In light of CM Punk’s allegations regarding WWE’s medical staff and the subsequent defamation lawsuit filed by Dr. Amann against CM Punk, WWE continues to have the utmost confidence in the ability and expertise of our world-class team of physicians, including Dr. Amaan.
CM Punk claimed this past November that during the Royal Rumble pay-per-view event on January 26, 2014 he performed with a baseball-sized, purple lump on his back located near the waistband of his tights.
WWE’s investigation has shown the following:
* CM Punk did not discuss this alleged condition with WWE’s team of physicians and trainers, nor did he discuss it with anyone in our Talent Relations department.
* Subsequently, WWE has no medical records documenting this alleged condition.
* The first time WWE was made aware of this alleged condition was when we received a letter from CM Punk’s attorney on August 22, 2014 after WWE terminated his contract.
* There is clear video evidence from the 2014 Royal Rumble, which allows all to decide whether there is any appearance of a baseball-sized growth on CM Punk’s back.
WWE also provided video of Punk in the 2014 Royal Rumble, which can be seen above.
– UFC Women’s Bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey has been outspoken on PED users in the past, as well as her admiration of former champion Anderson Silva. However, after Silva’s multiple drug test failures, it appears the uber-popular Rousey doesn’t feel the same way these days.
“It’s so ingrained in my psyche. I don’t think I could ever look at anyone the same ever again after they do that,” Rousey said to MMA Junkie this week.
Rousey was randomly drug tested last week ahead of her UFC 184 main event with undefeated Cat Zingano, which she passed. Wrestling Inc will have full live coverage of UFC 184 next Saturday.
– The UFC Fight Night 61 weigh ins are complete, and all 24 fighters made their mark. The only hiccup was the fact that Anthony Waldburger’s fight with Wendell Oliveira was cancelled after Waldburger fainted while cutting weight. A similar incident happened with Renan Barao ahead of UFC 177.
The full UFC Fight Night 61 card is below:
Main Card (Fox Sports 1, 8 p,m, ET)
Frank Mir (#13) (261) vs. Antonio Silva (#8) (264)
Edson Barboza (156) vs. Michael Johnson (#12) (155)
Sam Alvey (186) vs. Cezar Ferreira (185)
Rustam Khabilov (#14) (156) vs. Adriano Martins (156)
Iuri Alcantara (136) vs. Frankie Saenz (136)
Santiago Ponzinibbio (171) vs. Sean Strickland (171)
Prelim Card (FOX Sports 1, 6 p.m. ET)
Jessica Andrade (#10) (135) vs. Marion Reneau (134)
At the 1992 Royal Rumble, Ric Flair had won the WWF World Championship and was announced to defend the championship against Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania VIII in April of that year. That all changed when Sid Justice screwed Hogan over an an episode of SNME and the Hulkster wanted some revenge. So, Flair needed a new challenger and that new challenger was found in the form of “Macho Man” Randy Savage…
Leading into the big showdown at Mania VIII Flair had been saying that Miss Elizabeth had been involved with him before she got with Savage. As many people know, Savage was really protective of Elizabeth in real life, so the idea that Randy went off the wall at these accusations isn’t far fetched and played well into reality. Flair would even go so far as to post photos of himself with Liz in WWF Magazine, the photos of course would turn out to be Flair superimposed over Macho’s body. Flair and Mr. Perfect also claimed that they had some inappropriate photos of Elizabeth that they would reveal at the event after a victory.
Their match at WrestleMania was simply incredible. The emotion of it all was captured wonderfully. Savage having to fight off Mr. Perfect on the outside, getting his knee whacked with a chair, and Elizabeth coming down to ringside against officials wishes, all just made it really memorable. The ovation Savage got after rolling Flair up to win the championship was just icing on the cake. After the match, a bloody Flair decided to kiss Elizabeth and add more fuel to the fire for this feud.
