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Originally Posted by Observer AEW Dynamite averaged 792,000 viewers last night on TNT, down 12.1 percent from last week. NXT on the USA Network was also down, averaging 619,000 viewers. That was a drop of 17.8 percent from last Wednesday. There was more competition than usual with the annual Shark Week on the Discovery Network and cable news coverage of Presidential candidate Joe Biden choosing Kamala Harris as his running mate dominating the cable TV ratings on the night. That's in addition to NBA and MLB games, along with the NHL starting the opening round of their playoffs this week. Dynamite averaged a 0.32 rating in the 18-49 demo, down 11.1 percent from last week. The show finished ninth overall on cable in that demo. It did tie for the second best number Dynamite has done in that ratings category since March. NXT did not fare as well. It averaged just a 0.16 rating in 18-49 and failed to chart in the top 50, finishing in 65th place in the demo. That's down 20 percent from last week and is the second lowest number NXT has done in that category since May. The combined audience of 1.411 million viewers was down 14 percent from last week and is the lowest number since June 10. Detailed demo numbers, aside from 18-49, are not available for NXT since it was out of the top 50. AEW did best in men 18-49 with a 0.38 rating. In people 18-34, where AEW beat Raw last week, Dynamite was down to a 0.18 rating. That's 18 percent lower than Raw did this week in that category.

Originally Posted by PWI As Dave Scherer wrote in the ratings recap: For those wondering, after Chris Jericho mentioned last week's AEW beating this week's Raw in the 18 to 34 demographic, AEW dropped to a 0.18 (from last week's 0.29). Raw this week did a 0.22 (down from a 0.28) in the demo so AEW beat Raw by 0.01 last week and actually lost this week to Raw by 0.04

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Next week is a big test for AEW with Dynamite airing on Saturday night instead of Wednesday. On one hand, it’s a different night of the week and Saturday is tougher than Wednesday, but the silver lining is that Dynamite will have the NBA as a lead-in and that’s as strong as it gets on TNT. NXT will go unopposed on television next Wednesday with its go-home show for TakeOver: XXX.

Originally Posted by Observer Those watching AEW Dynamite Wednesday likely noticed the presence of more fans in the stands than in the past few months as the company nearly doubled the amount of people they allowed in, albeit with added COVID-19 protocols. According to a report from Pro Wrestling Sheet that was also verified by our Dave Meltzer, nearly 150 "invited spectators" were allowed into Daily's Place in Jacksonville, FL, but were seated a good distance away from the AEW wrestlers who are at ringside, Spaced apart unless they were with a pre-determined group, the spectators were subject to temperature checks and had to wear a mask throughout the event with security doing constant checks to ensure that was happening. Noted wrestling fan Jessi Davin was one of the people in attendance, along with her husband. She gave some of the details of the night on Twitter, saying seating was planned out in advance and that they both felt very safe with how things were handled. She also shared video of the aforementioned security checking on masks and suggesting adjustments for proper use. It's unclear as to the process in which the spectators were chosen, but Devlin said she got in thanks to a "non-wrestling related connection." A Reddit user that claims to work at Daily's Place said people were able to get tickets if you worked for the venue's sponsors and that capacity was limited to around 100 people.

Originally Posted by Observer New Japan Pro Wrestling has announced their Summer Struggle event scheduled for Thursday in Uwajima has been canceled as one of the wrestlers slated to appear developed a fever. From the statement: "Unfortunately, one of the wrestlers scheduled to appear had developed a fever. The wrestler immediately undertook additional COVID-19 testing, but New Japan Pro-Wrestling is still awaiting results. Under NJPW’s Coronavirus guidelines, and acting in the best interests of health and safety for other wrestlers and fans in attendance, the decision was made to cancel tonight’s event" ... As of now, New Japan is scheduled to run this Sunday in Shizuoka with another non-televised show. They aren't set to return to air until August 26th's kickoff to the King of Pro Wrestling tournament.

