40 Minutes of WWE Facts
- [Narrator] Did you know, the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view in Germany isn't called Elimination Chamber, but instead No Escape. The reason for this is to avoid any similarities to the Holocaust where Jews and other minorities were killed in gas chambers during World War II in Nazi Germany. When WWE renamed the No Way Out pay-per-view to Elimination Chamber in 2010, German broadcasts simply continued to use the name No Way Out. However, in 2012, when the No Way Out pay-per-view made a return, the event was branded as No Escape in Germany, and since then, all Elimination Chamber shows have used the No Escape title. Sometimes WWE has censored themselves after an event has already taken place. In 2016, Charlotte, being accompanied by her father Ric Flair, took on Becky Lynch at the Royal Rumble.
During the match, Ric Flair kissed Becky Lynch to distract her. This type of distraction wasn't anything new in the WWE, but this particular moment did receive backlash, as some viewers felt that it was sexist of Flair to force himself onto Becky Lynch. It's unknown if it was a pre-planned spot or made on the fly by the performers. Either way, the kiss is removed from WWE Network version of the show. Another time WWE censored themselves was in April of 2011 on Raw.
After losing to John Morrison, R-Truth turned heel by attacking Morrison after the match. Likely to help promote R-Truth's new attitude, Truth grabbed a packet of cigarettes and started smoking. The smoking was cut from the UK broadcast, potentially due to the fact that's it's illegal to smoke in a public area in England. The segment may have also been cut due to criticism from anti-smoking groups.
In fact, anti-smoking activists Patrick Reynolds asked for R-Truth to publicly apologize for the stint and even offered to be Truth's personal coach, if he wanted help quitting. Censorship hasn't just happened in the ring. WWE's toy line has also had to deal with alterations. Hell in a Cell is a match type that's been turned into a playset a number of times.
However, the word Hell cannot use on a children's toy. So the Hell in a Cell match has usually just been branded as simply The Cell. Wrestlers themselves have also been censored when turned into action figure form. When ECW and WWE wrestler Balls Mahoney had an action figure made of him, his name was shortened to just his first initial and surname, or in some cases just simply his surname.
This was likely to avoid intimidating toy retailers from selling a product with an obscene name. While Mahoney was able to keep his name intact, another wrestler wasn't allowed to use his name at all. When TNA Wrestling partnered with toy manufacturer Jakks Pacific, the wrestler Suicide got his very first action figure. However, the figure left out any references to the Suicide name and used a simplified version of his logo instead. This could have been due to legal issues and-or wanting to not worry retailers.
While WWE has censored their own product, other organizations have also tried to censor them. In one case, WWE once had an on-air fight with its own network. On the last episode of Raw on Spike TV, any mention of the USA Network, which is where Raw was moving to, was censored by Spike. - Next week, Monday Night Raw returns back.
It's gonna be. - To fight back, the Raw commentators try to say USA Network as much as possible to make it difficult for Spike TV to censor it. - [Jerry] Is he saying we're going to USA next week? - [Coach] We're going to USA. - [Jerry] Oh, it's gonna be on USA Network. - [Coach] They're gonna have a ladder match on USA. - [Narrator] According to an interview with Vince McMahon afterwards, WWE was not given any warning before the show about mentioning the USA Network.
In another instance, WWE programming was completely banned. In late 2006, SmackDown and several other WWE programs were taken off the air in Indonesia. This came about when a nine-year-old boy died several weeks after he was thrown to the ground and pinned by his friends in a manner that resembled moves seen on WWE TV, according to the boys' father, although Indonesian authorities eventually said that the death had no connection to WWE. The station airing WWE in Indonesia, Lativi TV, stopped airing WWE after pressure from parents and educators, saying the show encouraged violent behavior in children. In addition to being censored, WWE has also censored others. In the lead up to the release of SmackDown vs. Raw 2009,
the demo was leaked that gave guidelines to news outlets who were previewing the game. Journalists could not show screenshots that include blood or show weapons with significant force. This makes sense as WWE's programming had just switched from a TV-14 rating to PG earlier that year. While it's not uncommon for companies to make restrictions when giving organizations preview copies of their games, another request was a little odd.
News outlets were not allowed to show Triple H losing, defeated, or in a defenseless position. Triple H is also the only character to have any sorts of restrictions when included in previews. On the topic of WWE games, WWE has also censored players. The Create a Wrestler feature has been in many WWE games, and WWE 2K15 was no exception.
However, when players tried to upload created versions of former WWE wrestler Chris Benoit to the community creations page, they were banned from the online content of the game. This is because of WWE's strict guidelines on mentioning Benoit due to his double murder-suicide. Eventually the punishment was lightened, and Chris Benoit-related uploads would just be removed without any bans. Did you know, Alexa Bliss' character was originally gonna have a redneck gimmick? In 2013 before she made her in-ring debut, the first idea for Bliss's character would be that of a spoiled, tough love southerner who was dating Scott Dawson. Bliss would accompany Dawson to the ring and serve in a manager-valet type role. The closest this idea ever got to seeing the light of day was at a few untelevised NXT events where Bliss came with Dawson to the ring.
