WED. UPDATE: HOGAN GETS RIPPED IN PRESS; ESPN ON VINCE; RATINGS; DRAGON GATE; HEYMAN; FERTITTAS


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--Member of one of the most famous wrestling families ever signs this week with WWE
 
--Stratus talks Wrestlemania
 
--Noting a remark by Matt Striker that most missed
 
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--Dana White is now supplanted for the dumbest thing said in the media by Hulk Hogan, when he talked about how he can understand what O.J. did at http://www.nypost.com/seven/04152009/gossip/pagesix/hulk_i_could_kill_like_oj_164506.htm  I used to think Hogan was really smart about how he handled himself publicly and in his business.  He'll get ripped tonight once again on CNN Headline News' Shobiz tonight at 11 p.m.   Jim Rome excoriated him on ESPN just a few minutes back
 
--Station Casinos has gotten an extension through 5/15 to continue negotiations on a prepackaged bankruptcy with its lenders and bondholders.  They are asking investors that hold $2.3 billion in bonds to accept between 10 cents and 50 cents on the dollar in cash and new notes as part of doing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and in exchange, Colony Capital and the Fertitta family, would put $244 million in cash into the company.  A previous offer of 20 to 54 cents on the dollar was rejected by bondholders in November, but that didn't involve them putting new cash in.  Station Casinos has defaulted on $77.6 million in interest payments since 2/1.  The company posted $3.3 billion in losses last year.  Suddenly WCW and the XFL don't look so bad.
 
--We've got the WWE supplemental draft update elsewhere on the front page.  We will be doing our audio show in a few hours to run down the draft, as well as the latest news and we will be taking e-mail questions to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  and getting to as many of them as possible
 
--Today's New York Daily News at www.nydailynews.com has a story on a 9-year-old wrestling fan who jumped off his apartment roof to death last night trying to imitate Jeff Hardy.  He tried to make his own parachute.  His best friend said, "He tried to do a swan dive like Jeff "Harding" does on Smackdown.  that was his favorite game (Playstation 2 Smackdown vs. Raw).  He played it all the time.  That was what he was trying to do," said Shakar Murrell, the best friend of Damori Miles, who died about an hour later at Interfaith Hospital in Brooklyn.
 
--The E:60 piece on Vince McMahon to me was okay.  Nothing ground breaking or nothing that people didn't already know.  Vince was funny talking about living forever and wrestling never having to go on without him.  They talked about his growing up.  There was nothing overtly bad, other than they totally overplayed the significance and time line of McMahon saying it was entertainment and not sport, given the national expansion really started in 1983 and hit big in 1984, and he didn't do it until 1989, and really the peak growth years of company popularity were before that admission.  The idea that the admission changed the makeup of the audience one iota is a complete myth.  Wrestling at different times has drawn different audiences.  Look at old tapes of big matches where the men were in suit and ties and women were all dressed up in expensive dresses, which contradicts the myths of the audience of the past.  Every territory had a different type of audience and WWF's 80s audience has similarities and differences to other audiences at different times.  There were places wrestling was far more mainstream and places where wrestling was far less mainstream before 1984. 
 
The idea that if Vince failed in Bangor, ME, his career in wrestling would have been over is something I'd be highly skeptical of, given he was already the company's TV announcer for both shows. 
 
They had limited time and covered a lot of subjects so virtually all of them were glossed over for time reasons.  That's the nature of the beast.  Of all the people interviews, I thought Mike Mooneyham came off the best.  I thought Jeremy Schaap as host came off naive at best, particularly on the drug testing issue.  The show built around unprecedented access to WWE, but all we got a few seconds of a production meeting before a show where literally nothing of significance was said, and some remarks by Stephanie McMahon about the secret members of the writing team like it's highly confidential, when anyone could have easily found out who they were and where they came from.  It wasn't a writers meeting or a booking meeting they were at but the pre-show production meeting to go over the script.  You didn't see any discussions or angles, disagreements or talks of concepts or philosophies.  Considering the Brock Lesnar piece they did a few months back was the highest rated in their history, and WWE plugged this piece on Raw, I'd expect it to significantly beat that audience.
 
