** Tessa Blanchard tweeted out that women should support each other and current NWA World Women’s Champion Allysin Kay responded to Tessa’s tweet with the following:
“Remember when you spat in a black woman’s face and called her the N-word in Japan? Was that you “supporting women“? The AUDACITY of this tweet”
NXT’s Chelsea Green added on to the comment[s]:
“You’ve consistently put down, bullied, and belittled countless female coworkers, including me. Is that support?”
Priscilla Kelly accused Tessa Blanchard of degrading her as well and Tessa directly reacted to Chelsea Green’s tweet and indirectly reacted to Allysin Kay and noted that those allegations were not true.
NXT U.K.’s Isla Dawn wrote the following about Tessa Blanchard:
“As someone who experienced your bullying firsthand, received regular verbal abuse, was spat on, had rumours spread about me, dealt with multiple attempts by you to blacklist me from other companies, (plus more), I just pray you now follow your own advice.”
La Black Rose, who Allysin Kay was referring to her initial tweet, commented on the situation and confirmed that the incident happened in Japan in 2017.
Rebel chimed in and expressed that she feels people can change over time but confirmed Tessa’s behavior and bad attitude in Japan.
All Elite Wrestling’s Shanna added that Tessa did more “nasty stuff” in Japan and backed La Black Rose’s story.
Mia Yim posted a meme about the situation. Renee Michelle, who is close with La Black Rose, shared that when Rose told her about the situation with Tessa in Japan, she told Renee to keep it to herself as Rose was afraid of being blackballed by way of Blanchard. AEW’s Big Swole gave her recollection of a recent meeting she had with Tessa at WrestleCade and wanting her and La Black Rose to hash things out.
Kavita Devi, who was in the Mae Young Classic with Tessa Blanchard, quote tweeted Blanchard’s tweet about women supporting one another and Devi noted, “This is not what happens in Mae Young Classic.”
** The Wrestlenomics YouTube page posted the audio from an interview WWE Co-President George Barrios did at the Citi 2020 Global TMT West Conference. George Barrios says that WWE is going through a bit of generational transition period with the reigns being passed from John Cena to Roman Reigns. That topic came about while discussing the growth of WWE in 2019:
“That was a lot of work from a lot of people at WWE. Multiple functions, content functions, product function, fortech function, the marketing function and so that was great. Probably the thing that, and to some degree, a little bit out of our control, but we like to think we control quite a bit, was the engagement in over the first few months of the year, and obviously we’re going through a generational transition from John Cena handing the baton to Roman [Reigns] so if you think back in the history of WWE, it was Andre to Hulk, to Stone Cold to The Rock to John Cena — it’s now moving to Roman, and within that transition, or during that transition, we had — it was kind of a somewhat unique confluences of injuries and absences for a variety of reasons early in the year and you could definitely feel it in the engagement metrics so that was unforeseen heading into the year.”
George Barrios was asked about All Elite Wrestling. He said that he loves a good fight and WWE believes that they are hard to compete with but do not take anything for granted.
“So look, I’m a kid from Queens. So everything’s a competition, everything’s a fight. So I would say that’s one of the things I love about WWE. My DNA fits within that so we don’t take anything for granted, and we are serious like a heart attack around fighting for our unfair share. Having said that, I think it’s fair to say that there’s been other wrestling in the United States and abroad, who we respect [and the] people behind it, we respect the talent, respect what they do. It can be tough to compete with us because we’re so good at what we do. We’ve built up capabilities and competencies over a long, long time. How to build stars, how to present the content, how to engage fans now over multiple platforms and we think we’re hard to compete with but I wouldn’t say we don’t take anything for granted. If you said to me, existential, do I feel that way? No, but I love a good fight so we enjoy it.”
** Sportskeeda had the opportunity to chat with NXT U.K. Champion WALTER, Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel ahead of NXT U.K. TakeOver: Blackpool II. WALTER was asked about having the U.K. Title belt, his passport and luggage stolen before an EVOLVE show in December. WALTER said that none of the original items have been recovered and the current NXT U.K. belt he has is a replacement.
