______________________________________________________________________ __ __ __ __ _ ____ | | | | | \ | | | |/ _ \ | | | | | \ | | | / \ | | |/\| | | \| | | | | | | | | |\ | | | | | | /\ | | | \ | |__| |_| |__/ \__| |__| \__| [ n a i d O ' s - W r e s t l i n g - N e w s ] Edition 346 April 29, 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 from the WWF, WCW & Other news in pro-wrestling **[Article] The Rock loves his Mummy **Parting chair shot **Affiliates ______________________________________________________________________ [Note from naidO] Hello to those just joining. Tell your friends about the BEST newsletter around to subscribe today! - Not a lot of news today as all eyes arre on the WWF and Backlash. Enjoy the PPV and we'll see you tomorrow with A ALL NEW LOOK TO CELEBRATE THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF nWN! **Enjoy this latest edition of nWN! - naidO nWN Founder - http://www.geocities.com/naidosnews ______________________________________________________________________ [TOP NEWS STORY] Dave Meltzer speculates on teh WWFE's WCW: While there are no surprises on the horizon, WWFE is going full-tilt with the idea of WCW as a separate organization. I think the only way possible that the thing wouldn't be started out and given a fair shot of making it would be if they couldn't get a television time slot. The odds of them being unable to get TV, even in this time period where stations aren't exactly jumping up and down for more wrestling programming, are exceedingly slim. The reason there is no official start date is because no deal has been finalized with TNN. When the TNN deal for the Saturday night time slot (they are still negotiating for the same slot) is finalized, at that point the official start date should also be finalized. There has been no slowdown whatsoever in putting a new division together. WWFE has had 24 wrestlers from the former WCW under contract for several weeks. The remaining six or seven names that haven't been public are all expected to be made public at some point today. Again, no surprises, just people like Evan Karagias and Rick Cornell types. Regarding rumors of Booker T being at the PPV tomorrow, I'd say that is highly unlikely. For this to happen, he would have to sign off on his Time Warner deal and sign with WWF basically today and that's not going to happen. If there is any involvement tomorrow, and my feeling is mixed on whether there should be, right now leaning toward no unless the "big guns" are signed and they aren't, it would have to be with either people on the 24-man roster or a free agent with a big name that is signed in the next few days ______________________________________________________________________ [News from The WWF] **This week's DirecTV RAW preview says: - 9:00: Backlash results - 10:00: Undertaker on a rampage? **According to wwfnewyork.com, the official website for the WWFNY restaurant, Jerry Lynn will host tomorrow night's RAW broadcast from the facility. WWFNY usually has one or two segments on RAW, so it is likely we will see the debut of Lynn tomorrow night. **Dave Meltzer reports Perry Saturn suffered a broken arm during the Smackdown match between Matt Hardy and Eddie Guerrero. Apparently, Saturn injured himself while taking a fall into the ring steps. He has a half cast and will be at Backlash tonight, and may work around the injury. **You'd had better believe that the WWF is ready to hit the panic button over the continued drop across the board in their television ratings. In the Nielsen Basic Cable ratings for April 16 to 22, the first hour of Raw Is War nose-dived scoring a 3.8 in the ratings. Last week it had notched a 4.0. The ratings for the second hour of Raw slipped from last week's 4.5 rating too ending the show with a 4.2. Each ratings point represents 1,022,000 households. It seems as though even if the WWF is the only big name federation now, fans will turn off WWF programming completely in favour of something else (like Survivor or The Weakest Link game shows) if they don't like what's being presented. **In case you missed the report of HHH's appearance on "Byte This" on Friday, HHH commented about people on the internet saying he is a backstage manipulator. He largely said what insiders wrote the other day, in that some are laying an undeserved rap on him, and then went on to make the most important point of all, and that is that in the WWF there is one booker with the final say, and that is Vince McMahon. Talk about a shoot. **Jim Ross did not do a Ross Report this week on WWF.com. He was in Los Angeles for WCW meetings last week. Rumors going around were that he met with Rob Van Dam and possibly Sting. Sting is making a lot of money from AOL and would be a tough sign. Many see RVD ending up with the new WCW. He would fit if they could work out a deal. (Cred: lwn, ultimo, SLAM!, wrestlingobserver, 1wrestling) _______________ [News from WCW] **Here's an interesting item that may or may not be an example of a cat being let out of the bag early. Trenton's Sovereign Bank Arena website is showing a listing for a WWF show on Saturday June 23, with tickets being placed on sale on May 19. The interesting thing is that 6/23 is the day before the King of the Ring PPV at the Meadowlands in NJ. The WWF usually never does a date the night before a PPV, and on the current list of dates that we have for the WWF, no date is listed for 6/23. This is where it gets interesting. Reportedly, the building's marquee had "WCW" listed on it. The Sovereign Arena was initially the first site mentioned to house the inaugural taping for WCW under the WWF banner. That date, scheduled for Wednesday May 9, was later canceled. The WWF then had hoped to do the first WCW taping on June 9 in Virginia and air the show on tape delay later that night. It's entirely possible that this date will end up being the first WCW taping. It would also make sense that it was listed as a WWF show since the company has twice listed, then canceled, dates. It could be the WWF's way of not announcing anything while moving forward with plans for the first WCW show. If it turns out that it is the first WCW show, they will most probably air later that night on TNN via tape delay. Logistically, it's a perfect fit since they will have the production crew and brain trust nearby for the PPV the next night. **In case you didn't catch Walker, Texas Ranger last night, Sting was on playing the leader of a motorcycle gang called