Former WWE/WCW superstars Sean “X-Pac” Waltman and Konnan a part of a new Kickstarter campaign for a new wrestling series called, “Viva L.A. Lucha.” Kevin Kleinrock, producer of former MTV wrestling series “Wrestling Society X,” has launched this Kickstarter page with the hopes of raising $60,000 by July 2nd. With these funds, Kleinrock’s “Masked Republic” production company will film a television pilot and eight webisodes of content.

Klienrock states, that he’s recording the webisodes in case the pilot never gets picked up. This way, the hours of lucha libre style wrestling content they are going to record for the project will still see the light of day either way. Waltman and Konnan are reportedly going to be helping the project by offering autographs, merchandise, and even a private party/screening of the content with Konnan to those that pledge certain amounts of money to the cause.

You can watch Kleinrock’s promotional video and read his opening pitch from their Kickstarter campaign below:

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Thursday’s IMPACT WRESTLING LIVE! on SpikeTV will emanate from the USF Sun Dome in Tampa, Florida. Advertised for the show…

- The Aces and 8s have announced that they will hold a “Patching In” ceremony to officially welcome AJ Styles to the group! Will he join them?

- What will TNA General Manager Hulk Hogan do if AJ is joins the Aces and 8s?

- Kurt Angle will face Mr. Anderson…again.

- Sting and Bully Ray will be in the building. Will physical action between the two go down before Slammiversary?

- James Storm claims he will be in the Tag Team Championship at Slammiversary. Will he announce who his partner is?

- The TNA Knockouts championship is on the line, when Velvet Sky will defend the title against Mickie James!

- The GutCheck Tournament with Sam Shaw vs. Alex Silva

- X-Division superstar Suicide makes his return IMPACT WRESTLING LIVE!

Join us LIVE every Thursday night for complete IMPACT WRESTLING! coverage here and on Twitter, beginning at 8pm EST. IMPACT WRESTLING! airs Thursday nights on SpikeTV,  8pm EST.

The post IMPACT WRESTLING LIVE! Preview 05/23/13 appeared first on WrestlingRumors.net.

TNA recently announced that they are initiating a new social media contest every Thursday night during IMPACT WRESTLING LIVE! on Twitter. The announcement came on IMPACTWRESTLING.com, and states that fans will go head-to-head, using creative and entertaining tweets throughout the show. A winner will be picked at the end of the broadcast, and then put up against another fan the following week.

You can read the entire press release below:

IMPACT WRESTLING takes the social conversation and turns it into a battle Thursday nights with its new #IMPACTFanBattle.

Each week, two twitter challengers will “face-off” on twitter in a “battle” of the best online commentary – perhaps your stellar play-by-play skills…or your killer color commentary -  about the night’s #IMPACTLive.  During the #IMPACTFanBattle, @IMPACTWRESTLING will retweet the some of the best tweets from our two competitors while keeping an open eye for potential challengers for the next week’s competition!

The #IMPACTFanBattle wages on Thursdays during our IMPACT WRESTLING broadcast on Spike TV.  Then, at the conclusion of each night, we leave it to your peers to vote on who had the best tweets – and ultimately decide who will face a new challenger next week the reigning champ of the#IMPACTFanBattle!   Got mad twitter skills and earn the respect of your peers two weeks in a row?  We’ll send you a prize pack from ShopTNA.com!

Want to be a part?  We’re looking NOW!  Tweet out this article with the hashtag #IMPACTFanBattleand we will set our eyes on you.  Once IMPACT is on the air, we will pick one of you tweeting with#IMPACTLive and put you into battle with the reigning champion. 

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WWE superstar Tyson Kidd, who has been out of active competition since January 2013, teased a return to the WWE Universe Wednesday evening. Kidd, real name T.J. Wilson, acknowledged via Twitter that the May 27th edition of Monday Night Raw has been deemed “Bret Hart Appreciation Night,” and many feel that he may make an appearance.

