World Wrestling Insanity: T.G.I.F. with Matt Dawgs...Bragging Rights Numbers Nothing To Brag About, Badtista, Shane-o Drama, TNA Hulking Up, KENTA Injured, Brock Coughing, 24 Season 8, The Yankees, and More

T.G.I.F. with Matt Dawgs...Bragging Rights Numbers Nothing To Brag About, Badtista, Shane-o Drama, TNA Hulking Up, KENTA Injured, Brock Coughing, 24 Season 8, The Yankees, and More

By Matt Dawgs
Oct 30, 2009 - 8:09 AM

Matt Dawgs Presents: Thank Goodness It’s Friday!!!!!

Hello all- welcome back and Happy Friday! 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 format. Enjoy.

1) WWE News and Notes

• The WWE Bragging Rights pay per view has come and gone and while there was some news coming out of the pay per view, the main issue is that the PPV was basically not that good and early estimates have it actually drawing less than 100,000 buys domestically. The last WWE PPV to do that was ECW’s DECEMBER TO DISMEMBER featuring the Elimination Chamber (and also Paul Heyman’s last WWE appearance before being fired). That is absolutely not a good thing for WWE. NOT AT ALL.

• John Cena defeated Randy Orton in what was a lackluster Ironman match that defied all sorts of logic. Let me ask you, if it was a NO DQ Ironman match, then why did Orton adhere to the 30-second break in between falls? Couldn’t he have just continued to beat on him without fear of being DQ’ed? How come Rhodes and DiBiase didn’t come out to start the match and triple team Cena from the beginning of the match? Why come out half-way through??

• By the way, in an interesting turn of events, WWE finally gave us an answer on the “no blood” mantra. WWE has announced to the talent that blading is once again illegal. It has been rumored for some time that WWE talent sometimes was purposely laying in stiff shots in order to draw blood to add to a match. Well, during the Ironman match, Randy Orton hit John Cena with a TV monitor and cut him open. It appeared to be on purpose because he didn’t hit him with the flat part of the monitor, but instead, hit him with a corner and Cena bled. Instead of Cena bleeding the whole match, Vince McMahon sent the trainers to ringside; LEGIT stopped the match and had the cut cleaned and super glued shut. So now we know how serious Vince is about the blood ban. Word is that is going to happen anytime someone bleeds on TV.

• Batista turned heel!!! YAY!!!! Sure the crowd didn’t seem to care but I think it was awesomely done and I prefer Batista as a heel. WWE hasn’t had a MONSTER heel in the main event picture in sometime.

• CM Punk still isn’t World Champion. An injured Undertaker is. * SIGH*.

• Interesting booking idea - John Cena will defend the WWE title at Survivor Series against HHH and HBK in a Triple Threat match. So basically DX is challenging for the title.

• Since WWE is fresh out of creative ideas ( MINOR SPOILER ), The Undertaker will defend the World Title at Survivor Series in a Triple Threat match against Big Show and Chris Jericho. So basically the WWE Unified Tag Team Champions are challenging for the title.

• Randy Orton is feuding with Kofi Kingston. Now don’t get me wrong, I think Kofi is talented, but on the flip side the WWE has trained me to believe that Kingston is insignificant and has no chance of beating Orton. Sad to say but it's true.

• Matt Stryker is moving to Smackdown to announce with Todd Grisham while they have called up Bryan Saxon from FCW to commentate Smackdown due to Jim Ross’ Bells Palsy relapse. For some reason, I can’t shake the feeling that Ross is done with the company and you know what? That's really sad. As Ross has stated publically in the past, his contract is up shortly (December I think). Fact is, Bells Palsy isn’t a one-week thing. It takes some time to recover from and being that this is JR’s third attack, it may take longer than the previous two episodes. For all we know, his contract will come up, WWE will probably be happy with the new announce team set up and he won’t be renewed. Now before you go shedding tears for JR, he will land on his feet since he absolutely has a job in TNA waiting for him and he isn’t exactly hurting financially. However, it is a sad ending to a “major league” career for JR as he is by far the best announcer of my generation and only second to Gordon Solie on the all-time list.

• First Ultimate Warrior, now “The Total Package” Lex Luger has been quietly added to the WWE alumni section. Normally, when you're added to that section and do not work for the company, it means you're being considered for the WWE Hall of Fame.

• Also being mentioned for this year's Hall are Ted DiBiase Sr., The Road Warriors and Demolition. That should be cool if it happens but things change from day to day in the WWE, so you never know.

• How is Honky Tonk Man still not in the Hall of Fame?

• Jeff Hardy’s DVD is being released on December 15 ^th so WWE is pretty confident that the drug charges against him are minor and he will get off with a slap on the wrist, if he's even punished at all.

