WWE/TNA News: Hollywood WM 30?

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Jerry the King Lawler returned to the Raw announce booth Monday almost exactly two months after suffering a near-fatal heart attack. Lawler looked great and got teary-eyed talking about how he felt like the main character in "It's a Wonderful Life." And then, of course, WWE hit CM Punk's music and they shot an angle which included Paul Heyman having a fake heart attack and being resuscitated by Punk.
Yup, that happened. From talking to people both inside and outside the company over the last 24 hours, very few were actually shocked that WWE did it, largely because Vince McMahon is a wrestling promoter and cannot help himself, and also because they've promoted much worse, including an angle in 2006 where Randy Orton, to garner heel heat, said that Eddy Guerrero, who had just died, was in hell. Interestingly, the people who were most upset about Monday's angle were hardcore wrestling fans, people who read publications like this and visit our website. While there were viewers and even people inside the business who wrote that they turned off the show after the angle, the ratings pattern wasn't much different than usual, so the reality is that virtually all of the viewers saw it as a cheap wrestling angle, and certainly weren't offended enough to turn off the show. Interestingly, since the current WWE locker room skews young these days, and since a lot of the current generation has so much respect for Lawler, Heyman and Mick Foley (and, for other reasons including the story of how he scratched and clawed to the top, CM Punk), there was a feeling that because those guys were involved, it was OK. The older generation generally saw it as a deal that involved Jerry Lawler, the King of Memphis wrestling, who almost certainly had no problem with the angle and would likely have booked something similar in his own territory (or at least found a way – likely a much better way – to weave the reality into a storyline in an effort to draw money) had it happened there. It appeared few wrestlers were really upset at all about the angle, and some were even talking about how it would have been awesome to be Punk, standing there in the ring while Mick Foley cut a classic Foley promo on him. The majority of the heat within the company stemmed from WWE's decision to air a video that included audio of Lawler snoring as he had the heart attack and graphic footage of him being carted out on a stretcher as doctors furiously attempted to keep him alive with CPR (or, more accurately, bring him back to life as he was clinically dead for ten minutes). At least a few readers pointed out that they'd known people who'd had heart attacks and died right in front of them and the audio of Lawler snoring was terribly uncomfortable.

The Lawler angle was planned several weeks ago and approved by all the parties that were in the ring (Lawler, Punk, Foley and Heyman). Jim Ross wasn't there and I don't know what he thought about it. He did a blog and didn't talk too much about it except to say it wasn't his favorite part of the show. One source said the whole thing was a perfect example of "how Vince McMahon thinks."
Regarding the finish in the Punk vs. Ryback vs. Cena match at Survivor Series, we'll see what happens. Whatever the finish is, it'll likely change a number of times before Sunday. For whatever it's worth, last week the idea was that CM Punk was closing out WrestleMania. This would indicate he'd be in the Mania title match, which would also seem to indicate at the time they made that decision they were leaning towards Cena vs. Rock at Rumble and Rock vs. Punk for the title at Mania. If it's Cena vs. Rock at Rumble, that would mean Cena wins the title on Sunday. After the Lawler segment on Raw, my feeling was that Lawler was going to somehow cost Punk the title at Survivor Series. However, Cena pinned Punk in the main event, which if you go by traditional WWE booking means that Cena is getting pinned on Sunday and Punk is retaining the title. It's highly doubtful they'd beat Ryback again, so that would mean most likely Ryback hits Cena with his finish and Punk steals the pin. If Punk goes into Rumble with Rock, that would mean in order for him to close out WrestleMania they'd have to make Punk vs. Undertaker the main event. Not sure how they'd make that seem as important or more important than Rock vs. Cena for the title. My other thought was that Punk talking about death so much in the Lawler promo Monday could be leading to Punk vs. Undertaker (the Dead Man) at Rumble, particularly if Punk loses the title Sunday and thus wouldn't be doing the match with Undertaker at Mania (since he'd be facing Rock for the title). Rumble, however, doesn't need an Undertaker match since it's going to do huge business just with Rock fighting for the title.
Punk will be the Grand Marshall of the Thanksgiving Day Parade in Chicago, which also suggests he's leaving Survivor Series as WWE Champion.
Rest of the PPV has Team Foley of Kofi Kingston & Kane & Daniel Bryan & Randy Orton & Miz vs. Team Ziggler of Dolph Ziggler & Cody Rhodes (presumably, it is believed he suffered some sort of injury in a tag match at the Main Event tapings Tuesday night) & Albert Del Rio & Wade Barrett in a five-on-five traditional Survivor Series match; Big Show vs. Sheamus for the World Title; Eve vs. Kaitlyn for the Divas Title; and Antonio Cesaro vs. Truth for the US Title. Pre-show match has Santino & Zack Ryder vs. Heath Slater & Jinder Mahal. Drew McIntyre has been off the road after his mother passed away recently after a long battle with cancer.

The company is planning a second CM Punk DVD for 2014.

 

