Ric Flair is expected to return to TNA's European tour tomorrow for a show in Scotland. Today is a day off for the tour.
Update: Part of the reason he's been brought back is because of the injuries to AJ Styles and Alex Shelley, and Kurt Angle having to leave the tour early. Suffice to say that a lot of talents are not happy that he's being given another chance here. Some talents wanted him sent home for the rest of the tour or even fired. He's even said to have been borrowing money from other talents to pay his bar tabs despite telling them that the drinks were on him. Younger talents are starting to rebel, saying that the veterans are more of a financial burden than gain and that the younger talents do all the work. I think this unease is only going to get worse in times to come.
Jake "The Snake" Roberts will finally hang up the boots after a 35-year wrestling career on Saturday. His final match will be at Wrestlereunion 5 against former WWE Superstar and his protégé, Kizarny. Roberts is 55.
Next up, my take on PWInsider.com's questions of the day.
The first question isn't really an opinion thing. Yes, wrestlers get paid extra for when they're featured in video games. Even after they're released from their contract, they get paid for any merchandise the company sells with their likeness. Eric Bischoff still gets paid by WWE anytime they sell his book!
Someone asks if we'll see much more between Nexus and The Corre. I think that they'll face off some in the Rumble, but I think the Nexus concept's running out of steam. I don't think we'll see a full-on feud between the two factions. For one thing, that's heels vs. heels, and there's a reason you don't see that much. We're more likely to see them stay on separate shows I think. I'd personally like to see Punk win the Rumble with Nexus' help and fight Randy Orton at WrestleMania, and then have Barrett and The Corre feud with The Undertaker on Smackdown following them taking him out at the Buried Alive match.
The next question is a mini-rant on WWE releasing talented wrestlers only for TNA to sign them. The questioner sees it as similar to WCW doing the same thing with the likes of Stone Cold, Mick Foley, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero all hitting it big in WWE after WCW misused them.
I see the point that WWE has released some talented people, and TNA now has them, but it hasn't had a huge positive effect on TNA's ratings. Plus all of those guys mentioned still had years of talent left in them, and possibly were better in WWE than WCW. Kurt Angle (who was cut due to concerns about his health), Mr. Anderson (who was released after a number of injuries, suspensions, and supposedly almost injuring Randy Orton), D'Angelo Dinero, and Matt Morgan might fit that category, but there's also The Hardy Boys, Team 3D, Orlando Jordan, Mick Foley, Shannon Moore, and Tommy Dreamer who WWE got pretty much everything they could get out of.
The last question asks about Alex Riley. He's apparently well-liked in WWE and they see a lot of potential in him. I agree on that front.
TNA has another attempt for publicity started. NFL player Chad Ochocinco stated that he wanted a cage match with his coach, Marvin Lewis on Twitter. As a result, TNA has offered to host the hypothetical match at Lockdown in April. They even say that they'll train both of them for the match. That's actually kind of clever and I definitely think would bring a buzz to the show. But, it doesn't seem that any of their past publicity stunts have done much for business outside of a brief (and usually costly) pop. Though I guess you could say the same thing for some of the talents they've signed. (But to be fair, it's not entirely the talent's fault.)
The stock value for WWE dropped once again today, and by a fair margin. It's dropped nearly 15% this week. Ouch. WWE has some serious work to do to pull its value back up.
Former WWE developmental talent "Bad Seed" Shawn Osborne passed away at the age of 34 today. The cause of death is suicide. That's never good to hear. He last worked for WWE in 2008 as part of FCW.
WWE does not plan to cut down on the number of PPVs it holds each year, and could even add more to the calendar. Doing more than 1 event a month always seems rushed, usually even when it's only 3 weeks between them. The build to the Royal Rumble has been great and I think a lot of that is due to how much time WWE's been given to build up to it.
WWE also plans on bringing back the Diva Search. I seem to remember this being good for ratings, but I'm not really fond of it. You can guess what means more to them.
WWE is now putting together DVDs on Hall of Famers Gorgeous George and Ted DiBiase, Sr.. Pretty cool. Both deserve it.
That's all for today's news. More to come tomorrow.
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