Dirt Sheet History: November 2007

Take a trip back to a memorable timeline in sports entertainment with the most important stories reported as fact in the journalistic world of pro wrestling dirt sheets.

Following the timeline of the last Dirt Sheet History looking back at October 2007, we get a glimpse into the top scoops from November of 2007 as we read Dirt Sheet History.

Reminder that you can find all past editions of Dirt Sheet History looking at 2004 through 2006 right here. Now enjoy November 2007.

11/1/2007

* WWE management is said to be very upset at the amount of news that has been leaking online in recent months. Stephanie McMahon was said to be furious when she learned of reports that revealed Chris Jericho was the person behind the “Save Us” promos.

There is a strong belief that WWE has held off Chris Jericho’s return to show the Internet writers that they don’t know everything. Monday night on RAW, Santino Marella made fun of Maria for thinking Stone Cold Steve Austin was in the building. He told her to stop reading those “Internet chatrooms” and getting bad information online.

Stephanie went as far as to review all company cell phone records of the writing team and did a forensic check of their computers, looking for e-mails leaks. This was not the first time WWE conducted such searches. WWE didn’t find any guilty parties, but did find excessive private calls, and yelled at the writers for it.

Stephanie’s wrath did not stop there. She wants to revise the contracts of WWE’s creative writers to explicitly state that WWE has 100% ownership of any ideas or concepts they come up with while working for WWE. Writers are prohibited from being interviewed or talking to anybody from the media. Even after they leave WWE, they cannot talk about their time working for the company.

11/2/2007

* WWE.com posted an article regarding the recent death threats that JBL’s wife has been receiving. They mention that the CEO of Citigroup will be resigning due to the drop in shares in the company. It is interesting that the company put a ‘Saveus’ video link inside the article.

11/4/2007

* Internally, no one was surprised by the release of Extreme Exposé member Brooke Adams. It wasn’t one thing, but a culmination of things that resulted in her release from the company.

From day one she was considered to a problem in the company. She practically made it a habit to draw attention to herself. She rubbed a number of people backstage the wrong way and had people rolling their eyes at her behavior. What with the turnover rate of women in WWE, especially this time of year with all the Diva Search girls looming about, her release wasn’t too surprising.

Without the top notch attitude, the star power, or the in-ring skills, WWE had no real need for Adams. She was an expendable talent, and with her bad attitude, WWE just thought it was time for her to go. It got to the point where her negatives outweighed the positives and they felt it was better to release her.

11/5/2007

* Carlito is said to be unhappy with how things are going for him nowadays in WWE. The feeling backstage is that he doesn’t have the attitude it takes to get a major push. The belief is that he isn’t giving 100% in his matches.

11/6/2007

* As noted before, Brooke Adams of Extreme Exposé was dropped by the company last week. She had a ton of heat with a number of girls and an incident involving her and Melina may have played in her departure from the company.

Brooke’s last appearance in the company was on Raw last week for the Divas Halloween battle royal. Backstage, Melina had a confrontation with Brooke about the furry black boots she wore as a part of her costume. It was a “gimmick infringement” argument, seeing how Melina frequently dons furry boots for her wrestling appearances. McMahon was actually upset that Brooke was ignorant about the furry boots issue and “not protective of Melina’s gimmick.” There is also a belief that Melina went to Vince and complained, and he made the call to axe Brooke.

John Laurinaitis was one of Brooke’s biggest supporters and he fought hard for her to retain her employment. He was overruled.

11/7/2007

* Despite the crowd’s apathy towards Gene Snitsky matches, Vince McMahon continues to support the bacne-ridden, yellow-toothed grappler. McMahon is a big fan of Snitsky, which explains his never-ending dominance over mid-carders and low-end wrestlers on Raw and Heat. There doesn’t appear to be any end in sight in regards to Snitsky’s mini-push, and thus he will continue to dominate talent in short squash matches in Goldberg-like fashion until they come up with a program for him. Although, while the Snitsky push has been going on for nine months (and counting), he still has yet to engage in a program that has lasted more than two weeks, or wrestle at a pay-per-view event for that matter.

11/8/2007

* Chris Mordetzky, better known to wrestling fans as “The Masterpiece” Chris Masters, has been let go by World Wrestling Entertainment.

At the time of his release, Masters was 6 days into a 60 day suspension for violating WWE’s Substance Abuse and Drug Testing Policy. It was Masters’ second violation.

11/9/2007

* WWE.com is currently running a “What If?” style article asking WWE personalities how the history of the company would have changed if it was Shawn Michaels who was screwed at the 1997 Survivor Series in Montreal. Triple H said, “That never would’ve happened. We’re not that stupid.”

11/11/2007

* At this point it certainly appears that Booker T is heading to TNA Wrestling. According to sources within the TNA locker room, Booker began talking with company officials over the summer with initial plans of him debuting in the company alongside Chris Jericho on the first two hour edition of iMPACT. While Jericho had several serious meetings with TNA officials, negotiations eventually broke off, lining up his upcoming return to WWE.

11/12/2007

* Mickey Rourke is getting into the ring with “The Wrestler,” the indie drama that Darren Aronofsky will direct in January.

