[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer With no competition from AEW, ratings for the Christmas night edition of NXT on USA Network were up 5% to 831,000 viewers ... NXT was down 19% in the 18-49 demo, averaging 0.22, which landed them 29th in the rankings on cable TV for the day. The ratings were dominated by NBA games on ESPN as well as the TNT/TBS marathon of "A Christmas Story" which aired on the usual home of AEW Dynamite. 13 separate airings of the movie all finished above NXT. Per usual, NXT was carried by the 50+ demo, where they averaged a 0.42. That was the only category in which there was an increase from the previous week although they did have the exact same rating in the 12-34 category for both males and females at .19 and .11 respectively.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter There will be a new member of the Raw announcing team for the 12/30 show as 12/23 was Joe’s last show

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Jason Jordan noted that there will be a new addition to his family, a girl, Ava Rose Everhart, due in June. Kurt Angle then, seriously, acted like he was going to be become a grandfather

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter There are still rumblings of Los Angeles for the 2021 Mania. As noted before, the city wants is in 2021 to get ready for the Super Bowl in 2022. WWE wants it in 2022 so they can announce an attendance figure larger than the Super Bowl in the same stadium, whether real or not

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Mr. Niebla, a wrestler that CMLL groomed from his start with them more than two decades ago to be one of the major stars of this generation, but never quite reached that level due to his problems with drinking, passed away on 12/23 due to a blood infection. Born Efren Tiburcio Marquez on February 22, 1973, he was 46 at the time of his death and his legacy included holding CMLL’s world heavyweight, world tag team and world trios titles. There will always be a strong speculation that it was his problems with alcohol that weakened his body so badly that he was unable to survive the blood infection. His being ill was well publicized, and originally the assumption was it was alcohol related, as he lived on a regular cycle of being suspended and then being forgiven. After an incident in 2015 on the New Japan Fantastica Mania tour, many thought that because his drinking embarrassed CMLL as he had to be pulled from the tour, that this time it would be it. But he was back again after a suspension and the belief was there was nothing he could do that would permanently end his tenure with the company ... After a while, even though he was always used near the top of the shows, he was no longer trusted to be put in a key position. But CMLL would use him, and it was only when things got out of control, such as passing out during matches, which happened many times, that he would be given time outs. If the same thing happened on smaller shows, people would cover for him. Niebla spoke openly in recent years regarding his issues, but he could never put them in the past. Over the last week, there had been reports he would have to retire soon due to knee and other joint problems from 29 years in the ring and not taking care of himself.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The 1/4 show has added a women’s match for the first time at a New Japan Tokyo Dome show since 2002. With Bushiroad purchasing Stardom, the idea was to put the stars they want to build around before the largest audience of wrestling fans possible. The match, Mayu Iwatani & Arisa Hoshiki vs. Hana Kimura & Giulia will open the show ... As of press time, the match will not air on New Japan World. The deal was put together at the end of November after cutting through a lot of red tape, and kept quiet until the official announcement on Christmas Day. The Stardom side had wanted it, obviously. At first they were told no way, and then, because of the pressure from above, notably Bushiroad President Takaaki Kidani, there was talk of a women’s match on the January 4, 2021 show. But Kidani then pushed for it this year. Some in New Japan were negative, noting the idea that in Japan, men’s wrestling and women’s wrestling are separate products with different fan bases. Those who attend New Japan big shows aren’t there to watch women’s wrestling and the announcement was met negatively by the New Japan fans. In addition, there is the broadcasting issue with New Japan aligned with TV-Asahi, and they are co-owners of New Japan World, and Stardom has just started on Tokyo MX and BS Nippon TV, a rival network. Because of that, putting it on the show means for the first time New Japan can’t show a Dome match on its streaming service. At this point the match may be released at a later date on Stardom World, but that is not a sure thing due to those same issues, since this is a TV-Asahi show. As soon as the announcement was made, New Japan fans, particularly women fans, were very vocal in their opinions negatively toward this. The negativity was so strong that it may be difficult for this to happen again. Right now the word is that this will happen, but don’t expect to see Stardom matches on New Japan shows much going forward. There were also long-time Stardom fans, and some of the women, upset that Giulia just started and she’s already in the showcase match. Tam Nakano and Momo Watanabe publicly complained about not being in the match.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Bushiroad released its financial report for the months of August through October. They have rearranged their businesses in two categories, Digital IP and live event IP. New Japan and the kickboxing promotion fall into the live event IP group. I guess New Japan World would be digital. Stardom doesn’t really have an effect since that will start during the next quarterly report. Bushiroad also promotes concerts and has theaters as part of their live event business ... The New Japan and kickboxing business numbers were similar to that of last year. Live events were slightly up due to the increase in ticket sales for G-1 overall. But merchandise business declined, which was due to the loss of the guys who went to AEW and drove Bullet Club merch sales. They said their expectations for the next year are unchanged. Harold Meij’s salary was listed at $212,000 per year from his work on the Bushiroad board of directors and $851,000 from his work as New Japan President or $1,063,000 total. Some talent was surprised. Unlike in the U.S. where heads of companies make the most, in the Japanese wrestling business, the wrestling stars always make the most and Meij making more than most of the main event talent is surprising in their culture, but wouldn’t be in our culture.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The New Japan bodybuilding contest, with the idea it would be like the annual CMLL contest, was, in fact, nothing close to the same thing. The idea came from Tanahashi, with the idea of having everyone get into their best shape two weeks before the Tokyo Dome show. And it worked for Tanahashi, who was moving better this past weekend than he has in a long time. But it was just people cutting up and getting into shape and doing some poses, not a competition. Most were in their ring gear, so Tanahashi was in long tights and even had the sleeve over his left arm where he tore the biceps. Guys like Tanahashi, Toa Henare most notably and Yuya Uemura dropped weight and looked better. Ryusuke Taguchi entered as more of a joke but looked the same. Pieter (Yujiro Takahashi’s big show second who at least at one point if not still was Bad Luck Fale’s girlfriend) posed from behind wearing a thong panty. Kota Ibushi was in his regular ring gear looking like the same Kota Ibushi you’d see every night, and would have easily taken third ... The top two, as expected, were the two who have actually competed at this, Taiji Ishimori and Sho. Ishimori, who wore long tights, has won bodybuilding contests in the past and looked like a bodybuilder. Sho has competed in fitness contests where bodybuilding is part of it.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Kagetsu, 27, who held the World of Stardom title in the early part of the year announced her retirement on Christmas Day. This came after losing a power struggle and also ties into the retirement of Hazuki ... Her last match in Stardom will be on 1/26 in her home city of Osaka, and she will be promoting a retirement show on her own on 2/24 in Osaka. Hazuki retired with her last match on 12/24 at Korakuen Hall. Kagetsu was in charge of training all the women and Hazuki was her best student, and then became her most trusted ally. In a sense, Hazuki, because of that, also had significant locker room power. Kagetsu’s management style was compared to that of Bill Watts, and that doesn’t fly in today’s world. She was fining people when they were late and taking away their personal time. Management stepped in once and told her not to do that. But she continued to do the same thing. Most of the women came to management to protest Kagetsu being in charge. A vote was held and Kagetsu was voted out as the head trainer and locker room boss. With her out of power, both Kagetsu and Hazuki lost interest in the company. Hazuki decided to retire, basically feeling that wrestling in Madison Square Garden in April was a goal and she had achieved that. But that also explains Kagetsu constantly badmouthing the new owners since the Bushiroad purchase was announced, which led to her announcing her retirement, putting a positive spin on it by saying Stardom is in good hands with Mayu Iwatani in charge. For the public, Kagetsu said her retirement had nothing to do with Hazuki, and that Hazuki’s retirement may have been due to more difficult times than pleasant ones

