Steph with WM31 adversary, Angle has another surgery, Eden on Stardust, big name back on WWE TV, Interviews with Jarrett/Ziggler, new DBD match, boxing star almost faced Lesnar, TNA and ROH ratings, Japanese legend at Takeover, and Questions on the Hogan-Bischoff regime, social media kayfabe, trying to recreate the success of the Attitude Era, cheering Brock/Heyman, and dropping faces vs. heels

Stephanie McMahon took a picture with Ronda Rousey at the ESPYs, teasing something for WM32. Way to completely break kayfabe, but it was good PR.

Kurt Angle had a second surgery following complications from the procedure removing a benign tumor from his neck. He's expected to make a full recovery. Angle was set to be part of the upcoming TNA tapings (presumably in a non-wrestling role), but that's now in question. It will be interesting to see what they do on those shows with no BDC or Angle, and presumably no Storm, Magnus, or Aries. I wonder how long it is before Bully Ray steps back in the ring.

Eden, the real-life wife of Cody Rhodes, blogged about her husband retaining the Stardust character after his father's death. I don't blame her for feeling that way at all.

Everything else from Thursday is after the break.


The Undertaker is scheduled to return on Raw to build to a match at Summerslam. That's huge! I can see the Network buys happening already. Hopefully they'll do something interesting with him. 

Update: There are also reports of Sting working at Summerslam. That would be the perfect time to announce a match for WM32. They've got a lot of tickets to move.

Jeff Jarrett talked about TNA and GFW:
- Having a good name is actually pretty important for whether someone will check out the show. Ask anyone in TNA Management.

- Jarrett returning to Impact was definitely a big surprise for the locker room, especially since the show was already formatted and there was no indication of there being a segment involving him. Other stuff had to be cut.

- Considering he has the KotM Championship, I'd be shocked if he or other GFW talents don't appear at the upcoming TNA tapings. Maybe they could do a TNA vs. GFW One Night Only PPV?

Dolph Ziggler talked about life on the road and more. Note this was done before he was written off TV. Given his remarks here about the "reality era," I'd take his claims of not being signed to a new deal with a grain of salt.

ROH has booked Will Ferrara vs. Silas Young for Death Before Dishonor XIII. Oh yeah, I'm totally more hyped for that than Battleground. When ROH is good, it's pretty impressive. But there's a lot of stuff that bogs it down and keeps it "indie."

Former boxing champion Lennox Lewis recently said he was offered around $7.5 million to face Brock Lesnar in WWE. Lesnar wouldn't be wearing gloves, so he declined. That would have been HUGE. 

Impact Wrestling drew 293,000 for their first airing and 72,000 for their replay. I hope that drop from the previous week is a reflection of Bully Ray being GM. TNA's not doing so hot on Wednesdays, which is probably partially a byproduct of the cancellation rumors and the departures. They're really fighting an uphill battle.

ROH's show did a paltry 80,000 for its first airing, and 89,000 for the replay. So, of the more than 300,000 fans who tuned in a few weeks back, almost half didn't watch two weeks later. If that doesn't mean they watched on their local channels a few days earlier instead, it's pretty telling for ROH's viability in the mainstream. The only reason ROH is the number three promotion in the U.S. is because NXT isn't a separate entity. But hey, it's presumably 169,000 more viewers than they would have gotten without the DA deal, so they're doing alright in that sense.

Japanese legend Jushin "Thunder" Liger has been announced for NXT Takeover: Brooklyn. That's pretty big news! Considering other NJPW stars are working the ROH event that night, it sets up a pretty interesting dilemma for hardcore fans in the area.

Update: Liger will be wrestling Tyler Breeze at the event. I saw Liger recently on ROH; he can surprisingly still go pretty well. I look forward to that match.

