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Originally Posted by PWI 5/23 THIS DAY IN HISTORY: OWEN HART PASSES AWAY 1999 - Owen Hart dies of cardiac arrest after falling from the ceiling in the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri during the WWF Over The Edge Pay-per-view. The fall was not seen on television, as a pre-taped interview was being shown at the time. Owen was to have made a "Blue Blazer" entrance on a cable when his harness malfunctioned, causing the fall. Hart was rushed to a hospital, where he was declared dead. Owen was 34 years old. The show continued, with Jim Ross informing the home viewer later in the program that Owen had died, but the fans in the building were not told of his passing. The decision to continue running the show and not announcing Hart's death to the live crowd have been hotly debated since 1999. The Undertaker defeated Steve Austin in the main event to win the WWF Title in the main event. The show would be the only WWF PPV, to date, that was never released on home video after it was held.

Originally Posted by PWI Q - Loved the Bret Hart-Tom Magee match and documentary, but for a match that was meant only for the crowd and was never going to be shown on television, how does it have commentary with Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan? A - They may have later voiced it over to use on one of the syndicated shows but for whatever reason, never used the match. WWF used to voice over old content all the time and re-use it for Prime Time Wrestling, Home Videos, etc. so it wasn’t out of the ordinary.

From PWI's weekly Q&A article on why the Hart-Magee match had commentary.

Originally Posted by PWI The Tacoma Dome is locally advertising the following matches for the 6/23 WWE Stomping Grounds PPV: *Kofi Kingston vs. Kevin Owens for the WWE Championship *Seth Rollins vs. Baron Corbin for the Universal Championship *Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre

Originally Posted by PWI The updated lineup advertised locally for the 7/14 WWE Extreme Rules on 7/13 PPV in Philadelphia features: *Kofi Kingston vs. Kevin Owens vs. Dolph Ziggler for the WWE Championship in a Triple Threat Match *Seth Rollins vs. Baron Corbin for the Universal Championship in a Tables Match *Roman Reigns vs. Shane McMahon and Drew McIntyre in a Handicap Match. *AJ Styles vs. a mystery opponent *Plus: Becky Lynch, Randy Orton, Elias.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The move will come three months after what is expected to be AEW’s debut on ITV 4 in October with a regular live television show. The AEW deal is not official, but Cody strongly hinted at it on Being the Elite and Chris Jericho has talked about it on his podcast. ITV 4 will be airing both a Countdown like show for Double or Nothing on 5/24 and the one-hour Buy In show, as well as handle the PPV show in the U.K. market on ITV Box Office. The final deal is said to be not official until TNA decides whether to run the weekly two-hour live show on Tuesday or Wednesday nights. The hope is for ITV 4 to run the show live.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter New Japan World subscribers have hit 122,000 with good gains coming with the start of the Best of the Super Juniors tournament. An interesting note is that the two most-watched matches thus far have been Rocky Romero’s matches with Will Ospreay and Robbie Eagles. Some of that is because Australia and the U.K. are in more favorable time slots than the U.S., but still, you’d think the Japanese bouts would dominate since Japan has the most subscribers. This has helped Eagles in the eyes of management. The new people who have signed up in the last week are mostly from Europe, not the U.S., or Japan, so there’s a feeling Ospreay being in a key position has helped a lot. Eagles was said to be the most popular newcomer this year, with part of the reason believed that the fans are comfortable with him because he’s half-Asian. His new Bullet Club T-shirt is the best selling Bullet Club shirt in Japan since the Young Bucks were taken out of the group. It was noted he’s also getting over with women and children, similar to Juice Robinson, and women are a key demographic they are after

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The company got some good news with the on-sale for the Bridgeport Takeover show. While not sold out, the advance for the 7,000 seat set up is strong and it look like it will either sell out or come very close. This would be the first Takeover in a major arena that wasn’t the day before a major WWE PPV show.

According to the Observer, NXT's show is selling at a faster pace than the upcoming AEW Jacksonville show and NJPW G1 show in Dallas.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The 7/6 Dallas show at last report had sold about 2,800 tickets. They are hoping for a big late buy, and they did get that in San Francisco once the card was announced, but late buys are going to be local and New Japan doesn’t have that many fans in Dallas. Lance Archer has been heavily promoting the show including going to indie cards in the area and selling tickets. Jushin Liger has been added to the show. London on 8/30 is at 6,100 tickets sold at this point, so it will sell out

