— Alicia Fox appears as a guest on tonight’s episode of The Mo’Nique Show at 11:00 p.m. on BET. The former Divas Champion will chat with the Academy Award-winning comedienne on the critically acclaimed late night talk show.
— Michael Cole returned to NXT: Redemption last night for a one-night-only appearance. He filled in for William Regal on commentary, who was absent.
— WWE will be airing the documentary portion of the February 2011 DVD release The Big Show: A Giant’s World beginning July 4.
— Former WWE star Big Bully Busick celebrates his 57th birthday today.
Former WWE diva Joanie “Chyna” Laurer, who recently made her return to the national wrestling scene for TNA Wrestling, has had a colorful past few years that has included a stint on VH1?s Celebrity Rehab show as well as a short-lived career as an adult film star.
According to TMZ.com, Chyna is making a triumphant return to porn – in what they call an “EXTREMELY graphic porno.”
Steve Hirsch, president of the Vivid porn company, tells TMZ.com that Chyna approached him several months ago and demanded to work with the biggest male porn star in the business. Hirsch did her one better – and booked her with TWO porn stars, Evan and Lee Stone. The movie has already been filmed and is tentatively titled … “Backdoor Into Chyna.”
The follow-up to Chyna’s “horrifying” 2004 sex tape with Sean Waltman (titled “1 Night in China”) is set to be released in the coming months.
Chyna’s reps vehemently denied that she is returning to the world of adult film – but now the first images from the upcoming film have been released:
– After Byron Saxton was eliminated on last night’s WWE NXT, the final four are Titus O’Neil, Conor O’Brian, Lucky Cannon and Darren Young.
WWE has not yet announced when the next elimination or the season finale will take place.
– Former WWE champion The Miz was interviewed over the weekend to hype his appearance on this past Monday’s episode of Tough Enough. When asked about his future in WWE and what’s next for him, The Miz said:
“This whole process has been one long journey, chapters in a book, and once I succeed in one, I focus on the next. I want to be looked at as the guy who will take this company to the next level. I want to become the face of The WWE. I want people to think of The WWE and think of The Miz. I need to become bigger than John Cena, bigger than The Rock, bigger than Stone Cold. If you’re in The WWE and beating them isn’t your ultimate goal, you shouldn’t even be here.”
Love or hate The Miz’ television character, he does a phenomenal job of carrying himself like a champion. By constantly saying he wants to become the face of the WWE and be the biggest superstar of all time, he is putting himself in very good company and elevating his stature in the eyes of the fans.
– Chris Jericho made a few big announcements on Twitter this week. Jericho’s metal band Fozzy will be debuting their new music video next month:
“Tues, July 7 is the world premiere of the new @fozzyrock video “God Pounds His Nails” filmed live at the Golden Gods! Fozzyrock.com for info.”
Following the success of his most recent book Undisputed, the New York Times Best Selling author confirmed that he’ is officially working on his third book:
“The contract is in the mail so its official…there’s gonna be a third book! It’ll be released via Penguin Publishing in 2013. GET READY!!”
Credit to SEScoops.com reader Fritz for these spoiler results for Friday’s episode of WWE SmackDown on SyFy, taped from Des Moines, Iowa:
* Christian defeated Mark Henry. After the match, Christian requested to Teddy Long that he be added to the World Heavyweight Title match tonight between Randy Orton and Sheamus. Teddy made Christian the special referee.
* Alicia Fox and Tamina beat Kaitlyn and AJ Lee in a rematch.
* Cody Rhodes came out and talked about wanting to hurt Daniel Bryan.
* Jinder Mahal squashed Yoshi Tatsu. The Great Khali attacked Tatsu after the match.
* Another WWE Capitol Punishment promo with Obama.
* Ezekiel Jackson beats WWE IC Champion Wade Barrett by count out so he doesn’t win the belt. Jackson fights Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel after the match while Barrett walked off.
* Segment with Sheamus and Christian. Sheamus is playing nice. Christian isn’t falling for it and tells Sheamus he needs to focus on Randy Orton.
* Daniel Bryan beat Ted DiBiase with the LaBell Lock. Cody Rhodes came out with paper bags and teamed with DiBiase to beat Bryan down after the match. Sin Cara came out and cleared the ring for the save. Cara’s entrance was botched as they hit the special effects and his music too early.
