[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer The go-home show for WrestleMania 36 did the lowest number for a live Raw episode in modern history with 1.92 million viewers on average. The 1.65 million viewers for hour three was the lowest in the history of the show, even beating the episode on Christmas Eve of 2018. The reality is that the empty arena format has past its curiosity level and now the viewership is going to drop, and great interviews alone is not going to cause that to change ... The first-to-third hour decline was 23 percent, the fifth biggest in history. The decline was 15 percent in women 18-49, 22 percent in men 18-49, teenagers increased, and the core audience for the show, those over 50, dropped 26 percent from the first to third hour. The hours were: 8 p.m. 2.14 million viewers 9 p.m. 1.99 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.65 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer Sunday night's airing of WrestleMania 32 from 2016 averaged 720,000 viewers on ESPN, down 14 percent from last weekend's WrestleMania 30 replay on the same network. Like last week, it was the highest viewed program on ESPN for the week with no live sports taking place ... The WrestleMania 32 replay drew a 0.25 rating in the 18-49 demo, finishing 38th on cable TV in that category on Sunday. Not counting news-related programming, the show would've finished 14th.

For some comparisons, last week's Mania 30 replay on ESPN did 839,000 viewers.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Back Body Drop has UK viewership information from the past two weeks for both WWE and AEW. -The March 16th edition of Raw was watched by 67,800 on BT Sport -The March 18th edition of AEW Dynamite (which aired on ITV4 two days later and was their first empty arena show) averaged 101,000 viewers with 55,000 watching live and 46,000 time-shifted. -The March 18th edition of NXT on BT Sport did 40,300, which was the show without any matches -SmackDown on March 20th did 63,600. -The March 19th edition of NXT UK that aired the following day on BT Sport averaged 33,600.

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE has filed to trademark two new phrases pertaining to WrestleMania 36. First, the company filed to trademark "WWE Dream Match Mania" in reference to a WWE Network special that will air on Thursday where WrestleMania dream matches will be simulated on WWE 2K ... The company also filed to trademark "I Was Home" in reference to fans not attending WrestleMania due to the coronavirus pandemic

Originally Posted by Fightful On April 16, 2019, Brodie Lee (formerly Luke Harper) publicly requested his release from WWE. Lee was sidelined for the second half of 2018 after undergoing wrist surgery and though he was cleared in early February 2019, wasn't brought back for a match until March and was never used in a major program for the first quarter of the year. Speaking on Talk is Jericho, Lee detailed the months leading up to him deciding he was ready to leave the company. "One of my last, the one that was like 'fuck this place,' I sat outside Vince's office -- I had been off for so long [after the Bludgeon Brothers broke up] -- I sat outside his office for three hours. Everyone leaves and Michael Hayes walks out and is like, 'I'm the last one.' I knock on the door and he goes, 'I don't want to see anybody right now.' I'm like, 'mother....' [He didn't know I was out there]. I'm going to leave, I threw my pitches in the garbage. Shawn Spears goes, 'he's in his other office.' Before I left, I gave him one final pitch, he's eating salad, and he's like 'I'll look at these on the plane.' I knew that was it," he recalled. Lee figured Vince would never look at his pitches as he said he was going to do, leading to Lee becoming more frustrated. Lee did finally get the eyes of McMahon via text and was used in the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 35, thinking it was going to lead to something more, but it didn't work out that way. "Then I remember, somebody gave me his number. What did I have to lose? I texted him, 'Hey man, just wondering what's going on with my career?' This was right before WrestleMania 35. He asked me, 'Why aren't you in the Andre battle royal?' I said, 'Sir, that's a question that you should probably be able to answer.' I have nothing to lose. He goes, 'Well you are now.' That week in the meetings, he had chastised some of the writers like, 'How do we leave this guy off and him not have anything? Let's come up with something for him.' Oh. It worked. We got a sheet and I was one of the last two or three. When we got there, they have kayfabed us on the end of the battle royal and there were like ten other people after me. Demoralized again, but no problem."

More stuff from Lee that led to him leaving WWE: https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/b...as-leaving-wwe

Originally Posted by Fightful Before Edge officially returned to the ring at WWE Royal Rumble, he needed to get back into ring shape. Edge retired following WrestleMania 27 due to a neck injury ... The first signs that Edge had been feeling better were at SummerSlam 2019 when he delivered a spear to Elias. After visiting with doctors, he was officially cleared by WWE doctor Dr. Joseph Maroon. And that's when the training began. "I talked to [Triple H, Paul Levesque], and I said, 'I can't go to a ring anywhere because people will start seeing me. I can't go to the PC.' So they sent me a ring. I got a warehouse space, and I set up a ring and basically had my own personal 'Field of Dreams,' and I just got in there and got to work. Thankfully, I'm married to another Hall of Famer who can pick up and body slam me, which you can't say for a lot of wives. The Revival, they both live in Asheville, so they'd come, and they'd get in there with me, and they'd put me through my paces. I was keeping up with them. I wasn't tired, and I wasn't sore, and I thought, 'OK, this is going to happen, and this is going to happen at a level that I wanted.' I didn't want to come back and be anything less than what I was. I'm going to have to work differently. I'm going to have different limitations ... I still want to be able to go in there and be able to go half an hour," he said.

