[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter With popularity falling and the XFL debut looming, Vince McMahon named Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff new Executive Directors of the company on 6/27 ... The official changes are set for mid-July. These will be actual decision making characters and not television performers playing the role. The big question is what does this mean and how much autonomy will both men have. The only time McMahon ever turned creative over to someone in the past was when he brought in Bill Watts, a relationship that fell apart within weeks because Watts was told he would have complete control of direction, and then McMahon started overruling him immediately and he decided to quit ... One of the key points at the time, and there were many, is that Watts wanted to do a more believable wrestling style and felt Bret Hart fit that role best as champion, while McMahon had already decided to replace Hart in the role with Shawn Michaels. Heyman, 53, and Bischoff, 64, will both be more political, in the sense both aren’t going to be so headstrong that they’ll quit over being overruled and probably go in expecting it will happen constantly and it’s just part of the game ... Bischoff comes out of left field in a sense. Bischoff worked for McMahon in the past as a television General Manager character, but had no decision-making role. He was excellent in that role. Say what you want about Bischoff, and a lot can be said, but he has always been a great television heel character. As far as a guy in charge of creative, the move was stunning. It’s been noted that the move shows just how little McMahon has really paid attention to wrestling, since Bischoff was put in a similar role with TNA and the run was largely considered a disaster. A number of people who were in TNA while he was there were stunned, noting it showed just how little McMahon had actually followed the industry. In addition, Bischoff has very little familiarity with the current product, which was tough enough for Watts when he made his WCW comeback after five years away in a business that changed somewhat during the period he was gone, but hardly like the modern business is rapidly changing both in style and distribution. Bischoff, who had major financial issues in recent years, would have been an easier acquisition in that sense ... The question becomes the hierarchy of everything. When Bruce Prichard came back, the idea was said at first that he’d be the guy under Vince, which ended up not being the case. The hierarchy had been Vince McMahon as the top guy, with Paul Levesque and Kevin Dunn as the other main guys, and Dave Kapoor as Senior Vice President of Creative, as well as Ed Koskey ... With the investors call being a month away, and the promises that the house shows would turn around because they knew how to fix the problems, and the popularity would rebound when the stars came back from injuries, and neither happening, the timing of this announcement may be to pacify stockholders and curtail the recent stock declines ... McMahon also knows the live box office tells the real story and if the idea he really believed was that recent declines were due to some key injuries and the illness of Roman Reigns, Reigns is back, most of the key players are back, and crowds are declining with this past week being alarming and a shocking wake-up call. The irony is that for the second time, the first being in 2001, the crowd in Tacoma was part of a huge change in the creative of the business ... In addition, while Heyman has been at times a genius booker, Bischoff is not a booker. If his role is to change the look of the shows, or take risks with the product, that’s one thing. But he’s still going to need a guy to handle the nuts and bolts of multiple storylines, beginnings, middles, ends, building programs, going to the next programs, and allowing younger talent to move to the top, which are all weak points for him.

Originally Posted by Fightful Everyone was caught by surprise in regards to WWE's announcement today. We did, however, hear back from several wrestlers and employees of the company. Unanimously, across genders, roles, and positions in the company were very surprised by the news, and hadn't even heard of it coming. The first reaction was a longtime WWE wrestler wondering aloud why Triple H wasn't set for one of the roles, and another saying that was some of the immediate chatter that they had heard. Another wrestler compared it to Shane McMahon wanting to improve his spot in the company but being bypassed, but we should note, this was simply discussion and chatter about why Triple H wasn't moved into the role, without much to add to it. There was some pessimism to the announcement as well. One wrestler said that "Vince is still in charge, so that's all you really need to know," while another told us that the move couldn't possibly be worse than how things have went lately.

Originally Posted by Observer Jushin Thunder Liger will be facing off with three opponents in his CMLL farewell match. CMLL announced yesterday that Liger will face Caristico, Negro Casas, and Ultimo Guerrero at their show on Friday, July 19. The event is taking place at Arena Mexico in Mexico City. It will be a "Relevo CMLL" match. Two wrestlers will be in the ring at a time, with them being able to tag in and out. There will only be one fall in the match.