Originally Posted by PWI United States District Court of The Middle District of Tennessee Chief Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr. ordered that Jeff Jarrett and Global Wrestling Entertainment sit down with Anthem Wrestling (the parent company of Impact Wrestling) for a settlement conference next month instead of the originally scheduled hearing to set a new trial date in the lawsuit Jarrett brought forth against Impact. As PWInsider.com reported in the Elite section earlier this week, Jarrett's side requested a settlement conference for the two sides to come to the table and attempt to work out a deal to end the legal wranglings between the two sides, offering to be available anytime between 9/1-9/10. Anthem responded that Ed Nordholm was not available on those dates but that they would be amenable to having a settlement conference after the scheduled hearing on 9/11 in Nashville to set a new trial date. Instead, yesterday, Judge Waverly canceled the hearing and instructed the two sides to attempt to settle the matter. The two sides have attempted to settle their issues previously but were unable to do so, leading to the original trial that ended up in a mistrial after a mixed verdict. In a ruling issued by Waverly on 7/30, the mistrial was declared due to, "...the Court’s failure to instruct on comparative negligence; the identity of the wrong entity in the verdict form on the counterfeiting claim; improper comments by Defendant’s counsel in opening statements; and improper statements by Plaintiffs’ counsel in closing arguments, all of which were discussed in detail in the Court’s oral ruling."

Originally Posted by PWI Expected to be added to Summerslam's lineup is Jeff Hardy challenging WWE Intercontinental Champion AJ Styles. That was the direction planned for the Smackdown episode that was slated to be taped last week but was canceled. That episode is being taped today at the WWE Performance Center.

