[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Heading into big summer specials for both Wednesday night shows over the next two weeks, NXT had its biggest ratings success in over four months with last night's show on the USA Network averaging 786,000 viewers ... In the 18-49 demo, NXT averaged a 0.19 rating, which was actually down five percent from last Wednesday. The show finished 26th on cable TV in that demo. Dynamite averaged 633,000 viewers, down 18 percent and the lowest number the show has ever done. Dynamite also had a series low with a 0.22 rating in 18-49, down 21.4 percent from last week and 17th for the night on cable. The .03 difference between the two shows in 18-49 is the closest they've been since December 18, the first and only time NXT ever beat Dynamite in 18-49. The 153,000 difference in total viewers is the biggest win NXT has had to date. The individual demos were much more competitive this week as AEW usually beats NXT in every category except persons over 50. NXT had a huge advantage in that category again with a 0.42 rating to AEW's 0.26. NXT also won in females 12-34 and the shows tied in females 18-49. Dynamite won every other demo, but they were much closer. AEW's best category was men 18-49, where they had a 0.29 rating to NXT's 0.23. The combined audience of 1.419 million was down seven percent from last week but still above the 10-week average.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The story of the night was AEW falling 18% in viewership and 21% in the key demo and was a show that its audience was not compelled to see but it’s hard to pinpoint the specific reason. The show was presented as a set-up for the upcoming Fyter Fest shows but on paper, had a deeper line up advertised than NXT, which was promoted around the North American title match. It was AEW’s lowest viewership and 18-49 demo rating in the show’s history since premiering last October on TNT. NXT improved 5% in viewership while falling 5% in the key demo. It was NXT’s highest viewership since February 19th, so the largest of the empty arena shows, although the key demo rating was down from last week. Among the key demos, AEW won four, NXT won three, and they were even among females 18-49. NXT had big increases with females 12-34 up 43% this week, adults 18-34 growing 25%, and adults over 50 improved by 17% and was the widest gap with NXT at 0.42 to AEW’s 0.26 with the over fifty demographic. It was NXT’s largest head-to-head rating in the 50+ demo with AEW, equaling the 0.42 they posted during an unopposed week over the Christmas holidays and highest since September 25th. AEW was hurt among females 18-49 dropping 28.5%, females 12-34 down 20%, and males 18-49 down 19% in addition to big loss among the main demo. Every category was down for AEW with the smallest loss seen with adults 18-34 that fell by 8%.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On June 8th, WWE Raw averaged 1,737,000 viewers over the three hours. Programming Insider reports that with the Live+3 numbers, the average would be 2,000,000. The audience increased 15% (263,000 viewers) and the 18-49 demographic increased by 16.5% with the Live+3 numbers. For the June 10th episode of AEW Dynamite that did 677,000 viewers, the Live+3 numbers bring the average up to 837,000. In the 18-49 demo, Live+ brings the rating up from 0.23 to 0.30. For that week, viewership increased 23.6% in viewers and 32.8% in the main demo. On the same night, NXT did 673,000 viewers and Live+3 increased it by 18.3% to 796,000 viewers and up 34.4% in the 18-49 demo from 0.16 to 0.22.

Link: https://programminginsider.com/live3...-adults-18-49/

Originally Posted by PWI WWE brought all talents and staff scheduled for this weekend's TV tapings to Orlando yesterday in order to go through a round of drive-through testing for COVID-19 this morning. Those brought in would be wrestlers and staff who were not sent emails on Monday and Tuesday advising them to get themselves tested due to a newly discovered COVID-19 positive test result. PWInsider.com is also told that anyone who tested negative for COVID-19 earlier this this week will also get tested again today at the PC. If they are not tested again today, they will not cleared to work the TV tapings. Once WWE gets the test results, they will adjust their taping plans according. WWE is scheduled to tape TV on Friday and Saturday.

Originally Posted by PWI After disclosing that she had contracted COVID-19 for the second time, WWE's Kayla Braxton deleted her Twitter account, citing that she was going to take of her health.

