[Emperor Smeat]

Sorry for the delay for Thursdays news. Took a nap in the evening that was supposed to be short but ended up being several hours instead.

Anyhow, here are The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Garrett Gonzalez and I will be doing a show tomorrow night on Harley Race. There is so much to say about him. The NWA did a nice video of Nick Aldis talking about him and I'm sure there will be many others. Race epitomized blue collar pro wrestling, just a tough guy who did believable interviews and was a master performer inside the ring. An ironic part about Race is some modern fans who hear old-timers complain about using too many finishers and them not being finishes, nobody did that move than Race. It was always funny that he'd use every finishing of the 70s even in his TV squash matches, including piledrivers, and then job guy would kick out of all of them until he'd win with his delayed vertical suplex. A few people grumbled about it then, but not many. And in title matches, he did it even more. He was exceptional at the art of beating someone while elevating them at the same time. When he'd face the upcoming athletic young babyface as champion, he'd win at the end, but give them so much offense against the world champion that people left with the idea that in a few years that guy was going to be something. When Don Muraco first came to Florida in 1974, I can recall he and Race having a classic where Muraco came within a hair of beating Race, who was not the world champion at the time, but as a former champion and perennial top contender, was protected in booking and it was matches with Race and Jack Brisco that made Muraco into a babyface people thought would be world champion some day. You can now substitute Muraco with literally every top young wrestler of that era and the story was identical.

Originally Posted by Observer Crowbar Press is releasing what looks to be a major historical book in English called "The Rikidozan Years." Japanese historians Koji Miyamoto and Haruo Yamaguchi put this book together with Scott Teal, with more than 300 photos and coverage of 978 different live events. Rikidozan was the single most important and influential pro wrestler of the 20th century, bar none,and that includes Santo (who was more beloved and a bigger cultural figure, but not as influential). For more info go to http://www.crowbarpress.com/index.html

Originally Posted by PWI MLW announced the signing of Douglas James. He is a pro wrestler with a background in Jiu Jitsu under Eddie Bravo and MMA and has been a regular in California for a few years. He debuts on he 9/7 show in Dallas at the NYTEX Sports Center.

Originally Posted by Fightful It's been a big couple of weeks for Kiera Hogan as she revealed on July 20 that she is in a relationship with former IMPACT knockout Diamante. Now, she's signed a new multi-year deal with IMPACT Wrestling.

Originally Posted by Fightful British promotion Defiant Wrestling, which originally opened its doors in 2016 as WCPW, has now shut down. The company made it official on Twitter.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter World Wrestling Entertainment’s second quarter numbers largely exemplified the pattern that the company will continue going forward. Financially, things look great. The company will set profit records starting with the third quarter and particularly quarter four on top due to the new television deals with USA and FOX. But product popularity continues to fall, slowly but steadily. Every legitimate measure of popularity is down, network subs, house shows, merchandise, PPV, licensing and television ratings. The only revenue segment up is worldwide rights fees for Raw and Smackdown, which by contract escalate each year. Even television advertising revenue is down ... While Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff were never mentioned by name, McMahon talked about the change, which Wall Street has responded well to. The belief still in Wall Street, except in a few circles, is that Vince McMahon is the genius who runs wrestling and nobody else can. The idea is that with Heyman and Bischoff doing more of the grunt work, that McMahon will spend more time focusing on the big picture and long-term storytelling, and thus aspects related to creative, which is most revenue streams other than the guaranteed television money, will improve. But it’s clear, just from McMahon doing overhauls on Smackdown the past two weeks, that he’s hardly out of the weeds and leaving that work to Heyman and Bischoff ... Those within the company have spoken to us on the hirings. The key belief on the timing was that they needed something to show stockholders that they were making significant structural changes to offset questions abut the popularity declines. In addition, more for Heyman, but perhaps for both Heyman and Bischoff, the deals, which are very lucrative for both, keep them away from AEW. Heyman did have a talent contract. We don’t know how long but his deals have often been concurrent with Lesnar, whose latest deal is up at next year’s WrestleMania. Tony Khan was a huge ECW fan. AEW did put Bischoff on its Road To show before he signed with WWE. Those in AEW told us that they had no interest in either. Whether one, both or neither would benefit AEW a year from now in a war is speculative, and as noted many times, McMahon wants anyone who could be valuable on his side, whether their talents are made use of nor not ... It was very notable in the presentation that McMahon wanted to position his side as the sophisticated and evolved product and the opposition as heavily blood and guts oriented (there were two bloody matches and one accidental cut from a gimmicked chair shot in AEW’s first three shows) . Those at TNT immediately responded feeling he was trying to hurt their side sign up advertisers by the portrayal. Tony Khan has already said that television product wouldn’t go in that direction, but on occasion, PPV matches would have more latitude in that direction. Khan was a fan of both WCW when it was good, and ECW. Cody Rhodes is the son of Dusty Rhodes, who as both a wrestler and booker was involved in and later produced more bloody matches than all but a few in the history of the business ... It also should be noted that four days after McMahon said this, he produced a graphic bloody angle involving Seth Rollins and Brock Lesnar that was as blood and guts as possible, not a simple blade job and facial blood like you would see literally any night watching a combat sport like MMA or boxing, but a beating with Rollins coughing up blood and the portrayal of internal bleeding, which is the ultimate in blood and guts.

