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Old 09-11-2020, 02:19 PM   #1456
Emperor Smeat
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The Sheets (Observer Newsletter edition):

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The WWE sent out a vague letter to talent on 9/3 regarding third party bookings that led to a ton of questions among wrestlers, some complaints, and even drew a strong reaction from a former candidate for President in 2020.

A week later, it is somewhat more clear what this means. Exactly what it was supposed to mean, or if it changed due to the reaction and tweets by Andrew Yang, is uncertain.

Talent who got details at the 9/7 Raw in a little more detail thought the policy had been eased up on, but still weren’t sure of everything.

By the next day, the explanation of the policy was that the communication to talent was not about issuing new rules, but simply a reminder of contractual agreements. The company told talent that they were encouraged to be active across all social media platforms. But that talent it not allowed to independently monetize WWE-owned or controlled intellectual property.

Basically, talent was not allowed to use their WWE characters in social media to make money without WWE being involved in the deal.

At first the belief was that talent would not be allowed to be involved with Cameo or Twitch. There was concern about YouTube as well, although the belief is that the company wanted talent on YouTube and Twitter promoting the company and themselves.

One talent said that at the 9/7 Raw they were told that they would have to switch to using their real names as opposed to their WWE names for YouTube and Twitch, but would have to let the company know.

A few days earlier, talent had been told by Mark Carrano that WWE owns the real names and that you couldn’t get around the policy by using your real name.

Regarding if talent was to get an endorsement deal or have a way to earn money on platforms like Cameo or Only Fans, are they allowed to do it using their real name, the reaction was that there are a variety of factors in play including agreements in place and how activations are branded and/or promoted on multiple platforms. The matter will be determined through the specifics and communication. In other words, it seems like things are on a case-by-case basis.

Another person noted that the vagueness was due to the fact that nothing is etched in stone and it constantly changes. It was said that Vince McMahon had talked about this as a problem dating back months. At first he wanted to put a stop to everything, but before doing so, COVID hit. He had talked a few times about it and never pulled the trigger.

A key is that there were talents that were using their WWE names in sponsorship deals which the company wasn’t happy with ...

Some believed this was in specific related to Cameo, with the idea WWE wanted either a corporate relationship with that company, work with another similar company or start something similar, and thus didn’t want its own talent making individual deals that would hurt the company’s overall bargaining power ...

Some, if not most talent, were privately upset, noting that with the pandemic, those without large guarantees and on prior lower guaranteed deals are earning a lot less due to no house show pay and lower merchandise pay. Now the company, while still claiming talent as independent contractors, is taking away an outside way to make income that does not affect their WWE performances or work with other promoters. The independent contractor classification has been weird because WWE controls all bookings, interviews, when people work, their work schedule and even how they work and what they say.

The argument was that because they now have far more time off with the cutback in arena events and travel, that they can use that time to both make money and also market themselves in other platforms as stars which also helps the company with stars being seen in different platforms.

Another person noted that Nick Khan, the new company President, made a killing in Hollywood by procuring third party deals for his clients, but now has to take Vince McMahon’s side on a policy that wouldn’t allow that. Another argument is that Bruce Prichard is an executive and also allowed to make money doing a podcast, but also backed up McMahon’s decision.
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The different concussion related lawsuits backed by attorney Konstantine Kyros against Vince McMahon and the WWE, that were thrown out in 2018 by Connecticut Circuit Court Judge Vanessa Bryant saw her decision upheld on 9/9 in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.

The various suits claimed that McMahon and the WWE knew of the dangers of head injuries and never warned the wrestlers. Bryant threw the case out citing both the statute of limitations having expired in most of the cases and also no evidence presented that showed WWE knew that concussions or head trauma caused CTE, as most of the cases in question were prior to 2008, when the term CTE first broke into the sports world ...

