[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

As mentioned last week, here is the reality of the situation. WrestleMania is coming and to the average person, what match means more as the main event, Bray Wyatt vs. Roman Reigns for the Universal title, or Goldberg vs. Reigns? ... But the answer to the question, as sad as this sounds, is that Goldberg vs. Reigns garners far more interest, even in 2020. Of course the mentality to go with stars of the past and not make stars of the present is the case history of one of the main things that killed WCW. But that’s for the rest of the year. WrestleMania is where you go with the matches people most want to see. So there it was. While it was reality, it also meant Vince McMahon had to come to a sad but telling admission. In Wyatt’s Fiend character, he had not, perhaps since the introduction of Kane in 1997, and perhaps even before that, allowed a heel character to look so dominant. Wyatt’s Fiend character was creative and fresh. He had become the top merchandise seller. He got up from everyone’s big moves and destroyed top babyfaces. The Fiend was cool, like the Undertaker, but he was destroying babyfaces ... Since day one of Smackdown on FOX, the main storyline was The Fiend destroys everyone, no exceptions, and Roman Reigns is kept away from him in a long feud with King Corbin. This would lead to their first meeting at WrestleMania, the monster heel, even if he is cheered, against the badass face. It’s the formula that almost always works. Except the change in the card shows in Vince McMahon’s eyes, it didn’t. It’s quite an admission, that a WCW creation of 1998, now, 22 years later, can walk off the couch and be a bigger star than the guy who has been pushed as untouchable weekly on television. But that admission is true. For an endless number of reasons, WWE has trouble making stars, even when they have them. Even with the bigger audience and platform, the WWE method of making stars can’t match 22 year old nostalgia. It’s not the first time. WCW couldn’t make stars after 1999 who could get over like Hulk Hogan, Sting, or Ric Flair, who were all past their primes. But yet, those same people who couldn’t be stars, ended up doing well years later. Today, people who weren’t seen as stars in WWE who could carry the brand, Cody, Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley, are carrying the rival brand and getting reactions far bigger than anyone in WWE ... Indeed, the very idea of Goldberg was to be the reincarnation of Sammartino from late 1977 until he retired in late 1980. That’s why him being added to the list of babyfaces destroyed by The Fiend, which was absolutely the plan, seemed foolish. Goldberg beat The Fiend, breaking the mandible claw twice and pinning him with a jackhammer that really wasn’t one, in 2:57 on a night in Saudi Arabia where the theme seemed to be current guys squashed by part-time legends in seconds, a largely heatless crowd, and lackluster matches. Undertaker won the Tuwaig Mountain Trophy doing one match where he pinned A.J. Styles with one move in 20 seconds. Hopefully they have a great follow-up idea, because after this encounter, a fan would have less interest in a rematch at WrestleMania than a third Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder fight. Lesnar retained the WWE title over Ricochet in 1:28 in a match where Ricochet got no offensive move in. Obviously there was no chance for Ricochet to win, but he could have lost and still have the match worked in a way that he could have benefitted from it. This was the opposite. He’s now fully established as a guy not worthy of investing in or paying attention to. Why you had three matches like that on the same show is an unanswerable question. Undertaker-Styles killed interest in that match. Lesnar-Ricochet didn’t have to be like that. Goldberg-Wyatt shouldn’t have gone last and ended the show the way it did, but going any longer or different was a risk not worth taking ... And the irony is that McMahon’s M.O. was to give up on people at 40. Now it’s to give up on people at 28 and build back shows around guys in their 40s and 50s. There’s only one way this can end. The lone saving grace is that WWE is financially idiot-proof, which is a luxury Verne Gagne, Eric Bischoff and everyone else who only thought about today with the stars of yesterday and having no vision for tomorrow didn’t have.

John Cena, Daniel Bryan and Kevin Owens once again didn’t go on this trip and Sami Zayn either didn’t go because he wasn’t allowed to in the past, or still wasn’t allowed to. Aleister Black and Zelina Vega also didn’t go, with Black for the same reason, the fear of his tattoos with religious significance offending the hosts. Randy Orton didn’t go either, whether by choice or not booked, but given they are into stars from the past, Orton would seem to be a curious name to not be brought. Rusev was booked in the gauntlet match, but pulled out, claiming a back injury. His wife Lana did go, accompanying storyline husband Bobby Lashley, and just doing an entrance literally covered from head to toe, with even her hair covered and just her face showing. The number of people brought was half or less than half of previous shows.

