As previously reported, WWE issued a statement to The Associate Press and indicated that they have no plans to bring back Hulk Hogan to the company anytime soon

“At this time, WWE remains committed to its decision,” WWE said in the statement.

Dave Meltzer discussed the statement released by WWE on today’s installment of Wrestling Observer Radio and indicated that the reason Hogan isn’t being brought back has to do with the sponsorship with WWE. The feeling right now is that advertisers aren’t ready to look past Hogan’s racist remarks he made in the leaked audio from his sex tape. Basically, not enough time has passed and WWE isn’t willing to take the risk.

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Austin welcomes Al Snow back to the show for part two of his interview.

Austin recalls trying to prepare for his debut in WWE as well as his WrestleMania 13 match against Bret Hart by attending Snow’s training school for submissions. Austin was out of action for a while before that match, and he wanted Snow’s help to knock some of the rust off. Vince McMahon thought it was a great idea and flew Austin to Snow’s school.

Snow recalls rolling around the ring with Austin at that time, attempting to teach him some submissions. Unfortunately, every time Snow would roll Austin in a certain submissive position Austin would fart. Austin beings laughing, admitting that he remembers that very well. He points out that he was probably living solely on beans and alcohol during that time.

Speaking about his introduction to the wrestling business, Snow informs that he had been watching wrestling from the very early age of 4 or 5. He watched shows from the original Sheik’s territory, but ultimately that territory fell apart due to Sheiks inability to pay talents.

The post Steve Austin Show Unleashed Recap w/ Al Snow – Today’s Matches Too Scripted, Keeping Kayfabe Alive, Dinner Date With “Head”? More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Garcia is joined on today’s show by Nia Jax.

Jax speaks about her relationship with her cousin, The Rock. She says that Rock really is a dork, and he is truly himself at all times. She thinks that’s why he’s had so much success in Hollywood, because realness translates to people. Garcia agrees entirely and says that she had so much fun working with Rock over the years. Their backstage interview segments during the attitude era will go down as some of the most entertaining segments of all time.

Jax mentions that watching The Rock wrestle at ringside at WrestleMania 28 was what really inspired her to start a career in professional wrestling. Initially she didn’t want Rock to know that she wanted to start training, but he soon caught wind of it and got her a tryout with WWE. He pointed out that professional wrestling is a tough business, and the only way to know if you’re cut out for it is to have a tryout in WWE.

As soon as she stepped into the ring and started to roll around she fell in love with it instantly. Other than head trainer, Bill DeMott, she didn’t tell anyone that she was related to Rock because she wanted to earn her opportunities based on her merits, not because she was related to Rock.

Jax adds that Tamina Snuka has had a great influence on her, and even though they’re on separate brands Tamina has still kept in touch. They both hope to meet in the ring someday, perhaps at WrestleMania, where they can show the world what they can do. She says it was great to get a taste of that when they met at Survivor Series, and she was thrilled with the crowd’s reaction to that.

The post Lillian Garcia’s Chasing Glory Recap w/ Nia Jax – Relationship with The Rock, Chasing the Women’s Title, Friendship with Alexa Bliss, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Dolph Ziggler recently spoke with NBC Sports to promote tonight’s Tribute To The Troops show. Here are some highlights from the interview:

His gradual downward spiral in WWE: “It was very gradual. It went from ‘Wow, we have something special here with Dolph. The crowd is feeding off of him whether he’s a good guy or a bad guy.’ But after a while, a really good match here and there or a special moment here and there is not enough to create a star. So after a big match and then just going back to being Dolph, it’s hard to not be Dolph.

“I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve been able to make the most out of those situations. Anytime people see me or the character, you can kind of see how they mesh together and I’m pretty sure there’s nobody who blends that gray area with the character better than me. And that’s a fact.”

