[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

The two days of WrestleMania, the first U.S. shows during the pandemic with a sizable audience, were shows with hard working wrestlers and very questionable decision-making. The big surprise was that of the 17 matches, ten were won by the supposed heels (the concept of faces and heels is not particularly strong but this was based on designations going into the matches). There was the feeling that the first shows with live crowds would be presented as a major celebration, particularly now when booking and building the next house are no longer important with all the money guaranteed. But instead of a celebration, the weekend ended with the company having, in theory, eight heel champions and one babyface, Bianca Belair, who ended night one winning the title in the main event. One could argue Rhea Ripley was a face in the end and while the heel in the build, was presented as a face coming out of her title win over Asuka for the Raw women’s championship ... The real main event of the weekend, which saw shows on 4/10 and 4/11 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, was Roman Reigns keeping the Universal title in a three-way over Daniel Bryan and Edge ... With it being the first time fans were in attendance, some, including Daniel Bryan, thought Reigns would get cheered. In actuality, he was the only heel either night who got true main eventer heel heat. Edge, even with a heel turn on Bryan, was cheered heavily. Bryan was cheered as well, but Edge’s promos at the end with the idea of winning the title ten years to the day of his retirement as champion, made him the sentimental favorite. He also had an enormous pyro display coming out so was presented as a superstar. Some thought nobody would get booed because people would be so happy to be there. And many were. But there was a rain delay of 40 minutes before the start of the show on the first night, and because of the weather, the expected super hot crowd to start wasn’t there. Really night one, the only big reactions were for Cesaro in his win over Seth Rollins and for Belair, both before her match with Sasha Banks started when people saw her crying in the ring, and kind of giving away the finish. But in reality, that was the only finish to do. People treated Belair’s title win in the day one main event as historical. One advantage WWE still has over everyone is that WrestleMania, people attach more significance to the matches and they are often seen as larger-than-life just being on the stage ... But the biggest surprise was the reaction to Hulk Hogan. As noted last week, this was not the year to make him co-host. Wrestling fans have accepted Hogan back and while some obviously did care about his racist remarks coming out, most didn’t. But the world changed. A lot of people didn’t realize the ugliness or the degree of racism in the U.S. and the last year made them realize it. Tolerance for racism years ago was far more than it is now. On the first night, it was described to us that there were people booing Hogan, but that it was a very small portion of the audience who were very loud. Still, it wasn’t noticeable watching because they pumped in so many fake cheers and drowned it out. On the second night, which drew essentially the same people, perhaps it forced some to think about it. Whatever it was, the fans on night two booed Hogan heavily. They also booed the finish of Randy Orton vs. The Fiend. Alexa Bliss was covered in black goo and it distracted Fiend, who Orton beat with an RKO is a nothing match. Because the match only went 5:53, and little happened, and Fiend survived being burned and his gimmick was no selling, the idea he wouldn’t kick out of an RKO didn’t sit well. They booed more when the lights immediately went out, and when they came back on, everyone was gone. They also booed heavily when highlights of the match were shown later. The other spot booed started with Hogan and co-host Titus O’Neil came out before the second night main event. Hogan was booed heavily at this point. Bayley came out and said “Hit my pyro” and they gave her a ton of pyro. People figured this would be the return of Becky Lynch, which was talked about for the show. Not only was that the case, but Lynch herself on social media teased it would be her return (although she teased return was night one), and Nick Khan had talked about Lynch and Ronda Rousey coming back. Instead, the spot was used to bring out the Bella Twins, who were heavily booed because they weren’t Becky Lynch. They built to a spot where Bayley talked about John Cena not being there, and Nikki hit Bayley with the mic and then both attacked Bayley and she rolled down the ramp. When people saw it was over with no Lynch, they booed again. Overall it was notable the reaction. Night two was better inside the ring, but people didn’t get the finish they wanted out of the main event. Night one didn’t have as good wrestling, but people got the Cesaro win and the Belair win, so it was judged better ... The two shows did 750,000 searches on Google, which is a very disappointing number when you consider a nothing UFC show did 500,000 the same weekend. Bunny and Paul were the two who cracked the top 20 in their respective nights individually. Night two was ten percent ahead of night one ... They announced sold out crowds of 25,675 fans for both nights. WrestleMania attendance is always exaggerated and they were going to announce a number above 25,000 under any circumstances. Whatever the number of tickets that were put on sale on day one, that was basically it. They had about 300 tickets and 100 tickets left respectively just before show time. There were tickets at the door, but very few, and was basically sold out of the allotted tickets, whatever that actual number is. Because both shows sold a virtually identical number of tickets at the same prices, in theory, unless things change, it will be easy to figure out ticket sales and gates in early July ... With WWE, we don’t know about sales. Next year is AT&T Stadium, where they have 80,000 seats to fill (and 103,000 to claim). What we do know about this year is almost everyone who bought tickets for one show bought them for the other. While it sounds overwhelming, it’s feasible that instead of $17 million or so in gate they could do $34 million in two nights. This year’s numbers aren’t representative of anything because of COVID limiting travel ... There was a mask requirement unless eating or drinking, but it wasn’t policed as well as AEW. Crowd shots showed a solid percentage of maskless fans not eating or drinking. Several noted that a lot of people left on night one prior to the Banks vs. Belair main event. I wasn’t there and reports varied, but reports as the match started indicated the number was high, and it was very visible right on camera in the early part of the match. That didn’t happen night two, as the most anticipated match on that show went last. There were several match finishes changed or not finalized until the last minute. Because there is only the most vague long-term planning one, it’s not a issue, but you also don’t have long-term storylines that play out with the constant changes. Orton vs. Fiend was the prime example ... No numbers were released for total streaming viewers, or the number of new subscribers generated for Peacock over the week of the shows.

