WWE/TNA News: RIP, Paul/"AJ, stop wasting your life in TNA"

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Very sad this week to report the death of William Moody, aka Paul Bearer and Percy Pringle III, of unknown causes at the age of 59. Moody had suffered from various health problems for years including gallbladder issues and, in his own words, morbid obesity, which led him to undergo gastric bypass surgery years back. The surgery was a success and he lost more than 200 pounds, a process that, at the time, he said saved his life. Moody had been a guest on our show numerous times and was always so nice. He loved pro wrestling, absolutely loved it, dating back to when he was a child going to matches with his father. He broke into the business and found great success in promotions such as World Class and the USWA before moving to WWE as the second manager of the Undertaker in 1990. Moody was a real-life mortician both before and after his major WWE run as Paul Bearer, and talked about how he'd sometimes be recognized while performing his duties by relatives of the deceased. He said it was actually a great icebreaker in the sense that it helped people take their minds off the tragedy, even if for only a moment. He'd known personal tragedy in his life, most recently the death of his wife after a long and hard fought battle with cancer, a heartbreak friends said he likely never recovered from. In recent months he'd taken himself off indy dates and had complained of not feeling well. WWE.com reported his death late Tuesday night, and most of the roster learned the news following the Smackdown tapings. His last major run took place as part of the Smackdown brand in a long storyline involving Kane and Edge, one of the worst storylines of the last decade, that ended with Paul Bearer being "killed." Bearer, both in terms of physical mannerisms and storylines, was, in many ways, a living cartoon, and like the Wile E. Coyote and other cartoon protagonists, he was killed in storyline countless times -- falling off ladders onto concrete, being buried alive in cement, being electrocuted, etc. But, because WWE "didn't do death," his storyline demise was always listed as, for example, a "serious injury," and he'd inevitably be back. The one thing about Moody during our interviews was how open he was about how goofy these storylines were -- these weren't storylines to defend, or anything to get mad about if a person said they were preposterous. I always thought it would have been a perfect ending for Bearer to come back for Undertaker's final WrestleMania match, where after the final bell and the lights went down they'd retire into the sunset together. I'll always have fond memories of our conversations, both on the air and off, and I'll really miss William Moody, a good man.There was a push Tuesday night to posthumously induct Bearer into the WWE Hall of Fame this year.

WWE finally got the ball rolling on a full WrestleMania card on Raw this week. The show is still four weeks away so it's not like a disaster that it's taken this long to get more than the top two matches, plus realistically the show is being sold on one match, Rock vs. Cena, and the WrestleMania name, so it's not a major deal. It's interesting that after all the discussion about what kind of angle to do to set up Undertaker vs. CM Punk, what they ended up doing was having Undertaker return, then Punk challenged him, then three other guys wanted the match, and then they did a four-way that Punk won. Hardly the most creative idea anyone's ever come up with. So besides Rock vs. Cena; Alberto Del Rio vs. Jack Swagger; and Punk vs. Undertaker; we've also got Brock Lesnar vs. HHH, as expected; Ryback vs. Mark Henry in a battle of the giants largely designed to actually let Ryback win a match on PPV (it appears the idea of a heel turn has been dropped, at least for the moment); and Shield vs. Big Show & Sheamus & Randy Orton. For the record, the idea of Orton turning heel is still on the books, though now it's looking like it'll take place after WrestleMania (which might give you an idea of what they might do for a finish here). They still haven't figured anything out for Team Hell No (could face each other if they lose the tag titles before Mania), Chris Jericho, Antonio Cesaro, Miz, Wade Barrett, the Divas Title or the Rhodes Scholars, though they're all expected to be on the show.

Rey Mysterio suffered a knee injury but was told by James Andrews that he didn't need surgery. He will need to wear a special boot and probably won't be wrestling for a while. He had feared he'd torn the ACL in his "good" knee several weeks back. For whatever it's worth, the company and Rey are on very good terms of late and they've been begging him to come back. They don't want him to leave and consider him a company man for life, even after he retires. At least, that's their mindset this week.

Although Miz and Ric Flair did a partnership/mentor deal this week on Raw, we were told not to read too much into that, and that the thing to really think about is why Dolph Ziggler has not only been losing left and right, but has gotten limited interview time and didn't even get an entrance on Monday. Miz vs. Cesaro is said to be just a TV feud to give them something to do between now and Mania.

 

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For whatever its worth, Del Rio vs. Swagger will be continuing after WrestleMania with a submission match being on the books for Extreme Rules.

The company has dropped all plans for anything involving Glenn Beck since he refused to bite.

Raw broke the 5 million viewers mark for Old School Raw, a very good number.

At their quarterly investor's conference, WWE noted that their estimates were that the future WWE Network would need 1,000,000 subscribers to not be a money-loser, a number that many in the industry feel is an impossible mark to hit. WWE Classics on Demand, a low-level and limited version of a WWE network, does less than 80,000 viewers. Only about 100,000 to 125,000 WWE fans purchase B-level PPVs ever month, and even WrestleMania does in the 700,000 range, and that's including fans who watch no wrestling, don't buy any PPVs, don't really follow the product and only buy that one show per year. When you consider that 4.5 million viewers for Raw is counting 1.5 or so viewers in each home, and that you have to look at homes buying PPVs as opposed to people (if I have two WWE fans in my house, we're only paying for the Network once, not once for each fan), well, they'd need like 50 percent of the Raw homes to buy the Network, and that seems like an impossible task. They get less than 5 percent to buy PPVs now, probably closer to 3 percent, and even if they tripled that, that's still 9 percent which is way below the 50 percent needed. I just don't see any way this works. The price point they are looking at, as I'd figured, is $12.95 to $14.95 per month, and that would give fans access to every PPV except WrestleMania. What's interesting is that they're hell-bent on doing a terrestrial TV network during a time that a lot of niche channels are dying (and make no mistake, WWE Network will be a very niche channel). My feeling is that the company should be forward-looking, investigating an online platform of sorts, perhaps more in association with YouTube and Hulu, both of which were moneymakers for WWE, so much so that they kept the company profitable when other core aspects of business, such as touring, were down. No launch date for the Network was announced despite that sort of being promised on the last call.

I've been down on TNA's decision to not do an all-cage-match format at Lockdown this year. When they first introduced this concept, everyone said an all-cage-match show would never work. Overkill, it was said, too many cage matches would kill the crowd by the end. I knew this wasn't the case from experience -- when I used to work for Tim Flowers, the biggest show every year was always Rage in the Cage, an all-cage-match show that the fans just went nuts for. To me, the key in wrestling -- and life -- is to learn from both your successes and failures. If TNA had tried all cage matches and the show had flopped, well, don't do it again. However, Lockdown is always TNA's first or second most-purchased show of the year. There is a historical precedent for it being a successful draw. Therefore it makes no sense to not do all cage matches this year. For the record, the explanation is that last year's show was hurt badly by having five matches inside a cage that didn't need to be -- Crimson vs. Matt Morgan, Machine Guns vs. Joe and Magnus, the women's match, Devon vs. Robbie E and Eric Young & ODB vs. Sarita and Rosita.


Lockdown Sunday, one of only four live TNA PPVs in 2013 (second of the year, in fact, so only two left) has Bully Ray vs. Jeff Hardy in a cage match which could lead to them pulling the trigger on the Bully Ray turn and perhaps a well-deserved World Title win; Team TNA of Sting & Magnus & Samoa Joe & James Storm & Eric Young vs. Aces & Eights of Devon & Mr. Anderson & KNOX & DOC & Garett Bischoff in a Lethal Lockdown (War Games) match; Kurt Angle vs. Wes Briscoe in a cage; Velvet Sky vs. Gail Kim for the Women's title not in a cage; Austin Aries & Bobby Roode vs. Daniels & Kazarian vs. Chavo & Hernandez for the tag titles not in a cage; and Robbie E vs. Robbie T. I figure the fact that Hardy and Bully is in a cage means that a bunch of guys are gonna end up in that cage beating the hell out of Jeff.

