December Wrasslin |OT| Shaking Hands, Jerking Knees, Eating Mistletoe, Feeling Energy

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Well this is a heartwarming moment, but damn I remember the days when respect was gained through ass kickings, basically i'm talking about Undertaker's entertaining heel run in 2002 which was all about respecting the Undertaker, shame they cut it short after the Jeff Hardy ladder match.
His entrance video was filled with a few entertaining Undertaker expressions, usually of disgust.
 
Nocturnowl said:
Well this is a heartwarming moment, but damn I remember the days when respect was gained through ass kickings, basically i'm talking about Undertaker's entertaining heel run in 2002 which was all about respecting the Undertaker, shame they cut it short after the Jeff Hardy ladder match.
His entrance video was filled with a few entertaining Undertaker expressions, usually of disgust.
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Jeff Hardy is the future of Wrestling.

That kid is going places.

If my TLC matches are anything to go by, he'll never stay down and he'll never say quit.
 
The match while not that astounding as a ladder match itself is pretty great purely based off the moments where Jeff looked like he could win and J.R of course going absolutely nuts, you know what I might watch it again later on.
And I love Jeff's hit with the steel chair where he essentially throws it point blank in Taker's face, the match itself is somewhat dampened by Jeff's recent blunders, I can actually watch Benoit matches more easily.
 
King and JR going back and forth while still talking about the match help it immensely. Even with all of Jeff's fuckups, it's still my favorite ladder match.
 
G-Fex said:
Is there ladder matches on DVD that I can watch/Buy? (and did they put razor ramon/shawn michael match?)
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There are two ladder match DVDs out right now. I'm not sure what the listing is for the second one, but the Jeff/Taker match is on the first one, and one of the Shawn/Razor ladder matches (the 2nd one, iirc) is on it as well.
 
cena-kid-crying-o.gif
 
somedevil said:
Thats not true. The reason that happened is the person in your avatar failed the medical exam due to heart medication he was taking so the WWE had to do the match with Triple H instead.
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the point is the WWE CHAMPIONSHIP match should have been the main event of night of CHAMPIONS!

the CM punk vs HHH match could have happened earlier in the show.

Heck the Cena vs Rio match that night was great and could have ended the show.

but nope.... HHH gotta main event.


Just like Taker vs HBK was the final match of that wrestlemania. HBK thinks his final match should end mania,

Heck even crazy old Ric Flair knew the WWE title match should always be the final match and turned down the change for his "final" match to end the show.
 
Satoshi Kojima's 20th Anniversary Show less that 24 hours after it happened, god I love the internet;

NJPW "SATOSHI KOJIMA 20TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW ~ RUSH!!", 14.12.2011
Tokyo Korakuen Hall
2,000 Fans - Super No Vacancy

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL910F08F7B675223A

01. Ryusuke Taguchi & Kyosuke Mikami vs Tiger Mask IV & Hiromu Takahashi

02. Hideo Saito vs Tomohiro Ishii

03. Togi Makabe, Hirooki Goto & King Fale vs Shinsuke Nakamura, Toru Yano & Yujiro Takahashi

04. Great Kosuke & Great Sasuke vs Jado & Gedo

3rd GENERATION vs HAMAGUCHI DOJO SPECIAL 6-MAN TAG;

05. Yuji Nagata, Osamu Nishimura & Koji Kanemoto vs Yutaka Yoshie, Wataru Inoue & Tomoaki Honma

06. Hiroshi Tanahashi & KUSHIDA vs Minoru Suzuki & Taichi

SATOSHI KOJIMA 20th ANNIVERSARY MATCH;

07. Satoshi Kojima & Kaz Hayashi vs Hiroyoshi Tenzan & FUNAKI
 
bangai-o said:
Kane sucks. couldnt even hold the title for a whole day.
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Yeah, but he ended Stone Cold's first reign at his peak popularity in the attitude era. That counts for like 3 months of ADR reigns.

EDIT: BTW, I just found out Kane is a grandfather. How old does that make you feel?
 
