Yet the changes go more that name-deep. Under the new business model, while WWE is committed to its core business inside the squared circle, the company will now begin a new focus of re-committing themselves to expanding their entertainment offerings outside the ring, including scripted, unscripted and animated content.

In fact, CEO Vince McMahon hinted that WWE Tough Enough, a revival of the company’s reality-show franchise that lets aspiring wrestlers and divas take their shot at earning a WWE contract, is the first offering in this new emphasis, with many more on the way.

It’s all a build-up for the launch of a WWE TV network as a cable-satellite offering, scheduled for launch sometime in 2012. NBC Universal, which owns USA Network and SyFy, have long been rumored partners with WWE in the launch of this channel.

Finally, Paul Levesque, known in-ring as Triple H, was announced as the head of a new Talent Development department. Levesque is married to Stephanie McMahon, Vince’s daughter. The first signing WWE made under Levesque’s leadership was Sin Cara, the talented Mexican wrestler who debuted on Raw last week. The new division will apparently put a greater emphasis on talent acquisition from around the globe, rather than primarily from North America.

About the only new business arm WWE won’t be expanding into – yet – is offering the cheapest car insurance.

While the WWE are wholesale distributors of wrestling talent worldwide, they often have too few spots available to really nurture young performers into the business. While the Nexus angle has helped, for every Randy Orton that has worked out well for WWE, there are several Shelton Benjamins who fizzle.

It’s the nature of the biz, but to beat it, they need to develop more developmental promotions and widen the talent base.

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!

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.