However, the unused character was how the name Alexa Bliss came about. The phrase, bless your heart, is common in the southern United States. With the Southern accent, the word bless can sound like Bliss. Originally, she was planning on having Bliss your heart, be her catchphrase, as well as using Bliss for some wordplay, but once the Southern character got turned down, she decided to use Bliss as a surname and combine it with her real first name of Alexis. It's also possible that Alexa Bliss was originally gonna make her debut in NXT as a member of the group, The Beautiful Fierce Females, the BFFs, which was comprised of Charlotte, Sasha Banks, and Summer Rae. In March of 2014, Bliss teamed up with Sasha Banks and Charlotte at a handful of NXT live events.
Summer Rae was also appearing less frequently on NXT as she was competing more on the main WWE roster, as well as filming for the show Total Divas. So it's possible that the plan was for Alexa Bliss to debut as the new third member of the BFFs. This, of course, didn't happen as she ended up as a singles competitor. Bliss' mother was against her pursuing a career with WWE. When Alexa Bliss told her mother that she got a tryout with WWE, her mother was opposed to the decision and even used Chyna as a reason not to join, saying that women Chyna's size would destroy her in the ring.
Because of her mother's disapproval, Bliss ended up attending the WWE tryout without her mother's knowledge. Shortly after being signed though, Bliss' mother did a complete 180. Bliss found that the culture and the demand of the WWE was too much for her and was thinking of quitting. Her mother, however, was the one that convinced her to continue and even worked with her on creating promos and talking on the mic.
Alexa Bliss is just over five feet tall, hence the nickname five feet of fury. What's kind of funny though is WWE had to make some adjustments for her because of her size. When she won the WWE Raw Women's championship at Payback 2017, the belt was a little too big for her. So in order to make it fit, the belt had to be shortened.
Alexa Bliss didn't make her in-ring debut until about a year after being signed to the WWE. Her first ever appearance was in July of 2013 when she was a part of the group of female performers who congratulated Paige on becoming the first NXT Women's champion. Later in the year, she became an announcer, but was never given a name.
While announcing, she had trouble remembering what she was supposed to say, and placed sticky notes on the back of her microphone to serve as a reminder. She also worked a little bit as a referee at some NXT live events. In May of 2014, she made her televised debut on NXT and had a gimmick that was, for lack of a better term, a sparkly fairy.
What's interesting is that the idea for this character started back in 2012. While Alexa Bliss was attending a WWE tryout, she was discussing with Triple H what ideas she had for her persona. One trait she wanted to include was spraying sparkles, which was inspired by the Great Kabuki, who sprayed green mist. After joining NXT and trying to create a character for herself for roughly a year, she ultimately ended up going back to the one she came up with during her tryout two years ago, which took inspiration from her cheerleading career. Despite having a completely different personality today, her moveset takes inspiration from her cheerleading days. Bliss' finishing maneuver, Twisted Bliss, is based on a move she performed during her tumbling sequence in cheerleading.
Bliss is known for wearing attire that are inspired by pop culture characters. However, there's a couple of ideas that haven't seen the light of day yet. One was an outfit based on the character Two-Face from the Batman franchise. In NXT, while she was teamed with Blake and Murphy, they had planned to do a team cosplay of the Batman characters Harley Quinn and the Joker. While this never happened, Bliss decided to use the Harley Quinn attire when she made the move to SmackDown Live.
She was actually worried that she wasn't gonna be able to use any pop culture themed attires when she moved to the main roster because of the perceived stricter culture than in NXT. This led to her not asking for permission to wear the Harley Quinn-inspired clothes. Luckily she got a warm response to the decision and has continued to incorporate other characters into her threads. Did you know, Brock Lesnar's iconic entrance music, titled "Next Big Thing," wasn't originally created for him? In 2001, about a year before Lesnar debuted in WWE, the Chicago Enforcers, one of the eight teams that were part of the short-lived XFL American football league, which was owned by the WWE, used what later would become the Beast Incarnate's entrance music as their fight song when being introduced. - [Stadium Announcer] Please welcome your Chicago Enforcers.
(thrilling rock music) - [Narrator] On a similar note, Lesnar didn't use the "Next Big Thing" theme song right away. Between April and early June of 2002, Brock Lesnar used the song ironically titled "Enforcer." - [Jerry] Uh oh. - [Jim] Well, there should be most interesting. - [Narrator] It wasn't until the June 10th, 2002 episode of Raw that Lesnar came out to his trademark song. As some may know, Brock Lesnar used to use the Shooting Star Press as his finishing move.
However, after seeing Lesnar perform the move during a dark match in 2001, Curt Hennig, also known as Mr. Perfect, told Lesnar to stop performing the move, saying to both leave moves like that to smaller guys, and also that it wasn't worth the risk. Despite Hennig's argument, Lesnar still decided to use the move until he start performing on WWE TV a year later. As many know, Lesnar did eventually break out the move in 2003 at WrestleMania 19, and sadly the risk caught up to Lesnar as when he went to perform the move, he wasn't able to stick the landing, causing his head to be slammed on the mat. What makes it even sadder is Brock Lesnar didn't want to perform the move. John Laurinaitis was the agent for Brock's match, an agent being the one who helps wrestlers plan out their matches and then share it with the production crew.
