The Custom Made News Report 12.30.07

Welcome, one and all, to the final Custom Made News Report of 2007. By the time most of you are reading this, I will be beginning my celebration of the New Year, and I hope that everybody can enjoy it as much and as safely as I’m planning on doing. Of course, as we wrap up the year, there are plenty of news stories to hit, so let’s get right in to those.

Scouting Report: WWE Drops Talent, Considers Replacements

The men and women in charge of WWE’s human resources department have been rather busy over the course of the past couple of weeks, with some talent departing the company, some talent preparing to take on reduced roles, and some outside talent being considered for jobs.

The biggest name involved in this situation is Marty “The Boogeyman” Wright, who has recently been sidelined with a calf injury. According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, even once Wright is cleared to wrestle we may not be seeing much of him. Though there was no mention that the man’s job is in jeopardy, the Observer did note that there is currently a feeling amongst the members of the WWE creative team that the Boogeyman character grows old rather quickly. Because of this, Boogey will be used sparingly on ECW, a program which is currently booked primarily by veteran wrestler Dusty Rhodes. Also on the outs with the company is Lacey Von Erich, the daughter of former Intercontinental Champion Kerry Von Erich and granddaughter of legendary territorial wrestler Fritz Von Erich. Lacey was signed to a developmental deal with the promotion and training in its farm league Florida Championship Wrestling, where she had a rare third generation versus third generation match against Hart family member Nattie Neidhart. However, Lacey will now probably never reach the levels of fame attained by other members of the Von Erich clan, as PW Insider is reporting that she has been given her release from the company. Her profile has been taken down from the FCW website, which lends some credence to this report.

Potentially on their way in to WWE are former WCW Hardcore Champion Norman Smiley and recently released TNA wrestler Ron “The Truth” Killings. According to the Observer, Rey Misterio and Montel Porter have been lobbying to get Smiley in to the company based on their past connections with the man. Misterio obviously is familiar with the master of the Big Wiggle from their time in both WCW and in Mexico, while Smiley helped to train Porter when the current United States Champion was first breaking in to the wrestling business. Meanwhile, it is former TNA star and current AAA booker Konnan who broke the news about Killings negotiating with WWE. According to an interview that K-Dawg did with WrestleZone, the Truth has had conversations with the world’s largest wrestling company, although there has been some hesitation on WWE’s part based on their perception that Killings becomes a bit of a malcontent when he’s not being used in a meaningful way.

My feelings on all of the above? In my mind, both Killings and Smiley would be welcome additions to the WWE roster. Just last week I noted that the quality of the promotion’s in-ring product has dropped off significantly over the last five years, and this reduction in quality can be traced directly to the period in which WWE television became populated by developmental prospects who were relatively inexperienced. As I noted, the only way that WWE can rectify this problem is to stock its roster with talented veteran wrestlers while giving the current crop of developmental talent several years in OVW and FCW so that they are truly ready for television by the time that they are called up. Killings and Smiley are two veteran wrestlers who are fully capable of filling such a role. Though the Truth has recently been involved in some rather bad professional wrestling due to his involvement with Adam “Pac-Man” Jones, the fact of the matter remains that he is fully capable of putting on a decent professional wrestling match, as evidenced by his first NWA Title reign during TNA’s run as a PPV exclusive product. Smiley, meanwhile, would bring decades worth of experience to World Wrestling Entertainment. He is proficient in American, British, and even Mexican wrestling styles, and the forty-year old would make an excellent “coach” for the numerous inexperienced grapplers who currently populate the Raw and Smackdown landscapes.

As far as the Boogeyman is concerned, I do have to agree with WWE’s reported assessment of the character. It does get old quickly, and he has done virtually everything that he would be capable of accomplishing in the role. Even as a special attraction he doesn’t seem like the sort of character who would do much to bump up television ratings or pay per view buyrates, so I don’t know that his time for the company will be or should be too long. Von Erich is similar to the Boogeyman in that I think she was completely expendable. She had virtually no professional wrestling experience prior to signing with WWE and had worked primarily as a model. Aside from her name, she brought nothing to the table that WWE couldn’t get out of hundreds of other women. Even her name may not have been of much value, as ratings indicate that there are very few current wrestling fans who were also watching the Von Erichs in their heyday. Therefore, if there was a problem with her it’s good that the company got her out as quickly as possible.

