[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Random Rasslin gif:

Originally Posted by Observer The first four wrestlers have been confirmed for this year's Survival of the Fittest tournament. Ring of Honor announced Andrew Everett and Jonathan Gresham for Survival of the Fittest today. They join Tracy Williams and Marty Scurll in the lineup for the one-night tournament, which will take place in Columbus, Ohio on November 4 and air live on HonorClub ... This will be the first time Everett has wrestled for ROH since 2015. Last month, Everett announced that he had been granted his release from Impact Wrestling. He thanked the company for the opportunities he received there and noted that he felt he needed to test the waters in free agency.

Originally Posted by PWI As Dave Scherer and I discussed on this week's edition of The We Don't Need No Name Show, the timing of the WWE event on 11/2 in Saudi Arabia has come under additional scrutiny following the disappearance of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian national who had been critical of aspects the country in his writing and reporting. Khashoggi, who was in Turkey at the time, entered a Saudi Arabian consulate to pick up paperwork that would allow him to re-marry and hasn't been seen since ... The Washington Post has reported that Turkish officials believe that Khashoggi was murdered, possibly during an attempt to kidnap and spirit him back to Saudi Arabia that went wrong ... Several other American companies who have events with ties to Saudi Arabia have canceled or postponed events, including The New York Times. With WWE receiving a huge payday froim the Kingdom in exchange for running events there (which have including promotional videos touting how progressive the regime has become, including allowing women to drive), there has been a spotlght on WWE to see how they will handle the 11/2 event, which is their second event in the country as part of a ten year agreement. WWE issued the following response to queries about the event and the situation: “We are currently monitoring the situation."

AKA "We won't do shit since $40 million per year/event > people's online complaints." Also a woman shown in a WWE ad at Greatest Royal Rumble hyping up Saudi government's plans for human rights progress was later arrested as part of a crackdown against activists. https://twitter.com/VillainessHavoc/...16957760499712

Originally Posted by PWI BOOM! Studios issued the following: BOOM! Studios Announces WWE: FOREVER LOS ANGELES, CA (October 11, 2018) – BOOM! Studios and WWE today announced WWE: FOREVER #1, an all-new, over sized, one-shot special featuring action-packed stories of the greatest WWE Legends on-sale in January 2019.

More details: https://www.pwinsider.com/article/12...gends.html?p=1

Originally Posted by PWI/Observer Indies Roundup: Ring of Honor has announced there will be a Women of Honor tag team match at Glory By Honor: Coming off of her defeat of Tenille Dashwood at Death Before Dishonor, Women of Honor World Champion Sumie Sakai feels like the newly minted addition of the word World to her Championship has been validated. In her first match since her victory, Sumie has signed to team up with the returning Dr. Britt Baker, DMD to take on two former proteges eager to test themselves in Jenny Rose and Stella Grey! MLW TO DEBUT IN MIAMI WITH DECEMBER 13 & 14 FUSION TV TAPINGS; TICKETS ON SALE 10/19 at 10 A.M. December 13th’s event is the second MLW: Never Say Never show while the December 14th event is entitled MLW: Zero Hour. Impact announced a deal with Kings Highway Media, LLC to assist and expand video and content distribution across all platforms. King Highway Media is the company headed by Andrew Whitaker, who headed running all international territories for WWE for years. Pro Wrestling Revolver on 10/20 in West Des Moines, IA at the Val Air Ballroom with a Cage of Horrors match with Sami Callihan & Jake & Dave Crist & Larry D vs. Matthew Palmer & Shane Strickland & Jason Cade and a mystery partner, plus Walter vs. PCO, Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz vs. Mat Fitchett & Davey Vega vs. Dustin Rayz & Aaron Williams, Rich Swann vs. David Starr vs. Trey Miugel, Colt Cabana vs. Jake Manning, Jimmy Jacobs vs. JT Dunn, Marko Stunt vs. Ace Romero and more. Tessa Blanchard comes to Australia for a three-way with Savannah Summer and Xema on 10/24 in Sydney for Future Wrestling Australia.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE Network News is reporting that 10 more episodes of the original WWE Main Event episodes from 2012-2013 will be hitting the streaming service today. It looks like WWE may be trying a new strategy when it comes to the Classic Content drops for the month. Instead of dropping all the episodes before the beginning of the month they may be doing a steady weekly rollout all throughout the month. Enticing new viewers not to be overwhelmed with the glut of content at one time.

