[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

Tom Cole, a key name from one of the most sordid public pro wrestling stories, committed suicide on 2/12, at the age of 50. Cole was a key accuser in the WWF ringboy scandal, which was part of coverage of the company that involved media heavyweights of the time including Phil Donahue, Larry King and Geraldo Rivera. It also greatly involved New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick ... Cole passed away due to his hanging himself. His older brother Lee, 60, who talked extensively to the media at different points and appeared on a number of radio shows in the early 90s on the topic, announced the news and immediately blamed Vince and Linda McMahon. Cole left behind a wife and three daughters. He tried to leave behind his past, at times seemed to do so, but things would trigger him and it would bring back the part of his life that he never forgot, but that he tried to not let consume him. Cole had claimed that when he was a teenager, Mel Phillips, a WWF television and arena ring announcer who also headed the ring crew, sexually abused him while he worked for the ring crew, largely fondling his feet. Phillips was known to have a foot fetish which was not a secret, hence the joke in wrestling, “What’s Mel Phillips favorite kind of vehicle? A toe truck.” ... Later Cole claimed that a WWF Vice President, Terry Joyal (better known as Terry Garvin, a veteran wrestler and booker who worked with Pat Patterson in talent relations) had propositioned him twice, once at the age of 16, and the second time at the age of 19. He said he rebuffed Garvin both times, but ended up being fired from his job with the company working at their warehouse shortly after the second incident. He had kept the incident repressed in his mind for about two years, before confiding to his older brother Lee the story. His older brother then read an article by Mushnick that was critical of WWF and the steroid use by wrestlers in that era. Lee Cole called Mushnick, and left a message on his answering machine, fully expecting to never get called back. Instead, Mushnick called him back very shortly after and Lee Cole told Mushnick about what happened to his brother and claimed he wasn’t the only one in that situation. This began decades of Tom and Lee being close, and then being at odds, often coinciding with Tom being friendly, and then being at odds with key WWF people including Vince McMahon, Linda McMahon and attorney Jerry McDevitt ... While Mushnick was credited with breaking the story, it was actually first reported on by Jeff Savage, a reporter in San Diego, and then Mushnick reported it in New York and it became a tabloid field day ... Before long there were a number of accusations against WWF. Some talked, and then disappeared. There were different ringboys who gave statements to Cole’s attorney, alleging Phillips with a foot fetish, fondling boys toes, rubbing them in his crotch, and worse. Vince McMahon, Bruno Sammartino and Barry Orton, a prelim wrestler with the company a few years earlier who is the uncle of Randy Orton, appeared on The Larry King show. McMahon claimed Mel Phillips had never worked for the WWF past being a day laborer, that Murray Hodgson, an announcer who briefly worked for the company and was fired, and later sued the company, was not a WBF (World Bodybuilding Federation) announcer when Sammartino brought his name up, even though he was the lead announcer at the first event. Those statements led people to believe Sammartino didn’t know what he was talking about. McMahon also said that the media was keeping them away from Cole, when, at the time, they were already negotiating a settlement with him. A few days later, the same cast of characters, along with several others, including Hodgson, myself, radio host John Arezzi, Superstar Billy Graham and former wrestler Tom Hankins were on the Phil Donahue show in a memorable episode. In the weeks leading up to the show, Orton had gotten close with both Tom and Lee Cole. Sammartino and Graham did depositions for Cole’s lawsuit. A few hours before the show started Orton came to me and said that something was fishy and that he wasn’t able to get in touch with the Cole’s for a few days. He told me, and I don’t know who else he told this to, that it would probably be best not to mention Cole’s name. I don’t know that Donahue was told this or not, but on the show, Donahue never brought the name up either. Over the previous few days, the McMahons put Tom and Lee Cole up in an expensive New York hotel and reached an out-of-court settlement. Lee Cole claimed that they asked for $750,000 and Vince McMahon said that was ridiculous and he would fight them hard publicly. Eventually Tom Cole received $55,000 and his job back. Tom Cole said he told Vince McMahon it wasn’t about the money, and later claimed that was the dumbest thing he ever did ... While it was known McMahon was invited to be on the show, those at the show indicated as late as the morning of the show that he was not going to be there. Then, they got word that he was coming, although insisted on several stipulations. Before the show, the producers put together the seating chart. Sammartino and McMahon, who they perceived to be the two biggest stars, would be in the middle. Sammartino said that after what happened on the King show, where McMahon was live with King but Sammartino was doing the show on remote from Pittsburgh, Sammartino told the producers that if McMahon lied one more time he didn’t know if he could help himself to not punch him. So they ended up seating me next to McMahon because I joked there’s no way I’m punching him no matter what he says, and put Sammartino on the side as far away from him as they could. Just minutes after the show ended, the lead producer came up to me and was shocked. He told me you’re not going to believe this, but somebody came up to him and said how the wrestlers on the panel were full of it and that he’s Tom Cole and the only one who cared about him was Vince McMahon. Later Cole had told me that he was brought there and sat with Linda McMahon and Elizabeth Hullette-Poffo (The Lovely Elizabeth, who was something of an iconic television wrestling character of the 80s). In fact, during the show, there was a crowd shot of Cole and Elizabeth. The idea was that somebody would bring up his name, McMahon would reveal he was there, and he’d back McMahon and have the “Perry Mason” ending to the show. But then the show ended, nobody mentioned his name, and McMahon’s scripted finish never transpired ... Cole said in the settlement that Garvin and Phillips would never work for the company again. Patterson’s name was mentioned as well, but it was not that he would never work for the company again. “So they knew from the beginning, which I didn’t realize being young and not looking at the document,” Cole said. “I was young. Pat Patterson wound up coming back a couple of weeks later. I was up in the office with Vince and they were going over a bunch of stuff about how to handle things and I, was sitting at a board meeting, which I did for like two months straight. Vince goes to me one day, `Can you come here for a second, Tom?’ I’m like, `Sure.’ So we walk into this comer of the corporate meeting office up there and he goes, `Pat Patterson is in the building. You don’t have a problem with that, do you? Because if you do, I don’t want you to run into each other and you get all upset.’ I was like, `Whatever, man, nah, I don’t.’ What was I going to say? He goes, `Good, maybe you guys can have a talk and work this out.’ But that never happened.” Lee Cole claimed to have gotten $19,999 in cash between two different payments, which he believed was go-away money, basically for him to leave Utica, NY, disappear from the media, and move to Boston. He never moved, and within weeks, Tom was working for WWF and he and his brother had a falling out, and Lee was back doing radio shows talking about what happened with Tom and other boys. Savage’s story never mentioned any names of WWF officials but described different things. Immediately after the story broke in New York, Vince McMahon announced that Phillips, Garvin and Patterson had all voluntarily resigned from the company out of loyalty to the business. McMahon at first defended Patterson and Garvin to me, but not Phillips, again saying that they had resigned out of loyalty to the company. He told Cole that he had fired the three. In a later conversation with McMahon a week later, he no longer defended Garvin, but said that Patterson had done nothing wrong and termed it a media witch-hunt against gays, and insisted that as unfair as it was, Patterson would never work for the WWF again. I remember saying to him that if Patterson really did nothing wrong, why is he gone. And he said Patterson resigned out of loyalty to the company, told me I didn’t understand the pressure on the company and that Patterson would never work for the company again. While many believe Patterson never actually left the company and was always around, he always insisted that wasn’t the case. He indicated being broken-hearted that wrestling, his life, had been taken away and felt he never did anything wrong. What backs that story up is that Patterson started attending school to learn to be a bartender and that he believed that would be his next job ... Regarding Garvin, he said Garvin took him to his home, said his wife and kids were there, but when he got here, his wife and kids weren’t there ... He said Garvin propositioned him ... After the settlement, Tom Cole and WWF had a falling out. As part of his agreement with them, he was to attend community college and get decent grades. In fact, he never went to class, saying that all the pressure was too much. After failing his classes, Linda McMahon fired him ... Tom had said on many occasions, that the only person out of the situation he fully respected was Mushnick, bringing up he was the only person from the ordeal he invited to his wedding. At times he was favorable in speaking about Linda McMahon, and McDevitt, who he respected as a great lawyer even though he was in an adversarial role to him at different times. He would bring up that McDevitt had told him that if he believed Vince knew what was going on, he couldn’t represent him because he had children himself. But his feelings on both changed at other times. His feelings on Vince McMahon were always negative. He felt Vince tried to manipulate him to bury Phil Mushnick after McMahon sued Muchnick and Geraldo Rivera among others for reporting the stories. McMahon later dropped all the lawsuits well into the deposition phase. Cole never had anything good to say about Rivera and his crew ... He had also spoken to Jamie Hemmings with Slam! Wrestling over the past year, first calling Cole months ago when a number of women had come forward about being groomed or abused or having been taken advantage while trying to make it in the business. It was that article that may have triggered this, and in particular the death of Patterson. One person who knew him noted that two incidents in recent years brought back his nightmares. The first was when he learned in 2019 that Phillips had died. It had been rumored for years that Phillips had quietly died, which it was later revealed happened in 2012, but Cole didn’t know about it until years later. Shortly after he found out, he attempted to kill himself, but somehow was found and saved, but he had left a suicide note, which said that he decided to do this to confront Phillips over what Phillips had done to him. There was no indication that he left a suicide note explaining his motives this past week. The second seems to have been the death of Patterson in December. At that point, all three people involved in his claims were gone, and Cole never claimed Patterson did anything to him past squeezing his ass once. Barry Orton spoke negatively about Patterson and Garvin claiming Garvin tried to perform oral sex on him in a car ride in 1979 when he, Patterson and Garvin were in a car that also included Ted DiBiase while working in the old Amarillo territory when he was 19. But years later, while never recanting the story, did say that he felt he was unfair to Patterson. However, Cole was bitter toward Patterson because he believed Patterson was aware of the stuff with Phillips and Garvin and allowed it to happen. He believed others were as well. Patterson always claimed he knew nothing about it ... In 1988, Vince McMahon fired Phillips, but brought him back a few months later, before firing him for good in 1992. Cole believed it was Patterson who went to bat for Phillips to McMahon. The first firing, which McMahon told both me and Mushnick about after he fired Phillips the second time, was curious because he still brought him back. Cole later texted Hemmings writing, “Make zero mistake!! Pat Patterson used his position to further his sexual wants and desires!” Those who knew Patterson in the latter stages of his life believed Cole really did believe that, but they didn’t believe it was true. Most of the Patterson stories were because Patterson had a unique sense of humor and would make fun of the fact he was gay and make comments regarding it, sometimes for laughs and sometimes getting a kick out of seeing people’s uneasy reactions. But as far as awareness of what Garvin or Phillips did, in wrestling you will have people argue both sides of that issue and it was a very different world when it came to how issues like this were handled, as any study of Hollywood backstage and who knew what and how flagrant things were would show ... At times he called me. He seemed to have put the past behind him and chalked it up to life experiences, but also knew he had been treated badly in a sleazy business. During the period when he did work for WWF after the settlement, he had to work with people who hated him. In that era of wrestling, very different from today, speaking out on those subjects was seen very differently. Wrestling was a very insecure business and whether true or not, you never said anything negative about it to the outside world. Cole wasn’t see in WWF as a victim of sexual abuse, but as someone who tried to hurt the business and the idea was he used what happened to get money, but was willing to hurt the McMahons and the WWF. Cole was furious when Bobby Heenan knocked him in his book. He feelings toward people in WWE changed over the years, and he’d get triggered at something, such as an old photo that would show up with Phillips as a ring announcer ... But things would come up at different times to make him relive what he was trying to put behind. An example was a Bobby Heenan autobiography with a line that infuriated him. “As for the molestation, there were young guys who wanted to get into the business like I did,” Heenan wrote. Tom Cole, the ring attendant who started all these accusations, was a troubled soul. When I first saw him, I could tell he had a lot of problems. I put up the ring, too, when I was a kid, and I carried jackets as well. But I never had a relationship with another man to get ahead in the business or keep my job. At least Crusher didn’t kiss like he was gay. No one ever propositioned me. I knew Mel Phillips, the ring announcer, was a little odd because of stories I had heard about him and a foot fetish, but that’s all hearsay. I don’t know the personal lives of the rest of the WWF staff and whether they were gay or not.” Cole was furious when that came out ... Cole did later talk to Heenan. “He said he didn’t mean anything personal,” he said. “I asked him if accusing me of being gay and having a relationship with another man wasn’t personal. I asked him where he got off stating something like that. I told him that he slandered my name. It just wasn’t true.” Mitch Rogat of Triumph Books, which published the Heenan book, said, “We all feel badly that this has come up and that Tom feels as badly as he does,” Rogat told Mooneyham. “Our intent in book publishing is never to hurt anyone or make anyone feel badly in any way. Through my conversations with Bobby and getting to know Bobby through the process, my sense is that Bobby, if we could do it over again, would probably have done it differently because he wouldn’t want anyone to be hurt ... Lee Cole later made up with his brother. One person claimed after he found out Phillips had died and had gone into depression, he asked McDevitt if WWE could help him with therapy, and was turned down. Lee Cole was on the Boston Wrestling podcast and told the same story. McDevitt didn’t address the story but said it had been some time since he had been in contact with Tom Cole. He also had health issues this past year. Right after the pandemic started, he suffered a bad case of Diverticulitis, and needed surgery, that left him with a stoma. That required reversal surgery a few months later.

