Skip to main content

The 5 News Week: WWE Setting Up An ESports League!?, Arn Anderson On Not Being Cleared For Physical Angles.

Hello, my fellow wrestling fans and welcome to the 5 news week. The post where I report 5 major or minor news of the week that I don't have time to do it separately. Sorry for not posting a Smackdown review yesterday. I got really ill and still am (getting better) but the difference was that I wasn't in the mood to write a review. Without further ado, here are the 5 news week.

WWE Setting Up An ESports League!? 

World Wrestling Entertainment is apparently getting into the ESports business aye? At least according to two trademarks being filed last Monday called "WWE SGL" and "Superstar Gaming League". Here's the full description from the United States Patent And Trademark Office about this:

"Entertainment services, namely, the production and distribution of an ongoing show in the nature of video games; gaming services in the nature of conducting online computer game tournaments; providing a web-based system and on-line portal for customers to participate in on-line gaming, operation and coordination of game tournaments, leagues and tours for recreational computer game playing purposes; organization of electronic game competitions; entertainment services, namely, production and distribution of a game show; entertainment services, namely, conducting live video games; provision of information relating to electronic computer games provided via the internet; entertainment services, namely, providing on-line computer games; providing ratings and reviews for video game content; entertainment services, namely, providing a website featuring games; entertainment services, namely, providing on-line reviews of computer games; gaming services in the nature of conducting online computer game tournaments; organization of electronic game competitions”

To give you guys a quick history lesson, the very first ESports event took place in 1972 of all times that had students participate at Stanford University with the winner getting a year-long subscription worth of Rolling Stone magazine which is the same publication that pumps out "greatest singer of all-time list" on their site leading to a divisive conversation (sounds familiar?). 

The 1990s is where winners win some prize money of $15,000 by the Cyberathlete Professional League or CPL later that decade leading to 3 separate international tournaments being formed in the early 2000s and they are World Cyber League, Electronic Sports World Cup and the well known Major League Gaming. 

This is an interesting move by WWE on two fronts. For one, this is a way of WWE targeting an audience of late teens and young adults given that their average viewer was 41.4 years old according to a breakdown in the November 2014 edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (from Uproxx) and that number has increased where it's now around the 50 year age range. 

The second and last point is that it is also a way of appealing to different audiences in order for the company to be "as big or bigger than Disney" according to Stephanie McMahon late last year. Furthermore, it is interesting how the powers that be will execute this league. 

WWE 2K's Social Media Was Hacked. 

This is just sad. WWE 2K's facebook has been under control by hackers for a bit with many pro-AEW posts and a “Chris Benoit for hall of fame” picture as the cover photo. 

Keep in mind that 2K games' social media accounts as a whole were also hacked right around the same time. WWE2k and 2K did gain control of their accounts once more and WWE2K posted a statement saying…. 
A lesson? Everybody should be careful about their account's security otherwise, things will turn very ugly. 

Arn Anderson On Not Being Cleared For Physical Angles. 

In an interview with Sean Ross Sapp over at Fightful (shout out to them), Arn Anderson mostly talked about how he wasn't cleared for physical angles. Here are the highlights of it:

"It’s funny," Arn stated. "When you’re in corporate, whether it be a company or a conversation or whatever the deal may be, certainly there have been questions even since I left WCW and came to WWE. “You think you can work?” You think you can have a few matches?” And those questions were coming from some pretty high places. The reality is the stuff with David Flair, and anything that I did post-surgery was done without me being cleared. I tried to get cleared to do some stuff towards the very end of WCW and I actually left television one day. They had something they wanted me to do, flew back to Charlotte, my doctor / surgeon actually took the time to examine me, looked at me and said, “Arn, you don’t understand. I will never, ever clear you to wrestle. So we can end this conversation.””

Anderson went on to talk about how he was asked to do certain things even though like Arn stated earlier, he wasn't cleared to do so:

"Over the years it would come up, “Hey, we’d like you to do this. Can you do this?” Well sure, I can do it—I thought I could—but I’m not cleared. When you’re in that corporate setting and companies like that, it’s not like going at an independent show in which they would say “Hey, man, I’d love to have you this spinebuster, what do you think?” Depending on the talent, depending on the circumstances, all those variables, that might have happened over the last 18 years. But being working for those guys, they weren’t going to take on that responsibility and you can’t blame them," 


Guys, check out the interview below. It's very informative.



