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WRESTLING GLOBE NEWSLETTER
Monday July 6, 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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WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
7/2 WWE Superstars results: Santino over Brian Kendrick; John Morrison over Charlie Haas; Zack Ryder over Taylor Reks; and Edge over CM Punk.
7/3 Smackdown TV results from Fresno, CA: Finlay over Ricky Ortiz; Dolph Ziggler over R-Truth; Kane over Rey Mysterio; Cryme Tyme over The Hart Dynasty; Melina & Maria over Layla & Michelle McCool; and Edge & Chris Jericho over CM Punk & Jeff Hardy. The big news was that CM Punk faces Jeff Hardy for the title at Night of Champions on 7/26 in Philadelphia.
Also on the show, JTG honored Michael Jackson by wearing a single white glove during his ring entrance, and Jesse (Terry Gordy Jr.) has reprised his Ray Geezy white rapper gimmick much to Cryme Tyme’s chagrin.
7/3 Smackdown/ECW house show results from San Diego, CA: Evan Bourne over Shelton Benjamin; Ricky Steamboat over Drew McIntyre; Tommy Dreamer over Christian, Jack Swagger & Mark Henry in a four-way; Edge vs. Jeff Hardy was a no contest when Edge was injured and the match was stopped; Melina & Gail Kim over Michelle McCool & Alicia Fox; Chris Jericho over John Morrison; and CM Punk over Rey Mysterio with the GTS after Jericho interfered. Jeff Hardy then ran in to make the save.
7/5 Smackdown/ECW house show results from Honolulu, Hawaii: John Morrison over Shelton Benjamin; Mark Henry over Evan Bourne; Great Khali over Dolph Ziggler; C.M. Punk over Jeff Hardy; Melina & Gail Kim over Michelle McCool & Alicia Fox with Maria as guest referee; Tommy Dreamer over Jack Swagger & Christian in a three-way; Rey Mysterio over Chris Jericho with Ricky Steamboat as guest referee. Steamboat got the biggest pop of the night as he was portrayed as the “hometown boy.” During his career Steamboat was always billed from Honolulu but isn’t even Hawaiian.
7/3 Raw house show results from Auckland, New Zealand: Goldust over Chavo Guerrero; Sheamus over Jamie Noble; Santino over Brain Kendrick; The Miz over MVP; Kofi Kingston over William Regal; The Legacy over The Colons; Mickie James over Maryse in a non title match; and John Cena & Triple H over Big Show & Randy Orton. We have a full review of this show in the mailbag.
7/4 Raw house show results from Sydney, Australia: Goldust over Chavo Guerrero; Sheamus over Jamie Noble; Santino over Brain Kendrick; The Miz over MVP; Kofi Kingston over William Regal; The Legacy over The Colons; Maryse over Kelly Kelly; and John Cena & Triple H over Big Show & Randy Orton.
7/5 Raw house show results from Brisbane, Australia: Goldust over Chavo Guerrero; Maryse over Kelly Kelly; Kofi Kingston over William Regal & MVP in a three-way; John Cena won a battle royal that included lots of comedy spots; Triple H over Big Show; and John Cena over Randy Orton via DQ when The Legacy interfered.
7/6 Raw house show results from Adelaide, Australia: Goldust over Chavo Guerrero; Sheamus over Santino; Jamie Noble over William Regal; Cody Rhodes over Carlito; Kofi Kingston over The Brian Kendrick & The Miz; The Big Show over MVP; Mickie James over Mayrse in a non title match; and Triple H defeated Randy Orton via DQ when The Legacy interfered.
WWE has done strong business this past weekend overseas. So far we know Auckland drew a capacity 10,000 for a $500,000 gate; Sydney drew an 18,500 sell-out doing $1 million; Brisbane drew 9,000 doing $650,000; and Adelaide drew 9,000 doing $550,000.
Raw tonight is a taped show from last Monday in San Jose with Ted DiBiase Sr. as guest GM. Line up is Triple H vs. John Cena with the winner facing Randy Orton for the title at Night of Champions; Orton vs.
Ted DiBiase Jr; Mark Henry vs. Cody Rhodes; Edge & Chris Jericho vs. The Colons in a non-title match; Kofi Kingston vs. Evan Bourne in a non title match; Mickie James & Gail Kim vs. Maryse & Alicia Fox; and an MVP Lounge with Jack Swagger. Told the main event is especially good.
We’re looking for reader reports from the Raw shows today in Melbourne and tomorrow in Perth as well as from the Smackdown/ECW shows in Japan today and tomorrow to [email protected].
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John Cena was pulled from the Raw show today in Adelaide. I assume he was pulled for some type of promotional work. Either that or this is the week in July he planned to get married which would make sense given no TV tapings due to the overseas touring. On a related note, Cena is featured on the promotional poster for Summerslam at http://tinyurl.com/ljlw8s.
