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Former TPWW Royalty
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Dirtsheets sponsored by Taguchi channeling his inner Nakamura:
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Originally Posted by Observer
The lack of NBA playoffs did not prove to be much of a benefit for Raw's ratings on Monday night as the show did 2.61 million viewers, identical to the previous week when going against the playoffs.
While Memorial Day and the NHL playoffs did hurt the number, anything below 2.85 million should have been considered a disappointment. Still, because the news stations weren't broadcasting key programming and the NHL was on NBC rather than cable, Raw was the most-watched show on cable, a spot it hasn't had in a long time.
The Stanley Cup finals did 4.85 million viewers.
Memorial Day traditionally hurts the rating by only 40,000 to 50,000 viewers, so it's a factor, but not nearly a factor to where it ties a record low. In theory, next week should be up the day after a Raw PPV, although the split crew PPVs have not been a boon to next-day ratings as it used to be.
The June 12th Raw, unless the return of Brock Lesnar is gigantic, should be the lowest rated Raw of the modern era outside of football season unless the NBA playoffs are a four-game sweep, since it goes on against game five.
The other key is Memorial Day traditionally means viewers come in later, so the second hour is always bigger than the first, but this show's second hour actually dropped.
The three hours were:
8 p.m. 2.69 million viewers
9 p.m. 2.68 million viewers
10 p.m. 2.47 million viewers
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Some news and notes regarding this week's ratings. RAW was #2 for the 18-34 demo with a show called "Street Outlaws" taking the top spot. WWE wasted the first of 2 weeks with no direct NBA competition since Observer was predicting at least an extra 250k more viewers even with the holiday to be considered as a good sign.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Fightful's Brandon Howard posted a clip of WWE Chief Financial Officer George Barrios seemingly saying on May 22nd that WWE has already announced a deal with ICW and PROGRESS to show their events on the WWE Network. No announcement about that has been made, but the deals have been reported on for months. Dave Meltzer tweeted yesterday that it was up to Vince McMahon if shows from PROGRESS would come to the Network.
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Link to the clip: https://twitter.com/BrandonThurston/...02626716237824
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Originally Posted by Observer
The last night of A Block action in the Best of the Super Juniors came down to Will Ospreay facing Hiromu Takahashi in the main event to decide who would advance to the finals. Ospreay won and will be going to the finals for the second straight year after previously winning the 2016 tournament. The B Block winner will be decided at a show in Aichi overnight. Everyone in that block is at six points, so the winner will be decided by tiebreakers. The finals will take place on June 3rd.
In his last-ever Best of the Super Juniors match, Jushin Thunder Liger defeated Taichi to earn his only points in this year's tournament. Liger previously announced that this year would be the last time he would be entering the BOSJ. He cut a promo after his win, saying that the junior heavyweight scene in next year's tournament will be even better despite his absence.
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Originally Posted by Observer
Lucha Underground returns on the El Rey Network tonight with its season three mid-season premiere. Johnny Mundo vs. The Mack in an "All Night Long" match for Mundo's title will air on the episode.
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Originally Posted by PWI
At the most recent investors conference call, WWE management was asked about the status of negotiations towards a new television rights deal as their current contract with NBC Universal expires in 2019. Smartly, they declined to make a statement.
I say smartly because in the period leading up to the announcement of the last contract back in 2014, Vince McMahon famously guaranteed that the company would double the amount of money that they were getting from the terms that they were currently working under. Of course, that didn’t happen and the WWE stock took a large hit when the new deal was announced since part of the run up that the stock had was attributed to the promised jump in revenue rights fees ...
Even under the best of circumstances, the negotiations with NBC Universal would be a battle. Under much better circumstances in 2014, WWE couldn’t come close to doubling their rights fees. The landscape in the cable industry is, to be honest, a minefield. Cable networks are being hit hard from a number directions. Obviously, cord cutting has become a major problem for the industry. Even when they keep customers via streaming, they don’t generate the revenue that they did from having that content viewed by cable subscribers ...
If that were the only issue, WWE would probably be still standing on solid footing, but there are a few other items that could work against them as negotiations with NBC Universal near.
For one thing, back in 2014, USA Network was still creating new hit shows and being the top rated Basic Cable Network was very important to them ... Since then, they haven’t been creating the hits that they used to. They moved Smackdown to Tuesdays as a concession to that fact. If they were to change their philosophy, and choose to reset their strategy, WWE programming could be worth less to them. Maybe a lot less.
But the bigger problem that WWE has to face when dealing with NBC is one that they have completely created: Themselves. NBC could very well feel that WWE has not lived up to their end of the deal and take a hard line approach when it comes to negotiations. Why you ask?
... While WWE didn’t double their rights fees as they promised that they would, their sales pitch that WWE was “DVR proof” programming since people wanted to watch it in real time did garner them a significant increase from NBC Universal. And that increase was rewarded by losing almost a third of the viewers that were supposed to be “DVR proof”. The worst part is that the company itself, with it’s predictable booking and stale presentation, are the primary reason that the product has become DVRable! They did it to themselves.
