March 25, 2014
Shane McMahon Files Lawsuit Against New York City Penthouse Complex
Former WWE executive and current Chairman of YOU on Demand Shane McMahon has filed a lawsuit against New York City's Cobblestone Lofts complex, the Andrews Organization (the complex's managing agent), and "several yet-to-be-identified design firms and construction organizations," according to LLNYC.com.
The lawsuit, which McMahon filed along with his wife, film producer and former WWE employee Marissa Mazzola-McMahon, alleges that "certain toxic, airborne contaminants" were grown as a result of water leaking into the couple's penthouse. The lawsuit claims that as a result of the contaminants, Shane, Marissa, and their three children are now suffering from "severe respiratory ailments."
The lawsuit further states that the situation "caused a potential $5 million-plus loss in property value and over $130,000 in damage to furniture, clothing, artwork, and appliances." LLCNYC.com also notes that the McMahons "have some personal possessions with them in their current rental home, but the bulk of their property remains in storage facilities, where rent costs upward of $5,000 monthly."
The lawsuit further states that as a result of the situation, "the McMahons have been forced to evacuate...and incur monthly living expenses of approximately $15,000 at a rental apartment. They will not be able to return home until the deficient conditions that have caused and will continue to cause damage related to water penetration and infiltration into [the home] are remedied."
The McMahons purchased the home in 2001 for $3.9 million and began residing in the property in 2002 before vacating in May 2012.
The lawsuit filed by the McMahons is asking for "no less than $50 million plus interest."
To read the LLNYC.com article in its entirety, click here.
Hulk Hogan Says HHH Asked Him When He Was 'Coming Home' With A TNA Exec Standing Right There
Hulk Hogan appeared on Huffington Post Live. He said that the process of him to return to the company started a few years ago when he saw HHH at a Toys R Us charity event in NYC. He said HHH came up to him and asked, “When are you coming home?” Hogan said he didn’t think Vince wanted him back but HHH told him that Vince would love to see Hogan come home. Hogan said it was weird because TNA’s then-PR guy Mike Weber was right next to him.
Hogan was asked about his time with TNA. He said they were cool and stood by him during all his back surgeries. He said that his contract expired on a Monday and the next Saturday, he was in NYC signing at a Comicon and he received a text from HHH checking in. Hogan said that he told him he was officially unemployed and planning his next move and it went from there.
Hogan said that the timing for a return was great. He said Vince McMahon is great to people personally, but if you cross the line with him on a business-level, you are done. Hogan admitted that he did cross the line with Vince in the past and said, “Honestly, I didn’t know the boundaries. There’s personal and there’s business.” He said he didn’t understand how things work as well as much as he did now. He said that if anyone crossed a line in their relationship, it was him.
Hogan said that he hasn’t wrestled in two years since he wrestled Sting at Bound for Glory and “I didn’t do much” and teased that you can never say never in WWE. He said that he had a lot of fun in the ring with The Wyatt Family last week. Hogan did say we’d never see him do a legdrop again.
source: pwinsider.com
March 24, 2014
The Next Inductee into the WWE HOF Is...
Scott "Razor Ramon" Hall. The current induction plan is for members of the Kliq to do the honor for Hall.
March 23, 2014
Rumor Mill - WWE's Opinion of CM Punk Situation Reportedly Continues to Change
According to PWInsider.com, the opinion of the current CM Punk WWE situation continues to change backstage in WWE, as it has gone from "Vince is going to take care of this, everything will be fine," to a very negative tone when the subject is brought up.
The general feeling has shifted more to general resentment at this point, as many feel WWE made CM Punk a lot of money and then he just left.
