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Former TPWW Royalty
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Dirtsheets sponsored by Suplex Appreciation Day:
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Originally Posted by Observer
In the last few weeks, there have been only minor changes to the original plans for WrestleMania. It is now, officially:
Bill Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar for the Universal title. Whether this is positioned last or not, this was told to us from the start as the main event on the show. Unless plans change, Lesnar will win the title. Goldberg’s contract expires with this show but they can always sign a new deal. But the reason Lesnar put Goldberg over so quickly at Survivor Series and the Rumble is that this would be the end result. Goldberg having two quick matches would indicate this also won’t be a long match ...
Undertaker vs. Roman Reigns. No matter what the long-term plan is as far as Reigns and a heel turn, he will be the biggest heel on the show. The finish here is very interesting. People will passionately hate the idea of Reigns winning, but if the idea is to go to Reigns as the guy to beat Lesnar (which was the plan at WrestleMania two years ago but they held back based on crowd reaction, which has only gotten worse since then), then Reigns shouldn’t lose to Undertaker at this stage of the game. Originally Undertaker was to wrestle John Cena, but Vince McMahon changed it and he has always wanted an Undertaker vs. Reigns match, for whatever reason, at a WrestleMania before Undertaker retires ...
Bayley vs. Charlotte vs. Sasha Banks for the women’s title on Raw. Originally Nia Jax was in this match, and clearly with Jax having beaten Bayley and Banks in recent weeks, if she was pulled, it was a late change. They still could add her. But if she was pulled, then Banks beating her at Fast Lane at least makes sense. This is essentially the same match, except Bayley in the spot Becky Lynch had, of the three-way match that most thought to be the best match last year.
Alexa Bliss vs. Natalya vs. Becky Lynch vs. Mickie James vs. Carmella vs. ? for the Smackdown women’s title. It was announced on Smackdown that Bliss will defend against every available woman. Natalya, Lynch and James were made clear. Naomi’s name has been mentioned in recent promos but that would depend upon her being ready by Mania, which isn’t clear. Carmella would fit the list. There could be other names as well, including Tamina, who has been working Smackdown house shows but hasn’t been put on TV, and Eva Marie, who is on the roster, but hasn’t been on television in months ...
Andre the Giant Battle Royal. One figures this as a showcase for Braun Strowman, with all the people on the Raw and Smackdown roster that don’t already have matches, a list that is very long. Mojo Rawley and Dolph Ziggler appear to be on it.
There are 13 matches right here, and with other entertainment, multiple New Day segments, and your various surprises whether that be Hulk Hogan or Dwayne Johnson or Shawn Michaels, that is plenty for a show scheduled to start at 5 p.m. local time and end after 11 p.m
The Big Show vs. Shaquille O’Neal match is officially off according to an interview with Show with ESPN. O’Neal, on his podcast, claimed different, saying he was back in discussions for doing the match. “I’ve talked to somebody high up in the organization and they, we’re back talking again. I just want the people to know it had nothing to do with me, despite what you hear.” If that bout is on, that would make it 14 or 15 matches, which would feel like too many.
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Spoiler tags used since its related to current Mania plans and possible results.
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Originally Posted by Observer
The reason for John Cena's post WrestleMania departure from WWE is because he will be in a starring role in the movie, Daddy's Home 2.
In the original, Cena had a cameo in the final minute playing the ex-husband of the wife of the character played by Mark Wahlberg. Deadline reported this morning that the movie will start filming in Boston with Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Mel Gibson, John Lithgow, and Linda Cardellini starring along with Cena.
The movie is more about how the characters played by Ferrell and Wahlberg, who were at odds in the first movie, are now best friends working together to raise Walhberg's daughter while Ferrell is married to Wahlberg's ex-wife. The other daughter that Wahlberg is raising, his own stepdaughter, is Cena's.
Cena is scheduled to work through WrestleMania and then has extended time off.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Add Chris Jericho to the list of those who will be departing WWE temporarily soon.
Jericho's recent stay in the company was scheduled originally to end last fall, but due to how much fun he was having with his role with Kevin Owens, he delayed it and kept the program going, saving the first match for WrestleMania.
It appears Jericho will remain with the company for a few weeks after WrestleMania, but will be touring with his band Fozzy from 5/5 to 5/27.