Laurinaits thought the match needed something special, considering it was the main event of WrestleMania, and suggested Lesnar bring back the Shooting Star Press to finish the match. Lesnar hadn't performed the move in over a year, and by this point he realized how dangerous it really was. So Lesnar turned it down, but Laurinaitis insisted Brock do the Shooting Star Press, and Jim Ross, who was the head of talent relations at the time, chimed in and encouraged Lesnar to break out the move. Lesnar eventually gave in. After practicing the move a few times, he felt comfortable executing it.
The reason why Brock wasn't able to perform it successfully during the match was because of how exhausted Brock was by that point, and also because of how slippery the ropes were from the sweat that had built up on them. Brock Lesnar commented on the incident saying, quote, "I'm lucky that I didn't end up in a wheelchair." Paul Heyman has been alongside Brock Lesnar throughout most of his WWE career, both onscreen and off it. It's actually thanks to Taz that the two got introduced. When Lesnar first started traveling, competing at house shows or live events and in dark matches, he rode with Kurt Angle and Taz. One interest that brought them together was amateur wrestling, Brock Lesnar winning the NCAA Division I heavyweight wrestling championship, Angle winning an Olympic gold medal in the heavyweight wrestling class, and Taz being a fan of the sport.
So naturally, both Lesnar and Taz disagreed with the style of wrestling that Brock was being told to work, which is more of a traditional pro wrestling format. Both men wanted Lesnar to perform in a more realistic style, as they felt like the way Brock was being taught how to perform didn't fit with the current era. This prompted Taz to get Lesnar in contact with Paul Heyman.
The two hit it off instantly and soon after, Heyman started speaking up for Lesnar. This led to Heyman becoming Lesnar's on screen agent. While Paul Heyman's role as an agent was almost, if not identical to that of a manager, there were reasons for the alternate name.
The main one is because managers were seen as an older term and not reflective of the current time. Another was because Vince McMahon didn't like dealing with Hollywood agents, so he thought a heel agent was a great fit. In real life, the Big Show and Brock Lesnar are friends and enjoy performing the ring with each other. In fact, Big Show cried when he found out Lesnar was leaving in 2004.
However, it wasn't always this way. In 2000, Big Show was sent to WWE's developmental promotion, Ohio Valley Wrestling, to get in better physical shape. According to Lesnar's autobiography, "Death Clutch," Big Show looked down on the other trainees, one of which was Brock Lesnar and overall was not happy to be there.
Lesnar didn't tolerate this and ended up performing a double leg takedown on him and put him in a hold. They also had a few verbal exchanges, which included Big Show saying, quote, "I'll be back up in the main events, making millions, "and you'll still be down here in Louisville "setting up the ring." Like previously mentioned, Big Show and Brock Lesnar did eventually appreciate each other. Lesnar said one of the reasons he liked working with Big Show was because Show is one of the few people that was larger than he was. This is also why he enjoyed working with the Undertaker.
Big Show and Brock Lesnar squared off at the 2002 Survivor Series for the WWE championship. However, originally Lesnar was supposed to defend the title in the main event of the pay-per-view. After Lesnar's feud with the Undertaker, Hulk Hogan was gonna make his onscreen return after being taken off TV following a beat down by Lesnar. The storyline would be that Hogan was looking to get even with Brock Lesnar after Lesnar put him out of action. It would've been a close match, but Brock would have ultimately come out on top.
Hogan didn't agree with the proposed idea and Big Show ended up taking his place and Hogan's return was pushed back to early 2003. A Brock Lesnar t-shirt was once sold for over 18,000 U.S. dollars. In 2017, a shirt worn by the man himself was put up for auction by WWE. Lesnar wore the shirt on the August 17th, 2015 edition of Raw where he had a homecoming celebration, which was followed by a brawl with the Undertaker.
The shirt was also signed to lead later that night. The winning bid for the shirt was $18,130. Did you know, Sasha Banks didn't go to traditional school for all her life.
Growing up, Banks lived with her mother and brother, who has autism, and to get him to the right hospitals and schools, Banks' family moved often. When Banks was in the seventh grade, she started taking classes online to be able to stay home and take care of her brother, and also to allow her mother to keep on working. Sasha Banks has said that Eddie Guerrero is her favorite wrestler of all time. Part of that is because the reason she got hooked on wrestling was because the first Eddie Guerrero match she saw was what made her start pursuing a career in wrestling.
She also cites Guerrero's match against Rey Mysterio from WCW's Halloween Havoc pay-per-view as her favorite match of all time. There's a sad story with how she found out about Guerrero's death. In November of 2005, Banks won front row tickets to Raw, and this would have been the first time she saw Guerrero in person.
This episode of Raw became a tribute to Eddie Guerrero after he passed away the day before. Banks didn't know this, and even after seeing signs saying Rest in Peace Eddie and the like, Banks took this as either hate for the wrestler or that he was gonna be wrestling the Undertaker. It wasn't until a fan approached her and told her that Guerrero had sadly passed away. On a more positive note, Sasha Banks' love for Eddie Guerrero can be seen in her wrestling career. Her WrestleMania 32 attire was inspired by Guerrero's from the No Way Out pay-per-view in 2004, where he won the WWE championship for the first time. During the same show where she wore the inspired gear, Banks also performed a frog splash, which was Guerrero's finishing move.
