Hunter's Torn Quad

Yves Edwards vs. Joe Stevenson A good first round, which I’d give to Edwards. He did a good job of fending off Stevenson for the most part, and he scored with a great looking high kick. Stevenson totally dominated round two, but the real story was the bleeding from Edwards off the cuts to his head. The canvas was splattered with Yves blood, and was a sight to see. Going into round three, I have it 19-18 to Stevenson. The doctor stops the fight, though, and Stevenson gets the victory. No complaints with the stoppage, because that was a cut that just wouldn’t stop bleeding and it was going to impair Yves’ vision. Frank Mir vs. Dan Christison Christison did just enough to win a very boring round. Mir was totally blown up and did very little. Neither did Christison, but he did get an armbar on Mir that came close, so I’d go with Christison again. Not a very lively round, but Mir did more than enough to win it, but it won’t save the fight for him with me. I gave it 29-28 to Christison. Mir won it 29-28 with all three judges, and it’s not a decision I really agree with. Ken Shamrock vs. Tito Ortiz This has the atmosphere of something special. Hopefully, we’ll see a special ass kicking from Ortiz. Ortiz wins by ref stoppage in 1:18. I’m not a fan of Ken, but that stoppage was way too premature. A terrible decision by Herb Dean, and I’d be chanting “bullshit” too. Dana White calls out Wanderlei Silva and then Chuck Liddell and announces that, if Liddell gets past Sobral, which is likely, it will be Silva vs. Liddell in November. Holy shit, I am there. Josh Neer vs. Josh Burkman There were some good exchanges in what was a very even round. Burkman did enough, including a great takedown, to win the round. It goes into round three 20-19 for Burkman. Third round was even, but Burkman, I think, did enough to win the round and the fight. I have it 30-28 for Burkman. Burkman wins it by unanimous decision. Andrei Arlovsky vs. Tim Sylvia The first round was mostly action, with Arlovsky doing more than enough to win the round for me. There was a lot of back and forth action in round two, but I don’t think either man did enough to win it. The third round was dangerously close to being without any merit. Sylvia did get decent punches in, but they didn’t win him the round in my eyes, though. It’s 30-29 for Arlovsky so for in my book. Round four = snooze. No winner. 40-39 so far on my card. More of the same in round five. I have Arlovsky winning 50-48, but I’d hardly call him a winner based on his performance. The judges have it 48-47, 49-46 and 48-47 for Sylvia. This fight was beyond boring as shit. Round-by-round, I had Arlovsky winning, but if I were to judge the fight based on overall performance, I’d call it a draw. Neither man did anything to warrant being called the UFC Heavyweight Champion, and the heavyweight division needs a lot of rehab to overcome this debacle. Overall Outside of the terrible call in the Ortiz vs. Shamrock fight, the announcement of a possible Wanderlei Silva vs. Chuck Liddell fight in November, and Yves Edwards bleeding like crazy, there was absolutely nothing of note on this PPV, and it had the least merit of any UFC PPV for a long time.

