There are literally no words that can do justice to the significance of Muhammad Ali.
It’s funny because a significant description, although perhaps overblown, came from WCW wrestlers in the late ’90s. There was an article interviewing many of the top stars of the promotion which asked who the most influential person in the history of the world was. While names like Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler received a significant number of votes, the person who received the most was Ali.
The New Era overload continues as Aiden English boasts that leaving the New Day laying “singlehandedly” on RAW proves, once and for all, that the “New Era” reflects the “Bygone Era”, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. Simon Gotch then introduces English’s “pre-emptive eulogy” for the New Day’s tag team titles “in the form of song”. English makes a unbelievably terrible World’s Fair reference before singing for a little while until Enzo & Cass interrupt.
Enzo does his “couple of haters” line, prompting Gotch to ask, non-rhetorically, if he remembers Payback. English reckons that the little man’s head is “S.O.F.T.” after the concussion he sustained on that particular Sunday. And then, Big Cass if forced to recite a line so awful that it almost matched the cruddy material he was given on this very show a few weeks ago. Cass threatens to beat their “rusty pipes….back into Prohibition” so they won’t be able to “speak easy”. Wow.
The usual 12 minute opening match, four minutes of which is (fortunately) lost to a commercial break. Gotch and English got the heat on Enzo for an absolute eon. Nobody cared. Eventually Cass did his brief hot tag schtick before setting up Enzo for the silly-looking Rocket Launcher.
Viktor, now kitted out with Darth Maul-esque face-paint, delightfully poses the question, “Where’s your ‘woo woo’ now?”, during the heat. His smugness doesn’t last long however, with Ryder wrapping this one up in under five minutes. The finish saw Viktor get cut off while perched on the top rope. Ryder then hit a ‘rana, followed by the Broski Boot and an Elbro Drop.
Looks like I wasn’t the only one who appreciated Ziggler’s over-exuberant contributions to the announce booth on last week’s show. Despite having no connection to any current Women’s division storyline, he’s back again to lend his thoughts on Banks’ first televised match since April 18. Ziggler does however reference his history with Summer Rae, which is a nice touch.
Summer cuts a promo before Banks’ entrance, following up a mention of the brand extension with a hilariously apt slip of the tongue: “New Error”. She reckons that the entire WWE Universe is wondering which show she will end up on. Meanwhile, all three announcers are laughing openly.
Sasha eventually interrupts, but is quickly cut off by Summer, who mocks her for failing at Wrestlemania. The Boss tells Summer that, despite her thoughts to the contrary, Summer “wouldn’t be Women’s champion at Wrestlemania…..you can’t even hold my mic!”. I guess that’s supposed to be a burn in the writers’ universe, but Summer ruins it by catching the thrown mic! The three announcers again laugh uproariously, with Dolph selling the catch like it was the greatest thing he’s ever seen: “BUT SHE HELD IT!”.
The match itself was short, at six minutes, but perfectly acceptable. Sasha’s comeback kicked off with running double knees into the face of Summer Rae, with The Boss hanging on for a subsequent pinfall attempt (Dolph: “It would be hard for me to kick out of that, King”). More knee-based offence got cut off by a vicious-looking DDT from Summer, before Sasha caught a spin kick attempt and transitioned straight into a Banks Statement. Summer tapped with both hands, which caused Dolph to lose his bowel contents again: “Double tap, TP!”. The final line uttered, as the show went off the air, was also Ziggler’s: “I love this so much!”.
Final Thoughts
As weird as it is to say, Dolph Ziggler’s announcing saved this show. I’m as surprised as you are. The guy’s overconfident, handsy, depth-free promos bug the hell out of me, but he appears to have an aptitude for this; more of an aptitude than he has for stand-up comedy, at least. Meanwhile, everything the Vaudevillains touch continues to turn to ice, as Enzo & Cass are finally involved in a segment so badly scripted that even Enzo’s delivery can’t save it.
– Air Date: June 2, 2016
– Location: BMO Harris Bank Center in Rockford, IL
– The Big News:
AJ Styles is a full-fledged heel and won a match with the Styles Clash. Also, it appears the MITB ladder match will just involve the six guys already announced.
– Show Recap:
The New Day came out to a big reaction. They mentioned the Vaudevillains robbing everyone of the opportunity to see Stephanie McMahon dance. Xavier Woods seemed particularly bummed about this.