The Raptors. The gang was in the crystal meth business and Sting's character, Grangous (sp?), had just found a "broker" to distribute it nationwide. Anyway, to make the 60 min show short, towards the end, there was the usual fight scene between Walker and the bad guy (Sting). Great moves on behalf of Steve Borden. He did a couple martial arts type moves. He even got the Scorpion Death Drop on Walker. But in the end, Walker prevailed. In case you missed it, I'd wait for rerun season on this one and then tape it. (Cred: 1wrestling) __________________ [In other news...] **Don "Cyrus" callis has updated his online commentary. To read it, click http://www.canoe.ca/SlamWrestlingJackyl/home.html (Cred: slam!) ______________________________________________________________________ [Article] The Rock loves his Mummy HOLLYWOOD -- The Rock rules in The Mummy Returns. For the uninitiated, The Rock is the alter ego of third-generation pro wrestler Dwayne Johnson. In the World Wrestling Federation, The Rock is a superstar, a six-time champion excessively self-hyped in his own best-selling autobiography as "The Great One, the Chosen One, the Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment -- period!" In Stephen Sommers' special-effects extravaganza The Mummy Returns, which opens across North America on Friday as the first of the summer's big popcorn movies, The Rock is to the movie what he is to wrestling, a charismatic villain with a bad attitude and, at 6-foot-4 and a muscular 255 pounds, a superhero's sculpted physique. While his on-screen time is actually minimal, his impact is so huge that Universal Studios has already started shooting a spin-off movie, The Scorpion King, starring The Rock as the title character. The action in The Scorpion King takes place a decade before the prologue sequence for The Mummy Returns, which features The Rock as a warrior leading his doomed army under the name the Scorpion King. "I didn't know who he was," Sommers admits about The Rock. But after writing and directing the 1999 hit The Mummy, he knew he needed a boost for his sequel, The Mummy Returns. A casting agent suggested the wrestler for the role of the Scorpion King in the movie, and Sommers was pleasantly surprised. "I found him to be really charming and fun and smart," Sommers says of The Rock. Then, within three weeks of their first meeting, The Rock showed up on the cover of Newsweek and as a host on Saturday Night Live and Sommers knew the timing was right. "I said, 'Thank God, I'm all set now!' " The Rock is humble about making his movie acting debut, even though, in his book, The Rock Says, he is brash enough to predict his future as a movie star: "Will The Rock be the next James Dean or Cary Grant or James Stewart? I don't think so. But he could be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger -- only better looking." Says Sommers: "He knows he can perform in front of 60,000 people, but he wanted to learn how to do it in front of a camera," says Sommers. "He was totally willing to learn and I love that in an actor, or in anybody." As for the spin-off movie, which Sommers is writing and co-producing, it was an obvious move for The Rock. "He's so natural," says Sommers, "A natural action hero." In person, it is Dwayne Johnson who shows up, not the swaggering The Rock, whom Johnson always refers to in the third person, as he did in his autobiography. In the book, ghost written by former Houston film critic Joe Layden, The Rock is all bombast, a fictional character pushing the outer limits of the WWF. The Rock swears. The Rock disses rivals, calling his bitter rival Stone Cold Steve Austin "the biggest piece of Texas trailer-park trash walking God's Green Earth." In the flesh, Dwayne Johnson, who turns 29 on Wednesday, is polite to extremes. At one point, he uses the word "ass" and immediately apologizes. He is articulate. He is friendly. He is so kind and cooperative he even leads a group of reporters singing Happy Birthday into a tape recorder for Vancouver film writer Ian Caddell's eight-year-son Owen. His dad is stuck in L.A. on this interview instead of being home for the birthday celebration. As for The Mummy Returns and The Scorpion King, scheduled for a May 2002 release, Johnson says simply: "I'm excited about it. There are all these elements that are going to make it a wonderful story. "It is about vengeance and discovery, and it's about love. It's a wonderful story about a man's rise from being an assassin with a heart of ice to a leader of thousands of men, a man with a heart of gold." His character is strong but not invincible. Which is why he loved movies such as Rocky -- "I was a huge fan of the Rocky movies, a huge fan!" -- as well as the Indiana Jones series. "I was a huge fan of any hero who was able to show vulnerability," Johnson says. "Of course, when I was younger, I didn't know how to describe it, but there was just something appealing to me when the guy is so big and so strong and he kicks so much butt and yet he can get his butt kicked." As a role model for his movie career, Johnson cites Schwarzenegger. "I get the Arnold comparison, often," he says, "and that is fantastic." Schwarzenegger has passed along personal words of encouragement, as has Sylvester Stallone. "Here are two guys who have made it in this industry," Johnson says in appreciation. "They are very successful and don't have to be supportive but they have been." Flashing his sense of humour, Johnson also does an uncanny impersonation of Schwarzenegger giving praise in his Austrian-English drawl: "De Rock, you're doing faaaaantastic, aaaabsolutely." Johnson, who is of Samoan and African-Canadian descent, says the key to his possible success in movies is surrounding himself with "good directors, good writers, good actors." It's the same technique he used to get ahead in the scripted WWF world. But his wrestling career is in limbo. "I'm on hold now from story lines in the WWF because it is just so difficult, as you know, filming movies." But he will return to wrestling until the physical element becomes too much. By then, he wants a real movie career. His dream, says Johnson, is "to excel in this industry long-term, not short-term." ______________________________________________________________________ [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 itt 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.geocities.com/the_esw **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 =(