TPWW's Official Dirty Sheets News Thread

[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by One of the Very Few Highlights from RAW 25th:

Originally Posted by Observer One day after a rape allegation against him was made public, Enzo Amore has been released by WWE. The company's statement: "WWE has come to terms on the release of Eric Arndt (Enzo Amore)." Amore had been suspended by WWE yesterday. On Twitter, a woman using the handle "missgucciwitch" shared her story alleging that Amore had raped her last October. Phoenix Police confirmed that they responded to a local hospital on October 23rd, 2017 for a call of a sexual assault that had reportedly occurred on October 19th, 2017 at 401 West Clarendon Avenue. The investigation is still ongoing ... UPDATE: Amore's accuser, whose name is Philomena Sheahan, spoke to TMZ about the incident. She told them Amore ripped her tights open and, despite her saying no countless times, he sexually assaulted her in the hotel room they were in. Sheahan said Amore threw her on the bed and she passed out from smashing her head. When she woke up, she says he was still raping her and wouldn't stop when she said no and told him to get off of her. She doesn't know when Amore stopped, but says he was still there in the morning.

According to the Post Wrestling podcast show, the police investigation is expected to conclude soon. Supposedly WWE only found out about the allegations on the night of RAW 25 and only after getting questions by a reporter for an interview.

Originally Posted by Fightful.com According to Sheahan, there were drugs all over the hotel room, which would later play a factor into her becoming incapacitated. Sheahan said that she was 8 months sober from all drugs outside of her prescribed medication before the alleged meeting on October 19. "I walk into the hotel room and there's cocaine everywhere. They're smoking weed and everything. We just started doing drugs," she said. "Then they pulled out a different bag. I expected it to be a better version of cocaine -- like top shelf that they had. They started giving it to me and I did like three lines in a row. It must have had meth or something I don't even know, because I was literally was sitting there on the couch. I could hear what they were saying, I couldn't speak, I was frozen. I can't say I was unconscious, but I was not there." While incapacitated, Sheahan specified that she could hear a conversation between TooPoor and the WWE Cruiserweight Champion with some disturbing dialogue.

Some more details on the alleged incident involving Enzo. Link: http://www.fightful.com/enzo-amore-accused-rape%C2%A0

Originally Posted by Observer On the day he was officially released from WWE, the legal team of Eric Arndt (aka Enzo Amore) released a statement via Arndt's Twitter account: "Over the last two days, Philomena Sheahan has made multiple public allegations against Eric Arndt (also known as Enzo Amore with the WWE), including allegations of sexual misconduct concerning an October 2017 incident in Phoenix. Mr. Arndt fully and unequivicoally denies these accusations. He is cooperating with the authorities in this matter and looks forward to having it resolved in a timely manner. Neither Mr. Arndt nor his counsel will be making any further public comments on this matter." On Monday via Twitter, Sheahan accused Arndt of raping her on October 19th. Phoenix police confirmed they responded to a call from the local hospital on October 23rd for an incident that reportedly occured on the 19th. Sheahan spoke with TMZ and told her side of the story which was very graphic and troubling.

Enzo link: https://twitter.com/real1/status/955955140896460801 , TMZ: http://www.tmz.com/2018/01/23/enzo-a...ahan-rape-wwe/

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Deadspin's David Bixenspan also noted on Twitter that there has been no change in the status of his case, according to the Phoenix Police Department. He tweeted: Per the Phoenix Police Department, there has been no change in the status of the Eric "Enzo Amore" Arndt case since yesterday. This plus WWE pivoting from suspension to firing suggests that not telling WWE he was being investigated was indeed the catalyst for the firing. — David Bixenspan (@davidbix) January 23, 2018

Originally Posted by WrestleInc ABC 15 has a story here about WWE releasing Enzo Amore following a woman accusing him of rape earlier this week. As noted, the incident happened on October 19th, 2017 at The Clarendon Hotel & Spa. Officers responded to a local hospital days later on October 23rd. Despite WWE releasing Enzo Amore today, ABC 15 noted that the case is still under investigation.

ABC link: https://www.abc15.com/news/region-ph...lt-allegations

Originally Posted by Observer Following Enzo Amore's release, what's next for the Cruiserweight Championship will be made clear at the beginning of tonight's episode of 205 Live. WWE announced that Daniel Bryan will kick off the show by addressing the situation with the title. Cedric Alexander had been scheduled to challenge Amore for the championship at the Royal Rumble on Sunday before Amore was suspended and later released. It also appears that there will be a general manager named for 205 Live, with WWE's announcement noting that Bryan will also address rumors of a potential GM.

Originally Posted by PWI Before he was suspended (and later fired) by World Wrestling Entertainment, Enzo Amore was originally slated to wrestle Goldust at last night's Raw 25 event. In a bout that was scheduled for the third hour of Raw at the Barclays Center, Amore vs. Goldust would have led to The Dudley Boyz getting involved after the Zo-Train interfered and attacked Goldust and Cedric Alexander with the Dudleys putting someone through a table before celebrating with Alexander and Goldust. With Amore having been removed from the show, WWE rewrote the segment to feature Titus O'Neil & Apollo Crews vs. Heath Slater & Rhyno to set up the Dudleys appearing and putting Slater through a table. The re-write (and a pre-tape that set up the new match) was finalized around 7 PM last night. Goldust and Alexander were removed from Raw completely while members of the Zo-Train were instead sent to the Manhattan Center to work dark matches if needed.

Originally Posted by Observer As expected, the 25th anniversary of Raw drew monster ratings, averaging 4.50 million viewers. While the number wasn't close to the 6.02 million viewers of the similar 1,000th Raw special in 2012, nobody expected that kind of a figure. It was the biggest number in several years and will most likely be the largest number of 2018 ... The three hours were: 8 p.m. 4.80 million viewers 9 p.m. 4.64 million viewers 10 p.m. 4.15 million viewers

In terms of rankings, RAW took the #1, #2, and #3 spots.

Originally Posted by Observer Another NJPW regular has been added to Ring of Honor's upcoming WrestleMania weekend show. ROH officially announced this morning that Kota Ibushi will be wrestling at Supercard of Honor XII in New Orleans on April 7th. He joins Kenny Omega and Hiroshi Tanahashi as wrestlers who have been confirmed for the show. ROH's announcement mentions the post-match angle that Ibushi was involved in at New Year's Dash where Omega stopped Cody Rhodes from hitting Ibushi with a chair and Omega and Cody argued after ... Supercard of Honor XII will take place at the UNO Lakefront Arena on the same night as the Smoothie King Center hosts NXT TakeOver. ROH is looking to break their all-time attendance record, which was set when over 3,000 people were present for Supercard of Honor last year.

Link: http://www.rohwrestling.com/news/int...upercard-honor

Originally Posted by Observer The Hollywood Reporter reported that John Cena is in negotiations to star in “Duke Nukem,” which is a film adaptation of the video game franchise. “Ferdinand,” with Cena having voiced its lead character, was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film in the Academy Awards. Cena thanked the Academy for recognizing the movie: “So happy @FerdinandMovie was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film. The cast, crew, directors, producers, and more importantly, its message, are amazing. Thank you to @TheAcademy for recognizing a story that reminds us to be proud of who we are. #Oscars2018” While appearing at an event at the Empire State Building yesterday, Triple H said “I will tell you this -- stay tuned” about Ronda Rousey potentially appearing for WWE again. Despite being on the commemorative chair, Lita tweeted that she didn’t make the guest list for last night.

Duke Nukem film: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...-nukem-1077194 , Ferdinand film: https://twitter.com/JohnCena/status/955845060616183808 , Triple H: https://theblast.com/triple-h-stepha...da-rousey-wwe/ , Lita: https://twitter.com/AmyDumas/status/955654559115788288

Originally Posted by Observer After 36 hours of labor, Melissa Santos and Brian Cage welcomed the birth of their daughter. They named her Skylar Faith Button. NJPW’s two Road to New Beginning in Osaka shows at Korakuen Hall next month will have English commentary. The NWA congratulated WWE on Raw’s 25th anniversary. Toni Storm has been announced to be making her Shimmer debut on 4/7 in New Orleans against Nicole Matthews.

Santos: https://twitter.com/ThisIsMelSantos/...75627667189761 , NJPW: https://twitter.com/reasonjp/status/955713520607232000 , NWA: https://twitter.com/nwa/status/955598733298806785

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Randy Orton's wife, Kim, took to social media today to vent over Randy not being booked for tonight's loaded RAW 25 show. Despite there being no SmackDown live event tonight, only a handful of SmackDown talents have been advertised for the event: Shane McMahon, Daniel Bryan, The Usos, Charlotte, WWE Champion AJ Styles and The New Day. "Can someone pls explain to me how @randyorton isn't on the Raw 25th anniversary tonight?" she wrote. "He's been on more episode of Raw then anyone besides HHH, Michaels, Taker, Kane and Cena. Impressive list right? So why NOT @randyorton? He's had some of the most memorable moments in Raw history too. He's also on the Promo pic but isn't on the show. Just doesn't make sense to me. Enjoy the show tonight guys. I'll be playing MarioKart with my kids"

Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/BeQwAZclyjB

Originally Posted by WrestleInc A new WWE 24 documentary will air on the WWE Network after Sunday's Royal Rumble pay-per-view goes off the air. The one-hour special will take fans behind-the-scenes of WrestleMania 33 in Orlando. Below is the synopsis: "WWE 24 cameras go backstage and follow the Superstars behind the curtain at WrestleMania from Orlando, Florida!"

Originally Posted by WrestleInc There was some speculation on Roman Reigns possibly being punished for the recent steroid allegation story with his title loss to WWE Intercontinental Champion The Miz at last night's RAW 25 special but there is no heat, according to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio. Reigns is still planned to face WWE Universal Champion Brock Lesnar in the main event of WrestleMania 34, as of this week. There's a feeling within WWE that the story on Reigns being implicated in the steroid ring is a non-story. Regarding The Miz, Meltzer noted that he is currently in the beginning of a monster push. Miz is scheduled for a major WrestleMania 34 match but there's no word yet on who he might be facing. The Miz is scheduled to be booked as a top guy during WrestleMania season and the new "Miz & Mrs." USA Network reality TV show with Maryse may tie into that.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc WWE RAW General Manager Kurt Angle revealed on Instagram that he filmed an upcoming episode of Table For 3 with AJ Styles and Shane McMahon. He noted that in addition to their matches and families, they will talk about TNA Wrestling. "Very intriguing 'Table for 3' coming soon on the WWE Network," Angle said. "AJ Styles, Shane McMahon and Yours' truly..... We talk about our matches together, our families, unheard stories and even TNA Wrestling. Must see." Angle worked for TNA / Impact Wrestling from 2006 - 2016, while Styles was a part of the company from 2002 - 2013.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc WWE has a new poll asking fans their favorite Legend appearance at RAW 25. As of this writing, 46% voted for Steve Austin hitting Stunners on Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon while 18% voted for The Undertaker's "sacred ground" promo, 10% for DX's segment with The Balor Club, 8% for Chris Jericho putting Elias on The List, 7% for Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler calling Manhattan Center action and 4% for The APA's poker game. Christian hosting The Peep Show, The Dudley Boyz putting Heath Slater through a table, The Godfather's segment with Mark Henry, Ric Flair's appearance with his daughter, "Mean" Gene Okerlund interviewing WWE Champion AJ Styles and the "bizarre Legends" interacting with Kurt Angle all drew 2% or less.

Some other sheet news includes:

• FW4online had a recent interview with Ellsworth talking about life after leaving the WWE, his pre-WWE career, early days as a wrestler, going from jobber to full time wrestler in the WWE, and more. https://www.f4wonline.com/wwe-news/j...we-life-250271
• In a "WWE Did You Know" type fact, today is the 34th anniversary of Hulk Hogan defeating The Iron Sheik for the WWF championship.
• In another "WWE Did You Know" type fact, Kane has wrestled the most matches on RAW out of everyone who ever wrestled on the show since its launch in 1993. In regards to most wins ever, John Cena owns the record for men and Trish Stratus owns the record for women. https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCirc...01&sh=c709b843
• WWE's official website had a recent interview with Kofi Kingston talking about his decade long career in the company, disappointments of his WWE career, and future goals. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...r-the-slammys/
• Website Waypoint had a recent article about an indie promotion using Twitch to help book and run shows. https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/arti...its-damn-close

Some stuff from TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE: Undertaker vs. Cena Still On? SmackDown Matches, After Raw Video
• Why Bret Hart Wasn’t at Raw 25
• Jim Ross Says He and Lawler Weren’t Asleep at Raw 25
• Off-Air Manhattan Raw 25 Notes: Crowd Chants, Jeff Hardy, Flair, Miz Rollins

[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Random Indie Wrestling gif:

Originally Posted by Observer Coming off the biggest Raw audience in years didn't seem to have a spillover to SmackDown as Tuesday night's show averaged 2.58 million viewers on the USA Network. That's just 57 percent of the audience for Raw's 25th anniversary episode ... SmackDown was up very slightly in the year-over-year comparison as the Royal Rumble go-home show in 2017 did 2.556 million viewers.

