Matt Cappotelli was recovering from his brain surgery at press time. He was said to be awake, aware, eating, etc., and doctors were thrilled with how everything went down. The belief is that the entire tumor was removed and he suffered no loss of vision. They'll know more in two weeks when the pathology reports come back
We'll hopefully run down the financials next week, but basically WWE grossed $107.4 million this quarter with $15.1 million of that being profit, up from $95.1 million and $9.5 million in profit during this quarter last year. PPV is down, but house show attendance and merchandise are both up. There were two major announcements. The first was that WrestleMania did 1.2 million buys worldwide, which would be around 768,000 domestic. Worldwide, this beats out the Tito Ortiz vs. Chuck Liddell UFC fight on December 30, 2006 which drew 1.1 million,
though obviously all of UFC's buys were domestic and thus they trounced WWE. De La Hoya vs. Mayweather will likely do in the 1.7 million range and destroy both. This number also falls below WWE's own domestic record, but they obviously aren't going to make any mention of that. It did beat last year's 636,000 domestic. They also announced that since PPV buyrates are down because of the sheer number of events being run, they're axing this year's ECW December to Dismember. That show did less than 100,000 buys domestic in 2006, which was an utter embarrassing disaster and had Vince ready to commit some sort of crime. Now that everything is tri-branded, ECW doesn’t need their own PPVs, so this was the right move.
Linda in the conference call noted that Condemned had done below expectations and was a disappointment. She said the R-rating might have played a hand in that (wasn't See No Evil also R?) and that she hoped it would do better on week two. Well, it was a sad week for Linda McMahon. She seemed to blame the distributor, which as noted last week was Vince's excuse for the film's failure. She said they were now looking at some direct-to-video features as opposed to theatrical releases. There aren't any theatrical films in the works, but they're still talking to other studios about the possibility of that. Apparently they're done with Lion's Gate
So yeah, Condemned. It bombed. It finished week two at number 12 with $1,263,036, down a whopping 67% from week one. It was still in 2,310 theatres, meaning the per-screen average was a pittance -- $546. That virtually ensures it's out of almost every theatre by next weekend. Spider Man 3, as expected, blew away the field and broke pretty much every record there is to break, doing $151,116,516 on opening weekend in 4,252 theatres, for a whopping $35,540 PER SCREEN. That is unreal. The number two film, Disturbia, which was in first place last week, did $5.8 million in 3,132 theatres. Condemned's two-week total is $6.2 million and there is no way it's hitting the $15 million that See No Evil and Marine hit. This really is a shockingly big flop.
According to one person in WWE, the issue today is that while there is still a real Wellness policy in effect, the tests are few and far between and there are so many ways to get around them that guys are back to being just as big as ever. These are common steroid-related injuries, however, (biceps, triceps and quads), largely because the muscles grow at a faster rate than the connective tissues, so things snap. If you combine huge physiques with long overseas tours, you get things like this. The company is obviously hoping that Kennedy's injury is the last one, but there is also the understanding that there could be many more coming.
For those wondering why Cena vs. Khali was plugged as being the Raw main event all last week and then changed to Randy Orton over the weekend, it's a scheduling issue. Khali is shooting Get Smart, starring Rock, and his scheduled got switched around to the point where it screwed up the build WWE had planned for Khali vs. Cena.
Orton, the new whipping boy of Monday Night Raw, was put in his place. I'm told he'll be doing a ton of jobs in the future, and that the days of him being a major player on the show are now a thing of the past. One person even made a comparison to Kurt Angle, though I'm not sure exactly what that entails. I don't think they fear for his life like they did with Kurt, but they have lost faith in him as a guy that can be built around anytime in the near future. Hunter has lost a lot of faith in him as well, which has really upset Orton in that Hunter was the guy who originally was pushing for him to be the new Rock of the 21st century. As it stands right now, Orton is the guy Hunter will eat alive when he returns from his latest quad tear.
When Deep South Wrestling went down, The talent has no idea what is going on. As noted a few weeks back, because this was such a snap decision on the part of Vince McMahon they were only told they had three weeks to pack up and relocate to Florida ("somewhere close to Tampa" were apparently the exact words), where a new territory was being developed with Steve Kiern. That is the last anyone has heard and morale has plummeted.
A ton of guys are in fear for their jobs. I am told that at this point there are no plans to cut anyone. Kiern and Mike Bucci, aka Simon Dean, aka Director of Developmental, are in charge of this new group. They are of the belief that they can pull off four or more house shows per week, which others who have been monitoring the situation believe is impossible. One person predicted this would be a disaster perhaps even bigger than the original Deep South. I'd actually be worried if I were the folks at OVW, because Vince already nearly pulled the plug on them when the Deep South thing went down, and one more titanic failure may signal the end of developmental.
