Wrestling News & Rumors

[Mr. Nerfect]

But even then you'll probably have sycophants like Smeat posting articles going "Well actually...AEW only went out of business because Vince McMahon poisoned the town's water supply and scared people off wrestling forever. It is technically impossible for anyone to be successful and AEW came as close as could possibly be."

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

For a number of reasons, as it turns out, the pandemic was the greatest thing for WWE’s business as they posted the most profitable quarter in their history. It’s not that they overcome the pain of the pandemic. They outright benefitted from it, with more consumer product sales, higher network numbers and the real difference maker, far lower costs to produce television. Profits quadrupled in the quarter, blowing away all estimates, due to saving $51.6 million in media costs. The vast majority of those savings was the lower cost of producing television the way they do it now in the Performance Center, no longer running live, and taping multiple shows on successive days as opposed to live Monday, Wednesday and Friday in different parts of the country with far more wrestlers, production people and costs. For one, taping two weeks had a time for each show, and taping shows on successive days, saved travel costs greatly. Producing a show in a small building greatly cut down on the production budget, not to mention the fewer production people and costs that were already lower were cut almost in half from there by generally taping two shows at a time. Plus there was savings on uplinks by no longer doing any shows actually live, as even when taped the same day, they never actually went live. The second positive was a huge increase in subscribers to the WWE Network. The number was 195,000 above what would have been normally expected as of 6/30. There are a number of factors involved here. One is that WrestleMania had so many people subscribing for free as compared to the past few years, that many of them didn’t cancel and stayed on as paying subscribers. Another reason, arguably the most important because ESPN’s PPV numbers for UFC were so much higher than previously, and AEW also set records in PPV, is that with sports bars are closed, and people are no longer getting together in large numbers for PPV parties ... But it does have to be noted when interest appears at a low point since at least 1996, that network subscriber numbers have increased so strongly over the last three months, and manly the month of June when the free month was dropped and the free tier was launched ... Another aspect is that streaming has gotten more popular across the board during the pandemic with more people home. Then again, more people are home to watch television, and there is less sports competition, and WWE had struggled badly there. What’s notable is that the record profits came during a quarter where revenues were not only much lower than last year even with the new television deals, but were slightly down from analysts expectations. The general expectation was $231 million in revenues and $11.5 million to $12 million in profits. The actual numbers were $223.4 million in revenue and $43.8 million in after-tax profit, basically quadrupling expectations. Last year’s numbers which included both all the live events associated with WrestleMania and the Mania show itself, a full house show schedule, and payment for a Saudi Arabia show, none of which happened this quarter. Last year’s second quarter grossed $268.9 million in revenue and ended with a $10.4 million after-tax profit ... It also should be noted that it was not the cost-cutting of talent salaries that led to the record profits. All main roster talent, and a number of the furloughed and fired employees, were being paid their regular salaries through 7/17. So the $4 million per month savings in that category will likely lead to $12 million more in added profits next quarter. The WWE Network on 6/30 had 1,690,000 subscribers, broken down as 1,229,000 in the U.S. and 461,000 outside the U.S. Three months earlier, just days before WrestleMania, the numbers were 1,083,000 in the U.S. and 412,000 outside the U.S., so the gains were 13.5 percent domestically and 11.9 percent outside the U.S. The strongest growth outside the U.S. was in India. For comparison, during the same three month period in 2019 there was a 0.4 percent decrease in the U.S. and 1.2 percent increase overseas. In 2018, it was a 6.9 percent increase in the U.S. and 8.3 percent increase outside the U.S. in quarter two ... Based on the current profit margins, the stock price is very low. The only red light regarding a strong increase to the past $60 to $80 per share range is the uncertainty that the huge rights fees, which are totally carrying the company at this point, may not be maintained in the next contract that would start in late 2024. There is a big feeling FOX way overpaid, and USA was forced to overpay because FOX really wanted Raw. WWE has already had to renew a number of international deals, including the previous No. 2 deals in the U.K., at substantially less money. In addition, the company has noted that profits will be down once they start touring and going back to live weekly television, particularly early on if they have to run arenas with limited capacity. Unlike in the past, where investors were more bullish on the prospects of 3 million to 4 million network subscribers, and growing from there, which never materialized, there is a realization that only numbers that really matter are rights fees. They’re dropping overseas, and the next round are likely to be determined by ratings in the 18-49 demo primarily, which have dropped badly in recent months. Analysts listened to Vince McMahon’s excuses, such as injuries, or needing to be patient because they have to build new stars, and now the excuse is the pandemic, but many are growing weary of excuses ... There was also a blame on the declining international rights on countries being affected by COVID, but that’s ridiculous. The U.K. deal was based on declining ratings in recent years and how WWE treated Sky by giving them more of a PPV cut and then not telling them about the network killing PPV until after the deal was signed. Plus, WWE ratings plummeted in the market. Italy was similar. It was not related at all to COVID, but to high costs with low ratings returns and the station willing to give it up. Riddick said the smaller international deals are because they are challenged by COVID. He also noted that there are no major renewals coming up, which also indicates they aren’t close to a new Middle East deal. When asked about the purchase of Evolve and, out of left field, the company getting into MMA, Riddick said, “Evolve was a content purchase deal and very straightforward and every small in size in terms of investment. Right now, we are not looking at any MMA opportunities. Hopefully, they will come along. We are actively, we do have investments in certain new technologies in new areas and we are looking for opportunities, but there’s nothing imminent there.” They also noted that a return to arenas will likely hurt profits because they will likely not be able to sell the same amount of tickets with social distancing. Virtually all revenue this quarter came from television rights, network subs and PPV, which combined brought in $200.1 million of the $223.4 million in revenues, with the rest coming from consumer products. Last year in the quarter the number was $197.0 million, but that included $50 million in a payment from Saudi Arabia. Regarding whether the originally scheduled November date in Saudi Arabia will take place, it has not been canceled and nothing is certain, but they are not expecting it ... Expenses when it came to television, network and PPV were $118.5 million, down from $170.1 million for the same period last year, or a savings in the quarter alone of $51.6 million. That right there is the profit margin and then some. Everything else is almost immaterial. As far as total revenue, Network plus PPV numbers declined from $51.8 million to $49.4 million. That’s due to a decline in PPV and a slight decline in average subs during the quarter. But the end of the quarter was up from last year so that should be ahead of last year in the next quarter report. The new deals led to television rights increasing from $69.0 million last year in quarter two to $132.9 million this year. Television advertising and sponsorships fell from $18.9 million to $13.3 million ... Last year, in a quarter that included WrestleMania, and all the Mania activities, the live event profits were $12.4 million. This year running no shows, due to various deals and money and advertising costs of shows that didn’t happen, the live events division lost $4.5 million. Profits from consumer products increased from $5.2 million in last year’s second quarter to $7.6 million. Licensed products, like video games, console games and mobile games saw revenue increase in the quarter from $9.4 million last year to $9.7 million, an increase seemingly having to do with people home more and playing more games. The industry as a whole has grown during the pandemic ... Merchandise sold through the web site increased from $6.6 million to $12.6 million, both increases being examples of the pandemic helping WWE business.

Plans for a multi-tiered WWE Network, which had been talked about for years, and which would have included usage of the tape libraries of a number of independent promotions, including wXw, Evolve, ICW and Progress, that has been on-and-off for years, is back off. Regarding whether that content would be used on the paid tier, those decisions have gone back-and-forth for years and every time the decision has been made to do so, Vince McMahon in the end has changed his mind on it. At the 7/16 WWE shareholders meeting, when discussing the network, the company announced the free tier, which has the goal of trying to use that tier to convert viewers to becoming paid subscribers, has replaced multi-tiers and higher priced tiers giving more content and benefits in the WWE’s network strategy ... An obvious question is the return of live events, or even the question of WrestleMania 2021 in Inglewood, CA, and like everything, including a potential closing in Orlando, there are no answers. The reality is things aren’t going back to normal any time soon. A closing in Orlando is very unlikely to happen for the political reasons it opened up in the first place and the government turned a blind eye to all those tapings with no testing for months. WrestleMania is far enough in the future that perhaps there may be a vaccine, but from a timing standpoint, that’s a longshot. Many have speculated on the idea that Florida, even though it’s in bad shape, would welcome a WrestleMania more than California would, and Tampa in a sense is owed one. And ultimately, these decisions do have to be made in the next few months because if they are going to do a stadium event, they need to be able to start promoting it by the end of this year ... Regarding the 2021 WrestleMania and the new SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Vince McMahon said, “Again, we, it wouldn’t be fair to mention that now because we’re following the COVID-19 aspect. So many cities are obviously interested in Wrestlemania and many have bid for it, and what have you. This somewhat changes from time to time, again, depending upon the severity of COVID, but we haven’t announced anything yet.” Regarding a potential shutdown in Orlando, Vince McMahon said, “Let me just say there’s always a `B-plan.’ I don’t want to say right now exactly what that would be, but yes there is a `B-Plan.’” There are several backup plans in place. The belief is that WWE can’t be shut down in Florida due to Linda McMahon’s Super Pac agreeing to spend $18.5 million for Donald Trump’s reelection campaign in Florida, and Gov. Ron DeSantis being loyal to Trump. That could mean going down with the ship because Trump’s popularity numbers are so bad, but DeSantis won’t be making that decision in August. But according to one person who knows the situation, McMahon has DeSantis “by the balls.” If for some reason it gets so bad in Florida that there is a complete lockdown, McMahon had a study prepared and now has several different locations as backup. Among them is the television studio at their corporate offices in Stamford, CT, which was the ring they shot the John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt WrestleMania match in. It’s said they can make that setting look similar to the Performance Center, although they wouldn’t have as easy access to contracted wrestlers to be fans if they run outside Florida. Shooting outdoors on the beach for SummerSlam is another possibility, just for the visual differences, as noted first in PW Insider. As for a second Saudi Arabia show this year, the situation is the same, it’s completely out of the company’s control. McMahon has said in the past that if the show can’t happen this year, it would be tacked onto the end of the ten year deal. One of the issues with such a show are all the quarantine measures that UFC had to put in place. For UFC, they did it, but also ran four shows there over two weeks and had all kinds of infrastructure in Abu Dhabi put together including a bubble environment. Saudi Arabia may not be able to provide that, and while TV can be taped well ahead of time when a $50 million type of payment for an event is in the equation, it’s far more difficult ... Vince McMahon was also asked about a physical Hall of Fame. “Bricks and mortar is something that, generally speaking, we, other than office buildings and office space of course, that we’re not necessarily fond of, but nonetheless, again the interest in that continues to build and it’s still a possibility somewhere down the line.”

Antonio Inoki, who one can argue that along with Hulk Hogan, would be the biggest pro wrestling star of the last half-century, revealed on 7/26 that he was suffering from a rare incurable heart ailment. Inoki, 77, was interviewed in Weekly Sincho, talking about his battle with cardiac amyloidosis. Because Inoki was such a cultural icon, as the second biggest pro wrestling star in the history of the country behind Rikidozan, and considered one of the country’s ten biggest sports stars of the 20th century, this has become one of the most talked about topics in Japanese culture since he went public. From a cultural standpoint, Inoki in Japan would be much bigger than any pro wrestler has ever been in the U.S., perhaps LeBron James would be a comparison as he’d not be Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan, but would probably be bigger than just about anyone else. As far as a wrestler being a cultural icon, probably only Rikidozan and El Santo would be at his level. The rare disease, that affects between 700 and 750 people in the entire country of Japan, has to do with an abnormal protein buildup on internal organs that interferes with their normal functions and causes heart issues. There are different types of cardiac amyloidosis, but Inoki’s type is believed to be hereditary ... Inoki said that this past fall he went a little deaf and was hospitalized, and after tests, was diagnosed with cardiac amyloidosis. He described it as the heart having a bad membrane called amyloid. Due to that, the function of the heart deteriorates, making it difficult to send enough blood for the body to fully function. He said that at times he felt like he was suffocating, but thought it was just the effects of aging. He said that he was taking ridiculously expensive medicine called Vindaquel to combat the problem. The medicine is not a cure, as there is no cure. But it does slow down the effects of the disease.

On the 7/25 New Japan Sengoku Lord show, a surprise announcement was made regarding the first pro wrestling show at Tokyo’s Jingu Stadium, the site of the famous battle of world champions with UWFI world champion Nobuhiko Takada and WCW world champion Vader on December 5, 1993. The show was announced for 8/29, just five weeks later ... There are a number of reasons, all related to the pandemic. The first is that doing 30 percent capacity limits paid attendance and live gates greatly, and New Japan’s revenue base is largely ticket sales to live shows and merchandise sold at those shows. Between shutting down for months and now generally drawing about one-third of projections and running fewer shows, the company has taken a huge economic hit this year. In addition, the budget included a huge August event in Madison Square Garden, Wrestle Dynasty, with the idea of running the building once a year, and that show was moved to 2021. There is no word on capacity, but the stadium holds 37,933 for baseball, so capacity depends on staging and seats on the field and being outdoors if they can do more than the 30 percent that they do indoors. Only three matches have been announced thus far, Evil defending both the IWGP and IC titles against Tetsuya Naito; Hiromu Takahashi defending the IWGP jr. title against Taiji Ishimori and a four-way match to crown the first King of Pro Wrestling champion ... New Japan already has too many titles to keep up with, although less are in play now. The IWGP and IC titles have merged. The U.S. champion (Jon Moxley) and British champion (Will Ospreay) are out of action. In the case of Moxley, due to the 14 days quarantine going into Japan and AEW commitments, he’s likely not going to be available for a long time. There is no set date for Ospreay’s return but the hope is October for the G-1 Climax tournament. The Never trios titles are around, but not taken seriously. The IWGP jr. tag titles are also not in play, as Yoh, who holds the title with Sho, underwent surgery for a torn ACL and will be out for six months or more. While this can change, as of right now the plans are not to strip them of the titles. So it’s just the main singles title, the junior title, one secondary singles title (Shingo Takagi as Never champion) and the main tag titles. The KOPW title is an idea of Kazuchika Okada, legitimately. It’s very Americanized, to the point the first champion will be crowned in a four-way match. Historically, the very few times the IWGP title was put up in three-way matches, fans were not particularly positive with the idea.

AAA: Konnan on his podcast talked about the idea of the drive-in shows. He said that they would be doing stand-alone matches rather than storylines at these shows. He said it would be a way to present unique matches and pairings that you wouldn’t expect to see, similar to Lucha Fighter. He also said that there would be a roof over the ring to protect the ring in case of rain.

Fantasma, in his role as head of the Box y Lucha commission in Mexico City, held a press conference on 7/22 announcing a distribution of pantry items to wrestlers who are currently out of work, which is basically all of them. He also distributed medicine to those in need. At the press conference, he was asked about AAA and CMLL starting back. He showed a letter from CMLL asking that same subject. CMLL would like to open at 50 percent capacity, which would be about 8,000 seats, which would be more than anyone has opened up in front of and Mexico is in worse shape than the U.S., even if you don’t hear that on the news. Fantasma said AAA presented him an idea three weeks ago, which would be the drive-in show idea. The reality is that in Mexico City, the government looks to be a long way of allowing events like this. Fantasma encouraged wrestlers to see if they could get other jobs until the pandemic ends

Jeff Jarrett and Global Force Wrestling prevailed to at least a degree in its lawsuit against Anthem Entertainment regarding the usage of the GFW name and the television shows taped in Las Vegas years ago that Impact used as part of its PPV shows. PW Insider reported the jury ruled for Jarrett that Anthem used the term Global Force Wrestling and its logo, and used content owned by GFW without the license to do so, and that Anthem was negligent for deleting the original master tapes. But they also ruled Anthem’s actions were caused by Jarrett breaching his fiduciary duty as owner of GFW and he’s liable to Anthem for certain damages. The amount of damages due both sides was not declared yet by the jury. According to PW Insider, Anthem on 7/29 filed a new motion in U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Tennessee requesting that the rulings be nullified and that a mistrial be declared. They asked for a mistrial based on Jarrett’s attorney, Samuel Miller, making a statement in court that Ed Nordholm wasn’t there in court even though Anthem’s attorneys had specifically requested that not be brought up. Nordholm and Scott D’Amore weren’t there because Anthem was taping Impact on 7/21, the day in question and the court had been told neither man could attend the trial on that day. Miller tried to portray Nordholm as the villain and him not being there for part of the trial was brought up with the idea he didn’t care. Jarrett’s side is fighting the attempt to get a mistrial declared. Impact had claimed all the revenue they derived between PPV and DVD sales of the GFW tapes was only $10,000

AEW: Excalibur was off the 7/29 show with no explanation given. The company hasn’t said anything publicly, or privately about the matter. There was talk but not confirmed that he asked to be off the show because there had been a Twitter furor over him using the “N” word in a PWG angle 17 years ago. This incident was known about. It totally sucked, like bad, at the time, and everyone realized it and regretted it and pretty much apologized for it shortly after the time. I saw it resurface a few weeks ago but didn’t get any traction. Evidently on 7/28 people made enough of a case about it that it became an issue. The story, again, not confirmed, was that he didn’t want to be on the show thinking it would be the focus of the show. As it turns out, it became a much bigger issue because he wasn’t on the show. There is no word if he’ll be back next week. The 8/5 show was being taped on 7/30. He had flown to Florida for this set of tapings but he’d have flown in before the stuff got hot again. According to one person close to the situation, there was a promo involving Human Tornado, who is black and was at the time the top babyface, and heels Excalibur (when he was a wrestler), Disco Machine and Kevin Steen. One person was there and said that Human Tornado had often asked for heels to do racial stuff on him as a babyface and had asked people to use the N word on him. Steen argued against it but Tornado was persistent and talked him into it. We don’t know if Machine or Excalibur argued the point or just agreed to do it. I saw the video of it, and it sucked. There’s an issue because Tony Khan had said that Hulk Hogan, and Linda were not welcome as part of his group for racial remarks in the past. Hulk’s remark was not in an angle and part of a storyline. The fact is WWE didn’t sit Steen out because of this and they were aware of this and it was taken care of long ago. Everyone pretty much apologized after and acknowledged that it was a bad idea. Excalibur has brought it up and said he regretted it multiple times and Steen has publicly at least once in an interview. It was an angle that wasn’t a secret, that everyone knew and figured was taken care of, but the nature of Twitter is such that it became an issue this past week.

The women’s eight-team tournament will be a blind draw in the sense partners are drawn at random in storyline, like a WCW Battle Bowl type thing. The tournament won’t be on Dynamite, or at least most of it won’t, and will be a YouTube series that will be released every Monday at 7 p.m. starting on 8/3. The teams will be announced on that show. So AEW will now have a Monday and a Tuesday YouTube show, a Monday BTE show and Wednesday’s Dynamite

As of early in the week, Rey Mysterio and Vince McMahon were still in negotiations for terms of a prospective new deal

Regarding office people furloughed, the idea many were told that they would be brought back next month but now most have been extended until 8/28. A number are looking to find new jobs at this point, although this is probably the worst time in our lifetimes to be on the job market. The added time to the furloughs in the cases when you look at the profits for the quarter tells quite the story

Even though he wasn’t on the last two shows, Owens was at the Raw tapings on 7/20. He had been written into the original shows but with all the changes made, they decided not to use him. I think the key was that since they wanted to do injury angles with Black on both shows, the feeling was that Owens would theoretically have to do run-ins to attempt to break those up and they didn’t feel the need to sacrifice him in angles like that

The most-watched shows of the past week on the WWE Network were: 1. Daniel Bryan’s best matches; 2. Raw Talk for 7/27; 3. 1997: Dawn of the Attitude; 4. The Horror Show at Extreme Rules; 5. Undertaker’s Last Ride: Tales from the Deadman; 6. WWE Break it Down: Mick Foley; 7. R-Truth Game Show

RAW, SmackDown, & AEW vs. NXT Ratings stuff:

SPOILER: show

Raw on 7/27 was another disappointing showing, as the third hour, which contained most of the Asuka vs. Sasha Banks match, and all of the Drew McIntyre vs. Dolph Ziggler match, ended up as the least-watched hour and lowest rated in the key demo in the history of the show. Overall, on a week where the number should have shown a noticeable increase, it ended up as the second lowest overall number, with 1,616,000 viewers, and tied for the third worst demo number at .48 (618,000 viewers). The third hour, featuring the two matches advertised a week ahead of time, both advertised ahead of time as title matches, set record lows with 1,463,000 viewers and 0.41 in 18-49. McIntyre vs. Ziggler ended up changed to a non-title match after being pushed for most of the week as a title match. Both numbers broke last week’s record for the lowest hour in show history with hour three, headlined by Randy Orton vs. Big Show, doing 1,504,000 viewers and a 0.42 in 18-49. The third hour decline, a record level among teenagers and really all but the over-50 audience, was almost surely based on the Asuka vs. Sasha Banks title change finish. Even though most of the audience of the show was over 50, and that audience for the most part stayed until the finish, about 15 percent of the total audience tuned out after the finish of that match. The look at that breakdown is likely along the lines of the first-to-third hour declines. Those saw were women 18-49 dropping 27.8 percent, men 18-49 dropping 16.2 percent, teenage girls dropping 88.0 percent (this sounds completely ridiculous and there’s never been anything like this level of viewers tuning out of any demo like that on the same show), teenage boys dropping 52.6 percent while over 50's steady the ship by only dropping 7.2 percent. Raw has now done the three lowest numbers in its history and three of the four lowest 18-49s in its history over the past three weeks. Even with that, Raw was No. 1 on cable for the night in Males 18-49 and Males 18-34. It was 19th place overall and No. 4 in 18-49, behind two episodes of 90 Day Fiancé on TLC and one of Below Deck Mediterranean. It was No. 5 in total viewers among non-news programming. The scary stuff remains the comparisons with last year. For the same week last year, Raw was down 30.3 percent in total viewers, 35.1 percent in 18-49 and 51.9 percent in 18-34. The first hour did 1,699,000 viewers. The second hour held steady with 1,688,000 viewers before hour three’s 1,463,000. In the key demos, Raw did 118,000 in males 18-34 (up 34.1 percent from last week), 61,000 in women 18-34 (up 10.9 percent), 291,000 in men 35-49 down 2.3 percent) and 148,000 in women 35-49 (down 5.7 percent).

Smackdown on 7/24 did a 1.22 rating with 1,924,000 viewers (1.31 viewers per home) and 0.48 (618,000 viewers) in the 18-49 demo. The slight increase in audience is a good sign because it aired out of prime time in Detroit due to Tigers baseball. In theory an increase over recent weeks would figure to be attributable to the Jeff Hardy vs. Sheamus bar fight, but that was not the high point of the show, and it opened stronger than usual. Overall the rating was down 1.6 percent but that was offset by a solid increase in viewers per home, with total viewers up 0.6 percent and 18-49 up 2.8 percent ... Smackdown was one of only two first-run shows on network television, with CBS having a one-hour show at 8 p.m. that did 3,488,000 viewers and 0.4 in the demo. Greatest At Home on CBS tied Smackdown in 18-34 at 0.3, and beat it in 25-54 by a 0.7 to 0.6. Smackdown also beat everything on cable in 18-49 and was first in males 18-49, but last in over 50, and had the fewest actual viewers of any network show event though they were almost all reruns. Last year in the same time slot airing two reruns, FOX averaged 1,358,000 viewers and 0.3 in 18-49. In the segments, the Bayley & Sasha Banks stuff with Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss and the Cross vs. Bliss match for the title chance did 2.02 million viewers. The Firefly Fun House, Matt Riddle vs. Tony Nese and Miz & Morrison’s Miz TV with Naomi did 1.85 million viewers. The ending of Miz TV with Lacey Evans, plus Shorty G vs. Lince Dorado vs. Gran Metalik vs. Drew Gulak for an IC title match did 1.97 million viewers. And Hardy vs. Sheamus in the bar fight did 1.86 million viewers.

There was a lot of news regarding the 7/22 ratings that wasn’t noted last week ... The biggest thing is that the last five minutes of the Young Bucks vs. Butcher & Blade falls count anywhere match did 1,018,000 viewers and 502,000 in 18-49. This was the best figure in 18-49 on Wednesday and the highest peak as well. The match itself averaged 912,000 viewers and 459,000 in 18-49. The last quarter of Keith Lee vs. Adam Cole was 922,000 viewers and 355,000 in 18-49, but the overall match from start-to-finish was 887,000 viewers and 339,000 in 18-49. AEW was near one million viewers briefly during the Darby Allin run-in and again prior to the commercial break in Young Bucks vs. Butcher & Blade, the last five minutes of the match, at 950,000 for the post-match involving The Dark Order, Adam Page, FTR and Kenny Omega and the Chris Jericho & Jake Hager vs. Luchasaurus & Jungle Boy match started at 650,000 due to a huge turnout during a commercial break, was at about 800,000 most of the match and hit 900,000 right as Sammy Guevara was revealed in the post match. NXT’s first minute, coming off the strong lead-in, was at about 1 million viewers but the Dexter Lumis vs. Killian Dain match had it down to 600,000 by five minutes in. The show was a little under or over 600,000 most of the way, hitting 700,000 during a few AEW commercial breaks and a high point of 750,000 during Oney Lorcan vs. Timothy Thatcher at the time AEW was in the commercial break before the Jericho match. The main event final quarter battle saw Jericho & Hager vs. Luchasaurus & Jungle Boy do 799,000 viewers and 393,000 in 18-49 to NXT’s 602,000 viewers and 232,000 in 18-49 for Karrion Kross vs. Dominik Dijakovic ... AEW opened with 905,000 viewers and 391,000 in 18-49 for Cody vs. Eddie Kingston. The number was almost a straight line steady from Cody coming out first until the end of the match. NXT opened with 633,000 viewers and 199,000 in 18-49 for William Regal and Keith Lee’s interview and Lumis vs. Dain, but it was a huge first few minutes from the lead-in and a collapse. In the second quarter, AEW lost 94,000 viewers and 15,000 in 18-49 for a Jon Moxley promo and MJF vs. Griff Garrison. NXT lost 31,000 viewers but gained 22,000 in 18-49 for an interview with Strong, Reed and Gargano, a Dakota Kai feature and Breezango vs. Matt Martel & Chase Parker. In the third quarter, AEW gained 81,000 viewers and 68,000 in 18-49 for the Taz & Cage promo with Darby Allin, Ricky Starks and Moxley running in and a Jericho & Inner Circle promo and the start of Young Bucks vs. Butcher & Blade. NXT gained 30,000 viewers and 12,000 in 18-49 for Aliyah vs. Blackheart. In the fourth quarter, AEW gained 20,000 viewers and 15,000 in 18-49 for the rest of Young Bucks vs. Butcher & Blade. NXT lost 14,000 viewers and 8,000 in 18-49 for an Isaiah Scott package and the beginning of Gargano vs. Reed vs. Strong. In the fifth quarter, AEW lost 25,000 viewers and 22,000 in 18-49 for Diamante vs. Ivelisse. NXT gained 33,000 viewers and 3,000 in 18-49 for the rest of Reed vs. Gargano vs. Strong. In the sixth quarter, AEW lost 81,000 viewers and 33,000 in 18-49 for Adam Page vs. Alan Angels and the post-match, with the post-match growing well. NXT lost 63,000 viewers and 31,000 in 18-49 for Thatcher vs. Lorcan . In the seventh quarter, AEW lost 57,000 viewers and 38,000 in 18-49 for the rundown of next week and beginning of Jericho & Hager vs. Luchasaurus & Jungle Boy. NXT gained 11,000 viewers and 19,000 in 18-49 for the ending of Lorcan vs. Thatcher and the backstage segment with Robert Stone, Aliyah and Mercedes Martinez. In the final quarter, AEW with Jericho & Hager vs. Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus gained 50,000 viewers and 28,000 in 18-49. NXT with Kross vs. Dijakovic gained 3,000 viewers and 16,000 in 18-49.

A few notes on the 7/29 ratings. The wrestling audience on Friday, Monday and Wednesday, all of which had baseball competition, all did similar numbers in 18-49. Friday was 618,000. Monday was also 618,000. Wednesday was 625,000 ... In 18-34, Wednesday did a combined 196,000, while Monday did 179,000 and Friday did 175,000. But AEW, which had been only slightly behind Raw and Smackdown the past few weeks in 18-34, did 133,000 so it fell well behind both. AEW did beat hour three of Raw in overall 18-34. In women 18-34, AEW beat Raw this week by 65,000 to 61,000, even with competition, as it also did last week. But Smackdown won the night with 80,000 ... The 7/29 numbers saw AEW do 773,000 viewers and a 0.30 in 18-49 (394,000 viewers), putting it in sixth place for the night. NXT did 707,000 viewers and a 0.18 (231,000 viewers), finishing in the No. 28 spot, essentially meaning it had a very old audience ... AEW was down 8.5 percent in viewers and 3.7 percent in 18-49. AEW’s lead-in, Talladega Nights, was down 28 percent in 18-49 per usual and really that’s probably the complete difference in the 18-49 drop and maybe the overall drop. It took AEW until quarter three to beat NXT in total viewers due to the huge lead-in difference ... AEW’s decline was strongly in men over 35, which could mean baseball. Women were way up from last week, particularly teenage girls. Baseball beat AEW handily in males under 35, but AEW beat baseball in women under 35. AEW beat NXT in every key demo. In men 18-34, AEW did 68,000 viewers (down 4.2 percent) to 39,000 for NXT (up 5.4 percent). In women 18-34, AEW did 65,000 (up 12.1 percent) and NXT did 24,000 (up 41.2 percent). In men 35-49, AEW did 182,000 (down 13.3 percent) and NXT did 103,000 (down 9.6 percent). Those may be baseball drops. In women 35-49, AEW did 79,000 (up 12.9 percent) and NXT did 65,000 (up 27.5 percent). AEW won every quarter big in 18-49 with the biggest gap in quarter five (Kenny Omega & Adam Page vs. Dark Order on one side, and Keith Lee, Cameron Grimes, Scarlett, Karrion Kross, a main event package and Imperium vs. Ever Rise on the other side) where it more than doubled NXT. In total viewers, because of the lead-in, NXT had a huge first quarter lead and a significant second quarter lead, before AEW turned it around in quarter three during the Cody vs. Warhorse match ... However, NXT had strong growth for the Finn Balor vs. Dexter Lumis vs. Timothy Thatcher main event, which did 671,000 viewers and 230,000 in 18-49. AEW’s main event of Jon Moxley & Darby Allin vs. Brian Cage & Ricky Starks did 721,000 viewers and 360,000 in 18-49. The show opened with AEW at 718,000 viewers and 367,000 in 18-49 for The Inner Circle vs. Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus & Best Friends & Orange Cassidy match. NXT with the big lead-in did 853,000 and 247,000 in 18-49 with Io Shirai & Tegan Nox vs. Dakota Kai & Candice LeRae. This was NXT’s high point for viewers and 18-49, but most of that would have to do with the huge lead-in advantage and not having Dexter Lumis in the match. In the second quarter, AEW gained 3,000 viewers and lost 9,000 in 18-49 for the ending of the Inner Circle ten man tag and post-match, Jon Moxley interview and beginning of Cody vs. Warhorse. NXT lost 75,000 viewers and gained 1,000 in 18-49 for the Adam Cole/Pat McAfee angel and beginning of Roderick Strong vs. Johnny Gargano. Quarter three saw AEW gain 84,000 viewers and 48,000 in 18-49 for Cody vs. Warhorse, post-match with the debut of Matt Cardona and an Inner Circle interview. NXT lost 71,000 viewers and 5,000 in 18-49 for Gargano vs,. Strong and the Dakota Kai/Rhea Ripley promo. Quarter four saw AEW gain 27,000 viewers and 17,000 in 18-49 for the FTR contract signing with Arn Anderson and Adam Page and beginning of Omega & Page vs. Stu Grayson & Evil Uno. NXT lost 3,000 viewers and 8,000 in 18-49 for an Undisputed Era backstage piece, and Shotzi Blackheart vs. Mercedes Martinez. Quarter five saw AEW gain 46,000 viewers and 32,000 in 18-49 for Omega & Page vs. Dark Order, and the post-match angle with The Young Bucks, FTR, Brodie Lee and others. This was the high point of the night for either side with total viewers and 18-49. Quarter six saw AEW lost 88,000 viewers and 43,000 in 18-49 for Hikaru Shida vs. Diamante and the Nyla Rose/Vickie Guerrero interview. NXT lost 36,000 viewers and 10,000 in 18-49 for the Imperium/Undisputed Era angle, a Bronson Reed feature, more interviews and the beginning of Isaiah Scott vs. Jake Atlas. Quarter seven saw AEW lose 70,000 viewers and 30,000 in 18-49 for the MJF interview. NXT lost 51,000 viewers and 32,000 in 18-49 for Scott vs. Atlas and ring intros for the main event. Quarter eight saw AEW gain 1,000 viewers and but lose 20,000 in 18-49 for Moxley & Allin vs. Cage & Starks. NXT gained 60,000 viewers and 36,000 in 18-49 for Lumis vs. Balor vs. Thatcher.

Spoiler tags used for those who don't want to read ratings related news from the Observer newsletter while those who don't mind or are interested can just click on the tab.

[Fignuts]

Oh wow. you mean the Owens/Excalibur incident actually had context to what happened and why?

Who ever would have guessed?

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by Fignuts Oh wow. you mean the Owens/Excalibur incident actually had context to what happened and why? Who ever would have guessed?

This is a very weird point to make.

[Fignuts]

The point I'm making is that people get nailed to the cross without any research or investegation. None of the news sites that initially reported about this incident bothered to do the research on what actually happened despite the fact that it's their job to do so.

I'm not saying that what they did was right, but the knowledge that a black talent pestered them into doing it, and that they immediately knew it was a mistake and apologized is a very important detail to omit, especially in today's enviornment and the way people are judged.

The feeling of righteousness has become an addiction for a large portion of society, and it's a fucking cancer on critical thinking.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by Fignuts The point I'm making is that people get nailed to the cross without any research or investegation. None of the news sites that initially reported about this incident bothered to do the research on what actually happened despite the fact that it's their job to do so. I'm not saying that what they did was right, but the knowledge that a black talent pestered them into doing it, and that they immediately knew it was a mistake and apologized is a very important detail to omit, especially in today's enviornment and the way people are judged. The feeling of righteousness has become an addiction for a large portion of society, and it's a fucking cancer on critical thinking.

Well, sure, in many cases I'd agree with you. But in this case, it's pretty cut and dry. We have video of them using the word for an angle in PWG. That's really the full context there. I mean, was anyone out there really suggesting that Human Tornado was not expecting to get the word thrown at him? Or that it makes a difference?

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I always assumed it was a co-operative angle that was just tasteless. No excuse for it other than "We were fucking idiots." And they've all said that, so good. But I'm just not getting where this idea of a wider context comes from. Maybe I'm just lost in the semantics.

Not saying this about you, but the righteousness extends both ways. There are plenty of people willing to be like "Ahhhh, seeeeeeee" which is just as annoying.

Owens and Excalibur shouldn't have done that shit. They did. They've said sorry and now realize why it is wrong. They don't need people calling for their heads or defenders.

