Bayley To Play In NBA All-Star Celebrity Game
The NBA announced the news on social media. Bayley will play on Team Rice, which also includes Matt Barnes, Chris Brickley, AP Dhillon, Druski, Walker Hayes, Shelby McEwen, Terrell Owens, Shaboozey, Oliver Stark, and Kayla Thornton.
Kai Cenat, who attended WWE Royal Rumble and appeared on the go-home edition of WWE RAW, will be on the opposing team, which will be coached by Barry Bonds and 2 Chainz.
The NBA All-Star Celebrity Game will come the day before NXT Vengeance Day. There, Bayley will challenge for the NXT Women's Championship.
The former WWE Women's Champion recently shared her thoughts on WWE's partnership with TNA while speaking with Adrian Hernandez of Unlikely at the WWE 2K25's Hands-On Event.
'Dude, not even two years ago—this is nuts,' Bayley said. 'We're in this relationship with TNA. We have all these talented women in NXT. People are coming from all around the world to be a part of this because it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.' Bayley said.
'The crazy thing about the Royal Rumble this year is that we have a good problem. We have too many women. Compared to the first year, when we needed to bring in Legends and NXT talent to fill out the match. Now we're in a place where we have too many talented women. And it's just beautiful to see.
'When they announced the TNA partnership, I texted Hunter immediately and said, 'Sign me up, dude.' He was like, 'Oh, okay, hold your horses.' You know, they've got a system, they've got to go through the process. But being in NXT and working with a lot of these newer girls, I'm excited to just keep learning from different people.'
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The post Bayley To Play In NBA All-Star Celebrity Game appeared first on Wrestlezone.
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Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
Inside the tragedy that silenced a soul legend: Marvin Gaye's last fight with his father
By the time 44-year-old Marvin Gaye moved into the big, rambling house with his parents on South Gramercy Place, his cocaine habit was severe and his paranoia was deep. Enemies were conspiring against him, he feared. He gave his father a .38-caliber revolver. To protect the house, he said. He had come full-circle from childhood, to live with his mother, who adored him, and his disapproving father, who would kill him. It was 1984. It might have been a period of triumph for the vocalist known as the King of Sensual Soul. The year before, he had finally won two Grammy Awards after decades of nominations. At the NBA All-Star Game in Inglewood, he had delivered a slowed-down, funkified version of the Star Spangled Banner that redefined the national anthem. He had broken free from Motown, his longtime label, with a hit comeback album, 'Midnight Love,' and one of his signature songs, 'Sexual Healing.' Suave tenor, restless risk-taker, longtime sex symbol with an elegant-playboy persona, Gaye had an otherworldly voice. His falsetto found new registers of rapture and longing. His songs married carnality and spirituality, with an echo of the little boy singing in the gospel choir of his father's church. 'My daddy was a minister,' Gaye said, 'and so when I began to sing it was for him.' Growing up in a slum of Washington, D.C., he had inherited his father's harsh Pentecostal Christianity and his notions of discipline, heaven and hell. There was little tenderness in his relationship with Marvin Gay Sr., a jealous man who drank hard and dressed in women's clothes, a habit that embarrassed the young singer. They were at war from the start. The father beat the son regularly, and scorned nonreligious music as the devil's work. 'My husband never wanted Marvin,' the singer's mother, Alberta, told a biographer. 'And he never liked him. He used to say that he didn't think he was really his child. I told him that was nonsense. He knew Marvin was his. But for some reason, he didn't love Marvin and, what's worse, he didn't want me to love Marvin either. Marvin wasn't very old before he understood that.' In 'Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye' by David Ritz, Gaye describes his father as 'a very peculiar, changeable, cruel, and all-powerful king,' adding: 'Even though winning his love was the ultimate goal of my childhood, I defied him. I hated his attitude. I thought I could win his love through singing, so I sang my heart out.' Gaye noticed his jealousy. 'I realized my voice was a gift of God and had to be used to praise Him,' Gaye said, but his father 'hated it when my singing won more praise than his sermons.' Even as he grew bigger than his father, Gaye would recall, the violence continued. 'I wanted to strike back, but where I come from, even to raise your hand to your father is an invitation for him to kill you.' It was a volatile relationship, Ritz told the Times in a recent interview, and a complicated one. 'The man who beat him also led him to God,' Ritz said. To escape him, the singer dropped out of high school and joined the Air Force, then faked a mental breakdown and won an honorable discharge. He dreamed of being the Black Frank Sinatra. He found a surrogate father in Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown, and became an architect of the famous Motown sound. His 1968 version of 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine,' a song about a man tormented by rumors of his lover's infidelity, was a No. 1 hit. Gaye drew inspiration from his disintegrating marriage to Gordy's sister. His father hated work. His mother rose at 5 to clean rich people's houses. When Gaye started making money to provide for her, it became another source of resentment between father and son. Against resistance from Motown, he gambled with the self-written, self-produced 'What's Going On,' the radical 1971 concept album that launched him into the stratosphere. (Rolling Stone has called it the greatest album of all time.) His social commentary encompassed war, protests, ghetto life, police brutality, pollution, and nuclear holocaust. Inspired by his brother Frankie, he sang about a struggling soldier back from Vietnam. And he sang, 'Father father/ We don't need to escalate/You see, war is not the answer.' As his fame increased, he became reclusive. Worshipful crowds filled his concert seats —women particularly adored him — but the love felt fleeting and unreliable. 