WWE NEWS AND SPOILERS

- The early word on Mr. Kennedy’s surprising release from World Wrestling Entertainment last night is that almost injuring Randy Orton as well as himself during his match on RAW on Monday night was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Kennedy made his return to RAW on Monday night after a ten month hiatus rehabbing a badly injured shoulder. As bad luck would have it, Kennedy ended up injuring his wrist after taking the RKO from Orton. Much more seriously in the eyes of management, Orton nearly re-injured his bad shoulder as a result of an errant maneuver on the part of Kennedy.

Following the show, Orton and Kennedy had words backstage, although it was not heated. Very calmly, Orton dressed him down, telling him he needed to be more careful so he wouldn’t injure anyone else in the ring.

Flair used WWE pressure as the reason he wanted off Ring of Honor TV, but as of today Flair still isn’t signed to a WWE deal and there are no indications that he is going to be offered one unless the deal is being kept very quiet by both Flair’s camp and WWE.

- As noted before, WWE Hall of Famer Ricky Steamboat will be getting back in the ring for Chris Jericho on the WWE tour of Japan in July. Matches for the July 7th show include World Heavyweight Champion Edge vs. Jeff Hardy, Chris Jericho vs. WWE IC Champion Rey Mysterio with Ricky Steamboat as the special referee, ECW Champion Christian vs. Jack Swagger, and Women’s Champion Melina vs. Michelle McCool. Matches for the July 8th show include Edge vs. Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho vs. Ricky Steamboat, Christian vs. Jack Swagger and Gail Kim & Melina vs. Michelle McCool & Alicia Fox.

- The Sun reports that while it isn’t official yet, WWE appears to be scrapping the promotions for the “DX Invasion” tour of Europe planned for later this year. This might indicate that they don’t expect Shawn Michaels back before then.

Sandra sent word that Jeff Hardy, who will be wrestling at tonight’s RAW tapings in a match for this week’s WWE Superstars, posted the following on his Twitter page today: Late notice to go to work…off day turns into an on day…gotta love the spontaneous ways of this uneek world.(meant to spell it like that)

- In an update to the John Cena wedding story from earlier, we’ve received a few e-mails stating that it wasn’t John who got married this weekend but one of his brothers. The WWE Superstar Cena is supposed to be married this July, according to several fans.

- Here are two photos of WWE United States Champion MVP and Sherri Shephard attending the prom of her alma matter in Chicago on Saturday night:

- Here’s a segment-by-segment breakdown for the May 25th edition of Monday Night RAW featuring the angles with the NBA debacle. The show opened with a 3.28 rating for the Vince McMahon skit with Stan Kroenke. The Maryse vs. Kelly Kelly Divas Title match lost 189,000 viewers, the Kofi Kingston vs. Matt Hardy vs. William Regal match lost 363,000 viewers and losing viewers in the first hour is against the usual trends.

The segment with Ric Flair and Randy Orton gained 523,000 viewers and the Santino and Mickie vs. Chavo and Beth Phoenix match plus the Goldust and Hornswoggle vs. Kendrick and Festus match gained 232,000 viewers in what is usually a spot in the show where they lose viewers. The ten-man main event with Kennedy, Batista, John Cena, MVP, Jerry Lawler, Legacy, Big Show and The Miz gained 566,000 viewers and peaked at a 3.81 rating for the overrun.

- One person close to Mr. Kennedy notes that he is looking forward to going to TNA in September, once his 90 day non-compete clause with WWE ends. The same person notes that Kennedy has a lot of confidence and believes he can really be a top guy but feels like Vince McMahon didn’t see him at that level, which he didn’t.

His goal is he believes if he goes to TNA he can be that top guy, thinking they will allow him to be the character he thinks he can be without always trying to get him to change. It is believed that TNA has an interest in him but in his case, the situation would be that TNA would probably want to sign him to a three-year deal.

– Chris Masters is telling promoters that he has not cancelled all of his future bookings and will still work those shows, indicating that the recently re-signed WWE star won’t be returning to TV in the immediate future.

– WWE is claiming approximately 955,000 worldwide PPV buys for WrestleMania 25, with about 550-600,000 domestic. Backlash is coming in at 185,000 worldwide. Both are only slightly less than last year’s numbers, which the company is pretty happy about.

- WWE has also just released Victor “Kafu” Ceron from his developmental contract. Kafu had been signed to a deal since January of 2008.

As noted earlier, WWE also released Dakota “Maverick” Darsow, Jon Cutler and Lupe Santiago. All of these talents were informed of their termination by John Laurinaitis before the Florida Championship Wrestling TV tapings on Thursday night.

The word is that one of the wrestlers was let go as a result of a Wellness Policy violation, reports The Sun. The wrestler in question was set to be suspended, but Laurinaitis decided to let him go altogether. Additional details are still being investigated. More releases are expected to be confirmed, so stay tuned.

