JR/Ace, Eugene, Flair, Divas, TNA, ROH Apr 09 - 11:58 pm EDT

Daily Rapp Up by Bryan Rapp

The RAW crew is in Saginaw, MI tomorrow night, while the Smackdown crew is in Ames, IA. Smackdown scored a 3.0 rating, down from 3.2 last week. Last night's Smackdown resulted in UPN finishing in fifth place at 8, but third place at 9 beating out Kingdom Hospital on ABC. Tomorrow night's Confidential will cover The Rock promoting Walking Tall, John Cena on the bagpipes, Victoria in Mexico and Shawn Michael vs. Marty Jannetty from Royal Rumble 93. Starting in May, Spike TV will air Velocity at 7pm Saturdays, and the hour of content to replace Confidential will air Sunday mornings at 10am, while Heat will stay at 7pm on Sunday.

WWE announced that Jim Ross has taken a new job as Vice-President, Business Strategies, while John "Johnny Ace" Laurinaitis has been promoted to Ross' former position as Vice President of Talent Relations. JR will remain the announcer on RAW. WWE responded to a fan's complaint about Eugene saying he'll be portrayed as a hero who will have a chance to achieve his dream. WWE's stock has been making one group of teens money in a high school stock market game.

John Cena was a guest on Between The Ropes and discussed opening Wrestlemania, hip hop, and Brock Lesnar's departure. Lance Storm answered more questions in his latest commentary on topics about title wins, retirement, Dawn Marie and more. Aaron Barnhart of the Kansas City Star has a review of VH1's Best Week Ever which makes mention of Mick Foley appearing on the show.

WWE.com posted Ric Flair's busy UK schedule for next week. William Regal's autobiography will be released exclusively in the UK on May 4. Fozzy will perform after RAW Monday night in Chicago, IL. Walking Tall remained at #5 yesterday, and weekend predictions have it at #7 with $8.6 million.

Trish Stratus is among the final 4 in Fox Sports' Girl Next Door poll, against Michelle Kwan, Sasha Cohen and Martina Hingis, to pick the hottest female athlete. Terri and Shaniqua's Divas pages are still up, but no longer listed on the Divas main page. WWE was #2 in Google's Top 10 gaining queries for the week ending March 29, and #9 in declining queries for the week ending April 5. In this week's Lycos Top 50, WWE is #20 and Torrie Wilson is #47.

NWA TNA officials will meet with Universal Studios Florida next Friday to discuss hosting for a possible FOX Sports Net show. Wrestleology has a review of the NWA TNA trading card set saying the product is well done.

NWA TNA and Ring of Honor issued a joint statement saying they've reached an impasse and as a result, all TNA talent have been pulled from Ring of Honor shows. Dave Meltzer reveals that the impasse is ROH investor Cary Silkin refusing to sign an agreement that would hold him personally responsible financially problems that might arise from them working together. Bob Ryder made a statement saying TNA wants to resolve the issue and they remain oopen to discussion.

As a result of the TNA situation, Ring of Honor announced new lineups for April 23 in St. Paul, MN and April 24 in Chicago, IL. The Teddy Hart vs. Steve Corino Ring of Honor match is off again because Hart hasn't returned calls. Derek Burgan reviewed Ring of Honor's Crowning of a Champion from July 2002 and says the "one hour Fatal Four Way Ironman match is truly one for the ages."

Brian "Spanky" Kendrick answered more questions on his website about dancing and math. Simon Diamond updated his commentary with thoughts on baseball, and wrestling Honky Tonk Man. Missy Hyatt and Francine's new website is now open. Jasmin St. Claire has an Ebay Store with ECW, 3PW and BWO items.

Goldberg did a lengthy AOL Chat on Tuesday and discussed his time in WWE, his movie, and his final match against Brock Lesnar. Jim Neidhart appeared on a morning radio show to promote UWO Wrestling, but he also mentioned his career highlight was beating Demolition for the tag titles, and the most embarrassing was wrestling as "Who." Vader will wrestle at the Jersey All Pro Wrestling show on April 24 in Rahway, NJ against an as yet unnamed opponent. Wrestling WORLD-1 held the first show of their weekend tour in Pottstown, PA last night with Dustin Rhodes over Justin Credible.

Georgiann Makropoulos tried to answer some questions about the controversial Bruno Sammartino WWWF title belt auction on Ebay. The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer has part one of a review of Jack Brisco's new book. S. Duff Johnson is asking Sacramentans to search their garages for wrestling materials as he's attempting to archive physical artifacts from Sacramento professional wrestling 1915-1975. Wrestling will be part of the Armageddon Pulp Culture Expo, despite it seeming out of place to some at a comics/animation/sci-fi gathering.

That's it for today. Thanks for reading.

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