Superstars Reax - 2/19/16, ROH-NJPW notes, NXT live event notes, future ROH matches, NXT guest, Interviews with Apollo/Jake, more on WWE.com redesign, NXT team gets new moniker, WWE looks at Bischoff rebooting WCW in 2001, WM33/WM34 location update, March to WM card notes, NXT TV preview, Smackdown audience, key TNA producer re-signs, more on Steiner vs. TNA, and Questions on Haas/Benjamin in NXT, mistreating Raquel, Ranallo, The Funk in MSG, and pushing Kalisto

Superstars:
- Fox vs. Natalya:
Fun fact. These two have wrestled one-on-one on Raw, ECW, Smackdown, Saturday Morning Slam, Main Event, and Superstars 16 times before this match. That's not even including all the times they've worked singles matches on live events. By contrast, The Rock and Stone Cold wrestled on TV and PPV one-on-one a total of 10 times. It is worth noting WWE has a lot more TV to fill now. Four of those shows mentioned didn't even exist when Rock and Austin had their last match against each other.

This isn't bad so far. I like both wrestlers. I just think I've seen them both quite a bit, and they need new "dance partners."

That was good enough to fill some time.

- Fandango vs. Swagger:
I'm liking this one. Fandango is a solid undercard worker. If WWE wasn't so crowded with talented people, he'd stand out more (see the former Derrick Bateman and Drew McIntyre in TNA if you don't believe me).

Nice work by both men.

I'd love if Main Event and Superstars had their own "brand" like ECW or the final season of NXT. Take some writers from the main roster and have them build stories on these shows. Instead of a TV Championship, there could be a Network Championship defended exclusively on ME and Superstars. It could be a lot of fun for people who normally have little character development.

Nice match overall.

Everything else from yesterday is after the break.

Important notes from the first of this week's ROH/NJPW show in Japan:
- Liger and Matt Sydal beat Dalton Castle and Taguchi.

- ROH booker Delirious beat NJPW booker Gedo. Both wrestlers still work pretty regularly, so that's not as crazy as it sounds.

- KUSHIDA beat Kazarian.

- Moose and Michael Elgin were on the winning end of an eight-man tag.

- The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega beat reDRagon and Shibata.

- The Briscoes beat Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson.

- Jay Lethal and Naito were on the winning end of the semi-main event.

- Roderick Strong lost the TV Championship to Tomihiro Ishii. I'd love to know how far in advance that was planned, because ROH was advertising a rematch for the title between Strong and Bobby Fish at the next TV taping. ROH is definitely pretty right with New Japan and working with them a lot going forward. Hopefully Ishii will be working in the States regularly since he holds a title now. ROH wouldn't bury themselves THAT much, right? I get helping out NJPW by having on of their stars hold an ROH title, but it needs to be beneficial to ROH's shows, too.

Some notes from NXT's Friday night live event in Florida:
- The former Biff Busick lost to Kenneth Crawford.

- Tough Enough/Total Divas' Mandy fought Aaliyah to a no-contest when Nia Jax came out and laid them both out.

- The former La Sombra got a win.

- Zack Ryder won a singles match. No Mojo Rawley.

- Tough Enough's Daria beat Emma by DQ when Dana Brooke interfered.

BJ Whitmer vs. Adam Page is official for the ROH 14th anniversary show.

Kenny Omega vs. ACH has been added to ROH's next TV taping. Omega's going to be something of a regular going forward. With AJ Styles gone, Omega's a more valuable player for ROH.

Kenny Omega vs. Dalton Castle is advertised for a March 12 ROH show.

Tatanka was visiting at a recent NXT live event. If he can still go, I wouldn't mind seeing him come work with some of the younger talents in a brief run. I like the idea of NXT being such a big deal, special guests come in to see what all the fuss is about.

Apollo Crews talked ahead of NXT's show in New Jersey. It's neat they're going back to small-ish markets with NXT.

WWE got a lot of press for their website redesign. It's pretty impressive.

The NXT Tag Team Champions will now be known as The Revival, a reference to bringing back an old style of tag team wrestling. I like the name "Dash and Dawson," but this is good, too. They're definitely a solid team, and this would seem to indicate WWE intends to keep them together (and sees them as a future main roster act). We'll see.

Jake Roberts talked about cleaning up his life and more. I hope he continues to live a positive life. Maybe DDP's model can help Sunny next? Or Chyna?

WWE covered the proposed reboot of WCW had Eric Bischoff purchased the company in 2001 instead of WWF:

- This is HUGE. HUGE. One of the absolute biggest "what-ifs" in wrestling history.

