• Look Back In History
• Pmessages
• Quiz
• Stump The Staff
• Top Fifty
• Close

JR's Blog: Stone Cold Tough Enough..XFL Memories..More Rumble Thoughts..Hitman @ Stomper..DDP @ Nitro DVD

Posted: Jan 30th 2011 By: CMBurnham

Here's hoping everyone is having a good weekend. Weather is awesome here in Oklahoma with the temps today set to reach mid 70's. Sounds like a good opportunity to fire up the grill. Here are some Rumblish, random thoughts.....

The Internet rumor mill is working overtime with all the speculation regarding the 40 man, Royal Rumble match this Sunday night on PPV from the sold out 'Garden' in Boston.

Injured wrestlers coming off surgeries are predicted to make amazing and miraculous recoveries to compete in the Rumble. Perhaps these prognosticators have some connections re: Divine Intervention but injured wrestlers won't be called out of physical therapy to fill out a 40 man roster.

I still think that the Rumble will be full of 'off speed pitches' because of so many new and up & coming talents being counted on to do the bulk of the 'heavy lifting.' This fact alone makes the Rumble match eagerly anticipated in my perspective.

One could perhaps safely predict that someone will win the Rumble match that has never won it before. Plus, an argument could be made that the winner will be a first time participant. It might be easier to wager on these two predictions than picking the winner of next weekend's Super Bowl 45.

Showing the old school in me I do hope that NO women are entered into the Rumble. Sorry, I'm not being intentionally chauvinistic merely sticking to my old school guns.

Now, with that said 'what if' a dominate woman shocked the world and won the Rumble match? Don't laugh, I got BBQ'ed once by Kane and lived to blog about it. :)

I've always said that for a broadcaster that calling the Rumble is arguably the toughest , most challenging single match of the year to navigate. I assume WWE will use King, Cole, and Striker for this PPV as has been the norm recently but that could change especially if Lawler is entered in the Rumble match of which I do not know.

The Rumble match has so much going on at times that it is very easy for any announce triumphant to over talk the situation especially when there are three talkers involved in the process. Back in the day I had to remind myself plenty of times that I was broadcasting on TV and not on radio. Let's hope none of the talented, WWE broadcaster crew channels Phil Simms Sunday from Boston and work as if they are being paid by the word.

Jerry Lawler and I had the opportunity to broadcast a slew of Royal Rumbles together. I don't' think that I ever had a bad experience as a broadcaster with the King. Plus, one year I called the Rumble with Taz which was a first for him. Taz came through with flying colors even though I think that he was some what hesitate of working with yours truly for the first time, of any significance, and it being the important Royal Rumble match. Nonetheless Taz did a stellar job in my opinion. BTW...check out http://www.teamtaz13.com.

Seems as if Miz might have a better chance of retaining his WWE Title over Randy Orton than perhaps Edge does retaining the World Title over Dolph Ziggler during the Rumble PPV. That's simply a guess but if both Miz and Edge retained I would not be shocked but I would be surprised if both lost their titles Sunday on PPV.

I'm still of the mindset that there will be a surprise entrant or two in the Rumble match but haven't heard any names that are actually confirmed but simply the usual 'net speculation and 'dirt.'

If you are a fan of AOL Fanhouse check out the article on the XFL's 10th Anniversary Kickoff Weekend where yours truly was interviewed. I enjoyed my experiences in the XFL especially teaming with NFL HOF'er Dick Butkus for a few games. I can tell you that season was one of the busiest times of my life as we had live Raw on Monday, XFL on Saturday/Sunday, some PPV events on Sunday, and prep time for all those live events. That's notwithstanding my obligations as a WWE corporate officer in charge of talent relations. I was on a 7 day a week roll and look back upon those days positively. When one loves what they do for a living, one can push oneself to amazing limits.

Shed Media scored a coup when they obtained the services of Steve Austin to host their new version of WWE's Tough Enough. This show will allow Austin to re-engage his loyal, passionate WWE fan base and stay close to home in Southern California to tape this new series. Tough Enough has a big time production company handling it with a stellar track record in producing reality TV plus the program is a high priority to NBC Universal. I hope that the new Tough Enough is a hit for all involved and am anxious to see who Shed Media and WWE select for the balance of the cast. Whoever is selected will be provided a great opportunity to add to their body of work and to be on prime time TV for several weeks notwithstanding building a relationship with TV producers and a powerhouse entertainment entity in NBC/Universal.

Speaking of opportunity, DDP will apparently be hosting a WWE produced DVD on the History of WCW Nitro. Wednesday night when Hitman Bret Hart heard that there would be a Best of Nitro DVD, the Hitman jokingly said that the DVD would "last about 10 minutes." Obviously, Nitro had many,significant moments while defeating MNR in the ratings 83 weeks in a row but one can also make a valid argument that Bret Hart was sadly and unfortunately miscast while working for Turner's organization.

Apparently DDP took some time to decide if he wanted to host this new DVD project. It could have been because Diamond Dallas Page might have thought that WWE was going to 'rewrite history' when producing this new DVD title. Why anyone might think that WWE would want to devalue one of their own intellectual properties is hard for me to comprehend. I do think that this Nitro themed DVD could potentially be entertaining and DDP is a viable choice to handle the hosting duties.

Speaking of Bret Hart, I never knew how much of a fan of Archie "The Stomper" Gouldie that Hitman was. Seems as if "The Stomper" was Bret's all time favorite wrestler that Bret saw compete in Canada. This matter stimulated some really good dialog on the Legends Roundtable show that airs later this year on the topic of Canadian Wrestling Territories and their influences on the wrestling biz.

I called one Stomper match as I recall back in the OVW days at a big show in Knoxville and considered it a honor based on Gouldie's rep. Stomper was a relentless, never slow down, kick ass machine.

Still working on obtaining Super Bowl tickets and the best that I've found so far have been approximately $2K each for upper deck seats at Jerry World Stadium. Gotta go see the Steelers try for #7 especially considering that it's a drive to the best football palace in the world from Norman.

I do like the 'over' in this game which as of today was 45 points. I think that more than 45 points total will be scored on dry, fast turf in Arlington.

Great hearing all the feedback from folks that recently got FREE bottles of our Main Event Mustard. Remember that all our packages make great gift ideas and all come with FREEBIES including Koozies and authentic, autographed swag.

BTW....would some of you be interested in obtaining some of the large, dishwasher safe plastic glasses with our logo on them that we used in our restaurant? How about some new, plastic squeeze bottles, with the logo, like we used there, as well. These are really cool items but are very limited in quantity. I'm not sure how we're going to package them but we'll will keep you posted.

Q&A's are updated here on the site if you need some new reading material.

You're invited to follow us on Twitter @JRsBBQ.

Did anyone hear me talking Royal Rumble on Sporting News Radio Friday night with Todd Wright?

Our store is open and ready to take your order. Thanks for stopping by and for the support of our efforts. We appreciate you all.

Boomer Sooner!

JR