[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Random WCW Gif Day:

Originally Posted by Observer SmackDown averaged 2.652 million viewers for Tuesday night's show, which was headlined by a steel cage match between Women's Champion Alexa Bliss defending against Becky Lynch ... The show is now averaging almost 2.5 million viewers since moving to Tuesday nights and airing live, which is way up from the 2.1-2.2 million level they were at on Thursday nights.

Originally Posted by Observer Two promotions in the United Kingdom have announced changes to upcoming cards for FloSlam broadcasts as it seems WWE is setting guidelines for where their UK contracted talent is allowed to appear. IPW:UK, who will be airing a supershow on FloSlam live on Sunday, posted on Facebook that Pete Dunne will now face Tom Dawkins in a bonus match for the live crowd that won't be streamed on the service. Dunne had been scheduled to face Matt Riddle, who will now face Ryan Smile instead. Joseph Conners has been pulled from the show entirely. The promotion posted, "Unfortunately in the early hours of this morning we learnt that due to contractual obligations with the WWE, certain wrestlers will be unable to appear on our FloSlam live broadcast this Sunday, namely in this instance, Pete Dunne and Joseph Conners." In a move that seems to be related given a tweet they posted, Lucha Forever also announced that the main event of their debut show on April 17th would now be Shane Strickland vs. Travis Banks after Strickland had been scheduled to face Dunne, who will still be appearing on the show in some capacity. The promotion recently signed a deal to broadcast events on FloSlam.

In a bit of irony, WWE also ends up hurting themselves with these sudden pullings since they are a miniority owner of FloSports which runs the FloSlam service.

Originally Posted by PWI For a short period of time, there was an article on the WWE website with current talents giving comments on potential surprises in the Royal Rumble. Where this gets interesting is the headline of the piece was based around Seth Rollins' comments on Kenny Omega potentially appearing. The article was pulled but featured Rollins commenting that Omega's time with New Japan could be "up" but that he didn't know if that meant Omega in the Rumble.

Originally Posted by PWI Deadline is reporting that much like Billy Batson himself, DC Comics' Shazam! movie will be split into two separate films. The first will be be the 2019 "Shazam!" film that has been long announced with the second being a new film "Black Adam" starring The Rock, who first announced back in 2014 that he would be playing the character.

Originally Posted by PWI Adam "Hangman" Page and ring announcer Bobby Cruise have both come to terms with Ring of Honor and have signed new deals. Donovan Dijak appears to be finishing up here as he's not currently scheduled for anything beyond the February TV taping in Pittsburgh (although one source noted that could change). That may be a by-product of WWE interest as the word that has been making the rounds the last two weeks is that WWE isn't comfortable offering anyone who was under a ROH deal an offer until they are 60 days out of their ROH deal expiring, obviously because they don't want to be accused of contract tampering. So, it's a case of talents now having to give notice to ROH, then wait a few months while working the indy scene to see if they will get a WWE offer. That likely explains why Kyle O'Reilly disappeared after his contract expired on 12/31. As we noted last week, Keith Lee signed with WWNLive while having a ROH deal on the table. We are told that Lee and former tag team partner Shane Taylor were each offered contracts at the same time. Taylor signed immediately while Lee told ROH that he had other offers on the table. He informed ROH that he was going to sign with WWN over the weekend at the Atlanta TV taping and ROH told him they would finish him out in Texas against the Briscoes, obviously with the idea of closing the storyline out and putting The Briscoes over. Lee announced he was signing with WWN the next day and there's no clearcut answer to whether he'll actually work his final dates with the company.

Originally Posted by PWI The following was announced on TrishStratus.com: Trish Stratus welcomed Madison Patricia, her second child, a bouncing baby girl on Saturday, January 14, 2017. Trish delivered her daughter with her midwife and husband by her side at Southlake Hospital in Newmarket, Ontario. Three year old brother Max is said to be over the moon about the latest edition to the family! The newborn's middle name honors Trish's Greek paternal grandmother who passed away last month. Congrats to Trish, Ron and big brother Max!

According to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Hideo Itami has been cleared to wrestle. He suffered a neck injury during an NXT live event; during that show, he was dropped on his neck, during a twisting powerslam by Riddick Moss.

