[Emperor Smeat]

Observer Newsletter ended up getting delayed by a day because of all the recent craziness that has happened in WWE and elsewhere in wrestling.

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

The Pro Wrestling industry in Europe and North America, an industry that has had a male-dominated culture since its inception, was rocked to the core by women this past week with story after story of abuse with names from every significant promotion. The U.K. scene was hit the hardest, but there were allegations against significant names in every promotion. When the week was over, Joey Ryan was accused by so many women of inappropriate sexual actions that people lost count (there were at least 16 stories that had come out), and was not only fired by Impact, closed down his Southern California promotion, Bar Wrestling, and it’s hard to believe that his career in pro wrestling isn’t over. His closest friends were shocked, saying they had no idea and many people who knew him as these revelations came out went into some deep depression and soul-searching trying to process the information. One person close to everyone on the Southern California scene said that Ryan’s entire life was wrestling and that nobody had any contact with him since 6/21, and also noted that probably very few tried to get in contact with him either ... The Bootleg Theater, the home of Ryan’s Bar Wrestling promotion that he founded in 2017, was reported by SoCal Uncensored to have ended their relationship with him and Bar Wrestling events were pulled from the Highspots Network video library. The promotion, which helped springboard Jungle Boy, Luchasaurus and Jake Atlas to getting major contracts, is now shut down. A number of close friends of Ryan, both performers and several who are not working in the wrestling industry but were close to him, were shocked. Still, there were women in wrestling who were not. One promoter noted to us in detail what a model employee Ryan was, and said he had never heard rumors. Another major independent promoter told us that he believes more people knew and said he had heard and that was the specific reason he never booked Ryan. Another person said that people on the inside on the East Coast have heard rumors for yeas and can’t believe others hadn’t heard. “To say this was shocking was an understatement,” said someone who would have been considered one of his closest friends who is not directly in the wrestling industry. “I've known him 20 years and have never seen this side. It feels like when the news interviews a murderer's family and they say they had no idea.”

WWE has fired Jack Gallagher, Travis Banks and El Ligero. Banks, Ligero, David Starr and referee Mark Parry were earlier let go by Progress Wrestling, which has strong ties to WWE. Jordan Devlin & Scotty Davis, the Progress tag team champions, were both suspended indefinitely by that promotion. Devlin is also WWE co-cruiserweight champion. At press time, WWE has taken no public action against Devlin. Another WWE NXT U.K. performer, Joe Coffey was claimed to have sent unsolicited inappropriate photos. Wolfgang’s former fiancé, Laura Ryan, claimed emotional torture and mental illness from the relationship. Gallagher was accused of, at a New Year’s Eve party in 2014, that he kept pouring her drinks and tried to accost her in the bathroom. She said as she tried to get away, her skirt was ripped and she left the party. There were also screenshots of Gallagher trying to contact the host of the party saying he had no idea of these accusations until they were made public, had no memory of the situation, and wanted to reach out and apologize to her. Aside from Gallagher, WWE has not taken any public action on anyone. In addition, this past week, another allegation claim was made against Patrick Clark (Velveteen Dream), who had been pushed as one of the top characters in NXT and was in a program with the Undisputed Era. Dream was not on the 6/24 show nor was his name mentioned. AEW suspended Jimmy Havoc, who was sent to rehab with his future in question. They suspended Sammy Guevara without pay and his salary will be donated to a women’s charity. Violet O’Hara claimed Ligero had indecently assaulted her after she allowed him to lay in her bad when he was in a hotel room she was sharing with others. Ligero denied that, but did apologize to two specific women he trained ... But he did corroborate other women regarding his role as their trainer ... Hannah Francesca posted photos of her body bruised up and attributed that to Devlin ... Matt Riddle has an accusation of a sexual assault against him by female wrestler Candy Cartwright from May 2018 several years back in Evolve in a van that a group traveled together in where other people were there but the claim is they were asleep when this happened. The accusation surfaced publicly on 6/19, the day the A.J. Styles vs. Riddle match was to air. WWE aired the match with Riddle winning a non-title match in his Smackdown debut. We’ve been told WWE has been aware of the claim by Cartwright for more than a year and investigated it. WWE had made no public comment on the subject ... But it’s the major UK groups that have key figures like David Starr, Devlin and Banks, among those carrying the scene, likely out of commission. CHIKARA has folded. The NWA, with the resignation of David Lagana, is temporarily shut down since he was behind the producing of all content. Alex Shane, a key figure in the U.K. scene and the person largely behind the failed World of Sport series, resigned from his position. ROH head of creative Marty Scurll’s future is in question as ROH announced an investigation over allegations, and Scurll himself admitted to a sexual encounter with a 16-year-old. Jim Cornette and Will Ospreay’s names were brought in, although with Cornette, the allegations really center around his wife Stacey and former OVW wrestler Josh Ashcraft ... Essentially it started with accusations by a woman named Tori claiming that David Starr, her ex-boyfriend, sexually assaulted her, and his response ... After the Starr allegation last week, the floodgates opened. It’s been an open secret that there is a problem in British wrestling, with the boys will be boys mentality. It was noted that in the industry, everyone heard stories but nobody really knew the extent of them or the veracity of them. And even now, it’s impossible to separate the fact from fiction and the shades of grey in between. It was noted that there was nothing truly substantial with evidence. Sierra Loxton, a former woman wrestler, was among the first to speak out, which led to others following suit. A Twitter account called Expose Wrestling retweeted every allegation and gained 10,000 followers in 48 hours. Very quickly it went from current allegations to rumors about things decades ago, and a GOTCHA mentality. It was exposed for getting things wrong and posting every accusation, which threatened the credibility of the very real ones that had actual evidence. The account closed, said to be due to threats of legal action from some claiming they were unfairly accused. There were anonymous claims and fake accounts created. An incredible list of names, even many with no stories involved, were listed. In the U.K. there are believed to have been several true or widely believed to be true cases passed onto the authorities to deal with and people have been advised not to talk about them any longer until the investigations are completed or it could undermine them.

