[Emperor Smeat]

Recent stuff from the dirtsheets (mostly the Observer):

Right now for Rumble, the only two matches besides the Rumble that are clear are Orton vs. Cena in a must be a winner match for the world title, and Show vs. Lesnar. Show vs. Lesnar had been planned months ago, with the idea Lesnar goes over Show strong to set him up for Undertaker. As of now, that is still the plan. The past few weeks they had done nothing in that direction and from Smackdown the sense was it would be Langston, as Show wasn’t even involved.

Regarding Hulk Hogan and WrestleMania, Roddy Piper has pushed for an idea of Hogan & Cena vs. Piper & Punk

Jake Roberts’ return at Raw would seem to indicate a good chance they’ll give him a Royal Rumble spot, which has been his goal. It wouldn’t be as much of a “surprise,” since he was on Raw first, but if you noticed, they saved the DDT spot. Backstage people also figured if Roberts doesn’t have any issues between now and then, that he’d be inducted into the Hall of Fame this year.

The idea going around is to do Old School Raw on the Monday in January that goes against the BCS title game as an annual special counter-programming show on a night that could otherwise get destroyed in the ratings.

Batista signed a two-year contract

Regarding the WWE Network, William Regal said on Twitter, "Great news about the #WWENetwork.I filmed the other day for a documentary about me and the evolution of my character from "Lord"till now."

Bidding for WWE cannot start until February 15th, the end of Comcast/NBC Universal's exclusive negotiation period to keep WWE on their family of cable networks. The other bids must be in by February 28th, and WWE will make its choice by March 4th.