A few happy birthdays ...

Today, it is the birthday of Cody Rhodes, Terry Funk and Alicia Fox.

A more different group of wrestling personalities to share a date of birth there never has been, but wishing excellent birthday tidings to all of them.

And a happy Canada Day tomorrow to all the Canadian wrestlers and fans out there ... hosers! ;)

CLICK HERE for a short ITVR

((with mucho apologies for being tardy to the party - we're back on track after our vacation now and will be firing on all cylinders from here XO))

Mystery GM and other Newsworthiness

PLEASE NOTE: In This Very Ring will podcast tomorrow night after Smackdown sometime, so that we have had an opportunity to actually see a wrestling program this week before going on the air. Thanks for bearing with us as we went on vacation. :)

So ... we come back from Orlando to hear that WWE has had an eventful week! While Bret Hart has been kayfabe fired - taking the blame from Vince McMahon for firing the NXT guys who are a talented bunch of up and comers - there is a new, mystery GM issuing edicts by email, read out by Michael Cole as they come in. This is actually a potentially fascinating storyline that could breathe some new life into Raw. Is it Michael Cole himself? Jim Ross? Daniel Bryan? All sorts of possibilities abound ... someone I haven't mentioned here? This could easily be ruined by hotshotting the angle, or having it go too long, or having the punchline be the wrong guy ... but for now it's somewhat original and intriguing. I hope they can stay in tune, keeping this storyline pitch-perfect until the reveal we all know is coming. No awkward guest host sounds like it was refreshing too.

Meanwhile, this Raw came on the heals of the Fatal Four Way PPV - while it sounds like it had some glitches (ending 25 minutes before the top of the hour as opposed to the typical 10-15, despite people paying $45-55 dollars a pop for the show; several excellent, yet unadvertised matches such as the Harts vs. the Usos), but overall offered a strong and newsworthy wrestling program with two world title changes (Sheamus is Raw's new champion, while Rey Mysterio has stepped up over on Smackdown), a new Diva's champ, and lots of good, fun matches in between. Definitely hope to catch one of the replays this week. Impressed at the sounds of the program WWE has been putting forward, and a nice change from some of the missteps of the previous few weeks. It might have been an awkward build, but it sounds like WWE has finally gotten where they want to be in terms of pushing some new guys and filling some of the holes that have needed plugging due to releases and injuries of late. Here's hoping they can keep it up.

Comings and Goings

It has been announced in the last couple of days that Scott Hall has been released for drunken behaviour, and hot on his heels out the door was Sean "Syxx Pac" Waltman - no surprise, given their history together. Sounds like The Band has been disbanded. It's unfortunate, as I was pleasantly surprised with the promise both men were showing thus far in the (admittedly little) TNA I've caught since they began. Also out the door this week was ODB, who has been vocal about the decline of the Knockouts division of late, perhaps in search of other opportunities (acting?).

On the flipside, it was reported that, hot on the heels of Tommy Dreamer's debut at Slammiversary on Sunday, and reports that Dixie Carter has recently spoken to Paul Heyman, that Stevie Richards and Raven were backstage at last night's TV tapings. Rumours of an ECW 'invasion' to mirror previous invasions run rampant - will this be any more or less successful than previous attempts? Time will tell, but I will say I've never regretted taking time to catch TNA when we can - we've seen two weeks worth in the last month, which is more than before - and perhaps we need to step it up yet again, since it sounds like some interesting things, for better or worse, are afoot in the Impact Zone. Thank you both Shane, and Alan Wocjic and co. at OWW Radio (see previous post for the link to our guest spot with Alan last night) for having brought this to our attention at various times over the last few months, and last night on air, and we definitely think upon our return from Orlando next week it's time to act on it!

Meanwhile on the WWE side - we spoke a bit last night on the radio about Daniel Bryan/Bryan Danielson's 'release' last week from the WWE - now it's your turn. Legit or not? Was his choking out of Josh Matthews 'too much', or is this simply a very elaborate cover, setting up to reveal 'Danny' as the limo driver who roughed up Bret Hart on Monday? 90 days from now, where do we tune in to see this talented young man wrestle? WWE? TNA? ROH? Somewhere else entirely? You heard Ari's and my votes last night - what's yours?

