[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer With no NBA playoffs last night due to the player boycott following the shooting of Jacob Blake, but coverage of Hurricane Laura and the Republican National Convention dominating the cable news ratings, NXT averaged 824,000 viewers on Wednesday night, down 3.4 percent from the previous week. In the 18-49 demo, the show finished 24th on cable with a 0.24 rating, identical to last week. It's the second straight week that NXT has had no head-to-head competition from AEW Dynamite and is the first time all year that the show averaged over 800,000 viewers in consecutive weeks. The 0.24 rating back-to-back is the first time since February that NXT has hit that mark on consecutive shows. In the other categories, NXT did a 0.17 rating in women 18-49 (up 6.3 percent), 0.30 in men 18-49 (down 6.3 percent), 0.12 in people 18-34 (up 33.3 percent), 0.05 in females 12-34 (identical), 0.20 in males 12-34 (up 42.9 percent), 0.28 in people 25-54 (down 6.7 percent), and a 0.41 in people over 50 (down 2.4 percent). Due to the NHL playoffs, next week's NXT will air on Tuesday, September 1 ... AEW Dynamite will be unopposed next Wednesday for its All Out go-home show.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling NXT also went head-to-head with the Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Boston Bruins game that did 982,000 viewers on the NBC Sports Network. The third night of the Republican Convention averaged 15.6 million viewers across all networks, although this didn’t impact NXT as the convention itself didn’t start until 10 pm Eastern but the preceding news coverage would have.

Originally Posted by PWI 2K today released a new trailer for WWE® 2K Battlegrounds, the arcade-style WWE brawler currently scheduled for release on September 18 and available now for pre-order in both digital formats and at participating retailers. In “Clash of the Eras,” WWE Hall of Fame commentator Jerry “The King” Lawler cheers on the WWE 2K Battlegrounds roster of WWE Legends – such as Undertaker, Mankind, Beth Phoenix and the Bella Twins – as they compete in fantasy matches against several of today’s most popular WWE Superstars, including Roman Reigns, Drew McIntyre, Bayley, Sasha Banks, Finn Bálor and more. While Lawler shows his allegiance, he is joined in the trailer by renowned sports broadcaster and WWE NXT’s Mauro Ranallo, who will make his WWE 2K in-game debut as a member of the WWE 2K Battlegrounds commentary team.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE is looking for a new lead writer for Smackdown ... They are also looking for a Writer's Assistant.

Originally Posted by PWI On 8/26, WWE filed their opposition to Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood trademarking the following: No Flips, Just Fists. Say Yeah Top Guys #FTRKO Shatter Machine. The opposition noted: "Applicants (Wheeler and Harwood) entered into contracts with Opposer (WWE) effective as of April 10, 2017 to exclusively perform professional wrestling services for Opposer in connection with WWE live and televised professional wrestling exhibitions (the “Booking Agreements”). Pursuant to Section 3 of the Booking Agreements entitled “Intellectual Property, Applicants expressly agreed that Opposer owned, in perpetuity, any and all trademarks, service marks, and/or distinctive and identifying indicia, including among other things, ring name,nickname, likeness, personality, characters, gestures, routines, themes and any other items of tangible or intangible intellectual property written, composed, submitted, added, improvised, created, used by or associated with Applicants’ performance during the term of the Booking Agreements. The sole exception to the intellectual property rights owned by WWE under the Booking Agreements is any intellectual property specifically identified in Exhibit A to the Booking Agreements, defined in the Booking Agreements as "WRESTLER Intellectual Property"." They noted each of the above five are not identified as "Wrestler Intellectual Property" and were created by WWE.

Originally Posted by PWI Q - I saw your audio about Shane Douglas tossing the NWA title today and obviously that was a surprise, but did anyone know he was winning the tournament? Looking at the lineup, you'd think Chris Benoit would have been the guy. Just made me wonder. A - I remember hearing at the ECW Arena event a month before that Shane was winning the tournament, but obviously plans could have changed at any point. I know Dennis Corraluzzo did push for Benoit to win, but the decision was made to go with Douglas, something the NWA obviously wouldn't have agreed to if they knew what was going to happen next.

