[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Meng Appreciation Day:

Originally Posted by Observer It's a well-known story that the song “Glorious” was not written for Roode, and that it was written for another wrestler, who turned it down. So it was sitting there and Roode was given it and it’s really made his career. The identity of the wrestler who turned it down hadn’t come out, but it was Nakamura. Nakamura was hands on when it came to his music, felt the song didn’t fit him, and was a big part of putting together the song “The Rising Son” which is the most played of all the current WWE themes. As it turned out, fate was good because, and maybe this is because we’ve seen it, but the song fits Roode better and Nakamura may not fit the song. In both cases, the music they ended up with have helped both tremendously, making them both superstars and allowing them to get over toning down their in-ring work with both nearing 40.

Someone on r/SquaredCircle swapped the music for Roode and Nakamura and at least for the debut entrances, Glorious fit with Nakamura's entrance but Rising Sun didn't for Roode because of timing issues. Roode would need to tweak his whole entrance routine to make it fit.

Originally Posted by Observer In looking at the six guys, Mahal would have probably been the least likely, but none were strong since Smackdown really only had Orton, A.J. Styles, Owens, Corbin and Shinsuke Nakamura as top singles stars. Any questions regarding who they saw as the key star on the brand is has been answered since Nakamura has been the key babyface in the dark match every week at the tapings, the old position of John Cena. The guy in that spot is the one who the company believes would be the best at keeping the crowd from leaving during 205 Live.

At least in regards to Smackdown, WWE currently sees Nakamura as Cena's successor for the brand.

Originally Posted by Observer The situation with Mauro Ranallo and WWE hasn’t changed as representatives from both sides were working out a settlement regarding the remainder of his contract. It is expected that a non-disclosure agreement regarding everything that happened would be part of the settlement. The story is tough because many people will openly talk about it, but few will go on the record because most are either in the company and aren’t allowed nor would want to publicly talk about it, and those who will mostly talk about the period of a decade or longer ago, where there is no debate about what was going on, since person-after-person has gone on record about it and enough stories have been told confirming things.

Originally Posted by Observer Mauro was told at the time they brought him in that they wanted him to be himself, because they wanted Smackdown to have a different feel from Raw and come across more like a sport. Of course, there was the usual stuff of banned words and phrases. For a few months, everything seemed fine, until Vince McMahon wanted him to be more like Michael Cole, essentially the exact opposite thing he was hired to be.

Originally Posted by Observer There was a very bad scare earlier today as Leon White (Vader) fainted right after his match at Korakuen Hall in Japan. It was the 45th anniversary of the debut of Tatsumi Fujinami (one of the greatest workers of all-time) in a six-man tag with Fujinami, Riki Choshu & Shiro Koshinaka vs. Vader, Keiji Muto & AKIRA. Vader passed out right after the match ended when Antonio Inoki was coming to the ring for a ceremony honoring Fujinami. He was okay after a while and left the ring on his own, and was at a party put on by Fujinami and his family after the show several hours ago ... It was believed he was suffering from dehydration, though Vader posted on Twitter that it was caused by being dropped on his head at the beginning of the match and claimed that it had nothing to do with the heart problems that he's been dealing with.

Originally Posted by Observer A remake of GLOW called Women of Wrestling was announced today by MGM Television partners and Mark Burnett, who were behind Lucha Underground. Burnett will work with Jeanie Buss of Los Angeles Lakers fame, as well as David McLane, who put together GLOW, for the new TV series.

Originally Posted by PWI The former Simon Gotch, who will be now be going by Simon Grimm, did an interview with USA Today to talk about his WWE release and other things. His WWE release being a "mutual agreement": “They brought it to me and I agreed. It was one of those things where I was unhappy, and they basically felt like the character had run its course. I said I agreed, and they said they wanted to exercise the termination clause in my contract. I agreed with that as well and we went from there. This wasn’t exactly an unwanted thing on my part. I wasn’t happy, and I actually felt that was the best move. In any situation, sometimes if you see the opportunity, you take it.” Root of his unhappiness: “In any job, sometimes you do things for artistic fulfillment or sometimes you do things for financial fulfillment or because it’s part of your job. For some people, money is absolutely the answer … it’s the financial security they want. I’ve always felt wrestling was more of an art form. I felt at that point I was not wrestling because I loved it. I was wrestling because it was my job and that didn’t sit well with me or make me happy. I can be miserable doing anything and not abusing my body. I wrestle because it makes me happy, because I enjoy it, because I’m passionate about it, because I enjoy the game of mental chess. I enjoy trying to create something out of nothing. It’s an art form where they give us the ring as a canvas and we have to paint the audience a picture that will affect them emotionally. It’s great feeling when you do it well. Looking at the bank account and the checkbook were not the things that were driving me in the first place so I couldn’t really justify that as a reason to keep doing it when I wasn’t expressing myself as I felt like I could.” Online reports that the night before he was released, he was involved in a incident at catering at Smackdown Live: “The actual story is that it happened at WrestleMania. I was sitting in catering and the chair I was in was kinda flimsy. I go to shift in it and it just collapses underneath me. Being a ham, my immediate reaction was to demand someone pin me. ‘Someone pin me quick.’ The guy who comes over, I think he works for us. I didn’t realize he was a local technician and was not a WWE technician. He was someone who worked on the set at ‘Mania. He came to help me up and I’m like, ‘Nope, you gotta pin me. C’mon, man.’ And he’s not going along with the bit. He thinks I just fell and he’s trying to help me. I see the bit’s going nowhere so I take the chair and I just kick it off to the side, drop it like a little punt and let it lay where it lands. That was it. I saw the story online, saying that I fell in the chair and made this big scene and was yelling and screaming. No part of that is accurate.”