Originally Posted by Observer Asuka submitted Carmella with an armbar as Asuka & The Miz advanced over Carmella & Big E on Mixed Match Challenge last night. The show peaked at over 90,000 viewers live and has over 680,000 views as of now. Both of those numbers are down from last week. Asuka & Miz will face Sasha Banks & Finn Balor in the next round, with their match set for week seven of the tournament. Next week’s Mixed Match Challenge match is Alexa Bliss & Braun Strowman vs. Becky Lynch & Sami Zayn. Samir Singh will be out of action for a while due to tearing his ACL. Singh revealed that he suffered the injury last week and wrote that the past week has been emotional for him. Kurt Angle, Shane McMahon, and AJ Styles will appear together on an upcoming episode of Table for Three. Styles made his WWE debut in the Royal Rumble on this day two years ago. WWE uploaded their annual “by the numbers” video for the Royal Rumble.

Samir: https://www.instagram.com/p/BeUOScvnFIc/ , Angle: https://www.instagram.com/p/BeREZ2qB...n=embed_legacy , Rumble video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOYxjjIJfKs

Originally Posted by Observer PWG announced the card for their next show, which will be called Neon Knights and will take place on February 16th: PWG World Champion Chuck Taylor defending against Trent Barreta Keith Lee vs. Matt Riddle Flip Gordon (making his PWG debut) vs. Zack Sabre Jr. David Starr vs. Travis Banks Dalton Castle vs. Joey Janela Adam Brooks vs. Matt Sydal Impact Wrestling will have a live road show with Border City Wrestling and Destiny Wrestling at the Don Kolov Arena in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada on March 4th. The show will be on Impact’s Twitch channel. (thanks to reader Jake Koch) Hirai Kawato is set to make his CMLL debut as a rudo at Arena Mexico next week as he heads there on excursion. NJPW has post-match comments with English subtitles from Kawato’s final match before going to Mexico. wXw announced that Keith Lee will replace Jeff Cobb in their 16 Carat Gold tournament in March. The tournament will take place on March 9-11, and Cobb had to withdraw due to Lucha Underground tapings being scheduled.

Impact: https://twitter.com/DestinyWrestle/s...80979537174528 , NJPW-CMLL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3JBcdBD7II , wXw: https://twitter.com/wXwGermany/statu...79792575062016

Originally Posted by Observer WWE is bringing the Royal Rumble to Arizona next year. The company announced via The Arizona Republic today that Chase Field in Phoenix will host the Royal Rumble on January 27th, 2019. Chase Field, which is a baseball stadium, is the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. WWE estimates that over 40,000 people will attend the pay-per-view. This will be the first time that a WWE show has taken place at Chase Field. It's also the first time that a baseball stadium has hosted a Royal Rumble. The Arizona Republic's article mentions that the women's Royal Rumble match is "an event that will be repeated in Phoenix." Like with all "Big Four" PPVs, there will be an NXT TakeOver special, Raw, and SmackDown in the days surrounding the Royal Rumble. The Talking Stick Resort Arena will host TakeOver on the 26th, Raw on the 28th, and SmackDown on the 29th.

Originally Posted by PWI The decision to terminate Amore the next day was again, not a belief internally that Amore was guilty, but a determination that Amore failing to inform the company was, as several people described it, "the last straw" for Amore within the company. It isn't news that Amore had been an controversial figure behind the scenes, something that was openly talked about in his recent WWE Network interview with Corey Graves. Sources indicated that there had been a number of issues previously with Amore's behind the scenes conduct, including the company being unhappy that he had gone on social media to mock Big Cass' legitimate injury when he hadn't been instructed to do so last year as well as the well-known situation in Europe where he was thrown off a tour bus for, allegedly, being loud and not letting talents sleep in the middle of the night even after he was asked repeatedly to quiet down. Within the company, among the wrestlers, Amore had been one of the least liked members of the locker room, often dressing and traveling on his own. In the end, WWE sources tell us, there were too many instances of problems in recent months that were already building against Amore. His decision to not come to the company about criminal allegations that are obviously extremely serious and horrible, while knowing about them for months, was the watershed moment that led to them finally terminating him.

Originally Posted by PWI The latest "vintage" WWE Network addition will be old WWF Coliseum Home Videos, PWInsider has learned. There will be 38 videos uploaded to the Network's VOD section the first week of February. The Coliseum videos had been planned for some time, although there was talk internally of instead adding old WCW Thunder episodes since the lawsuit brought against the compan by Buff Bagwell and Raventhe lack of royalties for in regard to their appearances on the WWE Network has been dismissed. That lawsuit led to WWE delaying the addition of Thunder and WWE Sunday Night Heat to the Network, but now that WWE successfully defended themselves against it, the door is now open for that content to be added. PWInsider.com can also confirm the frontrunner to be added in March are old episodes of WWWF All-Star Wrestling from the 1970s.

Originally Posted by PWI DK Publishing will be releasing a new hardcover WWE book focused on The Rock this October, similar to one they released on John Cena last year. Other additional WWE books currently scheduled: * 3/8 - WWE Superstars Guide (Second Editions) by Jake Black * 3/13 - The Book of Booty: Shake It. Love It. Never Be It.: From WWE's The New Day * 5/8 - Raw: The First 25 Years.

Originally Posted by PWI For those of you wondering how WWE handles producing Raw this past Monday, Vince McMahon oversaw things at the Barclays Center with Michael Hayes and Adam Pearce producing matches. Triple H oversaw The Manhattan Center with Mike Rotunda producing the matches.

Originally Posted by PWI Billy Corgan's Lightning One, Inc. company, which is the production company attached to the National Wrestling Alliance, applied to trademark 'The Dupont Network' for wrestling purposes. That may be a takeoff of the Dumont Network, which was the name of the first television network that broadcast professional wrestling.

Originally Posted by Sports Illustrated Sports Illustrated has learned that much of the Raw 25 anniversary show was rewritten approximately three hours before going live after the creative team learned that Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon could not arrive at Raw early enough in the day for pre-tapes and segments with many WWE legends. Plans for backstage segments with Fallon, including the general manager segment, ultimately became introductions and waves to the crowd.

Link to article: https://www.si.com/wrestling/2018/01...o-amore-raw-25

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Triple H revealed during today's media call that Kassius Ohno vs. The Velveteen Dream has been added to Saturday's WWE NXT "Takeover: Philadelphia" card. You can check out the full call in the video above. It was also revealed that the January 31st NXT episode will be filmed at the Wells Fargo Center before Takeover hits the air on Saturday. The tapings will feature TM-61's return to TV plus appearances by Roderick Strong and Nikki Cross ... Below is the updated card for Takeover: NXT Title Match Johnny Gargano vs. Andrade "Cien" Almas NXT Women's Title Match Shayna Baszler vs. Ember Moon NXT Tag Team Title Match The Authors of Pain vs. Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish Extreme Rules Match Adam Cole vs. Aleister Black Kassius Ohno vs. The Velveteen Dream

Originally Posted by WrestleInc WWE has applied to trademark the "Miz and Mrs." name, which is the title of the USA Network series on Maryse and WWE Intercontinental Champion The Miz that will premiere later this year.

Some other sheet news includes:

• Edge revealed Corey Graves will be this week's guest for the Edge & Christian podcast show. https://twitter.com/EandCPod/status/956226126866800643
• WWE announced they will release their fiscal report for the year on February 8th. https://www.pwinsider.com/article/11...month.html?p=1
• According to PWI, WWE currently has 4 inductees locked for this year's Hall of Fame class and others still being under consideration.
• Bleacher Report had a recent interview with Naomi talking about possibility of a Women's tag division, Mixed Match Challenge series, and not getting to face Charlotte in a feud for the Smackdown's Women's championship. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...-at-charlotte/
• Miami Herald had a recent interview with Kaitlyn talking about her upcoming return to wrestling, if she plans on returning to the WWE, and being in NXT. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...-a-wwe-return/
• Sports website Deadspin had a recent article on why WWE disappointed and doesn't care about disappointing their fans with how RAW 25 was handled. https://deadspin.com/raw-25-proved-t...ges-1822364641

Some stuff from TPWW Frontpage:

• The XFL Is Set to Return in 2020
• WWE: Stephanie on Rumble Commentary, SD Dark Matches, Raw 25 Videos
• “Woken” Matt Hardy Teases Becoming “Broken” Matt Hardy

[Evolution]

The XFL is coming back.

I wasn't able to watch the first season as a) I live in Britain; and b) I was 15 so didn't get a say.

Now it is coming back with more forethought, planning, care and easier access, I'm inclined to check it out.

As a side note, with WWE owning all of the WCW names and trademarks, would they call their version of the Superbowl the Superbrawl?

[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Triple H channeling his inner Drifter:

SPOILER: show

Originally Posted by Observer At this point it appears nothing at the top has changed for WrestleMania. As of right now the plan is for The Miz to defend the IC title against Braun Strowman, which is why Miz’s win was as clean as it was, since the IC title will be one of the biggest matches at Mania. But a lot can change. There are people who believe Strowman should win the three-way at the Rumble and it’s the time to make him champion, but at least after Raw that was not the way McMahon was thinking. The allegations last week against Reigns were described to us as a non-issue as far as potential cold feet on pulling the trigger on Reigns at this year’s Mania after a couple of pullbacks of plans to do the same dating back three years.

Originally Posted by Observer Brock Lesnar vs. Braun Strowman vs. Kane for the Universal title is the non-Rumble main event. The winner of this match would either face the winner of the Rumble, or more likely, the winner of the upcoming Elimination Chamber match if someone from Smackdown wins the Rumble. As noted, the Lesnar vs. Reigns destination dating back nearly one year still hasn’t been changed as of this past week.

Originally Posted by Observer The name Daniel Bryan has been listed as among the betting favorites. What we can confirm is that Bryan has not been cleared to wrestle as of earlier in the week and that is not expected to change this week. An idea that somehow he could be involved but not take a bump has been speculated on and somehow winning that way. I can’t say it’s impossible but it’s not like they are going to do a Styles vs. Bryan match, so it somewhat defeats the long-term usual Royal Rumble winner purpose. But it’s wrestling and you can change things and rules at any time. If we go with the idea Reigns wins the Chamber match, that would leave someone from Smackdown. Reigns could win the Rumble, although the reaction in Philadelphia would almost surely be very negative if he does ... The other thing is that the Bryan stuff has gotten enough play in the last two weeks, even mainstream coverage in the U.K. with the idea he’s winning, that there are likely fans attending who believe it’s the secret storyline. They’d better have a heel at No. 30, because if it’s a face and anyone other than Undertaker or a surprise of that level (I’m not sure Ethan Carter III or even Bobby Lashley would fit), the reaction to that face at No. 30 may not be pretty.

Originally Posted by Observer On the women’s side ... There is no confirmation of Rousey being in the match and obviously her role in WWE is being kept a closely guarded secret. Asuka and Jax are being presented as the favorites.

Spoiler tags used since its related to possible Rumble and Mania plans.

Originally Posted by Observer All charges against Rich Swann stemming from his December arrest were dismissed today. Court records cite insufficient evidence to sustain a conviction as the reason why the case isn't moving forward. Swann was arrested in Gainesville, Florida on December 10th and charged with false imprisonment/kidnapping, which is a third degree felony, and misdemeanor domestic battery (touching or striking). The arrest report from the incident stated that Swann had gotten into an argument with his wife Vanarrah Riggs, who wrestles as Su Yung, after she performed at an indie show. The report alleged that Riggs got out of their vehicle due to fearing that the argument was going to escalate, and Swann grabbed her by the arm and around her neck, dragged her back to the car, and pushed her in as she screamed for help. Swann denied physically touching Riggs. In mid-December, Riggs posted a positive message about Swann on Facebook: "I can not wait to see my husband tomorrow. After such an awesome weekend of wrestling debuting in two different promotions across America, nothing would be better than to see his face." Swann was indefinitely suspended by WWE after the arrest, which is what the company's zero-tolerance domestic violence policy called for. WWE has yet to comment on Swann's status following the charges being dismissed.

Originally Posted by Observer Nobody asked what type of salaries they are going to pay and how that compares to the CFL, as they will be competing for the same type of player. As far as public interest, I don't see this being any different from last time or any of the attempts at second pro football leagues. But the environment is completely different today than in 2001. Whether that allows them to make it is a different story, but it's all about broadcast rights and if you can get a deal that allows you to make money, it doesn't matter about merch sales or ticket sales. And if it's just merch sales and ticket sales, but no significant money from broadcast rights, this doesn't have a chance. There are a lot more outlets, but television and OTT, looking for fringe product and you don't need that many viewers to stay on the air. But you need for someone to pay you a lot to be on the air, so this depends far more on the television/OTT market than the football market.

