Hey hey. Once again "News and Rumours" spelt with a 'u'. We are just a couple of days away from Stephaniemania; sorry Wrestlemania although the way that the show has been booked and presented one has to wonder.
Smackdown contained nothing of any real importance other than Maven beating Al Snow for the hardcore title. Something that of course has nothing to do with Tough Enough 2 being on. Smackdown overnight ratings were down to 5.5 from 5.6 last week.
The WWF Divas special aimed at hormonal teenagers who enjoy perving at surgically enhanced Barbie dolls scored a miserable 1.6 rating. This is in comparison to Celebrity Boxing which drew 9.1. Linda McMahon hilariously claimed that the Divas are a positive example to young women. Positive I guess if you want to convince women that the only way to get a head in life is to have huge breasts and to be subservient to men. But then this is the company that gave us Trish Stratus barking like a dog and Billy and Chuck as every gay stereotype imaginable. But of course their heels so it's ok to boo people for doing the same sort of things that get people beaten up and killed. Like George Orwell said 'nothing short of dynamite will convince some people what century they are living in'.
Vince McMahon appeared on Byte This last week and whether he was in character or not is hard to tell but Kevin Kelly whether in character or not managed to prove himself to be the biggest fuckmonkey on the planet after be asked why the WWF had failed to book the undercard properly claimed that people only buy events like Wrestlemania for the main events in this case Hogan vs. Rock. McMahon on the other hand took the opportunity to blame the Internet for the fact that the N.W.O has failed to spike ratings. Vince don't like to break this to you (not that you care of course) but the reason why ratings haven't gone up are the following reasons: I) Shitty booking ii) the fact that no one cares about the N.W.O iii) the fact that you insist upon allowing your daughter to hog the limelight and make the Undisputed Champion Chris Jericho nothing more than her personal bitch.
It is rumoured that Shawn Michaels will not be involved in Wrestlemania, he is apparently still upset because he feels that HHH bitched behind his back to Vince McMahon which resulted in him being sent home from the Smackdown tapings last April and there is still tension between them.
WWF management is telling wrestlers that the much-delayed split will occur after Wrestlemania. Vince McMahon having killed off WCW doesn't like the term 'split' preferring instead the term 'product extension'. Mind you he doesn't like wrestling either it seems. Of course the split has been put off more times than people care to remember, so that date may yet move back again.
Raven and Hugh Morrus (remember them?) won the HWA tag team titles last night, they along with Steven Richards are currently down at HWA and apparently wrestling well.
Other non-WWF news. XWF has been forced to cancel the house shows it had planned in Michigan and Ohio. XWF had already postponed the shows once and decided to cancel rather than postpone them again. The company claims that it is in the process of arranging house shows for April.
The British Revival Show which was shown on Bravo TV in the UK recently proved to be an excellent success. If you get the chance to get a tape of the show then do. Jodie Fleisch is something else; Doug Williams is also amazing. FWA is planning to run a show on 22 of March at the Walthamstow Assembly Halls in London featuring a special appearance by Mick McManus, using Joey Fleisch, Alex Shane and Doug Williams as headliners. Those of us old enough to remember ITV World of Sport will remember Mick McManus.
A number of wrestling related deaths within the last week. Troy "Dream Machine" Thompson Jr., who passed away last week. According to Dave Meltzer one of the best talkers ever who never quite made it to the national scene. Swede Hanson again according to the Wrestling Observer died aged 68. Rip Hawk & Swede Hanson were a fixture as a tag team in the Carolinas in the 60s and early 70s, and he later had a run as this heel turned cult prelim babyface in WWF. Hanson had been suffering from Alzheimer's and diabetes, and had some heart problems dating back to his active days in the ring. Another death was that of Mark D'Amato who was the lead heel in TNN's Rollerjam. Perhaps however, the most significant death is that of Kiyoshi Sagawa who was the majority owner of New Japan. New Japan have been in trouble this year losing a number of top performers including wrestler of the year Keiji Muto along with a number of front office staff to All Japan. The Antonio Inoki's obsession with shoots is costing the company viewers, an indication of how bad things are, is that many people consider that whilst Vince McMahon has done a terrible job this year, Inoki has done a worse job. A finally Robbie D who wrestled in OVW died at the end of February.
On a slightly happier note, Superstar Billy Graham is said to be recovering well from a minor operation although he is still in need of a liver donor.
An irony on Tough Enough where last week one of the contestants, Aaron was seen collapsing during the middle of a work out on the beach. This caused a great deal of shock and also some concern about the WWF using that as a cliffhanger. However, this week it was revealed that Aaron was in fact perfectly fine but that he had taken Ephedrine prior to the work out, this had overstimulated his heart causing him to pass out. Bob Holly, Al Snow and Paul Wight (Big Show) then lectured Aaron on the dangers of taking ephedrine and then working out. However, according to Pat McNeil of the PWTorch, ephedrine and caffeine are the principle ingredients of, wait for it… Stacker 2, a product endorsed and advertised by one Paul Wight and the WWF. That said it is fairly clear from looking at Big Show that he doesn't actually use the product whether or not the ephedrine had come from Stacker 2 is another matter.
