WWE News (Page 18)

• WWE Champion John Cena’s The Marine has topped the charts for DVD rentals in its first week of availability.

• USA was once again the number-one cable network for the week ending on February 4, thanks to WWE Monday Night RAW.

• During his appearance at the "World of Wheels" in St. Paul, Minnesota this past weekend, Rey Mysterio was walking around just fine after his knee surgery just weeks ago.

He appeared to be in just as good of shape as when he left TV. He says he will be returning to TV on Smackdown in San Diego on February 20, however it doesn’t look like he will be cleared to actually wrestle until after WrestleMania. Right now, he is not written in for any in-ring action at Wrestlemania 23.

• Paul Heyman is still on WWE payroll, however there is no indication that he is actually doing anything right now. There are no plans to bring him back to the WWE booking team in any form. At this point, he is just being paid to sit at home.

According to the official website for the US Airways Center in Phoenix, World Wrestling Entertainment will be taping both Monday Night RAW and the latest edition of Saturday Night's Main Event on March 5.

Given how poorly the ratings were for the first two comeback editions of Saturday Night's Main Event on NBC, many were wondering if the network was going to grant WWE a third show. The show is expected to air on March 10.

The following is courtesy of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter ...

• The morale of WWE management is pretty high right now. The company had three nights of sellouts in a row in Texas for Royal Rumble, RAW, and the Smackdown/ECW tapings.

• The reason behind Lashley being constantly put over on ECW TV is because WWE now wants to use the brand to make him a superstar. Vince has his mind set on making Lashley look as huge and unstoppable as possible.

• MTV’s WSX, which airs in the same timeslot as ECW, has somewhat lit a fire under Vince to work harder on ECW. Backstage at the January 30 tapings of ECW, WSX was all the talk of management, particularly the McMahons. TNA never struck a nerve like this since they don’t air during the same timeslot.

Rhino recently did an interview with The Dearborn Press and Guide. Here are a few snippets from the TNA Wrestling star:

On wrestling inspiration: As soon as I started watching (professional wrestling), I was hooked. Just watching Hulk Hogan and those other guys made me love it.

On ECW: It was a lot of fun (in ECW). We went out there every night and made history. We didn’t go out there and half-ass anything.

On WWE and ECW differences: We didn’t have writers in ECW. We just went out and did our thing. In WWE, we’d have the writers calling us all the time trying to put things together ... I didn’t really like that. I just wanted to go out and dazzle the crowd. I didn’t want some writer calling me on my day off when I could be spending time with my wife or playing with my kid.”

To read the entire article, click here.

World Wrestling Entertainment (NYSE: WWE) had one heck of a year.

Don't think of it as just a purveyor of ribald 'rasslin rogues and convoluted soap operas for men. WWE wants to grow into a media powerhouse capable of competing with companies like Disney (NYSE: DIS), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), and Viacom (NYSE: VIA).

To that end, it has heavily promoted its home video business, enhanced a strategy to distribute thousands of content hours via subscription video-on-demand, and, most interesting to this Fool at least, released two movies starring actors tapped from its kayfabing repertory. Enter the ring with me as I take a look at how 2006 treated Vince McMahon's empire.

Back in March, WWE reported a quarter as big as Triple H's ego.

Click here to read the rest of this Motley Fool article.

Courtesy of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter ...

• The Rock recently taped an appearance for The Disney Channel’s show Corey In The House.

• ECW on Sci-Fi scored a 1.5 rating this week.

• CNBC’s Mad Money featured WWE stock last night, giving it two thumbs up and saying they think it will be making a comeback.

• Trish Stratus’ reality TV show Armed & Famous on CBS did a 2.9 rating Wednesday night, which is viewed as a disaster by the network. The show went head-to-head with American Idol on Fox, which did a 20.3 rating.

• Although her use of her real first name probably made it obvious, the brunette that joined Kelly and Layla El for the Extreme Expose was Brooke Adams. Adams auditioned for the 2006 WWE Diva Search but didn't make the finals.

She later scored a WWE contract and was assigned to Deep South Wrestling. Both Brooke and Layla are now listed on the ECW Extremists page.

• Stone Cold Steve Austin will return to Monday Night RAW soon to push his new movie "The Condemned."

The Associated Press picked up the story about the passing of Bam Bam Bigelow, so you can expect to see the story make the rounds in a number of markets during this week. Sports Illustrated ran the story on their website today also.

Meanwhile, Marty Jannetty, The Blue Meanie and Lance Storm all blogged about the sad passing of this former WWE star.

The new 2007 WWE pay-per-view calendar has been made available to media outlets. Some changes to note include Survivor Series has officially been moved from November 25th in Montreal to November 18th in Miami, FL and instead of Armageddon being held on October 28th in San Jose, they have moved the event to November 4th for San Jose and will call it Cyber Sunday. It should also be noted that the new calendar confirms Chicago, IL as the location for No Mercy 2007.

Here’s the full updated calendar:

Royal Rumble
1/28/07
San Antonio, TX
AT&T Center

No Way Out
2/18/07
Los Angeles, CA
Staples Center

WrestleMania 23
4/01/07
Detroit, MI
Ford Field

Backlash
4/29/07
Atlanta, GA
Philips Arena

Judgment Day
5/20/07
St. Louis, MO
Scottrade Center

ECW One Night Stand
6/10/07
New York, NY
Hammerstein Ballroom

Vengeance
6/24/07
Houston, TX
Toyota Center

Great American Bash
7/22/07
Washington, DC
Verizon Center

SummerSlam
8/26/07
Meadowlands, NJ
Continental Arena

Unforgiven
9/16/07
Memphis, TN
FedEx Forum

No Mercy
10/07/07
Chicago, IL
All-State Arena

Cyber Sunday
10/28/07
San Jose, CA
HP Pavilion Arena

Survivor Series
11/18/07
Miami, FL
American Airlines Arena