[Droford]

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets sponsored by WCW Hardcore Division Appreciation Night:

Originally Posted by Observer The return of Shane McMahon on Monday's WWE Raw led to a stronger second hour than usual and brought viewership up six percent from last week's second lowest number of all time with the show averaging 1.71 million viewers and 0.51 in the 18-49 demo. The first hour was slightly ahead of last week (1.71 million to 1.70 million last week), likely due to the last day hype of the McMahon addition and the promised debut of a new stable. The key was that the second hour not only didn't decline, but it grew greatly to 1.82 million viewers before the show experienced a third hour drop to 1.61 million ... Raw was No. 4 in 18-49, trailing 90 Day Fiance, NBA on ESPN, and Below Deck: Mediterranean. The show was No. 22 for the night overall and No. 4 among non-news shows ... Raw was down 31% from the same week last year overall, 37% in 18-49 and 51% in 18-34.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The three-hour show averaged 1,715,000 viewers on the USA Network and a 0.51 in the 18-49 demographic. Viewership increased by 6% and the demo rating improved by 6.25% and were their best figures in those categories since June. The show started with 1,710,000 viewers and increased by 6.6% in the second hour to 1,824,000 viewers, which is the highest hour of Raw since the opening hour of the June 29th show. In the third hour, viewership dropped by 11.7% but that was heavily skewed by the over 50 audience turning off the show. In the key demos, the largest increase this week was among females 12-34 that were up by 60% from last week followed by males 12-34 improving by 26% and females 18-49 increasing by 25%. The only demo that fell was a minor drop with males 18-49 falling 3% this week.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE Network News is reporting that the new show "WWE Timeline" debuting this Sunday on WWE Network will focus on the rivalry between The Miz and Daniel Bryan. It will be available on both the free and paid versions of the streaming service.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Ariane Andrew and Matt Dillon welcomed Naomi onto their ‘Sippin The Tea’ show on YouTube. To kick off the conversation, Ariane Andrew spoke about her stint with All Elite Wrestling and competing in their Women’s Tag Team Cup. Ariane clarified that she is not with AEW and is still a free agent. “So since we are spilling tea, I’m gonna keep it 1,000 percent so everyone can hear it right here, right now. I am not with AEW. That was just a little something, something. A little something, something. I’m a free agent. As excited a people were, people were like, ‘So what does that mean? There’s no Funkadactyl reunion?’ And the thing is, I can’t say anything — not that I can’t say anything but it’s like I don’t wanna spill the tea but I’m spilling the tea right here, right now that it’s not official so there’s still a door. Hello Vince, are you listening? Funkadactyl reunion.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling ESPN has a feature story up about the recent purchase of the XFL by Dany Garcia, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and their backer, RedBird Capital Partners. Garcia spoke to ESPN for the article and recalled reaching out to Johnson when the news of the XFL going out of business became public. “I told DJ, ‘We have something really important to do. We want to do this.’ It was so natural. There was a moment in Dwayne’s life when football was going to be his [career]. I’m a professional athlete myself. We do sports. We do entertainment. If you look at our résumés, everything points to this moment and opportunity for us, to work with these athletes and to build this brand.” It’s noted in the article that Oliver Luck, who’s currently suing former XFL owner Vince McMahon for wrongful termination, will not be a part of the forthcoming version of the league. Regarding a 2021 season, the XFL built a bubble plan for their eight teams to either be used during the COVID-19 pandemic or as a cost-cutting measure and that bubble plan is a part of the intellectual property that’ll transition over to Garcia, Johnson and the group that now owns the XFL. Dany Garcia was also heavily involved in Dwayne Johnson’s contract negotiations while he was with the WWE full-time and she knew Vince and Linda McMahon “very well”. The unsecured creditors filed an objection to the sale of the XFL because of the feeling that the sale might not have maximized the value of the league. The committee also expressed concerns about the relationship between Johnson, Garcia and McMahon.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Lance Storm was a guest on the ‘Sitting Ringside with David Penzer’ podcast and Storm told the story of when he was informed that WCW talents were supposed to get involved in the match between Vince and Shane McMahon at WrestleMania 17. According to what Storm was told, they were scheduled to do more than just appear on camera from the press box but due to Shawn Stasiak doing a radio interview and tipping off that WCW talents were being brought to Mania, their initial plans were scrapped and Vince McMahon was not pleased that their appearances had been leaked. “That first WrestleMania, the Mania 17 where we all sat in the luxury box or whatever and we’re there to support Shane O’Mac. From what I was told, again, it was second-hand but I was told we were originally going to be involved in the match but Shawn Stasiak stooged off that we were gonna be there in a internet interview that he did on the Friday, because we all got called less than a week before. ‘Hey, we’re gonna bring you into WrestleMania.’ We’re like, ‘Mhm, cool!’ And it was Johnny Ace that called me. He was always the liaison guy and he didn’t specifically say, ‘Hey don’t tell anybody, kayfabe this.’ But it’s not my first rodeo. Unless they tell you to promote it, you shut your damn mouth so I’m like, ‘Cool’ and kept it quiet. Well, Shawn Stasiak did an internet radio interview and said, ‘Oh yeah, we’re all being brought into WrestleMania. We’re gonna be at Mania 17’ and I was told Vince [McMahon] lost his sh*t and wanted to just cancel us all and not bring any of us there but tickets were booked, planes were booked, all that stuff and apparently, someone managed to calm him down and still bring us in but we were just sitting in the box, they’re having nothing to do with this and were sort of shunned and I think that was step one of, ‘Man, we’re in trouble.’”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling When asked about the whereabouts of Austin Theory, Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline noted that Theory’s situation is a “unannounced suspension of sorts”.

Originally Posted by Fightful Extreme Rules didn't happen the way Kevin Dunn wanted. The WWE executive was particularly unhappy with a couple of spots in the Asuka vs. Sasha Banks Raw Women's Championship match, according to backstage sources within WWE. As reported on Fightful Select recently, we detailed what upset Dunn: Extreme Rules was high quality for WWE, but not everything went so smoothly, we're told. During the Sasha Banks and Asuka match, there were some production snafus that set Kevin Dunn off. We weren't told of specific instances, but Dunn was upset that cameras were catching Bayley in spots where they weren't supposed to. When asking around, we were told it wasn't significant, but enough to get Dunn to shout at people over it for not protecting talent.

Originally Posted by Observer Stock had a big drop from the $48 range to $44.17 Monday. The drop was based on uncertainty with the ratings which has never been an issue before, but now is a big issue because analysts have brought it up.

As of Tuesday's after hours trading, WWE Stocks were at $44.31

Originally Posted by Fightful You may have noticed that before his Great American Bash double title victory, a of Keith Lee celebrating with both titles emerged. It was posted Instagram by Indus Sher's Saurav Gurjar. This past week, Fightful Select learned more about how the situation was handled. Fightful has learned that at the last set of WWE NXT tapings, a backstage meeting was held and Indus Sher's Saurav Gurjar apologized for spoiling the results of the title-for-title match before it happened. Gurjar posted a picture of Keith Lee celebrating in the ring with both title belts with confetti falling a week before the title switch aired. We're told there's no significant heat on him, and there's no punishment expected to be handed down, though he and his partner have not been mentioned on TV since. Indus Sher is a personal favorite of Matt Bloom, who has been a big proponent for them in the past. There was disbelief in Gurjar among those in the company that we spoke to, with most of it being a "why did he think it would be okay to post anything from the tapings, much less that?" type of reaction. He was said to have apologized to Lee directly for spoiling a huge moment for the star.

Originally Posted by PWI It was announced over the weekend that the Shoney's restaurant in Acworth, Georgia owned by former WCW World Champion Scott Steiner has closed. It opened in 2016 and shut down due to COVID-19 and will not be re-opening. The restaurant featured a display case featuring items from Steiner's career, including his Michigan University jacket, action figures, PPV posters and photos.

Originally Posted by PWI While Major League Wrestling has been militant about not running show due to COVID-19 (MLW HQ is located in New Rochelle, the same city where COVID-19 first hit New York, so a lot of staff dealt with the issues firsthand), we are told they are reconsidering the stance after watching UFC, The NBA and boxing on DAZN have handled the situation. If those entities don't have massive flareups (see Major League Baseball and WWE), the more likely MLW will return to live events. Currently, nothing is on the books until December at the 2300 Arena, but the company has been willing to wait as long as 18 months before running. It's a situation that could change by the moment, just like the rest of this horrible ongoing pandemic ... Speaking of BeIN, John Duff, who was head of acquisitions and perhaps MLW's biggest advocate at BeIN, left in March to head up programming at MAVTV. We are told by MLW sources the departure will not have any bearing on their relationship with the Network. Duff and Dan Teitscheid, the President of MAVTV, went to UCLA together and previously worked together at Viacom. MLW had been scheduled to film content with the Von Erichs in Hawaii this past week but had to delay due to concern about Hurricane Douglas hitting the Island. Of course, MLW HQ is scheduled to be hit with a Tropical Storm tomorrow thanks to Isaias as well ... There's been talk of bringing in Canadian talent Michael Richard Blais, who won the first-ever Reid Flair Memorial Scholarship at the 2013 Mid-Atlantic Legends Fanfest in North Carolina. Blais was originally trained by TJ Wilson (Tyson Kidd) and has popped up on Raw and 205 Live in the past. We are told July was the third strongest MLW merchandise sales month in the company's history. The number one selling piece of merchandise was the LA Park Face Mask. MLW has seen an increase in online merch sales across the board since COVID-19.

Originally Posted by PWI As reported last week by PWInsider.com, the trial in the lawsuit brought by Jeff Jarrett and Global Force Entertainment lawsuit against Impact Wrestling parent company Anthem Wrestling was ruled a mistrial on 7/30. PWInsider.com has acquired a copy of the official order of the mistrial signed by United States District Court of The Middle District of Tennessee Chief Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr. ORDER In a July 30, 2020 ruling from the bench, the Court declared a mistrial in this case and a new trial was ordered in accordance with Rule 59 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure because cumulative errors by both the Court and counsel resulted in neither party receiving a fair trial. This included, but was not limited to: (1) the Court’s failure to instruct on comparative negligence; (2) the identity of the wrong entity in the verdict form on the counterfeiting claim; (3) improper comments by Defendant’s counsel in opening statements; and (4) improper statements by Plaintiffs’ counsel in closing arguments, all of which were discussed in detail in the Court’s oral ruling. Accordingly, the jury is hereby DISCHARGED, and the Clerk shall note on the docket that a MISTRIAL has been declared. A status conference will be held on September 11, 2020 at 9:00 a.m to set a new trial date.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling TNT has announced that three episodes of AEW Dynamite will be affected by the network’s NBA coverage. The Wednesday, August 19th edition of Dynamite will now air on Saturday, August 22nd at 6 pm Eastern, which is the same night as NXT TakeOver on the WWE Network. The following week’s episode will air on Thursday, August 27th at 8 pm Eastern and the September 16th edition of Dynamite airs on Thursday, September 17th at 8 pm. TSN in Canada has not confirmed how this will impact their airings of the show but we should know later this week. Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter adds that the August 26th episode of AEW Dynamite will air later that night on TNT and then be replayed in prime time the following night.

TPWW Frontpage:

• The Masked Stable on Raw Will Be Called “RETRIBUTION”
• WWE: Developmental Talent Makes RAW Debut, New Trademarks, Updated SD Ratings
• Impact: “Emergence” Special, Kimber Lee Signs Long-Term Contract
• AEW Women’s Tag Team Cup Tournament Night 1 Results – Aug. 3, 2020 – Round 1
• SummerSlam May Take Place in Atlantic City

[Mr. Nerfect]

AEW is probably going to get fucked hard by that rescheduling. Awful timing for them heading into All Out and coming out of it. WWE with an unopposed NXT should see about a 300k increase. This would be a good time to use a star and implement a hot angle.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets sponsored by Keith Lee ragdolling Tomohiro Ishii:

Originally Posted by Fightfyl The latest chapter in the rivalry between Adam Cole and Pat McAfee will play out tonight on NXT. WWE announced that McAfee will appear on NXT to address the situation between the two and hopes to clear the air with the former NXT Champion. Back in late July, Cole was a guest on "The Pat McAfee Show" and things got heated between the two men. Cole and McAfee took verbal jabs at each other, trying to discredit the respective career of the other man. Cole finally snapped when called short, getting out of his chair to confront McAfee, drop a couple of F-bombs, and shove McAfee's co-host. Cole has since then apologized for his actions ... Previously announced for NXT is a triple threat match between Oney Lorcan, Ridge Holland and Damian Priest where the winner advances to the NXT North American Title Ladder Match at TakeOver XXX. In addition, NXT announced Keith Lee vs. Cameron Grimes and Bronson Reed vs. Shane Thorne as well as Imperium (Marcel Barthel & Fabian Aichner) vs. Undisputed ERA (Kyle O'Reilly & Bobby Fish) for the NXT Tag Team titles and Rhea Ripley vs. Dakota Kai where the winner becomes the No. 1 contender to the NXT Women's title.

Originally Posted by Observer Eric Young has officially signed an exclusive contract with Impact Wrestling. In an interview with Sportskeeda, Young confirmed the news. "Yeah, I am on an exclusive contract with IMPACT,” he was quoted as saying. “ I'm very excited about that!" "I do have a lot of gas left in the tank,” he added. “ It's just a question of how much longer I want to do it." Young was released by WWE in April as part of wide-ranging cuts due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. He made his return to Impact at Slammiversary, taking part in a five way match for the Impact World title ... Young was previously part of Impact Wrestling from 2004 to 2016 before signing with the WWE.

Originally Posted by Observer AEW officially announced 'Heels' on Wednesday, a paid online subscription service geared toward female wrestling fans. For $49/year, members "receive access to a variety of features including virtual meet-and-greets, video conference discussions with industry experts, exclusive AEW talent Q&A sessions, customized merchandise, special promotions, themed parties and more. The secure space enables AEW Heels members to connect, learn and thrive together through shared passions for women’s wrestling." Originally scheduled to launch on May 22nd, the service did a soft launch earlier this year with two video conferences designed for women. In the press release, they announced an event this Friday which will include a Q&A with referee, podcaster and front office worker Aubrey Edwards, a social media strategy session with Brandi Rhodes, and a session on respect and empowerment in the workplace with Keisha-Ann Gray, partner at the Proskauer law firm. Rhodes, AEW's chief branding officer, is heading up the initiative.

Originally Posted by Observer In a move that is surprising some in the sports media industry, Nick Khan has been hired as WWE's new president and chief revenue officer, announced by the company Wednesday morning. The 45-year-old Khan was the co-head of the TV division of CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and was the driving force behind negotiating WWE's new TV deals in 2018. He reportedly is leaving the company on good terms. While at CAA, Khan also negotiated deals for a slew of big name sports broadcasters and talking heads in addition to organizations like Top Rank Boxing and college sports' Southeastern Conference (SEC). Khan will report directly to Vince McMahon and is taking over the roles Michelle Wilson and George Barrios held before they parted ways with WWE earlier this year.

WWE stocks rose to $45.26 by the end of Wednesday's regular trading hours but fell to $44.69 during after hours trading.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The hiring of Nick Khan is a huge story for WWE and sends a strong message by getting Khan from CAA as its news president and chief revenue officer. The greatest concern for a WWE shareholder is the fear of the television rights bubble bursting and therefore, the added concern over viewership declining even though the company less than one year into their five-year pacts with NBC Universal and Fox. To offset that, they have hired a major power broker when it comes to negotiating sports rights and will be in-house for the next set. On the surface, it would represent massive savings for WWE to cut out CAA and send Khan out as the chief negotiator on its behalf (assuming WWE negotiates on their own without CAA for the next round). I would suspect this can quell concerns of shareholders of falling numbers knowing Khan is a huge hire for this specific task, but nothing is a guarantee when we are looking down the road at the landscape of 2023-24. The news of Khan’s hiring was met with a 2% increase in the WWE stock price that closed at $45.26 on Wednesday. In terms of long-term stability and possibilities, this is one of the most important hires for WWE and was a massive story within the television industry on Wednesday.

Originally Posted by Observer After making a television appearance with someone who later tested positive for COVID-19, Hiroshi Tanahashi has undergone testing and been cleared to resume wrestling. NJPW wrote that Tanahashi made the TV appearance on August 1 but adequate countermeasures were put in place and Tanahashi wasn't in close contact with the person who tested positive. NJPW's full statement is available below: " On August 1, Hiroshi Tanahashi made a television appearance with another cast member who has since tested positive for COVID-19. Adequate countermeasures were put in place during production of the program, and Tanahashi did not come into close contact with the infected party. As a precaution, Tanahashi has since undertaken antigen, antibody and PCR testing, with all tests returning negative. Tanahashi is in good health and will be able to compete on this week’s Summer Struggle events in Korakuen Hall." Tanahashi is teaming with Kota Ibushi & Master Wato in NJPW's tournament for the vacant NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team titles. They're facing Taichi, Zack Sabre Jr. & Yoshinobu Kanemaru in a first round match at Friday's Summer Struggle event.

Originally Posted by PWI Q - We see Scott Steiner pop up from time to time here and there. But, What is Rick Steiner up to these days? A - He is selling Real Estate in the Atlanta, GA area. You can check out his website by clicking here.

From PWI's weekly Q&A articles. Link for those interested: https://ricksteiner.atlcommunities.com/

Originally Posted by PWI Jerry Lawler will be celebrating his 50th wrestling anniversary next month. Official Announcement : Jerry “The King” Lawler’s 50th Anniversary Wrestling show has been set for Saturday September 26th at The Ball Park of Jackson in Jackson, Tn. 7:00 pm bell time. We have been cleared for 25% capacity with an additional 200 on field seats at home plate . pic.twitter.com/2pb6jDctLX — Chris Styles (@TheFutureChris) August 3, 2020 Jerry’s opponent will be named later this month. Special guest will be WWE Hall of Famer , the legendary KANE ! Already set to appear are The Rock n Roll Express, “Wildfire” Tommy Rich, Dr. Tom Prichard, “Superstar” Bill Dundee , Downtown Bruno and Jerry Calhoun. And MORE — Chris Styles (@TheFutureChris) August 3, 2020 Also just added to the @JerryLawler 50th anniversary show none other than @LexLuger yall September 26 is shaping up to be a big one!!! — Chris Styles (@TheFutureChris) August 4, 2020 Sergeant Slaughter says he is on his way to Jackson, Tn on Sept. 26th to help the King celebrate !!!! This is turning into the Who’s Who of Wrestling epic event. And the King deserves an incredible night. Come see Sarge live at the Stadium. I'm telling yall we aren't slowin down pic.twitter.com/GFygJ8j7XF — Chris Styles (@TheFutureChris) August 4, 2020 USA Wrestling is proud to announce that LEX LUGER will be appearing at the LAWLER 50th Anniversary Show in Jackson, Tenn. on Sept. 26th at the Jackson Baseball Stadium. Better get your tickets now!!! pic.twitter.com/79AQE4vCxe — Chris Styles (@TheFutureChris) August 4, 2020

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling One of the bright spots of Disney’s earnings report from Tuesday was the health of its streaming platforms. During the quarter, ESPN+ increased by 7.9 million subscribers to 8.5 million. You would have to attribute a lot of that growth to the UFC being one of the few sports properties running over the past few months, which included the huge UFC 249 event from May with Justin Gaethje vs. Tony Ferguson and last month’s UFC 251 card with Kamaru Usman vs. Jorge Masvidal and two other title fights. Disney’s other streaming services also saw increases led by Disney+ that added 24 million subscribers this past quarter with 50 million subscribers total. Hulu added 3.4 million subscribers leading to a total of 101.5 million between the three services.

Felt that was an interesting article especially when comparing it to WWE and their struggles to grow their WWE Network sub base to levels they still haven't hit all these years later.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WWE ended up taping only one episode of SmackDown on Tuesday at the Performance Center after the original plans called for two episodes to be taped. The call was made Monday to scrap the taping of the second episode, which would be the show airing on August 14th. I was told they are still finalizing the schedule for when they will be taping their next shows.

Originally Posted by Fightful Scott Steiner's restaurant recently announced that it is being closed, but Steiner wrote on social media that he is looking to open a sports bar.

Originally Posted by Fightful Booker T was not a fan of TNA moving away from the six-sided ring. Longtime TNA/IMPACT fans certainly remember the company having a six-sided ring when TNA Impact premiered in June 2004. It was done to give the promotion a unique presentation compared to what most wrestling fans were used to, and while there were flaws with it, it certainly stood out. The six-sided ring was done away with in January 2010 upon the arrival of Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff. Speaking on his Hall of Fame podcast, Booker T recalled the change and why it was such a mistake. "I had left the week before Hogan came in. Honestly, what I thought, when they changed to the four-sided ring and I heard it was being debated, I didn't agree with it. I believed in the identity that TNA had built that was different, different than any other wrestling company ever produced. Having the six-sided ring was different. Did I like the six-sided ring? Not really. It wasn't my cup of tea. (It was) hard and a lot of guys used it better to do their tricks off of. I knew I wasn't going to be taking many bumps and I knew I wasn't going to be jumping off the top rope. I was good with the situation. I'm thinking about the future, not the past, and the identity this company had built and when they went away from the six-sided ring because of Hogan coming in, me personally, Hogan should've been thinking about the same thing. [He's] not going to take any bumps or do anything off the top rope, so it shouldn't matter if these young kids want to go around and do all this stuff. We need them to do that. Moving away from the six-sided ring was the bullet in the head that put TNA out of the question as being something different and new," he said. The six-sided ring returned in June 2014, but was gone again in January 2018. TNA/IMPACT still uses the traditional four-sided ring.

Originally Posted by Fightful When the AEW rankings came out earlier this morning, it officially had AEW Women's Champion Hikaru Shida at 20 career AEW wins. This makes Shida the first woman ever to get 20 wins in an AEW ring, joining Trent, Scorpio Sky, Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley, Frankie Kazarian, Cody and Hangman Page to also win 20 AEW matches. The two women closest to the 20-win mark are Nyla Rose at 14 wins and Britt Baker at 13 wins.

Originally Posted by Fightful Finn Balor's alternate persona "The Demon" hasn't been seen since Super ShowDown 2019 and Finn doesn't want to talk about it, until he had to talk about it. During the SummerSlam 1992 watch party on Fox Sports 1, Balor joked that he didn't want to talk about paint during the Randy Savage vs. Ultimate Warrior match, which of course led to Balor and Renee Young talking about paint. During the discussion, Balor recalled the original idea for wanting to paint his body and how it grew from there. "The paint was was a weird idea, it was supposed to be a once-off. I had been working babyface for like six and a half years in Japan and they asked me if I wanted to turn heel. I thought, 'Okay, I'll take everything away that they recognize from me as a babyface. [Jushin Thunder] Liger had already worn the bodysuit and I didn't want to change my body too much so I thought, 'Why not cover my body in black paint?' The idea was that the babyface would be wrestling against this shadow in the ring. That was where the concept came from. The more I played with it, I found a really good painter in Tokyo and we came up with my first Demon character. It was supposed to be a once-off and I'll never forget, I told Karl Anderson a month before it happened, 'I'm going to cover myself in paint for Tokyo Dome' and he said, 'You're gonna look stupid. Everyone is gonna laugh at you. The paint is gonna go everywhere and you'll look like an idiot.' I always remember that one," he said. Balor has brought out 'The Demon' multiple times in WWE, but it's been over a year since his last appearance.

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Originally Posted by Observer Coming on a night where they faced competition in the form of three of the four major sports, AEW Dynamite and WWE NXT ratings were both up from last week. Last night's Dynamite was up 16.6 percent in total viewers, averaging 901,000 viewers. NXT was also up 6.5 percent, averaging 753,000 viewers ... In the 18-49 demo, AEW averaged a 0.36 rating, up 20 percent from last week. Dynamite finished fifth overall on cable behind two NBA games, Tucker Carlson Tonight, and Real Housewives ... NXT saw an 11.1% increase in the 18-49 demo from last week, averaging a 0.20 rating. NXT finished 27th overall on cable for the night. The combined 18-49 number of 0.56 beat all three hours of Raw on Monday. The story in the other demo categories was similar to most weeks in that NXT won the 50+ category with a 0.39 to 0.33 advantage, the exact same numbers as last week. AEW won every other demo and doubled or nearly doubled NXT in almost every category, particularly in the younger demos. AEW's strongest category was men 18-49, where Dynamite averaged a 0.45 rating, tied for third on cable for the night. It's notable that AEW averaged a 0.29 rating in people 18-34. That beat Raw this week by itself, which averaged a 0.28 in that category.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling AEW’s viewership average was its highest since March 18th, which was the first empty arena show after the shutdown and their sixth-highest number of the year. In the 18-49 demo, it was their best performance since February 5th, which did the same rating. This week’s demo number is tied for AEW’s second-best performance of the year with the episodes airing on January 1st, January 8th, and Feb. 5th ... For NXT, they did see increases in all their demos as well as overall viewership, which averaged 753,000 and was up 6.5% this week. It was their best numbers in those categories since the second Great American Bash show on July 8th that was headlined by the Double Tite Match between Adam Cole and Keith Lee ... It was a rare week where no key demo decreased on either program.

Originally Posted by Observer Adam Cole vs. Pat McAfee is now official for NXT TakeOver XXX after McAfee posted a video accepting the challenge that was issued to him. The show is taking place on Saturday, August 22.

The fact this actually got made as an official Takeover match is crazy. Feud itself has been somewhat dumb but to actually waste a spot on a TakeOver card is another thing. Road Dogg really wasn't joking when he mentioned a while ago that NXT was going to start leaning a lot more into WWE booking mentality for the brand and storylines.

Originally Posted by PWI Triple H announced that Metallica’s “Moth Into Flame” is an official theme song of NXT TakeOver XXX: “#NXTTakeOver: XXX will be our biggest event yet…so we had to make it as LOUD as possible. A special thank you to @Metallica for this #NXTLoud theme. ‘Moth Into Flame’ gets even LOUDER on S&M2, out August 28th. #WeAreNXT”

Link: https://twitter.com/TripleH/status/1291090843995123713

Originally Posted by Fightful Eric Bischoff is not officially All Elite. Bischoff made a surprise appearance on Wednesday's AEW Dynamite as the moderator for the debate between Chris Jericho and Orange Cassidy. It was his first appearance on TNT wrestling since 2000 when he was a regular on WCW Nitro. Mike Johnson at PWInsider reported Bischoff's appearance was a one-off. Bill Pritchard of WrestleZone talked to Bischoff and asked if any future plans with AEW were discussed. Bischoff said, “No. It was a cameo and it made sense in that particular scene between Orange Cassidy and Chris Jericho."

Originally Posted by PWI Q - Could the hooded new group in WWE be formerly released wrestlers? A - That would actually be a hell of a story, but I haven't heard that to be the case. They could easily just have everyone under hoodies until the reveal so it would be very easy to have others in their place before the reveal.

From PWI's weekly Q&A articles about who might be members of WWE's new mysterious faction.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Xavier Woods guest appeared on The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast. Woods spoke about his gaming feud with Kenny Omega and stated that he still wants to do an inter-promotional wrestling match with Omega. “Kenny Omega has been on my YouTube show before and so have the Young Bucks. We have been able to do a Street Fighter Tournament together with a wrestling spin on it of course with the contract signing and cutting promos on each other beforehand. Using video games as a conduit we have been able to do something no one else has been able to do. That rivalry is still going strong today and I’m pretty sure it will never end. I would love to do some sort of inter-promotional match with him one day. The goal is to destroy boundaries. Do things that we aren’t supposed to be doing because people would really enjoy it. Given the right circumstances, I do think it could happen, but we’ll see.” Xavier Woods recounted some of his experiences with Vince McMahon and mentioned how McMahon was laughing uncontrollably backstage when he first saw Woods with the trombone. Once New Day got to the backstage area, McMahon told Woods to always carry the trombone with him. “I decided why don’t I bring out the trombone to the ring with me. I may never get another chance to bring it out onto TV with me. Kofi and Big E are having a match and I’m on the floor, as per usual (laughs). So I have the trombone and I’m thinking to myself what would make the guys laugh. I just started randomly playing the trombone during the match and during the commercial break the cameraman walked up to me. He said Vince is dying laughing in the back, he loves the trombone, keep playing it. Vince had tears in his eyes and he was screaming laughing, he loved it that much. When we got to the back he said, ‘Forever, forever, you will always be bringing out the trombone to the ring with you.'”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling D-Von Dudley welcomed Kofi Kingston onto the Table Talk podcast. Kofi was asked about the public viewing him as the first African-American WWE Champion and not Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Kofi feels that it’s “silly” that people don’t associate that accolade with Johnson because he’s half-Samoan. “And I agree with you too man. I think it’s sometimes kinda silly that people try to not count The Rock in that category because regardless of what you look like, you are what you are, you know what I’m saying? He’s black, whether he’s half-black or full black, he’s black so, but I definitely take a lot of pride in that sentiment like you said. I think for a long time, people of color, especially African Americans have been waiting for someone who looks exactly like them to hold that championship title and I mention it all the time but on Twitter and social media, the moment that happened, I got so many different messages and people in tears. There’s a video of actually Shad [Gaspard] and MVP crying.”

Originally Posted by Figghtful Anyone who has seen The Rock's animated hit "Moana" knows just how catchy those songs are. "You're Welcome" was listed in the Top 5 of Spotify's most listened to Disney songs in the car. And Daniel Bryan, like most parents out there who have had to endure the song endlessly after one viewing of "Moana," is TIRED OF HEARING IT! Taking to social media, Bryan gave his reason as to why he wants a match with The Rock. Not because it would do big business at the box office or elevate Bryan's career to new heights. Nope, it's all because he's sick of that friggin' song. Always one to put talent over, The Rock is ready to do the job for Bryan.

Link: https://twitter.com/WWEDanielBryan/s...76874136903681 , https://twitter.com/TheRock/status/1291444518215192577

Originally Posted by Fightful Vickie Guerrero is officially All Elite. Speaking with Simon Hannig of Daily DDT, Vickie confirmed that she officially signed her AEW contract this week. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Vickie made cameo appearances in Inner Circle segments during 2020 but took on a more prominent on-screen role at AEW Fight for the Fallen when she was announced as the manager for Nyla Rosa. When asked about joining AEW instead of going back to WWE, Vickie said, "No hesitation, put it that way. I retired from WWE in 2014. My focus was not to return to them. We just had a lot of just difference of opinions and things going on. If it wasn’t going to be for AEW, I don’t think I would be anywhere else, but when AEW presented that there was some opportunity, I gave 100%, just my whole being. I said, 'I’m here for you and I can’t wait to be a team player with the company.'"

Originally Posted by Fightful Kazuchika Okada has an idea of what his first stipulation for the KOPW Title tournament will be. During today's NJPW Summer Struggle show, Okada revealed that he is in the tournament as well as Yujiro Takahashi. Okada cut a quick promo on Takahashi and made his first proposal for their first round match which is Okada facing Takahashi in a 3 vs. 1 handicap match, except it is Okada who would be at a disadvantage.

Link: https://twitter.com/njpwglobal/statu...28412095660032

Originally Posted by Fightful On Monday, AEW began its Women's Tag Team Tournament: The Deadly Draw. The concept behind the tournament is similar to WCW's Lethal Lottery where teams are randomly drawn for the tournament. Speaking to Sports Illustrated, Brandi Rhodes, discussed the tournament and how it will help spotlight the women in the division. “I see people saying they want more for the women in AEW, and that’s where my idea for the Tag Team Cup Tournament came from,” said Rhodes. “I don’t book the women’s division, but I help out wherever I can, and I’m really excited for this tournament. I hope people take their cues from the women involved, because we’re really excited about this. This exists on its own, with no restraints. I think people are going to be charmed by it, both by the production and the talent. Very quickly, it’s become a labor of love, with graphics, travel, filming pre-tapes, every detail. People are working really hard to create new content. It’s not tacked onto Dark or Dynamite, this is the start of something great for the women’s division.”

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The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

WWE announced on 8/5 that Nick Khan, the man who negotiated the company’s current television deals with FOX and NBC Universal for Raw, Smackdown and NXT, has been named new company President and Chief Revenue Officer. Essentially he takes the position formerly held by George Barrios, and is basically the replacement for both Barrios and Michelle Wilson, who were fired in January, leading to a huge drop in the WWE stock price due to investor uncertainty. Khan signed a lucrative five-year deal which is valued at approximately $35.5 million if profits each year reach their target amount and he remains with the company for that duration. He also receives a full benefits package. Khan’s deal includes relocating to Stamford by the end of this month and working in the company offices, reporting directly, and only, to Vince McMahon. Khan was the Co-Head of Television at the Creative Arts Agency (CAA), which took over WWE’s television negotiations for its Raw and Smackdown deals after the split between WWE and Endeavor over the conflict of interest of the same group at the same time negotiating both UFC and WWE deals with the feeling they were in competition ... Khan was also involved in a later deal to get NXT onto the USA Network, which was key, because the show without the big lead-in provided would have done far worse on FS 1 as was originally talked with. Even though WWE drew far more eyeballs, historically pro wrestling eyeballs were not considered valuable for television with the belief it draws from lower-income audiences. But CAA and WWE leveraged a bidding war between NBC Universal and Fox, first for Raw, and then for Smackdown, which led to the company increasing its rights fees by 260 percent for its two major franchise shows ... It would make sense that one of Khan’s early moves would be to attempt to sell network property, whether it be the PPVs, or that and more content, to a larger streaming company and get similar level guaranteed money. Vince McMahon had attempted to do that earlier in the year and predicted a deal before WrestleMania, but talks fell apart due to money tightening from the big players due to the pandemic. With his experience, he would no doubt become the key person in the company involved in negotiations in around 2022, for the Raw & Smackdown deals that expire in October 2024, as well as the NXT deal, which is believed to expire in October 2021 ... There are a number of other key aspects of this deal, but with his contacts with not only the major players in cable and streaming, as well as the sports business media, Khan is a key hire for the next round of contract negotiations as far as being within the company as opposed to outside the company, which can make them and in other ways save them significant amounts of money ... Khan was a huge part of the FOX deal, which is the key deal because USA is not going to give up on WWE even though they were on board with a short-term decline as an 18-month rebuilding phase which was then dropped last month, and instead the declines continued at a stronger rate. He also has a good relationship with USA Network, which was strong on Paul Heyman ... The company made a second hire this past week, as James Kimball, who had been the operations head of the UFC Performance Institute, overseeing both the Shanghai, China and Las Vegas training facilities, is moving to Stamford, CT to take a senior business operations role in WWE according to Marc Raimondi of ESPN. Dr. Duncan French, who had been the performance head of the Performance Institutes, will take over as the operational head.

WWE is just over two weeks away from its weekend of SummerSlam and Takeover and three weeks from Backlash. AEW is also four weeks away from its second All Out show. SummerSlam, the traditional No. 3 show of the year in the U.S., currently has no announced location even though it is three weeks away. Originally set for Boston, and then Orlando, the latest word is that it will be in Atlantic City. Vince McMahon had wanted it outside of Orlando to have a different look. He strongly wanted it before fans but it’s not clear whether that will be the case. If there are no fans, there is no imminent need to announce a location. The other three shows at this point are from Florida ... NXT Takeover the night before, which usually is built up with more straight-forward angles, will be headlined by Keith Lee vs. Karrion Kross for the NXT title and Io Shirai vs. Dakota Kai for the women’s title ... Pat McAfee vs. Adam Cole is happening in some form as an attempt to get mainstream sports attention. McAfee was a former All-Pro punter with the Indianapolis Colts but he’s been a WWE Network pregame show character for quite a while, along with being a streaming talk show host. Depending on how it’s done, this will be a real test for Cole having to carry a guy in his first match. But the guy is a legit athlete and he’s 33 years old, so even though he had his football injuries, he’s by no means old. This is all about getting the brand publicity outside of pro wrestling circles and it’ll be a challenge to see just how good Cole really is.

Regarding the note from last week about furloughed employees being told they were not being brought back in August, this has led to a lot of significant unhappiness. They furloughed about 240 full-time non-wrestlers in mid-April, so while the wrestlers were not figured into the large profits for the quarter because they were still being paid through mid-July, there was the savings of some money in quarter two of employee cuts in that $51.6 million in savings. The producers and others in live events pretty much knew they were done until those shows returned. Most of the others expected to be back at the start of July. A few of those people were brought back, but it’s a small number. The basic argument is that the furloughs made sense in April due to the unforeseen prospects of the future, because if they missed providing new television for weeks, which was possible had it not been for Gov. DeSantis in Florida, the contracts that carry the company could have been in jeopardy. Plus, Vince at first was terribly fearful if they didn’t air shows live they could cancel the deals. But by July, that fear was gone. FOX & NBC Universal weren’t opting out, nor demanding the shows be live, and WWE has a place to tape with no fear of being booted out, or limited fear because nobody can 100 percent see a future that nobody really knows. The argument is that by July, they knew they were setting profit records and then to extend the furloughs twice since then is the thing employees were really upset about. Right now the date is 8/28 so they’d come back in September, but nobody knows how many will be back or if it’ll be extended another month. And of course, it’s the worst time ever for the job market. And there may be the feeling that they just set record profits with lower costs and that maybe they don’t need all those people after all. But the unhappiness is that management already knew the quarter two records and seven days before the investment call they extended the furloughs another month

For some perspective, WWE employees around 1000 people although not entirely sure if that actually includes wrestlers or not. Either way, a huge chunk of the company got impacted by those furloughs and releases.

