Wrestling News & Rumors

[Sepholio]

I'm gonna need to both of you to shut your dirty mouths. Look at Elias. Look closely. Listen. That's the second coming of the Macho Man in disguise brother and he just needs to be given the spotlight to show the world the MADDDDDNNNEESSSS.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Due to the holiday on Monday, ratings for the XFL and Raw have been delayed.

Originally Posted by Fightful Vince McMahon is still hands-on, but it's definitely at a distance these days. After word that WWE was potentially shopping PPV content to outside providers dropped on the WWE Q4 2019 call, Fightful was given a tip that McMahon's attendance isn't exactly what it once was. On the Smackdown side of things, we were told that Vince McMahon was rarely, if ever at the show between Thanksgiving and the February 5th episode. We're told that Bruce Prichard has assumed his position at Gorilla for those shows, but we don't know exactly how much input Prichard has on the final product. Over on Raw, it was noted that Vince McMahon was around "approximately half the time." Outside of that, McMahon is said to have been exceptionally private of late. This is still a far cry from decades past, when McMahon would almost never miss an episode of WWE Raw if he could help it.

Originally Posted by Fightful In conversation during the Royal Rumble 2005 episode of his Grilling JR podcast, Jim Ross revealed that before his contract expired in December 2004, The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) did indeed pitch a WrestleMania match versus Sting. He adds, "Rock knew in his heart that he could get a match out of Sting, who had been dormant for quite a while, without any problem. Full confidence. I believe that too." According to the legendary announcer, WWE had been trying to sign Sting since WCW closed its doors in 2001. At the time, there was a belief that he would be happy (having just been paid money owed by Time Warner), healthy, and refreshed. "We only wanted him for a part-time role, at best, to maximize the investment, and not overuse an asset that had more matches in him than he had left," said Jim Ross. Ultimately, the match never happened, and Johnson opted not to renew his contract. That said, Jim Ross does not believe one thing has anything to do with the other. Furthermore, responding to the assertion that Vince McMahon was "picking sides" and showing Steve Austin preferential treatment, Ross believes it was a matter of ego. It's not that Rock wasn't a priority, or that there were issues of control, but rather, in his estimation, this was Vince overcompensating and saying "no matter how big you have gotten, I will always run the ship here."

Originally Posted by Fightful You may have noticed some changes to WWE's musical production over the last several months. That's because CFO$ is no longer working with WWE. Fightful Select was informed that the music group had an issue with their publisher. According to one source, CFO$ was out a significant cut of money as it relates to their deal. The same aforementioned source indicated that CFO$ tried to get WWE to buy them out of their deal, which WWE seemed on board with, but the publisher rejected. The plan that we'd heard was that WWE hoped to bring them in house, but the talks got to a stand-still, and eventually ran out. It's thought that CFO$ have a non-compete with their publisher, which is why they haven't returned. The move was said to be a big one considering WWE's willingness to outsource the work instead of keeping it to themselves as they'd done for decades working with Jim Johnston. This situation has caused a slowdown on WWE's lucrative WWE Music Group Youtube channel as well, with no new uploads in six months. We're told WWE had plenty of exclusive tracks from CFO$ that they've used in the months since the split happened. This has led to WWE using library tracks and an in-house editor, as they've had other departures in that department as well. WWE is still actively seeking out new employees for that division

Originally Posted by Observer Impact announced that their Impact Plus VOD service will add a new event from Ontario-based Alpha 1 Wrestling, which is Ethan Page's promotion. They will be uploading the 2/16 show in Hamilton, ONT.

Originally Posted by Fightful In the wake of NXT UK TakeOver: Dublin being announced for April 26, Progress Wrestling announced on Twitter that it will have an update on an event the promotion is scheduled to run on that same day.

Originally Posted by Observer We now have a date for the next Crockett Cup tournament. The promotion announced this afternoon that this year’s tournament will take place on April 19 at the Gateway Arena in College Park, Georgia. Tickets will go on sale February 28, with a pre-sale taking place a day prior. The show will take place on the same day as Impact’s Rebellion pay-per-view event, which will take place in New York City.

Originally Posted by Observer New Japan Pro Wrestling has issued some new guidelines for fans as Japan struggles with the coronavirus outbreak. The company said all future live shows will go on, but are advising fans that if they fell ill, they should stay home. They are also encouraging fans and their staff to wear surgical-style masks in addition to providing disinfectant spray at events. The statement also said attendee health checks may be part of future shows and that fans that don't feel well at shows may be asked to leave. They also said that all meet and greets and autograph signings are canceled until further notice. They have events scheduled in Tokyo all weekend long.

Originally Posted by Observer Stardom announced Tuesday they are canceling the rest of their February slate of shows and making a drastic change to their March 8th show Korakuen Hall show due to the coronavirus outbreak ... Their March 7th FC Members Only Event Spring Bus tour set for Gunma has been postponed while their March 8th tournament show at Tokyo's Korakuen Hall will be an empty arena show with no fans allowed in the building. The event will be shown in full on their YouTube channel. They are offering refunds to those fans who purchased tickets.

Originally Posted by Observer AEW vice president Cody Rhodes spoke to the media for 40 minutes Tuesday afternoon, answering questions on everything from Jeff Cobb's deal to free agency to Canadian dates and plenty more ... Some key talking points: He said it's unlikely to see the Bash At The Beach name or other events he owns the trademarks to with the exception of one. He said AEW and Jeff Cobb are still in a "gestation" stage. He's signed for more dates, but he needs to keep it vague for now ... He said that when it comes to free agents, the doors are open ... He's taken lead and an ownership role in Norcross, GA's Nightmare Factory. It's not affiliated with AEW, but open to all talent and could be something down the road ... They haven't talked to ROH about getting rights to the original All In, but they have a good relationship there. Young Bucks and Dana Massie own the name, so it could happen down the road.

Originally Posted by PWI While Good Humor had announced that the returning WWE Superstars Ice Cream bars would be hitting shelves in April, PWInsider.com has confirmed that the ice cream is already being sold at Stop N Shop stores, among other locations. We've heard from ten different readers in the Northeast that they've found the bars on sale. John Cena, Roman Reigns, Becky Lynch and WWE Hall of Famer Randy Savage are featured on the cookies of the sandwich.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Former WWE talent Eve Torres-Gracie put out a post regarding an incident from 2009 involving Donald Trump during the period he was given control of Raw. Torres-Gracie cited a press event in June 2009 in Green Bay prior to Raw where she appeared alongside Torrie Wilson, Maryse Ouellet, The Bella Twins, and Maria Kanellis where she alleges that Trump forcefully grabbed her. Below is the Instagram post from Torres-Gracie:

Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/B8sfLTPl...ource=ig_embed

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The WWE stock closed at $45.96 on Tuesday, which was up over 2% during the day.

Originally Posted by Fightful Following Nyla Rose's AEW Women's Title victory over Riho last Wednesday, former WWE superstar Val Venis took to social media to give his thoughts on the matter. Venis criticized AEW and Rose, an openly transgender wrestler, for allowing Rose to win the Women's World Title. Venis wrote, "When I turn on the mind numbing boob-tube to watch two women wrestle for the championship, I expect to see REAL WOMEN wrestling. Today I identify as a Great Dane. Gonna enter the Westminster dog show and win the XL Dog title.” He later clarified his comments, writing, "I never claimed #NylaRose was cheating. Its scripted & could be a heat seeking story line when portrayed responsibly. My position was & still is that portraying a biological MAN winning the Womens championship is not something to portray as moral, ethical or logical." Speaking on a media call, AEW Co-Executive Vice President Cody addressed Venis' comments. "It's disappointing. If you are someone that perhaps grew up liking Val Venis, he's kind of like the Disco Inferno of WWE, I don't know if anyone really knows who Val Venis is anymore. It's disappointing because I don't think he actually means the terrible, awful things, he's putting in writing. I think he's just trying to get a booking. We're not booking Val Venis and you're not gonna be booked anywhere near us." He continued, "The real way to end some of this bigotry, transphobia, and negativity is don't hit the ball back. We all know who we're talking about here. They're the same people who do this. When we hit the ball back, you give them oxygen. I'm not giving Val Venis any oxygen when it coming to Nyla Rosa. Nyla Rose won the Women's World Championship because she was the best woman at AEW. That's just it. Stop hitting the ball back to those people. It's 2020, everybody should love everybody." Venis was in the vocal minority of those who spoke against Rose's victory, with the majority supporting Rose for her achievement.

Originally Posted by Fightful John Bradshaw Layfield (JBL) is reportedly set to be inducted into the 2020 WWE Hall of Fame. Raj Giri of Wrestling Inc first reported the news ... As of now, the only confirmed inductees into the 2020 WWE Hall of Fame class are the New World Order (Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Hulk Hogan, & Sean Waltman) and Batista. Other names reportedly set to be inducted include The Bella Twins (Nikki & Brie Bella), Jushin "Thunder" Liger, and "The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Various: Arena Refused to Host AEW Due to WWE Ties, Bad Luck Fale on AEW-NJPW Issues, Indies
• WWE: Rhea Ripley vs. Charlotte WrestleMania Note, Tito Ortiz at WWE PC, New Trademark
• Matt Hardy Comments on His Raw Segment
• “The British Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith to Be Inducted Into WWE Hall of Fame
• Raw Tag Team Championship Added to Super ShowDown – Updated Card
• NXT UK TakeOver: Dublin Announced

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Raw on Monday night did its best showing since December 30 with a 2.44 million viewer average. For whatever reason, there is a history of Raw doing big numbers on President's Day weekend, as last year's show did 2.77 million. The number was up four percent from last week, but the bad news was that the 22 percent first-to-thurd hour drop in audience was the seventh biggest in the history of the show ... The second-to-third hour drop was the second largest of all-time, trailing only a 2018 episode that had Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson appearing at the end of the second hour ... The first hour was the most-watched first hour of the show since September 30. The three hours were: 8 p.m. 2.67 million viewers 9 p.m. 2.56 million viewers 10 p.m. 2.08 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer A documentary on WWE's Florida Championship Wrestling developmental brand is set to premiere next month. It was announced today that "A Future WWE: The FCW Story" will debut on the WWE Network on Sunday, March 8. It will be made available on-demand at 10 a.m. Eastern time that day. FCW was WWE's developmental brand prior to it becoming NXT.

Originally Posted by Observer Ahead of tonight's Dynamite episode in Atlanta, AEW has revealed the latest top-five roster rankings for their men's, women's, and tag team divisions: Men's division -- Champion: Chris Jericho (0-0 singles record in 2020, 10-1-1 overall record) Jon Moxley (5-0 singles record in 2020, 10-1-1 overall record) Cody Rhodes (2-0 singles record in 2020, 9-3-1 overall record) PAC (1-1 singles record in 2020, 6-5-1 overall record) Kenny Omega (0-0 singles record in 2020, 14-6 overall record) MJF (2-0 singles record in 2020, 6-1 overall record) Women's division -- Champion: Nyla Rose (3-1 singles record in 2020, 7-4 overall record) Riho (3-1 singles record in 2020, 11-3 overall record) Kris Statlander (1-1 singles record in 2020, 5-3 overall record) Hikaru Shida (2-1 singles record in 2020, 7-4 overall record) Yuka Sakazaki (1-0 singles record in 2020, 1-2 overall record) Britt Baker (1-2 singles record in 2020, 8-6 overall record) Tag team division -- Champions: Kenny Omega & Hangman Page (4-0 tag team record in 2020, 14-6 overall record for Omega, 10-8 overall record for Page) The Young Bucks (2-1 tag team record in 2020, 12-8 overall record for Nick Jackson, 12-7 overall record for Matt Jackson) SCU (2-2 tag team record in 2020, 15-6 overall record for Scorpio Sky, 14-5 overall record for Frankie Kazarian The Dark Order (2-0 tag team record in 2020, 6-2 overall record for Evil Uno, 6-2 overall record for Stu Grayson) Santana & Ortiz (0-1 tag team record in 2020, 7-5 overall record for Santana, 7-5 overall record for Ortiz) The Lucha Bros (0-1 tag team record in 2020, 8-8 overall record for Pentagon Jr., 9-8 overall record for Fenix)

Originally Posted by Observer Lucha Libre AAA has revealed when Kenny Omega will be making his next Mega title defense Omega will defend his AAA Mega Championship against Laredo Kid at this year's Rey de Reyes event. The show is taking place at Poliforum Zamna in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico on Saturday, March 21 and will air live on Twitch.

Originally Posted by PWI PROGRESS Wrestling posted they will be moving their Chapter 105 event to the date April 20 due to the announcement of NXT Takeover UK Dublin

PROGRESS originally announced their event on the 26th before WWE announced that date for their next NXT UK Takeover event. Also seems PROGRESS wasn't informed ahead of time of WWE's decision which is why they had to scramble to change their plans.

Originally Posted by PWI As PWInsider.com reported yesterday in the Elite section, WWE is beginning to reach out to former WWE stars about coming in for Wrestlemania 36 weekend to make appearances. Beyond the four names we reported yesterday, PWInsider.com can exclusively also confirm that WWE has booked Brodus Clay and Ariane "Cameron" Andrew for the weekend, setting the stage for a potential reunion with current Smackdown star Naomi, who was paired with Andrew as the The Funkadactyls tag team while also linked with Clay during his time in WWE. Clay has two developmental runs with WWE, with the second one leading to his main roster debut. He received a big push out in 2012 when he debuted as the Funkasaurus. He departed WWE in 2014, continuing to wrestle under the name Tyrus for Impact Wrestling and on the independent scene. He currently appears as a personality on FOX News' streaming FOX Nation platform. He's currently involved in a lawsuit against him and the Network for his alleged conduct towards former FOX personality Britt McHenry. He is slated to respond to that lawsuit on 3/9 after being granted an extension on responding.

