Christmas is Mick Foley’s favorite time of year, so much so that he has a Christmas room in his house so he can celebrate the holiday any time of the year. Sadly the 2020 holiday season wasn’t a good one for him, as he was forced to spend Christmas alone in a hotel room due to testing positive for COVID-19. Foley revealed this depressing news via a video on his Twitter account and explained he caught the virus at a virtual signing on December 12th. Precautions had been taken, with the two people present with Foley wearing masks, but Mick would remove his own. In the video he shared, which you can watch below, he spoke about suffering fatigue, loss of smell, body aches, and difficulties with his hearing. He’d also emphasized the need for people to wear their masks and social distance. [adthrive-in-post-video-player video-id=”q42oB0SA” upload-date=”2021-01-02T15:44:39.000Z” name=”Mick Foley Video” description=”” player-type=”default” override-embed=”default”] Having spent over two weeks in isolation, we hope Mick can make a full recovery and be with his family again soon. Perhaps Christmas in January will be an option for Jolly Old St. Mick.

Erick Rowan made an appearance at the Brodie Lee Celebration of Life episode of Dynamite on Wednesday. It was already an emotional show, but Rowan’s arrival was a nice extra touch and acknowledged his WWE past. The former Bludgeon Brother, now going by the name Erick Redbeard assisted Adam Page, John Silver, and Alex Reynolds, who were facing MJF, Santana, and Ortiz by chokeslamming Wardlow, who was interfering in the match. After the babyfaces victory, he’d reenter the ring and held up a sign saying “Goodbye for now, my brother. See you down the road,” which was an emotional moment, and can be watched below.

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While many fans on social media were hoping this would be the start of Rowan becoming an AEW regular, perhaps as part of The Dark Order, it’s now been confirmed by Dave Meltzer in the latest Wrestling Observer newsletter that it was just a one-time appearance. Of course, things can always change, but as of now, AEW has no plans for him. AEW already has difficulty showcasing their whole roster, however with a new show rumored to be named “Elevation” coming this year, it is possible some spots could open up.

Longtime WWE employee Harvey Wippleman and The Rock were colleagues in the mid-90s and early 2000s; however, they had met many years earlier. When The Rock left Hawaii to live with his father Rocky Johnson, he instead stayed with Wippleman, real name Bruno Lauer in a motel. During their time together, Wippleman would buy The Rock his first car for $40 from a drug addict, and the Hollywood star hasn’t disregarded it.

Now, 33 years on, The Rock has repaid the favor and purchased a truck for his longtime friend, and it’s safe to say it cost a lot more than $40. You can watch the video The Rock shared on his Instagram below, where he presents the vehicle to Wippleman.

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This was a bighearted gesture from The Rock and shows he hasn’t forgotten where he came from. This isn’t the first time he has gifted a high-priced vehicle to someone important in his life, with his father, Haku, and Tamina Snuka all having been recipients.

Previously when talents were called up from NXT to either Raw or SmackDown, they’d have their contracts renegotiated. However, WWE only recently began discussing a contract extension with Matt Riddle. Having signed a three-year deal in July 2018, he was set to be a free agent later this year, and it’s WWE are believed to have offered him $400,000 per year, plus $50,000 per Saudi Arabia to resign. Apparently, he wasn’t happy with that offer, as while not an insignificant amount, it was a long way short of the $750,000 deals WWE was handing out in 2019 when attempting to keep talent away from AEW.

Now, though Fightful Select has reported that Riddle managed to negotiate a better deal, and last week signed on for three more years with WWE. Staying with WWE was probably a wise decision for Riddle, as Vince McMahon is said to be a big fan of Riddle and loves his character. At some point, McMahon is planning to put the former UFC fighter against Lashley for the US Championship. Also, WWE recently filed a trademark for “Hardy Bros,” which indicates that the WWE has plans for the Riddle and Jeff Hardy tag team.

