The Addiction individually threw out ceremonial first pitches at their local minor league baseball stadiums. I hope that brought in some publicity for ROH. It doesn't matter how many suicide dives you can do if people don't know about your match and how to watch it.
Holy Foley will air its first episode following Summerslam. There will be a preview episode this weekend. I'm curious what the long-term expectation is for Noelle. NXT wrestling contract? Assistant to GM Foley? They'd better be careful not to put her in the ring on live TV before she's ready. That might work for a short-term deal, but she'll have to earn her stripes and learn the ropes if she wants to make it over the long haul. Charlotte vs. Noelle could be quite the angle if there's a chance Mr. Foley's Baby Girl can hang with the former champion.
Roman Reigns received two stitches after being busted open in Australia. It seems like more people are getting busted open these days.
Mark Henry is at the Olympics scouting talent on behalf of WWE. I can easily see him moving into a backstage role of scouting/working with talent once his in-ring days are over.
Triple H discussed armchair booking and more:
- I'm not going to lie; I actually kind of want to see libertarian philosopher Glenn Jacobs as a character. I wouldn't think it'd be hard to get there from Corporate Kane.
- I'm not going to lie; I actually kind of want to see libertarian philosopher Glenn Jacobs as a character. I wouldn't think it'd be hard to get there from Corporate Kane.
- I REALLY want to know who tried out for the ass-kicker role but was out of place. We need to see more promo class footage make it online.
- I totally agree about people needing characters. The CWC has been lacking in that area for some people, so hopefully HHH's comments here mean we'll still see personalities at the forefront in the years to come.
- Nice shots at the Internet critics who care more about win-loss records than the workers themselves hopefully do. Obviously people who never win the big one are hard to believe as World Title contenders, but it's more complicated than just a win percentage.
- Tag team wrestling has absolutely helped people get over who would be hitting a wall as singles competitors. It's good to see that make a comeback.
Shane McMahon gave a big interview. He's still not back in the company as an executive or anything beyond his on-screen appearances.
Big Cass was interviewed. Twice. I think he's definitely got a future in the business.
Big Show gave an interview regarding getting in shape for the tail end of his career. Some are speculating he might finish as a wrestler shortly after WM33; previous indications were him retiring closer to WM34, as he signed a five-year deal in early 2013. We'll see how things go in that regard. At any rate, it's good to hear he's been given time away from the ring in order to make the final run of his career really matter. It's almost hard to believe he'll be retiring at some point after so many years as part of WWE.
Wrestling legend Sailor Art Thomas was profiled in his hometown. I think it's phenomenal WWE is honoring talents from bygone eras in the HoF and hope that continues. Wrestling didn't start with Hogan or even Bruno. Far from it, in fact.
Pete Gas is writing a book about his wrestling career, due in 2017. I wanted to see the Posse at WM32 SO badly.
Mr. Anderson, Shane Helms, Melina, Scotty 2 Hotty, and Chris Melendez are appearing as part of a tour of the Middle East with Armed Forces Entertainment. Helms was given leave from this week's TNA tapings in order to work there. Hopefully that doesn't mean we won't see Andrew Everett and Trevor Lee on upcoming shows.
WWE has commissioned a Cruiserweight Championship for Raw. The plan is to start featuring talents from that division in September.
WWE is moving forward with offering contracts to CWC competitors. Some names are being offered main roster deals, some are being recruited for the NXT level, and some names could be working a per date/part-time basis. Kota Ibushi is believed to be in this last category, and is expected to be part of Summerslam weekend in some fashion. He'd be a natural last minute addition for Takeover, but who would be his opponent? Murphy?
The latest edition of WWE 24 will focus on the women's revolution and air on August 23. I assume Sasha and Charlotte will be heavily featured.
Luke Harper talked about the brand extension and more:
- I think they deliberately kept Harper off the free agent list on WWE.com so it's a surprise when he returns from injury. I suppose he's not a free agent when he's still on the shelf for the time being. At any rate, he's overthinking a WWE.com article. He shouldn't get worked up over it, because it almost definitely has no bearing on actual plans for him.
- I hope Luke has a lot of success, but if he gets caught up in fake titles and WWE.com articles, he's not being smart. His goal should be to make a lot of money while he can still take bumps.
