Ric Flair Set To Undergo Surgery Today

Last night, during the NBA halftime show of the Mavericks and Nuggets game, Charles Barkley gave a shoutout to Ric Flair, wishing him well before his surgical procedure on Friday. This was followed by some always appropriate “Woos!”

Flair is indeed undergoing a procedure, however, the exact nature of the situation is unclear at the moment, according to PWInsider.

No ties have currently been made to Flair’s significant health scare back in 2017. At the time, Flair was experiencing an intestinal blockage which resulted in a part of his bowel being removed. After undergoing surgery, he was hospitalized for over a month and had an external pacemaker inserted to help his heart beat normally.

“When I got out I only weighed 206 pounds, I lost 43 pounds,” Flair told Busted Open Radio in October 2017. “I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t even twist the top off a Gatorade bottle. I could stand on my legs, but I couldn’t walk, so I had to go to a rehab place for 20 days of physical rehab where they make you walk with a walker, and then a cane, and then you learn to walk by yourself. That took a while, and then I couldn’t drive a car. I ate anything in the world, but couldn’t gain any weight because all the food I was consuming was going towards repairing internal tissue that was ruined because when I went into the hospital my kidneys failed, I had respiratory heart failure and I had pneumonia all at the same time.”

Source: Wrestling Inc.

Anthony Carelli (Santino Marella) Says Transgender Women Wrestling Cis Females Is Wrong

Santino Marella aka Anthony Carelli has strong opinions about transgender women in sports, as well as men wrestling women, and expressed them on an Impact Twitch stream.

On the latest edition of Behind the Lights with co-host Alicia Atout, the ex-WWE star was asked about his thoughts on intergender wrestling — due to the upcoming ‘United We Stand’ match pitting Tessa Blanchard against Joey Ryan — and he didn’t hold back.

“If there’s a girl out there that says ‘this guy’s giving us attitude, I’m gonna step in and fight this guy because I saw that women can fight men because of intergender wrestling.’ And she goes out there and lips off and this guy’s a mental case and he just cracks her with his fist and shatters an orbital and busts her lip … and she wouldn’t have done it — perhaps — beforehand, because she didn’t get this inflated sense of confidence because of intergender wrestling.”

Carelli says that because of this, he believes there’s a social responsibility attached. He also notes that movies featuring superpowered women aren’t quite the same in his opinion.

The 45-year-old wrestler then goes on to talk about how the news is amplifying issues between men and women — as well exaggerating racial tension — and things aren’t as bad as they seem.

At this point, Santino shifts his attention to transgender athletes. “There’s cases now in MMA and wrestling where there’s trans girls that were born boys that are beating the sh*t out of females and that’s wrong,” he states.

“If you’re a guy — born a guy — and you become a woman, you’re accepted everywhere,” he continued. “But in the field of actual competitive sport, there has to be a barrier. And the barrier is based on, sorry, you were born a God damn man. You’re accepted as a human being and as a person and you are loved in every single way EXCEPT it’s not fair that you compete against women in sports because you were born with different physical biological attributes. And we have to be realistic about it and we also have to not be so sensitive.”

Watch the video at the link below (this conversation begins around the 15.30-minute mark).

https://player.twitch.tv/?autoplay=false&video=v395009798

Source: Pro Wrestling Sheet

Dixie Carter Responds To Randy Orton’s WWE SmackDown Line

Tuesday night’s WWE SmackDown Live saw Randy Orton mention former TNA President Dixie Carter during his promo to set up the AJ Styles match at WrestleMania 35.

Orton said, “This is the house that AJ Styles built, right? Well, what I don’t understand is, in 2002 AJ Styles was wrestling for $10 a night in a high school gymnasium, in front of 12 people, while I was here making my WWE in-ring debut. In 2004, AJ Styles was shaking hands with his opponents in the bingo halls and I was here becoming the youngest WWE Champion ever. In 2005, AJ was down in Florida getting a tan with Dixie Carter while I was here facing The Undertaker at WrestleMania. In 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, I was here and I was a champion. This isn’t the house that AJ Styles built, this house was built long before AJ Styles ever stepped foot in this ring. This is the house that Randy Orton built.”

After a fan pointed out how Dixie was trending on social media due to the mention on SmackDown, Dixie took to Twitter tonight and responded to Orton’s jab.

