Post by andrew8798 on Aug 22, 2007 1:25:46 GMT -5
Karen Angle has signed with TNA.
TNA to two hours in early October is just about a definite at this point according to sources in both TNA and Spike.
Those who have spoken to a number of talents within TNA are reporting that nobody is even complaining that much anymore, they're "over it" and see it much like WCW at the end -- which is quite ironic considering TNA is about to make its latest huge breakthrough by going to two hours.
TNA has had at least one meeting with Brock Lesnar about the possibility of him coming in. Kurt Angle is one of the main conduits, and he must be a hell of a smooth talker because I could never have imagined Brock would go to Japan, have a wrestling match with Kurt, and put him over clean for the IWGP Title had I not seen it with my own eyes. Brock had given the impression that he was finished with wrestling, but the fact that he spoke with Dixie Carter about this suggests he's at least considering it.
It's basically either TNA or MMA, because we're told the chances of him coming back to WWE are miniscule due to very bad blood between himself and Vince McMahon. I can't go into all of the details, but there was a personal situation involved that Vince basically came out on the losing end of (not a fight, though it is rumored there was an incident where Vince challenged him and asked Brock if he thought he could take him; what actually happened nobody knows and probably ever will know because it was a closed-door meeting between the two of them). V
ince holds a grudge, and following this situation Brock ended up doing random pointless jobs on TV, he feuded with Bob Holly, he lost the title, and eventually he'd had enough and decided he was quitting wrestling to try football. They did reconcile to the point where Brock entered into negotiations with them about coming back in August of 2005, and Vince gave him a hardball shitty offer.
Brock, with seemingly no other options (this was in the middle of Vince enforcing the no-compete through 2010 that Brock signed prior to his failed NFL stint), verbally agreed, but then on the plane flight home he got to thinking about it and ended up calling and verbally un-agreeing. Ultimately, it went to court and Brock won. Brock, to rub it in Vince's face, started calling the F-5 "The Verdict". Clearly his settlement was even sweeter than anyone imagined if he's entered into negotiations to wrestle for the number-two wrestling promotion in the US. So anyway, as a result of all of this, if anyone even mentions Brock's name in WWE these days Vince immediately either says NO or buries him as a chickenshit.
TNA and Spike produced a Kurt Angle Action Short~! for the Spike website. It was something else. Basically, the story is that Kurt Angle returns to a bar he used to go to in Stamford, CT. Sitting around a table is a guy that I guess is supposed to be Vince McMahon and a bunch of thugs, presumed to be WWE wrestlers. Vince tells them to get rid of Kurt. So they go up to him and Kurt says, Shouldn't you be working on a shitty movie right now? Ah, the ironies of this skit. So the guys attack him and he beats them all up, all the while making proclamations such as, "LESS TALK MORE ACTION!",
Speaking of cost-cutting, Jerry Lynn, who has been there since 2002, Brother Runt (yes, he was still employed), Matt Bentley, and Doug Basham are all history. Damaja has been gone for awhile. I believe he just basically stopped showing up. Bentley has already gone on several tirades about how much the company sucks, how miserable everyone is, etc. He should be on our radio show this week so I'll have more on this in the next issue. I believe Jerry and perhaps Basham asked for their releases. Several others have asked and been denied.
Several wrestlers were also not flown to the tapings this past week. The feeling was, they weren't booked for the show so they didn't need to be there. In other words, they also didn't get paid.
Ron Killings was talked into returning with a raise and the promise of working with Pacman in what would be the highest-profile program of his career.
Dr. Jennie Duval, the state medical examiner in charge of the autopsy of John Kronus, announced Monday that his heart was twice the size of a normal human heart, but also noted that it could have been caused by a number of health complications, including high blood pressure or a genetic problem. There were people immediately jumping on a line from a news article which stated,
"The medical examiner said she has so far not seen any evidence that would lead her to believe that medications or substances like steroids were a factor in his death." Maybe it was a genetic issue. But he was also a pro-wrestler who lived a pro-wrestler lifestyle, was known to take recreational drugs and likely steroids, including large amounts of painkillers prior to his death, and had the same enlarged heart that has killed wrestler after wrestler under the age of 50.
