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Lots of news from WWE and Stamford this week; some good…some not so much.

If several years ago, someone had told you that the main event of a WWE PPV would be CM Punk vs. Bryan Danielson, you’d have called them a ROHbot, or at least suggested that they go somewhere for a nice long rest.

Yet last night’s Over the Limit featured just that.

And it was everything you’d expect…but I’d still love to have the “WWE Universe” see whatt hese towo could do…ala Ring of Honor…even if in abbreviated form.

Meanwhile, the flagship television show of WWE, Monday Night RAW, is going to three hours beginning with their 1,000 show (actually 999th by count) in July. John Cena announced the news on his Twitter feed earlier this week.

So let me get this straight.

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A few days ago, it became seven years since Chris Candido passed away.

It still sucks to remember that fact, even years later. Like so many wrestler’s death, the news of his death came on my computer screen early one morning. Chris was so full of life and so full of love for the wrestling business…that the fact that a blood clot resulting from an injury he suffered in the ring taking his life seems so especially unfair.

I knew Chris back since the early 1990s, when his claim to fame was working for Philadelphia independent promoters Joel Goodhart and Dennis Coraluzzo…with his claim to fame being that he was the grandson of former WWWF preliminary talent Chuck Richards. As Richards’s grandson, he grew up around wrestling; and hung out as a teenager in New Jersey with Balls Mahoney. The two started as backyarders (before the term even existed) until starting with formal training at Larry Sharpe’s Monster Factory. Candido then worked for the colorful promoter Dennis Coraluzzo in shows around the state of New Jersey.

I especially remember the Larry Sharpe shows at a place we nicknamed the “Clementon Coliseum” which was nothing more than a converted K-Mart. We also noticed a hot looking young Tammy Sytch hanging around Candido, in the section where the girlfriends, and um….assorted hangers-on…. sat. Needless to say, she wound up being a helluva lot more than just another wrestler’s girlfriend.

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The heavily promoted Extreme Reunion took place this past Saturday night at the Northeast National Guard Armory in Philadelphia.

To call it a disappointment would be a start.

Things began from bad and went to worse. Sabu was rushed to the hospital after Trevose, PA Police were dispatched after the hotel manager where Sabu was staying said they felt he was “intoxicated” when paramedics were called. His room was checked Shane Douglas and others couldn’t get in touch with Sabu. TMZ.com reported that Sabu “had a bad reaction to a medication he’d been taking” (likely translation was either an accidental overdose of something he was taking).

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This week, some thoughts on WWE creating storylines that are not designed to get over its Face of the Company.

WWE Face of the Company John Cena put over Lord Tenzai, after Tenzai’s stooge Sakamoto and David Otunga in what seems like a glorified squash “Extreme Rules” match

Before I get a bad mark from Jim Ross (in a recent talk, circulated by Chris Cruise; he claimed Internet fans only want “the moment” and not the foreplay. Yes, Jim…we want to get kissed before we get…well, you know. We just wanted to get kissed where we’ll feel it, not on the back of our head where we won’t feel it and it makes little sense to do for the purposes intended. Well, Cena jobbing to Tenzai felt like getting kissed in the back of the head. All the kisser felt was hair and the person being kissed not much of anything.

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15 years ago this past week, the little promotion that couldn’t…did.

ECW Barely Legal took place, the one and only PPV ever held from the ECW Arena in Philadelphia on April 13, 1997. Here are some of the moments that led to that day.

Let’s start on May 14, 1993. I was ready to go to that first ECW show at this new arena, the Saturday that Eddie Gilbert and Tod Gordon scheduled their first show of Eastern Championship Wrestling in a nondescript looking bingo hall, located in a section of Philadelphia that former Strictly ECW head Tony Lewis then described as “West Hell”.

Even that requires some prelude.

What was then called Eastern Championship Wrestling started after Tod Gordon picked up the remains of Joel Goodhart’s Tri-State Wrestling Alliance in February 1992. The Tri-State Wrestling Alliance, best known for its classic series of Cactus Jack-Eddie Gilbert matches that permanently put hardcore wrestling on the map in Philadelphia, blew apart on the eve of Winter Challenge III, a show that would have been the promotion’s largest.

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Combat Zone Wrestling returns to action as it presents the 11th annual Best of the Best on April 14th (7:30 pm) at the Flyers Skate Zone, 601 Laurel Oak Road in Voorhees, NJ.
Here are the 13 participants in Best of the Best

From the UK’s Fight Club Pro: MK McKinnan and Trent 7
From Combat Zone Wrestling: Alex Colon, AR Fox, Drake Younger, Chuck Taylor, Sami Callihan
From Osaka Pro Wrestling: Lince Dorado
From Dragon Gate USA and Absolute Intense Wrestling: Johnny Gargano
From Anarchy Championship Wrestling: ACH
From Pro Wrestling Guerrilla: Willie Mack
From Dragon Gate USA: Samuray Del Sol

Originally named to the tournament: UHAA Nation is out due to injury that may have him out as long as a ayear.