Meltzer on XFL's chances of success from a players and television viewpoint.

Originally Posted by Observer WWE stock wasn't hurt by the XFL announcement as it was up 64 cents per share to $34.13, the highest the stock has been since 1999.

Originally Posted by PWI Vince was asked how this will affect his day to day control with WWE. He said that there will be no change.to his role as Chairman of the Board and COO of WWE.

Part of the Q&A section from today's XFL revival press conference.

Originally Posted by PWI The updated main events for the 3/16 WWE return to Madison Square Garden: *WWE Universal champion Brock Lesnar vs. Kane vs. Braun Strowman. *John Cena vs. Elias. *WWE Intercontinental champion The Miz vs. Roman Reigns.

Originally Posted by PWI It was announced today that the Philadelphia intersection of Broad Street and Pattison Way, which is right outside of the Wells Fargo Arena, the host venue of the 2018 Royal Rumble, has been renamed this weekend as Royal Way and Rumble Road.

Image of the road sign: https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...eb&oe=5ADB9024

Originally Posted by PWI WWE posted the following: Congratulations are in order for Chad Gable: WWE.com has learned the former SmackDown Tag Team Champion and his wife have welcomed their second daughter into the world. Meadow Ann arrived on Jan. 24 at 7 pounds, 14 ounces. Join us in celebrating this exciting new addition to Gable’s family!

Originally Posted by PWI Alexa Bliss spoke with Sky Sports promoting Sunday's Royal Rumble. The Raw Women's Champion was asked about the first ever Women's Royal Rumble Match and whether this means if the Women's Evolution in WWE is complete. She responded with, "You're never done. The WWE has been at the forefront of promoting women in sports entertainment and athletics. But it would be awesome if one day we main event WrestleMania. That would be amazing. At the moment, the fact that we're making history is very exciting. I'm very excited by this Royal Rumble match because the revolution didn't start with just one or two women. So the fact you have every woman included is awesome." Bliss is thankful for past generations blazing the trail that led them to this historic moment. "I don't think it really started with our generation," she said. "It started with the previous women, the divas. If they hadn't have had the types of matches they had then and been given the types of opportunities they had then, we wouldn't have what we have now. So I think it's great to see how we're perceived now and everything but it started before us. The fact that the fact notices that change is amazing and it's leading to us main eventing and having historic matches and it's been an amazing thing for women."

Link to the interview: http://www.skysports.com/wwe/news/14...urney-not-over

Originally Posted by PWI William Regal noted that he just hit 25 years since he first came to the United States: Two days ago marks 25 years since I arrived in the https://t.co/xCySkE82tb is the 25 anniversary of my debut in WCW.A “WCW Saturday Night” taping at Center Stage,Atlanta.Thank you to all that helped and watched for allowing me to entertain you. — William Regal (@RealKingRegal) January 25, 2018

Originally Posted by PWI On last night's episode of Total Divas, it was revealed that the due date for Miz and Maryse's first daughter is 4/6, which is just a few days before Wrestlemania 34.

Originally Posted by Observer One person close to the situation said that when WWE announced the suspension, they had already decided to let him go. The key reason was that in a meeting with him when the news broke, he admitted being aware of the Phoenix police investigation and had never told the company, which is something they strongly frown on. The belief internally is that they never would have featured him so prominently, kept the cruiserweight title on him, and continued to build 205 Live around him if they had known he was the subject of an ongoing police investigation.

Some details regarding how furious WWE was over finding out about Enzo's legal problems.

Originally Posted by Observer The biggest question involved the return of The Undertaker. Undertaker came out at the Manhattan Center and did an interview that left most people confused. He talked about how Stone Cold, Mick Foley and even his own flesh-and-blood (Kane) had all answered to the reaper, how they all tried and they all failed. But then teased the idea that he was retired as opposed to shooting an angle with John Cena. Instead, Cena was in Brooklyn and an angle to put over Elias, designed to build the Royal Rumble, although that was never actually said on the broadcast as Rumble hype was minimal at best, with none of the top stars bringing up the Rumble match and the only Rumble-related promos, one by A.J. Styles and the other by Paul Heyman, were about the two major championship matches. Elias was put in the Samoa Joe position as someone designed to work a key spot in the Rumble with Cena as well as perhaps do house shows with him. The house shows were to be Roman Reigns vs. Cena vs. Joe for the IC title, but with Joe injured and Miz winning the title, everything is likely to change.

Originally Posted by Observer It is still not clear what will happen with Lesnar, whose contract expires after Mania, although there are aspects of the contract that tie him up through August. Prior to August, Lesnar would need Vince McMahon’s approval to do UFC. Dana White this week indicated that he believed Lesnar would fight in UFC in 2018. McMahon did give his approval for the Mark Hunt fight in 2016. Lesnar vs. Jon Jones was in the cards for 2018, but it fell apart when Jones was suspended. But White also said that he expected Jones to fight in 2018, meaning he expected some extenuating circumstances would keep Jones from being suspended as long as first feared. Still, just as the last time his contract was due, it’s hard to believe at 41, which Lesnar turns this summer, that Lesnar would do UFC past one giant payday that a Jones fight would bring, and that whether that would be part of his new deal, or he’d take a few months off and then return, that Lesnar wouldn’t end up long-term back in WWE for the next several years.

Originally Posted by Observer For years, WWE has claimed, and in many places, the claim has gone unchecked, as being the longest running episodic weekly show in the history of television. Of course, that claim is false. Episodic meant to remove sports shows, which have gone on since the beginning of time, and weekly news shows, like Meet the Press. Weekly was meant to exclude soap operas, which are episodic and daily. Raw has produced more episodes, as has Smackdown, of any weekly network prime time show.

According to the Observer, the real record either belongs to Portland Wrestling (1953-91 with 2k shows) or Atlanta Wrestling (1972-2000 but can also be traced back to 1950) depending on the criteria used. Memphis Wrestling has 40+ years worth of weekly televised shows but doesn't count since it was 2 companies during its history.

Originally Posted by Observer Evolve announced its top matches for 2/17 in Queens, NY at LaBoom and 2/18 in Joppa, MD at the MCW Arena. The first night will have Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Austin Theory for the Evolve title, Keith Lee vs. AR Fox for the WWN title plus Chris Dickinson & Jaka vs. The End for the tag titles. The Joppa show is headlined by Matt Riddle vs. Austin Theory vs. Darby Allin vs. Jaka in an elimination match, Sabre Jr. vs. Dickinson in a non-title match and Lee vs. Tracy Williams in a non-title match.

Originally Posted by Observer The first [ROH] PPV of the year will be the 16th anniversary show on 3/9 from Sam’s Town in Las Vegas. At the TV tapings on 1/20 in Nashville two matches were set up that are official. They are Dalton Castle vs. Jay Lethal for the ROH title and Silas Young vs. Kenny King for the TV title. At TV, they also teased a tag title match with Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley either against Mark & Jay Briscoe or a three-way including Baretta & Chuckie T

Originally Posted by Observer The situation with Bobby Lashley is that he was actually under contract, for a good amount of money, through May, but since it was clear that he wasn’t staying past that point and he asked to be released early, they did so. The feeling would be he’s expecting a good deal elsewhere, whether that be WWE or New Japan, and was willing to forego the last three months of his contract With the exception of Chris Adonis, who just quit, all of the departures were expected. Adonis & Eli Drake were going to work a tag title program with LAX when he quit The company is looking at doing a deal where they focus on 6-8 top guys. Brian Cage is looking to be one of them as they are giving him a monster push. They toned him down as far as doing wild moves as at first they just want him destroying people like a Goldberg and then when he’s in bigger matches he’ll start to do more of the flying. Names we heard they were very happy with included Austin Aries, Matt Sydal, Su Yung and Sami Callihan. As for Eddie Edwards, it was really scary because there was fear when the injury first happened that he could lose his eye, but he was a real tough guy and came back all bruised up and still did run-ins at the next TVs. His deal is coming up and they are hopeful of keeping him

Originally Posted by Observer The WWE has made an offer to people who have canceled the WWE Network that they can come back for a three month subscription starting now, which takes them through WrestleMania, for just $1.99 total. Other former subscribers were sent mailers that offered the same three month period for free. The key to this is the day after WrestleMania, when WWE announces its subscriber numbers, the people who signed up at $1.99 for three months would be listed as paid subscribers, not free subscribers, thus it would artificially create a gain in the year-to-year numbers. This would make it look like strong growth, or at least some growth, and would help the stock price even though it’s a gimmick. If there was no growth from last year, WWE would be questioned about if the network has peaked. There would be questions since Netflix has just announced record growth making people expect that of other major streaming services right now. The web site also has pop up ad offering two free months, which would expire two weeks before Mania

There were negotiations a few months back for Hogan to be part of The Bullet Club, as legit they have said the only outside guys they’d want in would be C.M. Punk or Hogan. The feeling was that Hogan wanted too much money and he’d bail on them the minute Vince called, and the feeling was that he was negotiating in the first place to get Vince to bring him back.

Vince McMahon asks who wants to sit through a 3 - 3 1/2 hour and have games under that time frame - yes, who could imagine sitting down for three hours every week?

— John Pollock (@iamjohnpollock) January 25, 2018

Some other sheet news includes:

• After previously being redirected to WWE's official website and later a 404 Error page, XFL's official website relaunched earlier today. https://www.xfl.com/
• Radio show 107.7 The Bone with Baby Huey & Bimbo Jimbo had a recent interview with Natalya talking about RAW 25, talking with Trish Stratus backstage, Trish being an inspiration to her career, and the Women's Rumble. https://www.pwinsider.com/article/11...notes.html?p=1
• According to PWI, at least 5 indie companies recently sent Enzo Amore booking offers for their shows.
• According to reports, Jey Uso has been pulled off of Nickleodeon's Paradise Run show due to his recent DUI arrest. Rumor going around online hints at the Usos losing the Smackdown tag titles at the Rumble as part of Jey's punishment.
• According to the Observer, USA Network would actually make more ad revenue if they dropped WWE shows than keep them. They'd drop a lot in network rankings (#3 to #10) and have a smaller average audience for prime time shows but in return can get higher paying advertisers without the negative stigma of wrestling being around.
• Recent episode of the X-Pac12360 podcast show had X-Pac talk about his Mt Rushmore of Wrestling, the Enzo allegations, and WWE going to commercial during Scott Hall's entrance at RAW 25 show. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...e-allegations/

Some stuff from TPWW Frontpage:

• Vince McMahon Officially Announces the Return of the XFL in 2020 (Updated)
• Ronda Rousey Says She Won’t Be at the Royal Rumble
• Final NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia Card

[owenbrown]

ugh... Vince really wants Philly and New Orleans to burn to the ground in the next 3 months doesn't he?

[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Asuka's approval:

SPOILER: show

According to FW4Online's Bryan Alvarez, No Way Jose is currently set to be one of the surprise entrants in the Men's Royal Rumble match.

Alvarez made the announcement during a recent Bryan & Vinny Show.

Spoiler tag used since its related to a surprise entrant for the Men's Rumble.

Originally Posted by Observer It took until the Friday before the pay-per-view, but Roman Reigns has finally been announced for Sunday's Royal Rumble match ... With the addition of Reigns, the men's Royal Rumble is up to 18 confirmed entrants. There have also been 18 participants announced for the women's match, which is everyone on the current roster who is available and doesn't hold a title. There are 12 spots remaining for both matches heading into the weekend.

Link: http://www.wwe.com/article/roman-rei...ch-this-sunday

Originally Posted by Observer Prior to TakeOver: Philadelphia going on the air tomorrow night, there will be a WWE United Kingdom Championship number one contender's match on the pre-show television tapings. Roderick Strong will be facing Tyler Bate, with the winner getting a future shot at Pete Dunne's title. Strong vs. Bate will air on Wednesday's episode of NXT television. Bate was the last person in WWE to challenge Dunne for the title, losing to him in a match that aired on December 20th. Nikki Cross vs. Lacey Evans and the in-ring return of TM61 have also been advertised for Wednesday's episode and will be taped prior to TakeOver. There will be an hour-long pre-show before TakeOver begins. Renee Young and Corey Graves will host the NXT year-end awards, and Charly Caruso, Sam Roberts, and Samoa Joe will appear on the pre-show panel.

