Wrestling News & Rumors

[Mr. Nerfect]

Vince is going to have to take a step back with the XFL. That is going to give Heyman more room.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Last night's Raw averaged 2.39 million viewers, down only two percent from last week's wedding show, which would be a good sign, and seems to establish a significant bounce back this year after football season ends. Next week's Raw, which goes against the college football championship game of Clemson vs. LSU, will be the last show against major sports competition until the NCAA basketball finals in April, and usually starts Raw's biggest ratings period of the year ... The audience was up from 2.33 million viewers for the same show one year ago. The three hours were: 8 p.m. 2.56 million viewers 9 p.m. 2.41 million viewers 10 p.m. 2.20 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer AEW has revealed some more information about the tribute to the legends of Memphis wrestling that's taking place on Wednesday's episode of Dynamite. It was announced today that the legends that AEW is paying tribute to will include Angelo Poffo & Randy Savage, Lance Russell, Eddie & Tommy Gilbert, Brian Christopher, Austin Idol, Dave Brown, The Rock 'n' Roll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson), and Jimmy Valiant. Poffo, Savage, Russell, Eddie & Tommy Gilbert, and Christopher are being honored posthumously. We have additional notes for the tribute to Memphis Wrestling that will take place on this week’s AEW Dynamite. Dave Brown will be appearing and calling Dark and Excalibur will be trying as best he can to call it as close to a Lance Russell as possible on that show. Doug Gilbert will be appearing to honor Tommy & Eddie Gilbert. Shane Russell, Lance's son, will be there to help honor Lance Russell.

Originally Posted by PWI Since this has come up a few times recently, Matt Hardy's current WWE deal expires on 3/1, so if he does not come to terms on a new deal, he would be free to appear anywhere on that date. Hardy has obviously been preparing for a potential exit with his "Release the Delete" videos online and we are told that the major hurdle between the two sides is how he would be used going forward, not money. Jeff Hardy's deal will not expire at the same time as it has been held up at times due to his legal issues and injuries. Hardy has a hearing on 1/13 on his DWI arrest last year. We are told that WWE has pushed Hardy to address his personal health in the wake of the arrest and Hardy has been working hard at doing so, which is a great thing.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On the latest edition of New Day’s ‘Feel The Power’ podcast, the trio talked about their experience at WrestleMania 32 where they took on The League Of Nations (Alberto El Patron, Rusev & Sheamus) in a six-man tag. They were also involved in the segment with Mick Foley, Shawn Michaels and Stone Cold Steve Austin. It was at that WrestleMania that New Day made their entrance through a massive box of Booty O’s but Xavier Woods revealed that they originally wanted to come out of buttcheeks: “The original idea that we actually had for the entrance was kind of insane too. So, we haven’t done this and hopefully we’ll get to at some point. We wanted to get a big van and have it look like a unicorn but the back doors are taken off and they’ve been replaced with huge buttcheeks that are on springs. So when the van is moving, the buttcheeks are shaking and once it gets to the end of the ramp, it fits in. Essentially, [the] cheeks open up, and then we come out of the van on tricycles with all our unicorn stuff on just having a great time, and so we explained this to Triple H, to Paul, he who shall be named, and he says, ‘I mean that’s great, and we can look into it if you want to, or you could guys could come out of a big box of Booty O’s like the toys’ and we were like, ‘Yes please.’”

Originally Posted by Observer CHIKARA and the Wrestle Factory training school issued a statement announcing that they’ve severed ties with Rory Gulak: “Last week, both CHIKARA, Inc and The Wrestle Factory, LLC severed ties with Rory Gulak. We take allegations of misconduct very seriously. In accordance with this, we cooperate completely and transparently with all law enforcement agencies. Our priority is and always will be the safety of our fans, cast and crew.” ICW also announced that Rory Gulak has been removed from their Gonzo Wrestling show on February 1.

Rumor going around the net is Gulak allegedly being in possession of child porn and on at least one occasion, showed it off to someone who didn't bother to inform the police afterwards. Also other allegations of him being a sexual predator and animal abuser.

Originally Posted by PWI Former WWE developmental talent Eric Angle, brother of WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle, plead guilty for his role in an underground group that manufactured and sold steroid on the dark web, according to Cleveland.com. Angle was part of a group that sold controlled substanances, including steroids, through Internet sites. He and two other co-conspirators were set to go to trial next week but yesterday plead guilty. Angle pleaded guilty Monday to a drug conspiracy charge and admitted that he bought 721 grams of steroids in liquid form for redistribution. Angle who was signed to WWE in the early 2000s and worked in Ohio Valley Wrestling before a biceps injury curtailed his wrestling career. He had a memorable angle where he switched places his Kurt during a PPV bout against the Undertaker, which was well done, leading to his developmental deal. Angle will be sentenced this April.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Prior to Monday Night RAW going live on the USA Network from Oklahoma City, Natalya defeated Chelsea Green, and Mojo Rawley defeated No Way Jose. Those matches were taped for WWE Main Event.

Seems Green (and likely Deonna Purrazzo) was actually called up from NXT since that's her 3rd appearance in a row with the main locker room. Also recently was involved in a photo shoot likely to get new renders for her match graphics on RAW and Main Event.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On night two of Wrestle Kingdom 14, Tetsuya Naito defeated Kazuchika Okada to retain his IWGP Intercontinental Championship and to become the new IWGP Heavyweight Champion. Naito’s road to that accomplishment was not a smooth one as he underwent right eye surgery in November of 2019, as reported by Yahoo! Japan. It is noted in the article that around May of 2019, the Los Ingobernables de Japon member began to notice something off with his vision. Naito told the publication that while he was in the ring, the ropes began to multiply and it started to look like six ropes instead of three ... Naito is not a fan of hospitals but he could not concentrate during his matches so he decided to visit hospitals that specialized in ophthalmology, brain surgery and otolaryngology. None of the hospitals could find out what was wrong and Naito just figured that he’d finish out his wrestling career with the issue ... There were no results regarding Naito’s eye issue until October at a college hospital where he learned that he had paralysis in his eye muscles. The dual champion continued to wrestle until November 27th and teamed with BUSHI to take on Jay White and Bad Luck Fale during a World Tag League event. The next day, Naito made his way back to Tokyo and on the 29th, he underwent right eye surgery in a hospital in Tokyo. His vision was fixed and he returned to in-ring action on December 19th at the Road to Tokyo Dome show.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Will Ospreay Injury Status Update
• Lana & Lashley’s Wedding Officiant Was Tackled by Security on Raw
• NJPW: Naito vs. Kenta Double Title Match Announced, Liger’s Retirement Ceremony (Video)
• Jeff Cobb’s ROH Contract Expires

[Evil Vito]

Rory Gulak is an Olympic-style wrestling trainer and presumably works with children in that regard.

SO yeah, the abuse rumors are baaaaaaaaaaaad.

[Mr. Nerfect]

That fucking sucks. It's just dank. Obviously he's not the biggest victim in the story, but I feel bad for Drew Gulak. Facing that sort of shit about your brother must be super-uncomfortable.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Ahead of NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool II, Triple H was asked about potential future locations for UK TakeOvers: “In terms of future NXT UK TakeOver locations, @TripleH pinpoints London as a place on a priority list, as well as Dublin, to @AlexM_talkSPORT, before saying he'd love to go to Germany, France and Italy, too.”

Originally Posted by Fightful Fans may have noticed that the reported match between Austin & Billy Gunn against Shawn Spears & Preston Vance did not air on Tuesday's AEW Dark. The match was taped on Jan. 1 as part of the AEW Dark tapings before AEW Dynamite in Jacksonville. The Gunn Club picked up the victory in the tag team bout. According to Ryan Satin of Pro Wrestling Sheet, the match was never intended to air on AEW Dark. Satin reports that the match was more of a tryout, which was said to have gone well. Austin & Billy will reportedly team again on Wednesday for a match that will likely air on next Tuesday's Dark.

Originally Posted by PWI Variety ran an article this afternoon, looking at the Wednesday night war between WWE NXT and All Elite Wrestling. Interesting to note that the article cites that when DVR +7 viewership (meaning the show has been watched within seven days of its live airing) is factored in with the live viewership, each promotion's weekly average is far stronger. With the Live +7, AEW is averaging 1.2 million viewers a week, according to Variety. 654,000 of those viewers are in the coveted 18-49 demo. That raises AEW 32%. Meanwhile, NXT is averaging 972,000 viewers in Live+7 with 428,000 in the 18-49 demo. NXT is raised 20%.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling All Elite Wrestling is gearing up to present the January 8th episode of AEW Dynamite from the Landers Center in Southaven, Mississippi. One of several segments scheduled for the show is a tribute to the legends of Memphis Wrestling. Brian Christopher Lawler, Angelo Poffo, Randy Savage, Lance Russell, “Hot Stuff” Eddie & Tommy Gilbert, Austin Idol, Dave Brown, The Rock & Roll Express and “Handsome” Jimmy Valiant are going to be honored during the show. Also, Dave Brown will be doing commentary on AEW Dark alongside Excalibur. Memphis’ own Jerry Lawler shared his thoughts about the segment during an interview with Cerrito Live. The WWE Hall Of Famer feels that a tribute to Memphis wrestling is the last thing on AEW officials’ minds and they just want to sell tickets and pop the crowd in attendance. “Now you finally hit on it. They’re looking to sell some tickets and pop the crowd. I think a Tribute to Memphis wrestling is actually the last thing on their mind. They’re looking to sell some tickets and pop the crowd.” While speaking with Commercial Appeal to promote the show, Matt Jackson said the idea to have a Tribute to Memphis Wrestling segment was Tony Khan’s and added that AEW would’ve loved to have Jerry Lawler come in but Lawler is a commentator on Monday Night RAW. Lawler’s son, the late Brian Christopher Lawler will be honored by his brother, Kevin Lawler who’ll be in attendance at the event.

Originally Posted by Fightful “I think the idea is Tony (Khan) wanted to do a 10-bell salute for all of the fallen brothers,” said Matt. "It would have been great to have 'The King' [Jerry Lawler], but obviously he's working elsewhere."

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling New York Post conducted an interview with Cody Rhodes ... When asked about the rumored partnership between New Japan Pro-Wrestling and AEW, Cody thinks it’s strange that people were asking for it. He said there is a sense of partnership or collaboration because of Jon Moxley and Chris Jericho being in marquee matches at Wrestle Kingdom 14. As far as the ‘forbidden door’, Cody thinks it’s continuously opening and closing. “I think the thing that was strange to me was people were asking for this partnership. I don’t know what a partnership would look like other than what you saw. Chris Jericho was part of one of the main events of Wrestle Kingdom, Jon Moxley as well. They both were successful. What did he call it? The forbidden door? The forbidden door. It may be forbidden, but clearly the door is opening and closing and opening and closing. It’s public knowledge that some guys here, myself included, have exemptions to work New Japan Pro-Wrestling. But I know that New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s focus is New Japan, and AEW’s focus is AEW. So more likely what a partnership would look like is perhaps some sharing of talent, some shared creative, but we’re not going to do a Super Clash III where (Kerry) Von Erich and (Jerry) Lawler are fighting over the title. Sorry, that’s a real specific angle I brought up. I’m always hesitant to combine banners versus just respecting each other’s banners. But I like how it’s referred to as the forbidden door. I don’t really think it’s forbidden at all. Like I said, many people have the exemption to work there. They put on a great Wrestle Kingdom. They have some amazing talent, particularly Will Ospreay. He’s a top-five wrestler in the world right now. So, we’ll see where that goes. I know everyone pretty much feels the same about it.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Here are a few highlights from Paul “Triple H” Levesque’s media call with members of the U.K. wrestling media: – Triple H is for the idea of NXT U.K. possibly going live on BT Sport. He said that over time, if there can be an NXT U.K. roster assembled that can stand on its own then it could certainty be an option. – Triple H welcomes both CM Punk and AJ Lee back to WWE as wrestlers. – Thinks the sky is the limit for Drew McIntyre in 2020. Adds that Drew wants to be the best in the world. – When asked about the possibility of NXT talents showing up TakeOver: Blackpool II, Triple H said that anything is possible.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Inside The Ropes released their interview with WWE Hall Of Famer Mick Foley. During their conversation, Foley talked about some of his criticisms of All Elite Wrestling and narrowed his points down to some of the talents not being trained to wrestle on television and thinks that’s where NXT has the advantage over AEW. “Yeah, I mean they’ve got an amazing talent roster but I think with the exception of eight-to-ten guys, you have a lot of guys who haven’t worked full-time for a promotion and they haven’t had the chance to make mistakes in a smaller venue. One of the things I liked about the ‘For All Mankind’ DVD was that you literally got to see me grow and they’d show a promo from 1989 and it clearly wasn’t quite there. You could see the growth, and I’m sure you will see the growth of the AEW characters as they go but in the meantime, you get to see some mistakes being made on live television so, some of the guys have grown up yearning after the, ‘This is awesome’ chant, but haven’t had the experience of being in angles that need to draw money. I think for guys of my era, there was definitely a very real sense of if the angle wasn’t successful, you didn’t draw at the houses and there was no other ancillary means of income, and I’m not down on the guys but I think you’re seeing some inexperience when it comes to shooting angles and performing for the camera and so guys are out there and it’s an admirable trait that they wanna have they best match they possibly can but every guy wanting to have the best match at every venue doesn’t necessarily lead to [the] best promotion. That’s just my opinion. So I think someone needs to rein some of these guys in. Like Gerald Brisco told me when I got to WWE, he says, ‘We know you like to do a lot of these things. There may come a time when we ask you to do that but until then, we’re gonna ask you not to,’ and that really improved my longevity so I think NXT’s advantage is that their guys have been trained to work for the camera, and I think they have an advantage of having more seasoned stars, and now a dedicated team writing for them, but in the end, it comes down to who has the ability to tell better long-term stories and get the audience engaged.”