It's JOSHIMANIA Night 1 time dudes. Can't want for Aja Kong vs. Sara Del Rey and the team of Archibald Peck & Los Ice Creams. Also here is the latest edition of The Barber Shop. Referee Jon Barber asks the superstars of CHIKARA: What's your guilty pleasure song?

http://youtu.be/lueC2x8JIjc
 
Mr. Sam said:
That Jeff Hardy match was pretty sweet though.
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Probably the only time I ever found myself rooting for Jeff Hardy as a singles wrestler. Was kind of disgusted by his popularity during his main event run considering he can't really wrestle or talk.

Nocturnowl said:
Hmm, I should lessen my use of hyperbole, though I would rather watch a Benoit match from an entertainment standpoint.
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Well, watching Jeff Hardy is like watching endless rag doll death animations. And Benoit is Benoit, for better or for worse. I personally can still live in denial about it and remember the better.
 
MegaKungFuRadio said:
Probably the only time I ever found myself rooting for Jeff Hardy as a singles wrestler. Was kind of disgusted by his popularity during his main event run considering he can't really wrestle or talk.
Well, watching Jeff Hardy is like watching endless rag doll death animations.
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Jeff was not good on the mich, but in ring he was about 10X the performer of CM Punk
 
to celebrate Chris Paul playing for my Clippers, here is some dave for the internet's largest kane fan forum

We’ve got a few notes about some finances regarding the new WWE Network.
The 2012 budget for payroll is said to be about $20 million during the first year and $25 million in the second and third year. The production facility and technical equipment will run another $18 million a year. The satellite uplinking will cost $13 million for the year. That’s not including legal, marketing, affiliate costs, costs of developing programming, producing programming, etc. The budget we’ve heard for the first year would be $60 to $90 million.
Most of the income will be based on carriage fees. It depends on how much money they will be able to charge cable operators for the programming and how many will clear it. I know a lot of people see this as the latest flop, but the thing is, Vince McMahon has thought this was a necessity dating back to 2005.
The impetus of the idea came when the Raw contract expired with Spike and he put it out there thinking he was going to make far more in rights fees by bidding all the major cable systems against each other. But once Spike dropped out early and then announced they were canceling the show, TBS and TNT and everyone else but USA and WGN weren’t interested. WGN, because of low visibility and a lack of national clearance would have been a disaster. So they went to USA with a worse financial deal than they had on Spike to begin with because they had no leverage at all to negotiate a new deal.
At that point, McMahon realized that without television, pro wrestling at this level is dead. So he needed a safety valve in place, as he told people he was close to at the time that they can’t ever risk a time when they aren’t on American television.
The problem isn’t so much the network but the fact they are rushing it out there. Not only is there limited direction, but they still don’t have enough people hired for it. People in key positions in charge haven’t been hired, and there are only four-and-a-half months to launch. I know of people who had been in talks and all passed on it, with one remarking that Vice President of the XFL may not be something you want on your resume. So they aren’t inspiring confidence, largely because of the apparent lack of long term vision. From what we understand, negotiations for clearances is going slow and in cable, the feeling is they are asking for too much and that WWE believes they have more leverage than they do.
I guess it depends on how much they can rally their fan base to pressure companies. The issue is timing. A lot of network start-ups have come in, gotten a certain level of rates, and the big boys, like ESPN, USA, FX, The Food Network, etc. are raising rates and they have leverage because consumers will revolt if they lose a station that is already popular. So there is not a lot of movement to spend more money, and raise monthly rates to consumers, particularly, as if you’ve noticed by our updates, that the number of people who are moving away from cable and satellite, while not gigantic, is now significant most months.
If they can get into 40 million homes and can get 20 cents per subscriber, they will be able to break even. And again, losing some money to establish it and the ability to grow homes from there is fine and is expected. Of course, they may not get anywhere that level of clearances, particularly if cable stations have their way and put them into a sports tier you have to pay extra for. Realistically, there are 3 to 3.5 million homes that watch Raw each week. The vast majority are happy with that and are casual fans, don’t live and die with the product, don’t watch the PPVs, etc. There are the 80,000 homes (remember that when we do North American PPV numbers, that includes Canada, which is more than 10% and Puerto Rico in domestic numbers) that watch PPVs, and probably a similar level number that have 24/7 InDemand and they will demand the station and pay for it on a separate tier for sure.
So you’ve got anywhere from 2.9 million to 3.4 million that may not care, or may not want to pay for it as a separate tier. The 24/7 Classics on Demand numbers consistently falling and never being all that large isn’t a good sign when it comes to getting people to pay extra. Wrestling is very different now from the 70s, 80s and 90s. In those eras, the audience that watched wrestling was so much larger, and there were so many more casual fans who watched it every now and then, or were the closet fans who watched it often.
Now, you really don’t have that audience. So if this is put on a singular paid tier on its own, like Showtime, it’s probably not getting 1 million homes let alone 40 million. As part of a tier and sharing, who knows? If you’re comparing, the NBA Channel gets 22 cents, ESPN Classics gets 18 cents, and Fox’s Soccer Channel gets 16 cents. So 20 cents is a heavy price, but even at 16 cents (per subscriber per month), and a WWE channel is going to be more popular in this country than a soccer channel, if they clear 10 million homes, that’s revenue of $19 million per year and it’s a huge loser.
But companies that got there first at a time when cable companies are cutting back on funding may be getting better deals than those coming now when companies are thinking cutbacks. At 40 million homes, you aren’t far from break-even. At 60 million homes, you are talking a strong profit.
The NFL Network is currently in 56 million homes as an example. NBA TV is in 45 million homes. But those numbers will grow as time goes on and this network isn’t about 2012, it’s about 2017 or 2018.
In the short-term, if they do pull the “B” PPVs on the station, even breaking even really isn’t, because you have to figure in whatever profits they are losing on the PPV end. That’s hard to say because there are still the international markets. and we don’t know if PPV will still be offered in North America for those who don’t get the station. Or will they pull the PPVs to have their core audience make a lot of noise and try and force clearances. That PPV audience in the U.S. these days for a “B” show isn’t all that large, but if mobilized, can still make a lot of noise.
As part of the launching of the network, WWE is dropping its 24/7 Classics on Demand service on either 12/31 or 3/31. Systems were told the former date on 12/12. But at least one system on 12/13 received word from WWE listing the service being dropped on 3/31. Ironically, this decision, sent to cable companies on 12/12, came just a few days after at least some cable companies had informed their subscribers that starting in January, the price for the service would be increased by $1 per month and that WWE had told them nothing about discontinuing the service, only the price raise.



