Impact taping match set, Bellas appear, Foley in pro wrestling hall, Tamina in action again, new WWE HoFer, Hardys leave Impact after spat with new regime, Impact contract changes, Impact tag team championship update, Impact claims ownership of BROKEN gimmick, HHH wrestling at live events, Impact backstage changes, Impact touring update, Raw PPV set, what happened after Raw, and Questions on the battle royal ending, older active wrestlers in the WWE HoF, Bayley's title win, why WWE's movie isn't using Paige, and handshakes before matches

Cody vs. Moose is official for the March 2 Impact Wrestling taping, so that will be on a future episode. So, Cody will still be freelancing there for a while. He's basically in the position to work where he wants as often or rarely as he wants, so Impact should be glad he's not staying exclusive to NJPW/ROH. Ultimately I think keeping him will depend on him having opponents and scenarios he's interested in. 

The Bella Twins were on E!'s Oscars red carpet pre-show. They're entertainment stars; I expect we'll see Nikki on WWE TV as long as she wants to be a wrestler.

Mick Foley is being inducted into the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame in May. I was actually unaware that was in Texas now. It has no affiliation with any major promotion.

Tamina Snuka worked Smackdown live events this weekend, losing a Smackdown Women's Championship match including Alexa Bliss, Becky Lynch, and Natalya. They could certainly put Tamina in with Naomi out and Nikki also about to take time off.

Beth Phoenix has been announced for the WWE Hall of Fame. That's something of a surprise. While she's definitely deserving, I figured they'd pick someone from an earlier era to induct. I wouldn't assume this means we won't see Chyna inducted into the Hall this year, but it would seem to cast doubt on that happening.

- Beth responded to the honor on Twitter. I'm happy for her.

Matt and Jeff Hardy have left Impact Wrestling while holding the promotion's tag team championships. This makes three former Impact World Champions finishing up in two days. Big, big loss for the company given how much of a focal point the Hardy Family had been for the past year. The act is so over it spread to other promotions.

- The Hardys had verbally agreed to new contracts in December, but internal changes in Impact led to them reconsidering the deals. A major factor was the amount of creative control the duo had over their current storylines, which would have been curtailed under Jeff Jarrett's booking team. There was even talk of splitting the duo in order to push Jeff as a singles star. Notably, there was talk under the Corgan regime of adding Matt to creative in an official capacity in order to help cultivate other talents in addition to the Broken storyline.

- Another top factor was the new contracts requiring talents to approve appearances outside Impact Wrestling, with a percentage of those bookings going back to Impact. This was a no-go for the Hardys, who have had a LOT of successful indie bookings due to the Broken angle.

- From Impact's perspective, the Hardys were two highly-paid talents at a time when viewership has really dropped from a few years ago. With them not wanting to come to terms with the new regime, a lot of money is freed up to sign other performers. Impact is focusing on rebuilding and cutting costs, and this move is part of that. Obviously the Hardys are hugely successful for a non-WWE act, but I see where Impact's coming from as far as having a limited budget.

- At one point, the Hardys offered to work the upcoming Impact tapings in order to drop their tag team championship. Now, that's not expected to happen. That really says something about the schism between the two sides.

- Rebecca Hardy/Reby Sky, Senor Benjamin, etc. are also out. Reby was under contract, but none of the other guest players were.

- There's already speculation of at least Matt and Jeff being WWE-bound. They're booked for indie appearances through the end of April, but it's very possible the two sides do end up working something out sooner rather than later. Of course, with Wrestlemania approaching, the Hardys could make a big appearance sometime in that week of shows. How much freedom WWE would let them have, and whether WWE would let them do their current act instead of playing for nostalgia with Team Xtreme, is up in the air. I'd like to think WWE knows they're onto something with the Broken angle and would give them some serious leeway.

- The Hardys are still scheduled to wrestle the Young Bucks at Supercard of Honor XI. This shouldn't affect any of their currently booked dates.

