Joe's 411: B/R Pro-Wrestling News (June 30)

Welcome to the latest edition of Joe's 411: B/R Pro-Wrestling News. Today, there is a lot of news, as always, so why not get started, eh?

Latest Draft News

WWE has everyone who was drafted up on their site. Here they are:

RAW

1. Evan Bourne
2. Jack Swagger
3. Mark Henry
4. Alicia Fox
5. Gail Kim

ECW

1. Shelton Benjamin
2. William Regal
3. Goldust
4. The Bellas

SmackDown

1. Matt Hardy
2. Finlay
3. Hart Dynasty: Tyson Kidd, DH Smith, Natalya

I feel the WWE did a good job for the most part here.

The Hart Dynasty needed a better place than ECW, and SmackDown is that place. They can be a tag team there, on top of being singles champions too. So I am glad they finally got off ECW.

Matt Hardy is going to SmackDown mainly because they need an extra heel there. Now that Edge and Jericho are in the tag team division, they will be out of singles wrestling for the most part.

Meaning they need someone to take over Edge's role in the heel spot for singles. Ziggler could take over Jericho's role to me, so it works to have Edge and Jericho on other shows such as RAW competing.

Sure, they will be on SmackDown too. But, because the tag titles are able to be defended on all shows, they will be on RAW a lot. Because of that, they won't wrestle on SmackDown every week, nor will they be in a lot of singles storylines.

Therefore, the SmackDown roster needs two main event heels; Hardy and Punk can be the singles heels they need. And when you throw Ziggler into the fold, you have a lot of possibilities storyline wise.

Regal and Goldust going to ECW works to me, they need to have vets there to help out the younger talent that is sure to come to ECW soon.

Shelton Benjamin is dying on SmackDown, the only way I see his career being saved is by going to ECW. They can have him and Christian rival each other, along with having him in the ECW Title hunt.

He did well on ECW before going to SmackDown a few years back. The only problem to me is that he is just plain boring, like the adults on the Charlie Brown shows.

The Bellas are not going to be in any women's title hunt. Therefore, having them take two roster spots up instead of having two women on the RAW show who can compete for the Diva's Title in Fox and Kim would be better.

I am not sold on Fox yet, as I really don't think she is that great. But Kim is very good, so having her on RAW is a great idea.

Bourne, Swagger, and Henry are good for RAW. Swagger is needed because of the lack of heels on show, also he is dying on ECW. How many times can you have him in matches with Christian and/or Dreamer?

He needs RAW as much as it needs him.

Bourne deserves to move to a place where he can win titles such as the US Title. He has done everything he can on ECW and he would be great for RAW. Imagine some of the matches he can have there.

Henry is a wildcard here. It looks as if he is turning face from what we saw on RAW last night. Will he? We will have to wait until next week to see. Obviously, if he faces a heel, then he is now a face. If he faces, well, a face, then he will still be heel.

However, he was working the crowd very well last night, which is always good to see. Henry has not been a face for years, so turning him back to a face would be a nice change of pace for the big man.

Matt Hardy update

For those who doubted Matt Hardy was hurt, it has been proven that he is. He did tear his abdominal and went to Duke Medical Center to get it checked out. He posted a tweet indicating he is out for a little while:

"When the time is right, I'll be better than ever.. And I've been traded to Smackdown! I'm pleased about that..."

He most likely will come back and feud with his brother again. I don't know why they took him off RAW unless they are planning something big with him. As I said before, he is mainly going to take over a heel spot left open.

But because he is injured, he won't be back to take that spot for a little while. I feel we will see someone step up to take over the heel spot, like Ziggler, until Hardy is back.

Punk seems to be the guy who will take over as the marquee heel on SmackDown. But you have two others in Edge and Jericho. The issue is that they are doing the tag team title thing and unable to be in a lot of singles storylines, if any.

Hardy will be back and will make an impact. When and where is unknown, but a lot of people within the company are saying we could see him around October.

Larry Sweeney update

If you are not familiar with Larry Sweeney, he is mainly a manager for ROH (Ring of Honor). He actually left the company, due to "health" problems a few weeks back. He seemed to be ok when we saw him on HDNet, but questions were raised when he left.

The issues with Sweeney now look even worse than originally thought.

Sweeney showed up at the recent ROH show in Chicago, and had lost a lot of weight and looked "disheveled," according to reports.

The wrestlers and staff in attendance were very worried for Sweeney, and fear that if he doesn't get assistance soon, something bad may happen.

One ROH worker that has worked with Sweeney a lot in the past was apparently saddened when discussing Sweeney's current situation according to ewrestlingnews.

I feel Sweeney has a lot to live for, and if he continues to not do well, then he needs to seek help. Maybe ROH can find a way to get him some help considering he has been with the company in the past. We will have to see.

Vickie Guerrero update

Wrestlers are very upset over the rumor going around that Vickie Guerrero was only being paid $500 per appearance.

For those of you who are not financial wizards, 500 in a week is around an "average" salary for people who are starting out in the WWE. She was an on-air talent, yet not a wrestler anyway.

Now this is 2,000 a month if she is featured on every RAW or Smackdown show, as she was SmackDown GM for some time before she was GM on RAW. While she was GM, she was on just about every week.

So, of course, she was paid fairly. Also, she was not a wrestler. She only wrestled one match, if you can call it that, at Extreme Rules. She barely did anything in the match as she had Chavo do most of the work.

So while all of the wrestlers, especially vets such as Michaels, Triple H, John Cena, MVP, and others are making hundreds of thousands or dollars, they deserved to get it because they are wrestlers in a wrestling world, Vickie was not.

