– As noted earlier, CM Punk tweeted that he was undergoing x-rays today. Punk has reportedly been working with an injured knee and has been seen limping around in recent weeks.
– With Vince McMahon still overseas visiting United States troops serving in the Middle East, Triple H was in charge at Mondays RAW. There was a much more laid-back environment at RAW, with fewer rewrites. The general feeling backstage was that things will be less tense behind the scenes when Vince McMahon eventually steps down and hands the reigns over to Triple H and Stephanie.
– WWE was very satisfied with The Shield’s first promo on Monday’s RAW, with Dean Ambrose standing out as the group’s best talker, Roman Reigns came off well but Seth Rollins still needing to improve his mic work.
– WWE was also happy with Ryback’s interview in the opening segment of RAW.
– Former WCW World champion Lex Luger is writing an autobiography titled “Wrestling with the Devil: The True Story of a World Champion Professional Wrestler – His Reign, Ruin, and Redemption.” The book is tentatively scheduled for an April 2013 release.
– There had been some concern that The Rock’s early-2013 movie schedule would limit his WWE television appearances during WrestleMania season, but he’s now locked in for at least 3 shows in the weeks following the Royal Rumble. As previously reported, The Rock is being advertised for WWE RAW on January 21st (the night after the Royal Rumble) and February 18th. The Rock will also be appearing at the January 28th RAW taping from Las Vegas, Nevada.
With The Rock’s movie “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” hitting theaters on March 29, 2013, there is talk of WWE working with Paramount Pictures to cross promote the film with WrestleMania.
– Based on statistics compiled by Hashtagbattle.com, Daniel Bryan actually won the RAW Active poll to determine who would wrestle CM Punk in the main event of the show. With less than 1,000 votes cast, #WWEBryan had 585 tweets, while #WWEKane had 408 tweets. Bryan tweeted on Tuesday:
Is this fair to Daniel Bryan? We think … NO! NO! NO!
– The first downloadable characters for the WWE ’13 videogame will be released on 12/4. The DLC pack includes Tensai, Ryback, AJ Lee, Antonio Cesaro, The Usos, Natalya and Damien Sandow.
– The WWE Studios DVD/Blu-Ray film, “Leprechaun: Origins” starring Hornswoggle is currently scheduled for a March 2013 release.
– WWE Champion CM Punk announced on Twitter Tuesday that he will be on hand for the December 11, 2012 SmackDown taping taking place in Bridgeport, Connecticut, at Webster Bank Arena at Harbor Yard. This is the final show before TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs.
Punk wrote, “I will however be at the Smackdown in Bridgeport CT on the 11th.I invite all jealous northeastern nobodies with irrational hatred towards me.”
– WWE has released an updated version of John Cena’s entrance video to coordinate with his recent change in attire.
– WWE will hold a SmackDown live event in Louisville, Kentucky, at KFC Yum! Center on Friday, February 10th, 2013 at 5:00 p.m. Tickets go on sale Saturday, December 15, 2012 at 10:00 a.m.
– WWE Champion CM Punk tweeted on Tuesday afternoon that he might be injured. Knowing his tweet would get websites like this one buzzing, Punk referenced Dave Meltzer in the tweet:
We can confirm that Punk is getting an x-ray on his knee. The WWE Champion has been working with a bad knee for several weeks now and has been seen limping backstage.
– WWE will be taping this week’s Main Event, Saturday Morning Slam and SmackDown shows tonight from Bossier City, Louisiana.
WWE Main Event will feature John Cena vs. Damien Sandow.
No matches have been announced for SmackDown, but we’ll see the next chapter in the ongoing Big Show vs. Sheamus feud over the World Heavyweight championship.
Superstars advertised for tonight’s tapings include John Cena, Randy Orton, Big Show, Sheamus, Dolph Ziggler, Team Hell No and SmackDown GM Booker T.
The advertised dark match main event is Big Show vs. Sheamus.
– MSNBC.MSN.com has an article up looking at NFL star Robert Griffin III’s cameo appearance from Monday’s RAW.
