[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter):

COVID-19 and its effect on UFC and pro wrestling continued to dominate the news this past week. WWE is recovering from an outbreak that caused changes to the taping schedule, a number of rewrites to television and numerous big names taken off this past two weeks of television ... WWE has not said anything, either in memos to talent, or the media, about its outbreak. Based on different reports, anywhere from 30 or more individuals with the company have tested positive, although the only names released officially are Young, who did so on her own, Kayla Braxton, and producers James Gibson (Jamie Noble) and Adam Pearce. The list of talent that hasn’t been at the Performance Center since the outbreak includes Dana Brooke, Carmella, Naomi, The Street Profits, Velveteen Dream, Austin Theory, Daniel Bryan, Finn Balor, Liv Morgan, Mandy Rose, Natalya, Nia Jax, Otis, Tucker, Mojo Rawley, Shorty G, Raquel Gonzalez, Sheamus and Sonya Deville. Of those, Bryan and Sheamus both appeared on Zoom on Smackdown from home so it was clear they were scripted originally for the show and didn’t come. That could be by choice, given Bryan’s wife is pregnant and he’s had issues with his immune system, or other reasons. Dream and Theory were both named in recent allegations. WWE officially has said there is no change in Dream’s status, and he was in an auto accident but had been not been on the show while he was in the middle of a program with the Undisputed Era, and his name was never mentioned in commentary during a Dexter Lumis match where he was part of the storyline. WWE hasn’t responded to any questions on Theory, whose name has also not been mentioned on commentary or his absence when Seth Rollins and Murphy been on TV been acknowledged. Natalya is known to have not tested positive but was pulled for precautionary reasons. Brooke, Carmella and Naomi hadn’t been booked on television prior, so they all just simply may not have been used. Jax also doesn’t appear to have a program going right now, although was the one to “injure” Charlotte Flair so disappearing from television right after wouldn’t seem to make sense either ... As of early in the week, Renee Young was fully recovered and “felt great,” so she should be returning to work fairly soon. She and Jon Moxley were both going to be tested once more this week and if the test is negative for both, he would be returning on AEW’s 7/15 show against Brian Cage. After a period when masks were strongly discouraged if not outright banned, WWE has gone full circle and instituted a new mask policy for its NXT wrestlers in the stands on television. On 7/3, which would have been after the Smackdown tapings that aired on 7/3 but before the Raw show that aired on 7/6, that was being taped that night, all talent working as extras in the stands were told that masks were mandatory and a fine system would be put in place. On the Smackdown show that aired on 7/3, most of the talent were wearing masks it appeared and they did far less crowd shots. But there were crowd shots. Early in the show, you could see two performers with no masks right in front of the hard cam. They were quickly removed from their position. Everyone else was wearing a mask although one person did not have his mask covering his nose. The new policy that went into effect the next day was a $500 fine for not wearing a mask the first time and a $1,000 fine a second violation. However, even though WWE confirmed that officially, NXT talent used as extras claimed to be unaware of a fine system for not wearing masks. There were several people on camera during the 7/8 NXT show not with masks, but that show was taped on 7/1, before the policy went into effect.

Raw on 7/6 did the second lowest number in modern history overall and tied for second lowest in the 18-49 demo, making it two bad numbers in a row after the heavy talk and angles and little wrestling format started with the departure of Paul Heyman and ascension of Bruce Prichard. The show averaged 1,686,000 viewers and an 0.49 in 18-49 (637,000 viewers). The viewer number beat only the 5/4 show at 1,682,000 viewers. The 0.49 beat the 5/4 show’s record low of 0.46, and tied shows on 6/1 and 6/29 at 0.49 ... The story of the number was both good and bad. The first hour was, by far, the lowest first hour in history. However, there was a huge increase in hour two. The second hour beating the first was commonplace most summers, but this year it has only happened a few times. What it appears is with the holiday, some people tuned in late, and there was a normal 8.0 percent drop from the second-to-third hour. The key things in hour two that led to increases were Rey Mysterio & Kevin Owens vs. Seth Rollins & Murphy and Ricochet & Cedric Alexander vs. Bobby Lashley & MVP. There was a significant drop in hour three, headlined by Bayley vs. Asuka, which would have been the fourth lowest hour three in history. The first-to-second hour gains were not among teenagers at all and very minimal with men 18-49 (three percent) and over 50 (one percent), but most heavily in women 18-49, which gained 10 percent. In hour three, women 18-49 dropped a little six percent, male 18-49 dropped nine percent, teenage girls dropped 14 percent and teenage boys dropped 25 percent and over 50 dropped seven percent ... As compared to the same week last year, which had head-to-head competition from Home Run Derby, Raw was down 28.3 percent in viewers and 31.8 percent in 18-49 viewers. The show did 160,000 in men 18-34, the best number in that demo since 3/25. It did 58,000 in women 18-34, 273,000 in men 35-49 and 146,000 in women 35-49.

