Post by Chris Decker-The Wild Rover on Jan 31, 2007 12:55:19 GMT -5
The Rumble was said to be even better live than it was watching on PPV. WWE was very happy with the show.
It was Kevin Dunn’s call to pull JR from the announcing duties at the Rumble. He sees Michael Cole as the heir apparent and wanted everyone to know.
Regarding ECW, one source blamed the quality of the show on David Lagana, the new head writer who replaced Paul Heyman. Well, the head writer would deserve some blame. They noted that his week-to-week booking paralleled the worst periods in Smackdown history when he was also the head writer of that show.
It’s not a guarantee RVD is leaving. He’s been behaving lately like he doesn’t give a shit and has made up his mind to leave when his deal comes up this spring, but others who have spoken to him are under the impression that if WWE gives him a good money offer he’ll take it. He has told some people that he wants to go to TNA and work indies, but you have to consider that this could be a bargaining tactic. Basically, the more he plays that he’s desperate to leave, the more WWE is going to offer him to stay, because I can assure you they do NOT want him going to TNA. The key to Vince McMahon is that he must feel that he has won some sort of battle over you. He’s always gone harder after folks who have walked out or threatened to walk out on him than guys who answer the phone on the first ring immediately sign (Matt Hardy). Basically, Vince wants what he can’t have, so the game is to make it seem like he can’t have you, and if you have any sort of value whatsoever (or even if you have no value in WWE but the feeling is that you would be valuable elsewhere), he’ll do whatever he can to get you. Rob is scheduled to start renegotiation talks very soon, so it should be an interesting next few months.
We’re told that as of press time (January 30th), there were no plans to have Vince and Trump do anything with Shawn Michaels or Booker T at WrestleMania. That may have been a tentative plan at one point (seriously, don’t ask me why), but plans changed in a major way over the weekend.
WWE has switched promoters in Mexico from the small Showtime Mexico group to the much larger OCESA group, which ahs been trying to get into promoting pro-wrestling for the past 20 years and has failed every time. They’re listing Batista, Booker, Benoit, Chavo, Matt Hardy, Kane, Kennedy, MVP, Boogeyman, Teddy Long, Ashley, Krystal, Lashley, RVD, Sabu, Marquis Von Cor, Matt Striker, CM Punk, Dreamer, the Vampire, Kelly Kelly and Rebecca as appearing on the upcoming tour.
A couple of PPV changes. Great American Bash is moving from Washington, DC to San Jose, CA on July 22nd, and Cyber Sunday is being move from San Jose to Washington DC on October 28th. Dave Meltzer sure lucked out.
See No Evil was up to $16.49 million in rental gross this week.
WWE will announce their year-end earnings report on Tuesday, February 13th. Linda has her wacky conference call at 11:00 AM that day. That’s also the day we go to press, and given it’s also a two-PPV weekend, we’ll be waiting a week to run down the results. I can tell you in advance that they’ll probably have grossed around $380 million and the report will reveal that they’re doing just fine.
Raw did a 4.1 last Monday off hours of 4.0 and 4.1. Very good numbers lately, corresponding with some pretty damn good shows (particularly last week). They need to give HBK the match with Cena for the title at WrestleMania, he certainly deserves it for carrying the ball after Hunter went down.
Booker T on the goals for his Pro Wrestling Alliance indy group, which runs in Texas in association with his wrestling school. “This will be the second of eight shows we have scheduled at the Convention Center; we’re trying to get on local television and bring wrestling back to Houston like it was when Paul Boesch was the promoter when I was a kid.” I would not be surprised for him to get some sort of developmental territory deal if he ever actually retires from WWE (he always claimed he was done at 40, then he turned 40 and that was out the window), because WWE has been giving the school and shows a lot of press on WWE.com. Their Christmas show drew 1,200, which is a hell of a turnout for an indy show. Of course, they used a bunch of WWE names including Boogeyman, World’s Greatest Team, Sylvan and Booker himself. He has around 30 students. “It’s great for these guys to be a part of; the Convention Center holds 2800 people, so it’s a huge opportunity to be totally critiqued in every way,” Booker said. “If they’re good, they’ll connect and the fans will let them know; of course, if what they’re doing is crap, the fans will let them know about it as well. Either way, they’ll get an idea of what they need to work on to achieve the goal of becoming a WWE Superstar. All I can do is train them, give them the knowledge and half a chance to make it.” Regarding his promoting style: “I’m like Vince McMahon when he first took over WWE; I promote the shows, I emcee and host the shows, and if I have to go out there and beat someone up, I do that too. I wear many hats, and I feel that in order to make this work I have to be totally involved”.
