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Former TPWW Royalty
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Dirtsheets sponsored by Braun's dirty mind:
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As far as the WrestleMania scene, Reigns vs. Lesnar is the Universal title match and Ronda Rousey’s first match will be the match most heavily pushed in the advertising most likely. If they go the mixed tag route, Kurt Angle could be there given Angle vs. HHH was a direction coming off the Angle/Stephanie dynamic, but that hasn’t been played up much of late.
Unless Undertaker backs off, his match with Cena would be also heavily pushed. Given Cena is in the Chamber match, the earliest they’d start building the Cena vs. Undertaker program would be 2/26. Styles vs. Nakamura for the WWE title and Miz vs. Strowman for the IC title are also planned. Other matches heavily talked about this week would be the respective women’s title matches, Bliss vs. Jax and Charlotte Flair vs. Asuka as things stood over the weekend. Given the storyline in recent weeks, there looked to be a Jason Jordan vs. Seth Rollins direction but nothing regarding Jordan can be locked in right now. There will be one, if not two Battle Royals, to get everyone on the show.
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Spoiler tags used since its related to potential Mania plans and matches.
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Originally Posted by Observer
A lot of episodes of WCW Saturday Night will be added to the WWE Network in April.
The Forbes website edited an article that stated that Raw was the longest running episodic show in U.S. television history after running it and has changed it to being the longest running weekly episodic show still in production.
ECW Press announced that a book called "Creating the Mania: An Inside look at how WrestleMania comes to life" about the build to this year's show will be released in August.
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Mania book: https://www.pwinsider.com/article/11...emania-34.html
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Originally Posted by Observer
Ed Nordholm, Don Callis and Scott D'Amore of Impact are in the U.K. doing business and scouting talent for Impact.
The NWA announced today that Nick Aldis is looking at defending the NWA title against 20 different opponents over 60 days starting on 2/11. They are calling it the Aldis Crusade with Ten Pounds of Gold. He's looking at defending the title in North America, Europe and Asia. The matches will be filmed for a documentary. Austin Idol will be involved in this as well as his representative.
ICW announced today that Drew Galloway aka Drew McIntyre will be on their 2/12 show in Glasgow at the O2 ABC and be induced into the ICW Hall of Fame. WWE has given its approval for him to make that appearance.
Austin Aries vs. ACH has been added to next Thursday's MLW show in Orlando at Gilt Night Club.
Evolve on 2/17 in Queens, NY has Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Austin Theory for the Evolve title, Keith Lee vs. AR Fox for the WWN title and Chris Dickinson & Jake vs. The End. 2/18 in Joppa, MD has Lee vs. Tracy Williams in a no holds barred non-title match, Sabre Jr. vs. Dickinson and a four-way elimination match with Matt Riddle vs. Austin Theory vs. Darby Allin vs. Jaka.
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MLW: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sport...131-story.html , NWA: https://www.pwinsider.com/article/11...-days.html?p=1 , ICW: https://www.pwinsider.com/article/11...month.html?p=1
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Originally Posted by PWI
The "WWE Shorts" are of the WWE Network has added a series of of clips with Hall of Famers Bruno Sammartino and Bob Backlund discussing the good old days entitled "Conversations with Bruno and Bob." The pieces have been running in rotation on the Network's linear programming in between shows for some time, but this is the first time they have been available via VOD.
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Originally Posted by Observer
The timing of the announcement of Ronda Rousey's signing is perfect, and not because it’s WrestleMania season, but because it’s contract season. Having Rousey under contract right now is perfect timing. It’s not even about WrestleMania. It’s about the company making its most important business deal in five years, its multi-year television contract. Having Rousey both helps the company as far as being a mainstream entity that they crave to be and with television partners who are well aware of Rousey’s history as a drawing card. It also drives up the value of the company’s stock. Whether it will work as far as traditional drawing power, which actually matters little here in the big picture, is a very different story.
Supposedly the women’s winner came down to Asuka or Nia Jax. Asuka’s undefeated streak was clearly being set up for Ronda Rousey at some point, but probably not this point.
In Japan, there wasn’t much talk of the Rumble winners in mainstream media, and the coverage was limited to mostly newsstand sports newspapers, some of which stopped covering wrestling years ago and did give good coverage too this.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Because the show was designed to end with Rousey, the women were moved to the main event position. The word of them going on last came the morning of the show, and while nobody, including the participants, were told about Rousey, most everyone figured out that was the reason. The women were taken off the road on both the Raw and Smackdown tours over the weekend to work on the match and do run-throughs.
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Originally Posted by Observer
About 4,700 tickets were sold for the NJPW Long Beach show as some tickets were held back for members of the New Japan Fan Club traveling from Japan. Only 314 tickets were available at press time on the secondary market and the price for entry is $140.
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Based on recent ticket sales numbers, NJPW reserved up to 800 tickets for their Fan Club members.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Jeremy Borash will be moving to Orlando to work with the NXT brand where he’ll wear several different hats, similar to what he did with TNA over the years. Those close to the situation said that he surveyed the changing landscape in pro wrestling and felt that this was the time to make a move that he’d avoided making in the past ...
While clearly a very valuable part of the company from the start, one person in the company noted that the idea going around that he did everything when it came to production was way overblown. “The narrative that JB did everything is wrong. Yes, he was a hard worker and talented, but our team now has been busting their ass and taking care of the majority of production. They need credit. Day-to-day operations don’t change one bit at all other than getting another on-air play-by-play (announcer).” Kevin Sullivan, who did the production work for the Internet hype of Wrestle Kingdom 9 that Jeff Jarrett promoted, has been handling much of the video work.
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Seems very likely WWE got fooled on Borash's real value assuming the stuff about his production skills and input is true.
