June Wrasslin |OT| MADNESS
- Thread starter Mr. Sam
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UberTag
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You're the best kind of WWE fan.krae_man said:
They really don't deserve you even though you willingly drink the Kool-Aid.
You bought 4th row seats expecting the likes of Zack Ryder, Christian and Daniel Bryan.
Instead you'll get an Orton squash of Mark Henry, Cena losing to Del Rio in a screwy finish and the Great Khali & Jinder Mahal winning the tag titles.
The best you can hope for is a fun match featuring Mr. Ziggles.
sonikokaruto
Banned
Ok people, i just saw a clip from this CHIKARA thing and i want them to have my money.
How can i support them and how can i watch their fabulous shows?
How can i support them and how can i watch their fabulous shows?
FallingEdge
Member
DKehoe
Member
King of Trios is a great place to start, is their biggest event each year. Is a trios tournament that took place over 3 days. This year featured the return of the 1-2-3 Kid and a bunch of other great guys. Check out their youtube channel they put up a bunch of free stuff there. This match, for example, is fantastic.sonikokaruto said:
Dork Knight
Member
dream
Member
A mishap when it came to texting ended up leaving some big surprises during the Power of the People Raw on 6/20 in Baltimore.
The idea of the show was similar to the old Cyber Sunday PPVs, where fans would get three choices to vote for either an opponent or a match stipulation. However, with Cyber Sunday, the general rule was to have the matches weeks ahead and do Internet voting.
For this show, nothing was announced ahead of time and they would announce the choices, go to a break, and then announce the results when they came back. As it turned out, the results werent what they thought they were.
It started with a fan vote for an opponent for Divas champion Brie Bella, and the voting saw Kelly Kelly winning with 53% to 36% for Beth Phoenix and only 11% for Eve Torres. So you can say that Kellys winning the title was due to fan voting, as the idea was that whoever the fans voted fro would get to beat Brie Bella and take the title. The problem started because the text voting wasnt to list the names, but to respond A, B or C.
The system got backlogged and there were so many votes that came in late, that somehow when it came to the second match, where Evan Bourne was going to wrestle either Jack Swagger, Mason Ryan or Sin Cara, almost everyone figured Cara would be called. But instead, the announced scores were Ryan with 51%, Cara with 30% and Swagger with 19%.
Ryan was listed as B and so many women votes came in that screwed with the totals as Ryan was B. The company claimed that in actuality, that Cara got 90% of the vote. That almost sounds like a work, in the sense if they had said 70% Id have believed it, but 90% is almost impossible in a three horse race. The WWE reported this the next day on the web site. Also announced was that on 6/27 in Las Vegas, that the voted on Bourne vs. Cara match will be taking place.
That said, in the ring, it was obvious that the Ryan choice as the winner was unexpected. They worked a basic match, which was mostly Ryan pounding on Bourne and winning clean.
They claimed the Kane vs. Mark Henry announced stipulation, the arm wrestling match, one of three bad choices, was legitimate. What was strange about that is the crowd groaned and booed when it was announced and even chanted This is stupid as the arm wrestling was taking place.
For Dolph Zigglers first U.S. title defense against Kofi Kingston, it was announced that 51% voted for a two of three fall match, while 31% voted that Vickie Guerrero should be banned from ringside and 18% wanted a submission match. They claimed that Vickie Guerrero banned from ringside was actually the one that got the most votes. But that hasnt been announced.
In that case, the entire system had crashed and had to be restarted. There was little information they had access to, so just made it a two of three fall match given they had to make a call.
Company officials saw great discrepancies between the scores they were given and put on the screen, and the companys Live Chat poll going on at the same time.
Where things get suspicious is that they said because of continuing problems during the show, that the main event poll for a John Cena & Randy Orton & Alex Riley vs. The Miz & R-Truth & Christian match, was actually done using the live chat even though they told people to next. What was announced at the time was 79% wanted an elimination match, with 15% wanting a one fall to the finish match and 6% wanting a match with a 20:00 time limit. It was clear the company was stacking the deck on most, since they had the announcers push one of the choices, which pretty much always won. However, in a web site story, the company wrote that when management realized the problems, they decided to instead use the Live Chat poll instead of the poll most fans were voting on. But they announced 87% voted for the elimination match, which would seem to indicate based on the stories later in the week, that they had different percentages meaning one set of numbers is made up. Either way, both set of numbers had the elimination match the overwhelming favorite. Given the other choices, that was to be expected.
Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson became the first team in history to hold both the New Japan IWGP tag team titles and the Pro Wrestling NOAH GHC tag team titles at the same time in winning a champions vs. champions match on 6/18 in Osaka at New Japans PPV event of the month.
Bernard & Anderson, who came in as IWGP champions, beat Yoshihiro Takayama & Takuma Sano, the GHC tag team champions when Bernard pinned Sano. The titles will be treated as two different sets of belts, similar to when Satoshi Kojima as Triple Crown champion beat Hiroyoshi Tenzan as IWGP champion in 2005. Kojima won the unification match and for three months, both companies (All Japan and New Japan) had the same world champion, but three months later, Tenzan regained the IWGP title. Kojima remained Triple Crown champion. Next on the horizon is Bernard challenging Hiroshi Tanahashi for the IWGP title on 7/18 in Sapporo on the companys next major event. Bernard & Anderson, now established as the No. 1 team in Japan, will next face Tanahashi & Hirooki Goto for the IWGP tag titles on 7/3 at Korakuen Hall. Tanahashi and Goto wrestled each other in the main event in Osaka with Tanahashi retaining the title.
There were two other title changes, before a legitimate sellout of 6,200 fans at the Osaka Furitsu Gym, an impressive showing in the current Japanese depressed wrestling economy. Kota Ibushi won the IWGP jr. title from Prince Devitt with the Firebird splash. Devitt first won the title on June 19, 2010, in Osaka, from Naomichi Marufuji, so he lasted one day short of one year, the fourth longest reign in the history of the title. A rematch between the two, who have been facing each other over-and-over on big shows because they always deliver spectacular matches, will be in one of the main matches when the DDT promotion, where Ibushi is the top star, has its annual Sumo Hall show on 7/24. Mascara Dorada also won the CMLL welterweight title from Ryusuke Taguchi. The next major show will be 7/18 in Sapporo with Tanahashi vs. Bernard, MVP vs. Yano for the IC title in yet another rematch, Minoru Suzuki (who left All Japan and started on this show with New Japan) vs. Satoshi Kojima and the return from Puerto Rico of Hideo Saito (who worked as a prelim wrestler Mitsuhide Hirasawa), who faces Yuji Nagata. Saito attacked Nagata and gave him a beating after the fourth match on this show. That beating injured Nagata and played into the match the next day on the All Japan show when Nagata was challenging Suwama for the Triple Crown.
The replay of Impact on Spike on 6/21 at 9 p.m. Did a 0.4 rating and 609,000 viewers. Im not sure what they were expecting, but Spike usually averages an 0.5 to 0.6 in prime time, so thats below the station average, and wrestling is going to do poorly per rating point in ad sales. That would be a decent number for a UFC Countdown show, but those are usually not placed at 9 p.m., when the expectations for ratings are stronger. I dont know why if they are going to do an Impact replay, they dont put it on during an afternoon weekend slot that wouldnt normally do well.
