WWE sued over Gangrel license: Way back in 1998, when it was still awesome to be a wrestling fan, WWE paid White Wolf games a bit of money to license the Gangrel name and character. White Wolf produces such items as Vampire: The Masquerade, a role playing game which is like Dungeons & Dragons for those types of kids who get beat up by nerds that play Dungeons & Dragons. The license went for five years, and without renewing the license WWE had Gangrel appear on TV in 2005 and 2006 along with appearances in Ohio Valley Wrestling and Deep South. Here is a copy of the complaint. Now I'm not Jerry McDevitt, but I don't see much wiggle room here as WWE clearly violated the agreement, not unlike the one they made with the World Wildlife Fund, and we all know how that one turned out. Meanwhile, David Heath, the man who portrayed Gangrel, is all but out of wrestling and has embarked on his new career, directing porn films. Seriously. WEI Score: - 2

Lindsay Lohan confuses Honda Center for Promises Rehab: This past Monday, oft troubled starlet Lindsay Lohan was in Anaheim, CA to visit the RAW show. Star of increasingly unwatchable movies, such as Herbie: Fully Loaded and Georgia Rules, Lohan was backstage to take pictures with guys like John Cena, JBL, and Floyd Maywhether and possibly learn the intricacies of obtaining pain pill prescriptions from various mark doctors around the country. I was going too give this one a big negative, but then LiLo - as she is nauseatingly known – went ahead and did an incredible photo shoot that shut down the New York magazine website. Check on that slideshow for some fantastic pictures, and this is coming from someone who hasn't found Lohan attractive since she did The Parent Trap. What can I say? I'm just not into redheads… except for maybe the Little Mermaid. WEI Score: + 1

Face Off 2: When World's Collide DVD: Honky Tonk Man. The Iron Sheik. New Jack. Three of the most controversial men in wrestling. Three of the most hilarious men in wrestling. What happens when you sit all three down in a room? I'm sure you'll be shocked when I say it becomes pure chaos. This is less a shoot interview and more of an organized train wreck of epic proportions ending with an I shit you not moment of the entire crew getting kicked out of the hotel room by the manager because of complaints from other rooms. Unbelievable. New Jack goes on his tirades, at one point grilling Paul Heyman, and Sheiky baby is in the background hilariously saying "Amen" during Jack's diatribe. If you can't enjoy this disc, you probably can't enjoy anything and spend most your time at various message boards complaining about John Cena's moveset anyway.

One chapter particularly noteworthy is where the guys are asked about Chris Benoit and you will see New Jack GO OFF, including Jack ranting on the WWE wellness policy. Because the entire shoot is uncontrolled to a degree, there are times when the guys talk over each other and make you want to scream, but the charisma and interactions between all three men easily overcome that negative. It actually makes for a fun watch at times, such as one point where you have Eric Simms talking loudly on a phone telling New Jack's friends how to get to the hotel, Honky Talk talking about how this is "real" compared to that "Hulk Hogan bullshit," and New Jack popping up from behind the couch like some sort of deranged Whack A Mole game. Seriously. Honky Tonk shines again and this guy could be in anything and I'd watch. How can you not love HTM, Sheiky and New Jack tearing into Dusty Rhodes? After the guys get kicked out of the room the DVD has some small bonus bits, including an ultra serious Jim Neidhart with Sheik during a radio interview and a surreal moment with Iron Sheik out with the guys from the Howard Stern show.

***Check out Rumble Radio's recent interview with "The Franchise" Shane Douglas. It's available via mp3 download from the link. Interesting discussion, especially with Shane detailing where the Dean Douglas character was originally designed to go.

