Yo. My name is Mike, I write the Top Ten List around here and if you're nice, you'll go read it once you're done here. I'm filling in for Martin on this here news report. This is my first solo effort, so if I screw up and miss out on some big important news like "Hulk Hogan named new messiah", well, I apologize. I'll try and stay serious for all you news lovers out there and uh...my intro sucked. Let's get onto 'dem dere news, shall we?
Starting with a tragic topic , former president of Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling (FMW) Shoichi Arai, was found dead Thursday, with a suicide note. Reports are that he owed a large deal of money and even realized a book, hoping proceeds would cover some of the debt. Shoichi Arai was 36.
On an equally tragic topic, Alex "Big Dick Dudley" Rizzo (reportedly 34) was found dead by police inside his apartment in Copiague, New York. He was immediately taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. There is no announced cause of death at this time. The thoughts of TPWW.net, its staff, and most likely its readers as well go out to the families of both Shoichi Arai and Alex Rizzo.
Changing gears, let us take a brief moment to add in some of the events from the "hell flight". It was revealed that X-Pac is the one who cut Michael Hayes' hair off. The buzz going around is that pretty much everyone views this as a horrible black eye to World Wrestling Entertainment's public image. In fact, some former WCWers are saying that this is worse then ANYTHING that ever happened there. I'll guess we'll have to take their word for it, but I'd think Steiner mauling DDP backstage and officials having to change the show was a tad bit worse.
Ken Shamrock signed with The Jarrett's new PPV-exclusive wrestling company, NWA: Total Non-Stop Action. The deal is reportedly for 26 days a year, which is significantly lighter then WWE's offered deal. The contract is also said to be non-exclusive, which would allow him to continue his MMA career while still wrestling for NWA-TNA. I wonder, does this contract allow him to work for WWE too? Other people from the new NWA promotion are in talks with including Bret Hart, Randy Savage and the recently released Scott Hall.
Speaking of Scott Hall, there is a rumor going around that he's looking into legal action against WWE for his release. He says that it was his reputation that got him fired, and that he wasn't that drunk. What are my thoughts on that? Beyond the numerous people who will testify he was off his game, beyond the previous history of his repeated chances, beyond all that, I'd say the likelihood of Scott Hall winning any lawsuit are slim-to-none based off the fact that he had anything to drink at all. If I remember correctly, there was a clause in his contract that said something about drinking. I'm not sure, but I think I remember something about that, so take it as it is worth.
In some possible Hurra-news, Jaime Knoble and Shannon Moore, both great cruiserweights with a history with the Hurricane, are being brought up to work some matches together. Since we know someone knows who The Hurricane is, it would be logical to assume this would be related. If not, then it could be just some of the elevation of new stars we keep hearing about. My pick for the arch-nemesis is still Shannon Moore.
Ratings time! This week RAW got 3.6 in its first hour, then it rose to 4.2 for the second. This leaves them with an overall 3.9 rating, with a 5.6 share. This is not good news, as RAW normally gets above 4.0 even on bad weeks. I could mention that RAW's ratings have dropped significantly since Hogan's appearance on the show, but that would be idle speculation on my part, not news.
In a bit of idle speculation, it looks like Hulk Hogan will, in fact, not lose the title at Judgment Day as rumors implied. Of course, there is no legitimate news to back this up, only the crowd support he received on SmackDown! this past week. Of course, this was not the norm with his appearances on TV as most of them have had quite lacking crowd support. However, my guess would be that this outpouring of last-minute support for the Hulkster will convince Vinnie Mac and crew to leave the belt on him until King of the Ring. My guess is that either Triple H or Chris Jericho, whichever wins their match Judgment Day "Hell in the Cell" match, will make a run for the belt next month at the aforementioned K.o.t.R. PPV.
