[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter):

New Japan Pro Wrestling has at least the top matches announced for its biggest shows of the year, WrestleKingdom 15, taking place on 1/4 and 1/5 at the Tokyo Dome. No exact number of tickets released has been announced, but the latest word has the figure well under 20,000. The shows are not sold out which, like the 12/11 Budokan Hall show, highlights the difficulty in getting people to attend live events under these circumstances. Both shows are scheduled for 2 a.m. Eastern time starts and the shows will likely be with fewer total matches and shorter time than in previous years when the usual five hour shows usually seemed too short ... The belief is that the Evil vs. Sanada winner would get a shot at whoever emerges as IWGP & IC champion, with it being on one of the New Beginning shows. Thus far announced for post-Dome big shows are New Beginning shows on 1/30 in Nagoya at Dolphins Arena, and 2/10 and 2/11 in Hiroshima at the Sun Plaza Arena. With the inability to use major name foreigners due to the fact everyone on the show has to be in Japan by 12/20 for quarantine reasons, and a huge decline in interest due to so many factors related to COVID, the events on paper look lackluster compared to the past when this was been one of the best, if not the best show of the year.

Judge Richard Boulware on 12/10 ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in granting class action status to the Cung Le lawsuit against the UFC. This gives the case far more power as it moves forward. The nature of the case, that UFC used its power to subvert competition and buy up competitors and in doing so, kept the salary structure down, would, if successful, serve as a scary warning for WWE. Because everything that applies to UFC in this scenario also applies to WWE. The ruling means that every fighter who fought in UFC from 2010 through 2017, when the suit was filed, would be considered a plaintiff in the suit. In doing so, that could lead to a scary level of damages, which plaintiff lawyers claim would be almost $5 billion to 1,200 fighters. Keep in mind that WWE pays a lower percentage to talent than UFC, which has been at around 20 percent the past several years and Dana White claimed UFC would be paying $200 million to talent this year. WWE has been closer to eight percent in recent years and may be lower this year since so much of talent pay had to do with live attendance which didn’t exist, while they are not bonused for television revenue, which did exist, and television production and travel costs are down, meaning profits are up, but talent doesn’t share in those unless they’ve gotten a recently done high downside contract. WWE revenues are generally slightly higher per year than those of UFC. The plaintiffs claimed that fighters were deprived of $1.6 billion over the seven year period because of UFC keeping the salary structure for talent at just under 20 percent. A similar case against WWE if UFC’s fighters suing can get a ruling on a percentage would lead to far more. As part of the suit, the fighters are asking for a ban of long-term contracts, claiming that if fighters were available to negotiate new deals constantly it would open them to higher bidding and perhaps end up with more companies because there would be more access to top fighters. But the other reality is that nobody other than UFC, and to a smaller level Bellator due to the DAZN deal that is now ending, has been able to be profitable at any level to be able to afford top level fighters. Because of UFC’s huge advantage of being the incumbent major league brand and much higher revenues, the ability to compete is very difficult. While UFC and WWE both underplay talent greatly as a percentage of revenues compared to major sports, whether this should be a case where fighters or wrestlers need to form a union, like athletes did in other sports, and negotiate from more power to up pay, as opposed to being something a court should order is a problematic question. WWE has competition from AEW, but they are on fixed revenues and unless they want to go deeply in debt, adding new talent at bidding war prices, unless it’s somebody key that would affect their own demographic and cut of ad revenue, doesn’t make economic sense. There is no real precedent case for this. But if UFC can’t get the case thrown out, it would appear to need to settle. With a potential of nearly $5 billion based on treble damages, it simply can’t afford the risk of a trial where a jury could be sympathetic to fighters when seeing the huge profits the company has made annually that haven’t tricked down and fighters suing who were stars and didn’t make a similar to percentage of money that athletes in other sports make ... The key to the argument is that UFC either bought out competition (Pride, WEC, Strikeforce) or controlled so much of the top talent that others wanting in couldn’t compete. With pro wrestling if this suit gets results, the situation would have been similar pre-AEW. AEW, like Bellator, was hoped to be the saving grace of proof there is competition. That may be why UFC seemed happy to let some talent go to Bellator or made the deal with ONE to get rid of Demetrious Johnson, getting rid of older fighters who were good but not at the top of the marketing food chain. Historically, most settlements in antitrust cases are 19 percent of what the suit is for, which, in this case would be $300 million. If there is a settlement anywhere near that level, it would seem very possible if not likely WWE wouldn’t get hit at some point with a similar lawsuit. It going to trial, which I can’t imagine this case doing, and a verdict against UFC would be a nightmare for WWE because then a case precedent would be set and at that point they would be a sitting duck for a suit and a huge settlement unless some nature of the ruling is made unique to UFC and in specific wouldn’t apply to WWE, but I have no idea what that could be from a legal standpoint.

