411Mania’s Squared Circle News Report 05.09.09

Welcome back inside the Squared Circle! How is everyone doing this week? Myself…I’m doing extremely crappy. You know why? Because today I have to attend a CPR class for my job that I have worked at for the past three years. Why? Why must I waste my Saturday attending a class where I’m not going to pay attention and I’m probably never going to use the damn thing anyway. Hell, when I was in high school I was CPR certified and I never got to save someone’s life. Talk about wasted time. Let’s hope this time around I at least get something good like an electrical shock or a heart attack. Can you tell I’m angry that I have to waste my precious Saturday on this crap?

Now, on to some better things to talk about…..

LOST was pretty damn good this week. I’m totally psyched for the finale next week and there’s only like 17 episodes of the show left! Sooooooo sad! It’s one of my all-time favorite shows and it will be a sad day when the series finale airs next year.

Speaking of JJ Abrams-related stuff. Star Trek was released yesterday and early reports are that it’s the GREATEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD D00D!!! I’m personally not a “Trekkie” and I have spoken about my hatred of “Star Trek” on numerous occasions in the past….but I’m actually looking forward to catching this flick. I love JJ Abrams’ stuff plus I’m excited to see Zachary Quinto play someone besides Sylar. Good times~!

Now, on to some wrestling news……

LET’S GET IT ON!!!!!

---

Biggest News Of The Week:

WWE To Add New Show On Wednesday

WWE will be on EVERY day of the week! YAY!!…..

You want to talk about a case of over-saturation? Apparently the WWE feels that we don’t see enough WWE programming on a weekly basis and have decided to add a new show on Wednesday. The WWE now has shows on every night of the week. Let me explain to you how this could be bad for business. At times, overexposure can work against you. It happens all the time. It actually happened back in the last wrestling boom of the late 90’s. WCW and WWE were putting on HOURS worth of television each week as well as monthly PPV’s. Basically the two wrestling companies were asking a lot out of a fan base that was filled with non-hardcore fans. With RAW being two hours long, Nitro three hours, plus Smackdown and Thunder which were two hours each…..and then you add in the weekend shows, that’s A LOT of wrestling to keep up on. People eventually got sick and tired of it and tuned away. Not to mention, when you have writers scrambling to fill hours of television a week….the overall product can suffer due to the them having to come up with more ideas and storylines. See how over-saturation can become a problem?

Now, the WWE can avoid the whole “over-saturation” problem by possibly making this show a recap show that fills fans in on the drama that they possibly missed. This could actually be the best idea for the new show. With RAW on Monday, ECW on Tuesday, Superstars on Thursday, and Smackdown on Friday…some of us may need an hour of Michael Cole to fill us in on what happened during the week. The WWE really can’t be thinking of adding another live show. It’s not like we don’t have enough WWE material to keep us fans satisfied. Not only do we have all those shows that I previously mentioned, but we also have WWE 24/7 and WWE Legacy on WWE.com to help satisfy our need for some WRASSLIN. So honestly…what does the WWE have planned for this “new show”?

Here’s a few ideas:

– recap show

– news format show (where the WWE “kayfabes” news updates courtesy of Todd Grisham or someone less cool….if possible)

– matches featuring under card talent taped from RAW and Smackdown (this would be good for people who never get TV time)

– WWE vault show (and what I mean by this is, they could air classic matches and then have the two guys comment on the match in newly taped segments. That could prove to be difficult though with all the deaths in wrestling)

– one hour of Ric Flair “wooooing” at the camera

What do you guys think? Is it too much WWE programming? Is it *GASP* not enough WWE programming? What should the new show be? We will find out in due time…..

---

Remember This Guy???