Originally Posted by Fightful Becky Lynch opens up on the pressures of being a woman competing in main event matches in WWE. During CES 2020, Lynch spoke about her journey to being a top star in WWE and the challenges that come with being a woman in the wrestling industry. One thing she spoke about was the amount of pressure women feel when they perform, especially at a marquee event or match. In Lynch's case, she headlined WrestleMania last year alongside Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey in a triple threat match. When talking about wrestling in the main event, Lynch says men face less criticism if they have a bad main event match than the women. Lynch added that if women don't perform well in the main event, then there will be doubts raised by skeptics over women being in the main event in general. "If there's a guy and he made an error, it's kind of passed over. Often times, I feel like I have the weight of a gender on my shoulders. A million guys have had terrible main event matches, but if I have a subpar main event match, the question comes up, 'Should women be main eventing?' And that's a load of crap. We all have off days, but we're all trying to be the absolute best. Unfortunately, we always have to be on our game until that's not a question anymore. So we are in a position where we have to be extra so that the future generations don't have to deal with that anymore. It's a little bit unfortunate but it's a little bit of the way it is. It's not good, it's not right, but it's what we have to do. I don't want this to be a question of the future... Those barriers should be gone by now," Lynch said.

TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE: Updated SmackDown Ratings, Big Show on His WWE Return, WWE Ice Cream on Sale
• WWE Backstage Ratings – Jan. 7, 2020 – Up
• CM Punk Attacks The Miz in a Now Deleted Tweet
• AEW Top Five Rankings – Jan. 8, 2020
• WWE Signs Mercedes Martinez

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Following the holiday season, the Wednesday Night Wars were back to their normal schedule last night -- and AEW was the clear ratings winner by a big margin. This week's Dynamite averaged 947,000 viewers, down two percent from last week. The rating in the important 18-49 demo was a 0.36, good for sixth on the night on cable and matching last week's number in that category ... NXT failed to finish in the top 50 for the night in the 18-49 demo for the second week in a row ... NXT was up 32 percent in total viewers from last week's year in review episode, averaging 721,000 viewers. That was still the show's second lowest number since October 30. In the 18-49 demo, NXT finished 55th for the night on cable with a 0.19 rating, up 27 percent from last week. The show had gotten as high as 0.3 in that demo during the Survivor Series build, so that's a huge drop.

Originally Posted by Observer WWE has announced two more matches for the NXT vs. NXT UK Worlds Collide special that's taking place during Royal Rumble weekend. NXT Women's Champion Rhea Ripley will officially defend her title against Toni Storm on the Worlds Collide show. The match was confirmed after an angle where Storm interrupted Ripley on last night's NXT and challenged her for Worlds Collide. Finn Balor vs. Ilja Dragunov has also been announced for Worlds Collide.

Originally Posted by Observer Juan Kachmanian, best known as Pampero Firpo, a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina who grew up to headline almost every major pro wrestling arena in the world as one of pro wrestling's top stars of the 60s and 70s, passed away this morning at the age of 89. For the modern era, while not well known to many, Firpo was the wrestler that Randy Savage copied his interview style, from the guttural voice, the stream of conscious flow right down to the "Ooooh yeah," which were all staples of the Firpo style.

More on Firpo's legacy and career in wrestling: https://www.f4wonline.com/other-wres...ars-old-301281

Originally Posted by PWI Since we have gotten a lot of questions about who books what within All Elite Wrestling, AEW President Tony Khan has been the driving force behind the creative direction for many of the top AEW Dynamite storylines. The Jon Moxley-Inner Circle recruitment angle was a Khan idea (it was his father's car that Chris Jericho offered) with Jericho working side by side with Khan to help put together small details. That angle felt very much like a WCW Nitro storyline and Khan spent a lot of time studying what made Nitro work while planning to launch AEW. Chris Jericho is extremely engaged in every story and segment he is involved in (which obviously shows) and has been a big locker room leader in terms of pulling younger talents over to help guide and teach them and give them advice. Khan has also been specifically working on building Jungle Boy and Scorpio Sky, among others, as long-term prospects. Sky was handpicked from the start as a future player, to the point that Chris Jericho's throwaway line in his promo backstage at All Out after winning the AEW title as he passed SCU that Scorpio Sky would never get a title shot was meant to foreshadow everything that would come down the line with Sky getting a shot on Dynamite last year. The EVPs (Kenny Omega, Young Bucks, Cody) are given a lot of freedom for their matches and segments - as they are in a position of strong trust - and there is a back and forth creative flow with Khan, but Khan is in the Vince McMahon role of having the final say Khan is very hands on with all the Dynamite segments every week. At last night's taping, Khan was intimately involved in laying out the Jericho-Moxley segment that closed Dynamite, the ongoing Kenny Omega & Adam Page storyline as well as their tag bout with Private Party, The Best Friends vs. Jurassic Express six man tag team bout and The Rhodes Brothers vs. The Lucha Brothers. The Omega-Page storyline creative has been a Khan idea. Khan is not as involved in AEW Dark behind the scenes ... The belief among those we've spoken to is that Colt Cabana will be back once he completes commitments elsewhere ... That was Dr. Luther of FMW fame in the early 1990s debuting last night as a member of the Nightmare Collective.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Ahead of her IMPACT World Championship match this Sunday at Hard To Kill, Tessa Blanchard joined Tommy Dreamer and David LaGreca on Busted Open Radio. Tommy asked Tessa how she will deal with the backlash if she is crowned the new IMPACT World Champion and Tessa responded with the following: “I think I’ve talked to you [Tommy Dreamer] a little bit about it and D’Lo a little bit about it too at tapings. I feel that sometimes, I’m not oblivious to it, I’m not stupid, and I feel like no matter what happens in life, people are always gonna have something to say, and the way that I look at it is I think that no matter what you go through, whether it’s a positive, a negative, whatever it is, if you’re able to turn the way you think about it into a positive then you’ll be able to get through it, and I feel like anyone who’s put in a position that I’m in, especially going into Sunday, it’s different. People aren’t used to it. Some people might not be OK with it, ‘cause it’s not traditional, it’s not what we’ve been taught. It’s not what we’ve seen all the time. But that’s what I love about it. I love that it’s different, I love that we’re doing something that hasn’t been done before. I think it makes it special. I think it draws more attention to our company. I’m pretty good at having mental strength. I feel like I’ve got one of the strongest minds that I probably could ever have, because of my dad.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WWE released a one minute clip from the upcoming episode of ‘Broken Skull Sessions ‘with Glenn “Kane” Jacobs that’ll premiere after NXT U.K. TakeOver: Blackpool II. In the clip, Kane talked about the night he unmasked and not telling his wife about his haircut because he wanted to surprise her. He said it was initially supposed to be shaved bald and while he was getting his haircut, Bruce Prichard stopped the barber and wanted to bring Vince McMahon in to see the half-cut because that was a look that Bruce found interesting.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bWpLrGeJzg

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Per a report from WrestlingINC, there is interest in Major League Wrestling from Showtime premium television network.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling SoCal Uncensored did a deep dive into WWE Hall Of Famer Sgt. Slaughter’s career and discovered that Sgt. Slaughter did not serve in the military.

Seems the main issue is WWE and Slaughter continues to pass off his military service as being legit when that wasn't the case, especially when WWE releases articles honoring wrestlers who were actual military veterans. Link: https://twitter.com/socaluncensored/...36444492800000

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Pro Wrestling Sheet has learned that the WWE ice cream sandwiches are coming out in February and the price range is $3.00 – $5.29. John Cena, Roman Reigns, Becky Lynch and “Macho Man” Randy Savage are emblazoned on the sandwiches.

Originally Posted by Fightful With AEW being a year old and already gaining national television on TNT, selling out arenas, and winning some bidding wars for talent in free agency, many see them as a threat to WWE. But, while he welcomes the fight, WWE Co-President George Barrios doesn't see them as an existential threat. Speaking at Citi 2020 Global TMT West Conference, Barrios was asked about All Elite Wrestling and whether they present competition to WWE. "I'm a kid from Queens so everything is a competition and fight. That's one of the things I love about WWE. My DNA fits within that. We don't take anything for granted. We are serious like a heart attack around fighting for our unfair share. Having said that, I think it's fair to say that there's been other wrestling in the United States and abroad, who we respect people behind it, the talent, and what they do. It can be tough to compete with us because we're so good at what we do. We've built up capabilities and competencies over a long, long time. How to build stars, present the content, and engage fans over multiple platforms. We think we're hard to compete with. We don't take anything for granted. If you said to me, existential, do I feel [like they're a threat]? No. But I love a good fight. We enjoy it," he said.

Originally Posted by Lucha Blog Psycho Clown has threated to leave AAA, according to a report by Cancha. There's are no details given as to the reasons he might leave. The article says it is something he is considering but is talking to his lawyer first.

For some reference, he is one of AAA's top stars and maybe the equivalent of WWE's John Cena in terms of being very popular with younger fans and star status.


TPWW Frontpage:

• ROH Announces Return of Supercard of Honor Event for 2020
• Three Matches Announced for Next Week’s NXT
• Three Matches Announced for Next Week’s AEW Dynamite, Including DDP’s Return

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Matt Hardy is expected to leave WWE in March. He produced new Broken videos and offered an idea for a “Free the Delete” series to lead to his return with the old character. But they weren’t interested. Hardy is the leading speculated name for the leader of the Dark Order since they just started teasing a leader and Hardy just started putting out the videos. Plus, the Young Bucks and Broken Hardys had talked over a year-long program in ROH and Impact for three years ago, but when the Hardys got the WWE offer to return at Mania, they rushed through it. The problem here is that Jeff Hardy, who may not be on the same page right now with Matt since their wives went at it not that long ago in social media, has had a lot of time added to his WWE contract to due to injuries.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The return of head-to-head live shows on 1/8 saw AEW benefit from a great show the week before to score a surprisingly one-sided win in a race that it appeared NXT had the momentum in when the head-to-heads ended on 12/18 ... AEW appeared to build the stronger show for 1/8, and it showed, doing 947,000 viewers and a 0.36 in the demo over NXT’s 721,000 viewers and 0.19 in the demo ... Both numbers were likely held down by a combination of increased interest in news, and even more, a Jeopardy special on ABC that did 14,872,000 viewers and did in particular gigantic numbers in 35-49, AEW’s biggest fan demo, and 50+, NXT’s biggest ... In the segment-by-segment, AEW opened at 1,013,000 for the bulk of Kenny Omega & Adam Page vs. Private Party. NXT opened at 818,000 for promos and the beginning of Rhea Ripley & Toni Storm & Candice LeRae vs. Bianca Belair & Io Shirai & Kay Lee Ray. The second quarter saw AEW lost 69,000 viewers for the ending of Omega & Page vs. Private Party and the post-match stuff. NXT lost 48,000 viewers for the bulk of the women’s six-person and a Tommaso Ciampa video package. The third quarter saw AEW gain 17,000 viewers for Riho vs. Kris Statlander and all the post-match stuff with the Nightmare Collective. NXT lost 48,000 for The Forgotten Sons vs. Imperium in the Dusty Rhodes tag team tournament. The fourth quarter saw AEW lost 48,000 viewers for Christopher Daniels vs. Sammy Guevara and post-match with the Dark Order, SCU and Young Bucks. NXT lost 54,000 viewers for Austin Theory vs. Joaquim Wilde. The fifth quarter saw AEW gain 28,000 viewers for Dustin & Cody Rhodes vs. Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix while NXT gained 61,000 viewers for the battle of tag champs with Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Mark Coffey & Wolfgang. The sixth quarter saw AEW stay even for the MJF promo which also featured DDP, Butcher, Blade, Bunny, Dustin Rhodes and QT Marshall. NXT lost 13,000 for the ending of the tag team battle of champions and promos with Johnny Gargano and Finn Balor. The seventh quarter saw AEW lose 44,000 viewers for Luchasaurus & Jungle Boy & Marko Stunt vs. Trent & Chuck Taylor & Orange Cassidy. NXT lost 71,000 viewers for Mia Yim vs. Kayden Carter and video packages. For the head-to-head main events, AEW’s segment with Chris Jericho and the Inner Circle with Jon Moxley gained 73,000 viewers to 970,000. NXT with Keith Lee vs. Cameron Grimes vs. Dominik Dijakovic vs. Damien Priest lost 71,000 viewers to 605,000. When AEW went off the air, NXT gained 195,000 viewers for the ending of the main event. In the same time slots last year, USA Network averaged 902,000 viewers and TNT averaged 520,000 viewers, so NXT was 20 percent down and AEW was 82 percent up.

Originally Posted by PWI The first episode of NXT on BT Sport, by the way, did not carry the overrun and went off the air early before the finish of the Fatal Four Way won by Keith Lee.

