[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Evil Bliss:

Originally Posted by Observer It hasn't been two months and already, Mauro Ranallo has become a fan favorite for those tuning to WWE Smackdown every week. That's why there was a lot of concern at Tuesday night's Smackdown tapings in Ontario, California, when Michael Cole came out to announce with Jerry Lawler and Byron Saxton instead of everyone's favorite Canadian wrestling personality (outside Lance Storm of course.) Fear not: the actual story is that the 46-year-old Ranallo came to the building, but was sick with the flu and the company made the decision to send him home rather than work the show. He's still with the company, still on Smackdown, and all is still right with the world.

Supposedly he's dealing with pneumonia. Joe Rogan confirmed the illness and him having to drop out as today's guest for Rogan's podcast show. https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/700076365702299649

Originally Posted by Observer Raw on Monday night going against the Grammy Awards did not set a record seasonal low, as it did 3.46 million viewers, up from the 3.37 million record low of two weeks ago. It was still the second lowest number of the last 18 years that wasn't a holiday or going against football ... The three hours were: 8 p.m. 3.66 million viewers 9 p.m. 3.54 million viewers 10 p.m. 3.23 million viewers

The good news being the drop could have been a lot worse due to the Grammys pulling in huge numbers but still around a 266k drop in viewers compared to last week. For some comparison, same show last year did around 400k to 500k more overall in viewers.

Originally Posted by BaltimoreSun.com Axl Rotten, a Baltimore-born professional wrestler who rose to prominence in the 1990s with Extreme Championship Wrestling, died from an accidental overdose earlier this month, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore announced. Police said in a report that Rotten, 44, was found unconscious and not breathing Feb. 4 on the bathroom floor of a McDonald's in Linthicum. Rotten, who was on the floor inside a bathroom stall, had pulled down the infant changing table and placed on it drug paraphernalia and a broken burnt tablespoon with a "crystalline residue," according to the report. An unlabeled pill bottle with capsules of a "brownish substance," which police suspected was heroin, was atop the paper-towel dispenser, the report said. Rotten, who was born Brian Knighton and took the name Axl Rotten professionally, was pronounced dead at the scene at 3:09 p.m. It was unclear how long he had been in the bathroom before he was found.

Update surrounding the circumstances of Axl Rotten's death.

Originally Posted by 411Mania Steve Austin shared his thoughts on the Titus O’Neil suspension. Here is what he had to say… On His Feeling That The Suspension Has Nothing to Do With Race : “The whole racist thing really irritated me because any time you hear about anything these days it’s racist, and, man, it’s 2016. I’m not saying racism doesn’t exist, but, I mean, to play that card in this situation was total B.S. from my perspective.” Austin continued, “racism and that? Absolutely not. It was a reprimand for something that didn’t need to happen at that time. End of story.” On The Length of The Suspension: “If you’re going to suspend somebody, I think 30 [days should suffice]. I think 60 [days] is still a little overreacting. Did something need to happen, a come to Jesus meeting or a stern talking to backstage? Something [needed] to happen because I do believe it was inappropriate. It was the wrong person, at the wrong time.” On O’Neil Doing The Wrong Thing During a Serious Moment: Vince is 70 [years old] right now and that was a serious moment for him. He was totally in character. He cares about Daniel Bryan. He gets jerked pretty forcibly over there to Titus O’Neil and it was completely inappropriate.” Austin added, “this may be pro wrestling/sports entertainment, whatever you want to call it, but that was a serious moment. It’s not a time to be shucking and jiving out there, so lay some type of punishment down. Fine him, this, that, or whatever. I don’t know. Something was appropriate, but when I started hearing the racism things, I was like, ‘I’ve got to roll my eyes and I’ve got to call complete and utter bulls–t in this one.'”

From a recent Steve Austin podcast episode.

Originally Posted by Observer In case you missed the news, Jim Ross continues to get work everywhere and will do some boxing commentary for CBS Sports Network, likely for Premier Boxing Champions. No start date was announced.

Originally Posted by Observer Voices of Wrestling analyst Brandon Howard did some additional must-read analysis of the WWE Q4 financial call. Especially of note from Brandon: "The infograph WWE released on Thursday along with their press release seemed to claim their YouTube channel had received 8 billion views for the full year of 2015. Just by looking at their YouTube channel's "About" page, which publicly lists all-time video views, you can see that's not the case as the channel has accumulated about 7.5 billion video views all-time (since May 2007). Based on archived instances of that web page that I found, I estimate YouTube video views for WWE in 2015 at about 3.5 billion. I'm guessing they're including in that total the views of all WWE videos on YouTube that are uploaded by other users, which WWE has made copyright claims on."

Some other sheet news includes:

• 2K Games announced a PC port of WWE 2k16 will arrive on March 11th. Will be priced at $50 but will include all the currently available DLC packs.
• Recent article by the Rolling Stones involved NXT, Lucha Underground, and the growing popularity of wrestling on Wensdays. http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/f...vival-20160217
• Rolling Stones had a recent interview with Billy Corgin regarding his role in TNA and his wrestling fandom. http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/v...g-tna-20160217
• WWE currently has a poll on their website finding out who is the strongest wrestler in the company. At the moment Lesnar is currently leading at 45% with Cesaro at #2 with 14% of the vote. http://www.wwe.com/inside/polls/whic...-the-strongest
• This week's wrestling segment on ESPN had Brock Lesnar as the guest and him admitting he lost track of how many concussions he's sustained over his career (both wrestling and MMA). http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=14789062
• Turns out Becky showing off her new blonde hair look was likely due to the upcoming season of Swerved on the WWE Network. Recent Instagram post by Becky hinted at her and R-Truth pulling a prank. https://www.instagram.com/p/BB55OWUi...=beckylynchwwe
• In a "WWE Did You Know" type fact, the official reason for Pentagon Jr's existence is due to AAA originally planned for him to be the arch-nemesis of Kalisto prior to his departure to the WWE. Lucha Undgeround's Pentagon Jr is actually the 2nd version of the gimmick since WWE's La Sombra was the original Pentagon. https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCirc...e_archnemesis/
• In another "WWE Did You Know" type fact, only 4 wrestlers in WWF/WWE history who wrestled in the show opening match at Mania managed to wrestle in the main event the following year. The 4 guys are Jericho (opened Mania 17, main event 18), Edge (opened Mania 23, main event 24), Miz (opened Mania 26, main event 27), and Orton (opened Mania 29, main event 30). Making things more interesting, all four guys were also the WWE champions for their main event match. https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCirc...irst_match_at/
• In a completly unreleated wrestling news story but somehow managed to tie right back into wrestling, UK's Daily Mail revealed they will be launching a new newspaper called "New Day" with the general reaction to the announcement involving a lot of wrestling jokes made at their expense.