In the case of about 50 wrestlers headed by former Road Warrior Animal Joe Laurinaitis, ironically the older brother of longtime WWE executive John Laurinaitis, there was an attempt to not only overturn the decision throwing out the concussion case but also get a ruling that WWE had misclassified its wrestlers as independent contractors and not employees, as well as claims that the talent deserved to be paid royalties for when they appeared on the WWE Network. In addition, Kyros was attempting to get sanctions against him levied by Bryant overturned. The appeals court refused to rule on the sanctions. Kyros will be able to appeal the sanctions until after the trial court sets the amount he would have to pay to WWE ...

There were a number of arguments that made this case a tough one. For one, simply put, the original lawsuit had far too many flaws and in certain cases was full of shit, including trying to argue that Frazier’s heart attack death was somehow caused by CTE, of which he was never documented as having since his brain was never examined. The lawsuit in the case of many of the wrestlers would list every date the lawyers could find of matches that they worked and claimed brain damage in each match. There were also issues where almost all the defendants had worked all over the country for different promoters, and only a small percentage of their careers were even spent in WWE in many cases. Angelo Mosca, who most definitely suffers from severe memory issues, as an example, played college football, then many years of Canadian football, as well as wrestled all over the world in a career that went from 1960 to 1986, and full-time from 1969 on. During that period, the only time working for the McMahon family was for most of 1981 with a main event heel run working with the likes of Bob Backlund and Pat Patterson, and a three-month run in late 1984.

So while it is very possible his WWF stint had a percentage to do with his current situation, it is likely only a small percentage. In addition, Connecticut law only provides a three year window to file a claim based on an injury from the time of the injury, and not the time the person discovers the injury. It was noted in the appeal that even if WWE concealed the risk that blows to the head could cause permanent degenerative neurological damage (keep in mind there was no evidence WWE did so) that it was time barred because none of these cases were filed within three years of the original injury.

In this case, that law is badly flawed because concussion issues that lead to dementia or Alzheimer’s are usually not going to show up in athletes of this type until decades after they retire. So the morality of the situations in the case of a modern wrestler who may have spent the bulk of their career in WWF/E and decades later had problems with memory and other issues from head trauma would be very different from the legal definition.
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Gerald Brisco received a phone call from Vince McMahon on 9/9 letting him know that he would not be brought back to the company after a storied 36 years.

Brisco, who turns 74 on 9/19, had been furloughed in April and was one of as many as 70 people let go this past week in decisions made largely regarding not bringing back those furloughed at the time. Categories hit the hardest were live event producers, production managers, and those who worked in other aspects of live events, merchandise and travel.

A number of producers were furloughed and then let go. Lance Storm had already been officially let go after being furloughed due to issues in being able to get into the U.S. and back regularly. Mike Rotunda and Sarah Stock were also let go. I would that others furloughed were also let go but none were official. As a general rule, the company seems to have kept the younger producers and let the older ones go ...

There was a lot of bitterness from those feeling strung along. It was noted to us that people were told they would be brought back, but then the date of being brought back kept moving another month. In time the recognition with the record profits in quarter two, and the big contract hire of new President Nick Khan, led to bitterness because they were told the furloughs were the last thing the company wanted and were forced out of economic necessity. With the continued delays, many had started looking elsewhere, no longer being convinced they were being brought back, but it’s a tough economic market right now. Some of those let go have been brought back in recent weeks. Others were told this past week they officially were not being brought back.

WWE officials said that there would be no new talent releases at this time ...