Probably the most-talked about episode of Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Challenge since Vince McMahon was the show, debuted on 4/11 with Chris Jericho. While Jericho, with his long history and experiences in different companies all over the world would have been a major guest under any circumstances, the real story is that you had an active top tier AEW star appearing on a WWE show on Peacock right after the close of the second night of WrestleMania. Jericho noted early on the uniqueness of it, joked about how maybe there’s a sniper around, and they told the story of how Austin asked him to do it in a phone conversation and Jericho agreed, and then Austin texted Vince McMahon to ask him and Vince said fine. Austin was so surprised he texted him a second time. Jericho later in the show also thanked Tony Khan, who had to give his approval. The key point is that, because it goes against everything Vince McMahon has done since 1984. It says McMahon doesn’t take AEW seriously as competition. Ironically, here we are just days later and everything has changed again. While WWE has had an economic advantage over all other companies since 1985 (minus 1996 and 1997) and on the U.S. scene, since much earlier than that, it has never acknowledged competition or allowed anyone from other groups on its shows with the exception of when having working agreements with regional companies like Smoky Mountain Wrestling and USWA, and some references to The Von Erichs in 1984 when McMahon was trying to get a working agreement with Fritz Von Erich due to the marketability of his sons. From an economic standpoint, the companies are worlds apart. WWE probably takes umpteen times the revenue of AEW. AEW doesn’t have the economic structure to compete with the modern WWE unless they are willing to swim in an extraordinary amount of red ink for a long time, nor the advantages of a 36 year head start as the incumbent promotion. Yet, AEW unopposed may end up being a top ten on cable show for the week, not just the night, and not far behind Raw, unless the 4/14 show was a total fluke. Still, while one could question McMahon’s decision to give Jericho a platform on his network in a manner that wasn’t portrayed the slightest bit negative and there was no talk about the talent being better than that of WWE (which likely wouldn’t have see air), for AEW, Jericho doing the show was clearly a huge positive. The company got publicity on WWE’s most-watched non-PPV event of its streaming service, and was portrayed in a positive manner, and it had to play a part in the huge ratings growth that followed. McMahon never did this with TNA, even though AEW is far more popular than TNA ever was. In fact, in the show, TNA was dismissed in the sense Jericho categorized AEW as the first new major national promotion since 2001, when WCW was sold in a fire sale by Turner Broadcasting to McMahon’s WWE.