Raw on 6/20 did a 3.09 rating and 4.76 million viewers, up slightly from the previous weeks three hour show. I take that to mean the Power to the People aka Cyber Sunday idea works okay as a television show, since it beat numbers of a show with Steve Austin as the General Manager. The show did a 3.25 rating and 5.10 million viewers in the normal two hours. It was the highest rated show on cable for the night. It has a 66.2/33.8% male/female skew which is higher by a slight margin from the normal for women.
In the segment-by-segment, Kelly Kellys title win over Brie Bella gained 29,000 viewers. Evan Bourne vs. Mason Ryan gained 144,000 viewers. The Kane-Mark Henry arm-wrestling match and post-match brawl gained 139,000 viewers. The 9 p.m. segment, when people are used to turning on Raw, with R-Truth, Miz and Christian gained 789,000 viewers. Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston for the U.S. title lost 317,000 viewers which is not good for that segment. An Alberto Del Rio interview gained 222,000 viewers. Alberto Del Rio vs. C.M. Punk vs. Rey Mysterio for a title shot beginning and middle lost 305,000 viewers. However, the finish and Daniel Bryan vs. Sin Cara gained 421,000 during the 10 p.m. slot that is usually the No. 2 spot on the show. It was No. 2 on this show as well. The Vickie Guerrero/Michael Cole dance contest lost 156,000 viewers. The main event with John Cena & Randy Orton & Alex Riley vs. Miz & Christian & R-Truth in an elimination match gained 931,000 viewers. The interesting note is they had only gained 61,000 viewers in the first 14 or so minutes of the match and it was almost all overrun gain, meaning people who tuned in for the next show, or those who as a creature of habit knowing the big angle is last, tuned in at 11 p.m. The overrun did a 3.80 rating.
Smackdown on 6/17 did a 1.73 rating and 2.71 million viewers. It was fourth on cable for the night, beating all cable programming except being well behind the 4 plus million viewers of three different shows that night on Disney.
Impact on 6/16 did a 1.25 rating and 1.76 million viewers. That tells you that the weekly smaller numbers were entirely due to the power of the NBA playoff game going against the show, because once the playoffs were over, the numbers were right back to where they were. The show also did an additional 11% viewers (190,000 viewers to 1.95 million ) if you throw in those who saw the match after Thursday night via DVR or other delayed recording.
The show did a 0.90 in Males 18-34, which is up from usual, and a 1.14 in Males 35-49, which is normal levels. It was No. 2 in Males 18-49 on basic cable during the time slot and ranked fourth overall for the night on cable.
The show had an overall strong ratings pattern, with one excellent growth segment. In the segment-by-segment, Devon vs. Hernandez and the Kurt Angle Olympic games and Jeff Jarrett interruption gained 98,000 viewers. The continuation of that promo, the announcement of the Bound for Glory tournament lost 70,000 viewers. The Austin Aries vs. Kid Kash vs. Jimmy Rave match gained 112,000 viewers, which is a very good showing when you consider none have had any prior TNA in a long time. Sarita & Rosita vs. Velvet Sky & Miss Tessmacher and the Sting/Hogan backstage angle gained 280,000 viewers and did a 1.46 quarter. I expected the Sting/Hogan thing to be intriguing and do well. However, Samoa Joe vs. RVD lost 350,000 viewers. Gunner vs. Mr. Anderson gained 28,000 viewers. The final segment, which was the Angle vs. Jarrett parking lot brawl, gained 84,000 viewers to a 1.29 final quarter.
Antonio Inoki announced on the IGF show on 8/27 at Sumo Hall, which goes head-to-head with a combined New Japan, All Japan and NOAH show at Budokan Hall, that he would have Josh Barnett, Jerome LeBanner, Peter Aerts, Bob Sapp, Ray Sefo, Shinichi Suzukawa, Tatsumi Fujinami, Riki Choshu and Bobby Lashley all appearing for a show called Superstars Festival 2011."
What should have been the final legal action stemming from the Chris Benoit case took place this past week with a finish almost right out of a television show. On 6/17, a Georgia jury awarded $19 million to the Toffoloni family (Nancy Benoits family) in their lawsuit against Hustler for publishing nude photos of her after she died that she had never authorized could be used in that way. She done a video in the mid-80s when she was just starting out in Florida, and stills were taken from that. She told the photographer to destroy everything, but evidently he didnt, and sold the photos after her death. But after the verdict and award was read by the jury, U.S. District Court judge Thomas Thrash Jr. ruled the verdict illegal and lowered it to $375,000, which after all the years of court costs, is probably virtually nothing. The judge cited a state law that doesnt allow damages in cases like that to exceed $250,000 unless it is proven the defendants acted with intent to harm. Richard Decker, the attorney for the Toffoloni family, indicated it is not over and they are going to appeal the judges decision. There was certainly enough evidence presented to the jury which showed specific intent, he said to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Thrash awarded $375,000 saying that no reasonable juror could conclude that the defendants, Larry Flynt Publishing did not publish the photos and article for financial gain, and said evidence showed they made substantial profits from the issue in 2008 that featured the photos of Toffoloni from the mid-80s.
Scott Hall, 52, will be headed to jail from 7/5 to 7/13, based on his conviction on charges of disorderly intoxication and resisting arrest on May 14, 2010, at 1:43 a.m. at the Hitching Post Bar in Chuluota, FL. Hall was sentenced to ten days in jail on 6/20, with time reduced by two days. According to a TMZ.com article, they quoted a representative of Hall saying he would be checked into the medical unit because of his poor health. According to the police report, Hall was yelling and cursing at both bartenders and patrons, which included a number of area independent wrestlers. Police were called. A Deputy was called and said when he arrived, Hall was being told to leave the bar and refused, and they saw him throwing a fit. The report said Hall appeared to be intoxicated, his speech was slurred and his eyes were bloodshot. When the Deputy attempted to handcuff him, the report said, Scott refused to follow the directive, and instead, thrust out his chest, walking closer to me, stating, `I aint going down for this shit. This is shit. You know its shit. The Deputy ten locked his left wrist with a handcuff, then pulled his right arm behind his back but couldnt move the right wrist into the handcuff, so put him into the second handcuff and then locked the two handcuffs together. The bartender told the Deputy Hall had been drinking heavily that evening, and had pushed one costumer and argued with a woman bartender and called her names. When she called for someone to drive Hall home, Hall punched the window of he car and shoved two women near the car according to the report. He was taken to Seminole County jail and told never to return to the bar. This was the arrest that got some publicity when Hall was brought in and listed his occupation as being an unemployed pro wrestler, even though until the arrest he had been working regularly for TNA. ESPNs E:30 program is doing a piece on Hall and they will be filming on 7/16 in Orlando at an I Believe in Wrestling show. Kevin Nash and Sean Waltman will possibly be on that show since ESPN would be wanting them as part of the piece.
Jeff Katz, a former executive at New Line Cinemas, had gotten full funding for his Wrestling Revolution project, which would be a television season trying to promote wrestling in a new manner. He said that the planned production schedule is for late fall, with a show produced in Los Angeles. Katz said a distribution agreement would be announced in the next week or two. He said the idea is to produce a wrestling show closer to an indie film. Katz is a longtime fan who has had a number of pro wrestling movie projects that hes started but none got out of the gate. He started his business career working for WCW before going to New Line.