I can’t confirm pen to paper, but Rey Mysterio is staying, as was always the betting line outcome of this, but it’s as close to official without confirmation of it being official, and obviously Dominik is a big part of that deal. AEW made an offer that equaled the WWE’s per-match offer, but the WWE offer was higher because it was for more dates. We don’t have a time frame past this new deal would be considerably longer than the previous (18 months) deal but not the five-years or longer deals that WWE has tried to get everyone on

There were all kinds of issues on 8/3 and 8/4 with the tapings for the 8/3 and 8/10 Raw shows and 8/7 Smackdown show. It’s always chaotic day of the show, but this was said to be an overly chaotic week due to the 7/27 show doing so poorly in the ratings even with a hotshot show and Vince being grilled by investors about ratings as well as negative articles on the ratings not in the wrestling world but outside the world where that has been largely, particularly the financial and entertainment world. Vince McMahon during the week came up with Shane’s return and what that would entail and an angle with Orton and Ric Flair and he wouldn’t commit to any other outside ideas. As of the morning of the show, that was all he had approved of and a show was written but not with him approving of any other elements. There was a meeting during the day before the investment call on 7/30 described as brutal as Vince approved nothing. They had another meeting on 7/31 which lasted four hours. He did talk forever about how much he loves Bayley and her new persona and that he sees Peyton Royce and Bianca Belair as singles stars. After Raw on 8/4, with Smackdown the next day in chaos due to Vince blowing up the scripted show and the loss of some people at the last minute expected to appear on the show, the decision was made to only tape one week of Smackdown on 8/4, instead of two. The original plan was to tape NXT on 8/12 for both 8/12 and 8/19, and that is still on. Since key people in production will be there, the 8/14 Smackdown show will be taped on 8/13, the next day. The 8/17 Raw show, scheduled to be taped a few hours earlier that day along with the 8/21 Smackdown show, was moved to being taped on 8/13 with the Smackdown show to save on costs. However that still leaves the 8/21 Smackdown show, and officially no decision was made about that show at press time. Right now, aside from Takeover on 8/22 and the upcoming PPV dates, there is nothing scheduled and everything is to be determined. The logic would be the 8/21 show to be taped on its own the day before, since the production team is already working the next day in Florida and it makes no sense to bring them in twice. But those in the company, talent, producers, production people, writers and others have not been told of any television taping dates after 8/13

So this is the situation with the draft, which at last word is expected for October with two dates (a Smackdown and a Raw date) being talked about. It was scheduled for October, but then talked about for August because they know they need to make changes. Then it was brought up that doing it in early August would mess up the angles for SummerSlam. So then it was September. Last week the idea was late August, but then with the second PPV show on 8/30, they figured to wait until after that. So then it was moved to October which is where it is this week, but can easily change, like everything does

Regarding the story about NXT adding new writers , there have been three people who were on the regular writing team who were moved to writing NXT when it moved to television in September. They’ve added two others, one who had been a former writer brought back to the company and the other someone on the writing team who was working for the company moved to NXT. Although nobody will say it, there is a lot of unhappiness about losing in the ratings every week. The unhappiness shouldn’t be losing as much as the complete inability to draw those under 50. NXT has always had writers but they were people who were on the main roster writing team who would also help write NXT. Since going on television, NXT was given three exclusive writers and now that number has been upped to five

NEW JAPAN: For the 8/29 Jingu Stadium show, it looks like they are going with 30 percent capacity, which would be around 10,000 tickets with about 2,000 priced at $188 and the other 8,000 at $103.50 so in theory they can do the million dollar gate that they were hoping for out of Madison Square Garden. What we were told is that the number of tickets being sold is not public but it would be about the same as the Yakult Swallows games are being set up for. That could end up being 50 percent capacity or 18,000, but I don’t know that they have the card that would draw that many people and at this point still only have two matches announced and we’re a few weeks away. They do have the deal where most fans haven’t been able to get into shows, since the Tokyo shows have been held at 482 paid at Korakuen Hall, so most fans aren’t being able to get tickets, and this show would be the first most would be able to attend in Tokyo in months, so that could help attendance

Harold Meij did an interview with Weekly Toyo Kazai. The subject was talking about the pandemic and how it affected the business. He noted that 50 percent of New Japan revenue is live ticket sales and that merchandise at the events is a large percentage as well ... Regarding New Japan World numbers, he said they did drop to 90,000 during the months of not running shows, which did hold up better than you’d think with months of no new events. They are now back around 100,000, broken down as about 60,000 in Japan (few subscription streaming services do big business in Japan as compared to other countries) and 40,000 outside Japan. They’ve peaked at 120,000 to 125,000 during Wrestle Kingdom or G-1 season, as well as during last year’s Best of the Super Juniors tournament ... He noted that only 20 percent of New Japan’s revenue comes from a combination of New Japan World and TV rights fees. Right now WWE’s revenue is 90 percent those two categories so they could continue with minimal economic damage, and actually ended up being far more profitable during the pandemic. Meij noted that 60 percent or more of revenue coming from television rights fees is the norm in the international sports world.

Regarding Excalibur, he will be back. Nobody has officially said anything but we were told he was flying to Jacksonville for next week’s television and unless things change would be back on the first show taped that airs on 8/12. His name hasn’t been mentioned on either Dynamite or Dark and Taz was in his spot on both shows

While not getting a lot of pub, they [AEW] have cut back on extras that were being brought in weekly. Pineapple Pete was the biggest name not brought back

The most-watched shows on the WWE Network for the past week were: 1. Greatest Stars of the 90s; 2. Day of Extreme Rules with Bayley and Banks; 3. Extreme Rules; 4. Best of Saturday Night’s Main Event; 5. Raw Talk for 8/3; 6. Double Champions of the last decade; 7. Raw from 6/29. It’s a bad thing when a month old Raw show is beating NXT, 205 Live and NXT U.K

To be fair to NXT UK, WWE's been mostly running "Best Of" episodes for the brand ever since they stopped tapings.

WWE Ratings, AEW vs. NXT Ratings, Impact Ratings, & Coronavirus Impact on Ratings stuff:

SPOILER: show

Raw on 8/3 was in a sense a ratings bright spot but also a question mark regarding where it was yet another hotshot that will result in more damage down the line. Even going against the NBA, Raw increased 6.1 percent overall and 6.8 percent in 18-49 from last week’s low marks and averaged 1,715,000 viewers and 0.51 (660,000 viewers) in 18-49. The number was still the sixth lowest of all-time, but was also the best the show has done overall in five weeks. The increase was a combination of last-day hype of the return of Shane McMahon and the debut of a new group, and during the show, of the anticipation of both and hype of Raw Underground, a Fight Club like presentation. The second hour did strongly. It was the most-watched hour of the show in five weeks, with major growth over hour one ... The first hour did 1,710,000 viewers. The second hour increased to 1,824,000 viewers while hour three declined to 1,610,000 viewers. But each demo told a different story. Women 18-49 grew 22.2 percent in our two before falling 9.1 percent in hour three. Men 18-49 grew 10.2 percent in hour two and then fell 4.6 percent in hour three. Teenage girls grew 17.8 percent in hour two and then grew another 21.6 percent in hour three. Teenage boys grew 17.4 percent in hour two and another 22.8 percent in hour three. Over 50 stayed the same in hour two but fell 15.3 percent in hour three. For a comparison, last week’s show fell 88.0 percent after hour two with teenage girls, 52.6 percent after hour two with teenage boys and 7.2 percent after hour two with those over 50

Smackdown on 7/31 did a 1.18 rating, 1,894,000 viewers (1.33 viewers per home) and a 0.50 (644,000 viewers) 18-49 rating. Viewers were down 1.6 percent going against NBA action, the rating was down 3.3 percent but 18-49 was up 4.2 percent, so it’s an overall plus. It was the third lowest number of viewers since Smackdown went on FOX, barely ahead of 5/1 and well ahead of 7/3, which was the record low due to the holiday weekend. But the 18-49 number was well up from the last several weeks. With the lower viewing number but higher 18-49 number, the median viewer age dropped to 55.3 years old. Smackdown was last place in viewers among network programming which was almost all reruns, but it was the only show to hit 0.5 in 18-49 among networks shows with a number of 0.4s. However it was third for the night, as even with the advantage of being in 34 percent more homes, both NBA games beat Smackdown in 18-49 ... The segments were 1.90 million for A.J. Styles vs. Gran Metalik, 1.84 million for clips of Jeff Hardy vs. Sheamus, Hardy and King Corbin interviews, Corbin vs. Drew Gulak and the Matt Riddle-Chad Gable angle. It was 1.95 million for Big E vs. Miz and Naomi vs. Lacey Evans as the high point of the show. And it did 1.87 million for the Mandy Rose-Sonya Deville angle and Bayley vs. Nikki Cross ... FOX on the same week last year with rerun programming did 1,514,000 viewers and 0.3 in 18-49.

There was a major turning point this past week, as for the first time, even with head-to-head competition from both NXT and an NBA game with LeBron James, AEW won the week in both the overall 18-34 demo for the first time and in 18-34 women for the second time ... AEW had 201,000 18-34 viewers as compared to 200,000 for Raw and 183,000 for Smackdown. Smackdown has the huge advantage of being on FOX and should blow away the field, but doesn’t. It was close with men, but both WWE shows were still ahead, with Smackdown at 118,000, Raw had 110,000 and AEW at 108,000. With women, AEW had the edge with 83,000 to 80,000 for Raw and 61,000 for Smackdown ... For 8/5, AEW did its beat overall number since 3/18 and best 18-49 number since 2/5, for a loaded up show where every key star had a segment. But NXT did well with, even with stronger competition with the NBA, it did its best numbers four weeks. AEW did 901,000 viewers and a 0.36 in 18-49 (461,000 viewers), good for fifth place in the key demo on the night, trailing two NBA games, Tucker Carlson and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills ... NXT did 753,000 viewers and 0.20 in 18-49 (255,000 viewers). It was 27th for the night in 18-49 ... The NBA actually skews younger than AEW. Right now of major sports, AEW has the third youngest age skew behind soccer and the NBA ... AEW won every key demo, and huge with the young ones. In Males 18-34, AEW nearly tripled NXT. AEW had 108,000 viewers (up 58.8 percent form last week) while NXT had 39,000 (identical to last week). In women 18-34, AEW had 83,000 viewers (up 27.7 percent from last week) and NXT had 36,000 (up 50.0 percent from last week), so AEW doubled there a well. In men 35-49 AEW had 183,000 viewers (up 0.5 percent from last week) and NXT had 121,000 (up 17.5 percent from last week0. In women 35-49, AEW had 87,000 (up 10.1 percent from last week) and NXT had 59,000 (down 9.2 percent from last week). In the main event battle, AEW did 863,000 viewers and 450,000 in 18-49 for the Jon Moxley vs. Darby Allin title match. NXT had 713,000 viewers and 249,000 in 18-49 for Imperium vs. Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly, which was really a segment built around the Adam Cole-Pat McAfee angle. The night featured the most successful segments since the early weeks of the pandemic, with the Young Bucks & FTR & Kenny Omega & Adam Page vs. Dark Order match averaging 943,000 viewers, besting the Young Bucks vs. Butcher & Blade that did 912,000. Six of the eight quarters on the show beat the 887,000 mark for the Keith Lee vs. Adam Cole double title match that had been the pandemic high point until recent weeks. In 18-49, the Chris Jericho/Orange Cassidy debate did 487,000 as the peak, and there were five of eight AEW quarters that beat the 459,000 18-49 number of Young Bucks vs. Butcher & Blade from two weeks earlier that was the previous top Wednesday mark since April. The first quarter saw AEW do 943,000 viewers and 460,000 in 18-49 for the 12 man tag match. NXT, with its big lead-in edge, did 820,000 viewers and 232,000 in 18-49 for Dakota Kai vs. Rhea Ripley. This was both group’s total audience peak. The second quarter saw AEW do 943,000 viewers and 479,000 in18-49 for the ending of the 12 man, a Moxley interview and the beginning of Ortiz & Santana vs. Best Friends. NXT did 777,000 viewers and 252,000 in 18-49 for the ending of Kai vs. Ripley and post-match, and Bronson Reed vs. Shane Thorne. The third quarter saw AEW do 885,000 viewers and 451,000 in 18-49 for most of Best Friends vs. Ortiz & Santana. NXT did 771,000 viewers and 263,000 in 18-49 for the kidnapping of Fandango, a Robert Stone interview and the beginning of Damien Priest vs. Oney Lorcan vs. Ridge Holland. The fourth quarter saw AEW do 919,000 viewers and 460,000 in 18-49 for the MJF interview, Matt Hardy interview and angle with Sammy Guevara and Ortiz & Santana messing up Sue’s minivan. NXT did 756,000 viewers and 285,000 in 18-49 for the bulk of the Priest vs. Lorcan vs. Holland three-way which was the 18-49 peak of the night for NXT. The fifth quarter saw AEW do 915,000 viewers and 471,000 in 18-49 for Cody & Matt Cardona vs. John Silver & Alex Reynolds. NXT did 759,000 viewers and 263,000 in 18-49 for Keith Lee vs. Cameron Grimes. The sixth quarter saw AEW do 918,000 viewers and 487,000 in 18-49 for the Jericho/Cassidy debate with Eric Bischoff. NXT did 700,000 viewers and 242,000 in 18-49 for the Lee/Karrion Kross confrontation and the Santos Escobar guys beating up Tyler Breeze & Fandango. The seventh quarter saw AEW do 825,000 viewers and 427,000 in 18-49 for the post-debate, Britt Baker’s interview and Reba vs. Big Swole. NXT did 730,000 viewers and 255,000 in18-49for the Pat McAfee stuff and Indi Hartwell vs. Tegan Nox.

IMPACT: We have monthly average television ratings for the Thursday night prime time show for this year. January averaged 169,000 viewers and 49,000 in 18-49 (0.04 in the demo). February averaged 181,000 viewers and 54,000 in 18-49 (0.04). March averaged 161,000 viewers and 36,000 in 18-49 (0.03). April averaged 144,000 and 27,000 in 18-49 (0.02). May averaged 153,000 and 34,000 in 18-49 (0.03). June averaged 141,000 and 32,000 in 18-49 (0.02). July averaged 153,000 and 44,000 in 18-49 (0.03). The key takes is that Impact draws a much older audience than any other wrestling show. Impact is also the most-watched show on the station. We don’t have the median but you can get a glimpse of the age by looking at the percentage of viewers of a show that are 18-49. Impact was 28.8 percent in July. For the week of 7/27 to 8/2, Raw was 38.2 percent, AEW was 51.0 percent, NXT was 32.7 percent and Smackdown was 34.0 percent. So Impact is skewing far older than even NXT and Smackdown, and those shows are in the 55-57 range as the age of the median viewer

There are a few things to look at regarding how television viewing has changed during the pandemic, looking at WWE, NXT, AEW and Impact. What we are doing here is comparing July, which means that the stronger numbers that both Raw and AEW did as compared to July are not factored in. But the overall 12-17 and 18-34 trend, huge drops for Raw and Smackdown, and staying even and lesser drops respectively for AEW, had been building all month to where the lines would intersect. Right now, AEW, with competition, is very close and sometimes even ahead of both Raw and Smackdown, without competition, under the age of 35 ... Raw for July was down 36.2 percent from the prior year, by far the largest year-to-year drop in the history of the show. Now, some, if not much of this is the pandemic, and we’ve never had a year where Raw had no crowd. The previous record drop was between April 2018 to April 2019, which was down 25 percent. The April drop was 21 percent from the prior year. The May drop was 23 percent. And the June drop was 24 percent. Paul Heyman’s removal came in early June, and then they had the two good weeks when they brought back Ric Flair, Big Show and Christian before that gimmick ran its course and things fell harder than ever. Even scarier is that in the history of Raw, there was never a 30 percent drop year-to-year for any show in history over the same week the prior year that can’t be explained by either a holiday or a special episode. But over the past six weeks, the drop from the year before has exceeded 30 percent in five of those weeks. So we can say that even though WWE has added an audience making the atmosphere better, the audience has declined from the complete empty arena shows, and that goes for Smackdown as well ... First, we looked at the month of February, which was when things were going usual even though there were certainly hints of problems. Really, nobody was taking it seriously until early March and then, in a hurry, the world changed. Everything stopped production except WWE, AEW and Impact Wrestling ... We’ll start with Raw. Raw averaged 2,288,000 viewers in February and 1,623,000 in July, a decline of 29.1 percent. In 18-49, the average went from 0.74 to 0.48, a decline of 35.1 percent ... As expected, the largest audience, over 50, remained the most loyal, but that is still a scary drop over a five-month period ... We don’t have the same level of details for Smackdown as far as different groups, but we do have the key numbers. Smackdown in February averaged 2,542,000 viewers and 0.75 in 18-49. In July it averaged 1,878,000 viewers and a 0.46 in 18-49. So the total viewers during the period were down 26.1 percent and 18-49 dropped 38.7 percent, so while the audience decline was slightly less than Raw, in the key demo the drop was worse, which also speaks to the audience of Smackdown aging more over the period. NXT in February averaged 760,000 viewers in February and 701,000 in July, a drop of 7.8 percent, which on the surface sounds good and it is far less than any other show dropped. In 18-49, the drop was from 0.24 to 0.18, or 25.0 percent, which is still less then Raw or Smackdown but when there is a big difference between the total audience drop and the 18-49 drop, it tells you that the audience has aged significantly during the period. Breaking it down more, in 12-17 the drop was from 0.11 to 0.08, or 27.3 percent. In 18-34, the drop was from 0.15 to 0.09, or 40.0 percent. In 35-49, the drop was 0.32 to 0.28, or 12.5 percent. And in 50+, the audience was 0.37 both before and after the pandemic. So this didn’t hurt NXT with its older audience at all, but it dropped strongly under 35 ... AEW in February averaged 876,000 viewers and 774,000 in July, a drop of 11.6 percent, which is more of a drop than NXT. But AEW held up with younger viewers better, falling from a 0.30 in 18-49 to 0.28, a drop of 6.7 percent. When the demo drop is less than overall, that means the audience is getting younger. Among 12-17, AEW actually increased from 0.12 in February to 0.14 in July, an increase of 16.7 percent. In 18-34, the drop was from 0.20 in February to 0.17 in July, or 15.0 percent. In 35-49, the drop was 0.44 in February to 0.42 in July, or a 4.5 percent drop. In 50+, the drop was big, from 0.36 to 0.29, or 19.4 percent ... Impact went from 181,000 viewers in February to 153,000, a 15.5 percent drop. The 18-49 number went from 54,000 to 44,000, a drop of 18.5 percent, meaning the show is slightly aging. The 18-34 decline was only 5.9 percent but the 35-49 decline was 24.3 percent ... The average total audience drop, and remember that this is heavily skewed toward those over 50 since with the exception of AEW, every show’s mean is over 50 and Impact is over 60 and NXT is creeping up to it, would be 18.0 percent. Based on that, NXT and AEW have done the best, Impact is under the average and Raw & Smackdown have declined by far the worst ... In 18-49, the average drop was 24.9 percent. That’s really quite bad for such a short period of time, even with the circumstances. Raw and Smackdown have done poorly. NXT is at the average. AEW has done the best and Impact has kept its audience the second best. Even though all companies declined, a drop of only 6.7 percent under the circumstances does indicate that to 18-49s, AEW is doing a great job of appealing to that audience under bad circumstances ... In 18-34, which is probably the most important audience when it comes to looking at the future because they are adults, but still not as much set in their ways, meaning open to newer products and not avoiding change, the average decline is 23.2 percent. NXT is under the average, while AEW and Impact have performed spectacularly with only minor declines. Raw in particular has gotten destroyed. A key also is this is the audience most likely to attend live shows and buy merchandise. It’s also the date crowd. It’s the audience that makes the new trends and that live arena business covets. In 35-49, an older audience more set in their ways, likely more skewed to what they’ve watched for a long time and with greater brand affiliation, already established their favorite sports team, harder to sway, the decline is 17.5 percent not including Smackdown. Raw and Smackdown should by all rights fare the best here and Raw fares the worst. NXT has declined less than average and AEW has only declined 4.5 percent. Impact has fallen more than average. In 50+, we only have Raw, NXT and AEW to look at and the average decline is 12.7 percent. In this case, an age group that Raw and Smackdown should fare the best in, Raw is still well above average in its decline. But AEW fared the worst. This demo is most important because it is going to sway the overall number the most, since by far the most wrestling fans watching television are over 50. But as far as future growth, it’s the least important, and not important to advertisers or the television stations. The key to all this, and what we do have complete information on, is that the pandemic is likely the cause of 18 percent audience loss overall and 25 percent in 18-49. Those are very significant drops so any dismissal of the pandemic as a key reason for declines is ignoring the elephant in the room. Still, it’s not the disaster it could be. The key is that both overall, and more in 18-49, Raw and Smackdown are getting killed as far beyond pandemic levels. Anything above those average numbers is on the product losing appeal, and with Raw and Smackdown, that is very significant. NXT has done great with the over 50 audience in keeping it. The show has done well with over 35 and not well at all with under 35. And keep in mind that the start point, in February, the show wasn’t doing well under 35 and now has gotten significantly worse. NXT is holding its younger female audience much better than its male audience. Really, all shows are, but Raw’s declines in women 12-49 are still in the 34.7 to 37.3 percent range while NXT is 18.0 and 3.8. AEW has done great as far as maintaining under 50. In every demo it greatly beats the other shows other than Impact actually has held up the best in 18-34. But the real feather in its cap is women 12-49, where it has maintained and even grown while the other products have declined. While still not at the level of Raw and Smackdown, they have gained significantly among teens and if this trend continues, will be the top show among teens at some point. A 54.2 percent increase in teenage girls watching during this pandemic speaks volumes.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Most of the under 50 crowd would watch NXT on the Network or on delay. How is that so hard for people to understand? Well, Meltzer probably understands it, but it doesn't make a good story. Also, lol @ "nobody will say it." So it's just made up. Cool.

[xrodmuc316]

Meltzer is such a turd.

"While I can't name names since it was off the record, I can confirm WWE doesn't like it when AEW beats NXT in the ratings."

1. He has no sources, nobody in WWE talks to him.
2. No shit Dave, no shit.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Well, no shit, but it also completely ignores that NXT has succeeded in its mission to cap AEW and split that hardcore audience. NXT are also still fighting AEW with one hand tied behind their back using nothing but limited resources found largely on site and they're obviously being patient and still putting their content up on the WWE Network the next day.

It was obvious AEW was going to beat NXT out the gate. That's why NXT debuted earlier. Is it annoying that the new car smell on AEW is lasting this long? Sure. And it's probably frustrating that when NXT does turn the tides, the hardcore fans snap back to give AEW another edge. But they're very obviously being patient with that. It just isn't cool to say and you get called a WWE cocksucker for pointing out the obvious long-term strategy of waiting them out.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Sometimes people confuse Meltzer's opinions as him stating facts -- but remember when he said that Vince McMahon was definitely getting involved in NXT. That was obviously bullshit (history has born that out), but it was also unreasonable (I'm sure Vince's Wednesdays were already busy). It would have also been counterproductive. It also missed the point of what NXT is supposed to be (monetized developmental, boutique product, audition for Triple H). It was also either a straight-up lie or something he heard from AEW that he reported as fact because it helps the narrative.

You cannot trust Meltzer on the AEW/NXT "war." I don't believe he's on the take, but his reporting on it is just not balanced.

[Fignuts]

Vince’s involvement could of just been sending the main roster writers over to NXT. That’s something that would definitely be Vince’s call. Also explains the sterile, formulaic feeling of NXT since the TV deal.

I could see some people in NXT being frustrated about the ratings, because if NXT talent didn’t have its hands tied with all these main roster hack writers, and functioned more like the pre TV deal NXT, they’d have a lot more wins.

[Fignuts]

I shouldn’t be mean to the writers. I forget who said it, but apparently the writers have lots of great ideas, but most of it gets shot down by Vince for the crap we end up with.

[Emperor Smeat]

Originally Posted by Fignuts Vince’s involvement could of just been sending the main roster writers over to NXT. That’s something that would definitely be Vince’s call. Also explains the sterile, formulaic feeling of NXT since the TV deal.

Road Dogg mentioned in an interview a while back about NXT putting a lot more focus towards character/gimmick building and sports entertainment style and less on what NXT was doing pre-USA Network.

Originally Posted by Fightful Speaking with Corey Graves on WWE’s After The Bell podcast, Road Dogg opened up about how the black and gold brand is making a conscious effort to develop more characters as the in-ring action is at an all-time peak in WWE “Working on the entrances, working on the TV spots, and cool camera angles and I mean, we take a lot of time in that stuff and I don't know what people think about that, but man the television aspect of what we do is second to none,” said the former multi-time WWE Tag Team Champion. “I'd put [NXT] up against any, even in the other [WWE] brands, but any television show” He continued, “Sometimes we get the criticism like, 'Oh it's too clean. It's too perfect.' Well, okay. That's what we're doing. That's what we're trying to do. We don't want it to be Channel 5 studio wrestling. We want it to be a cool television show that just happens to be hip tosses and arm drags in between commercials, you know? Now like we talked about, it's time to [say] okay, we got this live TV thing down. We got this wrestling thing down. Let's dive deeper into the characters and that's where we're going and we're going to try to bring a little more entertainment back into the show. NXT's been heavily wrestling, wrestling, wrestling. We want to bring-- and we started that with Riddle and Pete Dunne-- we're making a conscious effort to get a little more entertainment and dive deeper into character. So, the future is bright, man and I'm loving what I'm doing.”

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/r...er-development

Him and HBK having a heavier hand in NXT Creative has been having more of a negative effect on the show.

When Dusty was in charge, he was a lot more hands-off when it came to creative stuff and let the sole lead writer handle creative with some input from NXT agents. Same for Triple H back then but he's been getting more hands-on ever since Dusty's death and even more so since the switch to USA Network.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by Fignuts Vince’s involvement could of just been sending the main roster writers over to NXT. That’s something that would definitely be Vince’s call. Also explains the sterile, formulaic feeling of NXT since the TV deal. I could see some people in NXT being frustrated about the ratings, because if NXT talent didn’t have its hands tied with all these main roster hack writers, and functioned more like the pre TV deal NXT, they’d have a lot more wins.

There are 600k people who are going to choose AEW regardless. I really don't think the show has changed that much. Seems like regular NXT to me, but maybe I just don't pay enough attention? They could really use some personalities down there. A hot angle and some programs people care about wouldn't hurt.

For the hardcore internet crowd, letting Gabe Sapolsky play matchmaker probably isn't the worst idea. He knows how to put together the matches that those people want to see. Maybe give him his choose of a few main roster guys and go from there?

[xrodmuc316]

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect There are 600k people who are going to choose AEW regardless. I really don't think the show has changed that much. Seems like regular NXT to me, but maybe I just don't pay enough attention? They could really use some personalities down there. A hot angle and some programs people care about wouldn't hurt. For the hardcore internet crowd, letting Gabe Sapolsky play matchmaker probably isn't the worst idea. He knows how to put together the matches that those people want to see. Maybe give him his choose of a few main roster guys and go from there?

My only problem with NXT is that being 2 hours means non NXT stuff gets shoved in. I've said it here before, but if I wanted to watch 205 Live or NXT UK, I would just watch 205 Live and NXT UK.

I don't generally care about that content, and it's when I switch over to see what AEW has going on.

[xrodmuc316]

"The people in the mask aren't necessarily the same people who will actually be in the new retribution group." ~ Dave Meltzer

Basically, Dave doesn't know who is under the mask, so we won't know who they are until they actually unmask, and we won't know for sure if they were the masked ones the whole time or just this time.

Meltzer for the win. That will be $11.99

[Mr. Nerfect]

I feel sorry for Meltzer. Imagine if this was your job and you had to try and make an interesting newsletter each week and fewer and fewer WWE talents were talking to you.

[Ol Dirty Dastard]

A couple of Bruce Prichards in here.

[Evil Vito]

I like how AEW has caused Noid to gradually turn on Meltzer over the past year after always defending the guy previously.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by Conspiracy Victim Vito I like how AEW has caused Noid to gradually turn on Meltzer over the past year after always defending the guy previously.

He’s reported some grade-A bullshit around the subject. He’s got either a real blindspot or he’s desperate for AEW to succeed since their owner has an Observer University Education.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets sponsored by "The Human Pinata" Dominik:

Originally Posted by Observer Raw had split messages this week as viewers increased 7,000 from last week to 1.72 million, but 18-49 was down eight percent to 0.47, the latter being the third lowest number in the history of the show. Raw finished fifth for the night in 18-49 and was 24th overal ... The NBA game head-to-head did a 0.67 in 18-49 and 1.53 million viewers. As compared to the same week last year, Raw was down 37 percent in viewers, 49 percent in 18-49 and 67 percent in 18-34. Raw started well above last week and the second hour didn't drop much, but hour three had the big drop with a normal 12 percent first-to-third hour drop. So the Raw Underground curiosity didn't hold the audience this week, but they did start out with more interest in hour one than they had in a long time. As far as first-to-third hour drops, it was 18 percent in women 18-49, two percent in men 18-49 (so held up better than usual there), two percent in teenage girls (so not the increase of last week, but still held up better than usual), and teenage boys were up eight percent, again better than usual ... The three hours were: 8 p.m. 1.81 million viewers 9 p.m. 1.75 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.60 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic halted events, Ring of Honor is returning to producing new television episodes. ROH announced today that they're returning to producing episodes of their Ring of Honor Wrestling TV show in the company's home state of Maryland this month. There will be no fans in attendance at the tapings ... ROH wrote that the new tapings will "pick up right where ROH left off with a focus on the ROH Pure Title Tournament, which had been originally scheduled for April." Matt Sydal revealed on the latest episode of the ROHStrong podcast that he'll be taking part in the Pure title tournament. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ROH hasn't run an event since February. The promotion's 18th Anniversary pay-per-view and Past vs. Present show that were scheduled to take place in Las Vegas in March were the first events affected by ROH's cancellations.

Originally Posted by PWI Ring of Honor announced today they will return to PPV on Friday 9/25 with The Best of Death Before Dishonor 2020: Interesting to note that show is listed as "live" on PPV.

Originally Posted by PWI The documentary You Cannot Kill David Arquette will be released on 8/21 via drive-in theaters and on 8/28 for digital streaming and On Demand via PPV outlets Directed by David Darg and Price James, the plot of the documentary is that Arquette has returned to pro wrestling to clear his name after being hated and blamed by wrestling fans for his short run in WCW. The documentary features interviews with those closest to Arquette, including Courteney Cox, sisters Patricia and Rosanna Arquette, Richmond Arquette and Ric Flair, among others. Promotional material for the film expounds on the plot, noting "Branded as the most hated man in wrestling after winning a highly controversial WCW World Heavyweight Championship in 2000, actor David Arquette attempts a rocky return to the sport that stalled his promising Hollywood career. Dangerously determined to redeem his reputation and reclaim his self-respect, Arquette will stop at nothing to earn his place in professional wrestling." The film was slated to debut earlier this year but was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic

Originally Posted by PWI The next planned WWE NXT Takeover event after Summerslam weekend is slated to be Sunday 10/4, PWInsider.com has confirmed. NXT UK was scheduled to have a Takeover in Dublin, Ireland on 10/25 but given the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, that is looking less and less likely to take place as originally envisioned.

Originally Posted by PWI In an article on MLW's website, Major League Wrestling head Court Bauer commented on the promotion moving closer to resuming an in-ring product, something the company stopped at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I’ve been very encouraged by how the UFC, NBA, the NHL, Top Rank Boxing and DAZN Match Room boxing have managed operations as they restart,” said Bauer. “We’re also seeing TV and film start back up in certain regions in a cautious manner and that’s the mindset you need to operate with during this moment in time: caution.” “We are speaking with some of the sharpest minds at Johns Hopkins University & Medicine on a restart and talked with New Japan’s people on how they’ve approached it – and they’ve done an incredible job… we also engaged some of our athletes who have competed outside of MLW during the pandemic to see what worked, what didn’t and what could be improved upon. It’s very important to gather as much information, advice and medical analysis as possible and that’s what we’ve been doing. That analysis gives you the best ability to do your job and navigate the next steps in examining a restart.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Eric Bischoff recently appeared on AEW Dynamite to moderate the debate between Chris Jericho and Orange Cassidy. Bischoff took to his 83 Weeks podcast and reflected on his experience backstage at Dynamite and what he picked up from his time there. “When I went backstage at AEW two weeks ago, the first thing I noticed was, ‘Wow, these guys are actually having fun laying their sh*t out. These guys are actually having fun trying to figure out how to lay a match out in a way that not only entertains the audience obviously, but advances their story’ and you could tell. I could hear some of the conversations. Not that I was eavesdropping but sometimes you can’t help it. I was walking by and it’s like, ‘These guys are working hard to get each other over. They’re not just working hard to get themselves over’ which you have to do. But when you get to that point and you’re coming at it with a frame of mind that, ‘Okay, how can I make my opponent look better than me’ and your opponent is looking to do the same thing, that’s when the magic happens, and the freedom to do it so, can’t say enough good things about the talent, the energy backstage, the hospitality, the professionalism. It was really a great experience for me. If I never step in front of a camera again, if I never go backstage again anywhere, even to say hi to anybody, it’ll be okay for me. Sure I’d look forward to doing it and all that. I’m not saying I’d never want to do it again but if it were to happen, I’m glad that my last experience kind of in a backstage environment, watching a bunch of young talent, fresh talent, hungry talent that believe they can make a difference, that energy is something that I walked away with and if that’s the last experience I have, it will be a great one.” Eric Bischoff also spoke highly of AEW President Tony Khan. Bischoff stated that on top of Khan being a great businessman, he’s also a good producer. Bischoff mentioned that-that’s a department he went the wrong direction in as far as his tenure with WCW and that was putting people in positions that are for him and expecting them to work the way he would’ve. “That was really interesting. Now I got to meet Tony, because of you [Conrad Thompson]. You put us together to do a thing on Patreon and I enjoyed talking to him, talking to him then, but when I was backstage, it was most noticeable for me and I hope Tony doesn’t mind me saying this — I doubt that he would but, in case you do Tony, I apologize. Okay, I’m just gonna use my best judgement here. But while I was getting ready to go out — we’ll call it a Gorilla Position but, when I was standing backstage ready to be introduced for the segment, I was within an earshot of Tony when he was at the Gorilla Position on monitors and couldn’t help but overhear Tony talking to probably Keith Mitchell in the truck, somebody in the truck. I’m assuming it was Keith. Tony’s into this. Tony’s not just the guy with the checkbook. Tony’s not just the guy with the checkbook that’s also a big fan. Tony’s the guy with the checkbook who’s a big fan, who’s also a good producer, and more importantly, loves producing. Therein lies the magic. His passion in the product, he’s obviously a very intelligent and experienced businessman. Check those boxes but when you have passion and you like producing and you’re willing to grab it by the balls as opposed to putting someone else in that position and hoping that they’re going to do the work that you want them to do, and by the way, that’s what I did to a large degree. That’s a mistake that I made to a large degree as I put other people in positions that I probably should’ve had a much larger control of myself so that’s why I’m pointing this out. Tony is grabbing this thing by the balls. What he lacks in experience, he more than makes up for in passion, intelligence and enjoyment of what he’s doing and taking control over it. He has a lot more control over what’s going on than I assumed. Not knowing him, just assumed that he did so that was a fun thing to watch.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling New Japan Pro-Wrestling released a schedule for the participants who’ll be in the 2020 G1 Climax tournament that kicks off next month. Due to Coronavirus concerns, the number of wrestlers at the G1 events will be limited. B block tournament entrants will not compete on A block nights and vice versa throughout the tour.

Link: https://www.njpw1972.com/78801

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Son of Rick Steiner, Bronson Rechsteiner has been waived by the Baltimore Ravens according to ESPN’s Ravens reporter Jamison Hensley.

Originally Posted by WrestleTalk A New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) star has revealed that WWE made contact with him over a potential contract during his period of free agency. Jeff Cobb spoke with Fightful, which on Fightful Select (subscription required and recommended) gave a sneak preview writing that Cobb spoke about his contract negotiations with various companies. Cobb said that WWE made contact with him while he wasn’t signed anywhere, but also said that IMPACT Wrestling didn’t. It had also previously been reported that AEW had made him contract offers after he made a couple of appearances for the promotion as Chris Jericho’s hired hitman during his program with Jon Moxley.

