QuestionMan

hahah @ the sign that says "IT'S KANE'S, IDIOT"

Great. A pregancy AND a wedding angle. It's like horror x2.

They didn't use the dreaded X sign, so it's probably not legit.

It looked like Stevie

He's right. Had anyone else done this it wouldn't have been a big deal.

The 6/14 Raw came out with a lot of booking twists. With Chris Benoit vs. Edge dropped as the Vengeance main event, because HHH's movie is delayed in production, they announced Eugene vs. HHH on 6/21 in Miami for the title shot. Where this gets interesting is Benoit vs. Eugene makes no sense, particularly this early. Benoit vs. HHH makes perfect sense. I thought it would be better to save it for SummerSlam, just because they need a match that big on that show, but it's stronger than Benoit vs. Edge, which would have to be rushed and won't be ready. However, HHH beating Eugene this early is right out of WCW booking. They have plugged The Rock with videos a lot over the past few weeks, and as of 6/15, he was planning on coming to this show, so this would be the match he'd probably get involved in. If he is coming, I'd have advertised the hell out of it this week on TV and the rest of the week on Spike and Smackdown. In Miami, he's going to get a fantastic pop either way, and is it better when he's not going to be a weekly character, to have a great pop and maybe help ratings for part of the show or have just a great a pop and have people telling friends all week about it? (NOTE FROM S_D: I am 99% positive that Eugene vs. HHH is NOT a #1 contendor's match, but if HHH wins, he'll get the #1 contendor slot. I just didn't want to completely change what Dave said.) They are also doing a Lita pregnancy angle. If that's the case, for credibility, she needs to stop wrestling. Of course the deal will be the question of if Matt Hardy or Kane is the father. They did an insulting segment that brought back WCW flashbacks where Lita took an early pregnancy test and it was positive. She then confided in Stacy Keibler that she was pregnant, but wanted it a secret and not to tell anyone, while it's broadcast on national television. In particular, she didn't want Matt to know. I think they told her to get across the point that she didn't want Matt to know but relied on her to come up with her own words, and she botched it a little bit. It isn't quite WCW, as Jerry Lawler & Jim Ross did acknowledge it, as opposed to having to play dumb, which is a killer to announcers' believability and credibility. But wrestling's track record with pregnancy angles is something like 99% horrible, from the Terri Runnels fake miscarriage, to Mae Young, to that horrible Stacy Keibler WCW pregnancy where Vince Russo was going to be the father and Ric Flair was going to be revealed as Stacy’s real father, thus making David Flair and Stacy romantic siblings. But not just the angle, but the idea people are talking backstage unaware there is a TV camera there, is the stuff that makes you embarrassed to be watching. The Shawn Michaels angle with Kane on Raw was to set up his absence because his wife is due with their second child next month. I believe he's out until SummerSlam, and no doubt would face Kane. Chavo Guerrero Sr. was fired on 6/15 after missing house shows the previous two nights without calling in ahead of time. His son was trying to reach him both days and also never got a call back. He did show up in Chicago and was immediately told he was done, but was asked, and he was professional enough to drop the cruiserweight title clean to Rey Mysterio in a squash. This may be a blessing in disguise because apparently Mysterio had been told they had no ideas for him, so he fell into the title, which if they can get someone other than Chavo over as a foe, could be his idea. At the St. Louis show, Chavo Jr. told the audience that his father was busy with some girls in the back and he'd face Spike Dudley. Since it was a replacement deal, they had Spike go over. They had the same result the next night in Springfield, IL, but decided not to even acknowledge Classic not being there. This was at least the third time Chavo Sr. has screwed up. He was only supposed to be in for two weeks, but between his younger brother having power and the writers enjoying humiliating the old man by pulling down his pants, and making the cruiserweight title a joke by putting it on the old man, he kept his job. A few months back, when they worked the Monterrey, Mexico show, there were behavior issues. Even worse, since it was public and in front of so many insider fans and wrestling legends, was his well publicized series of incidents at the Cauliflower Alley Club, which caused him to be kicked out of the hotel twice and everyone was talking about how bad off he was. Chavo Sr. was trying to get into TNA literally minutes after his firing. TNA is interested, but it all depends on his non-compete term. I can still remember in 1995 at a WCW Bash at the Beach PPV in Los Angeles, where in an after-show party, Chavo tried to start a fight with Vader. The guy in his youth was a fantastic talent, but he was one of those guys who was his own worst enemy. He also didn't help his cause by being vocal about turning down some humiliating things they wanted him to do, like have Jacqueline pull down his pants and he'd be wearing thong underwear. Variety reported that The Rock is the front-runner for the lead role in a movie called "Sup Mariner" that would be released in 