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WrestleMania 29 has already generated by far the biggest gate in the history of professional wrestling anywhere in the history of the world, and when all is said and done will almost certainly beat UFC in Toronto for the biggest gate ever in wrestling or MMA. They sold 52,029 tickets the first day they went on sale to the general public for a $10 million gate. That already shatters the previous WWE gate record of nearly $9 million. The 2002 SkyDome Mania sold 51,620 tickets on day one so they beat that record. The first-day revenue record was shattered as well, the old record being $6.3 million for last year's show at SunLife Stadium. Tickets are still available and they've got production holds to release and more. The magic number is $12.075 million, which is the gate UFC drew for UFC 129 in Toronto with GSP defending the 170-pound title against Jake Shields.
Rock signed on for yet another movie, Hercules, and the word from within WWE is that they're not expecting it to have any impact on his Mania season dates.
One WWE source noted that Miz on Team Foley made sense since Foley has a Christmas book coming out starring Miz. It was also noted that doing a vote for the final spot was kind of goofy given advertising was already out with Miz in the Foley team spot, and it would have been pretty much a disaster had either Santino or Zack Ryder won (and both had a real shot given they're babyfaces and Miz was, up until Monday, a heel).
There is talk once again of doing Punk vs. Foley at the TLC PPV. Monday's angle with Lawler certainly points in that direction, and they'd been discussing it internally for over a month.
WWE is considering running SummerSlam 2013 in Wales. The issue would be the time difference, which is why there are people in the company who believe that despite the discussions, it's not going to happen. If it does, that would appear to shoot Los Angeles to the top of the list for potential WrestleMania 30 locations. It is believed that locations for both shows will be confirmed within the next two months. For whatever it's worth, a lot of talk in the office is that LA is getting Mania.
The Impact-style voiceover guy on Raw is, in fact, a direct rip-off of the guy from Impact. Apparently someone showed Vince a tape of Impact and Vince said WWE could do it better. Rest is history.
The future of Brad Maddox is in question. He's a HHH guy and they shot an angle where Heyman wanted to talk to him before he went out to be eaten alive by Ryback, so I presume he'll be back. When they first shot the angle at Hell in a Cell they had no idea what the follow-up would be, so Ryback destroying him is likely a way to keep him on the back burner for now but also keep the door open for his return. One OVW source said he went through all of Rip Rogers' training and was one of the better guys in the company when he left for WWE. ("Granted, that was at a time when the roster here was lacking, but he was good work-wise at the time.") The word we got was that the biggest positive about him was that he was always working on his weaknesses. If he was told he needed work on his mic skills, he worked on his mic skills; if he was told he needed work on his physique, he worked on his physique, etc. It's said as good as he was in OVW he's much better now. "He's also a pretty cool dude," the source said.

Also from OVW, one wrestler said, "King Mo is a great, great man." So at least out of the ring he's winning people over.
WWE '13 sold nearly 300,000 copies in the US its first week on various platforms, falling behind Assassin's Creed III (1.5 million). That's down from the last WWE THQ game, but was ahead of THQ's own internal expectations (if it's considered a sports game, it was number-one in the world last week). THQ is having some major issues right now and its very future is in jeopardy according to published reports.

 

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Have been very annoyed with the AJ/John Cena storyline on Raw. I think everyone is playing their roles well and I understand what they're trying to do (create a "new Elizabeth"/"Queen of WWE" with AJ/attract more female viewers). My issue is that they're too lazy to add in one single piece of information that would make the entire storyline make sense: Vickie used her affair claim to force AJ out so she could take her spot as head of Raw. If it comes out that there was no affair and that Vickie was lying, then AJ might be able to get her spot back. So it's imperative that Vickie make up enough evidence to "prove" that an affair actually took place. Without that single detail, which would be pretty damn simple to explain, then the whole thing makes no sense. Why is Vickie wasting her time with this if she knows it didn't happen? How does she benefit? Why does AJ, who just came off dating Daniel Bryan and is single, care that someone is accusing her of being linked to the biggest star in the company, who is also single? Why does John Cena care about these accusations? Especially if the next part of the storyline involves the two of them admitting that, hey, they WOULD date each other? In a world where everyone involved has far bigger problems to address (Vickie's guy loses all the time, AJ just got demoted and almost fired, John Cena has a match Sunday and wants his title back), there is no logical explanation for anyone involved to be this engrossed in these proceedings. This is why Russo's attempts to write "reality TV" like Survivor and TNA's attempts to steal gimmicks from Sons of Anarchy don't work. If wrestling fans (or non-fans) wanted to see Sons of Anarchy they'd watch Sons of Anarchy, not a cheap ripoff on Impact. Wrestling needs storylines. But if you're trying to attract normal TV viewers (particularly, in this case, women), then you better spend the time to fill all the plot holes, otherwise there are far better TV shows and movies out there that will give you this same storyline 100 times better.
And, just out of curiosity, why was AJ targeted by the Board for having a supposed affair with talent when she was hired while in her wedding dress in the middle of a wedding to another talent?
Latest on Hall of Fame 2013 is that Mick Foley is pretty much a lock, and that there has been a push to get Owen Hart inducted since his big WWE push began with the classic five-star Bret Hart match in MSG at Mania 10. Talk of Warrior going in has cooled down substantially of late.

With the Layla vs. Eve feud dead, there is an understanding that they need more women quick, since there are zero new challengers left on either the face or heel side. Might be a few call-ups soon.


Jeff Hardy retained the TNA Title in an absolutely crazy ladder war with Austin Aries at the TNA Turning Point PPV on Sunday. It was an awesome main event but the human toll certainly didn't appear to be worth it, particularly since the show almost certainly drew around 7,000 buys (for a comparison, and this never fails to blow my mind, last week's Wrestling Observer Radio on our website, a free show, was listened to by significantly more people, and no podcasters were hurt during the production of the episode). Neither Hardy nor Aries was hurt badly, and in fact both appeared to be fine after the show, but the bumps were such that when I was watching it I honestly felt that at least Hardy's career was going to legitimately be shortened by the match. Also on the show, James Storm won a three-way over Bobby Roode and AJ Styles to win a title match in December. On the very next TV taped Bobby Roode beat him to win the title shot, and then, on the show that will air on Thanksgiving, Storm wasn't even on the show. I presume it becomes a three-way, because that makes more sense than Hulk Hogan once again changing his mind at the last minute (which he has done with the last two year-long storylines the company has booked). It appears the idea behind AJ's loss is to do the fall from grace/road to redemption story culminating with him winning the title at Bound for Glory next year. I don't know for certain that it's the plan, but if it is the plan and he went along with it, he's either super trusting or super gullible based on how the last two long-term plans have panned out. AJ is also penning his autobiography, which hopefully won't finish until after his road to redemption on TV.
D-Von tweaked his knee at the PPV but appeared to be OK.