Likewise, she used the move again in her Hell in a Cell match against Charlotte in 2016. Also during that match, she performed the Three Amigos, another signature move of Eddie Guerrero. Another nod to Guerrero comes from a July 2016 edition of Raw. During a match against the then WWE Women's champion Charlotte, Banks got a hold of the championship belt and threw it to Dana Brooke, who was accompanying Charlotte, and laid down to appear as if Brooke had hit her with the belt, which was a trick done by Eddie Guerrero a number of times. Sasha Banks was backstage at WrestleMania 24 when she was only 16. As many know rapper Snoop Dogg is Banks' cousin, as well as a wrestling fan.
So when he hosted the Divas Lumberjack match at 2008's WrestleMania 24 Snoop Dogg got her into the event and she was able to meet a lot of the stars at the time. This was the same show where Ric Flair had his retirement match, so his daughter Charlotte was there as well, and both her and Banks were backstage together and just eight years later, they'd be the first two women to main event a WWE pay-per-view. Besides just getting Banks backstage at WWE events, Snoop Dogg was also one of the influences for Sasha Banks' Boss character. Growing up, Snoop Dogg would call himself the Boss around Banks, so she decided to take that name and turn it into a character for her to portray. He was also inspired by other singers as well, such as Nicki Minaj and Kanye West with their style and attitude. Tyler Breeze was another person who helped Banks create her character.
While in NXT, Breeze suggested that Banks create a list of characters and decide from there which would fit her the most. Sasha Banks' husband, Kid Mikaze, is also a wrestler. He started his career in 2001 and wrestled for a number of independent promotions, as well as Ring of Honor and a bit in TNA. Most interesting though is he made one televised appearance in WWE.
In June of 2012, Mikaze, along with a fellow independent wrestler, appeared on an episode of Raw in a two on one handicapped match against Ryback. Mikaze didn't use his regular ring name, however. Instead, Rutherford P.S. Hayes, which is likely a reference to Michael P.S. Hayes,
a former wrestler and current WWE producer slash road agent. In may of 2015, at a TV taping for NXT, Mikaze competed in a dark tag team match, dark match being a matchup not shown on TV, where he teamed up with Jason Jordan in a losing effort against the Vaudevillains. The scariest and saddest part is that after taking a boot to the side of the head, Mikaze became limp and the referee had to call off the match.
According to a fan in attendance, Mikaze laid there for about five minutes before he could get up on his own. Two days later, Mikaze said on Twitter that he was doing fine, but sadly, he's not made an in-ring return since that match. In 2015, Mikaze became the seamstress and designer for WWE after Sandra Gray retired, who had been creating attires for WWE wrestlers since 1994, but before joining the WWE, Mikzae already had a large number of work under his belt. He started by designing his own costumes to wrestle in, but his fellow wrestlers took notice and he started taking commissions for other performers as well.
Some of the more well-known wrestlers he has created clothing for are Summer Rae and Paige, and actually, the purple attire Paige debuted on Raw in was crafted by Mikaze. Designing pro wrestling gear is partially how Sasha Banks and Kid Mikaze got to know each other. When Banks first met Mikaze, he offered to design outfits for her to wear and continued to do so into her NXT days. One more interesting fact about Banks and Mikaze's relationship is that the two have wrestled each other.
In 2012, while Banks was wrestling on the independent circuit, under the name Mercedes KV, she participated in a four-way match for the promotion Beyond Wrestling. She wrestled against three other men, and one of those guys was her future husband Kid Mikaze. Did you know, Shawn Michaels started contemplating his second retirement after his match with the Undertaker at WrestleMania 25? According to his book, "Wrestling for my Life," Michaels wasn't sure he could top that match and he didn't feel the urge to pursue more great matches. The idea of Shawn Michaels having a rematch with the Undertaker with his career on the line first came to light when Michael P.S. Hayes, a retired wrestler and WWE producer, brought the idea to Michaels a little while before Michaels' Summerslam 2009 return. He also stated that it wouldn't have to be a true retirement by finding a creative way around it for Shawn Michaels to come back and continue to perform.
The decision to have a rematch wasn't made until December, 2009, on Raw, when Shawn Michaels accepted his Slammy award for the Match of the Year. In fact, it was still being decided whether or not Michaels should have a rematch with the Undertaker, literally while Triple H was presenting the award just minutes before Michaels came out. Shawn Michaels was still in talks with Vince McMahon and Michael Hayes whether Michaels should make a challenge when he accepted the award. Shawn Michaels felt confident in a second match and Michael Hayes eventually came around, but Vince McMahon still wasn't sure. Ultimately, McMahon let Michaels decide. So obviously, Michaels went ahead and made the challenge after accepting his Slammy award.
Since the final decision was made minutes before it was made public, Undertaker would have found out at the same time as the fans and viewers. Going back to Shawn Michaels' first retirement match in 1998 at WrestleMania 14, there's a moment that wasn't supposed to happen. After Shawn Michaels lost to Steve Austin, Mike Tyson, who was the special guest enforcer, would knock Michaels out after Michaels started arguing with him. What wasn't supposed to happen was Mike Tyson dropping a Steve Austin t-shirt on Michaels. Originally, the t-shirt drop was planned to happen, but Michaels thought it was insulting to his career, especially since this was supposed to be his last match. Michaels actually threatened to walk out until he was told the t-shirt job would not happen.