Triple A will be covering Wrestlemania on the site as ever, hopefully he will be able to stay awake for the full four hours. Be sure to post any comments that you have about Wrestlemania or any other subject on the TPWW discussion boards. Also make sure that you check out the columns by Brad, Rob, and Fred on the main page. That just about wraps it up for this time. I still haven't got anything cheesy to sign off with yet so till next time.
Da Moonax
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News and Rumors Part II
Hello everyone and welcome to the weekend edition of the news and rumors right here at TPWW.net. WrestleMania is tomorrow night, and there is plenty to talk about, so with that said, let's get right on to the news and rumors.
Thursday night Smackdown did a better job to promote WrestleMania then Monday night's RAW and previous shows did, I believe. The Chris Jericho and Triple H title match has been further ploted in an almost desperate move now since the story has us believe Triple H's quad may break lose again at any particular time in hopes of giving Triple H another disadvantage. The WWF made the mistake in recent weeks of focusing the majority of attention of Triple H and Stephanie while having Chris Jericho on the backburner it seemed. Though Jericho finally went to the extreme Monday night on Triple H by hitting his leg with the sledgehammer twice, the angle with the dog and Stephanie didn't really help. Like it or not, the title match will continue in Sunday whether you believe Chris Jericho is at the level of Triple H. I believe this match can go either way.
What else can be said about the other matches that haven't already been said? I think the main focus on WrestleMania without a doubt will the be Hollywood Hulk Hogan and The Rock match. The promo from Smackdown between the two individuals was great I believe, and I appreciated that there was no interfearance from Scott Hall or Kevin Nash. Yes the nWo are suppose to stick together and interfere in each other's matches, but for this one match, wouldn't it be appropriate for Nash and Hall not to interfere at all in this one? I'm not saying that it will happen, but it would be nice.
A new match added to the card is Diamond Dallas Page vs. Christian. This will probably be one of the first or second matches at the show, but should turn out to be ok. These two have already wrestled twice in the last two months though, the first being on Heat, with the second on Smackdown. However, with those matches, there was no real heat or story built around the two, where as this time, there is. Unfortunately, as funny as the story was with Christian smiling and trying to act positive, it doesn't really build a great feud, especially with little buildup. Hopefully the match will turnout to be good.
That's all I can think about when relating Smackdown to WrestleMania. By no means am I done talking about WrestleMania, as I got plenty of news and rumors concerning the event itself.
At this time, it is believed that Shawn Michaels will not be part of WrestleMania and most likely any storyline in the immediate future. The latest saga from the rumor wheel is that Michaels and Triple H still have heat from last spring, when Michaels was placed in the WWF doghouse. I personally don't think it is the Triple H and Michaels heat only keeping him from returning, as there probably is more to Shawn Michaels that what we know. Either way, he most likely will be back on TV in someway as he is under contract for over a year still. The WWF renewed his contract late last winter and since then have not used him on WWF television. He appeared on Excess a few months back, made some promotional appearances, and is at the WWF Axxess events this weekend. But that's about it for now.
There have been some feelers as of late that both Brian Christopher (Grand Master Sexay) and Eddie Guerrero may return to the WWF sometime this year. Both were released at separate times in 2001 but left under good terms. Guerrero early last year was given time off as he was in rehab for a pain killer addiction I believe. Guererro in the fall last year then was involed in an automobile accident while driving under the influence. The WWF then released him a week or two later. Grand Master Sexay was released last year while crossing the border from the US into Canada. Illegal substances were found in his car and was later released either that day or the days following.
Rumors indicate the WWF is still notifying their wrestlers to expect the roster split to sometime take place shortly after WrestleMania. The segments shown on Monday of the emergency board meeting apparantely is the start of the upcoming storyline to the roster split.
Thursday's Smackdown scored a 4.0 for it's final rating off a 6 share. Speaking of ratings, the WWF Divas Special Wednesday night on UPN only scored a disappointing 2.9 overnight rating with a 4 share.
Chris Jericho has updated his commentary of at his official website, ChrisJericho.com. He wrote the column with his heel character.
The latest rumors suggest according to Dave Scherer that even though many backstage officials thought Monday's RAW was not good, Vince McMahon loved it. It is also rumored Vince has been pushing the big name talent such as Hogan, Hall, and Nash.
Stone Cold Steve Austin as of late is rumored not to be happy with the current direction of the WWF product. Stone Cold and Vince McMahon did have an argument backstage last week, but it is unknown what it is about.
The Pro Wrestling Torch website is reporting that Bret Hard recently did a phone interview for MuchMusic talking about the WWF. When asked who he thought would win the Rock and Hogan match, he said Rock would. In an interesting question, he was asked who he thought is a punk in wrestling, and he answered that Triple H was at the bottom.
Moving on to XWF news, the promotion's house shows from March 28-30 in Toledo, Port Huron and Battlefield have been cancelled. Due to the lack of time of promoting the event, some wrestlers being doubled due to indy appearances led to the decision to simply cancel the shows.
That will end it for this edition of the news and rumors. If you noticed, I didn't really make any predictions of what I think will happen at WrestleMania. We will have play by play of WrestleMania tomorrow night, and return to TPWW sometime on Monday or Tuesday for all the latest post WrestleMania and RAW news. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Martin Hawrysko
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AIM Screen Name: INGAME21
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