Duval also noted that she'd never seen a heart like this before. If that's the case, how could she have flat-out stated that there was evidence that medications or steroids were a factor in his death? They are now awaiting toxicology results and the like. Stacy Caiazzo, Kronus's ex-wife, said she'd never seen her husband take steroids and would not have tolerated it.
Sad to report the death of Dewey Robertson, AKA the Missing Link, at age 68 after a long battle with cancer. He'd been in really bad shape over the last few weeks and most of his close friends knew it was nearly the end. He actually wrestled for years under his real name, but his real fame came in the 80s when he took on the Link gimmick. Both of his sons wrestled, one of whom, who worked under the name Jumpin Jason Sterling, I worked in probably my third match in about 1998.
Dewey was a long-time steroid and drug user and wrote extensively about it in his autobiography, which came out last year. He had one kidney removed due to cancer in 1993 and blamed that on his drug use (either steroids or marijuana depending upon the day). His co-author, Meredith Renwick, said: "I have to be honest. Dewey was not an easy person to work with. He had very definite ideas about what he wanted in the book, though this would change from week to week. He didn't want me to put his age or any dates that might hint to people how old he really was. (He's 68, but don't tell him I told you.) It was hard to get a straight answer out of him about the simplest things -- it always came out like he was giving a lecture at one of his 12-step meetings.
Anyone who's tried to interview him, or even talk to him, knows what I mean. I had to convince him that he should write about his wrestling career too, that people would want to hear about much more than just his recovery from addictions." She said he went back to his worst addiction, marijuana, while writing the book, and that he had also been hospitalized several times. "His personal life was always in flux. If he wasn't fighting with someone in his immediate family, he was on the outs with his on-and-off girlfriend, and there was always a new 'best friend' who was helping him understand things about himself that would make the book so much better -- and then a month later he wouldn't be speaking to that person anymore.
I knew why. Dewey had a way of using people up. It took a lot of time and energy to be his confidante, and I probably knew that better than anybody," Meredith told SLAM! Wrestling. "There were plenty of times I was ready to quit. He wasn't paying me so I wouldn't owe him anything if the project never got finished, and I got tired of being in the eye of the emotional storm always swirling around Dewey: the bouts of mania followed by depression, the anger and the distrust.
To this day I'm not sure how I hung in there as long as I did. Maybe I just wanted to be able to say I was the one who got the damn book finished after 12 years of him working on it," she said. "Dewey told me many times that the goal of writing his life story kept him going during the darkest years of his life, after his marriage had ended and his physical and mental health began deteriorating from years of excessive drug use. I'm glad I was able to help Dewey achieve that goal and that he's had this past year to live his dream of sharing his life story with the world. In the end, that made it all worthwhile".
It will be weeks before a cause of death for Brian Adams is available, as an autopsy was unable to determine what happened. They're now waiting for toxicology reports to come back.
Injury updates: Mistico is out until September 14th or so with a bum knee; Dr. Wagner Jr. is out until August 24th with a bum rib; Sahori is out until August 26th with a bum ankle; Midget Blue Monkey is out until September 7th with a deviated septum (bummer); referee Rafael Gonzalez is out indefinitely with back problems and osteoporosis, meaning his career may very well be over.
Konnan's anti-rejection medicines have apparently been working well and he may be released from the hospital by the time most of you read this.
Legendary luchador Karloff Lagarde, 79, suffered a stroke on August 10th. He was in bad shape with one side of his body paralyzed, but by press time he was starting to get feeling back, could feed himself, and was improving. He's one of the last surviving megastars of the glory era of the 50s and 60s.
Respect is Earned is out on DVD. It's the full PPV show which we reviewed several weeks back plus Brent Albright vs. Tank Toland, Davey Richards vs. Erick Stevens, Daizee Haze vs. Sara Del Ray, and Generico & Kevin Steen vs. Irish Airborne vs. Pelle Primeau & Mitch Franklin vs. Jimmy Rave & Adam Pearce, which a few people have called the best match on that show.
credit:F4W Newsletter
TNA to two hours in early October is just about a definite at this point according to sources in both TNA and Spike.
