Britney Update

Look who's back on the cover of the latest Rolling Stone magazine; it's Britney. And even though she looks like a muppet, at least she is back in shape. The new album hits on Tuesday.

(Photo from rollingstone.com)

24: Redemption

The show 24 returned last night for a 2-hour movie and holy smokes it was great. If you missed it, try to catch a replay or you can buy it on DVD on Tuesday. Can't wait for the new season in January!

Congratulations!

Congratulations to one of my all-time favorite WWE Divas, Kristal Marshall, who won the Ms. Bikini America contest over 400 other contestants on Saturday in Las Vegas. Even more amazing, this woman just recently gave birth within the last couple of months. If you would like to know why she won the competition, check out the clip below (from a WWE show from last year) and scroll to the 2:00 mark. Mercy. Note to TNA Wrestling: Please sign this woman and put her with the Beautiful People. Pronto:

Celebrity Championship Wrestling

It was a wild week on Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling. First of all, for some reason, they let Danny Bonaduce come back even though he got cut last week. Screech took exception to it and they let them settle their feud in a scripted, pre-determined "hardcore" wrestling match. Insanity. Goldberg made a brief appearance this week also. I loved the part where Danny Bonaduce hit him with a trash can, Goldberg didn't move, then said "now hit me like a man". He was so great during his "streak" storyline in WCW and I miss seeing him in wrestling. Too bad WWE has shitheads running the ship and TNA would have him in climbing matches, because he could have a great last run in either league if they could get themselves together. But hey, what company these days wants to make money? The part of the show that I had a problem with was when the group practiced how to hit each other with chairs. The last remaining female, Trishelle (above), got hit hard in the back with a chairshot from Brian Knobbs of the Nasty Boys. I could not believe that they did it. Why would they strike a 100 pound woman with a steel chair right in the back? How about using some common sense? It was absurd (plus, if you just had to hit a woman with a steel chair, shouldn't they have chosen someone more deserving like Sarah Palin?). Anyway, she rightfully went directly to the medical staff and was hesitant to participate in some of the drills when she returned. In the end, the judges said that she "didn't give 100%" which led to her being cut this week. It was ridiculous. She seemed happy to leave though. Oh well. See ya on the next Real World/Road Rules Challenge, kid. Of course, now all the eye candy is gone and we're now stuck looking at a bunch of goofy guys. Do these people want ratings or what? Next week: more contrived madness!

(Photo from cmt.com)

"The Wrestler" Trailer

I'm really looking forward to seeing this movie. In case you haven't heard of it, it's a movie called The Wrestler and it has been receiving Oscar buzz. It is being touted as Mickey Rourke's big comeback role. It won awards at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals. Bruce Springsteen has contributed to the soundtrack. Some of it was shot at Ring of Honor events. This will be my "Batman" movie for 2009. Should be good:

Disgraceful

I usually try to keep the tone of Hollywood Nation lighthearted with my usual player-hating and oogling of women, but I have to make an exception with this post. It has to do with the most lowlife and disgraceful company in this country-- World Wrestling Entertainment. This morning I woke up and checked a couple of wrestling sites. All were reporting that WWE's own website had posted an article that wrestler, I'm sorry, "entertainer" Jeff Hardy was found passed out in a Boston hotel stairway and rushed to the hospital. It was even posted in AOL's "Top Stories" section on its homepage. With Hardy's well-known substance abuse history and the fact that seemingly every few months a wrestler passes away, the natural inclination was to think that Jeff Hardy had either died or best case had some kind of drug overdose. Well, it turns out now that the story was part of a storyline for tonight's WWE Survivor Series pay-per-view show.

What kind of decent company pulls this kind of crap? The message boards were filled with posts from worried fans specualting on Hardy's health. I myself had that dreaded "here we go again" feeling. What kind of scumbags would do this to their own customers and fans? What goes through the minds of people like Vince and Stephanie McMahon, because surely one of them had to have signed off on this. Do they think even one step ahead before pulling a stunt like this? Does anyone at the top have any common sense, let alone common deceny? And then they sit and actually wonder why they can't attract high-brow advertisers. This is why! It's an utter disgrace and I'll remember this the next time I consider buying one of their overpriced pay-per-view events, souvenirs, video games, etc. They should be embarrassed but history shows us that I should know better than that.

The Beautiful People vs. Sojournor Bolt & Christy

From last night's Impact. Isn't Christy adorable? Someone wanna pull Billy Gunn off of this poor woman?