[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Sheamus showing off his dancing skills:

Originally Posted by Observer A key story to watch for next month are the Shinsuke Nakamura contract negotiations. There is WWE interest in Nakamura, and unlike with Kazuchika Okada, who has made it clear his goal is to build New Japan up and already had his taste of U.S. wrestling, Nakamura has never had any kind of a U.S. run. From a WWE standpoint, Nakamura is tall enough, which is a current management knock on Hideo Itami on the main roster, but his age, as he’d be 36 before he’d start, is a factor as WWE traditionally doesn’t like to start guys of that age in NXT (Samoa Joe or James Storm are different as the ideas for them were strictly NXT and not main roster, while Nakamura would likely start in NXT but the goal is main roster). Nakamura is intrigued with the idea of being an American star, and the huge reaction he’s gotten on ROH shows may give him the idea that his charisma would carry over. At the same time, owner Takaaki Kidani in the past has said that they may have to offer seven figure or near seven figure deals to top guys, so it’s not a situation like AAA with Alberto where they couldn’t match with WWE offer.

MLW Radio podcast with Court Bauer also hinted at the WWE interested in grabbing Nakamura.

Originally Posted by Observer Lethal is another one whose contract expires relatively soon and WWE has shown interest in for NXT. One of the perks for ROH is the New Japan connection and he’s doing the Dome show in a probable title match (unless he loses between now and then) with Michael Elgin.

Mick Foley has been very critical WWE’s creative direction in recent weeks, publicly grappling with the notion of completely giving up on watching the product. What Foley has failed to mention is that his son Dewey has secured a job with WWE’s writing staff. According to a source close to the situation, Dewey, 23, will begin working with WWE’s creative team shortly after the holidays. He had been running a blog for WWE creative writing samples, which is now set to private. Suddenly, Mick Foley’s public damnation of WWE creative suddenly takes on an entirely different perspective. It’s worth noting that Foley’s daughter Noelle could also be working for WWE in the not so distant future, as there is talk of her becoming a backstage interviewer. During a recent interview with Justin Labar of Chair Shot Reality, Noelle noted that she has done some training in the ring but is focusing on other things.

Puts some doubt if he was legit impressed at this week's RAW or only said it because he didn't want any negative backlash towards his son if he vented again. Also his son recently deleted Facebook comments that were critical of Creative and Triple H prior to taking the job. http://www.sescoops.com/dewey-foley-...eative-writer/

Originally Posted by Observer That all said, it is not a good thing that the audience watching is smaller, and even worse that the audience watching is significantly less engaged and switches off the show quicker than any time in history. The latter point is the key, in the sense if people watch out of habit but care about the product less, it’s a bad sign. I can recall Lance Russell in the late-80s, who was a successful program director before wrestling announcer became his full-time vocation, talking about the enormous ratings Memphis wrestling was still getting during a period when live attendance was falling greatly noting that on a show like wrestling, which draws based on people being creatures of habit, the ratings decline comes last, not first. That was the case with WCW, where there was a huge ratings decline as they went down the drain, but the decline in PPV, live events and other revenue streams was far greater ... In talking recently with someone who runs one of the major arenas in the country, WWE, even though live gates are $200,000 to $300,000 for a house show, and more for TV, has gone from an event that is a key regular franchise event for the building, to an event that is considered a low grossing event compared to most entertainment events (unless it’s a major PPV event, which is actually of more value than ever before because of the higher ticket prices), but is fine to have for an otherwise free night in the building. ... The big flaw is that the questions are being asked of the company’s most hardcore fans, given the Fan Nation status, meaning for the most part, they are not getting the input from the key fans they need to reach, the casual fan, sometime fan or lapsed fan, which are the fans who are the keys in growing the business and the ones dropping out now. The Fan Nation fan, while important to know their thoughts, are more likely to be satisfied and less likely to have the mindset to the product of those who are less interested or have faded away, or watch but aren’t nearly as invested and thus don’t stay for the whole three hours. Unfortunately, the audience that they need to contact is the one they can’t find ... In the mid-card era, they’ve created nobody new, with most of their efforts geared to Roman Reigns, a cosmetic pick in an era where cosmetics don’t connect as much as in the past. Ironically, the crowd has tried to pick stars on their own, who are either grudgingly accepted after a fight (Punk and Bryan), are given early lip service to and quickly put “in their place” (Owens) or on a much smaller level, are rejected and shoved in their faces (Cesaro).

