Hunter's Torn Quad

--Tito Ortiz signed yesterday for the Chuck Liddell fight on 12/30 in Las Vegas

Cena's best matches are heavily gimmicked which covers his weaknesses. When it comes to regular matches, Cena is good enough that he can be carried to something good but can only work as well as the guy he's facing. He's had good to great matches because of combination of those factors. The problems come when Cena is put against an inferior worker, because he can't carry people.

What's funny is that Dixie Carter supposedly knows that Jeff Jarrett isn't working on top, and yet Jeff retains booking power. Jeff was the one making the final call on everything, so if things need to get changed creatively, why not change the guy who makes the final call as well as changing the people doing the rest of booking? Then again, they did keep the pro-Jarrett people from the old committee around and bring in a guy who always pushes Jeff hard, so it's really just a new wrapping for the same stale package. On the bright said, Meltzer says there are other announcements, so we might get more than just Russo and a potential change of timeslot.

No idea, but apparently someone did and Keller mentioned it.

You didn't need Keller to tell you it's not going to be The Rock or Jim Ross.

Meltzer thinks it'll be interspersed through the show. I guess the idea being that people will have to stay tuned for the chance to see a woman naked.

HHH vs Kurt Angle Unforgiven 2000 You can say that of all their matches. Even though it looks like a ****+ match on paper, in the ring, they've only ever had solid matches, and not the really good or even great ones you'd expect.

Wade Keller said that he expects Vince Russo to lobby for Sting to put over Christian and Joe before his contract is up. It'll mean more of Sting puts over one person instead of two, and if it is just on person he puts over it should be Joe. The UX Match seems to have started getting top billing as the main event for No Surrender over Joe/Jarrett. Not sure if it's because of Russo, but either way, Keller feels it deserves top billing because most people are smart enough to tell that Joe/Jarrett is a transitional match at best, whereas the UX match is a true title match. I agree with this. UX is likely to tear the house down and there is no way for Joe vs. Jarrett to follow it. Keller reports that Russo has a plan for Samoa Joe. The feeling is that Joe will be an even hotter commodity within the next four to six weeks. It's also said that Russo is under no obligation to push Jeff Jarrett, and that Dixie knows Jarrett on top has not been working. Russo is free to repackage Jarrett to make him interesting, but it is not Russo's job to push Jarrett. Keller speculates that if he does this, even if he does a bad job, Russo will become a hero because somebody other than Jarrett will be featured. As long as the plan is Joe being kept strong, no losses for no reason purely to surprise, and Joe ending up as NWA Champion, then I won't mind. Getting Joe hotter is a good idea, because he lost some steam over the summer, and priority one should be to get him hot again. If Russo can make Jarrett interesting, that would almost be a miracle, but then again Russo has been the only guy who was able to find a way to get Jarrett over, even if it was the cheap heat of hitting women with guitars.

Any non-fans that the special actually draws will either never tune back in out of disgust, or tune back in wanting to see more hot women and then tune back out when they finally realize they can see far hotter women, and see them naked, elsewhere.

Only to people who hate MMA. The reality is that the viewers UFC draw are far more likely to want to come back than the viewers who'll get drawn by the Strip Poker.

I'll bet anyone that the Strip Poker special will get higher ratings than Shamrock vs. Ortiz III. And which one will do more long-term good for their respective groups? The only reason why they garner great PPV buyrates relative to WWE is because about 80 percent of the people who watch UFC on Spike order the PPV's; whereas, for WWE, only 10-15 percent of RAW/Smackdown viewers purchase the PPV's. Which shows just how great a job UFC is doing. They have less viewers to their TV show and still get more people to buy their PPV's than WWE can. And the percentage of Raw/SD viewers who get the PPV's is around 5%.

1.9

--Whether this will be announced on Sunday I don't know for sure, but within TNA the talk is they will have a new time slot starting soon, likely but not definitely on a different night of the week 8 p.m.-9 p.m. was talked about, but there were several different possibilities both sides were talking about including the possibility of a two hour show. There have been talks for months in this direction. From Meltzer

--In Monday's Observer there is a note (and it's made its way around the web) regarding JBL leaving WWE. He had given notice and the 10/8 PPV show from Raleigh was to be his final show. However, we've heard today that WWE is attempting to keep him and something may have been worked out. From Meltzer

Just remember this is Vince Russo. I don't think he's physically capable of booking a clean finish. Remember that terrible 32-person WCW world title tournament in 1999 that had almost nothing but screwjobs and outside interference? Or Starrcade '99 which had such classic finishes as Kevin Nash beating Sid in a powerbomb match simply by telling the referee, who had been bumped, that he had powerbombed Sid while the referee was out, or Shane Douglas winning a match that he was only commentating on or a rehash of Montreal in the main event? I have a bad feeling that Russo will have Jarrett beat Joe simply to shock people with something they're not expecting.

-Lex Luger and Buff Bagwell are both booked for the Monday television tapings. This deal was done by Jeff Jarrett, and is likely unrelated to Vince Russo coming in. Neither Luger nor Bagwell knew anything about Russo coming in, and did not know what their role would be or if it would be a recurring role. Spike and TNA are close on a new deal for a better time slot. From Meltzer. If the deal for the better timeslot isn't done, then TNA better hope it gets done before Sunday or the big announcement really will be Russo.

I'm not Vince McMahon's biggest fan, but McMahon on-screen is worlds better than Russo ever was. He could at least get somebody over and would try to. Russo was only ever interested in trying to get himself over.

I can see MMA JJTS Shannon Ritch being brought in for Angle to go through.

Didn't he have his own "christian" fed? Ring of Glory? Yes, and it lasted one show which few people liked.

There are few outright works, but, like in boxing, you'll get guys matched up where one of them has zero chance in winning which is almost as good as fixing the fight. UFC, which is where Angle might be going, had some dodgy fights in their past, specifically Oleg Taktarov vs. Anthony Macias from UFC VI, but they haven't had a fight like that in many years.

Cornette joining with Russo is the kind of nonsensical swerve that Russo would love to do, but there is zero chance of it ever happening.

--On the web site of Dave Hawk, who is Kurt Angle's manager, it stated that Kurt has retired from pro wrestling and is going to MMA. WrestlingObserver.com

That and he hates Russo's style of writing.

Killing TNA is like pulling the plug on Terry Schiavo; unless a miracle happens it's only bringing foward the inevitable.

Goldberg hates Russo with a passion.