As of 7/1, all personal use of the “Air McMahon” corporate jet will be paid for the McMahon family. It had been paid for by the company. Vince and Linda continue to waive salaries and bonuses, due to making so much on stock dividends. Vince had been making around $2m a year in salary, half from his executive role and half from being television talent. The last fiscal year, WWE made $24m profit on DVD’s, compared to $9m the year before. They have 13,000 subscribers for 24/7 in North America. 24% of WWE income comes in from outside of NA. There is apparently concern for Angle, as when the company listed the biggest stars under contract, the names were; HHH, Cena, Batista, Michaels, Flair, Undertaker, Mysterio, Booker, Show and Kane. WWE has 165 wrestlers under contract. The public reason for Angle taking what will be at least a month off is that he is injured and he asked for the time off. The actual reason is the company made the call, and felt they really had no choice but to do something to help Angle deal with “personal and emotional issues”. The 30 day suspension starts on 6/28, and right now is just the minimum time Angle will be off. A lot of people have said that things are not looking good for Angle. They are close to having Canadian clearance for ECW. It’s major clearance, but is said to be a bad timeslot, late at night. WWE now believe Trish Stratus won’t be coming back when her current deal expires. It’s felt Trish wants to pursue acting, and her WWE schedule wouldn’t allow that. Vengeance did 6,8000 paid for $4000,000, which can’t be considered good from a live attendance standpoint. The word on 6/27 is that Paul Heyman’s power has lessened again. Dreamer has had no power for a while, and is now said to have less than no power. Heyman’s current role is the head writer of ECW, but he just presents scripts to Vince, Stephanie and the creative time, who will then make whatever changes they want, and ‘liberally’ so. One person close to everything, says that Heyman’s position was hurt by the reaction at the Philadelphia house show, as he was blamed for creating a fan base that refused to accept any changes to the product. Heyman was also knocked for not being able to turn the crowd around with his promo, and it was used as proof that Heyman was not as important to the project as he said he was. Francine got a little negative feeling towards her after the Philly house show, but more for her behavior towards Kelly than being out of place for the moonsault from Trinity. Trinity will be out for 6-8 weeks after knee surgery she needed after the spot. The morale of wrestlers in ECW has sunk in recent weeks, primarily from being told that the reason the Rise and Fall of ECW DVD and first PPV did so well is because Raw fans brought it after learning about ECW over the past five years through WWE’s marketing of it and their encouragement of ECW chants at television tapings. At the tapings, Vince was said to be more hands on for the ECW TV than he was even for Raw, and was personally instructing everyone on what they were to do in their segments in great detail. The only segment he didn’t worry about was Angle vs. Van Dam, which Heyman was in charge of, because it was considered bullet proof with Angle in there. Jeff Hardy is reportedly doing a lot better, and there is strong talk of reuniting the Hardy Boyz. Brooke Hogan’s CD is set for release on 9/26 which is why the original plans for the angle were for Summerslam and not Wrestlemania. Eric Bischoff’s contract is believed to have expired or to expire very shortly. Harry Smith was recruited to appear in recently season of “Hogan Knows Best” to play someone that Brooke dates. It’s also been hinted at that Smith will be programmed with Randy Orton when he debuts. RVD’s suspension is without pay, and will cost him at least $20,800, based on his minimum guarantee. When Sabu met with Vince, he was apologetic over what happened, but Vince refused to shake his hand. The pills Sabu had in his possession were believed to have been for gynocomastia, which is the proper medical term for the slang term “bitch tits”. “Because males produce both testosterone and estrogen, some, often when getting off a steroid cycle, which due to injecting testosterone, causes the body to slow down it’s own production, which means it doesn’t produce much when getting off steroids. As men using steroids age, it becomes a more significant problem. Brunk (Sabu) is 42. Without producing testosterone, the estrogen the body still produces causes side effects, including the nipples to swell and develop like the beginnings of female breasts, which can only be corrected via surgery. It is not uncommon for wrestlers and bodybuilders to have the painful surgery.” Sabu did not have prescription for the pills. Apparently, WWE did not suspend Sabu because the drugs in question are not on their list of banned substances, and received the $1,000 fine for possession of the crack pipe. There is an understanding that, while the drug policy prohibits the use of marijuana, the company is not vigilant on it and talent knows they will not be tested for it. It is, however, specifically written that it is against policy to use marijuana before shows, and the company will test if they have probable cause to. The policy is more aimed at prescription pain pill abuse and to have something down on paper because steroids are a hot button issue. The policy does have a loophole, in that steroids are allowed with a prescription due to injures, and with virtually everyone having some kind of injury it is very hard to not get a prescription for steroids. At least one wrestler got into trouble for a positive steroid test as his prescription had expired. The original plan for 7/3 Raw was Van Dam and Sabu vs. Edge and Mick Foley vs. Cena and Flair. Even before the decision was made to suspend Van Dam, it was a very strong consensus that the title had to be taken off Van Dam that night. Several have noted the bad timing for Van Dam, who was meant, along with Angle, to be one of the top stars in ECW. Van Dam was not favored by management, due to their feeling he was overrated in the ring and couldn’t do the promos they wanted out of a headliner, which was, despite being popular enough to headline in the past, and when a decision was made to put the World title on Van Dam, emphasized by HHH in order to nix the decision. Unless forced, WWE has an old-line wrestler philosophy regarding the ability of a wrestler to carry the company, and that the guys who have been players are the only money players. Edge and Rey were meant to be short-term headliners, but because of how well they got over are more accepted at top, but Edge far mores so than Rey because of Rey’s size. Van Dam got the belt not because they wanted him to have it but because they wanted to establish the ECW brand and Van Dam fit the bill. However, with how strong his matches have been, Van Dam was starting to get seen in a new light. One source said that Vince was warming up to Van Dam and was blocking out the anti-RVD movement in the company, but he’ll now have to rebuild that when he comes back. The booking plan for SNME and the three-way was for Cena to lay out Van Dam but for Edge to steal the pin. For 7/4 on ECW, the plan was for Van Dam to beat Edge clean. The idea that was to play out was that Van Dam was getting worn out by his hectic schedule of title defenses, to build up to his eventual title loss. While Heyman turning on Van Dam looked to have been built up since the beginning of ECW, it did become the plan until Monday and wasn’t even finalized until the Tuesday. One source said that it may have happened eventually, buy not this soon. The original plan for Van Dam was for him to hold the ECW Title until at least early next year, because of the feeling that the title needed to be established. Apparently, Ironton, OH is known as a speed trap area. Dave doesn’t see any kind of buy rate for the Bash, but does say he may be underestimating Batista so who knows. Matches are Batista vs. Henry, Rey vs. Booker for the title, Lashley vs. Regal vs. Finlay for the US Title, Undertaker vs. Khali in a Punjabi prison match, London and Kendrick vs. Noble and Kash for the tag titles and Crazy vs. Psicosis. Chris Masters is in rehab over drug usage, but he did not fail a steroid test. As Hogan’s storyline now stands, it does include him beating Orton at Summerslam. It could change, but regardless of that it’s Hogan’s call. There is internal pressure regarding SNME, as NBC aren’t happy WWE hasn’t promoted the show well on Raw or ECW. Dave called the Raw segment with DX messing around with Vince as he talked in the ring “horrible”, and “in one week, DX went from being hilarious to jumping the shark and then some”. ECW on 7/4 drew about 1,500 for $45,000. The crowd chants garnered a very negative reaction internally. Gunner Scott is being sent back to OVW. Jim Mitchell has been calling to try and get into ECW, going to Sabu to try and get in as his manager and mouthpiece.

