Matt Dawgs Presents: Thank Goodness It's Friday.......THE 13TH!!!!!

Hello all. Welcome back and Happy Friday. Let’s 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: Everyone stop on by World Wrestling Insanity on Sunday to check out the NEW FACE OF INSANITY!!!!!

WWE News and Notes

- In what wouldn’t have been believed a year and a half ago, Linda McMahon easily won the Republican primary for Connecticut Senate and will get the Republican nomination for the seat. She will go on to face Democrat Richard Blumenthal for the position. Not only that but she is slowly gaining momentum and by November, it appears that unless some scandal blows up in her face and buries her, she has a legitimate shot at winning the election. Senator McMahon? WOW.

- RAW this week was definitely a solid “go-home” show leading to Summerslam on Sunday. All of the main angles were built properly for the show with the Cena team coming together (minus Khali who was “injured” by Nexus). It appears that Miz is going to replace him on Sunday which makes sense since he is on the cusp of being “The Next Big Thing” by the way the announcers gushed over him.

- Once again, Evan Bourne is buried. No reason to feed him to Miz and make him not look like he is on Miz’s level. You could have used any number of guys in that slot. Where was Yoshi Tatusu? I understand the importance of getting Miz over. I absolutely do. But if you HAD TO use Bourne, then do not make it a squash match. Let Bourne get over some instead of being buried.

- Is it me or is Bret Hart a better promo guy now than he was when he was active? He has been delivering the goods since he returned to WWE.

- Sheamus = AWESOME. His promo with Orton was fantastic as was the angle following it.

- STILL HATE THE EMAILING GM!!!!

- WWE announced that they are going to begin pitching their WWE network to cable providers beginning in early 2011 and apparently there is currently a lot of interest in the idea. The channel is going to be similar to the model used by the MLB network.

- RAW returns next week with the guest host concept as Justin Long (aka the Mac guy), Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis host RAW as they promote their new movie “Going the Distance”.

- Luchador Alberto Rio (Dos Caras Jr.) who has been in several vignettes on Smackdown over the past two months makes his long awaited debut next week on the show.

- WWE is going to go ahead with a 3^rd season of NXT but they are going to switch it up a bit and have 4 male and 4 female participants for it.

- Ricky Steamboat has begun some light cardio training but it is most likely he will not be involved in a physical angle again thus eliminating him from ever wrestling as well.

- Ring of Honor World Champion Tyler Black has signed a WWE Developmental deal. Congrats to him.

- I guess hindsight is in fact 20/20 because in his latest book (to be released in February 2011), Chris Jericho says the following about “He Who Shall Not Be Named” after hearing Nancy, Daniel and he were dead: "My gut feeling was Chris had killed them." I think that helps put things in perspective since Jericho was in fact one of his closest friends and most people seem to think that he wasn’t capable of doing such a thing.

- Mattias Wild, a student from Lance Storm’s “Storm Wrestling Academy” was signed to a WWE Developmental deal this week due to him trying out at FCW.

- New FCW Champion, MASON RYAN .

WWE Summerslam PPV is THIS SUNDAY from Los Angeles CA and the line-up is as follows:

• WWE TITLE: Sheamus © vs. Randy Orton
• WORLD TITLE: Kane © vs. Rey Mysterio
• 7-on7 ELIMINATION MATCH: John Cena//Edge/Chris Jericho/Bret Hart/John Morrison/R-Truth/Great Khali vs. Nexus (Wade Barrett/Justin Gabriel/Skip Sheffield/David Otunga/Heath Slater/Darren Young/Michael Tarver)
• Big Show vs. CM Punk/Luke Gallows/Joey Mercury in a 3-on-1 Handicap match.
• WWE DIVAS TITLE: Alicia Fox © vs. Melina
• IC TITLE: Dolph Zigger © vs. Kofi Kingston

TNA News and Notes

- TNA is making news and dominating the wrestling world this week with a lot of stuff going on right now. Before we get into the EV2 news, let’s start with the fact that HULK HOGAN announced via his new Twitter account that he and Eric Bischoff have left TNA Wrestling. Awesomely enough, when the news broke, Bischoff jumped on Facebook to announce that the tweets were a fake when in fact just a day earlier, Bischoff is the one who announced that it was HOGAN’S OFFICIAL TWITTER ACCOUNT. Hogan’s best friend Bubba the Love Sponge confirmed it after Bischoff and both Kevin Nash and Jeff Jarrett “follow” him on Twitter. The posts were later deleted and the “Hulk Hogan” announced that he indeed worked Eric Bischoff and Bubba and that neither verified if it was in fact Hogan with the account. He claimed he is in fact a current TNA employee and he isn’t going to risk being fired by announcing his identity. TREMENDOUS!!!