Originally Posted by Observer ROH has switched its upcoming shows and the 2/9 show in Concord, NC, that was to be a TV taping will now be a house show. The TV taping will now be on 2/10 at Center Stage in Atlanta. The Atlanta matches are now in Concord with Cody & Marty Scurll & Adam Page vs. Matt Taven & Vinny Marseglia & TK O'Ryan and Jay Lethal vs. Jonathan Gresham. One match in Atlanta for TV will be Chuckie T & Baretta vs. Mark & Jay Briscoe. Progress Wrestling is headed to Australia with shows on 4/17 in Perth, partnering with Explosive Pro Wrestling, 4/18 in Sydney, partnering with Pro Wrestling Australia, 4/20 in Melbourne, partnering with Melbourne City Wrestling and 4/21 in Ivercargill, New Zealand. Hirai Kawato's debut at Arena Mexico was moved from this coming Tuesday to a week from tonight due to some immigration issues. Lanny Poffo has set up a Kickstarter program for a comic book based on his WWE gimmick called, "The Genius Lanny Poffo, Wrestling's Smartest Man." Jushin Liger, Rocky Romero and Puma King headline for Pro Wrestling Revolucion on 3/10 in San Francisco at John O'Connell High School.

Originally Posted by Observer The 1/25 edition of Impact did 310,000 overnight viewers, up from last week’s 309,000 overnight viewers.

Originally Posted by PWI Sumie Sakai and Stacy Shadows have been announced for the upcoming Women of Honor Championship Tournament

Originally Posted by PWI No word yet on whether Rich Swann has been officially reinstated by WWE after all charges against him were dropped in Florida yesterday afternoon.

Originally Posted by PWI On his latest podcast, Jerry Lawler confirmed what some had speculated, that WWE made the call to have some additional talents brought over the Manhattan Center due to the negative reactions of the fans live to what they were getting in person in that venue during Raw 25. In asking this morning, I was told that Ric Flair and Jeff Hardy were always scheduled to appear there but The Miz and Seth Rollins were added over the course of the night ... During his podcast, Lawler also noted he would be part of the Royal Rumble broadcast as part of the Men's Rumble bout.

Originally Posted by PWI Eddie Edwards stated yesterday that Impact would remain his home "for the foreseeable" future. His current deal expires in February. Alberto el Patron's deal expires in March, but given that he is locked in to headline the 4/22 Redemption PPV, it would appear the two sides have come to terms on some sort of extension. Impact sources would not confirm that Patron has signed a new contract. Impact will be filming a Moose vs. Alberto el Patron bout taking place this weekend for Future Stars of Wrestling in Las Vegas. Bobby Lashley has been pulled from all scheduled Impact-related appearances. He is free and clear to go anywhere he wants as of 2/1. We have heard his next move is to concentrate on MMA fights, but one would think WWE would be interested. Impact Wrestling promised that next week's episode would kick off a "new era" for the company: Next week is the beginning of a new era but one thing will remain constant. Every single week we're looking to present the very best wrestling show we can and our crew and our immensely talented roster give you everything. Thanks for watching and we'll see you next week. #Genesis — IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) January 26, 2018 Impact's relationship with Crash in Mexico is done.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE announced that Charly Caruso, Sam Roberts and Samoa Joe will be part of the NXT:Takeover pre-show panel this Saturday at 7 pm ET, on all the usual WWE platforms. Renee Young and Corey Graves will host the NXT Year End Awards during the pre-show.

Link: http://www.wwe.com/shows/wwenxt/nxt-...lphia-pre-show

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Matt Hardy recently spoke with 2K to promote the recent WWE 2K18 DLC Pack and commented on how he would compare Woken Matt vs. Broken Matt. He said: "They are very similar. Basically, Broken Matt broke down the barriers in his mind and could use more of that ability. And returning back home, the reception that we received when we came out at WrestleMania 33 in Orlando, it held my condition, the Broken mind, dormant for a matter of months. And then, after touching the magical creature known as Bray Wyatt, it actually houses Sister Abigail, which I was able to draw from her magic and it reignited the magic within me. So I became Woken and realized all of my broken brilliance. It's very interesting. They are very similar. There's a little bit of difference because the Woken Wisdom is the second rebirth. Now that my Woken Wisdom has finally been realized and I am conscious of everything that is going on now, I think that the wrestling fans are going to be in for a truly special run."

Link: https://wwe.2k.com/news/entries/inte...8-dlc-and-more

Originally Posted by WrestleInc The T-Mobile Arena posted the ad below on their Facebook page hyping next month's RAW branded Elimination Chamber pay-per-view. In the plug, they asked which of the 12 RAW Superstars will make it inside, which would suggest that there will be two Chamber matches since there are six people in a Chamber match. It reads: ONE MONTH 'til the #EliminationChamber! Which of the 12 @WWE Raw Superstars will make it inside? ??: http://tmobilearena.us/PtfsoT Alexa Bliss and Samoa Joe are both pictured on the post, suggesting separate men and women's Chamber matches. There has never been a women's Chamber match since the concept was introduced in 2002. The first-ever women's Royal Rumble match will take place this Sunday, and it appears that all specialty pay-per-view matches will feature separate men and women's bouts. WWE Elimination Chamber takes place on February 28th from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, NV. Tickets are available at this link. You can check out the full post below:

Link to the ad: https://www.facebook.com/tmobilearen...513747834023:0

Originally Posted by WrestleInc We've noted how RAW Tag Team Champion Jason Jordan has been out of the ring for a few weeks now due to an undisclosed injury. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that Jordan has been dealing with a bad back. Jordan and Seth Rollins are still scheduled to defend the titles against The Bar at Sunday's Royal Rumble pay-per-view.

Jon Bravo, who is working on a documentary looking at the Iron Addicts Gym which was owned by jailed steroid dealer Richard Rodriguez, released another interview with Rodriguez ... In the new video, Rodriguez said that he specifically named Reigns, Wahlberg and Duhamel to get a better plea deal. He said that there are bigger names that haven't been released that will be revealed in his documentary, even teasing that he might have some secrets on advisors in President Donald Trump's administration. Rodriguez said that Reigns was introduced to him years ago by a wrestling enthusiast. He also said that he will release "snippets of proof" in the next week of text messages, tracking numbers and addresses where products were shipped that will be tied to each of the accused. "That information with us communicating with Roman via text messages will be provided to the appropriate party, which will then be disclosed prior to our documentary that's going to be filmed soon," Rodriguez said. Rodriguez added that his protocol with Reigns would change depending on "the varied times in which WWE wrestlers get tested."

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xBdZEugfE0

Originally Posted by Fightful.com WWE's Cruiserweight division is in peril over the past nine months, as their roster has been decimated with injuries, releases, legal issues and more. The belief among talent is that WWE has frozen Neville's contract as opposed to letting it expire. We've seen this in the past with injuries, such as Rey Mysterio and Daniel Bryan. Bryan was able to get his "service time" moving along by accepting a role as WWE Smackdown Live GM. However, we're told that Neville returned to the UK a while back, until he returns, or WWE changes their mind, it's not likely his contract time will run down.

Link: https://www.fightful.com/exclusive-u...e-s-status-wwe


Some other sheet news includes:

• WWE is currently scheduled to release a "Best of Shane McMahon" DVD set on June 11th.
• Twitch will be holding a 10 day marathon of indie wrestling featuring various indie companies starting today. https://www.pwinsider.com/article/11...-more.html?p=1
• Recent episode of Dinner With The King podcast show had Lawler discussing the photo of him and JR asleep during RAW 25, issues with the Manhattan Center of the show, Triple H making changes on the fly due to negative crowd reactions, and getting in trouble for saying "puppies" during the show. https://www.pwinsider.com/article/11...-more.html?p=1
• According to PWI, WWE is rumored to not have decided on who will be the general manager for 205 Live will be yet.
• Sports Illustrated had a recent interview with Edge discussing his pick to win the Royal Rumble, wanting Nakamura vs AJ Styles at Mania, and more. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...al-rumble-and/

Some stuff from TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE: Lawler’s Contract, Raw 25 Changes, Menounos at Rumble, NXT
• Three Matches Announced for Royal Rumble Kickoff Show
• Trailer for HBO’s Andre the Giant Documentary Released

[Mr. Nerfect]

The news of USA Network actually making more revenue if they dropped WWE is fascinating and potentially huge. I mean, that's quite shocking. Watch those Network subs too. Not a "sky is falling" post. I imagine that their subs are going to sit around the same mark and nothing changes with the stock price. But the TV thing is interesting. Things were looking really great for them with the FOX news, but if you're a suit, you'd be a fool not to look into that revenue information.

[Emperor Smeat]

Normally, that shouldn't be possible considering RAW and Smackdown prop up the network a lot for viewers and rankings but USA Network still has a net negative for ad revenues and still can't get really good paying advertisers to join up without NBC's help.

Was a lot easier for NBC to drop WWE programming from their network since they already have shows that do better than WWE's for prime time and for ad generating.

[Mr. Nerfect]

That's scary. Having those viewers should translate into revenue. That it doesn't really doesn't make the WWE an appealing product. This sounds very similar to when Nitro was getting great ratings compared to other things in 2001, but the company was bleeding money, which is all anyone in that position is going to care about. It's different in the sense that NBC Universal does not own WWE, but that value to advertising is basically the only reason that viewership number means anything.

[Emperor Smeat]

Normally it would but USA Network got way too desperate at wanting to improve RAW.

Gave WWE a 3rd hour for RAW thinking it would be very beneficial to both parties and instead its been a $40 million per year sinkhole for them.

Wanted Smackdown to go live as a way to boost their Tuesday rankings and while its been a lot more beneficial, they had to give WWE an extra $50 million outside of the current tv deal to make it happen.

With the current tv deal, they had to get NBC involved mainly to help them out with advertisers since they were losing way too much money and struggled to get really good paying ones to join.

Right now its expected WWE is going to get at least a 30% increase with their new tv deal which still won't put them anywhere near NASCAR-like levels (around $600-$800 million per year) but way better than they ever did before (around $250-$260 million projected).

[Mr. Nerfect]

But why would NBC pay more? That made sense to me with decreased viewership but them still being one of the most viable properties USA has in a dying cable industry, but with it being an allegedly detrimental relationship, you'd probably better off running Psych re-runs.

[Emperor Smeat]

Originally Posted by Noid But why would NBC pay more? That made sense to me with decreased viewership but them still being one of the most viable properties USA has in a dying cable industry, but with it being an allegedly detrimental relationship, you'd probably better off running Psych re-runs.

USA Network probably going to cover the bulk of any increases just like they have been doing with the current tv deal. Similar to El Rey and Lucha Underground with El Rey's parent company Univision providing nominal help at best.

NBC's direct involvement with WWE pretty much ended when they dropped the Saturday Night's Main Event revival show on their network. Since then, they mainly leave it up to USA Network which is why WWE Week rarely has stuff on NBC itself.

[Mr. Nerfect]

That third hour's always been detrimental. I know they get paid for it, but when it affects viewership and basically means fewer eyeballs are going to be seeing that time you're feeling, it makes you less effective for the bottom-line. If you're WWE, at some point getting that wheelbarrow of money for a third hour or a live show doesn't stretch to what you're missing by having a more viable product. But given how boring and shit SmackDown has been, losing that hour is not necessarily going to help Raw.

[Mr. Nerfect]

I get the particulars of what you're saying, but why? Who in the USA Network exeuctive board is saying "You know, WWE makes us nothing off advertising and costs us money, so let's pay them more this cycle instead of less or just getting rid of their taboo asses"? The narrative has always been that WWE might be decreasing in terms of viewership and numbers, but has always been one of the most watched cable shows around, therefore making it a viable property. For it to come out that it's a money pit for the network is just...weird.

[Emperor Smeat]

Funny thing is I think the head of USA Network is actually a big supporter of the WWE and played a big role in getting WWE back after Spike TV was no longer interested.

Also was the one who pushed for RAW to get a 3rd hour and Smackdown being live regardless of the costs for the network.

[Mr. Nerfect]

At some point it's a case of "What have you done for me lately," though. Bonnie Hammer's not there. The ratings and viewership were cute at the start, but at some point that needs to translate into revenue, or it's a case of "we're not going to pay you hundreds of millions more to be down $60 million" or whatever. Surely. That's how money works, right? At some point a hot-shot young executive looking to build their stock in the company is going to come in and say "Um, guys. I can save us millions and millions by just cutting out this WWE crap no one wants to watch anymore."

Loyalty might extend to the point that they don't replace Raw or SmackDown with other wrestling, which it is possible to theorize that people would still watch out of habit and you can realistically pay a lot, lot less for, but I don't think that's the same as willingly running at a deficit because Vince McMahon was useful to you in 1993. In fact, USA has dropped them before. It's not inconceivable that it's a pragmatic possibility again.

[Mr. Nerfect]

I need to engage with these numbers more. I've always been led to believe that although ad revenue from WWE is comparatively low to things with that viewership, it was still making them money. Am I wrong in assuming that ad revenue is basically how the USA Network makes its money. I'm just trying to wrap my head around why they would pay the WWE more money to keep its television afloat with diminishing returns.