Originally Posted by Observer The first half of the bracket is set for AEW's TNT Championship tournament. On tonight's AEW Dark, it was announced that Cody vs. Shawn Spears and Darby Allin vs. Sammy Guevara are the matches on the left side of the TNT Championship tournament bracket. The winners of those matches will face each other in the semifinals. Cody vs. Spears and Allin vs. Guevara are both rematches from AEW pay-per-views. Cody defeated Spears at All Out last August, while Allin defeated Guevara at Revolution this February. The right side of the bracket will be revealed on tomorrow's episode of Dynamite. It's an eight-man, single-elimination tournament. The tournament will kick off on the Wednesday, April 8 episode of Dynamite. AEW announced that the inaugural TNT Champion is scheduled to be crowned with the finals taking place at Double or Nothing in Las Vegas on Saturday, May 23.

Originally Posted by Observer WWE has announced an extension and expansion of their television deal in India. WWE and Sony Pictures Network India have announced "a five-year extension with an expanded broadcast agreement that will deliver WWE’s weekly flagship programming and localized content in India and the Indian subcontinent, making SPN the exclusive home to WWE in-ring content across its television and digital platforms." The deal includes SPN having the rights to air Raw, SmackDown, NXT, and WWE pay-per-views live on its sports and digital platforms in English, Hindi, and regional languages. The extended partnership "also provides SPN the rights to WWE Network which hosts thousands of hours of content to be made available to audiences in India exclusively through SonyLIV, SPN’s OTT platform. In addition and for the first time, SPN will curate content from WWE’s extensive video library which includes live events, iconic matches, interviews with Legends, reality shows, documentaries and more, on its own platforms." Financial terms weren't disclosed. Dave Meltzer said on last night's Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE got a significant increase but not as big of an increase as some people expected.

WWE stocks probably going to get hammered again depending on how big the gap is between expected amount and actual amount.

Originally Posted by PWI Kylie Rae has officially signed an Impact Wrestling contract. We are told the signing took place a few weeks back and it should be announced on Impact Wrestling TV shortly.

Originally Posted by PWI Dark Side of the Ring will present their New Jack documentary tonight at 10 PM EST on Vice TV. The episode will followed by After Dark, a 30 minute discussion of the episode hosted by comedian Chris Gethard. Last week's season premiere, featuring a two part episode examining the Benoit tragedy, scored the all time best audience ever for Vice as a channel, bringing in 1.2 million viewers over three broadcasts of the episode on 3/24, according to Variety.

Originally Posted by PWI On 3/26, All Elite Wrestling applied for two new trademarks: "All Elite Wrestling AEW Best Summer Ever" ... "DEATH TRIANGLE"

Originally Posted by PWI Due to the current coronavirus outbreak, NJPW has also announced the cancellation of additional events: April 12-18 events cancelled In response to the continuing Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, New Japan Pro-Wrestling has arrived at the decision to cancel five additional Road to Dontaku events that were scheduled between April 12 and 18. These cancellations join the cancelled Sakura Genesis event on March 31 and the first date on the Road to Dontaku tour on April 11. We deeply apologise to fans who were looking forward to these events. Ultimately, the health and safety of our fans, wrestlers and staff, as well as society at large is our utmost concern, and we will make announcements about events scheduled after April 18 upon careful monitoring of this developing situation.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling John Ourand at Sports Business Journal reports that DAZN has informed sports leagues they will withhold rights fees on games that have been suspended or content that has not been delivered during the pandemic. Ourand said that DAZN is believed to be the first media company to take this tact, which has been a major subject given the massive rights deals for sports leagues that are currently suspended. In an e-mail to employees at DAZN, CEO Simon Denyer stated that an unspecified number of employees would be furloughed, where their jobs would be available to them after the crisis. Denyer added that it’s the biggest disaster to hit the sports world in 75 years and the biggest challenge DAZN has ever faced. It is unknown if this would apply to Bellator, who did cancel their last show the day of and have postponed their three shows that were scheduled for May.

Originally Posted by Fightful While Asuka has been on both Raw and SmackDown in recent weeks, Kairi Sane has been noticeably absent from television. According to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, Sane has been in Japan following her marriage to her partner in February. Meltzer reports that WWE officials understood that Sane would not make it for the television tapings, but she did return in time to film her match for WrestleMania 36.

Originally Posted by Fightful Steve Austin showed up to the March 16 WWE Raw to celebrate 3:16 Day with the WWE Universe. Unfortunately, the March 16 WWE Raw was the first Raw, and second show overall, to take place at the WWE Performance Center in front of no live audience. Austin still appeared on the show, doing a bit with Byron Saxton where Saxton would rate Austin's Rules of 3:16 Day. The segment ended with Austin kicking Saxton in the nuts and delivering a Stunner. Speaking to Peter Rosenberg on ESPN, Austin revealed his original idea for the segment. "It was strange. I wanted to go out there and do a sit-down interview with Byron Saxton or Jerry Lawler and talk about what 3:16 meant to me because so many years ago, cutting that promo in 96, and all these years later, we didn't have social media. All these years later, WWE making 3:16 Day because of social media, I wanted to talk about the impact and resonation with the fans and give people something to think about and talk about. We did what we did. That was their creative so it was what it was. It was hard (working with no audience)," he said. Earlier in the interview, Austin was asked about shows continuing at the Performance Center in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Austin replied, "I didn't know what to think. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Tampa working at the Performance Center in the empty building. That's Vince's mentality, 'show must go on.' When Owen fell to his death -- rest his soul -- the show went on. That's his mentality."

TPWW Frontpage:

• Fite TV and FOX Sports to Stream WrestleMania 36 (for Way More Money Than WWE Network)
• AEW Taping at an “Undisclosed Location” This Week
• Updated WrestleMania 36 Card: One New Match, One Changed Match
• AEW Announces New “TNT Championship” & Tournament
• Rezar of AOP Undergoes Surgery, Could Be Out for Eight Months