Following the tragic passing of Brodie Lee, AEW paid tribute to their much-loved performer on a special episode of Dynamite. It was an emotional show and featured a Dark Order member in every match, a surprise appearance by Erick Rowan, and AEW awarding the TNT Championship belt held by Brodie Lee to his eldest son. Now, his Lee’s wife Amanda Huber has taken to her Instagram account to comment on the show.

Apart from being praised by Lee’s wife, fellow wrestlers, fans, and critics, it appears the episode was also a success in the ratings. While ratings were never a factor in AEW decision to pay tribute to Lee, as the planned show would have done well regardless given the card, it looks to have garnered one of the highest ratings of the year. Official figures won’t be available until Monday due to the New Year, however the Pro Wrestling Torch has reported the show had 977,000 average viewers. If accurate, this would have been a 28.6% increase week on week, and Dynamite’s highest rating since the 9th of September episode when NXT was preempted.

Following Jon Huber’s passing, AEW has released a Brodie Lee Exalted in Heaven memorial t-shirt to honor him, with all proceeds going to his family. Unsurprisingly, once AEW advertised this on their social media, demand was so immense the usually dependable ProWrestlingTees.com website crashed. While a website going down would usually frustrate fans, most were understanding and patient while their orders were processed.

Despite the technical difficulties, the t-shirt would set a record as the top-selling t-shirt on the site for the whole of 2020. Remarkably it took less than four hours for this to happen, and with the site now fully operational, you can check out the shirt at prowrestlingtees.com/brodie-lee-exalted.html.

Currently, Lee’s t-shirts occupy nine out of the top ten spots on Pro Wrestling Tees’ weekly sales chart, and like with the Exalted in Heaven t-shirt, all profits are going to the Huber family.

Erick Rowan, going by the name of Erick Redbeard made his AEW debut during the Brodie Lee Celebration of Life episode of Dynamite. He assisted Adam Page, John Silver, and Alex Reynolds, who were facing MJF, Santana, and Ortiz by chokeslamming Wardlow was interfering in the match. The big men fought to the back, and with the match resumed, Page hit a Buckshot Lariat on Ortiz, which looked to have secured the victory. However, MJF put Ortiz’s foot on the bottom rope, which led to Brodie Lee son, known as -1, hitting MJF with a kendo stick. Silver would then hit a discus forearm and pin Ortiz. After the match, Rowan would come out to be with the winning team and held up a sign saying, “Goodbye for now, my brother. See you down the road.” You can watch this emotional moment below.

https://twitter.com/BRWrestling/status/1344465931418832897

Rowan and Lee’s career with forever be linked due to competing over 400 times as tag partners while together in WWE. The duo captured the NXT Tag Team Championship as part of the Wyatt Family, and when repacked as The Bludgeon Brothers, they became the WWE SmackDown Tag Team Champions. Many fans had hoped to see the duo team again in AEW, so Rowan’s appearance during the tribute episode was the next best thing. As of writing, it isn’t known if this was a one-off appearance or if he has signed with AEW.

Former Intercontinental Champion Marty Jannetty is known for his outlandish claims on social media. Earlier this year, he told a story about killing a man when he was a teenager. However, once it spread worldwide and the police got involved, he recanted it. Now he has claimed he is being recruited to appear in two upcoming adult movies with Mia Khalifa. He would state this on Facebook and says he was offered $200,000 for his part.

At one point, Khalifa was one of the most well-known adult performers in the world but actually quit making adult movies in 2015. This was due to the mental distress she suffered after performing and has spoken out against unscrupulous business practices in the industry. So given this, it seems incredibly unlikely that she would return, and if she did, it almost certainly wouldn’t be to perform with Marty Jannetty.

Khalifa does have a slight connection to the pro wrestling industry herself, after publicly deriding it by saying, “I have no respect for the WWE, its not a real sport. Its embarrassing.” This comment prompted a savage retort from Shane Helms, which you can read here. However, she’d did end up turning it into a promotional opportunity by appearing on an indie show with Joey Ryan and training with Thunder Rosa, which you can watch highlights of below.

