Enigma

Former WWE World and Intercontinental Champion, The Ultimate Warrior, has announced that he will come out of retirement on June 25, 2008 to wrestle his first match in almost 10 years. He will be working for the Nu-Wrestling Evolution promotion in Barcelona. His opponent will be current NWE Champion and former WWE United States Champion, Orlando Jordan. Warrior and Jordan worked an angle at an April 15 NWE show where Warrior was receiving a lifetime achievement award. During the ceremony, Jordan interrupted and mocked a young fan at ringside only to have Warrior come to the fan's defense. Warrior is now 48 years old and and his 49th birthday is 9 days before his match but is said to still be in tremendous shape. Warrior has not worked a match since October 25, 1998, the night of his disastrous match at Halloween Havoc 1998 with "Hollywood" Hogan. His last appearance in WCW was the night after Havoc '98. He was originally scheduled to wrestle on a December 1, 2000 i-Generation pay-per-view in Australia against Curt Hennig until he pulled out due to money issues. He was replaced by Dennis Rodman.

Best thing from the new WWE message board: I also like how their message board looks like something straight out of 1998 too.

He said he was only done with wrestling because there wasn't a place for him anymore. "My idea of what wrestling should be doesn't fit with that wrestling has become."

Paul Heyman has chimed in on Mike Adamle.

What? Were you expecting the BluRay to cost more or something? I don't see how it's any different than a $40 PPV costing $20 on DVD.

The show was not live. It was taped about 6 hours earlier in England.

Yeah, whatever happened to Brad Armstrong replacing Tazz?

From PWI: To follow up what we reported here yesterday (and what you saw on TV last night), Joey Styles has been moved out of the ECW announcing booth and into a position with WWE.com. From what I have been told, the decision was pretty quick in developing last Friday and it took most of the people in the company by surprise when it all went down yesterday. While they announced on TV that Styles will be the "Head of WWE.com", the site will still be overseen by Brian Kalinowski, who is a VP in charge of a number of areas, including the website. Styles will be a point man for the site, kind of a managing editor of sorts, taking a role similar to the one that Michael Cole had before giving up site responsibility earlier this year. Styles will be in charge of all of the content that you see on WWE.com from this point forward. Styles will both work in the WWE.com offices in Stamford and will also travel to all of the company's televised WWE events. He was telling people at TV yesterday that his role will be to tighten up the website and make sure that embarrassing situations, such as the posting of photographs on Monday of people who may or may not be in next week's King Of The Ring tournament on Raw, no longer happen. At the live events, he will sit in on production and creative meetings and thus will be able to convey to those on the website what should be reported, who should be pushed, etc. Styles will be in the loop in a big way and his new role is one that actually adds greatly to his responsibilities within the company. In talking to people inside WWE, the consensus was that Styles was telling people that he was excited about the new role and looked forward to the challenge and showing another area of his abilities to WWE. Of course, he co-owned both ECWWrestling.com and 1Wrestling.com, where yours truly worked closely with him, so he has a lot of experience in the area of new media. Unfortunately, with the addition of Mike Adamle's hefty contract that probably made the company's decision to move Styles out of the announce booth for them. As for why he was moved off of the show, I have heard a few different theories. It's no secret that Vince McMahon has never been a fan of Joey's style, which is understandable considering that Styles' strengths lie in areas that WWE does not emphasize. But of late, there hadn't been much of talk of any problem that McMahon had with the work being done on Tuesday nights. Still, given Styles initial problems meshing with Vince McMahon's view of the business, his removal from the booth doesn't surprise me. As mentioned above, there is also the matter of Mike Adamle and his big contract to consider. He wasn't brought in to be a sideline reporter and given his inexperience calling matches, ECW was the best logical place to let him cut his teeth. Curiously enough, a number of people in the company told me that Styles stock went up given Adamle's less than stellar debut last night. Of course, that has to be tempered by the fact that the people doing the evaluating think that the Coach/Michael Cole combination on Smackdown is working well.

If you don't use a either an active or passive pop-up blocker in 2008, you don't deserve to be warned.