Basically ratings are historically usually the last thing that plunges and a sign companies had been ignoring the more serious flaws (ex. WCW waited too late to fix their fatal flaws), venues are starting to see less value in holding WWE shows, and the recent Fan Council survey isn't targeting the actual groups leaving en mass.

Originally Posted by Observer Culturally, while the publicity is not good, this has not resulted in the type of reaction something like this would get if it was a similar-level star in the U.S. It’s notable because the press covers Japanese wrestling far more than in the U.S. (although the gap isn’t nearly as wide today as it was for most of the past 60 years), and while this incident got some mainstream publicity, many key people in the Japanese pro wrestling industry were unaware of it even after it had been covered in Japan and discussed in the U.S. Honma is still working nightly in the New Japan tag team tournament. However, the story did start to garner more interest in Japan when Honma responded by threatening a lawsuit and claiming all of the incidents described were him acting in self defense.

Update to the Honma story that might end up getting worse for Honma because of the lawsuit threat for making it public.

Originally Posted by Observer Both Multi Screen Media (MSM), or Sony Six, their television partner which was bringing TNA in for the tour, and TNA made an agreement that neither side would publicly give a reason for the tour being canceled. The announcement said the tour would be rescheduled for 2016. TNA’s contract with Sony Six that was recently signed calls for TNA to have to tour the country at least once a year, or the contract would be breached. Sony Six was on board with this cancellation so this won’t be held against TNA. It was believed to be a direct financial issue, since it was the Indian group that was financing much of the tour. It was not a ticket issue as no tickets were being sold for the three shows, and they were people who would be let in free.

Update to TNA's India tour being canceled.

Originally Posted by Observer Regarding Destination America, the station is going to be rebranding. Apparently after doing record numbers for the live exorcism, they are moving to a paranormal channel five nights per week as soon as possible, and moving to seven nights a week of paranormal programming in September, so wrestling didn’t fit into the new direction. They are also going to be changing the name of the channel. At least that was the internal plan announced within the company this past week. It has not been announced publicly yet.

Originally Posted by Observer In addition to the recently added episodes of NWA World Championship Wrestling, Smoky Mountain Wrestling and Mid South Wrestling, the WWE Network has added AWA All Star Wrestling to its lineup. They’ve also resumed adding WCCW shows after a long break. It appears that they’re focusing on shows featuring big name WWE legends to start with.

Some other sheet news includes:

• Was quickly discovered on the internet that the new Paige POP figurines are just the old AJ Lee figurines repainted to Paige's colors. http://officialfan.proboards.com/thr...unko-pop-paige
• If it wasn't for last week's disaster, this week's episode of RAW would have been a new record low for the WWE. As of now its just the 2nd lowest in the 3 Hour era.
• Chris Jericho announced Becky Lynch will be on this Friday's episode of Talk Is Jericho podcast. https://twitter.com/TalkIsJericho/st...85551449833472
• According to a recent interview with F4W, Brad Maddoz confirmed he was fired due to the "cocky pricks" promo and was getting frustrated with his role which is why he did the unscripted promo. http://www.f4wonline.com/wwe-news/br...d-times-202836
• In a "WWE Did You Know" type fact, TNA has officially lasted longer than WCW going by official WCW launch and not counting the pre-JCP/GCW era. TNA has lasted so far for 12 years and 6 months while WCW was 12 years and 5 months.
• In a recent interview with the Miami Herald, the president of POP TV officially debunked rumors of TNA paying for their spot on the network. http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/fi...e47489355.html

Some TPWW News:

• This week's episode of TPWW's TLP podcast was released: http://tablesladderspodcast.podbean....st-132-120215/