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Umaga's autopsy report reveals that he had an enlarged heart

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At his Wrestling Babylon blog, Irv Muchnick has posted a PDF of Edward "Umaga" Fatu's autopsy report and summarized some of the more conspicuous findings.

Aside from what was already known about the multiple drug toxicity that caused his death:

  • Fatu was suffering from hypertensive cardiovascular disease, including hypertrophy (enlargement) of the heart (it weighed 700 grams) and left ventricular hypertrophy (it measured 2.1 centimeters).  The unnatural enlargement has been present in a disturbingly large amount of deceased wrestlers.
  • His liver enzymes were elevated, a reminder of when three WWE wrestlers were put on medical suspensions at the same time for that condition in 2006.

Are there any doctors or other medical professionals who could give a more clear explanation of the report?

1 comment  |  0 recs |

I swear, with God as my witness, that next Sunday I will wrestle my last match ever

Will this year's WrestleMania rematch with The Undertaker be Shawn's last match ever?  Almost certainly not!

Will this year's WrestleMania rematch with The Undertaker be Shawn's last match ever? Almost certainly not!

Yes, according to Dave Meltzer in the March 22nd Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Shawn Michaels is actually telling his friends that he's going to retire at WrestleMania.  I find this highly amusing.  I mean, who's he trying to kid, really?  I'm sorry that I have to cast aspersions at the honesty of a born again Christian wrestler, but this seems to me to be a blatant carny ploy.  Working the boys to get the hardcore fans, who have been burnt so many times in the past, to buy into the retirement stipulation of his WrestleMania rematch with The Undertaker, thus getting more people to pay to see the show on PPV.  Why would Shawn take such vows of retirement seriously, after Ric Flair conned him just two years ago into believing he would have Flair's last match ever?  Didn't Flair recently hawk the inscribed gold watch Shawn bought him too?

Even if we give Shawn the benefit of the doubt and believe that he is sincere, when has he ever been able to say no to Vince McMahon when he's called him to come back from injury or sabbatical early?  I'm sure Shawn will never be forced to return to the ring due to money problems like Flair, but as Meltzer suggested in his lead story, eventually he'll heal up, miss the spotlight and get the itch to return.  It's almost certainly a question of when, not if, he will return to WWE to wrestle at least one more match.

3 comments  |  0 recs |

The Connecticut media wakes up to WWE's hypocrisy on the concussion issue, but it's about more than just chair shots to the head

What was the cause - unprotected chair shots or a lifetime of dangerous bumps?

What was the cause - unprotected chair shots or a lifetime of dangerous bumps?

Connecticut political blogger Daniela Altimari breaks the news story that Linda McMahon, despite her knowledge of the concussion issue, won't be attending a public hearing on a proposed bill to address the problem of student athletes suffering head injuries in scholastic sports.

She then follows up with a post wondering how chair shots to the head could be banned in WWE's Wellness policy, yet they recently ran a Tables, Ladders and Chairs PPV which featured and glorified them.  WWE Spokesman Robert Zimmerman made the save for the company by claiming to Altimari that the ban on chair shots to the head was only implemented in January 2010.  James Caldwell of the Pro Wrestling Torch then pointed out to her the obvious hypocrisy of banning chair shots to the head while still running Elimination Chamber matches where participant's heads were thrown into chain wiring and plexiglass.

Here's Irv Muchnick's reactions to Altimari's posts:

Drugs in D.C. Are Dead, But There Are Always Concussions in Connecticut

WWE Bans Chair Shots for Safety … Except When They’re Absolutely Essential to the Plot

With all due respect to James Caldwell and Irv Muchnick, I think the focus on chair shots and gimmick matches misses the point a bit.  Yes, unprotected chair shots to the head are completely stupid and should be eliminated from wrestling completely.  But how much brain trauma does a lifetime of dangerous bumps cause?  Which is a question WWE and most wrestling fans would rather not ask for fear of the answer.

