LAW
LAW Jan. 24 Update - Jim Johnston Lists His 10 Best Themes
John Pollock / January 24, 2013 - 5:37pm
**We have an interview up on the site today with Dragon Gate USA’s Open the Freedom Gate champion Johnny Gargano chatting this weekend’s three shows in California including the “No Rope Match” title defence against Jon Davis, his big back injury from a year ago and working smarter, coming up from working a dark match on the first DG USA card and much more. Check out the interview at http://fightnetwork.com/news/35980:interview-johnny-gargano-on-dg-usa-shows-this-weekend/ or subscribe to Live Audio Wrestling on iTunes where you can get all of our shows and interviews.
**Tonight is a taped edition of Impact Wrestling and their last show at the Impact Zone until March with the following matches airing, which were taped last Friday in Orlando:
*Bobby Roode Vs Hernandez
*Rob Van Dam & Christian York Vs Kenny King & Zema Ion
*Tara Vs Velvet Sky for the Knockout’s Title
*Jeff Hardy Vs Christopher Daniels for the TNA Title
It will be interesting to see what promotion for King Mo’s fight will be part of the broadcast as he has not even been mentioned on programming since he came in for Bound for Glory and there is no hook if you are strictly a TNA viewer to see him fight, which was not the goal of the co-promotion.
**The TNA crew has two more shows in the U.K. with a live event in Nottingham tomorrow and Manchester on Saturday before flying back. All of their television for February is being taped on this tour.
**The WWE is promoting their Raw and Smackdown live events next Sunday as “Pre Game Pandemonium” with 1pm EST start times so as not to conflict with the Super Bowl that evening.
**Jim Johnston lists his ten favorite wrestler themes he has helped create at http://www.wwe.com/classics/classic-lists/jim-johnston-10-favorite-themes (and the Fabulous Rougeau’s didn’t make the cut).
**The first televised edition of the Royal Rumble (they did have a 1987 house show using the concept in St. Louis) aired on the USA Network on this date in 1988 from Copps Coliseum in Hamilton and we reviewed this card on Review-A-Wai at http://fightnetwork.com/data/podcasts/1092/2010-01-24.mp3. The 1999 edition of the Rumble also took place on this date in Anaheim, California with the infamous “I Quit Match” between Mankind and The Rock that was profiled in “Beyond the Mat” and also was the year Vince McMahon won the Rumble. That was also reviewed and is up at http://fightnetwork.com/data/podcasts/1074/2010-01-10.mp3.
**Dragon Gate USA starts their three shows this weekend in Santa Maria, California tomorrow night at 11pm EST headlined by John Morrison Vs Akira Tozawa along with Johnny Gargano & Rich Swann Vs Jimmy Susumu & Ryo Saito and The Young Bucks Vs Arik Cannon & Sami Callihan. They then run Saturday night in Huntington Park, California Saturday night and Sunday afternoon with iPPV events. These are their last shows before WrestleMania weekend.
**Colin Hunter from @KayfabeNews helped create this Royal Rumble infographic and it is posted at http://www.wrestlenewz.com/wrestling/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/royal-rumble-infographic-full.jpg.
**TNA opens up Gut Check for prospective candidates at http://www.impactwrestling.com/gutcheckchallenge.
**A group of Halifax, Nova Scotia called UCW just posted their first online show “Retribution” and features Bret Hart, Lanny Poffo and Bushwhacker Luke on their first show along with Storm Wrestling Academy graduate JP Simms and it is up at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymTU4zlFQkk.
LAW MMA UPDATE
**The MMA Report will be posted Friday afternoon so I can cover Bellator tonight on the show and I will be chatting with Georges St-Pierre and Mike Chiappetta from MMAFighting.com on the program.
