[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Despite competition in the form of the NBA Draft on ESPN, AEW Dynamite averaged 850,000 viewers last night on TNT, its highest number since September. WWE NXT was up slightly from last week but trailed Dynamite distantly, averaging 638,000 viewers. That was NXT's best number since Halloween Havoc. The gap of 212,000 viewers was the biggest between the two shows since July 22. Dynamite finished seventh in the cable TV charts which measure the 18-49 demo. The show averaged a 0.37 rating. That's tied for the second highest total in that category for Dynamite in 2020, just trailing the January 15 episode of the show. Dynamite was up 23.3 percent from last week in the 18-49 demo and the overall viewership was up 11.3 percent. NXT failed to chart in the top 50, finishing 56th in the 18-49 demo with a 0.14 rating, down 12.5 percent from last week. The overall viewership for NXT was up 0.9 percent. The 18-49 number was the second lowest NXT has ever done on USA, only beating the May 20 episode that did a 0.13 ... Other individual demo numbers for NXT are not available due to it failing to chart in the top 50 ... Year-over-year, Dynamite was down 4.8 percent in total viewers and 5.1 percent in 18-49. NXT was down 30.4 percent in total viewers and 53.3 percent in the demo. NXT was featuring wrestlers from Raw and SmackDown in the buildup to Survivor Series last year, which explains why those numbers are down so much.

Originally Posted by Observer WWE's foray into new third party partnerships has begun as they announced Thursday that the Undertaker will be joining Cameo for a limited run of 30 "personalized video messages which he will fulfill at Survivor Series." Requests are being taken now with a cost of $1000 per message. Undertaker has been doing the media rounds again this week as he prepares for what is being billed as a "Final Farewell" at Sunday's Survivor Series, celebrating 30 years in WWE. WWE made news recently after they changed their policy and forbade talent from having their own separate third party deals with Cameo and Twitch. Part of the rationale is to establish broader partnerships with revenue being counted against the talent's yearly downside guarantee vs. going directly to them. Since Undertaker isn't an active talent, it's unknown how his compensation for the potential $30,000 in revenue will work. WWE talents that have Cameo accounts recently have seen the company logo added to their profile, but neither WWE or Cameo has yet to formally announce a partnership.

Originally Posted by Observer MLW followed through with thier promise to bring back the Opera Cup this year, announcing the full brackets and a date for the first two matches on this week's Fusion. Eight men will compete for the Cup, an homage to a trophy that existed for 50 years dating back to 1948. After 71 years of inactivity, MLW revived it last year. On the left side of the bracket, "Filthy" Tom Lawlor will face Rocky Romero while ACH will take on AAA Cruiserweight Champion Laredo Kid. On the right side, former MLW World Champion Low Ki will face last year's winner Davey Boy Smith Jr. with Carribean Champion Richard Holliday facing the returning TJP. Lawlor vs. Romero and Holliday vs. TJP will kick off the tourney on next week's Fusion. MLW also announced a slew of alternates (Gino Medina, Jordan Oliver, Hijo de LA Park, King Mo, Dominic Garrini, and Daga) but didn't explain how that process would work.

Originally Posted by Observer WWE has revealed the premiere date and released the trailer for their upcoming Liv Morgan documentary: "Liv Forever" will premiere on the WWE Network on Sunday, November 29. Morgan noted that she documented her life behind the scenes for 16 months. "For 16 months, I documented my life behind the scenes as a WWE superstar," Morgan wrote. "Not everything is what it seems... but now you can finally see it all. On November 29th, you get to learn the truth and I get to LIV FOREVER @wwenetwork"

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvzHSd_0h6w

Originally Posted by PWI The official Twitter for the SAG-AFTRA union tweeted that they had sat down with former WWE star Zelina Vega following Vega's release last week: Powerful conversation with Thea Trinidad @Zelina_VegaWWE today. We support her and others as they work to protect and empower themselves. — SAG-AFTRA (@sagaftra) November 19, 2020 Zelina Vega responded: Very powerful indeed, thank you all for the pleasant conversation and insight. https://t.co/wnvH8mAXMj — ???????????????????????? ???????????????? (@Zelina_VegaWWE) November 19, 2020

Link: https://twitter.com/sagaftra/status/1329251002533310465 , https://twitter.com/Zelina_VegaWWE/s...63665514770432

