WWE Signs Japanese Star

According to International Herald Tribune, the WWE has officially signed Japanese wrestler, Yamamoto. Yamamoto is from the New Japan Pro-Wrestling and has signed a multiyear contract. Terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed.

The signing is part of the WWE's tradition of having a Japanese wrestler on its roster, Wells said. WWE already has one Japanese wrestler, 40-year-old Shoichi Funaki.

Yamamoto begins training as early as this month at Florida Championship Wrestling, a facility for developing WWE wrestlers, with Steve Keirn, Tom Prichard and other former pro wrestlers turned trainers.

Yamamoto's deal is a "development contract," Wells said and it is when he will make his debut on a WWE show.

Source: International Herald Tribune

WWE Grapples for Japan's Market

An Associated Press article examines the WWE's latest move into the new territory of Japan, as they try to make a push for more market share. On September 7, a special Summerslam Festival was held, which is a viewing event that charges fans $30 to attend. Fans then get to see previously aired Pay-Per-Views on big screen TV's, These events can be seen at home as well, but fans prefer to pay for the chance to see WWE superstars and official merchandise in person.

WWE believes Japan is its most important market overseas. There's just one ambassador the WWE has as far as wrestlers and that's Funaki, who spoke to the AP as well. Here's an excerpt from the article:

Japan has its own brand of professional wrestling that is less outrightly fictional than WWE. The WWE is open about how no real fighting is involved. But Japanese wrestling is historically inspired by its American counterpart and boasts its own heroes and themes.

WWE's only Japanese superstar is 40-year-old Shoichi Funaki, who goes by the ring name Funaki. He acknowledges that Japanese are just starting to enjoy WWE, with all its boisterous exchanges and flamboyance, complete with heckling.

"Japanese fans are changing," he told The Associated Press. "The key is to give them more opportunities to watch WWE. If they see it, they'll get it."

Read the full article here at Associated Press.

Rumored WWE Suspensions List

The WWE announced it suspended 10 of its performers this past Thursday night, August 30, 2007. An 11th suspension was acknowledged the next day by WWE attorney, Jerry McDevitt. WWE said the suspensions were based on information received from the Albany County, N.Y., district attorney's office. Jerry McDevitt also stated the suspensions were due to wrestlers buying human growth hormones.

Suspensions under the WWE Wellness Program are for 30 days without pay for a 1st offense and 60 days for the 2nd offense. A 3rd offense results in termination. According to various sources the majority of the suspensions given were for 30 days with one wrestler receiving a 60 day.

No official list of names has been released by WWE. A Sports Illustrated article listed 14 names of wrestlers who had received some kind of steroids, human growth hormone or other performance enhancing drug from a pair of facilities in Florida that were raided by federal authorities as part of a government investigation. (3 of the names: Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero and Brian "Crush" Adams are deceased. Sylvain Grenier had been released by WWE.)

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List of 10 Rumored WWE Suspensions:

Ken "Mr. Kennedy" Anderson
Mike "Simon Dean" Bucci - released by WWE
Adam "Edge" Copeland
Edward "Umaga" Fatu
Shoichi Funaki
Chavo Guerrero
Charles Haas, Jr.
Shane "Gregory" Helms
John "Morrison" Hennignan (Johnny Nitro)
Darren "William Regal" Matthews

The 11th suspended wrestler could potentially be Robert "Booker T" Huffman, Anthony Carelli (Santino Marella), or Chris "Masters" Mordetsky, whose names have also been rumored as suspended by various sites. Eugene and Cryme Tyme were recently released by WWE, but have not been mentioned amongst the suspended names.

Randy Orton was mentioned originally as amongst the various suspended wrestlers but appears not to be at this point. David "Batista" Bautista was also rumored by sites but does not appear to be amongst those suspended. Both wrestlers were recently announced as being a part of the Unforgiven Pay Per View card, scheduled for September 16.

The WWE or Albany County, N.Y., district attorney's office have neither confirmed nor denied that any of these wrestlers are suspended. As you can see from the above info, rumors and speculation can only continue to fly without any official list of names released by WWE, making it difficult to pin down all of the names.

The Sports Illustrated article, "Fourteen wrestlers tied to pipeline" documents the various purchases of the names on their list for more information.

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PWTorch has also reported that WWE has added marijuana as a banned substance for its performers:

"WWE has told it's wrestlers that marijuana is now a banned substance and will not be treated as a drug that is in the same class of other banned drugs. Instead of a suspension if tested positive there will only be a fine of a $1000 and this also does not count as a 'strike' in the '3 strikes' rule."