Wrestling News & Rumors

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer In a surprising turn of events, the Royal Rumble did not cause any kind of significant bump to Raw ratings, as last night's show did 2.40 million viewers, even with it being built around Drew McIntyre and Charlotte Flair making their choices of WrestleMania opponents and the return interview of Edge. It was down 12 percent from last year's post-Rumble show that did 2.71 million viewers. To show the ratings decline, for the episode after the Royal Rumble, Raw did 4.10 million viewers in 2016, 3.62 million in 2017, and 3.40 million in 2018 ... The Raw after the Rumble is usually one of the higher rated episodes of the show during the year, but last night's episode was actually lower than the December 30 show (Lana/Bobby Lashley wedding) and the September 30 show (Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan appearing). It was also lower than the show was routinely doing last summer prior to football season starting. It was only up 0.9 percent, as compared with a 10 percent jump last year and in 2017. In 2018, the show followed the Raw 25th anniversary episode which was the highest rated Raw in years ... The three hours were: 8 p.m. 2.54 million viewers 9 p.m. 2.44 million viewers 10 p.m. 2.22 million viewers

Originally Posted by PWI WWE Network will soon debut a new series titled "Ruthless Aggression" focusing on that era of WWE history.

Originally Posted by Fightful Brock Lesnar tied the record for most eliminations in a single Royal Rumble match with 13 eliminations tonight. Bianca Belair and Shayna Baszler now share the record for the most eliminations inside of the women's Royal Rumble. During the 2020 30-women spectacular, both members of the NXT roster got eight eliminations apiece, but they did so from drastically different positions in the match.

Originally Posted by Observer There is a full page color ad for AEW in the official program for next week's Super Bowl. It is right next to the table of contents so it's very prominent

Originally Posted by PWI There were attempts to bring in Melina and Victoria for last night's Rumble at one point. No word why it didn't happen. Melina worked the NWA TV tapings in Atlanta over the weekend.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Mark Hildreth, who wrestled as ‘Van Hammer’ in WCW was arrested following an incident Sunday. The Palm Beach Post reported that Hildreth struck a 5-year old boy on his bicycle with his car and proceeded to leave the scene. Hildreth is facing charges of leaving the scene of an injury crash and a DUI. The unnamed victim was taken to hospital and is in stable condition with possible internal injuries. Hildreth was in court on Monday morning with bail set at $125,000 and includes an option to be placed under house arrest. In the story, it also states he was believed to be going 58 mph where the limit was 35. As Van Hammer, he debuted for WCW in 1991 and was placed on a two-month winning streak out of the gate. The company would go hot and cold with him and he ended up staying with WCW throughout the decade. He was a member of Raven’s Flock and then given another push in 1999 around the time Kevin Nash was booking the show. His last run in WCW saw him as a member of the Misfits in Action as ‘Major Stash’ until leaving the company in mid-2000.

Originally Posted by Observer Tokyo Sports reported that Pro Wrestling NOAH has become a subsidiary of CyberAgent, which is also the parent company of DDT.

Originally Posted by PWI This past week's episode of MLW FUSION, headlined by the no ropes barbed wire match between Jimmy Havoc and Mance Werner was the highest rated episode of MLW on BeIN Sport to date. MLW sources have claimed they are in discussions with four potential outlets for TV and streaming rights and they are positive on future media rights revenue. There has been some discussion of adding a Trios (Six Man Tag Team) Championship to the promotion. MLW will return to Philadelphia, PA this Saturday 2/1 for Fightland The event has a great advance for the promotion, which sold it its last show at the 2300 Arena last year, to the point that additional seats have been added and released for sale at www.MLW2300.com ... The women's division is on hold as Zeda Zhang, who it was to be built around, is out with an injury. Priscilla Kelly's final contracted date with the promotion is 2/1.

Originally Posted by PWI In regard to stories that Brock Lesnar and Matt Riddle had a run-in at the Royal Rumble backstage, where Lesnar made it clear to Riddle (who constantly talks about retiring Lesnar on social media) that he will never work with Riddle, so he should knock it off, there's absolutely truth to the story, to the point that earlier today, during a media class at the WWE Performance Center, there was a specific mention of not tweeting and calling out talents from Raw and Smackdown without their knowledge, which got a big laugh from the NXT talents in attendance.

Originally Posted by PWI Carlos Rocha has passed away at age 93. “The Portuguese Champion” wrestled all over the world including for the International Wrestling Association and the WWWF. He won the International Title from Abdullah the Butcher in December 1971 and lost it to The Sheik in the May 1972. Both matches took place in Montreal, Quebec, Canada where IWA was based. His matches with The Sheik drew attendance records at the time. Rocha appeared for the WWWF in the later 1970s when he was in his early 50s. He was the first pro wrestler from Portugal to work for the company. He lost a 2 out of 3 falls match to WWF Champion “Superstar” Billy Graham in 1977 in Providence, Rhode Island.

Originally Posted by PWI Taya Valkyrie took to Twitter noting that she was in attendance at the Royal Rumble, was there to see her husband John Morrison in a WWE ring for the first-time ever and that fans shouldn't look any deeper into her being there: Hey guys last night I went and supported my husband John. It was the first time I’ve ever seen him in a WWE ring live. So stop reading into it or making assumptions. Love, Kira — Wera Loca (@TheTayaValkyrie) January 27, 2020 Valkyrie's Impact deal was automatically renewed in December for another year, so she is locked in until December 2020.

Originally Posted by PWI As you saw last night on Monday Night Raw, Byron Saxton joined Tom Phillips and Jerry Lawler as a member of the Raw broadcast team. PWInsider.com has confirmed that Saxton is back on the Raw broadcast team full-time going forward with the company going back to a three-man format.

Originally Posted by Fightful Killer Kross is a free agent and, at the moment, he's uncertain about his future. Kross was released from his IMPACT contract in December, putting him on the market. He is set to compete at MLW Fightland on Feb. 1, but his future following Fightland is up in the air. It was reported on Jan. 17 by the Wrestling Observer that Kross was set to or had already met with NXT Founder and WWE Executive Triple H. Fightful Select reported on Jan. 26 that as of last week, Triple H and Kross had not had a face-to-face meeting. In an interview with Two Man Powertrip, Kross himself denied ever meeting Triple H. "I have to address this. You had mentioned Hunter or Triple H. I've never met him. I don't know where the story came up exactly first in the dirt sheets and I don't really pay that much attention to them, but I've never met him. I think it's cool and kind of flattering that those stories circulate but I'd like to meet him. If someone could make that happen that would be great. I know it's not meant to be malicious or whatnot and it's fun to fantasize about that stuff but unfortunately that hasn't happened yet," he said. In addition to the report that Triple H and Kross had not met face-to-face, Fightful Select reported to not expect Killer Kross to be available for bookings during WrestleMania week. Kross is free to sign with any promotion, though he says he isn't sure what is next for him.

Considering what happened the last couple times someone denied any involvement with WWE, safe to say the odds of him meeting Triple H and going to WWE are high. Plus his girlfriend, Scarlett Brodeaux, is already in the company.


TPWW Frontpage:

• More Details on Matt Riddle’s Backstage Altercation With Brock Lesnar
• Charlotte Flair’s WrestleMania Opponent Reportedly Will Be Rhea Ripley
• Samoa Joe Injured During Raw (Update)
• Who Will Becky Lynch Face at WrestleMania?
• Andrade Suspended for WWE Wellness Policy Violation (Update)
• Former WWF Announcer Sean Mooney Joins the NWA

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer The night before he faces Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania, Drew McIntyre will be the focus of a new episode of WWE Chronicle. During his appearance on WWE's The Bump today, it was announced that a Chronicle episode on McIntyre will premiere on the WWE Network after NXT TakeOver: Tampa on Saturday, April 4. McIntyre will challenge Lesnar for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 36 the next day.

Originally Posted by Observer Shingo Takagi and Bandido are set to face off over WrestleMania week. WrestleCon announced today that Takagi vs. Bandido will take place at their Mark Hitchcock Memorial SuperShow in Tampa, Florida on Thursday, April 2. The show is taking place at The Ritz Ybor City and will begin at 8 p.m. Eastern time. WrestleCon wrote that this may be the only match they announce for the SuperShow in advance. Will Ospreay, Black Taurus, Zack Sabre Jr., and Amazing Red have also been confirmed for the event.

Originally Posted by PWI The pro-wrestling related musical called "Rockquiem For A Wrestler" by Philip Paul Kelley is moving forward in production and will have a new reading on Sunday 5/3 at the Triad Theater in New York City. The second Staged Reading will be an elevated event featuring a 5-piece band with technical enhancements. The musical is a dramatic parody inspired by the life of Ivan Koloff.

Originally Posted by PWI An update on Taya Valkyrie's contract status from yesterday. She is stating on social media that her contract did not automatically roll over as I wrote yesterday and that she actually signed a new multi-year Impact Wrestling contract last year. We were told her deal automatically rolled over in December 2019, which she disputes. A new deal would lock her in with the company through sometime in 2021, based on her claims. Konnan stated on a recent episode of his podcast that he believed her deal was up in ten months, which falls in line with what we have heard.

Originally Posted by PWI Two different venues known as the Sportatorium that were important to pro wrestling fans in their respective cities will move forward, leaving their past behind, The Dallas Morning News reported earlier this month that the land that once housed the Sportatorium that housed World Class Championship Wrestling, the USWA and the Global Wrestling Federation, which has sat as a vacant field for years, has been sold to a developer that owns the adjacent land with plans to develop the site into a new development. The site, when the Sportatorium was standing, housed pro wrestling dating back to the 1950s. Meanwhile, in Tampa, the Sportatorium that once housed Championship Wrestling from Florida, located at 106 N. Albany Avenue was reported to have been leased for future commercial purposes, according to the Tampa-Bay Times.

Originally Posted by PWI STARDOM officially announced a second DLC pack featuring 11 performers will be coming to the Fire Pro Wrestling World video game March 5. The promotion had a press conference and tweeted the following

Originally Posted by PWI The main event of the 2020 NWA Crockett Cup PPV in Atlanta this April will be NWA Champion Nick Aldis vs. Marty Scurll with the stipulation that if Scurll loses, he must write a check to refund the cost of attendance that night. The scene was set with the following segment: "What if you have to pay for your greed?"@RealNickAldis lays out very EXPENSIVE TERMS for @MartyScurll on #AldisVsScurll 2 at #CrockettCup.#NWAPowerrr - https://t.co/GIJypXxeCP pic.twitter.com/W6aAVmxN3a — NWA (@nwa) January 29, 2020 The event will also feature the 2020 Crockett Cup tournament.

Link: https://twitter.com/nwa/status/1222308453630324736

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The biggest story concerns the state of Pro Wrestling NOAH, which is now under new management as a subsidiary of CyberAgent Incorporated with the news first reported by Tokyo Sports. Just last year, 75% of the company had been sold to LIDET from Estbee Co. Ltd. CyberAgent has acquired 100% ownership of NOAH ... CyberAgent purchased DDT (Dramatic Dream Team) in 2017 and is going to lead to the two companies working together in several capacities ... The @DDTpro_eng handle translated Wednesday’s press conference and provided the following notes: *Sanshiro Takagi will serve as President of both DDT and NOAH while Naomichi Marfuji is listed as the Executive Vice President of NOAH *Takagi is designated to work on the business end and leave the creative day-to-day with Marufuji and former NOAH President Arihiro Takeda *It was Takagi who got the ball rolling after NOAH’s finances were hit and approached Susumu Fujita about saving NOAH with Takagi and Takeda beginning to speak in November *NOAH’s relationship with LIDET (the previous owners)will continue with the group staying on board as a corporate sponsor *NOAH will be running a free show on Thursday on DDT Universe, which is their streaming service and is the first time NOAH has been linked to a streaming service with several shows airing on YouTube over the past year. The plan is for DDT Universe to carry 1-2 NOAH shows per month. They have already added a NOAH section on the service. *They also announced that DDT and NOAH will run back-to-back nights at Sumo Hall on November 21st and 22nd

Originally Posted by Fightful Diamond Dallas Page returned to the ring for the first time in nearly four years on the Jan. 15 episode of AEW Dynamite. Page teamed with Dustin Rhodes & QT Marshall in a losing effort to The Butcher, The Blade, & MJF. Page has worked with AEW dating back to All In, helping out Cody on-screen and off. Despite his input in certain aspects, Page told Wrestling Inc that he is not part of the creative team in AEW. And while many may believe that DDP isn't welcome in WWE due to his AEW affiliation, DDP stated that's not the case. "WWE's coming here on Wednesday and they're gonna interview me for [Karl] Malone and [Dennis] Rodman. I'm like in the middle – I wanna be able to help Cody with whatever he needs but if WWE needs something from me, then I'm always there for them. They've treated me super-great for the last 10 years," he said.

Originally Posted by Fightful After nearly nine years away from the ring, Edge made his return at WWE Royal Rumble. Edge was forced to retire in 2011 due to cervical spinal stenosis, but was able to get healthy and cleared for his in-ring return on Sunday. Appearing on WWE Backstage, his longtime tag team partner and friend Christian, gave a little more insight on how Edge was feeling about his return. "It was alright," Christian joked when asked how amazing the moment was for himself and Edge. "WWE is about creating moments. Creating moments that will stand the test of time. You think back to when Edge had to retire due to his neck injury. It's an unforgettable moment. This is much bigger than that. It's unheard of for somebody to come back from this type of injury after nine years off from the ring. As a performer, those thoughts always creep into your mind when you've been away for that long. 'Can I still do this at the level that I did before?' You don't want to come back at any less than that. When I talked to him after, I was like, 'How did it feel out there?' He's like, 'Man, I was really nervous.' To put that in perspective, I was the one that got nervous in our team. He was always calming me down. He had nerves of steel. For him to say that, that just shows you how big of a moment that was for him and the WWE Universe. It will be remembered forever." In the Royal Rumble match, Edge shared the ring with an old friend in Randy Orton and some new faces in Drew McIntyre, Roman Reigns, and AJ Styles. Christian discussed Edge's mindset on his future, revealing that Edge can't wait to work with fresh opponents. "When talking to him before he came back, his mindset is already like, 'Man, I can get in the ring with Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, AJ Styles, Aleister Black.' All of these superstars that he's never had a chance (to wrestle). Dream matches. These are legit dream matches. The sky is the limit from here," he said.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Details on Edge’s WWE Contract: Length, Money, Number of Appearances and Matches
• WWE Backstage Ratings – Jan. 28, 2020 – Reigns and New Day
• Matt Riddle Promises That He Will Still End Brock Lesnar’s Career

[Sepholio]

lol I absolutely adore Matt Riddle. I feel like at some point Lesnar is going to squash him for all this but idgaf because Riddle is still a king.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by Seph lol I absolutely adore Matt Riddle. I feel like at some point Lesnar is going to squash him for all this but idgaf because Riddle is still a king.

If they work together, I do think Brock will win, but I don't think it will be a squash. Riddle will get the AJ/Daniel Bryan/Finn Balor treatment with him.

