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WRESTLING GLOBE NEWSLETTER
Sunday January 31, 2010
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Wrestling Globe Newsletter by Mike Aldren – All the latest professional wrestling news, gossip and occasional opinion direct to your mailbox.
WGN is read by industry power players, many top wrestlers and thousands of fans from all around the world.
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WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
1/29 Smackdown TV results from Cleveland, OH: Triple H over CM Punk; R-Truth over Chris Jericho; Drew McIntyre over John Morrison to retain the IC title; Michelle MCCool over Lalya as Mickie James; and Rey Mysterio vs. Shawn Michaels was a no contest.
1/30 Supershow results from Macon, GA: Yoshi Tatsu over Zach Ryder; Drew McIntyre over John Morrison; The Bella Twins over Layla & Natalya Niedhart; Finley over Tyler Reks; The Miz over MVP; Christian over Ezekiel Jackson; Big Show over Mark Henry; DX & Kofi Kingston over Legacy & Randy Orton; and John Cena defeated Sheamus via DQ. The show drew an estimated 7,000.
Tonight is the Royal Rumble which is sold out from Philips Arena in Atlanta. Complete line up: The Undertaker vs. Rey Mysterio for the World title; Sheamus vs. Randy Orton for the WWE title; Christian vs. Ezekiel Jackson for the ECW title, Michelle McCool vs. Mickie James for the Women’s title; and the 30-man Rumble match for a titleshot at Wrestlemania 26.
Raw TV is Monday from Nashville with William Shatner as guest host, plus Bret Hart. The SD/ECW tapings are Tuesday in Memphis which usually means a Jerry Lawler appearance.
***
The Atlanta Business Journal reported on Friday that “a major sporting event” has been scheduled at the Georgia Dome. The official announcement of Wrestlemania 27 at the Dome will be made tonight during the pay-per-view.
Santino Marella’s name was removed from the WWE.com list of Rumble participants. R-Truth was added. 25/30 names are known at press time plus John Morrison did a radio interview yesterday saying he would be involved. That leaves four open spots including one name we know is planned as a surprise although this person is not who most people assume.
Memphis indy wrestler Dustin Starr is booking on tonight’s show.
Gregory Helms was told to stay at home and isn’t booked for tonight’s show or the television tapings next week. He is taking all the heat from the incident that led to his and Chris Jericho’s arrest this past week in Kentucky.
The pay-per-view $5 price increase goes into effect from tonight.
There are some very detailed Rumble stats at http://tinyurl.com/y9ajp5p.
Chris Jericho had some amusing tweets over the weekend including, “Just had the TMZ camera kicked out of the Fozzy Instore. Sorry No footage tonight gossip girls…” and “Bischoff’s right, I can’t headline in TNA…cos I’m not in my 50s.”
Superstars on Thursday night did a 1.0 rating and 962,000 viewers.
Weekend airings on WWE Vintage Collection featured an edited version of
the1996 Royal Rumble which was won by Shawn Michaels.
Absentee Raw guest host James Roday of Psych fame cuts a promo on Alicia Fox at http://tinyurl.com/yb6ocut.
TNA WRESTLING NEWS
1/29 house show results from Manchester, England: Amazing Red over Sabin
& Suicide in a three-way; Rob Terry over Eric Young; Pope over Rhino; AJ
Styles over Samoa Joe, Chris Daniels & Hernandez in a four-way; Kurt
Angle over Desmond Wolfe; Taylor Wilde & Sarita over Velvet Sky &
Madison Rayne with Hamada as guest referee; and Team 3D over The British
Invasion & Beer Money in a three-way Tables match. The show drew an
estimated 5,000.
1/30 house show results from London, England: Velvet Sky & Madison Rayne
over Taylor Wilde & Sarita with Hamada as guest referee; Desmond Wolfe
over The Pope; Samoa Joe & Hernandez over Eric Young & Rhino; Beer Money
over Team 3D and The British Invasion; Doug Williams over Suicide, Chris
Sabin, Amazing Red & Daniels in an Ultimate X match; and AJ Styles over
Kurt Angle. The show drew just over 5,000 paid–down significantly from
last year when they set their all-time attendance record drawing 8,100
to the same arena.
***
There were a lot of unhappy fans over a bait and switch from an
advertised Ladder match Friday night in Manchester, England. TNA had
promoted this match for months but did a strange angle involving Styles
where he refused to participate. Dixie Carter, who was sat ringside,
then cut a promo and ordered him to work the match. Anyway, they didn’t
do one but never explained why. Presumably the deal was to put heat on
Styles, but still, you don’t burn your own fans like this especially at
a house show where the Ladder match is the main selling point.
In Manchester, Dixie Carter told fans that she had dinner that day with
Alex Ferguson, coach of the Manchester United soccer team, and several
local soccer players attended the TNA show that night. She also bragged
about being friends with several WWE talents and showed fans her cell
phone address book which included names we probably shouldn’t mention
here.
Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff were guests on Bubba the Love Sponge on
Friday. They spent an hour answering different questions from callers.
When asked about Impact going live on March 1 they claimed it wasn’t
confirmed but said they had read rumors to that effect on the Internet.