“I got nothing back. It’s just, the window got smashed of the car while we were eating lunch, and then they just took all the luggage, and the backpacks and stuff so, it’s just gone. I had to fly home with nothing and go to the Austrian embassy in New York and get an emergency passport and go home.”
** Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is starring in a comedy series on NBC about his life titled, “Young Rock”. The series takes a look back at Johnson’s formative years and he is appearing in every episode. Johnson will also serve as the Executive Producer of the show while Nahnatchka Khan and Jeff Chiang are co-writing the pilot. Johnson previously hosted The Titan Games on NBC.
** University of Minnesota wrestler Gable Stevenson posted a photo of himself and Brock Lesnar after a workout. Lesnar was the honorary coach for the University of Minnesota wrestling team on January 10th.
** Another show has been added to WrestleMania 36 weekend by way of The Collective and GCW and it’s ‘Markus Crane’s: Bondage A Go-Go’. All matches will be deathmatches and there will be no ring.
** Mustafa Ali chatted with 14 News to promote SmackDown in Evansville, Indiana.
** Dana White posted a video of a young woman named Summer who was fired from her job because she stopped a man from stealing. Dana White is flying Summer into Paradise, Nevada for the Conor McGregor vs. Donald Cerrone fight and he noted that he also wants Summer to work for him.
** WWE put together a video of every final entrant in the Royal Rumble match:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuWOHwNw044[/embedyt]
** Mustafa Ali did an interview with 99.5 WKDQ radio.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Eu2uEvlVho[/embedyt]
** ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ star Freddie Prinze Jr. has been announced for the Promo School segment on next week’s WWE Backstage on FS1. Also appearing on next week’s show will be Xavier Woods and Ember Moon. The Usos are joining the WWE Backstage lineup as well.
** Per the F4WOnline Daily Update, Marty Scurll has not signed a new deal with Ring of Honor but is close. The deal will allow Marty to work in the National Wrestling Alliance and New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
** Bill Apter uploaded a tribute video to his YouTube channel in honor of the late Pampero Firpo, real name Juan Kachmanian.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uElewfLd5nw[/embedyt]
** Revolution Pro Wrestling: ‘New Year’s Revolution’ Results (1/10/20) Guildford, England
– Rampage Brown, Sha Samuels & The Great O-Kharn def. Darren Kearney, LJ Cleary & Nathan Martin
– Robbie X def. Ricky Knight Jr.
– No Disqualification Match: TK Cooper def. Rob Lias
– Michael Oku & Shota Umino def. BULLET CLUB (El Phantasmo & Hikuleo)
– Dan Moloney def. Carlos Romo
– RPW Undisputed British Women’s Championship: Zoe Lucas (c) def. Gisele Shaw
– SWE World Heavyweight Championship: The Legionnaire (David Starr) (w/ Lord Gideon Grey) def. Sean Kustom (c)
– Shingo Takagi def. Kyle Fletcher
** Staff members at Pike County Central High School got together and purchased tickets for a student to attend Monday Night RAW next week in Lexington, Kentucky.
** ACH vs. Fred Yehi is official for AAW’s ‘A New Dawn’ show on January 24th.
** Luke Harper and Sammy Guevara were guests of honor at the Corpus Christi Icerays game on January 10th.
** FOX 9 has a story up about WWE Champion Brock Lesnar being honored at the University of Minnesota Gophers wrestling bout. Lesnar served as an honorary coach.
** Darby Allin joined AEW World Champion Chris Jericho on a new episode of Talk Is Jericho. Darby revealed that he is in the process of releasing his own full length film and plans to start working on production in May.
“I’ve never made a full-length movie. I’ve just done shorts and I’ve made skate videos but I’m actually making my first full-length movie now that I have some money, like around May. I already have the script written and everything like that so, it should be really interesting to show my type of art.”
