News to Start Your Weekend 6.1.07

I’m an exciting guy! Today (Thursday, as I’m writing this) I had just a great day! I woke up at 7:45 AM to move my car so as to not get a ticket, and then I went back to sleep until 3 PM. Then I woke up, took a walk to the post office to pay the rent, showered and ate a pair of meatball & mozzarella Hot Pockets. And now I’m here. I’ve not watched any wrestling this week other than RAW and some of ECW, so nothing new on that front. I did enjoy the 5/29 and 5/31 episodes of TNA Today, though, with a good interview with Chris Sabin and a great interview with Alex Shelley respectively. They’re really playing up the Murder City Machine Guns tag team, so I hope they actually do something real with them over the summer. They both are busy at Slammiversary, and chances are that Sabin will lose the X Title there, so he’ll be free for the tag hunt. I really wish TNA would start promoting TNA Today – it’s always a lot of fun, with a good interview and sometimes a good match from Xplosion. Plus, Don West’s Insane Daily Deals are awesome. Borash is also a damn talented dude, and I honestly believe that if he were the guy in charge of TNA, it would be a much better show, getting better ratings and already have that elusive 2 hour time slot. He’s a wrestling fan with a good mind for the business that appears to understand the present and the future of wrestling. The people in charge right now don’t.

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tna slammiversary: june 17, 2007

Speaking of TNA Today and the fact that they should really start promoting it, they have also been announcing some of the matches for Slammiversary on the show. I’ve only seen the episodes that I mentioned above, but on those two shows they announced that Sabin would be defending the X Title against Jay Lethal and that Shelley would be taking Bob Backlund on one-on-one. The card is actually beginning to shape up even though up to this point (as I’m writing this, a couple hours before Impact goes on the air on 5/31) only two matches have been announced on TV, and just one of them is full, as the other is still having participants qualifying. The card thus far, including last night’s Impact:

– Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles vs. ?? vs. ?? (TNA Title, King of the Mountain)
– Team 3D vs. The Steiner Brothers (TNA Tag Team Titles)
– James Storm vs. Frank Wycheck (TNA vs. NFL)
– Chris Sabin vs. Jay Lethal (X Division Title)
– Alex Shelley vs. Bob Backlund

Apparently they wanted to do James Storm & Ray Lewis vs. Jerry Lynn & Frank Wycheck, but they couldn’t come to a deal with Lewis. It looks like elsewhere on the card we’re going to see LAX vs. Chris Harris & Rhino as well as Christopher Daniels vs. Sting. Eric Young vs. Robert Roode also seems apparent. According to the taping spoilers, only four guys have qualified for the King of the Mountain match. The card looks to be strong enough at this point, with the King of the Mountain match having the right people in it, an interesting match with 3D and the Steiners and what should be a very good match for the X Title between Lethal and Sabin. Daniels vs. Sting should be solid, and Young vs. Roode should have a lot of heat and hopefully end their feud for good. Also, if Joe doesn’t win the belt, what the fuck are they thinking?

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the rest of the news

– Apparently John Cena saw Ron Killing’s shitty raps on him from YouTube and confronted him a couple days ago by looking at him angrily. And then Killings ranted about it on Myspace, calling Cena a chump or somesuch and said he would eat his ass. That’s what I got out of it anyway.

– Speaking of Cena, apparently the Great Khali’s former next door neighbor is claiming that Cena is her son.

– Christian Cage signed a new deal with TNA which will keep him there for the next 2 or 3 years.

– Some dude pulled a chick’s tits out during the commercial break portion of the Kiss Cam on RAW this week. He then got kicked out of the arena. Not because he was harassing the girl, who apparently he was with and was not against it, but because while two girls kissing is encouraged, showing a pair of tits is going to destroy the world. Girls kissing is fine, girls in tiny bikinis throwing water on each other and rolling around on the floor is fine, but tits? OUT OF THE QUESTION. What was the rationale for kicking anybody out?

– On June 27th, Jim Ross’ BBQ restaurant will be opening in Oklahoma.

– TNA wants to take all of their PPVs on the road and only do their TV tapings in Orlando.

– Jeff Jarrett and TNA are once again thinking about wasting a shitload of money on bringing Hogan in.

– Team 3D, especially Devon, want to finish their careers with WWE apparently. Also, it is not a sure thing that RVD wants to sign with TNA, as he apparently believes he has enough money to retire, but might be open to working an Undertaker type schedule for WWE.

– TNA once again thinks it’s going to get a longer timeslot, telling the guys that in August they’ll have 2 hours.

– People in and out of WWE are pushing for Ric Flair to get one more World Title reign before he retires.

– Dustin Runnels has been no-showing scheduled appearances, as he didn’t show up for the SNME taping or the Bad News Allen tribute show in Alberta. He kept the 900 dollar advance pay and cashed in his plane ticket for the event as well.

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tv thoughts

I don’t know what it is, but I’m really quite thoroughly enjoying WWE right now. ECW can blow me and I really hope the draft can save it. It was going pretty smoothly for a little while, but it’s just abysmal right now and I can’t bear to watch anything outside of stuff with Punk and the New Breed.

RAW is still great fun, though. Might the Michelle McCool victory in the battle royal be foreshadowing for the draft coming up? Melina may have her next challenger. I’m really hoping that in the draft both Michelle and Jillian end up on RAW, and that Jillian drops the singing gimmick. It’s one of the furthest things from funny that WWE has ever done while trying to do comedy. It’s up there with the dancing fat dude that DX loved bringing out. Anybody who finds Jillian’s bad singing funny should swallow a bottle of bleach.