Is it because that withdrawing financial support is going to stifle the product even more? If so, that's a pretty good reason to kind of resent the WWE, haha. You're locked in a dance with no real positive outcome, because it's not realistic to assume that the WWE is just going to start turning in more ad revenue. Is the idea that it's a long-term investment by the USA Network to prop them up and challenge the idea that wrestling can't advertise?

Is there some sort of money-making element I am missing? Is there some way that the WWE makes money for USA that isn't through ads? Is there something about ad revenue without much viewership > viewership without ad revenue that I'm confusing?

[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Dana Brooke displaying her exceptional skills as a statistician:

SPOILER: show

Originally Posted by WrestleInc As noted, WWE announced that Ronda Rousey has signed a full-time deal with the company following her debut after last night's women's Royal Rumble match. The current plan is for Rousey to face Triple H and Stephanie McMahon in a mixed tag match at WrestleMania 34, according to F4Wonline.com. It was believed that Rousey's handshake with Stephanie was to squash their storyline beef but apparently not. No word yet on Rousey's partner but there had been rumors all week of WWE trying to put together Rousey and The Rock vs. The Authority. It's unknown whether or not that match can happen as Rock hasn't been able to wrestle a significant WrestleMania match due to movies he has had to film during recent WrestleMania seasons. It's believed that Rousey has signed a multi-year deal with WWE.

Spoiler tag used since its related to potential Mania plans for Ronda Rousey.

Originally Posted by Observer Last night's Raw did 3.38 million viewers, down 25 percent from last week's 25th anniversary special. There was no way the show would have come close to last week's numbers, but a better comparison would be last year's episode the day after the Royal Rumble, which did 3.61 million viewers, or a six percent year-to-year decline. In television today, that's considered neither bad nor good. What is notable is that the first hour of Raw after the Rumble, at 3.66 million viewers, beat last year's first hour of 3.63 million. The difference is that last year the audience stayed through the show, with only a 1.5 percent decline in audience from hour one to hour three. This year's decline was 16.4 percent from the first hour to the third hour. Also notable is that the male audience was much higher by percentage than for a normal week of Raw, with a 65/35 split, which is more in line with several years ago. That's notable because it indicates that if there were curiosity viewers regarding Ronda Rousey, they were far heavier male. Last year's day after Rumble show did a 60/40 male/female split ... The three hours were: 8 p.m. 3.66 million viewers 9 p.m. 3.46 million viewers 10 p.m. 3.06 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer Following last night's women's Royal Rumble, the WWE women's division is already set for another first-ever match. Stephanie McMahon opened Raw tonight and confirmed that Alexa Bliss would be defending her Women's Championship in an Elimination Chamber match on February 25th in Las Vegas. None of the other participants have been revealed yet, but there will be five challengers for Bliss' title ... The T-Mobile Arena, which will be hosting the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, had been indicating that there would be two Chamber matches in their advertising for the event. And the Sporting News reported earlier today that the women's Elimination Chamber would be happening.

Originally Posted by Observer WWE posted a behind-the-scenes video from Raw 25. It’s over eight minutes long and features an out-of-character appearance by The Undertaker. Mick Foley tweeted about Sasha Banks’ dive from her Raw match against Asuka: “I really don’t want to see Sasha try that dive again. Too many close calls. Time to take that item off the menu.” Ten of the Coliseum Home Videos coming to the WWE Network next week have been revealed. They are: Bloopers, Bleeps, and Bodyslams Most Unusual Matches Villains of the Squared Circle Brains Behind the Brawn Funniest Moments Mega Matches Wrestling’s Greatest Champions Battle at the Royal Albert Hall World Tour ‘92 Invasion of the Bodyslammers

RAW 25: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMuiD4Oxg0A , Foley: https://twitter.com/RealMickFoley/st...78931500290048 , WWE Network: http://www.wwenetworknews.com/2018/0...ey-be-labeled/

Originally Posted by Observer Lance Storm will be the special guest referee for Tenille Dashwood vs. Rachael Ellering at Wrestling Has A Tomorrow in Providence on February 11th. Storm trained both wrestlers at his school. The main event of Joey Janela’s Spring Break 2 in New Orleans on April 6th is set to be Janela vs. The Great Sasuke. Minoru Suzuki has been announced for Revolution Pro Wrestling’s WrestleMania week show on April 6th.

Storm: https://twitter.com/WHATomorrow/stat...99427324018689' , Janela: https://twitter.com/JANELABABY/statu...53849977606144 , Rev Pro: https://twitter.com/RevProUK/status/958411224168980480

Originally Posted by PWI According to ESPN's Ramona Shelburne, Ronda Rousey was brought to Miami via a private charter plane from Colombia, where she was filming a movie on Saturday and then traveled to Philly (I am guessing on the WWE jet) and was hidden until right before she walked out on stage at the Royal Rumble last night. As we reported this morning, basically no one not named McMahon knew Rousey was walking out. Shelburne also noted that Rousey has been training secretly at the WWE Performance Center for months, which we've noted previously in the Elite section of PWInsider - that she was training there late at night when no one was in the facility beyond her a select few others. Rousey has filed a number of trademarks on the term "Rowdy Ronda Rousey" so she, not WWE, will own that name and moniker. The company acquired permission to use Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation" last night, and if they were smart, they would acquire the rights going forward if they haven't already

Originally Posted by Observer The reason so many women from the past were booked, more than originally planned, was because they were filming a documentary on women's wrestling. They are going to heavily push women, even more so than before, since at least right now the company's biggest mainstream star is a woman.

Originally Posted by Observer There is also talk of pushing the Andre Battle Royal harder this year because the HBO special coming out on Andre will be on the Tuesday after WrestleMania. WWE realizes that if they get a good rating and showing on HBO for that, then it could lead to more projects involving wrestlers of the past, especially since Bill Simmons, the guy behind the project, is a longtime wrestling fan.

Originally Posted by PWI The Jeremy Borash hire was a Triple H call and according to numerous sources, he will be working in the developmental/NXT system going forward. It does not appear he was brought on board to take part in the Matt Hardy storyline, but there's always a chance he could be tapped to work on that. There's no word when Borash officially starts with WWE but one would think he would be at the NXT tapings in Atlanta, GA this week. There's also no word as to where he will appear on screen. Borash's departure will change Impact Wrestling plans tremendously, at least in terms of their announcing plans. Sources within Impact state the initial plan was to move Josh Mathews into more of a character on the show, positioning him with Matt Sydal as Sydal's "spiritual advisor." That happened at the last set of TV tapings. Their plan for announcing had been to put Borash and Don Callis together as the announcing team, but obviously that is out the window.

Originally Posted by PWI New Japan Pro Wrestling have applied to trademark the following U.S Trademarks: Strong Style, King of Sports, and Strong Style Evolved. They applied all three for clothing purposes. They are also applying 'Strong Style Evolved' for the following: "Educational and instruction services relating to arts, crafts, sports or general knowledge; arranging, conducting and organization of seminars; arranging, conducting and organization of conferences, lecture meeting, workshops, symposiums; production of radio or television programs; Production of videotape film in the field of education, culture, entertainment or sports (not for movies or television programs and not for advertising or publicity); organization, arranging and conducting of sports competitions; organization, arranging and conducting of martial arts; booking of seats for show; presentation of live show performances; presentation of magic performances; direction or presentation of plays; presentation of musical performances"

Originally Posted by PWI Ring of Honor announced that STARDOM competitors will be announced all throughout the week for the Women of Honor Championship tournament. The first competitor announced is Kagetsu. PWInsider.com has confirmed there will be four stars from Japan announced. ROH commentator Ian Riccaboni tweeted the following teasing an announcement for later today regarding Supercard of Honor: https://twitter.com/IanRiccaboni/sta...26685667991552

Originally Posted by PWI As we reported last night on PWInsider.com, currently, the Rey Mysterio return was just a one night appearance, although the monster pop he received certainly caught the attention of WWE management. WWE and Mysterio have had off and on talks about a return over the last year, but the main bone of contention has been that WWE has wanted Mysterio back full-time while Mysterio, 43, would rather work a part-time schedule. Mysterio appeared on the third season of Lucha Underground, but his deal with that series has expired. He has had talks with Impact Wrestling and at one point, a deal to debut at the last set of Impact tapings brokered by Konnan was so close that travel arrangements had been made before the conversations ended without a deal. Impact had been working on the idea of trying to get Mysterio to debut at their April tapings with the idea of debuting him at the 4/22 Redemption PPV.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc We mentioned last week that last Monday's RAW 25th Anniversary show was apparently rewritten three hours before going live. Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated reported that there were plans for backstage segments with several legends, including the stars that were involved in the general manager segment, with Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon. According to sources within WWE, any of the changes that were made on the show had nothing to do with Fallon. Fallon was rumored to have caused the re-writes because he had arrived late to the show. Sources noted that the re-writes were nothing out of the ordinary, as the development of RAW is an iterative process.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Some of the names backstage for Sunday's WWE Royal Rumble pay-per-view were The Undertaker, WWE Hall of Famer Pat Patterson, WWE Hall of Famer Nikolai Volkoff and Paige, according to PWInsider. The Undertaker was there to see wife Michelle McCool work the women's Rumble and gave no real indication to what his WrestleMania 34 plans are. Patterson, the creator of the Rumble match, was there to lend his expertise and advise. Volkoff was just visiting and came in from nearby Baltimore where he lives. Paige was backstage but not used due to her injury. Several WWE NXT Superstars were also backstage for the whole show while some left after finding out they weren't needed.

Major TV rights negotiations for RAW/Smackdown are underway, WWE’s biggest source of revenue. They’re showing TV networks they’ll have Rousey long term, can grab mainstream headlines.

— Brandon Howard Thurston (@BrandonThurston) January 29, 2018

Some other sheet news includes:

• Edge revealed Johnny Gargano will be this week's guest on the Edge & Christian podcast show. https://twitter.com/EandCPod/status/958467155217059842
• In a "WWE Did You Know" type fact, Becky Lynch celebrated her 31st birthday today.
• Rumor going around the net implies the reason why the Bellas were in the Final 3 and Nikki eliminating Brie was only due to Total Divas wanting a big Rumble storyline for an upcoming season and it had to involve the Bellas.
• USA Today had a recent interview with Triple H talking about signing Ronda Rousey, Rousey's star potential for the WWE, and backstage reactions to Ronda's signing. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...-new-audience/
• For those interested in a nice laugh, Cageside Seats held their annual Royal Rumble Dumbest Ass Award revealing the nominees and winners fof this year's Rumble. Sasha took the award for being the dumbest in the Women's Rumble and Sheamus in the Men's Rumble. https://www.cagesideseats.com/wwe/20...-chris-jericho

Some stuff from TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE: Why Rousey Wasn’t at Raw, Original Plan for Adam Cole, Bellas, More
• WWE Hires Jeremy Borash
• WWE: Lashley to WWE? Hall of Fame Rumored Names, Nigel McGuinness
• Alicia Fox Out for Months With Broken Tailbone

[Mr. Nerfect]

Very interested to see how these TV negotiations go.

[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by #BeatUpJohnCenaDay Appreciation Day:

Originally Posted by Observer Despite this being the first episode after a Royal Rumble that received a ton of mainstream media attention, SmackDown was down three percent in the ratings this week. Last year's show following the Royal Rumble saw a 10 percent increase ... With Raw having a better than average number following the Rumble and the hit that SmackDown took due to the tough competition, the show retained just under 75 percent of the Raw audience from the night before. It was also down almost 11 percent in the year-over-year ratings, the biggest decline since August 29th and the second largest since the show moved to a live format on Tuesday nights.

In terms of the actual number, this week generated 2.509 million viewers.

Originally Posted by Observer Dixie Carter tweeted about Rockstar Spud (who is now known as Drake Maverick) debuting as the 205 Live general manager: “Oh my sweet @RockstarSpud. So very proud...but OF COURSE I’ve seen this in you all along! Best #BritishBootCamp decision. Best memories as YOUR sidekick, not the other way around. Best @WWE decision. #205Live #SDLive” Braun Strowman & Alexa Bliss defeated Sami Zayn & Becky Lynch on Mixed Match Challenge last night when Bliss jumped off Strowman’s shoulders and hit Twisted Bliss on Lynch. The live viewing numbers were down for the second straight week, but the total views are up slightly from where last week’s episode was at this time. The second episode has 1.7 million views compared to the first episode's 1.9 million as of now. Rory Gulak, who is Drew Gulak’s brother, and Chris Wylde were the team that faced the Bludgeon Brothers on SmackDown last night: Drew tweeted right before Rory’s appearance: “Man, I feel bad for whoever has to fight the Bludgeon Brothers next on #SDLive.” Kenny Omega praised The New Day in an interview with Sports Illustrated: “When I see Big E, I clearly see someone who could be world champion. The guy is on another level. Kofi is one of those guys who is good in all situations and can challenge for all titles, and Xavier is another great athlete who is talented in the ring and confident on the mic.” In response, Big E replied to someone who posted the quote where Omega complimented him: “You making this quote up? Don’t play with my emotions.”