Link to the article: http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/04/simo...se-simon-grimm

Originally Posted by PWI WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley announced that he underwent a successful hip replacement surgery yesterday with the following Tweet: Thanks for all the well-wishes, kind words and prayers for my hip surgery. Spirits are high after a visit from Buddy the Elf in recovery! ???? pic.twitter.com/xHeiUZs5Th — Mick Foley (@RealMickFoley) April 20, 2017

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Damien Sandow was the latest guest on X-Pac 12360, which you can watch in the video above or download on iTunes. They sent us these highlights: Who Sandow credits for the Damien Sandow character: "There is no one I respect more than Rip Rogers. You know and in terms of the mind, that man has for the business. In terms of like just how he lays it out in just a simplistic way. And had it not been for Rip Rogers, I would have never been the intellectual savior because he, he just taught me how to simplify everything." The backstage reaction to his first Miz stunt double impersonation: "I remember Tyson Kidd of all people, who is a good buddy of mine and an awesome guy, goes, 'did you just put the figure four on the invisible man when Miz did?' I go, 'Yup.' He goes, 'that was the greatest thing I've seen on the show (Monday Night RAW) in a long time.' I just said, 'Well you know what, watch next week.' "After a couple weeks, Vince( McMahon) was like, 'Well, I noticed you are mimicking Miz?' 'Yup.' 'Do whatever you want, if it gets too overboard, I'll pull you back. And I just went, 'Okay.'"

Link to the podcast show: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/...=2&i=374822005

Originally Posted by Observer The other key is with the network and the current business model with the lack of true superstars and the brand being the draw, with John Cena as the only proven exception and he’s not around, then it really doesn’t matter about things like booking and talent selection. The entire Roman Reigns controversy, since the fans who boo Reigns the most are believed to be the first people who buy tickets to see WWE, pretty much exemplifies the change. It means the company has little to no economic incentive to play to its audience, or listen to its audience. If its audience makes it clear they like or dislike someone, the company can look at its business numbers, see no declines, or rationalize the declines that do occur (like in TV ratings) as metrics that don’t mean anything anymore, then exactly what is the incentive of listening to the fans who buy tickets first if they keep buying tickets no matter what?

From the recent Oberser Newsletter on why the WWE is stubborn at listening to their fans.

Originally Posted by Observer Katsuyori Shibata, 37, who remains hospitalized after his 4/9 IWGP title match with Kazuchika Okada at Tokyo Sumo Hall, is said by friends of his to be unlikely to ever be cleared to wrestle again after surgery due to a subdural hematoma from a sick skull-on-skull head-butt spot as a counter to being hit with the rainmaker. The combination of the length of the match, dehydration and the trauma from the head-butt led to doctors advising New Japan that they would likely never be able to clear him to wrestle in good conscience. New Japan has not announced this publicly, nor has anything been said publicly about Shibata’s situation after some brief statements in the days after the match. Dr. Shunji Asamoto, who performed the surgery, noted that he would need a strict examination before being cleared to wrestle and that he’s not optimistic at all.

Originally Posted by Observer Goldberg’s contract has expired but they have a longer period of agreement allowing them to sell merchandise. Since there is nowhere else he’s going to wrestle at, because nobody else can pay him anywhere close to what he made on his WWE run, and WWE has no immediate plans for him, there’s no rush to make a new deal. The one thing is that in his last program, Lesnar was his angel in the sense that Lesnar always went to bat for him to have things done to make him strong because in the end Lesnar was winning the Mania match and wanted Goldberg as strong as possible for the match. The navigation may not be as easy with another opponent, because then the writing crew and creative could get involved in the ideas and direction. Because Goldberg trusted the long-term and Lesnar, there wasn’t the issues in worrying about creative. But in another program , you’re not going to have the power of Lesnar, who pretty much is going to get what he wants because he’s Lesnar and has options to make millions elsewhere in one night should he want to, which ended up making sure Goldberg came across like the old Goldberg.

Originally Posted by Observer Paige is not figured into any plans going forward after her neck recovers from surgery unless things change. Everything that’s happened is the reason. The only thing that could save her is the Dwayne Johnson movie. And nobody knows if she wants to come back anyway, since it’ll be tough on her relationship being constantly back on the road.

Originally Posted by Observer The Ambrose/Renee Young move to different brands came right after it came out about them being married. I don’t know that it’s like Del Rio/Paige when you know what the situation is. The rule of thumb is to try and keep the married couples on the same brand. It’s not as much a deal since Young doesn’t go on the road except for PPV Sundays and every Tuesday. But it is still going to be tough on their relationship. The last I heard they were living in Las Vegas. That means he’ll have to leave on a lot of Thursdays to get to the Friday house show on time, and then goes home on Tuesday mornings from the tour. She doesn’t get home until Wednesday, and he’s leaving a day later.

Some other sheet news includes:

• A trailer for an upcoming documentary on the life of Chyna was recently released. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UzpzENZ5nk
• Recent episode of The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast show had Jim Cornette as the guest with topics including his thoughts on the idea he hates Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/t...21_00_00-07_00
• Sports Illustrated had a recent interview with the Young Bucks with topics including ROH Supercard of Honor ppv and the Bucks being upset at Impact Wrestling for wrecking plans they had in place with the Hardys for ROH. https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/201...att-jeff-hardy
• Observer's Dave Meltzer recently speculated Jinder Mahal's current push might have been originally meant for Rusev prior to him getting injured. Also as a possible reason why Jinder went all in with an anti-American gimmick for his post-match promo.