Wrestling

Before he went by his real name, Dwayne Johnson, he went by The Rock. Everyone knows that. But did you know that before he was The Rock, Johnson had two other wrestling names? In his earliest days, he was called “Flex Kavana,” and when he later debuted in the WWE, he went by “Rocky Maivia,” combining the names of his wrestler dad (Rocky Johnson) and grandfather (Peter Maivia). A little while later, Johnson adopted a bad guy persona and began referring to himself in third person as simply “The Rock.” And thus a legend was born, and thus that’s just one of the facts featured in the latest episode of You Think You Know Movies!

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar has informed the mixed martial arts promotion that he is retired from competition. The UFC confirmed Lesnar's decision Wednesday. The decision doesn't affect Lesnar's professional wrestling career, where he has spent most of the past five years. ...

VEVEY, Switzerland (AP) — The governing body of wrestling has imposed four-year doping bans on athletes from Iran and Azerbaijan. United World Wrestling says a ban on Bashir Babajanzadeh took effect from Aug. 31. Two weeks earlier, the Iranian had competed at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, losing in the quarterfinals of the Greco-Roman 130-kilogram class...

  ULAAN BATAAR, Mongolia (AP) — A skin-baring protest by a pair of Mongolian wrestling coaches at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics has struck a chord back home in their landlocked Asian nation. Mongolian media and the public reacted angrily to the decision to award victory to Uzbekistan's Ikhtiyor Navruzov over Mongolia's Mandakhnaran Ganzorig in the 65 kilogram freestyle bronze medal match on Sunday.

When you talk improbable champions, Hassan Hawthorne really ought to be at the top of your list.

STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) — WWE says Virgil Runnels, a former professional wrestler known by his fans as Dusty Rhodes, has died. He was 69. The company says Runnels died Thursday, but a spokesman declined to say where or how he passed away, saying the family had not authorized the release of that information...

Over the weekend, I spent some time with a friend and we started to talk about the new TV show, "Lip Sync Battle," and the performance by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson -- which was great! But I noticed that The Rock looked even more buff than usual.

Soccer isn’t the only sport where you see creative celebrations.

With the recent return of ECW mastermind Paul Heyman to WWE and the questionable success Shane Douglas’ Extreme Reunion show, the promotion that put hardcore on the map is at the forefront of many people’s minds. But while guys like Heyman and Douglas have managed to maintain decent public profiles of their own, many ECW Originals have largely fallen off the map to all but the most dedicated and o