Originally Posted by Observer Don Callis looks like he won’t be back as an [NJPW] announcer. Lanny Poffo was at first said to be the replacement but we’re told at this point that right now that’s just a name out there and at this point is to be a one-time deal. The idea right now is to have a rotation of color commentators through the end of the year ... Callis wasn’t called for the KOPW show and hasn’t been called about any future dates, nor has he been told he’s no longer being used so he’s really in limbo. This came after timing of Impact work and tapings didn’t allow him to do the last three days of G-1. Those in Japan are going with the idea his schedule won’t allow him to be back, so this could be a communications issue that still could change. He wouldn’t be able to go back as frequently due to his Impact duties but probably could do four to five big shows a year. It’s notable because Callis was the guy who helped put together the Jericho vs. Omega match at last year’s Tokyo Dome that led to the big increase in attendance and even bigger increase in New Japan World subscriber numbers ... The name Jim Ross has been talked about for the Tokyo Dome, with the idea of using the live feed on AXS rather than going in studio and voicing it over. The Tokyo Dome is on a Friday this year so they could do the show on AXS live in the middle of the night (they had done New Year’s Eve MMA and kickboxing shows live on the station from Japan) or go in the regular time slot on a 17 or 18 hour tape delay.

Originally Posted by Observer David Arquette is filming a documentary around his return to wrestling. He has put up a wrestling ring in his backyard and practices constantly. He lost 50 pounds getting in shape for this run and he has wrestlers over his house all the time to teach him. He’s also amazed that after all this time, there are still people mad at him personally about the WCW title run ... Whenever he’s on the road, he looks to see if there’s an independent show in the area he can attend. He’s trying to do as many indie dates as his schedule allows

Originally Posted by Observer Regarding the note about New Japan guys talking about coming to Impact, there was more than New Japan contracted wrestlers who had interest in working here between tours who were told that New Japan didn’t want them doing that.

Originally Posted by Observer WWE stock had a terrible weak, falling to $80.18 per share at press time on 10/10, giving the company a $6.252 billion market value, meaning it lost well over a billion in value over the past week ... It fell to around $86 based on an analysis piece, and the drop lower was a combination of that piece but more the overall big drop of the stock market that took place on 10/10. The analysis piece was by Dan Victor of CFA where he believed the stock was overvalued and basically thought the big run up was a bullish euphoria based on the TV deal. He said that the big TV deal masked a lot of weakness that people aren’t seeing ... He noted the bull case for greater growth is based on the idea that the move to FOX will lead to a new growth among the fan base, meaning more fans going to shows and buying the network because of placement on the bigger platform ... He said that’s a stretch and he doesn’t buy it. It is unproven, just as it’s unproven how Smackdown will do on Fridays ... In theory, moving to FOX should raise the audience 22 percent based on new homes and slightly more based on being on a bigger station with a higher base audience. But, a move from Tuesday to Friday is going to cause a big drop ... So after the first few week honeymoon where the shows will be promoted like crazy and they’ll no doubt do loaded shows, when they level off, anything above 2.14 million would be the value of FOX over USA. Those 3.3 million to 3.5 million weekly predictions for FOX that they’d get 52 weeks a year with WWE in that time slot are looking very ambitious right now ... But the idea of FOX leading to a new growth period, we thought that with UFC. Its ups and downs in popularity over seven years was not FOX as much as creation of the larger-than-life stars that bring in a new audience, something WWE hasn’t done well at for a long time.