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter In an interesting move, the Double or Nothing show is treating media like they are covering a sports event. They sent out a list of things that a real sport would send out to media with details, credentials, areas to file stories, backstage interviews for stories after the show and much more. WWE does do a media room in the suites for WrestleMania, and Takeovers do have a post-show press conference with Paul Levesque, but not with the talent, but this likely comes from the sports background of Tony Khan and with the guys involved learning from their days working New Japan major shows.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Pac was scheduled to beat Page, which with the win, was to lead to bigger matches ... The feeling here is that beating Page had to be a big deal and lead to a major main event, because they are positioning Page as a big star. If it’s not to set up a match with Omega, Jericho or Cody, nobody should be beating Page. You could do a DQ, and many would, or a draw. They made the decision that they wanted winners and losers when you pay for a PPV. To not adhere to that concept on the first show basically ruins the concept they are pushing right out of the gate. They were not going to sacrifice the entire concept of what they were building to get out of a match. As far as the draw idea goes, that had problems as well ... First, Tony Khan was at the Revolution Pro show where Pac and Will Ospreay did a 30:00 draw in what was an easy ****3/4 match. But as great as the match was, the fans booed the draw. Khan didn’t want that reaction on his show, and also noted it wasn’t just that match, but other Pac draws in the U.K. had gotten similar reactions, noting another great match with Zack Sabre Jr. The fact that in the 70s, or in New Japan, a long classic match ending in a draw would be viewed one way didn’t matter, because it’s neither the 70s nor Japan. He didn’t want a negative reaction like that on the debut show. Second, it didn’t work out. If they did a 20:00 draw, they’d have to cut time from other matches to make it work. Plus, if in the future, they wanted a non-main event to go more than 20:00, the precedent would be set that a third from the top match has that time limit. If they went 30:00, they’d have to cut more time out of perhaps multiple matches ... As far as Pac goes, for right now he will not be working for the promotion. He won’t be at Fyter Fest, and likely angles or match announcements will be made coming off the show to make sense for however that main event is to be changed. He is not expected to be back until he loses the Dream Gate belt, because with the style of booking they are doing, they can’t do business with somebody who can’t ever lose.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Regarding the most talked about mystery guys, Joey Ryan is booked on that night for AIW in Cleveland. C.M. Punk is doing play-by-play of an MMA show in Southern California. Jon Moxley (Dean Ambrose) is doing an MMA movie, although it is possible he could get a day off.

In regards to AEW's upcoming Casino Battle Royal match.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The medical examiner’s office in London confirmed the early reports that the death of Cesar Gonzalez, better known as Silver King, on 5/11 in the ring in London, was due to a heart attack. It was noted that his father, the legendary Dr. Wagner, died the same way at the age of 68 One thing notable about his death is that, as noted last week, there has been a movement throughout wrestling for referees to get CPR training, which is only a good thing. Daniel Lopez, better known as El Satanico, who runs the commission out of Zapopan, which is the Guadalajara region, has now mandated that shows need two ambulances on site and one paramedic, who will be assigned by the commission, will be on every show along with a doctor and that at least one referee on every show will need to have had CPR training. Lopez said that he wants all referees to have that training

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Even though Primo Colon has been working in Puerto Rico a lot as of late, he is still under contract here. Both Colons have it in their deal that because of the longstanding WWE relationship with Carlos Colon, that they are allowed to work shows for WWC. It’s not like they are missing WWE main event bookings by going there. Primo is one of those guys who was a good worker since he was a teenager and he’s made a living here with his downside and all, and Puerto Rico is so dead that it was the best thing for him in the big picture, but he’s also a guy who nobody realizes how good he is who has never been able to show it

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The 5/17 television show was a mess for a number of reasons. The first and main thing is that in the much-lauded Michael Elgin vs. Rich Swann, in the television version on Pursuit, after Swann did three dives and a top rope move, they went to a commercial break. This was 96 minutes into a two-hour show. The next 24 minutes were nothing but commercials and they never came back. It wasn’t a problem with the tape, because they air the show at the same time on Twitch and they showed the complete match. The worst part of all this is that so few people watch Impact now (the last rating we heard for the show on Pursuit was around 10,000 viewers) that there was almost no talk about the miscue anywhere.

Originally Posted by Observer For the third time in four weeks, SmackDown's Monday night house show won't be taking place as scheduled. WWE announced today that SmackDown's house show that was supposed to take place at the Tony's Pizza Event Center in Salina, Kansas on Monday (May 27) has been rescheduled to Saturday, October 26. Tickets that were purchased for Monday will be honored on that October 26 date, and WWE noted that fans who cannot attend should go to their point of purchase for refunds.

Originally Posted by PWI For those who have asked about Lio Rush, we are told he is still WWE NXT bound.

Originally Posted by Fightful Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer reports that Johnny Gargano is currently dealing with a knee injury. Gargano hasn't worked an NXT live event since Mar. 8 but did wrestle at TakeOver: New York against Adam Cole and has wrestled at recent NXT television tapings. His TakeOver: XXV match on June 1 with Cole is reportedly not in jeopardy but it is unclear how active he will be following that match ... Meltzer also reports that Bobby Fish is dealing with an undisclosed injury but that it is not considered serious. Fish was kicked in the head during a tag team match at an NXT live event on May 17, which reportedly left him woozy. He showed up the next night with his arm in a sling, unable to wrestle. Fish is being advertised for NXT TakeOver: XXV where he will team with Kyle O'Reilly in a fatal four-way tag team ladder match to crown new NXT Tag Team Champions.

TPWW Frontpage stuff:

• WWE: Matt Riddle NXT Title Plans, More on Owens Not Going to Saudi Arabia
• New Talk Show Hosted By Steve Austin Coming to USA Network
• WWE Reportedly Added the 24/7 Title Because of Pressure From USA Network
• Aleister Black Isn’t Going to Saudi Arabia Because of His Tattoos