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

Russo addresses a tweet sent out by Kevin Gill this past week. Gill implied in the tweet that Russo attracts sexist and racist followers. Russo says that anytime someone says things like this it becomes a personal matter.

Russo’s been married to the same woman for 34 years so he has no idea how he can he be sexist. He says it’s fine to critique his work in the wrestling business, but don’t throw allegations like this around, especially when you don’t know the person you’re talking about. Russo says he hasn’t done a racist or sexist thing in his life.

Lane plays a clip of Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer from this past week, when Meltzer said that nobody goes as far back with the UFC as him and former referee John McCarthy. In the same sentence, Meltzer admitted that he doesn’t work for UFC. Russo laughs hysterically, pointing out that this is classic Meltzer, trying to take credit for things that he has nothing to do with.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Defending The Miz, Crying Over Professional Wrestling, Is Reigns’ Vest to Blame for Fan Resentment? More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Triple H recently spoke with NBC Sports to promote Saturday’s NXT Takeover: War Games event. Here are some highlights:

How they finally decided to do a WarGames match: “For me WarGames has always been a very viable concept. It wasn’t just a name, it was a branding of a match that was meaningful in WCW. It’s something I’ve always had interest in. I’ve always liked the concept as a fan. As we move forward with NXT, it’s really started to become its own brand. We’ve had opportunities to do different things, whether that is ladder matches, or cage matches. But there was an opportunity that came along, given the weekend with Survivor Series and given the position [NXT] is in to brand something out and create something that NXT could own. It seemed like the perfect time to bring it out, so I dusted it off. Throughout the years, I was aware of Vince’s feelings about it. There were some things about that match that he liked and there were some things about the concept that he didn’t necessarily think worked, especially in today’s world. So I brought it back up to him and we walked through the process and I said here’s the way I think we can make this match work for us and he liked it, agreed with it, thought it worked great for NXT and was real happy to do it. So here we are.”

His goal for the match: “When you do this, the goal is not to go backwards. My goal isn’t to make people go, ‘Oh, is this as good as it was back then?’ I want to put a slightly different spin on it, so that it begins again and takes a life of its own because it can’t be what it was. I grew up watching it in the Dusty [Rhodes], [Ric] Flair, Four Horseman vs. the world sort of iteration of it and this cannot be that. It has to be today’s version of it. Hopefully it’ll be something that our fan base really enjoys. I think the NXT fans are going to love it. I know the talent is very excited about it. When we announced the match and word began to spread on the Internet, a bunch of main roster talent came to me and said, ‘oh my God, you’re doing WarGames? Anyway I can do something in that?’ For me, it’s also a cool nod to Dream [‘The American Dream’ Dusty Rhodes]. It’s cool that his vision is able to continue.”

The complexity of the match: “There is some complexity to it, even though there are some people saying, ‘But it’s three teams, it isn’t the same as it originally was.’ The thing is we don’t have the Four Horseman, with a manger, to make a five-man team. It convoluted the concept to me if you hogedpodge things together. When the stories logically go to the next place and they just kind of connect together, that’s when they’re the best and I feel like that’s how this happened. Once we knew we were going to do it, it organically started to come together. You have Authors of Pain, you have Sanity, you have the Undisputed Era. There’s a three-way thing that is combustible and needs to be solved inside a double cage … what other way would you solve it? (Laughs) So you organically get there and then there were some logistical ways to figure out the issues that were created by the concept. For example, someone could say, ‘well, why doesn’t the rest of the team just run out and try to get into the cage?’ Well they can’t because they’re in this other cage. Hopefully this becomes a yearly event. Is this exact iteration of what we’ll see in the future? I don’t know. I hope so, but if there’s something in this that doesn’t work, then we’ll tweak it a little and try to perfect it. Everything goes through its little changes in the beginning and then where it ends up you just kind of naturally end up and you forget about those little changes that happen over time. When you go back and look at them 10 years later you might go, ‘oh my God, I forgot that they started it that way.’ I’m really excited. I know the NXT locker room is really excited about doing this. There’s something really cool about being a part of something that’s historic, but making it new and making it the future. I think it’s a good opportunity. I think everyone is feeling the weight of that. The TakeOver events are always kind of special for the NXT talent because they’re not often and they really encompass the storylines together, but this one seems to have more weight than normal, even for the people who aren’t in the WarGames match itself.”