Considering the serious legal issues Clay is currently dealing with, just another boneheaded decision that's going to cause them PR headaches afterwards. The other people WWE recently reached out to were JBL, Darren Young, Hornswoggle, and Santino Marella.

Originally Posted by PWI Sky Germany will no longer offer WWE pay-per-views as of April. They are now offering AEW events instead. The official announcement from Sky (translated to English) reads: Sky Germany and the WWE go their separate ways Wrestling formats will no longer be available at Sky from April. The end of the collaboration is due to a WWE decision. Sky will now add another wrestling league to the program. Sky Deutschland and the WWE wrestling series will no longer work together. The current contract expires at the end of March. Sky Deutschland stated that it had not continued the cooperation because the important pay-per-view events that would bring the great stories within the shows to the top and also to the end were no longer separately advertised for Germany - and could not be acquired at all. As a result, only the weekly shows “Raw” and “Smackdown” were available for the period from April onwards - in fan circles these two in particular have recently been criticized more and more because of falling quality.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Jeremy Lambert of Fightful reached out to WrestleCon about Darby Allin and Sammy Guevara being pulled from their scheduled appearances during WrestleMania 36 week/weekend. WrestleCon told Lambert that they were not contacted directly by All Elite Wrestling so they were not given a reason as to why Allin and Guevara were pulled. Both men are set to appear at The Great Philadelphia Comic Con on the same weekend as WrestleCon. It is also noted in the article that the contracts with Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho are with Barry Bloom Talent Agency and that goes over AEW and the same goes for Jon Moxley who is booked through PrimeTime Appearances.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling David Benoit was the most recent guest on Vickie Guerrero’s podcast and David revealed that he reached out to Booker T about training with Booker in Houston by way of Reality Of Wrestling: “I talked to Booker T last Friday. So he said he would give me a call but I’m still waiting so, we’ll see.” Vickie Guerrero and David Benoit chatted about their experiences backstage in AEW. Vickie Guerrero has done commentary on AEW Dark and she told the story of how she reached out to WWE to line up talent interviews for her podcast but once they found out she was on AEW programming, the communication between the two sides stopped. “I have the podcast now and I had asked to interview some superstars for my podcast and they found out I went to AEW and now they don’t even talk to me, and between me and you [David Benoit], let’s just put it that way — they didn’t call me for two years. I haven’t heard from them, so what did they expect me to do? Just to sit here and wait for them to call so I can do some work? I love wrestling, I love to work in the ring and if someone’s giving me an opportunity to go and show up and have some fun, then I should be able to because I’m not obligated to anybody. But you know, I saw that I pissed in their Cheerios and so be it."

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling While speaking on an international media call, Rhea Ripley told Digital Spy that she doesn’t mind if the NXT Women’s Championship is referred to as its original name or simply the “NXT Championship”. She thinks it was changed back to the NXT Women’s Title because of the backlash on social media.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling All Elite Wrestling is launching their official podcast entitled “AEW Unrestricted” and the podcast is set to debut on February 20th. There is a one minute teaser up on Apple Podcasts and it’s also noted in the description that AEW referee Aubrey Edwards and Tony Schiavone are hosting the podcast.

Originally Posted by Fightful At 45 years old, Tito Ortiz may be looking to add WWE Superstar to his resume. The former UFC champion is currently training at the WWE Performance Center, according to a report by Dave Meltzer on the February 15th episode of Wrestling Observer Radio ... On Tuesday, WWE confirmed to ESPN that Ortiz had been training at the WWE Performance Center. Ortiz declined to comment, though sources told ESPN that he did well in his training.

Link: https://www.espn.com/espn/now?nowId=21-41091567-4


TPWW Frontpage:

• XFL Ratings Down for Week 2 Games
• Impact Signs Chris Bey, AEW Had Expressed Interest

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Going against the Democratic presidential debate but no major sports competition, both AEW Dynamite and NXT were up in the ratings this week. Dynamite averaged 893,000 viewers, up nine percent from last week. In the 18-49 demo, the show averaged a 0.31 rating, which was up three percent from the prior week. Dynamite finished fifth in the cable TV ratings in that category. NXT was up five percent, averaging 794,000 viewers. In the 18-49 demo, it averaged a 0.25 rating, up four percent from last week. NXT finished 16th in the cable rankings, one of their better finishes in that category. Aside from when the show ran unopposed on Christmas night, it was the highest viewership total for NXT since December 18. The demos were different than usual this week as the shows tied in people over 50, a category NXT usually wins out in. NXT had a slight win in people 18-34, with a 0.19 rating to Dynamite's 0.18. AEW won big in males 18-49 with a 0.44 rating to NXT's 0.32. But with females in that age range, the shows both had a 0.18 rating. The debate likely hurt NXT more than AEW, given that the debate did a monster rating in people over 50, the category NXT usually wins in.

Originally Posted by Observer On Wednesday's Wrestling Observer Radio (subscription needed), Dave Meltzer gave some updates on New Japan's UK plans and their effort to get a new U.S. TV deal. London He said they are planning to hold a big show in London, England, later this year on a similar scale to last year's Royal Quest event. Originally, the company was going to focus on shows solely in Japan and the U.S. for 2020, but have changed their plans. Meltzer speculated the show will again be at the Copper Box Arena. U.S. TV Deal Meltzer said the company is working on a U.S. TV deal, but would describe them as preliminary at best. AXS TV canceled their deal with New Japan a year early, leaving them without a U.S. TV outlet for the first time in five years. Meltzer said that New Japan chose not to sue AXS for breaking their contract while regional MMA group Legacy Fighting Alliance filed a lawsuit earlier this month.

Originally Posted by PWI Over the Top Wrestling in Ireland announced today that NXT star Tyler Bate has been pulled from their event due to injury: Due to recent injury, Tyler Bate will no long appear at #DeadOn This is unavoidable in wrestling, Apologies #OTT pic.twitter.com/MAUKsCgOHX — OTT WRESTLING (@OTT_wrestling) February 20, 2020 There's been word making the rounds about Bate being injured over the last week or so, but there's no official confirmation on the nature of the injury or how it happened.

Originally Posted by PWI Steve Austin, responding to a fan on social media, noted his Straight Up Steve Austin USA Network series will be returning "soon."

Originally Posted by PWI For those who asked, yes, that was former ECW World Champion Raven sitting in the crowd during last night's Dynamite episode. He lives in Atlanta. As noted last night, Austin Aries and DDP were backstage visiting.

Originally Posted by Fightful According to Cassidy Haynes of Bodyslam.net, Aries and Diamond Dallas Page were at AEW Dynamite trying to get AEW to buy into a stem cell treatment venture that they are part of. Wrestlers have taken to stem cell treatment in past few years with Rey Mysterio, Brian Cage, John Morrison, Rob Van Dam, and more undergoing stem cell treatment to help prolong their careers and deal with past injuries. Aries has mentioned BioXcellerator stem cell therapy on his social media in the past. Recently, Aries has been hanging out with Page and taken to DDP Yoga. Page has a DDP Yoga studio based in Georgia and is a regular at AEW events due to his relationship with Cody Rhodes.

Originally Posted by PWI The early word is that the AEW action figure line will be released this summer. Our good friends at www.RingsideCollectibles.com will be carrying them, obviously! AEW will have representation at the International Toy Fair this week promoting the line, which is being produced by Jazware's Wicked Cool Toys. WCT is headed by Jeremy Padawer, who was responsible for the WWE Jakks Classics Superstars line, so AEW couldn't ask for a better partner when it comes to creating and launching that toy line.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Soon-to-be two-time WWE Hall Of Famers Scott Hall and Kevin Nash joined Corey Graves on After The Bell. Hall and Nash were asked who would they pick to join them, Sean “X-Pac” Waltman and Hogan on stage for their induction into the WWE Hall Of Fame this year and here are their respective selections: Scott Hall: “I guess, from a fan’s point of view, maybe they wouldn’t agree but from somebody who’s behind the curtain, I would think Eazy E. I would think Eric Bischoff because the whole thing was his idea, but I guess if you’re a viewing fan, you don’t see it that way. That’s the way I see it. I would have Bischoff up there with us.” Kevin Nash: “I would have Kevin Sullivan. Yeah, because Sullivan was the guy that basically… though it was Eric’s idea, Sullivan was the one that made sure… there’s always been the equation that if you’re a heel, in order for you to be successful it’s like a hot air balloon and the more heat that you allow inside that balloon, the higher it goes and the more valuable that heel energy is, and Sullivan just really battled day in, day out to make sure that they didn’t take heat off us, and nobody got through the n.W.o. and Sullivan always books heat and he continued to book heat and his booking of that heat is what made the nWo.” Kevin Nash stayed on the podcast for the remainder of the show and he and Corey Graves chatted about a variety of topics. Graves asked Nash what would’ve happened in his career had he stayed with WWF and didn’t go to WCW and Nash said he wouldn’t have dropped the world title to Bret Hart unless he was guaranteed a win over The Undertaker at WrestleMania. “If I would’ve stayed, I wouldn’t have dropped the belt to Bret to give to Shawn unless I was guaranteed a win at Mania against Taker. I wouldn’t have done it. I would’ve had too many losses in a row. I would’ve needed a big win right there. So then there goes the streak. I’m just saying, butterfly effect. Mark wasn’t a mark. For me to do business, that could’ve been a possibility. I’m not saying it would’ve happened, I’m not saying if Vince would’ve booked it I would’ve went over but I definitely wouldn’t have coughed it up without something. I was leaving so I mean, it was just like, ‘Alright.’ It was a lot of things that could’ve changed.”

Originally Posted by Fightful Jon Moxley stunned the wrestling world when he showed up at AEW Double or Nothing 2019, just weeks after his WWE contract had expired. Moxley appeared at the end of the pay-per-view, attacking Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega, standing tall on a poker chip prop to close the show. Fans treated Moxley like a hero for his debut, but Moxley was worried he would be seen as Dean Ambrose to the audience. "Double or Nothing was three weeks after my contract was going to be up. And it was in Vegas. Something about it being in Vegas made it a sign. I didn't even find that show, that show found me," Moxley said on AEW Unrestricted. "I was like, 'Alright, I guess we're doing this.' I didn't know if people would cheer, boo, or not make any noise at all. I feel like my reputation had been tarnished so bad that I had to start from scratch. Once you get popped in the ass with a syringe on TV....I remember one time standing in the ring in a bear suit and I can't explain to you why. I DDT'd The Miz and took off the bear hat. You get the Pavlovian response of 'yeah!' but I remember thinking, 'This is so stupid. This is not funny or entertaining.' I remember standing in the ring thinking, 'I've hit rock bottom. I'm just done. This sucks. What have I become in the bear suit?' I had many moments like that. I was scared fans outside of WWE, they want an alternative. I was scared that I was so synonymous with WWE crap that I'd walk out and they'd be like 'Oh God, the idiot from WWE. What are you gonna do, hit someone with a hot dog?' I was scared of that. I never explained my gratitude toward the people that were in the building that night for embracing and accepting me as myself and not putting any of WWE's crap onto me. Then it's off the to races. I thought it was going to be a long rehabilitation process, but it came back so quickly. Like I had been asleep for years and I woke up out of a nap. It was like a guy who was in jail. 'Oh, Jon is out of jail.' Cool. He's back." Moxley went on to say that he believes the video where he re-introduced Jon Moxley by escaping the jail went a long way in helping tell the audience that he was entering a fresh start.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Ratings: WWE Backstage and Miz & Mrs. – Feb. 18-19, 2020
• The Bella Twins Announced for SmackDown
• Samoa Joe Injured Again During a Commercial Shoot
• Updated AEW Revolution Card: Two Matches Made Official

[Mr. Nerfect]

The Aries/DDP relationship is...interesting. They seem like very different sorts of people.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter WWE produced one of the strongest in-ring shows in company history with the 2/14 NXT Takeover Portland show ...which drew 7,800 fans to the Moda Center in Portland, OR. Paul Levesque said the live gate was the largest for a pro wrestling event in the state of Oregon since 2008. It was October 5, 2008, to be specific, the No Mercy show at the Rose Garden in Portland which drew 9,527 fans for a show headlined by Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho in a ladder match.

Riddle came across as the show’s biggest star. He got the best reaction coming out. He survived an idea that was funny at first on television, but in typical WWE fashion, was shoved down your throat to where it no longer was, trying to get the crowd to chant “How much fish could Bobby Fish fry if Bobby Fish could fry fish.” The reaction to the title change, as figured, was also the biggest of the show. The Riddle situation seems notable because unlike the other guy who gets over on charisma in NXT, Velveteen Dream, Riddle is tremendous in the ring. People like Gargano, Ciampa, Roderick Strong, Dunne, Kyle O’Reilly and others are great but are more likely than not to be ruined ont he main roster. Keith Lee, with his size and momentum also has a chance. But Riddle, even at 34, comes across as young, which can be a blessing and a curse. With a company lacking anyone who can really draw young viewers since John Cena left, Riddle makes sense, but at some point he won’t be able to play his current role ... That said, the current view at the top on Riddle is that there are some who think he’s got magic and others who don’t see it, but the key in his situation is his “lack of understanding of politics” which translated would seem to be trying to do programs with Bill Goldberg and Brock Lesnar without going to them first. One person compared him with Randy Orton when he first became a big star, and they don’t want someone like that now for harmony’s sake, or other talent that would say things that would get talent upset, noting Dave Bautista making very strong negative remarks about Smackdown when he was on Raw, which led to a lot of negative feelings in the locker room. It should be noted the disconnect, since WWE’s social media has put up his comments and he also made them at the Las Vegas house show, so it appears somebody wants this turned into an angle and they are playing both sides.

