[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter For the ratings for last week in Canada, Smackdown on 10/11 for the draft dropped to 201,300 viewers, Raw on 10/14 was up to 294,000 viewers, NXT didn’t crack the sports top ten for its night while AEW fell to 108,000 viewers, which was a 29.4 percent drop, although those in Canada blamed this drop to the Toronto Maple Leafs playing head-to-head, which kills all competing sports

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Orton got a lot of talk this past week with a tease on Twitter. He could just be having fun, but Orton’s ten-year WWE deal expires in 2020 and he’s in a great position to play both sides against each other, and that’s the smart thing to do. In the end, for someone like Orton, who is believed to be making in the $3 million per year range, and doesn’t work a full house show schedule, WWE is probably the better place. At 39, he may be able to get an even lesser schedule. Whether he’s the right mix for AEW is a question but next year you’d think they’d be looking for a big pick up and Orton would fit that bill, there’s the question if they want to spend at that level for a new guy. There is a photo that shows Orton looking at a sign that says “Elite level” and had a caption that reads “tick tock tick tock.” He tagged Riddick Moss, Dawson, Wilder, Cody and Jericho. I’m not sure of the significance of Moss, who is a former college football player who is in NXT and is one of many there with potential kind of caught in the numbers game. The Revival, who Orton had teamed with on Smackdown until they were just separated, definitely had interest in AEW when their WWE deals expire since there’s a natural already made program with The Young Bucks ... Orton and Cody have a relationship as part of the old Legacy faction and Orton had inquired about AEW from the time of its launch, as a large number of WWE stars did ... Orton once tweeted to Will Ospreay about wanting to face him and used the date June 2020, so the belief is that would be around the period when his deal expires. No matter what Orton wants to do, the smart thing is to, especially right now given his age, to use both sides to get the best offer, which at this stage is not just money, but schedule and perhaps putting a cap on professional legacy.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Kacy Catanzaro has been removed quietly from the WWE roster page. Nobody has confirmed she’s gone, but that is usually an indication. She had taken time off and was considering retiring but the last we’d heard was that she hadn’t made a decision

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Even though Cain Velasquez said that WWE had given him permission to do one last AAA match, WWE’s official response to that is to say that the event that he was going to work was canceled, meaning the 10/13 show at The Forum in Los Angeles. Those at AAA believe that they have one date left with him

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter We have complete rundowns on how every segment did with almost every demo for the 10/16 Wednesday night Wars. For AEW, the show ranged from 1,174,000 viewers for the SCU vs,. Best Friends match that opened the show to 999,000 for the Chris Jericho vs. Darby Allin title match that ended it. The actual low point was 912,000 viewers for the beginning of the Pentagon & Fenix vs. Marko Stunt & Jungle Boy match. As far as the segments, the Ortiz & Santana vs. John Silver & Alex Reynolds match, the Jericho interview and the Cody video package lost 174,000 viewers ... Riho vs. Britt Baker gained 3,000 viewers. Pentagon & Fenix vs. Stunt & Jungle Boy lost 17,000 viewers in total, which was a combination of losing 91,000 viewers early and gaining 74,000 late. Kenny Omega & Adam Page vs. Pac & Jon Moxley gained 71,000 viewers. Jericho vs. Allin lost 58,000 viewers ... For NXT, the show opened at 732,000 viewers, the last quarter was 639,000, the overrun after AEW ended gained 127,000 viewers to 766,000 (so that would be a good estimate of the audience that NXT would gain without AEW) and it would be the first week where the overrun helped the final rating, as usually it either hurt it slightly or made no difference. The peak number was the overrun, followed by the Keith Lee vs. Dominik Dijakovic match that peaked at 740,000 viewers. Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch vs. Marcel Barthel & Fabian Aichner lost 38,000 viewers. Io Shirai vs. Kayden Carter and the post-match with Rhea Ripley and Shirai gained 35,000 viewers. Lee vs. Dijakovic gained 10,000 viewers. A combination of Matt Riddle vs. Bronson Reed and Tegan Nox vs. Taynara lost 41,000 viewers. Killian Dain vs. Boa and a Finn Balor segment lost 5,000 viewers. Pete Dunne vs. Damien Priest lost 54,000 viewers until AEW ended and then gained 127,000 at that point. Keys are that while the overrun did show a crossover, if you look at comparisons, you don’t see a lot of crossover. Both shows dropped audience in the second quarter. Baker vs. Riho gained while Io Shirai vs. Cayden Carter also gained. Pentagon & Fenix match with Jungle Boy & Stunt lost while Lee vs. Dijakovic gained, but in the latter stages the Pentagon & Fenix match gained while Lee vs. Dijakovic held steady. Omega & Page vs. Moxley & Pac did gain strong at the same time NXT was falling with Riddle vs. Reed, Nox vs. Taynara and Boa vs. Dain, and one would think that would happen, but in some demos that was not the case. But AEW lost 58,000 in its final quarter at the same time NXT lost 54,000. Key here is 18-34s appear to be interested in both as it picked up 44 percent when AEW ended, but in 35-49, the pick up was only seven percent (misleading because it was 49,000 to 52,000 among women, but 93,000 to 122,000 among men) and for teenagers it was only 2.5 percent while for over 50 it was 15.3 percent. So basically, the crossover is big in 18-34 across the board, and in 35-49 with men but not with women and noticeable but not nearly as large over 50