Mostly included this news piece because of the major implications it could have on wrestling should the lawsuit succeed.

AAA put off TripleMania as long as it could, hoping to be able to have fans. Given that even more than American style, Lucha Libre is reliant on fan response or the entire thing looks kind of stupid, you have to consider what they did as a huge success ... We don’t have television numbers for Mexico. There were 106,900 viewers at the peak on YouTube and Facebook while the show was live, with only Spanish language commentary, although Hugo Savinovich did speak some English with knowledge a lot of English speaking people were watching. That number was up from 49,300 live on Twitch with both English and Spanish feeds for last year’s show that had tons more mainstream pub with the debut of Cain Velasquez, and also included Omega, The Young Bucks, Cody Rhodes, Tessa Blanchard and a stronger main event from a star standpoint with Blue Demon Jr. putting up his mask vs. the hair of Dr. Wagner Jr. The 2018 show did 40,600 live in both languages with the four-way mask match with Pentagon, Psycho Clown, L.A. Park and El Hijo del Fantasma (now Santos Escobar, who lost), plus Cage, Jeff Jarrett, Sammy Guevara, Rich Swann and ACH. The 2017 show did 73,200 for the Psycho Clown vs. Wagner Jr. mask vs. mask match. With all the positive comments, by the next day, the viewer count for the show had reached 1.8 million when it was taken down by the promotion. It’s not clear why but it was likely flagged for music played during the show. There were a couple of bands, including Molotov, who played on the show. They are a big deal in Mexico and Latin America, having won a number of MTV Latin America and Latin Grammy Awards between 1998 and 2014. By 12/17, the entire AAA YouTube channel and page was gone. Last year’s show was 2.2 million but that was after a year. When matches were then put up without music, the Pagano vs. Chessman match was clearly the star match with the most views well ahead of Omega vs. Laredo Kid, even if the latter match would have been bigger in the U.S.

IWGP and IC champion Tetsuya Naito, 38, as was largely expected, was named Tokyo Sports Pro Wrestling MVP on 12/14. In winning, Naito became the eighth wrestler to win the award three times, as he had previously won in 2016 and 2017. It also marked the tenth straight year that a New Japan wrestler had won the award. Based on the fact the award usually goes to the IWGP champion, Naito becoming the first person to hold both titles at the same time and merge them, plus ending the year as champion, made it pretty obvious he would win. Naito joins Antonio Inoki (six times), Giant Baba (three), Jumbo Tsuruta (three), Genichiro Tenryu (four), Keiji Muto (four), Hiroshi Tanahashi (four) and Kazuchika Okada (four) as three-time winners. The last time a non-New Japan wrestler won the award was 2010 when Takashi Sugiura took it ... The award usually goes to a high profile world champion and always to somebody Japanese, with the long exception to this rule being Bob Sapp in 2002. Generally foreigners aren’t even considered seriously for the award, even the few times one deserved it.

Due to the increase in COVID cases, the state of Mexico has ordered all businesses closed by 5 p.m. from 12/14 to 12/28, meaning no wrestling shows. That doesn’t affect Mexico City itself but does affect the surrounding area such as Naucalpan. Some area promotions are moving up the start time of the shows a few hours to be finished by 5 p.m. I have no idea why a wrestling show that ends at 5 p.m. is any safer than one that ends at 10 p.m., but it’s more about the curfew on being outdoors. The bad thing is that Christmas and Christmas week are one of the biggest periods of the year for house shows and Mexico is a house show business. There are far fewer shows this year

