[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

New Japan Pro Wrestling was the first major company to shut down, the one that took their financial lumps as much as any other major company for doing so, and this past weekend became the first major to open up with live crowds with shows on 7/11 and 7/12 in Osaka Jo Hall. In the most unique year in pro wrestling, and life, the first two shows had a few themes. The biggest is the hope that putting nearly 4,000 fans in the building on two nights will end up being safe and they can continue to run shows before crowds. The second was the unique crowd reactions. New Japan asked the fans not to cheer or boo or make noise with their mouths, and only clap. And while there were exceptions, and some booing of Evil, the star of the weekend as far as booking, for the most part, the crowd was silent except for the constant clapping up and down the shows. From a storyline standpoint, it was the “Weekend of Evil.” Takaaki Watanabe, 33, known as Evil, defeated Kazuchika Okada in the finals of the New Japan Cup, turned on LIJ to become the top star of the Bullet Club, and then, with the help of the debuting Dick Togo, defeated Tetsuya Naito to win both the IWGP title and the IC title belts ... Besides Evil, also put over strong was the tag team of Dangerous Tekkers, Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi, who defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kota Ibushi to win the IWGP tag team titles. There was no obvious challenger team coming off the title change. Another big move was that the next major show, Sengoku Lord, on 7/25 at the Dolphins Arena in Nagoya, will feature Evil’s first title defense, against Hiromu Takahashi. This is only the second time in company history that a junior heavyweight champion will challenge for the heavyweight title, with the first being Prince Devitt in 2013 against Okada. But they were in the process of moving Devitt out of the junior heavyweight category at the time. Hopefully they don’t do that with Takahashi, because the division should be his showcase for years to come since he’s the best New Japan has had for that role since the heyday of Jushin Liger ... Some thought Evil winning the Cup and the title was just Gedo replacing Jay White, who hasn’t been brought back due to travel restrictions, with Evil. But we were told months ago that this was scheduled to be a major year for Evil, so it’s probably the existing plan. Togo, who is now 50, started his career with Gedo & Jado in the old Universal promotion in 1991, at the time known as Sato. With much of the Bullet Club overseas, Gedo gave the gimmick a renewed push, adding Evil and Togo, and giving Yujiro Takahashi a big push for a program with Okada ... Another notable thing watching the shows. Because people were spread out basically in every third seat, but all over the arena, the place actually looked full on television. The usual idea is to pack a part of the building which leaves a part empty so even a 70 percent full show people knock for not being sold out, even if the crowd is healthy. The 7/11 show drew 3,318 paid fans and $325,000, and the 7/12 show did 3,898 paid and $382,000. Minoru Suzuki was pulled from both shows this weekend due to running a fever.

From a business standpoint, while not yet announced by anyone, the return to action of Bellator on 7/24 indicates a story that has been talked about heavily behind the scenes. Bellator is not advertising the show for DAZN and those in the promotion noted that the show is not scheduled at the time for DAZN. The belief within the industry has been that DAZN, with its heavy money problems, will be dropping Bellator when it is contractually able. This would make the first of these pie-in-the-sky deals with combat sports streaming to fall through, although the feeling is DAZN may also have to cut back on money earmarked for boxing. DAZN has added MLW, but that’s at a far lower price point. Some of this would be related to losses and also to issues with the pandemic ending live sports for the last several months, which DAZN’s subscription model is based on.

Between the stuff with DAZN and FOX recently dropped a lot of sports-related programming and PGA deal, could be seeing the start of serious cracks in the sports tv bubble. That could become a very worrying thing for WWE and AEW in a few years if things continue. A few years ago ESPN started cutting back on their own mega sports tv deals but that was more of Disney demanding ESPN to haul in their reckless spending and less due to ratings or ad money issues.