2006. Vince McMahon and Steve Austin are still talking from time to time. It's said to be highly unlikely he'll return in the immediate future, as the feeling is Austin is in no hurry to come back. He's focusing on acting right now and trying to open some doors in Hollywood for movie and TV work. Austin is being represented now by Barry Bloom. Bloom had heard indirectly (through Rick Steiner of all people), about the supposed Austin/Hulk Hogan offer from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates that we reported on last week that the AWA was attempting to broker, but nobody had even opened discussions with him. That's one of those crazy stories that nobody expects to ever happen, and even if the money came in, I'm guessing Hogan wouldn't do it, because he's turned down bigger money than that in Japan in recent years, and if Austin wanted to wrestle, he could build for a Mania match. Austin and Hogan (and I believe Bill Goldberg, although he was not yet confirmed at press time) are appearing together with many big celebrities, including Magic Johnson, Mary Lou Retton, and Donald Trump for a guest appearance by a series of superstars show on 7/11 at the Anaheim Pond. Even though Austin and Goldberg are tight, both are free agents and have talked for years about doing a match that they would promote on their own, we've heard nothing about any plans in that direction, and Austin really isn't looking to wrestle. Internally, the feeling in WWE is currently negative toward our idea of putting Austin on Smackdown for an immediate impact. They seem to have the approach it's better to work to get the existing talent over through long term planning, although it is well acknowledged the weakness in star power of the show and it appears most of the writing is week-to-week, although on Smackdown, what appears to be the recently changed angles based on what the Bash PPV card was at first, are for the better. Brock Lesnar's workout on 6/11 for his home town Minnesota Vikings garnered a ton of publicity, including ESPN news and many newspapers around the country. The main thing was that on a groin that had not healed, he ran a 4.75 40 at 286 pounds. Teams are interested. The Vikings didn't offer him a deal, with Coach Mike Tice telling him they had no roster spots open, but left the door open to come back in a few weeks and see if he'd improved on football skill and his groin healed. He has scheduled workouts with many other teams planned over the next month. Scott Studwell of the Vikings said he's a project with the physical tools, but has a long way to go. At the workout, his football skills were not there, as he struggled with the agility drills and had trouble getting into a defensive stance. He didn't have the first step, footwork or hand speed they look for. While this didn't make the local media, an inside source on the Vikings said they were a lot more negative about him than came out. His actual workout was bad, and they were not impressed. The other problem is that he had an MRI done on his body by the Vikings, and he had a lot of physical issues, as far as injuries going in, from those three plus years in pro wrestling. Still, the feeling is some team will take a chance and sign him. Even though people in football really don't understand how quickly Lesnar adapted to becoming a top pro wrestler and wouldn't respect that, they do respect his NCAA championship because everyone in football knows the type of training and skill it takes to win that title. Tice suggested Lesnar hire an ex-defensive end to coach him on his football skills, and not worry so much on the gym training he's been doing to have impressive sprint, bench press, squat, and jumping numbers. Tice said he liked Lesnar and saw a glimmer, and if he had a roster spot open, he'd consider rolling the dice. Lesnar has made it clear he'd rather play with the Vikings than any other team, because of his daughter living in the area. Being away from his daughter so much was a big factor in his leaving WWE. The Big Show did a TSN web site interview and said he's lost 30 pounds since having knee surgery, and is targeting August or September for his return. He said they had to drill his kneecap because his knee was bone-on-bone. He also talked a lot about the Bradshaw controversy. His take was Bradshaw made a mistake but isn't a bad person. He said it was a decision in the heat of the moment that turned out to be bad, but it wasn't with malice and just a mistake. He said as a heel, it's hard because doing things like ripping on the local sports team isn't as effective as it used to be so you have to do more things to be a heel and push the envelope. He said John Layfield may have crossed the line but he didn't mean to offend people to that magnitude. To show how much of a turnaround UPN has made as a viable network, it’s up front ad sales were up 40% from last year. Evidently the TV advertising for Shawn Michaels vs. HHH in a street fight for 6/26 in Madison Square Garden was either false advertising, or a lack of communications. Since the promotions side is really strict these days about not false advertising, and the cards themselves are booked more for internal purposes and for venues to publicize, it is most likely that as of a week ago they were intending on Michaels staying at least two more weeks. The Raw tour not only sold out all four shows, but the merchandise business was through the roof. They did $772,000 