The latest edition of Michael Cole’s weekly sit-down interview, which features the return of Triple H, is now available.
On this week’s interview, Triple H talks in-depth about the return of The Authority and the angles from RAW, namely the “firing” storyline involving Dolph Ziggler, Ryback and Erick Rowan.
HHH also brought up Sting, noting that “he has had his 15 seconds of fame.”
As noted earlier today, Seth Rollins did not appear on “Miz TV” at the SmackDown tapings on Tuesday night as was advertised on Monday’s RAW. HHH revealed during the interview that Rollins wouldn’t be appearing on the talk show segment, because “he doesn’t need to be.”
You can check out the complete Michael Cole sit-down interview with “The Game” above.
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.
The final weekly sit-down from Michael Cole of 2014, which features Dean Ambrose, has been added to the official WWE YouTube channel.
Check out the video below to hear Ambrose talk about his feud with Bray Wyatt and their upcoming “Ambulance Match” on next week’s RAW, his thoughts on The Authority returning to power in WWE and his plans for New Year’s.
The latest edition of Michael Cole’s weekly sit-down interview has been added to the official YouTube channel of WWE.
This week, Cole sits down with the WWE Tag-Team Champions, The Miz and Damien Mizdow.
As is the case every time these two are involved in a promo segment, The Miz does the talking, while Mizdow mimics his actions while sitting right beside him.
In the video, which you can watch in full below, Miz and Mizdow attempt to teach Cole the “finer points of their craft,” and Cole makes an “unusual revelation that sends the interview off the rails.”
Dolph Ziggler was the featured guest on this week’s sit-down interview with Michael Cole.
Ziggler spoke about his momentum building since Survivor Series, winning the Intercontinental Championship in his hometown of Cleveland at TLC and finally beating Seth Rollins on this week’s live edition of SmackDown.
Additionally, Ziggler talked about fighting for years to become “the man.” He says he’s got a big chip on his shoulder and he’s on the right track to becoming “the man.” He promised it will eventually happen.
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.
– WWE has released 150 tickets for this Friday’s NXT television taping, which takes place at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida. For more information, visit TicketForce.com.
– WWE announcer Michael Cole celebrates his 46th birthday today. Cole was born on December 8, 1968. Other wrestling birthdays today include former WWE manager Slick (57) and former TNA star Jimmy Rave (32).
After the conclusion of the main event of the post-Survivor Series edition of WWE RAW on Monday night in Indianapolis, Indiana, the “Anonymous RAW General Manager” returned.
While Daniel Bryan made his return and ran the show for the evening, it was made clear that his being in charge was a one-night only deal. At the end of the show, the infamous “ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling” noise played, which prompted Michael Cole to leave the broadcast table and approach the podium containing a laptop computer.
Cole would go on to read a message from the Anonymous RAW GM, which said order will be restored on Cyber Monday next Monday night on RAW.
The following are results of this week’s edition of WWE Main Event, which emanated from Knoxville, Tennessee and aired live on the WWE Network.
– The Usos def. Goldust & Stardust in tag-team action. The match was a non-title bout, which saw Uso hit a superkick and top-rope splash on Stardust for the 1-2-3.
– Alicia Fox def. Paige in Divas action. Paige dominated most of the action, however Fox rolled her up out of nowhere for the pinfall victory.
– Renee Young interviewed Adam Rose backstage. The Bunny was also there. Young shows footage of The Bunny humping Rose on RAW. Rose talks about finding The Bunny broke in Times Square. He tells The Bunny not to hump anymore, calls himself a god and says it’s his job to put his “creatures” back in their place.
– Tyson Kidd & Natalya def. Adam Rose & The Bunny in an interspecies tag-team match. The finish saw The Bunny accidentally bump Rose to the floor. Kidd slapped the Sharpshooter on The Bunny, Rose teased making the save, but instead backed off and watched as The Bunny tapped out. After the match, Kidd hit The Bunny with a cheap-shot, which Natalya didn’t like.
– Michael Cole provided an injury update on Sheamus. He said that after being put through a table by Mark Henry on RAW, Sheamus has a number of neck and nerve injuries, which are bad enough that he will not be able to compete at Survivor Series.
– Bray Wyatt cuts an in-ring promo. He talks about the match with Dean Ambrose this Sunday at Survivor Series. He said Ambrose turned his back on him and made a mockery of him, and said because of that, there will be repercussions. He says they could have ruled the world together.
– Bray Wyatt def. Jack Swagger in the main event of the show. It was a competitive match which saw Swagger hit a Swagger Bomb and lock in the Patriot Lock on Wyatt, but ultimately Wyatt fought his way out and nailed Swagger with Sister Abigail for the pin. Prior to hitting his finisher on Swagger, Wyatt yelled out “this is your fate, Dean Ambrose!”
