Originally Posted by XL (Post 5255215)

There’s even less opportunity for a Harper/Curtis given the “Wildcard” set up has Reigns in 3 feuds at the minute. Former US champs Nakamura and Rusev haven’t been on TV for 4 weeks. Buddy Murphy is yet to debut on SDL following the Shake Up. As is Chad Gable. And Liv Morgan. And Mickie James. And Apollo Crews - who somehow appeared on Raw as a Wildcard but is yet debut on his new “home”. Same for Heavy Machinery. Eric Young made his Raw debut scrambling to pick up the lowest of lower card titles - and failing. A segment that also gave Cedric Alexander his second appearance - and 2nd loss.

Mess.

Originally Posted by PWI

For those of you wondering what happened to the advertised Fatal Four Way Elimination match on Raw, we are told that over the course of the day, WWE officials went back and forth on whether it should be an Elimination match or a single fall bout.

The argument was made that to protect talents, there should not be three eliminations and eventually that argument won out, so the match was changed to one finish, with Baron Corbin pinning the Miz to secure his Universal title bout with Seth Rollins

Originally Posted by Observer

SoCal Uncensored is reporting that Joey Ryan has turned down an AEW deal. He has been doing a “farewell to the indies” tour recently, and will make an announcement at Bar Wrestling’s Pickle Jar Hero event on 5/30 regarding his future.

Originally Posted by Observer

Pro Wrestling EVE is countering WWE Super Showdown by airing an alternative stream that will feature women’s pro wrestling during the event.

Originally Posted by Observer

Jordynne Grace, Petey Williams and Scott Steiner have been announced as a team for the upcoming CHIKARA King of Trios event this October.

Originally Posted by Observer

MLW has announced another debut for this weekend's Fury Road event.

Flamita will make his MLW debut against Rey Horus at Saturday's Fury Road television tapings. The show is taking place at the Waukesha County Expo Center in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

MLW noted that Flamita has signed on to be a regular with them and will return later this summer after a tour of Japan in July.

Originally Posted by PWI

In regard to rumors that Ric Flair was originally set to present the AEW title at Double or Nothing, that is incorrect. Bret Hart was always planned for that role, PWInsider.com has confirmed.

The 6/29 FyterFest and 7/13 Fight for the Fallen events will be streaming live on Bleacher Report Live. There were representatives of TNT and Bleacher Report backstage at Double or Nothing ...

The Chicago hotel for Starrcast for All Out weekend sold out almost immediately after the third Starrcast was announced.

Originally Posted by PWI

AEW President Tony Khan personally timed the Double or Nothing PPV last night and brought the show in 15 minutes before the end of their alotted time. There were a lot of people impressed by Khan's ability to do so since it was the first time he had undertaken the task. Khan was also suggesting shots for the Director of the PPV.

A number of those backstage passed on word that Khan was excitedly congratulating everyone after their matches, personally thanking them and even high-fiving them. It was said his enthusiasm really touched a lot backstage as they realized how invested he was on a personal level.

The Awesome Kong surprise was locked in four months ago but kept to a very small circle of people. Kong said today that only four people total knew she would be there. Kong noted that Diamond Dallas Page gave her a huge motivational speech before her appearance that helped her find the "Kong" persona again as she returned to the ring for the first time in years. Kong will be appearing on the filmed and completed GLOW Season three on Netflix.

Kevin Sullivan, one of the top producers for Impact Wrestling, was the one credited for the AEW video packages on the PPV.

The look of the PPV was designed to be as sports-oriented as possible. Keith Mitchell headed production. There were a number of former WCW production employees working the show.

Bob Rosen, formerly of TNA, built the ring that AEW utilized last night specifically for the promotion. Rosen also worked as timekeeper at ringside.

Atlas Security was in the house and will be working for the promotion going forward.

Originally Posted by PWI

An opposition is in the process of being filed against Starrcast registering 'Dead Man Talking' from being trademarked, but it's not from you who would think.

Audioboom have requested for a 30-day extension to file an opposition, which they have till 7/20 to do.

Audioboom produces a non-wrestling podcast called 'Dead Man Talking'.

If they wish to, WWE still have till 6/20 to file an opposition or request an extension.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

During the Canadian broadcast of Raw on Sportsnet 360, they ran an ad promoting Roman Reigns vs. Randy Orton for the Stomping Grounds pay-per-view on June 23rd in Tacoma, Washington.

Originally Posted by Fightful

The wrestling world has another interesting free agent, as Fightful has learned that Jonathan Gresham is without a contract.

The Ring of Honor standout isn't technically committed to Ring of Honor. Gresham's deal expired in late April, leaving him as a free agent in a wrestling world with a lot of options. It was expected that he would be quickly re-signed or extended, but thus far a deal hasn't been reached.

The situation is made even more interesting considering the fact that Gresham works as a trainer at the Ring of Honor Dojo as, well.

Originally Posted by Fightful

Kenny Omega gets emotional when talking about Kota Ibushi.

The day after AEW Double or Nothing, Kenny Omega made an appearance at Starrcast II, fielding a variety of questions. One subject that came up during Omega's session was his relationship with Kota Ibushi and why his Golden Lovers partner isn't in All Elite Wrestling. Omega quickly became choked up when discussing his decision not to ask Ibushi to join him in AEW.

"I knew I couldn't ask [Kota] Ibushi to sign [with AEW]," Omega said before pausing to compose himself. "I knew it was his time [in NJPW]. I knew that if I asked for him to come [to AEW], that he would. And if I begged for him to come that he would. But I knew that his dream, before anything we ever did, was to win the IWGP Heavyweight Belt."

Originally Posted by Observer

Raw on Memorial Day did 2.19 million viewers, which would be the fourth lowest number for the show in modern history.

The only episodes lower were last year's shows on both Christmas and New Year's Eve and the April 29, 2019 show, which did 2.16 million viewers ...

The good news is that there wasn't the usual big first-to-third hour drop, which was only 9.4 percent, partially because of how low the first hour was ...

The three hours were:

8 p.m. 2.27 million viewers
9 p.m. 2.25 million viewers
10 p.m. 2.05 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer

We no longer have conflicting reports. Zayn was of the belief he was supposed to say it. Most in the company weren't aware so the original word was it wasn't scripted but several sources have called it a miscommunication issue but he didn't say it on his own.

...It was scripted. They just lied to their own employees to make it out like Sami went against the script, not realizing anyone with a brain knows about the 15 second delay. Not to mention the people who did know would eventually tell those who don't.

This is Bischoff WCW and they didn't learn a thing from it. It draws no money and only makes paranoid talent even more paranoid, and makes employees think they're working for an insane company, neither of which is a positive.

Originally Posted by Observer

WWE has canceled another one of SmackDown’s Monday night house shows. The house show that was scheduled to take place at the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi, Texas next Monday (June 3) will no longer be happening, with WWE citing a scheduling conflict. Aside from the week of their European tour, WWE has canceled all of SmackDown’s Monday events since the Wild Card rule was introduced.

Originally Posted by Observer

WWE Network News reported that three matches from Texas in the 1950s will be added to the Network’s Hidden Gems section tomorrow morning. They are: The Sheik vs. Juan Humberto (1954), Danny Savich vs. Wild Bill Curry (1955), Maurice Vachon vs. The Amazing Zuma (1957).

Originally Posted by Observer

Daniel Bryan told Sports Illustrated about how long he wants to wrestle for: “There are people who say, ‘I only want to do this for three or four more years,’ or ‘I only want to do this until I’m 45.’ No. I want to do this until I’m 70. Months before I die, I want to be doing a wrestling show. I won’t be able to do the stuff I do now, but I want to go out and do this thing I’ve been passionate about wrestling my entire life. I want to do that my whole life.”

Originally Posted by Observer

Dave Meltzer notes that, in 12 hours, today’s Talk is Jericho episode with Jon Moxley beat the all-time number for any previous episode of the show.

Originally Posted by Observer

Tomohiro Ishii and Jeff Cobb have been announced for the opening night of this year’s G1 Climax in Dallas on July 6. Kazuchika Okada, Tetsuya Naito, Kota Ibushi, Jay White, Jushin Thunder Liger, EVIL, and SANADA are also advertised for the show, though NJPW has yet to reveal the tournament participants for the G1.

Originally Posted by Observer

Rachael Evers is okay following a hit and run car accident that took place this afternoon.

Evers wrote about the situation on Twitter, saying that the accident was due to a drunk driver.

“Let me start by saying this: I am ok,” she wrote. "I was hit by a drunk driver today on my way home from the [WWE Performance Center]. Hit and run. I’m extremely thankful it was my passengers side that was hit. Some people aren’t so lucky-please DONT DRINK AND DRIVE.”

Originally Posted by PWI

Lars Sullivan’s Twitter account has been deleted.

Originally Posted by PWI

WWE have requested for a 90-day extension to oppose registration of the "Dead Man Talking" trademark. They have until 9/18 to file an opposition.

As noted a few days ago on PWInsider.com, Audioboom requested for a 30-day extension to file an opposition, which they have until 7/20. Audioboom produces a non-wrestling podcast called 'Dead Man Talking'.

Originally Posted by Fightful

Adam Page's Full Gear Challenge ends in a good cause.

Adam "Hangman" Page won the All Elite Wrestling Casino Battle Royale at Double Or Nothing to earn a shot at the AEW World Championship and he and Chris Jericho will clash at a later date for that title. On the road to Double Or Nothing, Page was getting his body ready for the show so that he can fit into his ring gear which was dubbed the 'Full Gear Challenge'. Adam Page auctioned off his ring gear to benefit the National Eating Disorders Association and an article was published about his auction on NEDA.com and here's an excerpt from the post:

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc

Jon Moxley revealed during his appearance on the latest episode of Chris Jericho's podcast, Talk Is Jericho, that former deathmatch wrestler Nick Mondo was the director of his infamous prison break viral video.

Wrestling Inc. can also confirm that Mondo directed Moxley's recent "Time's Up" video reveal for New Japan Pro Wrestling, which you can watch in the video above. That video is also included on Mondo's website, as well as NJPW's YouTube page.

Originally Posted by Observer

Following a night in which Raw had its second lowest non-holiday audience in history, SmackDown was actually up five percent this week, averaging 2.072 million viewers for Tuesday's show.

This matched the April 23 episode for SmackDown's highest number since April's Superstar Shake-up.

The main reason for this week's increase would be the lack of competition, as both the NBA and NHL playoffs had the night off. SmackDown finished seventh overall for the night on cable, trailing only news programming, and topped the 18-49 demo with a 0.69 rating. In fact, in that demo, SmackDown beat everything on television with the exception of NBC, which was the only network to have first-run shows on Tuesday night ...

Year-over-year, SmackDown was only down six percent, the second straight week the year-over-year decline was in the single digits. In fact, it was the best retention from the previous year that SmackDown has done since going back to October 30 of last year, when the decline was 0.4 percent.

Originally Posted by PWI

Paul Levesque hosted a conference call with reporters today in advance of Saturday’s Takeover show. Adam Hopkins introduced HHH and we were off and running. ...

Mike Johnson then got in. H said two’s not bad. Mike asked what the biggest lessons he learned from the first show until now.

H said that the biggest learning curve was making the brand have its own identity, making it a stand-alone brand. He said it was about learning who the players where and what their journeys were. They have all different stories. He talked about the differences between all of the people that have come in. Some have been lifetime fans, others were folks that chose wrestling after doing something else. It’s great to see those people grow and come to love the business. To H, he has learned from all of their perspectives and where the wrestlers have come from. He said that it’s been inspiring and meaningful for him. He loves going to the Performance Center because it gives him a shot of adrenaline. It’s awe inspiring ...

Jason Powell asked H saying he wants to have a six month plan for talents. It hasn’t happened. Why?

H said necessity takes precedence. If the main roster needs talent, that can throw plans out the window. He said when that happens and talents get called up, he’s excited for the talents. He would like to have a plan, but sometimes that doesn’t happen. He compared it to baseball, where talents get called up due to need and circumstance.

He was asked about taking jabs at AEW and them coming back. Are they good for business and will NXT do it?

H said that at the Hall of Fame Billy being there was the elephant in the room and DX does that kind of thing. That is all it was. For him, he doesn’t really think about AEW, he just wants to put out the best NXT product that he can. He is focused on this Saturday at Takeover 25, putting on the best show and growing the brand ...

He was asked if NXT could be used on FOX?

He said they are looking at everything, there is interest in NXT. It’s also valuable to them on the Network. We will get there.

Originally Posted by Fightful

Triple H speaks about the remarks made about AEW at the WWE Hall Of Fame ceremony and TakeOver XXV.

“Hall Of Fame, to me, there was a moment -- Billy’s [Gunn] there. There’s kinda sorta this moment where if you don’t sort of say there’s an elephant in the room, everybody sorta goes, ‘Well why didn’t they mention the elephant in the room?’ It was nothing more than that and to be honest with DX, if you don’t do that, then we’re sorta kinda not doing what we do and trust me, a lot of that was not necessarily laid out and planned. Things kinda just went along." He revealed. "So, what they are… for me, I don’t really even think about it to be honest. For me, when it comes to this TakeOver, I just wanna put out the best product possible. I’m not focused on anybody else, I’m not thinking about anybody else’s creative or what they said or didn’t say or anything else. To me, I’m focused on this Saturday at TakeOver 25 and the brand and making everybody bigger stars coming out of it, putting on the best show we possibly can for fans and continuing to grow the brand.”

Originally Posted by PWI

Major League Wrestling will debut in Dallas, Texas, the promotion announced:

Are you a subscriber to the MLW Newsletter?
If you were, you'd have seen this news earlier today:
"It's official: MLW has closed a deal for its Dallas debut. More details on this will be available soon."
Sign up for the newsletter here: https://t.co/5vtcqJjctT pic.twitter.com/lomKEzvViF
— MLW FURY ROAD • JUNE 1 (@MLW) May 29, 2019

The plan is to build the debut around Ross and Marshall Von Erich

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

The Chinese-based OWE (Oriental Wrestling Entertainment) group has partnered with Toronto’s Smash Wrestling to stage two events in the city over SummerSlam week this August. OWE will be part of the groups that are running at The MET (The Midtown Event Centre). OWE will be presenting shows on Wednesday, August 7th at 4 pm and Saturday, August 10th at 3 pm. They are joining Smash Wrestling, Progress, wXw, SHIMMER, RISE, and Femme Fatales, who are all running cards at the venue that week. The group will be running a total of nine events that week from Wednesday through Sunday.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

Ring of Honor has announced that the main event of the Best in the World pay-per-view will feature Matt Taven defending the ROH title against Jeff Cobb in Baltimore, Maryland on Friday, June 28th. Cobb lost the ROH Television title earlier this month in Toronto in a four-way match where wasn’t pinned and Shane Taylor won the title. On the same show, Taylor will be defending the Television title against Bandido.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

I received an update on AOP, who have been set to return for a few weeks. Akam has been cleared and it’s simply a matter of coming up with a program for the duo. One of the reasons for their delayed return was the addition of the Wild Card rule, which has tied up television time. Akam has been out since January with a knee injury while Rezar has been used sparingly during that time.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

John Martin, a member of the British Columbia Legislature, took time to acknowledge Mauro Ranallo for his efforts to raise awareness and understanding of mental health. At the end of the clip, he got the members of the legislature to join and yell, “Mamma Mia”.

