[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by The Boss Appreciation Thursday:

WWE Superstar Triple H has paid tribute to "ground breaking pioneer" Joanie 'Chyna' Laurer after she passed away aged 45 ... Speaking to the Mirror during the current WWE tour of the UK, he said he was still coming to terms with the sad news. Triple H said: "It is obviously tragic and clearly my well-wishes go out to her friends and family. "Brilliance sometimes, and that ability to push barriers and boundaries and be a pioneer, is often connected closely with other things that aren't so positive sometimes, and demons, and unfortunately that is the case. "Man, [she was] just a great person, an amazing talent, a ground breaking pioneer, that was never afraid to go out on a limb and blaze her own trail through life. "She never took, and when you're choosing a path [you can say] 'hey here is a path let's go down that one' or you can blaze your own path and burn it up and create something for others to follow, and that's what she did, and that star shone bright, but unfortunately burned out way too fast" ... Asked today if he would like to see Chyna posthumously inducted, Triple H told the Mirror she 'definitely warranted' a place. WWE's executive vice president of talent, live events and creative said: "You know it's not my decision, but I definitely think, as I have said before, that what she did in her life certainly warrants it ... "It's certainly warranted and I'm sure at some point when the time is right, hopefully, that could happen."

Part of a longer interview Triple H had with Mirror UK on coping with the passing of Chyna and possible future induction to the WWE Hall of Fame. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/other-...estler-7804686

Originally Posted by Observer Wyatt was injured on the first night of the European tour on 4/14 in Milan ... He suffered an undisclosed calf injury and the severity was not released, but he was pulled from the rest of the tour. The WWE largely kept everything quiet but the word going around on tour was it was a pulled muscle and he’d be out four to six weeks, so it’s not nearly as bad as first feared.

Originally Posted by Observer Steve Austin suffered a torn rotator cuff, some of that taking place at WrestleMania. Jim Ross wrote on the subject that Austin had injured the shoulder prior to Mania and then the injured rotator cuff had a complete tear from his first punch to Rusev in the brawl

Injured Guys stable claims another wrestler.

Originally Posted by Observer Kofi Kingston flew home from the WWE tour yesterday as his wife is expecting the second child any day now.

Originally Posted by Observer The Asbury Park Press reported that the death of Jon "Balls Mahoney" Rechner does not have a cause of death and it could take a few months for all the reports to be done, which means there is no cause pending toxicology test results. The coroner reported no suspicious behavior, which means ruling out foul play of any kind, which was never suspected in the first place.

Originally Posted by Rolling Stones "I'm a 38-year-old man," he says. "I'd much rather it be a program geared toward me, whether that's TV-14 or sometimes even more graphic than that, which is what I like. For one thing, profanity brought fire out of people with personalities that backed the language. It's very difficult to say, 'Oh, you're being poopy,' especially when they're meant to be fighting words. And now, if someone starts to bleed, the referee intervenes to stop the bleeding. But before, you'd just let it fly. Blood is one of the things that made fights cool. Like, you knew it had gotten serious. I understand why we don't do it anymore. Vince has been a coach to me, a father figure, a boss and a friend, and his goal and my goal are the same: to make the company be as big as it can be. But, yeah, the blood is one thing I miss."

From a longer interview John Cena had with Rolling Stones in regards to his opinion on the PG era of the WWE, how divisive his character has become over the years, his daily life, and why he wanted to become a wrestler. http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/f...-lose-20160421

Originally Posted by 411Mania David Johnson is the CEO of Aroluxe, he started his career with Sinclair Broadcasting Company (the parent company of ROH); former WWE, WCW and TNA performers Ron and Don Harris are also employees of the company. They started doing production work with TNA last year. What may be a cause of concern if Aroluxe takes over is that they reported a revenue of only $2 million for 2015. Dixie Carter has been looking for different investors, reportedly going to international television partners such as Sony Six in India, Challenge TV in the U.K. and The Fight Network in Canada with proposals of selling 10 percent to each entity with the idea they would help fund the company. There were no takers. Carter is still looking for a deal with a different company, which would provide funding, but allow her to maintain control of the company.

Update to the Harris Bros as TNA's newest investor news in regards to how much funding they could provide for TNA. Also Dixie failing miserably trying to find a new investor that would let her keep majority control of the company. Nobody wants to be used as just a cheap source of funding while getting almost nothing back in return for control and/or investment. http://411mania.com/wrestling/new-de...vestorsbuyers/

Originally Posted by Observer One thing notable is that the TNA television show has been pretty much devoid of graphics of late because the graphics were handled by an outside company that is no longer working with them.