With just a few days before the show, the WWE Elimination Chamber card on 2/21 from St. Petersburg, FL, only has four matches announced, and one of them is still in question. Aside from matches for the Universal title and WWE title, there is actually not one confirmed finalized match. The WWE title match in the Elimination Chamber had a minor change, with a late storyline change-based angle where Kofi Kingston replaces The Miz in the six-person chamber match. The others remain the same, champion Drew McIntyre and challengers Randy Orton, A.J. Styles, Jeff Hardy and Sheamus. The Universal title, at one point up in the Chamber, is now a six-man Chamber match with Kevin Owens, Jey Uso, King Corbin, Sami Zayn, Daniel Bryan and Cesaro. The winner of that match will then immediately face Roman Reigns in a Universal title match. One would seem to favor Cesaro in this situation, or possibly Owens or Bryan. Corbin, Zayn or Uso don’t really make storyline sense at this point. They’ve been trying to feature Cesaro of late. It is notable that they made Shinsuke Nakamura into a babyface star in the gauntlet and didn’t use him here, choosing Cesaro, who was originally to be the star of the gauntlet until that was changed because he hadn’t signed a new deal. There had been talk of Reigns vs. Bryan since Reigns’ return, but with Bryan losing so often, it would make sense to do the match, since it would be great, without a build just to get it done. Bobby Lashley is still defending the U.S. title. Riddle will be one opponent. Keith Lee is advertised as the other, but Lee was still questionable at press time. WWE has not said why Lee is questionable. He had been off several weeks, but did return on 2/8 and was in the angle to build to the match, but was off the 2/15 show. He just got engaged to Mia Yim, who tested positive for COVID the day before the Royal Rumble. The scheduled Asuka vs. Lacey Evans match for the Raw women’s title is off since Evans told management on 2/15 that she was pregnant, and they worked that into a storyline. Women’s tag champs Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler have done angles to set up matches with Lana & Naomi on Raw and with Sasha Banks & Bianca Belair on Smackdown, as well as on NXT with Raquel Gonzalez & Dakota Kai. The NXT match was announced for the title on 3/3 but nothing was announced regarding the other matches and the show needs a few more matches. Both Chamber matches are likely to be in the 30 minute or longer range.