Also, it should be remembered that the WWE paid for all of Eddie Guerrero's funeral on top of other expenses. They even gave Vickie the rest of the money left on Eddie's WWE contract. So they helped out Vickie and her children a good bit.

She has not been complaining about anything with the WWE about money, so we cannot blast her for this. However, the locker room needs to get the clue. They are the ones complaining here.

They need to realize how much the WWE has done for her, before jumping up and complaining if you ask me.

Rey Mysterio update

It seems issues with the WWE and Mysterio have calmed down. As I said in past 411s, there was a lot of issues with Mysterio and his WWE contract. He is not making as much as he would normally make. He signed a $1.5 million deal; however, that is over four years and down from his previous deal.

He was injured when he signed the deal with the WWE after his previous deal expired. The WWE didn't want to take a chance on Mysterio too much because they didn't know how healthy he would be.

Because of that, they offered him less. He felt originally that his merchandise sales would do well, so he didn't complain about getting a better deal at the time.

Because of the economy doing so poorly, sales have gone down and the money is not there like it was when he signed the deal.

The contract was okay, because he knew he would get money from merchandise sales and because they are down, he wants more money. It seems fair, but the WWE does not want to pay him any more.

Mysterio told the WWE he could make more money down in Mexico, so the possibility of him leaving was there. The AAA promotion in Mexico reportedly offered him a $1 million dollar signing bonus and $1 million per year.

So he would make more in AAA, so if the WWE wants to keep him, then they will pay him a bit more or give him more of a percentage on his merchandise sales instead of around 15 percent to 25 percent or so.

That would work for him, I'm sure, at least until his current deal expires. However, I think he may retire after his current deal is over, as he does have three years or so left on it.

He would be in his late 30s when this current deal expires, so will he come back? Not sure.

As of now, Mysterio is happy with where he is at with the WWE. He is now Intercontinental Champion, for the second time in a few months. So, I would think he would be happy with his role personally.

He is not unhappy with his role obviously, just the money he is getting. All we know as of now is that the issues have calmed down between the WWE and Mysterio. There have been no talks of renegotiating his contract, however.

Lilian Garcia leaving the WWE

As of right now, Lilian Garcia has told her fans that she is leaving the WWE after her current WWE contract is up.

She wants to get married and focus on her singing career. She has been in the WWE for over a decade. She doesn't look like it, as we all know.

The WWE has been putting announcements out everywhere for new ring announcers, so it was obvious they knew Lilian was going to be leaving for a while now.

We may have just found out about it, but it seemed obvious someone was leaving. So we could have put two and two together.

Lilian won't be leaving really soon, it will be toward the end of the year.

There have been no official replacements announced for her as of now. But they have had people in mind. There are talks of Angela Fong replacing her.

We have to remember though, the WWE probably won't be making a big deal out of the replacement right now as Lilian's contract does not expire for a little while.

I feel we will hear more about the replacement at toward the end of the year.

Complaints on WWE official

It seems Talent Relations VP John Laurinaitis is on the receiving end of some criticism from wrestlers.

Complaints include allegations that Laurinaitis does not live up to discussed terms when negotiating contracts with talent. 

PWTorch.com notes that one wrestler "swears that he and Laurinaitis agreed to a specific merchandise percentage," yet when the official WWE contract came, the percentage was lower.

Laurinaitis reportedly would not make changes to the stipulated percentage, even after assuring the wrestler that if he signed, the merchandise figure would be corrected.

However, because they were not corrected, that is where the issues are coming from. As I mentioned, if Laurinaitis made an error, it would have been corrected.

Yet, he did not correct this error despite agreeing to the stipulations in the contract. Its as if he is only giving them a certain amount, and not giving what they discussed on purpose.

If he is not giving them the contract discussed, then he is screwing over the talent, nuff said.

This is not a good thing by any means. Also, this is not focused on just one talent's issue with him. Many others have claimed they have had the same problem with Laurinaitis. If this continues, then I think there should be an investigation if you ask me.

Laurinaitis has not said anything about this, so hopefully we will hear his side of the story soon.

WWE Returns

As of right now, the WWE is really hoping to see Undertaker back at Summerslam. Which will of course be in a few months.

The WWE is also firmly believing that that Shawn Michaels will be back later this summer. The belief is that he will be back after Undertaker or around the exact same time.

Because of both being on different shows, having them come back at the same time would work out.

Michaels has reportedly said he is in no hurry to come back to the WWE yet. He is believed to be back later in the summer, but if he decides otherwise then the WWE obviously cannot force him to come back.

They won't fire him, mainly because he has been such a huge star for them. Also, Michaels knows he will not lose his "spot."

Michaels obviously knows he won't be a World Champion again in the WWE. Therefore he is just there to be in main event storylines or to help put others over.

He is still great in the ring, which makes his return worth something. He is set to have a lighter schedule when he comes back.

For those who are concerned about not seeing Michaels back, do no fret. Michaels has claimed he will be back. If he does not return later in the summer, he will be back before Survivor Series.

So, barring unforeseen circumstances, Michaels is set to be back before November.

Taker is actually sporting a shorter haircut, similar to his Badass days. This probably means nothing, but maybe it does. Will he go back to that gimmick? We will have to see.

I wouldn't think he would, considering he himself likes the Deadman gimmick the most. The hair probably won't be cut, therefore having it grow out enough to be long for his return.

But nevertheless you have to wonder if he will go back to the old Badass gimmick, which would still be loved by fans.

That is all for the 411 today, make sure you come back next time.

credit: ewrestlingnews.com, pwrestlingnews.com, pwtorch.com, pwmania.com, prowrestling.com, prowrestling.net, lordsofpain.com, wrestlingtruth.com, wrestlenewz.com