If there was a theme coming out of TNA’s Final Resolution PPV on 12/11 in Orlando, it’s that they need to get their PPV shows out of the Impact Zone.
This has now become a monthly theme where the PPVs have a dead crowd, and thus come across as minor league offerings. Exactly what the future is of the company on PPV when the first Hulk Hogan PPV match in five years can barely top 20,000 buys and when Eric Bischoff, the architect of the monthly PPV which has been the industry standard since the mid-90s, openly has said he thinks they should be doing four PPV shows per year.
A lot of people will complain about the constant using of the PPV to build up to things where the payoff comes on television for free. This was the prime example, as the main event was a 30 minute Iron Man match where TNA champion Bobby Roode faced A.J. Styles. After a very good match, the two were tied 3-3 and it was ruled a draw. This led to a rematch the next night, taped for Impact, where Roode won cleanly with a half Boston crab.
As counterproductive as this seems on the surface, the damage has already been done. Monthly shows are below 10,000 buys and they’ve got no magic matches to build that are going to make any real difference in that number. They’ve over stipulated their stuff past the point of death, to where fans don’t believe their stipulations so they make no difference. They’ve used PPVs as a tool to build free television, frequently, including this week, making people who paid feel like they were taken. They’ve made PPVs something you can miss without missing anything important. Final Resolution was better than a lot of their recent shows. Many of late have been average or worse at a time when they need outstanding and great word of mouth to even begin to turn things around. We had the smallest number of responses to any TNA show since they went monthly, which isn’t a good early sign.
So given all that, television is the only major revenue stream and PPV is not, so if you’re telling a story, you have to have the key points of the story before the audience that is watching, as opposed to doing it traditionally which is getting people to pay for the key elements. Those people paying are simply too small in numbers. And that’s not going to change.


Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bollea filed his third lawsuit against ex-wife Linda Bollea, sometimes known as Linda Hogan, based on her book, "Wrestling The Hulk - My Life Against the Ropes," as well as a series of interviews she made in promotion of the book.
The lawsuit cites Linda claiming she was fearful she would wind up as a statistic, like Nicole Simpson, that Hogan had a sexual relationship with a male wrestler (Hogan talked about this claim in his own book, saying it was his good friend Ed Leslie and claimed it came from Linda's mother walking in on an encounter between Leslie and a blond haired woman and Linda's mother believing the blond haired woman was Terry).
In a radio interview with Matty P's Radio Happy Hour, Linda was directly asked if she believed Hogan and Brutus Beefcake (Leslie) ever had an intimate relationship.
"Wow, let me think about how to answer this so I don't end up getting a lawsuit. Well, a little bird told me yes."
"Miss Bollea's made enough of these outrageous allegations that it's time they stop," said Wil Florin, Hogan's attorney in an article in the St. Petersburg Times. "The only realistic way of making them stop is through the court system."
Leslie also claimed he has a lawyer drawing up papers and is going to be filing his own lawsuit against Linda Bollea over her statement.
Hogan did a TMZ.com interview and basically said that he filed the suit to stop her from lying, noting that they went through a nasty divorce, and at no point did she ever accuse him of physical abuse, nor of having a homosexual affair, and only now has told those stories to sell a book. Hogan said he would have no problem admitting if he was gay and was mad that Brutus Beefcake’s teenage daughter had to hear that story going around. The notable thing about the Beefcake story is that Hogan brought up the story in his own book, stating that Linda’s mother walked in on Beefcake having a sexual encounter with a blond woman and then claimed she saw Beefcake having a sexual encounter with Hogan. He also stated that if Linda hates him so much she should go back to using her birth name, Linda Claridge, instead of Linda Hogan and that his wife Jennifer is the real Mrs. Hogan.
The lawsuit mentions that Linda has been able to live a lavish lifestyle as a direct result of her former marriage.
Hogan had sued Linda on two previous occasions, and is in the middle of a third court battle with her regarding the terms of their divorce settlement, not including this case. In 2010, she was added to his lawsuit against Wells Fargo Southeast in which he claimed Wells Fargo failed to insure him to the degree necessary which forced him to lose millions in the lawsuit filed on behalf of John Graziano, who was severely injured as a passenger in a car driven by Hogan's son Nick. He claimed Wells Fargo Southeast contacted Linda about an umbrella policy and increased auto insurance coverage for all of his vehicles in 2002, and she turned down the increased policy.
He claimed in 2005, Wells Fargo again contacted Linda about taking out more insurance and Linda, both times failing to even inform Hulk, turned down adding to the policy.
He claimed Linda was at fault because she should have known there were two teenage drivers in the household. Even if he had signed liability for both, thus exposing him to individual liability in the event someone was injured in an accident by a vehicle driven by one of his two children.
He continued his lawsuit with Wells Fargo stating that at no time did they ever consult him personally, only his wife, to let him know that he needed more liability insurance.
On August 22, 2007, just four days before Nick's accident with Graziano, Wells Fargo again attempted to sell them broader insurance coverage to either Linda or Linda's personal assistant and either she or the assistant rejected adding to the insurance coverage.
Hogan took out a mortgage on his already paid for mansion to garner some of the money needing to settle the Graziano lawsuit after being on the wrong side of a 70/30 asset split in his divorce settlement.
Hogan also sued Linda in 2009 for stealing a toilet seat from their Bellaire mansion that he was to have ownership of based on the terms of their divorce settlement.
The two have also been in court over an interpretation of their divorce settlement. As part of their settlement, Hogan gave Linda 40% of all business that has to do with the Hulk Hogan name. Linda interpreted it as 40% of all gross income derived from the name while Terry interpreted it as 40% of all the profits derived from the name. The courts have ruled in favor of her every step of the way, but he keeps appealing.



