– The Sept. 28 episode of WWE SmackDown drew a 1.83 cable rating, down from 1.95 rating the week before. The program averaged 2.625 million viewers over the course of two hours, down from 2.861 million viewers the week prior.
The 1.83 figure the program’s lowest rating since July 13. This comes days after Raw drew its lowest rating of the year.
– WWEShop.com has released two Daniel Bryan and Kane Authentic T-Shirts. One shirt depicts Bryan as a goat and Kane as a bear, and the shirt comes in red and states “I AM THE TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS.”
– The official WWE website has published photos of various Superstars and Divas donning pink ribbons to show their support for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, kicking off breast cancer awareness month.
– Former WWE Superstar Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart appears at the Frank & Son Collectible Show 19649 San Jose Ave. City of Industry, California this Saturday from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m.
– This week marks the 15th anniversary of Kane’s debut in WWE. To celebrate, the official WWE website takes a look back at one moment from each year of his career, including setting The Undertaker’s casket on fire and breaking up the wedding of Edge and Lita. (Article)
– The final SmackDown taping of 2012 takes place Sunday, Dec. 30 at The Richmond Coliseum in Richmond, Virginia.
– According to WrestlingFigs.com, Dolph Ziggler has been announced to appear at the New York Comic Con on Saturday at the Javits Center 655 W. 34th St. New York, New York. Other wrestling stars appearing at the four-day event beginning Thursday includes Booker T (Saturday), Angelina Love, Velvet Sky, the former Bella Twins, Rosita (Saturday and Sunday), “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan (Saturday and Sunday), Vader (Thursday and Sunday), Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake, Greg “The Hammer” Valentine and Kevin Nash (Friday and Sunday).
– Brock Lesnar is featured in today’s “Superstar Spotlight” on WWE.com.
– Per a huge announcement by SmackDown General Manager Booker T, Kane and Daniel Bryan will defend the WWE Tag Team Championship on Oct. 28 at Hell in a Cell against the winners of an eight-team tournament.
The bracket revealed on SmackDown showed the following first-round match-ups: Team Rhodes Scholars (Cody Rhodes and Damien Sandow) vs. Jimmy and Jey Uso; Santino Marella and Zack Ryder vs. Justin Gabriel and Tyson Kidd; Kofi Kingston and R-Truth vs. The Prime Time Players (Darren Young and Titus O’Neil); and Epico and Primo vs. Rey Mysterio and Sin Cara.
– This week on “Backstage Fallout” for SmackDown, The Miz addressed the chaos on “Miz TV,” which resulted in the show’s host being punched in the face by World Heavyweight Champion Sheamus. Wade Barrett also boasted about his dominance after defeating Zack Ryder. Plus, Big Show talks about becoming the No. 1 contender to World Heavyweight Champion Sheamus at Hell in a Cell. (Watch)
– The restaurant scene on RAW featuring Kane, Daniel Bryan and Dr. Shelby (with a cameo by Mae Young) was a spoof of the 1989 movie “When Harry Met Sally.” Virtually everyone in WWE are fans of Kane and Daniel Bryan’s segments, most notably, Vince McMahon.
– Dolph Ziggler is all over Buffalo, New York today doing media appearances hyping tonight’s SmackDown tapings. As of this writing, there are still plenty of tickets available.
– The June Entertainment group has posted a series of new videos featuring former WWE superstar Batista talking about his upcoming MMA debut and his role in the new Quentin Tarantino movie, The Man With The Iron Fists. To view them all, visit June Entertainment’s DocuDave playlist. Here’s a video of Batista talking about the movie:
– After sustaining a season-ending injury during last Sunday’s game against the St. Louis Rams, Washington Redskins defensive end Adam Carriker immediately thought about Triple H.
“I’m laying there on the turf at the Edward Jones Dome and there’s one thing going through my mind and it’s the image of Triple H tearing his quad tendon off his knee in the ring,” Carriker said on 4th & Pain. “Why I’m thinking about that, I don’t know… I think that’s because it’s exactly where I felt it in my leg.”
Like Carriker, the WWE Superstar tore his left quadriceps muscle in May 2001 and suffered a similar injury at a pay-per-view event in January 2007. The full story is available here.
