• On This Day In Wrestling History – Old School Wrestling Legend Passed Away
On this day in 2014, we lost Old School Wrestling Legend Ox Baker (Real name: Douglas Baker Sr.) at the age of 80 due to complications from a heart attack.
Baker most famously competed in several different territories during his long, illustrious career, including the WWWF/WWF, NWA (JCP), AWA, NJPW, WCCW, GCW, CWF, CWA, AJPW, … & many more.
Those of you who didn’t see him in the ring during his professional wrestling career, will certainly remember him for his role in John Carpenter’s movie “Escape from New York”, where he was fighting Kurt Russell.
REST IN PEACE OX BAKER
(April 19, 1934 – October 20, 2014)
• WWE Brand Split Coming To An End With New FOX Deal In 2019?
According to the No Holds Barred podcast, WWE might forget about the brand split in October 2019 once SmackDown Live moves to the FOX Network on Friday nights.
The reason behind this move would be to have a strong drawing power with all the top names being able to appear on SmackDown (as WWE would have to draw a strong viewership to avoid getting moved to FS1).
Speaking of SmackDown Live moving to FOX next year, FOX has already begun preparing for this move.
FOX is planning to introduce a Thursday through Sunday Sports block in 2019, with WWE taking the spot on Friday night.
With that being said, FOX officials have reportedly demanded WWE to begin airing more ‘Pro-Wrestling’ on SmackDown instead of comedy segments.
By doing that, FOX officials are planning to have “their sports people on the different shows heavily promote it”.
