– The Rock is making $400,000 per episode of HBO’s Ballers, according to a new list from Variety. Rock is #4 on the list of highest-paid comedy TV actors, behind Big Bang Theory actors Kaley Cuoco, Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki, who each make $1 million per episode.
This summer, Forbes declared The Rock the highest paid actor in Hollywood. The Great One is on pace to rake in a staggering $64.5 million this year.
– Curt Hawkins will make his WWE TV return at Sunday’s No Mercy pay-per-view, according to this new vignette that aired on last night’s SmackDown. No word yet on who his opponent will be.
Hawkins, who started working house shows this past weekend with losses to Apollo Crews, also worked last night’s pre-show dark match as he defeated a local wrestler.
In a recent promotional interview for WWE 2k17 in The Sun, Paul Heyman talked about the possibility of his client Brock Lesnar meeting Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in a WWE ring. Lesnar and Johnson are both much more famous now than they were when they had their 2002 SummerSlam match, and if they faced off again it would likely be the biggest match of the year.
Heyman noted that The Rock didn’t call out Lesnar during any of his recent returns, instead choosing Bray Wyatt and Rusev. After teasing that The Rock may not be ready for Lesnar, Heyman talked about Brock Lesnar’s star power and feels that his client is the biggest draw in wrestling.
“I think Brock Lesnar against anyone is an automatic sell-out,” he said of Lesnar’s drawing power. “Brock does not wrestle 52 Monday’s a year on Monday Night Raw, he does not come to your home town every week, his appearances are rare. They are unique and extraordinary. Which is why, whenever Brock Lesnar appears it is a rare and unique opportunity for the paying customer to see the greatest living athlete in the history of WWE appear live in an extraordinary event that only Brock Lesnar can deliver on. This is why he is the greatest box office attraction.”
You can read Heyman’s entire interview on TheSun.co.uk.
Would you like to see a rematch between Lesnar and The Rock at WrestleMania? Comment with your thoughts!
– It looks as though production is getting ready to begin once again on WWE Studios’ “The Fall Guy.” The film, which will be the first WWE Studios project to star Dwayne Johnson, was originally optioned in July 2010 and went through continuous revisions for four years. The Rock signed on to star in the film in September of 2013. The film features a Hollywood Stuntman by the name of Colt Seavers, who moonlights as a bounty hunter using his unordinary abilities. According to IMDB, Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz—of X-Men: First Class—are writing the script and the director will be McG, who’s directed blockbuster films like Charlie’s Angels and Terminator Salvation.
– To celebrate 700,000 subscribers on his “UpUpDownDown” YouTube channel, WWE Tag Team Champion Xavier Woods plays Destiny with Big Show:
– The newest WWE Top 10 features Cruiserweight Classic exclusive maneuvers, seen here:
– Below are photos of Daniel Bryan and Brie Bella from Sunday night’s 68th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards. As noted, Bryan and Brie worked the E! Entertainment Television pre-show before the ceremony:
The Rock appeared at the 2016 Mr. Olympia convention on Saturday to receive the ICON “Man of the Century” award and to announce that his Seven Bucks Productions company will be bringing the 2017 Olympia event to CBS.
Below is a reaction video from The Rock and video of his speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdtmWfmfgdQ
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKeqJm-DELb/
He also received these props from Triple H:
Congrats @TheRock on the @MrOlympiaLLC ICON Award. “Blood, sweat & respect. 1st two you give, last one you earn." Well earned! #Olympia2016
Newsweek recently profiled Dany Garcia, the longtime business partner and ex-wife to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. She spoke of their work with Seven Bucks productions, bodybuilding and more.
Garcia, who the article noted was extremely comfortable in speaking to WWE officials about everything from Rock’s contracts to his future with the company while he was there, gave a lot of credit to Vince McMahon for helping her grow. She said:
“He has taught me some amazing lessons that we use [today] as far as taking care of the audience and being an audience-driven company. He’s helped raise the lion is how he looks at it.”
