According to his personal blog, A.J. Benza revealed that GSN’s “High Stakes Poker” will return for Season 6 featuring Gabe Kaplan and a female co-host. New episodes will begin airing in February on the popular cable station.
A flood of support from fans of Benza follows his High Stakes Poker blog entry, which was published on Sunday. In it, he noted that on a conference call last week, GSN executives Barry Nugent and David Shiff hinted that Benza might be replaced by a female co-host. Benza, as expected, did not take the news lightly, telling the two GSN “suits” on the call, “If you got the best pizza in town for 5 seasons, why try and add licorice to it?” The fifth cycle of “High Stakes Poker” began airing in March and featured a veritable “who’s who” of the poker world, including Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Barry Greenstein, Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Laak, and newcomers Peter Eastgate, Joe Hachem, and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies.
Facing the possibility of being replaced, Benza reminded GSN officials that he publicizes the show on his own watch “because GSN has never set up not even as much as a radio interview for me.” Benza also asked if Nugent and Shiff were fathers, which the former host explained in his blog entry that they were. He continued, “So surely they would know the hardships of losing a top-rated gig while raising little children in the process. (Oh and did I mention that I have a son who is a Freshman in college). So armed with my track record on giving GSN 5 seasons of a No. 1 rated show, I decided to hit them in the spot where it’s supposed to make a father go mush.”
Benza told Nugent and Shiff that he would take a pay cut to remain the host of Season 6 of the popular poker cash game show, which survived a management change at GSN that resulted in the network declining to pick up its option to carry Season 7 of the World Poker Tour (WPT). Consequently, WPT officials were left scrambling to find a new television partner in the middle of 2008 before finally settling on Fox Sports Net, which will also air the eighth season of the WPT. Benza lamented, “I just want to put it out there y’all. This is the kind of shit that goes on in Hollywood.”
On his future, Benza told readers that he will have a face to face meeting with Nugent: “I will have my meeting with Nugent – and I promise I won’t stab him with a butter knife. He and I go way back to my E! days, and honestly, he’s a good guy.” As to who will sit alongside Kaplan in the “High Stakes Poker” booth this season, Benza hinted, “I hope you like the female they toss in front of you. And I hope the repartee between she and Gabe works likes ours did.”
As expected, the online poker forums have been buzzing with the news that Benza may soon find his way out of “High Stakes Poker,” although no official announcement has come down from GSN. Speculation on Benza’s replacement has ranged from Team PokerStars Pro member Vanessa Rousso to ESPN announcer Norman Chad’s crush Kara Scott. Despite not necessarily footing the bill as “eye candy,” posters on the TwoPlusTwo forum clamored that Ali Nejad, who hosts “Poker After Dark” and the “National Heads-Up Poker Championship” on NBC, should be considered.
On October 6th, Rousso posted a curious Twitter entry that read, “PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge is wrappppped! Woot! Meetings today about another TV project, will keep you all posted.” Just before the start of the National Heads-Up Poker Championship in Las Vegas in March, Rousso inked an agreement to become the newest GoDaddy Girl, joining Danica Patrick, Anna Rawson, Marina Orlova, and original site symbol Candice Michelle.
We’ll keep you posted right here on Poker News Daily.