Thursday Sports Entertainment News Report 08.23.12

Greetings, folks, and welcome to another edition of Thursday Sports Entertainment! So, after last week’s SHOCKING piece on WWE and racism, let’s see what kind of STIRRING DEBATE you folks had in the comment section. I’m sure there was PASSIONATE conversation on such a controversial issue. I know you would never let me down, so let the intellectual exchange of ideas begin!

Word is that WWE has instituted an “unspoken”rule for matches that take place on the new WWE Saturday Morning Slam show. The new show, which is aimed at children, will not feature moves aimed at the neck, which would include anything from a simple headlock to the RKO.

The show debuts on the CW Network on August 25th.

I’m okay with this. It’s a Saturday Morning Show aimed at kids – why not tone it down? If the kids do wind up imitating the violence they see on TV, the kinds of injuries would more likely be of the scrapes & bruises variety, instead of the paralysis & death variety. If this were RAW, I’d have a problem, but it’s Saturday Morning Slam, so who cares?

And while they’re at it, the WWE can make the show educational! After all, the best kids’ shows combine education and entertainment. Saturday Morning Slam can be the first to combine Education and Sports Entertainment! Here’s how:

Count along with Sheamus: When Sheamus clubs his opponent in the chest ten times, you can count along with him!

Reptile Corner: Learn about our cold-blooded, slithering friends, featuring Santino’s cobra, Randy Orton’s viper, Stone Cold’s rattlesnake, and Hulk Hogan’s pythons!

Letters and Numbers: This show is brought to you by the letter F and the number 5. Or the letters R, K, & O. (But not the moves!)

Tea Party with Little Jimmy: Every kid needs an active imagination, so why not have the WWE Superstar with the most active imagination – R-Truth – host a tea party with Little Jimmy and all his stuffed animals?

The Word of the Day with Antonio: Multi-lingual kids programs are all the rage, so why not have your linguist-expert U.S. Champion host a segment where he teaches kids the “word of the day?” He can then tell them how to say that word in five languages. It’s not like he’d ever do this ridiculous gimmick as part of the primetime shows, right?

Stranger Danger with the King: Jerry Lawler can finally use all those cradle-robbing techniques for good as he teaches little girls how to avoid getting picked up by dirty old men.

Did I miss any?

Dolph Ziggler’s ex-girlfriend Amy Schumer appeared on the Howard Stern show on Sirius XM [on Wednesday] and while she was talking about her current and past boyfriends admitted that she used to date Dolph Ziggler. Stern asked her about the relationship and she had several positive things to say about him, but also said she broke up with him because their sex was “too athletic” and that he was tossing her around like they were wrestling.

Schumer noted that she learned a lot about the business and put Ziggler over well; she noted that she broke up with him over Skype and that she found out that he was “a real sweetheart” and that she hurt him. Schumer noted that she still likes Dolph z lot but that it wasn’t meant to be.

For those that are unfamiliar with Ms. Schumer, she’s a stand up comedian that frequently appears on the Comedy Central Roasts. Here she reveals some interesting details about Dolph Ziggler – while wrestling is probably “the 5th best thing he’s good at,” we now have confirmation of what ISN’T on the list at 1 thru 4.

Dolph, you’re probably embarrassed. But don’t worry, there’s lots of men out there who don’t know how to satisfy a woman. Perhaps you can ask Val Venis for some tips. I hear that CM Punk and Santino are quite the ladykillers, too.

To help Dolph Ziggler through this tough time, I’ve written some new lyrics to his theme song. I hope you enjoy it, Dolph!

The Ballad of Dolph Ziggler
(sung to the tune of his theme song)

I cannot please a girl
I cannot please a girl
Come on
Bring it on

When it comes to lovin’ I don’t know what to do
Better heed the warning I’m here to give you
When I’m in the bedroom, I don’t have a clue
I cannot please a girl
I cannot please a girl

I’ll try my best to make you cream
But rough you up like Alistair Overeem
Go check the clock again
I lasted a minute and ten
You broke my heart when you Skyped me
Bring it on

When it comes to lovin’ I don’t know what to do
Better heed the warning I’m here to give you
When I’m in the bedroom, I don’t have a clue
I cannot please a girl
I cannot please a girl

Oh Dolph. You’ll never live this down, will you?

Tyler Reks posted the following on Twitter, confirming his WWE departure…

I realized recently that being a Superstar means sacrificing certain things, including time with my family. As a new father, my heart broke every time I had to leave to go on the road. I didn’t ever want to miss another moment with my daughter, so I made the decision to be a full time dad and hang up my boots.

Ah, Tyler Reks, you’ve left us too soon. I’ll always remember that time you…uh…you know. Or when you did…that thing…that time?

But seriously, best of luck to Mr. Reks. Leaving a career you love to be with your family is probably the right choice. Hopefully, one day his little girl will realize the enormous sacrifice her daddy made to be with her, especially when he seemed to be on the cusp of becoming a regular on our TV screens. So all kidding aside, good luck Tyler Reks!

