Ring of Honor has announced that The Briscoe Brothers have re-signed with the promotion. ROH World Champion Jay Briscoe and his brother Mark had been negotiating with both ROH and WWE, with ROH ultimately making them an offer they couldn’t refuse.
ROH caught up with the Briscoe Brothers at their farm in Sandy Fork, Delaware to get an official statement from the men themselves. They made it clear that they’re ‘just getting started’ and will be raising hell in ROH for years to come.
ROH sent out a press release stating:
The Briscoe Brothers have been with Ring of Honor “since day one,” and now, ROH can confirm that the Briscoes are here to stay!
Jay and Mark have nearly thirty years of combined experience between the ropes , have traveled the world, and have earned many championships along the way. Jay Briscoe is in the midst of an incredible second run as World Champion, a feat accomplished by only two men in the entire history of ROH, and together, the Briscoes hold the record for ROH Tag Team Championships with eight amazing reigns.
The Briscoes built their legacies in Ring of Honor and for Dem Boys from Sandy Fork, there’s no place like home…and no place like Ring of Honor.
The Monday, April 13th, taped edition of WWE RAW from the O2 Arena in London, England scored a final cable rating of 2.72, according to Nielsen Media Research. The 2.72 final draw marks a significant decrease compared to last week’s show, which delivered a 2.81 final number.
Monday’s RAW averaged 3.665 million viewers, which was also down a considerable amount compared to last week’s show, as the April 6th edition of RAW averaged 3.963 million viewers.
The hourly viewership breakdown for Monday’s taped edition of RAW from London is as follows:
Hour One: 3.686 million viewers
Hour Two: 3.786 million viewers
Hour Three: 3.525 million viewers
Last week, WWE sent out a press release announcing the signing of 11 new rookies to NXT. Two of them, former US Marine Kenneth Crawford and pro bodybuilder Thomas Kindon, spoke to Scott Fishman of the Miami Herald about what this opportunity means to them.
Kenneth Crawford, a four-year veteran of the US Marine Corps and an accomplished high school athlete, talked about the day he got the call from WWE:
“I was in San Diego, California. I was working at my contracting job for the Navy. I was driving home, and I got the call from [WWE’s] Canyon [Ceman] saying that I made it. I literally had to pull over to the side of the road, before I caused anymore traffic that already is in San Diego. The first person I told was my mom [Dara]. I told my mother simply because it was something I grew up on, that I was embedded in. This is stuff I got in trouble with as a kid. Everything. She’s seen the struggles that we went through. From the hardships — without a father figure to the passing of my sister [Kenesha] in 2000; she was also big on wrestling — to my own family that I have. Everything was full circle at that point.”
Thomas Kingdon, a professional bodybuilder and high school football player, talked about The Rock being an influence and wanting to wrestle John Cena one day.
“I have been given this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and my main dream now is to become the next superstar. I look at people like The Rock, who would be in the ring, and he would be electrifying, and then outside of the ring, people would flock to him, want to be around him. Then you have someone like John Cena, who also started in bodybuilding, and he became much more than just a physique. He is charismatic. He’s a whole persona. I give so much respect to him for becoming much more than just someone who competed.”
Jim Ross recently updated the blog on his official website to share his thoughts on Monday’s RAW in London, among other topics. Below are some highlights:
WWE Network airing one of his one-man shows: “We are in talks with WWE to tape a version of our RINGSIDE w/ Jim Ross show for airing on the WWE Network at some point in the future. Details are still being discussed but this could happen much sooner than later. If all the details get finalized we would likely tape the show in Orlando at the NXT Arena. Fingers crossed for this project which I hope will lead to more opportunities to contribute to @WWENetwork.”
Crowd chants at RAW: “Thought some of the insider oriented crowd chants were distracting and unnecessary. I wonder if it’s truly the fan’s expressing their feelings or simply trying to gain attention on TV? Or perhaps a little of both?”
Roman Reigns: “Roman Reigns seems to be on a more acceptable pace to become accepted by the fans who have demonstrated that they are not fans of a systematic and structured game plan to establish new, fan favorites. I like Reigns and have every confidence in him becoming a top level main eventer in WWE for years to come. The process simply takes time and careful planning and execution.”
Tough Enough: “Curious to see what the skinny is on Tough Enough returning to TV. Anxious to see the cast including the coaches. TE is a solid concept but the cast of characters that interact each week make or break the show. That’s the reality TV business in a nutshell.”
