Welcome to the Saturday edition of the news and rumors here at TPWW. Before I continue, yes, I am aware that there was once AGAIN no updated report yesterday. The only logical explanation I can give is that there was a bit of miscommunication between everyone here as to who would be doing yesterday's report. As regular readers may know, Friday reports are normally updated by Tim Brechlin, but Tim is out of action for the time being due to personal reasons. Anyway, today is surprisingly one of the biggest news days in recent memory, with SEVERAL big news stories breaking. So without further ado, here are today's news and rumors.
In a big but not surprising story, WWF.com announced yesterday that The Rock has just signed a new five year contract with the World Wrestling Federation. Who can blame him? And so much for the "If The Rock jumped to WCW, it would be an instant ratings turnaround" poll.
The Big Show underwent surgery on his injured knee on Friday morning. According to WWF.com, the surgery went smoothly and as planned, and the Big Show is hopeful to be back in action in about six weeks or so.
In his recent Ross Report, Jim Ross hinted that when Kane returns from his injured hand, rumors are that he may have something to do with his "brother," the Undertaker. JR's exact words: "Kane's hand is healing well. I know fans are anxious to see the Big Red Machine team with the Undertaker, as well. The hand and the team will be together soon or at least that's what I'm thinking." Interesting.
On the subject of the Undertaker, WWF.com has opened up a mini-site for the Phenom, which you can check out HERE.
Tazz's rehab from his injured bicep is going very well, according to Jim Ross. The WWF hopes to have him back by the King of the Ring at latest. Definitely good to hear, as many of you know, he is one of my favorites.
WWF Smackdown! scored a decent 4.5 rating on Thursday, down from recent weeks. Smackdown has been averaging around 5.0 for the last few weeks.
I received SEVERAL e-mails today from United Kingdom readers about the tickets that went on sale this morning for the next UK WWF PPV, which will take place in Sheffield, England. The event sold out about 12,000 tickets in under an hour, according to the e-mails I received. WWFMaster sent along his personal encounter with this situation: "After ringing Sheffield Arena all morning to get tickets only to be greeted by a BT Announcement saying that the line is busy, I decided to go down to the Sheffield Arena to get tickets for their upcoming WWF Event on December 2nd. When I got there at 11:45 there were a few people waiting and the security man told me that all WWF Wrestling tickets had Sold Out. The small queue, which was at the Arena when I got there, wanted Steps Tickets. I decided to go round the front entrance to see what was going on. Someone who works there greeted me and they said that ever since the event was mentioned on WWF Insurrextion, Sheffield Arena has had lots of phone calls every day since. He also said that people have been queuing up out side the arena all week, even though tickets weren't on sale until this morning [Saturday] at 9:00am, and he said that Sheffield Arena had 25 phone lines in their ticket box office. So, out of thousands and thousands ringing in you didn't have much chance of getting through with 25 phone lines did you? Also, people were ringing since 6:00am this morning. In my opinion there should be a better system to get tickets, a fairer way e.g. all tickets by post."
Thanks to Jack Parkinson for sending this in: "On Friday, I heard on the radio here in UK (BBC Radio 1) that the most visited website in the United Kingdom was WWF.com."
Stanley Morris sent along the following: "Todd Pettingill recently stated on his radio show that he is coming back to the WWF after they negotiated a contract." I, myself, have heard these rumors as well. For those who are unfamiliar with Todd Pettingill, let's just say that he has been compared to Michael Cole a lot.
Another huge story that has just recently broken is the news that Ted Turner is furious over the recent merger with AOL and Time Warner. Turner's power has greatly diminished with the recent deal, and he no longer has much say in the goings on of his company. Turner apparently wants to keep WCW, but as was mentioned recently, there are currently many rumors of WCW being sold off to SFX, a company which currently owns Pace Motorsports. Meetings have been taking place with WCW and SFX in Los Angeles as of late to discuss the possibilities.
Adding feul to the fire with this situation, Paul Heyman has missed the last three ECW Television tapings, most recently last night's taping in Toledo, Ohio, to meet with his legal team in Los Angeles. No exact details have been released as to what the meeting was about. Tommy Dreamer was sent the format of last night's tapings, and basically ran the show. Rumors are that ECW also met with SFX last week. Let's see, meetings taking place in Los Angeles for WCW, Paul Heyman in Los Angeles, both companies negotiating with SFX. Does anyone else see some sort of link here? This whole situation is unbelievably interesting to me, and we'll be sure to cover this one each day as it develops.
And in another possibly related story, remember that "big surprise" everyone was buzzing about recently? The one that would be "bigger than Russo and Bischoff coming back to WCW?" According to Dave Scherer, if the surprise DOES in fact take place, RUMORS are that it will happen at the Great American Bash PPV on Sunday, June 11. I honestly don't think anyone knows what this surprise will be, but whatever it is, WCW is doing a tremendous job not letting it leak through. Several rumors and speculation has been thrown around, ranging from the Ultimate Warrior returning to WCW, to a possible WCW-ECW team up. Both seem very far-fetched to me, especially the WCW-ECW situation, but as the New York Lottery's slogan says, hey, you never know.
In another huge breaking story, it has been confirmed by several reports that Bill Goldberg will be BACK with WCW on this Monday's Memorial Day Nitro. Goldberg is not expected to wrestle, but will make an appearance on the show, and is also scheduled for WCW Thunder and most likely is back full time with WCW now. Rumors are that he is expected to return to the ring at June 11th's Great American Bash pay per view. Goldberg met with WCW executive Brad Siegel today and both sides agreed that Monday is the right time for Goldberg to make his return. Are things getting interesting or what?
WCW Nitro's ratings were actually far higher than what was listed. As mentioned before, Nitro was aired late in the west coast due to the Lakers-Blazers game, and when the ratings were released, the west coast numbers were not included. Bob Ryder reports that once the ratings were completely released, Nitro's rating shot up to a decent 3.0 rating.
ECW aired its weekly TNN show last night, and as promised, the show was impressive. It was definitely a solid show, and I loved the Tanaka vs. Balls Mahoney match. That's what ECW is all about. If you missed last night's show, you can check out my full report HERE. You can also check out Jordan Redmond's ECW Report Card HERE.
The third annual Brian Pillman Memorial Show took place this Thursday to help raise money for the late Brian Pillman's family. Several WWF, WCW, and ECW wrestlers set their differences aside for a good cause and wrestled each other at Thursday's show, which raised about $37,000, as well as a $35,000 donation from Kevin Nash and David Arquette, according to Dave Meltzer. 2,500 paid fans were in attendance at the show. You can check out the full results HERE.
With that, I'm going to wrap up today's report. I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed typing it up. Lots of big news going around helps a lot. Stop by tomorrow for another update, and check our main page for the latest site related updates. Until next time, later.
Triple A
TripleA99@aol.com