WWE: Natalya on Her Heel Turn on Maxxine Dupri, R-Truth on How WWE’s Non-Renewal of His Deal “Felt Like A Firing”, Demolition on Their New Improved Relationship with WWE, The Rock Misses Out on Academy Awards Nomination

Natalya Comments on Her Heel Turn on Maxxine Dupri

As noted before, this past Monday’s WWE RAW show in Belfast, Northern Ireland featured Natalya turning heel on Maxxine Durpri and helping Becky Lynch retain the WWE Women’s Intercontinental Championship.

A recent episode of the Busted Open Radio podcast featured Natalya as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Natalya’s thoughts about her reason for turning on Durpi and costing her the chance to regain the WWE Women’s Intercontinental title.

“This is all I’m gonna say for right now: I will talk about all this when I’m ready to talk about it but it’s the first time in my career that it was about taking action first before speaking about it. For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction and I will speak about it when I’m ready to, but, there’s going to be a whole lot more of that side of me, of what you saw on Monday. There’s gonna be a whole lot more of that on WWE programming, so you better stay tuned.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

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R-Truth Responds to Triple H Saying He Was Never Fired & How WWE’s Non-Renewal of His Deal “Felt Like A Firing”

As noted before, one of the topics in the recently released second season of the WWE: Unreal docuseries on Netflix focused on R-Truth’s surprise return to WWE at this past June’s Money in the Bank 2025 after he had departing the company earlier that month after his contract was not renewed at the time. During the episode, WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque responded to R-Truth’s tweet over his issues with Truth’s wording and stated that he was never fired and he was always under a contract with WWE.

A recent episode of The Breakfast Club podcast featured Truth as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Truth’s thoughts about Levesque’s comments in WWE:Unreal about his contract situation in 2025 and how WWE not renewing his deal felt like a firing to him.

“I got the call. I got my agent working on this end, their agent (on the other). I’m going to stay out of that. Let them handle that. I get a call from this side saying, ‘We’re not going to renew your contract.’ It’s Sunday. Next Sunday is when my contract was ending. ‘Do I come to work?’ ‘No, don’t come to work.’ ‘Am I done now?’ ‘Yes.’ There was no flight, no calendar. What do you call that? I don’t know if it’s all the same or if it’s different.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

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Demolition Comments on Their New Improved Relationship with WWE

A recent episode of the Wrestling Life with Ben Veal podcast featured wrestling legends and former WWE tag team Demolition (Demolition Ax & Demolition Smash) as the guests. One of the topics discussed included Smash’s thoughts about a potential induction into WWE’s Hall of Fame in the future.

“That’s probably the number one thing that we hear: ‘When are you going to get in the Hall of Fame?’ kind of a deal.”

Ax gave his thoughts about Demolition’s current relationship with WWE and how it has been better under the current leadership regime.

“Hopefully, our new relationship with them will be better and so far, it has been. So., bygones be bygones. Let’s start fresh.”

Ax and Smash also gave their thoughts about their past issues with WWE under Vince McMahon’s ownership of the company.

Ax – “As far as mine was concerned, there was a number of promises made and never kept. I didn’t take it personal because you got a window of expectation. I have just wished they had been honest and told me what was going to be.”

Smash – “It just wasn’t right at the end. For a couple of guys that are three-time Tag Team Champions, longest reigning deal, they really treated us like crap at the end.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com

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The Rock Misses Out on Academy Awards Nomination

The Academy Awards recently released the full list of nominees for this year’s Oscars awards at the 98th Academy Awards event on March 15th in Los Angeles, California.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson failed to receive a nomination for the Best Actor in a Leading Role category for his portrayal of Mark Kerr in The Smashing Machine biopic. The five nominees for this year’s award were announced to be Timothee Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ethan Hawke, Michael B. Jordan, and Wagner Moura

The nominations for Actor in a Leading Role go to… #Oscars pic.twitter.com/yesAUNw36s

— The Academy (@TheAcademy) January 22, 2026

In an interesting note, Marissa McMahon, wife of Shane McMahon, received a nomination for Best Picture for the film Train Dreams. McMahon was among the producers of the film.