[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Going to the past when it comes to wrestling usually works the first time, but the shelf life of doing so is limited. And thus after a few weeks of doing that, Raw fell last night to 1.74 million viewers, tying its third worst mark in the modern history of the show. The show did a 0.49 rating in 18-49, which tied for the second lowest in history, behind only the May 4 episode. The audience was down 10 percent from last week and 18-49 was down eight percent from last week. The audience was down 24 percent from the same week last year. Raw finished 25th overall in viewers and tied for fourth in 18-49. Raw was first in males 18-49 and first in males 12-34 and fifth in 18-34 ... Raw had seen ratings rise in recent weeks by relying on older wrestlers like Ric Flair, Big Show, Edge, and Christian to success, and going to less wrestling and more talking. But this week that same format saw the show revert back to the level that the show had been doing focusing on the newer talent. The three hours were: 8 p.m. 1.86 million viewers 9 p.m. 1.75 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.59 million viewers

Originally Posted by Fightful Baron Corbin feels like you should have to earn your shot at the King. Matt Riddle is the latest Superstar to join the SmackDown brand. Upon his arrival, he defeated Intercontinental Champion AJ Styles in a non-title match. When it comes to his first rivalry, it looks like the “Bro” may be setting his sights on royalty. According to a report from Gary Cassidy of Sportskeeda, Baron Corbin is not happy about being positioned as the first rivalry for Riddle on the main roster. Reportedly, Corbin feels that Riddle should have to defeat five enhancement talents before facing him. However, this has been the plan for Riddle for quite some time as illustrated by the fact that Baron Corbin eliminated Matt Riddle from both Survivor Series and the Royal Rumble. Riddle vs. Corbin has been the plan internally for months but Baron Corbin only found out about the plans within the past week.

Originally Posted by Pst Wrestling Roman Reigns (Joe Anoa’i) spoke with The Hindu Times and discussed his decision to remove himself from WWE’s tapings back in March ahead of WrestleMania. Reigns said it was due to his wife and him having twins and not wanting to expose them to the virus. Reigns did do one empty arena episode of SmackDown with a contract signing with Bill Goldberg prior to Reigns removing himself from WrestleMania. "The decision was taken mainly because each performer travels so much, and we are all such a diverse group and from all over the place. I’m not convinced, and I can’t trust the fact that everybody is taking it as seriously and locking themselves down at home like I am. I trust my life with my co-workers every time I step foot in the ring, but I just can’t put the same trust when it has my children, my wife and my family involved. But I don’t want it to come off as I am taking a stand against the company at all, because I love the WWE. I’ve been a part of this company just since I was a little boy. That’s why I always take it so personally when I represent them."

Originally Posted by Observer WWE is promoting that this Wednesday's episode of NXT will feature limited commercials. That was announced during an advertisement that aired on tonight's Raw. This week's NXT is the first night of the Great American Bash. The Great American Bash is taking place over the next two weeks of NXT and is going up against both nights of AEW's Fyter Fest. NXT had limited commercial interruption for its October 2, 2019 episode, which was the show that went up against Dynamite's debut and was the first time NXT aired on the USA Network for its full two hours. The Adam Cole vs. Finn Balor NXT Championship match on the December 18 episode of NXT was also presented commercial-free.

Originally Posted by Observer Ricochet will be the subject of the next episode of WWE 365. "An incredible year for @KingRicochet takes center stage THIS SUNDAY on an all-new #WWE365," WWE announced today. The episode will premiere on demand on the WWE Network at 10 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday (July 5) and will also air on the WWE Network live stream at 8 p.m. Eastern time that night. WWE 365 is a documentary-style series that focuses on one wrestler over the course of a year.

