Welcome to the Saturday weekend edition of the news and rumors here at TPWW. Not much to say in this here intro, so without further ado, here are today's news and rumors.
Over the next few weeks, the WWF will begin paying more attention to the WCW product and getting it set up for its tentative June 9th launch date. As of now, as has been widely documented, WCW has signed 24 WCW wrestlers to contracts, most of which are young, mid card WCW talent. It has been stated that the WWF would like to sign a few more wrestlers soon, possibly even some of WCW's big names, but as of now, that depends on a variety of situations. Again, those wrestlers are under contract with Time Warner for now and for them to be able to sign with the WWF, either the WWF or Time Warner would have to buy out their current contracts. And of course, that isn't such a small task, considering how high paying some of WCW's main event talent's contracts are. However, it has been stated that the WWF is happy with the roster they've put together, and they have a few other developmental talents from Ohio Valley Wrestling and Memphis Championship Wrestling that they can use in WCW. Or they may even bring a few current lower card WWF talents over to WCW. Again, the WWF will be working on setting everything up in the next few weeks, including office personnel, an announce team (haven't heard too much about that), and more wrestlers. We'll try to get any updates on the situation as they happen.
As of now, it appears that WCW's Saturday night show will most likely be named something to the effect of "WCW Saturday Night Nitro." WWF.com has put up a poll asking its fans what they'd like to have the show called. The choices are WCW Saturday Night Nitro, WCW Hot Box, WCW Uprising, WCW Late Night Appetite, WCW Hard-On Saturday Night, WCW Primal Urge. Honestly, every other name sounds really, really ridiculous. "WCW Hard-On Saturday Night?" WTF? Jim Ross himself has stated that he's gunning for the Saturday Nitro name, calling the decision a "no-brainer." Obviously, it is.
A few WWF injury updates, courtesy of Jim Ross's Ross Report: Taka Michinoku has a partial tear in his rotator cuff, but will continue to work, albeit under limited action... Rikishi is still suffering from an eardrum injury, which he had surgery on several weeks ago, forcing him to miss WrestleMania. Rikishi has another appointment with doctors this Tuesday and will know then when he'll be able to return... K-Kwik is still having problems with an injured shoulder and may need surgery sometime down the road... Buh Buh Ray Dudley is having some knee problems, but is working through it for now... Scotty Too Hotty is suffering from an injured neck, which is why the Kurt Angle ankle lock angle was used for an excuse to put him out of action. Scotty is still reportedly several weeks from returning.
The Rock will once again be on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno on Tuesday, May 1 to discuss his upcoming movies, "The Mummy Returns" and "The Scorpion King."
Chyna will be on ABC's "The View" on Wednesday, May 9 to discuss the WWF, her book, her fitness video, and more.
The WWF's UK-only PPV, Insurrextion, which takes place on May 5 from Earls Court in London, England, is shaping up as follows, according to Jim Ross:
- Steve Austin vs. The Undertaker
- Triple H vs. Kane
- Chris Benoit vs. William Regal
- Chris Jericho vs. Kurt Angle
- Of course, there will be more matches added to the card when it's all said and done.
Crowbar wrestled a dark match at this past Tuesday's Smackdown tapings, taking the loss to UPW's Prototype. Crowbar went by his real name, Devon Storm. From what I heard, some of the crowd seemed to recognize Crowbar and gave him a decent pop.
Albert will be the guest host this Sunday night for WWF Heat in WWF New York.
Some ratings news... Thursday's Smackdown scored a 3.7 rating, which is their lowest rating in recent memory. I'm not sure what the explanation is for the low rating, since competition on other networks was the same as it has been over the past few weeks. Survivor on CBS scored a 16.3 overnight rating, CSI did a 14.8, Millionaire on ABC did an 11.0, and a re-run of Friends did an 8.7. Also, WWF Raw on Monday night did a 5.4 rating without any competition from WCW Nitro, of course.
XPW owner Rob Black, who has been campaigning to be mayor of Los Angeles, fell short of his goal this past week, getting only about 700 votes and thus not qualifying him for the run-off, according to Dave Meltzer.
Former multi-time WWF tag team champion, the Road Dogg is back in the news, putting up a personal appearance by himself for bidding at eBay. As of now, the top bid is $5,100. To check it out, click HERE.
That just about wraps things up for today's report. In case you missed it on the main page, we're bringing the Q&A; back at TPWW. Colin Rogers should be back soon, but for the next couple of weeks or so, I'll be taking over Q&A; duty myself. If you'd like to send along a question, please click HERE for more info. Until next time...
Triple A
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