QuestionMan

Yeah, rest your erect penises. All you guys are getting are the first year of TNA on ESPN Classics Canada. Which means you guys get to relive such gems as: -- Midgets jacking off in trash cans -- Bruce, Miss TNA -- The Dupp Cup -- The wrestling penises Have fun with that.

You're the second person to say this in the last week so this will be the second time I have to repeat myself: Don't insult DK's skill by comparing him to Angle. I'm not comparing skill at all. I'm comparing the mentality that they must never slow down despite their very severe injuries because of their drive to put on a good performance. That has nothing to do with skill.

So, he'll be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life soon? Yes. Because you know he is not going to slow his pace down because he cares about his performance too much.

Kurt Angle will be this generation's Dynamite Kid. Just watch.

Well, to be fair, they viewed Eddie as a long-term champion too and that didn't happen.

So, how long until The Honky Tonk Man jumps on this and starts talking shit about both Flair and Hart?

One of my friends who is a wrestling fan sent me an IM this morning and said "Wow, Lita actually did some good talking last night." Looks like people took notice.

In Storm's latest commentary, he said he and Christian worked a house show match in 2002 against Ric Flair & The Undertaker, so that's that.

Bad Blood, the first of the three WWE PPV shows over a six week period, headlined by HHH vs. Shawn Michaels in the Hell in a Cell match and Chris Benoit vs. Kane, did an estimated 255,000 buys and a 0.47 buy rate. Of shows in recent years, it would be ahead of only the prior month's Judgment Day show at 205,000 buys, headlined by Eddie Guerrero vs. John Bradshaw Layfield. The prior low shows, which were Armageddon in December (HHH vs. Bill Goldberg vs. Kane), are listed at 260,000 buys, and the No Way Out show in February headlined by Guerrero vs. Brock Lesnar are estimated at 270,000 buys. Keep in mind that the final numbers usually increase, often significantly from the early estimates. The original Armageddon number was 225,000 buys, and the original No Way Out number was 248,000 buys, so all indications are Bad Blood could finish ahead of both of those shows. Original estimates for Wrestlemania were 825,000 buys, but at this point it is figured at 885,000 buys. The number looks to end up down from the 290,000 buy estimate for the previous Raw PPV, Backlash, built around HHH vs. Michaels vs. Benoit and Cactus Jack vs. Randy Orton. Overall, that would be another major drop of 35% from the Bad Blood Raw brand only PPV last June, which was headlined by HHH vs. Kevin Nash with Mick Foley as ref in a Hell in a Cell match. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 7/1 Smackdown show did a 3.17 rating (3.60 realistic rating; 4.81 million viewers). The show did a 3.4 in New York (further erosion with the new people meters in place, and next week Los Angeles starts with the new system, followed by Chicago; it should be noted these changes only affect local and overnight ratings but not the national rating), 4.3 in Los Angeles (which is likely to take a major dive next week), 3.6 in Chicago, 4.2 in Philadelphia, 2.4 in SF, 3.2 in Boston, 4.3 in Dallas, 3.0 in DC, 2,8 in Detroit, 3.3 in Atlanta and 5.0 in Houston. The show opened at 289,000 which are higher than in previous weeks. The Booker T vs. Renee Dupree vs. RVD triple threat match gained 115,000 viewers, which is weak for early in the show. Rey Mysterio vs. Mordecai gained 273,000 viewers, which is good for what it was. The Paul Heyman-Undertaker segment and the Torrie Wilson vs. Sable match gained 316,000 viewers. Luther Reigns vs. Charles Robinson and the Raw recap lost 293,000 viewers. The high point of the show was the John Cena-Kenzo Suzuki rap deal, which gained 458,000 viewers to a 3.46 rating, the high point of the show. The JBL vs. Spike Dudley title match, which the whole show was built around, lost 48,000 viewers. Among the target demo of Males 12-34, the show did a 2.9 (3.9 among teenagers. 