in merchandise over four shows, which was $17.71 per person for the two shows in Dublin as well as Manchester and Birmingham. Mick Foley postponed his knee surgery after getting a second opinion. He would be available if asked for the 7/25 Hustle show and Hustle has apparently talked about it but not made a concrete offer. Attorneys for Dale Gagner of the AWA responded to the WWE legal letters threatening suit if they don't cease and desist from using the AWA and All-Star Wrestling names, since WWE believes they own the rights through purchasing the intellectual properties of Verne Gagne's AWA. The Gagner attorneys’ response was to tell WWE they own rights to both names and for WWE to cease and desist using the AWA and All-Star Wrestling names and threaten legal action if they did. I can't even recall WWE using the name, and I doubt they'd put out an AWA DVD just because it's going back too many years. The AWA video library is valuable because it has tapes of a lot of people like Bobby Heenan, Hulk Hogan, and Jesse Ventura, who are still well known. There is a lot of heat on Rikishi right now. First off, they asked him to lose weight and he lost little if any. Then he hurt his ankle, which is why he hasn't been around. They wanted him to come back but he was still injured, but managed to work a show for Afa in Allentown a few weeks ago, and you can imagine how that went over, even though he actually didn't do much in that match. Then, afterwards, apparently without telling the office, he underwent nasal surgery to help with his breathing in the ring, which will keep him out of action longer. According to those close to him, he signed a great contract, with a downside far more than you'd think for someone at his level. This works against him when he's hurt and they think he's not coming back as soon as he can. The heat is bad enough that it wouldn't shock me to see him fired. The Louisville Courier-Journal ran a main story and two sidebars on the success of the Eugene character. It noted that at 28, he has knee, back and neck issues already. He said a recent chair shot to the head compressed some vertebrae in his neck, and said his back and neck are killing him. He's had three knee operations, the first coming from high school football in 1993. His team won the state championship his senior year, and he also did well in high school wrestling. As you can imagine he's thrilled beyond belief about his last few weeks and character. The much talked about WWE Hall of Fame DVD will be the basis of the July Fanatix PPV. Victoria was told to drop the dance routine in her ring entrance. It was her idea but people thought it was too goofy. She was told it was too time consuming. Eric Bischoff did a radio interview this past week, and I guess he sure hates Konnan. When asked by the host in a trivia question about Konnan's finishing move, he said he couldn't remember it, and then said how Konnan sucked the air out of the building every time he wrestled. Reports were that Bischoff was incredibly rude to Konnan when he was at the shows a few weeks back. Chris Masters in developmental suffered a broken nose from tag partner Brent Albright when they were training on spots in front of Tom Prichard. Edge was scheduled to headline the 7/9 Six Flags show, but was pulled for an overseas promotional tour. Eddie Guerrero is being sent at the replacement. The 9/12 Unforgiven PPV (Smackdown) will be from the Rose Garden in Portland, which I believe is the first PPV ever in that city. For years, both WWF and WCW wouldn't run that city because the athletic commission actually drug tested. The Ultimate Warrior did an interesting multi-part interview with reader Daniel Flynn last week. He mentioned his famous 1990 match with Hulk Hogan, and said they only went over it one day, in an old building in Florida. Jim Hellwig said most of the guys used steroids, even people you would never imagine, just to keep up with the lifestyle. He said when Hogan lied on Arsenio Hall in 1991, it caused a lot of friction between Hogan and Vince McMahon (Vince never said it publicly, but I sensed that at the time). ''Hogan would say that Vince, by really trying to clean up, was dealing with it the wrong way. Hellwig said Vince was afraid he was going to go to jail at the time. He said the guys at the time were looking for ways to beat the tests, and were mad that the bodybuilders in WBF at the time were getting guaranteed contracts (Vince didn't start giving wrestlers guaranteed contracts aside from Hogan and a few others until 1996 when Brian Pillman came in). I sure can recall numerous wrestlers complaining about going out breaking their backs while Vince gave all this money to bodybuilders who just stayed home and went to the gym. He said he hated the Papa Shango angle but Vince had his mind set on it and he'd be on the road all worn down when he came to TV, and just didn't get it modified much. William Regal is medically cleared to wrestle. The 10/19 RAW PPV on a Tuesday night has internally been confirmed to be called Halloween Havoc. The 6/13 Smackdown house show in St. Louis drew 3,100, which was down from 8,900 when Raw came to the same building on 3/28. The 6/14 Raw in Dayton drew a good house, nearly full, estimated at 8,500. The 6/14 Smackdown house show in Springfield, IL drew 1,400 (down from 4,734 for a Raw show in the same building on 2/21). The 6/15 Smackdown TV taping in Chicago drew an estimated 7,000.