* Randy Orton beat Sheamus with the World Title on the line and Christian as special referee. Sheamus knocked Christian down early. At one point Sheamus had Orton pinned but Christian went to selling his arm from Sheamus hitting him. Orton hits a nice RKO on Sheamus for the win. After the match, Christian lays out Orton with the World Title belt to end the show.
— Chris Sabin will be sidelined until 2012 after tearing both the ACL and MCL in his knee during a match last month on iMPACT!. He underwent surgery on his injured knee earlier this month.
Sabin suffered the injury during a match against Anarquia at the April 20 iMPACT! taping. He went for a springboard clothesline and tweaked his knee when the Mexican America member was out-of-position to receive the maneuver. The referee was instructed to end the match when it appeared Sabin was injured.
— Mick Foley apologized for his recent remark poking fun at TNA house show attendance.
He wrote on Twitter, “You know, in retrospect, I probably shoudn’t have compared an empty arena match to an Impact house show. Funny..but disrespectful.”
During WWE’s Over the Limit pay-per-view, Foley responded to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson touting his victory over the Hardcore Legend in an “I Quit” Match in 1999 by saying he later beat him in an “Empty Arena Match aka TNA house show.”
THQ Creative Director for WWE games Corey Ledesma was recently interviewed by the THQ website to discuss the new WWE ’12 video game.
Check Out: First Screenshots From The New WWE 12 Video Game
Here are some highlights of the Ledesma interview:
Q: Take me through your thoughts on how SvR ’11 was received, and what you could/wish your team could have done better?
Cory: We have a lot of pride in the work we put out there, so the team felt very good about WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 being a solid product that fans were going to thoroughly enjoy. We were able to introduce a new mode, called WWE Universe, that we think was a very solid foundation for the future and got a lot of people excited to play the game. Adding dynamic object physics to gameplay was also another major addition that we felt changed the way the game looked and played for the better. All in all, we were generally pleased with how the game was received. With that being said, there were some game areas we were not completely satisfied with and feel need significant improvement. Our fans are intelligent, recognize a lot of those shortcomings as well and let us know about them.
Unfortunately, some of the game areas or improvements we want to make can’t happen overnight and take a lot of planning, research and development and other resources to see to fruition. In those cases, we often create multi-year plans where those improvements are rolled out in phases so we can realistically achieve the quality we want each year while also rolling out new features and updates, updating the roster and balancing our development costs. To give you a little insight to our future planning, these are some of the key areas we are going to continue focusing on from a technical standpoint:
1.) Gameplay
2.) Online Lag and Cheating
3.) Animation Quality
4.) A.I.
5.) Sound
6.) Graphical Quality
These are the game areas where we can continue pushing the envelope and step our game up to the next level from a technical standpoint. You’ll start to see a significant amount of those improvements listed above in this year’s game. We are investing heavily in the future of this franchise.
On the design side, we weren’t happy with the execution of Road to WrestleMania. We liked the concept, but we just didn’t do a good job making that backstage area fun, keeping it populated, entertaining and engaging. We went back to the drawing board a bit on that one. We also had some disappointing bugs in gameplay that our creative team was a little disheartened by, but we’ll get a lot of those things cleaned up. Online also had several issues we are working hard to address. I want the fans to know that we are very aware of their criticisms and we are working as hard as we can to address them. Just know that in some cases the reason you might not see changes happen as quickly as you like because there are some difficult development challenges or hurdles we are trying to overcome just like any other developer, but we’re committed and we’ll get there!
Q: As the creative director of the team, what’s your opinion on the name change?
Cory: I absolutely love it, and I’ve been a key proponent of the change.
I’ve just felt for a couple of years now that the franchise has been getting stale and in need of a reboot. Not just with the name but also with the game experience. The name of the franchise evolved a couple of times over the years, and it has gotten to the point where the name doesn’t really mean anything. WWE currently doesn’t have brand wars, and the shows themselves are rarely competing against each other, so SmackDown vs. Raw as a name doesn’t really have a meaning. We started out as just being called SmackDown when that show made its debut for WWE back in 1999. Back then, we were releasing WWE products exclusively for specific platforms – SmackDown for Sony, Raw for Microsoft and Day of Reckoning for Nintendo. We then made the decision in 2004 to pool all of our resources together and make one great game, which is how SmackDown vs. Raw came together. Now, we are just WWE ’12, which is great because we just want to be known as the official, authentic WWE simulation product … period. All that encompasses what’s great about WWE live events and television is encapsulated and recreated in WWE ’12. It’s simple and to the point. I’m pumped about it because I’ve always wanted to re-launch this franchise the right way, and we are finally getting the opportunity to do it this year.