Originally Posted by 411Mania According to a report by Fightful Select, some new details about trainees and developmental talent being able to resume their training again are available. As previously reported, WWE’s developmental talents have not been able to train since the start of the pandemic. Also, the Observer Newsletter reported regular classes are rumored to be resuming on August 10 at a new facility, which is expected to be a warehouse located close to the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. Based on Fightful’s latest report, starting on July 31, wrestlers were being informed by coaches about the new warehouse facility to conduct their training. The report states that coaches were frustrated that the trainees were still being paid in full when they weren’t training, along with some of the students opting out of the audience tapings. Also, WWE has already apparently resumed tape studies and Skull Sessions. Skull Sessions are when wrestlers watch someone’s most current matches, and everyone provides their feedback. Additionally, Ryan Katz is said to have overseen a “Promolympics,” where the talents submit their own promos and pitches.

Originally Posted by Fightful While fan engagement is important in 2020, sometimes it can go overboard turn into toxicity. Earlier last week, Brandi Rhodes deactivated her Twitter account after receiving negative criticism over the membership fee for AEW Heels as well as complaints about the recent direction of AEW’s women's division. Back in December, Matt and Nick Jackson, The Young Bucks also made the decision to leave Twitter following negative criticism that stemmed from the direction of the AEW Dynamite television show. In the wake of Brandi leaving Twitter, Matt Jackson took to his Instagram story to further explain why he supports anybody making the decision to leave social media and more surrounding why he and Nick felt the need to get off of Twitter for their own mental health and family well-being. "I applaud anyone who decides to take a break from social media. Especially the toxic world of Twitter specifically. We logged off when threatening messages were sent to us regularly and finally the last straw came when google map images of our homes were being tweeted to us. It's been a nice break for our mental health. If someone decides to sign off, good for them."

Originally Posted by PWI FOX will be airing a two-hour special to promote WWE's 2020 Summerslam PPV on Saturday 8/22, PWInsider.com has confirmed. WWE Summerslam's Hottest Moments will air in the New York City market from 4-6 PM. The special may air in other timeslots depending on the market. The special will feature highlights from the history of WWE's annual August PPV, which debuted in 1988.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Seth Rollins was a guest on The Gorilla Position podcast to discuss the Monday Night Messiah character and the ongoing feud with Rey Mysterio. The subject of long-term storytelling was brought up and Rollins’ belief that the fanbase does not have the patience for long-term storytelling: "Well, man, I think its kind of a lost art across the board in entertainment. And not that it’s a lost art, just the audience, as we get into this age of instant gratification, they don’t have the patience for long-term storytelling. When you can binge-watch your favorite series in two days as opposed to two months, it creates a different precedent for how we intake our entertainment. It’s the difference between watching a full match and just seeing the GIFs of it or the highlights of it. So, I just think people are intaking their entertainment on a different level. It’s the difference between artists releasing singles as opposed to full-length albums because of the way the consumers are taking in their entertainment, so that shift, wrestling is not immune to that shift and so we have to do that as well to keep up with our audience. But I do think, I’m not a twenty-something, I’m a thirty-four-year-old guy, so the storytelling I grew up on had a longer form and that’s what I enjoy, so I think if our younger audience could learn to appreciate it might be something they’re into. But it also might not be how their brains are wired or how we’ve rewired people’s brains to think. It’s a very interesting time in entertainment, in television, and music and movies altogether really, and that shift of how things are going." Of course, he is also working for someone who has shown zero capacity to stick with something long-term with one of the frequent complaints is Vince McMahon’s inability to stick with a plan long enough and often, blow up plans without notice. It’s a cop-out to blame the fanbase that has barely been given an opportunity to respond to a truly long-term and laid out storyline that goes beyond a pay-per-view cycle. There are countless examples from other promotions that have built their stories for months and sometimes years for the finale that audiences have been captivated by. In WWE, there are too many examples of stories that begin and have no payoff or ending with Rollins even noting in the interview that his character and stories are a week-to-week process rather than a carefully laid out plan of where his character will be six months from now. Rollins also shared his satisfaction with the recent Eye-for-an-Eye match at Extreme Rules and who they were trying to appeal to: "If this stipulation had happened in 1999 in the middle of the Attitude Era, I don’t think anyone would have scoffed at it. I think it would have just been a crazy moment of wild stuff happening in WWE and obviously, we are twenty years later and things are different in the way we watch things and the audience sees wrestling differently At the end of the day, it is what it is, that’s what the moment was meant to do was to create interest in the casual viewer. I think the moment you said ‘Eye-for-an-Eye Match’, the hardcore wrestling fan, and if I was a nineteen-year-old kid would probably say the same thing, would be like ‘Oh please, why can’t they just let these two wrestle?’ you know? But, at the end of the day, the wrestling spoke for itself and the end moment ended up on TMZ, so we’re doing a service to both of our audiences. We gave them a great wrestling match on the front end and gave the casual viewer to say, ‘What the hell are they doing over there?’. I loved it, I thought it was great, I was really happy with. I loved sharing the ring with Rey Mysterio and I was pretty overwhelmingly happy with the final product, particularly considering we sort did that last scene with limited time and in one take. So, I was overwhelmingly pleased with the finished product."

Originally Posted by PWI A GoFundMe Campaign has been launched to assist the family of James "Kamala" Harris, who passed away yesterday due to cardiac arrest brought by COVID-19, with funeral expenses. The family had been hit hard financially in recent years due to Harris' medical expenses.

Link for those interested in donating: https://www.gofundme.com/f/kamala-fu...dbd2972ad947f2


TPWW Frontpage:

• NJPW: Full Card for Summer Struggle in Jingu, KOPW Tournament Matches, NJPW Strong, Togi Makabe
• WWE: MVP on RAW Underground, PC Sets New SmackDown Record, Trademarks, Updated SD Ratings
• Two Title Matches Announced for SummerSlam – Updated Card
• Finished TNT Championship to Be Revealed Tomorrow on Dynamite

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Originally Posted by PWI PWInsider.com has confirmed that any WWE plans to tape content for Summerslam in Atlantic City have been dropped. We are told that the show will be held in Florida. WWE is slated to tape this Friday's Smackdown and this Monday's Raw tomorrow at the WWE Performance Center.

Originally Posted by PWI For those who have asked, tonight's AEW Dynamite is a live broadcast.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE filed for the following trademarks on 8/7: -Pretty Deadly. -The Hunt. -Zack Gibson. -Rinku. -Saurav.

Originally Posted by PWI Dwayne Johnson once again topped Forbes annual highest-paid actors list coming in at over $87.5 million between June 2019 and June 2020, thanks to the Netflix production deal for action spy thriller "Red Notice" bringing in $23.5 million alone. Not to mention, his Under Armor. "Project Rock" partnership, television projects, etc. Coming in a number two with $71.5 million is "Red Notice" costar Ryan Reynolds, who himself signed exclusive agreements with Netflix to produce projects. Many on this list including Mark Wahlberg, Will Smith, Adam Sandler, Vin Diesel, Lin Manuel Miranda and Ben Affleck have exclusive licensing deals or content deals with different streaming services or online platforms. A sign of the times.

Originally Posted by Observer The full card for next week’s Impact Emergence card has been revealed, while a stipulation has been set for night two. Taya Valkyrie will face Kylie Rae in what will be a Wrestle House match. The two have been stuck in the reality show house for the last few weeks, with Rae calling out Valkyrie on tonight’s show. The Good Brothers will face Ace Austin and Madman Fulton in a tag team match. Austin and Fulton have been a thorn on Anderson and Gallows’ sides since their debut at Slammiversary. The Motor City Machine Guns (Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley) will defend their new Impact Tag Team titles against former champions The North (Josh Alexander & Ethan Page). They made their return to Impact at Slammiversary, defeating The North for the titles. Edde Edwards, successfully defending the Impact World title against Brian Myers on tonight’s show, will defend the Impact World title next week as well. Edwards has instituted an open challenge policy for the title since winning it. Here is the full card for the first night of Emergence, which takes place next week: Eddie Edwards will defend the Impact title Kylie Rae vs. Taya Valkyrie in a Wrestle House match Moose vs. Trey Miguel for the TNA World title Chris Bey vs. TJP vs. Rohit Raju for the X Division title Good Brothers vs. Ace Austin and Madman Fulton Motor City Machine Guns vs. The North for the Impact Tag Team titles Confirmed for the second night of Emergence is a 30 minute Iron Man match for the Impact Knockouts title, with champion Deonna Purazzo facing former champion Jordynne Grace. The second night will take place on August 25.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling AEW Dynamite has a loaded show tonight billed as “Tag Team Appreciation Night” with several tag matches and appearances. In addition, the big rematch between Chris Jericho and Orange Cassidy takes place, and a TNT title match between Cody and Scorpio Sky. It is always hard to predict numbers ahead of time but AEW has been on a roll and coming off one of their best weeks of the year. Last week’s episode of Dynamite topped this week’s Raw in the 18-34 demo. It’s become clear that the race isn’t between AEW and NXT any longer, it’s a fight for the younger audience between AEW and Raw. While WWE will have a stranglehold on the older audiences and still have a comfortable distance in the 18-49 demo (Raw did a 0.47 this week and AEW did a 0.36 last week), the gap among teenagers and young adults is closing. Last week, had the added competition from the NBA and it didn’t bear any impact on AEW or NXT, who were also up.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Obviously, one of the concerns going into these AEW tapings was the risk presented by Chris Jericho and Fozzy performing several shows over the past week. This included a show in South Dakota in conjunction with the Sturgis Rally. Yes, Jericho will be tested but it doesn’t eliminate all risk even with a negative test result. It would have made sense that if Jericho was adamant about performing the shows that the rematch with Cassidy should have been taped two weeks ago or delayed two weeks so that Jericho could miss this cycle of tapings. If it was so important for the match to occur this week given the proximity to the pay-per-view, then a line needed to be drawn in the sand forcing Jericho to choose one or the other. This option, while it may turn into nothing, seems like one that presents too much potential for problems and sends a mixed message about being cautious when home between tapings.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Brandi Rhodes spoke with Scott Fishman at TV Insider on the launch of the AEW Women’s Cup tournament and the allotment of television time for the women’s division. On the decision to launch the tournament as a property for YouTube: "With YouTube, it’s its own show. That means we are trusted enough to carry our own show and don’t have to be compared to men. We were also not restricted on time. So it’s really the dream scenario. Better than finding out when we are live and something went long, you may only have four minutes to put it out there. That’s really hard, especially when you are trying to introduce new women and put that kind of pressure on them. Being it’s our own show without the restraints and to be able to tell these stories how we want to is a really great situation." Rhodes gave the following answer regarding the time the women receive on AEW Dynamite and stating that those decisions don’t come down to her: "It’s an interesting question because I don’t feel it really applies to me considering it’s not something week-to-week I discuss or plan. I took this tournament on as a side project. Of course, in doing the tournament I know what the criticisms have been. I know what they are and thought this would be really great for that, especially those who are die-hard women’s wrestling fans. As far as the week-to-week goes, unfortunately that’s a burden that lies elsewhere. Thankfully, it’s not one I have to navigate so frequently." Finally, she spoke about the launch of AEW Heels and the subscription fee attached to it, which did garner complaints over the last week: "Another thing for people to know out of the gate is that “Heels” is not ever going to be something I look to as a super profitable thing. It’s not intended to be. It’s intended to be something they can count on and grow with and learn with and get something out of. In order to run a multi-faceted platform like that, it costs money. It’s not cheap by any means. This is not going to be a huge cash grab for AEW. But it’s something fans will love and appreciate, so it’s worth all the work and effort. Not everything is about a dollar. Some things are about what’s right."

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On Monday, the NWA announced its partnership with Thunder Studios and the United Wrestling Network (which encompasses Championship Wrestling from Hollywood and Championship Wrestling from Arizona) to launch a weekly pay-per-view series beginning Tuesday, September 15th at 9 pm Eastern. The shows will be billed as “United Wrestling Network’s Primetime LIVE” and stream on Fite TV, along with traditional pay-per-view and satellite TV ... In the press release, Executive Producer David Marquez said there will be possibilities to have talent from other promotions appear and specifically identified New Japan’s L.A. Dojo, Freelance Wrestling, and West Coast Pro Wrestling.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Independent wrestler Ariel Dominguez played the security guard confronting Retribution on Raw this past Monday prior to the cinder block being thrown through the window.

Originally Posted by PWI 2K officially announced the following: BRAWL YOUR OWN WAY - WWE 2K BATTLEGROUNDS GAME MODES ... Wage war in a wide variety of your favorite match types with fun, new twists, including: CAMPAIGN MODE Throw down in this single-player story mode told through a comic art style as you add to your stable of Superstars to overcome the next challenge. Team up with Paul Heyman and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin as you travel the globe in search of new Superstars for an all-new WWE brand. Play as one of the 7 newly created Superstars like Bolo Reynolds and Jessica Johnson as you travel across several regions battling WWE Superstars as you achieve campaign goals and unlock various Superstars, power-ups, and items! EXHIBITION MODE Brawl with your friends or family with up to 4-player action online or on the couch in your favorite match types including: One-on-One Tag Team Triple Threat Fatal Four Way Steel Cage Match Royal Rumble KING OF THE BATTLEGROUND MODE Brawl to become the Last Man (or Woman) Standing as you and up to seven other online players burn it down and try to fling one-another out of the arena! The longer you stay in the arena, the higher your score climbs. The second you send someone flying, another player waiting outside the ring enters the fray! ONLINE TOURNAMENT MODE Brawl online for rewards in a variety of time-limited tournaments featuring a wide range of win conditions! Keep an eye out… you never know when a new Battlegrounds tournament might be kicking off! BATTLEGROUND CHALLENGE MODE Brawl from the bottom all the way to the top! Create your own WWE Superstar and overcome all the odds stacked against you.

Originally Posted by Fightful Liv Morgan believes the dancers of Raw Underground aren't taking the women's evolution a step back. Morgan was one who actually wanted to see the dancers return this week when they ultimately did not, even going to Twitter to ask for the dancers back next week. Afterwards, someone commented to Morgan that they felt the dancers were a step backwards in WWE's women's evolution. Morgan argues that it doesn't, writing on Twitter that having women proudly dancing doesn't change anything and wants all women to feel empowered.

Link: https://twitter.com/YaOnlyLivvOnce/s...32566188032000

Originally Posted by Fightful Pineapple Pete has seemingly finished with AEW following Tuesday's Dark

Link: https://twitter.com/SugarDunkerton/s...43964318380032

Originally Posted by Fightful The Stadium Stampede at AEW Double or Nothing had a little bit of everything as the Inner Circle and The Elite battled in TIAA Bank Stadium. The two groups pulled out plenty of football spots including a challenge flag, excessive celebration, and a 100-yard score. The Jacksonville Jaguars mascot even got involved, although the NFL almost said otherwise. "That was one of the best things I've ever done in 30 years in the business. That was just 10 guys with different ideas, banging it out, not having to worry about so and so approved this. The only thing I had to get approved was knocking out the Jacksonville Jaguars mascot. The only reason I had to get it approved was the NFL didn’t want us to do it, but Tony Khan said do it anyway...everything was kinda free form. It’s just how creative do you want to be and how successful do you want to make the segment you’re in," said Chris Jericho in an interview with The SDR Show.

Originally Posted by Fightful The KOPW title that NJPW introduced not long ago has certainly been a polarizing decision with its unique set of rules. The title, which is not an actual championship, will see wrestlers introduce stipulations only for fans to vote on them ... NJPW star Rocky Romero recently sat down with me and we discussed the KOPW title and how he believes it is the right time to introduce it. With the current pandemic limiting the current NJPW roster and the world going through an uncertain time, Romero thinks it's great to have something out of the ordinary be introduced to New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Romero says it's also good in the sense that it doesn't completely disrupt what NJPW is traditionally known for and it's something that can even level the playing field when it comes to the different roster and weight classes in NJPW. "I think if it's ever going to happen, now would be the time. Having a limited roster is a good time to introduce something that is super crazy on paper, but we really won't know until we see it. The thing about it is, in the end, New Japan will be the traditional New Japan. It's not going to change and even having one element to break up just how traditional it is, it could work, maybe it won't work and it will go away, but I think it's an interesting and good time to go and try things like this. You may not get the opportunity like this to try different things. I think it's cool, interesting. It's one way that kind of evens the playing field between juniors and heavys. I mean, having a stipulation could be a benefit. Like, if I'm wrestling Okada, maybe I can come up with a stipulation in my favor that maybe levels the playing field. I wouldn't be able to beat Okada in a regular 1 vs. 1 match, but maybe if I introduce something that is different and unique, that puts me in favor. It could make things interesting. Maybe let's check it out and see how it unfolds and see the conclusions. Hey, it could work out, it could completely flop, but I think it's worth the try and swinging the bat," Romero said. Although it will be quite some time before Romero can go back to Japan and wrestle there, he does have an idea of what he would propose for a KOPW match stipulation. Instead of a cage match, a weapons match or a submissions match, Romero wants barbed wires and explosions in his match and he would love to have it with current IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion Jon Moxley. "It definitely wouldn't be Boneryard Match (laughs). I want to do some exploding barbed wire matches, just something that's totally not me. If I'm going to do something, it's going to be something super out there, like you wouldn't expect me to. I think something like that would be crazy, once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. Give me Moxley in an exploding barbed wire match," Romero said.

Originally Posted by Observer During a photo shoot Wednesday, Cody Rhodes was surprised when he was presented with the new version of the AEW TNT Championship belt. Featuring plenty of gold, red, and the same design of plates as the original, this version was originally slated to be done by May's Double or Nothing but was delayed due to COVID-19. Rhodes pinned Lance Archer in the finals of a tournament to win the inaugural title, presented that night by Mike Tyson. Rhodes is set to defend the title against Scorpio Sky on Wednesday's Dynamite, the first time the belt will be seen on national TV.

#TNTChamp @CodyRhodes just a few hours away from his title defense against @ScorpioSky, and he gets a surprise from @RefTurnerAEW

Watch #AEWDynamite TONIGHT at 8/7c on @tntdrama pic.twitter.com/yW6WTSddQo

— All Elite Wrestling (@AEWrestling) August 12, 2020

TPWW Frontpage:

• ROH Will Return to Taping New TV Shows This Month
• AEW Dynamite & NXT Cards for Tonight + AEW Rankings
• Shotzi Blackheart’s Ring Gear Stolen

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Originally Posted by Observer AEW Dynamite averaged 792,000 viewers last night on TNT, down 12.1 percent from last week. NXT on the USA Network was also down, averaging 619,000 viewers. That was a drop of 17.8 percent from last Wednesday. There was more competition than usual with the annual Shark Week on the Discovery Network and cable news coverage of Presidential candidate Joe Biden choosing Kamala Harris as his running mate dominating the cable TV ratings on the night. That's in addition to NBA and MLB games, along with the NHL starting the opening round of their playoffs this week. Dynamite averaged a 0.32 rating in the 18-49 demo, down 11.1 percent from last week. The show finished ninth overall on cable in that demo. It did tie for the second best number Dynamite has done in that ratings category since March. NXT did not fare as well. It averaged just a 0.16 rating in 18-49 and failed to chart in the top 50, finishing in 65th place in the demo. That's down 20 percent from last week and is the second lowest number NXT has done in that category since May. The combined audience of 1.411 million viewers was down 14 percent from last week and is the lowest number since June 10. Detailed demo numbers, aside from 18-49, are not available for NXT since it was out of the top 50. AEW did best in men 18-49 with a 0.38 rating. In people 18-34, where AEW beat Raw last week, Dynamite was down to a 0.18 rating. That's 18 percent lower than Raw did this week in that category.

Originally Posted by PWI As Dave Scherer wrote in the ratings recap: For those wondering, after Chris Jericho mentioned last week's AEW beating this week's Raw in the 18 to 34 demographic, AEW dropped to a 0.18 (from last week's 0.29). Raw this week did a 0.22 (down from a 0.28) in the demo so AEW beat Raw by 0.01 last week and actually lost this week to Raw by 0.04

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Next week is a big test for AEW with Dynamite airing on Saturday night instead of Wednesday. On one hand, it’s a different night of the week and Saturday is tougher than Wednesday, but the silver lining is that Dynamite will have the NBA as a lead-in and that’s as strong as it gets on TNT. NXT will go unopposed on television next Wednesday with its go-home show for TakeOver: XXX.

Originally Posted by Observer Those watching AEW Dynamite Wednesday likely noticed the presence of more fans in the stands than in the past few months as the company nearly doubled the amount of people they allowed in, albeit with added COVID-19 protocols. According to a report from Pro Wrestling Sheet that was also verified by our Dave Meltzer, nearly 150 "invited spectators" were allowed into Daily's Place in Jacksonville, FL, but were seated a good distance away from the AEW wrestlers who are at ringside, Spaced apart unless they were with a pre-determined group, the spectators were subject to temperature checks and had to wear a mask throughout the event with security doing constant checks to ensure that was happening. Noted wrestling fan Jessi Davin was one of the people in attendance, along with her husband. She gave some of the details of the night on Twitter, saying seating was planned out in advance and that they both felt very safe with how things were handled. She also shared video of the aforementioned security checking on masks and suggesting adjustments for proper use. It's unclear as to the process in which the spectators were chosen, but Devlin said she got in thanks to a "non-wrestling related connection." A Reddit user that claims to work at Daily's Place said people were able to get tickets if you worked for the venue's sponsors and that capacity was limited to around 100 people.

Originally Posted by Observer New Japan Pro Wrestling has announced their Summer Struggle event scheduled for Thursday in Uwajima has been canceled as one of the wrestlers slated to appear developed a fever. From the statement: "Unfortunately, one of the wrestlers scheduled to appear had developed a fever. The wrestler immediately undertook additional COVID-19 testing, but New Japan Pro-Wrestling is still awaiting results. Under NJPW’s Coronavirus guidelines, and acting in the best interests of health and safety for other wrestlers and fans in attendance, the decision was made to cancel tonight’s event" ... As of now, New Japan is scheduled to run this Sunday in Shizuoka with another non-televised show. They aren't set to return to air until August 26th's kickoff to the King of Pro Wrestling tournament.

Originally Posted by PWI United States District Court of The Middle District of Tennessee Chief Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr. ordered that Jeff Jarrett and Global Wrestling Entertainment sit down with Anthem Wrestling (the parent company of Impact Wrestling) for a settlement conference next month instead of the originally scheduled hearing to set a new trial date in the lawsuit Jarrett brought forth against Impact. As PWInsider.com reported in the Elite section earlier this week, Jarrett's side requested a settlement conference for the two sides to come to the table and attempt to work out a deal to end the legal wranglings between the two sides, offering to be available anytime between 9/1-9/10. Anthem responded that Ed Nordholm was not available on those dates but that they would be amenable to having a settlement conference after the scheduled hearing on 9/11 in Nashville to set a new trial date. Instead, yesterday, Judge Waverly canceled the hearing and instructed the two sides to attempt to settle the matter. The two sides have attempted to settle their issues previously but were unable to do so, leading to the original trial that ended up in a mistrial after a mixed verdict. In a ruling issued by Waverly on 7/30, the mistrial was declared due to, "...the Court’s failure to instruct on comparative negligence; the identity of the wrong entity in the verdict form on the counterfeiting claim; improper comments by Defendant’s counsel in opening statements; and improper statements by Plaintiffs’ counsel in closing arguments, all of which were discussed in detail in the Court’s oral ruling."

Originally Posted by PWI Expected to be added to Summerslam's lineup is Jeff Hardy challenging WWE Intercontinental Champion AJ Styles. That was the direction planned for the Smackdown episode that was slated to be taped last week but was canceled. That episode is being taped today at the WWE Performance Center.

Originally Posted by PWI Deadline.com reported this evening that Major League Wrestling signed a deal with Fubo for MLW Fusion to be carried weekly on Thursdays at 10 PM EST with a replay of the previous week's episode preceding it at 9 PM EST. This is the latest deal the promotion has signed in recent weeks, placing MLW on the streaming service, which has picked up major steam in recent months, including deals with Disney/ESPN and more. Fubo was praised by Forbes last year, which predicted the platform would be a billion dollar property. It's had quite a few investors behind it, including Univision and AMC, having raised $200 million in funding. PWInisider.com is told this deal would not be a replacement for BeIN Sport but is one of several recently made, including MLW's deal with DAZN, designed to place the promotion on platforms that appeal to younger fans as they are more likely to be on platforms that stream content as opposed to traditional linear TV outlets.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Brian Myers was the most recent guest on the ‘Sitting Ringside with David Penzer’ podcast. Myers was asked about the amount of money that WWE offered to talents when AEW was finding their footing in the pro wrestling business. Myers stated that it was a running joke in the WWE locker room as talents referred to the new WWE contracts as, ‘Please don’t go to AEW’ contracts.’ “Yeah, absolutely and think it was astronomical and once someone said no, then it went up for everybody and that just kept happening. It wound up being what it was, too good to be true to be honest with you. But yeah, more money than I ever imagined making in this business that I signed for, and like I said, I’d already been a producer. I was kind of like — the big thing for them was the years. Everybody’s contract was five years. That was their big thing, and the boys were all calling them the, ‘Please don’t go to AEW’ contracts but that’s fine because I was like, ‘Okay, I’m very comfortable here, I enjoy it and I’m set up for post in-ring stuff’ so I was like, ‘I’m more than fine signing this.’ At the time it was like, ‘Okay, sure.’” While reflecting on his time in WWE developmental, Brian Myers feels that if enough talents were gathered and were willing to speak, a Dark Side of the Ring episode could be done on Deep South Wrestling. “I say this when people ask me about Deep South; I’m eagerly anticipating Dark Side of the Ring: Deep South Wrestling because if they get enough of the boys to open up and talk about it, they’ll have one of their more interesting episodes and for sure, their funniest episode of all-time if they get the good stuff.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling David Finlay was a guest on The Wrestling Inc. Daily podcast. Finlay recounted when WWE did the storyline of Hornswoggle being revealed as the son of Fit Finlay. David shared that his mother informed him that when he went to school the next day, he had to say ‘yes’ to all who asked if Hornswoggle is legitimately his brother to protect the storyline. “So funny story about this; I think they announced or revealed that Hornswoggle’s my father’s son on RAW, and that night, before RAW came on TV, or when I got home from school that day, my mom — my mom’s never been in the wrestling business… she’s been around like that. They’ve been married for — I don’t know. They’ve been together for a very long time. So she sat me down and she was like — this was after — I was in middle school too. This was like 8th grade. She sat me down, she was like, ‘David, this is what we’re gonna do on TV tonight, which means tomorrow when you go to school, all your friends are gonna be asking if this is your brother. You have to tell them yes.’ I’m like, ‘What!?’ She said, ‘You have to tell them yes.’ Alright, so I go to school, sure enough, ‘Is that your real brother? Is that your brother? Is that your brother?’ And I have to go, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ but then of course, that’s not good enough to my friends, so they’re asking all these follow-up questions like, ‘Well how come he doesn’t live with you?’ So I’m having to like B.S. all my friends on the spot just because my mom told me that I have to tell them that’s my brother.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WrestleZone has an interview with Ariane Andrew. She shared that it was Brandi Rhodes who reached out to her about participating in the Women’s Tag Team Cup tournament. Ariane added that she did reach out to Brandi in the Summer of 2019 about possibly working with AEW. “Brandi [Rhodes] reached out to me, because I would say probably back [in] August, I had reached out to her and she’s like, ‘You know what? I’ll keep you in mind’ and she’s like, ‘Well remember I said I’ll keep you in mind?’ And it happened so quickly, less than a week to get it together. So, I had no gear, I hadn’t been in the ring so it was like, woo, it was a lot but, I did it so I mean… it was one of those type of things. It’s not maybe necessarily how I wanted to come back, but I felt like AEW is such a great opportunity and me and Brandi go back and I love what they’re doing with the product so, it was just like, ‘Even if this happens to be my last match, I think it’ll be fun’….. Which is not gonna be [my last match] though,” Ariane smirked.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Erick Rowan did an interview over Instagram Live with Sportskeeda. Rowan stated that the original plans for his ‘cage’ gimmick was to have a rodent or a rat on the inside of it that would eventually be killed by the babyface champion. “No no. Originally it was pitched that it would be a rodent or a rat and it was going to be killed by the babyface Champion to show that I had cared about something and that babyface turned heel, so that didn’t work. Well ok, then I asked them what is it now, then they just kept extending it, extending it and extending it.” Rowan stated that he wanted to have a slightly larger cage and place a little woman in the cage to be revealed. He got the idea from the ‘Freak Show’ season of American Horror Story. “I had over the top ideas about it. One was this actress in American Horror Story, the smallest woman of all time. She was in American Horror Story Freak Show. One idea was to build a slightly larger cage and when unveiled, it would be this slightly smaller woman. Me and her would be friends and I would be protecting her from the atrocities of the outside world by locking her in the cage.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling In 2019, it was confirmed that Sadie Gibbs signed with All Elite Wrestling and just one year after her signing, she is no longer with the company. Gibbs took to her Twitter page and confirmed the news that she is no longer with AEW after her profile, along with the profiles of Jimmy Havoc and Bea Priestley were removed from the AEW roster page. Sadie has continued to respond to a number of comments on social media from those are wishing her well in the next steps of her career. Sadie debuted for AEW at All Out in the Casino Battle Royale. Her next two in-ring appearances for AEW occurred in October on the AEW Dark program on YouTube.

Link: https://twitter.com/TheSadiegibbs/st...52056517545985

Originally Posted by 411Mania Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus teamed up on last night’s episode of AEW Dynamite in a loss to AEW tag team champions Kenny Omega & Hangman Page. This comes after his last title shot, against Cody for the TNT belt, was also a loss. According to Wrestling Observer Radio, AEW still has plans to give Jungle Boy a major win, but they are holding off. It’s believed that the company wants to wait to give him his first big win when they are able to have fans at live events again.

Originally Posted by WrestleTalk A new update has been provided regarding the situation of contracts for WWE talent that has been called up from NXT recently. As per Fightful Select (subscription required and recommended), several of the recent call-ups haven’t received new contracts as they usually would have. It was noted that this is something that the company will likely think about doing when things get back to normal i.e. when the pandemic has passed over, but who knows how long that’s gonna be at this point. Worth mentioning too is it was pointed out in the report that some of the talent is actually working a lighter schedule on the main roster than they were in NXT anyway. WWE still has “no idea” on the situation with its live events schedule, or whether there are even going to be shows at all besides TV.

TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE: EVOLVE & Others Arriving on WWE Network, New Game Modes for WWE Battlegrounds, Trademarks
• Johnny Gargano Involved in Injury Scare Incident at NXT Tapings
• WWE Considering Adding Virtual Fans to Their Shows
• SummerSlam Reportedly Taking Place at Amway Center in Orlando, TV Tapings May Also Move There

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

After five months down, Ring of Honor will be returning to action with television tapings, believed to be from Baltimore, later this month. ROH sent out a release noting they would be producing new wrestling shows in August from Maryland, working with the Maryland State Athletic Commission ... No date has been publicly announced but talent has been told to do a 14-day quarantine before the date and that may mean several people being pulled from independent dates that they were booked on. ROH got a lot of praise within pro wrestling for how it has handled the crisis regarding talent. All talent under contract was paid in full even with no shows, which essentially they had to do or breach the contract. But they also paid non-contracted talent for any dates that were booked that didn’t happen, as well as all officials and extras that were originally booked for canceled shows in full. We were told that there is a new concept for television described as unlike anything currently done in pro wrestling, described as not cinematic, not goofy, nothing whatsoever done out of the range of reality but also keeping kayfabe. The goal is for the new ROH to try and fill a void that hardcore fans have asked for. The tapings will be a tournament concept, with eight shows being taped at the tapings this month. The new shows will start airing in September. With no fans in attendance, the results of the shows would be kept confidential until they air on television and streaming platforms. The protocol running the shows has been said to be very strict as well, including consulting with people involved in setting up some of the Nevada procedures for the return of MMA in that state. Hunter Johnston (Delirious) is back as the head of creative. Marty Scurll, who had been head booker, is technically on hiatus with no ROH responsibilities pending a human resources investigation of the claims made against him. Johnston has been the sole creative force as far as formatting, producing and organizing television since the investigation started.

In news that doesn’t directly relate to New Japan just yet, but has to be considered scary, the Tokyo Dome canceled its annual multi-date event, Furusato Matsuri, which takes place in January, due to COVID-19 concerns ... Pro wrestling has started having COVID issues, not close to the U.S., but the 8/13 New Japan show in Uwajima and a number of women’s wrestling shows from different companies were canceled this week. The New Japan crew was in Uwajima for a sold out house show (30 percent capacity usage). A lot of fans were already in the building when one of the wrestlers felt ill backstage and had a fever. Because of the risk involved regarding spreading to both the other wrestlers and perhaps the audience, the decision, based on the company’s guidelines, was to cancel the show and send everyone home with refunds. The wrestler was removed from the arena and two staff members drove him home to Tokyo with them putting up a plastic sheet in the car where he was to be taken to a COVID testing facility for a series of tests ... New Japan released a statement regarding the cancellation stating, “Unfortunately, one of the wrestlers scheduled to appear had developed a fever. The wrestler immediately undertook additional COVID-19 testing, but New Japan Pro-Wrestling is still awaiting results. Under NJPW’s Coronavirus guidelines, and acting in the best interests of health and safety for other wrestlers and fans in attendance, the decision was made to cancel tonight’s event.” The women’s shows were canceled due to Yuki Miyazaki, a woman wrestling with Pro Wrestling Wave, testing positive and she had appeared on a show this past weekend. Wave then postponed all of its upcoming shows including the 8/16 card at Korakuen Hall. The 8/9 Oz Academy show was canceled because Hiroyo Matsumoto, Yumi Ohka and Hiro’e, all scheduled, were on the Wave show. Hiro’e has appeared for a few groups in recent weeks but her retirement show was one of the cards Wave was running that has been canceled. Other promotions that had booked wrestlers who appeared on the Wave show that Miyazaki appeared on before she tested positive have also canceled dates. It should be noted how well, in comparison, Japanese groups including New Japan have been when it comes to transparency. When talent was even on a television show where somebody tested positive, they were held off even with no symptoms and the public was told immediately, and also informed the public of their testing process and that nobody would be allowed to perform until passing three different tests. On the women’s side, multiple shows this week were canceled because of talent appearing on a show where somebody tested positive, even if nobody on the shows themselves tested positive. Contrast that to the U.S. where you have far less transparency, and certainly no shows canceled based on the fact people were in contact with people who tested positive.

After a number of starts and stops that date back many years since the deals to purchase the tape libraries from companies like Evolve, ICW, Progress and wXw were done, content from those companies will start appearing on the WWE Network. Aside from a one-time live Evolve show in July 2019, “coincidentally” head-to-head with a live AEW show on B/R Live, WWE has not aired full shows based on the various tape libraries they had purchased. The original idea was to use the tape library and future shows from the promotions on a more expensive network premium tier that would be priced at $14.95. WWE had talked for years about it being imminent, but the decision was finally made this year to drop the idea, and instead launch a free tier, designed to get people to buy the regular $9.99 tier. Thus far, the marketing has proven to be a big success with paid subscribers up as much as 195,000 from the level they likely would have had if the free tier not been launched, hitting 1,690,000 on 6/30 ... CHIKARA was somewhat close to a deal to sell its library to the WWE but the talks ended in recent months.

The expectation was that New Japan would bring back its foreign stars for G-1, and that was the plan at one point. Right now plans are up in the air due to concern that the situation in the U.S. is worse than New Japan had expected, and with cases also rising in Japan, the question is how would the country take bringing Americans in. If Americans, or Will Ospreay, coming from the U.K., are in the tournament, they would have to arrive by 9/5 and do two weeks of quarantine. That also means they would have to be paid for six weeks rather than four weeks at a time when revenue will be cut back because it’s doubtful they’ll be allowed to run buildings at full capacity, and even if they can, the health restrictions for doing so will cost money.

