If there is a celebrity that Miz trusts, it’s Snoop Dogg.
Miz and Snoop hosted WWE WrestleMania 39 together and Snoop brought out surprise opponents for Miz on both nights. After Pat McAfee defeated The Miz on night one, Snoop brought out Shane McMahon to wrestle Miz on night two. However, shortly after getting in the ring, McMahon tore both his quads doing a leap frog, leading to Miz and Snoop Dogg having to improvise what to do next.
Snoop Dogg ended up sucker punching Miz, giving him his version of The People’s Elbow, and pinning him to end, and arguably save, the segment.
Miz was a guest on The Rich Eisen Show recently and addressed what happened, saying he was trying to tell the back to send someone else out before Snoop punched him.
“I know when he goes down, I’m like, ‘All right, he’s injured.’ The camera’s going to be on me because we don’t like showing real injuries on there. So, the red light is on me. Now, I have to basically relay to a referee kind of what to do to the truck.“
“I was telling the referee, I was like, “Hey, hey, play someone’s music. I don’t care whose music it is. Hit the finisher. Have Snoop Dogg hit me with a hit me with a Snoop Dogg elbow.’ And so all of a sudden I turn around and Snoop Dogg sucker punches me. And I’m like, ‘That’s even better.'”
“And by the way, Snoop Dogg isn’t a professional wrestler. He doesn’t do this for a living, but he’s the consummate pro. I mean, if there is a celebrity that I would trust to do something like that that has no prior training, it is Snoop Dogg.”
Evidently, Maryse thought the segment played out exactly as planned.
“I remember going back and talking to my wife and she was like, ‘Wow, I thought that was that all was supposed to happen,'” Miz added.
The Miz’s appearance on The Rich Eisen Show is available below:
On a new Josh Nason’s Punch-Out, Fightful’s Kate Elizabeth returns to co-host the April 2023 edition of my pro wrestling year in review series.
And what a month it was.
The day after a hugely successful WrestleMania 39 in Los Angeles, the fate of WWE was announced with the news they would merge with UFC to form a new publicly traded company.
Then, there was WrestleMania itself that saw a highly controversial main event finish where Cody Rhodes did not finish his story while Roman Reigns’ record-breaking Universal title run continued.
CM Punk continued to be in the news as his AEW return, on a new show no less, was imminent. However, he decided to stop by WWE before an episode of Raw and visit some old friends before he was asked to leave.
Other topics: Impact Wrestling lost not one, but two top champions due to injury, Jay White and Trinity found new homes, Carmelo Hayes was one of several new NXT Champions, SANADA won NJPW’s top title, and plenty more.
Join Kate and I as we dive through more than 100 news items in just over an hour. I promise this is unlike any other year-end series you’ll hear or read, so catch up on the rest of the series in the archive.
My annual Punch-Out month-by-month audio recap of the year in pro wrestling continues with a stop in March and this episode’s co-host Bryan Rose of F4WOnline.
It was a stretch highlighted by a fun AEW Revolution, main evented by an Iron Man match between AEW World Champion MJF and Bryan Danielson that turned out to be a match of the year candidate.
CM Punk continued his flirtation with returning to AEW by ripping on Jon Moxley on Instagram, focusing on Moxley’s Rocky 3 concept for their 2022 feud over the AEW World title.
WWE began their final descent into WrestleMania 39 and what would turn out to be the final Mania before their eventual merger with the UFC. Speaking of the sale, Vince McMahon continued to do his thing in his third month back in WWE.
Plenty of other topics were on the docket including the first-ever Kenny Omega vs. Vikingo, two top Impact World Champions having to relinquish their titles due to injury, Will Ospreay suffering his own injury, and plenty more.
Join Bryan and I as we dive through more than 100 news items in just over an hour. I promise this is unlike any other year-end series you’ll hear or read, so catch up on the rest of the series in the archive.
John Cena talked about his match at WrestleMania 39 and what he can still do at this point in his career.
In a interview with Busted Open Radio, Cena talked about his match against Austin Theory back in April, saying the match he had at WrestleMania 39 was the match he felt confident that he could deliver at this stage of his career.
