Sandman surgery, NXT live event notes, more NJPW in English, comedy wrestling film in the works, wrong Impact episode shown, Aron Rex note, War of the Worlds '17 in the works, more Brock dates, Vince on his success and stepping away, Don West back in TNA, Ottman health update, Impact audience, TNA creative notes, TNA moving HQ?, HHH on Kenny and the UK, and Questions on Cena teasing Omega, WWE saving Sunny, Asian names in WWE, EC3 post-Aunt Dee, and Drew's future

The Sandman's knee replacement surgery was successful. I hope his health is good for 2017 and beyond, and that he doesn't have to keep taking bumps to pay the bills.

At an NXT live event in Florida:
- Vic Joseph debuted as the host of the event.
- Lana defeated Macey Evans. No Rusev.
- Jack Gallagher beat Kona Reeves, while Ariya Daivari/Mustafa Ali lost to Montez Ford/Angelo Dawkins, so cruiserweights are facing non-cruiserweights. That's interesting. I'm OK with it, since the number of cruiser vs. cruiser matches they can do is pretty limited.
- Akira Tozawa beat Tony Nese. Lots of cruisers on this show.
- Kassius Ohno did a run-in, but wasn't in a match.

NJPW will have live English commentary for a lot of its major events between February and August. That's another big move for them as they look to expand their U.S. audience.

A comedy wrestling film is in the works featuring Kurt Angle, Mickie James, Tommy Dreamer, John Morrison, Ken Anderson, Jay Lethal, Joey Ryan, Candice LeRae, Chavo Guerrero, Kevin Kelly, Magnus, Gunner, Dalton Castle, The Briscoes, and The Addiction, who have a hand in the story of it. I'm curious how Mickie will be involved after signing with WWE. We'll see.

Fight Network and TNA's UK app initially aired the wrong episode of Impact Wrestling this week. TNA is the gift that keeps on giving sometimes.

- The digital episode sent to FN was corrupted, so they aired a repeat. A new copy was then sent and ran. The copy sent to Pop worked fine. Good ol' TNA. Hopefully they check things better before sending them out now.

Aron Rex's current character was an idea he had before the Intellectual Savior of the Masses. So, it's possible part of why he continues wrestling is in order to play a role he didn't get a chance to play in WWE.

ROH/NJPW's War of the Worlds tour is set for early May. An Ontario date has been booked for May 7, and more announcements are sure to follow.

Brock Lesnar is now advertised for every Raw between Monday's show and February 27, the go-home show for Fast Lane. The only Raw he won't be on is the February 13 show, due to being unable to compete in Nevada as a result of his UFC suspension. Brock is not currently advertised for Fast Lane, but I'd be surprised if he's not part of the show in some fashion.

- Brock has also been booked for the March 6 Raw on the road to WM33.

Vince McMahon talked about retirement and more:
- Vince isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Others are going to gain responsibilities behind the scenes and make their own mark on things (NXT, UK tournament, etc.), but Vince isn't stepping away or anything.

- Vince's work ethic is unbelievable. It can be argued he "should" slow down at 71, but he's going to fight tooth-and-nail to keep going as hard as he can for as long as he can.

- I'm sure Vince wants to keep expanding. Wrestlemania on the moon? Hell, he'll put Wrestlemania in another galaxy if he can.

- I mean, WWE existed for some time before Vince Jr. took over. He's taken it pretty far, but there was a lot of work already undertaken to get it to where it was when he bought it.

- Vince definitely had balls to make the changes he made to how things worked before his rise, taking talents from other promotions and such.

- See, Vince didn't try to do the same thing everyone else was doing, only better. He turned his company into something very different from what the others in the business presented.

- Vince not looking back, etc. is part of why he's able to make so many decisions and move the product so much.

- Ha. You know Vince enjoys being himself on TV, but he wants to control his baby movre.

- It's probably a good thing not to say who he thinks will be a top star at WM34, because some fans will turn on that person just for spite.

Don West is back in TNA for a big ShopTNA sale. OH MY GOOOOODDDDDD I've missed him. I assume a lot of this is to get rid of a lot of old merchandise still hanging out in the warehouse. Still great to see him back. He was a lot of fun in his roles.

- West coming back was a Jarrett suggestion.

Fred Ottman's wife gave a health update on the legend. I hope he recovers soon.

Impact Wrestling drew 277,000 viewers Thursday night. Soft numbers for the show under the Anthem banner.

A number of TNA storylines for this set of tapings were already in place before Billy Corgan departed. Any big creative changes could happen before the March tapings, but they wanted to get through these shows as seamlessly as possible.

TNA is looking to move all its staff into one location, as they're currently split between two buildings in two different parts of Nashville. It's possible all of those TNA employees will end up at Anthem HQ in Toronto.

Dixie Carter was not involved with anything at the TNA tapings this week. She's purely in an office job for Anthem now rather than having a direct role with how TNA runs.

Triple H commented on Kenny Omega and the UK tournament. Nothing really definitive; he can't say a lot about a talent still under contract with another promotion.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1.  It gets people talking about Cena and WWE, too! Might as well get some traffic to his own Instagram as much as people are talking about the situation.

2. Nope! That's definitely not something they want to get involved in. It could lead to negative press.

3. That happens sometimes when spelling out a non-English language name in English.

4. I don't think having the last name Carter will affect him in any way. He hasn't really been connected to Dixie on-screen in a while, so he shouldn't really

5. He can't have legally signed with WWE while still under TNA contract, so that was unlikely to have been his announcement. The jury's out on his future; he hasn't re-signed with TNA yet.

More wrestling tomorrow.