— Part-time WWE announcer Lilian Garcia took to social media on Thursday to share her condolences following the passing of Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA.
Garcia expressed that she was heartbroken by the news and offered prayers for Kirk’s wife and children, honoring his life and dedication to promoting conservative values. Many of her followers echoed her sentiments in the comments, mourning his loss. She said,
“Hey guys, so I just checked into my hotel room. I’ve been flying from Orlando where I was attending the Volt Conference and I was singing the National Anthem this week and opening the event to now being in Vegas as I’m announcing for Worlds Collide tomorrow, which is great. But like many of you, my heart has been so heavy with all the news and what happened to Charlie Kirk. Yesterday, really shocked me. I think that’s been the consensus in that how in the world did we get here? And I think about it with 9/11 being today. And I think about where I was 24 years ago, where I was actually the first person to sing the national anthem in a public forum just two days after 9/11, right? It was 9/13. And we went live, we went live on SmackDown and I opened up the show with our national anthem. To see all the signs that were around, to see the unity in that place, to see us as Americans come together for the love of our country was so amazing and so inspirational. And now here we are 24 years later where a lot are bickering because we have different opinions. Guys, this is America. That’s what makes America so amazing. The land of the free, right? We can have different opinions. Your families think about it families all the time we have different opinions within families it doesn’t mean we go around shooting each other um we can have uh you know thoughtful conversations and understand one another and understand what’s the thought process okay why are you thinking this way and have discussions and Charlie did not deserve this his family did not deserve this um but I’m hoping that this is a wake-up call that we can all start realizing that what makes us unique is that we are going to have differences of opinions and we can discuss them and we can agree and we can disagree and then we can move on and live our lives as best as we can. But I think about that today, 9/11, with all the suffering that happened 24 years ago and the suffering that continues. And I just know that tomorrow I’m singing the national anthem for Worlds Collide, from what I understand. And it’s taking on a whole new meaning all over again. It’s crazy. I just hope that each person that’s listening to this can start having more love and compassion in your heart for people and that Start bringing the temperature down and start leading with love.”
We send our sincere condolences to the family, friends, and supporters of Charlie Kirk following this heinous attack.
— During an appearance at Wednesday’s “Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference,” Mark Shapiro discussed talent pay in the UFC and WWE, highlighting their commitment to fairly compensating performers.
The TKO President said, “We’re running a pretty lean cost structure. In that cost structure is fighter pay. We’re going to continue to do right by our fighters and superstars. The cream of the crop will be paid the premium dollars. We invest in the product. Our last deal with ESPN saw us give bonuses for Fight of the Night, Knockdown or Submission of the Night. Saw us give fees for any of the global partnership deals we did, and consumer licensing deals we’ve done. We’re going to share as much as makes sense with the stars of both leagues. We will be very competitive. We are very competitive. We pay more than any other competitor we have in combat sports. We know why we’re here. It’s a team effort. It’s our brand. It’s the work Dana White does. On the WWE side, it’s the creative force that Triple H. It’s the strategy that Nick Khan drives. It’s ultimately the hard work put in by our crews. We’re doing a lot of work per week. There are a lot of events to put down. There are no breaks. It’s 52 weeks a year, so we have to pay for performance in terms of our people and the same goes for our fighters and superstars. You shouldn’t expect anything out of the ordinary, it’s a run rate for us, but we’re focused on it. Yes, you’ll get some of those Conor McGregors or Jon Jones that move the needle and get paid a little more, but they deliver more in return. It’s a scale and a formula. We’re very transparent about it with our fighters and superstars.”
— On a recent episode of “The Nikki & Brie Show,” WWE Hall of Famers The Bella Twins expressed their desire for WWE to revive Total Divas.
Nikki and Brie added that they would even be open to producing a similar series for the company.
Nikki said, “I hope something like Total Divas comes back. I would love to do a reality show, especially on Netflix, to match the comeback. Doing something with you like Total Bellas would be fun. They have WWE Unreal, which is so cool. To have that, which feels more like a documentary, real, raw and in the moment, and then it’s fun to have our girly stuff. Hopefully, in the future, that would be so cool. There are so many girly things on Netflix that thrive. Shows like ours would do well.”
Brie added, “Nicole and I love producing. Even if we’re not on cast, we would love to produce the women of WWE.”