In the U.K. the general feeling among many in and around the industry is shock and disgust, and within the U.S., it’s the same but with less fear regarding the future of the business itself. In the U.K. we’re told there is a realization that this has gone on too long, and while hidden in some ways, it’s been in plain sight all along. But the belief is few if anyone, while every knew something existed and maybe even suspected it being very bad, realized the problem was as big as it was ... There is great concern about the U.K. scene. The popularity of wrestling peaked during the period when the independent scene was also strong in the U.S., with lots of marketable talent all around at the same time. Then WWE started stockpiling talent, first to keep them from ROH and New Japan which were gaining popularity, and then from World of Sport, and even more in the past year, from AEW. AEW itself put together a major roster, and ROH, MLW and Impact started signing up more people to try and fill their rosters and be competitive. Suddenly, the independent scene guys dried up in the U.K. and WWE also had a major decrease in popularity and drawing on recent tours. Several promotions that relied on so many of the names mentioned, like Progress, OTT and RevPro, are hurt badly. The belief is some companies may not have come back from COVID even if this didn’t happen. The fear is the scene will revert back to the levels of 20 years ago and have to be rebuilt. But to rebuild needs a structure where young people can learn by working a ton of shows, which the top guys were able to do in the past.

Impact did not announce Michael Elgin was fired or released directly, but did say that he would no longer appear on Impact television. Elgin was named for sending unsolicited dick picture to a woman. He also got into a backstage fight with Sami Callihan arguing about how a three-way match with the two of them and Ken Shamrock would be laid out. Scott D’Amore was said to have broken up the fight. We were told it was shoving with no punches thrown. Elgin made a statement but didn’t acknowledge anything, just saying, “I appreciate the time and opportunities given to me with Impact. That locker room, the film crew and all the company officials were a pleasure to be associated with. I hope that in time things get sorted. For now I have to look at the bright side, I have more time to spend with my son and reclaim time that has been missed.”