[Mr. Nerfect]

WWE have handled Drew McIntyre pretty fucking perfectly so far. His spotlight in the Rumble was incredible, and they're clearly going all-in. To have a special on him come out the night before WrestleMania too? WWE is in star-making mode.

[Droford]

lol, the Marty Scurll thing is brilliant.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Didn't see it mentioned in this thread, but maybe I missed it, but MVP has said that his match on Raw against Rey was his last WWE match, and that he's not finished completely, but the end of his career is coming up very soon.

[Emperor Smeat]

Splitting the sheet news into 2 posts since this week's Observer Newsletter was released earlier than usual. First post is just from this week's Newsletter and the next one will be have Thursdays daily news.

The Sheets Part Evil Uno:

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter What’s notable is that in all the plans until the last week, Reigns and Baszler were scheduled as the Rumble winners. Vince McMahon changed his mind about a week ahead of time. We don’t know exactly when, but significant money came in on Flair to win on 1/19, so that’s a pretty good hint. The reasons were that it was said he wanted matches to create stronger main events for Mania. For the men’s side, that does make sense. The decision is to go all out with Lesnar vs. McIntyre as the main event at this point, barring an outside attraction match, and not Wyatt vs. Reigns. The original idea was for Lesnar to destroy everyone in the Rumble, eliminating the first 13 guys, until a combination of a low blow by Ricochet (in retaliation to Lesnar laying out Ricochet on TV the week before with a low blow) and a Claymore kick by McIntyre would lead to Lesnar being out. The idea is that once he eliminated Lesnar, that McIntyre didn’t need to win, and that Reigns could win and challenge Wyatt so you have the two title matches as someone even. But McMahon wanted to establish Lesnar vs. McIntyre as the main event, and thus everything is geared to making the main event as strong as it It should also be noted that it was only in the last few weeks that McIntyre was in the spot to face Lesnar. We were only told that Cain Velasquez, Tyson Fury and Edge, who were the names rumored for Lesnar, were all not true. The decision came down to McIntyre and Aleister Black, the latter a major Paul Heyman project. The feeling is that at this point in time, McIntyre was the more over of the two so the decision was made for him.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Right now the Flair match on the books is with Ripley for the NXT title. It’s the latest move to give NXT new juice since it fell behind AEW once again in the ratings after the momentum had seemingly turned away from AEW in November and December. While some thought that the AEW vs. NXT deal as a prime concern was over in McMahon’s mind, since the whole idea was to make sure AEW didn’t get strong enough numbers to get the paying television deal that would make them profitable and not going away any time soon. In that sense, McMahon failed in the big picture, with only some little wins like keeping other groups out of Madison Square Garden, which is a big deal to him, but far less important nowadays in the big picture ... Still, if Lynch vs. Baszler is the key women’s match on the show, then it would have made sense for Baszler to win the Rumble, particularly since a large percentage of the viewership doesn’t watch NXT and isn’t familiar with her, yet she’s in the top women’s match on the show unless Rousey is coming back, which according to what we are told, Rousey will not be wrestling this year at Mania.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The other major story was the return of Edge (Adam Copeland, 46), who retired after the 2011 WrestleMania due to neck problems ... He wouldn’t have been allowed to do that spear at SummerSlam if he wasn’t cleared. This all dates back to last summer when AEW made Edge a major offer to wrestle a few matches per year. Edge used that offer, which he told WWE was for $3 million per year and he would start when the company got television as his leverage, to get the same deal with WWE. So that was his leverage to get one of the highest deals in WWE history ... Since this is now a second time this has happened, it does bring up unique speculation as to guys who were medically disqualified from ever wrestling in WWE again (Edge and Bryan) both were cleared when it became clear that they were going to wrestle outside WWE. It’s not as cut-and-dried as that, but when it happens twice in a row involving talents that legitimately would garner substantial interest outside WWE, it is notable.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The men’s Rumble was put together by Shane McMahon, James Gibson (Noble) , Chris Park (Abyss) and Lance Evers (Storm) with input by Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar regarding the early part of the match. Vince McMahon was heavily involved in the finishing sequence and not only made the final call on McIntyre winning, but also the sequence and his eliminating Reigns last. The women’s Rumble was put together by Michael Seitz (Hayes), T.J. Wilson (Tyson Kidd), Adam Pearce, Mickie James and Paul Levesque had input the day of the show to help out and made it flow better.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter U.S. champion Andrade failed a drug test, which those in the company were informed of on 1/27 in the afternoon. Paul Heyman made the call not to take the title off Andrade, who was suspended without pay for 30 days. He sees Andrade as one of his major players going forward and felt it was too early for him to lose, and too early in a planned long-term program with Humberto Carrillo for Carrillo to win. So they did an angle where Carrillo gave Andrade a hammerlock DDT after removing the protective mats on the floor. It was retaliation for what Andrade did to Carrillo that put him out of action for a few weeks. So there was a storyline fit in how it was handled.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The Rumble drew a sellout of 36,000 fans to Minute Maid Park in Houston with the announced figure being 42,715. There were some people turned away the day of the show. They sold out with the walk-up as they were selling tickets until just before show time. The paid would have been in excess of 30,000 as that was the figure they were in the ballpark of two weeks out ... As impressive as that crowd is given the general toughness in selling tickets to live wrestling these days in the U.S., the interest in this year’s Rumble was way down. It had 500,000 Google searches, which by modern standards would mean the equivalent of a PPV show that by old standards would do 125,000 to 230,000 buys, which is way lower than any Rumble has ever done in modern times prior to the network.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter For the second time in less than a year, Pro Wrestling NOAH has been sold, this time to CyberAgent, a Japanese media company that is worth $5 billion. CyberAgent also owns the DDT promotion, Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling and Genbare Pro Wrestling. The company is best known for advertising and games, and also owns Abema TV, major Japanese sports streaming service ... How this affects the Japanese big picture scene is a tough call. New Japan is far more popular, and really is in a different league than all other companies in the Japanese market right now. But CyberAgent is larger than Bushiroad, and everyone also knows that WWE is coming with an NXT brand in Japan. There is the feeling that a WWE/CyberAgent affiliation could be a threat to New Japan’s market domination far more than either could separately, with the idea that DDT doesn’t have the mass appeal, while NOAH doesn’t have the star power, and a combination of the two would probably be stronger, but also alienate both company’s current fan bases since each fan base like the current style and a melding of styles would get a bad reaction from much of each group’s current base.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter WWE’s latest new concept show, NXT World’s Collide, built around a series of all-star matches with the U.S. and U.K. brands against each other, debuted the night before the Royal Rumble, on 1/25 in Houston ... The crowd was 3,500 at the Toyota Center, about half or less of what you’d expect for a Takeover in the same building.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The NWA did its Hard Times PPV on 1/24 from Atlanta’s PBS Studios ... Dave Lagana said that this PPV did more streaming buys than the first one.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter It’s largely expected that Parka’s son will take over the La Parka gimmick in some form, but not any time soon. AAA feels the La Parka character is part of the legacy of the promotio

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter There have been at least openings of lines of communication between New Japan and Viceland for U.S. television. It’s a long process because TV-Asahi owns the footage rights and the AXS/New Japan deal was originally between AXS and TV-Asahi

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter In a move that will significantly hurt AEW’s PPV numbers going forward, ITV has dropped its entire PPV division. Right now the 2/29 Revolution show will be on FITE streaming and they are in talks with another television PPV provider in the U.K. but there aren’t that many options. ITV 4 would air the one hour pre-show live on television to push buys which made sense since they were partners and that also helped drive buys. U.K. television PPV usually meant around 15,000 to 20,000 buys, and while some will move to FITE, not everyone does so because a solid percentage of the audience still has an aversion to Internet only PPV

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Tony Khan went to TNT before the 1/15 show to get the station’s approval on Jericho spiking Moxley in the eye with a spike, noting that TBS was furious in 1988 when the Road Warriors did the same thing to Dusty Rhodes. In fact, Rhodes got in a lot of trouble for booking that then. The other thing he got cleared in advance was MJF’s idea to wear the “I banged Dallas’ daughter” t-shirt. In reality, MJF and Page’s daughter Lexy Nair, who is now working for AEW as a backstage interviewer are actually good friends and she got a kick out of it. MJF is a big fan of old-time territories and got the idea from Greg Valentine wearing the “I broke Wahoo’s leg” T-shirts in the Carolinas in the 70s

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter There was a lot of talk this past week regarding the funeral of Rocky Johnson on 1/21. Superstar Billy Graham, who was not at the funeral, but his mother-in-law, who was friends with Johnson, was. He made a facebook post saying Vince McMahon and Pat Patterson were inconsiderate and tasteless. We heard from two people at the funeral who said that was true. They said that the pastor went very long and was more negative toward pro wrestling and it being fake than some were comfortable with. They said Vince did his strut coming to the podium which was way out of place and first put over Johnson for being a great athlete and performer. He then ended by saying the best thing Rocky ever did was marry Ata (Ata Maivia). He then pointed to Ata and said that Ata had kids (they had one child, Dwayne) and then he strutted off the stage. He then left the building. Shane and Paul Levesque left shortly after. Two people said that Vince made it clear he was annoyed the funeral went long. Vince did do the same thing at Eddy Guerrero’s funeral in 2005 ... One person noted that the preacher went long, which took away from time for friends and family speeches. He described Patterson’s speech as weird. The description was that he made perverted jokes, used the word shit, didn’t really talk that much in his speech about Johnson, kind of insulted Johnson at one point and eventually they cut his mic off. Patterson also talked about getting drunk the night before and going to the bathroom to drink some water when the toilet seat fell and hit him in the head, implying he was drinking out of the toilet ... Al Rosen, a close friend of Johnson’s, said that the family was not offended by anything that happened

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter There was an incident backstage at the Royal Rumble where Lesnar went to Riddle and told him to quit tagging him in posts and talking about him in social media because he would never work with him ever ... After the show, Riddle filmed some interviews where he was still challenging Lesnar and guaranteed some day the match will happen. Put it this way, if this is a Paul Heyman work, and to be fair, this would fit into his M.O. (think Lesnar/Undertaker at UFC), the one flaw is that if he’s grooming Riddle for Lesnar in a year, or even two years, that Riddle would have been protected more in the Rumble and got to stand out more rather than just being a guy dumped quickly. We’re told that Riddle’s Rumble performance was because he has a lot of heat right now with the Vince McMahon and this was to send a message. At a class at the Performance Center this week, on dealing with social media, talent was told not to call out anyone on the main roster in social media without their knowledge. The elimination was not primarily to use Riddle’s hardcore fan popularity as a way to get Corbin over more as a heel past the idea Corbin himself was chosen for it for that reason. But that wasn’t the reason he was in and out so quickly. We’re not sure as to why McMahon wanted to do that to him but it does explain his push not being commensurate with his marketability or how over he is.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets Part Deuce 'n Domino:

Originally Posted by Observer Ratings are in for the latest installment of the Wednesday Night Wars -- and both shows dropped from last week against better-than-usual competition from both the NBA and cable news programming. AEW Dynamite on TNT averaged 828,000 viewers, down five percent from last week. In the 18-49 demo, the show was down three percent, averaging a 0.34 rating. That rating, though, was good for third place overall on cable, the best the show has ever performed in relation to cable competition. NXT on the USA Network was down seven percent, averaging 712,000 viewers. In the demo, they finished 37th on cable with a 0.22 rating, down eight percent from last week ... As it does most weeks, NXT lost to Dynamite in every demo except those over 50, where NXT had a 0.36 to 0.29 advantage. The strongest category for AEW was men 18-49, where they had a 0.48 to 0.28 advantage. The season two premiere of Miz & Mrs., which aired after NXT last night, averaged 437,000 total viewers and a 0.18 rating in the 18-49 demo. The season one finale averaged 1.094 million viewers and a 0.38 rating in the demo when airing after SmackDown in August. With Miz & Mrs. airing after the show, NXT didn't have an overrun last night.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan, who will be inducted into the company's Hall of Fame for the second time over Wrestlemania 36 weekend, is slated to be part of the Thursday 2/27 WWE Super Showdown in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, PWInsider.com has confirmed

Originally Posted by PWI Production on the only “Official and Authorized” feature-length documentary of Joanie “Chyna” Laurer has begun. Laurer was known to the world as a groundbreaking professional wrestler and as the “9th Wonder Of The World.” This documentary has been authorized by Joanie Laurer’s estate. The documentary will explore Laurer’s tremendous influence both inside and outside the ring to millions of adoring fans through interviews and images with a wide range of subjects selected, including Joanie’s mother, Jan LaQue.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE filed for a trademark on “Viktor” on 1/24, likely to prevent him from using the name in post-WWE endeavors following The Ascension’s release. They are slated to begin working independent dates next month. The company also filed for a new trademark on Dana Brooke on 1/24.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling & Fightful Mauro Ranallo was a guest on TSN 1040 in Vancouver for Bell Let’s Talk Day to discuss his struggles with mental health issues and his treatment. Ranallo noted that the past year was one of the hardest between his schedule, turning 50, and spending lots of money for mental health treatment. He disclosed that he was hospitalized this past summer at UCLA and is continuing intensive treatment when he isn’t on the road. With regards to his treatment, he said when he isn’t on road he is at a center where he attends various treatment classes that begin at 10 am and lasts until around 5 pm. The incident over Survivor Series weekend with Corey Graves was brought up by the hosts and addressed for the first time publicly by Ranallo ... “It was a blessing in disguise. I have nothing really to say about Corey Graves or anyone else in my professional existence in the sense that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, everyone is able to critique everyone the way they would. I would never do something like that to a co-worker but that has been addressed and if anything, I even publicly thank Corey Graves because he was the straw that broke the proverbial back in terms of my social media activity and I will say here and now, I have deactivated all of my social media since November and I would implore everyone, especially those with mental health issues. Social media is so dangerous to those of us with mental health conditions and I know in the media and our everyday lives now, people are being hired and fired by their social media followings or the amount of information they post or how popular they are. I think it’s a disease. So out of that situation with my colleague, I am no longer on social media. I will never get back on social media. If anything, it was a benefit to me. I try to look towards the positive among the negatives that we all endure and for me, it just allowed me to unhook myself from the social media aspects of life. I found myself doing way too much and it ate way too much time. Being in the media, being a sports commentator for combat sports, I am following as much as I can, I know as much as I ever did. So for anyone dealing with mental health issues, I would suggest decreasing, or deactivating your social media... I know how important it is for a lot of people in terms of their jobs, but I said a big 'F-U' to social media and I wish I would have done it sooner"

Originally Posted by Fightful Ronda Rousey will return to WWE whenever she wants. And it might be at a live event in Largo. Appearing on WWE After The Bell with Corey Graves, Ronda was asked the question on everyone's mind; when will she return to WWE? "Whenever the hell I feel like it. If they would just let me show up at live events, probably very soon," she replied. Rousey hasn't been seen on WWE television since losing to Becky Lynch in the triple threat main event at WrestleMania 35. There was a lot of speculation surrounding a potential appearance at the 2020 Royal Rumble, but nothing came to fruition. Her mentioning "showing up at live events" was a reference to an earlier part of the conversation when she was asked what she missed most about her time in WWE. "I miss live shows, so much," she said. "I wish I could show up randomly at live shows, if that makes sense. That's what I miss the most. I would never do hair and makeup on those days, we'd just hang out in the locker room until we had to go out there and [perform]. I love the camaraderie and the laid back feeling of live show days. Jump in the car after and go to the next town. Never being able to find food and eating beef jerky all night. I miss that."

