source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter
— As reported last week, Domino (Cliff Compton) was finally released by WWE. It was reported several weeks that he was on the chopping once they broke up his pairing with Deuce. According to some, Domino realized his limitations and may have been too forthcoming about them. He too knew Deuce would be the star as soon as they broke up. While there was talk of making Deuce a big player in WWE, since his switch to Raw in June’s Supplemental Draft, he has completely disappeared. He has not appeared on a single show since the draft, including house shows. Anyway, Domino was trying to get people in WWE to see that he was beyond the one-note Greasers gimmick, which likely explains why he’d often take his shirt off during his matches in recent months. He knew the break-up was looming, so he produced a video for a new character several months back for after the break-up of the tag team. He came up with a more modern character talking about “Global Dominotion” as his catchphrase. He also used former OVW announcer Timothy Baltimore as his rapper manager Tiny Tim and a scantily clad woman in the video. The creative team saw the video and were said to be negative on the idea, feeling that it doesn’t fit into the company’s new directive to make their programming more family friendly. The character probably would have fit in in say, 1999, but not in 2008. WWE continued using Domino in a “Jobber to the Stars” role up until his release two Fridays ago.
— IGN.com conducted interviews with Candice Michelle, the recently released Stevie Richards, ECW backstage announcer Lena Yada, Chavo Guerrero, Tommy Dreamer, John Morrison, and The Miz at last Saturday’s WWE SummerFest event in Venice, California. Regarding her upcoming return, Candice said, “When I got to meet up with Candice Michelle, I told her that RAW needed her now more than ever, and she replied, “…you know Mickie’s been doing a really good job of holding down the Women’s Division over there. I really can’t wait to get back. Just to see everybody, help her out and maybe [get] some revenge. I’ve got some issues still to take care of. I need to take care of what happened with Beth Phoenix and you know what, I’m going to get my title back.” {WWE SummerFest 2008}
— According to a number of readers, the Edge and Vickie Guerrero segment that closed out last night’s edition of SmackDown was not shown to viewers in the UK. Two other backstage segments he was involved in were completely cut out from Sky Sports’ broadcast as well.
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