LOTS of news on WWE in the upcoming months - long, worth a read for sure!

[-RiK-]

WWE officials met with New York prosecutors last week to discuss the Signature Pharmacy case. A number of wrestlers, nearly all prior to the new Wellness policy, had been customers of Signature, which is being investigated for illegally selling steroids and other drugs. An AP article noted that Brian Adams, who died the day before WWE's scheduled meeting, was, along with Chris Benoit, a Signature client.

Nothing like an estate battle. The big debate right now is who died first, Nancy or Daniel Benoit, because that will determine who gets Benoit's multi-million dollar estate ("which include two lavish homes, several bank accounts and lucrative investments"). If Nancy died first then Benoit's other two children, David and Megan, currently living in Canada, inherit everything, whereas if Daniel died first it goes to the Toffoloni (Nancy) family. Nancy did not have a will, and Georgia law's Slayer's Statute states that legally Chris is considered to have died first so that his heirs cannot profit from the crimes.

If Nancy died first her estate flowed to Daniel, and David and Megan would be next in line after Daniel. If Daniel died first Nancy's estate would flow to her family. The coroner has stated that Nancy likely died Friday and Daniel late Saturday night/early Sunday morning, but the Toffoloni's are now arguing that. It's going to be tough, because witnesses saw all three family members alive Friday evening around dinner time, and other witnesses saw Chris and Daniel playing by their pool on Saturday afternoon. So the only way Daniel could have died first is if Benoit killed them both later Saturday night. Problem is, the level of decomposition suggested that Nancy had been killed much earlier, and it'll be tough to argue otherwise since the coroner is pretty insistent. The Toffoloni's lawyer is noting that issues relating to body size and the temperature of the rooms where the bodies were found could have resulted in mistakes being made in the order of deaths. An initial hearing on the matter takes place August 28th.

Dr. Phil Astin's lawyer Manny Arora is now claiming that Benoit had a hormone disorder that permitted him to use steroids in the amounts prescribed by Astin. An article in SI.com said the court filing did not elaborate on Benoit's condition. He did have very low testosterone due to years of steroid abuse, and yes, it would make sense for him to get hormone replacement therapy. It would not, however, seemingly make sense to be prescribed ten months worth of testosterone every three to four weeks, or for his levels to be at least ten times that of a normal human being upon death. Astin has pleaded not guilty to improperly prescribing painkillers and other drugs to two patients other than Benoit. The pretrial conference is now scheduled for September 18th.

[-RiK-]

Clifford Stearns, one half of the Congressional committee that sent letters to WWE, TNA and the NWA requesting drug testing information, visited Dory Funk Jr.'s wrestling school in Ocala, FL this week. Apparently he's in pretty good shape and worked out a bit with the crew on the wrestling drills. I suspect Dory and Stearns have been talking for awhile, hence the comical inclusion of NWA into this whole mess. Stearns also ended up making an appearance on Funk's BANG! TV show that he produces locally.

The plan is still for Ken Kennedy to be the illegitimate son of Vince. They do, however, have a contingency plan if it ends up bombing, that being that Kennedy forged the papers and lab results and is basically a CON ARTIST trying to screw his way into a billionaire family. Stephanie will likely be involved in the storyline around October or November, in a deal where she will be put in jeopardy and Hunter will make the save, revealing himself to be Vince's son-in-law and setting the stage for the Raw main event at WrestleMania, which at press time is going to be Hunter as a babyface vs. Kennedy, likely for the title and with all the members of the McMahon family somehow involved.

Shane has been told he won't be needed in the ring until around Royal Rumble, so he'll probably be Kennedy's first family victim. Bonnie Hammer of the USA Network loves the storyline, by the way, and wants a big three hour special in October as they did last year with the Homecoming show. It may become an annual event, and unless things change the plan is to slowly drop hints week after week on Raw and not reveal Kennedy as the child until that show. The talk of Raw moving to three hours in the fall has greatly died down, and it appears as of this week there is little chance of it happening.

For Smackdown, WrestleMania main event is currently Edge vs. Undertaker for the title. If Edge is back in time, the idea is he'll either beat Dave for the belt at Survivor Series or Armageddon, then hold it through Mania.

Mark Henry's deal is up soon and he is not entering into negotiations for a new one. He's looking at acting and other non-wrestling stuff. This also explains his comments in the American-Statesman newspaper after Benoit's death about how he drove alone to shows because he had less of a chance of suffering an accident, and because he didn't want to be in the car if recreational or performance-enhancing drugs belonging to other wrestlers were found during a routine search.

