— There have been rumors as of late regarding Jillian Hall’s future with World Wrestling Entertainment. While her standing with the organization remains fine, plans are being made to retire her on-air character, reports PWInsider.com. She would be removed from the main roster and subsequently work as a trainer for WWE’s female developmental talent in Tampa, Florida.
No word yet on when the move will occur, but it is the company’s plan.
— Tyler Black worked his final independent date this past Saturday in Chicago, Illinois, teaming with Jimmy Jacobs. The former ROH World Champion is living in Tampa, Florida and has been working out at WWE’s developmental promotion in the area. He will now be working exclusively for the company.
— Wade Barrett and David Otunga were the sole members of Nexus to work Raw’s recent tour overseas. Justin Gabriel, Heath Slater and Michael Tarver stayed in the United States to work SmackDown live events.
– Most of the WWE locker room thinks that all of Matt Hardy’s recent behavior is a work, according to a WWE source. Hardy’s latest cry for attention came this weekend, when he announced he suffers from “Dissociative Identity Disorder,†a condition similar to Multiple Personality Disorder.
– Speaking of Matt Hardy, he’s been removed from the opening video of WWE SmackDown and has been replaced with footage of Alberto Del Rio.
– NXT is expected to move to the WWE website beginning next week as the NXT deal with SyFy expires this week and SmackDown comes to the network on Friday nights. The show will remain on television in Canada the UK and other countries. WWE officials are not ready to pull the plug on NXT just yet and are still trying to land a TV deal here in the United States.
– With several former WWE superstars making the jump to mixed martial arts, one prominent fighter has his sights set on the world of Sports Entertainment. Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Champion King Mo says he “absolutely” plans to be a pro wrestler when his fighting days are over and wants to work for WWE. Mo, who is known for his flashy style, was recruited by WWE a few years back and started with OVW before leaving and pursuing a fight career. Mo has an extensive amateur wrestling background and is a long-time pro wrestling fan.
– WWE’s United States Champion Daniel Bryan will on Friday’s live SmackDown, as he’ll be finishing up the last of his independent bookings. Several RAW stars are booked for the big SyFy debut on Friday.
– Wade Barrett and David Otunga were the only members of Nexus overseas with the RAW brand this past week. Michael Tarver, Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel stayed in the States and will work with the SmackDown crew.
— Cody Rhodes’ lack of major push is said to be attributed to Vince McMahon’s lack of faith in the second generation wrestler.
“Cody Rhodes is capable of a breakout, but Vince McMahon just can’t commit to him,” said a WWE source. “He thinks he overacts.”
— The writing for weekly episodes of NXT is said to be a collaborative effort. While lead Raw writer Ed Koskey heads the show’s creative effort, former Kevin Dunn assistant Jen Bloodsworth has great input in the show’s content.
— SmackDown Superstar Kofi Kingston was given a recent weekend off to get married.
sources: Pro Wrestling Torch, Wrestling Observer Newsletter
It’s a special TWO-HOUR edition of the Sound Off as Solomonster puts his money where his mouth is and presents his own business plan for WWE. Also, thoughts on Paul Bearer’s return, Mickie James in TNA, Giant Gonzalez dies, more Matt Hardy hyjinx and an EXCLUSIVE preview of Jeff Hardy’s new song before it debuts at Bound for Glory! New listeners, I promise these shows are not usually this long, but you’ll want to listen to this.
— We wrote here a few days ago that we heard Randy Orton was unhappy with his character’s current babyface role .. Orton responded to a fan on Twitter saying that report isn’t accurate. Orton wrote:
“Whatever u read saying I’m unhappy as a face is bs. Haven’t felt that way since I turned.”
We reported what we heard, but take that for what it is.
— Matt Hardy has launched a second Twitter account via twitter.com/THEMATTHEWBRAND. He tweets back and forth between both personalities.
Regarding the second account, Matt explained, “Like I promised you all earlier, no more character stuff on my personal Twitter or YT pages, can’t say the same for @THEMATTHEWBRAND sites..”
Matthew Hardy is a ‘cold-blooded’ version of himself. Matthew’s bio reads: “The Cold-Blooded version of MMH, MATTHEW M HARDY.. Doing whatever I choose to, however I choose to, while speaking the Cold-Blooded Gospel!”
— Thursday’s episode of WWE Superstars on WGN America drew a 0.69 cable rating, with 652,000 viewers. The show’s replay, which now airs at 1:00 a.m., scored a 0.1 cable rating, with 85,000 viewers. (source: PWInsider.com)
— WWE Diva Eve Torres wrote last night on Twitter that she was attacked by a giant squid. She enclosed a gruesome photo of her back, which is littered with red marks.
