Hello and welcome to the debut of the news and rumors here at The Balrog’s Lair. Due to the lack of time that I often have to write as much as I want to, this section will be devoted to news and rumors while Mark My Words will now be soley an opinion column. The news and rumors reports will be updated once or twice a week by me and Michael Blaszkowski. Michael is new to the staff and for those of you who were fans of TPWW, he was the top ten columnis there. Michael will now write an opinion column for this site, and will be a special guest of Pardon The Ring. Anyways, this is suppose to be where the news and rumors are, not Martin’s ramblings, so with that said, let’s get this thing started.
Smackdown this week once again prooved to be the better show then Raw. Smackdown faced rough competition this week from both NBC and CBS, but at the end, the show scored a final rating of a 3.6 which is considered good news for WWE.
In yesterday’s Ross Report, it was announced that Shawn Stasiak, Mike Awesome, and Horace Hogan were released from WWE. It really should come to no surprise as a bad economy and a loss in business results WWE needing to cut any expenses. It is possible and likely a few more cuts will be made in the coming weeks or months, but most likely, to more developmental wrestlers. It is possible that Stasiak, Awesome, and Horace Hogan will be resigned later on for less money, only time will tell.
Terry Taylor is now working as an agent for WWE while being evaluated. After a few weeks, WWE will decide whether to keep Taylor permanently. Terry Taylor worked for the then WWF a few years back but left when he was forced to add a stipulation to his contract stating that if he left WWE, he could not join a rival company (WCW) for a year. Taylor did not agree to that stipulation, so he left WWE and went to WCW immediately. There was apparantely no heat between Vince McMahon and Taylor. Taylor was not hired immediately after WWE bought WCW because it is being told that there was no room for him.
The trailer for WWE’s newest video game Smackdown: Shut Your Mouth is available from the THQ website. The game is set to be released in November for the PlayStation 2 system. You can go directly to the Smackdown trailer by clicking here.
WWE held their annual stockholders meeting this past week. Vince McMahon spoke for about 50 minutes, speaking about a lot of things that most people already knew about. One of the interesting things he mentioned was that be believes the ECW product had it’s own unique fans and if it were ever brought back, and that WWE was in the process of trying to own all aspects of the company. The situation with ECW is very difficult right now because the company (ECW) filed for bankruptcy over a year ago. Whether or not Vince McMahon would really bring back ECW if he were to buy it is beyond me.
Also coming from the meeting, Vince mentioned that with the WWE and now WCW footage that he owns, he eventually wants to make it available for all old school wrestling fans (i.e. a classic wrestling channel). However, Vince made it clear that if he were to make it happen, the fans would have to pay for it. Obviously Vince believes that there are enough old school wrestling fans that would pay to see old matches and footage. No further information was mentioned about this subject.
Vince McMahon also mentioned the Nicole Bass lawsuit at the meeting. Nicole Bass is suing WWE claiming she was sexually harassed by male wrestlers when she was with the company a few years back. WWE is claiming she is upset because she was released from the company. For those who don’t know her, Nichole Bass was a women’s wrestler who was part of the company a few years ago. She was with the company for about a year I believe and made her debut as a heel with Chyna (I believe). Things evolved, storylines changed, and I last remember her being obsessed with Val Venis (in storyline of course) and he not wanting anything to do with her. Anyways, Vince mentioned that the lawsuit by her was ridiculous, that he truly is confident WWE will win the case. He mentioned he would not settle out of court with in fear of other individuals attempting a lawsuit in hopes of receiving a settlement out of court by WWE.
According to The Pro Wrestling Torch website, Juventud Guerrero received a tryout for WWE this past week at the Smackdown tapings. He wrestled a darkmatch vs. Shannon Moore. WWE agents requested that he slow down his style and follow the WWE style. Apparantely he failed to do so as he went double the speed, which angered many WWE agents. It is believed that his chances of getting a job are very slim now.
According to Dave Meltzer, any rumors that WWE were planning on having two separate Pay-Per-Views a month are completely false. The idea was that there would be 19 PPVs a year and the big 5 PPVs (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, King of The Ring, Summerslam, and Survivor Series) would be jointed events. With two PPVs a month, that obviously would mean one PPV for RAW with the other PPV for Smackdown. With a decline in business and the poor economy, now is the wrong time to expand PPVs and InDemand apparantely would not be open to the idea as well. My personal opinion has always been that the big five PPVs can remain to be shared and then Raw and Smackdown have their own PPV every other month.
WWE is rumored to have their lower to mid card wrestlers at house shows change their style. They have been asked to avoid punches and kicks as it is believed it takes away heat for when the main event wrestlers use those moves. The Wrestling Obsever also adds that by not being able to punch and kick, they will be forced to improve their wrestling moves and hold techniques. This style is also used with many Japanease promotions.
The Pro Wrestling Torch newsletter reports that the participants for Tough Enough III are mostly dominated by the males. It is believed that for this competion, much like the last one, that two winners of the same sex will win again, but this time being male.
A few days ago there was a storyline researcher position listed at HotJobs.com. Since then, the position was taken down, and it is now known that the position is listed at TVJobs.com. The difference you ask is that TVJobs is a subscription site for those who work in the television media. The general idea on the Internet for those who know about this is that a change was made most likely so anyone from the public can’t just apply for this position. In other words, WWE doesn’t want one of their fans to apply for the job in fear that they would recieve many ‘unqualified applications.’
Scott Steiner and Steve Corino are in the news as they both are scheduled to wrestle October 29th in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. They are wrestlin for the Stars and Stripes Championship Wrestling promotion.
Below is the current card for this week’s NWA-TNA Pay-Per-View.
– Jose & Joel Maximo vs. Yang & Estrada
– Shark Boy vs. The Amazing Red
– Jerry Lynn vs. A.J. Styles in a ladder match
– Ron Killings vs. Low Ki
And that’s a wrap for the first news and rumors report at TBL. Like I stated in the opening paragraph, it is my hope that the N&R will be updated twice a week, as both myself and Michael Blaszkowski will be contributing to this report. Speaking of Michael, he debuts his new column at TBL today, Unspoken. There is no Pardon The Ring this week, it will return next weekend. With that said, I am out of here, later.
