[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The night when it came to ratings was a big win for AEW, drawing 1,409,000 viewers to 891,000 for NXT. More important, because for the stations themselves, this battle was about the 18-49 demo, where AEW placed second for the night behind only the Major League Baseball Wildcard game that did a 1.03 in the demo and 3,969,000 total viewers. AEW did a 0.68 rating and 878,000 viewers in 18-49 while NXT did a 0.32 rating and 414,000 viewers. The big key is that while NXT had spent two weeks building up this show with essentially a Takeover card with three title matches, advertised limited commercials, did screen-in-screen during breaks, and did a nine minute overrun, their audience declined 11.4 percent from last week. But in the 18-49 demo, the audience was identical to last week. Now, obviously NXT had a better and more heavily promoted show and it should have increased in the demo rather than stayed even, so the competition did hurt. But the story was that for the most part, AEW drew some, but not a lot of viewers away from NXT, and it confirmed a few things. One is most of the AEW fan base was not a WWE fan base, as all studies of PPV buys up to this point had indicated. Although they very well may be heavily lapsed former fans. The other is that there are far more potential wrestling fans than people realized who are not WWE fans. Another factor is that when you add the replay number, which we don’t have officially at this point but was around 650,000 viewers, that the total AEW viewers were not too far behind a typical Raw, and pretty much identical to what Smackdown had been doing on Tuesdays on USA. It also appears strongly that WWE going out and rushing into getting the two week jump probably backfired. NXT has declined significantly both weeks ... Indications are that this is not a nostalgia rating, as much as a sample rating. A TNT nostalgia rating for Nitro would have skewed older. This skewed young. One would expect the number to drop next week, just as NXT did, because TNT was plugging the show all over TNT and TBS at the end. But a major point is that the shows they were plugging it on skewed heavily over 50, but AEW did not draw that audience at all. If anything, this showed the value of the younger audience they had cultivated through social media. The NXT decline was not the age groups AEW was strong in, but the age groups AEW was weak with. Now, granted this week’s show with three title matches should have increased by a good percentage from last week in every demo, and it didn’t so AEW did hurt. But the big drop was over 50, and that means the baseball game, which dominated that demo last night, was probably more of a factor in the NXT decline.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter In just looking at teenagers, boys saw AEW, with head-to-head competition from a WWE product and only the first episode, beat unopposed Raw by 37.5 percent, Smackdown by 42.1 percent and NXT (with competition) by 239 percent. For teenage girls, AEW was 11.1 percent behind Raw, 0.6 percent behind Smackdown and 52.6 percent ahead of NXT. For 18-34, for males AEW opposed (and only first episode not including reply) beat Raw by 39.9 percent, beat Smackdown by 36.4 percent and beat NXT by 157.7 percent. For 18-34, for women, AEW (first episode) beat Raw by 13.5 percent, beat Smackdown by 37.0 percent and beat NXT by 48.8 percent. Conversely, once you get to 35-49, both Raw and Smackdown have solid edges with both men and women, although AEW basically doubled NXT. Over 50, NXT beats AEW slightly and Raw beats AEW 0.99 to 0.34 and Smackdown beats it 0.97 to 0.34. And while there is momentum, they did well in the age groups that have become the hardest for cable to reach, making them a good value for younger-skewing products for advertisers. But on the flip side, even if people liked the show, people liked NXT as well ... The ultimate story here is that unless AEW drops significantly under 35 next week, and this isn’t a flash in the pan, WWE is already behind with fans in that age group. If that is the case, it completely exposes WWE as it’s not the change in television viewership that has changed their demos, nor run off older fans, but that they have lost touch with the younger audience. Even if AEW does drop big, this shows in that age group WWE probably has either way because there’s no way a new group in week one that has never had television should beat the industry leader solidly like that.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The quarter hours are also notable because for AEW, teenagers opened at 330,000 and grew to 580,000 for the main event. But every other demo opened strong and either went down and picked up for the main event (18-34) or just declined throughout. Teen boys went from 260,000 for Cody’s match to 500,000 for the main event, but overall viewers went from 1,609,000 for Cody’s match to 1,381,000 for the main event. Teen girls opened at 70,000, grew to 140,000 for Riho vs. Nyla Rose, but then dropped big for the main event. At the same time, NXT declined with teens from 210,000 to 120,000 (they did grow to 150,000 for the unopposed overrun). The average viewer age hovered around 39 to 41, as compared to the 54 average for WWE programming and the 48 average for younger skewing NXT. Overall, both shows generally declined outside of AEW’s big increase throughout the show with teenagers. But in over 50, AEW declined from 455,000 to 334,000 for the main event and NXT fell from 408,000 to 352,000, but NXT won the night slightly in that demo during those quarters in between. The night opened with 1,609,000 viewers for AEW and 913,000 for NXT. NXT with Riddle vs. Cole closed the gap to 1,551,000 to 981,000 against Cody vs. Sammy Guevara. MJF vs. Brandon Cutler lost 111,000 viewers vs. Io Shirai vs Mia Yim losing 15,000. Pac vs. Adam Page lost 125,000 viewers while Johnny Gargano vs. Shane Thorne lost 50,000. Riho vs. Rose lost 1,000 while Shayna Baszler vs. Candice LeRae lost 20,000. Pete Dunne vs. Danny Burch gained 29,000 viewers. The six-man main event of AEW gained 67,000 viewers while the NXT tag title match with Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Street Profits head-to-head lost 193,000 viewers in the final quarter. However, when AEW ended, NXT did pick up 139,000 viewers in the final ten minutes. Interestingly, Baszler vs. LeRae killed it with those under 35, kind of like AEW, but got killed with older viewers. During the final quarter hour, with the battling main events, AEW had a 575,000 to 120,000 edge in teenagers and 444,000 to 145,000 edge with 18-34. In male 18-49, the final quarter was 629,000 to 228,000 for AEW and 280,000 to 126,000 in women 18-49.