Obviously quite a few articles dissappeared when we had a big, fat technical difficulty earlier this week. But tonight’s the first night of Hanukkah, and fingers crossed, but it looks like we’re back in business! Thanks to all of you for patience as we re-post everything we can and get things back to 100% as soon as possible…
…onto some wrestling news (playing catch-up of course):
– TNA’s iMPACT! had its biggest rating ever this Thursday, with a 1.2 cable rating, up from last week’s 1.0, getting a 1.8 share, according to Nielsen Media. The show averaged 1.4 million viewers, and hit a 0.90 rating with males 18-49 and a 1.0 for M18-34. UFC programming after iMPACT! actually went down, getting a 1.1 and 1.0 in the following two hours. (Credit: PWTorch.com, PWInsider)
– Monday’s RAW did a 3.8 cable rating (hours of 3.7 and 3.9, and a 5.7 share) according to Nielsen Media (PWInsider).
– Samoa Joe’s hurt with a second-degree sprain of his MCL, probably injured during the tag match taped for next Thursday’s iMPACT!, but he’ll be at the two UWF/TNA shows over the weekend (probably not wrestling) and does plan to wrestle his upcoming ROH dates. (WrestlingObserver.com)
– Roddy Piper talked with Mike Madden on ESPN Radio about his cancer, saying it was found early enough to beat and that Ric Flair texts him regularly telling him to keep fighting. They also spoke about his DVD (he was impressed with the production), Wrestlemania (he wants to face Vince) and more. (PWInsider)
– The David Eckstein/AJ Pierzynski angle from Sunday’s TNA PPV has gotten a ton of mainstream press, including in Chicago and St. Louis, on CNN Headline News and on ESPN’s Sportscenter and ESPN2’s Cold Pizza.
– TNA will not be on The Wrestling Channel in the UK in 2007, with a deal with a bigger network (rumored to be Bravo) set to be announced soon. (WrestlingObserver.com)
– WWE released Danny Doring, who hasn’t done much on the ECW roster since the brand was brought back. He, along with Road Kill (currently being repackaged in OVW), were the final ECW Tag Team Champions back in 2001. (PWInsider)
– Daniel Rodimer, formerly of Tough Enough IV and now down in Deep South Wrestling, has been booked on house shows with Rated-RKO vs. DX. He’s been fast-tracked due to his great look and charisma, but is still pretty green in the ring (i.e., not as good as Chris Masters when he was originally brought to RAW), according to Meltzer. (WrestlingObserver.com)
– There’s also talk that Ray Gordy will join Smackdown, forming a tag team with the returning Henry Godwinn. In a cool story about WWE developmental, talent relations man Mike Bucci (Simon Dean/Nova) is apparently behind an idea to make sure new wrestlers are up on their history. Eddie Guerrero autobiographies have been given to the up-and-comers, as well as a list of 100 historical wrestling figures, and they WILL be quizzed. (PWInsider)
– Johnny Nitro and Melina were on NYC’s CW11 morning show hyping the K-Fed/Cena match for January 1, with Melina threatening to call out Paris Hilton for betraying their friendship by hanging out with Britney Spears. Also, K-Fed’s involvement in WWE was joked about on Conan O’Brien this week (PWInsider, WrestlingObserver.com)
– Lance Storm didn’t like Bischoff’s book, and has also updated his commentaries the past few weeks with some interesting stuff.
– JR’s blog is HOPPING with responses to reader feedback from the RAW announcer. Wait, there’s more — here.
– TNA has posted the updated standing for the Paparazzi Championship Series here, including this footage from the pushup contest:
– Also on TNA’s site is video of Kurt Angle at the Video Game Awards, as well as the TNA Midway game trailer and a bunch more out of iMPACT! and leading into next week’s episode.
– WWE.com talks about how the company’s bowling for the troops, how WWE met with Japanese legend Antonio Inoki (with WWE.com implying that WWE and New Japan were in talks of some sort), and talks with the reunited World’s Greatest Tag Team while reporting (and making an official statement on) a scary story about a German teen who blames a WWE video game for his killing a homeless man. Plus, the site is planning a re-launch pretty soon…