Curt Hennig Hennig was a great worker and was able to make just about anybody look better than they actually were. Unfortunately, part of that ability was down to his bumping, which ended up shortening his career. Bad News Allen I’ve only seen Bad News in the WWF, and he seemed ok. He would have made a great heel champion. Ken Shamrock Ken was a really good fighter in his day, but, as TUF 3 showed, Ken has almost a complete inability to move with the times. As a wrestler, Ken could have been so much more than he was, but he fell victim to WWE’s need to force him to fit into their mold. Chris Jericho (In the WWF) I hate thinking about Jericho’s WWF tenure because I always get disappointed and frustrated with how so much potential got squashed because of Hunter’s ongoing quest to snuff out any and all potential threats to his spot. DX Never a fan of the gimmick or the people behind the gimmick. Rick Rude Rude was a good worker, but people overrate him a lot, especially since he died. Rude had tremendous heel charisma and could bump like a madman, but he had a limited repertoire and tended to bring matches to a halt if they went longer then 15:00. Chyna Ugh. Scott Steiner Steiner was a pretty good worker before going overboard with the vitamins. Everything that made Steiner a great in-ring worker was taken away by age and the needle, and while he developed a very believable bully persona, which was believable for a reason, it made Steiner very limited in what he could in matches.

http://www.obsessedwithwrestling.com/profiles/a/911.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Poling Two different Big Al's. The one Tank faced really was a friend of his. Spivey was already an All Japan regular when he was in WCW in 1989/1990. He wasn't fired, he just left early for a tour.

Spend $$$$ on yet another McMahon Egofest? Count me.....out.

Dave's brought up the facial giveaways of some guys in the past, so it's not like this is something new he's talked about. Two of the the more major one's he's talked about were Undertaker at Summerslam last year and John Cena at NYR this year. With Cena, it was written all over his face that he was losing the belt and he wasn't happy about it. As Rando said, some guys cannot hide their disappointment when they're about to do a job that they are not happy about.

Thinks Thursday’s IMPACT will do a .9. Says the final quarter should be up from what it usually is. Bryan referenced the Jarrett/Steiner vs. Cage/Sting deal to being similar to the old Horseman teases, where Sting’s partner would turn on him and join the Horseman. Dave said that TNA has it’s timetable for everything, and everything is booked out to February. Bryan asked Dave about TNA’s booking, saying that he heard they had everything booked out for the year at the start of the year, and presumes they didn’t have it set for Christian to drop the NWA belt in June. Dave confirmed that, and said that, while they have their plans set out, they can change if things don’t work out. Dave thinks the bottle thrown at Jarrett turned out to be good heat because they got the two biggest audiences for TV the next two weeks. When Jarrett held the title the last time and fans hated it, TNA knew it was the wrong kind of heat, but this time they feel it’s the right kind of heat. Bryan likened it to a DX skit that starts out funny, then it gets bad and is bad for so long that turns funny. Says that Jarrett started off with heat, then it turned into the “go away” heat, and he had that heat for so long that it turned into the good heat. Dave comments that if you’re on top for so long that, even if fans hate you being on top, you end up getting accepted on top.

Dave watched the second week of OVW booked by Greg Gagne and said it was “like watching 1979 AWA matches except you don’t get the 1979 AWA interviews and you’ve got all the green guys with no names doing it”. Dave says Greg tries to get 6 matches in an hour, and it reminds him of TNA on FSN. Dave calls the Al Snow head character in OVW one of the worst of they year. Says part of the deal in wrestling is to make people believe in your character, and because people have seen Al Snow and know that he’s rational, while it would ok on an Indy show as a nostalgia deal, doing it on ECW or OVW is out of touch. Bryan said that Monday the Sabu/Van Dam deal seemed so big and that both guys might be fired, but a few days later Sabu had been fined and Van Dam was suspended for 30 days, and it died down a lot. A month from now, Dave thinks what happens depends on where the charges go. Sabu is scared about what might happen to his deal, but Van Dam isn’t scared at all. Dave says that what usually happens in situations like this is that wrestlers usually offer free tickets to a show or promise to make a charity appearance at a hospital or something and the mess goes away quietly. For whatever reason, it didn’t happen like that this time. Both Sabu and Van Dam are in potentially more trouble than has been let on, but further punishment is unlikely. Dave said he is sure what Sabu told WWE is accurate, and Dave did hear what he said, simply because he knows if he gets found out he’s gone. Bryan thinks this might be a break for Van Dam to be gone for 30-days. Dave thinks it will depend on how it gets handled on his return. Dave points out that WWE changes their mind on an hourly basis, and mentions how Randy Orton was on the verge of getting fired and now is back in the exact same position he would have been had nothing happened. Dave says that Van Dam being out a month is going to cost him around $21,000. On SNME, Dave thinks Edge vs. Cena should be good. Says they should do a DQ finish as it would be stupid to take the belt off Edge this quick. The Smackdown six-man is “just putting them there”. The rating might not beat there expectations, with the first rating being so low and that this SNME will be their fourth show of the week. Said that DX hasn’t drawn a rating the past two weeks. Says the July 3rd rating has never dropped this big before, in relation to the July 4th holiday and being part of the weekend, and WWE has done July 3rd shows before. Dave said that some plans were rushed while some were changed altogether. While watching Raw on Monday, Dave didn’t know what the plan was or where they were going, but when Edge came out Dave figured out he was winning from his facial expression. Dave brings up how some guys, like Cena or Edge, give stuff away from their facial expressions because of how they react to decisions. Dave is disappointed in the ECW thing overall. Didn’t like any of ECW on July 4th. Said the main event was what it had to be, but wasn’t any good. Bryan loved the fans chanting “You take steroids”, at Test, calling it a great TV moment. In regards to the bottle throwing, Dave isn’t sure if it was the right kind or wrong kind of heat. He’s sure there were some fans who were legitimately upset, and we’ll know for sure the kind of heat in two weeks, because the ratings will tell the tale. Dave liked the first week of DX, but didn’t like this weeks DX. Referenced how they went through so much so soon. Dave liked the bit where they did the raising of Vince’s voice, but think they kept at it so long and should have ended it. Called the blowjob skit terrible. Dave said he’s almost hating DX and wanting them to go away, even how good some of it has been, because it’s a one-note joke that is being played to death. WWE is pitching hard to Bret to publish his autobiography. Dave doesn’t know if Trish will come back, but cannot see Benoit not coming back. Says Benoit might even like not being in wrestling. Dave talks about one top name, who he doesn’t name, who loved wrestling and wrestled for a long time, and when he got sidelined for a while he liked it and it changed his view on wrestling.

