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WRESTLING GLOBE NEWSLETTER
Sunday March 29, 2009
by Mike Aldren

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WWE NEWS

3/28 Smackdown house show results from Amarillo, TX: R-Truth over Chavo Guerrero; The Great Kahli over Brian Kendrick; Kozlov over Jimmy Wang Yang; MVP over Shelton Benjamin; Gail Kim over Michelle McCool; Big Show over Jeff Hardy (Matt Hardy run in); The Undertaker & Triple H over Randy Orton, Ted DiBiase & Cody Rhodes.

Amarillo drew 5825 paid. We’re still looking for a report from the Raw show last night in Laredo.

The Raw crew run today at the Dodge Arena in Hidalgo, and Smackdown run the Kay Yeager Coliseum in Wichita Falls.

The TV tapings on Monday has John Cena vs. Big Show; Chris Jericho vs.
Jerry Lawler; the Diva special (taped for ECW); MVP vs. Shelton Benjamin for the US title (taped for Smackdown) at American Airlines Center in Dallas.

We’re looking for reader reports from any of these shows to [email protected]

***

There are Wrestlemania press conferences on Tuesday in New York City and Houston. The bigger deal actually seems to be at Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square with Vince McMahon, Triple H, Chris Jericho, Shawn Michaels, Roddy Piper, Edge, Ric Flair, Big Show, Mark Henry, Kelly Kelly, and more… while Rey Mysterio, CM Punk, and Melina are at City Hall in Houston.

Studio estimates has 12 Rounds starring John Cena finishing No. 7 at the box office this weekend with $5.3 million. The expectation, well, WWE’s at least, was that the movie would do around $10 million, although there was really tough competition from Monsters vs. Aliens ($58.2 million) and The Haunting in Connecticut ($23 million), opening too over the weekend. 12 Rounds was also beaten out by Knowing, Duplicity and Race To Witch Mountain in their third week runs. Even worse, The Marine, Cena’s first movie, did a $7.1 million opening weekend on far less budget and promotion. The movie will be profitable with DVD sales but this has to be a disappointing opening for WWE.

John Cena appeared on Nickelodeon’s Kid choice Awards last night. He did a skit where he pretended to be the new Charlie’s Angels with Chris Rock (they let him on this show?) and Miranda Cosgrove. He didn’t get slimed.

We’re told Ricky Ortiz suffered a broken nose over the weekend at the FCW house show in Arcadia, FL.

The Great Khali has a role in the upcoming movie The Tree of Life. The movie stars Sean Penn and Brad Pitt, and is written and directed by Terrence Malick. The movie is one of the biggest secrets in Hollywood right now with details being kept under wraps and all those involved signing non disclosure agreements.

There are around 10,000 tickets unsold for Wrestlemania. WWE are now doing an offer where you can purchase four of the $155 price range tickets and get a $225 discount on the total price. The company is hoping for a strong walk up on the day to reach the magical 70,000 capacity, but this will be the first Wrestlemania in years that hasn’t sold out ahead of time, even though it’s already broken company box office record with a $6.4 million advance. It’s expected there will be a huge push locally as the rodeo has finished which was garnering all the local press.

There are also tickets remaining for the Hall of Fame, and some of the Fan Axxess sessions. With regards to those events there are a number of guys unhappy as there is a scheduling conflict on Saturday night which means some will miss the Hall of Fame.

Linda and Stephanie McMahon were interviewed from the NYSE by Business News Network in Canada on 3/27. They noted Unforgiven in September will emanate from Canada but the venue is TBC. Stephanie was asked about being head of creative. She said she has some input but Vince is the real boss. When asked about competition from UFC they gave the standard company line about UFC being a real sport so they can’t be compeition,
as WWE is entertainment.

Jim Ross and his people from J.R.’s Family Bar-B-Q are handling catering backstage for Monday’s Raw in Dallas. Has anyone sampled his products?