- Highlight Reel with Batista. Jericho talks about how Batista would have loved to have been the man to retire Flair, Batista gets pissed and hits Jericho with the Batista Bomb and leaves. - MVP defeated Tommy Dreamer. Matt Hardy did commentary but did not get physical. - Chavo Guerrero (with Bam Neely) defeated Jamie Noble - Big Show defeated Mark Henry via DQ after Khali came down. Post match Khali slammed the Big Show, was quite the sight live! - Cherry defeated Victoria. This match was long and boring; the crowd did pop huge for the finish though. - Vladimir Kozlov squashed Leroy Kidcade. Kidcade got a huge pop when they announced he was from London. - Batista and Undertaker went to a count-out finish. The crowd were almost 100% behind Taker, Batista got a lot of boos all night. Edge and his geeks were at ringside. After the match, Taker pulled Edge over the rail and beat on him. The geeks came in, so did Chavo and his bodyguard but Big Dave and Taker fought them off. Vickie came out to so much heat and made a re-match for the World Title next week between Batista and the Undertaker.

I could see how some would be upset he didn't stay for the whole show, but being mad that he was too funny is petty. That's not why they were upset. They were mad that a lot of his "speech" was just a stand-up comedy routine and only a small part of it was about the people he was inducting.

If I recall, Duke "The Dumpster" Droese got taken to wrestler's court because he was busted slipping GHB into girls drinks at clubs. The punishment was jobbing to a new guy, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, and letting him shave his hair on television.

Since WWE's move into High-Definition broadcasting, one staple of the pro wrestling scene has been absent from ringside - ringside photographers. Feeling that they show up too prominently on HD broadcasts, WWE has chosen to only allow their own company employees at ringside, so photographers covering the event are now relegated to shooting from the area where WWE sets up their stationary cameras for TV broadcasts. Photographers are still allowed at ringside for non-televised events. Credit: PWInsider

I never understood why they started doing qualifying matches anyways. It's a bad idea, because: 1) The matches are so lopsided, you KNOW who's going to win. 2) Some of the people have to win a qualifying match against someone who's already qualified because the quality of talent believable to win the Rumble is so thin.

Cowherd always makes sure to refer to wrestling fans as booger eaters.

Considering Edge is his old brother in law that might not make the best confession, unless one hand washes the other in regards to cheating. The only ones he named as having fucked were Ryan Shamrock, Sable, and Debra McMichael. Val: "Remember Ryan Shamrock, Ken Shamrock's fake sister? I fucked the shit out of her." Val: "I fucked the shit out of Sable." Holly: "No you did not, you fucking liar." Val: "Dude, I did!" Val: "Remember Debra McMichael? I banged her too. That's why Austin hates me. He married her after I banged her."

In something very weird, Hardcore Holly and Val Venis called up some guy that broadcasts on Justin.tv and talked to him for about 8 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-crQgPuVdk4

Bossman. He was 'fired' the week or two before that show, and the next night on Raw he was 'hired' back. Probably one of the subtler Russo angles actually. Golddust, as it was originally named GDTV and the first few times it focused on people related to Golddust. He gets canned, it gets switched to GTV and the rest is extremely loopy history. On the other hand, I don't believe anyone was ever outed later on as being behind GTV, so I actually didn't answer your question. My bad. I think one of Headbangers actually ended up being behind GTV. The one that wasn't Chaz... I had always thought Bossman was behind the briefcase thing too, but I just read somewhere that HHH admitted to being behind it after the PPV went off the air, so I dunno. Nobody was ever revealed as being behind GTV. The last GTV done was in November 2000 when it busted Eddie Guerrero in a shower with Godfather's Ho's. The Headbangers were long gone by then. It was originally supposed to be run by Goldust. The very first GTV where it watched Mark Henry taking an enormous shit was actually "GDTV". Although they immediately decided to change it, because the replay of it on the next show had it as "GTV". Goldust ended up leaving the company right after it started, so they kept it going but could never decide on an operator. Vince Russo wanted it to be Tom Green, who was a red hot MTV entity at the time, but Vince McMahon had no idea who Green was. So they just kept doing it with no payoff.

They got divorced around 2004. She started dating Nick Nemeth in 2006. Isn't she dating Nick Mitchell, not Nick Nemeth? Oops. Yeah you're right.