The complete lineup for the 21st annual New Japan show on January 4th at the Tokyo Dome was announced this past week. The 11-match show, in order, has:
1. Davey Richards & Rocky Romero defending the IWGP jr. tag titles against Prince Devitt & Ryusuke Taguchi, the three-time former champions who Richards & Romero originally won the titles from on the 10/11 show at Sumo Hall.
2. Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask & Mascara Dorada & Kushida vs. Atlantis & Valiente & Taka Michinoku & Taichi in a flying Lucha Libre style match.
3. Kazuchika Okada vs. Nobuo Yoshihashi in a match of two wrestlers returning to Japan. Okada was with TNA, even though you’d probably need a magnifying glass to find any remnants of him there. He had that run where he was with Samoa Joe, and then disappeared. He’s a good wrestler, but that matters less than ever before there. Yoshihashi has been in Mexico with CMLL for a long time.
4. Yuji Nagata & Wataru Inoue vs. Masakatsu Funaki & Masayuki Kono of All Japan Pro Wrestling. Funaki returns to New Japan for I believe the first time since he was a teenage sensation in the late 80s.
5. Masato Tanaka & Yujiro Takahashi vs. MVP & Shelton Benjamin. Tanaka and MVP have been feuding over the IC title that Tanaka took from MVP. Takahashi is aligned with Tanaka so the storyline is MVP called up a former friend from WWE to help him.
6. Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson defend the IWGP tag titles against former champions Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan. This matches up two of the longest reigning champions in the history of the title. Bernard & Anderson, who won the titles from Inoue & Nagata on June 19, 2010, are the longest reigning champions in the history of the titles. Kojima & Tenzan’s reign in 2000 and 2001 was the third longest (behind a Tenzan & Masahiro Chono reign in 2002 and 2003).
7. Hirooki Goto vs. Takashi Sugiura in a New Japan vs. NOAH singles match where the 2010 MVP and long-reigning GHC champion faces a New Japan perennial headliner.
8. Togi Makabe vs. Yoshihiro Takayama in another New Japan vs. NOAH match-up. Takayama is technically a free agent but is a regular on the NOAH shows.
9. Shinsuke Nakamura & Toru Yano vs. Go Shoizaki & Naomichi Marufuji. Another New Japan vs. NOAH match that features Nakamura, the next wrestler in line for an IWGP heavyweight title match, against Shiozaki, the current GHC heavyweight champion. Nakamura pinned Shiozaki in a singles match at last year’s Tokyo Dome show.
10. Tetsuya Naito vs. Keiji Muto in a New Japan vs. All Japan match. Muto returns to the New Japan Tokyo Dome show for the first time since 2009, when he had his last run as IWGP champion and dropped the title to Tanahashi in the main event. Naito’s idol growing up is Muto. It looks like two straight years where Naito’s role is to carry a big outside name, since last year he worked with Jeff Hardy.
11. Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Minoru Suzuki for the IWGP heavyweight title. Tanahashi goes for his record setting 11th title defense against the freelancer. This is Tanahashi 5th Tokyo Dome main event on January 4th tying him with Nakamura and Muto for the most January 4th Dome main events. You could make the argument that this is the Japanese equivalent of main eventing five WrestleManias.



