January Clearout

As Christmas takes it's toll on our bank accounts meaning January can be a slow and boring month as we have no money to do anything it's good to know that evil billionaires face the same problems. This past week has seen no less than 18 WWE contracts have been terminated. Releasing wrestlers is a common occurance in the company but why so many at this time? I think it's just a case of trimming the fat and getting rid of the people who aren't any use plus it opens up spots for some OVW guys to step up and make their mark in the big time. Let's look at the casulaties:

Sylvester Terkay - Arguably the most untalented of the knock out tap out connection so he's the one who gets the chop. With ECW house shows being cancelled there's no need for a huge roster and with no tag teams in ECW there was really no need for him to be around much longer.

CW Anderson - Christopher as he became known in his latest WWE run is one of the many ECW originals who gets the chop as the ECW roster is thinned out.

Jazz - Yes she was back with company. I remember seeing her in the ill-fated WWE vs ECW show back before the ECW PPV in June and apart from that I can't recall seeing her on TV at all. With no women's division on ECW and no need to have one Jazz is a goner.

Rodeny Mack - Jazz's husband is gone as well. I didn't even see him at all during this latest run.

Tony Mamaluke - The trimming of the ECW roster sees one half of the FBI hit the bricks. No loss.

Doug and Danny Basham - The Bashams are two guys who had rave reviews out of OVW but when they got called up were nothing more than two dudes who won the tag belts. This is another case of creative having nothing for them and letting them go rather than keeping two decent workers around to do jobs here and there. Both got little starts after they spilt in 2005 with Doug moving to Raw and getting a new gimmick but with injuries and the like and the lack of any decent tag division the Bashams are gone.

Al Snow - This is a surprising one on the surface but this simply releases him from his ECW duties, Al will be sticking around in his current OVW role.

The Gymini - An untalented tag team who made it on to TV for about three weeks before being pulled. No use them sticking around.

Gangrel - He was still employed. This is probably a case of a dude sitting at home being paid and somebody looked at the roster saw his name and decided to send him his release.

Also gone are Bill DeMott, Seth Skyfire, Jack Bull, Ryan Reeves, Mike Taylor, Tracy Taylor (his wife), Johnny Suede and Tony Santarelli all from OVW or Deep South. DeMott is the former Hugh Morris who was under fire from the office as his general behaviour towards the trainees was appaling so it's no surprise to see him gone. As for the others; I have no comment as I know nothing about them.

So the fat has been trimmed and costs have been cut. I'm sure there'll be some new signing in the very near future (Ace Steel who played Donald Trump is heavily rumoured to sign), a few people will be called up to the roster and this time next year eighteen more guys will be released.

New ROH Champ

Bryan Danielson's 15 month reign as ROH Champion has come to an end thanks to the man who calls himself Homicide! It remains to be seen if ROH will go with the TNA star as their long term champion or if somebody else will step up to make a name for themselves. This is pretty big news (if you like ROH) as title changes are very rare and the belt in ROH is of upmost importance.

Monty Brown Signs With WWE

As expected Monty Brown has signed with WWE. He's a good talker and showed promise in TNA but the fact he was working three dates a month held him back from progressing. On the road with WWE working four times a week with the likes of Finlay, Regal and Benoit will do him the world of good and we could see something out of Monty.

Vince's Reaction To Ken vs Tito

OK so Ken/Tito does a fucking ridiculously great rating. Bigger than any Raw main event ever. Bigger than anything on Spike ever. Vince's reaction was hilarious, he asked for his team to come up with ideas for when he signed Shamrock. Fortunatley Paul Heyman was on hand to explain that the rating was so huge because it was a feud that had been built and built, promoted and promoted and people wanted to see them... FIGHT!

Judging by this reaction I thought he might take note but then I saw Raw on Monday and I realised he's Vince McMahon.

Jericho to TNA

Well his band Fozzy anyhow. Not live though. A music video. On pay-per-view. This is a huge announcement and huge news for TNA (apparently). Add this to the annoucement that Bobby Roode is announcing his manager on said show I can't wait for the show! What's it called again?

If anybody out there thinks that Jericho is going to TNA then they're kidding themselves. Jericho is a smart guy and knows money lies with WWE. Signing with TNA cuts ties with Vince and for a guy like Jericho that could be carrer suicide. Jericho to TNA? Nuh uh. His music video is the closest TNA are getting to Y2J.