– The top two matches advertised for Saturday’s SmackDown live event in Sarnia, Ontario did not take place. Originally scheduled for the event were Sheamus vs. Wade Barrett vs. Dolph Ziggler in a Triple Threat Match for the World Heavyweight Championship and Daniel Bryan and Kane defending the WWE Tag Team Championship against Kofi Kingston and R-Truth. Instead, Sheamus defended the belt against Alberto Del Rio in a singles match, Dolph Ziggler faced Tyson Kidd, Wade Barrett took on Yoshi Tatsu, Kofi Kingston wrestled Ted DiBiase, and Kane and Bryan faced The Prime Time Players.
– WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler’s miraculous recovery from a heart attack on the Sept. 10 Raw is featured in a full page story in the latest issue of The Globe tabloid.
– WWE.com has a special feature looking at the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, including Vince McMahon’s emotional address to the WWE Universe and all matches from the September 13, 2001 episode of SmackDown.
– WWE officials have been so impressed with the chemistry between Daniel Bryan and Kane in recent weeks that they decided to scrap the planned Bryan vs. Kane match at Night of Champions and have them face the tag team champions, Kofi Kingston and R-Truth.
– After Monday’s RAW went off the air, John Cena and Bret Hart hung around ringside for around 10 minutes with the fans before leaving to the back.
Speaking to Times of India, Glenn Jacobs says he’s not at all like his sadistic Kane character in real life.
“Kane is everything I’m not,” he said. “But also, I think that what has always drawn people to Kane is that he has an emotional depth. The presentation is awesome, he’s a great character. All the things he says, people always see that there’s something behind that and that’s what they relate to. I’m pretty much the opposite. I’m not Kane for sure.”
Jacobs, who portrayed a character similar to Kane in the 2006 slasher film See No Evil, feels his involvement with wrestling taught him how to act.
He said, “I don’t know if wrestling naturally progresses to acting. It depends on the individual. You have Dwayne (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson) who’s probably doing the best of everybody, but it’s hard to say if it’s a natural thing that happens after wrestling. Of course, acting is what we do as part of the entertainment. In fact, we are more like a live action soap opera. I wore a mask for most of my career, but that helped me with certain skills that people have otherwise. One time someone asked Robert De Niro what acting meant to him and he held his hand in front of his face and said ‘this is me when I’m angry’, ‘this is me when I’m sad’ and so forth. All that time, his face didn’t change but you could see something did change that expressed those emotions and you could tell what he was trying to say…”
In his twenty-first year as a professional wrestler, Jacobs feels he has been able to withstand its rigors by keeping himself in shape.
“What we do is athletic, basically. There were the days when the guys were huge and bulky and with bellies, but now we have to be in good shape,” he said. “We have to have pretty good endurance. I’ve been pretty fortunate as far injuries are concerned. I’ve had minor injuries… Torn a bicep, broken a hand… It’s the worst for some people who get the nagging injuries, but I’ve taken good care of myself.”
Jacobs also discusses his promotional trip of India, whether he would be interested in appearing in a Bollywood film, the hardest part of being a wrestler and more. The full interview is available here.
– Former WWE talent Adam Copeland (a/k/a Edge) appeared on a Canadian morning radio show Wednesday promoting his upcoming appearances on Syfy’s supernatural drama series Haven. He explained that he cut his signature locks last spring prior to his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame because he didn’t want to be a 40-year-old with a ponytail and there were no tables, ladders and chairs in his life. The 14-minute interview is available here.
– WWE developmental talent Joe Anoa’i, brother of former WWE Superstar Rosey and WWE Hall of Famer Yokozuna, recently changed his ring name in NXT from Leakee to Roman Reigns. His new character is a successful businessman who dons three piece suits and hits just as hard outside the ring in business negotiations.
– Former WWE talent Maryse Ouellet will host a launch party for House of Maryse, her jewelry line, at the Lily Bar & Lounge at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday, Sept. 15 beginning at 11:00 p.m.
– Ticketmaster.com is currently holding a pre-sale for the Dec. 28 Raw at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, Long Island with the passcode WWENASSAU. A match pitting John Cena and Kane against CM Punk and Daniel Bryan is being locally advertised for the event.
– Former WWE talent Maryse Ouellet will host a launch party for House of Maryse, her jewelry line at the Lily Bar & Lounge at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday, Sept. 15 beginning at 11:00 p.m.
– Paul Heyman will likely appear on tonight’s live Raw broadcast emanating from Chicago, Illinois as he was spotted by numerous fans in the area. He has not appeared on WWE programming since the Raw after SummerSlam.
