Cryme Tyme is gone now, too. Something about how they took a ref's belt and sold it after a house show match, and management didn't like it... sounds like a fishy lie a 6 year-old would tell.

So... if it ain't Kennedy, who is Vince's kid?

"Things are looking up" was the clue last night, but I thought they were gonna run with Kennedy as the son. Perhaps his involvement in that online pharmacy thing got him pushed out of the storyline?

I agree, it's a pretty ridiculous storyline. I understand wrestling is supposed to be over the top anyway, but I like storylines better that are like "Someone stole Matilda from the British Bulldogs" or "Nailz is an escaped convict with a hate-on for the Bossman."

Still, I'm curious to know who they go with. The clue is totally vague... it could be a tall guy, or a guy who looks up (ie, HBK's entrance), or something off the wall that makes no sense, which would be likely with the way WWE handles stories now.

Vince is part of the problem, but so are their hiring policies. To write for WWE TV, you need some degree and background writing drama and comedy television, and THEN you need an understanding of the WWE product. How about just doing a submission contest and seeing who can write the best show... like Tough Enough, but for the writing side of things?

TV wrestling basically writes itself because there's so many storylines that can be visited time and time again and people will still eat it up. I knew things were going downhill when they did the domestic abuse thing with Beaver Cleavage and the alcohol thing with Jake Roberts. Getting "real" is okay to a point, but with a show where you're supposed to suspend disbelief, getting too real just makes it silly and hard to sit through. HHH humping a corpse, 80+ yr-old women getting pregnant, Kane getting dumped in a flaming dumpster and returning unscathed 7 days later, etc.

A good example of a properly done wrestling segment on this week's RAW was the London/Kendrick v WGTT match. They had the champs out doing commentary and praising both of the teams, and unless they piped in chants via editing, it sounded like the crowd reacted well to the match and were generally entertained. This wasn't a long match, and it was pretty much by the numbers, but it set up a tag title match and put over the Cade/Murdoch gimmick in a few minutes, while talking up four other guys who get little to no promo time. But this just showed me that some guys don't need promo time. If Haas cut some 30-minute HHH style promo, would it have added to the match?

I really hope this congress thing forces them to go back to basics and present a product that doesn't waste oodles of airtime like they do now.

As for TNA, I really want to watch a non-WWE product and see it do well. But when I tune in and all I see are ex-WWE guys in the top spots and Angle's got every belt in the company, that doesn't do much to sell the other guys. So then you get some match that's a 6-man tag, but so and so will have some entourage that comes out to run interference, and those 2 minutes of interference are the only airtime those talents get. I've only watched a few shows of TNA, but they may be worse at mishandling guys on TV than WWE, even.

It's all in how the time is used. Less of Angle holding an awards ceremony or looking for his stolen bags, and you could have some more matches. I'm a fan of the guest commentator method for fitting in match hype, or even the old WWF thing where they'd have a guy call in and talk to the announcers during his opponent's match.

I know old ECW faltered, but ECW's initial buzz was created on a one-hour timeslot that was hard to track down in some markets (it was like 2:30 am on some bootleg sports channel here), but because their product seemed exciting, people would track it down. I think TNA has the guys to definitely sell their show that way, it's just not written as such.

Whoa... prowrestling.com, not sure how reliable they are, but:

"Apparently Ric Flair quit WWE earlier this week. The possible departure from the company doesn't have anything to do with the recent WWE drug scandal, but sources say he's just frustrated with his push and hasn't received any encouraging communication from WWE management.

As of now WWE hasn't given Ric Flair his release. WWE management are trying hard to get Flair to cool down and not quit the company. Discussions are going on to sort things out because WWE really doesn't want Flair to leave. "

I'm seeing news that says Booker T has quit now, also.

Hopefully that means he took the offer of a big program. While he's nowhere near as fluid in the ring as he used to be, I could really tolerate WWE programming much easier with a Flair promo every week for awhile. It'd be great if they had him come back full-on heel, demask Mysterio in a career vs mask title match, and then roll into WMXXIV in some sort of "retirement" spot to coincide with his HoF induction, if they've still got that pegged for 2008.

If we get some "Flair as GM just to shut him up and keep him off TNA" garbage... :sigh:

It's safe to say 2007 is the worst year ever for WWE, internally.