- Impact is claiming ownership of the Broken gimmick and angle, and they could presumably try to stop the Hardys from using it elsewhere. Oh, yeah, that will go over REALLY well. That could easily really backfire on Impact, at least from a fan goodwill standpoint. And how are they going to do anything Broken without the Hardys anyway? Are they going to pull a Fake Diesel/Fake Razor Ramon with Matt and Jeff? That would actually be kind of funny in a really petty way.

- Reby Sky absolutely buried Impact on Twitter, suggesting the Hardys would keep possession of the physical Impact Wrestling Tag Team Championship. Obviously that would be crossing a legal line. I sympathize, though, and it would definitely really make a big statement.  Man, Impact really dropped the ball to the point their champions refuse to work one last episode.

- Matt Hardy put out a pair of tweets to announce leaving the company: Tweet 1 Tweet 2. You can definitely read shade from Matt there.

Triple H is booked for live events on March 10 and March 26, in order to prepare for Wrestlemania. The March 26 show will see Triple H team with Kevin Owens and Samoa Joe against Chris Jericho, Finn Balor, and Sami Zayn. So that confirms Jericho as a face if there was any doubt. It's possible as always HHH ends up working some more matches in the months to come.

WWE Network gift cards are now available at Dollar General. They continue to expand outlets for the online venture.

Dutch Mantel has been officially named head of creative for Impact Wrestling, reporting to Jeff Jarrett in Jeff's new role as chief creative officer. I look forward to seeing what they do for the company.

John Gaburick has been moved into a consulting role at Impact Wrestling. He will be able to give feedback to the new creative team, but isn't in a decision-making capacity on that end anymore. He's more or less in the Kevin Dunn role there now.

Impact creative team member Matt Conway has departed the company as part of the creative shakeup.

Bill Banks has also departed Impact Wrestling. He had been there for some time in a number of roles. His departure is unrelated to the regime change; he simply wanted to start a new chapter in his life back home in the Northeast.

Impact Wrestling talents will now be paid by date, rather than by episode. So, a talent working three episodes on one taping day would only be paid for one day. I wouldn't assume this means a cut in pay; it could just be a simpler way of keeping track of things. But, of course, it could also mean a big pay cut. That won't sit well, but I don't know how many talents would actually leave over it. There could also be changes with how royalty payments are handed out.

Impact Wrestling isn't expected to tour for live events again until fall. Previously they had planned to start touring in June. It could be that timeline was rushed to be timed with their 15th anniversary that month. They definitely want to get things working right when they do go back on the road. The UK and India are likely priorities as markets.

Raw's Extreme Rules event is set for June 4 in Maryland. Chris Jericho is advertised for the show, so presumably he's headed right back to the road after a brief Fozzy tour.

Brock Lesnar called out and F5'd Big Show again after Raw to conclude the taping. I'm surprised Brock isn't involved in Fast Lane, at least to be on-hand to watch Owens vs. Goldberg. I assume we could see Y2J interfere in that match instead.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. As alluded to, they had already booked things to "be a tie" whether we saw otherwise or not. I think the angle is one referee says Harper landed first and the other says Styles landed first, so they're settling it with a one-on-one match. So, blame that one awful referee who "saw it wrong." And of course "a referee's decision is final." Yeah, they basically want you to cut them slack there.

2. I agree with their take here. I'm OK with someone going in the night before their last match or last brief run, but they have to be committed to retiring really shortly after going in.

3. They want Charlotte to have about a billion title reigns and not lose on PPV until WM33 (if then), so they had Bayley take the title for a brief reign on the road to the final chapter (?) at Mania.

4. From the sounds of things Rock and co. want to do this story but WWE doesn't want to promote Paige until/unless she's cleared, if they're going to use her again at all. Even then, as was said, they want to use an actual actress and a stunt double. Having Paige do her own scenes would be pretty distracting and potentially overshadow everything else.

5. Yeah, I hate it. I'm not generally a fan of the move toward the "we're all just chums seeing who's the best athlete" mentality in some parts of wrestling. Too hokey for me.

More wrestling tomorrow.