Month: July 2023

WWE went over to London for Money in the Bank this year, which marked the first time that the company put on a major show in London in two decades. Usually when WWE heads back to a place for the first time in a while, that means there’s something fun hidden up their sleeves, and this time around, that meant a surprise appearance by the greatest to ever lace up a pair of boots.

In the aftermath of Cody Rhodes’ match against Dominik Mysterio, the ring got cleared out and it was unclear what was coming next. And then, John Cena’s unmistakable entrance music hit, which led to the 16-time world champion coming out for a cameo that was not previously announced.

“Surprise!” Cena said upon getting the mic and addressing the audience.

He went on to have a back-and-forth with the crowd, discussing the fact that it’s been too long since WWE went to London and saying that the fans are underappreciated. And then, he dropped the bombshell, saying he was out there to “try and bring WrestleMania to London.”

“Take a moment, right now, let ’em see, let ’em feel, let ’em hear, what WrestleMania’s gonna sound like in London,” Cena said.

Cena was then interrupted by Grayson Waller, who expressed his belief that WrestleMania in England would be a bad idea, choosing to instead pitch his home country of Australia. It got as far as Waller asking Cena if he wants to appear on The Grayson Waller Effect at a WrestleMania in Australia, which Cena turned down. And after Cena said got the crowd up by saying WrestleMania needs to come to London, Waller attacked him while his back was turned, only to be on the receiving end of an AA.

WWE has yet to announce a location for WrestleMania 41, while next year’s event will take place at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

After a losing in the Intercontinental title triple-threat match at WrestleMania back in April, Drew McIntyre took a three-month absence from WWE.

While he was on the shelf, rumors of his contract nearing expiration in early 2024 and details on creative issues reportedly kept McIntyre away. That was until Saturday evening in London at Money in the Bank, when Gunther defeated Riddle to retain his Intercontinental belt before McIntyre made his grand return.

McIntyre hit the ring to an explosive pop before head butting Gunther, laying him out with a Claymore, and holding the title above the champ. McIntyre’s return to the United Kingdom comes after his loss to Roman Reigns at Clash at the Castle in September of last year in Cardiff, Wales.

At the time, McIntyre performed in front of a raucous audience of more than 60,000. He spoke with Uproxx about the hope to one day lead one of WWE’s big four events back to the UK.

“The potential’s unlimited and this is phase one, as far as I’m concerned,” McIntyre said at the time. “Once the world gets to see this show, the incredible visuals, I think it’s going to lead to a SummerSlam, Royal Rumble, and potentially a WrestleMania down the line. I’m so happy that it’s been so well received. For me personally, obviously, the UK is a special one.”

Saturday went a long way in continuing to drive that point home in a front of an energized London crowd.

Damian Priest defeated Ricochet, Butch, Santos Escobar, Shinsuke Nakamura, Logan Paul, and LA Knight to win the WWE Men’s Money in the Bank ladder match from the O2 arena in London, guaranteeing a future title shot.

The match started with typical chaos, as Knight saw one of the first opportunities to grab the briefcase after Ricochet sent himself flying through the ladder to the outside.

Paul gave Knight a Russian leg sweep off the ladder, then jumped outside into Priest’s right hand. On the outside, Nakamura knocked down Priest and set him on a ladder touching the apron and the barricade. Paul jumped onto the apron and did a frog splash onto Priest without breaking the ladder. Inside the ring, Escobar began to climb the ladder, but Butch hopped on his back with a rear-naked choke, bringing Escobar into a laying position across a ladder positioned on the top rope into a middle rung on the ladder. Ricochet did a 450 splash from the apron to lay out the duo.

Everyone got to their feet and it was again chaos in the ring until the action spilled onto the outside. With everyone brawling, Butch climbed a huge ladder and did a moonsault onto everyone. Back in the ring, Paul, Escobar, Nakamura, and Ricochet ended up on the ladders and were pulled down. Ricochet and Paul tried to break their fall on the middle rope but spilled in a partial Spanish fly through tables on the outside.

At the top of the ladder, Butch knocked Knight off, then Priest took his place at the top of the ladder. Priest chokeslammed Butch off the ladder into another ladder. Knight pulled Priest off the ladder, then tossed Escobar and Nakamura out of the ring. Priest made his way back to the top of the ladder, slammed Knight from the top, and made his way back to the ladder to win the match.