Originally Posted by Observer Will Ospreay has already been offered a regular contract which would make him just about the quickest guy without an international name to get one. He got the offer after one match with the promotion. He’s probably being tugged in different directions. In his case, it’s really Japan and WWE that would be the directions. If WWE really wants him and makes a big offer they’ll get him. WWE usually offers guys of his level a lot less than they make on the indies. The feeling is they’ll come at the low number starting out because there’s more of a shot at the high number down the line. It’s essentially the same deal as Ricochet, who on paper can make far more with the new offer he got from Lucha Underground, which would allow him to work New Japan as well as indies, but WWE is still WWE. For Ospreay, the advantage is he can live in the U.K. if he wants to with New Japan, but would have to move to Florida for WWE. That kept Finn Balor for years from making the move.

NJPW's Tanahashi recent praise of Ospreay might have also played a role in him getting a good contract with the company.

Originally Posted by Observer There were two incidents at the WrestleCon indie convention in Dallas during WrestleMania 32 weekend - one involving Karen Jarrett and Lucha Underground's Melissa Santos, the other involving former WWE talent Stacy "The Kat" Carter and Tessa Blanchard, daughter of WWE Hall of Famer Tully Blanchard. No word on what caused the incident between Tessa, who recently appeared on WWE NXT TV against Nia Jax, and Carter, Jerry Lawler's ex-wife but it had something to do with Carter telling Tessa she wasn't showing respect. Word is that the argument would've ended in a fight but Tessa's boyfriend Ricochet stepped in as the peacemaker. Santos was complaining about not having a chair to sit in and somehow Karen, who was criticized by many in attendance, spat on her, according to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter. This led to an argument and observers thought they were about to come to blows but things calmed down.

Originally Posted by Observer The announcement on 4/18 of The Fight Network in Canada picking up ROH is the first deal closed among many current negotiations to expand the pro wrestling content on the station. The Fight Network is currently in talks with AXS TV regarding the Canadian rights to New Japan Pro Wrestling’s broadcasts with Jim Ross and Josh Barnett as announcers; as well as with CMLL in Mexico, ICW in Scotland and Progress Wrestling in England about adding to their pro wrestling lineups.

Originally Posted by Observer Nobody knows what will happen with TV rights fees in a few years when WWE’s contract with USA next comes due, past the feeling secondary sports may have trouble because primary sports will get first dibs on money. There are those who think even sports like the NBA could be in trouble and get a big downgrade when its new deal is up. But people predicting sports rights fees will burst have constantly been wrong but there are signs that things can’t keep going like they are. Fewer people have cable and the cable companies have less revenue to spend. However, even with the big decline in WWE ratings, their value to USA is stronger than ever one could argue because USA no longer has the kind of hit programming that made the network No. 1 for so many years. At one point, USA could have lost WWE and still remained No. 1 on cable. But now, for the week after WrestleMania, USA Network was No. 3 in the prime time rankings (it was No. 5 the week before). If you remove Raw and Smackdown, they would fall all the way to 11th place (removing WWE they would have been in 13th place the week before). In 2005, when USA made the deal to bring Raw back, they didn’t want any other wrestling shows but Raw because they didn’t want to be known as the wrestling network. Now they are clearly a falling network that is being carried by wrestling. But WWE also needs them, because as the last negotiations showed, nobody else was willing to spend big money to get WWE programming. The problem is that if numbers that are out are correct, which indicate USA Network getting about $90 million per year in ad revenue sales off Raw and Smackdown combined, and them paying about $150 million for the rights, that isn’t the best of math.

Possible sign of things for WWE's next tv contract. Right now USA Network is at a big net loss between whet they pay for the WWE and what they get back in ad revenue.


Some other sheet news includes:

• This week's episode of Lucha Underground contained an Easter Egg related to the missing LU wrestlers from Season One including El Patron (Alberto Del Rio): https://twitter.com/DeathToAllMarks/...77792871288833
• In a "WWE Did You Know" type fact, Lance Storm and Observer's Dave Meltzer revealed outside of a few people, the WWE kept the plans for the first WWE Draft a big secret with the majority of wrestlers only finding about their future as the show happened or on WWE's website afterwards. https://twitter.com/LanceStorm/statu...87082014101504
• Observer recently debunked rumors of Adam Cole leaving ROH soon due to being pulled from future events. Whole thing is just a new storyline ROH has for Cole and his actual contract still has at least a year left.
• The developer of the Fire Pro Wrestling series, Spike Chunsoft, is currently considering the idea of making a new wrestling game. https://twitter.com/SpikeChunsoft_e/...47151933132800
• Being rumored at the moment a big reason why the WWE picked Scotland for their next European tour is for them to go right after UK's ICW market right before their own big ppv event of the year. Wouldn't be a case like with Evolve where both sides benefit from cross-promotion but instead WWE leeching off of ICW's market at ICW's expense.
• WWE recently teased the idea of MMA star Connor McGregor signing a deal with them in the near future since he teased at being a free agent at the moment.
• Rumors going around the net at the moment hinting POP TV might be upset with TNA getting the Harris Bros as possible investors due to their alleged Neo-Nazi ties. The boss of the network is Jewish.