Originally Posted by PWI On Monday 6/24 United States District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw made several rulings in the Jeff Jarrett and Global Wrestling Entertainment’s lawsuit against Impact Wrestling’s parent company Anthem Sports & Entertainment. Several of the rulings were in Anthem’s favor. Anthem had been arguing that they did not fall under Tennessee’s jurisdiction, despite three sets of discovery requested by the plaintiffs and having to produce over 12,000 pages of documents. Judge Waverly agreed with Anthem, ruling with prejudice that Anthem Sports was dismissed from that count of the lawsuit for failure to state a claim or a lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Judge also ruled that Jarrett and GWE’s allegations of copyright infringement were also dismissed. Anthem had argued that since GWE and Jarrett failed to copyright and trademark their GFW Amped! TV tapes and since Jarrett provided a license for Anthem to use the tapes, there could be no trademark infringement. Anthem argued that by law, Jarrett & GWE should have filed their copyrights or have been refused registration in order to claim copyright infringement in court. Since neither had happened – as Jarrett does not have physical possession of the GFW master tapes, which Impact has already admitted they deleted – Anthem argued that claim could not go forward in court. The court sided with Anthem and dismissed that count. All the remaining allegations against Anthem remain and are moving forward.

Originally Posted by PWI Ryan Capp sent word that ATT UVerse has dropped Impact Wrestling home the Pursuit Channel as their existing deal to carry the channel ended last month. As noted yesterday, DirecTV is no longer carrying the channel in HD, either.

Originally Posted by Fightful Sports Illustrated reports that The Undertaker asked to work with Drew McIntyre.

Originally Posted by Fightful Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer reports that FOX is spending $4 million a week to promote WWE while TNT is spending $500,000 a week to promote AEW.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Antonio Inoki, 75, the second biggest pro wrestling star in the history of Japan, announced this past week that he was retiring from politics. Inoki said it was due to health reasons. The exact nature of the health issue isn’t known, but Inoki has mostly been in a wheelchair the last several months, although he’s been careful to stay out of the public eye to where most aren’t aware of this.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The big story of the past week was the crowds. Stomping Grounds on 6/23 at the Tacoma Dome drew 6,000 fans, which is well below usual for a PPV show ... We don’t have the paid but it would be the smallest paid crowd for a WWE PPV show in recent memory. Raw the next day in Everett, WA, drew 3,500 fans. This was the smallest crowd for a Raw taping that I can recall. But the worst sign was Smackdown on 6/25 in Portland, OR, with 2,500 fans. Tacoma is not a historically strong wrestling city, although they’ve drawn huge crowds when wrestling was hot there. Everett is right outside Seattle (the arena in Seattle is being renovated so they went to Everett instead), but it’s not Seattle. Portland, on the other hand, has always been a very good wrestling market. For WWE to draw 2,500 fans, that is serious. When people compare this to 1999-2000 WCW, I’ve noted that company fell off a cliff with some of the worst creative ever ... Things will look better as the next PPV is in Philadelphia. But one-third of the lower deck and half the upper deck are not having tickets sold, and the secondary market price is $40 to get in. So it looks like about 8,000 at this point, which is weak, and you’d expect closer to 13,000. For SummerSlam, Toronto is mostly sold out with a strong secondary market asking price of $144 minimum and about 2,000 seats out. For All Out, it’s a $125 asking price with 895 seats out. Historically, when companies decline, the first place you see the decline is in the house shows. The house shows used to be the immediate barometer of how well you are selling your product, because you get your answer on that night. Television is different. Ratings tell you something, but people watch as creatures of habit often when they are losing a connection to the product. The decline that you first see at house shows historically you will see later in ratings. That’s not a good sign, since ratings have already been at record low levels and there was no bounce-back of note after the NBA playoffs ended. House shows haven’t been strong in a long time, really taking a hit when John Cena moved on. But it was never Death of WCW business. These numbers are very close to that level. And keep in mind the other difference, and that is because most tickets are bought two months or so before the show, rather than day off, this weekend is really a measure of interest level a few months ago.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter After years of contract signings and McMahon going back-and-forth on the subject and in the end, always pulling out, the WWE announced the first non-WWE event to air live on the WWE Network will be the Evolve 10th anniversary show on 7/13 at 8 p.m. from the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia ... McMahon’s issue has always been the idea of seeing what he considers minor league wrestling on his major league platform. But this will be a WWE produced event, headlined by top-level WWE talent, so that issue isn’t there.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Konnan on his podcast said that Aerostar’s fall from the lighting grid was approved ahead of time. He said that he asked to do it again at TripleMania, because he wants to show everyone he can do it without being hurt, but they have told him not to. He also said that Pentagon Jr & Fenix would be signing deals where they would be exclusive to AAA and AEW Aerostar this past week after that big fall off the lighting grid and bad landing did a press conference (that was kept secret from the press, which is the epitome of weird) for the Forum in Los Angeles show, and then worked his scheduled shows on 6/21 in Tampico and 6/23 in Austin, TX, so he missed no time at all

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter El Hijo del Vikingo is now in demand from every U.S. promotion it seems, since he’ll have a visa soon enough and Impact, AEW and MLW all want dates with him