Those that are close to Triple H have stated that as he gains more power within WWE, that they expect more effort put into tag team wrestling, and less put into the Divas wrestling.

Furthermore, it is said that the days of signing female talents from modeling agencies and magazines are said to be gone. This is something that took place under the reign of John Laurinaitis in charge of talent relations. Triple H wants to more as far away from that way of doing business as possible.

Man, who would have thunk that one of the most reviled schemers in wrestling would be chock full of common sense? Say what you will about HHH, but thus far, he seems to have a good mind for what works in Sports Entertainment.

Of course a strong tag team division is valuable. Some of the WWE’s most legendary main eventers got their start on the tag team scene, with Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels being the top standouts. I also think that WWE is currently short on stables. If done properly, stables can make main eventers like Batista & Randy Orton, and give midcarders something meaningful to do (Right to Censor, anyone)?

I also like the approach of going after Divas interested in wrestling, as opposed to those interested in fame. WWE has had this problem where they’ll hire models, invest a ton in training them/marketing them, only to have them waltz away in search of greener pastures. It’s basically a self-fulfilling prophecy. These ladies didn’t become models with the goal of becoming wrestlers. They became models with the goal of becoming celebrities. Often, they’ll use WWE as a stepping stone to achieve that larger goal. By focusing on the ladies that love wrestling, being in WWE is the goal. That’ll lead to better retention and hopefully, better matches.

But I wouldn’t downplay the Divas altogether. While young girls may not be the core of the WWE fanbase, they’re out there, as Awesome Ladybug Girl can attest. They’re going to need strong, confident ladies to cheer, so WWE should have a few of those around to hold onto that small, but potentially valuable, market.

(POSSIBLE SPOILERS) The original plan was to hold the Hall of Fame ceremony in New Jersey where the rest of WrestleMania weekend activities will be. Due to several issues, WWE moved the event to Madison Square Garden.

There have also been talks about inducting the Ultimate Warrior. Some feel that while Warrior may agree to the induction, that there is a certain level of risk in working with him. Warrior has a history of being difficult to work with, and some within management are nervous of Warrior agreeing to do the induction and then later backing out.

Warrior won’t do it. He’s been asked before and has said no. Warrior tweeted on Jan 21, 2012:

RT @darren0411 “WWE HOF? I doubt it…many more much worthy of the honor.” Yeah, and none w/balls to turn VKM invite down like I already did.

And then again on Jan 22nd:

RT @darren0411 “UW never respected by.peers to be in the HOF you need respect by peers” One peer’s respect decides ALL – VKM. And I said no.

Achievements worth honoring should not also be shit upon by the very people who desire bestowing honor. That is shit this Honoree won’t eat.

The man has a point. World Wrestling Entertainment (aka Vince McMahon) created & sold a DVD called The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior, which was essentially a 90 minute hit piece aimed at discrediting the man that was once their world champion. Why would Warrior ever accept an honor from a company that recently put considerable time and resources into smearing him? I don’t know Warrior personally, but I have the suspicion that the only way we’ll ever see him in the Hall of Fame is if Vince McMahon makes a sincere apology to Warrior, both privately and publicly, and if there’s a lot of cash involved.

Do you folks think the Warrior should ever be in the Hall of Fame? The only glaring main event omissions that spring to mind are Savage, Warrior, and (kind of) The Rock.

WWE’s recent DVD release of No Holds Barred made around $300,000, one of the company’s most profitable releases in recent years.

That’s because Zeus > The Rock.

Not really.

But of course it’s profitable. They simply took the movie out of mothballs, remastered it, and put it on a bunch of discs. That’s certainly cheaper than hiring a camera crew to conduct interviews, pay people to splice together archive footage, etc. Re-releasing an already-made film to its target audience is easy, nostalgia-based money. I’ve seen No Holds Barred, and believe me, people were not buying this thing for the brilliance of the story.

But it’s funny, Hulk Hogan works for a different company and he’s STILL drawing more money than everyone else on the roster! Hulkamania runnin’ wild, brother!

Macleans has an article about WWE called “WWE Keeps On Rolling…In Cash” that looks at WWE expanding to international markets, including China. WWE’s Senior VP of International Operations Ed Wells said the company’s growth has been in “double digits” since 2007. He also said that there is talk of bringing a Chinese character to the roster. He said :”We’d love to have a Chinese star. And we’re certainly open to working with Chinese talent.”

“Another suggestion: get a Chinese guy on there, stat. With 1.3 billion customers in a country with a lot of money, it can’t hurt to give them someone to root for.”

Know where that’s from? This very column, two weeks ago! I’m not saying that anyone in WWE reads me (they don’t), but how about that, eh? And this is not the first time one of my ideas was picked up by the company a few weeks later. Conclusion? I’m an idiot.

Here are tweets from several members of WWE talent roster about Brock beating Triple H at SummerSlam Sunday night:

Santino Marella: I’m concern for HHH, back stage he looked . . . its hard to put in words but there seemed to be no wind in his sails, if that make sense

There were more, but you get the point. Everybody broke character to show their support for HHH – the same guy nearly the entire roster refused to work for because he made RAW “unsafe” a year ago.