CHIKARA Pro Wrestling is being shut down after allegations against owner Mike Spillane (Mike Quackenbush) as well as the wrestler Icarus. In addition, Spillane is expected to be leaving as head trainer of the Wrestle Factory school in Philadelphia. CHIKARA is an 18-year-old company based in Pennsylvania that has run shows all over the world, and has at times for big shows brought in some of the biggest legends in pro wrestling internationally. Among the charges making the rounds were someone stating a CHIKARA wrestler bragged about photos of a bruised up woman who was underage who he claimed “liked it rough.” There were a number of tweets from regulars with the group regarding quitting.

Vicky Haskins, who has worked for ROH alongside her husband Mark Haskins this year, claimed Brian Dixon, the U.K. promoter instructed a photographer to take upskirt photos of her for his private collection when claiming they were for a program. She said she and her husband confronted the photographer, and then Dixon, who profusely apologized and begged them not to tell his family. Alex Shane, a longtime promoter, wrestler, announcer, trainer and reporter, was accused by a woman of repeatedly getting her then 15-year-old sister drunk and having sex with her, and taking photos of the encounters and doing so and calling it “The Wall of Shane.” The girl committed suicide and the sister said it was not exclusively due to Shane but she thinks it was part of the reason. Shane denied it but resigned from his job at WrestleTalk ... She said she sent out feelers on 6/19 looking for responses to the issues. She said nine people called her, four women and five men. One of the women told her that her trainer had taken out his dick and tried to get her to have sex with him in the shower. One of the guys told her he had touch his coach's penis when he was still underage and had to drink urine. Gabert indicated she suffered sexual abuse after she started her career in 2001, implying it happened very early on. She says she has since forgiven the people involved and spoke to current trainees who insist things are different today. She claims a ref in England touched her breasts and that her time in WWE was a nightmare. She had feared for her safety but doesn't want to say more than that because she fears retaliation. She said when she came to the U.K., she was part of systematic problems. She also talked about how women in Europe knew that if you complain, you don’t get booked.

During a week of ugliness, a second terrible story broke out with a COVID outbreak within WWE that also impacted AEW. Details are sketchy because WWE literally has said nothing, not to talent, not to anyone. What we do know is that they were scheduled to tape two weeks of Smackdown and Raw on 6/26 and 6/27,and all shows have had to be rewritten multiple times because of talent that won’t be available. Renee Young, Kayla Braxton, Jamie Noble and Adam Pearce are the only official names because they, for their own reasons, decided to go public with positive tests ... We do know that Young did it on her own and the company did not know she was going to do it. I can’t imagine Noble or Pearce doing it without getting a go-ahead, but none of the actual in-ring talent has done. While there are names bandied about of people who have failed, none are confirmed. One of the NXT talents in the audience had gotten sick and on her own, was tested. WWE alerted the media and talent of this on 6/15, and canceled tapings on 6/16 for a test for all performers, production people and staff who worked the tapings, as well as for friends and families of talent that were allowed in as fans starting on 6/15 ... Talent was brought in a few days early for testing scheduled for everyone involved, including the fans, from 6/23 to 6/25. It was the tests on the first day that had multiple positives, and there were evidently more as the week went on. Literally nobody knows anything about how deep the problems are except for perhaps the few top people in charge. The first person to publicly come forward, Young, had not been tested this week but she felt sick early in the week with symptoms similar to COVID, and because she was aware of having worked the taping that one of the NXT women tested positive after, she was home and she and Jon Moxley both were tested on their own on 6/22 ... Rumors on Young started that day (6/24) because AEW reported that Jon Moxley, her husband, QT Marshall and all of Marshall’s students wouldn’t be at the live television tapings for reasons related to COVID ... In the case of Marshall, it was someone not related to the wrestling business. But because he did, the decision was made not to risk having he or his students, who were exposed to him, including television performers Anna Jay, Alan Angels (one of the masked men in the Dark Order) and Lee Johnson, brought in. With Moxley being pulled at the same time stories came out about a WWE outbreak, it was clear people would make assumptions and start speculating. Young came right out and said what the situation was, which did not go over well in WWE as her telling the public. WWE still at this point has yet to acknowledge the cases or inform the performers and their families of the extent of the outbreak ... It’s also notable that neither Vince McMahon, Kevin Dunn, Paul Levesque or Mark Carrano contacted her as of 6/25 to ask how she was doing, although a lot of talent did. For the record, she had improved from the worst, At last word on 6/25 she was tired and her chest felt heavy, which were the main issues, and her cough had gotten better. The belief was that she had already been through the worst. Moxley was told by AEW’s doctor to isolate himself and if he doesn’t test positive or show symptoms he should be okay for 7/2, when he has his scheduled Fyter Fest title match with Brian Cage. But it’s not that simple. He made the call not to leave and go to a hotel, both for not wanting to leave his wife alone in case she gets worse, and also the fear of if he has it, infecting people at a hotel. They are isolating themselves in different parts of the house and he will be taking multiple tests this week and everything else will play itself out. As far as a worst case scenario, if he ends up testing positive, obviously his match would have to be delayed until a full recovery. If not, while 7/2 is the taping date, they could potentially do an empty arena match as late as 7/8 and it would be on the show scheduled. With Pearce, there was a lot of concern since he worked so closely with both Bruce Prichard, who is 57, and very heavy, and Vince McMahon, who is 74. In addition, Ric Flair, who is 71, and has had numerous major health issues in recent years, was one of the performers who appeared on both days of tapings last week when the breakout took place. As of last word, Flair was not experiencing any health issues ... While it can’t be pointed out with surety, the belief is the person responsible for this latest outbreak was a female NXT performer in the stands. Producer T.J. Wilson (who wrestled as Tyson Kidd), came to testing on 6/25 with a fever. Both he and wife Nattie Neidhart tested negative for COVID in I believe two different tests, but as a precautionary measure, the company asked both to sit out this weekend even though she was fine

