JOHN LAURINAITIS SPORTING BLACK EYE

 As seen on Monday’s RAW, John Laurinaitis was sporting a black eye. There was speculation that he had make-up applied for the look but word is that John Cena legitimately connected with a punch at Money in the Bank, resulting in Johnny’s shiner.

BACKSTAGE NEWS ON VINCE MCMAHON

 The long-term plan for Vince McMahon to lighten his WWE duties in real life was for his current run to end around WrestleMania 28, with Triple H taking over the day-to-day activities. Even then, Vince will still oversee everything and won’t be going anywhere.

This marks the fifth straight year that Vince has written himself off WWE TV in some form or fashion. In 2007 he was blown up in a limousine, 2008 saw the RAW set fall on top of him, in 2009 he sold WWE to Donald Trump in the storylines but still appeared some and last year, he was beat up by Nexus and put in a coma.

WWE POSSIBLY WORKING WITH RING OF HONOR??

 There are people in WWE who don’t know this for sure but strongly suspect there is some kind of working agreement between Ring of Honor and WWE. There are also people in ROH who think the same thing. At the same time, people on both sides insist there is nothing going on between the two companies.

Sources insist that some of the things CM Punk spoke about in his infamous RAW promo a few weeks back will start finding their way onto WWE TV soon. For example, Punk talked about Triple H taking over and he began that storyline on this week’s RAW. Punk also mentioned John Laurinaitis and Colt Cabana, both who appeared on WWE TV in the past week. While Cabana wasn’t named by the announcers, he was shown at ringside on Money in the Bank and was photographed with Punk and the WWE Title in Chicago after the pay-per-view. Punk also mentioned Ring of Honor, which adds to the speculation that WWE may be working with them.

For what its worth, Cabana has told at least one indy promotion that he’s worked regularly with that he’s not taking any more bookings with them after next month.

WRESTLERS RECEIVING WWE TRYOUTS

As noted before, WWE Tough Enough contestant Ivelisse Velez was spotted in the opening backstage segment on Monday’s RAW. Apparently she was also at the SmackDown tapings last night as her boyfriend, independent wrestler John Yurnet, noted on Twitter that they were headed to the tapings with Chicago wrestler Samuray Del Sol and former Ring of Honor Tag Team Champion Jimmy Jacobs.

It’s possible that Jacobs, Del Sol and Yurnet received tryouts with WWE at the tapings. A fan told Yurnet that he hopes the trip to WWE meant good things for him. Yurnet replied that he hopes so too.

ORIGINAL PLANS FOR MONEY IN THE BANK PPV

 According to a new report, the plan for Money in the Bank as recent as a few days before the pay-per-view was to have Alberto Del Rio cash in his briefcase and leave the show as the new WWE Champion, regardless of what happened between John Cena and CM Punk.

There had been several ideas tossed around for the Punk-Cena storyline and WWE decided over the weekend to give Punk the WWE Title and go from there.