Those who have spoken to a number of talents within TNA are reporting that nobody is even complaining that much anymore, they're "over it" and see it much like WCW at the end -- which is quite ironic considering TNA is about to make its latest huge breakthrough by going to two hours.
TNA has had at least one meeting with Brock Lesnar about the possibility of him coming in. Kurt Angle is one of the main conduits, and he must be a hell of a smooth talker because I could never have imagined Brock would go to Japan, have a wrestling match with Kurt, and put him over clean for the IWGP Title had I not seen it with my own eyes. Brock had given the impression that he was finished with wrestling, but the fact that he spoke with Dixie Carter about this suggests he's at least considering it.
It's basically either TNA or MMA, because we're told the chances of him coming back to WWE are miniscule due to very bad blood between himself and Vince McMahon. I can't go into all of the details, but there was a personal situation involved that Vince basically came out on the losing end of (not a fight, though it is rumored there was an incident where Vince challenged him and asked Brock if he thought he could take him; what actually happened nobody knows and probably ever will know because it was a closed-door meeting between the two of them). V
ince holds a grudge, and following this situation Brock ended up doing random pointless jobs on TV, he feuded with Bob Holly, he lost the title, and eventually he'd had enough and decided he was quitting wrestling to try football. They did reconcile to the point where Brock entered into negotiations with them about coming back in August of 2005, and Vince gave him a hardball shitty offer.
Brock, with seemingly no other options (this was in the middle of Vince enforcing the no-compete through 2010 that Brock signed prior to his failed NFL stint), verbally agreed, but then on the plane flight home he got to thinking about it and ended up calling and verbally un-agreeing. Ultimately, it went to court and Brock won. Brock, to rub it in Vince's face, started calling the F-5 "The Verdict". Clearly his settlement was even sweeter than anyone imagined if he's entered into negotiations to wrestle for the number-two wrestling promotion in the US. So anyway, as a result of all of this, if anyone even mentions Brock's name in WWE these days Vince immediately either says NO or buries him as a chickenshit.
TNA and Spike produced a Kurt Angle Action Short~! for the Spike website. It was something else. Basically, the story is that Kurt Angle returns to a bar he used to go to in Stamford, CT. Sitting around a table is a guy that I guess is supposed to be Vince McMahon and a bunch of thugs, presumed to be WWE wrestlers. Vince tells them to get rid of Kurt. So they go up to him and Kurt says, Shouldn't you be working on a shitty movie right now? Ah, the ironies of this skit. So the guys attack him and he beats them all up, all the while making proclamations such as, "LESS TALK MORE ACTION!",
Speaking of cost-cutting, Jerry Lynn, who has been there since 2002, Brother Runt (yes, he was still employed), Matt Bentley, and Doug Basham are all history. Damaja has been gone for awhile. I believe he just basically stopped showing up. Bentley has already gone on several tirades about how much the company sucks, how miserable everyone is, etc. He should be on our radio show this week so I'll have more on this in the next issue. I believe Jerry and perhaps Basham asked for their releases. Several others have asked and been denied.
Several wrestlers were also not flown to the tapings this past week. The feeling was, they weren't booked for the show so they didn't need to be there. In other words, they also didn't get paid.
Ron Killings was talked into returning with a raise and the promise of working with Pacman in what would be the highest-profile program of his career.
Dr. Jennie Duval, the state medical examiner in charge of the autopsy of John Kronus, announced Monday that his heart was twice the size of a normal human heart, but also noted that it could have been caused by a number of health complications, including high blood pressure or a genetic problem. There were people immediately jumping on a line from a news article which stated,
"The medical examiner said she has so far not seen any evidence that would lead her to believe that medications or substances like steroids were a factor in his death." Maybe it was a genetic issue. But he was also a pro-wrestler who lived a pro-wrestler lifestyle, was known to take recreational drugs and likely steroids, including large amounts of painkillers prior to his death, and had the same enlarged heart that has killed wrestler after wrestler under the age of 50.