Originally Posted by Fightful

The World title match at Best In The World has been made official.

Former ROH World Television Champion Jeff Cobb arrived in Ring Of Honor in July of 2018. He went on to capture the ROH World Television Championship and on June 28th in Baltimore, Maryland, Cobb will get his opportunity at the ROH World Championship when he challenges the current champion Matt Taven at Best In The World.

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc

Chris Jericho appeared on Busted Open Radio today and revealed that he will do battle with "Hangman" Adam Page at AEW's All Out pay-per-view during Labor Day Weekend near Chicago.

Page won the Casino Battle Royale on the AEW Double Or Nothing "Buy In" pre-show this past Saturday night to earn a shot against the winner of Jericho vs. Kenny Omega, in a match that will crown the first-ever AEW World Heavyweight Champion. It looks like AEW will be crowning that champion at All Out.

All Out takes place on Saturday, August 31 from the Sears Centre Arena near Chicago, the same arena where All In was held last year. Tickets go on sale Friday, June 14.

Originally Posted by Observer

At least a few have enquired about leaving [WWE] including a couple of names that would shock you. Also said that the total would take more than “two hands to count”.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

Double or Nothing is currently estimated at doing roughly 98,000 buys between television and digital PPV, with close to a 50/50 split between the two ...

Because of the smaller building, the gate was not close to what New Japan and ROH got for the Madison Square Garden show. It would have to be considered the most successful debut event of a pro wrestling promotion, even if the attendance was less than what Roy Shire drew for his first show at the Cow Palace in 1961. And that’s the only comparison product ...

Las Vegas historically is a great boxing and UFC market, and WCW and WWE did well at times when they were hot, but as a general rule it is not a strong wrestling market. WrestleMania in 1993 at Caesar’s was set up for less than 16,000 and didn’t even sell out ...

Overall merchandise numbers for AEW were said to be excellent, including the convention. Merchandise at the live show was above what WWE would do in a similar sized building for a PPV, but not by that much, probably in the $120,000 to $130,000 ballpark. It was nothing like Mania level per-head merchandise buying.

AEW was the second most searched item on Saturday night on Google, topping 220,000, trailing only the Toronto Raptors. All In, New Japan Tokyo Domes, and ROH/NJPW in Madison Square Garden never cracked the top 20. NXT has only once done so, hitting 50,000 for the most recent Takeover show in Brooklyn. It beat the last UFC show by 12 percent and beat Money in the Bank by 35 percent. However, when it came to second-day interest, it more than quadrupled Money in the Bank and was more than six times greater than UFC 237, and that’s with Raw the day after Money in the Bank and ESPN news coverage the day after UFC 237.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

AEW has announced two smaller shows that look to be streamed on B/R Live, a 6/29 show in Daytona Beach with Young Bucks & Omega vs. Pentagon Jr.& Fenix & mystery partner, Moxley vs. Joey Janela, Darby Allin vs. Cody and local promoter Alex Jebailey vs. Michael Nakazawa that has sold about 3,000 tickets; and a 7/16 show in Jacksonville with Omega vs. Cima, Young Bucks vs. Rhodes Brothers and Brandi Rhodes vs. Allie that at last word had several hundred tickets left in a building set up for 5,180.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

WWE’s unique Super Showdown card on 6/7 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is a show with a unique dream match from 20 years ago, a grudge match from 15 years ago in a country outdated by about 100 years. The company is pushing the show with the tag line that it will be “as big if not bigger than WrestleMania.”

While the show will put far more money into the company’s coffers than WrestleMania, the as big or bigger likely ends there. With a show scheduled from 2-6 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, the audience watching will be minuscule in comparison and the overall interest level will likely fall well below Double or Nothing from a group that has no television. Currently there are nine matches announced for the show that pretty much exposes that whatever principles WWE has regarding women and minorities are for sale, admittedly, for a high price ...

By the way, you can say whatever you want about empowering women and being against racism but at the end of the day, real stands involve putting your money where your mouth is. Prejudice against ethnicity is just like skin color or any other banning of someone without any actions they have done. It can’t be justified and that’s the end.

As for Reigns, he told Newsweek, “It gets a lot of mixed and negative reactions. The bottom line for me is, if we’re going to help promote change, if we’re going to set out to make an impact, then I have to be a part of it. I’m not going to sit on the sideline and talk about how we can get there. I want to be part of the action. I look at it a being part of the solution while still respecting cultures, but it’s a big world and I want to experience all of it. So if we can help make a positive impact that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to put smiles on everyone’s faces. We don’t discriminate, that’s our goal to help and promote positivity and take that to every inch of the world.”

I’m sorry, but yes, WWE doesn’t discriminate on their own, but based on the situation with Zayn and Black, it’s more than just doing business with people who do, which is one question and quite frankly a lot of companies do, but this is one step farther. It’s one to do business with those people, but this is different. This is being paid by people who are telling you that for what they pay you, you can’t hire people we don’t like, based on gender, religion or where they come from.

This is allowing discrimination to be part of your own company and product on your own show, and you can make all the excuses you want for it, but I can’t believe that deep down people can’t see that. Anyone can talk the talk when they don’t have a hard decision to make. The test of if you’re real is if you walk the walk when you have a hard decision to make.

They didn’t want Syrians in. They didn’t want women in. They could have easily said they didn’t want African-Americans, Canadians, Jews, Mexicans or Samoans because the principle we’re talking about is the same. If you really want to make change, the company should put its foot down and do what so many athletes and entertainers did a generation ago in South Africa. That’s what led to change, not taking money and going there while professing the company is behind women and against discrimination and racism.

The lack of women proves their much-pushed Women’s Revolution, itself 50 years behind the times, is a buzzword that they won’t back up with actions. Freedom of religious thought was for sale, given Aleister Black not being allowed to go. Racism, well their Martin Luther King tributes are exposed as being convenient, but money means more, with Sami Zayn being held back. Or, the reality, that they have no beliefs, but profess to have them because it’s a nice marketing gimmick. What we’ve got instead is a show where they have banned mentions of the country it is taking place on their broadcasts. They’ll probably ban it during the show as well.

Originally Posted by Observer

Season three of Netflix's GLOW has its premiere date.

Netflix announced today that season three of GLOW will be uploaded on Friday, August 9. Like with the first two seasons, this one will have 10 episodes.

Originally Posted by PWI

The Authors of Pain are scheduled to return to action next month, PWInsider.com has confirmed.

Akam and Rezar are scheduled for Smackdown Live events in June, the first live events the team have worked since early 2019 when Akam suffered a knee injured and required surgery.

Originally Posted by PWI

Chris Pierce sent word that Matt Striker is now working as a fantasy baseball expert:

The impact of sabermetrics on fantasy baseball?

Brian Kenny talks about it with wrestler-turned-fantasy baseball expert @Matt_Striker_. #MLBNow pic.twitter.com/p50Eqa0vaS
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) May 31, 2019

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

and will face the winner of Monday’s match between Will Ospreay and Ryusuke Taguchi. The finals of the tournament take place next Wednesday from Sumo Hall and the winner receives an IWGP junior heavyweight title shot against Dragon Lee at Dominion.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

So this is how things stand with Penta 0M & Rey Fenix. On the 5/24 show in Tijuana, they lost their Crash tag titles to Bestia 666 & Mecha Wolf in a match where Black Danger helped Bestia & Wolf. Penta then teased after the match that this would be their last match with the promotion. There has been a lot of talk that they’ll be finishing up indie dates and signing a deal in some form with AEW that would also allow them to work regularly in AAA. They’ve been under a Lucha Underground contract so AEW has been able to use them, but not sign them. But obviously they want them and reports are they were given a big money offer. WWE wanted them as well. But then the 6/15 show was announced and while no match was listed, Penta and Fenix were both announced. The tag title match was originally a TLC match, which sounded scary the day before Double or Nothing. I guess they were able to get that changed.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

New Japan’s television audience is 10 percent under the age of 20, 14 percent between 20-29, 26 percent, 36 percent from 40-49 and 13 percent over the age of 50. Unlike WWE, where the median age of the television viewer is 54, New Japan is 39. But WWE does attract more kids. Of the New Japan fan base, 39 percent became fans over the last year, 17 percent have been fans one to three years, 11 percent four to five year and 29 percent more than six years. Only four percent were winning back lapsed fans. The television audience is 66 percent male, which isn’t much different from WWE. But at live shows, the audience is 50/50, so New Japan does a better job of translating their women’s audience into being ticket buyers, but one can argue they don’t do as good a job as WWE with the male audience becoming ticket buyers.

Harold Meij said that all entertainment is their competition. His goal is to make Japanese wrestling into something known worldwide culturally, similar to Mexico, where one of the thing non-wrestling fan tourists do when they go to Mexico City is go to Friday night Arena Mexico shows. He’d like to create a situation where tourists coming to Tokyo feel one of the things they need to see is New Japan wrestling. He said the goal is to attract more children, maybe through card games or comics. Meij said when he signed that he would consider himself a failure if he can’t get New Japan annual revenues to $100 million within three years of his taking over. They are closer to $40 million and he’s about one year in. The only way to reach that number is to be able to get a strong series of international television deals.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

A bill that could change the very face of pro wrestling contracts, known as AB5, passed in the California state Assembly on 5/29. The bill provided specific rules as to the difference between an employee and an independent contractor and would affect WWE, UFC and AEW competitors most likely. It would also affect Uber and Amazon drivers, manicurists and exotic dancers. All people classified as employees would get labor protection, unemployment insurance, health care subsidies, paid parental leave, overtime pay, workmen’s comp and others.

The bill classifies independent contractors as workers who are completely free of company control, doing work that isn’t a central part of the company’s business and has an independent business in that same industry. Wrestlers simply don’t meet those standards. This would mean that if talent from these companies perform on shows in California, they would then be considered employees. The bill still has to pass the state Senate and be signed into law. It also could lead to similar bills introduced in other states

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

The health issue that Ric Flair was hospitalized for was blood clots in his leg and chest. He was already scheduled for a heart surgery that week. The blood clots were why they had to delay the surgery a few days until they were able to clear them up. Flair suffered blood clots in his leg years on two different occasions in 2013 including the first time while going to Japan where he was going to do a match for All Japan Pro Wrestling at the time his son Reid was going to start as a full-timer for the promotion

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

A-Kid, who was at the last NXT U.K. tapings, is expected to be signing if he hasn’t already. He’s the guy who had incredible matches in Spain with the likes of Will Ospreay, Zack Sabre Jr., and Ricochet

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

Ideas have been batted around for the 24/7 title to be defended on YouTube, Instagram and at the Performance Center between shows

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

WWE employees told security to watch out and get any AEW signs or any signs bashing WWE as an entity (it was okay to have negative signs on specific talent). There were multiple AEW chants throughout the show, but in a positive note, they were never loud enough that it came across strongly on television. There were chants after Zayn made the remark that were audible, but not loud and they played Rollins’ music immediately when they started.

Originally Posted by Observer

Steve Austin announced that his Steve Austin Show podcast will return on June 18.

Originally Posted by Observer

Raw last night did 2.41 million viewers, up 10 percent from last week with a different ratings pattern than in months.

Even though the tradition is during the summer for the second hour to be rated the highest, of late that has not been the case because of the situation where fans tune out as the show gets going ...

It was the largest first-to-second hour increase since March 2, 2015 ...

Still, a 2.41 million average when you promised a MITB cash-in and probable title change and made it clear Undertaker and Lesnar would be appearing shows just how much they've lost in recent months overall.

The third hour dropped, even with Undertaker, but it still did better than the first hour, which almost never happens.

The three hours were:

8 p.m. 2.31 million viewers
9 p.m. 2.56 million viewers
10 p.m. 2.35 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer

WWE is among a number of investors in FloSports, that raised another $47 million in funding. FloSports briefly had a pro wrestling channel, that was disbanded. They have all kinds of minor sports channels including a strong amateur wrestling channel. They have more than 250 rights deals. Fertitta Capital, an investment firm owned by Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, were also inventors in the latest round of funding.

Originally Posted by PWI

BOOM! Studios will be ending its WWE comic book series with the forthcoming issue #25.

A number of readers who subscribe to the series were informed via email today that the series will be ending, with BOOM! offering alternative titles to subscribe to instead.

The WWE series launched in 2017, featuring original stories that filled in storyline gaps and character history for WWE performers.

Originally Posted by Observer

Atsushi Aoki has passed away at the age of 41 following a motorcycle accident.

Kyodo reported this afternoon (via translations from Chris Charlton) that Aoki was killed in the Chiyoda area of Tokyo Monday night after his bike failed to take a curve, hitting the wall of a tunnel. There are no further details on the accident at this time ...

Along with Go Shiozaki, Jun Akiyama, Kotaro Suzuki and Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Aoki departed from NOAH in January of 2013 and joined All Japan Pro Wrestling, with the group forming a stable known as Burning. Aoki ended up winning the Jr. Heavyweight title on three occasions and the All Asia tag team championships three times, once with Kotaro Suzuki and twice with Hikaru Sato.

Aoki is the current AJPW World Jr. champion, having just won the title on 5/20. He was set to defend the championship against Hikaru Sato on 6/18 at Korakuen Hall.

Originally Posted by Observer

OWE vice-president Michael Nee told The South China Morning Post that around four Chinese wrestlers from OWE were invited to Double or Nothing, but were unable to go due to visa issues. They are hoping to resolve the problem by All Out on August 31.

Originally Posted by Observer

Hikaru Shida tweeted that she won’t be at AEW’s Fyter Fest show on June 29 because she’ll be on tour in Japan. Shida noted that she’s moving to the United States after the tour.

Originally Posted by Observer

Two more matches have been made official for ROH Best in the World 2019.

ROH has announced Dalton Castle vs. Dragon Lee and Rush vs. Flip Gordon for the pay-per-view. It's taking place at the UMBC Event Center in Baltimore, Maryland on Friday, June 28.

Originally Posted by Observer

Pro Wrestling Guerrilla has announced when this year's Battle of Los Angeles will be taking place.

On Twitter tonight, PWG revealed that the 2019 Battle of Los Angeles will be held on Thursday, September 19, Friday, September 20, and Sunday, September 22. The three-night tournament is usually held on successive days from Friday to Sunday, but there is no show on the Saturday of that weekend this year.

The reason there isn't a show on that Saturday is because the Globe Theatre in Los Angeles, California, which will host the Battle of Los Angeles, has another event booked that night.

Originally Posted by PWI

One of the greatest luchadores of all-time, Dr. Wagner Jr., will voyage to Chicago on July 6th as he competes for Major League Wrestling for the first-time ever alongside his son, El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr.

MLW today announced Dr. Wagner Jr. & El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr will be in tag team competition at MLW: Kings of Colosseum at Cicero Stadium in Chicago. The event is a TV taping for beIN SPORTS on Saturday night July 6th with a 7 p.m. bell time.

