Genesis of Raw Reunion, more Raw Reunion names, Raw Reunion invite turned down, ER attendance, Baker update, FFTF attendance, B/R pleased with AEW, WWE October PPV update, Aoki tribute show set, UK magazine shutting down, DSOTR season two coming, another AEW name in BOLA, new ROH and Impact TV matches, AEW name set to return soon, FOX pre-emption plans, WWE FOX special coming, NXT brought up in FOX discussion, FOX promotion notes, more on Bischoff's role, SDL name in for reboot, Mickie injury update, assorted wrestling press, WWE action figure crossover, HoFer at WWEPC, HoFer doing guest commentary, more on Tully-AEW, Punk set for Starrcast, AEW auctions, WWE Network special coming, Seth promotes Raw Reunion, 24/7 Title hits Comic Con, WWE tryout attendee praised, Colt winding down podcast, ROH uploads TV match, NJPW action figures licensed, and Questions on surprise pins in WWE, Moxley's post-WWE videos, Schiavone-WWE, how TNT will differ from BTE, when to judge AEW's merits, and AEW's success lifting other promotions

Raw Reunion was a USA Network idea to boost ratings. That's not a shock, given past suggestions from them revolving around stars from years past.

-- Raw Reunion has added:
- Alundra Blayze
- Candice Michelle
- D Generation X of Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Road Dogg, and X-Pac. It doesn't look like Billy Gunn was invited to the show.
- Eve Torres
- Gerald Brisco
- The Godfather
- The Hurricane
- Jillian Hall
- Jonathan Coachman
- Kaitlyn
- Kelly Kelly
- Mark Henry
- Melina
- Mick Foley
- Pat Patterson
- Rikishi
- Sid Vicious
-- It will be interesting to see some of those names again.

Bully Ray was invited to Raw Reunion as Bubba Ray Dudley, but turned down the role. That's surprising. I guess he didn't want to break from his current character.

Extreme Rules drew 12,800 fans. It was not a legitimate sellout as announced, which would have been 14,000 fans.

Britt Baker's concussion is said to be serious.

Fight For The Fallen had just under 5,000 paid fans.

Bleacher Report is said to be pleasantly surprised with how well AEW's shows have done on B/R Live, as far as them bringing in so many new subscribers to the service.

WWE is expected to have an October 6 PPV event in California. Previous reports listed an October 13 date running against AAA's show in the area. Nothing has been announced officially.

AJPW is holding an Atsushi Aoki memorial show on August 11, with NOAH contributing wrestlers. Good to see them working together for that.

UK's Fighting Spirit magazine is publishing its final issue soon. WWE's declining popularity, and it moving to a less-watched network, was the key factor.

"Dark Side of the Ring" will get a second season.

Joey Janela has been added to Battle of Los Angeles.

ROH's Saturday TV taping has added The Bouncers vs. The Soldiers of Savagery vs. Coast 2 Coast.

Kylie Rae is expected back in the ring soon. I look forward to seeing her again.

Smackdown Live is only expected to be pre-empted on FOX for the World Series. That week the show could air on FS1.

Smackdown Live will have a one-hour FOX show in late September ahead of Smackdown Live's move to the network, as something of an introduction of current stars. I'm curious how that will work out.

NXT is being discussed to air on a FOX network. There is no current indication of when and where, although of course the speculation is it will run against AEW in some way. The obvious question is if having NXT move to TV will hurt WWE Network, and how much of an audience there is for the show on TV. That could definitely be a big change for the show, as I'm curious if any changes would be made to it in order to fit in with WWE's other shows.

FOX is planning promotional moves for Smackdown Live, including WWE stars going to different towns and digital videos looking behind-the-scenes at WWE. It will be good to have such an enthusiastic partner channel.

Eric Bischoff is not expected to be part of WWE Creative. His role will largely be as a liaison among different WWE departments, as well as between WWE and FOX. So, his role will differ from Heyman's. It will be interesting to see how that all plays out.

Liv Morgan is in for a new character and look. She could use a reboot if they're going to utilize her.

Mickie James is not expected back until WrestleMania or afterward. That's a really serious surgery!

WWE is working with Special Olympics today.