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter An interesting note is that Marty Scurll was announced for the main event of the 1/12 show in Concord, NC. No word if that means he’s staying with ROH, which we were told gave him a great offer. The match announced as the main event is a battle of factions with La Faccion Ingobernable of Rush & Dragon Lee & Kenny King vs. Villain Enterprises of Scurll & Body King & PCO

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The third and most embarrassing clip was a close-up of the Dark Order brawl showing a guy under a mask throwing punches on the ground that missed Dustin Rhodes badly. I mean, the masked guy was punching the ground. Granted bad punches that miss happen all the time (think Ronda Rousey and Ruby Riott months back which was way way worse) but it became a Twitter talking point and Randy Orton jumped on it writing “He apparently is a seasoned vet and is used to live tv and just assumed that the camera to his left was the one with that red dot thingy on it for those horrendous f**king punches #workonyourpunchkid” “Or quit the business cuz you’re the drizzling sh**s .. or you can come to the top company and I’ll teach you one of the most important aspects of our biz. Throwing a f**king (punch). Hey, the first half was fair game as the video was embarrassingly bad. Orton making it a WWE vs. AEW thing was silly given botched spots happen in both companies all the time and Orton’s lecture was bad given his selling comically bad punches that missed badly by Shane McMahon that popped up everywhere