Regarding the mandating of masks in Orange County, FL, where WWE starts taping again on 6/26, it will not apply to the WWE television shoot. Those in WWE have said the mandate is for all public places and the Performance Center is not under that category. Yet another issue related to this and theoretically a major one is that Governors Andrew Cuomo of New York, Phil Murphy of New Jersey and Ned Lamont of Connecticut together issued an order that everyone who leaves the state for a number of different states where the outbreaks are high right now, in particular Florida, must quarantine for two weeks before they can return to society. With both WWE and AEW taping in Florida, this affects some AEW talent, notably MJF, who lives in Long Island, Brodie Lee in Rochester, NY, and maybe others, as well as the entire executive branch of WWE. Those at AEW were hopeful that the fact everyone was being tested while in Florida would allow their talent to return home without quarantine. Where it becomes an issue is that even if you do it once, with AEW taping every other week, it almost makes it silly to even go back home. But there are also people with families. At this point it is unknown how this will affect next week’s tapings. WWE did not respond to any questions on this, nor much of anything on the subject at all past that they now are scheduled to test weekly. We do know that the plan going forward to subvert the quarantine, including this week, was for the people in those states to instead fly out of Philadelphia to Orlando, and back to Philadelphia, and drive from there back to Connecticut or New York for those who live there. Even though that is very much a violation of what the governors want and can be punishable by a $1,000 fine (in New York the potential fines are $2,000 for a first offense and $10,000 for subsequent offenses), the reality is they are not blockading the border of New Jersey driving in so there is a large Philadelphia loophole. It does go against the very thing the Governors are trying to avoid, but it’s an exceedingly low-risk of getting punished. WWE had also thwarted similar regulations months ago, when New York was in such bad shape and Florida had regulations not allowing people to fly into their state, and WWE moved all flights at that time to Philadelphia to get around the statute

WWE had planned to start taping with crowds in Florida. They have contacted a company for local people for a Friday and a Monday in late July (7/24 and 7/27 were the dates being bandied about) for live televison shoots at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland, FL, an 8,000 seat arena. The plans was to allow fans but to have social distancing, so limiting crowds to a percentage of capacity. Last word is that may be pushed to August, but the July dates were originally set to be announced this coming week because Vince McMahon was determined to be the first person to run a live indoor sports event with a crowd.

