Enigma

If I were booking, I wouldn't have rehashed the PPV main event for next week. I would have done Cena vs. Batista and HBK vs. UT on Raw and Cena vs. UT and HBK vs. Batista on Smackdown.

During that whole mess with Edge, Matt Hardy, & Lita, Hardy had a statement on his website from Edge's wife where she said, "Adam tried taking steroids when he came back from his injury, but he's such a chickenshit, they didn't make him any bigger."

One Night Stand is being treated as a regular WWE PPV now.

They're determined to put a dent into UFC's PPV market.

It is now being speculated that the two former ECW PPVs will either now be regarded as "WWE One Night Stand" & "WWE December to Dismember" or be renamed entirely.

Raw rating for 3/12 was a 4.1.

I've thought about this and I came up with an idea that I think would work. Those who say nay to the brand extension ending cite the fact that the main eventers would be all over every show and they are absolutely right. 5 hours of Triple H, Batista, Lashley, John Cena, etc. would get tired quick. I propose ending the brand split but keeping the main eventers and certain mid-carders specific to each show. You can let everyone mid-card down scatter around but keep the main eventers to one show. Hype it up as the general managers of the show signing their top guys to "exclusivity contracts" like how Stephanie got Brock Lesnar to defend the WWE Title exclusively on Smackdown in 2002. I like the idea, personally. It would let the mid-carders and low-carders get tons more experience in front of a camera and it would keep the top guys from oversaturating television. I'd also put an end to exclusive titles except for the world titles. The U.S. Title could be merged into the I-C Title and the Smackdown tag titles could be merged into the Raw tag titles since the Raw ones have the lineage behind them. You could also play around with the higher mid-carders and give someone a rub by dubbing them exclusive to one show to make them seem like a big deal as needed. Umaga would have been great for that scenario. Have him run rampant through Raw, Smackdown, and ECW and then Coach makes the big exclusive deal to keep Umaga on Raw only. It's just an example of how I'd work it. WWE has proven they aren't capable to execute the brand extension the way it could have been, so I think it's necessary to disable some components of it.

Today, World Wrestling Entertainment issued a press release saying that starting with Backlash 2007 in Atlanta, GA, all WWE PPVS will cease to be brand-exclusive and will return to their previous format of featuring all brands. When the brand extension started in April 2002, all WWE PPVs aired in the United States were multi-brand. PPVs that were exclusive to the United Kingdom, Rebellion 2002 and Insurexxion 2002 and 2003, were Raw-only shows. PPVs in the United States became brand-exclusive in June 2003 with Bad Blood featuring only superstars from Raw. WWE used the brand-exclusive format to add more PPVs to the schedule. Great American Bash was added in June 2004 and became a Smackdown PPV. In 2005, it switched places with Vengeance and began airing in July. New Year's Revolution in January and Taboo Tuesday/Cyber Sunday in October/November of each year were added to Raw's PPV lineup. With the addition of Extreme Championship Wrestling as WWE's third brand, ECW One Night Stand took the spot Bad Blood usually held starting in June 2005. When the brand was relaunched full-time in June 2006, December to Dismember was added as an ECW-only PPV. After WrestleMania 23, all PPVs will feature superstars from Raw, Smackdown, and ECW. Speculation had been increasing about the end of brand-only PPVs when Smackdown's Undertaker & Batista and ECW's Rob Van Dam & Bobby Lashley were advertised for Backlash, traditionally a Raw-only show. More fuel was added to the fire when a local advertisement for the Great American Bash, a Smackdown-only PPV, was put on the Internet which featured a picture of Raw's John Cena with Smackdown's King Booker and Batista. Also on the black & white ad were the logos of Raw, Smackdown, & ECW with the "Smackdown Presents" slogan nowhere to be found. ECW One Night Stand, whose original concept was intended to be an ECW reunion show, will be treated as any other WWE PPV now and will feature matches from Raw and Smackdown. As revealed earlier, WWE cancelled its booking of the show's yearly home of the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City and relocated it to Jacksonville, FL. All non-WM PPVs will remain at their current $39.95 price point. Here is a link to the press release: http://www.pwtorch.com/artman/publish/article_19722.shtml EDIT: It is now being speculated that the two former ECW PPVs will either now be regarded as "WWE One Night Stand" & "WWE December to Dismember" or be renamed entirely. WWE's remaining PPV schedule shapes up like this: -- WWE WrestleMania 23 -- April 1, 2007 (Detroit, MI @ Ford Field) -- WWE Backlash 2007 -- April 29, 2007 (Atlanta, GA @ Philips Arena) -- WWE Judgment Day 2007 -- May 20, 2007 (St. Louis, MO @ Scottrade Center) -- WWE One Night Stand 2007 -- June 3, 2007 (Jacksonville, FL @ Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena) -- WWE Vengeance 2007 -- June 24, 2007 (Houston, TX @ Toyota Center) -- WWE Great American Bash 2007 -- July 22, 2007 (San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion) -- WWE SummerSlam 2007 -- August 26, 2007 (East Rutherford, NJ @ Continental Airlines Arena) -- WWE Unforgiven 2007 -- September 16, 2007 (Memphis, TN @ FedEx Forum) -- WWE No Mercy 2007 -- October 7, 2007 (Rosemont, IL @ Allstate Arena) -- WWE Cyber Sunday 2007 -- October 28, 2007 (Washington, DC @ Verizon Center) -- WWE Survivor Series 2007 -- November 18, 2007 (Miami, FL @ American Airlines Arena) -- WWE December to Dismember 2007 -- December 2, 2007 (Charlotte, NC @ Cricket Arena) -- WWE Armageddon 2007 -- December 16, 2007 (Pittsburgh, PA @ Mellon Arena)