Brisco privately felt that he knew the day was coming over the past few years given his age. But from the outside, his name was perhaps the most shocking of those furloughed.
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The Hell in a Cell PPV that was scheduled for 11/11 has been moved up a week to 10/25, meaning the day after both Impact Bound for Glory and Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Justin Gaethje in UFC. This may be because their deal with the Amway Arena ends on 10/30 and it would be much simpler to do it with the current set up than to set up and go somewhere else a week later
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The 9/7 Raw saw nothing advertised until about 90 minutes before the show. The reason is that Vince didn’t sign off on everything until late in the day. From what we were told and this was also the word going around backstage, Vince didn’t get the show and read it until late, when he got on the jet to Orlando. It was a risk regarding putting Dominik Mysterio vs. Murphy as the main event regarding keeping viewers for hour three. The one thing is with Labor Day, it’s often a late arriving audience and because of that, usually from an historical basis holds the hour three rating better than usual. But it’s still a risk since the prior week the third hour drop was substantial
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Lawler, in an interview with Austin on the WWE Network, brought up the change in how the company uses their announcers. He said that the company felt that he and Jim Ross were becoming too big of stars and were outshining the talent. That’s why they changed their approach with announcers. Lawler said in his mind if people think the announcers are stars, then they have the ability to help get talent over as stars. He also mentioned that he was taking over the narration of WWE Story Time from Gene Okerlund and actually plugged his 9/26 50th anniversary show in Jackson, TN, which is unusual for a WWE show to plug an independent show.
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AEW’s All Out show on 9/5 at Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, was a show that ended up with a lot of attention, which largely overshadowed the quality of the matches.

While the response was more positive than negative, it was still by far the most negatively received major AEW show to date, even with the key matches all delivering at a good-to-great standard.

The biggest item concerned Matt Hardy, a few weeks shy of 46 and with wear and tear of about three decades inside a pro wrestling ring. Hardy was having a Broken match with Sammy Guevara, basically a Last Man Standing match, with his career on the line if he lost ...

After a spot where Hardy gave Guevara a DDT on the top of his head on one of the picnic tables in the area that connects the stadium and Daily’s Place, they both brawled on a scissors lift.

They were about seven feet above the ground and fighting back and forth for a few seconds. Guevara was to tackle Hardy and both would fly off the platform and go through two tables set up on the floor. It wasn’t even the climax of the match, but simply the first of probably a few big spots they were planning as they were only 1:44 into the match when it happened. Guevara tackled Hardy and when they came flying off, it looked bad because Hardy was flying too far. It was a split second, both men’s bodies crashed through the table the farthest from the platform, missing the closest table for the most part. The table did somewhat break the fall but the shoulders and back of Hardy’s head hit the concrete hard. He was clearly rocked badly, and couldn’t get up for 44 seconds.

Guevara stalled ref Aubrey Edwards for a few seconds and then she slowly administered a ten count which would end the match, with the risk that at that point if Hardy couldn’t get up, in theory he would have to retire. While they would have worked a storyline around it, AEW very clearly doesn’t want to be the wrestling company who does stipulations and then ignores them, as noted by Cody still claiming he will never challenge for the AEW title in a stipulation that everyone figured would be forgotten about.

Hardy did get up before the ten count, but fell back down. Guevara tried to work with him but he was clearly out of it and unsteady. He got up and threw some punches but stumbled and fell again, and Edwards signaled for an “X” signifying there was a real injury. Dr. Michael Sampson came out and a few seconds later the bell was called for, by owner Tony Khan.

What happened next was the controversy. Hardy was up and walking with Sampson after it was called off. The two were talking. Hardy, talking in his broken character was screaming for Sammy and he was talking. He wasn’t stumbling around or anything at this point. Then they cut to the announcers who explained why the match had to be stopped. The time the announcers were talking and they showed the announcers and a crowd shot was 64 seconds.

At that point they showed Matt walking and he was walking fine. The bell rang and they restarted the match. They did a little bit of brawling but went right to the planned finish. They climbed the lighting grid. Matt seemed unsteady climbing. At one point Guevara seemed to grab him to steady him. But Matt climbed and knocked Guevara off the grid into a crash pad. Guevara sold it like his left shoulder was separated or dislocated and he didn’t get up at the ten count to end the match as planned ...

That overshadowed other issues, and was probably a major part of the reason this show got mixed reviews. Hopefully, just because of fan reaction from an entertainment standpoint and this being so publicized, it will lead to the ability for companies to mentally accept just stopping matches if there is a significant fear of a concussion. Hopefully it also leads to a lessening of stunt bumps. Wrestling is dangerous enough as it is ...

