[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer After getting a lift from the WWE Draft and its fallout over the past two weeks, Raw last night dropped slightly in the ratings, even with coming the day after Hell in a Cell. Last night's Raw did 1.73 million viewers and 0.51 in 18-49, numbers down three percent and two percent respectively from last week. The real difference was the return of the third hour drop, with a 15 percent drop from the first hour. That isn't surprising since the main event segment was not a match, but a Moment of Bliss segment with Randy Orton. But the show did push the idea that Drew McIntyre and The Fiend were likely to show up ... Even with the drop, in 18-49, the third hour of Raw beat everything on television except the NFL and Weakest Link on NBC. If you factor out the difference in homes, the Raw number was far more impressive than the NBC number. The Fox News shows did monster numbers which probably explains some of the decline from last week ... In 18-49, Raw was sixth behind ESPN football related coverage, Hannity (7,304,000 viewers; 0.72 in 18-49), and Tucker Carlson (6,765,000 viewers, 0.67 in 18-49). As compared to last year, viewers were down 20 percent, 18-49 was down 29 percent, and 18-34 was down 52 percent. With the exception of 18-34, those declines were less than Raw has been doing. The declines from hour one to three were 15 percent in women 18-49, 12 percent in men 18-49, nine percent with teenage girls, there was a four percent increase in teenage boys, and a 14 percent decline over 50. The three hours were: 8 p.m. 1.86 million viewers 9 p.m. 1.75 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.59 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer Tucker is now listed as part of the Raw roster on WWE.com. He was drafted to Raw in the WWE Draft earlier this month, but his brand was never changed on WWE's website. It had been noticed yesterday that he was listed on the SmackDown roster on WWE.com, leading to incorrect speculation that his brand had been changed. Tucker turned against Otis at Hell in a Cell and caused Otis to lose the Money in the Bank briefcase to The Miz. Otis is a member of the SmackDown roster. Tucker tweeted after not appearing on Raw last night: “On my time. #RAW”

Originally Posted by Observer Beyond Wrestling announced that they’ve canceled their Tournament for Tomorrow event that was scheduled to take place in Atlantic City, New Jersey on November 8 and won’t be scheduling any more shows for the remainder of 2020: “After much deliberation I've decided to cancel our upcoming #TFT2020 event originally scheduled for Sunday, 11/8 in Atlantic City. Refunds will be handled automatically within the next few days. We will not be scheduling any more live events for the rest of 2020. Stay safe.” Beyond Wrestling explained their decision in an additional tweet: “I’ve had a number of lineup changes and refund requests due to COVID concerns. The closer we get to the finish line, the tougher it becomes to find a suitable substitution when we want everyone to test negative before the event.”

Originally Posted by Observer The capacity for both nights of Wrestle Kingdom 15 will be capped at 20,000 people. In an interview with Tokyo Sports, new NJPW President Takami Obari said that a limit of 20,000 people would be set for both nights. This is due to COVID-19 concerns. The Tokyo Dome ususally carries a capactiy of 50,000. The company announced last week that they would once again run Wrestle Kingdom on two nights: on their usual January 4 date as well as the following day on January 5. Last year’s shows drew 40,008 and 30,063 respectively.

