http://wrestling.insidepulse.com/articles/61662/2006/10/06/the-botterm-dollar-in-news-16.html
THE TOP STORY: MAJOR WWE NAMES LEAVING SOON
The Kurt Angle story has dominated wrestling headlines (and this report) for the past month, but he's not the only WWE star that will be gone from the company soon.
The current announcing contract of Jim Ross expires at the end of October, and there's no interest from either WWE or Ross in signing a new deal. The story is that Ross is tired of being humiliated and knows that Vince McMahon doesn't really want him on Raw, but doesn't have anyone to replace him for the flagship show. Ross will likely work on a week-to-week basis, at least until they decide they want to embarrass him again, at which point he'll probably leave and never return. He's been devoting 90% of his time to his BBQ project, which will include both the sauce and a chain of BBQ joints that will likely originate in Oklahoma City. You can bet that Vince McMahon will continue to try and replace Ross with Mike Goldberg from UFC, so don't count on seeing Ross as a Raw mainstay for much longer.
Ross has given the attitude that he doesn't care about getting in trouble with McMahon or WWE, because he's started to post some truly revealing potshots on his blog at jrsbarbq.com. The site isn't affiliated in any way with World Wrestling Entertainment, and he's been using the forum to reveal the truth about his feelings on WWE programming.
A few select snippets:
Did you know that the Spirit Squad are the World Tag Team Champions? (Hey, its only a joke. Or is it???)
I still dont know who won or lost the Gauntlet Match that DX competed in on RAW.
The big Monday night RAW Homecoming on October 9 will be a three hour affair, sounds like an old Lawler relationship.
Masters may be too one dimensional offensively as it relates to his Masterlock and the use thereof. Masters might benefit from being in a tag team with a veteran wrestler and I am not referring to Orton.
This matter is really getting a great deal of feedback and may be borderline over analyzed. Kurt needed time off to deal issues he has thoroughly discussed on his own website. As I understand it the WWE and Kurt mutually agreed to release Kurt so he could heal physically and mentally and then pursue other options including coming back to the WWE if he was healthy and chose to. No one betrayed anyone here. Kurt needed to step away from the WWE and heal. It was that simple. For anyone to say Kurt was held back is a little far fetched to me. Kurt made a ton of money in the WWE and earned a worldwide reputation. What else was he supposed to do while in the WWE? This business is about making cash, plain and simple. Kurt made big money and got famous in the WWE. He deserved all his accolades and the rewards that went with them. TNA is not going to become an overnight sensation with or without Kurt Angle. One man does not a company make. I perceive and am told that there are conflicts of interest issues in TNA but thats hearsay because I am not there. I hope everyone in TNA are all successful and finally reach profitability.
I wish him the best. I have no ax to grind with Russo. We have not always agreed philosophically but that doesnt necessarily make either of us wrong. Russo has had some excellent concepts in the past. Perhaps he can re-generate those types of ideas in TNA. Time will tell. The question is can Russo comfortably write reality based story lines and stay creatively stimulated. I think the trend is going back to in ring drama and physicality but that may just be my wishful thinking.
In addition to Ross, Glen Jacobs (Kane) will be taking a very long hiatus from pro wrestling, so there's your finish for the Umaga match next week. Of course, the ending of that match was never really in question to begin with, but this confirms what we already knew. He's been talking about retiring since Wrestlemania but stuck around for the See No Evil release and also because they convinced him they had no top guys with longevity for viewers to depend on.
There's a feeling that Jacobs will leave with the intentions of coming back, but that he'll eventually decide to retire and not come back at all, unless it's for special WrestleMania appearances. There's a pretty good chance that he'll be inducted into the Hall Of Fame simply because he's been a model company employee. There's zero chance that he'll go to TNA.
Amy Dumas (Lita) will be leaving the company before the end of the year as well. Nobody's really sure what the real reason for her departure is, but she's telling people that she's just tired of the road and wants to live a normal life as a normal girl. She's saved up most of her money from her WWE tenure, so she'll be able to live comfortably. She won't get the Trish Stratus sendoff because of her standing as a heel, and they'll probably do an angle similar to the one with Chris Jericho where Edge turns on her and she never gets seen or mentioned again. Nobody is assuming that she's done for good, but she'll be out for quite some time at a minimum.
This has already been reported, but Smackdown head writer Alex Greenfield turned in his two weeks notice last week because one of his movie projects finally received a green light in Hollywood. Greenfield joined the company in 2005 and took Dave Lagana's place as the head writer for the show when Lagana was moved to ECW to keep an eye and snitch on Paul Heyman for Stephanie McMahon. No, I am not making this up. Greenfield actually has two movies in pre-production at this point; one is a cheesy horror flick with the most unfortunate title of Midnight Movie, and the other script has yet to be specified. Midnight Movie has actually been in production since May of 2005 and has yet to move beyond pre-production, which means they haven't even started casting calls or hired a director or anything of that nature. In all likelihood, both of these Greenfield projects will be relegated to the Hollywood dust bin and you'll never see them, unless someone picks them up for straight-to-DVD distribution.
Greenfield was originally hired because Stephanie liked his Hollywood background and thought he'd make for a good long-term writing team member. Greenfield and Vince McMahon were often at odds because Greenfield was not a yes-man and often fought and screamed with Vince, but in the end, Vince respected him for standing up for what he believed in and not kissing up to the boss like so many are capable of doing in WWE, and the door will be open for him to return when his two Hollywood projects flame out and die.
Greenfield was replaced by Michael Hayes, which was a surprise internally. People in the company thought that Dusty Rhodes would get the booking job because he's been on the Smackdown team for over a year, and the fact that he wasn't promoted has some people thinking that he'll be gone from the company sooner rather than later.