If it wasn't obvious from TV and the beating he delivered to Sting, TNA is super high on the former Luke Gallows, and believe he was terribly underutilized in WWE.

 

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From speaking to sources close to both Adam Pearce and Colt Cabana, the situation with the NWA Heavyweight title goes something like this. Several months ago, Bruce Tharpe was essentially awarded control of the National Wrestling Alliance following a lawsuit against the organization regarding insurance fraud. Because of changes in the business structure of the organization and internal politics, a number of different promotions, including Championship Wrestling from Hollywood, either pulled out or were forced out of the NWA. Championship Wrestling from Hollywood was the home NWA promotion of both Pearce and Cabana. They'd put together a two-year feud and final best-of-seven series months before this went down which was set to culminate with Cabana, the babyface, winning the NWA Title in the final bout. When the ownership situation changed, Fred Rubenstein and Chris Ronquillo, who apparently do most of the hands-on work with the new company, apparently decided they no longer wanted to work with Cabana. The NWA side claimed that Cabana couldn't commit to dates as champion for the various NWA promotions. Cabana allegedly told them that he was already booked solid through early 2013, and did what any other full-timer in pro-wrestling would do – he asked for them to get the dates as soon as possible. As they went back and forth, they allegedly concluded that Cabana didn't value the opportunity of being NWA Champion, and thus was not going to be their guy. This put Pearce and Cabana in a weird position as they made the seven-match series with plans of a finish that now appeared wasn't going to be approved by the new NWA. There was a belief that the whole issue was also political in nature as there is the thought that the new NWA wanted nothing to do with Dave Marquez of NWA Hollywood or anyone he was associated with, and they were both very close with him (in fact, that was the Marquez TV show the feud started on). One source said Tharpe didn't like Marquez because Marquez didn't vote to have Tharpe take over the brand before the lawsuit went down. Things continued to fall apart when Pearce was allegedly asked out of the blue to drop the NWA Title to Damien Wayne the first week of October. Pearce was upset because the NWA reportedly knew he was booked solid as champion to a number of different promotions through the first week of November. He allegedly told them he'd drop the title provided they sent him the money to reimburse all the promoters who had been promised Pearce as NWA Champion through early November for the booking, flights, advertising costs, etc. That obviously wasn't going to happen. He was then told he didn't have to drop the belt to Wayne in October (that show, by the way, never took place), but the NWA was still adamant that Cabana didn't win the title in the final match of the Seven Levels of Hate. The Pearce/Cabana feud had spanned eighteen months, at least two continents, plus TV in two different NWA markets, and Pearce allegedly said that there was no way in the final match of the series that he, the heel, was going to beat the babyface, particularly in a cage match. He told them that Cabana was going to win and if they didn't want the belt to switch then they could "unsanction it" and take the title out of the equation. With that issue settled, the NWA tried to hammer out a date for him to drop the title to Wayne. November 9th and December 14th in Houston were proposed, but Pearce wasn't available for November and was waiting on arrangements for bookings in December. They told him to figure it out by October 27th or he'd have to step down as champion. Since the stipulations were already that if he lost Seven Levels of Hate he'd leave the NWA (which apparently was planned all along as a way to allow for a cooling-off period for his character since he'd visited a lot of the NWA promotions several times over), he agreed. The cage match was October 26th in Melbourne, Australia, and he wasn't able to get his December arrangements settled by then, so he sent the NWA a written statement stepping down. Sources indicate that the NWA was happy with the buzz around the brand after the Pearce/Cabana cage match and post-match in Australia. What happened was, after Cabana won the match, Pearce cut a promo about the match being non-title, said he was very proud of Cabana and as far as he was concerned, Colt was the champion. He handed him the belt. Colt then cut a promo saying the NWA Title was the past, and he was all about paving his own do-it-yourself underground movement future. The NWA, he said, represented the past, people that didn't want to move forward, idiots. The Board, he said, was filled with stupidity, idiots who knew nothing about the future, and they were people he wanted nothing to do with. "I beat you in your series," he told Pearce, "I played by your rules and visited every town you booked, and I saw that these towns didn't care about some stupid letters, they cared about the wrestlers, they cared about the future, they cared about pro-wrestler Colt Cabana and pro-wrestler Adam Pearce." He said he accepted that he'd won the title and he'd won the feud, but he wasn't accepting the physical belt. He handed it back to Pearce. "Well, if you don't accept it, I don't accept it either," Pearce said. He said the NWA "robbed Colt, they robbed all the fans, and worst of all, they robbed themselves of one of the finest NWA Champions who ever lived." Pearce then, as the series stipulations called for, said he was stepping down as champion and leaving the NWA. "I wish you the best in your future endeavors," he said. Apparently there is even more to the story and Pearce and Cabana are reportedly going to put together a documentary detailing the entire feud and aftermath.

Cabana, it should be noted, was promised a year-long NWA Title run twice. The first time it ended prematurely when whatever happened with the Sheik happened (I still don't know what happened there, presumably it will be addressed in the documentary but I don't know that for certain). Then he was supposed to get a long run after winning the title from Pearce, and the new Board came in and nixed all of that. It was noted to me this week that Cabana has the name recognition, the work ethic and ability, and the goodwill with promoters to have been a great representative as champion, and that it's a shame it all went down the way it did.

 

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The older generation generally saw it as a deal that involved Jerry Lawler, the King of Memphis wrestling, who almost certainly had no problem with the angle and would likely have booked something similar in his own territory (or at least found a way – likely a much better way – to weave the reality into a storyline in an effort to draw money) had it happened there. It appeared few wrestlers were really upset at all about the angle, and some were even talking about how it would have been awesome to be Punk, standing there in the ring while Mick Foley cut a classic Foley promo on him. The majority of the heat within the company stemmed from WWE's decision to air a video that included audio of Lawler snoring as he had the heart attack and graphic footage of him being carted out on a stretcher as doctors furiously attempted to keep him alive with CPR (or, more accurately, bring him back to life as he was clinically dead for ten minutes). At least a few readers pointed out that they'd known people who'd had heart attacks and died right in front of them and the audio of Lawler snoring was terribly uncomfortable.

