The Decemberists

There's rumours we're getting someone on loan from Spurs and Danny Cullip will be off to QPR but I can't see anything happening considering it took thirty days to get two deals done the odds on us doing anything on the last day are slim.

We were even more useless against Chelsea than I'd expected. Anyway, no one cares about the FA Cup, what's important is that we've made two signing! David Prutton on loan till the end of the season (when his contract runs out and if we go out apparantly he's staying) and Luke Chambers from Northampton - 21 year old defender who Calderwood had as his captain there. Quietly confident these two will make a big difference.

As of this weekend they have four matches planned for Wrestlemania. Cena vs Edge vs Orton; Undertaker vs Batista; Hogan vs Shane McMahon with Khali in his corner; Shawn Michaels vs King Booker with Donald Trump managing Michaels and Vince managing Booker. That final match is still not a done deal, but the rest are seemingly in place. Dave Lagana pushed hard for Monty Brown to keep his name, but Vince wouldn't listen to his arguments and decided Marquis Cor Von was the way to go. Brian Gerwitz wanted Brown on Raw, but Lagana did manage to convince Vince to put him on ECW saying he could be a big challenger for Lashley and the top heel on ECW. Arn Anderson and Fit Finlay have been pushing for Bob Holly to be ECW's top heel and have convinced Vince that was the direction to go, but Holly may have suffered nerve damage in his elbow from previous surgery and will need another operation and there's a chance his career may questionable so Monty Brown is there to plug in that spot if needed. Vince McMahon went nuts at the 1/16 tapings. He was already mad about the New Years Revolution PPV. He hated the ECW TV show and was screaming that there was no one in ECW who knew how to work. He was especially angry about the main event as he felt Lashley sold far too much to be a credible champion on the same level as the Raw and SD champions. Arn Anderson got some heat as he was the agent for the match and argued that it was Test and RVD's fault as they felt they 'had to get their shit it'. Vince has said he never wants the ECW TV to go out live again so they can try and edit together a decent show. Dusty Rhodes has been moved to ECW to help Lagana with the creative on Lagana's request. Michael Hayes wasn't happy about the decision as Rhodes has been having a major influence on SD which has improved greatly in the eyes of the McMahons recently. Sabu and Sandman are endangered species. Sabu doesn't like working when he can't do stunts and they've decided to not put him on the road anymore, and Sandman, although he's popular and still getting pushed right now, can't really do anything without his weapons. The company is going all out to sign up RVD. Not because they want to keep him particuarly, but just to stop him going to TNA. RVD though gives the impression that he's as good as gone. Before the 1/16 show Vince and John Laurinaitis made a big speach about Sylvan being arrest for speeding as he was trying to get back from the gym to a show and as a result of that the boys are no longer allowed to go to the gym after checking in at the building. RVD then said, in front of Vince and in a very mocking tone "Johnny, can we go to the gym before we come to building?" He sounded like a little boy who's at his last day at a school so knows he can say what he wants to his teachers. CM Punk's push is now completely dead. Almost nobody backstage likes him as they feel he's got an attitude that only the top guys should have. If he was a "top guy" like Kevin Nash people would think his comments were funny and cool, but as he's not a main eventer he's got an attitude problem. He won't be cut however as there is concern that he could become a star in TNA. There are no plans for this years Hall of Fame to be on TV. It has been confirmed that it is Shantelle Taylor in the Sensay suit. There are plans to bring in mini's dressed as Vince and Donald Trump.

