[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Ratings for the post-Money in the Bank episode of Raw were up 13.7 percent from last week's record low, averaging 1.919 million viewers last night. It was the highest viewership for the show since April 6, which was the Raw after WrestleMania 36. Starting late yesterday afternoon, the episode was heavily promoted around a major announcement from Becky Lynch. That turned out to be her announcing that she's pregnant and that women's Money in the Bank winner Asuka is now Raw Women's Champion. Raw opened with a relatively strong 1.993 million viewers in hour one. It held up pretty well throughout the show, averaging 1.961 million for the second hour and dropping to 1.802 million for the final hour. The first-to-third hour drop of 10 percent is slightly better than the usual audience retention. Raw averaged a 0.57 in the 18-49 demo, topping all of cable TV. In total viewers, the show finished 18th on cable but was second in non-news programming, behind Celebrity IOU on HGTV.

Originally Posted by PWI Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins will welcome their first child this December, according to a People Magazine interview with Lynch. If we do that math, that would mean Lynch likely worked Wrestlemania 36 while pregnant as that was taped in late March, which would be nine months before December. Lynch noted she learned she was pregnant in April, so she wasn't aware yet. Obviously, that's why she hadn't been traveling to WWE TV in Orlando ... Lynch's farewell promo was taped yesterday at the WWE Performance Center. We are told that Asuka didn't know when she taped Money in the Bank (4/15) that she was actually winning the Raw Women's title as WWE kept all discussion private. There were a number of people who were there at the taping yesterday who legitimately had no idea Lynch was pregnant until the segment was taped. For those of you who have asked whether Asuka knew Becky was going to make the announcement, we have no confirmation on that either way. We are told there is absolutely no timetable for Lynch's potential return, at all. Motherhood is the priority right now, as it certainly should be.

Originally Posted by Observer People spoke to Becky Lynch about her pregnancy. Lynch said she won’t be making a decision about returning to the ring any time soon: “It's just such a joyous time and then such a sad time too. I loved this and I've given my life to this. I've achieved everything that I want to achieve in this business. I don't know what the next chapter is because I only know what it's like to think for myself when I'm by myself. So I don't know what it'll look like and how my priorities shift and what I'm going to want in the future. So, everything's open."

Originally Posted by PWI The Money in the Bank Ladder Match was filmed at WWE HQ (aka Titan Tower) on Wednesday 4/15 over the course of a long day and evening in Stamford, CT ... AJ Styles was always slated for the match, so the theory he was a last minute addition is not correct, since the match was produced before his "surprise" return in the Gauntlet to replace the "injured" Apollo Crews. They did not actually shoot the MITB match in order and did not actually "fight their way up" the building. There was material shot in the lobby, first floor (Gym), the third floor, the second floor, the fourth floor (Vince McMahon's office), back to another part of the second floor, then another part of the fourth floor before climaxing on the roof of the building. Rey Mysterio and Aleister Black, despite the impression they had been tossed off the roof of the building, were actually tossed into an area that wasn't lit that had a crash pad set up on top of rows of cardboard boxes, so they didn't have to bump onto the roof of the building. Since we received quite a few emails asking about this one, yes, The Money in the Bank Conference Room is legitimately a real room in the building. That is the official name of the room and yes, the briefcase with the money that Dana Brooke took down legitimately hangs from the ceiling. It was not a prop set up just for the match. The scene with AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan putting their chairs back in Vince McMahon's office, we are told, was 100% a reference to the fact that it's well known within the company that if you have a meeting with McMahon, you had better return your chair to where it was before you sat down. The T-Rex skull in Vince McMahon's office was actually a gift from Triple H from several years ago. Yes, that is always in McMahon's office and at one point, was put on display at Wrestlemania AXXESS. Kane Prichard, the son of Bruce Prichard, portrayed the janitor in the scene with Asuka. The room with the wrestling ropes is actually part of the theming outside the elevator doors on the third floor. Each of the floors have a different, unique theme. The first floor has different screens to play off the company's tech department. The second floor has several WWE pinball machines in front of theming designed to look as if you are on a WWE stage looking towards a ring. The fourth floor with where executive offices are situated. There is no real discernable theme outside of the elevator doors on that floor.

Originally Posted by PWI Former WWE star Zack Ryder has released an episode of "Z True Life Story" that had been rejected by WWE: The public has never seen this. One of the lost Z! True Long Island Story episodes......(Twitters cuts off the last 40 seconds but you get the idea) Enjoy! pic.twitter.com/SDrWf1HiDv — Matt Cardona (@TheMattCardona) May 10, 2020

Link: https://twitter.com/TheMattCardona/s...88782988431360

Originally Posted by PWI Several weeks ago, Major League Wrestling teased the idea of Mike Tyson appearing in a MLW ring. While it would appear at a first glance that this was just MLW attempting to grab some attention for themselves, we are told that there have actually been at least one conversation with Tyson's team about potentially doing something down the line. It should be noted that ICM Partners represent both Tyson and MLW, so that is likely the bridge between the two signs.

