The Wrestling News Experience: 12.01.08

Monday, December 1st, 2008

From 411Mania’s Canadian offices in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, this is The Wrestling News Experience, with Stephen Randle!

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Experience. I am Stephen Randle, and it’s snowing like gangbusters up here in Canada, which resulted in my bus ride home from work taking an extra half hour when the bus got stuck at the side of the road. Why don’t we have snowplows on Sunday? I blame Stephen Harper. Well, it’s not like he’s got time to respond, he’s too busy backpeddling in a desperate attempt to save his government from failing after one month. All I know is I’m not dealing with a fourth federal election in six years.

And more importantly, on top of last week being my 28th birthday and five year anniversary at 411, it was also the week in which my girlfriend of nearly two years agreed that it would be fun to spend the rest of our lives together. That’s right, I now join the ranks of wrestling fans who are lucky enough to attract a beautiful woman and somehow persuade them to get married to them. I have to say, the other guy was pretty impressed when he found out.

So, the wedding’s in a couple years, and no, you’re not invited. Unless you plan to bring expensive gifts. Then, I may be able to squeeze you in.

Moving on.

What’s On Tap – 411 Exclusive Raw Preview for December 1st

Last week, Chris Jericho defeated Batista and Randy Orton in a triple threat match to earn himself a rematch with John Cena at Armageddon. He then attempted to horn in on Cena’s return to Raw later in the evening, only to be met with some uncharacteristic brutality from the new champion, leaving Jericho in an unconscious heap. How will Chris Jericho respond this week, knowing that Cena has an important match with Kane tonight?

Also, JBL claims that he’s made a significant offer of mutual interest to Shawn Michaels, and he seems to believe that he and HBK are now on the same page, even going so far as to save Shawn from a beatdown by Miz and Morrison. What is JBL’s offer, and has Michaels actually aligned with the New York millionaire?

And the tournament to determine the next challenger to William Regal’s Intercontinental title is underway, with Kofi Kingston and CM Punk moving on. Tonight, The Miz faces Rey Mysterio and John Morrison will take on Finlay for the right to move on in the brackets.

Plus, Stephanie McMahon has apparently been granted full control of Raw, and I know you’re all just thrilled with the possibilities of what this means for the show. Don’t pretend you aren’t.

Around The Horn

Word is flying around that WWE has been seriously cracking down on use of marijuana by their performers. In addition to fines outlined in the Wellness plan, WWE has apparently been de-railing pushes of some wrestlers who refuse to curtail their usage. One name that has apparently risen to the forefront is THE Brian Kendrick, although from watching Smackdown, it wouldn’t seem that he’s losing any screen time. Sure, he’s slowly being pushed aside as they focus on his bigger, stronger bodyguard, but we all saw that coming anyway.

Besides, isn’t it a little hypocritical to tell the wrestlers that they can’t use pot, when it’s been apparent for years that the people scripting the shows have been on mind-altering drugs for quite a while now.

Yeah, I made a “WWE Creative is on crack” joke. It was too easy not to go for it.

Fresh on the heels of Goldust and Gail Kim, rumours are circulating that WWE has re-signed Tyson Tomko to some sort of deal. Instantly, cries for a re-united Christian and Tomko (and possibly Edge) have sprung up around the Internet. All I can say is, make it so, and make it happen on December 22nd in Toronto, so I can take pictures.

In further cost-cutting moves, WWE will be doing double Smackdown tapings more often in the future, in order to save money both in production costs and paying talent. Of course, the wrestlers are the one who get shafted, losing two sizeable paydays a month. I have a question: if they started writing better television, wouldn’t more people watch the shows and buy tickets and merchandise, resulting in higher revenue and thus, less need to cut 20 million dollars through various schemes? Maybe it’s just me.

Hey, this seems like a good time to mention that next week’s Raw will be yet another 3-hour show, this time focussing on the return of the Slammy Awards, which were only ever entertaining when Owen Hart won them. Does anyone else sense another Raw X in the making?

No, not Raw XV, that was good. Raw X. I completely understand if you’ve blocked it from your memory.

Oh yeah, and Vince McMahon receives a quarterly dividend of roughly 11 million dollars, for a yearly dividend of about 45 million dollars. Maybe he’s going to ask the government for a 50 billion dollar buyout too.