Goto worked for the IWA promotion in Japan and ECW had a working relationship with them. And I cannot believe that some people think the wheel spin for the Spin the Wheel deal might have been legit.

NEW CHAMPION All Japan returned to Ota for the first time since 3/10 with another "big match" show, this time drawing 3,700 Fans making it a super-no vacancy, and bringing along celebrities such as pop idol, Hideaki Takizawa, and dramatist Makiko Uchidate. Taiyo Kea finally broke through and won the Triple Crown titles today, defeating Satoshi Kojima with the H50 in order to capture the belts. Kea used signature Giant Baba moves such as the overhead chop and the running neckbreaker, while Kojima used his lariats in order to try and take Kea out, but it was Kea who overwhelmed Kojima used the TKO and the a running H50 to win the titles. TAKA Michinoku asked Taiyo Kea who he would defend the titles against first, naturally assuming Minoru Suzuki, but Kea surprised everyone when he named Toshiaki Kawada as the first challenger! Kea pointed to the heavens and thanked Giant Baba, and finished his ceremony by saying that he wanted to fight with Kawada and prove that he would be a strong champion. Kaz Hayashi won the Jr. Singles League, defeating Katsuhiko Nakajima in what was a very hard fought match that is getting good reviews. Nakajima repeatedly tried to get his R16 on Hayashi, but Hayashi consistently evading the move, until finally being caught by it, but Hayashi fought back and won the match with the Final Cut. Kaz Hayashi stated that there would be a Jr. league held in June every year and demanded that Shuji Kondo defend the Jr. Title against him soon. Minoru Suzuki and Keiji Muto faced off for the first time with Muto's team taking the victory. Both men went back and forth with Muto using his dragon screw on Suzuki, and Suzuki using his sleeper hold on Muto but it was Muto who got the win by using the Shining Wizard on NOSAWA and after the match, prayed in front of Shinya Hashimoto's picture which decorated the hall and stated that he would like to face Minoru Suzuki in a singles match soon. "Strong" YASSHI wanted to prove himself to the world today and defeat Kensuke Sasaki, even coming to the ring dressed as Power Warrior (Kensuke's alter-ego). YASSHI couldn't take much of Kensuke's punishiment, running out of the ring everytime Kensuke would chop him, so YASSHI called out a member of VM, but instead of one appearing, Akira Hokuto came out instead! YASSHI and Hokuto got into a verbal argument at ringside, so Kensuke went out and placed him on his shoulders and did a double impact with Hokuto using her bamboo stick in order for Kensuke to get the win. The Voodoo Murders struck first against the Debu Murders, with Suwama again defeating Brute (this time with a German Suplex), humiliating Yoshie, Arashi, and Brute by wrapping them in s&m rope and placing pig masks on the men! G1 Climax participants finalized New Japan today announced the remaining participants for this year's G1 Climax. Akebono has not been granted a spot for whatever reason, which is unique, as they'd usually let a "superstar" in without question, but not this time (unless they add two spots to it yet, which isn't out of the question). The final four participants are Satoshi Kojima, Togi Makabe, Koji Kanemoto, and Naofumi Yamamoto. "Mr. G1" Masahiro Chono will miss his first G1 Climax ever due to his current injury, but the inclusion of Kojima gives the tournament that "outside" influence it always has, but other than that, the tournament is made up of affiliated wrestlers (all of the Japanese entrants are New Japan trueborns). Makabe is granted his third participation in a row, and will look to make up for last year's false start (a bad injury) by making an impression, especially as he has been selected before the on-form Yano. Kanemoto returns for the first time in two years, after being one of the highlights in 2004. Its unclear whether he will carry the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title with him into the G1, that could depend on what the schedule for Kanemoto vs. Minoru ends up as. He becomes the second junior to enter this year's after Liger, so they weren't lying about a junior influence in the tournament. Yamamoto is in because, as vice-president Sugehayashi explained, he wants it so much. He doesn't really have the results to justify his place, but does have the fighting spirit. Kojima attended an interview today to discuss his participation. Unlike usual, it was Kojima who sent feelers to New Japan about participation, rather than vice versa. After a very successful reign as Triple Crown Champion, Kojima wants to evolve as a wrestler and believes a trip to his original home and the G1 can begin that. Kojima wants to show the fans what he has become in the last five years and hopes to clean sweep the tournament. Kojima said losing the Triple Crown had actually raised his motivation, as it allows him to pursue new things. Politics would no doubt have prevented Kojima entering had he held on to the Triple Crown. The ten participants have been separated into two blocks. Block A will feature the third generation contingent of Nakanishi and Kojima, with young generation star Tanahashi, who may very well be the IWGP Heavyweight Champion by August, also in there. Giant Bernard and Liger round out the cast, meaning we can look forward to matches like Nakanishi vs. Kojima, Bernard vs. Liger, Tanahashi vs. Kojima, and Tanahashi vs. Liger. Block B, on paper, is a two horse race, but strange things always happen in the G1. Tenzan and Nagata are the big names in this group, with Makabe, Kanemoto, and Yamamoto the others. Although Block A looks to be more interesting, there are going to be some matches of note from this group, such as a rematch of Nagata vs. Tenzan from last year's G1, plus Nagata vs. Yamamoto in their first singles match since Mr. Saikyo became Yamamoto's mentor. The scale of the G1 this year is smaller than before, as is the name power, especially with no Chono and Nakamura, plus only one big name outsider, but there is confidence in the company that they can overcome this by "fighting with contents" and putting on a great tournament. There is also a feeling that this could be the tournament where the third generation really takes charge, as the top old name (Chono) and top young name (Nakamura) are not there. Block A: 1. Manabu Nakanishi 2. Giant Bernard 3. Hiroshi Tanahashi 4. Jushin Thunder Liger 5. Satoshi Kojima Block B: 1. Hiroyoshi Tenzan 2. Yuji Nagata 3. Togi Makabe 4. Koji Kanemoto 5. Naofumi Yamamoto Arashi = dismissed President Keiji Muto and Director Masanobu Fuchi held a press conference today to announce that Arashi (Isao Takagi) was arrested on charges of illegal possession. Muto stated that he was very angry upon hearing this and has decided to ban Takagi from wrestling in an All Japan ring permenantly. Fuchi apologized to the fans and the sponsors from the bottom of his heart and does understand that it is still only suspicion, but has to take out such measures. Muto stated that he wanted to carry out pro-wrestling which could sell the dream to the youth and adults, and behavior like this wouldn't be tolerated. Arashi becomes one of the few wrestlers to become banned for life from All Japan (his mentor Tenryu being another one, but that was broken). Next, the reporters asked questions such as when did the office recieve the notice from the police, and Muto replied yesterday evening. Fuchi was asked about Arashi's contract, and Fuchi stated that he had a free-on position contract (basically meaning getting paid per tour) so they didn't have to worry about the contracting process. Muto and Fuchi closed the conference by apologizing again to the fans and sponsors, and then bowing out of the room. Full 7/16 Tokyo Nippon Budokan Card Announced! The full 7/16 card is intriguing on many levels; the show starts off with one of NOAH's undercard feuds which has been developing for a while now, as Mitsuo Momota takes on the dastardly SUWA. SUWA has targetted Momota for a while now, as SUWA was a fan of Momota's long time rival Haruka Eigen. Momota managed to backslide SUWA to eliminate him from the junior battle royal last tour, and this is the perfect opportunity for SUWA to gain revenge. Fresh from his first singles win, Ippei Ota will team with Yoshinari Ogawa to take on the team of Akira Taue & Katsuhiko Nakajima. This is Nakajima's return to NOAH, with his last appearance being a loss to Mushiking Terry in January. Will Ota, a handful of years Nakajima's senior but clearly his junior in terms of ring experience, be able to gain a result here? The most interesting of the added matches pitches Go Shioaki, returning to the Budokan for the first time after injury since facing Kensuke Sasaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima alongside mentor Kenta Kobashi last November, taking on Minoru Suzuki. This is the first time the two have met in ring so it will be intriguing to see whether Shiosaki can take the match to Suzuki and rattle the sneering exterior that he is known for.

