[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Wrestling Greatest Retirement Match - Terry Funk vs Straw Hat, Funk's 128th retirement match:

SPOILER: show

The Orton vs Wyatt house of horrors match will be the blow off with Wyatt losing. He won't be taking the belt to RAW. (WWE apparently still doesn't even know what a HoH match is. They sent out a survey asking fans what they wanted to see and it looks like it's gonna be a mess. "fog, creepy noises, etc") Styles and Owens is set for Backlash in May for the US belt. While that feud is going it seems Orton will be in a program with Corbin since it's "to early for Nakamura" Brock will defend the Universal belt against Braun in "June or July" The plan is still Brock vs Roman at Mania next year. So they'll continue to be kept apart.

Taken from r/SquaredCircle that summarized several reports from this week's Observer Newsletter

Spoiler tags used since its related to rumored upcoming plans for the WWE, Universal, and US title according to the Observer

Originally Posted by Observer At press time, neither Mauro Ranallo nor WWE have made any statements on the case past WWE saying Ranallo is under contract through 8/12. Ranallo’s contract doesn’t allow him to give unauthorized interviews on WWE and the belief is that WWE is working hard to come to a settlement that would include an agreement that he not publicly talk about the issue.

Originally Posted by Observer Layfield going off on Ranallo on the WWE Network show “Bring It To The Table,” which was the final catalyst for what happened, while positioned and purported to be an unscripted show, that’s not exactly the case. The show isn’t exactly scripted, but the topics, the tone, the parameters and where to go and not to go are all discussed in advance. It is Chris Chambers who puts together the show and Kevin Dunn is the person responsible for the show. Because of that, Layfield’s attack on Ranallo was not something done off the cuff or out of the blue. Chambers had to know about it and Dunn had to know about. Vince McMahon may not have known about it, but after it became an issue, he would have known about it and the show was re-aired without the segment being edited off. Whether or not it was Layfield’s idea to do it, what they could and couldn’t do was up to Chambers. The insults, at least the tone or degree of them, had to have been approved in advance.

Originally Posted by PWI The JBL situation has continued to get more and more mainstream media attention. There was an article in the New York Post this morning. It has become a big talking point locally in Fairfield County, CT where WWE HQ is as well. As I wrote a few weeks ago, I didn't expect WWE to make any moves or comment on the situation unless it started to pick up momentum in the mainstream press or with their corporate partners. It appears that momentum has started. As an aside, Justin Roberts couldn't have timed his book to come out at a better time when you think about it, as all of this is only help fuel attention to his book.

Link to the NY Post article: http://nypost.com/2017/04/12/how-lon...ullying-story/

Originally Posted by WrestleInc WWE Hall of Famer Kevin Nash took to Twitter and defended JBL as the heat continues for the SmackDown announcer over his issues with Mauro Ranallo. Nash wrote: JBL broke in in an era of 300 pound bad ass men. So his psychological thoughts are very real. Everyone could go. He's shifted to our new era — Kevin Nash (@RealKevinNash) April 13, 2017 JBL is one of the most thoughtful on air personalities WWE has. He's a mans man. But looking to always advance talent. #dont' be a b---h — Kevin Nash (@RealKevinNash) April 13, 2017

Jim Cornette also recently defended JBL and the bullying accusations against him by recalling his own stories of bullying people in the industry.

Originally Posted by Observer They apparently haven’t decided on what a House of Horrors match is yet. In fact, they’ve actually done a survey at the WWE Fan Council this past week asking them what they’d like it to be, bringing up various weapons and such. The question asked people to check what elements they’d like in the match, listing cage, darkness, fire, pitchforks, mirrors, projected images (that worked just great at WrestleMania), fog, a match done outside the arena, creepy scary venue, music, “Sheepie” and “nothing different.” Well, it can’t be a straight match after they’ve already named it House of Horrors.

Originally Posted by Observer An update on the situation with Katsuyori Shibata. Unfortunately the news appears to be very bad and that the injuries are not storyline. This is not 100 percent because there are many situations historically where this could be just storyline or a cover for something else, but it appears this is the case and that a combination of dehydration and the trauma of the legitimately skull-on-skull head-butt hospitalized him and at this point it is believed he will never be cleared to wrestle. He is currently in the hospital and is awake, can carry on a conversation, has some memories of the match itself. He initially had some right side paralysis but that is getting better.

Initially, the Observer thought NJPW was making the injury sound worse than it really was for storyline purposes but backtracked once actual medical info started to get released.

Originally Posted by Observer There is a major story that affects independent promotions and WWE as well who made revenue from YouTube. By doing this, almost all wrestling channels will be losing virtually all ad revenue, which in cases of companies that pushed product consumption on YouTube as a significant part of their business plan, that's a major hit.

