[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Evil Emma Appreciation Day:

Originally Posted by ProWrestlingSheet Famous ECW wrestler Balls Mahoney was watching Jeopardy and answering trivia questions moments before losing consciousness Tuesday evening … this according to his wife, who says she’s still unsure what caused his death. Mahoney’s wife Gayle tells Pro Wrestling Sheet that she and Balls were watching TV last night when he made a move to get more comfortable on the couch by laying on his side. Moments later though, Gayle noticed Mahoney was unconscious and immediately called 911 before attempting to revive him with CPR. Once medics arrived however, they said Balls had already passed. Gayle tells us the 44 year-old wrestler took a bad spill last week and was unable to walk very well because of it — but she’s unsure if the two incidents are related at this point.

Originally Posted by PWTorch Pop TV is finding out what Spike TV and Destination America found out that it’s difficult to sell ad time on pro wrestling television, especially non-WWE pro wrestling ... This week, Pop bumped the Impact replay from their night late Tuesday night schedule in favor of a three-hour movie ... It makes financial sense for Pop, which generally draws more ad revenue for an acquired movie or soap opera re-run despite drawing fewer viewers. Even in the late-night timeslot, it appears Pop decided they can draw more revenue airing something different in the Impact replay time period. PWTorch obtained the following ad sales information capturing Pop’s business position. The March 29 TNA Impact generated $18,414 in ad revenue, which was less than half of its “Days of Our Lives” lead-in. Impact also generated less money for a 30-second ad than an acquired movie ... Part of the issue for TNA is that Pop is geared toward female viewers, as evidenced by the soap opera programming line-up and movies like “You’ve Got Mail.” TNA’s audience flips to male-heavy viewership, creating the challenge of trying to sell Impact individually to specific advertisers ... TNA’s strength is bringing in more total viewers than any other program on the network. However, the show has yet to bring in the ad dollars of lower-rated re-runs.

Report on what caused POP TV to drop Impact's replay status on their network. http://www.pwtorch.com/site/2016/04/...-night-replay/

Originally Posted by Observer The new prospective investors for TNA, who do exist and are still in play, haven’t purchased an interest in the company yet as far as we can find out. They have put money in to keep the TV going. The deal revolves around who ends up with controlling interest in the company but the feeling is TNA needs the deal to go through to survive, giving the investors the leverage to get the controlling interest

Originally Posted by Observer Reminder that Smackdown in Canada tonight will be airing one hour earlier at 7 p.m. due to NHL playoffs. This will be the case next week as well.

Figured that would be useful for TPWW Canada.

In exciting news, the next WWE Network drop seems to have started and the content is the very much anticipated Attitude Era themed Smackdown episodes! 2000 and 2001 Smackdown episodes have been in demand ever since RAW was added from that time period, and it looks as though these episodes are finally coming as well.

Originally Posted by Observer WWE has applied for a trademark of the Term “Total Bellas.” They asked for it covering paper goods, toys, lipstick, DVDs, underwear and reality shows. It could be that they will change the name of “Total Divas” to “Total Bellas” and phase out the divas term, since they have already dropped it on the rest of their programming. Or it may simply be they are looking at creating Bellas merchandise

Originally Posted by Observer Charlotte and Natalya right now are scheduled for a two month program with singles matches for the title on the next two PPV shows. The original plan was Charlotte vs. Banks on these shows but the decision was made to hold off on Banks, who they don’t want to beat, until SummerSlam, when she’s scheduled to get her singles shot at the title. Originally that was scheduled for Mania, but the decision was changed when the match was changed to involve Lynch

One of my friends worked at the Monaco. She must've interacted with hundreds of NBA players, but had zero interest in sports so she didn't care about any of them. She said the weirdest celeb was Vince McMahon, who came in and ordered a 24oz filet mignon, 2 bottles of ketchup, and a stairmaster. They sent up one from their gym and he denied it, saying he wanted a new one and that he'd pay for it. He left it in the room when he checked out.

