Here’s your fight-size update for Thursday, February 4, 2021:
- Corey Graves, on After the Bell, spoke about the Royal Rumble win of Bianca Belair, saying the atmosphere in the ThunderDome had a palpable excitement and that excitement made up for the lack of in-person fans.
“It was striking to me how there was a tangible emotion inside of the ThunderDome even without fans. The fans were there visually and the audio, obviously, was cranked up, but there were people standing around, the crew, the cameraman, everybody just looking up at Bianca and the emotion on her face was genuine and you could see it. I was ten feet away from her and the tears rolling down her cheek as she looked at the WrestleMania sign, you could tell what she was feeling and I think a lot of people felt and I hope it translated through a TV screen the way it felt inside that environment.”
(If you use any of the above quotes, please link back to this article and credit Fightful for the transcription.)
- During his appearance on AEW Unrestricted, Scorpio Sky revealed that if he could book himself on a pay-per-view against anybody, he would choose either Cody Rhodes or PAC. Click here to learn more about why he is looking to change his style and pattern himself after Bret Hart.
- In an interview with Inside The Ropes, Eric Bischoff explained why he is so happy to see sting get one final run in AEW.
“I am so happy for Steve Borden, Sting, because, at this stage of his life, everything that he’s been through – and he’s been through a lot, good and bad, like all of us have, it’s life – but Sting has always maintained his character. I mean his character as a human being. He’s always maintained his integrity, that’s a better way to say it.”
He would later compare Sting to Goldberg.
“The difference between Sting and Bill Goldberg is the audience has watched Sting since, what? Late ’80s. ’89, whatever it was, ’90 with Ric Flair, and watched him grow and progress, and they’ve been on the journey with Sting for a long time, and because they’ve been on the journey with them, they feel closer to him, they identify with him. Sting has maintained his integrity. He hasn’t done any really stupid things out in public. He hasn’t said things he has regretted, like some of us have, myself included or Bill Goldberg in some cases. Sting has always maintained his integrity as a professional human being.”
- During an appearance on the ALL Real Wrestling Podcast, Matt Sydal spoke about taking one of the most infamous RKOs in WWE history.
“Yeah I mean this was something that I had talked to Randy about it on Saturday or Sunday and then we did it on Monday I mean it’s just one of those things where everything fell into place it was the right opportunity to sell the pay-per-view coming up and we thought this would be a great way to lead into it, it was like super exciting on and I thought the way it was shot with the way the cameraman shot me climbing up to the top rope and the way they captured the moment it really did bring people out of their seats which is the goal to go for every night and it was just that night we punched through the screen and got through to everybody that night and that’s just one of my most proudest moments. I don’t really remember what the backstage reaction was because we just move on the show goes on you don't dwell on that moment you don't know how impactful it was but the thing with the shooting star press is that it hurts the least when I land on somebody who’s like a big fella it hurts the most when you miss it and just belly-flop but that would only be more as if you get RKO at the same time so it is the most painful landing that I could have endured but for me I wouldn’t think twice about doing that again for that moment because it’s timeless and that’s what everybody goes for in wrestling.”
- In Ring of Honor news, Cheeseburger has officially revealed his new name. He will now be known as World Famous CB.
I’ve decided, starting next week I will no longer be known as Cheeseburger.
— The World Famous -- (@CheeseburgerROH) February 4, 2021
Cheeseburger has been a fun ride the last 8 years but it’s time to begin the next chapter of my career. Listen to my story here and join my new journey to greatness. Thank you.pic.twitter.com/JwZhnyeOUJ
- Speaking with Sportskeeda, Bianca Belair reflected on her lifting Otis on a recent episode of WWE SmackDown.
"I'm thinking Otis is very solid and I'm strong. I call myself the strongest. I tell everyone all the time that I'm the strongest. So at this point, I have to show everybody. So, I know that I'm strong. But I know that my adrenaline had a lot to do with being able to pick up Otis as well.
"I think that was a very, very fun moment. I think that was a very important moment to show on TV and show it to the WWE Universe that me being strong is not something that I say. I actually am strong. If I say something I mean it. If I say I'm going to do something, I'm gonna do it. I want to build the reputation that when I say I'm going to do something, everyone knows to take me serious because I know that, it's going to happen."
- During a recent interview with Comic Book, Kacy Catanzaro explained that she and Kayden Carter are looking to take it all in the tag team division.
"Oh, I mean, everything. We want it all. We want everything," Catanzaro said. "I mean, this is a great way to start the year because me and Kayden have been really waiting for that moment that we could break out as the tag team that we have been trying to build. And I think now we're getting to slowly show that. We want to come away and we want to win the Dusty Cup, and then after that, we want the Tag Team titles. We want everything."
- On his most recent podcast, Arn Anderson explained why WCW made him change his finisher from the Spinebuster to the DDT. (h/t: Andrew Thompson)
"They were always after me, the Turner people. You would get a person in a position, whether you would bring a new booker or a new boss that was his boss, that was the Turner representative in the company and they were always looking for new and fresh and they would look at me and, ‘God, there’s that old pair of house shoes that’s still here. He’s comfortable, everybody’s comfortable when they put him on but man he’s been here a long time’ and they were constantly looking for change out of me and there was instances of, ‘Hey, you need to switch up your costuming. Hey, you need to switch up this’ and I don’t think people understood, at that time, I’m pretty sure nobody came up to Bret Hart, said, ‘Hey Bret, been here a long time. You been here too long. We need to get you out of here’ and let that be the only reason. That just didn’t stick with me. If you could perform and you knew what you were doing, every company needed some of those guys. It was stability, it was — and so I think it was probably one of those situations where they were looking for some change so I said okay, I’ll steal Jake [Roberts’] DDT. I can pull that off, just to give them something different and give it a different look and whether or not it worked or not, who knows?”
- License Global revealed that WWE’s latest merchandise crossover with Bad Bunny has been their best-selling merchandise of the year so far.
- WWE stock today closed at $56 per share.
- You can check out the full WWE earnings call from earlier today at this link.
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