The Wednesday night wars on 1/1 were one-sided since NXT did an awards and best of 2019 show. AEW’s live show did 967,000 viewers (1.34 viewers per home) , a huge increase from recent weeks with a heavily promoted show. It was more impressive since the first part of the show went head-to-head with the Rose Bowl, which drew 15,698,000 viewers and the second part went against the Sugar Bowl, which did 9,915,000 viewers. The best of show dropped NXT to 548,000 viewers and only a 0.15 in 18-49, falling to 66th place on the night. AEW did a 0.36 ... In the segment-by-segment, NXT opened with 772,000 viewers and 285,000 in 18-49 for the ladder match with Undisputed Era, Street Profits, Fabian Aichner & Marcel Barthel and Wesley Blake & Steve Cutler. AEW opened with 1,074,000 viewers and 494,000 in 18-49 for Cody vs. Darby Allin. In the second quarter, NXT lost 104,000 viewers and 42,000 in 18-49 for the end of the ladder match and Tag Team of the Year award presentation. AEW lost 105,000 viewers and 31,000 in 18-49 for the ending of Cody vs. Allin. In the third quarter, NXT lost 146,000 viewers and 55,000 in 18-49 Male Wrestler of the Year and Female Wrestler of the Year awards. AEW gained 47,000 viewers and 34,000 in 18-49 for Riho vs. Nyla Rose vs. Britt Baker vs. Hikaru Shida. In the fourth quarter, NXT gained 9,000 viewers and 7,000 in 18-49 for the Rivalry of the Year and beginning of the Women’s War Games match. AEW lost 104,000 viewers and 67,000 in 18-49 for the Dark Order promo and Jon Moxley vs. Trent. In the fifth quarter, NXT gained 11,000 viewers but lost 20,000 in 18-49 for the rest of the Women’s War Games match. AEW gained 67,000 viewers and 33,000 in 18-49 for the ending of Moxley vs. Trent and Chris Jericho’s offer to Moxley. In the sixth quarter NXT lost 41,000 viewers and 15,000 in 18-49 for the Future Star award. AEW lost 13,000 viewers and 3,000 in 18-49 for Dustin Rhodes vs. Sammy Guevara. In the seventh quarter, NXT lost 72,000 viewers and 14,000 in 18-49 for the Breakout Star of the Year and beginning of Johnny Gargano vs. Adam Cole 2/3 fall Match of the Year. AEW lost 39,000 viewers but gained 9,000 in 18-49 for the MJF promo. In the eighth quarter, the battle of main events saw AEW’s six man tag do 893,000 viewers and 458,000 in 18-49 to NXT’s doing 418,000 viewers and 155,000 in 18-49. NXT lost 11,000 viewers but gained 9,000 in 18-49 with Gargano vs. Cole. AEW had Young Bucks & Kenny Omega vs. Pac & Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix and lost 34,000 viewers and 11,000 in 18-49. After AEW ended, NXT gained 141,000 viewers and 61,000 in 18-49 for the end of Gargano vs. Cole and Cole winning the Overall Competitor of the Year award.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter A note on the ratings for 12/18. That was the week that NXT first won in the 18-49 demos. Even including DVR viewership, after seven days, NXT was still ahead in both overall and 18-49 numbers. That would be the only week so far that NXT with DVR viewership won either overall or in 18-49, although 18-49 only had a 2,000 viewer difference and since AEW traditionally does more past seven day viewers than NXT. So even that show may end up in a dead heat or with AEW winning. On 11/27, when NXT won 813,000 to 668,000 live, it ended up with AEW ahead with DVR viewership by 2,000 and in 18-49 had a 528,000 to 412,000 edge. But on 12/18, even with DVR viewers NXT won 949,000 to 942,000 in total viewers, making the first time AEW fell below 1 million viewers and NXT had the edge 457,000 to 455,000 in 18-49. So with NXT running that loaded show, a lot of AEW fans didn’t even bother to watch the show

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter For the first time in history, New Japan ran two straight nights of major shows at the Tokyo Dome, selling out the traditional 1/4 event with a paid attendance of 40,008, and probably about 43,000 total; and 30,063 paid the next day, looking to be about 34,000 to 35,000 total ... There were about 8,300 tickets for the first night and 6,500 for the second night purchased outside of Japan. Both were records and shows that much of the growth in recent years comes from overseas. There were few tickets sold outside of Japan for any Tokyo Dome event until the 2017 show headlined by Okada vs. Kenny Omega ... Surprisingly, the two countries that sold the most tickets were Australia and the U.K., the former topping 3,000 tickets to night one.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The bad blood between the two sides also stems from New Japan’s booking plans for 2019. Originally, Omega was to retain the IWGP title against Tanahashi at the Tokyo Dome and then lead to a match with Okada, their first ever meeting in the U.S., for Madison Square Garden. While we were under the impression Omega was to lose that match, he was not. The Tokyo Dome final four booking plan with both the IWGP and IC belts at stake was to be Omega vs. Ibushi and Okada vs. Naito (meaning one of those two would have been IC champion) on the first night. The idea from that would seem to be that Naito would have beaten both Okada and then Omega since the plan was always for Naito to be the first with the two belts at the same time. One person noted that Harold Meij wanted at the time to go directly to Khan. Khan didn’t come and who, for reasons having nothing to do with the wrestling industry, has never been to Japan and may never come to Japan. Things got worse due to legal threats made against AEW and Omega, which put relations at a terrible level, to the point neither side wanted to acknowledge the other. Those in AEW were frustrated with the idea that there was a fan base that no matter what, had this mentality that New Japan could do no wrong but they had seen a very different side of the company. It was easy for both sides to be bitter, AEW due to the snub, New Japan due to the taking of the talent, with the idea they don’t need the other, since both have done well on their own. Khan decided against plugging anything related to Jericho vs. Tanahashi or the Tokyo Dome show on its television or social media because he felt that was of no benefit to AEW. Yet, after the Tokyo Dome, on AEW, Jericho and the announcers talked about how Jericho and Moxley had big wins over the past week at the Tokyo Dome, a step that just a week earlier wouldn’t have been allowed. However, Moxley was not mentioned as winning the U.S. title, which is a Khan ruling with the idea that on Dynamite, the only titles he wants mentioned are AEW titles. If you note, Omega has stopped being called AAA champion, although that may be acknowledged going forward on Dark and he could defend it there, but won’t on Dynamite or PPV. Pentagon Jr. & Fenix are never mentioned as AAA tag champs in AEW even though those titles were defended in the past on AEW PPV shows.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter New Japan officially announced that there are no plans for television in the U.S. right now. This had been inevitable since Anthem purchased AXS. Really, the only way they could have kept was if they became an affiliate of Impact and that just wasn’t going to happen. New Japan did have that option but turned it down. As noted last week, this is more of a blow to New Japan in the U.S. than people recognize. Those in the bubble will say that you still have New Japan World, but the reality is that maybe has 50,000 subscribers outside of Japan, and that’s covering the rest of the world so maybe 35,000 in the U.S.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter B.J. Whitmer and Kelly Klein have split up. Whitmer brought up it was due to her relationship with somebody else. Most have tabbed that as Adam Birch (Joey Mercury). That seems to explain a number of things. Birch had contacted a number of ROH wrestlers with the idea of getting them out of their contracts and him representing them with the idea they could make more money playing WWE and AEW against each other than they could in ROH. It didn’t go anywhere because it was felt Birch was trying to take down ROH to do so, and virtually nobody was in favor of that. Birch was banned from Twitter for comments about Whitmer, who now works for AEW backstage

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter This is a true story and it shows how brainwashed some are. There was an international documentary being done on pro wrestling and both myself and Fumi Saito were involved this past week. They had interviewed people in WWE recently as well. I had actually blocked the director not that long ago because he asked me if it was true that Tony Khan actually bought all the tickets for those first day sold out events to make it appear the product was hot, given I seem to be a magnet for people who, for whatever reason, cling on to desperation wanting AEW to fail, even though I’ve never said once it’s a lock for them to succeed, just they’ve gotten off to a great start and their results thus far for a company getting started and selling tickets are strong. Anyway, the story came from people in WWE who explained to them that version, that the fast ticket sales and early sellouts were the company buying up all the tickets. So it’s actually a story propagated from within WWE talent or told to WWE talent from within the organization. You’d think people who see through the obvious, but I guess not

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Historically, bigger than Naito’s win was the final match ever of Liger. Nikkan Sports covered the Liger retirement as the major sports story of the day. But it wasn’t just Liger’s retirement, as unbeknownst to everyone, his biggest rival during the period Liger became known as arguably the best in-ring performer in the business, Naoki Sano, wanted to retire with Liger. But rather than take any spotlight away, Sano teamed with Liger, losing to Ryu Lee (Dragon Lee) & Hiromu Takahashi on this show, and then the next day announced his retirement quietly.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Hirooki Goto pinned KENTA to win the Never Open weight title in 16:12. What hurt this match live was no Katsuyori Shibata at ringside since the angle was based on KENTA attacking Shibata. Evidently Shibata tried to get cleared, which was admittedly a huge longshot at best. The result was that not only was he not cleared, but told in no uncertain terms that there was zero percent chance he could ever be cleared.

Originally Posted by Observer With WrestleMania season approaching, Will Ospreay has been announced for two independent shows in Tampa. Ospreay will be in action at Game Changer Wrestling's Joey Janela's Spring Break 4 at The Cuban Club in Ybor City on Friday, April 3. This will be the first time Ospreay has wrestled at a Spring Break or for GCW.

Originally Posted by PWI WKYT-TV in Kentucky is reporting that WWE is making a push to have Corbin, Kentucky renamed King Corbin, Kentucky as part of a marketing ploy for this weekend's live event in the city. WWE is running Corbin this Sunday with Baron Corbin advertised to face Roman Reigns in a Loser Eats Dogfood match. Prior to that event, according to WKYT, Corbin and WWE reps will be in front of the Colonel Sanders statue in downtown Corbin Sunday afternoon, collecting signatures to join Corbin's petition for the name change. WWE cameras will be filming and there will be giveaways for tickets for Sunday's live event.

Originally Posted by PWI Vice is in the midst of putting together and filming the second season of Dark Side of The Ring. PWInsider.com can confirm some of the topics that will be covered in Season Two will be: * Brawl For All. * The Benoit Tragedy. * Dino Bravo. There's also been talk of Herb Abrams and New Jack episodes, but we have not confirmed whether they have moved forward on including those in season two. The plan is for ten episodes for season two. The Benoit tragedy episode will feature Nancy Benoit’s sister Sandra Toffoloni and Chris Benoit's son David. Since Toffoloni has noted this publicly on her Twitter account, she has reunited with David and thanked the series for giving her back her nephew. Toffoloni and Benoit were together at an AEW PPV last year.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Mirror Sport uploaded highlights from their portion of the recent media call with Paul “Triple H” Levesque. Levesque confirmed that there will be more NXT U.K. TakeOvers this year and it was just a matter of mapping it out with the rest of the WWE schedule. “We absolutely will. As you can imagine, trying to put together a WWE calendar, with closing in on 600 live events all over the globe, is a difficult process and it’s a puzzle, and if one thing changes it moves bits and pieces around and you don’t want to be running shows that step on each other. So it’s a bit of a puzzle. There absolutely are plans for more NXT UK TakeOvers this year. As you see even just now, this weekend we’re heading to Blackpool for another massive event there and then a few weeks from that, the NXT UK talent will be over here in Houston, Texas for Worlds Collide, where Imperium will face off with The Undisputed ERA. There will be so many other matches you will see on that card as it gets laid out here in the next few days and into the next week, you will learn exactly what that entire card is, but as you will see, that card will be spectacular as well. So Worlds Collide will be another epic event. It’s all about the exposure for these talents and these brands and getting them the opportunity as you said to have these mega events that you can build towards and you can give them these spectacle match of the year type things and make everybody into bigger and bigger stars and household names around the world.”

600 events this year is pretty insane and then WWE wonders why they keep burning out their audiences both on tv and for events because of how over exposed the company is.


TPWW Frontpage:

• Various: Marty Scurll ROH Update, More on Andrade’s US Title Win at MSG, Indies
• Rumor: Major League Wrestling in Talks with Cable Network Showtime for Television Deal
• “Straight Up Steve Austin” Renewed for a Second Season
• Four Way Tag Team Match Announced for AEW Dynamite

[Ultra Mantis]

Is Meltzer still using the Elite as his New Japan source or something? Kenny with a year and half long title reign & main eventing both nights in the dome, including his dream match against Ibushi being placed over Okada / Naito sounds ludicrously off. Who would even know the original plans other than Gedo? What was Meij allegedly suing Omega for? Was he refusing to do business on the way out? Who is supposed to look good in that story?

[Emperor Smeat]

Probably someone else for the Omega story since that goes against what Omega mentioned before about his title reign. Omega vs Naito and then Omega vs. Ibushi makes way more sense for both nights than the other way around. Also explains Jay White's direction post-Omega departure since that would have been Omega's plans had he stayed.

In regards to the lawsuit threats, it probably had to do with how Trent Baretta left the company and maybe them feeling Omega purposely sabotaged their plans despite that not being the case according to the Bucks. Pretty much the Bullet Club Civil War storyline being rushed lines up with the Bucks mentioning they gave their notice to leave months prior to Wrestle Kingdom 13.

