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Breaking News: Brock Lesnar Re-Signs With WWE, Details, Vince McMahon’s Offer

By
Crazymax Jack
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Moments ago on ESPN’s SportsCenter, Brock Lesnar announced he is closing the door on his MMA career and then went on to announce that he officially re-signed a multi-year with the WWE last night. Lesnar says he didn’t want to keep it quiet because he wanted to be fair to the fans and let them know prior to WrestleMania. Brock quoted “Old Vince McMahon put the offer on the table that I couldn’t refuse”.

Lesnar revealed that he signed a new deal at RAW in Los Angeles last night after receiving an offer he couldn’t refuse. Lesnar said it took him over a year to decide and he wanted to be the one to make the announcement.

Lesnar got choked up at one point said his pro wrestling career is not over and his legacy here will continue but his legacy in UFC’s Octagon is over. Lesnar said he wants to have fun and something was missing mentally while he’s been training for a return to MMA. Lesnar feels he was born to be an entertainer and wondered what he would have to gain if he did return to UFC.

Lesnar said he couldn’t refuse the offer that Vince McMahon made him at RAW and wanted fans to know before Sunday’s WrestleMania 31 event. Lesnar said he wants to leave WrestleMania with the title.

Lesnar also stated that his recent appearance at the UFC pay-per-view was not a negotiating tactic. He said he just wanted to feel the UFC atmosphere for one last time. He added that UFC President Dana White agrees with his decision.

Former WWE announcer Jonathan Coachman, who now works for ESPN, also interviewed Lesnar and asked how much fun Lesnar is going to have at WrestleMania. Lesnar said he always has fun and people who watch his matches also have fun. Lesnar said he loves the pro wrestling business and hates the travel so this new deal is good for him.

Roman Reigns Talks RAW Ending And More On ESPN’s Sports Nation, Paul Heyman Interrupts

By
Brian Grey
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– Roman Reigns appeared with Michelle Beadle on ESPN 2’s Sports Nation this afternoon to talk WrestleMania 31, his days playing football and more. Below are some highlights:

* Beadle brought up the RAW ending with WWE World Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar, saying there seemed to be some tug-of-war going on. Reigns said there was “a little bit, yea” and said he wanted to make a statement that he will walk right in and do what nobody else does – take the title right off Brock Lesnar’s shoulder and put it on his own. Reigns said that’s his goal on Sunday.

* Reigns said his cousin The Rock is right there at the top of the list of people, with his father, that have influenced his career. Beadle asked if Reigns wants to crush movies like The Rock has. Reigns replied that he just wants to crush Brock Lesnar and bring the belt back where it belongs.

* Beadle asked if Reigns is getting nervous about facing The Beast and Reigns said he gets nervous before every performance. He said he’s been training for this moment and is ready to roll.

* Reigns went over to do the punching bag gimmick and Lesnar’s music interrupted. Paul Heyman came out instead and shook Reigns’ head. Heyman introduced himself to a few boos from the studio audience. Heyman talked with Beadle before going to commercial. They came back and Heyman had joined the Sports Nation panel to talk sports.

Current WrestleMania 31 Betting Odds Say Roman Reigns Will Defeat Brock Lesnar, More

By
Brian Grey
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Credit: Chris Smith of Forbes.com

This year’s WrestleMania is fast approaching and WWE’s biggest night of the year, like any other major sports-entertainment event, has fans looking to bet on the action. To that end, online sportsbook Bovada has released its betting lines for Sunday’s marquee event and, much to the likely dismay of many fans, the good guy is expected to win.

That’s an odd sentence to write, but this has been an odd build to WrestleMania. Underdog Roman Reigns will take on WWE World Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar in WrestleMania 31′s main event. But unlike last year’s WrestleMania, which ended with a sold-out arena roaring in celebration of underdog Daniel Bryan’s long-awaited championship victory, this year’s event instead has many fans rooting against the good guy.

That sentiment bloomed when Reigns won January’s Royal Rumble, defeating fan favorites like Bryan, Dolph Ziggler and Dean Ambrose en route to earning a guaranteed title shot at WrestleMania. The outcome led to an immediate hostile reaction from fans who seemed to believe that Reigns was unfairly put over more talented and harder working talent. In-arena fans showered a celebrating Reigns with boos while the #CancelWWENetwork hashtag quickly became a top trend on Twitter TWTR +6.21%.

Things haven’t gotten much better in the weeks since. Reigns is still getting booed, and many of those boos turned to outright laughter when Monday night’s go-home episode of RAW ended with Reigns and Lesnar having a literal tug-of-war with the title belt like two petulant children fighting over a favorite toy. It’s the latest in WWE’s recent string of terrible content that has left many fans dreading that Reigns’ steady rise to the top isn’t getting cut short anytime soon.