They would take a break from feuding on television but had countless house show matches, including a tour of Steel Cage matches. They attempted to throw more heat onto the story with Flair providing us with a recorded conversation he had with Miss Liz, where it appeared Liz was now with Ric. This angle was abruptly dropped however due to the real life marriage of Savage and Elizabeth becoming very strained. The couple would soon divorce.
At SummerSlam in August 1992 it was announced that Savage would defend the championship against the Ultimate Warrior in a rematch from WrestleMania VII. Leading into the event, Ric Flair and Mr. Perfect claimed that one of the two men in the title match had paid for their services to help them win. This lead to Savage and Warrior not trusting each other, but during the actual match it was soon revealed it was all a ploy by Flair. At the event, Flair and Perfect attacked BOTH men and Savage retained the championship after a count out finish.
Flair regaining the WWF World Championship on Primetime.
Flair would get a TV rematch with Savage, and the match aired on September 14th on Primetime Wrestling. The match originally took place on September 1st in Hershey, PA. Flair was able to regain the championship by locking in the figure four in the middle of the ring and pinned Savage, who refused to tap out from the pain.
Savage wouldn’t get the chance to regain the WWF World Championship due to Flair losing the championship to Bret Hart in October. The feud would continue however in November at the Survivor Series. Leading into the event it was supposed to be Savage and new found partner the Ultimate Warrior against Ric Flair and Razor Ramon. However, Warrior would leave the promotion due to a conflict. So, Savage needed a replacement and he was able to recruit Flair’s own executive consultant, Mr. Perfect, in the days leading in to the event!
The recruitment of Perfect would turn out to be a good thing for Savage as they would win the match at Survivor Series by disqualification. This would mark the last time Savage and Flair would get involved against one another in the WWF.
They would, however, meet again in World Championship Wrestling. Flair returned to the promotion in February and Savage would come to WCW in the winter of 1994. Savage quickly aligned himself with Hulk Hogan, and Flair was focused on taking both of them out, as a result. We’ll just focus on Savage this time around. However, it wouldn’t be the last time the two would meet by a long shot!
Moving on to WCW…
At Uncensored 1995, Savage was wrestling Avalanche (John Tenta) when a now “retired” Flair, dressed as a woman, jumped the guard railing and attacked the Macho Man on the floor. This beat down and Flair’s involvement in a match involving Hogan and Vader later on in the show, would lead to the Hulkster and Savage to demand Flair to be reinstated into WCW.
Flair would return to pay per view in a wrestling capacity when he teamed with Vader to take on Savage and Hogan at Slamboree in May. Naturally, Flair would be pinned by Hogan at the event, but after the match Flair ended up putting the figure four leg lock on Savage’s father, Angelo Poffo, in the ring! That would spark up the feud between the two of them in WCW.
WCW Great American Bash 1995
They were supposed to have a match on the June 3rd edition of Saturday Night but instead Savage attacked Flair backstage and Ric escaped in a limo to get away from Macho. They would however square off at the Great American Bash on June 18th. Savage was accompanied to the ring by his father, Angelo, who had been attacked by Flair at the previous pay per view. Flair was still able to get the victory after hitting Savage with Angelo’s cane!
Their feud continued at Bash at the Beach the following month with the stipulation that there would be wrestlers dressed as lifeguards around ringside making the match a lumberjack match. Savage would finally get his revenge on Flair by pinning the Nature Boy with a top rope elbow drop that July.
After a few months apart, the feud would continue in the winter of 1995. Randy Savage won the vacant WCW World Heavyweight Championship at World War III in November. At Starrcade in December, Flair would defeat Savage to regain the championship after beating Sting and Lex Luger in a triple threat match to earn a match with Savage in the main event at the pay per view.
Savage would reclaim the WCW World Heavyweight Championship on the January 22nd edition of Nitro in 1996. These two would meet again at February’s Superbrawl VI inside a steel cage. At the event, Elizabeth turned on Savage by handing Flair a high heel shoe and allowing Flair to hit Savage to regain the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Elizabeth would rub salt into the wound by spending Randy’s money and bragging about it.