Both AEW and NXT declined from the prior week on 2/26. In the case of AEW, that wasn’t a big surprise since the Atlanta show was a bigger show and the Cody-Wardlow cage match had been built up for weeks, while the AEW big match, Kenny Omega vs. Pac, was an Iron Man match which traditionally doesn’t do well in ratings since people know the actual finish isn’t coming for 30 minutes as opposed to not knowing when the finish is coming. NXT was not only coming off a Takeover show, but had heavily promoted Charlotte Flair vs. Bianca Belair ... AEW did 865,000 viewers and a 0.30 in 18-49, a drop of 3.6 percent in total viewers and 3.2 percent in 18-49. Last week’s show went against the Democratic debate that did huge numbers, but clearly the interest in both shows were down, even with AEW coming off a string of great shows. NXT did 717,000 viewers and a 0.23 in 18-49, a drop of 9.7 percent overall and 8.0 percent in 18-49 ... The key questions for last week are how the quarters did, particularly AEW’s Iron Man match, as well as Q8, with the Chris Jericho-Jon Moxley weigh-in going against Flair vs. Belair. Jericho has not lost a quarter hour since AEW started but WWE was sending one of its most pushed wrestlers in a storyline program in competition. The other key is when AEW ended, did AEW putting on a Countdown show against the last five minutes hurt the usual migration at 10 p.m. of AEW viewers to NXT ... AEW in particular declined with men from last week. In the 18-49 demo, AEW was down 10.6 percent with men and up 14.8 percent with women. It also was AEW’s lowest numbers ever with teenagers. But for the first time, AEW beat NXT in over 50, because that was the age group that NXT lost this week. So while the audience is pretty stable, it was increasing with women, decreasing in men, and getting older ... On the flip side, NXT was up with men, but down with women, and the only demo it beat AEW in was teenagers, but both shows did pretty much record lows there.

Some more ratings notes on the 2/19 AEW and NXT shows. The numbers live were 893,000 (1.35 viewers per home) to 794,000, although head-to-head that was 788,000 ... The third quarter saw AEW continue Shanna vs. Statlander and have a Nyla Rose interview. That lost 69,000 viewers and 48,000 in 18-49. NXT had a Tommaso Ciampa interview plus some stuff with Austin Theory and gained 59,000 viewers and 44,000 in 18-49. This was the only quarter NXT won, winning with total viewers 827,000 to 795,000 and with 18-49, by a 354,000 to 347,000 margin. The fourth quarter saw things reverse. Jon Moxley vs. Jeff Cobb for AEW gained 177,000 viewers and gained 78,000 in 18-49. NXT had a Finn Balor promo and Zack Gibson & James Drake vs. Raul Mendoza & Joaquin Wilde and lost 55,000 viewers and lost 36,000 in 18-49 ... The final quarter, the head-to-head main events, was a big win as expected for AEW. Cody vs. Wardlow in a cage gained 132,000 viewers to 947,000, and gained 46,000 in 18-49 to 420,000. So the key is while it did gain in 18-49, the big gains were older and younger, and likely more older. So the cage was a big hit for the over 50 crowd, which is the one demo AEW has been losing and where for the first time they equaled NXT in. NXT, with Velveteen Dream vs. Roderick Strong, pushed in commercial after commercial on Raw, lost 40,000 overall to 744,000, and 6,000 in 18-49 to 310,000 ... The last five minute overrun saw a huge turnover of 196,000 viewers overall going to NXT and 71,000 of them in 18-49. Given the shift of the previous quarter, what it looks like what happened was that a ton of regular NXT viewers switched over to the cage match. Whether that’s a good sign for the 3/4 show when NXT does Dakota Kai vs. Tegan Nox in a cage is interesting. Because the shift to AEW was largely over 50, and the shift back when the show ended, was also over 50, which is the dominant NXT audience.

The good news for the 2/24 Raw is that the first-to-third hour drop, which was near record levels last week, was far lower than usual. The problem was it was more due to how weak the first hour was. The 2,246,000 viewers in the first hour was the lowest in history for a non-holiday show that didn’t go against major sports competition.

