Impact hires interviewer, Thatcher taking bookings, WWE seeking event booker, assorted WWE press, HHH conference call, NXT live event notes, another NJPW marathon, DVD notes, Hogan updates, ROH sets international tournament, SDL audience, EVOLVE has to change venues for upcoming show, WWE star suing hotel for lost goods, WWE IP trademarked by other companies, and Questions on the pointlessness of complaining about WWE booking, Ronda a part-time champ, Russo vs. critics, and WWE Network events not being kid-friendly

Impact Wrestling has hired Alicia Atout as a backstage interviewer. I would think they'll use her when they run Canada and McKenzie Mitchell when they run the United States, but we'll see. Atout has done a LOT of interviews of Impact stars, as well as independent workers. It was probably just a matter of time before she was signed there.

Les Thatcher is taking bookings as a trainer and commentator. That could really be a service for a lot of people.

WWE is seeking a senior director of booking for U.S. and Canada event venues. That's a pretty prominent position given how many shows WWE books between TV, PPVs, and live events.

ESPN covered WWE's Emmy presentation, doing a lot of red carpet interviews. WWE has gotten some pretty good press out of the effort.

Mustafa Ali gave his LED mask to a chronically sick fan. That's a great babyface moment.

Xavier Woods competed at E3's Celebrity Fortnite tournament. Gaming is pretty much his second job at this point.

Roddy Piper will be the subject of a comic book. That could be a pretty interesting project.

Triple H did a conference call to promote Takeover:Chicago, covered here:
- Interesting deflection of the idea of expanding the WWE Performance Center. It could easily be a case of HHH just not wanting the word out yet as it's still in the planning stages.

- OH MY GOD HE'S SEEN THE NORTH KOREA PHOTOSHOP. I love it.

- Wow, people really don't get that you need to use the veterans to help teach the less-experienced workers?? Not everything is about "dream matches" between known veterans.

- Hmmm.... I'm interested in who else is on WWE's radar.

- The WWEPC is far and beyond what most places have.

- It makes sense to hold the UK stuff off for when there's not as much other content on the service.

- Hmmmmm…. interesting about Ellering not joining Akam and Rezar.

- Would NXT being live end up increasing subscription numbers? If not, there's not much reason to do it.

- There are definitely names that could use the NXT work. Mike Kanellis, for instance.

At NXT's June 12 live event in Belgium:
- Wolfgang defeated Steve Cutler
- Adam Cole defeated Zack Gibson
- Aleister Black, Pete Dunne, and Johnny Gargano defeated Lars Sullivan, Velveteen Dream, and Tommaso Ciampa.
-- So there's some WWE:UK representation on the tour.

Bullet Club is getting a marathon on AXS before leading into the G1 Special on July 7. AXS is really strongly behind NJPW. This is amazing.

Shawn Michaels is getting a three-disc DVD of unreleased matches in late September or early October.

The Greatest Royal Rumble will be on DVD in November, seemingly including a documentary. That was a groundbreaking event from WWE, and it's just the beginning of the deals in the area.

The Hulk Hogan-Gawker lawsuit is being made into a movie. Hollywood is pretty infatuated with the drama there. I'm curious if that will affect Hogan's WWE standing, given how visiible these projects will be.

Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Hart made charity appearances in New York City earlier this week, continuing to revitalize Hogan's image after the leaked racial comments.

"Total Divas" has been nominated for a Teen Choice Award for reality shows. WWE's got to like that; the show has been pivotal for getting attention and fans outside the wrestling circle.

Stone Cold did a commercial for Kawasaki. Obviously no Steveweisers permitted when driving.

WWE SuperCard has released a new tier of cards, including Bobby Lashley's debut in the game.

ROH has announced an inaugural international cup tournament for Honor Reunited, where U.S. and UK stars will compete for a world championship match on the last day of the tour. That's a good idea to have a consistent narrative across the three days, and opens some interesting possibilities for future collaborations.

Smackdown Live drew 2.19 million viewers, virtually even with the previous week's episode. So, while Raw rebounded, SDL is still struggling.

EVOLVE has to change venues for next Saturday's event, as the building has an MMA event scheduled for that show. Wow. That venue really screwed up.

Paige buried a local Memphis hotel, the same one Rusev and Lana claimed they had things stolen from. Rusev stated plans to prosecute. I hope this is the last time they have to deal with theft.

A Las Vegas based company is seeking to trademark "Halloween Havoc" for wrestling purposes, blatantly playing off the WCW event name. WWE does not have an active trademark for that name, but could almost certainly squash this promotion's attempt.

A Californian independent wrestler has applied to trademark "Sister Abigail" for wrestling, another blatant attempt to play off an untrademarked WWE character. WWE's legal team will hopefully get involved soon.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. DING DING DING DING DING. For every wrestler moved up the card, someone's going to complain it's not a different wrestler. Not every actor in a movie is going to be on the poster or in the most important scenes. Some people are going to be stuck playing pedestrians. And at this point, the brand is the draw, not any particular wrestler. WWE's going to keep doing things they want to do, and people are still going to make a lot of money being "buried" according to the vocal minority.

2. If she wins, definitely. She's not going to be working regular live events or on TV anytime soon.

3. My guess is that he strongly dislikes wrestling journalists' criticism, but either people keep telling him about things tweeted about him or he feels he has to address what's out there. While I imagine he'd be happier focusing on other things, it's probably the draw of his podcast to hear his take on such things.

4. I kind of want to know and I kind of don't. It sounds disgusting.

5. WWE definitely wants to keep fans engaged that long, and they see longer shows as giving fans more value for their subscription/ticket.

More wrestling tomorrow.