[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer At a time when most other pro wrestling shows are down in the ratings, AEW Dynamite and NXT both saw increases last night. Last night's live episode of Dynamite from Daily's Place in Jacksonville averaged 732,000 viewers on TNT, up 5.6 percent from last week. In the 18-49 demo, the show finished 12th for the night in the cable TV rankings and drew a 0.28 rating, Dynamite's biggest number in that category since March 25. That was up 3.7 percent from last week. On USA Network, NXT was also up for a loaded up show featuring two title matches and the NXT in-ring debut of Karrion Kross. The episode averaged 663,000 viewers, up 4.1 percent from last week. In 18-49, NXT climbed back into the top 50, finishing 33rd with a 0.18 rating, up 12.5 percent from last Wednesday ... There have been eight closed set broadcasts for both shows so far, so it's a good time to look at the trends as compared to before the coronavirus pandemic forced the promotions to not allow fans at events. The eight Dynamite episodes prior to March 18 averaged 859,250 viewers. Since that date, the subsequent eight shows have averaged 745,875 viewers, a drop of 13.2 percent For NXT, the same eight weeks of shows pre-pandemic averaged 741,750 viewers. Since then, they've averaged 643,875 viewers. The drop was the exact same 13.2 percent. Looking at the other wrestling shows over that time frame, since there have also been eight weeks of Raw and SmackDown: Raw averaged 2.290 million viewers for the eight weeks prior to closed set episodes and 1.948 million viewers since then, a drop of 14.9 percent. SmackDown averaged 2.511 million viewers pre-pandemic and 2.249 million since then, a drop of 10.5 percent. It should be noted that SmackDown had the advantage of having appearances by John Cena and Goldberg before WrestleMania 36, which likely boosted those numbers and fell in the time frame of after the pandemic started.

Originally Posted by Observer A&E and WWE Studios are partnering together for a new series focused on WWE memorabilia. It was announced today that A&E Network has greenlit a series with the working title "The Quest for Lost WWE Treasures." It will be hosted by Stephanie McMahon and Paul "Triple H" Levesque and will take viewers "on the ultimate hunt to find some of WWE’s most iconic, lost memorabilia." The series will feature 10 one-hour episodes ... WWE Studios' Susan Levison and Ben Zierten and A&Es Elaine Frontain Bryant, Dolores Gavin, and Jonathan Partridge are serving as executive producers for "The Quest for Lost WWE Treasures." It was noted that the new series joins the previously announced greenlight of five "Biography" documentaries that A&E and WWE are partnering together for. Those were announced last year and will be focused on Randy Savage, Roddy Piper, Booker T, Steve Austin, and Shawn Michaels.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE will broadcast content related to March 1987's Wrestlemania III Recall this Tuesday 5/12 at 8 PM EST on FS1. 7 PM - Wrestlemania Rewind on Wrestlemania IIII. This is the WWE Network episode from 2014. 8 PM - Three hour Wrestlemania 3 Recall. The March 1987 event featured: *WWE Champion Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant. *WWE Intercontinental Champion Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat. *Roddy Piper vs. Adrian Adonis - Hair vs. Hair Piper Retirement Match. *The Hart Foundation & Danny Davis vs, The British Bulldogs & Tito Santana. *Butch Reed vs,. Koko B. Ware. *Harley Race vs. The Junktyard Dog. *The Dream Team vs. The Rougeaus. *The Can-Am Connection vs. Don Muraco & Bob Orton. *Jake Roberts vs. The Honkytonk Man. *The Killer Bees vs. The Iron Sheik & Nikolai Volkoff. *King Kong Bundy & Little Tokyo & Lord Little Brook vs. Hillbilly Jim & Little Beaver & The Haiti Kid. 11 PM EST - WWE Backstage.

Originally Posted by PWI As we reported earlier this week in the Elite section of PWInsider.com, the WWE Money in the Bank Ladder matches are pre-taped but the remainder of this Sunday's MITB PPV will be live from the WWE Performance Center. At one point, the plan was to go back and forth from the taped material to the live content over the course of the show to give the impression of the MITB match competitors "battling" through WWE HQ over the course of the night.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The Rush’ also has an article up about WWE’s filming of Money In The Bank at their corporate headquarters. WWE was allowed to film the event because media companies provide “essential” services that are exempt from the stay-at-home order that was put in place on March 23rd by Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont.