Newsweek noted that The Rock still returns to WWE TV when his schedule allows but there are no legal agreements between the two sides. Garcia elaborated on his special relationship with WWE and Vince:
“We have no legal agreements between us. With Vince McMahon we’ve always been able to shake hands. That’s a very special relationship in this day and age, that we can operate with that level of trust.”
– Kalist is still out of action after being helped to the back after the 8/2 SmackDown Triple Threat against Apollo Crews and Baron Corbin. PWInsider reports the luchador is suffering from a back injury.
– As seen below, The Rock appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America today to promote Disney’s “Moana” movie. He also did a Polynesian tribal dance from a beach in Hawaii, where he’s filming Jumanji:
– As previously reported, AJ Styles will defend his WWE World Championship in a triple threat match against John Cena and Dean Ambrose at No Mercy on 10/9. It should be noted that on Smackdown, Shane McMahon mentioned Dean receiving a one-on-one rematch somewhere down the line, after losing the title to Styles this past Sunday. With John Cena taking time off soon and the unlikelihood that Styles drops the title after a month, it looks like we could see Styles vs. Ambrose at Survivor Series in November.
– The Rock is scheduled to appear on “Good Morning America” this Thursday to unveil the first trailer for his Disney animated movie, “Moana.” Below is the new poster for the film:
– Despite announcing Curt Hawkins for this week’s episode of Smackdown, the former Major Brother did not appear in the arena. At least not on Smackdown. Hawkins defeated local enhancement talent Brandon Scott in a dark match, and later appeared on the live broadcast in a vignette. Hawkins’ win over Scott was his first WWE match since February 3rd, 2014.
– WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens was Michael Cole’s guest for this week’s WWE.com sit down interview. Owens said he’s not worried about defending his title against Seth Rollins at Clash of Champions because Seth has been a failure since returning from knee surgery. It also doesn’t matter if Roman Reigns is added to the match. Regarding Triple H essentially handing him the Universal Championship by interfering in the Fatal 4 Way match last week, Owens says he had no idea what Triple H had planned, but he made the right decision.
– Bobby Roode vs. No Way Jose has been announced for next week’s NXT episode.
– The Rock has posted his first YouTube Q&A video, seen below. The Great One does not answer any WWE questions but responds to a few trolls.
– JBL arranged for the European Rugby Champions Cup winners, the Saracens Rugby Club, to receive a custom WWE Championship replica at Wednesday’s WWE house show in London. Below are photos of the team:
– WWE recently applied to register the trademark “Skull King” for performance use. The company applied for trademarks of the same name back in 2014 but only for merchandise use.
– It looks like Lana and WWE US Champion Rusev may be off RAW for even longer than originally expected. After their traditional wedding ceremony in Bulgaria over the weekend, the happy couple flew to Dubai for their honeymoon. Based on the following tweet from Rusev, they’ll be enjoying their honeymoon for the next 3 weeks.
– Below are recent episodes of “Rock The Promo” from The Rock’s YouTube channel, featuring guest judges Tommy Dreamer, Christian, Shane Helms and Rey Mysterio. Kurt Angle and Vickie Guerrero previously appeared as judges.
– Former ECW & WWE stars Rob Van Dam and Sabu will be appearing on Thursday’s episode of “Traveling the Stars: Ancient Aliens with Action Bronson and Friends” on VICE’s new VICELAND channel.
– We recently reported that WWE Smackdown Superstar Natalya has been working out to get in better ring shape over the past year. Both Nattie and Alicia Fox sat down to speak with “The National” to discuss their fitness regimen as well as the new era for women in the WWE. Natalya notes that she’s been working with Rob MacIntyre of the “Hard Knocks South” gym, who’s also worked with stars such as John Cena. Natalya had this to say regarding her progress and goals:
“My coach, Rob MacIntyre, trained Olympians and (fellow WWE wrestlers) John Cena, Nikki Bella, Cesaro, and the list goes on. He has helped streamline my workout through an app he’s designed called Mogy. If I have only half an hour, I’ll go into my app find a workout that he’s designed for me and focus on just a few lifts. I’ll focus on doing a few Olympic lifts that work my whole body.