Think she mentioned before about her plans for a new family were put on hold due to her being unsure about her future life and wrestling plans. Also some rumored issues with trying to get pregnant.


TPWW Frontpage:

• Killer Kross Expected to Start With WWE Soon
• WWE Stock Tanks After Departures of Two Co-Presidents
• Luke Harper Expected to Debut With AEW in March
• Ronda Rousey Reportedly Will Not Wrestle at WrestleMania
• AJ Styles Injury Update: Expected Back in 4-6 Weeks
• MVP Says That He’s Wrestled His Final WWE Match

[Mr. Nerfect]

Interesting that Ronda teased the NXT Women's Title match and then teases working live events... I wonder if she's part of the plan to try and drive house show numbers up?

If you ran shows with Ronda on one tour and Goldberg on the other, just doing their usual shit and being a star, then you might be able to drive up attendance a bit.

[Mr. Nerfect]

There must be a standing order to trademark the names on any departing WWE talent, because there is no way anyone of any importance gives a shit whether or not Viktor uses his name outside of WWE.

[Droford]

I like how below the Ronda might show up soon thing there's a link


Ronda Rousey Reportedly Will Not Wrestle at WrestleMania

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer A "Killer" has joined the ranks of Josh Barnett's Bloodsport III. GCW and Barnett announced Friday that Killer Kelly has been added to the Thursday, April 2nd event in Ybor City, Florida. The German-based talent from Portugal is currently a member of the NXT UK roster, but isn't exclusive to them as she is a frequent presence in wXw and as of two weeks ago, wants to fill up her schedule.

Originally Posted by Observer ROH has made a pair of match announcements for their Past vs. Present event. Members of Generation Next and Villain Enterprises are set to face off at Past vs. Present, with Alex Shelley & Matt Sydal teaming against Marty Scurll & Flip Gordon. Shelley and Sydal weren't in Generation Next at the same time. Austin Aries, Roderick Strong, and Jack Evans were the other members of the group. Homicide will also take on Brody King of Villain Enterprises in a singles match at Past vs. Present.

Originally Posted by Observer After the challenge was issued on Monday, ROH has confirmed that Marty Scurll vs. Jay White is official for Supercard of Honor XIV.

Originally Posted by PWI While there has been some conspiracy theories about the exit of Barrios and Wilson (which we will touch upon below), we are told that the primary reason they are gone is that McMahon and his Co-Presidents had completely different visions as to how the company could generate revenue, new and existing, going forward and as one staffer joked, “It’s never going to be Vince who loses that argument" ... PWInsider.com is told that an internal announcement released by the company to its employees was even more direct, alluding to irreconcilable differences in the company’s strategic priorities. Barrios and Wilson had one vision and Vince McMahon had another. Vince’s vision will always win. He’s Vince McMahon. The end. Within WWE, the reaction among employees we have spoken to was pretty much complete shock. If there was something brewing that was leading to yesterday’s ouster, it was kept extremely quiet and was not something being spoken about openly within WWE’s Stamford offices. Given that the news wasn’t held for the weekend (when most companies would dump negative news, hoping it’s forgotten by the time the work week begins) and was announced out of nowhere, that would be an indication that something happened that led to an immediate blowup and departure. One WWE employee, speaking under condition of anonymity, stated that when the news was announced internally, all work that they were aware of pretty much “ground to a halt” as everyone was stunned by the news. Another staffer claimed it was the most shocking day they could remember since “that horrible day in 2007”, a day where WWE fired 10% of its workforce. There was a lot of feelings of “what happens now” with projects and strategies that were already underway, including the planned tiered launch of the WWE Network that had been earmarked for the first quarter of 2020. Others, however, tempered that worry, noting that if the company “lived on” after Linda McMahon left and Shane McMahon’s 2009 resignation from the company, that the “machine” that is WWE won’t stop for anyone’s departure.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Evercore ISI media analyst John Belton was cited in Multichannel News with the following reaction to Thursday’s news: "These developments will clearly cause weakness in WWE shares for a variety of reasons. 2020 adjusted OIBDA expectations must be further cut, particularly given updated 2019 guidance now targeting the low end of the prior range. Second, to the extent that the disagreements between McMahon and Barrios / Wilson centered on reinvestment and / or capital allocation policies, hopes for more shareholder-friendly initiatives moving forward could be diminished. Third, the abrupt nature of the release suggests a tumultuous situation at the company which makes it difficult to gain confidence in forecasting the near- and long- term financial outlook." Eric Handler of MKM Partners as noted in Market Watch: "This change, in our view, was unexpected. Investors are now even more concerned about 2020 adjusted OIBDA guidance. However, given the known step-up in the domestic TV rights deal, we do not believe the company is in a ‘precarious’ financial position."

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The WWE stock closed at $48.88 on Friday and represents a drop of 21.5% from Thursday’s close.

At the moment, its currently at $48.74 for after-hour trading.

Originally Posted by PWI Q - Is Robert Stone designed to be a Tony Khan parody? A - No. I get this question a lot, specifically whether WWE costumed Stone to look like Khan. That isn't the case. Stone has been dressed in that fashion on the independents and for House of Hardcore for several years, long before Tony Khan was involved in professional wrestling. I don't think the idea is to parody Khan.

From PWI's weekly Q&A articles.

Originally Posted by PWI FOX sent out the following Earlier today Roku notified their users they intend to remove FOX apps, including FOX Sports, FOX NOW, FOX News, and FOX Nation. We’re as surprised – and disappointed – as you! Only Roku can remove our apps from your device, and we’ve not asked them to do that. Be assured, if there’s a disruption, it will be Roku’s decision alone. While we work to continue our relationship with Roku, we are happy to keep our apps available to you, and we regret Roku has chosen to threaten your access solely to improve its own business interests ... For those of you who watch Smackdown via FOX Apps, Roku has responded to the FOX situatiion with the following statement: Roku’s distribution agreement with FOX Corp to distribute FOX channels is set to expire on Jan. 31. We don’t want to see that happen but we have tried for months to get FOX to sign an agreement and we offered FOX an extension but they declined. If an agreement is not reached, we will be forced to remove FOX channels from the Roku platform because we can’t distribute content without an agreement. Every content provider has a distribution agreement on every platform. It gives the legal right to distribute. Meanwhile customers can view FOX programming including the big game in many other ways on the Roku platform including through fuboTV, Sling TV, Hulu + LiveTV, and YouTube TV. Many offer free trials for new customers. In addition Roku TV customers can use an antenna to watch FOX channels.

Originally Posted by Fightful The Revival once again asked for their release from WWE at some point last week. As of now, Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder remain under contract with the company. Bryan Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Live first reported the news. Fightful was able to confirm the report.

Originally Posted by Fightful In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Cena discussed his Royal Rumble viewing experience and the one performer who really stood out to him. "I thought the [Royal Rumble] was extra special," Cena told Sports Illustrated. "It was great to be able to watch it as a fan and not endure any fear of missing out and just enjoy the event. And I can say with the utmost sincerity that I believe Brock Lesnar is best in-ring performer that I've seen and I know it's an opinion, and if you want a cool quote, here it is: I think he's the best in-ring performer of all time. I thought his performance at the Rumble was a clinic on how to establish yourself, how to establish those around you, establish the championship, establish the importance of one event. He did so in less than 30 minutes, and I certainly don't have the skill set to do that, and it was awesome to be able to see a masterclass man put on a clinic on what to do and how to do it and I was really impressed with the Rumble." When asked if Brock is the best ever, Cena didn't back down from his statement. "I really do think so," he stated. "I genuinely think he has a good understanding of who he is. I think he's the best at when he needs to be dominant, he's the best in situations of jeopardy. He makes people better. He still has a mystique about him that will draw eyeballs to watch him and when he does he never disappoints. I watched from home did not know the result of the Rumble and I thought Brock was gonna run the table and win. I knew the first 27 entrants would be boring, but I knew by 28 and 29 I'd be on the edge of my seat and asking the question, "What happens to the WrestleMania main event now that the No. 1 entrant ran the table and is the champion for the first time ever?" He continued, "And I love it when a plan comes together, to quote a member of the A Team. You could see how uneasy the crowd was with Brock's dominance and then over the course of time, how it became exciting and how it became riveting and then how it became like must-see and that's who Brock Lesnar is. He believes so much in his presence, and he has such a definable presence you can't ignore him and he never wastes anyone's time and everything he does is special and everything he does meaningful and it's not all selfish. He's one of the most giving performers in the WWE and that is the mark of a true craftsman and a true professional. It was awesome to watch. My jaw dropped when I watched the Rumble."

Originally Posted by Fightful Taya Valkyrie will be with IMPACT Wrestling into 2021 according to a recent tweet from her. There seemed to be some confusion around the expiration of Taya's contract as PWInsider reported her deal had rolled over and would run through December 2020. Taya denied that her contract rolled over, saying she signed a two-year deal in 2019. She didn't give a date on when in 2019 she signed a new contract. The earliest her current deal would expire is January 2021.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Impact: Ultimate X Match at TNA Show, More TNA Names Announced, Sacrifice Main Event
• AEW Announces Two New Dynamite Locations – Updated Schedule
• WWE Signs Five Wrestlers to NXT UK

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Raw last night did 2.17 million viewers, which would be among the lowest non-holiday and non-football numbers in the history of the show. The only non-holiday Raw shows that weren't against major football competition in modern history that were lower were two episodes last year against major NBA playoff games. For a non-holiday show without major sports competition, it was the lowest in the last 23 years. It was down 10 percent from last week's post-Royal Rumble episode and down 14 percent from the same week last year. WWE did have the top three spots in the 18-49 demo on cable, but were down 12 percent to 0.67 in that demo from last week ... The three hours were: 8 p.m. 2.32 million viewers 9 p.m. 2.16 million viewers 10 p.m. 2.02 million viewers

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling This was Raw’s second-lowest mark of 2020 with their lowest number of January 13th going against the LSU vs. Clemson football game that did over 25 million viewers.

Originally Posted by Observer WWE stock continued to fall today, closing at $46.08 per share, the lowest close since before the FOX deal was signed. A big part of the drop was Benjamin Swinburne of Morgan Stanley downgrading the price target from $80 to $54, based on the firing of George Barrios and Michelle Wilson. He said the three things of concern are losing Barrios & Wilson leaves the company without senior leadership at the same time Vince McMahon is starting the XFL, concern about WWE's capital allocation plans which was part of the dispute, and fear the loss of Wilson and Barrios will affect WWE's relationships with Fox, Progressive Insurance (a key sponsor) and key talent. He felt the company will be pressured by Wall Street until they hire at least one well-known new executive with a strong track record.

WWE stocks are currently at $47.36 for Tuesday's after-hours trading.

Originally Posted by PWI Bill Goldberg's appearance on Friday Night Smackdown this week is to set the stage for Goldberg's involvement in the 2/27 Super Showdown event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, PWInsider.com has confirmed. As noted several weeks ago in the Elite section of PWInsider.com, there had been a push for Sting to be used at the 2/27 event, but as of last night, we are told those talks have died down. Hulk Hogan is slated to appear at that event on 2/27 as well.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling SI.com spoke with Dave Meltzer about the departures of George Barrios and Michelle Wilson and the health of the company going into Thursday’s investor’s call. Meltzer’s analysis includes the stats that the average age of a Raw and SmackDown viewer is 50 while NXT is 55. That compares to the average WWE viewer in 2000 being 23 ... The subject of AEW must be one that is increasing among the business community that is catching up to its impact. Once TNT renewed Dynamite, it was clear to see it isn’t a flash in the pan but here for the long haul. The impact on WWE’s business has been a big increase in talent expenses with those with deals coming making significantly more to stay, NXT going to USA has to be grouped with AEW’s influence and while it’s created more television revenue it’s also removed the WWE Network’s most consistent live weekly programming for those within the U.S. Conversely, those outside the U.S. must wait 24 hours to watch NXT so it does influence the worldwide and domestic subscriber base.

NXT's audience being even older than WWE's main tv audience is pretty telling since its both been growing older since moving to USA Network and doing all the heavy lifting for NXT's viewership. The over-run breakdowns has shown that to be the case for a long while. NXT pretty much has been failing to develop a new young core tv audience for WWE's future despite Triple H's claims.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The Kabuki Warriors (Asuka & Kairi Sane) are now the longest reigning WWE Women's Tag Team Champions. The duo has held the titles for 121 days, surpassing the reign of The IIconics (Billie Kay & Peyton Royce).

Originally Posted by Fightful The Revival reportedly once again requested their release from WWE in late January, though Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder remain under contract at this time ... Speaking on his Hall of Fame radio show, Booker T offered up the following advice for The Revival. "If I could give them any advice, 'Take the money. Take what's behind door number one.' If they came to me and said, 'Hey Book, we're going to give you a million dollars a year. You're not going to win any titles. We'll give you TV time. A 15-year contract.' I'm gonna shut the hell up. I don't give a damn about no titles. Legacy and all that is okay. But if I had the choice of getting the money, and not working, I'm taking the money and I'm not gonna care about the legacy. I'm gonna take that $15 million and parlay that into 45 or 50. For me, it was about getting paid and parlaying professional wrestling into what I'm doing right now."

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE is making an attempt to crack down on backstage news, at least at the PC. Last week, Wrestling Observer Newsletter ran a story noting that at a WWE Performance Center meeting, talent were told not to call out main roster talent. The report upset some involved at the WWE PC, and was addressed later in the week. As it turns out the original meeting in question where the recommendation was handed out was at an orientation for new Performance Center recruits. The information was leaked shortly after that. Wednesday ahead of the NXT television tapings, another meeting was held to instruct NXT talent to not talk to "dirt sheets." The talent we spoke to (naturally, since they're effectively talking to one) weren't keen on the message. They were also reminded that they need proof of health coverage, which may have motivated talent to contact us. One source previously unfamiliar to Fightful in NXT said "they reminded me that I'm a contractor, then tried to tell me who I couldn't talk to, so here I am," before reiterating issues with crowding at the PC.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The new theme for [NWA] Power is ‘I’m Broken’ by Pantera that replaces ‘Into the Fire’ by Dokken

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Disney has released updated figures for its streaming platforms. ESPN+ grew exponentially and was listed at 6.6 million subscribers by the end of 2019 compared to 1.6 million subs at the end of 2018. It is believed the service received a big bump by being bundled alongside the Disney+ and Hulu for U.S. subscribers. Disney+ is currently at 26.5 subscribers after three months since its launch.

