WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT
4/16 Smackdown TV results from London, England: Drew McIntyre over Kane via DQ; Dolph Ziggler over R-Truth; Michelle McCool over Mickie James; The Hart dynasty & Rey Mysterio over CM Punk, Luke Gallows & Darren Young; JTG over Caylen Croft; and Jack Swagger over Edge & Chris Jericho in a three-way.
4/16 Raw house show results from Belfast, Northern Ireland: Evan Bourne over Chavo Guerrero; Christian over Dos Caras; Eve Torres over Maryse with Kelly Kelly as referee; Mark Henry over William Regal; The Miz over MVP & Kofi Kingston in a three-way; Sheamus over Ted DiBiase; and Randy Orton & John Cena over Batista & Big Show.
4/16 Smackdown house show results from Zurich, Switzerland: R-Truth over Dolph Ziggler; Mickie James & Beth Phoenix over Michelle McCool & Layla; Matt Hardy over Shad Gaspard; The Hart Dynasty over The Dudebusters; Kane over Luke Gallows; Drew McIntyre over John Morrison; Rey Mysterio over C.M. Punk; and Jack Swagger over Chris Jericho & Edge in a three-way. The show drew around 8,000.
4/17 Raw house show results from Belfast, Northern Ireland: Kofi Kingston over William Regal; Evan Bourne over Dos Caras; Christian over Chavo Guerrero; Eve Torres over Maryse; ShoMiz over MVP & Mark Henry; Randy Orton over Ted DiBiase; and John Cena over Seamus & Batista in a three-way.
Raw is live on Monday from the Izod Arena in East Rutherford, NJ with the cast of MacGruber as guest hosts. The Smackdown/NXT tapings are Tuesday at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut.
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WWE postponed the weekend shows in Innsbruck, Austria and Istanbul, Turkey due to the volcanic ash, and announced plans to return in November. Most of the Smackdown crew (main event guys at least) arrived back in the U.S. on Saturday at around 1am ET. The Raw crew is currently stranded in Northern Ireland with no outbound transatlantic flights expected to take off until early Monday morning. There is talk of chartering a plane to get them out at the earliest opportunity. If they don't make it out Monday's TV is expected to feature a mix of Raw (those who didn't go on the tour) and Smackdown talent.
Jim Ross wrote a new blog at www.jrsbarbq.com. He noted talking to Paul Heyman a few days ago and asked him for some pointers on his book projects. "Paul is presently writing two books including one that includes Paul's career and, more importantly, his family. This includes the amazing story of Paul's mother's journey that included narrowly avoiding losing her life in a Nazi concentration camp." Ross also writes about Leon "Vader" White and his son Jesse who stopped by his restaurant on Friday. "Vader has really made some significant changes in his life including becoming a Born Again Christian and dropping about 60 pounds or so. Leon is still a big man but at 340 he looks great for a guy who still wants to occasionally step in the ring. He's training differently and certainly eating differently these days. Some indy promoters, etc may be missing some unique opportunities by not using Big Van Vader on selected cards with the right creative around him."
Vince and Shane McMahon did some father-son bonding over the weekend and were spotted together at the New York Yankees game.
Edge vs. Chris Jericho in a steel cage was added to next Sunday's Extreme Rules pay-per-view. The match is expected to be the blow off with one of these guys rumored to be drafted back to Raw.
USA are doing another commercial free Raw on 5/17 from Toronto which will be advertised as Bret Hart's return to Canada. This will be Bret's first WWE appearance in the city since 1997.
Several Golf websites picked up on our note last week about WWE wanting Tiger Woods to host Raw in Miami. His publicist told us today that this would be unlikely but they are open to at least discussing working together on something in the future.
Superstars on Tuesday night did a 0.8 rating and 837,000 viewers.
Patrick Lennon interviews Chris Jericho at http://tinyurl.com/yyhlaja. He says he could leave WWE tomorrow if he wanted but is sticking around because he loves the business and wants to help the younger guys. "I want to help with that. To take the money and run, that’s a shitty attitude, but there were guys like that when I came in, and there are guys like that in the business now. I love wrestling, and I want to leave knowing I left a business there for the future."
There are plans to release three different versions of Wrestlemania 26 on DVD and Blu Ray. The basic version will include the Hall of Fame ceremony; another version is exclusive to K-Mark which includes a bonus DVD of the Greatest Superstars of Wrestlemania; and another version is exclusive to Best Buy which includes the HOF and the 3/22 Raw and 3/26 Smackdown go-home shows plus Shawn Michaels' retirement speech.
WWE Magazine is planning a special issue answering 1001 burning questions with submissions accepted from fans. I wonder if any questions will address Randy Savage.
TOTAL NONSTOP ACTION WRESTLING
4/16 house show results from Independence, MO: Kaz over Brian Kendrick; Rob Terry over Orlando Jordan; Angelina Love over Velvet Sky; The Pope over Desmond Wolfe; Jeff Jarrett & Abyss over Beer Money; and Kurt Angle over Ken Anderson. The show drew around 1,600 people. Knockout's match was said to be very poor while MOTN was Pope-Wolfe.
