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Former TPWW Royalty
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Dirtsheets sponsored by Drifter's Denial of a Hug It Out Moment:
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Originally Posted by Observer
A weaker NFL game than last week saw Raw increase four percent to 2.78 million viewers last night.
Unlike last week where they loaded up the third hour and it was the second hour that had a big decline, this week had two normal hours and a huge third hour decline.
The third hour did the second lowest number since June. Raw is often helped coming off a PPV but logically, even with the Shane McMahon/Daniel Bryan intrigue, that should not help the Raw number ...
The three hours were:
8 p.m. 3.09 million viewers
9 p.m. 2.80 million viewers
10 p.m. 2.47 million viewers
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Originally Posted by Observer
With New Japan Pro Wrestling having no more shows between now and the Tokyo Dome, the full card for Wrestle Kingdom 12 has been revealed.
There will be 10 matches on the show. Most of those had already been announced going into NJPW's Road to Tokyo Dome events, but two more title matches and the pre-show Rumble have now been confirmed.
NEVER Openweight Champion Minoru Suzuki will officially defend his title against Hirooki Goto in a hair vs. hair match, with another stipulation being that no other wrestlers will be at ringside for it. The NEVER Six-Man Tag Team titles will also be on the line in a gauntlet match at the Dome ...
The Tokyo Dome will host Wrestle Kingdom 12 on January 4th. It will air live on NJPW World with English commentary available, then a three-hour special with the top matches will be shown on AXS TV on January 6th. Here's the full lineup for the show:
IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada defending against Tetsuya Naito
IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion Kenny Omega defending against Chris Jericho in a no DQ match
IWGP Intercontinental Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi defending against Jay White
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Marty Scurll defending against Will Ospreay, KUSHIDA, and Hiromu Takahashi in a four-way match
NEVER Openweight Champion Minoru Suzuki defending against Hirooki Goto in a hair vs. hair match
IWGP Tag Team Champions Killer Elite Squad defending against SANADA & EVIL
Kota Ibushi vs. Cody (w/ Brandi Rhodes)
NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Champions Bad Luck Fale & Guerrillas of Destiny defending against Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano & Beretta, Togi Makabe, Juice Robinson & Ryusuke Taguchi, Michael Elgin & War Machine, and Zack Sabre Jr., Takashi Iizuka & Taichi in a gauntlet match
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Sho & Yoh defending against The Young Bucks
The New Japan Rumble (pre-show)
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Originally Posted by Observer
New Japan Pro Wrestling has added a stipulation to Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho's IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship match at the Tokyo Dome.
At a press conference prior to this morning's Road to Tokyo Dome show, NJPW revealed that Omega vs. Jericho would now be a no disqualification match. The stipulation is the result of two angles that took place last week. Jericho first attacked and bloodied Omega at NJPW's World Tag League finals, then Omega tried to get retribution by attacking Jericho during a press conference the next day.
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Originally Posted by Observer
A big name is returning to Raw on next week's holiday edition of the show.
WWE announced tonight that John Cena would be back on television for next Monday's Christmas Day episode of Raw. It will be the first time Cena has been on WWE TV since he was part of SmackDown's men's division team at Survivor Series. Before returning for that pay-per-view, Cena lost to Roman Reigns in September as their feud ended at No Mercy.
Cena is currently still a "free agent" in storyline and can wrestle on both Raw and SmackDown. Next Monday should tell whether he's just being added to give Raw a boost on Christmas or if he'll be on the brand more often as we head into Royal Rumble season.
Next week's Raw will take place in Chicago, Illinois and will be the first time the show has ever aired live on Christmas Day. The following Monday, Raw will also air live from Miami, Florida on New Year's Day.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Dean Ambrose has a legitimate right elbow injury even though on television it appeared to be an angle.
We're not sure of the severity of the injury but he came to television hurt and the show was rewritten to cover for it.