For my take on Thursday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. Man, this one's a complex answer. I'll refer to some of their points and add some of my own:

a. I think Bischoff would have been content to stay out of the wrestling business post-WWE, or at least staying on the production end of thing. Late '90s Bischoff had some real chutzpah. He had an established brand in WCW that became a real alternative to WWE, and he had the money to sign pretty much anyone he wanted. He's called "ATM Eric" for a reason. Ted Turner was stacked and willing to really invest in WCW. He didn't have nearly that level of budget in TNA.

b. There's definitely something to the notion of them bringing in the wrong people. Who in God's name thought fans wanted to see the Nasty Boys in TNA? Hogan had way too much leeway creatively to try to turn things into his vision of a wrestling promotion instead of knowing what TNA was and trying to improve what was already there. Bringing in Sean Morley to provide a veteran presence a la Rhyno in NXT would be one thing. But having him go over Christopher Daniels, who had a lot of goodwill with the TNA faithful from years of being an important name there? Terrible. There were a number of short-sighted signings like that, and it was like they tried to introduce 12 new characters and angles in the first three months of the regime.

c. They didn't seem to care what the established TNA audience wanted. Obviously they were going for a bigger audience, but they pretty blatantly pissed off the Orlando faithful by changing to a four-sided ring and jobbing their favorites out to people they didn't want to see. Instead of trying to improve aspects of AJ Styles, they just tried to turn him into a Flair knockoff. It was a terrible fit. Speaking of which, they burned bridges with Universal Studios by getting out of their contract there in order to go on the road regularly and do some live shows. Rome wasn't built in a day. While they definitely needed to grow outside of Orlando, it was too much and too fast to be sustainable. Instead of testing the waters with some tapings elsewhere, they went full-on and lost a LOT of money for very little gain.

d/e. Making the big changes Hogan wanted was really costly. It didn't make business sense to do that many big moves at once, and Panda Energy had to think they were out of their mind to go through that much money so quickly.

f. Going up against WWE on Mondays was really, really, dumb. They got massacred in the ratings. The highest rating the regime ever got wasn't even at the level of Smackdown. Why make fans choose between WWE and TNA on the same night when they could try to build the audience unopposed on other nights?

g. Hogan was definitely way too much of a focus. Ditto for his friends and other people who were just there for the name value. The expensive guys in their 40s (or damn close to it) weren't getting the kind of ratings they were in the '90s, but they were being pushed as the centerpieces. That was the case in the few years preceding Hogan and Bischoff as well. Mick Foley was World Champion years after retiring from WWE.

So, in theory, adding Hogan and Bischoff to the mix could have really helped TNA, it became more about trying to remake WCW instead of building on what TNA did well.

2. Given the picture Stephanie posted after this question was posted, it would be ridiculous for Management to get upset over that. Rollins' push wasn't hurt by those other pictures being posted, and they were MUCH more damaging.

3. Another long one. I agree with a good deal with this, but a few specific points:
a. WWE has a LLLOOOTTTT more TV time to fill than when it was just Raw, Heat, and PPVs. Adding Smackdown to things made it hard enough for writers. More TV time and more superstars means more writers. That just makes sense. Adding to that, seeing Stone Cold one night a week meant a lot more than seeing Ambrose on several shows (including recaps), segments on WWE.com, on Instagram, etc.. Talents are much more exposed in 2015.

b. A lot of the other stuff can also be tied to having more TV time to fill and the stresses that causes. I think some people probably do better with scripting promos, but I agree it'd be good to give most of them more leeway.

c. Yes, they've got a public image to keep now. Having deals with Kmart and Mattel and such means a LOT. So does being on things like morning talk shows.

d. I think technology changed things a lot. How many people would go from following what's happening via social media and trying to discover every "scoop" and spoiler to sitting in front of their TV and watching the ads? That's key.

4. That's pretty much it. They're going after heels now. So they're "antiheroes" and babyfaces.

5. Nope. Not at all. While there are times when they need to "turn" someone due to fan reactions, it still makes sense to have heroes and villains. More people watch for the "soap opera" aspect than "Superstar A, who's a generic-looking guy who does fancy moves, faces Superstar B, who's also a generic-looking guy who does fancy moves. Neither of them have defining good or evil characteristics; they're just fighting for fancy belts." While certainly characters can be more in the vein of antiheroes (or antivillains as the case may be), it's pretty much inherent to every successful story for there to be good characters and evil characters.

More wrestling later in the day.