[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Bliss Era Appreciation Day:

Originally Posted by Observer As expected, Raw bounced back strong with no football competition, doing 3.26 million viewers on Monday night. That's only down six percent from the 3.46 million viewers that the bounce-back Raw the same week last year did, so the decline is far less than it was during football season. It was up 13 percent from last week, and the usual goal is a ten percent increase the first week after football season ends ... The story was a very strong open and a big fade. Whether that was attributable to the idea that people were curious to see Brock Lesnar, and after his appearance, there was nothing plugged for him later, or they just lost interest after the first hour, the ratings pattern wasn't good ... The three hours were: 8 p.m. 3.52 million viewers 9 p.m. 3.22 million viewers 10 p.m. 3.07 million viewers

Highest since last August but 3rd hour took a bit hit and NBA now having their own primetime Monday games gave a small hit to RAW's rankings. Drop compared to same week last year was smaller than usual (200k).

Originally Posted by Observer In an interview with the Fox Sports' Wrestling Compadres podcast, WWE COO Paul "HHH" Levesque confirmed that a WWE women's tournament is happening this year, likely this summer. The podcast aired a clip from the interview Wednesday with the full interview set to be released this Friday. You can listen below, starting at the 21:30 mark ... Levesque said that the difficult thing has been trying to find the right time for the tournament, given their current schedule and the ever-changing landscape of WWE. He mentioned the UK tournament fit perfectly prior to the Royal Rumble and that he is hoping the women's tourney can happen this summer. The plan is to recruit very similarly to the WWE Cruiserweight Classic where they "scour the globe" and find some talents that may be flying under the radar, increasing the talent pool for WWE as a whole.

Link to the podcast episode: https://soundcloud.com/the-wrestling...adres-slamcast

Originally Posted by Observer Levesque was also asked about intergender matches and while he understands that they may work for some smaller groups as shock entertainment value, he didn't think the WWE fanbase would be ready for a male to be seen beating up a woman in the ring. He prefers the women being able to stand out on their own athletic merits.

From the same interview Triple H had with Fox Sports' Wrestling Compadres podcast show.

Originally Posted by Observer It was announced on Talking Smack last night that Jerry Lawler would be calling the Royal Rumble match alongside Michael Cole and Corey Graves. Lawler will also be part of the pre-show in San Antonio. Both Lawler and Lita were pulled from their regular pre-show duties at the end of last year.

Originally Posted by PWI You may not want to bother Randy Orton at the gym. There is a story making the rounds about Orton having a confrontation with someone who tried to get Orton to take a photo with him in the middle of a workout. When Orton did not, the fan snuck a photo of Orton working out instead and the two had words. When the story began making it's way online, Orton responded: Apparently I hurt a fans feelings when I told him to F off at the gym yesterday. That's news? Been happening for 15 years. #getalife — Randy Orton (@RandyOrton) January 18, 2017

Originally Posted by Observer Darren Young tweeted an update about the injury that he suffered at the Main Event taping before Raw on Monday: "Hyperextension which resulted in a traumatic dislocation & fracture of the coronoid process of the right elbow. #blockthehate #standby"

Originally Posted by Observer Chris Charlton translated an interview from NJPW owner Takaaki Kidani where he talked about the company's plans for expansion into the United States. Kidani said, "When you ask what it is we can do (with New Japan), it is to create an American based subsidiary and run shows there. In addition, it is to produce television in line with our Japanese content that can be sold cheaply to American cable networks. While we currently sell television content to AXS TV, the most popular and visible networks have a high demand for volume of content available cheaply."

Originally Posted by Observer The Hardys are set to face Pentagon Jr. & Fenix on the March 31st WrestleCon show over WrestleMania weekend. Matt Jackson of The Young Bucks tweeted a photo of them and the Hardys along with a message agreeing to their challenge to a match. The teams are scheduled to face each other at ROH's Supercard of Honor show in Lakeland, Florida on April 1st.

Originally Posted by Observer PROGRESS Wrestling has confirmed that Tyler Bate, Pete Dunne, Trent Seven, and Mark Andrews will be wrestling for the company over WrestleMania weekend in Florida. PROGRESS is part of WWN's weekend of events and will be putting on a supershow with EVOLVE in addition to a show of their own.