Bootyman

Poor Brutus Beefcake. After his best buddy in the whole wide world, Hulk Hogan, left the WWE to go to WCW….Beefcake was right behind the 24-inch pythons trying to catch a paycheck from WCW as well. The only problem is, WCW had no idea what to do with the man. They couldn’t book him as “Brutus Beefcake” due to the WWE owning the copyrights to the name. So what do they do? Well, first he made his debut alongside Hogan as Brother Bruti. Then, he decided to turn on his long time buddy and became EVIL and changed his name to The Butcher. That’s when it all started to go downhill……

Once WCW thought that “The Butcher” wasn’t quite working out they changed his name to The Man with No Name. How’s that NOT marketable? I can $MELL the merchandise! I don’t know how WCW managed to screw that up, but they did and eventually changed his name to The Zodiac. But this is when it takes a whole different turn…….

WCW then decided to turn Brutus back to a babyface and change his name to The Booty Man! His gimmick was that he was obsessed with asses (much like Billy Gunn was in the WWE)…..yep, that’s about it. His finishing move was even called “The Hiney”. HOW CREATIVE!!!

Needless to say, “Bootyman” didn’t work out that well for Leslie. He then went on to become The Disciple , before leaving WCW for good. That’s right, count them…six name changes in four years! And some people wonder why WCW went out of business?

---

Random News Bits:

– Shane Douglas was backstage at the Smackdown tapings in Pittsburgh. That explains who wrote “THE KLIQ STILL SUX!!!” on the bathroom wall.

– The Undertaker needs some time off to undergo surgery. The only question is…is it his hip or his knee? Apparently both are in pretty bad shape, but the rumor is that he will have arthroscopic hip surgery and will most likely be out of action for around three months. That’s a bummer deal for Undertaker, but at least the man will get some much needed rest and relaxation.

– The WWE has already announced that HHH will be appearing at shows after Judgment Day, however there is now talk that they may delay his return. HHH is a big fan of this news as it gives him more time to do this:

– People backstage have taken notice that Primo Colon is a hard worker in the ring and the hope is that will motivate his older brother Carlito. Carlito is easily the more charismatic of the two but is known as a “lazy” worker in the ring. THAT my friends…..is not cool. I’m a huge fan of both Carlito and Primo and personally hope both men stick around for awhile.

– Tommy Dreamer has been offered a new contract from the WWE, but has yet to sign it. Dreamer is the last remaining original ECW guy left and it would be a bonus for the WWE to keep him around on ECW even if the man doesn’t want to wrestle anymore. I’m sure he would make a pretty damn good road agent or perhaps in another non-active role?

– Hernandez is expected to be out of action for six to nine months due to neck surgery. TNA officials didn’t expect him to miss as much time, but sometimes that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

– WWE’s tour of Mexico that had originally been canceled due to the swine flu is officially back
on! It goes to show you that not even the swine flu can stop the train that is known as the WWE.

– The lawsuit between TNA and Konnan has been settled. Good news for Konnan…just keep burning those bridges Max Moon.

– TNA is currently negotiating with Spencer Pratt of MTV’s The Hills. Sometimes I wonder if the rumors are true and TNA actually is indeed ran by retards. The only way this is good news is if Samoa Joe can somehow get his hands on Pratt and is able to “shoot wrestle” him. Now that’s something I would pay to see.

– Jacksonville has put in a bid as a possible Wrestlemania location from sometime in 2012-2014. That’s a great location for a Wrestlemania. Lots of sun and lots of FUN!

– The WWE is currently in a “rebuilding” process. The company is looking to make new stars and also plans on bringing in some FCW talent soon. We will see how that works out. It seems we get more SPIRIT SQUAD than John Cena when you bring in talent from a developmental territory these days.

– Elijah Burke was backstage at the last TNA Impact tapings. TNA would be wise to sign this guy and quick.

(Credit goes to The Wrestling Observer for the above news!)

---

Wrestling Top 10 Lists:

My Top 10 Favorite ECW Wrestlers

(These are my personal top 10 favorite original ECW wrestlers. That means I’m NOT counting the new WWE version of “ECW”. Also, this is MY personal list of favorite ECW wrestlers, not a collection of who I think were the greatest of all-time…..)