As of right now, Steve Austin is expected to be a big part of WrestleMania 25 (probably inducted into the Hall of Fame), but Hulk Hogan is once again not welcome in WWE due to his Celebrity Championship Wrestling program apparently rubbing Vince the wrong way. An alleged reason for Vince’s hissy fit is that CCW “exposes the wrestling business”, which, as we all know, only Vince himself is allowed to do.

Apparently (and this time it’s not a joke), TNA thought of an alternative name for what eventually became TNA Frontline to be “Team Xtacy”, invoking, of course, the belief that spelling things with an X is cool. Fortunately, someone actually had a brief moment of sanity and realized that the name was both a) an obvious drug reference and b) really, really stupid.

Good news for TNA, though, as apparently the company was profitable again this year, especially since most of the losses for the horridly crappy Impact video game were shouldered by Midway, and really, they were going to go bankrupt sooner or later anyway.

And in more stories of wrestler knocking around people on movie sets, apparently former WWE Superstar Kurrgan accidentally knocked out Robert Downey Jr on the set of Sherlock Holmes while filming a fight scene. There’s another easy drug joke here, but Downey gets a pass for being Iron Man.

Fresh off appearing at TNA’s last PPV and distracting fans from the ongoing match, ICP has announced that they will be also invading Royal Rumble, and even bringing Scott Hall with them again. Assuming he doesn’t get drunk and forget. Well, at least it’ll be easy for WWE to identify them so security can prevent them from accessing the building. Oh, I’m sorry, did I ruin the surprise?

And before I leave this segment, Hurricane Helms apparently has a new tattoo. So, will he return this Friday as a rip-off of The Flash now? I’m just guessing, I haven’t bothered to find out what the tattoo looks like, I was too busy being someone who doesn’t care about tattoos on guys.

Five Years Ago This Experience

I was going to bring this back last week, but I ran short on time, so it’s time to resume a modified version of this moderately popular feature. Just imagine how much has changed in the five years since I started writing for 411. Well, now you don’t have to!

I know, you’re thrilled. Sit there and read it anyway.

Originally posted: November 27th, 2003.

My God, we were building towards WrestleMania XX at this point, and people were talking about Chris Benoit maybe getting the big push and finally winning the World Title at WrestleMania.

Meanwhile, John Cena had grown into a cult figure and had just turned face to capitalize on his growing popularity (and he’s even stayed face all this time), as well as recording his first (and only, at this point) rap album. I believe it sold a few copies, but more importantly, resulted in an A-Team parody music video and what would become his now-infamous theme music.

Plus, Saturday night WWE Shows Confidential and Velocity (as well as Heat) still existed, TNA was still called NWA:TNA, and I swore up and down that I would find a new name for my mailbag section.

And look at this list of WWE wrestlers who were on the injured list who now no longer even work for WWE (or anywhere at all): Billy Gunn, Billy Kidman, Christopher Nowinski, Gail Kim, Jazz, Kevin Nash, Kurt Angle, Rodney Mack, Spike Dudley, Sylvan Grenier, and Zach Gowan. Plus, I still considered The Rock and Steve Austin active wrestlers, even though one only had one match left in him, and the other was the retired “Sherriff” of Raw.

Good Lord, and you think my reports are short now.

The Injury Bug Bites

Inactive List as of 11.24.08

WWE Raw

– Hardcore Holly, out indefinitely (rehab)
– Melina, out indefinitely as of June 23rd (fractured heel)

WWE SmackDown

– Hurricane Helms, out indefinitely as of May 17th, 2007 (neck surgery)
– Mr. Kennedy, out 6 months as of August 4th (dislocated shoulder)
– Umaga, out indefinitely as of August 20th (PCL)

ECW

– Evan Bourne, ECW, out 4-6 weeks (torn deltoid)

TNA

– Kaz, out 4 months as of October 1st (triceps)
– Moose, out 6 months as of July 7th (broken femur)

Transactions

– Gregory Helms, SD!, will return to action on December 5th Smackdown

– Melina, RAW, returned to action on November 24th Raw

I love that not only did they screw up the surprise through the wrong video playing, King and Cole kept harping on it for the next five minutes to make sure that we all knew that the surprise was screwed up.