The line up for Against All Odds Christian Cage vs Kurt Angle, with Samoa Joe as ringside enforcer Sting vs Abyss AJ Styles vs Rhine Lance Hoyt w/ David Eckstein vs Dale Torborg w/ AJ Pierzynski LAX vs Team 3D James Storm & Miss Tennessee vs Petey Williams & Gail Kim Chris Sabin vs Jerry Lynn At taped two hour special will be shown on 2/12 when Raw in pre-empted. On 2/16 TNA will be getting a three hour block to go head to head with the first run airing of Raw between 8pm and 11pm. CNN Headline News put AJ Pierzynski's chair shot on Hoyt on its regular rotation. It also recieved heavy press in Chicago. Before the last PPV there was a disagreement with Nash and Backlund. Nash wanted to put one over on Backlund by talking about "gimmicks" (wrestler talk for getting high on somas or other forms of downers) and other drug references that he thought Backlund wouldn't get. Backlund though did get what he was talking about and threatened to leave unless Nash changed it. Konnan spent nine days in the hospital after getting his hip replaced. Doctors have told him not to wrestle for at least six months, so obviously he's booked himself to work for AAA in three months time. His problem is his kidneys though. His mother has volunteered to be a donor and so far all the testing on her is going well. AAA is planning on doing a benefit show in February to help pay for it, and WWE has agreed to let Rey Mysterio appear. Konnan was told the damage to his kidneys was not consistant with what would be expected after heavy steroid use, but rather was due to heavy use of pain killers, anti-inflammatory drugs and a high protien diet. Morale is down again. There is now a real divide between the star group (Nash, Sting, Angle, Christian, Jarrett) and the rest of the roster. The star group not only get more money but also have a seperate dressing room to the rest of the workers. Brother Ray has a lot of heat over the last PPV match with LAX over eating up Homicide. There is still talk of adding members to LAX. Konnan has been pushing hard for Senshi, but his attitude is such that TNA aren't sure about pushing him. The booking committee have suggested bringing Apolo and Machete back to the group. Dutch Mantel, Vince Russo and Jeff Jarrett have asked Mike Tenay to rejoin the booking committee. They have also asked Jim Cornette to join the committee and Cornette has agreed in principle but they haven't come to a deal over money yet. Even with Tenay and Cornette involved though Russo will still be in charge and will continue to have the greatest impact in the shows. The Lockdown PPV will take place at the 10,000 capacity Family Arena is St Louis. They want Lita to be the star of their woman's division. Steiner is planned to be Christian's consultant.

We always denined any interest in him, which was a shame. He's the kind of player we need as well as we keep getting out faught in midfield. Betsy should be a good signing. Always did a job a for me on FM2005

We've still not signed anyone, which is a bit of a concern. We've let three or four leave on frees though so it's not as if we've got no money to pay wages. CC is now claming we're better off with a smaller squad, which sounds like he's given up on managing to get anyone to come.

Hey, they sent a message around to everyone on their myspace and... y'know, the internet's the future and... err... It annoys me so much when TNA fuck things up like this as it's just common fucking sense to make a big play on last weeks Impact about next week being on a Wednesday. Even not being live they should be able to add post-production stuff, surely?

I like Borash. He stands there, asks questions and reacts. I really don't see him stealing the scene or anything like that. He knows what his job is, which is more than any of the woman do and is probably the closest there is to Mene Gene was back when he didn't have a hotline to plug. (although I can see how some people may not see that as being a good thing).

