WWE Officially Announces First Weekly Exclusive Arabic Show

WWE issued the following press release on Saturday officially announcing the company's first weekly exclusive Arabic show:

OSN and WWE announce exclusive new weekly Arabic show “WWE Wal3ooha”

DUBAI, UAE and STAMFORD, Conn. — OSN is bringing an all-new localized Arabic show to OSN Sports featuring the best action and family-friendly entertainment from WWE. “WWE Wal3ooha” premieres on OSN this Thursday, May 4, at 8 p.m. (KSA) on OSN Sports Action 1 HD, with repeat broadcast across the weekend, and anywhere, anytime access via OSN Play and OSN On Demand.

Titled “WWE Wal3ooha,” meaning “light it up,” the weekly show features hosts Moein Al Bastaki and Nathalie Mamo delivering exclusive interviews and highlights from the week’s key matches to WWE fans in the region.

The partnership between OSN and WWE provides unprecedented access to WWE Superstars, while featuring the latest big stories from Raw, SmackDown LIVE and pay-per-view events, specifically curated with localized Arabic WWE content, created for the region, from the region.

“We are excited to partner with OSN to bring our passionate fans original and localized content featuring their favorite WWE Superstars,” said Stephanie McMahon, WWE Chief Brand Officer. “’WWE Wal3ooha’ provides a new destination for our fans in the Middle East to enjoy WWE’s unique blend of action-packed, family-fun entertainment.”

Al Bastaki, a professional magician, and Mamo, a basketball star, bring more than 15 combined years of television to “WWE Wal3ooha.” The show is produced from the OSN Studios in Dubai.

Triple H Reveals New WWE NXT 'Rage' Theme Song, Comments On The New Look And Feel Of NXT

As noted, tonight's WWE NXT episode will see the debut of a new theme song, a new opening video and new display graphics inside Full Sail University.

Triple H took to Twitter today and announced that "Rage" by CFO$ is the new NXT theme song.

"We were made for this. #Rage drives The new look...
The new feel...
...and the new sound of NXT #WeAreNXT".

WWE Superstar Shakeup: List of roster changes to SmackDown and Raw

With the WWE Superstar Shakeup now seemingly complete, the only thing left is to take a look at the roster moves and determine where the brands stand going forward.

Considering it was not a “draft” and WWE noted that all superstar changes would occur via trades, deals and other moves between the Raw and SmackDown Live brands, one would have expected some explanations about how every new wrestler wound up on his or her respective new show.

Nope.

Instead, WWE simply had these superstars appear on Raw and SmackDown without any explanation for how or why they got there. In fact, some of the moves are relatively convoluted considering the performers are involved in matches against competitors on their prior brand, rivalries WWE could have ended at WrestleMania 33 but for some reason chose not to.

Bray Wyatt, the No. 1 contender for the WWE championship (a SmackDown title), moved to Raw but will still face champion Randy Orton for the strap at Payback, a Raw pay-per-view. No mention has been made of what will happen if Wyatt wins the “House of Horrors” match.

Kevin Owens, the United States champion, took the belt from Raw to SmackDown (as Dean Ambrose did in reverse with the intercontinental title) but is still scheduled to defend the belt at Payback in a rematch against Chris Jericho, who remains on Raw. At least WWE clarified that Jericho would move to SmackDown should he regain the championship.

What WWE does from here is anyone’s guess. Wyatt beating Orton could take a world title away from SmackDown, but Orton beating Wyatt in the challenger’s signature match (no details provided at this time) would be another massive blow to Wyatt, who always loses big matches, particularly at pay-per-views.

OK, enough bloviating. Here are the new SmackDown and Raw superstars.

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Top 10 Highest Paid WWE Superstars

The highest paid WWE Superstars of 2016 have been revealed by Forbes who used data compiled from WWE’s booking contracts, pay documents, public filings as well as interviews with industry insiders. Below are the top 10.

10: Randy Orton - $1.9 million

9: Seth Rollins - $2 million

8: The Undertaker - $2 million

7: Shane McMahon - $2.2 million

6: AJ Styles - $2.4 million

5: Dean Ambrose - $2.7 million

4: Roman Reigns - $3.5 million

3: Triple H - $ 3.8 million

2: John Cena - $8 million

1: Brock Lesnar - $12 million

WWE Files Major Lawsuit Against Bit Torrent Users

WWE has reportedly filed a lawsuit against a number of unknown bit torrent users on Thursday, April 6th in the United States District Court of Connecticut, according to worldipreview.com report.