2.6 18-34), and women 12-34 it did a 1.1 (1.5 among teenagers, 1.0 18-34). The complete report on the 6/28 Raw show was a 3.67 rating, with a 3.37 first hour and 3.94 second hour and 4.62 million viewers (1.44 viewers per home) As far as growth, Chris Jericho & Edge vs. Randy Orton & Batista gained 661,000 viewers over 17:00 which is good. Kane interview and Divas Search video lost 318,000 viewers, which is terrible for the time slot. HHH vs. William Regal with Eugene as ref gained 547,000 viewers, which is above normal for the time slot. La Resistance vs. Sgt. Slaughter & Rhyno lost 53,000 viewers, which isn't bad. Chris Benoit vs. Kane gained 390,000 viewers, peaking at 5.23 million viewers, which is about average for a main event. An interesting note is how old the WWE programs skewed that week, as the median viewer (average) for heat was 45 years old, Velocity was 44, and Experience, which is supposed to draw a kids audience, averaged 39. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After the final Raw before the show, they only announced five matches for Vengeance-Chris Benoit vs. HHH for the world title, Randy Orton vs. Edge for the IC title, Chris Jericho vs. Batista, Matt Hardy vs. Kane no DQ, and La Resistance vs. Ric Flair & Eugene for the tag titles. The reason the Undertaker thing ended with him as a babyface and established immediately after killing off Paul Bearer is because he said it was important to establish him as a face immediately. There were those who wanted him to go heel, but they lost out in arguments. Even the arguments of doing a slow build for several weeks of mystery, since the Taker/Paul Heyman mystery has been the only thing not totally dead on Smackdown of late, was shot down. Edge has been told by management that he needs a makeover. They've been asking him to cut his hair, but he's been refusing. There has been a feeling that the long blond hair stuff is outdated (hence the biggest star in the company still has it. what a rib) that they've told people like Test and Christian, and the new haircut sure changed their careers (Christian's rise was only due to Jericho including him in his storyline as without it, he'd probably be buried underground by this point; Test is all but fired right now). Edge himself has always joked about his appeal to women by saying if he cut off his hair, it would all be gone. They also want to change his ring entrance. HHH was so high on Edge that he got him off Smackdown specifically to work with him, and they had him beat Kane out of the chute, but it didn’t work. Many have noticed him getting booed in the more hardcore arenas like Madison Square Garden, but a lot of that is due to Orton always being put over and people liking him because they think he's cool. There is a legit problem, as fans simply don’t buy Edge as a tough guy, and that's been the role he's been trying to play since he came back. While in England promoting the opening of "Walking Tall," Rock said he is not going to be doing any more high profile matches this year. Paul Heyman worked the 6/28 house show in Winston-Salem because he was already on the road for the Bash PPV and had to be in Fayetteville the next night, but he's not going to be a regular house show character at this point. It almost appears right now that he's just temporary until Undertaker kills him off, as they haven’t put him with anyone else, and his managing Undertaker looks to not be in the cards. When talking about diverticulitis last week that Vince had, I mentioned Billy Graham had it at one point. It was actually his wife Valerie, and not Billy. The Raw brand house show in London, one of the Smackdown dates in Belfast (there are two) and the Smackdown Nottingham show, all in the October tour, are all already sold out. Kurt Angle did an interview on the Rove McManus radio show in Australia and basically said he would be back wrestling when the tour comes to Australia in late August. He also said Big Show would be back by then. It is expected that Larry Zbyszko, in his "Living Legend" lawsuit filed against WWE, will add more points since they've called Randy Orton "Living Legend" on some recent shows. John Cena will be working the 7/23 OVW Six Flags show in Louisville. It wasn’t just fans. Apparently at Raw on 6/28, most of the wrestlers were remarking about how bad the Great American Bash was and were very negative about the final