This Week's WWE NXT Episode to Have a Vengeance Theme, Several Matches Announced
WWE has announced a "Vengeance" theme for this week's NXT. A promo for the show is available on WWE.com at this link. The following matches have been announced:
* Mojo Rawley vs. CJ Parker
* Tyler Breeze vs. Xavier Woods
* Natalya vs. Charlotte
* Bo Dallas vs. Adrian Neville for the NXT Title
Diamond Dallas Page Defends Triple H, Talks About His HOF Speech for Jake Roberts and More
His WWE Hall of Fame induction speech for Jake Roberts:
"Now I know it's gonna be the strongest shit I've ever said and I will have something planned that I'm gonna say. I'll know what I'm going to say before I go up there, doesn't mean I'm going to say it!"
Triple H:
"Paul Levesque aka Triple H has been one of the most solid guys I've ever met in this business so nobody can talk shit about him around me. You may have your own beef with him, whoever it is but no one who don't know ain't got nothing to say about him around me because he's always been a stand up guy to me."
Ric Flair:
"I love the guy, I don't want to have heat with him, fuck that!"
Artist Rob Schamberger Talks Working with WWE & Foley, His Work Being at Axxess, More
Acclaimed and exhibited artist, painter of the Champion Portrait series and portrait maker of your favorite wrestling stars as seen on the likes of WWEAuctions.com and the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Rob Schamberger joined “Multi-time Award Winning” the Rack Thursday Night. In a nearly 25 minute interview, he discussed how he got started and how we got connected with WWE, his work being displayed at WrestleMania and the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, his feelings to having work sold through WWE Auctions, who were his favorite wrestlers, what is his favorite medium to use: watercolor or acrylic, what is the biggest complement he’s gotten for his work, teaming with Mick Foley for his work with RAINN, the use of social media and how it has affected his art for the positive, his tips for other up-and-coming artists, his thoughts on the upcoming WrestleMania XXX card and so much more.
You can follow Rob through his Twitter (@robschamberger), his Tumblr (robschamberger.tumblr.com) or visit his homepage (http://robschamberger.com) for all the latest on him and projects as well as a gallery of his work; you can also see and bid on Rob’s work through wweauctions.com. You can also see Rob as part of WrestleMania with WrestleMania Axxess week; go to wwe.com or Ticketmaster.com for tickets and a list of events associated with Axxess. You can also win a chance to get a work from Rob through Mick Foley’s RAINN Charity raffle, go to www.rainn.org/raffle for a listing of prizes and for your chance to purchase raffle tickets for a great cause!
How did he come about working with the WWE: “It’s actually my first official WrestleMania with them (WWE), but I started about three years ago. I was looking at doing something different with my art; I’d been working primarily with comic books and illustration and it didn’t ever quite fully happen, you know; I’d still have a day job and everything. I just wanted to do something different and I realized that no one had ever done a serious collection of portraits of wrestlers. So then I thought, ‘Oh, it’d be cool to do every one of wrestling’s world champions going all the way back to George Hackenschmidt and that's all where it kind of started.
Then, there was Kickstarter about three years ago, where I raised $20,000 dollars in a month to pay for studio space and everything to help make that break into doing art full-time and then just built off it from there and it’s been a wild ride.”
His work being featured through the WWEAuctions.com site: “They actually came to me; Jim Ross had told them that that it would be a good fit for us to do business together, which is neat. I might actually be the last person that Jim Ross brought into the WWE; kind of a neat lineage to be part of. But we started talking about half way through last year and towards the end of the year we launched our first auctions together, right around Black Friday time and we’ve been doing it fairly consistently since then. It’s been phenomenal, I mean I have my own page on WWE.com and I don’t even have to take bumps in the ring.”
March 22, 2014
March 21, 2014
Triple H, Emma, WWE Performance Center, More
Triple H was a major contributor to the The Herald Sun feature we posted about earlier, as the journalist that wrote the piece was touring the WWE Performance Center alongside Triple H and others. In fact, the writer said he was one of the first international journalist given the opportunity to tour and cover the new 26,000 square foot training facility in Orlando.
