LAW
LAW Jan. 6 Update - Filthy Tom LAWlor Tonight
John Pollock / January 6, 2013 - 4:32pm
**Tonight we kick off the year with the first edition of The LAW in 2013 as Dan “The Mouth” Lovranski and Jason Agnew will be running through all of the news from the past week and providing their analysis and opening up the phone lines at 1-855-591-6876 to discuss who you would like to see The Rock meet at WrestleMania 29 on the eve of his return. The LAW round table is back tonight and joining us for the chat is UFC middleweight “Filthy” Tom Lawlor, who follows everything in the world of wrestling and has been a guest we have wanted to have on for quite some time. In the second hour Dave Meltzer from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter stops by and we are giving away a copy of WWE’s Best PPV Matches of 2012 from our friends at E1 Entertainment. Tune in tonight at Midnight EST on TSN 1050 Toronto, The TEAM 1410 in Vancouver and you can also listen live online here on the site.
**The Rock is teasing huge things for the next few months after speaking at the Winter Press tour for the Television Critics Association and when asked about his return to the WWE this year stated:
The storyline will be that starting this coming Monday [for RAW], I’m gonna go back, and it’s going to be a big return,” Johnson said. ”That will lead to, hopefully, what will be the biggest WrestleMania of all time at Giants Stadium. I will headline that show, with someone who I can’t say right now. We’ve got an amazing four months lined up and planned out that will culminate in the biggest WrestleMania of all time. It’s going to be a hell of a thing.
**It has been a few days since our last update but I definitely want to alert people to the New Japan Pro Wrestling “Wrestle Kingdom 7” card from the Tokyo Dome on Friday. This was a blow away show particularly from Match #4 onwards. The show is available on Ustream at ustream.tv/channel/njpw1972 for the rest of the week and I definitely recommend it.
**Chris Charlton and WH Park from Japanese Audio Wrestling attended the show live at the Tokyo Dome and have a full rundown of the event with special guest Damian Abraham popping up to discuss the card as well at http://fightnetwork.com/news/35656:japanese-audio-wrestling-w-damian-abraham-on-dome-show/ and also available through iTunes if you subscribe to Live Audio Wrestling.
**The announced crowd for the Tokyo Dome was listed at 29,000 with the talent told it was a sell out. New Japan (and not restricted to simply New Japan) has never been shy about inflating numbers by a significant amount but this year the Dome was configured to a smaller setting and the paid was likely a strong number this year and lots of line ups for tickets before the show started. In a bit of a surprise announcement company chairman Takaaki Kidani told Tokyo Sports after the event that he is stepping down from his post and that the company has turned the corner since he came in with Bushiroad a year ago to buy the company. Kidani stated that Bushiroad will continue to own the company but he will not be running it. There was lots of speculation that Kidani was pushing for an on-air role and there was significant push back to use him in that capacity. It was also Kidani’s call to sign Kazushi Sakuraba and Katsuyori Shibata without informing the talent and booking team and forcing them to shoe horn the duo into current booking plans and rubbed numerous people the wrong way.
**The WWE and Post cereal have reached an agreement where the popular cereal brand will be using the likeness of John Cena on 4-million boxes of Fruity Pebbles with Cena being used as a temporary replacement for Fred Fintstone. There is a story on AdAge about the decision by Post and why Cena connects with their audience more than Flintstone in 2013.
**This past Thursday’s edition of Impact Wrestling did a 1.13 rating and averaged 1,720,000 viewers so the return of Sting was a draw for people.
**If you missed Review-An-Impact from Friday the show is up at http://fightnetwork.com/news/35640:jan.-4-edition-of-review-an-impact/ with Wai Ting, Nate Milton and myself chatting the first show of 2013 and the return of Sting.
**The Raw crew has a house show in Tallahassee, Florida tonight and then tape tomorrow night in Tampa, Florida featuring the return of The Rock to kick off the build to the Royal Rumble and CM Punk Vs Ryback in a TLC Match for the WWE Title.
**The Smackdown crew has finished up a mini tour in Puerto Rico this past weekend and tape their TV on Tuesday night in Miami, Florida with The Rock also scheduled to appear on that show this week.
**New Japan will hold their next iPPV on February 10th from Hiroshima featuring Hiroshi Tanahashi Vs Karl Anderson for the IWGP Title and Prince Devitt Vs Ryusuke Taguchi for the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title among the matches announced thus far.
**This week on Review-A-Wai we are reviewing the 2008 documentary “Bigger, Stronger, Faster” and you can leave feedback at http://lawradio.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=feedback&action=display&thread=2307.
**Here are the main card results from the Invicta FC 4 card held Saturday night in Kansas City, Missouri:
*Joanne Caderwood over Livia Von Plettenberg by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-26)
*Ediane Gomes over Hiroko Yamanaka by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
*Sarah D’Alelio over Amanda Nunes by unanimous decision (30-26 all)
*Leslie Smith over Raquel Pennington by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Alexis Davis over Shayna Baszler by rear-naked choke at 0:58 of Round 3
*Carla Esparza over Bec Hyatt by unanimous decision (50-45 all) to become the first Invicta 115-pound champion
**Invicta FC was the latest company to be doomed by technical problems when graduating to iPPV with many people having problems ordering the show. During the card company president Shannon Knapp announced on Twitter that they were removing the pay wall and giving the card out for free due to the technical problems and would refund those that paid. It was interesting to see that a number of people replied stating that didn’t want their money back because of the quality of the fights and were less upset when the price tag was only $7.95 and it’s a company that has built up a goodwill among its audience since debuting last April (there is a lesson there).
**The UFC will be producing a three-part “Prime Time” series for UFC 157 featuring Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche. The series premieres February 8th at Midnight EST on FUEL TV in the U.S.
**Later this week on The MMA Report my guest will be Daniel Cormier, who is fighting Dion Staring next Saturday on the final Strikeforce card from Oklahoma City.
**Dave Meltzer has an excellent story on the recently retired Dan “The Beast” Severn on the MMAFighting.com site at http://www.mmafighting.com/2013/1/6/3837404/ufc-pioneer-dan-severn-talks-about-43-years-of-sports-competition.
**The UFC 158 show on March 16th in Montreal continues to add Canadian content with the addition of John Makdessi Vs Daron Cruickshank in a lightweight bout and the UFC debut of Jordan Mein against Dan Miller (the younger brother of Dan Miller) in a welterweight fight. The UFC has also announced Nick Ring Vs Chris Camozzi on that card in middleweight action.
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JAPANESE AUDIO WRESTLING – Jan. 5th 2013
(Chris Charlton and WH Park recap the Tokyo Dome card with guest Damian Abraham)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/35656.mp3
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REVIEW-AN-IMPACT – Jan. 4th 2013
(John Pollock and Wai Ting chat the first Impact of 2013 with Nate Milton)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/35640.mp3
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THE MMA REPORT – January 3rd 2013
(John Pollock chats with AKA head coach Javier Mendez, MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani and 2013 predictions)
http://iphone.tsn.ca/tsnpodcasts/THE-MMA-REPORT-JAN-3-2013.mp3
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REVIEW-A-WAI – XPW Season 1, Episodes 1 & 2
(John Pollock and Wai Ting welcome back Damian Abraham from Fucked Up and host of “The Wedge” on Muchmusic)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/35588.mp3
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THE LAW – December 31st 2012
(Dan Lovranski, Jason Agnew, John Pollock and Wai Ting go through their Worst of 2012 picks plus Dave Meltzer and your phone calls)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/35579.mp3
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Contact John Pollock - john@fightnetwork.com / @LAWradio / @iamjohnpollock
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