WWE/TNA News

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Brock Lesnar was the center of discussions in WWE and UFC again this week. Until Raw Monday, Lesnar has not appeared or been mentioned on WWE television since he met with Dana White at UFC 146 on May 26th in Las Vegas. White this week reiterated his claim that the post-show meeting with Brock was a disaster. "Probably the worst meeting we've ever had with Brock Lesnar, and I haven't talked to him since," White said. This mirrors the stories coming out of the meeting the day after it went down. However, sources in both WWE and UFC this week expressed skepticism that this was really the case, and both sides had differing opinions regarding rumors that Brock wanted to fight for UFC before the end of 2012. The WWE side almost universally claims that Brock has an iron-clad contract and that there is no way he could fight for UFC until that contract expires following WrestleMania 29 in April of 2013. On the UFC side, there are people who insist that his contract is non-exclusive (more than one source used the term "on loan to WWE"), and that he and White were discussing a potential fight during the meeting. Not everyone in UFC believes he'll fight. Some believe that even if his WWE contract allowed it, his heart really isn't into fighting and all of this is some sort of ploy by Lesnar to increase his bargaining power or leverage with WWE. There is a great deal of heat on Lesnar from the WWE side, in part due to the belief that the stories coming out of UFC about the meeting going poorly are false. As of last week he was still scheduled to wrestle HHH at SummerSlam. The company has an angle planned which involves HHH appearing at No Way Out to address his future. This is a situation where the plan is to shoot the angle on the PPV in the hopes that it will add viewers to Raw the next night as opposed to shooting the angle on Raw hoping it will add buys to the PPV. As reported last week, Lesnar is only scheduled for 24 dates under his one-year contract, so it is believed that after SummerSlam he won't be used at all until around Royal Rumble 2013 when the build for WrestleMania begins.

Two major WWE injuries will require some re-booking of future shows. Truth, one half of the World Tag Team Champions with Kofi Kingston, suffered a broken foot and will miss several weeks of action. Alberto Del Rio suffered a concussion at the Smackdown tapings and was pulled from the weekend events. It allegedly occurred when Sheamus sent him head-first into the steel WWE sign on the ramp. It looked like any other bump, and Del Rio proceeded to both work a match with Great Khali and also do a run-in at the end of the show. Dolph Ziggler won a four-way elimination match on Raw to take Alberto's spot versus Sheamus on the PPV. In the changing their minds a million times department, the match was originally announced by WWE.com as a battle royal, but then at the beginning of Raw John Lauranitis said it was a Fatal Four Way, and by the time they got to the ring it was an elimination match.

There was discussion last week of the possibility of Randy Orton not returning once his 60-day Wellness Policy suspension ends two weeks before SummerSlam. Orton, when asked about the test failure on Twitter, wrote, "When I'm able to tell you, I will. Until then, don't believe everything you read!" It is believed that his claim is that he took a tainted supplement. According to a source in WWE, Vince McMahon was very upset with Orton, particularly the fact that Orton was so "outspokenly indifferent" to the suspension. Another source noted that Orton was originally suspended as quickly as he was in order to ensure he'd be back by SummerSlam, but "something happened" shortly after the suspension that lit McMahon up, and that led to discussions of not bringing him back. The idea was that Orton was no longer the number two babyface, but rather number three behind John Cena and CM Punk. Plus another top babyface, Rey Mysterio, can return at the end of the month and there is a feeling that WWE can turn Daniel Bryan at any time and he'll be a huge babyface and sell a great deal of "YES!" merchandise. Orton made and saved a lot of money during his career and lives in an area where he could live comfortably for many years without worrying about money. His wife also comes from a well-to-do family, so not having a steady income from WWE is not a major concern for him at the moment. There is definitely an anti-Orton contingent within the company. Those opposing his return note that he'll have two strikes and there is only so far you can push him with the possibility always looming that he'll fail another test and they'll have to fire him (or, as some have noted, "suspend him for one year"). There is also concern about his body breaking down and questions about the state of his neck and spine. The Orton failure and subsequent discussion also got the company talking about potentially listing not only test failures, but what drugs the wrestlers failed for.

As it regards Orton, Mysterio (who is due back from a drug suspension soon but is not booked on any upcoming house show line-ups) and Chris Jericho (also not booked on any house show dates after his 30-day suspension for defacing the Brazilian flag is up), the feeling within WWE is that the talent roster is so limited right now that no matter what McMahon is thinking about anyone at the moment, when the day arrives and someone is able to return to the road, they'll be back regardless of any concerns or politics. It has also been noted that when Raw moves permanently to three hours, the first hour, if history is any indication, will drag down the full show ratings average every week. In other words, Orton's suspension will be up after what will almost certainly be two straight weeks of sub-3.0 Monday night ratings. That should work strongly in his favor. Alberto Del Rio's concussion coming off his most recent groin injury probably helps Mysterio's case as well, as the company badly needs a top Latino star.

With Orton gone for the summer and others either suspended or on the disabled list, a number of wrestlers will be working both Raw and Smackdown events. This week, several were booked for both the Raw and Smackdown tapings, necessitating for some an extra day of work. CM Punk is being moved to the Smackdown house show loops for the foreseeable future. At this point, the Raw house shows will rely almost entirely on John Cena as the top draw, and from a pure name value standpoint, the Smackdown house shows will have a deeper talent roster. Cena, despite being the Raw house show headliner, is also being booked for dark matches on all the Smackdown TV tapings in an effort to sell more tickets. Interestingly, if Punk retains the WWE Title on Sunday, Smackdown house shows as they are currently booked will feature both the WWE and World Champions. This may suggest either Kane or Daniel Bryan (who are both at this point also listed as Smackdown house show wrestlers, but either could be moved to Raw) wins the WWE Title, or Dolph Ziggler (replacing an injured Alberto Del Rio) could win the World Title from Sheamus. Between the added dates and the imminent permanent third hour of Raw looming, the burnout the talent is feeling will only get worse.

Orton was scheduled to beat Dolph Ziggler at No Way Out had he not been suspended. Ziggler and Chris Jericho were scheduled to be Orton's summer foils leading to Orton getting a title shot against Sheamus at SummerSlam.

One person in WWE said that several in the company believe that Jericho was suspended for political reasons. Linda McMahon is running for office, and it is believed that the company suspended him out of concern over what people in the Connecticut media who don't watch wrestling would think if they read a TMZ story about WWE stars going to other countries and defacing flags.

The big surprise at TNA Slammiversary was the appearance of WWE's Intercontinental Champion, Christian. WWE and TNA made a deal months back to "trade" a Christian appearance for an appearance by Ric Flair at WWE's WrestleMania Hall of Fame. TNA is working on a DVD and wanted Christian, who wrestled for the company from 2005-08, to work as a talking head. While he got along great with everyone backstage, hanging out and chatting like old times, he was clearly very uncomfortable having to come out before the live audience on PPV. WWE very carefully controlled what he was and was not allowed to say. He didn't say anything positive about TNA, but was allowed to put over the fans in attendance. When WWE and TNA were originally making the deal, Christian didn't want any part of it. Because the company had already advertised Flair for the Hall of Fame, Christian was strongly advised to cooperate. He told people backstage Sunday that it felt totally surreal being there and that he didn't expect any heat from WWE for the appearance. Although WWE would have allowed TNA to promote the Christian appearance on the live go-home Impact Thursday night, Dixie Carter instead chose to not promote it on TV, but rather on Twitter, hoping to get the Internet buzzing Friday.

 

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There were no major injuries at Slammiversary. Samoa Joe was banged up from the brainbuster by Austin Aries but otherwise fine. Sting was busted open hardway when he hit the back of his head on a lighting stand after he gave Bobby Roode a death drop off the stage through a gimmicked table. One person believed he was busted open hardway by the beer bottle, but it looked on TV as if he bladed during the pinfall. Either way, he was all right, and ended up doing three separate curtain calls after the show ended. "He was just beloved," said one person in attendance. Miss Tessmacher had a bad night, though it was not due to injury – she was nervous to be wrestling the biggest match of her career in front of her hometown crowd. Tessmacher's first name is officially no longer Brooke since the company signed Brooke Hogan. The Fake Abyss was played by a student from the Team 3-D wrestling school. He was only shot from behind in the Abyss outfit and was only scripted to deliver a single spot, a chokeslam through a table, so it looks as if he will not be a regular working character.

Slammiversary drew approximately 6,000 fans, less than 500 shy of a complete sell-out. It was their best North American crowd in company history. The Saturday meet-and-greet, however, was described as a complete bust by several wrestlers and company employees. It was scheduled to run from 7 to 9 p.m., and according to reports from fans, so few people showed up that the wrestlers largely started heading out by 7:45. Fans who showed up after 8 p.m. were very disappointed. Fan attendance estimates ranged from 150 to 200. Reports were that the wrestlers who were there were very pleasant and accommodating to the fans. Morale among the wrestlers and employees is said to have done a 180 in the last three months. Many of the improvements are being attributed to Eric Bischoff, who decided recently that pro-wrestling was more effective with longer-arching storylines.

Sting was the first inductee into the TNA Hall of Fame Sunday night at Slammiversary. Nobody was told who was going in, including Sting. Dixie Carter announced that they would do an official induction ceremony at Bound For Glory in October. This is the first Hall of Fame into which Sting has ever been inducted.

Demetrious Johnson beat Ian McCall via decision in the main event of UFC on FX 3 Friday night from Sunrise, Fla. The fight was originally scheduled to go five rounds, but since the company had promised that there must be a winner (stemming from the first fight where they went to a draw, but because someone transcribed a number incorrectly on the scorecards it was announced as a win for Johnson, and nobody discovered the error until the post-show press conference), and since six-round fights are not allowed in any commission state, it was changed to a three-rounder. Johnson won the first and third rounds handily with only the second being close. Johnson goes on to face Joseph Benevidez at a future date to determine the first-ever UFC flyweight (125-pound) champion.

Impact was back up to a 1.0 rating this week with 1.3 million viewers tuning in. The show opened at an 0.81 and largely grew throughout the two hours. Hour one averaged an 0.9 and hour two averaged a 1.1. Because the show opened at an 0.8, it appears many fans still haven't figured out that the permanent start time is now 8 p.m, one hour earlier. It also suggests that within a few weeks, the show could be averaging in the 1.1 range, which would be an improvement over the three-month average. The number was even more impressive considering the Celtics vs. Miami Heat NBA playoff game did 11 million viewers head-to-head.

UFC 148 lost yet another match this week due to no fault of any of the participants. Jose Aldo Jr. suffered an injury in training and had to pull out of his UFC 149 match with Erik Koch. As a result, the company moved the Urijah Faber vs. Renan Barao Interim Bantamweight Title fight from 148 to 149 in Calgary. This comes on the heels of Barao replacing Dominick Cruz, the 135-pound champion who blew out his knee in training for the fight. That replacement, in turn, followed the company pulling Rich Franklin from his fight with Cung Le in order for Franklin to replace the injured Vitor Belfort vs. Wanderlei Silva in Brazil at 147. For some fans, this was one change too many. UFC 148 had been billed as a supershow with tickets peaking at a record-high $1,200 for ringside. For fans who paid those prices or who bought other expensive tickets, the show is significantly less stacked than it was when tickets went on sale. The main event, Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen 2, may still end up being the best-drawing pay-per-view match of 2012. Rumors abound in the Brazilian media, however, that Silva suffered a knee injury in training. Dana White insisted last week that the rumors were false and that Silva was still fighting. Losing that fight would be devastating for UFC.

HHH's changes to WWE developmental continue with a vastly expanded touring schedule over the summer. Thirty-nine events are booked between press time and the end of August, with 17 scheduled between June 8th and July 28th. One of the biggest differences between the Ohio Valley system of training (which turned out most of the biggest stars and best workers of the '00s) and the FCW system of training (which did not) was that the OVW trainees worked as many as five dates per week on a loop around Kentucky. More often than not, FCW trainees only worked one live show per week. The company has also begun greatly increasing its scouting efforts, a process that for many reasons had fallen off in recent years, but which had been critical in discovering some of the top stars of the last decade when Jim Ross was head of talent relations in the late '90s and early '00s. Bill DeMott, who many in the business have been critical of as a trainer in the past, is said to have matured into a solid coach. He is being assisted by a number of Hall of Fame-calibre former greats, including Dusty Rhodes, Gerald Brisco and Ricky Steamboat.

