Brother Love gets no love from WWE. The wrestling world loses another brother too soon, and the company readies for more second-generation stars. I’m telling you, Royal Rumble 2010 will be filled completely with just daddys’ boys.
Opening Witty Banter
Managed to catch the last half of “Speed†on HBO tonight and forgot just how awesomely bad that movie is. Keanu Reeves put on an Oscar-worthy performance in that one. In other movie news, do you have your copy of “The Dark Knight†reserved? Me neither.
Let’s take some ‘E…
The News of the Week
Bruce Prichard, longtime WWE producer and everyone’s favorite TV evangelist Brother Love, has been released from the company. Even though they have relived him of his duties, they are actually keeping him under contract until his deal expires in June 2009.
According to Figure4Weekly, “Prichard was not at TV the past two weeks and people were told he was on vacation. Stephanie had been negative on Prichard in recent years as she saw him as Vince McMahon’s biggest yes-man. She’s buried him in the past, sometimes in front of others at creative team meetings, believing he was not paying attention and/or giving non-committal answers. She made the official call to cut him loose. With Prichard being a senior member in WWE, he had a large contract that Stephanie could justify cutting – although he often complained about taking a pay cut when he moved from Head of Talent Relations to creative.”
Apparently his workload had been reduced gradually over the past few years, and he had been subjected to weekly drug testing since 1994.
If WWE will let a top ranking executive like Bruce Pritchard go then really no one is safe up there in Titan Towers. It also seems like Stephanie McMahon had some sort of vendetta against him, so that didn’t help his standing either. But I really see this as big news, as I felt Pritchard was one of the company’s few made men, like Patterson or Finkel. If I’m Steve Lombardi I might be a little worried.
The other bit about keep Pritchard around until June is also quite telling, as the company realizes how much valuable information has been privy to over the years. If they were to let him walk into TNA after the standard 90-day clause he could really do some damage, and dare I say even be a more valuable signing for them than Mick Foley or Kurt Angle. By letting him rot at home until June all the valuable information that is going through WWE right now will be irrelevant by summertime when Pritchard is set free.
Steve Bradley, who was a WWE Developmental talent in the late 90s, was found dead on December 4 at the age of 32. Bradley was found in a parking lot across the street from where he once operated a wrestling school in Manchester, NH. He began working on the independent scene when he was teenager and signed a WWE developmental deal back in 1998. He spent most of his time working in Memphis and in Heartland Wrestling Association. He worked a lot with Kurt Angle and Val Venis while in developmental and did the occasional main show dark match, but never made the main roster. He was released in 2002.
He went on to operate a wrestling school after he release, which he shut down in the last six months. Reportedly Bradley had “personal demons†over the last few years of his life. He took the WWE up on the offer for rehabilitation as a former contracted talent. No cause of death had been reported at this time.
I remembering hearing a lot about Bradley while he was down in developmental but he came up at the same time as so many future stars like Kurt Angle, Edge, Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Batista, Shelton Benjamin and Randy Orton that I can see how he got lost in the shuffle.
That being said, Pulse Wrestling’s thoughts and prayers go out to Bradley’s friends and family.
In another cost-cutting move, WWE will be doubling up on SmackDown! tapings as much as possible, at least through WrestleMania. From that point they will evaluate how the experiment is going. As for the wrestlers, they will make less money per month. Lower card guys will lose out on around $1,000 a month, while upper card talent will stand to lose upwards of several thousand a month. The only upside for the wrestlers is the two extra days off a month. By doubling up on tapings, the company will save about $696,000 in production expenses twice a month, not to mention the money saved in paying the talent.
Hey apparently the hard times have hit everybody, except this guy…
The quarterly dividend Vince McMahon is getting from his WWE stock is $11,451,255, with an annual dividend of $45,805,020.
He really is the Million $ Man.
And in more cost-cutting measures, WWE released developmental talens Imani Lee and Mike Jarvi. Lee, who was signed in May, is a former K-1 fighter and a friend of Batista’s. Jarvi was trained by Dory Funk and was signed back in October 2007 with the backing of Jimmy Hart.
I honestly can say I’ve never heard these two names before and didn’t realize such people existed within the WWE Universe. It has been speculated that Jarvi was released due to his relationship with Hart, who is now on the outs with the company, but that’s really just hearsay.
The company giveth and the company taketh away. On the heels of releasing those two, the company has signed another second generation athlete, this time it is Dakota Darsow, son of Barry Darsow aka Demolition Smash, The Repo Man, Kruscher Kruschev and a host of other glorious gimmicks. Dakota is only 21 years old, and was signed after a weeklong tryout he had down in Florida a few months back.