"If they get caught, then I'd be (considered) guilty, too. If we get pulled over we're both going down," he said. Henry has been with the company since signing a ten-year deal shortly after his 1996 Olympics bid. It took him a long, long time to catch on to this business, and so he spent years in developmental, and when he was brought up he was often saddled with gimmicks so absurd (Mae Young's lover, etc.) that it seemed pretty obvious the company was hoping he'd quit so they could get out of the deal. But instead, he kept working, saved his money, and is now to the point where, like a number of other fairly young guys, he can walk away from this business forever if he wants. He's being built up for Undertaker's return match, and after that, who knows. Maybe they'll make him the right offer and he'll stick around, but it's said that right now he's enjoying the countdown to freedom.

Undertaker wanted to return at SummerSlam, but Vince told him to hold off and he's now scheduled to return at the September PPV. Believe it or not, part of the reason was because Vince felt a SummerSlam return would give the wrestlers the message that they needed to rush back from injuries. He feels now is not the right time to be sending that message.

It is believed that a Ric Flair retirement storyline is going to start imminently, perhaps in the next few weeks, to culminate at either Royal Rumble, No Way Out or WrestleMania. I'm sure Flair would prefer the latter. He's been talking for a long time about this being his last year as a regular in-ring competitor.

Monday night was a test run to see how Lawler and Tazz would do as a team, and some people were impressed. Neither Ross nor Tazz were told. Vince has been wanting to split up Ross and Lawler for some time, feeling the combo is "too Southern", and Kevin Dunn is strongly against it. If it's made permanent, Lawler would join Joey Styles in ECW, and occasionally work matches there as well. Dusty Rhodes really wants Lawler on ECW. Lawler and Ross are really tight and would not be happy with that change.

Lots of talk of another PPV being axed in 2008, probably Cyber Sunday. Instead of doing it as a PPV, they might switch it to another special three-hour Raw with the same concept.

Smackdown vs. Raw may miss its November deadline as Vince is going back and forth about whether to leave Chris Benoit in the game. He's in it now and Vince wants him out, but to have him removed would require the game being delayed and they'd miss out on the 2007 holiday season revenue, which is always the most lucrative quarter for video games.

The waiter in the Simmons/Maria/Santino skit on Raw was Raw head writer Brian Gewirtz, who wrote and directed the whole thing.

Ashley's season of Survivor debuts on September 20th. It is believed she gets eliminated fairly quickly.

The Condemned is out on DVD September 18th.

Booker is said to be close to signing a new three-year deal with WWE. He has specifically asked that his new deal allows him to sit in on producer's meetings. Basically, the meetings take place before TV or PPV where Vince goes over the scripts. The agents sit there and give feedback and talk about how the talent is either progressing or not progressing, and suggest finishes.

HHH sits in on both the PPV and Raw producer meetings and plays both puppermaster and class clown. The belief is that Booker knows he'll be working with Hunter through at least mid-September and doesn't want to be buried in the meetings. It's also said to not be a written deal, but rather a verbal agreement so that he's not required to attend the three-hour-plus meetings if he doesn't want to. It should be noted that about a month ago Booker did an interview and said he was very happy to be going to Raw, but that he would have quit the business if they'd asked him to go to ECW. According to sources in WWE, he was never scheduled to go to ECW.


John Lauranitis has been putting over Steve Keirn super hard to both Vince and Steph for the job he's done with the new Florida developmental territory. We're told regardless of what he says, it's still a complete disaster. They just this month got air conditioning in the facility. Yes, it's in Florida and they didn't get AC until August. I should note that Booker was nearly ready to walk away after he was passed over for developmental after Deep South got axed. He'd invested in cameras, a warehouse, a new ring, gear, etc., all in the hopes of becoming the next territory. I guess because Lauranitis and Keirn were tight, they decided to go with him despite the fact that he had no experience or setup. The other fascinating thing is Bruce Prichard lives a few minutes from Booker's school and had offered to stop by every day on his off days and work with the students, plus Undertaker and a few other legends including Steve Williams are close enough that they could also help out. One source said Lauranitis just loves going down there, checking out the school, and then leaving to party in Tampa.

