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SPECIAL PREVIEW OF THE FIRST ELITE PRO WRESTLING INSIDER WEEKLY NEWSLETTER FOR ALL PWINSIDER.COM USERS

INDEPENDENT NEWS

THE OUTSIDERS REUNITE

Ultimate Pro Wrestling in California announced today that Scott Hall and Kevin Nash would reunite as The Outsiders against Tom Howard and a partner to be announced at the promotion's 5th anniversary show on 2/20 at the Grove in Anaheim, California. Evan Marriot of "Joe Millionare" fame will be the special referee for the match.

It would be Nash's first independent wrestling date since his WWE deal expired on 12/31/02. It will also be Nash and Hall's first appearance together since Hall left WWE in 2002. They had attempted to negotiate to appear on the first HUSTLE-1 event in Japan in January, but were unable to come to terms with Dreamstage Entertainment.

Others scheduled for the UPW show include WWE's Ivory, Ken Shamrock, Jerry Lynn, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, Christopher Daniels, and Frankie Kazarian.

Jess: This is a really loaded independent show, obviously. Shamrock is looking to get back to working more indy dates. He's up against Predator (former NCAA heavyweight champion and WWE developmental wrestler Sylvester Terkay) on this show. I bet that match looks a lot like Kurt Angle vs. Terkay, which I saw at an OVW show at the Louisville Gardens a few years back... lots of mat wrestling and stuff that UFC purists and amateur wrestling aficionados will love, but a whole ball of confusion for the "ordinary" pro fan.

Dave: I have heard the same about Shamrock. His people are calling around to a lot of promotions looking to get him work. I don't know how much is left in that tank, but I wish him luck.

Buck: Maybe Predator will do his Bruiser Brody ripoff stuff that he does in Pro Wrestling Zero-One.  I wonder if Shamrock now regrets leaving WWE, where he was always close to the top of the cards, to go back to shooting.  

It was also recently revealed that Kevin Nash was stabbed while filming a fight scene of the feature film The Punisher last year. According to an article in The Philippines Daily News, the injury occurred during a fight scene with the film's lead Thomas Jane (who plays Frank Castle, the title character of the film). Jane accidentally stabbed Nash, who is being billed as a character named "The Russian." Nash wasn't even aware he was stabbed due to the intensity of the scene. Nash is expected to make some promotional appearances for the film in the near future. To read the complete article, click here.

Dave: If I were a smart ass, I would say, "Isn't that just like Kevin Nash to no-sell a stabbing?" Wow, I said it. I guess I am!

RING OF HONOR

Ring of Honor returns to Glen Burnie, Maryland this Thursday 1/29 at Michael's 8th Avenue. The announced lineup features the return of former ECW World champion Jerry Lynn to the promotion and shapes up as:

*ROH champion Samoa Joe & Jerry Lynn challenge ROH Tag Team champions The Briscoe Brothers (with Jim Cornette)
*Danny Maff vs. BJ Whitmer vs. Xavier vs. Matt Stryker for the promotion's #1 Contender's Trophy
*Homicide vs. CM Punk
*John Walters vs. the returning Chad Collyer - Three Rope Break Rule
*Slyk Wagner Brown vs. Caprice Coleman vs. Sonjay Dutt vs. the returning Jack Evans vs. Special K's Hydro vs. Chris Sabin- Six Man Mayhem
*Jimmy Jacobs vs. Alex Shelly
*The Carnage Crew's HC Loc & Justin Credible vs. Backseat Boyz vs. Izzy & Dixie of Special K - No DQ
*Colt Cabana hosts a live "Good Times, Great Memories" (His hilarious "talk show", which has been closing recent ROH video releases)
*The Maximos & Qenaan Creed vs. The Slackers of Chad, Dino & TBA
For ticket information, visit www.ROHWrestling.com.

Homicide and CM Punk both got banged up at the tag team tournament weekend events for Pro Wrestling Guerilla in California this past weekend, but are OK to go for Thursday. Punk hurt his arm taking a bump out of the ring, while Homicide is believed to have suffered a concussion. Jess McGrath will have more information on those shows in his column here on the site.

When Ring of Honor brings in Roddy Piper for their 3/13 event in Elizabeth, New Jersey at the Rexplex, they will be presenting him with a "Lifetime Achievement Award." Piper will be signing at their afternoon convention and card and will also do a shoot Q & A Session with fans that afternoon.

Buck: This could be interesting.  A majority of the Ring Of Honor crowd is "smart" and takes their wrestling very seriously.  Given Piper's "I love the NWA, now I'm going to WWE, now I love the NWA" changes of heart over the last year, I could see the ROH crowd actually turning on Piper.  I hope that isn't the case, but I could see it happening. 

ROH is calling their afternoon event on 3/13 "Do or Die II" with a lot of new talent debuting for the promotion including Super Dragon (California), Brad Bradley and Danny Daniels (IWA Mid-South), Roderick Strong, Jerelle Clark and Steve Madison (Florida independents), Caprice Coleman, Rainman, Todd Sexton and Salvatore Rinauro (NWA Wildside), Jared Steele and Don Juan (Rudy Boy Gonzales' Texas Wrestling Academy), The Solution (NYC independents), plus ROH regulars Josh Daniels, Slyk Wagner Brown, April Hunter, the Christopher Street Connection, Ariel, Special K, and the Outkast Killaz appearing.