And at least one sportsbook appears to feel the same way. Bovada currently has Reigns favored to win the main event, with his odds at -170 to +130 for champion Brock Lesnar. It’s worth noting, however, that though Reigns is favored, his odds of victory are hardly overwhelming. In fact, betting odds for the title fight are some of the closest on the card. Whether that ought to be a sign of hope for those pulling for Lesnar remains to be seen.

The biggest favorite of the night is Sting, who will be appearing in a WWE ring for the first time in his long and storied career. The former WCW star has odds of -700 to defeat in-story king heel Triple H. In other words, you’d need to bet $700 on Sting just to win $100. Another heavy favorite is John Cena, with -450 odds to defeat current United States Champion Rusev.

Though you can bet on wrestling, it’s something we don’t recommend. The matches are predetermined, so putting money on them is like betting on how a movie will end. And given how unpredictable WWE can be, it’s an especially risky move. Last year’s “sure thing” was an Undertaker win over Brock Lesnar. But that expected outcome got flipped on its head in one of WWE’s most surprising twists ever – and that twist also revealed that some gamblers seemed to know the outcome in advance.

Below are Bovada’s odds, as of Tuesday afternoon, for every announced match at this year’s WrestleMania.

A quick note on money lines for those who aren’t already familiar. A negative number denotes the match’s favorite, while a positive number is for an underdog. The money line for the favored competitor represents how much money you need to wager in order to win $100; the line for an underdog is how much money you’d win on a successful $100 bet.

WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match: Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Roman Reigns

Roman Reigns -170, Brock Lesnar +130

Intercontinental Championship Ladder Match

Daniel Bryan 3/2, Dean Ambrose 9/4, Dolph Ziggler 8/1, Bad News Barrett (c) 9/1, Luke Harper 20/1, Stardust 25/1, R-Truth 35/1

United States Championship Match: Rusev (c) vs. John Cena

John Cena -450, Rusev +275

Sting vs. Triple H

Sting -700, Triple H +400

The Undertaker vs. Bray Wyatt

The Undertaker -350, Bray Wyatt +225

Seth Rollins vs. Randy Orton

Seth Rollins -135, Randy Orton -105

Divas Tag Team TISI +0.03% Match

A.J. Lee & Paige -350, The Bella Twins +225

Annual Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal

Damien Mizdow 5/4

Sheamus 7/4

Ryback 6/1

Mark Henry 8/1

Big Show 12/1

Curtis Axel, Erick Rowan, Kane and The Miz 18/1

Fandango and Titus O’Neil 25/1

Goldust, Heath Slater, Jack Swagger and Sin Cara 40/1

Adam Rose, Darren Young, Konnor and Zack Ryder 50/1

As of publish, there were no odds posted for The Field, which would include any participants not listed above. That pick won last year’s event thanks to Cesaro’s victory.

Pre-Show Fatal Four-way Tag Team Championship Match

Tyson Kidd & Cesaro (c) +175

The New Day +275

Los Matadores +500

The Usos +600

Triple H On How He Balances Both Jobs On WrestleMania Night, Ring Rust, Much More

By
Jim Somers
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Source: For The Win

Triple H recently spoke with USA Today’s For The Win blog to promote his match with Sting at WWE’s WrestleMania 31. The full interview is available at this link. Below are highlights:

How hard is it to wrestle a match after such a long layoff, especially considering your WrestleMania matches are typically half an hour long. What do you do to shake off the ring rust?

I got in the ring for the first time the other day and fell down for the first time and it felt like my body exploded when I landed. It takes a little bit. You can train, but its one of those things where ‘experts’ of our business that have never done it will say ‘oh if they gave guys time off it would be better for them’ or whatever, but it’s honestly, having done this for 20 plus years — time off is your worst enemy. It really is, it makes it so much harder to do this.

When you’re doing it all the time it’s like a callus, you’re doing it and it doesn’t bother you. You’re functioning and you can do it every night. when you haven’t done it, getting in there and doing the simplest thing, you’re like ‘oh my God, why am I doing this again?’ You’ve got to get yourself back in the process of getting back in the ring, and the hardest [part] of doing that is… it’s easy to go through that stuff when you’ve got 80,000 people screaming at you, it’s not so easy when you’re in a warehouse with a ring set up all by yourself. It hurts a whole lot more.

FTW: When did you start training for your match with Sting?

Well I train all year round. One of the things I found, five years ago or so, I needed to make my training more functional. So I train with Joe DeFranco, Joe’s known as kind of the combine killer for guys in the NFL. I train with Joe and he keeps me in pretty good shape. I’m a gym rat anyway so I like doing that, but once WrestleMania comes around, whether I know I’m going to be working or not working — which every year I have been, but I never really know until it comes closer. I usually start around 16 weeks out, so somewhere around the holidays or right before the holidays I start really tightening up my diet and gearing myself up towards getting back in the ring.