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Bushiroad, the parent company of New Japan, is filing for an IPO. Some notes from the filing. Harold George Meij’s salary as Director or Bushiroad is $691,000 per year. That’s not clear if that’s including his pay as New Japan president or separate frm it. He was also given 452,000 shares of Bushiroad stock, meaning he’s a 3.01 percent owner of the parent company. Right now that would be worth another $5 million, and perhaps a ton more of the company goes public. Directors and Employees of Bushiroad, the parent company, get stock options. Those who work for New Japan do not. His contract would expire mid-to-late 2020 ... At the end of the year, Bushiroad as a company had $270 million in revenue, of which $46 million came from New Japan. 2018 was the most successful year financially for New Japan. They listed at that time New Japan World subscribers at 100,000. They listed 2018 attendance as 400,000 in 160 shows which is 2,500 paid per show. That would be a little under half that of WWE main roster and three times that of NXT

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter We were told that New Japan is in the process of starting an International Fan Club and that those fans would be able to get shots at getting good seats for the big shows. The whole thing has been a mess because when you get down to it, the most loyal fans outside Japan did get screwed or felt screwed. Ticket demand for the two Tokyo Dome shows is said to be far higher than anyone internally expected which is another issue, because if a lot of foreigners got tickets, then they’d get complaints from their Japanese fan base. We’ll have to see how this plays out but no matter what, you should have the attitude of cultivating your international fans who want to travel and they need to get this alleviated to where there is a smooth way going forward to get tickets to the big shows

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Ticket sales did improve a little in Dallas with the announcement of Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada, Kota Ibushi vs. KENTA and Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Sanada as the top three matches. Tanahashi vs. Okada would be the biggest Japanese vs. Japanese main event that New Japan has put on in the U.S. market. Still, they are around 4,000 as there are 1,000 seats remaining in a 5,000 setup. That’s well short of what they expected for the first G-1 show ever held outside of Japan ... Tickets for the Super J Cup went on sale on 6/24. The 8/22 show in Tacoma, WA had 50 tickets left out of 1,000 after the first day of sales and all the seats are sold out but at press time they had standing room available. 8/24 in San Francisco sold out immediately. The Long Beach finals on 8/25 at the Walker Pyramid had a lot of tickets left and they were only putting part of the building on sale.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Regarding the value of pro wrestling in the advertising community. Wrestling on cable is doing 60 to 80 percent what cable programming with similar sized audiences would do in ad sales and less than half of what network programming with a similar audience would get

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter An interesting note is that New Japan has filed for a trademark in the U.S. market for the term Death Rider for merchandise purposes. Them filing for the trademark is notable because it would mean Jon Moxley’s finishing move, the former Dirty Deeds, which was called the Death Rider in his matches with Juice Robinson and Shota Umino in New Japan, in theory couldn’t be marketed by AEW

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter At press time, WWE canceled a few shows on the November U.K. tour. No reason why at this point. The shows canceled were 11/5 in Nottingham, 11/6 in Birmingham, 11/8 in London and 11/9 in Minehead. This may have nothing to do with it, but it’s just weird from a schedule standpoint on 11/1 to have an afternoon PPV from Saudi Arabia and followed a few hours later by a live Smackdown. The London show at Wembley being canceled could be because they want all the talent at Smackdown that day which in theory would be in Manchester. But that wouldn’t explain the other moves. We’ve also been told that they are changing the Saudi date for that very reason we just mentioned and that the U.K. schedule has to be changed to fit that in

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter FOX has been testing out two new cameras that they want in use for the debut show on 10/4. They are also looking to invite a lot of celebrities which is one of the reasons the first show will be at the Staples Center. They want to kick it off with a bang like it’s the equivalent of a big boxing match and the place for real stars to be at. The idea in particular, since AEW will be debuting the same week 99 percent, is to make WWE look as major league as possible and to thus, make AEW from day one appear to be like a minor league group

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The stock closed at $71.11 a share on 6/26, giving the company a $5.55 billion market value. There has been a lot of change of sentiments of late regarding the stock. An article in Benzinga noted a few warning points. First, they expect a big sell-off after 10/4 because of the buy on hype, sell on results, and the hype that led to the big stock gains are that the FOX deal not just will lead to more revenue on rights fees, but create a new boom period for the industry. People within the stock market world are studying the actual business more and seeing the popularity weaknesses and reading past the excuses. Some expect more of a downturn when the new quarterly figures come up because house shows haven’t looked strong of late, and ratings are continuing to decline and with Reigns back, last quarter’s excuse for the bad first quarter can’t be used again. The second is a feeling that nobody in Wall Street at first considered, but now is a key thing on a lot of WWE’s buyers minds, which is the fear that the competition from AEW may be more than anyone anticipated.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff Are Now the Executive Directors of Raw and SmackDown
• Jon Moxley vs. Joey Janela Is Now a “Non-Sanctioned” Match