MLW: They are teasing the arrival of the Mil Muertes character. Salina de la Renta is bringing him in and mentioned the name Pascual Mendoza, which was supposed to be the real name of Muertes (Gilbert Cosme is his real name even though most know him as Ricky Banderas) in his Lucha Underground storyline. They used the Lucha Underground backstory and teased the character but have not used the actual Mil Muertes name. Cosme did have permission from Lucha Underground in his deal to use the Muertes name on independent shows, which others did not have

ROH announced that Bandido, Flamita, EC 3 and Kenny King were both off the television tapings that took place this past weekend as well as the 12/18 PPV show due to COVID testing issues. All four must have tested positive in some form before getting on the flight from where they were flying in front to Baltimore. Everyone else booked tested negative before they flew in and again when they arrived and were put in a bubble environment for several days before the tapings As noted, Bandido’s situation was from remnants of having it in September it appears. Flamita and King haven’t addressed it. EC 3 said he has COVID, telling Chris Van Vliet, “I’ve been quarantined for a week to 10 days. At this point, I have COVID, and I’m at the tail end of it. It sucked a little bit. Some of it wasn’t bad. I’m healthy so I was fortunate. It infected my parents who were visiting me, whoops, so they had to stay longer so I’ve had no alone time. I would say I’m at 90 percent. This is the tail end of it. I’ve had none of the respiratory issues. It felt like the flu and a moderately bad cold some of the time. These changes affect two PPV matches, the Flamita & Bandido & Rey Horus six-man title defense against Shane Taylor & The Soldiers of Savagery and Jay Briscoe vs. EC 3. How the card will be changed will be announced on the one-hour pre-show before the PPV. Really they should have done it this week as soon as they refigured it. With Marty Scurll being out of the company, at least for the time being since nothing has been officially said, Hunter “Delirious” Johnston is pretty much the creative force. He’s had to rewrite most of the PPV show and the TVs after the PPV multiple times because every change means it affects multiple other pieces of the puzzle the way he strategizes. The plan is to gear the TV for the changes so that there is a story for whatever is changed.

The 12/22 and 12/29 [Impact] TV shows will be “Best Of” shows and the next new show will be on 1/5

People have asked about Ace Austin, since he’s been off [Impact] television. There’s no real story to it. He just hasn’t had a feud on the books and rather than just have him lose to the people who are in the current mix, he’s sitting it out. He’s been to all the tapings and will be back in the mix soon

The 12/23 [AEW] Holiday Bash show, which will air at about 10 p.m. (directly after the NBA game) has Young Bucks vs. The Acclaimed (Max Caster & Anthony Bowens) for the tag titles, a match with Hikaru Shida (likely to build to something with Abadon), Pac vs. The Butcher, Chris Jericho & MJF vs. Top Flight, Luchasaurus & Jungle Boy & Marko Stunt vs. Alan Angels & Preston Vance & Colt Cabana and Dustin Rhodes vs. Evil Uno. AEW usually gets weak lead-ins, like 300,000 or 350,000 viewers while NXT usually gets closer to 1 million, which is why NXT often wins in total viewers in quarter one. However, AEW is probably getting around a two million viewer lead-in here, so even though late in the show is not advantageous for drawing viewers, they may start out stronger than usual. The one thing for sure is that they will start out with more non-regular fans watching than any show they’ve done, because they’ve never once had a lead-in like this, so it’s imperative in the first 15 minutes to do something compelling. It’s been given a tag of Holiday Bash, although unlike with NXT, giving a show a fancy name doesn’t seem to necessarily bring in casual viewers for AEW. There won’t be a lot to learn from the ratings next week. If AEW does great numbers due to the lead-in, like UFC sometimes does with a great sports lead-in, it’s nice but means nothing. If it does badly because of the late start, that means little as well. NXT will do better than usual unopposed, but all that does is tell us what we already know, that NXT would do far better if moved to another night. But we’ve known that since day one and the fact it isn’t moved tells you the prime reason NXT is on USA is not to draw ratings but to keep AEW from doing ratings

Cody Rhodes will be part of Snoop Dogg’s virtual New Year’s Eve special at 11 p.m. Eastern that night live streamed from his home. He will be promoting “Go Big Show,” with the cast of the show, which includes Rhodes (the reason Rhodes and WWE made a series of deals where Rhodes gave up attempted claims for some of his fathers’ conceptions but to get the rights back to the Rhodes name had to do with this show because it would have been awkward for him to be a show host without a last name). Snoop Dogg’s appearance on the 1/6 AEW show is also to promote the new show, which starts on TBS on 1/7

