Superstars Reax - 6/24/16, CWC taping notes including visitors and matches, new brand-exclusive WWE PPVs coming, Interview with Kelly Kelly, Smackdown audience, NXT live event notes, NXT dark match, and Questions on Impact's technical issues, the Resurrection of Jake and Hall, title changes for the draft, inventing the powerbomb, and retired wrestlers

Superstars:
 - Ascension vs. Golden Truth:
Damn, the Ascension are going to job on two shows in one week? They're not wasting any time putting Konnor back to work.

Good teamwork from both sides early.

This isn't bad for something of a throwaway match.

- Dragons vs. Dudleys:
I love Bubba's trash talking.

It's bad that there's better psychology on Superstars than in some matches ROH just put on PPV.

There's only so much more mileage they can get from "that team who used to put people through tables."

Good spot from Kalisto and Bubba with the former U.S. Champion having trouble pulling off a rana on a larger opponent.

That was pretty good. It's OK to have some flippy teams if they can tell good stories and it's not a large fraction of the division often facing each other.

**********************NEWS BEGINS BELOW THIS LINE**************************

Triple H referred to the recent CWC taping as launching a brand. Yeah, I think it's way too early to claim that. If the shows pull in big numbers and it comes back next year, then we can talk about it being a "brand." They've had one taping, and none of the shows have aired.

- NXT staff and producers worked backstage for the taping. I'm not surprised.

- Finn Balor was backstage, and Teddy Hart, Su Yung, and Chasyn Rance were in attendance. The latter two have pretty impressive resumes. Both could be worth looks by WWE. Yung briefly worked in FCW years ago, but she's gotten a lot more experience since then.

- While WWE has not released brackets announcing which winners will face off in the second round, here are the matches taped for the first four episodes:
-- Alejandro Saez vs. Gran Metalik
-- Ariya Daivari vs. Ho Ho Lun
-- Cedric Alexander vs. Clement Petiot
-- Brian Kendrick vs. Raul Mendoza
-- Damian Slater vs. Tajiri
-- Da Mack vs. TJ Perkins
-- Lince Dorado vs. Mustafa Ali
-- Akira Tozawa vs. Kenneth Johnson
-- Tyson Dux vs. Zack Sabre, Jr.
-- Drew Gulak vs. Harv Sirka
-- Anthony Bennett vs. Tony Nese
-- Kota Ibushi vs. Sean Maluta
-- Jason Lee vs. Rich Swann
-- Gurv Sihra vs. Noam Dar
-- Fabian Aichner vs. Jack Gallagher
-- Johnny Gargano vs. Tommasso Ciampa

--- I expect Round 1 will just be something of a feeling-out process where the more well-known/established/polished wrestlers will defeat their opponents in something of a showcase of what they can do in order to set up bigger things for Round 2. That's probably the right move, considering the WWE Network audience is likely unfamiliar with a lot of these performers.

- Zumbi was pulled from the tournament due to a booking elsewhere the same night. He was replaced by one of the alternates WWE had on hand.

WWE's brand extension means additions to and changes to their remaining PPV schedule:
- Battleground is on July 24 and will feature both brands.
- Summerslam is on August 21 and will feature both brands.
- Backlash is on September 11 and will be Smackdown-exclusive.
- Clash of Champions is on September 25 and will be Raw-exclusive.
- No Mercy is on October 9 and will be Smackdown-exclusive.
- Hell in a Cell is on October 30 and will be Raw-exclusive.
- Survivor Series is on November 20 and will feature both brands.
- TLC is on December 4 and will be Smackdown-exclusive.
- Roadblock is on December 18 and will be Raw-exclusive.

WWE already has an exhausting amount of content each month. They've got their work cut out for them in filling that many hours of TV/PPVs. It can be done, but it's going to be pretty fatiguing for fans and performers alike.

Kelly Kelly talked about a number of wrestling-related topics:
- Vince taught her how to do her "exhibitionist" dance for her ECW brand debut. That visual is both disturbing and hysterical.

- Kelly's open to having another match in WWE. I wouldn't rule it out, but I also don't see WWE promoting a former wrestler who's not on "their show," Total Divas. Eh.

- Kelly critiques the current WWE women's landscape. Hopefully Bayley prospers in the babyface role.

- Kelly discussed learning of Test's death. That had to be REALLY tough.

Smackdown's audience Thursday night was 2.15 million, pretty much in line with what they usually do these days. That's for a show featuring Rollins and Ambrose prominently.

NXT live event notes from Florida:
- Mojo Rawley won a singles match. No Ryder.

- India's Kishan Raftar lost to Steve Cutler.

- Tough Enough's Patrick Clark teamed with Angelo Dawkins in a loss. NXT could try that out as a tag team going forward.

The NXT taping's dark match saw Tye Dillinger beat Kai Katana. It will be interesting to see if that means Katana will get a NXT tryout from that or if it was just a one-time thing to give Tye a win.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. WWE doesn't need to bury TNA, nor are they trying to. They had nothing to do with the situation. It was related to Pop's master control facility in Atlanta.

Nothing to add to 2 other than wishing the same for the recovering Roberts and Hall.

3. I do think the U.S. and IC Titles will end up on different shows as the result of the draft (or at least that would make sense). It's possible they throw a curveball where Rusev and Miz are both on one show and one of them loses their title at Battleground, but there's no word on that being on the table at the moment.

4. That wasn't an odd or obvious question at all! I was glad to learn more about the move's history.

5. Tanaka has actually worked a handful of matches in the past 10 years.

More wrestling tomorrow.