• Sheamus is now on RAW. Between all the new guys WWE has called up the past year, Drew McIntire and Sheamus seem to both have “IT”. Hopefully WWE follows up because MVP definitely has “IT” but somehow lost “IT” due to poor booking decisions and mismanagement. Remember when he debuted and defeated “He Who Shall Not Be Named” all those times? WOW.

• Kyle Busch and Joey Lagano hosted RAW this past week. LAME.

• Next week’s hosts are Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. Not the best idea but…The Osbournes always made me laugh. I get a kick out of them and knowing that Ozzy is going to flub 90% of what's scripted for him is going to be GOLD!

• The November 9 ^th guest host for RAW in London, England is boxing superstar Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton.

• WWE is going to have a new opening for RAW which could debut as early as next week.

• Mickie James announced on her Twitter that she is considering calling it a career already. She signed a record deal outside WWE to work on a country music album and then Twittered that the rumors are true, she is considering hanging it up before she ruined her body from all the bumps and bruises she goes through. No final date was said by Mickie as she said it isn’t immediate -- but on the horizon.

• Nothing new on the Shane McMahon story other than the fact that whatever happened was bad. According to Dave Meltzer, a longtime McMahon family friend was backstage at Bragging Rights and was speaking to Stephanie. He then spoke to Vince and finally asked Stephanie if he could speak to Shane. Stephanie’s response was, “He doesn’t work here anymore” as opposed to he is leaving the company at the end of the year. When asked why, Steph responded, “I don’t know”. That leads to speculation that Shane is no longer working for the company and the January 2, 2010 resignation date is just a front and he is already done with the company. That means whatever happened, it wasn’t a friendly departure from the promotion. To make it even clearer, it is pretty much a given that NO ONE is to speak to Vince McMahon on the subject. So there you have it.

• The WWE is looking to the Rock to host the January 11, 2010 Raw that is going head to head with UFC on Spike TV. If the Rock can't host on that date (since the show is taking place in Minnesota) WWE is considering Jesse Ventura to host.

• Heard through the grapevine that Kawal (Low-Ki) is medically cleared to wrestle. I'm dying for him to be called up to the main roster. That being said, this is his second reconstructive knee surgery in 2 years. Meaning he may work a little different in order to preserve his career. On the flip side, he is definitely the hardest working individual that I have ever met and if anyone can get back into the form he was in before surgery, it’s him.

• If you’re wondering if Vince McMahon is happy about Hogan signing with TNA, he isn’t. Even worse is that WWE is coming out with a Hogan DVD that is already in duplication which means they really can’t put a stop to it without taking a financial loss. I do expect them to downplay the release now, possibly not even promoting it on TV.

• They’ve already lost confidence in Eric Escobar. A shame since Vickie Guerrero is amazing as an on-air talent and she's saddled with someone who isn’t going to get a huge push. Plus, from watching him, Escobar doesn’t look like he had the tools to be a main event talent.

2) TNA News and Notes

• In what is extremely HUGE news for TNA, Hulk Hogan has signed a contract to join TNA and Eric Bischoff has signed a TV rights deal with his Bischoff/Hervey production company to produce first-run shows for TNA and secure them new TV deals. One thing's for sure; Bischoff has a decent success rate with television shows as a producer and is bound to help TNA. As for Hogan, say what you want about the man, but he's basically the man who built wrestling and will absolutely help TNA’s fan base.

• Hogan is recruiting friends and non-TNA wrestlers to TNA and in his conversations with them is saying that he is basically running TNA. While I'm sure that he definitely has creative control over himself in TNA, there is no proof to the fact that he is booking. That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was booking! TNA can do worse -- actually, Russo and Ferrera have done worse!

• Another rumor circulating is that TNA isn’t done with big name free agent signings. Rob Van Dam has been negotiating for awhile and was actually backstage at Bound for Glory. He is a friend of both Hogan and Bischoff and I'm sure he’d love the light schedule. Plus, he’d be close to his parents in Florida and wouldn’t have to worry about the $2,500 fine that WWE imposes on marijuana usage.

• It’s practically a lock that with Hogan and Bischoff in, Ric Flair will soon follow. I'm not even going to comment on Flair coming in. It will be a sad day in the wrestling business when we see Flair publically throw away the special send-off that WWE gave him for a paycheck. It was one thing to tarnish that by wrestling in Australia, but it is completely different doing so in TNA.

• Regardless of Flair or RVD signing with TNA, another huge announcement that is supposed to be major surprise is going to be announced shortly. Some speculate that TNA is going to move to Monday from 8-10 pm ET. That would be pretty big.

• What a difference a week makes -- the Kim Couture/Tara angle is more than likely dropped. That is pathetic considering they wanted to have an MMA fight yet no company seems to care so they decided to turn it into a wrestling angle and Tara’s own company doesn’t seem to care.

• Booker T is going to take time off before re-signing with WWE. He and Sharmell are done with TNA yet for some reason Booker was removed from the roster page and Sharmell was not.

• On iMPACT this week, Desmond Wolfe took on Kurt Angle in a street fight. For those wondering, YES you read that correctly. The new guy (formerly Nigel McGuinness) who debuted last week and laid out Angle is now fighting Angle the following week in a gimmick match on FREE TV. Therefore when they announce the match for the next PPV, feel free NOT to order it since they already gave it away.

• Sting has taken time off however he'll be back in a few months or so. He hasn’t retired yet. If they do end up signing Flair though, you can bet the farm that Sting’s final match next year will be against Flair.

3) TNA Turning Point PPV Line up for November 15, 2009

· TNA World Title: AJ Styles © vs. Samoa Joe vs. Daniels

· X-Division Title: Amazing Red © vs. Homicide

· Legends Title: Eric Young © vs. Kevin Nash

· TNA Tag Team Titles: British Invasion © vs. The Motor City Machine Guns

· Kurt Angle vs. Desmond Wolfe

· Scott Steiner vs. Bobby Lashley

· Mick Foley & Abyss (yes. The same Mick Foley who just turned heel on Abyss a month ago and fought him on the last PPV is now a face teaming with the man he bloodied and left for dead.) vs. Dr. Stevie and a Mystery Partner

· Tara vs. Awesome Kong

4) Ring of Honor News and Notes

· Bad news for ROH -- KENTA tore his ACL which will keep him sidelined for 6-9 months. Due to this knee injury, he has cancelled his upcoming ROH tour. He will not be appearing on any of the shows.

· ROH has announced their upcoming Arizona debut for Wrestlemania weekend. They have placed tickets on sale and are doing decent numbers already. They have a double-shot weekend as they booked Friday, March 26 at 8:00 pm and Saturday, March 27 at 2:00 pm (in order to NOT compete with the WWE Hall of Fame).

· Is it just me or does anyone else think that with Davey Richards working for Dragon Gate USA on top of ROH, that it'll eventually cause a war between the two companies, considering Dragon Gate USA is run by Gabe Sapolsky? It’s only a matter of time before Richards (god forbid!) gets hurt working for DG or ROH gets fed up and takes the tag team titles off of him and Eddie Edwards. Plus, Dragon Gate announced this week that they are going to hold shows in Phoenix on Wrestlemania weekend as well. Prior to coming to the US, Dragon Gate used to send a match to the 'Mania weekend shows for ROH.

· Eddie Edwards, broken elbow and all, will be at the November 5 ^th & 6 ^th HD Net tapings in Philadelphia. My guess is that he does some sort of physical activity against his better judgment.

5\) MMA News and Notes

· Brock Lesnar has pulled out of UFC 106 citing some sort of flu (speculation is swine flu!). He has had it for three weeks and has been unable to train. The fight has been rescheduled for January 2, 2010 at UFC 108.

· Tito Ortiz vs. Forrest Griffith is the new main event for UFC 106. They are adding another match to the card but nothing of the caliber of Brock/Carwin.

· Mauricio “Shogun” Rua was completely robbed at UFC 104. He handedly defeated Lyoto Machida, completely beating him for 5 rounds, yet lost on the scorecard! A rematch has immediately been agreed upon as Machida, while not officially saying he thought he lost, never said he thought he won. The rematch is tentatively also signed for the January 2, 2010 show thus making it a SUPER SHOW since you have Rashard Evans vs. Thiago Silva and Vitor Belfot and Anderson Silva already penciled in as well.

· Cain Velasquez (who people say is better than Lesnar) finally showed his potential in completely destroying Ben Rothwell. Cain won by second round ground and pound ref stoppage.

· Had Rampage Jackson not been making the A-Team movie, I would go out on a limb and say that the Rashard Evans/Quinton Jackson fight would have topped 1,000,000 PPV buys easily. They hate each other legit. Especially since Rampage’s team is now 0-7 on TUF and about to become the first TUF team to get swept.

· George St. Pierre won’t be ready to fight until March 2010 at the earliest.

· Strikeforce continues to place all their eggs in one basket as I have seen nothing promoted for their November 7 ^th show other than Fedor Emelianenko. No other matches, no other superstars. Nothing but all Fedor, all the time.

· UFC is going to run a Spike TV special featuring main event matches from this past year head to head with the November 7 ^th CBS Strikeforce show. Matches include Randy Couture vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Vitor Belfort vs. Rich Franklin and B.J. Penn vs. Kenny Florian and Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin. If you don’t watch much UFC or haven’t seen any of these fights, make sure you watch/DVR it because they are some good fights.