CMLL announced on 8/12 that they were back to running shows starting on 9/4. The plan is to do weekly Friday night shows from Arena Mexico, that would stream as iPPVs on the Ticketmaster Live service, which is a new business Ticketmaster is getting into since it’s regular business is shut down with so few events. No price has been announced, but The Cubs Fan has reported other iPPVs on that site are ranging from 150 pesos ($6.75) to 400 pesos ($18.05). At this point, fans will not be allowed at the shows, but they are hoping for eventually being open at 30 percent capacity, which would be about 5,300 seats. But Mexico City has opened up movie theaters at 30 percent. The fourth show, on 9/25, will be the annual anniversary show. There will be no hair or mask matches on the show, because the income from the live gate will be small or non-existent, meaning it makes no sense for a big payoff to the loser of the hair or mask match. Instead the anniversary show is being built around all championship matches, with champions announced ahead of time as defending the titles, and then fans voting for who they want as challengers. They will be running more one fall singles matches, to go with tag team and trios matches.

Stardom founder and Executive Producer Hiroshi “Rossy” Ogawa, 63, was hospitalized this past week. It was said that he had a medical procedure which was said to be scheduled well in advance

Jimmy Havoc, Bea Priestley and Sadie Gibbs were all released on 8/13. AEW hasn’t been able to bring talent in from the U.K. due to quarantine and they’ve added a lot of new talent of late. Tony Khan said a few months ago that he didn’t want to release anyone during the pandemic but there would come a time that if people couldn’t get into the U.S., they would have to, plus at some point when you keep adding there would have to be cuts. Havoc was likely not being brought back for allegation reasons as he had been suspended. The other two were largely due to their inability to get into the country with nothing looking like that will change any time soon. Gibbs was brought in as a project, in the sense she wasn’t ready but she was a great athlete with a good look, and had only worked three matches for the company, none since October

Evil Uno will be doing two events this week to benefit the Canadian Cancer Society. Since the death of Phrank Morin, Capital City Championship Combat of Ottawa has done fund-raisers that have raised $270,000 for the Canadian Cancer society. This year they can’t run a benefit show, so Evil Uno, New Legacy Int. and IWTV Live will be doing an event on 8/15 with as live stream and Uno and some of his friends raising money. On 8/29 IWTV will be doing an all-day Fighting Back Marathon running shows from previous years and encouraging donations with 100 percent of all donations going to the Canadian Cancer Society

Fozzy will be doing a U.S. tour from 10/3 to 11/22. Right now the tour dates have no shows any Tuesday or Wednesday so it would fit around the Dynamite schedule. But there may need to be changes since when the original dates were put together, he’d fly into whatever city on Tuesday, do TV Wednesday, and fly back out Thursday. But now, tapings are Wednesday and Thursday every other week. After doing shows in Sturgis, SD and Minot, ND this past week, the Sturgis shows being scary because the Sturgis rally was thought to be a major risk of being the epicenter of COVID-19 spread. You had 250,000 people coming from all over the world, but mostly the U.S., the vast majority with the non-mask mentality and social distancing not existing, with the mess this country is in, it’s just not worth the risk, and then doing AEW days later. Jericho did isolation himself aside from performing and had to pass a COVID test (or tests) to just get into Daily’s Place to perform, but testing isn’t 100 percent accurate and really all talent in every promotion, for the sake of all other talent, because of the nature of the spread of the disease, should be as careful as possible because just flying in and being part of shows themselves has a risk factor, as is being shown constantly. Touring in October and November has its risks as well, as does everything, but Sturgis his past weekend looked to be a risk of a different level

Velveteen Dream returned on the 8/12 NXT show as the mystery man in the three-way. He had been off TV since more allegations were claimed about him regarding inappropriate behavior. WWE had kept him on television after the first set of allegations, which had what appeared to be audio proof of his voice, but those who made the allegations then disappeared from public view and it was thought to be a dead issue. Then a few weeks later, another person came out. WWE said nothing and Dream, in the middle of a main event program with Dexter Lumis against the Undisputed Era, disappeared and his name was never said again. He returned in a three-way match with Kushida and Cameron Grimes, where he neither won, nor got pinned, which leads him to a singles match with Finn Balor for next week. Dream after the match did a heel turn attacking Kushida after he had lost. Josh Fuller, who was the latter claim, said that he was disappointed when he saw Dream back on the show, and said that he came forward with his name and if there was a WWE investigation, he was never contacted

An interesting note from Brandon Thurston regarding the ten most searched WWE stars of 2020 on Google. This tells you all you need to know about Raw & Smackdown creating stars when the top ten, in order, are Cena, Undertaker, Reigns (off TV since March), Lesnar (off TV since WrestleMania), Big Show (likely more due to Netflix than WWE), Becky Lynch (off TV since April), Goldberg (off TV since April), Orton, Mysterio and Bliss

The key creative forces for 205 Live are said to be Adam Pearce and Dewey Foley, who is Mick’s son

WWE filed to trademark several names in recent weeks like Tony Nese, Drew Gulak, Jordan Devlin, Dexter Lumis, Pete Dunne, Mustache Mountain, James Drake, Zack Gibson, Indi Hartwell, Jake Atlas, Kacy Catanzaro, Karrion Kross, Pretty Deadly, The Hunt, Indus Sher, Rinku, Saurav, Grizzled Young Veterans, Imperium, Gallus and Legado del Fantasma. The Devlin name is notable because he was dropped by U.K. groups as part of the Speaking Out movement, and WWE dropped most of the same guys, but did not say anything about Devlin. This pretty much tells you they aren’t planning on dropping him. Devlin is still listed as co-cruiserweight champion even though his name hasn’t been mentioned on television in a long time and Santos Escobar has been referred to as champion with no mention of a co-champion

The most-watched shows on the WWE Network for this past week were: 1. WWE Timeline Daniel Bryan vs. Miz feud; 2. Rise and Fall of WCW; 3. SummerSlam 2019; 4. NXT for 8/5; 5. Best of Jeff Hardy; 6. The Horror Show at Extreme Rules 2020; 7. Raw Talk 8/10

WWE Ratings & AEW vs. NXT Ratings:

SPOILER: show

The 8/10 Raw was a mixed bag, as the viewer number stayed at the same range as last week and up from July, but in 18-49, the show did the third lowest number in its history. The show averaged 1,722,000 viewers and 0.47 in 18-49. Two episodes of Raw this year hit 0.46, which is the all-time record low. The total viewers were up 7,000 (0.4 percent) from last week, while 18-49 was down 7.8 percent. The basic story is told by the hours. The first hour did 1,811,000 viewers, the best first hour since 6/29. The second hour did 1,754,000 viewers, a nice hold, while hour three did 1,601,000 viewers. Hours two and three were both the third best since the start of July. The third hour dropped overall even with Bayley vs. Asuka, Raw Underground, Randy Orton vs. Kevin Owens and the Ric Flair/Orton angle. But men 12-49 and teenage women held well for all three hours. It’s better than usual. It was better than two weeks ago, when teenagers collapsed in hour three after the Asuka vs. Sasha Banks match, but not like last week when the Raw Underground boosted teenage interest in hour three by a huge amount. The drops from the first-to-third hours were 18.2 percent in women 18-49, 1.5 percent in men 18-49, 4.1 percent in teenage girls, there was an 8.0 percent gain in teenage boys and 12.4 percent over 50. The comparisons to last year look bad, but last year SummerSlam was two weeks earlier so this was the post-Summer Slam show we are comparing this with. The drop from last year same week was 36.9 percent overall, 48.9 percent in 18-49 and 66.7 percent in 18-34. Raw was fifth in 18-49

Smackdown on 8/7 did a 1.20 rating and 1,962,000 viewers (1.36 viewers per home, a better than usual number) and 0.49 in 18-49 (637,000 viewers) , up 3.6 percent in viewers, 1.7 percent in households and was down 1.1 percent in 18-49, as well as declined from 0.3 to 0.2 in 18-34. Smackdown was last in viewers, even though all the other networks had reruns, but first in 18-49 and tied for first in 18-34 ... On the network scoreboard, they were second in women 18-49, first in men 18-49 and last in 50+. The median viewer age was 54.5 years old. FOX as a network averaged 1,953,000 viewers and 0.5 in 18-49 in the same time slot last year, but that’s unique. They aired rerun programming, including an episode of BH90210 that had aired just a few days earlier. But the regular FOX programming did 1,181,000 viewers in the markets it aired and the other 772,000 viewers were from other sports events that played in selected local markets. In the half hours, the Firefly Fun house and Sheamus vs. Matt Riddle opened at 1.97 million viewers. The Dirt Sheet with Miz, John Morrison and Sonya Deville plus Cesaro vs. Lince Dorado did 1.87 million viewers. The Bray Wyatt, Alexa Bliss, Braun Strowman segment, Jeff Hardy vs King Corbin and Corbin vs. Sheamus did 2.00 million viewers. Stephanie McMahon with Bayley and Sasha Banks, Heavy Machinery vs. Miz & Morrison and the Retribution deal did 1.97 million viewers. That actually held up in the fourth half hour better than the show usually does.

The 8/12 numbers, across the board, had huge declines from last week’s high points. Every show was down with younger viewers, whether they be news or sports, and both wrestling shows took a hit. AEW did 792,000 viewers and an 0.32 in 18-49 (417,000 viewers), numbers that would be considered very good until last week’s huge numbers, but there were thoughts with the lineup and the Chris Jericho vs. Orange Cassidy match that there would be another increase. In particular, the 18-34 demo, which AEW won last week, dropped 37.8 percent, and fell below Raw, which it had beaten the week before and was favored to beat again with the strong lineup and Raw’s low number, with most of the drop being male, which points to going head-to-head with the NBA and NHL. AEW fell from No. 5 for the night in 18-49 ... This week it was No. 9, actually beating one NBA game and all four NHL playoff games, but losing to Real Housewives, the late NBA game, three news shows and two Discovery Network specials. Until the 9:19 p.m. second game start time, AEW beat both the early NBA game and NHL playoffs head-to-head in both overall viewers and 18-49. However, it was likely that level of competition played a factor in a comparison from last week. Overall AEW was down 12.1 percent in viewers and 9.5 percent in 18-49, but the big drop was in its best demo, 18-34. The news was worse for NXT, which dropped to No. 65 on the charts, doing 619,000 viewers and a 0.16 in 18-49 (206,000 viewers). That was a drop of 17.8 percent in viewers and 19.2 percent in 18-49. It was the fifth lowest viewer number of the year and tied for fifth lowest in 18-49. Because it finished out of the top 50, we don’t have the usual details in the breakdowns. In 18-49, AEW more than doubled NXT, doing almost triple in women 18-34 and also more than double in women 35-49. AEW did 65,000 viewers in Men 18-34 (down 39.8 percent from last week) to 39,000 for NXT (same as last week). In Women 18-34, AEW did 60,000 viewers (down 27.7 percent from last week) and NXT did 21,000 viewers (down 41.7 percent from last week). In Men 35-49, AEW did 182,000 viewers (down 0.5 percent from last week) and NXT did 98,000 viewers (down 19.0 percent from last week). In Women 35-49, AEW did 110,000 viewers (up 26.4 percent from last week) and NXT did 48,000 (down 18.6 percent) ... AEW did a 0.14 in 12-17 (down 30.0 percent), 0.18 in 18-34 (down 34.6 percent), 0.46 in 35-49 (up 8.1 percent) and 0.26 in 50+ (down 21.2 percent). The audience was 59.2 percent male in 18-49 and 54.2 percent male in 12-17, so the drops were more heavily male, pointing again to competing ports as the likely key culprit. Compared to the other sports on television, AEW was No. 2 in 18-49. The late night ESPN NBA game did 1,240,000 viewers and 0.48. The prime time NHL game on NBC Sports Network did 764,000 viewers and 0.31. The early NBA game, which went against the first 79 minutes of AEW, did 674,000 viewers and 0.26, so they beat the NBA in hour one. An earlier NHL game on NBC Sports Network did 626,000 viewers and 0.26. The late-night NHL game did 464,000 viewers and 0.20 on NBC Sports Network. An afternoon NHL game did 459,000 viewers and 0.18 in 18-49.

Regarding the 8/5 show, there were five minutes total of the 12-man tag that topped 1 million viewers, peaking at 1,050,000. From 8:09 to 8:19 p.m. during that match they were above 500,000 in 18-49, peaking at 554,000. The Jon Moxley interview did 1,012,000 viewers. The first minute of the Matt Cardona & Cody ring entrance did 1,024,000. Four minutes of Jericho-Orange Cassidy topped 500,000 in 18-49 and two minutes topped one million. The high point of the show, which was the attack on Cassidy, did 1,054,000

[Mr. Nerfect]

Why would anyone think that Jericho vs. OC would lead to an increase in ratings?

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets sponsored by Sonya Deville Appreciation Day:

Originally Posted by Observer Partially, if largely due to going head-to-head with the Democratic National Convention, Raw had its fourth lowest ever overall average viewing audience last night and tied for its fourth lowest number in 18-49. Raw averaged 1.64 million viewers and an 0.48 in 18-49. The audience was down five percent from last week, but the key demos saw 18-49 up two percent and 18-34 up 27 percent. The first two hours did decently well by the standards of the last month, but there was a big third hour drop going against convention coverage that had nearly 14 million viewers between the various stations. The 13 percent first-to-third hour drop was a little larger than usual. The third hour was the second least watched hour of Raw on a Monday night in history, beating only the third hour of the July 27 show. As compared with the same week last year, Raw was down 35 percent in viewers, 41 percent in 18-49, and 51 percent in 18-34 ... The three hours were: 8 p.m. 1.73 million viewers 9 p.m. 1.70 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.50 million viewers

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Every key demo fell in the third hour by double digits led by females 12-34 (36 percent), adults 18-34 (27 percent), and adults 18-49 (15 percent). Adults over 50 had the smallest drop by 12 percent but it was the continual pattern since Raw Underground began as adults over 50 watched the first two hours and tuned out in the third. The 12-34 audience losses are notable because that is the audience that Raw Underground did best with during Week 1 on August 3rd. Those audiences grew by 18 percent with men and 12.5 percent with women on August 3rd and fell by 16 percent and 36 percent respectively this week, and that cannot be attributed entirely to the competition.

Originally Posted by Observer New details have emerged in the attempted kidnapping of WWE wrestler Sonya Deville, real name Daria Berenato. Deville filed and was granted a petition for a temporary injunction against stalking violence on Monday, further detailing her incident with alleged stalker and would-be kidnapper Phillip Arnold Thomas II early Sunday morning at her Lutz, Florida, home ... A hearing will be held on August 27th to discuss putting a more permanent injunction into place. In the petition, Deville said that after she went to bed, she was awakened by a security alarm and alerted that a sliding door that led to her lanai was open. She then awakened her house guest, Amanda Saccomanno, better known as Mandy Rose. Deville went to check on the sliding door and said that as she was ensuring the door was locked, she looked up and saw Thomas. Deville said that she asked him, “What are you doing, what do you want?” at which point he began walking toward her. “That is when I realized this person was not here to rob me, he was there to hurt me,” Deville's petition said. According to a Tampa Bay Times report, Thomas was armed with a knife and pepper spray when he approached Deville. Deville then told Rose, “There’s a man in the house, we have to go,” before they fled the home and called 911. Deville said she later saw on home security footage that Thomas had followed her into the house, "but he thought I ran up the stairs, leaving me and my friend just enough time to escape.” Sheriff's deputies gave Thomas's name to Deville, who then searched her social media accounts for messages from him of which she found hundreds. “The nature of the messages from this account were obsessive, suicidal, idolizing, saying, ‘You are the only person I will ever love,’ " according to Deville's petition. She also described a second account that also appeared to belong to him which sent similar messages. One such message read, "I found your home address.” She said she received a message from the second account Sunday at 12:16 a.m., just hours before the incident at her home. Deville says that the last message read, “Look outside, baby, by your pool. I’m here. I’m gonna kill that little b---- you have inside with you.” Deville also described receiving messages from the second account that included threats of decapitating her friends and family, describing individuals by name. Deville wrote that she received explicit messages and one graphic sexual photo from the account.

Originally Posted by Observer Live English commentary is returning for NJPW's next major show. For the first time since the promotion resumed events, there will be live English commentary for Summer Struggle in Jingu on Saturday, August 29. NJPW announced that Kevin Kelly and Chris Charlton will be on commentary for the show

Originally Posted by PWI The Associated Press reported today that the United States Federal Government is seeking to seize the $1.5 million Madison, MS home of former WWE star Ted DiBiase Jr., the son of WWE Hall of Famer The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase. This stems from an audit into the Mississippi Department of Human Services after arrests were made in February 2020 in one of the largest embezzlement scandals ever in the history of that office, a scandal that saw direct connections the DiBiase wrestling family. Former WWE developmental talent Brett DiBiase (DiBiase Sr.'s son, DiBiase Jr.'s brother) was among those indicted several months ago as part of the scandal, which saw the former director of Mississippi's state welfare agency and five others charged in one of the biggest embezzlement scandals in the history of the office. While DiBiase Jr. is not accused of a crime, federal agents stepped in to prevent him from selling his home with today's AP article stating that sale was a week away from being completed. As PWInsider.com reported at the time, it was alleged that Brett DiBiase was given funds to go to a drug treatment facility in Malibu that was earmarked for Mississippi's welfare programs. According to documents, DiBiase was allegedly given the money as payment for classes that he didn't teach for drug abuse. The Associated Press later ran a follow-up story on the DiBiase family connection based on a revelation that WWE Hall of Famer Ted DiBiase's non-profit religious organization, Heart of David Ministries had reportedly received more than $2.1 million in welfare from the state of Mississippi after his son Brett began working for the State. The organization had received just $5,000 in grants in 2013, but pulled in $271,000 in welfare money, the same year Brett was hired as a senior official at the Mississippi Department of Human Services. DiBiase’s group received as much as $900,000 one year ... Where DiBiasel Jr.'s home may play into this is that the AP reported that the Mississippi Community Education Center also paid Brett DiBiase’s brother, former WWE star Ted DiBiase Jr., to provide training to human services employees in late 2018 and early 2019.

Link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fe...4wH?li=BBnbcA1

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling El Phantasmo joined Tama Tonga on his ‘Tama’s Island’ podcast ... In the early portions of the interview, El Phantasmo talked about his career in editing and being well-versed in various types of software. He worked for EA Sports and edited cartoons that were going up on the Netflix service. Phantasmo stated that he was making more money than some of the talents in NXT. “So I was so excited to do that, to go do Ring of Honor dark shows with them [Established Canadian wrestlers] and stuff while they were all killing it. So I gotta pretty bummed out when I couldn’t get across the border. It was like a gray area where it was like I wasn’t doing anything illegal but I couldn’t prove to them that I was coming back to Canada. So that kinda bummed me out with wrestling and then I ended up getting a job editing cartoons, and I did that for like seven years. Like making cartoons for Netflix and we worked on a couple Emmy-award winning shows which was cool, and my whole big thing was I was making more money than guys in NXT or anything like that. So it was really hard at that point to leave that to go literally live on someone’s couch in St. Louis or something, or however you wanna make it.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The following note is from Fightful’s ‘Fightful Wrestling Weekly’ column concerning Matt Hardy’s reaction to Sammy Guevara after Guevara threw a chair at his head which opened a wound on Hardy’s forehead: “We’re told the scene was ‘chaotic’ two weeks ago following the errant chair throw from Sammy Guevara. Nobody in AEW that we spoke to thought that the spot was intentional, but many thought that it was reckless. We heard that a usually mild-tempered Matt Hardy was heated after the incident and felt lucky that it wasn’t worse than it ended up being. There was heat on Guevara afterwards, even though he apologized, as the show was taped and the spot could have been done a number of different ways.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Both Colby Corino and Brandi Lauren were featured on Monday Night RAW on 8/17 as a part of RAW Underground.

Originally Posted by Fightful Tony Schiavone has given the details regarding his AEW contract. Schiavone signed a multi-year deal with AEW in August, though terms of the deal were not disclosed. Speaking to Ron Funches on Gettin' Better, Schiavone revealed the terms of the contract. "Right now, my life is great. I can't imagine, had I not signed with AEW, what my life would be like right now because I wouldn't have baseball, I would have to wait until football started to get some sort of revenue stream. It's saved me on a financial level, but also rekindled my love of professional wrestling that I never thought I would get back again, but it has. I started with them in September of 2019, I signed a three-year deal, which can go up to five years, with two more years added on to that. We signed an extension with WarnerMedia, and we're gonna be on another four years," he said.

Originally Posted by Fightful Cody revealed on Twitter recently that Madusa will be presenting AEW Women's Tag Team Tournament trophy. The finals will take place on the August 22 episode of Dynamite.

Originally Posted by Fightful Chris Jericho says Bray Wyatt understands the secret to longevity in show business. Chris Jericho is somebody who has survived 30 years in wrestling because of his ability to adapt and evolve his character along the way. From Lionheart, to Y2J, to Le Champion, Chris Jericho has continued to change with the times and he says that is how you survive in wrestling. On his way to Saturday Night Special Q&A session, Chris Jericho was asked about how he feels about “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt. Chris Jericho would say that he really enjoys seeing the character change and called Windham Rotunda, the man behind the character, a very smart man. “I love 'The Fiend.' I love Windham Rotunda, it's kind of a mouthful of a name. He’s such a great guy and super smart, creative. I think that is why he reminds me a little bit of me, he'll never be the same guy twice because that's the true secret of having longevity in show business. You can't be the same guy. Look at David Bowie or any great actor.”

Originally Posted by PWI There's been a lot of talk about the status of Ethan Page over the last few days after he tweeted out he was preparing to "print money" in January 2021. In asking around, we are told that his current deal expires towards the end of 2020, so he would be free come January. Obviously, like any other wrestler, he's going to see what he could command on the open market, but this doesn't necessarily mean he's exiting Impact as there's lot of time to come to a new deal. The belief is that Josh Alexander's current deal runs well into 2021, so if Page does exit, it would mean the end of The North, who have been one hell of a team.

Originally Posted by PWI The word is the Good Brothers' Talkin' Shop A Mania PPV did really well on FITE, so don't be surprised for a second one.

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc Since it's inception, AEW has shown that former WWE stars of varying levels of success are welcome in the company. This includes their current World Champion Jon Moxley, their current TNT Champion Cody Rhodes, Chris Jericho, FTR, and numerous others. Interest in AEW from current WWE stars may be more common than fans previously thought. It's being reported that "virtually everybody" on the WWE roster has reached out to AEW in some fashion to discuss a potential future with the company, according to Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio. He notes that this includes whether or not the company has interest in the particular WWE superstar and, if so, how much money that person could make signing with AEW. Of all the top WWE superstars on the roster, it was noted that Roman Reigns is the sole person that has never inquired about AEW's interest.

Makes sense a bunch of WWE talent would reach out to AEW especially in regards to money since that would help explain some of the deals WWE has been offering to certain talents solely to keep them in the company like your Riddick Moss and at the time, Anderson & Gallows team. Orton's teases of possibly joining AEW helped land him a very favorable and rich new deal with WWE.

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE Raw Underground has been a major talking point of the last couple weeks as WWE tries to change the complexion of its longest-running weekly episodic television series. Fightful has learned new information regarding the first round of tapings for the new concept. As of 1 AM EST during the first Raw tapings to feature the gimmick, WWE was still filming content for WWE Raw Underground. We're told that there were other hosts besides Shane McMahon suggested, and the "Underground" name had been thrown around for other projects in the past years. Much of the main roster had no idea what was even being filmed the day of.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Justin Kendall has a story on the recent sale of the rare Greg Valentine Rhythm ‘n’ Blues figures designed by Hasbro. A collector from Wales named Marc Reynolds recently purchased one of the three known figures of Valentine from Mark Bushey. Reynolds didn’t reveal the purchase price for the figure but noted that it topped his previous high mark of $13,000 for a figure while falling under the eBay price listing of $30,000 for the Valentine figure. Of the three known figures of Valentine, Matt Cardona owns one of them and detailed the history of this rare figure on The Major Wrestling Figure Podcast.

Link: https://wrestlingfigurenews.com/2020...sed-collector/ , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7hL_hMQ31U


TPWW Frontpage:

• ROH Announces Several Competitors and Rules for Pure Title Tournament
• WWE: Sonya Deville Stalker Update, Trademarks, Updated SD Ratings
• AEW Women’s Tag Team Cup Tournament Semifinal Results – Aug. 17, 2020 – Final Match Set
• WWE May Bring Back Talking Smack
• WWE Will Pay $450,000 for Two Month Stay at the Amway Center
• Goldberg Under WWE Contract for Two Matches Per Year for the Next Couple of Years

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Originally Posted by Observer Ring of Honor's return to television production will include the debut of a wrestler who was part of April's WWE releases. PWInsider reported today that former TNA World Heavyweight Champion EC3 is in Baltimore and will make his ROH debut at this week's TV tapings. Their report has been confirmed by our Dave Meltzer.

Originally Posted by PWI Paul Levesque met with reporters in a conference call this morning in advance of Saturday’s Takeover XXX super show on the WWE Network ... The first caller was Brian Fritz. He asked something I wanted to know, why is NXT not going to be in Thunderdome. HHH said with moving Smackdown, Raw and SummerSlam to Amway, he said as awesome as the Dome will be, it’s important for him to stay at Full Sail due to their great relationship. Never say never, but he’s happy right now. He said Friday will be debut Thunderdome and he misses the fans, they are the secret sauce. He can’t wait to get them back. They are everything to WWE. He said for the immediate future they are at Full Sail and they are still figuring everything out. Jason Powell asked about Velveteen Dream’s investigation, which I was also curious about. He said there is an online accuser who has not been contacted by WWE. He mentioned Nia Jax not being happy with how this has gone. HHH said they take it seriously, have looked into it and found nothing there. He said that they will always listen when new evidence is brought up but he already talked about it and he wanted to move on to other topics ... Comicbook.com asked about Renee Young and what she has meant to NXT and the company for 8 years. He said he won’t comment on her status but having her in WWE has been awesome. She has been a large part of what they do and he has loved working with her. The Wrap asked if running SummerSlam on a boat was an option. H said every option was looked into. He said most options didn’t have much of a chance. It’s all about doing it safely and things on a boat aren’t easy. He said when you see Thunderdome, you will get why they went that way. Nick Houseman asked about Lars Sullivan’s status. He said he didn’t even know that Lars was putting workout videos online. He said he has no update on Lars ... Dave Meltzer asked what the biggest lesson they have learned about producing shows in the pandemic and will there be a new head writer for NXT. He said they shift things around writing the show. He said it’s a group that include Shawn Michaels, Brian James and himself. He said everything goes through them. He said that there are lessons to be learned everywhere. He said that the biggest difficulty has been in the shifting of everything. COVID has made it all exponentially harder. He said you could have great stuff written and then you wait to see if it can be used ... Shawn Sap asked about haven’t talent being poached now that they have a USA slot too. He said that due to USA, they have made changes to the process of the talent being poached and you will see that in the draft when it returns later this year. He added that people can go brand to brand now and try different things. He said when he came into WWE and he would talk to Taker about people being in the company for 5 or 6 years, it was unreal to him that they could stay in one place that long. Now you have people in the company 10 years or more. He said with that, people now can go to other places in the company and change things up. All brands need to be supported now. Jim Varsallone asked what Karrion Kross brings to the table ... H said he has had his eye on Kross for a long time and he could see serious talent there. He could sense the X Factor in him, and that is king for any talent. He said that the learning curve is steep when one comes to the company, including the TV aspect. He said Kross is a sponge for the business. He is always learning. His improvement and growth rate has been huge since walking through the door, just like Keith Lee ... Justin Labar asked about the ratings for the Wednesday shows. What is important, demos, viewers, etc. What does he focus on? He said he’s focused on NXT. He said thank God people care about that stuff to the degree they do. At the end of the day it’s about his product and his fans. You put out the best product you can, hope fans want to watch and that’s it. He looks at numbers but not the way people do online. He said people can argue all they want, he doesn’t worry about that. He worries about NXT. He said he can’t wait for the fans to come back because they are the true barometer of what the fans love. The digital stuff has a lot of factors and negativity, so he likes the true reactions in the arenas. He can’t wait to get fans back to tell them what they want ... A British caller asked if this match could lead to more matches for Pat McAfee. He said we will see. He said Pat is an amazing athlete. He said he was an all around athlete but could monetize being a kicker so he did. He said Pat was always a WWE fan and HHH didn’t realize that when he first met him. He gets it now. He said Pat was not looking for a niche role, he wants to be a wrestler. H said he has watched Pat train and he is a natural and very gifted. H said that the reason that he is putting him in an NXT match, where it will be scrutinized, is that he has the ability to do it. He is also working with one of the most gifted guys on their roster in Adam Cole. He thinks it will be spectacular on both of their ends. Where that goes, it depends on Pat because he has a lot of irons in the fire.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling He was asked about a new head writer on NXT and wouldn’t address any specific people but noted it is “business as usual” and would appear to confirm that head writer Joe Belcastro is moving on, which had been out there and we had heard about. It is not known if Belcastro has already left or is leaving soon. Ringside News had reported on the story on Wednesday.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Paul Levesque was a guest on the Bill Simmons Podcast to discuss WWE navigating through the pandemic and promoting the launch of their shows at the Amway Center this Friday. *He said the internet makes their jobs more difficult and it’s all opinions that are out there, it’s a subjective business and talent can selectively find an opinion that benefits them ... *He said the most important thing is having a wealth of talent coming into the company and are as much a content company as they are a wrestling one *On AEW, he said the strength of WWE is their ability to pivot and Vince McMahon will put the right people around him. He didn’t directly speak about AEW and more so used the question to discuss Vince McMahon’s history and ability to adapt *Levesque noted when it comes to new stars it helps when the old one leaves citing Hulk Hogan leaving the company in 1993 – this is a point we have discussed where talent gets on top and can be there for years without other options. It was helpful for Hogan that Bruno Sammartino was largely retired by his run, that Hogan left for Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, and then they left to usher in Steve Austin’s ascent with The Rock. *He completed agreed with Simmons that Raw should be two hours and that it’s obvious adding it is so hard to write that third hour of Raw *Regarding their on-screen product reflecting the world and its problems, he said if you go too far today you alienate people and can’t push the boundaries as they once did and cited films from ten years ago you couldn’t make and jokes that wouldn’t fly today *They had a discussion about the dynamic of working for Vince McMahon while he’s also family and a grandfather to his children. He said if there was ever an issue so significant and he had to choose, he would walk away from working with McMahon if it would affect the family dynamic ... *He will see if the right scenario presents itself but didn’t completely close the door on wrestling again but prefers helping the younger talent than doing it himself, he said he will be fine if he doesn’t wrestle again

Originally Posted by Observer After unsuccessfully challenging for Kenny Omega & Hangman Page's Tag Team titles on Dynamite last week, Jurassic Express have fallen out of the top five in AEW's tag team rankings ... The Young Bucks moved up to third after defeating The Dark Order last week, while Evil Uno & Stu Grayson have fallen to fifth after that loss. Rhodes & Marshall are back into the rankings at fourth. They defeated Jack Evans & Angelico on AEW Dark last week. The men's and women's singles division rankings are unchanged from last week ... This week's full rankings are listed below: Men's division -- Champions: AEW World Champion Jon Moxley (15-0 singles record in 2020, 21-2-1 overall record), TNT Champion Cody (18-1 singles record in 2020, 26-6-1 overall record) MJF (8-0 singles record in 2020, 13-2 overall record) Lance Archer (11-1 singles record in 2020, 11-1 overall record) Brian Cage (6-1 singles record in 2020, 6-2 overall record) Brodie Lee (5-1 singles record in 2020, 8-1 overall record) Scorpio Sky (7-2 singles record in 2020, 24-11 overall record) Women's division -- Champion: Hikaru Shida (16-1 singles record in 2020, 21-7 overall record) Nyla Rose (7-2 singles record in 2020, 14-6 overall record) Big Swole (6-3 singles record in 2020, 8-8 overall record) Penelope Ford (6-4 singles record in 2020, 8-7 overall record) Abadon (4-1 singles record in 2020, 4-1 overall record) Britt Baker (4-4 singles record in 2020, 13-8 overall record) Tag team division -- Champions: Kenny Omega & Hangman Page (12-0 tag team record in 2020, 29-9 overall record for Omega, 21-10 overall record for Page) FTR (5-0 tag team record in 2020, 5-2 overall record for Dax Harwood, 5-2 overall record for Cash Wheeler) Best Friends (13-4 tag team record in 2020, 21-15 overall record for Trent Barreta, 20-13 overall record for Chuck Taylor) The Young Bucks (6-2 tag team record in 2020, 19-11 overall record for Nick Jackson, 19-11 overall record for Matt Jackson) The Natural Nightmares (6-1 tag team record in 2020, 14-8 overall record for Dustin Rhodes, 9-11 overall record for QT Marshall) The Dark Order (8-2 tag team record in 2020, 13-5 overall record for Evil Uno, 14-6 overall record for Stu Grayson)

Originally Posted by PWI The WWE Network has quietly removed a number of older WWE documentaries from the streaming service, PWInsider.com has confirmed. The titles that have been removed are: 2005's Bret Hart - The Best There Is, the Best There Was, the Best There Ever Will Be 2010's Hart and Soul: Hart Family Anthology. 2010's WWE Top 50 Superstars. 2011's Greatest Rivalries: Bret vs. Shawn. 2013's Bret Hart: The Dungeon Collection. 2019's The Most Powerful Families in Wrestling. The documentaries that have been pulled all seem to have one common, obvious factor - WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart. As previously reported on PWInsider.com, while WWE has ownership of the Stampede Wrestling library, Bret Hart owns the rights to his matches from that same library, which he purchased from his parents before their passing. This issue has led to the WWE Network pulling complete episodes of Stampede Wrestling TV in 2015 shortly after they were uploaded to the WWE Network. Since that time, WWE has only utilized matches from Stampede that do not feature Bret Hart appearing and the two sides have never come to an agreement on the usage of Hart's matches from that time period. There is no word what led to the documentaries pulled, but if those documentaries featured Bret Hart content from Stampede (which in the case of some of them, was certainly the case), they may have been yanked from WWE's streaming service for that reason. If those titles return with some slight re-editing, that would certainly prove the Stampede footage theory.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE sent out invitations to members of their mailing list, offering them a chance to take part in a live WWE Thunderdome test tomorrow. For fans who have signed up for the invite, WWE will present a match for them to test the Thunderdome experience, promising they will be the first to take part. It does not appear the match will be broadcast live and it will just be an in-house test for the company. The test is scheduled for 5:15 PM EST.

Originally Posted by PWI As noted last night, WWE made the first Virtual Fan opportunities available for this week's Friday Night Smackdown broadcast last night via WWEThunderDome.com. We are told by sources that they hit capacity within minutes. The virtual fan slots for Sunday's Summerslam PPV will be made available later this week, followed by Monday's Raw slots, and so on.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling For those in Canada, AEW Dynamite will now be available at 6 pm Eastern this Saturday on TSN.ca and on the TSN app. It will also air on TSN2 at 10 pm Eastern that night.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling NJPW Strong will now be available on Fite TV each Friday night at 10 pm Eastern in addition to airing on New Japan World. The Fite TV version is available for $5.99 U.S.

For the type of shows NJPW Strong and the Lion's Break Collision series have been so far, $6 per episode seems a bit high especially since that would be $24 for a typical month's worth of shows.

Originally Posted by Fightful Buff Bagwell, real name Marcus Bagwell, has been involved in an accident that resulted in serious injuries. The Cobb County Police Department Selective Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP) Unit is currently investigating a traffic collision that took place on the afternoon of August 16 in Georgia. According to the report from the STEP Unit, the 50-year-old Bagwell lost control of his Chevrolet Tahoe going through a curve. Bagwell then collided into a free-standing bathroom at the Cobb County Transit (CCT) bus station. He was transported to Wellstar Kennestone Hospital with serious injuries.

Originally Posted by EWrestling.com Fightful Select reports that Riddick Moss was on the verge of getting a big push in the WWE prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. As noted, he took a break from WWE TV due to the pandemic. The reason for that was due to him caring or a family member that is a higher risk for the virus due to cystic fibrosis. Former RAW executive director Paul Heyman made the decision to bench Moss, to avoid any possible heat of Moss making the decision himself. It was added that Heyman was very high on Moss at the time.

