RVD ON THE GREATEST NIGHT OF HIS CAREER, GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS FOR WWE VIDEO GAME LICENSE HOLDER, CHANGES FOR ANOTHER WWE LICENSE ON HORIZON? AND MORE

By Mike Johnson on 2008-01-24 08:25:50

There is an awesome interview in the Baltimore Sun today featuring former WWE champion Rob Van Dam discussing his thoughts on WWE's drug testing policy, dropping the WWE and ECW titles after being caught with marijuana, Shane McMahon using the Van Terminator move Van Dam devised, and more. When asked about winning the title from John Cena at the second One Night Stand, Van Dam commented, "That night was definitely a one-night experience out of my entire career. Seventeen or 18 years of matches Ã¢â‚¬â€œ nothing ever was like that night. The crowd was so one-sided and it was my crowd. It was that ECW hardcore crowd that knows my story. The crowd that saw me sweating and bleeding for the art, and then they saw me have to sacrifice that for money, and then they see me back there with them representing. And not only did they all get behind everything I stood for, but they were also against everything that Cena stood for Ã¢â‚¬â€œ which was WWE and the big marketing machine that makes wrestling cheesy to the general public. It was awesome. Winning the world championship, like I said before, I never thought that would happen. But if it was going to happen, by doing it my way, by bringing ECW back so I could showcase my talent, that was definitely the night of my career."

Former WWF champion Ultimate Warrior wrote on his website that he's sent legal letters to a fake Warrior running around the independent scene and also wrote a pretty blistering blog entry about the death of actor Heath Ledger. Talk about kicking someone when they are down, not to mention before all the facts of his death are confirmed. You can read it for yourself at www.ultimatewarrior.com.

THQ, which holds the WWE video game license and has produced the Smackdown vs. Raw series, announced in its third quarter filings that it expected to its revenue to be $509 million, which is up from an expected $490 million based on previous filings. Not all the news was positive however, as the company still announced it was lowering its profit outlook for the year due to underperforming titles (not WWE's), was canceling several planned released for Playstation3 (again, none WWE related) and was shutting down one of its production studios.

Speaking of WWE licensees, Jakks Pacific's current agreement with WWE to produce action figures is said to expire sometime in 2009. While nothing is concrete, there's a lot of talk within the toy industry that Hasbro, who produce the Star Wars and Transformers action figures, are going to make a big play for a license, which means either WWE or TNA because I don't see a ROH action figure line in the near future. We should know a lot more by this time next month because the International Toy Fair presentations will be coming and if there will be any indications about future direction and plans for Jakks, that will be where they are confirmed.

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RVD ON THE GREATEST NIGHT OF HIS CAREER, GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS FOR WWE VIDEO GAME LICENSE HOLDER, CHANGES FOR ANOTHER WWE LICENSE ON HORIZON? AND MORE