– During Antonio Cesaro’s match with Sheamus on Monday’s RAW, the United States champion hit the Irish superstar with an impressive overhead slam. The move is called the Alpamare Waterslide and it’s a move Cesaro has been using for years dating back to his days on the independent circuit. Here’s a clip of the move:
http://youtu.be/WBv_Vu8Gsoo
A source backstage at RAW told us that WWE officials were very impressed with Cesaro’s showing, saying that Cesaro showed that he can hold is own against WWE’s top talent and he will be a main event player sooner than later.
– With John Cena expected to wrestle Dolph Ziggler at next month’s Tables, Ladders and Chairs pay-per-view, PWInsider.com reports that there has been talk of putting either Dolph Ziggler’s Money in the Bank briefcase or Vickie Guerrero’s job on the line as a stipulation.
– Monday’s WWE RAW scored a Trendrr.tv social media score of 204,077, which was down 7% from last week. This was the lowest social media score for a live RAW since the 3-hour era began during the summer. RAW ranked #3 on cable for the night behind the Knicks vs. Nets NBA game and the MTV movie “Catfish.”
– After more public displays of affection with AJ Lee on Monday’s WWE RAW, John Cena says kissing her again was a mistake and we probably won’t see any more makeout sessions from him on WWE television:
Many mixed opinions of a kiss last night. My apologies, my emotions got the best of me and 1moment overshadowed a gr8 match. Never again.
– Last Thursday’s Thanksgiving edition of Impact Wrestling averaged 1,353,000 over the course of two hours. This is down from 1,187,000 the week before, which drew a 1.07 cable rating. The final rating will be released later this week.
– Hulk Hogan is looking forward to Thursday’s live Impact Wrestling broadcast. He tweeted on Monday night:
Great night with the first lazy home night in a long time, really looking foward to IMPACT Thursday with the best talent in the business. HH
Another member of Aces & 8s has been revealed: Garett Bischoff.
A fan with an eye for details spotted pictures of both Bischoff and a member of the nefarious group sporting the same wrist tattoo.
Bischoff may not necessarily be revealed as a member of faction. TNA has been rotating some workers who won’t be part of the group into the beatdowns to make it harder to guess who is in it. Here’s the picture:
With CM Punk now over one year into his historic WWE title reign, f4wonline.com reports that one of the main reasons Punk has held on to the championship for so long has to do with The Rock.
There have been several instances over the past year when WWE has strongly considered having Punk drop the title. However, Vince McMahon has repeatedly stuck with Punk as champion because The Rock agreed to wrestle CM Punk for the WWE Championship during the summer.
The Rock announced at RAW 1,000 that he wants to win the WWE Championship one more time before he retires. Since then, The Rock and CM Punk have been exchanging trash talk on Twitter and the feeling is that The Rock would not be happy if Punk dropped the belt and his WWE title match was against someone else.
– Last week’s 11/23 edition of WWE Smackdown on Syfy drew 2,572,000 viewers, down from the previous last week. The show aired during Thanksgiving weekend in the United States, which might have had an impact on viewership.
– Here’s a list of which RAW segments were cut from the Hulu Plus verison of the show, courtesy of Kaleb Perkins:
* Backstage segment with Rosa Mendes/Alberto Del Rio/Hornswoggle/The Great Khali.
* Alberto Del Rio vs. The Great Khali.
* Backstage segment with Vickie Guerrero/Paul Heyman/CM Punk.
* Alicia Fox vs. Tamina Snuka.
* Tensai vs. Kofi Kingston.
* Backstage segment with Alberto Del Rio/Ricardo Rodriguez/Rosa Mendes.
* Video package with some of the WWE wrestlers on the USS John C. Stennis.
* Damien Sandow vs. Zach Ryder.
* Backstage interview with Josh Mathews/CM Punk/Paul Heyman.
– WWE.com has a poll up asking fans, “Do you think The Shield is out to right wrongs and stop injustice in WWE?” With almost 4,000 votes cast, the current results are:
38% Yes. I believe they stand for honor.
62% No. They have malevolent intentions.
COMMENT BELOW and tell us what YOU think about The Shield’s intentions. Are they really here for justice – or are they just henchmen for CM Punk and Paul Heyman?
