Questions on the legitimacy of Tough Enough, Sin Cara's transition to WWE, Goldust's WWE status, Punk becoming a trainer, and UFC doing wrestling, Matt Hardy talks, Usos profiled, Trish talks yoga, Waltman talks Warrior-Hogan, Kelly Kelly talks WWE 12, the latest on All Wheels Wrestling, WWE has statement for Simon's passing, "racist" moments in wrestling, Hogan interview, Tessmacher joins Twitter, Zack Ryder cameo in action figure ad, what if Paul Heyman booked Daniel Bryan in TNA, Smackdown rating, and the Raw dark match

PWInsider.com's questions start off today's news. Here's my take on them:
1. I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. There hasn't been anything to suggest that Tough Enough was anything but legitimate. The talents on the show (even those who were briefly in FCW) didn't have much experience in doing things "WWE style" and that's what the show focused on teaching them. It's not much unlike Dancing With The Stars in where someone might have danced somewhere for years but no in the style that they needed to on that show.

2. Well, for one thing, WWE rings are sized differently from what he's used to in Mexico, so that could be somewhat of an issue. And he's basically trying to work a mostly different style in front of a completely different audience, so it's going to take him time to adapt. I don't see WWE releasing him or anything any time soon. He's getting over pretty well despite his hiccups in the ring (which seem to be improving somewhat).

3. Last I read was that it will be some time before we see him in the ring again, but he does plan on coming back to the ring for what could be his last run.

After the break, I look at a suggestion on what to do with C.M. Punk and the other questions and news of the day.
4. I don't see them going that route, even temporarily. I honestly don't know if Punk would even be open to that kind of idea. Even before tonight's angle, it seemed like he was going to take time off from WWE. I want him to stick around, too, but it doesn't look like its going to happen. And hey, maybe he takes the Jericho route of taking time off and coming back even better.


5. I... wouldn't exactly count G4 as a mainstream network (considering they're not on basic cable and some satellite companies don't carry them). Even if UFC were to buy them (or get their own network some other way), I don't see them associating themselves with the negative stigma of pro wrestling. They've been pretty consistent in their stance on the matter. And it would take a good deal of time for this hypothetical company to compete on the WWE level, even with all the money they have.

Matt Hardy has announced on Twitter that he will be taking a few weeks off from TNA due to injuries and other things. Not a huge loss for him to be gone for a while. There are other people on the show I'd rather see.

Jimmy and Jey Uso were part of a feature in the Miami Herald. That paper's doing a heck of a job giving WWE press before Mania. I think the team has really turned some heads recently, going from being somewhat forgotten about to a unique, fun tandem to watch.

Trish Stratus was the subject of an interview with the Toronto Sun about her yoga activities. The article notes how it tied into her wrestling career. Hard to believe she was only in WWE 5 years; she definitely made an impact during that time.

Sean Waltman commented on the issues between Warrior and Hogan in his latest blog, addressing a number of allegations.

Kelly Kelly talked about WWE 12 at E3.

All Wheels Wrestling has opened up a Facebook page, which showcases the logos of 4 teams the company will have.


WWE has issued a statement on the passing of Joel Simon.

MTV has an article on what they perceive as racist moments in wrestling. Talk about making mountains out of molehills. First off, let's look at the definition of racism and see where it applies (and doesn't) here.
1. Just because an African-American is crazy and upset about something, that doesn't mean he's some sort of racial stereotype. Race hasn't been brought into the R-Truth storyline at all. This isn't black vs. white, it's upset man vs. the fans. There have been a number of similar storylines in the past with white wrestlers.

2. I'll give them that the Virgil character can be seen as playing off of slavery and racial stereotypes. Here's the thing, though. DiBiase was a villain. We're supposed to be upset at his behavior. The message is that being greedy and "owning" people is bad. And look at Virgil in that clip: he's clearly upset that he's in that position. He's only doing it because hes getting paid (which you'll remember that slaves didn't get). Not to mention that Virgil eventually turned on DiBiase after being tired of his behavior and became a good guy that the fans cheered for. See JBL and HBK or Miz and Riley for similar storylines with white wrestlers.