Smackdown on 7/3 did its record low on FOX with a 1.14 rating and 1,777,000 viewers (1.29 viewers per home) and an 0.4 (516,000 viewers) in 18-49, and 0.2 in 18-34. I think you can almost throw this out based on the date, but we’ll know next week whether it’s back to normal or not. The median viewer on Smackdown was 56.7 years old, the oldest skewing episode I’m aware of, and viewers per home were also down from usual. The show did 83,000 in men 18-34, 40,000 in women 18-34, 235,000 in men 35-49 and 136,000 in women 35-49. It’s only a one week pattern thus far so until next week, I wouldn’t put much stock in the number, as the show had been above recent lows for several weeks going into this. The holiday weekend likely hurt and President Trump made a speech that night which led to huge increases in news channels. For right now you have to look at the numbers, given only two other shows did 0.4s on network TV (granted all three networks ran nothing but rerun programming), it looks like the date and not as bad as it sounds. The 0.2 tied four other network reruns. The bad news is that on a night with nothing but reruns, Smackdown was the least-watched show on major network TV for the night. It still beat what FOX did on the same holiday weekend last year, which was 1.38 million viewers and 0.3 in 18-49, so up 22.3 percent overall and 33.3 percent in 18-49 ... We don’t have quarter hours for the show, but the Matt Riddle promo and Riddle vs. John Morrison match did 1.83 million viewers. A.J. Styles vs. Drew Gulak did 1.77 million viewers. Bayley & Sasha Banks promo, Bayley vs. Alexa Bliss and a Bray Wyatt-Braun Strowman hype segment did 1.83 million viewers. And Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kofi Kingston and the Jeff Hardy-Sheamus segment did 1.69 million viewers.

