Raw

Live Coverage Of The Seth Rollins ESPN Announcement 

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Seth Rollins is about to make his big announcement on ESPN Sportscenter. We will have live coverage of the announcement right here on thedailyspotlight.com.

A reminder that Roman Reigns will be making a big announcement of his own tonight on Monday Night Raw regarding his status for Summerslam 

Seth Rollins big announcement on ESPN is that he will be on the cover of WWE 2K18. 

Rollins came across real well during the interview appearing in a full suit. He said that being on the cover of the WWE 2K18 is a dream come true as he has always had a goal to get to the top of the mountain & this is just the next step in that goal. 

Rollins spoke about his injuries and how they were a bit of a setback but that he “doesn’t want to die without any scars” and that he’s feeling a lot better now. He then spoke about his match at Wrestlemania with Triple H saying that Triple H is unlike anyone he’s ever been in the ring with before a total world class athlete. 

The interview ended with Rollins being asked about the upcoming Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight & said that he would be surprised if McGregor was even able to land one punch but that if he did, he does have some real power so who knows. When asked who he thought had a better chance McGregor of beating Mayweather or his Bears winning the Super Bowl, Rollins said that his Bears were 3-13 last year & are a rebuilding team but he thinks McGregor has such little chance that he still has to go with the Bears. Ouch! 

ESPN Currently has an article up with the official announcement of Rollins being on the cover of 2k18 that you can check out right here http://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/19675597/seth-rollins-appear-cover-wwe-2k18

This is a really big deal for Rollins as he becomes just the 2nd member of the full time roster to be on the cover of the 2K game in the last 5 years and the first since John Cena back for 2K15! 

Overall a really cool little piece on Rollins & a big deal for WWE to have ESPN break this story on Sportscenter. 

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Memorial Day Weekend, NBA Insanity & More- The Daily Spotlight for 5/31

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Hello once again boys and girls.  Fresh off memorial day weekend, it is great to be back here with each and every one of you as the daily spotlight returns.  I couldn’t be happier today as I’m working out of queens today which chops my commute by over 2 and half hours as opposed to Brooklyn and this also allowed me to sleep an additional 2 hours so my overall quality of life as well as my mood as through the roof!   Memorial Day weekend was really quite enjoyable for me, albeit a bit of a recharge weekend.  I do hope that all who celebrated and had a nice weekend, took a minute to think about the men and women currently protecting our freedom overseas as well as those who lost their lives making that same ultimate sacrifice.  At the end of the day, these men and women are the reason why memorial day is such an important day of the year.

–  My girlfriend and I hosted two barbecues with family and friends over the weekend on both Sunday and Monday.  It was of course a little tough for me personally being the first memorial day without my dad.  He used to really look forward to memorial day as he deemed it the unofficial kickoff of summer and would plan different dishes for the grill weeks prior to the event.  They say that every first when losing a loved one is tough and they aren’t lying.  In any event, the first of the two barbecues included two friends who we hadn’t seen in over a year.  For me, it’s always great catching up with old friends especially when it’s so hard this day in age to make time to simply hang out and get on the same schedules.  What’s great about these guys, and so many of my friends really, is that we can take such a long while away from seeing each other and pick up like we had never missed a beat or that we had hung out so often.  Immediately following the barbecue, we all came back inside and our friends asked to see some of the more recent photos from our trip to California so we plugged the laptop into our big screen and streamed them off there.  I’m always big on taking photos that document our stay in a particular destination, not even necessarily of us, but of the destination itself.  Thus, it was really cool to see our friends looking through the 1200+ photos and marveling over the different sights of Cali.  I’m going to get into some of the highlights of that Cali trip later in the week.

