Here's your wrestling news for August 5th, 2022.
And we're kicking off today with WWE E and over
the past month, the company has undergone dramatic
changes due to the investigation into Vince McMahon.
Now, McMahon is gone from the company he founded with Stephanie
McMahon, Nick Khan, and triple H now running things, but
the company could be in line for an even bigger change.
Before Vince retired.
There had been rumors of WWE selling to another company with
companies, including apple, Netflix, and Disney being considered
potential buyers, partner, and analyst for light shed.
Brandon Ross spoke with Brandon Thurston and Jesse
Collins of Russell Nomics about WWE business.
Following the exit of Vince McMahonn
and former head of talent relations.
John Laurinaitis, during the interview, Ross spoke
about the possibility of endeavor buying WWE.
Endeavor is an American holding company for talent and media agencies.
The company was founded in April, 2009 after the merger
of the William Morris agency and the original endeavor
talent agency in 2016, the company acquired UFC.
I think this actually syncs with the conversation we were just having.
If you look at the UFC acquisition and how that was handled,
they allowed Dana and UFC to kind of run as their own separate
entity while leveraging all the infrastructure of endeavor
to help make them better and unlock revenue opportunities.
I think a really good example of that is on the sponsorship
side, we all know that WWE has really been under
monetized from a sponsorship perspective for a long time.
If you look at like, where does the
profitability of this business come from?
It's on those kind of rights deals.
Nick Khan is amazing at that.
As we all know his history with CAA creative artist
agency and the involvement that he's had in the past
on this, but re Emmanuel is certainly no slouch.
And the idea of teaming those two, you basically have a dream
team kind of approaching all these negotiations as well.
Ross went into how WWE co CEO, Nick Khan has a good relationship
with endeavor that stems back from when Khanwas a CAA agent.
There's a relationship between Nick and endeavor management, a
relationship that goes way back to the beginning of Nick's career.
As an agent, actually, Ross also noted that CAA
isn't looking at the WWE right now, but it's not a
stupid idea for them to be interested in the company.
CAA is an American talented sports
agency based in Los Angeles, California.
It was founded in 1975.
I don't think that's kind of like where CAA are looking right now.
Endeavor obviously has public currency.
And part of the compensation for the deal would be
stock knowing what the stock is worth and having a
public mark on it is kind of generally a big deal.
I don't think it's a stupid idea, especially a CAA
recently bulked up, but you also don't get those
synergies between UFC on the infrastructure side and WWE
that you would get with the existing business sitting
there and frankly, other live entertainment businesses.
It's a very interesting time being a wrestling fan as the future
seems very unpredictable in the days, leading up to summer slam
WWE hosted tryouts, where people could try and prove that they
had what it takes to make it in WWE over 50 collegiate athletes.
In addition to NBA star, Dwight Howard tried out
for WWE, which was the first session of its kind
since triple H became head of talent relations.
According to ESPN WWE officially signed 14 of the 50
collegiate athletes who delivered promos and worked in
the ring with hopes of landing their own WWE contract.
As of right now, it's unclear which of the 50 tryouts
received a contract, but given the star power, he has, it
wouldn't be any surprise to see Howard get his shot in WWE
of course getting signed to WWE.
Doesn't mean they're the next John Cena.
And some may be released before they even make it to TV.
But these 14 athletes are now one step closer to making
it in the biggest wrestling promotion in the world.
Now, there was a time when Lex Luger was the personification
of fitness famously boasting, just 4% body fat.
Unfortunately, the man known as the narcissist health dwindled
in the latter, two thousands and a spinal stroke left him
in a wheelchair, but Luger isn't letting that hold him back.
Speaking with sports illustrated.
Luger said that he's in phenomenal health, aside from the
mobility issues due to his spinal stroke, the former WCW
world heavyweight champions stated that he might get out
of his wheelchair to get inducted into the hall of fame
saying that such an honor would be worth taking the risk.
Luger's life and career will be the subject of the next episode
of A&E biography, WWE legends, which will air this Sunday on
the A&E network with success in both WWE and WCW Luger seems
a surefire contender for a hall of fame induction one day.
And the narcissist is willing to take a huge risk when that day comes.
Speaking of legends of the ring.
Rick flair recently competed in his final ever match
teaming with his son-in-law Andrade El Idolo to best
Jay lethal and Jeff Jarret Blair's legendary career is
filled with stories from his antics out of the ring.