Week two of the Great American Bash vs. Fyter Fest battle heated up after the business results of 7/1 came out. WWE and USA had even fewer commercials and more picture-in-picture during the commercials, because minute-by-minute stats show viewers from each show migrating to the other at a fairly substantial rate when either show is in a commercial break. AEW and TNT also did more picture-in-picture than they’ve done previously for a taped show, but didn’t cut back on actual commercial time ... When it came to numbers, both shows declined overall and in 18-49 when there were reasons both should have increased. NXT had, in theory, its biggest television match of the year, Adam Cole with a 403-day title reign in a double belt match against Keith Lee, the hottest wrestler on the brand. That match was a big success drawing the best quarter for NXT all year and best 18-49 number as well, and spelled the difference completely in the overall number. Even though the main event always means more than depth on the show, there was a decline for the overall show from the prior two weeks, although perhaps that’s because of a boost from Bayley & Sasha Banks in multiple segments that wasn’t there this week. AEW had pushed Jericho vs. Cassidy hard for weeks, with strong angles. The reality is the angles didn’t do well. Cassidy is hurt greatly from lack of live crowds. Cassidy had done well in quarters, but it was also midway or once even somewhat late in the show. He hasn’t done well when booked as a main eventer, and there are merch movers and people who get pops and there are main eventers. They are all different animals. And Jericho vs. Cassidy did do well based on usual quarter eights for AEW in 18-49, and had the highest numbers in 35-49 of any segment on either show. His closest comparison historically is mid-80s heyday JCP Jimmy Valiant, who always got huge crowd reactions for his matches, but the promotion knew enough to keep him in the middle with mid-level heels, and always winning as opposed to headlining him against the top tier guys and losing. And it wasn’t even clear that was the main event ahead of time, as AEW had depth, but no match with any real stakes. Of course that was because the scheduled Jon Moxley vs. Brian Cage main event had to be pushed back a week. NXT won overall viewers 759,000 to 715,000, but even with Lee vs. Cole, the important number saw them fall in comparison slightly, as AEW did 0.28 in 18-49 (364,000 viewers) to NXT’s 0.20 (262,000 viewers) ... AEW once again won every key demo. In men 18-34, AEW did 89,000 viewers (up 39.1 percent from last week) to NXT’s 47,000 (up 9.3 percent). In women 18-34, AEW had 42,000 (down 4.5 percent) to 33,000 for NXT (down 19.5 percent). In men 35-49, AEW had 162,000 (down 7.4 percent) and NXT had 118,000 (down 16.3 percent). In women 35-49, AEW had 71,000 (down 20.2 percent) and NXT had 64,000 (down 9.9 percent) ... Perhaps the biggest surprise after the record low Raw is that Wednesday, with two major shows, did not beat Monday in 18-49, although it was close. Monday had 637,000 in 18-49, which was 433,000 men and 204,000 women. Wednesday had 626,000, which was 416,000 men and 210,000 women. In the main event segment, Cole vs. Lee did 922,000 viewers and 355,000 in 18-49, both above last week’s Io Shirai vs. Banks match. It was the highest overall viewer number for both shows, and the highest 18-34 and 35-49 number for NXT of the night. It still lost in the demo to Jericho vs. Cassidy, which did 675,000 viewers, and 362,000 in 18-49, which in the demo is a strong quarter eight for both shows. In overall viewers, AEW won all four quarters in the first hour. NXT won all four in the second hour. In 18-49, AEW won all eight quarters. In 35-49, AEW won all eight quarters. In 18-34, AEW doubled or more than doubled NXT in all of the first four quarters, won seven quarters, but lost 117,000 to 114,000 for the main event. Cole vs. Lee greatly boosted every age group and key demo as well as overall. The show opened with AEW overcoming the strong lead-in advantage, doing 785,000 viewers and 391,000 in 18-49 for the Kenny Omega & Adam Page vs. Private Party match. Both numbers were AEW’s high point of the show, and the overall highest point of the night for both shows in18-49 and 18-34. NXT had 775,000 viewers and 235,000 in 18-49 for Candice LeRae vs. Mia Yim in a street fight. In quarter two, AEW lost 90,000 viewers and 35,000 in 18-49 for Joey Janela vs. Lance Archer. NXT lost 94,000 viewers and 9,000 in 18-49 for the ending and post-match of LeRae vs. Yim. In quarter three, AEW gained 41,000 viewers and 17,000 in 18-49 for the ending of Archer vs. Janela, a Darby Allin video and the Taz & Brian Cage interview with the FTW title. NXT gained 15,000 viewers and 9,000 in 18-49 for Bronson Reed vs. Tony Nese, the Robert Stone brand angle and the beginning of Isaiah Scott vs. Johnny Gargano. In quarter four, AEW lost 1,000 viewers and gained 6,000 in 18-49 for Young Bucks & FTR vs. Butcher & Blade & Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix. It’s notable one of the best TV matches of the year really didn’t move ratings much. NXT lost 15,000 viewers and 10,000 in 18-49 for Scott vs. Gargano. In quarter five, AEW lost 30,000 viewers and 28,000 in 18-49 for Big Swole being turned away, a Nyla Rose squash and a Rose promo. NXT gained 76,000 viewers and 22,000 in 18-49 for Santos Escobar & Joaquin Wilde & Raul Mendoza vs. Drake Maverick & Tyler Breeze & Fandango. In quarter six, AEW lost 13,000 viewers and stayed even in 18-49 for SCU vs. Brodie Lee & Stu Grayson & Colt Cabana. NXT lost 16,000 viewers but gained 10,000 in 18-49 for Mercedes Martinez vs. Santana Garrett. In quarter seven, AEW gained 3,000 viewers and lost 1,000 in 18-49 for the ending of the SCU vs. Dark Order, next week’s card, Britt Baker/Swole angle and the beginning of Jericho vs. Cassidy. NXT gained 75,000 viewers and 55,000 in 18-49 for the beginning of Lee vs. Cole. In quarter eight, AEW lost 20,000 viewers but gained 12,000 in 18-49 for Cassidy vs. Jericho. NXT gained 106,000 viewers and 47,000 in 18-49 for Lee vs. Cole, but the long commercial free period helped here ... With the accidental leak of a photo of Lee holding two belts and confetti all around him that came out, there were people trying to push the idea that maybe they taped two endings or you never know. They did not tape two endings. Had they wanted to, they could have taped a different ending the next day to “prove” the news wasn’t real, but that would have been short-sighted, and blown up their long-term plans to build the 8/22 Takeover show, presumably around Lee vs. Karrion Kross for the title.

