This Week in ‘E – No News is Good News

Opening Witty Banter
I am almost apologetic at how little news has come out of WWE this past week. We are under a month away from freakin’ WrestleMania and nothing substantial is really happening. The build for WrestleMania has been really hot every since about WrestleMania X-Seven, but this year everything is just seeming to fall flat. I’m not we’re not talking about just WWE’s biggest show of the year, we are talking about professional wrestling’s biggest show of the year. Ring of Honor has made it a habit of following WrestleMania like a little puppy dog the past couple of years, and TNA has decided to step up and do a live TV show because “big brother” is in their back yard this year. I guess they say sometimes that no news is good news, and after the year WWE had in 2007 maybe this quietness is just what they wanted.

The Big Story
Wow…*looks around*…there really isn’t much laying around here that constitutes a big story in Titan-land. No one died, no one was accused of any wrongdoings or tomfoolery, and there wasn’t even any good juicy interviews or anything. Let’s see what we’ve got though. Hulk Hogan made some outlandish statements recently, but that’s nothing new. The Rock says steroids are bad, and apparently the sky is still blue. Demolition won a tag team gauntlet in CHIKARA last weekend, so that’s pretty cool, but my fandom of them isn’t anything to build an entire column around (not yet anyways). And Bobby Lashley says he’s going into MMA, but first he’s going to try out for the Denver Broncos as he continues his personal quest of telling Brock Lesnar that “anything you can do, I can do better.”

How about the divas? Well Lita got sick while touring with her band. Trish is starting her own Travel Channel show called “Stratusphere.” Chyna will be on NBC’s “Celebrity Circus.” *whispers from assistant* What, none of them work for WWE anymore? Oh well then.

I guess this year’s Road to WrestleMania goes through the peaceful Midwestern countryside or something. I was going to use this section for a special commentary, but it’s about three in the morning in my little corner of the world and I should really get some sleep. Plus I remember I’ve got another column coming up on Thursday that I need some material for, so my rantings will come out then.

Everything Else Fit For Print
Rather than waiting to announce this at WrestleMania 24, it has been leaked that WrestleMania 25 will take place at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. The stadium holds 71,500 people for a football game and should be able to hold a few thousand more for WrestleMania.

It’s cool that WWE is continuing their trend of holding their events in super stadiums and arenas. It really makes it seem like a special event. I finally decided this year after I graduated college that I will make it to a WrestleMania sometime soon. I was hoping for Las Vegas as it was rumored months ago, but maybe I’ll start looking into tickets down to Houston.

As is customary around WrestleMania time, WWE has started making some talent cuts. This time it’s only two developmental guys in Silas Young and German “Gran Apolo” Figuero.

I’m not familiar with Young’s work, but Gran Apolo was a fixture off/on in TNA for years. He had some legal trouble around the same time he signed his WWE contract last year and never really got out of the blocks in regards to his developmental work. I’m expecting more cuts to come after WrestleMania and everyone gets settled into developmental down in Florida.

WWE has finally embraced some recent new media outlets, opening up a YouTube channel, as well as creating official MySpace and facebook fan pages.

Apparently WWE is getting with the times in regards to all the media outlets all the kids are using now. WWE’s website budget has been raised, as the plan is to make wwe.com a destination site for all wrestling fans, especially now with their new “Industry News” tab that Vince McMahon himself has approved. This should make for some interesting things in future weeks, as previously WWE has been so resistant to other outside media outlets.

Stephanie McMahon gave Bruce Pritchard a sound ass chewing last week after how bad the Floyd Mayweather interview segments came off last week on RAW.

Good. The interviews were terrible, and when an employee doesn’t do a good job, a boss reprimands them. Why am I reporting this again? Oh yeah, filler.

Vince McMahon, Floyd Mayweather, Chris Jericho, and John Cena are all scheduled to appear on Larry King Live on CNN on March 13.

WrestleMania season always gets the news media a little more aware of pro wrestling, and Larry King is the master of throwing “softballs” at his guests. As long as Mayweather doesn’t say anything stupid this should be a good PR fluff piece for WWE. Cena and Jericho are model employees and showed their poise in interview situations like this during this past summer’s “Operation: Benoit.”

Ken Kennedy is going be part of the straight-to-DVD movie “Behind Enemy Lines III” that is filming in Puerto Rico this month.

There was a “Behind Enemy Lines II”? Isn’t the first one that one with Owen Wilson? Hey good job to Kennedy to expand his resume outside of wrestling.

PWInsider.com has put out a small list of the marketing efforts done by WWE to promote WrestleMania. Their goal, naturally, is to top last year’s event as far as PPV sales go. Some of these efforts include:

– aerial advertising: land with the WWE logo on it at the Orlando Airport.
– a customized WM 24 Orange County Choppers motorcycle giveaway
– 30% increase in mailings sent to cable subscribers, making the total near 2-million.
– The Bright House Network will be running three-minute commercials in over 70,000 hotel rooms.
– DirecTV’s new blimp will be at three NASCAR events in March, showing 2-minute WWE clips, six times per hour.
– painting of steel shutters of local business in major markets. That way when the stores close their shutters would be street level billboards.

Apparently this is only a sampling of the forty-some promotional measures that WWE is employing to make WrestleMania a success. Every year the company busts out the big guns to promote this show and this year is no different. Whether they will be able to top last year’s buys is still anyone’s guess. Last year Donald Trump’s appearance helped them out immensely and it’s still hard to tell if Floyd Mayweather will have that kind of impact in 2008.

It’s been rumored that rapper Fat Joe and his boys are going to buy front row tickets for WrestleMania to confront 50 Cent, who will rap Floyd Mayweather down to the ring at the show.

Hahahahahaha….I just thought this was funny and wanted to post it. How the hell does that fat ass think he and his posse are going to get a series of front row seats for the show so they can taunt their rapper buddy? If Vince was thinking, he should invite them in and let him and 50 go at it. That would be the mainstream publicity they are looking for. As long as no one shoots anyone else…

WrestleMania Road Map
We are officially on the “Road to WrestleMania” and just a little over a month away from professional wrestling’s biggest show of the year. So this little section will provide you with a scorecard in regards to latest match line-up for the “Showcase of the Immortals.”

WWE Championship Triple Threat
Triple H v. John Cena v. Randy Orton (c)

World Heavyweight Championship
The Undertaker v. Edge (c)

Floyd Mayweather v. The Big Show

Career Threatening Match
Ric Flair v. Shawn Michaels

Money in the Bank
Jeff Hardy v. Mr. Kennedy v. Shelton Benjamin v. Chris Jericho v. Carlito
more participants will be added as the weeks go on

Battle for Brand Supremacy
Batista v. Umaga

Finlay v. JBL

Bunny-mania Lumberjack Match
Maria & Candice Michelle v. Beth Phoenix & Melina

celebrity involvement
* John Legend will perform “America the Beautiful”
* Snoop Dogg will emcee “Bunny-mania”
* Raven-Symone will appear as part of the Bacon, Bagels and Biceps brunch
* Kim Kardashian will special guest hostess of WrestleMania
* 50 Cent will accompany Floyd Mayweather and provide his entrance music

rumored matches:
Matt Hardy v. MVP for the United States Championship

Hall of Fame Watch
This week’s induction: “The Great” Johnny Mae Young
Mae Young is the only semi-active competitor going in her sixth (or is it seventh) decade of “active competition. She is a true pioneer in women’s wrestling and is more than deserving of this honor. In the past decade or so she has played herself for laughs but she was one of the top women wrestlers way back in the day. Apparently she even taught Fabulous Moolah a thing or too. She’s said that when she turns 100 years old she will still be wrestling and entertaining, and here’s hoping she makes it that far. She doesn’t have that far to go this point.

Already announced inductees:
“The Nature Boy” Ric Flair
“High Chief” Peter Maivia & Rocky Johnson

RAW’s On Tonight!
RAW is a special three-hour show tonight, billed as a “WrestleMania rewind” where every match on the show is a rematch from a previous WrestleMania. I’m really hoping for a Jake Roberts-Rick Martel blindfold rematch from WrestleMania VII myself.

Also Randy Orton is General Manager for the night, so I’m sure we’ll either see him book John Cena against Triple H or put Cena against Big Show and Triple H against Undertaker.

Plus Big Show and Floyd Mayweather have their official WrestleMania weigh-in, and I’m sure we’ll learn the name or names of the next Hall of Fame entrants.

On Last Week’s Episode…
Curran is back with his new Heat report. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorite weekly reads on the site.

Provencio breaks down SmackDown!

Blatt gets the honor of reviewing a really good CM Punk-Chavo Guerrero ECW Championship match. I’m just glad Punk didn’t break his arm or something on that bad fall he took.

Marshall runs down a very lackluster RAW. Hopefully next week’s three-hour show will bring the goods.

How They Rated
A.M. RAW (3.2.08) – .61

RAW (3.3.08) – 3.47

ECW (3.4.08) – 1.2

SmackDown! (3.7.08) – 2.8

Other Guys Who Write Good Stuff
Aaron equals Ring of Honor

Kirschner equals all things indy

IP Staff Roundtable Results for TNA Destination X 2008
I know this is a WWE-centric column but when I look over the reigns from Vinny T. in regards to roundtable results, it meant for all IP staff roundtables, not just WWE ones. So check out how the staff voted and then read Marshall’s recap. Okay, now that’s all out of the way, here’s how we fared.

Roundtable Champion: Mark Allen (Me! Woo-hoo!)

Mark Allen
TNA Destination X (3.9.08): 7-1
Total: 78-32

David Brashear
TNA Destination X (3.9.08): 6-2
Total: 80-60

Danny Cox
TNA Destination X (3.9.08): 5-3
Total: 135-107

Paul Marshall
TNA Destination X (3.9.08): 5-3
Total: 46-24

Matthew Michaels
TNA Destination X (3.9.08): 2-6
Total: 109-96