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter NXT had two surprises, both as new contenders for Cole, in Finn Balor and Tommaso Ciampa. Balor is in NXT as a full-time regular for the time being, as opposed to being a guy who will be on Raw or Smackdown. It was noted to us that even if Balor’s contract remains the same, he will end up making less money from the move unless they gave him a raise to go to NXT ... But unless Balor got a higher guarantee, he will be missing out because on the main roster he’d be up for more house shows that talent is paid a percentage on as opposed to NXT when you just get your salary, he’d be out the bigger payoff events like a WrestleMania, Rumble or SummerSlam or European tour, and for him, his merchandise sales would be significantly lower.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter It took less than three months after the death of Paco Alonso for CMLL, the oldest and thought to be one of the most stable promotions in the world, to be in chaos. There is a ton going on behind-the-scenes that led to Rush and his father, Bestia del Ring announcing right after Rush won the ROH title in Las Vegas that they were going independent on 9/27. Immediately after, CMLL announced that they were firing Rush, and his brother, Dragon Lee, Lee, claiming that both men were not living up to the standards of the organization ... The stuff reported on in recent weeks led to this. The basic story is that with Sofia Alonso in charge of the promotion, a lot of the old guard feared change, that they would lose their positions and she would hire younger people, or genuinely feared that a 28-year-old woman who had only been with the company for a relatively short period of time could run a business like this, even though she insisted, having learned from her father, that she was the person most equipped for it. They went to Chavo Lutteroth, who ran the company in the 70s and 80s, before it was turned over to Paco Alonso around 1989 since Lutteroth had more interest in the family’s boxing and real estate business. Lutteroth essentially demoted Sofia Alonso , moving her back to her former position as the company’s head of marketing, and took charge of the business end. She still has power because some of her projects are continuing. But she has not attended shows in recent weeks and was not even at the 9/27 86th anniversary show, the company’s biggest event of the year. New moves were made. Among them were both elevating the price of their talent to U.S. promoters and taking a higher percentage. Another was cutting way back on the guarantees, which included all members of the Munoz (Rush) family. Because of loyalty, the older stars like Atlantis, Negro Casas, Ultimo Guerrero and Blue Panther and the likes didn’t have their guarantees cut, but the younger stars, even though they were carrying things, did .... another thing that irked the younger wrestlers, banning fans from the decades-old tradition of throwing money in the ring, although the latter was partially a safety concern because fans at ringside can get hurt by coins being thrown at the ring. For obvious reasons, a lot of the younger talent wants out, but getting a visa to work the U.S. is the hardest it has ever been. In addition, previously CMLL talent in Mexico when working non-CMLL dates, were not allowed to work with AAA talent and other talent that the promotion didn’t like, but they were allowed to work with local independent wrestlers. The change was made that they would only be allowed to work with other CMLL wrestlers, with the idea that CMLL would then be able to get more bookings for their talent ... The situation gets even more tense because CMLL is a longtime partners with New Japan, as partners now with ROH. ROH, with booker Hunter Johnston (Delirious) just in Mexico for the Grand Prix and meetings, was hopeful to strengthen that relationship. But Rush is their world champion and under a long-term deal. It appears Lee will become more of a regular. Will CMLL try and push those rules to ROH, where Rush and Lee couldn’t work with their talent, or New Japan, which brings to question the Lee & Titan tag team. In addition, ROH with Rush in particular, and New Japan with Lee, wouldn’t want to change the names of established star talent. So there is a ton of uncertainty, including questions over who else would leave.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Rush and Lee both know that they can get into WWE when they want. Paul Levesque is said to be high on Lee, for good reason, and he’s a special talent, even though guys like him, see Gran Metalik, usually don’t fare too well in the WWE system. But it’s also taking major chess pieces off the board ... Rush isn’t interested in New Japan as that’s not his cup of tea. Lee loves it there. Then there’s the question of AEW, and if Lee went there if it would keep New Japan from booking him, although they do use Jon Moxley and will use Chris Jericho most likely at the Tokyo Dome. It also should be noted that in AEW, there were those who are higher on Rush than Lee due to the injury to Hiromu Takahashi ... As you can imagine, AAA would want he and Lee, but that creates political issues with ROH and New Japan, and Rush has not committed to any AAA television dates at this point ... Lee said that he’s heard from wrestlers in ROH, New Japan as well as from Andrade and has a big surprise announcement coming.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Velasquez’s final AAA match on his current deal was to be the 10/13 show at The Forum in Los Angeles. The Forum confirmed rumors over the last week that the show is being postponed. One main event wrestler on the show had told friends that they were told the show was being moved to early 2020. About 3,000 tickets had been sold for the show, which is realistically more than should have been expected for advanced sales, since Mexican shows are still heavily walk-up, but no doubt it would be a money loser. This was with no matches announced. But it’s not like ticket sales are going to be any better at that point in time.