ROH's evening show on 3/13 will be headlined by Scramble Cage II with all four members of the Carnage Crew facing 4 members of Special K as well as The Second City Saints (CM Punk & Colt Cabana & Ace Steel with Lucy) vs. The Prophecy (Christopher Daniels & BJ Whitmer & Danny Maff with Allison Danger) in a Best of Three Falls six man tag. Others scheduled for that show are ROH champion Samoa Joe (who was the latest to take Teddy Hart to task on the Internet), ROH Tag Team champions The Briscoes, John Walters, and AJ Styles. The promotion is planning this to be a huge blowaway event as its right outside of New York City, and of course, that is Wrestlemania XX weekend.

ROH is bringing in Super Dragon from the West Coast for their 3/13 show in Elizabeth, NJ. Dragon is one of the six co-owners of the Pro Wrestling Guerrilla promotion in Southern California.

Buck: I don't like to slag on anyone, but I was in Tokyo in January of 2003 and saw Super Dragon make his All Japan Pro Wrestling debut.  Amazing Red, as Fuego Guerrero, also debuted on the show.  Remember that Bobby Heenan line about comparing Ice Cream to Horse Manure? Well, Red was the Ice Cream in Korakuen Hall. 

MAJOR LEAGUE WRESTLING

The six-sided ring match on Major League Wrestling's 2/13 Fort Lauderdale, Florida event will be "Hart Foundation" Teddy Hart & Jack Evans & Apocalypse (who recently worked for New Japan) vs."La Raza" Juventud Guerrera & Los Maximos vs. "The Kamikaze Playas" Sonjay Dutt & Dark Fuego & M-Dogg 20 in an elimination bout. The promotion will have the six-sided ring set up next to their regular ring, similar to the two rings at their Wargames event last September.

Also scheduled for 2/13 is MLW champion Steve Corino vs. the returning Shane Douglas and MLW Global Tag Crown champions CW Anderson & Simon Diamond vs. Harry Smith & TJ Wilson.

Added to the promotion's 2/14 event in Orlando, Florida at Tabu are MLW Junior Heavyweight champion Sonjay Dutt vs. Chad Collyer, Teddy Hart vs. Juventud Guerrera, and The Extreme Horsemen (not sure which) vs. The Samoan Island Tribe & a mystery partner. For ticket information on MLW's events, visit www.MLW.com.

MLW will be releasing a series of "shoot style" interview tapes shortly. The promotion has filmed the first two with announcer Eric Gargiulo hosting, with Vampiro and Gary Hart as the subjects.

Teddy Hart will have a "paid commercial" on MLW's TV shortly, building his "controversial" character.

Jess: Is his fifteen minutes up yet?

Dave: And if it's not, are we at least 14:45 into it?

Also, I have the first two tapes of MLW's re-launch to watch. As soon as I get the site up and running the way it needs to be, I will have the time to catch up. Our February 1 launch ended up coming five days early and it totally threw me off!

Buck: MLW TV Reports, by yours truly, will debut on the site this week! 

MLW will be selling a trading card set online shortly. The set is going to be released in India as well. Sonjay Dutt will be a featured part of that set and will also featured in an article in FHM Asia shortly.

The Backseat Boyz, who have looked great in both Ring of Honor and Combat Zone Wrestling, will debut for MLW in April. Chris Hero will be back with the promotion regularly in April as well.

Dave: For those who have followed my work for a while, back to the r.s.p-w days, Trent Acid of the Boyz was "psycho kid Mikey" at the ECW Arena. He was about 14 and he and Billy Reil, who also worked the indies, use to perform impromptu matches for us in the audience of the shows. Boy, what great days they were!

The promotion is very high on Matt Martel (Striker from New York City), who will be featured in a lot of promos and vignettes on their TV show in the next few weeks.

Jess: He's got personality.  Indy promoters should be trying to push guys with personality who are OK workers over great workers who look like teenagers.

Buck: Striker looks like a wrestler, has the personality, and is extremely versatile.  While he is on the short side, I really don't think he is too small for WWE.  Tons of potential here. 

NWA: TOTAL NONSTOP ACTION

NWA: TNA contacted Frankie Kazarian about coming in and returning to the promotion tonight to tape matches for the 2/11 Americas X Cup PPV, but Kazarian had already committed to going to Japan for the ZERO-ONE USA shows. One of the reasons (beyond WWE talent raids) that TNA has signed talent to contracts is so they don't try to create storylines and end up losing talent at the last minute to Japanese tours, leaving the promotion with gaps in their booking plans. CM Punk was originally going to head to the ZERO-ONE USA events as well, but canceled after he would have had to miss tonight's PPV to travel to Japan. AJ Styles' TNA commitments are the prime reason he hasn't returned to ZERO-ONE after a few appearances for ZERO-ONE USA, as they would love him back in Japan.

