Taz and The Rock had some back-and-forth and Twitter regarding The Rock having a promo contest on his YouTube channel because Taz does promo contests on his radio show. Taz's fans called The Rock a hack for "taking Taz's idea":
Taz takes shot at Rock
Example of fan going after Rock
Another shot by Taz
Rock responds
Rock responds, Part 2
Taz says they'll talk it out
- There was more from Taz and fans insinuating Rock was a hack and the like. The idea that a wrestler judging a promo contest is a ripoff of another wrestler judging promos is ridiculous. Taz also insinuated at one point the Tapout line of shirts is a ripoff of his old ECW shirt, which is equally absurd. An MMA promotion that has a lot of submissions doing a line of clothes called Tapout is hardly a stretch. Sometimes people have similar ideas independently of each other. At least Chris Jericho was in character when he claimed everyone was a Jericho wannabe and he invented Canada. Rock took the high road there.
-- For what it's worth, the two sides have sense talked and everything's cool now. That's good, because Taz was totally coming across as a mark. Especially with the "say it to my face, not on Twitter" talk.
Cody Rhodes' negotiations with WWE on a merchandising deal are related to his biography of his father. Presumably he wants it published under their banner and/or wants access to photos they own the rights to.
Tuesday's Impact Wrestling grew to 410,000 for the episode with the much talked about Final Deletion match. That's their largest audience for a single viewing on Pop, and higher than most of their audiences with a replay. It's also a big jump (by TNA standards) from the previous week's 322,000. Having a different look and style brought in some curious viewers who would otherwise not watch the show, or at least not watch it as it airs. It's definitely worth trying out some more "movie-style" encounters with other angles to see if they can replicate that success.
- The show was ranked 65th in the top 150 cable shows the night it aired. That's really impressive for TNA.
Jeremy Borash oversaw production of the Final Deletion. It was filmed on location at the Hardys' houses.
- Dixie Carter had the idea of doing content not filmed in the ring, since that way fans couldn't be spoiled about it beforehand. That's pretty clever. Not being live definitely hurts TNA, and there's only so much they can do to battle that that wouldn't cost a lot of money (increasing taping frequency, going live more often, etc.). When you don't have the resources WWE has, it's tougher to build an audience in a market that company dominates.
- Senor Benjamin is Reby Sky's father. We'll be seeing more of him, and possibly referee Kevin Keenan.
Finn Balor was at WWE HQ was this week filming footage. I assume he's FINALLY heading to the main roster for the draft/Summerslam season.
ROH will be touring the UK on November 18, 19, and 20. They haven't been there in many years, so this is a pretty big step for them. Will we see some British names become ROH regulars in the future?
TNA will move to Thursdays starting July 21, following the live Destination X special on July 12. Once they're on Thursdays, they'll air from 8 to 10 instead of 9 to 11. That was probably the best move with WWE taking over the first half of the week.
For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. I think that might have been up to whether Brock wanted to use that song. If for some reason he doesn't like it, I imagine UFC would allow him to use something else. WWE let him fight there, so I don't think they'd draw the line at him using his WWE theme.
2. I expect we'll see the World Heavyweight Championship return, although it may or may not be the same belt as before. I love Big Gold, but if they're going for a new Smackdown, they should probably have a new belt made.
3. I'm pretty sure security is in place to prevent the hands part, but attending WWE events and watching Jericho on the Network are good ways to drink it in.
4. I think Ted's a pretty private guy post AOL Time Warner. He barely mentions WCW in his autobiography. I don't know if anyone's reached out to him, but I don't know if he'd even be interested in discussing a company he hasn't been involved with in 15 years. It's not like he's gotten back into the wrestling business or shown any indication of doing so since its demise.
Nothing to really add to 5, other than letting it soak in that Taker has been in the business long enough to have worked the World Class territory.
More wrestling tomorrow.
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