The Lawler angle was planned several weeks ago and approved by all the parties that were in the ring (Lawler, Punk, Foley and Heyman). Jim Ross wasn't there and I don't know what he thought about it. He did a blog and didn't talk too much about it except to say it wasn't his favorite part of the show. One source said the whole thing was a perfect example of "how Vince McMahon thinks."
Regarding the finish in the Punk vs. Ryback vs. Cena match at Survivor Series, we'll see what happens. Whatever the finish is, it'll likely change a number of times before Sunday. For whatever it's worth, last week the idea was that CM Punk was closing out WrestleMania. This would indicate he'd be in the Mania title match, which would also seem to indicate at the time they made that decision they were leaning towards Cena vs. Rock at Rumble and Rock vs. Punk for the title at Mania. If it's Cena vs. Rock at Rumble, that would mean Cena wins the title on Sunday. After the Lawler segment on Raw, my feeling was that Lawler was going to somehow cost Punk the title at Survivor Series. However, Cena pinned Punk in the main event, which if you go by traditional WWE booking means that Cena is getting pinned on Sunday and Punk is retaining the title. It's highly doubtful they'd beat Ryback again, so that would mean most likely Ryback hits Cena with his finish and Punk steals the pin. If Punk goes into Rumble with Rock, that would mean in order for him to close out WrestleMania they'd have to make Punk vs. Undertaker the main event. Not sure how they'd make that seem as important or more important than Rock vs. Cena for the title. My other thought was that Punk talking about death so much in the Lawler promo Monday could be leading to Punk vs. Undertaker (the Dead Man) at Rumble, particularly if Punk loses the title Sunday and thus wouldn't be doing the match with Undertaker at Mania (since he'd be facing Rock for the title). Rumble, however, doesn't need an Undertaker match since it's going to do huge business just with Rock fighting for the title.
Punk will be the Grand Marshall of the Thanksgiving Day Parade in Chicago, which also suggests he's leaving Survivor Series as WWE Champion.
Rest of the PPV has Team Foley of Kofi Kingston & Kane & Daniel Bryan & Randy Orton & Miz vs. Team Ziggler of Dolph Ziggler & Cody Rhodes (presumably, it is believed he suffered some sort of injury in a tag match at the Main Event tapings Tuesday night) & Albert Del Rio & Wade Barrett in a five-on-five traditional Survivor Series match; Big Show vs. Sheamus for the World Title; Eve vs. Kaitlyn for the Divas Title; and Antonio Cesaro vs. Truth for the US Title. Pre-show match has Santino & Zack Ryder vs. Heath Slater & Jinder Mahal. Drew McIntyre has been off the road after his mother passed away recently after a long battle with cancer.

Here’s something to ponder: if the senatorial election was held this week instead of last week, would WWE have done the angle it did on Raw on 11/12?
That Raw should could have been remembered for one of the great moments in the history of the show, Jerry Lawler’s emotional, beaming smile and the standing ovation for his return nine weeks after a near fatal heart attack. Instead, it’ll always be known as the show that made it clear why people (and not just the general public, but even its own fan base) view the industry as sleazy, no matter how much WWE cloaks itwself with charitable commercial spots. And it’s nobody’s fault, except those who call the shots.

For the past week, the return of Lawler had been the most hyped aspect of the show, and with good reason. Lawler has been with Raw since very early in its run, and has appeared on more episodes of the show than anyone. The all-time wrestling legend in the state of Tennessee, Lawler is one of the most uniquely talented men ever in the profession. He’s a smooth talker with few rivals in history, but someone who, at 62, can go in the ring and tell a story with the best of them. And it’s absolutely not an indictment of the product that in a company that examines everything it does due to ratings, that Lawler’s return figured to be their best hope at expanding their audience a little.
The promotion of his return got a little heavy-handed. Talking about his return from the heart attack was enough to tell the story. The footage showing the chaos after he had the heart attack felt exploitive. That it is almost always about ratings doesn’t mean a TV show should show its hand and make it appear to the public they are desperate for ratings. That was the impression you were left with. But still, Lawler returning was a feelgood moment waiting to happen, whether you’re jaded, like the product, or don’t like the product.

Before he came out, to paint the story, they showed footage from backstage of paramedics trying to revive him as his heart had stopped beating. It was uneasy, watching it. In the same video package, they enhanced the sound of him snoring at the desk when he passed out.

In hearing from a few people within the company, there was a reaction that the video piece was worse than the angle because the angle is just how WWE does business. But enhancing the snoring was a production decision that leaves you shaking your head at what the person who made the call must have been thinking. Some expressed no problem with it, and others didn’t like it but it didn’t surprise them. But this was nothing like the reaction seven years ago when they used Eddy Guerrero’s death week after week in storyline. And once you establish something like that as the gutter level for the company, almost anything else would pale in comparison.
In the vast majority of cases, a feelgood moment during a television broadcast is always exploited for heat, because the mentality is that’s the best time to get it. There is very little “real” in pro wrestling to the viewer, that people buy into, and it’s when they buy into something that you can get real heat when the heel screws with it.