The Undisputed Era: “I think they’re talented guys. You’re never 100 percent sure with anybody who walks in the door, but there are certain talent that you see come in who have an innate ability right away. Are there things we have to work on with them? Absolutely, they’re learning every day. The one thing I liked about those guys and why I was confident in ‘giving them the ball right off of the bat’ is because when we spoke and talked about things, they absorbed it. They’re sponges. They’re students of this. They want to learn. They’re not walking in the door going, ‘I know, I know how to do this.’ They’re walking in the door going ‘Wow, I have this opportunity to work with Shawn Michaels at the Performance Center, or with Terry Taylor, or this person, or that person.’ They can learn TV production from all of these different people. They are wide open to it. To me, that’s what makes you successful. It’s the guys that walk in going ‘ah, I got this’ that make it difficult. When you have someone who just wants to be a student, wants to learn and wants to, no matter how good they are, just take their ability to a whole other level. In this business, you constantly have to be willing to morph, grow, and think differently because it’s the nature of the beast. There are guys who have that hunger and desire to constantly evolve and you can see it from the first time you speak to them.”

The post Triple H Reveals How He Pitched War Games to Vince McMahon appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

The following are backstage notes from tonight’s Bound for Glory event, courtesy of PWInsider:

– While the event was announced as a sell out, there will still be standing room tickets for tonight’s Bound for Glory available at the TD Place box office.

– There are still tickets are still available for all the Impact tapings this week at the TD Place box office and TDPlace.ca.

– Tonight’s BFG show and this week’s television tapings will be the first events booked under John Gaburick, Scott D’Amore, Sonjay Dutt, Jeremy Borash, and Abyss. All the television leading up to tonight was filmed under Jeff Jarrett.

– There has been some concern among wrestlers that they will be asked to renegotiate deals to take lesser money at some point over the course of this week’s tapings.

– No one in Canada has told me they’ve seen Bob Ryder and it appears he’s doing his duties from Nashville.

– The company’s seamstress Jolene George was scheduled for this week and then at the last minute was told the company was not bringing her in.

– The company didn’t bring in at least part of the production team that handled pre-tapes.

– There were also several company staffers who were not able to get into Canada, including the person who drives the merchandise to the shows.

The post Backstage BFG Notes: Management Change, Concern Among Wrestlers, Production Team Issues appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

While speaking to E! Online, Lana credited Nikki Bella for her help with transitioning from a manager role to an in-ring performer on WWE television. It was Nikki’s assistance that helped her on not giving up on pursing her dream to compete in the ring.

“Nikki has helped me so, so, so much,” Lana said. “There have been times in my wrestling journey—and you’re going to see this on the show—when I’ve gotten discouraged because the success doesn’t come overnight. It’s a lot of getting in there and failing. She was really the person that kept on encouraging me not to give up, to be resilient, to be brave and to have courage. At times, I would think maybe I shouldn’t continue to pursue my dream of competing in that ring, but she kept on telling me not to give up and keep on training. I wouldn’t be where I am now if it wasn’t for Nikki Bella.”

You can check out the full interview here.

The post Lana Credits Nikki Bella for Not Quitting on In-Ring Career appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Sports Illustrated’s Justin Barraso appeared on Wrestling Inc’s podcast this past Wednesday and claimed that John Cena was the person behind Baron Corbin’s push coming to an end.

“I heard the kiss of death was Cena. [Cena said] that Corbin wasn’t ready. I can’t say anymore right now, that’s kind of what I’m trying to work on as we speak.”

While it was being speculated via Dave Meltzer that his push came to an end because of his recent activity on Twitter, Barraso mentioned that he didn’t hear anything of that nature.

“I haven’t heard about the social media. I mean, he’s a heel right? So he should play one on social media. I don’t think that was the issue, but then again they kind of pick and choose who they defend in those cases. I don’t know, but right now, I don’t think that’s [social media] the reason.”