There are positives and negatives of Daily’s Place. One of the negatives is with so few people in a large outdoor place, sound doesn’t travel well, and so much of wrestling is based on sound. This show is the perfect example. The key matches on this show, as far as wrestling went, were great–in particular FTR vs. Kenny Omega & Adam Page. With a live crowd, given the creativity, execution and storytelling, this could have been a classic and it did get the most votes for best match on a show where that was a very competitive category. But it was a mixed bag. Some didn’t like it because it didn’t have the great crowd reactions, which had to do with bad micing, and inherent issues of a long show in brutal heat with fans all wearing masks zapping the crowd’s energy. Plus, the crowd was so far away that only the loudest chants really came across, and the crowd at the ring, the wrestlers, were either not as loud as the WWE talent was (let alone the fake noise piped in at WWE shows now) or the outdoor nature made that appear to be the case.

The show was almost five hours from the start to the finish. That’s been the length of most AEW PPV shows, even the Double or Nothing PPV during the pandemic was close to four-and-a-half hours. For those live it was too long because of the heat and humidity. That, combined with what those in the stands said was bad micing, it made the show seem like it wasn’t over with the live crowd. These matches in an indoor setting, and possibly on a cooler night outdoors, the length may not have been bad. But when the crowd is quiet, as has been the case in the COVID era, shorter shows seem to be the best ...

The heat and humidity also leads to worse footing on the ropes, most notable for the debut of Matt Sydal. Sydal was the surprise last entrant in the Casino Battle Royale and the first thing he was going to do was a shooting star press. He went up to the top for a move he’s done perfectly forever, slipped, and actually looked like he hurt himself but he ended up fine and didn’t have any troubles for the rest of the match. Wiping down the ropes between matches would help on a night that hot, not to say that would alleviate it in long matches ...

Jim Ross was also under controversy, to the point that both The New York Daily News and The Sun (U.K.) covered it. When Anna Jay was out during the eight-man tag with Dustin Rhodes & QT Marshall & Scorpio Sky & Matt Cardona vs. Brodie Lee & Colt Cabana & Stu Grayson & Evil Uno, Ross said, “Did Anna Jay have a wardrobe malfunction, or is that wishful thinking in my book?” Ross did apologize after, writing, “Didn’t mean to offend anyone on the wardrobe malfunction line. Weak attempt at humor. Sorry. Now lighten up.”

He later deleted the tweet ...

The comment shouldn’t have been made. It is a product of changing times given that 20 years ago the same comment would have been viewed by that wrestling audience very differently. Jerry Lawler is remembered by some more for his ogling comments at the women on Raw in that generation than for his wrestling. But times have changed. People are also looking to blow things up and that makes things worse if you are in AEW or WWE, or are someone with enemies. At the same time, the apology should have been enough as opposed to making it worse, and I guess that’s why it was deleted.
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The early estimates for the show based on streaming orders through B/R Live and FITE TV, which the company gets right away, look like the show will do numbers at the level of the February 29, 2020 Revolution, or 100,000 to 110,000 buys. So it looks to be the third or fourth largest of the company’s six PPV shows to date.

It’s down probably 10 to 15 percent from the 2020 Double or Nothing company record (the largest for a non-WWE pro wrestling PPV show in 21 years), so it was back at normal levels for an AEW show. But one would think the number of people getting together to watch together is down as compared to prior shows, so that’s a negative, but on the flip side, I think most expected a number a little under average based on the lineup and the build.
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New Japan officially announced what looks to be on paper one of the more loaded G-1 Climax lineups in history during the 9/9 show at the Sun Plaza Hall in Sendai.

The key is that foreigners Will Ospreay, Jay White, Jeff Cobb, KENTA and Juice Robinson were announced for the tournament. This means all arrived in Japan by 9/5 to do two weeks of quarantine. Jon Moxley, who was one of the top stars in the tournament, wouldn’t be available this year under any circumstances because it would be four weeks away from AEW even under non-COVID circumstances. Until quarantine restrictions are over, requiring foreigners to be in the country for two weeks before they can leave quarantine after arrival, it’s pretty much impossible for Moxley or anyone under AEW contract to work in Japan for any promotion, as Kenny Omega was scheduled to work a number of big shows with DDT this year ...