Where is Kurt Angle in the death pool?

Batista and Triple H are roughly the same age. They were both born in 1969 and are 6 months apart.

How did Orton turn heel after his face WHC Title run? I can't remember at all. Going after Taker, I guess? In the build-up to WM21, he hit Stacy Keibler (who he had been flirtatious with on Raw for a few weeks) with an RKO and then sealed the heel deal by going to Smackdown and doing a heel beatdown with Bob Orton on Taker after Bob pleaded with Taker to not destroy Randy.

Brief history lesson: In late-'05, Melina & Batista were involved in an angle on Smackdown where Melina straddled Batista and made out with him, attempting to get him to cancel a tag title match with him & Rey Mysterio vs. MNM. Batista stated in interviews immediately after that he was very uncomfortable with the angle. He also said if he could go back in time, he wouldn't do it again. However, everyone backstage thought he was full of shit and suspected him (who was married) & Melina (who is dating Johnny Nitro) were having an affair. They would know better than us. Nothing was proven, yet WWE was still hesitant. Melina & Nitro were moved to Raw right when Batista was scheduled to return from his injury in summer '06. Batista then lost even more points backstage when he dumped his wife (who at one point had cancer and with whom he had four kids with) and started dating DivaSearch '06 loser and ECW interviewer Rebecca DiPietro. Batista is a couple with Rebecca now and is in the process of divorcing his wife.

Melina was moved to Raw to keep her away from Batista due to their reported affair. Anyways, Batista isn't the most popular person backstage either.

Well, I think we can all agree that Chris Jericho's attempt at a career outside of wrestling failed miserably. The Rock is really one in a million.

"We have been hearing backstage that WWE management has nearly had it with Women's Champion Melina. She already had atomic heat with everyone backstage not named Mick Foley, and her extreme carelessness in recent matches with Mickie James has angered management to the point where she was issued an ultimatum: if her match at WrestleMania 23 with Ashley is not up to their expectations, she can expect to be doing some job searching after the event is over." -- PWIElite

Wow, talk about sabotaging Melina to fail. That's like telling sometone to take a shit you made after eating Taco Bell and make it smell like a rose garden.

Nora Greenwald (known better as WCW's Miss Madness Mona and WWE's Molly Holly) was backstage visiting at WWE's Raw live event in Guatemala City, Guatemala on Saturday. She has been living in Guatemala for the past few months learning Spanish. Ever since leaving WWE in March 2005, she has spent most of her time participating in mission trips for her local Church. WWE.Com has an interview with her up on the site. She insists that she was only backstage visiting old friends, saying, "Right now I have no plans to return to wrestling, but I think we've learned by now that you never say never in this business."

Candid pictures of the Melina vs. Mickie match surfaced and Mickie showed no signs whatsoever of a nose/face injury.

Backlund said the Hall of Fame was a joke and he didn't care. Basically the same thing Orndorff said after he was inducted, except Orndorff decided to take the $5,000 payoff and then shit on it.

How do you know that? WWE is dying to get Ross off TV.

I must admit, he was right. He was looking terribly out of shape the last few months before he retired. His legs were like huge slabs of cottage cheese. I know JBL is no saint, but I'm sure it had to be frustrating for the guy, since he was originally booked to win the World Title from Rey at that PPV. He would have been the only guy since the brand extension to have held both titles. Think he'll attempt a comeback? Since ECW is a joke now, I don't think it's completely out of the realm of possibility to put Tazz back on Smackdown and move Joey Styles back to Raw while Todd Grisham & Brad Armstrong take over ECW.

Kendrick didn't "walk out" of WWE. He politely asked for his release in January 2004 and was granted it. The company left the door wide open for him to return at any point, and he did in August 2005.

You're delusional if you think there's even a 0.00001% chance of that happening.