The workout is very important so that I warm-up my body for a match. I’ll go into Rob’s app and I’ll find three lifts I like: I’ll do a clean and jerk combo, I’ll do some Olympic dead lifts and some squats. If I don’t have a lot of time, I won’t lift really heavy, I’ll lift for reps. If I have more time, I lift heavier weights. I have a weightlifting belt I wear. It’s really awesome. The Olympic lift helped me a lot with my in-ring performance. If I only have 30 minutes, Rob recommends low weight and high reps.”
– TubeFilter.com listed Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s YouTube channel as their “Top Gainer” for the month of July 2016. Rock’s channel came in at number six in terms of worldwide subscribers, after posting his first video during the last week of June. On a somewhat related note, WWE ranked #70 on the chart for July, bringing in 376,667 subscribers and 524,305,620 views. They ranked 59th in June, whereas the Rock was not yet listed.
Speaking of the Rock, his very first “Vlog” post can be seen below via his YouTube channel:
– Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is officially the highest paid actor in the world. According to Forbes, The Rock will make a staggering $64.5 million this year. He more than doubled his 2015 earnings to knock Robert Downey Jr. out of the top spot this year.
– The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels in attendance for tonight’s NXT TV tapings from Full Sail University in Winter Park, FL. HBK has been working as a coach at the WWE Performance Center in recent weeks. This will be Shinsuke Nakamura’s first shows as NXT champion and it will be interesting to see who the next challenger is to Asuka’s NXT Women’s championship. Check back later tonight for complete results from the tapings.
– Renee Young filmed new interviews with Becky Lynch, Enzo Amore & Big Cass on Monday night for future episodes of her Unfiltered show on the WWE Network.
– Lana is teasing a more aggressive side of her character. Following Roman Reigns’ attack on her husband at Summerslam, she tweeted:
You know what they say…If you want something done right you got to do it yourself…Someone has to be a leader. Back to micromanaging #Raw
– On Monday Triple H announced new NXT house shows for the East Coast: Norfolk (10/6), Richmond (10/7) and Baltimore (10/8). Tickets go on sale this Friday at NXTTickets.com.
– The Rock is getting a lot of mainstream media attention for an update he gave on the “Jumanji” movie he’s working on. To calm some of the criticism and speculation, Rock stated that the movie will not be a remake or a reboot of the original, but a continuation that takes place 20 years later. He wrote the following on Instagram this week:
– Despite his devastating victory at SummerSlam and a post-match F5 attack on Shane McMahon, Brock Lesnar is not scheduled to be in attendance for tonight’s RAW from Brooklyn. (Source: PWInsider)
– Popular Twitter accounts @DeathToAllMarks and @SenorLARIATO were suspended on Sunday night reportedly due to WWE filing copyright infringement complaints against them. The accounts regularly posted animated GIFs of wrestling shows.
– The announced attendance for SummerSlam at the Barclays Center last night was a sold out 15,974. As reported, they announced 15,671 fans in attendance for Takeover on Saturday night, also in the Barclays Center.
– The Rock tweeted “electric vibes” to the WWE Superstars before SummerSlam hit the air last night. The tweet was mentioned on commentary during the show. Below is what The Great One wrote:
Sending electric vibes to my @WWE Superstars tonight. Stacked card! Many champions but only 1 brass ring. Become the #1 draw. #SummerSlam
– After picking up the pin in the SummerSlam pre-show twelve-man match last night, The Usos believe they have cemented themselves in the SmackDown tag team division. They talk to Charly Caruso in this backstage video and talk about not going anywhere after 6 long years in WWE.
