[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer In the wake of indie wrestler David Starr being accused of sexual assault, several independent wrestling companies have stripped him of their titles or announced intentions to not work with him again. On Thursday, Ireland's OTT tweeted that their championship is now vacant, RevPro tweeted their Southside title is now vacant, and TNT Extreme Wrestling tweeted they have also stripped Starr (real name Max Barsky) of their title. A Twitter user named Tori shared her story earlier this week, saying the 29-year-old sexually assaulted and abused her, prompting another woman to share her experience. Since the accusation, Starr tweeted several times that he is not a sexual predator, but that he was "an emotionally immature d*ckhead", denying doing what Tori claims and that he was "an awful partner." He said if this means the end of wrestling for him, he's fine with that, but he isn't going on the offensive. "No matter what I say, I'm the bad guy. No pity party. It is what it is," he tweeted.

Originally Posted by PWI World Wrestling Entertainment has re-hired Producer Pat Buck, who was back working on both Raw and Smackdown this week in Orlando. Buck had been among those let go by the company during their cost-cutting back in April. There had been discussions within at least one company about bringing Buck in as a Producer, but with WWE bringing him back into the fold, that talk has obviously ceased. Buck was originally hired in August 2019 and has been running Wrestle Pro promotion and the Create-A-Pro wrestling school with Curt Hawkins for several years. There is no confirmed word yet whether any of the other WWE Producers released have also returned to the company.

Originally Posted by Fightful Paul Heyman's ousting one week ago was a hot topic among wrestlers across all WWE brands. Fightful spoke to a dozen wrestlers about Paul Heyman's replacement in his spot on WWE Raw as it was revealed Bruce Prichard would be heading up that branch, too. We've heard from a variety of performers both in and out of WWE, with responses landing all over the map. General disappointment and surprise from some, to others indicating they could see the writing on the wall of late. It should be noted that nobody we've talked to said that they knew of the change before WWE announced it on Twitter. We were told numerous stars that Paul Heyman was instrumental in promoting along the way during his Executive Director role. Drew McIntyre was the primary name, who was said to have been groomed long before his Rumble win and protected for his main roster push ... Heyman was said to have specifically wanted to build the Raw brand around future stars. There was a lighthearted joke backstage that Raw was built around the "catering crew" instead of the "Smackdown Six" this time, because AOP, Zelina, Andrade, Humberto Carrillo, Aleister Black, Andrade and Buddy Murphy were all relegated to Smackdown catering areas the year before and were hardly used on WWE TV. Specifically, we're told Heyman pushed to get Buddy Murphy on Raw, and was willing to pass on star power to get him. Apollo Crews was later added to that list. On the other hand, Ricochet and Cedric Alexander were talents that Heyman wanted to continue trying with, but Vince McMahon had pulled the plug on their pushes. Street Profits and Liv Morgan were also people that he fought for. Younger wrestlers we've spoken to were particularly disappointed, as Heyman was well known for wanting new blood on his shows. In a follow up, none of the wrestlers or staff we've spoken to has heard blatantly why the replacement was made, but have heard that it was Vince McMahon's decision ... The talent reactions to Paul Heyman and WWE kept rolling in after that. One said that he was open to hearing ideas and pitches, and talking storylines, even during the wee hours of the night, and said that if that's how he was with everyone else, there's a good chance he was overwhelmed ... You may have heard Andrew Zarian of Mat Men Radio say on his show recently that Paul Heyman and AJ Styles had creative differences that led to Styles being "traded" to the Smackdown side. Dave Meltzer noted that it was due to issues with Paul Heyman, Luke Gallows, Karl Anderson and their fates. When asking around about what those differences could have been, at least two on the Raw side of things believe that it stemmed from Heyman not seeing the value in Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows that Styles saw, which could have led to Anderson and Gallows being on the chopping block and released. AJ was said to have been very upset by their firings, which isn't much of a surprise, but particularly considering his somber reaction when speaking about it a few weeks later. The word "furious" was used by multiple wrestlers. Styles only worked one Raw match after their firing.