Here are some of the Triple H highlights from the piece:
On how WWE finds talent for the Performance Center:
“Some people come to us, some send us tapes, we hold open castings and do auditions,” he says. “We make connections with Olympic athletes, rugby and football players. Some of these people are among the best athletes in the world who just missed out on performing at the highest level in their sport. For them, the WWE is an amazing chance at a new career.”
On superstars using mirrors to work on their promos:
“It’s called the mirror room because, when I learned, that’s what you did — you stood in front of a mirror and practised doing promos,” Levesque says. “The biggest part of our industry is charisma and personality, how you stand out from the crowd.
“The top star was not always the guy who was the best technician in the ring, sometimes it was the guy with the incredible personality … that’s the hard part to teach.”
On the thoughts behind creating the Performance Center:
“The design of this place comes from a thought: if I wanted to be a superstar today, what would I need to get there? This is about making the next generation of superstars bulletproof — giving them what they need to get here, the tools to make it, everything they must have in order to be as successful as they can be.”
Sean Fewster of Australia's Herald Sun did an incredible job with his detailed piece on WWE's Peformance Center. Focusing on Hunter's comments and those of WWE Diva Emma, you get a very unique view of exactly what the new training facility means on both sides of the business – management and talent.
You can check out the feature here.
March 20, 2014
Minor Change For WWE NXT
WWE has changed the way they add NXT episodes to Hulu Plus and all episodes will be available on Fridays now. They also haven't added the videos to YouTube yet so the only way to catch NXT first in the United States is on the WWE Network at 9pm on Thursdays.
Details On Eight Potential WWE Network Reality Shows Including One With Steve Blackman
WWE issued a survey earlier today to gauge interest on potential reality shows for the WWE Network. Here are details, courtesy of PWInsider:
* WWE Rescue - a reality show where WWE talents come to the homes of "super fans" to help with their personal and business problems. Described as Restaurant Impossible meets Nanny 911.
* NXT: Behind the Scenes - A reality series following the NXT talents trying to make it out of the Performance Center and to the main roster, looking at their work, their personal lives and the fraternity of the NXT brand, including the heartbreak of being cut.
* WWE Ultimate Challenge- WWE's version of CBS' Amazing Race with a 12 hour extreme scavenger hunt in different cities.
* Xtreme WWE Collector - Starring "Super fan" Michael Patterson - WWE's version of Travel Channel's Toy Hunter.
* Pros vs. Joes - Similar the old Spike TV series, pitting WWE talents against an average person in physical and non-physical challenges. The non physical challenges listed included an air guitar competition. The physical challenges were described as similar to American Gladiators.
* WWE Around the World - Following WWE stars as they take part in some of the scariest stunts and attractions around the world, such as shark diving and eating strange foods.
* WWE Dirty Jobs - Just like the Discovery Channel reality series of the same name, WWE talents have to perform unpleasant jobs, including going into Chicago sewers and picking up garbage in NYC.
* WWE Prankdown - a practical joke show that features WWE stars pulling tricks on unsuspecting "superfans." An example was John Cena and Randy Orton both wanting to buy an expensive car and getting into a fight at the dealership, only to show the damage they caused was part of the show to trick the fan.
* Blackman's Bounties - A reality series with former WWE star and bounty hunter Steve Blackman following his bounty hunting team based out of Harrisburg, PA.
Stephanie McMahon Reveals Plans For Slam City
Stephanie McMahon noted on Twitter during a @WWEMoms chat that we will be seeing The Rock on the new WWE Slam City cartoon in the future. She said that there will be Slam City apparel, back to school accessories, books and home videos at the end of this year.
WWE Investing In Mobile App Company
Mobile app company Phunware announced earlier this week that they have raised a total of $42 million in funding. The press release noted that WWE is one of their new strategic investors, along with Cisco. Phunware has created mobile content for brands like WWE, NASCAR, the NFL, Discovery, McDonald's, Rolling Stone, Sesame Street and others.
