It’s Thursday and it is time for your weekly dose of TNA news, rumors, and anything I can come up with. I apologize for last week, but I played Pulse Glazer on the Wrestling Analyst and with TNA still on vacation, I seemed to be on vacation. Now that we’re back, we have headlines that would make the front page of the New York Times.
Steroids and Professional Wrestling
Because this is a huge topic in both the WWE and TNA, I’ll take a look at the TNA side of things. First of all, it’s important to know that TNA is a private company and they do not have to do what the WWE does in explaining their company practices regarding how they test for performance enhancing drugs and any punishments associated with breaking the policies. Henry A. Waxman, a member of the oversight committee, wrote in a letter to John P. Walters, explaining what they have concluded in their investigations of WWE and TNA officials. Here are some quotes from this letter.
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling Policies and Practices
The Committee also obtained documents relating to the steroids policies and testing practices of the WWE’s top competitor, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA).
According to the documents, the TNA conducted baseline steroid testing of its wrestlers starting in January 008. The documents provided to the Committee indicate that, despite having advance warning of these tests, 15 of 60 wrestlers (25%), tested positive for steroids.
An additional 11 wrestlers tested positive for other drugs.
Eight months later, in August 2008, the TNA issued a drug and alcohol abuse policy that includes random testing, although it fails to explain the protocol for selecting wrestlers who will be tested or provide information about how samples will be collected.
It seems that the government didn’t get the message about TNA not having to publicly disclose the information since they aren’t a publicly traded company like the WWE is. Of course, that won’t stop the government to require action to be taken. However it remains to be seen whether or not the government does anything in the short term because of the country’s economical issues. To keep my column from having any political bias, this won’t be brought up again unless it is necessary. To view more information about what our government is doing to attempt to curb steroid and drug usage in the wrestling industry, click here.
TNA Rapid-Fire
Instead of TNA One-Liners, I’ll throw out random news bits in rapid-fire action.
Kurt Angle is reportedly dating Rhaka Khan. Does she know about the racial slur he used against Sharmell?
Former TNA Tag Team Champion, Adam “Pacman” Jones was recently future endeavored from the Dallas Cowboys. His last day will be February 9th, 2009.
Rhino was recently interviewed by the Miami Herald.
Your online match of the week features Chris Sabin and Sonjay Dutt
Old news, but since I was absent last week, it is still news to me. Mick Foley tangles with Sports Illustrated.
Brutus Magnus will be featured during TNA’s UK tour.
Team 3-D won the IWGP Tag Team Championships during TNA’s tour of Tokyo. Also coming out of Tokyo, the Motor City Machine Guns are your new IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions.
Time Warner Cable and Viacom agreed to a deal that would keep Viacom from shutting TNA out of homes that Time Warner services.
TNA iMPACT Results for 01.01.2009
Last week’s iMPACT was a best of 2008 show, with the first title match of 2009 with Beer Money successfully defending the TNA World Tag Team Titles by defeating LAX. The Best of show featured memorable matches from the Kurt Angle v. Samoa Joe MMA Match-in-a-Cage to Angle v. Jarrett, all added with commentary from Mick Foley and the stars of TNA Wrestling.
TNA iMPACT Ratings News
Christmas Day and New Years provided a holding pattern for TNA as both weeks recorded a 1.0 cable rating. This beat my prediction that everyone would be too busy to watch TNA both nights. As far as this week is concerned. I’m sticking to a 1.0-1.1 range on the rating.
TNA iMPACT Preview for 01.08.2009
Kurt Angle continues to get inside Jeff Jarrett’s head as Genesis draws closer. Two weeks ago, Kurt Angle knocked out BG James with a sick Kimbo Slice like blow while he was doing his job separating Jarrett and Angle. This week, BG James looks for retribution when he takes on Kurt Angle. With the Main Event Mafia looming, you can guarantee that Jeff Jarrett will be in BG James’ corner.
Also on iMPACT, Alex Shelley takes on Eric Young to determine who faces Chris Sabin at Genesis in the X Division Tournament Finals. Robert Roode takes on Matt Morgan and Awesome Kong will be in action as she prepares for Christy Hemme at Genesis. What else will happen? Tune into iMPACT tonight to find out!
This Week in Pulse Wrestling
Our top 100 is back! Here’s #25, #24, & #23.
Mark Allen chimes in with the famous South Park line “MMMkay…”.
PK gives WWE Creative some ideas on how to make the Road to the Rumble more entertaining.
Norine covers RAW for me again this week.
PK also has this month’s TNA rankings.
Vinny discusses how Ring of Honor is worth each penny you spend for their PPV’s.
Next week, I’ll have a recap of TNA Genesis and some more news, rumors, and whatever else is fit for print. Have a great weekend!