 

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Lawler said, “I was like Jim Ross, thinking there was a time I didn’t think I could step back in a WWE ring again. For this night to happen is beyond words for me. Every holiday season, there’s a classic movie and you’ve all seen it, called `It’s a Wonderful Life.’ It’s about a guy who didn’t now how much his life meant to every one of his family and friends. It took a near-death experience for him to realize it. In the past few weeks, I lived that movie. I had no idea how many friends and fans that reached out with your love and prayers and sent them my way. I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, I appreciate it. I love each and every one of you and love you very much.”
At this point, it was over. C.M. Punk and Paul Heyman came out. Punk essentially tried to credit their angle for Lawler suffering the heart attack, saying how a 62-year-old man thinking he can go toe-to-toe with the defending world champion is bad taste and, “What did you think was going to happen?” He said how Lawler was trying to steal his spotlight with the heart attack, and said, “Who cares about the number of minutes he was dead?”
Later, Paul Heyman started coughing and then collapsed, doing a fake heart attack while Punk mockingly asked for someone to help. He told Lawler, “Try not to croak before the PPV.” Mick Foley came out to defend Lawler, cutting a spirited promo, to build for Foley being guest ringside enforcer in the Punk vs. John Cena main event that night.
WWE likes to say it puts smiles on faces. And in pro wrestling, it’s about both putting smiles on faces and also about making people mad at times, and making them care enough to like people a lot, or hate them a lot. They also say it’s about creating memories. This time, they could have created one of the best ones, that could have reflected well on the company. Instead, they did the opposite, figuring they couldn’t pass up an opportunity to exploit something that real to garner heat for performers who are good enough to get it otherwise.

It’s far from the worst thing they’ve done. And far from the worst angles anyone has done. I didn’t have the slightest sense of outrage watching it. It was more of pity, that on a show filled with Tribute to the Troops and Wounded Warriors fund raisers and jumping on the back of good causes constantly, that they are so unaware that things like this make some of the people they do business with hold their noses while they shake their hands, and the total lack of realization things like this reflect badly on their company and the industry. The lack of respect in the public for pro wrestling to the point they want to change the name of the genre is the ultimate irony because while pro wrestling did have a bad reputation in many (but not all) places long before Vince McMahon went national, the reputation of pro wrestling today is entirely based on WWF, not on anything that preceded them. The fact Linda McMahon could take credit for taking a relatively small company and making it an international success and have it be her albatross because of what women think of the company didn’t even give them the self awareness of perhaps why this might be.
Jerry Jarrett, one of the few people living who understands the situation from the standpoint of having to use emotions to make money, and the promoter most closely associated with him, surprisingly, was strongly negative of it, considering Jarrett promoted a company with a very wide latitude toward what was accepted. But there was a difference. When Tux Newman blamed Jerry Lawler for giving Andy Kaufman the cancer that killed him, it was not only well after Kaufman’s death, but also done in a comedic way, where you knew it was silliness and the announcers treated it as such.

“I watched WWE last night. Jerry Lawler was returning after a surviving a life threatening heart attack. I sat watching the television with a feeling of pride that they were honoring the return of such a great wrestler. I sat thinking, ‘Now this is real class.’ Just when I was appreciating the class WWE was showing, it ended suddenly with a juvenile cheap heat angle. I turned the television off and starting thinking about Linda McMahon’s hard work and great expense running for the Senate. It is exactly this kind of programming that prevented her from becoming a Senator. Wrestling should have some limits and boundaries. If you offend great portions of the audience, it is a bad angle.”
At the end of the day, Lawler likely had no issues with it. He was fine with the death of his mother being used right after it happened to be used for Michael Cole to build heat for their program in 2011, and using it as inspiration for his quest to become WWE champion (which he wasn’t going to win).

As far as people tuning out, there was, in fact, a huge tune-out factor actually during the angle itself, with 17.7% of those viewing turning off their TV or switching to another channel in the last few minutes of the angle. It was 21% leaving in the Male 18-49 demo, or one in five, which is kind of staggering if you think about it. I had expected the “train wreck” mentality where people would hate it but stick with it and then tune out for the next match, but they didn’t wait. But as far as long-term, there was no effect since almost all came back to the show roughly 45 minutes later, watched one segment, and there was a massive tune-out again from there, which is the normal third hour pattern as people get tired of the show late..

 

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My other thought was that Punk talking about death so much in the Lawler promo Monday could be leading to Punk vs. Undertaker (the Dead Man) at Rumble

The Impact-style voiceover guy on Raw is, in fact, a direct rip-off of the guy from Impact. Apparently someone showed Vince a tape of Impact and Vince said WWE could do it better. Rest is history.


Meltz

 

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Jeff Hardy very literally risked life and limb in his ladder match with Austin Aries that headlined the 11/11 TNA Turning Point PPV.

He retained his title, and lived to fight another day, since he was back in the ring two days later for TV tapings after a series of stunts and some bad landings in the match that was the highlight of the show. The card was decent all the way through, with the bad matches being better than expected and the good matches late being marred by an Orlando crowd that seemed to tire out.
The show featured no title changes, and the one match with the major stipulations, a three-way with Bobby Roode, James Storm and A.J. Styles to create a top contender as well as eliminate a contender, saw the result meaningless by the next day.
Storm won the match, after giving Roode a backstabber and Styles a superkick. The storyline is that he could have at that point pinned either guy, but he went to pin Styles. By the stipulations, the guy who was pinned couldn’t get a TNA title shot until Bound for Glory next year. So they are going to do a lengthy story with Styles starting at the bottom and working his way back up, no doubt winning the Bound for Glory series and building to a title win. And if history is any indication, they’ll find a reason to change their mind on it the day of the show and whatever momentum he had would be gone.

The next day at TV, Roode challenged Storm to a match to put up his title shot. Storm turned him down at first, until Roode started insulting Storm’s daughter. Storm agreed and Roode won the match, so the next PPV, Final Resolution on 12/9 in Orlando, is headlined by Hardy vs. Roode for the TNA title. Nothing else is official other than the “final” meeting with Styles vs. Christopher Daniels. From TV, it appears they are going with Austin Aries vs. Bully Ray, Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Hernandez defending the tag titles against Matt Morgan & Joey Ryan, and Tara defending the Knockouts title against either Mickie James (who won a Battle Royal to get the shot, but that makes no sense given that she hasn’t been pushed on TV) or ODB (who was in the Battle Royal, but has been Tara’s main rival including beating her in a non-title match and a handicap match), but still not getting a shot.