For safety during COVID times, the two blocks will be kept separate in the sense that the wrestlers in the tournament will only do their singles matches on their block night. They will have the night off during the other blocks’ show rather than work tag team matches that would build up their next singles match.
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PRO WRESTLING NOAH: There is at least talk of a Nick Aldis vs. Great Muta NWA title match that would air in some form in the U.S. that would take place on 10/6. This could and at this point there are serious talks of this airing on regular television with Rob Hochman and Sonny Onoo as the announcers.
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One Florida fan who attends both NXT & AEW noted that the reason NXT was able to sell out 400 seats every other week was because tickets were $10 to $20 while the AEW tapings in Jacksonville are $40 to $60 and the last two tapings on 9/2 and 9/9 didn’t sell out even with 500-750 tickets being put on sale. The latter would be normal price range for shows and really cheaper than road shows for either group, but the difference is AEW ran three times (and the PPV was priced even higher) over an eight day period at those prices in the same building. We’re also told that as far as the live crowd for the first AEW TV taping and the PPV, a high percentage were NXT regulars
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The top ten most-watched shows on the WWE Network for this past week were: 1. Broken Skull Sessions with Jerry Lawler; 2. Payback; 3. Raw Talk for 9/7; 4. R-Truth Game Show; 5. WWE Timeline: Flair vs. Savage WWE feud; 6. Talking Smack on 9/5; 7. Smackdown from 8/7; 8. Survivor Series; 9. WWE Break it Down: Sasha Banks; 10. NXT from 9/1 which was higher than usual with the four-way Iron man title match. Three independent shows cracked the top 25, while 205 Live and the U.K. show both didn’t. No. 16 was the March 16, 2019 Evolve show. No. 19 was the December 3, 2018 ICW show. No. 22 was a We Love Wrestling feature from wXw
WWE, NXT, & AEW Ratings:
SPOILER: show

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The Labor Day Raw on 9/7 was not a good sign at all leading to football season.

The show averaged 1,725,000 viewers and 0.48 in 18-49, making it the seventh least watched Raw in history and tied for the fourth lowest in 18-49.

As far as the Labor Day holiday excuse, goes, last year’s Labor Day show did 2,507,000 viewers, the 2018 show did 2,897,000 and the 2017 show did 3,069,000.

It’s a bad sign since ratings had been way up since going into Thunderdome and Raw next week goes against the start of the NFL season, which historically means a sizable drop, plus a possible game six between the Lakers and Rockets in the NBA playoffs ...

Raw was 17th overall, which is actually better than usual, due to much lower ratings for news shows on Labor Day as compared to a usual Monday, and fifth in 18-49 ...

It was down 9.0 percent overall and 17.2 percent in 18-49.

It had the Labor Day pattern where people arrived late, so the second hour was the highest rated. Usually that leads to less of a third hour drop ...

The first hour did 1,782,000 viewers. The second hour did 1,800,000 viewers. The third hour did 1,613,000 viewers.

As compared to the same week last year, we really need to look at two. Labor Day week was earlier last year so the real Labor Day vs. Labor Day comparisons are a drop of 31.2 percent in total audience, 42.2 percent in 18-49 and 58.2 percent in 18-34. As compared with the second September of last year, which is misleading because this would go against the first week of Monday night football, the declines are 19.0 percent in viewers, 30.4 percent in 18-49 and 52.1 percent in 18-34.

With viewers coming in later due to Labor Day, they don’t get tired as quickly so the third hour drop wouldn’t be as bad. In first-to-third hour drops, women 18-49 were up 12.1 percent in hour three. Men 18-49 were down 14.3 percent, teenage girls were down 12.0 percent, teenage boys were down 10.2 percent and over 50 declined 8.1 percent.
* The show did a 0.27 in 12-17 (same as last week), 0.23 in 18-34 (down 30.3 percent), 0.73 in 35-49 (down 12.0 percent) and 0.84 in 50+ (down 4.5 percent).
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Smackdown on 9/4 did a 1.27 rating, 2,129,000 viewers, an 0.61 in 18-49 (793,000 viewers) and a strong 0.4 in 18-34. It did its best viewers per home number in a long time at 1.39.