Originally Posted by Observer Regarding NXT, there are several different people in charge of running the house shows. Matt Bloom runs the shows near Orlando. Steve Corino runs the shows in Florida that are farther from Orlando since Bloom’s main job is running the Performance Center. Michael Hayes books the outside of Florida tours and he’s the one who also decides which talent works those shows so the main headquarters are running those events

Originally Posted by Observer While nothing is imminent, there is talk of opening up different Performance Centers in different parts of the world. U.K. and Saudi Arabia are high on the list and there are other places considered as well, including Japan, which surprises me since WWE really isn’t that popular in Japan as compared with other countries, but Japan culturally for a number of reasons does develop some great pro wrestlers and it’s not just New Japan but across the board, both men and women seem to adapt quickly to it

Originally Posted by Observer Paul Levesque was on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and talked about men vs. women and intergender matches that got a lot of comments. Right now the company’s thoughts seem to be that it’s okay for a women to get offense on a man, whether in a mixed match for a spot, or in an angle, but not the other way around as far as physical. I don’t think the portrayal of a man hitting or kicking a woman right now will do WWE any favors, and clearly, they don’t either ... Obviously other companies have different ideas but the other companies don’t have the same level of sponsors nor play before more casual audiences. Levesque said that they can do it as a shock moment and a spectacle moment but he feels women don’t need a man to make them successful or to give them credibility.

Originally Posted by Observer Lawler was in TMZ noting that he was inundated with hate mail after a photo was shown of him at a Donald rally in Mississippi on 10/2. Lawler was sitting behind Donald at the rally where the President mocked Christine Blasey Ford, which got tons of mainstream news. He said he was asked by some people to attend, he went and got hate mail. He said he wasn’t going to see Donald, the president, but Donald the WWE Hall of Famer

Probably doesn't help he's been showing bigoted and misogyny-like views on both social media and his podcast in recent times adding to the growing hate people have for him.

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc The current state of New Japan Pro Wrestling has been a hot topic of discussion amongst pro wrestling as of late. On the last episode of Wrestling Observer Radio this morning, Dave Meltzer touched on the current backstage morale in NJPW. According to Meltzer, "There is a lot of unrest, everyone is unhappy." Apparently much of the unrest comes from the fact that NJPW is under new management. Toy magnate Harold Meij was brought on as the new NJPW President this summer. The new management, while excellent businessmen, do not appear to be wrestling people. Before Meij came in to power the feeling backstage was reportedly that NJPW was doing great. Their business was up, the roster was, "very prideful of their work," and they were making in-roads into the US market. Meltzer went on to note that it's not just Meij, or new GM Michael Craven, that have rubbed the roster the wrong way. It's many members of the new management. He went so far as to say that, "A lot of people that you wouldn't even think about leaving are thinking about it. People who I knew who were considering absolutely staying are questioning that commitment."

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc It looks like Sasha Banks could be returning to the ring in time for the first-ever all-women's WWE Evolution pay-per-view on October 28. The WWE website currently has Banks advertised for the live event in Portland, Maine on Saturday, October 20. Banks is not advertised for any other live events that weekend, including the WWE Supershow that Saturday in her hometown of Boston. She is advertised for that Monday's RAW in Providence, Rhode Island but only by the arena and it appears to be a dated listing ... Banks has been advertised for Evolution since the event was announced but the current listings appear to be dated. It's worth noting that the WWE website does not have Banks listed on the Evolution event page but she is still featured on some of the promotional graphics.

Some other sheet news includes:

• PWInsider's Mike Johnson recently debunked rumors of Vince McMahon purposely sabotaging Asuka's career in the WWE due to his distaste for her lack of English. Rumor was attributed to a recent PWI Elite show which did not include anything about the Vince-Asuka situation. https://twitter.com/MikePWInsider/st...99144114819072
• In a "WWE Did You Know" type fact, today would have been Dusty Rhodes 73rd birthday. Other notable birthdays celebrated today include Ricochet (30) and Taz (51).
• Recent episode of the Women's Wrestling Weekly podcast show had former MYC and NXT star Zeda as the guests and one of the topics discussed included how WWE set up her and others to fail as part of their plans to cater to certain markets. https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/20...we-put-646543/

Some stuff from TPWW Frontpage:

• Chelsea Green (FKA Laurel Van Ness) Training at WWE Performance Center
• Why WWE Turned Bobby Lashley Heel
• Kevin Owens Reportedly Expected to Be Out for 4-8 Months With Knee Injury
• Weekly NXT UK Show Starts on the WWE Network Next Week