Between the Ropes goes PREMIUM: Brian Fritz and the boys behind the Between the Ropes audio show have finally upgraded and taken their site to the next level. It features MMA and pro wrestling blogging, news updates, a message board, and an archive of their radio broadcast that includes some 400 shows. We're talking some big guests too, such as Vince McMahon, Ric Flair, Randy Couture, and Randy Jackson. Fritz has recently been heard on the Wrestling Observer Live show as one of the revolving co-hosts along with permanent mainstay Bryan Alvarez. Certainly worth checking out, especially if you are a big fan of wrestling audio. BetweenTheRopes.com this week features an interview with Ken Shamrock that talks about his upcoming fight in March against Robert Berry. WEI Score: + 1

G.L.O.W.'s Greatest TV Moments DVD - A while back I reviewed the first volume of Big Vision's G.L.O.W. series and it was a wonderful trip down memory lane. I was such a big fan of G.L.O.W. in the '80s, mostly because porn was a lot harder to get than it is now. In fact, I think the first person I ever had a crush on was G.L.O.W. wrestler Hollywood. That crush continued for years until the great Britney Spears …Baby One More Time video aired on MTV in 1999 which, "changed my life forever," as Homer Simpson would say.

This recent collection has the first three best-of G.L.O.W. DVDs and at a great deal, as you should be able find it for less than twenty bucks (like by CLICKING HERE. It's not something I would recommend to everybody, but if you are in the mood for a fun time, and especially if you grew up watching G.L.O.W. like I did, then this is a great guilty pleasure that you can relive again. Maybe Big Vision can get the rights Bodyslam or the Hogan cartoon and I can zoom right back to 1986 all over again. WEI Score: +1

Pro Wrestling Illustrated hands out it's year end awards: Talking about G.L.O.W. brings me back to another thing I couldn't live without in the '80s, Pro Wrestling Illustrated. At the time, it was really the only way I knew about anything in wrestling as I hadn't heard of the dirt sheets yet. Later it would be the first place where I could actually see pictures of this "ECW" I was hearing so much about. I loved PWI so much I even subscribed to their low rent, poorly produced PWI Weekly, which was a poor man's Observer and that's still too high of praise for it. The one issue of the year I always loved the most was the year end awards issue. They would have full page pics of the guys, with some even holding their cheap plaques. The next page would have a full run down of why they won the award and then gave the three runners-up. Sounds kinda lame now, but in the eyes of me as a 12 year old, it was the greatest thing ever printed by man.

***The debut episode of the Heyman Hustle is now up and running. Guest starring Jonny Fairplay, other Survivor goofs, some NYC whackjobs, Jesse Ventura, and Spider-Man (seriously) (no, seriously). Not the worst thing you’ll ever see, but also not quite the “revolution” that Heyman promised it would be. Heyman has earned the opportunity for me to let this keep going and see if it improves, so we'll check it out next week and see if he starts bringing the goods.

***Last week I explained the diplomatic way one must go about in communicating with wrestling's Two Towers in San Jose, CA and Lynnwood, WA. This week I will attempt to explain even something I don't understand, the Figure Four Affiliate Program. You see, a couple years ago F4Wonline set up an Affiliate Program, where you would place a link on your site or whatever and if someone subscribed, you would get a percentage. As a loyal F4W Empire soldier, I of course immediately placed a link on Gumgod.com, the least updated website in wrestling history. Every month for about the last two years I have been getting emails from the Affiliate Program that I have made a sale and computes my percentage. The emails are unreadable and the accounting program is no doubt the same one Paramount used to prove they made no money on the Eddie Murphy Coming to America blockbuster.

Our first entrant for FIVE THINGS is Justin Shapiro. Known worldwide for his work recapping for the Observer website and is often referred to as, "a poor man's CRZ or a rich man's Todd Martin." Shapiro is also a frequent guest on Joe Gagne's well remembered Joe vs. The World podcast. IMMEDIATELY check out episodes 24 and 52 where Joe and Justin discuss the legendary WWE films The Marine and The Condemned, respectively. Currently you can catch Shapiro's genius over at the Wrestling Fan with his Retro Heat reviews. Without further ado, here are FIVE THINGS you didn’t know about Justin Shapiro, straight from Justin himself:

3. With the line between worker, MMA fighter, and internet wrestling reporter blurrier than ever, I feel obligated to discuss my own athletic background. My most crowning achievement was probably pitching a shutout in gym class floor hockey in February 1998 -- paying off my team (the blue pinnies) electing to use the nimble Shapiro in net in lieu of what had become the popular strategy of putting the two fattiest fatties between the pipes.