When did Meltzer say this?

John Bradshaw Layfield on Howard Stern – June 18th, 2004 Early in the show Howard was on a political diatribe about the Bush administration and censorship. While Stern was going off on the president, I could imagine JBL (a solid Bush supporter) was squirming while listening in the green room. This can be interesting. Howard previewed the JBL segment and admitted he knew very little about wrestling and called him Bradshaw. Robin asked if he knew if Bradshaw was his real or wrestling name and Howard said he was not sure. Howard started bring the readers up to speed on the Germany incident by memory and the fact the Bradshaw was fired from either CNBC or MSNBC as a financial analyst and thought Bradshaw was screwed over. Howard also mentioned how late he was running and that Bradshaw will be up next after they break for a commercial. Howard came back from break and introduced his guest “Bradshaw” as a WWE wrestler and promoted his GAB match against Eddie Guerrero. Artie kidded that when he was walking in with a suit on he looked like a Nazi lawyer. They covered Bradshaw being hired by CNBC. They talked about his Germany incident and Howard asked if the goose-stepping, etc. was written for him and Bradshaw admitted a large part was, but not that. They talked about how he was in character as the bad guy when he performed in Germany. Bradshaw said he and other wrestlers have been doing similar heel tactics in Germany for years and how everywhere he goes he uses similar tactics (down south he brings up the KKK, etc.). Bradshaw said the Germany press said what he did was not illegal despite reports and that nobody in Germany was offended, except CNBC (S_D edit: is that why a fan was ejected trying to attack Bradshaw for it?). They started covering Bradshaw’s financial background and his firing from CNBC. Bradshaw said he might not sue because he is not a litigious type. They took a few phone calls, including a Stern caller “Eric the Midget” that took offense because Eric had family that fought in WW2 and Bradshaw said his family fought in the war as well and even lost a member. A caller brought up the wrestling websites that Bradshaw offended and asked if they had anything to do with the CNBC uproar and Bradshaw admitted that it did. He said some guy that ran a small wrestling website from Florida started the CNBC situation by emailing them with wrong info about the situation. Howard plugged Great American Bash and asked Bradshaw if Vince was behind him and he said he was, 100%. A CNBC producer called and said they received hundreds of complaints and not just one from Florida. In the middle of the call Howard saw a photo of Bradshaw’s fiancée and bailed out of the call to say how hot she was and that Bradshaw shouldn’t get married like Stone Cold did and regret it. Stern thanked Bradshaw for coming on and said that he supported him and hoped he made most of his money from WWE instead of CNBC. Bradshaw said that he did and that Vince was a great boss. There was no mention of politics and how they have different views on the upcoming election. credit: Pro Wrestling Insider

It's already on the original Bradshaw house show incident forum.

Really? What year? Cedar Rapids is like an hour away from me... nWo Souled Out, January 25th, 1997.

There is now a very clear video of Bradshaw doing the Nazi stuff available now. http://www.nodqforums.com/jbl.mov

The main event for SummerSlam 2002 was The Rock vs. Brock Lesnar. The RAW main event for Judgment Day 2003 was Triple H vs. Kevin Nash.

This was the first time I watched Smackdown all the way through in about two months. I haven't missed much.

I remember being so excited about this match and it turned out to be a huge disappointment.