TrillerNet, the parent company of the Triller boxing promotion, has officially purchased FITE, the leading independent streaming platform for boxing, MMA, kickboxing and pro wrestling groups. The key to the deal is by owning FITE, they would be getting 100 percent of the revenue from their streaming PPV shows as opposed to a much lower percentage. AEW works with FITE on distribution of its PPV shows outside the U.S., as well as its monthly $5 service in the U.K. market where people can watch Dynamite live each week before it airs streaming or on television through ITV on Friday nights. FITE not all that long ago had been in negotiations to sell to WWE, but the sides never came to an agreement ... FITE has worked with PPVs for just about every pro wrestling organization except WWE, and including, AEW, New Japan, Pro Wrestling NOAH, Impact, ROH and NWA. It also streams most of the major boxing events. It is believed that most pro wrestling companies deals with FITE are that the company gets 40 percent of the PPV revenue and FITE gets 60 percent.

WWE cut a number of talent on 4/15, the biggest name being Samoa Joe, a decision made ironically just before the AEW rating came out that would no doubt have affected at least a few of the decisions. Joe (Nuufolau Joel Seanoa, 42) had been announced earlier in the week as being removed from commentary on Raw with Corey Graves moving into his spot. At the time it was said he would return to being active talent. Joe was moved to announcing after a series of concussions had kept him out of the ring and he had done well previously as an announcer while injured. When he did his first run as an announcer, it was largely considered he did very well but it was felt at the time he was too valuable as talent to stay in the role. After he was having trouble being cleared due to concussions, he was moved permanently to announcing. John Laurinaitis was in charge of telling talent they were being let go, and saying it was due to budgetary reasons. All talent released is being paid through 7/14 and will have a non-compete until that point to where they wouldn’t be able to legally work for anyone else, although at times they have allowed people to work independents, but not for a television promotion. There are people who have or are going to ask to see if that can be waived because they want to get on the market and back to work as soon as possible. The fact everyone has a 90 day and Andrade didn’t tells you Andrade had some form of a way to get that removed when he got his release. The company’s profit margin is its highest in history, but the goal is to improve profit margin. As noted in other moves of late, WWE no longer fears or whatever the term would be that AEW will be able to do numbers equivalent to Raw or Smackdown and instead of hoarding talent they wouldn’t be using, they are letting them go. It becomes an interesting strategy because Joe, in particular, if he is in good shape, because he’s a star to the AEW fan base and can talk, could be a valuable acquisition. But perhaps WWE believes with his age and injuries, he wouldn’t be, similar to not competing to keep Jay Reso (Christian Cage). In addition, the question is how many people can AEW hire within its own budget. Besides the names cut on 4/15, also recently cut by WWE include Manuel Andrade and Thea Trinidad (Zelina Vega). It is known AEW reached out to Trinidad who told them she had a contract signed with someone, but didn’t specify with who or whether it was even in wrestling. Andrade claimed he had signed a deal but kept secret where it was. We do know Andrade wanted freedom to work in Mexico both for AAA and for Rush’s new promotion. Besides Joe, at press time the list also included Mickie James, Peyton Royce, Billie Kay, Bo Dallas, Chelsea Green, Wesley Blake, Tucker, Kalisto and Mojo Rawley ... Many of the talent cut should be able to hook up with ROH, New Japan (maybe not right away), Impact or AEW and one would think even if they couldn’t get a major contract, all would be welcome in MLW or NWA. In particular, with Impact looking at expansion and ROH trying to do a women’s division. The independent scene could use some marquee players, although really Joe, who will no doubt have the most people of all looking to sign him, would really be the only one who could be the difference maker as far as a guy who could work all over the world and help rebuild the U.K. and indie scene. An interesting thing among those cut is how many were couples with the other person in a different promotion, James (Nick Aldis, NWA), Royce (Shawn Spears, AEW) and Green (Matt Cardona, Impact). Steve Cutler (Deonna Purrazzo, Impact) was also recently cut ... Dallas, 30, real name Taylor Rotunda, is the son of 80s and 90s star Mike Rotunda and the younger brother of Bray Wyatt. In his case, because he hadn’t been used at all since late 2019, it was a huge surprise he wasn’t cut last year. As noted here, he’s been working in real estate and preparing for a life after wrestling because in his case you’d have to be blind not to see the handwriting on the wall ... The rumor going around was that there would be more cuts on 4/16, concentrating on NXT.