Seth Rollins: “WWE Champion Seth Rollins had a really good night in London and is improving in his role every week or so it seems to me. Smart creative to have such a talented albeit beatable WWE Champion who is surrounded by ‘protection.’ J&J Security are underrated, entertaining and add a great deal to Rollins’ presentation.”
Title Match Wrestling recently caught up wit WWE Hall of Famer Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat and spoke about his son’s future in the business, his reaction to Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania 31 and standouts like Seth Rollins & Bray Wyatt from NXT.
Steamboat confirmed that his son Richie’s days in the ring are over. Richie, a former FCW champion, injured 4 discs in his back and underwent surgery. Unfortunately, doctors told him he won’t be able to wrestle again. Ricky added that his son “gets it” and has the look for the business, but it just wasn’t meant to be.
Prior to the main event of Tuesday night’s WWE SmackDown tapings from the O2 Arena in London, England, several rowdy fans jumped the ringside barricade and hit the ring.
John Cena, Daniel Bryan, Tyson Kidd and Cesaro were already in the ring for their main event match, but that didn’t stop the fans from crashing the show – with one of them hitting a Rock Bottom on the other.
WWE Superstar Jey Uso is expected to be out of action for “about 6 months” after suffering a shoulder injury prior to WrestleMania 31. According to WWE physician Dr. Stephen Daquino,
“At WrestleMania, Jey suffered an anterior shoulder dislocation on the left arm, which was later evaluated back in Florida.”
Jey underwent surgery last week to tighten his rotator cuff and shoulder capsule to repair the injury. He’s expected to be out of action for 6 more months.
Uso last competed at WrestleMania 31 with limited involvement, but he “aggravated” the injury during the 4-team tag title match.
He is not on WWE’s ongoing European tour, while Jimmy Uso competes in singles action.
WWE has posted an “injury update” on Paige, who was attacked by Naomi on RAW after earning a shot at Nikki Bella’s Divas Championship at Extreme Rules. According to the storyline-driven report at WWE.com:
“Naomi’s attack on Paige following the Divas Battle Royal has left the No. 1 contender to the Divas Title injured. Though the specifics have yet to be confirmed, early reports suggest that Paige suffered internal injuries as a result of the attack.”
“Following a medical consultation, Paige’s doctors have advised her not to compete until further notice.”
We’ll post an update if Paige is deemed ‘unable to compete’ at Extreme Rules.
Sesugh Uhaa (Uha Nation) spoke with Scott Fishman of The Miami Herald about getting advice from some familiar faces before signing on the dotted line with WWE to become part of the new rookie class of NXT.
Below is an excerpt from the interview;
“Kevin Owens was one of the guys I talked to leading up to this process. There was also Finn Balor and Chris Masters, who I became friends with doing work in England. Just talking to them about not just the tryout, but being a part of the roster. Things you had to do to get here. One of the recent conversations was with Kevin Owens because he did one not too long before mine. A good friend of mine, Ricochet, offered advice as well. Kevin and others just told me to be myself and work hard, help other guys, be a leader and things of that nature. It was good to get to talk to them and see how they felt about the tryouts and being here. These were guys who have been on the indies for years and made that transition. In my mind, they made it possible for me to make that transition as well.”
Check out the complete interview at MiamiHerald.com.
ROH World Champion Jay Briscoe and his brother Mark have been in negotiations with with both ROH and WWE for some time now and it’s now looking like they’ll will be staying in Ring of Honor.
The Briscoes recently received offers from both companies and were giving strong consideration to jumping to WWE/NXT. According to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, Ring of Honor recently increased their offer – which led to the Briscoes contacting WWE again to see if they’d match it. WWE was reportedly not going to budge from their initial offer.
Another factor in their decision is that the Briscoes run farming businesses based out of Delaware, which they’re able to do since they only work 5-6 ROH dates per month. Signing with WWE would only be worthwhile if they were able to make more than their current income from ROH, independent appearances and farming.
– With Monday’s edition of WWE RAW being a taped show from the O2 Arena in London, England, WWE did a lot of edits in post-production before the show went on the air. One of the more blatant edits was when a graphic was shown on the big screen for the Cesaro vs. Randy Orton match. In the building, Cesaro’s picture for a huge reaction but on the televised version of the show, Orton was the one who got the big pop while Cesaro barely got any reaction.
– Mark and Chris Bell are the guests on the latest edition of WWE Hall Of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin’s podcast. You can download the show right now at PodcastOne.com.
– Lilian Garcia noted on social media that she is rehabbing hard to return from the knee operation she recently underwent. The longtime WWE ring announcer tweeted the following photo of her knee getting worked on in rehab.