The fine system implemented by WWE for not wearing masks came from a conversation Kevin Owens had with Vince McMahon on 7/3 where he told McMahon he wasn’t comfortable returning under what were the current conditions. As has been noted, Owens’ wife’s grandfather passed away several weeks ago due to COVID-19 and his wife wasn’t comfortable with him returning after the recent outbreak which resulted in between 30 and 40 COVID positives and affected both the roster talent, the extra as fans, and backstage personnel. Patric Laprade, the author of the recently released Andre the Giant biography, who does French play-by-play for Raw, noted during his Les anti-pods de la Lutte podcast that the fine system in place came from Owens returning to work, noting to McMahon that he wasn’t comfortable with the extras serving as fans and a number of people backstage not wearing masks and of people being too close to each other. He was indicating he would leave but McMahon and him spoke on the subject. McMahon asked Owens what he thought he should do about it. This was after WWE had reversed its position of masks in the crowd, and it was made clear they expected talent to be masked but a few, the vast minority, probably about ten percent or so, ignored the doctrine. Owens told McMahon that he was the only person the talent in the crowd would listen to, not an agent, not doctors. McMahon brought up the idea of fining people if they didn’t wear masks but told Owens that he didn’t think it would serve as a deterrent. Owens said he thought it would. He noted that he was once fined for swearing on Smackdown, and after being fined, never did it again, noting when you are fined you remember not to do it again. McMahon also asked how much should be the fines and Owens said it should be enough that they get the message, but not so much that they can’t afford it.

Raw on 7/13 opened up with scary low numbers, and each hour followed with the record low numbers, but the good news is the 18-49 number didn’t drop nearly as badly. The show did 1,561,000 viewers and 0.48 in 18-49. The previous record lows, set of 5/4, were 1,682,000 viewers and 0.46 in 18-49, so the 18-49 number was the second lowest in history, and this was for the go-home show for the Horror Show at Extreme Rules PPV. Raw was 28th overall on cable for the night, and fourth in 18-49. It was fifth in total viewers among non-news shows. It was the highest ranked show on cable in Males 12-17, 18-34 and 18-49. The show was down 7.4 percent in total viewers from last week, which was previously the second lowest viewer number in modern history. The demo was down 2.0 percent from last week, which was the second lowest demo number also behind 5/4. The drops from last week causing the record low were under 18 and above 50 for the most part. The good news is that there was very little audience drop. The bad news is that there was little interest going into the show even with the tag of it being “The Night of Grudge Matches” and pushing a Bayley & Sasha Banks tag title defense against Asuka & Kairi Sane all week ... As compared to the same week last year, Raw was down 36.4 percent in viewers and 40.0 percent in 18-49. n me w The first hour did 1,580,000 viewers. The second hour grew to 1,599,000 viewers and the third hour did 1,504,000 viewers. The previous least-watched hour in Raw history was 1,546,000 for hour three on 5/4. As far as first-to-third hour drops, they were barely there which is very different from usual. Basically this indicated that they were down to the hardcores that will watch most of the show, and with a lot tuning in late, they stayed for the finish, aside from teenagers. In women 18-49, it actually drew 6.3 percent. Men 18-49 dropped 6.1 percent. Teenage girls dropped 11.3 percent. Teenage boys dropped 16.8 percent. Over 50 dropped 4.1 percent from the first to third hour, a figure almost unheard of low for that demo. The show did a 0.22 in 12-17 (down 18.5 percent), 0.29 in 18-34 (down 6.5 percent), 0.67 in 35-49 (same as last week) and 0.74 in 50+ (down 10.8 percent). It should be noted that in 18-34, Raw was down 52.5 percent from last year, where it did a 0.61.

Smackdown on 7/10 did a 1.25 rating, 1,892,0000 viewers (1.25 viewers per home, which may be an all-time record low for the show) and an 0.5 (607,000 viewers) in 18-49. The key is it grew 9.6 percent in ratings, 6.5 percent in viewers and17.6 percent in 18-49 from the record lows set the prior week. It shows two things. As expected, last week’s number was a fluke because of it being a holiday weekend. But it also shows that the regular number for the show is still low, and this show had advertised a television airing of a former PPV Universal title match with Braun Strowman vs. Bray Wyatt. Granted, it was a nothing match, but it was still a PPV major title match that builds a main event on the upcoming show. Smackdown finished first in 18-49, but it was also the only first-run show on network television. . ABC and NBC reruns all did 0.4s. In 18-34, it did a 0.2, the same as every rerun show on ABC and NBC and in theory, based on history, Smackdown should dominate in that age group even against first run programming, let alone against reruns. In 25-54, it was second to a Dateline repeat. As far as total viewers, it was the least watched, losing to all reruns, the worst of which did 2,524,000 viewers. The median viewer age of the show was 56.1, which basically means of the viewers, 50 percent were above that age and 50 percent were below that age. Last year’s FOX’s reruns on the same Friday averaged 1,457,000 viewers and an 0.3 in 18-49, so it was up 30.4 percent in viewers and 66.7 percent in 18-49. The Miz TV segment with Miz, John Morrison and Jeff Hardy, -plus Miz vs. Hardy, did 2.00 million viewers. Bayley & Sasha Banks vs. Nikki Cross & Alexa Bliss did 1.86 million viewers. The Strowman vs. Wyatt PPV match and the karaoke deal did 1.95 million. The Naomi vs. Lacey Evans match and New Day vs. Shinsuke Nakamura & Cesaro match did 1.81 million.

