Main Event Reax - 3/10/17, UK brand gets live events with 205 Live, Impact site down, more HoFer moments on the Network, Y2J books plenty of Fozzy dates, Broken footage that wasn't on Impact, WWE combines online teams, Titus press, NXT women's angle pushed, another big role for Cena, plenty of ROH PPV hype, Sinclair network shut down, another wrestling podcast, Balor comeback begins, Reby buries Impact, Impact sues Hardys with implications for ROH, Impact audience, NXT and Raw live event notes, ROH injury update, and Questions on Dan Matha, Emma, Smackdown's WM33 women's match, more HoF inductions, booking Goldberg, Bookdust's title reign, and WWE not turning Roman

-- Main Event:
- Commentary:
No R-Truth? I guess they're not going with him as an announcer after all.

- Jinder vs. Curtis:
An FCW special! 

Fine work so far. Both men are skilled.

I like Mahal well enough despite being pretty basic in his offense.

Curtis can be REALLY smooth. He's a good hand to have around.

Nice ending! Good for a time filler.

- Gallagher/Mustafa vs. Nese/Dar:
Fun start. They're running the risk of overexposing Jack, but I enjoy him so far.

Dar and Nese make a fine team. 205 Live has been good so far. 

Pretty solid action all around.

Mustafa's impressive. He doesn't necessarily stand out in the division, but he's skilled.

Pretty good action. I'm always in awe of the inverted 450.

WWE has booked two "UK Championship Live" events, on May 6 and May 7 in Norwich, England. In addition to a fair amount of UK tournament competitors, WWE has booked stars from 205 Live including Rich Swann, Akira Tozawa, TJ Perkins, The Brian Kendrick, and Tony Nese. That's a big step for both brands. It's crazy to see WWE doing events at that level with no big Raw or Smackdown names. I'm liking the evolution of the company as one that will do events at the Wrestlemania level as well as at the UK Title tournament level.

Impact's new website crashed due to traffic. It's good to see a lot of buzz for Alberto and the other new elements to the promotion.

WWE has added Rick Rude moments to their 2017 Hall of Fame collection. I expect Christian will be the next Hall of Famer announced, so he'll have some moments on that collection, too.

Chris Jericho and Fozzy have announced quite a few tour dates for May. Y2J is booked through Payback, and is also advertised for Extreme Rules, so he'll really just miss that month.

The Hardys showed footage of their Expedition of Gold that didn't air on Impact Wrestling. Glad to see what really happened there.

WWE has combined their social media and digital departments, resulting in a number of top members of the social media team being let go. It makes sense to put the departments together, but I can see why it came as a shock during Mania season when they should theoretically want as many hands on deck as possible.

Titus O'Neil was honored in Tampa Bay for his community work. That's really great! I'm sure WWE thinks highly of him for it, too.

WWE is doing an angle where Billie Kay and Peyton Royce are trying to get Ember Moon's finisher banned. I like the idea of selling that finisher as really devastating, because it definitely looks brutal.

John Cena has signed on to be part of a Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg comedy, so that's another reason he'll be missing time after WM33.

ROH got a big story in USA Today before their 15th anniversary show:
- Pretty wild to see Daniels in the main event of the first show and the 15th anniversary show. He's had a legacy in the business.

- ROH is definitely different from what WWE offers, although WWE at times tries to copy the "indie style" and is now using smaller wrestlers.

- It's definitely great for ROH to be on all those Sinclair stations, since they're not getting any opportunities on many other networks in the U.S.

- Umm. A lot of others complain there's not enough promos and storylines. ROH and its style are a niche market.

- The Bucks value their independence outside of WWE, and could very well have signed there when AJ, Anderson, and Gallows did. Lethal can be a big fish in a small pond in ROH. I wouldn't be surprised if he does end up in NXT when other waves of talents graduate to the main roster.

ROH's parent company Sinclair is shutting down the American Sports Network. There had been speculation they would eventually turn the Tennis Network into ASN and potentially feature ROH on cable, but that's no longer a possibility. Sinclair would gladly have another deal where ROH is featured on a non-Sinclair channel, but for now they're still featured on local stations and Comet.

Edge and Christian are launching a podcast March 24. That could be a lot of fun if their Network show is any indication.

Finn Balor tweeted ahead of his return to action for WWE. I hope he comes back and does big things on TV soon.

- Balor will be featured in a UK-exclusive DVD to release on April 17. He has the potential to be a big star for that market and the WWE Universe as a whole.

Joe Koff put over ROH before its big anniversary show:
- Sounds like the Hardys are going to do a couple of big matches and potentially head to WWE this summer. They've got the opportunity to work with pretty much everyone they want outside of the company. Then, once they've marked all those names off the list, WWE will be ready for them.

