Hi all. Tonight was Widro’s night to do the news, but the hardest workin’ man on the Net is busy on another project. Hence, he asked me to take my virgin shot at the news, so here we go.
Probably the biggest story right now ((well, minus the whole invasion thingie)) is the injuries suffered last night at King of the Ring. Luckily, most of them are not as bad as first feared. Kurt Angle suffered a bruised tailbone during his FIRST match last night. At first, they thought he might have broken it and would have to take serious time off. Luckily, that wasn’t the case. Steve Austin, supposedly, suffered a fractured hand when Booker T ((did Stevie Ray give him permission to use the T?)) got a little overzealous with the Spanish Announce Table spot of the night. Booker threw him a bit too far. Austin didn’t have anything on his hand to immobilize it on Raw, so the report may have been exaggerated. Chris Benoit, on the other hand, is looking at a minimum of three months on the shelf due to a nagging back injury he’s had for a while. He was trying to work through as to not interfere with his super-push. By the way Raw went tonight, it looks as though Austin is going to get the credit with putting him out. Shane McMahon, on the other hand, is just fine. This all came from The Observer.
Speaking of the Invasion thing, the WWF started it off with a bang on Raw. We had a WCW wrestler winning the Hardcore Title, DDP attacking Mr and Mrs Taker, and Booker T attacking the owner of the company. It was, by far, the strongest WCW presence at any WWF show to date. Apparantly, the WWF mid-carders aren’t going to take the invasion lying down. Even without Vince prodding them along. The APA is apparently leading a counter-strike. It’s good to know Shane managed to sneak some of his techs up in the catwalks to put some WCW lighting effects up there. It’ll make the invasion come off that much better. The always-HOT New York City crowd helped the show immensely. The historic look back at the WWF in Madison Square Garden made the WCW invasion there seemed that much more important. I think it was some seriously convenient scheduling for them.
Randy Savage did a radio interview in Dallas, Texas yesterday. He was in town doing a Celebrity Coach thing. Some highlights
- Said he could never work for Hulk Hogan, but would be OK having Hogan work for him
- Said he got a fever of 104 four days after getting “bitten” by Jake’s King Cobra. Turns out, the cobra died 12 days after the match. Apparantly, Savage won’t job for Cobras either.
- Said he did all his own stunts in the upcoming Spiderman movie, and had to teach the stunt guys how to do everything since they had no wrestling experience
The full review is available at The Torch
Also at The Torch was an interview with Big Vito, formerly of the Mamalukes.
- Said the Mamalukes were very over in WCW at one point and got to hold the WCW Tag Belts for two months…((the hell?))
- Says he’s been doing nothing but working out and is in the greatest shape of his life
- He’s still under a Time Warner contract, so he won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Ya think? I mean, Vince ain’t paying him anything like a Time Warner Contract.
- Said everyone tried hard to adapt to WCW while he was there, but five management changes doesn’t make for an easy time
In heartbreaking news, Vince McMahon has been dropped from Forbes Magazine’s list of billionaires. Poor Vince is out about $400 million thanks to the XFL, and is now only worth a paltry $700 million. Hopefully, the payments on the jet won’t be affected. Got this from Forbes Magazine. Not the website, the magazine itself… but there’s the link.
Jerry Lawler has posted an official message on his website saying he has NOT been in any sort of negotiations with the WWF for a possible return. Highlights:
- Said because people think The Kat got fired because of Chyna, and since Chyna was done with the WWF, that the door might be open for The Kat and Lawler to return. But, alas, no…
- Mentioned the meeting he had with Jim Ross and Kevin Dunn… and that nothing good had come of the meeting. Only that he got to explain to them his feelings on the situation, and neither of their positions changed
- Said he even received phone calls from some of WWF personnel on Sunday asking him if the rumor was true.
- Said he was going to be in New York for the Yankees/Cleveland series on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but not for the WWF.
The full posting is at The King’s site. Personally, I think someone found out Lawler was flying to New York, where the WWF happened to be holding two ((or maybe three… I don’t know where Smackdown is)) shows in the immediate area and jumped to the wrong conclusion. The great part about the Internet is… if Meltzer was wrong, eh, web writers are always wrong. But, if he was right, he could have bragged about it for months.
Lucas, or whatever peon he has working on WCW.com, has been busy over the last couple of days. First they had a big update after King of the Ring, where Booker’s picture was put up on the site with “The Champ Returns” under it. In the article, they had a bunch of shots of the WCW guys on King of the Ring. Then, after Raw, they updated to include Mike Awesome’s Hardcore Title victory. Awesome talked about jumping ship on Paul E and said he only did it because ECW was in financial straits. He had a wife and kids at home to feed. Paul E might be pissed at him, but then again… he’s one of the few ECW guys Paul doesn’t owe any money to. He also went on about his Hardcore title victory. He said he was pumped to have a real live belt from the WWF. He, apparently, doesn’t know that Crash Holly has held the title on 20-some-odd occasions. Check out WCW’s site for it all.
In good news to males everywhere, Major Gunns has joined the list of women who will pose naked for Missy Hyatte’s new website, www.wrestlingviXXXens.com ((get it… wrestlingvixens, but it’s XXX rated. Hoo-HAH!!)). Anyway, according to Missy, the site will host a new naked wrestling chick every week until they’ve exhausted all possible wrestling chicks who are willing to pose naked for the Internet. Thank the guys from RF Video for this little tidbit.
Also from the guys at RF, the Rock says he’ll be back in the WWF in time for SummerSlam. Expect the interim pushes of Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho to evaporate by then. Also expect Booker T to stop using the Bookend.
Anyone looking for some good reading. Craig Letawski checked in with more Q&A with his Ask411 Feature. No one beats him at this. PK zapped the Raw Recap up 15 minutes after the show here… a full 15 minutes… he’s slipping. Also, the 411Rankings have been updated. You can get those right here.
That’s it for me. Thanks for reading and check back tomorrow for a brand new Cheap Heat from yours truly. It’ll be a tribute to you folks who took some time to write me last week.