The lawsuit alleges that the users “unlawfully acquire, reproduce, and distribute” the WWE Studios film Eliminators." “

"Eliminators" is a 2016 US action thriller film released by WWE Studios. WWE used forensic software to identify the IP addresses associated with the infringement; WWE is asking for actual damages, statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement, costs and jury trial.

WWE Announces More Records Set By WrestleMania 33 - WWE Network, Merchandise, Attendance, Media

STAMFORD, Conn., April 6, 2017 – In addition to setting a new Orlando Citrus Bowl attendance record of 75,245 fans, which led to the highest-grossing event in the stadium's history at $14.5 million, WrestleMania also broke records for sellouts, digital and social media engagement and merchandise sales.

Attendance

As part of the week-long WrestleMania celebration, WWE held an unprecedented five consecutive nights of sellouts at the Citrus Bowl and Amway Center with 165,000 in attendance at WrestleMania Axxess, Hall of Fame, NXT TakeOver: Orlando, WrestleMania, Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live.

Digital/Social Media

WrestleMania 33 was the most social event in WWE history, according to Nielsen Social, with 5.19 million interactions on Facebook and Twitter during the broadcast alone. There were also 2.8 million tweets about WrestleMania throughout the day.

WrestleMania 33 accounted for nearly 30 percent of all social TV interactions on Sunday, April 2, surpassing the Country Music Awards (13 percent), The Walking Dead Season Finale (10 percent) and MLB Opening Day on ESPN – Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals (10 percent).

WWE-related content saw more than 490 million video views across WWE.com, WWE App and social media during WrestleMania Week, an increase of 96 percent year-over-year.

WWE Network

WrestleMania reached a record 1.95 million global households on WWE Network alone, making it the most-watched WrestleMania in history, with pay-per-view data still forthcoming.

WWE Network subscribers viewed 22.5 million hours during WrestleMania Week or 13 hours per subscriber during the week. This compares to 21.7 million hours last year, a year-over-year increase of 4 percent.

Merchandise Sales

WWE generated $3.7 million in WrestleMania merchandise revenue, an increase of 164 percent or $2.3 million, from WrestleMania 24 in Orlando. It was also WWE's second-highest grossing WrestleMania, only behind last year's WrestleMania 32 in Dallas.

Triple H Hits Big Social Media Milestone

Triple H hit a big social media milestone of 5 million Twitter followers today. Triple H's Twitter account has had the fastest rise to 5 million of any wrestlinTriple H hit a big social media milestone of 5 million Twitter followers today. Triple H's Twitter account has had the fastest rise to 5 million of any wrestler, including The Rock, John Cena and Randy Orton. Triple H, who started his Twitter account in February of 2013, is now the 4th most followed star behind The Rock (11.1 million followers), Cena (9.4 million) and Randy Orton (5.2 million).

2017 WWE Hall Of Fame Legacy Inductees Revealed

According to The Wrestling Observer, the following names will be this year’s WWE Hall of Fame Legacy Inductees:

Dr. Jerry Graham

Haystacks Calhoun

Luther Lindsay

Rikidozan

June Byers

Judy Grable

Farmer Burns

Toots Mondt

With NXT stars on to WrestleMania, Triple H is a 'proud papa'

Perhaps it’s fitting that Triple H will be standing across the ring from Seth Rollins, the first NXT champion, at WrestleMania.

Beyond his own match, though, Paul “Triple H” Levesque can look at the entire lineup on April 2 and see performers, ring announcers and broadcasters who have come through NXT, WWE’s developmental system based in Orlando.

Levesque, as WWE’s executive vice president of talent, live events and creative, has been the founder and chief architect of NXT and overhauled how the company recruits and builds talent.

All but three of the currently scheduled WrestleMania matches feature performers who spent time in NXT. It’s likely eight of the 10 NXT champions will be involved in WrestleMania, barring a surprise. Three of the five NXT women’s champions – Charlotte, Sasha Banks and Bayley – are in the same match.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have that pride factor,” Levesque said. “It’s a huge moment to see those guys shine. I know what it feels like. I was there. I went through all of it. To me, it’s awesome to help them live their dreams.