Ring of Honor Best in the World iPPV on 6/26 in the afternoon slot has Eddie Edwards vs. Davey Richards for the ROH title, Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin vs. Chris Hero & Claudio Castagnoli vs. Briscoes vs. All Night Express for the tag titles, Christopher Daniels vs El Generico for the TV title (one would think Daniels is losing the title soon, whether here or somewhere else soon since hes with TNA and obviously wont still be here when the new TV starts in the fall), Jay Lethal vs Mike Bennett, Steve Corino vs. Michael Elgin, Homicide vs Rhino in a street fight (since this is likely Homicides last major match, if not last match in ROH, and its Rhinos first, it should be not just a win but a destructive impact making win), Colt Cabana vs. Tommaso Ciampa and in a non-PPV match, Generation Me vs Adam Cole & Kyle OReilly.
Hero & Castagnoli were backstage at the WWE tapings this past weekend for private tryouts. Both were said to have done well. They were the two key wrestlers who were not under long-term deals. As noted, ROH is trying to get everyone to sign extensions and new deals this week for Sinclair Broadcasting so they can start making long-term plans.
Matt Hardy was suspended for a few weeks. We dont have an official word but believe it to be 30 days, which would probably include next weeks tapings. He did a twitter message saying that between date, injuries and other issues, he would be out of action for a few weeks and positioned it as if hes happy hes getting a needed vacation. He was banged up we were told, but the reasons for the suspension included his late arrival for a number of shows and most figure this was also a combination reaction to a youtube video where he taser ed his girlfriend, Remy Sky, which he took down fairly quickly because people who saw it were coming to the conclusion that he was off the deep end.
They are doing two tournaments at the same time. They are not doing a Bound for Glory singles and tag team tournament, but just a tournament. Itll be a 12-man tournament with Bobby Roode, James Storm, A.J. Styles, Scott Steiner, Bully Ray, RVD, Samoa Joe, Matt Morgan, Crimson, Gunner, Pope and Devon. The scoring system was shown on a graphic but it was so quick unless you had a freeze frame and went back, you wouldnt know it. They had a voice over guy and showed the point system but he didnt explain it. Its far too confusing but even if it wasnt, without it being explained, I doubt 1% of the audience understands it. So here goes. There will be matches with these guys against each other in both singles and tags both on TV, at house shows and on PPVs. If you win by submission, you get 10 points. If you win by pin, you get 7. If you win by count out, you get 5. If you win by DQ, you get three. If its a draw, both guys get two. If you lose, you get zero, but if you lose via DQ, you lose 10 points. However, if you are in a tag match, only the person who scores the pin gets points, not both winners. In other words, they are trying to create a logical way so that tag team partners wont get along, as opposed to just having them not get along because thats how Russo believes all tag teams should be. They will be doing points through September. The top four will then go into a final four on the September PPV, and do a one-night tournament. The winner will face whoever the world champion is in October in the Bound for Glory main event. The idea that both Sting and Kurt Angle arent in the tournament is because Sting is getting a title shot on the 7/14 television show, which will be taped on 7/11, the day after the Destination X PPV. Angle is already No. 1 contender and is getting a title shot I would guess on the August PPV, so the idea is there is no point in him going into the tournament. There are positives and negatives to this. First, obviously, the point system is too confusing. Second, this writing team did that top ten gimmick and they couldnt make that work, and thats a hell of a lot simpler than this. This requires scheduling, having people wrestle each other and wrestle the same amount of tournament matches and being able to both keep track, and be planned way far in advance so you mathematically know ahead of time what finishes you need and where you need your upsets. If this was Giant Baba in charge Id have a lot more confidence. What is good is that wins and losses will matter, which is a good educational tool. Plus, you have natural reasons to present matches as opposed to the goofy storylines that have burned people out.
The other tournament is an X division tournament. There will be four matches. The first was with three former X Division stars (Austin Aries over Jimmy Rave and Kid Kash). Week two is people who have never worked for the company (Shiima Xion winning over Dakota Darsow and Federico Polacious). Week three will be bringing back guys from the past like Sonjay Dutt, Petey Williams, Low Ki type of guys and week four will be three other newcomers. This leads to a four-way at Destination X, where the winner will get a TNA contract.
Stings new gimmick based on The Joker from Batman looks to me to be a heel but the impression Ive got is it isnt. Sting is doing a gimmick where he attacks people and rubs his own new red paint on their faces after he does so. When he did it with Hulk Hogan on this past weeks show, Hogan was doing the facials of a babyface and I thought it was a double turn.
Jeff Jarrett is off for now after losing the street fight in the parking lot to Kurt Angle. The gimmick was that if Jarrett lost, Angle would get custody of his kids back and Jarrett would have to move to Mexico. Jarrett, after losing, said Adios. I dont know that they will acknowledge when he comes back hes AAA champion (or if he isnt coming back soon and wont be champion by that time). I think it would be a coup for AAAs title to have the champion wrestle on TNA shows and it would be good for Jarrett to be positioned in TNA back as a world champion.
Desmond Wolfe (Steven Haworth, 33), was released this past week. Due to a medical condition that everyone has kept quiet, he hasnt been able to wrestle for nearly a year and apparently the situation wasnt changing. At the time, they were pushing he and Magnus as a team called London Brawling and did vignettes with them and Chelsea. Then both were pulled, starting rumors. A few months later, Magnus returned. In December, they started pushing his name with a storyline that he had been gone trying to make it in football (which in U.S. terms was meant to be our sport of soccer, which is called football in much of the rest of the world). He did television tapings to set up a trio with Magnus & Douglas Williams, but after taping, the decision was made not to air those segments and he was never mentioned again. Then five weeks ago he was brought back as the babyface commissioner of Xplosion, which doesnt air in the U.S., but suddenly was let go. To be honest, Im not sure what my future holds right now, said Wolfe. Gotta let the dust settle and then survey the scene. There is at least talk that his career as a wrestler is over, blamed on all the damage he took in having all those great ROH matches.
Michael Bochiccio of Highspots.com, who is owed the $35,000 plus 300 autograph photos from Ric Flair or Flair will be taken to jail for contempt of court, is writing a book on Flair. Apparently the book will be based on the depositions in his lawsuit against Flair.
The idea of the show was similar to the old Cyber Sunday PPVs, where fans would get three choices to vote for either an opponent or a match stipulation. However, with Cyber Sunday, the general rule was to have the matches weeks ahead and do Internet voting.
For this show, nothing was announced ahead of time and they would announce the choices, go to a break, and then announce the results when they came back. As it turned out, the results werent what they thought they were.
It started with a fan vote for an opponent for Divas champion Brie Bella, and the voting saw Kelly Kelly winning with 53% to 36% for Beth Phoenix and only 11% for Eve Torres. So you can say that Kellys winning the title was due to fan voting, as the idea was that whoever the fans voted fro would get to beat Brie Bella and take the title. The problem started because the text voting wasnt to list the names, but to respond A, B or C.
The system got backlogged and there were so many votes that came in late, that somehow when it came to the second match, where Evan Bourne was going to wrestle either Jack Swagger, Mason Ryan or Sin Cara, almost everyone figured Cara would be called. But instead, the announced scores were Ryan with 51%, Cara with 30% and Swagger with 19%.
Ryan was listed as B and so many women votes came in that screwed with the totals as Ryan was B. The company claimed that in actuality, that Cara got 90% of the vote. That almost sounds like a work, in the sense if they had said 70% Id have believed it, but 90% is almost impossible in a three horse race. The WWE reported this the next day on the web site. Also announced was that on 6/27 in Las Vegas, that the voted on Bourne vs. Cara match will be taking place.