 

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It was announced this week that THQ sold their UFC franchise to EA Sports. UFC Undisputed 3, according to a report in Gamasutra, only sold 1.4 million units with 2 million being break-even. With THQ experiencing financial difficulties, arrangements were made to unload the title. Dana White had buried EA Sports for years based on meetings years ago that went very poorly. The company is now under different management and many of the top executives are big UFC fans.

The 2012 Bound for Glory series begins this week on Impact. Twelve men, including James Storm, will compete in the several-month tournament vying for a Bound For Glory title shot. Last year's Series was won by Bobby Roode, who was originally scheduled to win the title from Kurt Angle at the company's biggest show of the year on October 16th. Two days before the show, Hulk Hogan changed the finish and put Angle over, which lead to Storm beating Angle for the belt in a swerve four days later on Impact. Roode then turned heel on his best friend, busting a beer bottle over his head in their match the following week, winning the title which he still holds today. Storm was scheduled to win the belt from Roode at Lockdown on April 15th, but Hogan made a last-minute booking change again. Roode vs. Storm for the title is tentatively scheduled for this year's Bound For Glory.

In the midst of a WWE vs. TNA lawsuit that includes a court-ordered hiring freeze of TNA employees by WWE, Ric Flair's name suddenly appeared over the weekend in WWE.com's Alumni section. One WWE source claims this is almost certainly a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. "Just last week these morons put up a graphic for Christian vs. Cody Rhodes at No Way Out," this person noted, "and they put up an old picture of Christian with the World title, not the Intercontinental Title." Most in WWE believe that Flair is returning as soon as he is legally able, and that the company would love to have him return at the 1,000th episode of Raw in late July.

WWE purchased the Bill Watts video library, which consists of television episodes from the Universal Wrestling Federation, Mid-South Wrestling and Power Pro Wrestling. The library was owned by Ene Watts, Bill's ex-wife, who was awarded the tapes in a divorce settlement. Both sides had negotiated for years, unable to come to terms. With the Network scheduled to debut in late 2012, the need for the library, and likely the offers made from the WWE side, increased substantially.

TNA, which makes a good deal of its revenue off overseas television deals, signed with All Sports Network in southeast Asia last week. Impact will now air in Hong Kong, Cambodia, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, The Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam. The station also carries such major league sports entities as the NFL, NHL and NASCAR.

TMZ.com reported that John Layfield, aka JBL, is planning to climb the highest mountains in all seven continents, including Mt. Everest, to raise money for a children's charity in Bermuda where he's now living. "The WWE is sponsoring my whole 7 summits trip and will help get the word out across their social media platforms," said JBL. "All to raise money for the kids program." This is not a publicity stunt and Layfield, 45, is currently in heavy training in Bermuda. According to friends, Layfield spends his days training and working with underprivileged children. He's currently coaching a rugby team, which alongside soccer is the most popular sport in the Caribbean for children regardless of economics.

Coming off Slammiversary, with TNA appearing at first glance to have the most momentum it has had in some time, the question becomes: In 2012, when wrestling interest overall is at a low point, what is the ceiling for a distant No. 2 promotion?

It’s a hard question to answer. For all the talk of TNA suddenly having the most entertaining pro wrestling product out there, almost a 180 from a few months back, that still isn’t hitting the average fan, because they still aren’t watching. There is a question that in 2012, just by being TNA, not just with its history, but being pro wrestling that isn’t WWE in an era where the brand and not the match or the individual that is the key, how much can it move? History will tell you. There are huge swings possible when you get hot. But local territories were monopolies. WCW was a distant No. 2 in the 90s, when the business was in far worse shape than it is today and you can point that out, but that’s another era. WCW always had a base audience and history and the industry had a ridiculous number of stars that were known to almost all fans compared to now. Even in down times, WCW’s flagship weekend show did in the 2s and prime time specials of big shows did in the 3s. WCW did explode in popularity and revenue for a few years in the late 90s. But you only have to look at the Monday Night Wars, how well WCW competed when it moved against Raw in 1995, and how TNA did when it moved against Raw in 2010, to see that WCW analogies and what happened then don’t correlate to today.

TNA is now producing better television, and the last two PPV shows have been the best ones they’ve done in a long time. Among our readership, Slammiversary seemed to have had more interest than any TNA show in a long time. But that’s not necessarily indicative of the public at large. In theory, if there is a turnaround, it would be quicker among the readership because they are more apt to watch everything, watch it closer, and more open minded to secondary products. Still, whatever their ceiling may be, it is always better to produce a good product than a bad one.

Historically, house show attendance has been the first place where you see the changes, as well as PPV numbers. Ratings lag behind in moving up, as well as lag behind in moving down. A downturn in ratings in a creature of habit viewing entertainment form is usually a sign of things that actually started to go badly some time back.

When it comes to house shows, TNA has been running so few that nothing is evident. Slammiversary in Arlington was as successful in selling tickets as any major TNA show in years, so that’s a good sign, but that’s just one show. It’ll be a few weeks to get a real PPV indication.

 

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I didn’t necessarily think Slammiversary was a better wrestling show than Sacrifice last month, but it was a better show for building momentum. They were both two of the better PPV shows this year. Slammiversary was stronger because of the better setting and hotter crowd, and storylines having a few more weeks to click. Sacrifice had more good matches. But no doubt more people saw Slammiversary, as it was pushed far better. In delivering a very strong show to a larger audience, it probably did the company more good going forward in the PPV department, although it takes a lot more than two top level shows in a row to get people who had given up years ago and make them willing in a challenging economy to add that to their monthly bill. A couple of more shows like this and perhaps there will be a word of mouth that TNA PPV shows are worth getting. They had that years ago, when PPV numbers were significantly larger than they have been even though they had far less exposure and less major star power.

The 6/10 show at the new College Park Center in Arlington, TX, drew 5,000 fans, a near sellout. There were 4,000 tickets sold in advance, so that indicates little papering. There were only a few hundred empty seats total, and to TNA’s credit, their production team is good at making crowds seem bigger than they are. They actually had less than 5,500 in London at the January TV taping, but watching on TV, you’d have thought they packed a 13,000-seat arena. Carter in the ring said it was the company’s largest crowd ever in the United States. There have been a few crowds that those in the company had stated were more than 5,000 in the past, but not many. Mike Tenay, seemingly talking carefully, said that it was TNA’s largest crowd ever for a TV taping or PPV within the United States.

When it was over, it was really all about two great matches, a Kurt Angle & A.J. Styles tag team title win over Christopher Daniels & Kazarian, and the opener, where X Division champion Austin Aries retained his title beating Samoa Joe. And yes, there is supposed to be a 225 pound limit on the X Division.

The main event left the crowd flat, as Bobby Roode retained against Sting after hitting him with a beer bottle. I didn’t think it was smart to, on television before the PPV, announce that the winner of the title match at the PPV would defend on TV four days later for free. The challenger was the winner of a Jeff Hardy vs. Rob Van Dam vs. Mr. Anderson three-way, which Anderson won.

The show was pushed hard around Sting. Sting was named the first member of the TNA Wrestling Hall of Fame as announced midway through the show by Dixie Carter. The decision was made some time back, but kept a carefully guarded secret. The belief is that none of the wrestlers, nor Sting, were aware of who it would be. The production people knew since they put together the video package. Everyone on the card, plus Tara (the only person not wrestling on the show who was brought in), Madison Rayne (who didn’t wrestle but had a storyline purpose for being there) along with Bruce Prichard, Al Snow, D-Lo Brown and maybe others (no Eric Bischoff since he’s no longer a TV character) were brought out for the announcement.

Carter opened the segment thanking her parents, as well as Jeff & Jerry Jarrett (who started the company together in 2002 and this was the 10th anniversary of the debut show), Spike TV and the fans. Tenay specifically mentioned Bob, Janice and Todd Carter (Dixie’s brother) for making the last ten years possible. The mention of Jerry Jarrett was interesting if only because he’s been on the outs with the company for years, dating back to when he went to WWE headquarters to bring them Oleg Prudius (who became Vladmir Kozlov) without letting anyone know, and to say there was uncertainty and unrest in TNA would be putting it mildly. People figured since Jeff & Jerry had been together on the venture, and things were hardly solid, that Jerry was trying to broker a deal to get Jeff there and that TNA was essentially dead. In fact, Jeff & Jerry haven’t spoken since then unless things have recently changed, and Jerry didn’t even attend Jeff’s first wife’s funeral. Jeff still works for the company, although he’s not in the creative loop at all, nor is he a performer. Some thought he was going to be the person announced. Realistically, the most valuable people in TNA being around are Dixie Carter, Bob Carter and Kevin Kay.

Bob Carter funded the venture, selling all kinds of his personal land to fund it and keep it going when it appeared there was no light at the end of the tunnel, as the company was $55 million in the red as of two years ago. Kay saved it in 2005 when it was about to be closed, by putting the product on Spike TV as they were looking to stay in wrestling after WWE left the network to return to USA. It went from an afterthought on late Saturday nights to one of the network’s flagship shows, particularly in the last few months when they lost the UFC franchise, plus it was felt a strong TNA was beneficial to promote the Viacom-owned Bellator next year. But for fans, they couldn’t name Dixie as it wouldn’t work, and people wouldn’t even know the other two names. By that token, the only “first person” inducted could have been Jeff Jarrett, Angle, Hulk Hogan or Sting.

Sting was not only the choice, but during the show they counted down the three biggest moments in TNA history. In their minds, No. 3 was Styles beating Jerry Lynn to become the first X Division champion just as the company got started in 2002. While the X Division was a big deal and kind of the flagship of the company during the first few years in Nashville, it’s been a typical prelim match title for years, and even then, would hardly quality as a major moment. No. 2 was the 2009 signing of Hogan. In reality, that should have been No. 1, although you could argue that Hogan never ended up being the difference maker expected and wasn’t worth what they were paying. Sting’s signing in early 2006 was voted No. 1. Sting had been with the company a few times prior to that. Angle came later in 2006 and I’d argue was the more valuable performer, but Sting, with his longer career, was probably better asa the initial choice.

Sting was only expected to work one year, and retire at the end of 2006. We’re now six-and-a-half years into the deal, and Sting was main-eventing the show at 53. The one thing is, Sting is not in any major pro wrestling Hall of Fames, so in a sense that made him a good first choice. The crowd chanted “Thank You Sting,” loudly. Carter then said that whenever they go into foreign countries, that’s how the crowd reacts. That was kind of a funny thing to say, since for years Sting had refused to do shows outside the U.S. Really until this past January’s U.K. tour, Sting had done only a few shows outside the U.S., such as one major AAA show and almost never works house shows. They announced a formal ceremony would take place on the Bound for Glory show in October.

Sting, since he wasn’t aware, wasn’t prepared, and just thanked Carter, the wrestlers and chanted “Thank you” a few times back to the fans. It did come across like a real moment.

There were two other surprises at the show. James Storm returned answering Crimson’s open challenge, and pinned him quickly with a superkick to end the undefeated streak. The streak had run its course and on paper, Storm coming back as a surprise looked like a winner. The response when his music played and he came out wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t like you would expect for a surprise of the person groomed to be the company’s top face. Part of the problem is that on TV, when Crimson mentioned Bill Goldberg, you could see people expecting Goldberg, and there were “Goldberg” chants when Crimson came out and you could tell those fans felt disappointed. Goldberg is getting more chants of late than almost any wrestler in the world, and in both TNA and WWE. After Storm won and drank beer, the crowd was pretty hot, but they didn’t really care about the match when it started. But no paper, I’d say it was perfect to have him on the show as a surprise, and start his momentum, since he pretty much has to beat Roode when they next meet.

 

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The final surprise was Christian, billed as Christian Cage, the name he used while in TNA from 2005-2008, doing a one-time appearance that didn’t seem to serve much of a purpose and left more questions than answers. This was the deal they negotiated in March to allow Ric Flair to attend the Hall of Fame ceremony, and with the lawsuit going on, there was no way WWE could have pulled him from an pre-existing deal. But while he was nice to everyone backstage, when he came out, you could tell he was scared to say boo to a goose and from his body language, seemed like he didn’t want to be there. Back in March, he was first told that he would be going back for one day where he’d do interviews as a talking head for a series of TNA DVD releases. Those in WWE said that he made it clear he didn’t want to do it. HHH insisted he do so, saying that he wasn’t going to negotiate this far and let anyone screw up the deal to get Flair.