MVP hurt his knee today in Adelaide during a singles match with Big Show. Following the match trainers helped him to the back. We have no further update at press time.
There is a hilarious clip of Santino Marella at the Raw show in Brisbane last night at http://tinyurl.com/nqunp2.
Matt Hardy underwent surgery for his abdominal muscle tear on 7/2. He is expected to be sidelined for at least 8 weeks. I have a story at www.the-sun.co.uk/wrestling as well as a story looking at a Twitter feud between Chris Jericho and The Miz. Don’t forget you can follow us on Twitter for all the latest breaking news at http://twitter.com/wrestlingglobe.
Edge’s ankle injury was confirmed as an Achilles tendon tear. That would put him out of action for at least the rest of the year. WWE still hasn’t decided how to handle the situation and are looking at ways they can explain the injury using footage already in the can for this Friday’s Smackdown broadcast. However, a tag title match is already scheduled for Night of Champions with Edge and Chris Jericho defending against The Legacy.
Maria suffered a minor leg injury at the Smackdown tapings last week in Fresno. It isn’t thought to be serious as she has been working referee spots during the Diva matches at house shows over the weekend.
The Fox Affiliate in Memphis is reporting that Jerry Lawler is thinking about running to become Mayor again after current Mayor Willie Herenton announced his retirement from office. According to the report, Lawler will make his final decision later this week. Lawler last ran for Mayor 10 years ago garnering 12 percent of the votes behind Herenton and Joe Ford.
WWE has hired Jim Connelly as head of their licensing department. He used to hold a similar position with the NFL.
The Philippine Star at http://tinyurl.com/mcrs5w interviewed Tommy Dreamer to push the house show in Manila on Friday. He noted working with a broken finger. He said his workout routine consists of an hour of cardio and an hour of weights every day: “Sometimes, if I travel I miss working out but I try to make up for it as soon as I have the time to,”
he said. Apparently Dreamer is taking a ton of ribbing in the locker room over his comments in this interview.
The Baltimore Sun interviewed Torrie Wilson at http://tinyurl.com/n26wgf following her run on NBC’s I’m A Celebrity. She is upset with WWE for not putting a voting link on WWE.com to help her win the show. She likely would have won as Lou Diamond Phillips beat her by less than one-tenth of one percentage point. When asked about her appearance earlier this year at Wrestlemania 25 in the Diva battle royal she said she is now embarrassed that she agreed to be a part of it: “A lot of people in the audience didn’t even know that I was in that match because they didn’t even announce it. For me, that whole experience at Wrestlemania was kind of like closure. I feel like maybe I’m not appreciated like I would have hoped. They just wanted all these girls there. Now I can understand why Trish [Stratus] decided not to do it; she was smart. Going into it I trusted them that they would use me in the right way and I should have known better. All in all, I learned a valuable lesson.”
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin at http://tinyurl.com/n9mv63 has a story on Chris Jericho. He talked about Ricky Steamboat, saying that at 55, Steamboat is better than 80 percent of the wrestlers on the current WWE roster.
The Associated Press at http://tinyurl.com/lt6aq5 has a story on Floyd Mayweather Jr. and his issues with the IRS. The story claimed that Mayweather got $20 million for his match with Big Show at Wrestlemania
24 which is fast becoming one of those myths that if people say it enough it becomes true; like WWE drawing 93,000 at Wrestlemania III and Andre the Giant standing 7’4″.
Jim Ross at www.jrsbarbq.com praises newcomer Sheamus in his latest
blog: “Sheamus, the Celtic Warrior, is earning good reviews while touring with WWE. Sheamus is a big, tough, Irish kid who has a discernible up side and could be a future star if he stays healthy and sane along with getting a little good luck. Sheamus formerly played rugby which isn’t for the faint of heart and speaks for the young man’s toughness.”
Hacksaw Jim Duggan has a fascinating blog at http://tinyurl.com/km3vps discussing how he broke into the business and revealing his plans for an autobiography. He also talked about relocating after living in Titusville, FL for 20 years to a log cabin in South Carolina where his wife is from.
After Roddy Piper’s arrest for DUI this past weekend, how ironic is this footage now? http://tinyurl.com/mluggo
Mutlichannel News at http://tinyurl.com/n65gby has a story looking at the name changes to upcoming WWE PPV’s talking to Peter Clifford, who is VP of distribution and affiliate marketing. Clifford said that WWE is “on budget with its PPV events for the first six months of the year” but funnily enough this was because the company “lowered revenue expectations this year due to the economic recession.” He also noted that the company is working with its PPV affiliates to offer incentives and free exclusive video content to drive PPV buys.