Ring of Honor held its 11th Anniversary show at the Frontier Field House in Chicago Ridge, Ill., with two championships changing hands on Saturday. Kyle O'Reilly & Bobby Fish, now working under the moniker of "Red Dragon," ended the Briscoes' eighth reign as champions to win their first titles in the company. The second title change came in the biggest upset of the night, with "Top Prospect" tournament winner Matt Taven beating Adam Cole for the TV Title in a match most felt was a foregone conclusion. Ring of Honor had been promoting Adam Cole vs. Matt Hardy for the television title for the very next afternoon's television tapings in that same building. Matt Hardy was on commentary selling how he couldn't believe Cole would lose the title before defending against himself. This show marks the first time two title changes occurred on the same show since June of 2011, when El Generico captured the Television title from Christopher Daniels and Davey Richards beat Eddie Edwards to capture the World title.
Ring of Honor's WrestleMania weekend IPPV, "Supercard of Honor VII," took shape this past Sunday at the company's latest set of television tapings. In what many have dubbed a surprising turn of events, Kevin Steen will defend his World title against Jay Briscoe, provided Mark Briscoe does not win the title first at a house show the company has scheduled later this month.

 

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Also on the docket for Supercard of Honor, Red Dragon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly) will defend their tag team titles against the American Wolves (Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards) in a rematch from last year's "Final Battle" show.
Cole was booked to lose the TV title before he got his WE tryout, so that's not why he dropped the belt. Neither ROH nor Cole are believed to have any idea if he's going to WWE or not. I don't think most of the guys from the tryout have heard anything as of yet. At this point he's booked for the company through at least this summer. Everything involving the title and Matt Hardy is going as was planned long before Cole got the tryout on February 2nd. He'll be fighting again for the title on April 5th at Supercard of Honor on WrestleMania weekend in a three-way with Matt Hardy and Matt Taven. They did a Hardy vs. Cole match at the tapings and the report we got stated that Cole won via DQ when Rhino gored him, but that was actually a no-contest to set up the three-way.

The company was happy with the iPPV and felt it was the best one of the Sinclair run.

Jay Briscoe separated his shoulder on a gore from Rhino, but they believe he'll be healthy in time for his title match with Kevin Steen in New York.


William Moody, the legendary pro wrestling manager best known under the names Paul Bearer and Percy Pringle III, passed away on 3/5 at the age of 58.
Moody had suffered a blood clot three days earlier while at the Gulf Coast Wrestling Reunion that took place at the International Speedway in his home city of Mobile. Those close to him had reported that he had not been feeling well for several days before the reunion, having caught an upper respiratory infection while appearing in Chicago the previous weekend.

According to Cowboy Bob Kelly, the area’s top star of the early 70s, Moody was in bad health at the event on 3/1 and 3/2. Kelly said Moody, who was the emcee, was so weak when he came that he needed a wheelchair.

He was having severe breathing problems, was coughing badly and was having trouble standing for long periods of time. After the dinner, Moody went to the hospital, telling people he had been suffering respiratory issues, but would be back for a later activity, but never came. Kelly said that after going to the hospital, Moody was told that he had suffered a blood clot. He remained hospitalized until passing away.
Moody had suffered serious health problems over the years, related to obesity. He had, even before the reunion, canceled some independent bookings, citing health issues, including a meeting with fans at the famed Kowloon’s restaurant outside Boston this coming weekend, where his played the role of the president of the Millennium Wrestling Federation.

Kelly and Ronnie Garvin were going to visit him on Wednesday morning at the hospital before getting word on Tuesday night that he had passed away. Moody had asked Kelly, his favorite wrestler growing up, to be the presenter for him when he received the Lou Thesz award in April at the Cauliflower Alley banquet in Las Vegas.

His health improved after undergoing gastric bypass surgery in 2003 that he on several occasions said saved his life, taking him from 525 pounds down to 285 pounds. Moody had bitterness with WWE for some time about being let go after being a longtime loyal performer.
WWE paid for his surgery, as part of an agreement to bring him back since he first turned down overtures, but creative had ideas for using the Paul Bearer character in an angle with Undertaker. He became very loyal to the company from that point, and after that contract expired as a full-time performer, he was immediately signed to a legends deal which gave him an affiliation with the company. He was brought back a few more times as a character, often in angles where the wheels came off.

He had continued to work independent shows until recent weeks.
Reports from WWE indicate there is already discussion on adding him to this year’s Hall of Fame list, since at this point nobody who has passed away had been announced. A graphic was added before the start of the 3/6 Main Event show, and is expected to also air before both the 3/8 Smackdown show and 3/11 Raw show.

About five weeks ago, in an interview with Chris Yandek, Moody considered it a given he would some day be in the WWE Hall of Fame.

“I know that I will, so that’s all I need to know,” he said. “Whether it’s next year, or whether it’s five years from now, I know the time’s coming.
I’ve been very, very blessed in professional wrestling because I’m just an Alabama kid, from the Alabama Gulf Coast that grew up watching local territory days wrestling.

I have been all around the world. I performed in all 50 states, 28 countries, and I got a paycheck every week.”
Just about everyone in the wrestling business, or around the business, sent out tweets mourning the death of Moody. Moody was generally very well liked. He could be, pardon the pun, moody at times, and admitted having bouts with depression likely stemming from a number of personal tragedies in the past decade involving his family, but he loved wrestling and it showed in everything he did around the sport.
“Very sad about Paul Bearer,” wrote Hulk Hogan. “He was a great person and one of the original boys. He was what made wrestling great. Much love. Much respect.”

“Always a pro, and a real kind man,” wrote Dusty Rhodes. “May our family be strong, and you be with God.”
“Goodbye to a good friend, Paul Bearer,” wrote Bret Hart. “Say Hi to Owen for me.”

“Sad, sad news. Percy, my friend, I will always cherish our friendship we shared over the years. Since 88? You’ve always made me smile. From the first time we shared our love of country music, our love of this business, you always put that `Percival perspective,’ on things. RIP Percy. I love you my friend.”
A number of major mainstream news outlets covered his death, including Yahoo Sports, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, FOX Sports, National Public Radio, the Los Angeles Times and New York Daily News.

Moody, who grew up in Mobile, AL, was a lifelong wrestling fan. His entree into the business started when he was a teenager and shot photos at the matches for Gulf Coast Championship Wrestling. Ironically his beginnings were similar too that of two of pro wrestling’s other best managers of the era, Jim Cornette and Paul Heyman, who also started out as photographers as teenagers.
Born William Alvin Moody on April 10, 1954, Moody was the son of two wrestling fans. On his personally written biography, he talked about going to matches dating back to being a toddler.

 

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“My lifetime interest in professional wrestling began about the time I learned to walk,” he wrote. “I remember that my Mom and Dad would take me to the local Wrestling Live on Channel 5 studio (in Mobile) television tapings. Needless to say, it was love at first sight. I remained a wrestling fan throughout my childhood. However, my fascination really took off when I received my driver’s license and I was able to go to the matches by myself around the Gulf Coast area. If there was wrestling in town, I was there, becoming a fixture at Mobile’s old Fort Whiting Armory. When Gulf Coast Wrestling moved to the Mobile Municipal Auditorium (now the Mobile Civic Center), I moved right along with them, missing only a handful of events in seven years.”

Moody started shooting photos for wrestling magazines as well as the local program for the matches in Mobile, which got him in the door at a time breaking into pro wrestling was very difficult. He also hung around at the matches with four other friends, who all had goals of making it in pro wrestling. One of whom became his wrestling cousin, Marcel Pringle, a long-time Alabama independent wrestler, who he managed for years. Another was Michael Seitz, who was five years younger than he was, and became Michael Hayes. A third was Ruben Kane, who became Robert Gibson of Rock & Roll Express fame. The other was John Frenkle, who wrestled in the 80s as Hollywood John Tatum, best known in Texas and in Mid South Wrestling. Kane had something of an in because his older brother was one of the top workers in the Southeast at the time, Ricky Gibson, and had became a big headliner in Memphis.

After high school, he enlisted in the Air Force and underwent basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, but ended up stationed in Biloxi for four years.
He actually started wrestling on independent shows while still in the Air Force, debuting at the age of 18, in the summer of 1974, wrestling under a mask as Mr. X in Greenville, AL.

