[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The Wednesday night race was very close on 12/4, with AEW winning with 851,000 viewers to 845,000 for NXT. AEW won via a 0.32 margin to 0.29 in the 18-49 demo. If you factor out the overrun, NXT would have done 838,000 viewers head-to-head. Those numbers say a few things. First, because the NXT audience is mostly over the age of 50, it was going to be hurt more by the impeachment hearings and would have easily won in total viewers without it. That said, because the AEW audience is younger and more apt to DVR the show, by the end of the week, they’d have won in overall viewers as they have done every week if you factor in DVR viewership. However, the most concerning number was the 0.32 in 18-49 for AEW without an excuse like last week. After the early weeks, factoring out things like the World Series and night before Thanksgiving, they were consistently in the 0.39 to 0.46 range. Granted, NXT gaining momentum off the last few weeks shows, cut into that number, but they also did 0.39 against a three-branded show two weeks ago and fell to 0.32 with lesser competition ... Their big calling card was strength in 18-34, more people watching together than any other wrestling show, and being the youngest skewing sports property on television along with Major League Soccer. They are no longer that ... AEW won six of eight quarters overall, losing only the first two. Basically whether it was interest at first, or the sound issue (and I would dismiss that), NXT started strong and faded 30 minutes in. AEW won all eight quarters in 18-49 with only the fourth quarter (367,000 to 355,00) which with mostly Nyla Rose on one side and the Forgotten Sons on the other being close. In the segment-by-segment, AEW opened with Young Bucks & Dustin Rhodes vs. Santana & Ortiz & Sammy Guevara, doing 893,000 viewers and 451,000 in18-49. That is with bad audio difficulties. NXT opened with Pete Dunne vs. Killian Dain, doing 944,000 viewers and 360,000 in 18-49 ... The second segment saw AEW with Rey Fenix vs. Trent lose 76,000 viewers and 49,000 in 18-49. NXT with the end of Dain vs. Dunne and the angle with Undisputed Era and Keith Lee lost 52,000 overall viewers but gained 2,000 in 18-49. The third segment saw AEW, with the Cody promo, gain 53,000 viewers and 42,000 in 18-49. NXT with a Kushida video and Shayna Baszler vs. Xia Li, lost 41,000 overall but gained 27,000 in 18-49. The fourth segment saw AEW, with the Dark Order video, Nyla Rose vs. Leva Bates and the post-match, lost 76,000 viewers overall and 77,000 in 18-49. NXT with the Kassius Ohno interview and Forgotten Sons vs. Leon Ruff & Adrian Alanis lost 87,000 viewers and 34,000 in 18-49. The fifth quarter saw AEW with the Chris Jericho promo and beginning of Kris Statlander vs. Hikaru Shida gain 115,000 viewers and 88,000 in 18-49. NXT with the Dakota Kai, Rhea Ripley and Mia Yim angle gained 110,000 viewers and 36,000 in 18-49. The sixth quarter saw AEW with the rest of Statlander vs. Shida and the Kong & Brandi Rhodes angle lost 46,000 viewers overall and 59,000 in 18-49. NXT with Matt Riddle vs. Kassius Ohno lost 66,000 viewers and 21,000 in 18-49. The seventh quarter with AEW with Pentagon Jr. vs. Christopher Daniels lost 38,000 viewers and 15,000 in 18-49. NXT with the Horseman laying out Ripley and Kushida vs. Cameron Grimes gained 22,000 viewers and 20,000 in 18-49. The main event battle had AEW with Joey Janela vs. Jon Moxley gained 11,000 overall but lost 1,000 in 18-49. NXT with Adam Cole & Roderick Strong & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Keith Lee & Dominik Dijakovic & Tommaso Ciampa lost 88,000 viewers overall and lost 40,000 in 18-49 ... But after AEW ended, they handed NXT 212,000 viewers. The breakdown was 14,000 teenagers (8,000 boys, 6,000 girls), 23,000 18-34 (25,000 males, -2,000 females), 53,000 35-49 (29,000 men, 24,000 women) and 116,000 over the age of 50.