That said, in the ring, it was obvious that the Ryan choice as the winner was unexpected. They worked a basic match, which was mostly Ryan pounding on Bourne and winning clean.
They claimed the Kane vs. Mark Henry announced stipulation, the arm wrestling match, one of three bad choices, was legitimate. What was strange about that is the crowd groaned and booed when it was announced and even chanted This is stupid as the arm wrestling was taking place.
For Dolph Zigglers first U.S. title defense against Kofi Kingston, it was announced that 51% voted for a two of three fall match, while 31% voted that Vickie Guerrero should be banned from ringside and 18% wanted a submission match. They claimed that Vickie Guerrero banned from ringside was actually the one that got the most votes. But that hasnt been announced.
In that case, the entire system had crashed and had to be restarted. There was little information they had access to, so just made it a two of three fall match given they had to make a call.
Company officials saw great discrepancies between the scores they were given and put on the screen, and the companys Live Chat poll going on at the same time.
Where things get suspicious is that they said because of continuing problems during the show, that the main event poll for a John Cena & Randy Orton & Alex Riley vs. The Miz & R-Truth & Christian match, was actually done using the live chat even though they told people to next. What was announced at the time was 79% wanted an elimination match, with 15% wanting a one fall to the finish match and 6% wanting a match with a 20:00 time limit. It was clear the company was stacking the deck on most, since they had the announcers push one of the choices, which pretty much always won. However, in a web site story, the company wrote that when management realized the problems, they decided to instead use the Live Chat poll instead of the poll most fans were voting on. But they announced 87% voted for the elimination match, which would seem to indicate based on the stories later in the week, that they had different percentages meaning one set of numbers is made up. Either way, both set of numbers had the elimination match the overwhelming favorite. Given the other choices, that was to be expected.
Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson became the first team in history to hold both the New Japan IWGP tag team titles and the Pro Wrestling NOAH GHC tag team titles at the same time in winning a champions vs. champions match on 6/18 in Osaka at New Japans PPV event of the month.
Bernard & Anderson, who came in as IWGP champions, beat Yoshihiro Takayama & Takuma Sano, the GHC tag team champions when Bernard pinned Sano. The titles will be treated as two different sets of belts, similar to when Satoshi Kojima as Triple Crown champion beat Hiroyoshi Tenzan as IWGP champion in 2005. Kojima won the unification match and for three months, both companies (All Japan and New Japan) had the same world champion, but three months later, Tenzan regained the IWGP title. Kojima remained Triple Crown champion. Next on the horizon is Bernard challenging Hiroshi Tanahashi for the IWGP title on 7/18 in Sapporo on the companys next major event. Bernard & Anderson, now established as the No. 1 team in Japan, will next face Tanahashi & Hirooki Goto for the IWGP tag titles on 7/3 at Korakuen Hall. Tanahashi and Goto wrestled each other in the main event in Osaka with Tanahashi retaining the title.
There were two other title changes, before a legitimate sellout of 6,200 fans at the Osaka Furitsu Gym, an impressive showing in the current Japanese depressed wrestling economy. Kota Ibushi won the IWGP jr. title from Prince Devitt with the Firebird splash. Devitt first won the title on June 19, 2010, in Osaka, from Naomichi Marufuji, so he lasted one day short of one year, the fourth longest reign in the history of the title. A rematch between the two, who have been facing each other over-and-over on big shows because they always deliver spectacular matches, will be in one of the main matches when the DDT promotion, where Ibushi is the top star, has its annual Sumo Hall show on 7/24. Mascara Dorada also won the CMLL welterweight title from Ryusuke Taguchi. The next major show will be 7/18 in Sapporo with Tanahashi vs. Bernard, MVP vs. Yano for the IC title in yet another rematch, Minoru Suzuki (who left All Japan and started on this show with New Japan) vs. Satoshi Kojima and the return from Puerto Rico of Hideo Saito (who worked as a prelim wrestler Mitsuhide Hirasawa), who faces Yuji Nagata. Saito attacked Nagata and gave him a beating after the fourth match on this show. That beating injured Nagata and played into the match the next day on the All Japan show when Nagata was challenging Suwama for the Triple Crown.
The replay of Impact on Spike on 6/21 at 9 p.m. Did a 0.4 rating and 609,000 viewers. Im not sure what they were expecting, but Spike usually averages an 0.5 to 0.6 in prime time, so thats below the station average, and wrestling is going to do poorly per rating point in ad sales. That would be a decent number for a UFC Countdown show, but those are usually not placed at 9 p.m., when the expectations for ratings are stronger. I dont know why if they are going to do an Impact replay, they dont put it on during an afternoon weekend slot that wouldnt normally do well.
Raw on 6/20 did a 3.09 rating and 4.76 million viewers, up slightly from the previous weeks three hour show. I take that to mean the Power to the People aka Cyber Sunday idea works okay as a television show, since it beat numbers of a show with Steve Austin as the General Manager. The show did a 3.25 rating and 5.10 million viewers in the normal two hours. It was the highest rated show on cable for the night. It has a 66.2/33.8% male/female skew which is higher by a slight margin from the normal for women.
In the segment-by-segment, Kelly Kellys title win over Brie Bella gained 29,000 viewers. Evan Bourne vs. Mason Ryan gained 144,000 viewers. The Kane-Mark Henry arm-wrestling match and post-match brawl gained 139,000 viewers. The 9 p.m. segment, when people are used to turning on Raw, with R-Truth, Miz and Christian gained 789,000 viewers. Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston for the U.S. title lost 317,000 viewers which is not good for that segment. An Alberto Del Rio interview gained 222,000 viewers. Alberto Del Rio vs. C.M. Punk vs. Rey Mysterio for a title shot beginning and middle lost 305,000 viewers. However, the finish and Daniel Bryan vs. Sin Cara gained 421,000 during the 10 p.m. slot that is usually the No. 2 spot on the show. It was No. 2 on this show as well. The Vickie Guerrero/Michael Cole dance contest lost 156,000 viewers. The main event with John Cena & Randy Orton & Alex Riley vs. Miz & Christian & R-Truth in an elimination match gained 931,000 viewers. The interesting note is they had only gained 61,000 viewers in the first 14 or so minutes of the match and it was almost all overrun gain, meaning people who tuned in for the next show, or those who as a creature of habit knowing the big angle is last, tuned in at 11 p.m. The overrun did a 3.80 rating.
Smackdown on 6/17 did a 1.73 rating and 2.71 million viewers. It was fourth on cable for the night, beating all cable programming except being well behind the 4 plus million viewers of three different shows that night on Disney.
Impact on 6/16 did a 1.25 rating and 1.76 million viewers. That tells you that the weekly smaller numbers were entirely due to the power of the NBA playoff game going against the show, because once the playoffs were over, the numbers were right back to where they were. The show also did an additional 11% viewers (190,000 viewers to 1.95 million ) if you throw in those who saw the match after Thursday night via DVR or other delayed recording.
The show did a 0.90 in Males 18-34, which is up from usual, and a 1.14 in Males 35-49, which is normal levels. It was No. 2 in Males 18-49 on basic cable during the time slot and ranked fourth overall for the night on cable.