– The next Wizard World Comic-Con event takes place this weekend in New Orleans, with WWE Champion CM Punk and former WWE divas Lita, Maryse and The Bella Twins among the wrestling stars appearing.
– WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross was courtside at Monday night’s NBA game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Charlotte Bobcats.
JR watched RAW when he got home from the game and tweeted this about Wade Barrett’s commentary during Kofi Kingston’s match against Tensai:
England's @WadeBarrett stood out on commentary tonight on #RAW. Stellar..he gets it. Push comfort zone boys aside & go to the top. #WWE
Julie Hart and Earl Hebner both joined Inside The Ropes to talk about “The Montreal Screwjob” and their thoughts after 15 years.
The highlights from Earl Hebner’s chat are:
His thoughts when he heard Bret didn’t want to drop the belt to Shawn: “Bret had plenty of time to drop the belt. He could’ve dropped it in the United States. I didn’t know much about the deal with those two but he could’ve dropped the belt to anyone, hell he could’ve dropped it to me. But he had an ego and he didn’t wanna do it. Time was running out. If you’re leavin you drop the strap, he didn’t wanna do it. If you remember Alundra Blayze went down there and dropped the Womens belt in the trash. Now if you have a $3 million deal to go to another company, why would you even hesitate to drop the belt? I mean why? Your moneys already guaranteed when you get there. Just drop it and go. A lot of people put him over, made him who he is. So he’s gonna refuse to drop it and make those guys look like idiots? This business is a work.”
On him telling Bret he swore on his kids lives he wouldn’t let anything happen in Montreal: “I was sitting on a plane with Bret. His very words “Will you count me out?” I said “If you keep your shoulder up, I will not count you out” Which I didn’t count him out. Did he get pinned 1.2.3? You stop and think about my position. I’m thinking about the guys in the back. Austin, Undertaker, Rocky all the guys that put him over as being the Worlds Champion, we made him what he was, so he’s leaving us and he’s screwing us because he doesn’t want to drop the belt. So on my way to the ring, I’m thinking it’s not fair. Someone asked me, I won’t say who, about two minutes before I walked to the ring, I said I can’t tell you what I’m gonna do, but when I walked to the ring, I thought about all the boys back in the dressing room, so it wasn’t right for him to screw 25 guys because of his stubbornness, so thats why I did what I did. When McMahon and Sgt Slaughter came to the ring, whether I had done it or not, that bell was gonna ring. The only thing that made it more official is that I motioned for the bell.”
If he thinks Montreal was a work: “It could have been a work. McMahon, Bret, WCW could’ve all been in on it for all I know. I’m gonna go 50/50 on it. I think it was but I can’t say for sure, but look where Bret is now.”
In the rest of the chat, Earl talks about the relationship between Shawn and Bret, how Undertaker felt about the situation the next day, his conversations with Bret since Montreal, Bret’s 2010 return and whether he was contacted to appear by the WWE at WrestleMania 26 and more. Check it out below.
The highlights from Julie Hart’s Chat:
When Bret got suspicious that he might get screwed: “It wasn’t really till we got to Montreal. I remember someone came to Bret and told him that they’d saw Shawn getting into an elevator with Vince in his hotel and that kinda got Bret a little worried. That was earlier in the day. The kids and I had gone shopping and when we got back, Bret said he had to go talk to our lawyer who was in town with us as well. The source, I can’t tell you who it is, but the source had said what happened, so bret went over to our lawyer to talk about it and that’s when Bret really started getting nervous.”
WWE making Vince into the Mr McMahon character: “I thought that was horrible but thats what Vince does right? Thats how he markets things. I felt sorry for Bret because he was such a good person to Vince and I felt like “jeez why did you have to go and do that?” But you look at everything now and how things have played out. It was all about the business, and it’s still all about the business. Those things, I guess, shouldn’t have been taken so personal.”
