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Thursday, February 28, 2019

WWE announcer on Total Divas, new AEW female signing, new NXT UK hires, Cody booked for AAA, updates on returning WWE stars, Matt Hardy's goals, WWE using WWN to recruit, another WWE Network documentary on YouTube, AEW makes accommodations for sensory issues, more on Impact weekend event, Impact tag reunion?, international talents working Impact, Interview with Kross, SDL audience, ROH title match booked, Ronda schedule update, more on NXT names' schedules, Bliss training, NJPW visas obtained, more Impact vs. OVW work, and Questions on calling up so many NXT names, Riott Squad booking, promoting NXT, NXT match at Mania, and Becky's booking

Charly Caruso will be part of "Total Divas" in some fashion. It will be great for her to contribute to WWE more.

AEW has signed Bea Priestley. She will debut at their July Florida event. This would seem to indicate she has finished up with WOS, where she was briefly women's champion.

NXT UK has announced the following hires:
- Ilja Rukober, better known as Ilja Dragunov
- Kay Lee Ray
- Jazzy Gabert
- Oliver Sauter, better known as Oliver Carter
- Jay Melrose

Cody will work AAA's March 16 event as part of AEW's working relationship with the company. I don't expect him to wrestle so soon after surgery, though. We could see announcements for the AEW roster there.

Batista and Roman Reigns are set for Monday's Raw following their returns last week. 

Matt Hardy teased going for the Smackdown Tag Team Championship. Maybe that's why the Usos won it back?

WWE is recruiting talents for their upcoming Performance Center tryouts through a WWN seminar from April 12 through April 14 in Florida. NXT's Terry Taylor, Norman Smiley, Serena Deeb, Oney Lorcan, and Drake Wuertz will all be participating. Oney holds classes at the WWE Performance Center on top of wrestling.

WWE put WWE 24: Goldberg on YouTube to promote the WWE Network's fifth anniversary.

Double or Nothing will have accommodations for those with sensory difficulties. This is part of a bigger working agreement from AEW.

Impact's WrestleMania weekend event is now an Internet PPV in addition to airing on Twitch.

- United We Stand will feature LAX vs. MLW's Low Ki and Ricky Martinez. That will be the first Impact event Low Ki has appeared on since 2017.

Ethan Page has teased working with Josh Alexander in Impact, reprising their tag team. That would definitely be an interesting gimmick.

Impact will feature Pro Wrestling NOAH talents in the months ahead as the two sides expand their agreement. That could definitely bring something fresh to the promotion.

Killer Kross spoke to Vulture Hound. He's really made the most of his opportunities in Impact, and this interview was pretty fun.

Smackdown Live drew 2.15 million viewers Tuesday night.

ROH's March 16 TV taping will feature The Kingdom vs. Villain Enterprises for the Six-Man Tag Team Championship. Notably this is the night after PCO and Brody King challenge the Briscoes for their championship. I wouldn't be against ROH unifying the two titles, but the Briscoes are already set to face the Guerrillas of Destiny for the ROH and IWGP tag titles at Supercard.

Roman Reigns is advertised for all Raw tapings going forward. He is not currently booked for live events. I expect that will change before too much longer.

Kevin Owens has been added to Smackdown tapings going forward, so he's officially part of that brand. He's also being added to live events for Smackdown Live beginning March 8. That will shake some things up.

Ronda Rousey is advertised for the Raw after WrestleMania 35 but no further dates at this time, so she could indeed be set for time off.

NXT's Ricochet and Tommaso Ciampa are advertised for a meet and greet before Fast Lane, so it looks like those two, Aleister Black, and Johnny Gargano are going to work that event.

Alexa Bliss is training at the WWE Performance Center. I admire her working to get better.

NJPW announced their wrestlers have obtained visas to return to the United States. Obviously with Supercard approaching, they don't want a repeat of the New Beginnings tour.

Impact's oVe appeared at OVW's February 27 TV taping to build to Saturday's joint card.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. These names were pulled from the top of NXT and are ready to be important contributors at a higher level. Vince clearly didn't want to wait until after WrestleMania to shake things up.

2.a. Honestly she's probably already seen as fairly low-level, but that can change down the line. It's asinine to think everyone should start up top.

2.b. I suppose because while they individually aren't much, they can get somewhere as a group! And Liv and Sarah weren't doing much in NXT, so it can be argued Ruby fired them up to change things on Raw and Smackdown Live.

3. That's kind of a double-edged sword because a lot of the appeal of NXT is Vince staying away from it. NXT's overall purpose is for talents to develop to one day be on Raw and Smackdown Live, and I can see WWE not wanting to put too much of a microscope on a show that still has a good deal of talents still learning the ropes. As for what those talents' futures are, we'll see after WrestleMania. I expect a number of them were going to "graduate" from NXT in April anyway, but time will tell if all of them are moving on. Right now they're just working TVs on top of NXT live events.

4. I've made the 205-Kickoff argument to death. I'm fine with each month's Kickoff match(es) being a choice instead of automatically being the cruiser match, but there needs to be a compelling reason to do that considering how many fans are going to the venue to see the other matches. I think putting an NXT match on WrestleMania is a BIG leap on an already busy card, but I don't dislike the idea of an NXT match on PPVs on months without Takeover specials if it makes sense.

5. Welp here we go again. WWE gets behind someone fans want them to get behind and they get upset and threaten to bury her. Fans were cheering her for antihero antics but now that's apparently the wrong way to go. I see why Vince doesn't get caught up with Internet criticism.

More wrestling tomorrow.

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