Davey Boy Smith joins Jushin Liger and the Bella Twins as far as names not yet announced but confirmed for the 2020 WWE Hall of Fame Class. They will join Batista and the NWO (in this case being Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Sean Waltman) for the ceremony that takes place on 4/2 in Tampa ... The Bella Twins are obvious as well. WWE rules seem to be one African-American and one woman every year. So that also means there should be more names coming up. The Bella Twins, given they were the stars of Total Divas, were far more influential than most of the women they’ve put in ... It would look like Vader, who Mick Foley has been heavily pushing for, won’t be put in. Vader is a no-brainer, but it’s the audience of one. And most likely he’d go in some day, but Vader is also the example of a guy who flourished as a top guy everywhere in the world but WWF.

Brandon Thurston compiled ratings records for Wednesday night, based on how much different characters grew or lost ratings based on the usual rating for that position in the show. The survey was dominated by women, particularly in NXT. There are different ways to look at ratings, including just the number of viewers watching on average, which benefits people in the first segment, or the gain or less during the segments, which often hurts people who are on later in the show. The NXT women dominating is also partially because we have a limited number of weeks, as this survey was covering the 10/30 AEW show through 2/12, and the 11/6 NXT show through 2/12. During that period there was the women’s Battle Royal on NXT which was a big hit. Based on these factors, the biggest draw as compared with what would be expected based on usual patterns was Bianca Belair, followed by The Inner Circle, Mia Yim, Rhea Ripley, MJF, Cody, Jungle Boy, Io Shirai, Matt Riddle and Dakota Kai. Such a survey also seems to favor people who were in some big segments, but not in a ton of segments, because the big segments would affect their specific averages more. Of the names on the list, the only ones in more than 15 segments during that period were Cody and Riddle, while Chris Jericho was in more, but not the Inner Circle as a group.

Link: https://twitter.com/wrestlenomics/st...74426945261568

WWE performers are working less dates than ever before and it’s notable in the 2019 stats, where the Iron Man award for the year goes to Ricochet, who worked 159 matches, to 156 for Baron Corbin. In years past, top stars would routinely top 200 matches and even in 2018, the top three were Finn Balor at 180 and Shinsuke Nakamura and Corbin at 175. It was also frequent that most of the people at the top in one year would have a major injury cutting down their dates the next year. Corbin and Seth Rollins were near the top the past two years, although Rollins did have a significant back injury in the early part of last year. MOST MATCHES: 1. Ricochet 159; 2. Corbin 156; 3. Kingston 152; 4. Dawson 151; 5. Wilder and Rollins 149 MOST WINS: 1. Kingston 123; 2. Rollins 115; 3. Ricochet 112; 4. Bayley 110; 5. Strowman 105. MOST LOSSES: 1. Corbin 122; 2 Cesaro 110; 3. Dawson 96; 4. Flair 95; 5. Wilder 94

With 19.7 million people watching the Democratic debate, it figured to hurt the 2/19 wrestling shows. But AEW had promoted a “destination” show for 2/19 in Atlanta with a loaded lineup paced by Cody vs. Wardlow in a cage, while NXT was coming off its Takeover show. Both shows were likely hurt significantly by the debate, as if you take the debate out of the picture, AEW was No. 3 in 18-49 (No.5 including news shows), trailing only Real Housewives of New Jersey. NXT, usually ranked in the high 20s or low30s, was only beaten in 18-49 by nine non-news shows, so a No. 10 ranking (No. 16 including news shows) isn’t a level they haven’t approached since competition began. AEW did 893,000 viewers and a 0.31 in 18-49, up 9.3 percent in total viewers and 3.3 percent in 18-49. NXT did 794,000 viewers and 0.25 in 18-49, up 4.9 percent in viewers and 4.2 percent in 18-49 ... There were some interesting demo notes, as NXT won with both teenagers and even 18-34, demos they almost never win with. However, AEW tied NXT in over 50, a demo they have never tied them in previously. The key difference is NXT drew far more women than usual, and hurt AEW with that audience. Without quarters it’s hard to pinpoint a reason, but NXT’s draws would be the Takeover follow-up and the promotion on the show was all about Velveteen Dream vs. Roderick Strong, an angle that was going to resonate more with women than men. AEW won by 26.6 percent in male teens, but NXT won by 133 percent, well over doubling AEW, with teenage girls. In 18-49, AEW won by 37.6 percent in males while the two sides were identical with women 18-49, with NXT having the edge in 18-34 women and AEW having the edge in 35-49 women.

Smackdown on 2/14 did a 1.53 rating and 2,464,000 viewers (1.34 viewers per home) and an 0.7 in the 18-49 demo. The show was down 2.5 percent in ratings, 2.9 percent in viewers and 12.5 percent in 18-49 ... Last year during the same week, FOX averaged 4,446,000 viewers but only an 0.8 in 18-49, so it was down 45 percent in viewers but only 13 percent in 18-49. It appears based on the top ten markets that the key ratings driver was the Hulk Hogan/Bray Wyatt confrontation and the main event.

At the [AAA] 2/13 show in Tlalnepantla, there was another tribute to La Parka, where his son, who currently wrestled as Karis La Momia Jr., officially announced that he would soon be wrestling as La Parka Jr. This has been known since his death but I think it’s the first time it was said in front of fans

New Japan has opened up talks to get back on U.S. television It’s also now planned for a major U.K. show held at the Copper Box Arena in London at some point this year. Originally the idea was to use 2020 to focus on the U.S. and no shows were scheduled for either Australia or the U.K. They would be working in conjunction with RevPro on the show. The idea of a Will Ospreay IWGP title challenge would make sense

AEW put tickets on sale for the 5/23 show in Las Vegas, as well as TV tapings on 4/15 in Boston and 4/22 in Philadelphia, on 2/14. These are all key shows since Las Vegas is a PPV show. Also, all three cities sold out instantly the first time AEW ran them. Las Vegas didn’t sell out first day but aside from eight sections at the top, many of which had a ton of tickets left, the rest was gone. It looked like 8,000 to 9,000 tickets were gone. Boston did a little over 3,300 tickets Philadelphia had only part of the building put on sale and there were plenty still available. Both are well below what a WWE TV shot would do in those markets while Las Vegas was well ahead of what WWE just did in their last time in the market which was the second FOX show. AEW also announced Dynamite on 5/27 would also be from the MGM Grand Garden Arena. That’s kind of risky running the same building four days later. Even taping Sunday or Monday (since it’s a holiday weekend) would be one thing because you could use that to convince people to come from out-of-town to see two shows, but four days later it’ll be tough and Las Vegas has rarely been a good wrestling market when it came to locals.

Jeff Cobb was offered a deal this past week. Tony Khan had never met him until this week. Cody had been trying to get him since the start of the year. Cobb had only agreed to a few dates. They protected him rather than just beat him clean (the cradle off superplex finish) which one would have thought would happen given Jon Moxley was in the PPV main event. They offered him a deal where he could still work New Japan and that’s where talks left

There will be a one-hour special on TNT on 2/26 after Dynamite as a PPV countdown show. For whatever reason, aside from a very quick mention in the middle of a hot match on TV, this hasn’t been promoted at all

Regarding this week’s TV, Tony Khan wrote the Battle Royal along with input from The Young Bucks, BJ Whitmer and QT Marshall. Khan wrote it with Marshall and Whitmer as the assistants and the Bucks ran the point position on it and they explained it to the other 18 guys in detail and we’re told nobody missed a planned spot. Chris Jericho and Dean Malenko laid out the post-match of Jericho-Moxley. It was Khan’s decision to turn the lights out before Darby Allin came out. Kenny Omega was in charge of both the Kris Statlander match and his own tag match while Cody was in charge of his match

Expect the announcement of a Japan performance center in the next few months, maybe around summer time if everything goes as expected. They already reached out to Sen. Hiroshi Hase and Antonio Inoki about the political situation. The original thought was working with Pro Wrestling NOAH, but NOAH was sold to Cyberagent

[Mr. Nerfect]

What good is a contract that lets you work New Japan if New Japan isn't using the guys with that clause in their contract (other than Jericho and Moxley)?

[slik]

Major WM news being reported by both John Pollock of POST wrestling and Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer


The SD card has been completely tossed out. Vince changed his mind and all the rumored WM matches on the SD side are being changed.

[GD]

That doesn't sound very good.

[slik]

For whatever it is worth Meltzer also noted any quarter hour segment with Goldberg surges in the ratings (same for Mandy and Otis).

[Sepholio]

oh God if they put that strap on Goldberg then we end up with a Goldberg v Roman v Bray mania match. PLEASE CAN WE DONT.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Goldberg vs. Cena, Bray vs. Roman away from the belt and either Dolph vs. Otis or Dolph & Roode vs. Heavy Machinery.

[Emperor Smeat]

Originally Posted by Slik Major WM news being reported by both John Pollock of POST wrestling and Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer The SD card has been completely tossed out. Vince changed his mind and all the rumored WM matches on the SD side are being changed.

Guess that completely tosses out the theory of Vince being less hands on creative once the new XFL season started.

About a month and a half away from Mania and half the card is now in a potential mess.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Or better. Goldberg actually seems to have a positive effect on ratings. Goldberg vs. Cena, for example, would be a much more appealing title match for an ESPN+ or Amazon Prime too.

The SmackDown side has just been matches since the start. There's been no real stories commenced just yet that can't be paid off before Mania, at Mania or after Mania. Meltzer himself has been doing nothing but speculating since the start of the year saying "No one's told me this, but..." about things like Reigns vs. Wyatt, which would make sense, but haven't been anywhere near confirmed.

[Sepholio]

lol yea lets put the other strap on an old guy who only shows up once or twice a year to collect blood money in 3 minute matches....and let's have a guy who has wrestled once in the last 3 years challenge him! That'll be huge! That'll fix everything!

[Mr. Nerfect]

Lol, you’re seriously doubting that Goldberg vs. Cena would be a bigger deal than Reigns vs. Wyatt? Okay. It sucks they don’t have any full-time guys with proper main event charisma, but that’s a problem you can address later. Goldberg is someone you can sporadically bank on and shouldn’t be losing to a goofy gimmick.

[GD]

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect It sucks they don’t have any full-time guys with proper main event charisma, but that’s a problem you can address later.

Yeah, it's not like they've put that problem on the back burner since WrestleMania XXVIII.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by Guru Dave Yeah, it's not like they've put that problem on the back burner since WrestleMania XXVIII.

Yeah, and they definitely should have fixed the problem earlier. And it goes back way earlier. But what does that have to do with right now, you stupid cunt?

[GD]

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect Yeah, and they definitely should have fixed the problem earlier. And it goes back way earlier. But what does that have to do with right now, you stupid cunt?

From what I understand, you're in favor of delaying it even further in order to get your jollies. Cena hasn't wrestled a proper match in a while and Goldberg is an absolute train wreck unless it's a squash.

While I am not aware of your stance on Wyatt or his new gimmick, the company has put a lot of stock in his presentation over the past year. It'd be a shame for his arc to end abruptly prior to WrestleMania. As a fan, I am concerned about good storytelling rather than what would look better as a marquee match for ESPN+ or Amazon Prime. I find your priorities amusing.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by Guru Dave From what I understand, you're in favor of delaying it even further in order to get your jollies. Cena hasn't wrestled a proper match in a while and Goldberg is an absolute train wreck unless it's a squash. While I am not aware of your stance on Wyatt or his new gimmick, the company has put a lot of stock in his presentation over the past year. It'd be a shame for his arc to end abruptly prior to WrestleMania. As a fan, I am concerned about good storytelling rather than what would look better as a marquee match for ESPN+ or Amazon Prime. I find your priorities amusing.

It wouldn’t be a long match for exactly those reasons. Cena shouldn’t be in anything long, nor should Goldberg. It’s a perfect fit. And if I were trying to make money for the company that has the primary goal of making money, I would definitely go with the option that makes more money and build those other people up to make more money later (if they can). Yes, how very amusing.

[GD]

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect It wouldn’t be a long match for exactly those reasons. Cena shouldn’t be in anything long, nor should Goldberg. It’s a perfect fit. And if I were trying to make money for the company that has the primary goal of making money, I would definitely go with the option that makes more money and build those other people up to make more money later (if they can). Yes, how very amusing.

Let's take the Universal title off the guy we've been pushing for the last year so that two special attractions can have a squash match in the middle of the card. Makes for a very compelling storyline.

Have you invested in the company? I do find it amusing that your concerns lie in the finances of the company rather than enjoying the product that they're putting out.

[BigCrippyZ]

Originally Posted by Guru Dave Let's take the Universal title off the guy we've been pushing for the last year so that two special attractions can have a squash match in the middle of the card. Makes for a very compelling storyline. Have you invested in the company? I do find it amusing that your concerns lie in the finances of the company rather than enjoying the product that they're putting out.

Exactly. He's become nothing short of a shill for WWE. He actually used to be reasonably objective about the quality of their content/programming too. Hell, I agreed with most of his commentary. It'd be a hilarious parody or troll job if it wasn't such a weird contradictory and random change in preference and criticism. Oh well.

[Mr. Pierre]

Thinking that Wyatt’s loss will lead to an official babyface turn and he’ll have a win over Corbin at Mania.

WWE is definitely getting cold feet with the Fiend. Would be absolutely (but happily) shocked if he beats Goldberg.