There has been discussion of re-releasing Dusty Rhodes' book under the WWE publishing banner. They might want to just re-write the thing because the original author was said to be brutal, and the book was riddled with errors.
Rey Jr., who was asked to return after he did the angle with Umaga and turned them down, is apparently taking longer to rehab than people had expected. At this point, he won't be back anytime soon and won't even be able to work the Mexico tours this summer. His doctor REALLY does not want him to come back, but that's hardly going to stop him.
Most of the ECW guys that signed contracts last year have their deals coming up soon. Most are in fear for their jobs, particularly since WWE announced at the investor's conference that they were axing the planned December ECW PPV. I'm told, however, that the contracts have options for one or two year extensions and most are likely to be extended for at least the year.
Dr. James Andrews determined last week that Lashley's shoulder is fine and that he will not need to undergo surgery. Lashley tweaked it during the Backlash match and feared that he'd done major damage. At this point he's not expected to miss any TV time.
Saturday Night's Main Event in June will be 90 minutes and air at 11:30 PM.
The Triumph and Tragedy of World Class Championship Wrestling comes out on September 18 and will be a two-disc set. They are also working on Rey Misterio: The Biggest Little Man, a three-disc set that comes out October 23.
Timbaland's new video, Throw it on Me, featuring the WWE Divas will have its world premiere on Raw in two weeks.
A Big Dave autobiography is due out in the fall. Batista himself has stated that he's the most boring guy in the world, so this should be a hell of a book. He's a big enough star that it will probably sell provided he's not a heel at the time. As absurd as this sounds, books about guys who are currently babyfaces sell a hell of a lot better than books about guys who are currently heels. I believe it'll be co-authored by the dude that did Bischoff's book.
WWE did a deal where they offered free tickets to anyone from Virginia Tech for the May 6 show at the Roanoke Civic Center.
Omar Anronio Perez Barreto, 31, who wrestled under the name The Hunter in Puerto Rico's WWC (owned by Carlito's father Carlos Colon) and Mephisto Lephanto in IWA, passed away Saturday night in the ring of what was believed to be a massive heart attack. He was teaming with Mikael Judas to face Mr. Big and Blitz in a match for the IWA Tag Titles.
He got a tag and collapsed in the ring. The other guys in the ring said he appeared to be fine and then just stopped breathing. He was rushed backstage and given first aid, then rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
There was an autograph signing in New Jersey over the weekend that had booked Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior and Bruno Sammartino, which is the strangest combination of people I can imagine. Iron Sheik also showed up. Warrior made it clear to the folks in charge that he didn't want Sheik or Hogan speaking to him.
Hogan was apparently fine with this. Sheik, who chatted and got along with Hogan, apparently went over to say hi to Warrior and Warrior blew him off. Sheik snapped, basically causing a huge scene yelling and screaming and swearing. An event organizer, Eric Simms, tried to get him away from Warrior's booth, and at that point Sheik totally lost his mind, shoved the guy and then hit him. Sheik can be really funny when he gets on his roll and starts spouting off what are obviously verbal highspots, such as how he's going to put Brian Blair in the camel clutch, break his back and wax his ass to make him humble. But in this situation, he was an old man with some real issues who was out of control, and it was pretty depressing.
Arena Mexico drew 14,000 on May 4th for Marcela beating La Princesa Sujei in an excellent match to win the vacant Mexican National Women's Title. Super Luchas said it was the best match of the evening. Marcela won the third fall with a Michinoku driver II. Main was a non-title match with champions Los Perros Del Mal (Perro Aguayo Jr. & Hector Garza & Mr. Aguila) beating Negro Casas & Dr. Wagner Jr. & Volador Jr.
Volador substituted for Mistico, who suffered a shoulder injury and will miss three weeks' worth of action at minimum. He came to the ring with his arm in a sling and apologized to everyone for not being able to wrestle. It's actually hugely surprising that he hasn't suffered more injuries given the style that he works (high-flying underdog who takes a beating) and the frequency (up to four shows PER DAY during peak periods). What's interesting is that during his apology the fans booed him and cheered Aguayo. Aguayo, by the way, has been spared yet another week on his reality show, so he's the first guy ever to be on the bubble and not get eliminated the next week. They remain on the bubble, though. It should be noted that CMLL did not announce Mistico's injury in advance and made no mention of it until the main event was about to start.
The reality is that unlike in America where you'd get a handful of people taking you up on the offer, in Mexico if you announce refunds because Mistico will not be wrestling you will lose a huge number of people, and in some buildings nearly everyone.
Case in point, there was a riot last Wednesday night at a show in San Luis Potosi when Mistico no-showed due to injury. Let me try to explain this since it's probably a completely alien concept to most American wrestling fans in 2007. There was a show in San Luis Potosi that Mistico was booked on. He got injured and couldn't appear, and the fans were SO ANGRY that they began to RIOT.