At the same time, he got interested in Mortuary Science. He was working and training to be an EMT while in the Air Force, which led him to often visiting local funeral homes. In 1976, he became an apprentice Funeral Director and an Embalmer at the Higgins Mortuary in Mobile. He was also going to college at the University of South Alabama, and met his wife, who he married in late 1978.

He was married for 30 years and had two children. His wife, Dianna, battled breast cancer for years. She had beaten cancer twice before the combination of the cancer returning, and damage from chemotherapy, led to her passing away on January 31, 2009. His family had already faced tragedy when his first grandchild, Troy Mitchell Moody, passed away one day after being born in 2003. Shortly after, Bill’s brother died of cancer in 2006 while he was suffering assorted health problems and his wife was in her eventual fatal battle with cancer. His second son, Daniel Moody, 25, wrestles in Southeastern independents under the name D.J. Pringle.

He continued to wrestle while working at the funeral home and while going to college, often using the name The Embalmer or The Mortician, playing a dark heel character. He quickly realized his talents were better suited as a heel manager than as a wrestler.
He got his first real job in wrestling in 1978, working for promoter George Culkin’s promotion out of Mississippi, when hired by booker Frankie Cain, better known as The Great Mephisto. He used the name Percy Pringle III, taking the name from the original Percival Pringle. He then left his job at the funeral home as well as left college.

Although he was far more famous on a worldwide basis as Paul Bearer, within wrestling, at least to those who had been around, he personally used the Pringle name. He was generally referred to as “Percy,” and would sign his letters with that name or as “PP3.”
After his first son was born in the summer of 1979, he realized that pro wrestling was a crap shoot and returned to college, attending San Antonio College and getting his degree in Mortuary Science. While in college, he worked at night and on the weekends at a funeral home in San Antonio. After graduation from college,
he moved to Biloxi and worked at a funeral home.

In 1984, he returned to pro wrestling, going to Championship Wrestling from Florida as the manager of Rick Rude, who was the main event heel at the time, and was at ringside as a manager for Lex Luger’s pro debut.

After the Florida tenure was up, he and Rude went to World Class Championship Wrestling in 1985 together as an act. Rude was world champion for the promotion. Pringle came after the promotion had peaked and was on its downslide, but it was still holding its own.
Rude ended up leaving for Jim Crockett Promotions while Pringle stayed in Texas for several years. He played the ultimate rich fat p*ssy character at first, a character that could seemingly never be a babyface. But after a few years as a manager, he started working in the front office, became a commentator on the television show, promoted house shows, ran the merchandise stand, and wrote the programs. The fans accepted him as one of their own, since he came across like a fan who got to live his dream. He later turned heel to be an opponent when Chris Von Erich (Chris Adkisson), who was only 5-foot-3, was being used.
In Texas, as Pringle, he managed names like The Missing Link, Matt Borne, Buzz Sawyer, Texas Red (Mark Calaway, who later became The Undertaker), Eric Embry, the Great Kabuki (after Kabuki and Gary Hart had their legitimate falling out), The Dingo Warrior (who later became the Ultimate Warrior), Steve Austin, Ted Arcidi,
Steve & Shaun Simpson, Black Bart and Iceman King Parsons.

But his most famous affiliation was with The Undertaker. While most would recall him as the strange man Brother Love handed the reigns of Undertaker over to shortly after the character debuted in the WWF in early 1991, the affiliation went back to the start of Mark Calaway’s career. In fact, in Calaway’s first match and program ever at the Dallas Sportatorium, he was Texas Red, managed by Percy Pringle III, as a heel, going against Bruiser Brody.
After being a babyface to the fans as a television announcer and working with the promotion, he was brought back as a babyface manager of Eric Embry when Embry booked and built the promotion around himself in the angle where they turned the World Class promotion heel. Embry and Pringle rebelled against the promotion, building to an angle where they were allowed to destroy all mentions of the company and change its name to being affiliated with USWA, at the time Jerry Jarrett was running things. While that angle was a big deal at the time, in Texas today, the USWA is barely remembered while World Class is the term that many remember as being the golden age of the promotion. Undertaker debuted in WWF in November, 1990, originally brought in by Brother Love (Bruce Prichard) as Cain the Undertaker. They dropped the Cain name, and about a month later, The Undertaker was managed by Paul Bearer.

 

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The name Paul Bearer came from a character played by dikk Bennick Sr., as the host of the local “Creature Feature” scary movie show on WTOG-TV, in Tampa/St. Petersburg every Saturday afternoon that was popular when Moody lived in Tampa during his time with Championship Wrestling from Florida. Bennick Sr., the host of the show, was a local television institution, using the name Dr. Paul Bearer, from the mid-60s until his death in 1995.
With his pasty white face, his jet black hair (he was bleached blond as Percy Pringle), holding the urn that gave Undertaker magical powers, he was one of the classic characters on 90s WWF television. He was best known for his high-pitched voice that would, as Undertaker, would destroy opponents, scream “Ooooh yes.”
Paul Bearer was completely different from Percy Pringle III. They didn’t look the same, with the make-up and different hair color and style. Both had a comedy element to their characters. Pringle played the stereotypical fat sissy who did that role for physical comedy. Bearer rarely got involved physically and never played his role for laughs directly, but there was comedy for his memorable faces and exaggerated mannerisms he’d make and just the idea that there was a mortician character named Paul Bearer.

Antonio Pena, when he was running AAA, was so into the character that one of his minis at one point was renamed Mini Paul Bearer, or Mini Paul.
Undertaker & Paul Bearer were top heels for years, and later, both turned face. However, Bearer turned on Undertaker and began managing rival Mankind (Mick Foley) in 1996. His feud with Undertaker would also lead to his managing Vader and The Executioner (Terry Gordy under a mask).
Eventually, Bearer said that he would reveal Undertaker’s deep, dark secret unless Undertaker joined back with him. Undertaker did, reluctantly, but eventually broke away from him. Bearer then claimed that Undertaker started a fire which killed his parents and his younger brother and that’s where Undertaker and Bearer’s association started.

Undertaker claimed in different stories that it was really his brother who set the fire, or that the fire was an accident. This story was to build up the debut of Undertaker’s brother, the 7-foot, 320-pound giant Kane, played by Glen Jacobs, who wore major lifts in his boots at first to appear to be taller than Undertaker. Jacobs was legitimately about 6-foot-6 ½ while Calaway was closer to 6-foot-8 ½, although both were billed as being 7-foot and 6-foot-11 respectively.
Bearer later claimed his younger brother, Kane, was still alive, which led to the introduction of the Kane character. Later, it came out Kane was Bearer’s son, so only Undertaker’s half brother, after Bearer had an affair with Undertaker’s mother. The story was that Bearer had raised Kane in secret, since Kane had suffered permanent scarring from the fire making him unsightly, which is why he had to wear the mask. Through the twists and turns of the characters and storylines, none of that ever ended up making any sense, particularly since Undertaker and Bearer were inseparable for years, yet Bearer was raising Undertaker’s brother, who Undertaker had assumed for years was dead.

Kane eventually showed up at the first Hell in a Cell match, causing Undertaker to lose to Shawn Michaels on the day Brian Pillman was found dead in his hotel room.
In 1998, Undertaker turned heel, with Bearer, as Bearer turned on Kane. Later Undertaker & Kane became a heel team with Bearer. In 2000, Bearer was taken off the road, but remained under contract and doing office work until being released in 2002.
He ended up being negative on WWE after he was let go. While few remember, he was at the 500 pound mark when he returned to being Percy Pringle III in the early days of TNA in Nashville.

WWE wanted him back with Undertaker, but he at first refused, before signing a contract in October, partially due to Jim Ross agreeing that the company would give him a signing bonus that would allow him to pay for his needed Gastric bypass surgery. After recovering, he returned at WrestleMania XX, in Undertaker’s corner for his match with Kane.

