The wrestling world has turned upside down since last we spoke. The WWE has heated up with a rash of firings and two key hirings. The WWE let go Bubba Ray Dudley, Devon Dudley, Spike Dudley, Billy Kidman, Gangrel, Maven, Matt Morgan, Miss Jackie, Mark Jindrak, and New Jersey Pro Wrestling’s own Charley Haas. Why were all of these workers let go?
The WWE was going back and forth with what the plans would be for the near future. When push came to shove, the WWE decided to reach back into its past to help its future. Two weeks ago Hulk Hogan was brought back into the fold, this past week Brock Lesnar was also brought back.
It was thought that after the lawsuit Brock Lesnar had filed against the WWE that all was done between the two, but after a meeting of the minds the two parties agreed in principle to a deal. Look for Lesnar to be put into a feud with none other than the Smackdown champion, Batista.
Now to some other big wrestling news that does not involve the WWE. TnA was given a television contract by Spike TV. The deal has not been officially announced yet, but they will start showing TnA wrestling come this fall. The show, however, will not be on Monday night to start off. It will be scheduled to be on Saturday night at 10 p.m.
The show will be on after the UFC Reality Fighter series and presumably be the lead-in for “The Howard Stern Show,” which Spike TV hopes to pick up. This is the same type of deal that the UFC Reality Fighter took last year. If the TnA show were to pull in a rating comparable to what Velocity used to (1.0 rating), they will be given a shot at the Monday night slot eventually. This is great news for all wrestling fans. Competition will only make things better.
As for some other wrestler news, Kanyon announced on his Web site that he is coming out of retirement. He will be taking independent dates, but is not signing with anyone as of yet. As for the return of Matt Hardy, he really swerved everyone by stating on his Web site that he would be joining TnA and that he turned down a WWE deal.
The Sixshooter does not know how he can work an angle with the two people he hates the most. That relationship stuff that went on between Hardy, Lita, and Edge really did happen. The rest of what you see on TV has been scripted. Vince McMahon could not wait to bring this heated storyline to his TV though and offered Hardy a lot of money.
Now on to some wrestling videogame news involving the latest WWE game, “Smackdown vs. Raw 2006.” The game will be available for Playstation 2 owners come this fall. The engine has been redone to make for a more tactical game. No more button mashing. As for the game options, they have added a buried alive match where you actually get to throw the dirt on the coffin.
As for the graphics, they are superb. The online game play features have been promised to be more extensive and the create-a-guy mode is supposed to be updated with lesser load time and more options along with more moves. There is going to be a roster of 60 guys in the game with legends like Hulk Hogan, The Rock, and finally The Ultimate Warrior.
In other news, the WWE has decided to make its Web site relevant again. If you go to WWE.com you will see that there are updated news stories done in a far different fashion than once before. They are now covering the story instead of just doing some fluff articles about how good a wrestler is. So far the concept seems to be working. Originality is a nice thing to see from the WWE once in a while.
A reminder to check out my Web site over at http://www.expage.com/mattygsite, the Sixshooter does update in between articles on big wrestling happenings.
Now on to some storyline holes that the Sixshooter does not understand when it comes to the WWE. Why is it that Matt Hardy attacks Lita and Edge backstage, then out near the ring, and we are supposed to believe it is real? Wouldn’t he just have been escorted out after the first incident? As for the entire Hulk Hogan and Shawn Michaels situation, why is it that we don’t see old footage from 1992 when Hogan eliminated Michaels in about 10 seconds? What ever happened to the ECW angle? Wasn’t RVD drafted to Raw, well why is he gone after one week? As for another storyline problem, Gene Snitzky? What are you doing to him? Just a couple questions that the Sixshooter would like the WWE writers to answer. If they did, perhaps the show would be more entertaining.
There are some plans in the next couple months to get some more interviews with some big wrestling names, so look out for that in the next several articles. That is all for this month, Sixshooter-a-holics.