New Bits and Pieces

Courtesy Online Wrestling Network:

NEW WWE TAG TEAM TITLES MAKE THEIR DEBUT ON RAW
- The Unified tag team title belts are no more and from now on the tag belts will simply be called the WWE Tag Team championship. The two titles that made up the Unified champs - the WWE and World tag team titles - were retired on Monday during RAW and replaced with brand new titles which were presented to the current champions The Hart Dynasty by Bret "Hit Man" Hart. The old WWE Tag Team title which was used on Smackdown only was established in 2002 while the other one made its debut in 1971 although it did go under its fair share of different designs over the years. The new WWE Tag Team championship features two Roman helmets on the middle medallion with the WWE logo at the top and Tag Team Champions at the bottom with a WWE logo in a medallion on each side and another Roman helmet in another medallion on each side.

RAW RATING
- This week's Monday Night RAW with the fallout from SummerSlam drew a 3.3 rating off hours 3.26 and 3.34. The show averaged 4,770,000 viewers in total. It had the same rating from last week but just an additional 170,000 viewers compared to the final RAW before the pay-per-view. (Ratings compiled by Nielsen Media Research and put online by PWInsider.com).

BRYAN CALLS SUMMERSLAM THE BIGGEST OPPORTUNITY OF HIS CAREER
- Daniel Bryan wrote on his blog that being the surprise seventh member of Team WWE at SummerSlam was "by far the biggest opportunity" of his wrestling career. Bryan was brought back after he was fired this past June for breaking the company's TV-PG policy, choking out RAW ring announcer Justin Roberts with his tie and then spitting on John Cena. "Coming out in the Staples Center and walking past The Miz to go fight with Nexus was an amazing experience and something I'll never forget," he added, noting that he still has a long way to go to reach his dream. He then thanked the fans who supported him during the past few months.

MCMAHON TALKS ABOUT THE DEATH OF LANCE CADE
- When speaking to reporters regarding the death of former WWE Superstar Lance Cade, Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut Linda McMahon said that WWE can no more be held accountable for deaths of performers "than a studio could have prevented Heath Ledger's death." McMahon then proceeded to say that she "might have met" the twenty nine year old Cade "once" during her time in WWE according to a report on CTPost.com. "Who knows what causes people to have addictions and do what they do?" McMahon said. Marla Romash, an adviser for McMahon's opponent, Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Richard Blumenthal, fired back. "Linda McMahon holds out her record in business as her main qualification for office, so it's really important, then, for people in Connecticut to look at how she treated her workers and wrestlers and ask if she's really going to be there and stand up for them." In 2007, under the leadership of Linda McMahon, WWE started an all-expenses-paid program to help all past and current WWE Superstars deal with their drug and/or alcohol addictions.