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Originally Posted by Observer Following his first appearance on WWE television since his health scare, Ric Flair will be part of the company's Starrcade house show later this month. WWE confirmed today that Flair would be appearing at Starrcade in Greensboro, North Carolina on November 25th ... Here's the updated card for Starrcade: WWE Champion AJ Styles defending against Jinder Mahal in a steel cage match SmackDown Women's Champion Charlotte Flair defending against Natalya in a steel cage match SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos defending against The New Day, Shelton Benjamin & Chad Gable, and Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn in a fatal four-way match United States Champion Baron Corbin defending against Shinsuke Nakamura Bobby Roode vs. Dolph Ziggler Dustin Rhodes vs. Dash Wilder Appearances by Ric Flair, The Hardys, Ricky Steamboat, and The Rock 'n' Roll Express

Originally Posted by Observer While speaking with the pro wrestling media ahead of Saturday's NXT TakeOver special, Triple H discussed bringing War Games to a new generation of fans and confirmed another change from the original concept. "We're not gonna have a roof," Triple H said on a conference call today. "I think it's a little bit limiting. I think the style has changed. Not saying that anybody is gonna do it in this match, but I think going forward as War Games becomes -- I try to think about the future. Look, Arn Anderson wasn't doing moonsaults off the top of the cage. So, I think there's a difference in how the business is done. This allows for there to a be a little bit of a different opportunity to do some things. I don't feel, personally, that we have changed the concept of what it is." Though the rules have been tweaked, Triple H said he thinks they work better for today's generation. And while there are some changes, he said the match is still about teams "going to war" and it worked with the storyline that The Undisputed Era, SAnitY, and The Authors of Pain & Roderick Strong are involved in. Triple H noted that WWE using War Games and Starrcade this month was a coincidence and the decisions were made independently. He said he's always been interested in bringing back War Games and has been looking for the right time since NXT started up. He called TakeOver: War Games a chance to take something from the past into the future and slightly reinvent it while still staying consistent with Dusty Rhodes' vision.

Originally Posted by Observer Pete Dunne and Johnny Gargano's United Kingdom Championship match will be airing on NXT TV next week ... In addition to that, Ruby Riot vs. Sonya Deville will also be taped for next week. The episode will feature video packages and post-match interviews from TakeOver as well. Gargano is set to become the first wrestler born outside of the UK to challenge for the title.

Originally Posted by Observer Ahead of this weekend's pay-per-view, WWE has already announced the location for next year's Survivor Series. Survivor Series 2018 will take place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California on November 18th. As is the case with all WWE "big four" PPVs, the arena will host an NXT TakeOver special on the Saturday before Survivor Series and Raw and SmackDown in the days after the show. WWE noted that ticket information for all four events will be made available in early 2018. This will be the first time California has ever hosted a Survivor Series. It will also be the first time an NXT TakeOver event has taken place on the west coast.

Originally Posted by Observer New Japan opens its tag team tournament on Saturday morning with a live show from Korakuen Hall on New Japan World. There will also be shows on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday that will be put up on tape delay later those afternoons but with only the tournament matches. The complete lineups for each day is in the 11/13 issue of the Wrestling Observer. The 11/25 WrestleCade show in Winston, Salem, NC will stream live on FITE TV headland by Eli Drake vs. Jack Swagger vs. Johnny Impact and Ivelisse vs. Taya Valkyrie. Mike Davidson of Winnipeg got back into the wrestling promoting game and was set to debut a new promotion called Wrestling Supercard with shows on 11/23 in Thunder Bay, ONT, 11/24 in Winnipeg and 11/25 in Thompson using Santino Marella, Ken Anderson, Eugene and Shawn Daivari. On Tuesday, Davidson announced the shows were canceled due to low ticket sales.

Originally Posted by PWI The 12/26 return to Madison Square Garden has a new, updated lineup: *John Cena vs. Roman Reigns, with Reigns replacing Samoa Joe, who had been advertised vs. Cena earlier this week. *WWE Raw Tag Team champions Sheamus & Cesaro vs. Seth Rollins & Dean Ambrose in a steel cage match. *Braun Strowman vs. Kane.

Originally Posted by PWI The debut episode of WWE 365 featuring Kevin Owens will be narrated by actor and director (and big wrestling fan) Michael Rappaport.

Originally Posted by PWI Staffers at the Impact Wrestling Nashville office began to be let go yesterday, PWInsider.com has confirmed. We are told that there were "support staff" let go as the company begins to fold Impact's offices into Anthem's existing infrastructure in Toronto. No new update on the Don Callis situation. The continuation of Lucha Underground will not have a profound effect on their talents that are currently working for Impact. LU intends to ease off on the contractual restrictions when they are not taping in order to let talents appear on other televised promotions. Ethan Page, formerly with EVOLVE, will be coming in as Chandler Park, the storyline cousin of Joseph Park. There's been talk of Impact being interested in using LU star Brian Cage of late. Sonjay Dutt has been taking an increased role in all aspects of the management of the company. One source noted they wouldn't be shocked to see him taking the lead in booking going forward.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc According to PWInsider with the fourth season in play for Lucha Underground, wrestlers will be able to work for other televised promotions, when the company is not taping. Previously, wrestlers weren't able to do so until the a Lucha Underground season wrapped up.

Originally Posted by PWI On his podcast this week, Jim Ross noted during his interview with Chris Jericho that he renewed his deal with AXS TV for another year. So he would be able to voice-over his match with Kenny Omega when it airs on the channel. Jericho noted during the interview that he is working with New Japan Pro Wrestling to have the Wrestle Kingdom event available through traditional PPV means, so people without access to New Japan World would be able to view it. On whether Vince McMahon knew about his deal with NJPW before it was publicly announced, he said he would not go into any specifics but mentioned that being smart, he would not do anything that would jeopardize their relationship. He added that if Vince knew what an effect such a match can have on his own business, then he should not have a problem with it.