So I heard this Monday from Calgary Raw is Bret Hart Appreciation Night……

— Tyson Kidd (@KiddWWE) May 22, 2013

Kidd suffered a torn knee meniscus in January, had surgery immediately, and has been rehabbing the injury ever since. Kidd has made one WWE appearance since being removed from television during the February 21st episode of NXT, updating the fans on his condition before almost being attacked by Leo Kruger. Kidd is a former WWE “Unified” Tag Team Champion and founding member of the revamped Hart Foundation, which consisted of himself, David Hart Smith, and Natalya. They went by the moniker of the “Hart Dynasty,” seeing as David Hart Smith and Natalya are children of members of the original “Hart Foundation,” founded by Bret “the Hitman” Hart.

While Kidd isn’t related to the Harts, he grew up being very close to them, and has been in a relationship with Natalya “Nattie” Neidhart for over 10 years. Given Kidd’s history with the Harts, he may appear during normal broadcast, or only during the “Bret Hart Appreciation” segment on the show that will air exclusively in Cananda, as we reported earlier today.

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Former WCW and WWE World Heavyweight Champion Booker T has updated his status on returning to his General Manager role on WWE’s Friday Night Smackdown. As we previously reported, the “5 time, 5 time,…5 TIME” WCW Champion underwent surgery earlier this Spring and was taken off of television. Booker T went to Twitter Thursday afternoon to update his followers on his recovery process.

Hello universe just wanted to give an update, I should be back to my SD, GM duties very soon I really miss you guys.

— Booker T. Huffman (@BookerT5x) May 23, 2013

Booker T has been Smackdown’s General Manager since July 31 of 2012. A “managerial feud” between Booker T and Teddy Long had begun just before he was removed from WWE programming. It is believed that the feud will resume from where it left off as soon as Booker T returns to his position.

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Rumors are circling the wrestling community that WWE officials may be toying with the idea of putting CM Punk in a program with Brock Lesnar upon his return. While nothing is official, and Punk isn’t rushing his return, WWE officials believe that it would be a good program to run with.

This storyline would include either Punk turning on his representative Paul Heyman, or vice versa, to make Punk the obvious babyface in the program with Lesnar. The belief backstage is that Lesnar was brought in to be a heel and a heel only, meaning that Punk would need to be the face. Chances are that Punk would get a face reaction upon his return anyway, and the WWE would just use that momentum to sky rocket him back into a face for a while. The program is being talked about starting late in the summer (if Punk returns by then), in order to set up the Punk/Lesnar matches either at Summerslam or Survivor Series.

With this information only making its way through the rumor mill, always remember that the card is subject to change.

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WWE Hall of Famer Sunny, real name Tamara Lynn Sytch, has taken to her official Facebook page to break her silence since being released from prison. As we reported earlier this week, Sytch served 4 months in a Connecticut prison after multiple arrests in the fall of 2012. Now free and residing in New Mexico, Sytch has been updating her Facebook page constantly with status and photos, saying, “It’s very hard to sign off the computer when you havent used it in 4 months!”

Sunny’s first post following her release was, “I’m free. Free from prison. Free from cancer. Free from my nightmare. I thank God for the lessons he has taught me and the blessings bestowed upon me. I have only good things ahead in my life.” Sytch has stated that she contracted HPV before entering prison which progressed into cervical cancer. Following a hysterectomy, she now claims to be cancer free.

She then updated the page regarding her new autobiography, that she says she wrote while incarcerated, “Hey world…get ready for my autobiography!! This is gonna be one hell of a read, if I say so myself!! OK , time to go type up my book…. there are 480 handwritten pages to work on! talk to you all through out the night!” Sytch has also updated her page with a new look, which you can see below:

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Former WWE Divas/Women’s Champion and TNA Knockouts Champion Mickie James has been very vocal as of late, doing lots of interviews for radio and news outlets. Recently, James joined the TJR Wrestling Radio crew to talk about her upcoming championship match against Velvet Sky, her new country album, the differences between heels and faces, and more. Some highlights of the interview are…

On her new country album “Somebody’s Gonna Pay” - “It took about a year to complete this album. I’m grateful that it did because we really took our time with it. We had a chance to make it right, make it really flow and make it a reflection of who I am. We had some of the best musicians in the world in the studio in Nashville – at least I felt like it – they were incredible. Hopefully people can connect with the album and love it. If they don’t then that’s okay too.”

