With The Rock’s status for WrestleMania XXX still up in the air, Vince McMahon has put out the edict for the WWE creative team to begin figuring out matches for other top stars, under the assumption that The Rock won’t be there.
It’s said that Vince is looking to potentially bring in two guys. While Batista and Bill Goldberg are possible, Vince feels there is only one star that can fill The Rock’s boots – Steve Austin. Austin and WWE are still said to be “very far apart” on money for his return.
A source noted the longer this drags on, the more leverage Austin is going to have.
WWE legend Ted DiBiase Sr. recently spoke exclusively to PWTorch.com about why his son has not been on television in recent months. The interview was conducted prior to Ted Jr.’s announcement earlier today that he will be leaving WWE when his contract expires. The “Million Dollar Man” said:
“The reason he’s not been back on TV is they don’t want to just throw him back out there. I’ve had a lot of frustration there, too, as a dad, in trying not to be biased. I asked all my friends – Arn Anderson, Mike Rotunda, the guys who are the producers now – I said, ‘Did I miss something? Is there something wrong with my kid? Does he not have it?’ They say, ‘Oh no, he’s one of the best wrestlers we got.’ I said, ‘What’s the deal?’ They said, ‘We just have to find something for him.’”
* Pre-show match
Five-way number 1 contender Tag Team Turmoil Elimination match
3MB vs. Jack Swagger and Antonio Cesaro vs. The Usos vs. Darren Young and Titus O'Neil vs. Tensai and Brodus Clay
* WWE Tag-team championship
The Shield(Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns) (c) vs. the winners of the Pre-show match
* World Heavyweight Championship
Alberto Del Rio (c) vs. Rob Van Dam
* Fatal Four-Way match for the WWE Divas Championship
AJ Lee (c) vs. Natalya vs. Brie Bella vs. Naomi
* WWE United States Championship
Dean Ambrose (c) vs. Dolph Ziggler
* 2 on 1 Elimination Handicap match
CM Punk vs. Curtis Axel and Paul Heyman
* WWE Championship
Randy Orton (c) vs. Daniel Bryan
The following are highlights from a recent Sam Roberts interview with WWE Hall Of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin:
Seeming happy now and if he was an angry guy during his peak with WWE:
“There’s been so many times that people think I’m mad all the time because Stone Cold was always anti-authority or against the system during the peak of my run in WWF… But as a human being or just in life, I’m the happiest guy in the world.
“When you’re selling out 20,000 seat arenas every single night of the week, it doesn’t matter what night of the week it is, there’s nothing to be mad at. When you go get your paycheck, there’s a reason to be happy. It’s funny, I go into so many meetings and people think I’m going to be mad, ticked of, not have a sense of humor or drunk. A lot of the things that Stone Cold did on the air, but that was a character. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of me is in that character, but it’s not me as a human being.”
Wrestlers being upset with fans chanting “What?!” during promos:
“The fact that my presence is still felt, or my influence is still felt, it’s an honor and a privilege… Everybody always says ‘What?!’ ruins everybody else’s promos. It does not! If you leave that gap in between your sentences, your words, your phrasing… don’t interrupt your cadence and give them that end for the ‘What?!’ If you just keep talking, just like I’m doing, I don’t give you a chance to say it.”
According to a recent report, WWE changed the originally planned finish to the Brock Lesnar vs. CM Punk match at the recent SummerSlam pay-per-view event in Los Angeles. The decision was made to switch the finish in the middle of the last week leading up to the event.
Apparently one of the main reasons WWE made the switch was because The Undertaker has reportedly agreed to work against Lesnar at the upcoming WrestleMania XXX event in 2014.
The general consensus within WWE was that if they are going to promote Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania XXX, then Lesnar shouldn’t lose to Punk at SummerSlam, as that would have been his final match before the ‘Taker bout, and would send him into WrestleMania with a 2-3 overall record since returning to the company.
The following are highlights from a recent Grantland.com interview with WWE’s Triple H:
On his role as head of talent relations for WWE:
“Everything that has to do with talent, from the legends to the developmental system, to the live events and all of its operations and the towns we book, to where the pay-per-views are, all of it. Obviously I have a massive team that does all that, but they report to me.
“I started in the office full-time a few years ago. Vince had been bugging me for a while, saying ‘When are you going to stop messing around in the ring and come get a real job?’ So one time when I was injured, I shadowed him in the office for three months. I did everything he did. When I finally started full-time, he was like, ‘Take a few months. I want you to dig into everything. Have meetings with finance, dig into every part of this company and see what you think needs work."
“And the thing I came back to him with was we have this huge global marketing juggernaut, but we’re a victim of our own success. We’ve shut down all the other territories. There’s almost no place for guys to go learn, and when they do, they’re learning how to work in a junior high in front of 50 people. It’s a completely different thing than working in front of 10,000 or a million on TV with a camera in your face."
“So I started this little division called talent development. It was basically to build a bridge between creative and the developmental wrestlers. Now, other than Vince saying, “OK, you can have that amount of money,” he doesn’t have anything to do with it. Honest to god, he hasn’t even seen the Performance Center yet. He’s supposed to go next week."
On Stephanie McMahon’s role in WWE:
“Technically, creative reports to Steph, but Steph is kind of the aggregator. Her office does everything from the magazine to digital to the shows, so it’s funny when people will say, ‘Oh, Steph and the creatives.’ She really doesn’t have anything to do with the day-to-day. I mean, she’ll weigh in on something if Vince asks or if the writers ask her what she thinks before they bring something to Vince.”
On a physical WWE Hall Of Fame building:
“Halls of fame are not a lucrative business. But here’s the bigger reason: If and when the time is right to do a Hall of Fame, it’s not just going to be a place where you walk in and say, “Oh, look, there’s a pair of trunks.” If we do it, it’ll be an immersive experience. With technology the way it is, a 4-D experience, whether it’s a ride, or, picture this: You walk into a locker room, lights go down, smoke comes out, and Andre the Giant walks out in a hologram and stands there and talks to you. That’s what it has to be. But is the Hall of Fame the priority? Absolutely not. It’s out there someplace in the stratosphere. But if we do it, it takes a lot of research because we want to do it right.”
On what is written about him on the internet:
“I wish I had the brainpower and the wherewithal and the drive to be as maniacal and devious as people f—-ing think I am. I’d be f—ing Darth Vader. I’d run the Empire, and I guess maybe that’s how some people see it, right? They’d say ‘Oh, he went in there and he buried this guy,’ and it’s like, f—, I had nothing to do with that. I didn’t even know he was coming in until I saw him that day.”
WWE Superstar John Cena spoke with WWE.com after undergoing surgery on Wednesday to repair a torn triceps.
“I plan on using the next couple months to rehab and get healthy as I can, as quickly as I can, Cena said. “My goal is to return to WWE healthy and strong, and since my expected time away is only six months, this shouldn’t affect WrestleMania.”
Cena talked about this being an exciting time in WWE.
“WWE has never been and never will be dependent on one man, with the exception of Mr. McMahon,” he said. “In the coming weeks, WWE will be filled with exciting programming as always, and I’ll have the best seat in the house! Let’s see who captivates the WWE Universe.”