Originally Posted by PWI The Philadelphia Inquirer featured a story today on the city of Brotherly Love being passed over for Wrestlemania again and their continued push to bring WWE's flagship event to the city. "Philadelphia is proud of our longstanding partnership with WWE over the years,” Larry Needle, executive director of PHL Sports told the newspaper. “Bidding for WrestleMania was extremely competitive, but we are very confident that we'll have many more premier WWE events in Philadelphia in the near future. We're also looking forward to hosting one of the country's biggest sporting events this spring, the NFL Draft, and welcoming another fantastic slate of events throughout 2017 and beyond.”

Originally Posted by PWI We are told that there were plans for Wrestlemania 34 to originally be in the Northeast (I believe in the NYC area) but that idea was dropped due to the excellent bid and presentation New Orleans made to bring the event back to the Big Easy.

Originally Posted by PWI Kenny Omega appeared on The Taz Show with former WWE and ECW star Taz this morning on CBS Radio for an interview discussing his recent main event at the New Japan Wrestle Kingdom show, his future, his time in WWE developmental in the past and more. During the interview, when asked what he might be able to discuss about his future, Omega stated that he wasn't being "suspiciously silent" or trying to make people think one thing to "work" them. He said that a year ago,when AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson were all signed by WWE, it opened the eyes of New Japan that they needed to break away from the standard one year deals. He said talents were signed to unique deals and he was one of them ... In terms of what would direct his decision-making, Omega said that he's not looking for monetary goals but is looking to change "the business as much as I can in my own way and do something with impact." He said he's come so far in Japan that he almost feels as if he's had a "complete career" there and is now mulling over what the next potential move for him could be. He said that by almost winning the IWGP title and not getting there, he would hate to feel like he's walked away from there without that. Omega said that he wasn't sending out feelers but was open to receiving them, commenting that after the Dome and the buzz that he's gotten, it appears that WWE is more "receiving" of seeing Omega in a way that would allow him to "contribute" to that company. He said that he doesn't want to just take a payday for money but wants to contribute in a way that makes current fans happy and bring former fans back to the business. He admitted that seeing how former NJPW talents have been used there has opened his eyes to the potential. Omega noted "no negotiations have ended" and it's not a case of one company outbidding another in the end. "It's not a money situation."

Originally Posted by PWI While there are a lot of rumors making the rounds about TNA executive changes, nothing has been officially set in stone yet. Obviously, Anthem will be restructuring the company going forward, but to what extent remains to be seen. Marti Belle is gone as her deal has expired. Bell, who most notably had a run with the Dollhouse, had not been used at the last several TV tapings. She was not booked for the most recent set and the set before, she was actually fielded out by TNA to go work for Rocky Mountain Wrestling in Colorado during the same time period. She's always been good. On Twitter, she noted she was back where she began, meaning being an independent talent. She's working for the National Wrassling League group in Kansas City area that has been signing a number of talents to full-time contracts, but not word if she is signing there.

Originally Posted by Sports Illustrated “The WWE Universe is different from the rest of the world,” explained Angle. “Even though I was wrestling all these great matches, most WWE fans didn’t see those matches. That makes me sad, but it would be nice if WWE somehow got my TNA library, as well as AJ Styles’s, Samoa Joe’s, and Bobby Roode’s so people can see the stuff we did. Those guys will continue to have great matches, but we also had some great ones in TNA.”

From a recent interview Kurt Angle had with Sports Illustrated on not wanting his TNA career to be ignored by the WWE.


Some other sheet news includes:

• Observer Radio show had Triple H as today's guest although mainly talked about Surf's Up 2: Wavemania, HBK, and sausages. According to Brian Alvarez, the interview had to be cut short due to Triple H running late with his plans and WWE emailed later being upset that the movie wasn't promoted more. http://i.imgur.com/mV4MOKm.jpg
• According to reports, Kevin Nash recently agreed to donate his brain for CTE research after his death. http://accmag.com/kevin-nash-to-dona...-cte-research/
• In a "WWE Did You Know" type fact, MVP owns The Royal Rumble record for quickest elimination after eliminating someone else at 10 seconds (2010 Rumble). Brian Kendrick is second on the list at 15 seconds (2009 Rumble). http://officialfan.proboards.com/thr...ticular-record