Interview with Goldberg, more on July 4 event, more on WWE in Italy, Kidd injured, Interview with new NXT signing, Smackdown visitor, more WWE dates, more WWE tryouts including current TNA name, ROH and Impact audiences, Mickie update, TNA-India note, NXT live event updates, and Questions on Zayn's status, Terrell's arrest, and turning Bray

Goldberg talked about returning to the ring on his own terms:
-  I bet GFW would love to have him do one last match for them, but it sounds like he's not willing to do that.

- It's a shame someone who made such a splash in wrestling is somewhat dismissing it.

- I think Goldberg had a fine run in WWE. He wrestled on a number of PPVs including WrestleMania, and held the World Heavyweight Championship for several months. He really has nothing to be upset about on that end.

Here's the complete card for the July 4 live event in Japan that will be shown on the Network. Neville vs. Jericho should really be good.

Here's the official press release for WWE's new TV deal in Italy, confirming Main Event taking the place of Superstars there. It also confirms PPV isn't going by the wayside as a medium yet.

Everything else from yesterday is after the break.


Tyson Kidd suffered a bad neck injury taking the muscle buster from Samoa Joe in the dark match before Smackdown. He's expected to miss several months. That's really, really unfortunate. Two very talented performers who hopefully won't have their careers derailed by this.

Update: This was believed to have been a freak accident and nothing that could have been preventable. I hope for Joe's sake, that's true. His WWE career should just be getting started.

The former Magno talked about signing to NXT. Just think; it was only two years ago he was trying out for a spot in TNA.

Vickie Guerrero was visiting at Smackdown Tuesday night. I definitely think she's moved on from wrestling.

WWE has announced dates for Spain in November as part of the European tour. I wonder what new talents will be part of the main roster by then.

The following talents have been confirmed as undergoing tryouts for WWE recently:
- Havok, who hasn't appeared in TNA in four months. This is leading to speculation she's no longer working there. I've never heard of a talent trying out for WWE while being under contract to another televised promotion.
- Biff Busick and Drew Gulak, of EVOLVE and CZW.

All three names have gotten people talking. I'm interested to see what they can bring to the table in an environment like NXT/WWE. They've all got pretty nice resumes.

Update: Two more names have also been confirmed as trying out: Shane Haste and Mikey Nichols of Pro Wrestling NOAH. Given their youth, experience, and international appeal, I think they're both awesome choices. Triple H and his department have really been on top of the talent scouting thing.

ROH's debut show on Destination America drew 163,000 viewers, with an additional 110,000 for the 11 p.m. replay. I don't think that's a bad audience at all for their first week with only a few days of promotion. Not to mention there are people who chose to watch the previous weekend on their local TV station. I think it will be a few more weeks before we can make much judgement about their audience.

Impact Wrestling's first show on Wednesdays did 297,000 viewers in its first showing, and 72,000 in the midnight replay. That's a sharp drop from the previous Friday's success. It will take a few weeks for us to see what their regular range of audience will be, but that's quite the drop. Hopefully things pick up next week as more people migrate to the new night. I hope for TNA's sake fans get the memo about the new night.

Update: Other than the showing of Slammiversary two weeks ago, this is the lowest audience TNA has gotten on Destination America. I think that might be forgivable due to it being the first night in the new timeslot. If things are still at this level in a few weeks, that's a real problem. Fridays are a dead zone for TV. If they haven't improved in audience and ad revenue on Wednesdays by September, I won't blame DA for dropping them.

TNA is saying Mickie James suffered concussion-like symptoms after her angle with James Storm on this week's Impact Wrestling. That was one of the most unintentionally(?) hilarious things I've ever seen on a wrestling show. For some reason I'm getting flashbacks to when Shark Boy was "injured" so bad he ended up in a coma and woke up impersonating Stone Cold.

TNA will now have a feed in Hindi in India. Is Khoya really so popular there they were willing to sign on to keep TNA through 2022 just because of him? That's making some real optimistic assumptions about the company's future.

Ric Flair is booked for NXT's live event in Columbus, but not Pittsburgh. Not really sure why.

Zack Ryder is booked for both events. I think it's fine to use a couple of names who aren't doing much of anything on the main roster to boost NXT's live events, as long as there are still enough names to make the main roster live events worth the money. I guess it makes sense with some NXT names working the WWE events.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. So he'll be missing a few months, but should be back by the end of the year. NXT is really missing something with no Zayn or Itami.

2. Terrell was arrested for a misdemeanor for the incident, believed to be assault. Drew never pressed charges and it's been years since that happened, so I would imagine they're able to work together.

3. He's not doing much else as a heel, so I wouldn't blame WWE for thinking of turning him. His character definitely works better with followers either way.

Nothing to add to 4 or 5.

More wrestling tomorrow.