The News

7/26/2010

Steamboat is out of the hospital and could be back on the road reasonably soon.

Leanar's next fight will be the day before the Bragging Rights PPV. Could be the worst non-ECW buyrate in 13 years.

Taker should at the very least be back to feud with Kane and face him at Night of Champions.

From Meltzer... I'm just gonna quote this wholesale: "the McMahon family filed for bankruptcy in 1976, which was after Vince put everything he had up in promoting a famous closed-circuit event where Evil Knievel would jump the snake river canyon. The event was a complete bomb in every sense of the word."


7/21/2010

MitB winners: Kane, Rey, Kane (cashed in on Rey), Sheamus, Miz, Harts.

If the Money in the Bank buyrate flops, the concept will return to being Mania-only.

Summerslam: Sheamus vs Orton; Team Cena vs Nexus 7-on-7 tag; probably Kane vs Mysterio.


7/15/2010

Puropulse.

Taker might not be back in time for Summerslam.

TNA will give its ECW wrestlers a big focus on the next PPV, which goes along with why they want Heyman so much.


7/9/2010

HHH had surgery to repair an arm tendon. The injury would have happened while he was getting ready to return. He'll be out several more months.

WWE has banned Flair-style chops because Flair is in TNA. Shawn had been the main exception, and with him gone the ban is now in place.

TNA is making a really big effort to get Heyman, but Heyman wants control of the entire company, not just being the lead writer. Also, TNA wants him as an on-air authority figure, but he doesn't want that.

WWE will run a show in China next month.

Jericho's show Downfall had a big ratings drop in its second episode. Meltzer says that Jericho is doing such a good job that the show will help his post-wrestling career regardless of the ratings.


7/6/2010

Ricky Steamboat suffered a capillary burst which led to bleeding on the brain. It was serious at first but now he should be out of the hospital this week. Doctors say it likely wasn't from what happened on Raw (my guess is that if Raw was to blame it would have happened sooner).

The visa issues have been resolved.

Money in the Bank card: Sheamus vs Cena (cage match), Rey vs Swagger, Harts vs Usos, and both Raw and Smackdown 8-way MitB matches.


7/1/2010

Puropulse.

More on Batista's departure: he asked Johnny Ace for approval to take time off to shoot some movies, but Vince reneged.

Meltzer notes that Swagger had 6 non-title singles match losses in a span of 3 months as champ, which is crazy considering that he was shaky coming in. See also: Rey Mysterio in 2006, though Rey wasn't nearly as vulnerable.


6/30/2010

NXT is cursed. The latest is that McIntyre and Barrett's work visas expired.

Punk is out 1-2 months after arm surgery, which he'd been putting off.

Dixie Carter wants to bring Heyman in to run things. Heyman is busy as a marketer for Lesnar (!!) and is working on other projects, so unless he thinks the deal is PERFECT he's unlikely to go for it. They especially want Heyman in order to pull off a big ECW-based angle.

Meltzer speculates that Bret would have stuck around in WWE for several years, while his current fiance is going to college. However, Bret and his lawyers had come up with a very exacting deal with Lloyd's of London regarding his years-ago disability payment, detailing what Bret can and can't do. WWE kept asking him to do more, which would have put Bret and/or WWE on the hook for a lot of money. I seem to recall that Steamboat had a similar deal but he keeps getting back in the ring.


6/24/2010

Batista is in talks with Strikeforce, and right now they're just haggling over price.

Bret was yanked as Raw GM because he got married.

Owen's widow is suing WWE over the use of Owen's name and footage of him, after WWE had apparently said they wouldn't.


6/21/2010

PPV winners: Sheamus (via. NXT beatdown), Mysterio, Miz, Kingston, Harts, Bourne (over Jericho in an unscheduled match).

There's some concern that Jericho will leave in a few months when his contract comes up.

The way Meltzer told it, management pretty much gave up on saving Swagger's title loss for something big (ie. vs Taker at Summerslam), and decided to reward Rey with the title after all the sacrifices he's made. Good chance we'll see more Rey vs Punk.

Davey Richards says he plans to retire this year, so ROH could *really* use Danielson right now.

Puropulse.


6/16/2010

Scott Hall has been fired by TNA. Let's walk through this. First, they put the tag titles on him and Nash, which is already stupid. Then, Hall gets arrested, but doesn't tell anyone in TNA. Then, TNA finds it out from a newspaper story. Then, TNA adds Eric Young (and don't get me started about how dumb THAT is) such that he can take Hall's place in tag title matches as needed. Then, over 3 weeks after they discovered Hall's arrest, they fire him... and vacate the tag titles despite Nash and Young still being able to defend the belts. Oy.