The show had an overall strong ratings pattern, with one excellent growth segment. In the segment-by-segment, Devon vs. Hernandez and the Kurt Angle Olympic games and Jeff Jarrett interruption gained 98,000 viewers. The continuation of that promo, the announcement of the Bound for Glory tournament lost 70,000 viewers. The Austin Aries vs. Kid Kash vs. Jimmy Rave match gained 112,000 viewers, which is a very good showing when you consider none have had any prior TNA in a long time. Sarita & Rosita vs. Velvet Sky & Miss Tessmacher and the Sting/Hogan backstage angle gained 280,000 viewers and did a 1.46 quarter. I expected the Sting/Hogan thing to be intriguing and do well. However, Samoa Joe vs. RVD lost 350,000 viewers. Gunner vs. Mr. Anderson gained 28,000 viewers. The final segment, which was the Angle vs. Jarrett parking lot brawl, gained 84,000 viewers to a 1.29 final quarter.
Antonio Inoki announced on the IGF show on 8/27 at Sumo Hall, which goes head-to-head with a combined New Japan, All Japan and NOAH show at Budokan Hall, that he would have Josh Barnett, Jerome LeBanner, Peter Aerts, Bob Sapp, Ray Sefo, Shinichi Suzukawa, Tatsumi Fujinami, Riki Choshu and Bobby Lashley all appearing for a show called Superstars Festival 2011."
What should have been the final legal action stemming from the Chris Benoit case took place this past week with a finish almost right out of a television show. On 6/17, a Georgia jury awarded $19 million to the Toffoloni family (Nancy Benoits family) in their lawsuit against Hustler for publishing nude photos of her after she died that she had never authorized could be used in that way. She done a video in the mid-80s when she was just starting out in Florida, and stills were taken from that. She told the photographer to destroy everything, but evidently he didnt, and sold the photos after her death. But after the verdict and award was read by the jury, U.S. District Court judge Thomas Thrash Jr. ruled the verdict illegal and lowered it to $375,000, which after all the years of court costs, is probably virtually nothing. The judge cited a state law that doesnt allow damages in cases like that to exceed $250,000 unless it is proven the defendants acted with intent to harm. Richard Decker, the attorney for the Toffoloni family, indicated it is not over and they are going to appeal the judges decision. There was certainly enough evidence presented to the jury which showed specific intent, he said to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Thrash awarded $375,000 saying that no reasonable juror could conclude that the defendants, Larry Flynt Publishing did not publish the photos and article for financial gain, and said evidence showed they made substantial profits from the issue in 2008 that featured the photos of Toffoloni from the mid-80s.
Scott Hall, 52, will be headed to jail from 7/5 to 7/13, based on his conviction on charges of disorderly intoxication and resisting arrest on May 14, 2010, at 1:43 a.m. at the Hitching Post Bar in Chuluota, FL. Hall was sentenced to ten days in jail on 6/20, with time reduced by two days. According to a TMZ.com article, they quoted a representative of Hall saying he would be checked into the medical unit because of his poor health. According to the police report, Hall was yelling and cursing at both bartenders and patrons, which included a number of area independent wrestlers. Police were called. A Deputy was called and said when he arrived, Hall was being told to leave the bar and refused, and they saw him throwing a fit. The report said Hall appeared to be intoxicated, his speech was slurred and his eyes were bloodshot. When the Deputy attempted to handcuff him, the report said, Scott refused to follow the directive, and instead, thrust out his chest, walking closer to me, stating, `I aint going down for this shit. This is shit. You know its shit. The Deputy ten locked his left wrist with a handcuff, then pulled his right arm behind his back but couldnt move the right wrist into the handcuff, so put him into the second handcuff and then locked the two handcuffs together. The bartender told the Deputy Hall had been drinking heavily that evening, and had pushed one costumer and argued with a woman bartender and called her names. When she called for someone to drive Hall home, Hall punched the window of he car and shoved two women near the car according to the report. He was taken to Seminole County jail and told never to return to the bar. This was the arrest that got some publicity when Hall was brought in and listed his occupation as being an unemployed pro wrestler, even though until the arrest he had been working regularly for TNA. ESPNs E:30 program is doing a piece on Hall and they will be filming on 7/16 in Orlando at an I Believe in Wrestling show. Kevin Nash and Sean Waltman will possibly be on that show since ESPN would be wanting them as part of the piece.
Jeff Katz, a former executive at New Line Cinemas, had gotten full funding for his Wrestling Revolution project, which would be a television season trying to promote wrestling in a new manner. He said that the planned production schedule is for late fall, with a show produced in Los Angeles. Katz said a distribution agreement would be announced in the next week or two. He said the idea is to produce a wrestling show closer to an indie film. Katz is a longtime fan who has had a number of pro wrestling movie projects that hes started but none got out of the gate. He started his business career working for WCW before going to New Line.
Ring of Honor Best in the World iPPV on 6/26 in the afternoon slot has Eddie Edwards vs. Davey Richards for the ROH title, Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin vs. Chris Hero & Claudio Castagnoli vs. Briscoes vs. All Night Express for the tag titles, Christopher Daniels vs El Generico for the TV title (one would think Daniels is losing the title soon, whether here or somewhere else soon since hes with TNA and obviously wont still be here when the new TV starts in the fall), Jay Lethal vs Mike Bennett, Steve Corino vs. Michael Elgin, Homicide vs Rhino in a street fight (since this is likely Homicides last major match, if not last match in ROH, and its Rhinos first, it should be not just a win but a destructive impact making win), Colt Cabana vs. Tommaso Ciampa and in a non-PPV match, Generation Me vs Adam Cole & Kyle OReilly.
Hero & Castagnoli were backstage at the WWE tapings this past weekend for private tryouts. Both were said to have done well. They were the two key wrestlers who were not under long-term deals. As noted, ROH is trying to get everyone to sign extensions and new deals this week for Sinclair Broadcasting so they can start making long-term plans.
Matt Hardy was suspended for a few weeks. We dont have an official word but believe it to be 30 days, which would probably include next weeks tapings. He did a twitter message saying that between date, injuries and other issues, he would be out of action for a few weeks and positioned it as if hes happy hes getting a needed vacation. He was banged up we were told, but the reasons for the suspension included his late arrival for a number of shows and most figure this was also a combination reaction to a youtube video where he taser ed his girlfriend, Remy Sky, which he took down fairly quickly because people who saw it were coming to the conclusion that he was off the deep end.
They are doing two tournaments at the same time. They are not doing a Bound for Glory singles and tag team tournament, but just a tournament. Itll be a 12-man tournament with Bobby Roode, James Storm, A.J. Styles, Scott Steiner, Bully Ray, RVD, Samoa Joe, Matt Morgan, Crimson, Gunner, Pope and Devon. The scoring system was shown on a graphic but it was so quick unless you had a freeze frame and went back, you wouldnt know it. They had a voice over guy and showed the point system but he didnt explain it. Its far too confusing but even if it wasnt, without it being explained, I doubt 1% of the audience understands it. So here goes. There will be matches with these guys against each other in both singles and tags both on TV, at house shows and on PPVs. If you win by submission, you get 10 points. If you win by pin, you get 7. If you win by count out, you get 5. If you win by DQ, you get three. If its a draw, both guys get two. If you lose, you get zero, but if you lose via DQ, you lose 10 points. However, if you are in a tag match, only the person who scores the pin gets points, not both winners. In other words, they are trying to create a logical way so that tag team partners wont get along, as opposed to just having them not get along because thats how Russo believes all tag teams should be. They will be doing points through September. The top four will then go into a final four on the September PPV, and do a one-night tournament. The winner will face whoever the world champion is in October in the Bound for Glory main event. The idea that both Sting and Kurt Angle arent in the tournament is because Sting is getting a title shot on the 7/14 television show, which will be taped on 7/11, the day after the Destination X PPV. Angle is already No. 1 contender and is getting a title shot I would guess on the August PPV, so the idea is there is no point in him going into the tournament. There are positives and negatives to this. First, obviously, the point system is too confusing. Second, this writing team did that top ten gimmick and they couldnt make that work, and thats a hell of a lot simpler than this. This requires scheduling, having people wrestle each other and wrestle the same amount of tournament matches and being able to both keep track, and be planned way far in advance so you mathematically know ahead of time what finishes you need and where you need your upsets. If this was Giant Baba in charge Id have a lot more confidence. What is good is that wins and losses will matter, which is a good educational tool. Plus, you have natural reasons to present matches as opposed to the goofy storylines that have burned people out.