– The Rock’s latest line of gear from Under Armour was officially released in stores yesterday. Rock revealed on Twitter that they will have gear for women coming in early 2017. He tweeted the following for the new line:
– The Bella Twins will be on the cover of an upcoming issue of Muscle & Fitness magazine. Nikki Bella posted a photo from this week’s photo shoot, noting that she and Brie are the first female athletes to grace the cover of M&F in 20 years.
– As seen on the Stone Cold podcast with Dean Ambrose this week, the WWE Champion spoke of actual shields that The Shield were to debut with. The idea was nixed but just right before they were to go out and make their debuts. The WWE Archivist tweeted this photo of the shields:
– The latest episode of The Rock’s “Rock The Promo” show can be seen below, featuring Vickie Guerrero as a guest judge:
– Congratulations to WWE couple John Cena and Nikki Bella, who are celebrating their 4 year anniversary this week. Nikki is at home in the US doing work while Cena is down under with WWE in New Zealand and Australia. The two tweeted the following on their relationship:
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is laying the smack down on his “Fast & Furious 8” co-stars.
Rock says no franchise he’s worked on gets his blood boiling like Fast & Furious and his female co-stars are amazing. “I love them,” he gushed.
“My male co-stars however are a different story. Some conduct themselves as stand up men and true professionals, while others don’t. The ones that don’t are too chicken shit to do anything about it anyway. Candy asses.”
As the highest paid actor in Hollywood, The Rock is smart enough to not single out anybody in particular and give them the rub of being part of ‘celebrity feud’ with him. But when the movie is released next April, Rock says a lot of the intensity we’ll see from him on the big screen is legitimate due to the on-set tensions.
– TMZ caught up with Kurt Angle this past week to discuss the Olympic games. When asked if any current WWE Superstars could compete at the Olympic level, Angle said no, because WWE is entertainment.
– British reality television star Adam Maxted, who currently stars on the dating show Love Island, says his dream is to become a WWE Superstar. During an interview with the Belfast Telegraph, Maxted was asked why he ‘behaves’ on the show. He replied:
“I said to myself that there was no way I was going to risk my future and my dream – no matter how good looking the girl was or how much there was a connection or how much I wanted to do it. My dream is to be in the WWE [the world’s biggest wrestling entertainment company] and it’s such a child-based market so I wasn’t ever going to ruin my chances of getting onto that because I’d had sex on TV.”
– The Rock’s next item in his Under Armour series will be a training shoe, due out in early 2017. Rock noted that he’s been wearing the unreleased shoe for about a year.
– WWE.com put together a list of 10 of “the hottest” free agents on the market right now and a few former Superstars are mentioned, including Mickie James.
Do Raw and SmackDown Live have James on the brain?
New blood has invigorated the Women’s division in WWE, but few would argue that seeing a veteran like Mickie James come to Raw or SmackDown Live to square off with the likes of Sasha Banks, Charlotte or Becky Lynch wouldn’t be a sight to behold.
The list also includes The Rock, The Undertaker, Nikki Bella, The Brian Kendrick, Bayley, Cryme Tyme, Carlito, The Great Khali and Tajiri.
– Sasha Banks has been pulled from her scheduled appearance at the Wizard World Chicago Comic Con in the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois, on Aug. 18. Bayley will take her place. Click here for details on her schedule.
– A preview of Disney’s 3D computer-animated film Moana with The Rock voicing a lead character will air during NBC’s coverage of the Olympics on Sunday night.
Add The Rock to the long list of legends to endorse one of the top independent wrestlers in the world, Ricochet. Back in June, Ricochet posted a photo on Instagram with a message explaining why The Rock has been an inspiration to him throughout his career:
Anyone that knows me knows how much #therock has influenced me. He’s literally the reason I wanted to become a wrestler. He had it all, the look, the mic skills, the charisma, the in ring work. He was a 10x world champion but he wasn’t afraid to lose. He knew how to work a crowd, he could make them hate him then love him then by the end hate him again. And still to this day he continues to inspire me to be better in every way. There will never be another like him. There’s a reason why he was called “The Great One.”
