Matt Hardy continued to tease his character being “woken” this weekend. Below are videos of Hardy at last night’s WWE live event in Salt Lake City, doing his new take on his “Broken” character:
NERIC is with me. My METAMORPHOSIS is rapidly occurring. I shall be more powerful than EVAH. https://t.co/6SWIUDVOtB
AXS TV has announced they will air Wrestle Kingdom 12 on January 6, 2018 at 8:00 p.m. ET (7:00 CT) for a special three hour re-airing of the PPV that takes place on January 4.
The show has gained a considerable amount of buzz in the United States for the addition of WWE star Chris Jericho vs. Kenny Omega of The Bullet Club.
You can check out the official press release below including a promo video clip.
AXS TV PREMIERES NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING’S BIGGEST SHOW OF THE YEAR—WRESTLE KINGDOM 12—ON SATURDAY, JAN. 6, 2018 AT 8pE IN A THREE-HOUR SPECIAL EVENT
Championship Battles Between Kenny Omega & Chris Jericho, Kazuchika Okada & Tetsuya Naito, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Jay White Air Saturday Night
Additional Coverage of Wrestle Kingdom 12 Will Premiere as Part of AXS TV’s Weekly Series Friday Nights at 8pE Beginning Jan. 12
Los Angeles, CA (Dec. 3, 2017) – As the exclusive U.S. television home for New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), AXS TV will premiere the promotion’s biggest show of the year, Wrestle Kingdom 12, in a three-hour special Saturday, Jan. 6 at 8pE/5pP. AXS TV FIGHTS CEO Andrew Simon made the announcement that the Wrestle Kingdom 12 national television broadcast marks the fastest turnaround time for the spectacular airing just two days after the event takes place at the Tokyo Dome. AXS TV’s Wrestle Kingdom 12 special will showcase the event’s three headlining championship matches: IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Champion Kenny Omega vs. Chris Jericho, IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada vs. G1 CLIMAX 27 Tournament Champion Tetsuya Naito, and IWGP Intercontinental Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Jay White.
“While NJPW has delivered some of the greatest matches in wrestling history over the past year, we’ve seen viewership growth on AXS TV thanks to New Japan’s expansion in the U.S. and our commitment to air matches closer to when they take place,” said Simon. “With Wrestle Kingdom as their marquee annual event, we thank NJPW and TV Asahi for their support and are proud to kick off 2018 with this historic primetime Saturday night special featuring the dream match-up of Kenny Omega vs. Chris Jericho.”
AXS TV will continue its coverage of Wrestle Kingdom 12 following the special over five episodes Friday nights starting Jan. 12 at 8pE/5pP on the network’s award-winning weekly series, including the IWGP Jr. Tag Team Championship match between RPG 3K (Sho & Yoh) vs. The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson), the four-way IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship bout featuring Marty Scurll vs. Will Ospreay vs. KUSHIDA vs. Hiromu Takahashi, and the ROH World Title Match between Cody and Kota Ibushi. The championship matches featuring Tanahashi vs. White, Omega vs. Jericho and Okada vs. Naito will also have an encore airing during this time.
Leading up to the Wrestle Kingdom 12 special on Jan. 6, AXS TV will air an eight-hour marathon of NJPW starting at 12pE/9aP. Episodes in the marathon will feature matches that set up the main card at Wrestle Kingdom, including Omega winning the IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Title versus Tomohiro Ishii at the G1 Special in USA; Omega vs. Naito in the G1 CLIMAX 27 Tournament Finals; Omega’s first U.S. Heavyweight Title defense at Destruction in Kobe; an encore of the three-hour King of Pro-Wrestling special headlined by Okada vs. EVIL; and two episodes from Power Struggle headlined by Omega vs. Beretta featuring a special appearance by Jericho.
AXS TV produces the English language version of “New Japan Pro Wrestling” in association with TV ASAHI CORPORATION, the distributor of NJPW.
Ex-WWE wrestler Rikishi launched a new series on Twitch today featuring wrestlers from his training school taking directions from people on the internet — and it’s pretty wacky.
The show is called Live Interactive Wrestling and is a take on the Twitch Plays style of gaming.