“I get as much excitement of seeing these kids succeed as I do by far from any of the stuff I’ve done in my career. I’m not the one out there in front of the 100,000 people, but it’s like being a proud papa. It’s the difference between doing it yourself and watching your kids doing it. There is a difference in the kind of pride, but it’s still there.”...More?

source: forthewin

Triple H Clarifies His Feeling On The Current NXT Product

Triple H recently remarked “I’m not happy with where it is right now by far” when referring to the NXT brand he created. In a conference call today to promote the upcoming NXT TakeOver: Orlando event he took time to clarify what he meant by the statement:

"Let me just say first off I'll never be happy with the product, probably, because I just never... I think that's the nature of what it is, you always want it to be better than it can be. You always want it to be more than what it is at that time. That being said, I want to make sure that I'm clear on that. That unhappiness had nothing to do with talent; that unhappiness had more to do with my end, with the creative, with our production, with all that. There were reasons for all of it. We were, you know, NXT, the Performance Center, designed to create a lot of things, designed to create everything that we do, really, not just in-ring performers. And it did that, it did that very well. When those people were moved up to take on different and maybe bigger responsibilities within the company, it sort of strip-mined NXT. So about the same time we lost a lot of our performers, at the draft we lost the entire women's division with the exception of Asuka. We had to start over in many ways, but we also did that behind-the-scenes and we kind of had to start over.

"So when I say 'unhappy with the product,' I'm happy with where we had brought it to. There are a lot of things that as NXT came up and changed, some of the things that worked got adopted by main roster, the things that worked got moved up, and we had to reinvent ourselves. I just didn't have the team and the capabilities... we just got caught. I'm much happier where we are now not because it's where I want to be but because I'm on a path to get there. To me, there's nothing worse than saying I'm unhappy with this and I don't have the means or the ability to fix it or I'm not on the way to fixing it. We're on the way to being where I want it to be now, to me. I think I would look to everybody out there as to whether NXT is getting better over time in the last few weeks or months but I feel like it is."

Shawn Michaels Updates Jim Ross On His TV Show and WWE Performance Center Status

Recently on The Ross Report, professional wrestling veteran 'Good Ol' J.R.' Jim Ross spoke with fellow WWE Hall Of Famer Shawn Michaels. Among many other things, Michaels talked about his hunting show, Shawn Michaels' MacMillan River Adventures, coming to an end, what professional wrestling shows he watches regularly, hammering out a deal to become a coach at the WWE Performance Center, and working with young talent.

According to Michaels, 2017 will be the final year of his hunting show. 'The Heartbreak Kid' said that he would rather being doing "easier stuff" at this point in his life.

"We are going to wrap up MacMillan River Adventures this year. This is going to be our last year. It's the seventh year. It has just become a little busy, and, again, I'm, I guess, way too lazy to travel that much now. And having enjoyed this warm weather so much, the thought of going away to a bunch of faraway, cold places, and live in a sleeping bag, and things of that nature… it was fun to do for a while just to push myself and to see if I could do it, and go on hunts that I've never had the opportunity to go on, so I'm so blessed and so fortunate to be able to go and do that, but now I'm so fortunate that I've got a ranch in Texas and if I want to hunt I can go there and do it, so Keith [Mark] and I are going to wrap up our final year, 2017, on MacMillan River Adventures and I'm going to just focus on just doing some easier stuff and, honestly, just see where the wind blows me to that."

Michaels divulged that when he watches pro wrestling, it is usually either NXT or 205 Live. 'The Showstopper' claimed that he watches those shows to inform him in his role working with younger talent.

"I watch a little bit. I mean, the majority of it is to… honestly, I watch more NXT and the 205 Live more than anything else, to be perfectly honest." Michaels continued, "I do that because, I mean, that's something that I'm interested in. I think in terms of, again, being here and being able to contribute and see what I can do, if anything, to help the younger wrestlers. That's the part that I enjoy, so, clearly, if you're going to do that, you've got to know about the product, and you've got to watch it, and you've got to be informed with the talent and the people that are there."

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WWE teases new comedy show 'Southpaw Regional Wrestling'

The WWE has gone retro in the first teaser trailer for a new comedy series titled Southpaw Regional Wresting.

The clip, released Wednesday on Twitter, begins with a VHS tape being inserted into a VCR player as the video switches over to a more low-quality look.

WWE Superstars including John Cena, Rusev, Lana, United States Champion Chris Jericho, Raw Tag Team Champions Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows, Cesaro and more are seen donning various wigs and costumes as they recreate the glory days of professional wrestling.

A man in a dinosaur costume along with Superstar TJ Perkins wearing a championship belt also make appearances.

"This is Lance Catamaran and you are watching Southpaw Regional Wrestling," Cena announces while wearing a wig.

WWE plans on releasing Southpaw Regional Wrestling on Friday on the WWE Network.