[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Matt Hardy is expected to leave WWE in March. He produced new Broken videos and offered an idea for a “Free the Delete” series to lead to his return with the old character. But they weren’t interested. Hardy is the leading speculated name for the leader of the Dark Order since they just started teasing a leader and Hardy just started putting out the videos. Plus, the Young Bucks and Broken Hardys had talked over a year-long program in ROH and Impact for three years ago, but when the Hardys got the WWE offer to return at Mania, they rushed through it. The problem here is that Jeff Hardy, who may not be on the same page right now with Matt since their wives went at it not that long ago in social media, has had a lot of time added to his WWE contract to due to injuries.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The return of head-to-head live shows on 1/8 saw AEW benefit from a great show the week before to score a surprisingly one-sided win in a race that it appeared NXT had the momentum in when the head-to-heads ended on 12/18 ... AEW appeared to build the stronger show for 1/8, and it showed, doing 947,000 viewers and a 0.36 in the demo over NXT’s 721,000 viewers and 0.19 in the demo ... Both numbers were likely held down by a combination of increased interest in news, and even more, a Jeopardy special on ABC that did 14,872,000 viewers and did in particular gigantic numbers in 35-49, AEW’s biggest fan demo, and 50+, NXT’s biggest ... In the segment-by-segment, AEW opened at 1,013,000 for the bulk of Kenny Omega & Adam Page vs. Private Party. NXT opened at 818,000 for promos and the beginning of Rhea Ripley & Toni Storm & Candice LeRae vs. Bianca Belair & Io Shirai & Kay Lee Ray. The second quarter saw AEW lost 69,000 viewers for the ending of Omega & Page vs. Private Party and the post-match stuff. NXT lost 48,000 viewers for the bulk of the women’s six-person and a Tommaso Ciampa video package. The third quarter saw AEW gain 17,000 viewers for Riho vs. Kris Statlander and all the post-match stuff with the Nightmare Collective. NXT lost 48,000 for The Forgotten Sons vs. Imperium in the Dusty Rhodes tag team tournament. The fourth quarter saw AEW lost 48,000 viewers for Christopher Daniels vs. Sammy Guevara and post-match with the Dark Order, SCU and Young Bucks. NXT lost 54,000 viewers for Austin Theory vs. Joaquim Wilde. The fifth quarter saw AEW gain 28,000 viewers for Dustin & Cody Rhodes vs. Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix while NXT gained 61,000 viewers for the battle of tag champs with Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Mark Coffey & Wolfgang. The sixth quarter saw AEW stay even for the MJF promo which also featured DDP, Butcher, Blade, Bunny, Dustin Rhodes and QT Marshall. NXT lost 13,000 for the ending of the tag team battle of champions and promos with Johnny Gargano and Finn Balor. The seventh quarter saw AEW lose 44,000 viewers for Luchasaurus & Jungle Boy & Marko Stunt vs. Trent & Chuck Taylor & Orange Cassidy. NXT lost 71,000 viewers for Mia Yim vs. Kayden Carter and video packages. For the head-to-head main events, AEW’s segment with Chris Jericho and the Inner Circle with Jon Moxley gained 73,000 viewers to 970,000. NXT with Keith Lee vs. Cameron Grimes vs. Dominik Dijakovic vs. Damien Priest lost 71,000 viewers to 605,000. When AEW went off the air, NXT gained 195,000 viewers for the ending of the main event. In the same time slots last year, USA Network averaged 902,000 viewers and TNT averaged 520,000 viewers, so NXT was 20 percent down and AEW was 82 percent up.

Originally Posted by PWI The first episode of NXT on BT Sport, by the way, did not carry the overrun and went off the air early before the finish of the Fatal Four Way won by Keith Lee.