Originally Posted by PWI

WWE are holding having a tryout for women at their PC in the UK this week. Debbie Keitel, Valkyrie (not Taya), Candy Floss and a few others are expected to be taking part. Keitel and Valkyrie regulars in Ireland's OTT.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

MLW drew 742 people on Saturday for their first show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which they were happy with and described it as a “healthy start”. One of the big news items from the show was that they broke their existing merchandise record and their new “Aloha Von Erich” shirts sold out. Marshall & Ross Von Erich were said to have received a big reaction for their six-man tornado match teaming with Tom Lawlor against Contra. They seemed to be very high on Austin Aries, who worked the show on Saturday and while it wasn’t said if he’s been booked for future shows, it seems like the promotion is keen on using him.

Originally Posted by Observer

Peter Rosenberg, who did some WWE television work including kickoff shows, said he was no longer with the company beacuse there was no spot for him. He said he was doing other projects and missed some shows, but he was free for WrestleMania and expected to do the show, but Michael Cole told him he was no longer going to be used.

Originally Posted by Fightful

Now that he's away from WWE, Moxley gives his thoughts on the three-hour Raw and offers solutions on how WWE can make things better for the fans and talent.

"Three hours of Raw. I get why they do it. They get paid, but it's too much. It deludes the product. They have so much product with Raw, SmackDown, 205 Live. It gets deluded after awhile. Especially when it's all produced and all looks the same," said Moxley in an interview with Wade Keller of PWTorch. "The opening segment with 15-minute promos and stuff but I don't know how to fill three hours every week with good stuff. Because you can only give them so much wrestling, even a big wrestling fan can only watch so much wrestling. So you end up giving away these big pay-per-view matches on TV. Go back to an hour. I don't know. I'm not a genius who can tell you how to fill [three hours] but three hours is a hell of a lot of time to fill. SmackDown is much more manageable."

Moxley continued, "They retread the same matches over and over. One problem that I never had is, some guys just don't ever get used. I was always at least doing something. There are some guys that sit there and don't get used. But the guys that get used, are over-used. You see the same matches three weeks in a row. I always thought, why don't they do, me vs. Bray Wyatt one week and instead of doing it again the next, show clips from last week and then give Tyler Breeze a match. Give me and Bray Wyatt an extra day off and let Tyler Breeze have a week on Raw."

Originally Posted by Fightful

With Jon Moxley set to make his New Japan debut at Best of Super Juniors Finals on Wednesday and Chris Jericho returning to face Kazuchika Okada at Dominion on June 9, many have wondered about the relationship between All Elite Wrestling and New Japan. According to NJPW GM Michael Craven, there is no relationship.

“NJPW has a long and rich history with our international partners, including CMLL in Mexico, Ring of Honor in America, and RevPro in the United Kingdom,” said Craven in an interview with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated. “Loyalty is a big virtue, especially in Japanese culture. Loyalty to our partners is of utmost importance to us as we continue to foster the premiere network of wrestling talent in the world. We wish everybody at All Elite Wrestling nothing but the best in their ongoing endeavors, though we must stress we have no working arrangement at this time. Again, we think our partners seek and deserve loyalty and an appropriate amount of care. We want our relationships to be mutually beneficial over the long haul, rather than just thinking in the moment.”

Originally Posted by Observer

Former two-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Hiromu Takahashi has been out of action since the Summer of 2018 when he suffered what is to be believed to be a broken neck but that has yet to be confirmed by New Japan Pro Wrestling. Takahashi remains active on social media on his road to recovery and at the conclusion of his latest video, the date June 5th, 2019 has a timer next to it and June 5th is the finals of the Best Of The Super Juniors tournament in Tokyo.

Originally Posted by Fignuts (Post 5258856)

I’d much rather see NJPW partner with AEW than ROH, but I gotta respect the loyalty.

Originally Posted by Observer

Following a night in which Raw ratings rebounded, SmackDown did not follow suit.

Despite a much-hyped appearance by Goldberg ahead of his match against The Undertaker at Super ShowDown in Saudi Arabia, SmackDown dropped to 2.016 million viewers on Tuesday, down three percent from last week. There was no major sports competition, with both the NBA and NHL finals having the night off ...

Year-over-year, SmackDown was only down six percent, the third straight week that drop has been in the single digits. The episode retained the usual 84 percent of Raw's audience from the night before.

Originally Posted by Observer

A pre-show match has been added to the lineup for Friday's Super ShowDown event.

WWE announced today that The Usos will face The Revival on the Super ShowDown pre-show. The pre-show begins at 1 p.m. Eastern time, with the main card starting at 2 p.m. Eastern.

Originally Posted by Observer

The NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion and NWA National Champion will be teaming up at ROH Best in the World.

NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion Nick Aldis & NWA National Champion Colt Cabana vs. The Briscoes has been announced for Best in the World. The pay-per-view is taking place at the UMBC Event Center in Baltimore, Maryland on Friday, June 28.

Originally Posted by Observer

Mickie James will be out of action for the foreseeable future, as she is going to undergo ACL surgery.

She confirmed the news this afternoon on a Instagram Live post. She said that she had an MRI on Monday and found out the same day about the injury. She also mentioned that she didn’t know when she would be getting the surgery.

She was injured during a match this past weekend against Carmella at a house show in Waco, Texas that eventually had to be cut short. There were earlier reports that she was injured, but to what extent wasn’t known at the time.

Originally Posted by PWI

The GoFundMe Campaign to assist the daughter of Ashley Massaro created by a number of current and former WWE stars has raised $46,010 and counting. To assist in the effort, which is raising money for Massaro's daughter's education, click here.

Meanwhile, WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley will be selling Cactus Jack t-shirts via Pro Wrestling Tees with the proceeds going to Massaro's daughter's education fund starting this Friday:

Originally Posted by PWI

As of this morning, the WWE live event in Reno, Nevada is still scheduled to take place. If it does, it will be the first Smackdown Monday night live event to take place and not be canceled since the Wild Card rule was announced.

Originally Posted by PWI

Sami Zayn announced that he will be running another fundraising campaign to raise money for medical relief in Syria, timed to begin at the same time as WWE's Super Showdown in Saudi Arabia, this Friday at 2 PM EST:.

That timing is obviously set for a reason:

Intensified attacks in NW Syria are targeting civilians & medical facilities.

I will once again be partnering with @sams_usa to launch a mobile clinic in Syria to bring medical aid to those in desperate need.

Our fundraiser will be launched Friday, June 7, 2pm EDT.

Please RT. https://t.co/ypQi7HOjST
— Sami Zayn (@SamiZayn) June 5, 2019

Originally Posted by Fightful

Dustin Rhodes discusses his bloody affair with Cody.

One of the highlights at All Elite Wrestling's Double or Nothing was the brother vs. brother affair between Dustin and Cody Rhodes ...

Speaking to Chris Jericho on Talk is Jericho, Dustin discussed getting busted open in the bout and his philosophy on blood.

"I know a lot of people were worried. I was worried. You do it and you see it start streaming out and I was like, 'Oh no. I went a little bit too deep.' 10 minutes go by and I'm starting to worry because the whole ring is red, it's all in my eyes, I'm trying to wipe it out but it keeps shooting out to my heartbeat. It gets scary. After 15 minutes, I knew I'd be okay. You saw the fans faces. They were horrified, but into it. It was incredible," said Dustin.

"I've always been told, 'red on the head is green in the pocket.' I believe that to be true to an extent, when it's used sparingly. It was just right [At Double or Nothing]. I'm still on a huge high from this match. We stole the show from the legendary Chris Jericho," he joked.

Originally Posted by Fightful

A few years ago, WWE started doing live podcast episodes of the Steve Austin Show on WWE Network. Guests included Vince McMahon, Paul Heyman, Brock Lesnar, and others. While most of the interviews went smoothly and featured Austin chatting with his guests about a variety of topics, his interview with Jon Moxley (formerly Dean Ambrose in WWE) was an awkward affair that Austin couldn't get back on track after Moxley checked out.

Speaking to Wade Keller of PWTorch, Moxley revealed why he shut down during the interview.

"I don't remember it being very good. I was looking forward to it. I went there on my day off and I was like, 'Cool, we're going to talk wrestling.' A producer called me a week before to prep and was trying to ask super personal deep questions about my childhood. And I was like, 'it's kinda none of your business.' I didn't want to drag up my shit on national television. Within five seconds [of the interview], I'm getting these questions. [Austin] said something that pissed me off and I mentally shut down," recalled Moxley. "I love Steve and had that been a regular interview, I would have hung up on him. I think he wanted me to bury the shit out of everything. But I'm WWE Champion at the time and doing double shots. I'm beat to shit and working my ass off. And guys like Steve will be, 'Why don't you just go off-script?' The whole situation is different than when he was there. He could say 'Austin 3:16,' I get a dumb script. I can't go into all this on this podcast because I'm trying to stand up for my generation and the boys. I just wanted to talk about wrestling."

Moxley continued, "All these Attitude Era guys are calling our generation 'lazy and scared for our jobs.' They don't understand the shit we're dealing with. It's not 1998. I didn't know how to get into that in that setting. I just went to autopilot. I knew what he wanted but I didn't know how to give it to him. We didn't have enough time to get into it all. And I was pissed off because I felt bamboozled by that producer that I told that I was interested in talking about my family."

Originally Posted by Fightful

Mattel is celebrating Randy Savage's time as the spokesperson for Slim Jim by releasing an exclusive figure that will be available in limited quantities at Mattel's San Diego Comic-Con retail booth from July 17-21. Fans can pre-order the figure, which costs $29.99, through Entertainment Earth beginning on June 18.

Originally Posted by Observer

WWE has revealed a list of names who tried out for NXT UK this week in London, England.

The camp, which ran for three days, hosted eighteen women from across Europe, Australia and Canada. William Regal, along with Sarah Stock, Jack Starz, James Mason, Joel Allen and Chris Sharpe led the tryouts.

Some of the highlights of the list include:

Karen Glennon, who is best known as Session Moth Martina. She has worked for a number of UK promotions including EVE, OTT and PROGRESS as well as SHIMMER and Stardom.
Candy Floss, who has made appearances before on NXT UK.
Valkyrie Marie Cusack, who is the current OTT women’s champion.
Steph De Lander from Australia, known as the Python Powerhouse. She has played soccer and has a ballet and tap dancing background.
Jamie Hayer, from Southampton, England, who has done tours with Stardom.
Gisele Mayordo, who trained under Lance Storm and was a competitive figure skater before transitioning to pro wrestling.
Kaydell Joyce, aka Debbie Keitel. A former powerlifting champion who has trained with Marty Jones and Emi Sakura.
Chloe Smyth, who wrestles under the name Dani Luna and is the current Dragon Pro Wrestling women’s champion.

Originally Posted by Observer

Dr. Wagner Jr. and LA Park will be facing off in a tag match when Wagner makes his MLW debut next month.

Wagner & El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. Park & El Hijo de LA Park has been announced for MLW's television tapings in Cicero, Illinois on Saturday, July 6. The tapings are being called "Kings of Colosseum" and are taking place at Cicero Stadium.

Originally Posted by Observer

7,650 people was the attendance for the BOSJ finals at Sumo Hall.

Originally Posted by PWI

I noticed on Instagram that Sasha Banks is using her real name. Should WWE be concerned about another CM Punk scenario, or are we already there?

No. It's a CM Punk situation when she walks out and doesn't return. All indications are that she will be returning when the time is right. Using her real name on Instagram is nothing more than her using it to differentiate herself from the persona she portrays on WWE TV.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

With less than a day to go before WWE’s Super Showdown in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, there is a story which for long-term news and propaganda purposes makes the first and probably last Undertaker vs. Bill Goldberg mach seem like nothing ...

But, for real, there will be a time, and it may even be on 6/7, that WWE does host the first women’s pro wrestling match in Saudi Arabia. Natalya and Alexa Bliss are in Saudi Arabia as of this writing. WWE will take credit for changing culture. Of course, that’s silly. There are women competing in sports at schools (only in private schools, so rich has its privilege but two years ago women in public schools were allowed to at least take P.E. classes). Until last year, women were prohibited from attending any events in most stadiums. Last year that changed, although they are allowed at shows like this, although it is segregated seating. Somehow I don’t think the female Sputnik Monroe is coming from WWE to modernize this and change society, but we shall see. Women’s basketball competition dates back to 2003.

By the way, it was outside forces that have led to changes for women in Saudi Arabia. It wasn’t WWE, it was the IOC. You know how they did it? Before the 2012 Olympics, they told Saudi Arabia that if you don’t have a women’s team, your men’s team is banned from competing. Suddenly, there were women, at least in certain social circles, allowed to compete in sports, private school were allowed sports teams and they’ve sent women to the last two Olympics. Going there, taking the money, and waiting as is going on at this writing for the government to decide what it’s going to do hardly qualifies. Still, will WWE at some pont, maybe next week, talk about its influence more than you ever heard watching the last two Olympics? Yes.

So here’s the situation. At one point, evidently the government told WWE that they would allow them to have a women’s bout on the 6/7 show in Jeddah, which is a more progressive city than Riyadh, likely the home of the November show. That may explain why there is no All-women’s PPV show on the 2019 schedule after how successful, at least aesthetically, the first show was.

But it’s gone back-and-forth. WWE never spoke a word about it, because it would be an embarrassment if they promoted it and then got the thumbs down when they arrived. But now, it’s still going to be tough. The news is out that Natalya and Bliss are in Saudi Arabia with the idea of doing a match. There is no confirmation such a match will or won’t take place. The company has hinted about it in case it doesn’t. But if it doesn’t, the company does look bad because at that point they would have been strung along, and then told no. For that reason, if Saudi Arabia looks at the big picture and doesn’t want to embarrass WWE, they need to allow it. They care enough about not embarrassing WWE that they allowed them to do the second show without spouting the propaganda that the relationship was built on in the first place.

Even now, WWE has promoted the show, constantly talking about how it is as big or bigger than WrestleMania, using the city “Jeddah,” but banning the term Saudi Arabia from its own television. Of course that term isn’t banned with all the localized promos the wrestlers have done for that market.

Really, there’s no reason women shouldn’t be allowed on the show. The IOC forced them to allow women to compete in sports. The Russian circus came to town and for whatever reason, they were allowed to have their women perform in tight outfits. Of course, that led to a conservative backlash and the people who okayed that ended up it hot water over it. Mariah Carey performed there on 1/31, and was heavily criticized for doing so, more covered up than se would be at a U.S. concert, but still flashingly dressed. Actually most of the criticism of her came from Saudi Arabian women, who felt a star of her stature shouldn’t endorse and do the bidding of a government that treats women the way they do. Unlike Carey, WWE is way below the line that people in the U.S., or Saudi Arabia, would care. And it was believed the government brought in Carey specifically to rebuild its image after the Khashoggi murder.

It will be a ten or 11 match show, with Natalya vs. Bliss as the question mark. While the show is listed for a 2 p.m. Eastern start, the first match, the Usos vs. The Revival, will likely go into the ring about 30 minutes earlier, during the pre-show, so it’s likely a four-and-a-half hour show.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

We have a lot more information regarding the television PPV business in the U.S. as it regards WWE, AEW and Impact ...

