Jim Ross posted his latest blog at JRSBBQ.com looking at Spike TV not renewing Impact Wrestling. He wondered if TNA would be able to secure a new deal that will keep them in business with such a short turnaround.
“One would assume/hope TNA finds a new cable home and they move their fan base with them,” Ross wrote. “If not, Viacom’s Spike Network is in the same position TBS was in when Jim Crockett Promotions found themselves in financial duress. TBS bought out JCP and WCW aired on TBS & TNT for years. The question is does Viacom want to own a pro wrestling franchise to go with their newly acquired MMA franchise Bellator?
“It will be interesting to see how all the involved parties spin this matter come Monday morning. If WWE’s scheduled financial, conference call doesn’t go well later this week especially as it relates to the number if subscribers currently paying for the WWE Network this will be one of the most news worthy and potentially negative weeks the business has experienced in years. Hopefully the week will end better than it’s started.”
– Regarding TNA and Spike TV, it was said that Dixie Carter did not tell the staff anything about their status on TV at last Wednesday’s staff meeting in Nashville. The majority of that meeting was to discuss strategies for the next three weeks of TV promotion.
– Former TNA star Jesse Neal and his wife Brittney Savage returned to the indies this weekend. This was Brittney’s first match in 18 months and she lost to TNA Knockout Brittany. Neal beat Jon Davis in the main event and debuted a new gimmick with a ski cap, face mask and all black attire. Neal is now using the name Salvation.
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Source: F4WOnline
TNA officials have confirmed that Spike TV will not be renewing their contract for Impact Wrestling. Word is that the deal expires either the last week in September or the first week in October. TNA has until then to secure a new deal with another network.
Both sides are claiming that they were the ones to not renew but multiple sources have confirmed it was Spike’s decision. TNA says they are still in negotiations with Spike.
For those wondering if TNA’s international TV deals can keep them going, those deals are not lucrative enough and you still can’t tour in the United States without TV. There are lots of people in TNA that have a very small chance of picking up work in Japan, Ring of Honor and WWE.
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Source: F4WOnline
We noted before via F4Wonline.com that Spike TV’s decision not to renew TNA’s Impact Wrestling contract came just a few days after Spike found out Russo was still working with TNA.
Spike was not happy when they found out Russo was still working for TNA. While there’s speculation that this could have been the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” there was still no new deal in place 2 weeks ago, before they found out Russo still had ties to TNA.
It’s said that Russo’s involvement with TNA played a big factor in Spike not renewing Impact but they may not have renewed anyway.
When the news of Russo working with TNA was recently confirmed, there were a lot of people in TNA worried because of what’s happening now.
As noted earlier, TMZ is reporting that Spike TV will not be renewing TNA’s contract for Impact Wrestling in October when it expires.
There were reports that Dixie Carter gave the impression to staff last week that they were leaving Spike on their own, due to a lack of promotion. However, other sources have confirmed to F4WOnline that Spike told Dixie they weren’t renewing the deal.
The decision came just a few days after Spike officials found out that Vince Russo is still working for TNA. Dave Meltzer reported in the most recent issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Spike TV were not happy with Russo in the past and made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with him.
WWE has confirmed on their website that they have signed Prince Devitt. Devitt commented to WWE.com last week:
“This is something I’ve been looking forward to since I was maybe four or five years old. I grew up watching wrestling my whole life, so to get the chance to step in the ring that I’ve watched on TV so many times is a dream come true.”
Devitt said he’s looking forward to learning a new style at the WWE Performance Center:
“I don’t consider myself anywhere close to the finished product, so I’m looking forward to this challenge and learning a new style. I’ve seen a lot of different training schools and dojos, and the sheer level of professionalism at the Performance Center and the state-of-the-art facility just knocked me for a six. It really blew me away.”
He also commented on his main roster goal:
“The target would be John Cena, because if you’re wrestling John Cena, you’re in the main event.”
Batista recently spoke with the UK’s Daily Mail to promote Guardians of the Galaxy.
Batista confirmed that he will be returning to WWE and expressed interest in facing Sting. He commented on Sting wrestling for WWE:
“I don’t know where Sting would fit in the spectrum of things. I’ve never even met him. I would hope so. I’ve been a fan throughout the years. We’ve speculated a lot, we’ve thought he was going to come to the WWE years ago so just speaking as a fan I’d like to see it.”
He also talked about retiring against Triple H:
“I kind of have my wish list of guys that I would like to work with, because I realise my career is not going to be that long if I do go back just because physically… realistically, I’m 45 years old now, how much longer can I continue…? You do take a beating in professional wrestling. But I love it.”
“It’s not ‘will I go back?’, it’s ‘when will I go back?’. Hopefully it won’t be far too long. Triple H right now is the guy I really want to work with. I want to go back and that’s hopefully that’ll be my retirement program. Yeah, I’ll have my WrestleMania retirement match with Triple H.”
TMZ reports that Spike TV has let TNA officials know that they will not be renewing their TV contract in October. No word yet on when Impact will stop airing.