TheTennessean.com noted the debut of Johnny Fairplay and the appearance of Chicago Bear Brian Urlacher in "Brad About You", To read the article, click here. The article notes Urlacher knows Eric Watts from their days at the University of Louisville.

Jess: They are milking the Urlacher thing for all it's worth. But I find it hilarious that Urlacher got them tons more pub than Johnny Fairplay. I think that's in part because the media saw Fairplay as an annoying jerk, and more than that, a worker and a publicity whore. They wised up to him too quick.

Dave: As I said on No Name this week, I don't blame TNA for trying these mainstream tricks. But the problem is, they would get a lot more pub for WWE due to the simple fact that WWE has free television. Well, that and the fact that WWE is 100 times bigger and better known. I have said from day one that the PPV only format will not work and nothing that TNA has done has proven me wrong. It's just too much to expect to ask people to not only remember you are on every Wednesday night, but also to pay 10 bucks to watch your show. This company needs a national TV deal to make money, and I don't mean one with WGN.

Buck: Jonny Fairplay hasn't come off as anything other than an "Andy Kaufman in Memphis" ripoff so far.  I think when you have to actually tell people someone is a star, that proves they aren't one. 

NWA: TNA announced they would be opening a wrestling academy shortly. When the promotion first opened in 2002, Jerry Lynn had moved to Nashville distinctly because he was going to be training students for the company, but it never came to be. I would assume he is going to be involved now that he has signed a new deal with the promotion.

NWA champion Jeff Jarrett is booked for Kirk White's Big Time Wrestling on 2/27 in Newark, CA.

Announced for the next NWA:TNA Pay-per-view: 
- Terry Funk & The Sandman vs. CM Punk & Julio Dinero, with Father James Mitchell.
- Insane Clown Posse vs. Glenn Gilberti & David Young.
- El Leon vs. Abyss.

Buck: Terry Funk on PPV = Good way to get my ten bucks.  However, if they don't give them more time than they have the other Sandman-Gathering matches, I will be very disappointed.  Let them have 10-15 minutes and tear up the whole building.  Tennessee hasn't had a good concession stand brawl in a while. 

IWA PUERTO RICO

The IWA Puerto Rico pay-per-view taping will now be taking place on 2/1 in Carolina. They are bringing in Rick Steiner and Balls Mahoney in addition to the previously mentioned New Jack, Slyk Wagner Brown, April Hunter, and Sumie Sakai. Steiner will be working with Chicano, will Mahoney faces Jack in an extreme match. Bison (Smith) returns, challenging Shane for the heavyweight title. Also returning is Invader #1, who will team with Rey Gonzalez against Victor the Bodyguard and Chet Jablonski. The promotion is planning to air the pay-per-view on Dish Network in the U.S., although no date for that showing has been announced.

Jess: One source affiliated with the company expressed doubt to me about the show ever airing in the U.S.  If it does, I can't see it being anything but a washout.

Buck: Even if they have minimal advertising, they can bring in a decent buyrate.  Japanese Hardcore Wrestling had very limited appeal, but still made money because of low-overhead costs.  If IWA is taping the matches and editing them for TV anyway, all they are really risking is the guarantee they have to give the PPV companies to get it on the air.  

At the IWA Puerto Rico show in Cabo Rojo, PR on 1/24, they switched both the tag team and Hardcore titles. Los Boricuas (Miguel Perez & Huracan Castillo) beat Stefano & Chicano to become the new tag champions. Chicano has a legit neck injury, so they did a deal to take him out of the match, leaving Stefano to work solo. Chicano ran in afterward to try to save Stefano but got beaten down. Thunder & Lightning made the save. Slash Venom beat Vampiro for the Hardcore title. Also, Shane retained the IWA title beating Humongous, and La Compania (Savio Vega's heel group) beat Rey Gonzalez & Thunder & Lightning.

FORMER AWA STAR PASSES AWAY

Former professional wrestler Don Haggerty, known in the ring as "Hard Boiled Haggerty", passed away at his home last night in Malibu, California at the age of 78.  

Haggerty achieved his greatest success in the AWA, winning the AWA World Tag Team Championship with Len Montana from Murder Inc. on October 4, 1960 in Minneapolis, MN. Montana was later injured by Verne Gagne, so Haggerty selected Gene Kiniski as his new partner. Haggerty & Kiniski lost the belts to Wilbur Snyder & Leo Nomellini on May 23, 1961, but Haggerty & Kiniski regained the belts on July 19, 1961. Haggerty later broke up with Kiniski after an incident where Haggerty accidentally caused Kiniski to lose an AWA World Title match with Vernge Gagne. The two wrestled for the rights to the tag belts, and Haggerty won, and chose Bob Geigel as his new partner. Geigel & Haggerty lost the belts to Dale Lewis & Pat Kennedy on November 16, 1961. Haggerty also held the AWA United States Title.

Haggerty held the California-based WWA World Tag Team Championship, twice with The Destroyer and twice with El Shereef.  He spent a good deal of time in Hawaii as well, holding the Hawaii Heavyweight Title and the Hawaii tag titles on two occasions, with Bill Savage and Butcher Vachon.

Everyone at PWInsider.com sends their condolences to the family, friends, and fans of Don Haggerty.