Originally Posted by PWI Combat Zone Wrestling announced they are postponing the 2020 Tournament of Death, originally slated for 6/20, for a date TBD: Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, CZW has no choice but to officially postpone Tournament of Death to a later date when it'll be safer for everyone involved. Tickets will be refunded. pic.twitter.com/PR5DaKNezh — CZW Combat Zone Wrestling (@combatzone) May 7, 2020

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Former two-time WWE Champion AJ Styles competed in the main event of night one of WrestleMania 36 in a Boneyard match with The Undertaker. Styles was “buried alive” in the bout and had not been on WWE programming since the match. This past Monday on RAW, AJ made his return in a gauntlet match to determine the final participant in this year’s men’s Money In The Bank match. Styles recently spoke about his return during his MIXER stream. He agreed with his chatroom that more could’ve been done with his return. He added that maybe more star power was needed in the match or had the COVID-19 pandemic not been going on and pro wrestling was in the state it was in prior to the pandemic, maybe WWE could’ve held off on bringing him back and switched up his character a bit. “The return… could’ve been more, okay. I’ve heard people talk about, ‘Well I mean… kinda just wasted it. AJ Styles was buried alive, could’ve came back as a different character in a different mood and a different look, something different about AJ Styles and he came back and he was exactly the same before he got buried.’ I’m with you. Now, I think the circumstances had a lot to do with AJ Styles coming back when he did… but, the circumstances, the match… maybe we needed some more star power in the match. Maybe that’s what that was. I don’t know, I’m not tooting my own horn here, but, I wish we could’ve waited and had times been different, that could’ve been something that we would’ve went [with].” AJ also talked about several other topics during the stream. He recalled when he was first negotiating with WWE about joining the company. There was a possibility that he wasn’t going to be able to don the name “AJ Styles” and AJ told Paul “Triple H” Levesque that he had no issue with changing his name. “When I signed, or was looking to sign with WWE, Triple H was like, ‘Hey man, [you] may not be able to keep ‘AJ Styles.’ We may have to give you another name.’ I said, ‘No problem with that. It’s just I have this huge tattoo on my side that says ‘AJ’. But I’m totally cool with whatever you guys wanna do. I don’t care, not a big deal to me.’”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Per Law 360, six firms are vying for lead counsel in the two WWE stockholder lawsuits, in-which the investors claimed that they lost money while WWE hid their “souring relations” with Saudi Arabia in the middle of hosting shows there. The six firms filed a motion in a New York federal court and want to consolidate two class actions that were submitted in March.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On the premiere episode of Tama Tonga’s ‘Tama’s Island’ podcast, Karl Anderson joined the show and while conversing about Bullet Club, Anderson said that the group were almost named “The Real” before Finn Balor stepped in and declared “Bullet Club” as the group name. “You know, Gedo actually wanted to call us ‘The Real’, because we used to always [say] in our promos, ‘We’re real shooters’ but making fun of [Tiger] Hattori. I guess we almost became The Real but then Prince Fergie [Finn Balor] ended up saying The Bullet Club and that actually stuck.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Digital Spy released another portion of their interview with Otis. In this portion of the interview, Otis told the story of when he was tackled by security at a WWE house show when he was in fifth grade for trying to reach over the guardrail and slap hands with Trish Stratus. “It hurt, every bit of it hurt. I was a 200-pound fifth grader – I looked like a man almost. So yeah I made a sacrifice, got speared, but after that spear from the guard we got first row tickets. So it all happened for a reason. I’ve never told Trish that story in person. It’s hard for me to talk to her as a lady I’ve watched for years in the sports-entertainment world.”

Originally Posted by Fightful The UFC returns to action this coming weekend with UFC 249, which is headlined by Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje battling for the vacant UFC Interim Lightweight Title. This is the first of three straight events for the promotion in a one week span, with UFC Fight Night: Smith vs. Teixeira taking place on May 13 and UFC Fight Night: Overeem vs. Harris happening on May 16. All three cards are taking place from the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida and all three events will see fighters, cornermen and other personnel get tested for the coronavirus. A report from the Sports Business Journal states that according to UFC COO Lawrence Epstein, a total of 1,200 coronavirus testing kits are available for usage during the week. “In the early days of this epidemic, the testing capacity had to be focused exclusively on first responders,” Epstein said. “Now with testing capacity expanding, many of these tests that organizations like ours are getting access to don’t impact that testing.”

AEW probably has a similar large stockpile assuming these tests are from the surplus the city of Jacksonville has and not just UFC hoarding tests from everywhere they can find.

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE is doing a special collaboration with the The King Of Fighters video game series. Netmarble, the developers of The King Of Fighters All-Star mobile game, announced that it is doing a special event. Graphics on the upcoming collaboration features past and present wrestling stars such as The Rock, The Undertaker, John Cena, Seth Rollins, SmackDown Tag Team Champion Kofi Kingston and RAW Women's Champion Becky Lynch. The event is set to go live on May 14. The game can be downloaded on Apple iOS and Android devices.

Link: https://twitter.com/HDKirin/status/1258380893137203200


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• WWE Planning Push for Brendan Vink on RAW
• Updated AEW Double or Nothing Card – Four Matches Announced
• Several Matches Announced for Next Week’s AEW Dynamite and NXT