– One of the other big highlights of the weekend for me was the series between the Golden State Warriors and the Oklahoma City Thunder.  Now I should probably mention that I’m not a big basketball fan.  I used to be, however, as a matter of fact, the way it went in my house growing up was that baseball was my mom’s sport, football was my dad’s and basketball was mine.   If you grew up in the 1990s, how could anyone not be a fan of basketball?  From Michael Jordan to Patrick Ewing to Shaq there were stars on every single team and always something good to watch.  Even throughout most of the 2000s my gift each year for my birthday was NBA League Pass.  Then something happened.  Whether it be the sad state of the New York Knicks or the retirement of most of those players I enjoyed watching or, more likely, my increased love of baseball and football and the less time I had to dedicate to basketball (I’m also a big fan of professional wrestling, have I ever mentioned that?).  Well, on Saturday night my girlfriend and I had dinner reservations and due to the restaurant having a slow night the place closed early and so we ended up at the buffalo wild wings nearby.  Let me tell ya, you would have thought Ronda Rousey had returned to the Octagon.  The place was packed and everybody so invested in the Warriors-Thunder game.  We ended up staying for the entire second half and I couldn’t help but cheer the Warriors on, despite the rest of the fans in the place mostly rooting for the Thunder.  I get the appeal in rooting for the underdog but for me I just think the Warriors are both fun to watch and a classy group of guys.  I can’t help but root for them.   As many of you know, I’m also a huge fan of history and I would hate to see the 73-win tarnished by them falling short in the finals (contrary to my celebration of epic proportions when the Patriots lost the superbowl to the Giants).  With that said, I don’t quite get the belief that if the Warriors win the NBA Championship this season, they are the best team in the history of the sport.  I mean sure, I guess record wise they would be but today’s NBA is very much different then the NBA of the past.  This day in age players rest (cc: San Antonio Spurs) and there just isn’t the star power that there was in the past.  Not to take anything away from the Warriors and I couldn’t be more impressed that they were able to comeback and win the West, but this team isn’t the 96 Bulls.

– Well, that’s going to do it for me right now but later today I’ll be back with my spotlight on Raw (which i already have in the can) and then either tonight or tomorrow I’ll be back with my spotlight on the excellent documentary that aired on the WWE Network following Raw on Seth Rollins.

The Spotlight On Raw 

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Last night’s episode of WWE Monday Night Raw is in the books and I honestly found that there was a lot to like on the show. Due to how packed of a show that it was, I’m not going to waste any time and instead will jump right in.  Highlights:

Shane O Mac is Back- I’m not too sure what’s going on with Shane McMahon but what I can tell you is that he’s been a real breath of fresh air to the show. It’s been roughly five years since we had a babyface authority figure (Teddy Long) and it really changes up the dynamic on the show. The one thing I loved about Shane last night was when he came out to kick off the show and really laid out the whole night of matches. This is something that WWE hasn’t really done in quite some time and I’m glad they’re getting back to it. By Shane coming out and announcing the tag title tournament, the women’s title match and the number one contender match (later he also added the unique tag match of Bray and Roman vs the League of Nations), this to me gave the viewers multiple reasons to tune in and to remain tuned in for the remainder of the night.  
Shots Fired- Last night Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows, former members of New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Bullet Club made their long awaited debuts on Monday Night Raw when they attacked the Usos following there tag tournament victory over the Social Outcasts. I thought this was fantastic and really made Gallows and Anderson (who won’t be going by the Bullet Club, NJPW owns that name) look like two big time stars. The crowd went nuts for them and JBL was great here in immediately putting the guys over as legit players. For me this reminded me of the debut of The Outsiders in WCW as Scott Hall and Kevin Nash looked like two badasses and you knew that they were working with someone, who eventually turned out to be Hulk Hogan and the NWO was formed. The question now remains as to who, if anyone, Anderson and Gallows are working with. Regardless, i thought this was a great debut for these guys and I couldn’t be happier for the two of them. Karl Anderson is one helluva wrestler and if you aren’t familiar, I think you’ll be very impressed with what he brings to the table. As for Gallows, who looks like he’ll again be going by Luke Gallows, he actually had a run in WWE back in the late 2000s as Festus (teammates with Jesse who was actually Ray Gordy who made an appearance honoring his father, Terry Gordy, at last week’s WWE Hall of Fame) and then later as a member of CM Punk’s Straight Edge Society. Gallows has really reinvented himself since his departure from WWE, establishing one of the best personalities in the business. I’m really excited to see where these guys go from here.  

What’s Going On With The Wyatts?- I actually really enjoyed the main event last night and have been enjoying the continued progression of the Wyatt Family as they seem to potentially be turning face. It was a really interesting dynamic to have Bray team with Roman Reigns, the guy that he once claimed he prefer anyone other than him to be the top guy in the WWE. For years now, I thought there was money to be made with the Wyatt Family embracing the fans as fans have been behind the Wyatts really since Bray’s program with John Cena back in early 20014. I think that perhaps it was the 101,000 fans at AT&T Stadium pulling out there phones in unison in support of Bray Wyatt that convinced WWE management that it may be time for that switch. If nothing else it’s different and I like it. It was such a unique atmosphere to see the LA crowd getting solidly behind Alberto Del Rio (who is always a huge favorite of the people of LA) and Bray Wyatt but solidly booing both Roman Reigns and Rusev. Go back and watch this if you have the time.  