Originally Posted by Observer One can make a very strong argument that the most important pro wrestling event this year will be the 10/2 debut of AEW on TNT from the Capital One Arena (formerly the Verizon Center) in Washington, DC. There are two key business aspects to the story. The most important is the television rating, a shot in the dark and even though people within the industry have made predictions (the television industry numbers expected about 500,000 viewers, a consistent number we’ve heard from people within the television industry that are completely up to speed on this story), it is a complete shot in the dark. One thing that will hurt ratings on a weeknight, although hardcore fans will be happy, is that, according to those at TNT, it will be treated as a sports event and go live on the West Coast. It’s far more beneficial to ratings to be 8-10 p.m. and taped on the West Coast on any night, but even more a weeknight, than to go live from 5-7 p.m. It was noted to me that is not a definite, but is the way everything is leaning ... The number of people who attempted to get tickets for All Out was substantially more than the number of American subscribers to New Japan World, and in most cases these were people willing to travel and spend money on a vacation to see the show as opposed to, in the case of New Japan World, spend $9 a month and get the hottest wrestling in the world multiple times per week this month in sold out arenas with hot crowds. The metrics that tell about actual mainstream level interest are not as impressive. I mean, it is impressive that Double or Nothing did 200,000 Google searches, beating some WWE PPVs and secondary UFC shows. But it’s the only show that has done that. Neither Fight for the Fallen or Fyter Fest had that level of mainstream interest ... Tickets go on sale on Friday, 8/2, at Noon Eastern time. The building is being set up for 14,000 tickets, something WWE these days only does for its biggest PPV shows. It does have the obvious hook of being the first episode of the show, and thus, viewers will be seeing history in some form, and perhaps major history if the promotion makes it long-term. Really, the more important numbers are shows two through ten, because then we’ll know the true level of what they can draw ... A first day ticket sales number under 6,000 would be another lesson. Anything north of 6,000, which is about what a first day ticket sale for a Raw event would do, but not a sellout, would be good, and north of 9,000 would be great. There is no logical reason to expect AEW to pull WWE numbers. They don’t have the time in, nor the exposure, nor do all but a few of their stars have the level of exposure as almost every top WWE star has ... Just as important, if not more, is the quality of the show itself. That doesn’t mean **** matches, although that would be good. It means the show has to look major league and not have gaffes. While some will jump on minor issues, they won’t make a difference. The key is a crowd that looks good on television, and WWE has made 4,000 fans in NBA arenas look fine through clever ticket distribution and shooting, reacts well, star reactions to the stars, good promos before the live audience, good storylines and no embarrassing storylines. It’s a balancing act because this is not and can’t be a show for the few hundred thousand BTE fans who know all the inside references. This has to be an introduction show. And you can’t introduce 30 new characters in one week and have any of them get over ... The fourth aspect is the effect on PPV numbers. There will be one PPV show after the debut of the show and before the end of the year, with the idea of probably four a year being the plan for 2020. UFC exploded on PPV in 2005 when it got on television. The perfect example is Randy Couture vs. Chuck Liddell’s fight prior to television did 48,000 buys and the first PPV in 2005 after getting on Spike did 280,000 buys for a rematch between the two. Now, that is not going to happen here. But if television creates a new fan base, it would make sense it would boost PPV numbers. It did to a degree with Impact, but in the long run Impact ended up being the case study for how large numbers of television viewers didn’t mean shit because they never drew well at the gate and in the long run, PPV’s dwindled.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Sofia Alonso, 28, who is now in charge of the company as the fourth generation Lutteroth family member, did her first major interview with Excelsior since the death of her father put the company’s future in her hands ... A number of ROH stars are headed here between now and the end of the year based on the strengthening of the business relationship and more CMLL guys going to ROH. This is part of the changes Sofia Alonso put into place as one of her first moves was to contact ROH and wanting to expand their working agreement. She will be meeting with officials from ROH in late August about more working together

