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Although I think it was clear to most people that Donald Trump “buying” Raw from Vince McMahon was a storyline designed to raise viewer interest in WWE’s product, apparently Wall Street is full of rubes who needed that spelled out for them after the twist ending of the three-hour Raw broadcast of a couple weeks ago. Of course, the WWE did confuse things by issuing that phony press release regarding the sale of Raw to Mr. Trump, but hey, it’s the June curse.

June was when WWE ill-advisedly tried to sell as “real” storylines in which Vince McMahon was killed (twice) as well as other storyline twists that ended up being bad, bad ideas. Still, the Trump thing seemed a bit more obvious so maybe some Wall Street rubes were just bored. But, hey, that’s the WWE treadmill for you; while the details change, there is a season for everything, including storylines that require retraction and clarification.

Welcome to June.

After five years and endless computer memory being devoted to images of her, Candace Michelle has been released from the WWE. The SuperBowl spokesmodel for GoDaddy.com was released without ceremony or explanation this past week.

In other developments, it appears CM Punk’s character is being revitalized once more with a solid push on Smackdown. It’s a great training ground for a younger wrestler like him who’s not quite ready for Raw, but could be soon.

Mick Foley lost the TNA title at the Slammiversary PPV on Sunday, with Kurt Angle becoming the new title-holder after defeating Foley, Jeff Jarrett, A.J. Styles and Samoa Joe in a King of the Mountain match. It’s been a while since TNA switched champs without using Jarrett as a transitional title holder, so that was refreshing.

And that’s about the only thing that was refreshing, as the names Foley, Jarrett and Angle were a lot more interesting back when they were new, in the 90s. Until TNA develops and takes more seriously home-grown young talent like A.J. Styles and Samoa Joe, there’s just not much to be excited about here. The Attitude Era is over, and both ECW and WCW are dead everywhere… except on TNA, which is dwelling somewhere in the Outer Banks, where the houses are beautiful, but the wrestling is so 10 years ago.

Randy Orton may regularly be WWE champ right now, but he certainly doesn’t want to follow in the footsteps of one-time mentor Ric Flair. Despite receiving one of the classiest retirement matches ever by WWE at the 2008 WrestleMania, Flair may soon return to regular ring action in order to comply with court-mandated alimony payments to his many ex-wives.

“I don’t want to put myself in a position where financially I need to perform when I’m 60 or 50 or even in my mid-40s,” Orton told the Charlotte Observer. “There will be a time when I’m a dad of two or three and I just want to be at home with my family.”

While staying away from diet pills and other performance-enhancers would be a good first step for Orton, choosing wisely when he takes a wife might also help Orton avoid Flair’s fate.

The WWE put the belt on Batista at the Extreme Rulz PPV last weekend knowing he would have to vacate the title the next day due to scheduled surgery. While RAW covered the reason for Batista’s absence with an angle injury the next night, it make champ Randy Orton look extremely weak.

Now, going into tonight’s RAW, the WWE Title is vacant with Orton, Cena, Triple-H and Big Show all having legitimate claims to being in the title picture. While it will be entertaining to watch how they resolve this, the sloppy booking of last week is still a disappointment.

Yet it’s not like Batista’s going to be leaving for on lovely Orlando vacations or anything; his surgery is scheduled to keep him on the shelf for several months – meaning he may not be back until Royal Rumble time next year. Maybe Survivor Series.

Here’s a move that shocked me: the WWE has released Mr. Kennedy. Talk about going from the penthouse to the outhouse!

Ken Kennedy has made some bone-headed statements in the press over the past year, sure; and he’s become injury-prone to boot. But few wrestlers have made as solid a definition of their in-ring persona as did Mr. Kennedy when he debuted on SmackDown a few years ago.

I’ve long tagged Mr. Kennedy with being part of the main event rotation within the next couple years, but I guess things went south with WWE recently. I think it’s a bit of a mistake and short-sighted by WWE’s part, though there may be factors that are not known to the public that make this move make sense.

Still, TNA will undoubtedly sign him and since he’s still in his prime, Mr. Kennedy will add some real firepower to TNA if they use him right.

