Wrestling News & Rumors

[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.