Originally Posted by Fightful Gabe Sapolsky has given an update on those awaiting refunds for WWNLive events that were put on hold or canceled. On Twitter, Sapolsky said some refunds have been issued for those who previously bought tickets to events that never took place due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In addition, the rest of the refunds are going to be made within the next two weeks. "We just got an update from Etix. They’ve made some refunds. The rest will be made in the next week or two. They are working on them and everyone will be refunded. My deepest apologies it is taking this long. I’m not going to make any excuses, but I assure you this has been the foremost thing on our minds and we are doing everything we can to get this done as quickly as possible. I understand if you are angry and upset. You will be made whole if you are owed a refund. Be safe & well," Sapolsky wrote on Twitter. Some of the events that were canceled, included events taking place during WrestleMania 36 week, but all wrestling events that were scheduled to be a part of the week were called off. WrestleMania 36 was planned to take place at Tampa's Raymond James Stadium, but was then moved to the WWE Performance Center as a two-day show. There's no word on when WWNLive events will resume.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Four years after their first interview, Flash Morgan Webster welcomed Tegan Nox onto his ‘Wrestling Friends’ podcast. Tegan and Flash discussed Tegan’s knee injury that she suffered during the 2018 Mae Young Classic that kept her out of action until June of 2019. It has been reported that Nox was scheduled to go to the finals of the 2018 Mae Young Classic but she confirmed it during the interview. The finals of the tourney took place at Evolution where Toni Storm defeated Io Shirai. “Yeah. That’s what made everything that much more heartbreaking for me. I don’t know how much I can say but, definitely going to the finals, and I think knowing that the finals would be at Evolution and I think the most heartbreaking thing was knowing that Molly Holly was gonna be there. I’d get to wrestle in front of Molly Holly and have her watch my match. I think that’s what was such a heartbreaking — thinking I was gonna go wrestle Toni [Storm] who [when] the last time we had wrestled in front of maybe 15, 20 people? And that’s a push to wrestling at the first-ever women’s Evolution in front of thousands and also in front of a ton of legends. It was heartbreaking. I think that’s more so than the injury was not getting that opportunity.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Referee Aubrey Edwards joined Chris Jericho on the ‘Talk Is Jericho’ podcast. Aubrey revealed that she is working on the AEW video game with Kenny Omega and while the game is in its infancy, she and Omega have been discussing what they want out of the game. “I’m working on the AEW video game. I can’t actually talk too much about it. I don’t know what I can say. I mean, we’re very, very early on, there’s a lot of things that we’re talking about. I talk to Kenny a lot about what he wants out of it, but it’s definitely a ways out. I’m not gonna put a number on it because I don’t want the internet to get mad at me but…” Aubrey spoke about Michael Nakazawa’s contributions to AEW. With multiple women in AEW’s women’s division having Japanese as their first language and in the process of learning English, Aubrey said that Nakazawa has been a massive help in regard to being that bridge of communication backstage. “Its been interesting because a lot of the match planning involves Kenny and Nakazawa translating. So, it’s a little bit more heavy just because there’s that extra layer to it. But, I don’t know if people know but that’s a big reason Nakazawa is here. He does translating while match planning and it’s hugely helpful. I don’t know how we would do what we do without him.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Ahead of the next chapter of The Undertaker’s ‘Last Ride’ docu-series, he chatted with Corey Graves on the After The Bell podcast. Undertaker and Corey discussed Randy Orton and Edge’s match from Backlash that was promoted as the “Greatest Wrestling Match Ever”. Undertaker said the match brought a tear to his eye because it reminded him of what wrestling used to be and spoke about how wrestling has changed over the years from his perspective. “Prime example, last night, Backlash, Edge and Randy, honestly, it almost brought a tear to my eye because I haven’t seen that kind of wrestling match in so long and I understand time parameters and everything else so they had a lot of time but my gosh, what a story they told. An unbelievable story and I sent Edge a text today, ‘Like the next time I go to the P.C. and work with guys, I’m gonna pull that tape up and show these guys and dissect it.’ Not that it’ll be dissected 100 times by then, but just the little nuances of the things those two guys did last night, it was phenomenal and it restored so much faith in where I think the business should be and could be. But that tape right there, that needs to be studied by our main roster guys. That’s what professional wrestling is, or is supposed to be is what they did last night, in my opinion and it’s great to be able to be as athletic as all these guys are, but really at the end of the day, it doesn’t mean anything because when you rely on all that athleticism and you rely solely on your athleticism, you continuously push the envelope to our audience, because they’re gonna get desensitized to the double back flip off the top onto to somebody onto the floor. They’re gonna see it a couple of times and then they’re gonna go, ‘Okay, I’ve seen that. Now what do you got for me?’ So what happens is, you have to continually push the envelope athletically which puts you at a higher risk for injury.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling All Elite Wrestling’s Q.T. Marshall joined The Wrestling Inc. Daily podcast. Q.T. currently runs the Nightmare Factory wrestling school and he used to be a part of Danny Cage’s Monster Factory school. One of the trainees that came through the Monster Factory is Matt Riddle and Q.T. spoke about what he saw in Riddle early on in Riddle’s career. “He was like a prodigy, right? Because he was a giant fan of pro wrestling so that helps, and he wasn’t really getting smashed in the face like he was in UFC so, he was really easy to coach, he was a little knucklehead-ish with some of the stuff that he did back then but, he’s a good kid and I remember meeting him at a Ring of Honor camp and kinda pulling him aside because Danny [Cage] had kinda given me the heads up that he came by the Monster Factory first. I said, ‘Hey, if you really wanna learn, come to the Monster Factory. We’ll teach you the right way and then you’d find your own spin’ and he ended up working with EVOLVE but, 2015, I think he was about four months into training. I had like an 18-minute match on the fly, didn’t call anything and he was a natural, so he was gonna make it no matter what. It was just a matter of him finding the right connection and all that other stuff so…”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Deonna Purrazzo was a guest on Busted Open Radio with David LaGreca and Tommy Dreamer. Dreamer asked Deonna to describe the difference between the feel and aura of the NXT locker room versus the IMPACT Wrestling locker room. Here was Deonna’s response: “Everyone at IMPACT is people that I’ve known from before I went to NXT. Kind of people that I got to know as I was coming up and has kinda seen me in every stage of my life and they’ve just been so welcoming and everyone was so happy, whether they’re actually happy or not but seem to be happy that I was in the locker room and just wanted me to feel apart and feel comfortable and not be on eggshells and I think I never got to that point in NXT. I never got to the point of, ‘I’m comfortable in my position here and I know that others want me to succeed.’ So just that environment of feeling welcomed and feeling like everyone wants me to do well and everyone understands who I am and understands what I’m about and kind of how I see wrestling and how I see myself fitting into the picture here, was like the most liberating and freeing and the best feeling that I wanted when I came back and went somewhere.”