On the night of WrestleMania, how do you balance preparing and performing in your own match with all the other work you do behind the scenes as an executive?

That is the hardest part. WrestleMania week for me, logistically, from an executive to a talent standpoint is crazy I did a DVD a couple of years ago called Thy Kingdom Come and they documented a little bit of it. It’s literally like one minute I’m speaking at a business partner summit, where I’m speaking to our business partners from all over the globe as an executive talking about all the things that we’re doing, and literally coming off stage, changing my clothes as fast I can to jeans and a leather jacket because I have to go do an autograph signing.

They drive me over there with a police escort, I’m eating on the way, I’m signing autographs for two hours and meeting the fans and having to be on as a performer, finishing that and running backstage, changing in the car while I’m on my way to go have a meeting with a bunch of international clients. And that’s all while my department itself, talent relations, completely controls everything WrestleMania from a talent standpoint. Which, we just did the numbers this year today and I think we’re at like 850 appearances and we’re still almost five weeks out. Logistically, trying to get talent to 850 appearances, probably close to 1,000 by Mania over the course of that week. Usually if we do our jobs well nobody’s late, nobody misses an appearance. But it’s just… insanity. That’s the best way to describe that week for me.

UFC Champion TJ Dillashaw Injured, Out Of UFC 186 Main Event

By
MMA Dan
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Bad news for the UFC today, as UFC Bantamweight Champion TJ Dillashaw was pulled from his upcoming UFC 186 main event with former champion Renan Barao.

Dillashaw sustained a fractured rib in training that forced him to withdraw from his April 25 title fight. Dillashaw’s manager, Mike Roberts, told MMA Fighting that Dillashaw sustained the injury last week while wrestling and will be on the shelf for about six weeks.

The news, first reported by PostMedia, is a huge blow to UFC 186. UFC President Dana White said the Demetrious Johnson vs. Kyoji Horiguchi Flyweight title fight would now be moved to the main event slot, with Abel Trujillo vs. John Makdessi getting bumped up to the main card.

Dillashaw beat Barao soundly last may to win the championship, scoring a huge upset. Barao was slated for a rematch at UFC 177, but was replaced by UFC newcomer Joe Soto after he had complications during his weight cut.

Even worse for the UFC, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, who is supposed to make his return at the event is locked up in a legal battle with Bellator MMA that may keep him from fighting.

UFC 186 will take place from the Bell Centre from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In addition to the Flyweight Championship fight, the show features top-10 fighters Michael Bisping, Sarah Kaufman, and Alexis Davis.

Update On Jey Uso At WrestleMania, Who’s The Leading Candidate To Win IC Title?

By
Jim Somers
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0

Source: F4WOnline

– F4Wonline.com confirms that as of last Tuesday, the plan was for Daniel Bryan to win the WWE Intercontinental Title in the Ladder Match at WrestleMania 31. Obviously plans can change but Bryan was the leading candidate to win at one point.

– Regarding Jey Uso working the Fatal 4 Way WWE Tag Team Title Match on the WrestleMania 31 Kickoff Pre-show, his shoulder is not well but he has been cleared to work the show. With so many participants in the match, they will be able to limit Jey’s participation if needed.

Lana’s Status For WrestleMania 31, Talk On Nikki Bella Taking A Shot At AJ During SmackDown

By
Jim Somers
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0

– There was talk at last night’s RAW that Lana will definitely be appearing at WrestleMania 31 with United States Champion Rusev on Sunday. As noted, Lana is away filming WWE Studios’ Interrogation and WWE is using her absence to tease tension between she and Rusev. Michael Cole brought up potential issues between the two again on RAW last night. It’s also worth noting that Lana is still being included in new graphics to promote Sunday’s pay-per-view.

Source: F4WOnline

As noted in the Smackdown spoilers, WWE taped a segment with The Bella Twins, AJ Lee and Paige at the SmackDown tapings that took place following last night’s WWE RAW in Los Angeles.

The segment was described as one of the better Divas promo segments in recent memory. One line that had a lot of fans talking was when Nikki Bella told AJ Lee that Brock Lesnar defended the WWE World Heavyweight Title more dates than AJ did when she was Divas Champion.

If the line makes it to Thursday’s SmackDown broadcast, then we know that it was a scripted line from WWE creative. It’s possible that Nikki was going off-script, as she has done in the past, and if that’s the case then the line might not make it to TV.

Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter adds that there is some heat on AJ for how much time she was away from the company. It will be interesting to see if the line about her reign as champion makes it to TV this week.