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Sean Waltman’s wrestling career in the big leagues came to a halt after contracting hepatitis C. He couldn’t get cleared to complete in some states due to it being transmitted via blood. This limited Waltman to wrestling on indie shows and making occasional non-wrestling appearances for WWE. However, speaking on his podcast, Waltman has revealed his hepatitis C is now cured due to using expensive direct-acting antiviral tablets. He’d add that he could return to the ring on a bigger stage after he gets his knee fixed.

While Waltman has been troubled by personal demons throughout his career, he appears to be in a much better place now. Considering his relationship with WWE and who runs NXT, it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility he could compete on a future TakeOver. Considering how great a performer he was during his prime and his influence in breaking down barriers for smaller wrestlers, it would be great if his in-ring career could end on a bigger stage.

John Huber, known better to wrestling fans as Brodie Lee and Luke Harper, tragically passed away this past weekend at 41. Now during this week’s edition of his podcast “What Happened When,” Tony Schiavone spoke about finding out about Huber’s death on a quickly scheduled Zoom call and discussed Tony Khan and AEW taking care of Huber’s family before and after he passed. Additionally, he revealed Hubie’s eight-year-old son had signed an official contract with AEW, which will become official once he turns 18.

While nothing will ever make up for losing a father or husband, it is tremendous that AEW is doing all they can to support the Huber family, not only now but long-term. Perhaps one day, we’ll get to see Brodie Lee Jr. complete on Dynamite and deliver a discus lariat in memory to his father.

With the entire wrestling industry mourning Jon Huber’s passing, many people tuned into Raw specifically to see how WWE would pay tribute to the man who wrestled for them as Luke Harper. Raw would open with an in memory of tribute graphic for Huber and then went to Tom Phillips, who welcomed fans by saying, “Happy holidays everyone, it’s Monday, and you know what that means, Raw is live,” a reference to Huber’s daily tweets. Drew McIntyre also referenced his tweets and even said “yeah, yeah, yeah” during his promo. Other talents would pay their own tributes, with Alexa Bliss again saying “yeah, yeah, yeah,” T-Bar posing like Huber during his entrance, and both Xavier Woods and Richochet using discus lariats during their matches. Woods would additionally wear an armband with “Brodie” on it.

However, not everyone felt this was enough of a tribute to the much-loved man, who had spent eight years with WWE. One of them was Brian Myers, who used to compete in WWE as Curt Hawkins, who took to his Twitter account to express his disappointment that there was no ten bell salute or video package,

It is understood that WWE has plans for something more meaningful as they spent a portion of Monday afternoon recording tributes for Huber’s from numerous talents. However, it is not known precisely what the footage will be used for.

Away from WWE, Huber’s most recent promotion AEW is celebrating his life on this Wednesday episode of Dynamite, with all five matches featuring at least one member of The Dark Order.

Following Brodie Lee’s passing, Tony Khan has rewritten this week’s upcoming episode of Dynamite to be a celebration of his life dedicated to his wife and sons. Every match will be a tribute to Lee by featuring a member of The Dark Order. Also, Chris Jericho will be on commentary. You can read the full announced card below.

Cody Rhodes, Orange Cassidy, and Preston “10” Vance (Brodie Lee’s eldest son’s three favorite wrestlers) vs. Brian Cage, Ricky Starks, and Will Hobbs.

The Young Bucks and Colt Cabana vs. Matt Hardy and Private Party

Anna Jay and Tay Conti vs. Dr. Britt Baker and Penelope Ford

Lance Archer, Evil Uno and Stu Grayson vs. Eddie Kingston, The Butcher, and The Blade

Adam Page, Jon Silver and Alex Reynolds vs. MJF, Santana, and Ortiz

The first night of AEW’s New Year’s Smash themed episode of Dynamite, which was scheduled to have taken place this week, will now instead take place next week and be headlined by Kenny Omega vs. Rey Fenix. The second night will take place on January 13.