[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer There were slices of good news, but it was mostly very bad news when it came to Raw's ratings last night. Raw averaged 1.56 million viewers over the three hours, the lowest in modern history. In 18-49, the show averaged a 0.48, which would be the second lowest in the entire history of the show. The previous record audience low was May 4 which did 1.68 million viewers and a 0.46 rating in the 18-49 demo. The positives are the audience skewed younger, as the demo number was only down two percent from last week while viewers overall were down seven percent from last week's show which was the second lowest audience and demo of all-time. The other positive and negative relates to audience drop. Like last week, the second hour beat the first hour, and the first hour-to-third hour audience drop was only five percent, one of the lowest figures of the last year. The problem was that the audience at the start was the lowest ever, and that all three hours set record lows for those hours. The 1.50 million viewers for hour three broke the all-time low hour mark of 1.55 million for the third hour on May 4. Raw was fourth overall in 18-49 behind 90 Day Fiance, Below Deck Mediterranean and 90 Day Other Way. It was first in males 18-49 and males 12-17. Overall, Raw was 28th overall for the night, and fifth among non-news shows. It was down 36 percent from the same week last year in total viewers and 40 percent down in 18-49. Virtually all the second-to-third hour drop was over 50, hence the demo not declining as much as the overall. The three-hours were: 8 p.m. 1.58 million viewers 9 p.m. 1.60 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.50 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer The latest service preparing to enter the streaming wars Wednesday will feature WWE programming. In a Tuesday story on Variety, NBCUniversal's Peacock service announced a total of 20,000 hours for premium subscribers with 100 of those hours being WWE content available in August. While they didn't list everything that will make up that 100 hours, series like WWE Untold, Steve Austin's Broken Skull Sessions, and compilations like John Cena's Best WrestleMania Matches were given as examples. Recent editions of WWE Raw will not be part of the premium service ... Similar to the WWE Network, Peacock will also have a free tier, but there was no WWE programming listed. The service will be available everywhere consumers get their traditional streaming services with the exception of Roku or Amazon Fire TV.

Originally Posted by Observer Tony Khan spoke to the New York Post about Jimmy Havoc and Sammy Guevara’s suspensions: “I suspended them both. Very different situations. I just needed to address both. We are addressing both. I think Jimmy really needed the counseling. If and when he were to wrestle again, the most important thing for himself and everybody here is that he sought treatment and counseling. When he asked for that help, we’re gonna help him. With Sammy, I think the right thing to do was to suspend him. The comments he made were horrible. I can’t defend them. I can’t even comment on them because they’re unspeakably bad. He has also done a different kind of counseling and he’s in a different kind of counseling and it’s a different kind of coaching. Everybody here, male and female pretty much up and down the roster we talked to felt like Sammy had no history of this kind of behavior. Really people were shocked Sammy had said that. Certainly, it’s an old clip. I think the video was four years old. I had never seen that video and it’s something I would have addressed with him before Sammy started here. I never had an opportunity to address it because I didn’t know it existed and neither did anybody else or if they did nobody told us. For both of them, we really needed to address the situation before talking about what to do in the future afterward. I didn’t want to rush into making a decision on either person, so it felt like until I had all the facts suspending was the right thing to do. Then I could make whatever the right decision is. I knew the right decision wasn’t for those guys to just come to TV and not address this stuff.” Khan also discussed PAC’s status: “I really miss PAC a lot. Right now the border is not a great situation. As I understand it, if he were to go back to England, if he were to come here and he was able to get in, do a quarantine after travel then he would also, when he tried to go home, he’d be in a two-week quarantine before he could do anything. So it just doesn’t seem like a sustainable situation right now because PAC lives in England, so until travel is sustainable and he could do what he used to do, which is come here and stay and do a few shows and then go back to England and really commute across the Atlantic, it’s very challenging right now. Until it becomes safe to travel back and forth for PAC to make those trips internationally, until the border is really ready, I don’t think we can rush him back even though we’d love to have him.”