From PWI's weekly Q&A articles.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On the latest installment of The Bellas Podcast, Nikki and Brie Bella dove into their time with WWE ... When it comes to how WWE handled the Divas era, Nikki Bella feels that there were multiple missed opportunities for WWE to capitalize off the women’s division. Nikki feels that had they done so, to this day they still could have a good portion of that fan base that were interested in the Divas division. “And I think too why a lot of us didn’t speak up was we were lucky enough where the numbers weren’t a huge difference, because there were some of the top guys that were making a lot and I even understood that. I’m like, ‘Okay, they are the headliners’ and in our industry, they were still bringing in more people than us. It was more the mid-card guys, but I guess it wasn’t such a big difference. I felt like the one thing they lacked especially when we were [in] our prime with Divas, they didn’t capitalize on the women. They were so focused on the men that they lost a whole audience that they could still have today because they just didn’t believe in our mission or what we were doing or the changes we were making. I think we could’ve made an even bigger title wave, if the company was behind us even more. They were behind us but they could’ve capitalized in so many different ways and I think politics always come into play. I think in every industry, you have your favorites, you have who they wanna push, who they don’t but at times I’m like, ‘What they really could’ve done with this big group of women would’ve been so amazing worldwide.’ We did a lot but oh my gosh, we would always talk about that. I’m like, ‘They could’ve capitalized and used us even more,’ and they didn’t. They missed out a lot.” The Bella Twins also commented on the backlash they received following the announcement of their Hall Of Fame induction. Both Nikki and Brie were amused by most of the comments they received but didn’t understand why they were getting so much hate from mainly male wrestling fans. Nikki: “And it’s like the online ones and that’s why I’d always tell her [Brie], that’s like ten percent of the fan base. We call them smart marks in our industry and because of everything we would start to build and then also we were the mean girls. That was our characters so we were the bad, like legit heels, bad girls and they would believe everything that was being said in promos and don’t get me wrong, some of the girls that would get on the mic because of how they were with Brie and I, they would say stuff like — they’d just attack us in ways and fans would believe it and it’s crazy still to this day the hate we will get from… Brie: “We got inducted into the Hall Of Fame this year for WWE. To have Vince McMahon call you and give you all these reasons why he wants to induct you, surreal. But we were trending two days straight because fans were disgusted.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Jeff Hardy spoke with Daily Star about WWE incorporating his past addiction issues into his storyline with Sheamus. Hardy did not have an issue with it and doesn’t pay attention to any of the comments from those who felt like WWE was mistreating him. “The stuff with Sheamus that’s happened most recently, I knew there was a great outcome in it. I knew that bar fight was going to be cinematic and good. All the stuff building up to that match, I just knew the outcome was going to be fantastic. And it’s good to face challenges like that because there’s so much negativity in the world. I’m not a social media guy at all, I don’t read comments or the negativity of people who thought it was wrong or that [WWE] were treating me [badly], I don’t read any of that. I’m just confident in myself to get through it, and when I get a feeling that something’s going to be good, I just run with it. I’m always interested as everybody is different in so far as how the viewer feels watching at home, especially hardcore fans of mine. Even thinking back to the stuff with CM Punk when I was failing drugs tests, they turned it into a storyline and that’s what I mean when I talk about roller-coasters of good and bad. Throughout all of that, so long as I can continue to do good, especially with this, my last chance to get it right, it is going to inspire people around the world that I’ll never meet, that need to stay sober to survive. Hopefully I’m doing that through the television screen and helping people I’ll never know.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Xavier Woods joined D-Von Dudley’s ‘Table Talk’ podcast and it was mentioned how Woods was absent for the return of ‘Talking Smack’ on the WWE Network. Woods was scheduled to host the show with Kayla Braxton but he stated he wasn’t made aware until the post went up on social media. “I was at home. I found out when y’all found out. So, it’s been adjusted so I’ll be there soon. Things happen sometimes. It’s a very large company and you’ll find in any large company sometimes things get lost through the cracks. Things someone thinks they told somebody else but they actually didn’t get a chance to but that person thought that someone else told them so it’s a regular thing with a company that’s as large, that’s as successful as this so it’s not like a bad thing by any means. It’s just like a little, ‘Oops, okay cool.’ Now we’re on the train tracks again, let’s get it moving.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Chris Van Vliet spoke with Erick Rowan for an exclusive interview and Rowan recalled being unsure if he and Brodie Lee were getting called up from NXT to the main roster along with Bray Wyatt. Rowan said that Wyatt alerted them that they were coming to the main roster but Bill DeMott was not in line with those plans. “Fast forward to when we get called up onto the roster, hence we always knew Bray [Wyatt] was getting called up to the roster. We didn’t know we were. We were told by Bill DeMott, me and Brodie [Lee] were told we weren’t getting called up. So, then they’re filming these vignettes and then were like, ‘Oh, well they’re gonna need you for the vignettes.’ But, are we getting called up? And then Bray’s like, ‘Yeah, you guys are getting called up’ and then Bill’s like, ‘No, you guys aren’t getting called up.’ It’s like what the hell?”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WrestleZone’s Dominic DeAngelo conducted an interview with Scorpio Sky. Sky spoke about his stretch of matches on AEW Dark and expressed that he feels Lee Johnson is the future of All Elite Wrestling. “But I also did get to wrestle young guys like Lee Johnson and I think Lee Johnson is the future of AEW. He’s young, he’s probably only about 22-years old, he’s got a good look, he’s got a good body, he’s athletic, he gets it, he listens and he’s gonna be a guy five, ten years from now, he’s going to be a big time player in this company.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Matt Hardy chatted with TV Insider ahead of the 8/27 edition of AEW Dynamite. Hardy was asked about the possibility of Jeff Hardy coming to AEW and reuniting The Hardy Boyz in the tag team division and here’s what Matt had to say in response to that: “With the incredible deep division there is in AEW, I’d love to have my brother there to wrestle against the Young Bucks, Hangman Page and Kenny Omega, Private Party, FTR. There is such a deep roster. I’d love to do that one day if it was a possibility.” Regarding Hardy’s arrival in AEW, he shared that one of the original plans was for him to do a cinematic match with Sammy Guevara but the COVID-19 pandemic put those plans on the back burner. “In all actuality, when we first started doing all that, the original plan, I think, was to have the cinematic match with Sammy. I challenged Jericho, but the idea was for it to get pushed off to Sammy. Things went differently when North Carolina and other states went into lockdown. There was this six-week period where AEW literally survived on a day or two of shooting footage, which was pretty amazing. They did an incredible job. Kudos to the crew. We had to change course in many ways. From the very beginning, I was going to end up having a feud with Sammy, and Jericho was my bridge to get to that. As far as the Hardy Compound fight with Sammy, that may happen one day. We’ll see.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Chris Featherstone of Sportskeeda hosted a Q&A session on Facebook with Eric Bischoff. One of the questions asked of Bischoff had to do with WWE’s storytelling and Bischoff explained why he feels that WWE is constantly hit or miss with their storylines. “I knew WWE was gonna knock the ThunderDome concept out of the park. Better than everybody including the NBA. I knew they would, because they’re so good at that. What they’re not good at is basic, fundamental storytelling. They’re just not. I love them, I have many friends there, I have some friends there who I consider my closest friends in the world and who I love dearly. It doesn’t change that the storyline, the architecture, their approach to stories, their discipline with stories suck, and until somebody comes along and takes an honest look at storytelling and the structure of storytelling and the formulas that are used, it’s gonna be hit or miss forever. You’re gonna throw ten stories up against the wall and maybe one of them will hit, because there’s no rhyme or reason to it. There’s no methodology to it, there’s no model for it, no formula for it. It’s just simply throwing sh*t against the wall and hoping it sticks.”