Benoit/Kane was one of Kane's best matches in a long time. It would have looked even better had it followed the HIAC snoozefest.

That main event was fucking horrible. All the shit they did we've seen before and could have been done in either a streetfight or steel cage setting. J.R. overselling it like it was the most damning match he's ever seen is stupid when we can pop in a tape of King of the Ring 1998 or No Way Out 2000 and see a 15x more brutal match.

Shit, he probably phoned up Vince and told him about it and Vince got giddy.

Saying WCW was the greatest wrestling company in the world was obviously a lie.

Ever since Vengeance '03, I have watched every PPV at the local Hooters except for No Mercy '03 and Judgment Day '04. Hooters + PPV + no cover charge = awesome. With shitty PPVs, you get what you paid for. And don't feel screwed.

Last night in Oberhausen, Eddie Guerrero apparently snapped when the fans derisively chanted at him from the start of his match against Bradshaw. He was obviously not over with them, and this led to him turning himself heel in the bout. He grabbed the mic and cut a promo saying “Germany sucks” and flipped the bird at the crowd. From the reports that I received from the show and backstage, he did so not in a “heel” manner but rather in an “it really got to him and ticked him off” sort of way. He was said to be noticeably irate by the reaction he got when he came backstage and I heard that management was very angry by the actions he took out in the ring, especially considering he is the brand’s champion. Many people in the company feel that with the banged-up state of his body and the recent bout of shock he had after his PPV match with JBL, Eddie is really dragging right now and is very tired as he pushes himself to go on because he is carrying the title. Some are wondering if the rigors of being the champion are wearing him down and seeing him snap in the ring yesterday came at a really bad time and ended the tour on a sour note for WWE. From what I heard, the talk was that he would be fined for his actions. CREDIT: PWInsider.com

It was serious enough for CNBC to fire him.

Somebody brought up that this morning, Bradshaw's picture was in the middle of the rectangular Smackdown advertisement and a few hours later, it was replaced with a picture of John Cena.

One firing down, one to go.

After doing negotiations this week, the company did manage to get the TV into a nearly uniform 3 p.m. Friday start in most of the country, with 3 p.m. being the time in every time zone. The only exceptions at this point are New York, which airs Tuesday at 2:30 p.m., Philadelphia, which airs Saturday at midnight and the Comcast Mid Atlantic sports station that airs on Saturday at 4 a.m. TNA officials were bragging during the week at how good the set in Orlando looks. TNA was averaging 650 buys per week total in Canada as of a few months back. Viewers Choice Canada was happy with those figures. Numbers are believed to be down from that today. They are talking with Samoa Joe about bringing him in with Jonny Fairplay. The company is back talking with Fairplay thinking his notoriety will help them when they start on TV. Fairplay suggested the idea of Joe, and the office people (who deep down hate ROH and while it's never said publicly, several close to the situation say it's a common theme) loved the idea of stripping ROH of its champion. There is no deal in place because Joe at this point has refused to bail on ROH without at least going out professionally, and as of the weekend, the negotiations had not reached the serious level. Fox Sports Net wants a clean product, no women tearing clothes or suggestively dressed, no swearing and obviously is also means no blading. But the company is also pretty much under the gun when it comes to the PPVs, and while I don't know blood is banned forever, it will be used sparingly if at all. Konnan was scheduled at both the PPV and TV tapings this week. He said good byes last week to some of his friends in the company saying he was going to WWE. He has not gotten a release, and due to tampering laws, WWE will not negotiate with him until he gets a release. The reports are they purchased two different six-sided rings. Nobody has been clear whether the Wednesday shows will also use a six-sided ring or not, but I guess we'll know soon enough, although we did hear there were plans to set up the ring before the show on 6/2 so people could practice for 6/3. Although Frank Goodman wrote on his web site that he wasn't going to book TNA talent because of the 15% surcharge deal, his next show on 6/19 in Franklin Square, NY has both Raven and D-Lo Brown booked. Terry Taylor is trying to get back in for his agent/backstage role and he may have just been rehired. As noted before, his wife, after all these years, wanted him out of wrestling. He tried to do the right thing and got a job selling cars in the Atlanta area. He liked it so much he quit after his first day, and now is trying to get his wrestling job back.

It's equally as ridiculous to be biased for Eddie in this situation when he's already blown up at house show fans twice.