Q: Without giving any information, what area of the game are you most excited about in WWE ’12?
Cory: Gameplay, gameplay and more gameplay. Now, we aren’t changing the game entirely or completely ripping everything out to start over. That wasn’t the goal. What we are doing is taking the basic essence of what is good in the past games and making a new experience that feels fresh, fun, responsive, faster, smoother and is of higher quality. If you’re played the SmackDown vs. Raw games in the past, I have zero doubt you will notice the difference as soon as you pick up this year’s game. We are adding new gameplay systems, completely overhauling gameplay systems and improving current gameplay systems. The new animation system is giving us new capabilities as well. One quick is example is that you now have the ability to interrupt animations. For example, if John Cena is doing a five-knuckle shuffle in the game, you can knock him right on his butt in the middle of the move (something you’ve never been able to do in our game because the animation had to completely play out – and that goes for every single move in the game). We have several new capabilities like the one just mentioned that will change the dynamic of how the game is played. We didn’t want to completely throw everything out and build something from scratch. That would force us to take a major step back, probably cut out 80 percent of our moves/match types and also put us at risk to disappoint fans who love the current game. We wanted to find the balance between fixing what is broken and also delivering a brand new, high quality experience. I believe we are accomplishing that now, and fans are going to love this new WWE ’12 gameplay experience. We will be unveiling more about the changes to gameplay as time moves on.
Q: There has been a ton of game franchises that have taken on a new name. Is WWE ’12 just a name change? How will we know? What is your favorite (other) franchise re-invention?
Cory: WWE ’12 is far from just a name change. Our goal has been to create a brand new experience with a new, high quality animation system, a new renderer and a new strategic gameplay experience that will look, feel and play substantially better than its predecessors. When you play the game, you’ll notice right away that you’re spending less time on the mat mashing buttons and more time enjoying the action with a faster paced gameplay flow, simpler game controls and the most fluid and realistic animations the game has ever seen. This is a true franchise reboot and not just a name change. It’s also an investment toward the future of the franchise, giving us the opportunity to use our new technology to push the game to new heights never seen before.
Q: How far along in development are you on WWE ’12?
Cory: We started around the end of May 2010, so we are currently at the one year mark. We still have more months ahead for gameplay tuning and bug fixing, and then we are done. It feels like we never stop. One year bleeds into the next. With the multi-year plans, we are already planning for projects in the distant future.
– Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn were said to be “freaking out” backstage at RAW on Monday due to the technical difficulties that plagued the first fifteen minutes of the broadcast.
– This is interesting. The only time Alex Riley has ever appeared on WWE Smackdown after being drafted from RAW was on April 29th. He appeared in the opening segment and was immediately RKO’d by Randy Orton. Many forget he’s technically a SmackDown! superstar.
– The PWO Wrestling independent promotion released the following statement on Tuesday, announcing one of its top stars has signed with WWE:
Matthew Justice (real name Matt Hannan) was a longstanding competitor in PWO Wrestling, having been a part of the organization since its formation in the fall of 2007. Known for his high-octane aerial style, and calm, laid-back demeanor, Justice instantly stood out. After a three and a half year PWO career that saw many highs and lows, this past March, Matt agreed to terms to take the next step of his career, signing a developmental contract with WWE Inc. After his final ever PWO match, which aired two weeks ago on PWO TV on SportsTime Ohio, we said goodbye to Matt. This footage from when PWO TV went off the air was shown for the first time ever anywhere this past Sunday night on PWO TV. Check it out here:
As reported earlier, the “major announcement” that Jim Ross teased on Monday regarding the future of WWE video games has been revealed. WWE and THQ have announced that the “SmackDown vs. RAW” series is being retired in favor of annual “WWE” releases.
The new WWE ’12 video game will be released in North America on November 22nd of this year and in the UK on November 25th for all major platforms.
CHECK OUT: First SCREEN SHOTS from WWE 12
The following are among the big changes made to the game, according to IGN.com:
The WWE video game franchise is being entirely rebooted. The first screen shots of WWE 12resemble SmackDown vs. RAW, but the similarities end there. THQ says it has “changed the game’s DNA” and the game “has been taken apart and put back together.”
