Late Breaking News

PWInsider reports that former TNA Knockout Gail Kim will be returning to WWE once her current deal with TNA expires. Reportedly WWE made Kim a fairly sizeable offer to have her heavily involved on either of the Raw or Smackdown Diva rosters. Kim's decision is reported to be strictly financial and sources report that the TNA door will remain open should Kim wish to return later.

Sting did not return to TV tapings after the Hard justice pay-per-view due to ongoing negotiations for a new contract with TNA. TNA is seeking to have a deal finalized in the next few weeks for 2009 in order to move on with key parts of Sting's current angle. Sting, who turns 50 early next year, was believed to be earning in the $600,000 range this last year for working basically a part-time schedule.



The Wrestling Observer reports that the decision to pull Mick Foley from his involvement in the Undertaker/Edge Hell in the Cell Match at SummerSlam was made by Vince McMahon on the basis that it would distract from new plans for the match. Reportedly McMahon told the WWE creative team that what was scripted for Foley was now off the show and said they were "moving on without Mick." No news on the exact meaning of that comment as of yet. Foley, who had agreed to sign with TNA in 2005 before the WWE gave hime a new deal, has been reported to be in talks with the Dixie Carter run company.

Speculation continues to grow in the authenticity of Randy Orton's recent morocycle accident. While media outlets in the St. Louis area have been unable to find evidence that suggests the incident occurred, family and friends have come forth in an effort to validate the story that the WWE superstar recounted to WWE.com. At recent WWE TV tapings the accident was being discussed as being real yet a couple of days later many found it strange that nobody could find any sort of doumentation of Orton being in a near fatal motorcycle accident.

Reel Wrestling - Beyond the Mat (1999)

(description: wikipedia/film: YouTube) Beyond the Mat is a 1999 professional wrestling documentary, directed by Barry W. Blaustein. World Wrestling Entertainment chairman Vince McMahon tried to block its release after deciding that the film reflected badly on him and the WWF.[citation needed] Three editions of the film were released to video, including a "special edition" and a "ringside special edition," each of which had different extras and slightly different footage.

Director Barry Blaustein decides to travel America over a three year period, endeavoring to understand the mindset of someone who would voluntarily choose to become a professional wrestler. Blaustein interviews a wide variety of wrestling personalities and ascertains their motivations.

Blaustein focuses on three famous wrestlers, one at the height of his career (Mick "Mankind" Foley) and two contemplating retirement (Terry Funk and Jake "The Snake" Roberts). Foley has been taking increasingly risky falls (or "bumps") and blows to the head, and at one point is heard talking incoherently as the result of a fall which briefly rendered him unconscious. Later in the film, in a scene from the 1999 Royal Rumble, he is shown taking multiple shots to the head with a steel folding chair, while his wife and young children watch in horror from the audience. Funk is a 54-year-old man in need of knee surgery who appears unable to retire, despite the mounting toll wrestling is taking on his body. Roberts is a wrestler who enjoyed tremendous popularity in the 1980s, but who is now a cocaine addict, estranged from both his father and his daughter.

The careers of the three successful wrestlers are contrasted with those of wrestlers who have not yet achieved comparable success. Darren Drozdov is a former NFL football player who is shown in an interview with Vince McMahon. After discovering that Drozdov can vomit at will, McMahon renames him "Puke", and, controversially, instructs him to vomit in a bucket as a demonstration of his ability. Drozdov becomes a WWF wrestler, but at the end of the film Blaustein reveals that Droz was paralyzed in an in-ring accident from a botched move, several months later.

On a World Wrestling Entertainment-produced DVD released in late 2005/early 2006 entitled Jake The Snake Roberts: Pick Your Poison, Jake Roberts, along with others, heavily criticized the film for showing him in a negative light, contending that the depiction of him was "not the real Jake Roberts". Roberts also claimed that director Barry Blaustein and Terry Funk lied to him about the aims of the film, telling him it was a television special on the effects of drug and alcohol abuse.



Think you know EVERYTHING about Pro Wrestling?? It's All Fake right?? Ever wonder WHO the guys are that beat the hell out of each other every night ... for a living??

Rokket Reload

The TV Times They are a Changin' by Jonny Rokket

Wrestling fans across the south have been fortunate to be able to enjoy televised wrestling in some form or another since the early fifties. There have even been mentions of televised studio tapings in Augusta back in the early days of television. But it wasn't until Georgia Championship Wrestling, an Atlanta company formed in 1944 by promotor Paul Jones, aired on Christmas Day, 1971 on WQXI in Atlanta that wrestling television in Georgia would become a regularity. Shortly after, GCW booker/wrestler Ray Gunkel would oversee one of his last decisions (and perhaps the most important in GCW TV history) before his death by heart attack during a match against Ox Baker in Savannah. He would switch TV outlets to new Atlnta UHF station WTCG which would later become WTBS, The Superstation.

Check out this match from 72/73 as Mr. Wrestling defends the Georgia Heavyweight Title against Cowboy Bill Watts. This was during the "Atlanta Wrestling Wars" as a shut-out Ann Gunkel (Ray Guncel's widow) would form the All South Wrestling Alliance as Bill Watts would take over GCW, temporarily named Mid-South Sports. Both programs aired on TBS until All-South folded in 1974.



In 1976, when TBS went satellite, making it available to cable systems across the U.S., the once again renamed Georgia Championship Wrestling became the first NWA promotion to be broadcast nationally. Check out this clip of Georgia Championship Wrestling from July 26, 1980 with footage from the 7/20 Omni show.



But that was not the only wrestling programming going on in Georgia at the time. WMAZ-13 in Macon aired an extended version of this 1984 program which featured GCW regulars such as Ted DiBiase, Brad Armstrong, Ronnie Garvin, Ole Anderson, and Gordon Solie. But that same year, on July 14, 1884, Georgia wrestling fans would experience their darkest day, known as Black Saturday.



In 1984 Jack & Jerry Brisco sold their majority stock to Vince McMahon who also purchased the company's TBS time slot.



After seven weeks NWA based Georgia Wrestling returned as Championship Wrestling from Georgia aired September 8th.





Unfortunately for McMahon Georgia Wrestling fans neither wanted McMahon's style of wrestling nor wrestling provided by a "yankee" company. In March of 1985 McMahon sold Charlottle, NC promotor Jim Crockket, Jr. the Saturday night TBS time slot but not the promotion. By April NWA World Championship Wrestling kicked off on WTBS.



Shortly after Crockett also added a Sunday night edition was later called NWA Main Event after Crockett sold the company to Ted Turner in 1988. A year later Turner also added Saturday morning show NWA Power Hour which became WCW Power Hour. World Chmpionship Wrestling would later be christened "WCW"



While Turner had moved many TV tapings to Orlando, Florida, WCW still existed on WTBS and eventually TNT. Turner nabbed Hogan and Randy Savage. On September 4th, 1996 WCW took to the air live going head-to-head against McMahon's Monday Night Raw. Soon after Scott Hall made his debut, The Outsiders invaded...





...then came the greatest turn in wrestling history:



But for all the success...McMahon would have his revenge and on March 26, 2001, after nearly twenty years, the legacy of GCW and WCW would come to an end.





The days of classic Georgia Wrestling may be gone...but Atlanta and the NWA still blast into the TV sets of Georgia through shows like NWA Anarchy.