Originally Posted by Fightful Tessa Blanchard was fired by IMPACT Wrestling on June 25, days before her contract with the company was set to expire. Blanchard was the reigning IMPACT World Champion when the decision was made to terminate her contract. Fightful Select reported Blanchard's contract was expired on June 30 and there is no non-compete clause attached, meaning she is free to sign with any promotion. According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer, WWE has sent out feelers towards Blanchard. Alex McCarthy of talkSPORT adds that a source close to Blanchard told talkSPORT that WWE is the "likely landing spot" for Blanchard. The source also noted to McCarthy that they didn't believe Tony Khan and AEW were interested. Tessa's father Tully currently works for AEW.

Originally Posted by Observer On Google search charts for the past week, Dustin Poirier was the No. 5 most searched term in the U.S. yesterday with more than 100,000. Mike Perry was no. 10 with 100,000. On Friday, Dave Bautista was No. 16 with 50,000 for the Love Walk in Tampa that he and Titus O'Neil spearheaded. The Rock was No. 20 on Thursday with 50,000 because he's The Rock. And the dubious distinction of the most searched for name over the past week in pro wrestling, boxing or MMA is Sammy Guevara with 200,000 on Monday. Guevara is the only name from any Speaking Out stories that got any traction at all mainstream, and the WWE's COVID breakout also got nothing.

Originally Posted by Observer While appearing on Busted Open Radio, Cody discussed NXT’s Great American Bash: “So there are two events. People, I think sometimes mistakenly think Dusty just named Starrcade and Great American Bash, and it’s well beyond naming them. It’s a matter of booking them, of marketing them, of the creation of what the event stands for, especially at the advents of pay-per-views. My dad always told me that Starrcade was for my sister and that Great American Bash was for me and obviously at the time he came up with these events, I’m not sure if that was actually the case but that’s what he told me and that’s why it’s very special, both events to me and my sister. I’m not going to get angry, because it still brings up his name in a positive way. The marketing of the event reminds me a lot of what Disney currently does. If you go to Disney World, they still sell Haunted Mansion shirts and they are all done retro-style. That’s something that’s been marketed really well. They market nostalgia. If you run a sizzle with Sting and Dusty Rhodes and Hulk Hogan, none of those guys are gonna be there. So it’s a unique marketing thing. I’m not really upset about it. I know my sister was kind of -- really thought it was so strange it was announced willy nilly, last minute. In the strangest of ways, I would hope that they do something special with it. I think our show is better. I think it will be better in execution but I hope they do something special with it because I hated what Michael Hayes did with Starrcade. He took a creation of my dad’s and he made it a live event because they weren’t selling any tickets in North Carolina and he wanted to save his job, and that was disappointing to me in terms of that was the premier event in World Championship Wrestling and the NWA and you did what you did with it and the same I hope is not what happens with Great American Bash. I’m not upset at anything that brings my dad’s name in a positive light. Is it a weird feeling? For sure, but I’ve also been in a tag match with my brother competing ratings-wise against the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. One guy who I’ll never mind competing with is my own dad. I’ll never mind that and The Great American Bash… it is what it is and I hope that they do something positive with it. That’s really the only outlet I have on it unless I had like three or four Bourbons and then I would have an absolutely different outlook on it. But I like that they bring his name up in a charming and loving way. I just hope it’s not another Starrcade situation.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Cody also shared high praise for Ricky Starks who received his AEW contract after facing Cody for the TNT Title at the Dynamite tapings. Cody thinks Starks has a certain presence that was missing from AEW and is proud that Ricky earned his spot in the company. “I’ve loved every match I had [as TNT Champion]. Ricky Starks is such a unique example too. The open challenge was not intended on, ‘Let’s give people a job.’ That’s not what it was intended on and if you win the title, of course you’re gonna become an AEW — a member of our roster but in the case of Ricky Starks, as soon as I got in the ring, I looked at him and thought, ‘Man he’s got a swag. He’s got a presence that we’re missing in some areas here’ and Tony Khan thought the exact same thing. As soon as he walked back through the curtain, that was a done deal and it was something that I had not planned for so I was really proud of Ricky Starks and proud of the open challenge for being able to do that.”