The last major WWE show of the year is TLC on 12/20 from St. Petersburg, FL. At press time there are six matches announced and one would think there are two possible additions on Smackdown based on a last show angle–Street Profits vs. Roode & Ziggler (or three-way with Nakamura & Cesaro) for the tag titles and Zayn vs. Big E. Both have been promoted and neither is on television this week. The Lashley vs. Riddle U.S. title that’s been pushed at least during the middle of the week was slated for the Rumble, and not TLC, but everything changes every day. McIntyre vs. Styles and Reigns vs Owens for the WWE and Universal titles respectively are both TLC matches. Orton vs. The Fiend is a Firefly Inferno match, which usually makes for a great visual spectacle but is terribly limiting in what you can do. Banks vs. Carmella for the Smackdown women’s title and Kingston & Woods vs. Benjamin & Alexander for the Raw tag titles are announced. There will also be a Baszler & Jax women’s tag title defense against Asuka & ?. It was to be Lana, and for months they seemed to build to Lana putting Jax through a table (and maybe that even happens) but did an injury angle to take Lana out. Asuka will pick a partner. Rose did do a run-in on Jax and Baszler to get involved. Others have noted that it’s about time for Charlotte Flair to return, and everyone is keeping very quiet about her

Post Wrestling reported the launch of a new NXT India show in 2021. The report was that the series would begin filming in January, starting out with an eight-man single elimination tournament that will be taped at the Performance Center. The idea is for the show to air on regular television in India starting on 1/26, as well as on the WWE Network. They are also talking about another new one hour show on the WWE Network weekly, but while very much in the talking stages, we were told it’s premature to say for certain

The wrestlers who have been sent to classes twice a week with Adam Pearce and Drew Gulak as far as Vince McMahon feeling they needed to improve their work were Keith Lee, Otis, Dabba-Kato, Dio Maddin and Omos. Part of it is Vince wants more monsters in the ring, as historically whenever WWE business is bad, Vince blames smaller guys on top, but right now, his thought process is he doesn’t have big guys who can work at that level. I mean, having Lee do absolutely nothing that got him over and instead focusing on everything that he does that doesn’t stand out could have something to do with all this. The thing that isn’t talked about is that Lars Sullivan is not on this list. As best we can tell, Sullivan is the latest three week project as they put him over as a monster on both Raw and Smackdown, including squashing Jeff Hardy. Then he did an interview which in its own weird way was supposed to be a heel interview but the scripting almost made him come across as a babyface. And he hasn’t been booked on a show since. Another issue is that the top star on the brand is a heel they don’t want to beat, so it’s not really a good thing to have another top heel they don’t want to beat on the same brand

Benjamin Carter was given the okay to announce his WWE signing that we had noted weeks ago. This came after he had two very impressive showings with AEW in matches with Scorpio Sky on television and Lee Johnson on Dark. His situation was unique because he was in the U.S. without a visa, so AEW couldn’t sign him if they wanted to without going through all the visa stuff which is very difficult right now. To show how difficult, he’s being sent back to the U.K. by WWE to work for that brand rather than in the U.S

There was a regular NXT fan who tested positive for COVID. He noted that he had only been to two locations outside in the previous weeks, a theme park and NXT, noting one was outdoors with people spread apart and the other was indoors with people crammed together. He was at the tapings the day before Thanksgiving, then tested positive on 12/1 and not allowed to attend the 12/2 tapings. NXT fans have noted to us while fans to have to be tested to come, that fans often get tested the day before, then go out to area restaurants and bars after testing, so even if they did test negative, they could pick it up that night and attend the show

The top ten shows for the week on WWE Network were: 1. WWE Untold: Bill Goldberg’s streak; 2. Day of Survivor Series 2020; 3. NXT Takeover War Games 2020; 4. Best of TLC; 5. Lilian Garcia’s Chasing Glory with Elias; 6. TLC 2009; 7. Survivor Series 2020; 8. TLC 2019; 9. NXT from 12/19; 10. Smackdown from 11/16. Raw Talk was No. 11 and Talking Smack was No. 13. There were no other actual wrestling shows, whether it be NXT U.K., 205 Live, Main Event, or indie shows that cracked the top 25

