[Emperor Smeat]

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Originally Posted by Observer Vince McMahon came in with a very distinct vision for No Mercy, that this show and what would happen in the two key matches were not about now, or the day, but about telling the story of getting to WrestleMania, which is all about Lesnar and Reigns being the two superior guys in the company, and nobody else is on their level. Lesnar is being kept super strong so Reigns beating him means the most. Reigns is put over everyone clean so he’s the strongest challenger possible. The idea was Cena would hit Reigns with every big move, over-and-over, and he couldn’t beat him, while Reigns would beat Cena with his usual stand-byes, the Superman punch and spear. Similarly, Lesnar would survive multiple Strowman powerslams, and win clean with one F-5. He also wanted Lesnar vs. Strowman to be kept inside the ring (other than the one spot outside the ring involving the post, but nothing with tables and such), which kind of exposed Strowman, who got over on doing stunts outside the ring. The mentality, whether it’s right or not, was the short-term not so great match (I’m sure he was expecting a far better crowd response for the main event when he had the vision but going in it was going to be a short match with one F-5 as the finish) was the small picture and the big picture was both guys being as strong as possible for Mania.

Originally Posted by Observer Samoa Joe did an interview with Sky Sports today and said he's undergone two operations. He suffered a torn meniscus and had surgery. He said he's actually needed the knee surgery since joining NXT but didn't have time to take time off. He also said he's had nasal surgery since he's broken his nose eight times and was only breathing at 60 percent and feels a lot better.

Link to the interview: http://www.skysports.com/wwe/news/14...ad-to-recovery

Originally Posted by Observer Ethan Page has left EVOLVE. Regarding rumors, given the timing, that he was the person who leaked the wrestlers memo out, we're told that has nothing to do with him and the belief it was leaked by a wrestler who doesn't work for the company. We were told that Page was going to finish up with WWN next week, but after how things went this past week, they decided to end it there. EVOLVE will headline the 10/14 show in Queens, NY at LaBoom with Matt Riddle vs. Keith Lee in a last man standing match.

Originally Posted by Observer Fightful.com and Chris Harrington have an article on Samantha Rotunda, who is filing for divorce from Windham Rotunda (Bray Wyatt), and has requested all of his pay records from 201 to the present. WWE agreed to produce his 1099's, booking contracts and some licensing contracts but claimed the cost of compliance with the subpoena would be between $247,500 and $483,000. On 9/22, the lawyers for Samantha Rotunda filed a motion in Superior Court in Stamford, CT saying that the WWE was acting in bad faith and attempting to intimidate the litigant from going through discovery and finding out her husband's true financial picture.

Originally Posted by PWI Our friends at www.Highspots.com sent word that all three nights of the 2017 Battle of Los Angeles tournament promoted by California's Pro Wrestling Guerrilla are now available for pre-order in both DVD and Blu-Ray format at this link.

Link to pre-order: http://www.highspots.com/c/Preorders.html

Originally Posted by PWI Any word on WWN suing Flosports? I saw they made a lot of WWN content free this week, which had to be a way to hurt WWN, right? As of this writing, we have not heard back when we asked if a countersuit had been filed. To me, making that library free has to be a way to drive down its worth for WWN outside of Flosports and flip the bird at WWN. That decision, depending on what an attorney says, could be actionable in civil court. WWN could certainly claim damages, because why would I want to order Dragon Gate Open the Gabe Email Gate if I can stream it for free? WWN has 50 days to respond to the Flosports lawsuit, so we may have some waiting to look forward to. If and when there is a countersuit filed, we will cover the story.

From PWI's weekly Q&A articles.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE Universal champion Brock Lesnar is currently advertised for the 11/13 WWE Raw TV taping in Atlanta, GA which is the Raw go-home episode for Survivor Series. Lesnar is not currently advertised for the PPV itself.

Originally Posted by PWI The top advertised matches for the annual 12/26 WWE event at Madison Square Garden are Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman and WWE Tag Team champions Seth Rollins & Dean Ambrose vs. Cesaro & Sheamus. Also advertised are John Cena, Samoa Joe, Miz, Alexa Bliss, Finn Balor, Sasha Banks, Matt Hardy, Bray Wyatt, Bayley and more.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc As noted, The Young Bucks revealed that they received a cease & desist letter from WWE after staging a Bullet Club "invasion" outside of this week's WWE Raw in Ontario, California. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported WWE claimed in the letter that The Young Bucks were using their intellectual property, mainly the "Too Sweet" hand gesture. WWE claims ownership of the hand gesture due to their purchase of WCW's intellectual property. Via the Young Bucks Merch Twitter account, they are now auctioning off their "Too Sweet" Ring Worn Tights on eBay with 100% of the funds going towards the Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta Foundation. "Too Sweet" Ring Worn Tights up for auction NOW! 100% of the funds are going directly to @childrensatl https://t.co/LYhVDXzWjy pic.twitter.com/UVVhmjdCCw — Young Bucks Merch (@YoungBucksMerch) September 28, 2017

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Above is a sneak peek at the WWE Network Collection for Asuka that premieres this coming Monday. As noted, the undefeated Empress of Tomorrow will make her RAW brand debut at the October 22nd TLC pay-per-view.

Link to the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU0ENLV571Y

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Figure Four Films & Paragon Pictures have announced the "Extraordinary Gentleman" documentary on WWE Superstar Jack Gallagher, to premiere on Sunday, November 5th in Manchester, England. Below are full details with an Instagram post from Gallagher, noting that the doc was filmed around the time of WWE's Cruiserweight Classic in 2016.