At this point, Double or Nothing is estimated at somewhere between 98,500 and 113,000 buys worldwide. The best estimate has U.S. PPV buys at around 71,000, with almost an exact 50/50 split between television and B/R Live. That’s notable because nobody does a 50/50 split. The biggest split I’ve heard of for a television PPV and streaming was Conor McGregor vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov, which was an 80/20 split in favor of television. Usually it’s closer to 85/15. What’s also notable is that in the U.K., the split was closer to 75/25 in favor of television, but in the U.K. the heavy marketing was on ITV 4 for ITV Box Office and there wasn’t really much of a push for streaming PPV, but still a solid percentage did get it streaming.

WWE Money in the Bank did about 15,700 PPV buys. It looks like,. because most WWE fans get PPV on the network rather than television because of the lower price, it’s probably around 11 percent of the number of who would have bought the PPV at regular prices, are still buying these shows on PPV.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

The 6/29 show in Melbourne, Australia will be broadcast live as a worldwide iPPV on Fite TV rather than on New Japan World. “Expanding into a new market brings with it new challenges; while we did not have the infrastructure in place in Australia for the quality of stream World viewers deserve, FITE have stepped up and offered their world class production and distribution expertise for the event,”NJPW’s General Manager of the International Department Michael Craven told Foxsports.com.au. “We realize how important it is that NJPW World has complete coverage of every single major event we put out, but also want to accommodate those fans that want to watch live, and that's what drove us to go with FITE for the timed exclusivity deal.”

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

While it’s a year away, this has been talked about for a long time, but the decision regarding the 2020 G-1 is a big one. Almost all the major arenas in Japan will be booked for the 2020 Olympics. So either they will have to move G-1 up earlier, or later, or do a G-1 outside of Japan. If their U.S. business was stronger I could see a U.S., U.K. and Australia G-1, maybe finishing in Japan after the Olympics, but this Dallas show has not been a success thus far even with the G-1 label. The loss of Kenny Omega has really hurt outside of Japan.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

The New York Post ran a major story on Ashley Massaro (they actually have run a number of stories on her since her death) noting that on 5/15 she was texting Rochelle Loewen, who worked with her in WWE before later playing several seasons in the Lingerie Football League ...

The Post reported that many had speculated on, that Massaro was found hanging by her 18-year-old daughter Alexis. Loewen said Massaro had talked with her about depression but she never thought Massaro would kill herself. The story also quoted Cara Pipia, said to be Massaro’s best friend since childhood, who said that when they were 15 or 16 they had lost one of their best friends to suicide and then over the past year they had lost another friend to it and Massaro supported suicide awareness hotlines. Massaro went so far as to talk about suicide prevention and suicide awareness on her weekly radio show. The Go Fund Me campaign for Alexis’ for her education has topped $45,000 over the weekend.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

Since this involves one of the most famous angles in pro wrestling history, David Letterman gave some interesting history regarding the 1982 episode of his show with Jerry Lawler and Andy Kaufman as guests. The two were doing an angle in Memphis that got national attention since Kaufman was a major television star who was mocking Lawler and Memphis and Lawler gave him a jumping piledriver. Kaufman pretended he was badly injured, was hospitalized and went everywhere in a neck brace to put the angle over. Then they ended up on Letterman to supposedly make amends, but it ended with Lawler slapping Kaufman, Kaufman throwing water or coffee on Lawler and Kaufman doing an expletive laden promo on live television (it was bleeped out). Many lists of the biggest moments in U.S. television history have listed that episode of the Letterman show. Letterman was on “My Next Guest” and asked about the episode and said that Kaufman did let him know before they started filming what was going to happen. Letterman did open his show the next night and basically said it was something Lawler and Kaufman had planned, but even after saying that a lot of people believed it was real

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

Pro Wrestling Revolution owner Gabriel Ramirez announced that starting with its 6/22 show, they will hire two EMTs for every event. Ramirez, who said he was close with Silver King and went to Mexico recently, said even with the added cost that he realized that if something happened to a wrestler, or a fan, at his show, he could never say he did at least what he should have been able to do to avoid a tragedy. He noted that in commission states, this is mandated, but so many states are no longer regulated and Silver King’s death came in a place where the show wasn’t regulated and it took so long before he got medical attention. He’s hoping that in California in particular, because it’s not regulated, that promoters all do the same, comparing it to auto insurance, with the idea that nobody likes having to pay for insurance, but if you want to drive a car, you really have to have it

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

Regarding whether AEW will acknowledge Jon Moxley as U.S. champion on its 6/29 show in Daytona Beach hasn’t been decided. The key debate points are this. New Japan has no relations with AEW and does have relations with ROH, a competitor. However, a huge percentage of AEW fans likely subscribe to New Japan World, or if not, an Internet-driven company, they would be aware of Moxley as champion. To deny it and ignore it would be taking a page from WWE and create a needless elephant in the room. AEW is also focused on very few belts, with the idea of keeping the belts important. That’s an argument not to talk about other belts, although they did have an AAA tag title match on their first PPV show, but AAA is also a partner.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

In another change, talent being signed to new NXT contracts are getting five-year deals instead of the previous three-year deals for beginners, trying to lock people in to where it’s a long time before they can test the free agent market. It’s one thing for someone like Mysterio to be able to get an 18 month deal because WWE wanted him away from the outside and he realized he had leverage to get what he wanted, and it’s another thing for guys with no experience to try and say they don’t want to commit to five years and only want three. But really that’s the case across the board at least WWE contracts guarantee significant money unlike some other company contracts that are out there where guys are making nothing and locked up in a marketplace where WWE wants to lock up anyone they see as marketable talent

Originally Posted by Fightful

More NXT name changes.

At tonight's NXT live event in Largo two Independent stars who recently signed with NXT made their in-ring debuts. And have new names to boot.

First, DJZ made his debut, taking on Kona Reeves. DJZ scored the victory in the contest, but the big news is that DJZ is now going by the name Joaquin Wilde.

Next up, Shane Strickland made his debut in a tag team bout. Strickland teamed with Brennan Williams to take on Elliot Sexton and Jonah Rock. Strickland and Williams picked up the victory in the contest. Like DJZ, Strickland got a new name in his NXT debut and is now Isaiah Scott.

Originally Posted by Observer

John Cena is officially part of the Fast and the Furious cast.

It was confirmed today that Cena has joined the cast for "Fast & Furious 9." The character that he's playing has yet to be revealed, but Deadline reported that the word coming to them is that Cena plays "a badass.”

Deadline also noted that they've heard Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson won't be in "Fast & Furious 9."

Originally Posted by Observer

Three title matches have been added to the card for Stomping Grounds.

Universal Champion Seth Rollins will defend his title against Baron Corbin, Kofi Kingston will defend the WWE Championship against Dolph Ziggler in a steel cage match, and Becky Lynch will defend the Raw Women's Championship against Lacey Evans. All three of those matches were announced during today's Super ShowDown broadcast.

Rollins vs. Corbin and Kingston vs. Ziggler are both rematches from Super ShowDown.

Rollins retained against Corbin at Super ShowDown after Corbin argued with the referee. Corbin tried to bring a steel chair into the ring, Corbin and referee John Cone argued, and Rollins rolled up Corbin to get the win ...

The steel cage stipulation for Kingston vs. Ziggler at Stomping Grounds was set up by their match today. After Ziggler superkicked Xavier Woods on the outside, Woods kicked Ziggler when the referee wasn't looking. Kingston then hit Trouble in Paradise on Ziggler to win.

Ziggler did a post-match interview backstage, calling Kingston a coward and demanding the steel cage match.

Originally Posted by Observer

Those in Saudi Arabia noted to us that Natalya vs. Alexa Bliss, a match they [WWE] hoped to be a late addition on today's WWE Super ShowDown event, was not approved by the Saudi Arabian government.

The two women flew to Saudi Arabia this week with the crew.

At one point, the government had indicated to WWE they could have their first women's match on this show, but then wavered on it.

Originally Posted by PWI

Joey Janela vs. Low Ki for the first time ever was announced for the 7/14 GCW Tribute to Homicide event in Brooklyn, NY at Villain, with the story being that Janela wants to "end the myth" of Low KI before he leaves the independents for AEW this October

Originally Posted by PWI

There has also been discussion of adding several more Producers to the main roster [WWE].

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

In contacting a number of wrestlers, and of course what Moxley said is true and it’s hardly a secret, other than some of the new details of what he went through, even those who personally didn’t like him had nothing negative to say about what he said. It’s pretty much acknowledged that it’s all true and we haven’t seen or heard from one person disputing that. One person who was not close to him at all and felt he was a guy who couldn’t be happy said they listened to him on the Jericho podcast and felt he was very honest from this perspective, that the system in place is obviously broken and that’s not a secret nor is there any doubt about it, and that even Vince McMahon realizes that

Originally Posted by Fightful

Marty Jannetty has take to his personal Facebook page and shared a detailed message in-which he is calling out for help. Jannetty noted that he is consistently partying and when he doesn't, he has withdrawals of sorts. He added that rehab is not suggestion he is considering and that he has an irregular heartbeat.

Originally Posted by Fightful

Minoru Suzuki wants a crack at Chris Jericho and the IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Champion Jon Moxley.

Translation of his tweet: "To say what you want to say... @IAmJericho I want to fight with Chris Jericho and John Moksley. Want to pro wrestling. The world's professional wrestling fans want to see this. The world is waiting. Listen carefully! I'm the Japan Suzuki!"

Originally Posted by Fignuts (Post 5259959)

Marty Jannetty just can’t stop partying.

Originally Posted by Fignuts (Post 5259959)

Marty Jannetty just can’t stop partying.

Originally Posted by The Dastardly One (Post 5259979)

Wish Marty could get some real help

Originally Posted by Observer

The Big Lead reported that Renee Young is “highly likely” to be the host of WWE’s studio show on FS1 that will begin this fall.

Originally Posted by Observer

Cody Rhodes spoke to ComicBook.com about Fyter Fest being free on B/R Live: "I'm thrilled that we get to do it for free. That was such a huge discussion and I'm so excited. I mean, [you get Jon] Moxley's first match in AEW for free. It's great. The people at B/R Live, I couldn't ask for better partners. You do need a subscription, but it is a free subscription. It's not a hook in and you're charged type of deal. You'll need to probably, if you're looking to see Fyter, and it's streaming for free here in the United States, you should go on the site before the actual event, get yourself signed up so you've got all your ducks in a row and you're ready to go."

Originally Posted by Observer

Dusty Rhodes passed away on this day in 2015. Cody thanked everyone who reached out to him today: “Thanks to all who reached out. Dusty was my hero & it’s a gift that due to his fame he was a hero for others. Mourning transcends social media. ‘RIP’ may be trendy, but what’s even better is reaching out to those you love today & letting them know how important they are to you”

Dustin Rhodes paid tribute to his father: “Pops, I am doing everything you taught me. Be strong, be a man, follow your dreams. All those things you said to me I do daily, or I try my best to. The one thing I do without fail is to always #KeepSteppin #MissYouDad”

Originally Posted by Observer

Chris Jericho tweeted about why his “Judas” theme song didn’t play on New Japan World’s broadcast of Dominion: “There was a small rights fee involved that @njpwworld & @njpw1972 chose not to pay. End of story.”

Originally Posted by Fightful

"The Samoa Submission Machine" Samoa Joe regained the United States Championship two weeks ago on RAW when Rey Mysterio had to relinquish the title due to injury. Samoa Joe brought his U.S. Title to Saudi Arabia for WWE Super ShowDown and competed in the 50-man Battle Royal. The commentators described the temperature in the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium as "real feel heat" and it was over 100 degrees in the area near ringside.

Samoa Joe stated that it was quite the inferno in the ring and said that there is no way to prepare for heat like that but just to realize that it is not going to be enjoyable.

"No, I don't think anybody ever has [competed in heat like that]. It was a chaotic scene, let me tell you that in 101-degree weather and a lot of human body heat." Samoa Joe told Sporting News. "It was quite the inferno in that ring. That's the kind of heat you don't make adjustments for. You just realize it's going to suck really, really bad. You're going to have to grin and bear it. With the exception of maybe running sprints in a sauna, I don't think there's anything you can really do to prepare for that."

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc

Andrade and Charlotte Flair are currently taking some time away from WWE action due to Andrade's mother passing away, according to Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio.

Flair and Andrade missed weekend and Monday WWE live events, and Flair's status for tonight's SmackDown from Sacramento, CA is up in the air. Meltzer noted that Andrade likely will not be at SmackDown tonight.

Andrade's mother, Juanis Oropeza, reportedly passed away over the weekend while Andrade was in Saudi Arabia for the WWE Super ShowDown match against WWE Intercontinental Champion Finn Balor. Oropeza reportedly had been sick for several weeks, if not months.

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc

This past Friday at WWE Super ShowDown, Lars Sullivan defeated the Lucha House Party via disqualification. Despite the match being a three-on-one handicap match, the Lucha House Party were disqualified for triple teaming Sullivan.

Dave Meltzer noted on the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Radio that the finish of the match was reportedly changed. The original ending would have likely featured Sullivan picking up a dominant victory.

While it's not known why the finish was changed, there is speculation that WWE may do the Sullivan vs. Lucha House Party match again at WWE Stomping Grounds in two weeks.

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc

NXT has proven to be quite the breeding ground for fresh new talent for WWE. Recently an influx of talent debuted on the main roster. One of those debuting stars was former NXT champion, Aleister Black. Black joined fellow superstar Sheamus on his Celtic Warrior Workouts to talk about his career and current move ...

Black was quick to admit his time in NXT was short. And, as short as his time there seemed, the notice of his call up was that much shorter.

"I wasn't scheduled to be called up. It was a last minute decision," said Black. "I was just done (with a workout) and it was 11:30 and I didn't have to be at the live event until 1:00. So, I was just going to take a 45-minute nap. I had my phone by me, and my phone starts to go off and its coach Bloom. He said, 'I have some news for you' and as a joke, I said ' you are firing me'. And he said, 'Something like that, this Sunday your flying to Tennessee (so the debut could be kept a secret) and this Monday you make your debut on Raw and Tuesday on SmackDown."

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc

Sasha Banks is receiving some attention on social media for "liking" a tweet that is critical of the WWE product.

The tweet, made by a fan at @TooSweetmania, reads like this:

"With every passing Raw and Smackdown I grow less and less interested in the product. I'm starting to realize that I'm supporting a s--tty company for its past greatness rather than critiquing it's current bulls--t. I can't even sit through Raw or Smackdown anymore."

Banks "liked" the tweet more than a day ago and has not "un-liked it" yet, as some people do once their "like" makes headlines ...

The Boss has also "liked" a number of AEW tweets as of late, including Cody Rhodes' post on the seating chart and tickets for August's AEW All Out pay-per-view.

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc

It looks like All Elite Wrestling could be planning to release their pay-per-view events on video.

The official AEW Twitter account issued a poll today to gauge fan interest in a potential AEW Double Or Nothing DVD or Blu-ray release.

The poll asked, "Which format would you like to see #AEW's #DoubleOrNothing released on... #AEWDoN #AEWDVD #AEWBluRay"

As of this writing, 76% have voted for the Blu-ray release. As of this writing, there have been 27,228 votes since the poll was issued at 9:55am ET today.

