In an apparent cost-cutting move, it looks like WWE is cutting down on flying in wrestlers they have absolutely no plans for at specific television tapings. Often times, active talents are brought in regardless if they’re scheduled to be used or not. According to the roster sheet for this past Monday’s edition of RAW, a number of wrestlers were not brought to last week’s show in Boston including both members of Cryme Tyme — Shad & JTG, Charlie Haas, Dolph Ziggler, Sim Snuka (whose adopted father appeared at the show), Candice Michelle and Jamie Noble. On the roster sheet, the missing RAW talents were specifically listed as “NOT AT TV.”

Labels: charlie haas, cryme tyme

Posted by Matt Loede at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments

In the days leading up Cyber Sunday, Honky Tonk Man wasn’t originally scheduled to appear at the event. They didn’t call him until the Thursday before the pay-per-view. In an interview with Live Audio Wrestling, Honky Tonk Man said the original plan at Cyber Sunday was for Charlie Haas to come out dressed as him. “They were originally going to have Charlie Haas dress up and go out and do this,” Ferris said. “The rehab came along very well and Thursday they had called and said ‘can you still do the shake, rattle, and roll?’ and I said ‘well of course I can do that’ and that was case closed.”

Ferris is still rehabbing an injury suffered at an autograph signing over the summer when an overzealous publicity person nearly severed his finger when they were horsing around with two guitars. Ferris wasn’t sure if he would be able to make the show as a result, and he didn’t think he would be voted in to the match against Intercontinental Champion Santino Marella. “This voting thing is extremely legitimate. It was a very close race between myself and Piper,” Ferris said. “I went there thinking I wasn’t going to have to do anything either. I’m just making a little cameo appearance, but I ended up being in the ring for about 40-45 seconds and it worked out very well.”

Labels: charlie haas, honkey tonk man

Posted by Matt Loede at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments

source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter

At No Mercy last Sunday, WWE had plans to air a segment featuring Charlie Haas impersonating Hornswoggle late in the show, but it was cut due to time constraints. It was cut because they didn't want the segment to potentially cut off any time from the ladder match between Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho. Additionally, Haas' impersonation of "Rowdy" Roddy Piper was relegated to dark match duty the next night on Raw, perhaps as to not take attention from the actual Piper being announced as a choice for Santino Marella's Intercontinental Championship match at Cyber Sunday. Haas lost to Dolph Ziggler in the dark match.

Labels: 2008 no mercy, charlie haas

Posted by Matt Loede at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Comments

RAW Monday night was a jam packed show, some of which was pretty good, but as usual some of which was very bad. Here we go with another edition of our Good, Bad and our Grad from RAW:

The Good
--------------

* The opener with C.M. Punk and Chris Jericho for the World Heavyweight Title in a cage was a solid match and way to start the show. Both guys I thought worked hard, and while the ending was a little lacking, I thought overall the match was well done and pretty good. Got the crowd right into the show.

* The finale with the announcement of Chris Jericho vs Shawn Michales was not only a surprise, but a welcome surprise with the stip of the ladder match. And here I thought they would go with another Batista challenge for the title. I guess they will keep that for Cyber Sunday. For now, Michaels and Jericho should put on a good show.

* Candice Michelle again looked strong as she gets set to challenge Beth Phoenix at No Mercy. Against Jillian Hall she had her best match by far since coming back. Now we'll see if she can do it vs Phoenix when it counts at a PPV.


The Bad
------------

* The whole Kane-Mysterio thing was awful. The match was watchable and okay, but the ending was so weak, and now we throw a very green Evan Bourne in the mix? Don't really get what that is all about, other than a major rush job to bury Bourne next week vs Kane (which you know is coming).

* I don't think I have to say too much good to say about the ultra-weak 6-man tag that was a total waste of time. Why keep throwing two very good tag wrestlers along with a new guy we've never seen against one good current wrestler in Kofi Kingston and a joke of Jerry Lawler and Charlie "JR" Haas is totally beyond me. You can't come up with something better?

* Wow, so Layla is jumping ship to William Regal and leaving Jamie Noble?! A: I never knew she and Noble were actually together, and B: who really cares?

Final Grade for the Show: C-

Labels: charlie haas, chris jericho, jamie noble, jerry lawler, kane, layla, rey mysterio

Posted by Matt Loede at 9:19 PM | Permalink | Comments

The WWE's latest attempt to draw ratings fell rather flat on Monday night, as Vince McMahon's "Million Dollar Giveaway" was a bore-fest that took away from anything going on in the ring or on the show as a whole. The premise was that McMahon, doing his worst game-show impression, would give out a password at the start of the show, then during the show "at random" call those picked that entered the contest, and give them a prize amount provided they could give the password.

