On her MySpace blog, Torrie Wilson wrote: “I have been told by 2 back surgeons that I should never set foot in a wrestling ring again if I want to be moving around in a few years on my own. Pretty depressing if you ask me….I don’t even have some awesome memory of what my last match even was or who it was with. Hopefully it was with Victoria and I beat her!”
RVD’s updated his blog as well, with — among lots more — the following: “Wow! From what I understand, WWE has added a concussion management program. I think that’s great news. I have recently joined Chris Nowinski’s program to learn and help educate with proper information about head trauma. Concussions have always been a pig part of my job, and I’ve had dozens of them myself. I laughed at them. Now, Chris has told me about common traits among different athletes who have suffered brain damage, and I find the whole subject very interesting. I have friends who live with ‘blanking out’ and headaches and just like me, consider it part of the job. Let’s look into this more. WWE is apparently going to reexamine the wrestlers on a regular 6-month basis to test their memory, cognitive skills, and reaction time along with other appropriate measures. This is excellent. I wish similar tests were used to determine the cause and effect of drugs on people with different variables but of course, that would give us too much truth!”
Bret Hart was interviewed by the UK Sun, talking about the role he feels concussions played in the Benoit tragedy, his book, why he came back to WWE TV for the Vince angle (he thought it would be fun and wanted rights to use some photos from WWE in the book) and that he’s open to doing more if it’s the right situation.
Alex Marvez interviewed Paul Heyman in his syndicated column. Here’s an excerpt:
“I absolutely believe I can out-book anyone in the industry today, but it’s a one-brand business right now,” said Heyman, referring to WWE’s dominance in the marketplace. “That brand runs differently than the type of writing and mechanisms that I use.
“I have no bitterness about the wrestling industry. I’ve lived out every dream and had the time of my life. But it wasn’t fun anymore. My time was up.”
In an interview with the Eagle Tribune, TNA Champ Kurt Angle said the following about leaving WWE: “I went back to Vince and asked to go part-time, like some of the older veterans had done. He said no to part-time, so I was fed up and told him I wanted to quit, and he got really mad, and I mean really mad, almost like he wanted to fight me. I took real offense to that. My life was falling apart, and I felt like they didn’t care. My neck was in tough shape, and they wanted me to keep performing every night. I felt I deserved to at least go part-time, even though I really needed the time off.”
There’s an article featuring quotes from TNA’s Samoa Joe conference call here (you can listen to the full call here).
In other TNA news, there’s an article about ODB by her local Fox news, the Baltimore Sum wrestling blog gives last night’s Impact a thumbs up and PWInsider.com reports that TNA let the trademark on the “Austin Starr” name that Austin Aries was using expire, while trademarking the “Cross the Line” marketing slogan.
Alfonso Castillo and former WWE writer Seth Mates have updated their blog at Newsday.com with more video from WrestleMania, stories on the beginnings of John Cena’s rapper push, Mae Young and the Eric Bischoff/Stephanie McMahon kiss. Yes, this kiss:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg1s3XJMD1I[/youtube]
“We threw together a number of ideas to try and follow up on it — A secret affair? A drunken mistake? — but we were told to forget it ever happened. I brought up the point that the reason why it’s so easy for fans to stop watching our show is because of dropped storylines like that, but I was told let’s forget it ever happened,” writes Mates.
Speaking of video, there are a number of featured videos on WWE.com, including the always-great Dirt Sheet with Miz & Morrison, a new Santino’s Casa, more on Chavo’s new associate and Chris Jericho’s “Man of 1,004 Holds” promo in a re-posted Sidesplitters and more.
Melina wrote a blog post for WWE.com on Young.
Ric Flair is interviewed here and paid tribute by Elijah Burke here.
Chris Jericho’s interviewed HERE, saying, among other things, “Being world champion is a very elite club with only 40 or 50 members, but there have been less than 30 Wrestlemanias, so to steal the show there is an even more elite club.”
The Great Khali is in the Indian press here and here.
Jim Ross names London & Kendrick his Superstars of the Week. He also gives his thoughts on Raw, wonders when Jericho will next defend his title, compares Santino to Bobby Heenan and even makes mention that HBK originally trained Lance Cade.
Finally… Roddy Piper says he has a five year deal with WWE here.