What was more notable to New Day though was the attack by Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows. New Day were about to remind us that they are our WWE Tag Team champions, but Anderson and Gallows interrupted. The Club said the New Day didn’t exactly look like champions on Raw, and the Club would be the champs soon.
Woods wondered what kind of “club” they actually were, and figured they meet in a treehouse. Big E said they definitely weren’t the hair club for men. New Day challenged them to a fight but figured they wouldn’t accept without their papi AJ Styles with them. That brought out Styles.
Styles was a full-fledged heel. He said this wasn’t a new day, it’s “our day,” and the WWE belonged to the Club. New Day reminded them who the tag champs were. Styles called Kingston a joke for being in an act like New Day after all these years. Kingston reminded Styles that he was a multiple time IC, U.S. and Tag Team champion, and what was really funny was how long it took AJ just to get to WWE.
Styles reminded them what happened on Raw and challenged Kingston to a match, which he accepted. Good segment. Styles and Kingston both came off well.
They announced a tag match between Dean Ambrose and Sami Zayn vs. Alberto Del Rio and Kevin Owens.
Like JBL, Lawler is not a fan of what Charlotte did to Ric Flair, although he doesn’t seem as disgusted by it. Brooke provided a distraction two minutes into the match allowing Charlotte to take over going to commercial.
They went back and forth after the break leading to Lynch trying an armbar as Mauro Ranallo let us know she trains in Brazilian jiu jitsu. Charlotte powered out, though, and hit a powerbomb. Charlotte went for a moonsault but landed on her feet as Lynch rolled out of the way. Lynch applied the Disarmer but Brooke tried pulling Charlotte out of it so the referee called for a DQ.
Brooke finally pulled Charlotte out of the ring, but Natalya cut them off on the ramp. Natalya and Lynch tried to apply their submission moves on the heels but they escaped through the crowd. The action was fine but the finish was crap. The crowd liked Becky.
Backstage, Renee Young interviewed Zayn and Ambrose. With Ambrose standing right there, Zayn tipped his hat at Renee. Zayn said he and Ambrose have a good track record as a team despite Ambrose’s comments on Monday.
Ambrose was skeptical of Canadians because of Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho and the border patrol guy. Zayn told Ambrose he shouldn’t have tried to bring nunchucks into the country. Owens and Del Rio interrupted. Owens tried to convince Ambrose that Zayn was manipulating him. After Del Rio added some insults of his own, Ambrose said they should just fight right now but the heels left.
Tyler Breeze and Fandango sat in Breeze’s lounge at ringside. Truth rapped a new song on the way out, and they had the lyrics on the screen. Lawler called it terrible, and he’s right. During the match, Breeze jumped on the apron to take a selfie, so Truth knocked him off. Goldust was distracted, so D-Von pushed him into Truth and used a school boy for the win. Breeze and Fandango made bad jokes afterwards. This was not good.
They ran a video package for, of all things, Baron Corbin and Dolph Ziggler. Outside of the arena, Renee said Corbin requested for interview time. She asked why they were doing it outside, and Corbin said the crowd doesn’t deserve his presence after they cheered what Ziggler did on Raw. Corbin said the next time he enters an arena it would be to end Ziggler.
Ranallo plugged Raw in Oklahoma City and Lawler namedropped “J.R.” They showed a graphic for the MITB ladder match and there was no seventh mystery guy, just the six guys who already qualified.
There were some “Ole” and “Let’s go Ambrose” chants early on. There was a dumb spot during the heat where Del Rio hit a version of his double foot stomp finisher and never went for the cover. They double-teamed Ambrose on the outside so Zayn hit a flip dive to take out the heels.
Ambrose hit the rebound clothesline and went for the hot tag, but Del Rio knocked Zayn off the apron. Ambrose used a neckbreaker and went for the tag again but Zayn was still down. Del Rio tried a running enziguri on Ambrose, but he ducked and Del Rio nailed Owens instead. Zayn made the hot tag and immediately hit Del Rio with the Helluva kick for the win. Really good finish.
An enraged Owens grabbed Saxton’s headset and said he was sick of his partners costing him matches and he would show them what will happen at MITB. Owens grabbed a ladder to go after the briefcase, but Cesaro ran out and gave him a springboard uppercut – while wearing in his suit. Cesaro climbed the ladder and grabbed the briefcase, sealing his fate. Ambrose and Zayn appeared nonplussed.
