Latest news with #WorldWrestlingEntertainment
NDTV
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- NDTV
John Cena Reflects On Post-Attitude Era Challenge, Credits WWE's Revival To This Man
John Cena is arguably the most recognized name in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). However, before the rise of Cena, WWE had undergone challenging times in terms of its growth and popularity, particularly after the end of the Attitude Era. Then a part of WWF (World Wrestling Federation), the era, which existed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, featured stunning adult-oriented storylines, spearheaded by stars like "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Rock and Triple H. However, after the departures of Steve Austina and The Rock, WWE's popularity suffered a dip, before being resurrected by the likes of Cena and late wrestler Eddie Guerrero. Cena paid tribute to Guerrero in a recent fan interaction, highlighting the latter's role in bringing WWE back to the top. "WWE went through a boom in the Attitude Era and then all those guys, we fired Stone Cold. The Rock left, The Undertaker got hurt, we changed the name, the XFL failed. There was a lot of upside down stuff. We started SmackDown and it had Kurt Angle as its anchor, but we brought Eddie Guerrero and a bunch of (new guys) like Edge and me and a bunch of other new guys and people trying to find their way," John Cena said, speaking during the FAN EXPO in Denver. "Eddie was our champion for for a certain period of time. And he used to tell me that it is the night when the fewest people show up that you have to work 10 times as hard because the presence in that area isn't as strong," Cena further said, hailing Guerrero. The Attitude Era was followed by the toned-down Ruthless Aggression Era, where the likes of Eddie Guerrero played a leading role. Eventually, John Cena rose to popularity, taking advantage of the platform built by Guerrero and co.
NDTV
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- NDTV
Brock Lesnar On WWE's 'Ban List' After Scandal? Explosive Claim Surfaces
Former UFC champion Daniel Cormier made a stunning revelation about Brock Lesnar's current status in the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Cormier believes that Brock may not return to WWE and even went on to say that the multiple-time champion is currently on the company's 'ban list'. Brock has not featured in WWE since August 2023 after his loss to Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam. Brock was reportedly going to make his return at 2024 Royal Rumble but it did not materialise and several fans were of the opinion that the decision was impacted by the Janel Grand lawsuit. Lesnar was named in the sex trafficing lawsuit along with Vince McMahon and he has not featured in WWE ever since. "Brock [Lesnar] is on the ban list right now. Oh dude, Brock got in so much trouble. I ain't telling you on air what Brock did. Brock is so much in trouble," Daniel Cormier said on the 'Mighty' Podcast. Meanwhile, CM Punk launched a surprising verbal rant on Dominik Mysterio and called him 'illiterate'. Dominik has taken shots at Punk by calling him 'old' over the years but it was the first time that the veteran wrestler replied as he said that Dominik has no idea what his own tattoos mean. "A lot of people don't know he does that because a lot of the tattoos he got are misspelled because Dominik can't read," Punk said. While the spat between Punk and Dominik has mostly been verbal in the recent past, this can be the start of a rivalry. "I hate CM Punk, why, because he's old, he disappeared for what, 30 years, and came back and he's now what, 60, and he's still wrestling, he tortured me when I was a I was 12 years old, and he was probably like 45 at the time, maybe 50 - I just don't like CM Punk, he traumatized me as a kid, who does that to a 12 year old, what's wrong with him," Dominik had earlier said.
