WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT
4/26 Raw TV results from Richmond, VA: The Hart Dynasty over ShoMiz to capture the tag titles; Layla & Michelle McCool over Eve Torres & Maryse; CM Punk over Evan Bourne; Santino Marella, Mark Henry, MVP, Yoshi Tatsu & Ted DiBiase over R-Truth, Rey Mysterio, Kane, Drew McIntyre & Shad Gaspar; Chris Jericho over Christian; Jack Swagger over John Morrison in a non-title match; and Hornswoggle over Zolph Ziggler.
4/27 NXT TV results from Hershey, PA: Chris Jericho & Wade Barrett over Christian & Heath Slater; Darren Young over Michael Tarver; and Skip Sheffield over Daniel Bryan.
Complete results from both the annual Draft and the Supplemental Draft. To Raw: John Morrison, R-Truth, Edge, Chris Jericho, The Great Khali & Ranjin Singh, The Hart Dynasty & Natalya, Ezekiel Jackson, and Goldust. To Smackdown: Kelly Kelly, Big Show, Kofi Kingston, Christian, Chavo Guerrero, Cody Rhodes, Chris Masters, Hornswoggle, Rosa Mendes, and MVP.
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WWE and Milwaukee Brewers Hall of Fame(r) broadcaster Bob Uecker, 75, is scheduled to undergo heart surgery on Friday. He is expected to miss the next 10-12 weeks of the baseball season. A surgeon will replace Uecker's aortic valve and will then determine whether additional bypass surgery is necessary. "It has to be done -- that's the bottom line," Uecker said today during a press conference. "I don't want to go on the road and 'take a Dixie' there. I'd rather do it here."
Several overzealous Mickie James fans were ejected from Monday's Raw at the Richmond Coliseum. They had signs which read, "Riot For Mickie" and "James Gang For Life". During the Diva's match there was a small smattering of "We Want Mickie" chants but the announce team talked loud enough over them so most people watching at home wouldn't know it happened.
Raw averaged a 3.1 rating over the three hours and 4.6 million viewers.
Kelly Kelly ended up as the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter for a few minutes on Monday. I guess people saw her walk out when she was drafted to Smackdown and thought she looked hot.
Not a great week for Mark Henry. After the recent stories of his police caution in Northern Ireland, an airline lost his luggage during an express flight into Batrlimore for Sunday's Extreme Rules pay-per-view. From one of our readers on the same flight: "None of us wanted to push our luck by asking for an autograph, we decided it was best to leave him be. You could tell he was in a really horrible mood."
A new name for the November pay-per-view is expected to be announced within the next few weeks. Vince McMahon decided to do away with Survivor Series in February during an investors conference call as he felt the concept was obsolete and had outlasted it's usage. Survivor Series is the second oldest annual WWE event dating back to 1987. You would figure that with Bret Hart back on television as a semi-regular they may reconsider this decision and try to draw this year based off of Montreal.
Yoshi Tatsu wrote a blog claiming Funaki chose to leave WWE due to a neck problem, although he's scheduled to start soon with ZERO-ONE and other Japanese groups.
There is talk of pairing Carlito & Primo once again as a tag team.
Shad Gaspard's girlfriend Siliana Chanel gave birth to the couples first son this past week.
Michael Tarver of NXT is no longer allowed to use the Kill Shot (haymaker punch) as someone on creative brought up that this was Big Show's finisher.
The Miami Herald has a story on Darren Young at http://tinyurl.com/29uajh9. He says he doesn't do drugs but likes to party when talking (in character) about CM Punk as his mentor on NXT.
Linda McMahon's Senate campaign considered and dropped a plan to encourage college students to register new voters with a $5 bonus for Republicans. Story is at http://tinyurl.com/3267ng7.
TOTAL NONSTOP ACTION WRESTLING
4/26 Impact TV results from Orlando, FL: Madison Rayne over Angelina Love & Tara in a three-way to retain the Knockouts title; Kazarian over Shannon Moore to retain the X-Division title; AJ Styles & Sting over Jeff Jarrett & Jeff Hardy in a falls count anywhere match; Team 3D over Matt Morgan & Jesse Neal via DQ; and Abyss over Ric Flair to win Flair's Hall of Fame ring.
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Tara (Lisa Marie Varon, 39) has three weeks remaining on her contract. She wrote a blog today noting that she agreed to sign here last year for less money than she felt she was worth and indicated leaving when her deal expires on 5/21 as she couldn't get a raise. She added that she hasn't yet decided whether she will stay in wrestling or finally jump to MMA. Varon has ruffled a lot of feathers behind the scenes lately. Several sources have told us stories where she has buried other talent behind their back to management--complaining about various people on house show loops, refusing to work with certain individuals, and squashing numerous storylines--all of which she denies. Apparently some time ago, TNA management addressed some of these issues and told talent to handle their personal problems they have amongst themselves. Dixie Carter is said to want no part of drama and doesn't want the office to get caught up in political games. She made it clear that if the problems persisted, the solution would be something none of the talent will like.