Originally Posted by PWI

All Elite Wrestling has hired former Senior Director, Live Event Marketing of WWE, Rafael Morfi to handle the live event aspect of the company. Morfi, who was with the New York Mets before his WWE run and worked for the New York Cosmos soccer team after departing WWE, has also worked with Impact Wrestling, MLW, House of Hardcore, Brian Knobbs' Legends of Wrestling events and Jim Ross, among others, via his Signature Move Productions Company. He's been well liked and respect within the pro wrestling world for many years.

Morfi was all "Double or Nothing" last month and will be an important part of the AEW operations going forward. It's a big hire for the company.

Originally Posted by Fightful

Alberto El Patron took to social media and promoted that a new Lucha Libre promotion entitled 'Nacion Lucha Libre' was coming to the professional wrestling world and more details emerged during the press conference that was held today for the promotion. Details from the press conference were provided to Fightful by @luchablog on Twitter and the promotion's first show is slated for July 11th in Mexico City. Their first show will air on Imagen TV on July 14th and they have a time slot of 10:30 PM to midnight on Sundays.

The likes of former WWE United States Champion MVP, Chavo Guerrero, Alberto El Patron and Carlito are involved with the promotion.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

Here is something cool, which was uploaded by Jon Boucher. It’s highlights of a card from Maple Leaf Gardens on January 15, 1957, featuring Edouard Carpentier vs. Steve Stanlee, Bill & Ed Miller vs. Ken Kenneth & Pat Flanagan, and Billy Red Lyons vs. Baron Gattoni with narration from Dave Price.

Originally Posted by Observer

Following a night in which Raw posted record low non-holiday ratings, SmackDown held up slightly better, dropping just four percent from last week.

At an average of 1.93 million viewers, it was still among the lowest viewership totals for SmackDown since moving to Tuesday night, but several episodes in the last few months have had lower numbers ...

Year-over-year, SmackDown was down 12 percent, the first time in a month that the show has had a double-digit decline.

Originally Posted by PWI

During his appearance on Sean Waltman's podcast yesterday, RoadDogg noted that he and Jeremy Borash have been working on vignettes for Killian Dain, and The Outliers. He noted his official role at the Performance Center is evolving and he doesn't have an official title.

Originally Posted by Fightful

Batista isn't one to bite his tongue about WWE, and that isn't letting up in retirement.

The star of the WrestleMania 30 press conference where he went off-script and criticized WWE's heavily planned nature, "Stuber" star Batista still hasn't quite come around on that point. When talking to Pro Wrestling Sheet recently, he said that the situation only got more frustrating.

The creative process I still don’t get. It was a nightmare to me the last time I was there, which was 2014, and it seems like its become worse. I feel like they don’t have a clear vision, a long term vision, everything is very week-to-week. It doesn’t seem like they stick to a plan very much.” [Chris] Jericho pointed out something to me that makes complete sense. He said that John Cena is the last guy who is gonna be over like he is and it’s because the performers now they’re limited. Their hands are tied. They can’t go to war like we used to. We used to go to war and beat the crap out of each other and it earned a level of respect from people. And it was just like a different level of respect, it was a different level of getting over. We had more freedom," Batista said.

Originally Posted by Fightful

Stephanie McMahon speaks on women potentially wrestling in Saudi Arabia.

Last Friday at Super ShowDown, WWE returned to Saudi Arabia for the third time in their ten-year agreement with Saudi Arabia's General Sports Authority. This trip was different from the previous two as Alexa Bliss and Natalya made the flight over with the promotion. Previously, Renee Young was the only talent who had been on the trip to Saudi Arabia and appear on-screen. WWE was reportedly hoping to have Bliss and Natalya wrestle on the show but the match never came to fruition due to the Saudi government.

Speaking at the Celebrating Women in Sports Luncheon, Stephanie McMahon was asked about WWE's deal with Saudi Arabia.

"In terms of women....we've been promised that we will be at the forefront of change that's coming in Saudi. I believe we will have a women's match in the near future."

Originally Posted by Fightful

D-Generation X reunited as "Road Dogg" Brian James sat down with Sean "X-Pac" Waltman on the latest episode of X-Pac 1,2,360. Fightful was sent the following highlights from the interview.

Brian “Road Dogg” James On Why He Likes Working On NXT

"For me to get to work with the guys and build a relationship with them and have that camaraderie because it is something I missed as the lead writer {of Smackdown}…. For Smackdown I wouldn't even go out there and do rehearsals anymore. I very rarely talked to the talent because I was just in the writers room or in with Vince going over the show or you know whatever we were doing. I was kind of isolated away on the creative side of the railroad tracks so this is a disconnect. And then the talent calls me on a Wednesday when I'm in prepping for a meeting to go in to pitch a show or whatever ..."

Originally Posted by Fightful

John Cena Confirms "Accidental Boners" While In The Ring

Originally Posted by PWI

MLW was ecstatic with first-day ticket sales for their debut in Dallas this September as they were the best first day sales for any event in company history. The sales were stronger than any first day sale for Chicago, which has been been a great market for the company, so the hope is that Dallas will turn into a cornerstone market for the company. The first event will be 9/7 with the Von Erichs appearing and the first-ever War Chamber match.

Originally Posted by PWI

Austin Aries has returned to Major League Wrestling with a force. The Milwaukee native has set his sights on MLW's return to New York City for the next stage as he continues his march up the MLW rankings.

MLW today announced Austin Aries will compete at MLW: Never Say Never '19 at the Melrose Ballroom in New York City on July 25. The event will be a MLW FUSION TV taping for beIN SPORTS.

Originally Posted by Fightful

A story made the rounds recently by way of the 'Daily Beast' that George Murdoch, also known in professional wrestling as "Brodus Clay" and/or "Tyrus" was removed from the Fox Nation show 'UN PC' after a dispute with his co-host Britt McHenry that was unspecified and details were scarce concerning the dispute. The site has confirmed with their sources that the reason Murdoch was removed from the show is because McHenry claimed that the former Brodus Clay sent her unwanted, sexual text messages on multiple occasions.

George Murdoch was taken off of 'UN PC' and placed on his own show entitled 'Nuff Said'. The Daily Beast notes that Britt McHenry's complaints were not surprising to colleagues of the two 'UN PC' hosts and added that Tyrus has a reputation for "making off-color or politically incorrect remarks or jokes". Tyrus and McHenry were reached out to but neither have provided a statement or comment on the matter ...

Tyrus began his career in wrestling in 2006 and worked for the WWE for eight years. He then had two runs in IMPACT Wrestling but officially departed from the company in 2018. Tyrus has been affiliated with FOX since 2016 and as more information regarding this situation comes to the forefront, this article will be updated or a new article will be published.

Originally Posted by Observer

After the storyline on SmackDown where he was trapped in a loading crate while hiding and shipped to Raw, R-Truth posted a video from inside the crate and asked for help.

Originally Posted by Observer

The knee injury to Lars Sullivan that kept him off SmackDown Tuesday is worse than originally believed. There are no definitive details until he undergoes an MRI, but it doesn't look like a small thing and he'll be back Monday at this point.

Originally Posted by Observer

The GoFundMe Campaign launched to assist Ashley Massaro's daughter Alexa with her education in the wake of Massaro's passing hit its $100,000 goal this evening, in part due to fundraising efforts by Mick Foley, who donated the proceeds of autographed Cactus Jack shirts over the weekend to the campaign.

Originally Posted by PWI

The Main Event, the first WWE Studios-Netflix collaboration will be shooting this summer in Vancouver, British Columbia. The filming will begin later this month and run through late August.

As PWInsider.com exclusively broke back in February, WWE Studios have been working develop new, original feature films in conjunction with Netflix, with plans to release them via the streaming service. The films will be directed towards family audiences.

The Main Event tells the story of a ten-year old boy who is bullied but dreams of growing up to become a WWE professional wrestler. However, he gets to live his dream earlier when he discovers the secret to having super-strength in his breakfast cereal, becoming "The Spaghetti Kid." We are told that John Cena is referenced in the film and has a cameo role late in the film. The screenplay features small roles for Sheamus, The Miz and Bray Wyatt, with a number of references to WWE NXT as well.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

WWE returned to Saudi Arabia this weekend, but what could have been its biggest story coming out of the show never happened. WWE had been told some time back that they would be able to use women on the show. And then they were told they couldn’t. It was going back-and-forth.

It’s hard to explain why they wouldn’t be allowed to. When OSN still existed and WWE was on television in the area, people in the area saw women’s wrestling. It’s kind of crazy trying to protect people in a live setting from seeing something available on television. Still, making sense in our culture doesn’t exactly work either, because MMA was on television in New York for a decade and shows were held everywhere but called amateur shows, but pro shows weren’t allowed. Granted, there was an insane political reason, essentially the speaker of the house was beholden to a union that had an affiliation with another until that wanted to unionize Lorenzo Fertitta’s casinos in Las Vegas. Because of that, for years, he blocked any vote to allow the sport in the state. So who knows how government works there.

What we do know is that women participate in sports there, Women appear in entertainment now. Mariah Carey just did a show a few months ago, and was heavily criticized for going. Lindsay Lohan is going soon. Then again, when the Russian circus had women performers, it was heavily criticized. Alexa Bliss and Natalya made the trip. When they got there, they were still told it was up in the air whether they would have match or not. The WWE pushed for the Sports Authority to make a call, and in the end, they turned them down ...

Before the show, the women found out that they wouldn’t have a match, nor appear on the show. Eventually in this ten year deal there will almost surely be a women’s match and WWE will take credit for changing a culture. It’ll be no more real than the story about WWE leading a revolution in women’s sports in the U.S. when they were more than 50 years behind tennis and golf and probably nothing made more of a mockery about women being respected as athletes as the entire presentation of the old divas division.

Since OSN closed up shot, WWE is on MBC Action, a satellite network. It airs an edited version of Raw, Afterburn (edited Smackdown) and an Arabic recap show. WWE Network has almost no subscribers in the area. WWE is said to be very big with children in Saudi Arabia but not with any other age group. From a kids standpoint, it’s much bigger than the U.S., but it’s one of those cultural things few other than children pay much attention. It’s just as well. Super Showdown wasn’t much of a show. It got among the worst poll results in our history. Even though it was pushed like it was equal to or bigger than WrestleMania, it’s clear WWE announcers have no credibility left because nobody bought it as such. Google searches of 100,000 for the show were less than ten percent of what UFC did the next day. With a Friday afternoon time slot, it would be a shock if it wasn’t the least-watched main roster PPV show of the year.

There wasn’t much positive to say other than the crowd went crazy when they put Mansoor from Saudi Arabia over in the biggest Battle Royal in history. Of course, that ended up meaning nothing since Mansoor followed by not appearing on Raw, Smackdown or NXT tapings so far this week. So it was just to give the local audience a pop, and perhaps smooth things over for their hosts and maybe they won’t dick them around so much on letting women wrestle ...

Super Showdown drew about 21,000 fans at King Abdullah Sports Stadium in Jeddah. It was nowhere close to full, like last year’s show. The crowd was pretty dead, aside from a few pops here and there for trademark spots.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsleter

Some more names added to the list from last week of women at the recent U.K. Performance Center tryouts. The biggest name is Karen Glennon, better known as Session Moth Martina, 28, from Scotland, who has wrestled all over the world. Sabrina Casiraghi from Italy, who has worked in Italy and ICW in Scotland ...

We’re told that Martina is in. In the U.K. there are people talking as if she’s already signed. There was a lot of heat among non-WWE wrestlers in the U.K. because just days before the camp she was posing wearing an anti-WWE pro-independents T-shirt with David Starr, and then she went to the camp and is expected to sign with them

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

I don’t know if this week was a first, but Vince McMahon, Stephanie, HHH and Kevin Dunn all didn’t come to the California tapings. Stephanie is not a regular at TV these days. She only comes when she’s needed which hasn’t been the case of late. HHH decided to go to Florida since they were doing two days of television with four hours each day (eight television shows from 6/19 to 8/8). It’s everything leading into the Toronto Takeover/SummerSlam weekend show. So he felt he needed to be there getting everything ready. Vince had some corporate items that he felt he needed to take care of, and Kevin Dunn isn’t coming to television when Vince isn’t there. Ed Koskey was running around like crazy at Raw kind of in control. Dana Warrior was there working hands on with Lacey Evans. I don’t know that Evans is a Warrior project but she does work heavily with Evans on her promos

Originally Posted by PWI

Impact Wrestling star Killer Kross appeared on Petey Williams' podcast last night and when asked about PWInsider.com's report last month that he had requested a release from his Impact Wrestling contract, commented that our story was "100% correct" but that he was upset the story came to the public light, which is understandable from his perspective ...

Kross noted that he liked everyone at Impact and everyone had been professional with him, but intimated that when he signed his deal, he did so after being led to believe there were not other opportunities for him elsewhere. Now that he's learned there are, and he's aware of what others within Impact are getting paid, he sought to be paid something on that level or be allowed to leave to prove he could draw and earn that money elsewhere. Kross noted that he has family members he is responsible for and as a man, it's on him to provide for them ...

Kross noted that Scarlett Bordeaux's situation with the company is unreleated to his and is "worse" in that she's still living at home with her mother and needs a "side job" to support herself in order to perform in professional wrestling. PWInsider.com can confirm that Impact officials sat down with Bordeaux last week in New York City and both sides are discussing the situation, but as of this writing, nothing has been resolved.

Kross and Bordeaux both worked the most recent TV tapings. PWInsider.com has been told by sources that both Kross and Bordeaux wish to remain and work for Impact but want to be paid at a better scale in order to do so.

Originally Posted by PWI

Former WWE and Impact Wrestling star Brodus Clay aka Tyrus (real name George Murdoch) is at the center of the latest sexual harassment allegations at FOX News ...

After leaving UN-PC, Tyrus has been given his own series on FOX News’ streaming platform.

Last night, McHenry responded to the FOX News statement, tweeting (and later deleting), "You act like I don't like have proof," she wrote. "Smh [Shaking my head]. Carry on."

McHenry has now hired attorney Douglas Wigdor, who has filed a number of lawsuits for clients allegedly wronged by FOX News ...

Murdoch has not responded publicly to the allegations but when asked by The Hollywood Reporter's Jeremy Barr whether his departure from UN-PC was related to McHenry via private messaging on Twitter, Murdoch responded, "No comment and don't message me again," before blocking Barr on the social media platform.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

Jon Moxley, Shingo Takagi, Will Ospreay and KENTA all challenged to get into this year’s G-1 Climax tournament at Dominion on 6/9 in Osaka, amidst a lot of changes with New Japan Pro Wrestling in the U.S. market. The tournament will be the key in trying to establish Saturday night as New Japan night on AXS TV. They are moving it away from the Friday night lead-in to live MMA, in order to stay away from WWE competition when Smackdown moves to Friday on FOX in October.