7 days ago
- Business
Netflix delivers another strong performance in second quarter while following a familiar script
SAN FRANCISCO -- Netflix on Thursday announced another quarter of steady growth as the video streaming service's more than 300 million subscribers have become increasingly attractive to advertisers. It's a familiar script that Netflix has followed for the past three years to widen its lead in video streaming while delivering financial results that have usually easily exceeded the analyst projections that steer investors. While Netflix's profit eclipsed Wall Street's expectations by a wide margin in the April-June quarter, its revenue came in right around the bar set by analysts. The Los Gatos, California, company earned $3.1 billion, or $7.19 per share, a 46% increase from the same time last year. Revenue rose 16% to $11.08 billion. Management also slightly raised its revenue forecast for the entire year, citing a belief that its programming lineup will reel in more subscribers in the second half than the first. Netflix's shares slipped 1% in extended trading, indicating investors expected an even more robust performance. But that is a minor stumble, given Netflix's stock price has soared 43% this year. The stock's strong run began during the second half of 2022 when the company introduced a low-priced version of its service with commercial interruptions as an antidote to an abrupt downturn in subscribers. The video streaming service is also faring well in Hollywood, as evidenced by the 120 Emmy nominations showered upon its programs earlier this week – second only to Warner Bros. Discovery's HBO Max. In the past quarter, Netflix hailed 'Sirens,' 'Ginny & Georgia' and 'The Four Seasons' as being among its most watched programming. The popularity of Netflix's scripted programming combined with weekly World Wrestling Entertainment spectacles, high-profile boxing matches and periodic National Football League games have enabled its service to retain subscribers while its prices rise, including on the cheapest tier. Netflix stopped providing quarterly updates on its total subscribers at the beginning of this year, but the company's revenue growth leaves no doubt that the number has grown from the 302 million reported at the end of 2024. It's gradually turning into an advertising magnet, too. Although Netflix still isn't selling enough commercials to require a disclosure of its advertising revenue, management continues to highlight the growth in its results. Netflix said its ad revenue for this year is on pace to double from last year.
News18
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- News18
WWE Pulls Off Biggest Surprise As Roman Reigns Makes Grand Comeback
Last Updated: Roman Reigns returns to WWE Raw, saving CM Punk and Jey Uso from Seth Rollins' goons. The World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) pulled off the biggest surprise for fans during the latest episode of Monday Night Raw on July 14, as superstar Roman Reigns stunned everyone by making a comeback. A jam-packed crowd at the Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama, couldn't believe their eyes seeing the former WWE Champion and Tribal Chief Roman Reigns return after months. Away from the spotlight since WrestleMania 41, Reigns got the whole arena erupting in shock and disbelief once his music started playing towards the dying moments of the Gauntlet match between CM Punk and Bron Breakker. The powerful wrestler stormed into the ring and rescued Punk and his cousin Jey Uso after Seth Rollins' goons, Breakker and Bronson Reed, started attacking them. The show closed with fans anticipating more of Reigns at the WWE with the marquee SummerSlam event at the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, to be held in a few weeks. The rumours are that Reigns was always part of the company's planning for the SummerSlam in New York and thus returned with the Monday Night Raw in Alabama, drawing the episode to a fantastic closure while also providing a snapshot of what viewers can expect at the upcoming WWE special. Punk and Breakker had entered an intense fight in the final leg of the Guntlet match to determine who would face Gunther for the World Heavyweight title at SummerSlam. The two wrestlers gave each other a hard time, landing heavy blows on each other. Fans enjoyed the captivating showdown before Punk eventually came out triumphant. It is when Reigns arrived to everyone's disbelief. The music quickly died down as Reigns rushed to the ring to save Punk and his cousin, Uso, assisting him in standing up. Reigns even seemed to get along well with Punk, having previously had problems with him. What fans are now anticipating is one of the greatest events of the year, with a potential Reigns versus Breakker clash. view comments First Published: Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Time Magazine
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
WWE Evolution 2 Is a Bittersweet Moment for Women's Wrestling
