[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Going head-to-head with the college football championship game, Raw last night did 2.03 million viewers, the second lowest in modern history for a non-holiday show and lowest for a live show. Raw attempted to load up this week to avoid a bad number, but with the LSU-Clemson game doing 25.00 million on ESPN and 381,000 on ESPN 2, roughly double a good Monday Night Football game, there was only so much that could have helped. The audience was down 12.7 percent from last year's Raw which was head-to-head with a championship game that did 24.33 million viewers on ESPN and 666,000 on ESPN 2 ... The only episode in history that was non-holiday and did worse was the December 23 taped show that did 1.84 million viewers. The three hours were: 8 p.m. 2.22 million viewers 9 p.m. 2.06 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.81 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer Triple H faced backlash yesterday after making a joke directed at Paige. When answering a question about her or Edge making a possible return to the ring, Triple H replied that he hoped they would be able to be cleared to return, saying “Edge has kids. Paige, she probably has some she doesn't know of”. Paige wasn’t happy with the line, writing on Twitter, “Even my boss jokes about me.. no wonder you guys still do it too.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling It was a very awkward line from Levesque and my hope would be that he regretted stating it given Paige’s openness regarding the abuse she has endured since a tape of her was leaked several years ago and caused her enormous harassment. When she was interviewed in 2018 on Lilian Garcia’s podcast, she described what she had gone through: “That scarred me, just people invading my privacy, to the point where sometimes I don’t want to go out. People are just looking at me bad. I was out with my friend. We were just sitting there having a Bloody Mary. This guy comes up to my friend and says, ‘That’s the porn star.’ I cried in the toilet. I find it really hard to be close to anybody. And that’s the reason why. When they came out, I barricaded myself in the house for a couple of months. I was so sad to the point I was contemplating suicide. I was on the floor, I was so low. I got so skinny, I ended up collapsing with exhaustion in hospital in England. They told me at the time it was like stress-induced anorexia.” Even worse, was a story from Paige on an episode of Total Divas where she revealed having a miscarriage when she was younger and that she may not be able to have children. The point is not whether Levesque was attempting to be malicious and I would hope he wasn’t. The point is that it was an insensitive comment towards someone that must endure daily comments about that tape and had endured great pain in the wake of it. Even worse, is that this wasn’t a random person on Twitter it was one of her superiors and an executive within the company. At best, it can be labeled as a highly inappropriate and unprofessional comment for someone of Levesque’s status in the company.

Originally Posted by Observer SoCal Uncensored reached out to the Department of the Navy to verify if Robert Remus, aka Sgt. Slaughter, had ever served in the Marine Corps or the Marine Corps Reserve. They got a letter back from the Navy, which said they were unable to identify Remus as a member or former member of the Marines.

Link: https://twitter.com/socaluncensored/...82949390446592

Originally Posted by Observer While announcing their newest Performance Center signees, WWE has confirmed the addition of two independent wrestling standouts. Mercedes Martinez and Jake Atlas have officially signed with WWE. Martinez joins the company after appearing in the Mae Young Classic in both 2017 and 2018. She made it to the semifinals in the first tournament before losing to Shayna Baszler. In 2018, she lost to Meiko Satomura in the second round ... Martinez was the 21st entrant in the Casino Battle Royale at AEW All Out in August and also wrestled one match on AEW Dark that was taped in October. Atlas broke out on the Southern California indie scene. Last year, he made it to the quarterfinals of PWG's Battle of Los Angeles. He defeated Jungle Boy in the first round and then lost to Dragon Lee in the second ... Atlas appeared on the WWE-themed "Celebrity Undercover Boss" episode that aired in 2018 and said that his goal is to become the first openly gay WWE World Champion. "Titan Games" competitor Emily Andzulis, former NFL defensive lineman Anthony Francis, acrobat Sidney Bateman, and former college basketball player Zechariah Smith were also announced as signing with WWE:

Originally Posted by Observer Deadline.com reported Tuesday that Court Bauer's Major League Wrestling has signed a deal with major Hollywood agency ICM Partners as they look to sign a new TV and streaming deal ... The article said that MLW is looking to take advantage of the recent upswing in live sports TV rights deals, especially in pro wrestling. Bauer was quoted as saying MLW is in an unique position, given they are the only wrestling free agent property available in 2020. The ICM deal also includes representation for MLW Studios, "a multi-platform media studio focusing on original scripted and non-scripted programming."