He was hired back for an angle where Paul Heyman got the Dudleys to kidnap him as a way to get to Undertaker. This led to a match at that year’s Great American Bash PPV in Norfolk, where Bearer was chest deep in cement and Heyman said that if Undertaker didn’t agree to lose the match, they would murder Bearer. Instead, Undertaker won the match, and then pulled the lever and buried Bearer, essentially giving the impression they had killed him, which wrote him off as a television character.

He returned to working at a funeral home in 2006, and also promoted independent wrestling around the Mobile area.
“I feel that independent wrestling is the grass roots of our industry,” he wrote. “If the roots die, the tree dies. I am on a personal crusade to protect our business on the local level.”

Since that time he returned for a few angles and worked indies. He reunited with Undertaker in late 2010 for a feud with Kane, giving Undertaker back his powers as they reintroduced the urn. But Bearer turned on Undertaker and went with Kane, giving Kane the powers of the urn.

This led to Kane beating Undertaker in a Buried Alive match due to help from Bearer and The Nexus. This wrote Undertaker out for months, where he returned for WrestleMania. Bearer stayed as Kane’s manager, for a goofy feud with Edge, one of the worst of recent years. Edge, the babyface, would continually torment and torture Bearer. Edge would use a dummy Bearer over and over, until Kane, thinking it was a dummy, pushed Bearer off a ladder onto concrete, writing him out again.

In 2012, Bearer returned as Kane’s manager against Randy Orton, and Orton kidnapped him and put him in a freezer while tied up in a wheelchair. Kane came and Bearer celebrated as his son was there to save him, only to put him back in the freezer and kill him off once again.

“I am very true to the proud tradition of the `old school’ wrestling that I was brought up on,” he wrote in his biography. “I am very blessed to be able to live out my dreams, and I have great respect for the business I am in, especially to the legends that traveled the roads before me. They are the ones who made all this possible. I’ll never forget where I came from, and that my home is forever Sweet Home Alabama.”

 

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The top of the WrestleMania card seems to have gotten more clear this past week after Raw and Smackdown television.

The long-expected top three matches of The Rock vs. John Cena for the WWE title, Undertaker vs. C.M. Punk and Brock Lesnar vs. HHH are all virtually official. The former two are announced and the third, with the angle shot last week, is obviously happening pending an injury or something unforeseen.

Aside from the Alberto Del Rio vs. Jack Swagger world title match that had been clear since the Elimination Chamber, nothing has even been hinted about regarding other matches until this past week.

Mark Henry vs. Sheamus, which must have been scheduled at least as late as a week ago since they had started advertising it for the U.K. tour (which gets Mania rematches as much as possible on the undercards) is not happening and it’s Henry vs. Ryback and most likely Sheamus & Big Show & Randy Orton as an odd couple trio against The Shield.

Henry and Ryback are doing a slow tease. On Raw, after Ryback had beaten Antonio Cesaro and was going to the back, Henry was coming out and they just glared at each other. On Smackdown, they had a similar walking past each other backstage moment. This was how the famous Sgt. Slaughter vs. Iron Sheik angle in 1984 started.

Show has been around twice when The Shield was battling Orton & Sheamus on television. In both cases, Show got involved and once knocked out Roman Reigns, and this week got triple power bombed. In those scenarios, he still fought and was laid out by Sheamus once and Orton once.
There are four weeks of television left and there is no real clear direction for Chris Jericho, Dolph Ziggler, The Miz as well as current champions Wade Barrett (IC title), Antonio Cesaro (U.S. title), Kane & Daniel Bryan (tag team titles) and Kaitlyn (Divas title).

There were two non-title matches taped on 3/5 in Albany, NY, that may hint of a direction, with Sin Cara beating Cesaro for Main Event in a non-title match, and Tamina Snuka beat Kaitlyn in a non-title match on Smackdown.

Jericho and Ziggler were working a program when Jericho left, and came back to it upon his return. Jericho is scheduled back from Australia on 3/18.

Miz has been mostly working with Cesaro. Barrett has been losing non-title matches like crazy to top guys like Orton and Sheamus, and Cesaro has been as well to Ryback and Orton, but those aren’t leading to title matches because the babyfaces are considered “above” those belts.


Jerry Lynn, one of the most underrated and respected in-ring competitors of current era, will be retiring on a card billed as “The Last F’n Show,” on 3/23 at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

The show, promoted by the Heavy on Wrestling promotion, takes place 25 years, to the day, of Lynn’s debut in Minneapolis on March 23, 1988. Lynn will team with Horace the Psychopath against Sean Waltman & J.B. Trask, in a tornado match.

The four men started their careers together in the late 80s on small shows promoted by Eddie Sharkey, Lynn’s trainer, under the Pro Wrestling America banner. Lynn and Waltman were the stars of that group, with Waltman at the time known as The Lightning Kid. Horace and Trask really never made it out of Minneapolis and PWA. Lynn and Waltman garnered some popularity originally in Japan in 1990, when they were Americans invited to tour with Universal, a Lucha Libre promotion that really popularized Lucha Libre in Japan, built around the early matches in the country of Yoshihiro Asai. Later, the two worked out of Dallas for the Global Wrestling Federation, which aired on ESPN.

Lynn’s in-ring work was never questioned, but he struggled throughout much of his career because he was only 5-foot-7 and about 190 pounds, even though promoted as being larger. By the time size didn’t mean as much in pro wrestling, Lynn was older and never had the kind of money run that a wrestler with his overall talent would be more likely to get today, although it’s not a lock since WWE is the only place to go, and Lynn was never given a chance to shine when he was still at the top of his game in WWE.

But he still had strong runs, particularly in ECW, where Rob Van Dam vs. Jerry Lynn was one of the promotion’s all-time most remembered feuds. Later, he and A.J. Styles were the pioneers in the establishment of the X Division, which during the early years of TNA was really a flagship for the promotion.

Lynn, who turns 50 on 6/12, had announced months ago that he was retiring on the 25th anniversary of his debut. He did farewell matches around the country, and made it clear that he had filled out his bump card, essentially meaning that he recognized his body at his age had given out and didn’t want to perform at less than that level. Then again, the percentage of wrestlers who do retirement tours and have retirement matches who actually live up to those vows is minuscule.
Lynn’s first major national promotion experience in the U.S. came in 1995 in WCW, where he was the masked Mr. J.L. He was later fired in 1997, and went to ECW for easily the biggest run of his career. It was the ECW experience, and the Van Dam feud, that really established him as more than simply another good working guy who never made it past the indie level, which it appeared was going to be the story of his career.

Called, “The New F’n Show,” because Van Dam was the “The Whole F’n Show,” the two wrestled over-and-over for years, with the storyline being that Lynn was even in ability with Van Dam, who was promoted as the star of the promotion during that period, but Lynn could never win the big one. Lynn eventually beat Van Dam in a match due to interference from Scott Anton (better known as Scotty Riggs in WCW).

During the dying days of ECW, Lynn defeated Justin Credible to win the title at the October 1, 2000, show, the Anarchy Rulz PPV, in St. Paul, MN, essentially his home market, since he was originally from Minneapolis. The title win came as a show of respect for his ability, but he was never meant to be anything more than a transitional champion, with the belt going to Steve Corino on November 5, 2000, at the final “November to Remember” PPV, held in Villa Park, IL, just outside of Chicago. The title change was in a four-way match that also included Credible and The Sandman.

Lynn did win the WWF light heavyweight title from Crash Holly in his WWF debut on April 29, 2001, but the title was never pushed as being significant. He was largely used as enhancement talent during a run that ended when he was released nine months later. His biggest match during the period was a hot live match on Sunday Night Heat against Van Dam, but when the match aired on television, it was heavily edited, a nine minute match edited to around five.
“They edited out all my offense,” Lynn told Scott Williams in his booked “Hardcore History.” “The whole thing was to showcase Rob.”

Lynn debuted on TNA’s first show, and was a regular through 2007. During his TNA run, he held the X Division title twice and tag team title twice, once with A.J. Styles and the second time with Amazing Red.

Lynn vs. Styles was a major TNA program in the early years of the promotion, and Styles would likely be behind Van Dam, and perhaps Waltman, as his biggest career rival.