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter There is a lot of talk on what happens at the end of the year when both Jeff Cobb and Bandido become free agents. The key to staying with ROH for both of them is the New Japan connection as both love going there

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The talks with AXS are not dead regarding television but we don’t know much more as there are NDA’s all over the place regarding the Anthem/AXS talks that started late last year.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Jorge Alcantar, 35, better known as El Hijo del Fantasma as well as King Cuerno from Lucha Underground, is expected to start in the September camp. There have been rumblings of a number of major names starting then. WWE has been wanting him since the first season of Lucha Underground aired, as he was a good worker and speaks perfect English. But his Lucha Underground contract kept it from happening for years.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The 7/30 Smackdown show in Memphis was rewritten hours before the show took place by Vince. Vince felt the show presented to him both didn’t do a good job following up from the prior week, nor did it build SummerSlam strongly enough. Eric Bischoff and Bruce Prichard are working together on the show, but Bischoff at this point doesn’t have much to do with any creative ideas as he’s just learning who is what and the system. Vince was still working on changes in the second hour while the first hour was taking place. Shane, Owens and Bryan pitch most of their stuff to the writers so segments involving those three often come from those three, but they are the only ones the writers seem to listen to. You can tell with Owens and Bryan as their interviews are so much different from everyone elses.

Originally Posted by Fightful With Roman Reigns set to have a role in "Hobbs & Shaw," fans are already starting to wonder if "The Big Dog" will be transitioning out of the ring and onto the silver screen. In an interview with TMZ, Reigns gave a potential timeline for his future. "I'm still in love with the ring and still holding it down for Raw and SmackDown. It's really neat to have many opportunities, but I still love doing my physical thing in the ring. I still have a few more years of being in the prime of my athletic career. If I can handle it in the ring, I'm willing to do it. I can hold this schedule for at least five more years of being full-time. Eventually, it'll be time to rest my body."

Originally Posted by WWE Network News We noted earlier in the week that it looked as though WWE Hidden Gems weren’t finished like some may have predicted. For those unaware, due to the WWE Network update, many of the Hidden Gems videos (along with collections and select other content) are at least temporarily no longer available. With there being no Hidden Gems folder added as of yet, some believed the concept was done altogether ... Tomorrow, on Thursday, August 1st, the WWE Network will be adding the 1993 Summerslam Spectacular show. The show is headlined by a steel cage match between the Steiner Brothers and Money Inc. and the video will be over 90 minutes long ... Below are the exclusive details for this week’s Hidden Gems addition: 08/22/1993 – SummerSlam Spectacular 1993 [Duration: 01:33:56] Money Inc. face The Steiners inside a steel cage for the tag titles while Shawn Michaels defends his IC title against Bob Backlund.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Seven Unannounced Matches That May Be Added to SummerSlam
• Cody Responds to Vince McMahon’s “Blood and Guts” Comments
• The First AEW Women’s Champion Will Be Crowned on AEW’s First TNT Show
• The Brand Split Will Reportedly Be More Strict When SmackDown Moves to FOX
• Goldberg Reportedly Will Face Dolph Ziggler at SummerSlam