WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross has posted a new blog entry over at his website where he gives his thoughts on the upcoming SummerSlam PPV event and more. Here are the highlights.
On Randy Orton vs. Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam: Is too much being made of the Lesnar vs. Randy Orton bout at Summer Slam that was announced this week? Orton’s shoulder issues have been addressed, but many feel that this is a challenging booking for RKO due to the dependence of Lesnar’s vaunted “Suplex City” offense. This is not a concern to me, and I feel that this bout can be special while keeping in mind that there are multiples ways to execute this match effectively.
This Summer Slam scenario with Lesnar could certainly be amended or tweaked depending on the outcome of Saturday night’s UFC 200 outcome. Bottom line is that we all hope that Lesnar can leave Las Vegas as healthy as one can be after engaging in a high level fight featuring two, heavy handed heavyweights. I’m interested in how the storyline for Lesnar-Orton is presented on WWE TV as one would assume that both will be “drafted” to the same brand when WWE holds their July 19 draft. No doubt that @HeymanHustle Paul Heyman will be deeply involved in this process even though we have not seen Lesnar or Heyman on WWE TV since Wrestlemania in Dallas.
On TNA moving Impact Wrestling to Thursday night’s: TNA Impact Wrestling moving to Thursday nights on Pop TV to avoid conflicts with the live, WWE Smackdown broadcast is something that I talked to Jeff Hardy about this week on The Ross Report podcast. It makes sense by and large, but once again the TV audience wil have to ‘find’ the show on the new night which will slow down the growth of the audience without question. I might have considered changing the air time of the show and keep in on Tuesday night so as to make this transition a bit more doable but hopefully this move to Thursdays will extend the shelf life of the battling brand who had one of their best ratings weeks in some time thanks to The Final Deletion storyline featuring Matt and Jeff Hardy.
Ross also talked about talking with Bret Hart and possible WWE return. You can read the entire blog here.