The other tournament is an X division tournament. There will be four matches. The first was with three former X Division stars (Austin Aries over Jimmy Rave and Kid Kash). Week two is people who have never worked for the company (Shiima Xion winning over Dakota Darsow and Federico Polacious). Week three will be bringing back guys from the past like Sonjay Dutt, Petey Williams, Low Ki type of guys and week four will be three other newcomers. This leads to a four-way at Destination X, where the winner will get a TNA contract.
Stings new gimmick based on The Joker from Batman looks to me to be a heel but the impression Ive got is it isnt. Sting is doing a gimmick where he attacks people and rubs his own new red paint on their faces after he does so. When he did it with Hulk Hogan on this past weeks show, Hogan was doing the facials of a babyface and I thought it was a double turn.
Jeff Jarrett is off for now after losing the street fight in the parking lot to Kurt Angle. The gimmick was that if Jarrett lost, Angle would get custody of his kids back and Jarrett would have to move to Mexico. Jarrett, after losing, said Adios. I dont know that they will acknowledge when he comes back hes AAA champion (or if he isnt coming back soon and wont be champion by that time). I think it would be a coup for AAAs title to have the champion wrestle on TNA shows and it would be good for Jarrett to be positioned in TNA back as a world champion.
Desmond Wolfe (Steven Haworth, 33), was released this past week. Due to a medical condition that everyone has kept quiet, he hasnt been able to wrestle for nearly a year and apparently the situation wasnt changing. At the time, they were pushing he and Magnus as a team called London Brawling and did vignettes with them and Chelsea. Then both were pulled, starting rumors. A few months later, Magnus returned. In December, they started pushing his name with a storyline that he had been gone trying to make it in football (which in U.S. terms was meant to be our sport of soccer, which is called football in much of the rest of the world). He did television tapings to set up a trio with Magnus & Douglas Williams, but after taping, the decision was made not to air those segments and he was never mentioned again. Then five weeks ago he was brought back as the babyface commissioner of Xplosion, which doesnt air in the U.S., but suddenly was let go. To be honest, Im not sure what my future holds right now, said Wolfe. Gotta let the dust settle and then survey the scene. There is at least talk that his career as a wrestler is over, blamed on all the damage he took in having all those great ROH matches.
Michael Bochiccio of Highspots.com, who is owed the $35,000 plus 300 autograph photos from Ric Flair or Flair will be taken to jail for contempt of court, is writing a book on Flair. Apparently the book will be based on the depositions in his lawsuit against Flair.
dream
Member
In an interview we did this past week with Batista, he said that hes not looking at coming back to wrestling for another run, but would like to go out with a proper retirement so would be interested in at least some type of short return at some point. He said he actually gave seven months notice before leaving last year, and then stayed on two months longer than they had agreed so they could fully play out the Cena program, so he felt he left on good terms. TNA did make a play for him but hes said that if he was going to wrestle it would be here. He was frustrated with the PG direction and said it wasnt fun, but was very positive about the company itself. In a television interview at the opening of his Gracie Fighter Jiu Jitsu Gym that he and Cesar Gracie are opening, he still talked of wanting to fight and said his goal is to become a Gracie black belt, which he noted is going to take a long time. He was serious enough about MMA training that at times he would bring an instructor on the road with him in his WWE days. He said he had no clue Strikeforce was being sold as he was negotiating for a fight, and UFC had no interest in him fighting. He said the last idea they had was he would fight on a PPV and they were negotiating pay per view points, with Gracie, as his agent, saying he thought Cokers offer of points was too low. My gut is that Batista, who has dropped a lot of weight since his pro wrestling days (hes still a large human, but not like before), is an MMA match with the right build up would draw well on television the first time as a curiosity thing, but PPV is a different animal. Against Herschel Walker it would draw. Against the kind of guys theyve been booking Walker against, I dont know that it draws on PPV. Batista said that he purchased a gym more for himself because it was getting hard to fly to Pleasant Hill, CA, where Gracies team trains, and consistently train so he wanted something in his home town, and decided to open it to the public. Hes bringing in some instructors, including a friend of his, Josh Rafferty, who was in the Ultimate Fighter and was also an independent pro wrestler.
At the E3 convention, Del Rio cut a promo challenging Cena for the title at SummerSlam. As noted several times, that was the plan for a long time, but theres the caveat about plans changing, but there also doesnt appear to be any other way being set up.
The Los Angeles Times also ran a story on McMahon and You on Demand, the company he is running trying to break PPV into the Chinese market. When we spoke with Mark Fischer last year, who was hired by UFC to help the company break into China, and was in charge of NBA operations in that country when the sport took off big there (Yao Ming was a big part of that). He was skeptical about UFC being able to be on PPV any time soon in that country because PPV has never worked in China. Still, times change and McMahon may be in on the ground floor, because if it does hit big and hes the guy who gets in first and becomes the person you have to work through, the sky is the limit. Last week McMahon scored his first big deal for his new company with Warner Brothers to provide content for PPV and video-on-demand. You on Demand is expected to be available in some Chinese homes this summer, perhaps close to 3 million homes, which is basically nothing at first, when you consider the population of the country is 1.3 billion, but it is the ground floor. Shane McMahon was interviewed about leaving WWE, saying he realized he wasnt going anywhere in the company. McMahon said he met with Mark Urbach, the CFO of China Broadband Inc., who told McMahon he had a green light to start doing business in China. At first I didnt believe them, McMahon said, since WWE was only able to run there as part of an expo for a free show, and most other companies of the type have not been allowed to run there. Getting the license is the hardest thing to do. But when he went to China, to see operations, he immediately accepted a position on the companys Board of Directors. He then invested $4 million of his own money into the company, and made the decision to go with that as his main direction, taking a job as an executive. It was the hardest decision Ive ever had to make, he said about leaving WWE. I didnt want to wake up when I was 70 and say, `I should have done that. He said telling his father he was leaving was brutal and that tension still exists, saying its still hard. He also said hes close to deals with a lot of companies. I would expect everyone wanting to get in just based on potential. When asked if WWE could be one of those companies, he joked, I dont know, Im a tough negotiator."