3. Again, JBL was a BAD GUY. This is being portrayed as something that bad people do; something that should be booed. The good guy in the angle was a Latino athlete: Rey Mysterio, one of the company's top babyfaces. If WWE was racist, wouldn't the good and bad guys here be reversed?

4. Once more, Piper was a bad guy. The fans are upset that he's saying negative, racial things about the good guy. The message, once more, is that racism is bad and associated with bad people.

5. The Mexicools gimmick was indeed ridiculous. Stereotypical even. This doesn't counter all the positive portrayals of people of different races in the company.

6. There were indeed racial undertones to Booker vs. Triple H. I'll give them that one. They left out how Booker was known for dancing (the Spinaroonie, anyone?), but I think it's pretty obvious they were looking for things to fit their agenda rather than looking at the whole story. And occasionally in wrestling, a bad guy wins a big match to keep things from being too predictable. Triple H would lose the title later... to Jewish wrestler (and good guy) Bill Goldberg. WWE's hardly the place where minorities never win titles.

7. Cryme Tyme (which was actually Shad's idea and not the evil white WWE Creative) was meant to be goofy fun, not "look at these degenerate black people. Boo their blackness". One of their biggest rivalries was as good guys against the country Southern "good old boy" team, Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch. How much research was done on this piece?

8. Another character not meant to be taken too seriously. The whole show at that time was goofy caricatures (including white people being clowns, Repo men, and baseball players). The character's definitely stereotypical and ridiculous, but this was a long time ago and not really indicative of the product or company today.

9. Benjamin was a heel. The fans cheered when the babyface got a win over the person making racial jokes.

10. Booker accidentally uses the n-word and this is an example of wrestling companies being racist? I get the feeling that one hand was used to type that piece while the other was grasping at straws.

11. This was a very ridiculous segment from an out-of-touch guy. THIS is facepalm worthy and when you say "hey, don't say stupid things like that; it makes the product look bad".

All in all, kind of a mixed bag of legitimate concerns and trumped up incidents posted out-of-context.

Impact Wrestling will be replayed Tuesday at 9 p.m.. It's unknown as to whether this will be a one-time thing or not. It should be interesting to see how this affects ratings.

Hulk Hogan was interviewed at TNA's Basebrawl event.

TNA's Miss Tessmacher is now on Twitter at the name BrookeAdamsTNA.

Zack Ryder was featured in an ad for Ringside Collectibles, focusing on fist pumping. Interesting...

Dragon Gate USA's Gabe Sapolsky gave details on a pitch Paul Heyman had about Daniel Bryan in TNA. So, a relatively new guy comes in and beats everyone in the company quickly and decisively regardless of size and level of prestige. No. TWO new guys come in and destroy everyone the company's spent all this time building up. Then one of the guys makes short work of the other guy, basically saying "you know this guy who made the whole roster look like chumps? Now he's a chump, too. Which makes all the people he beat super-chumps. I'm the only important person in the company and everyone else is a jobber." This is of course assuming there's no fluke injury or anything that makes the whole angle a wash and the whole company losers. It'd be great for Bryan and Angle, but not so much for everyone else. And where do you go from there? Have him lose to one of the members of the chump pile he's already been through? Have him lose to a guy over a decade older than him whose career is winding down? Or even worse, have him lose to a NEW unstoppable beast, who by virtue of beating a guy who beat a guy who made the roster look pathetic, makes the whole company look even weaker compared to him? Needless to say I'm not feeling this idea. It has "desperate hail mary" written all over it. Sometimes those work, and sometimes your quarterback gets sacked.

Smackdown got another 1.73 on Friday. They've been using a lot of people who aren't really established as big names lately, (and/or are relatively new) so it seems like some of the audience isn't buying into them yet. It takes time to build people up.

Zack Ryder, playing the babyface once more, beat Drew McIntyre in the dark match before Raw. This could be a sign of a change for the Woo Woo Woo Kid © Scott Stanford.

That's all for an extremely late look at Monday's news (I had some weird technical difficulties). I'll be back for more after midnight, hopefully much, MUCH sooner than this.