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Archive for February, 2010

On Monday, March 1, Cheech and Chong will be WWE guest hosts, followed by Criss Angel on March 8 opposite the new TNA Monday Night Impact; and then it will be Stone Cold Steve Austin on Monday, March 15.

Right now, there’s no guest host lined up for Monday, March 22, the final Raw before WrestleMania on Sunday, March 28. Could this mean that Stone Cold will be the final Raw guest host? If so, it would be hard to imagine a better guest host to end the concept on.

While WWE has The Rock lined up this summer for a short program, the guest host concept has kind of run its course since it debuted last June. What will WWE try next, to keep its product fresh against Impact?

One guess is that they are probably trying to line up a headline making “general manager of Raw,” returning to a more familiar concept. The smart money would be on Bret “The Hitman” Hart, whose guest host spot against the last experimental TNA Impact on Monday Night fared quite well for WWE.

The only question is whether Hart would be willing to accept a regular role on the show. If so, that would be plenty of impact against Impact, and would have TNA execs running for their diet aids.

Moving TNA Impact to Monday nights could help improve WWE’s product overall. One has to admit that Vince McMahon and company were never more creative and interesting than when they were fending off a credible threat from Ted Turner’s WCW promotion.

So, with some good fortune tossed in, TNA will spark a new round of Monday Night Wars that will re-ignite national interest in professional wrestling in general, and a new burst of creative energy that will push more interesting products out of both TNA and WWE.

A new round of Monday Night Wars could be just what WWE needed; moreso than even how teens need an effective way to treat acne!

The headlining match for TNA Impact’s first Monday Night broadcast will be a tag-team affair, with Hulk Hogan and Abyss teaming against Ric Flair and A.J. Styles. This seems, on the surface, to be a smart blending of wrestling legends with new, TNA-homegrown talent… a smart way to introduce the lesser-known, younger guys to a potentially larger audience.

However, it’s all in the execution and if the egos of Hogan and Flair (oy, the eczema!) drown out the talent of Abyss and Styles, it’ll be all for naught. Sure, Hogan’s been selling the “it ain’t gonna be like last time” story since his arrival in TNA, but that’s all a bit too “inside baseball” for mainstream wrestling audiences who may not remember Hogan’s role in the WCW-WWE Monday Night Wars.

If TNA is to prove a credible threat to WWE’s dominance, the storylines will have to get a lot more mainstream, and quickly.

Use your old birth announcements if you have to, but get the word out: Spike TV just approved a permanent move to Monday nights for TNA Impact!

This move places TNA center-stage to challenge WWE directly for audience share on Monday nights, and marks this as the beginning of a new round of Monday Night Wars… the first since WWE bought out WCW several years ago.

The first Impact to air on Mondays will take place on Monday, March 8 on Spike TV. It will be interesting to see how WWE responds to this new challenge from the ratings-starved but momentum-driven upstart promotion.

The Rock is starting to talk more openly about the nature of his role in a possible return to WWE, on a limited basis, in 2010. While Duane Johnson is in the middle of shooting his latest movie, once production wraps, he is in talks with Vince McMahon to come in and do a guest-host job that could evolve into a limited-run storyline.

The Rock seemingly ruled out John Cena as his potential opponent, but did say he’d want to do something special. By special, he outlined these criteria:

1. It would have to benefit everyone, long-term, including WWE, his opponent and Johnson himself.

2. He would want to rip up the family-friendly script of current WWE product and push the edge back to Attitude-era edginess.

3. His return would not last long; either a one-off or a limited run engagement that would include a couple weeks of build-up, and then a PPV capper.

If handled well, such a storyline could help elevate one of WWE’s up-and-comers; the best potential opponents, in my mind, are Ted DiBiase Jr., Cody Rhodes, Sheamus or MVP. If the program is run against Cena or Randy Orton, I doubt that would benefit WWE quite as much for the future. If Rock returns, perhaps he’ll have a run-in with Stephanie McMahon, calling to mind his role as a face in the McMahon-Helmsley Era storylines. I’m sure Rock would have some great mic-time gifts for her.

Chris Jericho and Gregory Helms were arrested last Wednesday on charges of public intoxication, which carry with it minor civil fines if they decide not to contest the charges. Ironically, Jericho has been recently mentioned by Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff as a wish-list wrestler of current WWE superstars.

That would fit with their recent acquisition of Jeff Hardy, who signed with TNA on the same day he was arraigned on drug charges.

I’m a bit behind on minor updates like these, due to the stability of my desktop computer; but I’m taking it to Best Buy tomorrow for servicing so I wanted to get this up before all I have to work on is a slow, out-of-date laptop.

Well, everyone can relax with an e cigarette; the Royal Rumble is over and while old-timer HBK got the biggest rub, eliminating the most opponents of anyone in the match (six), Shawn Michaels made it to the Final Four, but didn’t last beyond that.

Instead, Edge returned to the WWE after a long injury-related absence, as the 29th entrant in the 30-man battle. He rode that momentum to the final three and let John Cena eliminate the freshest man, Batista, who was the final entrant, then eliminated Cena in the aftermath of Batista’s elimination.

So, unexpectedly, Edge will get his choice of belts and opponents to go after, depending on who comes out of the Elimination Chamber PPV in February with the belts still on their waists. Current champs are Smackdown’s Undertaker, who fended off a challenge from Rey Mysterio tonight; Raw’s Sheamus, who won by DQ against Randy Orton in a heel-vs.-heel match; and ECW’s Christian, who wrestled a good program against Ezekiel Jackson.

The most likely scenario currently is for Smackdown-branded Edge to take on Undertaker and his “undefeated at WrestleMania” streak, with ‘Taker as the face. However, stranger things have happened, so don’t rule out a Raw title change at Elimination Chamber, setting up Edge moving over to Raw to take on John Cena, while HBK would then head over to Smackdown to take on ‘Taker.