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter WWE also talked a few months ago with Dragon Gate, talking about buying it to become the transition for NXT Japan

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter One of the reasons for going with an all Japanese hierarchy for New Japan Pro Wrestling of America was an overreaction to vocal fans who had complained that under Meij, they had tried to Americanize New Japan and not give the U.S. the authentic product. The reality is that Americanizing drew better, and the complaints would come after shows where the Young Bucks & Kenny Omega would get the biggest reactions and the fans would complain they were catering too much to the American audience by featuring them ... The funny part of this is that Meij never had a hand in the booking, and all those decisions on the U.S. shows were made by Gedo ... It is notable that Takaaki Kidani of Bushiroad had hired Harold Meij to head up these expansion plans, and neither Meij nor his lead hire, Michael Craven, who is from the Vancouver area, are part of the new company ... Ohbari was a Bushiroad business employee who was moved into the New Japan office in 2018. Ohbari was actually a Meij hiring in February, and while new to pro wrestling, he’s an experienced businessman ... Some believe he’s being groomed to be the backup for Harold Meij in the company ... Ohbari called the creation of the new subsidiary company as stage three of their U.S. market strategy. Stage one was opening up the dojo in Carson, CA, and stage two was running occasional live events. While nothing was said about the relationship with ROH, the fact they’ve had access to no New Japan talent in a few months is telling, particularly with the recent Global Wars touring being only CMLL wrestlers, who have little U.S. drawing appeal. Aside from Jeff Cobb, there is nobody from ROH who has been working for New Japan and Cobb with New Japan predates his signing with ROH. It will be interesting if Cobb works New Japan U.S. shows, or if Cobb, who is a big fan of working for New Japan, even gets offered a full-time New Japan deal and leaves ROH ... New Japan itself took a hit as far as its drawing potential in this market with the development of AEW. And New Japan running a full-time U.S. company probably means, at least for the time being, a relationship with AEW would be out the window ... I think the one thing that hurt attempts to combat WWF in every time period was when the top non-WWF talent was fragmented rather than united. The plan is to run shows in arenas that hold 2,000 fans or less. With so many events, meaning having to draw from local markets rather than fly ins, that is the right size. But it also means you’re going to mostly cater to a very small fan base ... The idea is to run more events, and not bigger buildings. The idea is to grow from there, and build to running major arenas. New Japan has maybe 1,700 tickets out for the San Jose show in a 2,500-seat building, and has plenty of tickets remaining for a Monday night show at the Globe Theater, which PWG sells out routinely at barely 600 people.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter The NWA PPV show on 12/14 in Atlanta is sold out, although that’s in a 250-seat television studio, but it also sold out instantly. Right now the idea is to run weekly television on YouTube until a few weeks before the show, and then do “10 Pounds of Gold” shows weekly leading up to the PPV. Then they’ll tape maybe seven weeks of new TV after the PPV that will build for a live Clash of Champions like YouTube special which would start the next set of tapings, and those tapings would build to another PPV. Right now the plan is four PPVs per year, but like everything, the more they learn, the more things can change. The hope for now is that they can sell ads within their show because they reach a specialized 18 to 44 male audience, and with merch revenue, PPV revenue and other things, that it can be viable financially to continue with this model. It’s also a good place for talent to showcase themselves if they can get in, because you are given a direction and ideas, but you do your own promos and work your own style.

