Recently hurt WWE name cleared to return, Brock appearance set, more on Patterson book, more on recent TNA worker to NJPW, MSG honors Bret, matches for next ROH TV taping, TNA and Total Divas audiences, more on Nakamura in the U.S., Interview with Gunn, part of Raw cut from Hulu, Cesaro set for live events, and Questions on the WM32 Divas' Title match, young ROH talents, Goldberg at WM32, the next NXT Champion, and using talents with heat

Alberto Del Rio has been cleared to return to the ring, as he was in a match on Smackdown. Hopefully other names who are on the shelf get good news soon.

Brock Lesnar will be on next week's Smackdown, presumably targeting the Wyatt Family. It wouldn't be a good move for the Wyatts long-term, but imagine Brock facing them in a gauntlet match at WM32.

Pat Patterson's autobiography will be available in August under the title "Accepted: How the First Gay Superstar Changed WWE." I think that title puts him in something of a box: he's much more than his sexuality. I wish they would have focused on how important he's been behind-the-scenes beyond that aspect of who he is.

Everything else from yesterday is after the break.
TNA was interested in offering a contract to UK talent Will Ospreay, but by the time they made their play for him, he had already signed an agreement to come to NJPW. Ospreay is being touted as someone to really watch out for in 2016. Sometimes TNA tries their best only to have bad timing and/or luck.

Madison Square Garden paid tribute to Bret Hart as he battles prostate cancer. That's really cool of them.

ROH's TV taping on Feb.6 will feature:
- The semi-finals and finals of the top prospect tournament (where the winner will get a contract and a shot at the TV Title)

- A seven-team gauntlet for a shot at the tag team titles
- The Briscoes vs. Alex Shelley/ACH
- Dalton Castle vs. Christopher Daniels
- Adam Cole vs. Matt Sydal
- Silas Young/Beer City Bruiser vs. Dalton Castle's Boys

Update: ROH has also announced the return of ODB at the tapings. I think she fit in well with the Briscoes.

Those episodes will be the final build to the 14th anniversary PPV.

TNA's audience this week was 295,000 for the initial airing and 112,000 for the replay. That's down from the previous week. For a show featuring a World Championship match involving the departing legend Kurt Angle, I find that disappointing. TNA had some impressive momentum going for their first few weeks on Pop, but that seems to have subsided. I think some of that can be attributed to the shows being taped weeks in advance, but really there's not much TNA can do about that. It would be enormously expensive to go live every week. I'm not even sure they'd bump tapings up to once a month instead of every six weeks. And really if there aren't big returns/surprises like Storm and Bennett on the debut show, going live probably wouldn't change things all that much. TNA's got a lot of work cut out for them as far as getting the audience consistently at a solid number.

The audience for Week 3 of this season's Total Divas was 840,000. That's down considerably from the first episode's 1.12 million. I'm sure the show is pretty cheap to make, so E! might be fine with its investment. It's just worth noting the declining audience. It's much too early to speculate E! won't order a sixth season, but I do wonder how much WWE would change how it presents its female performers if the show was no longer a factor. 

Shinsuke Nakamura has begun medical testing for WWE ahead of an expected signing. I look forward to seeing his work in 2016 and beyond.

Billy Gunn talked about being dropped as a coach in the WWEPC and more. Very interesting thoughts about TNA.

The Rock interacting with the fans dressed as WWE legends was removed from the Hulu version of Raw, likely because of the fan referring to Hogan. That's a pretty high level of burial for the Hulkster.

Cesaro is advertised for WWE appearances in Germany next week, almost assuredly in a non-wrestling role. I hope he comes back strong when he is cleared to wrestle again.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. I think Charlotte vs. Sasha might be more likely. I don't know if they'd keep Becky in the title picture that long. I just really hope they don't put Brie Bella in there.

2. I'm still kind of getting into Cheeseburger, since I haven't seen a lot of him. As was alluded to, he's a young, underdog babyface. As for Dalton Castle, he's making a lot out of his gimmick and is a deceptively good performer. I think it's been great for him to have a big personality in order to stand out from the pack of "wrestlers who wrestle."

3. I don't think he's a big priority, at least compared to someone like Batista who's been around more recently and has appeal outside of wrestling fans. He'd probably come with a big price tag as well, and I don't know if WWE would be willing to foot that bill.

4. I hope it's Crews, although I wouldn't mind a brief reign for Corbin to set that up. WWE definitely seems to be behind Apollo as a future star for the brand. They might keep it out of Corbin's reach in case there's interest for him on the main roster.

5. I agree with their assessment of staying away from doing self-destructive things that hurt the talent's drawing power for WWE. I think the main thing with a punishment should be making sure the behavior doesn't happen again. That involves figuring out way the behavior is happening in the first place and addressing/correcting that.

More wrestling tomorrow.