Lana introduced Rusev, and her accent was about 20% as strong as usual. As Swagger made his entrance, Rusev attacked him and tossed him into the steps. The referee asked Swagger if he was ok to start the match and he said yes. I feel like they’ve done this exact angle with these two before.
Rusev tried a superkick immediately but Swagger caught him for the ankle lock. Rusev escaped to the outside and cut off Swagger with a clothesline and took control. Swagger did get some offense but Rusev won with the Accolade. He refused to break the hold, so Titus O’Neil made the save, and Rusev bailed.
They actually plugged that after a break they would show the crap angle with Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns. And then they did. Also, there was another dumb segment with Darren Young and Bob Backlund. Basically, Backlund wants Darren to walk, not run. Literally.
They had a quick back and forth exchange and they both did a kip-up at the same time to face off, because wrestling is fake and choreographed. Just kidding. It’s fine. Styles got the better of Kingston with a couple of arm drags and posed with the Club.
Kingston got the better of the next exchange, which led to a corner dropkick accompanied by Woods playing the trombone. The Club and New Day all jumped in the ring but they were held back from fighting. This led to a commercial break, which was only two minutes into the match. Keep in mind they had already gone to commercial break after the entrances.
Anyway, after a while, Woods, Big E, Gallows and Anderson all got in each others faces outside the ring. Kingston was distracted so Styles ran him face first into the steel post. Crowd chanted for Kofi as Styles had control. As the announcers discussed Styles’ attitude, Saxton asked why AJ didn’t just show his hand in the first place, to which Lawler replied, “You’ve obviously never played poker.”
Kingston came back with a monkey flip, dropkick, clothesline and leg drop. Styles ducked the Trouble in Paradise and hit a fireman’s carry into a neckbreaker. Styles went for the Styles Clash but Kingston (sort of) countered and eventually hit a double knee attack for two. Styles set up for the Phenomenal forearm but Woods distracted him with the trombone, allowing Kingston to use an S.O.S. for a near fall.
Anderson attacked Woods on the outside, so Big E tossed Gallows into the barricade. Anderson lept at Big E, but Big E caught him and hit a belly-to-belly onto the announce table, which was cool. Gallows booted Big E, so Kingston took out Gallows with a crazy flip dive. As Kingston stepped back into the ring through the ropes, Styles caught him with a Pele kick and nailed the Styles Clash for the win. Fun stuff.
– Final Thoughts:
AJ Styles as a heel with The Club is cool and freshens things up. Tonight’s main event was pretty good but this was an otherwise normal Smackdown show.
Here are a few early news notes today regarding WWE and an ex-WWE star:
– Cody Rhodes has announced he will be working with Evolve on their 8/19 iPPV in Joppa, MD. Rhodes’ non-compete with WWE ends that day. Interestingly, Evolve has been also working with WWE in recent months in building up competitors for the global cruiserweight classic tournament.
– WWE announced this morning that Andrade Cien Almas (the former La Sombra and Manny Andrade) will face the “Perfect 10” Tye Dillinger at this Wednesday’s TakeOver event. After working NXT house shows for months, this likely means Almas will also debut to a national audience at the next television tapings. They are hoping he transitions into becoming a Hispanic star.
The TV lineup for the show as it stands now:
– Robert Murillo tweeted us a link to an SI story about Klay Thompson’s father choosing to watch RAW this past Mondayinstead of his son in Game 7 of the NBA Western Conference semifinals.
With the wrestling world still speculating on how WWE will handle the July brand split/extension, much of the discussion has been about how the championships should be structured in this new era — most importantly, what should be the biggest prize in the game.
As reported in a recent Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the current plan is that the brand extension will lead to the world title being once again split in two. Of the many rumours that have flown around the Internet, it’s the prospect of once again losing a single world champion that has most upset hardcore fans.
It’s not hard to see why. Since John Cena and Randy Orton unified the WWE and World Heavyweight Titles in December 2013 at TLC, the world title has been far stronger than it was previously. It has once again become the focal point of the promotion with Daniel Bryan’s chase of the WWE title proving far more of a money-drawing storyline than his previous World Heavyweight Title reigns. The flip side of this development is that tug of war between the hardcore fanbase and Vince McMahon about who should be world champion has intensified now that the promotion can’t split the difference.