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter NXT scored a decisive win in viewers on 11/27 and came close to AEW in the 18-49 demo, more because of the decline by AEW than an increase in NXT ... The key is that AEW had usually been second to the NBA in 18-49 in its time slot in the demo, and has now fallen behind War of the Worlds Challenge on MTV ... So going from No. 2 or No. 3 to No. 9 in the time slot is a decline vs. competition, meaning it’s a lot more significant than just a bad night for viewers in an age group. In 18-34, AEW’s edge was 115,000 to 87,000 while in 35-49, NXT was ahead 221,000 to 218,000 which has never happened before. With numbers that close and USA being in more homes than TNT, that’s really a dead heat in a demo AEW had been dominating ... NXT won in viewers in every quarter, with only the main event coming close with the beginning of Tommaso Ciampa vs. Finn Balor at 699,000 to 684,000 for Chris Jericho vs. Scorpio Sky. NXT, after AEW ended, gained 151,000 viewers for the last eight minutes, likely mostly being AEW viewers ... In the segment-by-segment, AEW opened with 730,000 viewers and 394,000 in 18-49 for the Chris Jericho celebration while NXT had 916,000 viewers and 349,000 in 18-49 for its quick celebration and the Roderick Strong (replacing Bobby Fish) & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Dominik Dijakovic & Keith Lee tag title match. In quarter two, AEW lost 37,000 viewers over and 45,000 in 18-49 for Best Friends vs. Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix. NXT lost 53,000 viewers and 34,000 in 18-49 for the continuation of the tag team match. So this wasn’t people switching shows as much as people switching off. In quarter three, AEW lost 34,000 viewers and 32,000 in 18-49 for Bea Priestley & Emi Sakura vs. Hikaru Shida & Kris Statlander. NXT lost 11,000 viewers and gained 23,000 in 18-49 for the finish of the tag title match and Mansoor vs. Shane Thorne. This was the first quarter that NXT has ever won in 18-49, by a 338,000 to 317,000 margin. In quarter four, AEW lost 43,000 viewers and lost 10,000 in 18-49 for Cody vs. Matt Knicks and the debut of The Butcher & The Blade. This was not good because it was a Cody quarter. NXT lost 67,000 viewers and 39,000 in 18-49 for Dakota Kai vs. Candice LeRae, so AEW was ahead 307,000 to 299,000 in the key demo. In quarter five, AEW gained 40,000 viewers and 18,000 in 18-49 for Kenny Omega vs. Pac. NXT gained 27,000 and 7,000 in 18-49 viewers for the end of Kai vs. LeRae, the post-match, and start of Lio Rush vs. Akira Tozawa. In quarter six, AEW lost 6,000 viewers but gained 11,000 in 18-49 for Adam Page vs. MJF in the battle for the diamond ring. NXT lost 66,000 viewers and 28,000 in 18-49 for Rush vs. Tozawa. In quarter seven, AEW lost 32,000 viewers and 31,000 in 18-49 for the Dustin Rhodes promo and the Inner Circle attack and Young Bucks save. NXT gained 26,000 viewers and 25,000 in 18-49 for Xia Li vs. Vanessa Borne. AEW had 305,000 viewers in 18-49 during the quarter with two commercial breaks while NXT had 303,000 with one commercial break. In quarter eight, AEW gained 66,000 viewers and 28,000 in 18-49 for Jericho vs. Scorpio Sky while NXT lost 84,000 and 37,000 in 18-49 for the beginning of Balor vs. Ciampa. In the overrun, NXT gained 151,000 viewers broken down as 4,000 teenage boys, 4,000 teenage girls, 9,000 18-34 women, 15,000 18-34 men, 13,000 35-49 women, 46,000 35-49 men and 55,000 over 50 men ... The reality is that younger viewers were significantly down, especially those under 35 across the board, but NXT came closer to maintaining its 35-49 numbers while AEW did not.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter At press time, with ten days to go before the WWE TLC PPV show on 12/15 in Minneapolis, they are exactly zero matches officially announced on television ... one of the reasons nothing else has been advertised, and directions aren’t even clear from television, is because Vince McMahon hasn’t made final decisions. McMahon’s new philosophy is that the PPV’s are all about network sign-ups, as opposed to the limited PPV business still being done. The belief based on patterns of sign-ups is that they are big the last day of the show, and not before. So unlike ticket sales, which come a month or more in advance, and PPV parties, which get arranged days if not a week plus out, the dynamic is completely different and there is no need to rush anything