Rourke will play Randy “The Ram” Robinson,” a role that Nicolas Cage had reportedly been set to play. There was no word Sunday as to why he had left the project.

11/13/2007

* WWE has put nearly all of Carlito‘s merchandise available on WWEShop.com on clearance. They rarely do this to nearly all of a wrestler’s merchandise unless he is no longer affiliated with the company.

* Carlito made two special appearances on the Smackdown/ECW tour in Puerto Rico because that is his home country and obviously the market where he means the most. Carlito jobbed to Matt Hardy & Rey Mysterio on two shows on the tour. Fans where shocked by the result of his match with Matt Hardy considering that San Juan is his hometown.

11/14/2007

* Chris Jericho recently appeared on Bubba the Love Sponge’s radio show on Sirius and he said that TNA’s offer to him was “cheap.” Jericho also told Bubba that he had not signed a contract with WWE, although he did admit to having a number of discussions with them.

11/15/2007

* TNA wrestler Abyss has been sitting in on production meetings lately and is now considered a member of the booking team. For many months the booking team had been made up of Jeff Jarrett, Dutch Mantell and Vince Russo. Abyss, Mike Tenay and Jeremy Borash are now also involved, making it a 6-man committee. Each member of the committee is said to have a different agenda, which could lead to some trouble. Abyss is clearly a fan of hardcore matches while Dutch Mantell is said to be completely against any matches being decided by submission holds – a philosophy that has many wrestlers shaking their heads.

11/16/2007

* TNA superstar AJ Styles was featured in a recent issue of ESPN the Magazine. Styles told the publication, “WWE won’t let most wrestlers perform piledrivers anymore. In TNA, we have a guy who does a flipping piledriver. That’s how crazy we are.”

11/17/2007

* In the latest edition of the POWER 25 on WWE.com, the list bids farewell to Carlito, who was ousted from it in this week’s edition. WWE.com made the following remark regarding his drop from the list: Carlito – “Off the P25. Not so cool, huh, Carlito? The Caribbean Bad Apple reaps the reward of being lazy to the core lately.”

11/20/2007

* After several weeks of mystery, the man behind the videos with encrypted messages was revealed as Chris Jericho.

11/21/2007

* As reported earlier, Jerry Saggs and Brian Knobbs re-formed as The Nasty Boys tag team at last night’s SmackDown/ECW tapings from Tampa, Florida to wrestle their first WWE match in many years. The dark match featuring the former WWF and WCW World Tag Team Champions has left a ton of heat on them both.

According to Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com, The Nasty Boys acted as if they were huge stars returning and took far too much time to get to into the ring, interacting with friends and family members sitting at ringside. Brian Knobbs entered the ring with his back to the hard camera while partner Jerry Saggs got into the ring way too close to their opponents Drew McIntye and Dave Taylor, making them look stupid.

After the match started, The Nasty Boys were said to have worked very stiff with not only McIntye who is only 21 years old but with Dave Taylor who is a well respected veteran. McIntyre tried to be respectful and take the abuse but finally had enough and began returning stiff shots. One backstage source that the dark match was one of the worst things that you could ever hope to see.

The disaster of a match caused the SmackDown taping to finish up late, ending at 9:54 PM EST, leaving the WWE ring crew very little time to switch the set and ring for the live broadcast of ECW on Sci-Fi.

11/22/2007

* During a recent media conference call, former WWE Champion John Cena was asked if he watched WWE’s competition, specifically TNA. “They still have a company? Wow, I didn’t know they were still around,” Cena said.

11/23/2007

* Carlito lost to Hornswoggle on Raw.

11/24/2007

* According to reliable sources, Hulk Hogan didn’t learn of his impending divorce from Linda — but rather from a reporter in Florida.

As TMZ first reported, Linda filed the divorce papers on Tuesday. When a newspaper reporter called Hulk and asked for a comment, he said “Thank you for the great information,” and hung up.

The Hulkster called the paper back five minutes later and said, “I’m kind of shocked … You caught me off-guard. Holy smokes. Wow, you just knocked the bottom out of me.”

11/25/2007

* Sources within the WWE locker room say that Triple H ultimately wants to work as a heel in the company and eventually feud with John Cena. However, with Cena not being able to work next year’s WrestleMania, there has been an idea at least talked about of Triple H turning on Shawn Michaels to headline the big event.

11/26/2007

* It has been all but confirmed that Carlito is leaving WWE. He recently gave his notice and he is expected to finish up with the company sometime in December.

11/28/2007

* In a recent media interview, Bill Goldberg was asked whether he’d consider returning to professional wrestling. Goldberg said there is zero chance that will ever happen.

11/29/2007

* Kelly Kelly was said to be ‘devastated’ backstage after her match with Layla on Tuesday’s ECW. She had spent a lot of time training and practicing her handspring elbow with Layla and had hit it numerous time in practice, but came up a bit short when performing it before a live audience.

– Tune back in next time for more Dirt Sheet History as we continue 2007.

Stories are credited from Rajah, PWTorch, PWInsider and The Wrestling Observer. Month name photo art is by Phillip Martin.

Past editions of Dirt Sheet History are found here.