Originally Posted by Observer While speaking with TalkSport, Cody addressed a report that said CM Punk asked for an “astronomical amount” of money when he negotiated with AEW: “As far as the CM Punk negotiations go, everyone heard the famous ‘he got a text from us.’ Yeah, of course there were negotiations and he did ask for a great amount of money and Punk is worth a great deal of money. But you also have to -- and this isn’t speaking to Punk specifically, this is speaking to recruitment and what we’ve learned in wrestling in general -- a lot of people think ‘these wrestlers are running this wrestling company.’ These wrestlers are doing everything they can to run the creative, the brand and the marketing and things, but there are some very smart and fiscally conservative people who surround us and flank us because this isn’t my money. At all. And I don’t want a situation that happened with WCW or Jim Crockett Promotions where we think we’re flying so high that we can do anything. No -- this is a business. And we have to turn a profit. The fact we were able to turn a profit as a company within only two years of being alive, very few other companies within wrestling -- it’s real limited, you can count on one hand who’s been able to do that versus who has bled money -- but in that situation the negotiations, I don’t think they ever got too serious. Doesn’t mean they won’t one day, but they never got entirely too serious. I think there is a good relationship there. I think I have a good relationship with Phil, I believe Tony does too and I’m not sure really when it comes to him, it’s not so much about the money. It’s about are you interested in doing this? Because the price tag becomes a lot more justifiable if you’re genuinely interested in what we’re doing at the high speed we’re doing it. And again, that’s not even specific to him, just in general, if the passion is not there, the money is not there.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Tetsuya Naito is releasing an autobiography on August 19th, 2020. In the book, Naito covers the start of Los Ingobernables de Japon, the New Japan Cup, becoming the IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental Champion and the ambition he had to become double champion.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The 2010 WWE Money In The Bank pay-per-view was the focus of the latest ARN podcast. Conrad brought up how during this time period, Vince McMahon didn’t want his talents using chops because it would cause the crowd to “woo”, which is a signature of Ric Flair who was with TNA Wrestling at the time. “Well, to this day, people are woo’ing, and they’re woo’ing on TV shows that doesn’t even warrant a woo or have anything to do with wrestling, you know? It’s just one of those things that stuck. Chops have always been part of the business and just to suddenly, when so many guys use them — okay, it’s a tribute to Flair, okay. But if it’s part of a guy’s offense, I mean how do you take that away from him because they pop for a guy that works for a different company or may not work for any company? It’s just real discombobulated to me,” Arn Anderson said.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Conrad Thompson got Eric Bischoff and Tony Khan together for an hour-plus conversation that’s up on the All Elite Wrestling YouTube channel. Bischoff shared that while he was in WWE, he and fellow members of the writing team would watch AEW and NXT side-by-side. “One of the things that I think has distinguished your show from anybody else’s, even when I was in WWE last year when you guys debuted, I sat and watched both shows side-by-side. NXT and AEW and clearly I was working in WWE at the time and I was actually watching it in a writer’s conference room with a bunch of other writers and one of the first things I noticed was that you’re handling your production so much better. When I watch your show, even under COVID — that was pre-COVID obviously but even under COVID, the way you’re shooting your show, it’s tighter, your shots tend to be tighter, you embrace your venue as opposed to trying to camouflage it quite as much. It feels — and I said this like the next day. Somebody, somebody! If you can imagine, said, ‘What did you think?’ I told him what I thought. Your show feels more like live TV to me because it has that grit — don’t take this the wrong way, please. I mean this is as a compliment, but your show feels gritty enough to convince me it’s live, and you don’t strive to be so perfect that you lose that sense of live energy.” Following that conversation while discussing TV deals, Tony Khan revealed that initially, TNT executives were interested in WWE’s TV rights in 2018.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Former NWA World Heavyweight Champion Raven was a guest on The Lewis Nicholls Show. Back in February, Raven appeared on an episode of AEW Dynamite in Atlanta. During the interview, Raven explained his cameo appearance on the show and stated that he would’ve liked to work with AEW in a larger role. “I live in Atlanta. That’s where the show was and I came by to say hi to a bunch of people and so they asked me if I would be a red herring for a cameo, you know? Sure. A, I don’t mind but B, what am I gonna say no? That’s just disrespectful. Plus, if it helped them out, it was fine. But I would’ve liked to work with them some more but, they… they basically have what they need as far as where my skills are utilized best, you know? Like in creative, they have their creative. They have a system and it works for them so, that’s great.”

Originally Posted by WhatCulture According to Fightful, Matt Riddle botched his debut on SmackDown. The 19 June episode was set-up to coronate AJ Styles as new Intercontinental Champion before the incoming Riddle interrupted him. During the pre-taped segment, WWE wanted to make sure that certain things happened. After Styles was "very funny" and bantered with Daniel Bryan about strapping the IC belt around his waist for him, John Laurinaitis crashed the scene via the Performance Center's PA system and repositioned everybody in-ring for Riddle's entrance. Apparently, it was vitally important that the ex-NXT man could be seen clearly by the hard cam. WWE wanted to make sure that everyone at home could see "he wasn't wearing shoes". Fightful also reported that AJ, Riddle and host Renee Young had lines written down in front of them on the table. At one stage, Riddle accidentally read one of the lines meant for Styles, recognised his mistake and stopped the filming with a quick, "My bad, bro". That cracked everyone up, with the possible exception of Laurinaitis. The WWE trainees in the "live crowd" all laughed because they're said to know Riddle's personality better than some on the main roster.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE Network News reports that next Sunday, July 19 there will be content added to the "Undertaker: The Last Ride" section entitled "Tales from the Deadman." Not much is known about the special as of now, but one can assume that it will feature outtakes and bonus content from the critically acclaimed documentary series.

Originally Posted by Observer UFC has from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Wednesday night on ESPN and ESPN+. The prelims go head-to-head with AEW and NXT. Dan Ige vs. Calvin Kattar is the main event and the full show is covered in the current issue. Tim Elliott vs. Ryan Benoit and Jimmie Rivera vs. Cody Stamann, Molly McCann vs. Talita Santos, Abdul Razak Alhassan vs. Mournir Lazzez and John Phillips vs. Khamzat Chimaev are the top bouts. The main card starts at 10 p.m. Eastern. It being on ESPN means it will hurt the wrestling shows even more, because last time they ran on a Wednesday it made a big difference, particularly to AEW. But since it's only the prelims, it could be worse. Last time it went had-to-head it was an ESPN+ show only, which means really the hardcore UFC fans saw it but the casual fans didn't. There's also a big NASCAR race on FS1.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling In Canada this Wednesday, AEW will air on TSN2 at 8 pm Eastern while TSN5 will carry the UFC card beginning at 8 pm followed by a post-show at 12:30 am.

Originally Posted by Observer PWInsider reported Tammy Sytch was arrested again at 4:42 p.m. for operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license, eluding a police officer, and violation/contempt of a domestic violence restraining. She is being held at the Monmouth County Correctional Institution. Sytch was let out on parole in Carbon County, PA for DUI related arrests earlier this year and had been reportedly doing well with a high priced photo subscription service.

TPWW Frontpage:

• DDP Says That He and QT Marshall Have COVID-19
• WWE: Kevin Owens Influenced New Mask Policy, Best of Women’s Evolution, Updated SD Ratings
• WWE: The Miz “Cannonball” Ratings, R-Truth Game Show Debuts
• Charlotte Flair Explains Why She’s Taking Time Off From WWE