By ALEX MARVEZ, Scripps Howard News Service

Paul Heyman is still hustling.One of pro wrestling's most influential figures over the past 20 years, Heyman is now focused on a new challenge. He is the star of an Internet-based reality/entertainment venture called The Heyman Hustle being showcased by The Sun, a Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid based in the United Kingdom.

Pro wrestling is at its best when eliciting genuine emotion from not only the fans but also the performers themselves.That's what made the lengthy Ric Flair tribute on this week's Monday Night Raw one of the greatest moments in World Wrestling Entertainment history.

He isn't fighting for a world championship, but make no mistake: This is Ric Flair's "Wrestlemania."

Steroids and scandal have had little impact on pro-wrestling fans.A recent ESPN Sports Poll shows that grappling's popularity increased in 2007 for the second consecutive year. Roughly one-fourth of the 27,633 people surveyed by poll provider TNS Sport considered themselves fans.

Individually, Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley had become stagnant in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling.But when paired as the Motor City Machine Guns, their career tracts began shooting skyward once again.

This "Starr" is radiant once again.Nine months after an ill-fated Total Nonstop Action Wrestling run as Austin Starr, Austin Aries has returned to prominence for the Philadelphia-based Ring of Honor promotion. Aries vs. ROH champion Nigel McGuiness headlines Rising Above, which debuts Thursday night on select pay-per-view outlets.

By the end of this weekend, CHIKARA fans will be seeing triple.

The World Wrestling Entertainment return of Paul "Big Show" Wight was upstaged by an even bigger name.Boxing champion Floyd Mayweather confronted Wight on last Sunday's "No Way Out" pay-per-view show. The undefeated welterweight was dwarfed by the 7-foot, 400-pound Wight, but Mayweather did land some punches that legitimately bloodied Big Show's nose.

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling didn't know it was adding two prominent performers when signing Kurt Angle.For that matter, neither did his wife.

PHOENIX -- World Wrestling Entertainment divas are supposed to be knockouts, not getting knocked out.Yet that is what legitimately happened to Candice Michelle during an October match on Monday Night Raw.