[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition)

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter WWE has what on paper looks to be the weakest PPV show they have offered in a long time with the Elimination Chamber show on 3/8 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. The show comes just ten days after Super Showdown, meaning just one Raw and two Smackdowns to set up the show. Plus, I guess to set up WrestleMania’s main event faster, the decision was made to drop the Chamber main event, a six-way men’s match for the Universal title shot, and instead just have Roman Reigns come on Smackdown to challenge Bill Goldberg directly. Neither Goldberg or Brock Lesnar are defending the titles, and at this point top names like Reigns, Drew McIntyre, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Daniel Bryan, Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton aren’t on the show ... At press time, the entire lower bowl of the arena is set up along with 52 percent of the upper bowl, which would be for roughly 10,000 seats. Philadelphia is traditionally a very strong big show market. The secondary market get-in price is $53, so there’s not a case of a lot of tickets flooding that market at this point, nor a super high demand either. Not only is the Smackdown men’s match off, but last week on the show they had Lacey Evans talk about entering the Chamber to get a shot at the women’s title. But this week, not a word was said about it, and Naomi, who was originally booked to face Bayley at WrestleMania, scored a pin on Bayley in a tag match, which would seem to indicate a title match is still coming ... Other matches are ... a no DQ match with A.J. Styles vs. Aleister Black. The latter is the most intriguing, since beating Black a second time in a week will put him in that category of people fans lose interest in based on seeing that the company has done so. But with Styles facing Undertaker at WrestleMania, he has to be protected. There are ways to do outside interference finishes and the no DQ is obviously there for a reason.

For the 2/26 Wednesday shows, we have additional details ... The show opened with AEW doing 896,000 viewers and 397,000 in 18-49 for the beginning of the Kenny Omega vs. Pac Iron Man match. NXT did 732,000 viewers and 317,000 in 18-49 for most of the Dominik Dijakovic vs Cameron Grimes match. In the second quarter, AEW gained 69,000 viewers and 29,000 in 18-49 for Omega vs. Pac while NXT lost 24,000 viewers but stayed identical I 18-49 for the ending of Dijakovic vs. Grimes, the post-match and a Finn Balor interview. In the third quarter, AEW gained 2,000 viewers and 23,000 in 18-49 for the last few minutes of regulation and overtime of Omega vs. Pac, and the Pac interview. This was the AEW high point at 967,000 viewers and 449,000 in 18-49. NXT lost 21,000 viewers and 20,000 in 18-49 for Mia Yim vs. Xia Li and the post-match. In the fourth quarter, AEW lost 169,000 viewers and 86,000 in 18-49 with Luchasaurus & Jungle Boy & Marko Stunt vs. Santana & Ortiz & Sammy Guevara. NXT gained 57,000 viewers and 29,000 in 18-49 for the Velveteen Dream promo and Tommaso Ciampa vs. Austin Theory. This was the closest quarter overall with 798,000 to 744,000. So for the second week in a row, Ciampa/Theory segments have been NXT’s high point. In the fifth quarter, AEW gained 5,000 viewers and lost 4,000 in 18-49 for Best Friends vs. Butcher & Blade and post-match while NXT stayed even but lost 16,000 in 18-49 for the end of Ciampa vs Theory, the post-match attack by Johnny Gargano and an Undisputed Era promo. In the sixth quarter, AEW gained 15,000 viewers and 20,000 in 18-49 for Hikaru Shida vs. Yuka Sakazaki vs. Shanna vs. Big Swole while NXT lost 51,000 viewers and 30,000 in 18-49 for Killian Dain vs. Bronson Reed. In the seventh quarter, AEW lost 35,000 viewers and 8,000 in 18-49 for the Omega/Page and Young Bucks backstage segment and lots of PPV hype. The reality is that kind of backstage stuff and direct to PPV hype will lose viewers just as McIntyre’s backstage segment did on Raw. But there are times you have to sacrifice viewers to build matches. NXT lost 32,000 viewers and 15,000 in 18-49 for the Grizzled Young Veterans promo and beginning of their match with the Forgotten Sons. In the eighth quarter, AEW gained 110,000 viewers and 38,000 in 18-49 for the Jericho-Moxley weigh-ins. So they ended at 893,000 viewers and 409,000 in 18-49. NXT’s main event of Charlotte Flair vs. Bianca Belair gained 39,000 viewers and 29,000 in 18-49, ending with 700,000 viewers and 294,000 in 18-49. However, after AEW ended, even though the AEW Countdown show was on, NXT had one of its biggest gains ever for Flair vs. Belair, gaining 227,000 viewers and 94,000 in 18-49. When the post-match ended, a lot of the viewers switched back to TNT, as they got a big bump at 10:05 p.m. after NXT ended, for the AEW Countdown show.

