-California's State Athletic Commission is getting ready to start taxing professional wrestling. Bill Douglas of the CSAC is currently organizing a meeting of wrestling promoters in the Southern California area to discuss "where we have been, where we are now, and where we are going with this." He said right now professional wrestling in CA was unregulated and would continue to be so, but they were keeping an eye on Congressional hearings and that if regulation in the state actually happens, "look forward to California testing wrestlers across the board the way we do for boxing, kickboxing, and MMA which means testing for anabolic agents, masking agents, diuretics, and drugs of abuse". Reports say they're going to take 5% of all event gates or $500 upfront, effective immediately.

 

-October 22, 2007 Results  

-WWE Diva Ashley Massaro was on the CW Now show last night riding the new BRP Can-Am Spyder Roadster, a three-wheeled motorcycle. CW Now is a magazine type show on the CW Network.

-John Cena will be on Late Night with Conan O'Brien tonight on NBC. This is the same episode that aired back in June of this year.

-Randy Orton's brother Nate Orton made his MMA debut on 9/29, winning by Knockout. A video of the fight that's been released online shows WWE Champion Randy Orton getting into the cage after Nate was declared the winner, and celebrating with his younger brother.

-Prior to Kristal Marshall's release from WWE last week, there had been many complaints about her work. Marshall is also said to have rubbed many people backstage the wrong way.

-WWE's plan has been to hold off on Chris Jericho's return until Sunday's Cyber Sunday pay-per-view. However due to the recent decline in ratings the USA Network has asked that WWE save his return for RAW. USA President Bonnie Hammer has made suggestions in the past, but WWE creative has been reluctant to use them.

-WWE.com's latest Superstar 2 Superstar features Ric Flair interviewing Irv Gotti, founder of Murder Inc. Records. Gotti and Flair discuss Gotti's new reality show, Gotti's Way and the revival of Murder Inc. among other things.

-After being released from WWE a few weeks back, Teddy Hart no-showed his ring return at a PWA show in Calgary this past weekend.

-Despite what's been reported recently, it's believed that Booker T is not ready to retire so a TNA debut for him is likely. As for Sharmell, I suppose she could show up with Booker wherever he goes but those close to her say she now wants to go to college.

-WWE has just announced a Diva Halloween Costume Contest will take place at Cyber Sunday.

The following Divas from Raw, SmackDown and ECW are expected to participate in this year's Halloween Contest: Candice, Maria, Mickie James, Melina, Jillian, Lilian Garcia, Victoria, Torrie Wilson, Michelle McCool, Kelly Kelly and Layla.

-World Wrestling Entertainment has no plans to make things easy for parties possibly looking to sue it in the Chris Benoit murder-suicide case. In court papers filed Monday in Fayette County Superior Court, the Connecticut-based professional wrestling organization called discovery motions filed by the respective estates of Benoit and his wife and son "a wholesale fishing expedition" whose true intent is to lay the groundwork for possible future lawsuits. The Toffolonis (Nancy's family) and Michael Benoit, Chris's father, had sought documents from the WWE pertaining to the company's drug testing, as well as any previous deaths, drugs and illnesses other wrestlers may have suffered as a result of steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs.

-According to a local advertisement that aired on tonight's edition of RAW, WWE 2008 Judgment Day pay-per-view will take place from Omaha, Nebraska on May 18th. Tickets for the event are scheduled to go on sale this Saturday.

-Candice Michelle was diagnosed with a concussion and a broken collar bone following the scary bump she took on RAW last night in the match with WWE Women's Champion Beth Phoenix.

In related news, Candice did a similar spot at a WWE RAW event in Ireland last week. Towards the end of the match, Candice was on the top rope and when Beth tried to crotch her, she missed the top turnbuckle and slipped to fall face first on the mat, almost landing on her head and neck. That match saw a quick finish as well with Beth pinning Candice.

WWE.com has posted videos of Candice backstage after the incident. No word yet if she will still be appearing at the Halloween Costume Contest at Cyber Sunday this weekend, but as of this writing she is still listed for the match on WWE.com.

-WWE just released the 500th Anniversary Issue of WWE Magazine. The magazine features a small image of the layout of the "30 Sickest Finishers" feature that was published in the magazine at the start of the year. In the layout in the new magazine, they whited out the originally published image of Chris Benoit performing his "Crippler Crossface" maneuver. They also removed the printing of his name from the caption below the image. The magazine was originally scheduled to be released in the middle of July, but the issue had to be delayed because the Benoit double murder-suicide took place just before the issue was set to go to the printers. The magazine featured a number of Benoit mentions that had to be removed before the magazine could be published.



-Austin Creed has been offered a TNA contract after his stellar performance at last Sunday's Bound for Glory pay-per-view. Bill Behrens publicly gave him an envelope with the contract at the NWA Anarchy show Saturday night in Cornelia, Georgia. Behrens mentioned Creed has joined A.J. Styles, Hernandez, Abyss and Ron Killings as coming from wrestling at the NWA Arena to TNA.

-Adam "Pacman" Jones was spotted on the sideline of the WVU/Mississippi State game this weekend in Morgantown, West Virginia. Jones is an alumnus of the Mountaineers.

-Junior Fatu is already asking for more money from TNA. The belief is that the former WWE star is currently working without a contract.

-As posted last week, Sting has been telling people backstage at the iMPACT tapings that he plans on retiring at the end of this year. Sting and TNA are currently negotiating for a one-year extension on his contract. Many within TNA aren't sure if Sting will resign or not. Dixie Carter is said to be very high on Sting and wants him to stay with TNA. If Sting signs the new deal, he would make $500,000 per year and only have to work TV and PPV dates.

-The urgent meeting that took place backstage in TNA at the Bound for Glory pay-per-view a couple of weeks ago ended up being Kurt Angle and Jeff Jarrett who apparently hashed things out. Most of the top name superstars in TNA except for Sting (who didn’t want to take sides) went to Dixie Carter to try and force changes in the way that the product is being booked.

The main complaint was that TNA should have a more logical and traditional approach to booking. Several different names were mentioned to be on Angle’s side; however, one key person said that he was not asked to take sides. Different names were mentioned in different conversations as to what a more “logical” way entails, but right now it appears everything is status quo.



-Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson will not be part of the scheduled Spy Hunter movie that has been in development for quite some time. According to G4, producer Jeremy Bolt confirmed that Johnson was no longer attached to the project. The Rock took part in the Spy Hunter video game release for Midway Games last year with his image being used on promotional materials to promote the film's future release.

-Brad Imes has surfaced as a possible opponent for Brock Lesnar’s UFC's debut fight.

-Teddy Hart no-showed an independent booking over the weekend in Calgary for the PWA promotion. The promoter says he was told Teddy had a 'no compete' clause.