Felt that was interesting since it involves UFC and how ESPN's streaming service has grown a lot since their deal. Compare that with WWE who has struggled for years to grow the Network to the level they wanted by now and is rumored to have taken a big hit this past fiscal quarter.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Cryme Tyme is "For The Culture." GCW announced that the longtime tag team consisting of JTG and Shad Gaspard, who have wrestled together for more than a decade, will compete on the "For The Culture" event on April 3.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Various: MLW & Dragon Gate Partnership Update, ROH News, Indies
• Timothy Thatcher Signs With WWE
• WWE Denies Rumor That Samoa Joe Was Suspended
• Kalisto Out With an Injury
• Goldberg to Appear on SmackDown This Friday

[Fignuts]

[DaveWadding]

"If I could give them any advice, 'Take the money. Take what's behind door number one.' If they came to me and said, 'Hey Book, we're going to give you a million dollars a year. You're not going to win any titles. We'll give you TV time. A 15-year contract.' I'm gonna shut the hell up. I don't give a damn about no titles.

Five time

Five time

Five time

Five time

Five time

[Ol Dirty Dastard]

Originally Posted by Fignuts

Plus, Into the Fire was so good--makes no sense. Though, honestly, I'm Broken is still a pretty good theme song, especially compared to both Dynamite's and all of WWE's.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Will Ospreay, Rocky Romero & Amazing Red are getting an ROH Six-Man Tag Team title shot at Supercard of Honor XIV. ROH has announced that Bandido, Flamita & Rey Horus will defend their Six-Man titles against Ospreay, Romero & Amazing Red at April's Supercard of Honor event. It's taking place at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland, Florida on Saturday, April 4.

Originally Posted by Observer Independent wrestler Aja Perera (Aja Smith) has officially signed with WWE and joined the Performance Center as a referee. Perera signing with WWE was first reported by Squared Circle Sirens. The news was then announced by WWE.com today, with them noting that Perera will be the first African-American full-time female referee in the company's history

Originally Posted by Observer AEW has revealed this week's top-five rankings in their men's, women's, and tag team divisions: Men's division -- Champion: Chris Jericho (0-0 singles record in 2020, 10-1-1 overall record) Jon Moxley (3-0 singles record in 2020, 8-1-1 overall record) Cody Rhodes (2-0 singles record in 2020, 9-3-1 overall record) PAC (1-1 singles record in 2020, 6-5-1 overall record) Kenny Omega (0-0 singles record in 2020, 13-5 overall record) Sammy Guevara (2-1 singles record in 2020, 6-7 overall record) Women's division -- Champion: Riho (2-0 singles record in 2020, 10-2 overall record) Nyla Rose (2-1 singles record in 2020, 6-4 overall record) Hikaru Shida (1-1 singles record in 2020, 6-4 overall record) Kris Statlander (0-1 singles record in 2020, 4-3 overall record) Britt Baker (1-1 singles record in 2020, 8-5 overall record) Awesome Kong (1-0 singles record in 2020, 3-1 overall record) Tag team division -- Champions: Kenny Omega & Hangman Page (3-0 tag team record in 2020, 13-5 overall record for Omega, 9-7 overall record for Page) SCU (1-1 tag team record in 2020, 14-5 overall record for Scorpio Sky, 13-4 overall record for Frankie Kazarian The Young Bucks (1-1 tag team record in 2020, 11-7 overall record for Nick Jackson, 11-6 overall record for Matt Jackson) Santana & Ortiz (0-1 tag team record in 2020, 7-4 overall record) The Dark Order (1-0 tag team record in 2020, 5-2 overall record) Best Friends (1-1 tag team record in 2020, 6-8 overall record for Chuck Taylor, 7-11 overall record for Trent Barreta)

Originally Posted by Observer CM Punk's next appearance on WWE Backstage has been officially confirmed for next week. On last night's episode of the show, it was announced that Punk will be part of the Backstage panel next Tuesday. It was also revealed that Women's Royal Rumble winner Charlotte Flair will be the featured guest on next Tuesday's show.

Originally Posted by PWI For those of you in the UK, NXT UK TV debuts tonight on Paramount Network UK.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE's trademark application for EC3 was abandoned on 1/25 due to not responding to a notice of initial refusal issued on 7/24 last year within the allowed 6 month period. Incidentally, the refusal was because EC3 already had a registered trademark himself on 4/23 last year. WWE, if they choose to, can revive their own application at a later date.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On a recent edition of The WrestlingINC Daily podcast, former NXT U.K. talent Jazzy Gabert joined the show. Jazzy recently requested her release from WWE and during the podcast, she opened up about what led to that decision. While speaking about her time on NXT UK, Jazzy stated that the money in NXT U.K. is not that good. “This is also the thing, I just came out of the injury, right? And before my injury, I was in so much pain. I guess I was walking around with this really bad neck for a while but I didn’t know this because I thought, ‘Hey, I’m a wrestler. Of course I’m in pain.’ For me, it was freaking normal and then when I signed the contract in 2017 I think, they found out that I had this bad neck, then I had the surgery, and straight after the surgery, like the next day, there was zero pain. I was like, ‘Woah! What is this? I have no pain at all,’ and like 2018, the whole year, I was not in pain and then 2019, I signed a contract with WWE again and I’m hitting the gym, I’m having muscle pain and I’m going to the ring, my back is hurting again. I’m like, ‘Wow, I miss not being in pain.’ It was kind of strange for me. I love this business so much, but I love being pain-free too. So for me, it wasn’t really worth it. Don’t get me wrong, NXT UK, I see it’s improving if you’re all working hard, but, it was too much sacrifice for me I think for what I was getting out of there. It’s not a secret but the money is not that good there, you know? And I think if I would’ve made a little bit more money that my life would be a little bit more easier. Then, of course I could say, ‘Okay, come on. Let’s do it. It’s worth it.’ But, yeah, it was too many things. It was not just one thing. It was many things that made me feel like, ‘Okay, it’s not worth it.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Prior to WWE Backstage going on live on FS1 on February 4th, the guest of the night, Drew McIntyre participated in the pre-show Q&A and when he was asked about the “Broken Dreams” theme song, he thinks it would be cool to bring it back for his WrestleMania match with Brock Lesnar. “Oh, for WrestleMania? Oh that’s different. I keep seeing the Broken Dreams thing everyday. For years I’ve seen this on social media and people ask me this. It doesn’t work for my character and I love the song too, but it’s a little too slow. The lyrics kind of match my story so that’s interesting so I think WrestleMania would be a really cool place for it, and it would be cool that the crowd would probably know the words since I assume everyone knows every single word because you tweet me so often about it. So yes, Broken Dreams at Mania would be awesome.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling As first reported by ‘Toy News International’, All Elite Wrestling action figures will be revealed at the New York toy fair on February 22nd. Wicked Cool Toys/Jazwares are behind the design of the action figures.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling While speaking with Scott Fishman of TV Insider, Jon Moxley talked about the story that he, Chris Jericho and AEW have been piecing together to build to their AEW World Title match at ‘Revolution’. Moxley made comparisons between AEW and WWE and talked about the differences between the two companies when it comes to telling stories. “It’s what it’s supposed to be. That’s pro wrestling. That’s the kind of wrestling I enjoyed as a kid. That’s the thing, the difference for us is we don’t have to have 37 pay-per-views a year and 600 network specials every year. We have Dynamite every week but four or five pay-per-views a year. We can keep those high-quality, big matches for those. A big fight feel. I think some of that has been missing over the last few years when you have to rush through stories and car crash stuff and give away so much on TV. The gratifying part for me is that it’s so much easier. You don’t have to over-complicate things. The story is simple. You have professionals who know what they are doing, veteran guys. Sometimes you can take risks and try something out. Maybe it works or doesn’t. It’s always great to be willing to do that. The lack of 30 writers buzzing around with all this weird f—’in energy is the biggest difference. Instead of a 10-minute sports entertainment segment, at AEW I don’t have anyone bugging me with [a] 40-page script to memorize or drilled to me how it’s supposed to be done. It’s very stress-free when you just let guys do their jobs. It’s easier when you have more in command of the rudder of the ship. Better than having the wind blowing in 50 f—-’in directions.”

Originally Posted by Fightful NXT Cruiserweight Champion Jordan Devlin is ready to bring NXT UK to Ireland. Devlin has exploded in popularity over the past few months, earning more opportunities on NXT UK and coming up with an NXT Cruiserweight Championship victory at Worlds Collide. Speaking to Scott Fishman of TV Insider, Devlin stated that he believes NXT UK is great for the European scene and he hopes to expand the brand into Ireland. “It’s really good for the UK scene. It has breathed life into us," he said. "To have the UK Performance Center as well and learn from the best minds in the business...NXT UK has grown so much in the last three years. I couldn’t have imagined we’d be here if you’d ask me three years ago. Maybe we can be a company or brand that tours across Europe and not just the UK. I’d love to see NXT UK TakeOver Dublin. There is talk of maybe going to Germany and other parts of Europe. I’d love to take the show on the road. It would be awesome for the brand.”

The opposite has been happening at least in regards to his claims that NXT UK has been great for the UK and European wrestling scene.


TPWW Frontpage:

• AEW Announces Double or Nothing 2
• Awesome Kong Apparently Written Off of AEW for Now
• MLW Has Had Talks With Amazon Prime
• MLW and AAA Announce Co-Promoted Show in Mexico

[Ultra Mantis]

Of course Devlin wants to work Ireland with NXT, that's where he is over as fuck and hes not even allowed to work there since WWE banned him from OTT. He's obviously not going to shit on his employer but this is more of the same propaganda that HHH, Regal and BSS have been putting out for years.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Ratings are in for this weeks installment of the Wednesday night wars. AEW Dynamite got the win, averaging 928,000 viewers on TNT. That viewership number was up 25 percent from last week. With coverage of the impeachment hearings and Democratic primaries dominating the cable news ratings, Dynamite dropped to 11th in the 18-49 demo with a 0.36 rating, up six percent from last week. NXT averaged 770,000 viewers, which was up eight percent from last Wednesday. In the demo, the episode drew a 0.22 rating. That number was even with last week, but NXT climbed slightly to 34th overall in the cable TV ratings ... Miz and Mrs., which followed NXT on USA, averaged 475,000 viewers and a 0.20 rating. Those numbers were up from 437,000 viewers and a 0.18 rating for last week's season premiere but still well below what the show was doing when it aired after SmackDown.

Originally Posted by Observer Prior to their investors' call Thursday morning, WWE released their 2019 Q4 numbers, showing 18% revenue growth to $322.8 million, good for their highest quarterly revenue in company history. The reason for the increase was revenue from their new TV deals, offsetting lower revenue from their live events. Quarterly net revenue in Media increased to $264.6 million, up from Q3's $205.3 million. Year over year, Media net revenue increased to $743.1 million, up from 2018's $683.4 million. Despite the increase, Wall Street didn't respond favorably as the stock was trading at $42.34 as of this writing, down $6.62 from Wednesday ... A few quarterly notes from their release: WWE Network subscriptions dropped by 10% to 1.42 million. They are predicting a slight increase to 1.47 million for Q1 of 2020. Quarterly and yearly notes for Live Events/Consumer Products/Network Quarterly live event revenue increased to $27.4 million, but was down from last year's $34.4 million. The lack of a supershow in Australia was blamed as well as less events /// Year over year, live event revenue fell to $125.6 million, down from $144.2 million in 2018. That was attributed to 56 fewer shows, lower average attendance, and the lack of an Australian supershow. Average North American attendance increased by 15% to 5800 with an average ticket price of $57.13. Average International attendance decreased to 4100 with a 30% average ticket price increase to $84.26 ... Yearly Network revenue was down to $184.6 million, down from $199.3 million in 2018.

As of around 7:37PM, WWE stock was at around $44.19 for after-hour trading.

Originally Posted by PWI In today's WWE earnings report, it is interesting to note the company was not touting televison rights fees for WWE NXT on the USA Network, but noted that the company has taken on additional production costs for the series with it's second hour. There was no specific mention of NXT TV revenue in the earnings report at all. So, whatever revenue WWE is deriving from the series has been folded into somewhere else, not specifically noted.

Originally Posted by Fightful On Thursday's fourth-quarter earnings call, Vince McMahon was asked about the transition of leadership process. McMahon answered, "I think in terms of changing or reimagining our culture and the way we do business, it's going to be far more inclusive. Quite frankly, with that, our strong management team currently going forward, attracting world class individuals to our company. Who wouldn't want to work for WWE? I mean, come on! It's exciting."

Originally Posted by Fightful Speaking on the WWE fourth quarter earnings call, Vince was asked about All Elite Wrestling and how the company may have changed WWE's content since it launched on TNT in October. Vince replied, "AEW has not changed our content at all. It's all about our characters, storylines, and resolutions. It really hasn't changed our point of view in terms of what we present. We don't need more 'edgy' content. PG, one of the few programs out there that really is PG. As far as NXT, we're competing. NXT is competing on Wednesday night with AEW and doing extremely well. We're confident that NXT will continue on with success." Vince previously referred to AEW's content as "blood and guts" on the second quarter 2019 earnings call last July.

Guess Vince completely forgot all about the Lana-Rusev infidelity angle that also included a lesbian twist.

Originally Posted by Observer WWE's "Ruthless Aggression" era will be the subject of a new docuseries that's premiering on the WWE Network this month. The company announced today that the debut episode of WWE Ruthless Aggression will be made available on the WWE Network on demand at 10 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday, February 16. New episodes will then be uploaded on demand every Monday at 10 a.m. Eastern starting on February 17. WWE wrote that the series "picks up where WWE Network’s critically acclaimed Monday Night War docuseries left off, detailing the prolific, if turbulent, years that followed the Attitude Era, after WWE won the battle for Monday night supremacy and absorbed its top rival, WCW.

Originally Posted by PWI The New York Times ran an article today covering a massive embezzlement scandal in the State of Mississippi involving a state auditor and former WWE developmental talent Brett DiBiase, the son of WWE Hall of Famer Ted DiBiase, Brett DiBiase. According to the article, the former director of the state welfare agency and five others are being charged in one of the biggest embezzlement scandals in the history of the office. Allegedly, DiBiase was given funds to go to a drug treatment facility in Malibu that was earmarked for Mississippi's welfare programs. According to documents, DiBiase was allegedly given the money as payment for classes that he didn't teach for drug abuse.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Former 6-time WWF Intercontinental Champion Jeff Jarrett talked to SunSport about the lineage and importance of the Intercontinental Title in WWE: “I’ve had this conversation with a lot of folks and it’s just a completely [different] generation now. It’s like getting a No.1 song way back, that was really something special. Now today, the methods of the distribution, it doesn’t quite carry the same cachet. That Intercontinental Title will always be that logical progression, steppingstone if you will, but nowadays we can pick up our phone and watch wrestling instantly. Years ago in WWF, and yes you had WCW and some other organizations, but there was only one main one and that’s what you watched. WCW had the U.S. Title and then others in Japan and Mexico that were steppingstones to a world championship. Nowadays due to the method of distribution, you can watch so much content that is original from independent promotions all across the world, so there are so many more belts and titles that, in essence, it brings the overall championship aura down. In WWE, you have the WWE Title and the Universal Championship that didn’t exist years ago. The I.C. Title has always been and always will be a unique belt with the lineage that goes with it. But it all depends on the champion and it always has. You are looking at the greatest of all-time, and do you know why I was the greatest of all-time? Because I told you that I’m the greatest of all-time. But it is just a different era.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Southpaw Regional Wrestling characters and the stage set-up will be included in the February 7th WWE 2K20 update.