Danielson has been in contact with indy promotions but is waiting to see if WWE will come to their senses first.

During the NXT beatdown on Cena, Heath Slater choked him with the ring ropes. Cena told him to stop, possibly saving him from Danielson's ordeal.

There are now two possibilities for Taker's attacker: Kane, and the NXT crew. Either way that's likely to be his Summerslam match, not Swagger. Which makes sense; that way the match can be more gimmicky and/or short to protect Taker.


6/14/2010

Danielson was fired due to pressure from outside WWE. Meaning, the wrong exec at a company that's important to WWE saw it, and Danielson is expendable enough. WWE isn't unhappy with him and he might return in the near future. Also, he's under a 90 day no-compete clause, so no sudden appearance in TNA.

Cena put a message out to lobby for Danielson to be brought back, which makes me think he might get un-fired and suspended instead. And yet of course TNA manages to look dumber...

...by hyping a HUGE SURPRISE for their PPV that wound up being Tommy Dreamer doing a distraction run-in. I have to wonder what percentage of TNA people know they look silly doing this sort of thing, but bite their tongues in order to not upset management. UPDATE: It looks like Dreamer wasn't the thing Dixie was talking about. But, Dixie was talking about the big thing in regards to the PPV. So really it's a fumble any way you look at it.


6/12/2010

Danielson has been fired for choking Justin Roberts with his own tie. There's a ban regarding that sort of thing post-Benoit unless very specifically authorized.

The NXT attack on Raw was kept very hush-hush, and the various people ringside weren't told so that their reactions would be genuine.

Survivor Series was spared when WWE realized its 2009 buyrate dropped due to UFC. And they realized this because of Mania's buyrate also dropping. Rather than, like, reading it in the WON when the Survivor Series buyrate came out last year.


6/9/2010

Not only did Jeff *not* have charges dropped, but he had one added. Gotta love the internet!

WWE is still hoping to get Taker back for Summerslam.

Angle is finally saying he won't do MMA.

Survivor Series has been brought back, and will happen on 11/21.

WWE is now mandating the use of twitter by all wrestlers in order to push storylines.


6/8/2010

Most charges against Jeff Hardy, including the biggest ones, have been dropped. No word as to why.

Cena talked Vince into giving a push to Bourne. Additionally, WWE management hopes to give more small wrestlers the spotlight in order to get fans used to less-musclebound wrestlers.

Orton hurt his shoulder playing basketball two days before the PPV. He needs surgery, but is delaying it and using physical therapy.


6/4/2010

Puropulse.

Meltzer analyzed ratings for Raw and Smackdown to find that there are about 20% fewer total viewers than during the Austin/Rock boom era, but most significantly those viewers are more casual about watching shows every week or buying PPVs.

R-Truth isn't allowed in Canada because of a felony conviction over a decade ago.

Carlito showed up at the 5/17 show in Toronto messed up on painkillers, which he takes to deal with back and knee injuries. He was told to go to rehab and refused. When his family heard this they sided with WWE, but Carlito still refused. Carlito might be assuming that his father Carlos would still take him back in Carlos' Puerto Rico promotion, but if Carlos stands firm it could force Carlito to give in.


6/3/2010

Taker got a broken orbital bone from his Smackdown match with Mysterio and will miss the summer. While he's easily replaced for Fatal Four-Way, he was also planned to be in Smackdown's title match at Summerslam.

Curt Hennig's son will be on the second season of NXT. He's been given the last name "McGillicuty". Mike Rotunda's son will wrestle as "Husky Harris". Words fail me.

Jericho has supposedly (I just can't believe it...) signed to be the host of an ABC game show. Contestants will answer questions while on top of a building, and both prizes and people will be put on a conveyor belt and dropped off it should they answer wrong. At this point it's a 6 episode trial run and I doubt it significantly effects his WWE status.

Orton's injury will take over a month to heal, but they're hoping he can work the PPV. With that match being a 4-way he could be covered for much better than if it was a singles match.

Hogan underwent lengthy but apparently non-serious (he's already home) surgery on his back. Good thing TNA locked him up for a couple million and made him a big focus!


Archive of news posts on the Benoit tragedy.