Allright, though the news and rumors starting this week was suppose to be updated weekly most likely on a Friday or sometime during the weekend, with all that has happened in the last few days, I felt an update was definately needed. With that said, let's get started.
The World Wrestling Federation, or better known as the WWF this past weekend officially changed their name and trademark to World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., or which will be commonly known as WWE. This all was done due to a court's decision a few months back claiming that WWFE violated an agreement from 1994 with the World Wildlife Fund over the use of the WWF initials. Because of that decision, WWFE have given up their fight for the WWF initials and have simply changed their name. For further information about WWE's conflict with the World Wild Life Fund, please click here to read an article explaining the whole thing from the TPWW Newsboard.
WWE went forward with Raw Monday night in which many are labeling as one of the worst programs in a long time. The rumor is that with the United Kingdom Pay-Per-View, Insurrextion that took place during the weekend, the writing staff were short on ideas and actually were writing part of the show Monday afternoon.
In a sudden move that shocked many people yesterday, WWE has released Scott Hall. WWE.com posted the message on their website saying that the two parties have parted ways but without any explanation. 1Wrestling.com reports that during the weekend in England, Hall was drunk most of the time and reports speculate he even fell asleep at the PPV. His fate was sealed when showing up to Raw drunk. He is rumored however to be sober by the time the show started. Either way, WWE felt Hall went back to his old ways, and decided not to take any chances and decided to let him go. After this brief stay in the WWF, or WWE, I believe it is safe to say that Scott Hall will never return to WWE again. I wonder if WWE will even mention Hall's depature by some sort of excuse or something. No speculation on what Scott Hall does, whether he wrestles for another promotion, or the indies, or whether he hangs up the boots for good, who knows. Frankly, I'm sure most people could care less.
There has been a lot of talk about an incident or incidents that took place on the plane ride on the way home from the UK PPV this weekend. Details have been sketchy, but the rumors are that Michael Hayes fell asleep on the flight and someone or a group of people shaved his head. Other reports include that Goldust was involved in something, and that Brock Lesnar and Curt Henning (more on Henning later) got into a fist fight. Regardless, WWE is rumored to be very upset with whatever took place on the flight, and earlier on WWE was expected to take some sort of action, and it appears now that they have alreaday done so.
Mr. Perfect, Curt Henning was released by WWE, as announced on WWE.com No details of why, but one may expect that it had to do with whatever took place on the plan possibly. The other possibility or tie in is that Henning's career in WWE was going nowhere fast and they felt he was no longer needed and decided to let him go. Whether the plane incident had anything to do with his release, it's still a shame to see someone of his status back in the 1980's in this state. I would expect him to work some Indies or possibly with another promotion, or he may decide to hang up the boots for good. I'm sure there will be no mention of Mr. Perfect's departure on WWE Raw next week.
With the name change to WWE and the recent roster split, WWE has decided to introduce a new television lineup, which includes the cancelling of Excess. This may be somewhat confusing, but I will try to organize it so it isn't as confusing.
- Sunday Night Heat stays the same, airing Sunday nights at 7 p.m. Est. The show will be hosted by The Coach and Raven. Heat will affiliated with the Raw brand.
- Botton Line will air on Friday or Saturday in syndication starting May 24th or the 25th. This show will also be affiliated with Raw.
- Velocity will air Saturday nights at 10 p.m. Est. starting May 25th. This show will replace the first hour of Excess and is affiliated with the Smackdown brand.
- After Burn will air on Friday or Saturday in syndication starting May 24th or the 25th. This show will be affilated with Smackdown.
- Confidential will air Saturday nights at 11 p.m. Est. starting May 25th. This will will replace what was the second hour of Excess. This show will apparantely feature both WWE brands, Raw and Smackdown. It will feature the daily life of a WWE superstar, look at past and present superstars, and classic matches and events.
I hope you all understand the new lineup because at the end there will be a quiz on all that. Just kidding... moving on, the biggest development from Raw was the heel turn of Ric Flair, in which I saw coming all night. The setup of a Bradshaw heel turn was poorly done I believed, however, I have hope that this new feud between Austin and Flair will be good. With Flair now as a heel, anything between Austin and Flair should at least be more entertaining than previously.
Moving on to other news, the World Wildlife Fund released a statement claiming to be unhappy or disappointed with the World Wrestling Federation's name change to World Wrestling Entertainment. The Wildlife Fund apparantely expected more by WWE, including a name change that would further separate the two companies, and a new logo separating themselves from the previous WWF scratch logo. Anyways, WWE as we know it is not violating any trademark, and as long as that's the case, the Wildlife Fund has no authority on WWE once all World Wrestling Federation property (WWF.com, WWFShopZone.com, future merchandise, etc.) is labeled as World Wrestling Entertainment. Whatever the Wildlife Fund says afterwards means nothing.
