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TNA ended 2010 with two bits of bad news, as their world champion is expected to plead guilty to drug charges and their secondary television show was canceled. The Moore County District Attorney's office on 12/27 released information that Jeff Hardy would be pleading guilty on 1/20, the date of his next scheduled hearing. Hardy's case included charges of trafficking in opiates (Vicodin), two counts of possession with intent to sell or deliver a controlled substance, maintaining a dwelling to keep a controlled substance, possession of cocaine and possession of drug paraphernalia. The case had gotten continuance after continuance this past year, since his initial arrest at a raid of his home in September 2009. Maureen Krueger of the Moore County District Attorneys office wouldn't comment on the nature of the deal reached between herself and Hardy's attorney, James Van Camp. The case itself had been interesting because the Moore County prosecutors were said to be hard-nosed when it comes to drug issues. But Van Camp had a strong reputation as a lawyer. From shortly after the arrest, the Hardys had told friends that they weren't worried and the case would be going away, but that never ended up happening. As far as how TNA will handle this likely depends on the deal Hardy's lawyer made and whether it would include having to serve any jail time. Calls to both sides were left unreturned, and those close to Hardy were unaware any deal had been reached earlier this week, noting that in social situations over the holidays nobody had spoken about the case. Hardy was not scheduled on the company's first PPV of the year, Genesis, on 1/9 in Orlando. He was scheduled to defend his title on the February PPV against the winner of a Matt Morgan vs. Mr. Anderson match on 1/9. Those in the promotion theorized that if Hardy would have to serve time, they could add something to the show, since all television has already been taped, a match against perhaps Rob Van Dam and do the title switch. Van Dam was scheduled against a mystery opponent. Even if Hardy has to serve time, it wouldn't necessarily be immediate, and there would be time to work a storyline on the post-Genesis television shows to lead to a necessary title change. If the deal doesn't include serving time, then TNA has a different question to answer, as to whether or not they want someone convicted on drug charges as their world champion. If Hardy was in WWE, even as big of a star as he is, he would be fired, but then, in that situation, there is the chance he would address the situation differently. Another situation involves if he can plead guilty to any misdemeanor charges, because with a felony on his record, particularly a drug felony, it could play a hindrance in his traveling to certain countries. There are people in wrestling, most notably Jim Cornette and R-Truth, who are not allowed in Canada due to convictions from a long time in the past, Cornette's in the 80s and Truth in the 90s. Booker T for a long time wasn't allowed in Japan for a felony also from the 80s. It is not clear which side was asking for the continuances all year. Hardy's home was raided after Fayetteville police received a tip about drug use in his home in Cameron, NC. When they searched his home, they found 262 Vicodin pills, 180 Somas, 55 milliliters of anabolic steroids, cocaine residue and drug paraphernalia, according to police reports. The street value of the drugs was $2,500. The trafficking charge, by far the most serious, has to do with state law regarding the amount of drugs found. Matt Hardy commented on his twitter account just saying, "As a quick reminder to everyone, don't believe everything you read. There are several inaccurate facts floating around and the media loves them." Jeff Hardy's issues became public in 2003 when he would arrive late and looked unhealthy while working for WWE. Jim Ross, who headed talent relations, ordered Hardy to go into drug rehabilitation, but Hardy refused, denying he had a problem, and was released in August, 2003. Hardy worked a few indie dates but largely disappeared from wrestling until June 2004, when he signed a two-year contract with TNA. However, after a series of no-shows, including the December 2005 Turning Point PPV, TNA stopped using Hardy. He signed a three-year deal with WWE in August 2006. While always having a strong cult following, he caught fire as a personality during this run, in particular during matches with Umaga. While never considered as a potential main eventer or world champion by management, and HHH all but said this on a recent DVD release about Hardy being too small for that spot, his popularity couldn't be denied. In 2009, most within the company acknowledged that he was the most popular wrestler they had. He was the single most searched combat sports or entertainment Page 1 personality in the world on the web that year, even beating out John Cena and Brock Lesnar. Twice during that run he failed drug tests and was suspended for 30 days the first time, and 60 the second, the latter during a period before the 2008 WrestleMania and caused him to miss the show. His chasing of the WWE title at the 2008 Royal Rumble was the last non-Mania show to break the 400,000 North American buy level. While the Rumble was major reason, it beat out all but a few Rumble numbers in history and was far above any one since, and the difference was the Hardy chase of Randy Orton's WWE title, and proved that in the right situation he could be a significant draw. There was even criticism of not following up on it, however the company's WrestleMania main event plan was Orton defending against HHH and Hardy's role was to lose to Orton to help set up that match. Those who were against changing original plans were historically vindicated when Hardy tested positive in a drug test and had to miss Mania. Still, even after an incident where he was not allowed on a plane home after a taping in Nashville in November, the next month, after being switched to Smackdown and becoming pushed as along with Undertaker, one of the top two babyfaces on the brand, he was given the world title for a short run. It was always meant as a short-term deal, ending several weeks later when brother Matt turned on him in a feud that pushed the limits of tastelessness with the insinuation that Matt had caused the real-life fire that burned down Jeff's trailer and killed his pet dog. Even their father was appalled by the angle, although Matt defended it at the time, but has since changed his tune on it. Jeff had two more reigns in 2009, although one lasted only a few minutes before Edge cashed in the money in the bank on him. The final one was only for a few weeks. The final reign was notable because word was already out Hardy had decided against signing a new deal, and the company pressured him to do so. He was expected to lose at Night of Champions, but the company got him to sign a short extension, gave him the title to surprise people, and had him drop it for good at SummerSlam, in his last week with the company. He was arrested a few weeks later. After his arrest, C.M. Punk, who he feuded with on television and apparently didn't like in real life as well, did a promo on television bringing up Hardy's arrest. Hardy was said to be furious over it being brought up on WWE television, feeling it wasn't business, and people close to him said that was part of the reason he decided against returning to WWE. Most likely WWE would not have used him this year until the criminal charges were taken care of. TNA had no such compunction, and had him appear on a live television show in January, even though he had not signed a contract. Hardy finally signed in March, even with WWE doing everything it could to prevent it from happening. He has been a regular ever since, and was given the world title at the Bound for Glory PPV on 10/10 even with the charges still hanging over his head. The decision to go earlier in the year with Rob Van Dam as champion ahead of Hardy was largely because, even though Hardy was the more popular of the two, he still had the charges pending. Hardy became TNA's first-ever legitimate house show drawing card in their history early on in the run, but turned heel in October, and his subsequent house show numbers were declined significantly. In recent weeks, a video surfaced with both Hardys, at a diner, where Jeff was slurring his words and cutting a promo on Punk for some reason. In addition, at the Final Resolution PPV, there were concerns about his demeanor, and talks of stripping him of the title and pulling him from the main event on the show against Matt Morgan.

