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WRESTLING GLOBE NEWSLETTER
Monday August 31, 2009
 
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Wrestling Globe Newsletter by Mike Aldren – All the latest professional wrestling news, gossip and occasional opinion direct to your mailbox.
WGN is read by industry power players, many top wrestlers and thousands of fans from all around the world.

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Please send any news tips or feedback to: [email protected]

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WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT NEWS

Raw is live tonight from the Joe Louis in Detroit with Dusty Rhodes as the guest host, plus Kofi Kingston vs. The Miz vs. Carlito vs. Jack Swagger in a four-way for the U.S. title, MVP vs. Chris Jericho and Mark Henry vs. Big Show. There is also a dark match with DX & John Cena vs.
The Legacy & Randy Orton. The Smackdown/ECW crew run a house show tonight in Canton, OH. TV is Tuesday in Cleveland. We’re looking for reader reports from these shows to [email protected].

***

I have a number of stories up covering Summerslam and the aftermath at www.the-sun.co.uk/wrestling. I also just quickly wanted to note that I have literally hundreds of unread emails since returning from my vacation. So, if I haven’t got back to you yet I probably will over the next day or so. That also applies to anything sent in for inclusion which I will trickle out over the next couple of days.

Rey Mysterio did an unauthorised interview regarding his 30-day suspension with the Record, a national daily newspaper in Mexico. He said he was suspended for a drug (likely a painkiller) he took for knee and arm injuries, claimed to have a valid prescription, but he wasn’t given any time to produce his script due to being on a promotional trip in Europe. Mysterio said he hopes WWE will rescind his suspension when he sits down with management in Cleveland on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Vince McMahon is reportedly furious with him for doing the interview without permission. He is still expected to drop the IC title to Dolph Ziggler or someone else for Ziggler to chase at Tuesday’s taping.

The company recently doubled the fine for those testing positive for marijuana to $2000. In the locker room it’s jokingly referred to as the “pot excise tax”.

There is a new WWE Championship belt in the works to replace the current spinning belt.

Angela Fong from developmental who is being groomed as a ring announcer is backstage at Raw.

The Los Angeles Times at http://tinyurl.com/l489er ran a big story on WWE following Summerslam. The story made the print edition of the newspaper with a photo of Chris Jericho and JTG on the front page. Some real gems in there. John Cena claims responsibility for the kid friendly direction of the show and Maria is quoted claiming that the Divas can get into trouble for “showing too much cleavage”. The reporter was also duped into believing the 10% ratings increase is due to the toned down product, rather than the addition of Superstars on WGN, which is the real reason slightly more people are watching this year. Vince McMahon was also quoted in the article talking about launching a WWE cable station within the next two years. The greatest part was Ted DiBiase Jr.
claiming the rock n roll days of wrestlers partying all night are long gone, saying: “We’d rather go back to our hotels and play Nintendo.”

Jim Ross’ contract is up within the next 12 months and is yet to be offered a new deal.

Mickie James (30) and Jeff Hardy (32) both celebrate birthday’s today.

Matt Hardy on his MySpace at http://tinyurl.com/njqawd wrote about Jeff leaving saying he leaves with two herniated discs in his back and praised him for elevating CM Punk on his way out.

The word going around at Summerslam was that Jeff is close to completing a deal with Fox Studios to develop his reality show.

WWE is working on a new Hulk Hogan DVD slated for release in November.
The timing is interesting given that Hogan has a new book due out in October. There is already a review at http://tinyurl.com/ku3ff8 where the reviewer writes, “Wrestling fans will enjoy Hogan’s honest look at his career and the history of the business. But the exploration into the rest of his personal life proves to be more depressing than uplifting.”

LeBron James is confirmed as a guest host for an upcoming edition of Raw.

The Air Canada website lists Trish Stratus as the guest host for the September 14 Raw in Toronto.

Bryan Danielson, 28, who made his name with Ring of Honor, is WWE bound after he completes his remaining indie bookings next month.

