Asuka added to WWE Japan tour, Club press, Jericho on WWE future, Goldberg honors Asuka, GFW titles update, more Hardys vs. Impact, Knockout working SHIMMER, more Impact tracks released, more names in new NWA, lots of ROH TV matches set, Hardy trademark unsuccessful, Ciampa needs surgery, and Questions on NBCU dropping WWE, talents hanging on in ECW, SMW expanding, and Punk the reality star

Asuka and Emma are set for WWE's Japanese events on June 30 and July 1. Asuka will team with Bayley and Sasha Banks against Emma, Alexa Bliss, and Nia Jax. I'm just about ready for the former Kana to come up to Raw or Smackdown and start kicking and striking some new people. I love the idea of her vacating the title undefeated, with the Mae Young Classic winner becoming the new champion.

Karl Anderson threw out the first pitch at an MLB game Tuesday. That's pretty cool. I hope he and Luke have a successful WWE tenure.

Chris Jericho downplayed a WWE return:
- He could be back in the mix regularly by this summer. No way is he done.

- I think I'd actually listen to him sing about his wrestling exploits. That has potential. We need more in the vein of Piledriver and The Rock singing about Pie.

- WWE/NXT featuring Fozzy music has definitely helped both sides.

Goldberg congratulated Asuka for beating his undefeated streak. I don't think it's going to stop anytime in the next few months, either! It will be interesting to see how many wins she racks up before someone finally takes her down.

Impact's use of GFW championships will likely conclude with a merger at Slammiversary, i.e. title vs. title matches. That would make sense, and was likely the plan the whole time, but it gets a lot of clicks to bash Anthem for "pushing GFW at Impact's expense."

Matt Hardy indicated Impact management has sent talents "drunken, mean, vulgar texts." If that's true, it's definitely something that would paint that side in a negative light.

Madison Rayne will be working SHIMMER on July 8 and 9, so Impact might have a working agreement with that brand, too. It's definitely good for both sides to have their talent available to get the additional work and exposure.

Impact has released further soundtracks featuring their theme songs.

Dave Lagana, Aiden O'Shea, and musician Sherri Shaw are all joining Billy Corgan in his new NWA venture. I'm curious how it will all work out and who else will end up attached.

ROH has announced the following matches for their June 3 TV taping:
- Bobby Fish vs. Silas Young
- Punishment Martinez vs. Jay White
- Jonathan Gresham vs. Flip Gordon
- Dalton Castle & The Boys vs. Kenny King, Rhett Titus, & Shane Taylor
- Jay Lethal vs. Caprice Coleman
- The Addiction vs. two members of Bullet Club TBA
-- Slow times for ROH. I hope they've got interesting next opponents set for Daniels and Kazarian. Cody should get a one-on-one match for the ROH Title; that's really the only major interesting feud to do at this point.

Matt Hardy was denied the trademark of "Broken Matt Hardy" because the mark only identifies the character and not the services of Matt being a wrestler. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office cited a number of court cases with similar outcomes. While we as wrestling fans know "Broken Matt Hardy" refers to him as a wrestler, the nickname doesn't identify him as a wrestler or distinguish his services from others'. From the sound of things, he didn't have the right documentation to confirm the mark.

Tommaso Ciampa was injured further in the ladder match at Takeover. He will undergo surgery. I hope he's able to come back to face Gargano in Brooklyn. Otherwise, they might as well keep Johnny off TV for a while, too, to sell what Ciampa did to him after the match. I hope neither are gone long after the awesome work in Chicago.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
Nothing to add to 1.

2. They could, but I don't see it happening. As mentioned, people don't watch TV like they used to. That's often used to paint WWE in a negative light when the viewership of television as a whole is very different from 15 years ago. WWE remains valuable to NBCU, and they're going to keep working together. It's just a matter of how much money they'll be paid for their content in the next deal.

3. A lot of talents convinced themselves it wasn't that bad, things would turn around, being in ECW was better than trying to make it somewhere else, and that kind of thing. They had invested so much time into the company and working with people they liked working with that it was hard to walk away. It's not an uncommon mindset in other contexts.

4. It was a niche product for an audience in a certain region. I don't think they really had any ambition of going outside their core area. That's kind of the nature of the old territory mindset: you do your thing for your audience and stay pretty close to home.

5. What's changed is now he's the guy getting paid to be on one. Money talks.

More wrestling tomorrow.