Speaking of SmackDown!, it got a rating of 4.4 on the overnight scale with a 6 share. However, when the official numbers came in after a night of partying, it got an actual rating of 3.6 with a 6 share. This is better then the record low 2.9, but its still lower then the glory days. Still, with the competition being so rough (finales of shows generally rated better anyway) it's a good note.
Speaking of SmackDown!, though, on the show we learned that at Judgment Day, Stacy Keibler will take on Trish Stratus with each corner filled with a Dudley (Bubba in Trish's, D-Von in Stacy's). This seems to be an extension of the minor tiff the Dudley Boyz when the last ran into each other at Backlash. Also out of SmackDown!, Edge and Triple H aren't getting along, either, but that'll be saved until some other time. That time (from a storyline point of view) looks like King of the Ring, but once again, if Triple H wins Hell in a Cell, I'd bet it'll held off until Vengeance or possibly even further.
The final line-up as it's reported on the Judgment Day website is:
-The Undertaker v. "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan(c) for the Undisputed WWE World Championship.
-"The Game" Triple H v. "The Living Legend" Chris Jericho, Hell in the Cell match.
-"Stone Cold" Steve Austin v. The Big Show and Ric Flair.
-"2000 King of the Ring" Kurt Angle v. 2001 King of the Ring" Edge, "Hair versus Hair" match.
-"The Whole Dam Show" Rob Van Dam v. Eddy Guerrerro(c) for the WWE Intercontinental Championship.
-The Hardy Boyz v. "The next big thing" Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman
-Stacy Keibler v. Trish Stratus(c) for the WWE Women's Championship
On Tough Enough, Hawk left voluntarily during the second of the Africa episodes. He cited personal demons as the cause. Al Snow wasn't all too happy with that reasoning, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Hardcore Holly even showed his "softer" side and said he actually liked the kid and was sad to see him go. They had some 5-minute matches in front of the locals and did well, apparently. No one got cut, in contradiction to the build-up all through the last shows, probably because Hawk left. All in all, the South Africa episodes were a nice little two-parter with Hawk's attempts to be leader and to step up, only to fall short in the end, highlighted. Good human-emotion-driven storytelling? Who knows, maybe the shows will keep it up.
The Ross Report had some interesting things to say in it this week. The more important notes include:
-Jazz's ACL surgery went well and she should be back in 4 to 6 months.
-DDP was told he can wrestle, so long as he can take the pain. If he does wrestle, however, surgery will be needed at some point later on.
-One of my personal favorites Chris Kanyon will be returning shortly, and in preparation of that he will be training in Louisville for the next month or so.
-The Rock will be seeing someone for his knee pains.
-Benoit will be back around the middle or end of June from his neck surgery.
-Nash, Kane, Sharmell Sullivan, Lita, Perry Saturn, Mike Awesome, Rhyno, Scotty 2 Hotty, Eric Angle, B.J. Payne, Mike Sanders, Eddie Fatu, R.C. Haas, John Heidenreich, Mark Jindrak, and Steve Bradley are all injured as well. Updates on their status, as well as Ross' thought's on the upcoming Judgment Day pay-per-view, can be found at the link above.
Final numbers are in for WrestleMania X8's buy rate, and it is around 800,000 buys. This is lower then originally was the expected because apparently certain people had hoped for a buy rate of over 1 million buys. This was obviously not meant to be, but the 800,000 buys did bring in a 1.6 buy rate, which is of course very good. The pay-per-view's total revenue was reportedly over $36 million, including the record setting attendance profits.
Vince McMahon went on Bob Costas a second time, nothing too revolutionary was said. The things to note:
-Vince isn't ashamed of the XFL, and doesn't take the attacks upon the dead league personally. He's glad he did it, wishes it had a better timeslot but was not meant to be, the normal stuff he says about the XFL in interviews.
-He knows the product isn't at its best, but that they go through valleys and peaks and other corporate jargon designed to ignore the fact that the business is in the toilet.
-He thinks about 2.5% of the wrestling audience believes wrestling is real.(WARNING: cheap shot-I'd guess that number dropped by about 2.4% after Hogan won the title...)