Unbeknownst to Shawn Michaels, Mike Tyson was still planning to drop the t-shirt in order to help solidify Steve Austin as the new face of the WWE. Michaels was so upset, he was going to interrupt the press conference between Mike Tyson and Steve Austin. However, Shane McMahon stopped Michaels before he could make a scene and was able to convince him to not interrupt the conference. In an interview on the Sam Roberts wrestling podcast, Shawn Michaels mentioned that he always tries to stay in TV shape, as he put it, despite retiring from in-ring competition. This came from his WrestleMania 32 appearance, where he came out alongside Mick Foley and Stone Cold Steve Austin in his traditional wrestling attire.
According to the interview, Michaels was contacted six months before WrestleMania and asked to come out in his gear and without any shirt on. Since then, Michaels has decided to stay fit for television in case of any more appearances. Despite being a first-generation wrestler, Shawn Michaels' family has a bit of a wrestling background. His wife, Rebecca Curci, worked for WCW between 1997 and 1998, as a Nitro Girl.
The Nitro Girls were a team of dancers that performed on WCW's flagship show Nitro, hence the name. Shawn Michaels first noticed her while watching the show. Rich Meinzer, a friend of Michaels, run the Gold's Gym in Venice, California, where some of the WCW wrestlers liked to work out. While talking to Michaels, he offered to try to get him Rebecca Curci's phone number, and after a little convincing, he was able to get ahold of it. Her job as a Nitro Girl did cause some problems. Curci had signed a three-year contract with WCW, and it wouldn't expire until 2000.
After negotiations, WCW decided to let her out of her contract early, with the stipulation that she couldn't work for the WWE for the remainder of her contract, even though there were never plans for her to appear in the WWE. The two got married in March of 1999 in Las Vegas, Nevada, with only an Elvis Presley impersonator as their witness. Interestingly enough, Shawn Michaels' two friends, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, who both worked for WCW at the time, did not know of their relationship. Shawn Michaels' cousin, Matt Bentley, is also a professional wrestler and is actually trained by Michaels himself.
He's most well-known for his time in TNA, where he won the X Division championship two times. He originally used the name Michael Shane, as a reference to his cousin, Shawn Michaels. However, in July of 2005, he was forced to stop using the name due to legal threats made by WWE. This is because WWE had trademarked the name for one of their wrestlers called Mike Shane, who wrestled as a part of the tag team Gymini. He then started performing under his real name, Matt Bentley.
His contract with TNA expired in 2007 and wasn't renewed, but he has made two appearances for the company since then, one in 2011 and one in 2013. Just like his cousin, Bentley has also wrestled for WWE. In 2002, he performed in a handful of matches on Sunday Night Heat and Velocity, often losing to more established talents. He also wrestled one match for the company in 2008.
It was on SmackDown where he lost against the debuting Vladimir Kozlov. In October of 2007 on Raw John Cena suffered a torn pectoral muscle and was out for the rest of the year. Shawn Michaels, who was out of action with a knee injury, was asked to come back two weeks early. Michaels agreed and made his return one week after Cena was taken out. Michaels had gotten into hunting at the time and decided to wear a cowboy hat, boots, and a camouflage vest to make his return in. Before the show, Vince McMahon and Michaels got into an argument about the attire.
McMahon was against Michaels' choice of attire, but Michaels stood his ground and ultimately won the argument. Shortly thereafter, McMahon had a change of opinion and started selling Shawn Michaels inspired cowboy hats. Kalisto once sustained an injury so bad, he almost quit wrestling.
In April, 2011, while performing in Mexico, Kalisto competed in a match for the promotion Desastre Total Ultraviolento. Like the name suggests, the promotion focused on hardcore wrestling. While performing a flip to the outside of the ring, Kalisto hit his head against the guardrail and landed on the concrete floor. He ended up suffering a concussion as well as post-concussion syndromes, which in some cases can last even more than a year. Reports also say that if Kalisto's jump had been disorganized even more, he could have died.
The incident caused Kalisto to consider retiring from wrestling. However, shortly after the accident, he got an offer to participate in a three-day trial with WWE. While Kalisto didn't get signed, the fact that WWE took interest in him was enough to motivate him to continue wrestling, and about two years later, he got signed to a WWE contract. Kalisto cites many wrestlers as inspirations and one of them is Rey Mysterio. One of the reasons Kalisto found motivation in Mysterio was despite being one of the smaller wrestlers on the WWE roster, he was still able to accomplish so much.
Kalisto specifically points to Mysterio winning the World Heavyweight championship at WrestleMania 22 as one of the moments that made him feel like he could make it. On the topic of Rey Mysterio, Kalisto said that while he isn't sure if he'd ever lose his mask, he would like for it to be in a match against Mysterio and said in an interview with Realte Musik that it would be an honor to lose to him. While Kalisto hasn't performed maskless in the WWE yet, he has publicly taken off his mask while part of the company. During a Be A Star rally, which WWE was hosting at a middle school in Los Angeles, Kalisto spoke out against bullying to the students.
