Linda McMahon officially leaves WWE, Shane visits UFC HQ and Brock Lesnar goes down some serious illness…
Opening Witty Banter
Thank you for all your comments on last week’s article. I truly didn’t expect the talk about PPVs and financial numbers to hit such a chord with everyone. Thanks to WWE being overseas all week it has been a slow news week for the Stamford crew. Can’t we just get another Plane Ride From Hell to spice things up again?
Let’s take some ‘E…
The News of the Week
Linda McMahon has officially resigned from World Wrestling Entertainment to focus on her campaign race for United States Senator in the state of Connecticut.
WWE issued a filing with the SEC, formally announcing McMahon’s resignation.
The official statement:
On November 6, 2009, Linda E. McMahon resigned as a Director of the Company due to the continuing demands on her time resulting from her campaign for the United States Senate, representing the State of Connecticut.
This comes on the heels of Shane McMahon announcing his resignation from World Wrestling Entertainment starting in 2010.
As a long-time fan and follower of World Wrestling Entertainment, this writer never thought he would see the day where two members of the McMahon family were not employed by WWE.
Speaking of Shane, it has been said that he had a meeting with Dana White this past week. Literally nothing else has been reported regarding the meeting.
So would old man Vince’s head literally explode if Shane walked out on a UFC pay per view?
After mandating that their talent not use their Twitter after midnight now they want them to only use Twitter to promote company functions.
Can I say how utterly ludicrous that is? WWE swears up and down that their talent are just “independent contractors†and not company employees, but now wants them to use their personal social media to promote company events. It is just asinine. Beside only a mere FRACTION of wrestling fans use Twitter, and those that are following people like The Miz and Chris Jericho aren’t even in WWE’s current TV-PG demo. The only ones following them are the same people reading this (and writing this.) I remember when social media like Facebook used to be fun when it was just college kids goofing off. Now that everyone (and their mom) has joined the thing it is just a pain in the ass the most of the time. Rant over.
This barely has anything to do with wrestling and WWE, but I’m a Brock Lesnar mark and it’s a slow news week so eff off.
Former WWE World Heavyweight Champion and current UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar is facing serious health issues, according to wrestling and MMA analyst Dave Meltzer.
Lesnar had been suffering from mono and was forced to cancel his scheduled November 21 title defense against Shane Carwin due to illness. This past week he went to his property in Canada to recuperate, but while there he collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. While running tests on him at the hospital, staff found something very wrong with him. Nothing has been released on what is causing Lesnar’s health problems, only that it is not cancer or HIV/AIDS.
He is expected to be out of action for the long-term foreseeable future.
UFC head honcho Dana White commented on Lesnar during Saturday night’s UFC 105 post-pay per view press conference.
“He is not good,” White said. “He is very, very sick, and he’s going to be out for a while. He doesn’t want to talk about it publicly, but he’s in bad shape. He’s not well. He’s not going to be getting well anytime soon. I am worried about it.â€
White went on to indicate he would be traveling to Minnesota to physically see Lesnar and help him out.
“I don’t know. I’ve got to get him to one of these really good hospitals with really good doctors to figure out what’s wrong and how we get him better, White said. “[Lesnar] is in bad shape, and the reality is they don’t really know all that’s wrong with him.”
White also commented on the status of Lesnar’s Heavyweight Championship.
“If it’s a long wait, we’re gong to have to do something,” White said. “We’re going to have to – the last thing I ever want to do is strip a guy who won a title. That’s the last thing I want to do. I don’t know if we’ll have to do an interim or what we’ll do to fix it.”
I sincerely hope Lesnar figures out what ever is wrong with him and can make a full recovery. He is the biggest thing to hit MMA this year and is still riding off of his pro wrestling coattails. The man is a legit athletic freak of nature and has charisma to spare. He is a legit draw in anything he does. Get well Brock.
Apparently WWE wanted Jimmy Fallon to host tonight’s RAW from MSG. Thankfully he had a scheduling conflict and Roddy Piper got the call.
Good. Piper was a way better choice for WWE’s home arena.
In regards to the WWE versus Deep South Wrestling lawsuit, WWE has until November 16th to respond to Jody “The Assassin” Hamilton’s breach of lawsuit against the company. Thus far, the WWE legal team has been able to dispel many of Hamilton’s original claims, and now it comes down to whether WWE ignored their own contractual agreement of providing Hamilton and DSW with 90 day notice that they would be shutting the place down.
Yeah WWE isn’t losing this one. They have way too much firepower in their arsenal to lose to Hamilton.
The Road to…Survivor Series
World Heavyweight Championship
Undertaker (c) v. The Big Show v. Chris Jericho
WWE Championship
John Cena (c) v. Triple H v. Shawn Michaels
Rey Mysterio v. Batista
Elimination Match
John Morrison (c), Matt Hardy, Finlay, Evan Bourne & Shelton Benjamin v. The Miz (c), Drew McEntyre, Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger & Sheamus
Elimination Match
Kofi Kingston (c), MVP, Mark Henry, R-Truth & Christian v. Randy Orton (c), Cody Rhodes, Ted DiBiase, CM Punk & William Regal
Elimination Match
Mickie James (c), Melina, Kelly Kelly, Gail Kim & Eve Torres v. Michelle McCool (c), Beth Phoenix, Jillian Hall, Layla, Natalya Neidhart
Wrestler of the Week
Week of November 9 – 15: Christian
Christian walked into the lion’s den this past week as he defended his ECW Championship against William Regal in Regal’s backyard in England. The two men put on a fantastic main event match that saw Christian come out victorious and still Champion. Christian has made ECW his personal playground this past year and churned out numerous amazing free TV matches with a variety of opponents. Perhaps being the big fish in a small pond isn’t so bad after all.
RAW’s On Tonight!
Tonight’s RAW looks to be a massive show as it emanates from WWE’s home arena – the famous Madison Square Garden. To make sure the show lives up to the hype of the arena, they have secured the legendary Rowdy Roddy Piper to oversee things as guest host for the week. Plus they have stacked the main event with a crazy big three team triple threat, featuring JeriShow against DeGeneration X and the Hogan/Warrior-esque pairing of John Cena and Undertaker. Plus with only six days before Survivor Series expect plenty of brand mingling as the “teams of five striving to survive†should have plenty of interaction. Plus RAW will unveil its new theme song – “Burn it to the Ground†by Nickelback. Screw what virtually everyone in the world says; I like Nickelback. I’m a fan and I think the song will great for the current RAW landscape.
On Last Week’s Episode…
Eison covers a pretty solid SmackDown featuring better than average John Morrison-Dolph Ziggler and Undertaker-Chris Jericho matches.
Eison also brings love to Superstars featuring a solid MVP-Ted DiBiase match.
Glazer steps up and steps in to the role of ECW recapper and gives some love to the Christian – William Regal ECW Championship match.
Marshall covers a RAW that was the definition of…average.
How They Rated
SmackDown! (10.30.09) – 2.1
Superstars (11.5.09) – .8
A.M. RAW (11.8.09) – 1.0
RAW (11.9.09) – 3.1
ECW (11.10.09) – 1.0
This is Boring, What Else is There to Read?
Perrillo covers CHIKARA for the last time this season.
Wheeler covers RAW and books a week of television on a WWF network.
Ditch continues to educate us on all on the world of puro and the goodness of Misawa.
Perillo kicks off Pulse’s latest feature, our own fantasy draft. Check out the introduction and rounds 2 – 6.
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For more relevant, interesting and exciting wrestling information from your truly, check out my gig as the Pro Wrestling Examiner over at Examiner.com.
