FREE: WWE Security, Ne-Yo Talks to Fightful!? Xavier Woods, Kazarian, Hook, Fightful News, Much More

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• Fightful founder Jimmy Van will be taking a hiatus from Fightful and The Hump. There will be a number of guest co-hosts with Sean Ross Sapp for the time being. Among them include Andrew Baydala on September 3, Tom Campbell September 10, Denise Salcedo September 17, Frank The Clown September 24, Luke Owen October 1, and Simon Miller October 15. We are open to additional established creators, media and wrestlers joining on upcoming dates, or other shows. If there's anyone you'd like to see, let us know.

• As highlighted on Fightful this week, Arez is tapped for the El Clon angle with Hologram. There has been a tentative plan for this angle for over a year. Tony Khan had been very involved in the vision of this angle.

• Hook's new theme is "So Tell The Girls I'm Back In Town" by Jay Jay Johanson. We’re told that it was a selection by Hook directly

• If you couldn’t tell by him working his ass off on Raw, Xavier Woods was absolutely working with his recent injury. He went as far as to wear a neckbrace to a Denny’s after a recent show and tell fans his neck was hurt.

• Fightful has a new interview with Powerhouse Hobbs up at this link. We also interviewed Evil Uno last week at this link.

• A major, marquee, attraction boxing match has been discussed and could be announced soon. There is a bit of a WWE connection.

• The paid tier will have news on a major market that some in WWE have pushed to get into today. We will also have reactions from WWE Superstars about the AJ Lee rumors coming this week.

• WWE did start providing security to a number of talent around the shows this weekend.

Kazarian

Fightful spoke to Frankie Kazarian ahead of this week's TNA tapings in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

He said that teaming with his wife Traci Brooks last year and revealing that she was being inducted into the TNA HOF was very important to both of them, and was one of the great honors of his career.

We spoke about his penchant for having great ladder matches, and said that he felt like his match with Christian Cage is underrated when people discuss great ladder matches. We also spoke about the famous cutter spot on Christopher Daniels at Ultimate X. Kazarian said that he actually pitched that spot the day before.

His Flux Capacitor move was discussed, which he said was obviously inspired by the SAT's Spanish Fly, which he and Nova used. He wanted to put his own twist on it, and says he saves it for some bigger moments now so it will mean more.

He also said that it was nice to be back in the WWE environment after being out of it for 20 years, and felt great being at NXT last year.

One of his favorite tag team matches was himself and Daniels against Kurt Angle and AJ Styles, which Angle said was his favorite tag match he's been in. He said he could tell it was special, but said it would be difficult to have a bad match with those guys as well.

We discussed the success of talent in his era, and he said that he thinks because so many grew up in a great 1980s era and got into the business during the next boom of the late 90s, it led to a lot of successful talent with good wrestling minds.

The interview is up for all early access subscribers

TEKKEN!?

We have Tekken celebrity scoops.

The Tekken 8 match took place August 24 t at the Global Gaming League's first competition between the teams of T-Pain and NE-YO at HyperX Arena at the Luxor, Las Vegas. It was a tie breaking round in a match that had seen T-Pain and NE-YO's teams battle over Tetris. TrackHawk, Tony Hawk Pro Skater, and Call of Duty. (here was even a surprise guest appearance by Flavor Flav, where he played Centipede.

NE-YO won the tie-breaker, and the overall match, so his team advances to the championship in November. The teams for the next match will be announced soon.

Boxer Shawn Porter attended the event. 

Global Gaming League founder Clinton Sparks told Fightful how things came about: 

"Me and T-Pain saw a random video of NE-YO challenging Pain to Tekken, or any fighting game. Pain gets trolled often so we didn’t think much about it - until NE-YO kept coming at him, at which point Pain had to respond with something. This sparked an online buzz with people suggesting this debate be settled with a Global Gaming League match to actually see who’s better.

Fighting games have a passionate and dedicated community and Tekken is one of the best fighting games -- especially if you're a mixed martial arts fan because it spans all kinds of traditions like capoeira, wing chun, Bruce Lee's jeet kune do, muay thai and tons more. It also has interesting storylines that keep you locked in, which aligns with what we are doing here at the Global Gaming League -- rivalries and storylines throughout the season that fans can connect with and get excited about."

Ne-yo gave Fightful a quote, saying:

“T-Pain is my guy, but there’s no chance he could have beat me playing Tekken. I’ve been playing Tekken for way too long and my skills are too sharp for him. It’s the ultimate fighting game and it’s just one of my favorite games to play. Whenever I’m on the road and on tour, I love to come back to my hotel room, unwind and play Tekken.”

Pro Tekken player Babyfacekiddo, and Global Gaming League player:)

"So NE-YO used Paul Phoenix --  a character from America whose fighting style is martial arts based off judo and T-Pain played Eddie Gordo from Brazil whose fighting style is Capoeira. The stage that was chosen at random was Yakushima which commonly is confused for having no walls but just like Coliseum of Fate,  there are walls the stage is just huge. 

"Round 1 Neyo was able to Perfect (meaning he was able to kill the opponent without getting touched) T-Pain, Round 2 Tpain was able to hit Neyo with a rage art (a special move that only the player can activate once their health bar is low) but NE-YO was still successful and won the round.  Round 3 T-Pain was showing signs of life by chipping away at his health bar but NE-YO was able to take it in the end and 3-0’d"

Another version of play by play provided to Fightful

Round 1: 

- Ne-yo Selected Paul as his character 

- T-pain selected Eddy as his character 

- Ne-yo goes into a kick combo hitting T-pain to the ground 

- Ne-yo executes a ground smash combo repeatedly where T-pain is struggling to escape the stun lock 

- Ne-yo wins first round with a Perfect (this means he took zero damage) 

Round 2: 

- Second round starts 

- Ne-yo goes into his light attack combo 

- Ne-yo does a upward attack knocking T-pain to the ground again 

- Letting T-pain get up again, Ne-yo executes a light attack combo again knocking T-pain to the ground, teasing him 

- T-pain tries to get a hit in, which after one hit gets blocked by Ne-yo who then light attack combos again 

- T-pain executes a grapple into Eddy’s ultimate which lands getting Ne-yo to half health - Ne-yo recovers after the ultimate into a double heavy attack winning the round 

Round 3: 

- Third round starts 

- T-pain comes out swinging but gets blocked by Ne-yo at first but then lands a heavy kick attack knocking Ne-yo to the ground 

- Attempting a charge attack t-pain misses it though, letting Ne-yo recover - T-pain blocks several of Ne-yos light attacks and gets Ne-yo into a grapple attack - Ne-yo recovers and does some light punches and kicks, which t-pain seemingly cannot block. 

- T-pain then lands a light combo knocking Ne-yo to the ground 

- Ne-yo then recovers, after some light attacks on eachother Ne-yo activates Pauls ultimate which then K.O’s T-pain for the final win on the match.

In case you didn't know, Fightful also has FightfulGaming.com, covering wrestling, boxing and MMA video games as well as all other crossover gaming content.