The most competitive Wednesday night of the year, with AEW and NXT both having competition from UFC and NASCAR, took place on 7/15. As expected, NASCAR won handily. The expectation is that AEW would be hurt worse than NXT by the competition, since the AEW audience skews younger, but that wasn’t the case. It also should be noted that starting in two weeks, with the NBA on Wednesdays, the competition will be tougher. ESPN will be airing Wednesday night doubleheaders games starting on 8/5 to where both the end of the first game and beginning of the second game will go head-to-head with wrestling. ESPN will also have Monday night games going against Raw and TNT will have Friday night games going against Smackdown. There will be some Major League Baseball competition as well, which varies by the week. AEW did 788,000 viewers and a 0.29 (380,000 viewers) in 18-49, for Fight for the Fallen. It was the company’s best number since 5/27. NXT did 631,000 viewers and 0.14 (186,000 viewers) in 18-49, the company’s worst numbers since 5/20 and the second lowest 18-49 number in the history of the show, doing just under half of what AEW did, largely because of terrible numbers with males under the age of 35. The NASCAR All-Star Race at 8:30 p.m. did 2,076,000 viewers and 0.35 in 18-49. The NASCAR All-Star Open at 7 p.m. did 1,516,000 viewers and 0.26 in 18-49. The UFC main show headlined by Calvin Kattar’s win over Dan Ige at 10 p.m., or after AEW and NXT ended, did 536,000 viewers and 0.22 in 18-49, which are the lowest numbers ever on ESPN for a prime time main card show, and probably ever. Running 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. on a Wednesday was not going to do well. The UFC prelims, airing from 7-10 p.m., head-to-head with AEW and NXT, did 434,000 viewers and 0.17 in 18-49, by far UFC’s lowest numbers ever in prime time. With a huge show the prior Saturday and another show the next Saturday, and almost every Saturday, a large percentage of the UFC fan base decided to skip this show. In the 18-49 rankings, the NASCAR race was No. 3, AEW was No. 5, UFC main card was No. 16, UFC prelims were No. 37 and NXT was No. 49 ... AEW was up 10.2 percent in total viewers and 4.4 percent in 18-49 from last week. NXT was down 16.9 percent in total viewers and down 29.0 percent in 18-49. The key to the numbers was AEW doing strongly in males 35-49, and NXT doing disastrous in Men 18-34. AEW won every key demo but women 35-49 was surprisingly close considering the overall disparity in the other three key demos. AEW did 70,000 in men 18-34 (down 21.3 percent from last week). NXT did 6,000 in men 18-34, which is not a misprint (down 87.2 percent from last week). NASCAR and UFC were both strong in those demos. AEW did 52,000 in women 18-34 (up 23.8 percent) while NXT did 29,000 (down 12.1 percent). AEW did 191,000 in males 35-49 (up 17.9 percent) while NXT did 86,000 (down 27.1 percent). Those were also strong for NASCAR and UFC. AEW did 67,000 in women 35-49 (down 5.6 percent) and NXT did 65,000 (up 1.6 percent). In the main event segment, AEW with Jon Moxley vs. Brian Cage for the AEW title drew the largest numbers of the night for either show, with 844,000 viewers and 407,000 in 18-49. NXT, with Io Shirai vs. Tegan Nox for the women’s title, did 652,000 viewers and 186,000 in 18-49, so AEW more than doubled NXT in the main demo in the final segment. The show opened with AEW has 826,000 viewers and 374,000 in 18-49 for Cody vs. Sonny Kiss. NXT had 693,000 viewers and 208,000 in 18-49 for a Keith Lee promo with Dominik Dijakovic to set up their title match, which was the highest viewership and 18-49 numbers for NXT of the night. Quarter two saw AEW lost 38,000 viewers and gain 6,000 in 18-49 for Pentagon Jr. & Fenix vs. FTR. AEW lost 73,000 viewers and 33,000 in 18-49 for Cameron Grimes vs. Damien Priest. Quarter three saw AEW lost 22,000 viewers and 8,000 in 18-49 for the ending of Pentagon Jr.& Fenix vs. FTR and the post-match stuff with the Young Bucks & Kenny Omega and Butcher & Blade involved. NXT gained 5,000 viewers and 21,000 in 18-49 for a Timothy Thatcher vignette and Shotzi Blackheart vs. Indi Hartwell. Quarter four saw AEW lost 1,000 viewers but gain 4,000 in 18-49 for the Chris Jericho interview with the Inner Circle and Orange Cassidy angle. NXT lost 23,000 viewers and 4,000 in 18-49 for a Tegan Nox interview and the beginning of Lee vs. Dijakovic for both titles. Quarter five saw AEW gained 26,000 viewers and 2,000 in 18-49 for Young Bucks & Kenny Omega vs. Jurassic Express. NXT gained 6,000 viewers and lost 13,000 in 18-49 for Lee vs. Dijakovic. The totals for this battle were 791,000 for AEW overall and 378,000 in 18-49 and 608,000 viewers and 179,000 in 18-49 for NXT. Quarter six saw AEW lost 48,000 viewers but only 5,000 in 18-49 for a Hikaru Shida interview, a Jon Moxley interview and Allie & Brandi Rhodes vs. MJ Jenkins & Kenzie Paige. NXT gained 33,000 viewers but stayed even in 18-49 for a Dijakovic angle with Karrion Kross and Thatcher vs. Denzel Dejournette. Quarter seven saw AEW gain 37,000 viewers and 7,000 in18-49 for the Nyla Rose interview introducing Vickie Guerrero and the beginning of Moxley vs. Brian Cage. NXT lot 31,000 viewers and 4,000 in 18-49 for a Robert Stone brand vignette with Killian Dain and the first part of Shirai vs. Nox. Quarter eight saw AEW gained 64,000 viewers and 27,000 in 18-49 for Moxley vs. Cage. NXT gained 42,000 viewers and 11,000 in 18-49 for Shirai vs. Nox.