Part of the problem was that once again the promotion did not announce that he was not going to be there. One thing to note is that Mistico does, as noted, sometimes work many shows per day, which means that often he'll show up to events late. This could have been a situation where the promoter legitimately did not realize that he wasn't going to appear and just waited around and waited around and he never showed up. Of course, usually in that case they'll stall for time, which they didn’t do here, which suggests they knew he wasn't coming and didn't want to offer refunds to virtually everyone in the building. So anyway, he no-showed, fans began chanting his name, then they began whistling, then they got angrier and started throwing plastic bottles, then they got irate and started throwing chairs.
The wrestlers in the ring, including Los Perros, ran for higher ground and security tried to quell the situation. This failed, more chairs were thrown, glass bottles were thrown, and then FIRE became involved as fans began burning Mistico masks. I am not making any of this up. Amazingly, the wrestlers eventually came back out and did the match anyway. Suddenly, there was an announcement -- MISTICO HAD ARRIVED. He explained that he had been delayed due to flight issues, that his shoulder was hurt and he couldn’t work, and that he'd explained it to the fans. I'm not sure of the details at this point, but apparently he was nervous and people didn't believe his story and began chanting "FRAUD!"
He ended up going out there and doing some spots with Mr. Aguila and Damian, I guess to prove that he was, in fact, the real Mistico. The fans still booed him like crazy and there were threats of more violence. I believe when all was said and done almost a dozen people were treated at the local hospital for minor injuries. The local papers said he killed his reputation in San Luis Potosi, but we'll see what that means the next time he's booked.
Mistico said in an interview that he hurt his shoulder in a match with Black Warrior on April 29th at Arena Mexico.
New card for the ROH show in Hartford, CT now that TNA talent has been pulled has Briscoes vs. Takeshi Morishima & Nigel McGuinnes for the tag titles, KENTA vs. Delirious, Naomichi Marufuji vs. Matt Sydal, Eric Stevens & Matt Cross & TBA (replacing Austin Aries) vs. Roderick Strong & Davey Richards & Rocky Romero), Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. Eddie Edwards & Bobby Fish (?), Bryan Danielson vs. TBA (first match back since Final Battle 2006 in December when he dropped the ROH Title to Homicide), Claudio Castagnoli vs. BJ Whitmer with the "winner getting an ROH contract" (I presume meaning they'll be appearing on the PPVs), Jimmy Rave vs. Pelle Primeau, and Adam Pierce vs. Bobby Fish (twice on one show?). Jack Evans has been pulled due to Japanese commitments, and Aries and Homicide are out due to the TNA ban.
Takeshi Morishima defeated KAZMA of Kaientai Dojo on May 6th in Tokyo to retain the ROH Title.
Sapolsky also said that there are no plans for anything after the first PPV, so any talk of possible PPV plans in Japan, Europe, etc. are all speculation.
All shows will be released on DVD some time after the PPV offerings
credit: F4W Newsletter
Hunter has lost a lot of faith in him as well, which has really upset Orton in that Hunter was the guy who originally was pushing for him to be the new Rock of the 21st century.
Does Orton really have any right to be upset here?
Does Orton really have any right to be upset here?
@ Hunter, he may be a student of the game, but has no idea on how to make it work in terms of creativity.
Hogan, The Rock & Austin the 3 biggest stars ever in Pro Wrestling can never be re-created, no matter how hard you try
Orton just doesn't have that natural charisma that The Rock has. I doubt Orton can adlib as well, because he looks so when he is doing his scripted promos.
& SMH, does he forget that The Rock was part of the 1st 3/4 years of the 21st Century anyway.
The only things Orton and The Rock have in common is that they are both 3rd Gen Wrestlers and they both wear trunks and have tattoo's apart from that... Orton is a lost cause
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If you're willing to swallow cum, let's not make believe something I said was disgusting. Okay?
But, back to reality. You're stupid. Like, so much in fact there's no clever way to put it. The space in your head has been foreclosed on or something because nobody's home.
For those wondering why Cena vs. Khali was plugged as being the Raw main event all last week and then changed to Randy Orton over the weekend, it's a scheduling issue. Khali is shooting Get Smart, starring Rock, and his scheduled got switched around to the point where it screwed up the build WWE had planned for Khali vs. Cena.
Orton, the new whipping boy of Monday Night Raw, was put in his place. I'm told he'll be doing a ton of jobs in the future, and that the days of him being a major player on the show are now a thing of the past. One person even made a comparison to Kurt Angle, though I'm not sure exactly what that entails. I don't think they fear for his life like they did with Kurt, but they have lost faith in him as a guy that can be built around anytime in the near future. Hunter has lost a lot of faith in him as well, which has really upset Orton in that Hunter was the guy who originally was pushing for him to be the new Rock of the 21st century. As it stands right now, Orton is the guy Hunter will eat alive when he returns from his latest quad tear.
