Monday’s live 3-hour episode of WWE RAW drew a 3.08 rating with 4,149,000 viewers.
Here’s the hourly viewership data:
This week’s RAW was way down from last week’s post-WrestleMania 29 show, which did a 3.45 and nearly half a million more viewers.
Ever since Ryback attacked John Cena on last week’s post-WrestleMania edition of WWE RAW, there’s been a lot of speculation as to whether he’s now a heel or simply gunning for the WWE Champion. Ryback’s promo from RAW and his failure to aid John Cena when he was getting beat down by The Shield indicated that Ryback does in fact have a dark side.
With the following tweet he made after RAW, it appears Ryback is in fact embracing the role of villain against WWE hero John Cena:
https://twitter.com/Ryback22/status/324037314441523201
Ryback also tweeted this on Tuesday afternoon, referencing Cena’s ex-wife Elizabeth:
https://twitter.com/Ryback22/status/324229250481799169
New WWE United States Champion Kofi Kingston was recently interviewed by the UK’s Evening Times to promote this week’s overseas live events tour. Here are highlights of what he said about:
“This is one of the tours we look forward to the most as the environment and culture are both very different to the USA. We often hear some pretty unique football chants at the Scottish shows.”
“The Rock and Brock Lesnar have really paved the way for guys like me. Maybe somewhere down the line we can be the ones coming back for the big appearances and there is certainly a desire for young talent to come through to high profile matches. I’m sure you’ll see that in the coming years.”
“Everybody on Twitter seems to want me to turn bad… I would try my hand at anything and I think I could do it well.”
Shawn Daivari is now trying his hand at Men’s Physique contests.
The former WWE star participated in the NPC Gopher State Classic held in Minnesota over WrestleMania weekend and finished in fourth place among thirty competitors. By finishing in the top five, he is now eligible to compete at a NPC Nationals Championship held by the National Physique Committee—the largest amateur bodybuilding organization in the United States.
Meanwhile, Daivari is still accepting wrestling bookings via ShawnDaivari.com.
– As noted earlier, Ric Flair was backstage at Monday’s WWE RAW from Greenville, He was just there visiting and there were no plans for him to appear on television.
– John Cena, Daniel Bryan and Ricky Steamboat will be appearing at the Wizard World Philadelphia Comic Con in Philadelphia, PA, which takes place over the weekend of May 30th.
– CM Punk will be doing appearing at the Wizard World NYC Experience on June 28th for a signing, photo session and Q&A panel.
– Triple H underwent an MRI on his wrist this week because there is some concern that he might have suffered a scaphoid fracture. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons describes the injury as typically being “caused by a fall on an outstretched hand, with the weight landing on the palm.”
Possible reason @TripleH was late for #Raw. Ruling out scaphoid fracture via MRI. pic.twitter.com/OgG7oBxxFG
— WWE (@WWE) April 16, 2013
In his studio, the man behind Fandango’s “ChaChaLaLa” entrance theme, WWE composer Jim Johnston, makes an impromptu performance.
2013 WWE Hall of Famer Bruno Sammartino appeared on The NB Show with Nick Buzzelli & Bryan Chechak this week and spoke about WrestleMania 29 weekend, his future with WWE and more. Here are some highlights of what he said about:
“No. It was even more busy. In 3 or 4 days I don’t think I had more than a couple hours of sleep. They had me going from morning to night. So many different interviews for radio, television, & magazine. They just had so many lined up, I had no idea that I was going to be that busy and not have time to mingle a little bit with some of the friends I saw there. It was just go go go, I mean it was extremely busy.”
“I’ll be honest with you. Yes WrestleMania was big, they had 70,000/80,000 I was told, but it met a heck of a lot more to me to be back in Madison Square Garden. To be back in the Garden one more time after all these years, after making so many appearances for so many years that was, for me, more thrilling. It was emotional to be back there because I have so many memories of Madison Square Garden. Keep in mind, I headlined Madison Square Garden more than anyone in the history of the garden. That place is special to me. It really gave me tremendous publicity worldwide because of Madison Square Garden. That’s the most famous arena in the world.”
“Here is what I agreed with them on. They are going to do a video game on me, they are going to do some DVDs of my best matches and all that kind of stuff. I think they are going to do some merchandise like new dolls and stuff like that. I don’t know what else. T-shirts, they are going to do all these kind of things. So I’m sure, even though I have no commitments, they will come to me about appearances here and there. But again, I wouldn’t sign any agreement to any of that because the way I worked it out with them is that I’d be willing in some areas, but all they can do is ask me and then I will have the right to say yes or no. I don’t want to be in a situation where they could call me and be like ‘hey you are going to appear on Monday Night Raw in Tennessee next Monday’ or ‘you’re going to be in Boston.’ I wouldn’t go for any of that. If they called me for one of these things, I’d have to see if I was up to it at the time and let them know.”