CMLL: The company put out a release saying that Bandido is no longer working here, you know, two weeks after he put on the best match the company has had in recent memory. Bandido did expect going in the match with Volador on 3/26 would be his last match and the reason he was still with the group was because he promised that match for so long and wanted to deliver it. If the match happened as planned in September it would have likely been his last match. Bandido is opening up his gym with a show on 4/17 and had booked AAA wrestlers on it, including Psycho Clown and El Texano Jr. Bandido was told by CMLL to cancel the AAA talent and to use CMLL talent instead. Bandido said that he was an independent wrestler, not under contract and had no reason to cancel the bookings. CMLL decided that their rule against wrestlers they use, even one they use rarely who isn’t their guy, being on the same show as AAA talent is enough to not use Bandido, who is one of the top wrestlers in Mexico and is young. It’s been noted by The Cubs Fan that there have been indie shows with AAA and CMLL talent on them, but CMLL either doesn’t know or it wasn’t high enough profile. But Bandido working with Psycho Clown in Mexico City was too well known. Bandido said he was talking with CMLL about a contract but they never agreed to terms. Bandido said one of his goals was to main event Arena Mexico, and he did that, and he’s happy to move on. CMLL has now lost three of its potentially biggest stars with Rush, Dragon Lee and Bandido over their stubborn attitude and a war with AAA. They don’t seem to have any insight about the probable future in more ways than one. .. Bandido’s main income is his ROH deal

The biggest non-WWE show of the week in Tampa was Game Changer Wrestling’s Spring Break show. They drew an estimated 750 fans, which was the biggest indie crowd of the weekend. As expected given advanced ticket sales, GCW and Bloodsport were the only shows that drew any kind of a good crowd ... The report we got of the Cuban Club shows is that a lot of fans weren’t masked, there was no enforcement of masks, chairs were set up three feet apart but people moved them closer together and that the bar and aisle way were crazy packed. There were temperature checks for at least one show but not the others and the hand washing stations ran out of soap

MLW: The new contract that Court Bauer teased is, based on multiple sources, a new television deal. What’s notable is that it is believed to be on a station that had talked with but never pulled the trigger with New Japan. The deal should be announced within the next few weeks but it is completed. They will remain on Bein and on DAZN.

IMPACT: Konnan noted on Twitter that Impact is looking at bringing in more Mexican talent when they can get visas. We do know El Hijo del Vikingo is on the radar

Heath Miller/Slater, who is still out after hernia surgery, did “The Angle” podcast. He noted that his last segment on Raw, when they brought him back after firing him, he had no interest in doing. They wanted him to work with Ziggler, but he turned it down. He made a mention of only doing it for McIntyre. McIntyre later called him after that was offered and he turned that down. He said he was mentally done with WWE and McIntyre asked him as a friend, said he’d get a good buzz from having the segment on Raw and maybe they’d offer him a new contract. So he agreed to do it. He said WWE did offer him a new contract, but he had mentally checked out and noted the new deal was for half the money of his previous deal, so came to Impact instead

AEW: There are no specific plans for leaving Jacksonville, but they are starting to book tentative dates on the road for Wednesdays starting late summer or fall, but nothing is official. I would suspect odds are good that the All Out PPV will be at the Sears Center in Chicago but that is far from a done deal as the world takes precedence. Things will change when they start taping on the road. For one, expenses will be much higher with tapings weekly as opposed to every other week, and having the lower travel (much of the talent these days isn’t based far from Jacksonville) and no building rent deal they have now. They are able to tape about 12 hours worth of footage at one time (this week with the house show being taped it was closer to 16). Going on the road, the most you’re going to be able to tape in one sitting would probably be around four hours (7-11 p.m. Eastern), because you’ll have a live crowd. You can do one hour before and one hour after, and those results will get out because they are done before a live audience. So Dark would probably have to be maybe one hour Monday and one hour Tuesday. But then things get more difficult when the third hour on TNT starts before the end of the year. The change of atmosphere in doing live tapings from new cities before thousands of fans is important for helping the younger talent learn to work and allowing new stars to be made. There is also the question about the ability to draw in the sense nobody knows where AEW really stands because promotions rise and fall in popularity greatly over the course of 18 months, which would probably be the time until they may be back on the road. Television ratings have some correlation with live attendance, but far less than most think. When you get hot, your ticket sales will precede your ratings and when you get cold, the same things happen, ratings will stay generally the same and lag months behind ticket sales in most cases and at times not even correlate. PPV has more correlation and they just did their record so that’s a good sign, but it’s far from a perfect correlation. They may come out and be able to do 4,000 per week and more in bigger markets which was where they were at the time things got shut down. Or the entire live arena business regardless of it being wrestling could be down and you can’t fight the real world. Or AEW talent may be hotter or less hot, and we simply don’t know what level of ticket sales they can do Regarding doing so many hours of taping, besides it enabling them to look at more talent and it basically being their developmental system, the idea is to build up as much content as possible. The number of hours over the course of years will enable them to either set up their own streaming service, or better yet, be like WWE and get a major streaming company looking at spending heavy for content and them having enough hours, to lease it out for enough money that it will become a major stable revenue stream

