Former NFL Prospect Talks WWE Aspirations, Nowinski On Talks With Vince, WWE To Be Honored

- Sports Legacy Institute, which was founded by Nowinski and Dr. Robert Cantu in 2007, will be honoring WWE this Wednesday night at a dinner in Boston for the work that the company has done on concussion issues. Triple H and Stephanie McMahon will accept the award on behalf of WWE. Nowinski spoke with NewsDay about head injuries in wrestling and how the company has been taking steps to be safer. He also discussed speaking with Vince McMahon in 2011 about working together.

"He let me know how proud he was [of SLI], how far the research had come, the influence we had in changing the culture in sports," Nowinski said of McMahon. "And he really opened up the door to saying how could we work together, both to protect the talent in WWE, but it's also ingrained that they're supporting CTE research that will benefit athletes, military veterans and the world at large."

- Speaking of Nowinski, as noted yesterday, he will be speaking at DSBN's second-annual International Summit on Concussions at the Hilton Fallsview Hotel in Niagara Falls, NY. The summit takes place from October 24-25, you can get more information at icsniagara.com.

- Minnesota Daily has an interview with Mike Rallis here, who attended a WWE tryout earlier this month and is training for his second tryout in December. Rallis had been hoping to join the NFL, but has since moved on to pro wrestling. Rallis said that he reached out and spoke to Jim Ross for an hour before attending the tryout, and that officials were impressed with his charisma.

"I left it all out there in the ring those three days," Rallis said. "For them to say that you did a good job, it feels good there's some payoff for that."