“I wish I was still there every day,” Cena said regarding WWE. “My body can’t do it anymore. I don’t want to give the consumer a bad product…what I have is what you saw at WrestleMania 39. That’s what I feel confident that I can deliver and that’s really nice for here and there. That’s not every day in WWE or sports entertainement. Sports entertainement has raised the bar and I’m humble enough to say that’s awesome. You’re supposed to leave it better than you found it. ”
Cena lost to Theory at WrestleMania 39. Prior to that match, he wrestled his only match of 2022 on December 30 of last year, teaming with Kevin Ownes to defeat Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn on SmackDown.
The WWE Hall of Famer revealed on Busted Open Radio that she had a partially torn hamstring when she teamed with Becky Lynch and Lita against Damage CTRL on the show.
She was asked about her return to the ring at WrestleMania and responded:
I had a few obstacles, I had a partially torn hamstring, by the way, nobody knew about that, but it was just like, ‘WrestleMania, let’s just go!’
I did not train as much. I’m usually in there, like, the minute I find out there’s a match, I’m in there like every day, I’m putting my kids to bed and I’m in the ring until midnight, this is what I do. And this time I had this injury so I was a little unsure going in but, man, there’s something about feeling at home. Apparently, it’s like riding a bike, as you guys know, when you get back in there you’re body’s like, ‘I got this, just do your thing’ and it just flows.
Stratus’ match at WrestleMania 39 was her first since losing to Charlotte Flair at SummerSlam 2019. She was back in the ring on the 4/10 Raw as well when she replaced Lita in a WWE Women’s Tag title match and dropped the belts to Liv Morgan & Raquel Gonzalez. Stratus attacked Becky Lynch after the match. She then appeared on Monday’s Raw to explain her actions.
The 47-year-old is a seven-time WWE Women’s Champion and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2013. She’s also been recognized with the Iron Mike Mazurki Award by the Cauliflower Alley Club in 2016 and was given the Lou Thesz Award in 2020 by the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame.
Whatever health issue/injury that Drew McIntyre is dealing with started prior to last Sunday’s WWE WrestleMania 39 match.
The update comes courtesy of Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio who had first reported Friday that McIntyre was going to miss SmackDown due to a “health issue.”
Meltzer said McIntyre worked through the issue last Sunday in a loss to WWE Intercontinental Champion Gunther and Sheamus in a physical three-way title match. It’s still unclear how long he will be out for or when the issue first occurred.
Meltzer said McIntyre’s absence isn’t due to the contract talks between he and WWE despite that news coming out this past week. Meltzer said the two are “not close on money” but that the contract expiration date is a long ways away.
Regarding the speculation McIntyre could go to AEW and appear at August’s Wembley Stadium for All In, Meltzer didn’t think that would be contractually possible.
John LaRocca and I are back with a brand new Fight Game Podcast.
We kicked off the show with our thumbs up/thumbs down segment that led into a long discussion around the booking of Cody Rhodes at both WWE WrestleMania 39 & Raw.
We also discussed Vince McMahon and the sale/merger with Endeavor.
Then, we took a look at Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite from a big picture perspective.
Some of the topics discussed:
Tony Khan’s announcement of not only AEW’s debut in London but at Wembley Stadium
Jay White’s AEW re-debut and bad camera work
The continued saga around the “four pillars” and why they should probably pivot
Bryan Danielson’s reason for his heel turn and the Blackpool Combat Club destruction of Adam Page
FTR beating the Gunns for the AEW Tag Team titles and keeping thier AEW careers
You can subscribe to The Fight Game Podcast on Apple Podcasts and follow us on Spotify or click below to listen.
World Wrestling Entertainment has agreed to a deal with Endeavor that will lead to the formation of a new company, currently called NewCo, but that could be changed. Its name on the stock market looks to be TKO, and the new company will combine UFC and WWE.
The merger of the two similar dominant brands in their respective industries is expected to be finalized and the company is to go public in four to six months. If, for whatever reason, the merger isn’t finalized by the start of 2024, which is unlikely to happen, the deal will fall apart. The idea is to create a company with a stock market value of $21.3 billion, based on a valuation of UFC at $12 billion and WWE at $9.3 billion.