Also seems its mostly NJPW's upper management and owners that still hold a huge grudge over the Elite leaving considering the issues with Omega's work visa in Japan and Gedo being very receptive to using an AEW storyline for Wrestle Kingdom 14.

[Mr. Nerfect]

There's no way Omega would have held the belt for that long.

Meltzer is extremely biased towards AEW. Listening to him review NXT and try to pick logic holes in it while he just shrugs at AEW's nonsensical stuff is excruciating. I get that the dude's a wrestling fan, and an alternative to WWE is needed, but you can see where the silly "he's on the take" rumors come from.

The Bucks and Omega dicked over New Japan. They say they gave notice months before, but they were also negotiating with WWE and New Japan, by their own admission, right up until signing with AEW -- something they would have known they were going to do months before, but obviously led New Japan down a primrose path of "we might stay."

They've established a new US promotion that is going to impact New Japan's business presence in the country. Omega was very public about New Japan being cheap. They're not fucking pure babyfaces in this story.

[Sting Fan]

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect There's no way Omega would have held the belt for that long. Meltzer is extremely biased towards AEW. Listening to him review NXT and try to pick logic holes in it while he just shrugs at AEW's nonsensical stuff is excruciating. I get that the dude's a wrestling fan, and an alternative to WWE is needed, but you can see where the silly "he's on the take" rumors come from. The Bucks and Omega dicked over New Japan. They say they gave notice months before, but they were also negotiating with WWE and New Japan, by their own admission, right up until signing with AEW -- something they would have known they were going to do months before, but obviously led New Japan down a primrose path of "we might stay." They've established a new US promotion that is going to impact New Japan's business presence in the country. Omega was very public about New Japan being cheap. They're not fucking pure babyfaces in this story.

Those absolute bastards... How dare they try and negotiate the best deal for themselves across multiple bidders. Scum!!!

P.S. I am loving you as the anti Meltzer, great schtick.

[Mr. Nerfect]

There's nothing wrong with negotiating deals at all. I just think it's absolute bullshit that they were transparent from day-dot, and they may have given assurances that might be deemed disrespectful to a company that feels that is important.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Going head-to-head with the college football championship game, Raw last night did 2.03 million viewers, the second lowest in modern history for a non-holiday show and lowest for a live show. Raw attempted to load up this week to avoid a bad number, but with the LSU-Clemson game doing 25.00 million on ESPN and 381,000 on ESPN 2, roughly double a good Monday Night Football game, there was only so much that could have helped. The audience was down 12.7 percent from last year's Raw which was head-to-head with a championship game that did 24.33 million viewers on ESPN and 666,000 on ESPN 2 ... The only episode in history that was non-holiday and did worse was the December 23 taped show that did 1.84 million viewers. The three hours were: 8 p.m. 2.22 million viewers 9 p.m. 2.06 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.81 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer Triple H faced backlash yesterday after making a joke directed at Paige. When answering a question about her or Edge making a possible return to the ring, Triple H replied that he hoped they would be able to be cleared to return, saying “Edge has kids. Paige, she probably has some she doesn't know of”. Paige wasn’t happy with the line, writing on Twitter, “Even my boss jokes about me.. no wonder you guys still do it too.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling It was a very awkward line from Levesque and my hope would be that he regretted stating it given Paige’s openness regarding the abuse she has endured since a tape of her was leaked several years ago and caused her enormous harassment. When she was interviewed in 2018 on Lilian Garcia’s podcast, she described what she had gone through: “That scarred me, just people invading my privacy, to the point where sometimes I don’t want to go out. People are just looking at me bad. I was out with my friend. We were just sitting there having a Bloody Mary. This guy comes up to my friend and says, ‘That’s the porn star.’ I cried in the toilet. I find it really hard to be close to anybody. And that’s the reason why. When they came out, I barricaded myself in the house for a couple of months. I was so sad to the point I was contemplating suicide. I was on the floor, I was so low. I got so skinny, I ended up collapsing with exhaustion in hospital in England. They told me at the time it was like stress-induced anorexia.” Even worse, was a story from Paige on an episode of Total Divas where she revealed having a miscarriage when she was younger and that she may not be able to have children. The point is not whether Levesque was attempting to be malicious and I would hope he wasn’t. The point is that it was an insensitive comment towards someone that must endure daily comments about that tape and had endured great pain in the wake of it. Even worse, is that this wasn’t a random person on Twitter it was one of her superiors and an executive within the company. At best, it can be labeled as a highly inappropriate and unprofessional comment for someone of Levesque’s status in the company.

Originally Posted by Observer SoCal Uncensored reached out to the Department of the Navy to verify if Robert Remus, aka Sgt. Slaughter, had ever served in the Marine Corps or the Marine Corps Reserve. They got a letter back from the Navy, which said they were unable to identify Remus as a member or former member of the Marines.

Link: https://twitter.com/socaluncensored/...82949390446592

Originally Posted by Observer While announcing their newest Performance Center signees, WWE has confirmed the addition of two independent wrestling standouts. Mercedes Martinez and Jake Atlas have officially signed with WWE. Martinez joins the company after appearing in the Mae Young Classic in both 2017 and 2018. She made it to the semifinals in the first tournament before losing to Shayna Baszler. In 2018, she lost to Meiko Satomura in the second round ... Martinez was the 21st entrant in the Casino Battle Royale at AEW All Out in August and also wrestled one match on AEW Dark that was taped in October. Atlas broke out on the Southern California indie scene. Last year, he made it to the quarterfinals of PWG's Battle of Los Angeles. He defeated Jungle Boy in the first round and then lost to Dragon Lee in the second ... Atlas appeared on the WWE-themed "Celebrity Undercover Boss" episode that aired in 2018 and said that his goal is to become the first openly gay WWE World Champion. "Titan Games" competitor Emily Andzulis, former NFL defensive lineman Anthony Francis, acrobat Sidney Bateman, and former college basketball player Zechariah Smith were also announced as signing with WWE:

Originally Posted by Observer Deadline.com reported Tuesday that Court Bauer's Major League Wrestling has signed a deal with major Hollywood agency ICM Partners as they look to sign a new TV and streaming deal ... The article said that MLW is looking to take advantage of the recent upswing in live sports TV rights deals, especially in pro wrestling. Bauer was quoted as saying MLW is in an unique position, given they are the only wrestling free agent property available in 2020. The ICM deal also includes representation for MLW Studios, "a multi-platform media studio focusing on original scripted and non-scripted programming."

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling ICM also represents John Cena.

Found that bit to be the most interesting from Post Wrestling's article about MLW's newest deal. Doubt Cena would bother ever showing up at a MLW show but still found it to be very interesting tidbit either way.

Originally Posted by Observer A second NJPW star has been confirmed for WrestleCon's WrestleMania week SuperShow. WrestleCon announced today that Shingo Takagi will be in action at this year's Mark Hitchcock Memorial SuperShow. The event is taking place at The Ritz Ybor in Tampa, Florida on Thursday, April 2 and will start at 8 p.m. Eastern time. This will be the first time Takagi has taken part in WrestleCon. Will Ospreay has also been announced for this year's WrestleCon SuperShow, along with Bandido, Alex Zayne, Blake Christian, and Jordan Oliver.

Originally Posted by Fightful The first bout for NWA Hard Times is official as Nick Aldis will take on Flip Gordon in an inter-promotional matchup. The match was confirmed on Tuesday's episode of NWA Powerrr. Aldis made a surprise appearance at ROH Saturday Night at Center Stage in Atlanta this past Saturday, attacking Gordon in the middle of a brawl between Villain Enterprises and La Faccion Ingobernable.

Originally Posted by Fightful Speaking to ESPN West Palm, The Young Buck explained the thought process behind the Bash at the Beach special. "Our plan is to do four pay-per-views a year, so we realized we have to dress up some of the shows on Wednesday to not fall into a formula. Try to make some of them feel more special than other ones. That was the thinking process on this. To bring something back from the past that has such a cool history. Cody happened to get the trademark and owns it now. He brought it to Tony's attention and we all thought it was a good idea. I think fans are gonna be excited because we're gonna try to make it a special show, even from the look of things," said Nick Jackson.

Originally Posted by Fightful Following the passing AAA's La Parka, fans wondered if LA Park, who went by La Parka in WCW and AAA in the 90s, would regain the name. LA Park was forced to change his name after a legal battle with Lucha Libre AAA once he returned to Mexico and began working for CMLL in 2003. LA Park would return to AAA in 2010, kicking off a feud with La Parka. When asked about the possibility of using the La Parka name once again, LA Park replied, "No one will fill the place that La Parka did, not me, nor anyone. The truth is you should respect his name so that Chuy Escoboza can never be forgotten. I don't plan on recovering anything, only that God has received him in its glory. In life, we'll fight up until we can."

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling There was a lengthy series of tweets posted by Gabe Sapolsky on Monday responding to David Starr, who has made several statements regarding EVOLVE and whether they pay certain performers on their shows. In the tweets, which Sapolsky has since deleted, he ran down Starr but acknowledged he kept 1-3 spots on shows where rising talent could have a spot but did not get paid. He defended this practice citing his longevity in the game and that they don’t eliminate paying spots, they are created in addition to those that are booked.

Also made everything into an even bigger mess afterwards by going on a blocking spree on Twitter, retweeting everyone who was praising him despite some of them using the occasion to just attack "SJWs", deleted all of his apology tweets, and got into an argument with GCW over EVOLVE's status as an indies fed despite EVOLVE also promoting NXT's Rhea Ripley and using NXT talent for their upcoming shows at the same time. Link with the tweets: https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/d...olsky-responds

Originally Posted by PWI Ring of Honor announced today that former IWGP Champion Jay White will be appearing for the company Wrestlemania 36 weekend at Supercard of Honor. PWInsider.com has been told that other members of Bullet Club will be appearing on the event as well and they will be in a top level main event match on the show. This is the first major indication in some time that the Ring of Honor-New Japan working relationship is continuing on in 2020.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Various: Ember Moon on WWE’s Issues with Lower Card, Santana’s Father Passes Away, Indies
• News Updates: Brian Cage & AEW, Marty Scurll’s ROH Booker Status, Tessa Blanchard’s “Attitude”
• Jon Moxley vs. Josh Barnett Announced for Bloodsport III
• Dave Bautista to Star in Apple TV+ Series, “See”
• MJF Finishes Up With MLW

[Simple Fan]

Getting Bloodsport 3 now. Watched the first show but passed last year.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Good for MLW. This is going to be a very interesting year for pro-wrestling, I think.

[Sepholio]

Rusev changed his twitter bio to "Soon to be free agent"

I see a lot of rumblings that he's either leaving WWE or trying to get a better deal, but I don't think it's either necessarily. His choice of words, free agent, makes me think otherwise. That's the term WWE uses for people who are open to go to any brand. I'm wondering if Rusev is going to "quit" RAW after the Lashley feud and end up on Smackdown....or even better, NXT. He would be a great fit in NXT, especially if they are planning on bringing Keith Lee up. Rusev could fill his spot as a big toughy rather easily.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Gary Cassidy of Sportskeeda caught up with Paige during BT Sport’s WWE launch event and asked Paige about Paul “Triple H” Levesque’s comment that Paige possibly has a few kids she doesn’t know about yet. Paige said she was taken aback by the comment because she respects Levesque and added that he did reach out to her. “Obviously, I was a little bit perplexed, a little bit taken [aback] because he’s someone that I truly look up to, and he’s always been very respectful so, I just feel like he kind of got caught up, maybe in a joke but I don’t think it was appropriate to joke about. Again, it’s just something that I’m not gonna continually talk about because I feel like people on the internet have done a good job of that. He’s definitely reached out and we’re gonna be talking about some things.”

Originally Posted by PWI Paige did not appear on WWE Backstage this week as she is in England doing promotional work for WWE. For those who asked, there's no correlation between Paige missing the episode and the Twitter issues that arose over the last few days after Triple H joked about Paige having children she didn't know existed running around during a media conference promoting Takeover. There was a big push-back against the joke from some fans with Paige commenting: Even my boss jokes about me.. no wonder you guys still do it too. https://t.co/dOmZAiwvyX — PAIGE (@RealPaigeWWE) January 13, 2020

Originally Posted by Observer The winners from two matches that are scheduled for tonight's Dynamite will face each other next week in a number one contender’s match for the AEW World title. PAC vs. Darby Allin and Jon Moxley vs. Sammy Guevara have already been announced for tonight. AEW’s social media today added a new stipulation to those matches. The winners of both matches will face one another next week on the Jericho's Rock 'n' Wrestling Cruise edition of Dynamite. The winner of that match will become the one contender to the AEW World title.

Originally Posted by Observer AEW announced late-Wednesday afternoon that Awesome Kong is out of tonight's AEW Dynamite tag team match due to an undisclosed illness. In her place and making her Dynamite in-ring debut: Brandi Rhodes. She will team with fellow Nightmare Collective member Mel (also making her Dynamite in-ring debut) to face Kris Statlander and Hikaru Shida.