HHH did an interview on WWE.com saying his recovery was going well and he was a month ahead of schedule. The update was accompanied by a giant smiling picture of the Game, and all that was missing was a thumbs up. He noted that he hadn’t missed a WrestleMania since 1996 and was sad to be missing this one, but hoped to be able to return in time for SummerSlam. “The difference between then and now is that in 2001, I tore tendon from tendon and my quad tendon basically exploded; this time, I just tore the tendon off the bone,” he said. “This was a much easier repair, so I had much less trauma to my knee joint and quad itself, which is a little quicker healing process. When it happened, I was thinking ‘okay, same as last time’ in my head; but at this point last time, I wasn’t even out of a wheelchair yet. Hopefully, things will heal quicker and my progress will be faster.” He’s on two crutches now and hopes to be down to one crutch within three weeks. He’s been told NOT to rush this, because even if he feels he can walk on his own fine, he can be doing damage and not know it. Hunter said if he delivered mail he might be good to go in four months, but as a wrestler he wasn’t taking the chance of tearing it again by trying to come back too early. He said he had no plans to retire. “You certainly don’t want this to happen at any point in your career. Vince McMahon came back from tearing both of his quads, and I’m a young man compared to him. I’m realistic with my career; I’m 37, but I don’t feel like my body is in a state where I should start to think this is it. It’s another injury, I’ll overcome it.” His comments about Shawn were scarily close to what I wrote in the newsletter last week. He said Shawn had been “more emotional and energetic” since he went down, and “he’s been unbelievable; he’s on fire, and to me he’s the best in the business right now”.
Smackdown did a 2.5 this week. ECW did a 1.5 Tuesday night. That may be the bottoming-out.
There were a lot of $1 bills falling from the sky Monday night, but also a lot of legit $5s, $10s, $20s, $50s and $100s. Some of it was falling before the show and it continued to fall after the segment ended.
Read an article about Linda McMahon, 58, in the AP. The one thing about Linda is aside from accusations of her being boring, you almost never hear anyone say anything bad about her. “Vince and I have always been a team we were really growing the business together, but he’s clearly the entrepreneur and he’s really the guy with the vision,” she said. “My job was to execute that vision, and to cross the t’s and dot the i’s. And I think we made a great team in doing that.” She met Vince at church when they were both teens, they got married in 1966, and she went to college at East Carolina University. For awhile she worked as a paralegal and it helped her understand intellectual property rights. When Vince bought the company from his father she set up the first licensing deal with LJN to create action figures. She also set up the magazine and wrote many of the articles early on. She was the person behind the first USA Network deal. “I was the legal liaison and became very involved in negotiating the television contracts for the company as we not only expanded syndication but then looked more into the world of cable. I’m not sure I had the vision at the time to understand how big it was going to be, but at the time cable was clearly gaining ground.” She said she still lifted weights and did aerobics three to four days per week and had no delusions of giving up her day job to return to WWE TV as a performer.
TJ Wilson and Nattie Neidhart worked their final Stampede show this week, and both will be moving to Atlanta in February to start work for Deep South Wrestling.
Main event of the ECW TV show the night we went to press was Bobby Lashley vs. Test. God, I hate this show. It’s bad enough to see TNA screw up Joe vs. Angle by having them work three straight months, it’s even worse to have to watch Lashley and Test headline three straight shows with no end in sight.
JR’s Barbecue Family Restaurant will likely be opening in April on I-35 and Main Street in Norman, OK.
Cassidy Riley will be heading to OVW. No word on what the plans are for Ace Steel.
The third girl in the Extreme Expose deal with Kelly Kelly and Layla is Brooke Adams, who was actually one of the girls that lost the 2006 Diva Search but was then immediately hired and sent to Deep South Wrestling.