Originally Posted by PWI Matt Hardy's 'Broken Matt Hardy' trademark is close to being published for opposition. On July 14th, two 'Aro Lucha' trademarks were filed by Arolucha, an LLC company based in Franklin, TN. One for wrestling and the other for merchandise. Both filings will be published on December 5th for any opposition.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc WWE posted an article with WWE Superstars picking their dream Survivor Series team. Braun Strowman went with The Undertaker, Roman Reigns, Big Show, Bray Wyatt, and himself. Matt Hardy went with Jeff Hardy, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, "Macho Man" Randy Savage, and himself.

Link to the article: http://www.wwe.com/shows/survivorser...s-2017-edition

Originally Posted by Observer NJPW Company business in the last fiscal year (August 1, 2016 to July 31, 2017) was up significantly, pretty much commensurate with the attendance increase. The company grossed 3.859 billion yen (which translates to $34,010,000) and had 926 million yen profit ($8,160,000). Revenue was up 17.8 percent and profits were up 99 percent. Full-time employees increased from 45 to 61. It would have been the company’s most revenue since 1997, but in those days, a far larger percentage of the revenue would have been ticket sales. The revenue was 2.007 billion yen in tickets, 1.196 billion yen in merchandise, 656 million in television rights fees (plus New Japan World revenue). If you go with the idea that on average there were 55,000 New Japan World subscribers at $8, and it’s a 50/50 revenue share with TV-Asahi, that would be $220,000 per month or $2.64 million per years, so all their TV deals combined would only be $3.14 million per year which is the difference between a Japanese based wrestling business and an American based sports business where it’s all about television revenue and very little about ticket sales and merchandise. When Tanahashi first got hot and the company began its comeback, it was doing $9 million annually in gross revenue, so it has quadrupled business in about six years. It’s still not even five percent as large revenue wise as WWE, which will gross in excess of $700 million this year. Profitability the gap is a lot closer. From January 1 through September 30 of this year, WWE profits were $27.8 million

Some comparisons on how huge the gap is between NJPW and WWE in terms of revenues.

Originally Posted by Observer As figured last week, James Storm is no longer with the company. His contract was running out and he was on a guaranteed annual deal in the $150,000 to $200,000 range, which isn’t a big number but Impact can’t afford numbers like that anymore. We’ll see if he can get into WWE.

Originally Posted by Observer Regarding the Hall of Fame at Bound for Glory, once Jeff Jarrett left for good and they had nobody committed (the idea was Jerry Jarrett and Mike Tenay but Tenay wasn’t happening either way and Jerry, who did help start the company with Jeff and Bob Ryder and was a key guy in the early days, but left in a falling out with Jeff over Jeff using Vince Russo as booker and other things, in fact for years the two didn’t speak until reconciling) they decided to kill the concept, but James Storm was not on the list for being considered

Originally Posted by Observer The Flair 30 for 30 show doing 1,831,000 viewers, the best rating for one of those shows since the December 10, 2016, show on the 1988 Miami vs. Notre Dame football game and its aftermath, has led to a lot of talk about more wrestling shows. One of the reasons the show was delayed so many times is that ESPN had turned down two other versions, and the unique direction this one took is something that you really couldn’t get with almost any other wrestler. For a comparison, the show on the XFL did 917,000 viewers. Rory Karpf, who put together the piece, said they would be releasing a DVD that would include a lot more interview footage that didn’t air on the show

Originally Posted by Observer Just a clarification on Tenille Dashwood’s booking price, the $2,000 per show figure was for shows outside North America, for Europe, Japan and other markets. For North America the rate being quoted is $1,500 per show, plus round-trip airfare, hotel and ground transportation (on the indies promoters are expected to provide hotels and ground transportation, an expense that talent in WWE has to pay for on their own). That isn’t unusual for talent asking for bigger money booking fees for overseas shows since the travel is harder and you can often miss a day of regular bookings because of it. She’s also asking for a 50/50 split between her and the promotion for autograph and picture money and asking for 100 percent of her own other merchandise money (also consistent with most guidelines). She also asks for creative control, the ability to approve her opponent and do her own finishes, which in regular indies isn’t a deal-breaker since any top guy is basically going to have the right to approve that, but for some of the companies that run full-time and do storylines, that has been them balk. They are also asking for a 50 percent deposit ahead of time, which is also consistent with what most top stars on the market do unless they are working for a promoter they have a developed a long relationship with

Some other sheet news includes:

• During today's media conference call, Triple H revealed more episodes of NXT will be taped away from Full Sail next year due to scheduling reasons. He stated they currently have plans for the first 13 weeks of 2018 to be taped at various locations.
• During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, The Rock's daughter revealed she is considering the idea of becoming a pro wrestler in the future. If it happens, she would become the 1st fourth-generation star in wrestling and/or the WWE. https://www.pwinsider.com/article/11...-star.html?p=1
• NWA is currently taking bookings for future NWA Championship matches after the Aldis-Storm II match. https://www.pwinsider.com/article/11...iness.html?p=1
• Website UPI had a recent interview with Cody Rhodes talking about ROH's recent success, Arrow's Stephen Armell, and a possible future match with Kenny Omega. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...e-kenny-omega/

Some stuff from TPWW Frontpage:

• Triple H Says There Will Be No Roof on WarGames Cage
• HOF Scrapped, Make-a-Wish, Staff Cuts, Lucha Underground, More
• Various: Pre-TakeOver NXT Matches, EVOLVE’s Future, House of Hardcore
• More Wrestlers Comment on James Ellsworth’s Release