Originally Posted by Observer One of the big issues is that the TV people here think in terms of huge money television sponsorships, toy deals and the big goal of the Lucha Underground movie series, and these are multi-million dollar projects. The problem is they are not getting any of those deals based on the ratings they are drawing. The idea of house shows with a small profit margin and keeping the wrestlers busy and making money year-around isn’t part of the concept from the TV people, who are the key ones involved. The problem is we’re a few years into the run and not one of those big deals has come through past I’ve seen some of the characters in a Slim Jim’s commercial. Still, the bottom line is that while they could have a cool cult thing with non-Hispanics if they didn’t go so far out to turn people off, the real money was with this product on a Spanish language station, and when this thing goes away with nothing to show for it other than tens of millions in losses and a missed opportunity, the real keys were the inability to get the product on a strong Spanish language station in the U.S. and onto television in Mexico. With names like Robert Rodriguez and Mark Burnett involved, I’m not sure why that never happened. There is now talk once again of a Netflix deal, and Melissa Santos did an interview where she mentioned that, but that’s been talked about for a long time. There’s also been very little promotion of the show itself as far as major media has gone. That was the province early on of Court Bauer, and when he left the promotion, nobody ever picked up the ball and they never got a media professional in that realm to take his spot.

From the recent Observer Newsletter on how badly Lucha Underground's management has messed things up so far.

Originally Posted by PWI As we broke on Monday afternoon in the Elite section of PWInsider.com, the landscape of the WWE Network is expected to change as all signs are that Scotland's Insane Championship Wrestling will soon debut as programming on the WWE Network and that other promotions could follow. The belief is that ICW has a multi-year deal (depending on who is talking, the deal is believed to be 2 or 3 years) and that PROGRESS Wrestling in Great Britain and potentially others will soon follow. The move is one that WWE has been discussing internally since last year, with the idea of adding independent wrestling material to a new tier of the WWE Network that would be available for a higher price point (believed to be $14.99) with discussions internally within WWE about everything from licensing indy content from existing television shows to paying promotions to create content. We are told feedback and viewing numbers for last weekend's the UK Championship Tournament were going to be a strong factor in determining how WWE moved forward with that plan. With the WWE Network about to hit it's three year anniversary next month, it makes sense that an announcement could be timed sometime soon. Over the course of last weekend, the talk overseas was that WWE had all but completed a deal with Mark Dallas' Insane Championship Wrestling. The belief is that it's weekly "Fight Club" series would migrate to the WWE Network and air via VOD with disclaimers and a parental warning on the content, similar to how WWE Attitude Era material and the original ECW are featured on the Network. Fight Club currently streams on the Fite App, but the belief among many over the past week is that a deal is completed and could be announced at any point. There is no word whether the deal would also bring the company's major events, such as their annual Fear and Loathing show (which was carried via streaming platforms last year) to the WWE Network as well ... There have been discussions of all sorts of other promotions potentially being part of the WWE Network, but the one that has been primarily discussed beyond ICW has been The UK's PROGRESS Wrestling, which is believing to be in discussions with WWE currently. What makes that interesting is the timing that PROGRESS will be making its United States debut over Wrestlemania weekend in Orlando, Florida as part of the WWNLive.com events there with a number of talents from the UK Championship tournament already announced. There are also plans for an EVOLVE vs. PROGRESS event that weekend, obviously on Flosports' streaming service ... It's important to note that both ICW and PROGRESS have existing on demand subscription channels, so it will be interesting to see if they are maintained and continue to be updated or if WWE deals will mean the end of those platforms for either of those promotions or any others who sign up with WWE ... While there have been rumors of Rev Pro (which will be running it's own debut event in the United States as part of Wrestlecon in April), we are told that they were not part of the current discussions with WWE. It's also important to point out that we are told by multiple sources that ITV, coming off their 12/31 two hour pilot broadcast, is currently trying to formulate what their plan is for the World of Sports revival as they have had discussions of doing a weekly series in both a one hour and a two hour format, as well as potentially doing quarterly specials. Once the financials are worked out (we are told that there is no final decision even made on where the series might air), the plan is to try and offer talents contracts for that series if and when it is officially picked up, which means that those contracts will only make things even more complicated for the UK scene. The ITV pilot led to WWE pushing their plans for the UK tournament up several months and certainly there will be talents that play two ends - WWE and ITV - against the middle to see where they can get the best possible deal.