Despite this, one can understand why the WWE is tempted to revert back to having two world titles.
As Brock Lesnar’s previous title reign proved, the WWE’s mantra of promoting sports entertainment and focusing on telling stories is remarkably hollow. The promotion is actually incredibly dependent on the world championship to provide meaning to its main event picture. When Brock Lesnar was away, the twenty-eight strong writing staff was bereft of ideas about how to justify Cena and Seth Rollins facing each other that they turned the Money In The Bank briefcase into an ersatz world title.
Therefore, both promotions will clearly need their own singles title for their main event picture to be built around when the world champion isn’t there. Furthermore, considering that both shows will largely conform to the WWE house style, each champion will play a pivotal role in defining the brand to viewers.
However, there’s no reason why that role can’t be played by a secondary champion exclusive to each brand if these titles are properly protected. And there would be added value in having a WWE title above them. An undisputed world champion that can perform on both brands would stand out as a special attraction that would help highlight key television shows as must-watch and could drive extra business for the biggest shows of the year.
The key would be not to expose them. If they were to appear weekly, let alone twice a week, they would quickly cease to be a special attraction. Worse they would undermine the ability of the two promotion-specific secondary champions to be taken seriously as headliners. This would naturally be a role for Lesnar, who could storm into either brand for a month-long residency before his latest title defence and then disappear again. It would also solve the problem that the WWE has of struggling to provide meaning to Lesnar’s matches.
Back when the NWA World Champion would tour alliance members, the individual territories still retained their own national or promotional champions. This was because the promotion couldn’t grind to a halt when Ric Flair or Harley Race was elsewhere; they still needed something to build their everyday main event picture around. If WWE was to give Lesnar a floating WWE Championship, each brand would be in the same situation. They would need championships to build their weekly programming around.
The temptation would be to suggest that the Intercontinental and U.S. titles could be repurposed for this role with each brand getting one of the secondary titles. This was exactly the approach originally planned for the first brand split with the I-C strap having been pegged to be the premiere title on RAW. Triple-H rightly vetoed this idea due to the belief that the title had been clearly defined as a secondary belt and wouldn’t be taken seriously as a prize worthy of main eventers. This is even truer today. While either belt can gain the illusion of respectability when placed around a headliner’s waist, they quickly slide back to their previous irrelevance.
It’s not helped that the names of the championships are literally meaningless. This is not the 70s where it was perfectly logical to have a national champion underneath the world champion. The same problem existed when there was a WWE and a World Title. The names are such generic buzzwords that they do not indicate what the titlist is champion of. The championships being meaningless is yet another barrier to fans taking them seriously.
It would be far better for the WWE to start again by crowning RAW and Smackdown champions, and actually calling them that. That way fans know that the person who holds the RAW title is recognised as the best wrestler on RAW, and the person challenging for the Smackdown title wants to be recognised as the best wrestler on Smackdown.
As reported in the Observer, the current plans are for Reigns and Cena to be the champions of their respective brands. While both men have their problems with connecting with the fanbase, putting the new belts on them would be a clear statement of intent that both titles are of equal worth and will be properly protected.
One of the things that most embittered fans about the last split in the championship was how Triple-H walked out with the big gold belt and proclaimed himself world champion. For all the talk of RAW having always been the ‘A-Show’, it took years the stench of that introduction to leave the title with his matches for the belt being of secondary importance to the WWE title matches as late as 2004. It’s therefore crucial that the new championships are properly introduced. Given that the aim of these moves is to create a big splash to help Smackdown’s ratings, it would make sense that everything builds to big matches for the shows on July 19-20.
Making Brock Lesnar the undisputed world champion should be relatively straight forward. Just have The Beast appear in the next two weeks to destroy Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins, insert himself into the WWE title match at Money In The Bank due to both men having screwed him out of the world title he never truly lost inside the ring. It’s a rematch of the unannounced main event of Wrestlemania 31, and provides a way for Lesnar to regain the title without pinning Reigns. It also allows the Reigns vs. Rollins programme to continue with neither man once again conclusively beating the other. This would then justify leaving Lesnar out of the draft.