Dixie: https://twitter.com/TNADixie/status/958703802470854656 , Gulak: https://twitter.com/DrewGulak/status/958516595684495360 , Omega: https://www.si.com/wrestling/2018/01...dy-kenny-omega , Big E: https://twitter.com/WWEBigE/status/958861913655529474

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Despite Braun Strowman competing on tonight's episode of WWE Mixed Match Challenge, the show suffered another big drop in live viewership in week three. Tonight's show peaked at around 62,400 live viewers right after the conclusion of the match pitting Strowman & Alexa Bliss against Sami Zayn & Becky Lynch. Bliss pinned Lynch to earn the win, making it the third straight week where the woman earned the victory for their team. The episode was down 32% from last week's episode, which featured The Miz & Asuka defeating Big E & Carmella. It was down 54% from the premiere, which peaked at 135,600 live viewers.

Some details about this week's numbers for Mixed Match Challenge.

Originally Posted by Observer Impact’s show with WrestlePro will take place on Sunday and stream on their Twitch channel on February 9th at 8 p.m. Eastern. A rematch between Keith Lee and Tomohiro Ishii is set for Revolution Pro Wrestling’s Epic Encounter at York Hall on May 11th. The two had a great match together last year. Simon Gotch will be making his MLW debut by teaming with Seth Petruzelli against Jason Cade & Jimmy Yuta on February 8th.

Impact: http://impactwrestling.com/twitch-brace-impact/ , RevPro: https://twitter.com/RevProUK/status/958800567714897921 , Gotch: https://mlw.com/2018/01/31/simon-got...th-in-orlando/

Originally Posted by Observer After Alicia Fox was pulled from the tournament due to injury, Goldust will be teaming with Mandy Rose in Mixed Match Challenge. That announcement was made towards the end of last night's episode. Goldust & Rose will be taking on Jimmy Uso & Naomi next Tuesday, and the winning team will go on to face Braun Strowman & Alexa Bliss in week eight of the tournament.

Originally Posted by PWI It appears WWE Network is filling in the gaps with the World Class Championship Wrestling TV library a few episodes have been uploaded today. The early word on March's vintage addition to the WWE Network's Vault section is that it will be episodes of WCW Saturday Night. WWE will be adding Coliseum Home Videos to that area this Monday.

Originally Posted by PWI Ring of Honor announced: Stardom’s dominant Oedo Tai faction is well-represented in the tournament to crown the first Women of Honor Champion! In addition to the leader of Oedo Tai, Kagetsu’s tag team partner, one half of the Goddess of Stardom Champions, second-generation star Hana Kimura has entered the tournament to crown the first Women of Honor Champion!

Originally Posted by PWI With Jeremy Borash having left for WWE, the announced revival of Live Audio Wrestling on Impact's Twitch channel is off. No word on if or when it returns.

Originally Posted by PWI New 205 Live General Manager Drake Maverick (the former Rockstar Spud in Impact Wrestling) had plenty to celebrate as last night was not only his WWE debut, but his birthday as well. And there was a little reunion as King Maxel met with a former foe... This #DrakeMaverick guy seems so familiar, but I just can't place him.... ???? #205Live pic.twitter.com/R2nEPzcJYi — KING MAXEL (@BABYHARDYBRAND) January 31, 2018

Originally Posted by WrestleInc The latest "This Week In Wrestling" article at Sports Illustrated features an interview with Kenny Omega, who discussed The New Day. Omega said that they are three of his favorite wrestlers in WWE, and feels that Big E could be a world champion. "When I see Big E, I clearly see someone who could be world champion," said Omega. "The guy is on another level. Kofi is one of those guys who is good in all situations and can challenge for all titles, and Xavier is another great athlete who is talented in the ring and confident on the mic." Omega also noted that New Day being in the same spot in the company for years makes him hesitant about possibly eventually signing with them. "It's things like that that really make me think twice about what I would be getting into if eventually I do go there," said Omega.

Link: https://www.si.com/wrestling/2018/01...dy-kenny-omega

Originally Posted by WrestleInc After making a surprise appearance as a participant of the men's Royal Rumble match this past Sunday, Rey Mysterio is headed to the U.K. to face Zack Gibson for 5 Star Wrestling's event in Liverpool this Thursday. The event is headlined by Rob Van Dam facing John Morrison for the 5 Star Championship. Jake Hager (f.k.a. Jack Swagger), Carlito and Chris Masters are also scheduled to be in action.

Originally Posted by Observer The official twitter account for fast-food restaurant Wendy's showed why their Twitter game is on another level. When a user asked them why they didn't enter the Royal Rumble, they replied: We heard we could just show up later and point at the mania sign — Wendy's (@Wendys) January 31, 2018

Originally Posted by WrestleInc As noted, Alicia Fox missed the first-ever women's Royal Rumble match and was pulled from WWE's Mixed Match Challenge due to a broken tailbone she suffered in the pre-Rumble rehearsals. PWInsider reports that Fox is not expected to be cleared to return to the ring for at least a few months. Fox was said to be very upset about missing her chance to work the first-ever women's Rumble.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc WWE has a new poll asking fans if the "Yep! Movement" will survive the match between Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens on next week's SmackDown. As noted, the winner will go on to face WWE Champion AJ Styles in the main event of the Fastlane pay-per-view in March. As of this writing, 74% of fans voted, "Nope. With The Road to WrestleMania underway, even a friendship like Owens & Zayn's will crumble with a WWE Title Match hanging in the balance." The rest went with, "Yep! Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn are best friends, and despite having to face off in such a high-stakes match, SmackDown LIVE will continue to be the 'Kevin & Sami Show.'"

Some other sheet news includes:

• Chris Jericho announced he will be holding a live edition of Talk Is Jericho on February 16t with Kane as the guest as part of Kane's mayoral campaign. https://www.facebook.com/ChrisJerich...type=3&theater
• Zelina Vega recently revealed her gear at NXT Takeover Philly was in tribute to Lita. http://www.wwe.com/shows/wwenxt/arti...?sf180903548=1
• Karl Anderson recently teased The Balor Club will be appearing on Season 3 of WWE Network's Ride Along series. https://twitter.com/KarlAndersonWWE/...50966370750465
• In a possibly interesting piece of news, USA Network reportedly is now more laxed about the F-word being used on television. Main reason is due to the upcoming Tupac and Notorious BIG show for the network. https://www.buzzfeed.com/kateaurthur...A0#.bd11OA1xrX
• According to reports and the NPR, Rock's chances of being and/or wrestling at Wrestlemania 34 are really low at the moment. Besides current filming commitments, it likely would cost the WWE at least $350k just on The Rock's film insurance in order to get him to appear at the event. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...ilming-in-may/
• 6 ABC Action News had a recent news with Mark Henry talking about if he will return to the ring, his current status in the WWE, his pick to win the Superbowl, and more. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...he-ring-again/

Some stuff from TPWW Frontpage:

• Rumor: WrestleMania 35 Will Take Place at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey
• Impact Comments on Departures of Borash, EC3 and Lashley
• Epico Colon Injured, Undergoes Surgery

[Mr. Nerfect]

I hope the USA Network tells the WWE to "Get the F Out." I want change, dammit.

[Bobholly138]

Big surprise that someone with major attitude problems didn't get signed to WWE. Tessa has the same issues her Dad Tully did years ago.

[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Braun's dirty mind:

SPOILER: show

As far as the WrestleMania scene, Reigns vs. Lesnar is the Universal title match and Ronda Rousey’s first match will be the match most heavily pushed in the advertising most likely. If they go the mixed tag route, Kurt Angle could be there given Angle vs. HHH was a direction coming off the Angle/Stephanie dynamic, but that hasn’t been played up much of late. Unless Undertaker backs off, his match with Cena would be also heavily pushed. Given Cena is in the Chamber match, the earliest they’d start building the Cena vs. Undertaker program would be 2/26. Styles vs. Nakamura for the WWE title and Miz vs. Strowman for the IC title are also planned. Other matches heavily talked about this week would be the respective women’s title matches, Bliss vs. Jax and Charlotte Flair vs. Asuka as things stood over the weekend. Given the storyline in recent weeks, there looked to be a Jason Jordan vs. Seth Rollins direction but nothing regarding Jordan can be locked in right now. There will be one, if not two Battle Royals, to get everyone on the show.

Spoiler tags used since its related to potential Mania plans and matches.

Originally Posted by Observer A lot of episodes of WCW Saturday Night will be added to the WWE Network in April. The Forbes website edited an article that stated that Raw was the longest running episodic show in U.S. television history after running it and has changed it to being the longest running weekly episodic show still in production. ECW Press announced that a book called "Creating the Mania: An Inside look at how WrestleMania comes to life" about the build to this year's show will be released in August.

Mania book: https://www.pwinsider.com/article/11...emania-34.html

Originally Posted by Observer Ed Nordholm, Don Callis and Scott D'Amore of Impact are in the U.K. doing business and scouting talent for Impact. The NWA announced today that Nick Aldis is looking at defending the NWA title against 20 different opponents over 60 days starting on 2/11. They are calling it the Aldis Crusade with Ten Pounds of Gold. He's looking at defending the title in North America, Europe and Asia. The matches will be filmed for a documentary. Austin Idol will be involved in this as well as his representative. ICW announced today that Drew Galloway aka Drew McIntyre will be on their 2/12 show in Glasgow at the O2 ABC and be induced into the ICW Hall of Fame. WWE has given its approval for him to make that appearance. Austin Aries vs. ACH has been added to next Thursday's MLW show in Orlando at Gilt Night Club. Evolve on 2/17 in Queens, NY has Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Austin Theory for the Evolve title, Keith Lee vs. AR Fox for the WWN title and Chris Dickinson & Jake vs. The End. 2/18 in Joppa, MD has Lee vs. Tracy Williams in a no holds barred non-title match, Sabre Jr. vs. Dickinson and a four-way elimination match with Matt Riddle vs. Austin Theory vs. Darby Allin vs. Jaka.

MLW: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sport...131-story.html , NWA: https://www.pwinsider.com/article/11...-days.html?p=1 , ICW: https://www.pwinsider.com/article/11...month.html?p=1

Originally Posted by PWI The "WWE Shorts" are of the WWE Network has added a series of of clips with Hall of Famers Bruno Sammartino and Bob Backlund discussing the good old days entitled "Conversations with Bruno and Bob." The pieces have been running in rotation on the Network's linear programming in between shows for some time, but this is the first time they have been available via VOD.

Originally Posted by Observer The timing of the announcement of Ronda Rousey's signing is perfect, and not because it’s WrestleMania season, but because it’s contract season. Having Rousey under contract right now is perfect timing. It’s not even about WrestleMania. It’s about the company making its most important business deal in five years, its multi-year television contract. Having Rousey both helps the company as far as being a mainstream entity that they crave to be and with television partners who are well aware of Rousey’s history as a drawing card. It also drives up the value of the company’s stock. Whether it will work as far as traditional drawing power, which actually matters little here in the big picture, is a very different story. Supposedly the women’s winner came down to Asuka or Nia Jax. Asuka’s undefeated streak was clearly being set up for Ronda Rousey at some point, but probably not this point. In Japan, there wasn’t much talk of the Rumble winners in mainstream media, and the coverage was limited to mostly newsstand sports newspapers, some of which stopped covering wrestling years ago and did give good coverage too this.

Originally Posted by Observer Because the show was designed to end with Rousey, the women were moved to the main event position. The word of them going on last came the morning of the show, and while nobody, including the participants, were told about Rousey, most everyone figured out that was the reason. The women were taken off the road on both the Raw and Smackdown tours over the weekend to work on the match and do run-throughs.

Originally Posted by Observer About 4,700 tickets were sold for the NJPW Long Beach show as some tickets were held back for members of the New Japan Fan Club traveling from Japan. Only 314 tickets were available at press time on the secondary market and the price for entry is $140.

Based on recent ticket sales numbers, NJPW reserved up to 800 tickets for their Fan Club members.

Originally Posted by Observer Jeremy Borash will be moving to Orlando to work with the NXT brand where he’ll wear several different hats, similar to what he did with TNA over the years. Those close to the situation said that he surveyed the changing landscape in pro wrestling and felt that this was the time to make a move that he’d avoided making in the past ... While clearly a very valuable part of the company from the start, one person in the company noted that the idea going around that he did everything when it came to production was way overblown. “The narrative that JB did everything is wrong. Yes, he was a hard worker and talented, but our team now has been busting their ass and taking care of the majority of production. They need credit. Day-to-day operations don’t change one bit at all other than getting another on-air play-by-play (announcer).” Kevin Sullivan, who did the production work for the Internet hype of Wrestle Kingdom 9 that Jeff Jarrett promoted, has been handling much of the video work.