March 19, 2014
Details on WWE's Two-Hour WrestleMania XXX Pre-show with a Match and More
WWE announced today that the Kickoff pre-show for WrestleMania XXX will be two hours. Beginning at 5pm EST, the first hour will feature a panel with current Superstars and Legends, with interviews and more. It will air on WWE.com, the WWE App, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pheed. The second hour will begin at 6pm EST on the WWE Network with the panel, more interviews and a match. WrestleMania XXX then kicks off at 7pm EST.
Rumor Mill - WWE Re-Writes Script for 2015 Movie to Replace CM Punk, WWE Distancing Themselves
WWE is facing an issue with CM Punk being tied to a lot of licensing and future projects. Word from someone working on WWE Studios' Flinstones movie that comes out in 2015 reports that the script is being re-written for another Superstar to replace Punk's character, likely Rey Mysterio.
WWE is really trying to distance themselves from CM Punk and not use any Punk material, as seen with them removing him from WrestleMania recap video packages and other media. Regarding the 24 episodes of Slam City that are completed, WWE couldn't take Punk's character out because they've been done for months but they will be downplaying his involvement.
The Camp WWE adult cartoon that is expected to hit the WWE Network this year will also likely be re-done now that Punk has left the company.
WWE Star on Muscle & Fitness Advisory Board
WWE referee Charles Robinson noted on Twitter that Mark Henry, who was the first-ever Arnold Classic Strongman winner, is now on the Muscle & Fitness advisory board.
"Legends House" Air Date On The WWE Network Revealed
Joey Styles revealed the date on Twitter:
MUST SEE TV! @WWE @LegendsHouse premieres April 17 at 8/7 CT, only on @WWENetwork!
John Cena Negotiating To Star In Movie Called "Trainwreck"
WWE Superstar and 14-time World Champion John Cena is reportedly in negotiations to star in an upcoming film called Trainwreck along with Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, and Brie Larson.
This movie is currently scheduled to be released on July 24th, 2015.
source: the hollywood reporter
March 18, 2014
March 17, 2014
Arnold Schwarzenegger and More Announced for Next Week's WWE RAW from Brooklyn
Next week's WWE RAW from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York will feature Arnold Schwarzenegger and Joe Manganiello of the movie Sabotage as guest hosts.
Next week's show will also feature an appearance by Scooby-Doo and The Mystery Machine.
Triple H Makes Big Announcement for WrestleMania XXX
Triple H announced on tonight's RAW that after he defeats Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania XXX, he will get the third spot in the Batista vs. Randy Orton match for the WWE World Heavyweight Title. Essentially, the winner of Bryan vs. Triple H will get a spot in the title match with Batista and Orton.
Mr. T To Be Inducted Into WWE Hall of Fame
Mr. T pities anybody who isn't in the WWE Hall of Fame ... because after playing a pivotal role in launching WrestleMania 30 years ago -- the 80s star is finally getting his due.
Vince McMahon says ... T will be this year's celebrity inductee into the Hall of Fame, telling TMZ, "His WWE appearances were instrumental in helping to establish WrestleMania as the pop-culture phenomenon it is today."
Mr. T famously said he turned the WWE down for a H.O.F. spot in 2009 ... but now the two sides have buried the hatchet -- and the "A-Team" star will take his rightful place in the celebrity wing.
If you're too young to remember -- Hulk Hogan and T teamed up at the inaugural event ... he also took part in a special boxing match at WrestleMania II against Roddy Piper.
The Hall of Fame ceremony airs on April 5 ... and will air in its entirety on the WWE Network.
No word on who's inducting T.