As everyone on here knows Hogan leaked the possible names for thte HoF. These are listed below with what Meltzer said; The Von Erichs - Part of the deal to sell the World Class tapes was their induction and DVD release. Ultimate Warrior - Will draw a curiosity rating, and his incoherent homophobic promo would be worth the price of admission alone. Very unlikely. The Sheik - WM is in Detroit and The Sheik was the local legend. Apparantly he's going in and being inducted by Sabu. But Vince never really like him, and Sabu could easilly get himself fired by March. Ric Flair - Flair says he doesn't want to go in until he retires, and after his recent divorce that won't be happening in the next two months. Mr Fuji - Record setting run of WON Worst Manager awards and legendary ribber. Why not? Nick Bockwinkel - It'll be strange seeing him thank Vince for making his career possible. But it at least means Bobby Heenan can induct him and save the show. Muhammad Ali - He lives in Detroit and they're desperate for the press attention he'd get. Mr. T - If it wasn't for Mr. T and Cyndi Lauper, we'd still be watching wrestling on out 19 inch black and white TV and going to matches in smoke filled halls. Mike Tyson - Mike may be tied up. Or locked up. Howard Finkel - Sure, why not? Then all the kids can talk about how stupid McMahon was taking the second best ring announcer of all time off TV as he wasn't good looking enough. Plus it's a reward for him taking a blood test instead of Hogan for the Oregon state athletic commssion. Jim Ross - Anyone think Mike Goldberg looks at those who told him to stick with UFC rather than take the Raw job and feels they gave him bad career advice? Ken Patera - Former roommate of Flair so it gives Flair an excuse to induct someone. No matter how much bad stuff he says about Vince these days, he hasn't forgot that when he was in prison for beating up cops in Waukesha, WI Vince kept sending him regular pay checks. King Curtis Iaukea - Held the tag team titles for three months in 1973. Clearly his career is nothing compared to Rob Conway and Slyvan Grenier. Ted DiBiase - The owe him this after sacking him from his agent job as the company as losing so much money. Not because he was only agent who wrote honest reports, obviously. Honky Tonk Man - Strange how his spoof IC title run was so successful some people really do think he was the Greatest InterContinental Champion of All-Time. Dusty Rhodes - They've no choice but to put him in really. Plus he can tell the story of how, on his death bed, Vince Sr. rang him to say he was only man powerful enough to stop what his son was about to do. Randy Savage - Although Dusty weighs enough for two, they need another Main Eventer and it is 20 years since his Steamboat match. And there's a good chance he'll walkout when he sees Hogan's there. Dick Ebersol - To make up for the XFL. The Wild Samoans - Just for Afa mouthing the words "Not Guilty" to the jury in the 1994 trial. Big Bossman Bob Backlund - He's turned it down before as he thinks it's a joke. Rick Rude - There's never too many people for Heenan to induct. The being dead thing though is an issue this year with all the Von Erich's going in. The Bushwhackers - Probably not this year. And they can show Finkel doing the Bushwhacker walk anyway. Rocky Johnson - They really want The Rock to be there. The Brooklyn Brawler - Won them the case over Nichole Bass claiming sexual harassment as she said he was one of the offenders and no one on the jury could believe it. Of all of those Hogan picked the following - Bossman, Curtis, Dusty, Savage, Samoans, Von Erichs, Rude, Bushwhackers and Finkel. There actually is a company vote for the WWE Hall of Fame. The vote thought is weighed by what Vince feels is that persons wrestling knowledge, which means that Vince's one vote is worth 51% of the over all total. Raw on 1/8 drew a 3.65. ECW on 1/9 drew 1.45 rating and 1.71 million viewers. Smackdown on 1/12 drew a 2.6 rating. Big Dave vs Undertaker at WM is almost definate. There has been talk of Cena vs HBK but they don't want two face vs face matches on the show. Edge and Orton are the two leading candiates for the Cena match. They'd prefer Orton as they feel Edge/Cena has been done to death. There has also been talk of a three way with Edge, Orton and Cena. Hogan has been asked about three possible matches. Hogan vs Khali; Hogan vs Umaga; Hogan managed by Trump vs Shane McMahon managed by Vince with Khali as the McMahon bodyguard to get the Hogan body slam on the giant pop. As things stand right now Trump won't be able to be on Raw till after 3/12. Show is yet to say yes or no to any involvment in Mania. THe idea was raised of putting someone with Michaels a new DX member to get them over. HHH put a stop to it. CM Punk now has heat for 'excessivly making out with Maria' when they were in Iraq, as well as what he usually has heat for. Vince read the riot act to the Raw crew the Monday after New Years Revoltion. He was not happy with the PPV at all. The 'Japanese' wrestler Sensai who's been working dark matches is believed to be Shantelle Taylor, a pretty woman wrestler from Ontario. "See No Evil" is at $14.78 million on video gross. Big Dave isn't popular with the boys backstage. They feel he's got no passion for the busniess and is just a body who can't work and who's still coasting on his HHH angle. They're already going after WSX. Teddy Hart is being offered a deal, and there's interest in Matt Sydal and Ruckus.

Yes, but you've got to admit there's more a cross over between MMA and pro wrestling styles between boxing and pro wrestling. Boxing is different though in the way it's organsised though, plus you're not going to have a UFC + IFL +Pride Champion in the same way you can have a WBO + WBC + IBF Champion in boxing. And the WBO isn't really a 'promotion' the way WWE or UFC is. Don King would be the promotor rather than the organisation. I think. Boxing isn't really my strong point and I think I'm just rambling now so I'll stop before I start making even less sense.

Title match snowflakes added and Joe/Angle typo fixed. I've not had much sleep recently is my excuse.

Why not? They have a massive cross over of fans and both do the same basic job - promote fights. The fact that one promotes fake fights and the other real fights really isn't an issue.