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Originally Posted by PWI
WWE ran an article on their website this afternoon, featuring an update on Dean Ambrose's arm injury.
“An MRI has shown suspicion for a high-grade triceps tendon injury, possibly a tear, so he is undergoing surgical exploration and most likely surgical repair of the torn triceps tendon,” WWE's Dr. Chris Amann told the website “That surgery will be happening later this evening, and we should have some further updates either later tonight or tomorrow morning as to what the findings were, what the structures that were damaged were, and also a timeline for recovery.”
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Originally Posted by Observer
Tom Zenk, a bodybuilder turned wrestler who was one of the most popular guests on Wrestling Observer Live after his career in wrestling ended, passed away on December 9th at the age of 59.
Few details are available at this point other than he passed away at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, Minnesota.
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Originally Posted by Observer
A member of the WWE main roster is set to wrestle for PCW (Preston City Wrestling) in February.
PCW announced today that Apollo Crews would be taking part in their Road to Glory 2018 tournament on February 10th. PCW noted that Crews is returning for one night only and thanked WWE, Triple H, and William Regal for allowing him to do so.
When he was still known as Uhaa Nation before heading to WWE, Crews held the PCW Heavyweight Championship from November 2014 to March 2015. He joins Zack Sabre Jr. as the first two wrestlers who have been confirmed for the tournament.
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Link: https://twitter.com/PCW_UK/status/942140006747066370
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Originally Posted by Observer
With Tribute to the Troops airing on the USA Network as part of WWE Week, WWE and Impact Wrestling went head-to-head in the ratings this past Thursday night.
And the results weren't good for Impact. This week's show averaged 161,000 viewers, the lowest number for a new episode of Impact since debuting on Pop TV. It was even lower than the audience for the Thanksgiving edition of Impact this year, which did 169,000 viewers. Earlier this month, Impact did 226,000 viewers for the December 7th episode.
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Originally Posted by Observer
The first-ever women's Royal Rumble match will be taking place next month.
Though few other details were announced, Stephanie McMahon appeared at the end of tonight's episode of Raw to reveal the news. She mentioned the evolution of WWE's women's division and the times they've made history over the last few years. She then said the first all-women's Royal Rumble match will take place at next month's pay-per-view.
Both Raw and SmackDown wrestlers will be featured in the women's Royal Rumble
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Originally Posted by WrestleInc
Becky Lynch posted the poster below on Instagram stories showing a poster for the women's Royal Rumble match featuring RAW and SmackDown stars as well as Billie Kay, Peyton Royce and Ronda Rousey, which has got some fans talking. It should be noted that the poster is fan-art, and WWE obviously wouldn't have Rousey on the poster only to put her way in the back. However, as Marc noted earlier, Dave Meltzer did state on Wrestling Observer Radio that there are women who are scheduled to be in the match that believe that Rousey will be a part of it. We did speculate on last night's episode of the Wrestling Inc. podcast right after RAW that we could see Rousey winning the Rumble and Asuka winning the RAW Women's Championship from Alexa Bliss, which would lead to Asuka defending against Rousey at WrestleMania 34.
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Originally Posted by WrestleInc
As noted, the women's Royal Rumble match will feature RAW and SmackDown Superstars competing for a women's title shot at WrestleMania 34. There's speculation on WWE NXT Superstars and stars from the past being brought in for the match but that has not been confirmed.
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Originally Posted by Observer
WWE announced a first-time ever in Mongolia with a two hour edited version of Raw airing on Saturday at 11 a.m. and Smackdown airing Sunday at 11 a.m. on SPS HD, Mongolia's leading sports channel. It will be available in the country in both English and Mongolian. It will also be available for 14 days on video-on-demand. This will be the first time WWE has ever had television in Mongolia.
Hideo Itami makes his show debut on 205 Live tonight after appearing on Raw last night.
Elias is the first wrestler announced for next month’s men’s Royal Rumble. He was also the guest on today’s episode of the Steve Austin Show.
