— A new hearing has been scheduled in the criminal case against former WWE star Mike “Duke” Droese, who faces charges of Sexual Exploitation of a Minor. The case was originally set for a “plea or trial selection” hearing on August 27th in Warren County, Tennessee, but the date has now been pushed back to October 22nd.
If no plea agreement is reached by that time, the case will move forward to trial. Droese was indicted in May on the charge after allegedly attempting to purchase child sexual assault material online through a Coinbase account.
According to a press release issued at the time of the indictment, Droese attempted the purchase on April 21, 2024, but the transaction was flagged and stopped before completion. Coinbase reported the activity to the FBI, which later passed the information to the Warren County Sheriff’s Department. Investigator Jason Walker first received the referral from the FBI on March 19, 2025, marking the first point at which local or state authorities were made aware of the allegations.
If convicted, Droese faces a potential prison sentence of two to four years. He is currently free on a $10,000 bond.
— Ric Flair recently reflected on the passing of Hulk Hogan. Hogan, who died in July, was the subject of discussion during Flair’s interview with Johnny Manziel, where Flair shared his reaction to the loss of his longtime peer and fellow wrestling icon.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his reaction to Hogan’s passing: “It literally gave me anxiety for a week that Hogan died. I just talked to him. But a lot of people don’t realize he’d had eleven back operations, both hips replaced, both knees replaced, one shoulder replaced, and that shoulder got infected and caused a heart issue. And now he was just getting the second of two neck surgeries when they found out he had leukemia. They never should have been operating on him with leukemia.”
On being at Hogan’s funeral: “His daughter wrote me a letter, so I knew about some stuff that was going on, and I can’t share it with you because I’d be betraying her. I got the letter the day after he died from her, and I was just watching everybody. I mean, a lot of people — Kid Rock came, I mean, every wrestler — I think there were a lot of wrestlers who should have been there but didn’t come. But that’s, you know, everybody makes their own choices. He wrestled at a time when it was very political, and, you know, you had to stand up for yourself. It wasn’t like now, where it’s, ‘Hey, it’s this way or the highway.’ You had to fight for your position in life, and he did. He made some enemies along the way, and I think those guys didn’t show up.”
— Bully Ray is questioning why John Cena was able to simply get up and walk away after his brutal loss to Brock Lesnar at WWE Wrestlepalooza. At Saturday’s pay-per-view event, Lesnar dominated Cena with six F5s to score the victory and delivered a seventh after the match for good measure. Speaking on a recent edition of the “Busted Open Radio” podcast, Bully Ray criticized Cena’s decision to just stand up and leave following the beating. He said,
“That’s the little part that had me scratching my head. If you’re going to go that far with a decimation of somebody, why not put the icing on the cake? Why not put the cherry on top? If you want to build to that last match, why not put John Cena in a position that we never thought we would see him in?”
He continued, “And yes, in my opinion, stretcher him out because that lends to the destruction from Brock Lesnar. John Cena might be Babe Ruth, but he ain’t f***ing Superman, and if he was, he just met his whoever Superman’s arch nemesis was in bringing him down. That was Brock Lesnar. Go the full way. Once John walks away, I immediately think to myself, ‘The beating couldn’t have been that bad.’”