Originally Posted by PWI Meiko Satomura is joining WWE’s NXT UK brand in a player coach role according to a bombshell article from Tokyo Sports. Satomura announced today she will start limiting her appearances in Sendai Girls’ Pro Wrestling going forward and will miss the company’s upcoming shows in Sendai PIT on November 22 and Korakuen Hall on November 29 ... According to the article, Satomura will travel to England in November. This would suggest WWE is planning to hold another set of tapings, presumably at the BT Sport Studios in London. Satomura participated in the second Mae Young Classic in 2018. She defeated Killer Kelly, Mercedes Martinez and Lacey Lane before losing the eventual tournament winner Toni Storm in the semifinal. Satomura has also competed for companies such as PROGRESS Wrestling, Pro-Wrestling: EVE and Fight Club: PRO in England.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Mark Henry chatted with Brandon Robinson of Heavy.com about WWE, the NFL and the NBA. Mark was asked if he could go back and redo a match from his career, which matches would he choose and one of the matches he selected his WWE Championship match against John Cena in 2013 that was led into by Henry’s fake retirement speech. Henry feels that he should have won that match but at the time, he informed WWE that he was done with the in-ring portion of his career. “The other one is after my retirement speech and I turned on John Cena which is one of the more historical wrestling moments in history. I was so beat up that I wanted to go home, that I didn’t really wanna wrestle no more. Like I was in so much pain, because like I said, it was real to me and I told people, ‘Lay it in, because I’m gonna hit you’ and I want you saying, ‘I beat you up and took advantage of you.’ Like I’m giving my body to you, let’s go, and the match I had was in Philadelphia [Money In The Bank 2013] with John Cena and I lost that match when I should’ve won that match. I should have told them, ‘Nah, I’m not gonna go home.’ Like, let’s run a six-month program and we could’ve had many matches, but you know, I was ready to go.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Lilian Garcia spoke to Braun Strowman for a new installment of her ‘Chasing Glory’ podcast. Strowman was candid during his ‘WWE Chronicle’ special on the WWE Network about mental health. Strowman further spoke about the mental breakdowns he had and almost being driven to the point of taking his own life. “You know, it was just a culmination of things going on in my life. The worst about it was like, literally at the beginning of last year, I went through a really bad breakup and just wasn’t — my personal life was a mess. I mean, with being a WWE superstar, it’s really hard to balance the road life and your personal life and that’s part of the reason why the relationship I think didn’t work out and stuff like that, and then I got to a point to where, I felt like I wasn’t important at work so I had no escape. My mind and everything was just all over the place and I was by myself, I just moved into this house. I bought the house of my dreams, I bought this beautiful house on the lake and I’d been in there like six or seven months at this point and the only thing I had was a mattress on the floor and one in the room and a ringside chair sitting in the living room and I would get home from the road and something that was just weird, and I would sit there and sit in that chair in an empty living room in a empty house and sit there for like seven hours at a time and just sit there. Just because I couldn’t kick out of this funk that I was in and I’m dead honest — when I went to Vince [McMahon] to talk about some stuff that I was having problems with and it really pissed me off that the dirt sheets and these guys that like clickbait stuff tried to spin this whole thing and when I talked about this in the documentary that I wanted to commit suicide because I was mad with how I was being booked in WWE and that’s just complete, total opposite end of it. WWE was my only thing positive that I had at that point and I was so mentally hard on myself with what was going on in my personal life that I started letting it affect my business life. When in the grand scheme of things, I have the most amazing job on earth but I got to a point where I felt like a number in a system and I was like, ‘I need to address this.’”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Former WWE talent Mark Jindrak joined David Penzer’s ‘Sitting Ringside’ podcast to discuss his career in wrestling. Jindrak recounted being swapped out of Evolution (Triple H, Ric Flair, Dave Bautista & Randy Orton) for Batista. Jindrak stated that if anyone should’ve been kicked out of the group, it should have been Triple H and Jindrak also detailed his friendship with Randy Orton. “Basically, when I went over to OVW, I made a friendship with Randy Orton and we hung out all the time and eventually, when they moved me up to the big show, when I was traveling on the crew with WWE, we traveled together, me and Orton so we became almost like the Natural Born Thrillers I think. They see this Orton, who obviously they have huge, super huge plans for in some way, shape or form so they kind of had him in the group and then Batista was kind of supposed to be in it but he kept getting injured, so it was my spot and then, basically what happened was just that. It was just like, I was immature, Orton was immature. We both were immature. We had a lot of fun on the road. It was just — and a lot of people thought it was humorous. They loved our act. We’d come to TV and just show off and goof off and stuff and people loved it. It went from Kane to a lot of top guys but the one person that hated it, hated it, hated it was Triple H, and it was just completely — if you could be a fly on the wall for some of those car rides. Like when they basically made the group and we knew the group was gonna be Triple H, Ric Flair, myself and Orton, Triple H kinda wanted to have us driving together the whole loop, you know what I’m saying? House show, house show, house show, TV. Get talking wrestling, forming as a group and stuff, and that’s where you kind of get the chemistry in a group is hanging out, talking and stuff and to my knowledge, I thought we were. Orton and I were having fun, Ric Flair was a ton of fun. I thought the person that should’ve been kicked out of the group was Triple H, because he was the bore. He was boring as sh*t man, he was boring as sh*t.” Evolution was profiled on the WWE Network via the Ruthless Aggression series. Jindrak’s issue with the documentary was that Triple H said he and Ric didn’t think Jindrak fit well with the group, but Jindrak stated that Flair was always fond of he and Orton and sort of lived vicariously through them. “And that’s the problem I had with that little documentary, the Ruthless Aggression piece they did on Evolution is when Triple H said, ‘Oh, I told Vince he’s not good for the group. Vince said, Yeah he is and I said no he’s not, me and Ric.’ Triple H kept saying, ‘Me and Ric thought he wasn’t good for the group.’ It wasn’t Ric, it was [not] Ric in any way, shape or form. It was all Triple H and that’s the whole thing. These car rides, I thought these car rides were exposing Triple H for being a bore and non-charismatic, you know what I’m saying? That’s what I felt.”