They got divorced around 2004. She started dating Nick Nemeth in 2006.

Interesting article about Paul Heyman from the Rocky Mountain News. ========================================================================== Paul Heyman is still hustling. One of pro wrestling's most influential figures of the past 20 years, Heyman is focused on a new challenge: an Internet-based reality/entertainment venture called The Heyman Hustle showcased by The Sun, a Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid based in the United Kingdom. Filmed in New York, the show puts to use the gift of gab that made Heyman one of grappling's greatest managers. He interviews B- list celebrities like Survivor cast members, James Lipton and Ice T and his wife, Coco, as well as eccentric Manhattanites. The result: five- to 10- minute vignettes with the rapid pacing of his Extreme Championship Wrestling shows in the 1990s. "I want to find the ordinary in the extraordinary and the extraordinary in the ordinary," he said. "I want to talk music with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to find out what songs affect their moods and emotions, because it may show the mechanics behind their mood swings or motivation. And as long as they have charisma, I want to talk with the hot dog vendor and pizza maker about politics and their views of the world." Heyman still dabbles in wrestling, commenting on the genre on his Web site (heymanhustle.com). But he says he has no desire to return after leaving his World Wrestling Entertainment scriptwriting role in December 2006 following creative differences with the company. "I absolutely believe I can out- book anyone in the industry today, but it's a one-brand business right now," said Heyman of WWE's dominance in the marketplace. "That brand runs differently than the type of writing and mechanisms that I use. "I have no bitterness about the wrestling industry. I've lived out every dream and had the time of my life. But it wasn't fun any more. My time was up." Heyman's legacy lives on in Extreme Championship Wrestling, though the promotion is far different from when he assumed matchmaking chores in 1993. Despite limited budgeting and TV exposure, Heyman revolutionized wrestling by introducing talent and styles like hard-core and lucha-flavored bouts unfamiliar in the U.S. Rey Mysterio, Rob Van Dam and two late WWE champions, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit, received their career breaks in ECW. Yet ECW couldn't survive a competitive marketplace. WWE and WCW copied many of Heyman's ideas and signed talent he couldn't afford. Heyman sold the promotion to WWE in 2001 and began working for the company as an announcer, manager (current Ultimate Fighting Championship star Brock Lesnar was his protege) and writer. Heyman was part of the 2005 relaunch of ECW (8 p.m. Tuesdays, Sci-Fi Network), but it was clear his vision was markedly different from that of WWE owner Vince McMahon.

Word. She had a seven-year career, and six of those years were in WWE, which goes through female performers like eye candy. Still, the only time she ever had a strong character was her all-too-brief heel run in 2005. Actually, Torrie Wilson's been around for over 9 years. She started in January 1999. Something a lot of people forget since WCW was lame duck by this point is that WCW actually released her in November 2000 as part of budget cuts. But since WCW was so in the dark by then, no one batted an eye when she showed up for the InVasion. For someone with no wrestling skills and a total lack of ability to learn how to wrestle, I have to give kudos to Torrie for sticking around for nearly a decade. Even though she had wrestling skills comparable to Ashley Massaro, she was involved in some pretty hot moments and squeezed out (no pun intended) two Playboy shoots. Her little skin fest with Sable at Judgment Day 2003 was probably the hottest Diva segment WWE has ever done. And her Lilian Garcia-sung theme music was pretty good too. Her age really starting poking through on her in 2005, though.

Shamrock was involved in a feud with Chris Jericho in September 1999 and they were scheduled to have a match at the Unforgiven 1999 PPV. On the Smackdown before the PPV, they had a First Blood match for some reason. In the match, Mr. Hughes (Jericho's bodyguard at the time) hit Shamrock with a hockey stick, legitimately injuring his neck. Shamrock had to sit out the PPV and during his recovery, he decided he wanted to go back into MMA before he got too old. He's stated before that once he's done with MMA, he'll probably go back to wrestling full-time if someone wants him.

The police said not to reveal the name until they talked to him. They talked to Knox on Monday morning, and his name got revealed in the afternoon.

The original article was updated to include a response from a WWE spokesman. The spokesman said they talked to Knox and he claimed the stuff didn't belong to him.