What was weird about it was that instead of advertising Christian appearing on the show on TV, they revealed it a few hours after Impact ended, on Dixie Carter’s Twitter. They have this mentality that you have to announce something at the last minute on Twitter. This also created a kind of embarrassing moment on the broadcast, since Taz, who announced the live show, talked about what a big surprise it was, since he did the TV and since he didn’t know ahead of time, figured fans must not have known, not being told the company had released the info itself a few days earlier. Taz several minutes later addressed that he doesn’t read Carter’s Twitter, maybe he should, and that he didn’t know something that a lot of fans did. Christian also didn’t get a monster pop, but he did get a good one. There were light “Welcome back” chants from fans who didn’t realize it was a one time thing. There were also “Please come back” chants from what sounded to be maybe ten people. Christian said nothing, just praised the fans and made a remark about the ring only having four sides that went over the head of 90% of the fans there live. He introduced the biggest moment in TNA history as when Sting showed up on Impact for the first time, after he signed that first one-year contract, in 2006. And then he was gone.

As far as where things go from here, not a lot has been made clear. With no tapings right after the PPV, the major direction hasn’t even been hinted at. The next PPV is Destination X on 7/8, which will be hurt coming the day after UFC’s biggest event of the year. Austin Aries did an interview at Slammiversary where he didn’t quite challenge Roode by name, but did say that he wanted a chance to be in the main event and be the man. Roode vs. Aries doesn’t sound like a PPV main event in the sense Aries has never been positioned close to that level. They have booked him strong, with wins over Ray and Joe. His interaction with Roode in a tag match on Impact a few weeks back was excellent. The positive is if the momentum is legit, and the numbers for Slammiversary will give an indication, maybe people will buy just because they like the brand. Usually that doesn’t work when it comes to PPV numbers, nor does the idea that on paper the main event could be one of TNA’s best potential matches, since really Roode, Aries, Styles and Angle (at least on PPV shows) are the company’s big four inside the ring. It’s fresh, should be excellent, and Aries is a guy who can be elevated in the fans’ eyes just having a main event world title match and losing in a great one. The only thing for Impact is the Roode vs. Anderson TV match, and the announcement of the Bound for Glory series. The problem with the series is that last year’s was such a complete joke of a tournament. Hopefully they won’t have last year’s attitude of that it’s just wrestling and doesn’t have to make sense. But the other problem is that Storm should win and get the shot, but it’s so obvious Storm should win, that you have to combat the mentality of that we can’t let people figure out where we are going.


Hulk Hogan opened the show and announced they were going old school, and that the Austin Aries vs. Samoa Joe match would be for the X Division title. Mike Tenay then explained that no, Joe didn’t make the 225 pound weight limit (not by a mile), but they were going old school. If Eric Young can hold the woman’s title, then why can’t Joe be a junior heavyweight? They had a great match, but making it a title match at the last minute without advertising it meant they made the whole weight class thing a joke for no business purpose. Apparently it was that they wanted to open the show with Hogan, and then with the match, and wanted Hogan to have something to say about the match, so that was the idea they came up with.

WWE this past week finalized a deal to purchase the much sought after Mid South Wrestling tape collection from Ene Watts, the ex-wife of Cowboy Bill Watts.

Ene Watts and son Micah had been selling DVDs from the collection for years through a web site, but it was inevitable that market was going to dry up at some point. It’s probably at that point now.

WWE had been after the collection for years and the family’s price to sell was deemed way above budget, until now.

What was sold is not the complete collection of the Watts promotion, which ran from 1979 to 1987, and promoted originally in Louisiana and eventually expanded to Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma and parts of Texas, most notably Houston for several years working in conjunction with Paul Boesch. During its heyday, the show did unbelievable television ratings on a local basis, generally the best of any wrestling show in the country with the exception of the Jarrett promotion.

The promotion was super successful in its early years, peaking in 1984. But a number of factors destroyed it and it was losing money like crazy by late 1986, and was sold to Jim Crockett Promotions in March, 1987, for $4 million. Bill Watts actually only got a fraction of that money (about $1.2 million). Crockett, who purchased the promotion more for its syndicated television network than anything else, took on debt that put him out of business and he sold his promotion to Turner Broadcasting in late 1988 for $9 million, which his family did get.

In hindsight, the turning point was in 1985. Several months earlier, Vince McMahon had purchased Georgia Championship Wrestling for $750,000, primarily to get the valuable Saturday and Sunday time slots on TBS. At the time, the TBS wrestling and USA Monday night slot (which eventually became Raw) and a weekend slot were the biggest national outlets for wrestling other than the occasional Saturday night special on NBC. The purchase gave McMahon a monopoly on the strongest time slots, although the AWA did eventually get on ESPN, but ESPN then wasn’t what it is now. But Ted Turner and McMahon could never get along as McMahon would send in tapes of arena shows and TV taping footage to air in the time slots instead of doing a local TV studio show as had been the tradition. Ratings for the time slot were falling, although not off the cliff or anything.

Turner made a deal with Watts in 1985 where he would put Mid South Wrestling on television and would also get into the wrestling promotion business, becoming partners with Watts in shows outside of Watts’ initial territory. During its short run on TBS, even when put Sunday afternoon time slot that had never aired wrestling, Mid South Wrestling averaged a 5.3 rating, making it the highest rated national wrestling show in the country. The number was at the time an embarrassment to McMahon, who had bragged about being the only guy who could draw big ratings on a national basis, who had the familiar time slot on the same station and was doing considerably lower numbers. But everything unraveled quickly. Turner was attempting to get out of his contract with McMahon and put Watts in the familiar time slot. McMahon was able to block the cancellation because of the contract, but knew his days on the station were done as soon as the contract was over. Jim Barnett, who at the time was still working for McMahon, put together a deal with Crockett, where Crockett would pay McMahon $1 million for the time slots. In exchange, Crockett agreed to tape shows in Turner’s studios like the old days. At that point, Turner had the wrestling show he wanted. Crockett and Watts worked together a lot. Watts used Ric Flair as world champion, and would bring in the top names from Crockett’s promotion for his big shows. The two continued to work together until Watts sold the promotion. Watts’ final episode on TBS saw him mention how the station now was going to be airing great wrestling in the regular time slotand publicly endorsed the deal.

I could write a ton about what killed Mid South Wrestling. But the real thing was simply inevitability. They were too big to be small, and pay guys $25 a shot and survive, which is how Jerry Jarrett survived. But their base markets couldn’t gross the kind of money either McMahon or Crockett could. They may be able to equal the booking and produce television that got bigger ratings, but they didn’t have the star power and couldn’t keep their stars from wanting to leave because there was more money in the other groups.

Watts himself saw the future and believed territorial wrestling was dead. While the whole business was super strong in 1985, by 1986, almost every territory was struggling, as fans went from being fans of their local wrestling to being fans of either the Crockett product with Flair, Dusty Rhodes and the Road Warriors, or the McMahon product, with Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Andre the Giant, Junkyard Dog and so many others. When ESPN wanted to get into wrestling, it came down to the AWA and Mid South, and the people at ESPN who knew Sgt. Slaughter was, and didn’t know who Ted DiBiase and Jim Duggan were. The local ratings books didn’t play a factor in decision making.

 

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At that point, because of the moves McMahon made in 1984, where he went all over the country buying time slots, the television industry viewed wrestling programming as something, like religious programming, where it was pay for play. Ratings didn’t matter, because they knew the promoters needed the time slots and the idea is the money you paid to get on TV you made back when you ran house shows in the market. So Watts and Jim Ross put together a strong national syndication package, figuring they could draw ratings, run house shows in the new markets, and sell advertising, a revenue source McMahon had but nobody else had, since nobody else had that kind of syndication.

But the cost of that network was more than they could recoup. They were not successful in drawing outside their market because they were No. 3 in terms of star power, similar to the position ECW was in during the 90s and ROH would be in today’s much tougher climate. It didn’t matter about show quality or work rate, they didn’t have the star power to the public as compared to the other two groups. Their own market was not doing well either. There was a staleness in the sense the talent was stagnated everywhere due to long-term contracts, and the Watts style of booking worked best with a more free flow of talent going in and out. Their big years were also built around introducing certain concepts to television, the music videos and the young hot babyfaces like the Rock & Roll Express, Magnum T.A., and Terry Taylor. While The Freebirds were a great heel act, the fans in the area had seen them for so many straight years off Dallas TV before they came to Mid South, that they were no longer fresh or capable of drawing big. A lot of the angles were great. Watts’ strategy going into the expansion is he believed he’d lose money at first before establishing his product in the new markets, but believed the hard hitting style and stronger television would eventually get over. But he counted on strong business in his core cities to offset those losses and keep them to numbers he could sustain. But when the big markets, Houston, Tulsa, Oklahoma City and New Orleans dropped 70 percent over a relatively short period of time, that’s not what he was counting on. Nobody can say for sure because it never had a fair shot at his goals, but I believe as No. 3 going national with less star power, it would be difficult. Jim Crockett was No. 2 and he was done by the of 1988.

The booking and star power was not as strong as it had been, although the TV show remained doing great ratings. With the benefit of hindsight, I don’t believe he would have succeeded, at least without a strategic television partner like a Ted Turner. Had their original deal gone through in 1985 and it was Watts’ booking with Turner’s financial backing on TBS, it would be hard compete for the top talent, the story of this industry probably would have been very different.

Short-term, the collapse of the oil business was a big part of the death of Mid South Wrestling. A lot of entertainment died in the region during that period. The number of concerts in Houston declined by 75% during that time period, and casualties included Braniff Airlines, one of the major carriers at the time.

A funny story from that period is with the New Orleans house shows being way down, is where he it really hit him about how difficult running an entertainment business in his core region had become. Watts kept being told the crowds were so down because the economy was so bad and that there was no disposable income in town. Those in his company gave him the example that really scared him, that there were no hookers in the French Quarter. At first Watts thought that was a made up story, but he went to New Orleans, and looked around, and realized that if the prostitution business in a city like New Orleans was non-existent, that was not a good sign for being able to turn around the wrestling business at least short-term, because it spoke of his lower and middle income adult crowd not having any money. The combination of all those drove losses far out of the realm he expected to have to deal with, and he simply couldn’t afford it.

With shows in his home base of Tulsa and Oklahoma City down 70 percent, Watts was losing $50,000 a week between running his own towns and all the weekly television bills in new markets. While he had made millions in the big years, that wasn’t the kind of money he could afford to lose for any length of time, and needed to get out.

Still, at least into the 90s, the memories remained. One prominent wrestling personality with WCW at the time, and this is when WCW was on fire, noted that when traveling through New Orleans and fans would come up and talk wrestling, they would never bring up what was going on in WCW or WWF, but it was always the Junkyard Dog, Bill Watts, The Last Stampede (the most successful run of house shows in the company’s history in 1984), Jim Duggan and things from that era. But that day is long gone. A few years back, when Jim Ross was on Raw on a show in Oklahoma and asked people in the crowd if they remembered Mid South Wrestling, expecting a big pop. There was most definitely a reaction, but it was nowhere close to what you would have expected.

The Watts family collection consists of almost every episode of Mid South Wrestling taped at the Irish McNeill Boy’s Club in Shreveport from December 1981 to December 1985, which was the company’s flagship show. It also had the run of Power Pro Wrestling shows from 1984 to the end of 1985. Power Pro was the “B” show, with the early shows consisting of what today would be considered hand-helds of arena shows shot by Joel Watts. Later, it became a regular taping at Gilley’s Night Club in Fort Worth at the end of the run.

There is also house show raw footage from late 1983 through the summer of 1985. There are some UWF shows from 1986 and 1987, but not the complete collection, including a few after Crockett bought the company, which is weird. Many of those shows are just raw footage of the matches before editing, as they have no graphics or interviews, or vignettes that would have been on the TV show. They also have the 1970s movie “Wrestling Queen,” which was about the late Vivian Vachon, which has a lot of footage from the McGuirk territory from that era.

It should be noted that none of the local promos for the arena shows were saved. If there was talk of a JYD tape, and I’ve heard rumblings they are interested in doing that, that would hurt a lot because his best stuff were his weekly promos for the shows in the New Orleans market and the rest of the territory.

Micah Watts had told people there was a lot more stuff in the collection but it was one inch and two inch reels and they felt the cost of transferring it couldn’t be made up with in sales. That would be whatever survived of the McGuirk territory, some UWF stuff and Mid South before December 1981.

