[Emperor Smeat]

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SPOILER: show

Originally Posted by PWI Former WWE Champion Alberto El Patron just defeated Bobby Lashley to win the TNA championship in his official TNA in-ring debut. As we noted earlier on the site, he is in full-time and was coming in with a big push. When John Gaburick was running TNA creative, he intended to bring in Alberto and have him win the title on his first night but they never came to terms. Under the new regime Alberto came to terms, and still ended up with the title on the first night.

Originally Posted by Observer At the tapings for next Thursday's show, they show an angle with Borash confronting Josh Mathews, basically saying that everyone hates Mathews, that he disrespects fans, legends, and the new management wants a change. As noted, the new storyline is that the people who were running TNA the last few years were idiots and Borash said that Mike Tenay had been training him to be the new lead announcer, but then the stupid former owners of the company jumped on a guy who was just fired by WWE and he was put in the spot. The belief is that the stupid former owners will be a theme of the shows as they start the new regime. Mathews then claimed that he was taught by Jim Ross and he has announced at WrestleMania. The transition will not happen overnight as the two are set to feud first.

Spoiler tags used since its related to recent TNA tv tapings and storylines.

Originally Posted by Observer The new regime of Impact Wrestling debuts at tonight's tapings with a ton of new faces expected as well as old faces being gone. Besides the names already written about, Alberto El Patron, Garza Jr., Rachael Ellering, Kongo Kong, and Laredo Kid are coming in along with the likes of Konnan, Matt Morgan, Bruce Prichard, and perhaps Karen Jarrett. Brooke Adams will not be appearing for any of the tapings. Cody appears only tonight. It also appears Jeremy Borash will be the new lead announcer for TNA.

Originally Posted by PWI For the many of you who have asked, yes, Paige is indeed backstage at the TNA Impact Wrestling taping tonight in Orlando, Florida.

Originally Posted by Observer Impact Wrestling announced a new television deal in the United Kingdom today with Spike U.K., a two-year-old station in the market that also airs Bellator. Spike U.K. airs a lot of Spike TV programming as well as some shows from parent Ch. 5 in the U.K. The station broadcasts in the U.K. and Ireland. Only a handful of shows in the history of the station have done 200,000 viewers. The deal goes into effect in the spring, and will air Impact every week, as well as monthly live and taped PPVs. TNA Xplosion will air on the smaller My5. Impact will air on Friday nights, the night after the show debuts in the U.S. and Canada. Impact had been out of the U.K. since being canceled by Challenge TV. Its ratings had declined greatly on the station prior to being dropped. Impact had often had more viewers than Raw or SmackDown in the U.K. in the past, but that's misleading since Challenge was available in far more homes than Sky.

Hot on the heels of their UK TV announcement, TNA will hold its first round of TV tapings tonight at Soundstage 21 at Universal Orlando in Florida. It's the first under Dutch Mantel as head of creative and Jeff Jarrett's new role as Chief Creative Officer and with the churn of talent, is going to be very interesting to see who is used, how they are used, what old faces return and what new faces debut. It's a new slate starting with these tapings. The episodes begin to air next week. In their announcement for the UK TV deal (which starts on 4/21), the company also unveiled a new, sleeker logo: Conspiracy theorists, it is interesting to note the shade of green in the logo matches the shade used by Global Force Wrestling in their own logo. TNA also announced today that when Moose goes to work for Pro Wrestling NOAH in Japan, he'll be in the ring with The Great Muta.

Originally Posted by PWI Boy, if this happens and Jim Ross comes back to the announce booth for Impact, it would be a huge get. Good luck to all my friends working in #Orlando for @IMPACTWRESTLING. Expecting many changes including perhaps a different soundtrack. ????? — Jim Ross (@JRsBBQ) March 2, 2017

Originally Posted by Observer AAA is getting an even worse rep with some indie promotions that had worked with them, as they’ve sent cease and desist letters to promoters who are booking Pentagon and Fenix. It’s not just trying to stop them from using their old names, which they’ve stopped using, and registering their new names to keep them from using them, but now are trying to get indie groups to stop booking them by threatening legal action. Based on this, one wonders if Lucha Underground will use them for the next season

Originally Posted by Observer While it’s too early to know if this will have any effect on the promotion, Sinclair Broadcasting Group, Inc., the parent company of ROH, has approached Tribune Media Company to talk about a merger according to a report by Reuters on 3/1. The deal would hinge on current regulations being changed. A deal would combine two of the largest owners of television stations in the U.S. Tribune owns WGN America and 42 stations while Sinclair owns or operates 173 stations in 81 markets. The article indicated it was more Sinclair looking to buy Tribune, or parts of Tribune. Right now there is an FCC regulation that no owner of broadcast television stations can reach more than 39 percent of the country’s homes, but the feeling is President Donaldwould relax those types of rules. Since from the story, it would appear the Sinclair side would remain in charge, that would likely not mean anything regarding this promotion, but when big changes are made, you never know what it means for smaller cogs in the wheel and company’s priorities can change

Originally Posted by Observer The situation with ITV is that ITV is very much looking at doing a wrestling show, but after doing the pilot, realized that producing weekly episodic shows with storylines and such is something they don’t have the capacity to do, as well as run a touring house show promotion. Unlike with Lucha Underground, where it was with this television mindset and losing tens of millions in the process, they realize they need to get a wrestling promotion built from the television show and have talked with Jarrett about that. Exactly what this would entail, or if they even reach a deal, is up in the air

Some potential bad news regarding ITV and plans for their weekly tv wrestling show.