Op Ed: Give Us The Nature Boy vs. The MVP

One of the angles that has really begun to heat up as WWE marches towards Wrestlemania is the story surrounding Ric Flair’s retirement. Fans have already seen the sixteen-time World Champion beat the odds against both Randy Orton and Umaga to keep his career going, and several more matches are forthcoming. Apparently many different versions of the storyline have been bandied about by the WWE writing team, though the vast majority of them involve the Nature Boy’s final match taking place at Wrestlemania 24. Many fans have picked up on this fact, and there has already been a good deal of speculation about who Flair will or should face on the grandest stage of them all. I feel that I have the definitive answer to the question of who Ric Flair’s final opponent should be.

Montel Porter

It should be WWE reigning United States Champion, Montel Vontavious Porter.

There are several reasons that I believe Porter would be the ideal Wrestlemania opponent for Ric Flair. The first is that, even though WWE could provide us with a fun nostalgia trip by pairing Slick Ric up against one of his classic opponents, the interest of the company would be best served by using the match to build up one of its future stars. This match will garner a good deal of fan interest simply because it will be Ric Flair’s last. (Even if it is not billed as such, I think that by the time Wrestlemania rolls around, even the daftest of marks will be able to pick up on the fact that Flair is going out at the big show.) Because the interest will be present for Flair riding off the sunset, there’s no need to involve a major star or a legendary Flair opponent in the contest. If a major star were used, he would be taken out of another spot on the card in which he could be helping to make the show stronger overall. If a former Flair opponent were used, WWE would run the risk of sending the Nature Boy out in a less than spectacular match, as the majority of Naitch’s greatest opponents are around Flair’s age and, in most cases, are in worse shape than he is. Thus, what the company needs is a young, athletic competitor who will not be more valuable elsewhere on the show. Porter fits that bill to a tee.

Having established that a younger star should be picked as Flair’s opponent, the next logical question to ask is why Porter is the best of WWE’s current crop of up and comers to use in the role. Though we are talking about younger stars as opponents for Flair, it’s also important to note that the younger star chosen should already have achieved a modicum of success within WWE. Pairing Flair with and ultimately having him lose to an individual who has accomplished nothing only serves to make the Nature Boy look like a chump on his way out. Thus, the Cody Rhodeses, Harry Smiths, and Mike Mizanins of the world probably aren’t qualified for the position. What Flair needs is an individual who has hovered around the main event picture but not yet set foot in to it on a consistent basis, somebody who could use a victory over Naitch to take that final step to superstardom. In my mind, there are three individuals in addition to Porter who belong in this category: Jeff Hardy, Ken Kennedy, and CM Punk. I would have to eliminate Punk and Hardy from the running because both men are currently babyfaces, and, in the current landscape of WWE, it makes no sense to turn them heel. Having another face wrestle in Flair’s retirement match would be a poor idea, as the crowd would no doubt turn on them during the contest, potentially damaging their face reactions in the future. Besides, a boastful heel bragging that he was the one to retire Ric Flair is just too good of a storyline to pass up. That leaves Kennedy, and, quite frankly, he’s proven himself to be far too inconsistent of a performer to be trusted with a major role. His matches recently have been awful, and this sort of opportunity does not need to be given to him until he has several months worth of quality performances. Porter, meanwhile, started off slow in WWE but after a few months of growth became consistently very good on both the microphone and in the ring. Though it is true that he has had incredibly talented opponents for the majority of his televised career, he has had so many good matches for such a lengthy period of time that I would have difficulty believing somebody who told me that he was “carried” in every instance.

However, this is not the most important reason that Porter should be used. What would make the match and the buildup to the match compelling for this observer is that, in terms of character, Montel Porter basically is what Ric Flair was at his peak twenty years ago. Flair in his prime was portrayed as a superior athlete who also lived la dolche vida, surrounding himself with limousines, Lear jets, Rolex watches, and custom tailored suits. Montel Porter has the modern day version of this gimmick. He is portrayed as the highest payed performer in WWE, he wears trendy apparel when shown in his street clothes, and he is perpetually adorned with large, gawdy jewelry. A Flair vs. Porter feud headed in to Wrestlemania 24 would in many ways be the past of brash, arrogant jocks butting heads with the future of brash, arrogant jocks. I don’t think that there is a wrestler alive who has a gimmick that compliments Flair’s better, particularly if WWE would be willing to play up the similarities by airing footage of Slick Ric in his prime with the Four Horsemen. This similarity could be the basis for an excellent series of promos between the two men, which would only make the culmination of their rivalry all the more exciting.