AEW announced Fight for the Fallen which will be live on 7/15 and feature Moxley vs. Cage, FTR vs. Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix (which should be great), Kenny Omega & Young Bucks vs. Jurassic Express and Cody vs. Sonny Kiss for the TNT title. NXT has countered with Io Shirai vs. Tegan Nox for the women’s title and Damien Priest vs. Cameron Grimes. Based on this, unless something big is added, this should favor AEW. But the flip side is they have both NASCAR and UFC to contend with, which will hurt both shows significantly.

Post Wrestling listed the WWE’s taping schedule through SummerSlam, which is now scheduled for 8/23 at the Performance Center. Vince McMahon had hoped to have SummerSlam as the first major arena show, and was willing to move it to September if necessary. As we’ve seen just in the last few weeks, schedule changes are plentiful for a number of reasons, whether pandemic changes and other things that may or may not end up happening. Clearly the decision at this point is that live events with crowds in September aren’t that likely so these are the current plans: 7/15 - NXT for 7/15 and 7/22 7/17 - Smackdown live or live-to-tape 7/19 - Extreme Rules mostly live 7/20 - Raw for 7/20 and 7/27 7/21 - Smackdown for 7/24 and 7/31 7/29 - NXT for 7/29 and 8/5 8/3 - Raw for 8/3 and 8/10 8/4 - Smackdown for 8/7 and 8/14 8/12 - NXT for 8/12 and 8/19 8/17 - Raw for 8/17 and Smackdown for 8/21 8/22 - NXT Takeover 8/23 - SummerSlam A few notes on how they are doing the schedule. They are not doing any tapings out of order. For example, they could save time and do tapings for Raw and Smackdown after SummerSlam before, but don’t want to risk it. In the old days, WWE routinely would tape television that would air after PPV shows before, but that was also when things were planned on long in advance. With the nature of closed sets, the spoilers aspect isn’t even an issue but the reality is they can’t trust themselves for carry out plans without the ability to change their minds prior to a PPV show. The other is, with the exception of 8/17, that the Raw, Smackdown and NXT crew will be kept separate. This comes from the recent outbreak where the brands were all affected in some way. There is still an issue with the same fans being used at all shows. Even though they will all be tested prior to every taping, there is still a large element of risk ... Hopefully the stricter standards by WWE now will mean that a second outbreak isn’t happening. But all groups, whether it’s Marc Ratner at UFC (granted, kept far away from everyone at the events and always masked), Ric Flair, Jim Ross, Jake Roberts and others are older than 65. With the exception of Ratner, all of whom have had health issues and were still regularly appearing.

There will be at least two taped cinematic matches at the newly named “The Horror Show at Extreme Rules” PPV produced by WWE on 7/19 from the Performance Center. Besides the Bray Wyatt vs. Braun Strowman non-title match billed as a fight at the swamp, the plan right now is also to tape the Eye For An Eye match with Rey Mysterio vs. Seth Rollins. The match has gotten a lot of attention in recent days, largely because the stipulation is stupid. They are billing the match as one that can only end when one person pulls the others’ eye out. The idea is to do a taped match and use some form of CGI effects to simulate an eye being pulled out as the finish. A key aspect of this match is that Mysterio, 45, has been appearing with WWE for the past few months without a contract. It’s notable because in this type of an environment, with competition, from a legal standpoint, Mysterio could show up on the 7/15 Dynamite show or 7/18 Impact PPV show and not on this show. Now, that isn’t going to happen and it shows the trust Vince McMahon has in Mysterio to book a guy in a key PPV angle who could legally walk out in mid-angle or no-show the PPV card. Mysterio has been working on the terms of his original 18 month contract. There have been negotiations. Essentially where things stand is that Mysterio had asked for a raise and been told that no raises were being offered, and that they had just let a number of wrestlers go. But given the company is expected by everyone who follows the business end to set a profit record this year due to the size of the television deals, he didn’t initially accept that reasoning ... The suspicion is that if he does sign a new deal, he shouldn’t lose this match, but that would require Rollins to take time off and wear an eyepatch until some sort of magical fixture storyline comes into play. If he doesn’t sign, it would make sense for this to be his blow-off as it has been months ... If it was just Mysterio, at this point he would just probably go to who paid him the best, which would probably coome down to either WWE, AEW or a Moxley/Jericho like deal of AEW and New Japan which he is a big enough star to get if that’s what he wanted ... But his son Dominick is a key to this. Dominick was forgotten about for months, but after Rey’s contract was up, knowing that Rey is going to probably care more about pushing Dominick and Dominick getting a break than perhaps anything right now, he was brought back for the current angle. While he hasn’t done a match yet, from a physical standpoint in the few instances he’s had to perform, from a timing standpoint, he’s looked great. And that may still be the factor as to why WWE is probably going to be the frontrunner to keep him ... There is also AAA, although he went there previously on a strong deal but I don’t think AAA has the money to be competitive for what he wants, even though one of his closest friends is the booker. AEW and AAA haven’t worked much together of late but a relationship is there and Kenny Omega is still AAA’s world champion.