– Trish Stratus recently appeared on TSN’s Off The Record and discussed her time as a WWE diva and how her career has evolved. You can view the appearance at TSN.ca.
– Bruno Sammartino will be appearing at the Legends of the Ring convention in June from Monroe, NJ. Also appearing are Sting, Edge and Beth Phoenix. For more information, visit Legendsofthering.com.
– Mick Foley will be appearing at next week’s SmackDown tapings, since he’ll be in the UK for a comedy tour. He tweeted on Tuesday morning:
https://twitter.com/realmickfoley/status/324125911546990593
– The Trendrr.tv social media score for Monday’s WWE RAW was down 50% from last week’s post-WrestleMania edition. RAW had a social media score of 259,488, down from 518,000 the week before. RAW was #1 on cable for the evening for the 4th consecutive week, but it was still the second-lowest social media activity for RAW this year.
– Here is the latest installment of WWE Backstage Fallout, featuring interviews from Monday’s RAW:
In the Raw edition of “Backstage Fallout,” Paul Heyman tries to figure out what is going on with CM Punk. Plus, The Prime Time Players run into I.R.S. on Tax Day.
– Tonight’s WWE SmackDown and Main Event tapings take place from Knoxville, TN. Main Event will feature a Battle Royal for a shot at Wade Barrett’s Intercontinental championship. Smackdown will feature World champion Mark Henry & Big Show vs. Sheamus & Randy Orton.
As always, we’ll have live spoilers of tonight’s SmackDown tapings here at SEScoops.com.
– The New Age Outlaws have been added to the Smackdown brand’s live events on the upcoming European tour. The RAW crew left for overseas late Monday night, while the SmackDown crew departs after tonight’s tapings.
– “The Marine 3: Homefront” reached the number 11 spot on Home Media Magazine’s Top 20 rentals chart.
– WWE officials are anticipating big crowd reactions for Fandango and Wade Barrett at next week’s WWE TV tapings from London.
(Partial Source: PWInsider.com)
Cody Rhodes recently appeared on Busted Open with Dave Lagreca and Doug Mortman, which you can hear on Sirius 92 and XM 208. Below are some highlights from his interview:
“When Dolph is a world champ. This year after Money in the Bank, and Dolph is the guy who won MITB, there was this real drop off of all this momentum and moving forward and I don’t blame anyone but myself; not that something bad happened or anything like that. I hate when people say stuff like ‘the push’, it’s just a matter of sometimes, I’m never going to be patient and fans of mine I hope they know I’m not sitting there waiting, but as a company there are several superstars that whether you want them now, it’s a slow thing. It’s a slow building process and I think it’ll be all the more satisfying. I grew up a fan of Shawn Michaels. I watched the whole time. He makes it to the WM match and he doesn’t win the title. Then the next title match he goes an hour and he doesn’t win the title in the hour but they’re going to go sudden death and then he finally got the title and I was just fully satisfied as him being the greatest WM performer of all time. That’s the goal. That’s the guy I’d like to pattern myself as. I hate the fact the people said ‘you’re the future’ and we’re not there yet, but we’ll get there.”
“We forget that Randy was 21 when he debuted on television. He had a chance to grow up with the audience. Randy was an extreme influence, still is, and we’re both now able to do our own things and initially he took me and Ted Dibiase under his wing and it wasn’t like ‘Randy is a friend of ours, he’s going to be easy on us,’ I think Randy was harder on us than even Triple H was in that whole grooming process; Legacy versus DX, then him versus Triple H and them going into Wrestlemania 25; so I will always owe him a good chunk of my career.”
Former WWE Diva recently spoke to Slam.Canoe.Ca about recent reports that she was in talks with WWE about appearing at WrestleMania – and rumors that there are people in WWE who don’t want to work with her. Here are some highlights of what he said about:
“I did get contacted by WWE at the end of January, beginning of February, something like that, and for about a month, I was in talks with WWE,” Kanellis said. “We talked about contracts, I had no problem with anything that was in the contract; but about a month after, they called back and said they weren’t moving forward with the storyline.”