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The combination of it being a bad year at the gate for WWE and a good one for UFC meant that this was the first year in history that UFC had more shows than WWE that topped 10,000 in live attendance. Not only that, but it was nearly by double, as UFC did so in 32 of its 42 shows while WWE only topped that figure 18 times according to Matt Farmer’s records, although the 12/26 Madison Square Garden show should end the year with 19. Although this is very much a misleading stat, it is also the first time probably going back 36 years that a U.S.-based pro wrestling promotion averaged more in live attendance than WWE. AEW averaged 6,200 fans and 5,701 paid per show this year. Because of running fewer dates, AEW had the highest average of any promotion in the world. Obviously that is misleading because WWE and CMLL ran so many more dates and if you just took the average of each Raw over the course of the year you would beat that number, and the average Friday night at Arena Mexico would beat that given 6,000 fans there is considered a weak Friday. WWE averaged 5,000 per show over the first nine months but will probably finish the year closer to 4,600 to 4,700. The last time a promotion would have had a higher average than WWE in the U.S. that ran ten or more shows would have probably been the St. Louis Wrestling Club in 1983 ... Besides WWE, the only other company since 1984 to top a 5,701 per year paid average would be WCW in 1998 when it averaged 8,029. However, WCW never beat WWF in average live attendance even when winning the ratings. The closest year, and best year overall for industry popularity since the mid-80s would have been in 1998. WWF averaged 10,006 per event in 1998 ... For those who think this is the worst period for WWE attendance, that’s not close to the case. The worst year was 1994 at 2,880 average when wrestling was really in its dark ages. WCW that year averaged 1,620. Over the past year, New Japan averaged 2,698 paid per event. Its U.S. average was roughly the same as their world average, at 2,648 per event. But that’s also misleading as if you take MSG out of the New Japan U.S. number, it falls to around 1,500. That still puts New Japan as easily the No. 3 pro wrestling promotion in the U.S. and I don’t see that changing. But New Japan in 2020 will have troubles because of high ticket prices, not announcing lineups until late and running more shows. The other issue is what happens with television ... Because of the Madison Square Garden show, ROH finished 2019 with 45,479 attendance and a 1,082 per show average. It was the company’s third best year of its history ... However, if you take MSG out, the average falls to 707, the lowest in many years, and that is more of a true indicator. The way things are going, they will be lucky to do more than 500 per next year. Given MSG was a seven figure gate, which is the only seven-figure gate ever in the U.S. by a company other than WWE in history (WCW’s record gate was just over $900,000 and AEW has yet to do a $1 million gate), the ticket gross for ROH was surely the largest of any year in its history. That is unique because at the same time they are in their worst shape when it comes to popularity since the early years of the company. Major League Wrestling had by far its biggest year, averaging 1,457 per event on 11 shows, for about 16,032 total according to figures compiled by Lavie Morgolan from Observer research.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter WWE will be set business records for revenue and profit next year. As will UFC. The rest of the industry is a question. There are signs Japan has peaked as the second level promotions are declining. New Japan is steady in its home country and hopes to run far more in the U.S., but it’s a virtual lock it won’t come close to 2019 numbers because they don’t have a sold out Madison Square Garden show to base the year around. After large growth every year dating back to 2011, the last quarter for New Japan no longer showed major growth. But with all this, it’s tier three, which is MLW, Impact, NWA, ROH and New Japan that are going to have a tough year in the U.S. market. For all the talk of AEW’s declining live numbers, NWA has had great critical approval and its numbers have declined greatly simply because of the overload of product. Impact has strong backers and is the safest it has been probably in its history, but also the lowest on the food chain it has been. NWA is tough because with no paying television, the number of fans willing to buy a PPV for a tier three company being the lowest in history, it’s hard to find a working economic model. ROH is all about Sinclair’s decision-making process on whether to keep it as weekly syndicated programming or not. New Japan in the U.S. is going to struggle running so many events in the market, but they also present live shows at a level that the other companies can only come close to on their best nights. But it’s great hype and great stars, not great shows, that are the difference maker. Unless New Japan does major arena signature events here, it’ll just be a company drawing 500 to 2,000 fans in small buildings and selling a lot of merchandise per head. MLW had great growth this past year, but it seems to have hit a ceiling, plus almost any star they make is going to be getting offers from multiple places that pay better to leave.