WWE has a sign on he wall about not slapping your thigh. AEW has a sign on the wall, “Spoilers cost jobs. Don’t do it.”

The company ran its first house show, called “The House Always Wins,” on 4/9 in Jacksonville. It drew about 1,100 paid and with local sponsorship deals it was about 1,300 in the building. The gross was lower than Revolution even though ticket sales were about the same due to lower prices. Tony Schiavone announced the show live. He did the first half of the show with Eddie Kingston and the second half with Ricky Starks and Colt Cabana. Tony Khan’s idea was to make this similar to the type of show he grew up on at the ECW Arena, where it’s a house show that only the house sees live, but it’s taped to be distributed in some form at a later date.

While Jean Brassard at first on social media claimed the move to Peacock was what he was told as to why he and Raymond Rougeau were no longer with WWE, and Rougeau told friends that he was told similar, WWE officials say that neither were told it had to do with Peacock. It being to do with Peacock didn’t make sense to me because Peacock is exclusively for the U.S. market, and French commentary was not for the U.S., it was for Quebec (a longtime pro wrestling hotbed), France and other countries where French is the major language spoken like some countries in Africa like Niger and Congo and places like Morocco in Europe, and other places with a lot of French speaking population like Luxembourg, Switzerland, Cameroon, Haiti, Chad and Belgium. WWE officials said the move was not due to Peacock and that the two of them have been replaced by Christophe Agius and Nadir Mohammedi, who are based in France. They said that no other announcers have been changed. Brassard was based in New York and Rougeau in Quebec. Brassard’s original post, translated from French, read “With a heavy heart I have to tell you that due to a restructuring via the Peacock Network, Raymond and I will no longer be part of the WWE commentator team from today. So actually, I won’t be with you for WrestleMania XXXVII this weekend.” He changed it either late on 4/9 or early on 4/10 and removed the reference to Peacock. Raymond Rougeau said that what he said he was told was not misinterpreted. Peacock is offering PPVs in English and Spanish, which makes sense since it exclusively for the U.S. WWE Network will be offering English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Mandarin, German and Hindi. The most notable to me is no Japanese or Russian

Regarding Davey Boy Smith Jr., at this point he has not signed here [WWE] but there are serious discussions in that direction

Ratings:

SPOILER: show

The Raw after WrestleMania on 4/12 did 2,026,000 viewers and 0.68 in 18-49. It was the second largest number of viewers for the year, behind the Raw Legends show at 2,128,000 viewers. It tied Raw legends with an 0.68 in 18-49 and was the largest 18-34 number in mor than a year at 0.42. As compared to last year’s show after WrestleMania, and keep in mind last year at this time the news shows were through the roof, Raw was down 3.5 percent in viewers, 2.9 percent in 18-49 and up 10.5 percent in 18-34. The 18-34 numbers on all shows the past few weeks have been strong. Raw was first in every key demo. In over 50, it lost to news shows and Rock the Block on Home & Garden. It was sixth in overall viewership for the night, behind five news shows, which is the best the show has done in overall viewers in months. The NBA did 853,000 viewers and 0.30 for the game that ended at 10 and 1,046,000 viewers and 0.36 for the later game. Raw beat everything on television in 18-49 except American Idol and The Voice, and if you compare real percentages factoring in the difference in cable vs. network, it really beat both of them as well. In 18-34, only American Idol beat it for viewers in the demo although Raw based on the difference between ABC and USA, beat it handily there as well. Raw did 2,125,000 viewers in the first hour. It did 2,091,000 viewers in the second hour. It did 1,862,000 in the third hour. As compared with the previous week, and it should have been way up, the increases were 19.1 percent in viewers, 32.9 percent in 18-49 and 68.0 percent in 18-34. The show did 184,000 viewers in men 18-34 (up 97.8 percent from last week), 110,000 in women 18-34 (up 34.l percent), 407,000 in men 35-49 (up 28.8 percent) and 184,000 in women 35-49 (up 5.1 percent). As far as the first-to-third hour movement, in women 18-49, it was down 4.4 percent, in men 18-49 it was down 7.4 percent, in girls 12-17 it was down 2.4 percent, in boys 12-17 it was up 9.6 percent and over 50 was down 14.4 percent. The show did a 0.34 in 12-17 (up 17.2 percent from last week), 0.42 in 18-34 (up 68.0 percent), 0.94 in 35-49 (up 29.9 percent) and 0.91 in 50+ (up 15.2 percent).