“I’m friends most of the girls, I talk with a lot of them at least once a week if not a couple times a week, so I don’t know where that comes from,” she said. “I’m completely happy with WWE and I believe they’re completely happy with me as well, so if that opportunity ever were to arise again and I wasn’t locked up on something else, I would love to go back.”
“I can’t imagine them being that immature to say something like that. This is a business world and I treat wrestling as a business as well as my passion. I just can’t imagine anybody doing that and being that silly. As far as I know it was just a storyline thing.
I get along with pretty much everyone; I don’t have those issues. I had disagreements with people in the past, but I really worked hard to get rid of those disagreements. I really want to live my life with positivity. I don’t want any kind of animosity out there about me. When I first got out of WWE, I was fiery and all that kind of stuff, but now, looking back, WWE was a great experience for me and I’m so glad I got to do everything I did there.”
WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart recently spoke with WrestleNewz.com and answered several fan questions. Here are some highlights:
“I really enjoyed it. The most fun for me was seeing a lot of the legends and the old names and faces that I’ve known for so many years — Jimmy Snuka, Roddy Piper and those kinds of guys. I was really quite impressed with seeing the great Bruno Sammartino and hearing his induction speech. To hear his struggle through his childhood with the Nazis — I never knew a lot of that stuff about Bruno. So I was quite touched by him. I got to run into him two or three times over that week, and he was really impressive to me.”
“I thought parts of it were really good. But parts of it I thought were, for me, very predictable. I kind of predicted things in my head and certain matches went exactly as I thought they would. But the one match I thought was outstanding was the Punk-Undertaker match. That was truly exceptional. They really had a great match — they couldn’t have done a better job with taking two different guys from two different eras and fusing them together to create the match that they got.”
“Right now I’m very impressed with Punk. And I’m very impressed with the one guy in The Shield — what’s his name O’Connell, O’Donnell? — Ambrose, that’s it. He’s really good. He’s got it down. He’s such a first-rate thinker on his feet when it comes to his timing, his expressions, his quickness, his deviousness. I love his deviousness! I saw him this past weekend and told him I thought he was great.”
“I haven’t seen it, but it might be closer to the truth than people think. I don’t know if my look was on purpose. Sometimes I make funny expressions on my own that make me laugh. When there are people snapping pictures from every angle, it’s hard to know how you’ll look.
But personally, I thought when he did the big move on (Cena), he kind of flubbed it up. He didn’t do it very well. It was like a four out of 10! They seemed to trip with their toes. They didn’t really get positioned right at all. They kind of tripped over each other. It’s hard to say who tripped over who, but I thought somebody flubbed it. Maybe Rock flubbed it. Yeah, I would say four out of 10. Four may be generous!”
“I think what it needs is for Vince McMahon to give it half a chance. The reason there’s no tag team wrestling is that Vince McMahon just woke up one day and realized he doesn’t like tag team wrestling. So they’re just slowly but surely eliminating it. I always loved it. It’s been part of wrestling since the beginning. It’s got a different kind of psychology. Different kind of teams can tell different kinds of stories. I think there’s a lot to be said for great tag team wrestling. I just think that Vince McMahon, or someone in the corporate side of the company, has made this decision to slowly phase it out.”
CM Punk was interviewed by Ariel Helwani on Monday for the MMA Hour at MMAFighting.com. Here’s what Punk said about the Fandango Revolution:
“I don’t think it’s a big joke, I want to see if the momentum can sustain itself. A lot of that has to do with the predominantly European crowd last week. I think it’s very akin to how they start soccer chants and I love it, I think it’s great, Fandango’s awesome. If we can get South Carolina singing his music tonight then we’re definitely onto something.”
Punk also talked about the WWE Divas & UFC’s women’s division, attending Saturday night’s UFC TUF finale in Vegas and more.
– After Monday’s WWE RAW went off the air, Team Hell No came out to help Cena and join him for a 6-man tag match against The Shield. The finish came when Seth Rollins used a chair, which caused his team to get disqualified. Cena and Team Hell No brawled with The Shield with the babyfaces clearing the ring. A funny moment came when Daniel Bryan gave Seth Rollins a chokeslam, which led to Kane yelling “No!” at him.
– Following Monday’s Raw, John Cena tweeted the following message about the tragic bombing that took place earlier in the day in his hometown of Boston, MA:
An evening of @WWE entertainment, overshadowed by an afternoon of horrible tragedy #PrayForBoston
— John Cena (@JohnCena) April 16, 2013
After Monday’s RAW, the card for next month’s WWE Extreme Rules pay-per-view is starting to take shape:
– Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar III will take place inside a steel cage. Paul Heyman issued the challenge on his client’s behalf, stating that Triple H’s win at WrestleMania was merely evening the score between the two men after Lesnar dismantled The Game last summer at SummerSlam.