--There has been some sort of an item regarding Randy Orton posted on some web sites attributes to the Observer. The item is made up and has never appeared in the Observer Newsletter. Orton can get into enough trouble on his own without people having to make up stuff on him. Any sites who posted anything owe Orton a major and immediate apology and should pray WWE legal doesn't come after you, because it's going to be pretty hard to defend yourself when you credit something to a newsletter you don't even read.

It’s bad enough trying to simplify Montreal, because it is far more complicated than some people think. However, trying to ‘put it in a nutshell’ as Bret refusing to do a job because he was a mark for himself and “wanted his character to win”, is to completely ignore and play down the issues that lie at the center of the whole situation. To try and put things in a wrestling perspective ignores the business and professional aspects that made this situation so much more than simply Bret’s reluctance to do a job for Shawn Michaels. This was so much more than being ‘screwed’ in a fake wrestling match. If you really put yourself in Bret’s shoes, and tried to understand the situation for what it was, which was more than the ending to a wrestling match, then you’d understand where Bret would be so upset that he’d ‘whine’ about it. Put in the same situation, you’d be upset too. Bret took himself and his wrestling very seriously, maybe it was too seriously, but if you’re not going to look out for yourself then nobody else will, and Montreal proved that to the world. With Bret playing #2 heel to Shawn, and Austin the #1 face, there really was nowhere for Bret to go at that time. He couldn’t be #1 heel with Shawn around, and being the #1 face was out of the question too. With the whole Canada vs. USA storyline, it’s understandable why Bret would think that, as the Canadian babyface hero, it would be bad idea for him to get beaten in his home country. Would you have had Sgt Slaughter beat Hulk Hogan at WM VII? Bret doesn’t think wrestling is real, and I’m amazed some people seriously think that. Bret takes this business very seriously, and he should. If you don’t take what you do for living seriously, then you’re probably not going to do good job at it.

