Armageddon will be headlined by Batista/Cena vs. Booker/Finlay. This was Vince McMahon’s call as the original plan was for Batista/Booker in a title rematch, then the idea was changed to Batista/Booker/Finlay for the title in order to improve the match quality, and then Vince decided to just add more star power to try and boost the buyrate.
Raw on 12/28 will be a three hour show, airing from 8-11pm. USA Network originally asked for two three-hour episodes in December but settled for just one.
Rob Van Dam is getting yet more heat backstage for refusing to go on the Iraq trip for the second year running. WWE cannot force their independent contractors to go into a warzone as they cannot legally guarantee their safety but it is an unwritten rule that the wrestlers should comply. The plan was to do a slow build to an RVD/Lashley title match in ECW next year but this will probably get changed now. The annual Iraq trips were JBL’s idea. The crew left after Raw this Monday and arrived at a veteran’s hospital in Germany on the Tuesday before heading to Iraq on the Wednesday. They are bringing Xboxes to troops at 25 different military locations.
Gerald Brisco has arranged a meeting between Vince McMahon and Dave & Earl Hebner about bringing them back to WWE.
Trish Stratus’ upcoming reality TV show is called Armed & Famous. On 11/20 the crew were mostly filming scenes at a CPR class, joking around a lot to get on camera. One of the training officers was called John Kowalski and Trish kept calling him Killer Kowalski.
Christian Cage has been pushing for Tyson Tomko to join TNA ever since he first signed with the company. The original plan was for Cage to win the title, turn heel on Sting, then have the pair meet at the December PPV, where Sting would win if he was staying and put Cage over if he wasn’t. Obviously that has changed a great deal now but the plan was always to debut Tomko once Cage had turned heel.
Homicide was apparently really upset when Angle popped his ear in the TV match that aired this week. He was so mad he wanted to go right there but kept himself under control.
Vince Russo is said to be writing on average twice as much for a one hour show as what the old booking team managed. This means they need to edit out a lot of stuff both before and after filming as they simply cannot fit it all onto the program. The 11/30 edition of Impact contained 7:52 of wrestling.
The James Gang boys have been told that for legal reasons they can use Vince McMahon’s name on-air, since it’s a real name, but not Triple H or Shawn Michaels as they are the names of WWE characters.
Credit: Wrestling Observer newsletter (click here for subscription information)