'I want to be liked and I would hate it, I mean really hate it, if an audience didn't like me,' he told The Times. 'It's really a hang-up.' He hated the government and scorned taxes, which the government noticed. By the late 1970s he was bankrupt and owed the IRS $2 million. He fled for Europe, chased by creditors and depressed that Motown seemed to have given up on him amid a sales slump. ('I adore being revered,' he said. 'I wasn't being adored here.') He spent 3 1/2 years in self-imposed exile, and returned to tell The Times, 'I'm egotistical. I could lie and pretend that I'm very humble but that's jive. You can't do what I'm doing and not have a big ego to feed.' In 1983, as Gaye toured with his 'Midnight Love' album, which he made for Columbia Records, Times music critic Robert Hilburn described one of his concerts as a 'triumphant showcasing' of artistry that marked a liberating break from Motown. 'At last, he was standing alone: the artist vindicated,' Hilburn wrote. 'This tour is supposed to be the culmination of that artistic climb.' But Gaye was wrestling with serious depression, and a freebasing habit that inflamed his paranoia. He was found wandering on the freeway, as if daring cars to hit him. More than once, he had talked of suicide — he admitted trying to do it with a cocaine overdose — but had not been able to go all the way. His father's religion told him it was a mortal sin. In early 1984, twice divorced, Gaye was back with his parents, living down the hall from his father on the second floor of the family's brickfront Tudor in the Crenshaw District of Los Angeles. It was a 'madhouse' where screaming matches were frequent, as Frankie Gaye, who lived next door, wrote in his memoir 'Marvin Gaye, My Brother.' The musician holed up in his bedroom, with a gun in the pocket and a Bible in his hand, and steady visits from his drug dealers. His 69-year-old mother doted on him, cooking for him, rubbing his feet, and praying with him. The father, often drunk, resented the loss of her attention. He kept the .38 revolver, a gift from his son, under his pillow. The fatal confrontation was on April 1, 1984. The father had come to the son's bedroom, and was berating his wife about a misplaced letter from an insurance company. The singer ordered him out of the room, then followed him into the hall and 'pushed the father around pretty good,' police said. The father returned with the gun and shot his son twice, once in the shoulder and once in the heart. When news got out, some thought at first it must be a twisted April Fool's joke. Some, like his biographer Ritz, saw it as the culmination of Gaye's death wish and thought, 'So that's how he did it.' At Forest Lawn Memorial Park, 10,000 fans stood in a mile-long line to say goodbye. It was estimated to be the biggest crowd in park history. In his account to a probation officer, Gay said that his son had pushed him to the floor and kicked him, and that he grabbed the gun from under his pillow in fear of further attack. Los Angeles prosecutors charged him with murder but found themselves with a weak case. Toxicology reports showed cocaine in the singer's system. A court-ordered brain scan revealed that the 71-year-old defendant had been suffering from a walnut-sized brain tumor, which defense attorneys were prepared to argue had affected his judgment. Plus, photos of the defendant showed that his body was covered with fresh bruises, suggesting that he had taken a severe beating from his son. Dona Bracke, who prosecuted the case, recalled that one of the bruises on his side was the size of a melon. 'I thought, 'That's not a punch, that has to be a kick,'' she said in a recent interview. 'Clearly, it had been a huge fight.' This buttressed the case for self-defense. 'We had all kinds of photographs of the old man exhibiting bruises and welts and lacerations as result of Marvin's beatings,' Arnold Gold, one of Marvin Gay Sr.'s defense attorneys, told The Times in a recent interview. 'I had sensational defense facts, not the least of which was the only witness was the mother,' Gold said, and 'she refused to testify.' Gold said he was holding out for a reduced charge of involuntary manslaughter, but 'everybody wanted the case resolved as quickly as possible.' And so Marvin Gay Sr. accepted the deal when, five months after the shooting, prosecutors allowed him to plead no contest to voluntary manslaughter. The conviction might have brought him up to 13 years in prison, but the probation department had recommended against lockup, and there was little expectation that the judge would give him hard time. What Gold recalls about his client is 'how sad and pathetic he was.' The legal process unfolded in a relatively fast and muted fashion, without notable controversy or protest. 'This was one of the first big-name criminal cases, but it didn't have the polarization that, for example, O.J. Simpson had,' Gold said. Both parties were Black, so 'we had no race element to it at all that would have been available to be exploited.' Bracke, the prosecutor, said she was surprised that there was so little uproar surrounding the case. 'I was thinking I'd get a phone call from someone irate. 'He murdered his son, you're letting him off.' I never got anything.' She said she had a conversation with a Black records clerk who gave her a hint as to why. 