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Brandon Thurston, who studies the economics of pro wrestling, on our show this past week noted that he had done research just a few weeks ago that showed that even after six years, that the costs and profits of the WWE Network were such that WWE would have been financially better off from a profit margin sticking with PPV. He used Google trends to extrapolate how the PPV shows would have done, so that would figure in a decline. It’s been a given that they made less regarding major shows, but the idea is the monthly regular shows have done better with 1.5 million subscribers at $9.99 vs. 150,000 purchasers at $60. The problem is the profit margin on the network isn’t nearly so large. For a long time, the monthly profit on the network was less than $2 per month per subscriber, plus there is the cost of programming and the network itself. Also, a key is there were tremendous start-up costs that weren’t recouped. It’s notable that when the network was launched we were talking with people in WWE and any change in a company that was profitable, but not wildly so, of that magnitude is a concern. The idea was that the good thing was the television rights were going up a little so that increase could carry them until network revenues, which was thought to be the key in long-term growth, would catch up to what was lost in PPV. As it turned out, the network, which they were expecting to be at between three and four million subscribers by this point, never caught on at the level expected, but television rights exploded and that ended up being the key to business.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Tommaso Ciampa claimed that he told management that he would retire from wrestling if they made the call to move him to Raw or Smackdown. It would surprise people if you talk with talent how many really don’t look at money as their primary thing, because a top guy in NXT makes (a guy like Balor being the obvious exception), if they are lucky, one-fourth of a lower level guy on Raw or Smackdown or more likely one-sixth. But there are absolutely guys who don’t want to be called up. Some recognize the realities of it, and for Ciampa, another key is the schedule. He isn’t working any house shows so he’s just doing TV and Takeover right now, and Johnny Gargano has been doing that as well since March. That wouldn’t work on the main rosters. NXT has so many guys that need work so the guys whose bodies are breaking down but are great are being saved for big shows and to help with Wednesday ratings since NXT house shows are drawing the same no matter who is on them, and most of the guys in NXT need more house show work, not less, so this works for all concerned.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter There were a couple of major changes with the WWE Network this past week. The first is that they launched the free tier on 12/5 with no fanfare. The idea has been to do a three-tiered network, with a free tier, the $9.99 tier and a $14.99 tier (which should be launched early next year and would feature content from Evolve, Progress, wXw and perhaps other promotions) for early next year. The other change is a crackdown on people from other countries who are getting the network in a manner they aren’t supposed to by using a U.S. proxy address. It appears this is aimed at Canada, where WWE has deals in place with the cable providers and fans are going around those deals. The WWE Network in Canada is a cable television station and there aren’t the options and archives like the U.S. version, just the live stream and limited VOD content. So Canadians have been using a VPN address to subscribe and get the full VOD content. They have found a way to crack down on this. What makes this notable is if there are a significant number of Canadians or people from other countries doing this, it would mean a significant drop in U.S. subs by 12/31, a number that was already feared would fall below 1 million for the first time in many years