Smackdown on 4/9 did a 1.28 rating and 2,244,000 viewers (1.45 viewers per home, which may have been the record for the show on FOX), with an 0.61 (792,000 viewers) in 18-49 and an 0.37 in 18-34. The show was pushed as WrestleMania Smackdown with two matches originally scheduled for the Mania show moved here. Given the day before Mania and Mania matches, it should have done better than usual and it did. The show as up 0.8 percent in homes, but up 5.0 percent in viewers (hence the huge VPH number). It was also up 8.0 percent in 18-49 and stayed even in 18-34. Smackdown was second to Shark Tank(0.76) in 18-49 and in 18-34 (0.41 for Shark Tank). It was second in women 18-49 and second in men 18-49 of the eight network shows. It was seventh in total viewers, beating only a rerun of Blacklist. It also finished well behind The Masters that took place that afternoon in 18-34, and you don’t expect a golf show on Friday at 3 p.m., even the Masters, to beat prime time Smackdown. Smackdown did have more viewers in 35-49 but that’s only because of the difference being cable and network, as you put the Masters on a network and it would win there as well. But it would have beaten everything else on cable in key demos, and all but The Masters and news shows in total viewers most likely. As compared to the same week last year, and it should be noted that last year was a normal show and not a theme show leading into Mania, the show was down 8.6 percent in homes, down 3.2 percent in viewers, down 3.8 percent in 18-49 and down 7.5 percent in 18-34. The show did 140,000 viewers in men 18-34 (down 13.0 percent from last week), 116,000 in women 18-34 (up 19.6 percent), 286,000 in men 35-49 (up 3.6 percent) and 250,000 in women 35-49 (up 25.0 percent). The audience was 53.8 percent male in 18-49, which is incredibly low. Basically men were slightly down from last week for the WrestleMania tagged show, but women were was up from last week.

