Month: April 2020
Almost six years after first winning the NXT Women’s Championship May 29, 2014 at an NXT TakeOver that didn’t even require a subtitle, Charlotte Flair is holding that title again after beating Rhea Ripley in the first match on Night Two of WrestleMania 36. Of course the belt is different now — it was pink way back in 2014 — and the brand has considerably more prestige now that NXT isn’t “officially” considered developmental and airs on USA instead of the WWE Network.
The match was pretty brutal, and thanks to the lack of fans at the WWE Performance Center, you could hear not just every strike and impact, but lots of trash talk, especially from Charlotte. The Queen also played it smart, working Rhea’s leg throughout the match, including a shot from behind that made Rhea’s leg crumple pretty sickeningly.
Nevertheless, when Charlotte first applied the Figure 4, Rhea seemed determined to get out of it, striking at Charlotte with her fists. But once Charlotte bridged into the Figure 8, it was too much for Rhea, who had to tap, losing a title she won on NXT TV on December 18 of last year.
Now that Charlotte is NXT Champion, that presumably means she’ll be on NXT TV, although we don’t know exactly what that will look like after next week, considering the Coronavirus lockdown.
The Chicago Bulls have been mired in turmoil in recent years. They’ve gone through coaching changes, front office discord, roster turnover, and a fan base that is growing increasingly impatient as the losses keep piling up without much tangible progress to show for it.
There have long been cries for major changes to their embattled front-office duo of VP John Paxon and GM Gar Forman, and earlier this week, the team announced that they were embarking on a formal search for a new executive that would control over all basketball decisions, while transitioning Paxon and Forman to different roles.
That still leaves head coach Jim Boylen on the hot seat, as the incoming exec will ultimately have the final say on whether he keeps his job. Beyond that, they still have the issue of disgruntled players who are unhappy with their roles and/or Boylen’s coaching style. Lauri Markkanen is apparently chief among them, and if there aren’t significant changes, he could be looking for a ticket out.
Via Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times:
And then there was the quiet storm, privately churning in the corner since early on in the season, keeping his frustrations as off-the-record one-liners, discrediting the direction of the offense, his role in it, and the highly embraced shot profile that Bulls analytics was stressing.
Make no mistake about it, third-year big man Lauri Markkanen was one unhappy camper before the coronavirus put the NBA on hiatus. Unhappy enough that if the direction of the organization was going to stay unchanged, he’d rather be elsewhere.
Markkanen had been sidelined for most of the previous season with an elbow injury, and his numbers were down all across the board before the league went on hiatus amid the coronavirus pandemic. With Markkanen, though, it’s all a matter of how he’s being used.
Markkanen is a prototypical offensive forward for today’s game, and the Bulls will have to figure out a way to maximize his talent moving forward and unlock the potential that exists in a two-pronged attack that features Zach LaVine. But the new executive will also have the tall order of finding free agents to come in and bolster their roster.
With the worldwide lockdown, who knows how long it will be before any of this can play itself out, but the Bulls have plenty to keep themselves occupied as they look toward the future.
A number of musical acts have turned to Instagram Live to keep themselves and their fans entertained. One example of this: Tory Lanez and his new Quarantine Radio show. Along with guest appearances from a number of artists in the music industry, the show invites everyday fans to participate in twerk contests for the duration of the show. Another artists who’s turned to Instagram Live is Lil Yachty, whose recent programs have toed the line between entertaining and demeaning.
Nearly two weeks ago, the Atlanta rapper convinced a fan to shave off their eyebrows for $200. He got another fan to eat deodorant. Yachty upped the price to for his latest request.
Hosting another iteration of his “talent show” on Instagram Live, Yachty invited the fan to drink his own pee. The fan complied and headed to his bathroom before realizing his sister did not quite flush during her last visit. Yacthy then dared the fan to drink his sister’s urine, which the fan did, all while Yachty watched in disbelief, all while egging him on. The fan’s reward was a deposit from Yachty to his CashApp account.
You can watch the ordeal, if you want to, in the video above.
The prime minister has gone to hospital as a precautionary measure and it was not an emergency admission, Downing Street said.