Originally Posted by Observer For what is being touted as their first appearance in Madison Square Garden in more than ten years, WWE Hall of Fame faction D-Generation X will return for a March afternoon house show. Announced via an MSG ticket presale email and on social media, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, X-Pac, and Road Dogg will all be in New York City on Sunday, March 22nd. It's not expected the foursome will actually wrestle. Notably absent is Billy Gunn who is part of the AEW roster. While cards are subject to change, the Raw show is scheduled to be headlined by Kevin Owens, Samoa Joe and Big Show vs. Seth Rollins and the AOP in a six-man tag while Raw women's champion Becky Lynch will defend against Asuka.

Originally Posted by Observer Will Ospreay is the latest NJPW wrestler to be added to ROH's WrestleMania weekend show. ROH has announced that Ospreay will be in action at Supercard of Honor XIV. The show is taking place at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland, Florida on Saturday, April 4 and will go against NXT TakeOver: Tampa. NJPW's Jay White and El Phantasmo have also been confirmed for Supercard of Honor XIV

Originally Posted by Observer Killer Kross has an opponent for his MLW debut. MLW announced today that Kross will make his debut for the promotion against Tom Lawlor at their Fightland set of television tapings. The show is taking place at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Saturday, February 1.

Originally Posted by Observer NJPW is running a Lion's Break show as part of WrestleCon's events over WrestleMania week in Tampa. NJPW announced tonight that Lion's Break Project 3 will take place at The Ritz Ybor in Tampa, Florida on Thursday, April 2 at 3 p.m. Eastern time. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Ren Narita, Karl Fredericks, Clark Connors, and Alex Coughlin are the first names confirmed for the show.

Originally Posted by PWI Over the weekend, PWInsider.com reported that WWE would return to Saudi Arabia on Thursday 2/20. WWE sources have since indicated to PWInsidercom that preliminary date has been moved to the following week, Thursday 2/27. We are told that crearive for the event has not been locked in.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling While speaking with SunSport, Cain Velasquez stated that he believes he’s going to be in the 2020 men’s Royal Rumble match. “I think I’m doing it, right? I think so. I can win it, hell yeah, that’s my mentality for everything. For everyone as well, that is how your mentality has to be. I’m going in to win this thing.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Following NXT U.K. TakeOver: Blackpool II, Paul “Triple H” Levesque chatted with members of the media and he spoke about Tyson Fury and the door being open for Fury to return to WWE. Levesque added that he knows Tyson Fury’s next potential appearance for WWE likely depends on the turnout of Fury’s upcoming fight against Deontay Wilder on February 22nd.

Originally Posted by Fightful Tag team wrestling is as healthy as it's ever been with New Day, Revival, Usos, Proud N Powerful, SCU, The North, Briscoes, Lethal & Gresham, and many more being able to lay claim to the "best tag team in the world" moniker. And Matt & Nick Jackson would like to settle the score once and for all against at least two of those teams. "I would say The Elite vs. New Day because that is something that was actually close to happening at one point, but it never actually happened. If that six-man happened, it would have tore the house down," Nick told ESPN West Palm when asked about potential dream matches. The Elite and New Day competed in a Street Fighter battle, but never in an in-ring bout. Matt stated, "The obvious one is us and The Revival. I feel like there's some real-life tension there. I don't know if it's competitive or friendly but there's definitely a competitive rivalry. Talk about two teams that have polar opposite of styles. I think it'd be a fun styles clash. I'd love to have that match. That's probably number one on my bucket list." The Revival and Young Bucks have teased a match and feuded on social media for years with #FTR becoming a knock against Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder (Fuck The Revival) or a show of support (Forever The Revival).

TPWW Frontpage:

• Rocky Johnson, WWE Hall of Famer and Father of The Rock, Passes Away at Age 75
• Triple H Apologizes for His Joke About Paige
• AEW Top Five Rankings – Jan. 15, 2020
• AEW Dynamite Extended Through 2023, New AEW Show Coming
• Kane Returning for a “Special Appearance” on Friday’s SmackDown
• Elias Signs Three Year Contract Extension With WWE

[Sepholio]

RIP Rocky

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Wednesday night ratings are in and last night's Bash at the Beach-themed episode of AEW Dynamite was essentially even with last week, averaging 940,000 total viewers and a 0.38 rating in the 18-49 demo. The latter number was good for fifth on the night on cable TV and was up six percent from last week. NXT was down three percent in total viewers, averaging 700,000. The 18-49 rating was 0.21, which was up 11 percent from last week. The show finished 31st on cable in that category. As was the case early in the ratings war -- but had stopped leading into the holiday season -- AEW beat NXT in every demo except those over 50.. NXT had a very narrow win in that category, drawing a 0.35 rating to AEW's 0.34. The biggest gap in the demos was in men 18-49. AEW almost doubled NXT with a 0.51 rating to 0.26.

Originally Posted by Observer Zack Sabre Jr. has been announced for this year’s WrestleCon SuperShow. It’s taking place at The Ritz Ybor on Thursday, April 2.

Originally Posted by Observer Marty Scurll has been announced for one night of the NWA's post-Hard Times television tapings. The NWA announced today that Scurll will appear in front of the crowd at their Power tapings in Atlanta, Georgia on Sunday, January 26. The show starts at 3 p.m. Eastern time.

Originally Posted by PWI Impact Wrestling will be presenting a TNA-themed live event as part of Wrestlecon this April: There's no place like home. TNA officially returns for one night only on Friday, April 3rd at 7pm. Tickets go on sale on Monday at 12pm EST at https://t.co/6BISigVGvG! pic.twitter.com/o19R8OVO4z — IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) January 16, 2020

Originally Posted by PWI There's been a lot of talk of late that the WWE UK Championship, currently held by WALTER, will be rechristened the NXT UK Championship to bring it in line with all the other NXT UK title belts.

Originally Posted by PWI The Undertaker is at the WWE Performance Center today in Orlando, Florida. Obviously, with the Royal Rumble next week, that timing is very interesting. Updated: 12:39 PM - Thus far today, Undertaker not been inside the ring. He has been reviewing last night's WWE NXT TV episode with the roster, giving advice and feedback to the roster.

Originally Posted by PWI TNT President Kevin Reilly discussed All Elite Wrestling Dynamite's new TV pact during the Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles yesterday, commenting, “I just had this idea that this was the time to invest. This is a startup. It’s already over-delivered out of the gate. That’s really when you want to hit the gasoline a little bit. The guys already have ideas about additional talent and things they want to do and I wanted to incentivize them as a partner to do that. We also wanted to gave fans and talent who potentially want to come work with us the sense that this is here to stay. You can invest in it, it’s here to stay, and it’s only going to get better.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling TV Insider spoke with Chelsea Green and Chelsea talked about she and Zack Ryder’s forthcoming wedding. She mentioned that she wants to have a New Year’s wedding and wants to incorporate Zack’s love of action figures into the wedding. “Of course, with his crazy toy podcast and love of toys and things like that, we’ve got some fun things planned — a little wedding pin we are going to give out to everybody at our wedding, fun stuff like that. I think we are going to do a New Year’s Eve wedding. We’re in the midst of trying to plan, but life on the road is crazy. It’s hard to plan a wedding when you’re on RAW, NXT, on the road. We’re both kind of taking it day-to-day.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling A new episode of WWE After The Bell came out on 1/16 and Drew McIntyre and Keith Lee joined the show. During Corey Graves’ singular portion of the podcast, he briefly talked about Wrestle Kingdom 14 and proposed the idea of WWE splitting WrestleMania up into two days: “I am still late to the party as I often am because I have little to no free time. Tried my best to check out New Japan Wrestle Kingdom. Shout out to those guys. My guy Juice Robinson who I will never forget even though he doesn’t acknowledge us and he’s disowned us and his WWE family. I think it’s really cool that the event has gotten so big, they did it over two days, which doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility for WrestleMania. What do you think? Would you be into two, four hour WrestleManias or a three hour and a four hour show rather than a 31 hour WrestleMania like we’ve had for the last few years?”

Same episode had him complain a lot about this past Monday's episode of RAW to the point it felt more like him complaining or needing to stir controversy just for the sake of it.

Originally Posted by Fightful Sheamus returned to WWE television in November 2019, after being absent since September, reverting back to his old non-mohawk look. A series of vignettes began to run, hyping his return to WWE SmackDown. He finally appeared in front of the live audience in January, taking out Shorty G with a Brouge Kick. The old look with spiked hair brought back memories of Sheamus' singles run when he was a multi-time World. But the original idea for his return could have had him stuck on 205 Live. "Mate, I got these notebooks of ideas from creative with like, a small moustache, and suspenders and my hair go over to the side…it looked almost exactly like Jack Gallagher from 205 Live and I said ‘you know, we have a person who looks just like this here, right?’ Man, if I did any of it any of those pictures, I’d just be done! I would have been toast. The amount of slaggings (abuse) I would have gotten.. and that would have just been off my granny! It was just terrible," Sheamus told Alex McCarthy of TalkSPORT. "But you know, we just went so far with the Mohawk. The Mohawk was done. I thought about it and, creatively, myself and a guy I work with called Ray, we just talked about it and it was like [debuting the mohawk] so shocking, you know, and I got that reaction ‘you look stupid’ and stuff and it was a great reaction. It was completely different because we we just hit a roadblock with whatever it was. You can’t go further than that."

TPWW Frontpage:

• Baron Corbin Takes a Shot at AEW
• Taz Signs Multi-Year Deal With AEW
• AEW Dark Will Rebrand and Move to TNT, President of TNT Says
• NXT: Three Matches Announced for Next Week, Kacy Catanzaro Returns
• AEW: Cody vs. Wardlow Cage Match Announced + Four Matches Announced for Next Week

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter AEW on 1/15 did 940,000 viewers (1.34 viewers per home) and a 0.38 in the 18-49 demo to not just beat NXT, which did 700,000 viewers (1.28 viewers per home) and a 0.21 in 18-49, but also for the first time beat the NBA on ESPN head-to-head. The first NBA game against the first 97 minutes of AEW and NXT did 934,000 viewers and a 0.34 in 18-34. The late game on ESPN did 1,128,000 viewers and a 0.44 in 18-49. AEW won its time slot in Males 18-49 for the first 97 minutes although the NBA game did beat them in 12-34 and the second game beat AEW over the last 23 minutes.. AEW was fifth in 18-49 while NXT was No. 31. We don’t have quarter hours at press time. In the different key demos, AEW won Women 18-34 70,000 to 39,000. AEW won Women 35-49 98,000 to 62,000. AEW won Men 18-34 101,000 to 56,000. AEW won Men 35-49 226,000 to 112,000, so more than a two-to-one margin. AEW more than doubled NXT with teenagers and NXT won slightly with viewers over 50, as it does every week ... AEW did a 0.20 in 12-17 (up 17.6 percent from last week), 0.24 in 18-34 (up 9.1 percent), 0.52 in 35-49 (up 4.0 percent) and 0.34 in 50+ (down 5.6 percent) ... Because last week’s NXT show didn’t crack the top 50, we don’t have comparisons withe last week, but the show did a 0.08 in 12-17 (well under half of AEW), 0.14 in 18-34, 0.28 in 35-49 (barely half) and 0.35 in 50+, beating AEW only slightly in the demo NXT has won almost every week.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Unlike in the past when they would run four shows in the same market on big show weekends, this time the 1/23 Smackdown show will be from Dallas and the 1/26 Raw will be from San Antonio. There are two shows in Houston, the Rumble, and the Worlds Collide show the night before at the Toyota Center. Worlds Collide ticket sales are very weak, basically ringside and most but not all of 100s as they haven’t sold out the side of the hard camera, and the rest of the building isn’t for sale. Similarly, the 2/16 Takeover show in Portland also has a weak advance. About 60 percent of the 100s that would normally be for sale are on sale, not including what you’d expect not for sale due to the stage. They are not opening up any other seats at this point for Worlds Collide.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter It appears the next Saudi Arabia show will be on 2/27, a Thursday afternoon, with Smackdown being on 2/28 in Boston. It will be very interesting to see who goes and who doesn’t go. It’s both what happened last time combined with the situation in the Middle East. That situation in theory, since it doesn’t involve Saudi Arabia, may not play a part in some people’s thinking but you can imagine wives and family members right now thinking about celebrities going to the Middle East with the problems with the U.S. and Iran. And that doesn’t even take into account several guys were talking about not going back after the problems getting home from the last show.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The Revival have hired the same lawyer who does trademarks for Cody Rhodes and are looking and trademarking shatter machine. They’ve already trademarked FTR and Forever The Revival, so at worst if WWE claims rights to the name The Revival, they can go as Forever the Revival using the FTR name that the Young Bucks mocked years ago when building the feud in social media back when people would debate which of the two teams was the best in the world before The Revival was brought up to the main roster and people stopped talking abut them as much

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The Big Show return is only planned to be temporary, as they needed a babyface to team with Joe & Owens for a brief period of time. Mysterio was supposed to be the third person in that feud but they are working the short-term Mysterio vs. Andrade program until they work their way out of it. Originally, and this doesn’t appear to have changed, the idea was for Andrade to have a longer very serious program over the title with Carrillo as a way to get both guys over as singles Latino stars. But now with Murphy being added to the Rollins group, they are again one short on the face side