Current estimated PPV Buys numbers for AAA's NY show reportedly are at 800 total.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The biggest news regarding the Ring of Honor Death Before Dishonor show on 9/27 is the lack of interest in the show ... As does the fact that in a 900-seat arena in Las Vegas, Sam’s Town, not only did they have a weak advance, but even with giving away tickets at the end to basically anyone who wanted them, they started the show with maybe 600 in the building and ended up with about 800. Worse are the PPV numbers. The last ROH show, Best in the World on 6/28 in Baltimore did an estimated 3,500 PPV buys. Death Before Dishonor at press time is estimated at just under 800. The actual decline from the last show was 77.7 percent, and this is not a year-to-year drop but a drop from June to September.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter An interesting note is that last year, on the opening Friday night of the season, FOX did 6 million viewers. As noted many times, while Smackdown may not beat first-run numbers FOX was getting last season, it’s 51 weeks of new programming and some of the rerun weeks of late have hovered around 1 million viewers.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter When Strowman signed his latest deal, it was a four-year contract believed to be for $1.2 million per year. The key to that number is there are exceptions, but generally, the top downside number WWE offers is $1 million. Obviously Styles signed for significantly more than that when his deal was due because of AEW. There are others who just because they knew how to negotiate, the company knew they could go elsewhere and make money, and the company feels were valuable that have guarantees above the $1 million threshold. The recent deal that Gallows & Anderson signed was five years at $700,000 per year each. They had turned down a $500,000 per year deal and were ready to leave when their contracts were due