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Since this is being put together before Wrestlemania, thought I’d go back to a column written in what was the most newsworthy week in professional wrestling history not involving Chris Benoit or Owen Hart….11 years ago this past week WWE purchased WCW after WCW’s TV contract was cancelled by Turner Broadcasting.

It wouldn’t be an overexaggeration to call this the most newsworthy week in the modern history of professional wrestling.

First, on March 19th, new Chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting Jamie Kellner ended 30 years of Turner-originated/sponsored professional wrestling with his canceling of Monday Nitro on TNT and Thunder on TBS.

Then, on March 20th, Fusient Media Ventures withdrew from negotiations to purchase WCW, due to Kellner’s decision to pull wrestling from TBS and TNT.

On March 21st, the Pro Wrestling Torch reported that the WWF was back in the hunt to purchase, and on March 22nd was the first outlet to break the story that WWF Entertainment has purchased WCW.

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So given that it’s a week before Wrestlemania. here are my uneducated guesses as to the results for next Sunday.

• Main event
  The Rock vs. John Cena
  My guess is that there’s not a conclusive finish; so this match can get made again for Summerslam. Who’d interfere? Since The Miz iasn’t booked in a match, and they’ve made a point of him going from the main event of Wrestlemania last year to not booked this year…it’d fit right in.
• Hell in a Cell match (with special guest referee Shawn Michaels)
  Triple H vs. The Undertaker
  Since HBK screwing HHH is being so strongly hinted, it’s probably not happening. My guess: HHH goes over clean and ends The Streak, and lets Undertaker ride off into the sunset (or wherever “dead men” go). Online wrestling fans promptly blow up the Internet bitching that someone else should have ended The Streak.
• WWE Championship
  CM Punk (Champion) vs. Chris Jericho
  Most interesting build-up of the matches. Jericho is great playing a despicable heel getting into CM Punk’s head. my pick: Punk goes over Jericho by submission after the best wrestling match of the entire show.
• World Heavyweight Championship
  Daniel Bryan (Champion) with AJ vs. Sheamus
  Macho Man Daniel Bryan with AJ as “the Lovely Elizabeth” has been playing chickenshit heel for months while channeling his inner Randy Savage in treating AJ like garbage. Meanwhile, AJ’s playing working class Elizabeth and looking doe-eyed at Bryan all the time. I think Sheamus goes over Bryan by reversal of a pinfall (or an AJ turn on Bryan out of nowhere?) to win the title.
• WWE Intercontinental Championship
  Cody Rhodes (Champion) vs. Big Show
  Cody Rhodes goes over Big Show. Cody’s a good heel and is getting his stride, but this match doesn’t interest me that much.
• Randy Orton vs. Kane
  It’s been reported that Kane may be starting a wind-down of his career, so I think it’d make a helluva lot more sense for Orton to go over. Given how over he is, WWE needs to start moving Randy Orton up the food chain again, so perhaps a new storyline can start after mania for him. Cute recent hype by Orton to say this is a bigger match than Sheamus-Bryan. Does that mean he gets the winner?
• Team Teddy (with captain Santino Marella, R-Truth, Kofi Kingston, Zack Ryder, The Great Khali and one other to be named (with Hornswoggle) vs.
  Team Johnny (with captain David Otunga, Mark Henry, Christian, Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger and one other to be named )
  Stipulations include the General Manager of the winning team becoming the General Manager of both Raw and SmackDown. In addition, if Team Johnny wins, Christian will earn an opportunity to wrestle for the World Heavyweight Championship.It’s a pretty reasonable guess that WWE will want to keep riding the John Laurinaitis storyline, since Giant Bernard/A-Train/Baldo is coming up, reportedly as Laurinaitis’s bodyguard. So my call is Team Johnny goes over, likely by a heel screw finish.
• Divas tag team match
  Maria Menounos and Kelly Kelly vs. Beth Phoenix and Eve Torres
  Babyfaces go over. Yawn.

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This week is a re-telling of wrestling memories in various venues I’ve attended live. The reason they’ve provided me memories occurs because of many different reasons, as you’ll see.

ECW Arena

From May 1993 to 1995, I sat in the front row of section C (the on-camera section with John “Hat Guy/Hawaiian Shirt” Bailey and company) the first two years at the ECW Arena, before the Club ECW plan was devised. Since I’d been burned by former Tri-State Wrestling Alliance promoter Joel Goodhart for a similar plan, I refused to put out the money for the “4-packs”. It turns out that wasn’t such a bad idea, as the seats I’d regularly sat in with my brother, were the very seats that were involved in the 1995 Terry Funk-Cactus Jack “fire incident”.

So I moved up with the “bleacher bums” in Section C. As I sat there, I was fortunate enough to see ECW at its best during its golden era. I also was able to gather many other memories until December 23, 2000, the last ECW show at the ECW Arena.

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