[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer With opposition from a strong NFL number, Raw's season premiere did 1.78 million viewers and a 0.52 in 18-49, down four percent in viewers and nine percent in 18-49 from last week's draft show. The decline is probably less than would be expected, particularly since the Dallas Cowboys vs. Arizona Cardinals NFL game did 11.32 million viewers and 3.57 in 18-49 ... It was fourth in 18-49, beating everything but NFL related programming on cable. The first-to-third hour drop of six percent was much lower than usual, so the audience that tuned in stayed longer than usual,which is a good sign for how the audience saw the quality of the show. Another factor is that the second hour beat the first hour, meaning a lot of people tuned in late, perhaps due to the early football game on FOX that did 12.16 million viewers and a 3.5 in 18-49. That meant the length wouldn't affect them as much in hour three. As compared to the same week last year, the show was down 24 percent in viewers, 31 percent in 18-49, and 42 percent in 18-34. The three hours were: 8 p.m. 1.81 million viewers 9 p.m. 1.84 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.69 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer The Orange County Department of Health is investigating buildings WWE is running shows in as part of a wider investigation into COVID-19 hotspots in the county. WFTV9 is reporting that The Orange County Department of Health is asking their COVID-19 strike team to investigate 17 businesses where COVID-19 may be spreading. The WWE Performance Center, Full Sail University, and the Amway Arena, all places WWE are currently holding events, are on the list. WWE issued the following statement in response: WWE is not open to the public, but rather operating on a closed set with only essential personnel in attendance. As part of on-going weekly testing protocols, Aventus Labs have administered more than 10,000 PCR tests to WWE performers, employees, production staff and crew resulting in only 1.5 percent positive cases as compared to the current national average of more than 5%. Additionally, extensive contact tracing takes place and impacted individuals are placed in 14-day quarantine and then only cleared after they test negative. There reportedly has been at least two COVID-19 outbreaks in WWE since moving all of their tapings to Florida, one in June and another in September.

Originally Posted by Observer With SmackDown airing on FS1 this week, WWE Backstage is returning for a special edition of the show. A one-hour episode of WWE Backstage will air on FS1 from the WWE ThunderDome after SmackDown this Friday night. A replay of this week's SmackDown will then air on FS1 after Backstage at 11 p.m. Eastern time. SmackDown is making a one-week-only move to FS1 this Friday due to game three of the World Series between the Tampa Bay Rays and Los Angeles Dodgers being on Fox. FS1 suspended weekly production of WWE Backstage this June, though it was noted that the show could return with occasional episodes surrounding major events. WWE Backstage launched in November 2019 and was hosted by Renee Young and Booker T. It also featured a panel of contributors that included CM Punk making select appearances. The hosts/panel for this Friday's episode of Backstage haven't been announced.

Originally Posted by PWI As PWInsider.com covered earlier today, FS1 is resurrecting WWE Backstage this Friday after it airs Friday Night Smackdown. The decision to bring back WWE Backstage was a late decision as initially, the plan was to air a one-hour episode of "Talking Smack", which normally airs on Saturday morning on the WWE Network.

Originally Posted by PWI The closing of last night's Monday Night Raw, with Drew McIntyre closing the door on the Hell In A Cell went off the air as it was envisioned. We've had a few readers ask if perhaps the company was running late with the segment and ran out of time, but we have been told by multiple sources that the ending we saw was the ending Vince McMahon approved.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Konnan guest appeared on the ‘Masks, Mats and Mayhem’ show. Konnan dove into his time in Lucha Underground and recalled when the organization offered The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) $250 a piece to sign. “Here’s why Lucha Underground was — this is the type of sh*t that only Lucha Underground would do. They had some jackoff, yes you are a jackoff, called Tony Jensen. He was the lawyer of the f*cking company. So they had this guy who doesn’t know sh*t about wrestling, doesn’t know how to talk to wrestlers, you know? You gotta be able to talk their language, alright and he calls The Young Bucks and he offers them $250 each. So they basically told me to go f*ck myself and that yeah, they’d sign if they got $2,500 each, and I was like, ‘Bro, Dorian [Roldan], why don’t you let me talk to the wrestlers? I already have a connection, a relationship with a lot of them and I know how to back and forth’ but no, they kept him there.”