Without Triple H, Evolution would have been missing the key present big star link between past and future stars but then again, a Triple H-less Evolution probably would have spared early Brand Split era RAW from dealing with the terrible Reign of Terror by Triple H.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Forbes ran their interview with Ohio Valley Wrestling owner Al Snow. Al was asked about the idea of OVW possibly becoming a developmental promotion for various major wrestling companies and he said it’s a possibility. “I think eventually, yes [we could be a developmental territory for WWE], and not just with WWE but with AEW and other national organizations, I think we could provide a value. If you think of the amount of investment that WWE has to make into a talent that they bring into NXT to develop them, it’s immense. But if they were to bring talent from OVW to NXT, it would accelerate the developmental for them from NXT on up exponentially. We’re not going to just teach a performer how to wrestle, or how to perform in front of an audience. We’re going to teach them how to operate a camera, how to set the lights, how to run the audio, how to produce, how to direct.”

Originally Posted by WrestlingHeadlines.com It was announced last week that AEW star and former WWE world champion Jake Hager will be competing at Thursday’s Bellator 250 event, his fourth professional MMA fight since turning pro in the sport. According to Fightful Select, Hager knew about the fight for over a month and immediately alerted AEW so they could take care of any potential storylines and get him off television for the appropriate amount of time. He is currently undefeated with a record of 2-0, the same record as his upcoming opponent Brandon Calton. The report also notes that AEW is totally fine with Hager taking these fights, with Hager joking to the publication that as “long as he keeps winning” it won’t be a problem.

Originally Posted by Fightful What was originally promised to be a steak dinner between Maxwell Jacob Friedman and Chris Jericho turned into a full song and dance routine to the soundtrack of a parody of the old Rat Pack song, “My Shadow And Me.” The segment, which Chris Jericho called “the greatest moment in the history of wrestling,” was certainly polarizing but garnered a massive reaction on social media. On the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer reported that the original idea for the musical number came from MJF after he watched the film “Rocketman,” which is an autobiographical film about Elton John. Meltzer says that Maxwell initially wanted to sing an Elton John song with Jericho but Jericho had the idea for this Rat Pack classic instead. Meltzer also notes that the segment was put together with a one-day rehearsal and a 7-hour shoot that kept all parties up until two in the morning.

Originally Posted by Observer NXT's Brendan Vink now has a new in-ring name. Vink announced on Sunday night that his name in WWE is now Tony Modra. Modra was among the names that WWE filed trademarks for last week. Tony Modra is also the name of a former Australian rules football player. Vink is from Adelaide, Australia. Vink made several appearances on Raw this March and April, teaming with Shane Thorne in the weeks after WWE television first moved to the Performance Center due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They were aligned with MVP and got one win against Ricochet & Cedric Alexander. Vink & Thorne also teamed together in a loss to Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch on NXT TV this March.

Originally Posted by Fightful The WWE Championship change at last night’s Hell in a Cell reportedly caught some talent backstage off guard. As noted last night, Randy Orton beat Drew McIntyre to capture his 10th WWE Championship and 14th world title reign overall. According to Fightful Select, there was a lot of confusion backstage regarding the timing of the title switch. While Orton is well-liked backstage and is known for helping out younger talent over the last year, wrestlers who spoke with the outlet said that the timing was odd considering how Orton was well-protected from WrestleMania to SummerSlam, but then lost to McIntyre and others several times after that.

Originally Posted by PWI Lucha Libre AAA World Wide held a virtual press conference today to announce Kenny Omega will defend the AAA Mega Championship against Laredo Kid at TripleMania 28. The match was originally scheduled to take place at Rey de Reyes on March 21. However, the event was cancelled. AAA hopes to hold TripleMania in December, pending the current COVID-19 health situation. No date was given during’s today’s press conference. The event will still take place in Arena Ciudad de México as previously scheduled on August 22 ... Two further matches have been announced for TripleMania 28. Chessman will face Pagano in a Hair vs. Hair match and there will be a tag team match debuting AAA’s new Marvel-themed wrestlers. Aracno (Spider-Man) and Leyenda Americana (Captain America) will face Terror Púrpura (Thanos) and Venenoide (Venom).

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The Back Body Drop outlet has some updated UK viewership totals from the past month: * RAW on October 12th – 63,200 on BT Sport * SmackDown on October 16th – 26,500 on BT Sport * IMPACT on October 14th – 9,400 on Freesport * A replay of NXT UK on October 17th – 26,500 on BT Sport * AEW Dynamite on October 16th – 118,000 on ITV4 (it aired at 11:50 pm that night instead of its usual slot of 10 pm)

Originally Posted by Fightful AEW fans in the United Kingdom will get to watch Dynamite this week a little earlier than usual. The promotion announced on Twitter that this week's Dynamite will air in the United Kingdom at midnight local time on October 28. Viewers in the United States will still watch the episode on its usual 8 p.m ET time slot on October 28 on TNT.

Originally Posted by Fightful NJPW announced that there will be live English commentary for the Power Struggle show taking place on November 7

TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE: More on Hell in a Cell, Survivor Series to Celebrate Undertaker’s Debut, Trademark Dispute
• Six Matches Announced for Survivor Series
• Marty Scurll Removed from ROH’s Roster Page
• WWE Reportedly Moving the ThunderDome to Another Arena in December