Welcome to today's news and rumors here at The People's Wrestling Website, TPWW for short. As usual, there are a few interesting stories to touch base upon today, including an "altercation" with the Rock and governor Jesse Ventura, more on Vince Russo, a few site related notes, and more. With that said and done, here are today's news and rumors.
The Rock will once again host MTV's Total Request Live, known to most as TRL on Wednesday, June 28. I'll definitely be checking that one out. Thanks to Jerry Altemus for passing along that bit of info.
Jesse Ventura somewhat "turned heel" at last night's WWF House Show in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the state that Ventura obviously governs. The main event at the show was the Rock and the Dudleys taking on Triple H, Road Dogg, and X-Pac. The Rock's team picked up the win after he nailed the People's Elbow. However, both during and after the match, The Rock and Jesse Ventura, who had been sitting ringside, began to exchange words, leading Ventura to receive several boos from the Minnesota crowd. Very interesting, although it was most likely just part of the show.
In an interesting note that I saw on this morning's WWF Superstars broadcast, Mick Foley has completely shaved his head to less than a crew cut. I thought it was pretty fun to see Mick without his infamous long hair that he once used to pull out. To give somewhat of a visual, I thought he greatly resembled Tank Abbott without his hair.
It is rumored that the eighth and final team that was not originally announced will be Birmingham, Alabama, according to Dave Meltzer. In actuality, there has been no official announcement regarding the eight teams, aside from Chicago, which was announced this past week, but an announcement regarding the teams, cities, logos, colors, etc, should be made soon.
Steven Regal is expected to appear at the WWF's TV Tapings on both Monday and Tuesday, but as of now, is only expected to work dark matches.
Here is what you can expect for Monday's WCW Nitro:
- Kevin Nash will confront Goldberg
- Buff & Kronic vs. The Franchise, Bam Bam, & Candido
- Big Vito vs. Johnny the Bull - Hardcore Title
- PerfecShawn & Chuck Palumbo vs. Tank Abbott & Rick Steiner - Tag Titles
- Lt. Loco vs. Juventud Guerrera vs. The Artist - Cruiserweight Title
This week's WCW Nitro and WCW Thunder taping were apparently booked mainly by Terry Taylor, Ed Ferrara, and Bill Banks, along with a few others. As of now, the feeling is that Vince Russo will in fact decide to return, so for that reason, no abrupt or major changes are expected to take place on this week's WCW shows.
On the subject of Vince Russo, he also recently suffered a mild concussion during one of his matches with Ric Flair. That may also have added to his frustration and led him to decide to take some time off. However, as aforementioned, Vince Russo is expected to make his return after sitting at home for a few days to "recharge." Hopefully the time off is for the better. Vince Russo definitely has some excellent booking ideas, but the way they come off on television just does not seem good at all.
In case you missed this past Friday's ECW on TNN, TNN did something that greatly angered me and I'm sure many other ECW fans. During the end of the main event between Justin Credible and Jerry Lynn, TNN decided to shrink the ECW broadcast into a VERY SMALL box into the upper right hand corner, so that you could barely even see what was happening. They then aired a huge promo for Arena Football, completely ruining the end of the ECW main event. That is just damn outrageous to me.
ECW held another TV Taping last night in Danbury, CT. The main event featured Rob Van Dam taking on Rhino for the ECW Television Title. You can check out the complete results HERE.
Justin Credible unfortunately could not make it to last night's taping due to a death in the family. Our heart felt condolences go out to Justin Credible and we wish him the best.
Beyond the Mat will be released in the United Kingdom on June 30, according to a report in Empire Movie Magazine. Big thanks to Kerry Wilkinson for passing that along.
In a site related note, I have to give props to "The CR" Mike Christopher on his TPWW news and rumors debut in yesterday's report. Judging from some of the feedback he received, the feeling was generally greatly positive. You can check out his report HERE.
Stay "tuned" for three great new columnists that should be making their TPWW debuts very soon. I know I've been saying this for a VERY long while, but everything has now been worked out and TPWW will finally get back to its regular column rotation with a few great new faces added to the team. I'm pretty excited about this, so please stay on the lookout here at TPWW.net.
In case you missed it on the main page, Mike Awesome's and Miss Hancock's WCW entrance themes have been added to our Entrance Themes section. And in yet another site related note, stay on the lookout for several updates to our King of the Ring Fantasy Tournament, where you vote on the winners of this year's King of the Ring, based on the actual brackets. We plan on getting this one done before next Sunday's PPV, so stay on the lookout for more than a couple of updates this week. And on the subject of King of the Ring, as always, we will have free, live coverage of the PPV, done by myself, as has been rather constant with WWF PPVs over the last few months. I'll be here on Sunday night, June 25 at 8:00 PM EST with the move by move results.
And with that, I'm going to wrap today's report up. Thanks, as always, for reading and until next time, later.
Triple A
TripleA99@aol.com