Welcome, welcome.
There’s not a ton of news this week that hasn’t already circulated, so we’re going to do a bit of filler material at the beginning. If you don’t care about filler, just skip on down to the WWE HITS section and read from there.
– We relaunched The Wrestling Blog last week with a sweet new minimalist design. We’re starting our third year of operations at TWB, and we’ve got some new bloggers getting ready to start posting stuff. For those who haven’t visited in awhile (or never visited at all), you really should make the blog one of your daily stops. We hired Inside Pulse Wrestling star Ken Anderson as the new editor a few months ago, and he’s done a great job of posting new stuff on a daily basis and keeping the community involved. Go visit. Bookmark it. Love it.
– Skype is now free for calls to any regular phone in the United States or Canada (through the end of 2006). If I had half a brain, I’d recommend that people use Skype instead of a regular home phone, but 75% of you probably exist solely on the cell networks at this point, anyway, so there’s no reason in wasting my breath. Skype is perfect, however, for those who want a way to verbally communicate with people over the internet but don’t want to give your cell phone away, because you can set Skype up to forward calls to any other number you choose. I could put my Skype name up on my blog, you could call it, and we could chat about wrestling or Inside Pulse or whatever. This will never happen, however, and the only people who will ever get access to my cell phone are Widro, Matthew and Eric. I think I did a radio show with Eric back in 1999 or so, and if memory serves me right, I ended up being afraid for my life. I’d trade my left arm to find that picture of Eric that graced The Shooters back in the day.
– I saw Mission Impossible III last night, and boy, was it good. It was one of those flicks where if you completely separate yourself from reality and forget that Tom Cruise is a Grade A Nutjob, you’ll likely have a lot of fun. It was the very definition of a great popcorn film, and J.J. Abrams cements himself in my mind as one of the best all-around directors out there today, at least when it comes to creating compelling bursts of crazy film and television. And I’ve never seen a single episode of Alias.
– Oh, and speaking of television — I can’t really go another week without talking about Lost. There are four shows that I will go out of my way to see every single week, and they are Lost, The Sopranos, Arrested Development and My Name Is Earl. Of course, Arrested Development is DOA until Showtime finally does the right thing and picks it up, but the rest are still great programming. I never even watched the first season of Lost until the DVD’s came out, and since then, I’ve been completely hooked. And also completely confused.
If you’re like me (and Fingers), you’re wondering what the heck is going on, so you like to read theories and research done by folks who are much, much geekier than I and also have much more free time on their hands. The best Lost theory I’ve seen, hands down, has to be this one. The detail is amazing and it’s very well thought out, and I’m thinking that it’s probably dead-on, at least of this moment.
Of course, given that this guy has basically nailed the plotline of the show, they’ll probably change it and make it even more convoluted and retarded. I’ll still love it and watch it every week, of course, because I am nothing if not consistent (and retarded, to boot).
Let’s hit the news. As usual, 99% of this stuff comes from Wade Keller and the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter.
WWE HITS
– The company is interested in bringing back Jeff Hardy once his TNA contract expires in July. Jeff is in shape and has been working out with students at Shannon Moore’s wrestling school. Hardy hasn’t said one way or another if he’s interested in going back to WWE again, but it would seem to be a really, really dumb career move if he didn’t.
– See No Evil has done horribly in screenings, indicating that it’ll be a bust. Stay tuned to the Rotten Tomatoes page for the movie to see how bad it really is. Or you could go see it for yourself. Someone has to, after all.
– The Bobcats Arena in Charlotte has a billboard outside advertising a DX reunion for Vengeance. Perhaps it’s just me, but someone should pass this info on to Vince McMahon so he’ll stop trying to get Triple H to hit Shawn with a hammer.
– Wrestlemania 22 buyrates are expected to pass 1 million buys, including both international and domestic.
– Shawn Michaels had planned on going on a reduced schedule this summer, but Vince McMahon talked him into staying on full time due to a distinct lack of main event level babyfaces.
– There are no plans for a draft lottery this year. It hasn’t even been discussed, and the creative staff is making plans for Summerslam and beyond at this point.
ECW HITS
– Currently scheduled for One Night Stand is RVD vs. John Cena, Funk and Dreamer vs.Foley and Edge, and Sabu vs. Justin Credible. There’s also talk of a potential Sandman vs. JBL match, but nothing is set in stone. There’s also talk of an intervention for Francine, in which she’ll be forced to each a dozen sandwiches and stop looking like Skeletor.
– Grapplers that have been signed for ECW include Sandman, Francine, Danny Doring, Tony Mamaluke, Sabu, Jazz, Axl Rotten, Balls Mahoney and C.W. Anderson. Once Justin Credible is released from the MTV wrestling project, he’ll be signing as well, and New Jack has been offered a contract.
– Terry Funk will continue to build his tag team match with Mick Foley leading up to the PPV, but won’t make appearances at TV every week. Of course, this can only happen if Terry remembers to get on an airplane.
TNA HITS
– The current plan is for Samoa Joe to take on Scott Steiner at the next PPV in a one on one match. This, of course, is assuming that Joe’s ligament tears heal fully, but he’s expected back in two to three weeks. His injury is actually just an aggravation of a prior injury, and not as serious as first thought. Joe will have to wear a knee brace for a few months, but it won’t stop him from wrestling.
– New Japan has asked to bring in A.J. Styles for an upcoming tour. TNA has asked New Japan to take Jeff Hardy, but permanently.
– Styles joked with Kevin Nash about wishing he was still in the X Division so he could be the guy who scores the final win over Nash in the angle. Most people in the company believe that the Nash angle will be good for the division and will end up with several wrestlers being elevated much higher than they currently are.
– Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner and Sting all like Samoa Joe and were said to be plotting ways to get him over at Sacrafice. Jarrett should stop focusing on others and focus on not wearing white jeans in public.
– Dixie Carter won’t be backstage for awhile, as she’s due to give birth to her second baby in a few weeks. While Dixie is gone, Jeff Jarrett will take over complete control of the day-to-day operations of the company. Luckily, TNA already has plans set in stone for the next few months; otherwise, Dixie would come back to find that Jeff holds the NWA Title, the X-Title, and the Tag Team titles all by himself.
BIG FINISH
I told you we were light on the news this week. I suspect that things will pick up greatly the closer we get to the ECW PPV and launch of the weekly TV program on The Sci-Fi Channel. After all, Francine hasn’t been involved on a weekly basis in a major wrestling promotion in a long time, so there’s sure to be some sordid soap-worthy tidbits coming out of the ECW camp. Honestly, there’s more details emerging about the walloping Booker T dealt out to Batista, but I don’t really feel like writing about that story any more. Beating a dead horse and all that.
Have a good weekend, and come back Sunday for complete Judgment Day coverage and whatnot.