angle. Even though it was a WWE interview plugging the Smackdown show in Fayetteville, when Kurt Angle was asked, which was better, pro wrestling or amateur, he said, "The Olympics was the all-time best. If I had to trade in one or the other, I would give (pro wrestling) up in a minute. When you win at the Olympics, you're the best in the world." He said he was a celebrity coming off the Olympics, appearing on Jay Leno and Dave Letterman, but six months later, "I'd fallen off the face of the Earth." There has been talk of doing a Eugene vs. Eric Bischoff match on PPV stemming from the good reactions the confrontations were getting at house shows. A Ric Flair vs. Eugene program has also been discussed and it wouldn't surprise me to see Vengeance end with Eugene costing HHH the match, turning back face, since they are teasing the opposite, since the dynamic is better to give Benoit another win, and have the switch at SummerSlam. Dean Malenko did an interview for Weekly Pro Wrestling saying that he's in charge of picking the arenas the company runs in Japan, saying Budokan Hall is similar to Madison Square Garden. He said Sumo Hall doesn't fit in their plans. He also said WWE wants to do a PPV show from the Tokyo Dome. Garrison Cade suffered a dislocated kneecap on 7/2 in Vancouver. However, he continued working the tour. Ric Flair will be touring everywhere between now and the end of August promoting the book. I'm guessing he'll be working limited house shows, but all the TVs the next two months. Trish Stratus will be off shows for four to six with a broken hand. Matt Hardy may need surgery at some point for his MCL tear. They had been keeping his matches short to protect his knee, but it blew out on 7/4 in Regina. Gail Kim was injured on 7/3 in Saskatoon. Eddie Guerrero pulled his hamstring on 7/4 in Sudbury. But because he's the top babyface on the tour, he worked the next night. A-Train suffered a torn rotator cuff and will be out three months. Test is suffering from chronic neck problems, as he was hurt again as soon as he came back. There is nothing definitive, but fusion surgery under Dr. Lloyd Youngblood has been discussed. Outsports, a Gay sports magazine, ripped on Brock Lesnar's anti-gay comments in an ESPN.com story, comparing him to John Rocker. "I don’t like gays. Write that down in your little notebook. I don’t like gays," it quoted Lesnar as saying, which made him look like a complete goof. The magazine wrote, "It's just too bad that guys like him have to be so insecure in their own sexuality that they need to say such negative things about gay people. So many of us, who have participated in this month's Gay Pride celebrations, have been there-done that. And we're not the ones prancing around on national television and jumping on sweaty men in our bikini briefs. Maybe someone should let this guy know-in the NFL, though, he'll get to jump on more guys more often, but he'll have to wear pants." Those close to Eddie Guerrero say that while he wasn't happy about losing the title, he was in a sense relieved of not having the pressure that went with it, particularly in the sense that fingers wouldn't be pointed at him as much for the poor Smackdown business. There is talk once again, and this has come and gone for probably a year, to turning Maven heel. They tried out a subtle turn on the road. Paid attendance for 6/21 Raw TV in Miami was 8,000, and 6/22 Smackdown TV in Orlando was 3,900. 6/25 Raw house show crowd for Buffalo was actually 3,800. This was the worst weekend in many years when it came to house show attendance. It was worse for the Raw crew, because they were working cities that are vacation towns, so road expenses were higher than expected and business, and thus the money, will end up far lower than expected. 7/2 Raw in Vancouver drew 1,500, which is horrible for the Raw crew in a city of that size. 7/3 Raw in Saskatoon was even worse, with 1,100. 7/3 Smackdown in North Bay, Ontario drew 1,300. 7/4 Smackdown in Sudbury, Ontario drew 2,300. 7/4 Raw in Regina, Saskatchewan drew 1,100. 7/5 Raw TV tapings in Winnipeg drew a near sellout estimated at around 10,000. 7/5 Smackdown house show in Kenora, Ontario drew 890 fans, which I believe is the smallest house show crowd of the year.

