[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Joey Janela is set to take part in the 2019 Battle of Los Angeles. On Wednesday, PWG announced Janela as the latest entrant for this year's tournament. He's the 13th participant to be confirmed, joining A-Kid, Jonathan Gresham, Artemis Spencer, Darby Allin, Mick Moretti, Orange Cassidy, Bandido, Caveman Ugg, Jake Atlas, Tony Deppen, Fenix, and Lucky Kid. Janela made his PWG debut in BOLA 2017, losing to Sammy Guevara in the first round. He made it to the semifinals last year but lost to Bandido.

Also recently announced was Brody King.

Originally Posted by PWI Seth Rollins did a Q&A with Yahoo Sports in which he talked about Monday's "Raw Reunion", the legends returning, SummerSlam and more. During the interview, Seth was asked whether there is an online sentiment that is cool to hate WWE in which he responded: "We’re the New York Yankees. It’s easy to hate the New England Patriots. We’re those teams, we’re the dynasty. It’s easy to hate us, but we’re still the most popular company in the world at what we do. We’re so far beyond being a wrestling company that it’s very easy to point the finger and hate on us. That’s the cool thing to do, it makes perfect sense to me, it’s how it’s always been in sports and entertainment, you always hate the big guy. It’s fine, I’m not upset about it at all. I just want people to understand and appreciate the things we go through and the fact that we’re always trying to do our best. Nobody is taking it easy, nobody is just getting by. Everybody from top to bottom, every department in the entire company is putting in as much work as they possibly can to make this the best."

Originally Posted by PWI Add Melina and Candice Michelle to the list of names scheduled for this Monday's Raw Reunion event. Melina will be making her first appearance on WWE programming since her release from the company in 2011.

Originally Posted by PWI I noticed in my email this morning a message from WWE Shop with the title "Because You Watched Extreme Rules" with recommendations for merchandise worn at the event this past Sunday. It appears that WWE is beginning to use the viewer data to customize experience which is said to be at the core of the company's "Network 2.0" plan integrating more user customization features like advertising tickets based on your geolocation, showing you merchandise or video featuring your favorite superstar, etc.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter A number of major executives with Turner were at the [Fight for the Fallen] show live and came out of it with the idea from the packed crowd, and how over the talent was to that audience that this was more impressive than they had thought.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter There is a reason you don’t do PPV shows two weeks apart. The number of FITE TV buys were down, but with the higher price charged per buy, the actual FITE revenue was the same as for the show two weeks earlier. They went with a higher price because the added revenue was to be part of the charity benefit. B/R Live numbers were down about 10 to 14 percent, depending on the category, from Fyter Fest, when it comes to live viewership. The decrease is likely due to the amount of competition that night with some also likely due to being just two weeks between big shows. The audience was said to be very consistent, as from the start of the show to the finish the audience never varied by more than about 500. B/R added 18,000 new subscriptions that day, so there were that many new people who didn’t watch the two previous shows, a number that officials were pleased with. Most of the B/R Live executives were described as pleasantly caught off-guard by the success of the last two AEW shows and the PPV numbers from the first show, particularly that there has been a significant increase in subs every show.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Regarding the story itself, Evolve had the show booked and the talent on the show booked as well at the 2300 Arena before this date was publicly announced (although privately this date was pretty much known first). Evolve doing a show in Philadelphia on this date was not a WWE counter. The Evolve show airing on WWE Network, given the timing and the WWE track record historically, that’s a different question. WWE did have a PPV in Philadelphia the next night so a lot of production people were around. Still, do I believe Vince McMahon would have put a non-WWE live event on the WWE Network without this show being taken place and not as a counter? History of every move, whether you want to go back to the 80s gives you the same answer. The creation of NXT U.K. and its slow rollout (countering ITV World of Sport), the huge offer to Jim Ross (who they didn’t want on ITV as the face of a new promotion that would have far greater viewership due to the platform), pretty much doing nothing in that direction, then all of a sudden coming back with it when ITV really did shoot a season is a recent example. As was signing up deals to essentially have control of a number of European companies when FloSlam was launched and having all those deals in place years ago to debut them on WWE Network and then McMahon changing his mind on airing any of it for years. Three years ago, WWE attempted to strip New Japan of all its foreign talent and WWE made huge offers to the key people who AEW was going to need to get off the ground ... Then, suddenly, on this night, McMahon not just changed his mind, but also, on both Raw and Smackdown, promoted the Evolve show harder than they’ve ever pushed a Takeover on those shows

