______________________________________________________________________ __ __ __ __ _ ____ | | | | | \ | | | |/ _ \ | | | | | \ | | | / \ | | |/\| | | \| | | | | | | | | |\ | | | | | | /\ | | | \ | |__| |_| |__/ \__| |__| \__| [ n a i d O ' s - W r e s t l i n g - N e w s ] Edition 304 March 17, 2001 "I get the news, so you don't have to." http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naidoswrestlingnews ______________________________________________________________________ [Official newsletter & complement to:] http://www.naidOsWorld.com To subscribe: naidoswrestlingnews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com To unsubscribe: naidoswrestlingnews-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com ______________________________________________________________________ [Table of contents] **Note from naidO **TOP NEWS STORY **Latest news from the WWF, WCW & ECW **[Article] WCW could be no more by WrestleMania **[Column] Screwjob of the Week **Parting chair shot **Affiliates ______________________________________________________________________ [Note from naidO] Hello to those just joining. Tell your friends about the BEST newsletter around to subscribe today! - Armageddon (for wrestling anyway) may truly be upon us. Even if most hate WCW, they'd hate it even more to see it go. We cannot lose two of the three top wrestling companies in less than a month. It's unreal. As you'll read in the top story and today's only article, World Championship Wreslting as we know it may be dead by WrestleMania. It's a sad day for professional wrestling competition. - naidO nWN Founder - http://www.geocities.com/naidosnews ______________________________________________________________________ [TOP NEWS STORY] Despite the memo sent to WCW employees earlier today, which said WCW was going on "hiatus" starting March 27, it was only a polite way of saying WCW Nitro and Thunder have been cancelled. A TBS spokesman acknowledged that Nitro and Thunder would no longer appear on TNT or TBS after March 26. - For more on this story scroll down to the first article after the news - To read an article about the cancellation (which provides more information on Fusient), copy and paste this line (somehow) into your browser: http://www.tvinsite.com/broadcastingcable/index.asp? layout=story&doc_id=19514&webzine=Broadcasting+and+Cable&publication=B roadcasting+and+Cable&display=breakingNews&pub_id=BCST ______________________________________________________________________ [News from The WWF] **News and notes from under the black resistol hat... (uh...the Ross Report): - Bob "Hardcore" Holly had an MRI this week and we are awaiting the results as I write this. Hopefully, Bob's C5 and C6 discs will be back to normal within a couple of weeks. We certainly will not bring him back until he is healthy. - Rikishi's busted eardrum is healing but he may not be able to go by WrestleMania. His successful surgery was Tuesday. - Stone Cold Steve Austin's appearance on "The Tonight Show" Wednesday night was excellent. Jay Leno obviously likes the Rattlesnake, and the promotion of WrestleMania did not hurt a thing. I'm surprised Austin did not wear one of his hot new T-shirts. - Chyna is in Montreal and Toronto this week promoting her book, "If They Only Knew." Could this become a made-for-TV movie some day? - Kurt Angle is the most talented performer I have ever been around in this business with his experience level. - Mick Foley is going to do a new Chef Boyardee TV spot next week. Beefy! - William Regal leaves after next week's TVs and will travel to Australia to do promotional work for the World Wrestling Federation. The Federation is building a nice fan base Down Under. - That Steve Blackman is certainly quite the dancer. I heard the TV monitor backstage at SmackDown! was a "sellout!" - Scotty 2 Hotty is beginning to heal but it is unlikely that he will be able to compete by WrestleMania. - K-Kwik's injured ribs are slowly getting better and this charismatic young man should be good to go in another couple of weeks. - Dave Taylor will not be involved with "Tough Enough" but could instead become involved on Federation television in the next few weeks -- perhaps with Commissioner William Regal in some form, but that is not etched in stone. - Al Snow, Jacqueline, Tazz and Tori are all getting good marks thus far with their efforts on "Tough Enough." - Keep your eye on X-Pac, Justin Credible and Albert in the near future. I sure like their potential together. - The Undertaker-Triple H issue has really started off well from where I sit, and provided us with some good TV this week. If this match does in fact happen at WrestleMania, it will be awfully strong. WrestleMania sees everyone raise the bar and it is in Taker's hometown! Yes, these guys are professionals but the hometown crowd still is a great motivator. - Raven may be positioned as a fan favorite in the future. He needs more mic time, but that's hard to come by on RAW and SmackDown! - I would like to see more of the Hardy Boyz/Lita storyline. These three are all future big-time players, as single stars, in the Federation. Maybe not next week, but sometime in the future the most exciting, offensive tag team in the business will produce three main event singles competitors. This trio will soon be doing a Rolling Stone magazine photo shoot for an April edition. - Edge's lower back is almost 100 percent and the Toronto native will be back in action this weekend in