[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Bob Ryder, who was one of the founders of TNA Wrestling and still worked for Impact Wrestling more than 18 years later, was found dead today by police at his home in Nashville. Ryder, who has battled cancer for years, had not attended a live show in a long time due to intense chemotherapy. Ryder suffered a fall yesterday and was unable to get up, but apparently texted people that he was okay. But after that, no phone calls or text messages to him were answered. The company sent someone who knew him to his home and knocked on the door and got no response. They then called police and found that he had passed away. Ryder was a pioneer of websites with 1wrestling.com in the 90s, and did web radio and worked for WCW where he was close with Eric Bischoff. After the folding of the company in 2001, Ryder and Jeff Jarrett, who were not hired by WWF, convinced Jerry Jarrett to start TNA Wrestling with the idea of it being a PPV-exclusive promotion. The initial idea didn't work and both Jarretts were close to filing for bankruptcy when Dixie Carter, who they had hired as their publicity director, informed them she was from a wealthy family and got her father to buy the promotion. Eventually the company was sold to Anthem Entertainment. Ryder worked handling the travel along with numerous other duties for the company.

Originally Posted by Observer Xavier Woods is officially a G4 host. The former cable television channel announced that Xavier Woods would be part of the network going forward. During G4's Holiday Reunion special tonight on YouTube Live, a video was shown showing highlights of his YouTube gaming channel Up Up Down Down. WWE posted an article on their website highlighting the announcement. G4, which at one point focused on video games, went off the air in 2014. However, it was announced earlier this year that the brand would relaunch in 2021, though under what format has not been confirmed. Woods had campaigned for a hosting spot since the announcement, with the hashtag #Creed4G4 trending at one point on Twitter.

Originally Posted by PWI Shane Helms was backstage at Survivor Series this past weekend and was working as a Producer for WWE at Raw. Helms had been let go during the COVID-19 cutbacks in April. He made a cameo at AEW's Full Gear during the Hardy Compound footage.

Helms revealed in a recent interview that the reason why he was released and not furloughed like other producers/agents in WWE was due to his contract being a talent based one and not an employee based one.

Originally Posted by PWI Since we had a few people ask about The Undertaker Farewell segment at Survivor Series, that was all Vince McMahon, who was hands on with that segment all day. Triple H is also likely to have had some input as well. In an update on our Survivor Series production notes from Monday AM, Chris Park aka Abyss handled the WWE 24/7 segments. In a correction from the original post, I inadvertantly forgot to mention that Adam Pearce and Park produced the Men's Elimination Match. One story that has made the rounds the last 48 hours is that the ten count during The Hurt Business vs. New Day on Raw was a legitimate count and that WWE had to scramble during the commercial break to decide how to get the match restarted by the time they came back on the air. The ten count happened, we are told, because there has been a renewed push on enforcing the rules of the matches as if they are legitimate. Brian Kendrick of late has been working as a Producer for the WWE NXT brand.