Flair would get two more television victories over Savage on the June 17th edition of Nitro after Mongo hit Savage with a briefcase. Then again on the August 12th edition of Nitro Flair got the win on Savage after a now heel Hulk Hogan hit Savage with a steel chair.
For most of 1997 and 1998, Savage and Flair didn’t have any interaction with one another thanks in large part to the New World Order angle and Flair also having issues with Eric Bischoff. Savage left WCW in the summer of 1998, but when he returned they would continue their feud for a period of time in 1999.
New and improved Randy Savage in 1999.
Savage returned to WCW in April 1999 and would be the special referee for a fatal four way match at Spring Stampede where Flair defended the championship against DDP, Hulk Hogan and Sting. Savage helped DDP win his first WCW World Heavyweight Championship by hitting a top rope elbow drop on Flair in the middle of the ring.
At Slamboree in May of 1999, Ric Flair’s protégé referee Charles Robinson fought Savage’s valet Gorgeous George in a match where if George won, then Savage would be reinstated in WCW. She would win the match after Savage got involved and George hit the elbow drop. The next night on Nitro, Savage teamed with Madusa to beat Ric Flair and Charles Robinson in a mixed tag match. This would mark the final match involving Flair and Savage to cap off the feud.
Bob’s Opinion:
This has to be one of my favorite rivalries in wrestling history. I’ve always been a huge fan of their match at WrestleMania VIII. That’s a match I watch at least several times a year. Their whole feud in 1992 is memorable to me. Actually, their entire feud even in WCW is top notch stuff. Their matches never failed to deliver, either.
Sure, the matches are the same formula for the most part, but their matches hook me in every time. There are countless memories in this feud as well. Savage winning at Mania 8, Flair attacking Savage’s father in 1995, Elizabeth turning on Savage at Superbrawl VI, and the reinstatement of Savage in 1999. There is never a down period between these two while they are feuding.
What makes this feud great is that neither man was dominate throughout the feud. That was a negative for the Flair/Hogan feud. Hogan pretty much dominated Flair throughout their feud. Not only did Flair and Savage exchange wins over this lengthy feud, they had countless matches that were incredible and had great emotional value.
The Elizabeth turn tied into the feud that started in 1992. Remember, Flair claimed to have been with Elizabeth before she was with Savage. Four years later, she goes to Flair. It just fits into the feud perfectly.
While the feud from 1992-1996 was fantastic with some emotional stuff attached to it, the feud in 1999 was more of a comedic value than anything serious. The involvement of Charles Robinson and Gorgeous George increased the humor of it all for me personally. That part of the feud didn’t hurt the feud overall, though. These two just worked perfectly with one another.
In my opinion, this feud ranks easily in my top ten of all time and could possibly be in the top five. A fantastic overall feud between two icons in the wrestling business.
Feel free to share your memories on this feud below!
A ringside doctor for the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) hit two former wrestlers with a defamation lawsuit Thursday.
The suit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, focuses on statements Phillip Jack Brooks and Scott Colton– known to WWE fans as CM Punk and Colt Cabana, respectively — made about Dr. Christopher M. Amann last year on Colton’s “The Art of Wrestling” podcast.
Amann, a Will County resident who has worked as the senior ringside physician for WWE since 2010, claims the duo’s statements were false, defamatory and put him a false light by improperly insinuating “a lack of integrity … and/or inability or lack of competence to perform his professional duties as a medical doctor.”
Claiming his reputation has suffered as a result of the former WWE wrestlers’ comments, Amann is seeking more than $1 million in compensatory damages, as well as an undetermined amount of punitive damages.
During the Nov. 26 episode of Colton’s weekly podcast, Amann says Brooks “repeatedly and falsely impugned the integrity” of him as a doctor by saying he misdiagnosed a growth on the wrestler’s back as a fatty deposit and disregarded requests to remove it.