@RaFaeL__052@ έγραψε:Μάλλον το wwe θέλει να κρατήσει τον Batista εκτός ως το royal rumble 2010.Δηλαδή τι άλλο θα δούμε?Έχουν τρελαθεί εκεί μέσα όλο βλακείες κάνουν.

- Christian sent the following: I was watching the MY9(the My Network TV affiliate in New York) news and they had an interview with New York Yankees Outfielder Johnny Damon. The wrestling related part of the interview is that they asked Johnny who his favorite WWE Superstar was and he replied, Batista. Johnny frequently comes to the plate with Batista’s theme song playing in the background. Johnny told the interviewer that Batista is a huge Yankee fan.

- As noted earlier, this week’s edition of WWE’s Monday Night RAW scored a 3.6 rating. The first hour was seen by 4,873,000 viewers while the second was seen by 5,935,000 viewers. 67% of the audience was male with a median age of 36.

- Two of the three title matches for Monday’s three-hour RAW have been announced. John Cena vs. Triple H vs. Randy Orton vs. Big Show will take place to crown a new WWE Champion and Christian will get his rematch against Tommy Dreamer for the ECW Title.

- As noted earlier, the WWE creative team has already been given a list of wrestlers not to write ideas for as they will be unavailable for the foreseeable future, starting with next Monday’s three-hour episode of Raw. Dave Meltzer said in yesterday’s Wrestling Observer Radio show that the company will indeed be suspending some main roster talent within the next few days. Drug testing took place at shows over the weekend, in addition to yesterday’s RAW.

Further confirming that some suspensions will be taking place is that it is standard company protocol for head officials to inform creative that certain performers will not be available for the foreseeable future. This fact was publicly disclosed by World Wrestling Entertainment in Henry Waxman’s report concerning steroids in professional wrestling released this past January.

Although, there is a lot of skepticism among many in WWE these days in regards to how the company is handling drug test violations. Since the fall of 2007, the official policy on drug test failures has been to publicly announce all failures no matter what, but internally, some believe the company isn’t completely abiding by its own set of rules.

For instance, of the four confirmed developmental releases within the past two days (Lupe Viscara, Jon Cutler, Dakota “Maverick” Darsow and Kafu), two were reportedly let go as a result of drug test failures. It is rather peculiar that WWE officials opted against publicly outing the violators when it is company policy to do so.

Early last year, WWE announced the suspensions of developmental wrestlers Derrick Neikirk and Neil “Chet the Jet” Bzibziak, releasing them shortly thereafter. In this new case, the company appears to be circumventing its own set of rules by quietly releasing talent so more unwanted negative attention isn’t drawn to WWE concerning drug use amongst its wrestlers — especially due to little known minor league talent when the company is adamantly trying to clean up its image. Had they not terminated the violators in question, they would have had no choice but to publicly announce their respective suspensions, hence the quiet releases, which apparently is WWE’s new way of getting around the policy.

WWE kept a lot of employees in the dark about the Donald Trump angle on RAW, and the wrestlers had no idea until at least 7:00 that night. Vince told everyone he was working on a major deal, when in actuality he was working on the pre-tape of Donald Trump speaking so he could time his reactions to make it look like a live feed.

The angle with Trump, who is a long-time friend of Vince, was put together as a cross-promotion and will likely result in lots of plugs for The Apprentice on NBC. Sources within the company don’t expect the storyline to go on for too long.

WWE Hall of Famer Gerald Brisco suffered a stroke this past weekend. The news was reported by the Cauliflower Alley Club that Brisco had the stroke but would be undergoing surgery and is expected to make a full recovery. Brisco’s family asked WWE not to report the news when it happened.

- Finlay made a heel turn on tonight’s ECW after attacking Christian and Tommy Dreamer following both of their matches. Finlay also cut a promo backstage and said his attack on Christian had something to do with getting the eye injury in the backstage segment where Dreamer and Christian were fighting a few weeks back.

- Jack Swagger has earned an ECW Title shot after his won over Tommy Dreamer on tonight’s ECW. They teased that Finlay may get involved in the ECW Championship chase.

- The first hour of this week’s RAW scored a 3.3 rating with 4,561,000 viewers. The second hour did a 3.75 rating with an average of 5.72 million viewers and the third hour was seen by 6,091,000 viewers with a 4.1 rating. RAW averaged 5.5 million viewers this week with a male skew of 66% and a median age of 36.

- Stephanie McMahon recently told RAW head writer Brian Gewirtz and SmackDown head writer Michael Hayes that she wants to bring in more creative writers. They started looking for new writers last week and she told Gewirtz to reach out to anyone he knew at MTV.

On a related note, the new writer that took over for John Carle is said to be treading on thin ice. WWE’s writer’s assistants are usually very unqualified but given tasks that far exceed what they are capable of so the turnover rate ends up bring high.