Her reaction to people who think Montreal was a work: “Firstly, no it wasn’t work. It was as raw as…..you’d have to be there to experience the emotions that Bret went through. I can honestly say on my childrens head, that none of that stuff was set up. It was as real as you would ever get. That camera was in the place in the right time. It was never set up, it’s sad that people would think that. I know, I was there, my kids were there, I saw what it did to Bret emotionally, for our marriage after that, we were never the same…..”
To hear Julie’s full chat where she talks about how Bret was in 1997, who she saw backstage at Montreal, why she talked to Hunter after the match, why Bret wore a wire and much more, listen below.
– On Monday’s RAW, Big Show destroyed a steel chair on the RAW stage to intimidate his challenger at next month’s TLC PPV, Sheamus. In response to Big Show’s spectacle, Sheamus tweeted:
– The Miz will be a guest host on the television show “Extra” this Thursday. He’ll take part in a segment with former WrestleMania competitor Maria Menounos at The Grove in Los Angeles.
– Zack Ryder tweeted the following about his match on RAW against Damien Sandow:
I was on #RAW…I lost…but I had an entrance…I’ll take it……
– It was announced on Monday’s RAW that the main event of WWE’s upcoming TLC PPV will be a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match for the WWE Championship between CM Punk and Ryback. Ryback tweeted:
Local advertisements in the New York area had been promoting Punk vs. Ryback as a Tables Match, so the decision to make it a TLC match was made recently.
– Here is the latest episode of WWE’s Backstage Fallout series, feturing behind-the-scenes interviews from Monday’s RAW. This installment includes Dolph Ziggler talking about his loss to John Cena, AJ’s reactions to Tamina’s threat and kissing John Cena again, and The Prime Time Players.
– WWE announcer JBL posted a Facebook.com on Monday night about his upcoming mountain climb of Mt. Aconcagua, also known as “Mount Death.” He wrote:
“Less than 7 weeks out from Mt Aconcagua-nicknamed “Mt Death” some estimates are as high as 60% success rate but seems like closer to 30% is more accurate. Numbers are all over the place as records are not kept that well and some are embellished for marketing.”
“This is the highest mountain outside of Asia, by far my toughest test. Since it is only 80 miles from the Pacific Ocean wind chills can be deadly. I might need a little luck, however, if weather is OK I believe I have a great chance of making it.”
– Mick Foley tweeted the following during Monday’s RAW about Dean Ambrose:
Earlier this year, Mick Foley and Dean Ambrose were feuding on social media, with Ambrose calling out Foley for “destroying a generation” of wrestlers by championing the hardcore style of chairs and barbed wire. Ambrose confronted Mick Foley at a hotel in Florida during WrestleMania 28 weekend and there was talk of Ambrose debuting on the main roster in a feud with Mick Foley, but they eventually called a truce and the angle was dropped.
– TNA president Dixie Carter announced on Twitter that TNA Lockdown 2013 will take place outside of Orlando, Florida. The location will be announced on Thursday’s Impact Wrestling and she teased, “First time we have ever been to this great city.”
– Independent wrestling promotion AAW is calling out Ken Shamrock on Twitter for no-showing his scheduled appearance at this past Saturday night’s AAW show in Merrionette Park, Illinois. He was set to face Sami Callihan. AAW tweeted the following about the incident:
– WWE is advertising that The Rock will be appearing live when WWE returns to Lafayette, Louisiana on February 18th for a WWE RAW taping. A ticket pre-sale begins this week with the password CHAMP.
– 3MB member Drew McIntyre tweeted the following on Monday, teasing a “huge announcement” from the band:
They later posted a Tout video from a bar on Bourbon Street titled, “Our First Single.” In the video, 3MB is on stage at a bar and asks the crowd if they’re ready to hear “real music” from 3MB, but it cuts off before the single can be heard:
– Here is footage of the interview Michael Cole conducted with The Shield that aired on Monday’s RAW:
– The following matches for this week’s WWE Superstars prior to Monday’s RAW from Lafayette, Louisiana:
* David Otunga vs. Santino Marella
* JTG vs. Brodus Clay
– After Monday’s WWE RAW went off the air, Ryback sold his latest beatdown from The Shield and slowly made his way to the back. The advertised dark match main event between CM Punk and Ryback never took place.