** Tyler Breeze debuted on 205 Live on January 10th and defeated former Cruiserweight Champion Tony Nese.
** The debut episode of Magic City Live premiered featuring Drake Maverick, EC3 and Braun Strowman:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msaPlJrmtJs[/embedyt]
** Alicia Atout caught up with Flip Gordon for an interview.
** John Morrison and The Miz did a backstage interview with Kayla Braxton after Friday Night SmackDown.
** Professional Wrestling Hall Of Famer Abdullah The Butcher turned 79-years old on January 11th.
** NXT Live Event Results (1/10/20) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
– Alex Shelley & KUSHIDA def. The Forgotten Sons (Steve Cutler & Wesley Blake)
– Danny Burch def. Raul Mendoza
– Kayden Carter & Mia Yim def. Bianca Belair & Taynara
– Arturo Ruas def. Bronson Reed
– Dominik Dijakovic def. Shane Thorne
– NXT Women’s Championship: Rhea Ripley (c) def. Shayna Baszler
– Matt Riddle & Tommaso Ciampa def. Damian Priest & Finn Balor
** NXT Live Event Results (1/10/20) Venice, Florida
– Rik Bugez def. Elliot Sexton
– Rinku Singh & Saurav Gurjar def. Cal Bloom & Nick Ogarelli
– Joaquin Wilde def. Mohammed Fahim
– Briana Brandy & Reina Gonzalez def. Deonna Purrazzo & Indi Hartwell
– Mansoor def. Dexter Lumis
– Kona Reeves def. Daniel Vidot
– Marina Shafir def. Monique Jenkins
– Austin Theory def. Dorian Mak
** AEW’s Kris Statlander chatted with Alicia Atout and Statlander talked about WWE having interest in her and not knowing whether to decide on AEW or WWE in regard to the next step[s] in her career.
“There’s a lot of thoughts going through my mind because it was the whole thing with WWE was interested in me also and stuff so, there’s a lot of stress with me because I didn’t know what I was gonna do. I didn’t know what was the right choice, and you would think that it’s a dream come true for anybody to be offered a contract but for me, getting signed was never an actual legit goal of mine in wrestling so I was like, ‘Oh, am I gonna be happy? Is this gonna be something I wanna do?’ So I was very nervous, I was very stressed about it but, I am thoroughly enjoying all my time that I’ve been with AEW and all the opportunities they’ve given me so far and I have no regrets about it so, all is well.”
Pro Wrestling NOAH: Global Junior Heavyweight League Results (1/10/20) Yokohama Radiant Hall
– 50 Funky Powers (Mohammed Yone & Quiet Storm) def. Junta Miyawaki & Minoru Tanaka
– Global Junior League 2020 Block C: Hitoshi Kumano def. Hajime Ohara
– Global Junior League 2020 Block B: Dick Togo def. Hao
– El Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr., NOSAWA Rongai, Takashi Sugiura & Kinya Okada def. Akitoshi Saito, Masao Inoue, Naomichi Marufuji & Shiro Koshinaka
– Stinger (Atsushi Kotoge, Kotaro Suzuki & Yoshinari Ogawa) & Kaito Kiyomiya def. RATEL’S (Daisuke Harada, HAYATA, Tadasuke & YO-HEY)
– Global Junior League 2020 Block D: Chris Ridgeway def. Nio
– AXIZ (Go Shiozaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima) & Shuhei Taniguchi def. Kenou, Masa Kitamiya & Yoshiki Inamura
** Pro Wrestling NOAH: Global Junior Heavyweight League (1/11/20) Yokohama Radiant Hall
– Akitoshi Saito & Masao Inoue def. Quiet Storm & Seiya Morohashi
– Global Junior League 2020 Block B: Hao def. Tadasuke
– Global Junior League 2020 Block A: HAYATA def. Junta Miyawaki
– Kenou, Masa Kitamiya, Nio & Yoshiki Inamura def. El Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr., Hajime Ohara, Takashi Sugiura & Kinya Okada
– Global Junior League 2020 Block D: Minoru Tanaka def. Chris Ridgeway
– Stinger (Atsushi Kotoge, Kotaro Suzuki & Yoshinari Ogawa) def. RATEL’S (Daisuke Harada & YO-HEY) & Naomichi Marufuji
– AXIZ (Go Shiozaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima) & Hitoshi Kumano def. Kaito Kiyomiya, Mohammed Yone & Shuhei Taniguchi
** PCW ULTRA ‘Anniversary 2020’ Results (1/10/20) Wilmington, California
– Chris Masters def. Killer Kross