Brooks went on to say “the lump grew to the size of a baseball, was purple and morphed into a life-threatening, ‘full-blown’ MRSA staph infection,” according to Amann’s suit, which includes a lengthy transcript of the episode as an exhibit.
Brooks, who has transitioned into world of Mixed Martial Arts since his departure from the WWE last year, said it wasn’t until he went to his wife’s doctor that he learned the lump was a serious infection and was told he could have died from it.
That doctor, according to Brooks, cut and squeezed out the lump’s contents in what he described to listeners as “the most painful experience of my entire life.”
During the episode, Brooks also said Amann didn’t know how to treat a concussion, saying the doctor once prescribed him antibiotics for a concussion. He explained that when he was struck by his opponent during his Royal Rumble match last year, he motioned to Amann and told him he had a concussion.
“[A]nd he was like, ‘What do you want me to do?’ And I just started laughing and I was like, ‘Doctor, you are one of the most worthless piece of s**t I’ve ever met,” Brooks said on Colton’s podcast.
Amann says all of the statements Brooks and Colton, both of whom live in Cook County, made, literally and in their implications, are false.
“Amann was not requested by Brooks to treat and/or excise a lump, let a lone a purple, baseball-sized lump,” the suit asserts, further alleging that Brooks never sought treatment for or showed him a lump and that he never prescribed Brooks antibiotics for a lump or concussion.
Contrary to the former WWE wrestler’s statements, Amann says he followed proper protocol by directing Brooks to leave the ring after a preliminary diagnosis of a possible concussion and even requested further evaluation and treatment in the training room.
In regards to Colton, who left the WWE in 2009 and hosts the weekly podcast that features interviews with professional wrestlers, the suit alleges he helped Brooks falsely depict Amann as a lazy and bad doctor by urging listeners to “hear the struggle” in what Brooks was saying so they could understand why he retired.
Amann claims Brooks and Colton “knowingly fabricated the false and disparaging statements” about him, knowing they would be heard by third parties, such as WWE fans and the media, given their celebrity statuses.
The suit says the Nov. 26 episode of Colton’s podcast has been streamed more than 1 million times on YouTube and more than 10,000 times on SoundCloud, in addition to downloads on iTunes and other websites.
The statements they made were also picked up and reported on by media outlets, including the Washington Post, as well as online sites like Buzzfeed and several sports and WWE-related blogs.
In his complaint, Amann says the statements made the defendants “are highly offensive in that they accuse [him] of a gross lack of integrity as a medical doctor, an inability to perform his professional duties as a medical doctor, and in placing the financial interest of his employer above life-threatening health conditions of his patients.”
Amann is represented by Phillip J. Zisook and Brian D. Saucier of Deutsch, Levy & Engel in Chicago.
Thanks to Graem Jaye for the following TNA Impact Wrestling spoilers for tonight’s episode from Glasgow, Scotland:
* Eric Young defeated Tommy Dreamer in a bloody hardcore match.
* Ethan Carter III came out with Tyrus but was interrupted by MR. Anderson. Rockstar Spud attacked Ethan from behind and also took out Tyrus. Anderson went to shave Ethan’s hair but Tyrus made the save. Anderson and Spud held Tyrus down and shaved his head.
* Awesome Kong defeated Angelina Love. Gail Kim came out to stare at Kong after the match.
* Kurt Angle comes out and hypes a battle royal for later.
* Mickie James returns to TNA and cuts a promo.
* MVP became the new #1 contender to the World Heavyweight Title by winning a 20-man battle royal. The final four were Angle and members of The BDC. MVP eliminated Angle to win.
* Al Snow vs. Grado is up for the main event. Grado got a massive pop again. Grado got the win and the two shook hands after the match. The BDC came out after the match and attacked Grado. Drew McIntyre (Galloway) made his TNA debut to a huge pop and made the save for Grado to end it.
