[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Fightful Mustafa Ali stated during his appearance on Chris Jericho's Talk Is Jericho podcast that he believes Daniel Bryan played a role in him getting called up to the main roster but Bryan well never admit it. Former WWE creative writer Kazeem Famuyide shed some light on Ali's thoughts when he joined the 'Wrassle Rap' podcast and recalled a creative meeting when Daniel Bryan came in the room and expressed that there is a spot for a fresh, young babyface on the SmackDown roster and Famuyide believes that is how the decision to bring Mustafa Ali up to the main roster came to be. “People would come and sit in creative sometimes. I’ll tell you one story, and I was still pretty new then, and he did it in jest but he meant it. We’re sitting in the writers room and Daniel Bryan just storms down the hallway and he’s walking and he’s walking and he kicks the door open, and he walks in and he was like, ‘Hey! We need, a hot, young, babyface! Right now!’ and I was like huh? He’s like, ‘The youngest babyface you have is pushing 40-something years old. How’s this gonna work?’ And he came in joking but he was dead ass, and in a roundabout way, I think that’s how we got to Mustafa Ali where it was like, he was a pure, white-meat baby-face on 205 Live that got real emotion, that could fu*king sell agony and Vince is so huge on that like, ‘You gotta bring em’ in. If you can fight from underneath, oh God. That’s such an advantage because they gotta see that you’re fighting and the agony and pain and the face’. So when you finally overcome, they’re with you and that’s the genius of Vince [because] he understands the dynamics of good versus evil, and fighting against the odds, and underdogs and he might beat it to a pulp sometimes."

Originally Posted by Observer A title match has been added to the final night of this year's New Japan Cup. NJPW has announced that Juice Robinson will defend his IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship against Chase Owens at the New Japan Cup finals. The show is taking place in Niigata on Sunday (March 24).

Originally Posted by Observer Inter Species Wrestling had to change the marketing of one of their matches that will take place at the “Balls Out” card on Thursday, April 4th during WrestleMania Week. The promotion had been advertising a “Fans Bring the Lego Deathmatch” for a four-way match involving Matt Tremont, Addy Starr, Jeff Cannonball, and Viking. The promotion received a cease-and-desist letter from a paralegal on behalf of Lego asking the promotion to remove all mentions of Lego and stop using their IP. The promotion acknowledged they were in the wrong and are now having some fun with the renaming of the match and calling it a “Fans Bring the Brightly Colored Blocks” match. The show takes place from the White Eagle Hall in Jersey City on the Thursday of WrestleMania Week at 8 pm.

Originally Posted by Fightful Armando Alejandro Estrada returned to manage “The Samoan Werewolf” Fatu, the nephew of Umaga, at a recent AAW event.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy0-0lYb9mA

Originally Posted by Observer Total Bellas on Sunday fell to 395,000 viewers, down from last week’s 441,000, a new series low.

Originally Posted by PWI Eric Angle, the younger brother of WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle, has been charged with assault after being captured on video picking up a student he was coaching at an amateur wrestling meet by his neck at The Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh, PA. Video shows Angle lifting the child off the ground and then throwing him back down on the mat. WTAE reported that Angle claimed he was trying to "keep the child from messing up" but made things worse. Angle was escorted from the venue after the incident and was charged by police with assault.

Originally Posted by PWI The United States District Court, Western District of North Carolina ruled on 3/14 that Ric Flair and Brian Shields, the author of WWE book Second Nature, which told an intertwining story about the careers and lives of Ric and Charlotte Flair, could have an extended time period to respond to the lawsuit filed against them by Charlotte's ex-husband Riki Paul Johnson regarding claims made about him in Second Nature. They now have until 3/28 to respond. However, on 3/15, Johnson was awarded additional time to amend his complaint against them, World Wrestling Entertainment and Charlotte Flair. Johnson now has until 3/22 to file an amended complaint. Should he do so, the clock would reset for the defendants to respond to his allegations. Johnson (who was married to Charlotte for a year before she broke into WWE), has previously alleged there are false statements made about him in Second Nature, including a claim that he lost two jobs due to drug use, a claim that he was sterile and could not have children and "multiple false allegations physical and/or psychological abuse", which Johnson stated he believes he can prove are incorrect with police reports and dash cam footage. Johnson has alleged Second Nature has humiliated his family, including his three children, because the family are the subject of shame and ridicule and that he was intentionally presented in the book as a villain to make Charlotte look better.

Originally Posted by PWI During a backstage vignette on tonight's edition of WWE Smackdown Live, it was announced that Rey Mysterio will challenge Samoa Joe for the WWE United States Championship. It will be Mysterio's first appearance at Wrestlemania since competing in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at Wrestlemania 30 in New Orleans back in 2014 ... The match will be Samoa Joe's official Wrestlemania debut. The former Ring of Honor, WWE NXT and Impact Wrestling Champion has been on the main WWE roster for several years but has yet to work the company's flagship event. He was brought to the main roster right before Wrestlemania 33 and was not figured into the card. He was slated to compete against John Cena last year at Wrestlemania 34 but an injury suffered resulted in Joe being removed from the lineup before the match was made official. Cena instead worked against The Undertaker. If all goes well, Joe will finally appear on the company's grandest stage.

Originally Posted by PWI The word backstage last night is that Drew McIntyre worked this past weekend's live events and last night's Raw despite being pretty sick. Given the quality of the match against Seth Rollins last night, it’s pretty insane how good McIntyre was being that ill.

Originally Posted by Fightful CBS Philly 3 reports that the main events for Extreme Rules will be Roman Reigns vs. Baron Corbin and Seth Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre. Extreme Rules is scheduled for July 14, so take this with a grain of salt. As always, the card is subject to chance.

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc Aleister Black missed last night's WWE RAW because he and wife Zelina Vega were on their honeymoon. Vega also missed the SmackDown live event in Rockford, IL. We noted last week how Black and Vega were headed to Amsterdam for half of their honeymoon. They were married back in November 2018. Last night's RAW saw Ricochet defeat Jinder Mahal in singles action due to Black's absence.

Originally Posted by Wrestlinginc This increase in length for WrestleMania is a trend that has been proven true every year, and it's an idea that has carried over in to the other annual PPV events. WrestleMania 32's main card ended around the 286 minute mark, WrestleMania 33 reached 305 minutes, and last year's WrestleMania 34 had a runtime of 314 minutes. If those are any sign of what is to come, Forbes.com may be correct when they say that this "will likely become the longest WWE pay-per-view of all time."

Current rumor is 17-18 matches for this year's Mania card.

Originally Posted by TPWW Frontpage via Triple A Kane and Titus O’Neil are each coming out with autobiographical books later this year. Kane Glenn “Kane” Jacobs’ book will be called Mayor Kane: My Life in Wrestling and Liberty and will be released on November 26 ... Titus O’Neil’s book, under his real name Thaddeus Bullard, will be called There’s No Such Thing As a Bad Kid: How I Went from Stereotype to Prototype and will be released on August 6.