Rock discovered the post this week and responded in kind. While heaping praise on Ricochet, he also warned him to stay above the “garbage” of backstage politics and always give the fans what they want.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIqYUEoDBjm/
Humbled by the endorsement from one of the business’ biggest stars of all time, Ricochet responded:
Former WWE World Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson continues to tease that he may enter the political arena some day.
Johnson previously talked about his political aspirations earlier this year in Time Magazine, saying that he hasn’t ruled out a career in politics. “The thought of being governor, the thought of being president, is alluring,” Johnson admitted.
The Rock uploaded several photos this week to his official account on Instagram, where he has almost 61 million followers, hinting that politics are still on his mind. Johnson shared the images after fans were seen on TV holding up signs at the Democratic National Convention this week reading “Dwanye Johnson for President.”
He also Tweeted on Wednesday that he would enter politics in coming years if he could be a “strong, authentic, and impactful leader for the people.”
Johnson wouldn’t be the first wrestler to enter the political world if he did decide to make the leap one day. Former WWE wrestler and announcer Jesse Ventura became the governor of Minnesota back in November 1998 when he ran as an independent to narrowly and unexpectedly defeat two major-party candidates.
As of 2014, Johnson was a registered Republican, and he spoke at the Republican National Convention back in 2000.
Would you vote for The Rock? Sound off with your thoughts in the comments below.
– After coming up short last night at WWE Battleground and getting booed during his WWE television return, Roman Reigns is keeping a positive attitude headed into tonight’s RAW. Reigns tweeted on Monday afternoon:
Last night wasn't my night.. No better time to bounce back than on #RAW! New night, new direction. #RomanEmpire
WWE’s official preview for tonight’s RAW stated that Reigns’ feud with Seth Rollins will continue.
– Kurt Angle has been announced as a judge for The Rock’s new pro wrestling promo contest on YouTube. Angle was announced in the video below, which also shows some of the contestants. The first episode premieres this coming Friday.
– MizTV with Bob Backlund and Darren Young has been announced for this week’s SmackDown. The Miz will defend his WWE IC Title against Darren Young at the 7/24 Battleground PPV after winning a battle royal on RAW.
– Former WWE star Zeb Colter (Dutch Mantell) will appear at a stand-up comedy show in Nashville, Tennessee on 8/10 at Zanies. More information is available here.
– The Rock appears pretty close with the new UFC owners, as seen in this tweet. Rock is represented by WME, who along with IMG and investors are the new UFC owners after a $4 billion sale.
Earlier this week, The Rock announced a new weekly competition series titled Rock The Promo. The show, which will air on his new Studio 71 Youtube channel, will feature user-submitted videos of fans cutting their best wrestling promo. As it turns out, Taz has been doing a similar weekly feature on his CBS radio show and wasn’t happy about The Rock seemingly ripping off his idea.
The two had an exchange on Twitter, with some fans starting up an “#IStandWithTaz” hashtag in support of the former ECW World Champion. When The Rock got word of the backlash, he reached out to Taz, told him he wasn’t even aware Taz had a radio show and asked him to send him a text message so they can hash it out.
Bray Wyatt and The Wyatt Family appeared on ESPN SportsCenter last night for this week’s “Off The Top Rope” segment with Todd Grisham, who was filling in for Jonathan Coachman. We have full video below.
Wyatt was asked about working with The Rock at WrestleMania 32 this year and he said it was cool but they have unfinished business. Wyatt went on to say that he would love to finish the business at WrestleMania 33 in Orlando next year.
Wyatt was also asked about working with The Undertaker at WrestleMania 31. He said working with Taker at WrestleMania is as big as it gets in WWE as Taker is above titles. Wyatt said just being around Taker is fascinating.
They also discuss Wyatt’s favorite WWE star of all-time being Jake Roberts, the best attribute for a new WWE star to have, NFL star JJ Watt fitting with The Wyatts and more.