New WWE video game releasing next year

Check out the trailer for WWE Brawl, a new fighting-style video game licensed by the company…

Early Three-Hour RAW Preview – Steve Austin, TE, & More

- Tonight’s edition of WWE RAW takes place in Long Island, NY. The show is a three-hour Raw and is an “All Star” theme to hype the WWE All Stars game.

- Steve Austin will be the guest GM for the night.

- Members of both the RAW and SmackDown! rosters will be appearing.

- WWE Tough Enough winner Andy Leavine announced that he would be at RAW tonight.

- Locally advertised is a dark match featuring John Cena vs. The Miz in a street fight.

- The company will also be hyping the Capitol Punishment PPV tonight. The PPV airs this Sunday.

Triple H’s ‘Mania theme edited, Rhodes, Bob Armstrong

– Sky Box Office in the UK is playing a different song during Triple H’s WrestleMania entrance on replays. At WrestleMania, before his usual theme music, HHH came out to Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

– ESPN talks with Cody Rhodes about the new WWE All-Stars game at http://espn.go.com/

– Here is a video of “Bullet” Bob Armstrong discussing his career in wrestling:

Otunga not happy with J-Hud’s weight loss, Piper

– Roddy Piper and The Miz will be appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live tomorrow night, promoting WrestleMania 27 and the WWE All Stars game. The segment was taped last week.

– WWE Superstar David Otunga is none too pleased with fiancé Jennifer Hudson’s significant weight loss, who has lost a grand total of 80 pounds. The recording artist, actress and Weight Watchers spokesperson appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Friday where she was asked “What does your fiancé think, does he like the new svelte you?” J-Hud responded, “He’s getting adjusted to it. He’s not really into change that much so he fusses at me like, “Why do you have to have to get all dressed up to go out and why can’t you just go out like you used to?” And I’m like “I’m a walking billboard now honey.”

– A source sent this one in: Randy Orton had a semi-private signing at The Sears Holding Corporation in Hoffman estates, IL. I didn’t see it promoted anywhere, and you needed to work at the office or be let in as family or a guest to attend. I’m bad with numbers but there appeared to be a few hundred people here. Kmart is headquartered in the Sears building, and obviously this was part of the new relationship between Kmart and WWE. We were treated to a short speech by a Kmart marketing executive and Orton, which was mostly about this being a big relationship, plus the dinner table commercial, and of course Raw tonight and WrestleMania. There’s going to be some alternate endings to the ad aired in the future. As a nice surprise, instead of getting a cheap piece of paper for signatures, we instead got a full size poster. Very nice! He was kind of tired, but otherwise pleasant.

Randy Orton Speaks Out – Face Turn, Cena/Rock

Randy Orton recently spoke with ESPN.com about his babyface turn, the WWE All-Stars game and more. Check out the highlights:

On his face turn: When you go from being a good guy to a bad guy or vice versa like I did, everyone always tells you, “Don’t change, don’t change.” And in my case, the less change the better because what really happened is the fans turned me. This wasn’t some master plan where all of a sudden I was going to be a good guy, I just started getting a lot of fan support. It’s a fine line because I wasn’t going out there like John Cena high-fiving kids and hugging grandmas and pumping my fist and smiling … if I would’ve done that, I would’ve failed tremendously, kind of like it did back in 2004, when I became the youngest champion in WWE history. That didn’t work at all because I changed so much. So it’s really about looking at your character, seeing what people like about me, like about my character, and seeing how much I can change without changing too much and walking that fine line. I think I’ve done a pretty good job. I’m definitely still learning on the job, though. It took me about five years to get really comfortable as a bad guy, as a heel, and I expect to take another couple of years as a good guy to really come into my own, but I’m definitely on the right path.”

