WRESTLING NEWS ROUND UP

//->> NEWS FROM THE WRESTLING-ONLINE NEWSWIRE
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> DAVID OTUNGA’S ARRIVAL ON RAW DELAYED BY 6 WEEKS
- David Otunga, the new arrival to the Raw commentary table, will not debut for a few weeks as WWE.COM announced that the former Nexus member has been cast in the lead role of a new action movie. WWE.COM says that Otunga will be away from his announcing duties for the next six weeks as he films the new movie, titled Katrina, leaving a void on the commentary table. Otunga was swapped with Byron Saxton during the Superstar Shake-up on Monday night. Otunga will play DEA agent James Lawson in this movie set in 2005 New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.




> BOOKER T TEMPORARILY JOINS THE RAW COMMENTARY TEAM
- WWE Hall of Famer and former five-time WCW champion Booker T will be resuming his commentary duties starting this coming Monday on Raw, temporarily replacing David Otunga until Otunga finishes filming the Katrina movie. Booker T started his commentary role in February 2011, joining Smackdown and then in 2015 he moved to Raw, swapping places with Jerry “The King” Lawler. He moved back to the Smackdown broadcast booth after finishing his stint as a coach on Tough Enough but then left the commentary role permanently after Smackdown moved to USA Network. Booker T is currently only doing pay-per-view Kickoff panels after the company stopped doing Raw and Smackdown weekly pre-shows.




> THE UNDERTAKER’S WRESTLEMANIA GEAR GUARDED BY SECURITY IN HOTEL AT ORLANDO
- During his latest podcast, Jerry “The King” Lawler revealed that WWE actually put a security guard to look over The Undertaker’s jacket, gloves, and hat following WrestleMania at the hotel in Orlando. The items, which would cost thousands of dollars considering it was The Undertaker’s last match, were guarded over fears that they might be stolen similar to Tom Brady’s Super Bowl 51 jersey which was stolen from the locker room. After The Undertaker descended under the entrance ramp at WrestleMania following the loss to Roman Reigns and the Camping World Stadium was cleared, the hat, gloves, and jackets remained in the middle of the ring as the WWE crew started to disassemble the set and clearing out the field.




> SHINSUKE NAKAMURA GIVEN BIG FAREWELL ON NXT TV
- Former NXT champion Shinsuke Nakamura was given a fantastic sendoff during Wednesday’s NXT episode on the WWE Network as he moves permanently to the main roster. Nakamura’s farewell was the main event of the show and started with Nakamura cutting a promo in the middle of the ring, thanking everyone at the Performance Center and NXT and the fans, who he called unique. Nakamura said he will always be NXT. After the promo was done, the whole locker room emptied out and walked to the top of the stage to give the Japanese superstar a standing ovation along with the fans. Fellow NXT stars sang along to his theme song and congratulated him when he walked to the top of the ramp. Former NXT champion Finn Balor also showed up to congratulate Nakamura before the show faded to black. Nakamura debuted on Smackdown on the show following WrestleMania. He spent exactly a year in NXT, arriving at NXT Takeover: Dallas for a fantastic match against Sami Zayn and then went on to have some epic matches where he won the NXT title twice.




> TOTAL DIVAS RATING
- Total Divas episode 12 of season 6 which was titled Feel The Glow drew 593,000 viewers, down 76,000 viewers from last week’s episode. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)




> THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS WITH DWAYNE JOHNSON OUT TODAY
- Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is back in theater screens today as the latest installment in the Fast franchise, The Fate of the Furious, is released nationwide. The former WWE champion plays the character of Luke Hobbs in the movie, a DSS agent who has aligned himself with the gang hunting down bad guys around the world. This is his fourth appearance in the Fast franchise. In the newest movie, which had a budget of $250 million, the team face an unexpected challenge when a mysterious woman named Cipher forces Vin Diesel’s character Dom to betray them all. Now, they must unite to bring home the man who made them a family and stop Cipher from unleashing chaos. The Fate of the Furious is expected to become the second $100+ million opener of 2017. It will be in 4,311 theaters across the United States starting today.