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The Sports Business Journal annual survey, if anything, how much UFC has declined in interest in the sports business world. UFC used to be all over the survey responses and now it was nil. There were a few WWE mentions. WWE was listed as the 10th hottest sports property, but also in 7th for the sports property trending in the wrong direction. When it came to the XFL, people were not bullish. 26 percent believed the league would last less than one season while another 66 percent felt it would last between two and five seasons. Only eight percent believed it would reach its sixth season. Neither WWE nor UFC were listed as companies you would want your company to sponsor, which, in order were NBA, MLB, minor league baseball, NFL, NCAA, MLS, PGA, NHL, EPL and Overwatch League.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Arn Anderson did a Q&A on the weekend and was more open than he was in the past. He noted that he felt Vince McMahon, even after 17 years with the company, still saw him as a WCW guy. He noted that he laid out 95 percent of Cena matches when he was there. Anderson was known as Cena’s guy and the guy who laid out Cena’s matches, but when Cena left for Hollywood, his days were known to be numbered because Vince McMahon didn’t like him, but he was somewhat untouchable because of Cena. When he was fired, talent was very defensive of him. He was fired for allowing Alicia Fox to go into a match while allegedly drunk, but talent in that match said there was no way Anderson could have known about that before the match started

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter In one of the bigger moves in Mexico this year, L.A. Park and Rush, who had the hottest feud in the country, but one that was never able to be settled, are joining forces to evidently reform Los Ingobernables. What makes that notable is that CMLL owns the Los Ingobernables name ... The new Los Ingobernables group looks to be Rush, Park, Konnan and Bestia del Ring. There was no mention of Dragon Lee being part of that group with his brother and father. The plan is for them to be the top heel group, with the idea they are joining forces to take down AAA. Konnan has been part of heel groups trying to take down AAA regularly for nearly 15 years.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Tokyo Dome ticket sales on 12/3 were on both nights ahead of the pace of last year’s show, which sold out. The difference is over the last month there was one show to buy tickets to rather than two, but the pace may not reflect double sellouts. Last year’s show did just under 39,000 paid with 6,000 coming from overseas, up from 2,500 the year before and a couple of hundred the year before that. The overseas growth was attributed to Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho being in the top two bouts. The network numbers grew from about 60,000 to 100,000 before the 2018 Dome for Omega vs. Jericho, but the network didn’t show that level of growth in 2019. There was some thought that losing Omega, Cody and The Young Bucks would hurt overseas sales, but that appears to have been negated by the idea of seeing two Domes instead of one. Also, there has been a growth of interest in Australia, even though this year’s tour didn’t do the attendance at the level of the first tone. But network numbers are up because New Japan can be viewed live in a decent time slot. New Year’s Dash on 1/6, moved to the Ota Ward Gym in Tokyo, which holds probably just over 4,000, is not sold out, but is very close to being so and will

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter AXS will be airing Impact specials on 12/28 and 1/4 at 8 p.m. for their awards. Notable is that 1/4 would be in the New Japan time slot. AXS has totally downplayed New Japan since the purchase since they own Impact. There hasn’t been a new episode of the show in a few weeks and this coming weekend they are airing three hours of the July show in Dallas rather than anything new. And historically they have pushed hard the 1/4 show, which has historically set record ratings with a special show and this year nothing has been mentioned.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Shahid Khan talked with Forbes last week on a number of different subjects. When AEW came up, he made it clear he was skeptical at first, but was in the position of giving it a try and categorized it as doing far better than expectations. “This is one of those cases where, as a father, you don’t mind being wrong. Obviously my son Tony, who had passion for it, this was his idea and God’s blessed us, we have the financial means, and we’ll try it. You get to a stage in life where you can fail and it’s not life-threatening and this was one of those. I am as surprised as anybody.” He talked about what convinced him to get into wrestling and he said, “The golden age of wrestling would be in the late 90s when you had two competitive leagues, WCW and WWF, and we know wrestling is scripted but what was definitely unscripted, real, was the competition between the leagues. In those days you had 10 million hardcore wrestling fans, today there are probably 2 million or less. So there was an audience that was underserved.” Ironically, the fan base they are attracting is younger and are likely fans turned off more by the content in recent years than those who tuned out in 2001 and never came back