The Wednesday night wars on 1/1 were one-sided since NXT did an awards and best of 2019 show. AEW’s live show did 967,000 viewers (1.34 viewers per home) , a huge increase from recent weeks with a heavily promoted show. It was more impressive since the first part of the show went head-to-head with the Rose Bowl, which drew 15,698,000 viewers and the second part went against the Sugar Bowl, which did 9,915,000 viewers. The best of show dropped NXT to 548,000 viewers and only a 0.15 in 18-49, falling to 66th place on the night. AEW did a 0.36 ... In the segment-by-segment, NXT opened with 772,000 viewers and 285,000 in 18-49 for the ladder match with Undisputed Era, Street Profits, Fabian Aichner & Marcel Barthel and Wesley Blake & Steve Cutler. AEW opened with 1,074,000 viewers and 494,000 in 18-49 for Cody vs. Darby Allin. In the second quarter, NXT lost 104,000 viewers and 42,000 in 18-49 for the end of the ladder match and Tag Team of the Year award presentation. AEW lost 105,000 viewers and 31,000 in 18-49 for the ending of Cody vs. Allin. In the third quarter, NXT lost 146,000 viewers and 55,000 in 18-49 Male Wrestler of the Year and Female Wrestler of the Year awards. AEW gained 47,000 viewers and 34,000 in 18-49 for Riho vs. Nyla Rose vs. Britt Baker vs. Hikaru Shida. In the fourth quarter, NXT gained 9,000 viewers and 7,000 in 18-49 for the Rivalry of the Year and beginning of the Women’s War Games match. AEW lost 104,000 viewers and 67,000 in 18-49 for the Dark Order promo and Jon Moxley vs. Trent. In the fifth quarter, NXT gained 11,000 viewers but lost 20,000 in 18-49 for the rest of the Women’s War Games match. AEW gained 67,000 viewers and 33,000 in 18-49 for the ending of Moxley vs. Trent and Chris Jericho’s offer to Moxley. In the sixth quarter NXT lost 41,000 viewers and 15,000 in 18-49 for the Future Star award. AEW lost 13,000 viewers and 3,000 in 18-49 for Dustin Rhodes vs. Sammy Guevara. In the seventh quarter, NXT lost 72,000 viewers and 14,000 in 18-49 for the Breakout Star of the Year and beginning of Johnny Gargano vs. Adam Cole 2/3 fall Match of the Year. AEW lost 39,000 viewers but gained 9,000 in 18-49 for the MJF promo. In the eighth quarter, the battle of main events saw AEW’s six man tag do 893,000 viewers and 458,000 in 18-49 to NXT’s doing 418,000 viewers and 155,000 in 18-49. NXT lost 11,000 viewers but gained 9,000 in 18-49 with Gargano vs. Cole. AEW had Young Bucks & Kenny Omega vs. Pac & Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix and lost 34,000 viewers and 11,000 in 18-49. After AEW ended, NXT gained 141,000 viewers and 61,000 in 18-49 for the end of Gargano vs. Cole and Cole winning the Overall Competitor of the Year award.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter A note on the ratings for 12/18. That was the week that NXT first won in the 18-49 demos. Even including DVR viewership, after seven days, NXT was still ahead in both overall and 18-49 numbers. That would be the only week so far that NXT with DVR viewership won either overall or in 18-49, although 18-49 only had a 2,000 viewer difference and since AEW traditionally does more past seven day viewers than NXT. So even that show may end up in a dead heat or with AEW winning. On 11/27, when NXT won 813,000 to 668,000 live, it ended up with AEW ahead with DVR viewership by 2,000 and in 18-49 had a 528,000 to 412,000 edge. But on 12/18, even with DVR viewers NXT won 949,000 to 942,000 in total viewers, making the first time AEW fell below 1 million viewers and NXT had the edge 457,000 to 455,000 in 18-49. So with NXT running that loaded show, a lot of AEW fans didn’t even bother to watch the show