I know that many folks have been hoping that Porter’s excellent feud with Matt Hardy would last all the way until Wrestlemania. I have enjoyed that rivalry, and, in a way, I agree that it would be a bit of a shame to not see it blown off on the wrestling world’s largest show. At the same time, though, a feud with and a major victory over Flair would mean far more to Porter’s career and is a once in a lifetime opportunity that should not be passed up.

Vince McMahon Makes a “Major” Mistake

This isn’t a story that has massive ramifications for the wrestling business or even one that most people will remember a year down the road, but I found it amusing and thought that I would pass it along. According to Figure Four Weekly, Vince McMahon just learned weeks ago that the two Major Brothers are not actually related to one another. Vince was not aware of this fact even though the two wrestlers have been under WWE contract since February of 2006 and have been on WWE television since May of 2007. That part of the story is amusing in and of itself, but the real comedy starts with Vince’s reaction. Apparently he was not happy to learn that two individuals were posing as brothers on WWE television. It was his belief that fans these days are too smart to buy in to fake relationships, which is why it was revealed on a recent episode of Smackdown that the Majors are not really brothers.

Obviously, there are some holes in Vince’s line of thinking. The first is that there are currently five other fake families on WWE television. Jesse and Festus Dalton are not actually related, Domino and Cherry are not really brother and sister, the Highlanders aren’t cousins, Kane and the Undertaker certainly aren’t brothers, and, though it pains me to say it, Hornswoggle is not really related to any of the McMahons. So what happens now? Are all of these relationships going to be forgotten for the sake of consistency? Furthermore, why is it that fake romantic relationships are fine even though fake familial relationships are not? Does this mean that WWE also has to break up all couples who are dating in storyline but not in reality? And, while we’re at it, why is that wrestlers are still using fake names? After all, there are plenty of fans smart enough to go on to the internet, perform a Google search, and learn that “Shawn Michaels” is actually Michael Hickenbottom.

Like I said, this isn’t the most significant story in the world . . . but it still makes me chuckle.

Cade Crashes & Burns

In an unfortunate turn of events, WWE has reported that wrestler Lance Cade separated his shoulder at a live event on Friday night. The current prognosis is that Cade will be out of action for between four and six weeks, although further evaluation could change that timeline. In some ways, this news disappoints me, but in other ways this seems like one of the best possible times of year for something like this to happen to Cade if it has to take place. For quite some time now, I’ve considered Cade to be one of the most underrated wrestlers on the Raw roster, a guy who has the look, charisma, and in-ring skills to be a main event level talent for WWE if they choose to push him as such. Yet, for whatever reason, they seem content to keep him in the tag team division, where the closest thing to a main event he sees is getting squashed by the Undertaker and Dave Batista in a throw-away interpromotional match. It appeared that at one point earlier this year WWE was going to split up Cade’s tag team with Trevor Murdoch, which could have lead to a well-deserved singles push for the young graduate of the Shawn Michaels Wrestling Academy. However, that angle seems to have been dropped, with both Cade and his partner languishing in relatively obscurity, only to briefly pop out of it for the sake of putting over Bob Holly and Cody Rhodes.

As I said earlier, if Cade had to be injured, at least it happened now. It’s not as though he was in the middle of a hot angle that is being derailed by his time away, and it’s not as though he will be missing out on the shot in the singles division that he should have coming his way. My only hope is that, once he returns to the ring, 2008 will be the year that sees Lance Cade be all that he can be.

TNA Loses Rulebook En Route to Montreal

For all of the flack I give its booking, TNA Wrestling actually has done a good job of expanding its schedule of live events in 2007. They recently ran a series of shows in Canada, including one on December 27 in Montreal in which they decided that they were going to do yet another play on the infamous finish to the 1997 Survivor Series. The main event of the show was scheduled to be Kurt Angle defending his TNA Title against Christian Cage, and TNA published a story on its website prior to the event in which Angle refused to have a Canadian referee officiate the match. As such, he enlisted Earl Hebner to take the reigns of the bout. Angle also relayed this story to the Québécois fans prior to the beginning of the contest, and, despite the fact that the ’97 Survivor Series finish has been rehashed approximately seven thousand times, the crowd still erupted with a “You screwed Bret!” chant. Despite the hype for Hebner, he in no way “screwed” any wrestlers on this particular evening. As a matter of fact, he made the match’s most crucial decision in Cage’s favor, as the Instant Classic was declared the winner by disqualification when Kurt Angle cracked him with the TNA Championship belt.