***Thanks Justin! Listeners to F4Wonline's massive amount of audio know that Justin and I are forever linked in an inextricable way. Before I go on, I have to confess I have no idea where the world "inextricable" came from and I can't believe I spelled it right. I must be channeling a real author at this point, so look out PULITZER~! Anyway, both Justin and myself have been the proud recipients of emails from Nelson Frazier, who you may know as Big Daddy V. Mr. Frazier was quite unhappy that both Justin and I had the temerity to call him "fat." That's right, because neither Justin or I have ever stepped into a wrestling ring, we couldn't fathom what the word "fat" meant and how it couldn’t possibly apply to Big Daddy V. Believe it or not kids, being a wrestling writer isn't as glamorous as it seems.

2. I used to be an avid video gamer. From the first time I played Pitfall on the Atari 2600 as a kid until I finally gave up after getting the Sega Dreamcast near the new Millenium, I was a gotta have it for every game system imaginable. Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Sega Genesis, TurboGraphix, Sega CD, the 3DO, every system you could possibly think of. The only thing I didn't get was Neo Geo, but I was even contemplating that but the idea of importing Japanese games was even too crazy for me to do. Besides the home consoles, I used to spend an inordinate time at the local arcade in Manchester, NH playing the various forms of Street Fighter, Gauntlet, X-Men, Paperboy, and my all time favorite Cyberball. I couldn't get enough. I don't know what happened, but when video games finally went to the next level with the introduction of Playstation, my interest completely died. I hadn't played a video game in years until this past Thanksgiving when a family member brought over his Nintendo Wii to my house and I have to admit, I gotta a little of the gaming bug back. I'm now looking forward to picking up a Wii one day and get my gaming groove back on.

WWE.com unveils exclusive t-shirt for The Miz: Here's the ad copy - If you ask self-proclaimed chick magnet The Miz,all the ladies want him and all the guys want to be him. And, quite frankly, it's hard to argue otherwise. Embrace the Chick Magnet within and get the new The Miz Chick Magnet T-Shirt today. Hoorah! Dear lord, as good as the Cena shirt was last week, this is just as bad and I can't fathom why WWE ruins most of their shirts with the godawful "slogans" on the back. Who the f--- would wear this shirt out in public?! Who is the f---ing demographic for this shirt? Social retards completely devoid of any fashion sense?! WEI Score: - 5

Keith and I were front row enjoying the action during the Better Than Our Best show, when Keith decided to go to the bathroom because he knew intermission was coming up and he wanted to beat the lines. Unfortunately, this was when Gabe booked the angle of Chris Hero and Necro Butcher coming to the ring unannounced and attacking BJ Whitmer. With Keith gone, Hero and and Necro were part of a red hot angle, culminating with them being run off by Adam Pearce and the ROH security goofs. Pearce then checked on Whitmer back in the ring and yelled out, "Is there a doctor in the house?! Keep in mind this is in Chicago, where Keith seems to know everybody, and all of a sudden a loud, "DOCTOR KEITH! DOCTOR KEITH" chant started, with one section of the crowd pointing directly at me, right where Keith should have been. To say I've never seen anything as surreal in wrestling before or since would be an understatement, but the capper was finally seeing Keith during intermission and telling him the story. At first Keith doubted it, but we were over near his buddy Adam Summers (co-host of the F4Wonline Adam & Mike Show) and Adam confirmed it. The look on Keith's face is one I will never, ever forget. And to top it off, Gabe Sapolsky cut that moment off the DVD, so we'll have to wait years until an ROH Uncensored 2 is released for Keith to get that monkey off his back.

Reviews of note:
On the Road with the Honky Tonk Man DVD
Forever Hardcore (documentary on ECW) DVD
Shoot Interview with Team 3-D DVD
"Bodyslams" by Gary Michael Cappetta

COMICS~! New Avengers Vol.1 - Even though I’m a relatively big fan of Brian Michael Bendis, especially his appearances on the T, I scoffed when New Avengers was announced as a new title a few years ago. At the time I had not read Avengers: Disassembled or House of M and figured it was just another attempt by the Mighty Marvel Hype Machine to start yet another unreadable Avengers title. After hearing so many good things over the last few years I decided to break down and order New Avengers Vol. 1, the hardcover that collects the first ten issues of the series.

