The OTTB Wrestling News thread

willhustle wrote: »

jamiefoxxhairline wrote: »

As of this writing, the scheduled main event for WWE SummerSlam in August will be WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins vs. Triple H. The news was first reported by Bryan Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Radio.

WWE has already planted the seeds for the match, with a rift forming between Rollins and The Authority and Rollins using Triple H's pedigree finisher. It remains to be seen if Rollins will be turning babyface for his feud with Triple H, but Brock Lesnar and Triple H both wrestling at SummerSlam will help solidify the show as one of WWE's top special events of the year.

Ok I'm not understanding why WWE is using Rollins/HHH as main event for SummerSlam no less w/the World Title on the line. It would make more sense to do Rollins vs Lesnar with the title on the line then, go w/the HHH vs Rollins at NOC or even better wait until HIAC to start the feud.

Seems like backwards ass booking from the "E" again. They could do another Ambrose/Rollins match at Battleground & make it a "non-sanction" match.

jamiefoxxhairline wrote: »

Juventud Guerrera was (rightly) fired after the Australian tour because he, in a drug-influenced moment of madness, took off his clothes and started screaming that he was going to ? himself in the middle of a hotel near the restaurant where many of the wrestlers were eating. He was eventually arrested and was lucky not to face criminal charges. What's funny is that WCW fired him but didn't tell him. Juvi didn't find out until some of his friends phoned him wishing him all the best after seeing the news on the internet.

• An edition of WCW Thunder in late 2000 featured a promo from Kevin Nash in which he basically talked about Scott Hall. Hall was arrested the week before and references to him were banned. The segment, rather than being taken out, aired with every mention of him being bleeped out. The result was a promo that made no sense to anyone.

• Wrestlemania X-7 sold 48,000 tickets on its first day of sales. Starrcade (WCW's version of WM for those unaware) the same year sold just 900 on its first day. This next point needs confirmation but I think the total attendence for Starrcade that year was around the 3500. Maybe slightly less.

• Eric Bischoff's plans for WCW's re-birth included losing out on ? -knows how much money by skipping Nitro for a few weeks.

• The dying days of WCW saw a lot of wrestlers not believing that it was really dying. They believed Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo were working together to fool the boys again.

• One of Bischoff's methods of getting the guys behind him after he raised the money to purchase WCW was to claim they would push the cruiserweights. This was fine except most had seen Russo's idea of pushing cruiserweights (Well Arquette is a Cruiserweight I guess) so nobody believed him.

• The last Nitro was not advertised as the last Nitro on WCW television. It was advertised as the "season finale". Nobody knows why.

• Time Warner rejected an offer of $500,000,000 to buy WCW a year before they sold for less than $3,000,000 to Vince McMahon.

• Vince McMahon tried to get WCW its own TV show...on the same network (TNN I believe at the time) that Raw was on. This failed because TNN didn't want to see their ratings for Raw potentially cut due to WCW competing for the wrestling audience. Vince immediately cancelled plans to run WCW as a seperate company.

• WCW was booked to look weak from the start. Rather than go after top talent with top talent, WCW's invasion began with the likes of Lance Storm and Hugh Morrus attacking the likes of Bradshaw and Goldust. In the initial weeks, the only time a top star was attacked it was Kurt Angle being attacked...by....not a WCW superstar to create a dream match scenario...but by Shane McMahon.

• The first WCW sanctioned match on Raw was described by Arn Anderson as being "bigger than the moon landing". It was Booker T vs Buff Bagwell. The match itself was awful and both blew many spots. A lot of the crowd actually left. The night ended with the focus being not on either man, but on Vince McMahon backstage in his boxers. Vince immediately cancelled the plan for a section of Raw to be dedicated to WCW every week.

• During the above-mentioned Booker/Bagwell disaster, Scott Hudson advertised the match as "history in the making" as Booker and Bagwell would compete for the "WWF Title".

• Vince McMahon claimed he could not afford to buy out the contracts of WCW's top talent. This despite the fact that WWE made an $84million profit the previous year. Goldberg's contract would have cost 6 million. WWE most likely would have made that money back almost instantly if they had booked a Goldberg/Austin main event for Invasion.

• DDP wanted to be part of the angle so badly that he approached McMahon and agreed to allow McMahon to buy his contract out for 50% of its total worth. He was thanked by being put into a ridiculous storyline where he stalked the Undertaker's wife. He was made to look incredibly weak in their matches.

• WWE's "Invasion" PPV grossed $10million from PPV buys. Add to that ticket sales and merchandise revenue and the company generated enough money to have bought out the contracts of Goldberg, Scott Steiner and Ric Flair with money left over.

• Within 12 weeks of the Invasion PPV, Raw's viewing audience dropped by 30%. Most likely because it became apparent after the "Alliance" focused on Austin, Angle, Shane and Stephanie that they were not going to see the likes of Flair, Sting, Goldberg, Hogan and Steiner.

• Years previous we came close to seeing WWF champion Hulk Hogan vs WCW Champion Ric Flair. It never happened. The first WWF Champion vs WCW Champion match took place in September 2001....between Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. The most historically significant wrestling match umaginable in North America was fought by two WWE guys.

• Ric Flair appeard on the first Raw AFTER the invasion had ended.

• Goldberg eventually signed for WWE for an over-inflated salary that upset a lot of the guys backstage. This was the reason given publically by Vince for not signing Goldberg in the first place...because he didn't want to upset loyal WWE workers by paying him more. The sad thing is, he upset them anyway, just later on at a time where Goldberg was not going to draw anywhere near as much money.

OK I'm done