Chris Jericho was Michael Cole’s guest in this week’s sit-down interview at WWE.com.
Jericho spoke about his WWE return as part of the European tour, as well as the return of his “Highlight Reel” segment, which is featured on this coming Friday’s edition of WWE SmackDown with special guests, The Authority.
He also spoke about the upcoming “Team Cena vs. Team Authority” main event at the WWE Survivor Series pay-per-view, breaking down the match and the high-stakes stipulation.
Check out the Michael Cole sit-down interview with Chris Jericho above.
The latest edition of Michael Cole’s weekly sit-down interview with Triple H has been added to the official WWE YouTube channel.
In this week’s interview, which you can see above, “The Game” talks to Cole about his history inside Hell In A Cell, Rusev attacking a U.S. soldier on RAW and more.
JBL posted the following on Facebook in response to reports that Justin Roberts’ WWE release was related to an alleged argument with Michael Cole from Monday’s RAW:
“I saw on the Internet that Michael Cole and Justin Roberts got into a fight at ringside-during a live Raw. Do you realize how preposterous this is? Michael has ZERO break during the three hours (King and I barely have enough to tweet!), we go straight to WWE App during commercials (which Maggle is so helpful in showing everyone how to download) and back to TV action. This ‘fight’ never happened and couldn’t have happened due to lack of time. I have no idea how these things start-but happy that people care enough to write about what we do and what goes on, sometimes though the ‘news’ is wrong as in this case.
I wish Justin the best obviously and I know nothing of his departure other than what was announced-but wanted to clear this up as the Internet was buying this for fact for some reason.
I do want to wish Maggle a happy birthday (yesterday) I do think Maggle is the best play by play guy WWE has ever had, and before all of you hop on the JR or Gorilla bandwagon-I mean no insult to either of those guys, both all time greats. I have worked with Michael since my broadcast start and have never seen anyone better-that is obviously subject to my opinion. The stuff he has to do with all the social media, app, network, etc makes his job the hardest play by play in the world imo and as much as I love getting him on air, I think he is great at it.
Now, I just hope this monster hurricane somehow misses Bermuda!!”
WWE announced a second match for this coming Monday’s edition of RAW. In a Divas tag-team match, AJ Lee will get to team with a partner of her choosing to take on Paige and Alicia Fox.
The Divas tag match joins the aforementioned handicap street fight announced for the show, which features John Cena and Dean Ambrose teaming up to take on the trio of Seth Rollins, Randy Orton and Kane.
Also announced for Monday’s RAW, the Hell In A Cell cage will be hanging above the ring during the show, as revealed by Triple H in his latest WWE.com sit-down interview with Michael Cole.
WWE.com surprised the entire wrestling world on Monday night after RAW with a statement announcing that ring announcer Justin Roberts is no longer with the company, effective immediately. Roberts was very well liked by almost everyone backstage and had a great reputation for being friendly and professional.
There have been a lot of reports popping up from fans who were at RAW stating that Justin Roberts was seen yelling at Michael Cole during the Randy Orton vs. Dolph Ziggler match. One fan noted that Roberts flipped off Cole. After RAW concluded, he was informed by Kevin Dunn that he would be released.
Justin Roberts will be a guest on Chris Jericho’s podcast this Friday. It’s likely that the interview was recorded prior to his release.
Michael Cole’s latest weekly sit-down interview guest this week is John Cena.
This week, Cena talks to Cole about Seth Rollins interfering in his rematch with Brock Lesnar at WWE Night Of Champions, how he and Dean Ambrose have some common ground and the upcoming WWE Hell In A Cell pay-per-view.
JBL posted the following on his LayfieldReport.com website today, explaining why he is shutting down the site.
The Layfield Report Signing Off
“We want to thank all the readers and people who have viewed Layfield Report. It has been a pleasure building a site that, hopefully, has been a joy to visit. Unfortunately for the site, Michael Cole and I are joining another media company that will house our podcast, videos, radio shows and our social media. This has been a hard decision but we feel confident that our new platform will give us the opportunity to spread our message more. We believe the world is centrist and that our politicians on both sides have let us down-we want to offer solutions and feel that the bigger established platform will help us do just that. We also just enjoy discussing current events as we are both news junkies. Thank you kindly for visiting our site and subscribing to our newsletter. We will have more info the week of October 20th to share. Because we are going to a bigger platform we are shutting down our site since it would be competition against our new home.
Soon, John and Michael both will be on over 300 terrestrial radio stations in the US and all the elements of the Layfield Report will live on, just a different form. Thank you again and we will give plenty of updates as soon as we are allowed.”
The latest edition of Michael Cole’s weekly sit-down interview with Triple H is now online.