Don't forget, there will also be DX vs. The Spirit Squad. That'll be good for 30-minutes of time. Not to mention a bunch of DX-related skits for nobody to laugh at.

Think about that one for a second. Really.

--Because of the time zone difference that apparently wasn't figured out until yesterday, Tuesday's Smackdown tapings will begin with a dark match at 6:30 p.m. and Smackdown from 7-9 p.m. Usually it's 7:30 p.m. start, but since ECW is live, well you know the drill.

--The match line-up, in order for Saturday night's UFC 61 and odds from PinnacleSports.com: Dark matches Kurt Pellegrino +140 vs. Drew Fickett -150 Cheick Kongo -117 vs. Gilbert Aldana +107 Anthony Perosh +534 vs. Jeff Monson -594 Joe Jordan vs. Hermes Franca Live matches Joe Stevenson +192 vs. Yves Edwards -212 Dan Christison +226 vs. Frank Mir -246 Ken Shamrock +491 vs. Tito Ortiz -541 Josh Burkman +118 vs. Josh Neer -128 Tim Sylvia +244 vs. Andrei Arlovsky -264 for the heavyweight title So they are making the call to put the real main event in the middle. They are doing the perception thing to make the title match appear to be the main event. Plus, it lessens the sting of an expected blow-out by having what will likely be a more competitive match on last.

-ECW on Tuesday did a 1.5. It did slightly better than I expected, but the decline was significantly greater than the decline in overall TV viewing for the night.

I could see an argument for Shawn being one of the best WWE performers in history, but best wrestler in history? Not even close.

--Raw did either a 3.5 or 3.6 rating.

Vengeance PPV I’ve seen clips of the PPV which is all I care to see of it. The Foley/Flair angle looked well execute and as heated as anything WWE have done in a while that didn’t involve John Cena. Flair bled like crazy, which, to be blunt, is about the only thing he can do and not look like the 57-year-old that he is. RVD’s WWE Title match against Edge, apart from being criminally placed in the middle of the card, looked pretty good, and from Jim Ross’s comments after the pin, it seems like Van Dam’s win was booked purely to surprise people because it was felt the original plan was too well known. I ignored the DX vs. Spirit Squad main event, because I have less than zero interest in anything DX-related. It also didn’t help that DX have humiliated and embarrassed the Squad, and Vince McMahon, for three weeks in a row, so quite why they expect people to pay for what they’ve already seen for free I don’t know. The highlight for me was Fake Kane pinning Real Kane clean in the middle of the ring. Why? Well, it’s because of… Fake Kane storyline gets dropped Less than 24-hours after Fake Kane beat Real Kane, clean, the entire character and storyline was dropped, due to the complete apathy the Vengeance crowd had for their match the night before. I can’t remember if this has happened before, where a wrestler was put over a big name clean and then promptly got dropped and the whole angle scrapped. What makes it funny is that the deal got dropped because the crowd didn’t care about it. The crowd has crapped on a lot of angles and storylines before but the usual Vince McMahon MO is to push back even harder and force the angle or storyline down peoples throats. My guess on why things happened differently this time is that Vince wasn’t happy with the first angle to begin with, and probably from the get go he was looking for some reason to end it. With the crowd at Vengeance sitting on their hands for the Fake Kane vs. Real Kane match, that gave Vince the out he was looking for, and the whole mess, which was meant to stretch until Wrestlemania, was dropped. ’ECW’ This week, it was revealed that Vince McMahon is going to turn ECW into a complete WWE-style third brand and anything even remotely resembling the original ECW is going to slowly dropped. It seems Vince was upset with how the current ECW is faring and has decided against doing something different with it and instead ECW is going to be more of the same. While it’s not a surprise that Vince is turning ECW into the WWE ‘C’ show, it is a little baffling that this is happening; 4-hours a week of WWE-style programming isn’t exactly setting the world on fire as it is, so quite why another hour of the exact same product is expected to fare any differently, I don’t know. The best thing to have done with ECW, which meant it had zero chance of being done, is to have made it into a ROH/TNA-style product, with the emphasis on the wrestling, with angles and storylines as the garnish to the main course of in-ring action. From a business standpoint, it makes more sense to offer two different styles of product, because then you can draw in the Sports Entertain fans with Raw and Smackdown and you can bring in the wrestling fans with ECW. That way, you’re getting more pieces of an already small pie and you can make more money. With ECW being made into another WWE-style brand, it’s going to attract the same viewers who would have been attracted by Raw or Smackdown, and there’s only so many of those viewers around right now. Instead of gaining new viewers, WWE may either split the viewers they have into three groups, or simply burn them out altogether to where they stop tuning it completely. Kenta Kobashi has cancer My thoughts are with Kobashi right now. Kobashi has long been one of my all-time favorite wrestlers and I’m really hoping he pulls through. My first thought on finding out about his condition was what happened with Shinya Hashimoto, who was another favorite of mine. We can only hope that Kobashi’s story has a happier ending.

