We all thought we'd heard the end of it when it was announced that WWE--or more specifically Vince McMahon---had severed ties with Hulk Hogan a few weeks back after Hogan tricked a WWE secretary into leaking out the 2007 Hall of Fame candidates list on the Bubba the Love Sponge show. Unfortunately, we've been presented with evidence that Chairman Wackjob may be just as insane off-camera as he is on.

For weeks, Jerry Lawler has been promoting a match between himself and Hogan, scheduled to take place in 2 weeks in Lawler's hometown of Memphis at the Fed-Ex Forum, on his Memphis Championship Wrestling show. A Thursday press conference was supposed to help push things along in that direction. It ended up being something else instead when word got out that per a directive from McMahon, Lawler was forced out of the show, along with Boogeyman and the World's Greatest Tag Team (Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin). WWE has now prohibited its talent from appearing for Memphis Championship, which means Lawler may have to choose between his hometown promotion and continuing his gig as color analyst on Raw.

The impression I'd gotten in reading the reports of Memphis TV shows on other sites was that Lawler vs. Hogan was going to be a 1-shot deal anyway. VH1 would send a camera crew to record the match for "Hogan Knows Best". The fact that it's Hogan who's headlining sent a red flag up in Stamford, and prompted McMahon to pull the plug on his company's involvement in the show. Now, that's just being petty.

McMahon, of course, comes across as a major heel for doing this, but at the same time he's undermining Lawler, whose promotion was at one time a developmental territory of WWE's. The Memphis show comes 2 days before the Backlash PPV. Haas, Benjamin, & Boogeyman haven't exactly gotten premium TV time of late, so there shouldn't have been any harm. Unfortunately, it all comes back to the animosity between Hogan and McMahon. Chairman Wackjob may've threatened Haas, Benjamin, Lawler, & Boogeyman with termination if they went ahead with their plans to do the show. McMahon's not thinking straight, allowing his hatred of Hogan cloud his judgment. He's just being a bully.

McMahon has issues under his own roof that he's so far been unwilling to address, and yet he feels he has to dictate to four men under contract to WWE where they can and can't perform? He's got some unhappy people on his roster now, and this will only add to the unrest. This is more evidence that McMahon is no longer fit to be running the day-to-day operations of WWE. He insists on being a major player on TV despite having no market value as a performer anymore. Meanwhile, you have people like Carlito and Ric Flair, who were supposed to wrestle each other at Wrestlemania, but instead are in a dark match as a tag team, delaying their feud until the summer, if at all. Heat is treading water. You have Kenny Dykstra vs. Val Venis on Heat 4 weeks in a row, when either one or both of those men could be getting even a minor push on Raw. Benjamin has gone from upsetting Triple H 3 years ago on Raw to being lucky his name is on the booking sheet for either Raw or Heat on a given week. Carlito. Dykstra. Benjamin. Haas. These are guys who should be part of the WWE's future, but as long as McMahon has a storyline of his own, he's going to push himself ahead of the younger, hungrier talent, never mind the consequences. Instead of aiding and abetting his father, Shane should be leading the palace coup to send Mr. McNutty off to Bellevue. The problem, there, of course, is that Vince doesn't want to admit he's insane and/or out of touch. He's definitely the latter.

6 years ago, Jerry Lawler left the WWE for 9 months because of how his then-wife was being treated on TV. Now, 2 weeks after being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, "The King" is at another professional crossroads. Does he give up the gig that helped propel him into the Hall? Or does he step to the sidelines and let Memphis Championship carry on without his on-air presence? Or does neither scenario play out? He's got every right to be upset with Vince over sabotaging his show, but can he risk taking a stand, knowing what the consequences are going to be?

At least Vince is thankful Don Imus got all the headlines on the sports pages this week.