After some chanting from the crowd, Kalisto decided to take off his mask so he could speak to the children as himself, as opposed to the Kalisto character. Kalisto has his own YouTube channel called Samuray Del Sol. It was created in 2007 and only contains 12 public videos, most of which are either matches or highlights from before he joined the WWE.
The most recent video was uploaded in May of 2013, which was the same time when Kalisto signed with the WWE. In addition to the channel, Kalisto also has a website with the domain name being SamurayDelSol.com. The website doesn't have much on it. It only contains one page that has a video playing in the center that doesn't work and text that says enter on the bottom, which links to his profile on WWE.com. The name Samuray Del Sol was used by Kalisto before debuting in the WWE.
The reason that Samuray was spelled with a Y at the end instead of an I was simply to differentiate himself from other wrestlers who were also using the word samurai in their name. Translated from Spanish, Samuray Del Sol means samurai of the sun. Beyond his name, Kalisto's attire also has meaning to it.
Each of Kalisto's three spikes he has on his mask represent three different styles of wrestling he has learned over his career, lucha libre, Japanese and WWE. The wings on the side of the mask symbolize Kalisto's high flying style of wrestling, and the tail in the back represents the journey that led him to the WWE. Before forming the Lucha Dragons with Sin Cara, Kalisto teamed up with another luchador in NXT. When Kalisto made his debut in May of 2014, he partnered with El Local, who was being played by Ricardo Rodriguez. They only had two matches together, one of which was an NXT Tag Team championship match, before the team was scrapped on July 17th, 2014. Part of the reason for ending Kalisto and El Local's team up so soon may have been because of El Local's release from the WWE.
About two weeks after the team ended, the idea of Kalisto teaming up with Sin Cara to form the Lucha Dragons was brought up by Triple H. While Sin Cara was on the main roster, Triple H asked him if he'd be interested in partnering with Kalisto in NXT. Sin Cara wanted to give it a try, and the team was formed.
One of the reasons Sin Cara felt like he and Kalisto were able to work with each other so well was because they both spoke Spanish and they could communicate in a way that not many people in the WWE could. Despite being a luchador, Kalisto didn't wrestle in Mexico until about four years into his professional wrestling career. Kalisto began training in 2006 in Chicago, Illinois, where he was born. Just three weeks into his training, Kalisto had his very first match and he continued to wrestle for independent wrestling promotions in the midwest of the United States 'til 2010. After expanding outside of the midwest and performing in states such as Pennsylvania and New York, Kalisto was given the opportunity to wrestle in Mexico as a part of a tour of the country. One year after that in 2011, Kalisto went on another tour of Mexico and eventually get signed to the Mexican wrestling promotion, Triple A.
Kalisto's United States championship win in January of 2016 was very historic for his career. Beyond just being his first singles title in WWE, it was only the second time he had won a singles championship in his entire career. The very first was in Chicago, Illinois, where he won the Gladiadores Aztecas de Lucha Libre Internacional championship, for the wrestling organization of the same name. After that, until his United States championship win, Kalisto would be without any singles titles.
On a similar topic, Kalisto never won any tag team titles before winning the NXT Tag Team championships on September 11th, 2017, with Sin Cara. Did you know, the Great Khali performed a move that accidentally took another wrestler's life? In 2001, Khali was training at the California-based organization All Pro Wrestling. During one particular session, Khali was practicing with a man named Brian Ong.
The two were practicing the spinebuster with the Great Khali being the one executing it. Khali's opponent landed incorrectly and hit his head on the mat. Brian Ong had already suffered a concussion earlier, and the two injuries combined caused damage to his spine and skull. Eventually an ambulance was called, but Ong was pronounced dead on arrival. Khali was not found guilty, but he chose to never perform the spinebuster again.
While he's most well-known for his time in WWE, Khali was a part of WCW for a short while. Only six months after he began his wrestling training in the United States, the Great Khali was signed by World Championship Wrestling. He continued to train with WCW, but the company closed before he could make his debut, and he was not picked up by the WWE.
The Great Khali never had any dreams of becoming a wrestler, but an interaction with a police officer changed that. Khali grew up in Himachal Pradesh, India, where he worked as a stone cutter. Because of his size, Khali needed more food than the average person, so he'd often work later than his colleagues. One day, a Punjabi police officer spotted him and after learning the reason why the Great Khali worked so hard, the officer landed him a job with the police.
With the higher salary, Khali was able to afford a TV and this allowed him to watch wrestling. He was so amazed by what he saw that the Great Khali decided he wanted to make her career as a wrestler. In 1989, Khali moved to the United States to pursue wrestling, but what's interesting to note is that in 2008, well into Khali's WWE run, he was still employed by the Punjabi police.
He was listed in the records as on leave without pay and sick and indisposed. The reason for keeping the Great Khali employed with the Punjabi police was that he was seen as such a huge asset. An article from the Times of India also noted that there was a strong support for Khali across all of the police departments. The name Khali comes from the Hindu goddess of the same name.