Women's wrestling has been through many iterations—see the Attitude era and the Divas era. Sunday brings the next chapter, with Evolution 2, World Wrestling Entertainment's second all-women wrestling event. Evolution 2, coming seven years after the first installment in 2018, marks another important anniversary in the world of wrestling. Ten years ago, the women's wrestling evolution ostensibly began, when Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, and Sasha Banks made their debuts on WWE's flagship program Raw. A decade since they stepped in the ring and set off a new era in the industry, women's wrestling has undertaken a bumpy journey, gaining momentum but at a spasmodic pace. The making of Evolution 'We hear you. Keep watching,' the disgraced former WWE chairman Vince McMahon posted on X, formerly Twitter, in early 2015. McMahon was responding to the viral hashtag, #GiveDivasAChance, which took off when wrestling fans began begging for women wrestlers to get more airplay after a women's tag team match on an episode of WWE's flagship program, Raw, lasted only 30 seconds. Until 2016, 'Divas' is what WWE's female wrestlers were called instead of, you know, just wrestlers, like their male counterparts. The moniker became a marketing tool to at once appeal to the growing audience of young girls and women, what with the sparkly pink butterfly championship the Divas got to wrestle for, and their hyper-sexualized appearance catered to the male demographic that has traditionally watched professional wrestling. Their matches were short, like the 30-second tag team match in 2015, and consisted mostly of hair pulling and open-handed slaps. (And don't forget the bra and panties matches!) It wasn't always like this, however, with women like the controversial Fabulous Moolah and Mildred Burke, subject of the recent film Queen of the Ring, paving the way in the mid-20th century, while The Jumping Bomb Angles and Wendi Richter who, accompanied by Cyndi Lauper, helped launch the Rock 'n' Wrestling connection, took up the mantel in the '80s. The late Joanie 'Chyna' Laurer, Trish Stratus, and Lita showed that women in wrestling could be sexy and tough in the late 1990s and early 2000s 'Attitude Era,' before the introduction of the Divas championship in 2008 led to a near decade of a watered down style of wrestling. All of that would change around the time of #GiveDivasAChance. A shift was brewing, beginning on the indie wrestling scene and making its way to NXT, WWE's developmental system where wrestlers like Lynch, Flair, and Banks (currently known as Mercedes Moné) were putting on long, technical matches that fans and the wrestlers themselves were clamoring for. That was apparently what we were to keep watching for, as per the social media instructions of McMahon. There were some positive steps made: In 2016, the Divas branding was done away with and the accompanying championship was retired, replaced by a proper women's title with a design on par with the men's (there are now 10 women's championships across WWE and its developmental brands). Women got the coveted main event slot of WWE's biggest show, WrestleMania 35, in 2019, and women have now wrestled in pretty much all of WWE's iconic stipulation matches, such as the Royal Rumble, Hell in a Cell and Money in the Bank ladder matches, and, finally, their own dedicated pay-per-view, Evolution, in 2018. What Evolution 2 means for women's wrestling There are asterisks next to some of these achievements, though. A man won the first women's Money in the Bank match, retrieving a briefcase containing a championship contract from above the ring and tossing it down to a female competitor (a rematch was scheduled two weeks later after the resulting rightful uproar). Evolution acted as counter-programming to WWE's then-fledgling partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where female athletes were not permitted to compete at the time. They have since been allowed to wrestle there, most recently in June, amid calls for WWE to pull out due to unrest in the Middle East, a continuing argument from fans. (WWE went ahead with a show in KSA shortly after Jamal Khashoggi was allegedly assassinated at the Saudi consulate, and continues to operate in the Kingdom despite a charter flight of WWE workers being detained in 2019.) It's perhaps for this reason that WWE saw no demand for a subsequent Evolution, even though most pay-per-views, or premium live events, as the company calls them, are annual events—that is, until next week, when Evolution 2 comes to Atlanta, Georgia. As with #GiveDivasAChance, fans online have been calling for a second installment pretty much since the first. Indicating just how much hasn't changed in the interim, women's wrestling segments are often the first to get cut, a spate of female performers have been let go from their contracts in regular layoffs, and despite the additional women's championships, these titles aren't regularly defended. Evolution 2 is sorely needed, even though it's an apparent afterthought among a packed pay-per-view schedule consisting of six supercards in as many weeks. No matches were announced until less than a fortnight before the show, two of which are multi-women matches, including a battle royal. As of this writing, the women's United States championship is not scheduled to be defended, even though the whole point of a women's only pay-per-view is to feature more matches with in-depth storylines. Evolution 2 also takes place the the same weekend WWE's biggest competitor, All Elite Wrestling (AEW), holds one of its marquee shows, All In, streaming on Prime Video. One can't help but wonder if Evolution 2 is being scapegoated as counter-programming once again, set up to fail by going head-to-head against All In on streaming and Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter tour in the stadium across the road. The Venn diagram of marks (wrestling vernacular for fans) and the Beyhive may not be a perfect circle, but with an increasingly diverse fanbase that is souring to the conservative-leaning WWE and veering towards the more progressive AEW, the overlap is greater than you might think. With WWE moving to Netflix earlier this year and more eyes on women's sport than ever before, Evolution 2 is perfectly positioned to snag another portion of that viewership pie. If only WWE would give it a chance.