Things he is looking to explore with his meta-type character in WWE: “We’ve opened the fourth wall a lot with this business and we’ve let reality become a huge part of it, which is awesome. Being able to interact with fans every single day gives them the ability to know what’s going on behind the scenes a little bit and you can actually use that as part of your character.

“It would be stupid to let them in on all of these different aspects of the show and then pretend that I win every night because then we’re basically calling them stupid for believing that. But if I go ‘Hey I don’t win all of the time, but I’m really good and you know this and I know this’ and one of the nights could be the time that we go with it and that’s very realistic in this world. It’s one thing to joke around with fans, but to disregard huge aspects of a career would be a mistake.”

What he would like to change about his current character: “Yeah I’d be about three inches taller, so I could be a 10-time world champion (laughs). I’m a big 80s hair metal guy, like a David Lee Roth or someone like Nikki Sixx or Vince Neil to where I could put on a big show and be awesome at wrestling, but in this character right now where I focus on throwing that all away because I see the transparency in characters and my character hates on them.

“It’s a special place that I get to go and I walk to the ring with disdain for the fans knowing that they sit there and bury everything that we do, but then they cheer for who their supposed to because they’re such hypocrites it’s so great.”

The post Dolph Ziggler Says If He Was Three Inches Taller He’d Be A Ten Time World Champion appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane.

Russo informs that he worked on the debut Aro Lucha show this past weekend and he calls it the greatest experience he’s had in the wrestling business. He hates having to leave his house to travel for wrestling shows or conventions, but this show didn’t feel like work to him for one minute.

By all accounts everyone who attended this show had a great time and the reviews online have been great. Unfortunately some dirt sheet writers still had some criticisms, and Russo simply doesn’t understand why they’d want to tear down the show after the promoters spent a lot of time and effort guaranteeing that their debut show would be a hit.

Lane assumes that these dirt sheet writers criticized the show because Russo was involved and these people love to bash anything that Russo’s involved with. Russo admits that this might be true but if it is, that’s a very sad situation.

Moving into his thoughts about this week’s episodes of RAW and Smackdown Live, Russo says that WWE’s two flagship shows have basically become televised house shows at this point. Lane agrees and thinks that the last three weeks of programming have been particularly poor.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – RAW & Smackdown Analysis, Killing Absolution’s Heat, Moving Owens & Zayn to NXT? More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Edge and Christian open today’s show by speaking about ‘Woken’ Matt Hardy’s arrival in WWE. Christian calls Hardy’s development of this character “genius”, and points out that this character is unlike any other thing in WWE right now. He also says that the beauty of a character like this is you can basically do anything you want and get away with it because the character is so crazy.

Edge agrees with Christian’s points and adds that like most people, it took him a while to understand fully what was happening when TNA began teasing this character over a year ago. He quickly realized just how incredible Hardy’s imagination is, and he began to see how spectacular this creation was.

Christian mentions that it’s great to see Matt get his time in the sun as a singles competitor, after Jeff seemed to have the more successful singles run in WWE and TNA over the years. Edge points out that Jeff has the “thing” that very few people have. Matt had to adapt and use his incredible imagination to keep himself relevant and he’s done that time and time again over the last two decades.

The post E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness Recap w/ Bayley – Thoughts on Turning Heel, Rise of the Women’s Division, Who Does She Want to Work With? More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Ross informs that AXS TV is going to have a 3-hour WrestleKingdom 12 Special on Saturday, Jan. 6th. Ross mentions that the highly anticipated match between Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega will be one of the matches that will be presented during the 3-hour special. Ross says he’s really looking forward to calling these matches with Josh Barnett.

He was quite excited to see ‘Woken’ Matt Hardy make his debut on WWE programming this week. He says that this is a very original, compelling character and Hardy should be very proud of what he’s accomplished in creating this character and successfully brining it to Monday Night RAW. Ross says he’s very proud of what Hardy has accomplished in the business, and he compares Hardy to Chris Jericho in the sense that he continues to successfully redefine his character.