Link: https://wwe.2k.com/news/wwe-2k20-ori...nal-wrestling/ Speaking of WWE 2K20, sales for the game are down by around $2 million compared to WWE 2K19. Link: https://twitter.com/BrandonThurston/...24515515195392

Originally Posted by Fightful Hosting a special NWO panel on the Chris Jericho Rock N Wrestling Rager At Sea: Part Deux, Scott Hall was telling the story of how he went to Vince and let him know about WCW's contract offer. Hall, as he's said many times, wanted to take the money and Vince wasn't offering the same amount Chiming in, Jericho discussed his conversation with McMahon when he signed with AEW. "I'm not in AEW because I was a rebel. I'm in AEW because Vince went, 'Go.' And then when I went, he went, 'You signed the contract?' 'Yeah.' 'Can you get out of it?' 'No. You told me to sign it.' He had the opportunity to stop it, like he did with [Scott Hall], which is very interesting to me. 23 years later, he made the same...I love Vince," he said.

TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE: Backstage Ratings, New Woman Ref Signed, Jake Atlas Debuts
• WWE Stock Price Plummets Again After Release of Q4 2019 Financial Report
• WWE Considering Airing Their PPVs on Another Streaming Service

[Blonde Moment]

It's why i come here

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter edition):

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The WWE had one major change and hints of a second one when it comes to business, which led to a major drop in the stock price ... The second bit of news, perhaps related to the first, was Vince McMahon at the 2/6 conference call noting that they were in talks with other parties as it related to distribution of the former PPV events ... There are a number of key players, obviously ESPN+ and DAZN, and another key player, Peacock, which is scheduled to launch this year. Sources in the industry have said that Peacock would look to WWE to be its key initial programming to draw subscribers from the start, very much as ESPN+ did with UFC. Instead of having to rely on declining network subscription money for big shows, they can get significantly money guaranteed, with the idea they can sell the PPV shows to a streaming service for $12 million to $13 million per monthly event ... According to industry sources, Peacock is scheduled to kick off on 4/15 and would likely have about a $10 per month price point. That date would miss WrestleMania by ten days, which is by far WWE’s most valuable event of the year, and the one they leave tens of millions on the table in making it part of their own network package. DAZN’s situation has changed due to how much money it has lost so far with so many gigantic deals, particularly when it comes to boxing content that subscription revenue can’t come close to covering. ESPN+, with all its growth, is also losing tons of money, as Disney announced losses of $693 million for the year between ESPN+, Hulu and start-up costs for Disney Plus ... If this happens, it would mean a new direction for the network, like it has for Fight Pass. Depending on whether this would be just the 12 or more PPVs, or include Takeovers (more likely not) is to be determined. Like with UFC, the WWE Network may end up being a place for other smaller company content, like wXw, Evolve, Progress and OTT, which has been talked about for years. The latest plan was for a more expensive tier using that content, and perhaps others, but that launch has been delayed as well until all of this gets sorted out ... Based on the price going around, it’s a great deal for WWE. But at some point realism will come into these deals and the overpaying based on streaming revenue it generates not being nearly what is being paid for, there will be a market correction. But right now, nobody knows what the long-term brings and all decisions are short-term.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter WWE Network and PPV revenue fell from $46.8 million last year to $41.6 million this year. The word is that WWE is attempting to sell their PPVs rights for a number barely below the total revenue the network and PPV combined was generating at this pace, and with none of the costs past production of the shows.

In terms of subs, seems moving NXT to USA Network cost the Network at least 66k subs in the US but not as bad of a drop compared to the year before for the fiscal 4th quarter.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Other media revenue went from $63.5 million to $56.1 million. This would be revenue from reality shows, video and theatrical releases, and mostly from Saudi Arabia. This would cover the first show of 2019 where the payment came in during October. It would also indicate that the payment for the second show has not come in yet. That would be why the total revenue for the year would not have broken $1 billion for the first time.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The 1/29 head-to-head saw AEW do 828,000 viewers (1.39 viewers per home) and a 0.34 in 18-49 and NXT do 712,000 viewers (1.22 viewers per home) and a 0.22 in 18-49 ... NXT was hurt by probably 10,000 in the average viewership by no longer having an overrun. It also led to the Dusty Rhodes tag team tournament final with Pete Dunne & Matt Riddle vs. Zack Gibson & James Drake losing to the AEW main event of Chris Jericho & Santana & Ortiz vs. Private Party & Darby Allin by a 777,000 to 668,000 margin, since there’s probably a good 120,000 to 200,000 viewers who figured they could watch the end of the NXT main event after AEW ended ... The number seems to indicate that AEW being taped last week had very little to do with the lower rating from the week before, since this was live and did a lower number than the taped show. It also seemed to show that the show on the cruise didn’t hurt or help much ... AEW opened with 911,000 viewers and 476,000 in 18-49 with Jon Moxley doing an interview and being confronted by the Inner Circle. NXT opened at 755,000 viewers and 266.000 in 18-49 for Finn Balor vs. Trent Seven. Basically the luster Balor had from behind a main roster star in NXT has dissipated with AEW nearly doubling him in 18-49.

Both shows had 2 notable shifts in channel switching but the Balor stuff was the most interesting part of Meltzer's report.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Both AEW and NXT showed strong increases in viewers on 2/5, although most out of the 18-49 demo, and the gap in AEW’s favor widened even though WWE heavily hyped its show with commercials all over Raw and pushing the first Charlotte Flair appearance on NXT. AEW, built largely around Cody taking ten lashes from MJF did 928,000 viewers (1.43 viewers per home, one of the best of any wrestling show this TV season) and a 0.36 in 18-49, up 12 percent in viewers from last week and six percent in the key demo. NXT did 770,000 viewers (1.25 viewers per home) and 0.22 in 18-49, an increase of 8.1 percent but staying the same in 18-49. In 18-49, AEW had 468,000 viewers to 288,000 for NXT. In all groups within that demo, the edge went to AEW. In women 18-34, it was 56,000 to 32,000. In men 18-34 it was 101,000 to 64,000. In women 35-it was 90,000 to 64,000. In men 35-49, it was 221,000 to 128,000 ... The key component in this story relates to Flair ... Thing can change, but week one indicated Flair did increase NXT’s audience with older viewers, but AEW increased more with younger viewers ... For Miz & Mrs., they drew a very different audience from NXT, much younger and far more women, particularly teenage girls and less than half of AEW and only 40 percent of NXT when it comes to over 50.

Meltzer didn't include the quarter breakdowns but found the Miz & Mrs part to be very interesting. It did a much better job drawing younger viewers than NXT and Charlotte's appearance did.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Smackdown on 1/31 did a 1.50 rating and 2,422,000 viewers (1.35 viewers per home), almost identical with the 1.52 rating and 2,448,000 viewers the prior week. I’d call that good because on the West Coast, the show got hurt by the giant numbers the first Los Angeles Lakers game since Kobe Bryant’s death. It started at 10 p.m. Eastern meaning it only went against the West Coast feed ... Smackdown did an 0.7 in 18-49 ... Last year on the same weekend, FOX did a 1.0 in 18-49 and 4,185,000 viewers, so they are down 30 percent in 18-49 and 42.1 percent in viewers.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Rusev has been off television due to a contract dispute

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Shayna Baszler will be a regular on Raw shortly. She is leaving NXT and this has been planned for a long time, probably close to a year so the thing about not wanting to transfer stars in NXT to the main roster and give the idea NXT is developmental or a stepping stone rather than a third brand doesn’t apply to her. For Angel Garza, the story is different. He is considered an NXT guy, but he will be on Raw for now as a fill-in for Andrade. It keeps Carrillo in a program and keeps Vega on television. There is no decision long-term, as he could stay and probably should stay on Raw because the guy is loaded with charisma either as a face or a heel, and he can go in the ring. But he was not a scheduled call-up and those on the NXT roster aren’t allowed to be called up right now unless it’s something planned long-term

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Regarding social media, the issues with Vince McMahon and Matt Riddle are due to his social media posts and challenges. Brock Lesnar doesn’t like him for it and Lesnar has tremendous pull with Vince. Vince also sees him as an outside guy and feels Riddle has no respect for the hierarchy of the business by challenging Goldberg and Lesnar.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter New Japan Pro Wrestling ran the first two of three major New Beginning shows this past weekend, as well as finished its weakest attended foreign tour since its popularity comeback in the U.S. ... Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa regained the IWGP tag team titles beating Juice Robinson & David Finlay on 2/1 at the Coca Cola Roxy in Atlanta ... The idea was for Tonga & Loa to next do a program with Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kota Ibushi, but that depends on Ibushi’s condition. Ibushi is currently out of action with Mallory Weiss Syndrome, which is serious but generally not a long lasting condition and he is still booked for the 2/9 show in Osaka Jo Hall

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter There is still talk about a summer show in Madison Square Garden. It’s not been announced but they did have an August date talked about a few weeks ago. It is close, but you still have the WWE component that at one point got the show shut down last year. The date wasn’t finalized in time to announce it at the Dome on 1/5. But because New Japan did sellout in one day the first time, MSG did not close the door on them for booking even against the wishes of WWE. There are those who think they can sell out again because the first went clean on day one ... Plus, while they did sell out instantly, the secondary market was weak because so many bought tickets with the idea of Omega defending the IWGP title, since he was champion at the time the tickets were put on sale. New Japan is going with the idea the sellout was the popularity of New Japan and the drawing power of Okada in particular and that it can be pulled off again.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Joey Janela’s Spring Break show on 4/3 at the Cuban Club in Ybor City, FL, which is the Friday night before WrestleMania, is looking at trying to sell upwards of 4,000 tickets, making it the biggest indie crowd of the year. The first major matches announced are Orange Cassidy vs. Minoru Suzuki and Tony Deppan vs. Alex Shelley. They’ve also announced Will Ospreay and Great Muta

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter There are issues behind-the-scenes between MLW and Impact. MLW claims Impact tried to break up the NOAH/MLW relationship as well as the AAA/MLW relationship. The latter wasn’t successful since Konnan and Laredo kid were on the show

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Three other names that have been talked about as being part of the TNA show bringing back talent from the past are Mike Tenay (asked but right now I’d say more likely not happening), Dixie Carter and the other guy they are going back-and-forth about asking is Vince Russo. There seems to be the idea that if they bring in Russo, that it would stir up so much negativity that people would for sure know the date and time of the show and that it would help business The angle with Ace Austin hitting on Trey Miguel’s mom has been dropped. The woman who played Miguel’s mom actually worked a regular job for the company but she’s no longer working here

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Friday's non-Newsletter edition):

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The WWE stock has not reacted well to any of the news following Thursday. On Friday, the stock was down 4.4% and closed at $42.53 after opening at $44.85.

It improved to $42.75 as of 5:39PM EST for after-hour trading.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling An interesting story floating around on Friday comes from Needham analyst Laura Martin following WWE’s investor’s call. Martin, who is a regular on the investor’s calls, believes that Amazon securing the streaming rights would put the giant in a great position to eventually buy the entire WWE. Martin believes that WWE’s programming is far more valuable due to a built-in audience that other start-up series don’t have the benefit of. Martin has placed a ‘buy’ rating for the stock given its level it has dipped to, which she adds makes the WWE more attractive to buy versus several months ago when the stock was significantly higher. On his radio show today, Dave Meltzer said that Amazon Prime is not interested in WWE.

Originally Posted by Observer One-half of the Raw Tag Team Champions has undergone a slight name change. Post Wrestling reported today that Buddy Murphy will now be promoted as just "Murphy" by WWE. The name change has also been confirmed on WWE.com. Post Wrestling wrote that they "learned of the alteration through several sources in the company that were notified of the change moving forward."

Originally Posted by Observer On Friday, AEW announced they are partnering with the Atlanta chapter of the American Heart Association, giving donators a pair of tickets to Dynamite on February 19th. February is American Heart Month, designed to raise awareness for heart disease, the number one cause of death for men and women in the U.S. From now through February 14th, donations for $50 or more to the AHA's Atlanta chapter will earn two tickets to Dynamite.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WrestleCon has announced that Kenny Omega will be signing autographs and available for photo ops on Friday, April 3rd at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa.

Originally Posted by PWI Arizona Central is reporting that former WWF and WCW star Emmet Bryan Clark (professionally known as The Nightstalker, Wrath, Adam Bomb and as Bryan Clark over the course of his wrestling career),55, has plead not guilty to a series of drug related charges in the State of Arizona. Clark has been charged with conspiracy, illegal control of enterprise, transporting or selling narcotics, drug possession and possessing a weapon during a drug offense for incidents that took place in January 2019 and April 2019. The Arizona Attorney General's Office declined to give comment on the case to the Arizona Republic. Clark's attorney released a statement that "The police report contains alleged facts that have been grossly misconstrued and are incorrect" and that Clark "has been targeted because of his notoriety and acquaintances."

Originally Posted by PWI The resurrected XFL, owned by Vince McMahon’s Alpha Entertainment, officially launches this weekend. There will be four games this weekend: *Tomorrow, Saturday 2/8 The DC Defenders host the Seattle Dragons at 2 PM EST, a game that will air on ABC. *A second game, featuring The Los Angeles Wildcats at the Houston Roughnecks will air 5 PM EST on FOX. *Sunday 2/9, The New York Guardians will host the Tampa Bay Vipers on FOX at 2 PM on FOX. *The St. Louis BattleHawks will be hosted by The Dallas Renegades on ESPN at 5 PM EST.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Ring of Honor has signed Australian wrestler Adam Brooks (Adam Wilmot). He has been wrestling for a decade and is the current heavyweight champion for Melbourne City Wrestling He had a busy 2019 wrestling all over the world including for Rev Pro, Progress, MLW, The Crash, and PWG.

Originally Posted by Fightful With several EVPs, many wondered early on how much influence The Young Bucks, Cody Rhodes, Kenny Omega and others coupled with the fact that founder Tony Khan had the "final say." As it turns out, things have expanded well beyond that, as reported on our Fightful Select service this week. The Fightful Select update read as follows. I'm told that people in AEW have been having fun working on the creative aspects of the Hangman Page storyline. Tony Khan specifically has evolved from being the person with the final say to a person developing more stories and ideas creatively of his own, as well as being more outspoken about other people's ideas. Thus far, we've heard that his creative input has been received positively from people on the roster. That Hangman Page story specifically was one that he's worked closely on and contributed to heavily. Kenny Omega is credited with the idea of turning Britt Baker heel internally, and the promo lines about Tony Schiavone's job were said to have come from Tony Khan.

