Author: Staff

— Ric Flair and TNA Wrestling are closing in on the financial aspect of their negotiations. An interesting rumor going around claims that Flair wants to be contracted to Panda Energy, rather than TNA, so that he would still be entitled to a pay day if TNA went out of business.

— To update the earlier story on Bryan Danielson’s status, he is actually training at Randy Couture’s “Xtreme Couture” gym in anticipation of his call from WWE.

— Kevin Nash has reportedly been vocal in conveying his disapproval of Taz as a commentator.

— WWE presently has a SmackDown! house show scheduled for 1/11, which would be the night WWE RAW goes head-to-head with UFC Fight Night. WWE has not yet committed to running that episode as a three-hour RAW, but should it make such a call, the assumption is that the house show would be postponed so that the SD wrestlers could work the TV show.

The creators of the WWE Heroes comic book were interviewed by Newsrama.com and were asked whether it will be consistent with WWE storylines. “We’ve got pretty free reign to do what we please,” Keith Champagne said. “The only instances we’ve had to change something based on the TV stuff has been removing a couple of WWE superstars when they left the WWE.

“If WWE doesn’t have the rights to use someone, we can’t. Otherwise, it’s the Wild West. By the way, the WWE has an AWESOME website we have access to listing tons of reference and photos of the people we can use, from classic superstars to modern day. I’ve spent hours in there getting lost…

“It’s only happened a couple of times and with WWE superstars who were more or less being featured in the comic in minor roles. So it’s been pretty easy to just surf the wave and do a little rewriting to line things back up. If Triple H or Undertaker were to suddenly leave, that would be a bit harder to fix at this stage of the game but so far, it’s been a problem so minor it’s not even worth mentioning.”

• CLICK HERE to see artwork from the new WWE Heroes comic book

— To clear up an unfortunate rumor, Mick Foley is alive and well. Foley posted a blog today on his MySpace.com page saying a friend informed him of an Internet rumor that he had died. Foley wrote, “A friend of mine since middle school actually heard I had died on the Internet today. Just want to clear that one up. I am very much alive and well,” Foley said. “I don’t know how these things get started, but hopefully no one beside my friend took it seriously.”

— Former WWE superstar and Spirit Squad member Ken Doane (“Kenny Dykstra”) will be appearing in a new FOX Reality channel series called “Seducing Cindy” – where a group of young guys compete to win the love of model/actress Cindy Margolis. Doane wrote on Twitter, “WWE don’t want me,TNA don’t want me right now. Guess I’m gonna get ready for “Seducing Cindy” Jan 30th 2010 glassmanmedia.com see the promo!”

• Visit PWTweets.com to read more Tweets from pro wrestlers and divas.

— TNA Champion A.J. Styles and free agent Rob Van Dam are scheduled to appear on tonight’s Between The Ropes radio show, hosted by Brian Fritz and D-Lo Brown. The show airs at 6PM (ET) at BetweenTheRopes.com.

WWE issued the following announcement today:

President Obama To Deliver Special Holiday Message to the Troops this Saturday on NBC’s `WWE Tribute to the Troops’ Holiday Special

The holiday season is approaching and once again World Wrestling Entertainment® in conjunction with NBC will honor the United States Armed Forces. Taking ‘the reins from Bob Hope,’ Vince McMahon and the WWE Superstars and Divas traveled to the Middle East for the seventh consecutive year to put smiles on the faces of the men and women of the U.S. military.

The hour-long holiday special will air this Saturday, December 19 at 9:00 PM ET /8:00 PM CT on NBC.

President Barack Obama via tape will deliver a special Holiday message to the troops. In addition, General David H. Petraeus, Commander, U.S. Central Command, will also deliver his holiday wishes.

WWE Tribute to the Troops chronicles the three days that the WWE Superstars and Divas visited multiple forward operating bases to meet the troops, culminating with a special live performance in front of thousands of military personnel. The WWE makes its annual pilgrimage in recognition of the sacrifices made by our nation’s service men and women and to thank the troops for their commitment to our country.

*SPOILER* Results for Saturday’s WWE TRIBUTE to the TROOPS Special

– Former WWE tag champion Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart said at an autograph signing this past weekend in Long Island, New York that WWE is working on a new DVD collection featuring The Hart Foundation ( not him & Bret but also Owen Hart, Davey Boy Smith, other Hart family members and possibly Brian Pillman). Neidhart told fans he recently finished shooting interview footage for for the project. With WWE teasing a return by Bret Hart on last night’s RAW, this adds to the speculation that Bret might be returning to WWE in some fashion.