WWE Ratings, AEW vs. NXT Ratings, Impact Ratings:

SPOILER: show

Raw on 12/14 set its all-time record lows with both 1,527,000 average viewers over the three hours and 0.41 (530,000 viewers) in 18-49. It broke the prior record low of 1,561,000 viewers set on 7/13, when they bottomed out running at the Performance Center. The 0.41 broke the prior mark of 0.46 set on 5/4, also at the Performance Center, and that’s very staggering to break your previous record low by 10.9 percent. While Raw did beat AEW this week, Raw’s number in 18-49 was lower than the two previous weeks of AEW. Considering AEW has grown significantly from this point last year and WWE has fallen significantly, unless WWE reverses these losses or AEW collapses, this doesn’t bode well for down the line. The first hour of 1,627,000 viewers was the second lowest first hour in history, beating only the 1,580,000 on 7/13. The second hour did 1,512,000 viewers, the all-time low for the hour. The third hour did 1,441,000 viewers, the lowest hour in the history of Raw, beating the 1,463,000 viewers on 7/27. All the previous low marks were from the Performance Center where they ran with no atmosphere . All three hours broke the show’s all-time 18-49 lows, with hour two and hour three being the lowest second and third hours in show history. Raw placed ninth in 18-49, trailing four NFL-related shows on ESPN, Below Deck on Bravo and three CNN shows, although head-to-head it was third behind ESPN and Bravo ... The Cleveland Browns vs. Baltimore Ravens game went down to the wire and that didn’t help, but football numbers were down from last week, not up, and there have been other games this season doing similar numbers. The game did 12,422,000 viewers, 3.57 in 18-49 and 2.63 in 18-34. The key is that the first hour was so low, as the drop during the show was normal, so it wasn’t the excitement of the game hurting the third hour. It was that less people tuned in to watch Raw from the start of the show, and those that did stayed in normal numbers. The weak spot on the show was men 18-34 and women 35-49, while really the other demos weren’t far off last week’s numbers. But as noted, the men weren’t there in hour one to begin with so it wasn’t the show that was the turnoff but for whatever reason, a lack of interest that night in the product. Raw was seventh in males 18-49, ninth in women 18-49, seventh in 18-34, fifth in males 12-34 and sixth in women 12-34. It was down 12.1 percent in viewers from last week, as well as 21.2 percent in 18-49 and 30.0 percent in 18-34. From the same week last year, it was down 25.7 percent in viewers, 31.7 percent in 18-49 and 47.6 percent in 18-34. The show did 69,000 in Males 18-34 (down 46.9 percent), 82,000 in women 18-34 (down 4.7 percent), 294,000 in men 35-49 (down 2.6 percent) and 85,000 in women 35-49 (down 40.6 percent) The drops from hour one-to-three were normal, with women 18-49 down 15.4 percent, men 18-49 down 10.2 percent, teenage girls down 20.4 percent, teenage boys up 17.8 percent (so this show did work with that age group) and 50+ down 8.6 percent. The show did a 0.26 in 12-17 (down 3.7 percent from last week), 0.22 in 18-34 (down 30.1 percent), 0.60 in 35-49 (down 14.8 percent) and 0.77 in 50+ (down 8.3 percent).

Smackdown on 12/11 was the closest it has come to the prior year in viewers, ending with a 1.32 rating, 2,206,000 viewers (an above usual 1.38 viewers per home) and 0.58 (755,000 viewers) in 18-49. As compared to 12/4, it was up 2.3 percent in homes, 3.6 percent in viewers, down 1.0 percent in 18-34 and down 25.0 percent in 18-34. The numbers were down 9.6 percent in homes from the same week last year, but just 5.3 percent in viewers, down 11.0 percent in 18-49 and down 25.0 percent in 18-34. Smackdown tied with Shark Tank for first in 18-49 and tied Shark Tank and McGyver for first in 18-34. College Football on ESPN did 1,023,000 viewers and 0.33 in 18-49. In 18-49, Smackdown would have tied for first in 18-49, although the 0.51 for Gold Rush on Discovery is really far more impressive given the difference in network vs. cable. Among network shows, Smackdown was the least watched overall, by far the lowest in 50 plus, first in males 18-49, tied for third in women 18-49 and tied for fifth of eight in 25-54. The show did 144,000 in men 18-34 (down 20.9 percent), 73,000 in women 18-34 (down 27.0 percent), 352,000 in men 35-49 (up 17.7 percent) and186,000 in women 35-49 (down 5.6 percent) ... The first half hour with the Sasha Banks/Carmella contract signing and Montez Ford vs. Dolph Ziggler match did 2.30 million viewers. The second half hour built around Sami Zayn vs. Big E and the in-ring with Kevin Owens and Jey Uso and the Reigns and Paul Heyman promo with Uso that preceded it did 2.18 million viewers. The Reigns backstage attack on Owens, Riott Squad vs. Natalya & Billie Kay and Otis & Chad Gable vs. Shinsuke Nakamura & Cesaro did 2.19 million viewers. The Banks vs. Carmella women’s title match did 2.15 million viewers.

