Fro

He's got a good case, particularly since he's used the gimmick a long time and had national TV exposure on WCW and TNA. This is no stupider than Marvel suing WWF over "Hulk" Hogan.

There's no way the ECW guys aren't going over easily (and it'll just be a wild brawl with a bunch of plunder). Anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot.

That's not true... Vince has been ribbed a few times before. I believe the best one people played on him was they filled up his office at Titan Tower with various farm animals. I think Stephanie is fair game.

They have this thing with taking wrestler's well-known entrance riffs and making them into modern rock-ish songs with vocals. They did the same thing with Chris Benoit and Kane. Smaller acts don't get words, and Stevie Richards only gets two chords. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It really depends on the band who gets a hold of it. Benoit's theme was a huge improvement. RVD's was a good upgrade, HHH went from "Wah Wah Wah" --> "My Time" --> "Time to Play the Game". Kane's redone theme is probably the best out of all them (Finger 11 actually put in the effort to flesh it out into a full song instead of stopping after 90 seconds). Austin's redone theme flopped. The Batista one is pretty meh.

Um, the show has aired already. If you don't want Raw spoiled, don't read the forums after the show has aired.

Apparently, Dean's opponent was Alex Shelley.

Actually, everyone looked pretty good except for Axl. Balls is less fat than before.

Not counting Rock? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yep. I can't really think of any, not a single one. That is why I don't think they would just pull the plug on Cena. WWE created this character, the fans love him, and they are now going all the way with it, for better or for worse. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The other thing is they invested all that money filming the Marine, starring Cena. They're not going to piss that away just to please HHH.

He definitely needs to jump, however it needs to be the last week or he needs to force Bischoff to trade him.

Meltzer says otherwise... Styles and.............. Mick Foley!

That really opens up a lot of options for color commentary. It'll be interesting to see how they handle it. Most logically, it'll be Styles/Taz with maybe Dreamer, RVD, or Heyman dropping by at some point. But any of those guys, plus Gertner is possible.

Carlito and Cena could probably have a great brawl, but that's about it. A straight-up wrestling match between them would suck. I don't think Carlito is going to get a ton better in the ring, considering he's already main evented for a few years in Puerto Rico. He didn't come into OVW inexperienced or anything.

He's pretty decent on the mic... Lance Storm with an edge at worst. The big thing is he's great at playing a whining jackass (because that seems to be his real personality). He's never had any problems getting over big wherever he's wrestled. The problem is he's a jackass behind the scenes too.

Hart trying to get along with Jim Cornette in OVW = comedy gold.

Cole got a lot better when Tazz first joined up with him on Smackdown. Both of them seem to be regressing since they get fed a ton of crap to shill all the time and they're probably sick of Vince yelling in their headset. Ross has the stroke to call his own matches, by gawd.

http://www.liveaudiowrestling.com/wo/news/...t.asp?aID=13356 Meltzer rumor kills. They're still in discussions with WGN but there are significant negatives to TNA in the deal on the table. Sounds like the earliest we can expect a deal is next week.

By the way, WGN is expecting TNA to do a 0.5 in the ratings, and they will be "thrilled" with 0.7 The late replay on Saturday nights of TNA does a 0.26 on average and the daytime airing on Friday does a 0.22, so those numbers are *very* attainable. This is from the Observer this week.

They think it pops a rating (and it may draw in a different demographic). They also have all these women to push in magazines and sell DVDs of. I still think the eventual plan is to spin off a women's-only brand or at least run some PPVs with only them.

This is definitely a bogus rumor.

July 4th and August 8th are the only two Cubs games in that timeslot after the deal begins. They could actually air a 1-hour version of TNA on the 4th since the Baseball game starts at 6 EST. There are no White Sox games in that timeslot for the rest of the season. The Bulls weren't aired on WGN on Monday nights during the 2004-2005 season. The preemptions for sports isn't a big problem. If the show draws some solid ratings they'll schedule the WGN telecasts of Cubs games around it next season. There is going to be absolutely no overrun on WGN due to the news following TNA. Unless the show starts doing monster ratings I think you can throw that idea out the window.

I think they need to start off with a 6-man X-Division tag match. I'd have Jarrett and Monty Brown wrestle a tag match. AJ needs to wrestle every week, he's their ace, although I wouldn't have a World Title Match the first show. Styles needs to be shown off. Abyss needs to fight a guy above jobber level in a match. Daniels needs to defend the X-Division title. Petey Williams needs to hit a Canadian Destroyer in a match. They need to have Jeff Hardy on the show and start teasing that Matt is coming in. Raven needs to cut a badass promo. They need to drag out the story with Gunn and James reforming through this show. Killings needs to go solo after that and be a main event threat. Hard booking a show because we don't know who they're bringing in.

Comcast is supposed to be adding WGN gradually to their packages nationwide. It's part of the deal the Tribune (who owns WGN) struck with Comcast to create Comcast Sports Chicago.

Probably because the world doesn't revolve around New York City. Reaching 70% of the country in a constant, great timeslot on a channel that isn't preempted on a channel people watch is better than reaching 90% in a changing terrible timeslot that's frequently preempted and on a channel people don't watch. That would be true if you know, they weren't going head to head with the competition for half of the show. TNA's total viewers in NYC will be roughly 0%, because unless you have a dish, you won't get the show. It would be one thing to give up some small city like Milwaukee, it's kind of foolish to give up NYC. Hasn't it been proven that anywhere from 0.3-0.5 of SD's usual 3.0-3.2ish is strictly from NY when it's been pre-empted for baseball or football? I don't know, but it seems kind of silly to give up at least 10% of my audience for any reason. That's easily offset by the fact there are a ton more people watching TV at 8 pm than 4 pm, midnight on a Thursday, or Saturdays at 1 am. Furthermore, we don't know the exact details of the deal yet. It could include syndication by WGN-owned WPIX in NYC in another timeslot.

Probably because the world doesn't revolve around New York City. Reaching 70% of the country in a constant, great timeslot on a channel that isn't preempted on a channel people watch is better than reaching 90% in a changing terrible timeslot that's frequently preempted and on a channel people don't watch.

Meltzer sez: Odds look pretty good that there will not be a lot of downtime for them, however they're not going to be able to make a live show on Memorial Day at this point, so the first Monday night show will be on June 13th. I would guess they may tape a "special preview" or something of TNA to air on sometime on WGN during the week of the 6th of June (probably Tuesday night?) at the scheduled Impact tapings next week.