It's all going to depend on GAB's buy rate. If it's as abysmal as I suspect it will be, the Tuesday 10/19 RAW Halloween Havoc PPV may be off.

Meltzer said on the LAW last night that an idea for SummerSlam is being kicked around for HHH vs. Benoit vs. Eugene.

Not true. According to one of Meltzer's history issues, Rude was pencilled in (by Bill Watts) to beat Ron Simmons at Starrcade 92 for the WCW Title, which would have meant he would have held the U.S. Title and the WCW Title at the same time (Rude would have been stripped of the U.S. Title, but it worked out fine anyways, because they already had the U.S. Title tournament planned that Dustin Rhodes eventually won, so they just used the injury to vacate the U.S. Title and go on with the planned tournament). But, Rude had to be scrapped from the show due to a neck injury, and the title was hotshotted back on Vader at a house show two days after the PPV because they needed a heel as champion due to booking plans. But by the time Rude was healthy again, Bischoff had taken over and didn't see Rude as WCW Title material.

For reasons that haven't been made clear at press time, DirecTV stopped carrying TNA PPVs without warning, effective immediately, on 7/6, the day before the show. TNA confirmed the information in an e-mail to regular customers saying only that the shows would not air in July and for an undetermined period of time. DirecTV, which is in more than 10 million of the current 54 million homes that have PPV access, generally does above the national average when it comes to buy rates. When WWE lost DirecTV in a several month long dispute over a 5% margin of the PPV gross that each side felt it was entitled to, it figured its DirecTV buys as 18% of the total audience. This was the primary reason WWE upped its PPV price from $29.95 to $34.95. With boxing shows and UFC, the percentage has been significantly higher. The last real numbers we got from UFC indicated 25% of the orders came from DirecTV homes and boxing has been as high at 33%. TNA PPV numbers are believed to be in the 6,000 to 7,000 per week range, so it would be losing 1,200 to 1,800 homes per week, or $4,800 to $7,200 per week in decreased revenue, or added weekly losses. This comes at the same time the budget for the promotion has increased tremendously due to both producing and paying for weekly television tapings. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A.J. Styles’ brother committed suicide, shooting himself on 7/1 which cast a dark cloud over the Orlando tapings that night. Styles was scheduled to lace Alex Shelley, and Elix Skipper subbed. A lot of the people in the company were really broken up as he was there and getting ready for his match when he got the news. David Young, who is probably his best friend in the company, was also taking it hard, although Young did work a dark match against Shark Boy. The company took some false advertising heat again this past week, but this time it really wasn't their fault. The advertised main event was A.J. Styles vs. Kid Kash for the 6/30 PPV. (Kash had said that he'd be able to wrestle, even though he broke his fibula just a few weeks ago). He also was quoted in the Brian Stull story we wrote about last week, saying about the 6/23 show, where he was scheduled with Styles, that if it had been ECW, he'd have worked the match, but with TNA, he wasn’t going to, which made management hot. Most of the wrestlers were expecting he was going to be suspended for his comments, and his future with the company at this point is in jeopardy. He showed up on 6/30 in Nashville and told management his leg wasn't ready and he couldn't go. Management was furious at him because they were led to believe all week he'd be fine. So they ended up doing a six-man, which most likely wound up being a better match anyway. On the PPV, it was announced Kash was suspended, but that was just a work because they didn't want to say he was injured after advertising him all week. So instead, they got people thinking they false advertised him all week, since a suspension would be a company decision. The Dennis Rodman deal turned out to be a big nothing. The idea they came up with was for Rodman to manage 3 Live Kru against Team Canada. The idea is that Rodman would take out Scott D'Amore with a choke slam and clean house after Team Canada was doing a 5-on-3 beat down. This would bring out Jeff Jarrett, swinging the guitar. Jarrett would be about to hit Rodman with it when Ken Shamrock would make the save and break the guitar, hoping for a Sports Center moment, figuring you've got Jeff (of course) in there to get the rub from being with Rodman and Shamrock. Well, Rodman got there and vetoed everything they came up with, even to the point where he wouldn't come out wearing a basketball jersey as they requested. They ended up wasting their money (one TNA official reported it wasn't all that much money, mainly a plane flight as his agent had him come as a favor to Jarrett as both are represented on personal appearances by the same guy), as they got no pub regarding him being there all week, and since he did nothing, they got nothing coming out. Maybe this is a lesson to work out the angle and have everyone agree to it before advertising