According to PWInsider, there was an incident between CM Punk and Tony Atlas at the OVW taping last Wednesday. WWE had sent Atlas down there and to FCW to talk to the young talent about avoiding some of the pitfalls that hurt his career, yet instead he apparently spent most of his time telling them how he should have been a bigger star. Punk, who was working a dark match as WWE were in the area, was criticised by Punk about how he wore his wrist tape, with Atlas telling him it ‘looked like he had broken arms’. During the post-taping meeting between talent and Al Snow and the other veterans, Atlas started making negative comments about workers with bad attitudes and kept staring at Punk each time. Punk eventually asked why he kept looking at him, which made Atlas mad. Apparently Atlas told Punk that with his ‘bad attitude’ he would never make it onto TV. Punk asked him if he had even knew the name of CM Punk or watched ECW and Atlas said no, which led to a 20 minute argument between the two. Later, OVW worker Atlas DaBone went up to Atlas to apologise on Punk’s behalf, which got him a lot of heat with the other developmental workers. When word of this got back to John Laurinaitis, he was incensed that OVW management let things get so bad instead of defusing the situation. The OVW workers are said to see Punk as something of a hero now, since morale there has been so low in recent weeks. Many of them feel WWE now doesn’t want to help them improve so much as beat them down for all they do ‘wrong’, with a lot of what Atlas said echoing recent comments made by OVW trainer Robert Gibson.
In other news:
– According to PWInsider, Hardcore Holly beat Cody Rhodes with an Alabama Slam in the dark match at No Mercy. After the PPV went off-air, Triple H refused help and walked himself to the back as the crowd gave him a standing ovation.
– Also from PWInsider, Keith Walker and Buck Quartermaine from FCW were released by WWE last week.
– Slam Sports has an article up remembering the late Sean “Shocker” Evans.
– The Canadian Press has an update on the Chris Benoit legal case and how many steroids Dr. Phil Astin allegedly prescribed to Chris.
– Bill DeMott says in his latest blog post that his last wrestling match will be against Team 3D on 27 October.