Some more notes on the AEW show on 12/9, which was its most successful show of the year considering having head-to-head competition. AEW set its record with 1.68 viewers per home, breaking the old mark of 1.67 and being first among all sports in that category. It was also had the youngest median viewer page of any sports program for the week. There were seven segments that averaged more than 1 million viewers not including commercial time. The high point was Shaquille O’Neal and Brandi Rhodes averaging 1,161,000 viewers and 667,000 in 18-49. As far as viewers went, the second highest was Dustin Rhodes vs. 10 at 1,129,000 viewers and 630,000 in 18-49. Cody and Sting averaged 1,097,000 viewers an 661,000 in 18-49. FTR vs. Brian Pillman Jr. & Griff Garrison averaged 1,091,000 and 631,000 in18-49. The Inner Circle segment averaged 1,049,000 and 621,000 in 18-49. The Abadon squash averaged 1,039,000 and 591,000 in 18-49. And the Kenny Omega & Don Callis interview averaged 1,014,000 viewers and 611,000 in 18-49. Because of the lead-in, the first minute of NXT did 1,125,000 viewers but lost 210,000 viewers in the first minute and was below 800,000 by minute No. 8. AEW topped NXT by minute two and remained on top the rest of the night. The Young Bucks match started at around 900,000 and peaked at about 1,070,000. The last five minutes of the match averaged 1,046,000 and 603,000 in 18-49. The Sting segment peak was 1,201,000 and 695,000 in 18-49. The Shaq peak was 1,220,000 and 676,000 in 18-49. Inner Circle segment peak was 1,157,000 viewers and 646,000 in 18-49. The Omega/Callis peak was 1,052,000/618, and the last five minutes of MJF vs. Orange Cassidy did 1,039,000/597 and post match with Miro got up to 1,098/625.

