[Emperor Smeat]

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Last night's WWE SmackDown, which was the USA Network premiere, drew 2.757 million viewers. This is up from the last SyFy airing on New Year's Eve, which drew 1.658 million viewers. This is also up from the Super SmackDown episode, which drew 2.264 million viewers. This is also up from the last regular Thursday SyFy airing, which drew 2.332 million viewers.

Highest since last year's post-Rumble week. A lot of it probably due to WWE hyping it up as a big show and the show having a new home on USA Network. Past reports and rumors hinted that USA Network is well aware its not going to last based on WWE's past history with the brand and new homes for the show.

According to The Wrestling Observer, WWE once again had more 50/50 booking of talent on TV in 2015 than any other major wrestling promotion. 50/50 booking is when a talent loses as much as he or she wins, and WWE decided to take this booking approach again this year despite the fact that stars might be perceived as average because they lose as often as they win. Wrestling Observer Newsletter correspondent Chris Siggia compiled the following WWE TV 50/50 booking stats: World Champions did 12 jobs on WWE television last year, including nine of the 12 by Seth Rollins. Intercontinental Champions did 14 jobs on television in 2015, including eight by King Barrett and three by Kevin Owens. United States Champions did eight jobs on TV, with Rollins looking at the lights on three of those occasions. Tag-Team Champions did 21 tag-team jobs, ten of which were by The New Day. Divas Champions did nine television jobs, seven by Nikki Bella and two by Charlotte.

Originally Posted by Observer There are two key lessons in this. New Japan has attempted to copy the WWE business in many ways, such as making the Tokyo Dome week like WrestleMania, giving up on PPV and iPPV in favor of a streaming service and just all kinds of business and promotional changes. The first lesson is that they need to sign their top guys to longer than one-year deals. The top WWE talent that they rely on is signed up for eight to ten years, and renegotiated with and given new deals long before the current ones expire. Even the minor guys and developmental guys are usually signed up for three years minimum. This prevents a rich billionaire wanting to start out from being able to execute a raid. New Japan’s one-year deals that expire in January left them as sitting ducks for this. The second is, instead of a system where they just create their own stars from scratch, they should be open to poaching good young talent from other promotions. There is a ton of great young talent in Japan, or even great talent in smaller promotions that could work out great in New Japan. It’s not the Japanese way of doing things. But WWE, whether in 1984, 1994 or 2014, has always been built more on taking talent that worked in other promotions and was already good.

Observer on how the talent raid might force NJPW to change how it handles talent deals especially if their goal is to be like WWE in the end.

Originally Posted by Observer Other names floated around from New Japan as far as coming to WWE included Rocky Romero, Bad Luck Fale and Tama Tonga. The only thing known is that as of this week, none of the three had given notice. Romero had recent discussions with WWE, with the belief being it involved a player/coach type of job at NXT. Balor is believed to have suggested and recruited Fale and Tonga. Because of his size, Fale had offers of sorts in the past but he lives in New Zealand, has family there, and in the past hadn’t been interested in relocating to Orlando.

Rocky Romero ended up signing a new 2 year deal with NJPW according to ProWrestlingSheet with the recent talent raid as a key reason why NJPW rushed to get a deal done.

Originally Posted by Observer Axxess before WrestleMania will take place at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, the same building that the NXT show takes place in. The arena and the part of the building that Axxess will be in are two different places, however because of the time scheduled for Axxess, they are delaying the start of the NXT Takeover show on 4/1 until after Axxess is over. The Takeover show is scheduled for the card to start at 9 p.m. local time right now and with it being Central time, the show is set for a 10 p.m. start time on the network until after midnight. The Axxess times are 3/31 (Thursday) from 6-10 p.m.; Friday from 5-9 p.m.; Saturday from 8 a.m. to Noon; 1-5 p.m. and 6-10 p.m. (head-to-head with the Hall of Fame) and on the morning of WrestleMania from 8 a.m. to Noon.

Originally Posted by JR's Blog “The signing of the four NJPW wrestlers, including Bullet Club members, is essentially a done deal as in ‘agreed on the terms in principle’ type of thing. The key to this matter now is how will WWE introduce these men as how they are initially presented will go miles into how they are perceived by the fans.” “Shinsuke Nakamura is a hugely gifted resource that WWE is getting and has the natural charisma and ‘IT Factor” that promotions are always seeking. I hope that age old stereotype of how Japanese wrestlers are presented in America is broken as it relates to this talent who can, by the way, speak English. I sung Nakamura, and others including AJ Styles, Gallows, and Anderson’s praises when I returned from broadcasting Wrestle Kingdom 9 last year to WWE honchos. I believe in these four talents and if they are used strategically and if they come in as ‘main eventers’ WWE may have made themselves four, new main event talents.” “Could a Balor Club get created and if so can they be made to be villains? The answer is “absolutely” especially if the proposed Balor Club is friendly with The Authority. Or the Balor Club could be positioned against the Authority to make them bigger fan favorites of which they will likely be if this much talked about matter goes down.”

Originally Posted by PWI As of these tapings, TNA's live production is being handled by an outside company owned by Ron and Don Harris. The official change-over took place sometime over the last month. Going forward, TNA will pay the Harris' production company to handle the live production aspect of events. Instead of being paid by TNA, the live production staff will now be paid directly by the Harris' company. Previously, the staffers were paid by TNA with many of the late checks being blamed by the process of going through Panda Energy. TNA has worked to move all of their payments out of Panda's office in Texas and into their own office in Nashville. We've heard from one source there are still some staffers unhappy as there was some money still owed from before the change-over happened, leaving Ron and Don to have to rectify the issues. That source's account of the meeting described as an "ugly fight" regarding money owed but a second source who was in attendance at the meeting denied the scene was anything like that at all.

Some other sheet news includes:

• Prior to signing with the WWE, NJPW made several offers to La Sombra hoping he would sign with them instead.
• According to the Observer, 2016 could be a very critical year for both CMLL and AAA. CMLL took several huge hits and struggled last year after a good start while AAA's fortunes seem to depend on how well Lucha Underground does due to the talent they lent. AAA also struggled to do well last year.
• WWE is rumored to be looking at China for the next wave of talent scouting both as a way to find new potential wrestlers and help boost that market for the company.
• NXT is currently rumored to be making the Dusty Rhodes Tag Classic an annual tournament with plans for the finals to happen during Summerslam week.
• Based on a recent survey sent by the WWE, the company is considering taping another season for Legends House for the WWE Network.
• WWE.com had a recent interview with Finn Balor about the rumors of WWE signing NJPW wrestlers and the possibility of a new Bullet/Balor Club being formed. http://www.wwe.com/inside/finn-balor...ullet-club-q-a
• For those interested in owning their very own Vince mugshot t-shirt, WWE Shop is starting to sell the shirt for $25. http://shop.wwe.com/Mr.-McMahon-Mugs...efault,pd.html
• Jim Ross recently hinted that if given the chance by the WWE, he would want to be the commentator for Undertaker's retirement match. https://twitter.com/JRsBBQ/status/685615761209954304