FOX made a decision on 6/22 to cut back on WWE, boxing and MMA shoulder programming on FS 1. Both the WWE Backstage show and a similar weekly boxing and soccer show were canceled immediately. FS 1 aired a repeat of a previous episode of WWE Backstage in the time slot on 6/23. The changes were not due to COVID but due to the feeling FS 1 was spending too much on the shows considering the ratings the shows were drawing ... According to WWE officials, the Tuesday FS 1 taped prime time programming such as old PPVs or WWE Network documentary shows will be continuing. There will be no change to Smackdown programming on Fridays ... FOX said that Backstage was done as a weekly show but occasional episodes would be done building up a few major shows per year, but with the production and on-air staff of the three talk shows let go, it would probably be scaled down if it even does return, and internally some are saying the show will not be returning.

The 6/24 Wednesday Night War had a stunning result, as NXT had its second biggest audience of the year while AEW had the lowest audience in its history. NXT did have the stronger main event by far on paper with the Keith Lee vs. Finn Balor vs. Johnny Gargano North American title match leading to the title vs. title match on 7/8 with Adam Cole. But much of NXT was video packages and short matches, none of which looked like ratings movers ... AEW was coming off good shows, and this show, live (not that it matters) was entertaining most of the way even without any ratings matches. Chris Jericho did a show-ending angle with Orange Cassidy while Cody was involved in a press conference. NXT did 786,000 viewers, second best of the year behind only the pre-pandemic 2/19 show that did 794,000, but only 0.19 in 18-49, as the gains were almost all over the age of 50. But AEW did 633,000 viewers, it’s all-time worst, and a 0.22 in 18-49, also its all-time worst. AEW was down heavily everywhere and NXT was up significantly in 18-34 and 50+, while 35-49 was down heavily for both groups. As far as the margin for viewers, it was the largest win for NXT in history, and not on a night where that was expected based on he respective shows. There is a theory that the news in wrestling of the week left a bad taste more with AEW fans, because they are more inside wrestling social media based, but NXT’s numbers of older fans went so far up while AEW’s declined greatly, so most of the difference was over 50 fans switching to NXT, as well as teenagers. AEW was No. 17 for the night in 18-49 and No. 8 among non-news shows ... NXT was No. 26, overall and No. 12 among non-news shows ... NXT was up 5.6 percent in viewers and down 5.0 percent in 18-49. AEW was down 18.0 percent in viewers with no real explanation, and 21.4 percent in 18-49, with big losses in every age group except 18-34. NXT was No. 16 in Males 18-49 and No.7 among non-news shows. AEW did a 0.08 in 12-17 (down 38.5 percent), 0.12 in 18-34 (down 7.7 percent), 0.32 in 35-49 (down 25.6 percent) and 0.26 in 50+ (down 16.1 percent) ... So basically record lows with teens and 35-49s. NXT did 0.13 in 12-17 (up 8.3 percent), 0.10 in 18-34 (up 25.0 percent), 0.28 in 35-49 (down 12.5 percent) and 0.42 in 50+ (up 16.7 percent) ... Due to a Nielsen glitch and other work in getting the show done, further information on the Wednesday shows won’t be available until next week’s issue, although AEW only won one quarter, the second, overall and won six of eight in 18-49, but the final 30 minutes saw NXT ahead of AEW in 18-49. The main event segment from a viewership standpoint was an 852,000 to 552,000 margin for NXT, even more notable since AEW had Matt Hardy, Chris Jericho and Orange Cassidy featured in those last 30 minutes.