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• Video of the WWE ThunderDome Set Being Built
• Renee Young Leaving WWE
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Originally Posted by Observer Running unopposed with AEW Dynamite preempted due to the NBA playoffs, WWE NXT posted its strongest viewership since November on Wednesday night. Last night's NXT, which was the go-home show for TakeOver XXX, averaged 853,000 viewers. That's up from the 619,000 the show drew last week. The rating in the 18-49 demo was a 0.24, up from last Wednesday's 0.16. While Dynamite didn't air last night, NXT did face competition from the NBA playoffs, NHL playoffs, and news coverage of the Democratic National Convention. This was NXT's best viewership number since the November 20 edition of the show averaged 916,000 viewers. After ranking 65th in all cable programs in the 18-49 demo last Wednesday, NXT rose to 23rd in that metric last night. The rating in the 18-34 demo was a 0.09, down from the 0.11 that NXT drew two weeks ago. That would seemingly indicate that much of AEW's younger audience migrated to news or sports coverage rather than head over to USA Network to check out the other Wednesday wrestling show. This week's Dynamite will air on Saturday at 6 p.m. Eastern time or immediately following the NBA playoffs. The TakeOver XXX pre-show is starting at 6:30 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, with the main card then beginning at 7 p.m. Eastern.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Since NXT finished out of the top fifty cable programs last week, we cannot compare all the key demos. However, looking at the ratings from the August 5th episode of NXT, the lack of AEW competition didn’t translate to increases among each group. The largest loss was with women 12-34 which were down 44 percent from two weeks ago registering a 0.05 this week. The other big loss was with adults 18-34 that was down 27 percent from two weeks ago. The largest gain compared to August 5th was with men 18-49 that grew by 28 percent followed by adults 25-54 increasing by 25 percent. In the 18-49 demographic NXT was up 20 percent compared to two weeks ago.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE star Sonya Deville testified this afternoon in Tampa, Florida at a pre-trial hearing for Phillip Arnold Thomas II, who was arrested in Sonya Deville's Florida home early Sunday morning. Thomas has been charged with Aggravated Stalking, Armed Burglary of a Dwelling, Attempted Armed Kidnapping, and Criminal Mischief. He has been assigned a public defender and invoked his fifth amendment right to remain silent. Thomas was not present in the court room but was seen via video monitor from another room, where he was handcuffed and alone. This hearing was to determine whether Thomas would be held without bail prior to his trial. Deville recounted that the evening Thomas invaded her home, she was sleeping in her master bedroom when her alarm went off. Mandy Rose was sleeping in the guest bedroom and Deville woke her up to tell her the alarm went off, then turned off the alarm and entered her kitchen, turning on the lights. She looked outside a sliding door that she usually used to enter the house and saw a man dressed in black wearing a mask outside. She asked him, "What the f*** are you doing?" but he just looked at her, with a deadpan expression on his face, and approached. At that point, Deville knew he wasn't trying to rob or burglarize the home, but instead was there for her. She ran out of the kitchen to the guest room, grabbed Rose and they ran to the garage with Rose's cell phone and car keys. The garage was down the hallway from the guest bedroom, so if they went the other way, they'd have run back towards the intruder. Deville jumped in Rose's car to drive but couldn't get it to to start because she was so freaked that her foot was on the ignition, not the brake. Rose was able to press the manual start button so the engine revved and they pulled out and drove through the neighborhood as Rose called 911. They returned to the house after they were advised a deputy had arrived. The deputy asked them to wait and when backup arrived, the authorities entered the home through the garage and returned several minutes later with the suspect, who Deville identified as the same man she saw and the same man who was seen on the video monitor. Deville testified that the man had never had permission to enter her home and that she had no communication with him before the night he invaded her home. They showed video footage of the incident, which saw Deville looking through her doors and then running out of the kitchen. A man dressed in black entered the house and followed the same path, exiting out the same kitchen door Deville fled through. During her appearance, Deville was presented with photos of items that were not in her home until Thomas broke in. Deville was then asked about checking her Instagram messages after authorities gave her Thomas' name. In searching his name, she testified that she found hundreds of messages from him threatening her life, the life of her baby niece and threatened to decapitate her ex-girlfriend. She testified that he also threatened to sexually assault her and that the messages were sent over a period of many, many months. He sent messages under his first name using his own face as a picture, a second account using the name "Phil" with no photo and a third account using another name. Deville stated that the last message she received came shortly before he invaded her home and stated that she should look outside because he was at her pool and he was going to "kill that b**ch" who was with her. Deville was then presented with copies of the messages, which she said she recognized. Thomas' attorney tried to object that the messages could not connect the defendant but the State argued that the last message placed Thomas at the scene of the crime and that further testimony from a detective could link those together. One of the messages specifically noted Deville's home address, which also strengthened the State's claim ... Deville testified that one of the messages featured a threat that demanded she needed to have sex with the defendant or he would release her address to the world. He also threatened the lives of every living relative in her family, including her mother, her sister and her nieces as well as Deville's ex-girlfriend. His messages claimed that he could walk next door to her house, that he could kill people to show her he was serious and sent her messages stating "Tick Tock when will the fun begin?" She testified that he threatened to come find her at a WWE event and it wouldn't matter if she was backstage, that he would get to her baby niece and that he would force her to perform sex acts on him and would force her to do so in the WWE Performance Center. She testified that her ex-girlfriend was so frightened by messages she received, she deactivated her own Instagram. She testified that she received a message that the only way to save her family from hard was to have sexual relations with him - and that he was coming to see her in person, wearing a mask. She testified that he sent a message saying that since she was ignoring him, he was coming to see her to talk to her in person, warning her that he was going to "get what I want" and would make her regret the fact that he was being ignored by her. He also sent her a message stating that he would be attending Summerslam with her as her boyfriend. Deville had to explain what Summerslam was and that it was the second biggest event of the year for the company and that she and Mandy Rose were slated to wrestle against each other on the show. At this point, the livestream covering Deville's testimony ended.

Originally Posted by PWI FITE issed the following: FITE Announces the Appointment of Nick Aldis as Special Correspondent for the Global Digital Brand THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 2020----- FITE, the premier global digital platform for sports and entertainment, announced today that Nick Aldis, businessman and Pro Wrestling superstar, would add an additional title to his resume, serving in the role as a Special Correspondent for the company. Aldis has a deep background in media duties which have served him well both in his professional life as well as in the wrestling arena. Nick Aldis is a Pro Wrestler, Broadcaster and Author. In his 15-year career he has performed all over the world and held multiple championships including the prestigious NWA World's Heavyweight Championship, which he currently holds. Outside of wrestling he has appeared on stage and television as both an actor and broadcaster. As a writer he was the longest running columnist for Fighting Spirit Magazine (2008-2018) and his first book, The Superstar Body, was published in 2015 ... Mr. Aldis’ initial efforts will include the creation of exclusive content for FITE involving video conversations with key sports stars. Stay tuned - If it Happens, it’s on FITE!

Originally Posted by PWI New Japan Pro Wrestling announced the following: Gabriel Kidd suffers neck injury; to miss Korakuen events Gabriel Kidd has suffered a neck injury and will not be able to compete on Korakuen Hall cards on August 26 and 27. Changes have been made to both cards accordingly.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer discussed USA Network preempting the September 2nd edition of WWE NXT for NHL Playoff Hockey ... The timing would seemingly benefit AEW, as their first opportunity to host Dynamite unopposed on a Wednesday will also be their “go-home” show ahead of All Out on September 5th. Meltzer also stated that this episode was originally to be followed by a one-hour countdown special, however it appears that special will now be condensed to 30min and will air prior to The Buy-In on Saturday, September 5th and 5:30pm ET.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Deadspin’s Julie DiCaro has published an article compiling the various public accusations made against Patrick Clark (a.k.a. Velveteen Dream), along with public responses from Clark and Paul Levesque over recent weeks. The hashtag #FireVelveteenDream was trending during the airing of last night’s WWE NXT, which featured Velveteen Dream vs. Finn Balor in the main event.

Link: https://deadspin.com/wwe-allows-alle...nt-1844787991/

Originally Posted by Fightful A new company has joined the fray. LIDET Entertainment, former owner of Pro-Wrestling NOAH, has announced the formation of a new promotion called GLEAT. According to the promotion, GLEAT is a coined word in which GREAT is combined with L, the acronym for LIDET ENTERTAINMENT. Former wrestler and MMA fighter Kiyoshi Tamura will be the Executive Director of the promotion. Tamura competed in UWF, UWFi, RINGS and PrideFC. Tamura said about his vision for the promotion, "My ideal is this. Martial arts pro wrestling, The UWF. That’s what I want to make. I want to leave UWF for future generations. I want to keep it as history." NOSAWA Rongai joins the as Chief Strategy Officer, Kaz Hayashi joins as Chief Technical Officer and Riki Choshu will be "an observer."

Originally Posted by Fightful At SummerSlam 2019, Finn Balor was "murder" by the debuting 'Fiend' Bray Wyatt, disappearing off WWE television in the process. Joining Dan Matha on Spark in the Dark, Balor explained why he needed that time away last summer and into the fall. "I had been working from 2000 until last August, which is 19 years without taking a break unless it was an injury. Even with the shoulder injury, I worked harder when I was out than when I was fit because I was doing rehab three times a day to get back and get going. The stress of the injury and the pressure to come back, that felt harder than when you're actually working. When you're working, you're in the zone and going and going. I had been going for 19 years straight and I came to a point where I needed a break, not just physically, it was more mentally to be by myself and be away from the boys. I love the boys, but it gets to a point where it's just too intense. When you're around them all the time, you just need some space. I needed space from everything; the business, bookers, writers, schedules, everything. It had become too intense. I was turning into a different person that I didn't like. I was snapping at people, I wasn't giving people time in conversations. I was turning into a bitter dick and I could feel it building and building. Thankfully, the company gave me some time to get my head straight and get better. When I came back, the idea was pitched around to go to NXT," he said. Balor returned to television on October 2, 2019, returning to NXT to confront Adam Cole. Balor said moving back to NXT has been great for him as he was working 172 matches a year and traveling, but in NXT he does only 50 matches a year and doesn't have to travel as much.

Originally Posted by Fightful Daniel Cormier walked away from MMA following his loss to Stipe Miocic at UFC 252 on Saturday. Cormier's next move is unknown, but there has long been talk of him joining WWE in some capacity, even when he was an active fighter. Speaking to Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated, Cormier once again floated the possibility of stepping inside the squared circle. “That’s not my retirement,” said Cormier. “That would be a vacation. I’d love a Royal Rumble moment where I throw a dude into the ropes and I clothesline his ass over the top, or I dropkick somebody over the top rope, and I’ll take my bump and get thrown out. Let me chase somebody down, clothesline him with a Bradshaw-Layfield clothesline from hell and eliminate somebody from the Royal Rumble, then throw me over the top. Pro wrestling? I’m all in.” Cormier has had offers to do work with WWE, but not in an in-ring capacity. He revealed in December that he had one offer to work on WWE Backstage and another offer to be part of the press conference between Brock Lesnar and Cain Velasquez leading up to Crown Jewel 2019.

Originally Posted by Fightful Sammy Guevara returned to AEW Dynamite on July 22 after serving a suspension for inappropriate comments made towards Sasha Banks in 2016. During his suspension, Guevara underwent sensitivity training, which he completed prior to his return. Appearing on AEW Unrestricted, Guevara discussed his return to the company. "The first day back, I didn't know how people were going to be with me and everybody was very positive and nice to me. I appreciate you guys because you welcomed me back," he said to hosts Tony Schiavone and Aubrey Edwards. Guevara was dressed as Serpentico for his return, helping the Inner Circle pick up a victory in multi-man tag team action. "[Chris] Jericho told me he had an idea for me coming back, I didn't ask too many questions, I was just like, 'Okay, cool.' I was more working on doing the training. When I finished it, they were like, 'Cool, we'll send you the flight.' I didn't know what I was doing until probably an hour or two before the show started. Someone was like, 'you're going to be Serpentico.' 'What?' That was my own fault for not asking questions, but I also trust Jericho, the genius that he is, whatever it's going to be, it's going to be great. I think it went pretty well," he said.

TPWW Frontpage:

• September 2 NXT Episode to Air on Another Night Because of the NHL
• AEW Will Allow Limited Fans at Future Shows Starting Next Week
• Updated NXT TakeOver: XXX Card

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

WWE moves into a new location for television on 8/21, with the new schedule going live every Monday and Friday night from the Amway Center in Orlando, which will be renamed the Thunderdome, after the Mad Max movie and not the laughing stock of a WCW television show two decades back. WWE will basically be the building’s only client through 10/30, doing shows with no fans, but following the NBA technology in using simulated fans to enhance the presentation. This will be key because WWE externally has largely blamed its ratings declines, largely under the age of 50 and extensively under 35, on the setting. And no doubt some of that is true, but the declines of Raw and Smackdown, by percentage, are greater than those of NXT, in a similar setting, and far greater than AEW ... One person with the company familiar with the situation said that from the moment they started doing shows from the Performance Center, the feeling was that they had to get out of the Performance Center, and this was before ratings took a hit which did lag a few weeks ... “The NBA has shown the way,” said one person on the inside. “The moment the NBA pulled the Disney deal, and then the moment they went on TV with the concept, I’m sure Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn said, `that’s the answer" ... The company is billing this as that all the television shows with the new screens that will show fans in the stands reacting and the special effects in the arena will make all the television shows have a WrestleMania feel. There are those who have said the belief is that the ratings will readjust to February levels within a month, although Raw is generally hit hard by the NFL. Smackdown actually should increase in theory during football season because FOX will promote the shows on its highest rated programming period of the year. But it’s all theoretical because without getting new characters over and better storylines, the gains will be short-lived. WWE did tremendous promotion for its move to HD as a game changer, yet that ended up with virtually no ratings increase at the time. But with the ability to do better entrances with more special effects, the wrestlers they choose to be top guys will be enhanced and look more like top guys. Having fans on screens and real crowd noise should also be beneficial in getting talent over. It’s not perfect, but nothing will be and, at worst, this will be a significant improvement in atmosphere and hopefully at least stymie the ratings decline if not lead to a reverse. Fans will be shown , but the nature of this will be people there more to get attention on themselves than truly reacting. By doing so, they will be attempting to do what they perceive the company wants as a way to get more screen time. The positive from WWE is they will react, and they’ll likely react the way the company wants as opposed to the mob mentality which takes the show where they want to take it, and is dead during matches they don’t care about ... While WWE has had endless excuses in the last few years for declining numbers, it has really not become a major issue outside the TV partners until recent weeks when it was clear stock analysts were telling the company that they need action, and pointed to AEW & NXT’s performances during the pandemic with the belief it can’t be all blamed on that. So they are under the gun for movement in a positive direction ... WWE is paying the Amway Center approximately $450,000 to use the building for more than two months for 23 televised shows. That’s a great deal for WWE, even though it’s obviously going to be a far more expensive production per show both between all the changes and also being live every Monday and Friday. The building would be unused because the NBA is playing in a bubble and no other arena sports leagues and concerts are running buildings that large right now. WWE will likely do three PPV shows from the location, with confirmed dates of SummerSlam on 8/23, Backlash on 8/30, and a 9/27 Clash of Champions PPV show. The rest of the PPV schedule comes after the end of the Amway contract on 10/30. The contract can also be renewed based on the state or the world and the ability of touring acts and sports teams to run arena events with fans.

SummerSlam at press time is listed as an eight-match show. There will likely be matches added in the final few days, perhaps off the go-home Smackdown show as well as added pre-show bouts. The show is scheduled to start with the pre-show at 5 p.m. Eastern, so we’re talking five to six hours most likely. The line-up has Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton for the WWE title in a significantly huge match as far as the future direction goes. Orton winning, leading to a title defense against Edge at WrestleMania was an idea on the board. But others have been behind McIntyre with the idea the company needs a different star rather than someone who has been around a long time in the top spot, and McIntyre has been protected strongly. But this is one result that will tell a lot about the currently planned future direction. Orton vs. Edge could easily take place without the title at stake, and there is a draft coming that will shake up potential challengers since McIntyre has run through most of the Raw heels aside from Orton, although the company has been very careful to protect both Seth Rollins and Bobby Lashley in booking.

Coming back seven days later with Backlash is only the second time in company history they’ve done two PPV shows with such a rapid turnaround. This was tried in 1991 as an experiment and the experiment at the time was deemed unsuccessful and never done again. The atmosphere today as far as streaming vs. individually purchased PPV makes it completely different. One would think, as they did in 1991, there will be major controversy surrounding the finish of one of the main events and thus it will be brought back right away. The only thing announced thus far is Bayley & Banks defending the women’s tag titles. Asuka & Shayna Baszler beat Bayley & Banks in a non-title match on the 8/17 Raw show, which would seem to make them the favorites for that spot, especially if it’s a main event level match as other challenging teams would be lower on the card. They are also doing an angle where Baszler wants Asuka to beat Banks and then she challenges Asuka. Baszler vs. Asuka was a direction headed for title matches when Becky Lynch left due to pregnancy, but things changed in creative.

WWE on-air personality Renee Young (Renee Paquette Good, 34), gave notice last week that she was leaving the company. Good had two deals, an employee deal with WWE that allowed her to give notice when she wanted, and a second contract with FOX for WWE Backstage, which was canceled when the show was canceled. With the latter contract being canceled she was able to leave without any obligations. She will be finishing up with the company this coming week as she agreed to work through SummerSlam weekend. There aren’t a lot of details but Good did contract COVID-19 during the recent WWE outbreak. It was known at the time that she went public with it without the company’s knowledge. It was also noted to us that none of the company’s top officials talked to her after they had knowledge she had it until several days had passed. Another WWE source noted that others who got it at the same time had similar stories, but Good was the only one who went public without the company’s knowledge. Exactly what she does next is anyone’s guess. We had known years ago that ESPN had interest in her, and some in WWE had thought at the time she might leave the company for ESPN, but that didn’t happen. FOX is also high on her, and she may do some things for them here and there. From an AEW standpoint, even though Jonathan Good (Jon Moxley), her husband, is AEW champion, we were told AEW was unaware she was leaving WWE until after the news broke. This is not to say that is or isn’t an option and what her legal limitations and time frames would be. Of late she’s been working on a cookbook. One person close to the situation said it’s inevitable she hosts something or does something for AEW but there is not deal at the present time for anything. Everyone in the company knows her. But it probably won’t be soon since her WWE announcing deal does have a serious non compete clause. Outside of wrestling she already has some cool stuff that has been presented to her. Her interest would include anything sports, talk shows, comedy shows or podcast shows among likely other things. Before she got into broadcasting she had moved to California from Toronto for acting so that is part of her background that isn’t as well publicized, and did some minor acting roles.

On the new Rey Mysterio deal, it is believed to be for three years

Regarding the current creative situation, Bruce Prichard’s role isn’t really driving creative. Ed Koskey drives creative. Prichard oversees the team, implements and executes Vince McMahon’s orders and makes sure other departments are notified about plans so merchandising and network partners and promotional people are in the loop. Such as ideas like this is the date a guy is returning and we need new merchandise for him ready. He also deals with USA and FOX, although Kevin Dunn has stepped in a lot on that and Nick Khan may end up doing that as well

Joe Belcastro, who had been the head writer of NXT and considered by some the No. 2 guy in creative behind Paul Levesque, has left the company. Only a few people knew about but for Levesque it didn’t come out of nowhere and he wasn’t caught off guard. Johnny Russo and Gabe Sapolsky are believed to have more influence now. Levesque on the conference call this week said that he, Brian James and Shawn Michaels were the key guys when it came to NXT creative decisions and didn’t address anything about a new head writer. Another person noted to us that Belcastro was talented, but that this isn’t a world changer and things are pretty much the same with Russo picking up match of the slack

The 150 fans allowed in at the 8/12 AEW tapings at Daily’s Place was part of a long-term project to ease into having fans. They are now upping crowds to 500, with the goal of if that goes well, upping them later to 750, and for the first time since the pandemic, one of the major U.S. promotions is selling tickets for a show. The idea is to keep the fans a deck away from the talent that is stationed at ringside and they will be kept in groups with friends and family that are socially distant from each other. Basically, there will be the wrestlers on the floor, the 100 section of the stadium will be left empty and fans will be allowed in the 200 section and above. They announced the 8/27 tapings, which will be the Thursday live show, the company’s next event, that they would be selling 500 tickets. Tickets will be put on sale on 8/21. This would be the first time the company has put tickets on sale for a show to the public since early March. If all goes well, the idea would be to up that to 750 tickets but right now the idea isn’t to top 750 any time soon although there are NFL teams looking at 15,000 to 25,000 when the season starts in a few weeks. And if 750 goes safely than they may increase down the line. Even with 1,500, or just under 30 percent capacity, it would become difficult to keep groups far apart from each other ... At this stage, there is always risk involved, but being outdoors with social distancing and if the mask wearing is enforced (from reports from those at the last tapings it was), and with the low capacity you are mitigating risks to a degree, but it’s not a no-risk situation . If it was indoors, you couldn’t pull it off as safely, nor could you do so if you were doing a 25 percent capacity. At some point there are going to be decisions made regarding the nature of touring. The one thing that has helped the bottom line a lot is doing two weeks at a time as opposed to live weekly. Of course, with that many paying fans, the nature of the results getting out for the taped shows is inevitable, and probably immediate. The plan right now is to continue taping two weeks at a time most of the time, limiting production costs as well as travel and its risks since a large percentage of the roster is on the West Coast. It’s the decision right now that makes the most economic sense ... Tony Khan had studied the Warrior Wrestling and Game Changer shows with fans in recent weeks. Warrior Wrestling put more than 500 people in a high school football stadium that was significantly smaller than Daily’s Place. He felt in a 5,500-seat building they had the space to do it safely and in particular really liked what he saw of how Warrior Wrestling handled things at their show in Chicago

New Japan announced that the Jingu Stadium show on 8/29 would have live English language commentary with Kevin Kelly and Chris Charlton. This will be unique because Charlton will be there, but Kelly will be broadcasting from the U.S. WWE has been doing something similar with NXT since the start of the pandemic with Mauro Ranallo and Beth Phoenix each calling the matches from home with a third person live in the building, formerly Tom Phillips and now Vic Joseph. Most of those shows have been taped and not live which gives some leeway, but they have done live Takeover shows, and will once again this coming week.

John Bedoya, who was the second Ring of Honor champion under the name “Xavier, The All-around best,” passed away on 8/16 at the age of 42. Details of his death remain a mystery, past he had been in contact with family members the night before and that this came out of nowhere. Bedoya, who had wrestled very little since 2011, was looking at coming back this year with ROH. He had been booked on a then vs. now show in March in Las Vegas that was canceled due to the pandemic. While not announced, plans were for him to wrestle some with ROH going forward.

NEW JAPAN: We’ve heard nothing new in some time regarding U.S. television. One person outside of New Japan but with knowledge of the current landscape of broadcasting and streaming and interest in pro wrestling said that linear TV networks right now are freaking out due to declining ad dollars, plus cable and the dish carriers are trying to lower the carriage fees on channels that specialize in sports since they are so high and so much of sports going forward is so iffy, and it was noted almost all programming and development executives are scared to lose their jobs over a failure and are less apt not to take risks than any time, and a product unproven on U.S. television would be considered a big risk, especially when the declines of WWE are so well known and people don’t see this as people wanting a different form of pro wrestling, they see it as wrestling, whether AEW has had success or not, is a declining television product

The state of Mexico, which surrounds the Distrito Federal (Mexico City itself is part of the Distrito Federal) is allowing a number of places, listed as gyms, auditoriums and places where sports of cultural activity are practiced, to open at 30 percent capacity. Everyone is going with the idea that auditoriums means Lucha Libre events, although the commission has not made a statement on this.

Regarding Jericho and the Sturgis concert, there were a few measures put in place in that Jericho took four different COVID tests in the days leading up to the show. It wasn’t optimum playing several shows, especially since Minot, ND, when it was booked, looked like the safest place in the U.S., but by the time the show came, it was no longer the case. And Sturgis could have been scary and we still don’t know the ramifications of the bike rally and won’t for a few more weeks, but just having the rally with so many people at this point seemed like a terrible idea. The residents of the city made it clear they didn’t want the rally held, the city council felt people were coming either way and they had no choice but to accept the reality and prepare for it. About 462,000 vehicles came to Sturgis that weekend. At this point there is only one confirmed case coming from a bar many frequented at the Sturgis rally and the city claims less than 25 new cases came from the biker rally, but it’s also very early in the game to know the real repercussions and most of the people at the rally weren’t from Sturgis so those are far from any kind of real figures on spread

Tony Khan made a few points about his philosophy regarding tings he didn’t like, which are disqualifications and false advertising. He wanted people who view AEW to believe they were going to get real finishes, even if there will be outside interference aspects, but winners and losers (occasional draws). He said they may at some point do a DQ but that it would be extremely rare. Regarding false advertising, he said that when Jon Moxley missed the TV’s over staying home with his wife and also his own fear of possibly being infected, there were people who suggested Khan not saying anything, because that’s how many wrestling companies would have handled it, perhaps most until the modern era as the St. Louis and Houston’s were very much the exception, not the rule. In hindsight, it probably did hurt ratings slightly for two shows but he’s wanting to play fair with his audience with the hope that plays out better for the company in the long game. This likely comes from his own experience as a fan of multiple promotions, seeing companies that rarely if ever do DQs (ECW, All Japan, New Japan and many other Japanese groups) and also play fair with their audience regarding no-shows (tons of companies fit into that category, probably most nowadays but in the older days, and today in WWE, that wouldn’t be the case)

In a YouTube live stream the company [AEW] asked people for names of five women you want to see added and the responses were Diamante, Ivelisse, Conti, Chelsea Green, Tessa Blanchard and Jordynne Grace. The response was they are in talks with two of them. Since Green is in WWE and Grace in Impact, that would seem to cut the list down to Diamante, Ivelisse, Conti and Blanchard.

The most watched shows of the past week on the WWE Network were: 1. WWE Timeline: Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart; 2. SummerSlam 2019; 3. Best of Drew McIntyre in Evolve; 4. ICW Shug’s House Party 5 Dave 2; 5. The Horror Show at Extreme Rules; 6. Raw Talk for 8/17; 7. NXT from 8/12; 8. SummerSlam 1988; 9. SummerSlam 2018; 10. Smackdown from 7/17; 11. Top Ten Most Humiliating Taunts; 12. Royal Rumble 2020; 13. Raw 7/13; 14. Progress Chapter 92; 15. SummerSlam 2016. Notable no 205 Live or NXT U.K. even cracked the top 25. Best of Keith Lee in Evolve was No. 16. Some wXw stuff made the top 25

WWE Ratings, AEW vs. NXT Ratings, NXT Ratings:

SPOILER: show

Raw on 8/17 averaged 1,643,000 viewers and 0.48 in 18-49, which sounds bad, but given the competition from both the NBA playoffs and the Democratic convention, it wasn’t that bad. It was the fourth lowest overall number in the history of the show, and tied for the fourth lowest in 18-49. The third hour drop, against the Michelle Obama speech that did monster numbers, to 1,502,000 viewers was the second lowest hour in the history of the show, beating only hour three from 7/27. Raw was down 4.6 percent in viewers and up 2.1 percent in 18-49 ... The first hour did 1,730,000 viewers. The second hour did 1,697,000 viewers. The third hour did 1,502,000 viewers. The biggest take was that among teenagers, which grew greatly two weeks ago for the first week of Raw Underground, the third hour drops were scary bad. The drop also included a segment built around Shawn Michaels confronting Randy Orton. The first to third hour drops were 17.1 percent with women 18-49, 13.2 percent with men 18-49, 55.5 percent with girls 12-17 and 19.2 percent with boys 12-17 and 11.9 percent with those over 50. As compared with the same week last year, the show was down 35.2 percent overall, 40.7 percent in 18-49 and 50.9 percent in 18-34.

Smackdown on 8/14 did a 1.21 rating and 1,940,000 viewers (1.33 viewers per home) and 0.53 (687,000 viewers) in 18-49. It’s a little misleading for direct comparisons since there were markets were FOX aired sports and FOX did 2,002,000 viewers and 713,000 (0.55) in 18-49 in total, the best numbers for the network since June for the show and 18-49 even with the one market that carried sports was well up from the past month plus. But even with market preemptions, the rating was up 0.8 percent, viewers were down 1.1 percent and 18-49 was up 8.0 percent which is the key number. It would appear the difference is the Bray Wyatt/Alexa Bliss storyline and the Retribution storyline, as the show the prior week was awful and did nothing to build this ... The 0.55 (the network rating for FOX) in 18-49 and 0.3 in 18-34 both won the night among network telecasts and were both up from 0.49 and 0.2 the prior week. Smackdown and one show in CBS were the only shows not in reruns. Still, Smackdown did finish last in actual viewers, but it was close as a rerun of The Wall did 2,174,000 viewers ... The show did 1.89 million viewers in the first half hour with the Retribution attack on Big E vs. John Morrison, Bayley & Sasha Banks promo and the beginning of the Battle Royal. The second half hour also did 1.89 million viewers with the rest of the Battle Royal and Sheamus vs. Shorty G. The third half hour was the high point at 2.03 million viewers which was all the A.J. Styles, Jeff Hardy stuff with Joseph Park, Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Gran Metalik, Mandy Rose interview, the Matt Riddle/King Corbin angle and the Alexa Bliss interview. The final half hour fell to 1.94 million viewers for E vs. Morrison, another Retribution angle, and the Strowman/Wyatt/Bliss final segment. * Last year on the same Friday, FOX aired rerun programming that averaged 866,000 viewers in part of the country and local sports that did 499,000 viewers. So the total was 1,361,000 viewers and an 0.4 in 18-49, so it was up 47.1 percent in viewers and 37.1 percent in 18-49.

For 8/12 in the AEW vs. NXT comparisons, AEW won all eight quarters overall and easily won every quarter in 18-49, doubling NXT in three of eight quarters and overall. In the main event battle, AEW with Chris Jericho vs. Orange Cassidy did 783,000 viewers and 398,000 in 18-49, while NXT with Kushida vs. Cameron Grimes vs. Velveteen Dream did 621,000 viewers and 205,000 in 18-49. While the main event numbers for Jericho vs. Cassidy don’t look all that high when compared with the rest of the show, the actual minute-by-minute numbers showed that the Hikaru Shida vs. Heather Monroe match did not do well, and the audience plummeted during a commercial right before the match. The match gained, then lost during a commercial break, but actually skyrocketed after that break and ended up at right around 1 million viewers and 500,000 in 18-49 which is the level only AEW’s biggest matches with its top guys hit. The show opened with AEW having 775,000 viewers and 403,000 in 18-49 with Young Bucks vs. Stu Grayson & Evil Uno. NXT had 720,000 viewers and 230,000 in 18-49 with Karrion Kross vs Danny Burch plus the angle where Keith Lee and Kross signed their contracts and Lee got the fireball in the face. NXT’s high number has a lot to do with the big lead-in. It was also the NXT high point in both viewers and demo. The second quarter saw AEW stay at the same level with 776,000 viewers and 409,000 in 18-49 for Omega & Page talking about the Young Bucks, and the MJF promo/campaign speech and Jon Moxley attack and promo. NXT fell to 607,000 viewers and 213,000 in 18-49 for Drake Maverick vs. Killian Dain and the Undisputed Era out and Adam Cole interview. The third quarter saw AEW at 779,000 viewers and 408,000 in 18-49 for a Matt Hardy interview and Cody vs. Scorpio Sky for the TNT title. NXT had 604,000 viewers and 217,000 in 18-49 for Tyler Breeze vs. Santos Escobar and a Dakota Kai feature. The gap got big in quarter four. AEW had 809,000 viewers and 440,000 in 18-49 with Cody vs. Sky and the post-match with Brodie Lee challenging. NXT fell to 564,000 viewers and 174,000 in 18-49, both low points of the show, for Mia Yim vs. Indi Hartwell. In quarter five, AEW had Kenny Omega & Adam Page vs. Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus and did 817,000 viewers and 437,000 in 18-49. NXT did 591,000 and 195,000 in 18-49 for Damien Priest vs. Bronson Reed. In quarter six, AEW had its high points of the show with 862,000 viewers and 461,000 in 18-49 for the segment with the Young Bucks, FTR, Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson and Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson. NXT did 609,000 viewers and 191,000 in 18-49 for Mercedes Martinez & Aliyah vs. Kacy Catanzaro & Kayden Carter. In quarter seven, AEW fell to 739,000 overall and 384,000 in 18-49 for Hikaru Shida vs. Heather Monroe, Shida promo, Jake Roberts & Lance Archer segment and plugging next week. NXT did 637,000 viewers and grew to 220,000 in 18-49 for main event intros. For the main event segment, AEW gained 44,000 viewers and 14,000 in 18-49. NXT lost 16,000 viewers and 15,000 in 18-49.

With no AEW on 8/19, NXT’s numbers increased greatly even against competition from the Democratic Convention, NBA and NHL playoffs. The real key to the number was to see just how NXT would do if it was not in a Wednesday night war. While there were likely AEW fans who were looking to watch wrestling and may not follow NXT if it was on another night, NXT also would have easier competition most of the time. The show did 853,000 viewers and 0.24 in 18-49, good for the No 23 spot for the night. Considering last week, with tough competition, but not this tough, did 619,000, you are talking 234,000 viewers on a tough night up and maybe close to 300,000 on a normal night. NXT on its own is likely doing about 900,000 viewers and in the 0.26 range in 18-49, so that tells you what WWE, and USA, are costing themselves being in this Wednesday night war. With that knowledge, if they don’t move, it does explain the actual goal, which everyone has known from the start. Even with the tough competition, it shows AEW is NXT’s biggest competition, since this was the best NXT audience since November 20 and best in 18-49 since February 19. It was the best overall number of the year and second best in 18-49, but without AEW, it should have been ... NXT was up 37.8 percent overall and 50.0 percent in 18-49. Still, it also showed that of the 623,000 in 18-49 watching the two shows last week, only half watched television wrestling this week. And of the 1,411,000 total viewers, 60.5 percent watched this week. It showed that the older viewers of AEW were far more apt to watch NXT than those in the key demo. While this isn’t perfect because of the competition changing this night hard, roughly 102,000 of the 417,000 AEW 18-49 fans or 24.4 percent, watched NXT for two hours this week. When it comes to those over 50 and under 17, it would be 132,000 of 375,000, or 35.2 percent ... We don’t have demo comparisons from last week as far as age groups go, because NXT wasn’t in the top 50 last week. But we do have figures for a comparison from two weeks ago, but those are numbers against far easier competition. The key comparison is that the new viewers were heavily male, so the women viewers of AEW did not watch NXT hardly at all, noting the 0.05 in the Female 12-34 demo and 0.16 in 18-49. As compared to two weeks ago, even without AEW, NXT did a 0.10 in 12-17 (down 16.7 percent), 0.09 in 18-34 (down 18.2 percent), 0.39 in 35-49 (up 2.6 percent) and 0.42 in 50+ (up 7.7 percent). The audience was 66.7 percent male in 18-49 and 80.7 percent male in 12-17. With the male skew so much higher than usual, what it says is that the gains are mostly AEW male fans, but that the AEW female fan base did not watch NXT this week. And the AEW fan base under 35 didn’t so much either, but gains were made over 35. Basically it says the AEW 35+ fan base is interested in NXT to a decent degree, but the under 35 and women fan bases are not interested in even sampling it. The competition was very tough with CNN doing 4,880,000; MSNBC doing 6,187,000 and FOX News doing 3,794,000 viewers head-to-head. The NBA game against the first 75 minutes of the show did 1,705,000 viewers and 0.68, and against the last 45 minutes did 2,283,000 and 0.98. The NHL game on NBC Sports network did 748,000 and 0.27.