--If you'd like to see the piece it's at http://espn.go/com/video/clip?id=4068016
 
--Dragon Gate USA announced the beginning of operations today with former ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky as Vice President and booker.  Details of their plans are in the issue of the Observer on the site today.
 
--ECW did a 1.3 rating last night
 
--Edge is doing the European tour this week on the Raw brand side. (thanks to Terri Bey)
 
--Piece on Ric Flair, pretty good in fact, at http://sports.espn.go/com/espn/e60/news/story?id=4050550
 
--Paul Heyman talks about promotions running the old ECW Arena as well as Gabe Sapolsky booking Dragon Gate into the arena at http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/wrestling/heyman/article2378085.ece
 
--Cable ratings for last week saw USA at No. 1 at 2.3 for a prime time average with Fox News second at 1.8.  Raw was No. 1 and No. 2 legitimately last year, with iCarly No. 3 (3.5 rating).  It was No. 3 and No. 7 in 18-34 (behind two episodes of The Hills) and No. 1 and No. 2 in 18-49.  In the CW vs. MyNetwork race for last week, CW did a 1.14 average prime time rating while MyNetwork was at 0.89.
 
--Dana White is scheduled for TSN's Off the Record today.  Rogers Sportsnet has a piece interviewing Anderson Silva, Chuck Liddell and Georges St. Pierre  
 
--The trailer for the first episode of Kardinal Sinners, a documentary that follows heel wrestlers working small shows in Eastern Canada is at http://www.rushhd.ca/apr09_kardinalsinners.php
 
--TV4Sport in Sweden on Friday is airing a tape of UFC 90.  On Saturday, they air Smackdown, Ultimate Knockouts, two episodes of Ultimate Fighter and UFC 97 live.  Sunday has Smackdown, four episodes of IFL and an Ali documentary. (thanks to Daniel Carlsson)
 
--Alex Marvez will be a guest on SportsTalk Network.com at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time tonight to talk the NFL draft, pro wrestling and MMA at http://www.sportstalknetwork.com
 
--Poll on Bully Beatdown from Sunday
Excellent 23.7%
Good 39.5%
Average 15.8%
Fair 2.6%
Poor 18.4%
        77.0% of those responding didn't see the show
 
--Biggest star in UFC history poll
Chuck Liddell 37.5%
Randy Couture 22.8%
Ken Shamrock 14.0%
Royce Gracie 9.3%
Tito Ortiz 9.1%  
Georges St. Pierre 2.1%
Tank Abbott 1.5%
Frank Shamrock 1.2%
Anderson Silva 1.1%
Matt Hughes 1.1%
B.J. Penn 0.2%
 
--Why did Wrestlemania under perform this year
Booking constantly changing directions 26.9%
Bad storylines leading to the show 20.3%
The wrestlers are good but talent at the top is stale 19.0%
Put on the wrong match ups with the talent they had 12.0%
No true Wrestlemania caliber main event was promoted 8.3%
The economy 5.8%
Quality of wrestlers isn't as good as the pat 5.6%
Lack of mainstream celebrities 2.0%
 
--Next CZW at the Alhambra Arena in Philadelphia is 5/9
 
--Championship Wrestling Alliance on 4/17 in Bristol, TN at the National Guard Armory with a cage match and 4/18 in Kingsport, TN at the Civic Auditorium
 
--An interview with 60s and 70s star Dutch Savage as well as another interview with Larry Matysik are both up at http://57gold.com/interviews.asp
 
--Lance Storm is back from Hawaii to talk Wrestlemania at http://www.stormwrestling.com/0414409.html
 
--There is a story on Danny Hodge at http://www.examiner.com/
 
--A story on Pat Kenney and his lawsuit against Rev. Dennis Killion for sexual abuse when he was in Catholic school is at http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/apr/12/
 