Raw on 6/22, billed as Championship Monday, with four title matches plus Edge and Ric Flair prominently advertised, did 1,922,000 viewers and 0.53 in 18-49. The viewership number was the second best for the show since the Raw after WrestleMania, just trailing the 1,939,000 for last week’s show ... The 0.53 is what the last Paul Heyman show did and in the range of what his shows were doing, so the gains are mostly with viewers over the age of 50, which makes sense due to using more established stars from the past and limiting screen time for newcomers. There is also a concentration on lots of talking and less wrestling. Raw was 14th on cable and fourth among non-news shows. In 18-49, it was No. 5 for the night, behind three episodes of 90 Day Fiancé and Below Deck Mediterranean. As compared to last year, the show was down 15.6 percent overall and 27.4 percent in 18-49, both better than it had been doing. The first hour did 2,035,000 viewers, making it the first hour to hit two million since 4/6. The second hour did 1,950,000 viewers. The third hour did 1,782,000 viewers ... Really, as far as changes from last week, most demos were even but teenage boys were way up and teenage girls were way down.

Smackdown on 6/19 did a 1.34 rating and 2,072,000 viewers (a very low 1.28 viewers per home) and 0.5 in 18-49 (664,000 viewers) , up 7,000 in total viewers from the week before and making it the best number the show has done since 4/17. The numbers are higher likely because less network competition, as with the exception of a Juneteenth special on ABC, everything else during those two hours on the networks were reruns. The rating was down 0.7 percent from last week, viewers were up 0.3 percent and 18-49 was up 1.4 percent, so essentially it’s the exact same thing. The show has been doing a consistent 0.5 in 18-49 since the drop from the pandemic ... Last year this week FOX has rerun programming that averaged 1,462,000 viewers and 0.4 in 18-49, so was up 41.7 percent from what FOX had in the time slot last season, and up 25.0 percent in 18-49.

Regarding DVR viewership, Raw on 6/8 gained 263,000, AEW on 6/10 gained 160,000 and NXT on 6/10 gained 123,000 over the next three days via DVR. The UFC show on 6/8 only gained 61,000 so UFC is largely not DVR’d. The final episode of Total Bellas gained 453,000 over the next three days, a gain of 65.3 percent from the original airing. This was the episode where Nikki Bella revealed the sex of her baby that did tremendous numbers live as well

Bushiroad released its February to April business report. New Japan isn’t broken down specifically, but they do have a category of sports business, which is mostly New Japan revenue although does include Knock Out, the kickboxing promotion Bushiroad recently sold, and Stardom in these numbers ... The other key note is that even after three-and-a-half months between shows, the New Japan World subscription numbers stayed steady, although no actual number was given, but the usual range is 100,000 to 125,000 depending on the time of the year, higher during G-1 and early January The company has announced a new U.S. based weekly show on New Japan World called Lion’s Break Collision. It will air every Friday night at 10 p.m. Eastern, no doubt timed to start when Smackdown ends. The first show will be 7/3 with Clark Connors vs. Alex Coughlin and Jeff Cobb & Rocky Romero vs. TJP & Karl Fredericks. Actually it sounds like a New Japan version of the old 205 Live, where you had great matches and little crowd reaction because for now it’s empty arena shows. Besides guys that have worked for New Japan and live in the U.S., other names as part of the first taping last week were Danny Limelight, The DKC, Tom Lawlor and Rust Taylor. MLW positioned it as Lawlor representing MLW in interpromotional matches on the New Japan show which is notable because New Japan had worked exclusively with ROH and still maintains that relationship.

El Fantasma, who is the father of the WWE NXT cruiserweight champion and head of the Mexico City Box y Lucha commission, said that they are aware of at least 30 different deaths of wrestlers since 5/1, both active and retired. He said that his impression is that 90 percent of them were COVID related. This was the second straight week of ridiculous numbers of deaths of Mexican pro wrestlers.

The WWE Network programming is essentially all Undertaker as far as viewing goes. The top ten shows for the past week were: 1. Undertaker’s Last Ride episode five; 2. Undertaker’s Last Ride episode four; 3. Adam Cole’s Undisputed Best; 4. Undertaker’s Last Ride episode one; 5. Backlash 2020; 6. Undertaker’s Last Ride episode three; 7. Undertaker’s Last Ride episode two; 8. Raw Talk (which is in the post-Raw time slot where it should be No. 1 most weeks); 9. Best of Undertaker; 10. Last Ride post-mortem with A.J. Styles