AXS airs the first night of G-1, the show at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, live on 7/6, a Saturday. They are moving both New Japan and Women of Wrestling to Saturday, with WOW replays airing at 8 p.m. every Saturday starting on 7/13, and up-to-date New Japan episodes starting at 9 p.m.,and will be expanded to two hours weekly. During G-1, they will be airing the Saturday night show from Japan each week, with the top matches on each show edited to two hours, on a same day tape delay.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

There was a question regarding Jericho’s entrance music, “Judas,” not playing on the streaming replay when it had in all of his previous matches with the company. What happened was, unbeknownst to Jericho, Sony had contacted New Japan and wanted a $2,500 rights fee for usage of the music. New Japan turned it down and instead put over a cover song. Jericho said that if he would have known about it, he’d have paid the $2,500 himself.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

The big thing that was major buzz on 6/9 was the Laredo Kid vs. El Hijo del Vikingo cruiserweight title match from the TV tapings that night at Arena Coliseo in Monterrey. I know of several people who thought it was better than the Dragon Lee vs. Will Ospreay match the same day. I wouldn’t go that far as far as a match where spots were built, or had the same level of drama, but for innovative and amazing moves, believe it or not, it was on par, and perhaps better as far as new things. What I will say is that whether it’s AEW, AAW, PWG, Impact, MLW or anyone who has access to these guys really should match them up. Vikingo can be one of the major stars of the future of the business as his flying is out of this world and he’s only going to get a lot better over the next three years, particularly if he gets to work more places.

Right now what’s keeping him from the U.S. scene is that he doesn’t have a visa. So that leaves him right now down to a group that will get him one, and if that happens, he’ll probably be booked all over the place. There’s talk AAA would get him a visa and put him on the MSG show and then he’d be able to take U.S. bookings. We know that Vikingo wants in Battle of Los Angeles this year. AEW had interest in him for Double or Nothing but the show was loaded as it was. Barring injury, this is a guy on the indie scene who will blow up immediately and eventually he’s almost surely ending up in AEW or WWE, although I don’t know how he makes it in WWE because they’ll try and change him and re-program him and spend years on it and the tone him down. It will the hot indie feud and match in the U.S. for 2019. I went ****½ but most ratings I saw were *****.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

Fenix & Pentagon Jr. seem to be done here [Impact Wrestling]. They weren’t used for television and were moved on the web site to the alumni page. I think it’s inevitable once (if) they get a Lucha Underground release that they will sign with AEW at least for the U.S. market and retain rights to work AAA and Mexican indies

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

The Buy In show on ITV 4, the Double or Nothing pre-show, did 74,000 viewers, which for a Saturday night at midnight would be a good number, but not a great number. For comparison, for numbers the next week in the U.K. Raw did 42,500 viewers, Smackdown did 63,000 and MLW did 24,900. Impact did 14,900 on UK Fight Night on Showcase but their largest audience would come on 5USA and we don’t have that figure

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

The situation with Brian Cage at the Double or Nothing show is that they contacted him to be in the Casino Battle Royale. The idea was they would given him some spots to look good before eliminating him. Cage hadn’t cleared it with Impact, who he has an exclusive contract with and is their world champion. They called Don Callis shortly before the match and his take was that he didn’t think his world champion should be in a pre-show Battle Royal, just based on the idea of an old school positioning of your world champion. Based on the mentality of protecting your world champion and having him positioned as a star, he wasn’t wrong. So Cage was pulled from the match. Impact wasn’t against him appearing per se, in the sense that if they made the deal ahead of time they probably could have worked creative out and worked out something that made sense to both sides like AAA did by giving the Young Bucks their tag titles

Originally Posted by PWI

In honor of the anniversary of his passing this week, the NWA released a classic Dusty Rhodes vs. Gino Hernandez bout from Houston:

Originally Posted by Observer

The story going around about Gedo being out as New Japan booker is false. No idea where it came from but New Japan has denied it, and Gedo has told friends he has no idea where it came from.

Originally Posted by Uproxx.com

Earlier today, a report began circulating that Gedo had stepped down as the booker of New Japan Pro Wrestling before Dominion. This was first published by Miruhon and spread to the English-language part of Twitter by @STRIGGA (podcaster and owner of Cagematch.net and Purolove.com,) sharing a Kakutolog article about the report.

With Spandex reached out to NJPW sources for comment and was told that the reports of Gedo stepping down as the promotion’s booker are untrue. A source within the NJPW office went as far as to call it “a crazy rumor.”

Originally Posted by PWI

WWE Hall of Famers Ric Flair and Ron Simmons are being interviewed today in Atlanta for the forthcoming A&E documentary on Booker T.

It was announced this past April that the cable network and WWE would be partnering for a quintet of documentaries on the lives of WWE personalities. Beyond Booker T, there are plans for documentaries on Steve Austin, the late Roddy Piper, Randy Savage and the late Randy Savage.

PWInsider.com has also learned that The Rock's Seven Bucks Productions also has early plans on doing a documentary on the life of Roddy Piper, one of WWE's greatest antagonists, who passed away in 2015. We are told this project, should it go forward, would be independent of the A&E/WWE documentary. It's been bandied about for some time.

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc

There are said to be a lot of WWE talents who are counting the days until they can get out of their WWE contracts, according to Wrestling Observer Radio.

There have been rumors of WWE talents wanting to leave for months, but Dave Meltzer noted on WOR that AEW putting on a successful show with Double Or Nothing has really changed things.

On a related note, WWE Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon was in Orlando this week for a business luncheon. She also visited the WWE Performance Center and Wednesday's WWE NXT TV tapings at Full Sail University. Stephanie reportedly held a talent meeting before Wednesday's tapings, which was described as a pep talk.

Stephanie reportedly pushed how great everything is with the company, and how talents get to be their own brands in the company. Stephanie also pushed social media in a big way. Her presentation included a big screen that showed how Forbes recently listed WWE and WrestleMania as one of the top 10 most powerful brands on social media, among other points.

It was also noted on Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE is trying to convince talents that their careers are over if they leave. Talents have believed this in previous years, but most aren't buying it these days and a lot of wrestlers who leave are happy that they made the decision. Meltzer noted how WWE is also trying to convince the fans that it's WWE or nothing, and that wrestlers are jokes if they aren't with WWE. Meltzer pointed to the enhancement talents with the YOLO County Tag Team Titles on Tuesday's SmackDown, which were featured in the angle with Heavy Machinery and SmackDown Tag Team Champions Daniel Bryan & Rowan.

Originally Posted by CageSideSeats.com

Count the WWE Champion as one of the many who see the writing on the wall when it comes to how WWE has booked Shane McMahon over the past several months. Some would even argue that McMahon is the strongest heel WWE has on its main roster.

It’s a little odd that in the year 2019, the common line of thinking among many in WWE is the best way to give an individual an even bigger push is to just book them opposite of someone in the McMahon Family tree.

In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Kingston opens about the possibility of not only facing Shane in the ring, but also Vince McMahon as well.

"I would love to fight Shane, and I would love to get Vince in the ring, too. I think it’s really cool that Shane is in this role of walking the line of an authoritative figure, but, at the same time, is an active superstar. Shane does some pretty crazy things in the ring, as you see in every single match that he has, so I would love to mix it up with him.”

Strangely enough, this Kingston quote also lines up with rumors of an even bigger Shane-O-Mac push yet to come.

Originally Posted by PWI

Steve Austin, who has been on a sabbatical from recording new podcast episodes for some time, announced he would return with a new episode on 6/18 with All Elite Wrestling President Tony Khan as his special guest. That should be a fun conversation given the depth of Khan's love of professonal wrestling.

Originally Posted by PWI

Lucha star Daga is done with Major League Wrestling, PWInsider.com has confirmed.

Daga, who had a short feud with Low Ki in the company, was booked for the promotion's 6/1 date in Wisconsin, but pulled out at the last second, citing that he had scheduled a vacation.

MLW later learned he was actually working dates in Mexico instead and have dropped him from all future bookings.

Daga was in line for a push with plans to be turned heel later this year.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

Fite TV has confirmed that they will be carrying Fyter Fest on Saturday, June 29th for those outside the U.S., U.K., and Ireland. We have been told Fite will be doing the same for the Fight for the Fallen card next month.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

AAA’s annual Verano de Escandalo (‘Summer of Scandal’) card takes place this Sunday night from Merida, Yucatan in Mexico from the Poliforum Zamna with a live stream of the event on their Twitch channel at 5 pm Eastern. One of the big matches features the Young Bucks returning to Mexico to defend the AAA tag titles against Pentagon Jr. and Rey Fenix in a rematch from Double or Nothing. There was a lot of buzz this week for the promotion following Laredo Kid and El Hijo del Vikingo’s match in Monterrey last Sunday. The two are in different matches this weekend but it’s a good-looking card from AAA and it’s happening on a quiet weekend where they have the night to themselves.

Originally Posted by Fightful

Appearing on the NotSam Wrestling Podcast with Sam Roberts, Ryan explained why he turned down a deal with AEW.

"People still think I'm [in AEW] or expect me to be there. Those guys are my best friends, and that doesn't change. I've had extensive discussions with them, and they're not sure if what I do can play on their television show," revealed Ryan. "They don't really have an idea specifically for me where it's like 'if we bring you on, we have to take away what makes you over.' So, it's a gamble for me, not only creatively, but financially, because I'm making better money than these contracts offer, at least to start. So I'd be taking a pay cut and essentially start over. We've had discussions, but it just didn't make sense. It felt like I'd be irresponsible to myself and where I'm at with my life, finances, my geography, and creativity. It would be a gamble that I don't need to take."

Ryan continued, "We realized they're gonna be successful without me and I'm gonna be successful without them. Maybe our paths will cross at some point, but there is no urgency to it because neither of us necessarily needs the other one right now. It'd be nice to work with my friends, but it's not a necessity right now until they figure out their product and how they want to present it."

Originally Posted by #1-wwf-fan (Post 5261725)

It only took 2 live shows for Saudi Arabia to realize WWE is horrible and not worth their time. That’s progress.

Originally Posted by #1-wwf-fan (Post 5261725)

It only took 2 live shows for Saudi Arabia to realize WWE is horrible and not worth their time. That’s progress.

Originally Posted by #1-wwf-fan (Post 5261725)

It only took 2 live shows for Saudi Arabia to realize WWE is horrible and not worth their time. That’s progress.

Originally Posted by SlickyTrickyDamon (Post 5261729)

:lol:

Originally Posted by Jordan X (Post 5261746)

What is this in reference to?

Originally Posted by Jordan X (Post 5261746)

What is this in reference to?

Originally Posted by Guru Dave (Post 5261766)

Apparently, SlickyTrickyDamon got it. I believe he's referring to the attendance for the last show?

Originally Posted by Conspiracy Victim Vito (Post 5261772)

Mike and Maria have signed multi-year deals to stay with WWE.

Originally Posted by Conspiracy Victim Vito (Post 5261772)

Mike and Maria have signed multi-year deals to stay with WWE.

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect (Post 5261799)

Lol at Joey Ryan making more money than he would have gotten working for Tony Khan. I'm calling bullshit on that one.

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect (Post 5261799)

Lol at Joey Ryan making more money than he would have gotten working for Tony Khan. I'm calling bullshit on that one.

Originally Posted by ClockShot (Post 5261793)

They're out of their damn minds.

Their deals I want to know the details about. Pictured in my mind Mike Bennett would go back to Ring of Honor and start up a feud with Matt Taven for control of The Kingdom.

Originally Posted by Iceman King Gertner (Post 5261873)

Why wouldn't they take that deal? They are both up in age and will make mid 6 figures to wrestle twice a week tops in like 10 minute matches.

Originally Posted by Observer

Raw last night was up only 5.2 percent from last week's show that went against the NBA Finals, doing 2.24 million viewers.

One would have hoped for at least a 10 percent bounce-back when you eliminate a game that did 18.22 million viewers from competition. This looks to be the new level for Raw for the summer with no major sports competition. The show was down 23 percent from the same week last year, although that was also helped by being the day after Money in the Bank ...

Raw was fifth for the night on cable.

The three hours were:

8 p.m. 2.33 million viewers
9 p.m. 2.30 million viewers
10 p.m. 2.08 million viewer

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

WWE Raw did not receive a big bounce back with viewers this week following the conclusion of the NBA & NHL playoffs.

Monday’s three-hour episode on the USA Network averaged 2,235,000 viewers, which was up 5% from last week’s show against the NBA playoffs, but still the fourth lowest number of 2019.

The show was promoted around Seth Rollins facing Daniel Bryan in a non-title match along with the tease of who would be named the special referee at Stomping Grounds, which was never announced.

Originally Posted by Observer

Sami Callihan won’t be returning to MLW. He lost a loser leaves town match to Mance Warner this past week, but plans were to bring him back under a mask. Court Bauer said on Twitter that Callihan caused extensive damage to the venue during their match.

Originally Posted by PWI

As noted last week on PWInsider.com, Major League Wrestling dropped Daga from their roster, unhappy that he had told them he was unavailable for dates due to a vacation when they were starting a heel turn for him, only to learn he had wrestled in Mexico.

In speaking today with Tessa Blanchard, who is dating Daga, PWInsider.com was told that MLW was informed well in advance that Daga was not available for the date in question, 6/1, as he was going to be in Guadalajara, Mexico for the christening of Rey Fenix's son. Fenix was involved in an event the next day in the same city and since Daga and Blanchard were in town for the christening, they stayed and worked the show as a favor for Fenix, as did Puma King, Pentagon Jr. and others who were in town for his son's christening.

Blanchard noted that Daga loved working for MLW and would still want to continue there if given the opportunity. She also noted that one of his goals is to get more work this year inside the United States and there was concern that the MLW situation would lead to other promoters thinking Daga couldn't be trusted to take dates in the States. She felt that there was a belief in MLW that Daga didn't take the date because he'd be more comfortable staying in Mexico, but he was only in Guadalajara for the christening.

Originally Posted by PWI

With Scarlett Bordeaux being granted her release, the natural question that has been asked is whether Killer Kross is receiving one as well. We have been told by multiple Impact Wrestling sources today that at this point, Kross will not be receiving a release and will continue to work for the company. There were some in the company unhappy that Petey Williams provided Kross the forum on his podcast to speak out about his issues with the company, specifically since Williams is not just a talent but a Producer. As previously noted, there's been unhappiness that Kross spoke out at all in the interview.

Originally Posted by PWI

There was absolutely unhappiness within Impact Wrestling management over Killer Kross' interview on the Petey Williams podcast. The feeling on Impact management's end is that they feel they have tried to work with Kross to offer a reworked contract and work with him on booking Kross out for third-party independent bookings. There was talk over the weekend that some in the company felt Kross may have broken the non-disparagement clause of his deal, with comparisons to Eli Drake. Having listened to the entire 35-minute interview Kross did with Williams (who is, of course, an Impact producer and performer, so the idea he would allow someone to knock the company on his show is kind of silly), I wouldn't state that is accurate. Kross never once attacked or knocked the company. He instead discussed his frustrations about being in his current situation (including the fact the story is even public) and wanting to make sure his family is better taken care of, as he felt as a man that fell on his shoulders.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

Dana Brooke was injured during her match with Sarah Logan on the Main Event tapings Monday night in Los Angeles. Brooke took a knee to the head and appeared to have sustained a cut above her right eye and was bleeding. The match was stopped, and Brooke walked to the back on her own afterward..