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Originally Posted by Observer
New Japan's paid attendance for January overall was up 20 percent from last year, although that’s mostly due to the effects of the Tokyo Dome show. Taking that out of the equation the increase was five percent
The Australia advances are strong across the board and they are just now starting to promote the shows in the local markets. Melbourne and Sydney are expected to sell out
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Originally Posted by Observer
As had been reported here a few weeks ago, Bob Backlund, 68, will be returning to Japan for matches on 4/20 at Korakuen Hall and 4/21 in Osaka for Tatsumi Fujinami’s Dradition promotion. Backlund will likely work against Fujinami in tag matches. Backlund and Fujinami had a famous WWF title match on January 1, 1982 (that was the night where Backlund met Karl Gotch and saw how incredible Gotch was and changed his methods of training to rely more on body weight exercises and repetitions instead of heavy weights). Fujinami is pushing this year as the 40th anniversary of when he first won the WWF world junior heavyweight championship and got his first major push
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Originally Posted by Observer
The new season of Lucha Underground doesn’t look like it’ll be taped at the Temple in Boyle Heights. That’s still up in the air but they are looking for a new location. Dario Cueto was killed off in the final episode of last season. Since this is Lucha Underground, that doesn’t mean he’s dead but there are major financial cutbacks and he may be one of them.
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Originally Posted by Observer
There is a working idea (meaning it’s kind of the plan but could change) for the announcement of the location of All In on 9/1 being announced on or around 3/1. Within wrestling, everyone thinks it’s Chicago (not sure of the building, as the choices would appear to be All-State Arena or Sears Center) just because of the idea they could do a convention in association with it and with Pro Wrestling Tees in Chicago it’s the most convenient location when it comes to merchandise. We have heard other cities mentioned as well. The only thing we were told is that the Cow Palace in San Francisco was out because while the rent of the building was extremely low for a place that can hold as many as 14,500 or so for wrestling, that the costs of streaming live would be high. I guess that tells you that live streaming is part of the component
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Originally Posted by Observer
Regarding questions about Penta 0M or Rey Fenix coming here, several months ago Impact was sent a letter (as was NOAH, as Fenix was scheduled for a tour there that ended up being canceled) that both were under contract to Lucha Underground and MGM (the parent company) would not allow them to appear on television for either group. At the time it came out that MGM really didn’t care, but Dorian Roldan was behind it. Roldan has been behind sending cease and desists to the two wrestlers over their names because they quit AAA and have turned down every offer from him to return. Lucha Underground offered Penta 0M a new contract, but in the contract, it specified that he would be exclusive in Mexico to AAA, and he turned that down. However, since AAA does have a relationship with Impact, it’s possible they could work it out but that was the latest on that, but for now the legal letters have blocked both men from working here.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Several people including likely The HBO Andre the Giant documentary that Bill Simmons’ crew worked on will premiere on 4/10. Simmons has said for years that he has always wanted to do a documentary on Andre, who passed away 25 years ago this past week at the age of 46. The documentary is notable because a lot of myths may be dispelled (it’s hard to say what will and won’t because the WWE is co-producers and they have their own storyline and mythology and what is and isn’t in the finished product is going to be interesting). But they spoke extensively with Andre’s family in France, as well as a lot of movie stars such as the ones who worked with him on “The Princess Bride,” as well as Vince McMahon, Hulk Hogan and Andre’s closest friends who are still alive. Pat Laprade, who is writing a book on Andre, who is now announcing Raw for TVA Sports in Quebec was a Field Producer of this documentary. I was interviewed for the documentary several months ago and it was mostly finished by then and I saw some clips of it and it looked great, and the people who asked the questions really wanted to get as much of the true story as possible
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Originally Posted by Observer
WWE will report its full 2017 financial numbers as well as the fourth quarter numbers on 2/8. This would include announcing the WWE Network subscriptions numbers as of 12/31. As noted, you can see a major push to get paid numbers up artificially for Mania season with the $1.99 for three month offers
In big news for WWE stock, Morgan Stanley has upgraded the stock and given it a $40 target figure. As noted here, there reasoning behind it is the expectation of a big number for the next television contracts, most notably in the U.S., U.K. (Notable since the ratings have collapsed there) and India markets. Morgan Stanley noted that there has been a major increase in spending for content, particularly in sports. In their analysis, they still believed the network would eventually reach 3-4 million paid subscribers, which is not happening anytime soon.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Terri Runnels, on her podcast, said that she and the other women brought in for the 25th anniversary show were disappointed in how they were used. “I wanted a brief moment, some sincerity, and I didn’t like that it went straight to this cartoon crap.” “I felt like, `You’ve got a lot of talent and we are just standing there waving.” She said that at 11 a.m. that day they were brought out to rehearse their wave and were then told that was their only role on the show. “We all kind of dropped our jaws and were like, `You’ve got to be kidding me.’” “I didn’t hear anyone express anything different than what I just said to you.” She also mentioned on the podcast that she had documented proof of being sexually harassed in her life. When asked by co-host Matt Koon if this happened in WWE, she said, “Maybe.”
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Originally Posted by WrestleInc
The Women of Honor tournament to determine the division's inaugural champion is a 16-woman, single-elimination styled format with 15 of the 16 entrants announced so far. Many names are from within the division and some are from the Japanese wrestling promotion, Stardom. Here's the updated list of participants: Brandi Rhodes, Jessie Brooks, Karen Q, Kelly Klein, Madison Rayne, Mandy Leon, Deonna Purrazzo, Holidead, Sumie Sakai, Jenny Rose, Stacy Shadows, HZK, Hana Kimura, Kagetsu, and Mayu Iwatani.
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Some other sheet news includes:
Some stuff from TPWW Frontpage:
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