Ric Flair/WWE Backstage News, Bret Hart Update, & More

? In addition to WWE asking Ric Flair to make a full-time return and take on the role as the new General Manager of Smackdown, WWE also talked about giving Dusty Rhodes the role as Stephanie McMahon spoke with him about the possibility. They ended up going with the decision to have Teddy Long return to his previous role as GM of Smackdown, have his assistant Tiffany take over as the interim GM of ECW and move Vickie Guerrero over to Raw as the new GM of that brand. The belief is that Rhodes may not have been interested in taking on the role as one of the reasons he got off the writing team was because he didn't like to travel at his age and size and preferred to work out of Tampa with developmental talent instead at Florida Championship Wrestling.

? Bret Hart's autobiography is scheduled to be released in paperback in the United States on November 4. It should also be noted that the autobiography was released on April 2 in the UK and was slated to debut at No. 5 on the Sunday Times best seller list. The book was said to be a major seller in Canada, but didn't do as well in the US peaking at No. 18 and falling off the charts rather quickly reports The Wrestling Observer Newsletter. The book still did decent with no WWE TV hype behind it and actually beat out many WWE releases. However, the only publicity for the book in the US was Hart going on a book tour and doing interviews with various wrestling media that got very little mainstream coverage. Hart is headed to the UK for another book tour right now.