[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Big Cass Depreciation Day:

Originally Posted by Observer The WWE’s deals with both USA and FOX, for a combined $2.2 billion to $2.4 billion over the five years, covers October 1, 2019 through September 30, 2024. The FOX offer for Raw was believed to be in the range of $240 million to $270 million ... For FOX, this past Friday in that time slot they aired two hours of MasterChef Junior, which did 3,288,000 viewers. One would expect Smackdown on FOX to do a figure in that same range, but at a far higher cost. Smackdown would be much stronger among males 18-49 and 18-49 in general, as well as kids, but far weaker among women. However, two weeks earlier that same show did 2,800,000 viewers (on 5/11 it was preempted for a much higher special that did more than Smackdown would have done), lower than Smackdown would be expected to do.

Originally Posted by Observer Regarding WrestleMania week, in theory this would move the Smackdown show in the city from the Tuesday night to the Friday night. That would put it against the major indie shows in the past that ran on Fridays. Saturday would likely be NXT and ROH’s big show, so most of the top indies would stay away from that night. So the question becomes if they would stay away from Friday as well and move to Thursday. The Hall of Fame would have to move to either Thursday or Tuesday, with Thursday making far more sense.

Originally Posted by Observer While Friday night is a worse night for drawing viewers than Tuesday, the increase in exposure from being on the FOX Network, both because it’s a far higher rated station, and because it is available in far more homes, will more than offset it. In fact, it would be expected that Smackdown would have more viewers than Raw, because of the power of FOX and far greater visibility. Another key aspect is the nature of the deal, which hasn’t been disclosed. If part of the deal is WWE gets exclusivity on FOX for pro wrestling, it could greatly hurt the ROH syndication package, since ROH is on a number of FOX affiliates, although usually not in prime time. But Joe Koff stated that this isn’t the case, and that it would not affect ROH clearances on Sinclair-owned FOX affiliates.

Originally Posted by Observer Confirming what had been reported, John Hennigan (formerly John Morrison in WWE and currently Johnny Mundo in Lucha Underground) will officially be on the next season of CBS' "Survivor." Hennigan was one of the contestants highlighted in the preview video for "Survivor: David vs. Goliath" that aired during last night's finale for the most recent season of the show. The reality series debuted in 2000 -- and "David vs. Goliath" will be its 37th edition. The person who wins the show receives a $1 million grand prize.

More details: https://www.f4wonline.com/other-wres...urvivor-258396

Originally Posted by PWI Competing on Survivor will not be the only major event coming for Johnny Impact, as according to his fiancée Taya Valkyrie, the couple getting married in a little over a week: My husband (well in 9 days he will be ????)..... tonight it became official, check him out on this next Season of @survivorcbs #Slamtown pic.twitter.com/ghPbXLAjWN — Lucha Royalty (@TheTayaValkyrie) May 24, 2018

Originally Posted by PWI WWE announced a show in Osaka, Japan at the Edison Arena on 8/31, featuring talent from the RAW brand including Ronda Rousey.

Link: https://twitter.com/TheTayaValkyrie/...06714343784448

In your opinion do you think its wise to give Ronda Rousey a title shot after only being with WWE for less than a year? Yes, for the same reason they’d give The Rock a title match if he came back. You must maximize Rousey’s star power and the investment the company has made into her. If they bang out a nice number or get an increase in subs because of the match or even put together a great match, mission accomplished.

From PWI's weekly Q&A articles on why Ronda got a title shot this early even though she claimed before she isn't in the WWE just to have special treatment.

Originally Posted by Observer Regarding the biggest shows in the U.S. over the next few months, the 7/7 New Japan show at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, at press time, they were at less than 5,000 tickets sold. One of the reasons it was as low as it was is the secondary market brokers steered clear of the show. They had steered clear of the Long Beach shows as well, which sold out instantly. There are only 229 tickets available on the secondary market on 5/22, and the nature of how they are scattered indicates not much if any secondary market buys in the sense these were just people putting up two or four tickets individually, as opposed to buying large amounts in different places like at a WWE show. That’s notable because of how quick Long Beach sold out. But to this point there is nobody and nothing announced for the show, and won’t be until after Dominion.

Originally Posted by Observer Indies Roundup: In something of a major mainstream note, a movie called “My Dad is a Heel Wrestler,” starring Hiroshi Tanahashi, will be major cinema release in Japan this summer. It’s the movie filmed last year where Tanahashi cut his hair and darkened it for the role. Right now the official word on Katsuya Kitamura is still that he’s out of action due to damage from a recent concussion. At one point there was talk he wouldn’t be back, but of late the idea is he will be back at some point. Those at MLW have said the reason they are no longer using Matt Riddle is because WWN wouldn’t allow him to work their shows due to MLW getting television. Cody & Brandi Rhodes working on a training camp as well as an American Dream Scholarship for wrestlers. Impact announced a public Q&A on 6/4 in Toronto at 10 a.m. at the Real Sports Bar & Grille. Appearing at the sports bar will be Austin Aries, Moose, Madison Rayne, Su Yung, Gail Kim, Ed Nordholm, Scott D'Amore and Don Callis. They will be there selling tickets and promoting Slammiversary which takes place on 7/22 in Toronto. Rise will debut a weekly Internet show called Rise - Ascent with new shows every Wednesday on the Rise streaming service at www.riseascent.com. The shows will be building shows on 6/29 in South Gate, CA and 7/7 in Chicago. The service is $4.99 per month. Jimmy Jacobs will be working as the writer and producer of the show starting with the 6/29 show. Progress and Evolve will be doing a joint show together on 8/4 at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia. They will also be doing a show on 8/7 in Queens,NY at La Boom. Tickets for the shows for each promotion on those days (different tickets) go on sale Monday at NoonEastern. Also announced for Evolve on 6/23 in Queens, NY is Matt Riddle vs. Shane Strickland for the Evolve title. For 6/24 in Melrose, MA they've announced Riddle vs. DJZ, AR Fox vs. Walter and Chris Dickinson vs. Tracy Williams.