While I understand that WWE wants to capitalize on the social media craze, bringing kayfabe storylines over to twitter is kind of insulting. We know that these guys don’t care THAT much about The Game. Plus, we’re used to them tweeting a certain way and about certain topics. Having them assume kayfabe on Twitter is confusing, to say the least, especially when it doesn’t ring true.

During RAW the entire show was built around HHH and how he’s feeling. Who gives a shit? He’s a part-timer who lost a match. He’s lost worse. Big freaking deal. Why should we care again? Word is that HHH’s situation is a tease for retirement, that his spirit is broken and he feels like he let everybody down. I suppose this will culminate with a big comeback for the Game, where he beats Brock Lesnar clean.

Well, I think that the Staples Center had it right when everyone chanted “you tapped out!” at Triple H. In fact, in a perfect world, every crowd would chant this at the Game from now on. Let him know we see through this phoney baloney (TM @FGoodish) bullshit and that he needs to do something more productive in the ring than making himself seem like a hero. Who’s with me?

And why did Brock leave WWE forever on Monday? I don’t get it. He says he accomplished everything he wanted to accomplish. Okay, so his goals were to lose to John Cena and then beat Triple H? Wouldn’t Brock want to beat Cena to show his loss was a fluke? And how is Lesnar the conqueror of the WWE Universe when he LOST his first match a few months ago? Did Brock leave because HHH found out he has the same weakness as King Hippo? Nothing about this makes any sense. Is a little logic too much to ask for these days?

DID YOU KNOW?

While aimlessly clicking around the web one day, I stumbled across a message board that had a posting called “Fun Wrestling Facts.” The author was someone named The_Crippler, who posted 30 interesting wrestling “facts” from memory. I put the word “facts” in quotes because some are more of the rumor/urban legend variety, but still interesting nonetheless. I thought I’d share some with you – how many of these did you know before? (Note: I cleaned up the spelling & grammar a bit for ease of reading)

– In the Main Event of WrestleMania 13, (Sid vs The Undertaker), Sid actually shit in his pants sometime during the match and the Undertaker noticed and had to go along with the match.

– Kamala used to wrestle with a pistol in his knee pad in case someone tried to shoot on him

– The Rock is said to not only dislike Shawn Michaels but flat out refuses to work with him or speak to him…..The reason for this is:

When The Rock’s Grandmother took over Peter Miavia’s Wrestling Fed (she was the first woman to run a fed back then), The Rockers were on the card and demanded things and were very disrespectful to The Rocks Grandmother. Both Shawn and Marty (mostly Shawn) Bullied her….

Also there was the time when the Rock was gonna get a big push and Shawn Michaels did everything politically to hold him down for some reason… and Bret Hart Pushed for the Rock to get a bigger role and fought for him to get pushed. Which some say is why Shawn wanted to hold him down out of spite….. so those are the reasons The Rock refused to work with Shawn Michaels.

– When Mark Henry first came in to The WWF, X-Pac pulled a prank on him by putting a scoop of shit in Henry’s Hoagie sandwich. Pac and a few wrestlers hid and watched Henry eat the sandwich to see if he noticed – he didn’t and it became a big gag….. X-pac even made a reference to it in the DX Impersonating The Nation Segment on Raw when he said “It smells like Shit but I’ll eat it any ways HEY HEY HEY”.

– On a bus Ride, Bad News Brown heard Andre the Giant say some Racist remarks. Bad News was outraged and got off the Bus full of wrestlers and Challenged Andre The Giant outside, which Andre ignored. It was known as the only time Andre the Giant backed down from a fight.

– Harley Race was doing some kinda publicity with Jackie Gleason in the 70’s (or late 60’s), and it called for Jackie Gleason to Punch Harley Race, Race told Gleason to hit him as hard as he could, Which he did….. Later Gleason said in an interview that he gave Harley Race his best shot and he [Race] didn’t even blink.

– Steve Austin was once so poor when he was breaking out in professional wrestling that he had to eat raw potatoes for one week straight cause all he had was a 5 pound sack of potatoes and didn’t have the money to buy anything else….. and didn’t have electricity to prepare them in any way.

– Back when all 3 were in FCW, Yoshi Tatsu, Ted Dibiase and Sheamus were all rooming together…. Sheamus was known to be a big bully back in his FCW days, and he would constantly bully Dibiase and Tatsu. One time Tatsu got tired of it and Sheamus went to attack him and Yoshi Tatsu defended himself and humbled Sheamus so badly that it brought Sheamus to tears and he stopped bullying them from that point on…. Note: Yoshi Tatsu is a trained fighter and very peaceful, which is why he allowed Sheamus to bully him.

Personally, I only knew about three of the aforementioned facts/rumors. How did you fare? Do you have any you’d like to add? You can check out the rest of The_Crippler’s anecdotes here.

YOU’RE IN FOR A REAL TWEET

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SIGNING OFF

Thank you for making Thursday Sports Entertainment your go-to destination for wrestling news, opinions, etc. Yadda yadda see ya next week.

Hasta Jueves,

This is Sean.