 Closing Thoughts: 

 I may have hit on the big highlights to come out of Raw but I din’t even get a chance to touch on the matches. AJ Styles and Sami Zayn had a terrific 16+ minute match that was so much fun. The finish made sense as Styles is the guy who they need to build up for his match with Roman Reigns and so it made sense for him to get the win. Charlotte and Natalya had another really strong match in which I didn’t mind the DQ finish because it will now set up a rematch for the Payback pay per view. Lastly, I thought that Kevin Owens and Cesaro had another great match, as they always do, and I loved seeing both men lay it all out there for a shot at The Miz’s Intercontinental Title, as it made that title seem that much more important. Thus, with these three matches coupled with the really unique main event, you had four strong matches on Raw that i feel you should go out of your way to see.  

It was overall a really good episode of Raw and I’m liking the direction they’re heading in with Shane being the guy to run the show. They seem to be really making an effort to put together fresh matches and introduce new talent and the idea of having a babyface authority figure allows for cleaner finishes and less nonsense. For example, I loved Shane having Kevin Owens escorted from the building to make sure that Sami Zayn would finally be able to get his shot. There is definitely a place in WWE for the heel authority figure but we’ve been seeing that now for nearly 3 years and so this is a welcome change.  

That’s going to do it for me here but we are in the midst of our live perspective Wrestlemania week featuring a different event from Wrestlemania broken down with photos each day. I currently have a fun photo gallery up of our time spent at the Wrestlemania store and tonight will have some photos and a breakdown of NXT Takeover:Dallas. Keep your eyes open for that! A reminder that we are also now on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/thedailyspotlight so give us a like and tell all of your friends! Thanks for all of the support!  

The Spotlight On Wrestlemania 33 Coming To Orlando!

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Well it’s official, WWE will be returning to the sunshine state next year for Wrestlemania 33 on April 2nd, 2017! WWE held a press conference earlier today officially announcing that Wrestlemania will return to the, newly renovated, Citrus Bowl for the first time since Wrestlemania 24 in 2008.  This is huge news for vacation goers as Orlando is one of, at least to me, biggest vacation spots in all of the United States. Last year my girlfriend and I had an amazing time at Wrestlemania in California and created our own Wrestling & theme park week! Thus, I’m excited to be being able to recreate some of the grandeur of last year, next year in Orlando! Let me get into all you need to know about Wrestlemania from the press conference today.

-First off, we’ll start with some important dates and locations. WWE Axxess will take place at the Orange County Convention Center throughout the weekend. While I haven’t been there myself, I spoke to a friend who lives in Orlando & he told me that the building is really nice & spacious. The Amway Center, home of the Orlando Magic, will play host to both The 2017 Hall Of Fame, April 1st and Monday Night Raw the night after Wrestlemania, April 3rd. There was no date announced for NXT but with the performance center & NXT headquarters, they film most television out of Full Sail University, being right in Orlando, I’d bet NXT will have quite a prescence Wrestlemania weekend. 

– As far as the press conference today, kudos to WESH news in Orlando for broadcasting the press conference live. I was able to follow along while at work & it was really cool to see. That said, it’s a shame for those folks that couldn’t follow along live, 11AM on a Tuesday few can, that can’t watch the press conference if they wanted to. WWE has its own network & really should make this stuff available for subscribers who want to watch it. Especially if they aired this kind of stuff live, I feel it would draw more people to the livestream on the WWE Network. 
– From the looks of it Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, John Cena, Ric Flair, Charlotte, Roman Reigns and the New Day were all on hand for the press conference and joined different politicians in the local area in sharing their excitement over Wrestlemania returning to Orlando. There were also a number of NXT talents on hand, said to be greeting folks as they entered the conference, including Bayley, Apollo Crews, Baron Corbin and others. John Cena acknowledged the NXT talents, who were sitting front row, and joked that they were given time off to come watch them talk.

