LAW July 30 Update – TNA Lineup for Impact Special
**Here are the matches on
WWE ‘Smackdown’ tonight, taped this past Tuesday night in Corpus Christi, Texas:
*Drew McInytre Vs
Christian
*Big Show Vs Luke Gallows
*Kofi Kingston Vs Dolph
Ziggler
*Layla Vs Tiffany for the Women’s
Title
*Jack Swagger Vs Rey
Mysterio
**Random thoughts from TNA
‘Impact’ Thursday night:
-I didn’t understand why
they had Tommy Dreamer wrestle for free on TV, when one of the big selling
features of the show is seeing these guys perform for TNA and on top of it all
they booked him to lose.
-As much as people may
groan at the EV2.0 name – it did get over with the live crowd during the
opening segment
-I enjoy watching the
Machine Guns Vs Beer Money but if you’re having a steel cage match where the
stipulations are that you can win the match by exiting the cage than the spot
where a guy climbs to the top of the cage and jumps back INTO the cage needs to
be eliminated or adjust the rules to state that it’s pinfall or submission only
and no escaping the cage. Any pop for the spot is equally or more negated by
the viewer asking why that guy wouldn’t jump out of the cage especially
considering they are down 2-0 and could lose the Tag Titles as a result of
hitting a big spot for a pop.
-Sarita and Angelina Love
had a good opening match and I’m hoping Sarita is focused on more within the
division, which is desperate for some depth
-The plan seems to be to
go into ‘Hardcore Justice’ with two matches announced as I guess it’s
authentic. The key is that the go home show must have a big hook because right
now it feels like a reunion of old friends but no something I’m willing to pay
for and that’s only been compounded by the announcement that all of the ECW
guys will be at ‘Impact’ the following week. Rob Van Dam Vs Jerry Lynn will get
people’s interests but they need a big promo from someone (Mick Foley) to
really sell the show as right now it doesn’t feel like a show you need to make
sure you see. Whether it’s fair or not this version is going to be compared to
the WWE’s efforts in 2005 and 2006 and the standard has been set for the ECW
reunion shows.
-I did not understand the
needs for ‘Gunner’ and ‘Murphy’ the security guys to be featured so prominently
and wrestle 50/50 with Jeff Hardy and Mr. Anderson
**The WWE ‘Raw’ crew is in
Tallahassee, Florida tonight for a house show headlined
by Sheamus Vs Randy Orton for the WWE Title along with John Cena & Chris
Jericho & Edge Vs Three members of Nexus. The crew then heads to Daytona Beach, Florida on
Saturday night at the Ocean
Center (which is where
Bound for Glory takes place this October).
**The ‘Smackdown’ crew is
currently in Australia
with a show Saturday in Sydney and then Melbourne on Sunday. They will be on
tour there until next Thursday.
**The TNA crew is in Winston-Salem, North
Carolina tonight with Rob Van Dam Vs A.J Styles
headlining the show with Mick Foley as the guest referee. They crew is in Fayetteville Saturday night and then Concord, North Carolina
on Sunday.
**Tonight Pro Wrestling Guerilla presents their 7th anniversary show entitled ‘Seven’ tonight from Reseda, California with the following lineup:
*Scott Lost Vs Scorpio Sky in Lost’s retirement match
*Davey Richards Vs Chris Hero for the PWG Heavyweight Title
*Bryan Danielson Vs Roderick Strong
*Paul London & El Generico Vs The Young Bucks Vs The Cutler Brothers for the PWG Tag Titles
*Chris Sabin Vs Akira Tozawa
*Brian Cage Vs Brandon Bonham
*Johnny Goodtime & Brandon Gatson & Candice LeRae Vs Peter Avalon & Ryan Taylor & Malachi Jackson
**This Sunday night on The
LAW Dan ‘The Mouth’ Lovranski and Jason Agnew will welcome WWE performer Chris
Jericho back to the show to chat about the upcoming Fozzy concert dates in Ontario with a show next Friday in Toronto
and Saturday in Windsor.
From there we will hear from Marty Jannetty, who is appearing at the NWA
Legends Fan Fest next weekend in Charlotte
on behalf of Tmart Promotions. Plus Dave Meltzer in the ‘Wrestling Observer
Extra’ segment, Title Bout Trivia and your calls and e-mails. Tune in Sunday
night at 11pm EST on Sirius 98 Hardcore Sports Radio and online right here.
**TNA has announced the
following names are confirmed for the ‘Hardcore Justice’ event on August 8th:
*Balls Mahoney
*Johnny Swinger
*Axl Rotten
**Brian Fritz of ‘Fanhouse’
reports that TNA and Shane Douglas are far apart on terms for Douglas
to appear next Sunday at the ‘Hardcore Justice’ pay per view. Douglas
states in the article that unless something drastic occurs he will not be
showing up at the event. Thus far we are aware that Lance Storm, Mikey
Whipwreck and Roadkill have all turned down appearing on the show. The article
also notes that Steve Corino has not been contacted nor is he interested in
participating (Corino turned down working both the WWE and Shane Douglas
reunion shows back in 2005).