Elimination Chamber 2020 Date And Venue. 

This year's Elimination Chamber show was a very enjoyable PPV that had fans engaged on Kingston's path to becoming WWE champion (it was also one of my most viewed reviews ever so click here if you're curious about my thoughts on Elimination Chamber). 

2020 is coming very soon and we've got the date and the city that the Chamber show takes place in. March 8th is the date and the venue is the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA. 

Ron Simmons On His Catchphrase "DAMN!" 

There's no denying that Ron had a very notable career and he actually talked about his tenure in the wrestling business in his interview with WrestlingINC. At one point, he talked about how his well-known catchphrase "DAMN!" came to be: 


"I think whenever things were going not so well in the ring, I would always say that and the people in some of the towns would repeat it when we went back,” stated Simmons. “My voice carried so well and one night we were there and I said it and they just started chanting, ‘Damn!’ So the writers caught onto it and they said let’s just try this in a scene. So Bradshaw, Booker T and John Cena were doing an exchange and they had me say, ‘Damn!’ So that’s where ‘damn’ was born. And the rest is ‘DAMN’ history!”


What do you think about the news I just reported and follow me on the tweets @omartheplayaguy. Anyways, stay safe smarks.

Additional sources: https://britishesports.org/news/a-brief-history-of-esports-and-video-games/, https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakeoestriecher/2017/06/09/wwe-fans-are-getting-older-but-why/#53748f252059, https://screenrant.com/stephanie-mcmahon-wwe-bigger-disney/

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My Coherent Wrestling Wednesdays: Chris Jericho Offers Moxley To Join Inner Circle, The Go-Home Show Before Dec 18th.

I thought the middle act of AEW Dynamite suffered some pacing issues even though it was overall a much stronger show than last week's episode.  The latest episode of NXT, however, has built a solid foundation on what's to come on December 18th. The main question is, which show do I like better? The answer is AEW.  NXT  Highlights. Angel Garza vs Lio Rush For The NXT Cruiserweight Championship.  Was this match better than their first encounter? Like Snoop Dogg's verse in Sasha Banks' theme song, "Hell yea". Garza slams Rush hard on the ring apron by pushing the champ. Moments later, Garza delivers the Spanish Fly and Rush kicked out of that.  As Rush hits the frog splash, the champ wanted to pull him back in the middle of the ring but instead, he ripped off Garza's pants (nice attention to detail).  Angel then hits the wind clipper but Lio kicked out which led to a wind clipper submission and the man of the hour tapped out which m...

The 5 News Week: An Interview With ROH's Eli Isom, Fans Singing Petitions For Charlotte Flair Not Winning Titles Anymore!?

Hello, my fellow wrestling fans and welcome to the 5 news week. The post where I report 5 major or minor news of the week that I don't have time to do it separately. Without further ado, here are the 5 news week. An Interview With ROH's Eli Isom.  Yes. After several and several and several of The 5 News Week articles that I've been putting out since late 2018, I finally got an interview for you guys.  The person in question is Ring Of Honour's Eli Isom. Since graduating from the ROH Dojo, Isom has worked and learned from the absolute best in the industry:  "I’m lucky that I got a chance to train from scratch with ROH, without that kind of training who knows where I’d be right now." So, without further ado, here is the conversation I had with Eli.  Omar: My first question is, how would you describe the persona of "Eli Isom" to resident WWE shills like myself? Eli Isom: For me, my wrestling persona isn’t too far off from who I real...

A Brief Guide To Pro Wrestling Websites.

So. You just become a fan of pro wrestling and have dabbled into the fandom for a bit (it's a mess ain't it?) You've just followed some news sites' social media platforms but aren't sure whether the articles they put out are accurate or not.  Well, you got the right guy to solve that problem if it's from a blog that barely gets any traction (that would be me in case you were confused).  The news we get from the medium that is pro wrestling is an integral part of the online space.  The reason being is that it's not only a great conversation starter but you could also learn something new today about the industry you love.  That doesn't mean that all of the news you see on the timeline is reliable.  I'm here to hopefully give you a guide to wrestling sites.  There are many wrestling websites out there but I wanna highlight some of the notable ones.  Okay? Here we go.  #1: Wrestling Observer Newsletter aka F4WOnline.  I can't talk about a guide t...