There has been talk of adding a WWE show prior to Raw on USA which would be a Countdown show modeled after what the NFL does. That doesnt make sense because such a show would do better in the 11:05 p.m. time slot, plus not be so much of a ratings drain on the USA Network prime time average. TNA Reaction was a very good show and couldnt even sustain it on Spike in a time slot after, which to be is preferable. Tough Enough, which was a very good show with Austin cutting awesome promos was a full point below NCIS reruns that normally aired in that time slot. A Raw pre-game show would be lucky to do Tough Enough caliber numbers. And if they are going to do that, they may as well just renew Tough Enough for that time slot. Even though Tough Enough is more expensive to produce than another hour done from the arena where most of the costs are already paid for, it has the advantage of being able to be replayed on USA but a number if NBC-U cable properties. In theory, I would say Tough Enough has the ability to create stars because they focus on their personalities, and there were a lot of people talking about this years cast, but those in the company now have the mentality Tough Enough is just a reality TV show and that its not creating stars.
The company has changed its drug policy once again, banning products such as K2, Spice, Blaze and Red X Dawn. The products are basically marijuana substitutes that the talent that was into pot mostly moved toward because they werent tested for it. The usage of marijuana dropped because the fine increased to $2,500 per positive test, but worse, and there were exceptions to the rule if they were money guys, but at the mid-card level, if you continued to test positive, you started losing a lot more frequently and pushes were stopped dead over it. The company probably changed policy because the DEA has made them illegal starting on 3/1. The former pot guys are not happy about this because there is an argument by some who feel it is beneficial for a wrestlers lifestyle because it acts as a pain killer and also helps you sleep (others will say people say that as a crutch to mentally say its okay to use). But this is a very significant deal to a lot of people. In the 90s when they were testing for pot, and several guys in the company said what was going to end up happening is it was going to turn a lot of people into alcoholics because theyd use alcohol for pain killing and sleep aid.
The subject of the U.S. military being a television sponsor of both WWE and UFC came into question in the U.S. House of Representatives this past week. Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota has questioned the military spending hundreds of millions for sponsorship deals of sports programming when the country is running at such a high deficit. The military officials argue the sponsorship and advertising on shows like that are important recruiting tools. McCollom spoke about how the house had to vote to eliminate funding to help homeless veterans and slash health centers for low income families as well cut jobs while the taxpayers are paying for advertising on sports events. She is looking to offer an amendment in 2012 that would limit the amount the military could spend on sports advertising and sponsorships, and that Congress would review any expenditure larger than $250,000 to sponsor anything to do with sports, specifically mentioning NASCAR, fishing, pro wrestling or UFC.
Regarding DiBiase, company officials are now saying they dropped the ball on him twice, the first being him as a babyface when the fans were being built up for it and then dropped it. The second was with the attempt to push him with the Million Dollar Man gimmick, and with Maryse, which ended up as his career killer. The thing is on that, what killed him wasnt the gimmick and it certainly wasnt Maryse, although the two looked uncomfortable together. The gimmick was bad because they didnt build it up with him going over and using the money to successfully buy things, and he was not the verbal talent his father was in being able to pull it off. But what killed him was his always getting booked to lose over-and-over. But his reuniting with Rhodes is meant to reverse things. The role now is to try and duplicate the Miz/Riley dynamic, where DiBiase does the dirty work for a while for Rhodes, and they do the turn, and DiBiase ends up as the face. Then again, all of his other programs didnt end up exactly where they planned to be.
Bret Hart is being advertised on Smackdown house shows of late July. There was talk of him returning with some kind of an angle shortly and hes booked on some Smackdown house shows in late July .
At press time, the value of the McMahon familys WWE stock is $163 million. For a comparison, based on last years selling price of UFC stock and most feel the value is up and not down this year, Lorenzo Fertittas stock would be worth $506 million, Frank Fertittas stock would be worth $506 million and Dana Whites would be worth $113 million.
The term Little Jimmy comes from a rap song in the 80s about condoms. Little Jimmy refers to a penis.
...thanks for that dave...
The father of Kia Stevens baby is former developmental wrestler Byron Wilcott. Wilcott was based in Tampa in 2009, which is where Stevens was living when she worked for TNA. Wilcott posted on his facebook page that it was a high-risk pregnancy, which is what she said on television, but you never know if thats true because it played into the angle where she couldnt attack the Bella Twins. Wilcott had been doing indies in Texas but said he wouldnt be wrestling for a while.
Gene Snisky (Snitksy) was backstage at the show in Hershey and there were rumors of him coming back. It doesnt seem to make sense because hes now 41 and they are trying to build for the future with younger guys. There is certainly a shortage of headlining heels, but I think its a real stretch making him a headliner. Hes got size and an interesting aura, but itll be very difficult to make him a viable headliner, and hes not someone that you would need in the middle, because theyve got plenty of guys who can work the middle just fine.
Michaels teased he was off to Connecticut this week working on a WWE project on twitter. Im not sure what it is but it may be a DVD the company is producing on the Michaels vs. Jericho feud where they will show all the key elements and have both guys comment on it. Another project they were working on was a DVD where Michaels and Bret Hart would get together in two chairs next to each other and discuss their careers and everything leading to Montreal, so it could be that as well. In fact, Id guess on the latter based on a series of hints that have gone around and how Michaels was hinting around about it.
At the E3 convention, Del Rio cut a promo challenging Cena for the title at SummerSlam. As noted several times, that was the plan for a long time, but theres the caveat about plans changing, but there also doesnt appear to be any other way being set up.
The Los Angeles Times also ran a story on McMahon and You on Demand, the company he is running trying to break PPV into the Chinese market. When we spoke with Mark Fischer last year, who was hired by UFC to help the company break into China, and was in charge of NBA operations in that country when the sport took off big there (Yao Ming was a big part of that). He was skeptical about UFC being able to be on PPV any time soon in that country because PPV has never worked in China. Still, times change and McMahon may be in on the ground floor, because if it does hit big and hes the guy who gets in first and becomes the person you have to work through, the sky is the limit. Last week McMahon scored his first big deal for his new company with Warner Brothers to provide content for PPV and video-on-demand. You on Demand is expected to be available in some Chinese homes this summer, perhaps close to 3 million homes, which is basically nothing at first, when you consider the population of the country is 1.3 billion, but it is the ground floor. Shane McMahon was interviewed about leaving WWE, saying he realized he wasnt going anywhere in the company. McMahon said he met with Mark Urbach, the CFO of China Broadband Inc., who told McMahon he had a green light to start doing business in China. At first I didnt believe them, McMahon said, since WWE was only able to run there as part of an expo for a free show, and most other companies of the type have not been allowed to run there. Getting the license is the hardest thing to do. But when he went to China, to see operations, he immediately accepted a position on the companys Board of Directors. He then invested $4 million of his own money into the company, and made the decision to go with that as his main direction, taking a job as an executive. It was the hardest decision Ive ever had to make, he said about leaving WWE. I didnt want to wake up when I was 70 and say, `I should have done that. He said telling his father he was leaving was brutal and that tension still exists, saying its still hard. He also said hes close to deals with a lot of companies. I would expect everyone wanting to get in just based on potential. When asked if WWE could be one of those companies, he joked, I dont know, Im a tough negotiator."