The new RAW and Smackdown champions should be crowned in big matches on the first shows after the draft. The easiest way to do this would be to have the type of multi-man matches that are usually reserved for pay per view. RAW could have a special Money in the Bank-style ladder match for their world title and Smackdown could have an Elimination Chamber match. Such multi-man matches would naturally feed into the draft, with the six men drafted for each brand being the ones entered into its championship match. Assuming the twelve men were picked on the 11th July Raw, the promotion would have a week to promote two huge title matches for the first week of the new era.
Will Cooling is a freelance writer who writes on combat sports for Fighting Spirit Magazine, pop culture for Geeky Monkey and politics at It Could Be Said!FSM is available in all good British newsagents and internationally. In this month’s issue he writes about the rise of Ronda Rousey and argues that intergender matches destroyed Chyna’s career.
It is still largely secretive, if things have even been figured out past the top guys, regarding what will happen with WWE talent when they do the brand split in July.
John Cena wasn’t quite the miracle worker, but his return was enough to keep the Memorial Day Raw viewership numbers above the all-time seasonal low — even with the show going against the single most-watched NBA game in the history of cable television.
Raw did 3.22 million viewers, the second lowest non-football total other than a major holiday* where people don’t watch television since 1997, beating only the 4/25 show that did 3.16 million viewers.
The surprise is that the third hour stayed above 3 million viewers.
Without the advertising of Cena, it was very unlikely the show would have beaten the 4/25 record low. His return was promoted for weeks and he did media like NBC’s Today show that morning.
The seventh game of the Golden State Warriors vs. Oklahoma City Thunder Western Conference semifinal did 15,996,000 viewers. The opening game of the Stanley Cup playoffs with the San Jose Sharks losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins did 4,081,000 viewers.
Raw was third for the night on cable.
The three hours were:
*A note on the definition of Memorial Day not being considered a “major holiday”: Holidays that kill ratings are July 4th, Thanksgiving night, New Year’s Eve and Christmas Eve. Memorial Day and Labor Day ratings are usually similar to usual levels. This past Monday, far more people were watching TV than usual, actually.
From tonight’s Smackdown tapings in Rockford, IL, for the show airing Wednesday in Canada and Thursday in the U.S.:
– The New Day opened the show with an interview. The Club then came out. The segment set up an A.J. Styles vs. Kofi Kingston main event for the show.
– Becky Lynch beat WWE Women’s Champion Charlotte via DQ in a non-title match. Dana Brooke interfered. They double-teamed Lynch and Natalya made the save. The faces cleaned house on Charlotte and Brooke.
– Dean Ambrose and Sami Zayn did a backstage interview. Kevin Owens and Alberto Del Rio came out to interrupt to set up a tag match for later in the show.
– The Dudleys beat R-Truth & Goldust when Tyler Breeze & Fandango distracted them. This set up another R-Truth & Goldust vs. Breeze & Fandango match.
– Sami Zayn & Dean Ambrose beat Kevin Owens & Alberto Del Rio. They all brawled after the match. A ladder got in the ring. Owens went to climb up when Cesaro ran in and pulled Owens down and he grabbed the MiTB briefcase.
– U.S. Champion Rusev beat Jack Swagger via DQ on a reversed decision when Rusev wouldn’t break the Accolade. Titus O’Neil made the save.
– A.J. Styles pinned Kofi Kingston using the Styles Clash. Anderson, Gallows, Big E and Xavier Woods all brawled at ringside. Roman Reigns got involved (not sure if this was dark or not) and Reigns was strongly cheered when he confronted Styles.
Monday night’s edition of RAW had its moments without exactly firing on all cylinders. Here’s where it went right…and where it went very, very wrong.
Trios pow-wows
Tag team main events are usually throwaway affairs in the WWE universe. As such, those backstage huddles featuring all six Money in the Bank ladder match entrants were very welcome. Recycling the “Sami is Canadian too” joke from last week worked well, as did Jericho’s continued brilliant use of the word “idiot”. That, of course, led to a wonderful “stupid idiot” chant during the main event, directed at the Fozzy frontman. The match itself was merely fine, but featured a hot finish and a much-needed attempt to rehab a cooled-off Dean Ambrose.
Cena’s return and AJ’s turn
While I’m not entirely sold on AJ’s full-fledged heel turn, it must be acknowledged that its execution was excellent here. Further, the company is quite light on the heel side at the moment. While I could have done without the cringeworthy, jingoistic intro, John Cena’s comeback promo was one of his strongest in some time. Delivered with fantastic fire, it underlined the veteran’s new role as the gatekeeper of the WWE: “The future must go through me”.
