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Former TPWW Royalty
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Dirtsheets sponsored by Mojo Doing Something Gif:
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Originally Posted by Observer
After mostly bad news in ratings during playoff season, WWE had its best numbers in two months with last night's episode of Raw averaging 3.10 million viewers.
It was the best number since the April 17th show did 3.33 million viewers, and was up 22 percent from last week's 2.53 million, going against the Golden State Warriors closing out the NBA finals. If nothing else, this shows just how significantly the NBA game and the playoffs have been hurting Raw this year ...
The three hours were:
8 p.m. 3.08 million viewers
9 p.m. 3.20 million viewers
10 p.m. 3.03 million viewers
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Only downside was they didn't take the #1 spot for rankings due to their dreaded and unexplained Monday Night War rival Love & Hip Hop show.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Triple H also appeared on Sky Sports News while in the United Kingdom. He discussed the women's Money in the Bank match controversy and has gotten some criticism for joking that they're still trying to find out if James Ellsworth is 100 percent a man.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Pro Wrestling Sheet reported that Shelton Benjamin is in talks to return to WWE. Benjamin was scheduled to return to the company following the brand split last summer but didn't end up signing due to a torn rotator cuff that was discovered during the process.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Kota Ibushi is among the participants in this year's G1 Climax.
New Japan Pro Wrestling announced the field for the tournament during this morning's Kizuna Road show at Korakuen Hall. Ibushi was listed as one of the entrants, with him competing as himself instead of as the Tiger Mask W character that he's been playing ...
The full lineup for the 2017 G1 Climax is:
Hiroshi Tanahashi
Togi Makabe
Michael Elgin
Kazuchika Okada
Hirooki Goto
Tomohiro Ishii
Toru Yano
YOSHI-HASHI
Kenny Omega
Bad Luck Fale
Tama Tonga
Tetsuya Naito
SANADA
EVIL
Satoshi Kojima
Yuji Nagata (Nagata has announced that this will be his last G1)
Juice Robinson
Minoru Suzuki
Zack Sabre Jr.
Kota Ibushi
The tournament begins on July 17th and concludes on August 13th, with the A Block winner facing the B Block winner on the final day.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Kenny Omega posted an in-character tweet about Kota Ibushi being announced as one of the participants in the 2017 G1 Climax: "So you've finally decided to come back... It's a different world now, Ibutan, allow me to show you just how far behind you've fallen. #njpw"
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Originally Posted by Observer
Impact Wrestling made some budget cuts this week and released Al Snow, Pat Kenney and Shane Helms, who were all working as producers. Helms in particular surprises me since I'd specifically heard a lot of good things in recent months on his work.
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Originally Posted by PWI
Sources indicate it was a financial decision made as a result of the company having seven different Producers all at the same time. That lead to cuts with the company keeping names like Abyss and Sonjay Dutt, who carried different responsibilities for the company and opting not to renew the deals of those who were just working as Producers. They had not been used since this past April.
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Reasoning given for the recent releases.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Maria Kanellis and Mike Bennett have arrived on the SmackDown roster.
They were introduced as Mike and Maria Kanellis on Money in the Bank pay-per-view, with the announcers mentioning that Mike had taken Maria’s last name. Maria cut a promo saying that for the last seven years, she had been looking for a partner and she ended up finding Mike. She said their goal in WWE is to “promote the power of love.”
It had been rumored that Bennett and Kanellis were heading to WWE following their departure from Impact Wrestling earlier this year. Both were spotted in St. Louis this weekend prior to the PPV.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Konnan on his podcast said that Jeff Jarrett wants the opponents for LAX to be Aerostar & Drago, who are under contract to Lucha Underground. That's notable since previously LU had been strong that none of its talent could appear on television for any other promotion, at least under their LU names. He also said that ACH and Sammy Guevara will be getting Impact tryouts.
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Originally Posted by WrestleInc
As noted, Rhyno wrestled Kalisto before last night's WWE RAW in a match for this week's Main Event episode. It appears Rhyno and Heath Slater may be splitting up as Rhyno is booked for singles matches at RAW live events this summer.
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Originally Posted by WrestleInc
Recently on Talk Is Jericho, sports entertainment legend Chris Jericho welcomed his favorite tag team partner of all time to the podcast. Well, it's The Big Show. Among many other things, The Big Show talked about how he still enjoys working WWE live events, but hates doing TV tapings.
According to The Big Show, he loves working house shows on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, but he hates going to TV tapings.
"I love the live events. I love the Friday, Saturday, Sunday live event shows. I hate TVs. TVs, I just want to bash myself in the head with a hammer because they're just long, useless, time-wasting, bulls--t days where you sit around all friggin day for some idea that absolutely sucks. Debating it for hours and 17,000 inputs. And one or two guys laced up a pair of wrestling boots in their life and know what they're talking about. The others have never laced up a pair and really don't know s--t, but for some reason, they're telling you what to do. So you're just sitting there baffled. We all have that same look at TV, we walk around baffled, going, 'why are we doing this?'
"I like the live events. It's not as crazy. There's not as much B.S. backstage. It's just me and the guys. I like that part and I like getting out and working. I've done a lot of stuff where I go down, I knock somebody out, and I leave. I hate that. I get it. I'm old and beat up and they want to help me out and extend me, but I like getting in the ring."
While The Big Show believes that new talent should be given the television and pay-per-view time, he does not like to wait around all day to ultimately not get used on TV.
"There's a lot of change going on. There's a lot of new talent. There's a lot of new opportunities and I'm okay with that. They should get the TV time. They should get the pay-per-view time. I'm totally fine with that. Just don't make me come to Mondays when I don't have to do anything. That s--t pisses me off. Do you know what I mean? If I'm coming, use me. If not, send me home."
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Originally Posted by WrestleInc
John Cena has been added to the WWE Battleground pay-per-view on Sunday, July 23rd. Battleground is a SmackDown branded and is the final WWE pay-per-view before SummerSlam in August. It's not known what role Cena will have at the show.
As noted, WWE has a storyline where they are billing Cena as a "free agent" and is no longer under contract to SmackDown. We reported yesterday that Cena vs. Bray Wyatt has been added to the July 15th RAW live event in Huntington, West Virginia.
Cena is scheduled to make his televised WWE return on the July 4th episode of SmackDown Live.
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Some other sheet news includes:
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