58-year-old Keiji Muto won the GHC heavyweight championship and signed a two-year contract with Pro Wrestling NOAH on 2/12 in the company’s first show at Budokan Hall in nearly eight years. Muto ended the 405-day reign of Go Shiozaki. Shiozaki won the title on January 4, 2020, from Kaito Kiyomiya. When Kiyomiya won the title, he was 22, the youngest champion in the belt’s history and among the youngest major world champions of all-time. Shiozaki lost to Muto, the oldest, by more than a decade, champion in the belt’s history. Muto is believed to be, with the exception of when Lou Thesz was UWA champion in 1977, the second oldest major world champion in pro wrestling history. A few days after winning the title, the announcement was made of Muto signing his deal and Jun Akiyama, who won DDT’s KO-D title on 2/14, signing a one year deal with that promotion. NOAH and DDT are both owned by CyberAgent, AbemaTV a Japanese streaming service. Naomichi Marufuji, the Vice President of CyberFight, said that he had tried to sign Muto and the decision was made because NOAH wants to expand globally and Muto is far better known worldwide than anyone else on their roster. There are teases of Muto coming to the U.S. to defend the title. Scott D’Amore of Impact wrote a congratulations and brought up the idea of maybe Muto coming to Impact to defend against Joe Doering, who was a big star at one point with All Japan, and who Muto used to be tag team partners with ... Exactly what the booking idea is would be unclear. But they told a viable story, with Muto becoming the third wrestler in history to win all three major Japanese world titles, the Triple Crown of All Japan, the IWGP title of New Japan and for the first time this title. It does get the title on the most recognized name available to them in Japan, and worldwide. The person who beats him will have beaten a legitimate legend, as opposed to Shiozaki, a great modern pro wrestler but who is hardly a major name in Japan or worldwide. While some will claim this is similar to WWE, and even WWE hasn’t gone with anyone quite this old in the top position, NOAH and WWE are entirely different companies and in different situations.

The WWE saga with social media continued this past week as talent was informed that not only could they not do third party advertising or make money through their social media accounts as many of the women have earned well into six figures on, but now they are no longer allowed to tweet or promote anything similarly on their Twitter or Instagram accounts. Wrestling Inc. first reported that WWE has banned talent tweeting or promoting any business or charity through Twitter or Instagram, although WWE officials say limiting charitable initiatives is not part of this, and in specific noted to us that things like Sami for Syria (Zayn raising money for a mobile medical clinic in Syria) is still allowed ... The company claims that in their contracts there are clauses that would give the company ownership of social media accounts which would be where WWE has exclusive ownership of their likeness . They noted that the company has said they have the right to be more restrictive if they want to be on this. WWE clarified this policy to us saying, “This is about a formal relationship where talent is monetizing WWE IP (the WWE claims that all social media accounts of talent, whether they go by their birth name or their stage name, is WWE IP) with third parties. Not dissimilar to what we have said over the past few months.” One person noted to us that if they had a photo taken while eating, say an Oreo cookie, and Oreo is mentioned, it would be a violation. If they shot a photo while eating at Olive Garden, or Sizzler, and somehow the name comes up and is tagged, that would be a violation. WWE said that such things would not be violations unless it was a formal relationship that involved monetizing the plug. It’s not clear where things like promoting a restaurant or bar in exchange for not money, but free drinks would fit in. The first break of the rules would be a warning, the second would be a fine and the third would be a suspension.