Originally Posted by PWI Deadline.com reported this evening that Major League Wrestling signed a deal with Fubo for MLW Fusion to be carried weekly on Thursdays at 10 PM EST with a replay of the previous week's episode preceding it at 9 PM EST. This is the latest deal the promotion has signed in recent weeks, placing MLW on the streaming service, which has picked up major steam in recent months, including deals with Disney/ESPN and more. Fubo was praised by Forbes last year, which predicted the platform would be a billion dollar property. It's had quite a few investors behind it, including Univision and AMC, having raised $200 million in funding. PWInisider.com is told this deal would not be a replacement for BeIN Sport but is one of several recently made, including MLW's deal with DAZN, designed to place the promotion on platforms that appeal to younger fans as they are more likely to be on platforms that stream content as opposed to traditional linear TV outlets.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Brian Myers was the most recent guest on the ‘Sitting Ringside with David Penzer’ podcast. Myers was asked about the amount of money that WWE offered to talents when AEW was finding their footing in the pro wrestling business. Myers stated that it was a running joke in the WWE locker room as talents referred to the new WWE contracts as, ‘Please don’t go to AEW’ contracts.’ “Yeah, absolutely and think it was astronomical and once someone said no, then it went up for everybody and that just kept happening. It wound up being what it was, too good to be true to be honest with you. But yeah, more money than I ever imagined making in this business that I signed for, and like I said, I’d already been a producer. I was kind of like — the big thing for them was the years. Everybody’s contract was five years. That was their big thing, and the boys were all calling them the, ‘Please don’t go to AEW’ contracts but that’s fine because I was like, ‘Okay, I’m very comfortable here, I enjoy it and I’m set up for post in-ring stuff’ so I was like, ‘I’m more than fine signing this.’ At the time it was like, ‘Okay, sure.’” While reflecting on his time in WWE developmental, Brian Myers feels that if enough talents were gathered and were willing to speak, a Dark Side of the Ring episode could be done on Deep South Wrestling. “I say this when people ask me about Deep South; I’m eagerly anticipating Dark Side of the Ring: Deep South Wrestling because if they get enough of the boys to open up and talk about it, they’ll have one of their more interesting episodes and for sure, their funniest episode of all-time if they get the good stuff.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling David Finlay was a guest on The Wrestling Inc. Daily podcast. Finlay recounted when WWE did the storyline of Hornswoggle being revealed as the son of Fit Finlay. David shared that his mother informed him that when he went to school the next day, he had to say ‘yes’ to all who asked if Hornswoggle is legitimately his brother to protect the storyline. “So funny story about this; I think they announced or revealed that Hornswoggle’s my father’s son on RAW, and that night, before RAW came on TV, or when I got home from school that day, my mom — my mom’s never been in the wrestling business… she’s been around like that. They’ve been married for — I don’t know. They’ve been together for a very long time. So she sat me down and she was like — this was after — I was in middle school too. This was like 8th grade. She sat me down, she was like, ‘David, this is what we’re gonna do on TV tonight, which means tomorrow when you go to school, all your friends are gonna be asking if this is your brother. You have to tell them yes.’ I’m like, ‘What!?’ She said, ‘You have to tell them yes.’ Alright, so I go to school, sure enough, ‘Is that your real brother? Is that your brother? Is that your brother?’ And I have to go, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ but then of course, that’s not good enough to my friends, so they’re asking all these follow-up questions like, ‘Well how come he doesn’t live with you?’ So I’m having to like B.S. all my friends on the spot just because my mom told me that I have to tell them that’s my brother.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WrestleZone has an interview with Ariane Andrew. She shared that it was Brandi Rhodes who reached out to her about participating in the Women’s Tag Team Cup tournament. Ariane added that she did reach out to Brandi in the Summer of 2019 about possibly working with AEW. “Brandi [Rhodes] reached out to me, because I would say probably back [in] August, I had reached out to her and she’s like, ‘You know what? I’ll keep you in mind’ and she’s like, ‘Well remember I said I’ll keep you in mind?’ And it happened so quickly, less than a week to get it together. So, I had no gear, I hadn’t been in the ring so it was like, woo, it was a lot but, I did it so I mean… it was one of those type of things. It’s not maybe necessarily how I wanted to come back, but I felt like AEW is such a great opportunity and me and Brandi go back and I love what they’re doing with the product so, it was just like, ‘Even if this happens to be my last match, I think it’ll be fun’….. Which is not gonna be [my last match] though,” Ariane smirked.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Erick Rowan did an interview over Instagram Live with Sportskeeda. Rowan stated that the original plans for his ‘cage’ gimmick was to have a rodent or a rat on the inside of it that would eventually be killed by the babyface champion. “No no. Originally it was pitched that it would be a rodent or a rat and it was going to be killed by the babyface Champion to show that I had cared about something and that babyface turned heel, so that didn’t work. Well ok, then I asked them what is it now, then they just kept extending it, extending it and extending it.” Rowan stated that he wanted to have a slightly larger cage and place a little woman in the cage to be revealed. He got the idea from the ‘Freak Show’ season of American Horror Story. “I had over the top ideas about it. One was this actress in American Horror Story, the smallest woman of all time. She was in American Horror Story Freak Show. One idea was to build a slightly larger cage and when unveiled, it would be this slightly smaller woman. Me and her would be friends and I would be protecting her from the atrocities of the outside world by locking her in the cage.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling In 2019, it was confirmed that Sadie Gibbs signed with All Elite Wrestling and just one year after her signing, she is no longer with the company. Gibbs took to her Twitter page and confirmed the news that she is no longer with AEW after her profile, along with the profiles of Jimmy Havoc and Bea Priestley were removed from the AEW roster page. Sadie has continued to respond to a number of comments on social media from those are wishing her well in the next steps of her career. Sadie debuted for AEW at All Out in the Casino Battle Royale. Her next two in-ring appearances for AEW occurred in October on the AEW Dark program on YouTube.

Link: https://twitter.com/TheSadiegibbs/st...52056517545985

Originally Posted by 411Mania Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus teamed up on last night’s episode of AEW Dynamite in a loss to AEW tag team champions Kenny Omega & Hangman Page. This comes after his last title shot, against Cody for the TNT belt, was also a loss. According to Wrestling Observer Radio, AEW still has plans to give Jungle Boy a major win, but they are holding off. It’s believed that the company wants to wait to give him his first big win when they are able to have fans at live events again.

Originally Posted by WrestleTalk A new update has been provided regarding the situation of contracts for WWE talent that has been called up from NXT recently. As per Fightful Select (subscription required and recommended), several of the recent call-ups haven’t received new contracts as they usually would have. It was noted that this is something that the company will likely think about doing when things get back to normal i.e. when the pandemic has passed over, but who knows how long that’s gonna be at this point. Worth mentioning too is it was pointed out in the report that some of the talent is actually working a lighter schedule on the main roster than they were in NXT anyway. WWE still has “no idea” on the situation with its live events schedule, or whether there are even going to be shows at all besides TV.

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