Last night, Bobby Lashley took part in a chat session with FightHype.com. Lashley is currently training for his fight against Bobb Sapp on June 27th. Here's what Lashley said about: Haters in WWE: "I believe there were people there who didn't want me there and they were able to use their power there and get me out. And I wanted to fight!" Working With TNA: TNA really wants to work with me and they give me the opportunity to travel and train, so I may do TNA early in my career." WWE Stars Who Could Do MMA: "Right now, I think Shelton Benjamin. He's an athlete who could learn the skill. For the lightweight division, I would love to see Jamie Noble." Who He Likes for Lesnar vs. Mir "I'd rather not say. I think it will be a great fight for the fans. I know Frank is ready. I've talked to him personally. I know Brock is training hard. The fans will get their monies worth in this fight." His Strategy Against Bob Sapp: "I said I was going to go right at him so I'm going to go right at him! That's our plan. Some people like to go away from him, but I'm going to go toe-to-toe with him and see if he can stand it. I want to bang with him!"
TNA World Heavyweight Champion Mick Foley is featured on the cover of the latest issue of Pro Wrestling Illustrated. The headline reads: "JACKED UP! - Old Pro, New Era for TNA." You can see the magazine cover at www.PWI-Online.com.
TNA Wrestling has launched a new video on-demand service, which features over 200 hours of content available to online subscribers.
"TNA Video Vault is a ground breaking product for a home video studio, a cornerstone in our commitment to digital distribution, and an incredible destination for fans of pro wrestling," said TNA Entertainment Chief Marketing Officer Steve Allison. "Every program we've ever created for DVD is right here on-demand along with every pay-per-view event we've aired since 2004. Limited shelf space at retail has meant limited choices for our fans. TNA Video Vault is a destination with unlimited shelf space and unlimited choices."
Starting today consumers can access TNA Home Video titles streamed on-demand for only $3.99 per showing or subscribe for unlimited total library access for $7.99 per month. A prepaid total access annual subscription is also available for $49.99 per year.
To view the new website, visit www.TNAVideoVault.com
Hollywood actor and former WWE creative team member Freddie Prinze, who left WWE a few months back, has signed on to appear as a regular character on the next season of FOX's hit show "24". Prinze will play Davis Cole, a former Marine in charge of the Counter Terrorist Unit's field operatives. According to HollywoodReporter.com, Davis Cole will try to follow in the footsteps of the show's star, Jack Bauer.
The Philippine Star has an interview up with Mark Henry, discussing how he works out, his diet, being one of the world's strongest men and more. You can check out the full interview at http://www.philstar.com/
Lance Storm has a new commentary up, discussing the various wrestling shows and which he prefers to watch. Smackdown is his #1 show, and iMPACT! has fallen to the bottom again. You can read the full commentary at StormWrestling.com.
All four shows of Raw's ongoing tour of Mexico are sold out. The tour started last night in Monterrey.
Shane Douglas' return to TNA at this past Monday's iMPACT! taping was quite surprising as it was believed that his career in professional wrestling was over. Despite being 44 years old and noticeably heavier (he wore a T-shirt for his return), they are indeed bringing him back as a wrestler. He looks completely different and not in a good way. Click below to see photos of a MUCH heavier and completely different looking Shane Douglas.
Following a less than stellar stint as a wrestler in late 2003 and early 2004 (including a match with Raven in September 2003 in which he was so gassed he vomited in the middle of the ring), he became a road agent for the company. In late 2005, he took a leave of absence to check himself into a rehabilitation clinic to battle a painkiller addiction he was dealing with. He came back in the spring of 2006 to manage The Naturals, but the experiment ultimately failed and he parted ways with the company in October 2007.
Since he was last seen in TNA, Douglas has worked a variety of jobs in the Pittsburgh area including a stint at a Target department store in their Manager Trainee Program as well as a history teacher at a middle school in New Brighton, Pennsylvania.
While people in wrestling always want to come back to still be part of wrestling, it's surprising that he would come back as a wrestler as opposed to an agent, manager or announcer. He's said in the past he couldn't wrestle without pain medication and didn't want to put himself through medication again due to his family and so many of his friends dying.
According to her blog on WWE Universe, Michelle McCool suffered a broken nose at this week's TV tapings.
