Posts Tagged ‘Mike Adamle’

Former WWE Broadcaster Mike Adamle Diagnosed With Dementia, Doctors Suspect CTE

Former WWE announcer and RAW General Manager Mike Adamle has been diagnosed with dementia and what doctors believe could be Chronic Traumatic Encephelopathy, also known as CTE. He is also said to be suffering from post-traumatic epileptic seizures.

While the 67-year old is most well-known to wrestling fans for his run in the WWE in 2008, Adamle spent six seasons in the NFL. He played with the Kansas City Chiefs, New York Jets, and Chicago Bears during his NFL career. He later was a broadcaster with NBC Sports.

NBC Chicago Interview

Adamle revealed his diagnosis during a recent interview with NBC Chicago. Video and a full transcript can be found here. 

“I’ve had seizures and epilepsy for the last 19 years.” Adamle revealed.

He was not able to answer how many concussions he suffered throughout his football career. In the early-70s, when he was playing in the NFL, not much attention was given to the long-term impacts of head injuries.

“You went to the sideline, ‘How many fingers do I have?’” Adamle told NBC Chicago. “And no one thought anything of it. No big deal. I’m sure a lot of guys still don’t think it’s a big deal. Now they’re saying it’s a big deal.”

Part two of his interview with NBC airs tonight.

WWE Raw Reaction (7/7/2014): Highlights, Lowlights & Random Thoughts

Tonight’s episode of Raw took place in Montreal, Canada and featured a total of eleven matches, including a first ever one-on-one meeting between the WWE World Heavyweight champion John Cena and Money in the Bank briefcase holder Seth Rollins.

Canadian icon and WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart graced the WWE Universe with his presence and cut a promo. Of course, he brought up the Montreal Screw Job, but it was a nice moment. Also, WWE continued to promote current on-going storylines leading up to Battleground.

Last week’s episode of Raw was one of the best and most exciting in recent history. Did this edition live up to last week’s high standards?  Without further ado, here are highlights, lowlights and my random thoughts on the 7/7/2014 edition of Monday Night Raw:

wwe-raw-logo-ses-1

BEST MATCH: The opening bout between the Usos and the Wyatt Family was the best match of the night. There were two other matches that could have stolen the show, but they failed to do so for a couple of reasons. First, Randy Orton and Dean Ambrose gave it their best effort, but it was clear to see that the two didn’t have very much chemistry, at least when it comes to singles action. Also, the Dean Ambrose botch wasn’t a crowd-pleasing moment.

Chris Jericho vs. the Miz could have been special, but the match didn’t last as long as I hoped. John Cena vs. Seth Rollins had the most promise, but they weren’t given enough time to do anything memorable and the obvious interference by Kane and Randy Orton ruined the match for me.

What was your favorite match of the night?

WORST MATCH: AJ Lee/Paige vs. Naomi/Cameron was the worst match of the night. Aside from the main event and the tag team match between the Usos and the Wyatt Family, there weren’t any real standout matches. However, this bout stood out for all the wrong reasons and it was a poor showing amongst the four Divas involved. Bo Dallas vs. El Torito was a close second for the worst match of the night award because at least the crowd was somewhat into it.

The worst segment of the night was the Nikki Bella/Alicia Fox disaster, but I don’t think there was an opening bell and nobody was declared the winner. Therefore, Idon’t consider this to be a match; otherwise, it would have won the award.

UPSET OF THE NIGHT: Kofi Kingston defeating Cesaro was the upset of the night. I know that Kofi defeated Cesaro last week on Raw, but I didn’t expect him to do it again and I don’t think the fans/crowd did either. I see Cesaro winning the Intercontinental Title at Battleground and Kingston falling into obscurity once again, but at least Kofi is living in the moment now.

To quote the great Mike Adamle, Kofi be Jamaican me crazy.

