LAW
LAW Feb. 23 Update - WWE Responds to Glenn Beck
John Pollock / February 23, 2013 - 4:05pm
**In one of the most bizarre twists political talk show host Glenn Beck may have inadvertently saved the career of Jack Swagger following Beck’s tirade over the Swagger and Zeb Coulter angle this past week (prior to the DUI arrest on Tuesday night). It is one of those public battles that Vince McMahon and the WWE are not willing to step down from with a public invitation sent to Beck to address all of the WWE fans in Dallas on Monday night for a five-minute unedited speech to which Beck has turned down the offer stating he is already busy doing “anything else”.
The WWE shot a pair of promos with Zeb Coulter and Jack Swagger with the initial promo a length five-minute one where it starts with Coulter and Swagger in character discussing all the races that are not welcome in the their county and attacking Alberto Del Rio. They finish their promo and the lights come up with a green screen and they introduce themselves as Jack Hager (Swagger) and Wayne Keown (Coulter) and are playing characters that elicit emotions and tell stories.
The edited down version doesn’t feature any breaking of the fourth wall with both simply cutting a promo as their characters on Glenn Beck to come to Dallas with the regular back drop for the segment and eliminating the racial comments at the start of the promo. Both are still online for the now being:
EDITED:
UNEDITED:
**We’ve got a bonus show up on the site today with Wai Ting and I interviewing Ross Aitken, who is an independent wrestler and promoter under the name Buck Gunderson at http://fightnetwork.com/news/36648:interview-ontario-promoter-and-wrestler-buck-gunderson/. Gunderson is working the Hardcore Road Trip shows next Saturday in London, Ontario and is also behind the Wrestle Crisis events and new Commonwealth Victory Wrestling group in Toronto. You can also grab the interview on iTunes by subscribing to Live Audio Wrestling.
**The Next Generation Wrestling show took place last night in Calgary, Alberta at the Victoria Pavilion with an estimate of 700 fans in attendance. There was an incident I was told about as the show was happening (and I have since confirmed) where one of the commentators for the iPPV came to the show and did the pre-show but was then pulled from the broadcast by Teddy Hart so that they could have rotating wrestlers come on the broadcast throughout the show including Kevin Nash and Konnan. During the show Teddy Hart cut a promo knocking the WWE for taking talent out of Alberta and also said the AAA championship looks better than the new WWE version. They announced their next show for April 12th.
**We should clarify the announcer in question was paid for his work last night but not his full amount because he didn’t broadcast the main card.
**Today is the 11th anniversary of Ring of Honor’s very first event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania headlined by Christopher Daniels vs. Low Ki vs. Bryan Danielson and also featured Eddy Guerrero vs. Super Crazy on the same card. It’s an incredible feat for the promotion to have lasted eleven years of promoting shows and gone through numerous changes and had many ups and downs during their tenure. The promotion presented a product that was both unique and influential to the U.S. audience in 2002 and helped a lot of talent get real exposure and confidence headlining a promotion and were ready when going to the national promotions and being given the ball. Last year we had Mike Johnson on to discuss their tenth anniversary and that interview covering their history can be heard at http://fightnetwork.com/data/podcasts/869/2012-03-01.mp3.
**Kevin Sullivan will be our guest on The LAW tomorrow night at 11pm EST with Dan Lovranski and Jason Agnew on TSN 1050 Toronto and The TEAM 1410 in Vancouver plus Dave Meltzer and your phone calls.
**Deadspin has a story on fans spotting Virgil in New York’s Grand Central subway station selling 8x10’s of himself and taking photos at http://deadspin.com/5986342/virgil-is-selling-photos-of-himself-in-grand-central-subway-station-right-now.
**Hogan’s Beach restaurant gets a terrible review at http://www.tampabay.com/things-to-do/food/dining/hogans-beach-restaurant-in-tampa-needs-some-heavy-lifting/1275626.
LAW MMA UPDATE
**Tonight is the UFC 157 card from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California and one of the most intriguing main events in a long time in terms of what business the fight will do considering all of the attention the women have garnered and playing to outlets that do not traditionally cover mixed martial arts. I’m of the belief this is going to do above expectations and see a genuine buzz for this main event and figuring it to do over 400,000 buys on pay-per-view, which to me is a big success. The critics of this main event are getting less and less as the show nears and the fact remains if it was Dan Henderson and Lyoto Machida headlining this card we’d be talking the low end of a UFC pay-per-view number and a fraction of the attention.
Jason Agnew and I will be live with a post show tonight right after the main event finishes up on TSN 1050 Toronto and taking your phone calls at 1-855-591-6876. We will also be chatting with Todd Martin on the show from the Wrestling Observer and Sherdog.com sites.
Here is the full card for tonight:
MAIN CARD (10pm EST on pay-per-view)
*Ronda Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche for the bantamweight title
*Dan Henderson vs. Lyoto Machida
*Urijah Faber vs. Ivan Menjivar
*Josh Koscheck vs. Robbie Lawler
*Josh Neer vs. Court McGee
PRELIMINARY CARD (8pm EST on FX, Sportsnet)
*Brendan Schaub vs. Lavar Johnson
*Anton Kuivanen vs. Michael Chiesa
*Sam Stout vs. Caros Fodor
*Matt Grice vs. Dennis Bermudez
PRELIMINARY CARD (6:35pm EST on Facebook.com/UFC)
*Brock Jardine vs. Kenny Robertson
*Neil Magny vs. Jon Manley
*Nah-Shon Burrell vs. Yuri Villefort
**CNN looks at the Latino audience in mixed martial arts and speaks with UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez:
*****
BONUS INTERVIEW - Ross Aitken a.k.a Buck Gunderson
(John Pollock and Wai Ting chat with the Ontario promoter and wrestler about next weekend's Hardcore Road Trip)
http://data.fightnetwork.com/blog/36648.mp3
*****
REVIEW-AN-IMPACT – February 22nd 2013
(John Pollock and Wai Ting review Impact, take your feedback and Nate Milton takes the Canadian Quiz)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/36617.mp3
*****
INTERVIEW – Teddy Hart and Spencer Tapley
(John Pollock chats with Hart and Tapley about Lance Storm’s interview from this past week on The LAW)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/36594.mp3
*****
THE MMA REPORT W/ JOHN POLLOCK – February 21st
(Featuring: Invicta FC president Shannon Knapp, TUF 17’s Josh Samman and Ariel Helwani)
http://iphone.tsn.ca/tsnpodcasts/THE-MMA-REPORT-FEB-21-2013.mp3
*****
REVIEW-A-WAI – Phil Donahue and Geraldo
(John Pollock and Wai Ting review both talks shows covering the WWF’s early 90’s scandals)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/36560.mp3
****
REVIEW-A-RAW – February 19th 2013
(John Pollock and Wai Ting review Raw from Lafayette featuring a marching band, new WWE Title and more)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/36541.mp3
*****
THE LAW – February 18th 2013
(The LAW recaps WWE Elimination Chamber, Lance Storm discusses HLW issues, Dave Meltzer stops by and more)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/36520.mp3
*****
INTERVIEW – Lance Storm
(John Pollock chats with Storm about the issues from the Hart Legacy Wrestling show, working with Jerry Lynn one last time and more)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/36521.mp3
*****
Contact John Pollock - john@fightnetwork.com / @LAWradio / @iamjohnpollock
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