In like 2 weeks, Impact managed to make Deonna feel more special and a big deal star than NXT ever did during her whole time there.

Originally Posted by Fightful AXS TV and Women of Wrestling have parted ways. Shannon Walsh of Pro Sports Extra first reported that AXS TV has canceled WOW Superheroes as the television company wants to focus on its relationship with IMPACT Wrestling. Walsh reports that WOW plans on taping again in Los Angeles in the fall -- though the coronavirus pandemic could change plans -- and will announce a new distribution deal at that time. Anthem, the parent company for IMPACT Wrestling, bought AXS TV in September 2019, which helped provide IMPACT with a new television home. AXS TV previously aired WOW and New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Anthem CCO Ed Nordholm said at the time that programming would not change, but AXS and NJPW parted ways in December 2019 and AXS also canceled Legacy Fighting Alliance shortly after the deal between Anthem and AXS was made. The final episode of WOW Superheroes aired on November 23, 2019. The show ran for two seasons on AXS TV. The show featured IMPACT stars such as Kiera Hogan, Tessa Blanchard, Havok and Nevaeh.

Originally Posted by Fightful Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings will sign an executive order requiring all residents to wear a face mask in public. The order will go into effect on Saturday and last for an indefinite amount of time. Employees of businesses must wear a face covering at all times. Orange County reported 212 coronavirus cases Thursday, setting a daily record for new cases. The WWE Performance Center is located in Orange County and has come under scrutiny regarding face masks. WWE has allowed PC recruits to act as the audience during its weekly shows and this past week, friends and family of roster members were allowed inside the Performance Center as well. Those in the audience do not wear face masks on television. WWE put out a statement saying, "Attendance was below 20% capacity and social distancing guidelines were adhered to with at least six feet between parties, thus face masks were not required." It remains to be seen if WWE performers will begin wearing face masks on television.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WWE’s Music-based YouTube channel uploaded audio of Io Shirai’s theme song

TPWW Frontpage:

• AEW Signs Ricky Starks and Abadon
• Impact Teases Return of EC3 and “At Least One Former World Champion”
• Mustafa Ali Reportedly Moved to Raw
• WWE: When Mass Releases Were Planned, More on Fans Allowed at Tapings, Backstage Ratings
• New Shows Coming: R-Truth Game Show, Miz Game Show, “Young Rock”
• Kevin Owens Opts Out of Raw Taping Due to COVID-19 Concerns