MOST SHOCKING MOMENT: I expected Randy Orton to defeat Dean Ambrose in their match tonight, but I was anticipating Seth Rollins to screw Ambrose over, resulting in Ambrose losing cleanly. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Ambrose has been really hot as of late and Rollins costing him the match would have protected Ambrose a bit more. Also, it would have spiced things up and furthered the Ambrose/Rollins feud.

Mike Adamle Speaks On His WWE Departure, If He Would Ever Return & More

The following are highlights from the latest WWE.com “Where Are They Now?” feature, which looks at former announcer and RAW General Manager Mike Adamle:

On his WWE debut at the 2008 Royal Rumble pay-per-view: “It was kind of petrifying, to tell you the truth. You would think that with a lot of the live experience that I had, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but that place was packed and I learned from the get-go that WWE fans were a different breed. They know more about their sport than football fans know about football and baseball fans know about baseball. They know everything.”

On his WWE departure and if he’d ever return: “It was pretty devastating to be let go. Mr. McMahon had brought me into his office and said, ‘We’re going to end this, today is your last show.’ I would come back in a heartbeat. It’s something I wanted to be a part of and wanted to be successful at. I still think about the people at WWE, because they were great. I miss a lot of them. I miss the atmosphere.”

Check out the complete feature at WWE.com.

  • Shocking *SPOILER* — WWE Reveals SummerSlam MAIN EVENT, SPOILING MITB Outcome!!
  • Former WWE Announcer Mike Adamle Returning To The World Of Pro Wrestling

    Former WWE announcer and RAW General Manager Mike Adamle will be making his first pro wrestling appearance since parting ways with WWE in 2008.

    Adamle will be appearing at the Legends of the Ring convention in Monroe, New Jersey in June of 2014.

    Adamle was booked for the appearance by former WWE and TNA office employee Brian Wittenstein, who was in the middle of the TNA lawsuit against WWE. Wittenstein was accused of providing WWE with TNA contract information. The lawsuit was later dropped.

    For more information on Adamle’s appearance at the Legends of the Ring convention, visit LegendsOfTheRing.com.

    Huge *SPOILERS* For Monday’s RAW + NEW Hell In A Cell Matches

    HBK Talks RAW Return, Mark Henry Loses Weight, Adamle

    – Mark Henry tweeted this week that he’s been losing weight during his time away from WWE and is now down to 405. He’s looking to drop another 30 pounds.

    – Former WWE personality Mike Adamle has taken “personal time” off from his job as a newscaster for NBC’s Chicago affiliate. He’s been off the air since May 14th and nobody has heard from him since. Adamle disappeared for months several years ago and later revealed he was getting psychiatric help during his time away.

    – In the following video, WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels talks about his hunting show, his upcoming WWE RAW appearances and more:

    Official Launch Date For WWE Network, Trish Stratus Talks Raw

    — WWE has launched a website encouraging fans to notify their television service provider of the WWE Network, www.iwantwwenetwork.com. The website features a countdown clock that will expire on April 1, 2012, the same day as WrestleMania XXVIII.

    — Trish Stratus announced on Twitter that she will be an in-studio guest tomorrow night for AfterBuzzTV.com’s post-show for Raw. The show airs immediately following Raw at www.ustream.tv/afterbuzztv. Lilian Garcia and Maria Kanellis will also be on hand.

    — Former WWE personality Mike Adamle attended Friday’s Resistance Pro show in Chicago, Illinois.

    — John Cena, Randy Orton, The Miz and Alberto Del Rio are featured on the cover of the latest issue of Pro Wrestling Illustrated.

    WWE Ratings For January, More Bad News For Adamle, Heyman

    – Here are the average ratings for January for WWE’s top shows:

    • RAW: 3.24
    • SmackDown: 2.0
    • Superstars: 0.54

    – ChicagoBusiness.com is reporting more bad news for former WWE announcer and RAW GM Mike Adamle. Mike Adamle’s home in Evanston, Illinois is being foreclosed after he and his wife failed to pay off a $1.1 million loan that matured this past August.

    This comes after Adamle’s wife divorced him last May and this past December, the IRS filed a lien against them for non-payment of $70,808 in taxes from 2008 and 2009. Last month, Adamle was arrested for DUI. Hang in there Mike!