Konnan (Charles Ashenoff, 57) was hospitalized this past week with a serious kidney issue after testing positive for COVID-19. He had been very cautious because of his weakened immune system regarding COVID-19. He had a kidney transplant in July 2007 and at the time had major side effects from anti-rejection drugs. He said after returning from the hospital that he was feeling better now but had a bad previous week. “Was very sick last week was bedridden for three days, I got Covid went to hospital and my kidneys were failing.” For a while, besides his family, he pretty much spent no time in contact with anyone aside from the Mysterio family, since Dominik is his godson. But in recent months he did go to Las Vegas to do the AEW TV skit with the Inner Circle, had attended Impact TV tapings and was recently in Mexico for the AAA tapings. He was released from the hospital on 2/18

There are significant talks involving New Japan returning to AXS television. AXS was wanting the programming back, and it would likely involve more dealings with New Japan and Impact, as the Juice Robinson & David Finlay debut as regulars show. There’s no deal at this time but the talks are enough to where the odds are considered decent a deal ends up being reached. This also coincides with Impact on its history shows on AXS featuring more New Japan talent, including recently showing an A.J. Styles vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi match from TNA (yes, that happened, and was no big deal at the time because it was from 2006 before Tanahashi became the star he’d become a few years later)

Stardom announced the top matches for the biggest show in company history on 3/3 at Budokan Hall. It’s too bad they weren’t able to do it under normal conditions but you can say that about everything. Even though she asked, Kairi Hojo (Kairi Sane) was unable to get WWE permission to do the show. They had left it up to WWE. They wanted her in a big singles match but also offered WWE having her do a Rumble with legends. Sane is still under contract to WWE and works as a Japanese ambassador. There had been talk of her working for Stardom when she returned to Japan after getting married but she still has time on her deal.

Dylan Miley, the former Lars Sullivan, is now doing boxing training with the idea of working for one of the Bare Knuckle promotions. He’s 32, which is old to start boxing training. Also, you don’t see a lot of 330 pound boxers or MMA fighters. The story is that he has no illusions about his age being a factor and just starting out, but is planning on competing in that sport

Sammy Guevara was supposed to be at these tapings at one point. The deal was he would appear here while he quit the Inner Circle. Obviously he’s coming back as a babyface to feud with the Inner Circle. They were taping 2/9 to 2/11 and Guevara came. The basic details were that he didn’t like the creative. One person in Impact said the creative wasn’t very good and he shouldn’t have liked it. It appears, since Black Taurus was put in his spot that his debut would have been in a six-man tag with Ace Austin & Chris Bey vs. Willie Mack & Josh Alexander & Trey Miguel, but that’s not confirmed. Taurus was put in his spot and Taurus is scheduled to team with Austin & Bey as a heel on next week’s show, but that doesn’t lock it in. We don’t know the details of the creative past he was going to win three matches at the tapings that just took place. Guevara suggested winning the X title. One story is that he wanted to win the title, and then return to AEW as having just won the title in Impact. He’d never lose it and it would go up in a tournament. Impact didn’t like that idea. Chris Jericho was the one who put the angle together with Don Callis. It made Jericho look bad to Impact because he and Callis came up with the idea and then Guevara didn’t want to do it. Scott D’Amore told Guevara that they didn’t need him when he arrived in Nashville if he doesn’t follow the plans that had already been agreed to. Impact was really mad about AEW sending talent over, them putting plans in place and then the talent wouldn’t do what was planned. Everything appears to be smoothed over now but there are those in Impact who said that the company was not happy at first with how it went down and could have impacted relationships. Guevara isn’t expected to be coming back here. When he didn’t like the idea, they put Black Taurus in his spot, so whatever Taurus is doing on the next TV’s would be close to what they wanted Guevara to do. It was only to be a short term deal for Guevara to begin with, just on the current tapings to give the idea he was with Impact and getting a push likely to lead to a “surprise” babyface return on AEW

Chris Jericho retweeted a photo of his wife, Jessica, at the 1/6 Capitol break-in. The photo was her with a group of other women behind a banner that read “Women for Trump.” She wasn’t part of the actual breaking in, which would a whole lot bigger deal if that was the case. He wasn’t there as Impact taped that night in Jacksonville. If he would have been there, it would not have been very good P.R. wise. The photo actually first surfaced earlier in the day when she put it up on her Jessica Lockhart Irvine Instagram page. Pat Miletich was there, granted he was posing in a photo next to someone with an RWDS patch (Right Wing Death Squad) and lost his job as an announcer for the LFA over the furor from the fan base