The massive advantage NXT had with lead-in programming pretty much has evaporated these past couple weeks since they are no longer are starting with huge leads and also are losing those lead-in viewers a lot quicker. Also the first time in weeks that AEW beat out NXT for the main event which took away another of NXT's big advantages.

As expected, the first week of Fyter Fest vs. Great American Bash with DVR numbers saw AEW surpass NXT by day three in total viewers, up 925,000 to 911,000, and since the DVR numbers are fairly predictable, the gap almost certainly widened after day three. It’s a virtual lock the same will be the case for the second week. AEW virtually always has a 100,000 edge in DVR numbers, sometimes more by day seven. People will point to WWE Network but U.S. viewership for NXT is never at that level, plus USA never advertises NXT on WWE Network while the TNT App, a free service in multiple times more homes, airs AEW earlier than WWE Network airs NXT. TNT also advertises AEW on the TNT Drama app constantly. There have been two weeks since the start, 6/24 and 12/18, where including DVR viewership that NXT has had more viewers. There has been one week, 12/18, with DVR viewership, that NXT has won in 18-49. In 18-49, we do have the +7 numbers for the first week of Fyter Fest vs. Bash. In that demo, AEW was up 35.7 percent, normal levels for the show during the pandemic (372,000 to 505,000) while NXT was up 34.5 percent, way up from usual (284,000 to 372,000)

This is a two PPV weekend, with WWE’s Extreme Rules, now known as The Horror Show at Extreme Rules on 7/19, preceded the night before by Impact’s Slammiversary. At press time there are seven matches listed for Extreme Rules, three of which appear like they will be taped in advance. The theme matches are Braun Strowman vs. Bray Wyatt in a Swamp match, to be done on location, Seth Rollins vs. Rey Mysterio in an eye-for-an-eye match and Jeff Hardy vs. Sheamus in a bar fight.