On going PG, they said that wouldn’t happen and will continue to push
the envelope each week. When asked about the creative pecking order,
Hogan said Russo writes television and then Bischoff “gets an overview
of the shit and then he fixes everything.” Hogan also ripped into Russo
over his “fake wrestling” comments. They both defended the Orlando screw
job last week admitting they don’t care if they produce shitty
television as long as people talk about the show, even in a negative
way. Hogan said he wants to bring in the Macho Man to manage Jay Lethal.
That will never happen. Regarding a TNA developmental group, they both
said there are no current plans but if they did have one–it would
likely be Brian Knobbs’ sachool in Clearwater, FL. On creating new
stars, Bischoff put over Desmond Wolfe while Hogan described Abyss as
“the next John Cena!” Seriously. When asked about Sting working limited
dates and missing the last television taping [due to a family
emergency], they both pretty much buried him saying that he hurt the
company and should show more commitment. Bischoff also burried WWE’s Big
Show and Jericho, saying he thinks Show is lazy and Jericho wouldn’t be
able to headline in TNA.
Impact did it’s highest ever rating [but not viewership] for a Thursday
night this past week with a 1.4 rating and 1,867,000 viewers. The show
opened with a 1.5 rating but they lost viewers in every single quarter
hour until the final 15 minutes.
Scott Hall and Sean Waltman were removed from the opening montage of
Impact. Both are still part of future plans but there is a lot of heat
on them right now.
Bobby Lashley won his Strikeforce force debut over Wes Sims last night
to extend his MMA record to 5-0. He won via TKO after landing multiple
strikes in the first round. Sims wasn’t happy afterwards. He told media
he thought the referee stopped the fight too early. He said: “I warned
[the referee] three times that he kept gouging me in the throat. Then I
rolled over and gave my back, I took one strike and the ref stops it? I
ain’t no rookie. I’ve been in the sport for a long time. I have a
helluva high pain threshhold. Bogus stoppage… [Lashley is] just a big
juiced up monkey. He ain’t got MMA skills… He’s juiced. We did not
have a drug test. And his own wrestlers threw him under the bus. I’m
good friends with a lot of wrestlers.”
BBC2 in Wales had a feature on Rob Terry to promote the UK tour. When
asked how he got his freaky physique he said he eats a lot of bananas,
drinks protein shakes, and trains hard for two hours every day. I guess
that’s the new magical formula. They also interviewed Brother Ray,
Hernandez, and Dixie Carter after Terry won the Global Championship.
Story is at the 20-minute mark at http://tinyurl.com/yhhkq4s.
Vince Russo is apparently no longer blogging on his Facebook page. His
site will now be maintained “by an administrator who is in contact with
Russo.”
AAA in Mexico are talking to TNA about bringing in Hernadez for an
extended stay.
Mick Foley talks Awesome Kong slapping around Bubba the Love Sponge at
http://tinyurl.com/yemdnsc.
Tazz wrote on his Twitter page that he may need a partial knee
replacement in the future. He has the option of taking some injections
that would delay surgery, but surgery is inevitable at some point. He
said he won’t be missing any time.
OTHER WRESTLING NEWS
Davey Richards has re-signed with Ring of Honor in a deal that means he
can no longer work for Dragon Gate USA or Evolve with former ROH booker
Gabe Sapolsky. Richards told Sapolsky and Sal Hamaoui [money man behind
Dragon Gate/Evolve] a few months ago that he didn’t have a contract with
ROH and they subsequently planned several events around his name. The
belief is that he did have a contract with ROH all along. Things came to
a head recently when Sapolski announced Richards for his Wrestlemania
weekend cards in Pheonix. Richards committed to the Dragon Gate dates
and told ROH that he wouldn’t be available for their shows noting he was
frustrated that he hadn’t had a raise for three years, and that Dragon
Gate was offering more money.
Mike Mooneyham has a nice article on Georgiann Makropoulos at
http://tinyurl.com/ygvanlb.
Today’s Diva of the Day is Awesome Kong at
http://www.thewrestlingpress.com/DailyDiva.
WRESTLING GLOBE MAILBAG
I was at the TNA show in Manchester on Friday night. The audience was
very loud and having a good time but the atmosphere really changed when
the ladder match didn’t happen. They had a ladder in the ring and I
think people were wondering why the ladder match was happening so early
in the night. AJ styles came out and said he wasn’t going to defend the
title; Dixie Carter appeared in the audience and said she was the boss
and the match was going to happen. Then, inexplicably, they took the
ladder out of the ring and had a four way tag match. When the first tag
came everyone around us was confused as they hadn’t realised it was a
tag match.
All the Brits wrestled as heels except Rob Terry who was barely over
anyway. I felt this was a huge mistake as the crowd were really hot for
Desmond Wolfe when he first came out and then his match with Angle was
really short.
This was my first time at a major wrestling show and I was very
disappointed with the fact that they didn’t have the advertised main
event. That combined with all the advertised talent that didn’t appear
(we didn’t get any explanation as to why they weren’t there even though
Bobby Lashley was on the display above the ring) really affected my
enjoyment of the night. I’ve been reading that the shows so far have
been really good but last night was decidedly average. Based on this
experience I won’t bother buying tickets for TNA again.
Thank you for all your hard work on the newsletter
Frances Vevers
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