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Originally Posted by Observer The combination of the show's ThunderDome debut and being the day after SummerSlam led Raw to its best numbers in more than four months, averaging 2.03 million viewers and a 0.67 rating in 18-49. The numbers were up 23 percent in viewers but more importantly 40 percent in 18-49, so they did have a younger audience checking them out and about 250,000 in the 18-49 demo that haven't been watching Raw in the past several months. It was mostly 35-49 gains since the 18-34 increase was 18 percent. The first to third hour drop of 11 percent is slightly better than most weeks, but in the normal level, so it wasn't people checking out new technology and then leaving. It was a lot of new curious viewers who mostly stayed, which is a good sign. The key to this isn't that the numbers for the day after SummerSlam were good, but they went against heavy competition with the Republican National Convention which averaged 6.54 million viewers on FOX News alone, as well as big numbers on other cable stations. Plus there was NBA playoffs on TNT (2.97 million viewers and 1.34 in 18-49 for the late game; 2.05 million and 0.66 for the early game). It was Raw's best numbers since the day after WrestleMania did 2.10 million viewers. Raw was sixth in 18-49 for the night and 20th overall. As compared with last year, the show was down 20 percent overall, 16 percent in 18-49, and 39 percent in 18-34 ... The three hours were: 8 p.m. 2.14 million viewers 9 p.m. 2.05 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.90 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer Despite airing outside of its normal day due to the NBA playoffs, ratings for AEW Dynamite held up well on Saturday night. Saturday's Dynamite averaged 755,000 viewers on TNT, down 4.7 percent from the previous week in the regular Wednesday night time slot. It was the lowest rating for the show since July 8, which was night two of Fyter Fest and aired opposite the Keith Lee vs Adam Cole winner-take-all title vs. title match on NXT. In the 18-49 demo, Dynamite finished fifth on cable with a 0.31 rating, down 3.1 percent from the previous week. It trailed three NBA playoff games and the UFC main card on ESPN in that demo. Dynamite's lead-in was an NBA game that averaged 1.607 million viewers on TNT, but it should be noted that a subsequent game on ESPN aired against most of Dynamite and averaged 1.757 million viewers. It's reasonable to assume most basketball fans would've switched over to ESPN rather than stay on TNT for Dynamite. It's not really fair to compare the show with NXT this week since they ran on different nights and NXT had no wrestling competition while Dynamite aired opposite NXT TakeOver XXX, but the individual demo ratings were very similar to what they usually are when both shows air on Wednesday. AEW won every demo except people over 50, where NXT had a huge advantage of 0.42 to Dynamite's 0.25. AEW's strongest demo was men 18-49, where the show did a 0.44 rating to NXT's 0.32

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The first time AEW ran on a Saturday proved to be effective with young males with the 18-49 audience increasing 16 percent from the Wednesday, August 12th episode. The largest increase was among males 12-34 which were up by 47 percent. They did drop among young females from last Wednesday with the 18-49 audience down 27 percent and 12-34 down 13 percent. Interesting, adults over 50 were basically the same with a 4 percent drop. So, that audience found the show on Saturday and while they never beat NXT in that demo, it shows that the ones that do watch are going to find the show regardless.

Originally Posted by PWI WarnerMedia execs had to the extremely happy with AEW's ratings over the weekend and all signs are that is the case, PWInsider.com has confirmed. Dynamite allowed them to have three of the top five rated broadcasts in the 18-34 demo on cable Saturday night - NBA coverage were the top two broadcasts that night, AEW ranked fifth - and also showed that the audience followed AEW from its usual home on Wednesday to Saturday, even with WWE Takeover taking place at the same time. WarnerMedia ended up with four of the top ten shows that night.

Originally Posted by Observer While appearing on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast, Paul Ellering said there were plans for him to return as AOP’s manager prior to the COVID-19 pandemic: “Well, the idea was to bring me back in to manage them full time on Raw and go on the road with the Authors of Pain, but the pandemic happened. So with Covid going on, I’m not sure what happens next.” AOP’s Rezar is out of action now with a torn biceps.

Originally Posted by Observer Dakota Kai’s gear at NXT TakeOver XXX was a tribute to Hana Kimura.

Link: https://twitter.com/DakotaKai_WWE/st...977500161?s=20

Originally Posted by Observer Chris Jericho will be part of the commentary team for this week’s episode of Dynamite. Due to the NBA playoffs, the show is airing on Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern time.

Originally Posted by Observer A former WWE wrestler is returning as part of the commentary team for this week's NXT tapings. Pro Wrestling Sheet reported today that Stu Bennett (formerly known as Wade Barrett in WWE) will be doing commentary for NXT this week. Bennett departed WWE in 2016. "Sources tell us this is just a one-shot deal for now and that the former leader of Nexus – who won the first original season of NXT – has not signed a full-time deal to re-join the company," Pro Wrestling Sheet wrote. Bennett joined the NWA's commentary team in December 2019. Vic Joseph, Beth Phoenix, and special guest Corey Graves were the commentators for NXT TakeOver XXX this past weekend. Mauro Ranallo didn't call the event due to being back home with family in Canada.

Originally Posted by PWI Former WWE broadcast personality Renee Young will be appearing on tomorrow's edition of the Bump to discuss her WWE run. JBL and Mandy Rose are also scheduled to appear on the WWE Network broadcast.

Originally Posted by PWI The expectation is that Cody will be off TV for an extended period to sell the beating he took at the hands of Brodie Lee. The timing may have something to do with STARZ Heels series going into production in Georgia as Stephen Amell specifically asked Cody to take part in the series when Amell's casting was announced last year. The timing certainly matches up. AEW has promised an update on Cody this Thursday.

Originally Posted by PWI Dave Marquez announced that Chris Dickinson, who has competed for EVOLVE, AAA and Beyond Wrestling, is the first officially announced competitor for the United Wrestling Network's Primetime Live PPV series, which will deubut on FITE.TV and all PPV and satelllite PPV providers on Tuesday 9/15: ... PWInsider.com is told that the primary booking team for the endeavor will be NWA Champion Nick Aldis, Marquez and Aron Stevens (aka the former Damian Sandow in WWE) and will effectively bring back fresh NWA content after the promotion paused production on NWA Powerrr. Obviously, NWA President Billy Corgan will have a say in the NWA-centric content and matches. One would think NWA Championship matches will be a major part of the presentation for the PPV series.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling One of the individuals who cyberbullied Hana Kimura confessed to her actions while speaking with ‘The Mainichi’. The woman who resides in Eastern Japan said that she created a social media account and partook in the online abuse that led to Kimura taking her own life. She told The Mainichi that she has done a very terrible thing and expressed regret for her role in what happened. She first became aware of Hana Kimura through the show ‘Terrace House’ and initially viewed Hana as “a very nice kid who can cook and greet others properly.” The incident that changed her thoughts about Kimura was when there was an altercation between Kimura and a male housemate who washed Kimura’s ring gear in a washing machine. The gear had a special meaning to Kimura. Kimura reacted by knocking said individual’s hat off of his head which drew a great deal of negativity towards her on social media. The individual who partook in the cyberbullying said her feelings of “disgust” towards Kimura began to grow following the incident. She questioned why Hana had an attitude and saw a handful of other posts directed at Hana Kimura in similar vein and figured that she should send messages to Kimura as well. She never used social media prior to that but created an account just to send negative messages to Hana Kimura and admitted that she felt happy when she received “likes” from other people who agreed with her comments towards Kimura.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling More details have emerged regarding Phillip Thomas breaking into the home of WWE’s Sonya Deville, real name Daria Berenato. Tampa’s FOX affiliate noted in an article that Ariana Johnson, ex of Daria Berenato testified in court and shared that Thomas had been threatening her as well dating back to May of 2019. This led to her deleting her Instagram account. Prosecutors believe Thomas wanted to “get rid of competition” so he could solely pursue the attention of Berenato.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Samoa Joe is the voice behind ‘King Shark’ in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

Link: https://twitter.com/SamoaJoe/status/...004932608?s=20

Originally Posted by Fightful All Elite Wrestling conducted a set of TV tapings a couple of weeks ago, and with fans in attendance, Fightful was able to gain some notes. - There were a number of fans who were invited to the show, and it was not available for ticket purchase. - Tony Khan came out to encourage the crowd the be loud and rowdy -- without profanity. #FTF - Masks were being strictly enforced, with people patrolling the crowd to make sure masks were up when people weren't eating or drinking. - Though television production made it look like fans were grouped together, that was done by design as an illusion of sorts, and the fans were spaced out several rows apart from other groups. - A thermal temperature scanner was done before entering the venue one at a time, and a waiver was signed to ensure that nobody that entered had been sick. - There were other, prohibited areas taped off to make sure people didn't get into rows they weren't supposed to. - The Britt Baker, Reba, Kip Sabian and Penelope Ford segment originally was filmed in the ring. We're told that AEW ended up re-shooting it due to time constraints. - A back elbow spot in the Dark Order match had to be re-filmed because one of the wrestlers got caught up in the ropes. - Ivelisse & Diamante had to re-shoot their entrance for the match, supposedly because cameras were out of place during it.

Originally Posted by Observer In an interview with Sports Illustrated, KENTA discussed his time in WWE and what his current inspiration in wrestling is: “I’ve felt in my heart that the five years I spent in WWE were the most frustrating days of my life. I’ve talked about this, but I’ll always remember the humiliation in America. Being here reminds me of that regret. And when you’re not good, you tell yourself that. That is what inspires me.”

Originally Posted by Observer The deal with Thunder Rosa, the NWA women's champion, challenging Hikaru Shida for the AEW title on the 9/5 PPV was a deal that Tony Khan worked out with Billy Corgan, so it's not an indication of anything more and the NWA is still targeting a weekly iPPV schedule with FITE TV.

Originally Posted by Observer Despite a well received in-ring debut Saturday at NXT TakeOver XXX against Adam Cole, Pat McAfee has no plans to return to the ring...for now. On his own show and in an interview with ESPN Monday, McAfee said that he doesn't have any additional contract or commitments to NXT but didn't close the door on a return.

Originally Posted by 411Mania There were several taped Raw Underground segments that got scrapped for Monday’s show, according to a new report. Per Fightful Select, WWE tossed three segments for the show, though no reason is known regarding why. The site notes that the following segments were done and then scrappred: Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir both won matches against enhancement wrestlers, with Duke’s running about a minute. Duke reportedly got high praise for her striking in the segment. Titus O’Neil got a spotlight that turned into a fight with Riddick Moss. Finally, Ivar faced Dolph Ziggler, which saw Angel Garza get involved and a ton of “huge bumps.” WWE did have some Raw Underground segments that did air, including Bobby Lashley vs. Ziggler and Lashley vs. Cedric Alexander.

Originally Posted by Observer While Shaquille O'Neal's re-signing with WarnerMedia normally wouldn't make headlines in the pro wrestling world, a sentence in the release caught people's attention Monday. The popular former basketball star will add to his duties with Turner Sports with possibility of AEW being one of those duties: "Could Shaq return to the ring, making a cameo at a future All Elite Wrestling (AEW) event on TNT? We shall see...." The Athletic's Richard Deitsch noted in his story about the new contract said the possibility is "in the embryonic stage at best" but that O'Neal had a message for Cody Rhodes: "I’d love to fight Cody. Write it. Print it. Text it to him. Call AEW up and tell them.” The 48-year-old wrestling fan has made appearances in various top promotions through the years, first in WCW at 1994's Bash at the Beach as he presented the World title to the winner of Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair; a guest host for a 2009 episode of WWE Raw; and backstage with Hogan on a 2012 episode of Impact Wrestling. He appeared as a surprise participant in the 2016 Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 32 and the plan was to work toward a singles match with Big Show at WrestleMania 33 but it never materialized due to O'Neal's schedule.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Inside the Ropes is launching a magazine in September with a big roster of writers including Kenny McIntosh, Bill Apter, Keith Elliot Greenberg, Brian Elliott, Findlay Martin, and Dan Richardson. The first issue will be released next month and there is also an option for an annual subscription on their website.

TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE: Backstage Chaos Prior to RAW, ThunderDome Deal Update, New Content for WWE Network
• More on Keith Lee’s RAW Debut, WWE’s Plans & Reason for Theme Change
• WWE Releases Statement on People Trolling the ThunderDome
• Four Matches Announced for WWE Payback
• Sonya Deville Says “Goodbye” + Why the Hair vs. Hair Match Was Changed

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Originally Posted by PWI The Hilsborough County Court has denied a motion from the local Florida media requesting that the evidence in the Sonya Deville stalking case be released to the public. The evidence is listed as video footage from that night, messages sent to Deville via Instagram, photos taken outside and inside her home as well as other online communication. The court ruled on 8/24 that they would not release any evidence before a hearing. A motion was also filed requesting confidentiality for the victims and their personal information, including Deville. In that motion, it was revealed that Deville has received additional threatening online communications "from persons unknown" since her alleged stalker Phillip A. Thomas was arrested on 8/16 inside Deville's home. It was noted in thar motion that Thomas was denied bail out of concern for Deville's safety as well as the safety of other members of her family.

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc As previously reported, both AEW Dynamite and WWE NXT scored strong ratings. AEW aired in an unfamiliar timeslot on Saturday night against NXT Takeover on the WWE Network, while NXT aired in its usual spot unopposed. AEW Dynamite drew an average of 755,000 viewers, down 4.7% from the previous week's 792,000 viewers in its normal timeslot. NXT averaged 853,000 viewers on the USA Network without competition from AEW, which was the best audience for the show this year ... Brandon Thurston of WrestleNomics released the quarter hour ratings for both shows. Thurston noted that while AEW didn't have specific viewership expectations for Saturday's airing, he was told before the numbers came out that they'd be very happy with an audience over 700,000. Dynamite benefited with the NBA playoff game lead-in, which averaged 1,601,000 and a 0.62 rating in the 18-49 demo. With the strong lead-in, Dynamite averaged 1.002 million viewers in the first quarter and 575,000 viewers in 18-49. The audience dropped 43% in the second quarter, while the 18-49 audience fell 28%. Without the first quarter, Dynamite averaged 720,000 viewers for the remaining seven ... NXT had a strong open with 921,000 viewers for the Johnny Gargano vs. Ridge Holland match, which was the high for the show in total viewers. In the 18-49 demo, the fourth quarter garnered the best audience with the finish of the Legado del Fantasma vs. Breezango & Isaiah "Swerve" Scott match as well as the start of the Pat McAfee - Undisputed Era segment.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Chris Harrington of AEW noted that Dynamite began with 1.4 million viewers following the NBA game and had over one million viewers for the first five minutes of the show.

Originally Posted by Observer Following his TNT title loss, Cody has a new spot in AEW's roster rankings. Cody is ranked third in the men's singles division this week. He lost the TNT Championship to Brodie Lee in the main event of Dynamite last week. On Dynamite this Thursday, AEW will give an update on Cody's condition after the show-closing angle from last week where he was taken out on a stretcher and Lee and The Dark Order attacked Cody and The Nightmare Family. MJF, Lance Archer, Brian Cage, and Scorpio Sky make up the rest of the top five for this week. All four of those wrestlers were ranked last week as well. The women's and tag team division rankings are unchanged from last week. The top four ranked teams in the tag team division will face off in a gauntlet match on Thursday's Dynamite. The winning team will challenge Kenny Omega & Hangman Page for the AEW Tag Team titles at All Out on Saturday, September 5. This week's full rankings are listed below: Men's division -- Champions: AEW World Champion Jon Moxley (15-0 singles record in 2020, 21-2-1 overall record), TNT Champion Brodie Lee (6-1 singles record in 2020, 9-1 overall record) MJF (8-0 singles record in 2020, 13-2 overall record) Lance Archer (12-1 singles record in 2020, 12-1 overall record) Cody (18-2 singles record in 2020, 26-7-1 overall record) Brian Cage (6-1 singles record in 2020, 6-2 overall record) Scorpio Sky (7-2 singles record in 2020, 24-11 overall record) Women's division -- Champion: Hikaru Shida (16-1 singles record in 2020, 21-7 overall record) Nyla Rose (8-2 singles record in 2020, 15-6 overall record) Big Swole (6-3 singles record in 2020, 8-8 overall record) Penelope Ford (7-4 singles record in 2020, 9-7 overall record) Abadon (4-1 singles record in 2020, 4-1 overall record) Britt Baker (4-4 singles record in 2020, 13-8 overall record) Tag team division -- Champions: Kenny Omega & Hangman Page (12-0 tag team record in 2020, 30-9 overall record for Omega, 21-10 overall record for Page) FTR (6-0 tag team record in 2020, 6-2 overall record for Dax Harwood, 6-2 overall record for Cash Wheeler) Best Friends (14-4 tag team record in 2020, 22-15 overall record for Trent Barreta, 21-13 overall record for Chuck Taylor) The Young Bucks (6-2 tag team record in 2020, 20-11 overall record for Nick Jackson, 20-11 overall record for Matt Jackson) The Natural Nightmares (6-1 tag team record in 2020, 15-8 overall record for Dustin Rhodes, 10-11 overall record for QT Marshall) The Dark Order (8-2 tag team record in 2020, 13-5 overall record for Evil Uno, 14-6 overall record for Stu Grayson)

Originally Posted by PWI It was announced on today's edition of The Bump that Renée Young's cookbook, which is currently in the final editing stage, will have the title "Mentally In the Kitchen: Eating Deliciously, Hosting Fabulously and Drinking Copiously". Renée stated the book will not likely be out until the spring ... Kofi Kingston and Cesaro have been announced as the guests for this Sunday's Payback preview episode of The Bump.

Originally Posted by PWI The 2020 WWE Clash of Champions PPV, originally slated for Sunday 9/20 has been pushed back a week to 9/27, PWInsider has confirned.

Originally Posted by PWI Q - Why does WWE always screw up everyone who comes up from NXT? Baszler was a badass who was champ for 13 months and now she’s a nobody on the roster. Now they debut Keith Lee who was NXT big star and have him interrupt Orton the wrestle him in a 4 min match where McIntyre interferes and Lee leaves so now he’s just another person instead of being a star. Matt Riddle debuted lost to Styles now he’s a nobody on SmackDown. A - They do that because once those stars leave NXT, they go from being what HHH sees to what Vince McMahon sees. Like you, I like what HHH sees better. I don’t think Lee is done yet, since he was doing really well with Randy Orton before Drew came out (which made sense in the storyline). Baszler saying she would team with Nia if it meant Nia would leave her alone? Yeah, that would never happen in NXT (and shouldn’t happen in WWE).

From PWI's weekly Q&A articles. Besides issues with Vince, WWE's other biggest problem they still haven't established a reliable call-up bridge between NXT and main roster for the past 8 years. That's why a lot of disconnect ends up happening between main roster Creative and NXT Creative when it comes to the transition phase.

Originally Posted by PWI 8/26 THIS DAY IN HISTORY: SAVAGE AND ELIZABETH WED AT SUMMERSLAM, BLACKJACKS WIN THE WWWF TAG STRAPS AND MORE ... 1991 - WWE holds their Summerslam Pay-per-view at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Billed as "The Match Made In Heaven/The Match Made In Hell" the show actually ended with the "wedding" of Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth. The wedding went off without incident, and WWF gave their viewers a "happy ending" to the show, instead choosing to do an angle with Jake Roberts and Savage at the "wedding reception" which would air on television the following weekend.

SPOILER: show

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The four-way match at Summer Struggle this Saturday for the KOPW title will feature Kazuchika Okada vs. SANADA vs. Toru Yano vs. El Desperado after Wednesday’s card at Korakuen Hall in front of 626 fans

Spoiler tags used since its related to today's NJPW Summer Struggle show that had the 1st round of the KOPW tournament for those who haven't watched the show yet.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Last week, Randy Orton revealed during a media call to promote SummerSlam, that Ric Flair’s promo prior to being punted was adlibbed and Flair wasn’t scripted to speak. This week, Flair spoke to Nick Hausman at Wrestling INC and explained his intent: "I just did my own thing. At the end of the day, I think they trust me enough. Now that I’m supposedly more mature, I’m going to deliver something heartfelt… and I didn’t tell him what to say. I said this is designed to get this whole [thing] over, what we’re doing here Randy. It’s designed to enhance what you’re doing right now in the business, and I’ve known him so long. [Orton’s] in the groove. It’s a groove that very few people ever get in. You could be great for a long time, and then you take that step where you’re not just great, you’re whatever the next level is because he’s always been good. He’s at a level that very few people get to, ever."

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Here is a report from listener Jeremy Samples, who was part of the virtual audience on Raw this past week including notes of what they were told and talent addressing the audience during commercial breaks: I participated in my first WWE Thunderdome experience tonight. Some things that happened on it: At the beginning, the crowd producer mentioned that if you were a Nielsen family household doing the Thunderdome to still have your TV turned on with the sound down and your people meter on to count in ratings. They also had Superstars talk to those in the Thunderdome throughout the night. It was weird that they could see everyone’s cameras, but the Superstar wasn’t visible. Some conversations: Drew McIntyre said that he thought the Thunderdome was awesome and that he wanted to do something in the first segment of Raw to interact and include everyone. He said he didn’t know what it would be yet, but to be waiting for it. (Was the thumbs up.) Kevin Owens said Hello. I waved on the camera, and Kevin said he was glad one person waved at him. And, then said, “Yeah, you in the glasses. Nice shirt.” I assume he waa talking to me, which felt really cool to have direct interaction. Kevin Owens then asked everyone to yell really loudly into their Mic. He said that he tried it last night at Summerslam and He heard that 7 people got evicted from their apartments and that he hoped to make it an even 10 after tonight. He then told the audience that he hoped they enjoyed the KO show tonight. Mark Henry said that he thought the Thunderdome idea was cool. That he was glad the WWE Universe could be part of the show again, and that he wanted to give them a segment in the arm wrestling challenge to be excited about, because “That’s What I Do”. Liv Morgan and Ruby Riott came on and Liv asked if those in the Thunderdome who saw her new shirt last week to raise their hands. Then, she asked for those who bought it to raise their hands. Liv said “I’m glad, at least, one of you did.” Ruby said that if anyone felt like it they could buy her shirt also. Apollo Crews came on and said he hoped everyone enjoyed him beating MVP last night at Summerslam. He said that he was excited to be going against Bobby Lashley tonight in the arm wrestling challenge, and that he would appreciate everyones support. Dolph Ziggler came on and asked what was up. He said that it was cool to see so many people in the Thunderdome, especially because it proved that everyone and their small picture were so much more insignificant than him. He said “I see the one guy booing me. I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Raw Underground isn’t the only land I run. You never know when I might be coming after you, so lock your doors and keep watch outside your windows.” He said it as a joke, but it kinda felt weird after the Sonya Deville situation. Lana and Natalya said that they would be on Raw in a few minutes. They said that they had cute outfits to show everyone and that they appreciated everyone’s love and support. To please follow them on their social media, and cheer for them out on the ring. (Which was contradicted by the producer telling the Thunderdome crowd to boo, when they were out in the ring.) They also showed the action that happened in the ring during the commercial breaks of the last two matches. During the women’s lumberjack break, all the lumberjacks started brawling for no reason on the outside while Banks and Ashla traded pinfalls inside the ring. During the main event, Rey and Dom tagged in and out several times while working over Murphy. They hit a pretty cool double team maneuver where Dom springboarded and came off of Rey into Murphy.

Originally Posted by Fightful The newest edition of WWE Timeline, which focused on the rivalry between Randy Orton and Christian, has been posted to the WWE Network earlier today and you can check out a sneak peek of it in the video below.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWq8c5e3Cw4

Originally Posted by Fightful Nick Aldis and Bruce Prichard engaged in a war of words in July after Prichard said Aldis lacked the 'it factor.' Aldis responded by saying Bruce hasn't been paying attention to what he's done since his time in TNA and questioned Bruce's booking ability by pointing out the declining ratings. On August 10, Aldis' wife Mickie James returned to WWE Raw and fans were less than thrilled with her presentation. In her first match back on August 17, she lost by count out to Natalya and said after she was disappointed by how her return went. Appearing on the Battleground podcast, Aldis was asked if Prichard, who serves as the executive director of Raw, purposely botched the booking of James due to the feud between the two. "You're not suggesting that the executive director of a publicly-traded company, with stockholders and huge television rights fees to maintain, would be as petty as to devalue one of his own assets just to get revenge over a feud that he himself started, are you? You can't honestly suggest that would be a real thing. It has to be a coincidence," Aldis said sarcastically. "These silly, petty tactics, fans see through it. I don't think anybody saw that and thought, 'Mickie James is a jabronie.' Everyone saw it for what it was. She's an all-time great and doesn't need me to fight her battles. She knows her worth and will make it work, but everyone could smell that stench. It was just sad." James is currently feuding with Lana and Natalya on WWE Raw.

Originally Posted by Fightful Bray Wyatt has used the empty arena to his advantage, creating two separate cinematic matches with a similar theme, but different settings. At WrestleMania, Wyatt battled John Cena in the Firefly Fun House, which was more of a career retrospective than a wrestling match. Speaking to ESPN Africa, Wyatt discussed what it was like working with Cena. "John's such a sweet guy, isn't he? What a sweet guy that John Cena is. What a sweet, sweet guy. I've been through so much with John Cena, you know, it's amazing to me to see him, you know, from the star he always was turned into this gigantic movie star. And John is very much the type of person you have to earn his respect. Because he doesn't just give it, he's very forward that way. So hearing that phrase, for me and Seth [Rollins], it's a big deal because, like I said, John is this huge star. That's a milestone, for me and my legacy, I think it's pretty neat," said Wyatt. "It's pretty wild, really. When I came into the arena, it was like I stepped through a door and then I'm not kidding -- 48 hours, [it] just erased my mind. It was like I was teleported to another place in time. It was pretty wild dude, from what I remember it was, it was pretty wild." Along with the Firefly Fun House, Wyatt also competed in and helped put together the Swamp Fight against Braun Strowman at The Horror Show at Extreme Rules. WWE has leaned on cinematic matches during the empty arena era and though Wyatt enjoys them, he doesn't want them to be overdone. "I think they're fun and all, but like I said, I like being around the people more. And those [matches], they should be select. There should be a few here and there. That's what keeps them special. Especially after the humdinger that Undertaker and AJ Styles put together, because that thing's close to undefeatable. But you know it's something that you get to approach differently, so it's wonderful for your creativity. But they should be finite," he said.

Originally Posted by Fightful Eddie Kingston now has some direction in All Elite Wrestling, and cut a fiery promo to kick it off. However, it wasn't as originally presented. Kingston approached the Lucha Bros. duo of Rey Fenix and Pentagon, as well as Butcher & Blade on the August 22 episode of AEW Dynamite. Taped on August 13, the promo saw some editing, as originally reported by Fightful Select: Fightful has learned that a mention of wrestling legend and current WWE Superstar Rey Mysterio was edited off the taped August 22 edition of AEW Dynamite. Eddie Kingston mentioned Mysterio during his promo with Fenix, Pentagon, Butcher & Blade, but it was removed from the show. We weren't given a reason why. Mysterio has been working in WWE without a contract of late.

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• Wade Barrett Will Reportedly Be on NXT Commentary Tonight
• Impact Emergence Night 2 Results – Aug. 25, 2020 – Purrazzo vs. Grace, Edwards vs. RVD
• NJPW: Summer Struggle Night 12 Results, Full Card for NJPW Strong, More NJPW News & Notes

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer With no NBA playoffs last night due to the player boycott following the shooting of Jacob Blake, but coverage of Hurricane Laura and the Republican National Convention dominating the cable news ratings, NXT averaged 824,000 viewers on Wednesday night, down 3.4 percent from the previous week. In the 18-49 demo, the show finished 24th on cable with a 0.24 rating, identical to last week. It's the second straight week that NXT has had no head-to-head competition from AEW Dynamite and is the first time all year that the show averaged over 800,000 viewers in consecutive weeks. The 0.24 rating back-to-back is the first time since February that NXT has hit that mark on consecutive shows. In the other categories, NXT did a 0.17 rating in women 18-49 (up 6.3 percent), 0.30 in men 18-49 (down 6.3 percent), 0.12 in people 18-34 (up 33.3 percent), 0.05 in females 12-34 (identical), 0.20 in males 12-34 (up 42.9 percent), 0.28 in people 25-54 (down 6.7 percent), and a 0.41 in people over 50 (down 2.4 percent). Due to the NHL playoffs, next week's NXT will air on Tuesday, September 1 ... AEW Dynamite will be unopposed next Wednesday for its All Out go-home show.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling NXT also went head-to-head with the Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Boston Bruins game that did 982,000 viewers on the NBC Sports Network. The third night of the Republican Convention averaged 15.6 million viewers across all networks, although this didn’t impact NXT as the convention itself didn’t start until 10 pm Eastern but the preceding news coverage would have.

Originally Posted by PWI 2K today released a new trailer for WWE® 2K Battlegrounds, the arcade-style WWE brawler currently scheduled for release on September 18 and available now for pre-order in both digital formats and at participating retailers. In “Clash of the Eras,” WWE Hall of Fame commentator Jerry “The King” Lawler cheers on the WWE 2K Battlegrounds roster of WWE Legends – such as Undertaker, Mankind, Beth Phoenix and the Bella Twins – as they compete in fantasy matches against several of today’s most popular WWE Superstars, including Roman Reigns, Drew McIntyre, Bayley, Sasha Banks, Finn Bálor and more. While Lawler shows his allegiance, he is joined in the trailer by renowned sports broadcaster and WWE NXT’s Mauro Ranallo, who will make his WWE 2K in-game debut as a member of the WWE 2K Battlegrounds commentary team.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE is looking for a new lead writer for Smackdown ... They are also looking for a Writer's Assistant.

Originally Posted by PWI On 8/26, WWE filed their opposition to Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood trademarking the following: No Flips, Just Fists. Say Yeah Top Guys #FTRKO Shatter Machine. The opposition noted: "Applicants (Wheeler and Harwood) entered into contracts with Opposer (WWE) effective as of April 10, 2017 to exclusively perform professional wrestling services for Opposer in connection with WWE live and televised professional wrestling exhibitions (the “Booking Agreements”). Pursuant to Section 3 of the Booking Agreements entitled “Intellectual Property, Applicants expressly agreed that Opposer owned, in perpetuity, any and all trademarks, service marks, and/or distinctive and identifying indicia, including among other things, ring name,nickname, likeness, personality, characters, gestures, routines, themes and any other items of tangible or intangible intellectual property written, composed, submitted, added, improvised, created, used by or associated with Applicants’ performance during the term of the Booking Agreements. The sole exception to the intellectual property rights owned by WWE under the Booking Agreements is any intellectual property specifically identified in Exhibit A to the Booking Agreements, defined in the Booking Agreements as "WRESTLER Intellectual Property"." They noted each of the above five are not identified as "Wrestler Intellectual Property" and were created by WWE.

Originally Posted by PWI Q - I saw your audio about Shane Douglas tossing the NWA title today and obviously that was a surprise, but did anyone know he was winning the tournament? Looking at the lineup, you'd think Chris Benoit would have been the guy. Just made me wonder. A - I remember hearing at the ECW Arena event a month before that Shane was winning the tournament, but obviously plans could have changed at any point. I know Dennis Corraluzzo did push for Benoit to win, but the decision was made to go with Douglas, something the NWA obviously wouldn't have agreed to if they knew what was going to happen next.

From PWI's weekly Q&A articles.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On the latest installment of The Bellas Podcast, Nikki and Brie Bella dove into their time with WWE ... When it comes to how WWE handled the Divas era, Nikki Bella feels that there were multiple missed opportunities for WWE to capitalize off the women’s division. Nikki feels that had they done so, to this day they still could have a good portion of that fan base that were interested in the Divas division. “And I think too why a lot of us didn’t speak up was we were lucky enough where the numbers weren’t a huge difference, because there were some of the top guys that were making a lot and I even understood that. I’m like, ‘Okay, they are the headliners’ and in our industry, they were still bringing in more people than us. It was more the mid-card guys, but I guess it wasn’t such a big difference. I felt like the one thing they lacked especially when we were [in] our prime with Divas, they didn’t capitalize on the women. They were so focused on the men that they lost a whole audience that they could still have today because they just didn’t believe in our mission or what we were doing or the changes we were making. I think we could’ve made an even bigger title wave, if the company was behind us even more. They were behind us but they could’ve capitalized in so many different ways and I think politics always come into play. I think in every industry, you have your favorites, you have who they wanna push, who they don’t but at times I’m like, ‘What they really could’ve done with this big group of women would’ve been so amazing worldwide.’ We did a lot but oh my gosh, we would always talk about that. I’m like, ‘They could’ve capitalized and used us even more,’ and they didn’t. They missed out a lot.” The Bella Twins also commented on the backlash they received following the announcement of their Hall Of Fame induction. Both Nikki and Brie were amused by most of the comments they received but didn’t understand why they were getting so much hate from mainly male wrestling fans. Nikki: “And it’s like the online ones and that’s why I’d always tell her [Brie], that’s like ten percent of the fan base. We call them smart marks in our industry and because of everything we would start to build and then also we were the mean girls. That was our characters so we were the bad, like legit heels, bad girls and they would believe everything that was being said in promos and don’t get me wrong, some of the girls that would get on the mic because of how they were with Brie and I, they would say stuff like — they’d just attack us in ways and fans would believe it and it’s crazy still to this day the hate we will get from… Brie: “We got inducted into the Hall Of Fame this year for WWE. To have Vince McMahon call you and give you all these reasons why he wants to induct you, surreal. But we were trending two days straight because fans were disgusted.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Jeff Hardy spoke with Daily Star about WWE incorporating his past addiction issues into his storyline with Sheamus. Hardy did not have an issue with it and doesn’t pay attention to any of the comments from those who felt like WWE was mistreating him. “The stuff with Sheamus that’s happened most recently, I knew there was a great outcome in it. I knew that bar fight was going to be cinematic and good. All the stuff building up to that match, I just knew the outcome was going to be fantastic. And it’s good to face challenges like that because there’s so much negativity in the world. I’m not a social media guy at all, I don’t read comments or the negativity of people who thought it was wrong or that [WWE] were treating me [badly], I don’t read any of that. I’m just confident in myself to get through it, and when I get a feeling that something’s going to be good, I just run with it. I’m always interested as everybody is different in so far as how the viewer feels watching at home, especially hardcore fans of mine. Even thinking back to the stuff with CM Punk when I was failing drugs tests, they turned it into a storyline and that’s what I mean when I talk about roller-coasters of good and bad. Throughout all of that, so long as I can continue to do good, especially with this, my last chance to get it right, it is going to inspire people around the world that I’ll never meet, that need to stay sober to survive. Hopefully I’m doing that through the television screen and helping people I’ll never know.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Xavier Woods joined D-Von Dudley’s ‘Table Talk’ podcast and it was mentioned how Woods was absent for the return of ‘Talking Smack’ on the WWE Network. Woods was scheduled to host the show with Kayla Braxton but he stated he wasn’t made aware until the post went up on social media. “I was at home. I found out when y’all found out. So, it’s been adjusted so I’ll be there soon. Things happen sometimes. It’s a very large company and you’ll find in any large company sometimes things get lost through the cracks. Things someone thinks they told somebody else but they actually didn’t get a chance to but that person thought that someone else told them so it’s a regular thing with a company that’s as large, that’s as successful as this so it’s not like a bad thing by any means. It’s just like a little, ‘Oops, okay cool.’ Now we’re on the train tracks again, let’s get it moving.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Chris Van Vliet spoke with Erick Rowan for an exclusive interview and Rowan recalled being unsure if he and Brodie Lee were getting called up from NXT to the main roster along with Bray Wyatt. Rowan said that Wyatt alerted them that they were coming to the main roster but Bill DeMott was not in line with those plans. “Fast forward to when we get called up onto the roster, hence we always knew Bray [Wyatt] was getting called up to the roster. We didn’t know we were. We were told by Bill DeMott, me and Brodie [Lee] were told we weren’t getting called up. So, then they’re filming these vignettes and then were like, ‘Oh, well they’re gonna need you for the vignettes.’ But, are we getting called up? And then Bray’s like, ‘Yeah, you guys are getting called up’ and then Bill’s like, ‘No, you guys aren’t getting called up.’ It’s like what the hell?”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WrestleZone’s Dominic DeAngelo conducted an interview with Scorpio Sky. Sky spoke about his stretch of matches on AEW Dark and expressed that he feels Lee Johnson is the future of All Elite Wrestling. “But I also did get to wrestle young guys like Lee Johnson and I think Lee Johnson is the future of AEW. He’s young, he’s probably only about 22-years old, he’s got a good look, he’s got a good body, he’s athletic, he gets it, he listens and he’s gonna be a guy five, ten years from now, he’s going to be a big time player in this company.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Matt Hardy chatted with TV Insider ahead of the 8/27 edition of AEW Dynamite. Hardy was asked about the possibility of Jeff Hardy coming to AEW and reuniting The Hardy Boyz in the tag team division and here’s what Matt had to say in response to that: “With the incredible deep division there is in AEW, I’d love to have my brother there to wrestle against the Young Bucks, Hangman Page and Kenny Omega, Private Party, FTR. There is such a deep roster. I’d love to do that one day if it was a possibility.” Regarding Hardy’s arrival in AEW, he shared that one of the original plans was for him to do a cinematic match with Sammy Guevara but the COVID-19 pandemic put those plans on the back burner. “In all actuality, when we first started doing all that, the original plan, I think, was to have the cinematic match with Sammy. I challenged Jericho, but the idea was for it to get pushed off to Sammy. Things went differently when North Carolina and other states went into lockdown. There was this six-week period where AEW literally survived on a day or two of shooting footage, which was pretty amazing. They did an incredible job. Kudos to the crew. We had to change course in many ways. From the very beginning, I was going to end up having a feud with Sammy, and Jericho was my bridge to get to that. As far as the Hardy Compound fight with Sammy, that may happen one day. We’ll see.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Chris Featherstone of Sportskeeda hosted a Q&A session on Facebook with Eric Bischoff. One of the questions asked of Bischoff had to do with WWE’s storytelling and Bischoff explained why he feels that WWE is constantly hit or miss with their storylines. “I knew WWE was gonna knock the ThunderDome concept out of the park. Better than everybody including the NBA. I knew they would, because they’re so good at that. What they’re not good at is basic, fundamental storytelling. They’re just not. I love them, I have many friends there, I have some friends there who I consider my closest friends in the world and who I love dearly. It doesn’t change that the storyline, the architecture, their approach to stories, their discipline with stories suck, and until somebody comes along and takes an honest look at storytelling and the structure of storytelling and the formulas that are used, it’s gonna be hit or miss forever. You’re gonna throw ten stories up against the wall and maybe one of them will hit, because there’s no rhyme or reason to it. There’s no methodology to it, there’s no model for it, no formula for it. It’s just simply throwing sh*t against the wall and hoping it sticks.”

