Here are your quick and dirty, editorial-free NXT TakeOver: In Your House results. The latest TakeOver special featured a “Last Chance Backlot Brawl” for the NXT Championship, matches for the NXT North American and Women’s Championships, and more. Make sure you’re here tomorrow for the complete Best and Worst of NXT column.

NXT TakeOver: In Your House Results:

– The show used the old In Your House house set, and featured an intro video from Todd Pettengill. Retro-style commercials were sprinkled throughout, including Adam Cole in an ICOPRO commercial, and one for ice cream bars. Code Orange opened the show with a musical performance.

1. Tegan Nox, Shotzi Blackheart, and Mia Yim defeated Dakota Kai, Raquel Gonzalez, and Candice LeRae. Yim and LeRae brawled themselves out of the match, fighting to the back. Nox pinned Kai after a Shiniest Wizard to win the match.

2. Finn Bálor defeated Damian Priest. Priest took a nasty fall off the apron onto the ring steps. Back in the ring, Bálor top rope double-stomped him in the back of the head and hit a Coup de Grace to win the match.

3. NXT North American Championship Match: Keith Lee (c) defeated Johnny Gargano. Lee had “Black Lives Matter” trunks and entrance gear. During the match, Lee pounced Gargano through the plexiglass surrounding ringside. Candice LeRae tried to interfere, but Mia Yim showed up to even the odds. Gargano jabbed a key into Lee’s eye and hit several superkicks, but couldn’t put him away. Lee won after two Spirit Bombs and a Big Bang Catastrophe.

4. Last Chance Backlot Brawl for the NXT Championship: Adam Cole (c) defeated Velveteen Dream. This was filmed outdoors in a parking lot with a ring surrounded by cars, using their headlights for lights. Dream was dressed as Negan from The Walking Dead for his entrance. During the match, Cole was knocked off the top of a ladder and landed on a car windshield. The Undisputed Era pulled up in a car to interfere. Dexter Lumis appeared from underneath the ring to even the odds, attacked the UE, stuffed them back into their car, and drove them away. Cole hit a low blow and a Panama Sunrise onto a bed of steel chairs to win the match and retain his championship.

5. Karrion Kross defeated Tommaso Ciampa. Kross ran through Ciampa and made him pass out in the Kross Jacket.

6. Triple Threat Match for the NXT Women’s Championship: Io Shirai defeated Charlotte Flair (c) and Rhea Ripley. Flair had Ripley locked in the Figure-Eight, which allowed Shirai to hit a moonsault on Ripley and pin her to win the match.

Everyone’s lives have been dramatically and unexpectedly affected by the pandemic, among them student graduates, who expected a formal ceremony filled with pomp and circumstance and maybe even a splashy speech by a celebrity speaker. They didn’t get the former, but everyone at least got the latter — and many times over at that. Famous people from all walks of life have been dropping by virtual graduation ceremonies; last week, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter even saluted the class of the school from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

On Sunday YouTube hosted a “Dear Class of 2020” hoedown, featuring a number of well-known speakers, trying to impart hope in despairing times. Among the most famous of those was a certain president, Barack Obama.

The country’s 44th commander-in-chief brought his beloved oratorial style to bear on a time of frayed nerves and uncertain futures. His words came nearly three months into a nationwide quarantine to combat the coronavirus pandemic and almost two weeks after the killing of George Floyd, whose death at the hands of police has inspired protests both at home and abroad.

“I can barely imagine how head-spinning these last few months have been for you,” Obama told the nation’s graduates. “Graduation is a big achievement under any circumstances, yours comes as the world is turned upside down.”

Still, Obama refused to surrender to despair, instead seeing the various calamities that have affected the nation and the world as an excuse to see what it’s exposed about how our society functions — or doesn’t.

“The thing is, Class of 2020, what these past few weeks have shown us is that the challenges we face go well beyond a virus, and that the old normal wasn’t good enough — it wasn’t working,” Obama told them.

“In a lot of ways, the pandemic just brought into focus problems that have been growing for a very long time, whether it’s widening economic inequality, the lack of basic health care for millions of people, the continuing scourge of bigotry and sexism, or the divisions and dysfunction that plague our political system.”

“Similarly, the protests in response to the killing of George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and Nina Pop aren’t simply a reaction to those particular tragedies, as heartbreaking as they are,” Obama said. “They speak to decades worth of anguish and frustration over unequal treatment and a failure to reform police practices and the broader criminal justice system.”

Obama admitted that looking to what lies ahead of them, and all of us, can be “downright scary,” but he also warned about what not to do. He never namechecked his successor, but he did essentially subtweet him. “Democracy isn’t about relying on some charismatic leader to make changes from on high,” he said. “It’s about finding hope in ourselves, and creating it in others. Especially in a time like this. You don’t always need hope when everything’s going fine. It’s when things seem darkest — that’s when you need it the most.”

Along similar lines, he warned against “reading only news and opinions that reinforce our own biases and start canceling everything else out; we let opinion masquerade as fact and treat even the wildest conspiracy theories as worthy of consideration.” He added, “And the irony is that usually the people who are peddling falsehoods on the Internet or social media are doing so for their own purposes — either to sell you something or to distract you from the real issues that matter.”

