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"Tori, I'll miss your sweet lovin".

Chairshots
10/26/01

Smackdown Thoughts
I've seen an American wrestling icon turn his back on his country and pledge allegiance to an evil dictator. I've seen one wrestler drag the coffin of another wrestler's father behind a hearse. I've seen the hatching of the Gobbledy Gooker. But I have never seen a cheaper way to get heel heat than to have a son restrain his mother while his sister slapped her. That's exactly what Shane and Stephanie did to Linda McMahon last night on Smackdown and I loved it. I would have loved it more if it had led to a match other than Shane vs. Vince this Monday, but I take what I can get from the WWF these days. What I also got from Smackdown were several excellent matches in Booker vs. Jericho, Rock vs. Rob Van Dam and a surprisingly good match between Trish Stratus and Mighty Molly. Kudos to the WWF writers for using the concept of the Battle Royal to further a plot line. My only question is this: if the outcome of the championship match that the winner gets is predetermined to have the challenger lose, why have Booker T be that challenger? We've seen Booker T fight for the WCW championship match a dozen times and the loss to Chris Jericho does nothing to help Booker. If someone else had won the Battle Royal and went on to fight Jericho, even if they lost, it could have helped their career. What about Tazz, Raven, Tommy Dreamer, Mike Awesome, Justin Credible, Seven Richards or Test? To Booker T it's just another loss, but to any of those other guys it's a title shot with a semi-main event wrestler. You could make the argument that the WWF is building championship credibility for Jericho, but I don't see why Booker needs yet another loss. Anyway, enjoyable show.

Reason for Tori Leaving the WWF
Tori, a featured trainer on Tough Enough, is no longer with the WWF. Reportedly, she was asked to go to OVW to work with some of the new women and refused. Tori, real name Terri Pooch (snicker), will just wait out the rest of her contract and then be done with the WWF.

Rock: The Barbarian
Comics2Film is reporting that rumors of The Rock being cast as Conan in the King Conan: Crown of Iron are false. This shouldn't come as a surprise, since the Rock said as much during his last interview with Conan O'Brien. Just in case the Rock is reading this I will pass along a plea for him to turn down the role of Conan (let Arnold do it) and take over the role of Doc Savage that Arnold is currently contemplating.(Yes! The Rock as Doc! Sorry, had to butt in -- Derek) It all works out better for the fans in the end.

Excess Time Change
WWF Excess will be shown at a special time this Saturday at 8 p.m. ET on TNN. The show will be back to its regularly scheduled time slot next wee…oh, why bother? No one watches that show anyway.

Wrestlemania Main Event?
WWF writers are already penciling in Steve Austin vs. Triple H as the main event for Wrestlemania X8 in Toronto. Obviously things change quickly in the WWF so this is a very tentative match.

Lawler Speaks!
Jerry "The King Lawler updated his website after several weeks of silence. Nothing major to report other than he did meet with Vince McMahon and Jim Ross when the WWF was in Memphis a few weeks ago for Smackdown. "King, You know this is your home, and you're always welcome here, but we know you want to get your personal life in order, and when you get that done, we'll talk again," said Vince. That sounds positive. To read the rest of the update click here.

Foley Speaks!
Mick Foley was a guest on the Opie and Andy show Thursday. He mentioned that he recently rejected a plan to have him feud with William Regal. Apparently Mick has not been happy with the way he has been used by the WWF. Since leaving the commissioner position the last time, the WWF has brought Mick in a few times to ref matches and promote his book. Mick feels that with all the meaningless appearances, it has cheapened his value. He makes a good point. Mick's current WWF contract expires next year and he should gain more leverage over the way he's used during the negotiation.

Hogan Speaks!
The "Orange Goblin", Hulk Hogan, called in to the "Bubba the Love Sponge" show on Thursday to discuss his new wrestling organization. The XWF (Xtreme Wrestling Federation?) is the name and Hogan says there are plans to have TV tapings sometime in mid-December. No dates or locations were mentioned, nor were any TV stations or networks. Hogan did say that Vampiro, Curt Hennig, Nasty Boys, Josh from Tough Enough, Disorderly Conduct, and the Harris Brothers would be involved. He also said they were talking with Scott Hall, Sting and "some boys up north" (that's lingo for wrestlers working in the WWF, newbie) but nothing is solid yet. Sting is under contract to Time Warner through January 2002. Also, Hogan will be playing the on-screen financial backer of the company, similar to Vince McMahon's role, but in actuality the real financial backer and owner is rumored to be Walter Frank. Mr. Frank's net worth apparently exceeds $100 million and he has told people within XWF that he is willing to spend $30 million on the promotion. XWF officials are saying that its first event will be on Nov. 13 and Nov. 14 at the Universal Studios theme park in Florida. So. Is Hogan a liar, wrong or just going senile? None of the above would surprise me. Stay tuned for more details.

Lance Storm Speaks!
Lance Storm also posted a new commentary on his website. This one details his thoughts on Tough Enough and how the winners fit in to the business. A good read and not once does he say "if I can be serious for a minute." Click on these colored words to read it.

Chairshots News
As many of you long time fans know, Chairshots started out as a weekly column on DailyRadar.com. When it started I told the editors that in order for DailyRadar to provide extensive wrestling news on the big three wrestling promotions, I needed to do the column at least three times a week. This wasn't just a plea for more power, fame and sickly amounts of money. They refused. When I became the wrestling editor of Fanboy Planet, I decided to go with my gut instinct and expand Chairshots to three times a week. Then ECW folded, WCW went away and hot wrestling news became a thing of the past. So starting next week, Chairshots is moving to Tuesday and Friday. Rather than report every scrap of wrestling news, I'll sum everything up in two weekly updates with my usual snide and bitchy commentary. Also, next Friday Chairshots will include a new feature called "Book It" where we take an underutilized wrestler and talk about how to make him a top company star. Hopefully this extra day off will not only help the overall quality of Chairshots, but also free up more time for me to do other things for the website like wrestling DVD reviews, critique wrestling themed porn sites and other features.

Catch Chairshots and me next Tuesday. Until then…