Originally Posted by Fightful New Japan Pro-Wrestling will reportedly return to Madison Square Garden at some point in 2020. According to Mike Killam at ProWrestling.com, NJPW is targetting August for its return to MSG. Super J-Cast reports that the most common date relayed to them was Saturday, Aug. 22 with Killam noting that is the weekend NJPW officials have been pushing for, but as of now nothing is set in stone.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Shayna Baszler May Debut on Raw as Early as Monday
• Taynara Conti Reportedly Left WWE After a Contract Dispute
• More on WWE’s Q4 Fiscal Report, Vince on Leadership Changes and AEW Impact

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Raw increased eight percent from last week's low level with a show that did the best job of keeping the audience in a long time. Raw averaged 2.34 million viewers, not far off the 2.40 million for the show the day after the Royal Rumble. But more important was the ratings pattern where for the first time since August 26, the audience grew in the second hour. This isn't unusual during daylight savings time but it is very unusual during standard time, particularly in the winter ... The show was down five percent from the same week last year ... In particular, the big winner was Angel Garza, whose match with Cedric Alexander was the high point of the show. The three hours were: 8 p.m. 2.40 million viewers 9 p.m. 2.41 million viewers 10 p.m. 2.20 million viewers

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Raw was up 8% in total viewership with an average of 2,337,000 viewers on the USA Network. The show was likely assisted by avoiding the New Hampshire primary which takes place tonight while the Iowa primary was on Monday night last week ... The key demographics saw growth across the board. In the 18-49 demo, Raw did a 0.80 up 19% from last week’s figure placing Raw as the top cable program on Monday night. Adults 25-54 were also up big with an increase of 24% from last week followed by males and females 18-49 that jumped 18% each. There were no declines among the key demos, although adults over 50 didn’t budge with a 1.02 just as they did last week.

Originally Posted by Observer Matt Riddle did a post-match promo after the NXT Las Vegas house show main event on Saturday and talked about how he was fired by Dana White (they were at The Pearl, a building UFC often runs), how some people don't like him, and that he would be the guy who retires Brock Lesnar. From what I'm told, NXT has given him permission to follow up on the Lesnar stuff.

Originally Posted by Observer Wells Fargo has cut its target price for WWE stock from $80 to $36 due to all the concerns. The stock closed [Monday] today at $42.05 per share.

JPMorgan also recently downgraded WWE's stock value due to WWE's recent actions. As of 6:28PM today, WWE stocks were at $42.35 for after-hour trading.

Originally Posted by Observer The guy who King Corbin poured the drink on Friday night on Smackdown was Markus Mack, the promoter of All Pro Wrestling in Northern California.

Originally Posted by PWI Fale Dojo (Auckland, NZ) is now an official part of the New Japan Pro Wrestling training system. Going forward internationally, the Dojo will now be known as NJPW New Zealand Dojo, however, locally, we will maintain our Fale Dojo brand.

SPOILER: show

Originally Posted by PWI During their TV taping in Las Vegas last night, Impact Wrestling announced that Ken Shamrock would be inducted into their Hall of Fame during Bound for Glory weekend this October. Shamrock, who returned to the promotion last year, was the first-ever NWA: TNA Champion, winning a Gauntlet Match to win the then-vacant NWA title in June 2002.

Spoiler tag used since its related to Impact's Hall of Fame inductee announcement this year.

Originally Posted by SESCoops.com On the latest episode of his Jim Cornette Experience podcast, Jim Cornette goes into detail regarding his former business with the NWA. During the discussion, Cornette confirmed that the NWA was originally hoping for its programming to land on the WWE Network. “The NWA show was what they were thinking was going to end up on the (WWE) Network,” said Jim Cornette. “Then (Lagana) started talking about ‘well, we’re going to do a TV show,” Cornette said. “I said ‘what do you mean, Dave?’ He said ‘well, we’re going to start doing TV.’ I said ‘what would it be on?’ and he said ‘well we’re not sure yet but we think it might be on the WWE Network.” “He did have meetings unless he was just bald-faced lying to me,” Cornette continued. Cornette then said he was skeptical about this actually happening. “I said ‘do you honestly believe that the WWF is going to put an NWA television show on their network?'” Cornette said he asked Lagana. “Finally, he called and said ‘Well, we’re going to do it on YouTube,'” Cornette said of his conversation with Lagana. “Originally the NWA show was going to be on the WWE Network and then that didn’t work out and they put it on YouTube,” Cornette continued.

NWA also had considered the idea of being on ROH's HonorClub service before talks between the two sides broke down.

Originally Posted by Observer The UFC’s Jon Jones told Sports Illustrated that he thinks it’s “inevitable” he’ll end up working with WWE in some form: “I think it’s inevitable. I’ve always respected WWE, and I feel like the sports can be so similar.” “I have the size and athleticism and the following to transition over really well. To get the opportunity to just show up, even as a special guest, would be a dream come true.”

Originally Posted by PWI Interesting to note that for the week ending 2/2, MLW Fusion on Freesports brought in 16,8000 viewers, beating WWE NXT on BT Sport 2, which garnered 12,600 viewers that week.

Originally Posted by PWI Davey Boy Smith Jr. announced today he would be debuting in All Japan Pro Wrestling, competing in the 2020 Champion Carnival tournament: Very excited to announce that I will be participating in the 2020 All Japan Pro-Wrestling Champion Carnival! My father Davey Boy Smith, and also Dynamite Kid and Johnny Smith once competed in the same league. I plan on winning this one! ???????????????????????????????? pic.twitter.com/rMn9WCHZ1c — Davey Boy Smith Jr. (@DBSmithjr) February 11, 2020

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Neilsen has conducted a study that shows in the fourth quarter of 2019, 19% of viewers watching TV spent that time on a streaming service. The study doesn’t include those watching on tablets or mobile devices and only monitored streaming on televisions. Of the streaming services, Netflix leads the way with 31% with connected-TV viewing followed by YouTube, Hulu, and Amazon. The study noted that 91% of the people that responded subscribe to a streaming service with 96% among those 18-34. It notes that 30% of consumers in the United States subscriber to three or more services. Among adults over the age of 18, average daily viewing for live and time-shifted programs on TV fell 7% in the third quarter of 2019 at 3 hours and 56 minutes per day. Time spent watching connected-TV devices increased 17% to 55 minutes per day while viewing on smartphones increased 45% to sixteen minutes per day and viewing on computers stayed the same at seven minutes per day.

Link: https://variety.com/2020/digital/new...en-1203500634/

Originally Posted by Fightful NWA's The Circle Squared competition series has a premiere date. During the most recent episode of Powerrr, Sean Mooney revealed that the show, which will see wrestlers perform in front of an audience in order to secure a contract to compete for the NWA, will premiere on February 18 at 6:05 p.m. ET. Mooney, who will host the show, also mentioned that Powerrr will take a one-week hiatus as a result and return on February 25.

Originally Posted by Fightful Speaking with Wrestling Observer Radio, Cody Rhodes was asked about a second show being added to AEW's TNT schedule and admitted that although no formal discussions have happened with Warner Media, they are prepared for when the trigger is pulled on the third hour ... One of the formats being considered would center directly around the younger men and women of AEW, saying it's hard enough for established talent to get on TV every week, and this would provide the company with an avenue to highlight countless up-and-coming talents with whom the audience is not yet entirely familiar ... "Initially there was talk that it’ll be like Dark but on another channel. I don’t think it’ll be like Dark. I think it’s gonna be its own animal, and we would want that. We would want to test ourselves,” Cody said. The conversation then pivoted towards secondary championships and when one might be introduced into AEW. Cody acknowledged that it is being discussed, but cautions that they're moving slowly. "I think we have an idea that's different than anything that's been done and I would just hope that everyone remains patient. Their yearning, their lust for that type of belt - championship - I think will be satiated in 2020. Again, I'm not saying there's a mid-card title, because if I was to say that there is a mid-card title coming to AEW, Nick Jackson would superkick my skull clean off my head. We're moving slow. It's something that the EVP's all have to agree on, but there is a really great idea in gestation. There's a great idea out there. Hopefully something that maybe (will) come along with the third-hour news (as) that kind of becomes more prominent," Cody said.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_A_4UFzN1s


TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE: Becky Lynch on Wanting to Be Highest Paid Star, MVP Update, Updated SD Ratings
• XFL Ratings for All Week 1 Games
• Brandi Rhodes Says That She’s Done With the Nightmare Collective
• Matt Hardy Says Goodbye, Possibly Written Off of TV + Jeff Hardy Update

[Emperor Smeat]

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Originally Posted by Observer This week's episode of WWE Backstage drew the show's second-best viewership since it premiered in its regular time slot. Backstage averaged 169,000 viewers on FS1 last night, which was up 74 percent from the 97,000 viewers it did last week. The rating in the 18-49 demo was a 0.06, up from last week's 0.05. This week's Backstage began at 11:15 p.m. Eastern time and had a strong lead-in. The second and final day of this year's Westminster Dog Show averaged 1.089 million viewers on FS1 and did a 0.17 rating in 18-49.

Originally Posted by Observer Teddy Hart, former MLW roster member, frequent indie wrestler, and New Hart Foundation member, was arrested Tuesday in Richmond, Virginia, on drug related charges. The 40-year-old born Edward Annis was charged with possession of a Schedule III narcotic (a Class 1 misdemeanor) and possession with intent to sell or distribute. According to PW Insider, Hart was incarcerated at the Richmond County Jail after being booked at midnight. It's unknown if he has been released on bail, but he does have an April 23rd court date. Schedule III drugs include codeine, anabolic steroids, hydrocodone, and others in that family. Hart faces up to a year in jail and up to a $2500 fine for the misdemeanor while the possession with intent charge also carries jail time of between 1-10 years in prison or up to a year in jail with a fine to not exceed $2500.

Originally Posted by Observer Ring of Honor is replacing their Women's title with a new championship. Following the departure of champion Kelly Klein at the end of last year, ROH has revealed how they're handling their Women's title situation. A tournament to crown a new champion will begin at Quest for Gold in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Friday, April 24. The show is taking place at the 2300 Arena and will feature eight first-round matches in the tournament. The winner of the tournament will receive the ROH Women's World Championship, with that title replacing the Women of Honor World Championship.

Originally Posted by PWI Paul Levesque met with reporters on a conference call this morning in advance of Sunday's Takeover Portland event ... The first question came from Jason Powell. He asked about why NXT isn’t doing as well as AEW in the key demos on Wednesday nights. He said he think it’s all about the long game. What they have to do is get to the people in the younger demos. He said when you are promoted and viewed in the younger demos, those are the people that you will attract. He said that the NXT numbers are similar to a basic USA number. The long game is building up the brand. He said that they have proven the product in a hardcore, wrestling action sense. Now they need to start add in different things, entertainment wise. They have established that it’s great wrestling. Now they can work on other aspects. He said he is happy with the show and its trajectory and now they have to go in the direction they wanted to go ... Why wasn’t there a Halftime Heat this year? Did it sneak up on you? He said they were aware of when the Super Bowl was. He said FOX is their partner now and you don’t do that. Last year the timing was right. This year it wasn’t. He said he was glad they didn’t. He was at the Halftime Show live and it was spectacular. It was mind boggling how they did it. Has Shayna Baszler officially moved to Raw? That will play out. He said that Becky’s rise has been insane but you still need great opponents. He hopes it turns into something massive for both of them. Right now, he looks at it like sports teams making deals. He said right now he sees her as an NXT talent until they make a deal for her to go somewhere else ... On the potential of taking NXT TV on the road, HHH said Full Sail is one of the most valuable partners they have in WWE. He sees it as more of a family relationship more than a business relationship. He said he couldn’t even comment on whether they have a contractual relationship. Their partnership doesn’t just train talent but producers and directors doing Wrestlemania now who cut their teeth in Florida. They have camera guys who are doing that now who started in Full Sail. The amount of stuff that they do that we see and don’t see – and the people who are inside the gears of the machine are from inside in Full Sail. They aren’t just renting a facility every Wednesday. Full Sail is family and part of that partnership. They will always do what’s best for business if there’s an opportunity. He noted that there’s a week coming up where they can’t run Full Sail that week because Full Sail had a prior commitment so NXT will be on the road that week. He reiterated each side is super committed and will help each other. On the Matt Riddle-Brock Lesnar story, Vince McMahon has never issued his disapproval of what was said by Riddle. There was a conversation between Riddle and Lesnar and that’s between them. They are grown adults and whatever they decided amongst themselves is what it is. Sometimes he reads things and wonders if it’s a shoot or a work but he’s entertained by it. He said that it is what it is. Riddle is an incredibly talented performer. He has his own viewpoints and that’s his own thing. He said he thinks Brock probably thinks don’t write checks you can’t cash and he thinks Riddle, in his mind, is writing checks he can cash.

Originally Posted by PWI ESPN featured a piece on WWE's media day yesterday in Los Angeles to promote Wrestlemania 37. In the piece, it was noted that Roman Reigns pushed the idea of himself vs. The Rock at Wrestlemania in 2021, commenting, ""Hey, DJ, check it out. Not bad, right? I mean, the weather is good. Everyone is always talking about a dream match, me and him. First of all, we're family, so it's all love. If there was gonna be an event for him to compete in, to perform in, a venue to hold that mass scale of attention he's gonna bring? It's right here in your backyard. You ain't gotta go far."

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling While appearing on the Swerve City Podcast with Isaiah “Swerve” Scott, Teasy and AEW’s Big Swole, Breeze opened up about his days in WWE’s developmental brand. He talked about how he was also cutting it close when it came to being let go from the company and later revealed that he and former WWE star Big Cass were supposed to be fired from WWE at the conclusion of ESPN’s E:60 documentary about NXT that released in 2015. Breeze accredited him and Cass not being fired to both men coming up with creative ideas for their respective characters. “I get brought into a room, and it was me, Corey Graves, Xavier Woods, Colin Cassady [Big Cass] and somebody else… Adam Rose, and we’re told that we’re doing an ESPN thing. We’re doing an E:60, and so of course we’re all like, ‘Awesome. This is great, this is really cool.’ So they follow us around, they do some interviews, they do all this other stuff. Little did I know, I find this out after. After Tyler Breeze comes into existence, and I end up being on NXT and it took like a year or whatever it was… after I came into existence and Cassady, the same thing. Enzo and Cass went together and they became a thing. Hunter’s in front doing the post-NXT chat and he’s talking to everybody, and he goes, ‘Alright, just so you know, on this E:60, there was supposed to be guys that made it and guys that did not make it.’ Me and Colin Cassady were supposed to be the guys that did not make it and got fired at the end of this thing. We had no idea. We thought it was like, ‘Hey, these are the guys we want to showcase.’ Not the case whatsoever. We were supposed to be fired. Hunter’s telling everybody that we were supposed to be fired and now because we came up with stuff, our job is saved. Six months before that, I’m about to get fired again so, we do the E:60 thing. I guess they’re supposed to fire me but they can’t fire me until the episodes come up.”

