I want to start off by apologizing for my lack of updating over the last few days. I am currently dealing with a personal situation that is keeping me from being able to spend my usual amount of time on the site. I will most probably only be posting sporadically over the next week or so. Thanks for understanding.

Due to the aforementioned circumstances, I won’t be doing my usual Raw thoughts. I didn’t get to watch the show as closely as I usually do so it wouldn’t be fair to comment on it. OK, on to the news.

At this week’s talent meeting before Raw, Vince McMahon was very animated about both in his feelings concerning people, like myself, who cover the professional wrestling business, as well as the disdain he feels for those of his employees who talk to the wrestling press (which, it should be mentioned, he has instructed his PR department to cut off all ties with already). In the speech, during which I was told he referred to wrestling reporters as “parasites”, he expressed confusion as to why his employees would talk to the wrestling press. He was said to be really upset that all of the details from the previous pre-television meetings that the company has had recently have been reported. I am not sure of his exact wording, but he definitely implied that if said wrestlers were found to be leaks, they would be ex-WWE wrestlers post haste. Again, as we have talked about in the past, this is the very reason why we are always forced to quote “unnamed sources” in WWE news stories. A source going on the record will get more heat than you can imagine.

To hammer home his point about not leaking information, he said things like “it ruins the illusion” and “spoils the product for the fans.” I can tell you this Vince, many of your employees speak to the press because they are frustrated by the direction of your company and your inability to make obvious changes when they are staring you in the face. As frustrated as you are, many of them feel the same way when they see the same mistakes being repeated over and over again.

From what I heard, the people you would expect to back management on this subject (read those being pushed well) were said to be in vocal agreement of Vince.

At the Raw meeting, last week’s Mark Henry vs. Chris Jericho match was the “teaching bout” shown to the masses. Management put over the story they told in the match to the wrestlers. A number of people at the meeting told me it was an odd choice since there were a lot of missed spots in the bout. Those spots were not acknowledged by management.

The talk in the locker room continues to be that Chris Benoit is being brought over to Raw because he can work great matches and will be an opponent who can make HHH look good. My take is that if HHH works as hard against Benoit as he did against Shawn Michaels, he will hold up his end of the bargain and won’t need to be carried at all.

As for Bill Goldberg, the smart money is that he will be done after WrestleMania. People close to him have told me that he expects to work his match against Brock Lesnar at Mania XX and then leave the company. I am expecting the angle with Lesnar to start at the Rumble PPV this weekend.

In another Goldberg note, he has been told to stop using the Jackhammer by management. They said that The Spear is all he needs to use and that it’s over with the fans. From what I heard, Goldberg has no plans to stop using the Jackhammer, feeling that it’s part of his persona. As mentioned above, he is said to be approaching WWE as if he only has two months left there and will not change how he works at this point.

A lot of people I talked to were amazed that neither Shawn Michaels nor HHH were at Raw this week, despite the fact that they are wrestling at the World Title match at the PPV on Sunday. I am not sure, but I would guess HHH was fulfilling movie commitments but Michaels not being there was odd considering he worked house shows this past weekend.

Ed Jones From Queens sent word that UPN will be airing “The Mania Of WrestleMania” on March 3 at 9 p.m. ET. The special was shot at Mania XIX last year in Seattle and will cover the Manias from the past.

Tom Robinson sent along the following recap.

Rob Van Dam was a guest on the McDonnell-Douglas radio show here in Southern California Tuesday afternoon. McDonnell-Douglas, “The show of record in Southern California” is located at 710 AM in Los Angeles. It was a pretty fast one segment interview.

Highlights:

He talked about his comic book store.

-RVD is still having fun with his comic book store. He still goes in every week.

-Al Snow will be the guest at the store Thursday. He will be signing autographs from 6-8 pm.

-RVD noted that he didn’t know if Al would be bringing “Head” but he might be looking for some!!!

-He also mentioned he faced Al in some of his first matches as a pro back in 1990.

-Upcoming guest at the store a week from Saturday will be actor Andrew Bernowski (spellcheck) who was “Leatherface” in the recent Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie.

Doug jokingly asked if RVD could pick up that little guy Mark Henry.

-RVD said he is still recovering physically from his match with Mark Henry a few weeks back. He put over that Henry is “The Worlds Strongest Man”.

Then talk turned to the Royal Rumble this weekend.

-He said that this is his third Rumble. What he likes is that fans get to see match-ups they don’t normally get to. They get Smackdown guys facing Raw guys and others who just haven’t worked in the ring together in a very long time.

Next was a cool question from Doug, asking if he has ever had any confrontations with fans on the streets or in a bar giving him trouble about wrestling being “fake”.

-RVD said he first got into the business at 18 and had to prove himself both inside AND outside of the ring for the first several years. Up until he was 23 he would go looking for those types of fights. He said back then he was the “jerk at the bar wearing tank tops and bumping into people” looking for trouble.

-He would really only hear trouble from people “deal with a lot of crap” when he would be signing “self-promoting” somewhere like a Wal-Mart.

Board-op and sounds effects guru Dave Joseph then asked if he liked to work bigger venues or the smaller ones.

-RVD’s first answer was one WWE would like to hear from him more often…….

Dead silence……

He got cut off!

-He then said the bigger crowds are more of a treat. He likes the small venues also though because they are more intimate. He put over the Green Bay crowd big from Monday night.

-He talked about ECW crowds saying that the 2,000 from an ECW event can give off the same energy as 10,000 at a WWE event.

-He said they all like to put “asses in the seats” though because their “pay does reflect” it.

About his contract negotiations

-He said there is not a lot of movement right now but that everything is fine. There is nothing positive or negative to report at this time. He feels, though, that he will be with WWE for a long time.

That was it! Nothing earthmoving today from RVD. He is a fun interview to listen to though and Joe and Doug are great (Yes I said Doug too!) are great with him.