Guest EdwardKnoxII Report post Posted June 30, 2003 I got this from a wrestling delphi forum. It has news from different feds so I'm printing the whole thing. Hope no one minds. TOP STORY: HBO does a wrestler death story. It's just a recap of what the segment talked about. TOP 5 STORIES OF THE WEEK: #1 - Vince added another moment to the highlight reel when he swatted at the HBO interviewer's questions. #2 - The post Bad Blood Raw was back over 4.0, and this past week's was just under with a 3.9. Mick Foley is getting credit for delivering a ratings bump. On Smackdown, the Vince/Gowen segments are drawing real good. #3 - Sting and Sean Waltman wrestled at the TNA anniversary show. There was a slight delay between Waltman's introduction and when he came out, because he was hidden away from the wrestlers to protect the surprise and nobody gave him his cue to come out. #4 - Longtime promoter and MattF nemesis Zane Bresloff died. #5 - Brock missed weekend house shows because he fell out of a boat and got cut by the propeller. Ow. WWE NEWS: - USA Today did a piece on Zach Gowen, which is the first mainstream pub he's gotten. - Spike Lee won another legal around against Viacom, who has gotten Spike Jones Jr. to file papers saying that it's "frightening" that Lee wants to claim ownership to the name "Spike". As queer as his lawsuit is, this Spike TV thing was so stupid that if Spike can kill it, then god bless ‘im. - Roddy Piper said on a radio show that his Pit segments sucked and were too structured. He wanted to ad-lib, although anyone who saw him in TNA would know how good an idea that would be. JR was on a radio show and said that Paul Heyman should be back on TV soon. - There was internal debate over the decision to have Kurt Angle wrestle on TV without a lot of build-up beforehand. The side that lost wanted to hype it to pop a rating, but the winning side (Vince's side) wants to re-establish the shows as "must see" so that people who didn't see Kurt return would be mad. If they hype everything, the feeling is that there's a group of people who will only tune in when something is being hyped, rather than watching it so that they don't miss something. - Chris Bell, the writer from UPW that Rock recommended, got notice that his trial period wouldn't be extended. Some wrestlers liked Bell, but others thought he was a big stooge who would run around to people to tell them what Triple H said during a production meeting and stuff. - It looks like Mick Foley will wrestle at SummerSlam. There were rumors that he would bump Goldberg out of the main event, but after Raw it looks like a match with Vince or Orton is more likely. Foley has said in recent interviews that coming out of retirement for a match with Vince would make the most sense for him. One source went as far as to say that "Mick's back", although he admitted that he hadn't heard anything official. - People say Goldberg is more paranoid by the day that top WWE suits are out to sabotage him. Other people think top WWE suits are pushing harder by the day to try to get Goldberg to quit, with his lack of promotion at the MSG Raw being cited as an example. - David Sahadi was so good that his job will have to be filled by two people, some guy named Barry Bross and Tough Enough superstar Big. Word coming out of the office is that Sahadi is just taking some time off and may be back at some point. - The writers don't have a plan for Nash now that his title feud is over, so he's mad. He's been pushing to join Evolution, which actually wouldn't be a bad spot since he could hide in tag matches and stuff. - Early Bad Blood projections have the show doing over 400,000 buys, which would be good for the first split brand show. Later in the week, though, a WWE source put the figure at closer to 300,000. - Mr. America vs. Vince at Vengeance may be a "hair vs. mask" match, hence Hulk talking a lot about Vince's hair in radio interviews this week. Big Show getting Kurt and Brock in a double chokeslam at the end of Smackdown has led to more speculation that they'll do a 3-way at the PPV, saving Brock/Angle for later. - The original plan was for Chris Benoit to win the U.S. title tournament, but recent talk says that Matt Hardy and Billy Gunn are gonna be programmed together on house shows and that they may be feuding over the belt. - There's lots of rumors that Nathan Jones is about to be cut. The only things saving him are that JR doesn't want to give up on a guy he pushed so hard for. Plus, he's big. TNA NEWZ: - They hired former