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter In the U.K., the AEW Sunday morning show has been dropped, but the Friday night time slot has been moved up to 10 p.m. on ITV 4, which is a major upgrade from an 11:20 p.m. start ... The Sunday morning show on ITV 4 at 8:20 a.m. averaged 24,000 viewers, which was down 34 percent. Really, the most impressive U.K. number for the past weeks may have been Impact, which did 77,000 viewers on 10/18, which was more than AEW did live the previous Friday. WWE numbers have been bad, as the 10/14 Raw did 38,000 viewers, down from 48,000 for the 10/7 show that featured Tyson Fury, who is a huge name in the U.K. Smackdown on 10/18 was down to 23,000 viewers. Raw on 10/21 did 3,000 viewers. It was so bad people thought it was a computer glitch but we’re told the data was sound

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Regarding Kenny Omega and the AAA heavyweight title, this was not a long-term program worked out between AEW and AAA like the Young Bucks vs. Pentagon Jr. & Fenix program in AAA and AEW over the AAA tag titles, where both companies worked it all out ahead of time. This is more of a thing in progress. Omega’s title win was acknowledged by AEW, unlike Jon Moxley’s New Japan U.S. title. Each situation is different. Tony Khan said that obviously the relationship between AEW and AAA is very different from the non-relationship with AEW and NJPW, plus he noted it was their U.S. title, not the IWGP heavyweight title, which he’d have considered acknowledging if one of his guys wins it (which isn’t going t happen right now).

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter Unlike the last Saudi Arabia show, where the government gave WWE the impression they would allow women on the show, to the point the Natalya vs. Alexa Bliss match was quietly booked and both were flown over, and the rug was pulled out, we’ve heard nothing in that direction so far this time for Allahween Havoc. WWE, which, due to controversy last year, would not mention Saudi Arabia in the promotion of the recent shows, has mentioned the country on television. Paul Levesque at the press conference opened up talking about how huge Riyadh season, as it’s being called in Saudi Arabia, with various forms of entertainment involved.

Originally Posted by PWI In regard to questions we have received about the long-term status of Cain Velasquez and Tyson Fury, here is where things stand with them: Tyson Fury - He has been working out at the WWE Performance Center with Jonny Moss in preparing for his bout with Braun Strowman this Thursday at Crown Jewel. As of this week, that is his only planned WWE appearance and he is not signed to anything with the company. We are told that he's absolutely loved his time with the company and is open to doing more down the line, however. Cain Velasquez - The former UFC Heavyweight Champion has signed a multi-year deal (believed to be three years) with WWE and will be appearing regularly for the company going forward.

Originally Posted by PWI TMZ.com released video footage of the 7/25 arrest of WWE star Jimmy Uso (Jonathan Solofa Fatu) in Pensacola, Florida th In the video, Uso's car is seen swerving on the road and pulls over after the police turn their lights on. He is polite with the officers and admits that his swerving and speed (85 mph in a 45 zone) were both "stupid." Once he realizes he is being asked to take tests to measure his level of intoxication (Uso had admitted to having a glass of wine at dinner "two hours ago"), he begins to get more aggressive and asks to record the officers and for his lawyer to be present, consistently asking if he's being arrested or detained. He is finally placed under arrest and put into the police car. The Usos have not been used regularly by WWE since the arrest. The case against Uso is still open.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia9L_ho8fKE

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling For those in Canada, AEW Dynamite will be airing on TSN 2 next Wednesday after originally being scheduled for TSN 3. The Wednesday night program will run on TSN 2 on October 30th, November 6th, November 13th, November 20th, and November 27th. TSN has not finalized its schedule beyond that but Dynamite will have a consistent channel destination at least through the end of November.

Originally Posted by PWI This Sunday's FOX special at 5 PM Eastern (check your local listings and affiliates) is slated to be a one-hour version of this week's Smackdown.

Originally Posted by Fightful Ryan Satin of Pro Wrestling Sheet reports that "a handful of wrestlers in the middle and lower parts of the card" in IMPACT Wrestling were told they would be given a raise prior to Friday's television tapings in Windsor. Other wrestlers were reportedly told on Sunday at Bound For Glory. Wrestlers who were told they would receive a raise include IMPACT Tag Team Champions The North (Josh Alexander & Ethan Page), X-Division Champion Ace Austin, The Rascalz (Trey, Wentz, & Dez) and Knockouts wrestler Jessicka Havoc. Satin reports "management wanted to give back to the men and women who’ve sacrificed their bodies to help the company as of late." It is unclear how significant the raises are, but Satin reports everyone in the locker room was happy with the increase, with one wrestler reportedly "almost brought to tears."

TPWW Frontpage:

• CNN Business Releases Report on WWE’s Declining Stock Value This Year
• NXT Looking to Broadcast from Other Arenas Next Year
• AEW: Dynamite Beats Raw in NYC, Extended Dynamite Episode Tonight
• Xavier Woods Has a Torn Achilles, Will Be Out for Several Months
• Luchasaurus Injury Not as Bad as Originally Feared