Animal Wants To Return To WWE Or TNA, Where's Ralphus?, Shane, More
? I want to issue a huge THANK YOU to TMZ.com and the other national media outlets who have picked up the exclusive MMAScoops.com story that I broke on Steve Austin last night. This has made national media and the MMA traffic on the site today is huge.
? Jeff Wilen of the JAWBreaker column on News-JournalOnline.com recently conducted interviews with WWE stars Chris Jericho and Matt Striker. Striker discusses WWE's "Smackdown Your Vote!" campaign, if he'll ever wrestle again, if Vince McMahon yells at him over the headset when commentating, if WWE had any plans for him on Raw, his favorite opponent, and more. Jericho discusses "Redemption Song," which's he hosting, and answers some wrestling questions. In an interesting question, Jericho's asked why WWE hasn't brought Ralphus (his bodyguard in WCW) in. When asked how long he plans on wrestling, Jericho notes that he has two years left on his current WWE contract and he will wrestle for as long as he enjoys it.
? The New York Daily News has an article on Joe Laurinaitis, better known as Road Warrior Animal. He says he'd like to return to either WWE or TNA in the role of a road agent to help the younger wrestlers. "I'd love to work for the WWE or TNA behind-the-scenes," Laurinaitis said, "not only to train the young talent but how to relate to the fans, which is so important." In the early 1980s, Laurinaitis was faced with his career path: pro football with the defunct USFL, or professional. Laurinaitis needed money at the time, so he chose pro wrestling and formed the Legion of Doom faction with Mike Hegstrand (a.k.a. Hawk) "Ole Anderson saw me with my friend Mike Hegstrand and said since we looked like twins so why not team up," Laurinaitis said. "Ole named (the team) but we named ourselves, me the bigger guy became Animal, and Mike, who liked to fly around the ring, became Hawk."
? Shane McMahon now has an account on the WWE Universe site, which you can reach at https://fans.wwe.com/shanemcmahon.