his hometown and Sunday afternoon in Montreal. - I want to address a few e-mails I received this week regarding Jerry "The King" Lawler and our call to action regarding the XFL. I mentioned last week here that I wasn't sure that "The King" having his fans e-mail our writers was a good idea simply because the writers are not empowered to bring "The King" and the Kat back to the Federation. They write, but they do not get involved in personnel issues. However, the members of the media we asked our fans to contact do make the decisions as to what they cover, as it relates to the XFL and other sports. They seem to be two separate issues. The XFL call to action was a function of TV. - It amazes me to read on the Internet how people perceive my relationship with Paul Heyman. No one has interviewed me about it but here's the story. I like Paul. I like working with Paul. I respect Paul's passion and intelligence. I do not hate or dislike Paul. Paul and I have had a positive relationship for many, many years. I helped him get his start in broadcasting, and for that I am very proud. Paul's character is easy to dislike and we hope to work off this natural tension and produce some fun TV for our viewers. I have personally supported Paul in a variety of ways in ECW over the years; and I am in awe of what he, his team and their fans built. However, are we going to confront each other on TV? I sure hope so! Will it be fun to watch? That's the obvious goal, and we will both work damn hard to make that happen (but it can't and won't happen overnight). - As I write this, nothing new to report on the Jerry Lawler situation. I've spoken to "The King" twice this week and we are still good friends, which may be hard for some folks to believe, and we will remain friends no matter the outcome of this unfortunate situation. - The Vince McMahon-Bob Costas confrontation on HBO live Wednesday night will not lead to a one-on-one match at WrestleMania. This broadcast was riveting and was the highest-rated Costas show to date. **Rocky Johnson, father of Rock, will not be prosecuted on charges of battery or theft, it was announced yesterday by the Broward State Attorney's Office after allegations from a job he held as an activities leader in Davie, FL which turned into a huge local news story since the mayor, who he was in business with, got him his job and he got into a lot of trouble and was suspended from the job. (thanks to Larry Stevenson) There are articles today in both the Miami Herald and Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel on this. **Here is the The DirecTV RAW preview for RAW: - Hour 1: Rock retaliation. - Hour 2: Vince McMahon challenge. (Cred: wwf.com, the law, ultimo) _______________ [News from WCW] **Last Thunder this week: There will be no Thunder taping on the 26th in Panama City, FL. Replacing Nitro & Thunder on TNT and TBS will be movies. As it stands now, the remaining schedule for WCW looks like this: Sunday 3/18 Greed, Monday 3/19 Nitro, Wednesday 3/21 Thunder, and Monday 3/26 Nitro. **Final Greed lineup for this Sunday: - For The World Title Diamond Dallas Page vs. Scott Steiner - Jarrett & Ric Flair vs. The Rhodes' - For The U.S. Title Booker T. vs. Rick Steiner - For The Tag Team Titles "Totally Buffed" vs. O'Haire & Palumbo - For The Cruiserweight Title Shane Helms vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr. - For The Cruiserweight Tag Team Titles Kid Romeo & Elix Skipper vs. Mysterio & Kidman - "The Cat" vs. Chris Kanyon - Hugh Morrus & Konnan vs. Lance Storm & Mike Awesome - Bigelow vs. Shawn Stasiak (Cred: ) _______________ [News from ECW] **Nothing at this time (Cred: ) __________________ [In other news...] **Nothing at this time (Cred: ) ______________________________________________________________________ [Article] WCW could be no more by WrestleMania According to Multichannelnews.com, the deal breaker was new head of programming for AOL/Time Warner Jamie Kellner, who wouldn't guarantee two prime time slots per week to a sold WCW. The television time slots were the most valuable asset the company had. As best I can tell, most of the stories going around are accurate. The Fusient deal to actually buy the company is dead at this point. Fusient and Eric Bischoff are still pursuing a deal with FOX, which has been the case all along as the promotion vs. promotion angle was always a hoped for possibility with FOX vs. TBS/TNT wrestlers. The name WCW may still be sold to someone, but the story here is not the hiatus or even the falling apart of the Fusient deal, the story is that Kellner made the decision to pull wrestling from the stations, as opposed to just the hiatus that was always planned. What I'm expecting is that all the wrestlers with 90 day cycles, will be cycled out unless a new purchase agreement can be made. The big name wrestlers will likely be maintained under contract until all reasonable suitors to possibly sell the company will be exhausted. If it goes from there, what is likely to happen would be that AOL/TW would look to buy the wrestlers out of their existing contracts for a percentage of promised income in a lump sum, or the wrestlers could continue to get paid through the duration of their contracts. WWF would be able to pick and choose whomever they wanted to add at the point all attempts at selling fall through, or WWF could buy it, because the hold up, putting the wrestling on another network, is no longer part of the equation, and the key