While the marks are legit, she said today that she was merely joking about being attacked by a giant squid. She said the marks are from a Chinese healing procedure called Cupping.
— Matt Hardy was removed from the opening SmackDown montage on Friday’s show. He remains listed on the company website’s SmackDown roster page.
— Putting a rumor to rest, TNA star Jay Lethal wrote on his Twitter account that he is not dating NXT Rookie Diva AJ Lee — after being asked. He did, however, note that they were a couple at one point.
WWE performer Taryn Terrell (a/k/a Tiffany) has been cleared of domestic assault charges stemming from an incident that took place with husband Drew Galloway (a/k/a Drew McIntyre) at the couple’s Los Angeles hotel room last month.
The couple, who married in Las Vegas in May, attended a party at the Playboy Mansion hours before her arrest.
A spokesman for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office told www.dailyrecord.co.uk last night: “No further legal action is anticipated in this case.”
Terrell had her $20,000 bail returned and the story notes that she is set to make her return to the ring. Though WWE did not publicly say she was suspended, she has not performed since company officials became aware of the arrest.
— The official WWE website has added profiles on both Paul Bearer and Alberto Del Rio’s personal ring announcer, Ricardo Rodriguez, to its SmackDown roster section.
Bearer’s appearance on Friday’s episode of SmackDown was not a one time occurrence as he will be a featured character going forward. Meanwhile, Rodriguez showed on Friday’s show that he was not above getting involved in the action as he grabbed Christian’s ankle in order to help Del Rio gain an advantage during the melee with the injured SmackDown star.
— Paul Bearer has changed his Twitter handle to wweURNiverse.
— Both Giant González and Paul Bearer were top trending searches on Google.com yesterday, according to Google Trends.
González died Wednesday following a long battle with diabetes. WWE has yet to acknowledge his passing.
— World Wrestling Entertainment’s symbolic Nexus T-shirt has been a huge flop in terms of sales.
According to a company source, Vince McMahon was ‘mortified’ when he was shown the latest merchandising report on Nexus shirts.
— Rookie Diva Kaitlyn was accidentally bloodied at some point during Tuesday’s episode of NXT. Seeing as it was a taped show, WWE managed to edit around it. Post-match, Michelle McCool delivered a very stiff kick to Kaitlyn’s head, although it is believed that she didn’t cause her to bleed.
— A World Heavyweight Championship bout between Kane and The Undertaker was officially announced for Hell in a Cell last night on SmackDown. The match will take place inside the Hell in a Cell.
sources: Pro Wrestling Torch, Wrestling Observer Newsletter
— One WWE insider considers the timing of Paul “Triple H” Levesque’s promotion as Vince McMahon’s senior advisor interesting. The source questioned whether Levesque being named to a position he’s been essentially doing for the past several years minus the official title is related to World Wrestling Entertainment being investigated for misclassifying talent and other personnel as independent contractors.
The company’s Stamford, Connecicut based headquarters recently underwent a slight renovation as an office was built for Levesque as a result of his executive position.
“It was Extreme Makeover: Hunter Edition,” cracked the WWE source.
— An episode of the drama program Caprica is scheduled to air during NXT’s 10:00 p.m. Tuesday night timeslot on Syfy on October 5.
NXT is currently scheduled to air its final episode this Tuesday. No announcement has been made regarding a future channel for the show.
— Stephanie McMahon celebrates her 34th birthday today. She is out on maternity leave following the birth of her third child last month.
Trish Stratus is the latest former Diva to talk about WWE eliminating its Women’s Championship and using the Divas title moving forward. Stratus, who held the WWE Women’s title 7 times and is currently filming a new action movie called “Bail Encforcers” [PICTURES] made the following comments to DivaDirt.com this week about the news:
“I have mixed feelings. It’s one of these, ‘Is the glass half full or half empty?’ [situations]. Instead of looking at it as the belt is being retired or put to bed, I’m thinking, let’s just focus on this and build this different thing. Building a new legacy, building a new division, building some new women and I think that’s how you have to look at it. First of all, the two belts was just not necessary… ever.”
She continued:
“It’s kinda like, ‘Get one… let’s move forward.’ [Laughs] But I don’t know, I’m kind of like okay with it. I feel like it’s a different time, a different generation. I feel like we did some great stuff with that belt and maybe it don’t get no better than that? Maybe it’s one of those things? It’s like, let’s just leave this here. It’s pretty perfect and has a perfect legacy behind it, and let’s start this and we’ll start to build this from because it’s definitely a different time.”