The collection did not include much of the last year which was the UWF year, which I’m presuming was sold to Jim Crockett Jr. when he purchased the company in early 1987. It also didn’t include any of the 1980 Freebirds vs. JYD feud which was the hottest angle ever in New Orleans. It didn’t include the period where JYD was built. It does include maybe the last couple of years of JYD, and a lot of people like Ted DiBiase, Steve Williams, Jim Duggan, Kamala, The Midnight Express, Rock & Roll Express, Fantastics, dikk Murdoch, Jake Roberts, The Freebirds, as well as some house show main events with The Von Erichs, Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes and others who came in for big shows.

The weekly Mid South Wrestling TV show was arguably the best show of its kind in that era, but I wonder how it’ll hold up with the tapings before a few hundred people at the Irish McNeil Boys Club in Shreveport. The quality as far as production values would be nil by today’s standards, but there were a lot of solid matches with very good workers, and in those days, cheaply produced wrestling that had good matches and storylines were more than enough.

 

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WWE could market a Best of Mid South DVD, but I wonder how well that will do. I always thought a decade ago that they should have produced it and pushed it in the old market for the people who grew up with it, but it’s just been too long so I question how well it would do. It may still do okay, and it would make a great documentary, particularly since they would still have access to Bill Watts, Ross, DiBiase, Duggan and Michael Hayes, who were the major players.

When Jim Cornette and I did the Wrestling Gold DVDs many years ago, we were in discussions about having Kit Parker Films lease rights to the stuff and do a Mid South collection where we would do updated commentary on another channel and it was a project at the time I was pretty excited about. Cornette was probably even more excited, since he cut his teeth there. The real “heat” of the Last Stampede was Cornette as a rich p*ssy heel bringing local legend Watts out of retirement for one last go (it was so successful–in fact the most successful month or so in the territory’s history, that Watts was lured out of retirement nearly every year after by a different set of heels, naturally to diminishing returns).

But this was also more than a decade ago. I didn’t know how much national appeal it would have, but felt pushing it hard in the five-state region where those people had grown up on the product, the timing was right, or perhaps a little late but not too late. However, the VHS wrestling tapes in the 80s that paid for Parker’s beautiful home in Carmel, CA, did not do well when re-released on DVD as too much time had passed and the marketplace for advertising tapes on late night television was no longer cost effective.

Now, this is all stuff 26 or more years ago, and while some super hardcores and older fans who grew up with it would have a lot of interest, it died so long ago I don’t see DVD releases being that big. But even so, the documentary is a natural, and DVDs of DiBiase Sr., Duggan and JYD adding this footage would do at least okay.

But it’s a solid get for the network as far as new footage which for filling time on free TV would be as good or better than much of what they have. That would leave very little in the way of U.S. major territorial stuff that WWE doesn’t own.

According to Dave Bixenspan and what we’ve been able to find out, the most modern major territorial stuff that exists that they don’t own would be the Memphis collection and who knows who owns that with it being sold in parts to so many different people, and the St. Louis collection (which consists of only the last few years of Wrestling at the Chase TV) which is owned by The Fight Network in Canada.

There is also the Ron Martinez film collection, which is where the Wrestling Gold tapes we did came from. Ron died years ago. Todd Okerlund (Gene’s son) bought at least some of that collection for his Classic Wrestling company that used to produce low-priced classic PPVs (which at one time did very well when they were airing AWA stuff with the big names from the 70s and 80s).

The Savoldi family also has a big collection that includes USWA footage from Dallas. dikk the Bruiser’s wife has said they still have some of his old WWA stuff from Indiana, but has never put it for sale and at this point there would be almost no value in it except to sell to WWE.

The family of the late Fred Ward, who did his own TV show in Columbus, GA, using the same talent that appeared on TBS, is believed to have a ton of footage that nobody has seen unless they grew up in that city. For whatever reason, they have never marketed it or sold it. At one point Cornette tried to buy the footage from the family and they had no interest in selling it. The fact WWE doesn’t own it either says it’s not of good enough quality, as the latest would be 27 years ago and you’d think most would be older, or there isn’t much of it. Again, the stuff is of very little value except to sell to McMahon. If you think about it, a lot of the people who owned the tape collections, Mike Graham for Florida and the Gagne family, on a personal level, the last person they would want to sell it to would be WWE based on the history, but it was the right business move. Whatever money there was to be made from those tapes in marketing them was declining and in time would be almost gone. At that point, their only value is to McMahon for DVDs and the eventual network.

Bob Barnett and Dave Bixenspan own whatever was left of the Bill Watts collection that his wife didn’t get in the divorce. Watts sold it to Brian Last, boxes of one inch, two inch, quad, VHS tapes, some Beta tapes and a few 16 mm film reels, most of which were from the last year of the UWF. Last ended up making deals with Barnett and Bixenspan who had most of the stuff converted to DVD. There was some mid-80s stuff as well and some 1986 Crockett Cup footage.

The other major collection that is believed to still exist would be Houston wrestling. Boesch saved a lot of footage, some of which aired at a time for a nostalgia TV show and some was released in VHS form. The production values would be so-so by today’s standards, but no different from most anything else from that era. Houston was one of the major wrestling markets in the country during the entire period Boesch’s stuff would have aired. The bulk of the footage would likely be from the 80s. It’s mostly Mid South Wrestling augmented with guys Boesch would book from the outside before the business changed. But I’ve seen nothing done with that collection in many years. There has also been a question of ownership of the tapes between Valerie Boesch, Paul’s widow, Peter Birkholz, Paul’s nephew, and Nick Bockwinkel, who owned points in the Houston office when it closed.

There are a number of minor collections in existence, as Grey Pierson, who promoted Global Wrestling out of the Dallas Sportatorium in the early 90s has uploaded clips of late to YouTube from what appeared to be his broadcast masters.

WWE ROSTER DIRECTORY

Name Real Name Age Yrs Pro
A.J. April Mendez 25 4
Aksana Zivile Raudoniene 30 3
Dean Ambrose Jonathan Good 26 8
A.W. Brian Jossie 34 3
Trent Baretta Gregory Marasciolo 25 8
Wade Barrett Stuart Bennett 31 8
Derrick Bateman Michael Hutter 29 10
Evan Bourne Matthew Korklan 29 12
Daniel Bryan Bryan Danielson 31 13
Camacho Tevita Fifita 29 3
Cameron Ariane Andrew 24 1
Sin Cara Luis Urive 29 14
John Cena John Cena Jr. 35 12
Antonio Cesaro Claudio Castagnoli 31 12
Tony Chimel Tony Chimel 50 21
Christian William Jason Reso 38 17
Brodus Clay George Murdoch 32 7
Michael Cole Sean Coulthard 43 15
Johnny Curtis Curtis Hussey 29 13
Bo Dallas Taylor Rotunda 22 4
Alberto Del Rio Alberto Rodriguez 35 12
Ted DiBiase Theodore DiBiase Jr. 29 6
Epico Orlando Colon 30 7
Alicia Fox Victoria Crawford 26 6
Justin Gabriel Paul Lloyd Jr. 31 15
Lilian Garcia Lilian Garcia 45 12
Vickie Guerrero Vickie Lara-Guerrero 44 6
Curt Hawkins Brian Meyers 27 8
Mark Henry Mark Henry 41 16
HHH Paul Levesque 43 20
Paul Heyman Paul Heyman 46 25
Hornswoggle Dylan Postl 26 7
Hunico Jorge Arias 34 13
Ezekiel Jackson Rycklon Stephens 34 5
JTG Jayson Paul 27 6
Chris Jericho Christopher Irvine 41 22
Kaitlyn Celeste Bonin 25 2
Kane Glenn Jacobs 45 20
Kelly Kelly Barbara Blank 25 6
Great Khali Dalip Singh Rana 39 12
Kharma Kia Stevens 34 10
Tyson Kidd Theodore Wilson 32 17
Kofi Kingston Kofi Sarkodie-Mensah 30 7
Big E Langston Ettore Ewen 26 3
John Laurinaitis John Laurinaitis 46 26
Jerry Lawler Jerry Lawler 62 42
Layla Layla El 34 6
Brock Lesnar Brock Lesnar 34 9
Teddy Long Theodore Long 55 27
Jinder Mahal Yrvraj Desi 25 8
Josh Matthews Josh Lomberger 31 11
Santino Marella Anthony Carelli 33 8
Maxine Karlee Perez 26 3
Michael McGillicutty Joseph Hennig 32 5
Drew McIntyre Andrew Galloway 27 11
Vince McMahon Vincent McMahon 66 42
Rosa Mendes Milena Roucka 32 6
The Miz Michael Mizanin 31 9
Rey Mysterio Oscar Gutierrez 37 23
Naomi Trinity McCray 24 3
Kevin Nash Kevin Nash 53 22
Natalya Natalie Neidhart 30 12
Titus O’Neil Thaddeus Bullard 35 3
Randy Orton Randall Orton 32 12
David Otunga David Otunga 32 3
Beth Phoenix Elizabeth Carolan 31 11
Primo Edwin Colon 29 13
C.M. Punk Phillip Brooks 33 14
William Regal Darren Matthews 44 29
Tyler Reks Gabriel Tuft 33 5
Cody Rhodes Cody Runnels 27 6
Alex Riley Kevin Kiley Jr. 31 5
Justin Roberts Justin Roberts 32 10
The Rock Dwayne Johnson 40 11
Ricardo Rodriguez Jesus Rodriguez 26 6
Jim Ross James Ross 60 38
Seth Rollins Colby Lopez 26 7
Mason Ryan Barri Griffiths 30 6
Ryback Ryan Reeves 30 8
Zack Ryder Matthew Cardona 27 8
Sakamoto
Damien Sandow Aaron Haddad 29 11
Sheamus Stephen Farrelly 34 10
Big Show Paul Wight Jr. 40 17
Heath Slater Heath Miller 29 8
Scott Stanford Scott Stanford 3
Matt Striker Matthew Kaye 38 12
Jack Swagger Jacob Hager 30 6
Booker T Robert Huffman 47 23
Tamina Snuka Sarona Snuka 34 3
Richie Steamboat Richard Blood Jr. 24 4
Tensai Matthew Bloom 39 15
Yoshi Tatsu Naofumi Yamamoto 34 10
Eve Torres Eve Torres 28 5
R-Truth Ronald Killings 40 15
The Undertaker Mark Calaway 47 28
Jey Uso Joshua Fatu 27 3
Jimmy Uso Jonathan Fatu 27 3
Percy Watson Nick McNeil 30 3
Bray Wyatt Windham Rotunda 25 4
Darren Young Frederick Rosser 32 10
Dolph Ziggler Nicholas Nemeth 32 8

 

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Background:

MMA: Santino Marella (0-1 listed record); Alberto Del Rio (9-5), Brock Lesnar (UFC heavyweight champion)

College Basketball: Kane (Northeast Missouri State/Truman State), Big Show (Wichita State), Undertaker (Angelina College/Texas), Kevin Nash (University of Tennessee)

European Pro Basketball: Kevin Nash

Bodybuilding: John Cena, HHH (Mr. Teenage New Hampshire), Ezekiel Jackson, Great Khali (Mr. India)

Women’s Bodybuilding/Figures: Aksana (2009 Arnold Classic champion, first place), Kaitlyn (2007, Arnold Classic Figures, 5th place; 2008 NPC Figures Junior Nationals, 16th place)

College Football: John Cena (Springfield College/Massachusetts); Bray Wyatt (Troy University), Camacho (University of Texas), Kane (Northeast Missouri State/Truman State), Titus O’Neil (Florida), Alex Riley (Boston College), The Rock (University of Miami), Jack Swagger (Oklahoma), Tensai (University of Pittsburgh), Percy Watson (Western Carolina All Southern Conference defensive lineman 2001, 2002 and 2003), Big E Langston (University of Iowa)

Arena Football: Titus O’Neil (2003-2007 Utah Blaze, Tampa Bay Storm, Las Vegas Gladiators, Carolina Cobras)

Canadian Football: The Rock (Calgary Stampeders)

NFL: Percy Watson (2005 Washington Redskins)

High School Football All-American: Titus O’Neil (1995 Parade Magazine All-American Swanee High School, Live Oak, FL); The Rock (1989 Freedom High School, Allentown, PA)