Lockdown tonight from St. Charles has AJ Styles vs. The Pope for the TNA heavyweight title; Team Flair (Sting, Desmond Wolfe, Robert Roode, James Storm) vs. Team Hogan (Abyss, Jeff Jarrett, Rob Van Dam, Jeff Hardy) in Lethal Lockdown; Shannon Moore vs. Kaz vs. Doug Williams in a three-way for the X Division title; The Beautiful People vs. Angelina Love & Tara with both the Knockouts title and tag titles on the line; Mr. Anderson vs. Kurt Angle in an escape the cage match--a new stip; Kevin Nash vs. Eric Young; and The Band vs. Team 3D. RVD vs. James Storm will open the show to determine who gets the numbers advantage in Lethal Lockdown. The Machine Guns vs. Brian Kendrick & Homicide was added as a special bonus match.
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The Amazing Red missed the house show and fanfest this weekend due to a personal matter. There is also an issue with Doug Williams who like most of the Raw crew is still stranded in the UK. No word on how they are working around this as he's booked on the PPV.
There was some debate as to which match was going on last tonight but it appears Team Hogan vs. Team Flair won out.
Rob Van Dam talks life in TNA at http://tinyurl.com/y7o4qp8. He said he's happy to be here noting that the timing and deal was right. He's especially looking forward to some matches with Jeff Hardy. "We enjoy each other's company but we also both feel like we rose to the top of the business against the odds, against the preconceived notions of the promoter that actually did try to hold us down. We did it through connecting with our fans in such a way that the fans brought us to the top. When I was in WWE, there was no way I was ever going to be WWE Champion. There's no way that ever went through Vince's mind or any of those guys' minds. For Jeff, same thing, but eventually through sticking to our guns that happened. We manifested it. We understand that and we vibrate in a similar fashion. Yeah, we click. It's so natural it's organic and we like that out here in Cali." He also talked about Paul Heyman as they are friends and stay in touch. He said he would love Heyman to join TNA one day. "Of course, I would be thrilled to have him there and I think that he really, I know that he really has a way of staying on the pulse of people and staying really connected in what they want. He's a little bit ahead of them. He knows what the people want next week, what they're going to be listening to next, what kind of music is going to be coming around. That's something that is really important and he would make it cool. His name does come up a lot by fans or some of the other wrestlers or by people that are curious, wondering if he is going to come in. To the best of my knowledge, no. I don't know if he is. That would be nice but I have no reason that he is."
AOL FanHouse has a Q&A with Styles at http://tinyurl.com/y28xo3p. Some interesting comments. He's happy Spike moved Impact 8-10 and thinks the company should go after a younger demographic with less blood and violence. "... I'm hoping we slow down on the whole blood thing. You know, it was what it was, and I think that we've gotten past that. I think we're going to have to slow down on that stuff, and I think we are, it's not that big of a deal. And I monitor what my kids watch, I'm not going to let them watch anything too gruesome or too stupid. So some things, I wouldn't let them watch because it's pro wrestling, and it's geared toward the 18-to-30-something-year-old guy, so I have to make sure that we'll [as parents] watch it first. We're gonna watch it because my kids love wrestling, they love it, especially my 3-year-old. I would hope that we actually gear a little bit toward those kids, because whether we like it or not, they are our fanbase." When asked about Daniels' departure he wouldn't comment because he couldn't answer the question without saying anything bad. "I think Ring of Honor has made one of the greatest acquisitions in a long time, and I'm happy for them and I'm happy for Chris going back there. I'd definitely love to see him back in TNA, but that's not up to me." He also wishes the office would let him have some input on talent acquisitions. "The fact that they've brought in some guys that, I don't know if they were the greatest thing we could have done for TNA, but there are some great pickups with Jeff Hardy and Rob Van Dam and Brian Kendrick coming over. Those are good pickups for us, there's no doubt about it. But there's definitely something missing in the X Division. I almost feel like there's not many X Division guys, and I'd like to see a little bit more of that come into play. But I'm not running the show and I'm just there to do my best and do what I can to make sure that TNA is the best product that we can put out there."
Channel 5 in St. Louis interviews Ric Flair and AJ Styles at http://tinyurl.com/y6p7z24. Nice publicity. Flair talks about wrestling Bruiser Brody in the old Checkerdome which he says were his best matches in the city. He also puts over Terry Funk and says he stole his patented chops from the Funker.
Flair threw out the first pitch at Friday night's Cardinals game. He didn't pitch too well.
The Impact replay on Thursday night did a 0.7 rating and 986,000 viewers. Epics that followed did a 0.4 and 533,000 viewers.
The TV taping on 6/1 has been removed from the Universal Studios schedule, so they will be filming 4 weeks worth of Impact at the tapings 5/17 through 5/19.
OTHER WRESTLING NEWS
The May tour of Australia with Tommy Dreamer, Balls Mahoney, Sonjay Dutt, Paul London, and several others was canceled as one of the financial backers pulled out. A group in Perth is still promoting some of the talent saying Balls Mahoney, Sonjay Dutt, Paul London and Colt Cabana will be coming in. The whole deal is said to be a mess. Only one of ticket companies has been offering refunds, while others are still listing events and selling tickets.
Kermit the Frog interviews the Iron Sheik about Hulk Hogan at http://tinyurl.com/y3vtsnc. Seriously. Sheik says that Sesame Street with the Cookie Moster is one of his favorite shows of all time. I had a friend who once tried to tell me that too. I think he was high on something.
The Edmonton Journal has a nice story on Gene Kiniski at http://tinyurl.com/y2q6hcv.
Wrestling magazine writer/photographer Roger Baker remembers Kiniski at http://tinyurl.com/y5mgrqu.
Kayfabe Commentaries is accepting questions for Maria Kanellis for a future interview at www.kayfabecommentaries.com.
Today's Diva of the Day is Chyna at http://www.thewrestlingpress.com/DailyDiva.