The Golden Truth shine
I’m as surprised as you are, believe me, but Monday night’s first hour segment involving the Golden Truth actually worked. Key to its success was allowing two of the most naturally amusing men on the roster to be themselves, free from the writers’ awful input. Truth and Goldust’s contributions on commentary during The Usos’ quick win over Breezango were often hilarious with Truth reprising his inability to distinguish Byron Saxton from Jonathan Coachman – despite the fact that “Coach has talent” as JBL helpfully pointed out.
I must admit I’m also a big fan of Truth’s remixed rap, heard in its full form on Smackdown, but sadly cut off here by a commercial break. Credit also to Tyler Breeze for his inset promo (“The Ewww-sos”) for showing how his mastery over his character has been shamefully wasted on the main roster.
Enzo & Cass
They seem to be featured here every week but even though their promo ostensibly just listed cheeses at one point, everything this team touches turns to gold at the moment. Although, I could do without that double team Rocket Launcher finish as they never seem to execute it convincingly.
Using The New Day to distract from the brand split fiasco
Last week’s news that the debut of live Tuesday night Smackdown would usher in another brand split conjured up many appalling vistas. Chief among them was the prospect of having to watch nine hours of WWE programming in three days on PPV weeks, closely followed by the harebrained possible reintroduction of two world titles. Worries about the potential for tag teams to be forcibly separated weren’t exactly high on folks’ lists of concerns.
But that’s the draft-related horror that New Day asked us to consider in RAW’s overlong opening segment in which their comedy was used to distract from the fact that company is figuring the detail of this guaranteed failure out as it goes. The idea that the Vaudevillains denying us the “pleasure” of Stephanie’s dancing is supposed to generate heel heat was where the real humour lay, however, as was that team’s failure to upbraid The Club for getting them disqualified from what was effectively a number one contendership opportunity.
Rollins The Mute
Following on from the abrupt ending to his in-ring promo on Smackdown, the returning Seth Rollins went one better on Monday night by saying absolutely nothing – for a very, very long time. I’d love to tell you what Rollins’ fakeouts were supposed to achieve, but sadly I’m not one of the 28 typewriter-armed monkeys that this company employs. On that note, every time I hear Roman’s “I’m not a good guy….” catchphrase or JBL parroting Vince’s “polarising figure” nonsense, I want to scream. Nails on a chalkboard, every time.
Dolph and Baron play Roshambo
Dolph Ziggler baiting Baron Corbin into a “technical wrestling match” (translation: a match) only to kick him in the cojones was extremely dumb. Not only did Dolph cost himself a third loss to Corbin, he also made himself look like a coward. Wouldn’t a real babyface pour everything he had into besting the balding one in a fair fight?
Titus confronts the “Bulgarian Blowhard”
Speaking of poor writing, is anyone getting tired of Zack Ryder cutting pre-match promos about overcoming the odds only to lose comprehensively? What is the point of that exactly? US Champion Rusev crushed Ryder in short order before being confronted by proud American Titus O’Neil. O’Neil nervously delivered his scripted verbiage, including the embarrassing insult transcribed above, to a relatively underwhelming response. Still, at least this means the Bulgarian won’t be dropping the strap to the returning Cena any time soon as many predicted. Finally, what was up with Lana’s accent in her pre-match introduction?
The Charlotte follow-up
Where do I start with this one? I could talk about how Stephanie felt it necessarily to once again verbally tear strips off one of her major champions. I could talk about the lameness of the talking heads’ contribution in the preceding video package. I could discuss how little sense it makes that Charlotte throwing off the yolk of her cheating father is being portrayed as a heelish progression for her character.
Whichever way you look at it, Monday’s follow-up to what was a disastrous promo from the Women’s champion last week was just as crummy as the distraction finish she caused in Dana Brooke’s match against Natalya. Apparently it’s important that all these women are made to look dumb, face or heel. Dreadful.
If you thought Evan Singleton’s deposition went badly for the plaintiffs in the WWE concussion lawsuit, then that appears to be nothing compared to what happened a week later during Vito LoGrasso’s deposition on May 18th. Given the back and forth over LoGrasso claiming that head injuries caused partial deafness when, in the past, he had spoken of having a hearing impairment since birth, the deposition promised to be interesting. It over-delivered.