The post John Cena to Blame for Killing Baron Corbin’s Push appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Seth Rollins, who is set to face the team of Sheamus and Cesaro for the RAW Tag Team Championship at Sunday’s SummerSlam event, spoke with the The Mirror recently. Here are some of the highlights from the interview:

Speaking about his return from injury, about his face turn and whether it was easy to win the fans over, Seth said:

No it’s actually been very natural, it’s not like I expected to show up on Raw and within moments everyone love me. Obviously when I got hurt the first time, people were upset about it and felt for me personally. I came back and there was an instant excitement and buzz about my return, but I didn’t expect people to instantly embrace me or trust me. So for me it was just a very organic process, to go from where I was, to where I am now. A lot of time when you’re out injured is spent with internal reflection and kind of looking at yourself in the mirror and deciding who you want to be and where you fit in. A lot of that real life stuff kind of carried over into what we’ve been doing for the last year or so now. It’s been a wild ride but I definitely feel like we’re pointing in the right direction and things are looking up.

On using the Ripcord Knee as his finisher:

The Pedigree was a part of my life when I was in the Authority and it made sense for the time being, after sealing the deal and beating Triple H with it at WrestleMania, that was a good place to retire it. At the end of the day I want to be my own person, I want to be my own performer, and I want to have a finisher that’s synonymous with me and not with my mentor. I’ve always prided on doing things a little differently and I wanted to bring something to the table that people and fans of WWE maybe hadn’t really seen. The Ripcord Knee as it’s been called recently is something that’s very dangerous, it can come out of nowhere and I think if you’ve seen it in other places, you know the damage it can do. Plus I thought it was nifty that my biggest weakness, my right knee which has put me out of action twice now, has now become my biggest strength and it’s what I use to put my opponents away with. There’s a nice bit of storytelling there as well.

You can check out the full interview on The Mirror here.

The post Seth Rollins Reveals Why He Retired The Pedigree from His Moveset appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Several readers have passed along the following photos that came off WWE’s Snapchat account of what appears to be Paige backstage at tonight’s RAW event:

We have received word that this is not Paige featured in the photos. If you look closely you can tell that the person behind Charly Caruso is Sasha Banks.

The post Rumor Killer on Paige Being Backstage at Tonight’s RAW appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

A user on Reddit made accusations that Ryback was creating fake accounts on Amazon to leave positive reviews for his merchandise.

Ryback has apparently been making shill accounts on amazon to 5-star review his own products, and 1-star fake merchandise from SquaredCircle

Ryback responded to the accusations on Twitter with the following remarks:

Unfortunately there are bad people out there. People seem obsessed to always look for something. Not 1 account has anything to do with me. https://t.co/qMWxud7Jty

— The Big Guy (@Ryback22) July 22, 2017

It turns out that Ryback was telling the truth and the person giving the reviews on Amazon came clean:

There ya go mark…let the rest of your sheep community on reddit know. Now find another wrestler to make shit up about. Have a great day. pic.twitter.com/oEMD1uEUwm

— The Big Gal (@KYBACK) July 22, 2017

The post Reddit Users Accuse Ryback of Making Fake Reviews on Amazon appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Bischoff is joined on today’s show by his co-host Nick Hausman.

Hausman asks Bischoff for his opinion on seeing Dixie Carter on WWE programming this Monday night. Bischoff says that Kurt Angle, and his return to WWE is a big story within that company right now, and Carter was obviously a big part of Angle’s post-WWE career. It didn’t surprise Bischoff to see Carter on Angle’s documentary at all, because there was never really any animosity between WWE and TNA.

In terms of Angle’s current mystery storyline on RAW right now, Bischoff says that he knows exactly what’s going on there. He says that WWE is simply copying the Clair/A.J. Styles angle from TNA a few years back. He says that all signs point to Dixie Carter being the person on the other end of Angle’s phone, and we might see her on RAW soon.

Bischoff says that if Carter is actually going to be a character on WWE programming, he hopes that there are a whole new batch of Producers ready to focus on getting Carter through her segments. He says that it would often take her an entire day to prepare for a 2-minute segment in TNA because she’s simply not a talented performer.

The post Bischoff on Wrestling Recap – Dixie Carter in WWE, Paige/Del Rio Drama, Samoa Joe vs. Brock Lesnar, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Dean Ambrose is scheduled to defend his Intercontinental Championship against The Miz at Extreme Rules with the stipulation being that the title will change hands should Ambrose get disqualified.

It’s being speculated that Ambrose could get disqualified and lose the championship at the hands of Elias Samson. The Belief is that to follow up on one of the lyrics to his song this past week, which included the phrase “an eye for an eye.” If you remember, The Miz attacked Samson during his debut match and is likely the person to whom the “an eye for an eye” line is directed at.

The post Possible Spoiler for Sunday’s Intercontinental Title Match at Extreme Rules appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.