The show opened with Buckethead, a local Tampa DJ, out with Bully Ray and Taz talking about the effects of Hurricane Sandy. Taz still lives in Brooklyn. Ray lives in Florida now but grew up in New York. Buckethead said that they wanted to break the Guinness Book of World Records for the most text messages at the same time encouraging everyone watching to text a number to pledge $10 to the Red Cross Relief Fund. In hindsight, if they were looking to break a world record, they should have done this on Impact with the show airing in nearly 1 million homes instead of a PPV where they’ll be lucky to get 10,000. Nothing has been said about this since so evidently nothing resembling a world record was set. Still, it’s a good cause.
The announcing team was Todd Keneley doing play-by-play with Mike Tenay and Taz doing analysis. It would be the first major PPV in company history that Tenay wasn’t doing play-by-play on. I believe Tenay missed one show in the Nashville days when they were running an angle regarding him being gone. It actually worked out better because Tenay is strong at both imparting information and putting things into perspective. Keneley isn’t as conversational as Tenay in calling matches, but can do the job. Taz was out there busting his balls a few times and you can tell Keneley is good on his feet with his quick responses.


TNA
Jeff Hardy strongly hinted he’s going to stay when his contract expires in March. That’s one of the reasons they gave him the title. He was on the Busted Open radio show on 11/12 and said, “In January, when that rolls around, I’ll make a decision. I’ve pretty much made that decision. The music is going to be a huge part of it as far as keeping me around. We haven’t signed anything yet, but we are getting close.” One would suspect TNA would want to sign him for a multiple year deal. He also talked about wanting to do a masked gimmick as Willow the Whisp (the name he used under a mask when he started in Omega in the 90s) at some point.

They did a big Sting injury angle on Impact on 11/8, where Doc (Drew Hankinson/Luke Gallows/Festus, Doc being short for Director of Chaos) beat him up with a hammer, including smashing both his hands. Sting’s contract expires at the end of the year, but the way it was handled on television and on the PPV was for the build for a big return which would indicate they expect him to sign for yet another year.
VIP Publishing signed up A.J. Styles for an autobiography, talking about growing up in poverty with an alcoholic parent, his Christianity and his life as a wrestler.
Kenny King, who hadn’t been used in a long time, was brought back on 11/13 for a three-way match on Xplosion, where Zema Ion beat King and Kid Kash.
Kurt Angle on twitter said that a man named Wafi Wahibi and his company, WbaSocial, scammed him out of $34,700. He said he paid Wahibi that money to produce a Fitness App for him, and that Wahibi changed his company name and moved from Los Angeles to Denver.

The British Boot Camp show debuts on Challenge TV in the U.K. on 1/1 at 10 p.m.

TNA Director of Travel Bob Ryder is out of the hospital after battling cancer for a long time. His cancer levels have been reduced to almost zero.

 

[Rain]

My other thought was that Punk talking about death so much in the Lawler promo Monday could be leading to Punk vs. Undertaker (the Dead Man) at Rumble


Meltz

That part had me :dafukk:

 

[R=G]

WWEMick Foley is the lead name most are talking about internally for the Hall of Fame since it’s being held in Madison Square Garden. A lot of people want Owen Hart, since his match with Bret Hart in MSG at WM X turned his career around. The problem with Owen is it’ll stir up a hornet’s nest with Martha Hart if WWE tries to honor him. I think they’ll make another pitch for Ultimate Warrior since they were turned down a few months back by Bruno Sammartino, although there is still interest in trying to cut a deal with him as well. There is always a huge trust factor when dealing with Warrior, because he may agree, and then once advertising is out, change his mind. This one is only speculation, but I can see Cyndi Lauper since she’s from New York and they put her on TV recently. If The Rock wants to go, because obviously he can call his shot on this, this also could be the year since it’s Madison Square Garden and he’s from that generation where that’s a huge deal. The arena means a lot to him, with his grandfather having main evented there with Bob Backlund and Superstar Graham, his first televised match in WWF came from there, his sort of retirement match was there, and he did his comeback match there at Survivor Series largely for the symbolism of returning there. The Randy Savage thing is held up because the Poffo family, Lanny and mother Judy, have insisted that for Randy to go in, they have to induct Lanny and Angelo Poffo and they go in as a family like the Von Erichs. The claim is that was Randy’s wish before he died. It is a company pro wrestling Hall of Fame and it’s not like Lanny and Angelo Poffo weren’t tons bigger stars than Chris Von Erich or tons better than Mike Von Erich, so there is a precedent set. But there is also the perception if they do it that people will know they backed down to Lanny if they induct him. Bob Backlund would also be a good choice just because of the MSG tie-in. I heard people mention Mr. T, but he’s been very difficult in the past when it comes to money and has turned it down before.

Rock has signed on for the lead role in a “Hercules” movie that will begin filming in early 2013. The movie will be co-produced by MGM and Paramount.

For Survivor Series on 11/18 in Indianapolis, it’s Punk vs. Ryback vs. Cena for the WWE title, Team Foley (Kingston & Kane & Bryan & Miz & Orton) vs. Team Ziggler (Ziggler & Del Rio & Sandow & Rhodes & Barrett), Show vs. Sheamus for the World title, Cesaro vs. R-Truth for the U.S. title and Torres vs. Kaitlyn for the Divas title. At one point this past week there was talk of adding Mysterio & Sin Cara vs. O’Neil & Young, or a multiple person match in some form involving those four, to the show. It’s probably happening since the pre-show match is Marella & Ryder vs. Mahal & Slater, so you’ve still got those four without a match.
The status of Rhodes is in question. During the match taped for Main Event on 11/13 with Kane & Bryan vs. Rhodes & Sandow, Rhodes took a bump badly and was injured. He didn’t even come out with the team on Smackdown and at this point there was no word on if the injury was serious or not.

