From WorldWrestlingInsanity.com
T.G.I.F. with Matt Dawgs: Shaqtastic, A Very Hunter Birthday, Heyman's Crystal Ball, Foley and Nash Try Walking, Storming ROH, MegaWatts, and More On Christina's Feud With Bras
By Matt Dawgs
Jul 31, 2009 - 11:00 AM
Matt Dawgs Presents: Thank Goodness It’s Friday!!!!!
Hello all. Welcome back and Happy Friday. Took a much needed week off in order to get some personal stuff done but now I am back and believe me when I say, TONS of news going on out there. Lets just get right to it. In my previous column on this site titled “Matt Dawgs’ Random Thoughts, Opinions, Questions and Observations”, I wrote exactly what the title says I wrote. While this column will definitely hit you with that from time to time, I am also going just basically switch up the formula a bit with my random thoughts from each wrestling
PROMOTION this week. Of course I will also throw in some thoughts on real world news, sports, entertainment and gossip. Please feel free to provide any thoughts or feedback on the new format. Enjoy.
MATT NOTE:
I have made the switch from Cablevision to Verizon FiOS. I now have access to ROH on HD Net as well as WGN (for WWE Superstars) so I will be adding news and notes from those shows in next week’s column. On a personal note, FiOS IS AWESOME. Make the switch if it is available in your area.
1) WWE News and Notes
• Night of Champions has come and gone and the big news coming out of it is that Jeff Hardy is apparently sticking around until Summerslam as he captured the World Title from CM Punk
CLEANLY with the Swanton bomb.
• WWE has certainly decided against taking the advice of fans and continuing with history because instead of using the Chris Jericho opening to elevate a new, fresh and young talent; they decided to team Chris Jericho with the Big Show. Suffice to say, fans crapped on it. I think it can work but it would have been better if it were Chris Masters.
• Speaking of…Masters returned on RAW on Monday and he physically looks good. While he is definitely smaller than his previous run, he is lean and ripped.
• Shaquille O’Neal was this week’s guest host/GM and he was far and away the best one to date just like I said he would be. My opinion is, unless you get an actor or someone who likes wrestling and follows it like Shaq, you are going to have flops like ZZ Top. All of Shaq’s skits and angles were solid and he definitely held his own. Next week, Jeremy Piven who I am a big fan of.
• CM Punk is a full-fledged heel. I will let you watch Smackdown for yourself and let me know what you think of the turn. But his promo at Night of Champions was absolutely fantastic and vintage Punk. If you weren’t a Punk fan during his Straight Edge routine on the Indies and in ROH then you are in for a treat. Heel Punk = GOLD.
• Mayrese and Mickie James kind of stunk up the joint at Night of Champions but it has come out that Mayrese’s knee injury from several months back is back again. She had to visit Dr. James Andrews and will most likely have to take some more time off. If she needs surgery, she will be out longer.
• Triple H had a BIRTHDAY BASH following RAW on Monday where the entire roster got into a cake throwing fight. A surprise guest was Dave Batista. Not for nothing, but for a man who has just had surgery on his biceps and won’t be able to wrestle until November, he is in DAMN GREAT SHAPE. He looks like he never left which is difficult considering he can’t train.
• Speaking of HHH, he is fighting Legacy next week by himself in a handicap match. I fully expect this to be the angle to jump start Shawn Michaels return to build to his Summerslam match.
• The Brian Kendrick has been FUTURE ENDEAVORED. He is going to be the Marty Jannetty of our generation as it is his third time being released by WWE.
(first being when he was Shawn Michael’s student and in developmental.)
• This is a DIRECT QUOTE from Paul Heyman which he wrote a few weeks ago that was brought to my attention in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter which Heyman wrote:
“Years ago, Jim Ross would send memo after memo to Vince, Stephanie and Kevin Dunn asking the company to spend more time and effort, as well as resources, to actively recruit top athletes for pro wrestling for their developmental territory. “If we don’t address this problem now,” he said Ross said on a flight with Vince, “We’re going to pay a heavy price for ignoring the situation in five years.” Heyman noted that it was five years ago when Ross said it. Interesting no?
• Yay. I found Beth Phoenix. She was on RAW Monday after being gone forever with no explanation.
• Big surprising win for Evan Bourne over Jack Swagger. Hopefully his push continues before they decide to slap him down to reality and have him get squashed by someone.
• Anyone remember when Mike Knox was being pushed as a monster and people thought he was being built as a heel for Cena or HHH? HAHA. The good old days.
• Congrats to ECW ORIGINAL Francine aka the Queen of Extreme on the birth of her first child.
2) TNA News and Notes
• Elijah Burke has signed with TNA and will be debuting soon under a new name/gimmick. Burke has a lot of talent and was never given a proper opportunity in WWE. Hopefully he will finally get a shot to show what he can do.
• Apparently someone forgot to tell Taz that his debut promo was supposed to be a heel promo. He absolutely didn’t cut a heel promo
(which he definitely can, I've heard them in the original ECW and they were tremendous).
• Foley vs. Nash? In a match? Who booked that and thought it was a good idea? Neither man can walk?!?!?!
• I fully expect the nonsense and crazy booking within TNA to get worse since Vince Russo is basically booking everything now that Jeff Jarrett is gone and he has no “editor” of his crazy ideas. No one is going to stop the madness.
• From what I heard recently from a TNA worker, Kurt Angle is a down to earth guy who goes out of his way to watch matches and critique younger talent and gives suggestions to make people better. That is pretty awesome if you ask me.