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter For the first time in history, New Japan ran two straight nights of major shows at the Tokyo Dome, selling out the traditional 1/4 event with a paid attendance of 40,008, and probably about 43,000 total; and 30,063 paid the next day, looking to be about 34,000 to 35,000 total ... There were about 8,300 tickets for the first night and 6,500 for the second night purchased outside of Japan. Both were records and shows that much of the growth in recent years comes from overseas. There were few tickets sold outside of Japan for any Tokyo Dome event until the 2017 show headlined by Okada vs. Kenny Omega ... Surprisingly, the two countries that sold the most tickets were Australia and the U.K., the former topping 3,000 tickets to night one.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The bad blood between the two sides also stems from New Japan’s booking plans for 2019. Originally, Omega was to retain the IWGP title against Tanahashi at the Tokyo Dome and then lead to a match with Okada, their first ever meeting in the U.S., for Madison Square Garden. While we were under the impression Omega was to lose that match, he was not. The Tokyo Dome final four booking plan with both the IWGP and IC belts at stake was to be Omega vs. Ibushi and Okada vs. Naito (meaning one of those two would have been IC champion) on the first night. The idea from that would seem to be that Naito would have beaten both Okada and then Omega since the plan was always for Naito to be the first with the two belts at the same time. One person noted that Harold Meij wanted at the time to go directly to Khan. Khan didn’t come and who, for reasons having nothing to do with the wrestling industry, has never been to Japan and may never come to Japan. Things got worse due to legal threats made against AEW and Omega, which put relations at a terrible level, to the point neither side wanted to acknowledge the other. Those in AEW were frustrated with the idea that there was a fan base that no matter what, had this mentality that New Japan could do no wrong but they had seen a very different side of the company. It was easy for both sides to be bitter, AEW due to the snub, New Japan due to the taking of the talent, with the idea they don’t need the other, since both have done well on their own. Khan decided against plugging anything related to Jericho vs. Tanahashi or the Tokyo Dome show on its television or social media because he felt that was of no benefit to AEW. Yet, after the Tokyo Dome, on AEW, Jericho and the announcers talked about how Jericho and Moxley had big wins over the past week at the Tokyo Dome, a step that just a week earlier wouldn’t have been allowed. However, Moxley was not mentioned as winning the U.S. title, which is a Khan ruling with the idea that on Dynamite, the only titles he wants mentioned are AEW titles. If you note, Omega has stopped being called AAA champion, although that may be acknowledged going forward on Dark and he could defend it there, but won’t on Dynamite or PPV. Pentagon Jr. & Fenix are never mentioned as AAA tag champs in AEW even though those titles were defended in the past on AEW PPV shows.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter New Japan officially announced that there are no plans for television in the U.S. right now. This had been inevitable since Anthem purchased AXS. Really, the only way they could have kept was if they became an affiliate of Impact and that just wasn’t going to happen. New Japan did have that option but turned it down. As noted last week, this is more of a blow to New Japan in the U.S. than people recognize. Those in the bubble will say that you still have New Japan World, but the reality is that maybe has 50,000 subscribers outside of Japan, and that’s covering the rest of the world so maybe 35,000 in the U.S.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter B.J. Whitmer and Kelly Klein have split up. Whitmer brought up it was due to her relationship with somebody else. Most have tabbed that as Adam Birch (Joey Mercury). That seems to explain a number of things. Birch had contacted a number of ROH wrestlers with the idea of getting them out of their contracts and him representing them with the idea they could make more money playing WWE and AEW against each other than they could in ROH. It didn’t go anywhere because it was felt Birch was trying to take down ROH to do so, and virtually nobody was in favor of that. Birch was banned from Twitter for comments about Whitmer, who now works for AEW backstage

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter This is a true story and it shows how brainwashed some are. There was an international documentary being done on pro wrestling and both myself and Fumi Saito were involved this past week. They had interviewed people in WWE recently as well. I had actually blocked the director not that long ago because he asked me if it was true that Tony Khan actually bought all the tickets for those first day sold out events to make it appear the product was hot, given I seem to be a magnet for people who, for whatever reason, cling on to desperation wanting AEW to fail, even though I’ve never said once it’s a lock for them to succeed, just they’ve gotten off to a great start and their results thus far for a company getting started and selling tickets are strong. Anyway, the story came from people in WWE who explained to them that version, that the fast ticket sales and early sellouts were the company buying up all the tickets. So it’s actually a story propagated from within WWE talent or told to WWE talent from within the organization. You’d think people who see through the obvious, but I guess not