He returned to TNA in 2010, as Lynn vs. Van Dam was going to be one of the key matches for the Hardcore Justice PPV, essentially an ECW reunion show. But in training for the match, he suffered a serious back injury and had to pull out. After he recovered, he had a short run in TNA, largely to build the Van Dam match that didn’t happen the year before. The two wrestled at the 2011 Destination X show, in a babyface match. This set up an angle where Lynn, bitter because Van Dam had made big money and had a successful career, while Lynn, claiming he was just as good or better, never got the breaks. This led to a final big match, at the October 16, 2011, Bound for Glory: a Full Metal Mayhem match (similar to a TLC match), where Van Dam won.

 

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Even after retirement, Lynn will wrestle one more time on a major show. On 1/12, for a taped TNA X Division PPV called X-Travaganza. The show is scheduled to air as a PPV on 4/5, featuring the last-ever Lynn vs. Van Dam match, a no DQ match that was said to be very good.
After his major TNA run, Lynn wrestled for ROH and a number of independents for the remainder of his career.

After the movie “The Wrestler,” came out, a booking decision was made to bring Lynn back, because he had similar long blond hair to the Randy the Ram character played by Mickey Rourke, and was clearly promoted as being in the twilight of his career, to play off the movie.

The idea was to build Lynn up for that big moment where he’d win the big title for the last time. The idea really didn’t get over to the level hoped for, but Lynn ended the 19-month long title reign of Nigel McGuinness on April 3, 2009, in Houston. Lynn once again lost it rather quickly, on June 13, 2009, in New York, to Austin Aries, in a three-way match that also involved Tyler Black.

A number of former ECW stars, Sabu, Tommy Dreamer, Blue Meanie, Rhino, Al Snow and Perry Saturn, are all scheduled to be wrestling on the 3/23 show.


On 3/10, TNA’s second biggest show of the year, Lockdown, takes place at the gigantic Alamodome in San Antonio.

The company is expected to break its all-time U.S. attendance record, which is 5,500, at the show this week. The building, which holds 72,000, and once drew a heavily papered 62,000 plus for the 1997 Royal Rumble, is being set up for a small arena configuration.

The lineup at this point is Jeff Hardy vs. Bully Ray in a cage match for the TNA title, a Lethal Lockdown match with Team TNA of Sting & Samoa Joe & Magnus & James Storm & Eric Young vs. Team Aces & 8s of Devon & Doc & Knox (who has finally been given a name. Mike Hettinga did use the Mike Knox name long before signing with WWE so he should have the right to the name based on prior usage and it took TNA this long to get that cleared up) & Garett Bischoff & Ken Anderson and Kurt Angle vs. Wes Brisco, also in a cage match.

In the past, the gimmick of Lockdown was all cage matches. Dixie Carter came up with the idea herself in 2005. At the time, the idea was knocked as being overkill, that so many cage matches would water down the concept, particularly since they also do cage matches throughout the year. But she was boss and they did it. And you never know what will or won’t work. Lockdown was a success right off the bat and for the most part has been the company’s second most successful show, behind Bound for Glory, which they try to promote as their version of WrestleMania.

Right now, with Bruce Prichard in charge of creative, we are seeing a more traditional approach to booking, and PPV was part of it. It feels in a lot of ways that the key guys making the decisions either worked in a top business capacity in the late 80s, or grew up as fans during that era. That’s not necessarily good or bad, because there is a lot to learn from every era, and for a number of reasons, the mid-to-late 80s were among the strongest periods in the history of the business.
One of the changes is the idea of an all cage match show is once again seem as overkill. Instead, there are three cage matches on this show. The rest will be regular matches. I don’t think it’s a negative, and in past years, they would have so many cage matches that every cage match would also have a stipulation and there would be so many stips that nobody could keep them straight. Here, you’ve got the world title in the cage. Lethal Lockdown which is a War Games like gimmick match that usually delivers, and Angle vs. Brisco in a grudge match which puts Brisco right away in a situation where he has to shine, given Angle is one of the best PPV wrestlers of all-time. As far as three cage matches vs. the whole card, I really don’t think it makes any difference. My gut would say to agree it’s the right move, but then the success of the show in previous years says old-school gut feelings were wrong, so if that’s the case, why change? But it’s not that big a deal. Does it really matter that Velvet Sky’s title defense against Gail Kim isn’t in a cage?

The rest of the show has a three-way with Austin Aries & Bobby Roode vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Hernandez vs. Christopher Daniels & Kazarian for the tag titles, Sky vs. Kim for the Knockouts title and Robbie E vs. Robbie T.

With Kenny King winning the X title from Rob Van Dam on the 2/28 TV show, there’s a good shot at a rematch on PPV.
But there’s a much bigger story at play here than the number of cage matches, or even that TNA’s second biggest show of the year takes place this week. It’s that Lockdown is the first TNA PPV since they started the new format of cutting back on shows.

After running monthly on PPV ever since they got on Spike in 2005, they have cut back to four live PPV shows a year. This show comes two months after Genesis.
The next PPV show, Victory Road, is in four months. The final show of the year, Bound for Glory is four months later.

As a fan, right now my sense is that the two hours I spend on Thursday night watching TNA is mostly fun. I don’t get mad at over booking. I generally remember the key angles and most of the show, which was impossible in previous years when it was beyond overbooked and there was no time to let anything breathe or get over.

When the show is over, I have a lot fewer pages of notes than in the past. Still, TNA ratings generally are a little down from a few years ago and PPV has for the most part been stagnant, nowhere near the level of nearly eight years ago when TNA had the reputation for putting on great shows most of the time.
But, with a week to go, they haven’t gotten me excited about buying the PPV.

The whole idea on cutting back shows is that they have a longer time to build the PPVs to make them seem special instead of just that they have three hours to fill once a month with matches.

But right now I’m not sure of what they were trying to accomplish. Sure, there may be something to the idea less shows will make them more special. When boxing cut back on major PPVs, the big ones increased in numbers. But it’s not that simple. Boxing’s big show increases also came at a time when they reinvented the marketing of big fights with the 24/7 Countdown type of shows, which UFC started doing years earlier with great success.

For TNA, the main event was only announced 17 days before the show and most of the matches were announced 10 days before the show. There may be a couple of matches, granted they aren’t matches that are going to make a major difference in drawing, that will be announced three days in advance.
But if you’re nostalgic for the days of WWF’s “big four” in the late 80s, when PPV day was special because it wasn’t monthly, you have to also remember how those shows were marketed.

There was a long build (most of the time, every now and then a monkey wrench would be thrown at them and they’d have to regroup, like the Curt Hennig late replacement of Ultimate Warrior at the 1992 Survivor Serie s) for big matches. A month out, not only was every key match announced, but they were pushed hard and heavy to where any fan would know all the key matches off the top of their head.

I’ve never understood the mentality today that you start promoting a PPV three weeks out in most cases. PPV shows are not as anticipated in pro wrestling as in the past, and some of that is also because TV ratings are so much more important. But still, in any combat sport, ultimately the heightened interest comes from creating real big matches. When you are doing that well, with the right people and right build, most of the time you are going to have a good year. It’s hard with TNA. They have a roster filled with talented guys, good workers good talkers, but they are the secondary brand so building these huge matches is far harder. But it’s impossible when you only promote them for two or three weeks.

Again, when looking at the landscape and what works, you see the opposite. UFC announces its PPV matches usually three months or more ahead. We know every main event until the end of May right now, and even have an August main event official. The big money boxing matches are also announced, and they start the ball on promoting them, months in advance. With WWE, it’s difficult with the monthly PPV schedule. But the whole upside of TNA dropping shows is that it should have given them the ability to go back to what made PPV day so much more exciting in the 80s because it was a few time a year thing.

 

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In boxing, they cut back to five big PPVs per year, but they just gave you a date and didn’t announce the main event until 17 days out, do you really think the averages would have improved? Yeah, the state-of-the-art is you hit it hard the last three weeks. But whether it’s boxing or UFC, both doing very big these days for the right match (and not so big if they don’t have the right match), you get the ball rolling with the matches out there months in advance. If you go back to the arena days of pro wrestling and look at the consistently best grossing cities, every television show was geared to building the next big live show. In markets that ran once a month, the first TV after the show, you already had all the key matches for the next show and were hitting it hard. Sometimes, because of sports teams having bookings, it may be six weeks between shows instead of three or four. In those circumstances, you had the extra weeks to build the show.
With TNA, by canceling the February show, they gave themselves an extra month to build Lockdown. But instead, they didn’t bother.

