Jerry Lawler officially plans to run for Mayor of Memphis, Linda McMahon threatens to run for US Senate and Nick Dinsmore is back on the run for the unemployment line.
Opening Witty Banter
It’s been another slow week in WWE land as TNA took all the good news once again this week. Now what are the odds that Kurt Angle will show up in WWE once his TNA contract is done? You’d think WWE would you know have something up their sleeve being that SummerSlam is less than a week away, but what do I know?
Let’s take some ‘E…
The News of the Week
Just weeks after Nick Dinsmore was rehired to World Wrestling Entertainment, he was released again over the weekend. No reason has been given for his sudden second dismissal.
Dinsmore is one of those wrestlers that is just incredibly talented in-ring wise, but without the “Eugene†comedy character he was never able to break out as a top-level superstar in the industry. As “Nick Dinsmore, professional wrestler†he just never got the chance to make it in the world of professional wrestling, despite him showing the worlds of charisma that it took to successfully portray a character like Eugene.
WWE sent out this statement regarding Linda McMahon running for the Senate:
Linda McMahon, CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, is considering a run for the United States Senate representing the state of Connecticut. Should she decide to run, Linda would step down as CEO, and Vince McMahon would assume the duties of CEO in addition to his current position as WWE Chairman.
Everyone beat to all the punch lines about the skeletons that would fall out of Linda’s closet if she gets into some serious campaigning. But more power to her, seriously.
Mike Adamle threatened us all by saying that he would be guest hosting Monday Night RAW in two weeks.
It might be entertaining to hear The Adamle back on WWE TV just one more time as long as he busts out all of his awesome catchphrases.
WWE is set to release the Survivor Series Anthology DVD set on 11/3.
Well this only makes sense being that WrestleMania, Royal Rumble and SummerSlam have their own anthologies already available. Non-smarky question, are Benoit’s matches going to be included or not?
Jerry “The King†Lawler has officially launched his website for his 2009 Memphis mayoral campaign. It’s located at jerrylawler2009.com.
Do you realize if Lawler wins and he leaves his full-time commentating gig on RAW that there will be a severe dearth of good color commentators in WWE? I never thought I’d miss JBL at all, but having him behind the booth again would be gold. Also, is Jesse Ventura doing anything these days? Then again maybe The Adamle will make his epic return.
It was reported by Karl Lauer of the Cauliflower Alley Club that legendary woman wrestler from the ’40s and ‘50s, Gladys “Kill ’em” Gillem, passed away on August 12 at the age of 88. She suffered from a long battle with Alzheimer’s.
Lauer gave the following remarks about Gillem:
“To those of you attended any of the CAC banquets in Studio City in the ‘70s, ‘80s or ‘90s will remember the rough and tough lady known as Killem Gillem, or to her friends Gladys Gillem, one of the pioneer lady wrestlers from the ‘40s and ‘50s who could whip 90% of the men in a shoot, has died. Gladys passed away yesterday in her late 80s not sure how old but one of the most colorful characters in the business ever.”
Gillem’s most recent notoriety in the wrestling world came from when she was one of the main features in the 2005 documentary Lipstick and Dynamite, P!ss and Vinegar: The First Ladies of Wrestling, that chronicled the early days of women’s professional wrestling.
SLAM! Sports Wrestling out of Canada is also reporting that Karl Von Hess, a wrestler from the ‘50s and ‘60s also passed away this week also due to a bout with Alzheimer’s. He was 90 years old. Von Hess (born Frank Fakety) was one of many in a long line of wrestlers who portrayed a Nazi sympathizer character in the years after World War II. He was a big star in the World Wide Wrestling Federation in the late ‘50s.
It’s always sad to see wrestlers pass away but at least these two lived long, full lives unlike so many tragedies that have happened over the past few years.
Chris Jericho and The Great Khali are filming scenes of the upcoming Saturday Night Live film, MacGruber, starring Will Forte. The skits that started SNL are a play off of the old MacGyver TV series starring Richard Dean Anderson. Jericho has been making mentions of the film on Twitter. The film is listed to come out on April 16th, 2010.
Barring how terrible the movie has the potential of being, it’s great to see Jericho and Khali continuing to branch out and broaden their horizons. Khali for Best Actor? I think so.
Batista has been cleared to return to full fledged physical workouts. He will see doctors again before the end of the month to evaluate his rehab process.
I am pretty much over Batista in every way, but maybe he can get one more good run out of himself before he hangs it up or gets injured again.
Jimmy Snuka’s daughter, Sarona Snuka-Polamalu, will soon start training under Afa The Wild Samoan.
Well at least she will get solid training before WWE snatches her up, mis-uses her and releases her. Plus it continues my theory that soon the entire WWE roster will be comprised of just second and third generation stars…and Triple H.
The Road to…SummerSlam
TLC Match for the World Heavyweight Championship
Jeff Hardy (c) v. CM Punk
WWE Championship
John Cena v. Randy Orton (c)
DeGeneration X v. Legacy
Unified Tag Team Championships
Cryme Tyme v. The Big Show & Chris Jericho (c)
Intercontinental Championship
Rey Mysterio (c) v. Dolph Ziggler
rumored matches
Gail Kim v. Mickie James
MVP v. Jack Swagger
The Great Khali v. Kane
Wrestler of the Week
Week of August 10 – 16: CM Punk
For the second week in a row I have to give some love to the number one contender to the World Title CM Punk. He opened SmackDown with another fantastic promo that highlighted his underrated promo skills and his new (to WWE anyways) heel persona. Then later in the hour he went out and had another fantastic match with John Morrison as I begin to wonder if those two are capable of having a bad match together. Now all eyes point to another big week for Punk as he’ll team with The Hart Dynasty to meet Morrison and The Hardy Boyz on this week’s SmackDown and then a big showdown with Jeff Hardy at SummerSlam in a TLC match.
RAW’s On Tonight!
Tonight’s RAW is coming live from Randy Orton’s hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, just six days away from SummerSlam. Tonight’s host do jour is long-time WWE fan (and former employee) Freddie Prinze, Jr. I’m not real sure if Prinze has any projects he needs to push so hopefully they can just concentrate on doing a much needed hard sell for SummerSlam. There are only five matches booked for SummerSlam so far; they better get cracking. Plus already booked for the show is the main event of John Cena & Randy Orton taking on the Unified WWE Tag Team Champions Chris Jericho & The Big Show. Cena and Orton need to be a regular team just so they can keep busting out that bad ass Attitude Adjustment into an elevated RKO (FURKO?) thing that about broke Jericho’s face last week.
On Last Week’s Episode…
SmackDown
How They Rated
Superstars (8.6.09) – .7
SmackDown! (8.7.09) – 1.9
A.M. RAW (8.9.09) – .9
RAW (8.10.09) – 3.9
ECW (8.11.09) – 1.14
This is Boring, What Else is There to Read?
Pulse was full of high-quality articles this past week.
Marshall brought Total Nonstop Weekly back from the mothballs.
Michael Johnson brings some indy love back to the Pulse with a great look at what’s happening around the horn.
Ditch continues his look at the career of Misawa, plus a whole assortment of other puro news.
Wheeler went on a recapping rampage this week, giving his own take on RAW and ECW.
For more relevant, interesting and exciting wrestling information from your truly, check out my gig as the Pro Wrestling Examiner over at Examiner.com.