WWE has Ghostbusters-themed action figures coming, with Stone Cold, The Rock, Shawn Michaels, and John Cena as the Busters and Undertaker as the ghost. That's amazing.

- "Masters of the Universe" themed figures are also coming, with Ultimate Warrior, Sting, Triple H, Finn Balor, John Cena, Randy Savage, Rey Mysterio, and Roman Reigns all represented. Also pretty cool.

Roman Reigns promoted Sunday's Raw live event.

Scott Hall was recently at the WWE Performance Center, presumably helping out in some way.

Shawn Michaels will do commentary on Tuesday's Smackdown Live. It's unknown if that's for the whole night. Hopefully that doesn't feel shoehorned and doesn't take away from current stars. I'm curious if that's a tryout for a more regular role there in an attempt to boost ratings.

Tully Blanchard has signed a multiple-show deal with AEW. I'm curious what else he'll do there.

C.M. Punk is set for Starrcast III, which will undoubtedly get people talking about him appearing at All Out. He can definitely be a major player right out of the gate if he does go to AEW.

AEW is auctioning Jon Moxley's Double or Nothing jacket as well as Earl Hebner's referee jersey from the same event.

WWE Network is live-streaming part of July 27's Smackdown Live live event as a special event called Smackville. The show will feature Kofi Kingston vs. Samoa Joe vs. Dolph Ziggler for the WWE Championship as well as Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Finn Balor for the Intercontinental Championship. This looks to be in line with The Shield's Last Stand length-wise. We'll see how successful it is and if it leads to similar specials.

Becky Lynch got a special Mattel action figure.

The IIconics designed ring gear suggested by a fan.

The former Stokely Hathaway is on Sam Roberts' latest podcast.

"Dangerous" Danny Davis is getting his first action figure from Mattel.

Seth Rollins promoted Raw Reunion:
- I'm very curious what current names will be in reunion episodes years from now.

- I REALLY wonder how previous generations' stars would have done with social media.

- There are definitely people working incredibly hard in WWE. I don't think anyone's disputing that.

- I'm curious how Seth vs. Brock will go.

- Seth does a good job putting a lot of things over.

Drake Maverick "crashed" WWE and Mattel's San Diego Comic Con panel Thursday, looking for R-Truth and the 24/7 Championship.

NXT head coach Matt Bloom put over Jiro Kuroshio from the recent tryout, so I expect he'll be joining the WWE Performance Center.

Colt Cabana is winding down The Art of Wrestling podcast for the time being. He gave more information in a tweet. I hope he's in for other good things going forward.

Impact Wrestling's Saturday TV taping has added:
- Brian Cage, Tessa Blanchard, and Tommy Dreamer vs. Sami Callihan, Madman Fulton, and Dave Crist
- Taya Valkyrie vs. Havok
- Moose vs. Fallah Bahh
-- They're going all in on Tessa facing men.

ROH has uploaded The Briscoes vs. RUSH and Dragon Lee from their recent TV taping. I'll save my reaction for when the episode airs. That definitely sounds awesome.

NJPW is getting a U.S. action figure line through Super 7. This is the same group making Legends of Lucha Libre figures. That could really boost NJPW's appeal.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. I mostly pin that (pardon the pun) on WWE needing to book so many characters at once and so many matches each week. They have a tendency to want to book finishes that keep people more or less at the same place they were before going into the match.

2. I think Mike might have confused Moxley's "jail" video (produced by Mondo) with the "Time's Up" video, which could have been made by NJPW. I could be wrong, however. Either way, I hope we see similar cool videos in AEW.

3. I'm not sure how that one got started, since he just appeared in a video for AEW! MLW has him signed for a significant amount of time. It would be wild to see him in WWE, though.

4. I do think it will be VERY interesting to see how the BTE crew balances their executive positions on-screen at TNT, as well as the silly insider stuff they enjoy doing that may or may not be something a larger audience on TV will appreciate. I sympathize with the idea of not judging AEW too harshly in the early going as they figure themselves out, and that honestly extends to the TV show for a while given their inexperience there.

5. It's definitely possible in such a scenario! If wrestling is seen as hot, others are going to want that success on their own channels.

More wrestling tomorrow.