a guy being there. A lot of wrestlers were upset about Rodman refusing to do anything. Some, being almost half-serious, started egging Shamrock on to go down to the ring and just scare the hell out of him because of the attitude he displayed backstage and in front of the people. As it was, he got there, sat at the Spanish announcers desk, flirted with women in the crowd, and wasn't over to begin with. Fans were chanting "Rodman's Worthless" at him, as he was managing the babyfaces. And they were correct. According to those who know Rodman, he got there and thought, "What have I gotten myself into?" since the only people there he even recognized, and he's a wrestling fan were Jarrett, Shamrock, and Konnan. Those close to Jeff Hardy say he hasn't signed a contract with TNA, although those in TNA claim he has. He did say he was interested in working more dates for them after the reception he got. He didn't work either show this week. The betting line is TNA is asking for big trouble if they sign him, but they will have major egg on their face if they don’t, which shows what happens when you ignore people's history and mark out over the idea we can get a star. The third week ratings were a 0.2, which you can say was down 41 % from the prior week (as misleading as saying week two was up 55% from week one), but with numbers that small and the nature of the sample, these variations aren't that significant. After three weeks, the show was averaging a 0.25. Dixie Carter made the decision for the company not to release ratings, and she did so in the first two weeks when the numbers were good. The average over the first two weeks for the Friday at 3 p.m. shows (the Saturday at midnight showings do a little better, upping the actual national average) on Fox Sports Net means 164,000 homes. The lowest rated WWE weekend shows on Spike are still beating 400,000 homes, but they do have better time slots and are more established. Carter was in Los Angeles this past week meeting with Fox Sports Net officials attempting to get a TV time slot upgrade because the ratings started out strong. The Carters are very strong on moving everything to Orlando. The look is better and it'll save on travel costs and the wearing down factor on everyone having to rush from Nashville to Orlando. The downside is that you're asking a lot from the Orlando market to support two live shows per week. As surprising as this is to almost everyone, the Nashville crowds have been hotter of late than the Orlando crowds, but that doesn't overcome the nicer look of Orlando. There were rumors going around that 7/21 would be the last show in Nashville, but when Don West, who does a radio show in Nashville, asked Jeff Jarrett, he said that story wasn't true. However, workers at the building were telling people they were told that 7/21 would be their final night. Bert Prentice has also started booking the Fairgrounds for shows starting on 8/7 for his own promotion. Even though the story was out, as late as this past week, Todd Curler (Dixie's brother) and Jeff Jarrett were still debating the merits of the move, with Jarrett, feeling two shows a week from Orlando could burn out the market, strongly against it. The feeling was the Carters saw the costs after five weeks, and no question, it's a huge savings in transportation to at least run closer together. It may be a better bet to run Wednesdays (well, best bet is to eliminate Wednesday and run once per month, and eventually, they'll either figure that out or blow nearly six figures weekly learning) in the Tampa/St. Pete area rather than Orlando. Orlando has the look, no doubt, but the last thing you want to do is run too often and kill the crowd response. The bad timing award goes to Johnny Devine. Devine moved from Calgary to Nashville about two weeks ago so he could work full-time with the promotion. If they do move to Orlando permanently, it would be best to have the Wednesday show be just the PPV, as opposed to doing Xplosion and PPV on the same night. That way they could do Xplosion on Thursday after the PPV, and have a better idea where they are going since the show would have already taken place. The "Bellars watch," the new term for predicting the time table for the next person to go, is already listed for Vito LoGrasso. Vince Russo, who has been friends with him from well before Russo even got into wrestling when Vito was Long Island independent wrestler Skull Von Krush, has been pushing to get him a shot for months. Vito is actually a far more talented worker than his rep, largely because people can't stand being around him. He already had two major blowouts this past week with Trinity. While most blamed it on Vito, some have blamed it on Trinity, claiming that the Kid Kash hothead influence has been a terrible influence on her. Charlie Haas & Miss Jackie were not at the Orlando tapings last week as has been reported. They wore in Orlando on a vacation together and bumped into some of the guys, which is where the story (not reported here) originated from. Terry Taylor presented an idea for Dennis Rodman; actually the idea came from Swinger, where Rodman would come out with him in the skirt and coconut bra. Russo was said to have loved it but Jarrett nixed it.

