This Week in ‘E – From a King to a Mayor

Columns, Features

Jerry Lawler raises a stink about Memphis Mayoral debates, Linda McMahon doesn’t vote and WWE prepares for “The Battle Chamber~!” No, seriously, I hope not.

Opening Witty Banter
Once again I’m running late and exhausted, but let’s see what I can dig up for some relevant news in a slow week. On a side note I caught a local independent show in downtown Minneapolis on Saturday evening and it was a truly fun show. This is your public service announcement to check out local wrestling when it comes to your area.

Let’s take some ‘E…

The News of the Week
Jerry “The King” Lawler is getting serious about his Memphis mayoral campaign. Apparently only four candidates who finished in the top four in a recent support are being allowed to participate. Lawler got 2% support in the poll, good for fifth place in the polling. The person who finished fourth got 3%.

AP reports that Lawler has threatened to sue WREG-TV, which is the Memphis television station that is not including him in the debate. WREG-TV issued a statement saying the debate will continue as planned. As previously reported, Lawler was planning on taking this to court. Because of the threats WREG-TV has stated that they will now allow additional Mayoral candidates to participate in the debate. Jerry Lawler has been threatening to sue if he is not allowed to participate.

Seriously, this is what constitutes top news in a slow week like this. In my humble opinion Lawler just comes off as a sore loser in this particular exchange.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is set to appear on next week’s 10th Anniversary SmackDown show via pre-tape. The WWE crew filmed the segment at Johnson’s home this past week.

And it will be the best part of the entire show I’m afraid.

WWE continues to screw with their pay per view names in an attempt to further brand them as gimmicked event. In its latest survey, the following question was sent out:

“How much do you like the following titles for a future WWE event where the main event matches are contested in an Elimination Chamber?”

The choices are Battle Chamber, Heavy Metal, No Way Out, Elimination Chamber and Chamber of Conflict.

The survey asks you to rank them on the following scale: Love It, Like It, So-So, Not So Good or Hate It, and then put them in order from favorite to least favorite.

Please, please keep it No Way Out. Like the now-extinct Unforgiven and No Mercy, No Way Out has a storied past as a long-term pay per view. Plus the No Way Out mantra actually fits with the Elimination Chamber gimmick. Anything but renaming simply Elimination Chamber like they just did for next weekend’s Hell in a Cell pay per view. And the other three names just sound ridiculous. Battle Chamber? That sounds like a bad American Gladiators game.

With Linda McMahon running for US Senate, naturally the news stories are constantly coming out of the woodwork about her. Recently the AP discovered that she didn’t vote in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election.

This is the best dirt they can dig up about her? Her husband has an entire closet of dirt just waiting to be aired out and this is the best they found. I’m expecting more out the media than this.

During a recent interview with NBC’s Brian Williams, President Obama was asked about the left v. right cable news wars and he compared the situation to “WWF wrestling.”

“It feels like WWF wrestling. You know, everybody’s got their role to play.”

Obama loves TEH WWE~! Obama for guest host~!

Speaking of guest hosts, Dennis Miller said on his radio show this past week that he will likely be guest hosting an episode of RAW in December.

Good Lord, this guest host thing is going to go on until December? At any rate Miller could be a lot of fun in this time of situation.

WWE debuted 24-year-old Lauren Mayhew as a new ring announcer at this past week’s SmackDown taping in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The thought is that the young lass will probably stay on SmackDown while one of the tenured announcers will move RAW. Apparently she is a singer and has a lot of TV experience, working on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,

Can you say The Fink to RAW? End of story. Fink on RAW, the Justin guy on ECW and Chimmel on SD. Simple.

Broadcaster Magazine has reported that the WWE and The Score in Canada have agreed to a new three-year TV deal.

Here is part of the official press release on the new TV deal:

Score Media and WWE(R) Partner Again to Bring Canadians Top Rated WWE Programming have partnered once again to give WWE fans a full slate of world-renowned WWE programming.