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Former multi-time WWE Women’s Champion Alexa Bliss is currently involved in a storyline on-screen with Bray Wyatt. The duo have been in the mix with the likes of Randy Orton, Drew McIntyre, Nikki Cross and The Miz over the past several weeks. Recently, Bliss got engaged to her significant other Ryan Cabrera and she appeared on Maria Menounos’ ‘Better Together’ podcast to discuss all things surrounding the proposal. Bliss was asked about the idea of Cabrera wanting children and where she stands on that. She stated that she’ll see where they’re at on that decision when her contract with WWE is up in “three and a half years”. “Well we discussed we would see, you know, once my WWE contract is over where we’re at, and that’s in about I think three and a half, three and a half years and he’s like totally fine with that. He’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m good. I just want to be –’ he’s like, ‘I just don’t want 45 to be my first kid’ and I’m just like, ‘Cool, we’re good.’”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens & Max Caster) of All Elite Wrestling were guests on Busted Open Radio. Tommy Dreamer, who works with the IMPACT Wrestling creative team told the duo that there was interest in them from IMPACT and that interest began with Brian Myers pitching their names. “You know, I’ll tell you this, I’ll let you in on a little inside. We were losing The Rascalz and wrestling, we know when contracts are coming up [in] IMPACT Wrestling and Brian Myers pitched both you guys to come to IMPACT and we’re like, ‘Yeah, we’ll probably look at them for the upcoming year.’ So, it’s cool to go from having nothing and I’ll tell you this because not only did you have AEW interested, you had IMPACT interested in you. That [didn’t] happen and everything happens for a reason but just the fact that you go so long in wrestling and then all of a sudden, the doors open up for you and to tell you a quick story, Scotty 2 Hotty was the next Shawn Michaels. He looked just like Shawn Michaels, and he was plugging away for the business for a long, long time and in the same week, he had job offers from ECW, WCW and the WWF, and from doing it for like six-to-eight years and then for the same week to have all these people clamor for him, it’s pretty, pretty cool so you guys, I know at least had options where I didn’t even know if you guys knew that other people were plugging for you and it was based upon your talent.” Bowens was supposed to work with AEW in some capacity prior to the pandemic. He stated that he was supposed to be at their Blood & Guts event in New Jersey. “Right after we spoke [Busted Open Radio in January], from what I understand, I was supposed to doing something at the Blood & Guts show or at least be there so I was like, ‘This is my moment, this is my time’ and then 30 minutes later, ‘All shows cancelled’ and I was like, ‘No! No, not again’ and then something similar happened in June then finally I was able to get down here and then a couple weeks later the good news came.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling John Arezzi tweeted out that Sylvano Sousa passed away due to complications from COVID-19. Sylvano competed for the NWA, Stampede Wrestling and the WWF. He also was a regular in All Japan Pro Wrestling in the mid-70s. Below is Arezzi’s message: "Sad news. RIP to the man who was my partner on January 10, 1979 when we took on the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes. We will miss you Sylvano Sousa, who died today from complications related to COVID-19."

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Jason Powell welcomed MLW founder Court Bauer onto the Pro Wrestling Boom podcast. MLW’s Restart kicked off on 11/18 on the organization’s YouTube channel and fubo Sports. Bauer stated that he originally wanted FUSION to air on Thursdays instead of Wednesdays, but the network wanted to slot MLW on Wednesdays and originally wanted them at the 8 PM EST spot ... Bauer said there have been plenty of conversations with All Elite Wrestling when he was asked about the idea of a talent exchange. He explained that it has to be mutually beneficial for all sides in order for it to happen. “We’ve had plenty of conversations with folks over there [AEW], including Tony [Khan] all the time and every conversation is kind of a different discussion about a different thing so, we’ve had very positive experiences with them and I think you look at 2021 and all the possibilities, I think there’s a lot of interesting opportunities with AEW or with other places even, to do some form of a shared ecosystem. Now I don’t wanna get too specific but there’s always a possibility. I think there just has to be a realistic balance of the transaction of all sides and how it has to be mutually beneficial to your fans, your business, their fans and their business and if it is, great. That’s what you hope for. It’s easier said than done in general because of the state of wrestling, right? Things can get very complicated but I think there definitely could be a pathway to that for sure.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The TNT Champion Darby Allin was interviewed by Comicbook.com prior to the 11/18 episode of AEW Dynamite. Darby talked about his daredevil-style vignettes and stated that he normally doesn’t tell those at AEW about his filming plans until it is filmed and ready for television. “No, because sometimes I just don’t tell them until I show them the vid. So a lot of times people can’t see what I’m up to. Like when I jumped off the bridge. It’s like, ‘Hey man, I’m here. I’m alive. I’m walking around now. So hopefully we can use these.'”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Jimmy Traina welcomed The Undertaker onto the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast to promote his appearance at Survivor Series. Undertaker stated that he does not know what he’ll be doing on the show other than making an entrance and addressing the fans who’ve supported him throughout the years. “You got about as much knowledge as I do. Only thing I can safely say is at some point, I will make an entrance and go to the ring and address the WWE universe and that’s about as much as I know right now [to] tell you the truth. We got no details other than… November 22nd to the day is my 30-year anniversary. Obviously, it has been 30 days of The Undertaker, it’s been quite a bit, it’s been humbling but I honestly, I’m dealing with Vince McMahon here and there’s no one that Vince McMahon loves to play a practical joke on or rib more so than The Undertaker so, I’m going in with crazy expectations of what potentially could happen to me on Sunday.”