Seems very likely WWE got fooled on Borash's real value assuming the stuff about his production skills and input is true.

Originally Posted by Observer New Japan's paid attendance for January overall was up 20 percent from last year, although that’s mostly due to the effects of the Tokyo Dome show. Taking that out of the equation the increase was five percent The Australia advances are strong across the board and they are just now starting to promote the shows in the local markets. Melbourne and Sydney are expected to sell out

Originally Posted by Observer As had been reported here a few weeks ago, Bob Backlund, 68, will be returning to Japan for matches on 4/20 at Korakuen Hall and 4/21 in Osaka for Tatsumi Fujinami’s Dradition promotion. Backlund will likely work against Fujinami in tag matches. Backlund and Fujinami had a famous WWF title match on January 1, 1982 (that was the night where Backlund met Karl Gotch and saw how incredible Gotch was and changed his methods of training to rely more on body weight exercises and repetitions instead of heavy weights). Fujinami is pushing this year as the 40th anniversary of when he first won the WWF world junior heavyweight championship and got his first major push

Originally Posted by Observer The new season of Lucha Underground doesn’t look like it’ll be taped at the Temple in Boyle Heights. That’s still up in the air but they are looking for a new location. Dario Cueto was killed off in the final episode of last season. Since this is Lucha Underground, that doesn’t mean he’s dead but there are major financial cutbacks and he may be one of them.

Originally Posted by Observer There is a working idea (meaning it’s kind of the plan but could change) for the announcement of the location of All In on 9/1 being announced on or around 3/1. Within wrestling, everyone thinks it’s Chicago (not sure of the building, as the choices would appear to be All-State Arena or Sears Center) just because of the idea they could do a convention in association with it and with Pro Wrestling Tees in Chicago it’s the most convenient location when it comes to merchandise. We have heard other cities mentioned as well. The only thing we were told is that the Cow Palace in San Francisco was out because while the rent of the building was extremely low for a place that can hold as many as 14,500 or so for wrestling, that the costs of streaming live would be high. I guess that tells you that live streaming is part of the component

Originally Posted by Observer Regarding questions about Penta 0M or Rey Fenix coming here, several months ago Impact was sent a letter (as was NOAH, as Fenix was scheduled for a tour there that ended up being canceled) that both were under contract to Lucha Underground and MGM (the parent company) would not allow them to appear on television for either group. At the time it came out that MGM really didn’t care, but Dorian Roldan was behind it. Roldan has been behind sending cease and desists to the two wrestlers over their names because they quit AAA and have turned down every offer from him to return. Lucha Underground offered Penta 0M a new contract, but in the contract, it specified that he would be exclusive in Mexico to AAA, and he turned that down. However, since AAA does have a relationship with Impact, it’s possible they could work it out but that was the latest on that, but for now the legal letters have blocked both men from working here.

Originally Posted by Observer Several people including likely The HBO Andre the Giant documentary that Bill Simmons’ crew worked on will premiere on 4/10. Simmons has said for years that he has always wanted to do a documentary on Andre, who passed away 25 years ago this past week at the age of 46. The documentary is notable because a lot of myths may be dispelled (it’s hard to say what will and won’t because the WWE is co-producers and they have their own storyline and mythology and what is and isn’t in the finished product is going to be interesting). But they spoke extensively with Andre’s family in France, as well as a lot of movie stars such as the ones who worked with him on “The Princess Bride,” as well as Vince McMahon, Hulk Hogan and Andre’s closest friends who are still alive. Pat Laprade, who is writing a book on Andre, who is now announcing Raw for TVA Sports in Quebec was a Field Producer of this documentary. I was interviewed for the documentary several months ago and it was mostly finished by then and I saw some clips of it and it looked great, and the people who asked the questions really wanted to get as much of the true story as possible

Originally Posted by Observer WWE will report its full 2017 financial numbers as well as the fourth quarter numbers on 2/8. This would include announcing the WWE Network subscriptions numbers as of 12/31. As noted, you can see a major push to get paid numbers up artificially for Mania season with the $1.99 for three month offers In big news for WWE stock, Morgan Stanley has upgraded the stock and given it a $40 target figure. As noted here, there reasoning behind it is the expectation of a big number for the next television contracts, most notably in the U.S., U.K. (Notable since the ratings have collapsed there) and India markets. Morgan Stanley noted that there has been a major increase in spending for content, particularly in sports. In their analysis, they still believed the network would eventually reach 3-4 million paid subscribers, which is not happening anytime soon.

Originally Posted by Observer Terri Runnels, on her podcast, said that she and the other women brought in for the 25th anniversary show were disappointed in how they were used. “I wanted a brief moment, some sincerity, and I didn’t like that it went straight to this cartoon crap.” “I felt like, `You’ve got a lot of talent and we are just standing there waving.” She said that at 11 a.m. that day they were brought out to rehearse their wave and were then told that was their only role on the show. “We all kind of dropped our jaws and were like, `You’ve got to be kidding me.’” “I didn’t hear anyone express anything different than what I just said to you.” She also mentioned on the podcast that she had documented proof of being sexually harassed in her life. When asked by co-host Matt Koon if this happened in WWE, she said, “Maybe.”

Originally Posted by WrestleInc The Women of Honor tournament to determine the division's inaugural champion is a 16-woman, single-elimination styled format with 15 of the 16 entrants announced so far. Many names are from within the division and some are from the Japanese wrestling promotion, Stardom. Here's the updated list of participants: Brandi Rhodes, Jessie Brooks, Karen Q, Kelly Klein, Madison Rayne, Mandy Leon, Deonna Purrazzo, Holidead, Sumie Sakai, Jenny Rose, Stacy Shadows, HZK, Hana Kimura, Kagetsu, and Mayu Iwatani.

Some other sheet news includes:

• Recent episode of the Steve Austin Show podcast had Chris Jericho as the guest. https://www.podcastone.com/episode/Chris-Jericho-7861
• WrestleInc had a recent interview with Molly Holly talking about how she got hired by the WWE, her early career in the WWE, her favorite moment from her WWE career, and Charlotte. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...g-her-wwe-run/

Some stuff from TPWW Frontpage:

• Rumored Elimination Chamber Match Competitors
• Jason Jordan Has a Potentially “Serious” Injury + More Injury News
• New Impact Opening Video and Graphics

[Destor]

This thread is awesome because you can go back and see how often the sheets are wrong

[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Rusev-a-Mania:

Originally Posted by Observer One of NXT's newest arrivals made their debut at tonight's television tapings. Ricochet, who wrestled using that name, took part in his first match for NXT by facing Fabian Aichner. Ricochet got loud reactions during the match and won with the 630. Whether he'll continue using that name going forward remains to be seen. Triple H also posted a photo of Ricochet on Twitter tonight to hype up his debut. After it had been known that he was WWE bound for a while, it was announced on January 16th that Ricochet had officially signed with the company and had reported to the Performance Center. He wrestled his final independent match for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla at their Mystery Vortex show on January 12th. Ricochet was shown sitting in the front row on the TakeOver: Philadelphia broadcast last Saturday night. Candice LeRae, War Machine, and EC3 were all shown as well.

Link: https://twitter.com/FLWrestlingFan/s...85673190797313 , Triple H: https://twitter.com/TripleH/status/959591101198950400

Originally Posted by Observer WWE sent out a questionnaire with questions about why people weren't coming to New Orleans for WrestleMania, asking for reasons. What was notable is that in the questionnaire they outright asked fans if they want to see Shinsuke Nakamura and Asuka win the titles.

Originally Posted by Observer SoCal Pro Wrestling's 11th anniversary show is 4/14 in Oceanside, CA at the Oceanside Boys and Girls Club. Penta 0M and Juventud Guerrera will be wrestling on the show. There will also be Southern California Hall of Fame inductions. AAW tomorrow night in LaSalle, IL at the Knights of Columbus with Rey Fenix vs. ACH for the AAW title. Stardom announced they would be hosting two matches in ROH's Women of Honor tournament on 2/24 in Osaka, with Mayu Iwatani vs HZK and Kagetsu vs. Jenny Rose.

Originally Posted by PWI The 2/1 edition of Impact did 319,000 overnight viewers, up from last week’s 310,000 overnight viewers.

Outside of January 11th, Impact has been pretty steady at the 300k+ for viewers this year. Doing better on average for the start of 2018 than they did for 2017's start.

Originally Posted by PWI The planned 205 Live events in California this month (which were never officially announced publicly) are off but we are told there are still plans to continue with live events for the Cruiserweight brand down the line.

Originally Posted by PWI AAA announced that, much like Impact Wrestling, they will be a launching a 24 7 stream of content on their Twitch Channel beginning tomorrow

Link: https://twitter.com/luchalibreaaa/st...rc=twsrc%5Etfw

Originally Posted by PWI With all the talents who have left, who are the names we should be keeping an eye on in terms of potential departures? Eddie Edwards’ deal is up this month, but he has stated he is staying. Alberto el Patron’s deal is up in April around the time of the next TV tapings, so you have to wonder what the future holds for him, especially since Vince McMahon has always loved him. Eli Drake’s deal is coming up in the next few months as well. Konnan is paid a good salary for someone who’s not in the ring wrestling, which given the state of the company, makes me think of him as well – but I say that not knowing his contractual obligations and I am just speculating here, given the company’s attempts to cut costs. Given the others’ placement on TV, those are the names that I would be paying most attention to.

From PWI's weekly Q&A articles discussing the contract status of Impact's remaining top stars.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE producer Tyson Kidd responded to a fan who asked if he held any animosity towards Samoa Joe for the injury he suffered in the ring that halted his career as an active superstar: I have zero animosity with Samoa Joe. I found him my first day back at WWE after my injury and we had a very good heart to heart. I wish him nothing but the best https://t.co/LpVSnGeoYQ — TJ Wilson (@TJWilson) February 2, 2018 The question came up after this week's episode of Total Divas, where Natalya is concerned that Kidd will get upset over not being able to wrestle again after Lana asks him for help training her in the ring.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc WWE will be releasing a new "Shane McMahon's Craziest Matches" DVD on June 12th of this year, according to WrestlingDVDNetwork.com. The three-disc set will feature a compilation of the SmackDown Commissioner's greatest moments, high-risk moves and leaps of faith. Below is the official synopsis: "Shane McMahon is known as a huge risk-taker, who provides "OMG" moments on a regular basis. This compilation features all of his greatest & craziest matches, spanning his entire time in WWE. Featuring battles with Undertaker, Big Show, Randy Orton, Mankind, Kane, & more."

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Vince McMahon put the 2018 men's Royal Rumble match together along with two producers, Jamie Noble and WWE Hall of Famer Michael "PS" Hayes, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. We noted before that WWE Hall of Famer Pat Patterson, the creator of the Rumble match, was also backstage to offer his expertise.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Yesterday, there was a joint press conference with New Japan Pro Wrestling and Bushimo (video game subsidiary of Bushiroad). Owner, Takaaki Kidani, and Tetsuya Naito both made an appearance to announce a future NJPW mobile video game due out before 2020. Kidani also said that the Strong Style Evolved U.S. show actually sold out (4,500 tickets) in 10 minutes (the original number was 20) and that they could have sold 10k tickets this time around. Translations by Chris Charlton. Bushimo and New Japan teaming for a pro wrestling game the world can play together in time for 2020. #njpwworld — chris charlton (@reasonjp) February 2, 2018 Strong Style Evolved apparently did 4500 tickets in just 10 minutes. Kidani says they could have done 10,000. #njpwworld #njsse — chris charlton (@reasonjp) February 2, 2018

Originally Posted by WrestleInc "Nobody was pissed off. It was a ball of fun in our dressing room, but I had to tell you, that was another interesting thing," she said. "We were put in a basketball court; we were blocked off with black curtains, and there was another area where male legends were blocked off as well. Next to that they were filming all day the APA vignettes so because of that the overhead lights couldn't be on. We were trying to be ready in almost pitch black dark. They brought one little light and shun it over but it was still dark over there. We kept asking if we can please get lights and how much longer the vignettes were done and they're like, if we don't get them done we have to get them done live so we may not be able to put the lights on at all. I couldn't see to get in my suitcase; I couldn't find stuff, it was dark. We did not have a mirror. I asked for a folding mirror; they actually gave me that, but there was no running water to wash our hands close by. That was very interesting."

More from Terri Runnels recent podcast show on how bad the conditions were backstage for RAW's 25th anniversary.