To those unfamiliar, that means viewers have the ability to dictate the “players” action in the game by typing in the chat room and things get pretty chaotic.
The press release explains, “You call it–We execute it! No more screaming at the TV or the computer without being heard. Yes, we can see all your posts live on Twitch chat and the wrestlers will respond from the squared circle. If you can’t take it, don’t dish it. You can also help your favorite wrestler win his or her match multiple times a week LIVE.”
The pro wrestling world has been buzzing about Ronda Rousey‘s recent training sessions and now she’s posted video of herself in the ring with Natalya.
In an advertisement for RondaRousey.com, the UFC star explains what she’ll be sharing on her site as clips of her life flash by. That’s when quick moments of Ronda’s wrestling training are shown.
This includes working out at the WWE Performance Center and learning technique at Santino Bros. Wrestling Academy with Natalya in Bell Gardens, California.
Andre The Giant‘s larger than life story will be told in a new documentary produced by Bill Simmons and HBO, who released the movie’s first trailer on Friday.
The flick will be called He Was a God and the 30-second teaser features a voiceover saying, “He was at once a real human, but at the same a mythological figure.”
Andre’s doc was announced back in February with Simmons attached as an executive producer on the project — WWE is involved as well — and will be utilizing “never-before-seen footage.”
After running the last set of Impact Wrestling tapings in Canada, the next set of tapings will take place from Universal Studios in Orlando, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. The tapings are currently scheduled for January 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th. This will tape Impact Wrestling through March 2018. There are plans for the March tapings to take place somewhere in Canada but not in Ottawa as it was hard to draw a crowd there. The Observer notes that it’s believed Impact will hold more tapings in Canada because they are less expensive to hold there and the company is trying to do everything they can right now to trim the budget and not lose money.
According to TMZ Sports, Ford is reportedly suing John Cena for selling his $500,000 2017 Ford GT, which violated a contract with the car company. Cena was picked from thousands of applicants to be able to purchase the vehicle, but also agreed to keep the car for at least two years, before being allowed to sell it. Initially, only 500 of these were made by Ford. In a statement, Ford claimed:
“Mr. Cena has unfairly made a large profit from the unauthorized resale flip of the vehicle, and Ford has suffered additional damages and losses, including, but not limited to, loss of brand value, ambassador activity, and customer goodwill due to the improper sale.”
According to the suit, Cena did tell the company he sold the car – along with other property – for financial reasons. Ford is looking for Cena to return profits from the sale along with other damages. The WWE Superstar is currently promoting the animated movie, Ferdinand, in Dubai after doing promotional work in Australia, earlier this week.
There’s been speculation on WWE NXT Superstar Lio Rush being gone from the company but PWInsider reports that he’s still under contract as of this morning. Fans started speculating on his status after he apparently removed all WWE references from his Twitter account some time this week and changed his location from Orlando back to Washington, DC.
Rush has been out of the ring since late October after the tweet he made poking fun at Emma’s WWE release. Rush received Twitter heat from various WWE talents and it was noted that there was immediate talk of firing Rush but his quick apology posted to Twitter saved him. It was also noted that Rush would have to put in serious work before the heat was off him.
Rush has made a few tweets in the past few days that are fueling the speculation on his status. One tweet simply says “REFLECTION” and the other is the hourglass emoji. It should be noted that he often tweets references to time and clocks so the hourglass may not be anything cryptic. You can see some of his recent tweets below:
Matt Hardy‘s “breakdown” on Raw this week seemed to indicate that a version of his “Broken Matt” persona is on the way and Impact Wrestling exec Ed Nordholm has released a statement about it.
Nordholm told Sports Illustrated, “We have seen the character development and will be interested to see where they take the concept.”
Ed continued, “Our new talent agreements all incorporate language that allow talent to continue to use their IMPACT persona after they leave the company. We are working with our legal team to amend our existing agreements to extend this to all of our current and former talent.”
Despite the public trademark battle with Matt this year, it seems like they’ve changed their stance.
SI also claims that the recent tease for a Broken Matt-like character isn’t false hope. The publication reports that WWE is creating a character that will not be labeled as Broken, but similar.