– Mr. Kennedy, RAW(?), returned to television on November 24th Raw

However, according to a radio interview, he’s actually a few months away from a wrestling return, so once his DVD disappears from the radar, I’d expect him to slip away again.

Who’s Holding Gold

WWE

WWE Champion: Edge
– 8 day reign, defeated former champion Triple H, and Vladimir Kozlov in a Triple Threat Match on November 23rd (Survivor Series PPV)
– Next title defense: vs Jeff Hardy and Triple H, Armageddon PPV

World Heavyweight Champion: John Cena
– 8 day reign, defeated Chris Jericho on November 23rd (Survivor Series PPV)
– Next title defense: vs Chris Jericho, Armageddon PPV

ECW Champion: Matt Hardy
– 84 day reign, defeated former champion Mark Henry, The Miz, Finlay, and Chavo Guerrero in a Scramble Match on September 7th (Unforgiven PPV)

WWE Intercontinental Champion: William Regal
– 21 day reign, defeated Santino Marella on November 10th (Raw)

WWE United States Champion: Shelton Benjamin
– 134 day reign, defeated Matt Hardy on July 20th (Great American Bash PPV)

World Tag Team Champions: CM Punk and Kofi Kingston
– 35 day reign, defeated Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase on October 28th (Raw)

WWE Tag Team Champions: Carlito and Primo Colon
– 66 day reign, defeated Curt Hawkins and Zach Ryder on September 26th (Smackdown)

WWE Women’s Champion: Beth Phoenix
– 106 day reign, with Santino Marella, defeated Mickie James and Kofi Kingston in a Winner Take All match on August 17th (Summerslam PPV)

WWE Diva’s Champion: Michelle McCool
– 134 day reign, defeated Natalya Neidhart on July 20th to win the newly-created title (Great American Bash PPV)

TNA

TNA Heavyweight Champion: Sting
– 50 day reign, defeated Samoa Joe on October 12th (Bound For Glory PPV)
– Next title defense: with the Main Event Mafia, vs Samoa Joe, AJ Styles and two others, if Team TNA wins, AJ Styles wins the title (I know, I know, just go with it)

TNA Tag Team Champions: Beer Money Inc
– 113 day reign, defeated LAX on August 10th (Hard Justice PPV)

TNA X-Division Champion: Sheik Abdul Bashir
– 11 day reign, “Dusty Finish” reversed Eric Young title win on November 20th (Impact)

TNA Knockouts Champion: Awesome Kong
– 39 day reign, defeated Taylor Wilde on October 23rd (Impact)

TNA Legends Champion: Booker T
– 39 day reign, introduced new title on October 23rd (Impact)

Links For Fun And Nonprofit

Lansdell and Prag have the weekend news reports.

Rodriguez has For The Record.

Ari has Column of Honor.

And Sforcina has Evolution Schematic.

The Gab Bag

I did make a mistake on the Survivor Series review, as Candice Michelle was eliminated by Maryse using a modified figure four. Not entirely my fault, I was using **site name removed because I’m too damned nice** for a recap due to the incredible amount of traffic that 411 garners during PPVs crashing the site again, and they neglected to include Candice’s elimination. Mea culpa.

Hey, did you guys know that AJ Styles was in WCW during like the last three months of its existence? Because people who apparently live to point out my niggling little mistakes thought you might not. Fortunately, most of my readers actually got that it was a joke and defended me. Apparently the Comments section can be constructive.

I missed the part where you congratulated the Calgary Stampeders on winning the Grey Cup. pfft and you call yourself Canadian. Not my fault the Argo’s sucked so bad this year – CoolMoeD

Tiger Cats, actually, and that’s a long, long road of pain to go into. Meanwhile, the Argos do indeed suck.

Happy Bday Randle. Not to bring you down, but 28 in Canandian years is aboot 42 in actual years. – Angry Bear

No wonder I feel so old. At least it’s a good number.

And One To Go On

411 will have live coverage of Raw tonight starting at 9 pm EST.

Remember, if you love poker, and are in the Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo area, check out Player’s Poker League.

Larry’s in tomorrow, and I’ll be back next week.

Have a good one, and always be a fan.