I can’t state this for a fact but I think it’s reasonable to assume that NBC Universal didn’t pay more money for less viewers. That isn’t how business works. When you add in that the main reason that the viewers have left is due completely due to the people that told you that they wouldn’t? That could create some animus.
So in two years, WWE very well may find itself in a position where it could be facing a reduced offer from NBC, or worse. In this climate, it may be hard to even find other bidders that are willing to pay what they are getting now. After all, in 2014 NBCU put the best offer on the table and it was far less than what Vince McMahon wanted.
WWE is mature product and in the TV industry, that often works against a program. When one adds in the concerning loss of viewers, it makes a mature product an even harder sell for top dollar. There’s a real possibility that USA may tell WWE we want to work with you, but you need to take a pay cut (and if that happens PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE get rid of that third hour of Raw, for all of our sakes). It’s possible they could just walk away altogether. If either happens, it seems pretty obvious that WWE’s top revenue producer, television rights fees, would take a major hit. And that would affect the company.
At that point, their options would be limited. They could look for another partner, most probably for less money. Or they could take it in-house on the WWE Network and create a tiered pricing model where they sell you a subscription to Raw and Smackdown and they sell advertising on the programs and keep what they sell. There is no guarantee that they could even come close to making up for the lost revenue with either option.
... If they want to avoid coming to that unwanted fork, the time to make changes is now. If they don’t, this time in 2019 could be really scary for them.
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Part of a lengthy article on PWI in regards to WWE's tv contract deals and possible future for the WWE. Link to a post from NeoGAF that has the whole article (because PWI's website in general is terrible) and some key dates in regards to tv contracts: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost...postcount=6268
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Originally Posted by PWI
Ring of Honor announced this afternoon that STARDOM High Speed champion Kris Wolf would debut for the promotion's Women of Honor division at the 6/23 ROH Best in the World PPV in Lowell, MA.
The promotion also announced The Kingdom's Matt Taven & Vinny Marseglia will face CMLL stars El Terrible and Ultimo Guerrero. Taven has been making regular appearances in CMLL.
Previously announced for the PPV is Cody Rhodes challenging Christopher Daniels for the ROH championship after Daniels defeated Rhodes and Jay Lethal at the War of the Worlds PPV in NYC.
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Originally Posted by ROH
Across the Pacific, STARDOM has established itself as the premier women’s professional wrestling organization in the world. In March, Women of Honor and STARDOM partnered together for a tryout camp and a partnership was formed. In Lowell, MA at Best in the World Weekend, international superstar and current STARDOM HIGH SPEED CHAMPION KRIS WOLF makes her Women of Honor debut!
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Originally Posted by PWI
WWE is working on developing regular programming on Snapchat with the idea of debuting it on a monthly basis staring around Summerslam weekend.
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Originally Posted by PWI
Multiple sources have told PWInsider.com that the deal is described as "in jeopardy" due to issues regarding the transfer of the existing copyrights and trademarks for the National Wrestling Alliance.
PWInsider.com research indicates that the copyright and trademark on the brand name lapsed last year with his International Wrestling Corp, LLC applying for it again on March 30th of this year. The trademark has not been officially assigned, theoretically making it impossible for them to be transferred to Corgan.
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Originally Posted by Fightful.com
After stints in WWF, WCW, TNA and most recently Rocky Mountain Pro, Vince Russo is looking to get back into wrestling.
The controversial Russo spoke to Fightful.com and told us that he actually contacted WWE Chairman Vince McMahon last week and offered his services to his former boss.
"I've reached out to Vince McMahon in the past week," said Russo, before stating that he wouldn't elaborate too much. "He got back to me."
Often outspoken, Russo has criticized the current WWE product for years. According to Russo, the exchange between the two was brief.
"I am still a wrestling fan at heart, going back to when I was 10, 11 years old. I hate today's product. To me, it's not professional wrestling," Russo said. "I don't want to be the guy critiquing the problem without saying 'Here's my olive branch, I think I can help you as the numbers go down every week.' I didn't use the word help. You don't tell Vince McMahon he needs help. I said 'if you want me to contribute, I'd love to once again contribute.'"
When asked if McMahon seemed open to the idea, or receptive, Russo indicated that McMahon isn't a big talker -- with him at least.
"Vince never seems receptive. His response is always a couple of words. He's not that guy. He's the same guy that told me I could get a nanny (to raise) your kids," said Russo.
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Link to the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7Ee2kBL5x0
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Originally Posted by WrestleInc
Brock Lesnar's title defense at the WWE Great Balls of Fire PPV on July 9th against the winner of this Sunday night's Fatal Five Way #1 contender's match at Extreme Rules will be a quick program. Dave Meltzer noted on Wrestling Observer Radio that the match will not lead to a rematch with Lesnar at the following pay-per-view, SummerSlam, as Lesnar is slated to face Braun Strowman at that event.
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Some other sheet news includes:
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