In the latest twist in the Lacey Von Erich/Angelina Love controversy, the TNA newcomer is apparently backpedaling on some comments she made regarding the founding member of "The Beautiful People" in an interview published today in the Miami Herald. Von Erich has taken the situation to Twitter, writing the following on her account:

"I hope everyone enjoyed the show last night! Angelina Love was amazing in the beautiful people and I hope I do it justice! P.S. Don't believe rumors! I think Angelina will be missed in TNA and hope we can work together someday!"

It is unclear how her comments regarding Love can be considered "rumors" considering they were direct quotes from her for an article in a respected newspaper. If she is to be believed, the quotes made about Love were fabricated by the author of the Miami Herald article, Scott Fishman. Although it should be noted that there are several other quotes from Von Erich in the piece which definitely don't appear to be fabricated.

 

TNA officials are said to very upset with the comments Lacey Von Erich made regarding former performer Angelina Love in an interview published today in the Miami Herald. The word going around is that Von Erich was ordered by management to personally contact Love and apologize for the comments she made about her, reports prowrestling.NET.

The TNA newcomer had several negative things to say about Love - based on what she heard about her from the TNA locker room. She said, "[Angelina] wasn't a good fit for it in my opinion. I thought that everybody was going to be, 'Oh no. Angelina is gone,' but not one person said that. Nobody really missed her that much. I feel like I can fill the shoes that I'm supposed to. TNA told me this role was made for me, and I feel the same way. I've never met Angelina before in my life. After what some people have said, I don't know if I want to."

It's also been indicated that Von Erich did not make a good first impression in her debut at last week's television taping in Orlando, which aired last night on Spike. The broadcast saw Von Erich align herself with "The Beautiful People," effectively replacing Love in the group. While it's been noted that Love herself wasn't particularly popular among those in the TNA locker room, many feel the comments made by Von Erich were completely unnecessary considering she just debuted for the company.

 

 

WWE's John Laurinaitis had a meeting with Big Show and The Great Khali at the WWE Smackdown/ECW TV tapings in Rockford, IL on September 8th regarding the incident the two had backstage while in Puerto Rico. There was said to be a decent amount of talk backstage about the fight the two had and how neither had any real damage or marks on them. As reported on earlier, Big Show got in Khali's face, tripped and Khali mounted him throwing some punches. The entire incident was said to have been started because Big Show was mad at Khali for stealing his hard chop and then got in his face. This led to Big Show throwing the first punch that Khali blocked and both ended up on the ground where it was broken up shortly afterwards.

 

Regarding John Morrison, he is well liked among his peers in the locker room and many feel it's only a matter of time before he becomes a top star. For the record, he is still dating Melina, who is not quite so popular in the locker room. While many feel she has improved her reputation from where it was during her previous stint on the SmackDown brand, multiple wrestlers still accuse her of being phony.

 

Sting is not expected to retire following this month's Bound for Glory pay-per-view. As things stand now, TNA has no plans on adding a "retire or win the title" stipulation to his match with AJ Styles at Bound for Glory - which was initially planned. On television, Sting's match has not been pushed as his final anything as he is expected to remain with the company at least a little while longer.

Although it is believed Sting has signed a new deal, the word going around is that it was for six months rather than another year, once again indicating he's thinking about retiring in the near future. Although, it's been "one more year" since 2006 as every year since then they have convinced him to stay. However, he has suggested doing a farewell tour in 2010. Company officials really want Ric Flair to be involved in his former rival's farewell, but out of loyalty to Vince McMahon, has told people that he's not even listening to TNA.

 

Booker T and Sharmell walked out and refused to wrestle at last night's TNA show in Zurich due to the amount of bottles and other garbage being thrown into the ring after Scott Steiner tore up a Swiss flag.

 

WWE.com has an article up talking about the new Smackdown theme and how "Let It Roll" is now the official theme song for Friday Night Smackdown.



Jim Ross got very emotional while watching the Eddie Guerrero video during Smackdown. He was seen wiping tears from his eyes.

 

AJ Styles, Sarita and Taylor Wilde are on the cover of Super Luchas magazine holding their newly won TNA championship belts. You can see the cover at www.superluchas.net.

