WWE Italy return set, WWE-top international star update, interesting WWE Network note, Raw live event note, and Questions on Impact's Broken trademarks, Okada missing WotW, evaluating Sonjay, and the lack of animals in wrestling

WWE will return to Italy from November 10 through 12. I would not be shocked to see a European "brand" sometime down the line.

Kairi Hojo officially said goodbye to STARDOM ahead of almost certainly heading to the WWE Performance Center. I'm curious as to whether they'll debut her in the women's tournament or have her face Asuka before the latter heads to the main roster. Either way, she's expected to be a big prospect for NXT/WWE. There continues to be speculation of Io Shirai following her, but so far there's nothing official to report on that end.

Sundays on WWE Network are now expected to feature live streams of previous year PPV events and their "go-home" shows. For instance, this Sunday will feature the previous edition of Backlash and the Smackdown that aired five days before it.

Curtis Axel worked as a heel on WWE's ongoing UK tour, teaming Curt Hawkins, Titus O'Neil, and Bo Dallas in a loss to Heath Slater, Rhyno, and Golden Truth. That's probably just a result of needing someone to move over to the heel side for the loop to even things up. It's not like Axel is used all that prominently anyway.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. They can't stop him from using his actual middle name, but they're wanting to lay claim to the Brother Nero character because Impact creative helped put the Broken stuff together.

2. Their argument will be that Broken Matt was partially created by Impact and used on their show. Whether that will mean it's their property will depend on what was written in the Hardys' Impact contracts regarding the ideas they came up with while there. It's similar to how Dustin Runnels couldn't be Goldust anywhere but WWE even if he came up with everything himself, because it was made under the WWE umbrella. Impact might have the legal upper hand here, but I don't see how it's going to really benefit them to have ownership of the characters. On one level it'd be funny to see them do a take on the Razor Ramon/Diesel situation after Hall and Nash went to WCW, but ultimately they're preventing two really popular talents from doing some of the most over gimmicks in wrestling.

3. Probably some of all of that.

4. I like Sonjay well enough. Sometimes you need someone who's a little more low-key to put the matches together and showcase the strengths of others, in a similar way to how a baseball team needs pinch hitters and people who can steal bases instead of a team that just hits home runs. Not everyone's going to blow it out of the water in every category.

5. It's also not always easy or inexpensive to have trained animals be part of something like that. I do wonder how over it'd really be in 2017 to have someone come to the ring with an animal, although I'm sure New Day would have gotten a pop for unicorns at Wrestlemania.

More wrestling tomorrow.