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PWINSIDER Q & A: WWE OWNING ECW, WRESTLERS WHO MAKE THE INTERVIEW CIRCUIT, MESSAGES WWE SHOULD SEND, THE INJURY BUG IRON SHEIK HUMBLING VINCE AND MORE

What do you think the best message is that WWE could sent to big guys that only have a job because of their size who fail a Wellness test at this point?

This might be hard for them since history doesn't exactly back them up but if it were me, I would make the suspended talent show me that they could actually work when their 30 days were up, especially if they had gotten a bigger push than their talent warrants up until now because they looked so "perfect".  I would make them show me that they want to actually be a WRESTLER, not just a huge body collecting a paycheck while they look big.  If they couldn't or wouldn't do that, I would show them the door.

Within the last year, all of the top WWE superstars have been sidelined with a long-term injury. Has this company learned a damn thing yet? 

What do you expect them to learn, that they can't let their guys wrestle?  Wrestling is a physical business and injuries will happen.  It's part of the game.  

Now, if your statement has a hidden meaning to it, that is another story all together.  If you are saying that some guys are bigger than they need to be and that by reducing their size, they may be able to avoid at least some injuries (such as biceps, triceps, quad and pec tears where the bones are holding more muscle than they were meant to hold and burst from the mass), that is an interesting point and one that I agree with.  Frankly, with ratings as low as they are now, WWE has the ability to do some experimenting that would be harder to justify if they were doing 5s and 6s on Monday night.  As the Attitude era showed, pretty bodies are not necessary to do good business.  All they need to do is tell interesting stories and use dynamic characters and the bodies because secondary.

Since we're in the month of October do you see the ECW product that airs on the Sci-Fi Channel ceasing to exist once the current contract expires in December or is it likely it will be given another run under a renewed contract? Also, does the WWE own the ECW footage that aired on TNN? So far WWE 24/7 VOD does not air any of these old shows for some reason.

Yes, WWE owns the old ECW footage.  They bought it from the bankruptcy court.  They can air it if they want.  As for the Sci Fi deal, I have heard conflicting stories.  Originally, I heard that they were signed through the end of this year but then I heard rumblings it was through the end of next year.  Either way, a few people I talked to inside NBC Universal have told me that even at a 1.0 rating, ECW is a success for Sci Fi so expect it to continue on there.

This has probably been going on forever, but I've noticed recently that wrestlers who had disappeared come back for a run of interviews. For example recently Damien Demento has done a couple, Buff Bagwell has returned from the wilderness, even Marc Mero had disappeared for a while (though I can see his return being due to current circumstances). Why does this happen? Why do we not hear from a wrestlers in years, then suddenly they're doing the rounds on the wrestling interview circuit?

In some cases (like Buff) they are out there all the time just waiting for someone (like HBO) to find them and interview them.  They are just waiting to get noticed again because the guys of his mindset are looking for another run and figure that getting on TV makes them more marketable to WWE or TNA.  Buff even said it on his HBO interview.  Then, there is another group of guys that consist of people with passion for a cause or opportunists with an axe to grind that use the media to further their agendas.  In Mero's case, he is the former.  To me, guys like Konnan are the latter.  Basically, you see them when a big issue arises, such as the Benoit tragedy, and the mainstream media is looking for wrestlers to talk to.  There is another group in that mix and that is those who are out to protect the business and/or be fair.  They all use the forum to get their message out.  In the case of a guy like Demento, who has been out of the picture for a while, what usually happens is someone will cross paths with him and then his number gets passed around to the various shows that do interviews and you will see a spate of them in a short period of time.

Reading your reply about the question of recent events humbling Vince McMahon, I can't help but think that we should try to get the Iron Sheik to make him humble. What do you think the end result of that would be?

I think it would be something worth paying 40 bucks on PPV to see!

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