AAA: While none of this means much of anything today, the hope is to have a major TripleMania show in October outdoors in Monterrey, at the baseball stadium, the place where they held TripleMania Regia on 12/1. But it’s unknown when they’d be able to get Kenny Omega back in to defend his AAA world title

Will Ospreay revealed that a few weeks ago he battled suicidal thoughts. Ospreay has been very open in recent years about his battles with depression and when he did a show in San Francisco last year talked about it in front of the fans in a post-match interview. “Few weeks ago, I came very close to something I know I’d regret. I’m still dragging my feet but I’m getting better. I’m still smiling, barely but a smile nonetheless. Suicide isn’t an option even when you feel like you’ve dropped the world, learning and pushing forward to be better is an option. Thank you to the people that have ever made me smile or laugh and been there to pick me up. Because of you my heart still beats. I love you all.

Kyoko Kimura filed a complaint with the Broadcast Ethics & Program Improvement Organization on 7/15 regarding the death of her daughter. It also came out that a third anonymous member of the staff of Terrace House said that Hana Kimura once had to shoot a scene for the show while in a state of shock and hyperventilating. Kimura submitted documents saying the reality show was edited to show her daughter being a violent woman. She also claimed them having her shoot the scene while hyperventilating violated her daughter’s personal and human rights. She also claimed that her daughter followed instructions from the staff on how to act on camera led by vicious cyberbullying. Kai Kobayashi, her short-term love interest on the show who she knocked the hat off his head, said he was mad at the show because one of the staff members told him to grab her boobs while on a date because the date wasn’t interesting enough

Vickie Guerrero is now managing Nyla Rose. The most noteworthy thing is WWE didn’t trademark her “Excuse Me” phrase and she can use it. So here’s the deal. Guerrero was great in WWE as an annoying heel. People know her and now that she’s older she’s got the Georgia Hase (legendary Roller Games heel) vibe going or her. So she’ll probably be real good, but obviously it has to play out. WWE hates managers for the most part which is a negative attitude. But they are going so manager crazy here, especially since they are all names from the past and I still think it’s best to be different from WWE and not use too many ex-WWE talents because you don’t want the idea that so many companies have tried and failed with of loading up on ex-WWE people with the idea they’re the ones who have had TV time and are known, because that has never worked. A few is fine, but it should only be a few rather than be a company that people look at as some of my old favorites that WWE has no use for anymore

Lesnar is not scheduled for this year’s SummerSlam show. One of the reasons he put over McIntyre so strongly was because he was not coming back any time soon. Heyman has not been brought to television since he was let go as head of Raw creative. Most signs point to McIntyre vs. Orton as the SummerSlam main event

The one thing is that a lot of people say and do a lot of things and people forget in time. This being the one year anniversary of Fight for the Fallen, if you recall, WWE Network put on an Evolve show head-to-head. Granted, WWE had talked for years about putting indie shows on the network and has the rights to a number of libraries that it has done nothing with. There were the complaints of WWE counter booking, which is fine, although it also was a charity show. But WWE portrayed the timing as a coincidence, but any study of WWE history would tell you it wasn’t, since in the 80s they did the same thing and also claimed these arenas and dates were booked a year plus ahead and it was a coincidence. But the Evolve show got almost all positive responses, and did well in viewership, and here we are a year later, and WWE never did another show like it again.

Just like with their other partners or affiliates, WWE pretty much never really cared about EVOLVE but had zero shame in using them as a weapon against AEW and letting them take some of the heat for WWE's decision to counter a charity show.

The most-watched shows on the WWE Network for the past week: 1. The Best of Women’s Evolution; 2. WWE Chronicle: Jeff Hardy; 3. NXT from 7/8; 4. Backlash 2020; 5. Every Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar match; 6. Raw Talk; 7. Royal Rumble 2020

2nd week in a row where NXT ranked very well in the Top 10 after having a long stretch of them struggling to rank well.