2 comments  |  0 recs |

NXT concept now officially a ratings failure

Four weeks later, already a ratings failure.

Four weeks later, already a ratings failure.

According to Dave Meltzer, NXT last night continued its trend of declining numbers, drawing a poor 0.9 rating.  To put that rating into context, NXT is now drawing a smaller viewership than what ECW drew when it bottomed out.  This isn't a good sign for the future of the NXT concept in its current form after the first season, as the reason ECW was dropped was because WWE and Syfy were disappointed in its declining ratings.  As I said a month ago, the original "reality" show ideas for the NXT concept had promise.  Unfortunately most of these unique ideas were scrapped before the first show even took place and NXT became just another WWE show, except with green nobodies working matches and being the focus.  So it shouldn't be a surprise that NXT is now drawing worse ratings than what ECW was doing.  At least WWE can crow that even with declining ratings NXT still beat the rating TNA Impact drew on Monday.

2 comments  |  0 recs |

WWE NXT results, March 16th 2010

Did WWE NXT Rookie win his first match against the Great Khali, or did he fall to 0-4?  Read on to find out!

Did WWE NXT Rookie win his first match against the Great Khali, or did he fall to 0-4? Read on to find out!


Full results for this week's edition of WWE NXT after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

2 comments  |  0 recs |

WWLSD - What Would Lance Storm Do?

Lance Storm in the days before he was just another armchair booker.

Lance Storm in the days before he was just another armchair booker.

If anyone was wondering why Ken Anderson was wearing a wrist tape with the letters WWLSD on Impact last night, then Dave Meltzer hilariously revealed on his radio show the same night that it stood for "What Would Lance Storm Do?".  Well, Dave should know, as this insider shout out was all his fault.  The reason Ken Anderson (and probably a certain member of TNA management too) was irked at Lance is that Dave Meltzer a couple of weeks ago accidentally posted a private email from Lance as a column on his website.  In this email Lance passionately buried Anderson and TNA to Dave, saying that Anderson was GOD AWFUL on promos, that Anderson was his least favourite character on a show that SUCKS and that he could book a better show with a WEEGEE board.  Oops!  Those clueless goofs in TNA may have got a cryptic dig in at Lance's expense on Impact, but I'm sure Lance will have the last laugh when he hears about TNA's latest rating.  At this point, what could TNA possibly lose by seriously considering what Lance Storm would do?

1 comment  |  0 recs |

The Monday Night Massacre worsens, TNA's rating falls to a 0.8

Eric Bischoff may regret shaving his head for this dismal rating!

Eric Bischoff may regret shaving his head for this dismal rating!

According to the Observer website and the ratings they published last week, Raw's rating this week rose by three tenths of a ratings point to a 3.7, while TNA's dropped by two tenths to a 0.8.  This means that Raw roughly quadrupled Impact's audience this week.  To say this is another bad sign for TNA is probably an understatement.  Dixie Carter can only cross her fingers, hope and pray that all the viewers lost from last week's two airings of Impact heeded her message on Twitter and didn't forget to set their DVRs this week.  Unfortunately the odds of that are pretty slim.

UPDATE:  According to Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez on their breaking news radio update, Impact peaked with a 0.96 rating for the quarter starting at 9:45pm (coinciding with the start of the Hogan/Sting confrontation) and continued to drop until the overrun, which showed a very small increase.  In particular, the AJ Styles vs. Jeff Hardy DREAM~!!! main event got destroyed, only drawing a 0.73 rating compared to Raw's 4.3 rating for the contract signing angle with Bret Hart, Vince McMahon and Steve Austin.

2 comments  |  0 recs |

WWE Raw Results and Reactions, 3/5/2010

WWE Raw took place in San Diego, California this week.

WWE Raw took place in San Diego, California this week.


Full results for this week's episode of WWE Raw after the jump:

Continue reading this post »

3 comments  |  0 recs |

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