And that was certainly the case after his final
ever match in a report to Brad shepherd unleashed.
Billy body reported that after the show, Blair went to a
strip club called Tootsies and had quite a bit too much to.
Flare ended up at Tootie strip club and had to be
pulled out of the toilet because he was so drunk.
He was taking his shit with the door
open and ended up falling on his face.
We needed to close the toilet to pick him up from the floor.
Rick's career saw him have plenty of wild nights after matches.
So it's only fitting that his career ended this way.
And while his wrestling career is over, we doubt that
flare's partying days are coming to a close anytime.
More legend news.
Now, as Hacksaw, Jim Dugin fought plenty of names in the ring,
but his biggest fight has been happening recently on social media.
Dugin has been documenting his cancer
battle as he was diagnosed in October, 2021.
And after beating it, the cancer returned in March this year,
this week, the WWE hall of Famer, once again, shared an update
on Instagram, but it was to announce that he has completed
eight weeks of radiation treatment and is now cancer free.
Duggan ran the bell that patients get to ring when they beat cancer.
And we like Jim would like to thank all the doctors, nurses,
and everyone who supported Duggan to get this big win.
We've got a concerning update from WWE's next in line program.
As one of their prospects is in serious hot water.
It was recently reported that Oklahoma state university's wrestling
team had dropped AJ Ferrari due to allegations of sexual misconduct.
And now an arrest warrant has been
issued for the 21 year old grappler.
The official charge for Ferrari is sexual battery related
to an alleged incident from July where it is claimed that
he assaulted a woman while holding her down on her bed.
The warrant was processed at Payne county
court district with a bond set at $25,000.
At the time of the accusations coming to light Ferrari's
attorney denied the allegations, but is now released a
further statement, responding to his client's arrest.
It is unfortunate that a student athlete can
become a target primarily because of their status.
As an elite athlete.
Ferrari's attorney said, AJ is cooperating with law
enforcement and is confident that the truth will come out.
He appreciated his time in Oklahoma state, but he
and the university mutually agreed a change was app.
WWE has yet to comment on the arrest at the time of
publication with the scandals WWE is facing, this
is the last thing the company needs as Ferrari.
And the promotions next in line program
will be under some very serious scrutiny.
If you know of Westside gun you'll know
that the rapper is a huge wrestling fan.
Having used audio from WWE events for several of his tracks.
Now gun, no relation to Billy or the AEW tag team is taking his
wrestling love to a new level by starting his own promotion.
The new company fourth rope has been confirmed by
the artist and has already signed its first talent.
Former WWE NXT star Parker Boudreau.
The ex Harland was confirmed for fourth rope row open
a social media post by gun who claimed that together?
They're about to do something the
wrestling world has never seen before.
Since his release from WWE earlier this year, whore has appeared
for MLW and AEW but it looks like his long term future rests
with Westside gun and fourth row wrestling at summer slam
Bailey returned to WWE TV after over a year away, accompanied
by the returning Dakota Chi and IYO SKY sky is best known to
fans as former NXT women's champion, Io Shirai, and we are
now learning more about their surprise summer slam appearance.
P insider has learned that everything about the group was
a last minute decision so much so that the IYO SKY name
wasn't trademarked by WWE until July 31st, the day after
summer slam PWI also noted that while Bailey was expected
to be at summer slam, there were no concrete plans for her
to appear when the creative was overseen by Vince McMahon.
As for Kai who was released from WWE in April, there
were never any long term plans to bring her back.
And she only made the trip to Nashville the day before the show
with all these last minute decisions, it was clear that this
was all part of triple H's new plans as head of WWE creative.
And given the response the group has received so far, these
last minute plans are paying off and we're ending today
with Matt card and Chelsea green, who married on new year's
Eve last year, but are now preparing to renew their vows.
The ceremony will take place as part of GCW homecoming part two,
and we'll see a blast from wrestling's past officiate in a statement
on Twitter, it was confirmed that WWE tough enough winner and
former hardcore champion Maven will be in town to officiate the
vow renewal, which will take place at the showboat in Atlantic
city on August 14th, pro wrestling, weddings, rarely go well.
And we imagine the same is true for vow renewals.
So we'll just have to wait and see who else
makes their presence known during the ceremony.