LAW
LAW Feb. 6 Update - WrestleMania 30 Announcement Imminent
John Pollock / February 6, 2013 - 3:42pm
**Today’s edition of Review-A-Wai is posted on the site with Wai Ting and I welcoming Toronto comic Dylan Gott into studio to review the ECW Wrestlepalooza event from June of 1997. This is a very historic show in retrospect with the final match of Raven’s before signing with WCW and the blow off to his program with Tommy Dreamer, the first appearance of Jerry Lawler in the ECW Arena and some great booking throughout. You can catch the show at http://fightnetwork.com/news/36254:review-a-wai-ecw-wrestlepalooza-1997-w-dylan-gott/ as well on iTunes by subscribing to Live Audio Wrestling.
**WWE Raw continues to do great with a 3.5 rating on Monday night and averaging 4,810,000 viewers over the three-hours. I would say this is even more impressive than last week as this show didn’t have the buzz coming off the Royal Rumble nor The Rock to advertise on the show and the numbers stayed consistent throughout the three-hours with a slight drop in the third hour.
**Cody Rhodes Vs Sheamus headlines WWE Main Event tonight at 8pm EST on Ion Television.
**Here is the updated card for the WWE Elimination Chamber on Sunday February 17th in New Orleans, Louisiana:
*The Rock Vs CM Punk for the WWE Title
*Alberto Del Rio Vs Big Show for the World Title
*John Cena & Sheamus & Ryback Vs The Shield
*Randy Orton Vs Rey Mysterio Vs Daniel Bryan Vs ??? in an Elimination Chamber match
**Media outlets in New Orleans are reporting that WrestleMania coming to the city is a done deal for the Superdome with an announcement expected when the WWE comes to New Orleans in a few weeks for the pay-per-view.
**Family Wrestling Entertainment has announced an iPPV event for February 16th from Brooklyn, New York headlined by Carlito Colon Vs Matt Hardy Vs Tommy Dreamer in a TLC Match. The show will also feature Maria Kanellis Vs Angel Williams (formerly Angelina Love) for the DWE Women’s Title and Sonjay Dutt Vs Jimmy Yang among the matches on the card. The show will be airing on WWNLive at http://wwnlive.com/event-fwe-02-16-13.html.
**The WWE has posted an interview with Bruno Sammartino and Triple H discussing the Hall of Fame announcement, the problems in the past with Sammartino turning down the offer and Sammartino’s history at Madison Square Garden.
**Ryback will be the special guest on February 15th at Full Sail University for the next set of NXT tapings.
**The WWE list of DVDs for 2013 includes some interesting projects such as:
-Best of Monday Night Vol. 2 on February 12th (hosted by Diamond Dallas Page)
-Bret Hart “The Dungeon Collection” – March 5th
-For All Mankind – The Life and Career of Mick Foley – April 16th
-The Best of In Your House – April 30th (hosted by Todd Petengill)
-Top 25 Rivalries – May 28th
-Best of War Games – June 25th
-ECW Unreleased Volume 2 – July 30th
-Best of Madison Square Garden – August 27th
-Mid-South – September 10th
-Best of Bill Goldberg – October 8th
-The History of the WWE – November 19th
-Best WWE pay-per-views – December 31st
LAW MMA UPDATE
**UFC welterweight Matthew Riddle will join me on The MMA Report tomorrow to discuss his fight with Che Mills next weekend in Londog, England on the UFC on FUEL 7 event. I will also be chatting with Damon Martin of Bleacher Report about all of the big news items from this past week.
**The UFC has revealed that the failed drug test from the UFC on FX 7 event in Sao Paulo, Brazil belonged to lightweight Thiago Tavares, who tested positive for Drostanolone. Tavares was stopped by Khabib Nurmagomedov on the show so the result of the fight will not change and Tavares will be put on the sidelines for nine-months and needs to pass a drug test for reinstatement.
