[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Raw last night did the second lowest audience in the modern history of the show and tied the May 4 episode for the lowest ever in 18-49. Overall, this could be considered the most sobering number in show history. The show averaged 1.63 million viewers and a 0.46 rating in 18-49. Total viewers were up four percent from last week's record low viewer number, and 18-49 was down four percent. Really it was a far worse number given it came a day after a pay-per-view that was designed for curiosity and to build Raw more than usual. It was also heavily built around the Randy Orton vs. Big Show unsanctioned match that had been promoted for weeks. The third hour, with Orton vs. Big Show, did a 0.42 in 18-49, the lowest rated hour in 18-49 in the show's history. In theory, next week's show with two title matches should do better, but that's a hot shot and even if it helps slightly, the pattern long-term is not good ... Still, television is changing. Raw was in 21st place overall, fourth among non-news shows. The only shows that beat Raw besides news shows in overall viewers were three episodes of 90 Day Fiance on TLC. The only shows that beat Raw in 18-49 were two of those episodes and Below Deck Mediterranean on Bravo, while the third 90 Day Fiance tied Raw for fourth place in the key demo. Raw had a stronger first hour audience based on PPV curiosity, likely related to the interest level in the Rey Mysterio match. Once that was covered, the audience first-to-third hour decline was 12 percent, a normal level figure, but higher than in recent weeks ... A comparison with last year this week is misleading. Last year's Raw this week was the Raw Reunion show with Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels advertised as all appearing. Raw was down 47 percent in viewers, 60 percent in 18-49 and 76 percent in 18-34 from that show. The three hours were: 8 p.m. 1.74 million viewers 9 p.m. 1.61 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.54 million viewers

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling There were three demographics that took a major hit this week. Adults 18-34 fell by 31% followed by females 12-34 dropping by 30%, and males 12-34 down by 25%. The rest of the demos lost between 3-7%, except adults over 50 that improved by 8% this week. There were enormous losses in the third hour despite the heavy promotion of both Orton vs. Show, and the Bayley vs Kairi Sane matches. In the third hour, adults 18-34 fell by 31% compared to the first hour, females 12-34 dropped by 28%, and males 12-34 were down by 27.5% in the closing hour. The audience that stuck around for the whole show were adults over 50, which only dropped by 2.5% in the third hour. Every other group had double-digit declines in the closing hour. Thus far, the strategy of putting big matches on television with a week of promotion has not produced results. This past Friday, SmackDown did 1,912,000 viewers for a show featuring AJ Styles vs. Matt Riddle for the Intercontinental title. It was up 12,000 viewers from the previous week but still ranks as the fourth-lowest episode of the series on Fox.