Originally Posted by Wrestling Observer There are still rumblings of Los Angeles for the 2021 Mania. As noted before, the city wants is in 2021 to get ready for the Super Bowl in 2022. WWE wants it in 2022 so they can announce an attendance figure larger than the Super Bowl in the same stadium, whether real or not

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc WWE is reportedly headed to Dallas, Texas for the 2020 Survivor Series pay-per-view, and to Seattle, Washington for the 2021 Royal Rumble pay-per-view. The new report from @Wrestlevotes notes that T-Mobile Park will likely be the location for the 2021 Rumble. This is where WrestleMania 19 set a new attendance record in 2003 with 54,097 announced fans in attendance, and is the home to MLB's Seattle Mariners. The report did not state where the 2020 Survivor Series pay-per-view will be held, but WWE usually holds events at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

Originally Posted by Observer Regarding the change in the AEW women's title match, there was a communications issue in the sense because AEW runs Wednesdays and normally indies don't run Wednesdays, they usually book talent without worrying about other dates. And obviously they didn't know about the other date. Kris Statlander had just started and was booked for both Tuesday and Wednesday this coming week for Bar Wrestling. Based on her contract, they could have done what WWE does when it comes to things like this all the time and just pulled the talent, but Statlander asked for the favor and they were able to work it in a way where they'll do title matches the next two weeks, with Riho vs. Britt Baker vs. Hikaru Shida vs. Nyla Rose for the title on 1/1, and Statlander getting her shot on 1/8. Statlander is scheduled on New Year's Eve to face Priscilla Kelly and on 1/1 to face Gisele Shaw for shows in the Los Angeles area.

Originally Posted by Fightful Cody Rhodes' attempt to trademark his father's in-ring name has hit a speed bump, not due to opposition by WWE but the similarity to the trademark owned by his brother, Dustin. Ryan Satin of Pro Wrestling Sheet is reporting that Cody’s initial attempt to trademark Dusty Rhodes, which of course was the ring name of his father, was rejected due to the similarity to the trademark of Dustin Rhodes, which is owned by his brother. The official rejection notice cites the similarities between the terms and their filings as a potential cause for confusion.

Originally Posted by Fightful The Dark Order segment to close the Dec. 18 episode of AEW Dynamite was subject to much criticism after the show. In the segment, masked Creepers beatdown The Elite and SCU as fans watched on in relative silence. A clip went viral of a masked Creeper throwing punches at nothing while on top of Dustin Rhodes. Jim Ross, who called the segment, weighed in on what he saw on the latest Grilling JR podcast. "Since the 70s, how many matches do you think I've called that are the absolute drizzling shits? Every brand, with some big names, you don't have to be an unknown under a mask to shit the bed," stated Ross. "I knew that the crowd did not go crazy with how we went off the air. You can feel those things. There are stories being told that's great market research for all of us to pay attention to. I never knew how bad that piece of business was until it was everywhere. A lot of people wanted to make sure I saw it, as if I could go back in time to fix it. It was poorly executed and hopefully nothing like that will ever occur again. I know everybody that has ability to change things in AEW are well aware of it. If I had not seen that clip, I would not have known just how bad it was. Not an ideal way you want to go off the air, but come on folks." Ross continued, "Everything people saw, can be fixed. I'm as excited about this brand as I've ever been. I know we're going to be fine. It's going to take some time. How much time? I don't know. A year from now, I think we'll see a lot of growth, things change, different faces in different roles, new talent coming in. It's a hard act to keep your incumbents over while getting other talents over. I was embarrassed to see what I saw. Did I like it? Hell no, I didn't like it. Who could like it? I thought it was the drizzling shits. The drizzling shits can be cured." Randy Orton used the same "drizzling shits" term when giving his thoughts on the punches. The Elite and SCU poked fun at the segment on the recent Being The Elite, with Matt Jackson pulverizing Christopher Daniels with phantom punches.

Originally Posted by BloombergLaw.com A World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. stockholder is suing for a peek at records that detail the company’s involvement with a football league resurrected by WWE Chairman Vincent McMahon. The lawsuit, filed Dec. 26 in Delaware Chancery Court by an Oklahoma firefighters pension fund, claims there is “a credible basis to believe” that McMahon and other WWE senior officers breached their duties to investors by diverting valuable resources to the XFL. The suit also suggests that the company’s board members may have failed to conduct appropriate oversight to ensure McMahon didn’t engage in transactions that conflict with WWE’s interests.

Link: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/corpor...panys-xfl-ties (pay article though)


TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE’s Potential Plans for Brock Lesnar and the Royal Rumble
• NJPW No Longer Broadcasting Shows on US TV, Apparently Done With AXS TV
• AEW Women’s Title Match Changed, New Match Announced
• Andrade Wins United States Championship at MSG WWE House Show
• AEW: Taz to Appear on This Week’s Dynamite, More on Win/Loss Records Resetting

Side note:
Also taking next week off as an extended break from Sheets report posts. Not sure if next Friday will have a Sheets posting due to no new Observer Newsletter next week. Also likely scaling back on the amount of stuff posted for Sheets reports in the future.