There were several meetings this past week which wound up with employees being told that a lot of bonuses, raises and promotions that some were expecting were not going to happen. Christine Lubiano, who just started, was told by Vince McMahon and Bruce Prichard to tell the writing staff on their conference call on 2/11. This went over horribly since she’s no new with the company and others told the writing team it was Vince’s decision (obviously) along with Nick Khan, Brad Blum and Prichard. Mark Carrano then held a meeting with producers on 2/12 before the Smackdown tapings. Vince was not at the show since his brother Rod’s funeral was this past week. The producers, many of whom took pay cuts last year, were not happy because they were expecting to be bonused as part of their annual review. The feeling is they all worked a year straight having to fly into a COVID hot spot every week and when the annual review and bonuses were expected, they were told they weren’t getting them. The idea seems to be to keep costs low and build the profit margin up because of the decline of the stock value when investors heard expenses would be higher in 2021 because of building the new office and the added costs of Thunderdome production. Not all employees are getting this, but many are getting 64 shares of WWE stock, worth $3,000. Of late, at least some wrestlers whose contracts were coming due of late had been told no more raises due to the pandemic. From a WWE standpoint, when contracts were signed with talent, it was based on the idea they’d mostly be working four shows a week traveling around the country and instead they are doing one show a week. With a lot of talent based in the Tampa area, the travel costs are way down. That said, when it comes to a percentage of revenue going to talent, WWE talent pay is minuscule (even though the top stars almost all earn in excess of $1 million annually) as compared to all other sports with that level of revenue and even many with less revenue. That’s where the lack of union representation and collective bargaining comes in, because that’s where athletes in other sports often get 50% of the revenue. If that was the case with WWE, and WWE is different in the sense it does have a larger front office, but with the exception of UFC, there’s no other sport of that size with such a high profit margin and some of that is keeping talent costs down. If you treat the non-main roster talent as $100,000 per year guys (and a few make more and most make less) and say there are 150 of them, that’s $15 million per year. If you take that out of the $487 million pie for 50%, or even $292 million for 30%, your average main roster salary should be and 96, it means if this was like any major sports league the average salary would be roughly $4.92 million but if you want to, and rightly claim, there is a difference because of the large office, you could work out he average at $2.89 million. And that’s multiple times the actual average. Even UFC at, let’s say 18 percent, and they don’t have quite as large an office but it is similar, you would still be talking an average of $1.7 million which is still way above the average. Anyway, while we know of talent told that, it’s obviously, like everything, not a hard and fast rule. Rey Mysterio obviously got a raise given AEW topped his WWE pay in its offer and WWE had to top the AEW offer to keep him

WWE has been going on a signing spree with about 25 newcomers about to start up. Some of the new names include the former Taya Valkyrie, the former Eli Drake, Blake Christian, Millie McKenzie, the former Harlem Bravado, and Christian Casanova. In addition, another U.K. wrestler, Adam Maxted is rumored to be coming soon, and Davey Boy Smith Jr., is another name that while not confirmed signed, is believed to be a good shot at coming in ... The one thing coming out of all this is the U.K. independent scene, when it can start up is going to be nothing like it was before. It will create opportunities for others to get in featured roles, but with almost all the stars that carried those companies being signed to a U.S. company and unable to appear except for a few promotions, the crowds will likely be much harder to draw (and they were already on the downslide over the prior two years from when the scene was very healthy and top U.S. indie guys, virtually all now signed in WWE or AEW or New Japan, were making money there seemingly every other weekend). So there will be far fewer shows

Carlito is not under contract at this point. WWE used him for the Rumble and the next day and people put over his new physique, but at this point he is still a free agent and has said he’s open to work anywhere

Regarding Bo Dallas (Taylor Rotunda), who is under contract but never used, he is not even brought to TV to sit in catering. He’s still getting paid and has a farm living with Liv Morgan and they’ve started a family real estate business and studying that to prepare for life after wrestling

The most-watched shows of the past week on the WWE Network were: 1. NXT Takeover Vengeance; 2. Best of Elimination Chamber; 3. Day of Royal Rumble 2021; 4. Royal Rumble 2021; 5. Elimination Chamber 2020; 6. WWE Untold APA; 7. NXT Vengeance pre-show; 8. Elimination Chamber 2019; 9. Elimination Chamber 2010; 10. WWE Superstars December 4, 1993. Talking Smack was 12th. Raw Talk was No. 13. NXT from 2/10 was No. 22. NXT the week of a Takeover usually doesn’t do numbers on the network. No other current product shows were in the top 25