Not surprised WWE would do something as stupid as have a documentary made about them and actually plan to fire people in order to fit the film's narrative.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling All Elite Wrestling Co-Executive Vice President Cody Rhodes appeared on Wrestling Observer Radio ... While talking about storylines, Rhodes said that he specifically likes to have things planned out six months in advance. There are things that come up that alter certain people’s timing but with him, Chris Jericho and those alike, things are mapped out months in advance. “I’d say not a full year but maybe six months. Not everybody likes to talk about six months from now. It’s not the conversation that everyone wants to talk about now and this week, but I think one of the keys to what we do is gonna be having an advanced plan and to be honest, some of the stuff we do, have kind of a thought process [of] one year — ‘What does this look like?’ For example, Double Or Nothing. Not this year but what will Double Or Nothing look like next year. I think we’ve gotta stay to that and we haven’t had any signs that we won’t be able to accomplish that. With a weekly show, we’ve kept it at six months at minimum for certain stuff. There’s certain guys that flow a little bit more improvisationally, and move like maybe every — they’ve got four weeks mapped out. Guys like Jericho and myself I guess, who I got it mapped out pretty far in advance. That’s a part of what I was telling you. Again, real inside baseball here but, this is the Observer but, I like to have everything well mapped out for me. It just gives me something to work for, and something to flow off of and it’s wrestling. Stuff can change, at any minute, at any second. I’m used to that. I’m used to change. It’s nice to have that structure. That’s a big thing. AEW is the renegade wild company but, it’s amazing how much real structure exists here and I love the fact that that’s the way it is.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Charly Caruso posted on her Instagram story that she’s going to be working on an official XFL show.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On the most recent edition of Eric Bischoff’s 83 Weeks podcast, he talked about the creative control that Paul Heyman really has in WWE and explained that no one truly has creative control and people on the outside have a misconception that Heyman and/or Bruce Prichard are running things. “There’s one guy who has creative control. It’s not Paul Heyman. I hate to break your bubble, and I love Paul by the way. Conrad, you and I talked about Paul a little bit when I visited you last week and I shared with you how highly I regard Paul’s creative abilities and things like that so this is not meant to be any kind of half-assed attempt to take a shot or anything like that, but Paul Heyman doesn’t have creative control, and anybody that thinks he does is kidding themselves. I know Paul doesn’t, and neither does anybody else. One guy has creative control, and we all know who that is. So when I said, while I was there, I didn’t have creative control, I was being honest. I didn’t, because one man did. Paul Heyman doesn’t, Eric Bischoff didn’t. Nobody who follows in either my footsteps including Bruce Prichard — you know how much I love Bruce… or Paul Heyman, have creative control.”

Originally Posted by Fightful Kurt Angle is very impressed by the NXT product but still feels that it can't be said NXT is a better product than Raw or SmackDown. Speaking to Sportskeeda, the 2017 WWE Hall of Famer says he is very impressed by what his former rival, Triple H, has put together but to him, it is still the training ground for one of WWE's more traditional television shows. “I think NXT is a great brand. I think Triple H has done an incredible job with that. But you know what? It is still the 'training ground' for RAW and SmackDown,” Angle said. “These guys might have a little more leeway than the guys on RAW and SmackDown. They get more time in their matches than the guys on RAW and SmackDown. If you watch any NXT TakeOver, every match is 30 minutes. Guys and girls on RAW and SmackDown, they don't get that kind of time so I wouldn't say they are the better product, I would say they have more freedom on what they want to do. "But when you get up to the big show, you've got to make the time cues and you've got to listen to your boss, you have to do things specifically and I don't think that NXT has to do that. That's probably the reason why a lot of the guys want to stay there and I don't blame them for that - but would I say it's a better product? No, not by any means but I would say that they are doing an excellent job and Triple H has done an unbelievable job of making that an entity. Basically a product of its own. It could survive on its own. So it has become huge and there are a lot of fans that follow it.”

Originally Posted by Observer TJPW announced that Yuka Sakazaki will miss their March 1 card at KFC Hall due to scheduling reasons. AEW Revolution takes place a day prior

TPWW Frontpage:

• AEW Dynamite & NXT Cards for Tonight + AEW Rankings
• John Cena Will Appear on the February 28 SmackDown
• PWG Announces Card for Their Next Show, “Kobe”

[Evil Vito]

Jushin Liger and The Bella Twins rumored for the HOF

[DaveWadding]

Originally Posted by Conspiracy Victim Vito Jushin Liger and The Bella Twins rumored for the HOF

#HOFThreesome

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Ratings are in for Wednesday's installment of the Wednesday Night Wars -- with AEW Dynamite taking the night with an average viewership of 817,000 to NXT's 757,000. However, the Dynamite number was down 12 percent from last week while NXT dipped by just two percent. In the 18-49 demo, AEW averaged a 0.3 rating, down 17 percent from last week, good for a 10th place finish on cable. NXT was up nine percent in the demo, averaging a 0.24, putting them 21st. The NXT demo number represents one of their best showings since their first few weeks, and the gap of 0.6 between the two was the closest the WWE property has been since December 18 when they beat Dynamite. In addition to people over 50, NXT also had a slight win in females 18-49 with a 0.18 to 0.16 advantage over AEW. Per usual, AEW's strongest category was men 18-49, where they had a 0.41 to 0.28 advantage ... Miz and Mrs, which immediately followed NXT on USA, was down four percent this week, averaging 457,000 viewers. That was good for 49th on cable in the 18-49 demo with a 0.16 rating.

USA Network probably regrets not putting the new season of Miz & Mrs on Tuesdays since that was a better day for viewership and also had a better lead-in due to Smackdown.

Originally Posted by Observer The former El Hijo del Fantasma is set to make his NXT debut this weekend. WWE announced last night that Jorge Bolly (formerly known as El Hijo del Fantasma and King Cuerno) will make his debut for the promotion at NXT's house show in Fort Pierce, Florida this Saturday (February 15) ... It was officially announced in September 2019 that Bolly had signed with WWE. Dave Meltzer reported last week that the reason there had been no mentions of Bolly since he signed with WWE was because he had blown out his knee. Meltzer wrote that Bolly was expected to be cleared to return imminently. WWE has also revealed that Tino Sabbatelli, who suffered a torn pec in 2018, is set for NXT's house show in Tampa, Florida this Friday night.

Originally Posted by PWI Current NWA Women’s Champion and Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling International Princess Champion Thunder Rosa noted on social media that she was the victim of a hit and run accident while in their car yesterday and is selling some of her gear to help finance the car repairs. Hey guys, yesterday I was involved in a hit and run accident a d to raise money to fix my car, I'm selling different gears! DM Me or email me at thunderrosa22@gmail.com Thanks for your support! pic.twitter.com/g4Q5xRdh04 — Thunder Rosa (@thunderrosa22) February 13, 2020

Originally Posted by PWI For those who have asked, the creative direction within the company since the onset of 2020 has primarily been Tony Khan. The EVPs all have a say in what they are doing and are trusted, but all of the current storylines and pushes are Khan edicts and he's been very hands on with laying out exactly what he wants out of each segment in recent weeks. Chris Jericho remains very involved with working to get the newer stars in the company over. The Double or Nothing pre-sale today was extremely strong and all signs are the PPV will sell out when it goes on sale tomorrow officially. As of today, Jeff Cobb is only booked for next Wednesday's Dynamite in Atlanta. His status with Ring of Honor and New Japan remains unchanged. As we reported yesterday, he is not signed to anyone and can work anywhere he wants. With her win last night, Nyla Rose becomes the first Native American to win a women's title that I can recall in recent times as well as the first transgender athlete to be crowned a Women's Champion in the United States that we are publicly aware of ... New Japan star Chase Owens was backstage visiting last night

The Nyla stuff is interesting since around the same time AEW announced a deal with her, WWE held a tryout shortly afterwards that had a transgendered athlete/wrestler among those invited. Not sure if WWE signed a deal with person in the end.

Originally Posted by PWI There has been talk recently of adding some independent promotions to the Impact+ streaming service.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling We were able to see a quarter-hour breakdown of last Friday’s edition of Friday Night SmackDown that featured Bill Goldberg’s appearance to challenge The Fiend for a Universal title match. The show peaked in the first segment with the return of ‘The Dirt Sheet’ with The Miz and John Morrison, who was confronted by the New Day with an average of 2,657,000 viewers ... 9 – 9:15 pm increased by 125,000 viewers to 2,634,000 viewers for Roman Reigns attacking King Corbin followed by Bill Goldberg’s satellite interview and Firefly Fun House segment and the locker room segment with Daniel Bryan and Heath Slater.

The Goldberg segment block had the highest gains in terms of viewership for the night. Only two other segments had gains and combined they were lower than Goldberg's quarter-hour.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Metro chatted with Alexa Bliss about the song that ‘Bowling For Soup’ created about her and Bliss stated that she would love if they were able to play the song live for her entrance at WrestleMania 36 if she’s on the card. “I mean, I would love that. Any opportunity to be able to have my favorite band playing a song about me at WrestleMania would be incredible. I don’t know what I’m doing at WrestleMania, but it’s definitely something I’m going to throw out into the universe.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Chris Van Vliet conducted an interview with NWA President Billy Corgan. During their conversation, Corgan revealed that NWA is in discussions about doing some live touring shows. “It was always heavy TV production and let’s see how it goes but our thing was, we will pivot from being a TV production first to a live touring [show] and people always ask, ‘When are you gonna start touring?’ And we’re in discussions right now to start doing live touring events.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Jim Ross and Conrad Thompson hosted a Q&A session for the latest edition of the Grilling JR podcast. Jim Ross mentioned that he ran into Mickie James at an airport recently. Mickie is married to NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion Nick Aldis. Ross said that he would love to have Aldis in AEW. “Nick Aldis is a good hand, man. Nick Aldis is a hell of a hand. I wish we had him in AEW. I’m sure any promotion [wishes] they had Nick Aldis because he’s that good.” One of the questions that was presented to Jim Ross was who will he pass the torch to after he decides to step away from the AEW commentary booth and he said Excalibur. Ross said that both he and Tony Schiavone agreed to pass on any knowledge that they have to Excalibur so he can thrive in his role. “Excalibur… does a good job. Tony [Schiavone] and I both have made a commitment to share any knowledge we have, anything he wants to hear with him because, somewhere down the road, he should be the voice of AEW. But I’m not quite ready to step aside right now and neither is Tony. But we’re actually having a great time. Traveling with Tony from time to time. We did a show in Huntsville [Alabama] a couple weeks ago, a week ago. He’s [Tony Schiavone] an old woman,” Ross joked. “I love him though. I finally convinced Tony Khan how valuable Tony Schiavone would be if he was on our team and all the things he could do for us, and that was one of the best hires Tony Khan has made is getting Schiavone back in the game, and I’m so glad he’s on our team but Excalibur’s evolving, learning. He’s never done a national broadcast. He was doing very inexpensive, little streaming shoots on PWG. So he’s like a lot of our guys we have in the locker room. He’s new, he’s green and he’s learning but he’s gonna be really good.”

Originally Posted by Fightful AJ Styles could potentially have a big match at WrestleMania this spring. According to a report from WrestleZone, Styles is currently planned to face The Undertaker at this year's WrestleMania, taking place on April 5 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

WWE officially announced on 2/10 that the 37th WrestleMania will be coming to the new SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA, just outside Los Angeles, on March 28, 2021 ... SoFi Stadium, which is scheduled to open in July and be the home of both the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers starting with the upcoming football season, is listed with a capacity of 70,240, but it can be expanded for another 30,000 seats and the Super Bowl is legitimately expected to draw 100,000. WWE will also likely announce six figures, likely announcing a larger number than their public company record of 101,763 set for WrestleMania 32 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX on April 3, 2016. The Arlington police department later reported that 80,709 fans was the actual turnstile count for that event. If they expand the stadium, and likely will, this can break what is the legitimate largest crowd in WWE history.

New Japan Pro Wrestling made two major announcements and a few minor ones on 2/9 at the New Beginning in Osaka show. The big one is that New Japan World Pro Wrestling will return to prime time in April, with a weekly show at 8 p.m. on Friday nights on BS Asahi, the satellite channel of TV-Asahi ... From its inception in 1972, until 1987, 8 p.m. on Friday night was the traditional New Japan television time slot. When ratings declined in 1987, it was moved first to Tuesday, and then to Monday, also at 8 p.m. In 1988, it was moved to Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. and then after that, as has been the case for the last 30 plus years, the show has aired post-midnight, first a 60 minute show, and then cut to 30 minutes, around 2:30 a.m. early Sunday morning ... Harold Meij put the new deal together which gives the company its strongest television time slot in decades. Part of the deal is that no planned blood is allowed on the show, although the bloodbath Tetsuya Naito vs. KENTA match may be allowable since the blood was not planned. Those in New Japan believe that being back in prime time will help create a new fan base.

A second announcement is that New Japan will promote its biggest event for the remainder of 2020, Wrestle Dynasty, on 8/22 in Madison Square Garden. The show will take place on the same weekend as SummerSlam, which will take place the next day in Boston. But it will go head-to-head with the NXT Takeover show in Boston. It also comes two weeks before All Out 2 in Chicago. The idea is that New Japan will present a card equivalent to a Wrestle Kingdom ... As things stand right now, neither Jon Moxley or Chris Jericho would be allowed to appear on the show as their AEW deal only allows for them to work for New Japan in Japan. It’s notable that after all the pressure coming from the WWE side, that in the end, Madison Square Garden gave them this date. New Japan had planned on announcing this show on 1/5 at the Tokyo Dome, but it wasn’t finalized until recently for the obvious issues. The combined New Japan and ROH show sold out the MSG this past April, and it was very clear it was New Japan, and not ROH, that was the key. It is the only non-WWE show in United States and Canadian pro wrestling history ever to do a $1 million gate. But when tickets were sold, Kenny Omega was the IWGP champion. There was also a huge amount of scalper interest in the show, as it was the first non-McMahon family promoted pro wrestling event in MSG since 1960. As it turned out, it was a soft secondary market, so scalpers may not be as apt to buy in this time. There are a lot of questions that will be answered regarding the interest level in the U.S. of a pure New Japan show without any major American names as well as a second show in the building as opposed to a first. Going against NXT, even if it’s four hours away, is also legit competition for some of the some of the same fans. Most likely NXT will get a jump by putting tickets on sale first.

The XFL debuted this past week to what I’d call very impressive numbers, and also positive reaction. Unlike the first incarnation, which was treated as a laughing stock after a few weeks due to terrible (for the time) prime time ratings, this league, basically marketing straight football with no gimmicks, was covered like a legitimate major league sport with scores read on sports radio and ESPN SportsCenter. While the ratings were not much higher than the AAF debuted with in its first week (2.9 million for AAF, 3.3 million for XFL), the XFL had a better station lineup with FOX, ABC, ESPN and FS 1 all having games ... The long-term goal for success would be if the network games average 1.5 million viewers and the games on ESPN and FS 1 end up at 700,000. The expectation is a big drop over the next few weeks and by week three or four things would settle in ... The good sign was that they were able to hit that same level for the second game, and more importantly the Sunday games. That was the big story here. Basically it said the first day numbers were more than just a one-time novelty of people checking something out once out of curiosity and moving on. The FOX 5 p.m. game on Saturday did 1,418,000 viewers in the 18-49 demo while the FOX 2 p.m. Sunday game did 1,336,000, the ABC game on Saturday did 1,366,000 and the ESPN game did 1,211,000. Because the league was more organized and had hired Elevate Sports Ventures to hire sales staffs well ahead of time, the league is said to have already, through season tickets, sold more tickets for this season than the AAF did even though AAF claimed more. The league is projecting doing attendance figures of 15,000 to 20,000 per game. The first weekend average of 17,455 was less than the AAF’s first week of 19,210. The first XFL averaged 35,115 in week one, but it came in with so much more hype, and also all three of these numbers came with liberal papering. But Seattle and St. Louis came into the season having sold more than 10,000 season tickets.