Originally Posted by PWI During yesterday's Ring of Honor Week to Week, Brody King cut a promo that made it clear he had broken off from Villain Enterprises without mentioning the name or even Marty Scurrl, so that's his direction going forward.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Recently on social media, a great deal of wrestling fans showed support for former two-time SmackDown Women’s Champion Naomi by creating the hashtag #NaomiDeservesBetter. This hashtag drew responses from the likes of Keke Palmer and celebrities alike who were made aware of Naomi and her work in WWE. During the Extreme Rules post-show episode of Booker T’s ‘Hall Of Fame’ podcast, he spoke about the recent support on social media for Naomi and explained why he is not a fan of the hashtag that was created in support of her. “That Naomi deserves a chance… they can go to hell with all these hashtags as far as I’m concerned, but I’m tired of hearing about ‘em. Don’t nobody deserve a chance, alright? First and foremost, you gotta earn your chance, your spot on the roster. This is not some kind of movement just to pull somebody up just because and I hate to sit here and say this, to even talk this way because I like Naomi. But, as far as the business goes, you get it on your merit alone. That’s it. It’s no buddy systems and I know somebody’s gonna hear me and go, ‘Well such and such got a buddy and that’s why they’re doing it.’ Yeah that may be true, but life is not fair. Sometimes, you gotta make your own breaks. Sometimes you gotta go out there and rise to the occasion when no one else thought you could and the thing is, it may not happen overnight. It’s a consistency thing that goes with that. No one expected me, including myself, to become a six-time world champion, but my persistence as far as going out to the middle of that ring and performing better than all those suckers in the locker room and the suckers in the locker room, they knew it, and the fans, they saw something different and the signs were there for Booker T on a nightly basis. That’s why I say the hashtag Naomi Deserves A Chance, whatever deserves better, I just don’t think that will serve her any purpose. People advocating for her in that way. The way that needs to be put out there from a advocating perspective is her advocating for herself when she goes out to the ring and performs on a high level and the world sees it and that right there, when you do that Naomi, you can not be denied. No one will ever say someone gave you anything and if it happened right now, tomorrow, someone blessed Naomi with the world championship, trust me, it would not feel like she did it on her own. It would have to be a movement for something like that to happen. I would’ve never wanted the world title if it was given to me that way. Me personally I wouldn’t have and Naomi, I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a thousand times. Naomi is perhaps more athletic than every female in that locker room and perhaps 99 percent of females in this business. But psychology and working is two different things, and I just hope and wish that I had my hands on her for one month. Naomi would look at this business a totally different way, and that’s just my thoughts on that.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Conrad Thompson and Eric Bischoff broke down Bischoff’s return to WWE in 2019 on the latest installment of 83 Weeks. Towards the end of their three-hour discussion, Bischoff was asked if he thinks WWE Chairman Vince McMahon is “out of touch” and Bischoff says it’s easy to say McMahon has lost touch if one does not understand the complexity of his job title. “They’ve spent 20 years developing the product and the platform they have that appeals to advertisers. It’s taken them 20 years to get there, or more, and now that they have it, they have to treat it with respect and they have to treat it very carefully and there are things I’m sure the WWE would love to do creatively that they just can’t because they know the blow back they’ll get from advertisers. It’s a little bit like producing an action movie for Disney. You gotta be really careful how you do that. That’s probably the best analogy I can give, and does that mean that he’s out of touch or does that mean he’s catering his business to his customer? The real customer, being the advertiser, because without the advertiser, there are no viewers folks. I know the viewers like to think they’re the most important thing in the world and in some respects they are, because it’s a direct connection to the advertising opportunity, but if the advertising community says, ‘Aht, Aht. I know there’s a lot of people watching your show, but we just can’t have our product associated with it,’ you’re dead. You’re done, and guess what? All those viewers who were so important, aren’t gonna be watching the product because they can’t live without advertising. So it’s easy to say so and so is out of touch, if you don’t understand the complexity of the business as a whole and just how significant those broadcast rights are and those broadcast rights will not exist without a really, really solid relationship and a confidence level amongst advertisers.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling IMPACT Knockouts Champion Deonna Purrazzo joined Bully Ray and David LaGreca on Busted Open Radio. Purrazzo discussed her transition from NXT to IMPACT Wrestling and why she feels that the current version of her on-screen persona was never spotlighted in NXT. “I think the Deonna that you saw and the world saw at Ring of Honor and NXT [Deonna meant IMPACT] is truly who I am… The person that I’ve been able to put on-screen is the person I believe in, is the truest form of me, elevated, and at NXT, it was very much a runaround of like, ‘You need a character.’ ‘Okay, well that’s too much character. You have to be the real you, but the real you isn’t believable’ and I had just gotten to a point of there’s nothing I can do right and now I feel defeated in me, and coming here and just being like, ‘Screw what everyone else has said. Screw the connotations that came with me, screw the opinions and screw the negativity that I’ve been through. I’m going to bring out the person that loved professional wrestling, that wanted to be a professional wrestler since I was nine-years old and I’m gonna make that girl proud.’ I don’t care that WWE fired me or didn’t want me or didn’t think I was good enough. I think I’m good enough, and if IMPACT believes I’m good enough, if Ring of Honor believes I’m good enough, if Japan thought I was good enough, I’m good enough, and I just needed to get back to believing in me and believing in the little girl that’s wanted to be a champion her entire life.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling All Elite Wrestling ring announcer/backstage interviewer Dasha Kuret qualified for the regional finals of NBC’s ‘The Titan Games’

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling FOX Sports 1 will continue to air WWE content on their Tuesday night block, as noted in a statement that was issued to POST Wrestling. Tonight, FS1 is airing the 2016 SummerSlam pay-per-view and it was noted in the statement that it will not be their final airing of WWE content in the Tuesday night time slot. They’ll continue to have WWE content in that same slot through at least August 11th. “Tonight’s airing of SummerSlam will not be FS1’s final airing of a WWE in the Tuesday night timeslot, we will continue to have WWE content on FS1’s Tuesday nights through at least Tuesday, August 11”. Prior to WWE Backstage being cancelled, retro pay-per-view events would be the lead-in or the follow-up to the weekly one-hour show. Major League Baseball is returning to FS1 for the start of their 2020 season but their Tuesday slate of games do not kick in until July 28th, with the first game starting at 6:05 PM EST between the Yankees and the Phillies.