Multiple sources with knowledge of the deal told TMZ that Spike TV executives contacted Dixie Carter this week to break the news. Dixie told members of her inner circle the following day.
TMZ reports there’s no bad blood and Spike gave TNA such advance notice so it would have time to shop for a new TV deal. Spike and TNA did not return TMZ’s request for comment.
Goldberg and Scott Hall have decided to put their past differences behind them.
The former enemies made up last week at a wrestling convention in Tucson, Arizona, which was brought to light from this fan’s post on Twitter to Hall: “Yeah I saw that coward @Goldberg trying to suck up to you after all that s–t he talked about you. What a b—h.”
Goldberg responded, “As opposed to killing the son of a b—h I figured I’d be the bigger man. How about you fukehead!”
Hall added, writing to Goldberg, “Don’t know what all the fuss is about. Bill and I made peace. End of story….”
In the past, Goldberg has labeled Hall as “unprofessional” and blamed him for a near career-ending injury at a December 1999 WCW event where he smashed the windows of a limousine with his bare hands. He lost a large amount of blood due to this and came within one centimeter of having to have an arm amputated.
“I should’ve killed him but I didn’t,” Goldberg told Mike Mooneyham of The Post & Courier in a 2001 interview. “Scott Hall is very unprofessional and he often breaks character and does things I don’t agree with. I try to be professional and set a positive example, but unfortunately he doesn’t share the same views. Vince Russo couldn’t control him and we had an issue, and instead of being unprofessional and making him pay, I took my frustrations out on that limousine.”
As we get closer to the top, the stories continue to get more ridiculous, but that’s okay because that’s what wrestling is all about. The problem with these stories are, they’re not part of the act, these are real life grown men behaving like assholes and idiots. What separated this particular disaster from the rest is, it started off as a worked-shoot and spiraled downward from there.
Thanks again to John Cheese and his Magic Pimp Bus for this article, who if I may say, is far sweeter than Adam Rose and his Erotic Express. Now off we go as we continue the countdown.
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#2. Hulk Hogan Story Goes Too Far and Runs Him Out of the Company
This is one of my favorite wrestling moments of all time, because there is so much bullshit going on here, it’s almost impossible to tell what’s set up, what’s scripted, what’s real, who’s in on it, and who has been left out of the loop. It’s just such a gigantic, twisting Inception-like maze of bad ideas.
It all starts with this match at WCW’s 2000 Bash at the Beach pay-per-view. The story goes that Jeff Jarrett, the blond guy in the shiny shorts, was their world champion. He had a title match versus Hulk Hogan, and the creative team wanted Hogan to lose this one to help solidify Jarrett’s character as a legitimate champion. Hogan didn’t like that idea, so he invoked a clause in his contract that gave him creative control, effectively letting him choose his own storylines and match outcomes. In the wrestling world, he’s known for this kind of douchebag self-promotion.
I had a couch that looked like that once.
After some back and forth, they decided to do a “worked shoot.” What that means is that they would be making it look as if what was going on in the ring was unscripted and unplanned, even though every second of it totally was. So Jarrett headed to the ring, along with Vince Russo, the head writer for WCW, and proceeded to lie down at Russo’s instruction. He then threw the belt at Hogan and said, “There you go. Pin him.”
Hogan looked absolutely disgusted and asked for a microphone. As Russo walked away, Hogan said, “That’s why this company’s in the damn shape it’s in — because of bullshit like this.” He then put a foot on Jarrett’s motionless body and had the ref count it out.
This is actually how you get elected to office in Georgia.
Everything up until that point was totally scripted. See, people were for the first time getting into the behind-the-scenes stuff, so they all knew about Hogan’s antics, and they knew about the bullshit politics that happen in wrestling promotions. So Russo took advantage of it. Here’s where it gets crazy.
What wasn’t scripted was that after Hogan had left the building, Russo came back out and went on a total fucking tirade about him. He laid out exactly what happened, including bringing up Hulk’s “creative control” clause. He talked about the plans that they had to scrap because of it. He called Hogan every name in the book and said, “I promise everybody, or else I’ll go in the goddamn grave, you will never see that piece of shit again.” And he was right. At least in the WCW, because Hogan never came back. He filed a defamation of character lawsuit a short while later, but it was eventually thrown out.
“Whatcha gonna do, brother, when Hulk Hogan’s Lawyermaniacs come crashin’ down on YOUUUUUU?!”
Had Russo not come back out and gone on that rant, the plan was for Hogan to return after a four-month hiatus. In the meantime, WCW would have created a new title belt and crowned a new champion, assuming that Hogan had quit the company for good. So when he eventually returned to the ring, he could claim, “Hey, I’m the real champion,” and they’d have to have a huge match to settle it. Instead, when Russo got real, Hogan got pissed and said, “Fuck this shit, I’m outtie 5000, homeslice.” Or whatever it was that old white guys said in the ’90s when they were trying to act all cool.
Wasn’t that a fun ride through ridiculosity? We’ll be back tomorrow with the conclusion of this fiasco and the #1 disaster in professional wrestling. Here’s a hint… Wrestlers should stick to…. Wrestling. That is all.