    – Paul Heyman’s book is currently scheduled to be released on September 13th of this year. The working title is “The Heyman Hustle: Wrestling’s Most Extreme Promoter Tells All.”

    More On Punk Getting Assaulted By Fan, Adamle DUI Update

    — To update the news of former WWE RAW General Manager Mike Adamle being arrested last week and charged with DUI, TribLocal.com is reporting that Adamle’s lawyer Dean Dickie says they will be fighting the arrest.

    Although Adamle failed a field sobriety test and showed “erratic behavior” prior to the arrest, Dickie argues that Adamle’s blood alcohol content was only 0.04, which is below the legal limit in the state of Illinois. Adamle has publicly disclosed that he takes medication to treat epilepsy (a brain disorder that results in seizures).

    A doctor quoted in the TribLocal article stated that several common epilepsy medications could impair a person’s motor skills or driving ability, so that defense could be used by Adamle’s lawyers when he’s in court on February 14th in Skokie, Illinois to defend himself against the charges.

    — It was reported here that CM Punk got into an altercation with a fan at Sunday’s WWE super show event from Shreveport, Louisiana. A few fans who were at the show have sent in recaps of what went down and there are new details to report. Following his match, CM Punk got in the faces of several fans at ringside, including a few young children. Punk told one of the kids, said to be around 10 years old, to slap him. The fan slapped Punk, who told the fan to slap him again. The fan complied, when Punk allegedly grabbed the child by the shirt and told him to do it again. The child began to cry and his parents began yelling at CM Punk. Punk was heard yelling that the child scratched his eye during the provoked attack.

    Ex-WWE Star Mike Adamle Arrested For DUI, Tested For Drugs

    Mike Adamle (Simulated Mugshot)

    Former Raw General Manager Mike Adamle, who is the sports director at NBC’s Chicago affiliate, was charged with driving under the influence early Monday after he was stopped by police in Evanston, Illinois. He later displayed “erratic behavior,” according to authorities.

    The former Chicago Bear and Northwestern University All-American was arrested at 1 a.m. Monday in the area of Main Street and Judson Avenue, according to a police report.

    Adamle was pulled over for allegedly disobeying a red-flashing traffic signal at Main and Sheridan, according to police. The officer who pulled him over believed Adamle to be under influence, so he conducted a field sobriety test, which he failed.

    When the former ECW play-by-play announcer was taken to the police station, police Cmdr. Jay Parrott said he exhibited some “erratic behavior.” The Chicago Sun-Times adds that he was subsequently taken to a hospital for a drug screen. The results from the drug test are pending.

    Police Chief Richard Eddington ordered that Adamle’s mug shot not be released.

    In addition to DUI, he was also charged with disobeying a traffic control device and failing to notify the Security State’s office of an address change.

    Adamle is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 14 in Skokie.

    More details on the story are available here.

    Rumored Raw Guest Host, Goldberg’s Huge Breakfast, Adamle

    — TMZ cameras caught up with Bill Goldberg this week and asked the former WCW/WWE champion what his typical day is like and what he has for breakfast. Goldberg said he typically does 10 eggwhites and a half pound of turkey bacon for breakfast. When asked how much he can bench press, Goldberg said benching is for “pretty boys.” He trains for functional strength with dumbells and the camera man said he looks great for a 42 year old. You can see the video at TMZ.com.

    — Actor Verne Troyer, best known as “Mini Me” from the Austin Powers movies, is rumored to be hosting WWE Raw this fall. One can imagine the comedy gold WWE will come up with between him and Horswoggle.

    — Former WWE announcer Mike Adamle recently competed the Iron Man World Championship, which included a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride, and a 26.2 mile marathon. Adamle told the Chicago Tribune, “This was the hardest thing I ever did. The conditions were amazing, the tire made me adjust on the fly, but it was something special everybody should experience once.” For more on the story, visit ChicagoTribune.com.