**The UFC also released information that UFC on FX 7 headliner Vitor Belfort was granted a therapeutic use exemption for testosterone replacement therapy after he was diagnosed with hypogonadism (the same medical issue Chael Sonnen was diagnosed with) and was granted a TUE by the UFC. Belfort is the first UFC fighter to be granted a TUE with a drug test suspension on his record after testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone in his October 2006 loss to Dan Henderson in Las Vegas at Pride 32.
**On Tuesday Spike TV held a press conference in Santa Monica, California to introduce Randy Couture, Frank Shamrock, Joe Warren and Greg Jackson as the coaches for their upcoming reality show “Fight Master”. The Bellator series will debut this summer with an all welterweight season with a berth in a future welterweight tournament and $100,000 to the winner. They are pushing the strategy aspect very hard with fighters being able to pick who coaches them and their opponents throughout the season. Spike TV also announced a second show called “MMA Rescue” where Randy Couture will visit struggling MMA gyms and offer business advice. The series will begin shooting very soon as Couture has to wrap by March where he will be will filming a movie and then will be shooting The Expendable 3 later this summer.
**After making the request Anthony Pettis will be granted a featherweight title shot against Jose Aldo Jr. will a targeted date of August 3rd for the two to fight. It is unknown if this will be a FOX special or a pay-per-view.
**Sean Pierson has pulled out of UFC 158 where he was scheduled to fight Rick Story on the March 16th card in Montreal. Former Strikeforce fighter Quinn Mulhern will take the spot of Pierson and rides a three-fight win streak into the fight.
**Uriah Hall’s knockout of Adam Cella last night on TUF is going to be next to impossible to beat this season for the knockout bonus, if you haven’t seen it yet I’m sure you will based on the amount of times that will be replayed.
**Bellator has announced that Pat Curran will defend his featherweight title against Daniel Strauss on April 4th in Atlantic City, New Jersey on the finale of their eighth season.
**Brent Weedman has been forced to pull out of the Bellator welterweight semi-finals that will take place on February 21st. Bryan Baker will be taking the spot of Weedman to fight Douglas Lima in the semi-finals with Ben Saunders and Raul Amaya on the other side of the bracket fighting on the same night in Salt Lake City, Utah and airing on Spike TV. Baker has made it to the finals in both the middleweight and welterweight tournaments in Bellator coming up short in both cases including to Karl Amoussou in the finals of the welterweight tournament last July.
**Glory Sports International has named Andrew Whittaker as their new global C.E.O. Whittaker previously worked for the WWE as the head of their international division and was responsible for dramatic growth in that department and a key reason their pay-per-view model remains as viable it is with the opening up of so many non-domestic markets.
**This weekend the UFC Prime Time series focusing on Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche debuts and will be premiering on Fight Network this Sunday at 12:30pm EST. This will be a three-part series leading up to their February 23rd fight at UFC 157 in Anaheim, California.
**Bruce Buffer will be releasing his autobiography entitled “It’s Time” on May 14th through Random House Publishing.
*****
REVIEW-A-WAI – ECW Wrestlepalooza 1997
(John Pollock and Wai Ting welcome Toronto comic Dylan Gott to review ECW Wrestlepalooza ’97)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/36254.mp3
*****
REVIEW-A-RAW – February 5th 2013
(John Pollock and Wai Ting chat Raw from Atlanta featuring Brock Lesnar killing The Miz and more)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/36228.mp3
*****
THE LAW ROUND TABLE
(John Pollock chats with former WWE creative team members Alex Greenfield and Court Bauer for close to an hour)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/36221.mp3
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THE LAW – February 3rd 2013
(Dan Lovranski and Jason Agnew welcome Dave Meltzer, your phone calls and the return of the roundtable)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/36213.mp3
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THE MMA REPORT – UFC 156 POST SHOW
(John Pollock and Jason Agnew recap the UFC 156 card and take your phone calls)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/36200.mp3
*****
REVIEW-AN-IMPACT – February 1st 2013
(John Pollock, Wai Ting and Nate Milton chat Impact in the U.K., TNA on the road, Superior Spiderman #2 and more)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/36173.mp3
*****
Contact John Pollock - john@fightnetwork.com / @LAWradio / @iamjohnpollock
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