 

On many major cable systems, such as Charter, Comcast and Time Warner, the TNA Bound For Glory PPV is being advertised as costing $39.99. This is $10 more than the usual TNA PPV. Here is the card thus far:

* TNA Knockouts Tag Team Title Match: Taylor Wilde and Sarita © vs. The Beautiful People
* Ultimate X Match: Suicide vs. D'Angelo Dinero vs. Daniels vs. Homicide
* Monster's Ball Match: Mick Foley vs. Abyss
* MMA vs. TNA: Samoa Joe vs. Bobby lashley
* Kurt Angle vs. Matt Morgan
* TNA World Title Match: AJ Styles © vs. Sting

 

Various changes were made to the booking of Sunday's Hell in a Cell PPV according to The Wrestling Observer. One match that WWE spent a lot of time crafting was the SmackDown IC title match between John Morrison and Dolph Ziggler. WWE views both men as future stars on the verge of moving to the next level, so its understandable that the WWE producers gave the booking of this one extra attention.

In addition the match order itself was also changed around several times before WWE settled on what we saw last night on PPV. At one point, there was talk of putting Randy Orton vs. John Cena on as the main event, which didn't happen. Additionally, most do not believe Undertaker vs. CM Punk was initially scheduled to open the show.

Based on how the match order played out, its clear WWE tried to space out the three Hell in a Cell matches. This is similar to what WWE has done at WrestleManias in the past, spacing out the title matches with undercard matches. This is why we saw Drew McIntire vs. Ron Killings in the second to last match of the night.

 

Partial Source: Prowrestling.net

TNA Wrestling has signed two of their top young stars to new long-term contracts. A.J. Styles and Matt Morgan, who both still had some time remaining on their previous TNA deals, recently signed new five-year contracts that will keep them with the company through 2014.

 

Partial Source: PWInsider.com

Matt Morgan announced on his Twitter that he has signed a new deal with TNA, making the following post: but yes thats true. Signed it last week and am looking forward to 5more improving yrs!

 

The New York Times has an article up on Linda McMahon running for US Senate, which can be read at NYTimes.com. The article mentions that Linda has spent $1 million thus far, and has a reserve of $30 million set aside for her campaign. The story also mentions that some members are leery of her coming into the election, as they feel they could lose the chance to beat incumbent Democrat Christopher Dodd if she wins the chance to run against him. State Representative Sean Williams of Watertown, a Republican who is backing another candidate, had the following to say: "I'm not a prude. There are going to be people who will make a clear case against her - that she has built her business by objectifying women and promoting violence. That will significantly weaken her ability to win against Dodd."

 

John Cena's third film for WWE films will be named Oxley's Road, and will be filmed in December. Cena will play Cal Oxley, the youngest son of a wrestling family who decides to join his High School's wrestling team. He does this against his mother's wishes in an effort to get her and his oldest brother to reconnect as they have been estranged for a decade following a car accident where Cal's father died. They are casting for a 15-year old to play "young Cal", and it appears as if the younger Cal will be the center of the film, while Cena will have a smaller role as older Cal. Patricia Clarkson (Six Feet Under) will play the mother, Sharon. The film will have a $10 million budget, and will be a straight to DVD project.

 

Source: The Wrestling Observer

Word going around the WWE locker room is that the reason CM Punk lost the World Heavyweight Title last night is because of heat on him stemming from an incident on the recent European tour.

The story goes that there was in issue with how Punk was dressed and The Undertaker tried to nicely tell Punk that he was the World Champion and was representing WWE overseas so he should dress better. Punk said something to the effect of "what about John Cena?"

This got back to WWE management and they took it as Punk thinking he was a bigger star than John Cena. The decision was then made to take the belt off Punk at Hell in a Cell and put the match as the opener. This may not be exactly how the story went down but it's how it was told to a source. Please take this as a RUMOR for now.

The problems with Punk and losing the title have been the talk of the SmackDown locker room for the past two days. As noted last night before the show, several on the SmackDown brand were under the impression that Undertaker was winning and he did. There are some who are wondering why 'Taker was given the title considering his limited schedule and health problems with the feeling that it was too soon to take the title off Punk.

Word is that WWE is planning on going with a Batista vs. Undertaker feud for the World Heavyweight Title.

 

 

Jeff Hardy is reportedly in good spirits, according to one source that spoke with him over the weekend. Jeff feels that when his case goes to court in November, that everything will work out for him.

Matt Hardy will be a guest on the October 13th episode of Scare Tactics, which airs on the SyFy Network. Here is the description from channelguidemag.coma: "The October 13 episode is highlighted by a guest appearance from RAW wrestler Matt Hardy, who plays a violent criminal who breaks out of his physical and mental restraints to go after an innocent doctor's assistant."