· Massachusetts passed a bill regulating MMA in the state. Dana White said that once that bill passes, they would definitely run a UFC event from there. Possibly Fenway Park, which means next summer more than likely.

· Dana White and Chuck Liddell are going to meet along with Chuck’s management team to discuss his future with UFC. If you remember, Chuck was knocked out convincingly in his last fight to which Dana, who is best friends outside of UFC with Chuck, basically said that Chuck was finished with MMA. Enough time has passed and that may no longer be the case. Either way, Chuck has a job with UFC forever if he wants one.

· Clips from the EA Sports MMA video game are going to air on CBS during the aforementioned Strikeforce show. Should be a good looking game.

· In boxing news, the Manny Pacquiao vs. Miguel Cotto fight on November 14, 2009 is SOLD OUT. Pac in 6 ^th by KO is still my prediction.

· Don’t forget to watch my friend Frankie “El Gato” Figueroa on November 4, 2009 on ESPN 2 as he fights Rashad Holloway.

· UFC 105 airs November 14th from Manchester, England and the line up is as follows:

· Randy Couture vs. Brandon Vera

· Michael Bisping vs. Denis Kang

· Dan Hardy vs. Dong Hyun Kim

· UFC 106 airs November 21, 2009 from Las Vegas, Nevada and the line-up is as follows:

· Tito Ortiz vs. Forrest Griffith

· Josh Koscheck vs. Anthony Johnson

· Karo Parisvan vs. Dustin Hazelett

· UFC 107 airs December 12, 2009 from Memphis, Tennessee and the line-up is as follows:

· B.J. Penn vs. Diego Sanchez

· Frank Mir vs. Cheick Kongo

· Jon Fitch vs. Thiago Alves

· Kenny Florian vs. Clay Guida

6\) Random Thoughts, Links, Pics, Plugs, ETC.

· Random VIDEO of the week. Definitely my favorite video EVER and by far the best Yankee tribute I have ever seen. LET’S GO YANKEES!!!!

· Props to Missy Hyatt who apparently stole the show at the Terry Funk Roast in New Jersey last week. Whoever helped her write her material is some kind of genius because she had the best roast there and speakers included New Jack, Mick Foley and others. That person must be some sort of genius!

· Nightmare on Elm Street being remade - normally I'm not big on remakes but Jackie Earle Haley, playing the role of Freddy Kruger, is better known as Rorschach from Watchmen.

· Sons of Anarchy is BY FAR the best show on television today. I know if seems like I say that every week but that doesn’t make it less true. If you've never seen an episode, please do yourself the favor and get the DVDs. It is a shorter than normal season as each year has only 13 episodes as opposed to network television orders of 22-24 episodes per year. It really is an incredible show!

· The A-TEAM picture.

· One of my former independent wrestling promoters, Frank Goodman is coming back to promoting in Florida. His first show is December 5 ^th in Orlando Florida featuring Balls Mahoney, Jerry Lynn, Too Cold Scorpio, Axl Rotten, The Boogeyman, Shane Douglas, Big Vito and more. Check out details on how to get tickets and to see more names scheduled to appear, check out the Pro Wrestling Uncensored website.

· 24 SEASON 8 TRAILER .

· Please support ACE Pro Wrestling. ACE Pro Wrestling is formerly the AWA-NJ promotion, which I last worked for back in 2005. ACE is a solid place for young, up and comers to get their feet wet in the business and mix with a good group of hard working individuals and veterans. They can use your support. Buy their tapes, go to their shows if you are in the NY/NJ/PA area - just show some support. They return to NJ on November 7 ^th with a solid line-up so far. Main event is for the ACE Heavyweight title with Dan Maff © vs. Steve Corino.

· The EXPENDIBLES TRAILER (again for those who missed it.)

· Paul Roma’s “Glorious” is back, right here at CLUBWWI.COM, Paul completely holds nothing back on Ted DiBiase, HHH, Kidman, Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, the state of Woman’s Wrestling and more… Plus, there is an interview with “The Dirty White Boy” Tony Anthony aka former WWF star T.L. Hopper up on CLUBWWI.COM as well. Anthony discusses his WWF career, Smokey Mountain Wrestling, Memphis and more. If you’re not a member of Club WWI then you are seriously missing out. You need to join CLUBWWI.COM right now.

· Should Christina Aguilera write a song about not wearing a BRA? I think it’ll be a hit.

· James Cameron’s first feature film since Titanic is called AVATAR and it looks fantastic.

· “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. He also just produced his first dance single that is getting radio play on Dance Stations across the country. It’s called “Stranger from the Sky”, check it out HERE.

· Finally, we close out with my wife. She has started her own business creating diaper cakes, which are very original and cost efficient as a baby shower gift. Please take a second to visit her website: NY Diaper Cakes

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, or 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.

Matt Dawgs
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