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MCNEILL'S TAKE
McNEILL's "Who's Hot, Who's Not" for Week of 5/27: Angles, Hogans, DiBiase, McMahon May 28, 2008 - 1:25:43 PM
Time for our weekly look at the ups and downs of the pro wrestling business as we recover from our long holiday weekends and prepare to mizzan up.
WHO'S HOT?
Kurt & Karen Angle: TNA's ratings for Impact finally moved back up to a 1.0. The segment responsible for this move was the Angle family bicker fest at the top of the second hour. Maybe there is a little interest in the upcoming Styles vs. Angle feud. For my answer to all further questions about TNA Wrestling, please refer to Bruce Mitchell's feature column in this week's Torch Newsletter.
Ted DiBiase, Jr.: The brief appearance by the younger DiBiase (accompanied by the original Million Dollar Man) combined with rampant speculation about WWE former a new heel stable with a bunch of "young guns," has captured the interest of a lot of wrestling fans. Ted Junior can cut a promo, but we haven't seen him in the ring, and his budding career as the mercy of McMahon and the young WWE writers. Still, it was an impressive first appearance on WWE Raw.
John Morrison & The Miz: WWE doesn't know what to do with its Smackdown tag team champions on its weekly television programs. Fortunately, the unlikely duo of Morrison and Mizanin know what to do in front of the camera, as evidence by their "Dirt Sheet" segments on WWE.com. This week's segment, with special guest star Mike Adamle, may not have been comedy gold, but they at least hit comedy bronze.
Age Of The Fall: Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black will be headlining for Full Impact Pro on Friday, and the former Ring of Honor champions will be all over Friday night's ROH "Take No Prisoners" pay-per-view spectacular. People are critical of Gabe Sapolsky's recent booking in Ring of Honor, but he has done a fine job of turning the AOTF's stable of misfits into a worthy headlining act.
WHO'S NOT?
Hulk Hogan and The Hogan Family: Seriously, have you folks figured out that your phone conversations at the jailhouse are being recorded and sent to the media? This, combined with Brooke Hogan's car wreck, has given the Bollea family another miserable week. The only way it could get worse for the Hulkster would be if he joked about Bobby Kennedy's assassination .
Vince McMahon: Crazy Vince, in a move directly out of Eric Bischoff's attempt to revitalize WCW Nitro in 1999, announced on Monday night that WWE will be giving away a million dollars to one lucky fan on Raw. That's the good news. The bad news? The fan's name is Steve and he lives in Poplar Bluff, Missouri.
Sting: The word out of Orlando is that TNA is already making plans for Sting's televised retirement ceremony this winter. This isn't happening because Jeff Jarrett thinks Sting's final match will draw a crowd on the level of Ric Flair's retirement, but because TNA management has seen the ratings for the most recent set of sitdown interviews the Stinger did with Mike Tenay on Impact.
Cousin Sal: Despite the involvement of "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, WWE is expecting the Cousin Sal vs. Santino Marella match to be so awful that they will pretape it this Tuesday in Los Angeles. Exactly who from Jimmy Kimmel's demographic will be watching this epic battle next Friday night? On the bright side, given the state of Smackdown these days, it might be the most interesting match on next week's show.
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AND NEW FOR 2009! Monthly "Vintage Audio Torch Talks." We are releasing for the first time ever audio versions of our text Torch Talk updates, the historical first series of insider interviews ever. Wade Keller's newsmaking in-depth interviews with wrestling's biggest names are now being made available exclusively to VIP members. But you must be a member each month, as these are not archived, so they are replaced with a new one each month! This debuted in January 2009 with a 68 minute interview with the late "British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith. Who's next? Hulk Hogan? Eric Bischoff? The Rock? Goldberg? Jeff Hardy?