The 12/16 head-to-head numbers were back to being closer as AEW in doing a show designed by feature new characters, but still had a Kenny Omega main event and a Sting appearance, did 806,000 viewers and 0.32 in 18-49 (420,000 viewers), which is about what the show was doing for normal weeks prior to the last two. The show was third for the night behind the MTV Challenge show that features Lio Rush (839,000 viewers and 0.45) and Real Housewives of Orange County (1,004,000 viewers and 0.35 in 18-49). NXT did 766,000 viewers (its best since 10/28, which notably was AEW’s best week for DVR viewership in months) and 0.19 in 18-49 (252,000 viewers), with a huge increase in the 35-49 demo for a show built around some solid wrestling, most notably Kyle O’Reilly vs. Pete Dunne and Toni Storm vs. Rhea Ripley. The show had a four-minute overrun so head-to-head was 762,000 and 250,000. It would indicate the big pops coming off the 12/2 show with Sting and Omega’s title win were not game changers as much as just strong weeks. In particular, the audience was terrible for AEW among teenagers, particularly guys, a group that was way above usual the week before. A key to this is AEW used a lot of acts that haven’t had much TV time. They did have stars in the ring, Omega, Cody and Jericho, but at the end of the day, none of them were in matches people wanted to see that badly and the novelty of Sting was like all nostalgia and now they have to get him in a story. A lot of the show was setting up future matches and at times you do sacrifice numbers when introducing new characters or giving people wins. In the end, it wasn’t a bad number and being No. 1 in 18-49 men for the night makes it an overall success, even if I was still somewhat a disappointment. But it’s never good when you open huge and drop hard and this show did just that with a viewership pattern with over 50s similar to a bad Raw. The reality is the show started great for the six-man tag opener with Adam Page & John Silver & Alex Reynolds vs. Matt Hardy & Private Party, so the viewers were there. But they didn’t stay. The most unusual thing was the Omega vs. Janela match which was both the second best quarter in 18-49 and 18-34 of the night, but also the fewest total viewers of the night for either show with the exception of one quarter of NXT. Omega is unique in that he’s a major difference maker in 18-49 and often does not do well among 50+ at all. But even though the talking while commenting on a match by Don Callis and Omega has been done before and is remembered fondly for Don Muraco, Jerry Lawler and The Rock, it clearly didn’t work to the older 50 audience. NXT won the entire second hour in viewers, although at no point was 18-49 close. The main event battle saw Omega vs. Janela do 718,000 viewers, 419,000 in 18-49 and 113,000 in 18-34. Rhea Ripley vs. Toni Storm did 772,000 viewers, 241,000 in 18-49 and 50,000 in 18-34. After AEW went off the air, for the overrun, NXT gained 115,000 total viewers, 38,000 in 35-49 and 20,000 in 18-34. AEW was strong in males by usual standards in males 35-49, but aside from No. 1 in men 18-49, their other demo numbers weren’t as high as most weeks. They fell to 18th in women 18-49, eighth in 18-34 overall, 12th in females 12-34 and 13th in males 12-34. NXT was 17th in males 18-49, but sixth in males 12-34 and way down the list everywhere else. Overall AEW was down 19.0 percent in viewers and 28.1 percent in 18-49 from last week. NXT was up 16.2 percent in viewers and 16.1 percent in 18-49 from last week. As compared to the same week last year, and that was the only week in history where NXT won in 18-49, AEW was up 18.0 percent in viewers and 28.0 percent in 18-49. That basically means the audience over the past year aged downwards, as when your 18-49 number increases at a higher level than overall, you’re generally drawing a younger skew. And the opposite is the opposite. NXT was down 3.6 percent in viewers and down 29.6 percent in 18-49. AEW won all the key demos, but did poorly with teenagers and way way down from last week in key demos. AEW did 51,000 in men 18-34 (down 51.0 percent from last week) to 29,000 for NXT down (down 27.5 percent). AEW did 54,000 in women 18-34 (down 46.0 percent) to 17,000 for NXT (down 15.0 percent). AEW did 224,000 in men 35-49 (down 13.8 percent) to 134,000 for NXT (up 32.7 percent). AEW did 91,000 in women 35-49 (down 24.2 percent) to 72,000 for NXT (up 28.6 percent). The craziest thing is the open, where NXT usually does well because of the lead-in. AEW did one of its best first quarters ever, but for whatever reason, the audience left huge after the opening match. They didn’t switch to NXT either. However the big turnaround point for older viewers as well as regular AEW viewers was Kyle O’Reilly vs. Pete Dunne which it is pretty clear was the key point of the night. So it was the promise of a great working match with title implications that was the key to getting a large number of AEW fans to switch. The first quarter saw Adam Page & John Silver & Alex Reynolds vs. Private Party & Matt Hardy, which did 1,010,000 viewers and 512,000 in 18-49. NXT opened at 743,000 viewers and 230,000 in 18-49 for Kushida & Leon Ruff vs. Johnny Gargano & Austin Theory. In the second quarter, AEW had 826,000 viewers and 410,000 in 18-49 for an Inner Circle interview segment, the Cody & Brandi Christmas video and the beginning of Cody vs. Angelico. NXT had 734,000 viewers and 247,000 in 18-49 for a Legado del Fantasma promo, a Shotzi Blackheart promo and the beginning of Tyler Rust vs. Tommaso Ciampa. In the third quarter, AEW had 843,000 viewers and 405,000 in 18-49 for the end of Cody vs. Angelico, the post-match with Team Taz, Sting and Darby Allin plus interviews with Miro and Eddie Kingston and a brawl with Kingston’s group vs. Pac, Lance Archer, Penta and Fenix. NXT had 695,000 viewers and 223,000 in 18-49 for the end of Rust vs. Ciampa and a Grizzled Young Veterans promo piece. In the fourth quarter, AEW had 835,000 viewers and 413,000 in 18-49 for a Dustin Rhodes promo and Inner Circle vs. Best Friends & Varsity Blonds & Top Flight. NXT had 742,000 viewers and 246,000 in 18-49 for the first half of Dunne vs. O’Reilly. In the fifth quarter, AEW fell to 726,000 viewers and 400,000 in 18-49 for the rest of the 12-man tag match plus the Thunder Rosa/Britt Baker segment. The second half of Dunne vs. O’Reilly did 843,000 viewers and 293,000 in 18-49, so a gain from start-to-finish of 148,000 viewers and 70,000 in 18-49, which, given the skew, is very clearly mostly an AEW audience. In the sixth quarter, AEW had 746,000 viewers and 399,000 in 18-49 for Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian vs. The Acclaimed, post-match and a Top Flight promo. NXT had 801,000 viewers and 271,000 in 18-49 for a Rhea Ripley interview, the Xia Li & Boa segment and Blackheart vs. Indi Hartwell and the post-match. In the seventh quarter, AEW had 741,000 viewers and 406,000 in 18-49 for Ivelisse & Diamante vs. Big Swole & Serena Deeb and the post-match. NXT had 764,000 viewers and 251,000 in 18-49 for Karrion Kross vs. Desmond Troy plus interviews with Isaiah Scott and Ever Rise. In quarter eight, Omega vs. Janela lost 23,000 viewers while gaining 13,000 in 18-49. Ripley vs. Storm gained 8,000 viewers while losing 10,000 in 18-49. AEW did a 0.06 in 12-17, which is abysmal (down 66.7 percent from last week), 0.15 in 18-34 (down 48.5 percent), 0.49 in 35-49 (down 17.1 percent) and 0.30 in 50+ (up 3.4 percent). The audience was 65.5 percent male in 18-49 and 47.0 percent male in 12-17, which tells you just how bad the teenage boys number was, as it was down 85.9 percent from the prior week.. NXT did a 0.11 in 12-17 (up 10.0 percent and nearly doubling AEW in that demo), 0.07 in 18-34 (down 23.3 percent), 0.41 in 35-49 (up 31.2 percent) and 0.37 in 50+ (up 5.7 percent).