**At the start of the UFC press conference today in Chicago it was announced by UFC president that former two-time welterweight champion Matt Hughes was retiring from the sport and being brought into the company as their new Vice-President of Athlete Development and Government Affairs. Hughes had not fought since September 2011 at UFC 135 with losses to Josh Koscheck and BJ Penn in his final two fights. Hughes was one of the key building blocks for the company during their rabid rise to popularity in 2005 and becoming a draw for the company after coaching the second season of the “Ultimate Fighter” reality show opposite Rich Franklin. Hughes first fought for the UFC in June 2000 at UFC 26 defeating Marcelo Aguiar, returning at UFC 29 where he was defeated by Dennis Hallman and then leaving for almost two-years and returning at UFC 34 in November 2001 and defeating Carlos Newton for the welterweight title. Hughes first reign as champion lasted until January 2004 when he was submitted by BJ Penn and Penn would leave the company for an offer from K-1 and was stripped of the title and ended back with Hughes after Hughes submitted Georges St-Pierre in their first fight together in November 2004 and held it for two-years before St-Pierre got a rematch and defeated Hughes at UFC 65 in November 2006. As a drawing card his biggest feat came at UFC 60 in May 2006 when it was a classic “Old Vs Young” storyline where he fought Royce Gracie in a catch weight bout with people believing the legendary Gracie could return and beat their top welterweight. The show drew 600,000 buys on pay-per-view and at the time was the highest number the UFC had ever done (the record would be broke a short two-months later at UFC 61 by Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock). Hughes would fight St-Pierre for a third and final time in December 2007 when then-champion Matt Serra had to pull out of his scheduled title defence against Hughes and St-Pierre was a late replacement and bested Hughes and would then win the title from Serra in April 2008 and remains champion to this day. Following the third St-Pierre fight Hughes was out of the title picture and served an attraction fighter and defeated Matt Serra, Renzo Gracie and Ricardo Almeida consecutively before the losses the Penn and Koscheck. Hughes was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in May of 2010.
**The UFC will be establishing a code of conduct list for all of their fighters and Hughes will be involved in establishing the code.
**Bellator is live tonight at 10pm EST on Spike TV right after Impact and has the following main card line up:
*Ben Askren Vs Karl Amoussou for the Welterweight Title
*Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal Vs Przemyslaw Mysiala in the opening round of the light heavyweight tournament
*Douglas Lima Vs Michail Tsarev in the opening round of the welterweight tournament
*Ben Saunders Vs Koffi Adzitso in the opening round of the welterweight tournament
*Brent Weedman Vs Marius Zaromskis in the opening round of the welterweight tournament
**Loretta Hunt of SI.com writes about Spike TV’s strategy of marketing to both the MMA and Pro Wrestling audience with the King Mo experiment at http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mma/news/20130124/muhammed-lawal-wrestling-ufc-crossover/index.html.
**Bellator will be airing the preliminary fights starting at 8pm EST on Spike.com featuring Raul Amaya Vs Jose Gomes in the other opening round fight of this season’s welterweight tournament.
**It’s a busy week for the Roufusport crew as they have Ben Askren fighting tonight and then Anthony Pettis and Erik Koch fighting on Saturday night on FOX. The Jackson MMA crew has John Dodson, Donald Cerrone and Clay Guida fighting on the FOX card on Saturday night.
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INTERVIEW – JOHNNY GARGANO
(John Pollock chats with the Dragon Gate USA Open the Freedom Gate champion)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/35980.mp3
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REVIEW-A-WAI – WWF Royal Rumble 1997
(John Pollock and Wai Ting review the ’97 Rumble from the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/35944.mp3
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REVIEW-A-RAW – January 22nd 2013
(John Pollock and Wai Ting review Raw from San Jose for the final Raw leading into the Rumble)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/35911.mp3
*****
THE LAW – January 21st 2013
(Dan Lovranski and Jason Agnew welcome Nigel McGuinness, Dave Meltzer, Rumble preview and more)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/35898.mp3
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REVIEW-AN-IMPACT – January 18th 2013
(John Pollock and Wai Ting review the wedding on Impact and chat with Nate Milton and take your feedback)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/35855.mp3
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Contact John Pollock - john@fightnetwork.com / @LAWradio / @iamjohnpollock
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