Takeshi Morishima/WWE Update, SD! Star To MMA?, More

Takeshi Morishima returned to Japan on Friday and made no comment on his WWE dark matches last week. He wrestled Charlie Haas on Raw and Jamie Noble on SmackDown. Morishima only said that he had learned some new wrestling techniques from Ricky Steamboat that he would use to beat fellow rival Kensuke Sasaki in their GHC title match at Budokan Hall.

The actual rating for last week's edition of SmackDown hasn't come out, but based on the fast national ratings, the show drew 3.85 million viewers, which is down from usual.

Former SmackDown performer Brian Mailhot (a.k.a. Palmer Canon) won his debut MMA fight against Tony Rea in Plymouth, MA on Saturday night. You may remember him as the "network executive" for The CW on SmackDown in 2005-2006. He quit WWE (and his wrestling career) due to a flare-up with John Bradshaw Layfield during the European tour of the spring of 2006. In the storylines, he was responsible for introducing The Boogeyman, the Juniors division and turning Paul Burchill into a pirate. You can see a video of his fight at https://theacademy.typepad.com/.