[Emperor Smeat]

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Originally Posted by Observer Orlando is the frontrunner for the 2017 WrestleMania with Minneapolis now out. There is talk around town that an announcement will be made over Rumble week. There has also been a lot of talk about Los Angeles since they are building a new 80,000 seat stadium in Inglewood for the Rams, and they are looking at putting in a bid for a WrestleMania in four or five years after the stadium is completed.

Originally Posted by Observer The first week with both Raw and Smackdown on USA saw the network only place fifth, behind Fox News, Discovery, TBS and HGTV. However, if you remove the five hours of wrestling from the schedule, USA would have finished in eighth place. But it looks like loading up on wrestling won’t be enough to get USA back to No. 1, but that’s not wrestling’s fault as much as how far the rest of the network’s programming has dropped in comparison to the competition stations. One of the reasons USA brought back Tough Enough is that the numbers the show did a few years ago, while not good enough for the network then, would have been above average for the network now. Unfortunately the second season of Tough Enough did far worse than the Austin season, and well below the network prime time average

Once again the only reason WWE looks really good ratings wise for USA is due to the rest of USA Networks programs struggling. If USA Network had at least a couple of really good shows, they'd be able to put more pressure on the WWE to get better in order to keep their tv spots.

Originally Posted by Observer As noted, Brock Lesnar will be working the March 22nd WWE SmackDown tapings inn Boston. He's also working the February 16th SmackDown tapings in Ontario, California. Lesnar will be working more SmackDown tapings in the next few months in an attempt to strengthen the show now that it's on the USA Network.

Originally Posted by Observer An interesting note that is beginners promo classes, the wrestlers are broken down into these groups: “Girls,” (you’d think they’d use women as a public company), “Teams” (only two of them), “Big Men” (all those giant recruits including Mada and Josh from Tough Enough), “Smaller Athletes,” (which includes everyone from Patrick Clark to Richard Swann to Christopher Girard/Biff Busick), “Foreign Accent” and “Character” (only one guy is in that category, ZZ)

Some details on how developmental works in NXT.

Originally Posted by 411Mania The Wrestling Observer reports that Daniel Bryan has been cleared to return to the ring by a UCLA neurology specialist. This comes after Daniel Bryan’s doctor, who works with the Arizona Cardinals, had already cleared him. WWE’s head of medical, Dr. Joseph Maroon, has yet to clear him at this time due to his concussion history. Bryan had several tests performed by the UCLA doctor to gauge if he was able to return to the ring and it was ultimately ruled that he could. Bryan has said for some time now he’s ready to come back but WWE has yet to give him medical clearance.

Him showing up for a WWE medical exam in Pittsburgh ended up getting debunked since its just for a autograph session at a car expo and not for both.

Originally Posted by Observer The Friday night CMLL shows at Arena Mexico will start airing on TDN (Televisa Deportes Network) in February. That could spell the end of Americans seeing the matches live on the Internet since TDN is paying for the TV rights to air the show, so there’s not way they’d want to be undercut with a live Internet airing first. It’s a good exposure deal for the promotion

Originally Posted by Observer Jimmy Snuka’s scheduled 3/22 trial on charges of third degree murder and manslaughter in the 1983 death of his mistress, Nancy Argentino, has been put on hold. Snuka’s lawyer, Robert Kirwan, claimed that Snuka, 72, is not mentally capable of standing trial. The court ordered a test of Snuka’s mental capacity and the trial will not take place until the results of all the tests are determined. Kirwan claimed he first thought Snuka had a temporary issue based on the side effects of his cancer medication, but now believes Snuka has diminished overall mental capacity overall claiming he has tested positive for dementia, that he has little understanding of why he is on trial and no memory of Argentino’s death. All I know is that there are people I know who had conversations with Snuka and said that he had no issues several months ago. Charles Gallagher, the district attorney in charge of the case, argued the ruling stating Snuka was a career long entertainer who was acting the part, which led to the ruling of testing. He is scheduled for testing on 3/18. Based on the results, that will determine what is the next step that will be taken

Originally Posted by Observer Gawker’s latest attempt to get Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against them thrown out was denied this past week at a hearing. Gawker lawyer Seth Berlin argued that Terry Bollea for two years had been dishonest and telling in half-truths, leading to unfavorable rulings against them, and because of it, the entire case should be thrown out. Gawker claimed contradictory statements made by Bollea to the FBI and those made during depositions. Gawker has claimed Hogan knew he was being videotaped all along but has acted like he didn’t, but Hogan denied that. Hogan’s trial, asking for $100 million, which could put Gawker in severe financial straits, is set to open on 3/7

