The 411 News Report 12.27.00
Posted by Ashish on 12.27.2000
In somewhat of a surprise, Mark Madden has been fired from WCW.
In somewhat of a surprise, Mark Madden has been fired from WCW. The firing is being blamed on the wild actions from last week that saw the WCW backstage area pretty much get out of control. Obviously WCW had to come down hard on somebody and that somebody appears to be Mark Madden. WCW says that Madden was fired for speaking about Scott Hall and the WCW sale on TV broadcasts, as well as speaking badly about the company at unauthorized interviews. Madden later shot down both of those claims, saying he stopped talking about Hall and the WCW sale as soon as he was told to, and never gave any unauthorized interview. Meanwhile, Nash and DDP continue to make Hall references on WCW TV, but probably will never be punished for it. Madden did not help his status when he refused to shake DDP's hand last week, since DDP is a high profile guy backstage. Where Madden goes from here is somewhat of a question. It is unlikely that the WWF or ECW would bring him in, so his wrestling career may be over. He doesn't seem to heartbroken though, since he says he never intended to be a fulltime wrestling personality anyway.
WWF weekend ratings remained low, with Heat doing its lowest number ever. Airing on Christmas Eve, Heat did a 1.4. Obviously this is not something the WWF should be concerned with since viewership obviously falls on Christmas Eve. It should be interesting to see what type of rating RAW did, airing on Christmas night. Anything around the 4.0 mark would be a major success, but seems unlikely. They did run without competition from Nitro which should have caused a minor boost.
In another wild story, Vince McMahon told Playboy in a recent interview that he was abused as a child by his stepfather, sexually abused by his mother, and that he has cheated on his wife Linda McMahon. He added that he wish his stepfather was still alive so he could kill him, and that when cheating on Linda, the sex was great. McMahon has always been an interesting personality, but these comments really came out of no where. I don't believe he has ever made mention of any of this before. Really surprising stuff, however, it does somewhat clear up how he became so ruthless. The full interview will be available in the February (2001) issue of Playboy.
X-Pac is expected to return to the WWF in the next few weeks, probably in time for the Royal Rumble show. He has been dealing with some neck problems. I don't know if the plan to put him back together with Kane is still on. The WWF really needs to do something with X-Pac who has seen his career go no where over the last few years.
The WCW Hotline reports that Glacier may be a comedic wrestler once he debuts, which would be an interesting move. They may even team him up with Norman Smiley. The basis of the joke would be the infamous flop of the original Glacier following a massive campaign to hype his debut (Blood Runs Cold). We will see how it works out.
WCW is apparently having second thoughts about putting Rick Steiner into the Syn PPV main event. Rick Steiner is no where near the main event level and obviously a main event featuring only one real main eventer (Scott Steiner) will bomb out in terms of the buyrate. Of course, Syn will have next to no promotion anyway, so they will probably end up running Rick in the main event since the buyrate will be very low as it is. WCW really made a bad decision in putting Jeff Jarrett in low-card feuds. He was a solid main eventer before the demotion and now he also has to be built back up.
Site news: A detailed SHANE DOUGLAS WRESTLER PROFILE has been added! Read all about one of the most interesting wrestling careers of all time, from his encounters with the Kliq to his real life feud with Ric Flair. Click HERE for the profile. Also, 5 new images of Major Gunns have been added to 411puppies.com. Click HERE for the new images, as well as the hundreds of other sexy pictures.
Hyatte's MONDAY NIGHT MOP-UPS for the week are also available HERE, be sure to give those a look.