There were other notes, but none of them were really important. For those who were wondering, no fistfights broke out. Darn, and my money was on Costas with the run-in from Ted Turner and the rest of the AOL World Order.
The Rock, Hollywood's newest action-star (If you don't count star actor Tobey Maguire) and all around good guy, is being encouraged to "drop" his wrestling career. Apparently, people feel that his stigma of being a ProWrestler will limit the amount of good roles he gets. From what I've heard from friends about the movie, he should be more worried about the stigma he'll get from being a "bad actor".
In other Rocky news, wrestling's greatest ambassador will be appearing on WWE's "Global Warming" tour of Australia. This is good news for wrestling fans in the outback, as it means another big name star they'll get to see. Here's hoping they aren't the type of fans that chant "Die Rocky Die". Other announced stars include "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan, Triple H, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Stacy Keibler and Torrie Wilson.
Our final Rocky news for today involves a Florida attorney, a murder trial involving a 17-year-old kid killing an autistic 5-year-old child, apparently using the Rock's moves, and WWE saying "We don't think so." I'm sure you can piece together what's happened with that.
A few new wrestling games are in the works. There are two beyond the previously known about SmackDown! 4 for PlayStation 2 and WrestleMania-X8 for GameCube. One is a natural follow-up to the X-Box's RAW, tentatively titled RAW 2. It promises enhanced gameplay and other goodies, the favorite of mine being the addition of ripping a song to your X-Box hard drive, then being able to use it for your entrance music. The simple words "MUWHAHAH...HA-HA...HA-ha" come to mind. This is useful not only in creating yourself in near perfected detail, another aspect of the game being worked on, but also in replicating favorite stars that were left out due to time, space, or contract limitations. Now, I can finally add in Kwee-Wee in all his glory! Yes!
The second game announced recently is WWE Crush Hour. It features car-combat ala Twisted Metal, but with WWE characters and cars to represent them. Apparently "Stone Cold" has a Monster truck, Rock has a sports car, and more. If the gameplay is good, this game will be awesome. If it isn't, this game will be Star Wars: Demolition with steel chairs or something. Here's hoping...
Speaking of gaming, this year at E3 some of wrestling legends will be making some time for the fans. The four I've heard is Jerry "The King" Lawler, Bret "The Hitman" Hart, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, and "The Mouth of the South" Jimmy Hart. If you are attending the expo this year, you're a lucky SOB. I want to go! Mommy, no fair! Anywhoo, onto the most important part of this News report, and maybe any News report ever.
Former wrestler Joanie Laurer (known to us wannabe Smarts as Chyna) will be taking on Joey Buttafuoco in the latest edition of Celebrity Boxing. According to a caller on the Howard Stern show, she'll also be (SPOILER ALERT, GO TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE RESULTS) losing quite badly. Man, my hero, down in flames. The entire wrestling world is shocked by this announcement and we cannot await her rightful return to WWE. Ha!
With that last news tid-bit, I'm out. If you haven't already, check out Martin's new column Mark My Words and his special WWE Fans Take Action!. Oh, and once again, lemme give a blatant plug to myself and direct you to the Top Ten List. Good day everyone, I'll see you soon. Not just because I'm evil, but because I write around here sometimes. Have yourself a good Judgment Day, and with that, I'm out, peace.
Michael Blaszkowski
threePunk@tpww.net
AIM: threePunk2oo2
Previous News Update >>> Further details about the infamous plane ride, the future of the nWo, Vince McMahon to kick the hell out of Bob Costas, WWA cancels upcoming tour, and more. >>>
News Archives: Missed the news updates for the last few days? You can check them out by clicking HERE.
Wrestling FAQ: Got a common wrestling question? Check here to see if your question is answered from our Wrestling FAQ.
Send Your News: Do you have any news tidbits, recaps, or any other types of news? Please send them in to news@tpww.net.