Lots of changes in WWE-land lately!

• After The Great American Bash, Mohammad Hassan will be retired as a gimmick, and the wrestler will be sent back to OVW for repackaging.
  
  

  I didn't like the concept of the character to start with, but I feel bad for the guy.




• Ivory's contract won't be renewed after WWE Experience ends.
  
  I've always liked Tina Morretti, and she's done a lot for the company. In my view, she deserved better.

Lord Alfred Hayes passed away at the age of 77 yesterday.

When I began to follow WWE in the 1980s, he was the color commentator. I always wondered where he disappeared to. Now, I have the sad update answer where.

It just occured to me: WWE has released about 40 people in the last 2 years.

Some (Kenzo Suzuki, Albert, Mark Lloyd and Joy Giovanni) aren't big draws - but many of the rest could make an excellent new federation, if a group had the money. The Dudleyz, Charlie Haas, Shannon Moore, Jimmy Yun (Akio), Rico, Matt Morgan... these 8 alone could make a good start!

I'm falling behind again, so I'll cover as much as I can in this post:

• Last week RAW was the better show. Although a lot of the reason was gimmickry (having Roddy Piper show up) it was still an overall entertaining show. Well, almost... the Diva Search was boring crap, same as last year. Fans were actually booing some of the supposedly hot bits, like the various dance bits, the idiotic painting bit, and Simona, who simply deserves it. Chris Masters is always a dud, as is anything involving Viscera. I was initially groaning at the return of the Kurt Angle Invitational, but now it's building to a point with Matt Striker / Martel. On the other hand, nothing on Smackdown! really grabbed me.



• Velocity brought us a very tepid debut for Frankie Kazarian to WWE, the puzzling return of Simon Dean (are the bWo already done?), but was saved by the probable match of the week with William Regal-Chris Benoit.



• Heat was the big loser here. Rene Dupree, Rob "Con-Man" Conway... they really looked like guys who'll be cut soon.



• The Boogeyman - who came up with this crap? Seems like a retread of an old cartoon-style gimmick. From what I've been hearing his dark match debut didn't go over well either.



• RAW this week: Rick Scaia called it: The Big Show will now go after Chris Masters. Also: Simona annoyed enough people to get cut. Based on the booing and "Boring!" chants though, if they gave an option to vote all the contestants off, I thinki callers would choose it.
  
  For what little it's worth, I'm hoping Ashley wins it all, for the fact that she's learning to wrestle. One more lady grappler is a good thing for the federation in my book.