This list IS IN a particular order……

Honorable Mentions:

Lance Storm – Storm may have had the best time of his career while in ECW. VIVA LA IMPACT PLAYAS!!!

The Eliminators – I was a fan of the tag team of Perry Saturn and John Kronus for one reason and one reason only…..TOTAL ELIMINATION!!!

Taz – ECW legend who barely missed the top 10. Sorry, Taz fans….that’s just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes! Besides, it’s MY list!

AND NOW…..THE TOP 10!!!

10) Tommy Dreamer

The heart and soul of ECW….of course he’s going to crack the top 10.

9) Stevie Richards

“The King of Swing”, “Dancin” Stevie Richards. The man who wore the cut-off shorts as well as the belly t-shirt. How could you not love this man? During his ECW run, I remember an Apter-magazine like “PWI” calling Richards the “next” Shawn Michaels. While that never happened, one could have believed that when they saw Richards in ECW.

8) Cactus Jack

Cactus cut some of his best promos while in ECW and also had some memorable matches to boot. His gimmick where he was in love with WCW & Eric Bischoff was one of the funniest things ever.

7) The Sandman

Who didn’t get chills when you saw this man’s entrance? Also, his feud with Raven is one of my personal all-time favorite feuds. Nothing says drama like a son turning on his father!

6) Terry Funk

The man’s a legend and one of the reasons that ECW was able to succeed. He probably would have died for the company had they asked him.

5) The Dudley Boys

You want to see how to get mega crowd heat? Pop in a tape of The Dudley Boys wrestling at any ECW show during their ECW tenure. These guys had the crowd in the palm of their hands just due to the fact that the crowd DESPISED them. How can you not love that? I still remember hearing the news that the Dudley’s were heading to WWE. I thought it was a huge mistake for D-Von and Bubba Ray at the time…and man was I wrong.

4) Rob Van Dam

“Mr. Pay-Per-View” Rob Van Dam was originally the WHOLE F’N SHOW in ECW and he was one of the reasons I kept trying to track down ECW tapes. I remember when ECW did their original invasion of WWE and RVD actually wrestled a decent number of matches on WWE TV…that was both ground breaking and awesome. While I wasn’t a fan of his WWE run, RVD’s ECW run will be always be ranked amongst my favorites.

3) Sabu

A lot of people don’t have a taste for Sabu and his antics, however he’s a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. Maybe there’s something sick in my head but I loved seeing Sabu take the crazy bumps he did. His barbed wire matches were honestly extremely hard to watch….which is what makes him one of my all-time ECW favorites.

2) Shane Douglas

Shane Douglas has always been a personal favorite of mine. He had numerous runs with the WWE and WCW but may have found his most success as “The Franchise” in ECW. As the leader of one of the greatest stables ever…”The Triple Threat”, Douglas RULED ECW and helped bring “the extreme” to ECW. No matter what you say about the man, he sure could make the ECW fans hate his guts and that’s one thing you have to admire.

1) Raven

In my book nothing in the original topped the man that was Raven. The guy just had it. His gimmick was awesome, his entrance was awesome, his look was awesome….just everything about the man was awesome. I had high hopes for his WCW run and I actually thought he would end up as WCW champion…needless to say that never happened. Some of my favorite Raven moments come courtesy of his excellent feuds with Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman. Man, I sure do miss those times.

---

YouTube! Find Of The Week!

Still remains one of the funniest WWE moments of all-time…..

---

And that’s it for me this week. Remember, don’t be a stranger to 411! Bookmark the site and visit it countless times a day. Hell, be brave and make it your homepage! Trust me, it will make you a better person……

See you next Saturday back in the Squared Circle! Until then, you can find me on MySpace or Facebook! I also recently broke down and got a Twitter as well!