Overnight Smackdown Rating, Vengeance seats still available, more
Submitted by Matthew Tremley on Friday, July 18, 2003 at 2:58 PM EST


• The overnight numbers for last night's edition of WWE Smackdown are in. The show did a 3.7 overnight rating with a 6 share. This is lower than last week but this drop could be explained by the fact that both the LA & Denver markets were preempted last night. The final number should be out later today so check back for that.
  
  
• In another bit of bad attendance news for the WWE, there are still blocks of 8 floor seats available for WWE Vegeance on July 27th. With the PPV being 9 days away, this has to worry WWE management, since most of the floor seats are usually purchased by diehard wrestling fans.
  
  Credit: 1wrestling.com
  
  

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• Show sent in the following:
  
  At the special Sunday night tapings in Columbus, Ohio, Zach Gowen wore a black arm-band to the ring. I'm not sure if anyone will recognize why he was wearing it or what it signified, so I thought I would pass along the story...
  
  The black arm-band says "Yukon" on it. It is symbolic of one of the most talked about and highly praised Michigan wrestlers of the past decade, "The Raging Bull" Yukon Braxton.
  
  Yukon was almost 7 foot tall and was a very menacing figure with LOADS of talent. Yukon was best friends with all of the Michigan workers, including Zach, whom he often gave advice and training to.
  
  Yukon was the first ever IWR Heavyweight Champion and made his first title defense in a match where he defeated Jerry "The King" Lawler. After the match, Yukon (real name Jeff Dingess) and Jerry Lawler became close friends, as The King was very amazed with the big man's prowess in
  the ring.
  
  Yukon touched alot of people with his talent, his charisma and his awesome personality. Everyone just KNEW that Yukon was bound for WWE and Lawler pulled some strings to get negotiations under-way with the fed. Yukon's tryout with WWE was to be in January 2003, just weeks before tragedy...
  
  Jeff Dingess aka YUKON BRAXTON tragically passed away in his sleep from a brain aneurism in December 2002. It was like a bad dream for everyone that knew him. He died at the the age of only 24, yet he was on the verge of major success.
  
  The Michigan scene got together and put on a major series of "tribute" shows to benefit Yukon's wife and 2 children. At these shows, we all wore the black "Yukon" armbands in support of the cause.
  
  Yukon always told Zach that he'd also make it to WWE one day. So at the Columbus taping, Zach pulled out his arm-band and wore it for the world to see on Smackdown.
  
  After Yukon's passing, I opened up a tribute website for my lost friend, if any of you want to learn more about how this man touched so many people:
  
  www.YukonBraxtonMemorial.com
  
  On that site, you can view many photos, read many stories from a plethora of wrestlers and get a feel for who he really was.
  
  Anyway, I just wanted to share the story behind the arm-band Zach wore on Smackdown this week. I am very suprised that the WWE allowed Zach to wear it for the tv taping. Seeing it on tv made MANY people very happy here in Detroit, 7 months after Yukon's passing.
  
  
  
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