Of course, long-time TNA viewers will likely remember that their own rulebook states that titles change hands based on a disqualification. As a matter of fact, they did a World Title change based on a DQ just last year when Abyss defeated Sting for the championship. Oh well, maybe that rule doesn’t count in Canada . . . or maybe it’s just the French-speaking portions of Canada in which the usual standard is null and void. Aside from TNA forgetting one of its own established rules, the card appeared to be fairly unremarkable. In addition to many members of the promotion’s regular roster, Sylvan Grenier was also in attendance. Though he has never appeared on domestic TNA television, he does act as the host of the company’s French language program.

Two New North Americans Head to All Japan

All Japan Pro Wrestling, one of Japan’s three major wrestling promotions, recently announced the lineups for its first tour of 2008. On board for the majority of the shows will be two North American wrestlers making their AJPW debuts: Adam Knight and C.J. Otis. Otis is a twenty-four year old wrestler who has really started to break out on the United States independent scene over the course of the last year. He has done a good deal of work for Ian Rotten’s IWA Mid-South, the same company that helped to launch the careers of men like CM Punk, Colt Cabana, and BJ Whitmer. In fact, during the course of his lengthy feud with fellow up and comer Drake Younger, Otis has drawn many favorable comparisons to Whitmer. Adam Knight is the more experienced of the two AJPW debutantes, as he is thirty-one years old and has ten years of wrestling experience on the Canadian indy circuit. His bulky frame and outlaw attitude have resulted in some spectators labeling him as a young Stan Hansen. If you’d like to check out some of Knight’s in-ring work before he heads over to AJPW, take a look at this January 2006 match which pitted him against fellow Canadian indy veteran Chi Chi Cruz:

Otis and Knight will primarily be in tag team action on the shows, with Otis teaming with MAZADA on January 5 and January 6. The first match will be against the team of Taiyo Kea and former WCW star Kaz Hayashi, while the second will be against Hayashi and Ryuji Hijikata. Knight, meanwhile, will team with NOSAWA on January 5 against Nobukazu Hirai and Seiya Sanada. On January 7, he will actually switch allegiances and tag up with Hirai to wrestle MAZADA and Keiichi Tsuruga. Finally, on January 9, the two gaijin will pair up with one another to face Hijikata and MAZADA. None of these matches should be particularly important in the grand scheme of things, but impressive performances by Knight and Otis could definitely benefit their futures in the professional wrestling business.

Joining Knight and Otis on the tour will be All Japan veterans Abdullah the Butcher and Joe Doering. Abdullah has a history with the company dating back to the 1970’s and was also on many of their cards in the final months of 2007. Doering, who was trained in part by Scott D’ Amore and sent to Japan under the banner of TNA, has become a bit of a breakout star in AJPW. He regularly teamed with Keiji Muto in 2007 and will continue to do so on the upcoming tour.

Those Zany Mexicans

On a couple of occasions, this section of the news report has addressed stories about lucha libre superstar Mistico potentially signing with WWE. These stories cropped up on the internet again earlier this week, although they weren’t exactly what they appeared. December 28 was a Mexican holiday known as the “Day of the Innocents,” which is essentially that country’s version of what we in the United States know as April Fools’ Day. In the spirt of the holiday, wrestling magazine SuperLuchas published a joke article which reported that Mistico inked a five year deal with WWE which would give them ownership of the luchador’s name and likeness. The story also claimed that this would result in a larger working relationship between WWE and Mistico’s home promotion CMLL, with many members of the Mexican crew appearing on ECW. Though the majority of Mexican wrestling fans immediately picked up on the fact that the report was a gag, some American fans who follow lucha but are not keyed in to other parts of Mexican culture began reporting the story as though it were true. This incident just goes to show that, even though the internet can be a powerful tool for communication, the potential for cultural misunderstandings while using it is just as great as the potential that exists in other media.

Three Major Indies Announce Return Dates

Three of the most prominent independent wrestling companies in the United States have been on hiatus in recent months, and those groups have all announced return dates within the last week or so.

The first of these promotions is Florida’s Full Impact Pro, which had to cancel a handful of December dates when the wife of the promotion’s owner unfortunately passed away. The company will continue on, though, with a show entitled “FIP: Redefined” on February 16 in Crystal River, Florida. Details about the event are few and far between at this time, but tickets can already be purchased at FullImpactPro.com in the “Upcoming Events” section. The promotion also currently has dates scheduled from March through May of the new year.