The previous control system of analog-stick grapples has been scrapped. The game has gone back to the retro format of grapple, strike, pin and finisher being controlled by the controller’s face buttons. There are no strong and weak grapples — the moves you perform will be based on how worn down your opponent is.
There’s a new animation system, new blending methods, something called “Predator Technology” — basically, they went under the game’s hood and ripped out all the old stuff that people hated and plugged in brand new parts to try and make the most fluid wrestling game around.
THQ is going above and beyond to bring a brand new feel to the game and make it feel as close to WWE programming as possible. New on screen graphics, shading effects and depth of field and camera angles are being used for the game.
A new limb targeting system has been created.
There is a new “Breaking Point” submission system where players tap buttons in a tug of war mini-game.
Players will now be able to attack and taunt their opponents from all new positions. For example, Randy Orton can pound on the mat prior to performing his RKO finisher.
There is a new “dynamic comebacks” feature to give matches a more dramatic feel.
Difficulty levels of the computerized opponents have been re-calibrated.
The “major announcement” that Jim Ross teased on Monday regarding the future of WWE video games has been revealed. WWE and THQ have announced that the “SmackDown vs. RAW” series is being retired in favor of annual “WWE” releases.
The first installment, WWE 12, will be released this fall. The game’s tagline, which is straight from the “New WWE” marketing playbook, is “Biggger, Badder, Better.”
Check Out: First Screenshots From The New WWE 12 Video Game
Cory Ledesma, THQ’s Creative Director for WWE’s video game license, says THQ and WWE decided to drop the “Smackdown vs. Raw” franchise title because “the name doesn’t really mean anything.”
“WWE currently doesn’t have brand wars, and the shows themselves are rarely competing against each other, so Smackdown vs. Raw as a name doesn’t really have a meaning.”
Between WWE’s coveted video game franchise being renamed and the company scrapping it’s annual RAW vs. SmackDown PPV event Bragging Rights, it should be interesting to see how much longer WWE keeps the two brands separate on television.
Here is the first official trailer for the upcoming WWE 12 video game featuring World Heavyweight champion Randy Orton:
— The adult male who R-Truth threw a soda at last night on Raw was played by actor Kelci Jones.
A fan wrote, “The father on Raw tonight was actually an actor from Omaha who was with his nephew(s). He is active in the local arts and music scene in Omaha, Nebraska.
“His name is Kelci Jones. He is a friend on Facebook and stated yesterday that he would be on with his nephew. I was curious how that was going to play out. He stated that Vince McMahon ‘liked his swagger.'”
— It was reported on Sunday that masked Mexican professional wrestler Averno has signed a contract with WWE. He is featured on the cover of the latest issue of Super Luchas, with the headline saying “he has a foot in WWE.”
— WWE Hall of Famer Road Warrior Animal is scheduled for a book signing on June 11 at 2:00 p.m. at Barnes & Noble at the HarMar Mall 2100 North Snelling Ave. Roseville, Minnesota.
Solomonster is back with a surprise Sound Off on Memorial Day! He’s got a lot more on Randy Savage, including thoughts on the WWE tribute and some rather pointed remarks directed at the morbidly obese mongoloid known as Brian Knobbs, a John Cena rant that has been a long time coming but may not be about what you think, the latest WWE acquisition from Mexico to feud with Sin Cara, an update on Kharma, Foley’s faux pass on Twitter, and Mister Wonderful gets seven years of bad luck! A fun show, so check it out!
Arda Ocal and Jimmy Korderas of Right After Wrestling Radio on The Score on SIRIUS 158 recently spoke with Diamond Dallas Page. Highlights:
DDP on possibly coming back to the WWE in the future & how he is doing today: “I spoke to Johnny Ace about this…I haven’t heard back from him on it. I told him I would love to do some kind of PR. Some public relations. That sort of thing is what Vince [McMahon] wanted me to do when I left. He wanted me to stay and be the color-commentator but I was burnt out of wrestling for so many years and I needed a break. Long story short, 10 years later I’m still doing pretty well but I would love to be a part of the WWE family.”