- I'm very interested to see what Bully does. He can really add credibility there.

- Ha! Yeah, they're pretty much sticking with the crowd who follows Dave Meltzer and hates Roman Reigns.

- Interesting remarks about seeing ROH content on the Network. That could definitely potentially add some subscribers, although I would think all the people who remember "Tyler Black" and "Kevin Steen" have already seen a lot of that footage and won't subscribe to Vince's network to see it again.

- Growing a bit internationally would be good, but they're only going to get so far as the niche "highspots" promotion.

- Koff doesn't get involved in the booking as far as I know.

- Heh. Dancing around the fact Cole's probably bailing in a few months for NXT.

Rebecca Hardy buried Impact on Twitter for all the recent departures and issues following Impact suing the Hardys regarding the BROKEN Universe. There's no real need to quote it here. Just plenty of "Matt's great and the best part of Impact and you screwed him. F you guys. Everyone left LOL I CAN'T."

- As alluded to, Impact sent out cease and desist letters to the Hardys, seeking to bar them from making use of anything from the "Broken" universe because it was created under the Impact banner. It's like how the people who made Barbies can't leave Mattel and take all those trademarks with them. Whether Impact truly owns that content is a legal matter that will depend on language in Matt and Jeff's contracts. I question the wisdom in this, because it will cost a lot of money to make this a legal case and no matter the end result, they're preventing wrestlers from doing really popular work elsewhere. In a lot of ways, whether they're legally in the right or not, they're hurting their own reputation and preventing fans from seeing one of the most over acts in wrestling. Is it really worth all the money and potential PR damage just to screw the Hardys? Why not focus on making new acts, like they got started at the TV tapings?

- Ed Nordholm put out two tweets insisting all the "Broken" related content is property of Impact. I don't really see much point in trying to keep ownership of that material, because it's not like Impact's going to be able to make use of any of it with all the chief players having left.

- ROH and PPV carriers that aired their 15th anniversary PPV also got cease and decease letters about the trademarks, which explains why ROH didn't do anything with the Broken material, including referring to Jeff as Jeff instead of Nero. Yeah, that's REALLY going to endear Anthem to the ROH audience. That could damage any potential working agreement between Impact and ROH that might have occurred. For anyone wondering, this is an Anthem move rather than a Jeff Jarrett move.

- ROH's PPV was pulled from Dish Network in what was likely a result of this legal action. So, Anthem took money from the ROH wrestlers working that show and likely prevented number of people from seeing Daniels win the ROH World Championship.

Impact drew 292,000 viewers this week for the first show of the new regime, almost identical with the previous week. We'll see if they get a big bump as a reaction to the big debut/title change next week, but clearly any online buzz for the new beginning didn't result in an increase in viewership.

Lince Dorado and Gran Metalik beat Drew Gulak and Noam Dar at an NXT live event in Florida.

ROH's TK O'Ryan was taken to the hospital for an MRI after an Asai moonsault went badly on the 15th anniversary PPV. That was a REALLY scary bump. We'll see if this ends up affecting the Kingdom's title reign. Unfortunate timing as that was a big stage for him.

At a Raw live event in New York:
- Big Cass beat Jinder Mahal. Enzo was in Cass' corner, but no Rusev.
- Brock Lesnar beat Big Show. Heyman heeled the crowd before the match.
- Chris Jericho, Sami Zayn, and Finn Balor beat Samoa Joe, Kevin Owens, and HHH in Finn and HHH's in-ring returns. I really wonder what Finn's set for on TV.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. Matha was specifically built up for a few weeks for Joe to destroy him as part of the angle of him more or less taking NXT hostage in order to get a match with Shinsuke. He's still working NXT live events. WWE spent months hoping Emma would nail the Emmalina character in auditions before finally dropping it. Now they're presumably looking for something to do with Emma in her previous character. Raw's division is pretty much just Charlotte, Nia, Sasha, and Bayley going into WM33. HOPEFULLY they'll start featuring more names after that event. As talented as those names are, some variety will be good.

2. That looks like the perfect place to have someone like Tamina return and/or have some cameos from people like Kelly Kelly. Whether that will happen or not remains to be seen.

3. I'm also surprised there hasn't been any word on either. Those inductions aren't as important as a lot of other things Vince has on his plate during Mania season, so they'll be kind of a last-minute addition.

4. Both sides knew he was only going to do a couple of big matches, so WWE's making the most of them. WWE needs Goldberg more than he needs them.

5. Presumably WWE had other priorities of acts to push. As much fun as Booker and Goldust were, they were more there for the comedy aspect than running through teams left and right.

6. I'm sure that's part of it. It's not like the IWC are going to go buy his merchandise in droves like the younger members of the WWE Universe will do. They'll just move on to complaining about something else if WWE turns him.

More wrestling tomorrow.