This was the show where Roman Reigns gave his explanation for the heel turn and had a big spike for the Bayley/Sasha Banks tag title match and post-match angle, and overall did a good number. We’re also far enough to where this is probably a little above what will be the norm for the Thunderdome shows meaning it is making a substantial difference.

Smackdown was first among the networks in 18-34 and 18-49 among network programming, still pretty much all reruns, by a large margin, as no other shows beat 0.4 and 0.2 respectively ...

The rating was down 5.2 percent from last week, the audience was down 0.7 percent from last week, while 18-49 was up 7.5 percent and 18-34 jumped from 0.3 to 0.4.

In the segments, the first half hour did 2.02 million viewers for the Roman Reigns & Paul Heyman interview and Heavy Machinery vs. John Morrison & The Miz. The second quarter jumped to 2.14 million and that quarter usually declines, built around the Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler title defense with Sasha Banks & Bayley. It jumped to 2.32 million, which is huge for the show, for the end of the tag title match and the breakup angle with Banks & Bayley, plus the segment with Jeff Hardy, A.J. Styles and Sami Zayn. The final quarter did 2.04 million with the Jey Uso win over Matt Riddle, King Corbin and Sheamus. While that was a huge drop for the main event, it’s still ahead of what the final 30 has been doing.

It’s way up from what FOX had last year, averaging on the same Friday for rerun programming 961,000 viewers, 0.3 in 18-49 and 0.2 in 18-34.
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NXT on 9/8, built around the Adam Cole vs. Finn Balor match for the vacant title and Mercedes Martinez vs. Rhea Ripley in a cage match, fell slightly, as expected with the tougher competition and less unique main event.

The unopposed show did 838,000 viewers and 0.22 in 18-49 (286,000 viewers), down 1.3 percent in viewers. It was also down 14.9 percent in 18-49, and finishing No. 15 for the night ...

It was sixth in its time slot on cable ...

Younger viewers were down which coincides with two NBA games instead of one, and both games being deeper into the playoffs and more attractive than the single game last week. Plus last week almost the entire show was the title match, and this week was the rematch, and it wasn’t going to do quite as well coming one week later.

The show did 39,000 in men 18-34 (down 18.8 percent from last week), 27,000 in women 18-34 (down 43.8 percent), 146,000 in men 35-49 (down 12.0 percent) and 74,000 in women 35-49 (same as last week).

The high point of the show for overall viewers was the Ripley vs. Martinez cage match. The high point for 18-49 was the second half of Cole vs. Balor. The high point of 18-34 was Cole vs. Balor. The high point of 35-49 was Ripley vs. Martinez.

The show opened at 812,000 viewers and 292,000 in 18-49 with the first half of Cole vs. Balor. The second quarter did 869,000 viewers and 310,000in 18-49 for the second half of Cole vs. Balor. The third quarter was 807,000 viewers and 284,000 in 18-49 for Cole and Balor backstage, and the Robert Stone, Shotzi Blackheart, Aliyah and Io Shirai segment. The fourth quarter did 804,000 viewers and 279,000 in 18-49 for a Timothy Thatcher interview, Velveteen Dream vs. Ashante Adonis and some Tyler Breeze & Fandango and Imperium promotion for next week.

The fifth quarter did 844,000 viewers and 279,000 in18-49 for Bronson Reed vs. Austin Theory. The sixth quarter did 830,000 viewers and 272,000 in18-49 Roderick Strong vs. Killian Dain. The seventh quarter did 820,000 viewers and 262,000 in 18-49 for the post-match angle with Dain & Drake Maverick vs. Strong & Bobby Fish and the climax of the Candice LeRae and Tegan Nox angle. The eighth quarter was 918,000 viewers and 307,000 in 18-49 for Ripley vs. Martinez in a cage.