- Cool to see Harper namedrop some NJPW names. I'd absolutely like to see Okada, Elgin, and Tanahashi in WWE. I don't know if WWE would take a chance on 39-year-old Tanahashi, but Okada and Elgin are definitely people to consider recruiting.
- He's at least smart enough to know the brand extension opens up a lot of opportunities for people to be on the card and get paid.
- Harper also gets Conor's comments were good for business for both sides because it got people riled up and interested.
- I do think the WWE style is still a thing to a degree as far as playing to the camera and working a slower pace. People definitely have more leeway than they did in 2008 or so, though.
Billy Corgan has been promoted as president of TNA, with Dixie Carter moving to being chairwoman and chief strategy officer. Essentially, this means Corgan will handle the day-to-day running of the company while Dixie will be in charge of the long-term plans for TNA's growth. It will be really interesting to see how this affects TNA's power structure and how things operate going forward. It's certainly worth trying a new strategy given TNA's current lack of momentum.
- Corgan's promotion was received well backstage. He's definitely devoted to the company and its growth. It would be unreasonable to expect him to drop his music career to focus on TNA full-time, though. It's not like TNA is really "full-time" these days anyway.
WWE has canceled this week's charity concert, likely due to slow ticket sales. Perhaps if they would have announced the concert further in advance it would have done better. We'll see if they try anything else in this vein going forward. My hunch is they'll give the idea another shot at some point given Stephanie's focus on philanthropy.
TNA has announced a four way ladder match for next week's Impact Wrestling. The Hardys, The Tribunal, The Helms Dynasty, and The Bro-Mans will compete with the winning team challenging Decay for the tag team championship at Bound For Glory. I'm not sure where that leaves Bram as far as his own angle with Decay. The Broken Hardys going for titles sounds pretty entertaining, given how both acts are off-the-wall these days.
Cheeseburger gave an interview. He's really over in Japan. It's crazy.
TNA's audience Thursday was 315,000 for a semi-live episode featuring an important, hyped (online) debut and a match with THREE singles championships on the line. They're throwing everything they can at the wall to try to move that number, and it's just not happening. Hopefully they see a bump next week from the debut of Aron Rex.
JBL will be interviewing Sting on the WWE Network Friday. That one should be pretty interesting. It's really cool to see Sting in the WWE family now.
Saturday's Takeover special is listed as going from 8 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., with a 30-minute preshow at 7:30. It should be one heck of a show, and could be something of a game changer for NXT.
WWE has filed a motion for an emergency hearing on the big class action lawsuit filed against them last month. They're seeking to have the case moved to being under the jurisdiction of the same judge who dismissed the majority of the previous class action lawsuit in order to avoid having to go over the same ground covered in those hearings. If they're successful in that move, it's definitely possible the judge will throw out much of this new lawsuit before it can gather much steam, saving WWE a lot of time and money fighting something they've pretty much already dealt with in court.
- Jerry McDevitt buried this lawsuit AND Buff Bagwell's recent lawsuit. Does this look like a guy who has sympy for jabronis trying to scheme for a payday?
The USPTO gave initial refusal to WWE's trademarks for CWC, Cruiserweight Classic, Royal Rumble, Karl Anderson, Luke Gallows, Colin Cassady, and Lady Balls due to overly vague/broad language used in filing for the trademarks. WWE will have to be more clear in describing the nature of the marks applied for in order to get them officially granted by the office. They have six months to reply to the USPTO's ruling.
For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. That's pretty much it. I suspect we'll see WWE return to the Garden for something on TV at some point, but I can't blame them for running the more economical venue that seats around the same number of people.
1. That's pretty much it. I suspect we'll see WWE return to the Garden for something on TV at some point, but I can't blame them for running the more economical venue that seats around the same number of people.
2. WWE/NXT would seem to be the most likely destination, since he could already be working NJPW or TNA at this point. He'd be a good veteran to have on hand for the brand extension. As for why we haven't seen him yet, he's presumably getting in all the good-paying indie gigs he can and was already booked for ahead of moving on.
3. The media and Wall Street have surprisingly largely ignored the issue. It didn't even come up during the recent stockholders' conference call.
4. People in power getting good-paying/important spots for their family members is hardly a new thing, and definitely not limited to wrestling!
5. My guess would be iTunes having a bigger audience than DVDs in 2016, so LU might not think there'd be enough interest to go that route. They're definitely looking at additional platforms of distribution, though.
More wrestling tomorrow.
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