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The Evolve show more than 800 fans and overall for what it was, it had to be considered a positive. Whether Vince McMahon would consider, or even care about a broadcast that did look out of place from a production standpoint, was on the network is an interesting question. In that sense, for the comparison of what McMahon has pushed as a well produced show, his wrestling show couldn’t touch the two rival shows. But everyone knew that going in.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter A public mass for Paco Alonso took place on 7/12 in the afternoon in Mexico City. Fray Tormenta, the famed priest who the movie “Nacho Libre” was somewhat based on, presided over it. Atlantis Jr., Negro Casas and Amapola all spoke and lots of wrestlers were there, including Rayo de Jalisco Jr., who flew in for it. Both CMLL and New Japan had ceremonies for him at shows this past week.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The announcing situation ended up being a really big story this past week. At the two Ota Ward Gym shows in Tokyo, Kevin Kelly, Rocky Romero and Chris Charlton were at the table, but Charlton said almost nothing. Basically a decision was made that Charlton would be used only as a translator and not to announce the matches, although he did occasionally say stuff ... The problem is that the decision came from outside New Japan. It was believed to have been made by TV-Asahi, which is partners in NJPW World. The situation is that TV stations have this idea of voice and look for announcers and Charlton doesn’t have the traditional voice that they would expect. He’s more a guy with incredible historical and trivial knowledge of New Japan that would appeal to hardcore fans, and NJPW World, in English, is a pure hardcore fan service ... But the announcing for the Tanahashi vs. Kota Ibushi G-1 final last year was one of the better announced matches I’ve ever seen (granted, a match like that has its advantages like Omega vs. Okada IV had) and since then Charlton was someone I always looked forward to on the shows that he did. After answering a question about what fans should do on the 7/16 show, both New Japan and TV-Asahi were flooded with correspondence regarding Charlton’s role. New Japan was always behind him but the outside forces who made the decision, in seeing so much reaction, made the call on 7/17 to have Charlton back in his former role starting with the shows this week

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Viceland has reached a deal to air a second season of Dark Side of the Ring, with the pro wrestling documentaries. This would include documentaries already shot on the death of Dino Bravo and one on Chris Benoit. There will also be some new topics that are likely to be announced over the next week. I expect we’ll see more topics related to Jim Cornette, who was considered a big hit in several of the episodes

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter There was more this week to the story of George Murdoch, formerly Brodus Clay and Tyrus, and now a host on the streaming Fox Nation service, and his former co-host Britt McHenry. The two did a show together until she complained about texts he had sent. He was never suspended and was instead given his own new show. The Huffington Post ran a story covering the content of the text messages that created the situation. In one text, Murdoch told his former co-host “Just pull your boobs out now why don’t you. Just grin and bare it.” In another he wrote, “Keep being negative and I’ll send you another dick pic.” Murdoch was pulled off the show in April after McHenry complained to FOX management. She claimed he sent sexually harassing texts between November (when the two were assigned to the same “UN-PC” as co-hosts) and January. Another one said, “I love the fact you (sic) always working if we ever had sex I feel like after an orgazzum (sic) you say speaking of feeling good did see the story on the puppy rescue we should do a segment on it hand me my phone.” McHenry had showed the text messages to friends before going to management, asking them how she should handle the situation. Murdoch is still a regular guest on Saturdays on The Greg Garfield Show on Fox News and regularly appears on Dana Perino’s “The Daily Briefing.” I have no clue how they can still employ him

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The Young Bucks did an interview with Chris Van Vliet and said there was a time when they and Kenny Omega were in a room together last year and all three believed they were going to WWE. He said that Tony Khan made the right offer and the one thing AEW offered that WWE couldn’t match was the ability to control their own destiny. They also said that the tag team tournament brackets are almost finalized and that the tournament will be part of the early television shows. Regarding Pac, they said it’s about 99 percent that he’s coming in and it’s just a question of when. Essentially when he’s agreeable to lose within doing programs which would likely be after he drops the Open the Dream Gate title. Once they know a date that he’s dropping the title, one would think they’ll come up with a program for him and it’s pretty much working out a schedule that works for both sides. But he would still likely have to sign a long-term deal at some point and before he was hesitant on that. They also said that, depending on the size of the market, that the TV’s will be taped in 5,000 to 12,000 seat arenas. Keep in mind that with the staging, that most of the NBA arenas these days are going to sellout with 13,000 to 14,000 fans for a pro wrestling TV set up. Given it’s midweek and that Smackdown often draws in the 3,000 to 5,000 range, and WWE is so much larger, doing 3,000 a week in the current economy in theory would be the expectation

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Kylie Rae has been out of action. The situation has been kept quiet but it is a medical issue and she is expected back soon

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter WWE failed to get the Emmy nomination for Raw that they had pushed for in the category of Outstanding Structured Reality Program. Well, not that this played a part in it, because I’m sure it being pro wrestling would have made it difficult to begin with, but the show this past year was about as far from outstanding as the distance between the Earth and Alpha Centauri

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Paul Heyman for Raw is trying to go with the idea of having backstage interviews have less of the fake dialogue and come across more realistic, and that there would be more consequences, essentially what AEW promises with the idea that wins and losses will matter and that angles won’t just be forgotten and dropped, and if someone gets hurt one week they won’t be fine the next week. Obviously with Strowman, that was barely the case, as he was supposedly gravely injured, missed one week of TV, and returned selling nothing. Wrestlers for the last 15 years have complained about how they’ll do a big match and want to sell the beating the next day on Raw, and Vince will allow mid-card guys to do that but when the top guys want to, Vince nixes it because the guys he wants to protect he doesn’t want to have on television appearing to be weak

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter There was a report that Harper is going back on the road. If that’s the case, it’s a secret since key people in the company don’t know it, nor do those close to he say that he’s heard a thing. He’s pretty much been told nothing since the decision was made not to use him in early April when Vince didn’t like his match with Dominic Dijakovic

TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE Announces “Smackville” Special Airing on WWE Network
• Eric Bischoff Apparently Won’t Be Involved in SmackDown Creative Process
• WWE/FOX Update: Talks for NXT on TV, 20th Anniversary Show, More
• CM Punk Will Appear on Starrcast III During AEW All Out Weekend
• AEW: All Out Price, Tony Schiavone Working for AEW? Tully Blanchard Signs Deal
• Shawn Michaels Will Be on Commentary for This Week’s SmackDown