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter While not signed yet, the betting line is that Kevin Kaser, 34 (Killer Kross) ends up here. There was thought to be interest in him across the board in wrestling due to his look. Multiple sources said Kaser and Paul Levesque were to have met this week. Besides Impact he had worked a lot on-and-off in AAA and Konnan was a huge proponent of him as far as potential. During his time in AAA, he was booked like a monster and never asked to lose. While it never went anywhere due to WWE signing Cain Velasquez, they were planning on a Velasquez vs. Kross program in AAA and started teasing it in Velasquez’s first match. Kross had been one of Impact’s most pushed stars until he was in a contract dispute with the promotion which led to him being iced for months and eventually released. His girlfriend, Elizabeth Chihaia, better known as Scarlett Bordeaux, is in NXT although has not been pushed on television although she did a quick cameo in an outdoor shot on one of the TV shows. Paul Levesque is said to be high on him

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter In a deal that will make the company profitable in 2020 and beyond, TNT, Warner Media and AEW have renegotiated and signed a new four-year contract that would keep Dynamite on the station through the end of 2023. The four-year deal is worth $175 million in rights fees, just under $45 million per year, and includes TNT having an option to keep the show through the end of 2024 at a significantly increased price. The deal has annual escalators built into the contract. The move protects TNT because there can be no bidding war to increase the costs of Dynamite, like what happened with Raw and Smackdown in the last negotiation period. For AEW, the deal insures 2020 profitability and pretty much protects them for being taken off the air through the end of 2023 if ratings decrease. In television there are always ways to cancel programming or change time slots or move to a different station. But if the show gets hotter or the value of such a show changes as sports rights fees continue to increase, it takes AEW out of the negotiation game where its television value could greatly increase until the beginning of 2025. The new deal is now similar in scope to the kind of deals WWE has for Raw, Smackdown and NXT, in that the cost of production, which in the old deal was $500,000 per week, is no longer covered by TNT. The new deal will continue the ad split aspect of the original deal, and through adding a second show, a weekly one-hour taped show, it would increase the amount of ad time from what the company has been getting a percentage of. WWE does not have ad sharing in its television deals. Essentially it is an increase of about $18 million per year in value, which is said to be more than the difference between making 2020 and beyond profitable. While AEW President and CEO Tony Khan was hopeful when the promotion debuted that it would be profitable by the end of 2020, with the old deal that was not likely to happen, saying it would have taken a miracle for 2020 to end up as a profitable year and we just got that miracle ... While the deal pales in comparison to the $265 million that USA pays for Raw and the $205 million that FOX pays for Smackdown, but it is more than the $30 million per year that USA currently pays for NXT. The deal includes adding another weekly hour of television later this year ... The second show will air on a WarnerMedia station, with TNT its most likely destination. It would not air on Sunday, Monday or Thursday, because Khan has an agreement to not air wrestling against the NFL since his family owns the Jacksonville Jaguars. Tuesday is out due to NBA commitments as far as TNT goes, although it is possible it could air on TBS. Saturday would be tough with UFC, Boxing and College Football, plus it’s the night AEW runs its PPV shows and the night UFC and boxing run their biggest events. But every night has something, as Friday has Smackdown.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Tessa Blanchard was the center of controversy on 1/12 for her past on the day she was booked to become the first female pro wrestler to win a male world championship on a PPV show ... Blanchard has been controversial for years, since she was a standout for WWE at the Mae Young Classic, but due to a number of issues, even with her looks, heritage and ability, they passed on signing her. There was always talk of attitude issues and other problems, including issues of not getting along with talent, that followed her career in its early years including in Japan. For whatever reason, the day before the PPV, Blanchard sent out a tweet saying, “Hey women, try supporting one another. Cool things happen.” This touched a nerve with women who had worked with her in the past. Most notable was Allysin Kay, who was women’s champion in Impact as Sienna in 2016, who wrote, “Remember when you spat in a black woman’s face and called her the N word in Japan? Was that you `supporting women?’ The audacity of this tweet.” The woman in question was La Black Rose of Puerto Rico, who later confirmed the story, as did Renee Michelle, the wife of James Curtin (Drake Maverick) who had a run on WWE television recently in her real-life role as the new bride, until it was dropped ... So the day of the show, Callis and D’Amore had a couple of major issues. Would they go ahead with the plans to put the title on her and conclude the story? And as a company, how would they handle it and how would they have her publicly handle it? ... From those there, there never seemed to be a serious consideration of not going through with the plans, but there was concern, very quickly alleviated regarding how the crowd would react. The question was more whether she should apologize in some form. She didn’t. Nor did the company make a statement. The decision, at least for the show, was to ignore it.

Supposedly she also allegedly bullied others during the tapings of Women of Wrestling's first two seasons that led to WOW dropping all their major plans for her.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter As far as New Japan World went, I believe the increase was around 20,000 new subscribers, perhaps slightly more, roughly the same as last year. I don’t know what the figure was in December but that would traditionally be a lower month since we are now months removed from G-1, and it’s January and August when interest peaks. In hindsight, that Omega vs. Jericho year where they gained 40,000 is a ridiculous stat. What’s notable is that most of the growth was foreign. The reality is Japan isn’t big on paid streaming services. A lot of the growth was from the U.S

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The movie “Crossface,” about Chris Benoit, that nobody has heard a thing about in years is apparently a dead project according to Matt Randazzo, Lexi Alexander and Chris’ son David Benoit. David Benoit told Chris Van Vliet in an interview that the filmmakers needed the permission of the family to do the movie but the family refused to give it to them. That’s the same reason attempts many years back to do screenplays on the Von Erichs fell through. David said that the family hired a lawyer to make sure it got shut down. David said the family would not be opposed to a documentary about Chris Benoit noting that he has a lot of home video footage. Alexander, who signed on to direct the screenplay in 2016, said the movie was dead but that story about why was made up. “They really just made up some stuff. I never sent anybody a script...but I did have a very nice and polite convo which I still have a copy of with Sandra Toffoloni (the sister of Nancy Benoit and who probably has the most understanding of what happened of anyone) who is lively and told me of her plans to bring the story to screen herself and I fully encouraged that.” Randazzo said that legal threats never happened. “After years of collecting option checks, I left because of repeated delays over casting, financing, etc., problems with the script and that Nancy’s sister was pursuing a movie. Never aware of any legal threat. Had no role.” The book “Ring of Hell” by Matt Randazzo was to be the template for the movie and Randazzo was one of the executive producers

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The company [ROH] opened its checkbook big with major signings this past week of the two most in-demand talents that had become free agents, in Marty Scurll and Bandido. Both signed multi-year deals. Scurll got what was said to be the most lucrative contract in company history and will work in creative as a co-booker with Hunter Johnston (Delirious) and basically as things are working out will be the lead. The two are working together with Johnston still as the Executive Producer of television and he and Scurll listed as booker. Johnston didn’t disagree with any of Scurll’s ideas or directions this weekend so Scurll did get all his ideas through. Johnston had been full-time booker as well as run the wrestling school since 2010 and had booked since 2010 and been lead booker since 2012 when Jim Cornette left. There had been other people involved in booking in recent years as well but he was always the titled head booker. The plan right now is for Scurll to determine the direction and for Johnston to run the television shows using Scurll’s ideas and adding in details and formatting it for television. Johnston has said that he doesn’t want to get in the way of Scurll’s creative vision. Johnston was said to be thrilled by not having to be in full charge of creative and called it a new lease on life, and hoping that his level of pressure and anxiety would decrease. Essentially Scurll is getting WWE main roster money guaranteed for maybe 40+ dates per year, plus he can work just about anywhere else he wants without the restrictions that ROH talent had in the past ... It’s notable because when he was not allowed to work the Super J Cup, the feeling was he was going to leave, but the offer was said to be significantly better than the big offer Matt Taven got. He also be working other shows that he wants to. We know the deal won’t allow him to work WWE, and WWE wouldn’t use a guy from another company anyway, and when negotiations were going on, we were told it may not exclude him from AEW although others have said the deal will only exclude AEW and WWE. Scurll’s role when it comes to office work will be to work as a liaison to New Japan, the NWA and other organizations including AEW, which ROH will try and get a working relationship with. That may be difficult because I don’t know what AEW has to gain at this time from an ROH relationship because you never know the twists and turns of the future. Scurll has a lot of friends in AEW so it makes sense to be guy to try and open up communications and boundaries. Those at New Japan love Scurll and they would want to send him more talent this year but they are running so many shows themselves in the U.S. and Japan that it’s hard

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter [AEW] Regarding the booking which has come together better over the last three weeks, Tony Khan took more control after the negativity from the Corpus Christi show and you can see more seeds of long-term planning and layers in storylines, like in the four team tag match and other angles. But that’s also related to all involved

Originally Posted by Observer For the first time since 2009, KENTA is returning to Ring of Honor. KENTA will be in action at Supercard of Honor XIV in Lakeland, Florida on Saturday, April 4. He's the third Bullet Club member and fourth NJPW wrestler announced for the show. It will also feature Jay White, El Phantasmo, and Will Ospreay.

Originally Posted by PWI Impact Wrestling's Twitch channel remains suspended as of this writing.

Originally Posted by PWI Major League Wrestling's Zero Hour event in Dallas on Saturday 1/11 drew 1,387 paid with about 1,500 in the building. The promotion saw a ride in advance tickets sold for that event and their pre-sales for the 5/2 return are already well ahead of any previous pre-sale in the Dallas market. The promotion added capacity by 10% in Dallas and still sold out ... The Dallas event was also the best merchandise night in the history of the promotion with about 40% of the sales coming from Marshall and Ross Von Erich merchandise ... The promotion is negotiating with a major entertainment company about holding a live event in Hawaii later this year, likely built around the Von Erichs, who live there. This was something that was originally planned to be MLW's first PPV last year but then when it didn't come together, Chicago became the first PPV market ... While he has wrestled his final match for MLW, MJF will remain on TV for several months as there has been content pre-taped. He's local to MLW HQ so he can always come in if needed to shoot promos. His official deal expires in a few months and at that point, he'll be exclusively locked in with AEW as part of a five year deal.

Originally Posted by PWI On 1/13, WWE applied to trademark Harlem Heat ... This is especially interesting given the tease for the team's return after the Revival challenged Booker T to have Harlem Heat to return and face them, which has yet to be followed up upon on TV. The 2020 Royal Rumble is being held in Harlem Heat's hometown of Houston, Texas next week.

Originally Posted by Fightful The WWE United Kingdom Championship is now under the NXT banner as the belt has officially been renamed. During the NXT UK TV tapings on Friday, Jan. 17, WALTER was presented with the new NXT UK Championship during an unveiling ceremony held by NXT UK General Manager Johnny Saint. The new title reportedly has an NXT logo in place of the WWE logo. You can see highlights from the ceremony below.

Link: https://twitter.com/WrestlingRoyal1/...60966116380672


TPWW Frontpage:

• Marty Scurll Was Reportedly Set to Be the Leader of the Dark Order
• Kalisto Re-Signs With WWE
• Injured Wrestlers Possibly Set to Return at the Royal Rumble (Possible Spoilers)
• The Rock Comments on the Passing of His Father, Rocky Johnson
• Tessa Blanchard Responds to Racial Slur Allegations

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer TalkSport asked Charlotte Flair about coping with Kairi Sane’s injury at TLC and how it affected what they were planning to do in the match: “It didn’t in the moment. I guess, everyone, how they felt afterwards is what made them feel different. In the moment, it was more it’s a tough spot. It’s the main event of a brutal pay-per-view and everyone has already seen tables, ladders and chairs. It’s feeding off the crowd, going with the crowd and feeding off their reactions. So I didn’t really think anything until after. Obviously Kairi was hurt, but in the match I’m just thinking ‘how do we keep people invested?’ with them already seeing so many different TLC, brutal matches. You’ve already seen a kendo stick, you’ve already seen a chair, you’ve seen a ladder, a table. And the pressure of us delivering that, with a weird dynamic seeing me and Becky tag? To me, me and Becky tagging is more what I was thinking about. How does that come across and how our characters should be interacting on television. How do you go from this [indicates high level] to all of a sudden, they’re tagging? We had the let’s fight the enemy because we have a common enemy [mentality].”

Originally Posted by Observer PWinsider reported that Mike Kanellis & Tony Nese teaming together on this weekend's NXT house shows is a test run for a potential team for NXT TV. They defeated Nick Ogarelli & Mohamed Fahim at last night’s house show in Melbourne, Florida, with this being the first time Kanellis has wrestled since he requested his released from WWE.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com is reporting that Jeff Hardy is scheduled for a court date on Monday, April 6th, which is the day after WrestleMania in Tampa. This stems from his October 2019 arrest in Moore County, North Carolina when he was seen driving erratically after exiting a liquor store. He was said to have been uncooperative when asked for a breathalyzer test and a sample of blood to be drawn. Hardy was arrested for driving while impaired. Hardy, 42, has been off the road with WWE since last April when he suffered an injury and the Hardys vacated the SmackDown tag titles.

Originally Posted by Fightful In a recent media session, Rhyno revealed that he is Vic Joesph's child's godfather.

Originally Posted by Fightful Mexican soccer team Toluca FC honored the late La Parka, who recently died, with a team photo of the players wearing La Parka masks and gave his family members a special team shirt.

Link: https://twitter.com/TolucaFC/status/1218969768851640320 , https://twitter.com/TolucaFC/status/1218990275504287744

Originally Posted by Observer WWE announced this morning a new television deal in the United Kingdom that brings them back to free-to-air television in the country. They have partnered with ViacomCBS’s Channel 5 to broadcast one hour versions of Raw and SmackDown on the network starting on February 2. Raw will air on Sundays starting at 10:30 a.m., while SmackDown will air Saturdays at 10:30 a.m. Under the deal, NXT UK will also have a new broadcast home. It will air on the Paramount Network each Wednesday at midnight.