 

 

Jeff Hardy's legal issues may not be doing any favors to his brother Matt Hardy. On 9/16, there was reportedly a discussion within WWE about what they wanted to do with Matt going forward. He was at the Smackdown taping on 9/15 in Hamilton, but wasn't used and didn't even work a dark match. Hardy did end up working house show events later that week headlining against CM Punk at Smackdown/ECW events. While he wasn't used on Smackdown this past week, Hardy did work the Superstars taping against Kane. As for Jeff, we reported earlier that he pulled his personal Twitter and MySpace accounts and nobody is being allowed to say anything else on advice from legal.

 

Paul London, U-Gene (Nick Dinsmore), referee Anthony Rosas and ring announcer Todd Keneley have been added to the Hulkamania Tour of Australia. Rosas and Keneley worked on the Celebrity Championship Wrestling show.

Eddie Fatu, the former Umaga, will go under the name "Aumanga" on the tour

 

Even though Lilian Garcia has left World Wrestling Entertainment, she is not disappearing. Now that Lilian's no longer busy with WWE, she plans on furthering her music career as she is looking to get her band back together. Additionally, fans will still have the opportunity to see the "Decade Diva" as she plans on appearing at various wrestling conventions in the Northeast over the next few months. Fans can also keep up with her on Twitter. This week, Lilian will be marrying her longtime fiancée Chris. They will be spending their honeymoon in Mexico.

 

Lisa Marie Varon (TNA's Tara) has a new Ebay site, under the name "LisaMarieVaronDirect". Fans can get personally autographed photos and wardrobe items direct from Lisa.

 

The Boston Herald has an article up on the WWE coming to Boston, and the special requirements that Vince has when he is in town, like having a special room-service order upon (McMahon's) arrival between 11:45 p.m. and midnight . . . WWE will pay the chef to stay late. You can check that out at www.bostonherald.com/

 

The only update on Jeff Hardy is that he is scheduled to return to court on November 4th.

 

Bobby Lashley is currently under contract to Prize Fight Promotions, but they have continually delayed the proposed fight with Ron Waterman. Prize Fight Promotions are currently negotiating to transfer his contract to Strikeforce. It is not a done deal, but is expected to go through and there are reports that Strikeforce wants him to fight on the November 7th CBS show.

MMAScoops.com is reporting that Strikeforce has previously had interest in Lashley, but throwing him onto CBS is the opposite of what they had planned. The company had originally wanted to bring in Lashley, and debut him on the Strikeforce Challengers events, where he would face progressively tougher opponents. The feeling with debuting him on CBS is that from a curiosity and ratings standpoint, it would mean more.

TNA wants to promote Lashley's fights on their TV show to make him a huge cross over star. Srikeforce, unlike UFC, would work with TNA, due to the fact that TNA can promote the Lashley fights to roughly 1.5 million fans weekly. They would also not have a problem with Lashley wrestling.

 

The WWE's Unauthorized History Of DX book gets released on October 6th.

Evan Bourne will be part of the pre-Hell in a Cell PPV chat on WWE.com.

 

John Morrison, Melina, Kofi Kingston and other WWE performers will be at the 2009 Ringside Fest on November 21st. The event will take place at Carolines in New York City.

 

Here is the latest on the Jeff Hardy legal situation. Hardy will return to court on November 14th for a probable cause hearing. The hearing will he held in the Moore County Criminal District Court in Carthage, North Carolina. The hearing will be to determine if a crime was committed, and if Jeff Hardy did indeed commit those crimes.

If there is probable cause that Hardy committed these crimes, the case will then proceed to the grand jury. They would review the case evidence, and decide whether or not to indict Hardy on the drug related charges he faces.

From there, if Hardy is indicted, the case would move to superior court, where he would be tried on the charges. That is unless there is some plea bargain agreement if or when they get to this stage.

 

Matt Hardy claimed that he was not pissed about WWE's creative plans for him with a tweet in the early AM hours on Wednesday. He said the tweet was to fool reporters on the Internet and in fact, what he meant was that he was mad because at dinner after the show some of the guys shorted the server on the tip. According to two different sources, there are many people who are not happy with him right now, with one outright saying they were extremely skeptical of his side of the story. The other source noted that they didn't believe his story and thought it was a cover up. Nonetheless, there are people within WWE who are not happy with him right now. Sometimes it's better to keep your mouth shut and not say anything. That's never been the case with Hardy though.

 

Lacey Von Erich, the newest member of the TNA roster, feels Angelina Love wasn't a good fit in "The Beautiful People" group. The third generation wrestle replaced Love as a member of the group on last night's episode of iMPACT!.