HHH's line of thinking is one of the most backwards I've ever across in the history of viewing the game. How can he want Orton to be the next "Rock"? That would entail Orton being bigger than him, Cena, Batista, Undertaker, Michaels, and Lashley. $hit, it not for the Rock and Foley, who would HHH be in the main event scene regarding fan support? He was a very unover heel champion when he was given the belt twice in '99. Then ALL OF A SUDDEN when Foley put him over 3 months straight and they had to convince the Rock to hold off on his win for Backlash '00, HHH became what he is. The IWC fell for him being legit too. Yet he wanted Orton to reach "icon" status? The irony is amazing. Truth be told though..fucc both Blandy and Cripple H. I can really do without ever seeing any of them dudes ever again.
__________________ The Rock vs Austin at WM 19=Legendary Eddie Guerrero=God Melissa slapping Sara Del Ray on Shimmer Vol 17=Wrestling's GULLIEST Civil War proved Magneto Was Right #1 Mark for Christina Milian
Orton dug his own ditch, honestly. I think that's part of why it was such an easy decision to have Edge go to SmackDown and completely kill off the Orton/Edge feud (which was supposed to run thru the spring into summer). Now he's gonna be the one who HHH rolls over when he comes back. Can't say I didn't see that coming. With any luck, Orton can stick around for a while and finally get it together.
Greatness, I know it might sound crazy, but Orton was on his way when his push was going full steam. The biggest mistake they made with him IMO was that face turn with HHH kicking him out of Evolution- when it prob'ly woulda gotten him over more to do it the other way around. Orton was super-over all the way up until he had to cut a bunch of face promos every other week... and then he got moved out of the way for the Batista angle. If he was to be built up like a "next Rock", it woulda done him better to be a heel till he couldn't be one anymore.
According to one person in WWE, the issue today is that while there is still a real Wellness policy in effect, the tests are few and far between and there are so many ways to get around them that guys are back to being just as big as ever. These are common steroid-related injuries, however, (biceps, triceps and quads), largely because the muscles grow at a faster rate than the connective tissues, so things snap. If you combine huge physiques with long overseas tours, you get things like this. The company is obviously hoping that Kennedy's injury is the last one, but there is also the understanding that there could be many more coming.
Randy Orton in 2004 had one glimming mistake, yes, he should of been the one that kicked HHH out of Evolution instead of it being what it was. They had pushed him like '98 Rock all year until that point. Then he got some cheers in that Edge match and got support during some of his offense at Summerslam '04 and they turned him face immediately. Instead of turning him back heel, like Rock in '98, they kept him face and he became a joke. He was smiling coming to the ring, shaking fans' hands, and wanting to be playboy with Stacy Kiebler. One of the worst face turns in the last 10 years easily.
__________________ The Rock vs Austin at WM 19=Legendary Eddie Guerrero=God Melissa slapping Sara Del Ray on Shimmer Vol 17=Wrestling's GULLIEST Civil War proved Magneto Was Right #1 Mark for Christina Milian
Had Orton kicked HHH out of the Evolution, then we wouldn't have had that awesome Batista/HHH program, which still remains one of the better scripted storylines in the last few years.
Well the fans only took to Batista because Orton was a such a huge failure. Batista vs HHH wrote itself and they just pushed the guy that fans were siding with in December '04-April '05.
__________________ The Rock vs Austin at WM 19=Legendary Eddie Guerrero=God Melissa slapping Sara Del Ray on Shimmer Vol 17=Wrestling's GULLIEST Civil War proved Magneto Was Right #1 Mark for Christina Milian
Rey Jr., who was asked to return after he did the angle with Umaga and turned them down, is apparently taking longer to rehab than people had expected. At this point, he won't be back anytime soon and won't even be able to work the Mexico tours this summer. His doctor REALLY does not want him to come back, but that's hardly going to stop him.
Just give it up, raymundo...just give it up.
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SEC's final 2007-2008 bowl record: 7-2...
I wished more storylines would write itself because there hasn't been a better storyline than that since.
Well it only good because it was better than Orton getting the belt back. It still led to what we have today...Batista being a constant maineventer in 2007 and that's NEVER a good thing in retrospect. Eddie vs Mysterio was the opening match at WM 21 and got a bigger main event reaction than any single's match at the event.
__________________ The Rock vs Austin at WM 19=Legendary Eddie Guerrero=God Melissa slapping Sara Del Ray on Shimmer Vol 17=Wrestling's GULLIEST Civil War proved Magneto Was Right #1 Mark for Christina Milian
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WWE/TNA/Indy news and notes
@ Hunter, he may be a student of the game, but has no idea on how to make it work in terms of creativity.
when he is doing his scripted promos. 