Online World of Wrestling Radio

Be sure and click the header above around 9pm tomorrow to check out Alan Wojcik's OWW Radio show, featuring - you guessed it - us! :) It should be a lot of fun provided no technical difficulties or whatnot, and provides a small dose of ITVR madness on a week we'll otherwise be off-air in sunny Florida (3 sleeps and counting!).

And while you're at it, check out the whole Online World of Wrestling site - again, webmaster Brad has been a great friend and supporter of the show since ... well since I was a chatter in the chatroom of another wrestling radio show just dreaming of roping Ari into doing one of our own. :) Huge site, lots of great stuff. Cheers and enjoy!

Peace!

CLICK HERE for this week's ITVR podcast

Bret Hart and Kyra Beans Hart

Since, if we do ITVR tonight, all we'll have to talk about is the dull-as-paint Raw from Monday, I think we'll put it up tomorrow night after Smackdown.

Meanwhile I wanted to share with you this lovely first photo of Bret "The HitGrandpa" Hart and his granddaughter Kyra. Congrats again to the happy family! (you'll need to click it to see the whole photo, my blog format cuts off poor Kyra!)

BOO! HISS! RAW!

So I'm not even bothering to do a play by play and blow by blow on Raw last night. I admittedly missed the last hour (where there might have been some minimal potential given the matches advertised) as I tuned it out in disgust in favour of getting some school work done and watching a West Wing rerun - but honestly!

Khali and Hornswoggle to challenge the Hart Dynasty over the Usos who'd been challenging them every week and which had actually been built up somewhat decently? A DANCE OFF between Santino Marella and Vladimir Kozlov? The A Team? Again - I don't know if any redeeming qualities possessed the final hour of the show ... bu the WWE is really hurting for the injury bug, and for trying to pass off such stupidity as anything resembling what fans would want. I mean, I can point to some semi-understandable stuff - they HAVE been building the Usos, and giving their first match with the Harts away for free in the first hour of Raw would be a betrayal of that build ... I give most eloquent promo of the night to Khali and Hornswoggle, and I'll grant they actually made me laugh ... but no. Just because one or two pieces of silliness were understandable, doesn't mean they weren't still silliness. WRESTLING FANS are going to vote for a dance off? Or for a Divas battle royal as opposed to a potentially semi-decent champion vs. champion match?

On the other hand - the one redemptive thing to come out of Raw last night was it definitely encouraged me to check out the Smackdown I recorded. It sounds and looks like they wrote the Undertaker offscreen in a somewhat creative, original and compelling way. Unfortunately, though, whereas Smackdown seems to be stepping up and coping with the injury bug WWE has been hit with, Raw seems to barely be trying. Step up your game guys - all the potential in the world lies at your finger tips, but you need to use it!

CLICK HERE for an audio blog

Click here for an incredibly interesting article from World Wrestling Insanity's Justin Henry.

Congrats to Wade Barrett, and the upcoming NXT Season

So we're going to leave Raw, which was fairly busy and newsworthy, to be discussed tomorrow on the air, but I wanted to take this quick moment to congratulate Wade Barrett for winning Season 1 of NXT last night. He, along with Daniel Bryan and David Otunga (I think? there's one more but I can't remember which), will be staying with the WWE while the rest of the NXT class, I believe, will be returning to FCW for the time being.

Next week begins a new grouping of rookies and pros which you can find on WWE.com, but the ones which stand out to me are ...

Husky Harris (ie, Windham Rotunda, Mike Rotunda/Irwin R. Schyster's son), as well as Joe Hennig (Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig's son) wrestling as Michael McGillicutty. I mean ... seriously? This is so ridonk-a-donkulous that I hope it's a setup to be 'revealed' onscreen that some silver-turnbuckle-born wrestling royalty has infiltrated a show designed to break the glass ceiling for 'rookies' (in other words, often longstanding members of the indy scene - such as Kaval, the former Low-Ki, who is also a rookie this season, to be 'trained' by LayCool ... sigh ...).

This is either going to be unexpectedly surprisingly brilliant, or ...

Yeah it's gonna be crap. Good concept which very quickly outlived its intrigue I think.