Originally Posted by PWI Yesterday, The Governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut announced they will be requiring all travelers coming from the State of Florida via flights to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in those States. With WWE and AEW each taping in Orlando and Jacksonville, respectively, this could put talents and staff from the Northeast, especially with WWE headquartered in Stamford, CT, at risk of having to quarantine. In AEW alone, MJF, Private Party, Santana and Ortiz are from the New York City area and would likely fall under the quarantine requirement if they flew out of Florida. Technically, Vince McMahon would be required to quarantine if he flew into New York (where the WWE's private jet is usually parked) from Florida. Other States falling under this edict currently are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Texas. Whether this leads to WWE and AEW talents and staff having to fly in and out of a neighboring State, such as Pennsylvania, remains to be seen.

Originally Posted by Observer WWE has revealed the tagline for July's Extreme Rules pay-per-view. The PPV is now referred to as "WWE Extreme Rules: The Horror Show" on WWE.com. The event is taking place on Sunday, July 19. Two matches have been confirmed for Extreme Rules thus far. WWE Champion Drew McIntyre will defend his title against Dolph Ziggler, while Sasha Banks will challenge Asuka for the Raw Women's Championship.

WWE picked a pretty bad time to reveal that tag line for Extreme Rules considering the recent circumstances or just them being tone deaf as usual.

Originally Posted by Observer PWInsider is reporting that CHIKARA is shutting down in the wake of a number of allegations against Mike Quackenbush. CHIKARA talent including Jakob Hammermeier, Hallowicked, Kimber Lee, and Frightmare have resigned from the promotion. Allegations have specifically come out against Quackenbush and Icarus over inappropriate behavior.

Originally Posted by Observer ECCW released a statement saying they have removed people from their promotion following “allegations involving certain members of our promotion”. John Pollock later reported one of these members being Jeff Duncan, the co-owner and booker of the promotion. Duncan gave Pollock the following statement: "I am no longer involved with ECCW. While I deny the allegations, I understand this course of action is best for the company".

Originally Posted by Observer MLW has announced the signing of Calvin Tankman

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On Tuesday, David Lagana issued a statement refuting the claim by wrestler Liz Savage that he sexually assaulted her in 2010. After his statement ran on several sites, Savage responded by stating: "Yes he absolutely did touch me. I put my trust into him as a friend and he violated me." Previous allegations against Lagana from Matthew Randazzo’s 2008 book Ring of Hell have come up during his time working at WWE from 2002 to 2008. In the book, multiple sources spoke to Randazzo including former WWE writers Dominick Pagliaro and Dan Madigan on the record. Pagliaro alleged that Lagana leveraged his power for sexual favors from both male and female talent. Madigan stated that he believed that WWE’s human resources were compiling a case involving complaints against Lagana prior to his 2008 departure. Madigan believed the company was aware but looked the other way and claimed that a male wrestler was propositioned and led to a veteran wrestler going to Talent Relations over it. POST Wrestling has reached out to both Lagana and WWE for statements regarding these past allegations and the nature of his departure from the company. When reached by this outlet, Dan Madigan stands by the statements he made in the book.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling I wanted to direct people to a great discussion that Wade Keller and Rich Fann had on the PW Torch site regarding all these issues. I thought the discussion covered a lot of ground, many questions that fans are left to face, the obligation of both management and performers amidst these allegations that are wide-spread, systemic changes necessary, and how the business changes after these scandals. I highly recommend this episode for those seeking analysis on issues broad and specific on these complex stories.

Link: https://www.pwtorch.com/site/2020/06...dustry-89-min/

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling MLW CEO Court Bauer spoke with the New York Post about their new distribution deal with DAZN. It was noted that episodes of Fusion will continue to run on beIN Sports with older episodes and the Opera Cup event currently available on DAZN. Bauer also noted an eventual split from YouTube citing how YouTube underpays unless you have a strategic partnership, which they attempted. He also noted they are under no pressure to return and won’t until there is “some sort of therapy, treatment, and or a vaccine”.