Amateur Wrestling: Bray Wyatt (Florida high school state heavyweight champion, 2005), Kofi Kingston (placed in Massachusetts high school state meet), Alberto Del Rio (Multi-time Mexican national champion freestyle and Greco-Roman and a number of age group championships, 1996 Greco-Roman, bronze medalist teenage world championships 214 pounds; 1997 5th place at 214 pounds Pan American Games); Richie Steamboat (a number of youth age group championships); Randy Orton, Beth Phoenix, Cody Rhodes (2002 and 2003 Georgia high school state champion 189 pounds), Jack Swagger (7th place, 2006 NCAA tournament, heavyweight, Oklahoma), Dolph Ziggler (Mid American conference champion at 165 pounds, 2001, 2002 and 2003, Kent State University), Brock Lesnar (1995 3rd place South Dakota high school state tournament, 189 pounds, 1996 3rd place South Dakota high school state tournament, heavyweight, 1997 Junior College National tournament 5th place, heavyweight, Bismark Junior College, 1998 Junior College National heavyweight champion Bismark Junior College, 1999 Big 10 heavyweight champion, University of Minnesota, 1999 NCAA heavyweight tournament, 2nd place, 2000 Big 10 heavyweight champion, 2000 NCAA heavyweight champion), Bo Rotundo (placed 5th in 2008 Florida high school state meet), Big E Langston (2002 Florida state high school heavyweight champion)

Modeling: Alicia Fox, Justin Gabriel, Kelly Kelly, Rosa Mendes, Eve Torres, Kaitlyn

Reality TV: The Miz, David Otunga

Second/Third Generation Pro wrestler: Ted DiBiase (Ted DiBiase Sr.; Mike DiBiase, Helen Hild), Justin Gabriel (Paul Lloyd Sr.), Bray Wyatt (Mike Rotundo, Blackjack Mulligan), Alberto Del Rio (Dos Caras, third generation wrestler as his grandfather was a wrestler as well), Michael McGillicutty (Curt Hennig, Larry Hennig), Natalya (Jim Neidhart, Stu Hart), Randy Orton (Bob Orton Jr.; Bob Orton Sr.), Primo (Carlos Colon), Cody Rhodes (Dusty Rhodes), Tamina Snuka (Jimmy Snuka), Jey Uso (Rikishi), Jimmy Uso (Rikishi), The Rock (Rocky Johnson, Peter Maivia), Sin Cara (Dr. Karonte), Bo Rotundo (Mike Rotundo, Blackjack Mulligan), Richie Steamboat (Ricky Steamboat)

U.K. Gladiators: Mason Ryan

Cheerleaders: Vickie Guerrero (El Paso minor league baseball team), Layla (Miami Heat), Naomi (Orlando Magic), Eve Torres (Los Angeles Clippers)

Beauty Pageant: Lilian Garcia (Miss South Carolina top ten place winner)

Judo: Santino Marella

Olympic weightlifting: Mark Henry (1991 teenage national champion 6th place teenage world championships; 1992 Olympics, 10th place super heavyweight; 1995 Pan American Games gold medalist super heavyweight; 1996 Olympics, 14th place super heavyweight)

Powerlifting: Mark Henry (set state and national records in squad and deadlift in the super heavyweight class), Big E Langston (2011 USA Powerlifting national champion, 275 pound weight class)

World’s Strongest Man: Mark Henry (2002 Arnold World’s Strongest Man winner

The return of Vince McMahon led to a huge upswing in the 6/11 Raw ratings, reversing what had been a bad trend in recent weeks.

The three-hour special show built around McMahon teasing firing John Laurinaitis, did a 3.23 rating and 4.65 million viewers. It’s up from the last three-hour Raw, which wasn’t promoted nearly as heavily, on 4/23, that did a 3.06 rating and 4.42 million viewers built around Brock Lesnar. The usual two hours did a 3.46 rating and 4.99 million viewers, the best numbers in those hours since the day after WrestleMania. The overrun segment with McMahon about to fire John Laurinaitis, and getting knocked out by Big Show, did a 3.99 quarter, which was about equal to the day after Royal Rumble final segment with HHH giving Laurinaitis his performance review which featured the return of The Undertaker, as the two highest rated segments on U.S. pro wrestling television this year.

A key is the show kept its audience in the third hour, so even though it felt like the three hour and 13 minute show never ended, the audience stayed with it, clearly waiting for McMahon to fire Laurinaitis. While a large part of the increase was McMahon, as the quarter patterns showed, the lack of major cable competition helped. The Stanley Cup final game between the New Jersey Devils vs. Los Angeles Kings, which are the two biggest markets, did a 3.10 rating and 4.93 million viewers on NBC, but that was down 10% from last year’s game six. Raw was fourth for the night on cable.

The show did a 2.7 in Boys 12-17 (up 8% from last week), a 2.7 in Men 18-49 (up 13%), 0.9 in Girls 12-17 (same as last week) and 1.3 in Women 18-49 (up 8%). The audience was 69.1% male.

The big difference between this and a usual three-hour show is that all the hype about Vince McMahon in the first segment saw the show open at a 2.88 rating, well above the usual start of a three-hour show. Not only that, but those people who tuned in early instead of staying, they tuned out after as Sheamus vs. Tensai lost 415,000 viewers. Vince backstage with Laurinaitis and Teddy Long, Tensai destroying Sakamoto and Big Show knocking out R-Truth gained 146,000 viewers. Santino Marella & Layla vs. Ricardo Rodriguez & Beth Phoenix and backstage with Vince plus a Daniel Bryan interview gained 98,000 viewers. Bryan doing an interview with C.M. Punk, Kane and A.J. involved gained 978,000 viewers, but that was the audience that mostly forgot about the 8 p.m. start and tuned in. The Dolph Ziggler vs. Christian vs. Jack Swagger vs. Great Khali match and the Ryback squash gained 4,000 viewers. Backstage stuff with McMahon, Hornswoggle including making fun of Jim Ross lost 145,000 viewers. Big Show vs. Kofi Kingston in a cage match at 10 p.m. gained 320,000 viewers to a 3.59 quarter. Sin Cara vs. Curt Hawkins lost 450,000 viewers. Vader vs. Heath Slater gained 324,000 viewers, which is impressive for that point in the show, especially since Vader hasn’t had a strong TV run in the U.S. since the late 90s. A.J. & Punk vs. Bryan & Kane lost 19,000 viewers. The show’s final segment with Vince, Laurinaitis, John Cena and Show gained 721,000 viewers.

As far as where the gain was, Boys 12-17 went from a 3.0 to 3.5, Males 18-49 went from 3.1 to 3.5, Girls 12-17 went from 1.0 to 1.1 and Women 18-49 went from 1.3 to 1.7.

Smackdown on 6/8 did a 1.73 rating and 2.48 million viewers. It was 6th for the night on cable. The drop to the lowest level of viewers in a long time can’t be attributed to NBA playoffs. There was no game, nor was their any kind of special programming on. It’s just the effect of the summer, as Smackdown has always drawn lower numbers in the summer. Smackdown went against the live UFC show, but they did that two other times in the past few months and it didn’t seem to hurt. The first hour went against Fuel, so that for sure meant nothing. The second hour went against FX, so it’s possible that meant something, but I can’t imagine why it would mean much if it didn’t before, and it’s not like the UFC show did a big number.

The 6/7 Impact did a 0.98 rating and 1.25 million viewers. The rating was up but actual viewers were down, so you can view it however you want. The viewers per home was the lowest I can ever recall for Impact (or for that matter any major pro wrestling show). That’s logical since the Celtics vs. Heat with the Heat’s back against the wall did 11.07 million viewers, which is far more than the NFL will be doing against in the fall. It’s a good sign as many homes were watching, and the lower viewers (and weakest key demos I can recall since they were going on Mondays) was inevitable given the competition. The 6/14 show will go head-to-head with game two of the best-of-seven NBA finals with the Heat vs. Oklahoma City Thunder. The 6/21 show would go head-to-head with game five, if there is a game five. If anything that will be even tougher competition.

The pattern was as expected with a 0.88 first hour and 1.08 second hour. The show did a 0.63 in Males 18-34 and 1.05 in Males 35-49, the latter is impressive against the NBA game given that would be a strong NBA demo and TNA was in the league of what they usually do.

 

[R=G]

For the segment-by-segment, the first five segments should have natural healthy gains (even though they didn’t the previous week but they should) based on people forgetting the start time and then a big gain at 9 p.m. when creatures of habit tuned in. Crimson vs. Austin Aries and Brooke Hogan doing her angle with the Knockouts talking about Velvet Sky getting the Montgomery Gentry gig gained 51,000 viewers. Hulk Hogan’s interview, with Bobby Roode coming out and Sting getting into a fight with Hogan, plus a Joseph Park quick interview gained 89,000 viewers. Miss Tessmacher vs. Velvet Sky vs. Tara vs. Mickie James gained 38,000 viewers. The Joseph Park-Bully Ray contract signing gained 242,000 viewers. That also did the highest quarter of the show at 1.14. That was the 9 p.m. segment so it should have done a big gain, although it is a good angle. Devon vs. Robbie E lost 89,000 viewers. Hulk Hogan doing an interview out with Jeff Hardy, Mr. Anderson and RVD lost 91,000 viewers. The main event with Kurt Angle & A.J. Styles & Sting vs. Roode & Kazarian & Christopher Daniels gained 115,000 viewers and finished at 1.09.

Regarding the 5/31 Impact rating, which was 0.89 and 1.30 million viewers, it was an 0.78 in the unfamiliar first hour and a 1.00 in the familiar second hour, which would be about what you’d expect. Males 18-34 were 0.74, which is above average, which means that age group did pick up early. Males 35-49 was 0.86, well below usual, so they didn’t.

The lessons of week one were even with pushing hard the week before that it was starting an hour early and Sting vs. Roode in Sting’s first match back, they only opened at 0.72. However, when the second hour, on a show that had more advertising, the Brooke Hogan push and the push for being live, it did exactly what any normal 9-10 p.m. hour of Impact would do. I didn’t expect Brooke would make a difference since all the reality stars to date haven’t, and even wrestling legends don’t. But even in 2012, going live at least so far and not having spoilers for a show on the Internet made no difference. But we’ll see where this is in a month or two.

Sting vs. Roode and the Hogan announcement of the Slammiversary main event gained 190,000 viewers. A Bully Ray/Park segment and Austin Aries vs. Chris Sabin lost 58,000 viewers, which is notable because with an artificially low open, you should gain throughout the first hour. The Joey Ryan evaluation backstage with Taz, Al Snow and Bruce Prichard lost 88,000 viewers, which again shouldn’t happen. Then Dixie Carter’s big announcement of the Hall of Fame and bringing out Brooke Hogan when fans are conditioned to tune in at 9 p.m. gained 321,000 viewers. Devon vs. Jeff Hardy gained 29,000 viewers. The final Gut Check verdict gained 59,000 viewers and did a 1.03 quarter, making it the high point of the show. A.J. Styles vs. Christopher Daniels with the cliffhanger at the end lost 28,000 viewers to a 1.01.

Julie Hart, the ex-wife of Bret Hart, best known for her appearance in the movie “Wrestling with Shadows,” has signed a deal for an autobiography, tentatively titled “Hart Strings.” She had been working on-and-off on the book for at least a decade, long before Bret’s book came out.

A new member of the Wild Samoan wrestling family is Tamiko Fatu, the son of Rikishi, who lives in San Bruno, CA and is 18 or 19 years old and looks just like his father facially. He’s been training at Rikishi’s wrestling school in Simi Valley, CA.

The new ECW Press book called “Shooters: the Toughest Men in Professional Wrestling,” by MMA writer Jonathan Snowden has just been released. It goes back to Gotch-Hackenschmidt, through the 20s and the Lou Thesz/Gagne/Hodge era, Billy Robinson, through Japan to Inoki-Ali, the formation of the UWF, UWFI, Pancrase, Brock Lesnar and more.

Lisa Moretti (Ivory) did an interview on the RingBelles web site. Regarding coaching Tough Enough, she said she was against Linda Miles winning season two. She said she always brought it up when they would sit down and decide who got cut. She said she thought Miles had great charisma, but she had an ego problem. She even said that she (Moretti) would shoot herself in the foot so she would have an injury, that’s how bad she wouldn’t want to share a locker room with Miles. Miles was a starter on the Rutgers basketball team, which was a strong program. She did not do well in OVW, to say the least, but still got brought up and there were times when the agents would want her to come early for more training since they were using her as a manager (Shaniqua) but ultimately wanted her wrestling. And she’d no-show the training. She ended up not lasting very long. She also said she was asked out on a date by Ricky Steamboat at Cauliflower Alley in Las Vegas in March, but there was a reunion of the GLOW girls at the same time and they asked her out for lunch, so she stood up Steamboat to hang out with the girls. She said after she was thinking, “Oh man, did In just blow it?” She called Stacy Carter, one of the women on the roster in the late 90s, “a poison.” She said that she used her Jerry Lawler card to get in, then snuck her way into an angle as China’s Mini Me. And then she even got the women’s title. Moretti didn’t finish the story, as when Carter was fired, Lawler quit the company in support of his wife. The company kept wanting Lawler back, and every time a deal was almost made, Lawler would bring up Carter and when they said they wanted him and not her, Lawler would turn down the offers. She ended up leaving him, which is what opened the door to his returning.