Reliving a Feud – Issue #12: CM Punk vs. Raven in ROH

By
Bob Colling
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CM Punk vs. Raven

At the beginning of 2003, Raven was released from World Wrestling Entertainment but didn’t wait long before getting his name back out there. He would join Total Non-Stop Action by the end of January and would make his debut for Ring of Honor on March 15th, 2003 at a show called Expect the Unexpected. On that night, Raven began a feud with top independent wrestler CM Punk which would last for over seven months.

The feud started with Punk issuing a challenge to Raven saying that if Raven could last ten minutes in the ring with him then the match would become a hardcore match. Raven would last ten minutes, but ended up losing the match to Punk anyway after Punk made Raven submit to the Devil Lock. Their feud continued eight days later on March 22nd when Raven teamed with Colt Cabana to take on CM Punk and Ace Steel. Raven got the win over the team after hitting a DDT, but after the match Colt Cabana turned on Raven to form the Second City Saints.

Raven found a new partner in BJ Whitmer to combat CM Punk and Colt Cabana for the June 14th show. Although Raven wasn’t able to win the match, he did hit the Evenflow DDT on Punk. Whitmer was pinned after Colt hit the Colt .45. After the bout, Punk continued the feud by hitting a leg drop through a table. By the way, this was Raven’s first appearance in ROH since March. Raven attempted to play mind games with Punk by sending some followers to ROH, most notably Trinity to get inside Punk’s head.

On June 28th Christopher Daniels partnered up with Raven to wrestle Punk and Cabana. Once again, Raven wasn’t able to get a victory over Punk. He was close after hitting the Evenflow DDT on Cabana but Punk entered and viciously beat Raven up with a chain to get the victory. Afterward, Raven challenged Punk to a dog collar match at Death Before Dishonor the following month.

Dog collar match from DBD

Their showdown at Death Before Dishonor is without a doubt the climax of the feud as it’s the biggest show for ROH thus far. At least, that’s what it seemed like. I believe the show had the most fans in attendance for the company up to this point. Colt Cabana got involved in the brawl and hit a DDT on Raven on a chair to allow Punk to get the cheap win. After the match, Punk tied Raven to the ropes and dumped beer on him. However, Tommy Dreamer made his ROH debut and attacked Punk. Dreamer would tie Punk to the ropes and Raven would dump beer on Punk! Raven would challenge Punk to a cage match after the show, which was accepted.

Apparently the cage match on September 6th was supposed to be a hair vs. hair match but TNA prevented that from happening and had Raven do that stipulation for them instead. The bout is a Clockwork Orange House Of Fun match which means there are weapons inside the cage. The match had gone nearly thirty minutes, but didn’t click well with the fans who crapped on it according to live feedback. So, the feud was continued. Raven was able to hit the Evenflow DDT through tables to get the win. But, the feud continues when perhaps it shouldn’t have. After the match, Punk crucified Raven to a straight edge X.

Raven being crucified by Punk

Their feud continued on September 20th where they picked the others opponent. Raven picked the legend Terry Funk to wrestle CM Punk. Punk picked his friend, Steve Corino. Punk would get involved and distract Raven allowing Corino to win the match. Punk had a figure four on Funk during their match but didn’t let go of the hold when Terry reached the ropes and was disqualified as a result.

The official blowoff in ROH for these two took place on November 28th inside of the steel cage. After over nearly seventeen minutes of action and after seven months of feuding, CM Punk closed the steel door on Raven’s head to escape the cage to win the match and the feud.

Bob’s Opinion:
I hadn’t been a follower of ROH when the feud took place, but once I heard about Raven competing in ROH I went out of my way to watch this feud. The first match I remember watching was their Death Before Dishonor match and I really enjoyed the match. After watching the whole feud, I know that the DBD match was really the highest point of the feud. Anything after that point in the feud is kind of missing something. The angle after DBD was nicely done and was a good effort to make their be a reason for the feud to continue. But, after a really poor match at the September 6th show, the feud lost most of its steam.

Punk vs. Raven was a popular match to take place on the independent scene in 2003 and 2004. The feud started in ROH, then went to MLW and there was a brief feud between the two for TNA. But, without a doubt the feud in ROH between these two was their best stuff. Anytime a feud is taken by other promotions it just feels flat and uninteresting to me.

I’ll consider the feud to be a good feud and the first real feud for Punk in ROH. Considering Raven was a rather big independent name at the time, having Punk win the feud makes him a huge asset to the company. I liked the feud and thought they both played their roles very well in the feud.

What are your memories of Punk vs. Raven in ROH? Share your thoughts below!

Thanks for reading.

Bob Colling of Wrestling Recaps

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