Check out the video above to hear HHH discuss the recent actions of the returning Dean Ambrose, the latest on Roman Reigns’ condition and the “huge match” that awaits this week’s edition of WWE SmackDown.
Ronda Rousey vs. TRANSSEXUAL?!, Wanderlei Silva BANNED FOR LIFE From MMA + MORE!
The latest Michael Cole weekly sit-down interview has been added to the official YouTube channel of WWE.
This week, Cole sits down with the WWE World Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar to discuss his upcoming rematch with John Cena at Sunday’s WWE Night Of Champions pay-per-view.
Check out the video above to hear Lesnar explain why he is the face of WWE and why Cena stands no chance at winning his title back this Sunday night.
Make sure to visit SEScoops.com this Sunday night for the best WWE Night Of Champions play-by-play results coverage on the web!
– During Monday’s WWE Night Of Champions “go-home” edition of RAW, the commentary team of Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler and JBL promoted the “Steve Austin Show” podcast, noting that Kevin Nash will be on his show this week. They actually messed up the plug, however, as they sent fans to “Podcast.com,” when it’s actually PodcastOne.com.
– The Friday, September 12th edition of WWE SmackDown scored a final cable rating of 1.95, according to Nielsen Media Research. That marks a decrease compared to the previous week’s show, which delivered a final rating of 2.02. The show averaged 2.821 million viewers last Friday, also down from the average of 2.758 million that tuned in the week before.
Last week during the NXT Takeover 2 media conference call, WWE COO Triple H explained his vision for the developmental promotion, saying that he wants it to become a third brand on par with RAW and SmackDown.
During the latest WWE.com interview with Michael Cole, Triple H he wants NXT to be more than what ECW was, an alternative to WWE and WCW. He sees NXT having the potential to be like WCW was, “without the eventual going out of business part.”
– Hideo Itami, formerly known as KENTA, has changed his official Twitter handle to reflect his new ring name. You can now reach him on Twitter @HideoItami.
– Brie Bella’s new theme song is called “Beautiful Life” and is now available online via iTunes.
– Below is a new episode of The JBL (not Cole) Show:
The latest edition of the Michael Cole weekly sit-down interview series has been added to the official WWE YouTube channel.
In this week’s video, which you can view above, Cole talks to Triple H about this week’s NXT Takeover: Fatal 4-Way special on the WWE Network and the arrival of international sensation KENTA.
The following are highlights from the latest Jim Ross blog:
On WWE Night Of Champions: “WWE’s Night of Champions PPV in a few weeks headlined by Lesnar vs Cena in the rubber match for the WWE title is by far the strongest match on the card which provides Sheamus vs. Cesaro US Title bout and/or Ziggler vs. Miz IC Title bout a dark horse chance to over achieve what is expected of them and turn heads. Their only enemy is to be saddled with not enough time to tell a viable story.”
On Jerry Springer and Michael Sam: “So, Michael Sam is out and Jerry Springer is in next week on RAW. Nice payday and exposure for the 70 year old talk show host who actually tapes his TV show in Stamford, Ct. Unfortunately some fans will ‘damn’ this segment before it even airs which isn’t fair but it’s reality.”
On pro wrestling announcing: “As I said on a recent Ross Report Podcast, I’m of the mindset that WWE would serve its self well if they had separate announce teams for RAW and Smackdown. I’ve expressed this sentiment for months. I’m reluctant to talk announcing because it’s often times thought that I’m angling for work which is laughably ridiculous. It’s just my opinion that WWE shows need different sound tracks to give each program some exclusive identity. I’d have @MichaelCole anchor the flagship RAW broadcast with @JCLayfield and @JerryLawler and utilize @WWETomPhillips to anchor Smackdown perhaps with @ReneeYoungWWE before another network nabs her. Adding a third member of the Smackdown crew would be fine too as it’s good to experiment to see where the chemistry exists.”
“Again, I honestly say that @MichaelCole is much better suited to navigate today’s sports entertainment presentation than I ever was. I was a wrestling play by play guy of which there’s little demand for these days on the biggest stages. Times change and it’s challenging for some WWE broadcasts to sound more like an infomercial than an entertaining, ‘sporting’ event with so many agendas and masters to serve.”
“I sincerely wish all the talents broadcasting wrestling in today’s world the best because those days were the best of my life within the wrestling biz but, again, I will reiterate that I have no desire to re-engage. Just too many new, irons in the fire. Nonetheless, someone will turn what I’ve said here into some sort of covert message or accuse me of not being truthful but don’t waste too much of your time on that concept and finish your homework or jump back on the internet.”
Check out the complete blog at JRsBarBQ.com. You can also order JR’s Bar-B-Q products online at WWEShop.com.