On The Rock vs. John Cena: “I know them both, and I know Cena a lot better than I know The Rock, obviously, but I’ve been in the ring with both cutting promos and wrestling. I have to say, though, talking about the whole ring rust thing, John Cena has had about 2,000 matches in the last seven years. The Rock? A big, fat zero. So when it comes to ring rust, I don’t care what type of athlete you are, and The Rock is obviously an athletic dude, but Cena has been in the ring. He’s been at every show and in every show and making appearances and he has been on the road with the WWE over 300 days a year for the last seven years. The Rock? Virtually non-existent. You see the interviews that The Rock does and he says that he doesn’t want to be known as a wrestler. He doesn’t want to be known as a sports entertainer or a performer with WWE or a WWE superstar. He wants to be known as an actor. Now all of a sudden he’s back in our world telling the fans what they want to hear. He’s telling them: “I promise that I will never go away again. I promise that I’m back for good and that I’m here to stay.” He said that, what, six or seven weeks ago? Have we even seen him live since then? No. Via satellite. I think Cena will own The Rock. I think Cena is wittier and can go off the cuff. Cena writes his own stuff while The Rock has stuff written for him. It just all comes down to who you are in the ring and what kind of performer you are in the ring, and I think Cena is ten times the performer in the ring that The Rock is. This Monday in Chicago, he’ll prove it.”

Steve Austin speaks out – RAW return, retirement, & more

IGN.com recently sat down with WWE Hall of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin to promote the new WWE All Stars video game. Here are some highlights:

On His RAW Return: “I didn’t get a chance to do exactly everything that I wanted to do because I wanted to give the fans so much more, and they expected more”

On Being Retired & WWE Tough Enough: “I’m close enough — I’m as close as I want to be and can get to it right now by being the host and watching Bill (DeMott) and Booker and Trish (Stratus) put them through their paces .. The days of lighting up 20,000 people every single night of the week, no matter what day it was, and 90,000 on a big show like WrestleMania, that was a blast, but those days are over, and I’ve had some great times in this ring. And when I think back, I’ve got a lot of great memories, and this is about as close as I want to be.”

Jim Ross Blogs...again: SD! going Live, TNA, WWE PPV

Jim Ross has posted yet another new blog (he’s on a roll this weekend!). Here are the highlights…

On Smackdown Going Live: No…I don’t ever see Friday Night Smackdown going live, full time IE weekly. It might happen occasionally but it isn’t cost effective or travel friendly to do live TV on Mondays, Fridays, and some Sundays and still try to do live event touring. Makes no sense.

On The WWE All Star Video game: Yes…all the perceived top, current WWE superstars are playable characters in the new, WWE All Star video game which will be released soon. While doing the voice over play by play for the new game it brought to mind how many different scenarios one could play especially with ‘Dream Matches’ that never occurred. I am extremely optimistic that this game will be a hit.

On Sunday’s PPV: I’m anxiously looking forward to Sunday’s Elimination Chamber PPV from WWE that emanates from Oakland. Obviously, and based on precedent, the Chamber bouts will occupy the majority of the ring time on this event but my focus is on the King vs. Miz bout for the WWE Title. Miz will likely see every trick in the wrestler’s handbook in this one and I don’t expect this title bout to be a marathon. It can’t be a marathon bout if The King Jerry Lawler wants to win the WWE Title IMO. The 61 year old WWE HOF’er, who buried his 90 year old mother on Wednesday, needs to essentially tell us what time it is and not how to make the watch when Jerry looks to make history. Not only would Jerry be the oldest WWE Champion ever, or so I think, he would also be in rarefied air as a WWE Hall of Famer who wins the title after being inducted into the WWE HOF.

On TNA Wrestling: An emailer asked me what I thought about recent TNA storylines involving Mr. and Mrs. Jeff Jarrett and their children. I’m not a regular viewer of TNA first of all but what I have seen of this storyline that’s allegedly based in reality isn’t my cup of tea. I could care less what the adults do in their storyline but having minor children involved doesn’t personally work for me. TNA isn’t my hill to die upon and I harbor no ill will toward them but I find it challenging to believe that some individuals actually think that this is effective, episodic TV. Lastly, I’m sure that no one at TNA cares what I think, nor should they, but I’m merely addressing a question from one of our regular emailers. However, as Pink Floyd sang “Leave them kids alone.”

Be sure to check out the full blog and order some BBQ sauce (it’s amazing!) at http://www.JRSBARBQ.com/