WWE released footage of Kassius Ohno returning to NXT. In 2017, there's little that can be done to control spoilers at live events, and WWE wanted to jump on the web traffic of people talking about his return.
Chris Hero's final independent appearances before joining NXT will be January 27 and 28 with EVOLVE. That could be a pretty big weekend for him.
Christopher Daniels' ROH contract is said to be a longterm affair. I expect him to be an important part of their future as he transitions into more of a producer/Creative role.
Bobby Fish's ROH contract is said to be an extension of his 2016 contract, with the two sides working on a longer deal. It'll be interesting to see what he does with O'Reilly expected to go to WWE.
Kyle O'Reilly is still working with ROH on a per-date basis while considering other options, namely WWE and Floslam. The latter is a pretty interesting proposition. He's not out the door yet, as had been previously implied.
War Machine's future is somewhat up in the air, as NJPW and WWE are both reportedly interested in them.
BJ Whitmer has signed a new ROH contract. That's really good for ROH with Corino and Nigel gone. Whitmer can move into a commentary position.
"Iron" Mike Sharpe could be honored with a statue in his hometown. That would be pretty cool.
Roman Reigns vs. JeriKO for the WWE United States Championship is set for Raw. Presumably both heels will be champions if they can beat Reigns. There won't be anything left to settle between the two sides in San Antonio with as much as they've faced off at this point. Sheesh.
Kenny Omega will be taking some time off from NJPW, opening up speculation regarding his future. His goal has long been to headline in the Tokyo Dome, which he just did with a very highly acclaimed match. He could be looking for new mountains to climb in other promotions. He's close with New Day, so it's easy to speculate he'll be WWE bound sooner rather than later. It's also entirely possible he ends up right back in NJPW in a few months. Either way, he's going to be a pretty talked-about performer in 2017.
TNA drew 290,000 viewers for the semi-live episode. Not a strong debut, as they were generally topping 300,000 for taped episodes a few months back. But maybe people will get back into the swing of things after two weeks of recaps.
WWE has officially announced the 16 competitors for the UK Championship tournament, including recent TNA performer Mark Andrews and former NXT star Danny Burch. They could have a pretty decent roster for a weekly show already if they go through with it.
- WWE Network will air a preview special for the UK tournament Monday night.
Raquel is no longer part of TNA. She wrestled a grand total of eight matches since starting there in April. She's still taking bookings in other promotions, so this isn't a case of her leaving wrestling. Raquel is still quite early in her wrestling career, so we could end up seeing her on TV again at some point.
For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. Unless they change the policy (which could end up getting them a lot of heat), those Wellness violations are still there for Jeff. Jeff seems to have really turned his life around, so hopefully he wouldn't get that third strike if he returned.
2. I would expect Matt would have the rights to everything he's done. He has that kind of pull.
3. WWE likes money. If they think the Hardys will make them money and the Hardys want to go there, they'll bring them back.
4. The main thing I wouldn't do would be assume the audience at large is familiar with the current iteration of the characters. The Full Sail crowd probably does, but there's no way Little Jimmy and the soccer moms (with the AJ Styles haircut) do given TNA's ratings. If they're going right to the main roster, I'd do a few weeks of vignettes setting up who the Hardys were and how they've become who they are now. They'd have to film some new stuff in Cameron and have Matt narrate and all that - I would think buying/licensing footage from TNA would be a hard sell. Fortunately, them coming to WWE would be a new chapter and they wouldn't have to do much in the way of recapping things involving TNA names. Just the basic stuff of The Seven Deities and the lake and all.
5. I wouldn't think Meek Mahan would "get" it, but I'd like to think The Man With Three H's would understand why it's over and try to let Matt be Matt as much as possible.
More wrestling tomorrow.
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