Guess that confirms the double countout from the tag title match on RAW and the awkwardness afterwards was a legit botch after all.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Dan Matha welcomed former WWE talent Cezar Bononi onto his ‘Spark In The Dark’ podcast. Cezar was released from WWE back in April as a part of the company’s mass furloughs/releases. Cezar dove into a plethora of topics during the two-hour interview including WWE not wanting to help him with the process of obtaining a Green Card. Cezar got fired from the WWE so he had to find another route to stay in America. “Of course I had talked to WWE before about applying for a Green Card. They never wanted to help me out with that. They said my case wasn’t strong enough, that it was better for me to stay on [a] P1 visa, which my wife cannot work any place. I can only work [for] WWE. If they fire me, I gotta go back [to Brazil] so there was a little bit of interest [for] them having me on that instead of a Green Card. So I called this attorney, he said this, ‘So, there’s two options. You got an EB2 visa which is an exception of abilities which applies to you. You got exceptional abilities on sports and arts, or we can just apply for a student visa then you gotta go to study English and you just can stay here and work part-time.’ Of course I don’t want that. So I go, ‘Okay, let’s go for this EB2.’ ‘There’s one problem. This EB2 is closed, nobody can apply for it and we don’t know when it’s gonna open,’ and I was [like], ‘Okay, I knocked on the [proverbial] door.’ I knocked on the door, right? But still, there’s this student visa stuff. So, I’m there, waiting two, three more days. Then I wake up one day, pick up my phone. First email, email from the attorney: ‘I don’t know what happened, but EB2 is open. You can apply for it right now.’ Like that. We had no idea. Then my wife wakes up and I, ‘Hey baby, you want some good news? EB2’s open’ and she [said], ‘Oh, you got news? I got news too’ and she showed me the test that she’s pregnant and we’d been trying for four years.” Cezar moved from Brazil to Florida in 2015 to be a part of the WWE. He talked about the money he was making via his developmental contract and how difficult it was for him and his wife to adjust to life in America with the amount of money that he was bringing in. “It was hard to adapt. It was really hard adapting. It’s just me and my wife and it’s nobody close. Everybody told us, ‘Don’t get close to Brazilians [in Florida] because Brazilians are gonna scam you,’ and we really believed that, even though we did not need to work with Brazilians so there’s no way we could get scammed by other Brazilians. We believed that so — that was a mistake that I did, because we were feeling alone. We did not have money to do anything. It took me two and a half years to go to [an] amusement park, living in Orlando, because money was so short that I could not do anything like that. It took them [WWE] a long time for them to help me out a little bit. Like, ‘Hey, here’s a raise.’ It took me almost two years. So, I was getting $600 for like six months [per week] then, when I finally got paid off, it felt like a raise because I was getting $750. Oh cool, I can buy a TV right now, but I cannot get cable and that’s how it was. It was hard in the beginning but that also helped me build my character even more" ... Dating back to September, Bononi has worked four matches for All Elite Wrestling on their ‘Dark’ program. During the pandemic, Bononi trained at the ‘Flatbacks’ school which is ran by Shawn Spears and Tyler Breeze. Bononi is unemployed and did not have a way to pay for training but Spears and Breeze allowed him to train anyway and Bononi stated that he still owes both of them. “So, as you asked me as well, I never stopped [wrestling]. Of course I never stopped. Even before I got my papers, I went back to training. As soon as [the] Flatbacks school which is Shawn Spears, Tye Dillinger and Tyler Breeze’s school got open again after the pandemic, I hit them up. ‘Hey man, I wanna train.’ They don’t know me and I said, ‘I know you don’t know me. I wanna train, I wanna know how it works,’ and they said, ‘Man, this may be too novice to you because we’re getting people that never got experience’ and I told him, ‘I don’t care. I want to get ring time, I need to know people, I need to know you guys, I need you guys to know me. I need connections because I wanna work and I don’t know anybody outside of WWE. This is what I want’ and they told me their price and I told them, ‘I have no idea how to pay that because I’m unemployed. What can we do?’ And they [said], ‘You do whatever you want, however you want’ and I still owe them money. But, I’ve been working there. They have like an eight-week course. I did the first eight-week course, it was great. I learned so many things that I never learned at the WWE. So many things. Like I never learned how to do a false finish. Over there in eight weeks, I was doing matches with three, four false finishes. I learned so many things, I [met] so many people. I met Billy Gunn and his sons over there because one of his sons is learning. The other one is pretty good as well so we train together. Billy Gunn’s been like a mentor to me as well because he’s got [similar] size, lot of experience, Hall Of Famer.” It was Shawn Spears who helped Cezar get the AEW Dark spots. He recounted what it was like backstage at Daily’s Place and feeling like he was in a completely different environment from what he experienced at WWE. “Whenever I got my papers, first thing, just hit up Tye Dillinger, Ronnie and he got me in contact with the guys from AEW, they invited me over, I went there. They treated me so good, different environment that I had no idea how to behave. I was like [how] I was in the WWE. Looking, not much looking people in the eyes, I had no idea what to do until one point, one of the refs just came to me and said, ‘Look, you’re not at the other place anymore. Just relax, talk to people, everybody’s cool’ and it’s true. Everybody’s cool, everybody [will] talk to you. Tony Khan called me by my name from far away, ‘Hey Cezar! How are you?’ And I was… like such a different environment.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WWE Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon took part in Forbes’ CMO Summit Virtual Series. She dove into WWE’s ratings since the pandemic started and talked about the decline up until their move to Amway Center where they’re presenting the ThunderDome setup. Stephanie mentioned that WWE was hoping to return to arenas with fans by the Fall. “And without them [the fans], it’s just not the same. Our ratings fell off. We tried bringing in our developmental talent to see if that would help in terms of some type of audience but it just wasn’t enough, and ultimately we had hoped to be back in arenas in the Fall but when we realized that wasn’t gonna happen, we doubled-down and invested with a new partner called The Famous Group and we now have nearly one thousand virtual fans.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The Young Bucks were guests on Wrestling Observer Radio and during the conversation, both Matt and Nick Jackson talked about the signing of Top Flight (Darius & Dante Martin) and how Top Flight reacted the news of the contract offer ... Nick Jackson went on to speak about how the COVID-19 pandemic has made AEW change up plans that they had and alter plans as they formulate storylines during this period of wrestling. He initially wanted to wait until fans were back in arenas to do the match against FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) but Tony Khan insisted that they not drag it out. “You don’t want to save everything. Especially in this pandemic-era. We were trying to save things. For instance, the FTR match. We were trying to milk that until we got fans back in the building but at one point, we were like, we don’t know when the world’s gonna get back together, so we can’t hold this anymore and Tony [Khan] actually said, ‘You know what? We’re doing it. We have to do it.’ So we booked it for Full Gear. So there’s points where you just have to go balls out but there’s sometimes you have to have patience if that makes any sense.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Yuke’s Senior Vice President and Producer Hiromi Furuta spoke to ‘Video Game Chronicles’ via email and discussed the creation of AEW’s console video game. She mentioned that she does not see this as a rivalry with WWE, as Yuke’s is no longer creating WWE video games but just views it as creating something fresh with AEW. “My goal is simply to create high-quality pro-wrestling games that are loved by the community. I do not think of it as being a rivalry with WWE, but rather as us creating a new product with AEW. I still love the WWE and respect its talent.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling TSN conducted an interview with AEW’s Ricky Starks. Starks reflected on his time with the National Wrestling Alliance, how he was planning to depart from the promotion regardless of the pandemic and what led to him making that final decision. “I didn’t plan to stay there for a long time. I gave myself a six-month or eight-month plan to really stay and then use that as a jumping-off point for me to get things going. I wasn’t getting paid a lot in NWA, so I was barely making it by off the salary that I was on. On top of that, once the pandemic hit and they weren’t really trying to increase my pay, they were going with a new TV show called Carnyland that I didn’t necessarily agree with. That was really just the writing on the wall for me to step away from it and try something else. It was a bit scary to try something else, especially because of the fact that we just started in the pandemic, so the timing [wasn’t great.]”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Ken Shamrock was a guest on the ‘Scheduled for Two Falls’ podcast and discussed some of the highlights from his MMA and pro wrestling careers. Shamrock recalled WWE wanting to do an incest storyline with Alicia Webb, who was known on-screen as “Ryan Shamrock”. Ken mentioned that Ryan is the name of his real-life son so having Alicia’s on-screen name be “Ryan” was off-putting to him. “Here is this beautiful young lady who’s interested in me and just felt comfortable and next thing you know, we’re in a relationship and she’s my sister supposedly in this wrestling thing, and that was the actual next storyline that they wanted me to do was they wanted me to have this incest with my sister. That’s why I was running around trying to save her and all these other things and I was like, ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Man, wants to have sex with his own sister?’ And by the way, my son’s name is Ryan. My legitimate son’s name is Ryan and they made her Ryan and I’m like, people are gonna go, ‘Isn’t that his kid?’ Way too close to home, and I was like, ‘No. I’m not doing that.’”

