Before he was a Hollywood star Matthew McConaughey was a big wrestling fan. Now, during a recent interview with entertainment reporter Maria Menounos, herself a fan and occasional wrestler, the Dallas Buyers Club actor has revealed he was twice thrown out of a wrestling show he attended. The Coliseum in Shreveport, Louisiana, has hosted numerous professional wrestling events over the years, including NWA, WCW, and WWE events. However, based on the wrestlers mentioned, it was likely a Mid-South Wrestling show in 1983. Depending on the show’s exact date, McConaughey would have been about 14 at the time, which probably saved him from receiving promoter Bill Watts’ wrath. Also, in the interview, McConaughey would be asked whether he had any aspirations to wrestle himself and would reply, “You can’t say too much about these things, but it is something that interests me.” When you consider he appeared last year on a ThunderDome screen cheering on Drew McIntyre, it seems something might be on the horizon.

William Arturo Muñoz González, who wrestlers under the name of Rush, is currently Ring Of Honor World Champion and frequently features in main events when he competes in his home country of Mexico. The 32-year-old last competed in December at ROH’s Final Battle pay-per-view and retained his title over Brody King. His victory led many to believe he had re-signed with the promotion as keeping the title on a soon to be out of contract talent would be an odd decision considering the reported interest WWE had him.

While Rush ROH renewal has not been announced, it’s understood that WWE actually did have discussions over signing him. Wrestling promotion AAA represented Rush in the negotiations, but the sides couldn’t agree on a deal. Apparently, WWE felt Rush’s salary demands were too high, and a compromise couldn’t be agreed upon. WWE offers most NXT talents less than $120,000 a year for their first deal, with only a few well-known stars such as Finn Bálor and Shinsuke Nakamura receiving more. Rush’s previous contract with ROH was said to have been $150,000 a year, plus he could work independent dates, so he was almost certainly making considerably more than WWE’s offer. Often a wrestler is just happy to get a foot in the door with WWE, but as Rush has other options and knows his value, he seemingly wasn’t prepared to be lowballed.

The Bella Twins, who retired from the ring in 2019, were recent guests on the Pretty Big Deal with Ashley Graham podcast, and Nikki revealed she would like to get involved with WWE’s creative team. Her brother-in-law Daniel Bryan is currently involved with SmackDown’s creative, which has made her interested in being involved on the women’s side.

WWE now focused on women’s wrestling more than ever, having gone from Divas to Superstars as part of the women’s revolution. Therefore it makes perfect sense to get more women involved in the creative process, and Stephanie McMahon acknowledged this last year in an interview with TheNationalNews.com.

Away from the creative side of WWE, it’s also believed that both Bella’s are planning to return to the ring down eventually. Nikki’s fiancé, Artem Chigvintsev, has previously admitted the twins were in talks with WWE and believes they still have an unclosed chapter in their lives. The sisters are set to be inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame this year, so it’s possible a return could be built around that.

The annual Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic kicked off during last night’s NXT, and WWE had advertised a team named MSK to face Isaiah Scott and Jake Atlas ahead of time. The mystery team was revealed to be The Rascalz, who last wrestled for Impact Wrestling, and in addition to having a new team name, the duo had different ring names. Dezmond Xavier is now known as Wes Lee, and Zachary Wentz is using Nash Carter. NXT commentator Vic Joseph would acknowledge their past during the match by describing them as rascals. You can watch the reveal and entrance below.

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MSK was victorious in this match after Carter pinned Scott following a double-team neck breaker. They now progress to the second round and have an excellent chance to make the finals. The pair have a lot of experience as a team after first teaming in 2015 on the independents and wrestling together over 200 times since. During that time, the team successfully won the CZW Tag Team Championships in 2017 and are technically still the PWG tag champions, as the promotion is currently on hiatus.

Erick Rowan and Brodie Lee’s careers will forever be linked, as the pair teamed for over 400 matches and won gold together on NXT and SmackDown as part of the Wyatt Family and The Bludgeon Brothers. Now, Rowan has paid tribute to his former tag partner with a tattoo that depicts the animal skull mask that Tom Savini designed for Lee and one of the mallets the pair carried as part of their gimmick. Also, the word “brodir” was included, which means “brother” in Norse.