InDemand guy Frank Romano, as was predicted last week. - The 30 minute interview with Sting and Mike Tenay will start running on next week's show. They're excited about it because it's one of the few real shoot interviews that Sting has done, and to make it extra shooty he didn't wear any make-up or anything. The latest word is that Sting signed a 4 show deal, and they'll use this interview and other pre-taped promos on the weeks that he's not there. - TNA suits are more optimistic than ever about their chances of getting a TV deal. They're still hoping for a national cable spot, but they've approached a national syndication company. - Raven and Jeff have buried the hatchet. People say Raven is getting more relaxed about creative issues and is worrying more about his own character than the overall direction of the shows. Wow, just like Konnan wanted! - Russo's promo at the Anniversary show went too long and a catfight segment had to be cut short. There's a lot of heat on Russo for that promo. Nobody was happy with it and people think he went into business for himself. - AJ Styles's wife has been attending the recent shows. She's a teacher and can travel with him during the summer. - Jeff told the wrestlers at this past week's show that they're no longer allowed to swear or abuse women in the storylines. Rumors say that InDemand asked them to cut back on it, and the finger is naturally being pointed at Russo for those elements being in the show in the first place. Russo was said to be very quiet backstage at the show, to the point that someone described him as looking like "someone who lost power". - Noted swearer and woman abuser Kid Kash lived his gimmick with a backstage rant on TNA dancer Lollipop. Apparently an argument started between Lollipop and Trinity, who is allegedly dating Kash, over a match they were supposed to have. They didn't wrestle because Trinity said she won't bump for a non-wrestler now that she's been wrestling men. Those two got into it until Kash jumped in and went off on Lollipop so bad that she cried. ON TOPIC WITH JASON POWELL: He talks about TNA and marketing and all whatnots. He says if you watch the TV Guide channel you'd never see them mentioned, but that's not true. I've seen TNA ads before. Unless by "mentioned" he means Debbie and the Coach wannabe guy actually saying "TNA". I dunno if that happens or not. THIS WEEK WITH WADE KELLER: He reviews Mick's new book and calls it "addicting, but overbearing". He read it all in one sitting because it was really hard to put down. But the problem with the book is that he can't say "really hard" without imagining how Foley would make a big deal about the double meaning in that term. Mick piles on sexual references so much that it turns into "cheap heat". And the violence is even worse. "There are literally people biting off scrotums, crushing eye-balls, yanking arms out of sockets, crushing tracheas, and knocking out teeth." Man, I'm gonna read this book. And the finish of the story is overbooked. The book has been getting decent reviews so far, and it has it's problems, but it's still good. The main thing reviews have been focusing on is how the main character is written well, but the rest of the characters lack any development or motivation. THE MCNEILL FACTOR: Mick Foley is a good guy, am I right folks. TORCH TALK WITH MICK: It's just more about his book and how he thinks people will respond to the sex and violence. Coming Soon: the long and short term future of his wrestling career, who would he most like to wrestle, how's his body holding up, does he regret anything he wrote about guys in his books? TORCH TALK WITH KONNAN: TNA should hire more Mexicans and stuff. WADE'S PPV STAR RATINGS (for NWA TNA): D'Lo/Sandman/Kazarian vs. Harris/Young/Siaki - *1/4 Sabin/London - **3/4 Sanders/New Jack - ½* Credible/Lynn - 3/4* Saturn/Suzuki - ½* Daniels/Skipper vs. AMW - **½ Sting/Jarrett vs. Styles/Syxx-pac - **3/4 Pat: 5.0. Bruce: 7.0. Jason: 5.0. Wade: 5.5. END NOTES WITH WADE: That HBO story, what a joke. Do some research. Throwing out that "60 wrestlers have died" with no context is just lazy. How many were from drugs? How many were guys truly attached to the wrestling business, and how many did occasional local shows in a high school gym on the weekend? How do you talk to an obvious hypocrite like Roddy Piper to get your story? How do you sit down with Vince McMahon with that shoddy research? How does Vince lose his cool yet again? Oy vey! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