With Hogan recently returning to the company though -- we're guessing he's a lock, brother.
source: tmz.com
WWE Superstars Get Animated
WWE and Mattel, Inc. today announced the launch of WWE Slam City™, WWE’s new kids property that includes an original animated short-form series and a complete line of WWE Slam City merchandise. The 26-episode series, which launches today in the U.S., Canada, and U.K., is comprised of two minute shorts featuring WWE Superstars in their new animated world, WWE Slam City. The first four episodes begin airing today at WWESlamCity.com and Cartoonium on YouTube. WWE Slam City toys, including action figures, ring sets and more, are currently available at major retail stores.
The series, filmed in the next generation of stop-motion animation, features a new WWE animated character The Finisher, who fires all of the WWE Superstars and sends them to WWE Slam City to find day jobs. WWE Superstars are plunged into new career challenges as John Cena®, Randy Orton®, Sheamus®, The Miz™, Rey Mysterio®, Kane®, Alberto Del Rio® and Mark Henry® pack every street corner with work to do and scores to settle. With John Cena as an auto mechanic, Alberto Del Rio as a coffee house barista, Randy Orton as a zookeeper and Sheamus as a theater usher, these Superstars have a new life outside the ring, but still stay true to their WWE personas.
March 16, 2014
Rumor Mill - Backstage Talk About Bryan's Push & How Punk Affected It
Some new insight has been released concerning Daniel Bryan's push in WWE and his status at WrestleMania 30. It's being reported that one of the biggest, if not the biggest reason, why Bryan is getting pushed is to spite C.M. Punk.
The feeling is that WWE officials will now push Bryan in the spot that Punk may have gotten if he would have agreed to return to WWE. People backstage are said to be very frustrated with Punk at this point and the word going around is that WWE officials will push Bryan almost as a way to let Punk know that it could have been him in that spot but that he can be replaced.
It's said that when Punk first left, nobody backstage really thought that Daniel Bryan would get the push that he's now getting.
source: pwinsider.com
Big E. Langston on WWE's Rising Stars, Dolph Ziggler, AJ Lee, Andre the Giant Battle Royal
Current WWE Intercontinental Champion Big E. Langston recently spoke to The Boston Herald.
WWE's crop of rising talents:
"We’re all pushing each other. It’s a great time for our business. There are a lot of guys waiting for a main spot on the roster – Cesaro, the Shield, the Wyatt Family, Fandango, Damien Sandow – the list goes on and on of talented guys who are hungry and ready to work hard every night. You’re always watching what they’re doing. When they have a great match, you want to top that."
Working with AJ Lee and Dolph Ziggler:
"I’m very grateful for the opportunity with that role, but I knew I could be a lot more than just a bodyguard. Stepping out of that and having opportunities in a singles role was good for me. I felt there was a lot more for me to offer, and I still feel that way."
Being in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal this year:
"Raising that Andre the Giant trophy is a big deal. That’s my focus at WrestleMania. My dream is to win the WWE world heavyweight championship at WrestleMania. I’ve only been in the business four years and it’s been a good start, but there’s still a lot more I can show people."
March 15, 2014
Stephanie McMahon & WWE Moms Hosting Twitter Chat
Stephanie McMahon and the @WWEMoms group will be doing a live Twitter chat this coming Wednesday at 7pm EST.
WWE's Statement on Work Being Done to Make Sure WrestleMania Streams with No Issues
The Motley Fool website has a new article up looking at if the WWE Network will be able to handle the large amount of viewers tuning in for WrestleMania XXX live on April 6th. The article notes that WWE is taking the right steps and saying the right things about their efforts to make sure WrestleMania streams without problems but they're going into uncharted territory.
WWE issued the following statement to the website:
"Notwithstanding the overwhelmingly positive response to WWE Network, we want to ensure subscribers have the highest-quality experience watching WrestleMania 30 and all our programming, and thus have put in place significant quality assurances. These steps include increased capacity to handle high volumes of transactions, logins, and concurrent live streams, daily 'stress' testing of all systems over an extended period, and the addition of technology experts to review our plan and procedures. We're confident that we'll be ready on Sunday, April 6."