Obama’s pre-recorded speech, which ran nearly 15 minutes, joined those of others, ranging from musicians (Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Lizzo) to actors (Seth Rogen, Chris Pine), other politicians (Condoleeza Rice), as well as Obama’s own wife, Michelle Obama. “Congratulations, Class of 2020,” he concluded. “Make it mean something. And keep making us proud.”

You can watch Obama’s full speech in the video above.

(Via Deadline)

The announcement marks an unprecedented victory for activists that could prove a turning point in criminal justice reform.

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Give your home a sustainable revamp with compost bins, recycled fabric rugs, and more goodies.

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But I bet you already knew that.

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What qualities make up your makeup?

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Early into the Black Lives Matter protests that have swept the nation and the globe, CNN’s Don Lemon chastised Hollywood players who’ve done little to support the cause. Since then a number of celebrities have put in live appearances. Last week, John Boyega delivered a stirring, emotional speech, one so direct he wondered if it would hurt his career. (Luckily it probably won’t.) Now Michael B. Jordan has popped up at one in Los Angeles, where he had choice words for his currently paused industry.

As per Entertainment Weekly, the actor attended a protest in Century City, and he addressed a matter of great concern right now: How does Hollywood change to recognize the racial issues raised by the killing of George Floyd?

“We have to relook at our business,” Jordan told the crowd. One solution, he said, was to “invest in black staff,” at studios and at agencies. “You committed to a 50/50 gender parity in 2020, where is the challenge to commit to black hiring?” he asked. “Black content led by black executives, black consultants. Are you policing our storytelling as well? Let us bring our darkness to the light.”

Jordan spoke about how he’s handled his own career. “Anybody that deals with me, if you have racist beliefs, if you have a racist bone in your body, if you’re not with me, if you don’t stand with me and people that look like me, you don’t need to be with me,” Jordan said. “I use my power to demand diversity but it’s time that studios and agencies do so.”

Jordan has regularly taken roles that address the issues being raised during the protests. His starmaking role was in Fruitvale Station, in which he played Oscar Grant, one of countless African-American victims of police violence. Jordan spoke about researching the role, having the “opportunity to feel the pain of his family, his daughter, his mother.” He added, “I lived with that for a very long time and it weighs on me.”

He also spoke about his starring role in the 2018 HBO version of Fahrenheit 451, in which he played a fireman in a dystopian future who joins the revolution. “Producing that movie made me really realize the lengths that the government and oppressors will go to keep knowledge out of your hands,” Jordan said.

Then there’s last year’s Just Mercy, which was recently made available for free over streaming platforms for the rest of the month in light of the protests. The docudrama tells of an idealistic lawyer, named Bryan Stevenson played by Jordan, who tries to help an African-American man wrongfully convicted of murder (played by Foxx). Jordan spoke about the honor of playing Stevenson. “I learned his tactics. I learned his mentality. I learned his approach to things. Very calm. Very strategic. Very thoughtful,” Jordan said. “You have to be proximal. You have to be close to [the] issues.”

Jordan also tried to inspire fellow protesters to stay strong and to stay the course. “What we are doing today will make our values heard and our voices heard. We’ve got to keep agitating things,” he said. “We can’t be complacent. We can’t let this moment just pass us by, we have to continue to put our foot on their necks.”

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

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CrossFit has become one of the most popular fitness organizations over the last decade, but the organization is now facing severe backlash from affiliate gyms, members, and its top sponsor, Reebok, after CEO Greg Glassman posted insensitive and remarks on Twitter regarding racism and George Floyd.

A tweet from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation called racism and discrimination “critical pubic health issues,” to which Glassman replied on his verified @CrossFitCEO account that it was “Floyd-19,” a wildly insensitive and offensive tweet, downplaying both racism and the killing of Floyd and the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Sunday, Reebok announced they were ending their partnership with CrossFit over the tweet, issuing a statement noting that they would no longer enter into negotiations to extend their deal with CrossFit that ends this year after Glassman’s comments, via Footwear News.

“Our partnership with CrossFit HQ comes to an end later this year. Recently, we have been in discussions regarding a new agreement, however, in light of recent events, we have made the decision to end our partnership with CrossFit HQ. We will fulfill our remaining contractual obligations in 2020. We owe this to the CrossFit Games competitors, fans and the community.

“What doesn’t change is our commitment and dedication to CrossFitters and the passionate CrossFit community. We’re so thankful for the strong bonds we’ve created with coaches, box owners and athletes around the world over the past 10 years. We want to especially thank Dave Castro, Nicole Carroll, Andy Stumpf, Steve Weiss and Jimi Letchford, who were instrumental in ensuring Reebok was welcomed by the community, so that we could do our part to help more people improve their lives through fitness.”

Given that, aside from their UFC deal, CrossFit was Reebok’s biggest partner, this is a significant move. As the statement notes, they will not be exiting the marketplace and will still focus heavily on training shoes and apparel, but will no longer be a lead sponsor for the official CrossFit organization.

Not only is Reebok jumping ship, but some gyms across the country are announcing they are disaffiliating from the CrossFit brand.