The cast of the smash sitcom Friends reunites again on “Carpool Karaoke” with James Corden.
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The New York Post is reporting that Apple may be looking to launch health clinics.
The report comes from the Wall Street Journal and states Apple wants to own clinics, hire doctors, and use Apple Health to collect data.
According to the report, Apple Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams had the idea and challenged employees to disrupt the healthcare sector. Williams wants to upend America’s “363” healthcare model where Americans only see their doctor twice a year on average.
Apple has a leg up in this potential venture has they have Apple Health on their devices. The Apple Watch can monitor your heart rate, exercise patterns, and third party apps can track even more health activity.
Apple has not formally announced their entrance or intentions to open health clinics.
After a controversial 2020, Call Her Daddy is leaving Barstool Media for Spotify.
In a deal rumored to be worth $60 million, Alex Cooper is taking her podcast to Spotify starting July 21. The deal is an exclusive deal for the two, locking out Barstool Media.
In 2020, Cooper and Barstool had a massive feud in hopes to renegotiate hers and former co-host Sofia Franklyn’s contracts. In the end, Franklyn exited the podcast and Cooper has gone on to host the show solo.
Now, Cooper is cashing in on the biggest exclusive deal Spotify has signed for a female led podcast.
Spotify announced the move with a simple tweet:
Relationship Status: Exclusive 😉@callherdaddy https://t.co/XijFAWekTa pic.twitter.com/Ex08uDMczT
— Spotify (@Spotify) June 15, 2021
“From its start three years ago, the show has always been about challenging the status-quo and manifesting conversations that previously only happened behind closed doors,” Cooper said in a statement, adding that she will “continue raising the bar great with content and guests” on her new platform.
It will be interesting to see how Daddy fans react to the news and follow Cooper to her new home.
Apple has released a pair of Beats branded bluetooth earbuds.
The Beat Studio Buds come in black, white, and red and cost $149.99. You can pre-order the headphone on Apple.com, Walmart.com, and Amazon.
“Studio Buds is our tiniest, most subtle form factor to date, yet keeps Beats’ promise of delivering an immersive sound experience in a beautiful design,” said Beats and Apple Music vice president Oliver Schusser in a press release. “In building a product this small, every minute detail was considered, analyzed and selected to optimize for sound quality, comfort and durability.”
The new Studio Buds officer two listening modes: active noise cancelling and transparency mode.
By B.J. Bethel
A week after WWE announced several mainstream sports executives joining its board, the company announced on Wednesday it was releasing wrestlers Aleister Black, Ruby Riott, Brawn Strowman, Lana, Santana Garrett and Buddy Murphy.
The cuts were a bit scattered, but with the amount of releases the company has made, it isn’t a major surprise, even though there seemed to be little planning in some of the cuts. Black was involved in a match with Intercontinental Champion Big E on Monday Night Raw earlier this week. Strowman was pushed as a future main eventer for months and considered a project under the direction of Vince McMahon, before he lost some of his initial buzz from the beginning of his singles run. He had a seven-figure contract, which put him in the company’s budget-cutting crosshairs.
Two years ago, WWE was in purchase mode, offering five-year deals and major extension money to everyone on the roster in an effort to kill burgeoning All-Elite Wrestling in the cradle. The company had major success cornering much of the women’s independent talent in the US and locked up many big names from Ring of Honor. But priorities have changed.
Even though the company had its best year in fiscal history in 2020, and just signed a $1 billion deal with Peacock for streaming rights to the WWE Network, the company has been slashing its budget since last spring. The company’s labor costs are relatively low to begin with, but that hasn’t kept them from releasing talent over the last several months.
With WWE’s effort to put AEW out of business a failure, the company is trimming the hedges and repainting the shutters for potential suitors in a sale. Two sources have told me WWE would have considered a sale in the last several years, but couldn’t get the magic number it wanted, something close to the $6 billion Ultimate Fighting Championship received in its sale in 2016.
When WWE signed its latest billions in TV deals with Viacom and FOX in 2018, the company was at its highest value point in history. It’s since declined in ratings steadily over the last three years, especially over the last year during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it hasn’t hurt the company bottom line. Cutting house shows during the pandemic actually saved the company money, according to reports from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter last year.
But the current streaming wars, along with the major Peacock deal, may be a signal to WWE owner Vince McMahon that it’s now or never to get that major payoff. Steaming platforms are buying up content at record rates, with winners and losers already emerging. What’s expect to follow is consolidation and buyouts of the weaker platforms. If WWE wants to make a sale, this may be its best chance before the number of potential suitors plummet as some streamers die off or get swallowed by the winners.