It appears this will be a short-term departure as Jericho has been pulled from all May shows, but is being advertised for shows in June.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Some more on the WWE taping television on 5/6 and 5/7 in Norwich, England at Epic Studios. This will be a taping for the WWE's new U.K. television show. It's not clear if this will air on the network or on Sky, or somewhere else, but the idea was not for it to be a network show originally as it's meant to get the jump on ITV running its weekly show, which is not official, but probable. It is the same studio that the WAW promotion in the U.K. tapes out of, which is Paige's family. However, they are furious for WWE going there feeling it's their taping studio. It will be set up for 900 seats both days. This is obviously a late thing because the U.K. talent had been booked on WWE house shows those days and now they've been pulled. This will be a combination of the wrestlers under contract in the U.K. and several of the WWE cruiserweights who would be booked on 5/8 and 5/9 for Raw and Smackdown but weren't booked on the house shows in the U.K., so they were already coming, but headed in two days earlier. Taping that week makes sense, the production crew comes in without a separate trip, announcers already in, and non U.K. based talent was already coming in.
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Originally Posted by Observer
WWE is clearly working with Progress because fans of Progress Wrestling and on their mailing list were told they had a four-hour window to buy tickets today before they went on sale to the public.
Ricky Knight, Paige's father, claimed it was a conspiracy that WWE announced this toady as it was the day before the biggest weekend in WAW history and he said would hurt their ticket sales in the local market, and also noted that 5/6 and 5/7 were a week before they had booked the same building. Zak said they had an idea why WWE was doing this, but didn't want to say it publicly.
The show does go head-up with a Revolution Pro show on 5/7 in London, so any guys under WWE contract booked for that show are going to be pulled.
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More details regarding the upcoming UK tapings by the WWE.
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Originally Posted by Observer
WWE has been contacting women talent for dates in mid-May for a taping for the beginning of a women's tournament on the WWE Network similar to the cruiserweight tournament.
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Originally Posted by PWI
Impact Wrestling sent Matt and Jeff Hardy (and perhaps others) a 3* page cease and desist letter today, demanding they immediately stop all utilization of the "Broken" characters, PWInsider.com has confimed. We are told that Impact is claiming that that intellectual property of the characters and anything related to them would fall under the ownership of the company, not Matt and Jeff Hardy, and that as of today, the Hardys are not to use anything related to the "Broken" universe going forward.
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Originally Posted by PWI
Multiple sources are indicating that all of the PPV distributors carrying tonight's Ring of Honor PPV as well as Ring of Honor itself also received legal notices regarding the "Broken Hardys" intellectual property.
For those who have asked, we are told this a decision made by Anthem Media management, not something that Jeff Jarrett (who is now in charge of creative direction) is directly responsible for. It is said to be a case of the corporate owners protecting what they feel is their IP.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Reby Hardy is going nuts on Twitter today on Impact. So the back story to all this is Impact is claiming the entire Broken Hardys angle as its intellectual property and have threatened to sue Matt Hardy if they continue to use it outside of the company. Of course that's before tonight's ROH PPV. At the same time, since ROH & Impact are both on Fight Network, and Anthem owns Fight Network and Impact, they want to work cohesively with ROH, although there are other things going on there which may change that game as well.
If they haven't already, Impact and Anthem are attempting to get an injunction against further use of the character and in particular the use of Senor Benjamin, claiming that name and character was Impact IP. She also claims that Matt had his contract breached due to numerous issues on the TNA side. She also noted that Ed Nordholm sent them a wishing you well tweet hours before then threatening to sue them. She also accused Jeff Jarrett of "nonsensical drunk texts." "Everything these boys have done for the company and you want to try and f*** us for the sake of it. Literally no other reason except you mad." She also noted Matt left to do television for TNA one day after his son was born and that the highest rated episodes of the show were financed by Matt & Jeff. She also noted Impact waited until the last minute to even offer the Hardys their new deals. You can go to Reby Hardy's Twitter to get the latest.
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Hasney's post from the Hardys Leaving TNA thread had details of what Reby said: http://www.tpwwforums.com/showpost.p...&postcount=100
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Originally Posted by Observer
Just one day after all the surprise cuts at The Fight Network, WWE cut people from its social media department yesterday. They are merging social media with digital into one department.
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Originally Posted by Observer
So the reason for the Billie Kay worked injury on NXT from Wednesday night is a storyline where Billie Kay & Peyton Royce are demanding that the Eclipse be banned.
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Originally Posted by Observer
The Hardys match from CWF Mid Atlantic that was originally supposed to air on Impact last night was aired by Matt Hardy on his Facebook page.
ROH COO Joe Koff in an interview basically said the Hardys are only in for a short period of time ("they are with us for the immediate future") in an interview on local CBS radio. He noted Bully Ray is in longer.
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Originally Posted by PWI
The 3/9 edition of Impact on Pop brought in 292,000 viewers, down slightly from last week's 293,000 viewers.