    Mike Adamle Talks About His Time In WWE & More

    Monday Night Mayhem radio with Mike Adamle
    Hosts: Big Mosh, Blade, Todd Vincent
    Available at MondayNightMayhem.com.

    Blade started things off by asking one of the most-frequently asked questions from the members of The Mayhem Nation, which goes back to Mike’s first night with World Wrestling Entertainment, at The 2008 WWE Royal Rumble at Madison Square Garden. Just who is “Jeff Harvey?” Adamle wished to inform The Mayhem’s listening audience and wrestling fans across the globe the simple truth that he does indeed know that it is “Jeff Hardy” and not “Jeff Harvey.”

    Mike was very candid about his debut with the company at “The World’s Most-Famous Arena,” and looks back on the night with as a learning experience. “You’re exactly right about that. I have no excuse except to say that was my first night I was on the air, and I have a good friend Mike Harvey, and I was talking to him prior to that…and thus, the maloprompt. But then there were a lot of maloprompts after that…

    As many fans of the WWE product are already aware of, Adamle left World Wrestling Entertainment after just one year, one that unfortunately saw more disappointment than critical success. Many hardcore fans of professional wrestling and sports-entertainment did not take him seriously, and even some talent took him to task…sometimes on the air. Was Adamle’s departure mutual, or was it more one-sided, whether it be him or the WWE?

    “I think it was a matter of them seeing my career as far as it could go with WWE. I wasn’t quite sure what they brought me in for. I know that JR (Jim Ross) was an icon for the WWE and an icon in broadcasting professional wrestling over the years, and I heard through the grapevine that he was getting older and they wanted a young guy, but I wasn’t quite sure that exactly was it. They then put on ECW. Covering play-by-play for professional wrestling is a completely different animal than getting ready for a college sports broadcast.

    “I had asked them once they had decided that’s what they wanted me to do is for my sake send me down to Tampa (Florida Championship Wrestling), and let me call matches till I’m blue in the face, until it rolled off my tongue. It didn’t, and I suffered a little bit, I’ll be honest, on the air, and I got a lot of criticism from ECW fans, but you take it in stride. And eventually by just being man enough to get all the boos, they start liking you, and I think Vince (McMahon) took advantage of this guy who’s a ‘bumblehead’ so they made me the ‘bumblehead of ECW,’ and a guy who was prone to make mistakes, and I went along with the gag.”

    “The Chairman Of The Board” Todd Vincent asked Mike if Vince McMahon or those in the back fed him wrong lines in his headset (as has been reported over the years with Taz and Mick Foley) to increase the “bumblehead character” that they portrayed as Adamle.

    “They tried to feed you lines, and I kinda went along with it. I actually liked it (playing the lovable dunderhead) and I grew to enjoy the ECW people. A couple of times they had me walk off, which was not my idea. The first time I walked off, left Taz in a lurch, and the following week, I came out made an apology and said that I couldn’t stand off the heckling that was going on behind me. And I actually got accepted, the responses for me kinda changed, and I went from kinda a heel to a babyface announcer.

    “Just the whole experience, I wish I had to do it again because now I know some things about how it all works and I’m not sure I’ll ever get another chance but I got nothing but great things and memories from the WWE.” The big question: Would he want another chance to go back? “I’d go in a heartbeat. If you’re any kind of athlete, you’ve been knocked down not once, not twice but hundreds of times and you get out of the game when you don’t want to get off the canvas anymore. So I got knocked down to the canvas a couple of times, but I wanna get up, and I’ll too throw a few punches again. My greatest regret is that I was never able to get in the ring. I wanted to be chokeslammed a couple of times.”

    Adamle took over for the beloved Joey Styles on ECW, and he had mixed feelings about taking the role that first defined him in the WWE.

    “One of the guys that befriended me right away was Joey Styles, and I knew who he was, and I knew he liked doing play-by-play. I don’t think he particularly cared to go into the dot.com business for WWE, but being the consummate professional did exactly that.”