Despite the fact that WWE eliminated a championship belt that had such a rich history, Trish put over WWE’s women division, saying there’s a ton of female talent in WWE today:
“There’s probably the biggest group of women that could potentially all work matches [right now]. Most of them can work matches and potentially you could have everybody, I mean that’s a pretty big division, if you could build everything properly. So I think looking at it like that, it’s almost like okay, this is the new thing, this is the women’s division of today and let’s build it. It’s not a bad thing.”
— Randy Orton is not a big fan of his current babyface character, according to a WWE source. The reigning WWE Champion feels he’s a natural heel and would prefer to play that role, despite the WWE Universe really getting behind him in recent months.
— The cover for Chris Jericho’s much anticipated follow-up book to the New York Times bestselling A Lion’s Tale, Undisputed: How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps, has been released.
– At Thursday night’s TNA live event at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, The Amazing Red captured the X Division Championship from Jay Lethal. From what we’re hearing, Apparently Red didn’t even know he was winning the title until just before the match.
– TNA officials including Jeff Jarrett will be having business meetings with Mexico’s AAA promotion from September 26th through the 28th. They will be discussing expanding the two companies relationship.
– The official theme song for TNA Bound For Glory is “FOL” by The Smashing Pumpkins.
– As noted earlier, the October 7th go-home edition of TNA iMPACT will be a live show. TNA Reaction at 11pm will also be aired live, a first for that show. TNA is calling the October 7th show “Before The Glory.â€
– New Japan Pro Wrestling has officially announced their January 4th Tokyo Dome show. They are promising some of the biggest names from the United States. It’s believed several TNA stars would be working the show since they won’t be getting any stars from WWE.
IGN.com has released the latest preview video for SmackDown vs. RAW 2011, which will be released in the United States next month.
This video highlights the new “WWE Universe” mode – which replaces the traditional “Exhibition Mode” .. In SvR2011, every thing you do in the game has consequence. Check out the video:
Matt Hardy is back with another YouTube video .. After coming across as relatively sane in his previous video (where he said WWE is not the place for him right now – view here), Matt goes off the deep end this time.
Hardy talks about his WWE status, asks fans to decide if his recent behavior is legit or a work and expresses his deep love of …. grapes.
Bad news for SmackDown star Christian .. We reported earlier that Christian was injured and it has now been confirmed that he’s torn a pectoral muscle.
He will have surgery this and is expected to be out of action for 6 months following his recovery and physical rehabilitation, according to PWInsider.com. That would keep him away until February.
“Let’s wish [Christian] a successful surgery & a speedy recovery! The good guys need him back quickly.”
Without giving away spoilers for Friday’s SmackDown, there will be an angle on Friday’s show that could be a way to get Christian off television for the next few months.
WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross visited WWE developmental this week and wrote about the experience on his blog at JRsBarBQ.com.
JR says he’ll be making monthly visits to Florida Championship Wrestling and the development of new talent is a top priority for WWE.
Here are some highlights of what JR said about this visit:
Promo Class: “The Wednesday promo class, where the individuals have the opportunity to create their own verbiage was excellent. Some talents were highly entertaining and spot on from where I was sitting. This area has improved greatly since I was last in Tampa.”
What He Said To The Talent: “I had a long talk w/ the group about the responsibilities that come w/ being a WWE Superstar which is everyone at FCW’s goal. In my personal opinion, individuals making poor or selfishly bad personal decisions have opened the door leading to their own exit. Humans make mistakes and should be provided second chances, as a rule, but some issues merit immediate dismissal. Don’t want to come off as a hardass but this generation in general seems to be more prone to bonehead mistakes and errors in judgment…see Braylon Edwards of the NY Jets, for example. Simply ‘do right’ and all usually works out as it should.”
Developing Young Talent: “WWE has assembled a nice roster in Tampa that possesses plenty of upside that should evolve in time. Patience, hard work, outside the ring study, gym work, and upping the passion will help many of the better athletes find their way to the big time. I think that I may have perhaps been a coach in a different life as I really enjoy interacting w/ the young talents. I sure hope that I’ve been able to help them.”
Former WWE performer Shelton Benjamin has issued his first public comments about his release, writing the following on his Twitter page this week:
“WWE never made me any promises just gave me an opportunity to make money. And I made a lot of money, so (they) fulfilled their end. I am not bitter or scourned and I’ve got too much pride, passion, and confidence in myself to cry like a baby because i was released.”
Benjamin says he was underutilized during his time in WWE and that there are many things about the company that “suck” – but that probably won’t stop him from returning to the company at some point in the future.