Originally Posted by Fightful The final live episode of AEW Dynamite in 2019 finished with the Dark Order throwing phantom punches against The Elite. The episode was criticized by fans and pundits and forced Tony Khan and company to rethink things during the break. "Getting back to our bread and butter wrestling was good. We were beating up some of our big stars too much. We put a lot of resources into people and had to re-look at our stories and where we were at with them," Khan said about the "reset" coming into 2020 when appearing on The Pro Wrestling Torch podcast. Khan continued, elaborating on how some focus has shifted in 2020. "For me, a big focus -- I try to look at other sources peripheral to AEW like Being The Elite for ideas. I saw Hangman on Being The Elite doing his drunk character. He had never done that on Dynamite. I was like, 'That's Hangman from now.' We're almost a year into it and it's completely changed him and he connects with people in a different way, he's a more three-dimensional wrestler. There was a connection between him and the crowd that he still needed to get. We found it and now he has everything he needs. It was already within him. It's similar to John Silver, when I saw his character on Being The Elite and I said, 'This is what you need to do on Dynamite, this is going to connect with people.' There are things like that where we need to change the presentation of people," he said. Hangman was arguably the most popular wrestler in AEW at the start of 2020 with the live crowds. Silver has become the focal point on Dark Order in recent months and even won the Being The Elite Championship this past Monday. Khan said that he was happy to establish some long-term programs at the beginning of the year and pointed to the May 6 show as being a big turning point.

Originally Posted by Fightful Three names appear on this week's NXT Injury report. Wednesday's NXT was headlined by an NXT Women's Title Match pitting champion Io Shirai against challenger Rhea Ripley. The champion walked away from the bout victorious, but neither came away unscathed. Rhea Ripley suffered multiple contusions and abrasions on both ears after having five earrings ripped off during the match. Doctors had to remove pieces of skin from her ear to "make her ear look normal again."

Originally Posted by Fightful The Undertaker is known for a variety of special matches he has competed in, but one particular match was a big part of his early career. One of the signature matches in the former WWE Champion's career was the casket match, which he says was very influential in the Undertaker's character development. In an interview on The Bump, Undertaker explains why the casket match has been a major part in his early WWE career, saying it was such a unique and shocking thing at that time. "I think those early casket matches were so pivotal to the character because they were so, you're talking about the early 1990s and nothing like that was being done. Just the concept of putting your opponent in a casket and everybody has their ideas of caskets and some are very squeamish about them. Other people aren't bothered by them, but the fact that you're taking your opponent and locking them up in a casket kind of reiterated that the Undertaker character is on a whole other level of what wins and losses looked like. I think those casket matches and the body bag matches were crucial to the development of the character and setting it apart from every other character out there because nobody else was doing it. There were cage matches. There were No DQ matches, but to lock your opponent in a casket, it really caught people off guard considering the time period in which we did it," Undertaker said.

Originally Posted by 411Mania Fightful Select has a backstage rumor on a match that was apparently planned to air on last week’s episode of Friday Night SmackDown but was scrapped at the last minute. Per the report, WWE had planned to have a qualifying match that would see Big E join Team SmackDown at Survivor Series. However, the match was ultimately pulled from the FOX Network broadcast for November 13 due to time constraints. WWE’s creative team had reportedly planned to add Big E to Team SmackDown for the Survivor Series match some weeks ago. Additionally, a lot of the decisions on who would fill in the teams for the Team Raw vs. Team SmackDown elimination matches were reportedly set weeks before Sunday’s event. If this is the case, there’s still time for Big E to win a qualifying match for this week’s episode. WWE Survivor Series 2020 is slated for Sunday, November 22. The show will air live on the WWE Network. It will be held at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida.

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