TNA also announced the taped PPV schedule for the rest of the year for the final shows before they end their lease at Universal and move out of Orlando.
On 3/17, at 1 p.m., they will be taping “TNA Knockout Knockdown,” which will be a one-night women’s tournament that will air on 7/5. Yes, they’re doing PPVs the
Friday before Mania and the Friday before UFC’s biggest show of the year.

At 7 p.m., they will be taping “TNA 10 Reunion,” which airs on 8/2. The idea is to bring back a lot of wrestlers from the earlier days of the company.
On 3/18, at 1 p.m., they will be taping “TNA Tag Team Tournament,” where they will have a tournament to determine the greatest tag team in TNA history. Does that mean James Storm has to team with Bobby Roode and Team 3-D has to team up? I guess we can’t bring back VKM, given that they sucked in TNA and are under contract with WWE. If you figure the best teams in TNA history, you’d have to say 3-D, A.J. Styles & Christopher Daniels, Homicide & Hernandez (but only with Konnan in the corner), Motor City Machine Guns, Daniels & Kazarian, Storm & Chris Harris, Daniels & Low Ki & Elix Skipper and Styles & Angle. That’s scheduled for 9/6.

On 3/18 at 7 p.m. they are taping “TNA World Cup of Wrestling,” which will pit wrestlers from various countries forming teams. That’s scheduled for 11/1. We do know that AAA is sending wrestlers for this one. Nobody is confirmed nor announced yet but there is talk of a team Canada bringing back Teddy Hart and Jack Evans.

On 3/19 at 1 p.m., they are taping “TNA Hardcore Justice,” which is a night of hardcore matches, to air on 12/6.

On 3/19 at 7 p.m., they are taping, “TNA Heavyweight title tournament,” where the best singles wrestlers in company history will compete in a one-night tournament to determine the greatest wrestler in TNA history. This should air in early 2014.

There are going to be major continuity issues when it comes to things being taped that far in advance.


Ric Flair and Roddy Piper will be appearing in an episode of ABC’s Celebrity Wife Swap. Flair will use current girlfriend Wendy Barlow (of Fifi the Maid fame from the 90s WCW) while Piper will use his longtime wife. They will swap with each other. As many people know, Flair and Piper have been the best of friends for nearly 35 years, ever since Piper came to the Carolinas from Oregon. They will be the second and third wrestlers on the show, as Mick Foley appeared years ago.

Tommy Dreamer is going to be a regular with CZW this year both as a performer and behind-the-scenes as part of a deal where CZW will be doing regular iPPVs.

dikk Slater, 61, who was one of the biggest stars of the 70s and into the mid-80s, was arrested on 3/3 by police in Largo, FL, after failing to appear for a court appearance from a petty theft charge. Slater was arrested on 2/5 by Pinellas County Sheriff’s Deputies. He was scheduled for a 2/25 court date, and didn’t show up, so a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was taken in on 3/3 and held on $2,026 bond. Slater has been in and out of legal trouble since back injuries forced him to retire and left him badly injured, and with pain killer problems. In 2004, he was convicted of stabbing an ex-girlfriend and was sentenced to one year of house arrest and two years probation. Since his probation ended, Slater has been arrested five times in the last five years. Slater played with Paul Orndorff at the University of Tampa and got a reputation as a real badass in college when he knocked out future pro football superstar John Matuszak, who was a giant in that era, with three punches in a street fight. He worked mostly in the Southeast, but was a main eventer everywhere he went, known as “Mr. Excitement dikk Slater.” He had an in-ring style very reminiscent of Terry Funk. He ended up going to WWF as “The Rebel dikk Slater,” in the late 80s, which was a prelim level gimmick. It was the only time after probably his rookie year that he wasn’t used on top. In those days, if you were a guy who lost on television or was used as a prelim guy, fans didn’t take you as a top guy again. Since Slater was in WWF and not a top guy, it pretty well killed him from being at the level he was before. That run really killed his reputation and career, as when he and dikk Murdoch teamed up as The Hardliners in WCW, and he late teamed with Bunkhouse Buck (Jimmy Golden) there, he was not taken by fans as anywhere near the level of a star he had been everywhere he went in the late 70s and into the mid-80s. Back problems plagued him to the point he was nearly crippled and had issues with pain medication after his full-time wrestling days were over.

Sid Eudy, 52, better known as Sid Vicious and Sycho Sid, was hospitalized twice this past week due to heart issues.

Tammy Sytch is still being held in jail in Connecticut over not being able to post $100,000 bond. She was being held after her sixth arrest since September, all regarding either attacking ex-boyfriend Damien Darling, or violating court orders prohibiting her from seeing him and going to his house, or breaking into his house.

Linda Bollea pleaded not guilty on 2/28 on two DUI counts from an October arrest. Bollea claimed she had only drank one glass of champagne the night she was pulled over for speeding, and blew an 0.84 on her Breathalyzer, just over the legal limit of 0.8. She claimed that a combination of an empty stomach and being on antibiotics caused the elevated reading. She has another court date on 3/21.

Since the dropping of wrestling from the Olympics by the IOC, Bulgarian gold medalist Valentin Yordanov and Russian gold medalist Sadi Murtazaliev both returned their medals in protest. In addition, Armen Nazaryan, who won gold medals in Greco-roman wrestling in both 1996 and 2000, started this past weekend on a hunger strike until the decision is overturned. Nazaryan, who represented Armenia in 1996 and Bulgaria in 2000, and later won three more world championships, said from this point until the decision is overturned, he will only drink syrup.

There was an Amy Dumas sighting in a video released this past week by the band JD & The FDC’s for a song “From the Shadow.”

 

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TNA

Hulk Hogan has added a show called “Hulk Hogan Uncensored” on 4/5 at 10 p.m., the Friday night before Mania, as if there isn’t enough already planned. They’ve booked the Beacon Theater in Manhattan for a Q&A segment that will include Hogan, Eric Bischoff and other friends of Hogan, hosted by former WCW and TNA ring announcer Dave Penzer.

Hogan legitimately just had another knee operation this past week.

Bobby Roode said that he believes the TNA roster can compare with any roster in the world, and particularly praised Austin Aries, Zema Ion and Robbie E. “Once these guys mature and get a little more spotlight, I don’t think anyone in the world can touch our roster.”
The 3/7 Impact is the final episode of the show scheduled for the Impact Zone in Orlando. Scheduled main event is Jeff Hardy & Bully Ray vs. Austin Aries & Bobby Roode.

Ticket sales for the 3/14 show at the Sears Center in Chicago are good. They are setting up for a small configuration there, not the full 10,000. They aren’t sold out but were happy with how things are going. I expected first time in a strong market like Chicago to do well. Haven’t heard anything about 3/28 in Jonesboro, AR, which will be more of a test to see how well TV tapings are going to sell.

Bret Hart made a lot of negative comments on TNA in a Wrestle Talk interview. “They got all the rejects. They picked up all the trash Vince would sweep to the side. Bischoff knows nothing. He’s an idiot. Vince Russo is a magazine writer that thought he was a wrestling expert that never had a good idea in his life. Hogan was limited. All he knew how to do was this (cup his ear) and a leg drop. I’ve got no faith in either one of them. If anything, they’re going to lose a lot of ground. They’re spending a fortune on a guy who’s worthless. And Bischoff is as worthless as Hogan. The two of them have zero to offer the business. Hart, who has been a big fan of A.J. Styles as a wrestler since probably 2005, said he felt Styles needed to go to WWE, saying he hopes Styles won’t waste his life by staying in TNA. “A.J. Styles is as good a wrestler as anyone in the world. He should be wrestling in WWE. He’s spinning his tires in TNA.”

WWE

Dwayne Johnson has now agreed to do a number of post-WrestleMania dates including the 5/19 Extreme Rules PPV in St. Louis.