“Do I think I should have been a World Champion, HELL YES!, was I underutilized, without a doubt, do I have issue with WWE, NO! I NEED TO BE AWAY FROM WWE so I can grow are a performer. There are many things about that company that SUCK, but i got no time to be crying about it. I am enjoying a good life now and if history serves chances are you haven’t seen the last on me in WWE even if I go elsewhere along the way.”
Shelton Benjamin is currently wrestling for Ring of Honor with his former WWE tag partner, Charlie Haas.
WWE RAW superstar Chris Jericho posted a few messages on Twitter this week taking aim at “Internet experts” who reported that he is leaving WWE for the next few months.
It’s been reported for months that Jericho’s WWE contract is expiring soon and Jericho’s stipulation that he would leave WWE if he didn’t win the WWE title at Night of Champions coincided with these reports. Our WWE sources still say that Jericho will be taking off the rest of the year very soon – despite the fact that he wrestled at this week’s RAW tapings. But Jericho is now jumping on the Internet crowd that he often plays to. Jericho wrote on Twitter this week:
“Hey Internet…Im a heel. Heels lie, therefore if I say something boastfully and reneg on it, it’s not an official stipulation. Smarten up!”
.. and he followed up with:
“Hello Internet experts. Allow me to explain something to u kiddies. Winning and losing means nothing if you do it properly. I would be happy to lose to every single one of you and watch your faces as I walk out of the arena with more heat than before. Watch and learn children. Sit back and let the real experts work our magic as we make u behave like the puppets that you are. Cheers!”
Despite Jericho’s clear attempt to blur reality with storyline – we’re sticking to our story that he’s taking time off this fall-winter and will be back by the Royal Rumble in January.
— World Wrestling Entertainment has begun work on a DVD project highlighting Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler’s legendary career, reports PWInsider.com. It is scheduled for release in 2011.
— Only two matches are advertised for tonight’s episode of WWE Superstars on WGN America: Goldust (with Aksana) vs. William Regal, JTG vs. Primo (with AJ).
— The Undertaker is featured on the cover of the November 2010 issue of WWE Magazine.
— TNA star Ken Anderson has signed a new long term contract with the organization. TNA President Dixie Carter posted a message on Twitter stating that Anderson actually sent her a video of himself signing the contract. She wrote, “Leave it to MISTER ANDERSON, ANDERSON to do things in dramatic fashion.”
— To update the news of Scott Hall being under full-time psychiatric care, we can report that Hall was released last week to attend to some personal affairs, but is expected to return this week. In accordance with WWE’s Wellness Policy, WWE is paying for Hall’s care, as they offer to pay for any current or past WWE performers rehab programs if they ask.
— WWE star Matt Hardy, who stated in a YouTube video this week that he’s on his way out of the company, has been hitting the gym hard as of late. Hardy’s less-than-perfect physique has been the subject of discussion by various wrestling websites and he recently wrote on Twitter that he dropped a lot of weight by cutting red meat out of his diet.
Hardy wrote on Twitter that he’s been hitting the gym hard lately trying to get in the best shape of his life and posted a picture of himself in the gym looking totally shredded. Hardy has been out of action for a few weeks now and it’s obvious he’s been spending that time in the gym.
Here is the advertised card for Saturday’s Smackdown house show from Madison Square Garden in New York City. The show has been dubbed “Bret Hart Appreciation Night,” as it marks Bret Hart’s return to the Garden in over 13 years.
* The Undertaker vs. Kane – NEW YORK STREET FIGHT for the World Heavyweight Championship
* Bret “The Hitman” Hart and The Hart Dynasty (w/ Natalya) vs. The Nexus – Six Man Tag Team Match
* The Big Show vs CM Punk
* Kofi Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler-Intercontinental Championship Match
* Mark Henry vs. Jack Swagger Raw vs. Smackdown Match
* MVP vs. Cody Rhodes
* Kelly Kelly/Melina vs. Layla/Michelle McCool – Smackdown Diva Tag Team Match
The one and only PAUL BEARER returned to WWE at Tuesday’s SmackDown television in Bloomington, Illinois to participate in the ongoing Undertaker vs. Kane storyline.
Later in the show, Kane challenged Undertaker to a Hell in a Cell match at the HIAC PPV on October 3rd.
Bearer was written out of WWE storylines back in 2004, when he was “buried alive” in concrete at that year’s Great American Bash.
Here’s a picture sent in from a fan who was at Tuesday’s SmackDown tapings of Paul Bearer’s return:
