Malenko Out of Retirement? Plus News on Jericho, Tazz and Awesome

News

Dean Malenko will NOT come out of retirement for a March 3 match at Plaza de Toros la Monumental de Monterrey, despite previous reports. The reason for the error was that Chad Collyer will be working under his Chad Malenko name at the Toryumon Mexico show. DEAN Malenko announced his retirement at the Pillman Memorial show in July 2001, but also worked two matches in HWA, the final one seeing him on the losing end of a mixed tag match in Dayton, Ohio on 12/12/01 with Brandi Alexander & Shannon Moore & Matt Stryker defeating Malenko & Jamie Noble & Hellena Heavenly. There were rumors that Dean would come back to face Chris Benoit at ECW One Night Stand 2006, but that match ended up scrapped and Benoit then took some time off to get healthy and be with his wife who had undergone surgery.

Chris Jericho, on the other hand, is still not planning on coming out of semi-retirement. In this interview, he talks about his run, how he feels about Vince McMahon, and says the following about ECW: “ECW, on the other hand, I think is pointless. Really, I don’t think ECW will be around this time next year. It’s already becoming a forgotten zone for wrestlers to go to. Unless Vince is making a lot of money off of it, I don’t think he’ll keep running with ECW.”

Speaking of ECW, Tazz is again hosting the 10pm to Midnight slot each night this week (except tonight) on 92.3 FM in NYC. His photo is up here and WWE.com has a story on it here. Lance Storm talks about the death of former ECW Champion Mike Awesome in his latest commentary. Francine blogs about Awesome here and Gregory Helms does so here.

Matthew Michaels is editor emeritus of Pulse Wrestling, and has been since the site launched.