These are claimed valuations from the new company and there is no actual cash changing hands, as this is a merger and not an acquisition. Vince McMahon did not sell WWE as much as merge it with UFC and he will remain a key person in power with the new company. Basically McMahon and Ari Emanuel will be the key decision makers for WWE business going forward, while Nick Khan goes from his role of CEO to WWE President. Paul Levesque remains in charge of creative, but Vince McMahon will have influence and power over all the major creative decisions and could have power over all decisions as things played out during the week.
The Auschwitz Memorial Museum is not happy that an image of the concentration camp was used in a video to promote Rey Mysterio vs. Dominik Mysterio at WrestleMania 39.
An image of the camp appeared as b-roll footage in the video when it aired during the WrestleMania pre-show. It accompanied Dominik talking about having spent time in prison. However, an edited version with the image removed aired during the main card.
A social media post from the Auschwitz Memorial Museum Twitter account on Wednesday said it’s hard to call the image being used an “editing mistake” and said that exploiting the camp “insults the memory of all victims of Auschwitz.”
The fact that Auschwitz image was used to promote a WWE match is hard to call “an editing mistake”. Exploiting the site that became a symbol of enormous human tragedy is shameless and insults the memory of all victims of Auschwitz.
The fact that Auschwitz image was used to promote a WWE match is hard to call "an editing mistake". Exploiting the site that became a symbol of enormous human tragedy is shameless and insults the memory of all victims of Auschwitz.https://t.co/b4bbYgWPwjhttps://t.co/Xud4rbhEUSpic.twitter.com/tuJrzmK6mQ
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) April 5, 2023
Someone in the WWE tried to find prison footage for Dominik Mysterio's "hard time" video and ended up using footage of what I'm pretty sure is the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. It ran during the WrestleMania kickoff. pic.twitter.com/0J6lqnqWVe
— Aaron – GrapPro.com (@AaronWrotkowski) April 2, 2023
It’s a brand new We’re Live, Pal! as Andrew Zarian and I talk about a crazy amount of news surrounding WWE WrestleMania 39 weekend.
We discussed WWE becoming an Endeavor property and merging with the UFC to create one company. We look at Vince McMahon having more to do with the creative side now, and do a deep dive into Cody Rhodes losing to Roman Reigns on Sunday and what it could mean down the line.
Then, we looked at this week’s AEW Dynamite lineup and the discourse surrounding Tony Khan’s announcement.
You can watch the show above or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts in addition to the link below.
WWE is touting that WrestleMania 39 was the most successful event in company history.
In a press release issued on Monday morning, WWE stated that WrestleMania 39 was the highest-grossing event in the history of the company, setting new records for viewership, gate, sponsorship, merchandise, and social media. This was the fourth straight year of WrestleMania being a two-night event and the second where there were no COVID-19 crowd restrictions.
“Night 2 of WrestleMania 39 surpassed the existing global viewership record by 33 percent, just one day after Night 1 of WrestleMania 39 surpassed the existing global viewership record by 28 percent,” WWE wrote.
“WrestleMania 39 generated a gate of more than $21.6 million, breaking the previous record by 27 percent, with 161,892 in attendance at SoFi Stadium over the two nights.”
WWE generated more than $20 million in sponsorship revenue for WrestleMania 39, which was more than double the previous record. Merchandise sales were up 20 percent from the previous record.
Social media metrics were up 42 percent from last year’s record, with WWE claiming that they had over 500 million views and 11 million hours of video consumed over Saturday and Sunday.
WrestleMania 39 was held at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. In 2024, WWE is heading to Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia for WrestleMania 40. It will be another two-night event.
I want to begin this review by relaying what Triple H had to say about the finish to Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes Sunday night at WrestleMania.
“It’s always interesting to me when people say how could that happen, or how could they do that in that moment,” he said. “It’s almost perfectly spelled out in this story, to finish the story. In the WWE, the story never changes. Tomorrow night on Raw at the sold out Crypto Arena the story continues, the story takes another chapter. We just got to the end of the chapter. But the story continues and that is where the story gets interesting to me.”
That’s nice. Here’s the problem.
Timing is crucially important in telling a story. You need to hit the high peaks at the right time and provide a satisfying conclusion at just the right moment. For all intents and purposes, after a year telling the story of how Cody Rhodes wanted to do the one thing his father never did and recovering from a torn pectoral muscle just in the nick of time for the Royal Rumble, this year’s WrestleMania absolutely was the right time for Cody Rhodes to finish his story, to win the title, and have the moment that everyone in that building desperately wanted.