- My theory? Hogan let it out of the bag before it was supposed to be announced and now everyone is back pedaling to fix it. Either that or it is an elaborate work by everyone but they are in fact leaving anyway.

- Due to the recent (albeit minor) spike in ratings (no pun intended), Tommy Dreamer has been telling people that he is in fact going to be the new booker for TNA (unless Heyman comes in).

- MAJOR SPOILER ALERT: ……………………………..SKIP TO THE NEXT BULLET POINT IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS ON NEXT WEEK’S TNA IMPACT………………………..IT IS SOMETHING BIG…………………………….OK I WARNED YOU……………………….. Rob Van Dam is forced to vacate the TNA World Title due to the “injuries” he suffered last night on Impact. An 8 man tournament will be held with the winner becoming new champion. In reality, Rob isn’t injured but instead is taking time off. Why? Mainly because TNA continues to book the bigger name talents on a limited number of dates per year and then runs through them ASAP. I don’t get why they continue to do that but instead, just book them for all television and PPV’s and a handful of houseshows. Instead, RVD has practically worked all TV, PPV and houseshows since his debut so their hand is forced. Unbelievable.

- Hmmm….what more can I say that hasn’t already been said about the TNA ECW Hardcore Justice PPV? Most of my readers sadly missed ECW during is “GREAT” run in the early to mid 90’s. I would say about 90% of you either caught the tail end of ECW during its run on TNN or the WWE’s version of ECW (starting with the original One Night Stand PPV). If that is indeed the case then from a nostalgia point of view, Hardcore Justice was not a bad deal for you. It was a fun show. For people like me who visited the ECW arena on a 90 degree day in order to sit outside for 4 hours waiting to get into the arena to get a good seat, sit through a 4 hour show with no air conditioning then leave at midnight to get home at 2 in the morning, then this was a PISS POOR EXCUSE FOR AN ECW SHOW. It was nothing more than an embarrassment for both the ECW name as well as TNA for allowing it to take place.

- Sucks that Jerry Lynn suffered a back injury since he and Rob Van Dam would have torn the house down but Sabu managed to put his working shoes on and transform to Sabu of 1996 for one night. He and RVD were the only redeeming quality of this show. Nothing else and I mean absolutely nothing else on this show was worth watching.

- Can someone please tell me why the Gangstas would come out to attack Team 3D, beat on them with weapons for a few minutes then abruptly stop for no reason at all and have a group hug? Really? WTF?

- Light sabers did get a chuckle out of me and had that been done in 1996, it would have gone over HUGE at the ECW arena, which by the way I do not understand why it was not booked for this event. The amount of time they had to promote the PPV, they could have booked and sold tickets to the Arena.

- Simon Diamond ATE Samoa Joe.

- I got a kick out of the “recasting” of Blue Meanie. Also creative was the bW2.0 shirt. A very clever way of going around intellectual property problems. He was played by Big Tilly from Phi Delta Slam and has worked as a security guard in TNA for a while now.

- Kahoneys? PJ Polanco? That’s the best TNA could have done? So many alternatives yet no one sat down and thought of any. Nuts McGee for Balls maybe? Instead of Polanco using his real name, how about Justin Tolerable? Justin Ployed? By the way, rumor has it that Justin Credible cannot be used, not because of WWE but because a close “friend” of his trademarked the name the week the TNA PPV was announced. Why he didn’t have the name trademarked himself is beyond me.

- So obviously you can’t air a video package featuring the talents from ECW because you don’t have video of them since WWE owns the footage. Ok, that is understandable. Why you can’t use still photos is beyond me but I guess it is too much work to put together. So instead of either of the above, they decide to air a graphic. But…since “He Who Shall Not Be Named” and his wife were both in ECW, you can’t even run the names on the screen? Why bother mentioning it at all then? That came across as so low budget and lame. Exclude him and include her. Simple solution.

- Too Cold Scorpio looks like he can still go. I did get a laugh out of Scorpio telling CW that it was win number 1 but let’s do a Best of 5 and neither Taz nor Tenay mentioned it.

- Sad that Joel Gertner never caught on with either TNA or WWE after ECW went under.

- Shocked and saddened that there was no Terry Funk tribute. He was offered a chance to appear and turned it down but still, He should have been at least mentioned. What he did for ECW is undeniable and he was a major factor in the Barely Legal PPV being as successful as it was.

- Tommy Dreamer vs. Raven….no different that the literal other 900 times it has been done. I am happy to hear however that after the show, Dreamer stated that he is never wrestling Raven again nor will he participate in another ECW Nostalgia/reunion show again.

- Disappointed that Hogan didn’t come out for the beer bash to end the PPV.

- Last night’s TNA “FREE PPV” was a decent show though. Between the solid Angle/Styles match to the RVD vs. Abyss match and the OFF THE CHARTS Motor City Machine Guns vs. Beer Money match, it was probably the best episode of Impact in some time.