Originally Posted by Observer Karl Fredericks has graduated from the NJPW LA Dojo and is no longer a Young Lion. His matches at NJPW Lion’s Break Collision will be his first since graduation. Fredericks was originally supposed to face KENTA in the New Japan Cup prior to that tournament being affected by the coronavirus pandemic

Originally Posted by PWI A number of NXT UK talents have taken to social media over the last few hours, noting their excitement about soon being back in the ring. We are told that while there was a lot of speculation about a conference call held today with members of the talent roster, the call was more or less a chance for WWE officials to touch base with the NXT UK roster, telling them to be ready to get back to work when the time was right. Tahere's been talk of taping material for NXT UK soon but nothing is concrete in terms of when that will be. WWE obviously has a plan as last week's TV episode saw talents beginning to cut promos and teasing rivalries again, as opposed to just overviews of older content. Talents were also made clear that any future allegations against talent will be taken seriously by the company and that WWE would be taking an extremely hard-line stance against them. That falls in line with what PWInsider.com has heard over the last week, which is that the company won't tolerate any future issues and will be very quick to release and suspend talents and even revoke potential new deals from talents should anything come up.

Originally Posted by PWI It was reported this morning that WarnerMedia, the company that now oversees the former Time-Warner, will be selling off CNN Center in Atlanta, GA. CNN Center has been the centerpiece of what used to be Ted Turner's empire for decades and for most of its existence, was the headquarters of World Championship Wrestling when that promotion was owned by Turner Broadcasting from late 1988 through 2000. The building is the world headquarters of the CNN cable news network, having broadcast there since 1987. WCW was even featured in the official CNN Center tour at one point, with the old NWA United States Tag Team Championship belts being displayed among the Turner assets at the onset of the tour and clips of WCW shown in video packages featuring during the tour. For a time, there was also a dedicated area for WCW on the ground floor of CNN Center, which allowed those passing by to watch WCW content being edited on scene through windows.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Pro Wrestling ZERO1 is hosting an emergency press conference on July 11th, which is the 15th anniversary of Shinya Hashimoto’s passing, who is the founder of the promotion.

Recent news and rumors from Japan about the promotion's future are not good. Currently dealing with a very dire financial situation caused by the coronavris pandemic.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Comicbook.com has an interview with The Undertaker that they ran last week and during that interview, Undertaker talked about his biker persona and feeling that more could’ve been done with that version of his character. “I think we cut that off. We cut that off kind of early when we did the American Badass the first time. I think we could have got a little more mileage out of it, but, it was a different variation. It was an older iteration of it. The American Badass has got a few more years on him. He’s a little more grizzled even. And there were still so many I think, aspects of The Undertaker you could see in there, so I think it was just like I’ve wrapped everything all together. And I think those people were really excited.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Per the official Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse website, WWE has scheduled a RAW TV event at the arena for September 28th. The Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse is in Cleveland, Ohio and it’s noted on the website that the Cleveland show was scheduled for April 17th but has been postponed to September 28th. All tickets purchased for the April show will be honored in September. Ticket information can be found at this link. The last time that WWE ran a show in an arena was on March 9th in Washington D.C. which was an episode of RAW. The COVID-19 outbreak forced the sports-entertainment company to relocate their product to their Performance Center in Orlando and they’ve utilized Full Sail University for NXT. The Performance Center is where WWE’s last four pay-per-view events have taken place and the forthcoming Extreme Rules: Horror Show pay-per-view will emanate from the P.C. as well.

According to Fightful, WWE is currently looking at a potential July 31st date for a return to running events outside of the Performance Center based on their current events schedule.


TPWW Frontpage:

• NXT UK Update: Two Referees Released & Joe Coffey Suspended
• Anderson & Gallows Have Reportedly Agreed to Join Impact
• Cody Rhodes Says That Sammy Guevara Will Be Back