John Cena Grants Wish, Edge & Bret Hart Attend Hockey Game, Rock Note

- John Cena made an appearance on Today’s Kathie Lee & Hoda show to grant eight-year-old Nick Santillo, who was born with just half a heart, his wish of meeting the WWE Champ. Embedded below is footage from the appearance.
- Washington Wizards center Jason Collins told Sports Illustrated that he’s gay. The Rock commented on Collins’ decision to come out, writing on Twitter, “Being real & authentic is very powerful. Well done Jason Collins for having the courage to take a monumental step forward. #LiveReal”
- Former WWE Superstar Edge was with Bret Hart attended Sunday night’s Edmonton Oil Kings at Calgary Hitmen minor league hockey game. Edge commented on the game, writing on Twitter, “What a night! Calgary Hitmen game with @BretHart , won in OT, followed by a great dinner. Never get’s old sharin Owen stories”

Bret Hart Clarifies Rating for Lesnar/HHH Match, ESPN Power Rankings

- Brock Lesnar took the top spot on this week’s ESPN WWE Power Rankings followed by The Shield, CM Punk, Dolph Ziggler and John Cena.

ESPN’s article also contained a few quotes from Cody Rhodes, who discussed his career before WrestleMania 29 earlier this month.

“Gosh, this has been a horrible run,” Rhodes admitted. “I feel like after Money in the Bank in Phoenix, I almost took a nose dive, career-wise. I couldn’t get the reigns on it, but I feel like I finally got the reigns on my career again, and that happens in entertainment.”

- Bret Hart clarified some earlier comments he made during a recent interview with Arda Ocal. Bret noted that when he talked about the Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar match at WrestleMania being a 4 out of 10, he was actually referring to a sign in the crowd on Raw.

“my comments to Arda about Trip H Lezner match being 4 out of 10, was in reference to a sign someone held up on Raw. I in truth thought they had the second best match of the night, and both worked very hard. Hope that clarifys things. Bret”

Bret Rates Rock Bottom to Cena, Shares Thoughts on Ambrose and More

- WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart recently spoke with WrestleNewz.com and answered several fan questions. Here are some highlights:

His experience at WrestleMania this year:
“I really enjoyed it. The most fun for me was seeing a lot of the legends and the old names and faces that I’ve known for so many years — Jimmy Snuka, Roddy Piper and those kinds of guys. I was really quite impressed with seeing the great Bruno Sammartino and hearing his induction speech. To hear his struggle through his childhood with the Nazis — I never knew a lot of that stuff about Bruno. So I was quite touched by him. I got to run into him two or three times over that week, and he was really impressive to me.”

The WrestleMania 29 pay-per-view:
“I thought parts of it were really good. But parts of it I thought were, for me, very predictable. I kind of predicted things in my head and certain matches went exactly as I thought they would. But the one match I thought was outstanding was the Punk-Undertaker match. That was truly exceptional. They really had a great match — they couldn’t have done a better job with taking two different guys from two different eras and fusing them together to create the match that they got.”

His favorites on the WWE roster:
“Right now I’m very impressed with Punk. And I’m very impressed with the one guy in The Shield — what’s his name O’Connell, O’Donnell? — Ambrose, that’s it. He’s really good. He’s got it down. He’s such a first-rate thinker on his feet when it comes to his timing, his expressions, his quickness, his deviousness. I love his deviousness! I saw him this past weekend and told him I thought he was great.”

Thoughts on a meme showing him giving The Rock’s Rock Bottom to John Cena on the go-home RAW a 4/10:
“I haven’t seen it, but it might be closer to the truth than people think. I don’t know if my look was on purpose. Sometimes I make funny expressions on my own that make me laugh. When there are people snapping pictures from every angle, it’s hard to know how you’ll look. But personally, I thought when he did the big move on (Cena), he kind of flubbed it up. He didn’t do it very well. It was like a four out of 10! They seemed to trip with their toes. They didn’t really get positioned right at all. They kind of tripped over each other. It’s hard to say who tripped over who, but I thought somebody flubbed it. Maybe Rock flubbed it. Yeah, I would say four out of 10. Four may be generous!”

In part 1 of the interview, Bret also talks about how Dean Ambrose reacted to his comments, what Vince McMahon needs to do to fix the WWE Tag Team division and more. Part 2 will be released later this week.