Lou Thesz/Ric Flair Award 1) Mistico (2,245) 2) Edge (1,985) 3) Tito Ortiz (1,620) Most Outstanding Wrestler 1) Bryan Danielson (2,646) 2) KENTA (1,938) 3) Samoa Joe (1,335) Best Box Office Draw 1) Mistico (3,112) 2) Tito Ortiz (2,902) 3) Matt Hughes (1,258) Feud of the Year 1) Tito Ortiz vs Ken Shamrock (2,877) 2) ROH vs CZW (2,267) 3) John Cena vs Edge (2,030) Tag Team of the Year 1) LAX (1,794) 2) Austin Aries & Roderick Strong (1,573) 3) AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels (1,077) Most Improved 1) Takeshi Morishimia (1,464) 2) Johnny Nitro (1,316) 3) Nigel McGuiness (851) Best on Interviews 1) Mick Foley (1,484) 2) Edge (1,317) 3) Konnan (1,285) Most Charismatic 1) John Cena (2,889) 2) Tito Ortiz (969) 3) Perrp Aguayo Jr. (848) Best Technical Wrestler 1) Bryan Danielson (3,266) 2) Chris Benoit (928) 3) KENTA (794) Bruiser Brody Memorial Award for Best Brawler 1) Samoa Joe (2,064) 2) Fit Finlay (1,640) 3) Homicide (1,172) Best Flying Wrestler 1) Mistico (2,957) 2) AJ Styles (1,513) 3) Jack Evans (1,217) Most Overrated 1) Batista (1,422) 2) Jeff Jarrett (1,294) 3) HHH (770) Most Underrated 1) Shelton Benjamin (1,510) 2) William Regal (1,139) 3) Matt Hardy (717) Promotion of the Year 1) UFC (4,164) 2) ROH (1,856) 3) CMLL (1,578) Best Weekly TV Show 1) Ultimate Fighter (3,345) 2) CMLL (1,496) 3) WWE Smackdown (1,337) Shootfighter of the Year 1) Mirko Cro Cop (3,039) 2) Georges St Pierre (1,676) 3) Chuck Liddel (1,306) Worked Match of the Year 1) Dragon Kid & Ryo Saito & Genki Horiguchi vs Cima & Naruki Doi & Masato Yoshino - 3/15, Chicago (1,994) 2) KENTA vs Naomichi Marufuji - 10/29, Tokyo Budokan (1,968) 3) Bryan Danielson vs KENTA - 9/16, New York (1,805) Shoot Match of the Year 1) Diego Sanchez vs Karo Parisyan - 8/17, Las Vegas (1,677) 2) Matt Hughes vs BJ Penn - 9/23, Anaheim (1,492) 3) Josh Barnett vs Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira - 9/10, Saitama (1,367) Rookie of the Year 1) Atsushi Aoki (2,655) 2) Cody Runnels (1,159) 3) Shuhei Taniguchi (1,062) Best Non-Wrestler 1) Jim Cornette (2,101) 2) Konnan (1,414) 3) Jim Mitchell (688) Best TV Announcer 1) Jim Ross (1,998) 2) JBL (1,580) 3) Mauro Ranallo (1,347) Worst TV Announcer 1) Todd Grisham (1,877) 2) Michael Cole (1,504) 3) Jonathan Coachman (1,465) Best Major Wrestling Show 1) ROH 9/16 Glory By Honor V (1,504) 2) Pride Final Conflict 9/10 (1,468) 3) ROH 3/31 Supercard of Honor (958) Worst Major Wrestling Show 1) UFC 61 7/8 (155) 2) WWE Cyber Sunday 11/5 (107) 3) WWE Royal Rumble 1/29 (92) Best Wrestling Maneuver 1) Go 2 Sleep (KENTA) (213) 2) Candian Destroyer (Petey Williams) (116) 3) Gringo Killa (Homicide) (89) Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic 1) Eddie Guerrero Exploitation (682) 2) IWA having Savio Vega stab Invader in the chest (37) 3) Vince McMahon vs God (24) Worst TV Show 1) WWE Raw (245) 2) WWE ECW (173) 3) TNA Impact (143) Worst Match of the Year 1) TNA Reverse Battle Royal 10/24 (103) 2) Kane vs Fake Kane 6/25 (82) 3) Undertaker vs Big Show 7/23 (79) Worst Feud of the Year 1) DX vs McMahons (221) 2) DX vs Spirit Squad (90) 3) Kane vs Fake Kane (82) Worst Promotion of the Year 1) WWE (244) 2) NJPW (225) 3) TNA (205) Best Booker 1) Gabe Sapolsky (588) 2) Juan Manuel Mar (119) 3) Joe Silva (98) Promoter of the Year 1) Dana White (834) 2) Paco Alonso (77) 3) Cary Silkin (23) Best Gimmick 1) LAX (184) 2) King Booker (127) 3) Delirious (68) Worst Gimmick 1) Vito (131) 2) VKM (86) 3) Fake Kane (79) Best Pro Wrestling Book 1) Tangled Ropes by Superstar Billy Graham/Keith Greenburg (154) 2) The Cowboy and the Cross by Bill Watts/Scott Williams (109) 3) Cheating Death, Stealing Life, by Eddie Guerrero/Michael Krugman (85) Best Pro Wrestling DVD 1) The Bret Hart Story (299) 2) Hero's of World Class (297) 3) Loose Cannon: The Brian Pillman Story (139)