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Several sources within TNA confirmed this past week that Spike TV informed the promotion three weeks ago that Reaction would be canceled at the end of its current ten-episode contract. The contract ends with the 12/30 show and the show has been removed from the schedule after this week. From a technical standpoint this is not being called by either side publicly a cancellation, only that no contract was offered by Spike for future episodes. Spike officials told TNA that the cost of production of the show made it not worthwhile to continue. While the show did good ratings for an 11 p.m. show on the station, it was recognized that the show, a brainchild of Eric Bischoff and Jason Hervey, was to an extent gimmicking its rating by having the television main event of Impact bleed into the show, giving it an artificial first quarter boost. The ratings pattern for the show would show a huge drop in audience as soon as the main event match ended. It was a smart move early on to establish the show by having the main event finish on Reaction, but after nearly 20 episodes, it was noted that by continuing to do so, that Bischoff and Hervey weren't showing a lot of confidence in their unique format and different style interviews. After the ratings were strong for the early episodes, it surprised people that the renewal for a second run was for only ten weeks, showing that the station didn't have nearly the commitment to the show the promotion hoped for. Spike officials told TNA the decision was financially motivated as opposed to ratings driven, but obviously they go hand-in-hand in the sense if ratings were bigger, it would be financially worth the costs. Spike officials stated that they will be doing several "expanded length" episodes of Impact this year, similar to what the USA Network does with special Raws. A question regards what role Hervey, who is partners with Bischoff in a television production company, will take with the promotion. Reaction was largely Hervey's baby, as he was the voice on the other end of the camera not shown, and had moved to Nashville to produce the show. The dropping of the show was similar to the reasons Spike dropped a weekly MMA talk show in early 2007, due to costs of weekly production on a show that didn't deliver good ratings and a show that wasn't "evergreen," the Spike TV term for most of its programming which can be repeated forever because it isn't time sensitive. My own feeling is the Reaction concept, with a new style of pro wrestling talking, was a good idea in concept. My feeling is also that wrestling fans wouldn't watch 60 minutes of straight interviews after a two hour show, largely borne out by the quarter-by-quarter major declines. Doing those type of interviews during Impact and between matches would have been more effective than a stand-alone interview type show. An attempt to see if adding one match (Motor City Machine Guns vs. Generation Me empty arena match) during Reaction would keep the viewing audience didn't work. The issue was that three straight hours of TNA was too much for the majority of viewers. The idea of airing Reaction a second time on another night was tried, but it wasn't promoted at all, and evidently Spike wasn't happy with the numbers. A show like "Manswers," or even a live UFC special, and shows like Ultimate Fighter, or virtually anything else on the networks' schedule, could air for years to come over-and-over. The feeling was Reaction, as well as Impact, could only air for one week before becoming obsolete with the next episode. I'm not sure why that is, since Ultimate Fighter is episodic and sports like UFC live shows are all about being aired live, really, more than pro wrestling where live vs. taped weeks in advance hasn't led to much of a variance in ratings. But Spike constantly replays old episodes of Ultimate Fighter in marathons, as well as old Fight Night specials. The cancellation is a financial hit for the promotion, which has already faced money issues in 2010 because of a huge increase in talent contracts.

