News & Notes: PPV Sponsor, NJPW Announcement, Jerry Lawler, More

Psyonix’s Rocket League to Sponsor Several WWE PPVs

WWE announced developer Psyonix’s Rocket League video game will be the official sponsor for Backlash, Great Balls of Fire, and SummerSlam pay-per-view events.

NJPW Making Major Announcement Today

New Japan Pro Wrestling announced they will be holding a major press conference later today in regards to their upcoming July G1 Climax event in the United States. The press conference will be streamed on Facebook at 7PM EST and could include AXS TV’s own announcement in regards to U.S. broadcast plans for the event.

Jerry Lawler on Randy Orton’s Recent Twitter Controversy

During episode 10 of Dinner With The King podcast show, Jerry Lawler gave his opinion in regards to Randy Orton’s recent tweets against indie wrestling. Lawler stated today’s style of wrestling can be very divisive with older veterans but felt both Rip Rogers and Orton could have done a better job with their message. Instead of insulting today’s style of wrestling, both could have made a better argument on not relying on cramming moves for matches.

I think that the problem Rip [Rogers] and Randy [Orton] have is what the young guys think they need to do to get noticed. It’s what the young guys do in these matches that bothers guys who have been in the business for a while. The young guys, like they said, they have a tendency to go out there and try to squeeze in every single move that they know. Every dive. Every flip. Every flop. Everything they can put in one 15-minute match. So in order to do that, if you are going to put all those moves in, you’re not going to have time to sell anything. It’s just going to be one move after another until the match is over. That is not the way wrestling became what it is today. Not what I think veterans look at and not what the business is supposed to be. It’s not that really entertaining for fans. I think that’s Rip’s and Randy’s point they are trying to make there.

WWE Revealed Next Guest Trainer for Performance Center

WWE Hall of Famer Ricky Morton was announced by the WWE to be next week’s guest trainer for the Performance Center.

Since opening in 2013, the WWE has periodically invited guest trainers as a way of using veterans to teach some of their knowledge and skills to the next generation of WWE stars.

Upcoming WWE DVD Set to Include Rare Owen Hart and Taz Matches

WWE’s upcoming three-disc DVD set of WWE Unreleased: 1986-1995 was recently revealed to be including a never before seen Owen Hart and Taz matches, according to website WrestlingDVDNetwork. The Owen Hart match is speculated to be a 1986 match against the Brooklyn Brawler from a July taping of All Star Wrestling and the Taz match is speculated to be a 1993 match against Scott Taylor from a May taping of WWF Wrestling Challenge. The rare Taz match is also speculated to have been Taz’s tryout match for the WWE.