Meltzer said that Savinovich says a lot of inside and edgy stuff during his commentary.

Maybe he just wants his own look, and not what's "in". Personally, I like to have my own look, and if someone told me to change something about it because it's the style, I'd tell them to fuck themselves. There's nothing wrong with individuality.. Edge looks fine the way he is.. I don't see why he needs to cut his hair against his will. Besides.. I don't like hair vs hair matches Also besides.. Personally, I don't want every wrestler in the WWE to look identicle... it's alright for a tag team to both have uniform short blonde hair, but once everyone starts getting it people lose track of who's who. Well, that was the original excuse for Test and Christian to cut their hair. They were both part of the UnAmericans at that time and Vince wanted them to have the same hairstyles of Regal and Storm. I guess they just used that as an excuse since they kept bugging them about it.

A-Train's only been on RAW one time since the draft lottery, so it's not like we can be happy or anything because he wasn't hogging TV time. Mark Henry on the other hand, yes. Christian was rewarded with an Intercontinental Title reign which consisted of him constantly getting beaten clean in non-title matches and never winning at all. Hell, he got the I-C Title in a match he never won in the first place. What a trade-off. Edge keeps the hair because his fans want him to. While he was doing the columns during his time off, he spoke about himself even wanting to get rid of the hair because it's too much trouble and annoys him sometimes. He asked the fans what they thought, and the overwhelming response was that he should not cut it off. I think he's refusing to cut it off because of that fact, not because of personal preference. I think he'd have had short hair when he came back if the e-mail response was the other way around.

Rude was never the top heel in the WWF in 1990. Sure, he was working with the WWF Champion Ultimate Warrior, but come on. Anyone who knows the score knows that Earthquake vs. Hogan was being pushed as the big feud at that time. Earthquake was the top heel in the summer of 1990.

You are such a goof. Rick Rude was better off with his long hair, and had a better run in the WWF with it. His WCW stuff was pretty abysmal in comparison to his fueds with Jake and the Ultimate Warrior. DDP got over HUGE when he had his long hair. Cutting it didn't bring him anything new...at all. Jeff Jarrett's most succesful run was as Double J in 94-95. His WCW run was marred by favouratism by Russo when he simply didn't deserve/fit into the Main Event picture. Owen? Are you on glue? He cut his hair in late 97, after all of his memorable matches with Bret and the Bulldog. He didn't come close to ever touching those memorable fueds and matches with "short hair". Your little history lesson hasn't proven anything. Sorry. Owen debuted his haircut at either the September or October 1996 PPVs.

I don't recall that ever being in the newsletter.