Dave described Vengeance as a “loaded line-up that underachieved a bit, producing a decent show that got a mixed response”, with nothing really eventful about it, with a number of good matches but no great ones. The show is expected to above the usual buy rate level, due to the first match back for the reformed DX. Said the biggest news of the week was probably Van Dam coming out as still WWE Champion, with his beating of Edge at the PPV and Edge causing the DQ the next night against Cena setting up a three-way match as the main event at Saturday Nights Main Event on 7/15 in Dallas. Johnny Nitro winning the IC Title wasn’t promoted as having much meaning, and probably sets up Nitro vs. Carlito with Shelton Benjamin playing a part too. DX beating Spirit Squad was what it should have been, but Orton beating Angle makes no sense, given that Angle was just given the new gimmick of a serious wrestler and shouldn’t be losing anytime soon. With Orton set to feud with Hogan and Hunter, he is being protected. The biggest news coming out of the show was the killing of the Kane vs. Kane storyline. Dave said the match itself wasn’t terrible, but the program held no interest to the crowd. There were long term plans that day, as Fake Kane won clean, but Vince hated it and after the match ordered the Fake Kane to be written out. Fake Kane, Drew Hankinson, is set to start on Smackdown sometime soon with a new gimmick. Randy Orton vs. Kurt Angle: ***1/4 Good match, but not as good as you would expect from them. Umaga vs. Eugene: DUD Ric Flair vs. Mick Foley: *1/4 “More of an undercard angle to build a program than an attempt at a match”. Said it was pretty common in the old days when cities ran weekly and you had to tell stories to keep the programs going. Said the crowd reactions, particularly in this match, were not strong all night, and that they had to be expecting a bigger reaction. Johnny Nitro vs. Carlito vs. Shelton Benjamin: *** “This was like a bad TNA X-Division match, with a few spectacular athletic spots and a lot of badly times stuff”. “To WWE fans, this match was really good as they really didn’t have anything to compare it to”. Rob Van Dam vs. Edge: ***1/2 Called it a slap in the face to put them fourth from top in a world title match Drew Kane vs. Glen Kane: 1/2* “Ross said it was an ugly match for those listening for the code at home”. John Cena vs. Sabu: ***1/4 DX vs. Spirit Squad: *** Other News: While not finalized at press time, an angle was put together to lead to the return of Hulk Hogan working against Randy Orton. A Orton vs. Hogan match is tentatively scheduled to be one of the main events at Summerslam on 8/20. Orton appeared to be under the impression the match would have a longer build, as in recent media appearances he talked about the match as taking place at Wrestlemania. Vince and Hogan had a long talk over the weekend regarding the angle, with the idea being that Brooke would get exposure before the pro wrestling audience as a music star and sex symbol. The basics of the angle would either see Orton pursue Brooke and Hulk would then have to defend his daughter, or, to go even further, to put Orton and Brooke together as a TV couple which would drive Hogan crazy. Dave thinks the latter angle would be too rushed to be ready for Summerslam, but the angle is being described as being hotshotted at this point. Hogan has full creative control on angles and finishes. Dave says that, from the outside, Orton winning makes the most sense, which Dave is against unless it is to build to a rematch, Hogan is the one making the final call. The hold up to all of this is that, apart from Hogan, everyone else involved with Brooke’s career is said to be very negative against the angle happening at all, because of the negative stigma of WWE. The feeling is that doing the angle will make it difficult for Brooke to be taken serious as anything other than a publicity stunt of being the daughter of Hulk Hogan. Trish doing the 2:00 loss to James and then humiliated with no comeback against Nitro and Melina was done because the company is unsure of Trish’s future. Trish is getting married to her long-term boyfriend in September, will be taking time off after, and her contract expires in August. WWE has made deal with Chaotic Wrestling and UPW. UPW is back to being a WWE developmental territory, but with the contracts not finalized details are not clear. UPW may not be an OVW-like territory, but a group to find them new talent. Chaotic has signed an agreement to help scout for future talent. John Laurinaitis is under a lot of pressure from Vince over the lack of people in developmental with the right look, so this is being done to replenish the ranks. Laurinaitis is doing camps for people who are tall, good looking and have good physiques. Jim Ross used to look for people similar to those types too but ones who also had a legit athletic background. However, with how things turned out with Brock Lesnar, that kind of mentality is frowned upon. Edge is still hurting from being dropped on his head by Tommy Dreamer. Kevin Dunn was the driving force behind moving the 7/4 ECW taping from the ECW Arena to the Wachovia Center. The argument he presented to Vince was that NBC Universal expects a certain level of production and, without spending a lot of money, they can’t deliver that at the ECW Arena. One source, though, said that with everything for taping already at the Wachovia Center the night before, it’s less expensive to run the second night there. Others aren’t buying that, as saying that the idea of running separate tapings on a regular basis was nixed because of cost, but then the company book an expensive arena for a separate taping. There was also a feeling that Vince wants to move away from the ‘old ECW’ and onto the ‘new ECW’ as soon as possible, and the ECW Arena represents the ‘old ECW’. Dave talked about the fans of the old ECW wanting what they saw, but that the casual fans, which is what WWE has to play to, see things like production values an superstar charisma as what to watch for. Dave says that for this ECW to survive it has to create new stars. Says the Sandman caning bad gimmicks can get over as a cult deal on television, but to be the brand they want it to be it can’t be the old ECW that had limited appeal. Dave says the upside is that promotion vs. promotion storylines usually work, and that he is fan of the Monday/Tuesday storylines dynamics. The downside is that with three television shows a week of the same product, WWE is producing too much per week. Also, one hour a week isn’t enough time to create an equal brand, as long as Raw stars are the focal point, unless they mix them up with newcomers, like with Cena vs. Sabu. Said Sabu is a new act and comes across as impressive, but at his age and style is only human, and six months from now success will be judged on the ability of those in creative to get over the likes of a Mike Knox or CM Punk and they need to work with the Cena types. Guys on the roster who are underutilized, like Hardy or Venis, have been typecast by being stuck in the same spot for too many years. Test has the failed big man tag to overcome, which isn’t impossible, as it was done with JBL and Mark Henry, to a degree. Also says that as much as the wrestling quality as been high, the ratings show that the interest just is not there. The idea to tape two weeks of TV on 7/4, for 7/4 and 7/11 has been discussed, but is considered an outside possibility. On the 6/12 Raw, with the show long tease of HHH kissing Vince’s ass, the second hour was the second highest rated show among all shows on broadcast and cable among teenagers, with 760,000 viewers. The second NBC Saturday Nights Main event will air 8-10pm Eastern, with wrestlers from Raw, Smackdown and ECW on it. It makes four first-run primetime broadcasts that week, which Dave says cannot be healthy. Dave explains that problems from fan burnout aren’t immediate, and there is an initial upswing from there being more television, but then the decline sets in, and it can be problematic; one management figures out there is a problem, it’s usually too late to stop the problems, because fan disinterest has already set in. Vince is a big fan of Barbi Blank (Kelly) The Tarot card reader in ECW was solely to appease Sci-Fi wanting more sci-fi content. Dave Heath won’t be part of a vampire group, as the feeling is he has put on too much weight. WWE are attempting to trademark the name “World Wrestling Federation”, primarily to stop a startup company using that name. In the Khali and Mark Henry vs. Undertaker dark match main event at the 6/27 taping, Khali messed up his only spot. He had to take a punch and get tangled in the rope; when he screwed it up and couldn’t get tangled up, Undertaker just hit him again and Khali fell out of the ring. Dave talked about JBL’s commentary on Smackdown, and brought up that all of JBL’s pop culture references were very outdated. “When the biggest money draws in the fight world are Koki Kamada (112 pounds), Kid Yamamoto (140), Oscar de la Hoya (154) and now Royce Gracie (175), what does that say about Vince only wanting to hire people 6-2 and preferable 250 plus? Particularly since the biggest draw on one of his brands is 5-2 and 165 pounds and on the other it’s a guy who is 6-0 and 235 pounds.” Dave mentions that if you took the biggest stars in company history and if they wanted to enter WWE today, it would make a great read to see who would get in and what would happen to them. Lance Storm was offered a three-year deal to be part of ECW, but turned it down as he has no desire to be away from his family for the number of days it would require. Paul Heyman did an interview this week where he said that ECW had the best MMA fighter in the world in Kurt Angle. When they did the fake challenge that led to Randy Orton, most in MMA took it to be what it was. This time, one highly ranked UFC official told the Observer that, “Now we have exposure, we’re not ignoring stuff like this. We’ll go public and have Chuck Liddell accept any public challenge or claims they’ll make”. Jeff Hardy was backstage at the Smackdown taping in Roanoke, as he lives near there.