Since leaving WWE last April, Rowan has begun using the name Erick Redbeard and only wrestled once, for the United Wrestling Network in November. He did, though, make an unadvertised appearance at AEW’s Brodie Lee Celebration of Life tribute episode of Dynamite. As of now, AEW isn’t believed to have any plans to sign him to a permanent deal, but given how well fans reacted to his debut, he may be asked to return in the future.

On January 10th, 2006, the night after Edge defeated John Cena for his first WWE Championship at New Year’s Revolution, Raw would host the infamous segment where Edge and Lita were supposedly going to get it on in the ring. Of course, WWE didn’t go through with it, but it got very risqué with both performers in their underwear. Now 15 years on from the segment, Lita discussed this memorable moment during a Twitch stream and revealed she wasn’t comfortable with it. However, she was forced to go through with it after Vince McMahon threatened to fire her. Even though both Edge and John Cena stood up for her, McMahon was adamant she did it. She’d add this is why she decided to leave WWE later that year.

The segment itself would deliver in the ratings with a 5.2, helping Raw’s overall number increase 16% from the previous week. However, short term success cost WWE one of their most over talents in the process. With Lita leaving the company through her own volition, WWE made sure to embarrass her on her way out. Following her final match for the company, Cryme Tyme held a sale of Lita’s possessions from the locker room, including her underwear, yeast infection cream, and vibrator.

Over this past weekend, fans began reporting that WrestleMania 24 was no longer on the WWE Network. We speculated that as there had been issues revolving around Floyd Mayweather’s entrance music in the past, the reason could potentially be related to those. It now appears this speculation was correct as PWInsider has reported the pay-per-view is now back on the WWE Network, with Mayweather music being edited. Upon viewing, it seems WWE has replaced this track with a generic royalty-free hip hop song.

The initial issue came when music producer Anthony Lawrence Dash issued a lawsuit claiming that his song had lyrics added and was used without permission. This caused a delay with WWE’s DVD of the show being released, but in 2013, a judge ruled in Mayweather’s favor over Dash, as the producer was unable to prove Mayweather made any money by using the song. However, Dash may be looking for royalties after finding out the entrance was on the WWE Network, and as anyone who has ever watched any ECW content on the WWE Network will know, WWE doesn’t like to pay music royalties.

Jeff Jarrett and his wife Karen founded Global Force Wrestling in 2014 and taped numerous shows in an attempt to secure a television deal. Three years later, Jarrett would return to TNA, another company he co-founded and agreed with their parent company Anthem Sports & Entertainment to merge the two companies. The company, which was going by the name Impact Wrestling, would rebrand as Global Force Wrestling, but things went sour, and Jeff Jarrett departed, resulting in Anthem reverting to the previous name.

In August 2018, Jarrett filed a lawsuit against Anthem for copyright and trademark infringement over the GFW rights and claimed that the taped shows he had produced when looking to secure a TV deal had been deleted by Anthem. This led to a counter lawsuit by Anthem and became a messy situation when there was a mistrial in July 2020, after it was claimed that Jarrett’s attorney prejudiced the jury by revealing information he shouldn’t have.

However, it has now been confirmed by Law360 that as of Friday, January 8, 2021, Jarrett and Anthem have settled with court documents stating:

What the future holds for Global Force Wrestling remains to be seen. They did run shows following separating from Impact Wrestling. Their last event was with the NWA for their 70th Anniversary Show in October 2018. Since then, Jarrett was hired by WWE as a producer and works in creative.

Triple H recently celebrated 25 years with WWE, and 2020 was the first year he hadn’t wrestled. However, less than two weeks into 2021, he was called into action to replace Drew McIntyre on Raw. Triple H would open the show, but before he could say much was confronted by Randy Orton, who challenged him to a fight. Initially, Triple H declined, but after he said that Triple H’s balls were in Stephanie McMahon’s purse, he’d punch Orton, and the main event was set.