Michael Hayes turns 50 today.

Batista is featured in the latest TV Week in Australia as he has a cameo over there in a soap opera called Neighbours.

Randy Orton vs. Triple H in a cage match is being advertised as the main event for the 4/21 Smackdown/ECW taping in London, England.

The Guardian in the UK at http://tinyurl.com/d3pboz interviewed Edge.

Interview with The Miz at http://tinyurl.com/d5rtbp pushing Wrestlemania.

Attack of the Show on G4 ranked their Top 10 WWE Divas. No idea what the criteria was: 10. Beth Phoenix; 9. Candice Michelle; 8. Mickie James; 7.
Michelle McCool; 6. Alicia Fox; 5. Maria; 4. Maryse; 3. The Bella Twins; 2. Kelly Kelly; and 1. Eve.

Globe reader Jordan sent in this note: “Just want to let you know Smackdown airs on the CW in South Florida at 11pm on Direct TV. I know they received many complaints so I don’t know if this is a result of that.”

TNA NEWS

3/28 TNA house show results from Spencer, IA: Suicide over Chris Sabin; ODB over Sojo Bolt; Team 3D over Team No Limit; AJ Styles over Sheik Abdul Bashir; Beer Money, Inc. over LAX; and Jeff Jarrett over Kurt Angle.

Three weeks worth of TV taped this coming Monday and Tuesday at Universal Orlando, FL.

***

Phil Strum at http://pojoslam.blogspot.com has an interview with Kevin Nash. He confirmed Scott Hall is still in bad shape and struggling with his demons: “Scott is not doing well at all right now. I was with him last weekend. He’s really having some hard times… Until he wants to take the steps to be clean, he’s just not going to be clean. There are plenty of people that love him and want him to do it, he’s just got to make that decision himself. We can’t do it for him. Nor can Vince or anybody else.”

Rain forced NASCAR to postpone the Kroger 250 race yesterday afternoon.
The race has been moved to Monday at Noon and is going to air live on Speed TV. Hermie Sadler with the TNA truck will start the race in the 31st position.

OTHER NEWS

3/28 ROH TV results from Philadelphia, PA: Kevin Steen over Eddie Edwards; Sara Del Rey over Daizee Haze; Claudio Castagnoli over Alex Payne; and Nigel McGuinness over Jay Briscoe in a non-title match.

Greg Valentine is getting a bad reputation on the indy circuit. He has been double/triple booking himself of late and going with who pays him the most. He pulled out of a legends show over the weekend in Franklin, PA after promising promoter Norm Connors that he would be at the show “no matter what.” Kamala was brought in late to replace him. The show also featured Sgt Slaughter, Jimmy Snuka, Bob Orton, Jim Duggan, One Man Gang, and George Steele. Valentine is scheduled for events with WWE next week in Houston and there are a lot of people unhappy with him.

The 4/25 Bobby Lashley vs. Marcus Jones fight in Knoxville fell through.

The official Wrestlicious website has been launched at:
http://www.wrestlicious.com

The Miami Herald at http://tinyurl.com/c84w6w has a story on Dory Funk Jr about his Hall of Fame induction. He talked about taking Wahoo McDaniel Jr. with him to Wrestlemania.

On this day in wrestling history:

* 1939 – Steve Casey defeated Gus Sonnenberg for the AWA Heavyweight title
* 1987 – Ricky Steamboat defeated Randy Savage for the WWF IC title
* 1993 – The Moondogs defeated Brian Christopher & Scotty Flamingo for the USWA tag titles
* 1994 – Men on a Mission defeated the Quebecers for the WWF tag titles
* 1998 – Steve Austin defeated Shawn Michaels for the WWF title
* 1999 – Goldust defeated the Road Dogg for the WWF IC title
* 2001 – Rolando Vera died at 86

WG Diva of the Day — Michelle McCool — http://tinyurl.com/pwvl4

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