Originally Posted by PWI Wrestlecon announced this morning that AEW Champion Chris Jericho will be making his very first appearance at their event this April in Tampa over Wrestlemania 36 weekend

Link: https://twitter.com/wrestlecon/statu...82539058663426

Originally Posted by PWI Comedian Gabriel "Fluffy" Iglesias is listing WWE Wrestlemania 35 weekend and Monday Night Raw for his upcoming schedule on several YouTube videos, as seen below: Interestingly, he does not list the Wrestlemania dates on his website's upcoming tour dates, so it would appear to be something WWE-related, as opposed to Iglesias performing concerts. It wouldn't be far fetched to see WWE induct Iglesias into the Celebrity wing of their Hall of Fame, but nothing has been confirmed at this time beyond Iglesias listing Wrestlemania and Raw as upcoming appearances. Iglesias, a massive WWE fan, has made a number of WWE-related appearances in the past, including Tribute to the Troops, WWE Backstage, Straight Up With Steve Austin and more.

Originally Posted by PWI Peyton Royce and Billie Kay are auctioning off ring worn gear on eBay with a hundred percent of the proceeds helping out those affected by the Australian wildfires Don’t forget to bid on @BillieKayWWE eBay listing!! We are so grateful for all the support so far in helping us help our country! ?????????????? https://t.co/9XpZYmeJtB — Peyton Royce (@PeytonRoyceWWE) January 20, 2020

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported on Tuesday that AEW is filming Dynamite tonight on two master tapes and flying them in two separate airplanes to Atlanta. The reason is that if there is an issue with one flight then there is a backup to ensure the show airs on TNT on Wednesday night.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Daniel Bryan spoke with My San Antonio, which is where Friday Night SmackDown takes place this week and gave an in-depth look at his program with The Fiend Bray Wyatt. In the interview, he acknowledged how much he was enjoying the environmentalist version of his character and then was getting set to sink his teeth into the Sami Zayn program. What he liked about the Zayn issue was the crossroads of Bryan either reverting to the ‘Yes’ version of himself or moving forward. He felt there was unfinished business with that story and wasn’t clamoring to go back to the ‘Yes’ version of himself: "I think it varies depending on the person and the situation. I honestly wasn’t really ready to go back to the ‘yes’ chants yet. I was really enjoying the stuff that I was doing as the ‘Planet’s Champion’ and environmentalist type of stuff. But sometimes you do what duty calls for, right? There’s the switch, and I still enjoy doing that. But it’s weird, because it almost feels a little bit unfinished. We were starting a story with me and Sami Zayn, and to me that was very compelling. It was, ‘Do you want to go backward with these people and go back to being the ‘yes’ guy, or do you want to go forward with us?’ And to me, that’s a very interesting real question in my life and in my career. Do you want to go back to this? It’s easy to get reactions as the ‘yes’ guy and be the guy who goes out there and does the ‘yes’ chants. Or do I want to push things forward? Which is more interesting to me creatively? In this particular instance, it was kind of like, ‘OK, we’re ready as a company for the ‘yes’ guy to be back.’ And I really enjoy doing that. I do. But, I like to also push my own creative boundaries, and so one of the things that I’m trying to do with this, although I haven’t necessarily done a great job of it yet, is evolving the ‘yes’ character from what it had been before." With Wyatt, the idea to cut his hair came about after Bryan suggested cutting his beard and then it ended with his hair being cut off, which he did not want to do. The story sounded insane as he described being pulled underneath the ring and having his hair cut beneath the ring with barbers and a producer present. The fact that Bryan wasn’t visible or his haircut revealed until another episode makes this one sound so strange that they wouldn’t use prop hair for Bray to grab rather than cutting his actual hair at that moment.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WALTER was interviewed by Metro to promote the Worlds Collide show this weekend and spoke about his experience at the Survivor Series this past November. WALTER was a member of Team NXT with Tommaso Ciampa, Matt Riddle, Keith Lee & Dominik Dijakovic and was notably eliminated in three minutes. He shared the following reaction to his participation in the match that included teams from Raw and SmackDown: I wasn’t invested in that. I didn’t care. I care about my guys, my group, I care about the sport, but I don’t care about all those people being angry each other. It was a weird match too – three five-men tag teams, and always three guys in the ring. That’s when wrestling turns from competition to putting acrobats in a circus to do a show.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Various: ROH Announces Past vs. Present Event, WWE Network’s January Classic Content, Indies
• WWE: Royal Rumble “By The Numbers”, Matt Hardy on WWE Future, New Talent Hiring, Trademarks
• Andrade vs. Carrillo Added to Royal Rumble
• Pre-Show Match Added to WWE Worlds Collide
• Kane May Be Part of the Royal Rumble Match

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Following a week where the show went against the college football championship game, Raw viewership was up almost 17 percent this Monday night, averaging 2.376 million viewers. The episode opened with 2.548 million viewers in hour one and stayed relatively steady with 2.492 million in hour two. There was the usual big third-hour drop this week, with only 2.101 million viewers on average sticking around for the third hour and three-minute overrun. The show averaged a 0.83 rating in the important 18-49 demo, which topped all of cable TV. It was seventh on cable in terms of total viewers, trailing only news-related programming but besting an NBA game on TNT that did just over two million viewers ... The 15.7 percent drop from hour two to hour three was the 10th worst the show has done since moving to three hours, so it seems as if the Lana/Bobby Lashley/Rusev saga may not have the same ratings legs as it did a few weeks ago. This week's main event segment was Lana & Lashley vs. Rusev & Liv Morgan.

Originally Posted by Observer A new report is indicating that Lance Archer is in talks to join AEW. Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated reported that Archer is currently in high level talks with the promotion. Although he regularly tours with New Japan Pro Wrestling, he is not under contract and thus is able to negotiate with other companies.

Originally Posted by Observer This year's Chris Jericho cruise will see history made for AEW as they will hold their first-ever intergender tag team match. Made in a BTE-style video posted on AEW's Twitter account earlier this morning, Kenny Omega and AEW women's champion Riho will face Kip Sabian and Penelope Ford. In the clip seen below, Sabian and Ford come into Omega's locker room where he's hanging out with the Young Bucks. After putting down Riho, he pitches the match with an angle that the cruise is in international waters but it's still for AEW. The Bucks give their vote and the match was made: However, two things are unclear as of this writing. One is when the match is going to happen and the other is whether fans not on the cruise are going to be able to watch the match on AEW Dark, YouTube, or even a Dynamite segment.

Link: https://twitter.com/AEWrestling/stat...15850376982530

Originally Posted by PWI Deadline is reporting Sean Durkin, the Canadian filmmaker behind "Martha Marcy May" and upcoming Sundance feature "The Nest", is working on a feature film detailing the rise and fall of the Von Erich family.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE has launched an official Twitch channel at www.Twitch.TV/WWE. The channel will be live streaming WWE's The Bump and PPV Kickoff shows, among other content.

Originally Posted by PWI Asuka, who will face Becky Lynch for the Raw Women's Title on Sunday at the Royal Rumble, noted on Twitter [Tuesday] tonight that she was at the Fashion Show Mall on the Las Vegas Strip this evening when a shooting happened. Local news is reporting that a fight escalated in the mall and gunfire broke out, injuring three people (none of whom was Asuka). The injuries were reported as being non-life threatening. Details are still coming in (I live in Las Vegas) but at approximately 8 p.m. local time the scene had been cleared and Las Vegas Metro Police are searching for two suspects, who fled the mall after the shooting.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Mae Young Classic competitor and former NXT U.K. talent Jazzy Gabert tweeted out on January 18th that she is now a free agent. The following day, she noted that she was in a car accident the previous Sunday and was not cleared for the post-NXT U.K. TakeOver: Blackpool II tapings. Her scheduled match with Killer Kelly was announced before she was seen by doctors and she was still willing to wrestle, but her health was the main priority. WrestleTalk recently chatted with Jazzy Gabert and she explained why she decided to depart from WWE. She said that she was the one to request her release because there were outside projects that she was partaking in due to the schedule she had with NXT UK. Jazzy, who was paired with Jinny on the weekly WWE Network show, didn’t see herself progressing in regard to storylines and with the outside projects she was participating in, she knew there was more she could be doing.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling POST Wrestling has learned that Tom Phillips will be on the call for WWE Worlds Collide on January 25th in Houston, Texas. Mauro Ranallo is calling the Showtime Boxing event on Saturday in Brooklyn, New York.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Following his Ladder match for the United States Title against Andrade on the 1/20/20 episode of RAW, Rey Mysterio was checked on by WWE’s medical team, per Pro Wrestling Sheet. There was one point during the match when Rey was hanging onto the championship belt and attempted to execute a hurricanrana on Andrade but ended up falling back/neck first. Sources told Pro Wrestling Sheet that Mysterio is not seriously injured and he will not be missing any time from the ring.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated conducted an interview with NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion Nick Aldis. Aldis revealed that he drove 12 hours to ROH’s Center Stage show for two minutes of action and feels it was worth every hour he spent making his way to Atlanta. “I drove 12 hours for two minutes of action in Ring of Honor, and it was worth it. It’s no secret that Marty Scurll has been able to land himself an incredible deal, and it makes sense. Now you can feel the shift.” Nick Aldis reiterated that the NWA is open to working with anyone, including All Elite Wrestling and WWE. He stated that the organization wants to present “super-fights” to the fans. “Working with AEW is brought up to me almost daily,” said Aldis, who says he was offered an AEW contract but chose to stay with the NWA. “The NWA is open to working with anyone. There are a number of wrestlers outside the WWE that are viewed as elite-level guys, so it’s only a matter of time before the audience starts demanding the main-event matches they want to see. We want to give the fans the matches they want to see, these super fights. If AEW wants to be involved in big, marquee matches, then they have two choices: go out and write some more big checks to some more guys, or they’re going to have to come to the table and work out some super fights with the NWA.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling All Elite Wrestling turned the viral Dark Order segment into a storyline. The viral segment being referred to is when the Dark Order member threw punches at Dustin Rhodes that were not connecting and the clip made its way around social media and was critiqued by many within the business. In the video below, Evil Uno was told by “The Exalted One” that he wants the “weak one” gone and then a clip of the weak one was shown. Stu Grayson then got rid of said individual by punching him out in front of other Dark Order members.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jsvjERWrsI

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Enzo Amore recently put out a video on YouTube during-which he addressed Tama Tonga’s offer for a match between the two. During the video, Enzo stated that he was offered $25,000 for the match between him and Tama and shortly after that revelation, he thanked Josh Barnett who offered through social media to host the Tama versus Enzo match. Josh Barnett is presenting the third edition of Bloodsport this coming WrestleMania weekend. GCW publicly denied that they offered any money to Amore. Enzo first clarified via Twitter that he never mentioned any specific promotion offering him the aforementioned amount of money. He then issued a statement to Pro Wrestling Sheet and told the publication that it was WrestleCon who offered him $25,000. WrestleCon noted on Twitter that they never made an offer and listened to Enzo’s agent’s offer and only offered the opportunity to use their space to host his event.

Originally Posted by Fightful Lars Sullivan's knee recovery also started to recover a lot slower than anticipated. WWE always had him marked down to miss a full year, but he was of the belief he'd be back sooner, having recovered from a knee injury prior.

Originally Posted by Fightful Hunter Johnston/Delirious remains executive producer of ROH, and the roster is under the impression that there's already been some collaboration and ideas together with Marty Scrull. Delirious is still responsible for how the show looks and feels, and is expected to mentor Scurll in the role. Those we talked to said that Scrull is in "good hands" starting out ... Fightful has learned that there were "generous" offers made to Cody Rhodes at the very least to retain him. It was confirmed to us that in negotiations the idea of being a booker was broached there, as well, and that both sides seemed to leave with a positive interaction.

TPWW Frontpage:

• The New Day and Natalya Added to Royal Rumble Matches – Updated Card
• Naomi May Return at the Royal Rumble
• WWE: Matt Riddle Teases Showdown With Lesnar, Keith Lee Responds to CM Punk
• AEW Dynamite Will Be Live From the Jericho Cruise Next Year, Cody Says

[slik]

Baltimore rumored for MITB

[slik]

Dallas rumored for Survivor Series

Los Angeles still the front runner for WrestleMania 37 at their huge new stadium

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Ratings are in for this week's installment of the Wednesday Night Wars. AEW Dynamite, with matches taped on the Chris Jericho cruise the previous day, averaged 871,000 viewers, down seven percent from last week. The show finished eighth on cable in the 18-49 demo with a 0.35 rating, down eight percent from last week. Last week's show had finished in fifth place. NXT was up 10 percent in viewers, averaging 769,000. They were up 14 percent in the 18-49 demo with a 0.24 rating, which landed NXT in 35th place for the night on cable ... As per usual, Dynamite won in every demo except for those over 50. NXT had an edge of 0.38 to 0.34 in that category. The gap was largest with men 18-49, where Dynamite finished 50 percent higher than NXT with a 0.48 to 0.32 advantage.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling If you are looking for patterns for the AEW show, it was clear that the taped nature didn’t affect older viewers. Adults over 50 were the same as last week while adults 25-54 were only down 2%. The big decreases were among females 12-34 which fell 33%, males 12-34 down 23% and adults 18-34 declining 17% this week. NXT was helped by large increases among adults 18-34 by 29%, males 18-49 by 23%, and females 12-34 increasing 22%.

