Matt Hardy to kickoff Impact.
X-Division Championship: (C) Trevor Lee w/Shane Helms VS Tigre Uno
Kurt Angle VS Drew Galloway
Lashley VS Bram
Madison Rayne VS Jade
Plus EC3 returns for the first time since losing TNA World Heavyweight Title to Matt Hardy
Source: WrestlingINC
Flipps Media announced today that WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross is working as a celebrity spokesperson, executive advisor and investor for their new FITE TV. They issued the following:
Flipps Media Launches FITE TV with Jim Ross as Spokesperson
Free mobile app delivers live and on demand fighting sports video on TV
San Mateo, CA (February 9, 2016) – Flipps Media, a popular mobile app for entertainment enthusiasts to easily discover and project digital content onto a TV using only a smartphone, launches a new product, FITE TV. FITE is a one-stop shop for viewing all sports within the fighting discipline globally including MMA, professional wrestling, boxing and traditional martial arts.
“The global popularity of fighting sports was a catalyst to our decision to developing this new product, “said Kosta Jordanov, co-founder and CEO of Flipps Media. “Flipps has been downloaded by more than 15 million people and many of them gravitate towards our sports content. With over 300 million fighting sports fans and 150 million practitioners worldwide, FITE plans to leverage the global popularity of the sports by providing seamless TV access to all fighting related content.”
FITE is launching free and pay-per-view programming including live events, shows, movies and documentaries in collaboration with over 20 organizations such as: TNA Wrestling, Tuff-N-Uff MMA, Ring of Honor Wrestling, Legacy Fighting Championships, WWN Live, World Armwrestling Championships, USA Sumo and Xtreme Power TV.
“By leveraging the global popularity of combat sports, Flipps existing audience and their unique TV streaming technology, FITE is set to disrupt this space,” said Tim Draper, investor in Flipps Media. “As an early investor in Justin.TV to become Twitch, I’ve seen the power of niche video focus in establishing an exceptionally strong brand, attracting key partners and delivering an amazing value to viewers,” added the legendary investor Draper, inventor of viral marketing and an investor in numerous great companies including Skype, Hotmail, Tesla, Twitch, and Baidu.
FITE partnered with Jim Ross as the brand’s celebrity spokesperson, executive advisor and investor. Ross is widely known as the “Voice of WWE.” With over 40 years of experience in the professional wrestling, boxing and mixed martial arts world, the 2007 WWE Hall of Famer is one of the most prolific wrestling announcers and renowned wrestling executives at Mid-South Wrestling, Turner Broadcasting’s World Championship Wrestling and more recently for over 20 years at WWE. The two-time New York Times Bestselling Author also hosts a wildly popular weekly podcast, The Ross Report, with over 750,000 weekly listeners on Podcast One and is a main stay in the Twitter Universe with 1.4 million followers. As WWE’s EVP of Talent, Ross was instrumental in attracting and developing such world-renowned personalities as The Rock, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, John Cena, Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar.
“Getting involved with FITE is an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. It is the future of televised fighting sports,” said Jim Ross, executive advisor at FITE TV. “There is no easier way to stream wrestling, MMA and other fighting sports content including special commentaries on those sports by me.”
To learn more about FITE, go to fite.tv or to download the app, log on to Google Play:bit.ly/1QnPolu or iTunes: apple.co/1PxQGKT.
About FITE TV:
FITE TV is a product of Flipps Media and is a free mobile app that is a one-stop shop for viewing all sports within the fighting discipline globally including MMA, professional wrestling, boxing, and traditional martial arts. With only access to a smart TV and a smartphone, with the FITE app, viewers can watch live events, on-demand programming, interviews and fighting sports related movies and documentaries on the big TV screen.
More information can be found at fite.tv.
About Flipps Media:
Flipps delivers on-demand entertainment to any nearby connected TV from your mobile device without any additional hardware. The company has offices in San Mateo, New York and Sofia, Bulgaria and is backed by Tim Draper, Earlybird Venture Capital, Aslanoba Capital and LAUNCHub. Flipps’ patented technology immediately works with over 350+ million connected TVs and is compatible with over 7,000 manufacturer models requiring no set up, no pairing devices, no cables, no dongles and no set top box. The Flipps mobile application is free and available on iTunes and Google Play. More information can be found at flipps.com.
After announcing his retirement from wrestling, Daniel Bryan appeared last night on RAW in Seattle to bid farewell to the WWE fans. Bryan said: “I’m grateful.”
Below is video from his farewell address to the fans:
AJ Styles appeared on Friday’s episode of Chris Jericho’s podcast Talk Is Jericho.
You can listen to here at this link.
Daniel Bryan posted on Twitter that he will announcement his retirement tonight on RAW.
