[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Bliss Appreciation Day:

Originally Posted by Observer After beating Raw in the ratings last week, SmackDown fell back down to normal levels for the first episode of 2017. Tuesday night's show on the USA Network averaged 2.596 million viewers, down nine percent from last week when John Cena's return and three title matches helped beat Raw for the first time since the brand split. This was the lowest audience number for the show since December 13th, but it was still above the 2.492 million viewers the show has been averaging since moving to Tuesday night.

Anthem Media has come to terms for Jeff Jarrett to return to TNA, PWInsider.com has confirmed. We are told that Jarrett will be at this week's TV tapings, as will his wife Karen Jarrett ... The re-emergence of Jarrett was pointed to this morning as a sign that Carter was completely out in terms of decision-making as the pair had at times, split the loyalty within the company between their two sides and had a number of falling outs over the years, including a time period where Jarrett took time off from the company after it became public knowledge he was dating his now wife Karen (who had previously been married to Kurt Angle, at the time the top star in TNA). During that time away, Carter let go of Jarrett's entire support staff at the time, including Dutch Mantel, Savio Vega, Jim Cornette and Brian "Roaddogg" James. "There is no way [Carter] would have allowed Jeff to return," said one source who spoke under condition of anonymity this morning. "This is proof that she is done."

According to PWI, Jarrett will also keep running GFW on the side since he is still working on getting a tv deal for the company.

Originally Posted by Observer Jeff & Karen Jarrett are in Orlando for the TNA tapings, as is Dutch Mantell. Also at the tapings include Brooke Tessmacher, Davey Richards, Angelina Love and Caleb Konley. Tonight's show will also, at least theoretically, promote a PPV show that takes place on Friday night.

Originally Posted by Observer We got some more news on the weekend incidents involving Alberto (Del Rio) Rodriguez and brother Guillermo in Austria. This is from an eye witness who was there for both skirmishes. The version verified the police statements about the incident printed in the new issue and that some of the tabloid coverage was exaggerated. Alberto & Guillermo were actually scheduled to leave and return home for an early morning flight, and be driven at about 2:30 a.m. to Vienna for their flight home after their match on Friday. Alberto then asked promoter Chris Raaber if they could stay an extra day and he'd use his miles to change the flights and so that happened. There was a fight between Alberto and a 26-year-old Austrian and punches were thrown. Guillermo jumped in to help his brother. It wasn't a bad fight but Alberto did deliver some damage to the guy, and he was bruised up but not hurt badly. The police were called. At the police station, the two brothers started arguing in Spanish so nobody knew what they were saying or fighting over. The belief was Guillermo was just trying to calm Alberto down and Alberto was yelling at him. Alberto did break the zip-ties and they used ankle shackles, but the shackles were around Alberto's wrists, not his ankles. There was a back of a chair broken off and some blood splattered on the wall from Alberto and Guillermo's fight. Guillermo was not knocked out as per media reports, but he did go to two different hospitals and took a train to the airport while Alberto had already left by cab.

Originally Posted by Observer Suzuki Gun and Dragon Lee appeared earlier today at New Year's Dash at Korakuen Hall. Key matches set up included Kazuchika Okada vs. Minoru Suzuki for the IWGP title, Toru Yano & Tomohiro Ishii vs. Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr. for the IWGP tag team titles, Tetsuya Naito vs. Michael Elgin for the IC title and Hiromu Takahashi vs. Dragon Lee for the jr. titles.

Originally Posted by Observer New Japan World picked up 5,500 new subscribers from the U.S. alone on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Overall gained around 10k more subscribers when including other regions.

Originally Posted by Observer As noted on the front page, Mark Andrews, whose TNA contract expired a few days ago, has signed with WWE and will be part of the U.K. championship tournament that takes place 1/14 and 1/15 in Blackpool, England.

Originally Posted by PWI The 1/4 episode of Total Divas, returning after a two week hiatus for the holidays, saw the WWE reality series on E! hit its highest mark of the season, bringing in 734,000 viewers frm the 705,000 viewers that watched on 12/21. This was actually the highest viewership for the series since March of last year. It appears the move to 9 PM meant an additional 200,000 viewers to the series.

Originally Posted by PWI Maria Kanellis and Michael Bennett are set for this week's TV tapings. Their TNA deals expired at the end of the year. There was WWE interest in Maria dating back to last summer's Brand Split, so it should be interesting to see what their long term plans are.

Originally Posted by PWI Taz sent out the following to remind fans that "The Taz Show" will return from its holiday hiatus on CBS Radio tomorrow, and it certainly looks like he filmed it near WWE HQ, possibly hinting that he was there to do additional work with the company: I spy....#TheTazShow #WeOver pic.twitter.com/5WHpLmNl1A — TAZ (@OfficialTAZ) January 5, 2017 Perhaps he'll elaborate on this when he returns to the air tomorrow at www.TazShow.com.

Originally Posted by Cagesideseats Now that Anthem is purchasing a majority stake in TNA and will be running the show going forward, it’s time to lock up top talent within the promotion. That includes both Matt and Jeff Hardy, who have contracts that are coming up next month. And WWE wants them both. That’s according to the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (subscription required but recommended), who are reporting TNA has tried to sign them to exclusive contracts but it hasn’t happened just yet. With WWE interested, not to mention how much money they can make on the independent scene, especially with the Broken Matt Hardy gimmick working as well as it still does, there will be negotiations that could drag on while they try to get the best deal for themselves.

Some other sheet news includes:

• Rock band Downstait recently tweeted a teaser of a new entrance them they are currently working on for Seth Rollins. https://twitter.com/DownstaitBand/st...54240824815621
• For those who follow Observer's ratings system for matches, Omega vs Okada at Wrestle Kingdom 11 ended up getting the first ever official 6 star rating from Dave Meltzer. For some reference, Meltzer's ratings are only based on his gut reactions to a match and not actually based on a real system of sorts.
• According to the Observer, ITV is happy with the numbers the debut episode of World of Sport generated. Makes it more likely ITV will approve a series to be made within the near future. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C1ZbOQ7WEAAjU6J.jpg
• Current rumors going around the net is Adam Cole, Kyle O'Rielly, and War Machine (Hanson and Raymond Rowe) are all leaving ROH for WWE with Cole expected to be arriving after May.