PWI initially reported that this week would be the final week for WWE programming on FS1 due to the return of MLB games.

Originally Posted by Fightful Stu Bennett doesn’t foresee the NWA coming back anytime soon. Bennett, the former Wade Barrett, recently has been working as a broadcaster for the NWA, but the promotion is currently not running shows due to the ongoing pandemic. In an interview with Chris Van Vliet, Bennett spoke on the future of the NWA and said he believes there won’t be any shows for the remainder of the year, saying it’s not the smartest idea to run events while there are spikes in positive COVID-19 cases and states still not opening up. “I think we were slowly getting closer to it. I was hearing rumors of kind of looking at October for something if things continue doing well and then suddenly the U.S. had this giant spike. I will be amazed, and this is not coming from someone in management, I would be amazed if NWA puts on a show at any point for the rest of the year just based on how all this stuff is spiking. I don’t think it’s going to be safe for anyone to put on a show and have a crowd out there. Don’t take my word for it. It’s Billy Corgan’s decision, but I would be surprised if something came out in 2020. Of course, I’m hearing rumors that a vaccine is getting closer and fingers crossed that we can get vaccines and things get back to normal as soon as possible. Until that happens, let’s face it, this thing isn’t going to get resolved. This virus is just going to continue spiking,” Bennett said. The NWA has also been subject to rumors of it either closing down or being on sale. Corgan, the current NWA President, recently shot down those rumors. The company cut ties with Vice President David Lagana after he was accused of sexual assault and reportedly offered releases to anyone who wanted one. The promotion had gone silent on digital platforms, not tweeting since June 24 and uploading nothing to its YouTube channel since June 18.

Originally Posted by PWI As PWInsider.com reported last night in our Elite section, Vince McMahon was very hands-on with the production of last night's Eye for An Eye match at Extreme Rules featuring Rey Mysterio against Seth Rollins, which Rollins won. The bout was taped yesterday afternoon at the WWE Performance Center in order for all elements that were needed to be produced properly but one aspect that was taped did not make the final edit, PWInsider.com has confirmed. Using prosthetic makeup, WWE shot an entire sequence that would have seen Mysterio's eye pop out, which as scripted was the moment that would have "led" to Seth Rollins vomiting on-screen originally. PWInsider.com has confirmed with multiple sources that Vince McMahon hated the look of the effect and the sequence, so it was removed and edited out of the final broadcast of the Rollins vs. Mysterio bout.

Originally Posted by PWI There was a lot of discussion yesterday over whether Extreme Rules would close with the WWE Championship match or the Swamp Fight but in the end, the final decision was made to go with the Swamp Fight. The Swamp Fight was filmed Thursday night in Florida. The Eye for an Eye match was the only bout from the Performance Center that was not live on last night's Extreme Rules PPV. The match was taped earlier Sunday afternoon with Vince McMahon personally overseeing the proceedings, including picking out the specific weapons that were used in the match. McMahon was very involved with laying out the story of the match itself. Perhaps Vince's involvement explains the vomit as he's certainly not adverse to toilet humor ... The Raw Women's Championship finish was done specifically to try and drive viewership to tonight's Raw. The finish was changed over the course of the day and at one point, Asuka was scheduled to win via the Asuka Lock.

Originally Posted by PWI The early indications are that Slammiversary was the strongest Impact PPV in terms of online buys in a long time

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• Various: EC3 on Wanting WWE Release Prior to Pandemic, NJPW New Japan Road Results, Indies
• WWE: Mustafa Ali on WWE Return, Network Special Planned for August, Updated SD Ratings
• Impact: TNA Series? Another IPWF Throwback, Rusev, Aces & Eights, RVD, More
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