In terms of the WWE, they'd be losing around $6-$7 million as a result while smaller indies are teasing at possibly shutting down from the lost revenue.

Originally Posted by Observer Producer Mike Ryan said on Dan LeBatard's show in the third national hour yesterday that he believed WWE had banned them from getting guests, saying, "They don't trust us, and you know what, that's probably a good call by them." Ryan is a big fan. They had DDP on last week and he seemed to get mad when LeBatard tried to press him on a fight he had with Scott Steiner in the 90s.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Despite the storyline injury from the Braun Strowman attack at Monday's RAW, Roman Reigns is still scheduled to work weekend WWE live events. F4Wonline.com adds that live event listings for this weekend have Superstars scheduled to work with the brands they were on before the "Superstar Shakeup" roster changes made this week.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc In the video above, Mojo Rawley talks to TMZ Sports about WWE possibly signing good friend Rob Gronkowski of the NFL's New England Patriots. Gronk helped Mojo win the fourth annual Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 33 and assisted him again on SmackDown. Regarding Gronk possibly coming to WWE to team with Mojo, he said: "Oh man, are you kidding me? Of course we've explored that opportunity but Gronk's focused on his career right now. He's been training real hard and yeah, he's been having a little but of fun with us the past couple of weeks but he doesn't let that take away from his NFL career, from the Patriots, so he's staying focused. We don't want to rope him in too far because he's really in the zone right now but hey, you never know what the future will hold."

Link to the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqi50ghkOW8

Originally Posted by WrestleInc As noted, David Otunga's RAW commentary debut has been delayed for six weeks as he's off filming a lead role in an action movie. That movie is titled "Katrina" and is set in 2005 New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Otunga stars as edgy DEA agent James "World" Lawson. No word yet on when the movie will be released.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc As noted, Jonathan Coachman stated this past weekend that he would no longer be covering WWE on ESPN. Coach had been hosting the Off the Top Rope segment on Wednesday nights on SportsCenter, which featured an interview with a WWE star and clips from WWE programming from earlier in the week. Coach cited a big project that he's working on as the reason for why he is no longer hosting it, and said that ESPN would still be covering WWE. It's not clear if he meant that ESPN would continue to do the segment or just cover it in general, but there was no mention of it or WWE on last night's SportsCenter.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc We've noted how Stephanie McMahon has been kept off WWE TV to sell the table bump from Triple H vs. Seth Rollins at WrestleMania 33. According to Dave Meltzer, the table bump spot wasn't so much to get Rollins over, but because Stephanie had a family vacation scheduled at the Turks & Caicos Beaches Resort in the Caribbean.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc As noted, WWE parted ways with Simon Gotch of The Vaudevillains last week after he apparently requested his release. This may not have anything to do with the departure but Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that there was an incident with Gotch at catering before the April 4th SmackDown in Orlando. Gotch reportedly tipped over his own chair and got mad when he went over. The Observer notes that the fall was bad enough that it caused a scene.

Originally Posted by Observer From someone on the WWE side with full knowledge of the particulars of how the negotiations were going, at least as of right now, all talks about WWE buying ROH are considered dead. ROH and WWE are still in talks about licensing old content on the WWE Network, but no deal has been made on that.

Originally Posted by Observer Drew Galloway had never agreed to appear on the ITV project but the Impact side claims that Jim Ross was on board to do the show but hadn’t signed. He backed out after getting the WWE offer, which was about five or so weeks ago. The offer was said to be extremely strong. The one thing we’d heard was that Ross’ view is that the ITV project was only guaranteed for ten episodes, while his WWE deal was for two years and that WWE would always be around.

Originally Posted by CageSideSeats Randy Orton was a guest at his home town of St. Louis’ recent Wizard World convention, held last weekend, April 7 - 9. During his Q & A, the WWE World champ was brutally honest about his entrance at WrestleMania 33, which saw him walk down the 80 yard ramp while a “Viper” was projected beneath his feet As Orton told the crowd, including one pre-teen boy who asked him about it, he’s often “screwed out of entrances” like the ones Triple H gets. He particularly disliked this year’s because “The snake looked like giant sperm”. He reiterated his thoughts on the ‘Mania 33 entrance when he told the crowd he loved “Big 4” pay-per-view (PPV) events, but WrestleMania can have downsides like having to “ride a giant sperm” to the ring.

Some other sheet news includes:

• More of the media has started to pick up on the WWE bullying saga with ESPN also targeted for their refusal to cover the news due to business deals with the company.
• In a "WWE Did You Know" type fact, today is the 20th anniversary of ECW's first ever ppv called Barley Legal.
• According to the Observer, there is currently some doubt if Shelton Benjamin will actually return to the WWE. He got medically cleared to wrestle recently but the original offer by the WWE was pulled when they discovered he was injured and were not informed prior to the talks.