[Emperor Smeat]

Sorry for being late with the sheet news. Another instance of a short nap ended up turning into several hours of sleep instead.

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by TPWW Frontpage via Triple A Monday’s Raw drew an average of 2,210,000 viewers on USA Network, down from last week’s 2,437,000 viewers. Raw was #1, #2 and #3 on cable for the day with a 0.71 average rating in the 18-49 demographic, down from last week’s 0.79 rating. This time last year, the February 25, 2019 Raw drew 2,922,000 viewers. The February 26, 2018 Raw drew 3,180,000 viewers. Hourly breakdown: 8PM: 2,246,000 9PM: 2,278,000 10PM: 2,106,000

Originally Posted by PWI The word making the rounds at Raw tonight is that Bret Hart will be inducting Davey Boy Smith into the WWE Hall of Fame.

Originally Posted by PWI The new referee on Raw tonight is Jake Clemons, who has worked throughout the United States and Canada, including AIW, Smash Wrestling, EVOLVE and other promotions.

Originally Posted by PWI During an interview with Maria Menounos, Cathy Kelley revealed that she decided to leave WWE for a multitude of reasons. She stated that she wanted to work on other projects and the WWE schedule wasn't conducive to that. Kelley also stated that she started to feel some exhaustion from the schedule.

Originally Posted by Fightful Fightful Select has confirmed that Matt Hardy was not backstage at WWE Raw, effectively ending his run with the company unless something substantial changes. Hardy could technically still be called in to work Smackdown, but his contract expires Sunday.

Originally Posted by PWI MLW TV this week ended with the near riot in Dallas with fans losing it over Tom Lawlor and Team Filthy beating down The Von Erichs as they went off the air. What wasn't shown is that the crowd was so angry and challenging Lawlor, Erick Stevens and Dominic Garrini that the Von Erichs were sent back out to chase them off to ease some of the heat.

Originally Posted by Observer Today is the one-year anniversary of Roman Reigns announcing that his leukemia is in remission. Reigns tweeted this afternoon: “Sharing this life with millions of people is one of the things that makes being a @WWE Superstar amazing. Life has struggles and setbacks, but the power and prayers of this Universe gave me the strength to fight back. Thank y’all for your support. We got much more to do!!!”

Originally Posted by Observer Downstait will perform Cody’s theme music “Kingdom” live at this Saturday’s Revolution PPV.

Originally Posted by PWI Tony Schiavone announced on his Twitter that he is now with AEW full-time, choosing leaving his duties in the baseball world behind.

Originally Posted by PWI There is a LOT of talk that Lance Hoyt is coming in next month, especially since he is not listed for the New Japan Cup. AEW teased him as the Exalted One a few days ago online.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Last Wednesday’s episode of AEW Dynamite did 402,000 viewers in the 18-49 demographic, which was up from 391,000 the prior week. Overall, the show did a 0.55 rating and 893,000 total viewers on TNT for the episode featuring Cody vs. Wardlow in the steel cage match. Friday Night SmackDown did 952,000 viewers in the 18-49 demo last week. That figure was up from 946,000 the week prior. SmackDown finished with a 1.55 rating and 2,484,000 viewers on Fox. They were number one in the 18-49 demo for the night among network programming.

Dynamite has been generating almost half of what RAW and Smackdown has been doing for the key demo rating for a while now. A few times Dynamite managed to shrink the percentage gap to a notable degree but that's pretty much where its been over the past few months.

Originally Posted by Fightful Appearing on the "Chasing Glory With Lilian Garcia Podcast," Booker T talked about how scripted promos aren't doing a lot of good for some wrestlers today as it doesn't give them the opportunity to be themselves. "It's a different world now as far as the scripted promos. I think it takes away a lot of the originality of the guy actually being able to put himself against the wall and have to go out there and get over, the guy to have to think about it, opposed to when you just have someone writing it for you. You're not going to take the time like I did to go and look in the mirror and pretend I'm cutting a promo on myself. You're not going to do that. You're not going to go and look in the mirror and just ... Just to try to make your top lip move, to see how angry you can make yourself look. It's just small, little bitty things. You're not going to take the time to actually try to hone your craft, because you got someone handing it to you, unless you're that driven," Booker T said. Booker T spoke about his experience with scripted promos and finishes, recalling the time he worked with John Laurinaitis. Booker said he isn't opposed to the idea of scripted promos, but wants performers to have the option to be themselves and decide whether or not something that was written for them would be beneficial.

Originally Posted by Fightful Goldberg doesn't have much to say when it comes to Matt Riddle, but that doesn't mean he won't be asked. The beef between Goldberg and Riddle heated up at WWE Super ShowDown 2019 when Riddle was critical of Goldberg's bout against The Undertaker. The match was marred by botches thanks in large part to Goldberg knocking himself out on the ringpost when attempting a spear. Following the bout, Riddle called Goldberg "the worst wrestler in the business." The two men got into a verbal altercation at SummerSlam 2019, that basically boiled down to Goldberg saying he is not Matt Riddle's "bro." Speaking to EGO TOTAL's Israeli Wrestling Podcast, TOTAL SLAM, Goldberg was once again asked about Riddle and the beef between the two men. "He's like a booger that gets caught in your nose. He's just annoying and won't go away. He has nothing to do and has no bearing on Goldberg's life. Period. End of statement." That settles that.

Originally Posted by Fightful Johnny Gargano believes all brands are equal. Ever since NXT found a home on USA Network in September 2019, the gold brand has been on equal footing as Raw and SmackDown. And if you try to dispute the difference between "main roster" and NXT, Johnny Gargano won't be pleased. "That's BS," Gargano told TMZ when asked about fans still calling Raw and SmackDown the "main roster." "Complete garbage and it's something that me and a lot of guys have worked to dispel for a very long time. Anyone out there who uses the word 'main roster' when talking about Raw and SmackDown, how about you watch the show on Wednesday night. You'll see the real main roster. You'll see the best wrestling show on the planet. The best locker room on the planet, led by me! That's what you'll see on Wednesday night. Main roster, developmental, you're stupid if you use those words. You're stupid. Quit it."

TPWW Frontpage:

• Various: AEW Revolution Special on TNT, Full Card for NJPW 48th Anniversary, Indies
• Samoa Joe Suspended for WWE Wellness Policy Violation
• Edge Advertised for Raw in Two Weeks
• Rusev Not Going to Saudi Arabia, Replaced by Rey Mysterio
• The Undertaker Set to Appear on Super ShowDown
• AEW Teases Another Person for The Dark Order’s “Exalted One”?

[Mr. Nerfect]

You don’t need to apologize. You don’t owe anyone this.

Eh, if Johnny Gargano wants NXT to be recognized as the main roster, maybe NXT should draw as much as the main roster.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer WWE has officially begun teasing an appearance by The Undertaker for tomorrow's Super ShowDown event. WWE posted a picture of The Undertaker in Saudi Arabia on Twitter today and wrote "What is The #Undertaker doing in Saudi Arabia ahead of #WWESSD?! (cc: @Enjoy_Saudi)." They also posted an article on WWE.com hyping that Undertaker is in the country ... Dave Meltzer had confirmed earlier this week that The Undertaker had traveled with WWE to Saudi Arabia. Though the match has yet to be officially announced, The Undertaker vs. AJ Styles is planned for WrestleMania 36.

Originally Posted by Observer AEW released this week's roster rankings this morning. Jon Moxley, Kris Statlander, and The Young Bucks top their respective division's rankings ahead of their title matches at Revolution. The PPV is taking place at Wintrust Arena in Chicago, Illinois this Saturday ... The full rankings for this week are listed below: Men's division -- Champion: Chris Jericho (0-0 singles record in 2020, 10-1-1 overall record) Jon Moxley (6-0 singles record in 2020, 11-1-1 overall record) Cody Rhodes (3-0 singles record in 2020, 10-3-1 overall record) PAC (1-1 singles record in 2020, 6-5-1 overall record) Kenny Omega (0-0 singles record in 2020, 15-6 overall record) MJF (2-0 singles record in 2020, 6-1 overall record) Women's division -- Champion: Nyla Rose (3-1 singles record in 2020, 7-4 overall record) Kris Statlander (2-1 singles record in 2020, 6-3 overall record) Riho (3-1 singles record in 2020, 11-3 overall record) Hikaru Shida (2-1 singles record in 2020, 7-4 overall record) Yuka Sakazaki (1-0 singles record in 2020, 1-2 overall record) Britt Baker (1-2 singles record in 2020, 8-6 overall record) Tag team division -- Champions: Kenny Omega & Hangman Page (5-0 tag team record in 2020, 15-6 overall record for Omega, 11-8 overall record for Page) The Young Bucks (2-1 tag team record in 2020, 12-8 overall record for Nick Jackson, 12-7 overall record for Matt Jackson) SCU (2-2 tag team record in 2020, 15-6 overall record for Scorpio Sky, 14-5 overall record for Frankie Kazarian The Dark Order (3-0 tag team record in 2020, 7-2 overall record for Evil Uno, 7-2 overall record for Stu Grayson) Santana & Ortiz (0-1 tag team record in 2020, 7-5 overall record for Santana, 7-5 overall record for Ortiz) Best Friends (2-2 tag team record in 2020, 8-12 overall record for Trent Barreta, 7-9 overall record for Chuck Taylor)

Originally Posted by 411Mania During today’s edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer commented on the Rusev and WWE Super ShowDown situation. According to Meltzer, the story going on within WWE is that Rusev has an “injury.” However, Meltzer claims that Rusev “backed out of the show, essentially.” As noted below, last night’s Raw still featured a graphic for the match with Rusev in it, despite Rusev already being out of the match and Rey Mysterio now taking his place.

Originally Posted by PWI Major League Wrestling execs were at the CBS/Viacom HQ in New York City yesterday for meetings on a potential TV and streaming rights deal, PWInsider.com has confirmed. We don't have any additional information at this time.

Originally Posted by PWI FITE.TV issued the following: FITE to Offer AEW Revolution via live PPV Internationally, Outside the USA, On Saturday, Feb. 29th, 2020 WHAT: FITE will offer the PPV event AEW Revolution live from Chicago for $19.99 FITE offers live HD PPV events online, and to all mobile, OTT and IT-connected devices. FITE has DVR, live chat, reminders, voting, countdown clock and replays!

Originally Posted by PWI While WWE Hall of Famers Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Hart were slated to make the trip to Saudi Arabia for the WWE Super Showdown PPV, we have not confirmed they are there with the rest of the crew. Lana is in Saudi Arabia, so she may be accompanying Bobby Lashley to ringside. Zelina Vega is not there so she would obviously not be with Andrade or Angel Garza. As we noted last night, The Undertaker has been seen in Saudi Arabia as well. We are told that WWE used the same charter airline company for travel to Saudi Arabia this week as the last trip. The temperature in Riyadh is supposed to top out at 79 degrees tomorrow, dropping into the high 60s by the time the show gets underway, so it should not be a factor the way it was for the last show headlined by Undertaker vs. Bill Goldberg.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling DDT Pro-Wrestling and Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling have cancelled multiple events in the coming days/weeks due to the Coronavirus outbreak. Tokyo Joshi Pro, which is the sister company to DDT will be doing empty arena shows along with DDT that will be streamed.

Depending on how long this outbreak lasts, there has even been recent talks of this year's Olympics in Tokyo being cancelled. IOC recently stated they have around a 3 month window to make an official announcement.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) did an interview with Comicbook.com and they talked about Marty Scurll deciding to stay with Ring of Honor instead of joining All Elite Wrestling. Nick Jackson said that he and Matt got the hint a few months prior that Marty was staying with ROH. Regardless, they are happy for him and Ring of Honor. Nick Jackson: “We were kind of feeling him out for a while now and he always was very vague with us, anytime we would bring up storylines and stuff. So, we pretty much got the hint three months ago or so, and we realized, ‘Okay, he’s staying put.’ Good for him though, and that he knows how we feel, it’s a business. Yeah, it would’ve been great to have him with us because we’re good friends, but he got a great deal out of it and he seems to be very happy. He’s definitely going to try to paint his path on his own and more respect to him for doing that. We’re all cool though.” Matt Jackson: “I feel the same way. Marty got a great offer and I think he wanted it to be more than just a wrestler and he got an opportunity to do that, and Marty is a clever guy and he’s very talented. I love him and I hope nothing but the best for him, and I hope he can make the place he’s working a better place. I want wrestling everywhere to succeed because as long as the boys are being taken care of and there’s more opportunities for the boys and girls to wrestle and make money, support their families, then great because the wrestling world needs Ring of Honor to do well, and I think Marty, if you can pinpoint any person right now that can help them, it’s him. Good on them, and I’m happy for Marty.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Bar Wrestling announced that Kris Statlander has come down with the flu and will not be able to compete at their show on February 27th. Statlander is slated to challenge Nyla Rose for the AEW Women’s World Championship at Revolution on the 29th.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On the latest edition of Arn Anderson’s podcast, he and Conrad Thompson reviewed the 2018 Elimination Chamber pay-per-view ... The main event of Elimination Chamber 2018 was the men’s Chamber match featuring Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Braun Strowman, The Miz, Elias and John Cena. Arn discussed Braun Strowman’s ups and downs career-wise and questions why would WWE built him up to be a monster to not have him win the big matches. “I think Braun Strowman, we all know to be a monster. But you don’t have to have him just do ridiculous things like pull the tron down and flip an 18-wheeler over to show me that the guy’s a monster. That goes beyond being a monster. You pick up the rear-end of a vehicle and tires are sitting there spinning… the question would be: If you push a guy and build a guy that hard, and you go that far with making him supernatural, what opponent is ever gonna get him hurt? And if you can’t hurt him, how can you feel for him? And if you can’t feel for him, how can he ever be your champion? When these things are being done for these guys, you just sit there and look and you go, ‘You’re just gonna do more damage than good here. This is not plausible. For a guy to turn an 18-wheeler over? Come on.’ So, there’s a hodge-podge of things going on. They probably hit Braun with how many finishes before they got him out of there? Ten? Everybody’s, maybe twice? Does that make you feel for the guy in a positive way or do you just go, ‘Aww come on. Enough is enough.’”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling During the 2/25/20 edition of WWE Backstage on FS1, The Bella Twins revealed that it was Vince McMahon who called them about their Hall Of Fame induction.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Jon Moxley spoke with Rick Ucchino of ESPN 1530/Sportskeeda and Moxley explained that he feels that winning the AEW World Championship is going to be a greater feeling than winning the WWE Championship. “Best way I can describe it… it was a giant sense of relief. I had been pushing the boulder up to the top of the hill and had it roll all the way back down so many times and I felt like I disappointed so many fans by failing to win the title so many times. Once I finally was able to check that box and get that thing… the biggest feeling honestly was relief. Chris Jericho is arguably hotter than he’s ever been, and that’s really saying something considering Chris Jericho’s career. I think he’s not just trying to be good every week, he’s trying to be the greatest of all time, and like I said I’ve been running through competition; killing dudes – you’re getting the best version of Chris Jericho and the best version of Jon Moxley at the same time and something’s gotta give, somebody’s gotta go down. This, I feel, will be a far greater feeling. You know this is me, on my own, doing things my way. Totally different situation. Not even a comparable situation – as good as a night as that [WWE Title victory] was.”