Johnson did an interview with IGN.com about the upcoming match with Cena, saying it was his choice to face Cena again this year. Well, with him winning the first one, it only made sense to have a second one since Cena is the current top guy. The only logical reason Cena should have lost the first one would either be a screw job to set up a program with a new wrestler (basically the finish they did the year earlier with Cena losing to Miz to set up the match with Rock, so doing it twice in a row would be bad) or to set up a rematch. Still, the debate last year was either to go with Cena and do a program where Rock would get the title, or go with Lesnar. “You have to understand that my return back into the WWE was years in the making. And since I’ve been back, it’s been a three-year-long journey (actually two years, but it will end up three years with next year’s Main Event) that started at WrestleMania 27 in Atlanta. So John has always been my first choice. Here’s the thing. The question was that if I was going to go back in the WWE, how could I go back and make the most impact? With who can I headline WrestleMania in that company and make the most impact? And the bottom line is that it continues to be John Cena. Just in terms of, and we’ll use a Hollywood term here, box office appeal, universal appeal, athletic appeal. So there are a lot of reasons.” He also said he expects to have a great match, he hopes it’ll be a classic with great drama and emotion.

The TV show “The Hero,” on TNT, which he’s been shooting the past two weeks in Panama, debuts over the summer.
Mysterio was in Birmingham, AL, on 3/4 having an appointment with Dr. James Andrews regarding a knee injury suffered a few weeks back. He was afraid he tore his ACL. This was the other knee from the torn ACL that put him out of action in late 2011 and 2012. At press time there were no results of testing, only that he won’t need surgery or be out of action for a lengthy period of time. He will have to wrestle with a knee brace, but has been wearing a brace on the other knee for some time. Still, his future is in question. When he mentioned to one company official that the knee was torn about a week ago, it was brought up that he should consider retiring. HHH was very nice about it and told him to go to Andrews before making any decision because Andrews is the best in the business (Andrews put HHH back together on a couple of occasions). Still, Mysterio is maybe one more major injury away from having to need a complete knee replacement. He currently has about one year left on his contract, but his frequent injuries and Sin Cara not getting over is why the company as almost desperate to get Del Rio over as a world title level face.

There is no update on the condition of Evan Bourne or an estimated return time.

Country Music Television must really like Steve Austin. Not only did they just renew “Redneck Island” for a third season, which will air this summer, but have ordered a pilot for a second Austin show. That show is tentatively titled, “Steve Austin’s Broken Skull ranch,” which would be some sort of a competition, testing six competitors intelligence, skill and stamina, shot on his property in South Texas.

Bruno Sammartino was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame in Columbus, OH in conjunction with the Arnold Classic on 3/2. HHH accompanied Sammartino and they spoke with Arnold Schwarzenegger about being the person to induct Bruno into the WWE Hall. The two knew each other and had trained together at times in the 60s and 70s as well as judged contests together. Sammartino judged one of the Mr. Olympia contests Schwarzenegger was in, back in the days when they were always in New York. Later, they had judged contests together. Also appearing there was Franco Columbu, who was Arnold’s bodybuilding sidekick in the early 70s, a super strong little guy who was a great bodybuilder in his day, and Sammartino also knew and had trained with him. I think it was the first time all three had been together in decades. Sammartino in his speech talked about how the three of them shared a bond because they all came from Europe without knowing any English and got into lifting and noted Columbu had become a doctor and that Arnold became a movie star and Governor. Sammartino put over being in the WWE Hall of Fame next month as a big honor and also praised Dr. Joseph Maroon, saying he was in so much pain he couldn’t even walk due to back problems and now he’s doing five miles of road work three days a week and lifting the other three days. Schwarzenegger gave a speech about Sammartino talking about how strong he was and seeing him wrestle. He claimed he saw Sammartino lift a 400 pound man over his head. Sammartino may have slammed big guys which is something of a gimmick to begin with, and he was super strong, but I never heard of him pressing 400 pound guys overhead, and Schwarzenegger said the way he did it that he could have lifted 500 pounds overhead. There’s no way he could press 500 overhead. Bench press, obviously he did that for reps but nobody until the early 70s ever pressed 500 overhead.

The standard rate of pay for Hall of Fame presenters is $2,500. None have been announced so far but it is generally believed Terry Funk will be the presenter for Mick Foley. There has been talk of Maria Menounos for Bob Backlund, thus getting some mainstream pub out of that.

The Central Florida Sports Commission, in its newsletter, stated they received a request from WWE to send a proposal for WrestleMania in 2015 or 2016. That would be a quick turnaround since WWE ran at the Citrus Bowl, a rundown facility that the company spent more than the company spent more than $1 million to refurbish for one night, back in 2008. That was the show with Shawn Michaels vs. Ric Flair and Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Big Show. Most of the time, WWE has cities coming to them bidding for the event. The key here is John Saboor, who is the head of the process in sifting through cities for Mania (Vince McMahon obviously makes the final call) is from Orlando and headed that commission before taking the job with WWE. It was his bidding for the event as opposed to WWE simply going to big cities if their stadiums were available, that changed the Mania event process. They are looking at building a facility in the Orlando area, which would be a university setting for developmental, which eventually would be like a college football program with structured classes, weight training, learning about the history of the business, watching tapes, doing reports, etc. They are also looking to house the Hall of Fame in that facility, so perhaps the idea is to run a WrestleMania in conjunction with the opening of the Hall of Fame so to bring to it the most publicity and opening visitors possible.

This is all subject to change of course, and will be, but the current plans for the post-WM house shows in Europe are Cena vs. Punk for the WWE title on Raw along with Ryback & Bryan & Kane vs. The Shield, while Smackdown’s top two matches are scheduled as Del Rio vs. Swagger for the world title and Sheamus vs. Henry. I’m guessing the latter match changes because that’s from when Sheamus vs. Henry was the Mania match and now it looks like Ryback vs. Henry will be the Mania match. Usually the top matches on the U.K. tour, when possible, are rematches from Mania.

3/19 Smackdown tapings in Cincinnati pushed Sheamus & Orton & Ryback vs. Shield and an appearance of Jericho.
Punk was suffering from the flu last week when he had the match with Cena on Raw. He was battling it while going on the long tour to Qatar, Turkey and then back to Dallas.

Punk met with Thomas Dotterer, the guy who was shot in the face and lost his eye in a store robbery and then said the worst thing that happened all week was Rock beating Punk to win the WWE title. They were supposed to meet at the Syracuse house show on 3/3, but Dotterer was hospitalized and couldn’t attend. So Punk went to the hospital to visit him, and got local TV publicity out of it.

Ofcom, the U.K.’s media regulatory board (think FCC in the U.S. except FCC is pretty hands off these days) told Sky they were in violation of policy on 11/10 when they showed one of the Barrett returning to his bare knuckle roots videos on 9:20 a.m. Ofcom found that in a Saturday morning time slot where the majority of the audience was children, that the vignette was unsuitable due to “several close-up punches and kicks to the head, and on one occasion, a bloody bruise on the chest of a competitor.” Sky since apologized and said it would review its guidelines. “They also said that in the future, fighting outside of the ring on morning broadcasts would be minimized and similar dramatic sequences like in that vignette would not air in the future.

Del Rio vs. Swagger in a submission rules match is currently on the docket for Extreme Rules. Not sure if one of them will be champion by then or it’ll be Ziggler.
WWE is introducing a high ticket price for ringside at its live events. The new ringside price will be in the $110 range, but will include a meet & greet, photo ops with a title belt, a separate merchandise stand to buy stuff, and in some cities, a concierge for ringsiders. It goes into effect at the house shows on 3/15.
Thea Trinidad, 22, who worked as Rosita in TNA, got a tryout backstage over the weekend. If I wrote those same words in 1983, it would mean something entirely different. She’s been working as a Zumba instructor since TNA stopped using her. Given WWE is looking for new women and she’s got the right look and experience, plus has a great back story (can you imagine if Dana White had a woman on his roster with her back story?) that TNA used exactly once and then botched up anything from it possible. I still remember when TNA had a PPV on the anniversary of 9/11, and her father died in 9/11, how they brought her out, front and center, holding the flag, had her talk about her dad, and she basically stole the show. Then she came back out on the same show playing anti-American Mexican heel.

