Lashley, Sylvester Turkay's Amateur Background, Olympic Trivia & the Week Ahead

- Lashley has been medically cleared to wrestle. He was pulled from last week’s Great American Bash show due to an elevated enzyme count in his liver. Last week, his hometown paper, The Colorado Gazette published an article about Lashley. I was interviewed for the article and am quoted several times.

- For those wondering about the background of Sylvester Turkay, everything said about him on SmackDown! was true. He did win the NCAA wrestling championship while at North Carolina State. He won the NCAA heavyweight wrestling championship in 1993. Other pro wrestlers to accomplish this feat are WWE Hall of Famer Verne Gagne, Kurt Angle, & Brock Lesnar. However, the history of MMA stars competing in pro wrestling is not as impressive. The most successful UFC stars in pro wrestling were Ken Shamrock, Dan Severn, & Tank Abbot.

- Trivia Question: The WWE properly bills Kurt Angle as the only Olympic gold medal winner in WWE history. However, he is not the first gold medalist to headline a wrestling PPV. Who was the first Olympic Gold medalist to wrestle in the main event (final match) of a PPV event? Please post your answers in the comment section. I will give the correct answer in a few days.

- The televised wrestling schedule for next week is:

• Monday Night RAW: Mon. 9-11 USA Network – Shawn Michaels vs Umaga
  
• ECW on Sci-Fi: Tue. 10-11 Sci-Fi Channel – Big Show vs Batista
  
• TNA:iMPACT!: Thu. 11-12 Spike TV – Sting will give Christian his answer
  
• Friday Night SmackDown!: Fri. 8-10 UPN – no matches announced