Cody: https://www.facebook.com/events/360348727709056/

Originally Posted by Observer While this has been said before, including at a WWE Investors call, and Vince McMahon changed his mind on it, right now the idea of ICW and Progress from the U.K. going to the WWE Network is back on, at least this week. But this is close enough that we’ve been told the announcement, if it happens, would be coming right around the time or at the Royal Albert Hall shows

Originally Posted by Observer Right now the working dates for the 2018 Mae Young Classic are 8/7 and 8/8 at Full Sail University. That is not official until an announcement is made but crew has been told to keep those dates free for those tapings

Originally Posted by Observer Orton had arthroscopic knee surgery for an MCL tear that he suffered late last year. He had been working with the tear for months and was waiting for a time to have a break and for all of his programs to be taken care of to get it done. That explains why he did such a clean job for Jeff Hardy at Backlash. He’s expected back in about two months

Originally Posted by Observer Toni Storm signed a U.K. contract. When she was asked about doing the Stardom 5 Star Grand Prix tournament in August and September (their version of G-1), there was no confirmation but probably not since she has to take any dates WWE offers. But at this point it’s a U.K. deal and not an NXT deal, as would be the case for almost all of the U.K. wrestlers recently signed

Originally Posted by Observer WWE has also gotten aggressive regarding trying to sign up indie talent with MLW as the target since they just got television. That will be interesting because the key guys MLW is relying on have signed contracts. There were reports that WWE approached several wrestlers under contract to MLW. According to legal papers sent, the talent advised MLW of the offers and told WWE they were signed, but WWE told the wrestlers they should still come to a tryout and be around the system. In the past, WWE would back off when approaching talent under contract to a degree due to what happened in the past with ROH. They’ll still get word indirectly to tell people not to renew their deals like they did with ROH (and there were guys in ROH based on promises made and such while under contract that one would think was tampering, and that’s what led to the legal situation last year where WWE had to pull all offers from ROH talent and waited months after their contracts expired before approaching them again, although in the end the guys like Kyle O’Reilly, Adam Cole and Bobby Fish all came. The MLW deals signed with its key talent were for multiple years. A key may have been MJF signing with MLW

Originally Posted by Observer Smackdown has been dying in the U.K. ratings as of the latest numbers. The live numbers for Raw were 69,000 on 4/16, 30,000 on 4/23, 19,000 on 4/30 and 49,000 on 5/7. The jump on 5/7 is likely because it was the week before the U.K. tour. We didn’t get the 5/14 and 5/15 numbers for the shows in London, but they would be expected to be way up. Smackdown on 4/17 did 22,000, 4/24 was 15,000, 5/1 was 16,000 and 5/8 is unavailable but was less than 12,000

Originally Posted by Observer The ten most-watched shows on WWE Network this past week were: 1. Camp WWE episode 3; 2. Table for 3 with Edge, Christian and Hardys; 3. NXT from 5/16; 4. Backlash; 5. Something Else to Wrestle With from 5/16; 6. Camp WWE episode 2; 7. 205 Live from 5/15; 8. Table for 3 with Elias, Brian James and Jarrett; 9. Greatest Royal Rumble; 10. NXT from 5/9

Originally Posted by Observer What this means for the wrestlers becomes interesting. If WWE was to pay even 13 percent of its revenue to talent (major sports are closer to 50 percent), on a $1.2 billion per year business (which WWE should be by 2020), that would mean an annual payroll of $156 million. If we figure 100 developmental wrestles at a $50,000 per year average, that leaves $151 million for a 126 person main roster. A $1.2 million average salary is weird, because wrestling is a business where the top guys skew the average anyway. But literally they could double everyone’s current pay tomorrow, and they would still be paying at the same rate as UFC, and at about one-fourth the rate of major sports. The point being, the idea of offering someone a $3 million per year guarantee to leave New Japan, whether they’d want to do it or not, is something they could easily afford to do now, but in 2020, they could offer someone $5 million without blinking an eye. Offering a superstar on the indies $500,000 would mean nothing, and even the guys happy at $100,000 to $200,000 on the indies who have no interest in WWE today could have their money multiplied easily if WWE decided to do so.

Meltzer on what WWE's new tv deals mean for when it comes to future indie raids.


Some other sheet news includes:

• FITE TV and Global Force Entertainment (owned by Jeff Jarrett) recently agreed to a deal where Global Force will provide wrestling-based content for FITE. https://www.pwinsider.com/article/11...nment.html?p=1
• According to the Observer, FOX moving Smackdown to Fridays will hurt NJPW and MLW the most since both air their weekly tv shows during the same time as Smackdown.
• According to the Observer, CM Punk's lawyers rejected an offer by Dr. Chris Amann's (and WWE) lawyers for a settlement decision for the on-going libel lawsuit against Punk. At the moment, Punk's lawyers are pushing for the case to go ahead since they feel confident they have enough evidence to prove their claims and for Punk to have a moral victory over the WWE. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...-case-against/
• Sports Illustrated had a recent interview with Pentagon Jr talking about his thoughts on Rey Mysterio, his favorite wrestlers as a child, and winning the Impact World Championship. http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...-impact-title/