LAW Feb 3 Update - Remember the XFL?
**The last official ECW show will be on Tuesday February 23rd in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The new concept that begins on Tuesday March 2nd in Wichita, Kansas and will be called ‘WWE NXT' focusing on the next generation of WWE talent, which won't be too much different from the current ECW roster. One would assume you would want some of the veterans to remain on the show to work with the younger talent and speed up their development. On the surface there doesn't appear to be any major changes to the show coming but due to the ratings performance of the show I would expect many more changes to be implemented and a different emphasis placed on the show as routine 0.9's each week are not going to satisfy SyFy for a product that doesn't target the SyFy audience directly. The show had been in talks for a major overhaul for a few months now and it was just a question as to when the trigger would be pulled on the change. The ECW re-launch occurred in June 2006 after very successful sales of the ‘Rise and Fall of ECW' DVD along with a tremendously well received June 2005 ‘One Night Stand' pay per view. Initially the concept for ECW to return would be an online entity without any television and would be overseen by Shane McMahon treating ECW strictly as a digital property for the company. However, Vince McMahon changed his mind and opted for the television return of ECW and worked alongside Paul Heyman in putting the show together and there were numerous battles between McMahon and Heyman and the traditional result was a watered down concept that climaxed with the disastrous ‘December to Dismember' pay per view in December 2006, which was the final show Heyman worked for the company and went home the next day. McMahon attempted to put more of an emphasis on ECW in early 2007 when the new Wrestling Society X promotion began running on Tuesday nights on MTV and McMahon inserted himself as a weekly character on ECW and even won the ECW Title at one point. In 2008 the show received a momentum boost with the additions of Matt Hardy and Hornswoggle and resulted in a jump in the weekly numbers but came back down to earth after Hardy was sent to the ‘Smackdown' brand in early 2009.
**A minor deal in this re-branding for the WWE is this little independent promotion out of Scotland.
**WWE ‘Raw' did a 3.6 rating on Monday night averaging 5.3 million viewers over the two hours.
**Criss Angel will be the guest host of ‘Raw' on March 8th in Portland, Oregon.
**Starting with the February 14th TNA ‘Against All Odds' pay per view - all PPV's will be airing live on the TNA Video Vault site at www.tnavideovault.com.
**A preview of WWE Diva Maria Kanellis' new single ‘Fantasy'.
**Roddy Piper will guest star on ‘Cold Case' Sunday March 7th at 9pm EST.
**It was on this date in 2001 that the XFL debuted with the first game taking place between the New York / New Jersey Hitmen and the Las Vegas Outlaws. The first week began with good ratings on NBC (they also had a TV deal with UPN at the time) but it was a case of diminishing returns each week with numbers continuing to plummet and the concept being credited as one of the biggest blunders in television history (NBC seems to have cornered that market). The league folded after the first season with the WWE and NBC splitting the losses. From 2001 until 2006 the XFL had the distinction of having the lowest rated prime time program in network history for a game that did a 1.5 rating.
TWEETS
Taz:
So,WWE ending their
"vision" of ECW (thank god). ANY ORIG ECW wrestlers get a thanks? How about Paul Heyman did he
get a thanks? Classy move!
Tommy Dreamer:
Many people have asked me why
I left WWE. If you watched ECW tonight, a piece of the puzzle was revealed for
my actions. Stay tuned.
Eric Bischoff:
Jeremy Borash posted a picture of himself with Bret Hart on his Twitter
account. What a MARK!
LAW MMA UPDATE
**The WEC confirmed today that the promotion's first pay per view event will take place Saturday April 24th in Sacramento, California at the Arco Arena headlined by Jose Aldo Vs Urijah Faber for the WEC Featherweight Title with a co-feature with lightweights Donald Cerrone and Benson Henderson meeting in a rematch from their excellent October 2009 bout. The price of the event will be $44.99, so they are pricing it at the same point of a UFC show. My assumption is that with a strong media push for the show they should be able to do okay at that price, it's unchartered waters for the company and it's a main event that fans of the WEC will pay to see but the key to this show being a success is getting new fans outside of their usual 400,000 - 700,000 viewers for the Versus shows to pay for this event. If this show is a success it does open up a new revenue stream for the WEC and will allow their top tier fighters to make significantly more money and they are headlining with the most marketable fight they have right now along with a solid co-feature fight.
**Joey Beltran has officially replaced Mostapha Al-Turk for this Saturday's heavyweight bout against Rolles Gracie Jr. Al-Turk was taken off of the card for ‘non injury related details', which are believed to be issues with securing a visa. The fight is scheduled to be a dark fight this Saturday at UFC 109 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
**The fighter payroll for this past Saturday's Strikeforce ‘Miami' card was $469,600. Leading the way in the earner's bracket was Nick Diaz and Robbie Lawler, who both made $100,000 for their wins over Marius Zaromskis ($30,000) and Melvin Manhoef ($5,000) respectively. Cristiane ‘Cyborg' Santos made $35,000 in her win over Marloes Coenen ($2,000), Herschel Walker is only listed as making $600 on paper and stated prior to the fight that all of his earnings would be going to charity, his opponent Greg Nagy took home $5,000, Bobby Lashley made $50,000 for his win over Wes Sims ($25,000) and the only major pay outs on the preliminary card were Jay Hieron ($65,000) getting a unanimous decision victory over Joe Riggs ($30,000).
**The
UFC has confirmed that ‘Fight Night 21' will take place on March 31st in Charlotte, North Carolina at the Bojangles Arena with
the following fights announced for that show:
*Kenny
Florian Vs Takanori Gomi (the former Pride Lightweight Champion making his
promotional debut for the UFC)
*Roy
Nelson Vs Stefan Struve
**The UFC ‘Fight Night 21' card will serve as a lead in for the first episode of ‘Ultimate Fighter 11', which will be an all middleweight show with hosts Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz, who will fight for a third time in July after the season concludes.
**Shine Fights sent out a release Wednesday that they have signed welterweight fighter Nick ‘The Goat' Thompson to a multi fight contract. Thompson is coming down from middleweight to compete at 170 pounds with Shine Fights.
**
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS PAST WEEK'S EDITION OF THE LAW