Originally Posted by Fightful According to Showbuzz Daily, WWE Backstage failed to crack the top 150 in ratings from the 18-49 demographic among original cable telecasts for the day. This is the second time this happened for the show this year.

Originally Posted by Fightful Aleister Black has one of the more unique entrances in WWE as he emerges on a rising platform from beneath the fog. Black's entrance has become synonymous with his character, and appearing on WWE's The Bump, Black discussed the thought process behind the entrance. "There's this band called Watain, a black metal band, there's a live performance and I always loved the DVD. The aesthetic of that was mesmerizing," Black explained. "It had a lot of fire and red. When we started putting (my entrance) together, I showed them the DVD and said 'this is the kind of aesthetic I want to go for.' They tried to re-create that in a WWE setting. They created this stage, as soon as the lights go down and the candles come up, the audience knows what time it is. They did such a good job in priming the audience to know what's happening. The landscape changes. The light changes, the candles come up, it's dark, there's fog and the entrance is completely different. I was talking to Triple H about it and he showed me this construction [lifting platform] and he goes, 'It was actually meant for The Undertaker. We don't have any use for it right now, what do you think?' I said, 'I'll take it.'"

TPWW Frontpage:

• AEW Signs Lance Archer to Multi-Year Deal
• NJPW Cancels Several Shows Due to Coronavirus Fears
• Three Matches Added to WWE Super ShowDown

[slik]

Some very interesting notes from Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio

* He notes Vince is booking things now in a way Verne Gagne and Eric Bischoff did, where they are more focused on stars of the past staying stars than making new stars. * Said nothing has been signed as far as an ESPN + or other OTT streaming service and it is making some nervous since Vince wanted this done by Q1, and if it's not, it will make the stock drop since it's a failed promise to investors. * Most in the upper echelons of WWE Management still don't understand why Michelle Wilson/George Barrios were fired. * Said for the last six years all Vince has told top brass is how great The Network is because they have access to data regarding what their fans watch and want to see and the varying demographics. The last year Vince did a 180 and has said on data he "doesn't care" and it "doesn't matter". * Vince only seems focused on making big money deals and booking day to day, all long-term planning from a creative aspect has essentially been eliminated. * Said some in upper management have been expressing concern about Vince running WWE, which has never happened before, but repeatedly odd decisions have caused much concern.

[Evil Vito]

Vince is senile. News at 11.

[Emperor Smeat]

WWE's pretty much has been facing a situation known as Founder's syndrome for a long while.

Not only can it be destructive for WWE in the long run, it also debunked the idea that Vince would be less hands-on or meddling with company plans due to him being busy with the XFL again.

If anything, he might have gotten even more hands on than usual since supposedly he's also been meddling in NXT creative plans.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Vince has clearly been stepping away. Everything has far more of a long-term vision, not only towards profits but in creative terms as well. You can see this on the television. This is reactionary to Bray Wyatt losing because Bray Wyatt is a gimmick and was never intended to be a star. He got the Universal Title because they fucked up Seth (with Seth’s help) and wanted to switch the belts.

Goldberg defending the Universal Title means more than Bray Wyatt in a Halloween costume doing it, folks. Not everybody can be a star. Taking a guy out of that position doesn’t mean you are completely changing your philosophy. And nothing may be announced on the streaming deal yet, but guess what? Then it will just air on the WWE Network. They’re either going to make hundreds of millions or just get more subscribers.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

As mentioned last week, here is the reality of the situation. WrestleMania is coming and to the average person, what match means more as the main event, Bray Wyatt vs. Roman Reigns for the Universal title, or Goldberg vs. Reigns? ... But the answer to the question, as sad as this sounds, is that Goldberg vs. Reigns garners far more interest, even in 2020. Of course the mentality to go with stars of the past and not make stars of the present is the case history of one of the main things that killed WCW. But that’s for the rest of the year. WrestleMania is where you go with the matches people most want to see. So there it was. While it was reality, it also meant Vince McMahon had to come to a sad but telling admission. In Wyatt’s Fiend character, he had not, perhaps since the introduction of Kane in 1997, and perhaps even before that, allowed a heel character to look so dominant. Wyatt’s Fiend character was creative and fresh. He had become the top merchandise seller. He got up from everyone’s big moves and destroyed top babyfaces. The Fiend was cool, like the Undertaker, but he was destroying babyfaces ... Since day one of Smackdown on FOX, the main storyline was The Fiend destroys everyone, no exceptions, and Roman Reigns is kept away from him in a long feud with King Corbin. This would lead to their first meeting at WrestleMania, the monster heel, even if he is cheered, against the badass face. It’s the formula that almost always works. Except the change in the card shows in Vince McMahon’s eyes, it didn’t. It’s quite an admission, that a WCW creation of 1998, now, 22 years later, can walk off the couch and be a bigger star than the guy who has been pushed as untouchable weekly on television. But that admission is true. For an endless number of reasons, WWE has trouble making stars, even when they have them. Even with the bigger audience and platform, the WWE method of making stars can’t match 22 year old nostalgia. It’s not the first time. WCW couldn’t make stars after 1999 who could get over like Hulk Hogan, Sting, or Ric Flair, who were all past their primes. But yet, those same people who couldn’t be stars, ended up doing well years later. Today, people who weren’t seen as stars in WWE who could carry the brand, Cody, Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley, are carrying the rival brand and getting reactions far bigger than anyone in WWE ... Indeed, the very idea of Goldberg was to be the reincarnation of Sammartino from late 1977 until he retired in late 1980. That’s why him being added to the list of babyfaces destroyed by The Fiend, which was absolutely the plan, seemed foolish. Goldberg beat The Fiend, breaking the mandible claw twice and pinning him with a jackhammer that really wasn’t one, in 2:57 on a night in Saudi Arabia where the theme seemed to be current guys squashed by part-time legends in seconds, a largely heatless crowd, and lackluster matches. Undertaker won the Tuwaig Mountain Trophy doing one match where he pinned A.J. Styles with one move in 20 seconds. Hopefully they have a great follow-up idea, because after this encounter, a fan would have less interest in a rematch at WrestleMania than a third Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder fight. Lesnar retained the WWE title over Ricochet in 1:28 in a match where Ricochet got no offensive move in. Obviously there was no chance for Ricochet to win, but he could have lost and still have the match worked in a way that he could have benefitted from it. This was the opposite. He’s now fully established as a guy not worthy of investing in or paying attention to. Why you had three matches like that on the same show is an unanswerable question. Undertaker-Styles killed interest in that match. Lesnar-Ricochet didn’t have to be like that. Goldberg-Wyatt shouldn’t have gone last and ended the show the way it did, but going any longer or different was a risk not worth taking ... And the irony is that McMahon’s M.O. was to give up on people at 40. Now it’s to give up on people at 28 and build back shows around guys in their 40s and 50s. There’s only one way this can end. The lone saving grace is that WWE is financially idiot-proof, which is a luxury Verne Gagne, Eric Bischoff and everyone else who only thought about today with the stars of yesterday and having no vision for tomorrow didn’t have.

John Cena, Daniel Bryan and Kevin Owens once again didn’t go on this trip and Sami Zayn either didn’t go because he wasn’t allowed to in the past, or still wasn’t allowed to. Aleister Black and Zelina Vega also didn’t go, with Black for the same reason, the fear of his tattoos with religious significance offending the hosts. Randy Orton didn’t go either, whether by choice or not booked, but given they are into stars from the past, Orton would seem to be a curious name to not be brought. Rusev was booked in the gauntlet match, but pulled out, claiming a back injury. His wife Lana did go, accompanying storyline husband Bobby Lashley, and just doing an entrance literally covered from head to toe, with even her hair covered and just her face showing. The number of people brought was half or less than half of previous shows.

Both AEW and NXT declined from the prior week on 2/26. In the case of AEW, that wasn’t a big surprise since the Atlanta show was a bigger show and the Cody-Wardlow cage match had been built up for weeks, while the AEW big match, Kenny Omega vs. Pac, was an Iron Man match which traditionally doesn’t do well in ratings since people know the actual finish isn’t coming for 30 minutes as opposed to not knowing when the finish is coming. NXT was not only coming off a Takeover show, but had heavily promoted Charlotte Flair vs. Bianca Belair ... AEW did 865,000 viewers and a 0.30 in 18-49, a drop of 3.6 percent in total viewers and 3.2 percent in 18-49. Last week’s show went against the Democratic debate that did huge numbers, but clearly the interest in both shows were down, even with AEW coming off a string of great shows. NXT did 717,000 viewers and a 0.23 in 18-49, a drop of 9.7 percent overall and 8.0 percent in 18-49 ... The key questions for last week are how the quarters did, particularly AEW’s Iron Man match, as well as Q8, with the Chris Jericho-Jon Moxley weigh-in going against Flair vs. Belair. Jericho has not lost a quarter hour since AEW started but WWE was sending one of its most pushed wrestlers in a storyline program in competition. The other key is when AEW ended, did AEW putting on a Countdown show against the last five minutes hurt the usual migration at 10 p.m. of AEW viewers to NXT ... AEW in particular declined with men from last week. In the 18-49 demo, AEW was down 10.6 percent with men and up 14.8 percent with women. It also was AEW’s lowest numbers ever with teenagers. But for the first time, AEW beat NXT in over 50, because that was the age group that NXT lost this week. So while the audience is pretty stable, it was increasing with women, decreasing in men, and getting older ... On the flip side, NXT was up with men, but down with women, and the only demo it beat AEW in was teenagers, but both shows did pretty much record lows there.

Some more ratings notes on the 2/19 AEW and NXT shows. The numbers live were 893,000 (1.35 viewers per home) to 794,000, although head-to-head that was 788,000 ... The third quarter saw AEW continue Shanna vs. Statlander and have a Nyla Rose interview. That lost 69,000 viewers and 48,000 in 18-49. NXT had a Tommaso Ciampa interview plus some stuff with Austin Theory and gained 59,000 viewers and 44,000 in 18-49. This was the only quarter NXT won, winning with total viewers 827,000 to 795,000 and with 18-49, by a 354,000 to 347,000 margin. The fourth quarter saw things reverse. Jon Moxley vs. Jeff Cobb for AEW gained 177,000 viewers and gained 78,000 in 18-49. NXT had a Finn Balor promo and Zack Gibson & James Drake vs. Raul Mendoza & Joaquin Wilde and lost 55,000 viewers and lost 36,000 in 18-49 ... The final quarter, the head-to-head main events, was a big win as expected for AEW. Cody vs. Wardlow in a cage gained 132,000 viewers to 947,000, and gained 46,000 in 18-49 to 420,000. So the key is while it did gain in 18-49, the big gains were older and younger, and likely more older. So the cage was a big hit for the over 50 crowd, which is the one demo AEW has been losing and where for the first time they equaled NXT in. NXT, with Velveteen Dream vs. Roderick Strong, pushed in commercial after commercial on Raw, lost 40,000 overall to 744,000, and 6,000 in 18-49 to 310,000 ... The last five minute overrun saw a huge turnover of 196,000 viewers overall going to NXT and 71,000 of them in 18-49. Given the shift of the previous quarter, what it looks like what happened was that a ton of regular NXT viewers switched over to the cage match. Whether that’s a good sign for the 3/4 show when NXT does Dakota Kai vs. Tegan Nox in a cage is interesting. Because the shift to AEW was largely over 50, and the shift back when the show ended, was also over 50, which is the dominant NXT audience.

The good news for the 2/24 Raw is that the first-to-third hour drop, which was near record levels last week, was far lower than usual. The problem was it was more due to how weak the first hour was. The 2,246,000 viewers in the first hour was the lowest in history for a non-holiday show that didn’t go against major sports competition.

Smackdown on 2/21 did a 1.55 rating and 2,484,000 viewers (1.33 viewers per home) and an 0.7 in the 18-49 demo for a show built around Bill Goldberg being there live and the Bella Twins Hall of Fame announcement ... Last year on the same week on Friday, FOX in those two hours averaged an 0.6 in 18-49 and 3,348,000 in viewers. That was with first-run programming so this was the first time this year that FOX’s first-run of the same week drew a lower 18-49 number than this year.