The May 22nd Edition of WWE Smackdown scored a 1.6 rating
The May 26th edition of ECW on Sci-Fi scored a 1.0 rating
Monday's edition of Raw, which scored a 3.2 cable rating, with hours of 3.08 and 3.38.
A gossip website that typically doesn't cover professional wrestling has posted some nude cell phone images allegedly of ECW color commentator Matt Striker.
The gossip website wrote: "Muscle-man wrestler Matt Striker has some NSFW photos floating around the web that are allegedly of his beer can wiener.
Former WWE Diva Victoria, who debuted at last Monday's iMPACT! taping in Orlando, will actually not be going under her real name, Lisa Marie Varon. Last night, she worked her first match inside the six-sided ring under the name Tara.
On his Twitter account, Jeremy Borash posted a unique photo of himself backstage with Raven at this week's Impact taping. You can see the photo at http://twitpic.com/62vub
As of late, there has been talk of changing the way TNA Wrestling does house shows. They have been thinking of running two separate crews of wrestlers and concentrating on running events in smaller towns.
TNA tends to make more money with events in smaller towns because building and promotional costs are much lower not to mention with less major league entertainment coming to small towns, they actually outdraw events held in big cities more often than not. For instance, a $30,000 gross in a small market city is considered a success. On the other hand, when TNA runs an event in a major city, they have to hire union workers, not to mention the cost of advertising in a big market is higher, so a show garnering the same amount of fans as one in a smaller town is not a success. Also, fans in big markets are used to major league entertainment, which TNA oftentimes has problems competing against.
Typically, TNA holds six matches per live event, so they have more than enough talent to run two separate tours. While it is not a final decision, there is a good possibility it will happen later this year.
Wrestling legend Danny Hodge appeared at last Thursday's TNA live event in Oklahoma City, which drew 1,000 fans. He heads the Oklahoma State Athletic Commission and has been to all major MMA shows in the state as well.
As reported earlier, Raven, 44, returned to TNA this past Monday after a long absence. He was said to have come back in better condition then when he left in early 2008. Towards the end of previous stint in TNA, he was dealing with a thyroid condition as a result his excesses of the past, which caused him to balloon in weight no matter how much he exercised. His medical problems have since been cleared up and his weight is back under control again.
According to Variety, Time Warner is officially splitting from AOL after spending nearly a decade trying to build a new-age media empire. The merger, which happened back in 2000, led to Time Warner dropping WCW programming, which was then sold to Vince McMahon.
Ric Flair will appear for the NWE promotion during their tour of South Africa. Flair will appear on August 30th in Johannesburg, September 1st in Cape Town and September 3rd in Durban.
ECW General Manager Tiffany has been nominated by for PETA2's World Sexiest Vegetarian 2009. You can vote for her (under the name Taryn Terrell) at http://www.peta2.com/
Michelle McCool and HHH will be going to Japan next week to present at the MTV Japan Awards as well as to make personal appearances.
Former WWE star Al Snow recently filmed a webisode of the Shawn & Josh Show. Al plays "Bobby" who drives hookers around and punches people in the rear. Oh yeah. You can watch that at FunnyOrDie.com.
Sources: ProWrestling.net, Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Vince McMahon and his creative team currently feel that the quality of the Monday Night RAW is strong. Vince wants there to be differences in the content between his various TV shows, and one company source sees silver lining in this by pointing out that SmackDown is able to have such quality wrestling because RAW is Vince’s sports entertainment variety show. The problem, is that RAW is the company’s flagship show and is usually how the general public judges the company.
This week’s episode of RAW was mostly straight from Vince McMahon, to the point that one source says he essentially dictated the direction of the show to the creative team.
For months now, some colleagues have been crediting Triple H and Shawn Michaels for trying their best to weed out some of the campy stuff Vince and lead writer Brian Gewirtz produce. Even people who don’t like HHH backstage are saying that he should soon be taking the reigns from Vince as the creative head of the company. Triple H is seen as the most likely candidate for the job due to his family ties, but sources within the company also acknowledge that Triple H does have a good understanding of what the fans want and who their target audience really should be.
Triple H has been at the recent RAW shows, but one backstage observer notes that he isn’t as emotionally attached or involved in the show when he’s not wrestling. In other words, he might be saving his ideas for when he returns to television.