– WWE Champion John Cena will defend against Ryback. The match has not been officially confirmed by WWE, but Ryback tweeted before RAW, “Stay tuned tonight I speak the truth. Sunday May 19th #ExtremeRules @johncena vs @Ryback22 for the WWE Title. #FeedingTime #RybackRules.” The promo Ryback cut on Cena and the beatdown by The Shield that Ryback stood around for all but guarantee these two will be squaring off soon.
– SmackDown General Manager Booker T announced on RAW that World Heavyweight champion Dolph Ziggler will defend in a three-way match against Alberto Del Rio and Jack Swagger. It was not confirmed that the match will take place at Extreme Rules, but we should get more information at tonight’s SmackDown tapings.
Also rumored for the show is The Shield challenging Team Hell No for the WWE tag titles.
– The April 12th edition of WWE Smackdown did a 1.91 rating with 2,844,000 viewers, up from the previous week.
– WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair was backstage at Monday’s RAW from Greenville, S.C.
– Superstar Billy Graham was hospitalized this week with pneumonia.
– Due to the injury he suffered at WrestleMania 29, The Rock was forced to pull out of scheduled media appearances for “Pain & Gain” this week as well as Sunday night’s MTV Movie Awards.
– This Friday on SmackDown on Syfy, Sheamus will join forces with Randy Orton to battle Mark Henry and Big Show.
– The following two matches were taped Monday night at the Bi Lo Center in Greenville, South Carolina, for this week’s episode of WWE Superstars:
* Natalya vs. Tamina Snuka
* Brodus Clay and Tensai vs. Epico and Primo
– In Tuesday’s birthdays, WWE Hall of Famer George “The Animal” Steele turns 75-years-old, Paul London turns 33-years-old, and All Japan wrestler turns 31.
– Former WWE Champion Dave “Batista” Bautista was at the Saddle Rack in San Jose, California, over the weekend participating in a benefit with fellow The Man with the Iron Fists star Cung Le.
(source: F4WOnline.com)
Monday on Raw, Kofi Kingston put an end to Antonio Cesaro’s 239-day reign as United States Champion. “The Dreadlocked Dynamo” landed a Trouble in Paradise to Cesaro’s chin to ground “The Swiss Superman” to the mat.
This is Kingston’s tenth championship in WWE, as he captured the United States Championship three times, the Intercontinental Championship four times, the World Tag Team Championship once, and the WWE Tag Team Championship twice. Kingston addressed his victory on Twitter:
First and foremost, hats off to Cesaro. My body feels like it’s been through a war! But you guys make all worth it! #3TimeUSChamp.
— Kofi Kingston (@TrueKofi) April 16, 2013
– The Undertaker will compete on Raw next Monday, which is being taped at the London O2 Arena in London, England. In-advance, the venue has been advertising an appearance from “The Deadman.”
During tonight’s Raw, Undertaker was advertised for a Six-Man Tag Team Match pitting himself, and WWE Tag Team Champions Daniel Bryan and Kane against all three members of The Shield.
– On this week’s Raw Slam of the Week, Ryback shocks fans by attacking WWE Champion John Cena.
– “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, Jerry “The King” Lawler, Diamond Dallas Page and Jake “The Snake” Roberts are advertised to appear at the Fanboy Expo, which takes place May 31 to June 2 at the Jacob Building at Chilhowee Park 3301 E Magnolia Ave. Knoxville, Tennessee. Click here for more information.
Arda Ocal of the Baltimore Sun and Layfield Report recently conducted a live Q/A with Bret “Hitman” Hart. In the session which was primary questions from the audience, many questions were covered including:
– Opponents we wished he had a chance to work and would have liked to work one more match against
– His interactions with Batista
– Opinions of John Cena and the opinions of him from critics
– Who he considers today to be the “Best There is, Best There Was and the Best There ever will be”
Ocal asked him about comments he made when the pair last spoke in an interview a few weeks ago about Triple H not being in his Top 1000 wrestlers and giving Undertaker vs Triple H at Wrestlemania 28 a 4 out of 10.
