Queries on Goldberg,the Raw GM, and Undertaker, Whereabouts of Tough Enough contestant, Miz rumorbuster, Questions on hooking new fans, British wrestlers as faces, Miz as a possible midcarder, and Punk returning to ROH, Batista co-running MMA facility, update on Impact Wrestling rating, Austin comments on the end of Tough Enough, coverage of Luke's loss, why Waltman supports RAINN, why Raw was replayed, more Bischoff online issues, Hardys play with tasers, Tough Enough and Raw ratings, Savage's cause of death, Hogan interview, and a preview from Warrior

To start of, here are answers to some assorted queries sent to this blog:
There's still no word on anything involving Goldberg in TNA, or WWE for that matter. If there's anything to be reported on this in the future, I'll be sure to talk about it when it comes up.

I don't know who the Raw GM is. I haven't read anything about plans for who it will be or anything. Any time I mention something about it during Raw, it's speculation, wishful thinking or both. Another thing I'll report on if there's anything to report on.

And last I read, there was speculation that Undertaker could be back for Summerslam, and he's generally expected to be back sometime before WrestleMania. Official dates and things of that matter are unknown.

The reason I haven't talked about these things recently is because there isn't anything new to say on the matter. No updates or anything.

Moving on, Tough Enough contestant Rima Fakih was unable to attend last night's Raw because of commitments as Miss USA. Specifically, she is in Las Vegas to transfer her crown to the winner of the next pageant.

Update: Here's a more detailed story on it.

There were false reports sent out that The Miz had been injured in a post-Raw dark match Monday night. That's not the case; he's fine. Situations like this are why I wait for better confirmation from other sources.

PWInsider.com's questions are up. Here are my thoughts on them:
1. I think you could make the argument that given their international expansions, they're getting a good amount of fans who are new to the product. I don't have enough international ratings (and house show attendance) notes to know exactly how many new fans they're drawing there, though. Not to mention that I don't know if there's any way to really judge numbers-wise who's new and who isn't. Though you can look at the number of children in attendance at domestic house shows who would be new fans by default. I know I give a lot of "inconclusive" answers here (or at least I feel that I do), but I don't know if there's a definite answer here. I would have to side with them not doing as well as in the past based on core business not being as high as when it was a cultural phenomenon.

After the break, I go into British wrestlers being heels, the ending to Cena and Miz's I Quit match, and the other questions sent in. Then I look at the rest of the day's news.

2. Pretty much what they said. David Hart Smith did pretty well as a face (he's Canadian, but of English heritage) when he was a tag team champion. Granted, he had the on-screen rub from Bret Hart to help out. Rob Terry was a face for a while in TNA, but that didn't work out very well. It didn't have anything to do with him being British (well, Welsh), though. Come to think of it, WWE doesn't really push the British aspect of any of their heels as a way to dislike them anymore. Hmm. It wouldn't surprise me to see British babyfaces in the years to come.

3. That definitely dented Miz's credibility, but I don't think they're "tearing him down", just cooling him off perhaps so another heel can be the top guy for a while (Truth and possibly Del Rio). Follow-up as always is key so we'll see where he goes during/after the feud with Riley. If he can keep a good deal of his heat without the title, it shouldn't be too hard to plug him back into the main event when they want/need to.

Nothing to add to #4. As for #5, it would be pretty surprising to me if he ended up back there. I wouldn't rule it out, but there isn't anything to suggest that he will do so.

Former WWE and World Heavyweight Champion Batista will open his (and partner Cesar Gracie's) MMA training facility to the public next week. Still no word on anything wrestling-related from him.

Here's an interesting side note I didn't know about/think of: Even though Impact Wrestling went up against the NBA Finals, there was actually less competition that night seeing as how a number of popular shows are done for the season. Is there any way for Nielsen or whomever to report which households went from watching TNA one week to what they watched the next week? That'd be invaluable. Not quite as invaluable as knowing why they didn't watch TNA, but still pretty useful I'd say.

Stone Cold Steve Austin talked about the end of this season of Tough Enough on Twitter. There still hasn't been any word on a second season. If/when there is, I'll report it.

This story goes into the reaction of Tough Enough runner-up Luke's friends and family to the finale.

This one's a little hard to cover: Sean Waltman briefly discussed being sexually abused at a young age, which is why he supports Mick Foley's work with RAINN. He also put Foley over and bashed TNA's (mis)use of him. A nice read. TMZ picked up the story.

Raw was replayed on USA Monday night because of the overrun from Tough Enough (which they aired again after Raw). It was a one-time deal; they won't be replaying future Raws.

I debated whether or not to cover this, but since it's gotten so much attention, I'm giving in: Eric Bischoff posted a link on his Twitter account to an interview he did where he discussed a number of TNA topics. He stated that he and TNA don't get credit for the growth the company has undergone. Fine then, here goes: TNA has grown quite a bit since its early days doing shows in the Nashville Asylum. It now tours internationally and all over the US, which it wasn't doing until the SpikeTV deal. Ratings have indeed grown since the FSN days and also from when they were on Saturdays. Even at their lowest, ratings were higher than the number of PPV buys they got doing weekly events with no Impact.

As for other areas of growth, TNA is a private company so we don't know the buyrates for their PPVs or how much revenue they bring in each year. Dixie Carter has stated in the past that the company became profitable for its first year after 7 years in business. Merchandise sales are also said to be improving.

How much of that was post-Hogan and Bischoff, and how much can be attributed to them? I honestly don't know. PWInsider.com compared ratings in the U.S. from 2009, 2010, and thus far in 2011 for those interested. However, ratings are only part of the picture. I think the best comparison would be to see how much total revenue TNA has made in different timeframes, but those numbers aren't publicly available since TNA isn't traded on the stock market like WWE. So we can only speculate.

The interview also had insults to the "10%" of fans who read wrestling websites and the like. He was asked why he does such things, and his response was... interesting. Obviously a good number of online fans don't live in their parents' basements and work at K-mart, and not all of us are so insanely critical of TNA and deny its success (or believe every rumor that makes its rounds on the internet). Maybe he shouldn't pay so much attention to that part of the audience and what they report, seeing as how it's only a fraction of the audience and doesn't make or break TNA's success?

This is another thing I'm not really sure why I'm covering, other than the fact that people are talking about it: Matt Hardy posted a video where his brother Jeff uses a taser on Matt and his girlfriend. Note that there's some non-PG language. The sooner ridiculous stuff like this stops happening (and stops being reported elsewhere), the sooner I can go back to doing what I want to do with this blog: discuss the wrestling business and the products of WWE and TNA.

Update: Another video was posted by Matt that he later removed because of a lot of negative comments on Jeff's perceived condition in it. He shouldn't be surprised that people jumped to conclusions.

Tough Enough did a 1.95 before Raw and a 1.08 after, as more people wanted to see the live finale earlier.

Raw itself did a somewhat underwhelming 3.2, with the replay doing a 0.81. Presumably because people didn't want to watch wrestling 'til 2 in the morning! It will be interesting to see how the 3-hour Raws do over the next 2 weeks.

Randy Savage's cause of death is now known to be a heart condition.

Hulk Hogan promoted his upcoming video game among other things in a recent interview with a Los Angeles news station. There was no mention of TNA.

Finally, Warrior has a (non-PG) preview up of an upcoming anti-Hogan video. That should be interesting.

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