– WWE Champion CM Punk was at one point today scheduled to open Raw.
– Kane and Daniel Bryan are set to reveal their “anger collages” in their next anger management class on Raw tonight. The program will reportedly feature three segments.
– WWE Hall of Famer Johnny Valiant is scheduled to hold a comedy show this Saturday at the Great Neck Arts Center in Great Neck, New York.
– According to BoxOfficeMojo.com, WWE Studios’ The Day, Doug Aarniokoski’s visceral action thriller, drew an estimated $10,100 at the box office in its debut weekend. The movie was shown in 12 theaters and finished in 52nd place out of 54 movies tracked.
– The individual who portrayed Stylez Monroe during last week’s Raw “Anger Management” sketches with Daniel Bryan and Kane was California-based wrestling personality Ryan Katz. He has appeared as GQ Money for Xtreme Pro Wrestling and Fabian Kailen for Wrestling Society X.
– John Cena addressed tonight’s Raw via Twitter, which takes place on rival CM Punk’s home turf of Chicago, Illinois.
He tweeted, “Allstate Arena tonight for #RAW Chicago is always an interesting environment. Its one that u wont wanna miss.”
– Ultimate Warrior clarified on Twitter that he will not be wrestling during his scheduled appearance at Big Time Wrestling’s Friday, October 5 event at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston, Massachusetts. He will appear in the ring during the show and sign autographs.
– WWE.com has published a list counting down the 20 most memorable Superstar debuts in sports-entertainment history with Kane’s premiere appearance at the 1997 WWF pay-per-view event Badd Blood: In Your House topping the chart.
The complete list is as follows: 20. Big Show, 19. Fit Finlay, 18. Santino Marella, 17. Booker T, 16. Abdullah the Butcher, 15. Brock Lesnar, 14. The Great Khali, 13. Vader, 12. Goldberg, 11. Rey Mysterio, 10. Sabu, 9. Eric Bischoff, 8. The Undertaker, 7. Tazz, 6. Shockmaster, 5. The Nexus, 4. John Cena, 3. Scott Hall, 2. Chris Jericho, 1. Kane.
– Colt Cabana is featured in a new national Old Navy commercial promoting NFL gear. As a football player, he is shown carrying legendary football coach Mike Ditka.
– Sin Cara is featured in today’s “Superstar Spotlight” on WWE.com.
– Booker T announced via Twitter Monday evening that Randy Orton will face Dolph Ziggler this Friday on SmackDown. The announcement, which was acknowledged by WWE announcer Michael Cole on Raw, reads: “Attention: Breaking News! This Friday on #Smackdown, @HeelZiggler will face @RandyOrton in the main event! Now can you dig THAT!?”
– The individual who portrayed Harold in the anger management skits with Daniel Bryan and Kane on Raw was California-based independent wrestler Scorpio Sky, who recently competed in TNA Wrestling as Mason Andrews.
The vignettes were filmed last week in Los Angeles, California and will continue to air for one or two more weeks on Raw.
– Dusty Rhodes has been announced to appear at Sept. 14 NXT live event taking place at Fenn Center in Fort Pierce, Florida.
– WWE Hall of Famer Gerald Brisco appears for !BANG! on Saturday, Sept. 15 in Ocala, Florida. (Event Information)
– The biggest WWE star to not compete at Sunday’s SummerSlam pay-per-view was Randy Orton. After returning from his 60-day WWE suspension, WWE was considering adding Orton to the Sheamus vs. Alberto World Heavyweight title match, but the feeling was that the match didn’t need the extra star power (due to it not being one of the top matches on the card) and WWE went with the WWE title match being a triple threat match instead.
Even though he just returned to television, Orton will likely take some time off soon to begin filming the WWE Studios movie, “12 Rounds: Reloaded.”
– RAW General Manager AJ Lee says Kane will have to face consequences after attacking Josh Matthews backstage at Sunday’s SummerSlam PPV:
Oh, I dont know if I would've put my hands on a WWE announcer, Kane. I will deal with you tomorrow on #RAW.
Deadline.com has announced a partnership between Warner Bros. Home Video and WWE Studios to co-produce a Scooby-Doo animated feature that will find Scooby and the gang solving a mystery at WrestleMania.
WWE Superstars Triple H, John Cena, Kane, The Miz, Brodus Clay, Santino Marella, Sin Cara, AJ Lee and chief Vince McMahon are slated to appear in animated format and provide voiceovers for the film.
WWE.com summarizes the film’s plot: “When Shaggy and Scooby win tickets to WrestleMania, the entire gang travels in the Mystery Machine to WWE City to attend the epic event. However, when a mysterious ghostly bear appears and threatens to ruin the show, Scooby, Shaggy, Velma, Daphne and Fred work with WWE Superstars to solve the case.”
Warner Bros Home Entertainment will distribute the film via Blu-ray, DVD, VOD and digital download while WWE will use its considerable resources to promote the title, said WWE Studios President Michael Luisi.
After WWE unceremoniously terminated A.W.’s contract Friday for what a company spokesman said was due to his continued use of offensive and inappropriate comments on live television and on social media after uttering a rape joke on the July 30 episode of Raw, the All World Promotions chief posted a barrage of vitriolic messages on Twitter blistering his former employer for what he perceives are double standards.
A.W. strongly feels it is unjust that he’s now out of job when Big Show made a similar remark referencing NBA player Kobe Bryant’s sexual assault case, Vince McMahon reneged WWE’s anti-bullying campaign two months ago on Raw by ridiculing Jim Ross’ facial paralysis, CM Punk told a fan on Twitter to kill himself, Triple H simulated mock sex with a mannequin in a casket, McMahon used a racial epithet on national television, and the company showcased a character making light of mentally challenged individuals, among other unsavory events. Fans comments he posted include: “VINCE MCMAHON CAN SAY THE “N” WORD ON NATIONAL T.V. BUT @AWPromotions CAN’T TELL A JOKE………….whats wrong with this picture???”
“McMahon is a hypocrite! It’s cool for him to mock JR’s Bells Palsy, & you aren’t cut any slack for one joke? #BeAStarVince.”
“I hope Vince hasn’t forgot How he mocked @JRsBBQ on #RAW live, and @AWPromotions gets released for one joke?”
“@if only you had strangled someone with your tie, you’d be back within 6 months lol.”
“so Dx can tell everyone to suck it but u can’t make a joke?”
“@CMPunk told one of his twitter followers to kill themselves. biggest double standard in the world.”
“@kane has sex with a dead girl but @AWPromotions makes a kobe joke and gets fired.”
“Vince can kick the leg out from under a one legged kid, wrestle women, mock The mentally retarded and he fired you!!!”
A.W. feels he is a casualty of Linda McMahon’s Republican pursuit of a United States Senate seat in Connecticut, which many have speculated has led the sports-entertainment organization to take action on any matter deemed controversial so as not to affect her campaign.
He tweeted to Linda, “Creates jobs my ass!! I’m fired thanks to you and your campaign.”
In his first match since flooring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson with a clothesline and subsequent Go to Sleep on Raw 1,000, CM Punk appeared as a babyface at Saturday’s SmackDown live event at Freedom Hall Civic Center in Johnson City, Tennessee. He retained the WWE Championship in a Triple Threat Match against Daniel Bryan and Kane. Attendees largely ignored his apparent heel turn on Monday as he was loudly cheered throughout the match.
Chris Jericho rekindled his partnership with Christian as the duo took on Cody Rhodes and Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler donned a Jericho “WANNA-BEE” T-Shirt, which Jericho ripped off during the contest. The match concluded with Jericho striking Rhodes with the Codebreaker.
Drew McIntyre appeared as a babyface on the show as he rushed the ring to aid Ted DiBiase from an attack courtesy of Camacho and Hunico—after DiBiase defeated Hunico due to interference from Camacho. The third generation wrestler then proposed they have a tag team match, which all agreed to. The match concluded with DiBiase escaping Hunico’s sleeper attempt and hitting him with Dream Street.
Other match results were Kaitlyn over Natalya, Jinder Mahal over Percy Watson, Justin Gabriel over developmental wrestler Leo Kruger and World Heavyweight Champion Sheamus over Alberto Del Rio in a Last Man Standing Match.
After gaining snowball-like momentum late last year with a heavily featured position on Monday Night Raw that was highlighted by a United States Championship reign, Zack Ryder’s standing in WWE disintegrated once he became involved with Kane and Eve on television. From January to April, the self-described “Long Island Iced-Z” was routinely destroyed by the monster wrestler and made to look foolish by the cunning Diva. Though he managed to gain a measure of revenge on both parties on the “Great American Bash” edition of SmackDown on July 3, his career currently remains in limbo. Speaking to XFINITY® from Comcast, Ryder attributes his diminished role to both Kane and Eve.