What DDP thinks of the whole Kurt Angle/Randy Orton “finishing move” situation: “The thing is you don’t use the guy’s finish in the same company. If you’re in TNA and Kurt Angle is using the Ankle Lock, then you don’t do it in that company because Kurt will really take your ankle and put you in it and break your ankle. But if you’re in the WWE or the independent circuit, it is what it is. I don’t know what’s happening between Randy [Orton] and Kurt [Angle] but I love Randy using the RKO. Being it’s a version of the Diamond Cutter, people will think of me whenever he hits that move. And I think Randy is the greatest wrestler in the World…I think he is the very best. ”
Memories of working with Macho Man Randy Savage in WCW: “[My favorite match with Randy Savage was our first one at Spring Stampede] because that’s where he put me over. We were doing house shows and one night in Florence, South Carolina, Arn Anderson walked into the locker room and he was the agent. He asked Macho what he wanted to do tonight and Randy said, ‘I think I wanna take the Diamond Cutter’, and it almost knocked Arn over. Arn asked me if I knew how much of an honor that was and I was like, ‘ummm yeah’! When I hit the Diamond Cutter the crowd exploded. When the referee slid down, the entire place was counting 1-2-3 and the crowd exploded again – and Randy (while laying there) said to me, “I think we have our finish to Spring Stampede’!”
R-Truth may be getting his shot at John Cena’s WWE Championship at Captiol Punishment on June 19th – as per an announcement by the Anonymous RAW General Manager made after RAW went off the air.
Joey Styles tweeted the following after RAW:
“Raw’s GM has ordered R-Truth to apologize next week on Raw to earn a WWE Title Match with John Cena at Capitol Punishment. Video on WWE.com.”
Video of the post-RAW announcement by the RAW GM can be seen at here:
Kharma said her two main goals in life were to be a WWE superstar and to be a mother. After making it to WWE, she recently found out she is pregnant and will be out of action for up to a year.
She finally made it to WWE earlier this year but her road was not an easy one. She said former head of talent relations Jim Ross once told her that she’d never make it in WWE because she is too fat. Ross responded to Kharma’s claims on Twitter on Monday night:
“Kharma will never be a standard issue WWE Diva. She’s a wrestler. And a keeper. JR shout outs always welcome on Raw.”
Kharma fans voiced their support for the mother-to-be and left Jim Ross a lot of negative feedback on Twitter for the way he dealt with her. Ross responded:
“Lots of angry folks. Ask (Kharma) the story. She’s a wrestler & not a typical WWE Diva… My fat arse getting all kinds of evil Tweets. I’m a Kharma fan BTW. Does every female wrestler HAVE 2 be a ‘Diva?'”
– In a dark match that took place prior to Monday’s RAW from Omaha, Nebraska, Drew McIntyre defeated Chris Masters.
– Matches taped for Thursday’s WWE Superstars were Gail Kim vs. Melina and WWE Tag Team Champions David Otunga & Michael McGillicutty vs. Santino Marella & Vladimir Kozlov.
– The technical difficulties that took place at the beginning of Monday’s WWE RAW were legitimate.
In Canada, fans watching RAW saw the Memorial Day introduction and then the show cut directly to Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler saying they had technical difficulties, cutting out the silent segment with R-Truth attacking the concession stand.
On the USA Network’s West Coast feed of last night’s episode of Monday Night Raw, the opening segment featuring technical difficulties was edited off the broadcast altogether.
— In the New York area, WWE aired two different advertisements during Raw regarding the June 11 Raw live event in Rochester. The first commercial promoted John Cena vs. CM Punk vs. The Miz in a Triple Threat Match while the second commercial advertised Rey Mysterio vs. CM Punk and John Cena vs. The Miz in singles matches.
Thanks to SEScoops reader Lance for sending in the following:
After Raw went off the air, the Anonymous Raw General Manager announced through Michael Cole that R-Truth would still get a title shot against John Cena at WWE Capitol Punishment as long as he apologized for his actions on Raw.
In the dark match main event John Cena quickly beat The Miz to retain the WWE Championship. Miz didn’t even get his shirt off for the match. Cena celebrated in the ring with the father (that wore the drink) and kids wearing the red Cena shirts.
A man was ejected from Monday’s Impact Wrestling taping in Orlando, Florida for texting spoilers results with his mobile device.