Announcement by Gallagher: https://www.instagram.com/p/BZl3sJYlpmA/

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Daniel Bryan continued to fan the flames of speculation for his in-ring return during his and Brie Bella's latest Q&A session on Instagram (h/t Reddit). Bryan's hair is beginning to reach the length it was during the latter part of his WWE career, but it's not simply a fashion statement. Bryan said he hopes it would lead to Lucha Libre matches in Mexico. In the video, Bryan commented that his hair looked weird and Bella pressed him to reveal why he's growing it out. Bryan was coy at first, but then he revealed his plan. "We don't need to talk about why I'm growing my hair out," Bryan said. "It may or may not be because I want to do apuestas matches in Arena Mexico. It may or may not be that." "That's what he wants and that's what he keeps telling me," Bella chimed in. In Mexican wrestling luchas de apuestas, which translates to "matches with wagers," are a commonality where wrestlers in heated rivalries would put their masks on the line in a mask vs. mask match to put an end to the feud. Also common are mask vs. hair matches and hair vs. hair matches, both of which would suit Bryan just fine. "Imagine a hair vs. mask match vs. Atlantis, or a hair vs. hair vs. Rush," Bryan said.

Link to the Q&a session: https://streamable.com/fyonh

Originally Posted by WrestleInc We noted earlier how The Young Bucks revealed that they received a cease & desist letter from WWE after staging a Bullet Club "invasion" outside of this week's WWE RAW in Ontario, California. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports WWE claimed in the letter that The Young Bucks were using their intellectual property, mainly the "Too Sweet" hand gesture. WWE claims ownership of the hand gesture due to their purchase of WCW's intellectual property. The Bucks have removed all references to "too sweet" from t-shirts for sale on their YoungBucksMerch.com website and on their ProWrestlingTees.com store. The Bullet Club appeared outside of the Citizens Bank Arena in Ontario after doing a signing at a Hot Topic store in the area earlier that day. The "invasion" was filmed for their "Being The Elite" series on YouTube as a continuation of recent storylines they had been doing on the show. The storyline, which essentially turned into reality, was brought on by two things - BC member Cody Rhodes no longer being able to use the Rhodes name since WWE claims it as their property, and The Bucks receiving a cease & desist letter from the owners of Comedy Central's Rick & Morty Show after they produced a Rick & Morty parody t-shirt.

Link with more details: http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...e-young-bucks/

Originally Posted by WrestleInc WWE Cruiserweight Champion Enzo Amore is reportedly looking into starting a rap career. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter notes that he would not be able to use that name outside of WWE.

Originally Posted by Observer Billy Corgan will be taking over ownership of the NWA on 10/1. All of the NWA affiliate promoters won’t be able to use the name unless authorized by Corgan, and his ideas aren’t to use the name for indie promoters to use, although David Marquez’s group, Championship Wrestling from Hollywood, will probably use the name. They did an angle on Marquez’s show where Tim Storm, who was the NWA champion, was confronted by Nick Aldis, which makes Aldis favored to get the title since Storm is from the old regime. Regarding the NWA on Demand streaming service and the Paul Boesch Houston wrestling library, that service will be discontinued next week. The site was run by Bruce Tharpe and he has to shut it down by 10/1. As part of the NWA sale purchase, Corgan owns the licensing agreement to market the Houston library and he would be in control of how to use it in the future. Valerie Boesch still owns the actual library. The reason the service was set up was because Tharpe had tried to sell the library to WWE, but the offer was so low that they felt more people could see it since WWE likely wouldn’t release most of it, and they could make more money on it from doing their own streaming service. But the number of subscribers to the service wasn’t significant

Originally Posted by Observer It’s not a definite thing, as the decision will be made over the next few weeks, but Cody vs. Dalton Castle for the title has a good shot at being the Final Battle main event. They did the injury angle in Europe for Castle and there have been hints for it so at some point soon Castle will be returning and will be doing a match or more likely a program with Cody

Originally Posted by Observer U.K. wrestler Johnny Moss was hired as a new coach at the Performance Center. He’ll be starting in about two weeks. Moss, 37, will both train wrestlers as well as work backstage on the touring shows. He had a hand in training Balor years ago. He has a U.K. farewell match on 10/14 in Whitehaven against Joe Coffey, and will be turning over his School of Hard Knocks and Hammerlocks to Josh Terry

Some other sheet news includes:

• According to the Observer, WWE management is considering the idea of former women's wrestler Kaitlyn making a return to the WWE within the near future.
• Enzo Amore is reported to be considering starting a rap career soon although Observer's Dave Meltzer stated Enzo can't use his WWE name for it.
• Sports Illustrated had a recent interview with Jack Swagger talking about why Ceasro should be a world champ, indies career, and almost considered a career in MMA. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...rite-wrestler/
• Pete Dunne and Will Will Ospreay were recently involved in an incident with fans at an event in Liverpool. Match between the two was delayed a bit when both started yelling at several fans for using homophobic slurs during their match. https://twitter.com/heelalexthomas/s...14546878435333
• Researchers recently identified a potential biomaker that could lead to CTE diagnosis being possible while someone is alive. Wrestling and football are among the biggest risks for CTE and both WWE and NFL have also been among the most vocal opponents about its severity. http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/26/health...ive/index.html
• According to the Observer, Mexican promotion AAA currently has no plans to use Sexy Star any time soon due to the incident and backlash involving her at TripleMania XXV.