-The biggest piece of news, aside from the announcement, was that John Cena officially announced that he will not be taking part in this year’s Wrestlemania. Cena mentioned that for the first time in a decade and a half, he’ll be enjoying Wrestlemania as a fan. I know Cena was doing all he could to return, and it’s tough he won’t be able too, but it’s for the best that he takes his time to recover.  The last thing anyone wants is for Cena to return too soon and injure himself more. 

Overall this was a nice day for WWE and a big win for the city of Orlando, which Stephanie noted has become the WWE’s second home. Wrestlemania raises hundreds of millions of dollars for any city that plays host for it and it really looked like next year was going to be Minnesota. Thus, Orlando mayor Buddy Dyer had every right to dance with the New Day! As a fan, no offense to Minnesotans but nothing beats that combination of Disney and Wrestling…I can’t wait! 

That’s going to do it for now but tomorrow morning I’ll be back as it seems that WWE may not only bringing Wrestlemania to Orlando. Tomorrow we’ll look at whether or not the rumors are true…is WWE creating a physical hall of fame?!

The Mania of March- The Spotlight on Wrestlemania 4

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WrestleMania 4:

A lot of people don’t seem to look back as fondly when it comes to  Wrestlemania 4, for whatever reason, but to me it was great for a few reasons.  First, obviously I’ve said in the past what a big fan I am of gimmick matches and these include tournaments.  To me, there was always something pretty cool about seeing a wrestler have to compete three or four times in one night especially if that wrestler was versatile like a Bret Hart or, as was in this case, a Randy Savage.  From there, I also think that in looking back at this show, it was pretty cool to see Randy Savage get the spotlight.  It was all about Hulk Hogan in late 1980s WWF and so it had to be pretty shocking to see him and Andre get eliminated early.

As a bonus gimmick match there was also a battle royal on this show and I’m a huge fan of battle royals.   I remember the first time I saw this show, which was not live as I was still just a toddler, being surprised Bret Hart made it all the way to the final two and got a chance to shine.  Bret was still a part of the Hart Foundation for a few years after this and it was rare that a tag team specialist would get a chance to shine on his own at the time.

As a bit of a personal story related to Wrestlemania 4, as many of you know, the show was four hours long (This, just like the tournament, was one of the real promotional points of the show). Since it was so long, the coliseum home video of the show featured two different video tapes to accommodate the length of the show.  One day I was at a friend’s house and I offered to trade him one of my tapes for his copy of Wrestlemania 4, we were probably about 7 years old at the time, as I had never seen Mania 4.  I had heard that there was a tournament and a battle royal on this show and thought immediately that this would be the show for me.  Well, he gave me the tape but it ended up being only the first part of Wrestlemania 4.  I never realized this until I got home and watched the show only to see the second half was missing entirely and what’s funny is I didn’t know about this until the tape abruptly shut off midway through the show.   I kept rewinding the tape and cleaning assuming that there must have been something wrong.  Where were the finals of the tournament?   I actually had my mother call his mother to tell her son he gave me a broken tape.  Suddenly my friend laughed and admitted he didn’t give me part two and was screwing me.  And you thought the Montreal Screwjob was bad? He admitted that he wanted both my tape and the only parts of Wrestlemania 4 to really mean anything, the semi finals and the finals of the tournament.  Even though this upset me a bit, I still watched the first part of that Wrestlemania dozens of times if for nothing else but the Battle Royal.

What I also remember during this time was that I got my first ever WWF board game (This may have been a year or two later but it focused a lot on the time period of Wrestlemanias 3 and 4).  It was called the Wrestlemania VCR board game and it was pretty cool.  You would move around the game board and in doing so would eventually end up on a VCR square.  You would then turn on the tape and there would be able a 30 second clip of a match.  Whoever landed on the square would get to choose which wrestler they wanted in the clip and then whichever wrestler gained the upper hand during the clip, that player would get to move space.  So let’s say it was Hulk Hogan for the red team and Randy Savage for the blue team so you pick Hulk Hogan and in the clip he hits a legdrop and gets a pinfall victory, you would move up 10 spaces.  I played this game with my poor mother at least 100 times until we eventually memorized the tape inside and out.

Well that’s going to do it for me today but be sure to check out my review of Wrestlemania 5, coming up later today.  Until then take care and please feel free to share some of your favorite moments of Wrestlemania 4!

All Photo Credit: WWE