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

Here is the full card for the opening night of the G1 Climax at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. The show will air live on AXS TV and outside of the U.S. on New Japan World at 6 pm Eastern:
*Guerrillas of Destiny vs. Roppongi 3K in a non-title match
*Tomohiro Ishii & Shota Umino vs. Jeff Cobb & Ren Narita
*Jay White & Chase Owens vs. Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi
*Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Tagaki & Bushi vs. Jushin Thunder Liger, Juice Robinson & Toru Yano
*Will Ospreay vs. Lance Archer
*EVIL vs. Bad Luck Fale
*Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Sanada
*Kota Ibushi vs. KENTA
*Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

A graphic was displayed on the screen at the Staples Center on Monday promoting that the first episode of SmackDown on Fox will take place from the arena on Friday, October 4th. There are 15 episodes remaining on the USA Network before the move as the WWE enters a five-year agreement with Fox for the show in a deal worth $205 million per year to the company.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

In an interview with Jonathan & Kristina Snowden on the Inside Major League Wrestling podcast, company founder Court Bauer spoke to the two about MLW’s business. Bauer said a women’s division will happen when they can ‘do it right’. Bauer noted they did have women’s matches when they re-launched with the likes of Santana Garrett, Leva Bates, Mia Yim, and others, but they were promoting several divisions they didn’t want to fully launch a division until it could be done correctly. Bauer stated the big five in the company are Tom Lawlor, Salina de la Renta, and the Hart Foundation (Brian Pillman Jr., Teddy Hart, and Davey Boy Smith Jr.) that are signed long term and will be the focus most weeks on television. Bauer broke down MLW’s audience as a heavy Hispanic audience because of the exposure on beIN Sports Espanol, a significant number that he labeled ‘Joe Six Packs’ that enjoy wrestling but follow casually and a smaller percentage of die-hard wrestling fans.

Originally Posted by Fightful

At last weekend's AAA Verano de Escandalo event, Lucha Underground, Impact and AAA star Aerostar went viral with a psychotic dive that left him hospitalized. He was stretchered out of the arena after landing on his head ...

AAA would update Aerostar's status via a Twitch chat of all things, and confirm that he's going to make a full recovery. Their Twitter would also update his status, saying "We have a medical report: After what happened with Aerostar in Verano De Escándalo we want to inform you that the Cadete del Cosmos is in good condition and will be under medical observation to rule out complications. #ÁnimoAerostar "

Originally Posted by Fightful

WWE came up short at the MTV Movie & TV Awards. Roman Reigns was nominated for Best Real Life Hero (won by Ruth Bader Ginsburg) and Ronda Rousey vs. Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair from WrestleMania 35 was nominated for Best Fight (won by Captain Marvel vs. Minn-Erva from "Captain Marvel").

Originally Posted by Observer

Impact head of creative Don Callis tweeted earlier today that he was trapped in the basement with terrified people after a shooting at Eaton Centre in Toronto. Hours later, he tweeted "Survived". The only news reports I've seen only talk about two stabbings in the area about four hours ago. The area is filled with a ridiculous amount of people today for the Toronto Raptors NBA championship winning parade.

Originally Posted by PWI

Ring of Honor has come to terms with Jonathan Gresham on a new deal, PWInsider.com has confirmed. We are told that Gresham will be relocating to Baltimore and will be getting more involved with the ROH Dojo as part of the new deal. Gresham, 31, who teams regularly with Jay Lethal, has been with the company since 2014.

PWInsider.com has also confirmed that ROH has officially signed female star Maria Manic to a deal. Manic, a four year veteran who was originally trained by Damien Wayne, has emerged over the last year, transforming herself into an extremely powerful brawler who can battle with both men and women. She will absolutely bring a different element to ROH's Women of Honor division. There's been interest in Manic dating back months by ROH

Originally Posted by Fightful

Last week, Dana Warrior tweeted out a photo of herself wearing the Ultimate Warrior face paint in support of Pride month. Naturally, this received lots of pushback from aware of the former Jim Hellwig’s public statements regarding homosexuality. David Bixenspan has written a piece for Deadspin looking at Warrior’s past and the whitewashing of his image to the extent it has gone. The Deadspin article also examines the history of the Warrior Award that is presented each year at the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony and how Warrior’s past comments regarding cancer patients are directly at odds with what the award seeks to honor. WWE has opted to place the Ultimate Warrior on a pedestal with awards and initiatives and while they have escaped scrutiny, it has been contained because WWE has an ability to fly under the radar on matters such as these. It is very difficult to balance the hypocrisy in lionizing someone like the Ultimate Warrior where its fanbase is not naïve to his public stance. It is impossible to divorce the WWE’s acknowledgment of Pride month with its relationship to the Government of Saudi Arabia as they run a show concurrent with Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose attending a GLAAD event on behalf of the company.

Originally Posted by Fightful

A source in WWE told WrestleVotes that the vibe heading into WWE Stomping Grounds is similar to In Your House shows from 1995/96.

Originally Posted by TPWW Frontpage via Triple A

Tuesday’s episode of SmackDown Live drew 1,859,000 viewers on USA Network, down from last week’s 1,930,000 viewers.

That’s the fourth lowest number in SmackDown Live history and close to the lowest ever (1,827,000 on May 14) ...

This time last year, the June 19, 2018 episode of SmackDown Live drew 2,315,000 viewers. The June 20, 2017 episode drew 2,597,000 viewers.

Originally Posted by Observer

After losing his mom earlier this month, Andrade announced that his aunt has passed away: “Now my aunt, now you are with my mom, I love you!! Fam.. OROPEZA RIP siempre en mi !!!”

Originally Posted by Observer

A case study on WWE will be part of Anita Elberse’s “The Business of Entertainment, Media and Sports” course at Harvard Business School this fall.

Originally Posted by Observer

Lucha Libre AAA held a press conference today to officially announce that they’re holding a show called Invading LA at The Forum in Inglewood, California on October 13. Tickets are now available via pre-sale (using the code “LUCHA”).

Originally Posted by Observer

Ahead of retiring at the Tokyo Dome in January 2020, Jushin Thunder Liger will have his final match for CMLL at Arena Mexico on July 19.

Originally Posted by Observer

Regional law firm Farah & Farah will be the presenting sponsor of AEW Fight for the Fallen. The show is taking place in Jacksonville, Florida on July 13 and will benefit the Jacksonville Victim Assistance Advisory Council.

Originally Posted by PWI

MLW announced today that Tony Schiavone will be returning to the company as an announcer this summer. Schiavone, who was the lead announcer for the company's resurgence, had taken time off from the company when they changed their TV taping schedule due to his others sports broadcasting commitments. MLW's announcement notes that Schiavone will be working with Rich Bocchini , so as of yet, there will be no Schiavone-Jim Cornette reunion

Originally Posted by Fightful

Big news from the recent episode of Road to Fyter Fest.

Brandi Rhodes announced that All Elite Wrestling will unveil its Women's Title at All Out on Aug. 31. No further details were provided.

Originally Posted by Fightful

When it comes to NXT and the main roster, the differences in quality is noticeable as there has yet to be a TakeOver event that has "missed" while a show like WWE Super ShowDown, billed as being greater than or equal to WrestleMania, was a flop according to many fans.

Speaking to TalkSPORT, Adam Cole revealed that there are more creative freedoms in NXT.

"One of the coolest things about NXT is we have a ton of creative liberties to come up with the story and the vision we have for the match," revealed Cole. "Of course, there’s input and advice given and there’s suggestions or, you know ‘we need something this way’ but generally speaking, myself and Gargano, we come up with that match [two-out-of-three falls]. We decide ‘hey, let’s do this’ and then if we’re stumped on a little area then someone will chime in and come up with another way to take another cool dip or make the match or the story more exciting. We do have a lot of freedom, which is great."

One knock on WWE has been the micromanagement and reported restrictions put on talent. Jon Moxley (formerly Dean Ambrose in WWE) recently vented his frustrations in an interview with Chris Jericho.

Originally Posted by Fightful

Not many details are known about All Elite Wrestling's fall debut on TNT, but Tony Khan did offer more insight during an appearance on the Steve Austin Show. While discussing the deal with Austin, Khan revealed that the show would run for two hours and air live every week.

"The TNT deal came together [because] my friend Kevin Reilly is the President of TBS. It's going to start in the fall. We'll have specific details soon. It's a two-hour, live show. I can't tell you the day of the week or the timeslot. All Out will be our last pay-per-view going into it."

Originally Posted by erickman (Post 5262545)

I forgot sami had worked for mlw well cornetts show should be a hoot this week

Originally Posted by Emperor Smeat (Post 5262616)

Not the first time he's gotten in trouble with a venue since there was a noted incident last year where the venue's owner yelled at him during his match to stop him from breaking the chairs that was loaned out for the show.

Instead of just stopping, he kept mouthing off to the owner and threw a chair when he was done.

Like with MLW, AAW got in huge trouble with the venue's owner afterwards.

Originally Posted by Droford (Post 5262648)

I wonder who the source is who would remember what the vibe was around In Your House shows from 25 years ago is

Originally Posted by Simple Fan (Post 5262679)

Just watched that MLW show, no way they caused that much damage to the bleachers. Unless it was something off camera, they did a weak brain buster spot on them and just slammed one another against the fencing around them for a bit.

Originally Posted by Observer

A stipulation has been added to Zack Sabre Jr. and YOSHI-HASHI's match at Kizuna Road next week.

Sabre is set to defend his Revolution Pro Wrestling British Heavyweight Championship against YOSHI-HASHI at NJPW's Kizuna Road show in Sendai next Tuesday (June 25). After a challenge that was issued by YOSHI-HASHI, Sabre's spot in this year's G1 Climax will also be on the line as part of the match.

Originally Posted by PWI

All-time great wrestler "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton of The Midnight Express has been hospitalized since last Friday with cardiac issues. Eaton woke up that morning with his legs and other parts of his body swollen, so he went to the emergency room and has been hospitalized since then.

Eaton's long-time friend Jim Cornette took to Twitter to correct reports Eaton had suffered a heart attack, noting instead that congestive heart failure led to fluid buildup in Eaton's chest, legs and other parts of the body, forcing Eaton's heart to have to pump harder to make up the difference.

Eaton is being treated with new medications and diuretics. Cornette noted that Eaton's heart rate is down and that his Pacemaker is working fine and that the situation is improving.

Originally Posted by Observer

The 1986 Crockett Cup is now available on the WWE Network.

WWE added the tournament as part of this week’s Hidden Gems content. It features over four hours of footage, including the tournament itself which was eventually won by the Road Warriors. It also has two non-tournament matches including Jim Duggan vs. Dick Slater for the UWF North American title and Ric Flair vs. Dusty Rhodes for the NWA World Heavyweight title.

This was the first of three Crockett Cup events that were held in the 1980s, with the second and third being held in 1987 and 1988. The Super Powers (Nikita Koloff and Dusty Rhodes) and the team of Sting and Lex Luger won the tournament in the following years before being abandoned in 1989.

Originally Posted by Fightful

The Wrestling Observer reports that Rusev recently asked for time off, which is why he hasn't been on television or live events as of late.

Originally Posted by Fightful

Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer says AEW is in talks with a Canadian broadcast partner.

Originally Posted by Fightful

The Wild Card Rule was extra wild this week as eight SmackDown superstars were on Raw and seven Raw superstars were on SmackDown. When the Wild Card rule was first implemented, it was stated that only four superstars would be allowed on the other brand, and any uninvited guest would face repercussions. Thus far, no superstar has been reprimanded for showing up on the competing brand without an invitation.

Speaking to Sporting News, Kevin Owens gave his thoughts on the Wild Card Rule.

"I guess the whole point of the wild-card rule is to add a sense of unpredictability to all the shows and I guess it definitely has achieved that because you never know who is going to show up where," said Owens. "The wild-card rule itself was very loosely defined when it was first announced and it's been loosely enforced since it's been announced (laughs). I guess it was supposed to be four guys at first and now, really, 10 guys show up one night, three guys show up the next night, whatever. But like I said, I think the whole point is to give a more unpredictable feel to the show itself and its definitely achieved that."

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

AAA ran one of its major events of the year, Verano de Escandalo, on 6/16 in Merida at the Poliforuma Zamma, before almost 6,000 fans. There were about 14,000 Spanish language viewers and 7,000 English language at the peak on Twitch, which was during the Young Bucks match. It should be noted that Hugo Savinovich, who does the Spanish broadcasts, is tremendous. Even if you don’t know Spanish, he gets the excitement over to where it’s worth listening to. Of course if you’re a newcomer, the issue with the Spanish, like with the Japanese announcers, is if you don’t know the language, they can’t help you with storylines, match story and other issues. Still, when TripleMania comes, the Spanish broadcast is still the option to take.

There were some technical issues early, including video packages with no audio, bad crowd micing, entrance and ring mic issues. The show is the final major before TripleMania, so the key issue in the main event was building interest in the Blue Demon Jr. vs. Dr. Wagner Jr. mask vs. hair match which takes place on 8/3 at Arena Ciudad in Mexico City. Cain Velasquez makes his pro wrestling debut on that show.

They are working on a major international match for this show involving AEW talent. AEW talent will not be appearing on the AAA shows on 9/15 in Madison Square Garden or 10/13 at the Forum in Los Angeles. The latter show was just announced this week. The funny thing is AAA held a press conference to announce the Los Angeles show on 6/19, but kept the press conference secret. Think about that for a second. The Los Angeles date goes head-to-head with a WWE show in Anaheim.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

Tickets aren’t on sale to the public yet, but fan club tickets to the Tokyo Dome shows on 1/4 and 1/5 had a ridiculous demand. There was a fan club lottery this week to get first tickets and people who were in the lottery noted to us that “nobody” even got floor seats for either show. Last the demand was high for great seats, but fan club members all could at least get the floor if they wanted it. Most people who wanted the floor ended up only getting the lower deck of the stadium. One ticket outlet with fan club memberships noted that for this to happen, the orders had to be up conservatively ten times the fan club ticket demand of last year. .. Kota Ibushi was back in action for the start of the new tour on 6/14 in Numazu. Aside from a black eye from the head-butt, there were no signs of anything different from usual. He’s been working the multiple-person matches so he can play it safe until G-1

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

Davey Boy Smith Jr., quit the promotion. He hasn’t been happy for some time. There were more a lot of small issues and frustration about not being used as well as things that build up from the past. There were issues because on the night before WrestleMania, he wanted to go to the WWE Hall of Fame because they were inducting Jim Neidhart, who is part of his family, as well as Bret Hart a second time. New Japan was running MSG and he kept asking whether he’s booked on the show so he could make plans either to do the Hall of Fame or not. Even as late as two weeks before the show he couldn’t get an answer. He also told them he’d rather go to the Hall of Fame for family reasons than be an afterthought on the show or used in a meaningless way. He ended up working multiple shows in the New York area that week but not the MSG show. New Japan let him work the Dynamite Kid tribute show that Satoru Sayama and Hisashi Shinma put on but there’s heat between Massao Hattori and Shinma.

Several months back, Smith had pitched an idea of he and Lance Archer doing a tribute to Dynamite on a New Japan show where he’d score a pin after a Dynamite Kid style diving head-butt. Gedo turned him down and told him he was too big to do that move and instead wanted to do the angle where stallionie T would go nuts and get DQ’d for a chair shot. The idea is that they wanted to turn stallionie into a wrestler who at times would just snap, basing it off the Ken Shamrock WWF character. Of course that fell apart when stallionie and Barreta didn’t sign new deals and instead signed with AEW. He had also asked for New Japan’s permission to work Impact and didn’t get permission. He asked what the problem was and they said “Fucking Jeff Jarrett and TNA,” and were still mad about how Okada was booked. Smith told them that Jarrett was long gone, and that he was going get a big push. The people at Impact were very high on him. New Japan told him he couldn’t go.