NXT on 4/13, which did go head-to-head with Young Rock but unopposed by pro wrestling shows, coming off Takeover, did 805,000 viewers and an 0.22 in 18-49 (282,000 viewers), putting it in eighth place for the night. It beat the NBA head-to-head on TNT which did 656,000 viewers and an 0.22. The prior shows last fall on Tuesday by NXT averaged 839,000 viewers and 0.24, but those shows were more loaded up so when you consider that aspect, it was about what should have been expected, or maybe slightly higher. It finished 18th in women 18-49, sixth in males 18-49, 26th in 18-34 and seventh in males 12-34. Any comparisons are somewhat meaningless because it didn’t have its audience siphoned by AEW, and last week there were probably 100,000 to 150,000 viewers watching on Peacock and it was a Takeover show. The audience in total was going to be way down. It’s lower than what they did previously on Tuesday when moved, but it was a weaker show marquee wise so that’s not unexpected. Still, top ten and beating the NBA, even though that was a very weak NBA number, is good. Total viewers on TV were up 4.8 percent, while 18-49 was up 2.1 percent and 18-34 was up 6.1 percent. But last week’s numbers aren’t comparable because really they were way down due to viewers on Peacock, and were going to be way down even without the competition because it was Takeover. Next week will be a better judge as fans will be more used to the time slot and it won’t be post-Takeover and the biggest WWE week of the year. Next week will be a good baseline judge to start comparisons going forward. As compared to the same week one year ago, the show was up 16.3 percent in viewers and 28.6 percent in 18-49. The opening quarter with the Karrion Kross interview with Scarlett did 807,000 viewers and 318,000 in 18-49. This was the high point of women 18-49. MSK vs. Killian Dain & Drake Maverick for the tag titles in quainter two did 748,000 viewers and 263,000 in 18-49. Adam Cole & Kyle O’Reilly going to the hospital, Mercedes Martinez vs. Jessi Kamea and The Way interview in quarter three did 762,000 viewers and 269,000 in 18-49. An Isaiah Scott promo and Santos Escobar vs. Kushida in quarter four did 796,000viewers and 287,000 in 18-49. The ending of Escobar vs. Kushida, a Tommaso Ciampa & Timothy Thatcher interview and Dakota Kai & Raquel Gonzalez out did 892,000 viewers and 323,000 in 18-49. This was the high point in 18-49 total. Gonzalez, Franky Monet, Kai, Bianca Belair & Rhea Ripley out plus a Pete Dunne interview and a Sarray video did 865,000 viewers and 309,000 in 18-49. This was the high point in males 18-49. Leon Ruff vs. Isaiah Scott and promos by Zoey Stark and Mercedes Martinez did 748,000 viewers and 240,000 in 18-49. A Walter promo, Ruff attacking Scott and the beginning of Johnny Gargano & Austin Theory & Candice LaRae & Indi Hartwell vs. Dexter Lumis & Bronson Reed & Shotzi Blackheart & Ember Moon did 786,000 viewers and 277,000 in 18-49. The overrun with the eight-person tag did 925,000 viewers and 337,000 in 18-49. The show did an 0.12 in 12-17 (up 9.1 percent from last week), 0.10 in 18-34 (up 6.1 percent), 0.34 in 35-49 (up 0.9 percent) and 0.40 in 50+ (up 5.3 percent).