TOTAL NONSTOP ACTION WRESTLING NEWS
7/2 Impact TV results from Orlando, FL: Amazing Red over Cody Deaner; Eric Young over Rhino; Awesome Kong & Tara over Angelina Love & Velvet Sky; Booker T & Scott Steiner over Team 3D; and Kurt Angle & Samoa Joe over Jeff Jarrett & AJ Styles.
The current line up for Victory Road on 7/19 is Kurt Angle vs. Mick Foley for the TNA title; Beer Money, Inc vs. Scott Steiner & Booker T for the tag titles; AJ Styles vs. Kevin Nash for the Legends title; and Sharmell vs. Jenna to inflict pain and suffering on fans of professional wrestling.
Referee Rudy Charles has left the company. Not quite sure yet what led to him leaving but Charles had been with TNA since its inception in 2002.
Jakks Pacific were at the TV tapings last month scanning some of the guys for a forthcoming action figure line.
The Beautiful People recently shot a pictorial for MuscleMag which is expected to be published in the December issue.
Alex Marvez at http://tinyurl.com/lvar44 has a story on Jesse Neal.
Jim Cornette has a new blog at http://www.jimcornette.com looking at what he thinks some of today’s wrestling stars should know, but don’t.
Time Warner acquired Midway Games this week, but the deal didn’t include the TNA video game franchise, effectively leaving it without a home.
Variety has a story on the sale at http://tinyurl.com/l2nx7p.
Mick Foley was named the “Fan of the Game” at last Wednesday’s New York Yankees game.
The latest edition of the Spin Cycle is online at http://tinyurl.com/n7q3hz with Cornette, Foley, Jarrett, Sting and Don West.
OTHER WRESTLING NEWS
Wally Seiber, better known as Waldo Von Erich, passed away on Sunday night at Grand River Hospital in Kitchener, Ontario. He was 75. The Slam Wrestling website has a story at http://tinyurl.com/n5cl8s quoting Seiber’s daughter Mary Jane Berry who said her fathers death was sudden and expected after he was admitted to the hospital following a fall. The height of his success came in the 1960s and 70s when he wrestled for Stu Hart’s Stampede Wrestling. His gimmick was a german heel as the fictional brother of Fritz Von Erich. Together, they held the NWA American tag titles in 1967. He also had a decent singles run wrestling Bruno Sammartino several times in the WWWF. He retired in 1979 but continued to stay active in the business helping to train younger talents such as TNA’s Eric Young. With the money he earned from his wrestling career, he bought a lake in Ontario and built a castle in Belize. He also invented a medical device, which he sold to professional sports teams used to provide therapy to athletes with back problems
More than 25,000 people attended what was likely one of the largest public funerals in history for a sports star on 7/4 at the Differ Ariake in Tokyo for Mitsuharu Misawa. The Differ Ariake has capacity of just over 1,200 located near the headquarters of NOAH, so most people had to stand for hours to pay their respects. We’re told the line of people stretched for over two miles. The ceremony was divided into two parts, the first for the wrestlers, the second for the fans. Masa Chono, Yuji Nagata, Kensuke Sasaki, Riki Choshu, Tatsumi Fujinami and virtually every big name in Japanese wrestling was in attendance. NTV in Japan broadcast the entire service last night and footage is now online in 15 parts at http://tinyurl.com/n24omm.
An update on the robbery which led to the deaths of Mexican midget wrestlers Alejandro and Alberto Jiménez at http://tinyurl.com/nx8qeq.
Marty Jannetty has released an autobiographical documentary DVD at www.themartyjannettystory.com. There is a blog on the website with transcripts from the DVD. Jannetty recalls some interesting stories about how he and Shawn Michaels used to rib Greg Gagne during their AWA run as The Midnight Rockers. He also believes that the Gagne’s used to stiff the wrestlers on their payoffs: “One day, Greg came to a TV taping with a box supposedly full of ticket stubs. He opened the box real quick, to show ticket stubs on top, but it was impossible to tell what the entire box contained. Most of the contents could have been balled up newspaper pages for all we knew. “Here’s the problem, guys,” he said, holding the box in the air. “Somebody was selling fake tickets.” It was such a ridiculous explanation. He told us 20,000 fake tickets, representing two of every three people who had attended, had been circulated. It was another example to me of the disrespect that they showed the wrestlers who went out and worked hard for them.”
A pro wrestling act was featured on America’s Got Talent this past week.
Midwest indy wrestlers Steve Boz and Austin Roberts performed alongside model Koa-Marie Turner on the talent show. Piers Morgan called the act, “a complete waste of time.” You can watch the clip at
http://tinyurl.com/noosp2
There is a trailer for VH-1’s Megan Wants A Millionaire with indy wrestler Matt Riviera at http://tinyurl.com/lrn4kf. VH-1 claims that Riviera has a net worth of $5.5 million which I guess makes him the richest indy wrestler in the world. We don’t know much about him other than he is a graduate of Harding University, a liberal arts school in Searcy, AR, where he studied broadcast journalism. The show premieres in August.