Khali is known as the goddess of time, creation, power, and destruction, which of course was part of the Great Khali character. Interesting to note that the goddess Khali is often pictured dancing on the Hindu god Shiva. This could have been the inspiration behind the Great Khali's Punjabi Playboy character, where one of his traits was dancing. Before the name Great Khali was chosen, several other names were up for consideration. Some of the names include Big Bhima, which was a character from the Indian epic Mahabharata. Lord Shiva was another potential name, but it was rejected out of a fear that may be offensive, the reason being that Shiva is one of the principle deities of Hinduism.
In 2007, Khali was given a manager named Ranjin Singh, who acted as an interpreter. Singh stopped managing Khali in 2011, but he's still employed by WWE. Currently, he acts as the senior vice president of WWE's creative team. Fans know that the Great Khali went through a radical character change during his run.
From his debut in 2006 up until 2008, Khali was shown to be a powerful, violent monster. However, roughly two years after his debut, he got the nickname the Punjabi Playboy, and became more goofy and lighthearted. This character change actually had malicious intent behind it. Khali's contract was set to expire in 2008 and during negotiations, WWE felt that he had become too demanding and was planning on not resigning him. To make him less appealing before he left, WWE changed his character to a silly comic relief.
You would think this would make Khali upset, but in an interview he said he had no issues with the Punjabi Playboy character. While Khali was fine with it, his wife wasn't as comfortable. After leaving WWE, the Great Khali revealed that after he had started doing the Kisscam segments, his wife wanted him to leave wrestling and return home.
According to Khali, the Punjabi Playboy wasn't the only attempt to damage his appeal. In 2011, Jinder Mahal debuted in WWE as the husband of Khali's sister. Mahal would forced the Great Khali to do his bidding. If Khali didn't obey, then Jinder would divorce Khali's sister and their family would go back into poverty. The storyline was seen as regressive by some Indian viewers and in an interview with Youth Ki Awaaz, Khali said that was done on purpose to leave his fans from India scandalized and alienated.
While there have been attempts to hurt the Great Khali's appeal, he's still very popular in his home country. In India, there's a street named after him in the city of Delhi. On top of that, in the state of Haryana, Khali had an ATM machine that also bared his name. Additionally, after debuting in the WWE, fans from India were so supportive of Khali that they would pray for him to win his matches.
Khali's popularity extends even beyond India, though. On August 13th, 2009, the Great Khali Day was celebrated in Mexico. Outside of wrestling, Khali has opened his own business.
While living in Houston, Texas, the Great Khali opened a liquor store in the town of Humble called G.K. Liquor. While not confirmed, it seems likely GK is an abbreviation for Great Khali. The store's since shut down, but Khali still owns his own business.
In 2015, Khali started his own wrestling school in the Indian village of Kangniwal called Continental Wrestling Entertainment, or CWE. The school has done very well, so well in fact that in 2017, WWE hosted tryouts at the training facility. What might be even more impressive is that the CWE YouTube channel currently has over two million subscribers and over 732 million views.
Did you know, Samoa Joe's family runs a Polynesian dance troupe called Tiare Productions, a show he was a part of when he has a child. As a matter of fact, he made hi stage debut at the opening ceremony for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, when he was just five years old. His Polynesian dance background has come to play in his wrestling career too, as during special matches in TNA, he would enter with a group of dancers, sometimes members of his own family. Joe actually didn't decide to pursue wrestling as a career until the age of 20.
While taking jujitsu classes, the owner of the gym asked Joe if he wanted to try a pro wrestling class that was happening there. Joe decided to give it a try and after a short while, he got hooked and decided to pursue it further. Shortly thereafter, he went to Ultimate Pro Wrestling, UPW, which was the WWE's developmental promotion at the time, to continue training. While there, he met and befriended John Cena and the two of them had a feud on UPW's TV show. Joe eventually got a tryout in front of the WWE higher-ups at the time by competing in a match against Essa Rios on Jakked, one of WWE's former TV shows, which was the equivalent of WWE Superstars and Main Event today.
However, Joe was not signed to a WWE contract. This may have been in part that Bruce Prichard, a WWE producer at the time, did not think Joe had a future in wrestling. Jim Ross, a play by play commentator, likewise agreed. The name Samoa Joe wasn't actually supposed to be Joe's permanent name. Samoa Joe's real name is Nuufolau Joel Seanoa. At the gym he trained at, there were a few other people named Joe, so to distinguish between them, he got the name Samoa Joe because of his Samoan heritage.
When he first started performing, he decided to use the gym name and use something else later on. However, promoters and bookers started calling, asking for Samoa Joe, so to avoid losing work, Joe decided just to keep the name. Samoa Joe joined TNA in 2005 and spent nearly a decade with the company.
Unfortunately, it wasn't without its problems. In July of 2010 on Impact, a match he had with Jeff Hardy ended at a time limit draw. Joe was unhappy at the decision and ended up yelling at the production crew after the match. This led to a suspension which only lasted for a month as he returned in August of that same year.
There was also an alleged report that in 2008, TNA was lobbying for Samoa Joe's one night return at Ring of Honor's Rising Above pay-per-view not to be shown on screen. This would explain why the pay-per-view broadcast didn't include Joe's match, but the other explanation could be to increase ticket sales. The match was shown however in the DVD release. When Samoa Joe was signed to the WWE in 2015, he was planned to just stay in NXT and not move up to the main roster. The reasons for this was one, that WWE wasn't confident in former TNA wrestlers, as past talents they brought in didn't go as well as they has hoped. Another is that they felt like Joe could help develop NXT as a brand.