Originally Posted by Observer Flo Slam and the WWE have approached the UK’s Revolution Pro about putting their shows on their respective networks. Revolution Pro turned down Flo Slam based on the idea their offer wasn’t financially worthwhile to them based on where they are at now. WWE’s approach was more of a feeling out process and no offer was made. Andy Quildan, who heads Revolution, told WWE he would listen to any offer but it probably wouldn’t be possible to make a deal due to his group’s relationship with New Japan. He said that was important to him due to loyalty to New Japan, and also because the NJPW alliance allows them to present unique match-ups that can’t happen anywhere else in the world, they can bring in talent that appears for no other UK promotion. WWE will be paying ICW an annual fee for them to produce shows for the WWE Network. The deal is reportedly for $50,000 per year on a three-year deal, which would end in early 2020. This is said to be a tiny fraction of what Flo Sports is paying for Evolve content on its current deal, and is believed to be around half of the annual fee WWE would pay for a better drawing promotion for a weekend of shows. UK sources believe a deal with Progress is also completed. An official announcement of these deals could come as soon as this week. Two of ICW’s biggest stars are Drew Galloway and Grado, and Bram is used as a regular. There is some question as to if they would be able to be used on shows that air on the Network.

More details from the Observer about the recent ICW deal with the WWE.

Arkansas State University police are wrestling with a theft case that targeted a WWE grappler. While 39-year-old Allen Neil Jones of Gainesville, GA performed at the WWE Live event Monday night at the Convocation Center, 217 Olympic Dr., someone stole his cash and belongings. Jones, who performs as AJ Styles, reported the theft of a black bag containing $1,000 in American currency and $7,000 in Japanese yen. The culprit also stole an iPhone, a set of Beats headphones, a small screen TV, an Xbox 360, and six Xbox 360 games. The case is still under investigation. Region 8 News has requested more information to be released in the case, but Arkansas State University has denied our request. We will continue to seek more information.

Link to the report: http://www.kait8.com/story/34297768/...g-at-the-convo

Originally Posted by Observer The updated New Japan World subscription numbers are roughly 60,000 subscribers with 15,000 outside Japan and 45,000 from Japan. What’s notable is that there are tons more outside Japan subscribers than ever bought iPPVs in the day of iPPVs, as the outside of Japan numbers for the Tokyo Dome show in 2014 was closer to 1,000. Granted, that was before AXS aired New Japan and the popularity of the promotion was a lot smaller. But there are far less Japanese subscribers to the network than those who spent more money on iPPVs when that was first starting out in Japan. The WWE Network never hit it big at all in Japan either.

Originally Posted by Observer It appears that Anthem Sports & Entertainment will be dropping the TNA initials and just calling the product Impact Wrestling. Those kind of cosmetic changes and new logo aren’t going to make any difference. Granted, the TNA name does have a negative connotation and I’d have dropped it as well, but Impact has close to the same connotation and the setting and style being the same will mean the results will be the same. They still have the problem that Lucha Underground also has, which is how can they make any money on this venture and the costs are higher than the television rights fees, and there’s not enough revenue generated elsewhere to make up the difference.

Originally Posted by Observer As far as the three key contracts that were coming due, neither Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy nor Drew Galloway have signed new deals with TNA. The Galloway situation is notable because of how the U.K. situation has greatly changed in a short period of time. Still, for the Five Star group, he was their spokesperson at a press conference this past week in Dundee, Scotland, for their next show and to announce the company’s television deal. While the Hardys haven’t signed, things look good for them to stay. There are two options on the table, a guaranteed deal where they would have full control of their bookings outside the promotion, or a higher guaranteed deal where TNA would at least have to approve of their outside bookings. TNA likely wouldn’t nix anything unless it was maybe ROH (and maybe not since ROH is on The Fight Network so it makes no sense with Fight Network owning for those political issues to still exist) and of course WWE. Matt right now is leaning toward staying, since he has full control of his creative in TNA, which it’s highly unlikely he’d have in WWE. Jeff still hasn’t come to an agreement regarding number of dates per year, since the plan is to go back to running a regular house show schedule.

Some other sheet news includes:

• The current maker of WWE's championship belts recently revealed the WWE recently ordered new designs for the IC and US belts. Main reason is due to them no longer wanting to pay royalties on the old designs since their former belt makers owned it. Also to finish up on all the belts having brand distinctions to them. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost...ostcount=13398
• According to the Observer, Bobby Lashley recently signed a new deal with TNA.
• Chris Jericho revealed he signed a new deal with the WWE during a recent episode of the Talk Is Jericho podcast show with Perry Saturn as the guest. https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCirc...ned_a_new_wwe/
• In a "WWE Did You Know" type fact, first issue of WWE's newest comic book retconed the ending to Mania 31 with Rollins using the Pedigree and not the Curb Stomp to win the WWE title. https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCirc...llins_won_the/