**Spike TV sent out a
press release Friday morning announcing the special August 12th edition
of TNA ‘Impact’ and announced the following lineup for the show:
*Rob Van Dam Vs Abyss for
the TNA Title with ‘Janice’ hanging above the ring
*Motor City Machine Guns
Vs Beer Money Inc. for the Tag Titles (telling people ahead of time that the
Machine Guns will be winning Match # 4 next Thursday on ‘Impact’)
*A.J Styles Vs Kurt Angle
*Madison Rayne Vs Angelina
Love for the TNA Knockout’s Title
*The Pope Vs Mr. Anderson
Vs Matt Morgan
*Ink Inc. Vs Generation Me
in a #1 Contender’s Match for the Tag Titles
*Jeff Hardy will hold an ‘Open
Challenge’
The show will still
feature commercials and will not be any longer than a typical edition of ‘Impact’
so I have zero idea how this show is going to be any different considering they
are going to have cram all of these matches into a two hour timeslot along with
the theme of it being a ‘hardcore reunion’ with all of the ECW guys from the
pay per view. I also would have held off on this show until the August 19th edition so that next week’s ‘Impact’ can solely be focused on building ‘Hardcore
Justice’ and not having to serve two masters and promote both shows and that
gives you an extra week to really push the key angles for the special edition
of ‘Impact’. On top of all of this is that TNA returns to pay per view on
September 5th with ‘No Surrender’ giving them three weeks between
pay per views and with all the major angles geared towards August 12th that gives you two shows to get everything set for the September show.
**We want to send our best
wishes out to legendary manager Bobby Heenan who suffered a nasty fall this
past week, which resulted in a fractured pelvis and broken shoulder. Heenan was
already in bad shape as a result of a broken hip a few weeks back and will
require surgery on August 4th. As a result Heenan will not be
appearing at the NWA Legends Fest next weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina.
**Ring of Honor has
announced that their August 28th show in Charlotte, North Carolina
will be headlined by Tyler Black Vs Davey Richards for the ROH Title in a
rematch of their match of the year candidate from this past June’s ‘Death
Before Dishonor VIII’ event.
**TNA is set to open up a
European office and Simon Rothstein from ‘The Sun’ in the U.K will be leaving
the newspaper to go work for the new office.
**Gabe Sapolsky blogs about last weekend’s Bryan Danielson Vs Bobby Fish main event at the EVOLVE
event in Union City, New Jersey.
**John ‘JBL’ Layfield
posted the following comment on Twitter:
My last test was today, after
3 months of worrying and doctor visits-I got a clean bill of health today and
no sign of cancer!!!
**A cool video on Manami
Toyota coming to CHIKARA next month.
LAW MMA UPDATE
**UFC President Dana White
appeared on ESPN’s ‘MMA Live’ and confirmed that the winner of the August 7th Roy Nelson Vs Junior Dos Santos fight at UFC 117 will receive a UFC Heavyweight
Title shot against the winner of Brock Lesnar Vs Cain Velasquez, who will
headline the UFC 121 card on October 23rd. White also stated in the
interview that he is expecting UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Mauricio ‘Shogun’
Rua will likely be out of action until next spring or early summer following knee
surgery. He stated there are no plans to create an interim title for the
division.
**Kevin Iole of Yahoo!
Sports reports that Zuffa LLC has filed a lawsuit against MMA agent Ken Pavia
and Bellator Fighting Championships over Pavia
sending confidential Zuffa documenta to Bellator C.E.O Bjorn Rebney. Zuffa obtained
emails back and forth between Pavia and Rebney where it is acknowledged that
the documents were sent to Rebeny, who stated that their company would re-word
the documents so as to make them look as though they were their own but using
the Zuffa template.
**The Cage Potato website first reported that numerous fighters who took part in the recent Impact FC set
of shows in Australia
have not been paid for their fights. The story states that fighters Rameau
Thierry Sokoudjou, Karo Parisyan, Jesse Taylor and Brian Ebersole have not been
paid yet. The story also contains comments from Impact FC promoters Tom Huggins
and Andrew McManus (who was the promoter behind the WWA wrestling events from
2001 – 2003 that Jeremy Borash and Jeff Jarrett were heavily involved in). Both
promoters are disputing the others claims over who was responsible for paying
the fighters with neither accepting that responsibility. MMA Weekly has since
contacted Jeff Monson, Denis Kang and Murilo Bustamante, who have also not been
paid for their fights with the promotion.
**UFC heavyweight Ben
Rothwell underwent surgery this past Tuesday for a torn ACL he sustained in his
UFC 115 bout with Gilbert Yvel this past June. Rothwell told MMAJunkie.com that
it occurred during the first takedown of the fight, which Rothwell went on to
win via unanimous decision. Rothwell is targeting a return to the ring in
February or March of 2011.
**MC Hammer has launched a
new MMA management company called Alchemist Management that will oversee
various MMA fighters and boxers. Hammer will serve as the C.E.O. of the company
with Lex McMahon a company President and Nima Safapour as Vice President. They
have already signed up Vladimir Matyushenko, Nate Marquardt, Tim Kennedy, Jorge
Rivera, James McSweeney, Antoni Hardonk, Jarred Hamman and Luke Stewart.
**Ariel Helwani has a very
engaging interview with UFC middleweight Phil Baroni discussing his tough
decision to pull out of UFC 118 where he was scheduled to fight John Salter. The
13-12 fighter is now 34-years old and admits in the interview that people are
passing him by and he has to do something quick to remain relevant in the
sport. It’s a very honest look by Baroni at himself and he’s definitely not the
only fighters from a previous generation who are in this position.
**
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