[Emperor Smeat]

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We noted before that both Samoa Joe and Jim Ross were in Orlando for last week's WWE NXT tapings and that Joe met with Triple H about coming into the company. Joe is still expected to start with NXT in June but it was described to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter as not confirmed for June just yet. This could be due to the various pre-signing tests talents have to go through. Ross also talked with the company about working on different projects together while he was there.

Originally Posted by Observer The plan for Lana long-term right now is to be the female face of the company once her babyface turn is completed. At least that’s the long-term plan this week. Vince McMahon feels that part of the transition has to include a reveal that she’s really American. The plan is to keep the Lana name, although there has at least been talk of C.J. (Her real name is Catherine Jo Perry), with the idea C.J. makes people think hot blond because of the character Pamela Anderson played in “Baywatch.”

Originally Posted by Observer Evidently the disappearance of the curb stomp has to do with advice from the legal department, likely from the fallout of the concussion lawsuits. The move was also removed from his entrance video, and when they show clips from WrestleMania, the curb stomp is no longer the finishing move that laid out Lesnar and Reigns.

Originally Posted by Observer Jeff Jarrett has been contacting talent of late. We don’t know all the people contacted but if guys are good and not under contract with ROH or TNA, or guys whose contracts he knows are expiring, those are the guys he’s after. We’ve heard mixed bags on pay. Scott D’Amore and Sonjay Dutt are working with Jarrett from an office capacity as well. Dutt has been calling talent. Jarrett has offered at least some talent the possibility of 39 dates, although the company has noted they’ve got the 12 dates confirmed which were announced and the other 27 are dates not yet confirmed. They are now calling a ton of people, pretty much the guys in ROH without a contract are the key names we’ve heard, with Roderick Strong being the biggest name out of that group. Other names we’ve heard being talked with include Team 3-D, Shelton Benjamin and Chris Masters. A key to this is going to be whether Jarrett or ROH winds up with the New Japan connection, because a lot of the talent wants to go to New Japan and will align with whichever company can get them there the smoothest

Originally Posted by Observer Eva Marie, who has been out of the ring due to surgery, has been doing one-on-one training with Brain Kendrick to prepare for her return. As noted last week, WWE has ideas that Eva Marie and Lana can be big stars, and apparently Lana is a very good athlete. She’s been in a manager role from the start so nobody knows how good she can be in the ring, and I’m not sure in the ring is what they mean by big star for either, but obviously Eva will be reintroduced soon as a wrestler. Kendrick said that he’s teaching her all styles, focusing on matches with Super Crazy and Tajiri from ECW (Super Crazy is one of Kendrick’s favorites because he was able to make it in the U.S., Mexico and Japan, as did Tajiri for that matter), old ECW tapes and All Japan women tapes.

As previously reported, the feeling in Lucha Underground is that a second season is a sure thing. According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, filming for the new season should begin in August, just after the current season finishes airing. There are two key deals in current discussions for the company, both involving new TV carriers. The talks are to get the Spanish-language version of the show on Univision in the US, which would be huge for the company, and Televisa in Mexico which would also be big as it would give them stronger exposure than even AAA. Univision is announcing its new season schedule at their upfront presentation on May 12th. If those two TV deals do not go through, there will likely need to be some serious cutbacks as the show costs a lot. Part of that is due to the location, and there has been discussion of moving to a different local, possibly in Texas. As previously noted, Rey Mysterio and Alberto El Patron are expected to be the top two stars for the promotion.

Over 5,000 tapes submitted for Tough Enough so far and Vince McMahon notes: "some of them are ridiculous"

Originally Posted by Observer Officials are looking to do "some" more Tuesday night live WWE Network specials from the SmackDown tapings like this week's King of the Ring tournament.

Dave Meltzer notes in this week's Wresting Observer Newsletter that one TNA wrestler got so agitated over his late pay, he went to the office and flat-out threatened to go work for Jeff Jarrett's new promotion if he wasn't paid soon. Per the report, the office quickly "straightened out" the situation.

Originally Posted by Observer We noted before that UFC President Dana White said Ronda Rousey would not be wrestling any matches for WWE and this caused "shock" among the WWE creative team as they've been hoping for a single match with Rousey vs. Stephanie McMahon at WrestleMania 32. One source noted to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter that White's comments threw the company off as they considered her to be a given for next year in some form, even though White had not signed off on any matches. WWE reportedly has already been working on videos that involved Rousey and Stephanie was going to talk about Rousey during her WWE Network podcast with Chris Jericho this Thursday night. The feeling within WWE is that Rousey wrestling is not a dead deal as they have plenty of time to figure something out.

Per Dave Melzter in this week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter, there is still lingering anger from TNA production crew towards the office in regards to finances. While the checks from the February pay-per-view did eventually come, there were production people who once again complained they were significantly shortened on money. There are also complaints that the March pay-per-checks still haven't arrived. Additionally, there is said to be unhappiness stemming from management's constant excuses for the late pay. Many are expecting some sort of big showdown at the 5/8 taping, with Meltzer noting the feeling is the backstage crew probably have a great deal of leverage due to the fact this is when they're filming the live Impact and the company is taping several other episodes on the flagship show in the days following.

Originally Posted by PWTorch There has been reports of backstage heat between the current divas champion Nikki Bella and Booker T. This was said to have started when Vince told Booker to bury Nikki and shut her up on commentary on Monday Night Raw. This made Nikki furious and apparently complained backstage. Booker T, a baby-face announcer also put over the heel diva 'Naomi' as the "best diva" and was said to be sick of Nikki's attitude backstage.

Some other sheet news includes:

• Recent article from Sports Illustrated involved a look back at WCW's and NJPW's trip to North Korea in 1995. http://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2015...cetype=default
• Update to this week's RAW ratings as the show did a 2.68 rating. In terms of numbers, they've lost almost a whole ratings point since the RAW After Mania show and around 0.5 point compared to last year. In terms of viewers, they are averaging almost half a million lost since last year.
• According to WWE's recent financial report, the recent free Network months barely kept new people interested in the service. Mania ended up being very expensive for the WWE this year to the point it ate into all the revenue made by the Network.
• Ric Flair was revealed to be starting his own podcast with Kurt Angle currently scheduled as his first guest.
• A new Sting DVD/Blur-Ray is currently in production with the WWE planning a late 2015 for it.
• WWE.com revealed the next NXT special will be called NXT Takeover: Unstoppable.