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JIM ROSS DISCUSSES VERNE GAGNE MEMORIES, CORGAN PURCHASES WRESTLING ARCHIVE, TAZ, SAMPLE CHIKARA'S NEW STREAMING SERVICE AND MORE NEWS

In his latest blog entry, WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross writes about the passing of Verne Gagne, penning, "Verne Gagne was a man's man who was a legit, two sport star at the University of Minnesota, football and wrestling, and will always be considered one of the most significant and influential men in the history of pro wrestling. He also trained many amazing stars and loved to utilize legit athletes with which to mold into pro mat stars much like Bill Watts, Eddie Graham and even myself did back in the day in WWE. So many within the world of wrestling will forever be indebted to Verne Gagne for what he did for their careers and even though I never worked for Verne he helped me indirectly have the career that I've had the past 40 years. Men like Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Ricky Steamboat, the Iron Sheik, Ken Patera, Sgt. Slaughter and countless others would say essentially the same thing." To read Ross' complete thoughts on Gagne's passing as well as a lot of other topics, check out www.jrsbarbq.com.

A personal note: I'll be on Jim's podcast tonight discussing Extreme Rules, ROH, Lucha Underground and a lot of other topics. It will be available at 9 PM Eastern and I'd like to thank Jim for having me on. It was a really interesting, fun discussion and I hope that if you check it out, you'll enjoy it as well.

Meanwhile, you can check out Taz's thoughts on Extreme Rules and more on his latest podcast at Play.it.

Billy Corgan noted on Twitter today that he's bought the wrestling archives of long-time Chicago wrestling promoter Bob Luce, who passed away in 2007. Luce was the local promoter for the AWA in the 1960s and 1970s for the Windy City. Corgan noted he hopes to make some of the archives available via a book soon.

Shane "Hurricane" Helms was interviewed by JourneyofAFrontman.com.

CHIKARA has launched their own streaming service titled CHIKARAtopia. The streaming subscription will cost $7.99 a month. For more details, click here. New subscribers get 7 days free. Knowing CHIKARA the way I do, I suspect they will load the service up with all sorts of cool extras to reward the subscribers.

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