figures Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
End of an error?
Vince McMahon, longtime WWE impresario, is stepping down as chairman and CEO during an investigation into an allegation he paid a former employee $3M in hush money to keep their sexual affair quiet, the company announced Friday....
Now’s apparently the time to ask Vince McMahon for anything
Given my history of putting the kibosh on stuff I proclaim, I’m probably putting paid to one of the things I want most in the world. But, wrestling media and social media were alight last night with reports that Sasha Banks had secured her release from WWE. No one has confirmed it, but no one has de...
Jeff Hardy needs help
It’s undeniable at this point. Jeff Hardy must come to terms with how lucky he is that his reckless behavior has not seriously hurt anyone thus far. He’s repeatedly put himself in danger outside the squared circle after making his career with a high-flying, daredevil style. Hardy seeking professiona...
You won’t have 15-year old figure skaters to kick around anymore
Anyone remember the hot garbage fire that was the Olympic figure skating finals in February? For those who don’t, allow me to jog your memory — 15-year-old star Kamila Valieva, the center of a Russian Olympic Committee doping scandal, sobbing after falling twice as the pressure of the PED investigat...
Vince McMahon deserves whatever consequences come from booking Sasha Banks and Naomi poorly
Sasha Banks and Naomi took their ball and went home. This is far from a work or part of WWE’s scripted episodic weekly television programming. Two of Vince McMahon’s most talented female performers walked out of Scope Arena in Norfolk, Va., and didn’t return despite being booked in last evening’s or...
Nostalgia is WWE’s biggest weapon… with a tinge of spite
There might not be a promise I’ve broken more than saying I won’t mention AEW when discussing WWE, and vice versa. I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten it right. It’s not so easy when that’s the main narrative of the wrestling industry these days. And it’s also hard to avoid when WWE, on their biggest nigh...
That’s me, just ugly crying over wrestling
My father used to talk about what it was like for him to watch things like Naked Gun or Monty Python, where it wasn’t just laughing at the jokes, but laughing at yourself for laughing at them, which only made you laugh even more than you already were....
Wrestler breaks neck during Smackdown, avoids serious injury
Big E is lucky he’s not paralyzed. Look up Stone Cold Steve Austin, Hiromu Takahashi, Hayabusa, Nikki Bella, Sabu, Hardcore Holly, Paige, and Edge. All professional wrestlers who suffered major neck injuries and had their careers and lives changed because of it. The former WWE Champion and member of...
AEW out-Manias <em>WrestleMania</em>
AEW has been such crazy fun and so ridiculous that it pretty much makes me a hypocrite on a weekly basis. I’ve said, on more than one occasion, that trying to compare AEW and WWE is pointless and a bit too cynical. They’re two different things, even if they’re in the same general industry. And yet y...
Debacle on ice: Olympics women’s figure skating was the opposite of heartwarming
The scene after the end of the women’s free skate was hard to watch Thursday — tears, screaming, and heartbreak pouring from the Russian athletes expected to sweep the podium, their Olympic experience destroyed by a doping scandal involving the country’s 15-year-old star, Kamila Valieva....
Kamila Valieva’s saga sets a dangerous precedent for skaters
It wouldn’t be a proper Winter Olympics without a figure skating melodrama. It’s earned a reputation as the Olympics’ closest equivalent to soap opera. In 2002, a judge cheating scandal led to a reform of the entire scoring system. Tonya Harding’s sabotage of Nancy Kerrigan before the ‘92 Olympics a...
Nathan Chen deserves every second of the Olympic spotlight he’s about to get
The Winter Olympics are always sports’ most unique event. For the most part, it’s a collection of niche sports getting international attention all at once. Exceptions have existed with men’s ice hockey, with five straight Olympiads allowing the NHL’s stars to participate for their countries, last ta...
WWE finally wins one
The new addition to wrestling discourse in the past couple years, and this year especially with the raft of releases from WWE, is to dream of which wrestlers will go from WWE to AEW, whether by choice or by force. And also, to dream what they will do when they get there, to fantasy book your dream m...
So what is WWE’s plan for Roman Reigns?
I’ll admit to watching Survivor Series last night hoping that it would be an unmitigated disaster. Through WWE’s terrible promotion and build to the event, spiced with the disheartening and cold releases of wrestlers due to “budget cuts” even though the company keeps trumpeting record profits, there...
WWE and pro wrestling have always needed a union, but will it ever happen?
Talk of unionizing professional wrestling pops up at least once a year, with it usually coming on the heels of another needless round of WWE releases due to “budget cuts” like my colleague Sam Fels wrote about regarding their most recent cuts last week....
It’s time to move on from Ric Flair
It’s rarely a good sign when you have to make two attempts at a public relations statement....
Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole now define AEW, just like that
It’s strange to say that a company that has been around almost two years still was trying to find something of an identity. And it’s always had one, but until Sunday it still had some nebulous quality, after Sunday’s All Out pay-per-view, we know exactly what AEW is, what it’s going to be, and where...
Just when I think I'm out, WWE's big events pull me back in
SummerSlam is Saturday night, the second-biggest night in pro wrestling behind WrestleMania, and as a casual fan of the grapples, I’ll be tuning in as usual....
We are about to enter the end of the beginning in wrestling
Wrestling has been here before. Everything is cyclical in the business — everyone comes back, stories pop up again and reference what came before, it’s a never-ending soap opera. So the idea of being on the precipice of something at least resembling a sea change in the world of big-time professional...