The three-hour Slammy Award Raw on 12/12 did a 2.84 rating and 4.11 million viewers, one of the lowest rated Raw shows of the year. I’d say it’s a pretty good message considering how much they pushed the show for the past few weeks that the audience was not into seeing an awards show, particularly since they know the award show is filled with joke awards. The Slammy Awards from last year did a 3.06 rating. This year’s show did a 2.98 in the usual two hours (down from a 3.22 last year over the final two hours) and 4.32 million viewers. Once again, the audience dropped from the second to the third hour, which should be very difficult given the viewer patterns of tuning in at 10 p.m. for 15 minutes and back at 11 p.m., plus the benefit of the people tuning in for the next show in the overrun. The number looks even worse when you consider the football game with the St. Louis Rams vs. Seattle Seahawks only did a 7.18 rating and 9.88 million viewers. Raw was only 7th for the night on cable. The male/female skew was 67.0% to 33.0%.
In the demos, the show did a 2.5 in Boys 12-17 (up 14%), 2.5 in Males 18-49 (down 7%), 1.1 in Girls 12-17 (up 83%) and 1.3 in Women 18-49 (down 32%).
In the segment-by-segment, the Holy Bleep Award lost 179,000 viewers. Keep in mind the first hour should show nothing but growth as people forgetting to tune in early should be consistently tuning in. Big Show vs. Wade Barrett and Pipe Bomb of the Year with Road Dogg’s return gained 237,000 viewers. Divalicious moment of the year with the return of Lita gained 244,000 viewers. The OMG Moment of the Year and HHH promo at the top of the hour when the show usually starts gained 604,000 viewers, but on a three-hour show, it should do that. Trending Star clips with David Otunga and Tony Atlas lost 349,000 viewers. Daniel Bryan vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Cody Rhodes vs. Zack Ryder lost 188,000 viewers. Game Change of the Year with the Cena interview gained 464,000 viewers, possibly inflated because they teased Rock coming out at the end of the segment. Randy Orton & C.M. Punk vs. The Miz & Alberto Del Rio at the 10 p.m. slot lost 146,000 viewers. It’s almost impossible based on viewer patterns to lose viewers in that slot. Maybe that happened twice all year so this was terrible. A-Lister of the year gained 55,000 viewers. Mark Henry interview and Sheamus kicking Jinder Mahal lost 288,000 viewers. Rey Mysterio announcing Superstar of the Year, which they built the whole show up for, lost 115,000 viewers and only did a 2.75 quarter. The overrun with Cena vs. Henry and the return of Kane gained 745,000 viewers to a 3.27.
With no major sports competition, Smackdown on 12/9 did a whopping 2.24 rating and 3.24 million viewers. The show placed 3rd for the night on cable.
TNA Impact on 12/8 did a 1.07 rating and 1.44 million viewers. The Seattle Seahawks vs. Philadelphia Eagles game did 6.58 million viewers which is really impressive given the limited penetration of the NFL Network. It was 13th on cable for the night.
The show did a 1.01 in Males 18-34, way above usual, but only an 0.79 in Males 35-49, way below usual. That probably speaks to the NFL, and perhaps rebuilding with newer guys on top that appeal to newer fans but older fans aren’t as interested in. But reaching any conclusions because one demo was way down one week is premature, and it is likely more just NFL competition.
In the segment-by-segment, Samoa Joe vs. Abyss gained 54,000 viewers and ended up being the highest rated segment on the show at 1.12. The in-ring interview angle with Pope & Devon with Matt Morgan & Crimson lost 13,000. Mickie James vs. Madison Rayne lost 108,000 viewers, so another aspect is James, who had been the company’s biggest ratings draw the last several weeks, didn’t do well this time. Gunner vs. Garett Bischoff gained 81,000 viewers. The James Storm/Kurt Angle in-ring along with Karen Jarrett telling Traci Brooks to lose and Devon and Pope backstage lost 27,000 viewers. Gail Kim vs. Brooks lost 25,000 viewers. The Jeff Hardy & A.J. Styles vs. Bobby Roode & Jeff Jarrett main event lost 26,000 viewers and ended at 1.03, which tied for the lowest rated segment of the show.
 
Masahiro Chono’s multi-promotional show on 1/9 in Yokohama was canceled when his money people pulled out. The show, which combined All Japan, Zero One, Big Japan, Michinoku Pro, Osaka Pro and the Legends promotion featured a large array of stars both past and present.


Atsushi Onita, now 54, came out of retirement for a match on the 12/11 Michinoku show at Korakuen Hall in his no rope barbed wire death match specialty where the loser has to leave Iwate (this is equivalent to a loser leaves Texas match held in New York) as Onita & Great Sasuke beat Sho & Kei Sato. After the match Onita said that he wants a no rope barbed wire explosive electrified fence death match with Sasuke in the year 2017. He wanted to beat the Cena vs. Rock mark of announcing a match a year head of time. He noted he would be 60 at the time of the bout.


The Asylum Arena in Philadelphia, formerly known as The Arena and before that, the ECW Arena, which in the last two decades has become probably the most legendary 1,000-seat wrestling facility in the Western Hemisphere, may no longer hold wrestling events. New ownership has taken over the facility and the final events scheduled are on 1/14, with both an Evolve show and a CZW show scheduled for that day. The building was put on the map by ECW in the 90s, but has continued to be the home of independent wrestling in Philadelphia since that promotion closed its doors a decade ago. The Evolve show main event is Johnny Gargano vs. Ricochet for the Open the Freedom Gate title.