According to Meltzer, any new tv contract for XFL likely will need to be around at least $125 million per year just to cover the losses the league is planning to lose for the 1st 3 years.

Bill Goldberg’s latest WWE return will be for the 2/27 Super Showdown event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, at the International Arena at The Boulevard, where he will face Bray Wyatt for the Universal title. It’s going to be a tough match to put together, although it no doubt will be kept short. The problem is that Goldberg isn’t good in a match where he has to sell much, and Wyatt’s gimmick is based on not selling big moves. Previously on his WWE run, Goldberg had been a Paul Heyman project, starting with carefully crafting his matches and interviews to do a program with Brock Lesnar. That was supposed to be his retirement run, but it got over so big and he still looked the part, so Heyman, when he was put in control of Raw, wanted Goldberg to be his late 1970s Bruno Sammartino, who would come back every once in a while to pop ratings and vanquish a heel. The idea, like with Sammartino, is that he wouldn’t lose until his finite time ended to where you couldn’t do the role ... The sad part of this is when it became apparent Goldberg was facing Wyatt, it also became clear that there would be more interest in Goldberg vs. Roman Reigns at WrestleMania for the title than Wyatt in the spot, even though Wyatt has been pushed in his Fiend character as an unbeatable monster. The plan originally was still Wyatt vs. Reigns and Goldberg was only scheduled for Saudi Arabia. But his return to television showed he still had a level of ratings juice, at least at first, that nobody else on the roster has. It also says volumes about the ability to create a star now. Bringing someone back based on a huge run nearly 22 years ago outshines the guy protected more in booking than anyone else who is also the company’s top merchandise seller.

Even though both had strong shows, both AEW and NXT were down this week, but the AEW drop was significant and NXT drop was minimum, leading to a significant closing of the gap ... The difference is that NXT won three of the first four quarters overall, although AEW won every quarter in 18-49. NXT faded while AEW grew as the show was going on. AEW won by a significant margin in the second hour. AEW’s lead-in was down 42 percent from usual (coincidentally it was the movie “Pain and Gain” featuring Dwayne Johnson), and that could partially explain the weak open, but only partially. Most wrestling fans tune in to a station rather than are regulars watching the station. A big lead-in helps and a bad lead-in hurts, but it shouldn’t be to this degree. But the show started so low after the bad lead-in, and that’s with a strong opening segment, that it broke the Wednesday pattern for both shows of starting high and trickling off ... Also notable is that after AEW ended, NXT’s main event of Adam Cole vs. Kushida only gained 136,000 viewers and 38,000 in 18-49, a far lower increase than is usual. The overrun really meant little difference overall as NXT would have done 755,000 without the overrun.

There is an interesting thing going on regarding some of the talent like Taurus, El Hijo del Vikingo, Laredo Kid and others. AAA right now has business relationships with AEW, Impact and MLW. That in and of itself is difficult because MLW realizes it has no leverage and doesn’t insist on exclusivity, Impact doesn’t really want them dealing MLW but knows they can’t try and push them not to deal with AEW. AEW hasn’t forced them not to deal with anyone else but at times has muscled them regarding Impact guys on their shows that AEW would be on. Impact did for a time push for them not to use Killer Kross when he was under contract to them but they were at the impasse. Anyway, AAA wants the guys who are great workers to sign a U.S. deal but their own stability. Impact, AEW and MLW all run very few dates, so if they sign with those groups, AAA can still use them on pretty much all their TV tapings, maybe every now and then there’s a conflict but usually not. But what it does is solidify their guys being in the U.S., which is now the goal for a lot of the younger talent and where there is more money, but keeps them from going to WWE, which will sign anyone with talent to stockpile, but if they do, then AAA can’t use them anymore. For obvious reasons, AEW has the edge and priority, but AEW isn’t in the mode of signing everyone with talent. They’ve slowed down on new people because they don’t have enough TV to feature all the guys they have. So they aren’t rushing to sign new guys, even Vikingo. MLW and Impact have interest in signing those guys

Kenny Omega will return to defend his AAA title at Rey de Reyes on 3/21 in Merida. Pentagon Jr. & Fenix will also be defending the tag titles on that show. The main event will be the Psycho Circus vs. Rush & Park & Bestia del Ring stemming from an angle shot this past week

The story with Cobb is that he’s still a free agent and only has agreed at this point to do the program with Moxley. It’s interesting that they were willing to use an ROH guy (Cobb never signed a new ROH contract so he can work wherever he wants) for a short-term program. They used footage to introduce him from All Pro Wrestling rather than ROH or NJPW, which was also telling about relationships. Cobb has been offered a deal by Cody but his goal is working as much New Japan as he can right now

There is still not a full explanation as to why Michelle Wilson and George Barrios were fired. Within the company it was said that they were against the idea of signing up talent that wasn’t being used and the much higher talent expenses to keep anyone and everyone from leaving, which lowered the profit margin that Wall Street was expecting from the big TV windfall, and thus made the stock price not hold. From Vince’s standpoint, I can see it. You can see he still remembers the WCW situation, where WWF had such a lead and WCW was always floundering as a business in comparison, and then suddenly he was No. 2. And if not for Steve Austin and the sheer incompetence of those in charge of WCW being so out of touch with their audience, he could have lost that war. McMahon’s feeling in hindsight was always that WCW nearly beat him with his own creations, Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Randy Savage, Roddy Piper and so many others. So the idea is not to let that repeat itself

As of right now, the plans for the 3/8 Elimination Chamber PPV will be Reigns, Corbin, Bryan, Strowman, Nakamura and Roode in a Chamber match with the winner getting a shot at Wyatt at WrestleMania. Those names may change and probably will. We were told that the ad has placeholders in the sense Reigns is probably a lock but they haven’t decided on the others and was told there is a solid chance some of these names will change. They were just looking to advertise a men’s chamber match for a title shot locally in Philadelphia to move tickets. Right now Reigns would be the scheduled winner since Wyatt vs. Reigns has been earmarked for the match but again, nothing happens until it happens

WWE has been making overtures to some U.S. indie companies regarding tape libraries for new network content. This isn’t new and was part of the premium tier idea, but with the new idea, nobody knows what that means for the tiers idea

The story going around about Brie & Nikki Bella and Jushin Liger as being in the 2020 WWE Hall of Fame class is accurate as of right now. The Bellas make sense as WWE unwritten rules are that a woman has to go in every year and they’ve both just retired, and it makes sense to put them in together. Liger is an interesting one but he’s probably as far as a true pro wrestling Hall of Fame is concerned, would be among the most deserving of anyone in the last 40 years. He only worked one match for WWE in his career, on an NXT Takeover against Tyler Breeze, but he did just retire and his name is pretty well known in the U.S. One would expect both announcements imminently

[Mr. Nerfect]

Good for New Japan.

[rez]

Apparently Matt Hardy has been scheduled a match versus Orton for RAW lol. Oh, Vince

[Mr. Nerfect]

That doesn't need to happen.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Friday's News Edition):

Originally Posted by Observer Flamita has been pulled from two upcoming Ring of Honor shows due to injury. In this week's edition of his Eck's Files column for ROH's website, Kevin Eck wrote that Flamita suffered a torn meniscus while teaming with Bandido against The Briscoes at Free Enterprise. Flamita won't be able to wrestle at Bound By Honor in Nashville, Tennessee on Friday, February 28 or Gateway to Honor in St. Louis, Missouri on Saturday, February 29 ... ROH didn't announce a timetable for when Flamita will be returning from his injury.

Originally Posted by PWI The New York Post ran an article today noting that WWE Hall of Famer Ted DiBiase's non-profit religious organization tHE Heart of David Ministries reportedly received more than $2.1 million in welfare from the state of Mississippi after his son Brett DiBiase began working for the State. The organization had received just $5,000 in grants in 2013, but pulled in $271,000 in welfare money, the same year Brett was hired as a senior official at the Mississippi Department of Human Services. DiBiase’s group received as much as $900,000 one year. The New York Times ran an article on 2/6 covering a massive embezzlement scandal in the State of Mississippi involving a state auditor and former WWE developmental talent Brett DiBiase. According to that article, the former director of the state welfare agency and five others are being charged in one of the biggest embezzlement scandals in the history of the office. Allegedly, Brett DiBiase was given funds to go to a drug treatment facility in Malibu that was earmarked for Mississippi's welfare programs. According to documents, DiBiase was allegedly given the money as payment for classes that he didn't teach for drug abuse. Now, questions have been raised about money directed to DiBiase Sr.'s organization, especially since, as The Post reported, "The state of Mississippi denied more than 98 percent of individual welfare applicants, while giving more than $2 million to DiBiase’s foundation."

Originally Posted by PWI Kevin Ku, who was trained by Brian Fury, has signed a Major League Wrestling contract and will debut in April in Chicago. LA Park Jr, LA Park’s youngest son, will soon debut in MLW. There have been some reports floating around that MLW was trying to actively sign AAA stars to deals. MLW states they are not pursuing any Stateside contracts with AAA talents, but will continue to book AAA talents as well as independent lucha talents from Mexico. The company is currently looking for a heel analyst type announcer to add to their broadcast team. They are looking outside the company for potential ideas.

Originally Posted by PWI The XFL, the Harris County - Houston Sports Authority and the University of Houston today announced at a news conference that Houston, Texas, and TDECU Stadium on the U of H campus will host the league’s championship game on Sunday, April 26, 2020. The game will feature the league’s champions from the East and West divisions and be televised nationally by ESPN at 3:00 p.m. ET.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The WWE stock closed at $44.93 on Friday after opening at $44.00

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The WWE PC YouTube account has been releasing a great series on Tegan Nox’s comeback this week in the lead-up to her street fight with Dakota Kai at TakeOver this Sunday. Part 1 and Part 2 can be viewed with the third episode of the series below (these definitely should have aired on NXT over the past few weeks)

Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22IVjQ91lWM , Part 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg3iFywEM04 , Part 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzdxtx3YLpQ

Originally Posted by Fightful Jon Moxley has filed to trademark this past week for both "Jon Moxley" and "Mox." The two trademarks were filed in the first week of February with "Jon Moxley" being filed on February 7 and "Mox" being filed on February 8. According to Wrestling Inc, the trademarks were filed by Toledo, Ohio lawyer Michael E. Dockins, the same attorney who has done recent filings for The Revival and several AEW stars.

Originally Posted by Fightful According to a report in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter (subscription required), MVP is being transitioned into a backstage producer role within WWE. This transition comes just under a month after MVP returned to WWE as part of the 2020 men's Royal Rumble match, and then subsequently wrestled his final match with the company the following night on Raw against Rey Mysterio. Most recently, MVP was the host of his talk show segments, the VIP lounge, where he offered his managerial services to Drew McIntyre along the Road to WrestleMania, but was promptly meant with a boot to the face. According to the report from the Observer, while this isn't something that will be happening on a regular basis, MVP does so well in the role that it may be utilized sporadically.

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE has unveiled a new Table for 3... only smaller. Released on their YouTube channel, WWE gathered Braun Strowman, Drake Maverick, and Elias around a "tiny" table to talk about their careers and eat "tiny" tacos. In the video (seen above), Braun and Drake shared stories from their time travelling together, including one where Drake tried to eat the same meals as Braun, but the portions were so large that he was miserable and gave up halfway through the day. Asked by Elias to share something interesting, Drake revealed that he was once mistaken for Braun's child. "I remember once walking into the gym, and we asked, "do you do day passes?" Braun took over the conversation and then the women goes "yep, you and your son have a good day." Sharing one of the moments that has stood out to him, Elias described the night he insulted the Seattle SuperSonics a career highlight. "One moment that really sticks out to me is, I was in Seattle, and I was sitting there with Kevin Owens on the stool and I said this line about the Sonics and their basketball team. I triggered that crowd so much. I swear, I think they tried to boo me out of that building. I remember Kevin Owens was standing right next to me, screaming in my ear and I couldn't hear him."

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


TPWW Frontpage:

• Various: Jeff Cobb AEW Status Update, ROH News & New Matches for Past vs. Present, Indies
• Cathy Kelley Announces She’s Leaving WWE
• Matt Hardy Not Done Yet, Will Wrestle on Raw on Monday

[slik]

Meltzer reporting Cena vs Elias at WM

Makes sense.

Cena can't have a long match and risk injury due to his filming commitments. This lets him have a short, sweet match that's a few minutes long to hit his spots, maybe for the last time too.

[SlickyTrickyDamon]

Isn't Elias back to being a face or did he turn again? He's quickly becoming this era's Big Show.

[erickman]

Originally Posted by Slik Meltzer reporting Cena vs Elias at WM Makes sense. Cena can't have a long match and risk injury due to his filming commitments. This lets him have a short, sweet match that's a few minutes long to hit his spots, maybe for the last time too.

i thought elias was a face now, I can see them in a sing rap off more then a match. they need to add the rock since he can't do anything ether, let that be a good blow off segment.

[Emperor Smeat]

Originally Posted by Slik Meltzer reporting Cena vs Elias at WM Makes sense. Cena can't have a long match and risk injury due to his filming commitments. This lets him have a short, sweet match that's a few minutes long to hit his spots, maybe for the last time too.

Seems dumb considering the whole mentality of that match supposedly isn't for Cena to put over Elias but instead WWE hoping Elias gets the "rub" from losing. This despite WWE showing countless times before that they don't follow through with that type of rub or any in general against Cena for the most part.

Elias has way more to lose than gain going by WWE's booking habits.

[Sepholio]

The only way they can have Elias lose and it be ok imo is if at some point during the match, Cena basically starts mocking him and Elias snaps and gets himself DQ'd. Destroys Cena with his guitar.

It would require WWE sticking with it though and booking Elias stronger coming out of it. If they just go back to business as normal with him then it's a waste. He kinda did well with a cocky heel role when he first came up, it took him awhile, but he got the crowd behind him in a kind of strange love/hate relationship. Was really weird now that I think about it. But it's the best he's been and they need to go back to that but have him actually win for awhile instead.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Elias doesn't matter. Cena has beaten him up at the past two Manias. He's the Pete Rose to Cena's Kane.

[erickman]

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect Elias doesn't matter. Cena has beaten him up at the past two Manias. He's the Pete Rose to Cena's Kane.

yeah pretty much he is like r truth, that segment is just to give the crowd a rest after a hot match.