• Traci Brooks will be posing for Playboy. WWE’s loss is TNA’s gain
(my gain too)
• Hernandez and Homicide will still be associated with each other but mainly wrestling as singles. Hernandez is going to be getting a mega push as evidenced by his beating Samoa Joe.
3) Ring of Honor News and Notes
• Lance Storm was in rare form and its as if he never retired last weekend when he lit it up in his two matches in Canada. In the first, he teamed with fellow Canadian Kevin Steen against Chris Hero and Dave Richards. On his second night, Storm lost to Chris Hero. He looked fantastic in both and I am still holding out hope that he wrestles for ROH a few times per year however Storm said it was most likely his final match ever.
• Ric Flair fulfilled his last date with ROH and is done with the company.
• Nigel McGuiness suffered a stinger one a Jerry Lyn Cradle Pile driver. Not for nothing but I am going to be completely honest, when Nigel debuted, I hated him. I thought his work was just ok but for the most part,
HATED HIM. He has since grown on me and is by far one of the hardest working men in wrestling today. For those of you out there who are aspiring wrestler, if you have half the work ethic that Nigel does, you’ll be successful. I just hope that one day he gets an opportunity to make WWE or make a lot of money because he is working through lots of serious injuries.
• ROH on HDNet is moving to Monday Nights at 8:00 pm. The first main event on that night is Nigel McGuiness vs. Tyler Black.
• Gabe Sapolsky’s Dragon Gate USA promotion apparently had a pretty good debut. Congrats.
4) MMA News and Notes
• A huge change form last week when I discussed Affliction’s show being cancelled. Now, UFC OWNS AFFLICTION.
• Where this leaves Fedor Emelianenko is still up in the air/ UFC reportedly offered him a 6 fight deal worth $5,000,000.00 per fight for 6 fights, a cut of the PPV revenue, M1
(his current promoter) would have been able to sponsor him for fights including hanging a banner inside the octagon during his fights, plus he would have still been allowed to compete in Sambo competitions in Russia. He said no. The deal breaker was that he wanted M1 to have co-promotion rights with UFC for his fights. Obviously Dana White turned them down.
• Tito Ortiz has also signed and an announcement will also be made shortly. Quite possibly as early as this morning.
• For the record, former UFC Star Kimo Leopaldo is
NOT DEAD. He is alive and well.
•
UFC 101 on August 8 from Philadelphia PA is as follows:
• Lightweight Championship bout: B.J. Penn © vs. Kenny Florian
• Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin
• Amir Sadollah vs. Johny Hendricks
• Kendall Grove vs. Ricardo Almeida
• Josh Neer vs. Kurt Pellegrino
•
UFC 102 is on August 29 and the line up is as follows:
• Randy Couture vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
• Keith Jardine vs. Thiago Silva
• Chris Leben vs. Jake Rosholt
• Demian Maia vs. Nate Marquardt
• Matt Hamill vs. Brandon Vera.
5) Random Thoughts, Links, Pics, ETC.
• Random PIC of the week
• I am all caught up on my One Tree Hill and am looking forward until September for the 7th season premiere. Such a fantastic show.
• Everyone please welcome ERIC WATTS to World Wrestling Insanity, as he is our new guest host. He currently has his 68-minute debut show up on CLUBWWI.COM. Check it out!!!
• For all of you Jack Bauer fans, 24’s next season will be in New York. The plot revolves around the United Nations.
• Christina oh Christina, why do you hate bras?
• Is anyone surprised that both David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were on steroids during their run together as members of the Red Sox? Glad it is finally out so all the Yankee hate can go away. Sure A-Rod did roids too but he didn’t win a World Series doing them. Manny and Roid Papi did!! Actually, they won 2 of them.
• Eminem completely raping Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon of any dignity they may have left. LISTEN HERE.
• I can’t believe that someone has completely and utterly ruined MY GI JOE FRANCHISE. Here is a 4-minute clip in French from the movie. It looks horrible in my eyes. WATCH THIS DRECK IF YOU CAN STOMACH IT.
• Finally a big shout out to my friend and a very good DJ, DJ UCH. Check out his site and show some support by visiting him at DJUCH.com
Ok kiddies, classes are over for now. See you soon!!!!!!!!!
Feel free to discuss whatever you’d like in the “Anger Management” section of the message board or whichever section you see fit.
~Matt Dawgs
World Wrestling Insanity writer Matt Dawgs is the bread and butter of the World Wrestling Insanity family. His future is bright and once James Guttman comes into a large sum of money, you can expect Matt will be getting tons of it thrown at him, at least half of it. Matt used to moonlight as a professional wrestler/manager in the NY/NJ Indy scene. He is legit afraid of getting on Homicide’s bad side but thinks he is a cool dude in general. He also is a funny guy. If you have any questions, corrections, feedback, comments and ideas, he can be reached at Matt@worldwrestlinginsanity.com. If the feedback is negative, you can e-mail Matt at insanity@worldwrestlinginsanity.com.
P.S. – In case you didn’t know, James Guttman has a new WRESTLING BOOK out titled “Shoot First, Ask Questions Later”. It is a damn fun read so I suggest you run out and get it today. If you already have your copy, read it. If you already read your copy, read it again. It is funny; like me.
Also, don’t forget to check out CLUB WWI. It can be found by clicking the banner at the top of this page. Check out all the new audio updates and features found there. Some good stuff including all of James Guttman’s past Radio Free Insanity broadcasts as well as all new, uncut interviews with some of wrestling past and present names. Good stuff people.
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