- Neither Gregory “Hurricane” Helms nor Shelton Benjamin have come to terms with TNA so neither was Jeff Hardy’s mystery opponent last night. Instead it was Shannon Moore and it was lackluster.

-The show closing angle was also well laid out with Fortune lead by Ric Flair laying waste to the members of EV2 was well done. Not sure if they edited it down or not but from the reports I read, it was a long beat down.

- I can’t get enough of seeing Hogan standing in the ring giving the former ECW guys props. Hilarious.

- Ring of Honor star Roderick Strong wrestled a TNA tryout match this week. Good luck to him.

- Former ROH Valet Becky Bayless debuted in a Rob Eckos dark match using the name “Cookie” (as in Snooki from Jersey Shore) as they were using a Jersey Shore gimmick. Eckos wrestled under the name Robbie T.

- Former TNA star “Wildcat” Chris Harris was backstage at TNA visiting. No word on whether or not he was looking for work.

- Someone who IS looking for work in TNA is former WWE Star Snitsky who has been lobbying via Twitter for Dixie Carter to sign him. Ugh.

- Congratulations to Jeff Hardy who announced that he and his longtime girlfriend Beth are expecting their first child together.

- In what is sad news to hear, apparently Booker T and his brother Stevie Ray are no longer on speaking terms. Normally I wouldn’t spread information like this but Booker himself mentioned it in a recent interview. He specified that he definitely loves his brother still and it isn’t hatred towards him. They just have a feud going on but he hopes they can squash it soon because he just had his twins with Sharmell and he wants Stevie to be a part of their lives.

- In LEGIT Hulk Hogan news, he underwent back surgery yesterday which was also one day after his 57^th birthday.

- Surprisingly, when booking talents for the Hardcore Justice show, Tommy Dreamer NEVER called Terry Funk, Sunny, Dawn Marie or James Mitchell aka the Sinister Minister. Funk did say in an interview that if he was called, he would have turned it down.

Independent / International News and Notes:

- Apparently current ROH Champion Tyler Black is rumored to have signed a deal with World Wrestling Entertainment. That means that he is more than likely going to lose the title over the next couple of weeks as he starts in FCW in late September.

- Roderick Strong had a tryout/dark match for TNA this week as well. While he is in fact under contract to ROH, he was given permission to tryout by owned Cary Silken.

- ROH is struggling hard. With Black signing with WWE and Strong trying out for TNA the rumor going around is that several ROH talents’ have ALREADY signed or verbally agreed to sign with the new Florida promotion run by the Wilpons. The promotion is set to start in October meaning that ROH is going to lose A LOT of people. ROH is in deep doo doo.

- The September 11^th Internet PPV show from NY will most likely be the blow-off for Kevin Steen vs. El Generico when Steen and partner Steve Corino face off with Generico and partner Colt Cabana in a chain match.

- Terri Runnels BLADED at a recent independent show.

- In sadder news, former WWE Diva Luna Vachon lost ALL wrestling related memorabilia of hers in a fire in her home. She asks that if anyone has anything related to her (magazine clippings/articles, WWE Action Figures, Posters, Photos, Videos, etc) that they can do without, please send it to her at Luna Vachon, PO Box 5813, Spring Hill, Florida 34611.

- Independent women’s wrestler (and ROH wrestler) Sara Del Ray has been negotiating with WWE. This is a good thing as Sara has a unique look compared to the current WWE Diva crop and is VERY talented.

- This week’s update on Mikey Whipwreck is that he was informed that he in fact does need neck fusion surgery. Mikey has refused to get it and will work to rehab instead. My guess is that one of the main reasons he does not want to get it is that it is highly expensive. Plus, with the severity, it would prevent him from ever wrestling again. (he does not wrestle frequently anymore but I am sure he wants the option to one day.)

MMA News and Notes

- Chael Sonnen vs. Anderson Silva = AMAZING fight. Sonnen went out there and did exactly what he said he was going to do, stand with Silva and kick his ass. For four and a half rounds, he did exactly that. He punched Silva and basically gave him the beating of his life and took him down at will. He made Silva look nothing like the best fighter in the world…….until Round 5 where he somehow managed to make Sonnen tap out to a triangle. That my friend is what separates the men from the boys. In a fight he was being dominated in (including two 10-8 rounds) Silva managed to squeak out a win.

- Silva does have a cracked ribcage. His ribs were injured prior to fighting but got worse in the fight and he will now be out of action until mid 2011 which means both a rematch with Sonnen and the potential Silva vs. Belfort fight are off until then.