Obi Toppin’s future as a member of the New York Knicks was up in the air this summer. The No. 8 overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, Toppin has just not been able to consistently crack into the rotation for Tom Thibodeau, and as such, his name was a popular one in trade rumours surrounding the Knicks.

On Saturday afternoon, the Knicks were finally able to find a trade partner for Toppin, and it’ll send him about an hour and a half away from where he went to college. Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reports that New York and the Indiana Pacers came to terms on a deal that will land the Knicks a few more second-round NBA Draft picks in their robust war chest of assets.

The Pacers have been loading up on talent over the last few days, dating back to when the team selected Jarace Walker out of Houston eighth overall in the 2023 NBA Draft. At the start of free agency, that meant being the team that won the Bruce Brown sweepstakes by bringing him on board with a 2-year deal worth $45 million. And now, Indiana is turning to the trade market to add even more reinforcements.

Last season, Toppin appeared in 67 games, with five of them coming as a member of the starting lineup. He averaged 7.4 points and 2.8 rebounds in 15.7 minutes per game.

When the 2023 NBA Draft came and went and the Charlotte Hornets selected Brandon Miller over Scoot Henderson with the second overall pick, it left no doubt as to how they felt about LaMelo Ball in terms of being a franchise cornerstone.

Ball, coming off an All-Star campaign in 2021-22, battled ankle injuries all last season in Charlotte, playing in only 36 games, but he was terrific once again when on the floor. The third-year guard averaged 23.3 points, 8.4 assists, and 6.4 rebounds per game on 41.1/37.6/83.6 shooting splits, continuing to show his tremendous feel for the game and maintaining an excellent three-point percentage even as he garnered further attention from defenses. While he’s dealt with injuries in his first and third seasons in the league, the Hornets were still willing to extend him a max extension less than a day into the start of free agency, per Shams Charania of The Athletic.

The deal would start at $207 million, but could become $260 million if he makes an All-NBA team this season, a price Charlotte would be fine paying if he takes another leap.

Ball will look to stay healthy next year and continue growing with a young Hornets team that showed a bit of promise towards the end of the season even with their star guard on the shelf, hoping to carry over a bit of positive momentum and get back in the Play-In hunt in the East in 2023-24 with Ball on a fresh new extension.

For many, teaming up with Donald Trump has proven to be a Faustian bargain. Time and again he’s used people only to turn on them when he no longer needs them (or, worse, when they dare question his authority). In the last seven years Lindsey Graham has gone from harsh Trump critic to accomplice back to critic again (after Jan. 6) and back to accomplice once more (a couple moths later). Graham is firmly in the Trump camp for his 2024 campaign, but it doesn’t seem like the MAGA crowd wants him there.

As per Greenville News, on Saturday Trump held a rally in the South Carolina city. Also present was the state’s most famous senator, who expected to get cheers when he took the stage to talk about the former president’s third campaign. Instead he got jeers.

“They booed him when he arrived and they booed him when he left,” reported a commentator at Right Side Broadcasting Network. “At no point did they cheer for him. At one point they even started chanting ‘Traitor.’ They believe he has sold them out. The people of South Carolina really did not like him.”

Why did they turn on Graham? Some seemed sick of him.

“I voted for him years ago, I voted for him last year, but we need to vote him out,” one person told Greenville News. Another described him as a mere grifter, saying Graham “doesn’t need to use Trump to get where he needs to go again.”

Another claimed Graham sides with Democrats when he needs to, making him an unreliable lawmaker.

Luckily Graham had someone there to defend him — sort of, not really.

“You can make mistakes on occasion — even Lindsey down there, Senator Lindsey Graham” Trump told the crowd, then pointed to (presumably) Graham. “We’re going to love him. He’s half and half. When we need those liberal votes, we need him. We know the good ones. We know the bad ones too.”

In other words, Trump agrees that Graham is using him but he also admitted he’s using him, too. Too bad because Graham has really embarrassed himself defending the big guy over all his indictments.

(Via Greenville News)

No player who was slated to hit the restricted free agency pool this summer helped their case more with their play during the 2022-23 NBA season than Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves. After showing some flashes of being a reliable NBA player during his rookie year, Reaves’ second season in L.A. showed that he’s the perfect role player to put alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis, as the former undrafted free agent fit like a glove next to the Lakers’ two All-Stars due to his ability to shoot, his propensity to make the right play, and his understanding of when to pick and choose his spots.

