PWInsider - WWE News, Wrestling News, WWE

PWINSIDER Q & A: BEST AND WORST OF NAKED DIVAS, HOGAN-LAWLER, JOE AND TNA, RUSSO'S WRITING AND MORE

With Ashley posing in Playboy, I was curious of something. Of all of the naked diva spreads you have seen, which is your favorite? Who did you like the least?

Hmmm, tough call. I will go with the one Mickie James did years ago, before coming to WWE (I think the magazine was called Leg Show).  It was more gritty and not as polished as the WWE pictorials.  All of the Playboy spreads seemed kind of airbrushed and fake to me. The one I didn't need to see was when Joanie Laurer posed. Other than seeing for sure what was really down there, out of pure morbid curiosity, seeing her naked was just kind of scary to me.

I've enjoyed the buildup to Trump vs. McMahon and think that Lashley has certainly gotten better since the feud was announced, however I am puzzled by one thing. I see the upside for Vince, but for the life of me, I cannot see the upside for Trump in all of this. What's his payoff?

Honestly, I don't see a payoff for Trump either.  The story I received was that NBC put the appearance/angle together, since they air both Raw and Trump's "Apprentice" show through their various networks.  As best as I can tell, with the ratings for Trump's show slipping, they wanted to build his audience up by hopefully getting WWE fans to tune in to his show.  It hasn't worked.  They also hoped that the mainstream press that the angle received would help the show.  

What I find funny is that advertisers only want to pay about 25 cents on the dollar to advertise on Raw and Smackdown, yet NBC wanted to get WWE's audience to come over and watch Trump on the big network.  I guess advertisers can't prove that wrestling fans are watching, they have to actually pay fair market value to show their ads to them.

I see that Samoa Joe is appearing at a JAPW event on 4/21 in New Jersey. Do you think that this indicates that his departure from ROH is more a Joe/ROH issue than TNA wanting Joe to cut down on his Indy bookings?

I think it shows that TNA is serious about getting a cut of the action in third party bookings of their talent.  Honestly, it's well within their rights.  If they have a talent under contract, you can't blame them for protecting their assets.  Also, the word we are getting is that Joe will be back in ROH, just not as a regular.  He had a great run there and it was probably time to move on anyway.

Has there been any word on the Lawler-Hogan match that could take place? 

At this point, it's all hype and bluster down on the Memphis TV show.  My rule of thumb here, and with most things that concern Hogan, is to believe it when it's definite or I actually see it.  Until then, I take this with a grain of salt.  Or 10.

After being a loyal fan since TNA's inception, one man has made me lose interest. Vince Russo. The show has been going down the toilet since he rejoined the company. Does he have that much stroke on writing and booking? Don't you agree it would be a FAR better product without him as I see him being the death of TNA. 

He is the head TV writer, which means he scripts the show and it will always come out in his style since he is the one writing it.  The angles go through Jeff Jarrett and Dutch Mantel, and I think it's also fair to say Dixie Carter and Kurt Angle.  The problem I see is in how Russo writes.  His process is the "100 things happening at a mile a second" approach.  He also likes the really out there sports entertainment stuff as well.  I think that works against TNA's main strength, which is their strong roster of workers and the matches that they can have.  Also, it keeps TNA from being the different product that they were, the true alternative that I feel could be successful if someone were to commit to it.  I think that they would be better served to play to their strength and differentiate themselves from WWE by amassing a strong base that is built on what happens in the ring, not things that occur outside of it.  I think Russo is the wrong guy to accomplish that because he has always been a sizzle over steak kind of guy.

You can send us questions for the PWInsider.com Q&A by clicking here.

We also have a new Q and A up today on PWInsiderXtra.com titled:

PWINSIDERXTRA Q & A: NEW MIXED WWE PPVS, BALD BISCHOFF, FREEBIRD RULE, MANIA 23 AND MORE

If you are an Elite member of the new site, you can read it by clicking here.

If you are not an Elite member, you can read it by clicking here.

If you are an PWInsider.com Elite member and you want to find out how to join the new site (which is bargain priced at a dollar a month or less, depending on the subscription you choose), click here.

If you would like to become an Elite member to one or both of the sites, you can do so by clicking here.

For PWInsider.com Elite members who are not members of PWInsiderXtra.com, the questions from PWInsiderXtra.com will be archived in our weekly Elite newsletter.

If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!

• Tweet