Coming off the PPV show, AEW did 906,000 viewers and a 0.35 in 18-49, up 4.7 percent in ratings and 16.7 percent in the key demo. NXT did 718,000 viewers, even with pushing two cage matches, and 0.23 the demo, basically identical to the week before ... AEW was fifth for the night in 18-49, trailing the late night NBA game, Real Housewives of New Jersey, Hanwood and Sports Center after the NBA. AEW beat the early NBA game which went against most of the show on ESPN, which did 839,000 viewers and a 0.30 in 18-49. AEW did a 0.16 in 12-17 (up 166.7 percent), 0.24 in 18-49 (up 14.3 percent), 0.46 in 35-49 (up 17.9 percent and 0.34 in 50+ (down 5.6 percent) ... NXT did a 0.10 in 12-17 (up 42.9 percent), 0.16 in 18-34 (up 23.1 percent), 0.30 in 35-49 (down 9.1 percent) and 0.34 in 50+ (identical to last week).

The return of John Cena to Smackdown, plus an advertised appearance of Bill Goldberg, and the PPV bump from a big show coming the day before, led to Smackdown doing a 1.71 rating and 2,687,000 viewers. It was, as expected, the best number of the year, which I attribute more to the multiple weeks of hype to Cena than the other factors, but they all played into it. What’s notable is Cena drew a greater increase in homes than viewers, so that indicated a new audience in homes than usually don’t watch the show. The rating was up 10.3 percent from last week, which also did well due to Goldberg. The total audience was up 8.2 percent, and the viewers per home was 1.30, which is lower than usual ... For the second week in a row, and this had not been the case previously, FOX was above what it was for the same week a year ago in 18-49. The programs on the same Friday last week did 3,662,000 viewers on average but an 0.7 in the demo.

Fightful had a recent report mentioning that FOX pumped up the number of ads for last week's show to hopefully use Cena's return to try to turn around SD's sluggish ratings.

Negotiations are taking place between WWE and All Japan Pro Wrestling which would be part of Paul Levesque’s plan to start an NXT Japan group. This is a huge story within the Japanese promotions because of the feeling that WWE running the country could greatly change the landscape, even for New Japan. Within New Japan that was always the feeling that they would be dominant promotion in Japan no matter how involved CyberAgent got with DDT and Pro Wrestling NOAH, unless WWE came in. There are some in the U.K. scene who directly blame the WWE U.K. for ending what was called a boom period for UK indies. Others say it was going to happen either way and WWE isn’t really to blame ... Right now in Japan there is a lot of concern across the board about WWE entering the marketplace, particularly now when all but the top companies are vulnerable because of being unable to run shows due to the coronavirus. The idea is that if WWE makes the move soon, most companies will be in a weakened state financially and will have more trouble competing and surviving

There are about 3,000 tickets remaining for WrestleMania as far as at the box office with capacity in the 60,000 range so it should end up as a sellout or come very close. There are tons of secondary market tickets available with a $44 get in price. Regarding WrestleMania, there are no changes or new matches we’ve heard for the show. Phoenix did nothing in her appearance to build toward a match with Asuka & Sane for the titles. With the decision made for Orton to give Phoenix an RKO, they may want her to sell it for a few weeks. Regarding whether that women’s tag title match is still on the show after the injury angle was made, I was told that is still to be decided

The WWE made an announcement this week that WrestleMania will go on despite warnings about the Coronavirus. This apparently was in response to an interview Stephanie did in Tampa saying that they would monitor the situation and basically do the responsible thing but people’s health had to come first, and of course that was interpreted as if they were thinking about canceling and some fans panicked. But the announcement came off so bad. I think we’ve already seen with Saudi Arabia that unless they are forced, they are going to do what makes them the most money. If the option is left to them, they will do the show unless the decision is wrong for business because sentiment against the show would be overwhelmingly high. After 9/11, while they did move the show in Houston back, they were one of the first to do a show when nobody else would. In hindsight, they use that as part of their history in showing they were patriotic, but the reality is they had two hours to fill and the real world was not going to stop them. But nobody knows what the future will bring when it comes to the virus. The only thing is, if things get to a point where they have to even think about canceling that week, the situation will be far worse than prioritizing whether there will be a WrestleMania or not, and it’ll take all the major sports and entertainment events canceling to where WWE will basically have to do it if it were to happen. The bad part is that most events draw from the area and WrestleMania draws from all over the world and it will bring 50,000 to 75,000 tourists to Tampa