A recent episode of the MTV show True Life featured an aspiring pro wrestler attempting to make it in Mexico.
Brooke Hogan slams The Hills star Heidi Montag in a track on her new album Judgment Day. You can listen at http://tinyurl.com/nanr74.
Dusty Rhodes has been added to the NWA fanfest in Charlotte in August.
More info at www.nwalegends.com.
11 years ago tonight Bill Goldberg defeated Hulk Hogan to win his first WCW title at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta before 41,412 fans. That show was the peak of the company and something a rival to WWE will probably never match or ever surpass again.
Diva-Dirt.com presents WGN’s Diva of the Day, Alicia Fox at http://www.diva-dirt.com/divaoftheday/
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WRESTLING GLOBE MAILBAG, QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Please send any mailbag letters or questions to
[email protected]
***
I don’t know what kind of beer you had — probably some [expletive]
cheap brand, because Canada is known for its quality beer… or else
your palate is seriously compromised by liquid [expletive] aka
Budweiser, Coors, Old Milwauke — all that that U.S. crap. Next time in
Canada, ask some advice and get a good brand — then you’ll know what
beer is really all about.
— No name supplied
MA: It was a Molson, which tasted very nasty.
***
7/3 Raw house show review from reader Robin Wilkinson in Auckland, New
Zealand:
Okay, so, the show started at 7.30, from looking around at the crowd I
could see that it was not sold out but it would have been near capacity.
The show kicked off with Chavo vs. Goldust w/ Hornswoggle. I didn´t get
to see all of the match but people were really in to it. I believe
Goldust won the match, and sent Chavo on his way, then Goldust and
Hornswoggle taunted and slapped people´s hands.
The second match was the unknown Sheamus vs. Jamie Noble. Sheamus got on
the mic before the match and ripped the crowd, basically saying our
rugby team the All Blacks, suck for losing to France a few weeks back…
The match it self was ok, of course the crowd getting behind Jamie.
Sheamus ended up beating Noble with a back breaker.
The third match was The Brian Kendrick vs. Santino Marella. The crowd
went nuts once Santino´s music hit! It was a good match, Santino was
hilarious, pretty much punking out Kendrick the whole match. Santino won
and the crowd loved it. Brian Kendrick was booed out of the arena
afterwards.
Fourth match was The Miz vs. MVP. Before the match, The Miz, got on the
mic and said ¨I demand respect, I am a former Tag Team champion, and yet
you still boo me…¨ He also said that we all relate to MVP, because we
are all ¨chubby chasers¨ with fat girlfriends, and that is why we cheer
for MVP. MVP came out with an NZ Warriors rugby league jersey on. The
match was good, Miz got the win after a few reversals, and was booed out
of the arena.
Intermission
Fifth match was William Regal vs. Kofi Kingston for the U.S. title.
Everyone immediately booed Regal, and chanted ¨Regal sucks!¨ Regal got
on the mic and said ¨I don´t suck, because I am not from New Zealand.¨
The crowd, including myself, chanted ¨Regal sucks¨ even more. This match
was cool, both amazing talents. Kofi won to retain the U.S. title.
Regal, of course, was booed out.
Sixth match up was The Legacy vs. Carlito and Primo. At the start, Primo
and Carlito joked about who should start by both hopping in and out of
the ring. Good match, both teams coming close to winning, in the end,
Cody Rhodes hit his finisher and pinned Carlito.
Seventh match was Maryse vs. Mickie James in a non-title match. The
crowd really got behind Mickie. And one stage in the match, Maryse got
out of the ring and faced one of the guys watching in the front row,
they both leaned in for a kiss, at the last moment,Maryse pulled away,
Mickie then chased Maryse back in to the ring. Mickie hit her DDT in the
end to win.
Main Event was as advertised: The Big Show and Randy Orton vs John Cena
and Triple H. The crowd went nuts as John Cena walked out, and again as
HHH entered. This was definitely the match of the night. A lot of great
spots, including when Cena and HHH double suplexed Big Show. At one
point, HHH got a chair and chased Randy, which the crowd were very in
to. The match ended with Randy knocked outside, Cena hit his ´Attitude
Adjustment´ and then HHH hit the Pedigree as the legal man and got the 3
count. Randy and Big Show left, John Cena and HHH taunted and then left.
Not a long show, 2.5 hours from 7.30pm to 10pm, but still highly
enjoyable and entertaining.
Also, during the show, Kelly Kelly appeared in the stand and gave a
family of 4, front row seats after they answered correctly what the next
WWE PPV event is. And two young boys got in the ring wearing Triple H
and John Cena merch, and threw out t-shirts to the crowd.
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