Ratings stuff:

SPOILER: show

Raw on 2/15 averaged 1,810,000 viewers and 0.57 in 18-49, substantial increases from the prior week’s lowest number of the year. There wasn’t a lot to note. The audience drop in 18-49 women was at normal levels as compared to record numbers the prior two weeks. However, teenage boys, which had shown growth in hour three in recent weeks, had a big decline, and teenage girls were way down. The show opened with a good first hour, but putting most of Raw’s biggest names, Drew McIntyre, Sheamus, Randy Orton, A.J. Styles, Jeff Hardy and Kofi Kingston in a gauntlet during hour three didn’t stave off the usual decline at all. Raw was helped by a lack of competition. News shows were way down, as Raw finished 12th place in total viewers, much higher than the show normally does. Also there was no sports competition of note, with the head-to-head college basketball game on ESPN doing 636,000 viewers and 0.15. The growth from last week was among women in particular in the 35-49 age group. The show was up 5.5 percent in viewers, 16.3 percent in 18-49 but stayed even in 18-34 from last week. As compared to the President’s Day show last year, which does historically above usual numbers, the show was down 25.7 percent in viewers, 27.8 percent in 18-49 and 53.2 percent in 18-34. The first hour did 1,935,000 viewers. The second hour did 1,806,000 viewers. The third hour, taken up by the gauntlet, did 1,690,000 viewers. Raw was first in 18-49, male 18-49 and male 12-34. It was fourth in women 18-49, second in 18-34 and fourth in women 12-34. Regarding where the first-to-third hour drops came from, women 18-49 declined 17.0 percent, men 18-49 declined 8.2 percent, teenage girls declined 49.0 percent, teenage boys declined 26.4 percent and over 50 declined 11.2 percent. The show did a 0.25 in 12-17 (down 7.4 percent from last week), 0.29 in 18-34 (identical to last week), 0.86 in 35-49 (up 24.6 percent) and 0.84 in 50+ (up 2.4 percent).

Smackdown on 2/12 fell to a 1.23 rating and 1,990,000 viewers (a more normalized 1.34 viewers per home), with an 0.57 (732,000) in 18-49 and 0.35 in 18-34. The total viewers being under two million was the first time that’s happened since moving to the Thunderdome. Because it was still a big news day (of the top 22 shows in 18-49 on cable, only the NBA, SportsCenter right after the NBA and Gold Rush were non-news shows) with impeachment hearings coverage, that probably explains the big weekly decline given the show has been consistently doing a higher level. If next week’s show is at a similar level, it would be cause for concern, but to me, this is like the Wednesday shows of the past week where you really just have to look at it as a fluke because you can’t beat the news. Smackdown finished last in total viewers among network shows but was third behind Shark Tank (0.71) and 20/20 (0.59) in 18-49 and second to Shark Tank (0.36) in 18-34. It placed sixth of eight in Women 18-49 and was first in men 18-49, and dead last by a wide margin (less than half the viewers of the second to last place show) in over 50. The NBA game on ESPN head-to-head did 1,037,000 viewers and 0.35. As compared to the prior week, the show was down 8.2 percent in homes, 11.8 percent in viewers, 13.0 percent in 18-49 but was up 2.9 percent in 18-34. As compared to one year earlier, and keep in mind that was not a huge news day, homes were down 19.6 percent, viewers were down 19.2 percent, 18-49 was down 22.6 percent and 18-34 was down 30.0 percent, which again shows an aging audience from the prior year.