- WCW getting another shot would have been pretty interesting if they were making big changes to bring the product into 2001.

- The suits at Time Warner definitely weren't "wrestling people." Honestly, they were probably embarrassed to be associated with WCW. When the generals aren't in the know, there's only so much the rest of the rank-and-file can do.

- Hmmmm. Could WCW have survived with some content on FX and some on TBS? It would depend on the competence of the people on TBS' end to a degree.

- Moving to a new part of the country would have helped create something new. Even if they had to start with smaller tapings in L.A., that would be much more cost-effective than continuing to work in  larger, unfilled arenas.

- Bischoff is dead on about atmosphere of large crowds vs. small crowds.

- Crazy "worked-shoot" angles are notorious when looking at the Russo years of WWF and WCW (and later TNA).

- Something of a clean break from the old WCW would have been helpful. No more nWo reboots, no more trying to relive Goldberg's streak... do something fresh.

- Joey Styles calling WCW could have been incredible. It would definitely have been a contrast to WWF. Imagine if they also got some ECW talent in important roles!

- Real WWF vs. WCW PPVs could have been amazing. What if some WWF names got reboots in WCW and vice versa, like we had actually been seeing in the Monday Night War?

- I'd like to think FX or someone else would have wanted the show post-TBS. Canceled shows get picked up by other networks later. It happens.

- Would WCW have survived 2001 only to go out of business in 2003 or 2004? It's not like WWF/WWE wouldn't have wanted to sign more of their top names away in the following years.

- I wish this would have gotten into potential creative plans, but maybe they hadn't really gotten that far in the process.

The mayor of Orlando discussed the possibility of WM33 and WM34 coming there. I'd be surprised if they ran the same town two years in a row, but WWE definitely likes that area for big events.

Advertised for WWE's March to WrestleMania special:
- Sheamus vs. Roman Reigns
- Brock Lesnar vs. Luke Harper
- AJ Styles in action
- Highlight Reel with New Day

-- Brie Bella is also advertised for the event, so that casts some doubt on her retiring at Fastlane. She could retire at WM32 instead, or continue on for a few more months. She's definitely expected to finish up before the end of summer.

Chris Girard, formerly Biff Busick, will make his NXT TV debut on the next episode, in a match with Apollo Crews. Probably a squash match, but we'll at least get to see a glimpse of him like we did with Swann. Once the likes of Zayn and Balor go to the main roster, I suspect we'll see more of Swann and Girard.

- Also on this week's NXT is Tommaso Ciampa vs. Bull Dempsey. WWE taped a lot of material before the Rumble, so we could see some matches featuring NXT alumni.

-- Another NXT TV note: Santana Garrett is back facing Emma. Could we see her get a more regular role? I liked her first showing; she's clearly got experience (and I don't just mean her brief stint in TNA).

Smackdown this week drew 2.46 million viewers. For a go-home show featuring the first appearance of Brock Lesnar on the show in a decade, that's really disappointing.

Gregory Shane Helms has signed a multi-year contract with TNA. He's an invaluable part of what they do behind-the-scenes, and a key figure of any revival we'll see with the company.

The Scott Steiner-TNA lawsuit was scheduled to go to court Monday, but that date has been canceled. The lawsuit was first filed in June 2012. It's unknown if the two sides worked out a settlement or if things have just been delayed again. I don't know what TNA will really gain at this point by continuing the lawsuit. The Hogans and Bischoffs have been gone from the company for a while.

Some important notes from NXT's show in New Jersey:
- Alex Riley lost to Apollo Crews.

- Bayley defeated Eva Marie. Eva's working this loop while Nia and Emma are in Florida. Let that sink in for a second.

- Balor's back in action, working a tag team main event.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. Benjamin gets pretty regular work in Japan. I don't know if they'd be willing to put up enough money for him to come work for NXT for a little while. I'd love to see it (maybe around the time of Summerslam?), but there's no word on it happening.

2. It could simultaneously be assault and a terrible way of "breaking someone in." It's 2016; intentionally injuring someone shouldn't be tolerated.

3. I also really enjoy him. Of course, we're comparing him to people like JBL and King, but he's still knocking it out of the park.

4. I love The Fink, and wouldn't mind him doing ring announcing on special occasions, but they do want to move to a new generation of talents in all aspects.

5. Sin Cara was injured, so they gave him a singles push to shake things up. It's better than him just hanging out and jobbing in the meantime.

More wrestling tomorrow.