Sources: PWInsider.com & WrestlingINC.com
Former WCW wrestler Marcus "Buff" Bagwell, 39, has been telling friends he's headed to TNA. Bagwell last appeared in TNA in 2006. WrestlingINC.com had a story up several days ago where they noted that Bagwell's name had been talked about in recent TNA creative meetings.
Kip James was forced to pull out of a scheduled independent booking in the UK yesterday because TNA needed him for this week's television tapings. TNA issued the following statement to www.VarsityProWrestling.com: "TNA would like to apologize to the fans of VPW and the fans of Kip James, but TNA TV has to be the 1st priority for all contracted talent and we apologize for the unpredicted change in Kip James' schedule." James' replacement for the match against The UK KID in a Steel Cage Match was former WWE Superstar Bob "Hardcore" Holly.
, WWE is in fact changing the name of their September Pay-Per-View event. WWE Unforgiven, which has been an annual event since 1998, will now be known as WWE Breaking Point.
WWE Breaking Point will take place on September 13th from the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec Canada. Tickets for the event go on sale Saturday, July 11th. Advertisements running in Canada are promoting the event as WWE's first Pay-Per-View in Montreal "in over a decade," despite the fact that Montreal hosted WWE No Way Out back in February 2003.
Several weeks ago, WWE sent out a survey asking fans to help the company pick a name for the event. "Breaking Point" won out over Submission Sunday, Total Submission and Submit & Quit. The top matches on Breaking Point are expected to be submission matches.
According to Variety, Smackdown will launch its season on Oct. 2nd with the special showcase, "Decade of SmackDown" special.
MMA fighter Frank Trigg, who briefly worked with TNA, was recently interviewed by PeoplesDefender.com and asked about professional wrestling and Kurt Angle. Here are the highlights:
On how he hooked up with TNA: Kurt Angle is a world class wrestler and Olympic Champion. He was in the WWE then TNA. I would give him a hard time, telling him, "you are a real wrestler, what are you doing?" Kurt called me and asked me to come and commentate on his (TNA) event. So I went up there and did my job. Then I got to work out with Kurt and Jeff Jarrett saw us and asked if I wanted to do more.
On changing his views about pro wrestling: At this point I was still making fun of everyone a little bit when I was still there. Then Sting, Kevin Nash and Booker T showed up, guys I grew up watching, and I was still making fun of them! Then I was clowning around in the ring with AJ Styles and I was like, "Wow, this stuff hurts." Then I started doing the wrestling and taking the bumps and understanding how this works. Man it's just so much more than you realize. Yes, the results are predetermined, but from when the bell rings up until the end, it is nothing but chaos. Can I drop you correctly, landing correctly, etc. I equate it to being in a live stunt show.
Is it MMA? No. Is it as tough as MMA? I think it is. The ability to land drops from ten feet in the air, the ability to do a forward somersault while in the air, all the while making sure you don't hurt your opponent so tomorrow night you can do it all over again.
On Kurt Angle possibly doing MMA: I think he realized that coming in with the way the organizations are right now, he isn't going to get the pay day he would need right now as a fighter. Michael Jordan is the most recognizable basketball player in our time. He went and played baseball and couldn't pull it off. Just because you are a great athlete doesn't mean you can excel at another sport. Jordan went from making 30 million plus a year to making 25 thousand or whatever a Single A player makes; that is pretty tough to swallow. That is why he went back to basketball because that's who he is. The same goes with Kurt Angle. He is making some serious money right now with TNA. He would have to fight 4-5 times a year in MMA to make that kind of money. It's not really worth it to him.
The latest on Wrestlicious is that they have not been picked up by a network, but they have told talent that they have TV tapings planned for this summer. There are rumors that Eric Bischoff and Jason Hervey's production company will get involved.
RVD has a new blog up on the WWE Universe today, discussing why he has taken a break from wrestling, his movie with Batista and tonight's RVD radio, with special guests Roddy Piper, Sandman, Justin McCully, DR. Shawn Staziak, Fonzie, Scott Schwartz, SVD and others! You can check out the full blog at fans.wwe.com.
Justin Credible has announced that he will hold an "Icons of Wrestling" convention on August 2nd in Connecticut. Appearing will be Credible, Terry Funk, Harley Race, Diamond Dallas Page, Rick Fuller, Marty Jannetty, Tony Devito and more. For more information, go to prowrestlingicons.net
Ending the news, we look back at the Stone Cold Appreciation Ceremony