Final Resolution Star Ratings 1) Rhino vs AJ = *** 2) Sabin vs Lynn vs Daniels = ***1/4 3) Shelley vs Starr = ** 4) Storm vs Petey = **1/4 5) LAX vs 3D = 3/4* 6) Joe vs Angle = ***1/2 7) Sting vs Xtian vs Abyss = ***1/4 News Usual TNA PPV. Mostly good matches but nothing great. Big problem is they come across as a minor league promotion desperatly trying to get attention and get one more shot at the big time. What seem to sum up TNA is that in the VKM segment at the PPV they mocked WWE for having people chanting "TNA" during the Rosie/Donald skit, but later in the same segment they had their own fans chanting "We Want Wrestling". Angle suffered a concussion at the 8:00 mark in the Iron Man Match. Angle always calls his own matches, but from that moment on the match was called by Joe and Earl Hebner. Incase anyone's been wondering and doesn't know, TNA's 'Big Fat Oily Guy' is Tiny the Timekeeper from the Nashville days. The angle where Gail Kim has to stick with James Storm or she'll lose her job as TNA doesn't have a woman's divsion is carny for we're adding a woman's division. More evidence that Russo and company are determined to pretend it's still 1998 and are happy to ignore the way ratings drop drasticly in WWE for woman's segments. Konnan had his hip operation on 1/11. Just the fact he had it is very good news as they felt he was healthy enough to survive the surgery thanks to the dialysis he's been on. The doctors have told him that in four to six months he'll be moving better than he has in years. He'll be back home in San Diego on 1/17 and there has even been talk of him being back on the 1/29 tapings. As things stand TNA is to have a special airing on 2/12 when Raw is pre-empted for the Westminster Dog Show. It's not 100% yet and no one's sure if it'll be a one or two-hour show. With a PPV on 2/11 the show is almost going to have to be either live or on a two-hour tape delay as TNA won't want to pre-record the show in order not to give away the PPV results. The special would then be repeated on the Thursday in the regular time slot. The booking team is trying to come up a shoot concept to be different to WWE. The vague idea is to have all X Division matches have time limits but have real judges deciding the outcome based on who gave the best performance in the match. Again, this would be a shoot decision. This is not a completely new idea, but no one in the past has ever worked out a way to get it to work. Bischoff talked to Meltzer about it after WCW went down and even Nick Bockwinkel has talked about this idea in the past. The problem with it is that you'd get wrestlers working selfishly and possibly even going out of their way to make their opponents look bad. More office cut backs - staff have been told to either double up at the Doubletree hotel or stay at a cheaper hotel as long as TNA continues to pay. Angle was on the George Michael Sports Show. He was described as the TNA heavyweight champion. He said no one in TNA tells him what to do, he calls his matches, wrestles them how he wants and tries to make them as real as possible. He also claimed again he wants to do an MMA fight. Which he doesn't really based on how much money he's turned down for doing one. The UWF group on 2/3 has a Team 3D vs Steiner Brothers match booked. This is something that TNA have been wanting to do for a long time, but due to Scott's contract issues the timing's never worked out. Kevin Nash is claiming he's the reason Jeremy Borash is back doing the interviews. Nash was fed with interviews having to be done over and over again as Leticia Crana didn't know what she was doing. Nash made a remark along the lines of asking if her boobs were good enough to justify hanging round till 1am doing the same interview over and over. HTQ can C&P with credit elsewhere.

Well maybe not Angle...