Joe's 411: B/R Pro-Wrestling News
Welcome to an all-new Joe's 411: B/R Pro-Wrestling News, the best place for wrestling news around. There is a lot to get to today, so lets get started.
RAW Talent Confusion
TOP NEWS
Fresh Backstage WWE Rumors 👊
Modern-Day Dream Matches 💭
Most Likely Backlash Heel/Face Turns 🎭
There is a lot going on tonight on RAW. The WWE is starting an hour early, as they are going three hours. The big part of the night will be the three World Title matches, of course, but what else will there be?
We are rumored to find out who the new RAW General Manager is supposed to be. They are in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is Ric Flair's hometown, so that may be a clue as to who the new General Manager is.
Flair also stepped down as ROH Ambassador, and has been saying to many that he signed a new deal with the WWE and he will be on shortly. This could be another clue that Flair will be name the new GM.
He has been RAW GM in the past, as he was "part-owner" of the WWE back in late 2001, after Survivor Series, where Team WWF beat Team WCW-ECW. The storyline was that Shane and Stephanie sold their stock in the company and Flair bought it.
Apparently, Shane and Stephanie were part-owners of the WWF along with Vince. It was kind of weird to find out after the whole alliance thing happened, but oh well.
Flair and Vince fought over who would be the real owner for the longest time. Then Linda McMahon had the idea to split apart the WWE. Vince would take SmackDown and Flair would take RAW.
This was the first time we saw the WWE Draft. Now, of course, it is an annual affair.
I am going through this history to show that Flair knows a little about being a GM, so he could be a good choice.
There is a rumor going around, though, that Shawn Michaels will be coming back tonight. Michaels said he does not want to wrestle too much right now, and he was set to come back around Summerslam, before he said he wanted to take more time off.
This makes no sense, because of the fact that Michaels wants to take more time off. Why would he come back early? Never the less, it is rumored, and some say he could be the new GM instead of Flair.
JBL has also been talked about, and he could work. He did retire back at Wrestlemania, and he has no desire to wrestle again. Maybe the WWE could make him the new RAW GM. Who knows?
I have my money on Flair, but with the WWE, anything can happen.
The confusion does not end there. Just about all of the SmackDown superstars, with the exception of Mysterio, Jericho, Hardy, Edge, and Punk, supposedly have no idea what they are doing for RAW. ECW superstars do not know their roles either, other than Dreamer and Christian.
As of late Saturday night, superstars were telling friends that they didn't know what their role would be because creative didn't tell them anything. We may not see anything with SmackDown or ECW superstars other than the World Title matches, but that seems unlikely.
I, personally, want to see a Miz vs Morrison match, considering what happened to Morrison at the hands of Miz.
I would think we would see something with the SmackDown and ECW Superstars, considering they have a three-hour RAW. I guess we will have to watch and see.
Misawa's In-Ring Death update
Mitsuharu Misawa died a couple of days ago in a tragic in-ring accident. During the match, opponent Akitoshi Saito used a back suplex on him, causing him to strike his head and leaving him unable to move. His heart stopped shortly after.
A doctor came out to check on Misawa. He tried CPR and used an AED to get his heart working again. It helped Misawa's heart come back for a short time, according to reports. However, after arriving at a nearby hospital, shortly after the accident, Misawa passed away at 10:10pm.
The doctor treating Misawa said that the cause of his death was damage to his cervical spinal cord, which was something that made sense considering the events that happened. However, what was so strange was a fan report about Misawa, check it out:
"He hit his head after the back suplex and was knocked unconscious. The EMTs were performing CPR for a long time. But even during the match Misawa kept shaking his head, and he looked to be in a bad way."
Think of this, he said even during the match he was shaking his head. Now, this could be a sign here. The suplex may have ended up killing Misawa, but that was because he was already hurt. If he was not hurt then, the landing should not have hurt him as much as we think.
He may have already been so hurt that the longer he wrestled the worse he was making things for himself. If he shook his head, he was hurting, probably trying to shake off the cobwebs.
This is something promotions need to pay attention to from now on, if you ask me. I think the refs and others need to keep an eye on wrestler's body language to see if they are really OK. If they keep looking as if they are going in and out then the match should not keep going on.
There is no way to tell for sure, but if Misawa said he was not OK during the match and didn't keep going, he may still be alive.
I know wrestlers, especially those in Japan, do not like to end matches over something like that. They think of wrestling as an honor over there, and by ending the match in front of all of those people because you were not feeling right would be a bad thing.
Misawa probably thought this and decided to keep going. However, he didn't need to continue after he felt himself going in and out, and having to sort of wake himself up.
I feel we lost a wrestling legend, hopefully precautions will be taking place in the future.
WWE hires more Hollywood Talent
The WWE has officially hired current Prison Break producer Mike Pavone. His official role will be Executive Vice President of WWE Studios. This would probably help WWE Studios out a lot, considering they have not had the best movies as of late,
Their biggest seller of all time was The Marine with John Cena, which now has a strange sequel. The reason I say this is because Cena is not in it, but Ted DiBiase Jr. is. Usually, sequels have the first film's star in it.