After the recent reports of TNA talent not being paid for several months, it appears that TNA’s television partner Destination America is also causing significant issues for the company.
Discovery executives are reportedly calling a lot of the shots in TNA these days, with the idea that they are paying TNA and running so many hours of their programming. So, how much control do they actually have over TNA’s operations?
Executives pushed hard for Kurt Angle to be crowned the TNA World Heavyweight Champion, with Angle’s Olympic gold medal experience tying into the network’s branding. They also are high on Taryn Terrell as Knockouts Champion, mostly for her looks.
Destination America officials are also not pleased with TNA taping so many shows from the UK as of late. Although the UK is one of TNA’s most loyal fan bases, they’ve made it clear that they want Impact taped in the United States most of the time. This isn’t a huge issue, since TNA does tape most shows from the US, but it’s another example of the network calling shots.
Daniel Bryan’s health has been a major topic of concern behind the scenes during WWE’s ongoing European tour.
The original plan for last night’s RAW was for Daniel Bryan to wrestle John Cena in a long, grueling match that would have pitted US Champion vs. IC Champion in a special attraction match for the UK crowd. The end result of Rusev attacking John Cena was scripted all along, but over the weekend, the decision was made to pull Bryan from the match and have Bad News Barrett wrestle Cena instead. The reason for Bryan’s removal was not disclosed to the producers.
While Daniel Bryan is still performing on the European tour, WWE is keeping his physicality limited. The talk backstage is that he’s either hurting or has an injury that could take him out of action soon. Bryan will undergo a thorough medical evaluation when he gets back to the United States.
As of this writing, Bryan is still scheduled to defend against Bad News Barrett at Extreme Rules on April 26th.
Bryan is telling people he’s not injured and is just hurting, but WWE is playing it safe until they get more conclusive information.
– After last night’s WWE RAW from London went off the air, the WWE Network opened from the O2 Arena with the fallout from the Rollins & Orton main event segment. The announcers then plugged the WWE Network sneak peek of the new Ultimate Warrior DVD and cut to a promo from Vince McMahon, who talked about Warrior’s impact on people and introduced the Warrior DVD preview.
– Last night on RAW, we saw Fandango dump Rosa Mendes and revert back to his ChaChaLaLa theme music. Fandango is scheduled for a babyface push.
WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins recently spoke with The Independent in the UK to promote WWE’s ongoing European tour. Here are some highlights of what he said about:
His Match Against John Cena & Brock Lesnar At Royal Rumble:
“The match itself was something that I knew going into was going to be a big opportunity for me, as I was the ring with two legends of our time in John Cena and Brock Lesnar. Being pretty much the underdog in that situation I knew I had to step up my game and do my best to steal a little bit of their thunder.
“I was very pleased with the outcome and even though I didn’t walk out the winner, it was still a performance that catapulted me to the next level.”
Feuding With Jon Stewart:
“It all kinda came out of nowhere,” Rollins reminisces. “I just said one little line in jest on Raw and one thing led to another. Then I’m on The Daily Show hanging out with Olivia Wilde so it was definitely a cool experience, and something I never considered that I’d do growing up watching Craig Kilborn and Jon Stewart on that show.
“Jon was a huge fan, totally professional all the way and an awesome dude. He’s a hell of a promo too so everything about that was 100% awesome. I was really thrilled to work with him and hopefully we can do something again in the future.”
The NXT Star He’d Like To Work With:
“Probably Sami Zayn. He’s a guy who is one of the most resilient performers that we’ve ever seen, and he’s got an incredible connection with the audience. No offense to Finn Balor but he doesn’t need a crazy entrance and body paint, he doesn’t have all the wild athleticism that Neville has, he doesn’t necessarily have the wits about him that a Kevin Owens does, or the fanfare of Hideo Itami, but he has that little intangible that sets him apart from everybody else.”
The WWE took Raw across the pond this week, with Randy Orton and Seth Rollins once again locking horns as they head into their main event contest at Extreme Rules, Roman Reigns finally discussing his loss at WrestleMania, and John Cena continuing his weekly open challenges. Here are the pros and cons from this week’s episode.
Pros
The crowd really gave it to John Cena to open the show, but he eventually got them on his side by utilizing cheap pops (i.e., saying London should get WrestleMania). The Champ once again issued an open challenge, with England’s own Bad News Barrett answering the call this time around. This was a hard-hitting match with both guys utilizing brute force over traditional wrestling moves for the most part. They made Barrett look strong in front of his home-country crowd, as he dominated the action early on and dropped a big elbow from the apron to the floor. Cena turned things around by utilizing a few moves fans don’t see from him often, such as a crossbody from the top rope and even a simple dropkick. Both guys were booked real strong, with Barrett kicking out of an AA and Cena kicking out after being hit by a huge Bull Hammer. Barrett wanted a second Bull Hammer, but Cena countered with a sloppy springboard stunner and an AA for the win.