The 6/16 PPV will be called WWE Payback, and be from Chicago.

 

[R=G]

“Snitch,” the movie starring Dwayne Johnson, was No. 4 at the box office in its second week out, doing $7,768,391. After two weekends the movie has done $24,478,730.

Vince McMahon has joined HHH and Stephanie in going on twitter. HHH called his new twitter audience a “nerdfest.”
Ryder did an interview with the Baltimore Sun and admitted frustration with how he’s been used, which usually isn’t the best career move. He said in 2011, he was U.S. champion and in 2012 he was on WrestleMania, and now he’s doing nothing. He said whatever boost he got from his social media activities was gone and figures he has to come up with something new. He feels he has to change his character in some way, hinting at wanting to do a dark side or a more serious side. He admitted frustration with believing that unless there is a miracle, he won’t be booked at Mania this year.

Ziggler did an interview with a Cleveland TV station promoting the house show in that market on 3/3. He’s from the area, went to wrestling powerhouse St. Edwards High with Gray Maynard and Andy Hrovat (who went to the Olympics). He said he’s disappointed that he’s always booked to lose and that it does bother him. Luckily in his case if anyone brings that up, he can always say he was just in character.

Ted DiBiase Sr., 59, recently had both of his knees replaced due to the wear and tear of his career.

Lawler, 63, was at an autograph signing in New York with Flair, Jeff Jarrett and a lot of women stars, and asked about coming back. As noted, he can’t come back due to taking blood thinners making it very bad if he bleeds. But he said that he has gotten clearance from his personal doctor, but the WWE doctors haven’t given him the okay.

WWE is looking for a Vice President of Creative Writing. This will be a new person to manage the writing team and supervise the head writers of Raw and Smackdown and help with long-term storyline direction, as well as work with talent in character development. They already have Eric Pankowski doing something similar to this. They are also looking at having a comprehensive training program for writers, which is something that I think is needed.

An angle was shot backstage after Raw for a match on the 3/11 Raw between The New Age Outlaws vs. Rhodes & Sandow. At one point that was the match for 3/4, but they changed it to give the Outlaws a multiple-show return. The 3/11 show will have Lesnar, and should have the return of Jericho as well. Rock right now isn’t scheduled to be back until 3/25.

I believe Undertaker returns on the 3/18 show in Pittsburgh. Still no word on whether they’ll bring out Sammartino for that show, or just save him for the Hall of Fame.

Also backstage at the show, the McMahon family gave Mae Young a WWE Divas title belt. Young never held a major recognized world title during her active career (she held the women’s world tag team title with Ella Waldek in the early 50s). It was her 90th birthday present. Young was actually born March 12, 1923, so her birthday was eight days after Raw, but it’s close enough. She once again asked that on her 100th birthday she wanted a match on Raw with Stephanie. She’s been saying that for about ten years. They wouldn’t even let her walk onto the stage without several of the women holding on to her to keep her balance. I’m sure if there is any way possible they could to something safely with her in ten years they will, but the last time they did something with her it was just having someone take a bump on the stage and carefully letting her cover them.

Also at the tapings, they were confiscating signs like crazy, particularly those that mentioned reference to marijuana or DUI related to Swagger.
On the show, they had to promote so many different movies and videos it was hard to keep them straight. “Dead Man Down” opens on 3/8 in 2,175 theaters nationwide. I’ve seen tons of promotion on it. Interesting seeing a WWE release being promoted like crazy all over UFC and Bellator. “The Call,” which they are also promoting, debuts in 2,500 theaters on 3/15. “The Marine 3,” is a straight-to-video release that came out on 3/5 starring The Miz. I’ve seen tons of advertising for that on MMA television as well. The final is The Dungeon Collection, a new Bret Hart DVD that also came out on 3/5, featuring a lot of unique Hart matches including his lone singles match with Andre the Giant in Europe.


A woman named Bea Kushcer has been claiming on several social media sites that she is the Undertaker’s wife. While she has a photo with Mark Calaway, those close to the situation told WWEMafia.com “there’s not a lot to tell other than she’s living in a world of dreams. I’ve seen one pic of them together but it was nothing special. Mark knows all the crap she’s spreading and just laughs it off.” .

WWE is sending Regal to the Wrestlecon convention in Secaucus, NJ over Mania weekend. Promoter Sal Corrente originally booked Bruno Sammartino, even though Sammartino had first said he wasn’t going to be doing anything outside the Pittsburgh area going forward. But the two of them are friends. WWE then wanted Sammartino off the show due to it being the same time as their events, so as a make good, were willing to send Regal.

Jericho was heavily complimentary to The Shield after his TV match with them a few weeks back. “It’s good to know that the new prospects that are coming in have some experience and been around a little bit,” said Jericho in a WWE web site interview. “And obviously, The Shield, I was really impressed by them right off the bat. They were just three guys that were given a shot and really took the ball and ran with it. Cesaro, I’ve been a fan of his even before he came here. They’ve worked around the world and it benefitted them when they debuted.”

Cesaro just hit the 200 day mark as U.S. champion, making him the 5th longest in the history of the WWE version of the title, trailing MVP (record 343 days), Benoit, Miz and Shelton Benjamin.

Lance Storm was in Florida this week doing a stint as a guest trainer for NXT.

Superstar Billy Graham has once again asked to be taken out of the WWE Hall of Fame out of protest for them inducting Abdullah the Butcher. Graham is right now good friends with Devon Nicholson, who is suing Butcher, claiming that Butcher gave him the Hepatitis from blading him with the same blade he bladed himself with and Butcher had the disease. Butcher has publicly claimed he doesn’t, but Nicholson said that medical tests on Butcher prove otherwise. Nicholson has settled his case against WWE and has made it clear he has no bitterness toward them. Graham himself has said he has nothing against WWE right now, is not bitter with them, but only is protesting Butcher being in the Hall of Fame.

Regarding delayed viewership for Raw, the latest shows we have are 2/4 with 349,000 homes watching via DVR or other delayed format (91.0% live) and 2/11 with 301,000 (91.2% live).

Josh Reddikk of the Oakland A’s, who is a big wrestling fan, has accepted a challenge from Bryan Danielson for beard growing. Both will let their beards grow until December of this year. At that point in time, they will put their photos up for an Internet vote over who has the best beard. The loser of that vote has to shave their beard off. Reddikk started growing his beard in November, so Bryan does have a healthy head start.

 

[FitzgeraldThomasGrant III]

Barrett has been losing non-title matches like crazy to top guys like Orton and Sheamus, and Cesaro has been as well to Ryback and Orton, but those aren’t leading to title matches because the babyfaces are considered “above” those belts.

Ryback above those belts

 

[ExodusNirvana]

That shyt pissed me off...no one is above the fukking belts

Why the fukk would you have them then?

 

[Ed MOTHEREFFING G]

Thank you for the update/info R=G.

I want rko to turn heel but I'm tired of him in stables. I don't want him to have anything to do with the shield. If he can turn on Sheamus but not do anything associated with the shield the better.

 

[Ed MOTHEREFFING G]

That shyt pissed me off...no one is above the fukking belts

Why the fukk would you have them then?

nah thats not really true...the belts can be handled in three ways...the wrestler can carry them, or they can carry the wrestler...I could give examples of both but most recently; Cena Carries the belt, the belt carries Punk (DO NOT let this derail the conversation).

OR, the wrestlers can be over without the belts and be generally above them. The ROAD WARRIORS were the best examples of this ever. Hogan between manias IV and V was a great example. Vader didn't always need the belt but he was still a beast. Mark Henry is in that groove right now IMO.

So, to say that ryback is above the belt is a somewhat fair distinction; if barrett didn't have the IC belt he would be floundering even worst, but Ryback hasn't sniffed a belt and he is fairly convincing (though I hate him) to the crowd.

Rock didn't need the belt last year and he was about as over as anyone can be ever; some people don't need the belt and they are above it.

 

[ThatTruth777]

Man... AJ could go to WWE but honestly would they do him right