Anthony Crupi on the sports business site Sportico when talking about FOX dropping golf, the reason behind it is that FOX has a buyout clause and in this case even with dropping the rest of the years of their U.S. Open coverage, they have pay a buyout clause of an estimated $51 million per year for the length of the contract plus NBC is paying go the PGA isn’t losing money even though NBC is paying significantly less. The idea is they are saving $42 million per year in rights plus production costs and they are trying to cut to pay for the higher NFL prices. Crupi said that cutting Smackdown before the end of its contract isn’t likely. Even though Smackdown is doing far less than expectations, FOX is up five percent in 18-49 this season and the median viewer age this season of 52.4. Smackdown has aged more than four years of late, making it the second oldest skewing wrestling show behind only NXT. It’s still slightly younger than the programming they had last year. They also noted that Smackdown costs $205 million per year while if they put two dramas in that time slot it would probably cost $220 million but they’d only get 22 new episodes and the reruns would draw poorly or they’d have to pay more for other programming. Plus FOX likes the fall synergy of NFL Thursday, wrestling Friday, college football Saturday and NFL Sunday. This past week may be a fluke, but there’s no way they made this deal thinking they’d possibly be looking at 0.4s. I don’t think pandemic numbers are a reflection of the show because it’s not the atmosphere the show is supposed to have, so decisions made on these numbers really would be foolish right now. The negative that we don’t know if the audience will bounce back when this is over, given this period is going to be lasting a long time

The most-watched shows on the WWE Network for this past week were: 1. The Very Best of WCW Nitro; 2. WWE 365: Ricochet; 3. Raw Talk for 7/6; 4. NXT Great American Bash from 7/1; 5. Best of WWE: Ricochet; 6. Best U.S. championship matches; 7. Undertaker’s Last Ride episode five; 8. Every Undertaker vs. Kane match; 9. Backlash 2020; 10. Great America Bash 2007

First time in a long while NXT managed to be back in the Top 10 and also hold a high spot for the week even though it was for last week's episode. Before that it got so bad at certain times that Meltzer started tracking the Top 15 and even then there were occasions where NXT still didn't track.

New Japan Pro Wrestling, barring an emergency, will become the first major promotion in four months to run with a decent-sized crowd with shows on 7/11 and 7/12 at Osaka Jo Hall. Both shows are to be set up for 30 percent capacity which would be about 3,600 fans and will be a test if they can have that many people at a show and follow their strict protocols to make it safe. Both shows are said to be close to sold out ... The shows will air live with Japanese commentary at 4 a.m. Eastern early Saturday morning (1 a.m. late Friday on the East Coast) for the first show and at 2 a.m. Eastern time and 11 p.m. Pacific time late Saturday night for the second show, or about one hour after the UFC ends ... For the two shows in Osaka, all seats are priced at 10,500 yen (about $98 U.S.) so both events, if sold out, will gross about $350,000 apiece. The crowd response may not be at normal levels because unlike in the U.S., where this would never happen, management has asked fans not to yell and scream at the shows because that could spread the virus. All fans at the show have to go through a temperature check and masks covering mouth and nose are mandatory ... The semifinals of the New Japan Cup, with Okada beating Hiromu Takahashi and Evil over Sanada, took place on 7/3 at an empty Korakuen Hall. They did a four match show with the second hour airing live on BS Asahi at 8 p.m., billed as the first time in 34 years that New Japan returned to a live show in the company traditional (well from 1972 to 1984) time slot when the company had its most mainstream appeal. We don’t have any numbers for the show although we’re told the viewership number was considered a huge success. However, the show itself had its issues ... The Okada vs. Hiromu Takahashi match clearly had a purpose. They went 27:00, with the idea of getting Takahashi as much offense and as big a rub of hanging with Okada and having a classic match with him ... The idea was to go about 17:00 and then the show would go off the air and they would promote people to watch the remainder of the match on New Japan World, which was putting the show up live for free. So the idea was to use the first live show in recent memory to get people used to New Japan World. But that had its issues as well. With so many people signing into New Japan World, all at the same time, there was a crash in some places in Japan. We don’t know how widespread, but some were able to get on about five minutes later and saw the main event finish. Others couldn’t get on until after the match was over, leading to disappointment.