Likely due to Triple H having barely any notice and not being in ring shape, he wrestled in one of his Motörhead collaboration t-shirt’s and the contest only lasted a few minutes. Triple H brought a sledgehammer into the ring, but before he could use it, it abruptly caught fire. The lights went out at this point, and once fans could see it again, Triple H had disappeared, and Alexa Bliss was now in the ring. The Fiend’s sidekick would shoot a fireball into Orton’s face, and Raw went off the air with Orton clutching his face. It’s likely the ending would have been the same had McIntyre been able to compete, with the initial match just being longer.

As WWE referred to this as a fight continuously rather than a match, it isn’t known if this will go down officially on records. Triple H’s last official match took place in June,2 019, when he competed on WWE’s tour of Japan and teamed with Shinsuke Nakamura to defeat Robert Roode and Samoa Joe. He’d also team with AJ Styles, Luke Gallows, and Karl Anderson on that tour. Before that, wrestled Randy Orton at WWE Super ShowDown 2019. With regards to competing on Raw, his last match was a victory over Dolph Ziggler in 2016.

For the first time, WWE has publicly confirmed that a roster member has tested positive for COVID-19 and is isolating. The news has left WWE scrambling for a new Raw main event, with WWE Champion Drew McIntyre having been scheduled to face Randy Orton in a non-title match. Raw recently experienced its worst-ever rating, so this news will have come as a blow to the company who are now left scrambling to come up with a replacement.

WWE will be hoping McIntyre can make a speedy recovery, as following him retaining the WWE Championship against Keith Lee last week, he was confronted by Goldberg. This was setting up a match between the pair at the Royal Rumble on Sunday, January 31. The initial plans had been for Goldberg to face Roman Reigns in his next WWE match, but plans changed the weekend before Raw as Vince McMahon felt they had nobody ready to challenge McIntyre on the Raw brand.

UPDATE:

Since this article was published, WWE has confirmed on social media that McIntyre will still appear on Raw remotely.

Ryback was aligned with Paul Heyman back in 2013 as part of the former ECW head honcho’s feud with CM Punk. It resulted in Punk defeating Ryback and Heyman in a 2-on-1 handicap Hell in a Cell match, and the following night the feud concluded in a Street Fight, which Punk won. Ryback and Heyman’s relationship hadn’t really elevated the former Skip Sheffield, and it’s understood Ryback didn’t want to work with Heyman from the start. Now replying to a fan’s tweet, Ryback has claimed that Brock Lesnar’s former advocate has made his career came from latching onto wrestlers. He’d also say claim he could destroy Heyman on the microphone.

While a wrestler bad mouthing Paul Heyman is nothing new, declaring you can outperform him on a microphone is a bold claim. Many people consider Heyman one of the best talkers in the business, and he was the Wrestling Observer Nesweletters Best on Interviews of the 2010s winner. Heyman is currently aligned with Roman Reigns as his special counsel, a position given to him to cement Reigns’ heel turn.

Before becoming known to wrestling fans worldwide as Raven, Scott Levy had numerous other names and gimmicks, and one of them was Johnny Polo. He’d play a wealthy preppy, pretty boy from 1993 until late 1994 in WWE, and while he did wrestle on occasion, he mostly worked as a manager and commenter. Now speaking to the Scheduled For Two Falls podcast, he has spoken about being close friends with Shane McMahon during this time and how long-term this killed his career.

Levy chose to leave WWE in 1994 as he wanted to wrestle and would reinvent himself as Raven, after two spells in ECW and two years in WCW. Jim Ross would hire Levy to return to WWE in 2000, and when Vince McMahon found out he was back with his company, he reportedly said, “who the f-ck hired Raven?” Indicating he was less than happy to be working with him again. Levy would spend three years with WWE, competing on the undercard and wrestling for the Hardcore Championship.

In 2008 Levy along with Chris Kanyon and Mike Sanders filed a lawsuit against WWE, challenging their status as independent contractors during their time with the company. The case was dismissed as the statute of limitations had run out. In 2016, Levy sued WWE again for WWE Network royalties along with Buff Bagwell. Levy and Bagwell agreed to drop the suit after WWE lawyers deposed them.