Dixie wrote, “@AJStylesOrg & I never had to tan as we were always golden. My historical recollection is different than yours @RandyOrton. #SDLive”

Styles vs. Orton is expected to take place at WrestleMania 35 after Styles issued the challenge on SmackDown. Dixie has been away from the spotlight after her last Impact Wrestling appearance in January 2016. This is not her first time tweeting on the WWE storylines as she has made a few comments on EC3, her storyline nephew in TNA, since he was announced for the main roster. Dixie also appeared as an interviewee on the WWE 24 special about WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle, which premiered in the summer of 2017 on the WWE Network.

You can see Dixie’s full tweet below. Orton and Styles have not responded as of this writing.

Source: Wrestling Inc.

Roman Reigns Wants To Make Changes To His WWE Character

Roman Reigns recently appeared on the Sports Illustrated Media podcast and said he wants to change his current character to include more of the real man behind the gimmick, Joe Anoa’i.

Reigns said he started that process the week after he returned to WWE TV following his second battle with leukemia.

“I honestly think last week, that was one of my goals. I was like, ‘OK, I knew the first week was gonna be crazy emotional, but I don’t wanna be the guy who comes out there and everybody gets semi-sad or gets super heavy all the time.’ I want people to have fun. I want to create escapism. It’s like a mini vacation [for the fans] on their couch. Let’s get into these storylines. Let’s take all this positive sensitivity being sent to me and shift it and send it to people in need. That’s where I’m at now, shifting all this positive energy from me to the people in need,” Reigns said.

Reigns said he believes it would be “pretty neat” if he can show different sides of himself over the next few years, including more of how he is when he’s chilled out, more comedy and more emotions.

He continued, “But also with the storylines and character, because we have introduced Joe, especially last week, I felt like there was a lot of Joe within the promo of Segment One. Even with the interaction with Seth [Rollins], I just feel like with me integrating the characters and who I am in real life and who I am on stage, for me to kind of mix them, it allows me to laugh at Roman a little bit and have a little more fun and be a little more loose as opposed to the stoic brawler. If you know me in real life, I’m kinda like my cousins [The Usos], I’m a bit of a clown, I act up, we goof off a lot. We’re silly. We’re big kids. We’re always goofing around, trying to laugh. If I can add that in the next couple of years, those layers of being chilled out, little more comedy, a few different emotions, I think that would be pretty neat.”

You can listen to the full podcast appearance at the link below:

https://art19.com/shows/si-media-podcast/episodes/c178559e-a132-48d3-9fe5-0bca20871e36/embed

Source: Wrestling Inc.

Jerry “The King” Lawler Says He Will Continue To Wrestle Despite Needing A Double Knee Replacement Operation

WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler revealed on a recent episode of his Dinner With The King podcast that he needs a double knee replacement operation.

Lawler said he will not undergo the surgery and he still plans on to keep wrestling, but he is undergoing other treatments to help with the constant pain.

Lawler talked about receiving the bad news from a recent visit to his orthopedic surgeon. They originally thought that he could undergo arthroscopic surgery to give him some relief but he underwent an MRI and x-rays, which revealed that he’s “bone on bone” and needs to have the replacement surgery on both knees.

“They’re not gone, you can still do whatever you want to do,” Lawler said of his knees. “You can still do whatever you want to do, it’s just very painful. There’s a lot of pain and the fact that your knee joints are bone on bone, instead of having cartilage or whatever that stuff is, that is supposed to cushion between your upper bone and your lower bone.”

Lawler said he will continue to wrestle and get shots to help with the pain. He joked, “I’m just going to suffer through it.”

Source: Wrestling Inc.

Chris Jericho Appearing In Upcoming ‘Jay and Silent Bob’ Film Reboot

Popular comedian, Film Maker and multifaceted talent, Kevin Smith revealed that All Elite Wrestling’s Chris Jericho will be appearing in the reboot of his Jay and Silent Bob film. Smith described the scene that Jericho is in as “stolen from some of the 80’s road movies I grew up watching.”

Although this is the first time Jericho is appearing in a film alongside Jason Mewes (Jay), this is actually the second time that Smith and Jericho have worked on a movie together. Jericho will be a part of the forthcoming horror anthology, Killroy Was Here which was also directed by Kevin Smith.