He explains, “I was on such a roll at the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012 and the whole Kane and Eve thing killed my momentum. Basically killed my career. So, to turn that around and get revenge on them was something I needed. Hopefully it’ll get the Ryder Revolution back on track.”
With that behind him, Ryder says his current goal is to regain the United States Championship.
“I’d love to get that back,” he says. “In 2011 I think I proved to people that I’m not a joke, I can be taken seriously in the ring. And hopefully by the end of this year I’ll have a major championship.”
Ryder also has plans to tweak his character in the next few years since he “can’t be the same old guy forever.”
Ryder adds, “But that doesn’t mean I’ll have to drop all of the parts of my character to get to the top. I think eventually I’ll evolve. If you’ve followed my career I was a Major Brother, then an Edge Head, now I’m Zack Ryder, I’m sure in three years I’ll be completely different.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Ryder discusses WWE embracing social media, the Internet Championship, working with Edge and more. Read more here.
Here are tonight’s confirmed WWE SmackDown matches.
* Hunico, Camacho and The Prime Time Players (O’Neil and Young) vs. Epico, Primo, R Truth and Kofi Kingston
* Zack Ryder vs. Damien Sandow
* Daniel Bryan vs. Kane
* Heath Slater vs. A WWE Legend
* Sheamus and Rey Mysterio vs. Alberto Del Rio and Dolph Ziggler
– WWE has released a behind-the-scenes video of the USA Network-produced commercial promoting the historic 1000th episode of Raw on July 23. Appearances include Vince McMahon, John Cena, Sheamus, Kofi Kingston, Big Show, AJ, R-Truth, Kane, CM Punk, Triple H and The Great Khali.
Former WWE creative members Seth Mates (@sethmates) and Chris Gough (@kcmetropro) appeared on The LAW’s ‘Review a Wai’ podcast to chat about the infamous Katie Vick angle that took place on the October 21, 2002 episode of Raw. On the program, a vignette was shown of Triple H, dressed as Kane, simulating mock sex with a mannequin in a casket. Excerpts from the interview are as follows:
The genesis of the Katie Vick storyline: “At this point, (Vince) wanted to start having a lot more backstories to wrestlers. He didn’t want it just to be like, ‘Oh, I wanna beat you up. You stole my girlfriend, let’s have a match.’ He wanted it to be more like, ‘I wanna know who every character is.’ Their backgrounds, and a lot of that. You’ve seen through the years of wrestling, he’s gone up and down with this kinda stuff.
“It was just a matter of, ‘We want to know more about Kane. We know about Paul Bearer and the burning angle, and the Undertaker scenario, but we don’t really know much more about him. So let’s spend the last ten minutes of this conference call discussing Kane’s background and coming up with a way to bring Kane back,’ because he had torn his bicep, and he was coming back to TV. It started off with us pitching ideas about how to bring Kane back.”
Vince McMahon’s pitch: “At the end of the call, Vince basically made the call to say, ‘Why don’t we make Kane…why don’t we say he’s a murderer, and he’s murdered somebody in his past?’ It sort of formulated into what you saw. This was Vince’s seed.
The funeral home shoot: “The necrophilia thing had only really begun in that vignette. That vignette was done by Stephanie (McMahon), Vince, and Bruce (Pritchard), and I believe it was mostly Stephanie; Stephanie Triple H, and Vince were the ones behind that. This wasn’t discussed; Triple H was involved the whole time, so no one had to explain it to him. He was obviously almost part of the family at the point, he knew everything that was going on. Kane, on the other hand, he was getting a little bored with his direction. He had the big start in ’97, and it ran its course. He wanted to change it up a little bit, so they decided they were gonna push him to go for a title run eventually, for the World Heavyweight Championship against Triple H in October. It was a situation where he knew it was going to be a big push, he’s taking on Triple H.
“The angle was basically, ‘There’s a backstory here where he’s gonna start picking on you for your girlfriend dying, and that he’s gonna start acting like you killed her, and he’s gonna start playing more emotional mind games with Kane.’ That was the pitch, with Triple H and Kane. There was no, like, ‘Hey, by the way, he’s gonna say that you banged your ex-girlfriend when she was, uh, dead.’ That was never even talked about until the vignette aired, and it really wasn’t talked about after that again. That wasn’t an idea by a writer, that wasn’t pitched to anybody. That was the vignette that was of the sick minds of the McMahon family that was taped in the funeral home that night.”