Where did you hear this bit of 'news' from?

The decision to put the WWF Title on Steve Austin at Wrestlemania XIV was made before Montreal and was probably even penciled in when they did the double turn with Austin and Bret at Wrestlemania XIII. One scenario presented to Bret to try and get him to stay, though it was clearly designed to get him to leave, was for Shawn to beat Bret for the belt in Montreal. Michaels would then win a Fatal Four-Way the next month, which would also involve Bret, Undertaker and Ken Shamrock. At the Rumble, Shawn would beat Bret again in a Ladder match. The next night on Raw, Bret would open the show saying that if he couldn’t beat Shawn for the belt he would retire. Bret would win the belt that night, and then drop it to Austin at Wrestlemania XIV. Bret turned that down, obviously, because it was four major losses and only one win in return. In the end, Bret did agree to drop the belt. He even agreed to lose the belt to Shawn. He just didn’t want to lose to Shawn in Canada. Part of that wasn’t just the being in Canada, it was because Shawn flat out said, on more than one occasion, that he wasn’t going to do any jobs to anyone in the company, and Bret was against putting someone over who wasn’t prepared to return the favor, to him or anyone else. Vince being mad at Bret for using the creative control clause is classic Vince hypocrisy; Vince is fine and happy to use contract clauses to the letter when it's to get the better of other people, but when the same gets done to him he gets upset. Bret vs. Shawn was done at Survivor Series because it made business sense. The Canadian hero defending against the punk heel who everyone knows Bret legitimately doesn’t like makes more sense, and means far more business-wise, than Bret defending against The Undertaker. It also could be that Vince had the Screwjob in mind when he set the match up, and knew full well that Undertaker would have had no part in it at all.

In the first hour of WOL, Dave was talking about the number of buys for Hughes vs. Gracie, and said it was in the ballpark of domestic buys for WM XXII, which was around 580,000. Anything above 500,000 buys for UFC is great news.

USA wanted no part of the bad publicity. Raw was still on Spike TV when all this was going on. He wasn't brought back because he wasn't popular backstage and got an attitude. Spike TV had nothing to do with that. Spike TV, then. The reason remains the same. Spike didn't want the bad press associated with the gimmick. Hassan was going to headline Summerslam against Batista, and that was when Hassan had the same bad attitude. Everything got changed after the bad press in the aftermath of the mock beheading angle.