The two big stories that came out of WWE over the weekend don’t go together very well. One was that an on-air employee tested positive for COVID-19, and the other is that they’re resuming live broadcasts of Raw, NXT, and Smackdown. That’s three shows a week that much of their talent will have to either travel back and forth to, or isolate themselves locally, away from their families. Neither solution is great, and at a time when only essential businesses are supposed to be going to work, WWE’s justification for going live again is a bit questionable, to say the least.

Naturally, the statement they made to ESPN made it all about the fans:

We believe it is now more important than ever to provide people with a diversion from these hard times. We are producing content on a closed set with only essential personnel in attendance following appropriate guidelines while taking additional precautions to ensure the health and wellness of our performers and staff. As a brand that has been woven into the fabric of society, WWE and its Superstars bring families together and deliver a sense of hope, determination and perseverance.

But meanwhile, Dave Meltzer at WON is saying that the real issue is that WWE’s contracts with USA and Fox limit how many pre-taped shows they’re supposed to air per year, apparently to just 3, which are usually used for Christmas and the UK tour. Apparently the fear is that if they don’t go live, even during this pandemic, the networks will have justification to renegotiate other parts of the contracts.

So yes, if you were confused, it sounds like WWE’s decision to put its talent at risk by running three live weekly TV shows a week during a global pandemic is all about money. I don’t think this will surprise anyone.

WWE keeps stressing how many precautions they’re taking at these shows, but personally I can’t even bring myself to call that doing the bare minimum for their workers’ safety. In this crisis, as most of us know well, the bare minimum, unless you’re selling food or providing healthcare, should be keeping your workers home.

View Entire Post ›

As bizarre as it was, WrestleMania week officially came to an end last Friday with the post-Mania episode of Smackdown ushering in the Braun Strowman era. Strowman was a last-minute substitution in the Universal Championship match against Goldberg, taking the place of Roman Reigns, who bowed out of the WrestleMania 36 card due to health concerns. This worked out well for the Monster Among Men, who left the WWE Performance Center as the new Universal Champion. But according to Goldberg, that match was almost wiped from history. Appearing on the CarCast podcast last week, the WWE Hall Of Famer had this to say:

“Obviously I had a change of opponents at the very last minute. Roman Reigns, everybody knows he has leukemia. He’s in remission, but obviously his immune system’s down. I don’t know why [the match] was even considered in the beginning except for the fact that we’d invested time and WWE invested money in the angle and in the match. Literally until the 23rd hour, it was still a possibility he and I were gonna wrestle. Plans kinda changed at the very last minute. I did the match with Braun, and then it was possible I could wrestle Roman again before the 5th. That obviously fell through. […] My obligations were complete for the year. My second match was already wrestled. So I come back here on Friday and don’t go to the gym for five days, then I get a phone call in the middle of the week that it’s still a possibility. It was still a possibility on [Roman’s] end that he could go through with the match. […] I think what happened was somebody was sick and Roman heard about it. They just had the flu. But just the fact that somebody was sick in those circumstances, at the end of the day he just couldn’t do it. More power to him to continually want to get it done, whether that’s realistic or unrealistic for a person in his shoes are concerned, but you’ve got to love the guy because up to the 11th hour, he was still willing to do it.”

As for Goldberg’s actual WrestleMania match with Braun Strowman, he wasn’t the only person who was disappointed in the lack of an explanation, but he was able to be zen about the whole thing:

“I’d never wrestled Braun before. We had no story. There was no lead-up to it whatsoever. [But] it was a reality check. Everybody knows Roman’s situation. This isn’t a fabricated story; it’s reality. Reality was literally playing out right in front of everybody’s eyes, Braun and I’s included. He had no clue he was going to be doing that match, nor did I. But in this business, you gotta learn to roll with the punches, you gotta satiate everybody and you gotta look at the big picture. You gotta take everything into consideration at the same time. You can’t risk injury or whatever it is. We just had to do our jobs, no matter how unprepared we were for it.”

The former two-time Universal Champion went on to discuss the complicated feelings surrounding performing during a pandemic. commenting:

“You feel as though you have a responsibility to the public, because you do. We’re one of the very few entities that are going on right now. At the same time, you feel as though you’re being irresponsible. So it’s a fine line. But it’s a business. Vince McMahon’s a businessman. He was there. He’s not going to ask anybody to do what he wouldn’t do. So he at least showed up and people could see that and understand that he was willing to put himself in a situation that was obviously good enough for an older person like himself to be there.”

Granted, we can’t all be Genetic Jackhammers like Mr. McMahon. So can we please just let wrestlers stay home?

After more than two decades in the organization, the Chicago Bulls reportedly fired Gar Forman on Monday. The Bulls made it official on Monday after other front office shuffling made it clear the longtime general manager of the franchise would have his duties changed.

Forman joined the Bulls in 1998 as a scout and saw various roles with the organization before becoming its general manager in 2009. He won NBA Executive of the Year in 2011, but recent years have seen the Bulls struggle and fans grow tired of Forman, who was criticized for passing on a variety of notable players while the Bulls continued to falter.

The move comes after the team hired Artūras Karnisovas as executive vice president of basketball operations from the Denver Nuggets front office. Karnisovas takes over the role from John Paxson, who the Bulls announced will move into an advisory role with the team from the position he’d held since 2003.

With Paxson out of the picture it seemed certain Forman’s role would change as well, and now it looks like the Bulls will go in an altogether new direction.

Forman released a statement on Monday thanking the organization for the opportunity and his time there.

It’s unclear what the Bulls will do with its front office moving forward, but in this NBA purgatory where the season isn’t officially canceled and not much else can happen, Forman’s exit paves the way for more big changes in Chicago’s leadership.

It was supposed to be a grand farewell: On February 25, Bob Iger stepped down as CEO of Disney — a position he’d held since 2005. Over his tenure the super-corporation had swollen even bigger in size; it was under him that they bought Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm. It was under him that they’d absorbed Fox. He’d released a memoir last fall with a brag of a title, The Ride of a Lifetime. But, as per The New York Times, Iger is now informally back at the company, trying to steer it through waters that, thanks to our current rampaging pandemic, became immediately choppy after his departure.

The NYT reports that, mere weeks after being replaced by Bob Chapek, he’s “effectively returned to running the company,” having “smoothly reasserted control.” One major problem is that the company, which brought in more than $26 billion last year, is reportedly losing around $30 million a day.

That’s because three of their biggest revenue streams are essentially on “pause.” Last year Disney extended their focus to cruise ships and theme parks (beyond Disneyland, Disney World, etc.). Now those ships are empty, as are the parks. ESPN, one of their biggest cash cows, has not aired new sports in almost a month. And no one’s going to the movies.

The one glimmer of hope is Disney+, which recently announced they’d amassed 50 million subscribers. But, the NYT says, “the project is still an investment, years away from generating revenue that could replace a big movie opening in theaters.” On top of that, they need new content, which, for the most part, can’t be generated while everyone’s on lockdown. (Unless humanity gets super into watching famous performers performing in front of webcams in their homes à la the most recent SNL.)

In any case, the mood at Disney is “dire,” says the NYT, and while the exact number of its 223,000 employees who’ve been furloughed has not been revealed, the numbers are reportedly “huge.” (Among the furloughed are 30,000 who work at California resorts and 43,000 in Florida.)

The Times suggests Iger and company are considering ways to bring people back to parks in ways that won’t further spread COVID-19, including, reportedly “taking visitors’ temperatures.” There may also be a reduction in staff, though Iger wouldn’t confirm that, saying that decision would be left to his successor. But in any case, it appears Iger won’t get that Disney happy ending after all, and nor will the hundreds of thousands under his employ.

(Via The New York Times)

A Tribe Called Quest officially disbanded in 1998, but rapper Q-Tip went on to have an illustrious solo career. The rapper put out his debut solo LP Amplified just a year after the group’s split. The album went Gold and Q-Tip waited several years to offer a follow-up. In 2016, Tribe briefly reunited for the record We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service. Now, Q-Tip is ready to reignite his solo career.

Celebrating his 50th birthday, Q-Tip made a big announcement. Tip has been teasing his album The Last Zulu for quite some time now, and it looks as though that’s not the only thing he’s been working on. Along with The Last Zulu, Tip is effectively doubling his solo discography and releasing two more albums.

Q-Tip took to social media to make the three-LP album announcement. While playing a funky bass groove alongside a beat, Q-Tip revealed the titles to three new solo albums in a superimposed message. The rapper disclosed he is gearing up for the release of Algorhythms, Riot Diaries, and The Last Zulu. Though the rapper didn’t unveil a firm release date, Tip said the albums are on the way. “Thank u god willing I will get with u soon,” he wrote alongside the album announcement.

Watch Q-Tip’s album announcement above.

NASCAR driver Kyle Larson was suspended by the auto racing body on Monday following the use of a racial slur during a streamed broadcast of an iRacing event. The incident happened during the latest event in which drivers have taken to virtual racing during the COVID-19 pandemic to drive digitally recreated tracks while cameras capture the action and broadcast it online and sometime on broadcast TV.

The Easter Sunday stream of Monza Madness brought a variety of NASCAR Cup drivers to virtual Italy to test their skills on a digital Autodromo Nazionale Monza. But Larson was captured on a Twitch stream uttering a racial slur, which quickly drew swift criticism online.

You can watch the video below, but be advised that some clearly offensive language is captured here.

Both NASCAR and Larson’s racing team, Chip Ganassi Racing, took swift action following the video’s spread on social media. Ganassi issued a statement and said Larson would be suspended without pay.

NASCAR, meanwhile, said it was aware of the incident on Monday morning and investigating. Soon after released an official statement that said Larson would be indefinitely suspended.

Hearing inappropriate and racist language while gaming online can unfortunately be common, but it’s surprising to hear it from professional drivers in events that are drawing a lot of attention while real sports remain on pause during the coronavirus pandemic. What’s more, drivers are used to their every word available for fans to hear during races, as you can follow in-car radio both at the track and at home as part of the race day experience. There’s no excuse for using that kind of language and, in a lot of ways, Larson should have known people were listening to him no matter how heated a gaming moment he had on the virtual track.

Selena Gomez released her comeback record Rare early this year. The album saw a mix of buoyant, radio-ready anthems as well as more personal ballads, like the lead single “Lose You To Love Me.” Continuing her lengthy career in the spotlight, Gomez detailed her recent album and the meaning behind the emotional track in an interview with Amy Schumer.

In a cover story for Interview Magazine, Gomez talked about her new makeup line, directorial projects, and, of course, her latest album. Gomez’s Rare was a culmination of several years of ups and downs. Not only did Gomez go through a very public breakup with Justin Bieber, but the singer was also diagnosed with the autoimmune disease Lupus and had to undergo a kidney transplant.

Gomez aimed to translate those experiences into music. “I wanted to make sure, especially on this album, that each song meant something to me, that it represented a story that actually happened to me or one that I’m still walking through,” she said about the record. The singer recounted how it felt to return to the studio after a several-year hiatus and what her lead single ‘Lose You To Love Me’ meant to her:

“I wrote it at the beginning of last year, and had just gotten out of treatment. It was a moment when I came back and I was like, ‘I’m ready to go into the studio with people I trust and start working on songs.’ There was an air around it where people were very happy, because it was like I was going to finally be me. But I didn’t necessarily see it that way at the time. When I wrote the song, I was basically saying that I needed to hit rock-bottom to understand that there was this huge veil over my face.”

Rare is out now via Interscope. Get it here.

View Entire Post ›

Adding to the list of celebrities who have held livestream events during the quarantine, Diddy hosted an Instagram live dance-a-thon fundraiser Sunday with an array of celebrities. Joining him in his event to benefit healthcare workers were Lizzo, J. Lo, Cardi B, Future, Drake, and many others. The event garnered tens of thousands of viewers and was successful in raising money. Moreover, fans were able to get an inside scoop about Drake’s upcoming music. During his live session with Diddy, Drake revealed his album is well underway.

Taking a break from dancing, Drake sat down with Diddy to talk about music. The rapper said he has been working on a new project “for a while now.” Drake also referred to the time he’s had during quarantine as a “silver lining” because he has been able to devote all of his attention to writing music:

“I’m working on the album, I’ve been working on it for a while now. Another silver lining is, when God does get you to sit down. I remember the last time I had to sit down was when I tore my ACL. And I made a great album out of that. Obviously, God has us all inside the house right now sitting down, so the amount of focus I’m able to put into this album is probably way different than it would’ve been if I had to go through the residency in Vegas and be able to go meet up with Justin in Miami or whatever. Saying that, this is the most excited I’ve been about an album in a long time. A lot of little stuff has been trickling out, but all the stuff on the album is fresh, is brand new, and I’m excited. This is probably the most music I’ve been sitting on. I’m hyped.”

Elsewhere in the livestream, Diddy added Drake to his list of top five favorite rappers. “It’s clear, the work you put in, you’re in my official top five. For real,” Diddy said.

Watch Drake and Diddy on Instagram live above.

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.