Originally Posted by Fightful Rob Gronkowski is back in the NFL, and carrying his WWE 24/7 Title all over the place, and Vince McMahon may be even more responsible for that than you realize. "I think Vince would do pretty well on this show, the eccentric character that he is. You look at [Axe], and he's unassuming," Becky Lynch told Scott Fishman of TV Insider when asked about how Vince would do on the show "Billions." "Vince is such a larger-than-life character. At the same time, I watched him the other day demonstrate falling off a tower at 74-years-old without a bother, brushing his shoulders off and standing up again." This led to Fightful Select poking around about what happened during this spot. We're told it was actually at the WrestleMania 36 rehearsals. A nervous Rob Gronkowski was preparing for his 24/7 Title spot, just a couple of weeks before he'd announce a return to the NFL. In order to show him that the spot was safe, Vince McMahon actually did the dive himself. The story was verified by a half dozen people within WWE, as well as some that have since left. One person in the building said those there caught it and had a reaction of "did that just happen?," and that Vince McMahon said something to the nature of "not so bad, is it?" You may remember that Vince McMahon also did Shawn Michaels' zipline entrance at the WrestleMania 12 rehearsals....though that was way back 24 years ago. After our original story ran, a WWE name contacted us and said that Gronk was "terrified" of the dive, and that he had the benefit of a dozen of the biggest NXT guys catching him. Even after Vince McMahon did the spot, it took a significant amount of time to convince Gronkowski. The low angle you saw on TV was because production had to make it look better as Gronk bent his knees and practically fell off the platform "like a toddler jumping into the pool for the first time."

Originally Posted by Observer The NWA announced that they’re launching a new show called Carnyland on their YouTube channel at 6:05 p.m. Eastern time next Tuesday. Billy Corgan said it was an idea they had at the very beginning of acquiring the NWA, but further details about it weren’t revealed.

Originally Posted by PWI Karl Anderson, who has been trying to trademark his name since January 2019, was initially blocked since WWE already were trying to trademark his name and once they completed their registration in August 2019, was given an initial rejection for likelihood of confusion. In response, Anderson noted the following to the USPTO: "With respect to the cited registration, applicant notes that contractually the WWE has acknowledged that applicant is the owner of the mark but that WWE would file and register the mark in its own name. That is to say, applicant is the legal owner of both the cited registration and the instant application. A heavily-redacted copy of the agreement between the registrant and applicant can be provided, if helpful and requested by the Examining Attorney." Anderson also tweeted the following update to the "major announcement" he had been teasing on his social media over the last week: Listen, we had a decision to make in September of 2019.. We clearly made the wrong one. In 68 days, at midnight @The_BigLG n I will talk about it. All of it. @TalknShop @azucarRoc #TalkNShopAMania — Karl Anderson (@MachineGunKA) May 11, 2020

Link: https://twitter.com/MachineGunKA/sta...32440044371969

Originally Posted by PWI There are discussions underway for additional Ring of Honor TV content to be featured across the Sinclair Broadcast Group and their affiliates. Joe Koff told PWInsider.com last week that an announcement is forthcomong.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Yahoo! Japan posted their chat with Masahiro Chono and Chono stated that because of the Coronavirus, Japanese pro wrestling has been hit harder than its ever been since the birth of the sport in Japan. Chono feels that it is too late for a union to be formed, referring to multiple companies in Japan coming together to address the state of the business during a government meeting. Chono feels that the wrestling business may collapse and may never recover and at the end of it all, the only person that may be left is Kazuchika Okada.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp conducted an interview with AEW World Champion Jon Moxley. Moxley told the site about his frustration about his cancelled bout against Josh Barnett that was set for Bloodsport during WrestleMania weekend. “That’s just one of many matches and many events like [AEW] Blood & Guts, 14,000 tickets in Newark down the drain; Philly, Boston, all down the drain. All these promotions, all these [independents]—it especially sucks for the independent guys [that] just aren’t working right now. That sucks. I mean, WrestleMania had to take place in front of nobody and that’s not ideal for all those guys and girls who wanted to have their big WrestleMania moment, they had to do it in front of nobody. So, everybody got affected by this. Pro wrestling is such a small part of the world even though it dominates my life, there’s much more important things. People are suffering through way worse financial times and stuff. It sucks for everybody.”

Originally Posted by Fightful With all the time at home, Moxley had the opportunity to watch WrestleMania 36, which also took place in front of no crowd. Don't expect sour grapes about his old place of employment, as he said that he liked the presentation. "I watched the whole thing," Moxley said. "Both nights. I enjoyed it. I thought it flowed nicely and a lot of people really worked their ass off and put on great performances. I enjoyed the Boneyard Match, I thought that was cool. I thought that was really cool, too, because the Undertaker is a really beloved character. He’s like a comic book character. He’s a beloved character from our childhood. Same as John Wayne or John McClane or any action movie star you can think of, so it was really cool. I think everybody really enjoyed that."

From the same interview Moxley had with Fightful's Sapp.


TPWW Frontpage:

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