Bob Backlund Article; Hulk Hogan / Bubba The Love Sponge Recap; New Warrior Blog
Hulk Hogan made another appearance on Bubba the Love Sponge Show Thursday. A few quick notes of interest from his appearance:
Hulk reiterated that he will not be at Wrestlemania 23. He said that Vince McMahon doesn't feel Hulk Hogan should receive the largest payday on a card he works anymore, which he disagrees. Hulk also claims that Vince McMahon feels Hulk Hogan's appearances on WWE television 'disrupt' the current WWE product which makes no sense.
Hulk also claims that he never signed the 20 Year contract WWE offered him. He did note that Steve Austin signed a 'lifetime' deal.
Finally, he teased about the possibility of starting a new wrestling promotion. Don't read more into that comment.
Warrior has posted a new blog on his website.
CLICK HERE to check it out.
The Rocky Mountain News posted the following article on Bob Backlund which I thoroughly enjoyed:
TNA's Backlund takes a stand on the soapbox
He overzealously preaches clean living, speaks out against pornography and rails about not littering.
In today's pro wrestling, this makes Bob Backlund a square.
But for Backlund - or Mr. Backlund, as the former World Wrestling Entertainment champion insists on being called - being cast as one of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling's most eccentric performers provides the chance to espouse some of his real-life beliefs.
"When I talk on television, you may think it's funny, but I'm as serious as I am sitting here talking to you," Backlund said last week in a telephone interview from his home in Glastonbury, Conn. "I am not an actor. . . . My mission is to do good things and motivate people to be positive and do good things.
"When wrestling fans see someone throwing paper out the window, I want TNA wrestling to pop into their mind with a picture of me saying not to do it."
For some, that image would be of Backlund dressed in his trademark bow tie and matching suspenders espousing morality while participating in wacky skits.
The Mr. Backlund character is an amplification of the squeaky-clean persona he exhibited while WWE champion from 1978 to 1983. Backlund made the shift with WWE in 1994 in a heel turn considered stunning because he'd quit a decade earlier when refusing to become a villain at the request of promotion owner Vince McMahon, who was shifting to a more entertainment-based product with Hulk Hogan as champion.
Backlund ultimately buried the hatchet with McMahon and returned to WWE in 1992 in his traditional babyface role. But at that point, Backlund saw that the wrestling world was changing with the rising popularity of anti-establishment characters.
Backlund decided to roll with it and later turned heel. The decision triggered a career renaissance for Backlund, who enjoyed a short second reign as WWE champion in 1994.
"I said, 'Vince, the good guys lie, cheat and swear,' " Backlund said. "I never really wanted to be a bad guy, but I was more happy being a bad guy if I had to do what other people were doing to be good and be liked."
Backlund feels strongly enough about his personal and political views that he ran for a congressional seat in Connecticut in 2000 after his WWE tenure ended.
"I was trying to get in position to do more and affect more people," said Backlund, who wouldn't accept any special-interest donations during his campaign.
Backlund's ethics aren't the only thing that sets him apart from fellow grapplers.
Despite being one of the industry's top all-time headliners, Backlund essentially walked away from wrestling in 1984 after his WWE falling out.
Besides getting to spend increased family time with wife Corky and daughter Carrie, Backlund spent the next seven years working to improve his literacy - which explains his expansive vocabulary - and even took a construction job working with drywall and worked as a bail bondsman.
It appears that Backlund will ultimately wrestle again for TNA (7 p.m. Thursdays, Spike TV), with Austin Starr being groomed as his future opponent.
Asked about returning to the ring, Backlund said: "When I do something, I have every intention of going to the moon. I don't care what it's in."
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
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