For those who follow ratings, a major story when it comes to sports in particular is that Nielsen had been planning on introducing new ratings in September that would combine home ratings with out of home viewing. The new ratings system that would measure places like restaurants, airports, gyms, bars and hotels has been delayed until January due to COVID-19 slowing up the process. Some prelim data with minor sports has shown six to seven percent increases and the belief the NFL games this fall would have shown 10 to 15 percent increases, perhaps more for prime time games and playoffs. Networks are furious because they just found out and were expecting major ratings increases for the fall season, most notably for the NFL. The problem is obvious. You can measure restaurants that have a football game on, but how do you measure viewership? Or a bar, or the airport? Do people who walk by count? Does everyone sitting there near the screen, even if paying no attention at all to the screen count? In some places like sports bars, everyone is watching the game so it should count. In other places, it’s on and few are paying attention. These ratings mean millions and even billions of dollars. For wrestling, the continuing decline was thought to be masked for one year with the change in systems, and now that delay won’t be until January.

CMLL: Julio Cesar Rivera on Informa, the CMLL weekly streaming update, said that the company was waiting to get approval from the government and the commission to start running again. He said until both groups sign off there will be no shows. He did say they plan on empty arena shows first with all the talent COVID tested. Arena Mexico has been open to tourists with temperature checks and health questionnaires. Fantasma, the head of the commission said that he did get date requests from Salvador Lutteroth, who is currently running the promotion (this is Chavo Lutteroth, obviously a request from the original Salvador Lutteroth would be a far bigger story) and he went to doctors. There’s really no answers yet. AAA: There are still no answers as to when they will start running again. AAA has an edge over CMLL in that CMLL’s big shows are at Arena Mexico, so they have to wait until Mexico City’s government and commission okay events. AAA is a touring promotion and can go to lower risk parts of the country first. But at this point there’s not even a hint of when this will be

Regarding Brian Pillman Jr., who debuted on Dark against Shawn Spears, he is under contract to MLW but there would be no issue from the MLW side if AEW wants to use him. His contract allows for that anyway whereas the newer MLW contracts are more restrictive. That said, Pillman Jr. has asked to get out of his MLW contract and was denied. MLW tentatively has dates scheduled for 10/3 and 12/5, but anything that far in advance is subject to change, and Pillman, if he doesn’t get a release, would in theory be expected to work those dates. MLW and AEW have worked out deals in the past such as with MJF, where he had signed with MLW, AEW used him since his contract allowed for it and he signed with them as well and worked MLW until the end of his agreement. Since MLW usually tapes Friday or Saturday, and AEW on Wednesday, there isn’t likely to be a date conflict.

As best we can tell, the only major wrestling company that requested a government PPP loan was Anthem Wrestling Exhibitions, LLC. On 4/5 they filed a request for a loan between $150,000 and $350,000 to retain 106 jobs

On the Tessa Blanchard situation, her [Impact Wrestling] contract expired around 6/30 (that isn’t for sure but that was the date we were told but it has expired) so she’s now a free agent. She had said that she wasn’t willing to travel and work during the pandemic. They wanted her to at least come in and drop the title on the 7/18 show. We were told that she offered a one-date price and whatever the number was, they turned it down, and then announced she was fired just days before her contract expired. Her boyfriend, Daga’s situation is unclear past he is still under contract and they don’t think her situation impacts his situation. He wants to work. The story we were told is that he was willing to work the last taping and was willing to try to get out of Mexico but he wasn’t booked and as best we can still, he’s not booked for the PPV and he’s not part of any of the current storylines