The big story for the last few days is the marriage of Stone Cold Steve Austin and Debra, who were married in Las Vegas this past Wednesday in a small ceremony. Jim Ross and his wife Jan were among the friends and family of the married couple that attended the wedding. A huge congrats goes out to Stone Cold Steve Austin and Debra on their marriage.
In other news, the PPV buyrate for WWF SummerSlam was around 1.4, according to Dave Meltzer, which is, I believe, above average for the WWF. To put it in perspective with other organizations, WCW and ECW PPVs constantly pull around 0.2-0.3 buyrates, so this is definitely saying a lot about the WWF. The 1.4 buyrate translates to about 560,000 total buys.
This past Thursday's WWF Smackdown! scored an above average 4.9 rating off a huge initial 6.6 overnight rating, which put UPN in second place in the network television wars, behind only ABC and NBC.
Val Venis and Trish Stratus will be making guest appearances as presenters at this Thursday's MuchMusic Video Awards. The show, as stated, airs this Thursday, September 21st on MuchMusic. Thanks to James for sending along that information.
The WWF has opened somewhat of an official website for the team of Edge and Christian. The site is titled "The Edge and Christian Show," for whatever reason and contains photos of some of their greatest poses, information on the tag champs, and more. You can check it out HERE.
Several WWF superstars will be making appearances on MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch this Thursday. These superstars, including Mick Foley, Stephanie McMahon, Lita, Kurt Angle, the Dudleys, and the Hardys participated in a shoot for the show this past Tuesday. Mick Foley will act as the host of Celebrity Deathmatch this Thursday night, according to WWF.com, while other WWF superstar vignettes will air during the in-ring action.
This Monday on Nitro, the number one contendor for the WCW title, Sting, will take on either Booker T or Kevin Nash, depending on who leaves Sunday night's PPV, Fall Brawl, as the WCW World Heavyweight Champion. Of course, we will be providing free, live match by match, segment by segment, and interview by interview results of Sunday night's PPV, typed up by yours truly.
Also scheduled for this Monday's Nitro will be the debut of Tank Abbott's new gimmick, "Tank Sinatra." We can only imagine.
Miss Hancock was reportedly recently contacted by Penthouse magazing about a possible photo shoot, but stated recently on "WCW Live" that she has turned the offer down "for now."
WCW Nitro Girl Spice has recently announced on her website, melissabellin.com, that she is no longer with WCW, according to 1wrestling. Spice has recently made appearances on WCW.com online programs and was also reportedly scheduled to co-host WCW's Saturday Morning show before it was cancelled.
WCW's programming status in the United Kingdom may be improved by the end of this month, as Bravo, seemingly the savior to wrestling programs in the UK, will pick up WCW Nitro starting late September. Whole F'**in" Show sent along this report: "From September 28th, WCW programming will be broadcast on Bravo. Definitely good news for WCW fans, as TNT (the channel WCW is currently on) is not available as part of a package for digital viewers, so expect UK ratings to pick up a little. Nitro will be shown on Thursday's at 10:00pm. I've heard no word on Thunder, but I'll keep you posted as information becomes available. Bravo also shows ECW Hardcore TV on Saturday and Sunday nights at 11:00pm."
Three big matches have been officially announced for ECW's upcoming October 1 PPV, Anarchy Rulz. The three matches are as follows... One of them particularly sounds pretttty interesting to me.
- Justin Credible vs. Jerry Lynn - ECW World Title
- Rhino vs. Rob Van Dam - ECW Television Title
- Joel Gertner vs. Cyrus (yup)
ECW may add some sort of stipulation to the Credible vs. Lynn match, according to Dave Meltzer, where the match becomes a "do or die" situation for Jerry Lynn. For example, a stipulation may be added where if Lynn loses, it'll be his last title shot ever in ECW, or even more interesting, if Lynn loses, he'd have to cut his hair.
ECW injury update: Francine suffered a cracked rib at one of this past weekend's ECW shows. However, she shouldn't miss any action. Tony Mamaluke is also suffering from sore ribs after this past weekend's shows. Tommy Dreamer is also still suffering from a dislocated shoulder, but it has not yet been determined how much action he will miss.
The WWF and ECW television situations are certainly beginning to heat up, with this Monday being WWF's final episode of Raw is War on the USA Network and this coming Friday being the final ECW on TNN. USA's court appeal is still pending and should hopefully finally be resolved in the next few days, for everyone's sake. Paul Heyman is currently in Los Angeles working on another television deal for ECW. A deal is reportedly very close to being signed with the USA network, but nothing has been inked yet, since USA's appeal still has not been answered. As soon as more information is available on these very important stories, we'll have them here.
That just about wraps it up for today's report. Please join us tomorrow night (or tonight, depending on when you're reading this) at 8:00 PM EST, 1:00 AM UK time for complete LIVE results of WCW Fall Brawl. We'll have the complete card available shortly at our WCW PPV page. Look for the link shortly on our main page. Be sure to stop by tomorrow for another great round of news and rumors by Corey Silvia, who definitely impressed with his first two reports earlier this week. With that said, until next time... later.
Triple A
TripleA99@aol.com