Bret Hart Comments on WrestleMania 29, Favorite Mania’ Moment & More

WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart took part in a Facebook Q&A today. Here are some highlights.

Who should end The Undertaker’s streak: “Joe Henning (Michael McGillicutty)”

Fitting match for the Undertaker to go out on: “Lets just say at WM 50 (I’m sure he meant 30) – Undertaker loses streak to Joe Henning … and he is pinned with the PerfectPlex at the 59 minute mark.”

WrestleMania 29: “I thought undertaker and punk stole the show … I thought the two main events were more than predictable. Step by step. Overall I thought the show was good. The highlight of Wrestlemania weekend for me was the induction of Bruno. All of the Hall of Famer recipients were great selections.”

His favorite WrestleMania moment: “When Rowdy Piper, Randy Savage, Razor Ramon and Lex Lugar carried me around the ring … ”

Hulk Hogan Talks About Changing WrestleMania Match

In an interview with Fighting Spirit Magazine, Hulk Hogan sheds light on original plans for his match with The Rock at Wrestlemania X-8 in 2002. 

“Out of respect, I go down there (to Miami), and there’s me and The Rock and his dad Rocky Johnson, and Pat Patterson,” said Hogan. “The Rock starts telling me that we’re gonna lock up, and do this and do that, then start getting some heat on me, and so on. So he talked through the whole match, and I was listening. I respect him, and it kinda made sense, but I’d never done that before. Then they go, ‘Okay, let’s have the match here.’ I said, ‘Whoa! You’re talking about me taking bumps in this ring, with no people? I’ll get hurt, and if I fall wrong one time, then my career is over.’ I’ve got to have the energy of the crowd, so that when I go down, I go down to the mat hard. So instead, we just walked through the match." 

Hogan was depicted as the heel going into the match due to his affiliation with the New World Order, and because of his acrimonious departure from WWE years prior. The audience, however, didn't care that Hogan was portrayed as a villain by WWE, instead cheering the wrestling icon and reigning a chorus of boos toward The Rock. Hogan says he had the match changed on the fly due to the crowd reaction. 

“The whole issue I had was what if we got to Toronto, and this doesn’t work? So sure enough, when we go to Toronto, I give The Rock one big push, and the place explodes. Then I pushed him again, as we planned, and the place explodes again. [WWE] thought I was gonna get booed. Then I start chopping meat on him, and with every hit the place is going crazy. Then I did what was planned, blocking a punch, and as soon as he started hitting me came the boos.” 

“I went down, and looked up and said, ‘You want me to fix this?’ And The Rock says, ‘Yeah, let’s fix it.’ I went, ‘OK, then listen to me.’ But it took him no time to get it right, because he is just so good in the ring. It took us three minutes to get it right, but if we’d done what we had practised, they’d have booed us out of the [expletive] building. I’m not saying I could do it in every instance, but The Rock is so good, we could do that. The Rock doesn’t usually talk about planning his matches, so somebody must have made him worry that I was too old and too slow, and that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the work-rate. But once he got in the ring with me, he knew I had a feel for it, and we got it right. That’s what I wanted to do with ‘Stone Cold’, and Bret Hart, too.”

Eric Bischoff Calls Bret Hart A "Sad, Broken and Bitter Person"

Eric Bischoff appeared on Inside The Ropes Thursday night where he addressed critical remarks from WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart. Highlights from the interview are as follows: 

On Bret Hart’s run in WCW: "I had spoken to and met Bret several times before he made the jump. I was obviously excited to have him but clearly Bret Hart was a very broken....and in my opinion still is, from the interviews I hear him do, a very sad, broken and bitter person. That was pretty evident when he first came over. He was a shadow or a shell of his former self. Wherever Bret was, the high point of his character, what I got was a kind of broken, sad shell of that and quite honestly I don’t think he’s ever come out of it." 