Young Bucks mentioned in past interviews that the pay rates for Lucha Underground were very low plus LU wanted ownership of their rights for several years and have top priority for bookings. Think it was something like around $400 for a full set of tapings instead of being paid per show.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling EC3 was the most recent guest on the ROHStrong podcast. Following his release from WWE in April, EC3 put out a shoot-fight-style video that was of similar likeness to what would eventually become RAW Underground. EC3 shared that he sent that same video to WWE not too long before his release from the company. He said he was expecting WWE to convert his idea into their own but not to the lengths that he feels they did. “I knew it was going to be stolen, so I was prepared for it. I didn’t know it’d go to that length, and I know mine played to a minor bubble of the professional wrestling audience while majority of it saw whatever the hell they put out there. The way I look at it is kind of like I was Wayne’s World. I was producing this show in Aurora, my basement with my buddy Garth. We’ll call him J.C. in this instance, and then Rob Lowe came in, bought us and when I saw Shane McMahon in the ring, not in a real underground, mine was a real underground. [This] manufactured, heartless, desolate studio, I’m looking at Shane and it felt like when Noah was rapping on Wayne’s World after they bought him out. It was just inauthentic and like I said, it had no heart. So I knew something would’ve been taken from it. I didn’t expect the whole aesthetic, and while it upset my friend, J.C. who I worked very hard on with it, at the same time, it’s just a challenge to do something different, better next time which I definitely plan on doing because again, control your narrative, again, Ring of Honor provides freedom. I’m not tied to doing just that. There’s things I want to do in the future and continue that narrative as sort of supplemental content to whatever other places I’m doing things in and I have bold, ambitious views for it. We’ll see if it works out, I think it will.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling In June of 2020, Kris Statlander suffered a torn ACL while attempting a suicide dive on AEW Dynamite. Statlander had surgery shortly thereafter and she recently spoke with Wrestling Inc. and provided an update on how her recovery is coming along. “I’m doing pretty good. I think from what I’ve heard overall is that I might be a little bit ahead of others where I’m at right now, but I still have a real long way to go before I can re-debut basically and get back in the ring before I’m debuting again obviously, and I’m going to want to be training a little bit before. So I’ll be able to get in the ring before you’ll see me back on TV. It could be another eight months or so.” As far as the injury itself, Statlander is still puzzled on how it happened via a suicide dive to the outside. She said the recovery process has been more mentally exhausting than physically. “It’s been more mentally challenging than physically challenging at times because physically, I have the ability to keep pushing myself and to just keep doing everything I need to, and I’ll go harder than I probably should be to try and do my rehab and stuff like that, but mentally, you’re sitting at home all day and you’re alone all day because you can’t go out and go do anything. You can only work out for so long in a day when you’re injured and you just see all your friends, and everyone doing awesomely on TV and you’re just like, ‘Man, I just want to be a part of that so bad, and I just feel like I’m useless to this division.’ So there was a good two-three straight months where I cried every single night because I felt like I had just been failing everybody, and I don’t even know what happened when I got injured. I just did a suicide dive, and the way I landed, I guess, was not perfectly right. You can actually see the dive on TV when I heard it, but all you see is me quickly grab my leg when I go down, and then the camera’s off of me. But it doesn’t even look like I did anything super insane, or it doesn’t look very noticeable. ‘Oh, she messed up her leg there.’ You cannot tell at all. So I had no idea what happened. I just kind of felt a little ‘pfft’ in my leg. It didn’t even hurt that bad either. I was just like, ‘Oh boy.'”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The Preston City Wrestling promotion based in England made the announcement via their official Facebook page that they are ceasing operations again. They had to cancel their October 24th event and it appeared that their October 23rd event was going to take place as scheduled until the city of Preston went into tier 3 lockdown because of COVID-19.

Likely going to see the same happen again with wrestling in the US soon due to the resurgence of the coronavirus and winter months being prime for its spread. US-based wrestling got very lucky the first time around since the pandemic's arrival and stranglehold happened much later in the past winter season.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling VaynerSports, which is owned by Gary Vaynerchuk and run by co-CEOs AJ Vaynerchuk and Greg Genske, has added its first WWE client to its roster. On Monday, it was announced that Charlotte Flair (Ashley Fliehr) had signed with the agency and joins a slew of MMA fighters, which is a space the agency has aggressively gone after. Over the summer, VaynerSports added a combat and action sports division with numerous MMA fighters coming on board including Stipe Miocic, Chris Weidman, Eddie Alvarez, Curtis Blaydes, Vitor Belfort, Anthony Smith, and Aljamain Sterling.

Originally Posted by Observer Saraya Bevis aka Paige announced today that today marks two years of sobriety. Great for her.

Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGiLmbXnMK4

Originally Posted by Eastern Lariat Podcast NJPW owner Takaaki Kidani has 2 goals for the 50th anniversary in 2022: Continue running the Toyko Dome 2 days in a row and return to terrestrial prime-time broadcasting. Kidani's idea: "We'll run shows on the 4th & 5th and start (airing) at 8:00 on the 7th (Friday)."

Link: https://twitter.com/EasternLariat/st...71736240377859

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The Mas Lucha outlet reports that the official medical report states that wrestler Principe Aereo (Luis Ángel Salazar) died from a ruptured middle cerebral artery. Salazar was competing on a MexaWrestling show in Mexico City on Saturday when he collapsed, and the match was stopped. Later, he was pronounced dead at the age of 23.