– Artemis Spencer def. TJP
– PCW ULTRA Women’s Championship: Ruby Raze def. Sumie Sakai (c)
– Blood Hunter def. Sabu
– PCW ULTRA Light Heavyweight Championship — Three Way Match: Douglas James def. Jake Atlas (c) and Dom Kubrick
– PCW ULTRA Heavyweight Championship: Hammerstone def. Mil Muertes (c)
– DEFY Tag Team Championships / PCW ULTRA Tag Team Championships — Steel Cage Match: Warbeast (Fatu & Josef Samael) (c) (c) def. Eddie Kingston & Homicide
** The Austin Chronicle did a feature on EFFY and EFFY stated that he’s had people come up to him and let him know they’re attending a wrestling show because his face was on the poster and that let them know that it was a safe place for the LGBTQ community.
** To promote IMPACT Wrestling’s ‘Hard To Kill’ pay-per-view, Tessa Blanchard did an interview with Mirror Sport and she praised Sami Callihan’s abilities in the ring while talking about how their Hard To Kill match could differ from their Slammiversary match.
“That was our first one-on-one match and we didn’t know that we were going to be main-eventing until the day of the show, so that came as a huge shock. It was the start of something I didn’t know then. But now we are in a position that we have had two matches and Sami has found a way to win. This Sunday will be different. This is not a normal match, it will be a fight. Sami is so stubborn and hard headed and has such a vision for what he thinks IMPACT should look like and what a world champion looks like and none of that should be a woman in his eyes. I say this a lot, he is so talented, and charismatic, and creative, and the most well-rounded talent in the locker room. That’s why I think it’s insane that he had to resort to nasty tactics to win the title. He is all of those things and could be a great world champion, but he chooses to act the way he does. That is why I strongly believe he is the worst thing for IMPACT.”
When asked what 2020 has in store for her, Tessa said that she does not know what the future holds. She is not sure what’s next in her life or her career and is just focused on enjoying the present.
“I’m not really sure what 2020 holds for me. I’m not sure what is next or what I want to happen with my life or career. Right now I am focused on being the best version of myself as possible. I love that we have the opportunity this Sunday and [I’m] looking forward to it so much. I have a lot of confidence in myself.”
** The voice of NBA Jam was a recent guest on UpUpDownDown:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN9-V-K7RpE[/embedyt]
** During an interview with SunSport, WALTER told the publication that he wants to re-brand the WWE United Kingdom Championship into the WWE European Championship:
“Yeah, I want to make it that. I mean, the title is called WWE United Kingdom Championship, right? I’m going to look at the brand – it’s Europeans running it… that’s the reality. It’s not even the English people that are the focus. Jordan (Devlin’s) doing really well, the whole Imperium group, Ilja Dragunov, so the key guys right now that stand out are not even the English guys, and for myself, I always see myself as a European Champion. I think just focusing it on England or the UK is great for the UK. But I think being a champion for Europe is a way bigger task, right? Also like Tyler (Bate) and Pete (Dunne), I’m glad they made some English fans feel good about having their own WWE Title but for wrestling it will be way more important that it gets represented in Europe. It’s more meaningful. So that’s how I see it and that would be maybe one of my major goals, to be the one that turns that title into a European title. I think it’s a step up and that could be something that I call my task but that’s not up to me, I can’t make the change but I can only make actions or performances that make them so that will be my task of my championship reign.”