Source: WWE.com
Last week, after showing defiance in the face of Brock Lesnar, Dean Ambrose’s bravery was met with cruel vengeance when The Beast Incarnate ambushed The Lunatic Fringe with a ring-shaking F-5. The brutal attack sent a chilling message to both Ambrose and Roman Reigns — Lesnar’s opponents at WWE Fastlane.
As outside forces look to turn WWE’s brothers-in-arms against each other in the lead-up to that high-stakes bout, Lesnar will be on the warpath Monday night once again. Will Ambrose get his pound of flesh from The Beast, with The Big Dog by his side, or will the promise of a WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match against Triple H at WrestleMania drive the best friends apart physically and psychologically?
What’s Y2J’s endgame?
Ever since AJ Styles scored a huge victory over Chris Jericho in his Raw debut, Y2J has taken an intense interest in The Phenomenal One’s career, going so far as to challenge Styles to a rematch on this Thursday’s SmackDown. It’s clear that Jericho sees some of himself in the ring veteran, and is seeking to push Styles to his limit whenever possible. But is there a part of Jericho that is attempting to derail the WWE newcomer’s career?
The Phenomenal One has approached each of his matchups with pitbull-like tenacity since emerging during this year’s Royal Rumble Match, and it’s that aggression that has captured the imagination and the attention of the WWE Universe. Is Jericho jealous of what Styles might be capable of on The Road to WrestleMania? After all, as history has proven, Y2J isn’t exactly fond of sharing the spotlight. Expect Jericho to pay very close attention to whatever awaits Styles on Raw.
As we witnessed on SmackDown, Becky and Sasha are by no means exchanging friendship bracelets at this point, but they have formed a united front against Naomi and Tamina as they separately pursue the Divas Championship. Will this uneasy union pay off on Raw?
Will The Wyatt Family cut The Big Guy down to size?
Goldust is a lot of things: bizarre, unpredictable and unsettling are a few words that spring to mind. But he’s also persistent, as evidenced by his continued attempts to woo R-Truth into a tag team partnership known as The Golden Truth.
Last Thursday before SmackDown, The Bizarre One disguised himself as a bellhop and ambushed his would-be partner in a hotel lobby. Goldust left disappointed and empty-handed, save for a pair of R-Truth’s underwear that he might or might not have tried on later that night. Yet, something tells us he’ll make another attempt to win Truth over on Raw. Will Goldust find success this week?
Source: PWInsider Elite via WrestlingINC
I mentioned over the weekend that the planned Braun Strowman vs. The Undertaker singles match at WrestleMania 32 may have been nixed already. While several ideas for The Wyatt Family have been tossed around lately, Taker vs. Braun was penciled in as Vince McMahon was a big fan of doing the match and has taken an interest in building Strowman.
The online backlash in the first 24 hours after the Braun vs. Taker news broke may have changed WWE’s plans, according to PWInsider. A very well-placed source noted that the bad reaction to the match may have caught on within the company and the match may have been nixed within 24 hours of the news getting out. It should be noted that Vince is always changing plans and they could go back to Taker vs. Braun.
In regards to what the back-up plan for Taker would be, a source noted that those details had not trickled down to other sources yet and likely only a small circle of people were aware of exactly what those plans are. It was noted that Taker’s opponent at WrestleMania will likely be someone totally unexpected.
Source: Wrestling Classics via WrestlingINC
It’s been widely speculated that former WWE World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan may be appearing on Raw tonight from Seattle, fresh off of his brand new Tide Pods commercial. However, a new report has surfaced, which says that Bryan tried to leave the WWE, but was blocked from doing so.
Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer posted on the Wrestling Classics forum, saying that “He did give notice and was told he did not have the right to give notice.”
Bryan’s contract has been frozen due to an injury, a provision in Superstar contracts that helps WWE make up lost time when a talent is sidelined. The company was at odds with former WWE Champion Rey Mysterio due to this same clause.
As is pertains to Bryan not having the right to give notice, based on the available talent contracts, that appears to be true. The contract can be pretty much permanently frozen unless Bryan takes the WWE to court.
Bryan has been out of action since last April, when he suffered a concussion in a six-man tag match in the UK. In total Bryan has only been able to wrestle a little under three months over the course of the last 22.
Source: WrestlingINC
Sin Cara returned to the ring at a WWE live event in San Jose, California last night. He has been out of action with a shoulder injury suffered in his December 28th RAW match against Big E.
Cara teamed with WWE United States Champion Kalisto to defeat Los Matadores. Below are some photos and a message from Cara:
Source: WrestlingINC
Natalya hit a milestone on Friday night when she wrestled her 800th WWE match at the live event in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She posted this message about family on Instagram:
