• Old School WWF/AWA Veteran Celebrates His Birthday
Old School Wrestling Veteran “Mr.” Masa Saito (Real name: Masanori Saito) celebrates his 76th birthday today.
He’s famous for winning the WWF World Tag Team Championships twice with his tag team partner Mr. Fuji, as well as becoming the AWA World Heavyweight Champion in 1990 by defeating Larry Zbyszko.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. SAITO!
• The Rock’s In-Ring Status For WrestleMania 34
As we noted before, Ronda Rousey is expected to compete in a mixed tag team match at WrestleMania 34, where she would team up with a male partner to face the team of Triple H & Stephanie McMahon.
WWE officials are trying to get Old School WWF Legend The Rock to return to the company to team up with Ronda at WrestleMania 34. The Rock, Ronda, HHH & Stephanie did an angle at WrestleMania 31 in 2015 and a mixed tag team match between them has been rumored ever since.
However, the problem with The Rock wrestling at WrestleMania 34 is that the filming of his next movie, Disney’s Jungle Cruise, is starting in May and wrestling in a match just one month before the filming might be difficult due to insurance issues.
Producers of a movie insure their cast members in case they get sick, injured or die during the filming of the movie. However, the insurance companies have noted in the past that they won’t insure The Rock if he wrestles a match prior to the filming as The Rock got injured during his WrestleMania 29 match and this resulted in the filming of his “Hercules” movie being postponed (a delay of just one day in a big budget movie can cost up to $250,000).
This is the reason why The Rock didn’t work a “real” match at WrestleMania 32 despite him wanting to work a match (he didn’t up working a 6 second match with Erick Rowan).
So the only way The Rock would wrestle at WrestleMania 34 is if the insurance company has no problem with The Great One wrestling prior to filming.
Below is what NPR posted regarding the cost of insurance of cast members:
“For a film with a budget of $100 million, cast insurance typically costs $350,000 for 10-12 people. However, if one actor involved is a “problem actor,” that can drive costs to $700,000 to $1 million.”