– Cody Rhodes announced Wednesday via Twitter that he will wrestle Kane at Thursday’s WWE NXT taping at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida. The WWE Divas are also scheduled to appear and WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross will call all the action. (Event Information)
Rhodes noted that this will be his first encounter with The Big Red Monster.
– Former WWE talent Dave Bautista (a/k/a Batista) stated on Twitter that he will be appearing at this week’s San Diego Comic-Con to promote The Man with the Iron Fists, a film he appears in. He will be tweeting announcements regarding the movie in the ensuing days.
– WWE will hold a Raw live event at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York on Saturday, September 22 at 7:30 p.m. Ticketmaster.com is holding a pre-sale through Friday at 11:59 p.m. with the passcode WPWWE. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Saturday at 10:00 a.m.
– Former WWE talent Shane Helms (a/k/a The Hurricane) turns 38 years old on Thursday.
WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross his blog, which you can read in its entirety at JRsBarBQ.com. Here are some highlights of what JR wrote about:
Possible NXT Championship Tournament: “There is talk of having a tournament to crown a NXT Champion which, if and when it is held, could create some amazing opportunities for several young athletes looking to get noticed with the hopes of making it to a Raw or Smackdown WWE roster.
Kane: “I’ve been extremely impressed with Kane the past several weeks as I have previously mentioned here. The veteran continues to deliver in a big way inside the ropes which is where it counts the most. Kane is a great success story as he migrated through the independent scene to earn a HOF level career in WWE. When I first saw Kane, it was in an arena of maybe 100 fans, he looked a great deal like Sycho Sid in size and wrestled under a mask known as the Unibomber. We had him come to a WWE TV, which I think was in Georgia, for a try out and officials were impressed with his size, athleticism and demeanor. No major star that I can recall has been easier to work with than the highly intelligent and articulate Kane. I have great respect for the man….even though he tried to BBQ me once upon a time.”
Bob Backlund’s Return to RAW: “Good seeing Bob Backlund on Raw Monday night but in hindsight I’d have loved to have seen Bob make his cameo while RAW was in the northeast. Perhaps he wasn’t available. The former champion is in amazing condition for a guy in his 60’s but Bobby has always been a cardio freak and his strength was always grossly underrated. I have no knowledge of the 2013 WWE Hall of Fame Class but Backlund has to be high on the list of potential inductees. Backlund was a two sport All American in College both on the gridiron as a defensive end and on the mat 190.”
As always, you can check out Jim Ross’ delicious line of BBQ products at WWEShop.com.
– Kane bled under his mask on Monday’s Raw SuperShow after receiving an errant strike during the tag team match against Big Show and Chris Jericho. The mishap was not serious and he was able to finish the bout.
– Former WWE Superstar Bobby Lashley indicated on his Twitter account that he attended Monday’s duel Raw SuperShow and SmackDown event in Denver, Colorado. He tweeted two hours before the show, “Heading to the shows in Denver tonight!”
Lashley, who parted ways with WWE in 2008 and moved to the world of mixed martial arts, announced last week that he is hitting the wrestling circuit gain and accepting offers for upcoming events, autograph signings and other appearances via LashleyBookings@yahoo.com.
– The July 7, 2012 episode of A.M. Raw garnered a 0.33 cable rating, with 383,000 viewers.
– Rey Mysterio was backstage at Monday’s Raw SuperShow in Laredo, Texas but not used. His television return, as well as Mark Henry’s, is scheduled to take place on the historic 1000th episode of Raw on July 23.
Henry, who has been sidelined since May due to shoulder surgery, tweeted an update on his health Tuesday morning: “Twitter family I’m good! Healing at a fast rate. Not out of the woods yet!”
– WWE.com is conducting a poll asking fans what is the most shocking thing AJ has done recently. The options are A) Shoving CM Punk through a table B) Kissing Kane C) Wearing Kane’s mask D) Kissing CM Punk.
– Former WWE Women’s and Divas Champion Melina is today’s spotlighted Superstar on WWE.com. She continues to compete independently following her release from the sports entertainment promotion last year.