WWE and WWE personalities up for social media awards, new WWE show drops, Teddy's HOF inductors, WM33 singer booked, Impact audience, Alexa rumorkiller, WWE+NXT live event notes, new Ride Along hitting Monday, and Questions on Rusev going MIA, Strowman in Roman vs. Taker, Balor vs. Joe at WM33, Bo's future, and where Douglas Williams is

John Cena, WWE, Wrestlemania, and Xavier Woods' UpUpDownDown have all been nominated for 2017 Shorty Awards for Social Media Excellence:
- WWE and Wrestlemania have been nominated for Best in Entertainment
- WWE was nominated for "Best Integration with Live TV" and "Best Overall YouTube Presence"
- John Cena and cricket Wireless were nominated for Best Use of Comedy
- UpUpDownDown was nominated for Best Brand Identity.
-- The awards will be live-streamed on April 23. WWE really wants to pioneer in their digital presences and make that a big area for continued growth.

WWE has dropped the first episodes of Southpaw Regional Wrestling on their YouTube channel. The company also has shirts made for the project. That was pretty hilarious.

- Luke Gallows talked about the project. He and Karl are WAY more entertaining in this than as generic mean big guys.

Teddy Long will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame by the APA. I would have popped for DA UNDATAKAH!!!!!! But I don't see him doing that kind of thing. No complaints about JBL and Ron getting the nod, though.

Tinashe will perform "America the Beautiful" at Wrestlemania 33. I hope they don't have a long non-wrestling segment planned this year, musical or otherwise. Rock's last two appearances have gone on WAY too long.

Impact's audience Thursday was 344,000. That's a higher number than Total Nonstop Deletion, and the biggest audience they've had since November. So, some good news for the early weeks of the new regime. We'll see if they can keep that growth and eventually reach new heights.

Road Dogg shot down a report of Alexa Bliss "having heat," which Bliss appreciated. Fake news is alive and well!

WWE held a scheduled live event in Syracuse, New York despite the local power outage. Weather in the Northeast was BRUTAL recently.

WWE Ride Along with Golden Truth and The Club will air after Raw. Goldust and R-Truth haven't worked on TV since December, but I assume they still go to the tapings since they work live events.

Team 3D trainee Kennadi Brink worked as a referee for an NXT live event recently. She's worked NXT TV as well as ROH's women of honor division, so she could end up going to either destination at some point.

Dory Funk, Jr. visited at a recent NXT live event where he lives. Cool to see legends checking out the current stars.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. I love how the first assumption is Rusev is being "buried" by mean old management. Uggghhh. And it actually makes sense for them to approve any change to his appearance since they have video games, action figures, etc. built around what he looks like and they want them to be current.

2. I think WWE wants to keep things straightforward with Roman vs. Taker. Strowman destroying 20 or so people in the Andre battle royal works for me.

3. Don't get your hopes up. There's no indication Balor will be at Mania. He's just working off some ring rust in order to hit the ground running right after WM33.

4. Dallas is only 26. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him get a reboot at some point and get a chance at some gold.

5. Getting pretty regular work in the UK/Europe.

More wrestling tomorrow.