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling ICM also represents John Cena.

Found that bit to be the most interesting from Post Wrestling's article about MLW's newest deal. Doubt Cena would bother ever showing up at a MLW show but still found it to be very interesting tidbit either way.

Originally Posted by Observer A second NJPW star has been confirmed for WrestleCon's WrestleMania week SuperShow. WrestleCon announced today that Shingo Takagi will be in action at this year's Mark Hitchcock Memorial SuperShow. The event is taking place at The Ritz Ybor in Tampa, Florida on Thursday, April 2 and will start at 8 p.m. Eastern time. This will be the first time Takagi has taken part in WrestleCon. Will Ospreay has also been announced for this year's WrestleCon SuperShow, along with Bandido, Alex Zayne, Blake Christian, and Jordan Oliver.

Originally Posted by Fightful The first bout for NWA Hard Times is official as Nick Aldis will take on Flip Gordon in an inter-promotional matchup. The match was confirmed on Tuesday's episode of NWA Powerrr. Aldis made a surprise appearance at ROH Saturday Night at Center Stage in Atlanta this past Saturday, attacking Gordon in the middle of a brawl between Villain Enterprises and La Faccion Ingobernable.

Originally Posted by Fightful Speaking to ESPN West Palm, The Young Buck explained the thought process behind the Bash at the Beach special. "Our plan is to do four pay-per-views a year, so we realized we have to dress up some of the shows on Wednesday to not fall into a formula. Try to make some of them feel more special than other ones. That was the thinking process on this. To bring something back from the past that has such a cool history. Cody happened to get the trademark and owns it now. He brought it to Tony's attention and we all thought it was a good idea. I think fans are gonna be excited because we're gonna try to make it a special show, even from the look of things," said Nick Jackson.

Originally Posted by Fightful Following the passing AAA's La Parka, fans wondered if LA Park, who went by La Parka in WCW and AAA in the 90s, would regain the name. LA Park was forced to change his name after a legal battle with Lucha Libre AAA once he returned to Mexico and began working for CMLL in 2003. LA Park would return to AAA in 2010, kicking off a feud with La Parka. When asked about the possibility of using the La Parka name once again, LA Park replied, "No one will fill the place that La Parka did, not me, nor anyone. The truth is you should respect his name so that Chuy Escoboza can never be forgotten. I don't plan on recovering anything, only that God has received him in its glory. In life, we'll fight up until we can."

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling There was a lengthy series of tweets posted by Gabe Sapolsky on Monday responding to David Starr, who has made several statements regarding EVOLVE and whether they pay certain performers on their shows. In the tweets, which Sapolsky has since deleted, he ran down Starr but acknowledged he kept 1-3 spots on shows where rising talent could have a spot but did not get paid. He defended this practice citing his longevity in the game and that they don’t eliminate paying spots, they are created in addition to those that are booked.

Also made everything into an even bigger mess afterwards by going on a blocking spree on Twitter, retweeting everyone who was praising him despite some of them using the occasion to just attack "SJWs", deleted all of his apology tweets, and got into an argument with GCW over EVOLVE's status as an indies fed despite EVOLVE also promoting NXT's Rhea Ripley and using NXT talent for their upcoming shows at the same time. Link with the tweets: https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/d...olsky-responds

Originally Posted by PWI Ring of Honor announced today that former IWGP Champion Jay White will be appearing for the company Wrestlemania 36 weekend at Supercard of Honor. PWInsider.com has been told that other members of Bullet Club will be appearing on the event as well and they will be in a top level main event match on the show. This is the first major indication in some time that the Ring of Honor-New Japan working relationship is continuing on in 2020.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Various: Ember Moon on WWE’s Issues with Lower Card, Santana’s Father Passes Away, Indies
• News Updates: Brian Cage & AEW, Marty Scurll’s ROH Booker Status, Tessa Blanchard’s “Attitude”
• Jon Moxley vs. Josh Barnett Announced for Bloodsport III
• Dave Bautista to Star in Apple TV+ Series, “See”
• MJF Finishes Up With MLW