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Thursday, April 30, 2015

Live thoughts from Extreme Rules, Interviews with former developmental names/Del Rey, Billy Corgan joins TNA, E:60 preview, TNA audience, another announcer leaves TNA, WWE Hall of Famer passes, and Questions on the next WWE Champion, Ryback, men vs. women, Ambrose's push, and Enzo Amore

Here are live thoughts from Extreme Rules. Pretty standard smark report. Cena just can't catch a break, can he?

The former Curt Hawkins sat with Colt Cabana, Chris Hero, and Tomasso Ciampa to discuss WWE developmental. Whether Titus O'Neil is a "good wrestler" is pretty irrelevant if he makes WWE money. Hawkins was a good lower-card name to work with newer wrestlers and make them look good, and that's a valuable role.

Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has joined TNA Creative. I look forward to seeing what he'll do there. I assume the first date he'll be booking will be the May 8 episode of Impact Wrestling.

- Wow, Dixie sounds pretty desperate.

- Why's Corgan got his arms crossed the whole time? That's not a very encouraging posture.

- He said the right thing about giving everyone a fair shake and making things exciting from the whole roster.

- Cool stories relating his time touring with what it feels like to be a wrestler.

- I hope he knows what he's in for doing music work and booking TNA simultaneously.

Everything else from Monday is after the break.
TNA put out an official announcement of Billy Corgan joining the creative team. I think he's got an opportunity to make things work for the company. I say it's worth a shot.

Update: Unsurprisingly, TNA has been pleased with getting mainstream attention from the signing. Hopefully that nets them some business. They need to push that live episode hard.

Here's a press release on next week's WWE documentary on ESPN. That sounds great!

The former Sara Del Rey talked about training NXT talents. A good look at what she does and some good names to talk to about her.

TNA's audience for the most recent episode of Impact Wrestling was 381,000, with an additional 188,000 for the replay. Taken together, the audience was basically the same as last week. Things are pretty stagnant for them this many months into the Destination America move. Hopefully the live edition of the show on May 8 will provide a boost for them.

Hector Guerrero has announced leaving TNA. I'm interested to see what that means for them having Spanish commentary. I also wonder who will be the next name to leave.

Verne Gagne, the most decorated World Champion in AWA history and a member of both the WWE and WCW Halls of Fame, has passed away at the age of 86. More on this in upcoming posts. He leaves a really big mark on the industry.

For my take on Monday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. I can see Reigns winning in a WM31 rematch at Summerslam, but that's no guarantee. WWE could completely change their minds on whom they think is top guy material by then.

2. Neither? I like Ryback, but I definitely don't think he should be the guy to beat Cena for the title.

3. I think there's a big difference between matches presented as intergender competition and angles where a man assaults a woman to get cheap heat. It's something promoters have to walk a fine line with.

4. I like Ambrose a lot, but I'm not hugely upset at him not being a top player right now. If he stops appearing on PPVs, I'll say it's a missed opportunity. Right now, I don't think it's out of the question for him to end up being a more major part of things.

5. I think we could be looking at the next Santino Marella or Heath Slater, which is a fine niche to have. Some people are there to wrestle for the WWE Title and some are there to do what guys like Enzo do. He could be valuable for them going forward.

More wrestling coming up.

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