Shane Helms’ girlfriend this past week gave birth to a baby boy. Everyone in the family is doing well. It’s the same girlfriend who was injured with him in the motorcycle accident. Helms had canceled all bookings of late because of her high-risk pregnancy.

Former WWF announcer Sean Mooney was hired as the weekend co-anchor at KVOA, the NBC affiliate in Tucson. He had been working running his own production company in Tucson and had worked with Fox Sports Arizona after leaving the Northeast. He had worked as an anchorman in New York and Boston after leaving WWF.

Regarding Ricky Steamboat’s speech at Cauliflower Alley, when he said how Verne Gagne got him hooked up with Stampede Wrestling after his run in Florida was over, and he was told by a referee in Stampede Wrestling not to come up because he’d be driving 3,000 miles to get there and nobody was making any money, Ross Hart said that makes no sense. He said there’s no way Steamboat would have been in contact with Stampede referees, because they used local people in each town they ran and those local people didn’t even have contact with any of the wrestlers outside of the territory.

Morale has been way up regarding the product, in the sense they’ve done the live television with no glitches. A positive nobody talks about is that going live, they can’t sound sweeten, which sounds like a negative because you only do that to enhance a dead crowd. But the way TNA does it, it comes across fake. It’s also been noted there has been a difference in the crowds at the last two TVs. Before, you had your wrestling fan regulars in the first few rows and then a lot of park goers from around the U.S. and Europe who would come because Hulk Hogan, Sting, Kurt Angle, etc. were there. It was different on PPV nights but they used to complain because that was the hardcore audience that had seen so much and was sometimes hard to get a response from. There are a few differences. A crowd itself, knowing it is airing live, seems to have more energy. Another change is that before, a lot of the pre-tape segments that made things “make sense” would not air in front of the live crowd, just to save time, or at times, keep aspects of the show from getting on the Internet early. But going live, the people in the Impact Zone are seeing everything as it happens. The longer arching storylines is a philosophical change. Apparently, the Dixie Carter angle has a long way to go with a lot more twists coming. The shows have really turned around as far as being enjoyable to watch and the change does stem from Bruce Prichard being put in the charge of overseeing creative. So no matter what you think of him personally, it’s hard not to tie the two together. In addition, while some may say this is picking on Vince Russo, the show also improved another step when he was gone. I still think the Russo written segments with Sting and the Jarretts on the Jarretts last night were TNA’s best segments in months, but you can’t help but see a big picture difference.

 

[TheBigBopper]

my man R=G with the dirtsheet updates

 

[R=G]

Chris Masters and Trina Michaels were both at the 6/7 Impact tapings. Masters worked a dark match before the show, losing to Robbie E when Robbie T interfered in about 5:00. He got a good reaction, but whenever a former WWE guy shows up the first time at the Impact Zone the crowd is hot for them. Masters had worked for Ring Ka King and Jeff Jarrett was very high on him. However, Jarrett has no decision making power right now when it comes to talent. He did fine but we have no indication one way or another whether they will sign him. Michaels didn’t perform but had a meeting trying to push the idea of a feud with Brooke Hogan as a Hogan vs. Michaels feud.

The feeling on all the Scott Steiner twitter stuff (he incessantly rips on Hogan and Bischoff for ruining TNA by pushing friends and family and has been on the case of what a waste Brooke Hogan is), besides hating them, he’s trying to get Jeff Jarrett, who he’s tight with, back in power. The feeling is also that he was going about it in a way that Carter would never respond to, even if Bischoff and Hogan were bringing nothing, given how she protected Russo for years. And now his timing is bad since almost everyone in the company thinks creative is going in the right direction.

They signed an international TV deal for Impact with the All Sports Network which is a channel in Southeastern Asia. With airing on ASN, they are the only promotion that has a local channel in Hong Kong, and the network reaches Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, Mongolia, The Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam and Taiwan. Impact’s original airing will be Friday nights at 11:30 p.m. with replays during the week. The PPVs will air live, which in Hong Kong would be 8 a.m. Monday mornings. The deal started this week.

The actual job Don West took with the Wenatchee Wild, a Tier II Junior A ice hockey team in the North American Hockey League, is Director of Sales and Marketing. The original word was General Manager, based on what people in TNA had heard from West, but West made it clear his position was not the traditional sports G.M. role since he would have nothing to do with player personnel and with his duties strictly on the marketing side. West, 48, is moving to Wenatchee this summer. He said he fell in love with the city when he was there for a TNA house show. He had also been looking to get into real sports and wanted a lesser travel schedule, since he would go to almost every TNA house show and run the concession stand.

Regarding Gut Check, it’s pretty clear at least part of this was an attempt to work the boys, since they showed Al Snow and Joey Ryan in character leaving the building after the show and it’s obvious Ryan will be back. Ryan being on Twitter complaining is also clearly part of the work. As far as what Ryan knew in the ring, it’s still being said while the voting was pre-planned and Snow, Bruce Prichard and Taz all pretty much knew their roles, that Ryan wasn’t in on it and the Taz-Ryan stuff as it happened was not planned. It’s wrestling, and live television, and it’s Eric Bischoff, so you should be skeptical. Plus, you can do it a few times and it’s good, but when you keep doing it, WCW is what you get. That isn’t necessarily good long-term. But there is definitely a mentality of trying to bring a legit feeling to get people talking, and not overdone, that is a good thing.

On the second show, they did nothing interactive, which surprised me, and really didn’t push Twitter trending and all that. I’d want one interactive segment per show for at least a few weeks just to judge interest. It requires you to have multiple ideas depending on how the vote goes, and like everything, will get old if it’s overdone.

In the U.K., when it comes to total viewers of Raw vs. Impact for the first airing of each show, the Raw numbers were 168,000 on 5/7, 197,000 on 5/14, 119,000 on 5/21 and 150,000 on 5/28. Keep in mind this is live at 2 or 3 a.m. on a station (Sky) with limited penetration. Impact airs in prime time on a mostly game show station, but it’s a station that is a free station that almost everyone gets, but the show also airs five days after it’s U.S. airing. It’s numbers were 123,000 on 5/1, 67,000 on 5/8, 118,000 on 5/15, 124,000 on 5/22 and 194,000 on 5/29. Smackdown, which airs in a better time slot on Friday nights in prime time instead of middle of the night, did 83,000 viewers on 5/4, 98,000 on 5/11, 95,000 on 5/18, 87,000 on 5/25 and 130,000 on 6/1.

TNA is going to produce video on demand content for PPVs similar to what WWE does with its home-video releases. They will debut shortly with a three-hour special called “TNA’s Greatest Moments.” July will have a one-hour special on the Roode vs. Storm feud.

There is nothing new on the India front. The Colours Network has had a huge turnover in their programming and marketing department. The Super Fight League, which replaces Ring Ka King in the Saturday and Sunday night time slot, did about half the ratings.

WWE

Jerry McDevitt’s arguments on 6/8 got the Tennessee court to remove the temporary restraining order TNA had gotten on WWE regarding interference with talent contracts. The specific order barred WWE from using any information provided to them on discs from Brian Wittenstein regarding TNA talent and contracts. TNA claimed when they got the order on 5/24 that WWE was interfering in its existing contracts and attempting to get them to breach their contracts. When asked in the hearing, the only name TNA could come up with in papers to support the order was Ric Flair. Flair is apparently no longer under a TNA contract, as he hasn’t been paid by TNA on his contract. Flair quit he promotion on around 5/9 and stopped showing up to events, and after quitting, had his contract terminated by the company before they even filed the lawsuit according to the WWE side. McDevitt said WWE has not and will not use any of the information provided by Wittenstein, who WWE fired in late April after they claim he offered them the confidential information he got from working in TNA. McDevitt also said that the only copy of the information that WWE had has already been returned to TNA. The TNA lawsuit against WWE looks like it will have one temporary effect, which is that talent WWE may have been interested in from TNA will not get offers. McDevitt filed legal papers which stated that WWE has not attempted to get Flair to leave TNA and join WWE, nor have they made any contract offer to Flair, nor do they have any intention of doing so. He also wrote that WWE has no interest in any TNA talent, and thus no restraining order is appropriate. It should be noted that Alex Shelley’s contract had already expired and he’s a free agent, so technically, he is not TNA talent, but this still could affect decisions made by WWE on hiring him just because the suit is still ongoing, and could also affect hiring Flair as long as the lawsuit is alive since Flair is the one specifically named in the suit. If there would have been interest in Matt Morgan, whose contract was coming due and has openly said he wanted to stay in TNA but would listen to a WWE offer and that he’s gotten word they are interested, well, it may be bad timing for him.

The Linda McMahon campaign ended up with good news in the most recent Quinnipiac University poll. While she would not win the election if it was held last week, the main talking point of Republican rival Christopher Shays campaign was that Republicans should vote for him in the primary because she was unelectable in a general election because of all her baggage. The last polls had shown McMahon ahead of Shays with Republicans, but Shays running stronger against the top Democrats. That has all changed. Among registered Republicans, McMahon leads Shays 59% to 30%. If the election were held last week, McMahon would run close against Democratic front runner Chris Murphy, as Murphy held a 46-43% lead, while Murphy would beat Shays 45-37%. The gains came as McMahon was the only candidate spending heavily for television and radio advertising, spending roughly $3 million of late. It’s noted that the results of the poll will hurt fund raising for Shays, who built his campaign for months around the idea he was the only Republican who had a chance to actually win the election. McMahon in ads we’ve seen is now pushing the poll result as saying she’s the best Republican when it comes to winning the election citing the poll. Murphy used the results to push his own fund raising, noting that McMahon’s fund raising is working while his campaign doesn’t have the money to spend on advertising this early. The ads have changed those who view her favorably from 40% to 45%, and those who viewed her unfavorably from 44% to 38%. 38% of voters still said her background in WWE makes it hard for those to support her. 21% of voters considered her background in WWE as a positive. McMahon is still behind among women, who she is targeting. If the election were held now, McMahon would win among men 48-44%, but Murphy would win 47-38% among women. Among those with college degrees, Murphy leads 55-35% but among those without a college degree, McMahon leads 48-40%. McMahon and Shays have agreed to debate on 6/14 at the University of Connecticut.

 

[R=G]

The other McMahon no longer in the company, Shane, got publicity. YOU, the company he is the CEO of that is attempting to introduce PPV to China, is now listed on the NASDAQ exchange. They even rang the bell at the start of trading this past week. McMahon has reached deals with several Hollywood studios to bring PPV movies, and obviously leading to PPV sports, to China. But it’s not going to be easy. We’ve spoken to Americans who have worked in business in China, including Mark Fischer, who headed NBA operations in that country and now works for UFC, and he didn’t believe PPV would work in China because people are used to seeing everything free. Other I know familiar with that market say that while the market looks awesome because of the sheer number of people, it is so hard to do business there and get money out. McMahon’s company lost $4.8 million over the last quarter, and things must be tough financially since McMahon on 5/10 loaned the company $3 million. Still, movie studios are scared because the movie business was down 5.4% in U.S. attendance and they are looking for ways to recoup that money overseas. The idea is that as China gets a working middle class with disposable income, they’ll be willing to pay a few bucks for movie PPVs and eventually more than a few bucks for sports. Others have noted the burgeoning working class in China is more a media myth than reality, and that most of the country is still very poor. The problem is pirated movies are easily accessible in China for almost nothing. If this venture works, the upside is gigantic.

Paul Levesque (HHH) is now listed as the Executive Vice President of Talent Relations. instead of Laurinaitis. It’s a change formalizing what has been the case for a while, since Laurinaitis has worked under Levesque, and Levesque has hired new people like Canyon Cemen, the former Stanford volleyball star, and Jane Geddes, who worked in the office with the LPGA and was a former star golfer. Geddes is Vice President of Talent Relations and is doing a lot of the work Laurinaitis had been doing. Cemen is running Talent Development and reporting to HHH. Laurinaitis has little or nothing to do with that department, and it was Laurinaitis who put together the FCW program. Laurinaitis has had many of his duties of late reduced and the expectation is his job will be changed in some form down the line as Levesque puts his own hires in key positions. He’s still booking the house shows, although the writers are more involved in that as there is a movement to make the house shows more like the television shows. He’s also doing talent payroll but spending more time going on the road as talent.