Originally Posted by Fightful Although Alex Shelley is currently working for IMPACT and is one-half of the IMPACT World Tag Team Champions, he is not under contract. After Breezango (Tyler Breeze and Fandango) defeated Imperium to win the NXT Tag Team Championship, Shelley took to Twitter and asked his old pal Kushida if he would be up for another reunion and challenge for the NXT titles. It was in that same tweet, as well as another tweet, in which revealed that he is currently a free agent.

KUSHIDA's time in NXT has been such a huge waste considering all the great stuff he was doing in NJPW prior. Him leaving over creative and direction issues in NJPW made sense but he's pretty much gone backwards in the ladder and career direction during his stay in NXT.

Originally Posted by Fightful Haku is one of the most feared and respected men in the history of pro wrestling, and of course in his own house. With three sons in the pro wrestling business, it's clear the eventual Meng has a strong influence on all of them. As it turns out, he wasn't completely forthcoming with Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, and Hikuleo about how exactly his day job went down ... Beyond that, Loa's brother Tama Tonga said that Haku went above and beyond to keep them as detached from the realities of professional wrestling as he possibly could. This stretched to the point of him not letting them know about some of the wild road stories you hear about Haku today. "Alright, be honest with you, I’ve said this to a lot of people—my pop, he kayfabed us," Tama Tonga told Fightful. "I didn’t know shit until I started wrestling at 27. Then, that’s when I filled in with everything. Then once I started traveling the world, everybody had stories and that’s how I got to know my pop beside the family man that I knew at home as a father. I got to know him as a wrestler and I was like, “Holy shit.” So, those are a lot of new things that were brought to my attention once I started wrestling. Tama got a late start in pro wrestling, but both he and Tanga grew up in an internet age. With Haku/Meng being an internet pheneomenon with lore of his ass kicking stories, those somehow all escaped the two brothers. "When we were kids, back then we didn’t have social media," Loa said. "So anything that ever happened, only the wrestlers knew. The company knew. Nothing ever got outside of that unless you were there in that city or that particular [hotel] and the cops that showed up. They knew the story. If anyone had a [phone] back, yeah, maybe kids would have found out and then they would have asked about that. But, we’re all good about hush-hush about the business and thought for a long time our dad was a truck driver. To everybody else that’s how we explained his job. ‘Cause our parents were real keen about making sure we had friends because they wanted to be our friends. They didn’t want have our dad’s job play an influence on whether or not we would be liked."

Originally Posted by Fightful The induction ceremony for the 2020 WWE Hall of Fame class had to be postponed, but WWE did have plans to make it happen this year. According to Cassidy Haynes of Bodyslam.net, WWE planned to "piecemeal" the inductions by holding them at various times throughout the year. Inductions were planned to take place during SmackDown or Raw and not in conjunction with any pay-per-view. Unfortunately, COVID-19 and "other factors" made inductions impossible. The Hall of Fame ceremony was originally scheduled for WrestleMania weekend but was canceled due to COVID-19. Davey Boy Smith's Daughter Georgia said in March that WWE was hoping to hold the Hall of Fame induction ceremony during SummerSlam weekend, but that did not happen. WrestleVotes noted that the new plan is to induct the class of 2020 during WrestleMania 37 weekend.

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• Updated Card for Tonight’s AEW Dynamite
• NXT: Austin Theory Returns, Barrett Returning Next Week, New Tag Champs