WWE celebrated their YouTube channel reaching 20 million subscribers.
The movie "Ferdinand," with John Cena voicing over the lead character is estimated to be doing $13,325,000 in its first weekend out. It was second to Star Wars which is estimated at more than $220 million. Fox 2 in Detroit reviewed it and gave it a thumbs up, saying it was good, but not great as a family film and said they felt sorry for it and every other movie out this weekend.
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Elias link: http://www.wwe.com/shows/royalrumble...l-rumble-match , Austin podcast: https://www.podcastone.com/episode/W...alk-With-Elias , WWE: http://www.wwe.com/article/wwe-youtu...?sf176712061=1
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Originally Posted by Observer
Revolution Pro Wrestling announced Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Tyler Bate & Trent Seven for their show at York Hall on January 20th.
Lucha Forever issued a statement saying that they’ll “no longer be a trading company” as of this month and that any future shows have been canceled unless it’s stated otherwise in the message.
Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega from Dominion won NJPW’s fan-voted Match of the Year award. Omega also won the MVP award.
Style Battle in Brooklyn on January 14th will have Matt Riddle, WALTER, Nick Gage, Joey Janela, Shane Mercer, Kyle The Beast, Joey Lynch, and a wrestler from the last WWN tryout. WALTER vs. Gage is the first match announced for the event, which will take place in the afternoon before an EVOLVE show later that night.
Emma will face Deonna Purrazzo for Northeast Wrestling in Waterbury, Connecticut on March 2nd.
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RevPro: https://twitter.com/RevProUK/status/943218467842461697 , Lucha Forever: https://luchaforever.com/ , NJPW: https://twitter.com/reasonjp/status/943094259879616512 , Okada: https://twitter.com/reasonjp/status/943096196519751681 , Emma: https://twitter.com/DeonnaPurrazzo/s...30929123803138
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Originally Posted by Observer
Here's an update from Dave Meltzer on Wally Yamaguchi’s health: “He was out of his coma yesterday after suffering a serious stroke. He was breathing on his own. He has no movement on the right side of his body, but the left side of his body is okay. He can't talk but he can listen and does understand what people are saying. He has improved greatly from the past two days. His former reporters from the heyday of GONG Magazine are there every day with him.”
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Originally Posted by PWI
The word making the rounds at the WWE Performance Center over the last several days is that members of the latest class being signed for WWE NXT, which will be revealed in January are:
*Ricochet aka the former Prince Puma in Lucha Underground, who had been expected to sign for some time. Impact Wrestling had made a run at him, but was unsuccessful.
*Warbeard Hanson and Ray Rowe aka War Machine in ROH. It is believed the team (who were not under contract) finished up with the promotion at Final Battle and the Philadelphia TV taping the following day. They will finish up with New Japan at Wrestle Kingdom.
There are other names circulating as well as potentially being signed, including a very prominent female independent talent.
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Originally Posted by PWI
While promoting his new animated film Ferdinand, John Cena was asked by The Independent in the UK about the idea that WWE "isn't good anymore" and whether that belief is simply those missing the Attitude Era being nostalgic for that time period. Cena gave a long response, noting that WWE, as a product, is unique is that it appeals to all age ranges and transcends all nationalities and religions.
During the interview, Cena pointed out, "What I love the most about it - next time you watch - so they always shoot the ring in a certain way, it's called the hard camera shot. Look beyond everything, look at the audience, that's the perfect picture of what I love, it's everybody. And that's why - I mean you wanna go deep down the rabbit hole - that's why everybody nowadays is polarising, because our audience is too big, so that's one of the problems that we have to fix but at the same time it's a great problem because if your audience is the world how are you going to please everybody?" Cena then pointed out that in the Attitude Era they were playing to a certain male demographic, therefore it was easier to nail what worked and what didn't.
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Link to the interview: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...mpression=true
Some other sheet news includes:
Some stuff from TPWW Frontpage:
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