For storyline purposes, there is advertising playing in markets where Laurinaitis is described “The Assistant to the Board of Directors,” so at least at one point the idea was for his storyline Head of Talent Relations and General Manager titles to be taken away and him get a new title, which sounds like a possible Board of Directors feud with Vince & HHH, with Laurinaitis as the emissaries for the board. Of course with the way things change, who is to know. Laurinaitis at one point was supposed to join the Kiss My Ass Club.

There were actually two different scripts written for Raw on 6/11, one, the one they used, loaded with Vince stuff and the other with a lot less Vince and a lot more focus on the wrestlers. Plans must have been changing like crazy because during the afternoon, WWE released that Del Rio was hurt and off the PPV and they would be doing a Battle Royal on the show to determine the top contender. Then in the pre-tape, they changed it to a four-way elimination match. To show how much everyone is on fumes with this, when the decision was made for Ziggler to get the spot, almost everyone had forgotten that they had just done two Sheamus vs. Ziggler matches on TV, which aired on 6/1 and 6/4, with Sheamus winning with the Brogue kick both times. Of course after Ziggler won the four-way, those matches were not brought up nor should they have been, but they did badly need a Ziggler interview regarding the match and title and it’s not like they didn’t have enough time in the show to fit it in. You can fault the booking since Ziggler has been losing one TV match after another, but it’s not like when they were booking all those losses they expected Jericho, Orton and Del Rio all to go down. When stuff like that happens, you just have to accept making the best out of having to change directions on the fly. People in wrestling never are booking secondary directions in case of injuries because you can barely make sense out of primary directions, and it took three separate unrelated incidents for him to end up high on the card. At least they had him pin both Swagger and Christian in the elimination match.

Dana White in an interview on Fuel with Ariel Helwani was asked about Brock Lesnar. He didn’t go into much more detail than what he told us after the meeting about how things went badly. He said he and Lorenzo Fertitta met with Lesnar and the meeting went terribly, saying it was the worst meeting he ever had with Lesnar (and that’s probably saying something) and that he has not talked with him since. Hours earlier he was all smiles when Lesnar’s name came up, clearly hoping they could do business. He said the stuff going around wasn’t true regarding Lesnar coming back this year. Mike Sawyer of Tough Talk and the Observer site said he spoke to someone in the company and he said they had talks, believed Lesnar would fight this year and listed Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira as the main person being considered. When that story broke, I was told by someone very close to the situation that when it comes to Lesnar, until he signs a contract for the fight (and with his WWE deal, it would have to be cleared by someone that one the surface it would be unlikely to be cleared by), not to take it seriously. It was pretty well confirmed Lesnar was working his own angle, and when this was over, Vince McMahon was furious. He was not furious enough to change SummerSlam. Nor, most likely, would Dana White be furious enough to turn down a Lesnar date if he came back to the table. The job description of being a successful promoter means doing business with the few who actually move the needle, even if those dealings aren’t always pleasant and the personalities are trying. Regarding WWE, they will start the build for HHH vs. Lesnar on the 6/17 PPV with HHH doing an interview updating the legal issue storyline. I wouldn’t bet strongly either way regarding him fighting at some point in the future, at least one comeback fight just because there is money to be made. From a Lesnar standpoint, when the money to be made from fighting or wrestling is no longer good, he’ll play both sides against each other. As far as being a serious top-level fighter, I think everyone realizes that day is over. Lesnar had gifts, his wrestling, strength and speed, but at the age he’s at, they will be diminishing, and whether he keeps in shape for a normal person or not, elite athleticism at 35 declines greatly unless you are constantly in the gym perfecting your skill level and knowledge and having that at least partially compensate for declining athletic gifts. Lesnar is not doing that training and coming back after a 16 month layoff when he’s almost 36 and with his wear and tear, he’s not going to be near the level he was. But at least one Lesnar comeback fight will draw and UFC with its current schedule will always be in need of more marquee matches. Coming off a good current WWE run on television may slightly help. He drew starting in 2008 in UFC when he’d been off WWE television since 2004. As a fighter, I don’t think he was ever the same athletically after the Diverticulitis and the surgery. As far as WWE goes, we keep being told that SummerSlam will be his last PPV of the year and he’ll be back either for Rumble, or Mania, as we’ve had contradictory stories about him having two or three major matches left on his current contract.

Del Rio is out of action due to what was described as a severe concussion suffered on the 6/5 Smackdown tapings when Sheamus threw him into the WWE insignia on the stage. Del Rio did work against Khali moments later, and on television and the web site they are crediting the concussion to the Khali chops in that match. I think they have to do it because it would look bad if they said he was hurt doing the angle and then they had him wrestle a match immediately. He also did a run-in during the Sheamus vs. Kane TV main event. The plan was for a Sheamus vs. Del Rio title match as the dark match, but they knew he was hurt because Sheamus worked a second match right after the first with Kane as s replacement.

With all the injuries and suspensions, No Way Out on 6/17 in East Rutherford, NJ, now has Cena vs. Show in a cage match with Vince McMahon sitting next to Laurinaitis and if Show loses then Laurinaitis gets fired, and if Show wins, Cena is fired. The Cena being fired isn’t announced on TV until Smackdown two days before the show. Vince was “knocked out” at the end of Raw, I was thinking he’d sell the knockout and not be back, perhaps for a long time and the knockout was writing him off the show until he’s next needed. The web site teased he wouldn’t be at the PPV, but didn’t outright say it, which I took to mean they tease throughout the show that he’s not there and hurt, and then he shows up during or late in the match.

 

[R=G]

Plus with the ratings, we’ll probably get more of him on television. The rest of the show is Punk vs. Bryan vs. Kane for the WWE title where the match story seems to be how A.J. will affect the outcome, Sheamus vs. Ziggler for the world title, Christian vs. Rhodes for the IC title and Layla vs. Phoenix for the Divas title. The only other match announced is Clay vs. Otunga as the YouTube pre-show match. They’ll probably add some enhancement matches to the show with Ryback and/or others, plus have the HHH interview to start back up the Lesnar storyline. On the latter, while it was mentioned on TV in passing and Vince also mentioned in passing to Laurinaitis how the signing of Lesnar got the company in two lawsuits, they have really played this angle down so far on TV, with no discussion among the announcers, no appearances by Heyman on tape, or anything for what was the company’s big angle just a few weeks ago. Even airing threats or announcer talk would have played into the current PPV cycle because of the HHH announcement.

I don’t have an advance, but they must be far from selling out because they’re offering a four tickets for $60 total ($15 per ticket) at press time and front row center seats are still available, but that’s due to out pricing the market by putting front row at $500.

House show business to me looking at the numbers each day looks okay, not great, but nothing I’d call bad, but we keep hearing about soft advances for upcoming shows.

Lots of changes in house shows going forward the next few months. With Orton on suspension, the company made the call to, at least for now, use Punk vs. Bryan and Del Rio vs Sheamus as double main events on the Smackdown brand house shows starting on 6/23 in Springfield, IL. At this point it’s just a house show thing because Punk isn’t being advertised for the Smackdown TVs, although it wouldn’t surprise me to see that changed since the Smackdown top guys start on Saturday and in doing four days a week, you’d work Tuesdays. The Smackdown TV tapings are all being pushed around HHH and Cena as the top stars, but at least for now, the plans are for Cena to do dark matches and HHH to do dark cameos. Punk was not advertised on any Smackdown tapings, but he main evented this week’s Smackdown TV show and the word was out this week with all the injuries that a lot of the Raw guys are now going to be working the Tuesday Smackdown shows, which means one less day off a week. They are relying on Cena and Show to carry the Raw brand cards starting at that point. To me, I think having a Raw roster and a Smackdown roster has run its course and you should just tour as WWE with split crews. Smackdown as the B show, their touring shows don’t draw as well as the company charges lower ticket prices. We’ll see if the talent makes a difference in a few weeks since Raw has the biggest star (Cena), but Smackdown has the most depth. A few other notes regarding talent. Mysterio’s suspension is up in less than two weeks but he’s not advertised for any house shows. Jericho is also not advertised for any house shows even though we’ve been told he is supposed to be on the Raw brand shows starting back after his suspension on. The incident itself took place on 5/24, for 30 days, which would be 6/23, although technically, the suspension was announced on 5/25. The tour he was supposed to return on starts 6/22 and one person internally listed that as his return date, but obviously it will be that weekend. An interesting thing to watch would be how the title comes out of the next PPV. Originally, all five guys in the two titles matches (Punk, Bryan, Kane, Sheamus and Del Rio) were scheduled all July on the Smackdown tour. That was how things were laid out before the Del Rio injury. The usual protocol is for one title on each brand, and that would seem to mean Ziggler has a shot at leaving as world champion so he would defend on the Raw shows and Punk on the Smackdown shows. But for TV purposes, both are still considered Raw guys, even though both may be working both TV’s. But the idea of two world champions on each TV defeats the idea of world champions to begin with.

Orton on Twitter when asked about his suspension said, “When I’m able to tell you, I will. Until then, don’t believe everything you read.” When asked if he’d be a heel when he comes back, he said, “We can only pray.” Orton has been open in believing he’s better as a heel, which he is. The deal was Smackdown as a brand needed a lead face and he was the best guy available. If he does turn, that would me an affirmation that WWE believes Sheamus can carry it, as with Mysterio back, they do have a No. 2 guy back. Orton’s attitude privately has been that he made a mistake, understands it, but feels with talent as thin as it is that he’s being brought back. At the end of the day, I’d be shocked if that wasn’t how it goes down. The only question to me is do they bring him back for SummerSlam, or wait until after SummerSlam. And that decision is likely to be made based on who is healthy and how attractive a card they have without him. In last week’s story on Randy Orton, a correction is that Jerry McDevitt’s explanation as to why Orton wasn’t suspended from the Signature Pharmacy list (he said Orton’s name wasn’t on the list the company received) was given to Irv Muchnick in 2008. We had written he had given the explanation in 2010.

Also regarding Jericho this summer, his band Fozzy has a CD being released in August and they will be going on the Rockstar Uproar national tour from 8/17 to 9/30. It’s a full-time arduous touring schedule, but they do have Mondays off. Also, the only date of the tour that Fozzy won’t be appearing on is 8/19 in St. Louis, which happens to be the night of SummerSlam. Jericho has said previously that he was going to be gone before SummerSlam due to touring. In asking around, nobody seems to have any idea of what’s going on in three weeks, let alone in two months. But I have to think it is not a coincidence that the only night Fozzy is off the tour is SummerSlam.

The first week of pre-orders for WWE 13 were up 250% from the first week after the game was announced last year. Keep in mind last year’s opening week was huge (which makes this year’s pre-orders even more impressive), much higher than the prior year, but when all was said and done the game still declined significantly in sales compared with previous years. It’s like there’s this hardcore base that orders right away, but to the average person the product doesn’t have that appeal. Still, with the UFC news, anything on the plus side is fantastic news.

When it comes to developmental, there is a lot of concern about what is happening since Tom Prichard was let go with no explanation to those there. Those in FCW were told that developmental is changing, for the better, with a different structure, and a different schedule. The idea is very much to structure the entire developmental process and talent relations like WWE is a major sports company, which is ironic since this is all HHH’s department, and Vince runs away from the sports comparisons. They are also looking at trying to open up a relationship with the U.S. Olympic committee, to where they’ll have an “in” for prospective Olympic athletes who either don’t quite make the team, or better yet those who do well but are in sports where there are no professional leagues. The feeling is they’d be interested in the wrestlers, of course, as well as possible weight men, whether they be shot putters, discus throwers or Olympic lifters. Historically, there aren’t a lot of shot putters I can recall who became wrestling stars, with Jim Neidhart and Ken Patera, who were national place winners coming to mind. I can’t recall a world class discus guy, although both Fritz & Kerry Von Erich were stars in the discus at the college level. A number of weightlifters over the years have done well in wrestling, Patera having the most success of the Olympic level guys.