The show did a 0.11 in 12-17 (down 26.7 percent), 0.09 in 18-34 (down 31.3 percent), 0.35 in 35-49 (down 8.0 percent) and 0.43 in 50+ (up 7.0 percent). The audience was 64.7 percent male in 18-49 and 75.3 percent male in 12-17, so in particular there was a big drop with teenage girls from last week of 51.9 percent.
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The AEW show on 9/9 did 1,016,000 viewers and an 0.37 (481,000 viewers) in 18-49.

Although there is some psychological success in topping 1 million viewers, and the show went against NBA & NHL playoffs, being unopposed by NXT, that is about what should have been expected. It was the most viewers the show has done since the second episode of the show on 10/9 and in 18-34, it was the highest since 1/15. It was helped by coming off the PPV show, but didn’t have anything marquee advertised with Brodie Lee vs. Dustin Rhodes as the headliner. Of the company’s biggest stars (Chris Jericho, Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley, Adam Page,. Orange Cassidy and MJF), Jericho and Cassidy were the only one who wrestled on the show and both were in non-marquee matches.

AEW nearly beat Raw in 18-34, with having 164,000 viewers to AEW’s 155,000. AEW won, barely in women 18-34, by a 64,000 to 63,000 mark, so they did start getting the women’s audience back. Still, both were hurt significantly in that demo by both the NBA and NHL ...

AEW was No 7 in 18-49 ...

The show did 91,000 in male 18-34 (down 25.4 percent from last week), 64,000 in women 18-34 (up 56.1 percent), 236,000 in males 35-49 (up 13.5 percent) and 90,000 in women 35-49 (down 8.2 percent).

They also had a huge pickup in teenage girls, increasing 121.7 percent from last week.

AEW’s viewer high point was Brodie Lee vs. Dustin Rhodes.

The high point in 18-34 (173,000) was the Adam Page interview and Chris Jericho & Jake Hager vs. Joey Janela & Sonny Kiss. The high point in 35-49 (358,000) and 18-49 was the ending of Jericho & Hager vs. Janela & Kiss, the Jericho interview, the MJF/Wardlow segment and Jon Moxley interview.

The show opened with 989,000 viewers and 498,000 in 18-49 for Penta & Fenix vs. Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus and Eddie Kingston post-match. The second segment did 1,004,000 viewers and 496,000 in 18-49 for a Lance Archer & Jake Roberts promo, Matt Hardy interview and the beginning of Cassidy vs. Angelico. The third segment did 1,026,000 viewers and 487,000 in 18-49 for the ending of Cassidy vs. Angelico, the post-match with Best Friends and Santana & Ortiz brawling, and Sabian & Miro segment. The fourth segment did 1,017,000 viewers and 486,000 in 18-49 for the Page interview and most of Jericho & Hager vs. Janela & Kiss.

The fifth segment did 1,026,000 viewers and 523,000 in 18-49 for te ending of Jericho & Hager vs. Janela & Kiss, Jericho’s interview, MJF & Wardlow and Moxley’s interview. The sixth segment did 989,000 and 469,000 in 18-49 for the FTR tag team celebration, Ricky Starks interview and the beginning of Nyla Rose vs. Tay Conti. The seventh segment did 973,000 viewers and 427,000 in 18-49 for the ending of Rose vs. Conti, the post-match with Hikaru Shida and Rose, and Kenny Omega interview. The final segment did 1,066,000 viewers and 458,000 in 18-49 for Brodie Lee vs. Dustin Rhodes and the post-match.

The show did a 0.17 in 12-17 (up 13.3 percent), 0.22 in 18-34 (down 4.9 percent), 0.52 in 35-49 (up 6.5 percent) and 0.43in 50+ (up 18.6 percent). AEW tied NXT in 50+, which is rare, but AEW was on its traditional day, but NXT was actually unopposed while AEW did have competition from the NXT replay.
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