Somehow this turned into a miscommunication because when Lance Archer asked about them getting more dates this year, or that the team would be focused on more, the office told him they thought Smith was going to Impact. Except they had just told him he couldn’t do so. The office said that’s what Gedo told them. He ended up signing with MLW where he’s supposed to be put in a title program with Tom Lawlor, although MLW knew that New Japan had first dibs on his dates. There were reports he was going to ROH, but that’s not the case. He’s working MLW. With him no longer working New Japan, that could, like what happened with Michael Elgin, open up the door for Impact, although we’re told there has been no recent discussions with him with that promotion. Impact did have big plans for him originally.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

PWG announced its 7/26 show at the Globe Theater in Los Angeles. Tickets will go on sale this week. What’s notable is that there is a ton of AEW talent on the show. The show features Flip Gordon vs. Trey Miguel, The Dark Order (formerly Super Smash Brothers) vs. Trent Baretta & stallionie T (a match coming directly off the AEW PPV angle), MJF vs. Darby Allin, Puma King & Laredo Kid & Black Taurus vs. Flamita & Bandido & Rey Horus (a genuine top flight Lucha Libre trios match), Jungle Boy vs. Joey Janela, David Starr vs. Brody King and Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz defend the PWG tag titles against LAX in a ladder match. Eight of the wrestlers on this show are under AEW contract. Right now no decision has been made regarding whether they will be able to continue working PWG once television starts. The contracted talent won’t be allowed to work elsewhere, aside from Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley, who can work in Japan. For whatever reason, basically that PWG has a certain rep that elevates talent by being part of the shows, nobody except WWE bans its talent from PWG. Even ROH, whose full-time contracted talent can’t work anywhere else in the U.S., PWG is the exception. AEW hasn’t made a decision on this subject

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

Sami Callihan is done with MLW ... However, according to MLW, Callihan did $2,700 in damages to the building in Waukesha, WI, where the match took place. Bauer said he broke a new $15,000 bleacher and other property at the venue, dinged a garage door pretty bad, and the company had to pay $2,700. He said that Callihan was legitimately fired over that. Callihan also spit in Jim Cornette’s face during the show. Everyone has a different story about this. One story is that it was an angle because they believed people would believe in heat between the two since Cornette went nuts on his podcast months ago on Callihan because of the angle that went awry where Callihan hit Eddie Edwards with a baseball bat.

At least some if not all of what happened between the two of them dating back to April was meant as an insider angle, which is why it all aired on television because it if wasn’t, it would have ended immediately and would have been edited off television. Another version is that the spit thing wasn’t edited off but wasn’t planned either, but after, by playing up the Sonny Kiss thing, they thought he was shooting his own angle, played it off inside the company as a work nobody would overreact to it, and had talked to Cornette about using their internet heat to their advantage. But at this point everyone concedes whatever work they were doing turned into a shoot and right now the heat is real, because Callihan really believes Cornette got him fired and Cornette will always react to people trying to run him down publicly ...

It was noted by one person that Cornette went backstage to check on Callihan after the match with Warner and they hugged but as far as what Cornette was really thinking only he knows. People who were around Cornette said he was fine, never brought up or acted mad about being spit on to anyone after, and the belief is that if he thought it was legit, he’d have reacted completely differently. Another person backstage said that as far as he knows, the spitting was a shoot, but Cornette brushed it off backstage and laughed about it, saying he thought it was good heat and smart for Callihan to do it.

There were definitely people expecting Cornette to react differently and they had Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Low Ki there after the commotion to break it up if there were any problems, but there were no problems at all. Callihan was really mad when he got to the back after the match according to one person there.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

WWE had expressed interest in Fatu. Everyone believes he’s going to be a superstar and both AEW and WWE are aware of it

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

Here’s an interesting trivia note. In the history of U.S. and Canadian pro wrestling, there have only been two shows that weren’t main roster WWE events that have done $1 million live gates. And the two events came on consecutive days just miles apart, which were the NXT show at the Barclays Center on 4/5 (which is actually WWE but not main roster) and the NJPW/ROH show in Madison Square Garden the next day. WCW hit $900,000 but never cracked $1 million

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

Because Juice Robinson is moving to Japan, he not scheduled for any future ROH shows. They are hopeful of bringing him fall in the fall but if he’s living in Japan, he’ll probably do every tour going forward in Japan. He told ROH officials he was very upset about reports that he didn’t like working there

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

There’s been a lot of talk regarding Rush when his contract expires here at the end of the year. The two key points are that Andrade, who was not happy in NXT and WWE for a long time when not being used, is happy now, has a good relationship with Charlotte Flair, is getting a push and making money. So the attitude of being negative to his good friend about coming has changed. WWE has obviously wanted Rush for some time, but the second issue is he’s still under contract to CMLL until early 2021

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

Regarding AEW television, the date is still not finalized but we were told it is 100 percent it will be either Tuesday or Wednesday nights, which everyone pretty much knew but was never said officially. Right now Wednesday is in the lead but the reason nothing is said is that there are a lot of decisions on the TNT side that still have to be made. International TV deals can’t be finalized until TNT makes those decisions so that’s where all of that stands

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

Regarding why Hikaru Shida isn’t on Fyter Fest, she is touring Japan and the date was in the middle of her final tour before moving to the U.S. Riho is also finishing up soon in Japan and moving to the U.S

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

WWE sent out a marketing study regarding future WrestleManias. They were asking people who have traveled to WrestleMania in the past who are in their data base what cities they were most interested in going to, as well as how much money they estimate they spend in merchandise, transportation and tickets. The cities they listed as under consideration for future WrestleManias were London (notable that the city is under consideration), Chicago, Jacksonville, Las Vegas (those three cities listed in a row are interesting, if it was just Chicago and Las Vegas you wouldn’t think twice but a number of people who got the survey immediately saw Jacksonville lumped in and saw the unique coincidence), Santa Clara, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Toronto, Miami, Orlando and Tampa. Tampa on the list is weird because they are going there next year and one would think you wouldn’t be thinking about going back for many years to come.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

Regarding the WWE move to FOX, while I know a lot of people are using the current Smackdown ratings and feeling it will bomb as a network property and be moved to FS 1, and while nothing is impossible, FOX does not see it that way. FOX noted the value of a show is a combination of it value in retransmission rights (how much they can get carriers to pay for the station based on the product) and value to advertisers. Wrestling has virtually no value, in the sense nobody is paying more money to buy transmission rights to FOX stations because WWE is on the station. Their belief is they can get the ad rates up for wrestling based on the size of the audience and that wrestling still gets low CPMs (basically ad revenue based on size of audience) and that they can grow it.

Another key is that wrestling is 52 weeks a year. While FOX’s fall lineup this past year will likely beat what Smackdown will do on Friday nights, that’s first run programming. The last few weeks with rerun programming, FOX has done numbers far lower than what Smackdown would do. On 6/14, FOX ran the U.S. Open golf tournament and did 2,601,000 viewers. But that’s a one-off. FOX feels wrestling will top that, but even if wrestling doubled it, golf ad rates are so much higher than wrestling that a U.S. Open broadcast is more valuable. But that’s not your typical Friday this time of the year. On 6/7, FOX averaged 1,337,000 viewers for rerun programming in that time slot. On 5/31, it was 1,510,000. On 5/24 it was 1,708,000

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

A note that hasn’t been brought up regarding the Saudi Arabia shows going forward is that Saudi Arabia has asked for date on Fridays, and WWE starting in October has FOX on Fridays. Right now for 11/1, the WWE has a listing for a FOX show from Newark, NJ and a show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and King Saad University Stadium. So that would either mean split crews or they’d have to change the Saudi date

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter

FIt’s notable that New Japan put its U.S. title on a guy who can’t even work for them in the U.S. It’s still up in the air whether Moxley will be recognized as champion or wear the belt at Fyter Fest, which, ultimately is both up to Tony Khan agreeing to it as well as New Japan agreeing to it. He did neither on his independent dates with Northeast Wrestling this past weekend. This shows how much things have changed, and not for the better between the two sides.

Earlier this year, when New Japan had the visa issues that kept all of their Japanese talent off an American tour, and AEW was just starting, it was noted that they could have saved the tour in the eyes of the fans by using Omega. Some of the dates were when Omega was under control so they could have used him no matter what. One or two dates would have been after the contract expired, at which point he may have signed with AEW, but AEW had no problems with allowing him to work the entire tour. Of course New Japan didn’t even think in that direction nor have they made a play for Omega so far this year. But it’s gone from wanting to build a relationship to that no longer being the case.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

KENTA recently spoke to Weekly Pro Wrestling magazine in Japan about his departure from WWE and arrival at New Japan Pro Wrestling earlier this month at Dominion ...

When he was called up to 205 Live in November 2017 he was excited about the call-up but then things started to ‘deteriorate’. He mentioned the Cruiserweight title tournament in early 2018 after Enzo Amore left the company and the title was vacant. Itami lost in the opening round to Roderick Strong and noted that he could never really figure out who Hideo Itami was due to his lack of in-ring activity. He also felt his in-ring style suffered as a result of being told what to do and not to do and lost sight of his goals there.

He added that ‘no good memories come to mind’ on the experience at 205 Live and said he was ‘defanged’ there.

Originally Posted by Observer

Bobby Fish suffered what was apparently a jaw injury last week in the match that aired on Wednesday's NXT TV show. During a trios match, Velveteen Dream did a quebrada and it looked like his knee connected with Fish's nose, but it was actually a jaw injury. Fish's eye started to swell shut during the match.

Originally Posted by PWI

WWE announced today that Cathy Kelley and Kayla Braxton will host a live preview of WWE Stomping Grounds 2019 on WWE's social media accounts this Sunday at 3 PM EST with Alexa Bliss, Nikki Cross, Dolph Ziggler and Heavy Machinery appearing.

Originally Posted by PWI

As PWInsider.com noted earlier, WWE filmed a 24/7 title change at Drake Maverick's wedding, with R-Truth sneaking into the wedding and rolling up Maverick just seconds after he married former Mae Young Classic competitor Renee Michelle. We are told this was an idea Maverick pitched to the company that WWE loved.

The actual title change was filmed after the official nuptials had taken place, with WWE NXT writer Joseph Belcastro stepping in to play the pastor for the WWE material.

Braun Strowman, EC3, Jeremy Borash and former Impact Wrestling star Cheerleader Melissa (aka Alyssa Flash) were legitimately part of the Maverick/Michelle wedding party. Matt Hardy's son Maxel was ring bearer.

Other wrestling personalities in attendance at the ceremony included Matt and Reby Hardy, TJ Wilson (Tyson Kidd), Natalya Neidhart, former LAX member Diamante and Impact star Kiera Hogan.

We are told there was some additional material filmed after the title change, but there's no word whether it will be utilized yet.

Originally Posted by PWI

Ring of Honor is teasing that a fourth member of Villain Enterprises will be revealed next week over the course of Best in the World weekend in Baltimore and Philadelphia.

Originally Posted by PWI

In regard to one of the most asked questions we receive about Impact, LAX remains in discussions with Impact Wrestling but have not yet signed a new deal with the company. We are told their current deal expires later this summer. Impact sources have noted getting LAX under a longer form deal is one of the their top priorities. LAX vs. The Rascalz is set for the 7/7 Slammiversary PPV.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling

Jon Moxley was interviewed by New Japan following his debut earlier this month at Sumo Hall against Juice Robinson. Here are some of the highlights from the discussion:

-He debated whether to incorporate his Shield entrance by walking through the crowd but acknowledged it was the right call because it’s a cool entrance and felt it enhanced the feel for the match because the mood in the arena adjusted when he came through the audience
-Moxley said he always loved wrestling in Japan when he was in WWE, more so than working on television or even at WrestleMania because of the respect the fans have for the sport
-Regarding his gear, he had new ring boots to wear that didn’t fit and neither did an old pair, so he went with the wrestling shoes. He hated wrestling in jeans in WWE and did so because it separated him from everyone else but never wants to wrestle in them again.
– He also discussed his history with Juice Robinson in FCW where Robinson would ride with him and Seth Rollins and seek advice from them. Moxley was ecstatic with their match at Sumo Hall and has been following his career since he came to New Japan in 2015.

Originally Posted by Fightful

Triple H speaks about his match with Sting and how the planned match with The Rock played into the result of the Sting match ...

Triple H defeated Sting but went on to explain why he picked up the victory during Sting's version of the WWE Network series 'WWE Untold'. Triple H confirmed that he was scheduled to take on The Rock at WrestleMania 32 which derived from the two having their confrontation at WrestleMania 31 that included Stephanie McMahon and Ronda Rousey. Triple H added that as the year of 2015 went on, The Rock's scheduled got tighter and the match eventually fell through.

“And then the next one he [Sting] threw out I think was me and so, at that point [it] was me going back to Vince and saying, ‘Do we wanna make this happen?’ And Vince was all for it and we were able to make a deal. Part of the impetus with the way things turned out with the Sting thing is because I was already booked to work with The Rock at the following year’s WrestleMania and we’ll build it for more than a year. That was the intent, belief, everything else." Triple H continued, "Just as time went on, Rock’s schedule changed later in the year and we weren’t able to do the match for the following year’s WrestleMania one-on-one against The Rock.”

Triple H says he has heard people state that Sting should've won the match but there was nothing he could do in that circumstance because the plan going forward was for him to take on The Rock the following year.

“You know there are people who’ll say, ‘Well…’, I should’ve put him over to give him the moment and that’s arguably -- to say that you should’ve... The Rock situation made that impossible, which didn’t happen, but that’s the truth of it. Are there things that could’ve been done differently? I don’t know that it took away from anything.” He said.

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc

Conrad Thompson noted on Twitter today that his podcast co-host Bruce Prichard flew home from this week's WWE TV tapings to undergo emergency oral surgery. Conrad said things did not go well.

"@bruceprichard flew home from TV for emergency oral surgery this week. It didn't go well. He is still in great pain and the doctor advised against flying. So he will be out of commission for a few more days," Thompson wrote.

Prichard, who has been working with WWE creative and as the Senior Vice President, posted an update and noted that he ended up having 6 teeth pulled.

"Thanks for the well wishes. Ended up with 6 teeth pulled and had to drill into sinuses. In pain and on the mend . Should be good in a few days," Prichard wrote.

There's no word yet on if Prichard will be back to work for WWE at Sunday's Stomping Grounds pay-per-view

Originally Posted by ClockShot (Post 5263115)

Interested to know who's joining Scurll's crew.

Originally Posted by Fignuts (Post 5263033)

“Impossible”

Such bullshit. You had an entire year. In an entire year, you’re telling me you couldn’t book triple h strong enough to recover from losing to Sting?

It should only take a month, if that. It’s not losing to Barry Horowitz for fucks sake. It’s Sting. Literally one of the greatest and most respected icons of the industry today.