In the Puerto Rican newspaper Primera Hora, Abdullah the Butcher said, regarding the revelation he tested positive for Hepatitis C, “The only thing I will say it that when we meet again in court, to be in a month and a half or so, there is going to be a big surprise. Soon we will know the whole truth.” Ottawa West EMC wrote a story on it and Abdullah said, “This whole thing has caused too much aggravation. Anyway, it didn’t come from me. A lot of people could have hepatitis C, and not even realize it, and he has wrestled a lot of people and in a lot of places. Soon everything will be out in the open, but what he says is not true. I didn’t cut him. It all goes back tot he same ting. He has wrestled all over, so how many times has he been split open? He also used to be a bouncer in a club–something could have happened there.” Abdullah also suggested Nicholson could have gotten his hepatitis from working in a dirty or bloody ring that wasn’t cleaned up. “A guy could go to work in factory or anywhere, and he could accidentally cut his arm. If he doesn’t clean it, it will get infected. I’ve always cleaned any cuts I have had with alcohol to make sure there is no chance of infection. What he is saying about me is like because someone is a (expletive), then he has AIDS. No he doesn’t. You would have to prove it. For home to come out and say this about me, I say prove it. I have a clean record.” A couple of issues with this case. Nicholson wrestled for years, including in Puerto Rico which was a blood territory. Even if Abdullah does have Hepatitis C, that doesn’t mean that’s where Nicholson got it. At the same time, Abdullah claiming he didn’t cut Nicholson is not going to help him in court since he clearly did. As far as the big surprise, it wouldn’t shock me for Abdullah to claim he got his Hepatitis C from his match with Nicholson.


Jimmy Snuka, 68, is in need of ankle replacement surgery. Dawn Marie is attempting to do fund raisers to help pay for the $24,000 cost of replacing his ankle joint because Snuka is not in good financial condition.

(maybe dont come off the top rope with those shitty chops when you're in your 60s oh wait you're broke and need the money for your drugs)

In a story in Leo Weekly, a Louisville alternative weekly newspaper, Danny Davis said that he’s used $600,000 of his own money to keep OVW alive since 2008, when WWE pulled support from them. Davis got his first check from TNA on 12/13 on their supporting him, which is a good move on TNA’s part because it shows for the first time they are trying to create something for their future as opposed to just taking indie guys. In WWE developmental right now, and HHH has addressed this, there is the feeling there are a lot of guys who could make it to the major roster but there is no Cena, Lesnar, Angle level guy where you see can’t miss superstar (well, some didn’t see it in Cena at first but a lot of people did), and those guys are usually guys recruited because of look, obvious natural charisma and athletic ability as opposed to coming through indies and excelling at a different style, learning to talk and then having to be re-programmed. It’ll be interesting to see if TNA tries to recruit athletes as opposed to formerly getting people off reality TV shows a their personal recruits.

Eric Bischoff commented on Linda Bollea: “Been silent on the Hulk and Linda divorce since the beginning. Glad to hear he is filing a suit against her. She is a pig in every sense. Actually the only thing more disgusting than Linda Hogan is that pissant creepy little punk that’s sleeping with that skank.” Later, when talking about Charley Hill, Linda’s boyfriend, “Actually, if I was his age, I would throw up in my mouth the first time I saw her naked. Ughhh.”

With all the TV shot, Cena has not been announced for any role on the TLC show on 12/18 in Baltimore. That makes no sense, but a late addition as an Internet release makes far less sense. I’ve had people predict the lowest number of the year, and the main event is weak, but the card has more depth of pushed matches with stars than a lot, plus a December show benefits from the Christmas spirit. Rhodes vs. Booker is something new and Booker wrestling is fresh, not a game changer or a mover but different, and I think the Show vs. Henry build has been very good, but it’s also their third meeting and nobody cared about the second meeting. Ryder has some momentum against Ziggler but I don’t know that anyone buys the show for that, and Orton vs. Barrett has been a decent by-the-book kind of build. HHH vs. Nash has been to me a shockingly weak build over the last few weeks, but it is coming off a big angle that was pushed hard and it’s Nash’s first match, and his return has been pushed for months.