The biggest though was that there was a push in the company to focus on making wrestlers from the ground up, as opposed to using talents like Samoa Joe, who was 36 at the time of his hiring, who had already developed their own style and image. It was largely thanks to Triple H that Samoa Joe did get brought in as he was one of the authorities that saw possibilities with Joe. Outside of wrestling, Joe also appeared in the UK game show Distraction alongside fellow wrestlers Kazarian and Curry Man where the three of them performed wrestling news on the contestants while they tried to answer sixth grade questions. Joe's also a fan of comic books and video games. He would start his own Twitch channel in 2014 called Samoa Joe Games and actually helped brainstorm ideas for 2008's TNA the video game, as well as providing motion capture for it. Did you know, at one point, so many people tried to end their WWE Network subscription that the cancel link crashed? In January of 2015, Roman Reigns infamously won the Royal Rumble match.
Fans were so upset by this decision that the hashtag #CancelWWENetwork was the number one trend on Twitter. This was more than just talk as many subscribers to the network tried to end their subscription. This led to an overload and the cancel link ended up crashing and left users unable to end their subscriptions. Since the launch, the WWE Network has handled the topic of Chris Benoit very delicately because of his murder-suicide in 2007, where he reportedly killed himself after murdering his wife and son. At the launch of the Network, Benoit's matches were not given milestone markers, which are the buttons on the video's timeline that allow users to jump to select matches.
It wasn't until May of 2016 that his matches did have markers added. However, they don't mention Benoit by name. When the 2007 episodes of Raw were added, one specific episode was changed entirely. This is the June 25th, 2007 edition of Raw, and the reason for its change was because the original broadcast was a tribute to Chris Benoit, since that was the same day it was reported that Benoit and his family had been murdered. However, it was soon reported that Benoit had murdered both his wife and son.
To avoid promoting Benoit, the Network version of that Raw episode was changed to a collection of championship matches from that year. The WWE Network had been in development for a few years before it finally became a reality. In September of 2011, WWE made the first public announcement of the Network. This early version of the Network wasn't going to be an online streaming service at all, but instead, a premium channel that would have content airing 24 hours a day and would cost $15 a month. Despite that, it offered basically the same content as what it does today, such as archived video, original programs, and all WWE's yearly pay-per-views, with the exception of WrestleMania. However, it was also planned to include WWE Studios movies, and even games from the XFL football league.
Originally the WWE Network's plan to launch on April 1st, 2012 to coincide with WrestleMania 28. However, due to not having the infrastructure to operate a premium channel and not having enough demand, the Network was postponed and eventually put on hold indefinitely. In 2013, the company was looking at different approaches for establishing their network.
One idea was to license content to established TV networks, but this of course didn't happen. Finally, it was announced on January 8th of 2014 that the WWE Network would launched in the United States on February 24th of the same year. This newer version of the Network was similar to Netflix, allowing subscribers to access its content at any time.
Despite changing from a premium channel to an online video streaming service, the idea of 24 hour programming stayed as the homepage for the network is always broadcasting a list of scheduled programs. If you want more Did You Know Wrestling, there's now Did You Know Wrestling Mini. Just as it sounds, these are shorter versions of the full length Did You Know Wrestling episodes, but they still contain just as much interesting information and trivia. They're available on both the Tapout Corner Facebook and Twitter sites. Links to both are in the description.
While the Network is home to a lot of original shows, one show that didn't see the light of day involved the Big Show and his wife. When the Network was first announced in 2011, a survey sent out by WWE wanted to get feedback on a cooking show. This show would start Big Show and his wife, and would give viewers access into how they prepare meals. The survey also mentioned that other WWE wrestlers would appear on the show. For unknown reasons, the show never made it onto the Network, likely due to feedback found in the survey. In another survey sent out in 2016, WWE looked for feedback on a sequel to Legends House.
This new show would be called Legends House Attitude. Like the name suggests, the show would be the same premise as the original Legends House, a group of veteran WWE wrestlers living in the same home, but would focus on stars from the Attitude era. However, the survey also said that former wrestlers from WCW and ECW would also be a part of the show as quote, "the Monday night war is reignited in the legends house." Another show idea in that survey is titled WWE Roast- John Cena. Just as it sounds, the show would be a roast of Cena, and in addition to being roasted by WWE wrestlers and legends, professional comedians and celebrities would have been a part of it. Judging from the title, it's possible there'd be other versions of the same show with different WWE wrestlers and personalities.
During the WWE Network's one year anniversary in February of 2015, George Barrios, the chief strategy and financial officer of the WWE, said in an interview with CNBC that the company believed they could reach three to four million subscribers in three to five years. There's 100 million broadband homes that the WWE could reach, so they'd only have to have 3% or 4% of them subscribed to the Network to make that a reality. Barrios went on to say that while three to four million subscribers would be transformational for the company, even just two million would make WWE more profitable than it's ever been.
2021-10-19 06:40