Stephanie is pushing hard to get D-Lo Brown a job on Raw as a mid-card act. He was backstage last week. His career went way downhill after Darren Drozdov was paralyzed in a match with him after a botched running powerbomb on October 5, 1999. People have always insisted that there is no connection, but as soon as that happened that was the beginning of the end for D-Lo.

Unless plans change, Batista is beating Great Khali for the belt at SummerSlam and they'll do another stip match on the September PPV (unless the match is so horrible the program immediately ends). I can only hope the stip match is PUNJABI PRISON.
There is talk that Extreme Expose may all share Playboy leading up to next year's WrestleMania. Yes, Brooke's ass in Playboy. So we all just have to live another seven or eight months.

Highlanders will probably be jumping to Smackdown, hence the increased number of jobs lately.

Hart Foundation 2.0 is the current working name of the Harry Smith/Teddy Hart/Nattie Neidhart crew. Court Bauer, who was on the writing crew until just recently, gave them that name back when he was promoting MLW and was the main guy pushing for them to come to Smackdown. It is believed they'll be starting on the house shows this fall, and the company really wants to get Bret in to do an angle to introduce them. The trade-off would be promoting his new book, which I'm pretty sure hits the streets in October. It's been pared down from the size of War and Peace, but is still huge with very small type.

If Bret won't do it, Jim Neidhart is said to be one hundred percent willing. Michael Hayes is super high on Teddy, thinking his attitude is similar to Hayes' own when he was a superstar heel back in World Class. He thinks something that is missing today is guys living their gimmick, which is what he feels Teddy is doing (I'll say). He wants to bring them in as heels but that's almost certain to be overruled as a number of folks, including Stephanie, think the Harts are too famous to be booed right off the bat. At this point, TJ Wilson, who has basically been a member of the family forever and was (and may still be) dating Nattie, will not be part of the group, and will likely ultimately be brought to Smackdown as a cruiserweight. Apparently he's really upped his promo game and is a totally different TJ from a few years back.

[-RiK-]

According to several sources, Matt Sydal has been sent a WWE developmental contract and just has to sign it. He may already have done so at press time.

Those who have seen Batista's book say it's insane. Batista has said he's the most boring guy in the world, which sounds like it would make for a terrible book, but as it turns out he talks nonstop about who he hates and does not respect in the locker room (this is major trouble in the making since he's hated by most of the locker room as it is), his thoughts on certain creative decisions, etc. He also talks "almost recklessly" about the number of women he's banged. It's said to be totally different from all the other WWE books.

Foley has been trying to get a larger and more regular role on Raw. Unfortunately at this point Vince is not in his corner, basically thinking that Foley was a big deal in 1998 but doesn't really click with the fans today. Ironically, it's the same criticism Hunter has had for Foley over the past year.

Shantelle Taylor, who was released last week, was originally scheduled to debut on Raw as a hot masked babyface who would reignite the women's division and try to replicate the Rey Jr. phenomena on the A-show. There was a lot of talk last year of moving Rey to Raw, but it never happened, then Rey went down with a knee injury. Her debut was delayed and delayed and Lauranitis finally decided to axe her, figuring if they wanted to use her at some point they could sign her again but it was pointless to have her continue sitting in developmental and getting paid (she'd been there over two years). The flaw in the female Rey plan was that she was cute and a good worker, but nowhere near Rey's level.

Dusty Rhodes is telling people he wants to slow down. He's currently on the road five or six days a week, and at his age that's killing him. Plus, he feels that he was an important part of rehabilitating Smackdown in 2006, which helps vindicate him from past criticisms of being a crapty booker. He's also thrilled that Cody is finally getting his big break, and doesn't want people thinking that it has anything to do with him being on the writing crew. He wants to step away from creative and take on a role similar to that of Pat Patterson, where he'd work a limited number of days in the role of an advisor. He'd also like to re-release his book through WWE with updated chapters, though I have no idea how far that idea has gotten or how interested WWE would be.

This coming week's Raw will air live on Sci-Fi instead of USA due to the US Open Tennis tournament. Raw will air on tape delay on USA after tennis as well.

Rosie got a dark match on Raw and was backstage at Smackdown Tuesday night just prior to us going to press for another one. He's dropped a lot of weight, and the late word was that there was a good chance of him being re-signed.

credit:F4W Newsletter

[Rusty Shackleford]

Originally Posted by -RiK-

He wants to step away from creative and take on a role similar to that of Pat Patterson...