With it being President’s Day, we only have limited info on the 2/17 ratings. It was not a big news day, but AEW had what I’d consider a weak marquee show in the ring (by that I mean drawing power matches, not match quality as the AEW show match quality was very high) and it did 747,000 viewers and an 0.31 in 18-49 (400,000 viewers). The most obvious thing is viewers were below average and 18-49 was normal, meaning it was young skewing. NXT, coming off a Takeover show where Adam Cole turned on Kyle O’Reilly, and back with the NCIS lead-in that hands them more than 1 million viewers at the start, figured to be up and it was, doing 713,000 viewers but only an 0.16 in 18-49 (202,000 viewers), and to do that you’re skewing very old, although not much older than the prior week. As compared to last week, which went against major news, AEW was up 0.8 percent in viewers and 6.4 percent in 18-49. NXT was up 27.8 percent in viewers and 27.0 percent in 18-49. As compared to the same week last year, AEW was down 16.3 percent in viewers with the show where Cody vs. Wardlow had their heavily hyped cage match, but they were identical in 18-49, showing a much younger audience than a year ago. NXT as compared to that same week last year was down 10.2 percent in viewers and 36.0 percent in 18-49, which tells you they are skewing that much older. Last year’s show was on a huge news night with the Democratic debates so even though things like they dropped a lot, realistically they probably dropped more. Also, both shows had limited viewing in the state of Texas due to power failures this year which also skews things. AEW doubled NXT in every key demo except 35-49, where it was close. Something notable is that last year on the same week, NXT had 2.3 times more women 18-34 viewers than AEW. This year AEW had 4.3 times the women 18-34 numbers as NXT. And it’s more the giant decline in that demo of NXT that gains by AEW. AEW had 73,000 viewers in men 18-34 (up 2.8 percent from last week) to 34,000 for NXT (up 100.0 percent from last week). AEW had 43,000 viewers in women 18-34 (up 30.3 percent) to 10,000 for NXT (down 44.4 percent). AEW had 199,000 viewers in men 35-49 (up 7.6 percent) to 95,000 for NXT (up 18.8 percent). AEW had 85,000 viewers in women 35-49 (down 2.3 percent) to 73,000 for NXT (up 65.9 percent). NXT won the first 30 minutes in viewers due to a huge NCIS lead-in, which gave them the biggest first quarter in a long time, with 997,000 viewers and 319,000 in 18-49. An amazing stat was that in quarter five, NXT had more viewers than AEW but AEW more than doubled NXT in 18-49. AEW doubled NXT in the last five quarters. In the main event battle, AEW with Jon Moxley & Lance Archer & Rey Fenix vs. Butcher & Blade & Eddie Kingston did 741,000 viewers and 394,000 in 18-49. NXT with Finn Balor & Roderick Strong & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch & Pete Dunne did 617,000 viewers and 163,000 in 18-49. For the NXT overrun, they picked up 81,000 viewers and 39,000 in 18-49. AEW opened with Matt Hardy & Adam Page vs. Jack Evans & Angelico and the post match angle at 772,000 viewers and 427,000 in 18-49. It was AEW’s high point with women 18-49. NXT had an O’Reilly interview which later involved Strong & Balor and the attack by Lorcan & Burch & Dunne, and William Regal and Santos Escobar talking that did 997,000 viewers and 319,000 in 18-49. It was NXT’s high point across the board. In the second quarter, AEW did 763,000 viewers and 428,000 in 18-49 for The Inner Circle interview plus the first half of Riho vs. Serena Deeb. This was the 18-49 peak for AEW. NXT did 772,000 viewers and 235,000 in 18-49 for Candice LeRae & Indi Hartwell vs. Shotzi Blackheart & Ember Moon. In the third quarter, AEW did 789,000 viewers and 396,000 in 18-49 for the second half of Riho vs. Deeb and Shaquille O’Neal & Jade Cargill shooting hoops. NXT did 703,000 viewers and 219,000 in18-49 for a Pat McAfee video, Kushida talking to Bronson Reed and Isaiah Scott vs. Leon Ruff. In the fourth quarter, AEW did 775,000 viewers and 389,000 in 18-49 for Orange Cassidy vs. Luther and the angle with Sting being attacked by Team Taz. NXT fell to 648,000 viewers and 177,000 in 18-49 for Kacy Catanzaro & Kayden Carter vs. Aliyah & Jessi Kamea and the post-match wit Catanzaro and Xia Li. In the fifth quarter, AEW did 699,000 viewers and 376,000 in 18-49 for the first part of Young Bucks vs. Ortiz & Santana for the tag titles. NXT did 702,000 viewers and 184,000 in 18-49 for the Dusty Classic segment with Wesley Lee & Carter Nash, Raquel Gonzalez & Dakota Kai and Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax. In the sixth quarter, AEW did 708,000 viewers and 387,000 in 18-49 for the end of Bucks vs. Ortiz & Santana and the post match angle, the baby reveal and the first part of FTR vs. Matt & Mike Sydal. NXT did 631,000 viewers and 157,000 in 18-49 for Toni Storm attacking Io Shirai and Kushida vs. Tyler Rust. In the seventh quarter, AEW did 728,000 viewers and 403,000 in18-49 for the ending of FTR vs. Matt Mike Sydal, the post-match angle with Jurassic Express and a Moxley interview. This was the high point of the show in males 18-49. NXT did 614,000 viewers and 162,000 in 18-49 for Zoey Stark vs. Valentina Feroz and a Karrion Kross & Scarlett video. In the eighth quarter, AEW had Moxley & Fenix & Archer vs. Butcher & Blade & Kingston and gained 13,000 viewers, but lost 9,000 in 18-49. NXT had Balor & Strong & O’Reilly vs. Lorcan & Burch & Dunne and gained 3,000 viewers and 1,000 in 18-49. In 18-49, AEW would be 68.0 percent male, so they are still down from a few months ago with women and around the same with men and NXT was 63.9 percent male.