Promotion number two is one close to my heart. Yes, it’s SHIMMER: Women Athletes. Because the group flies so many of its wrestlers in to the Chicago, Illinois area for tapings, its officials decided that it would be best to take a winter hiatus. This way, cards would not be destroyed if winter storms prevented flights from coming out of major cities. Illinois should be fairly well thawed out by April 26, though, and that is when SHIMMER plans on making its return. Matches and talent lineups have yet to be announced, but we do know that the company will be taping between five and six hours worth of wrestling, which will go on to comprise Volumes 17 and 18 of its DVD series. Front row tickets are going to be released to the public at 7 PM Central Standard Time through the forums on SHIMMERwrestling.com. An announcement about the availability of general admission tickets will be made in the coming months.

Last but not least is CHIKARA, which traditionally has a two month “off season” over the holidays. The Pennsylvania-based indy has announced a whopping FOUR nights of wrestling action for its 2008 season, and the fun begins on January 27 in Bethlehem, PA. One match has already been announced for that show, and it will see two products of CHIKARA’s wrestling school going head to head. In one corner of the ring is the promotion’s Unionized Traffic Regulator Shane Storm, while in the other is the tough as nails Eddie Kingston, who many are expecting to have a breakout year in 2008 between his prominent position in CHIKARA and his recent capture of the IWA-MS Heavyweight Title. Several observers are already predicting that this match will result in Storm being severely mauled.

Really, though, the January 27 event is just a preview of things to come in the CHIKARA season. The big news out of the promotion is that they will once again be hosting their massive KING OF TRIOS TOURNAMENT~! Last year, the company rounded up sixteen three-man teams from around the world and had them do battle in a three night long single-elimination tournament. This year, the tournament should have much the same format. The only change is that, this year, all three nights of the event will take place in the same venue. It’s a doozy of a venue, too. The former ECW Arena in South Philadelphia (now known as the New Alahambra) will play host to King of Trios action on February 29, March 1, and March 2. Teams for the event will no doubt be announced slowly over the next several months, with the fist unit already having been named, as the Colony of Fire Ant, Solider Ant, and Worker Ant, three CHIKARA regulars, are your first KOT competitors for the year. When tickets to the tournament and to the January 27 show are made available, information will be on CHIKARApro.com.

Between these three promotions scheduling big shows and numerous other groups putting together cards for the new year, I am excited to be an indy wrestling fan headed in to 2008. 2007 was a hell of a year for us, and here’s to an even better time once January rolls around!

Afa Teams Up with . . . Mickey Rourke?

WWE Hall of Famer and former Tag Team Champion Afa the Wild Samoan has for many years operated a wrestling school in Pennsylvania. Though he has helped to launch the careers of Rikishi, Batista, Umaga, Billy Kidman, Samu, and Gene Snitsky, Afa is just now preparing to host his most famous student. In a press release circulated by the WXW independent promotion affiliated with Afa’s school, the Wild Samoan stated that the producers of the upcoming movie The Wrestler had hand-selected him to train the picture’s star Mickey Rourke in the sport of professional wrestling. Two of Afa’s more experienced trainees, Tommy Suede and “Supreme” Lee Great, will also participate in the process.

From what I’ve read, The Wrestler will feature Rourke in a role as a broken down professional grapler who defies doctors’ orders to take one more big match. The role was originally to be played by Nicholas Cage, who even attended a Ring of Honor show so that he could gain a better understanding of the business. Not long after that trip, Cage pulled out of the project and was replaced by Rourke, who recently did his own scouting at a card promoted by Jersey All Pro Wrestling. It will be interesting to see just how much actual wrestling Rourke will have to do for the film, as the last major wrestling-themed movie that I can recall (2000’s Ready to Rumble) featured WCW stars acting as stand-ins for actors during the majority of their in-ring scenes.

Here are a couple of small updates to stories that I have discussed in previous editions of the report:

~ PW Insider is reporting that doctors are hopeful that Bobby Heenan will make a complete recovery after having jaw surgery earlier this week. Apparently after the first procedure was completed, the Brain wound up needing a second operation that had not been anticipated.

~ The Milano Collection A.T. vs. Milanito Collection a.t. match previewed in last week’s column took place. To virtually nobody’s surprise, the full-sized man won what will be his mini’s final match in the gimmick.