And I’ll be goddamned if I wasn’t wrong…again. New Avengers was a TREMENDOUS read. I couldn’t put it down. Broken up into two main arcs, the first covers the team being put together and a maximum-security prison break from The Raft, the second gives the back story of the mysterious character The Sentry. Bendis excels at many things, but what might be his strongest trait is the ability to write spot-on dialogue. I found myself laughing out loud several times at things Spider-Man had said, something I haven’t done in a long, long time. Bendis also nails Luke Cage, Captain America, and Iron Man. He just “gets” these characters like few others. And did I mention the art by David Finch? F---ing awesome. Just awesome stuff.

CLICK HERE to pick up your copy of New Avengers Vol.1. You might as well order Vol. 2 while you’re at it, otherwise you’ll be like me and dying for more as soon as you finish the book.

DVD~! SUNSHINE - This one probably went under your radar last year, but Sunshine is a terrific science fiction film that won’t turn off the people in your life that don’t like stuff like Star Wars (such as my g/f). Directed by Danny Boyle (who also did 28 Days Later), Sunshine is about a small crew who are sent into space to re-ignite the sun after a dark mass has extinguished it. A surprisingly great cast led by Cilian Murphy (Scarecrow in Batman Begins) and Chris Evans (Fantastic Four) put together a refreshing take on your standard disaster film. Though the budget wasn’t at Michael Bay level, the special effects are extraordinary and have some very innovative things going on throughout the movie. Lots of legitimate suspense arrives from unconventional ways that you just don’t get in your standard sci-fi film. I haven’t been this impressed by a sci-fi film since Joss Whedon’s Serenity in 2005. If there is one complaint, it is that the third act is wildly different than the two that led up to it. Personally, I didn’t mind it at all and thought I picked up on seeds that were sown for it earlier in the movie. The DVD also comes loaded with a bunch of great special features, including a good amount of deleted scenes and some short films by Boyle.

CLICK HERE to get Sunshine delivered to your door, and at 33% off to boot!

DID YOU SEE THIS?! An ad for Strip 'N Shine hair remover featuring none other than Stacy Keibler. I'm sure no one is shocked that Stacy being added to the My Life with Brian, or whatever that unwatchable show was called, did nothing for the ratings and ended up getting cancelled. I always liked Stacy though, and hopefully the former Mrs. Hancock will show up on a show I'll actually watch.

Last week's Wrestling Enjoyment Index: 53
This week's net change: + 8
Current enjoyment level: 61

PERMA-LINKS:
* Orlando Attractions Magazine - If you are a theme park NUT like me, you owe it to yourself to sign up for this fantastic magazine that spotlights all the great stuff down here in Florida. Disney World. Universal. Sea World, and just a ton of other stuff. Top notch articles and brilliant photographs make this one of my favorite things to read. It also helps to have several wrestling tie-ins, since several wrestlers (Scotty 2 Hotty, Mick Foley among others) are theme park fanatics as well!
* Scarface: The Devil in Disguise TPB - A collection of the superb four issue series from IDW publishing. Written by a wrestling fan and featuring the backstory of one of Hollywood’s most charismatic, not to mention controversial, characters: Tony Montana! If you enjoyed the movie, you’ll enjoy this.
* The Full Pint’s website - If you are a fan of beer, like me, than this is your one stop destination for all things beer. Reviews, news, and a ton of entertaining stuff will be found here. Check it out!

Special thanks to: ”Sensational” Scott Paris, Keith Lipinski, Chris Schneider and Ian Hamilton. Of course none of this would be possible without the talented hands of The Wrestling Fan’s Sean Carless. Check out Sean's classic satire on Discounted WWE x-mas merchandise, featuring the John Lauranitis t-shirt!

Billionaire philanthropist Derek Burgan, who fights crime when not writing DVD reviews, has been watching wrestling since he was ten years old. He even has a MySpace page. If you have any questions, corrections, feedback, or goofy ideas, Derek can be reached at: derek@gumgod.com.