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"They’ve really hurt his character in the last year. They’ve really watered it down. It’s great that Bray is champion, but my worry is that they’re pulling him away from his character. The people were chanting, “You deserve it!” to him on Smackdown after he won the title. Is that a chant for a heel? Hell no, but that’s just the nature of the business these days. Bray needs to do something really nasty, and now is the time. He needs to be the one to do something crude and wrong. Hopefully they’ll let him keep his character and hold onto the belt for a while. If this is just WWE quickly using Bray to change the guard, then it’s a waste of time."
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From a recent interview Jake Roberts had with Sports Illustrated regarding WWE's handling of Bray Wyatt over his career. http://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2017...njpw-g1-climax
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"I didn't think he was going to do it! You know, I remember meeting with Vince McMahon and Hogan came into the room. Vince had us together and we were staring each other in the eyes - it was a pretty intense meeting. Hogan and I were sitting where our knees were touching. Vince was just off to the side. He basically just said, we were looking at each other and I hear Vince say, 'Alright Terry, you're going to tap out to Kurt tonight.'
"Terry paused for about five seconds and he looked me in the eyes and he said, 'Okay. Let's do this.'
"I was shocked! You know, you hear some rumors about Hulk Hogan, that he has difficulty putting guys over. But he didn't do that. So the whole rumors were thrown out the window for me. And whether they are true or not, I don't believe them.
"I think Hogan has always been about the business, but also, Hogan is and was the business. So, I think, looking out for the business, he had to go over 98% of the time because it was always good for the business. I don't think Terry ever had a thing about what was best for business. I just think he always did the right thing, it was just for almost all his matches, the best thing was for Hulk Hogan to win. So, I've never had any hard feelings about Hulk Hogan. I think that if anything, I respected him more that night for tapping out to me."
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From a recent AMA session Kurt Angle had at Reddit: http://wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2017...n-in-11-years/
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Originally Posted by Observer
Jerry Lawler had talk shows scheduled for 3/15 in Birmingham, UK, 3/16 in London and 3/17 in Manchester that were canceled on 3/8. He had made the deal for the shows when he was dropped from his contract and given a legends deal which is something like $10,000 per year to stay affiliated. When the decision was made to bring him back and offer him a new contract, I guess the pressure came from the company to pull him from the dates. He’s mainly worked PPV shows and those dates don’t coincide with PPV shows. The statement made said that “Due to circumstances beyond both Eros Comedy & Jerry Lawler’s control, we’ve been left with no alternative except to postpone his tour currently scheduled for next week.” The promotion said they would try and reschedule for late fall or early winter and all ticket money will be returned. Lawler has been promised he will get to announce one match at Mania this year and will also be part of the expert panel before and after the show
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Originally Posted by PWI
As we discussed yesterday during the NXT & Beyond audio show in the Elite section of PWInsider.com, there will be some segments on tonight's Impact that knocks the previous regime. While there were a number of wrestlers backstage who felt it was a shot at the roster as much as previous members of management, Eli Drake became upset and confronted Jeff Jarrett about it and the two had a discussion.
It was never described to me as getting ugly but Drake voiced some frustrations the existing roster was having with the changeover last week. There were talents who felt the shots at the previous regime were unfair because they didn't see them as a shot at management, but as everyone who had been working there. Since they had been perservering long before Anthem purchased the company, despite not knowing if and when it would fall apart and whether they would get the money they were owed - therefore there was nothing wrong with the talent. Since the segments ruffled some feathers, Drake went right to Jarrett and voiced that.
The shots (which will be seen in at least two segments tonight) were meant to be specifically aimed at former members of management (read: Dixie Carter) with the idea of distancing the company going forward without an official reboot. More than one person described it as "awkward" since John Gaburick was heavily involved in creative and now he was backstage working the tapings as that era was being kicked in the face verbally and there was some sympathy for him, even among talents who would usually dismiss him privately to me. With Jeff Jarrett laying out that it as his way (taking on an old school promoter approach) when it came to the new vision of the company, it was a culture shock to some of the talents that had been there under Gaburick as he was open enough, when laying out directives, to take feedback and let talents try to tweak it a little.
I do believe there was a disconnect between the Impact roster and the new GFW talents coming in (and that was felt backstage) at first but over the course of the tapings, there were talents who opened up the eyes of the new management as to what their potential was. It's a weird situation in that a lot of talents that already had track records there were pretty much having to prove themselves again for the new bosses, even if that wasn't stated as such openly. But all that is part of the change that has happened, like a sports team having to impress the new coach.
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Some other sheet news includes:
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