It didn’t happen.
The two had an excellent, WrestleMania-level main event with good wrestling and some strong near falls towards the end. The finish had Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn run off the Usos, allowing Cody to hit Roman with the bionic elbow, Goldust’s uppercut, and was supposed to end things with three crossroads when Heyman jumped up on the apron at two. Solo Sikoa, who had been ejected earlier in the match, came out and gave Cody the samoan spike. Reigns hit the spear, and that’s it.
There’s a sense of trust built when getting behind storylines because you want them to end when it makes the most sense. When you break that trust, it’s very easy to lose interest altogether. The time for Cody to win was Sunday, and it didn’t happen. He could win next month, SummerSlam, maybe even a year from now in Philadelphia, but here’s the problem: the people wanted it on Sunday. And they didn’t get it. And my feeling is a lot of people on Sunday suddenly stopped caring about the story being told. And it’s very hard to get those people’s trust back once you tell a flawed tale.
Baffling finish aside, this was a great show. Not as good as the first night, but there was plenty to like. Just not the ending.
Brock Lesnar vs. Omos was short, and that’s good! It did not need to be ten minutes. Omos kept control for most of the match (good so he doesn’t have to sell) until Brock cut him off, gave Omos some suplexes, then F5’d him for the win. You couldn’t ask for a better match between Omos and Lesnar. A minute more would have made this much worse, so kudos to whoever produced it.
The women’s showcase tag team match had some cool moments. Nothing was exceptional, but this was a well-worked match with some cool spots. Ronda and Shayna won, so I would imagine they get a Women’s Tag Team title shot whenever Ronda fully recovers.
Gunther vs. Sheamus vs. Drew McIntyre was glorious violence, just as expected and one of the highlights of WrestleMania weekend. Just brutal stuff, stiff shots, just clobbered one another. I don’t think this was as good as the Sheamus/Gunther series of matches from last summer, but it wasn’t far behind. These three know the kind of match people expected from them and they more than delivered. I can see these three fight each other forever and it will be good every single time.
Bianca Belair vs. Asuka was a classic world title match. The SmackDown title match from Saturday was better, but this was still great. The last few minutes of this was AWESOME, with Asuka putting Belair in the Asuka lock. Belair escaped, deadlifted Asuka and planted her with the KOD for the win. This was interesting, as I thought maybe Asuka had a chance of winning. I also have to mention Belair’s entrance with the Divas of Compton dance troupe was wonderful, definitely a highlight from both shows.
I wasn’t going to write much about The Miz and his hosting segment, but let me tell you what I was doing as this happened. I had heard The Miz was going to do something, so I went to the bathroom. As I was washing my hands, there was a big pop, something had happened. I exited the bathroom and literally right as I sat down Shane McMahon blew out his quad doing a leapfrog spot. He had returned and put himself out of action for at least half a year in like two minutes. As crazy as this is, Snoop Dogg saved the day, acted quick on his feet, and pinned The Miz after a people’s elbow to save the segment. This was the best, most incredible WrestleMania segment ever and all of the above was 100% true.
The Hell in a Cell match was good overall, but the few minutes where they had to stop the match to stitch up Balor, who took a ladder flush in the face, kinda hurt it. Once they got back it got pretty heated and good. Balor did a great coup de gras off the middle of the cell. Good stuff overall, though it got hampered a bit.
With that, WrestleMania ends. The funny thing is if Cody had won, I was all for naming this as one of the best WrestleManias of all time. And in the end, this was still an excellent WrestleMania weekend, with so many tremendous matches both nights. But I’ll end with this: when telling a story, you gotta know when to deliver at the right moments. They didn’t do that here. But like Triple H said, the story continues. And if what’s next is truly interesting and more compelling than just having Cody win here, I’m eager to see what this.
Dave Meltzer discussed Cody Rhodes’ shock loss at WrestleMania 39.
Meltzer said it was an exciting match, but as soon as it ended it reminded him of another recent match, where Drew McIntyre lost to Roman Reigns with pretty much the same finish.
“It’s like a rerun,” Meltzer said. “You knew if that title changed hands it would be a pop you could rarely duplicate.”