Originally Posted by PWI The 2017 TNA Slammiversary PPV will be Sunday 7/2 in Orlando, Florida at Universal Studios.

Originally Posted by Observer The WAW UK promotion announced U.K. shows with Jack Swagger (his first non-WWE appearance), Jazz, Bushwhacker Luke Williams and Scott Hall for 3/10 and 3/11.

Handsome Rusev’s recent appearance on Talk Is Jericho revealed a lot — his first job in the United States was as a house painter and eventually he worked at a Wendy’s — but the best moment is the mention that the NXT version of the Bulgarian Brute was almost a pro wrestling genie. The quote, courtesy of Dusty Rhodes’ wonderful, Glacier-creating imagination: “He has given me so many good and bad ideas that you have no idea! He tried to make me a genie. ‘Baby, I see you with that new gear. You look like a genie! I want you to work with that Russian chick, Anya, and she’s going to, baby, rub the lamp and you’re going to, pop, appear! … He made me do genie promos for the next three weeks. Well, he had the lamp and this kickboxing chick we had back in FCW, she rubbed the lamp and I appeared.”

"How about fan fiction? Young: You know what I saw the other day—it must’ve been on my Instagram or on Twitter or something, but somebody tagged me in it—it was a shirt that was a picture, obviously a fan-drawn cartoon thing of just you and Roman [Reigns, a fellow WWE Superstar] in … a deep embrace. I wanted to buy it. [Laughs] It was a thing on Etsy, a real thing that I could’ve bought. It was hysterical. Ambrose: There are psychotic fans. Young: Insane. Ambrose: Especially, like, I think I draw a certain … I think a lot of my particular … Young: Fan base? Ambrose: I have a particular demographic. I think I appeal to a lot of people who might have problems of their own [and] they relate to me. It’s cool when you can help and inspire people and stuff, but sometimes people just attach to you for strange reasons, [and] their behavior is not the best. Like what? Ambrose: I’ve been stalked, I’ve been— Young: I get many a death threat. Death threats? Young: Well, I mean, there’s a lot of anti–Renee Young pages out there. Ambrose: It’s actually good to make this point. But without going into too much detail, I’ve been stalked on the phone and my home and hotels, to the point where it’s a little Single White Female scary, though I’m pretty sure I’m not gonna get beaten up and kidnapped by a 15-year-old girl. Young: I don’t know … there are a lot of steroids in foods now. Ambrose: I’ve been stalked fairly regularly for the last two years. I have to go to great lengths to keep that shit at bay."

From a recent interview Dean Ambrose and Renee Young had with website Vegas Seven: http://vegasseven.com/2017/03/02/wwe...-power-couple/

Originally Posted by Observer There are discussions of [Pete]Dunne working either on Raw or Smackdown on the post-Mania shows in Orlando. All the U.K. talent contracted talent is coming in, with some likely performing at Axxess

Originally Posted by Pro Wrestling Sheet Wrestlers at the WWE Performance Center recently learned a thing or two from The Book of Truth … because The Sheet has learned ex-ROH manager Truth Martini coached them for a week. Multiple sources tell us Martini’s stint was a few weeks ago, but it somehow slipped under the radar. Recent guest coaches include Scotty 2 Hotty and Steve Corino … who were both eventually hired by WWE to work with talent at the Performance Center. The company also hired Nigel McGuiness, who had been working for Ring of Honor — where Truth Martini called home for six years. No word on whether this will lead to any further relationship between the two sides.

Originally Posted by Fightful.com On his weekly podcast (link is external) with Fightful Wrestling, Riddle said the [TNA]company has attempted to get ahold of him. "They haven't been contacting me direct, because they don't have my contact information. But, they've contacted people to get a hold of me, I've been so busy though I haven't got back to that yet. But I don't want to mention names of said contacts but one of my former coaches and ECW alumni at the Monster Factory told me somebody wanted my information," said Riddle. Currently Riddle is signed to a contract with Evolve, but has liberties to wrestle for other independent promotions and to look for bigger opportunities. Fightful Wrestling's podcast host Sean Ross Sapp asked him what he would be allowed to do regarding Impact Wrestling and Riddle said he was unsure.

Some other sheet news includes:

• Brooke Adams is currently rumored to be joining the batch of recent departures from TNA. Wasn't used in the current set of tv tapings and her contract ends very soon.
• TNA announced during tonight's set of tv tapings they have have officially dropped the TNA name in favor of being called just Impact Wrestling going forward.
• Mauro recently thanked fans on his Instagram page for voting him as the winner of the Observer's "Best Television Announcer" award. Ended up beating Corey Graves for the award by 289 votes. https://www.instagram.com/p/BRItX-7AOoT/
• According to PWI, Jack Swagger is technically still with the WWE at least for the short time being.
• ESPN had a recent interview with Kurt Angle mainly about his upcoming Hall of Fame induction. http://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/18804834