What, huh? Jeff Jarrett’s still in charge over there?

Never mind; even if they sign him, Kennedy’s doomed to a fate worse than a lifetime of needing the very best acne treatments available.

I remember “The Miz” from his days as a Real World star on MTV. The guy was tall but scrawny back then, and when he came into the WWE with his Miz gimmick intact, I was skeptical. But as a comedy character, he’s grown on me.

While it’ll be a while before The Miz has the mic skills to go toe-to-toe with John Cena, I do find his promos somewhat entertaining these days, though he’s taken far less seriously than a life insurance quote.

Still, his new gimmick of coming out every week to call out John Cena, only to be ignored and have The Miz claim a victory over him is a smart, nicely-thought-out gimmick that hopefully WWE has the patience to play out for a nice long while before bringing on the inevitable payoff of having Cena appear and destroy him. The longer it takes to get to that moment, the better.

You don’t need best diet pill to help determine what the best undercard match was at the Judgment Day 2009 PPV for WWE. Hands down, it had to be Chris Jericho vs. Rey Mysterio.

While Rey-Rey is uneven and either rises or falls to the level of his opponent, Jericho has been WWE’s most consistent in-ring worker for the last year, and is showing no signs of slowing down at this point. The match felt a bit short at 12 minutes, but then Vince McMahon is rarely prone to run matches much longer than that outside of the main event.

It’s been predictable for a while, but Edge overcame Jeff Hardy in the show-topping PPV championship match at Judgment Day. The twenty-minute classic allowed both men high spots and plenty of in-ring psychology opportunities, but in the end, Hardy once again fell short of being trusted with the top belt in pro wrestling.

While Hardy isn’t exactly missing out on Westgate or anything, it’s unfortunate that WWE still hasn’t seen fit to give him an extended run with the strap; he’s clearly one of the company’s hardest in-ring workers, right up there with Chris Jericho.

Former WWE superstar Bobby Lashley worked his third-ever MMA fight Friday night and destroyed opponent Mike Cook in only 25 seconds, using a guillotine choke for force a submission. Cook came to the ring in a wrestling match to poke fun at Lashley’s pro wrestling background.

Lashley, currently with TNA on the wrestling side, was featured prominently in a Trump vs. McMahon “hair match,” at WrestleMania to years ago and went on to become an ECW champion, as well as a WWE champion, before an injury led to an extended absence and, eventually, his disappearance from the WWE. Lashley is 3-0 as an MMA fighter and is scheduled to face Bob Sapp next month in Mississippi. Let’s hope Lashley doesn’t put Sapp in a Bob stroller.

I’ve never been a fan of Mickey Rourke, nor am I a fan of many wrestling-themed movies, because so few ever even come close to getting it right. That’s where The Wrestler surprised me. Rourke’s performance was superior to the absolute best moments of Sylvester Stallone in Rocky, while director Darren Aronofsky adroitly captures the mood and atmosphere of pro wrestling.

Of course, I’m not talking about life in WWE here; I’m talking about this small, one-state promotions that are basically the talent farms for the big guys like WWE, TNA and the mid-majors. These are also the places where burned-out talent goes to die, and that’s the sort of character Rourke portrays.

While many comparisons have been made between Rourke’s Randy “The Ram” Robinson and the careers of Hulk Hogan or Ric Flair, the image I kept getting in my head was that of Shawn Michaels, since that’s the sort of wrestler Rourke would fit in with better. And his fate is as sad as any suffered by the victims of Mesothelioma.

Anyway, the movie was terrific… something I don’t often say about wrestling movies. But this one could have been lifted straight out of Have A Nice Day by Mick Foley.

It’s not often that I stray outside the WWE to talk about other aspects of professional wrestling, but I had to mention how much I enjoy the app known as Wrestler on Facebook. You can build your own wrestler, purchase moves, train, join a tag-team as well as a stable, and just generally do a lot of matches.

In the early going, it’s frustrating because it’s hard to win when you only have a half-dozen moves and everyone else has twenty. But it’s a trial by fire that soon fades from memory. Sure, it’s not as fun as a series of European cruises, but it’s a whole lot less expensive, too.