On Bret’s recent comments saying he “knows nothing about wrestling” and calling him “an idiot”: "It’s not unusual for guys like Bret Hart, from that era....the only way they know how to get over is to get over at the expense of someone else. Bret Hart’s trying very hard to stay relevant. Unfortunately, he’s no longer relevant. He was a big star, he had a big name at one point, he was an important character in the history of the business but he’s not any longer and I’m sure that’s hard on him. I know myself how it feels to realise that that your biggest and best days as a performer are behind you. I’m very comfortable with that, I’ve embraced it but it’s hard for a lot of guys who’ve never been anything other than performers. They have a hard time with that. It’s not easy getting older in the wrestling business, believe me, when you’re surrounded by younger and younger people who in many ways aren’t as over or as skilled or as popular as you may have been or still are now. But this business is a business that’s served by youth and change. And for someone like Bret, that manifests itself in his personality, lashing out at others. It’s funny, when he came to me he hated Vince McMahon, he hated everyone in the WWE from the office to half the roster. He didn’t have a good thing to say about any of the McMahons. Then when he got the opportunity to go back and work for them, he had to shift that. Then his hatred was for someone else like Bill Goldberg for giving him a concussion and now it’s for me and for Hulk, there’s no rhyme or reason for it and as far as his opinion of my value and what I’ve achieved in the wrestling business, I’ll let my body of work and success speak for itself." 

His future in TNA: "I really don’t plan on being in the wrestling business too much longer and I say that in a very grateful and positive way. This business has been great for me and my family. It’s been almost 30 years. I’m still shocked to this day. My goal now isn’t to accomplish anything professionally, because I’ve kind of been there, done that. My goal now and this is gonna sound kinda corny, I really like teaching. I like watching guys like Matt Connaway and Dave Lagana, watching them grow into new areas that they haven’t been able to get into before. Someday, hopefully, in the near future, I’m going to be able to walk away from this business and when I do, I want to be able to know that I was able to shape, in one way shape or form, guys who will carry on and be the future of the business. 

Bischoff also talked about signing Randy Savage to a WCW contract, comparisons between Aces and Eights and the nWo, and much more. The full interview is available at www.facebook.com/theinsidenetwork.

Bray Wyatt Works WWE Events, Upcoming WWE DVD Note

Courtesy of WWEDVDNews.com, here are three more feuds to be featured on WWE's upcoming "Top 25 Rivalries In History" DVD and Blu-ray:

* Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart
* CM Punk vs. John Cena
* The Undertaker vs. Mankind

Two more matches to be featured on the DVD are Mankind vs. Undertaker from King of the Ring 1996 and CM Punk vs. John Cena from Night of Champions 2012.

- WWE NXT star Bray Wyatt is on the road with WWE this weekend, working live events. He's picked up wins over JTG. Fans in attendance noted that he looked different from the managerial role he's been playing on NXT. 

JR Blog: Monday's Raw, Bret Hart's New DVD & More

WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross has published a new blog entry on JrsBarBq.com. Here are some highlights. 

Bret Hart's new DVD: The new, @BretHart DVD collection just released this week is exceptional. When a talent sits down and emotionally invests themselves in a project such as a DVD, inevitably the product is that much better. 

That was certainly the case with the last @steveaustinBSR DVD and same goes for the two DVD presentations that Bret has helped produce. 
Emotionally investing in one's life, totally, generally equates to positive results. Living in one's comfort zone isn't advisable. 

Andy Leavine joining the NFL: Got an email from a NFL writer/friend where former Tough Enough winner Andy Leavine is preparing to try his hand at pro football again. I wish him the best on such a daunting challenge and getting a free agent deal. 

My theory is that, if one does the math, that it's harder to make a WWE primary roster than it is to make a NFL team. Certainly an arguable point but the number of 'spots' available for both entities favors football. 

On Monday's Raw: Anxious to see the follow up Monday night in Indy on RAW especially between @CMPunk and The Undertaker notwithstanding Brock Lesnar and @TripleH. Two hugely compelling WM 29 scenarios. Do I expect Lesnar to commit to fighting HHH at WM29? Do I want to sell you some JR's? Hell, yes! This is crunch time for everyone associated with WWE as the Road To WrestleMania separates the wannabe's from the players. 

Jerry Lawler staying busy: Amazed at how busy @JerryLawler stays virtually each and every weekend doing appearances and signings. However, there's no doubt that Jerry would rather be wrestling. I'd be surprised if things work out to where The King has had his last bout. 

His Annual radio appearance on Boston Celtics radio network: Doing my annual, radio appearance this Sunday on WEEI and the Boston Celtics radio network with @SeanGrandePBP in OKC where the Celts play the Thunder. It's an early, day game Sunday and is one of the highlights of my year. The plan is for me to call the 2nd quarter with Sean. I think that you can hear it online by checking out the WEEI radio website.