This past week they brought in 23 to 25 athletes, some independent wrestlers with several years experience, but mostly successful college wrestlers, most of who were graduating this year, recruited by Gerald Brisco. The wrestlers, who in some cases still have class time left to graduate, were told if they are signed that the company would value them more if they continued and finished their studies this year or finished their degree work as opposed to quitting and starting in developmental right away. They did a lot of focus on basics like running the ropes and flat back bumps and did lots of agility drill and cardio training to see their coordination, conditioning and drive, who mentally wasn’t going to quit and who stood out in the pack. Bill DeMott and Regal were running the camp and evaluations were being done by Terry Taylor, Dusty Rhodes, Steve Keirn, Norman Smiley, Jim Ross, Brisco, Ricky Steamboat and Joey Mercury. From there, the ones who got the best evaluations are likely to be signed by Canyon Cemen.

There is at least talk of doing similar style tryouts in foreign countries, such as the U.K. and Australia.

 

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Dwayne Johnson sold his home in Hidden Hills, CA, near Los Angeles, for nearly $4.9 million. The 9,120 square foot home as six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, an indoor pool and a home theater. His home theater isn’t like the kind of home theater some people have with all the cool speakers and such, it’s like a real theater inside his house. Well, his former house. He’s sold two homes in a relatively short period of time, since he sold a South Florida mansion as well. I just hope with all his connections that isn’t due to having inside information on the future of the housing market.

Johnson started filming a new movie, “Empire State,” about the biggest bank robbery in U.S. history, on 6/11. The movie is set for a June 2013 release.

The item last week regarding Kelly Kelly having hired the ATA Agency to represent her in getting gigs sounded weird since WWE performers have to get everything cleared and are on a pretty arduous schedule. Kelly is taking a leave of absence from the company and it’s questioned whether she’ll return. She also got sniffs of offers coming from her placing high in the Maxim hottest woman contest and a WWE contract could get in the way of those opportunities. Kelly had been at least talking about this since before Mania, since we reported her making contacts about opportunities outside of wrestling which sounded like investigating leaving months back, which she immediately denied (pretty much had to at that point). The ATA Agency she signed with is an offshoot of Jamie Kennedy Productions. They are pitching her for scripted TV shows as well as a potential reality show. It’s notable WWE didn’t give her a full contract release but they aren’t thrilled she got someone to pitch her for outside gigs as Vince notoriously hates agents.

Former WWE star John Layfield, 45, is planning on climbing the highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest. He’s working on raising money for The Family Center, a charity that helps needy children in Bermuda, where he now lives. WWE has pledged $250,000 to both help fund his excursions to climb the highest mountain on seven different continents, and fund the excursions. All the rest of the money raised through the charity will go directly toward children in Bermuda. Only 347 people have ever accomplished that previously. It should be noted Layfield, who was a very good college football player and was very briefly in the Oakland Raiders camp (he never played in a game and was an early cut), has no experience climbing mountains and has a ton of injuries from both wrestling and football piled up which is why he stopped wrestling. He said his goal is to put the Bermuda flag at the top of all seven peaks. Layfield said as a child one of his goals was to climb Mount Everest. Layfield noted that a lot of people are skeptical that a 45 year old who broke his back wrestling and has had four knee surgeries can pull this off. His plan is to first climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa (19,341 feet) in September, and Mount Aconcagua in Argentina, South America (22,841 feet) in December. In January, he will go for Mount Vinson in Antarctica (16,050 feet). In May he is looking at Mount McKinley in Alaska (20,320 feet). Next October he is planning on doing Mount Carstensz in Indonesia (16,024 feet), and finishing off with Mount Everest (29,029 feet) sometime in 2014. He was at WWE headquarters this week taping stuff related to promoting what he’s doing and fund raising for the charity. He will be appearing more on WWE television in the future.

Punk publicly on Twitter took issue with the 6/4 Raw, which was built around Cena vs. Cole with the idea they’d get Cole in his underwear and humiliate him for ratings even though it wasn’t building future programs or the PPV. As noted, it was a reaction to the bad rating the week before. You never know what will work, but historically the segments with “outsiders” doing matches like Cole and Jim Ross have done well in the ratings, but this time it didn’t happen, although their segment did beat Punk’s match with Kane. It was also in a better time slot to draw a quarter. Punk wrote, “You a wrestling fan or a ratings fan? I’ll take coss over seg telling a good story over covering a non-wrestler with condiments any day.” The problem is coming off a show that does bad ratings, Vince’s decisions are going to be ratings oriented primarily. The thing is, the minute I saw the direction of the show around Cena vs. Cole, I understood what it was about, but also disagreed. There are times to adjust due to a bad direction, and that rating was bad, but it was also a night with a lot of competition. But doing a Cena vs. Cole hotshot TV show that doesn’t build anything in theory would help the rating for the one show, but built nothing. It’s building something that’s the answer. It really felt like WCW decision making on the way down, and that’s the stuff you should learn not to do.

WWE Films purchased the distribution rights to a movie called “Interrogation,” a suspense thriller by Adam Rodin about a bomb threat in Las Vegas on a major tourist weekend.

R-Truth is out of action with a broken foot. In storyline on Raw, they brought him out for an interview on 6/11 and Show knocked him out. The decision seemed to be it was more important for Show to destroy Kingston, going for revenge later in the show, in a match to build the PPV then do something to take the tag titles off them. Given the current value of the tag titles, it was the right call for the week.

Kingston teamed with Clay in Spain, although the first night he teamed with Ryder, since Clay had to stay in the U.S. an extra day to work the Smackdown tapings. Even though Kingston had other partners, they billed the matches as tag title matches. He had to do Smackdown because he’s now a regular on that show and unlike everyone else on Smackdown who works Raw all the time, he’s not allowed to work Raw. The story is that he was pulled from Raw because Show might beat him up again. Is there anything to make a 6-7, 350 pound man look like a wuss more than the promotion saying they are changing his brand for fear he’d get beat up, and him acting only a little disappointed but not demanding a shot at revenge at all? I’m sure the idea is that Clay never gets a shot at revenge, but Clay’s only mild disappointment and not being able to vocalize it (not his fault, because he can only do what is scripted) made it come off like the company was protecting him. Plus, the kicker is that Show is technically a Smackdown guy, not that it matters, and was regularly on Smackdown up until a few weeks ago.

Vader got a big reaction for his return on the 6/11 Raw. Even though he’s now 57, the feeling is he would be up for a full-time gig and a final run. I doubt it’ll happen, and his knees seemed to be having trouble carrying all that weight. But with them so thin it’s more possible now than any time in the past several years to at least bring him back. His return got the nostalgia pop and then has diminishing returns. But he can still play the part and with the mask looks like Vader. His body has changed somewhat, as everyone does at that age. He’s heavy, but I’m told he’s actually dropped about 60 pounds of late from around 400 to a legit 340ish. He’s still big enough but could still afford to drop a lot more weight just for health reasons and his knees. If he wants to do indies, this appearance should help him a good deal if he gets the word out.

The best talent in FCW (Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, Kassius Ohno, Antonio Cesaro) as far as being ready and being good in the ring mostly came from the indie scene. But there is a belief that the indie scene is not producing enough talent with WWE potential. That belief and obviously HHH putting together his management team, instead of using ex-wrestlers or people in the business, but using people who were top notch athletes in other sports who went on to have management experience in sports, tells you his direction. It’s a mentality that a lot have questioned. A number of people have asked how can Canyon Cemen, who may be intelligent, professional and a top level legit athlete, but has never worked in the industry, be able to evaluate talent and make talent decisions. And the feel for understanding wrestling is something that takes years, and even with years, most people, even intelligent, have a hard time grasping it, particularly since what Vince wants constantly changes and what the company needs and what gets over with the public also changes. They are going with the idea that getting top level athletes and teaching them to be wrestlers will develop the kind of marquee guys that can be superstars, and if you look at the biggest money stars historically in the business, in a high percentage of cases that would be correct. Even guys like Austin and Rock, while not NFL caliber football players, were top level athletes suited for the business. It’s a harder process because the success rate will be lower if you get guys starting from scratch. The argument is that WWE can offer a decent pay to start for guys coming out of college in a tough job market, with the potential to earn huge money. The wrestlers, unlike top level college football players who have NFL aspirations, don’t have a sport alternative other than UFC, and UFC is not for everyone. But the indie guys love the business and understand the business and a good looking college wrestler with a good body, even if they grew up a fan, they are starting at such a lower level of understanding the crazy world.

 

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Plus, the current product mix and lifestyle is such that a lot of guys doing well today do not have “the look” and are more guys who grew up loving and being obsessed with wrestling and wouldn’t let the detractors and naysayers get in their way, got experience the hard way, learned the business from others and made it because they could outwork, outperform and outtalk guys with genetic and athletic advantages that didn’t have the knowledge of a lifetime following the game and the same obsession to make it. While DeMott had been around with the company since Tough Enough ended, there were a lot of surprises he became head trainer only because he was let go from the position years ago due to complaints about him being too rough.


DeMott’s feelings at the time was the guys weren’t in good enough shape and the complaints they were doing tons of cardio but not enough in the ring, and that only a small percentage of the active roster at the time could have survived what DeMott was putting them through. Then again, at first, when his name was on Tough Enough some were surprised for the same reason. The reports we’ve gotten is DeMott has tweaked his coaching style a bit and learned a lot since his last tenure. I just figured for Tough Enough they wanted that big bad ass intimidating coach as a TV personality and DeMott was very good at it on the old Tough Enough.

Bryan did an interview recently and noted that his traveling team had been himself with Rhodes and Ryback, although that’s changed with Bryan being moved to Raw.

Sports Business Journal this past week polled 1,100 major sports decision makers on their views of UFC, boxing and WWE. On whether they have more interest now than in 2007, for boxing 7% said they did, 41% said they had the same interest and 53% said they had less interest. For UFC, 29% said they had more interest, 39% said they had the same interest, and 32% said they had less interest. For WWE, 4% said they had more interest, 32% said they had the same level of interest, and 64% said they had less interest.

Kip Christiansen, better known as Eli Cottonwood, quit after almost four years in developmental. Of late, he’d been used as a sidekick to Bray Wyatt, which is the new Husky Harris gimmick. I’m really surprised he was with the company as long as he was. He wasn’t very good, but he was a legitimate 7-footer who played years of international and minor league basketball, and was in a few NBA camps but never made any teams, before being signed. He was on the second season of NXT with John Morrison as his mentor and he did an unbelievably bad promo about a mustache. Just because he was already 37, and their mentality is that if you’re even 33 or 34, that you’ve got limited time to make it because of age, but he never really got good at wrestling or promos, but was still kept around. He left due to a combination of injuries in wrestling and other job opportunities.

On Smackdown on 6/8, the guys Ryback squashed named Tony Andriotic and Kevin Mahoney were Carolina indies wrestlers Michael Frehley & John Skyler. Both were announced as coming from Clemson University to make them heel in the home city of the University of South Carolina. The funny thing is Skyler graduated from South Carolina. Frehley is in the Army Reserve and before the show aired on TV had already been shipped to Afghanistan. I was scared Ryback was going to throw him there.

On the 6/11 Raw, guys playing the dead presidents were New England indie wrestlers Mikaze and Scott Slade, who work for the Massachusetts-based Chaotic Wrestling.

There are rumors Otunga and Jennifer Hudson will be getting married in the fall, and it was reported that way in the National Enquirer. The story had been that she wanted to get the trial of the man who murdered several members of her family out of the way before planning a wedding.

WWEeuroshop.com announced that it was shutting down as a separate entity and that all European merchandise orders will be taken by WWEshop.com.

Regarding Perry Saturn at FCW, he’s been at the last three television tapings as a coach. We’d noted he was there at the camp last week. He’d actually started a few weeks earlier.

For whatever this is worth, this is from Kenn Doane (who was here as Kenny Dykstra for a few years): “When I was there and Orton got suspended for the first time, Cena told me he wanted Orton fired. So now I’m sure it’s probably him trying for RKO’s release. Regardless, hopefully he don’t get fired since he has a young child and is the best story teller in WWE. They do still tell stories in the ring, right?” I guess we won’t be seeing Doane back any time soon.

In developmental, the wrestler called Benicio Salazar, who was El Hijo de Medico Asesino in Mexico, who wear the all white mask and white tights that all the heel doctors used to wear in the 70s, is now going without a mask. It was funny in commentary because Regal would point out and ask why is a guy wearing a mask when he’s going by the name Benicio Salazar. This is all a moot point because right after they unmasked him they cut him. Also cut was Jiro. Jiro is Hiroshi Takizawa from K-Dojo (Taka Michinoku’s school and promotion) in Japan. He and Sakamoto came to FCW together in December. Sakamoto getting destroyed on TV by Tensai didn’t bode well for him either. Another cut was Australian Daniel Bolton, whose FCW name was Sonny Elliott.

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