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Break out the external hard drive for your DVR, folks! Stone Cold Steve Austin is scheduled to appear on the January 25 episode of Chuck on NBC, according to various news sources. Austin will portray a close-combat expert named Hugo Panzer on the episode.

Chuck is one of the shows NBC is looked toward to rescue the network from a dismal season; Heroes has plunged in the Monday night ratings since moving to 7 PM Central and being paired with the bland medical drama, Trauma, which ran for 10 episodes.

When Chuck returns to NBC’s schedule, it will take over the 7 PM hour and return Heroes to its traditional 8 PM time slot, which the network hopes will result in better overall Monday night ratings, despite the horrid budget-slashing move of putting Jay Leno at 9 PM Central five nights a week, making NBC a bit of a joke as a major network… and a bad Jay Leno joke at that!

Talk about getting out of Daddy’s shadow!

The latest word on the street is that once he leaves WWE on January 1, Shane McMahon will be looking to gain a financial interest in UFC and become one of the mixed martial arts promotions’ executives. No word from UFC president Dana White on whether UFC would even be open to this, though Shane O’Mac definitely has the financial wherewithal to support such a bid.

With his marketing experience and global connections, McMahon could help UFC expand as a global brand; the question is whether he’d be welcomed in, due to his ties to pro wrestling. And it’s unlikely he’d have any major role in the on-screen product.

Has Shane McMahon suddenly gone off the deep end? Is he in need of drug rehab? Nah… he’s not that bad off. He’s just realized that WWE will probably be Steph’s toy, so now he’s out looking for one of his own.

As part of a press conference going over their quarterly results, it came to light that while the WWE doesn’t expect the recent litigation between videogame maker THQ and toy maker Jakks Pacific to affect WWE much one way or the other, CEO Vince McMahon indicated a clear direction for the company as it relates to Jakks Pacific.

“Jakks are obviously not our friends,” McMahon said. “We’ve been going after them aggressively.”

The WWE is currently tied to Jakks Pacific through the rest of the year, but in January 2010 will be hooking up with Mattel as their toy partner. How this will affect THQ’s deal in unclear at this time, since Jakks has been involved with THQ’s game development for the past several years. Makes a person wonder if this means they’ll be able to get a John Cena figurine at Circuit City anytime soon.

Probably not.

Former WWE Heavyweight Champion and current UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar may be a Minnesotan these days (he is originally from South Dakota), but his current status following his brutal victory over Frank Mir at UFC 100 Saturday night ought to be, “national embarrassment.”

Lesnar showed absolutely no sportsmanship in the mauling he perpetrated on Mir; Mir was down, bloody and unconscious fairly early in the second round, but that didn’t stop Lesnar from unleashing a barrage of additional, unnecessary and nearly-mutilating blows to the face on his fallen and helpless opponent. Lesnar is to blame for doing it, but even more to blame are the referees who allowed it.

Following his vicious victory, Lesnar flipped off the crowd with both hands, complained about Bud Light not offering him any personal endorsement money, and crassly bragged about “getting on top of” his wife later than night. He did every bad thing one could possibly do to give UFC a black eye, save for downing a bunch of phentermine diet pills in front of fight commission officials. So there’s that. It was a display completely lacking not only in sportsmanship, but in humanity or any recognizable level of manners. Lesnar’s antics made Mike Tyson’s ear-biting incident look like a choir-boy prank.

It also didn’t help that in an earlier fight, another UFC fighter named Henderson took a cheap-shot swing at a clearly knocked-out opponent and then went on to brag that such brutality was necessary to “shut him up.” Whatever. Last I checked, unconscious men don’t talk.

To make matters worse, after the UFC owner read Lesnar the riot act following the crass display, when Lesnar apologized at a press conference, rather than taking responsibility for his own vulgarity, Lesnar blamed his deviltry on his WWE background.

Sorry, Brock, that doesn’t wash; the WWE may be over the top, but people know it’s a drama for adults where real injuries occur only when mistakes happen. The rest is show-biz storytelling. You were in WWE for only about a year; you’ve been Brock Lesnar all your life.

Be a man, Brock, and admit that it’s your own fault you’re a jerk.

It was a swerve that worked.

After months of knowing that TNA’s Christian Cage would be returning to WWE, the wide-spread speculation was that he’s come back on Smackdown to be reunited with Edge, Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy. The internet burned up bandwidth speculating about Christian’s possible role in Matt’s betrayal of Jeff.

Fooled ya.

In a swerve that worked, Christian made his first appearance in a WWE-owned ring earlier this week, but not on Smackdown and not even on RAW; he debuted on ECW, inserting himself into the Jack Swagger-Finlay feud. It was the first time in a while I can remember being genuinely and pleasantly surprised by a move in the WWE, storyline-wise.

While the appearance was not necessarily electrifying – after all, they are taking a TNA champion and placing him on the lowest broadcast on the WWE totem pole – but it was genuinely surprising and that counts for a lot, no matter how much safety equipment they keep handy to make sure nothing goes wrong in the matches themselves.