UPDATED AT 11:42PM From PWInsider Dark Match: *Carly Colon pinned Wavell Starr Velocity: *Rene Dupree pinned Nunzio *Sakoda pinned Funaki *Billy Gunn and Bob Holly defeated The Bashams Smackdown: *Rob Van Dam defeated Mark Jindrak. Rene Dupree did commentary at ringside. *Josh Matthews interviewed WWE champion John Bradshaw Layfield backstage. Bradshaw said he was going to fight a real champion, "El Luchadore" from Mexico later on tonight. *Paul London & Billy Kidman defeated The Dudley Boyz to win the WWE Tag Team championships. Billy Kidman & Paul London are the NEW WWE Tag Team Champions *Backstage, the wrestlers congratulated Billy Kidman and Paul London for their title win. The Dudleys came up to Kidman and London and shook their hands. *Charlie Haas came to the ring to wrestle. Backstage, Kurt Angle and Luther Reigns announced that Haas was suspended for a week, but would face Reigns next week on Smackdown. *Josh Matthews interviewed Kenzo Suzuki. Hiroki (Suzuki's wife) told the crowd that Suzuki loved the United States to get heat from Canadian fans. It appeared this was for the live crowd. *WWE United States champion John Cena was rapping about Booker T. Kenzo Suzuki came out and brawled with Cena. Cena got the upper hand. Suzuki was knocked out of the ring. Luther Reigns came to the ring and laid out Cena. *"El Gran Luchadore" defeated WWE champion John Bradshaw Layfield by countout. Eddie Guerrrero came down to the ring dressed like Luchadore and switched places with him. Guerrero hit the triple suplex combination and did his "Latino Heat" dance. Bradshaw realized it and left the ring, getting counted out. *Backstage, The Dudleys confronted Spike Dudley and said that even though Spike didn't help them, they wanted to help him. Spike turned them down. *Chavo Guerrero, Jamie Noble, & Akio defeated Spike Dudley, Rey Misterio, & Scotty Too Hotty when Noble pinned Dudley. This was said to have been a really good match. *Paul Heyman did an interview inside the ring, placing the urn down inside the ring and telling The Undertaker (who did not appear) that everything that had happened the last few weeks was the idea of the Dudley Boyz. *WWE United States champion John Cena pinned Booker T with the FU. Kurt Angle and Luther Reigns came to ringside. Cena accidentally hit Angle with a clothesline after Booker ducked. He then took out Reigns with Angle's cane. After the pin, Reigns attacked Cena and grabbed the US title and walked off. Angle announced that Cena had been warned that if he put his hands on Angle, there would be reprecussions and there are - Angle then announced that Cena was stripped of the United States championship. The WWE United States Championship is now VACANT After they went off the air, Booker T attacked Cena. Cena chased off Booker T and then did some mic work to send off the live crowd.

From PWTorch.com Australian WWE Tour Matches - PWTorch.com reader Brad Connors of Melbourne, Australia writes: I was just listening to Australian radio network Triple M, who are supporting the WWE "Smackdown Superstars Return of the Deadman Tour" and heard an ad for the Melbourne show on Aug. 29 at Vodafone Arena. It stated: "The Undertaker and Eddie Guerrero battle for the WWE Championship and by order of GM Kurt Angle Rey Mysterio will battle JBL. Three Championships on the line." Might be a bit of a indicator of how things were going to turn out in future weeks.

From the 7/5 WON: There has been talk of putting Undertaker with Heyman as a full-fledged top heel, but even though that seemed the most logical direction, it's also the least likely. There was heat between Undertaker and Heyman stemming from the period when Heyman was head writer of Smackdown and wanted to tone down Undertaker's push and use him more to build newer characters. It is said Vince McMahon wanted Undertaker to be a tweener, who could work with anyone, figuring the fans would keep him babyface because it'll take a lot of work to get them to boo him. Smackdown is so weak on star power and he's considered by fans by far the biggest star, which makes it hard to be a heel, but the same thing can be said for HHH on Raw. There are three-ways with JBL vs. Guerrero vs. Undertaker booked. As things currently stand, plan for SummerSlam on the Smackdown side is JBL vs. Undertaker for the title, with Undertaker as a face, and Guerrero vs. Kurt Angle. Angle is already medically cleared to wrestle after resting his often injured neck, but the plan right now is to hold his return off until SummerSlam. Angle could also work against Cena, since that was his main rival as G.M., if Guerrero is put in the title mix. Working with Guerrero in a single would put a lot of pressure on Angle in what would likely be his first match back, because fans would be expecting a great match.

The best part of that was big show wearing a golfball in a sock in his trunks to make fun of all the "Hogan stuffs his trunks" accusations other wrestlers made.

Did Bruce Pritchard get booted from power or something?

I wonder if Paul London can still be denied PPV now?