What WWE cuts mean for released talent
If there’s ever proof that having experience on the indies is important, you’ll see it over the next year as released WWE talent tries to make its way into the greater wrestling world. For workers who came straight into the business via the Performance Center in Orlando, things will be tougher than those who were already established in other companies. For one, those fan bases do vary. Another, while WWE is the biggest company in the world, the WWE “main event” style doesn’t translate well to other promotions, and you can’t take those WWE copyright names and gimmicks with you, so while you are in a much better position than someone starting out, you’re going to have to reinvent yourself for a different crowd.
Ruby Riott/Heidi Lovelace – Riott wrestled as Heidi Lovelace while training in Ohio Valley Wrestling and through time at Shimmer, Chikara and SHINE. She’s got a solid indie background and was a star in WWE, even helming her own stable. WWE did well cornering the market on women’s talent in 2019 and Lovelace should be in high demand from the other American companies.
Braun Strowman – Strowman made a name in strongman competitions before he was signed by WWE in 2013. He’s a total product of the WWE system. Also hurting him, his comments about indie talent hurting during lockdowns in Spring 2020 showed little awareness of how the independent system worked. He later apologized, but he may not have to. Strowman’s knees took a beating while competing in Strongman and training in WWE, and he also had a seven-figure contract, which Dave Meltzer reported was the catalyst for his release. He has money in the bank if he wants to move on with his life. If he wants to continue his wrestling career, hes’ going to have to learn the independent system, but he has a better head start than most WWE-born talent in that he was a recognizable main eventer.
Santana Garrett – Garrett was in WWE since 2019, after competing on and off in NXT as enhancement talent and in the Mae Young Classic Tournament. She worked most of the major women’s promotions like Stardom, SHINE, WOW and a five-year indie run with Coastal Championship Wrestling out of Florida. She was also in and out of TNA/Impact for several years and was Number One contender for the Knockout’s Title. Garrett wasn’t in WWE/NXT long enough to make a marquee name but she’s a second-generation wrestler, with an impressive line of work and will get a lot of looks.
Lana/CJ Lang – To put Lang’s release in context, I’ll quote a tweet her husband, AEW’s Miro, made today: “You can’t soar with the eagles if you’re hanging with the turkeys.” No more dumb storylines trying to book their own divorce, I couldn’t be happier for Lang and Miro.
Aleister Black/Tommy End – End won’t be out of work long. He came into NXT as the leader of the SANITY stable, which was one of the major players on the brand. His run on the main roster – like many other NXT talent – wasn’t as successful. End spent 14 years in UK’s prolific independent wrestling scene, helping build it to its peak while wrestling for ICW, WXW, Progress and Revolution Pro. WWE took notice and signed him in 2017. End’s style and experience will have him in demand overseas and in the US.
Buddy Murphy/Matt Silva – While End was a major player in UK’s burgeoning scene, Silva was a pioneering wrestler in the Australian wrestling scene, which has drawn wrestlers from all over the world. Silva worked six years for MCW and PCW in his home country, before signing with WWE in 2013. He worked in NXT through 2018 until he joined the company’s Cruiserweight Tournament and 205 Live brand. He wrestled much of WWE’s top ring talent in its Cruiserweight division before partnering with Seth Rollins as a sidekick in 2020 and 2021 and won the Raw tag titles. Given Silva’s experience, name in Australia, solid work in WWE, he will be a hot commodity and especially for New Japan, who could use more Asian sphere gaijins on its roster.
Dwayne Johnson took to Instagram to reveal the official artwork for the upcoming film, Jungle Cruise, starring himself and Emily Blunt. Check it out below.
NBC’s biggest show is coming to an end. This Is Us will wrap up at the end of their sixth season.
Dan Fogelman has been open about wanting the show to be a shorter series. “We never set out to make a television series that was going to last 18 seasons, so we have a very direct plan. I have script pages I have written and I’m writing that really are deep, deep, deep into the future. We have a plan for what we’re going to do, and I know what the plan is,” Fogelman told THR in April 2019, adding that the show was then at its midpoint.
While NBC has not yet gone on record about the show ending, an announcement is expected to come out Friday. This Is US was a hit from day one.
WWE Legend Dave Bautista (known as Batista to WWE fans) says he is retiring his portrayal of Drax the Destroyer after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Bautista took to Twitter and told fans that he is retiring the character because “I’ll be 54 for god’s sake!”. The actor has played the role since 2014 and has appeared in four Marvel movies.
“I don’t know what the script of the third film is, to be honest with you,” Bautista said in an IGN interview. “There was a script years ago that obviously is going to have to change because the whole direction of the Marvel universe has changed.”
Bautista said that Guardians director James Gunn has pitched a Drax spinoff. “There were talks for a while about a Drax and Mantis film,” Bautista said. “It was really because it was James Gunn’s idea. He really wanted to do a Drax and Mantis film. He laid it out to me. I thought it was such a brilliant idea, but I haven’t heard any follow-up from the studio. I don’t think they’re very interested, or it doesn’t fit into the way they have things mapped out.”