One of the reasons Kane is coming back under the mask is because the company wants to set a world’s record for most people wearing masks at this year’s Mania in Miami, and it’s touch-and-go whether Mysterio will make it back and Sin Cara shouldn’t be back by then. Mysterio was around this past week for Tribute to the Troops and Raw and was telling people that he’s not going to rush himself back and risk messing up the surgery, and estimates a return in May, saying he didn’t expect to be back in time for Mania. Sin Cara, on the other hand, even though he was told he’s out for six to eight months, is telling people he’s making it back in four months and will be on Mania because he doesn’t want to miss the payday. The record is 27,080 people during an Anaheim Angels baseball game in May when it was billed as Lucha Libre mask night.


Regarding John Morrison, he had decided months ago, at least dating back to July, that he was going to retire from wrestling when his WWE contract expired and was going to try to get into acting. How serious he is about it, time will tell. He made a public statement that he was going to take time off and train. He could use time off for healing and probably to freshen up as well.


While it’s been talked about for months, it looks like HHH’s changes in developmental are going to be implemented soon. We don’t know any of them yet other than Matt Matalaro, who had been working hands on in developmental including announcing the shows, is now working out of Stamford with the creative team. His role is to help coordinate debuts and characters of new talent called up. HHH’s idea, and this is a good one, is to not call anyone up unless creative has an idea of their character and a long-term idea of what to do with them. They don’t want guys called up, and then have them flounder with nothing to do, which then gets people thinking that the guys are just filler guys because they know they have to create stars. There is an admission there are guys in Florida now who are better than the guys on the main roster, but the guys people talk about, whether they be Husky Harris or Dean Ambrose or Percy Watson or Seth Rollins, they want them to more complete and at their best when introducing them on television and all have things they can improve on. There has also been an admission, since Ambrose and Rollins are in the ring better than just about anyone there, that working the indies for years is not considered as much a laughing point or a negative as in the past.


And in more on Ross, his segment on Raw was one of those can only happen on live TV that will end up in the all-time blooper reel. Ross was supposed to rap, and forgot his lines, twice. It was bad enough but then later in the show Cole went off on it, and noted Ross tweeting about it (which he did), which exposed during the body of the show that the verbiage is scripted. I mean, everyone knows, but people like to pretend some people at least come up with their own promos. And some people with experience do. The thing with Ross is he is one of those guys. When he and Cole have been doing their feud, while they are given direction, they are not scripted because both are trusted to know what they have to do and Ross comes from an era where promos weren’t scripted. So the time because of the rhyme aspect that he has to follow the script, he forgot and couldn’t get it back together and it came off like one of those 80s lucha matches where every move is scripted, there are a few botches and everyone forgets what they are supposed to do and the match falls apart. It was told to us that Ross was supposed to do the rap without music, he even said “no music,” and then they played music and perhaps that was the deal, but Ross never brought that up himself. He wrote, “I apologize for the worst segment of TV I’ve ever killed. Had a rap thought, lost it. Won a Slammy.” He later wrote what he was scripted to say and his brain froze, which was, “Michael Cole, you’re a damn fool, King beat you like a Government Mule. I should be calling Raw, you’re not in my class, you kissed King’s feet now you can kiss my ass.” He also wrote to Lawler, “Sorry I embarrassed the team. Huge brain fart. Cole’s face made me go blank. Rap career dead.” At least they’ve got more material for the Christmas party.


More people have confirmed the prevailing thought on Del Rio. It’s not that he’s going to be buried, but he’s definitely thought of in not as strong a terms as he was a few months ago. There is the feeling Raw is lacking a top heel right now, as the things we’ve been saying about Miz are being repeated in the sense he’s really good but missing an element to be the brand carrying heel, and Del Rio, the guy who was supposed too carry that role this year, isn’t quite at that level either. Whether this works out good for Jericho (who would only be in temporarily at this point by most accounts if he is coming back since he is arranging gigs for the summer) or they plan to pull the trigger on Cena since they’ll have both Punk & Rock as the top two faces, or they move Henry over, are all possibilities.
 
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