While nothing has been announced, the belief is that the television deal in India is either finalized or close to. The contract expired at the end of the year and they were hoping to have a new deal last year. WWE had remained on television under the terms of the old deal. They were getting about $34 million from the market, and expectations were they would have a huge increase, with some estimating as much as $125 million per year, making it the No. 2 market behind the U.S. They are the No. 2 market, as the belief is that BT Sports paid less for WWE rights than Sky (which was paying around $35 million per year). However, India is getting an increase, with the belief the number will fall around $60-61 million. It’s a solid increase but probably won’t help the stock since so many expected significantly better

Regarding the WWE Network, they had a new commercial for it in Canada and there was a price raise from $12.99 per month to $14.99. It should be noted that if WWE makes a deal with ESPN+ or Peacock that neither would apply to Canada

There will be a significant debut on Smackdown which was teased on the show this weekend with static and a symbol. The best bet seems to be Killer Kross only because of the word Kross was going to be fast-tracked as compared to most signings and because of the war with AEW, they are not as apt to move key people that have been established on NXT television. The Shayna Baszler vs. Becky Lynch match was planned before NXT got television so that would be the exception

AEW has its fourth PPV in its history on 2/29 in Chicago at the sold out Wintrust Arena. The PPV number will be interesting because TNT aired a one-hour UFC Countdown style special on 2/26 after Dynamite, focusing on the top matches. That in theory should help U.S. buys, but that will be offset by the loss of television PPV in the U.K. with ITV Box Office closing up shop. The ITV Box Office had been hovering at around 15,000 per show. It’s probable that some of those people will order streaming through FITE, but not all. So one would think, all things staying equal, this show would be down a little because of that. But it will also be on television PPV for the first time in Germany on Sky Germany. It will also air in some markets through PlayStation. There is the argument that the company had its best go-home show, and its first hype special, and that should increase U.S. numbers. The PPV has more storyline depth, but the last show featured incredible promos building the Chris Jericho vs. Cody title match, with Cody saying that he would never challenge for the title again if he didn’t win. The problem is that stip probably didn’t help numbers because AEW is drawing from a smarter fan base, and they believe all stips are not going to be adhered to given the last 30 years of U.S. pro wrestling history is you always get lied to on stips. Whether AEW, like ECW attempted to do in the 90s, is able to or wants to adhere to stips, it will probably take years for that to fully resonate, if it ever does.

Meltzer's low end estimate for Revolution is around 80-85k and all depending on how much of a hit the UK market does for the show.

There will be a one-hour pre-show streaming starting at 7 p.m. Eastern, with the current plan being one match, Chuck Taylor & Trent vs. Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky, going into the ring at 7:30 p.m. The Revolution PPV starts at 8 p.m. and can go until midnight, although it’s not timed out at this point as to exactly when it will end.

The Cubsfan has reported that this year’s TripleMania show will take place on 8/22 in Mexico City. For those keeping score, it means that NXT Takeover Boston, TripleMania and the New Japan Madison Square Garden show will all be taking place at the same time. And there will likely be a UFC show at the same time as well. Luckily if you want to catch up, you can do it the next day if you don’t mind missing a six plus hour SummerSlam show

Chris Jericho spoke to the New York Post about when he believed he was a guy who could carry a promotion. “Could I have done more in WCW in a headlining position? Would I have been good? I didn’t know. In my mind I’d be great. The first time I was put in a headlining position in WWF, I wasn’t ready, and in WCW, it was a couple years earlier. So maybe I wasn’t ready. And as the career goes forward, I can tell you the exact moment when I knew I had become a legit, headlining, main-event guy and the exact moment where I became the top guy, which was in New Japan Jan. 4, 2018 (the Kenny Omega match), which led to being the top guy here in AEW.” As far as what he sees his role as, he said, “When you’re the top guy, you don’t hide and stop others from getting in there because then it just becomes stale and it dies. Your job as the top guy is to help everyone else up on top of the mountain so that there are 15 top guys and everybody is making money and everyone’s having a great time, people are enjoying the show and the product.

[Mr. Nerfect]

That's a more accurate report on the Bray/Goldberg stuff. Pretty sure Brock Lesnar is a heel character that has been protected more than Bray though, and that's going on right now. Meltzer again reaching back in time way more than he has to in order to make the WWE feel more antiquated.

Bray is not a star. He's a heel, but he's been the center of merchandising appeals because that's where his strength is. He's a gimmick babyface that can sell a few t-shirts and gloves to kids. And that's fine. They gave him 100 days with the belt and saw how it went, and Goldberg brought the interest in far more than he did. Of course they need to go somewhere with that, but let's not pretend that anyone was super-stoked about this "direction" that Meltzer himself was saying he was not sure about at the time of the Rumble.

Did y'all really want to see Roman Reigns beat Bray Wyatt at WrestleMania? Really? And where were the actual indicators that was going to happen? It was made up in the fans' heads. Goldberg has been the special attraction they call when they want someone to come in and boost things up. Meltzer himself called him the "Bruno Sammartino" of this era. They're not bringing him in to lose to the gimmick that isn't drawing despite everything they've thrown onto him.

They could have very easily had Goldberg beat Dolph Ziggler at Super Showdown. They could have very easily had him beat Robert Roode or Bobby Lashley or King Corbin. Making this sound like a senile accident or the only option they have when they use Goldberg is asinine. This is the route they're going because they see value in it, because there is value in it.

[Mr. Nerfect]

If Roman beat Bray at WrestleMania, then that's 0-4 for Bray at Mania. Don't pretend that fans wouldn't whinge and sook about that. They got mad enough when Bray got beaten by Orton. The fans would start booing Roman. Bray would be exactly where he is now except they wouldn't have Roman where they want him either.

I'm not a fan of depending on the dumb-ass smarks to make your stories. There are ways to play them and bring casual fans along. The whole "Goldberg doesn't deserve it" story, if that's what they do, is bullshit. He beat the champ, he deserves it. Hopefully they make it look like the fans just decide to turn against him because of tall poppy syndrome and make the accent of Roman Reigns seem organic. Organic and the WWE are a tough sell together though.

I'd still rather they have Bray beat Roman and Goldberg beat Cena. Give Goldberg an actual run and then have it come to an end with Roman. You don't need to rush to that. Move away from Goldberg when he stops drawing. But if they do Goldberg vs. Reigns, this is far more productive than Bray/Roman ever would have been. And if fans were honest with themselves for a moment, they'd realize that.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Friday's News Edition):

Originally Posted by PWI For those who have asked, WWE's crew had a charter flight out last night at 2 AM local time in Riyadh and everyone has landed in Boston as scheduled for tonight's Smackdown broadcast. So, if there were any concerns about the crew getting back on time, they can now be laid to rest.

Originally Posted by PWI The Tampa Bay Times featured a piece on Wrestlemania 36 coming up locally, including concerns over the coronavirus impacting Wrestlemania 36 weekend. “The health and safety of not only our fan base, but also our superstars, really does come first,” Stephanie McMahon commented. “We don’t want to put anyone in a bad situation ever, regardless of the circumstance. Those are not risks worth taking.” “Given the number of live events that (WWE) does, it’s constantly monitoring global events,” said John Saboor, WWE’s executive vice president of special events. “There are active and ongoing discussions at play internally, like there are in any sector of American business, and certainly families as a whole. So I think those will continue.” Rob Higgins, executive director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission, noted they are gathering information so they can be prepared as possible with Stephanie noting, "“And if necessary, enact those measures."

Originally Posted by PWI The NXT ticket website has a listing for a Tuesday night taping April 7 at Full Sail. Those tickets will go on sale this Monday. Of course, that is two days after WrestleMania.

Originally Posted by PWI During today's All Elite Wrestling panel at C2E2 in Chicago the panel was asked about old-school matches they would like to resurrect in the future in AEW. Interestingly, Cody commented that they would be announcing a old school match concept tomorrow that would "upset some people." While what the announcement will be is not confirmed, it should be noted that Cody has in the past filed for a trademark on the term "The Match Beyond", a common subtitle used for Wargames in the NWA and World Championship Wrestling, so that may be a clue.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On the ‘No Way Out 2000’ episode of the Grilling JR podcast, he and Conrad Thompson discussed the current version of the XFL. During their conversation, Jim Ross revealed that a few years ago, Kevin Dunn asked him to put him in contact with FOX which Jim Ross did. This would ultimately lead to Friday Night SmackDown being on FOX with the addition of WWE Backstage on FS1. “Kevin Dunn called me one time and [it] was in the last couple of years and said, ‘You know these guys at FOX, right?’ And I said, ‘Yeah’, and then my buddy at FOX, Jacob Ullman who’s one of my dear friends, still is, senior producer there. He said, ‘Can you introduce me to someone who can get the ball rolling or discussions rolling with WWE?’ And I said, ‘Of course I can.’ He said, ‘Keep it under wraps but I’d like to have a talk but I just don’t know the right people to talk to.’ So I said, ‘I can handle that’ so, I hooked up Jacob Ullman and Kevin Dunn to talk at the JW Marriott in Los Angeles, and I wasn’t in the meeting, I arranged the meeting, got ‘em together, set their own time and place and then the rest is history. Jacob was a big fan, and a great guy, a great friend of Jan and mine. He hurt about as bad as I did when Jan got killed. So we’re that close. So they met and then the layers were added and more people were added and all of sudden, now you got what you got.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling With New Japan Pro-Wrestling cancelling their shows for the first 15 days of the month of March due to the Coronavirus, they will be uploading a plethora of content to NJPW World. Interviews, talk panels and never before seen matches will be added to the service. This project is called the ‘NJPW Together Project’. On March 3rd, Tetsuya Naito and Hiromu Takahashi will do a sit-down interview together and on the 4th, they’ll host a talk show together. Naito and Takahashi were scheduled to clash at NJPW’s Anniversary show in March.

Link: https://www.njpw1972.com/73071

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Variety is reporting that WWE’s Sonya Deville, real name Daria Berenato has signed with Imagine Artist Management for representation. Her signing could open the door for potential television and film roles.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Coming off the helms of the announcement about their induction into the 2020 WWE Hall Of Fame, Nikki and Brie Bella shared their thoughts about their eventful week on the newest edition of The Bellas Podcast. Nikki stated that she and Brie pitched the idea to WWE to have some of their fans induct them into the Hall Of Fame and WWE did not reject the idea but were hesitant. “Even when Brie and I were talking about inducting — who’s gonna induct us. Our first thought when they asked us, we thought, ‘Oh! Can we do Bella Army members? We’d really just like to make it very heavy about the Bella Army’ and they were like, ‘I don’t know. We’ve never had that before. We’re gonna have to talk.’ But Brie and I, that’s who we immediately thought of and when they play the amazing packages, they interview a lot of WWE superstars. Brie and I were like, ‘Oh! Can you interview Bella Army members? Is it possible to fly them out to the corporate office?’ And they were like, ‘Uh, Bellas, we’re gonna have to get back to you on that’, but our Bella Army is everything to us so, please send ideas.”

Probably a safe bet that their induction segment likely is going to be the most annoying ever or potential all-time worst in WWE Hall of Fame history.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WWE Universal Champion Goldberg referred to Macaulay Culkin as a “dork” on Twitter after Culkin tweeted that he’s cancelling his travel to WrestleMania 36 after Goldberg became Universal Champion.

Link: https://twitter.com/Goldberg/status/1233283499848851456

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Kevin Owens is donating all the money he makes from his ‘Just Keep Fighting’ shirt to a mental health organization in Canada and another organization in the U.S.

Link: https://twitter.com/FightOwensFight/...651968512?s=20

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling During Brody King’s appearance on ‘The Hard Times’ podcast, he spoke about his decision to sign with Ring of Honor. Brody recalled speaking with William Regal about possibly joining WWE and here’s what Regal told Brody King before he made his final decision: “I talked to Regal a few times and it was kind of like… his advice was always really awesome. It was like, ‘Go do everything you want to do in wrestling because when you come to the WWE, it all stops.’”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Comicbook.com conducted an interview with Kenny Omega. While speaking about the G1 Climax tournament, Omega shared that there have been internal discussions within AEW about a tournament taking place although the idea has not been finalized. “Every one of those tournaments, they’re rough on the body and it’s tough to figure out a schedule to do so. Whether it be a round robin tournament, a league style or one night, we are definitely looking into a tournament format because people, as a fan [myself] even, I love tournaments. As a performer they’re tough to do, but I think it really tests the athletes’ mettle and it really separates the men from the boys. Yeah, I would love to do a tournament. I don’t know what we’d call it. Don’t have any ideas for a name, but all of us have been brought on board with [a] tournament. It’s just a matter of figuring out how.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling New York Post published their interview with Dustin Rhodes and Rhodes further spoke about the hate messages that Nyla Rose received upon winning the AEW Women’s World Championship. Dustin says he views Nyla as family and those who criticize her because she’s a transgender woman need to let people live their lives. “It’s there. It’s not going away and I didn’t understand that for the longest time. Then I got married to my wonderful third wife and my son is trans. So I started to learn a little bit about it and I [started seeing] all the stuff these men and women go through and it’s so ridiculous and stupid. This is 2020, man. Let somebody live their life like they want to. I don’t care what the Bible says. I don’t care what anybody else says. Live your life and be happy. That’s all I care about for my son is to be happy and nobody picks on him because if they do, they got to deal with me, and I see that in Nyla. I treat her like she’s my child. I love Nyla to death and I don’t think of any of that when I’m at work with her and I watch her perform and she’s a great performer. This is not the Olympics, OK. This is pro wrestling, this is entertainment. This is scripted stuff that we do and you’re gonna have Nyla Rose wrestle Riho and everybody get all bent out of shape about it and just really give her hell, I don’t like that at all. I take offense to that and I let them know it because it’s wrong.”

TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE Friday Night SmackDown and 205 Live Previews: The Return of John Cena
• Various: ROH Announces War of Worlds 2020, Young Bucks on Marty Scurll Staying in ROH, Indies
• Updated Planned and Rumored Card for WrestleMania 36
• AEW: Countdown to Revolution Ratings, FITE to Air Revolution Outside US, Top Five Rankings

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Raw last night was up two percent from last week with 2.26 million viewers ... It was the third lowest number of viewers for Raw in the modern era for a non-holiday episode or an episode without opposition from a major sporting event. The episode was Raw's go-home show for Elimination Chamber and also the first Raw since Super ShowDown. It was up four percent in 18-49 and was the top show on cable in that demo. It was 11th place on cable overall, trailing news shows. The show was down 18 percent from the same week's episode last year ... The three hours were: 8 p.m. 2.36 million viewers 9 p.m. 2.30 million viewers 10 p.m. 2.12 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer The next member of this year’s WWE Hall of Fame class will be revealed on WWE Backstage tonight. The new Hall of Famer will be appearing on tonight's show.

Originally Posted by Observer In AEW’s Road to Denver video promoting tomorrow’s Dynamite, Cody explained why he got his Nightmare Family logo neck tattoo. Cody said he’s wanted to get the logo tattooed on him for more than a year and it isn’t something that he wants to cover up. Cody said if it represents anything, it represents individual identity.

Originally Posted by Fightful Over the past year, Cody went on a filing spree, applying for trademarks relating to old WCW events ... Speaking on AEW Unrestricted, Cody revealed why he has trademarked so many WCW names. "It's a legal nightmare. This was AEW's first Bash at the Beach and it also might be AEW's last. WWE is not particularly happy about all the trademarks I acquired. Trademark law is actually basic, everywhere but wrestling. Wrestling, there's this idea that if you buy something but let it lapse, it's still yours. The spoils of war. Wrestling legitimately had a war between WCW and WWE and WWE actually won. The amount of bad fallout that came from that is so much larger than the good stuff. Does WWE do a good job as a custodian of history? Absolutely. The Network is done well and they do some stuff well. But there's been a lot of things that they didn't care for that they let lapse. Anything that was connected to my dad, I wanted to pick up. I don't know what my grand play is here, I just wanted to pick it up to have for my family. I'm not making any money off it. I think my grand scheme was, I was going to get as many things to irritate them as possible so they were just like, 'You can have Starrcade.' Great American Bash and Starrcade are 100% Dusty's. I would rather have those than 100 Slamborees," he said. WWE currently owns the trademark on "Starrcade," holding a special WWE Network live event under the "Starrcade" name annually. Cody and AEW will be putting another trademark to use in March with "The Match Beyond," which is a term for WarGames. WWE owns the WarGames trademark.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Game Changer Wrestling provided an update on the status of Keiji Muto for Spring Break IV with the Japanese star’s presence in limbo for the event. GCW issued a lengthy statement about the problems they have experienced after working out two separate deals with Muto and promoting him for the April 3rd show in Ybor City and appear on behalf of GCW at WrestleCon. Since then, Sonny Onoo (the former WCW manager) has got involved telling the promotion he would be handling Muto’s dealings with the company and would seek other work for Muto that weekend in Tampa. Onoo informed GCW he brokered a deal with a vendor to bring Muto to WrestleCon and that would replace his previous agreement in place with GCW. The company was willing to allow this to occur providing this new vendor share in the costs for travel and accommodation, which Onoo was stunned by. According to GCW, they learned that the mystery vendor was Onoo and they surmised he was trying to get in on the WrestleCon booking while GCW ate the cost. Onoo later admitted to the company he was the vendor. They stated Onoo has stopped relaying messages to Muto and that his presence at Spring Break IV is unlikely pending some drastic change in the negotiations. Among the requests Onoo was asking for of GCW in their talks were four nights at a Disney hotel in Orlando, four 4-day Park Hopper passes to Disney parks, a 12.5% commission to Sonny Onoo, four skybox seats for WrestleMania in Tampa, and transportation to and from Orlando and Tampa. Following this news, John Thorne of Absolute Intense Wrestling and Kevin Matthews from WrestlePro have each shared stories of their problems dealing with Onoo in the past.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling A Kickstarter campaign has been launched for a new wrestling series led by Gail Kim, Christy Hemme, and Amy Dumas. The series is titled KAYfABE with Kim, Hemme, and Dumas as the public faces behind the campaign. The team also consists of Jimmy Jacobs, former WWE writer Tom Casiello, Chavo Guerrero Jr., David Sahadi, and Alisha Edwards among others.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp conducted an interview with Lita, Gail Kim and Christy Hemme upon the announcement of their KAYfABE wrestling series that they are launching. Christy shared that although the show will be female-centric, males will be included in the program. “It’s female-centric, it’s female-led, it will be primarily female however, we will definitely have men in there. I always say that everything should be story-driven and called for so if the story is calling for a man which we need — stories need men… and having men in the ring. I don’t see that not being a part of the show.” During the conversation, Lita talked about her time as a producer/writer in WWE. She explained how she got the opportunity to earn that experience and how she’ll use that knowledge to help grow KAYfABE. “You mentioned Tough Enough which kind of started my production journey. So I did just sign up to do the show to be a trainer, but we only shot a couple days a week and it was shot in Florida, I was living in San Francisco and so I had an apartment in Florida — didn’t go back and forth every week. That led me to just hanging out in the editing bays, hanging out with the producers, hanging out in the production meetings and just really getting into the nuts and bolts of how you put everything together and take it apart and finding a lot of stimulation in that, and then I got in with the production meetings and really got with Kevin Dunn and he taught me so much which then led me to producing RAW and SmackDown. So, I really was excited to join up with these women to be on the production end and the creative end, because I found so much stimulation, I had so many opportunities in my career in front of the camera. When I got to help people to become their best self in front of the camera, it was really stimulating to me and so that feels [like] a really good spot to be in here.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Arn Anderson and Conrad Thompson hosted a Q&A session for the latest edition of the ‘ARN’ podcast. Anderson was asked about Bray Wyatt’s run in WWE thus far and the conversation led to Arn talking about the team of Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt and their eventual WWE Title match at WrestleMania 33. Arn stated that Orton and Wyatt were very over with the crowd and there is sort of a on-going thing in WWE where if talents are getting over without any assistance from the office, that project gets shut down. “They were over and they were getting over strong as a team. I was there for it. It was tremendous. Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt made a great team, and it was gonna be one of those things that we talk about on this show all the time, when something gets hotter than it was expected to get and it starts to boil and percolate but without any help from the office, lot of times it just gets shut down, because it gives those talents too much stroke, too much power and this was one of those situations because I was there and I saw it, and I had a lot of their matches at TV. They should’ve still been partners when that match went down at WrestleMania.”

Originally Posted by PWI WWE is already working on their return to Saudi Arabia, PWInsider.com has confirmed. At one point, a date of Thursday 8/20 was pitched (believed to be for an event in Jeddah) but with the close proximity to Summerslam weekend and the likelyhood that temperatures would soar into the 100-120 degree range, that idea was shot down. Currently, they are looking at a return in late October or early November.

Originally Posted by Fightful According to PWInsider, WWE held a meeting backstage Monday ahead of WWE Raw in order to go over the latest information on the Coronavirus outbreak. WWE officials provided the roster with updated info on how they can protect themselves while traveling on the road and being exposed to possibly thousands of risks in the form of fans. Fightful was told that the meeting was pretty run of the mill, but that WWE wanted to take the step and precaution in order to inform their roster to prevent some worst case scenarios. The Coronavirus has spread to America, even hitting Tampa Bay, which will be the site of next month's WrestleMania event. There are dozens of other wrestling shows running throughout that week as well.

Originally Posted by Fightful The Miz's new show on the USA Network has been announced. The WWE star will host a show titled "Cannonball," which is a water-based sports competition show that will air on the network this summer. Miz will host the show alongside Emmy Award-winning television host Rosci Diaz and Simon Gibson.

Link: https://twitter.com/mikethemiz/statu...09685704097792 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHtrbTV-v6I


TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE Looking for Possible Partnership With All Japan Pro Wrestling for NXT Japan
• Dark Side of the Ring: Full Episode List, Premiere Date, Trailer, Jericho as Narrator
• XFL Ratings for Week 4 Games
• Erick Rowan Reveals What’s In His Cage

[Mr. Nerfect]

Wait, so Cody's tattoo is the symbol of for his collective, which he says represents individuality? OK.

[Sepholio]

I was hoping that tat was fake tbh. It's fucking brutal, doesn't look like it's the most professional job, and it's just so huge and weirdly placed. It's awful all around. One of the worst tats I've ever seen.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Despite the coronavirus and concerns around it affecting business, sports, and entertainment events around the world, WWE announced Wednesday they are moving ahead with this year's WrestleMania 36 in Tampa, FL. "The health and safety of our fans, performers and employees are our top priorities and we are monitoring the situation closely with our partners and government officials in Tampa Bay. We remain committed to hosting WrestleMania at Raymond James Stadium on Sunday, April 5, and like other entertainment properties in the U.S., there are currently no plans to cancel or postpone our upcoming events." The cancellation of major spectator events hasn't hit the United States with cancellations or postponements even as new cases of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continue to pop up daily including several cases in the Tampa Bay area. Major League Baseball said they have no plans to cancel or postpone games while the NBA and NHL have continued their seasons without issue. The main concern is with travelers coming from around the world to the WWE's biggest annual event plus all of the additional events throughout the week. As of this writing, there have been 80 reported cases of COVID-19 in the United States with nine deaths. 24 of those are travel related. More than 95,000 people worldwide have been affected with 3264 deaths, nearly all in mainland China.

Probably would need to hit an Italy-like epidemic level before major events start getting cancelled assuming the government would even step in like other countries have done.

Originally Posted by Observer Basketball Hall of Famer and occasional professional wrestling personality Dennis Rodman will be featured on a new episode of WWE Untold later this month. The Rodman episode of the documentary-style series will premiere on the WWE Network at 10 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday, March 22. It will cover Rodman & Hollywood Hogan's match against Karl Malone & DDP from WCW Bash at the Beach 1998.

Originally Posted by Observer AEW has revealed their first set of post-Revolution roster rankings. After losing the AEW World Championship to Jon Moxley at Saturday's pay-per-view, Chris Jericho is now ranked as the top contender in the men's division. MJF has moved up to second after his win against Cody. Kris Statlander has fallen to third in the women's division after unsuccessfully challenging Nyla Rose for the AEW Women's Championship at Revolution. Hikaru Shida is currently ranked first. The Dark Order (Evil Uno & Stu Grayson), who defeated SCU's Scorpio Sky & Frankie Kazarian on the Revolution pre-show, are the new top contenders in the tag team division. The Young Bucks have fallen to second after losing to champions Kenny Omega & Hangman Page at Revolution. The full rankings for this week are listed below: Men's division -- Champion: Jon Moxley (7-0 singles record in 2020, 12-1-1 overall record) Chris Jericho (0-1 singles record in 2020, 10-2-1 overall record) MJF (3-0 singles record in 2020, 7-1 overall record) Kenny Omega (1-0 singles record in 2020, 17-6 overall record) Cody (3-1 singles record in 2020, 10-4-1 overall record) PAC (2-2 singles record in 2020, 7-6-1 overall record) Women's division -- Champion: Nyla Rose (4-1 singles record in 2020, 8-4 overall record) Hikaru Shida (3-1 singles record in 2020, 8-4 overall record) Riho (3-1 singles record in 2020, 11-4 overall record) Kris Statlander (2-2 singles record in 2020, 6-4 overall record) Yuka Sakazaki (1-1 singles record in 2020, 1-4 overall record) Britt Baker (2-2 singles record in 2020, 10-6 overall record) Tag team division -- Champions: Kenny Omega & Hangman Page (6-0 tag team record in 2020, 17-6 overall record for Omega, 12-8 overall record for Page) The Dark Order (5-0 tag team record in 2020, 9-2 overall record for Evil Uno, 9-2 overall record for Stu Grayson) The Young Bucks (2-2 tag team record in 2020, 12-9 overall record for Nick Jackson, 12-8 overall record for Matt Jackson) SCU (2-3 tag team record in 2020, 15-7 overall record for Scorpio Sky, 14-6 overall record for Frankie Kazarian Best Friends (3-2 tag team record in 2020, 9-12 overall record for Trent Barreta, 8-9 overall record for Chuck Taylor) Private Party (1-0 tag team record in 2020, 7-5 overall record for Marq Quen, 7-5 overall record for Isiah Kassidy)

Originally Posted by Observer An NJPW legend is the latest addition to ROH's Pure title tournament. ROH announced today that former IWGP Heavyweight Champion Yuji Nagata will take part in the Pure title tournament. He's the 10th entrant confirmed for it, joining Doug Williams, Jonathan Gresham, Alex Shelley, Rocky Romero, Mark Haskins, Slex, Tracy Williams, Marty Scurll, and Fred Yehi

Originally Posted by PWI The IIconics, Billie Kaye and Peyton Royce, are backstage at tonight's WWE NXT taping.