Soon after Varon posted her blog today, Madison Rayne wrote on her Twitter page: "Have I mentioned lately how blessed I am to work for a company as great as TNA and plan to stay there as long as possible? Just sayin..."
Impact on Monday night did it's worst rating ever on Spike TV--0.5 and 739,000 viewers. Lower than average numbers were expected going head-to-head against WWE's annual draft show.
Sting vs. Jeff Jarrett was officially announced for the 5/16 Sacrifice PPV.
TNA on it's website explained how Eric Bischoff's new heavyweight title ranking system will work. There will be a three-person committee of Dixie Carter, Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan with final say on who gets a title shot. I guess it's a better system than WWE's where now it appears that John Cena hand picks his challengers. The committee will factor wrestler career performance, win/loss record, and obviously online fan voting. They will announce the new rankings the day after each PPV. The online voting is legit, through a company called Poll Daddy, which means (assuming they have a corporate account) the concept will cost thousands of dollars each month as each logged vote costs two cents after the first 10,000 votes. At time of writing they have logged nearly 170,000 votes so far and they are allowing people to vote multiple times. Desmond Wolfe is currently leading the poll with 25 percent of the total votes.
Bischoff-Hervey Productions (Eric Bischoff and Jason Hervey, who now sits in TNA creative meetings) are developing a new reality show for TruTV called Rogue Society, about a vigilante group that seeks revenge on behalf of the scammed, cheated and victimized. Scott Baio of Happy Days fame is producing the series.
Steve Austin noted meeting Awesome Kong (Kia Stevens) at the Cauliflower Alley Club banquet last week in Las Vegas and put her over huge. Much like Jim Ross, Austin said that Kong would be a great WWE pickup. Austin is pretty active on Twitter these days. He was tweeting while watching Raw and Impact on Monday night. He loved Ric Flair's promo but joked that he changed the channel when Hulk Hogan popped up on the screen. He also loves the gimmicks of Jay Lethal and Shark Boy an called them both great workers.
As noted last week, Hogan will be a guest on The View and the Howard Stern radio show on Thursday. He is making various media appearances this week in New York City.
A PSA from The Motor City Machine Guns at http://tinyurl.com/2uj7x42. Awesome video.
Jeremy Borash is hosting a new webshow on the TNA website week days at 4pm.
Jonny Fairplay did an interview with the Sports Courier website. He discussed his love of pro wrestling and joked about his TNA run a few years ago. "I had fun there, but I don't think they ever understood the Jonny Fairplay character. I even went up to Jeff Jarrett once and told him I wanted to manage somebody. He said, 'Well go on the indies and start management.' I said, 'Jeff, I meant a wrestling manager for TNA, not an actual manager.'"
Kurt Angle promotes his new food products at http://tinyurl.com/374a2y5.
OTHER WRESTLING NEWS
The arrest of UFC star Tito Ortiz on suspected domestic abuse charges against his girlfriend Jenna Jameson largely escalated into a war of words. Ortiz, who is now free on bail, through his attorney, Chip Matthews, is denying the charges and says that Jameson lashed out at him when he confronted her about allegedly relapsing on the prescription painkiller Oxycontin. "My parents have gone through addiction and I’m not going to let my family go through that," Ortiz said at a press conference Monday. "Jenna Jameson has been fighting an ugly battle with an addiction to Oxycontin for well over a year, and this morning, she had a relapse," Matthews added. "We're here because Tito was trying to help her. Tito Ortiz never laid a hand on Jenna." In response, Jameson dismissed the claims and said Ortiz made the story up because he is trying to save his mixed martial arts career. A short time before she was accused of drug addiction Jameson had given a statement to TMZ saying that Ortiz had not laid a hand on her and indicated she would reconcile with him for the sake of their children. Ortiz is the father of Jameson's 13-month-old twin boys.
Tokyo Sports is reporting that Satoshi Kojima will be leaving All Japan Pro Wrestling on 5/2. He is scheduled for elbow surgery and his future plans are unknown. Kojima, 39, was the first ever wrestler to hold NJPW's IWGP Heavyweight Championship and AJPW's Triple Crown Championship simultaneously.
Leon "Vader" White is teaming with his son Jesse in Japan on Friday. Jesse is reportedly looking to go to WWE one day. He was a standout football player at the University of Oklahoma and was once touted for the NFL, but was taken out with back and hip injuries during his first year of college.
Greg and Johnny Valentine have been added to the NWA Legends Fanfest Hall of Heroes this August in Charlotte. More info at www.nwalegends.com.
The Miami Herald has a story on Nick Hogan at http://tinyurl.com/29uajh9 who is now going by the moniker of DJ NOW. He says that he taught himself to be a DJ in one day after sister Brooke gave him some decks as a present last Christmas.
Today's Diva of the Day is Jillian Hall at http://www.thewrestlingpress.com/DailyDiva.
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