Originally Posted by PWI Ring of Honor has put plans to produce an empty arena TV taping in the Baltimore area next month on pause due to the spiking of COVID-19 cases around the country. There is a chance they may attempt to tape in August but nothing is anywhere close to confirmed at this moment. ROH has an empty arena bout featuring Bateman vs. Brody King that was filmed several weeks back in California for use on a future episode of ROH TV.

Originally Posted by PWI Next week's AEW Fyterfest Night One is slated to broadcast live on TNT. Night two will be taped on 7/2. As a precautionary measure, anyone who had been in contact with QT Marshall or at his gym in Georgia was kept away from last night's taping. Former WWE NXT talent Cesar Bononi was among those in the crowd at last night's Dynamite episode. AEW is taping Tuesday's episode of Dark later today ... John Skyler is slated to undergo surgery tomorrow to repair his ACL, PCL and MCL ... The references to Liz Hunter and Matt Brock last night during the press conference for Jake Hager vs. Cody were two fictional reporters from Pro Wrestling Illustrated back in the day.

Originally Posted by PWI As noted earlier this week, Impact Wrestling worked feverishly to get a new, reassembled episode of Impact on AXS on the air this week after the termination of Joey Ryan. We are told that it was down to the wire and that they just made it in time to deliver the episode to AXS TV. It was described to PWInsider as "another 30 minutes and we wouldn't have been on the air, at all", according to one source. The same source noted that Impact cannibalized material originally set to air in the weeks to come and the company will have to devise what their plans are for future episodes, but felt that making sure Impact did everything they could to deliver a new episode under any circumstances was the most important goal this week.

[QUOTE=Post Wrestling]Charlotte Flair appeared on the ‘Sport Hiatus’ show and addressed her status in WWE, amid the report that she’ll be stepping away from WWE programming to have surgery. Charlotte stated that she’ll only be absent from TV for a few weeks./QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Fightful Chris Jericho will return to the commentary table next Wednesday for AEW Fyter Fest. Tony Khan confirmed the news on AEW Unrestricted when discussing Private Party vs. Santana & Ortiz, which is scheduled for night one of the event. Khan said, "Chris Jericho is going to be on commentary for this show and Matt Hardy is going to be at ringside. So you have two teams advised by all-time legends."

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE wants to put smiles on faces. While other sports have shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, WWE has continued to run. They've moved events to the Performance Center in Florida and have taken certain precautions to protect performers. Speaking on Sports Hiatus conference call discussing Syncing Sponsorship Value with the Return of Live Action, WWE EVP of Global Head of Sales and Partnerships John Brody commented on WWE's decision to keep running live events during the pandemic. "The health and safety of our superstars is first and foremost paramount. It comes down to leadership in many ways. Our leader [Vince McMahon] believes we have a social responsibility to put fans first and to help them get a break from what was coming and what we're in the midst of. We have a responsibility to take them away for a few hours and give them a smile and a chance to feel something other than what they're watching, which is also important, on the news. We leaned in to say 'we're going to put fans first' and do everything we can, working with state, local, and federal officials to make sure it's safe for our most important resource, the WWE superstars, and we're going to do whatever we can to deliver content for our partners and our fans," he said. Brody went on to say that WWE ran from a closed set with essential personnel. He continued, "We understand the decision other sports made, we wouldn't have made the decision we made if we didn't think we could do it safely for our internal (staff) and for all those affected, but we felt America needed it and needed the 'pick me up.'" He called pulling off WrestleMania was "superhuman" and that WWE communicated with broadcast partners and sponsors, who were all happy they were able to deliver content. On Wednesday, it was reported multiple WWE staff and talent had tested positive for COVID-19. The exact number is known, but three people have already stepped forward.

TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE: Kevin Owens on Absence from RAW, Alexa Bliss Podcast, Edge on Filming of His Match vs. Orton
• ROH Says It’s Investigating Claims Against Its Wrestlers, Scurll Responds to Allegations
• Kayla Braxton and WWE Producer Adam Pearce Say They Have COVID-19
• Renee Young Says She Has COVID-19