--EWA has a free fan appreciation show on 4/25 at J.D. Byriders in Glen Burnie, MD
 
--EWF TV tapings on 4/18 in Fort Wayne, IN at the Allen Country Fairgrounds with Zach Gowen
 
--Austin Aries turns 31 today
 
--Famous Georgia TV announcer Ed Capral passed away 12 years ago today at the age of 70
 
--Rich Tate's Atlanta wrestling nostalgia
65 years ago today--Wild Bill Longson retained the world title beating The Red Devil, who he unmasked as Dick Lever
49 years ago:  Fred Blassie won the Southern title from Dickie Gunkel (Dick Steinborn)
43 years ago:  The Infernos retained the Southern tag team titles over Bobby Shane & Mario Galento
32 years ago at the Omni:  Mr. Wrestling I & II beat Gene & Ole Anderson in a cage match, Paul Jones beat Dick Slater to win the Georgia title, Thunderbolt Patterson beat Lars Anderson to keep the TV title, Dusty Rhodes no contest The Sheik, Black Atlas (Tony Atlas) & Susan Green over French Angel (Frank Morrell) & Fabulous Moolah, Randy Savage beat Don Kernodle and Richard Blood (Tito Santana,not Ricky Steamboat in this instance) & Dean Ho beat Bill Howard & Jack Evans
30 years ago in Macon:  Ole Anderson & Ivan Koloff kept the Georgia tag team titles over Dusty Rhodes & Tommy Rich via DQ and Mr. Wrestling II beat Georgia champ Masked Superstar via DQ 
 
--Steve Corino defends the WWC Universal title against StarBuck on Friday night at the Nosturi Roc Club in Helsinki, Finland.  StarBuck was trained by Lance Storm and Karl Moffat.
 
--Manu (Afa Jr.) is taking indie bookings through This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
 
--A story on the Micro Wrestling Federation at http://media.wwwredandblack.com/media/storage/paper8971/news/209/04/14/Variety/  The wrestlers are based out of Nashville and several used to work in the early days of the TNA promotion 
 
--The AAA TV Konnan & Jack Evans parody of Juventud Guerrera is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq7SGqwEL70
 
--CWE on 5/1 in Austintown, OH at the Wedge Nightclub featuring Petey Williams
 
--ROH announced two matches for 4/24 in Dayton, Davey Richards vs. Tyler Black and Eddie Edwards vs. Bryan Danielson.  Added to 4/25 in Chicago is Austin Aries & Rhett Titus vs. Phoenix Twins
 
--Fabio Nascimento, Shane Del Rosario and Giva Santana, the latter two of whom were Elite XC fighters whose contracts weren't picked up by Strikeforce, fight for Team USA West in the M-1 Challenge show on 4/29 in Tokyo at Shinjuku Face.  Team USA West faces Team South Korea, Team Japan vs. Team U.K. and Team France vs. Team Spain are on the bill.   
 
--Quiet Storm, who holds the UWA middleweight title based out of the defunct but huge promotion of the 70s and 80s in Mexico, who has been wrestling for Taka Michinoku's group in Japan, returns to the U.S. at the end of this month.  He's looking for dates in May through This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
 
--My long-time friend Kurt Brown (like one of my longest friends of anyone I can think of) is a guest on Rubber Guard Radio at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/RubberGuardRadio/04/15/Rubber-Guard-Radio-Episode-104.mp3 
 
--Bodyslam Wrestling Organization on 4/24 in Garfield,NJ at Garfield High School
 
--"The Wrestler" DVD that come out on 4/21 has a roundtable discussion of wrestling with Lex Luger, Greg Valentine, Roddy Piper, Brutus Beefcake and DDP 

--Jake Shields on Bully Beatdown airs again Friday at 11:30 p.m., Saturday at 12:30 a.m. and Sunday at 12:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on MTV

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