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We don't have complete details at press time but John Cena appeared to suffer a knee injury on the 12/28 house show in Wilkes-Barre, PA. Cena was working the main event, a cage match against Wade Barrett, when Barrett delivered the Wasteland. Barrett then climbed the cage slowly. Cena was to recover, and then climb up the cage to pull him down, but when Cena got up, he couldn't put any weight on one leg. Barrett had to awkwardly and for no reason climb back down, and Cena immediately put Barrett in a submission, Barrett tapped and the trainers came out. Cena talked over the mic and instead of his usual feel good go home speech that they end all the house shows with, ending with his celebrating with the crowd, he instead apologized to the crowd for the match, saying that it looks like he's going to have to miss some time. Cena limped badly to the back. If the injury is serious, the loss of Cena could not come at a worse time for the company, given that Undertaker is still considered 50-50 at best for WrestleMania. There was a makeshift Mania lineup out that was the tentative direction, which included matches with all of the active stars. Miz vs. Cena for the title was a tentative direction with Randy Orton vs. C.M. Punk, although the nature of the Punk vs. Cena program and with Rumble and Elimination Chamber as the next two PPV shows, that would make it difficult to put on a singles match between the two before Mania. Another potential short-term solution would be to have Wade Barrett in the Cena spot, just because he was kicked out of the Nexus he started. It's early to turn him face but if Cena is out for a length of time, you're looking at Orton and John Morrison as the top two faces on Raw.

Uninspired un-originality is sad, isn't it? RT: @MCO_LIVIN @HeymanHustle @JoeyStyles TNA re-hashed the ECW "the network" angle at TV

I love how TNA fans are saying WWE ripped off of WCW's promos with Sting when it really is the other way around. Sting's first promo with rain and thunder was his Starcade promo for his match with Hogan in 1997. WWE has been using rain, thunder and lightning with The Undertaker since '93-1994.

Tweets from TNA fans lashing out against TNA president Dixie Carter:

cherberrie: @tnadixie I caught the last five minute of your programming and it blows.. It is terrible... You will never be WWE. stop trying to be!

canadianbulldog: Dear @TNADixie - Nice "Surprise". Maybe next time you can surprise us with a wrestling promotion that doesn't absolutely f***ing suck.

JAVincen: @TNAwrestling @TNADixie Wow...The big surprise ending is a rip off of WWE's Undertaker promo for Sting.... Disappointing......

trtx84: Oh lord. Really @TNADixie? We're just gonna straight up copy WWE wholesale now? Embarrassing... #3311

TweepzMostLuvd: @TNADixie anything to keep them away from #1 huh? That's why this cpmpany will go down. What a let down.

jakeblckmn: @TNADixie could you please be more original, 3-3-11 really? and you wonder why your company sucks and is in the gutter, get new writers

WrestleWrestle: Y'know @TNADixie , if you're that driven to flush money down the toilet, you could just send it to me and save everyone a lot of pain.

MrGamer2558 : @TNADixie a mock video of WWE's 2-21-11 for Sting is your big surprise? you're kidding? this is a f***ing joke right?

thedylan2296: @tnadixie tna is officially dead... dixie... why? at victory have someone squash sting very quick... i wont care as long as sting looses

PocketVolcano: @TNADixie Seriously, just close up the company. Your talent is severely underpaid (esp the women) and you keep rehashing WCW stuff. Stop.

AreYouHie: @TNADixie when can i take over creative control of TNA? im pretty sure i'd bring in more viewers with much better "surprises"

bookerg: Only 1/2 an hour to go till @TNAwrestling & @tnadixie disappoint me with another overhyped "shocking surprise"! Who-hoo!

Lamou420: @TNADixie enough with the surprises already. We all know you can't deliver. Every time #tna announce a "big surprise" it's a let down.

Morris272: Sting in WWE would of been great in TNA its boring and predictable.

CdnOtakuGamer: Actually, the big surprise is that @TNADixie brought a big cake for everyone... But Matt Hardy ate it all backstage.