The man was ejected from the Impact! Wrestling Zone by TNA personnel and escorted off Universal Studios Florida property by an Orlando area police officer. He was shown a page on the PWInsider website displaying the spoilers results he had sent on a mobile device owned by a member of TNA security and informed he was being removed from the premises.
It was reported last week that TNA banned the use of cellular phones and mobile devices at the Impact! Wrestling Zone during Impact Wrestling tapings in order to prevent spoilers from surfacing online. Sources within TNA indicate that Universal Studios officials issued the directive, not TNA.
Jim Ross stated on his official website today that a “major announcement” will be made Tuesday concerning THQ’s annual WWE video game series, SmackDown vs. Raw.
“Arguably the biggest news to date from WWE on the video game front,” Ross wrote.
The announcement is that the title of the annual WWE video game, SmackDown vs. Raw, will cease to exist. The rumored new name of the game is WWE ’12, a year that will change annually.
THQ made the decision to change the title of the game because they felt the SmackDown vs. Raw title no longer fit the product due to WWE rendering the “brand wars” inconsequential. This also explains WWE ceasing the pay-per-view event Bragging Rights. While the event drew poorly both years, it was kept to help promote the annual release of SmackDown vs. Raw.
— Two matches have been announced for Raw tonight:
* Rey Mysterio vs. CM Punk
* WWE United States Champion Kofi Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler
— WWE presently employs five individuals who work part-time blurring the former WWF “scratch” logo from the organization’s substantial video library. Episodes of Raw from June 1998 are currently airing on WWE Classics on Demand, which features the logo blurred in numerous instances.
— Raw was No. 43 in Pay TV in Australia last week with 63,000 viewers.
— Last week’s episode of SmackDown featured 35 minutes and 11 seconds of in-ring action, down from the prior week.
WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross is back with his latest blog update, which you can check out in its entirety at JRsBarBQ.com. Here are some highlights of what JR said about:
Big WWE Video Game News: “Expect to hear a major announcement Tuesday from WWE/THQ. Arguably the biggest news to date from WWE on the video game front.”
Brock Lesnar’s Colon Surgery & Future In UFC: “Lots of questions regarding Brock Lesnar’s colon surgery that occurred a few days ago. I don’t know the specific details nor am I am doctor but I have had diverticulitis and surgery as a result of such. Surgery can be done, as was mine, in a very evasive manner depending on the diagnosis and severity of the diverticulitis. My particular case was extremely serious because I disregarded the stomach aches and other symptoms too long and continued to travel and work and my large intestine perforated which caused additional issues with which I had to address.”
“Other surgery techniques for diverticulitis can come in the form of a much less invasive, almost arthroscopic, surgery which makes small incisions and allows one to heal quicker. From what I ascertain and I may be wrong, the less evasive surgery seems to be what Brock encountered. Nonetheless, Brock’s health is more important than his UFC career, or any career for that matter, and he has seemingly done what is necessary to remove the affected area from his colon.”
“I see no reason whatsoever that we won’t see see Brock Lesnar back in the Octagon sometime in 2012.”
— Creative plans as of this past weekend were for R-Truth to confront John Cena tonight on Raw. This is a strong sign that Capitol Punishment will feature a match between both Raw Superstars.
— Vickie Guerrero remarked last Thursday on her Facebook account that her boyfriend, who was also her personal trainer, cheated on her with a married woman. She also made the news public on Twitter.
Guerrero wrote, “I did change gyms, my trainer/boyfriend was cheating on me with a married woman who has kids. She continued, “Its all good, the truth will always come out, karma will bite you #cheaters.”
— Though Triple H is being advertised for tonight’s Raw taping Omaha, Nebraska, it should be noted that the advertisement was done months ago. It is unlikely that he will be appearing at tonight’s show.
TNA Wrestling’s announcement on May 23 that Terry Taylor, Director of Talent Relations, made the decision to leave the organization, is reportedly a cover excuse.
The latest issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that Taylor was fired by the organization on May 20. It is believed that he was let go due to allegations made against him in a lawsuit filed by a former performer.
The report adds that it may not necessarily be Shannon Spruill’s (a/k/a Daffney) lawsuit against the organization, although his name was implicated.
Taylor and creative writer Vince Russo pressured Daffney into performing a spot at the October 18, 2009 pay-per-view event Bound for Glory in which she would go through a board covered with barbed wire, reasoning that it was important for the ongoing feud between Abyss and Mick Foley. Daffney, who was hesitant on the idea, was assured that she would be fine and taken care of. She agreed to perform the spot, which resulted in her being chokeslammed from the ring apron by Abyss onto a board covered with barbed wire. She suffered a concussion taking the maneuver and was taken to an Orlando area hospital via ambulance. Furthermore, Spike TV wouldn’t allow TNA to air the spot during iMPACT! due to their policy on men-on-women violence.
Daffney’s trip to the emergency room resulted in a substantial medical bill, which Taylor stalled TNA from paying and ultimately was not. The lawsuit also claims she was pressured to continue performing after suffering two additional concussions. She suffered a concussion after being hit on the head with a toolbox by Tara following their match on the February 18, 2010 episode of iMPACT!. On April 20, 2010, she was injured in a dark match against an obese green worker by the name of Miss Betsy and was taken to an Orlando area hospital, where she was diagnosed with a concussion, as well as a deeply bruised sternum and a severe stinger.
Chief Financial Officer Dean Broadhead will oversee contractual matters while former WWE executive Bruce Prichard will handle Taylor’s remaining duties.
Sean “X-Pac” Waltman has opened his new official website at RealXPac.com. If you’re a fan of the former WWE, WCW and TNA star, you now have a chance to keep up with all the latest in Sean’s life and career. Sean will be regularly posting new exclusive content, including blogs, videos, Q&A’s, pictures and much more! You can also inquire about booking Sean for future events, conventions and other appearances by emailing [email protected].
In his first official blog on the new site, Waltman goes in-depth about his memories of the late, great “Macho Man” Randy Savage. “The period in which I first came to WWF, Randy was still taking his split from Liz really hard & Curt [Hennig] often had Randy ride with us on the road. Curt was trying to get Randy out of the funk he had been in by cheering him up. If anyone could it was Curt & to a large extent it worked. It wasn’t just Curt. All of Randy’s friends were pulling for him to get through this tough period in his life. So there were numerous nights of me in the back, with Curt driving (he always drove), and Randy riding shotgun. I wasnt even legally old enough to drink & I’m riding with Mr Perfect & Macho Man Randy Savage and part of the WWF. I cant express in words how amazing that was for me. Curt would play country songs for Randy & talk about how the song was like or about the business. Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson “Red Headed Stranger” was one of Randy’s favorites while riding with us. Also a Chris Ledoux album was high on his list. Same album Curt got the idea to call Shawn “The HeartBreak Kid” from.”
Waltman talks much more about his fondest memories of Randy Savage before averting attention to Brian Knobs, who Sean saw at a wrestling show in Newark, CA the night of Savage’s death. “There’s a bit of history between us, but no big deal in my book. What is a big deal in my book is when he arrived at the convention and he came to me laughing and holding his chest, saying ‘Oh yeah!’ and mocks having a heart attack. I immediately told him how f*cked up I thought it was, he blew me off & went to just about everyone else in the room, doing the same thing. Some fans even saw him do it. Mocking the death of Randy less than 24 hours after it happened. I know I’ve done some bad things in my life, a lot of things I’m very sorry for. Many probably think I have some nerve coming off like a moral authority, but someone has to call Brian out on his bullshit”.
For more on Sean Waltman’s tribute to “Macho Man” Randy Savage, his problem with Brian Knobs and even what he thinks about his former fiance, Joanie “Chyna” Laurer, doing another porn video, visit RealXpac.com. Also, if you would like to submit questions to Sean for his first Q&A entry, email them to [email protected]. He’s also available for future appearances by emailing [email protected]. Visit RealXpac.com for all the latest on Sean Waltman and be sure to follow him on Twitter (twitter.com/therealxpac) and “Like” his brand new Facebook page (facebook.com/therealxpac)!
Vickie Guerrero remarked last Thursday on her Facebook account that her boyfriend, who was also her personal trainer, cheated on her.
She wrote the status update in response to her friends’ hearsay. A heated Guerrero wrote,
“Enough of the private messages, of he said/she said!!! Im going to set things straight!! I am single now and it was my decision! (name withheld)…aka trainer/”boyfriend” was cheating on me with (name withheld). I was disgusted to know that she is married with kids! Been there, lived it before, and I am done with that bullshit…period!”
She deleted the message a short while later.
Here’s a picture of Vickie Guerrero with her now ex-boyfriend:
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