Ricky Hatton was offered a role in Floyd Mayweather’s WrestleMania angle after Oscar De La Hoya turned it down, yet he also declined the spot, which originally would have had him team with Rey Mysterio to take on Mayweather and the Big Show. Hatton is a big WWE fan who took his ‘Hitman’ nickname from Bret Hart. Steve Austin met up with him whilst on a UK tour recently and gave him and his son WWE tag team titles.
Meanwhile, Matt Sydal has been working with Mayweather on his bumps. Sydal was at Raw the other week to teach Mayweather how to take the over-the-top-rope bump from Big Show safely.
C.M. Punk and Elijah Burke got caught up in the emotion of the Ric Flair retirement angle when they teamed with him on ECW last week. Burke asked Flair to autograph his wrestling trunks, whilst Punk was in tears backstage as he was overwhelmed at getting to team with Flair before he retired.
John Cena’s father got some serious heat with WWE last week. He works for the Millennium Pro Wrestling group in Boston as their president, using the Johnny Fabulous moniker, and in the storyline he hired TNA wrestlers to come in for the next show. By the time word got to WWE higher-ups, they were under the impression that he was going to sign with TNA and reacted furiously. Ironically, he did want to appear at a TNA house show in New England last summer after they invited him before he had the political implications of such a deal pointed out to him.
Dave Meltzer has more on the Rey Mysterio title run from 2006. Randy Orton was originally meant to win the title at WrestleMania 22 before his poor discipline soured management on the decision. Vince McMahon decided to go with Kurt Angle instead, then Pat Patterson suggested they go with Mysterio due to his Eddie Guerrero connection and the ‘feelgood factor’. Since Vince was reluctant to put the title on someone of Mysterio’s size, he put the decision to the vote with the rest of the creative team and they did indeed choose Mysterio. Of course, Vince was never in preference of him having a lengthy run and Mysterio was subsequently booked very poorly as champion indeed.
Credit: Wrestling Observer Newsletter, 24 March 2008 (subscribe here)