It was Kevin Dunn’s call to pull JR from the announcing duties at the Rumble. He sees Michael Cole as the heir apparent and wanted everyone to know.
Regarding ECW, one source blamed the quality of the show on David Lagana, the new head writer who replaced Paul Heyman. Well, the head writer would deserve some blame. They noted that his week-to-week booking paralleled the worst periods in Smackdown history when he was also the head writer of that show.
It’s not a guarantee RVD is leaving. He’s been behaving lately like he doesn’t give a shit and has made up his mind to leave when his deal comes up this spring, but others who have spoken to him are under the impression that if WWE gives him a good money offer he’ll take it. He has told some people that he wants to go to TNA and work indies, but you have to consider that this could be a bargaining tactic. Basically, the more he plays that he’s desperate to leave, the more WWE is going to offer him to stay, because I can assure you they do NOT want him going to TNA. The key to Vince McMahon is that he must feel that he has won some sort of battle over you. He’s always gone harder after folks who have walked out or threatened to walk out on him than guys who answer the phone on the first ring immediately sign (Matt Hardy). Basically, Vince wants what he can’t have, so the game is to make it seem like he can’t have you, and if you have any sort of value whatsoever (or even if you have no value in WWE but the feeling is that you would be valuable elsewhere), he’ll do whatever he can to get you. Rob is scheduled to start renegotiation talks very soon, so it should be an interesting next few months.
We’re told that as of press time (January 30th), there were no plans to have Vince and Trump do anything with Shawn Michaels or Booker T at WrestleMania. That may have been a tentative plan at one point (seriously, don’t ask me why), but plans changed in a major way over the weekend.
WWE has switched promoters in Mexico from the small Showtime Mexico group to the much larger OCESA group, which ahs been trying to get into promoting pro-wrestling for the past 20 years and has failed every time. They’re listing Batista, Booker, Benoit, Chavo, Matt Hardy, Kane, Kennedy, MVP, Boogeyman, Teddy Long, Ashley, Krystal, Lashley, RVD, Sabu, Marquis Von Cor, Matt Striker, CM Punk, Dreamer, the Vampire, Kelly Kelly and Rebecca as appearing on the upcoming tour.
A couple of PPV changes. Great American Bash is moving from Washington, DC to San Jose, CA on July 22nd, and Cyber Sunday is being move from San Jose to Washington DC on October 28th. Dave Meltzer sure lucked out.
See No Evil was up to $16.49 million in rental gross this week.
WWE will announce their year-end earnings report on Tuesday, February 13th. Linda has her wacky conference call at 11:00 AM that day. That’s also the day we go to press, and given it’s also a two-PPV weekend, we’ll be waiting a week to run down the results. I can tell you in advance that they’ll probably have grossed around $380 million and the report will reveal that they’re doing just fine.
Raw did a 4.1 last Monday off hours of 4.0 and 4.1. Very good numbers lately, corresponding with some pretty damn good shows (particularly last week). They need to give HBK the match with Cena for the title at WrestleMania, he certainly deserves it for carrying the ball after Hunter went down.
Booker T on the goals for his Pro Wrestling Alliance indy group, which runs in Texas in association with his wrestling school. “This will be the second of eight shows we have scheduled at the Convention Center; we’re trying to get on local television and bring wrestling back to Houston like it was when Paul Boesch was the promoter when I was a kid.” I would not be surprised for him to get some sort of developmental territory deal if he ever actually retires from WWE (he always claimed he was done at 40, then he turned 40 and that was out the window), because WWE has been giving the school and shows a lot of press on WWE.com. Their Christmas show drew 1,200, which is a hell of a turnout for an indy show. Of course, they used a bunch of WWE names including Boogeyman, World’s Greatest Team, Sylvan and Booker himself. He has around 30 students. “It’s great for these guys to be a part of; the Convention Center holds 2800 people, so it’s a huge opportunity to be totally critiqued in every way,” Booker said. “If they’re good, they’ll connect and the fans will let them know; of course, if what they’re doing is crap, the fans will let them know about it as well. Either way, they’ll get an idea of what they need to work on to achieve the goal of becoming a WWE Superstar. All I can do is train them, give them the knowledge and half a chance to make it.” Regarding his promoting style: “I’m like Vince McMahon when he first took over WWE; I promote the shows, I emcee and host the shows, and if I have to go out there and beat someone up, I do that too. I wear many hats, and I feel that in order to make this work I have to be totally involved”.