Duval also noted that she'd never seen a heart like this before. If that's the case, how could she have flat-out stated that there was evidence that medications or steroids were a factor in his death? They are now awaiting toxicology results and the like. Stacy Caiazzo, Kronus's ex-wife, said she'd never seen her husband take steroids and would not have tolerated it.
Sad to report the death of Dewey Robertson, AKA the Missing Link, at age 68 after a long battle with cancer. He'd been in really bad shape over the last few weeks and most of his close friends knew it was nearly the end. He actually wrestled for years under his real name, but his real fame came in the 80s when he took on the Link gimmick. Both of his sons wrestled, one of whom, who worked under the name Jumpin Jason Sterling, I worked in probably my third match in about 1998.
Dewey was a long-time steroid and drug user and wrote extensively about it in his autobiography, which came out last year. He had one kidney removed due to cancer in 1993 and blamed that on his drug use (either steroids or marijuana depending upon the day). His co-author, Meredith Renwick, said: "I have to be honest. Dewey was not an easy person to work with. He had very definite ideas about what he wanted in the book, though this would change from week to week. He didn't want me to put his age or any dates that might hint to people how old he really was. (He's 68, but don't tell him I told you.) It was hard to get a straight answer out of him about the simplest things -- it always came out like he was giving a lecture at one of his 12-step meetings.
Anyone who's tried to interview him, or even talk to him, knows what I mean. I had to convince him that he should write about his wrestling career too, that people would want to hear about much more than just his recovery from addictions." She said he went back to his worst addiction, marijuana, while writing the book, and that he had also been hospitalized several times. "His personal life was always in flux. If he wasn't fighting with someone in his immediate family, he was on the outs with his on-and-off girlfriend, and there was always a new 'best friend' who was helping him understand things about himself that would make the book so much better -- and then a month later he wouldn't be speaking to that person anymore.
I knew why. Dewey had a way of using people up. It took a lot of time and energy to be his confidante, and I probably knew that better than anybody," Meredith told SLAM! Wrestling. "There were plenty of times I was ready to quit. He wasn't paying me so I wouldn't owe him anything if the project never got finished, and I got tired of being in the eye of the emotional storm always swirling around Dewey: the bouts of mania followed by depression, the anger and the distrust.
To this day I'm not sure how I hung in there as long as I did. Maybe I just wanted to be able to say I was the one who got the damn book finished after 12 years of him working on it," she said. "Dewey told me many times that the goal of writing his life story kept him going during the darkest years of his life, after his marriage had ended and his physical and mental health began deteriorating from years of excessive drug use. I'm glad I was able to help Dewey achieve that goal and that he's had this past year to live his dream of sharing his life story with the world. In the end, that made it all worthwhile".
It will be weeks before a cause of death for Brian Adams is available, as an autopsy was unable to determine what happened. They're now waiting for toxicology reports to come back.
Injury updates: Mistico is out until September 14th or so with a bum knee; Dr. Wagner Jr. is out until August 24th with a bum rib; Sahori is out until August 26th with a bum ankle; Midget Blue Monkey is out until September 7th with a deviated septum (bummer); referee Rafael Gonzalez is out indefinitely with back problems and osteoporosis, meaning his career may very well be over.
Konnan's anti-rejection medicines have apparently been working well and he may be released from the hospital by the time most of you read this.
Legendary luchador Karloff Lagarde, 79, suffered a stroke on August 10th. He was in bad shape with one side of his body paralyzed, but by press time he was starting to get feeling back, could feed himself, and was improving. He's one of the last surviving megastars of the glory era of the 50s and 60s.
Respect is Earned is out on DVD. It's the full PPV show which we reviewed several weeks back plus Brent Albright vs. Tank Toland, Davey Richards vs. Erick Stevens, Daizee Haze vs. Sara Del Ray, and Generico & Kevin Steen vs. Irish Airborne vs. Pelle Primeau & Mitch Franklin vs. Jimmy Rave & Adam Pearce, which a few people have called the best match on that show.
credit:F4W Newsletter