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter In something that needed to be on the TV show, but instead was released that night on Twitter, MJF, who mentioned on Twitter (but not television) that he will never wrestle Cody, did cut a very good promo, also on Twitter but not television, saying that he was the one who paid for Butcher & Blade to come in and attack Cody. MJF is also playing a rich spoiled kid character and put over the $45,000 diamond ring he won last week. If there is one major problem right now, it is the assumption that the television audience is already aware of everyone, follows Dark, BTE and social media and television is about presenting matches and angles and that the storylines can be tied together elsewhere. There is also the mentality that the promotion is a smorgasbord, a little of this, a little of that, as opposed to have a certain style and theme. It comes from Eddie Graham, but the big difference is that when Eddie Graham was on his game, it was all about wrestling and being a sport, and granted, this is 45 years later and you can’t go back in time. But Eddie’s smorgasbord was technical matches with good workers underneath, a fun tag match, maybe a European style, good young guys, wily vets and both brawls and different gimmick matches and divergent storylines both with factions and blood feuds and rivalries over belts. It wasn’t about trying to appeal to different genres of hardcore fans, whether through great wrestling, silly gimmicks (which did come at the end in Florida when it was dying as attempted hotshots), comedy or irony. The attempt to appeal to everyone isn’t going to work as people want a WWE alternative. The last few weeks are coming across very much TNT, essentially WWE Lite, except with hotter fans, better in-ring in some but not all cases, and definitely a higher level of promos

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Kenny Omega came in and retained is his AAA Mega heavyweight title over Dragon Lee. There is no specific future date scheduled with Omega, but they [AAA] are looking at using Omega & The Young Bucks as a trio on a future major show and also looking at using Jon Moxley.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter I should note that in talking this week to Joe Koff, he said that right now, due to New Japan booking its own shows in the U.S., there is nothing on the books for any New Japan talent to be working for ROH

Originally Posted by Observer The Knockouts Championship match at Impact Wrestling's Hard to Kill pay-per-view will now be a triple threat. Impact announced today that ODB has been added to the title match for the PPV, making it Taya Valkyrie vs. Jordynne Grace vs. ODB. Valkyrie defending her title against Grace had originally been announced.

Originally Posted by PWI Ring of Honor's Final Battle has been expanded to a four-hour PPV on Friday 12/13, ROH's Kevin Eck announced tonight on the company's official website. Eck also announced that the first hour will stream for free from 7 - 8 PM EST on ROH's Facebook and YouTube pages, FITE.TV and PPV barker channels.

Originally Posted by Fightful Bandido is CMLL bound as the masked star appeared on the Nov. 29 show to announce he had signed with the promotion. Bandido stated he would be coming after the "big heads" in the promotion. According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer, Bandido's deal with CMLL is not a full-time deal. He is still under contract with ROH until the end of the year. ROH and CMLL have a working relationship, but it has not been reported if he's signed a new deal with ROH ... Bandido and Flamita were scheduled to appear at AAA TripleMania Regia on Dec. 1, but both no-showed the event.

Originally Posted by Fightful ACH has elected to publicly expand upon his side of the issues between himself and Jay Lethal. When ACH revealed that he had felt a WWE t-shirt design meant for him during his time in NXT as Jordan Myles was racially insensitive, he also revealed that he has problems with Jay Lethal, calling him an "Uncle Tom," and also stated that he does not have fond memories of how he was treated in Ring of Honor. Today, on Twitter, ACH gave more of his side of the story with Jay Lethal, claiming Lethal slapped him for using a racial slur that he says Jay Lethal also uses. ACH claims that Jay Lethal tried to call his "bish card" In front of the ROH locker room but that he would defend himself and actually take Lethal down. The former NXT star says he was excited to work with Lethal' when he got to Ring of Honorbut lost respect for him after seeing how Lethal treats others. ACH would say that he will not apologize for his past remarks about Lethal and also claims that Ring Of Honor was the worst locker room experience he had in his career. Also, ACH proclaims himself as mentally stable and says that tomorrow is his birthday and he will be focusing on that.

Link with the tweets: https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/a...oom-experience


TPWW Frontpage:

• NXT Held an All Women House Show Last Night (Results + Pics)
• AEW Top Five Rankings – Dec. 6, 2019
• ACH Is Back in MLW
• MLW Releases Teddy Hart
• WWE: MSG House Show Match Announced, Sareee Update, Lance Storm Update, NXT Holiday Break