HHH did an interview on WWE.com saying his recovery was going well and he was a month ahead of schedule. The update was accompanied by a giant smiling picture of the Game, and all that was missing was a thumbs up. He noted that he hadn’t missed a WrestleMania since 1996 and was sad to be missing this one, but hoped to be able to return in time for SummerSlam. “The difference between then and now is that in 2001, I tore tendon from tendon and my quad tendon basically exploded; this time, I just tore the tendon off the bone,” he said. “This was a much easier repair, so I had much less trauma to my knee joint and quad itself, which is a little quicker healing process. When it happened, I was thinking ‘okay, same as last time’ in my head; but at this point last time, I wasn’t even out of a wheelchair yet. Hopefully, things will heal quicker and my progress will be faster.” He’s on two crutches now and hopes to be down to one crutch within three weeks. He’s been told NOT to rush this, because even if he feels he can walk on his own fine, he can be doing damage and not know it. Hunter said if he delivered mail he might be good to go in four months, but as a wrestler he wasn’t taking the chance of tearing it again by trying to come back too early. He said he had no plans to retire. “You certainly don’t want this to happen at any point in your career. Vince McMahon came back from tearing both of his quads, and I’m a young man compared to him. I’m realistic with my career; I’m 37, but I don’t feel like my body is in a state where I should start to think this is it. It’s another injury, I’ll overcome it.” His comments about Shawn were scarily close to what I wrote in the newsletter last week. He said Shawn had been “more emotional and energetic” since he went down, and “he’s been unbelievable; he’s on fire, and to me he’s the best in the business right now”.
Smackdown did a 2.5 this week. ECW did a 1.5 Tuesday night. That may be the bottoming-out.
There were a lot of $1 bills falling from the sky Monday night, but also a lot of legit $5s, $10s, $20s, $50s and $100s. Some of it was falling before the show and it continued to fall after the segment ended.
Read an article about Linda McMahon, 58, in the AP. The one thing about Linda is aside from accusations of her being boring, you almost never hear anyone say anything bad about her. “Vince and I have always been a team we were really growing the business together, but he’s clearly the entrepreneur and he’s really the guy with the vision,” she said. “My job was to execute that vision, and to cross the t’s and dot the i’s. And I think we made a great team in doing that.” She met Vince at church when they were both teens, they got married in 1966, and she went to college at East Carolina University. For awhile she worked as a paralegal and it helped her understand intellectual property rights. When Vince bought the company from his father she set up the first licensing deal with LJN to create action figures. She also set up the magazine and wrote many of the articles early on. She was the person behind the first USA Network deal. “I was the legal liaison and became very involved in negotiating the television contracts for the company as we not only expanded syndication but then looked more into the world of cable. I’m not sure I had the vision at the time to understand how big it was going to be, but at the time cable was clearly gaining ground.” She said she still lifted weights and did aerobics three to four days per week and had no delusions of giving up her day job to return to WWE TV as a performer.
TJ Wilson and Nattie Neidhart worked their final Stampede show this week, and both will be moving to Atlanta in February to start work for Deep South Wrestling.
Main event of the ECW TV show the night we went to press was Bobby Lashley vs. Test. God, I hate this show. It’s bad enough to see TNA screw up Joe vs. Angle by having them work three straight months, it’s even worse to have to watch Lashley and Test headline three straight shows with no end in sight.
JR’s Barbecue Family Restaurant will likely be opening in April on I-35 and Main Street in Norman, OK.
Cassidy Riley will be heading to OVW. No word on what the plans are for Ace Steel.
The third girl in the Extreme Expose deal with Kelly Kelly and Layla is Brooke Adams, who was actually one of the girls that lost the 2006 Diva Search but was then immediately hired and sent to Deep South Wrestling.
. So it fits the theme.