Before we put this baby to bed, let’s take some time to respond to reader comments about last week’s column. I’ll let MC42 kick it off, as he has a correction to my preview of the WWE Raw Fifteenth Anniversary DVD:

Edge and Lita did have an on-screen wedding. The only interesting part of it was when Matt’s music interrupted the proceedings but they carried on. Matt would return a few weeks later.

I, of course, had incorrectly stated that there was not an Edge/Lita wedding and that WWE must have been referring to the Kane/Lita wedding in its content listing for the DVD. Apparently I also had my timeline a bit screwed up, as I referenced Gene Snitsky appearing at the Kane/Lita nuptials, even though his character wouldn’t have been introduced until after they tied the knot. For some reason, I remembered all of the highlights of the Edge/Lita ceremony as taking place during the Kane/Lita ceremony. I don’t know where my head was.

The good news, though, is that I placed an order for the Raw Anniversary DVD on Friday and will hopefully have it in my possession by mid-week. Chris Jericho’s autobiography should be arriving around the same time.

JJ also wants to talk about the Raw DVD:

I do agree on how there are a few things on the DVD that WWE thinks is bigger than it actually was. John Cena coming, the McMahon parody, and other stuff, mainly from 2003 to now. But, then again, nothing really awesome has happened on Raw for the past few years. I guess they had to put SOMETHING from recent times so that it won’t deliver the message of, “Yeah we were awesome back then, but we suck now” (although you’ll probably feel that way when you’re finished watching it).

This is true. If you want to make an entire disc of Raw moments from 2003 onward, there is definitely going to have to be some filler. However, I figured that if the company was going to need that much filler, they would have at least resorted to some of the awesome matches that we’ve seen on Raw in that period of time instead of packing on a bunch of skits that mean very little to the promotion’s history. I’d love to see Cena’s Raw debut, the DX parody, Jericho’s firing, and even the Austin Homecoming skit bumped off the set in favor of more in-ring action. Even that might be difficult, though, as I was just trying to think of a match to use as an example, and the first three I thought of are already on recently released WWE DVD sets. (For the record, they were: The Flair/Edge TLC match, which is on the ladder match set; the HHH/HBK match from December 2003, which is on the new Michaels set; and Misterio/HBK, which is on the new Rey set.)

From JJ and MC we shoot over to somebody who has more than mere initials for a name. It’s Siva, who responded to a story in last week’s article which indicated that WWE creative has soured on the idea of pushing Ken Kennedy:

I feel for Kennedy because just over a year ago, he was the best heel on smackdown and the fastest rising superstar in WWE. He was awesome in the feud with Taker and carried Batista to a decent match at the Rumble. He was having good matches with Benoit and Matt Hrady weekly. I dunno who cursed him. He lost the MITB contract, then lost the chance to be revealed in the “Who killed Vince” angle, and then lost the chance to be revealed as Vince’s bastard. Everything went wrong for him this year. What happened to the man? I’m really sad for him.

Though I agree that it’s been a really terrible year for Ken Kennedy, I have a hard time feeling for him because so many of his problems were self-inflicted. He missed his opportunity to be Vince’s son because of his suspension under the wellness policy, which was his fault and his fault alone. From there, it’s reportedly been his own inconsistency in matches that has caused him to fall out of favor with creative.

And, as far as the Batista bout from the Royal Rumble is concerned, I actually thought it was Big Dave’s work that made the match and not Kennedy’s. Batista did a great job of selling his leg that night, and I don’t know if the match would have been half as good without it.

That does it for the feedback. Most of you know what’s coming next. It’s time for (mostly self-serving) plugs:

~ As usual, I reviewed TNA Impact this week. As usual, it was no good.

~ I also wrote an edition of 411’s newest and most bizarre semi-regular column The Un-Dream Match. Half of the people who read this loved it, and half of the people who read this thought it was the worst thing that they’d ever seen. Go see which end of the spectrum you’re on.

~ In the non-wrestling department, I popped by the Movie Zone to review the second half of the third season of Melrose Place, which is now out on DVD. I had previously reviewed the first half of the season here.

~ I’m not the only person who writes good stuff for this site, though. Perhaps 411’s most impressive work of the week came out of Ari Berenstein, who produced his annual “Final Column,” which chronicles the year that was in Ring of Honor. It’s insanely detailed, so much so that it needed to be split up in to three parts. You can read them here, here, and here.

And that does it. Again, be sure to stay safe on New Year’s Eve, and I’ll see you all in 2008.