It was expected that the Lakers would do everything in their power to keep Reaves around with the understanding that they could not use a player at his age with his understanding of how he fit in the team’s ecosystem. Fortunately for L.A., which was reportedly willing to match up to a $100 million offer sheet for Reaves, it was able to get the deal all sorted out at half the cost.

After going undrafted in the 2021 NBA Draft out of the University of Oklahoma, Reaves carved out a spot as a starting-level guard in Los Angeles. While he started last season on the bench, Reaves was able to eventually secure a starting nod, which he was able to parlay into starting every game on the team’s run to the Western Conference Finals last postseason. On the year, Reaves averaged 13 points, 3.4 assists, and three rebounds in 28.8 minutes per game while shooting 52.9 percent from the field and 39.8 percent from three.

Patrick Beverley had a pretty hectic 2022-23 NBA season. Before things even began, Beverley was traded twice, as the Minnesota Timberwolves included him in the deal that landed them Rudy Gobert, and nearly two months later, the Utah Jazz sent him to the Los Angeles Lakers, which put him into the starting lineup to start the season. And then, at the trade deadline, Beverley was on the move again, this time to the Orlando Magic in a multi-team deal.

Orlando bought out Beverley, which let him go home and join the Chicago Bulls, where he finished out the season as the team’s starting point guard. Next up for Beverley is unrestricted free agency, as the soon-to-be 35-year-old guard is on the open market, and on Saturday afternoon, Beverley’s podcast announced that he’s decided to join the Philadelphia 76ers.

The news was confirmed by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN and Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report.

While Beverley has struggled to consistently find his shot in recent years, he’s still as big of a pest on the perimeter as there is in the NBA, and he seems to be one of the league’s premier locker room guys. In 67 games with both the Lakers and the Bulls last year — all of which came as a member of the starting lineup — Beverley averaged 6.2 points, 3.7 rebounds, 2.9 assists, and 0.9 stelas in 27.1 minutes per game.

While most NBA players do not peak at the age of 35, it could be argued that the 2022-23 season was Brook Lopez’s best, even as he finished the campaign at that age. The veteran center finished as the runner-up in the 2022-23 NBA Defensive Player of the Year voting, and Lopez led the NBA in total blocked shots with 193. Alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jrue Holiday, Lopez helped to anchor an elite defense, and the Milwaukee Bucks with 58 victories while Lopez appeared in 78 games.

Lopez also contributed at a high level on offense, averaging 15.9 points per game and posting a 63.0 percent true shooting mark. He provides the rare combination of size, rim protection, and floor-spacing (37.4 percent from three-point range), and Lopez entered unrestricted free agency in high demand as a result as he completed a three-year contract with the Bucks.

A number of teams were believed to be in the market for his services, but ultimately, Shams Charania reported that Milwaukee found a way to bring him back on a 2-year deal.

It’s a huge win for the Bucks, which Charania noted also managed to bring back Khris Middleton. There were questions about whether Milwaukee would be able to keep both of them around, and in some pretty good news for Giannis and co., the team was able to go 2-for-2.

This year’s BET Awards still has everyone talking. One of the highlights of the evening was Offset and Quavo‘s reunion during their tribute to fallen Migos member, Takeoff.

The performance came after months of rumors that Offset and Quavo had been beefing — rumors that began months before Takeoff’s death this past November. This past Thursday (June 29), Offset took to Instagram live to break down how the performance came together. It seems like there’s nothing but love between him and Quavo.”

“The BET performance was iconic man,” said Offset. “It cleared my soul. Me and my brother Qua, we put that together within 16 hours. Like 15 hours. We land from Paris like at 9 P.M. and go straight to work to figure out how we gon’ put the show together man.”

During rehearsals, the two didn’t sleep, and the secured the performance’s visual components within the span of less than a day. Because of this, Offset deemed the Migos “real stars.”

He also doubled down on the positive sentiments toward Quavo, seemingly assuring fans that there’s no long beef between the two of them.

“Me and Qua stood tall, brother to brother,” Offset said. “You dig what I’m saying? And I appreciate everybody for supporting, man. It was a movie, it was a vibe…And you know, when you put the three heads together, it’s always gon’ be cinematic. It’s always gon’ be the truth. It’s always gon’ be Godly. Thank God for that moment. And like I said, RIP to Take. Y’all know how we coming about my brother. And we did it for Take. And we still don’t take. That’s our legacy. Migos forever. The greatest group to ever do it.”

You can watch part of Offset’s livestream above