to the WWF purchase is they'd lock up all the meaningful talent and make it impossible for anyone to use any wrestlers that could be used as a nucleus for a group that could at some point years down the line be opposition. The ramification to everyone in the industry cannot be overstated. Broadcast partners of WCW were given no indication any of this was happening, nor even told that there were plans for a shutdown which meant they wouldn't be provided with the two weekly shows in overseas markets. (Dave Meltzer) ______________________________________________________________________ [Column] Screwjob of the Week by Ted Cabata Well I am back, after a week off for Spring Break I have returned to you all. Not that anyone missed me, but that's another story. I did get to see RAW two weeks ago and Paul Heyman appearing on TV with an ECW cap on was a pretty great Screw Job, and I was going to use it as a late screw job, but I found something better. So what are the choices for this week. Christian costing the Dudleyz the tag titles...yawn, so we have another TLC match at WrestleMania...Joy! And I also bothered to make my GF watch the first hour of Nitro as a sort of torture for dragging me to a very snowy Northwest PA, instead of going south. Anyway that turned into torture for me. You can't have screw jobs without faces to screw over and WCW pretty much has nothing left right now. So back to the WWF, as I've said before I am a huge mark for Kurt Angle, for some reason I am still a huge mark for Hogan, and I'm a mark for this week's winner who when he appeared I was jumping around at the thought of a match at WrestleMania. Who am I talking about? This man... The winner is...Shane McMahon! ' I am a huge mark for Shane and damn am I glad to see him back. His attack on Regal and his father was great! I was seriously jumping around. And the thought of Vince Vs Shane sounds great to me. It might be the main reason why I try to see WrestleMania this year and not just read results online. Well that's it for me this week, hope to see more screw jobs to set up Wrestlemania matches this week, but I guess we will have to wait and see. As usual - Comments or Suggestions Tcabata@roanoke.edu - ICQ #4745291 - AOL IM: frogs 11 ______________________________________________________________________ [Parting Chair Shot] Remember, tell your friends about nWN - naidO's Wrestling News today! **Missed any TV Shows? Go to the following link to read the results: http://www.naidosworld.com/tvshows.html Also, be sure to check out the NEW internet home of nWN, http://www.geocities.com/naidosnews for all your archived stats, tv shows, wrestling links, terms and PPV's, and most of all PICTURES! - naidO nWN Founder ______________________________________________________________________ [Affiliates] **http://www.paywindah.com **http://green_mist.homestead.com **http://www.geocities.com/dsherelo **http://www.tommydreamer.net **http://www.stephaniebellars.com **http://www.PaulHeyman.Net - BECOME AN AFFILIATE OF nWN and make it your official newsletter!! Email naido@hotmail.com with your website's address for consideration. ______________________________________________________________________ [News gathering links] **1Wrestling/Dave Scherer/Bob Ryder @ http://www.1wrestling.com **Wrestling Observer/Dave Meltzer @ http://www.wrestlingobserver.com **The Law/Dan Lovranski @ http://www.liveaudiowrestling.com **UltimoWrestling/MrWolfson/CBrown @ http://www.ultimowrestling.com ______________________________________________________________________ [Ads] **ESW - The number one E-Fed on the face of the Earth! The ESW: Extremely Suicidal Wrestling! http://www.geeksoft.net/gin/gfed2/gfed.cgi?lid=1204 **Call The KLiQ Hotline For Daily Pro Wrestling News & Rumors. This call give you the most updated Pro Wrestling News that matters. This call is FREE and allways will be you can call from the US and Canada the # 1-888-561-4391 ! Give it a call. REMEBER it's 100% FREE YOU WILL NEVER BE CHARGED ______________________________________________________________________ [nWN Staff] Founder & Editor: naidO - naido@hotmail.com Columnist: Sam Jerry - SAMJERRY@aol.com Columnist: The Vile - vile316@yahoo.com Columnist: Ted Cabata - tcabata@roanoke.edu ______________________________________________________________________ [Disclaimer] naidO's Wrestling News was founded on April 30, 2000 and is owned and operated by naidO. He, nor this newsletter is in no way, shape, or form affiliated with World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Turner Broadcasting's World Championship Wrestling, Extreme Championship Wrestling, or any other wrestling organization. Nor the people (staff members), wrestlers, or any other talent in the wrestling. News is gathered from various sources around the net, including newsgroups and are believed to be of public domain and truthful (uh huh). As long as proper credit is given it exempts nWN and it's staff. I (naidO) am just promoting their organization/website. nWN is not responsible for content on affiliate websites or where they may link to including mp3's, warez, kiddie porn and/or other unlawful content. This exempts myself & this newsletter (nWN) from all legal disputes. Anything taken from this newsletter requires written consent from naidO Copyright © 2000, 2001 naidO. All Rights Reserved To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: naidoswrestlingnews-unsubscribe@egroups.com Sorry to see you go if you do =(