I can't think of any film that didn't have the star of a film that had a sequel and didn't have the main star of the film in both. I guess the WWE is trying to do their logic they do on RAW, ECW, and SmackDown. You know, where they act as if fans have no clue about their history.
DiBiase was not the first person tapped for the job either. In fact, Randy Orton was asked to do the job. However, at the time he was going to do it he was injured and unable to, so the WWE had to scramble to find a new star and DiBiase happened to be a person they liked and decided to go with him.
But back to Pavone, I feel, with his resume, we may see some great things. Here is a list of some of the projects he has been a part of:
- The Client (CBS)
- Prison Break (FOX)
- High Incident with Steven Spielberg (ABC)
- Jack and Jill (WB)
- Against The Grain (NBC)
- Street Time (Showtime)
- The Blue Wall (Disney)
- Northmen for Warner Bros.
- Seven Men from Now for Beacon Films
He has been a strategic consultant to WWE’s Creative Writing Department, collaborating on the company’s top-rated, signature television programs “Monday Night RAW” and “Friday Night SmackDown”.
Yes, I copy and pasted his resume. Forgive me.
Pavone will bring his 18 years of experience as a producer, actor, and director to WWE Studios. He will be in charge of the Studio’s theatrical releases, direct-to-DVD movies, series, and reality programming. However, like everyone, he will report to Vince McMahon.
That may be the downfall, as Vince did have to hire Pavone to help out WWE Studios. So, apparently Vince was not doing a good job and knew it, and hired Pavone. I say let him do his job, Vince. You know he will do it better than you. This may a bit of a culture shock for Vince, but he will get over it.
I'm just saying.
Chris Masters update
Masters was officially hired back to the WWE this week after much speculation that he would be signing. Masters met with Vince McMahon during the LA tapings, and from there many people saw him and knew he was for real when he said he was 100 percent clean.
He is still kind of big, as many pro wrestlers are, but he is much smaller than what he was back in 2007, which led to people realizing how clean he was. Randy Orton actually recommended that Vince re-hire Masters, which could be a helping hand in getting him in.
Many feel that he can do very well, now that he is clean, and the WWE does feel they can use him in storylines. There is no talk yet on what show he will be on, but it seems like RAW would be the area. He was on RAW before he was released, so why not?
They may bring him in as a face, considering his new look, but because he was a heel before his release I would not be surprised if we saw him back as a heel. However, when a former wrestler returns after such a long absence, they return as a face. We will have to wait and see.
If Masters has developed more in the ring from when we last saw him, and he can stay clean, we may see Masters as a champion in the WWE again.
Hurricane Helms return
The Hurricane finally returned to wrestling this past week at a show in New York. He teamed with Evan Bourne against the Hart Dynasty. His team lost, however. As we saw on ECW, it looked as if they were playing a return for him.
They had an angle where a man said that he saw a guy in green come out of no where and push him out of the way before something fell on him while he was talking to ECW General Manager, Tiffany. Obviously, it was not a huge clue, but it gave us a hint.
People are saying that the WWE let him do his backstage interview job while he was injured so that he could stay in the spotlight before his return, which makes sense.
Reports are saying we could see Helms back on WWE TV as soon as this week, but that is not confirmed just yet.
A few notes...
ECW General Manager, Tiffany, sat down with WWE Magazine for an interview. She talked about her life before the WWE and what not, but what really caught people's eyes was when she talked about a former relationship she had.
She used to date Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Star Alfonso Ribeiro, who we know as Carlton Banks. She was asked if he ever did the infamous "Carlton Dance" in front of her, this is what she had to say:
“I’ve seen him do it a few times, and he did it for me for my birthday in Las Vegas,” Tiffany said. “It was the most random birthday party. There was this guy dressed as Santa Claus, but he was wearing a Rey Mysterio mask and dancing with Alfonso. I think I won the award for weirdest birthday ever.”
In other news, the WWE is rumored to be taking the word "Hell" out of Hell in a Cell. This was said to be happening for sure, however many people have shot it down because of the WWE SmackDown vs Raw 10 video game still having the word "Hell" in the title.
Also, the WWE has not said anything publicly about it like they have with other matches they renamed. So, until that happens, the rumor seems to be shot down.
Moving on, the WWE has actually addressed TNA recently. They were asked if they consider TNA any competition at all, and the WWE revealed that they do consider them competition, but they are no WCW. Vince absolutely hated WCW, and that was mainly because of them wronging him in the past.
They said that unless TNA were to do the same, then Vince would never have as much of an issue with them. So, I wouldn't think TNA will be the next WCW in the WWE's eyes any time soon, but at least they consider them competition.
So at least TNA can have that on to hang their hats on, for now at least.
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