GrappleKingdom: Dear @TNADixie and @TNAwrestling - see how @WWE announced Sin Cara? THAT is how you make an impact in the wrestling world.

xthegunshow: @TNADixie Oh wow Sting vs Jeff Hardy...you really know how to keep those viewing figures down.

EmJayEch: The WWE is horrible & they lost me as a fan years ago, TNA is my CHOICE but TNA has opportunity and they BLOW IT BIG TIME. F-THIS @tnadixie

NotTripleH: Are we sure that TNA has the real Sting backstage, or the NWO Sting? Because I doubt @TNADixie knows the difference. #VintageDixie.

xthegunshow: @TNADixie No one gives a f*** that Sting is at tonights Impact Taping, people want him in WWE. You use him horribly.

XDustinEFLX: @TNADixie: Instead of paying your wrestlers more,you're wasting more money on a second Jersey Shore 'star'? Are you stupid?

gersfan22331: @TNADixie wow dixie the big suprise was sting wow the old man chose to stay with the 5TH rate trash that is tna

awesome_since88: @TNADixie OMG I wonder who 3-3-11 is??? This is going to change pro wrestling forever!! If I can only control myself for a whole week #TNA

EdgeUniversity: @TNADIxie so...your huge surprise for Impact was that you can copy a promo video that @WWE has been doing for the past month? GREAT JOB!

james_donald: YAY FOR COPYING WWE!!!! f*** you you dumbass bitch @TNADixie.

bookerg: I'M OFFICIALLY DONE WITH TNA. Don't say "SHOCKING SURPRISE" and not deliver. @TNAwrestling and @tnadixie. You just lost a viewer. FU.

Joerrd: @TNADixie LOL. That little 3-3-11 promo? That's the reason nobody takes your bingo hall company seriously.

The_Kliq_Army: @TNADixie so #TNA just basically stole the #WWE #Taker22111 promo lame

divalover159: @TNADixie learn to be original and never EVER copycat. if you want to be taken very seriously and not as a joke that you just made yourselfs tonight. learn to be original or your nothing more but a joke. just saying.

wmkrow: wow, @tnadixie, good job ripping off WWE and their 2-21-11 bit. Same font and everything.

Relentless_J: Lmfaoooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!! TNA really copied WWE by making a 3-3-11 video??? @TNADixie can't use ORIGINALITY!?!?!?

JeebusOMalley: @TNADixie Seriously? Not even gonna pretend to have an original thought huh? Unbelievable. Impact is garbage.

PhantomLordNYC: @TNADixie Jesus Christ can't you people come up with anything original at all???

DarkMatchRaslin: @TNADixie we liked the Sting promo the first time we saw it...when it was for Undertaker in WWE a month ago...seriously, even the numbers?

J712v2: A mock 2/21/11 video? Really TNA? Really? Dear Spike: Take TNA off TV, and put ROH on instead!

WrestleZone has learned exclusively there is enormous heat on WWE heel play-by-play announcer Michael Cole over his homophobic tweet directed at Josh Matthews. Even though WWE has given the impression the situation has been addressed, we have confirmed through multiple sources that WWE Chairman Vince McMahon felt Cole embarrassed the entire company, and many in World Wrestling Entertainment feel Cole has overstepped his bounds because he's letting his push go to his head.

WWE and GLAAD announced a partnership on March 17 to try and put an end to bullying based on sexual orientation after a series of homophobic taunts was made by John Cena.

An official statement released by WWE after GLAAD came out again Cena's remarks said, "WWE takes this issue very seriously, and has already spoken with our talent about these incidents. We are taking steps and working with GLAAD to ensure that our fans know that WWE is against bullying or discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."

After WWE avoided a major controversy regarding Cena's scripted comments, Michael Cole tweeted a one word message to Monday Night Raw announcer Josh Matthews, and the comment was picked up by TMZ.

Cole immediately removed the post, but it was posted on TMZ and picked up by media sources everywhere. You can't hide what you've already posted, and Cole immediately went into spin mode and apologized on Twitter.

However, WWE still decided to comment on the matter, which was already spiraling out of control.

A rep for WWE told TMZ, "WWE has alerted GLAAD to the situation and spoken to Michael Cole about his post. He has removed it and apologized for using hateful language. Michael will be included in the training session being done by GLAAD. WWE takes this very seriously and is against discrimination of any kind based on sexual orientation, gender, race, religion or other."

At least two key insiders in WWE have told WrestleZone that if Cole wasn't so prominently featured in the push for this year's Wrestlemania against Jerry "The King" Lawler, he would have been fired by Executive Producer Kevin Dunn or Vince McMahon himself. No word on if Cole has seen Dunn or McMahon in person since the incident, or if he will see them for the first time in Chicago for the go-home edition of Monday Night Raw.

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