There has been talk of adding a WWE show prior to Raw on USA which would be a Countdown show modeled after what the NFL does. That doesnt make sense because such a show would do better in the 11:05 p.m. time slot, plus not be so much of a ratings drain on the USA Network prime time average. TNA Reaction was a very good show and couldnt even sustain it on Spike in a time slot after, which to be is preferable. Tough Enough, which was a very good show with Austin cutting awesome promos was a full point below NCIS reruns that normally aired in that time slot. A Raw pre-game show would be lucky to do Tough Enough caliber numbers. And if they are going to do that, they may as well just renew Tough Enough for that time slot. Even though Tough Enough is more expensive to produce than another hour done from the arena where most of the costs are already paid for, it has the advantage of being able to be replayed on USA but a number if NBC-U cable properties. In theory, I would say Tough Enough has the ability to create stars because they focus on their personalities, and there were a lot of people talking about this years cast, but those in the company now have the mentality Tough Enough is just a reality TV show and that its not creating stars.
The company has changed its drug policy once again, banning products such as K2, Spice, Blaze and Red X Dawn. The products are basically marijuana substitutes that the talent that was into pot mostly moved toward because they werent tested for it. The usage of marijuana dropped because the fine increased to $2,500 per positive test, but worse, and there were exceptions to the rule if they were money guys, but at the mid-card level, if you continued to test positive, you started losing a lot more frequently and pushes were stopped dead over it. The company probably changed policy because the DEA has made them illegal starting on 3/1. The former pot guys are not happy about this because there is an argument by some who feel it is beneficial for a wrestlers lifestyle because it acts as a pain killer and also helps you sleep (others will say people say that as a crutch to mentally say its okay to use). But this is a very significant deal to a lot of people. In the 90s when they were testing for pot, and several guys in the company said what was going to end up happening is it was going to turn a lot of people into alcoholics because theyd use alcohol for pain killing and sleep aid.
The subject of the U.S. military being a television sponsor of both WWE and UFC came into question in the U.S. House of Representatives this past week. Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota has questioned the military spending hundreds of millions for sponsorship deals of sports programming when the country is running at such a high deficit. The military officials argue the sponsorship and advertising on shows like that are important recruiting tools. McCollom spoke about how the house had to vote to eliminate funding to help homeless veterans and slash health centers for low income families as well cut jobs while the taxpayers are paying for advertising on sports events. She is looking to offer an amendment in 2012 that would limit the amount the military could spend on sports advertising and sponsorships, and that Congress would review any expenditure larger than $250,000 to sponsor anything to do with sports, specifically mentioning NASCAR, fishing, pro wrestling or UFC.
Regarding DiBiase, company officials are now saying they dropped the ball on him twice, the first being him as a babyface when the fans were being built up for it and then dropped it. The second was with the attempt to push him with the Million Dollar Man gimmick, and with Maryse, which ended up as his career killer. The thing is on that, what killed him wasnt the gimmick and it certainly wasnt Maryse, although the two looked uncomfortable together. The gimmick was bad because they didnt build it up with him going over and using the money to successfully buy things, and he was not the verbal talent his father was in being able to pull it off. But what killed him was his always getting booked to lose over-and-over. But his reuniting with Rhodes is meant to reverse things. The role now is to try and duplicate the Miz/Riley dynamic, where DiBiase does the dirty work for a while for Rhodes, and they do the turn, and DiBiase ends up as the face. Then again, all of his other programs didnt end up exactly where they planned to be.
Bret Hart is being advertised on Smackdown house shows of late July. There was talk of him returning with some kind of an angle shortly and hes booked on some Smackdown house shows in late July .
At press time, the value of the McMahon familys WWE stock is $163 million. For a comparison, based on last years selling price of UFC stock and most feel the value is up and not down this year, Lorenzo Fertittas stock would be worth $506 million, Frank Fertittas stock would be worth $506 million and Dana Whites would be worth $113 million.
The term Little Jimmy comes from a rap song in the 80s about condoms. Little Jimmy refers to a penis.
...thanks for that dave...
The father of Kia Stevens baby is former developmental wrestler Byron Wilcott. Wilcott was based in Tampa in 2009, which is where Stevens was living when she worked for TNA. Wilcott posted on his facebook page that it was a high-risk pregnancy, which is what she said on television, but you never know if thats true because it played into the angle where she couldnt attack the Bella Twins. Wilcott had been doing indies in Texas but said he wouldnt be wrestling for a while.
Gene Snisky (Snitksy) was backstage at the show in Hershey and there were rumors of him coming back. It doesnt seem to make sense because hes now 41 and they are trying to build for the future with younger guys. There is certainly a shortage of headlining heels, but I think its a real stretch making him a headliner. Hes got size and an interesting aura, but itll be very difficult to make him a viable headliner, and hes not someone that you would need in the middle, because theyve got plenty of guys who can work the middle just fine.
Michaels teased he was off to Connecticut this week working on a WWE project on twitter. Im not sure what it is but it may be a DVD the company is producing on the Michaels vs. Jericho feud where they will show all the key elements and have both guys comment on it. Another project they were working on was a DVD where Michaels and Bret Hart would get together in two chairs next to each other and discuss their careers and everything leading to Montreal, so it could be that as well. In fact, Id guess on the latter based on a series of hints that have gone around and how Michaels was hinting around about it.
Rafa=FedKilla
Banned
I don't understand how E.D as a medical condition can keep Desmond Wolfe out of the ring.
BillRiccio
Member
Sugar Dunkerton on twitter:
Long story short; Amasis has to retire. Even shorter story, it sucks.
Damn that pretty much confirms it
He was so awesome in the ring and his dancing skills were tops in wrestling. The Osirisn Portal won't be the same.
Long story short; Amasis has to retire. Even shorter story, it sucks.
Damn that pretty much confirms it
He was so awesome in the ring and his dancing skills were tops in wrestling. The Osirisn Portal won't be the same.
Spider from Mars
tap that thorax
Melina is sleeping with Ryder's father now!Dork Knight said:
Keyser Soze
Member
zychi said:
BillRiccio
Member
Wrestling Revolution
Anyone else hear about this? A promotion that does 12 episodes with a beginning middle and end, that's kinda like a tv show could be pretty cool.
Anyone else hear about this? A promotion that does 12 episodes with a beginning middle and end, that's kinda like a tv show could be pretty cool.
Dork Knight
Member
BillRiccio said:
Wrestling Society X (the MTV show), was kinda like this, I believe (it's been so long), and I thought it was really well done.
The idea is great, obviously, so the whether or not it sucks depends on the talent/stories/production/etc.
sf2fanatic
Member
im still thinking Punk is gonna win the title.
HarryDemeanor
Member
sf2fanatic said:
He's going to win the title, move to TNA and dump it into a trash can.
HarryDemeanor
Member
bangai-o said:
Wins the title, moves back to WWE and dumps it into a trash can.
Seraphis Cain
bad gameplay lol
bangai-o said:
TNA is the trash can.
HarryDemeanor
Member
Wade Barrett needs something to do now. So much potential wasted on the Corre storyline that went nowhere and the complete burial at SummerSlam last year.
Spider from Mars
tap that thorax
New New NexusHarryDemeanor said:
worldrunover
Member
HarryDemeanor said:
I want to make a new poll on WWE.com:
Which Superstar has the WWE handled the worst in the last year?
A. Jack Swagger
B. Wade Barrett
C. Kofi Kingston
D. CM Punk
I think we all know the answer.
E. All of the above
worldrunover
Member
NoRéN said:
John Cena would win the text vote.
Reneledarker
Banned
Joker Sting is pretty good, best Sting I have seen in years.
Reneledarker
Banned
jobber said:
This one isn't pg also, OMG at those asses.
Reneledarker
Banned
Does a kick to the vagina hurts?
- Status