AEW on 4/14 did 1,219,000 viewers and an 0.44 (567,000 viewers) in 18-49. The total viewer number was the largest since the first week the promotion was on television. The 18-49 number was the second largest (trailing the week after Sting’s debut and the week after Kenny Omega’s title win over Jon Moxley) since the early weeks of the show. The big keys look to have been The Young Bucks tag team title defense against Rey Fenix & Pac, the Chris Jericho vs. Dax Harwood match with Mike Tyson at ringside, and the Darby Allin vs. Matt Hardy falls count anywhere TNT title match. The key takes in recent weeks is that Allin and Raquel Gonzalez are ratings superstars. Most had figured AEW for about 950,000 viewers and 0.35, so the huge increase was a shock. The big key seems to be that there were a certain number of people who are simply used to watching pro wrestling on Wednesday night, and the two shows were splitting the audience. This week, they weren’t. Tyson helped, and the Jericho face turn and Bucks heel turn likely helped. Jericho appearing on the Stone Cold Broken Skull Sessions podcast was like a two-hour commercial for AEW and its biggest star, with WWE right after WrestleMania, seemingly endorsing the promotion as okay, and if not WWE, Steve Austin certainly did. The first thing I would say is that you can throw this number out. It’s as a number, but it’s likely 270,000 or so viewers that aren’t normal AEW watchers watching because they were in the mood for wrestling. In particular, AEW grew ridiculously over 50, its weakest demo, up 108.3 percent over last week (an unusually low number due to Takeover but still about 72 percent above a usual week). That’s the NXT audience. Whether that audience will stay with AEW, as well as newcomers in all age groups, is up for question. AEW has never done well in maintaining older viewers to date. What we will find out over the next few weeks is if that is over 50s not liking the AEW product, or just liking NXT that much more. Some also may have been curiosity numbers off the Austin podcast. The positive is that the newcomers stuck with the show for the most part until the end. In particular, the Allin vs. Hardy match and not Tyson, peaked in 18-49 overall with 599,000 viewers, and with women 18-49 at 226,000. Women 18-49 usually don’t stay with the show until the end. Most weeks, the main event actually does the seventh best of the eight quarters for AEW while men stay watching longer. Allin is clearly a star and a curiosity. The flow of the show was excellent, as the audience stayed consistent. In the past when the show has done big numbers, it usually does not stay consistent like this. So it appeared people liked the show more than usual. But that doesn’t mean first-timers will tune in next week. If next week’s numbers are even close, what it tells us is that AEW would have likely been doing 1.1 to 1.2 million all along unopposed. If that isn’t the case, the numbers over the next few weeks are a sign of what AEW would have done unopposed. But they key is it looks like it’s much higher than almost everyone figured. You don’t want to read too much into one week, but this is far more impressive than Smackdown ever does, as using the usual cable to network growth, the AEW number on FOX would be equivalent to 2.38 million viewers and 1,03 million in 18-49 (0.79), a number that blows away Smackdown. It is still behind Raw, but a usual Raw is 0.50 to 0.55 and an 0.44 is not far behind. But saying anything more until next week would be reading far too much into this. Keep in mind none of this is about the show itself, past not losing viewers said the episode itself was good. But regarding prior shows, it’s not saying much because the new viewers haven’t been watching the last few months regularly so whatever, both good and bad, they haven’t seen. Gains of women were much higher than with men, but the gains would be of people who haven’t been watching AEW and were watching NXT, especially older men and women. AEW was No. 2 for the night, trailing Challenge Double Agent at 0.53. AEW was fourth in women 18-49, first in men 18-49, third in 18-34, sixth in women 12-34 and fourth in men 12-34. Aside from news shows, it was second to Married at First Sight on Lifetime (1,287,000) in total viewers. It beat both NBA games head-to-head (early game, Brooklyn Nets vs. Philadelphia 76ers which is a big game, did 1,095,000 viewers and 0.34, the late game, Dallas Mavericks vs. Memphis Grizzlies, did 942,000 and 0.32). AEW beat ABC and CBS in 18-34 and beat CBS in 18-49. Factoring out network advantage, the only shows stronger than AEW in 18-49 would be Masked Singer on FOX and Challenge Double Agent on MTV. Since everything is different, the usual comparisons mean nothing. AEW was up 77.2 percent in total viewers from last week, 54.9 percent in 18-49 and 80.2 percent in 18-34. As compared to last year, AEW was up 78.5 percent in viewers, 75.5 percent in 18-49 and 73.3 percent in 18-34. AEW did 96,000 viewers in men 18-34 (up 77.8 percent from last week), 85,000 in women 18-34 (up 63.5 percent), 260,000 in men 35-49 (up 35.4 percent) and 126,000 in women 35-49 (up 85.3 percent). AEW opened with the Young Bucks interview, MJF with Mike Tyson and the beginning of Bucks vs. Rey Fenix & Pac for the tag titles and did 1,190,000 viewers and 587,000 in 18-49. The rest of the tag title match did 1,226,000 viewers and 558,000 in 18-49. A Dark Order & Adam Page promo, a Chris Jericho & Inner Circle & Mike Tyson promo and most of Jade Cargill vs. Red Velvet did 1,193,000 viewers and 534,000 in 18-49. The ending of Cargill vs. Velvet, a Britt Baker promo, Anthony Agogo vs. Cole Carter and a Miro promo did 1,173,000 viewers and 538,000in 18-49. Chris Jericho vs. Dax Harwood with Tyson at ringside and The Bullet Club interview did 1,350,000 viewers and 595,000 in 18-49. This was the high point with viewers and males 18-49. Kris Statlander vs. Amber Nova and a Team Taz promo did 1,241,000 viewers and 566,000 in 18-49. Christian and Taz, Will Hobbs attacking Christian and the beginning of Darby Allin vs. Matt Hardy for the TNT title did 1,170,000 viewers and 561,000 in 18-49. Most of Allin vs. Hardy did 1,205,000 viewers and 599,000 in 18-49, which was both the women 18-49 and overall 18-49 peak. The show did a 0.16 in 12-17 (up 45.5 percent), 0.26 in 18-34 (up 73.3 percent), 0.62 in 35-49 (up 48.5 percent) and 0.50 in 50+ (up 108.3 percent).

For Canadian TV ratings, Raw on 4/5 did 227,200 viewers and 133,800 in 25-54. Smackdown on 4/7 did 185,600 viewers and 106,500 in 25-54. The Wednesday night wars in Canada were short-lasting and in hindsight was a mistake. Even though NXT aired on the WWE Network on Thursday nights, it’s 7 p.m. Friday airing on Sportsnet drew more viewers due to not going against AEW, than it did when it moved to live the last several weeks. Even Takeover got killed by AEW in Canada. However, it did hurt AEW numbers but it didn’t look like it hurt a great deal