But yeah, bring Michelle and Jillian to RAW. Candice, Mickie, Victoria, Jillian, Michelle and Melina would be a Women’s division as strong as it’s ever been.

The eight man tag that I was calling for One Night Stand happened on Monday, and it was a good match that led to the making of the Ladder match between the Hardys and the World’s Greatest Tag Team. Maybe I was wrong – maybe they actually ARE beginning to put some stock into having a true tag division. Let’s hope the draft doesn’t fuck anything up.

Orton and Van Dam had a very good match. Randy didn’t annoy the hell out of me this week, so I’ve got that going for me.

Carlito is bad ass.

Hey Masters, wanna immediately stop not sucking? It’s freaking me out.

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ring of honor stuff

As the newswire has promised, we’ve been getting more and more matches signed for this month’s ROH shows. Announced on top of what we already had is:

– On June 8 in the Boston area, it’s the NRC vs. The Resilience and Delirious, as Rocky, Davey and Roddy take on Cross, Stevens and Delirious in a six-man tag match. Also just added is Matt Sydal vs. El Generico. You can see the full card here.

– On June 9 in Philadelphia, Delirious vs. Rocky Romero and Matt Cross vs. Davey Richards will take place. On top of that, a four corner survival putting Jimmy Rave vs. Brent Albright vs. BJ Whitmer vs. Erick Stevens has been signed. The full card for that stacked show can be found here.

– On June 22 in Dayton, Roderick Strong & Davey Richards will tag against Matt Cross & Erick Stevens. The card thus far for that show can be seen here.

– ROH officials have decided to not, as of yet, reveal any matches for the June 23 PPV taping in Chicago.

– The newest video wire has been released. It features promos from Delirious as well as the Briscoe Brothers and more. You can see that here.

– Jimmy Jacobs and Lacey are spending 4 days together, and there were cameras with them to document the story. Videos from the first two days has been released, and the final two are coming up. Look for a very creepy gentleman in the first video attempting to pick up Lacey at the bar. That guy’s a creep, and I can personally attest to it. He’s tried to sexually accost me on many occasions.

Jimmy and Lacey Day One
Jimmy and Lacey Day Two

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emails

Hey, look at me! I got an email this week! It’s from a gentleman who happens to be a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan, TBBucs97:

The World Tag Team Championship match I think instead of a tornado tag match it should be a TLC match. That could be the match of the night then if they go all out with the weapons

Well it is a ladder match. I think you’re Fez Marie Whatley. That’s what I say today.

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plugola

Ari rules, and so does his honorable column

Vote for an Idiot

Sforcina examines the past drafts

O’Dog talks about little kids

Sarnecky has some stuff about this years draft

The new guys have another payload

I still miss the little things

Jordan Linkous loves me, even though I made him wait for my part of his column

– Meehan’s Saturday News
– Stu’s Sunday News
– Randle’s Monday News
– Larry’s Tuesday News
– Hayhurst’s Wednesday News
– Small’s Thursday News

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the news all balled together

I completely forgot about 2 months ago that it was my two year anniversary writing this column here at 411. My anniversary writing for 411 overall is in September, and this upcoming September will be my third anniversary, but I’ve been providing this Friday morning extravaganza almost weekly now for 2 years and 2 months. To commemorate that, this is something that I and a few of my readers from the old days have wanted back for a while, and I think I just may start doing this again on a regular basis. With that said, here we go:

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TNA doesn’t do a very good job promoting TNA Today, and it’s a shame, because they do a very controversial show, including airing segments that feature a very up-in-arms John Cena claiming that he’s way blacker than Ron Killings, while Killings sits at his computer and responds with his best impression of Homicide. Cena’s relatives in India are apparently afraid of Christian Cage, and they are the people who worked out the deal that got Jericho into the Vengeance 2005 triple threat match and also the trade to SmackDown. They have also helped Christian sign a new multi-year deal with TNA, so their little John-John won’t have to compete with Christian’s rapping skillz par excellence.

His relatives don’t, however, have a problem with the promotional tactics for JR’s new BBQ restaurant. Every night for the first week after the grand opening, JR will personally pull a female patron’s shirt off and slather BBQ sauce all over her chesticles. If it goes well, JR is thinking of expanding to Orlando and using TNA’s Impact Zone to run Bikini BBQ kiddie pool fights on Sundays, since TNA won’t be needing it as they will also be expanding across the company thanks to their hopeful huge success upon finally signing Hulk Hogan to a deal. This news has disgusted Brother Devon of Team 3D, who is now hoping to find a way to leave TNA and make his way back to WWE to once again portray his Reverend D-Von character. Rob Van Dam was going to be teamed with Brother Ray upon arriving in the company, but he has since rethought going to TNA because he doesn’t want to be associated in ECW angles. Speaking of ECW, a couple people got together to watch some old tapes of the early episodes of ECW on Sci-Fi, and upon viewing the Flair/Big Show match, they have been pushing for him to get one more title reign before he retires. This news caused Goldust, who was supposed to reappear in WWE recently, to completely cut himself off from the wrestling world disgusted by the fact that an old man like Flair would be getting another title run. He said that even though he’s worn diapers in the past, at least he only did it for a wrestling angle. When asked for a comment on Goldust’s remarks, Mike Tenay had only this to say: “Man, that was STIFF!”

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the goodbye

I added some headings. I think they’re nice. There’s ANOTHER PPV this week, so how about some predictions?

Lashley, Cena, Edge, Henry, Hardys, Punk’s team, Candice, Orton

If you’re curious, I’ve picked 45% correct for WWE PPVs and 68% for TNA.

Bye now.