For my fellow dorks...

Time for another journey into the land of Parts Unknown for the pre-determined combat sport rope opera...

Ok, I kinda hate to say it, but I dig the NEXUS angle. I also have a soft spot in my heart for stables. The backstory and their actions make sense. It's a young, re-mixed nWo.Now the trick is to keep it from becoming bloated and make sure it has period at the end and does not go the way of the nWo and become a sloppy, chicken scratched, absent of propper nouns run on sentence... As long as the current season of NXT does not follow suit and invade like Season 1 has, it will have broke from the monotony that is WWE and created fresh, new stars which WWE, and the business as a whole desperately needs. May even have a built in war brewing pitting season 1 against season 2.

Speaking of Season 2, I still like McGuillicuty(Hennig) and Harris (Rotunda)... I just wish those two would be allowed to go by family names...

I miss seeing Trevor Murdock on the tube. Last wrestler I can honestly say I liked watching.

Ted Dibiase has taken his father's gimmick complete with Million Dollar Belt and for a short while Virgil. Virgil's nostalgia factor wore off and he was replaced by Maryse, who is playing up a 'gold-diggin'' persona on the arm of Dibiase jr. I think it is a breath of fresh air that the Valet aspect of wrestling is being showcased here...Now if we could just get Managers and Tag Teams back...

While Tag Teams in the WWE may be few and far between, but they do have The DudeBusters, and they may be the best name in the history of tag team wrestling...

TNA and ROH have much stronger tag team divisions, and in TNA's case it may just be by default now. TNA is persistently in the rumor mill in regards to leadership and creativity and who is coming and who is going. Paul Heyman may be closer than people expect in taking the reins, however he is going to have to gut the company and do a complete overhaul to right that ship. Hogan and Bish have almost ruined it, in my opinion and it is probably more Hogan's fault than it is Bischoffs...And now, for the 5000th time, a promotion is trying to rekindle the love affair with ECW lore... TNA, to possible counter the Nexus storyline in the Ent, has brought in some washed up ECW has beens in a psuedo take over/showing what ECW is all about angle... It aint working. With the completely retarded ECWWE product in recent years, several hundred 'reunion' shows and marking the second time TNA has featured a ECW faction, there is nothing left to rub off. ECW, as a viable brand died after the second One Night Stand PPV before WWE completely bastardized it as a full time brand. However, there have been rumblings that Tommy Dreamer may become head booker for TNA, replacing Vince Russo, who wants to take a different job in the company. Dreamer has only been the head booker once of a promotion, OVW in Louisville, during which time their attendence and tv ratings plummeted...

ROH continues to be the best Promotion in the business. It has a feel of the old Jim Crockett Promotions in certain aspects and has by far the best young talent in the business. Tyler Black as champ doesn't really do it for me, but it is better than the alternatives in TNA and WWE. Chris Hero and Claudio are very entertaining, and The Briscoes are the best tag team since the Midnight Express... If you are able to get HD Net, I suggest checking them out on Monday Nights...I doubt you are gonna miss anything on Raw...

One thing that mildly interested me about TNA, is that Ric Flair has assembled a Horsemen-esque stable that he calls Fortune, or 4-tune...It has potential...

FCW may be, aside from ROH, the best promotion in America. Dusty Rhodes and Steve Kiern have the WWE Farm League running some great shows and the performers are putting on some great quality work. The NXT rookies and Nexus faction still ply their trade their even though they are on the ENT's programming now and from what I can tell, you don't leave an FCW Show disapointed.

Speaking of Rhodes, he recently did a little ego stroking and produced the 'American Dream Tour" at recent FCW shows for the summer, harkening back to his Bash days... He would make appearances and do meet and greets at the shows and even teamed up with sons Goldust and Cody for a six-man match...The tour wrapped up earlier this week.

Ricky Steamboats health has gotten better in recent weeks after suffering from a sudden illness. No, it was drug related...Steamboat suffered a bursted capillary which caused some bleeding on his brain. Steamboat spent time in a Florida hospital but since has been released. Steamboat was admitted to the Hospital one day after being attacked by the Nexus faction on WWE, but it was very evident that it was not him kayfabing the injury. WWE also released a statement, which suprisingly was semi-kayfabe by saying that his injuries and hospitilization are not in any way related to the altercation with Nexus on WWE programming.

There was a rumor floating around the gossip circuit that Hulk Hogan had passed away a victim of an apparent drowning. Those rumors have been proven false, but seriously Hulk aint gonna go out by drowning..the man has been able to stay afloat despite the bull shit that comes out of his mouth for years...

Who is going to be the RAW mystery GM? well, I can almost say with 100% certainty it is not going to be The Rock.

MTV has gotten back into the business of TV wrestling. Lucha Libre USA debuted on MTV2 and the spanish language MTV TRE3. I caught like 5 minutes of the show, it was ok, but it was kinda like WCW Nitro back in the day if you would have taken out all of the Americans and just had the Luchadores...The ongong angle is that American JT Brewer, supposedly the son of Arizona Governor, is going to eliminate all the Mexican influence and dirtiness in Lucha LIbre USA...

Dave Marquez' NWA Pro recently secured a time slot on Los Angeles TV. NWA Championship Wrestling from Hollywood will debut this Fall.

Speaking of the NWA, Legends Fest in Charlotte is drawing near. Headling the convention will be a match for the NWA World Title between champion, and ROH Booker, Adam Pearce and the person who very well could be the best pro wrestler inthe world today, Bryan Danielson. Pearce also has scheduled defenses against Charlie Haas in Texas for NWA Southwest and NWA National Champion, as well as TNA On-screen security guard, Universal Soldier Phil Shatter, in Columbus Ohio at the Ohio State Fair... The NWA aint what it used to be, but it's still plugging along...

Chris Lee, check out Joey Ryan, google him, get on a wiki, whatever....If you like HBK, you will love him...

I feel the need to mention the American Wolves here... another great ROH team... and very reminiscent of a young British Bulldogs...

In closing, PWI has ranked the top 500 Wrestlers in the business with their annual PWI 500, on newstands now... The rankings have been coming out since 1991 and have been a pretty good indication of who is getting pushed and who is not viewed as stale and who people will pay to see...also who has potential...more so than Athletic ability and actual skill, but the illusion of the performance goes a long way towards this too...any who this years #1 is AJ Styles....

The most suprising #1 ever? well in 1997, a man named, nope not Steve or Dwayne but Dean was #1. Dean Malenko....I think they were trying to be way too legit with tha one...