Upcoming TNA matches, more on Slam City, Interviews with Cameron/Edge, Hardcore Justice PPV press, WWE business news, TNA injuries, Impact audience and Questions on paying hurt wrestlers, Pacman-TNA, J-E-Double-F and Goldust

The following have been set for next week's Impact:
- Kurt Angle vs. Austin Aries in a submission match in the TNA World Title tournament.
- Gail Kim vs. Hannah Blossom - if Blossom wins, she gets a shot at the Knockouts Championship.
- Mr. Anderson vs. Knux
- Daniels vs. Joseph Park
- Ethan Carter III in action

Not a bad line-up at all.

The following have been set for TNA's Turning Point edition of Impact in Orlando:
- Samoa Joe vs. Magnus in the TNA World Title tournament
- James Storm vs. Bobby Roode in the TNA World Title tournament
- Bully Ray vs. Mr. Anderson

These matches will likely have stipulations added. They all sound like winners so far.

Everything else from yesterday is after the break.

Here are some photos from the upcoming WWE Slam City show/toy line. Those things look pretty creepy.


Here's an interview with Cameron of the Funkadactyls. It's kind of weird to me as an old-school guy to see people use shoot names so liberally in a surely WWE-approved interview.

TNA put out a press release about their upcoming Hardcore Justice taping, confirming that the ECW reunion theme will not be continuing. Thank goodness. That horse has been beaten to a pulp.

WWE announced more about opening an office in Germany. Growing internationally is best for business. It sounds like they know what they're doing there.

The new head of WWE Talent Relations is Sean Cleary, who I can't say I've heard of before. He came to WWE last year after being a part of Bank of America and Take Two Interactive.

TNA is pushing Jeff Hardy as having damage to his teeth and Chris Sabin as having a concussion and badly-injured shin following Full Metal Mayhem. That was quite the chaotic match.

WWE.com interviewed Edge about Triple H's recent dig at him. I wonder how far Edge lives from where I go to school. He moved to Asheville not too long ago. It's a great city for creative types. Anyway, I chuckled at the remarks about HHH compared to Edge, Y2J and Van Dam. Cena will almost definitely hit 16 or 17 World Titles, though there's dispute over how many World Titles Flair has won (maybe I'll go into that in a future post). I like Edge wanting to come back if it's a good role and to help young talent vs. to make more money.

TNA's most recent audience was 1.02 million viewers, their second-lowest mark of the year. Ouch. Hopefully they're in for a rebirth with some of the changes they're making.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
Nothing to really add to 1. It'd be very unfortunate if they weren't paid!

2. The angle was supposed to get heat on Dixie and get the IWC talking about the show. A lot of the IWC already knows about TNA and has decided whether to watch it or not. This at least got people talking about the company and its new direction. Some TRULY smart fans get what TNA was doing and doesn't think TNA's trying to put itself out of business. Why would they try to do that!? They'd lose money!

Not much to add to 3, though I can also see Double J returning to TV. I'd like to see it, personally. Who better to advocate for TNA than the founder? A lot of people see him as being cast aside in favor of Dixie, Hogan and Bischoff (as well as their cronies), so him coming back as a babyface authority figure could work well.

4. BANG!!!

5 is not my area of expertise, so I'll pass to them.

More wrestling tomorrow.