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Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Where's Cena, Brooklyn sells out again, action star shouts out wrestlers, NXT preview, Holy Foley preview, ROH San Antonio notes, TNA moving HQ, more on TNA's cease and desist, more Taker, Interviews with Cena/Sting, another Field of Honor, football player eyeing WWE, Network lawsuit dismissed, TNA's replay moved, and Questions on WM32 booking, Velocity/Heat on the Network, Reigns' future, and why Breeze isn't pushed

John Cena has been absent from WWE TV due to promoting his new reality show on FOX. I think the show's been great with all the new, fresh matches. His return should be saved for when things aren't so crowded.

The Raw after Summerslam has sold out. It's going to be another big week for Brooklyn.

Actor Chris Pratt thanked a LOT of wrestlers during his MTV Movie Awards acceptance speech. The show was hosted by The Rock and Kevin Hart. Pratt's pretty awesome. I hope he's on Raw someday. I know die-hard fans would hate this, but I'd be totally down for Pratt teaming with Batista in a big match to promote Guardians of the Galaxy 2.

On this week's NXT:
- Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Elias Samson
- Asuka vs. Eva Marie
- The Revival in action
- Hype Bros vs. Blake and Murphy
- Carmella vs. Aliyah

Those first two matches are interesting combinations of experienced names and newcomers. The last match might be really rough given how little experience each woman has. They need the learning experience, though.

Everything else from yesterday is after the break.

Noelle Foley promoted her upcoming reality show. We could be seeing her in WWE a lot in the years to come.

Updates on ROH returning to San Antonio:
- The rules for the six-man mayhem match are that if anyone pins Lethal, that person gets an immediate title shot.
- The Young Bucks will face Delirious and Cheeseburger. I'm glad Delirious hasn't booked himself into a big TV role. Obviously he still wants to wrestle, so he gets that chance on other events without "taking someone else's spot."

TNA is moving their headquarters to the site of their ShopTNA warehouse. This is the latest cost-cutting venture. Hopefully that site has enough room for everyone to do what they need to do comfortably.

TNA's response to the cease-and-desist letter about the Crazzy Steve/Decay gimmicks is basically "LOL." They don't think it will hold up due to how many other wrestlers have worn facepaint and had clown-like features.

The Undertaker is set for TV tapings in Europe later this month. It's possible he just appears for the live crowd, as he's not advertised for Payback.

John Cena talked about his beginnings in the business and more:
- That OVW class was aces.

- Pre-rapper John Cena would always have different colored tights for his matches. He had quite the collection.

- The FU name during his early feud with Brock was GENIUS. The STFU was a good name, too.

ROH will have another Field of Honor show on August 27. Smartly, they're not trying to go against the (expected) Takeover special in that same market the previous week.

The ROH-NJPW show on May 14 has sold out. Using NJPW names has been key for ROH lately.

Baylor University football player LaQuan McGowan is hoping to get into WWE. He's already talked to JR. I know a lot of fans are elitist about football players coming into WWE, but he's worth a look. If he's dedicated to becoming a wrestler, he's definitely got the stats to be a mastadon.

Sting discussed his WWE career. Wins and losses only matter to marks. He had some big milestones in his brief time in WWE.

The class-action lawsuit against WWE over Network royalties has been dismissed by the party bringing it. However, it's possible they re-file down the line after re-examining things.

Impact Wrestling's replay on Pop has been moved from immediately after the first airing to Saturday mornings at 11:30 a.m. EST. I expect the goal is to get the people who were watching the replay on Tuesday nights to move to watching the first airing, bumping up the audience number. It's worth trying.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. The loss was more about Lesnar being nearly indestructible than anything about Dean. He's still a top guy getting important segments. If he beats Jericho, he'll have rebounded from his Lesnar loss.

2. I didn't think so at all. An NXT talent WON the battle royal on his first night on the main roster. That's a pretty big rub. As for the Balor Club, why debut them in a random segment like that when they could build them up for something important? The nWo debuting all at once unadvertised at the end of someone's PPV match would have been really dumb. That segment was a way to use three legends with big Texas backgrounds. Not using those names on the show would have been ridiculous. It also set up Barrett getting dropped from LoN and them feuding with the Wyatts 3-on-3. The "smarks," as usual, are way off base about booking and need to wait to see how things play out before rushing to react negatively. 

3. I expect Velocity and Heat to end up on the Network someday, but they're probably low on the priority list. And WWE already has a LOT of content on TV. Another show is the last thing they need right now.

4. It looks they're slowly turning Reigns heel, or at least making him a tweener who doesn't really care who's booing him. I'm all for it.

5. Someone has to be the jobber. They can't "push" everyone. That's just the nature of the business. If it comes down to pushing Breeze instead of someone like Zayn, AJ, or Owens, they have to make a choice to have one side win/get momentum unless they want a lot of 50/50 booking where hardly anyone gets over.

Yesterday's questions made me glad I wasn't covering wrestling when Goldberg was beating everyone on the WCW roster. "Why is Bischoff burying everyone? He's so out of touch. Goldberg should turn heel and the nWo should turn face."

More wrestling tomorrow.

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