- I mentioned last week that WWE was interested in Sonnen, who by the way is a HUGE wrestling fan, and this PPV most likely added more fuel to the fire. Sonnen basically promoted this fight by himself as Silva would hardly do interviews and when he did, provided one word answers to questions and said nothing controversial. Sonnen on the other hand did the exact opposite and single handedly took a pay per view that was estimated to do approximately 350,000 buys to what Dana White and other sources are claiming will most likely top 1,000,000.

- Also, in the number one contendership for the UFC Heavyweight title, Junior Dos Santos showed why he is in fact THE REAL DEAL in his win over UFC Fan Favorite Roy Nelson. This was probably the best heavyweight fight in UFC including Lesnar vs. Carwin. Dos Santos is now in line for the winner of Lesnar/Velasquez.

- UFC is looking for a Jon Jones vs. Forrest Griffin fight in November; possibly on the undercard of Lyoto Machida vs. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.

- Alan Belcher may be forced into retirement if his detached retina does not heal properly.

- The George St. Pierre vs. Josh Koscheck fight on December 11^th is more than likely happening in Las Vegas.

- Fedor Emelianenko says he plans on fulfilling his current Strikeforce contract (1 fight left on it) and then signing another 4-6 fight deal to continue with them. He has no plans to go to UFC and isn’t sure if he wants to.

- Bobby Lashley, in an interview with Sherdog, said that while he wouldn’t see it as beneficial to him, he would indeed fight Dave Batista is Strikeforce wanted it. His exact words were “Batista is new to the game. A fight with him would do nothing to help my growth in MMA. I would do it if Strikeforce wanted me to. No disrespect to Dave, but this fight isn’t a direction that I want to move in. There is no upside to it.”

- a Dave Batista interview on his participation in MMA .

UFC 118 is on August 28, 2010 from Boston Massachusetts and the line-up is as follows:

• UFC LIGHTWEIGHT TITLE: Frankie Edgar © vs. B.J. Penn
• Randy Couture vs. James Toney
• Kenny Florian vs. Gray Maynard
• Nick Osipczak vs. Greg Soto

UFC 119 is on September 25, 2010 from Indianapolis Indiana and the line-up is as follows:

• Frank Mir vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
• Ryan Bader vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
• Matt Serra vs. Chris Lytle
• Sean Sherk vs. Evan Dunham

UFC 120 is on October 16, 2010 from London England and the line-up is as follows:

- Random PIC of the week: Not gonna front, I’d eat it.

- Fun on FACEBOOK : Some people are just DUMB.

- HERO ?

- In approximately 25 days, SONS OF ANARCHY returns to television!!!!!

- THE EXPENDABLES opens today. I will let you know how it is as I am seeing it tonight. YAY!!!!!

- New LOONEY TUNES.

- Twitter has created a new “Who to Follow” option to suggest people you might want to follow based on who you already follow. Jimmy Kimmel posted a twit pic of two people that were suggested to him. HAHAHAHA .

- Justin Bieber is writing a book about his life. Yes, read that again and let it sink in.

- Batman: ARKHAM CITY .

- Just one week after almost being named a new judge on American Idol, Jennifer Lopez is now out of the running as Fox decided her demands were too high and she was too much of a diva. What an idiot she is no?

- Actress VANESSA MARCIL returned to General Hospital this week. Mmmmmm.

- My Future Wife, Kim Kardashian-Aponte with my future sister-in-law and mother-in-law on a RED CARPET .

- Check it out at CLUBWWI.COM . There are literally HUNDREDS of interviews with your favorite wrestling stars of yesteryear and today (inlcuding a new one scheduled for TODAY)!!! If you’re not a member then please do yourself a favor and JOIN CLUB WWI right NOW!!!! You’ll thank me for it. DO IT. DO IT NOW.

PLUGS

- NY Diaper Cakes (Best possible baby shower gift…EVER.)

- DJUCH.com (Best Dance Music DJ… EVER.)

- Geek Week (RD Lee rocks!!)

- ACE Pro Wrestling (The future of independent wrestling. A Virtual “Who’s Who” of East Coast talent has wrestled here at one point in time or another)

- Jersey All Pro Wrestling (home of the best independent wrestling not named ROH or DGUSA)

- EVOLVE (the Evolution of Wrestling)

- Woman’s Superstars Unleashed (WSU Wrestling)

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 crown jewel of World Wrestling Insanity and if he decided to leave the site, it would crumble due to the lack of awesomeness. Matt used to moonlight as a professional wrestler/manager in the NY/NJ Indy scene. The New York Yankees are the premiere sports franchise IN ANY SPORT and MMA will be more popular and lucrative than Boxing in less than 5 years. Also, if you have any questions, corrections, feedback, comments and ideas, email me at Matt@worldwrestlinginsanity.com . If the feedback is negative, you can e-mail Matt at insanity@worldwrestlinginsanity.com .