    Mike said he was fortunate enough to be placed in the roles that he was (from an announcing perspective) that he felt comfortable with and based on the relationships that he had formed with both JR and Joey.

    The man behind the majority of ECW’s success, Paul Heyman, wrote an article last April about Adamle in The UK Sun, with Mike having the chance to read the finished product. In discussing the contents of the article, Mosh called the piece “interesting,” but Adamle had his own words.

    “Interesting is not quite the word. Inflammatory was, it was a degradation kind of article. And he was right, he is entitled to his opinion. I always wanted to talk to him in person just to tell him a lot of the things that he said, are right on. So I have no problem with him…I have no problem with the criticism that I received. I think much of it was warranted. But what Paul had to say was right on. I know that he and Vince parted in a very acrimonious way. A lot of it was because he (Paul) was not in the mainstream anymore. But with that being said, I respect him greatly, and people are entitled to their opinions.”

    Throughout the past several months, Monday Night Raw has been seeing much critical success from bringing aboard the idea and concept of a “Guest Hosts for their program on a weekly basis. Speculation was rampant leading into last Monday night’s Raw (at The Allstate Arena outside of Chicago) that Mike’s name was debated as a candidate for the spot, which ended up being given to the long-time host of “The Price Is Right,” Bob Barker. Adamle was asked about the rumors, if they were true, and if he has been approached to host a future edition of Raw.

    “I’m always ready for anything that may happen. I wasn’t contacted for the last week’s show. Do I expect to contacted? I have no idea but if it happened, I would love it.”

    Former WWE/ECW Superstar, Colin Delaney, called into The Mayhem Line to give his best wishes to Mike, in addition to giving his thoughts about Mike’s tenure in the WWE. “I always thought that Mike was thrown into an awkward position, and everyone just immediately, like in most things in wrestling, when you do well, they’re so-so to praise you but when you do wrong, they’re immediate to jump on you and jump down your throat. I always thought your announcing skills were top notch. Some of the information, whether they gave it to you or information you had, was a little off, but that’s things they could fix up. As an announcer, I thought you were great. You took a lot of unnecessary flack for a lot of things that might not have necessarily been your fault.”
    So much more is contained in this near hour-long exclusive interview with Mike Adamle, including his uncensored comments on what he would do if given another opportunity with the WWE (and if that does not come to fruition, why he would consider being a part of TNA Wrestling), why his role as RAW General Manager did not last as long as he hoped (and what some of the potential ideas were for him in the final chapter of his WWE run), why his debut @ MSG was more intimidating than having to replace Joey Styles, why he wanted to take a page out of Jonathan Coachman’s book and actually get into the WWE squared circle, why he classifies wrestling fans as the most-knowledgeable of all fans out there, his takes on memories of watching professional wrestling live as a child in Cleveland, his thoughts on the opening weekend of the NFL’s 2009 season, as well an “American Gladiators” reunion live on The Mayhem airwaves, featuring Dan “Nitro” Clark and Raye “Zap” Hollitt. Remember Mayhem Nation, all-new “American Gladiators (The Original Series): The Battle Begins” DVD is now available! Log onto www.ShoutFactory.com for more information on this exciting DVD, including how you can purchase your very own copy and make it part of your DVD library!

    Monday Night Mayhem returns live next Monday night, beginning @ 8PM ET/7PM CT, as WWE Hall Of Famer/former WWE Champion, Bret “Hitman” Hart will join the program to discuss his forthcoming appearances for Ring Of Honor next weekend (in Boston, MA and New York City), if he potentially sees himself taking over the role left behind by “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair in ROH, and his thoughts on the “screwjob” ending of the Breaking Point PPV in Montreal from last weekend. In addition, the current Ring Of Honor World Heavyweight Champion, Austin Aries, will step into The Mayhem’s squared circle to discuss his reign as ROH Champion, the remaining dates lined up in the company’s “Final Countdown ’09,” the departures of “The American Dragon” Bryan Danielson and Nigel McGuinness (and their futures in the WWE), and so much more.