** NJPW Fantastica Mania Results (1/11/20) Item Ehime
– Yota Tsuji & Guerrero Maya Jr. def. DOUKI & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
– Fuego & Ryusuke Taguchi def. Luciferno & Tiger
– Negro Casas, OKUMURA & Namajague def. Audaz, Flyer & Stuka Jr.
– Titan, Angel de oro & Niebra Roja def. Sanson, Forastero & Cuatrero
– BUSHI, Tetsuya Naito & Hiromu Takahashi def. Dulce Gardenia, Yuya Uemura & Hiroshi Tanahashi
– Ultimo Guerrero, Euforia & Barbaro Cavernario def. Soberano Jr., Satoshi Kojima & Caristico
** IMPACT Wrestling: Bash At The Brewery 2 Results (1/10/20) San Antonio, Texas
– Ace Austin def. Zachary Wentz
– RCW Women’s Championship: Kiera Hogan (c) def. Christi Jaynes
– RCW Heavyweight Championship: Fallah Bahh (c) def. Kongo Kong
– Michael Elgin def. Joey Ryan
– Rhino def. Mahabali Shera via DQ.
– Rob Van Dam (w/ Katie Forbes) def. Eddie Edwards
– The North (Ethan Page & Josh Alexander) def. The Rascalz (Dezmond Xavier & Trey Miguel)
– Brewery Brawl Street Fight: Taya Valkyrie (w/ Johnny Bravo) def. Jordynne Grace
– Eight-Person Tag Team Elimination Match: oVe (Dave Crist, Jake Crist, Madman Fulton & Sami Callihan) def. Brian Cage, Rich Swann, Tessa Blanchard & Willie Mack
** Asuka visited a Japanese game center in Osaka, Japan:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwjg0-ebQVw[/embedyt]
** The most recent edition of the Something To Wrestle podcast was based around the 2005 New Year’s Revolution pay-per-view that took place in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Bruce Prichard was asked about WWE Hall Of Famer Ricky Steamboat’s career as an agent for WWE and gave his thoughts about why it may not have lasted long.
“Well, I’ll probably get a lot of hate mail for this so if you wanna send your hate tweets in, send them to @HeyHeyItsConrad and… Ricky Steamboat, probably one of the most beautiful, smooth workers in the business. I could watch Ricky Steamboat matches all day long. I think he was effortless in the way Ricky worked a match. What I think the issue was is while Ricky could go out and perform, that Ricky couldn’t always articulate how and/or why he did the things he did. It was just second nature for Steamboat to go out and have a match. Ricky could get inside of a ring and he was at home. Ricky didn’t have to think about anything in the ring that he did. It just came naturally and Rick Steamboat had a connection with the audience that he could take them on a ride and bring them on his journey inside the ring so that they felt they were in there with him. However, for Rick to articulate that and tell someone else how to do that, I think that’s where the breakdown was and maybe why Rick didn’t last as long because you’d think he was a natural. You’d think one of the greatest workers in the business could easily tell you why. Ray Stevens is another perfect example of that. Ray Stevens, you ask any old timer who’s the greatest worker and every one of them would probably tell you Ray Stevens. Just natural. Just get in the ring, knew exactly what to do, would tear the house down and steal the show in any card he was on, all the way up until the time he retired. But Ray, same thing. Ray couldn’t tell somebody else how to do that. Ray couldn’t explain to ‘em. ‘Hey Ray, why did you do that spot there?’ ‘I don’t know. It felt good right then. It was the right thing to do.’ ‘Well, okay, why was it the right thing to do?’ ‘Hey man, I just felt it,’ and I think Rick Steamboat was the same way because Ricky was effortless and Rick didn’t put — he didn’t have to but he did, but he didn’t have to put much thought into what he did because he was just so f*cking good at it.”
** Following competing in a dark match inside the Tokyo Dome before Wrestle Kingdom 14, the current Artist Of STARDOM Champion Mayu Iwatani did an interview with Tokyo Sports and told the publication that she wants to defend the World Of STARDOM Championship inside the Tokyo Dome in a STARDOM tournament.