Smackdown on 2/21 did a 1.55 rating and 2,484,000 viewers (1.33 viewers per home) and an 0.7 in the 18-49 demo for a show built around Bill Goldberg being there live and the Bella Twins Hall of Fame announcement ... Last year on the same week on Friday, FOX in those two hours averaged an 0.6 in 18-49 and 3,348,000 in viewers. That was with first-run programming so this was the first time this year that FOX’s first-run of the same week drew a lower 18-49 number than this year.

While nothing has been announced, the belief is that the television deal in India is either finalized or close to. The contract expired at the end of the year and they were hoping to have a new deal last year. WWE had remained on television under the terms of the old deal. They were getting about $34 million from the market, and expectations were they would have a huge increase, with some estimating as much as $125 million per year, making it the No. 2 market behind the U.S. They are the No. 2 market, as the belief is that BT Sports paid less for WWE rights than Sky (which was paying around $35 million per year). However, India is getting an increase, with the belief the number will fall around $60-61 million. It’s a solid increase but probably won’t help the stock since so many expected significantly better

Regarding the WWE Network, they had a new commercial for it in Canada and there was a price raise from $12.99 per month to $14.99. It should be noted that if WWE makes a deal with ESPN+ or Peacock that neither would apply to Canada

There will be a significant debut on Smackdown which was teased on the show this weekend with static and a symbol. The best bet seems to be Killer Kross only because of the word Kross was going to be fast-tracked as compared to most signings and because of the war with AEW, they are not as apt to move key people that have been established on NXT television. The Shayna Baszler vs. Becky Lynch match was planned before NXT got television so that would be the exception

AEW has its fourth PPV in its history on 2/29 in Chicago at the sold out Wintrust Arena. The PPV number will be interesting because TNT aired a one-hour UFC Countdown style special on 2/26 after Dynamite, focusing on the top matches. That in theory should help U.S. buys, but that will be offset by the loss of television PPV in the U.K. with ITV Box Office closing up shop. The ITV Box Office had been hovering at around 15,000 per show. It’s probable that some of those people will order streaming through FITE, but not all. So one would think, all things staying equal, this show would be down a little because of that. But it will also be on television PPV for the first time in Germany on Sky Germany. It will also air in some markets through PlayStation. There is the argument that the company had its best go-home show, and its first hype special, and that should increase U.S. numbers. The PPV has more storyline depth, but the last show featured incredible promos building the Chris Jericho vs. Cody title match, with Cody saying that he would never challenge for the title again if he didn’t win. The problem is that stip probably didn’t help numbers because AEW is drawing from a smarter fan base, and they believe all stips are not going to be adhered to given the last 30 years of U.S. pro wrestling history is you always get lied to on stips. Whether AEW, like ECW attempted to do in the 90s, is able to or wants to adhere to stips, it will probably take years for that to fully resonate, if it ever does.

Meltzer's low end estimate for Revolution is around 80-85k and all depending on how much of a hit the UK market does for the show.

There will be a one-hour pre-show streaming starting at 7 p.m. Eastern, with the current plan being one match, Chuck Taylor & Trent vs. Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky, going into the ring at 7:30 p.m. The Revolution PPV starts at 8 p.m. and can go until midnight, although it’s not timed out at this point as to exactly when it will end.

The Cubsfan has reported that this year’s TripleMania show will take place on 8/22 in Mexico City. For those keeping score, it means that NXT Takeover Boston, TripleMania and the New Japan Madison Square Garden show will all be taking place at the same time. And there will likely be a UFC show at the same time as well. Luckily if you want to catch up, you can do it the next day if you don’t mind missing a six plus hour SummerSlam show

Chris Jericho spoke to the New York Post about when he believed he was a guy who could carry a promotion. “Could I have done more in WCW in a headlining position? Would I have been good? I didn’t know. In my mind I’d be great. The first time I was put in a headlining position in WWF, I wasn’t ready, and in WCW, it was a couple years earlier. So maybe I wasn’t ready. And as the career goes forward, I can tell you the exact moment when I knew I had become a legit, headlining, main-event guy and the exact moment where I became the top guy, which was in New Japan Jan. 4, 2018 (the Kenny Omega match), which led to being the top guy here in AEW.” As far as what he sees his role as, he said, “When you’re the top guy, you don’t hide and stop others from getting in there because then it just becomes stale and it dies. Your job as the top guy is to help everyone else up on top of the mountain so that there are 15 top guys and everybody is making money and everyone’s having a great time, people are enjoying the show and the product.