News on Hornswoggle, WWE.com, Umaga & Matt Hardy

News

The decision to make Finlay into Hornswoggle’s father rather than Vince McMahon was taken when Vince himself finally realised they had nowhere else to go with the angle. A number of WWE writers had been critical of the angle all along, feeling that they were spending too much time on it even though it was doing nothing for ratings, and even Stephanie McMahon wasn’t positive about the way things were going. Vince was determined to prove people wrong but changed his mind in the end.

Matt Hardy had surgery on his elbow whilst he was out with appendicitis. He had needed the operation for a while but did not want to take time off specifically to get it done.

WWE.com’s industry news section is being run by a casual fan who is said to be rather out of his depth. He surfs wrestling websites for stories and has them approved by the creative team before they go online. The new direction for the website came from Michael Cole getting replaced as the manager due to declining hit numbers. Triple H wanted the site to be kept entirely kayfabe but Vince said he wanted something that was a mix of the Drudge Report and Daily Variety. At first they were banned from using the Wrestling Observer and PWInsider as sources but that was soon changed. Shane McMahon made a similar suggestion a while back but wanted the news section to be part of a premium subscription package, with WWE using their own sources to post their own news rather than crediting other sites.

Celso Forster, former marketing director for ESPN in Brazil, has been hired as WWE’s new Director of Marketing for Latin America.

**The following contains SPOILERS for WrestleMania 24**

Umaga is set for a major push. His match with Batista at WrestleMania 24 is to end in a controversial manner, with him moving to Smackdown soon afterwards to continue the program. He is also earmarked to face The Undertaker for the World Heavyweight Title at SummerSlam.

Credit: Wrestling Observer Newsletter, 10 March 2008 (subscribe here)