Ross says he has heard rumours that Alberto El Patron is planning to retire in the next couple of years. He points out that El Patron has had a very long, successful career and he’s made a lot of money so he should be able to retire comfortably. However, he adds that wrestlers say they’re planning to retire all the time only to continue working for another decade, so he’ll wait for the official news before believing that El Patron is actually hanging up his boots.

The post The Ross Report Recap w/ Matt Riddle & John Morrison – “Woken” Hardy’s WWE Debut, Riddle’s UFC Release, Morrison on “Wrestling’s Purpose”, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Jerry Lawler is joined on today’s show by his co-host, Glenn Moore.

Lawler informs that after his work was done as part of the Survivor Series kickoff show this past Sunday, he went backstage and watched the PPV with The Undertaker and Kane, who were backstage at the event. He says that John Cena walked past the room at one point, backed up, looked in and said, “That’s cool”, and walked away again. Lawler agrees that it was pretty cool to sit and watch the show with those two guys.

Moore asks Lawler if he thinks we’ll see The Undertaker return to the ring, and Lawler informs that Undertaker looked really good this past Sunday. After last year’s WrestleMania Lawler thought we had seen the last of Undertaker, but after seeing how good he looked on Sunday, Lawler thinks we’ll see ‘Taker return to the ring at some point.

Lawler speaks about the attitude of some fans who are unhappy with WWE spotlighting older talents like Triple H and Kurt Angle. He says the wrestling business relies on older talents to usher in the new wave of Superstars. It’s important that well known names like Angle and Triple H are kept strong so that when it comes time for them to put over a young, budding star, the torch being passed will mean even more.

The post Dinner With the King Recap – Sexism in Wrestling, Do Wins & Losses Matter in Wrestling? Undertaker Set for A Return? More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Edge & Christian open today’s show speaking about last Sunday’s Hell in A Cell PPV.

They both agree that the opening bout between The Usos and The New Day was a terrific match and they credit the originality of a lot of the spots in this match. Edge points out that it felt as if The New Day were trapped in the Usos’ penitentiary at times, and it was also great to see Big E go into ‘Terminator’ mode in this match.

Christian thought the WWE Title match between Jinder Mahal and Nakamura was put in a tough spot, but he also points out that a World Title match should be able to live up to expectations whenever it’s placed on a card. Edge points out that Nakamura hasn’t really shown up yet on the main roster and he’s not sure why. He also points out that Jinder Mahal needs to be able to get to another gear during big PPV matches and he hasn’t shown the ability to do that yet.

Edge & Christian both agree that the main event between Kevin Owens and Shane McMahon delivered as suspected, helped a lot by a fantastic build during this entire storyline. Edge does point out that whenever Shane McMahon is in a match like this people know he’s going to jump off of something, so they’re often sitting on their hands waiting for it to happen. Nonetheless, in this case he thought the fans were with the match throughout.

The post E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness Recap w/ Kevin Owens – Hell in A Cell Analysis, Working with Shane McMahon, Rocky Road to WWE, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane, and on today’s show he’ll be taking live calls from his listeners.

Ross from the United Kingdom calls into the show and says that a lot of people seem to take the wrestling business too seriously, and he credits Russo for being able to handle all the negative criticism that has followed him around since he left the business. Russo thanks the caller and says life is too short to take fake fighting this seriously, and he wishes people would understand what’s really important in life.

The caller goes on to ask Russo if there were any particular talents in TNA that were hard to work with, because Russo has gone on record as saying that there were a lot of people there during his time of employment who were more focused on their wrestling moves than developing their character.

Russo says he worked with a lot of great talent during his time in TNA and while he wouldn’t really say that they were physically hard to work with, it was more of a difference of philosophy that caused the issues. Russo always saw the character as more important than the wrestling, but some of the performers during this time started to put priority on the in-ring action.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – TNA Superstars Hard to Work With, WCW’s Sting/Vampiro Feud, How Would He Book A Shield Reunion? More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.