- Chris Jericho and Sammy Guevara vs. Kenny Omega and Hangman Page
- Cody making the announcement that was interrupted last week.
- PAC vs. Trent?
Rhea Ripley is on Lilian Garcia's latest podcast.
Drew McIntyre is doing a signing before WWE's November 11 event in Scotland. He'll be very popular there!
Jerry Lawler is putting his in-ring career on the line in Arkansas on January 18 in a match for Championship Wrestling of Arkansas. That promotion's top championship is also at stake.
ROH's weekly television series will air on the new Marquee Network when it launches in February. This is a regional sports network for the Chicago area. In theory this distribution agreement will benefit the company.
WWE has extended their Saudi Arabian agreement to include two major events a year. While WWE has done two events a year thus far in the agreement, that wasn't locked in as an annual occurrence until now. Obviously that forecasts positive things for WWE financially in future years.
- This release comes after uncorroborated rumors regarding the Saudi agreement circulated, so it's possible WWE wanted to reiterate everything was fine.
205 Live this week will be in Full Sail University, since Smackdown is in the UK. Naturally this presents a chance for the brand to interact with NXT talent.
Natalya spoke to Hot97 about Crown Jewel.
Vince McMahon hosted a talent meeting before Raw addressing the uncorroborated rumors regarding alleged issues with the Saudi Arabian deal, taking talent to task for attributing other factors to the delay of leaving the country, rather than the mechanical issues that occurred.
- Vince left Saudi Arabia hours before talent had boarded their plane, so he wasn't in the country while the delays were occurring.
Dynamite's January 8 episode will be in Mississippi, at the home of the Memphis Hustle minor league basketball team. This was the site of Slammiversary in 2008, which drew 6,000 fans.
After Raw, The Fiend retained the Universal Championship against Seth Rollins in a steel cage.
For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. Obviously there's a big difference in their backgrounds as far as wrestling knowledge before being in their respective positions. I'd also say Khan is a lot more confident about the direction he's going in, given the number of regime changes Dixie had.
2. No way am I qualified to run WWE, but while we're in fantasy land:
- Pick a vision and stick with it. If someone's going to be focused on, give them and their angle consistent TV time before abandoning them to the pile.
- Make the show less predictable and "samey." A lot of WWE show formats are similar as far as who speaks when and for how long, etc.
- Commit to a long-term strategy of building a younger, fresher roster. Legends and past names should only be brought in to accentuate the current stars.
- Have more variety in the kinds of stars hired and the training they receive. There are a LOT of very talented but very similar looking and wrestling athletes in wrestling right now.
- A greater variety in characters would be great, too. There seem to be a few "molds" for babyfaces and heels that everyone is forced into instead of developing unique characters.
- Cut the number of PPVs, especially ones built around gimmick matches. Every six weeks or so, there can be special episodes of Raw and Smackdown that are essentially each half of a PPV ("Raw Backlash" on Monday, "Smackdown Backlash" on Friday), but save things like Hell in a Cell, TLC, etc. for when they can mean something special. Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, Money in the Bank, Summerslam, and Survivor Series can stay, but other than that, cut things.
- I'd seriously reconsider some of the "hardcore-centric" moves like putting indie companies on the Network and hiring way more talents than they can utilize. The return on investment hasn't justified these expenses.
3. Hey people wanted him to get a monster push! They're clearly treating him like a horror movie villain. I also thought it was overkill, so we'll see where things go from here.
4. The FOX debut and draft were (rightfully) much more highly prioritized.
5. A little of both. It's clear they wanted to get to Brock vs. Cain ASAP.
More wrestling tomorrow.
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