Some other sheet news includes:

• For those interested, the entire listing of episodes for WWF Home Coliseum Videos launch on the WWE Network was recently revealed. https://www.pwinsider.com/article/11...-week.html?p=1
• During a recent episode of Dinner With the King podcast show, Jerry Lawler revealed he got into a backstage incident with Mark Henry during the Royal Rumble. Supposedly Henry didn't like Lawler's on-air jabs at Peter Rosenberg since he personally helped Rosenberg get a job in the WWE and is his close friend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU0QhlItEdA
• According to the Observer, Oney Lorcan is currently dealing with several injury issues and the official reason why he hasn't been on NXT television in recent months. None of the injuries were reported to be serious but he simply just needed some time off to heal.
• ESPN held a recent interview with Shinsuke Nakamura talking about winning the Rumble, his NXT career, and facing AJ Styles at Mania 34. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...-brock-lesnar/
• The Times of India had a recent interview with Stephania McMahon talking about WWE working with Make-A-Wish, WWE trying to stay relevant with storytelling, and Triple H being responsible for the Women's Revolution. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...ble-for-women/

Some stuff from TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE: Rollins Denies Injury, Total Divas Viewers, Rousey, Goldust/Rose
• Impact: World Championship’s Name + Execs Scout UK Wrestlers
• Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Tournament Returning This Year
• Kenny Omega vs. Cody Rhodes Announced for ROH Supercard of Honor XII

[Mr. Nerfect]

If Eli Drake starts working NXT, I might have to stop watching Takeovers. Hopefully WWE remember why they cut him all those years ago. Rock fucking wannabe with zero charisma. "E-LI DRAKE! Dummy! Yeah! Dummy! Yeah!" The fuck does that even mean? Shoot him into the sun and watch the world's problems slightly ease.

[Simple Fan]

You know what it means. You know you'd still watch those Takeovers to.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by Simple Fan You know what it means. You know you'd still watch those Takeovers to.

No, I don't. I literally don't. It's like yelling "Idiot! Yeah!" What does that mean? He's an idiot? His opponent is an idiot? It's him making noises because he's a fucking moron who can't even construct his own catchphrases. It's worse than The Miz's "Hoorah!".

And no, I don't think I would. I haven't watched Takeover Philly, and that doesn't have Eli Drake on it. I'm very capable of avoiding them.

[Simple Fan]

The Miz says hoorah? Don't guess I've ever heard that buy it makes sense with him being in the Marine. Drake is a natural on the mic and would instantly be the best talker in NXT if he came in.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by Simple Fan The Miz says hoorah? Don't guess I've ever heard that buy it makes sense with him being in the Marine. Drake is a natural on the mic and would instantly be the best talker in NXT if he came in.

I think being a natural on the mic comes with being able to make choices and displaying good instincts for a promo. He needs to be mowed down and started from scratch as to the psychology of one. From the last I was subjected to of him in TNA, anyway. If he came in, I imagine he'd just do his TNA shtick, because they love fan servicing that niche market, for whatever reason, and he'll do his TNA stuff with a slightly better entrance.

You're allowed to like the guy. I'm not here to kink-shame. But as I said: I hope the WWE remembers why they axed this guy years back and, at 35 years of age, they don't trust his aging firefighter-looking ass.

[XL]

Originally Posted by Noid That's really irrelevant to the point I was making.

I think this;

Originally Posted by owenbrown The Miz hasn't said that in several years

Was in response to,this;

Originally Posted by Simple Fan The Miz says hoorah? Don't guess I've ever heard that buy it makes sense with him being in the Marine. Drake is a natural on the mic and would instantly be the best talker in NXT if he came in.

Not this;

Originally Posted by Noid No, I don't. I literally don't. It's like yelling "Idiot! Yeah!" What does that mean? He's an idiot? His opponent is an idiot? It's him making noises because he's a fucking moron who can't even construct his own catchphrases. It's worse than The Miz's "Hoorah!". And no, I don't think I would. I haven't watched Takeover Philly, and that doesn't have Eli Drake on it. I'm very capable of avoiding them.

[owenbrown]

The Miz hasn't said that in several years

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by owenbrown The Miz hasn't said that in several years

That's really irrelevant to the point I was making.

[SlickyTrickyDamon]

Eli Drake in NXT? Well, they had a good run.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Oh, fair enough. It felt like the tone was more in direction to what I was saying. Like "he said it years ago" would have been more in line with a reply I would have expected towards Simple. Semantics though.

[#1-norm-fan]

Gonna swoop in on Smeat's territory here but... Raw dropped down to 3,055,000 viewers this week. Down just about 1.5 million in 2 weeks from that horrid anniversary show. Damn.

[Mr. Nerfect]

So if you take the amount of people that watched this week and halved it -- that is roughly the amount of people who wanted to give this shit a chance but said "Nope." Fucking hell.

[Emperor Smeat]

It was always a lock to happen because of the very special nature of the RAW 25 show compared to the usual RAWs. The drop between the post-Rumble and this week is more of the typical range considering the post-Rumble and post-Mania shows are usually the highest RAWs of the year.

The real issue is them getting very close to hitting a sub 3 million number on the Road to Mania and 3rd hour going under 3 million just a week after the Rumble.

They have maybe 3 weeks at most to pop the number to post-Rumble levels before Mania (post-Chamber, go home Mania, and Ronda's RAW debut).

[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Bray finally snapping over the direction of his character:

Originally Posted by Observer There was a unique and surprising ratings pattern last night, but in the end Raw was down nine percent from last week. The show averaged 3.08 million viewers ... What was notable is that the audience grew in the second hour, which hasn't been the case in a long time, but fell big in the third, which is a pattern, even with John Cena and Braun Strowman both saved for the television main event. In addition, Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins challenging Sheamus & Cesaro for the Tag Team titles was also in the third hour ... It's hard to explain what caused the second hour increase, although the first hour was lower than would be expected for this time of year. The three hours were: 8 p.m. 3.16 million viewers 9 p.m. 3.21 million viewers 10 p.m. 2.79 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer A day after he was written off television for the time being, Jason Jordan underwent "minimally invasive" neck surgery today. WWE.com announced that Jordan underwent a procedure called a "minimally invasive posterior cervical microdiscectomy" this morning. The announcement noted that the timetable for Jordan's return isn't yet known. "He had an injury to a disc in his neck which resulted in significant pain that was refractory to all conservative measures,” Dr. Joseph Maroon said. “It was decided to do a minimally invasive operation to decompress the nerve, to allow it to heal.”

Link: http://www.wwe.com/article/jason-jor...?sf181475497=1

Originally Posted by Observer A tag team main event is set for the first show on New Japan Pro Wrestling's tour of Australia. At the Titanium Arena in Adelaide on February 16th, Kazuchika Okada will team with Tomohiro Ishii against The Young Bucks. The other main event matches for the four-show tour will be announced this week. After the Adelaide show, the tour will have stops at Festival Hall in Melbourne on February 17th, the Quaycentre in Sydney on the 18th, and HBF Stadium in Perth on the 19th. The shows aren't listed on the New Japan World schedule.

Links: https://twitter.com/njpwaus/status/960807722240294912 , https://twitter.com/njpwaus/status/959989209619513344

Originally Posted by Observer Coming off his surprise appearance in the Royal Rumble, Rey Mysterio seems hopeful about returning to WWE for a longer stay. "I want to say that there is a big possibility that I will be back," Mysterio said in an interview with The Mirror that was conducted prior to him wrestling for 5 Star Wrestling in Liverpool last Thursday. "[We're] figuring out what the situation is, you know from both ends. But there is definitely a positive feedback on behalf of the fans, on behalf of the WWE staff, and behalf of myself man." "I think we're possibly going to sit down and negotiate something where we can both work together and have a good time and enjoy," Mysterio said.

Link: https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/other...heres-11970816

Originally Posted by Observer William Regal denied reports that WWE is working on putting together a Latin American tournament: “I usually use this account for entertainment purposes only. This is official though. The @WWE has no Latin American tournament booked at this time despite the news that is being reported today.”

Link: https://twitter.com/RealKingRegal/st...20463445807104

Originally Posted by Observer Bubba Ray Dudley thinks it would make sense for Paul Heyman, Edge & Christian, or The Hardys to induct The Dudleyz into the WWE Hall of Fame.

Link: https://twitter.com/bullyray5150/sta...37581822214144

Originally Posted by Observer ROH’s Ian Riccaboni confirmed that the company has already broken their all-time attendance record with tickets sold for Supercard of Honor XII in New Orleans. There were 3,828 tickets sold as of yesterday morning. Revolution Pro Wrestling announced Matt Riddle & Jeff Cobb vs. Aussie Open for their Epic Encounter show at York Hall on May 11th. Riddle vs. Pete Dunne is set for Fight Club: PRO in Wolverhampton on February 23rd, along with Tyler Bate & Trent Seven vs. Zack Sabre Jr. & Angelico.

ROH link: https://twitter.com/IanRiccaboni/sta...52671626735616 , ROH tickets: https://twitter.com/Laviemarg/status/960516483108491265 , Rev Pro: https://twitter.com/RevProUK/status/960951509415612416 , Fight Club PRO: https://twitter.com/Fightclubpro/sta...04045041446912

Originally Posted by Observer According to WWE Network News, a short scene where The Undertaker was shown “undergoing pain relief injections and talking about doing such things in order to give the fans the best performance possible” was removed from the WWE 24 documentary on WrestleMania 33.

Link: http://www.wwenetworknews.com/2018/0...we-24-special/

Originally Posted by 411Mania WWE is reportedly set to tape a Latin American tournament this summer. Planeta Wrestling reports that WWE will look to Latin America for their latest tournament, following the Cruiserweight, Mae Young Classic and UK tournaments. According to the site, the tournament will feature wrestlers from Chile, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and other countries and will be held in Chile sometime by the end of August. At this time, there are no plans to crown a new champion or guarantee a full NXT contract to the winner.

Link: https://www.wwenews.eu/exclusive-wwe...urnament-soon/

Originally Posted by PWI On January 25, Alpha Entertainment applied to trademark the new XFL logo, as well as applied a bunch of trademarks for 'Alpha Entertainment' and that company logo as well.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE announced a new theme song for Monday Night Raw, presumably debuting with Monday's episode: The sound of #RAW is reborn. "Born For Greatness" by @paparoach is an #OfficialThemeSong for Monday Night #Raw! pic.twitter.com/VgKQGGtwir — WWE (@WWE) February 5, 2018

Originally Posted by PWI The National Wrestling Alliance announced today that NWA champion Nick Aldis would defend the title against former ECW champion Tommy Dreamer at the 3/24 House of Hardcore return in Philadelphia, PA at the 2300 Arena, which will stream live on the promotion's Twitch.tv channel. The announcement was made today by NWA President Billy Corgan. The NWA previously announced that Aldis would make twenty championship defenses over the next sixty days as part of their continued plan to elevate the prestige and profile of the NWA and its top championship.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM3_Qvs_3PU

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Nia Jax's opponent on last night's episode of RAW was St. Louis talent and current Zero1 USA Women's Champion Savanna Stone. At 17 years old, Stone is the youngest champion in Zero1 USA history.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc We noted before how former WWE NXT Superstar Shaul Guerrero was getting back into pro wrestling. The daughter of WWE Hall of Famer Eddie Guerrero and wife to Aiden English is set to make her indie wrestling debut on February 17th for Reality of Wrestling's Ladies Night Out all-women's invitational, which is a joint show from Title Match Wrestling & Booker T's Reality of Wrestling. Shaul cuts a promo on the event in this new video from Title Match Wrestling. You can stream the event live on TitleMatchWrestlingNetwork.com.

Some other sheet stuff includes:

• Karl Anderson revealed on Twitter he is currently expecting his forth child to arrive this August. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bevce5NA...arlandersonwwe
• Recent article on WWE's official website listed Asuka, Shayna Baszler, Sonya Deville, Nia Jax, and Charlotte Flair as dream opponents they want to see face off against Ronda Rousey in the WWE. http://www.wwe.com/article/5-ronda-r...-dream-matches
• According to reports, the reason for RAW's low attendance this week was due to a snowstorm affecting host city Des Moines, Iowa.
• The Mirror had a recent interview with Ric Flair talking about the early years of the Monday Night War, refusing to trash talk the WWE during that time, being excited at seeing the possibility of Charlotte defending her title against Asuka or Ronda as rumored opponents at Mania, and more. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...ks-hating-wcw/
• Recent episode of the Edge & Christian podcast show had Christian reveal a prank him and Stone Cold played on each other during the RAW 25th anniversary show. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...-steve-austin/

Some stuff from TPWW Frontpage:

• Jason Jordan Undergoes Neck Surgery
• WWE Signs The Miz to a New Four Year Contract
• Update on Why Lars Sullivan Has Been Absent From NXT

[Corkscrewed]

Yeah.... "snow storm"...