Diamond Dallas Page has been back to work at his Accountability Crib in Atlanta but wrote on Twitter that he now has staph infection in his throat due to the recent throat surgery he had. Page wrote the following:
“Hey Guys
I just wanna give you an UPDATE! I saw Dr. Carothers yesterday and he says I have a really bad staph infection in my throat but because of the operation everything is on the Heal now… BELIEVE IT OR NOT! I didn’t TALK for 2 days and have been speaking with a soft tone for the last 5 but today I’m picking up the volume a little. Hopefully I’ll be good to start teaching class next week. As for the DDPY WORKSHOPS and PERSONAL APPEARANCES… EVERYTHING IS ON and I can’t wait to see you ALL! Again THANK YOU SO MUCH for all the well wishes they were actually really AMAZING smile emoticon Now Keep up the Great work and keep me posted! Also there are many DDPeeps out there that were concerned so would you mind SHARING this POST so the word gets out that I’m BACK! DDP”
Thanks to @eshgk1 and @WillForTweet for the following WWE SmackDown spoilers from tonight’s tapings in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida:
* SmackDown opens with Daniel Bryan coming out to a big pop. The Miz and Damien Sandow are out next. Miz gets mad at Sandow’s pop and sends him to the back to get an Egyptian Cotton Towel. Bryan attacks Miz and the match is on. Bryan wins a short match with The Yes Lock.
* Ryback vs. Kane is next. The crowd died for the most part except for a few “feed me more” chants. Ryback wins with Shellshocked and got a pop for picking Kane up with ease.
* IC Champ Bad News Barrett vs. R-Truth is next with Dean Ambrose on commentary. Truth rolled Barrett up for the non-title win after Barrett was distracted, talking trash to Ambrose, who was ignoring him.
* They air a video package for John Cena and Rusev and a Sheamus return vignette.
* We get another Bray Wyatt promo. He says, “find me or I’ll find you.”
* The Ascension vs. Big E and Xavier Woods is next. The Ascension wins a short match after Fall of Man on Big E.
* Roman Reigns vs. Luke Harper is next. They botched Reigns’ intro by playing it too early and then cutting it off. Harper got a lot of offense in and blocked a Superman punch with a brutal super kick. Reigns comes back with a spear for the win.
* Erick Rowan vs. Big Show is next. Big Show destroyed Rowan and got the win. Apparently Rowan didn’t get any offense in.
* The Bella Twins come out to a pop and join the announcers for commentary. Paige vs. Cameron is next. Paige wins by submission and trades trash talk with The Bellas.
* Stardust vs. Goldust is announced for Fastlane.
* Jimmy Uso vs. Tyson Kidd is next. Jey Uso, Naomi, Cesaro and Natalya were all at ringside. The match starts but Rusev runs out and takes out both The Usos and Kidd. Rusev hits a flying heel kick and looked great, according to a correspondent. Fans chanted for Cena. Rusev yelled into the mic in Bulgarian and left.
* Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins with Joey Mercury and Jamie Noble banned from ringside is next for the main event. Big Show and Kane come out to watch from ringside. Eric Rowan and Ryback come out right after them. Rollins wins with a Curb Stomp but Ziggler looked like a million bucks. This was said to be a great match. Mercury and Noble came out and The Authority surrounded the ring with Ryback and Rowan inside. They beat them down. Kane and Big Show hit a double chokeslam on Rowan and Rollins hits a Curb Stomp. The Authority stands strong tall until Ryback comes back for the save. Ryback gets overwhelmed and beat down. Rollins also hits a Curb Stomp on Ryback and this is apparently where SmackDown ends.
WWE issued the following response to PWInsider in regards to the wrongful death lawsuit filed by Cassandra Frazier, widow of former WWE star Nelson Frazier Jr., who appeared as Viscera, Mabel and Big Daddy V:
“WWE has not been served with a lawsuit by Cassandra Frazier. If served, we will vigorously contest this lawsuit brought by the same lawyers who have been soliciting people to sue WWE without merit.”