The differences between heels and babyfaces –  “It’s been so long since I’ve been a heel (2006) that it’s really hard to judge. You can have a lot of fun playing a bad girl. You do get a chance to say a lot of things that you can’t when you’re a face. It’s a completely different kind of character. The babyface character is kind of close to who I am in real life except the volume is turned up all the way. As a heel you get to make twists and turns that really sell that character so that you can get that genuine kind of heat from people that want to hate you. I really think that some of the best heels are also those people that can really get reactions as babyfaces too. As a babyface you often think about what a heel might do to react to you too so that when you finally turn heel you visualize all that stuff.”

On her upcoming match against Velvet Sky for the Knockouts Championship - “Because we’ve been partners and worked together so much in the past I feel like we know each other’s stuff so well. It won’t be one of my easiest matches. I’m really hoping she feels up to par to go out there to wrestle because she has a knee injury and she was given the ringpost figure four by Gail Kim last week too.”

Mickie James’ album is available on multiple digital music platforms, including iTunes, and she will face Velvet Sky on IMPACT WRESTLING! Thursday, May 23rd. IMPACT WRESTLING! airs on Spike TV at 8pm ET. You can listen to the entire TJR Wrestling Radio broadcast here.

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Former World Heavyweight Champion and WWE “part-time” superstar Chris Jericho is now being advertised for several house shows and television tapings throughout June and July. As we reported in April, Jericho is expected to leave the WWE again in August. His absence then will be so that he can take Fozzy, the band in which he frontmans, back on tour. As of right now, there is no information on when Jericho would return after Fozzy’s late summer tour.

Y2J has been very active in the company since his return in January of ’13 at the Royal Rumble PPV, where he entered second into the match and lasted almost an hour. He is currently in a program with Fandango, with each man having a PPV victory over the other. Fandango stole the first W from Jericho at WrestleMania 29, but Jericho answered and pinned the rookie last Sunday at Extreme Rules. Expect their feud to continue until at least Payback, which is the WWE’s new June PPV, but with Jericho sticking around until at least July’s Money in the Bank event, the feud could go even longer. Either way, the “Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla” is sticking around for a few more months, and that can only mean good things for anyone he faces and for the WWE as a whole.

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The post Chris Jericho Advertised for More Events This Summer appeared first on WrestlingRumors.net.

Hulk Hogan recently spoke with Christopher Spata at TBO.com for the Tampa Tribune.  Hogan is currently promoting the TNA Impact Wrestling taping which will be live at the USF Sun Dome tonight at 7 p.m.

Among the topics discussed are Hogan’s involvement with TNA, the sex-tape scandal, and turning down an endorsement deal with Viagra.

On TNA:

“I started here in Tampa, and to be coming back 35 years later with my own company that I’m the general manager of, it’s pretty crazy. TNA has the momentum. We’ve been around for 11 years now. We’re focusing on how wrestling should be and not getting caught up in all the soap opera stuff that goes on with other wrestling shows. Between Jeff Hardy, Kurt Angle, Sting and the other top names we’ve got wrestling for us, we’re getting a lot of traction.”

On The Sex Tape:

“Everybody’s figured out who everybody is. I can’t really talk about it because there’s legal drama getting ready to go down, but things are definitely moving in the right direction for me, thank god. It was a tough time. Nobody expects something to come back to haunt them after six years, but once I had a chance to sit down with my wife and my children and be completely truthful with them, whatever the media said and whoever stabbed me in the back didn’t matter. At the end of the day, I’d say something great has come out of it – my life, and the new people in my life.”

On Viagra:

“Probably about 20 years ago, I got approached to endorse Viagra. When I was 40, I was like “are you crazy? I’m not doing that.” Well now that I’m 60 I think it might not be a bad idea”

On Bubba The Love Sponge:

“When you find out who somebody really is, it can be hard to take. People hide behind smoke and mirrors. When you find out somebody was never really your friend and never had your best interests at heart, yeah, it’s hard to take. But there is no more of that person in my life at all on any level.”

The post Hulk Hogan Speaks With Tampa Tribune About TNA, The Sex Tape, and Viagra. appeared first on WrestlingRumors.net.