Wacky Vince story from back in the day. https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comment...ost_an/d209ccr

Originally Posted by Observer Mitsuhiro Kitamiya announced on 4/11 that he is changing his ring name to Masa Kitamiya, in honor of Masa Saito. Saito, now 73, has Parkinson’s disease. The reason Brock Lesnar went to Japan last year for the “Beast in the East” special on the WWE Network was primarily to make it a business trip when he and Brad Rheingans went to Japan together to visit Saito last summer. He was one of Kitamiya’s business mentors. Kitamiya is also going to start using some moves that Saito was famous for. Saito was working for Kensuke Sasaki in the Kensuke Office where Kitamiya was trained, but Saito did not train Kitamiya, but said Saito gave his okay to use his name and to honor him

Originally Posted by Observer Christopher DeJoseph is the name that keeps coming up regarding the person on staff who was upset at MVP which lead to his firing at Lucha Underground, although all decisions would be DeJoseph as head writer and Eric Van Wagenen. MVP wouldn’t say anything about it on his VIP Lounge podcast, but co-host Alex Greenfield said that the firing was a personal betrayal, but didn’t say by who

Update to MVP's recent firing from Lucha Underground news.

Originally Posted by Observer The situation regarding Trevor Mann (Ricochet) and the Prince Puma character is said to not be dead. Reports are that the promotion has made Mann a major offer for a new deal to stay. If the numbers going around are accurate, between Lucha Underground, New Japan and indies, he’d earn more than just about anyone in NXT (I’d think Nakamura and perhaps Balor or Joe would be the exceptions) although it would still be significantly less than a major star on the WWE main roster would earn. He’s said nothing past that he’s working the New Japan Super Juniors tournament which is in May and June, and then talking time off and not taking bookings The contract situation is such that the belief is Mann (Ricochet) is done with the promotion, but they believe it won’t be until 2017 that he can go to WWE because of the stips in his deal regarding the non-compete. I don’t know how serious this is, but we were told by someone internally that there is talk of resurrecting the character for season four, if there is a season four, and if Mann isn’t available, putting someone else in the character because it’s one of the key characters on the show

Originally Posted by Observer El Hijo del Fantasma (King Cuerno) wanted out but he looks to be back soon. He returned to AAA this past week. He wanted to take an offer with WWE but his Lucha Underground contract wouldn’t allow it. He had a seven season contract and they wouldn’t release him. Evidently he didn’t have whatever leverage Alberto had to force a release. So he may be back. His only option, and I’m not sure if it’s even an option, would be to sign with a Japanese group because his Lucha Underground contract covers exclusivity in the U.S., but not in Japan

Originally Posted by Observer Right now the plan is to break up the League of Nations, or at least that is what people who need to know have been told. Not sure how quick, but the thing last week wasn’t just Barrett being kicked out but the beginning of the end of the group

Some other sheet news includes:

• Recent episode of Jim Ross' podcast show has the Observer's Dave Meltzer as his guest. http://www.podcastone.com/embed?progID=619&pid=1643047
• According to Fox Sports, Scott Steiner recently ended up be involved as a witness to an attempted murder near a restaurant Steiner owns and was located at during the time. http://www.foxsports.com/wwe/story/l...ardee-s-041216
• In a "WWE Did You Know" type fact, third time in a row a WWE superstar has suffered a serious injury during the first day of a WWE European Tour. 2015 had two tours with Daniel Bryan and Seth Rollins each getting hurt during day one and this year's tour had Bray get hurt on day one. https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCirc...of_the_past_3/
• In another "WWE Did You Know" type fact, Paige currently has a Mania hugging curse where whoever she hugs at the end of her Mania match ends up leaving the WWE shortly afterwards. She hugged AJ Lee at Mania 31 who retired a week later and Brie Bella at Mania 32 who retired a day later. https://41.media.tumblr.com/58ce1cd3...mj0qo1_540.png
• During an interview with the Peterborough Examiner, Bobby Roode denied rumors and reports of him recently signing a WWE. Teased he's still in the negotiations part of a potential deal with nothing official yet.