In a sad note, over the weekend, former WCW referee Pee Wee Anderson passed away. He suferred from cancer a few years back, but his cause of death is unknown at this time. Our condolences from myself and the entire staff of TPWW go out to his family and friends.
After Smackdown scored it's lowest rating on history last Thursday, Raw scored a 4.6 rating this week which is up from last week's score. I question whether the higher rating is good or not for WWE since many believed the show was so bad. The higher the rating was, the more people saw the bad show, which may make them not want to watch future WWE shows. I hope that is not the case.
There is belief that Eddie Guererro also was released by WWE. However, that is not true. His bio is missing from WWE.com which caused some to believe he was released. It is most likely to do an error.
There are no rumors yet, but one has to wonder about the status of Kevin Nash now that his buddy Scott Hall is gone. Nash is in poor shape as well and hasn't accomplished anything since his redebut with the company. One has to wonder if he is on his way out, now by WWE choice, but maybe by the wishes of Kevin Nash himself. We shall see in the coming weeks or months I guess.
For those that were offended by my remarks or actions in my previous reports about the current WWE World Champion, Hulk Hogan, I apologize. My belief is that he should be the world champion at this point of his age. I do realize he has done so much for the wrestling industry, however, one has ought to remember, he has been the world champion many times before. I would have rather seen him win the title and hold it for one night only or for a week at the most. I do believe him holding that title now is hurting the product, and I guess it shows with the ratings lately, even though it is not all his fault. The way Hogan is being hyped following his win at Backlash, you would think he never had won the title before and that he just finally won the "big" one (kind of like when John Elway won his first SuperBowl). Hulk Hogan is really popular right now, and WWE is doing everything to cash in, or what I like to call, milk everything that he is worth right now. The fact of the matter is though, no matter how great Hogan was, to go into a PPV holding the title is wrong. He can barely move and looks just awful in the ring. I want to see younger talent get pushed so that when they do win that belt, they will have deserved it and it will not be any fluke. The e-mails I have recieved from Hogan supporters have been harsh. Reading some of these e-mails would lead most to believe that these fans worship Hogan day and night. I have an opinion, and with opinions, they will not always be agreed by everyone. However, for someone to cry about what I say and be so offended I believe is rather silly. I do not hate Hulk Hogan, but rather, I hate seeing him carry the title. That's just plain and simple. For the record, as many e-mails I have received from who are Hogan supporters, I got recieved close to the same amount of e-mails from people who agreed with me and too are not Hogan fans right now. I am not going to start any wars with people through e-mail. I was harsh on Hogan in my last two reports, I admit that. Maybe that's why so many people were angry at me. In this paragraph, I have tried to sound reasonable, and quite frankly, if that's not enoguh, then there is nothing I can do about that. Let the Hogan fans e-mail me more critizing me for this paragraph right here. The way I see it, it's not worth the time to get all worked up over a simple opinion that can be neither right or wrong.
And finally (after just finishing what can be a best selling novel in my previous paragraph)... I did notice that Hogan could not get the motorcycle to start, which I believed was to be pretty funny (not because it happened to Hogan, it could have happened to anybody and I would have found it funny). WWE changes their name, yet Jim Ross is wearing a collared WWF shirt. I understand the company hasn't changed everything yet, so there may not have been a collared WWE shirt, which in that case, he should have worn a different shirt. I noticed the Goldberg chants while Brock Lesnar was in the ring. Whether it was a coincidence or the people know about his buyout of his AOL Time Warner contract is unknown. Either way, the people want Goldberg in the WWF. I wouldn't mind seeing that if and only if he's used properly. From what I have heard from those who attended last night's Smackdown tapings, Thurday night's program will be better than Raw. Despite the predictable heel turn, I guess I was one of the few that didn't find Raw so bad. As far as the WWE name change, I don't care for it too much. World Wrestling Entertainment sounds fine, but WWE will take a lot of getting use to. The thing is, Vince McMahon gloats about creating sports entertainment, yet the name of his product now is wrestling entertainment. I guess WWE is better than WSE (World Sports Entertainment) though. Before the name change, the WWF was always used in a phrase as "the WWF." With WWE, using the word "the" doesn't really make sense because if it is used, you are saying "the World Wrestling Entertainment." So WWE doesn't need the word "the" before it in my opinion. And for those of you that read my previous report, yes I have typed the name HOGAN in this report!
And that should do it for this mid-week edition of the news and rumors. I said in my previous report if something big happened or a lot of stuff happened around the time of Raw, I would write a mid week report. I had no idea I would be doing one the first week that I was scheduled to start updating weekly. That's not a problem though. However, I will have a few conflicts as far as updating the news and rumors report goes at the end of the month since I will be moving. I will find someone to take over while I am away though, so things will hopefully be fine. Until next time.
Martin Hawrysko
Martin@tpww.net
AIM: INGAME21
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