With Reigns defeating Rhodes, for the first time in a long while there’s no clear future opponents for Reigns, who is now entering his third year as champion.
“With Drew, you knew there was pretty much Dwayne and there was Cody waiting for him. With Sami, you know Cody was waiting for him. With Cody, it’s like, who’s waiting for him.”
Meltzer felt that based on the story, Rhodes eventually has to be champion, but now the question is if Rhodes’ time to become champion is peaking.
“You also have the Lex Luger. You miss your peak, and then it never happens. I think Cody should win that title by the way they told that story. But did they miss the peak?”
Dave Meltzer discussed Cody Rhodes’ shock loss at WrestleMania 39.
Meltzer said it was an exciting match, but as soon as it ended it reminded him of another recent match, where Drew McIntyre lost to Roman Reigns with pretty much the same finish.
“It’s like a rerun,” Meltzer said. “You knew if that title changed hands it would be a pop you could rarely duplicate.”
With Reigns defeating Rhodes, for the first time in a long while there’s no clear future opponents for Reigns, who is now entering his third year as champion.
“With Drew, you knew there was pretty much Dwayne and there was Cody waiting for him. With Sami, you know Cody was waiting for him. With Cody, it’s like, who’s waiting for him.”
Meltzer felt that based on the story, Rhodes eventually has to be champion, but now the question is if Rhodes’ time to become champion is peaking.
“You also have the Lex Luger. You miss your peak, and then it never happens. I think Cody should win that title by the way they told that story. But did they miss the peak?”
Triple H talked about the finish of the Roman Reigns/Cody Rhodes main event during the WrestleMania 39 Sunday press conference.
While talking about the card in its entirety, Triple H made mention of the finish to the main event, saying the story will continue Monday on Raw, and that only a chapter concluded at WrestleMania.
“It’s always interesting to me when people say how could that happen, or how could they do that in that moment,” Triple H said. “It’s almost perfectly spelled out in this story, to finish the story. In the WWE, the story never changes. Tomorrow night on Raw at the sold out Crypto Arena the story continues, the story takes another chapter. We just got to the end of the chapter. But the story continues and that is where the story gets interesting to me.”
Here are other notes from the press conference, which also featured Bianca Belair and Roman Reigns.
Bianca Belair praised the Divas of Compton, who danced during her entrance.
Belair said that after she started her training, she was inspired by people like Beth Phoenix who she said was muscular and beautiful like herself.
In regards to his story, Roman Reigns said that they are only in the third ending and that the story he’s telling has just scratched the surface. He said we’re going to have to open people’s attention spans. He’s giving people filet mignon, not fast food.
Reigns said he’s not cutting a promo when he’s out there when he says he’s the best. He said Dusty Rhodes told him that years ago.
Nick Hausman asked Roman Reigns about the CNBC report from earlier Sunday regarding Endeavor purchasing WWE and merging the company with the UFC. Reigns said he was focusing on smashing people’s favorites and whatever happens, they’ll be lucky to have him. Heyman said that Hausman had a history of asking bad questions. Reigns alluded to Hausman being “the improv guy”
Triple H said that this was “the most successful WrestleMania of all time,” smashing records for sponsorships, merchandise, viewers, and social media.
He also mentioned that the gate was “well over 21 million”. He also said 81,295 was the number to tonight’s show, with the total for both nights being 161,892.
Regarding Brock Lesnar vs. Omos, Triple H mentioned that when it was first announced, there were “audible groans,” but said it ultimately delivered.
Triple H said that Shane McMahon tore his quad during the match against The Miz. He praised Snoop Dogg for improvising, saying his respect for him is now on a whole other level.
Mentioning what Belair said about the Divas of Compton, an emotional Triple H talked about how the company was informed this morning that one of the girls’ mother, the one who did contortions during Belair’s entrance and danced with her, passed away on Sunday morning. Triple H said to see her troupe swarm around her, to see everybody come together for her and for them to do what they do, to give her that opportunity and create that moment for her, it’s why they do what they do.
Triple H had no comment when asked about the CNBC report, saying he wants to talk about WrestleMania.
Regarding Finn Balor, Triple H said that he was “fine”. He received staples in the ring and was able to finish the match.
Triple H finished the press conference by saying “We’re not going anywhere, we’re just getting started.”