The coronavirus remains the major story in Japan, and continues to affect the pro wrestling scene. Dragon Gate was the latest promotion that has canceled shows, running its last show on 3/1 in Osaka . The company is scheduled to return to touring on 3/14 in Kariya ... New Japan has made no further announcements and at press time will start back touring 3/16 at Takaoka. They have also made no announcements regarding the handling of the New Japan Cup tournament that was scheduled to start on 3/4, nor have they rescheduled the Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiromu Takahashi match. Pro Wrestling NOAH and Stardom, which were scheduled to return on 3/20, have canceled those dates and more dates beyond. There have been smaller companies that have continued to run shows. DDT ran an empty arena show on 3/1 and Stardom has its major 3/8 show at Korakuen Hall as a live YouTube show for the first time, which, because it’s an 11:30 a.m. show on that day in Japan, will air 9:30 p.m. Eastern time in the U.S. That will also be a show with no spectators ... But everything is subject to change based on government directives, which is probably New Japan hasn’t made any statements this week. The reason nothing has been said this week new by companies is that nobody knows anything. They are waiting for the government to say it’s okay to hold public events, because it would come across badly for companies to run when the directive is out ... The big concern in wrestling is that most of the companies that operate on a small, if any, profit margin, don’t have the money to pay expenses without regular revenue coming in from live show gates and merchandise. Some are at risk of closing down or having to merge.

The [AEW Revolution] show, highlighted by the Omega & Page tag title defense over the Young Bucks, was a major success across the boards. We don’t have cable numbers yet, but for iPPV through B/R Live, it was up more than 10 percent from Full Gear and at the same level as Double or Nothing (in the range of 37,000 which is an excellent number for iPPV buys). FITE number were the highest for any AEW show to date (which would mean among the highest for that platform of any event in history), but they were going to be the highest of the AEW shows. The U.K. market no longer had television PPV so FITE would be the only way to get it legally. The number of U.K. total buyers will be down, but that was unavoidable with the closing of ITV Box Office and being unable to get a new PPV television platform. The indications based on data in is that it would have been second behind DON of the four shows based on B/R and FITE numbers, but the cable numbers aren’t in, Germany TV numbers aren’t big but are new and you lose some in the U.K. so it’s not a lock it’ll be No. 2, but will beat Full Gear.

It was only the second event in AEW history to trend on Google, with 100,000 searches. It was still only half of the 200,000 that Super Showdown did largely due to Undertaker, Bill Goldberg and Brock Lesnar being on the show. All In and the other PPVs besides Double or Nothing (which did 220,000) never cracked the top 20. Overall the numbers have to be taken as a positive, but it’s not like they are at WWE or UFC big show levels of general public interest. But they are well ahead of Takeovers, all but the biggest Bellator shows, at the general interest level of some WWE PPVs and most UFC events that aren’t on PPV.

WWE pulled Lio Rush from the 16 Carat Gold tournament that takes place 3/6 to 3/8 in Oberhausen, Germany. They did so less than 72 hours before the tournament started. Because of its business with WWE, the promotion has refused to book any talent associated with AEW and while Jeff Cobb, who they got as a last minute replacement, is not an AEW wrestler he was just on the AEW show. They won’t even mention AEW by name for fear of it causing heat with WWE.

Nothing is new on the Jeff Cobb front. The last word we got is that he hadn’t made up his mind on whether to sign or not. As noted before, his goal for this year when he didn’t sign with ROH was to continue working ROH, but return to the indie scene where he’d be perhaps the biggest star touring since almost everyone else has signed somewhere, with the key being open to anything New Japan wanted since he really liked working for that company and New Japan was planning on doing more U.S. events

The Maryland State Athletic Commission has completed its investigation into the Kenny Omega vs. Jon Moxley lights out match from the Full Gear PPV in Baltimore. The next step is one of two things, a hearing held on the investigation and vote on whether to impose sanctions on the promotion or enter into a negotiated settlement.

Cody talked to TSN in Canada about how he’s studying boxing and MMA on how to build big events rather than wrestling. “I’m a big fan of the big fights. I’ve learned more about wrestling recently from UFC and boxing than I have from wrestling. And I mean no disrespect to an industry I’ve loved my entire life, I just mean the big fights and the presence of somebody like a Conor McGregor, the presence of a Floyd Mayweather and even the other night with what we saw with Deontay [Wilder] and [Tyson] Fury, you don’t get that every week, but you do get some of it. And that some of it is super important. It can’t be throwaway.”