Everyone that he called had the password, and for the most part each of them sounded very scripted, which later on we found out was somewhat was the case, as it came out a few of the winners were contacted beforehand. The segments were long, drawn out, not entertaining whatsoever, and flat out boring to watch. McMahon, usually solid on-screen, seemed totally forced and out of place here, and it got to the point where he was even mis-dialing the phone numbers.

They tried to spruce things up with at one point Charlie Haas getting kissed by Hall of Famer Mae Young, which was gross to say the least, and having a sing-a-thon between Jillian Hall and Trevor Murdoch, both of which were bad which resulted in Vince giving a caller $2 (they got a trip to NYC later on we learned as well as the $2). I don't think anything could have saved these segments, unless you maybe got Steve Austin and/or The Rock to maybe have come out and done them.

Now I'm all for the WWE doing giveaways and giving away tons of cash. With that said, there simply has to be a better way of doing it other than having to put viewers, tuning in to watch matches and storylines progress, sit for about 40 minutes watching McMahon struggle through lame attempts to be a bad game-show host. It was noted on various sites that Vince was not happy himself with the segments on Monday night, and truth be told that is a good thing.

Maybe because of that he'll get it in his head to either A: record the segments backstage and play them throughout the show and limit them to 1-2 minutes, or B: simply skip them and just announce winners on the screen in a scroll during matches. It means nothing to the viewer to hear someone win $250,000 to be honest with you. This show seemed very WCW-like, and trust me when I say that is not a good thing.

Labels: charlie haas, vince mcmahon

Posted by Matt Loede at 6:33 AM | Permalink | Comments

Credit: ProWrestling.net

Vince McMahon wasn’t pleased with his own performance on this week’s edition of RAW during the million dollar giveaway segments and neither was anyone else in the company. “In some ways it highlighted the problems of the company. I felt bad for him. It was depressing,” said one source within the company. “This is getting really scary and it’s getting like WCW.”

The idea of featuring Charlie Haas as a special guest was pitched by the creative staff as a rib, as Vince has stated to the writers in the past that he’d rather watch paint dry than watch Haas. The idea of those two appearing on camera together was meant to be a joke, which Vince apparently got a kick out of and approved of.

Labels: charlie haas, vince mcmahon

Posted by Matt Loede at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments

From: LordsofPain.net

If you're wondering about the names of the 30+ WWE suspensions, here is an updated list of the history of the program's drug offenders (at least that became public knowledge):

Randy Orton (in August 2006 for failing a drug test due to steroids; continued receiving packages from Signature Pharmacy until February 2007, but wasn't suspended again because he had to wrestle John Cena for the WWE title at Unforgiven 2007 and WWE felt that he had "already served his time;" also, openly smoking marijuana backstage at a show in March 2006 was a behavioral suspension and didn't count as a strike)
Joey Mercury
Rene Dupree (two-time offender)
Kurt Angle
Rob Van Dam (due to a drug possession arrest)
Kid Kash
Ryan Reeves
Ryan O'Reilly (call-up to ECW roster relinquished)
Balls Mahoney (for painkillers)
Drew "Festus" Hankinson (when in developmental in late 2006)
Andrew "Test" Martin (later fired)
referee Chris Kay (two-time offender, later fired)
Jeff Hardy (two-time offender)
Chavo Guerrero (may be a two-timer, as he returned as soon as 60 days passed in November 2007)
Chris Masters (two-time offender, later fired)
Edge
Funaki
Gregory Helms
Booker T (two-time offender)
Charlie Haas
Mr. Kennedy
Umaga
William Regal (two-time offender)
John Morrison
Gene Snitsky (apparently a drug failure as his name never came up during the Signature Pharmacy scandal)
Harry "DH" Smith
Derrick Neikirk (later fired)
Neil "Chet the Jet" Bzibziak (later fired)
Afa, Jr. (for attempting to cheat on a drug test with a realistic prosthetic penis).

By my count, that's 27 Wellness Policy offenders (at least that we know of) and at least 32 individual drug suspensions, so the WWE spokeswoman was being truthful when she said that there have been over 30 suspensions in the policy's history.

Labels: charlie haas, edge, harry "DH" smith, john morrison, mr. kennedy

Posted by Matt Loede at 3:12 AM | Permalink | Comments

From PWPIX.net

One source within WWE is saying that you should expect to see some more cuts over the next few weeks, reports WrestlingHerald.com.

Names being speculated on by the source include Charlie Haas, Big Daddy V and Drew McIntyre.

WWE cleans out the roster every year (usually after WrestleMania) because it's a cost-cutting measure, not to mention that it allows new talent to be called up from developmental to the main roster. At the moment, WWE has approximately 50 talents in developmental.

Labels: big daddy V, charlie haas, drew mcintye

Posted by Matt Loede at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments