[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Random Mojo Rawley gif:

Originally Posted by Observer Based on T-shirts that have been printed, these are the Legacy Award Hall of Famers for the WWE Hall of Fame this year: Judy Grable -- One of the female stars of the 50s. She took her name from Betty Grable. She wasn't one of the top tier women in her era but she was a legitimate star. Toots Mondt -- Mondt was a former shooter who worked with Strangler Lewis and Billy Sandow in the 20s and controlled the world title for a time and bounced from place to place. He was Vince McMahon Sr.'s business partner and some said the wrestling brains behind the outfit into the 1960s. He was considered a very controversial person in the industry. Rikidozan -- The father of Japanese pro wrestling and easily the single most influential pro wrestler in history. No wrestler was ever such a major cultural figure, in both Japan and in North Korea after his death. On a cultural basis, he would be far closer to Muhammad Ali than to Hulk Hogan. Farmer Burns -- A world champion in the late 1800s, Burns was the coach and promoter of Frank Gotch, the first true superstar pro wrestler and mainstream sports figure to come out of wrestling. Luther Lindsay -- A noted shooter. He was a star, but not a major star. Like Art Thomas, this is what it is. Dr. Jerry Graham -- Vince McMahon's childhood favorite pro wrestler. The Graham Brothers (Jerry & Eddie, who were not brothers) vs. Argentina Rocca & Miguel Perez was a huge program in Madison Square Garden. The Doc was a colorful figure, whose problems with alcohol prematurely ended a run that should have had a lot of legs left in him. Vince McMahon and his father tried to bring him back a few times but it never worked out. June Byers -- Byers claimed the women's world title from 1953 to 1964 although there were other claimants. Most of her era considered her the best of the women wrestlers after the retirement of Mildred Burke. Haystacks Calhoun -- Billed at 450 to 600 pounds, Calhoun was a great touring attraction in pro wrestler, similar to what Andre the Giant later would be, but not on the same level as Andre.

Originally Posted by Observer ITV and Impact Wrestling announced today officially that World of Sport will return to ITV with tapings at the Preston Guild Hall on May 25th and 26th. The announcement was of a 10-episode series. ITV greenlit the series which would be largely funded by Anthem Entertainment, which would run the wrestling end, with Jeff Jarrett in charge of the wrestling. They announced tickets would go on sale on April 7th at Gigsandtours.com, Ticketmaster.co.uk, and prestonguildhall.co.uk. There will be a launch announcement on March 27th at 2 p.m. in Manchester where more details will be announced, including the roster, as well as a Q&A ... While no deal has been closed, Jim Ross had been earmarked as the host of the show. Officially, only Alex Shane, who co-hosted the pilot with Ross that aired on December 31st, is an announcer. Grado will enter the tapings billed as the World of Sport champion based on the first episode.

Originally Posted by Observer Kyle O'Reilly's first matches for Evolve are set for 4/22 in Queens, NY against Keith Lee, 4/23 in Brooklyn against Fred Yehi, 5/20 in Chicago against Matt Riddle and 5/21 in Livonia, MI.

Originally Posted by Observer There will be a new Undertaker collection added on Monday to the WWE Network. It will likely be a collection of his WrestleMania matches, that are already up in other forms.

Originally Posted by Observer WWE announced that Corey Graves' interview with Kurt angle would air Tuesday night after Talking Smack on the WWE Network. There will be another Bring it to the Table with Corey Graves, JBL and Peter Rosenberg on Thursday at 8 p.m. Maria Menounos will again host the Hall of Fame red carpet ceremony at 7 p.m. Friday night.

Originally Posted by PWI The 3/23 edition of Impact on Pop brought in 305,000 viewers, down over 10 percent from last week's 344,000 viewers.

Originally Posted by PWI Any chance WWE does Big Show vs. Shaq at Wrestlemania next year? No. Show has made it clear his current deal expires in February 2018 and has openly talked about quietly fading away at that point. Shaq in Florida would have meant something. I don't know the match has the same appeal in New Orleans.

From PWI's weekly Q&A article on the possibility the WWE could do Shaq vs Big Show for next year's Mania.

Originally Posted by PWI The debut episode of Edge and Christian's Pod Of Awesomeness with WWE Universal champion Bill Goldberg was really good. During his appearance, Goldberg mentions the new attitude of the locker room saying that there are no big characters in locker room. Edge questions if the guys are handcuffed. Goldberg explains that things are more structured now and that management may not have the faith in the current roster to do whatever they want. They obviously talk about Goldberg facing Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania 33 and the challenges that are involved when it comes to fans' perception. Goldberg promised a knockdown, drag-out "blood fest" at Wrestlemania and said they are both going to do things beyond the constraints of their previous encounters. Goldberg implied that they were not allowed to do very much in the first few encounters in order to garner interest in a third bout and to play on people's nostalgia of his character. Goldberg mentioned how physically taxing this current run has beenfrom travel, training , balancing work and family. He even mentioned the problems with picking up Rusev due to excessive training, busting himself open before going out on live TV, his relationship with Vince McMahon and more.

Link to the podcast episode: https://art19.com/shows/ecs-pod-of-awesomeness

Originally Posted by PWI WWE NXT episodes have been completed on WWE Network going back to the June 2012 reboot of the brand under Full Sail University. This includes early 2014 episodes before the Network.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Matt Hardy commented on Kurt Angle being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this year, writing on Twitter: So proud & happy for my amigo @RealKurtAngle for achieving this HONOR. Kurt has overcome & defeated all of life's obstacles. 100% deserved. https://t.co/BDTls2WN01 — #BROKEN Matt Hardy (@MATTHARDYBRAND) March 24, 2017

Originally Posted by WrestleInc - WWEShop.com now has Southpaw Regional Wrestling merchandise available. Also, for today only, select WWE merchandise is only $5. There is no code required.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc The official store for the Hardys officially closed down yesterday. It had been running for 5 years. The Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer was asked on Twitter if WWE is "maybe the reason" for the store closing down, to which he replied, "Not maybe definitely."

Former WWE Writer Kevin Eck stated yesterday on Wade Keller's PWTorch Livecast that he feels that the odds of a Reigns heel turn are good, because at one point in his run as a creative team member, Vince actually signed off on a John Cena heel turn. He added that creative was ready to execute and that Cena himself liked the idea. At the time, Vince believed that Sheamus, currently the World Champion, would be the next "guy" due to his "aura." But Vince scrapped Cena's heel turn later, citing that they just reached an exclusive merchandising deal with Cena and Walmart, and with Cena's numbers still way ahead of everyone else's, it wasn't a good time.

Originally Posted by Observer There were meetings this past week with New Japan officials and AXS officials. Nothing official has been announced but they were working on ideas to work together for New Japan’s entrance into the U.S. market on 7/1 and 7/2 in Long Beach, as well as attempts to get the television more caught up like it was for the Tokyo Dome show.

Originally Posted by Observer The Young Bucks and Hardys program has been agreed upon to be a major deal on Impact television until the Hardys situation changed. Both ROH and Impact had signed off on working together where there would be multiple dates for months in both companies, going back-and-forth, where the Young Bucks would have debuted on the April tapings. It would have run the gamut to matches on each other’s PPV shows as well as a match at the Hardy compound and eventually to the ladder match as the likely final match. Impact was still interested in the Young Bucks, as Jeff Jarrett showed interest in everyone who he thought had a name that could help the company. Even if the Hardys leaving wouldn’t have killed the idea, and realistically, it probably did, the legal threat that cost ROH the Dish Network PPV buys would have certainly killed it dead.

Originally Posted by Observer It also appears that they are trying to keep the participants in the Smackdown women’s title match a secret, as well as if there is a stipulation involved. The graphics and angles continue to suggest Alexa Bliss defending against Mickie James, Carmella, Natalya and Becky Lynch. But they are pushing that all Smackdown wrestlers available that night will be involved, which could include Naomi, if she’s recovered from her knee injury; Summer Rae, who is training right now in Orlando for her return; Tamina, who has been on the road full-time doing house shows but hasn’t been put on television; and Eva Marie, who hasn’t been on television since she’s been doing acting gigs. It’s also possible the teased surprises could be women stars of the past. Several were contacted many weeks ago about appearing on the show as part of a scenario that has been kept secret. Kelly Kelly is the name that has gotten out and others have been called as well. Lita recently wrestled an independent match and Lisa Varon (Victoria) is another name out there. Maria Kanellis is in the category of going somewhere in secret and most of the time when there is a destination that has to be kept a secret, that means WWE.

Originally Posted by Observer With time running out and no talk for several weeks, it appears that WWE and Conor McGregor couldn’t come to a financial deal. That is also likely the reason the Big Show vs. Shaquille O’Neal match fell through, leaving the show right now with 14 matches. Show was announced for the Battle Royal, killing the idea of a singles match, but Paul Levesque, on ESPN, when asked about the match and O’Neal, tried to tease that something was still alive.

Originally Posted by Observer Brandon Howard at Fightful.com got a report from the Arlington, TX police department that the actual number of people who went through the turnstiles at AT&T Stadium for WrestleMania last year was 80,709. That’s greatly under the 101,763 plus number that WWE claimed. The stadium itself told us there were 97,769 people in the building, but that included everyone from the wrestlers and office people to ushers and concession stand people. I was also told 93,770 was the number of paid and comps of people, both ticket holders and box holders, not actually working at the show by the stadium, and the paid was in the 79,000 range. The difference between 80,709 and 93,770 I can’t really explain because it was made clear that 80,709 number included party passes, which, if legit (the only question is if a Wifi failure screwed up the turnstile count) means they the entire stadium was set up for 67,000 and all those 80,000 and 100,000 figures they’ve used in the past for other sports events in that stadium were heavily worked numbers. That also explains the low legitimate paid number for a show that didn’t appear to be heavily papered.

Seems like Mania 32's paid attendance number might be even lower than previous statements since the Observer thinks the real number might be 67k.


Some other sheet news includes:

• In a "WWE Did You Know" type fact, today is Undertaker's 52nd birthday.
• IGN had a recent interview with Randy Orton mainly talking about WWE's Hall of Fame and his match against Lesnar last year. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...-lesnar-match/
• According to close friends of Mauro Ranallo, JBL and others are being implied as the cause for Ranallo's recent bout of depression. Bas Rutten himself recently hinted at wanting to beat up JBL and others for how they've treated Mauro. https://twitter.com/BasRuttenMMA/sta...22307384516612
• According to the Observer, Hardys are currently booked till the end of April for indie commitments which could mean a possible WWE return being no earlier than May.