WWE has also just signed Trinity McCray, 21, a cheerleader with the Orlando Magic. She is headed to FCW for the Diva makeover.

Courtney Taylor, the new interview girl on ECW, is Beverly Mullins from developmental. She is a former Hooters Girl who most recently was valet to Alex Riley in FCW as well as at a number of WWE live events.

Maxwell McGuirk recently started with FCW after signing a developmental deal. He is another third generation talent. His grandfather Leroy, an NCAA champion at 155-pounds in 1931, was affiliated with the old NWA for around 50 years, and was best known for promoting wrestling during the 1970s with Bill Watts in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.
His mother Mike was a WWF ring announcer from 1987-1993.

Jack E. Lee who was the WWWF ring announcer at Madison Square Garden in the 1970s passed away in Florida on 7/30 at the age of 73. He was also a track announcer who called several major harness races at the now-defunct Roosevelt Raceway on Long Island in the 70s and 80s, and is considered by many to be the Golden Voice of that era in harness racing.

WWE.com has a subsite for the new Raw vs. Smackdown video game due out soon at http://ow.ly/lsAT.

The Huffington Post at http://tinyurl.com/nxhuvm has a Q&A with MVP. On young deaths in wrestling: “There has to be a line drawn between the old guard and the new guard. A lot of guys dying young came from our profession in a different era. They came up in a time where contract were structured very differently. If you didn’t work, you didn’t get paid. If you didn’t get paid, you couldn’t feed your family. Guys worked through injuries taking pain medication and whatever other drugs so they could get through the schedule. It’s different now. If we were injured, our medical is taken care of. We’re still paid. Once upon a time you’d go into locker rooms, and you’d see guys drinking beer or getting high.
Nowadays, you’d see guys drinking energy drinks or protein shakes. It’s changed a lot. I think WWE and the McMahon family have made huge strides in making wrestling a more palatable product. I challenge you to find an 8-year-old kid who doesn’t know who John Cena is or doesn’t have action figures in their toy box. We’ve become so much more.”

My buddy Mike Dunsmore on his YouTube Channel at http://tinyurl.com/kw6exj has new interviews with Randy Orton, Cryme Tyme, Roddy Piper and many more.

The Superstars TV show debuts in Australia soon on Fox8 right after ECW.

The Slam Wrestling website reports that an action figure on the WWE Classics series of Sherri Martel will not be produced. The design did not get the approval of her estate.

TOTAL NONSTOP ACTION WRESTLING NEWS

There are TV tapings today and Tuesday at Universal in Orlando. They are doing a title shot tournament with two winners facing Matt Morgan and Kurt Angle in a four-way at No Surrender on September 20. We’re looking for reader reports to [email protected].

***

Kurt Angle did a sit down interview with Pittsburgh’s WTAE-TV talking about his arrest two week’s ago. You can watch the entire interview at http://tinyurl.com/l67eya. During various points he broke down in tears when talking about spending a few hours in jail which he calls the lowest point of his life. He said that Trenesha Biggers (Rakha Khan) made up the story about them getting into a fight, that the protection order she filed was bogus to get him kicked out of his house, and claimed she did did all this because he refused to marry her. He said she has destroyed his character and would be filing a defamation lawsuit against her. He claimed the HGH found in his car at the time of his arrest was prescribed for a neck injury, and that the driving while suspended charge was a clerical error and would be squared away by his attorney.

Trenesha Biggers did an interview with WPXI which is online at http://tinyurl.com/m3xtu7. She claimed someone in the TNA office told her that by filing the protection order against Angle she was forcing them to choose between the two of them. She said: “I knew that when I filed it. I knew there was no way I was probably going to be able to work there anymore… I’ve forgiven so many times for what he’s done to me, and I’ve been around him and been fine, but now, he’s gone and slandered me. In the wrestling ring, you got to be able to trust the person you’re working with and know that they’re not going to hurt you.”