I have to admit that last week’s Raw did a good job of promoting the best aspects of both the upcoming No Way Out PPV and this coming week’s Raw broadcast.

While such promotion ought to be second-nature to WWE after all these years, sadly the writers and promoters don’t always put in the effort necessary to do the job well and come off like a bunch of industrial knobs, rather than working professionals.

Yet last Monday, they did their job well; the Jericho-Roarke angle was moved forward, the JBL-Michael angle pushed No Way Out rather than giving something away for free, and a skit angle promoted a rare crossover appearance by the Undertaker on Raw.

That’s hitting on all cylinders.

When a ring vet like JBL is in against a hot headliner like John Cena, the outcome is usually predictable, which is why the secondary story thread of Shawn Michaels being under the employ of JBL was so critical to getting this match over with the audience.

The storyline advanced as Michaels was able to fulfill the technical terms of the contract, super-kicking Cena and putting JBL on top of Cena for the pin, but by superkicking JBL as well, some long-brewing emotional payback was brought to a boil like a bottle of Leptovox in a hot pot, and everyone knows this won’t be the end of it.

One can sense a JBL-Michaels feud match on the slate for WrestleMania, and so the real question mark here is how tonight’s match served to set the table for Cena’s WrestleMania match. Looks like they’ll have to allow a Raw superstar to win the Rumble.

In a recent newspaper interview, Chris Jericho admitted something that may land him on some Wal-Mart promotional bags before too long. Seems that the WWE superstar, when he was just starting out in Jim Coronette’s promotion, whiled his days between wrestling dates and training, by hanging out at a 24/7 Walmart store in Morristown, TN.

Other hangouts for the young Jericho were movie theaters and the local Sizzler steakhouse. Jericho had spent most of his adult life in wrestling up until 2005, when he decided to walk away for a while; he returned, refreshed and revitalized, two years later, about a year ago.

With his contract expiring soon, Christian Cage is expected to leave TNA and return to the WWE in the coming months, according to online sources. While one might expect one or two Orlando vacations to break up the monotony between his last TNA match and his first match back to WWE, the leap is one that is certainly expected.

If he makes the leap, Christian would be only the second wrestler to leave WWE for TNA, only to return; thus far, Jeff Hardy is the only other superstar to do so. Christian would draw initial interest if he were sent to SmackDown to feud with former partner and SmackDown tentpole wrestler Edge. However, after that initial push, it will be interesting to see if Christian stays near the top of WWE’s project list, or falls by the wayside.

Of course, while Cage is hoping to return to WWE, there’s no official word on the company’s interest in bringing him back at this stage of his career. Time will tell.

A former member of the Spirit Squad and one of Ric Flair’s last-ever tag-team partners, Kenny Dykestra, has been released from WWE this past week. Kenny spoke out on his blog:

“I did have fun with WWE but the creative side never used me properly or really gave me an opportunity to get over. It sucks when you know your better than the majority and your only used to make people look good. Will I stay wrestling? I’m not sure. WWE kinda puts a bad taste in your mouth after all the politics and garbage that can go on. I may try to go to TNA but we will see. I have 90 days to think about it and possibly try.”

While WWE security systems will be on the watch-out for Dykestra after comments like that, it will be interesting to see whether he is given a shot at TNA or not.

Former WWE champion Brock Lesnar upset Randy Couture over the weekend to win his first UFC title and becoming the first person to ever win WWE and UFC titles. Although Lesnar currently wants nothing to do with his pro-wrestling background, his unique achievement is nevertheless one for the record books.

Lesnar has been a dominant monster ever since his NCAA wrestling days at the University of Minnesota, and although he tried and failed to make the Minnesota Vikings as a defensive lineman, the ultimate fighting path he’s on now puts him back in more familiar territory.

Never one who needed a diet pill, Lesnar’s hulking physique and aggressive attitude have finally won him the legitimacy he’s longed for.

The writing had been on the wall for a while.

First, he was separated from tag partner Trevor Murdoch, who was released by WWE. Then, after being reinvented as Chris Jericho’s protege, Lance Cade disappeared from WWE TV for a while. Last Tuesday, the hammer finally fell: WWE released Lance Cade.

While Cade never really got over with the audience, and thus this news is probably going to be about as interesting as the latest developments in acne treatments, the real item of interest here is a transparency question.

The WWE never really stated directly why Cade was released. However, Jim Ross, on his blog, dropped hints, detailing enough of the circumstances about events leading up to Cade’s release that suggest the real reason is a violation of the WWE’s Wellness Policy.

About a year ago, in the wake of the Benoit Family Tragedy, WWE made it very public that they would soon be much more transparent when employees are released for Wellness Policy violations. Now, a year later, it seems the company may be slipping back into its old method of covering over the actual circumstances.

That’s unfortunate, as it reduces public trust in WWE and allows performers to remain in denial about possible problems they may be facing in their lives.

Let’s hope that if Cade is facing certain behind-the-scenes problems, he will face them down directly and get his life back on a positive and healthy track.