'I said, 'Where's the hue and cry from the community?' This was clearly a favored son, and it was just so quiet. And she said, 'In the Black community our fathers would say, I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it.' ' Some in Gay's family, like his brother Frankie and sister Jeanne, concluded that Gaye had orchestrated his own death. She said her father had made it clear that if Marvin hit him, he would kill him. By provoking his father, he had ended his own misery and had freed his mother, who finally found the courage to leave her husband of 48 years. Ritz said he thinks of it less as a crime than a tragedy, and as an elaborately choreographed suicide that had the added effect of punishing the father. 'He thought that because his father had killed him, his father would go to hell,' Ritz said. In his memoir, Frankie Gaye describes rushing into his brother's bedroom to cradle him as he died. 'I got what I wanted,' the singer mumbled, by his brother's account. 'I couldn't do it myself, so I made him do it.' Informed of that account, Bracke, the prosecutor, said she had not heard it before. 'He certainly didn't tell detectives that version,' she said. 'That's the first I've ever heard of that.' Seven months after he killed his son, Marvin Gay Sr. received a sentence of probation from a Superior Court judge who concluded that the singer had provoked the fatal confrontation, and that prison would be a death sentence for the frail, aging defendant. Gay Sr., who would live another 14 years, stood between his attorneys and thanked the judge for his mercy. His voice shook, and he spoke very softly. He said he was sorry. He said he had been afraid. 'I wish he could step through the door right now,' he said. 'I loved him. I love him right now.'
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Rumor Roundup (Aug. 20, 2025): Chris Jericho WWE return, Naomi pregnancy, LA Knight move, ADR, more!
Speculating on the rumors surrounding pro wrestling is a favored pastime of many fans, perhaps second only to actually watching the matches. In this daily column, we take a look at the latest rumors being churned out by the pro wrestling rumor mill. Important reminder: Rumors are just that — rumors. None of this has been confirmed as fact, it's just circulating around the pro wrestling rumor mill. We track rumor accuracy in a weekly feature called Rumor Look Back you can find here. Remember, take it all with a grain of salt. Rumors for the Day: On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said there has been a lot of talk within WWE of Chris Jericho making his return when his contract expires at the end of the year. There is apparently a belief that his return is inevitable. Per Fightful Select, Naomi's pregnancy has led to 'huge creative shifts' within WWE. It's still not clear, however, how WWE will determine a new women's world champion. Folks have noticed that LA Knight's profile on the website now appears on the Raw roster, signifying his official switch. On Lucha Libre Online, Hugo Savinovich claimed there are many people in WWE who want Alberto Del Rio to make his return, and Roman Reigns is apparently one of those people. A fun one: TC at WrestleVotes says The New Day personally wrote the news article that appeared on the T-shirt Corey Graves showed on Raw this week. If you have heard of any interesting rumors that you'd like to add, feel free to post them in the comments section below. Just remember they are rumors and not confirmed as fact, so please take them as such.
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
Former Olympic champion Gable Steveson to make MMA debut at LFA 217
It's been talked about for so long, and now Gable Steveson's venture into mixed martial arts is officially happening. Steveson (0-0), a 2020 Olympic gold medalist in wrestling, will make his MMA debut against Braden Peterson (1-0) at LFA 217 on Sept. 12 from Mystic Lake Casino in Prior Lake, Minn. The promotion announced the news Tuesday in a press release. Steveson's debut is a long time coming as the possibility of trying his hand at MMA has been discussed since winning his gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics (delayed until 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic). Instead of jumping straight into MMA, Steveson went the pro wrestling route and signed with WWE. His more than two-year stint with WWE ended in May 2024. Upon his release from WWE, Steveson, who'd never played football, was invited for an NFL tryout with the Buffalo Bills. Steveson got far into 2024 training camp but was cut as the team trimmed down to a final 53-man roster. Since then, Steveson has ramped up his MMA training. He spent time at Kill Cliff FC in Florida before he was invited by Jon Jones to help prepare the then-heavyweight champion for his title fight against Stipe Miocic last November at UFC 309. Steveson, 25, returned to compete in collegiate wrestling this year for the University of Minnesota. The two-time national champion, who'd won 73 consecutive matches, was denied a third title after he was shockingly upset on a last-second takedown by Oklahoma State's Wyatt Hendrickson. During a March appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show" shortly after the loss, Steveson indicated a move to MMA was in his near future. He credited Jones for being a "great mentor" to him. "I've got a great mentor right now, I hope a lot of people know a guy named Jon Jones – just a fantastic dude and the greatest fighter of all time. He's pretty damn good," Steveson said. 'I appreciate his efforts of trying to lead me into the right direction and kind of taking my back and giving me the direction that I need. I'm really young, and he's been there and done that before, so I'm really appreciative of how he's kind of walked my steps leading into this next chapter, if that's what it is.' This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Former Olympic champ Gable Steveson books MMA debut