Originally Posted by Fightful Although Alex Shelley is currently working for IMPACT and is one-half of the IMPACT World Tag Team Champions, he is not under contract. After Breezango (Tyler Breeze and Fandango) defeated Imperium to win the NXT Tag Team Championship, Shelley took to Twitter and asked his old pal Kushida if he would be up for another reunion and challenge for the NXT titles. It was in that same tweet, as well as another tweet, in which revealed that he is currently a free agent.

KUSHIDA's time in NXT has been such a huge waste considering all the great stuff he was doing in NJPW prior. Him leaving over creative and direction issues in NJPW made sense but he's pretty much gone backwards in the ladder and career direction during his stay in NXT.

Originally Posted by Fightful Haku is one of the most feared and respected men in the history of pro wrestling, and of course in his own house. With three sons in the pro wrestling business, it's clear the eventual Meng has a strong influence on all of them. As it turns out, he wasn't completely forthcoming with Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, and Hikuleo about how exactly his day job went down ... Beyond that, Loa's brother Tama Tonga said that Haku went above and beyond to keep them as detached from the realities of professional wrestling as he possibly could. This stretched to the point of him not letting them know about some of the wild road stories you hear about Haku today. "Alright, be honest with you, I’ve said this to a lot of people—my pop, he kayfabed us," Tama Tonga told Fightful. "I didn’t know shit until I started wrestling at 27. Then, that’s when I filled in with everything. Then once I started traveling the world, everybody had stories and that’s how I got to know my pop beside the family man that I knew at home as a father. I got to know him as a wrestler and I was like, “Holy shit.” So, those are a lot of new things that were brought to my attention once I started wrestling. Tama got a late start in pro wrestling, but both he and Tanga grew up in an internet age. With Haku/Meng being an internet pheneomenon with lore of his ass kicking stories, those somehow all escaped the two brothers. "When we were kids, back then we didn’t have social media," Loa said. "So anything that ever happened, only the wrestlers knew. The company knew. Nothing ever got outside of that unless you were there in that city or that particular [hotel] and the cops that showed up. They knew the story. If anyone had a [phone] back, yeah, maybe kids would have found out and then they would have asked about that. But, we’re all good about hush-hush about the business and thought for a long time our dad was a truck driver. To everybody else that’s how we explained his job. ‘Cause our parents were real keen about making sure we had friends because they wanted to be our friends. They didn’t want have our dad’s job play an influence on whether or not we would be liked."

Originally Posted by Fightful The induction ceremony for the 2020 WWE Hall of Fame class had to be postponed, but WWE did have plans to make it happen this year. According to Cassidy Haynes of Bodyslam.net, WWE planned to "piecemeal" the inductions by holding them at various times throughout the year. Inductions were planned to take place during SmackDown or Raw and not in conjunction with any pay-per-view. Unfortunately, COVID-19 and "other factors" made inductions impossible. The Hall of Fame ceremony was originally scheduled for WrestleMania weekend but was canceled due to COVID-19. Davey Boy Smith's Daughter Georgia said in March that WWE was hoping to hold the Hall of Fame induction ceremony during SummerSlam weekend, but that did not happen. WrestleVotes noted that the new plan is to induct the class of 2020 during WrestleMania 37 weekend.

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• Updated Card for Tonight’s AEW Dynamite
• NXT: Austin Theory Returns, Barrett Returning Next Week, New Tag Champs

[Fignuts]

The bellas thinking the Backlash for their HoF induction was because they're such good heels is hilarious.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

Originally Posted by Observer Bob Armstrong, one of the biggest stars in the history of pro wrestling throughout Georgia, Alabama, the Florida Gulf Coast and Tennessee, passed away on 8/27 at the age of 80 ... As far as a national angle goes, he would probably be best known for one of the great television feuds of the early 80s with Roddy Piper in Georgia. Piper started as a television announcer with Gordon Solie in mid-1981, using his gift of gab, and became the architect of the heel color commentator role. He started out as an analyst, but was polite, well dressed, funny and was always deferential to Solie. But he would say things at certain times designed to rub the people the wrong way. He wasn't a heel per se, but people were supposed to think he was a little arrogant, and not like him, but at the same time respect his analysis of the matches. In November, Bob returned from Southeastern Championship Wrestling with some fanfare. For the first time, he was teaming with 21-year-old son Brad. The two had held the Southeastern tag team championships. The two immediately won the November 26, 1981, Thanksgiving night tag team tournament at the Omni in Atlanta, on the company's biggest show of the year. They beat The Sheepherders (Luke Williams & Jonathan Boyd), Kevin Sullivan & Wayne Ferris (Honky Tonk Man) and beating Masa Saito & Mr. Fuji in the finals, to become the new National tag team champions. Piper would routinely criticize the team, with the idea that Bob was too concerned about his son and thus wasn't a good tag team partner for him. He would say that the correct role is to sacrifice your partner to tire out the opposition and then hot tag in, but that Bob wouldn't let Brad get beaten on for long enough to tire out the opponents. Bob would tell him to mind his own business. It started small, but every week, one of the highlights was the interplay on interviews between Piper and Armstrong. Piper would interview him and criticize him, and Armstrong was the perfect foil, older, and with his character, Piper would come across as someone who showed no respect for a babyface that fans genuinely liked. For months the interview segment with Piper and Bob was among the highlight, and often the most talked about part of the weekly television show. Keep in mind that at this point in time, Georgia Championship Wrestling was the most popular show on cable television, with the two-hour Saturday how averaging a 6.4 national rating and the one hour Best of show on Sunday averaging a 6.6, and Piper was a key part of it. Every week it was a Piper making fun of Armstrong's skinny legs, and Armstrong asking if he's ever seen a racehorse. Piper always got the last word in on every subject, but with Armstrong, the key was that the babyface, Armstrong, always got the last dig in. Once, Armstrong cut a promo about whoever his opponent was that week at the Omni, and made a dig that when he's done, he's coming after Piper next. Piper did a promo about how Bob says he wants to fight him, but first he has to take out the garbage, first he has to go to the store and buy groceries, and basically make fun of him being every family father. "It's like mind over matter," Bob would say when Piper would run him down,, "I don't mind and you don't matter," and then Bob would walk off and leave Piper hanging. Dusty Rhodes would also at times get the last word in, but with Armstrong, it was more personal. After months of this, one day in the TBS Studios, it finally happened. Armstrong and Piper got into it, doing an uncontrollable brawl all over the studio. Those type of brawls happened almost every week, but this was at a different level. For one, it had been built up for months, and second, both guys knew the brawl had to be next level to live up to the expectations from all those months. Also, because of how long it had been built up, the fans were screaming, and all over the country, wrestling fans were talking about what they knew was going to happen at some point for months, and finally it did. At the time, even though ratings were incredible--only 15 million homes in the U.S. had cable in 1981, and 1 million homes watched the Saturday and Sunday shows, which averaged 2.2 viewers per home, or 2,200,000 viewers weekly. Today, with cable in six times as many homes, and network in seven times as many homes, wrestling rarely hits that number. It was the first cable show in history that hit 1 million homes, and really, it was the success of that show that spawned cable television as we know it. At the time, the belief is that nobody outside of Atlanta would watch a local Atlanta television station, but Ted Turner thought different, figuring sports were underserved, and airing the Braves, the Hawks, local soccer and wrestling, he figured there would be national interest. But nobody thought it was local wrestling that would be the star program on the station. But there was no money in getting big ratings on television. The promotion was not lighting the world on fire at the time when it came to selling tickets, even with using the biggest names from around the country. Jim Barnett was still running Georgia Championship Wrestling, coming back in 1974 after leaving Australia, and winning the war for the NWA against Ann Gunkel's All South Wrestling. Ole Anderson was the booker. At the time Piper only worked as a television announcer in Georgia on Saturday mornings, as his main job was as a top heel for Jim Crockett Promotions. Wrestling at the Omni was doing about 5,000 fans and $25,000 most weeks, which was running at a slight loss. Everyone watching wrestling, and certainly Barnett, saw dollar signs in Piper. Armstrong was really supposed to be the first guy to get Piper over, and set him up for the bigger babyfaces, like Rhodes and Tommy Rich. Barnett rarely gave Anderson input into booking. He would bring in guys and tell Anderson who he thought could get over, and ask Anderson to protect them. Sometimes Anderson would and sometimes he wouldn't. In theory, since it was Piper's first match, and also because the program was so hot that they should in theory get a series of matches, a Piper win by cheating seemed logical. Barnett had a social engagement, but knew by the advance that this would be a big night. Even though the listed main event was Race defending the NWA title against Rich, Barnett and everyone who watched television knew the real main event was Piper's first match at the Omni. Barnett, who had been appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 to the national theater and arts board, had another engagement that night. Barnett told Anderson about the first Armstrong vs. Piper match, "Whatever you do, Piper has to get his hand raised." They drew nearly 13,000 fans and more than $60,000, not quite a sellout, but the largest crowd since a boom period had ended some time back. Anderson booked a double count out. Barnett was furious. Anderson told him that Armstrong was full-time and Piper was Crockett's guy and wasn't working the territory and he didn't want to have an outside guy beat his own guy.. "Piper never drew big in Atlanta again," Barnett lamented to me about the feud, noting that Bob was mid-level babyface whose role was to be the guy with credibility that Piper would beat before getting to guys like Rhodes, Mr. Wrestling II and Rich. Barnett said the timing was everything, and Anderson not giving Piper wins at that time ruined his specialness. Whether it was the finish, or it was just people wanting to see their local guy kick Piper's ass after all those months of talking once and had a magic that wasn't going to be recaptured even if Piper had won, who is to say. The rematches didn't draw anything special, but Piper did help Georgia Wrestling a lot in Michigan and Ohio where they were touring, where he often wrestled Armstrong. They did some matches in other territories as well.

It was a huge week for WWE, with the debuting of the Thunderdome concept that led to a major ratings increase, the return of Roman Reigns, SummerSlam, the third biggest show of the year, and NXT Takeover. The Thunderdome concept, ever evolving, has the Amway Center set up with virtual fans in front of the hard camera and a lot of special effects. The key to this is if ratings hold up after the big increases this past week. Raw was up 23.4 percent in viewers; 39.6 percent in 18-49–although some of that increase was based on coming the day after SummerSlam but it was also against heavy competition; Smackdown was up 13.3 percent in viewers; 9.6 percent in 18-49. If it does, it says the majority of the pandemic drops were due to the venue and not the creative, although it is a combination of both that was the culprit. If the novelty wears off and things go back to the level of the prior week, that would be a major blow. For Smackdown, the opening visual was strong. The laser light show and brightness of the building was a strong start. The problem was the audio. The fans that were shown really weren’t making any noise. They piped in fake sound, which is good for the bad matches, but bad for the good matches. Because it was just fake sound, the noise and ups and downs had no relation to the match. In particular, when Jeff Hardy won the IC title from A.J. Styles, there was no real pop, nor was there pops for his lines in his post-match interview ... It was a learning experience. The second show two nights later, SummerSlam, on 8/23, saw them use a coordinator who would direct the fans to react. When Randy Orton came out, fans were told to boo. These were contrived reactions, even worse than the wrestlers as fans, because it was mostly the piped in noise that didn’t relate to matches, with some coordinated cheers and boos and chants that were loud, but clearly not organic. Plus, they limited it, so really it was mostly done in the matches they wanted to enhance. When a heel would come out, the coordinator would tell everyone to do a thumbs down, so you’d see everyone in unison doing something that you would never actually see for a real life crowd ... On the positive side, the look and production of the show does make a difference and by a month from now we’ll be able to figure out how much. The other positive is whether the matches themselves get over, the performers look far more like stars being in a better setting and being able to do stronger entrances. The old scenario was nearly impossible to make new stars, which was key because WWE badly needed them. Now, they look more like stars, but it’s still a situation where there are no organic stars being made by the fans, not that WWE listened to the audience that much to begin with ... The positive is WWE was in complete control of its crowd, something it hasn’t had for more than 15 years. Usually when somebody does a heel turn, the crowd cheers them wildly because they are there for “moments” and “events.” But on Raw, when Aleister Black turned heel on Kevin Owens, nobody cheered. The one thing WWE did get in the pandemic was control of the crowd reactions ... Still, it was a huge improvement over the Performance Center as the ratings showed. The reality is not just show content, but even when it came to the look and production of the show, AEW was ahead of WWE the past few months and it showed in the difference in gains and steadiness of numbers. Now WWE is ahead of AEW at least when it comes to look and production and looks like the more major league, which is really the key advantage it had left. It also makes it curious as to why, since WWE has the ability to do it with very minimal cost as the full-time tenant through the end of October, that they are still doing NXT with the low-rent look at Full Sail University.

Reigns returned at the end of SummerSlam, attacking and laying out both former Universal champion Braun Strowman, as well as new champion The Fiend Bray Wyatt, with spears. Reigns appeared to have some face work done (enough so that Randy Orton on Twitter actually made a joke about his teeth) and changed up his physique, looking both slimmer and more muscular. While rumors about his return were around the last two days, this was kept as a secret from the writers and just about everyone until around the last few days. Reigns’ return should help Smackdown for a week or two in ratings and less after that, but he’ll be the star of the brand once again. In a sense it’s a positive in hindsight he wasn’t around, throwing out the health issue. Granted, missing Mania wasn’t a good thing from a company standpoint and Smackdown was hurt without him, but he wasn’t tainted being part of the low-rent looking shows and now he’s fresh. The health issue is still there. And with UFC with all its testing and having issues with COVID every week, and they take far more precautions, this isn’t without risk. The larger arena allows for more distancing and the actual testing greatly lowers the risk.

The interest level in the [SummerSlam] show was way down as compared to the shows in the past. The searches for the show were at first listed as 200,000, but an updated top search list on Sunday doesn't have WWE or SummerSlam listed. And the No. 20 for the day was 100,000. Even at 200,000, it would be less than one-tenth the interest level of the 8/15 UFC show headlined by Daniel Cormier vs. Stipe Miocic. 200,000 is a usual B WWE PPV show level and SummerSlam traditionally would be between 500,000 and 1 million.

Karrion Kross (Kevin Kesar, 35) captured the NXT championship and then had to vacate it due to suffering a separated shoulder in the opening minutes of his win over Keith Lee on 8/22 at Full Sail University in Winter Park, FL. The technical injury was a separated acromioclavicular joint in his right shoulder. The injury came early in the match after an exchange of strikes and Lee came off the ropes with a shoulderblock and Kross took the bump on his right shoulder, and immediately grabbed it. Just judging from his strikes prior to the injury there may have been a pre-existing minor injury because there were differences in how he threw right handed strikes from the start of the match. The company had been grooming Kross to build NXT around as champion since his arrival. Kross had said he expected to be out of action a minimal amount of time after the injury, but before he got his MRI. Nobody has officially said anything regarding what the MRI showed, past the 8/26 show opened with Kross vacating the title and vowing to be back, not giving a timetable. William Regal in a later promo said that Kross would be out of action for a long period of time. The indication was surgery but nobody has specifically said that. If Kross was not to need surgery and be out a month or two, they could work around it.

As New Japan Pro Wrestling gets ready to run its first major outdoor stadium show in 21 years, they have experimented with their own form of new technology. Starting with the 8/26 show at Korakuen Hall, the company adopted Yama's Remote Cheerer Powered by Sound JD. The technology was already being used in Japan for baseball and soccer. Unlike in the U.S., in Japan the culture is such that all fans at live events wear masks, but also are asked, and listen, to not cheer, boo or do chants. So at the shows, there have been a lot of clapping, but it's very different from the atmosphere of the past. Those in the arenas were given access to devices and if they push certain buttons, the device will cheer or boo. Even though it's very different, the atmosphere is somewhat similar to the fake crowd noise pumped in at U.S. sports events and on the recent WWE broadcasts, the background noise that has virtually no connection to the match or promo itself. With New Japan, because the fans are in control of sounds, and because there are fans in the building, there is a correlation between what goes on in the ring or the promo and the sounds. But it's still far from optimum.

NEW JAPAN: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that they would allow foreigners who have residency in Japan to return next month, which would open the doors for people like Will Ospreay, Juice Robinson and Bea Priestley

Moxley was on Wrestling Observer Radio and told a funny story about the Death Rider gimmick. Moxley debuted in videos in New Japan for a first big match with Juice Robinson, where he won the U.S. title. He had a contract through WrestleKingdom with the original idea being he wins the U.S. title, then would do an angle when Karl Anderson would attack him out of nowhere at the October Sumo Hall show and that would lead to the Tokyo Dome. In theory, Anderson was winning the title. So that’s another reason Anderson has been so adamant that he made a big mistake signing the new deal. The guy in the jacket with the Death Rider jacket wasn’t Moxley but a guy basically there to be a body double. They wanted a jacket that would fit the character and the body double guy went to a Goodwill store to get a jacket which had “Death Rider” on the back. That’s actually where the name came from, just happened to be on the jacket and New Japan decided it would then be his nickname and the name of his finisher, because WWE owned the dirty deeds name.

Jericho explained where the Mimosa Mayhem idea came from, since it was his concept. "I got the idea, kind of, coming from one of those of old Atsushi Onita exploding barbed-wire death match sort of things (Jericho worked for FMW early in his career and was on big stadium shows during Onita's heyday) and, you know, a lot of suspense, kind of like a battle royale, getting thrown out, holding onto the ropes, that sort of a thing. Of course, if someone is able to throw the other, into the pit, the vat, the container of mimosa, then they're the winner. So of course, it makes perfect sense for the storyline of this feud with Orange Cassidy. Of course, he's orange juice and I'm a little bit of the bubbly... the champagne. We're just trying to think of some cool ideas and that just popped into my head and I thought it would be a kind of fun match that can have a lot of twists and turns and false finishes and that sort of thing to it.

Tickets for the 8/27 show, about 500 of them, sold out in four minutes. That really isn’t much of a surprise with so few tickets available. Even though the plan is to tape every other week, what they are doing next week is keeping everyone in Jacksonville from 9/2 to 9/9 with TV live on 9/2 and 9/9 and the PPV on 9/5. The feeling is if they have everyone in town already they can keep them for the week and for obvious reasons they didn’t want to tape 9/9 prior to 9/5. The 9/9 taping will be for shows on 9/9, 9/16 and 9/17 plus Dark for those days as well

We got a copy of the letter sent to all fans who attended the 8/27 tapings. The basic rules are masks required at all times except when eating and drinking. Guests can only eat or drink while sitting in their assigned seat or a seating area. Masks must completely cover the mouth and nose. Guests who fail to comply are subject to ejection. Cars can only be parked in every other parking lot spot. Masks are recommended in the parking lot and tailgating is prohibited. No liquids or beverage are allowed inside but food is permitted provided it is unwrapped and inside a one gallon clear plastic bag. Everyone has to have their own mobile ticket. Concessions are cashless. Smoking is prohibited From those who attended live, they said everyone was masked, the crowd was loud given the small numbers in a big outdoor building, and it was a super well behaved crowd, lots of PWG regulars from the Southeast who were just happy to see a major live show

Brandon Thurston, who was the closest of any analyst when it came to WWE’s profitability and revenue in the last quarter, almost perfectly on target while almost everyone was high on revenue but low on profit margin, had readjusted his 2020 projections to a year-end $100 million in profits, almost identical to last year. The company was running well ahead of that pace, but his belief is the costs of going live every week and of the Thunderdome set up will lead to profits of $13.05 million in quarter three and $17.4 million in quarter four. This model is based on no revenue from live events, no merchandise from live events and no second Saudi Arabia show for the remainder of this year. Given AEW, NFL and NASCAR will be having paid attendance now and shortly, I suspect WWE will try and do at least some live events going forward. Whether they can do them with, say 30 percent capacity, and make them profitable is a big question, but arenas are going to cut deals wanting shows back. Right now the leading analysts are predicting WWE profits for the year being $115 million to $140 million, which would break last year’s record of $99.6 million. But none have revised with the greater expenses of running every show live rather than taping in clusters and doing multiple shows at a time, and the added production expense of the new format

WWE posted for job applicants on Linked In looking for a new head writer for Smackdown. Wasn’t it NXT that just lost its head writer? Lead writer doesn’t mean as much today as it used to. A lot of different people are called lead writer even though Ed Koskey is the lead writer on Smackdown and he’s not leaving as far as anyone knows. But other like Ryan Callahan and Ryan Ward have been called lead writers so it’s not a singular person, but just wanting to add a new higher level writer

After getting the big push on the first week of Raw Underground, Babatunde has disappeared, which is quite the feat when you're a legit 6-foot-9 and 360 pounds

For the 8/24 Raw, Vince was on the phone all day with the writers. That morning, the changes started. He made multiple changes via phone and then got to the building at 7 p.m. and wanted to review the show and started making more changes. The third hour of the show wasn’t finalized until after 9 p.m., while the show was in progress. The Raw Underground stuff was actually taped well before they went on the air. The only actual match promoted all week long, until the day of the show, was Ivar vs. Ziggler for Raw Underground. That never happened, was never discussed on the air, nor was there any explanation regarding it not happening even though both were there

Paul Ellering claimed that he was going to come in full-time as the manager of AOP right before the pandemic, and has no idea if it’s still in the cards as he hasn’t heard from anyone. That would have been under Paul Heyman who was going to give AOP a big push as his top heel tag team, but that makes little sense since they were to be Seth Rollins’ muscle at the time. It fell apart when Rezar suffered a torn biceps and the decision was made to take Akam off television until he could return. One person on the inside said that Ellering's name was never brought up for the return of AOP before the pandemic or since because Vince didn't like him, which is why he had AOP turn on him their first night on the main roster. The plan right now is when they return to not put them back with Rollins, but that could always change tomorrow. The return is expected sometime between late September and the end of the year. Not sure what will be done with them as Heyman was going to give them a huge push but before Heyman had some power, they weren't even being used

The top ten most-watched shows on the WWE Network this past week were: 1. SummerSlam; 2. NXT Takeover; 3. WWE 24: WrestleMania 2020 The Show Must Go On; 4. R-Truth Game Show; 5. SummerSlam pregame show; 6. WWE Untold: Bayley vs. Sasha Banks from Brooklyn; 7. Raw Talk on 8/24; 8. WrestleMania 20 day two; 9. 2020 Royal Rumble; 10. The Horror Show at Extreme Rules. The first episode of Talking Smack was only No. 21. Neither 205 Live nor this week’s NXT show cracked the top 25. The NXT shows the week of Takeovers never seem to chart well because people watch Takeovers. The NXT preshow on Saturday also didn’t chart which kind of tells you for NXT its best to not label something as a preshow and just add that match to the main show

WWE Ratings, NXT Ratings, AEW Ratings:

SPOILER: show

Raw, with a combination of the Raw debut of Thunderdome and being the day after SummerSlam, pulled its best numbers since the day after WrestleMania, with an average of 2,028,000 viewers and 0.67 in 18-49. The show the day after WrestleMania did 2,100,000 viewers. The number was even more impressive because the 18-49 number was up 39.6 percent from the show the week before which did the fourth lowest number in that demo in history, with the strongest gains in 35-49 at 48.5 percent. Overall the show's total audience was up 23.4 percent. Next week will probably give a better idea of the difference the Thunderdome concept will make longer-term because there will be a first week novelty and coming off SummerSlam helped as well, and even Roman Reigns curiosity, although that should help the 8/28 Smackdown show the most. The show went against tough competition with two NBA playoff games on TNT, the game against the first 74 minutes doing 2,140,000 viewers and 0.72 in 18-49; and the game against the last 106 minutes doing 2,979,000 viewers and 1.34 in 18-49. The major competition was the Republican National Convention which averaged 6,544,000 viewers on FOX News in hour three. However the crossover wasn’t that strong because the third hour drop was actually less than usual. There were also NHL playoff games which did 837,000 and 0.26 for the early game and 692,000 and 0.25 for the late game on NBC Sports Network. The good news was that the audience held up well, especially in hour three against the highly rated Republican convention. The first hour did 2,140,000 viewers. The second hour did 2,045,000 viewers. The third hour did 1,900,000 viewers. Overall, Raw was 20th for the night and sixth in 18-49, behind two NBA games, two FOX news shows covering the convention and 90 Day Fiancé ... As compared to the same week last year, Raw was down 19.7 percent in viewers, 16.3 percent in 18-49 and 38.9 percent in 18-34. First-to-third hour drops were 12.2 percent for women 18-49, 13.7 percent for men 18-49, 27.8 percent for teenage girls, 19.9 percent for teenage boys and 11.5 percent in over 50.

Smackdown on 8/21 did its best numbers of the pandemic era, based on the hype for the debut of Thunderdome, doing a 1.38 rating and 2,198,000 viewers and 0.58 (753,000 viewers) in 18-49 (1.32 viewers per home). It was up 14.0 percent in household ratings, 13.3 percent in viewers and 9.6 percent in 18-49 from the prior week. The show before the pandemic was generally doing about 0.75 in 18-49 so they were not back to usual levels. Smackdown was the only non-rerun on network television and easily won the demo as a number of shows did 0.4. Smackdown’s 0.4 in 18-34 was way up from usual, with nothing else on network above 0.2. Smackdown usually does 0.3 and has done several 0.2s in the last two months. In total viewers, Smackdown finished next to last as a Dateline Classics rerun did 2,175,000 viewers. In the half hours, the first half hour did 2.24 million viewers for Vince McMahon, Braun Strowman, Bray Wyatt and Retribution in the first segment and Sheamus vs. Big E. The second half hour did 2.14 million viewers with Cesaro & Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Lince Dorado & Gran Metalik and promos with Mandy Rose and then Bayley & Sasha Banks. The third half hour did 2.19 million viewers with Bayley vs. Naomi, Banks vs. Naomi, interviews with Sonya Deville and Nikki Cross and the start of A.J. Styles vs. Jeff Hardy. The final half hour did 2.10 million viewers for Styles vs. Hardy, The Firefly Fun House and the ending segment with Strowman destroying Wyatt and The Fiend coming out of the ambulance. Last year over the same weekend with reruns, FOX avenged 1,038,000 viewers and 0.3, so they more than doubled last year.

Some more notes on NXT on 8/19, and going unopposed. As noted last week, but this spells it out even more, the AEW under 35 audience did not watch NXT while the 35 and older audience did. NXT did 310,000 viewers in 18-49, up 50.5 percent with no AEW competition. 38,000 in men 18-34 (down 2.6 percent from the opposed prior week), 22,000 in women 18-34 (up 4.8 percent), 168,000 in men 35-49 (up 71.4 percent) and 82,000 in women 35-49 (up 70.8 percent). If we look at what AEW did on 8/12, basically on a percentage basis, you can’t even basically trace the AEW 18-34 movement to NXT (basically 0 out of 105,000 viewers). In males 35-49, one would estimate 38.5 percent of the AEW audience watched NXT. In women 35-49, one would estimate 30.9 percent of the AEW audience watched NXT. As far as individual groups went, in Males 18-49, the high point of the show was Adam Cole & Pat McAfee. In Women 18-49, it was Dakota Kai vs. Jessi Kamea and Legado del Fantasma vs. Tyler Breeze & Fandango & Swerve Scott. In men overall 2+ it was the Cole/McAfee segment. In women overall it was Johnny Gargano vs. Ridge Holland, which also had the mot total viewers of any segment, which is because it was on first and had the big lead-in. In the segment-by-segment, NXT opened with 921,000 viewers and 306,000 in 18-49 for Johnny Gargano vs. Ridge Holland. The second quarter was 871,000 viewers and 318,000 in 18-49 for Dakota Kai vs Jessi Kamea. The third quarter was 848,000 viewers and 325,000 in 18-49 for the beginning of Santos Escobar & Joaquin Wilde & Raul Mendoza vs. Tyler Breeze & Fandango & Isaiah Scott. The fourth quarter was 873,000 viewers and 340,000 in 18-49 for the end of that six-man tag match. It was also the high point of the night for 18-49s. The fifth quarter with the Adam Cole-Pat McAfee angle and the beginning of Aliyah & Mercedes Martinez vs. Rhea Ripley & Shotzi Blackheart did 847,000 viewers and 324,000 in 18-49. So the Cole-McAfee segment, put in the best time slot usually (Q5 for the show), lost 26,000 viewers and 16,000 in 18-49. The sixth quarter with the continuation of the women’s tag match drew 779,000 viewers and 279,000 in 18-49, so that was a huge drop. The beginning of Finn Balor vs. Velveteen Dream rebounded to 842,000 viewers and 289,000 in 18-49, and the bulk of the match in the final quarter did 863,000 viewers and 309,000 in 18-49. Because of no AEW and NXT gaining so many 35-49 new viewers, NXT skewed slightly younger than Smackdown this week, with Smackdown the oldest skewing show, followed by NXT, Raw, UFC and AEW as the youngest. For the week AEW skewed younger than every sports show of the week on television except the NBA, and it skewed younger than about half the NBA games during the week.

Even though the NXT show on 8/26 was the first show after Takeover and had no AEW competition, nor NBA competition, the overall audience declined with 824,000 viewers and 0.24 in 18-49, good for 24th place on the night. The audience was down 3.4 percent from the unopposed show the prior week, while 18-49 was identical. There were slight gains in women 35-49 from last week but women under 35 were almost nonexistent, so once again they picked up none of that AEW fan base. They did go against the Republican convention and Fox News in the head-to-head hours did 5,850,000 and 7,088,000 viewers which is about double usual. The Weather Channel due to hurricane threats did far better than usual. The NHL game on NBC Sports Network did 982,000 viewers and 0.29 in 18-34. It still indicated that in a normal week if they ran unopposed they could do about 900,000 viewers or more ... The show did a 0.13 in 12-17 (up 30.0 percent from last week), 0.12 in 18-34 (up 33.3 percent), 0.36 in 35-49 (down 7.7 percent) and 0.41 in 50+ (down 2.4 percent). The audience was 63.8 percent male in 18-49 and 82.4 percent male in 12-17.

AEW on 8/22 did 755,000 viewers and 0.31 (407,000 viewers) in 18-49. While the numbers were similar to the prior show on 8/12 which did 792,000 viewers and 0.32 (417,000), given being out of prime time and a different night, it’s completely different circumstances. AEW benefitted by having a far stronger lead-in than usual with the NBA playoff game lead-in doing 1,607,000 viewers and 0.62 in 18-49, but was hurt by starting 34 minutes later than advertised due to the game going long. It was and also hurt on the DVR front because the last 34 minutes were off the DVR for people who only recorded the show itself as per normal. AEW did go head-to-head with NXT Takeover, so it still had pro wrestling competition in the time slot. But with Takeover available in so few homes it was a factor, but a very minor factor as compared to a television show which would draw a far higher audience. AEW was No. 5 on cable for the night, behind three NBA games and barely behind UFC. UFC had a number of advantages over AEW, between being in prime time, having a slightly stronger lead-in, being on its regular night and being on a stronger station ... The other thing to look at is audience demo changes even though the final audience and 18-49 numbers were similar, so you could say that almost all the AEW fans came over. But here’s the difference as compared with 8/12. For this show they did 0.17 in 12-17 (up 21.4 percent, likely due to the NBA ,lead-in because this is a bad time slot for teen viewers, especially on the West Coast), 0.21 in 18-34 (up 20.8 percent, again strong NBA demo), 0.41 in 35-49 (down 12.3 percent) and 0.25 in 50+ (down 3.8 percent). In 18-49, the audience was 72.7 percent male as opposed to 59.2 percent for the last Wednesday show. The NBA game lead-in was 73.4 percent male, so their make up was closer to NBA than AEW. Essentially they picked up some NBA fans but some of their regular women’s audience missed it due to unfamiliar time slot or being Saturday. In teenagers, they were 64.7 percent male as opposed to 54.2 percent male the last Wednesday show, so the same thing applies. The NBA was 75.0 percent male in 12-17 so in this case it was a mix of what they usually get and the heavier male skew of an NBA game. More notes as far as each demo went, men 18-34 did 96,000 viewers (up 47.7 percent from the previous show), women 18-34 did 55,000 viewers (down 8.3 percent), men 35-49 did 186,000 viewers (up 2.2 percent) and women 18-34 did 70,000 viewers (down 36.4 percent)... The key to note in the quarter hours is because people’s watching via DVR wouldn’t have gotten the last two quarters, those numbers are artificially low by a small amount. So the decline for the Darby Allin vs. Will Hobbs match is significant, but the decline for the women’s tag match is to a degree, but some of the 361,000 to 288,000 18-49 drop is due to extenuating circumstances. The Cody vs. Lee segment had to rebuild and did, gaining 98,000 viewers and 68,000 in 18-49, but that number would have lost out in homes that watched same night via DVR. The quarter hours are notable because the first quarter at 6:34 to 6:49 with FTR vs. Private Party and Jon Moxley interview did 1,002,000 viewers and 575,000 in 18-49. Because of the NBA lead-in, that would be the biggest quarter of the show in more than six months. But it went back to normal in quarter two with 724,000 viewers and 416,000 in 18-49 with an MJF promo and the beginning of Dustin Rhodes & QT Marshall & Luchasaurus & Jungle Boy vs. Butcher & Blade & Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix. Quarter three did 791,000 viewers and 444,000 in 18-49 for the rest of the eight-man tag, the post match with Eddie Kingston’s promo, the Britt Baker, Reba, Penelope Ford and Kip Sabian vignette and the beginning of the Inner Circle/Best Friends & Orange Cassidy angle. Quarter four did 767,000 viewers and 423,000 in 18-49 for the rest of the Inner Circle/Best Friends & Cassidy angle and Young Bucks & Kenny Omega vs. John Silver & Alex Reynolds & Alan Angels match. It fell to 712,000 viewers and 386,000 in 18-49 for the rest o the six-man tag and a promo with Tully Blanchard, FTR and Adam Page. The sixth quarter fell to 666,000 and 361,000 in 18-49 for Darby Allin vs. Will Hobbs and the post-match with Allin, Taz, Ricky Starks and Brian Cage. The seventh quarter did 640,000 viewers and 288,000 in 18-49 with Allie & Brandi Rhodes vs. Ivelisse & Diamante. And the final quarter did 738,000 viewers and 356,000 in 18-49 for the Brodie Lee TNT title win over Cody and post-match destruction.