Originally Posted by PWI The decision was made this afternoon to not broadcast a new episode of 205 Live. We are told that WWE made the decision to focus on the FOX Smackdown debut and things will return to normal next week. The Cruiserweights were brought to Smackdown and had been preparing their matches tonight when the word came down from management.

Originally Posted by Observer Konnan on his podcast talked about the possibility of Sofia Alonso leaving CMLL and starting her own promotion. This relates to the story in this week's Observer. All I can say about this is I'm stunned he said it publicly, but there is smoke to that fire.

Originally Posted by Observer Scarlett Bordeaux has pulled out of a number of independent dates based on having signed a contract. She just had a WWE tryout.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE star Jeff Hardy was arrested yesterday evening in Moore County, North Carolina and charged with driving while impaired, PWInsider.com has confirmed. The Moore County Police Department confirmed that Hardy was released around 11:30 PM last night from being incarcerated but declined to give additional details beyond what he has been charged with citing the fact that it is an ongoing investigation

Originally Posted by PWI The latest digital album featuring unreleased versions of WWE theme songs "Uncaged X" is now available on all major streaming platforms. It features the following track listing: 1. Know Your Role (Nation Leader) [The Rock] 2. End of Days (I've Had Enough) [The Corre] 3. Sher (The Maharaja) [Jinder Mahal] 4. Interrogation (1998) 5. New Rockers (2007) 6. Not My Fault (2005) 7. Piracy (2006) 8. Quicksand (2006) 9. Southern Pride (2005) 10. New Kind of Power (Jeff Jarrett) 11. Who I Am (9th Wonder of the World) [Chyna] 12. Take a Pill (1997) 13.You Look so Good to Me (The Runway) [2003] 14. Man Beast (1997) 15. Too Much (1997) 16. Poetic Devastation (Virgil) 17. Addonas (1995) 18. You Better Recognize (D'Lo Brown) 19. Return the Hitman (Excellence of Execution) [Bret Hart] 20. Break an Egg (The Gobbledy Gooker) 21. Are You Ready? (Hall of Fame 2019) [D-Generation X] 22. With My Baby Tonight (Instrumental) [Jeff Jarrett & Jesse James] 23. Dark Side (Fully Loaded 1998) [Undertaker] 24. Medal (Retirement Medley) [Kurt Angle] 25 The Time Is Now (Champ Is Here) [John Cena]

Originally Posted by Fightful Randy Orton appeared to have been drinking a bit while playing Call of Duty on a Twitch stream on Thursday. During the stream, Orton praised the premiere episode of AEW Dynamite. "Speaking of Vince, that AEW looked fucking cool, huh? Did you watch that show last night? Oh my God! I'll tell you what. It's that big match feel, the big show feel. Cody and Sammy Guevara, that kid can do some shit. I'd love to work with that kid. They had a great match. I thought opening the show with that match was a good idea and well received" ... The full stream was deleted as Orton used the N-word while gaming.

Originally Posted by Fightful According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer, Jim Ross was offered a spot on WWE Backstage, which is WWE's upcoming studio show on Fox Sports 1. Ross reportedly turned down the offer. As previously reported, Fox, not WWE, is in charge of producing and handling of WWE Backstage. Jim Ross currently serves as the announcer for All Elite Wrestling, a direct competitor against WWE. Fox being in charge of the show has been evident in recent weeks as it was reported that CM Punk tested on-camera for the show. In a recent interview with Collider Live, Punk confirmed the report that he met with Fox and tested on-camera, but did not say if they reached an agreement.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Tom Phillips Is Now on the NXT UK Commentary Team
• Various: Kacy Catanzaro Update, Tommaso Ciampa Officially Cleared
• WWE: Randy Orton Challenges The Rock, NXT Japan Update
• Anti-WWE Signs Reportedly Banned from AEW Dynamite
• There’s Been Talk About Edge Wrestling Another Match, But He May Never Be Cleared