Originally Posted by Fightful Every Thursday the viewership and rating numbers come out for AEW Dynamite and fans endlessly debate their importance. While some fans may not put as much stock into the numbers as they did in the 90s as television has changed over the last 20 years, AEW President Tony Khan uses the data as a barometer to see who and what works, and who and what doesn't. "They matter a lot. Every Friday, I go through them extensively," said Khan on the PWTorch podcast when asked about the ratings. "I'm really digging into the minute-by-minute. One slot, one match, one minute isn't going to make or break my opinion on anything, but consistent performance will. I'm starting to get a pretty good beat a year in on who the audience really likes to see and who they don't like to see. Then there are people who haven't posted the biggest ratings yet but I believe in them and will give them chances. It's something I look closely at every week and it's a work in progress. I won't just look at one week's data, I'm looking at months worth of rolling data and patterns. The people that are doing the biggest ratings this year aren't necessarily the people doing the biggest ratings in 2019, which I think is interesting." AEW Dynamite has consistently outperformed NXT every Wednesday in terms of overall viewership and demographic rating.

Originally Posted by Fightful Lucha Libre AAA's biggest show of the year has a confirmed date. AAA President Maricela Pena revealed on social media that TripleMania XXVIII is taking place on December 12. There will be more details revealed at a press conference on November 30 airing on various digital platforms that AAA is on. The show will take place at the Arena Ciudad De Mexico. The event has faced multiple date changes as a result of the ongoing pandemic and AAA attempting to hold the show at some point in 2020. AAA previously announced that Kenny Omega will defend the AAA Mega Championship against Laredo Kid at the event. Chessman vs. Pagano in a hair vs. hair match and Aracno (Spider-Man) & Leyenda Americana (Captain America) vs Terror Purpura (Thanos) & Venenoide (Venom) in a Marvel tie-in match were also announced.

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE Stats & Info gave an interesting stat regarding R-Truth capturing his 45th 24/7 Championship. Due to the sheer abundance of title reigns he has had with the belt, R-Truth is a 50-time WWE titleholder.

Link: https://twitter.com/WWEStats/status/1330686621444870145


TPWW Frontpage:

• AEW Dynamite & NXT Cards for Tonight + AEW Rankings

Smeat's note: Not 100% sure yet but might not bother doing a sheets report post tomorrow because of the Thanksgiving holiday and being busy with other stuff. If anyone else wants to do it, be my guest.