Background on C.M. Punk's promo, WWE charity work with MDA, DDP talks, Stan Hansen autobiography coming this summer, more TNA Gut Checks, Questions on MITB, ECW in '95 vs. ROH in '11, trademarking gimmicks, Kelly winning the Divas' Title, and Kelly vs. Tessmacher, wrestling world reacts to Punk's promo, Koko B. Ware interview, Sammartino health update, latest on Punk angle, correction/update on Impact Wrestling going on the road, Raw's rating, more on the All Wheels Wrestling concept, and D'Angelo Dinero talks about his TNA status

Since everyone's talking about it, here's some background on C.M. Punk's promo from Raw (transcribed here), based on what I've gleaned over the years on the subjects:

I don't know how much of an "ass-kisser" any of the people he mentioned are. Obviously Hogan, Rock, and Cena have all been very successful in WWE and they all have some good leeway on what they can do based on that. I do know that Punk's not crazy about Hogan.

I have heard of there being friction with C.M. Punk over him being a "Paul Heyman guy". In other words, someone Heyman pushed for when the ECW relaunch started up. Punk got his start in WWE on that brand, and got to keep his name and character largely intact. WWE usually wants a name they came up with so they can trademark it. Kurt Angle, Hulk Hogan, etc. are free to use those names post-WWE on any merchandise they want, whereas say John Morrison or Kofi Kingston can't since they're "WWE names".

There's also the theory I've heard over the years that WWE doesn't like pushing people that they didn't "make", say a former WCW/ECW (or in Punk's case ROH) wrestler getting over of fame they had from performing elsewhere supposedly doesn't sit well with the WWE higher-ups. I don't know if that's true, but the theory's tossed around a lot.

After the break, I look at the rest of his promo, and everything else in the day's news (including the reactions to it).

I've heard that Punk was legitimately upset about his role in the company. As fantastic as he is in everything they do with him, he isn't a featured performer. He's not treated as an established star the likes of Cena, Orton, Mysterio, etc. and he's also not treated as one of the company's up-and-comers like Miz, Del Rio, and Sheamus. He's slipped through the cracks to a degree and I think he has a legitimate gripe there.

I can definitely see him being frustrated over the fact that he's not as big of a part of Mania as Rock will be, seeing as how Punk competes hundreds of days out of the year and Rock just shows up from time to time . I haven't heard anything specific here, though.

As far as heeling the fans cheering him, some of that could just be that he doesn't like to be cheered when he's a heel, so he went after them, too. He is known as not being someone to approach early in the morning at an airport, though.

I don't know where Punk's going post-WWE, but he did get his start in ROH and is a big fan/friend of (ROH wrestler) Colt Cabana. He's plugged his merchandise on TV before (back when he was commentating on Raw he wore some Cabana shirts). Speaking of shirts, he's played up the possibility of facing Stone Cold at next year's Mania, so that could be the meaning behind what he wore during the promo.

There have been complaints for YEARS that Vince McMahon surrounds himself with yes-men. John Lauranitis, who formerly wrested as Johnny Ace, is the VP of Talent Relations and has a negative reputation with quite a few people. Some of it comes with the job and the fact that he replaced JR in the role. Some of it comes from him being the messenger for when someone gets released (and possibly making some of those decisions himself). He hires some people to the company, and the stories go that a fair number of WWE Divas were hired due to their modeling resumes/him seeing them in a catalog. A good number of Divas (and former Divas) do come from that background. I've also heard that he looks for "big guys" but don't know much from there.

As for McMahon's daughter Stephanie and son-in-law Triple H, they are seen to some degree as heirs apparent to his role, or at least part of it. Stephanie is seen as similar to her father. I don't know much about them "behind the scenes" these days beyond that.

As for other news, WWE and the Muscular Dystrophy Association are doing a contest to recognize people who have helped those with the disease. Pretty cool for them to do.

For those looking for more on Diamond Dallas Page, here's a recent interview discussing his career and more.

Wrestling legend Stan Hansen will be releasing an autobiography in August. That one should be interesting.

TNA has announced more Gut Checks, one in Houston on 7/30 and one in Orlando on 8/6. Indy wrestlers who want to "move up", there's your chance.

PWInsider.com has some new questions up to look at:
1. That's certainly an option. I wouldn't count it out in the least.

2. I've actually heard that ROH isn't as good as it was back when Punk, Joe, Danielson, etc. were there, but of course it's a matter of opinion. It's easy to draw comparisons between the two companies, though. This isn't really my area of expertise, so I wouldn't know which is actually better.

3. I don't even remember the last time WWE went after someone for using a similar gimmick. They might not want to draw attention to the fact that a former performer of theirs is working in another company with a similar gimmick. It's free publicity for TNA in a way if they do. When they went after Scott Hall for doing something similar to Razor Ramon, WCW was a much bigger threat than TNA is now. And the gimmick is slightly different, since he's using his real name now. Kurt Angle's not so different from his WWE run either, except he presumably can't use the "three I's" or "It's true. It's damn true."

4. Hey, mistakes happen. They probably just assumed she had already won it at some point. I probably wouldn't have noticed had it not been pointed out.

5. I always feel weird answering questions like this. It's a rather personal question that doesn't have much to do with wrestling. But this one isn't too hard for me to choose. Tessmacher. I generally prefer brunettes. The glasses are a nice touch as well.

As should be expected, a number of names in the wrestling business had comments on C.M. Punk's promo on Raw. This link has comments from Mick Foley, Jim Ross, Joey Styles, Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan, Maryse, Daniel Bryan, and Chris Jericho, and this link has reactions from Seth Rollins (formerly Tyler Black in ROH), Kurt Angle (who referenced Punk mocking his "hacked Twitter" escapade), Tommy Dreamer, Zack Gowen, Shane (Gregory, Hurricane) Helms, Batista, Blue Meanie, Shad Gaspard, Trish Stratus, (ex-girlfriend) Maria Kanellis, MVP, JBL, Shawn Michaels, Chavo Guerrero, Bill DeMott, and Taz. Obviously it got people talking!

WWE Hall of Famer Koko B. Ware gave an interview recently discussing him singing on a WWF CD, his bird Frankie and more.

Here's an update regarding the health of the legendary Bruno Sammartino. The news on his recovery sounds great.

The latest twist in the C.M. Punk angle is that he will continue to work house shows but is otherwise still "suspended" and both sides have agreed not to disparage one another.

Hulk Hogan says that he got in trouble for his recent Tweet about Impact Wrestling being taped outside of Orlando, now claiming that an official announcement will be made next week, and the company will be testing the proposed schedule out. It's worth noting that TNA sources claim that as of now there's no deal in place for this to happen, though there have been discussions about the idea. This is why you wait until something's official before announcing it.

This week's Raw rating remained flat at 3.1. This was a show with Raw Roulette and Shawn Michaels, so that's got to be somewhat disappointing.

All Wheels Wrestling has given details about its concept. I'm not really feeling that idea. It'll be interesting to see how it works out though.

D'Angelo Dinero blogged about his current use (or lack thereof) in TNA. Who ISN'T talking about how they are or aren't being used lately? Sheesh. Anyway, I definitely don't blame Pope for how he's being used. I've pretty much consistently enjoyed his work; I just think they could do more with him. He should be seen as a future World Champion by the company, similar to a number of WWE stars in the past and present (Morrison, Kingston, Del Rio, Swagger, etc.).

That's all for Tuesday's news. More to come tomorrow. Thanks for reading!