Bret is aware that this has become a phenomenon among the internet wrestling community and also gave the match between Triple H and Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania 29 a 4/10. He also reveals that he and Triple H don’t speak today and when they see each other its typically nothing more than “Hi, bye”. Though he does keep in contact today with Shawn Michaels.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSIYmDweNiQ
This week on Because Wrestling, we’re joined by The Solomonster of SEScoops.com to talk about the latest in news from around the world of pro wrestling
Q: I was wondering the other day about [all of the] things you can patent in wrestling… themes, characters, masks, logos and names. I don’t understand why you can patent characters, could you help explain that? Also, WWE has a habit of changing the names of indy stars to new ones. Why can’t they make a special contract in which the wrestler can still use the name after he/she leaves WWE? – Paul Jordan
A: They would want to trademark characters because they can claim it’s their creation and no other organization should be allowed to profit off of it. When Scott Hall showed up on Nitro doing his Razor Ramon shtick, WWE took them to court for it. Likewise, when it comes to wrestler names, WWE would not want to make such an arrangement — they would want to retain ownership of that person’s stage name so they can continue to make money off of it, and also make it less likely that wrestler would want to jump ship to another group.
Q: Many people came away from WrestleMania disappointed because of the predictability of the 4 top matches, however, I don’t think the results could have gone any other way. I’m interested to hear your take on this as I feel that the Undertaker, Cena, Triple H and Del Rio all had to win. – Justin from London
A: Undertaker winning was a given and I had no problem with it. As long as he thinks he can still go, the streak should stay alive, it’s the best gimmick in wrestling right now. Cena winning felt stale, but made sense in that he had to get his win back over Rock. But I disagree that Triple H and Del Rio HAD to win their matches. I’m glad Del Rio won because Swagger deserved to be punished for his DUI arrest, but there was more to be gained by having Lesnar beat Triple H for the second time, especially if he’s penciled in for next year’s main event against Rock. It was nice that the babyface got his revenge here, but from a business standpoint, it was foolish for Brock to lose.
Q: Solomonster, I know you would rather combine titles and get rid of most of them (World, US, etc.), but what if you didn’t have that option? How would you boost [the prestige of these] titles to where people would actually care about them? – C.R. Massey
A: Perception is reality. You don’t open a WrestleMania like they did the previous two years with a World title match. You don’t have a random World title contest on Raw in the middle of the show like it’s some mid-card match. You don’t have the United States champion lose every non-title match he is in, and then leave him off your biggest show of the year (not to mention Raw the next night). It’s not hard — just do the opposite of what they’ve been doing, let the challengers have more microphone time to put over how important the quest for those titles is to them, and you’re well on your way to making them mean something again.
Q: With The Rock being injured at WrestleMania, do you think he will stop wrestling altogether so injuries in the ring don’t interfere with his acting career? I know a lot of people hate on Rock for coming back, but I have really liked having him back and hope he has at least a few more matches. – Jake from Long Island, NY
A: Nobody knows for sure, probably not even Rock. My gut tells me he’ll be at WrestleMania next year, so we haven’t seen the last of him. I wouldn’t expect much more out of him than Mania at this point.
Q: I think [Chris] Jericho is doing an extremely important job building up new guys. He returns to wrestling for a few months, helps a new guy and leaves. Pretty much charity work, but with decent payment. What do you think about his contribution? – Nisim Levi
A: He’s been the MVP of WWE since his return at the Royal Rumble. He’s had terrific matches on TV, can play any role you ask of him and has no problem working with younger guys and putting them over if it’s good for business. His contribution has been huge.
Q: Is Fandango a made man thanks to that live crowd and [Chris] Jericho? He’s in a perfect spot now and really has no safety net. Do you see him making the most of his opportunity? – Tim from Pennsylvania
A: Well, his theme music is certainly over. Let’s not mistake that for meaning Fandango himself is suddenly a made man. He’s still saddled with a ridiculous gimmick, but aside from that, they’re giving him every opportunity to succeed. You can’t get any better than working with Jericho. It worked for John Cena early in his career. Ball’s in his court now.
Q: I have a question about WrestleMania 30 next year. With the rumored matches being Rock vs. Brock Lesnar, Undertaker vs. John Cena and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin vs CM Punk, which match should be the main event? – Joe S.
A: I have serious doubts we’re ever going to see Austin vs. Punk at this point. That said, I’m torn on this one. I’ve always said if Austin decides to return for a match with Punk, it should headline. And really, it’s probably Punk’s only chance of getting his elusive Mania main event. But The Streak has become larger than anything else at WrestleMania. Undertaker only has a finite number of matches left in him… who knows, next year in New Orleans could be his swan song. John Cena is the absolute perfect opponent for him, the only man who could create serious doubt about the outcome and have the fans ready to riot if he wins. Both matches are deserving, but for me, Undertaker vs. Cena has to headline.