Smith also mentioned in the Instagram post that they have 8 days left to shoot the remaining third act of the film. The post reads, “I was there when #y2jayandsilentbob happened! Chris Jericho joined the Jay and Silent Bob reboot last week in a scene stolen from some of the 80’s road movies I grew up watching! This was the first time Jason Mewes shared screen time with Chris Jericho but it’s the second time I’ve worked with the Fozzy frontman (the first being on the forthcoming horror anthology #killroywashere). And both times, this super sweet Canadian kid has been cast waaaaay against type. If I ever get to make another movie after this one, I told Chris he’s gonna be a good guy (maybe we’ll finally do that Canadian James Bond comedy we talked about on the podcast that one time). After today, we only have 8 shooting days left on @jayandsilentbob Reboot, which is basically the entire third act. I’ve got 40 minutes of the movie already edited and I’ll cut more this weekend. Thanks to @dpronlevy, the movie is way better than I even wanted it to be (Reboot is easily one of my best looking movies to date). And starting at noon, it’s all cameos all the time from here on out, as fresh famous faces join us every day until we wrap!”

You can see the full Instagram post below:

Source: Wrestling Inc.

Backstage Talk On Jeff Jarrett’s WWE Future Behind-The-Scenes

As noted, WWE Hall of Famer Jeff Jarrett recently joined the WWE creative team and is now working under a full-time executive-level role.

There’s a feeling within WWE that Jarrett will end up being very influential behind-the-scenes, or at least become a key member of the creative team, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

One source close to the situation noted to the Observer that based on watching how Jarrett plays the game, they believe he will be the most influential guy in the company before too long, aside from Triple H and key writers like Dave Kapoor, Brian “BG” James, WWE Hall of Famer Michael “PS” Hayes and perhaps Paul Heyman, who is very influential right now due to his ties to RAW Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey and WWE Universal Champion Brock Lesnar.

It was also noted that Jarrett is well-known for being very charming if you work with him, and he has the ability to quickly make you feel like he’s a friend. Jarrett also has some authority when talking to talents that a non-wrestler isn’t going to have because a lot of the current WWE talents grew up watching him perform and they know he ran his own companies.

Source: Wrestling Inc.

Becky Lynch Calls Ronda Rousey A Fragile Fraud

The Twitter feud between Becky Lynch and RAW Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey continued this week as they prepare to do battle with Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania 35. As seen below, Becky fired a shot at Rousey and then called her a fragile fraud.

Becky wrote, “You thought you had this business all figured after giving me a few smacks on RAW, didn’t you? Delighted u were; couldn’t shut you up. Now look you’re back to being a fragile fraud. Bring all your smacks to WM, Ronnie, because where u wilt after a beating, I absolutely flourish.”

You can see their latest tweets below:

https://twitter.com/BeckyLynchWWE/status/1105644122239631360

https://twitter.com/BeckyLynchWWE/status/1105947510189617154

SPOILER: Triple H Reveals What Will Happen With NXT Championship Due To Ciampa’s Injury

SPOILER:

The NXT Championship match at TakeOver: New York has been confirmed following an injury that forced Tommaso Ciampa to relinquish the title.

Triple H announced at the NXT TV tapings on Wednesday that Johnny Gargano would face-off at TakeOver next month in a title match against the winner of Ricochet vs. Adam Cole vs. Aleister Black vs. Velveteen Dream vs. Matt Riddle moments later in the taping — which was won by Cole.

The NXT title match at TakeOver between Cole and Gargano will be two-out-of-three falls.

At the beginning of Triple H’s promo, the WWE exec admitted he had planned on announcing Gargano vs. Ciampa for the NXT Championship at TakeOver … but that obviously could no longer happen due to Tommaso suffering a neck injury that required surgery.

As we previously reported, Ciampa underwent surgery last week.

Chelsea Green Suffers Injury During NXT TV Taping

Former Impact Wrestling star Chelsea Green wrestled at Full Sail University last night for the first time during the NXT TV tapings and suffered an injury in her match.

Green announced the injury via social media and wrote:

Today I had the opportunity to wrestle for the first time at Full Sail for WWE NXT, after years of dreaming of it! Wow, it was everything I had imagined it would be!!! Of course, with this job comes occupational hazards. Unfortunately, I broke my wrist mid-match & will require surgery first thing tomorrow morning. It sucks. I’m upset, I’m angry, I’m sore… but I’ll be back soon. This is just a tiny bump in the road to many goals I have set for 2019! Oh yeah…I won the match.

Chelsea Green signed with WWE in October 2018.

Image result for Chelsea Green Suffers Injury During NXT TV Taping

Source: Pro Wrestling Sheet