Bautista also told IGN that Gunn offered him a role in Suicide Squad. “I had the ‘Suicide Squad’ where I got to work with my boy again, even though it’s a smaller role, and then I had ‘Army of the Dead’ on which I get to work with Zack, I get to build a relationship with Netflix, I get a lead role in a great film – and I get paid a lot more money,” said Bautista.
Will you miss Bautista as Drax?
Bruce Mitchell Feature Column
ORIGINAL HEADLINE: Brian Pillman’s Extreme Creation
PUBLISH DATE: February 24, 1996
Pro Wrestling Torch Weekly newsletter #375/376
“Every thing you see actually happens.”
-Big Time Wrestling main eventer Rocky Johnson with the ’70s answer to the question, “work or shoot?”
The firing of Brian Pillman is a work.
You know, a fake, a con, a rib, not kosher…
But it’s not just your ordinary, everyday wrestling lie either. The firing of Brian Pillman is the Chinese box of wrestling, a deception immersed in a question mark wrapped in an enigma.
It’s an angle that has been organized with paranoid meticulousness and it’s got wrestlers, announcers, production people, officials, and fans of all sorts talking. The “Respect” match at SuperBrawl and subsequent firing have been more of a topic of conversation than this week’s shots in the WWF-WCW war, the latest Ultimate Fighting Championship political embroglio, the longawaited and desired Miss Liz turn, and a loss by Hulk Hogan to (of all people) Arn Anderson. All might dominate wrestling conversations on their own any other week.
Why the overwhelming interest?
Well, after all, Pillman really was terminated on Wednesday by WCW senior vice president Eric Bischoff. Pillman really did hire a lawyer, Rubin Katz, who defended Pete Rose during his wrongful termination. Pillman really did appear Saturday night at a place where they hate WCW with the same passion as Vince McMahon, ECW Arena. Pillman really was telling people he wanted to get himself on the live Monday Night Raw from, serendipitously, his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.
The events of SuperBrawl have quickly become wrestling’s version of an Urban Legend, a story intertwined with almost indistinguishable threads of fact and compelling fiction. Threads such as these:
No one can find Pillman to give him the finish to the scheduled 12 minute strap match. No one can find the strap because Pillman stole it.
Everyone saw Pillman forcibly grab the mic from the startled referee and sneer the soon to be legendary words, in some circles at least, “I respect you, booker man.” Everyone backstage saw Pillman and Bischoff swear at each other during a heated argument.
Someone told Chris Cruise he didn’t have to interview Pillman because “he’s so crazy he might hit you on the air.” Someone heard a bewildered Hulk Hogan ask, “What’s the deal with Pillman?” Someone saw an incensed Arn Anderson chase Pillman through the parking lot looking to beat his ass for “ruining the show.” Someone saw Pillman in his wrestling gear burn rubber on his way outta there promptly smashing into another car.
The Urban Legend is really the Pillman Legend. A loose cannon who will do anything to anyone at any time because he really doesn’t give a f.
The origins of that legend, that work, reveal this whole scenario for what it is: the nuttily brilliant attempt of a wrestler who is beginning to realize that being a great worker wasn’t going to be enough, this time, to garner him another guaranteed money contract.
And it can all be traced back to one event – the Dec. 15 show honoring Stu Hart.
Virtually unnoticed in the tribute recognizing the 50 year career of one of the patriarchs of the business was the return of Brian Pillman to the Calgary territory where he started his career. More important may have been his reunion with his mentor and partner in the Bad Company tag team, Bruce Hart. This is a guy who has been in and around the business literally his entire life, who knew not only every hold and counter hold, but every swerve and counterswerve in the business.
And then there was Bad Company’s opponents for the show, Dory and Terry Funk. They, too, have seen it all. They, too, know what it’s like to work everyone from fans to friends to family, what it’s like to have no loyalty to anyone but yourself. Who better to help Pillman formulate a strategy, more of a 24 hour a day con, designed to turn cold Brian into a hot enough commodity that WCW would have to resign him for fear of losing him to their archrivals, the WWF?
Call it the Brody strategy after the legendary brawler and clubhouse lawyer, Bruiser Brody, who knew how to cause so much turmoil in the dressing room and so much action on TV and in the ring that he ripped the focus of any promotion he worked in away from anyone else.
And then he walked out, taking his heat and his controversy to a new promotion for more money.
When Brody walked out on Giant Baba and the All Japan promotion to jump to New Japan Pro Wrestling, in the legendary example, he made headlines around that country. He was the star who compelled the Japanese fans to watch him both in and out of the ring. The compulsion he created in Japan and with similar tactics in other countries including the U.S. made him a rich man.
After the Calgary show, Brian Pillman was a changed man, an all day punk whether he was at WCW shows, at boxing matches, on his rightwing radio show, or at adult entertainment emporius where he simultaneously sneered at fans and hawked Four Horsemen tshirts.