Some DVR viewer notes. Over the last eight weeks, AEW averages a 31 percent increase over the regular viewership via DVR viewership. Prior to the pandemic it was 41 percent and has steadily dropped. The 12/2 show, with the Omega vs. Moxley match, only had a 19 percent increase by day seven, so up from 539,000 to 648,000 in 18-49 and the 12/9 show had a 22 percent jump from 584,000 to 710,000. The average week adding in DVR viewership is 521,000. So including DVR viewers, the 12/2 was up was up 24.3 percent from usual and 12/9 was up 36.3 percent. However the night before Thanksgiving that did the bad number at 340,000 live, only increased 112,000 so they did not even come close to normal numbers adding in delayed viewing. NXT on 12/2 had its usual range number (30 percent) so it increased from 210,000 to 273,000. AEW used to blow away NXT in percentage increase on DVR but now both are pretty steady at around the same range. It’s more added actual viewers for AEW since the 30 percent increase starts with a larger base number most weeks and NXT base number of late has been at a lower range than it has been doing most of the year, so basically of the wrestling fans who watch both shows, more and more are going from NXT first, AEW later to AEW first and NXT later. NXT increased 63,000 on 12/2 and AEW increased 119,000, so actually almost double, but on a percentage basis it was 19 percent for AEW and 30 percent for NXT

Impact on 12/15 did 177,000 viewers, down 19.9 percent from the first week built around Omega appearing. Aside from last week, it was the best number the show had done since 9/22. It’s still above the usual average but not by much. It did an 0.04 in 18-49, down 50 percent from the prior week, so they were back to their usual older skewing audience.

The second week of Impact on Twitch with Omega averaged 12,397 viewers on Twitch and peaked at 14,663, down from 43,000 and 53,000 the prior week. But it was still up from the normal levels of 800 to 2,500

* Smeat's note - Taking all of next week off except for Friday, assuming next week's Observer Newsletter is released on time, as a holiday break from these sheets reports. Someone else can do them next week if they want.