Sports this 'n' that

For Rob Gronkowski, retirement lasted just one season.

The NFL's favorite party boy will return in 2020, assuming there's a 2020 season. New England has agreed to trade Gronkowski and a draft pick to Tampa Bay, so Gronkowski can be reunited with Tom Brady.

Like, you knew that was coming, didn't you?

Gronkowski left the WWE's Wrestlemania with the 24/7 title, and buddy Mojo Rawley is already making noises about getting it back. Stay tuned.
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Speaking of WWE, one of the negatives about last night's Monday Night Raw was a match between Nia Jax and Japan's Kairi Sane, a return bout from the previous week. Sane is coming off a stint on the DL with a concussion, after which she and countrywoman Asuka dropped the women's tag titles to Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross.

Unfortunately, Jax, who publicly raised a stink a couple of weeks back about Ronda Rousey being unsafe with Bliss, for one, added another botch to her resume. She attempted a buckle bomb on Sane, but was out of range, and poor Kairi landed with her head hitting the middle turnbuckle. Jax went on to win the match, continuing to build toward Money in The Bank, set for Mother's Day (May 10), but that botched buckle bomb may send Sane back to the DL, and possibly out of WWE, as reports have circulated that Sane wants to return home to Japan, where she recently got married (sorry, guys), and rejoin the Stardom promotion.

Sane made her American debut with Lucha Underground in a one-shot appearance a few years back. WWE would be wise to try to coax her to remain with promises of better protection. However, the common complaint online is that Sane has been victimized twice by "legacy" wrestlers. Jax is the cousin of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and Sane's previous concussion was courtesy of current NXT women's champion Charlotte Flair, and WWE is not about to punish Flair, but Jax has had the stigma of being unsafe almost from the day she arrived.

If I were the bookers, I wouldn't think of putting Sane in with another former NXT champion, Shayna Baszler, who has adopted a gimmick of "breaking her opponents' arms", as she's done the last two weeks. Sane's only match in Lucha Underground saw a male wrestler, Pentagon, Jr., "break her arm". For Baszler, this is also a means to an end as a it relates to Money in The Bank. However, WWE CEO/Chairman Vince McMahon wasn't exactly a fan of Baszler headed into Wrestlemania, which explains why she failed to unseat Raw women's champion Becky Lynch.
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Add McMahon, who is being sued by XFL Commissioner Oliver Luck for wrongful termination after being dismissed recently, prior to the league filing for bankruptcy. The COVID-19 pandemic short-circuited the league, which was getting great reviews for improved quality of play this season, but it may be a while before McMahon tries it again.

And that ain't all.

A man claiming to be a WWE employee is claiming to be forced to work closed set tapings, despite the fact that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had deemed WWE an essential business a week ago. Not only that, but WWE suits have gone on record stating that talent and off-air personnel had the option of staying at home (which some wrestlers are doing) to fend off the pandemic.

And, yeah, this is being filed in a Florida court.



Something stinks about the timing of this complaint. What it is, I'm not sure.
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We have read of pro sports teams and/or individual players making donations to help folks in need during the pandemic. Miami Marlins CEO Derek Jeter is foregoing his salary during the health crisis. The former Yankee star has been unfairly maligned for some of the Marlins' business decisions since his group took over, but this might change people's opinions of Jeter down in South Beach.
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Meanwhile, Jeter's former teammate, current ESPN/Fox analyst Alex Rodriguez, and his lady, singer-actress Jennifer Lopez, are talking about possibly putting a group together to buy the Mets. Yeah, right. Hasn't he been paying attention to what Jeter's going through? Apparently not.