Originally Posted by Observer Thirteen years after taking part in a betting scandal, disgraced former NBA referee Tim Donaghy is set to make his professional wrestling refereeing debut. It was announced via Sports Illustrated today that Donaghy has agreed to appear as a referee for MLW. Sports Illustrated wrote that Donaghy appearing for the promotion was the idea of MLW COO Jared St. Laurent and the plan is for Donaghy to be introduced "in a storyline that sees him serve as the personal referee for Richard Holliday’s upcoming slate of matches" ... Sports Illustrated noted that Donaghy's MLW appearance comes with the potential for more depending on the response ... In 2008, Donaghy was sentenced to 15 months in prison for the NBA betting scandal. MLW has been on hiatus from live events since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dave Meltzer reported in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter last week that the promotion was doing a secret empty arena taping in Central Florida from October 18 to October 20.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling A letter signed by multiple women from the cast of GLOW has been published citing concerns and problems with the show’s handling of roles and positions for people of color. The letter was posted to Instagram by Kia Stevens, who played the role of “Tamme”, who signed the letter along with Britney Young (“Carmen”), Sydelle Noel (“Cherry Bang”), Ellen Wong (“Jenny”), Sunita Mani (“Arthie”), and Shakira Barrera (“Yolanda”). In the letter, it refers to the hope for revisions in “the upcoming season”, indicating this was sent prior to the news that Netflix would not be bringing the series back for its fourth and final season due to the impact of the pandemic on their production, which halted filming earlier this year. A portion of the letter reads: We are writing to you today to share some feelings that have been suppressed in all of us for a long time. As the principal women of color on a show tackling racist and offensive stereotypes, we have felt disempowered throughout our time on GLOW. We’ve individually come to you to express our concerns over the course of 3 season – whether it be in our character meetings or during specific conflicts within our storyline – and our characters continually remain less fleshed out and less dimensional. It has been problematic to use our faces, oftentimes solely in the context of a racist storyline, and to be brief with our story development to serve the in-depth white storylines. GLOW has been marketed as a diverse ensemble, but for all of us diverse cast members, it has never lived up to those ideas. Since season 1, the show has planted racial stereotyping into our character’s existence, yet our storylines are relegated to the sidelines in dealing with this conflict or have left us feeling like checked-boxes on a list. Unfortunately, we feel that the promise of this show has not been fulfilled. There is incredible support, love and camaraderie amidst the GLOW cast, and it should go without saying that we are not here to take down our white castmates or our show, but to elevate us all in a deeper, more significant way. With zero persons of color in the writer’s room this season, it is a huge oversight to be writing our narratives without anyone else to represent us besides ourselves. There has been an emotional toll on us to take care of an enact our characters. The meta narrative of our show – actors dealing with the conflict of perpetuating stereotypes in order to have opportunity – is exactly what is happening in our real life. We feel both devalued in our skillset and only valued for the diversity that we bring. It is a cyclical, psychological pain to deal with one’s currency as an actor and a person of color based on a system that values whiteness. Even when our show seeks to comment on this standard, it perpetuates it. We can no longer be quiet about the pain this has caused us and the harm it has done in perpetuating the representation of people of color as sidekicks to elevate white leads. The letter (which can be read in full below) goes on to recommend that the series hire an Executive Producer or Consulting Producer of color, fully address how portraying stereotypical and racially offensive wrestling personas has impacted our character’s professional live and personal dignity, and “amplify our voices and our importance within the season narrative”.

Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGiD0sipqUy/

Originally Posted by Fightful Daga and IMPACT Wrestling have parted ways. According to Nick Hausman of Wrestling Inc, IMPACT has granted the release request of Daga. Daga reportedly requested his release some time ago, but IMPACT did not grant the release at the time and attempted to get him to re-sign. Daga made his IMPACT debut in February 2019, teaming with LAX (Santana & Ortiz) against The Lucha Bros (Fenix & Pentagon Jr) and Rey Horus. His last match in IMPACT took place in April when he faced Chris Bey on television. He is the current husband to Tessa Blanchard, who was released from IMPACT in June. Neither Blanchard nor Daga competed for IMPACT during the pandemic as they were both in Mexico for a period during the pandemic. The two married over the summer. Daga has wrestled a couple of times during the pandemic, including at the Warrior Wrestling Stadium Series event in September.

Originally Posted by 411Mania Major League Wrestling is back to doing TV tapings for its return, with the company officially set to air new programming starting in November. And to this point, it seems MLW is handling its COVID-19 protocols in a proper manner. Fightful Select reports that feedback from wrestlers within the company has been positive when it comes to MLW taking the necessary protocols to ensure their safety, which included talents taking part in their matches or segments and then returning to their hotels. Fightful also notes that MLW brought in a CDC official to oversee the testing process for its talent. To add to that, the site reports that there were “surprising, bigger names” involved in the MLW tapings that fans wouldn’t expect, although they didn’t name who those stars were.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Backstage Reactions to Potential NJPW & AEW Partnership
• WWE: RAW Debuts New Theme Song, WWE Denied Several Trademarks, Updated SD Ratings
• Jake Hager Booked for MMA Fight Later This Month
• Hardy vs. Elias Added to Hell in a Cell – Updated Card
• Dark Side of the Ring Officially Renewed for 14 Episode Third Season