There were a lot of stories about the Linda McMahon campaign after it was over. Christopher Shays, who lost to her in the Republican primary, blamed her high-priced consultants. “The people advising her were thrilled to take her money, but they know this was a long shot. I would have spent half the money she did, and I would have said, `You are going to know these issues cold. I would give you a briefing paper every two weeks and we’re going to quiz you on it.” Shays said she was clueless on the issues and she also wasted a lot of money in urban areas (which voted 90% democrat) saying no matter how much she pushed voting for Obama and McMahon in commercials and posters in inner-cities, very few voted for her. It also made her something of a pariah to many in the party. While only a few have said that publicly, the feeling was she had built a name and with her money, she could have been a force in the Republican party going forward, just not as a candidate. But the party leaders were hugely negative about her last week or so of campaigning. He said someone with basic Politics 101 in college could have told her to spend her money where the undecided live. The craziest story came from the Republican Party that far behind in the polls, on Election Day, the McMahon campaign printed up fliers saying that Chris Murphy (her opponent) was to blame for the extended power outages after Hurricane Sandy. The fliers were pointing out Murphy received money in contributions from either individuals or PACs affiliated with the major utility companies, and have those handed out on the Gold Coast, where they had extended loss of power after the hurricane. The story broken by the Hearst Newspaper chain said Republicans in the area refused to hand out the fliers.

They are looking at bringing up one or two new women since it kind of hit them how little depth they have in those ranks. They do have an Eve vs. A.J. program that they’ll probably put more focus on than anything in a few years.
Tribute to the Troops will be taped on 12/9 in Norfolk at The Scope Arena. It will air on 12/19 on USA in a two hour format and on 12/22 on NBC in an edited one hour format. Celebrities announced as appearing on the show, which will be promoted as the 10th annual event, are Kid Rock, Flo Rida, The Muppets and Access Hollywood & NBC Sports personality Michelle Beadle (who is a big WWE fan). Sometime in December, Vince McMahon is going overseas to visit some military bases with Miz, Layla, R-Truth and Eve Torres and clips of them overseas with the troops will be edited onto the show.

While these numbers are estimates, we’re told they aren’t far off. But the WWE 13 video game in its first week out was No. 2 for the week with 247,705 units sold in the U.S. That was a distant No. 2 behind Assassin’s Creed that did an estimated 1,624,444. WWE 13 did another 57,080 units sold in the U.K. It was slightly down domestically from the first week last year, but that was considered a big success since the release came when 20% of the retail outlets were closed due to Hurricane Sandy and all Northeast figures, the most popular part of the country for WWE, had to take a major hit. What has happened in recent years is the hardcore WWE crowd is as loyal and strong as ever, but the casual crowd is down. Pre-orders for the game broke the all-time record set last year. Last year they did record pre-orders and a great first week, but overall totals at the end were down significantly for a variety of reasons. This year with only two platforms and a video game market down 25% worldwide from 2011 isn’t going to help matters. Plus, THQ, their partner, is in grave financial danger. While the WWE franchise is always profitable (one estimate is $20 million to $30 million for THQ each year), THQ itself has burned through a ridiculous amount of money the last five years and has little cash on hand. Plus, they have a $100 million loan due in July or August which is like the big iceberg the ship is headed toward. They’ve been trying to raise capital to continue. The belief is, and lawyers would have to straighten it out, that if THQ goes down, WWE could sell its franchise on the open market and with its history of success, it’s not as if they are in any danger of not having the major companies not be interested. Plus, there is hope that with the end of the current console cycles and new consoles being introduced in the next couple of years, that perhaps the entire industry will rebound. For WWE, the belief is domestic numbers and U.K. numbers will stay steady because WWE is now a part of the culture in those places. But in the past, they had the new markets (Italy, Spain, Mexico and France all had their runs) where things just exploded, particularly with kids and those in the game buying age, but it was a few year fad). Those markets went huge boom to bust and right now there isn’t necessarily the next boom market, although the hope is the Middle East may be. The cash flow issues were likely a big part of the reason they sold the UFC franchise to EA (they also claimed the third edition of the game didn’t turn a profit), but even with the cash from that sale, they are cash poor again. There is now the belief that from a video game sales standpoint, that UFC is more akin to boxing than WWE because WWE introduces so many new characters, plus WWE has different annual ideas to relive nostalgia and bring back enduring legends. The boxing model, with EA Fight Night, was a huge success the first time, did well the second and was way down the third, a similar pattern to UFC. It’s a combination of not having as much talent turnover, limitations of gimmicks and with UFC, limited nostalgia. Boxing has great nostalgia, but not as much to the age group that buys games in the sense little kids aren’t for the most part really boxing fans and the reliving childhood heroes isn’t as strong.

Regarding THQ, to show how little confidence there is in the company in Wall Street, the stock was at $1.21 per share on 11/12, which meant the market capitalization of the entire company was only $8.28 million. They have one franchise, Saints Row, that will next year be expected to do more than $40 million in pure profits and WWE is a steady performer as well. The company is proceeding like business as usual, but that’s the attitude of most businesses. Essentially, they are in negotiations for an infusion of cash with the idea that there are profitable games coming, the two mentioned and a South Park game, so a restructured company in theory is now greatly undervalued and if they come out of it, the new owners can make a huge return. But the key is there has to be a tremendous outlay of cash to keep going, in particular negotiate on the note coming due.