Originally Posted by PWI Real Japan Pro-Wrestling chairman Shinma Kotobuki recently announced that Original Tiger Mask, Satoru Sayama is suffering from a condition he described as “close to Parkinson’s disease” which is making his walking difficult. Real Pro Wrestling will be holding their “Original Tiger Mask Satoru Sayama Strong Style Wrestling Vol. 5” event in Tokyo, Japan at Korakuen Hall on 3/19/20. They hope Sayama is able to make an appearance if he’s feeling well enough.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On the latest episode of Chris Jericho’s ‘Talk Is Jericho’ podcast, he told the story of the AEW World Championship going missing after winning the belt at All Out. The gist of the story is that Jericho carried the title in a grey sack and nobody knew the title was in the bag before he boarded a private jet. After Jericho and those who were with him got off the flight, they used a limousine service that was based in Tampa but the service could be used in Tallahassee as well. Jericho is of the belief that the driver had something to do with the belt being stolen but he has not been able to confirm that. “So, as we’re getting ready to leave, I say, ‘We’re really hungry. We wanna go grab a bite. Let’s just go to a steakhouse. Let’s go to Outback’, and so there was an Outback kind of near and the guy says, ‘Let’s just go to Longhorn. It’s closer to where we need to go.’ Now I put it into my GPS and it was a little bit closer but it was pretty much the same thing. ‘Outback, Longhorn? Which one would you guys like to do? Let’s just do Longhorn, whatever.’ So for the people going, ‘Well why did you go to Longhorn?’ That’s the reason why, because the driver said, ‘Let’s go to Longhorn.’ See a pattern here? See a pattern starting to develop? So we go to Longhorn and we have some food, and I notice, probably 15 or 20 minutes into sitting there and it’s not a big restaurant, it’s not super packed and when you walk into the front door, we were sitting at a table that was in eyesight’s view of the front door. So, the guy comes in, the driver, and he goes to the front door and he starts kind of walking around the restaurant, and we see him come in. We’re like, ‘Isn’t that our driver? What’s he doing?’ He’s kind of just wandering around and just kind of hanging out… and he kind of wanders over to our table about five minutes later and says, ‘Hey, just wanted to check your address. Is that a residence or an apartment?’ And I’m like, ‘It’s a residence. What difference does it make? Just put it into your GPS.’ He goes, ‘Ah! Just wanted to make sure. I was just checking,’ and then he walks out. I’m like, ‘That’s peculiar. Like why would he walk in here, wander around for five minutes then come over and ask me a completely irrelevant question to where we’re going and then walk out?’ Huh. Almost like he was, I don’t know, maybe stalling inside the restaurant, right?’ So we’re hanging out and we finish up our dinner and we’re eating and the guy comes in again, about 20 minutes after that, and he comes in and says, ‘Your title belt is missing.’ I said, ‘What!?’ He goes, ‘Your title belt, the championship belt is missing.’ Now first of all I’m thinking, ‘How do you know there’s a title belt in there? It’s in a bag.’ It’s not the job of a driver to go through people’s bags when they’re inside. I go, ‘What do you mean it’s missing!?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, you put it in there. I came out and it was gone’, and I’m like, ‘What the f*ck are you talking about!? What is it — what!? What are you talking about?’ So we go outside, and here’s the thing: it was my wife’s birthday that week so I bought her a big bouquet of flowers and a vase to take home, and when we go out there, the vase that was in the back of the truck is now in the backseat. It’s gone from the trunk area to the backseat, and I’m like, ‘Well how do you know the thing is gone?’ He said, ‘Well I just went to go look in the back’ and it’s obvious when he looked in the back, that the flowers fell out onto the ground. He never mentioned the fact that the flowers fell out onto the ground. He just mentioned the fact that the belt was gone. So I just start flipping out because I’m like, ‘You are a stupid…’”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Joey Janela announced that Lord Adrean and Tahir2x, who are the individuals that have been going viral on social media for their Walmart wrestling, are scheduled to appear at Spring Break 4.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Lita did an interview with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated to promote she, Gail Kim and Christy Hemme’s ‘KAYfABE’ wrestling show that they are planning on launching. Lita was asked does she think this project could damage her relationship with WWE and she stated that she can’t be worried about making anyone upset and is hoping WWE would be proud of them for their venture. “Our goal is to actually make progress and make this business better. I would like to think they’re business-minded and can see that. This project means so much to me, so whatever it takes, I want to make this project work. I can’t spend time worrying about making someone mad. We’re making decisions for the purity of this project and to make it happen, these are conversations that need to happen in wrestling in order for us to move forward. While they could not like it, I’m hoping they are proud of us as business people.”

Originally Posted by Fightful Teddy Hart has been arrested for the second time in 2020 on the afternoon of March 4th, in Richmond, Virginia. Further details regarding arrest are currently uncertain. Hart was previously arrested on February 12th, also in Richmond. Hart was charged with three counts of possession, possession of a Schedule III controlled substance and possession with intent to sell and distribute.

Originally Posted by Fightful Nick Aldis has hit 500 days as NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Aldis, a two-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion, won the title from Cody in a two-out-of-three falls match at NWA 70th Anniversary Show on October 21, 2018. Since his victory on that night, Aldis has gone on to defend the title against the likes of Marty Scurll, Jimmy Havoc, Billy Gunn, James Storm, Ricky Morton and Flip Gordon. Should Aldis hold the title for another five days, he will surpass Blue Demon Jr for the longest reign of this millennium, and the second-longest reign since the 70s.

TPWW Frontpage:

• NJPW Announces Full Schedule for Best of the Super Juniors 2020 Tournament
• Jeff Hardy Says That He’s Cleared to Return, Will Be “Different”
• The Young Bucks Appear in Latest Matt Hardy Video

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Following a well-received pay-per-view on Saturday night, last night's AEW Dynamite averaged 906,000 viewers, up 4.7 percent from last week. Even better, the show was up 16.7 percent in the 18-49 demo, averaging a 0.35 rating and finishing fifth on cable for the night in that category. Over on the USA Network, NXT ratings were essentially the exact same as last week. The show averaged 718,000 viewers, up 1,000 from last Wednesday. In the 18-49 demo, NXT had a 0.23 rating, identical to last week. NXT finished 20th on cable in that demo. Dynamite topped NXT in all demos except for tying in people over 50. Both shows had a 0.34 rating in that category. AEW's strongest demo was men 18-49, where they almost doubled NXT with a 0.49 rating to NXT's 0.26.

Originally Posted by PWI Cain Velasquez tweeted a photo of himself with Ronda Rousey today as they were both at Titan Tower in Stamford, CT. The first photo is from the company cafeteria. The second photo is from a hallway on the executive floor. Had the pleasure of running into the pioneer that definitely also inspired my interest in the sport. Great to see you @rondarousey. @wwe pic.twitter.com/IipeX4ZK1Y — Cain Velasquez (@cainmma) March 5, 2020 No word yet what either were doing at WWE HQ, but one would think with Wrestlemania coming, perhaps Rousey was there to discuss what her role could be going forward.

Link: https://twitter.com/cainmma/status/1235655784652058630

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Paige’s boyfriend, Ronnie Radke tweeted out that Paige underwent emergency surgery to remove an ovarian cyst. Paige posted the following update: “Just an update. I’m fine you guys! No more pain and healthy af! Haha just another small speed bump. I’m used to it. Haha so thankful for @RonnieRadke”

Originally Posted by Observer Rip Oliver, a Pacific Northwest wrestling legend who held that area's Heavyweight title more times than anyone in history, passed away today at the age of 67. Born Lawrence Richard Oliver on October 6, 1952, he had entered hospice care due to heart failure more than a week ago and had been in weakened health for some time after multiple heart attacks. Oliver came from Florida, and worked as a prelim wrestler before arriving in Oregon in August 1980 as Rip "The Crippler" Oliver. He and Buddy Rose were the area's top heels until Rose turned babyface after being turned on by The Clan, which at the time was Oliver, Dynamite Kid, and The Assassin (Dave Sierra) ... He held the Pacific Northwest singles title a record 12 times, along with 18 reigns as tag team champion during his heyday, which ended when going to the WWF in 1987. He was not pushed and quit the promotion after only a few months, but in being portrayed as a jobber on WWF television, which aired in Oregon and Washington, it made it impossible for him to be pushed as a top guy in the Northwest, with Lynn "The Grappler" Denton taking over as booker and top heel. During his short WWF run, Oliver, under a mask as Super Black Ninja, lost a quick squash to The Ultimate Warrior for the Intercontinental title on a Saturday Night's Main Event.

Originally Posted by PWI OVW Wrestling, one of the most popular and widely-respected wrestling promotions in the world since its inception in 1993, is thrilled to announce today that they've teamed up with leading broadcast and cable network Youtoo America to air their flagship weekly one hour series to over 32 Million Households across the USA. OVW Wrestling will premiere on Youtoo America Friday evening, April 3rd with the kickoff to a brand new era in professional wrestling.

OVW used to be WWE's developmental system during the early 2000s before it was replaced with FCW and later NXT.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling According to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, Matt Hardy was pulled from his signing appearance at ‘The Big Event’ on Saturday in New York. Promoters for that show have been told that if they are booking WWE talent, AEW talent cannot be booked. Hardy was booked for the signing while he was still with WWE. Matt Hardy noted on Twitter that he is still appearing at ‘The Big Event’.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling TV Insider chatted with AEW Women’s World Champion Nyla Rose. When Nyla won the AEW Women’s Title from Riho, it was not mentioned that she’s a transgender woman and she’s glad that a big deal was not made of it. “For me, it has been welcoming that they don’t make it a spectacle. They don’t make it a check mark. It’s one of those things that is there. Everyone knows about it, but nobody talks about it. That’s not a matter of us wanting to be hush-hush or hide this. They’re not making it a thing because it shouldn’t be a thing. You are a person and a performer first. That’s what I love so much and makes me feel so proud to be part of this company because they are helping normalize these ideals. We don’t even have a sense or consensus of how many trans people there are because so many people are afraid to speak out and speak up and live so openly. That’s because there is such a stigma of what being trans is. With representation on weekly television and with AEW being the company that it is on the scale that it is, with TNT and the scale they are on, they see me as a person. They see me as someone going out there and doing their job. The transness being secondary or even third to anything else. That is a beautiful statement. It shouldn’t matter and doesn’t. Hopefully, we can get to the point where people stop making it be the front runner.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling During the pre-WWE Backstage Q&A session, Jeff Hardy learned via a tweet that WWE owns the rights to the “No More Words” theme song and Jeff pleaded with WWE to let him use the theme. “Yes! Oh my God, yes! That would be the best thing ever and as far as motivating me, it would change my wrestling career. I’ve been dying to get that song back and now that I see this, and if it’s truth to it then WWE — there’s no reason why they shouldn’t do that so please WWE, let me come out to No More Words.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Josh Barnett announced that the upcoming Bloodsport show in Tampa, Florida will be a tournament-style show titled ‘The Gotch-Robinson Cup’. It’s a one night tournament and those announced for the show will compete in single elimination bouts to determine the tourney winner.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling In an update on Teddy Hart provided by PWInsider, Teddy Hart was arrested for violating house arrest and he appeared in court on March 5th at 9 AM.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Following Jake “The Snake” Roberts’ appearance on AEW: Dynamite, Randy Orton tweeted out a GIF of him delivering an RKO to Roberts and Jericho was in the GIF in the background. The former AEW World Champion caught wind of Orton’s tweet and thanked him for watching Dynamite.

Link: https://twitter.com/IAmJericho/statu...356696577?s=20

Originally Posted by Fightful Matt Hardy is officially a free agent after letting his WWE contract expire at midnight on Mar. 2. In his Thoughts From The Throne video where he made the announcement, Hardy cited being on a different page from WWE in terms of his creative role. Appearing on Busted Open Radio, Hardy elaborated on the creative differences between him and the company, while also expressing his gratitude towards Vince McMahon. "I am very grateful, if it wasn't for Vince McMahon giving me this opportunity 20+ years ago, I wouldn't have had this life that I have. I will always be grateful to him for that. Even if there are things later on that we didn't see eye to eye on, that's business. When it comes to Vince and WWE, I've kind of aged out. My brand of entertainment and the way I have to be utilized isn't one of their priorities and that's fine. I understand that and it's no issue. I don't have any resentment towards anyone. I've very happy with the time I've had there and happy I got to come back and leave WWE as an employee waving the flag. That WrestleMania 33 moment was amazing. I'm very happy that I got the opportunity to do a version of Broken Matt Hardy there. It wasn't all that I would have liked it to be. It would have been nice if I had more say in what I was doing, but it is what it is. They treated me great the whole time. I had great conversations with everyone, but creatively, we're just on different pages. Nothing against them, it was just time for me to go somewhere else to maximize and optimize my creativity, especially if I want to be in a prominent role for the last three or four years I have left to do this," he said.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Ratings: WWE Backstage and Miz & Mrs. – Mar. 3-4, 2020 – Update/Correction
• The nWo Announced for Friday’s SmackDown
• AEW Notes on the Debuts of Lance Archer and Luke Harper
• AEW: Kenny Omega Has a Broken Finger, Nick Jackson & Wife Expecting Child
• Stone Cold Steve Austin Will Be on Raw on 3/16

[slik]

Meltzer mentioned today Vince has 'cooled' on Shayna and might be going in a different direction for Becky Lynch at WM now.

I saw some speculation on the observer board this could mean Liv Morgan vs Becky Lynch but Vince has apparently 'cooled' on Liv Morgan as well for not 'grabbing the brass ring' during the Lana feud. Some speculation Nia Jax might be brought back to face Becky at Mania if Vince passes on Shayna now.