New Promotion by Two Legends? – Chris Jericho and Jim Ross are allegedly talking about launching a new promotion according to Brad Davis of SEScoops. Now, they don’t have a history of strong reporting and mostly report unsubstantiated rumors. This current rumor also involves Jericho and Ross working with the United States tv home of NJPW and Women of Wrestling; AXS TV. Apparently agent Barry Bloom is helping put together the company, and the project is being financed by the Jacksonville Jaguars Khan owner Shahid Khan. The report also state that the Elite side of the Bullet Club are on board with the project.
Though, AXS has already published a response to the article denying any involvement in the project.
JBL Is a Dummy – John Bradshaw Layfield is loyal to a fault. A fault is the most accurate thing about that statement. JBL, the ever vigilant company shill is back on the “WWE is great” bandwagon, talked to Busted Open Radio and revealed he believes the WWE will let wrestlers not go if they are so inclined.
You have a right not to go and I feel very confident that WWE will not insist anybody go. Certain people didn’t want to go to Iraq. For different reasons, they felt their safety might be in jeopardy. But certain people didn’t want to go. There were people that didn’t agree with the 9/13 show, two days after 9/11, in Houston. Vince made it very clear, ‘If you don’t want to be here…not an issue. No repercussions and there won’t be any fallback from this. It’s simply your choice.’ I think it will be the same with Saudi Arabia.
Yet, there is far more precedence for WWE burying talent for next to no reason than JBL will ever admit. In fact Dave Meltzer has a report on the situation saying, “all of the production people” and “most of the talent” don’t want to go to Saudi Arabia for the big show.
I wonder if JBL will support production crews not going?
NWA Reveals New Title – The NWA has revealed the new NWA National Championship belt and it’s…polarizing. As Lagana reveals the belt is an obvious throwback to classic NWA titles of the 70’s.
The actual title—and I posted it as I was packing my bag, I haven’t read any feedback—the title is a legitimate throwback to the NWA United States title, and there’s not a belt like it on the market right now. It’s retro for retro; Billy [Corgan] loves anything that sort of ties to the past, so obviously there’s a United States Championship in the world in WWE, there’s a North American [Championship], but when we made the decision to add another championship, the National title, we always loved the name. The most famous design of the National title was the one that Tully [Blanchard] had, it looked very much like the NWA TV title; we kicked around a few designs but kept coming back to this ‘US’ one that represents our nation. We thought ‘why not?’ and the couple of people we let in—it was very interesting—the design is polarizing.
What I’ve learned in the past six months is a lot of people really like title belts. I get Tweets every day about bringing back the territories’ Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship. I think everybody has a large affinity for what some call a ‘secondary title.’ I don’t like calling it that, but the fact that we have Magnum TA doing us a huge favor, coming up the last minute, him and Jeff Jarrett—who was a very famous Intercontinental Champion—will be the men involved in the segment in presenting the title. These titles are important, and as we saw last year with ‘Ten Pounds Of Gold,’ we made [the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship] very important. It’s real to a lot of people, so my goal with this one was to create a design where it’s an open field.
Jazz Talks NWA Women’s Title – Jazz is back in the national spotlight again, about to face off with Penelope Ford for the NWA Women’s Championship. After spending some time out of the game, she’s on the verge of returning in a big way, under the rebooted NWA banner. She spoke to Fightful.com and revealed how she feels about getting back into the ring, saying;
At the time I was just wondering what was going to happen. It happened overnight. Me knowing Lagana for so many years, he told me ‘be patient Jazz, we’re working on things. Things will pick up.’ That’s what I did. I had taken years off from doing anything pertaining to wrestling. Physically, mentally, my mind wasn’t there. Now, I’m back into Jazz mode. First I was just being mommy, going to work, housewife. I’m back and ready to kick ass. I’m a 46-year old grown ass woman. I have the experience. I’ve been on the biggest platform. There’s nothing on that night that’s going to have me intimidated.
She goes on to talk about how she didn’t even know if she’d keep the belt, saying;
They told me they were going to keep it on me because they had an idea of what they were going to do. They didn’t say they were taking belts from everybody, I didn’t know about that. I didn’t even ask any questions about it. That’s the political side of it. I try not to get involved in that.
Quick Hits – Mike Johnson of PWInsider is reporting that Shawn Michaels will be at RAW this upcoming Monday. Voices of Wrestling alleges that NJPW is reevaluating their stance on copyrighting GIFs. Dave Meltzer is reporting that FOX wants SmackDown to tone down the comedy. Meltzer is also reporting that WWE is interested in launching a German based NXT, with hopeful ties to Germany’s wXw promotion.