Punk is official as the Grand Marshall for the McDonald’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in Chicago. It’ll air on Thanksgiving morning on WGN.
Nothing new regarding WWE talks with a number of both domed and outdoor stadiums in the U.K. While there has been talk of next year’s SummerSlam being in the U.K. (Reports from the U.K. seemed to indicate they were looking at July, which would seem to be either Money in the Bank or maybe a U.K. only show), there is a huge problem which is the time zone issue. I just don’t see them doing a show from 1:30 a.m. to 5 a.m. and some locales may even have laws against public gatherings at that time (the same thing that kept UFC from running a PPV from the soccer stadium in Sao Paulo because of time difference issues). They could make it work with a Sunday afternoon U.S. PPV time slot as 3 p.m. Eastern and Noon on the West Coast could be a 9 p.m. start in the U.K. But again, there is the risk, especially for a show like Money in the Bank, of hurting PPV numbers even if you do a replay in the normal 8 p.m. slot. It’s a very different era with PPV in the sense people are such creatures of habit with the time and it’s been years since they messed with the Sunday at 8 p.m. formula (and when they did mess with it going on Tuesdays it was a failure). In this day and age, I don’t think you can go with a tape delayed PPV. They could do a U.K. only PPV but is that enough to run a 70,000 seat stadium there? And I don’t know the viability of doing something like turning Barrett babyface, giving him the big push, and build to his title win as the local guy’s big triumph which would be how boxing or UFC may do it.
As for WrestleMania XXX, the frontrunner is the Superdome in New Orleans. Part of it may be that WWE can get a lot of tax credits (they did a lot of their movies based in New Orleans for that reason) for it. Right now the Mercedes Benz Superdome’s listed capacity is 72,000, so it’s not like the old days with 100,000 capacity and using WrestleMania 30 to break the Pontiac record. There was talk this past week of Los Angeles as well. The Coliseum has a capacity of 93,600. With putting seats on the field, but the blocked off seats from the stage, you can probably do 85-90,000 legit and with the Mania markup, they can claim 100,000. Nothing is official but New Orleans was the frontrunner at press time. They usually make the announcement early a year ahead, so probably first quarter of 2013 they’ll lock it in. There are a number of other cities that have also put in bids.

John Layfield has agreed to terms to stay on as the Smackdown announcer. The spot really opened up when Booker T was moved to General Manager. Layfield is a big improvement but does need to work on being repetitive. He has his two or three notes about every young guy and says them in every match. I’ve gotten to where I already know almost everything he’s going to say before he says it, although I was like that with Gordon Solie and he was considered one of the greats. Layfield will do Smackdown and if Miz is wrestling on Main Event, Layfield would do that show. He’s likely to be the third person on PPV.
You can take this however you want to. When Vince McMahon was on the investors call on 11/1 and brought up the Susan G. Komen Foundation, he said that “It gave us a different audience completely, a way to spread the word about WWE in a much different way.”

 

[R=G]

The USA Network will be airing a WWE edition of “The Soup” on 11/26 right after Raw.
Regarding the announcing on Raw, the plan going forward is Cole & Lawler. While not official, the belief is it’ll be Cole, Lawler and John Layfield for Survivor Series. It’s unclear at press time regarding Ross at Raw next week but after Raw the assumption was Ross wouldn’t be back. It’s a shame because Ross & the babyface Cole were the best announcing team the company has had in many years, particularly when it came to getting the new characters over. During Raw, they had Ross do the first hour and introduce Lawler when he came back, but Ross disappeared from there and it was Cole & Lawler doing the rest of the show. There was a time when Ross would have really wanted to go back to doing Raw weekly, and he was unhappy when they made the call to take him off all the times they did. But now, with him being almost 61, the impression people have is he’ll do it if asked, but he’s just as happy with traveling less and working the NXT shows and working with the developmental program and also working closer with HHH when it comes to aspects of the business like talent relations that he’s experienced in.
They are back to booking Cena on Tuesday TV tapings since the attendance at Smackdown tapings has been so-so at best.
From Roddy Piper: “Can spend $90 million on a losing election but won’t give the people that earned that money for them medical or retirement help of any kind.” Interesting that after bad mouthing them on Twitter, also responding to someone who noted how Vince McMahon had Michael Cole make fun of how bad his segment with Cyndi Lauper was several months back on Raw and he blamed it on bad script writing and how Vince said nothing to him, that WWE called him this week to appear on an upcoming show.

The premiere episode of season two of “Redneck Island” on CMT on 11/10 did 1.4 million viewers, the highest most watched opening episode of a series in the history of the station. An interesting note is that the theme to the song is “Longnecks and Rednecks,” the James Storm entrance music which was written by Dixie Carter’s husband, Serg Salinas.
A correction on the spelling of the real name of Brad Maddox. The actual spelling is Tyler Kluttz.
Rene Pacquette, who came from The Score in Canada, debuted over the weekend as the host of WWE Experience, a weekly one hour highlights of Raw & Smackdown show that is produced for the international market. Pacquette hosts the show with Striker.

Not much on the training camp in Birmingham, England that took place this past week. Nothing official but apparently a few looked good. They had some high level rugby players try out as well as European independent wrestlers and strongman types.
“Haven,” the show that follows Smackdown on Syfy that Edge has a recurring role in, was renewed for a fourth season. Edge also had his long-awaited neck surgery this past week in Pittsburgh. Dr. Joseph Maroon, who is the head of WWE’s medical team, performed the surgery. Edge noted that one of the first people to call him after surgery was Bruno Sammartino, and he noted that he had only met the guy once. Maroon operated on Sammartino’s back many years ago, and Sammartino credits the surgery with him being able to still train and move around.

 

[Dog Based Gremlin]

 

[Riley Escobar]

Also from OVW, one wrestler said, "King Mo is a great, great man." So at least out of the ring he's winning people over.

Dafuq is King Mo, and why is he stealing the swag of one of the GOATS

 

[Bob Loblaw]

thanks for the drop

 

[Evil genius Jay]

Cliff notes please...