“Canadians’ passion for the WWE is second to none,” says John Levy, Chairman & CEO, Score Media Inc. “In extending our longstanding partnership with the World Wrestling Entertainment, we are giving our viewers more exciting WWE action while offering the nation access to exclusive, top-rated sports entertainment.”

The 3-year agreement gives WWE fans more of their desired programming including RAW(R) and SmackDown(R). In addition, The Score will continue to produce and air WWE Experience(TM), a weekly round-up of the latest and greatest in the WWE and will bring viewers the WWE Vintage Collection(TM), a look back at some of the WWE’s classic matches, hosted by “Mean” Gene Okerlund and seen in North America only on The Score.

Shane McMahon, Executive Vice President, Global Media for WWE, said “We are delighted to be continuing our partnership with The Score which would not be possible without the dedication of our WWE fans in Canada. The expansion of our programming on The Score with entertaining television such as WWE Vintage Collection along with our established programs of WWE Experience, RAW and SmackDown allows viewers more opportunities to enjoy the action-packed excitement of WWE.”

There…the more you know…

The Road to…Hell in a Cell
Hell in a Cell for the WWE Championship
John Cena (c) v. Randy Orton

Hell in a Cell for the World Championship
Undertaker v. CM Punk (c)

Hell in a Cell
DeGeneration X (Triple H & Shawn Michaels) v. Legacy (Cody Rhodes & Ted DiBiase)

Unified WWE Tag Team Championships
Batista & Rey Mysterio v. Chris Jericho & The Big Show (c)

Triple Threat Match for the United States Championship
Kofi Kingston (c) v. The Miz v. “All-American American” Jack Swagger

Intercontinental Championship
John Morrison (c) v. Dolph Ziggler

rumored matches:
Christian v. William Regal for the ECW Championship
Mickie James v. Alicia Fox for the Divas Championship

Wrestler of the Week
Week of September 21 – 27: Christian
In a fairly quiet week of WWE, I have to give love to the ECW Champion Christian. He had the best free TV match of the week on Tuesday night when he defeated Zack Ryder in a great Championship match. Ryder looked like a star even in a loss, but credit has to go to Christian for putting on a legit four-star match. Now all roads point to “The Livewire” continuing his feud with William Regal, which has the potential for more show stealing bouts.

RAW’s On Tonight!
The RAW guest-hosting gig takes a turn for odd tonight The Rev. Al Sharpton will host Monday Night RAW live from Albany, New York. Sharpton is an American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and radio talk show host. He threw his name in hat to be the Democratic nominee for United States President in 2004. He currently hosts his own radio talk show, Keepin’ It Real, and is a regular fixture on all the cable news networks an analyst and pundit. Sharpton has never been associated with WWE or pro wrestling in the past, but the circus-like atmosphere of today’s political world really isn’t that much different than the circus of hosting Monday Night RAW. This should truly be the most unusual of WWE RAW’s guest hosts up to this point. Plus John Cena will continue to play Superman and battled Chris Jericho, The Big Show and Randy Orton in a gauntlet match.

On Last Week’s Episode…
SmackDown

Superstars

ECW

RAW

How They Rated
Superstars (9.17.09) – .7

SmackDown! (9.18.09) – 2.0

A.M. RAW (9.20.09) – .5

RAW (9.21.09) – 3.4

ECW (9.22.09) – 1.2

This is Boring, What Else is There to Read?
Marshall brings back the love from TNA.

Hack covers the indys.

Ditch continues his awesome coverage of puro.

Wheeler continues to bring the awesome with his own unique brand of RAW review.

For more relevant, interesting and exciting wrestling information from your truly, check out my gig as the Pro Wrestling Examiner over at Examiner.com.

Mark was a columnist for Pulse Wrestling for over four years, evolving from his original “Historically Speaking” commentary-style column into the Monday morning powerhouse known as “This Week in ‘E.” He also contributes to other ventures, outside of IP, most notably as the National Pro Wrestling Examiner for Examiner.com and a contributor for The Wrestling Press. Follow me on Twitter here.