Originally Posted by Observer A wrestler who was with Ring of Honor during its inception will be appearing for the promotion again over WrestleMania weekend. ROH announced this morning that Amazing Red will be wrestling at Supercard of Honor XIV. The show is taking place at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland, Florida on Saturday, April 4. After announcing his retirement last April, Red has been wrestling since returning to the ring against Will Ospreay in NJPW's Super J-Cup in August. Red tweeted earlier this month that he was going away for a small surgery but would be back in February.

Originally Posted by PWI The word making the rounds is that Australian star Adam Brooks is likely Ring of Honor bound in the near future. PWInsider.com is hearing the company is working on bringing him in regularly. Brooks, 29, was originally trained by Buddy Murphy and has been a consistent main events for Australian promotions, including Melbourne City Wrestling and Pro Wrestling Australia. He has wrestled for ROH and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla in the past and has already announced he will be in Tampa competing over Wrestlemania 36 week.

Originally Posted by PWI The Cauliflower Alley Club issued the following sad news: ?We heard this morning that Ruben Cruz, better known to wrestling as Hercules Ayala, passed away last night due to heart issues at the age of 69. Born in Puerto Rico, Cruz wrestled all over the world, winning dozens of titles in his career. No one will ever forget his unique look, and we offer our condolances at this time ?to his family and his loved ones. Ayala, originally born in Puerto Rico, was trained in professional wrestling by the late Angelo Savoldi while living in Boston, where his mother had moved to from the island. After a chance meeting in a gym, Ayala was taken under Savoldi's wing and worked underneath matches for the World Wide Wrestling Federation. Working as Ruben Ayala, a babyface, he would work undercard matches, losing to the likes of Baron Mikel Scicuna and getting put over Johnny Rodz and Tony Altimore on live events ... We are told Ayala had been in poor health for some time. He was 69 years old at the time of his passing. Our deepest condolences to the family, friends and fans of Hercules Ayala.

Originally Posted by PWI Last night's episode of Dynamite was taped on Tuesday 2/21 in the Bahamas with the company then sending on multiple copies of the show back to Atlanta (to insure that no matter what, the show made it back to the United States), at which point Kevin Sullivan and his team went into a marathon post-production session to get the episode polished and ready for air on TNT last night.

Originally Posted by PWI Ring of Honor has signed a new multi-year deal with PJ Black aka former WWE star Justin Gabriel, PWInsider.com has confirmed. An official announcement could come at any time. His existing deal, signed last year after turning down a chance to return to WWE, was slated to expire shortly

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Following his WWE debut on the premiere of Friday Night SmackDown on FOX in October, it was confirmed by WWE that Cain Velasquez signed a multi-year deal with the company. While speaking on the Gorilla Position podcast, Velasquez said his deal is a full-time one for three years. “Yeah, full-time thing for three years.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling All Elite Wrestling posted Joey Janela and Rey Fenix’s match that was taped after AEW Dynamite: Bash At The Beach went off the air on TNT.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uMo6CEbSoc

Originally Posted by Fightful Becky Lynch refers to herself as "The Man" because she doesn't believe in gender specificity. And she doesn't think WWE should believe in it either. The women in WWE continue to make history, but Lynch believes the time for making history is over and it's time for full equality in WWE ... WWE has seemingly taken the first step in dropping "women's" from its vocabulary by now referring to the NXT Women's Championship as simply the NXT Championship. Mauro Ranallo never made mention of the "women's" part of the championship when Rhea Ripley was on Wednesday's NXT. It is unclear if Raw and SmackDown will start using this designation moving forward. Becky took to social media to offer more clarity on her comments.

Link: https://twitter.com/BeckyLynchWWE/st...89376821583873

Originally Posted by Fightful In 2016, The Rock returned to WWE Raw to hype his appearance at WrestleMania 32. During his promo, he was interrupted by The New Day, leading to the four men engaging in a promo battle. New Day began the battle, joking about The Rock leaving Miami for Hollywood and putting themselves over as the reigning WWE Tag Team Champions before The Rock offered his rebuttal ... On the latest episode of New Day: Feel The Power; Big E, Kofi Kingston, and Xavier Woods recalled the moment with The Rock. "How about when we hopped on the microphone with the microphone king, The Rock? I don't know what the consensus was, but that was pretty cool. We were out there for a few minutes and he made his remarks. And we said 'penis' a lot," said Big E Kofi added, "You can't say 'penis' on TV and we said it on TV." When discussing the challenge of going against The Rock on the mic, Xavier Woods stated, "That day, we knew we were going up against 'The Godfather on the Microphone.' He's absolutely incredible. Probably the best entertainer I've ever seen on all platforms. We knew he was going to come in with all that Attitude Era vibe; say whatever he wants, going into the crowd, back to the hard cam and everyone is going to love it. One of the things we wanted to try and do is stay within our PG lane and still go toe-to-toe with somebody who was breaking all of our rules. We did our best to do that and I felt really good after it. We didn't just get washed out." Meanwhile, Kofi praised The Rock for being gracious with how giving he was. "Shoutout to The Rock for being cool enough for allowing us to be us. He could have easily stifled whatever it is that he wanted us to say. It's always cool when you see somebody that you grew up watching, you meet them in real life, and they're cool. Especially in the parameters of this business. He was gracious enough to allow us to be us. I felt like it legitimized us."

TPWW Frontpage:

• Rich Swann Undergoing Surgery
• Impact’s Twitch Channel Returns After Suspension
• Nia Jax and Ruby Riott May Return at the Royal Rumble
• NXT Women’s Championship to Be Referred to as Just the “NXT Championship”
• WWE Backstage Ratings – Jan. 21, 2020 – CM Punk and Becky Lynch

[GD]

I am certainly in favor of dropping the gender-specific identifiers for all three women's titles. Genuinely curious to see if it will be adapted on RAW and Smackdown as well.

[erickman]

I wonder if that is Tessa envy, she may want to get into intergender crap too. not knowing that female wrestlers hate working with Tessa an all Tessa has left to work with is men.

[Seanny One Ball]

"gender specificity" or just "gender" as we used to all it.

I hope her tits fall off.

[Ol Dirty Dastard]

Originally Posted by Guru Dave I am certainly in favor of dropping the gender-specific identifier's for the women's titles. Genuinely curious to see if it will be adapted by RAW and Smackdown as well.

lol the fuck is this post?

[GD]

I got carried away

[GD]

I am in favor of them removing the "women's" portion from the NXT, RAW and Smackdown Women's titles.

[erickman]

vince may bring back diva belts

[GD]

you are a diva belts

[Droford]

If it just becomes the NXT Championship I want a man to hold the belt

Equal rights

[GD]

[Seanny One Ball]

Imagining a guy running up to Nancy Kerrigan, whacking her leg with a pipe and running away screaming "Equal rights!"

[GD]

[Helmsphere]

Is the qualification that to win the title you have to been pentrated by a penis? That means Sonya Deville can mever win it but Lars Sullivan can?

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Daniel Bryan and WWE have worked together to release a new eco-friendly T-shirt. The "Planet's Champion" shirt was released today and costs $27.99. Here's WWE's description of it: Show your support for Daniel Bryan & help the Earth with this Eco-Friendly T-Shirt! It may look like any regular tee, but it's actually made from organic cotton and recycled poly rPET blend that makes the fabric more durable and heavyweight. Each shirt saves at least 4 plastic bottles from ending up in a landfill, or worse. Helping to clean our planet will make YOU The Planet's Champion. Say YES to this Eco-Friendly T-Shirt! Bryan also wrote that -- in partnership with American Forests -- a tree will be planted for every one of the eco-friendly shirts that is sold: "Today my new shirt has come out, one that @wwe made out of organic cotton and recycled materials. And thanks to a partnership with @americanforests, a tree will be planted for every shirt that’s sold!!! #Smackdown"

Link: https://shop.wwe.com/daniel-bryan-th...224F6997B.html

Originally Posted by Observer AEW has a strong advance ahead of their upcoming New Jersey debut. Dave Meltzer reports that the show, which will take place at the Prudential Center on Wednesday, March 25, has already sold 10,000 tickets. Tickets went on sale to the general public at noon Eastern time today. Meltzer notes that the show would have sold out instantly if there was scalper activity.

That already puts it in the upper tier for AEW tv shows in terms of ticket sales. Outside of the first set of shows, they were averaging around the 6k range for weekly Dynamite shows.

Originally Posted by Observer The NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion is set for ROH Supercard of Honor XIV. Nick Aldis is the latest name announced for this year's Supercard of Honor event. The RP Funding Center in Lakeland, Florida is hosting the show on April 4, which is the Saturday of WrestleMania weekend. Supercard of Honor will go against NXT TakeOver: Tampa.

Originally Posted by PWI Hornswoggle posted a photo on Twitter of the Houston airport, so he's either in town or trolling fans. We haven't confirmed either way, but one would think if he was a Rumble surprise, he'd be trying to hide that.

Link: https://twitter.com/wwehornswoggle/s...64959497424896

Originally Posted by PWI Why exactly was the Rocky Johnson book pulled off the market? Was it due to the issues with Scott Teal? ECW Press noted in a local article in Canada that the book was pulled due to concern over some of the text in the book. Johnson had a falling out with co-author Scott Teal after not going forward with their agreed upon deal and withholding payments due for Teal's work interviewing and writing the actual book, but Johnson's brother Ricky has noted on Facebook he would make sure Teal would get what he was owed. We are told Teal's issues with Johnson had nothing to do with the ECW Press decision and that it was a separate issue that the company has declined to comment further on.

From PWI's weekly Q&A articles.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling ITV Box Office, which had been carrying the AEW pay-per-view events, announced this week they are shutting down the channel effective today. This means that for those in the UK, the only way to watch the AEW pay-per-views for now is through Fite TV. The next pay-per-view is the ‘Revolution’ show on Sunday, February 29th.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Black Label Pro has added a match between Haku and ‘Filthy’ Tom Lawlor for their WrestleMania weekend card on Friday, April 3rd at 11:59 pm ET in Ybor City, Florida. The card takes place at The Cuban Club where The Collective shows are taking place.

Originally Posted by Fightful For decades, John Cena was made fun of for wearing jean shorts -- known as jorts -- in a wrestling ring. While everyone else wore trunks or tights, Cena kept to his gimmick by wrestling in jorts and sneakers. It was a move not only to prove he was from the mean streets of Massachusetts but also to make sure everyone kept their focus elsewhere. Appearing on the Late Late Show with James Corden, Cena revealed the reason behind the jorts. "If you look at my other options, it's just underwear," he said. "So, I wanted to do some sort of street clothes because my persona was a tough wanna-be rapper kid from the mean street of West Newbury. Tough to do that in your underwear. So, I also wear sneakers. Most guys wear calf-high or knee-high leather boots. I'm pretty much in street clothes and I chose denim because you don't blow the crotch out of denim. I tried cargo pants and in front of the world a few times, everybody is just looking at my dick. So denim is a safe play. And, they're back in, so it stood the test of time."

Originally Posted by Fightful Before he was "The Show-Off," Dolph Ziggler was Nicky in the Spirit Squad, a group of male cheerleaders. Originally, Zigger was under the impression that he was going to be in a group that seemingly combined the NWO with the Four Horsemen. Speaking to Corey Graves on WWE After The Bell, Ziggler recalled how he found out he was going to be part of the Spirit Squad. "'Well, there's a group of guys, it's gonna be pretty cool. Kinda like a new Four Horsemen,'" Zigger said of the original pitch. "If I can remember the exact words, it was cooler than that. 'Think of like the Horsemen, but like controversial.' We're like, 'Woah, what.' That is where I got to meet Vince [McMahon]. He pulls me into a room and is like, 'We're gonna do something that's never been done before. It's going to be controversial. People are gonna be talking...' I'm like, 'Woah, this is the craziest thing.' I've never met Vince in my life to this point. And he goes...'MALE! CHEERLEADERS!' My heart sank into my stomach and I went, 'Oh..man. Whatever gets me on the show sounds good to me.'"

Originally Posted by Fightful Speaking to Mirror in the UK, WALTER addressed his respect and admiration for Lesnar, telling the publication that he feels Brock is the most intelligent wrestler on the planet. "I will go in [the Royal Rumble] second, I don't care," he said. "I respect the guy because I think Brock Lesnar is the smartest professional wrestler on the planet right now. The number one, work the least amount of time for everybody else, do your own thing... perfect. I like how everybody else hates him for that because they're just jealous that they are not as smart as him, right? So yeah, of course. I would love to wrestle Brock Lesnar. He is one of my favorite wrestlers too, I think he is very skilled, very athletic. And yeah, that's a good mind for wrestling. And yeah, obviously, I focus on definitely him being one of the matches I really want to do."

TPWW Frontpage:

• Brian Cage Undergoing Surgery, Gives Update on His AEW/Impact Status
• Final Card for Saturday’s WWE Worlds Collide Special

[Mr. Nerfect]

I don't think WWE really get what equality is.