Angle was allowed to return to his home on 8/26. “It’s been about ten days.  I can’t wait to get home.  Thank God. She’s out of my life,” he said following a court hearing. Story is at http://tinyurl.com/m5dluw.

Dixie Carter did several media interviews last week promoting her appearance on Impact. She addressed the Angle situation in the Baltimore Sun, saying: “I can talk about it to some degree because it’s an ongoing legal case. I was briefed on the details of what happened, and I also know that people are innocent until proven guilty. And I think just like most sports franchises these days, they let the legal system do what they do best and you await the outcome. And that’s what we did.” Not sure about that one. She said that Biggers was still part of the company. On the Jeff Jarrett situation, she said: “Jeffs been working on a lot of different things for the company. Hes been working with me on developing new programming in kind of a bigger capacity in some ways, but thats been his focus as of late.”

In an interview with the Daytona News-Journal at http://tinyurl.com/m8gzgb Carter hinted that Bound for Glory will be Sting‘s last match with the company: “Every year he says one more year.
He’s doing better than he’s ever done. His speech (last week) was so heartfelt — he’s wanting to pass the torch. I will say this is the last time he will wrestle in Los Angeles.” She also noted in this interview that Jarrett will be back “sooner than later”.

Jeff Jarrett, Jeremy Borash and Christy Hemme are going to Australia for a promotional trip later this week. They will be announcing a live event tour among other things and will be making a number of media appearances.

Actor Joey Fatone was backstage earlier today hanging out at the TV tapings.

Roxxi was due to start back with the company at the tapings. She is expected to be Madison Rayne‘s mystery partner in the Knockouts tag tournament. She had just started wrestling in Mexico.

Despite all the hype, Impact last week drew just a 1.1 rating averaging
1.6 million viewers. The lowest rated segment of the show was the Dixie Carter-Bobby Lashley interview with Jeremy Borash which did a 1.04 rating. The two highest rated segments of the show included a 1.2 rating for the Daffney vs. Hamada match, and the Awesome Kong & Raisha Saeed vs. Traci Brooks & Sharmell Knockouts tournament match.

Kim Couture heard about Lisa Varon’s challenge and told MMAJunkie.com that she’s not that interested in fighting her unless she can make 135 pounds. Varon responded on her Twitter, saying: “You inspired me to drop some weight. It’s on!”

The latest Hermie’s Hotseat has Sarita as a guest at http://tinyurl.com/kopmma.

OTHER WRESTLING NEWS

ROH tonight on HDNet features Colt Cabana, Necro Butcher, Brent Albright
& Grizzly Redwood vs. Claudio Castagnoli, Jimmy Rave, Ernie Osiris &
Prince Nana, and Delirious vs. Sonjay Dutt.

The former Mr. Kennedy, Ken Anderson, has reportedly donated his brain
after death to the Sports Legacy Institute, which is fronted by former
WWE wrestler Chris Nowinski. So far the institute has studied the brains
of several professional athletes in contact sports, including Chris
Benoit, and all have shown some sign of brain damage. Nowinski noted
during a recent interview that everyone in WWE suddenly stopped talking
to him after the institute examined Benoit’s brain.

Ric Flair is signing autographs this weekend at Field of Dreams in Las
Vegas. For more info you can call 702-792-8233.

Ian Rotten, citing financial strain, announced IWA Mid South has closed
down for good after 13 years in business. The final show took place this
past weekend in Bellevue, IL headlined by Rotten vs. Mad Man Pondo in a
match called King of the Crimson Mask.

A funny story from the Kowloon Chinese restaurant in Saugus, MA which is
a regular hangout for WWE wrestlers when they are in town. The Iron
Shiek recently stopped by and tried to pay a $500 tab with autographed
pictures of himself. When the owner told him that wouldn’t be possible
Sheik started cussing saying that he was a respected legend and not some
jabroni, and then starting telling old stories about life on the road
with Bob Orton and Roddy Piper. The owner felt so embarrassed for him
that he waived the bar portion of the tab.

Torrie Wilson sent word that she has a new website at
www.torriewilsonusa.com

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