– The following matches and events are advertised for tonight’s ECW on Syfy show.

* Kane is an invited guest of ECW general manager Tiffany.
* The Hurricane vs. The Ripper.

– The Miz was interviewed by FoxNews.com and spoke about his experience in Iraq for WWE’s 7th annual Tribute to the Troops taping earlier this month.

“One camp we visited didn’t even have running water. Could you imagine living without running water? Plus there’s nothing to do besides work out, eat, and work,” he said. “However when we came in seeing the smiles on these heroes’ faces was priceless.” I feel safe and secure with our troops protecting us. One of the great things about our tribute is that their families get to see them enjoy themselves, smile and be happy. It’s a great change from seeing the news with all the bombings and negativity.”

Miz also said he wants basketball superstar Lebron James, “the second biggest star in Cleveland behind me”, to join WWE in Iraq next year.

– Former Ring Of Honor champion and recent WWE-signee Bryan Danielson is still in Las Vegas working out and waiting on “the call” from WWE to come to work. Danielson, a seasoned worker, is expected to bypass WWE’s developmental system and head straight to the main roster.

– Michael Solomon, a member of WWE’s Board of Directors, cashed in all of his WWE stock last week to the tune of over $20 million. Solomon was reportedly unhappy with the way certain things were being run and got out. John Laurinaitis also cashed in $155,000 of his stock.

– Last week, ECW on SyFy had 17 minutes and 45 seconds of wrestling including a 10 minute and 57 second main event. TNA on the same week had 26 minutes and 34 seconds of wrestling. That broke down to 9 minutes and 21 seconds in the first hour and 17 minutes and 14 seconds in the second hour, including a 4 minutes and 49 second main event.

Hulk Hogan tells the UK Sun that he really pissed off WWE CEO Vince McMahon when he held his TNA press conference at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

“I don’t think he’s too happy. Knowing Vince the way I do and holding the press conference at Madison Square Garden…I know some people in house at the WWE and I know he didn’t respond favourably. There’s been nobody in the Garden for about 100 years really except Vince, his dad, his grandfather and his great grandfather promoting events and I kind of slipped in there and made the press conference for TNA. Then the other night I announced we’re going head to head with WWE on Monday nights.”

Hogan also hyped TNA’s live 3-hour Monday Night iMPACT! special January 4th, which he says could re-ignite the Monday Night Wars and begin a new era in the pro wrestling industry. “I can’t imagine what’s going to happen when the Monday night wars start again but it’s great because it gives the fans a choice and the talent room to negotiate and have somewhere else to go.”

Whether pro wrestling is considered competition of Mixed Martial Arts is up for debate. WWE CEO Vince McMahon denies UFC is his competition, but there’s no question that the two sports compete for pay-per-view dollars and these days, even talent (Lesnar, Lashley).

Spike TV and UFC got the attention of World Wrestling Entertainment when they announced the next live UFC Fight Night event will take place on January 11th – the first time UFC has run a live show on a Monday dnight, head-to-head with WWE Monday Night Raw.

In a move that is likely to upset World Wrestling Entertainment and probably hurt the PPV buyrate of its biggest show of the year, UFC have decided to bump UFC 111 ahead to weeks from 3/12 PPV to 3/26, the night before WrestleMania 26.

UFC 111 will take place from Newark, NJ and will be headlined by Georges St. Pierre vs. Dan Hardy.

It should also be noted that the highly anticipated Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao superfight will be taking place on 3/12, which likely contributed to UFC’s decision to move their show. The last time UFC went head-to-head the same night against a Floyd Mayweather fight (UFC 103: Franklin vs. Belfort) – UFC got crushed, with Mayweathter’s fight against Ricky Hatton drawing nearly twice as many PPV buys as UFC and setting PPV records. As much trash as Dana White talks about boxing, even he recently joked that he too wants to see the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight and thus would not want to put a UFC event against it.

Wrestling insiders believe this year’s WrestleMania buyrate will take a big hit from the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, while some MMA journalists are reminding people not to sell WWE short, as WrestleMania is still WWE’s “Superbowl” event and a proven commodity on PPV. March will be a big month for fight fans and it will be very interesting to see how the PPV dollars are spent.