Originally Posted by Observer Pop TV, the home of TNA, is getting both new significant clearances and losing others. The bad news is that Comcast on most systems is moving Pop TV (along with other stations that include Spike and CMT) to a second tier where you have to pay extra, which will cost them clearances. This also affects Bellator. The positive is the owners of Pop TV, (CBS and Lions Gate) are pushing harder for new clearances, and they just started with Cablevision

Originally Posted by Observer On the new contracts TNA is offering with guarantees, they are back to wanting to control the non-TNA bookings. In the new deals the guys will still be able to work indies, but promoters will have to work through TNA to book its televised talent, similar to how they did it in the past, so guys can’t book themselves, at least the ones on the new deals. The deals in question here would be guaranteed money contracts at what were said to be decent money, and in some cases good money from TNA, as opposed to per-night deals and would likely only be for the key guys they are pushing in 2016 (obviously some will be making considerably more although one person with a significant push planned was getting a $60,000 deal), mostly the ones that the fear would be that WWE would get if they weren’t given a guarantee. The offer to Karl Anderson, which he turned down for WWE, was said to be in the $200,000 range, which is surprisingly high for someone without a big U.S. name. But they wanted him badly for the first show and it was going to take a number like that to get him from New Japan. They made a big play for Anderson, Doc Gallows and A.J. Styles for the Pop debut. When it comes to talent that we’re aware of, WWE is offering less than TNA to talent both sides are opting for, with the idea that they’re WWE and they don’t have to offer as much because there is more career benefit long-term of being in WWE.

TNA having an unstable future and being horrible with mainstream support ended up costing them big with the batch of NJPW guys that are going to the WWE (and others who would rather stay in NJPW).

Originally Posted by Observer Kurt Angle vs. Drew Galloway in a rematch of their bout on TV last week, will headline the 1/29 show in Manchester. Angle’s opponent on 1/30 in London will be Bobby Roode. His final TNA opponent on 1/31 in Birmingham will be Bobby Lashley. I pretty much figured they’d go with him putting over Galloway or Lashley in his last match with the company

Originally Posted by Show Buzz Daily Tuesday night's TNA Impact Wrestling, which was the third episode on POP TV, drew 321,000 viewers. The show featured Matt Hardy turning heel and winning the TNA World Heavyweight Championship from EC3. Viewership was up 11% from last week's 288,000 viewers. Impact ranked #112 for the night on cable in the top 150, down from last week's #106. Tuesday's WWE Total Divas season 5 premiere on the E! network drew 1.115 million viewers and ranked #9 for the night on cable. This is up 14% from the season 4 premiere, which drew 975,000 viewers. This is down 7% from the season 3 premiere, which drew 1.2 million viewers. The season 4 finale back in September drew 1.158 million viewers.

Originally Posted by Observer There was a question on the radio show regarding whether talent can leave WWE events after their match but before the show is over. Unless you are a top guy, the answer is no.

In regards to the "heat" Tyler Breeze currently has with WWE management.


Some other sheet news includes:

• This year's class of WWE Hall of Fame is rumored to have been leaked recently supposedly by WWE sources close to WhatCulture.
  
  SPOILER: show

  JBL, Jacqueline, The Freebirds (stable/team inductee), Regis Philbin (celebrity inductee), and the Godfather
• According to the Observer, TNA is currently planning for their India tour to happen during this summer.
• Also according to the Observer, AJ Styles final ROH appearance will not be allowed to be shown on tv due to terms in his WWE deal. WWE will let him wrestle but won't let ROH have any extra benefits from it.
• Tommaso Ciampa still has yet to sign an actual WWE deal according to recent reports. Splitting time between NXT and indies so far.
• In a "WWE Did You Know" type fact, this year's Royal Rumble match will be only the 2nd title match involving Bray Wyatt as a competitor since his main roster call up. The other being the WWE-World title ladder match at MITB 2014.
• For those that order wrestling shirts from ProWrestlingTees, the company announced after January 31st they will no longer be selling Shinsuke Nakamura shirts. Official reason related to NJPW as the owner of his shirts and him no longer officially being in the company by then. http://us9.campaign-archive1.com/?u=...&id=fa5c9a2eb9
• Ceasro ended up being the winner for Observer's 2015 Underrated Wrestler of the Year. Third year in a row for him with Dave Meltzer giving the reason why as "Cesaro was voted the most underrated wrestler the last three years and he will continue to be for years to come, because WWE will never push him."
• ROH announced they have canceled this Friday's show in Fletcher, NC due to potential bad weather issues. This Friday and Saturday was planned to be the final ROH events for Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson with only Saturday still on track for an event at the moment.