’s going on. And it doesn’t matter what you hear other people say–everybody who works in the WWE knows who the boss is.”
On Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker at SummerSlam: “Undertaker has to win. There is no way he loses twice. Brock is at his best when he’s there to just fight. “That’s why his match with Reigns at WrestleMania was so good, and that’s something Lesnar and Undertaker didn’t do as much as they could have in their match at WrestleMania [30]. That pull-apart we saw a couple weeks ago on Raw between Lesnar and Undertaker will be the type of match we’ll see. It will be a rough fight. I’m sure they’ll exchange many false finishers, and each one will do the other’s finishing move, but it will be more violent and more hard-hitting. Any time Undertaker is on the show, you know it’s going to be a great show.”
The New Day — Big E., Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods — recently appeared together as guests on Chris Jericho’s “Talk Is Jericho” podcast. During their appearance on the show, a lot of behind-the-scenes information about Vince McMahon’s plans for the group and his reaction when those plans didn’t go as he expected them to are covered.
The following are some highlights and notes from their appearance on the show.
On how the idea for The New Day began: “So I’m working on that character, trying to get something going and then I’m kind of realizing that, ‘oh, [Big] E’s not doing anything, he’s kind of coming off his I.C. title run and starting to float, so, you know what? I like E, he’s one of my good friends, lets see if we can merge him into this,’ said Xavier Woods. “So we kind of start working on something, literally weeks at a time, and we’re going into pre-tapes, filming things, pitching ideas and then we’re thinking, ‘something is missing from this, like, we need one more thing.’
“That’s when we kind of thought, ‘maybe Kofi’, but it was kind of a heel thing. We’re thinking, ‘Kofi has never been a heel – I don’t know if [WWE] would let him turn heel’. After talking about it for a while, we kind of approached them with what we wanted to do and rather than being this group that everyone thought it was going to be, like three angry black guys, it’s like, ‘no, it’s three guys who come up from kind of the same background, that just want more from life, more from their jobs, more from their friends, more from everything around them’. So we tried to take that mentality and get it across TV as best we could and we did.”
On WWE taking The New Day off of TV immediately after forming the group: “We got taken off [TV] and then we basically had to reevaluate and come up with something different,” Kofi Kingston said. “We were told we needed to go in a kind of positive, uplifting type of direction and we would be going into Vince [McMahon’s] office, pretty much every week for probably months.”
On Vince McMahon changing the idea to a preacher gimmick, and their reaction: “We kind of got frustrated too and then we didn’t go back to his office for a little while and then he called us back in, like, a few weeks later, and he’s like, ‘you know, guys, it [has] taken me a long time to come up with this, but I think I got it: I want you guys to be preachers’ and all three of us are like, ‘oh my god,'” said Kingston.
Kofi would go on to explain that the preacher gimmick was the exact opposite of what they wanted to do, however Big E. saw it as an opportunity. The trio then decided collectively that if they were super over-the-top with the gimmick, it would become a heel stable, which is basically what happened.
From there, Kingston claimed McMahon told him he felt The New Day preacher characters would be “the greatest babyface thing ever.” Woods noted that McMahon looked visibly emotional when talking about the group failing to get over as a babyface faction.
You can listen to the complete interview at PodcastOne.com.
– WWE stock was up by 0.05 percent on Wednesday, closing at $20.81 per share. The high for Wednesday was $20.94, while the low was $20.54.
– Linda McMahon was at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida on Wednesday. Stephanie McMahon tweeted the following photo of her mother and her husband, Triple H, together outside of the building.
– On the latest WWE Tough Enough “Digital Extra,” which you can check out below, Chris Jericho talks to the contestants about his legendary ladder match with Shawn Michaels.
– The latest edition of Chris Jericho’s “Talk Is Jericho” podcast, which is available right now, features an interview with NXT Women’s Champion Sasha Banks. The official description for the episode reads as follows:
“The current NXT Women’s Champion, Sasha Banks, sits down with Y2J to talk about her current title, her WWE debut, her break into wrestling, becoming “The Boss,” her “shared” Wrestlemania moment with Triple H, her cousin Snoop Dogg, and what she learned from Dusty Rhodes.”
– Jim Ross’ guest on next Tuesday night’s edition of “The Ross Report” podcast will be his former WCW announce partner Tony Schiavone. The show will be available at 9pm EST. at PodcastOne.com.
– The following matches were taped on July 16th at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida for tonight’s edition of NXT TV on the WWE Network.
* Solomon Crowe vs. Tye Dillinger
* Baron Corbin vs. Axel Tischer
* Finn Balor vs Marcus Louis
* Becky Lynch vs. Bayley [No. 1 Contender to the NXT Women’s Championship]
– As noted earlier, WWE has joined forces with Hollywood celebrities and professional athletes in support of Answer The Call, a windows’ & children’s benefit fund. Several readers pointed out that the photo of John Cena at CharityBuzz.com depicts the US Champion wearing new green and orange gear, which Cena will likely be debuting very soon.
– Actor Stephen Amell tweeted the following about his scheduled appearance on tonight’s WWE RAW:
As shown in the video above, Tough Enough host Chris Jericho was down at the Performance Center this week with the remaining competitors and got into the ring to assist with their training.
It has already been confirmed that WWE United States Champion John Cena will be the special guest on next week’s episode. He will be appearing on the broadcast live.
The episode will feature yet another challenge which will see the remaining competitors put together matches with the Superstars and Divas of WWE NXT as their audience.
Earlier in the week the Tough Enough competitors were down at Universal Studios in Orlando filming some material for the next episode.
As shown in the tweets below, while Chelsea was eliminated from Tough Enough last night, the show must go on and the remaining competitors are back into the ring for more training.
The Tough Enough Twitter account has sent out a series of videos throughout the day regarding today’s challenge which tackles the art of storytelling.
– The mild concussion that Alicia Fox suffered during her tag-team match with Nikki Bella against Charlotte and Becky Lynch on RAW took place when Charlotte delivered a regular leg-sweep to Fox. Fox reportedly took the bump high on her head and beck area.
– Speaking of Monday’s RAW in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the show drew approximately 8,000 fans.
– Konnan attended the WWE live event in San Diego, California on Friday night. Below is a photo of Konnan with Chris Jericho and R-Truth.