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Historically, bigger than Naito’s win was the final match ever of Liger. Nikkan Sports covered the Liger retirement as the major sports story of the day. But it wasn’t just Liger’s retirement, as unbeknownst to everyone, his biggest rival during the period Liger became known as arguably the best in-ring performer in the business, Naoki Sano, wanted to retire with Liger. But rather than take any spotlight away, Sano teamed with Liger, losing to Ryu Lee (Dragon Lee) & Hiromu Takahashi on this show, and then the next day announced his retirement quietly.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Hirooki Goto pinned KENTA to win the Never Open weight title in 16:12. What hurt this match live was no Katsuyori Shibata at ringside since the angle was based on KENTA attacking Shibata. Evidently Shibata tried to get cleared, which was admittedly a huge longshot at best. The result was that not only was he not cleared, but told in no uncertain terms that there was zero percent chance he could ever be cleared.

Originally Posted by Observer With WrestleMania season approaching, Will Ospreay has been announced for two independent shows in Tampa. Ospreay will be in action at Game Changer Wrestling's Joey Janela's Spring Break 4 at The Cuban Club in Ybor City on Friday, April 3. This will be the first time Ospreay has wrestled at a Spring Break or for GCW.

Originally Posted by PWI WKYT-TV in Kentucky is reporting that WWE is making a push to have Corbin, Kentucky renamed King Corbin, Kentucky as part of a marketing ploy for this weekend's live event in the city. WWE is running Corbin this Sunday with Baron Corbin advertised to face Roman Reigns in a Loser Eats Dogfood match. Prior to that event, according to WKYT, Corbin and WWE reps will be in front of the Colonel Sanders statue in downtown Corbin Sunday afternoon, collecting signatures to join Corbin's petition for the name change. WWE cameras will be filming and there will be giveaways for tickets for Sunday's live event.

Originally Posted by PWI Vice is in the midst of putting together and filming the second season of Dark Side of The Ring. PWInsider.com can confirm some of the topics that will be covered in Season Two will be: * Brawl For All. * The Benoit Tragedy. * Dino Bravo. There's also been talk of Herb Abrams and New Jack episodes, but we have not confirmed whether they have moved forward on including those in season two. The plan is for ten episodes for season two. The Benoit tragedy episode will feature Nancy Benoit’s sister Sandra Toffoloni and Chris Benoit's son David. Since Toffoloni has noted this publicly on her Twitter account, she has reunited with David and thanked the series for giving her back her nephew. Toffoloni and Benoit were together at an AEW PPV last year.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Mirror Sport uploaded highlights from their portion of the recent media call with Paul “Triple H” Levesque. Levesque confirmed that there will be more NXT U.K. TakeOvers this year and it was just a matter of mapping it out with the rest of the WWE schedule. “We absolutely will. As you can imagine, trying to put together a WWE calendar, with closing in on 600 live events all over the globe, is a difficult process and it’s a puzzle, and if one thing changes it moves bits and pieces around and you don’t want to be running shows that step on each other. So it’s a bit of a puzzle. There absolutely are plans for more NXT UK TakeOvers this year. As you see even just now, this weekend we’re heading to Blackpool for another massive event there and then a few weeks from that, the NXT UK talent will be over here in Houston, Texas for Worlds Collide, where Imperium will face off with The Undisputed ERA. There will be so many other matches you will see on that card as it gets laid out here in the next few days and into the next week, you will learn exactly what that entire card is, but as you will see, that card will be spectacular as well. So Worlds Collide will be another epic event. It’s all about the exposure for these talents and these brands and getting them the opportunity as you said to have these mega events that you can build towards and you can give them these spectacle match of the year type things and make everybody into bigger and bigger stars and household names around the world.”

600 events this year is pretty insane and then WWE wonders why they keep burning out their audiences both on tv and for events because of how over exposed the company is.


TPWW Frontpage:

• Various: Marty Scurll ROH Update, More on Andrade’s US Title Win at MSG, Indies
• Rumor: Major League Wrestling in Talks with Cable Network Showtime for Television Deal
• “Straight Up Steve Austin” Renewed for a Second Season
• Four Way Tag Team Match Announced for AEW Dynamite