YES! Anytime I get to mention the gloriousness of Demolition in this column it is a great day. Demolition Smash is one of my all-time favorites and so I’m excited to see what young Dakota has to offer. Demolition 2.0? I’m so there. Of course I’ve read others clamoring for the debut of Repo Boy, but I don’t see that happening unless he were to arrive in TNA.
Speaking of other second-generation stars, Harry “DH” Smith and TJ Wilson will be debuting on SmackDown! as a tag team in the very near future. Smith had been all but forgotten by creative after being buried on RAW and then never seen again after being moved to SmackDown!, but on a recent flight Vince McMahon, while in a bad mood, was going over the booking sheets, which had the names of all the talent under contract. When he came across Smith’s name, he blew up on the creative team for letting a “Pedigree Kid†(a.k.a. a second generation star) sit on the sidelines. Apparently he demanded that creative come up with a debut storyline for Smith ASAP.
Smith and Wilson have been teaming for years as Wilson is considered an unofficial Hart family member, having been friends with Smith since they were kids and being romantically linked to Nattie Neidhart in the past. It’s about time Smith gets his big screen debut and push. He would be perfect running alongside Cody and Ted on RAW, but a pairing his Wilson and perhaps cousin Nattie will be just what he needs to get on the road to superstardom.
WWE talent touched down in Iraq on Tuesday after the RAW taping. Talent has since been sent off to different operating bases for visits. The Tribute to the Troops special was taped on Friday at the Camp Liberty Base Complex in Baghdad, Iraq. The one-hour special will air on December 20 on NBC.
It’s the one thing each year that WWE does that they can’t get flak for. That being said, it’s sad that this is the sixth year in a row they have made this trip. I hope there comes a point in the near future the company won’t have to make the trip because the majority of our troops are back home. And kudos to getting this year’s special broadcast on the big brother network NBC.
WWE will be releasing “WWE: The Music, Volume 9” on January 27th, 2009. The CD, which follows the iTunes only Volumes 7 and 8, is scheduled to contain the following track listing:
*Randy Orton – “Voices”
*Vladimir Kozlov – “Unch Mein”
*Maryse – “Ooh Oui”
*Chris Jericho – “Save Me”
*Santino Marella – “Vittoria Es Mia”
*Ted Dibiase & Cody Rhodes – “Priceless”
*WWE SmackDown! – “On The Floor”
*Kelly Kelly – “Holla 2009”
*Kung Fu Naki – “Kung Fu Naki”
*Natalya – “Beating Hart”
*Evan Bourne – “Airbourne”
*Willam Regal – “King”
*The Boogeyman – “Coming To Getcha”
*John Cena – “Moving Up”
Other than Randy Orton’s theme, which has grown on me immensely, and perhaps the new SmackDown! theme, this looks like a complete pass. But this is also coming from the WWE homer who actually bought WWE: The Music volumes 2 through 5 before I finally realized how stupid it was.
But how jacked does Funaki have to be?
In a crazy little thought, WWE creative has been discussing the possible return of Kurt Angle as sort of a “what if” kind of thing. Angle’s TNA contract expires on September of 2009. The talk is that if Angle were to return that he would work a schedule similar to the one Shawn Michaels does, which is all TV and PPV, but only some house shows. Shane McMahon and Michael Hayes have been discussing the possibility of his return to the promotion, and seem supportive of it.
I’ll believe it when I see it, but how bad would TNA look if all the stars who jumped to them jumped back to WWE after their TNA contracts were up? It’s happened with Gail Kim and R-Truth and is now rumored to happen with Christian and Tomko. Are Angle and The Dudley Boyz next?
The Road to…Armageddon
World Heavyweight Championship
John Cena (c) v. Chris Jericho
WWE Championship
Edge (c) v. Triple H v. Jeff Hardy
Batista v. Randy Orton
rumored matches
finals of Intercontinental Title contenders tournament
Beth Phoenix v. Melina for the Women’s Championship
Matt Hardy v. Jack Swagger for the ECW Championship
Wrestler of the Week
Week of December 1 – 7: Hurricane Helms
In kind of a slow week in the WWE Universe, I’ve got to give some love to the returning Hurricane Helms. He looked good in his return match and has once again completely reinvented himself thanks to his new tattoo, wise-ass face character. Helms is one of those few guys who can constantly recreate himself in order to keep himself relevant within the company. I mean he’s gone from a boy bander to a superhero to a dick rudo-like heel and now to a sarcastic good guy.
RAW’s On Tonight!