"I feel like it was made for me, and she [Angelina] wasn't a good fit for it in my opinion," Von Erich told the Miami Herald. "I thought that everybody was going to be, 'Oh no. Angelina is gone,' but not one person said that. Nobody really missed her that much. I feel like I can fill the shoes that I'm supposed to."

People in TNA have been telling her that the role in the group was made for her. "TNA told me this role was made for me, and I feel the same way," she said. So when I met the other members, Velvet and Madison ... we all just felt like we were one group, and the band was completed."

Von Erich aslso added that she had not heard good things about Love before joining the organization. "I've never met Angelina before in my life," she said. "After what some people have said, I don't know if I want to."

Elsewhere in the interview, Von Erich talks candidly about her tragic family, saying she blocked wrestling out of her mind after two of her uncles, Michael and Chris, as well as her dad, committed suicide working in the industry. However, a phone call from her uncle Kevin, the only living Von Erich brother, changed her thinking in 2007.

"He told me Vince McMahon was trying to contact me," she said. "I asked for what, and he said, 'He wants you to be a wrestler. He wants you to be a diva.' I said, 'What the heck is a diva?"

"I start watching the show, and I call Vince. I told him I'd check it out. He flew me out, and I went backstage at one of their Monday Night Raw events. I smelt the Bengay, and I saw the guys putting tape on like daddy did. I was just like, 'Wow. This is where I want to be. It just feels right. It just feels like home."

Von Erich also feels people should cut her some slack for walking into the business considering she's gone through so much.

"I know it seems like, 'Oh my god. This girl is just walking into the business and some girls just work their @#% off.' I've sacrificed so much just to get a little bit of happiness in my life," she said. "With my dad dieing, my uncles and my granddad, the tragedy I had to go through, I feel like I deserve a break, and that's where I stand on that."

 

The Miami Herald recently conducted a lengthy interview with Velvet Sky. Candidly, the TNA Knockout gives her thoughts on Angelina Love's shocking departure from TNA, how her former partner is doing these days, the future of "The Beautiful People" going forward, and much more. Here are a few highlights from the interview:

Her initial reaction to Angelina Love's departure from TNA: "It came out of the blue," Sky said. "We did three TV tapings. She was supposed to go to [TNA's] Germany tour. The travel was booked, and the pay-per-view match was booked. It was supposed to be her and I against Sarita and Taylor Wilde.

"A week and a half after we finished the TV tapings is when I got the phone call, saying this is what happened. 'Oh my God.' TNA reassured me that Madison and I were going to keep the group going. They weren't going to let the group die. They said we all worked so hard, and we were so good in that group. So we were excited about that.

"Angelina told both of us to keep it going strong. She said, 'Don't let anyone or anything ruin what we built.' We won't let anyone or anything ruin what we've work so hard to build. It's not going to happen. Not on my time. That's real. I mean that."

How Angelina is doing nowadays: "I keep in contact with [Angelina]. She is doing OK, and she is going to be just fine," Sky said. "There was a lot of negative stuff that was said about her on the Internet like why she got fired, what's going to happen. You can't always believe what you read on the Internet."

Whether "The Beautiful People" will have a new leader as a result of Angelina's departure from the group: "I don't think there is a need for a leadership role in The Beautiful People. Who's to say I'm better than her, or she's better than me," Sky said. "I don't think The Beautiful People ever needed a leadership role. I view us as equals, 50/50. I think we should have the same amount of promo time, ring time, whatever the case may be. It's a team."

The founding member of "The Beautiful People" also discusses her start in the professional wrestling industry, her family's tremendous support of her when she was struggling on the indy scene, how "The Beautiful People" came about, the Knockouts division, her ring outfits, and much more. To read the interview in its entirety, head on over to www.miamiherald.com/

 

D-X is featured on the cover of the November 2009 issue of WWE Magazine, which is on newsstands now. WWE.com has joined forces with the magazine in order to showcase the 25 greatest Superstar catchphrases in WWE history. The full catchphrase feature is featured in the magazine.

 

In an interview with The Sun, Ted DiBiase says he would like to headline a future WrestleMania against Randy Orton. However, DiBiase said he "couldn't predict the future" on whether his dream come true. The two third generation grapplers had a match back in July when "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase hosted an episode of Raw and booked his son in a match against Orton. DiBiase hinted he wouldn't mind facing Orton again. "When Randy and I had the match, that was a really good reaction. I think people wanted to see Randy get his butt whipped," DiBiase said. "Headlining a WrestleMania with Randy Orton would not a bad deal. Whether we love or hate each other, are with each other or against each other, that would be a dream come true."