Haha, just kidding. I'm glad I took the time to read that. I believe some of it's already been posted here but it was interesting nontheless.

[-RiK-]

Originally Posted by fosters4.0

Haha, just kidding. I'm glad I took the time to read that. I believe some of it's already been posted here but it was interesting nontheless.

yeah i realised, like the matt sydal thing for example, and benoit's real estate case, and 1 or 2 other bits. but i thought in general it'd be a good read

i think the storyline involving kennedy/triple h sounds promising, with kennedy getting a big push, and building up a good program for WM. it reminds me of when stephanie was abducted by taker, and austin saved her.

[MARSHALL350]

I thought it was common knowledge that HHH was vinces son in law.

in dx he made several refernces to just that and i would say 90% of fans no that

[wwedivaxx]

Originally Posted by -RiK-

For Smackdown, WrestleMania main event is currently Edge vs. Undertaker for the title. If Edge is back in time, the idea is he'll either beat Dave for the belt at Survivor Series or Armageddon, then hold it through Mania.

*MARKS OUT*

The waiter in the Simmons/Maria/Santino skit on Raw was Raw head writer Brian Gewirtz, who wrote and directed the whole thing.

THAT is brian gerwirtz???

Booker is said to be close to signing a new three-year deal with WWE. He has specifically asked that his new deal allows him to sit in on producer's meetings. Basically, the meetings take place before TV or PPV where Vince goes over the scripts. The agents sit there and give feedback and talk about how the talent is either progressing or not progressing, and suggest finishes.

HHH sits in on both the PPV and Raw producer meetings and plays both puppermaster and class clown. The belief is that Booker knows he'll be working with Hunter through at least mid-September and doesn't want to be buried in the meetings. It's also said to not be a written deal, but rather a verbal agreement so that he's not required to attend the three-hour-plus meetings if he doesn't want to. It should be noted that about a month ago Booker did an interview and said he was very happy to be going to Raw, but that he would have quit the business if they'd asked him to go to ECW. According to sources in WWE, he was never scheduled to go to ECW.

F NO!! as far as I'm concerned NO regular onscreen talent should be in on those meetings! it's bad enough hhh is in there.

marshall, it's well known off screen, but on screen they're supposedly still bitter at each other for what happened (steph faking the pregnancy and hhh ruining the renewal of their vows when he found out). in the dx skits they never directly mentioned hhh being vince's son-in-law, but they made insinuations that would lead someone to that conclusion. this sounds like it'd be out and out saying it. no questions asked.

[Storn]

Originally Posted by wwedivaxx

*MARKS OUT*

I'm almost willing to buy you a front row ticket to see your face when he's Tombstoned.

[Cholitzu]

damn no news on survivor series??

[moondoggey]

Originally Posted by Bird-gang

damn no news on survivor series??

i hope they have hiac or a ec match ijust feel like the ec match shold alway be at the ss

[Squeebo]

Edge vs. Taker would be a great match. There haven't been two good workers in a world title match for a long time.

[-RiK-]

Originally Posted by Squeebo

Edge vs. Taker would be a great match. There haven't been two good workers in a world title match for a long time.

yeah. i think the last real good one was taker vs angle at NWO.

[wwedivaxx]

Originally Posted by Storn

I'm almost willing to buy you a front row ticket to see your face when he's Tombstoned.

lol. for one, I'm already planning on being there. my friend is ordering us the package through wwe this week. for another, I'm fully expecting he'll get tombstoned and take the loss, so there wouldn't be a look. lol. sorry to disappoint.

[NukeDukem]

Originally Posted by -RiK-

It should be noted that about a month ago Booker did an interview and said he was very happy to be going to Raw, but that he would have quit the business if they'd asked him to go to ECW. According to sources in WWE, he was never scheduled to go to ECW.

I think this was majorly overlooked in the shock after the Benoit tragedy. Benoit, just like Booker now, wanted to achieve HHH status in the company. Being moved to ECW was tantamount to a demotion, a slap in the face, and total disrespect.

So he shortly thereafter completely snaps, goes ape**** on his family, and kills himself.

Booker should be very careful in what he expects of a company that doesn't value respect and employee morale as much as it does vanity, politics, connections, and convenience.

[jimbob007]

No surprise Adams was a signature client.

Good luck to Henry- has anybody ever done less for that kind of money? a ridiculous investment for Vince that never paid off and Henry refused to quit whatever crap Vince made him do.