It’s another special three hour episode of RAW, only this one will be highlighted by the return of the Slammys! Although the format of the Slammys haven’t been announced, I would assume they would just take place intermittently throughout the show, although I would love the old school ballroom setting they used to use. In addition to the gloriousness of the awards presentations they have lined up a pay per view worthy stacked card as Batista will take on Triple H, Chris Jericho will meet Jeff Hardy and John Cena tangles with old rival Edge in a Champion versus Champion match. Plus the semi-finals of the Intercontinental Title tournament will take place as Rey Mysterio will meet Kofi Kingston and CM Punk does battle with old rival John Morison.
And just for grins here are the announced categories for the Slammys.
Best WWE.com Exclusive :
– Cryme Tyme’s “Word Up!”
– The Miz and John Morrison present “The Dirt Sheet”
– Santino’s Casa
– Out-think the Fink
Breakout Star of the Year:
– Kofi Kingston
– Vladimir Koslov
– Evan Bourne
– Ted Dibiase
Best Musical Performance:
– R-Truth’s Entrance (SmackDown!, Sep. 15)
– Santino Marella rapping to Akon (RAW, Nov. 17)
– Edge singing “Heaven” to Vickie (SmackDown!, Feb. 15)
– The Miz and John Morrison rap (The Dirt Sheet, Aug. 29)
Announce Team of the Year:
– Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole
– Jim Ross and Tazz
– Matt Striker and Todd Grisham
Best Impersonation:
– Charlie Haas as “Haas” Hogan (RAW, Oct. 13)
– Charlie Haas as “CHL” (RAW, Sept. 8)
– Charlie Haas as “The Glamahass” (RAW, Oct. 27)
– Charlie Haas as Mr. Perfect (RAW, Sept. 22)
Most Extreme Moment of the Year:
– Jeff Hardy Swanton Bomb on Randy Orton from the Raw set (RAW, Jan. 14)
– The Undertaker falls off ladder through table as Edge wins TLC Match (One Night Stand)
– JBL throws John Cena off Nassau Coliseum stage into car windshield (The Great
American Bash)
– Chris Jericho smashes Shawn Michaels’ head through Jeri-Tron (RAW, June 9)
The DAMN! Moment of the Year:
– The Khali Kiss Cam (SmackDown!, Nov. 7)
– Jim Ross in sailor suit (SmackDown!, Oct. 31)
– CM Punk disguised in Mariachi Band, lays out Chavo Guerrero (ECW, Jan. 29)
– Santino Marella attempts Melina’s Entrance (RAW, Dec. 1)
Best Finishing Move:
– Randy Orton’s RKO
– Undertaker’s Hell’s Gate
– Big Show’s KO Punch
– Evan Bourne’s Shooting Star Press
Tag Team of the Year:
– The Miz & John Morrison
– Cryme Tyme
– Carlito & Primo
– Cody Rhodes & Ted DiBiase
OMG Moment of the Year:
– CM Punk cashes in Money In The Bank and becomes World Heavyweight Champion (RAW, June 30)
– Undertaker sends Edge to Hell (SummerSlam 2008)
– Floyd Mayweather punches Big Show and breaks his nose (No Way Out 2008)
– John Cena surprise return at the Royal Rumble (Royal Rumble 2008)
Couple of the Year:
– Santino Marella and Beth Phoenix
– Edge and Vickie Guerrero
– William Regal and Layla
– Finlay and Hornswoggle
Superstar of the year :
– Batista
– Chris Jericho
– Edge
– HHH
– Jeff Hardy
– John Cena
Match of the Year:
– 2008 Royal Rumble Match
– Shawn Michaels vs. Ric Flair (Career Threatening Match, WrestleMania 24)
– Money in the Bank Ladder Match (Wrestlemania 24)
– Undertaker vs. Edge (Hell in a Cell Match, SummerSlam)
Diva of the Year:
– Mickie James
– Kelly Kelly
– Beth Phoenix
– Michelle McCool
On Last Week’s Episode…
Norine covers both RAW and SmackDown!
How They Rated
SmackDown! (11.28.08) – 2.1
A.M. RAW (11.30.08) – .5
RAW (12.1.08) – 3.4
ECW (12.2.08) – 1.34
This is Boring, What Else is There to Read?
Wiswell gives some love to Erick Stevens.
Kirschner gives some love to CHIKARA and the “Super Fun Times Over-the-Top-Rope Elimination Style No Holds Barred Masked-Dudes-Welcome Battle Royal of Doom (and Honor)â€â€¦now there’s a battle royal I want to see.
Glazer gives some heads up about this past weekend’s ROH shows.
Marshall continues to give TNA some much needed love.
For more relevant wrestling information from your truly, check out my new gig over at Examiner.com.