Great way to start the show, especially after Lana made her return to television to distract Cena while Rusev pounced before announcing that their match at Extreme Rules will be a “Russian Chain Match” (not exactly sure how Russia and chains go together, but okay).
Dolph Ziggler vs. Neville was Match of the Night. Ziggler issued an open challenge before being answered by the upstart former NXT Champion. Neville was flying around the ring early before hitting a standing moonsault on Ziggler before the Show Off hit a DDT that Neville sold like no other. Neville has the type of moveset that could make him a star (especially when he’s busting out moves like a 540 splash after scaling the barricade. Even though Ziggler won with the Zig Zag, Neville looked strong in defeat. I like they way they’ve book Neville so far, and he’s certainly a welcome addition to the main roster. Sheamus attacked both guys after the match as he continues to solidify himself as a heel.
Fans were treated to a match-up between two of the best workers in the company when Randy Orton squared off with Cesaro. The two locked up early before Tyson Kidd interfered and caused Cesaro to lose by disqualification. Kane made an appearance and announced that the match would continue, restarting the contest as a handicap match. The Tag Champs worked over The Viper before the break, and were still in control when it returned. Orton took a lot of damage, including a neckbreaker from Kidd, a European uppercut from Cesaro, and a few kicks to the face. He’d eventually pick up the win, however, after hitting Kidd with an RKO.
The Team Hell No reunion backstage was entertaining and humorous.
Seth Rollins tried to get Kane to lay down for him before he refused and snapped. He chokeslammed Rollins straight to Hell before allowing Rollins to pick up the victory, setting up a confrontation to determine the stipulations for the Extreme Rules main event at the end of the show.
Roman Reigns finally addressed the fans after his loss at WrestleMania. He was brutally honest went he said, “I went to Suplex City.” It wasn’t his best promo (not that there’s an extensive archive of those or anything), but it definitely wasn’t his worst either. He called Big Show Seth’s “giant bitch” before being confronted and called a “bum” (what a devastating burn). This was one of those classic unintentionally humorous WWE segments, with both guys delivering cheesy promos that were littered with corny insults. Big Show attacked Reigns as he was leaving the ring and chokeslammed him onto the roof of the car that was parked at the top of the ramp, likely setting up a match between the two at Extreme Rules.
Finally, the closing segment involving Seth Rollins and Randy Orton was entertaining. Each superstar was permitted to choose a stipulation for the main event at Extreme Rules. Orton was well spoken during his portion of the segment, and Rollins played the slimy, cowardly heel to perfection as always. In the end, Rollins chose to bar the RKO from the main event, while Orton decided to make it a steel cage match to keep The Authority from helping Seth Rollins (because that has worked flawlessly in the past). The show ended with Orton hitting an RKO on one half of J&J while the WWE Champion retreated.
– WWE Diva Naomi appeared to turn heel on this week’s edition of RAW, which was taped on Monday afternoon at the O2 Arena in London, England. After Paige won the number one contender Divas battle royal to earn a WWE Divas title shot against Nikki Bella at the Extreme Rules pay-per-view, Naomi attacked her and laid her out. In a backstage segment later on during the show, Naomi pretended to apologize to Paige, but ultimately revealed that she wasn’t sincere.
– John Cena is alluding to the possibility of bringing back the “spinner” WWE United States Championship belt. The current U.S. champion posted the following photo on his official Instagram account:
– Former TNA Knockout Sarita, who is working in CMLL under the name “Sarah Stock,” is working as a guest trainer at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida this week. Former WWE and WCW star Dave Taylor is also working as a guest trainer this week.
– WWE stock was up 1.64 percent on Monday, closing at $13.64 per share. The high today was $13.88 and the low was $13.40.
– Sheamus posted the following on his official Twitter account regarding his new theme song, “Hellfire.”
– On next week’s edition of WWE RAW, which emanates from the Times Union Center in Albany, New York, Triple H will be making an announcement regarding the return of WWE Tough Enough.
– Actors James Phelps and Matthew Lewis were in attendance at Monday’s edition of WWE RAW at the O2 Arena in London, England. The official E! U.K. Twitter account posted the following photo of the two:
